Home again, home again, jiggedy-jig

It's Friday night, I'm drinking some pinot noir, and listening to Jorma Kaukonen's Blue Country Heart. It's unseasonably warm outside (for Michigan) and it's lightly raining (moisture which we desperately need).

I am home from Detroit for the weekend. S is studying her math-brains out, preparing for her final exam. We are enjoying each other's company, as it were, just enjoying being in the same house, in some physical proximity to one another. I have kissed the back of her neck several times tonight and told her that I love her.

I'm feeling a bit on TV-info overload. I watched the ABC News tonight (along with The News Hour with Jim Lehrer) with all the stories about Fallujah, American troops abusing Iraqis, Dick Cheney and John Kerry at that college in Missouri.

The one part of Peter Jennings' report that I especially enjoy is their 'Person of the Week.' Tonight's person is Tim Duffy, a person passionately in love with music, who records aging southern blues pioneers, along with writing checks for their phone bills and backing them up on performance gigs. Bravo to Tim Duffy and kudos to ABC News for bringing the viewing world's attention to his passion.

Lina, mi hijita muy compasiva, sent S and me some photos from someone who's been in Iraq. Disturbing. Very disturbing. We talked about how you can't look at these photos and continue to fool yourself that this war is almost over. Or that it is some sanitary war. No war is. This one certainly isn't.

What has this administration gotten us into? And now that we're there, how do we treat the Iraqis with the respect they deserve, honor all the Americans who have so honorably served (including, for some, giving their lives) and extricate ourselves from this mess, this Iraqi wanna-be-a-civil-war?

It makes me sick.

It's Thursdishday . . .

. . . and, as my Unkymood reflects, I'm feeling all bottled up with feelings.

Actually, for the past two days, I have been voicing to the couple of people who would listen, that I feel like I need a good cry. It hasn't happened yet. Probably, all it will take is someone looking at me cross-eyed, and I'll bust loose!

Nah. Not this stalwart Wendish mama.

No, more likely I'll just drag myself around for another couple of days, feeling sadsack sorry and wondering where all the sunshine has gone?

My Front Yard

As a neophyte blogger, I continue to be amazed at the breadth and depth of this blogging world. For the past couple of months, I have been content to play in "my front yard," so to speak. While I saw there was a street in front of my yard, and presumed that my street probably led to other streets, I didn't leave my yard.

Now, I've been venturing out more, maybe around the block, and I'm feeling stirred and excited by all the blogs I am encountering. Here are a couple:

Betsy Devine: Funny Ha-Ha or Funny Peculiar?

Betsy describes her blog as focusing on "funny stuff [she] can't resist and hope [the reader] can't resist either; struggles with writing a book of nerdy humor; and political good versus evil, with occasional shades of gray."

She describes blogging as taking her back to the days of roaming around her neighborhood, visiting 'elderly' women (as a kid, that was anyone over the age of 30) who offered her orange juice, bathroom privileges and a comfy chair to sit upon while reading kids' books from the 1920s. She describes herself as a "nerd, and even bigger fan of nerds than I am a nerd myself." Betsy uses the expression, "Woo hoo." For that alone, I'm inclined to include her in my "Intriguing Blogs."

Betsy's blog put me onto BloggerCon II, a conference held recently at Harvard just for bloggers on blogging.

Betsy also provided a link to The Iraq War Reader, written by Micah Sifry. Micah wrote a fascinating posting on "Bloggers are editors, not journalists". I'll save exploring that one for another day.

Another blog (by way of The Iraq War Reader?) is Pressthink, written by an NYU faculty member, Jay Rosen. Mr. Rosen describes himself as, "a press critic and writer whose primary focus is the media's role in a democracy."

Pressthink has lots of good stuff for me to dig into. I saw postings on Blogger Con II (more on that later), Karen Ryan (since I didn't know who she was, I obviously had to read that one!) and What's Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism?

Wow!

Tweaking somebody's nose?

Is Google News tweaking somebody's nose?

I wanted to read about the pro-choice march in Washington held yesterday. Google News linked me to this article in Digital Granma, a Cuban newspaper. Huh? Why a Cuban newspaper to read about a march held in Washington? One that was pretty critical of Bush and his administration? Curious, huh?

Here's an excerpt:

WASHINGTON—More than one million women from all over the United States and other countries invaded downtown Washington on Sunday to defend their right to abortion, which they believe to be threatened by President George W. Bush. Nearly 1.15 million people participated in the demonstration according to its organizers, making it even larger than a similar event in April 1992, when some 750,000 people took part."

I was glad to hear that so many women turned out. George Bush, just you wait until November! Then you and your people will get their comeuppance . . . in the form of a large boot . . . outta Washington!

"like a turtle on a post"

"George Bush in the White House is like a turtle on a post."

"You know he didn't get there by himself."
"You know he doesn't belong there"
"You know there isn't a thing he can do while he is there"
"And all you can think is how to get him off that post!"

This is from Paula Poundstone, on Prairie Home Companion's 2004 "joke show."

Catching up from this past week

This week was such a tumbled-up lack-of-routine week, that my little anal-retentive mind is still sorting through it all, organizing, putting this in this little niche, that in that little pigeon-hole. Sorting, organizing, clearing things away . . . trying to clear my mind.

S and I went to Joanne's father's funeral in Buffalo this Thursday. We rode with Jeanne and Kevin, through Sarnia and Hamilton and Niagara-on-the-Lake. We hit a couple of the duty-free stores on the way there, buying a liter of Stoli for $9.99 US dollars.

Joanne met us in black clothes, coming from the afternoon visitation and readying herself for the evening one. We hugged each other, kissed each other, expressed our sympathies to Joanne, watching her face for clues as to how she was doing. She looked tired and worn, but she could smile and laugh at our liquor-smuggling antics.

We freshened up in our hotel rooms, changed our clothes and caravaned to the funeral home. We greeted her mother, who I believe all had met previously, and her three brothers, who we had not.

Evidently there is a long-standing feud between several family members which Joanne is aware of and has tried to mediate, to no avail. She shared some of the dynamics with us and asked us to observe. Intra-family feuds are painful to watch and appear to be very destructive. So much energy appears to go into "staying mad."

The funeral was late Thursday morning and was held at the funeral home, as Joanne's dad was not a religious man. Three of the four siblings got up and spoke about their father, something that many of us said we wouldn't have the strength to do. Joanne spoke sweetly of her dad, his passion for politics and his love of sports. She read from Johannes Kepler, Thomas Paine and Kahlil Gibran. She did well.

We caravaned to the cemetery, where there were several military men awaiting us. One, a bugler, played taps . . . long and slowly, a mute in the bugle. It was moving. The other two folded the large American flag that draped his coffin, in their slow, ritualized way.

We ate a buffet lunch at a small golf course nearby which gave everyone a chance to visit and share stories.

We left Joanne's mother's house by five and headed back home. We got back to J and J's by eleven. Cisco was a happy pooch when she heard us pull into the driveway.

Multi-tasking

While I'm waiting for this newer version of Mozilla to download, I'm reading and working on my personal assessments out of this book, I Don't Know What I Want But I Know It's Not This, by Julie Jansen. It looks to be a pretty good book from what I've seen so far. I sure hope that reading this book will help me to get a clearer idea what I need to do regarding my job and/or future employment!

I'm also drinking some Punch-in-the-Face coffee from Alterra (I'll add the link later; don't want to slow the download down!) that is "java-licious" as my unkymood points out.

I love surfing the web on Saturday mornings! I get this feeling of connection with a much larger world out there!

Downloading Mozilla 1.6

Accessing blogger.com this morning, I got an "invite" to try Google's new G-mail. I'm a great fan of Google (I keep typing "Goggle!"). Sure, I'll give it a try!

Then I find out that I'm on too old a version of Mozilla (v1.3), so now I'm in a 35-minute process of downloading 1.6. Geesh! This feels like being invited to ride a new bicycle, but, oh-by-the-way, you have to watch your little brother for two hours, FIRST! Arrrgh!

Reprint of . . . "the little blog(s)"

I am shamelessly cribbing this from another blogger named echidne of the snakes. This was posted on April 16, 2004, and I like what this blogger has to say:

The Little Blog That Could?
Blogs are wonderful things to have, but sometimes I wonder what they're good for. Like today. It's a beautiful day, and here I'm sitting in the darkness, with just one drowsy snake around my throat, typing away. I should be outside, causing mischief if nothing else. Instead, I'm talking to emptiness, hoping that something exists out there and will hear and even answer back one day. It's a little bit like spirituality, don't you think? Do you exist? Do I exist? Does it matter if we don't?

Some blogs are gigantic business enterprises, run by a proper Organizational Structure. Some blogs have Experts, and several interesting bloggers. But most blogs are these little amateur affairs: a solitary lunatic typing, typing away, hoping to catch some other eccentric person somewhere. Is there life on earth?

So what are blogs for? Other than providing an outlet for all those extraneous thoughts that don't neatly fit into the daily lives of most of us? I'm not sure. Are the blogs taking over important tasks from the mainstream media by providing alternative sources of news and their interpretations? Definitely, and that's probably all positive, especially if you believe in some free competition in the world of ideas. But most blogs aren't trying to take over the newsdesks of New York Times or similar media sources. Most blogs are just voices in the wilderness, attempts to connect to something or someone, or perhaps just a way to hear your own voice echoing back.

My blog is a very little blog, run by one minor goddess, and in that it shares a sisterhood/brotherhood with the majority of blogs. It's not a nice purebred political blogsite with plenty of venom and outrage (though I do my best), and neither is it really a very good feminist blog. I'm too much of a mongrel for keeping my writing clean enough for any one purpose, and I think that many of us bloggers are like that: neither one thing nor the other. But this makes it hard to define blogs or to put them into tidy boxes, and it also makes for difficulties in competitions for honors such as "The Best New Political Blog of the Year".

Though of course everything has politics in it, and politics has all sorts of other things in it. Maybe this is what the little blogs can do? To point out when our love of taxonomies is not at all helpful, to widen the lens a bit in our views of this world? The little blogs certainly help in letting us hear more voices, and often these are voices which are silenced in the mainstream media. Goddesses, for example.

I'm going out now to listen to some nice Blues. Now, Blues are very political. If you read about the history of this branch of music you get quite a good education on the race relationships of the 20th century USA, as well as an interesting example of the way some women performers were made invisible later on. Writing about this clearly would fall under politics and feminism, but it also would fall under the category 'human activity', and that's the category that the little blogs are really good at.

I especially like the part, "Do you exist? Do I exist? Does it matter [if we do or -- my words] if we don't?" I hadn't thought of it that way, but yes, I think that blogging can and does have a spirtual component to it. It's a means of connecting with others. It's a means of saying, "I'm here; is anybody listening?"

Thanks, echidne, for your little blog!

What is a meme?

I keep running across this word, "meme."

I finally looked it up in Merriam-Webster: an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture.

Here's what Richard Dawkins has to say about meme:

"Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leading from body to body via sperm or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. If a scientist hears, or reads about, a good idea, he passes it on to his colleagues and students. He mentions it in his articles and his lectures. If the idea catches on, it can be said to propagate itself, spreading from brain to brain.
Memes should be regarded as living structures, not just metaphorically but technically. When you plant a fertile meme in my mind, you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme's propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell. And this isn't just a way of talking -- the meme for, say, 'belief in life after death' is actually realized physically, millions of times over, as a structure in the nervous systems of people all over the world."

Now that I've read that, I'm still not sure I'll know how to use meme in a sentence, but I will have a better idea what it means!

Willy

Willy is the custodian for our area of the building. He is always here, as ever-present as the lights and the coffee and the hum of the computers.

Willy is a good custodian. He appears to take a lot of pride in doing his job well. The areas in this part of the building definitely reflect Willy's hard work and his care.

On a more personal note, Willy is a small, trim man. He reminds me a bit of Sammy Davis, Jr. He has a soft South-Carolinian accent and a downright cute giggle.

I hadn't seen Willy last week and chalked it up to vacation, what with Easter and all. I finally asked another woman that works here, "Where's Willy?" and she replied that Willy got transferred. He got transferred to another building? Just like that? Just like that!

I don't know why, but I'm feeling more and more disturbed by sudden, abrupt personnel changes. People are here one day and gone the next. No farewells, no chance to say good-bye, nothing. I really hate that! It bothers me! People aren't objects, to be discarded with no comment and preemptorily replaced.

Our lives here at this center of "knowledge" revolve around software. A new release of a particular application warrants emails, voice mails, sometimes even staff meetings.

But there is no recognition of a person, not even a comment, when a person, a significant person like Willy leaves.

Joanne's father

Jeanne called me yesterday to tell me that Joanne's father died. He went into the hospital early Monday morning, was put into ICU and died around 9:30 a.m. Evidently he didn't like taking his diuretic medication, his body filled up with fluids, and his lungs shut down. I believe he was 84.

I only met Mr. Carlson once. He was already an elderly man and beyond a few perfunctory sentences of greeting, we didn't converse. I spent most of my time that evening talking with Mrs. Carlson.

When I think of Joanne, my heart aches for her; I can imagine the shock to her world, the trauma of his sudden death and the deep sadness she may be feeling. Death may be tough for the dead, but I think it's tougher on the living.

Air America Radio

I haven't been able to listen to the newly-launched Air America Radio yet, but I hope to listen soon. Here's the blog from the O'Franken Factor show.

I have tried listening to AM radio talk shows on some late-night drives to Detroit and, from what I could find, it is a wasteland of fear-mongering and hate. What happens to people when they listen, day in and day out, to that kind of vicious spew?

I hope Air America gets lots of listening ears.

a couple of new (for me) blogs

I'm adding a couple of new blogs to my list,
Althaea Officinalis: MallowDrama and Mister X.

I love reading the writings of people who, in my humble opinion, write well!

Check them out!

Sunday evening

Wow! What a great day today has been!

First and foremost, the weather has been glorious today! Warm, sunny, mid-summer weather in the middle of April! What a gift! As the day went on, the breezes picked up, but even then, the air had an enveloping warmth to it. Heavenly!

I worked out on our deck for a couple of hours, enjoying the sunshine. I swept winter debris, dead leaves, and probably three or four pounds of pine needles from the upper deck to the middle deck and then down to the lower deck. I moved all the pots with their sad, winter-dead foliage out from under the protection of the upper deck roofing, cleaned them out and got them ready for new spring flowers. I wiped down and cleaned all the deck furniture, mostly our ubiquitous green plastic Adirondack chairs. It was so warm I even got the hose out and washed down the decks, my bare feet reveling in the unexpected freedom of this warm day.

Steph and I took several breaks, kicking back, enjoying each other's company and drinking a beer. She gave all our front yard ornamental grasses their spring haircut, so the new spring growth has room to breathe! She chopped down the lonely, bare stalks that remained from our Van Gogh sunflowers in the butterfly garden from last summer. I was glad to see them go. They looked downright forlorn in their bedraggled-ness.

Around 3:30, I came in and chased dust bunnies for a couple of hours. I'm always amazed at the amount of fur and hair that Cisco "shares" with us, here in the house. By 5:00, both of us were petering out in energy, so we conked out on our bed, under an open window, enjoying the sounds of the breeze and the birds.

Tonight, we watched the finale of the Trading Spaces Home Free competition. I am definitely addicted to that show. I especially enjoyed watching tonight's show because the contestants were so creative. I get energized watching other people being creative!

The green spot

I was dressed, teeth brushed, hair combed -- ready to walk out of the bathroom and be on my way to work -- when I noticed "the spot." On my pocket, the breast pocket of my well-worn, comfy purple corduroy shirt. A bright grass-green, Granny-Smith-apple green spot on my lovely old purple shirt.

What could it be?

The shirt is clean. Lina washed it for me in her washing machine before I left, last weekend.

I don't know what caused the spot. But it is definitely green. The greeniest green.

The shirt is at home, on top of the washing machine, the spot soaked with "Tech." I hope it comes out.

Like canaries in a mine

It's an absolutely gorgeous, gee-I'm-glad-to-be-alive spring morning. Outside.

Inside, here where I work, we have no windows, a maze of cubicles, many, many computers, and many, many people coughing. I have been listening for the past several minutes and I bet I have heard at least ten different people cough.

What is in here that is making all these people cough?

Life and Death

On this day, April 15, 1912, the British luxury liner Titanic sank in the North Atlantic off Newfoundland, less than three hours after striking an iceberg. About 1,500 people died.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today, the AP wire service reports that a woman gave birth in the back of a car on the way to a hospital, but the vehicle then left the road and struck a utility pole, killing her husband.

The newborn boy was in critical condition Thursday, and the mother, 22-year-old Atara Sasoon, was listed as fair.

The car crashed Wednesday about a mile from the hospital in the Jersey Shore town of Brick.

Binyhmin Sasoon, 22, was found slumped over the steering wheel and was pronounced dead at the scene. His wife was apparently ejected from the car and was able to stop a passing motorist.

The motorist, Patrick Schlagenhaft, found the baby in the car under a coat. The infant wasn't breathing, so Schlagenhaft, taking instructions from a 911 dispatcher, cleared the boy's mouth and nose.

"It let out a big cough," said Schlagenhaft, 35. "It was the most amazing sound ever."

Wow!

A funny story about Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, Jesus and God

John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg are two of the sixty-or-so "Jesus Scholars" of the Jesus Seminar.

Marcus Borg begins by telling a story about Dominic Crossan. Dom was the featured speaker at a weekend event in Portland.

Crossan began his first presentation by saying, "I want to tell you a story about something that happened last night. Last night after my lecture, while I was signing books, a student from the local seminary . . ." (Marcus Borg's footnote: There’s only one seminary in Portland. It is the Western Conservative Evangelical Baptist Seminary, and all of those adjectives matter. And so, the audience immediately knew that he was talking about a conservative student.)

"This student," Dom continued, "said to me, ‘I told my professor that I was coming to hear you tonight.’ And my professor said to me, ‘You’re going to hear Crossan!?!? Why, why he’s to the left of Borg!’"

That’s not the punch-line, though.

Crossan continued the story, and he said, "So I said to the student, 'Please give my best regards to your professor. And tell him that the real problem is that both Borg and Crossan are to the right of Jesus. And rumor has it that Jesus is to the right of God.’"

"And I start with that, partly because I love telling the story, of course, but also to suggest that whatever we do here will still be to the right of Jesus, who is to the right of God. And whether that’s good news or bad news, I leave that up to you to figure out."

This is a year of politics, elections and political labels.

My take on that story is that no matter how liberal, progressive, tolerant, inclusive, and loving-of-people any of us may strive to be, we will still be to the right of God.

On the political label spectrum, God is the ultimate cosmic liberal!

Added a new link

I happened upon a website new to me, Common Dreams. It describes itself rhymingly as "Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community."

I found an article, entitled "Iraq, Not 9-11, May Be Bush's Achilles' Heel," by Floyd J. McKay. Here are some excerpts:

...it is not 9-11 that is President Bush's major liability.

That liability is the war in Iraq and how and why he decided it was the way to fight terrorism.

It is Bush's fixation with Iraq, well before 9-11, that has distressed many students of 9-11 and its aftermath, including Richard A. Clarke, the White House terrorism expert whose recent book threw Bush and [Condoleezza] Rice on the defensive. Clarke makes a strong case that invading Iraq was perhaps the worst decision we could have made to deter terrorism . . .

. . . Iraq is the tar baby of Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and a group of so-called neo-conservatives housed in their offices.

While Rice was busy learning a new job and tutoring a president woefully ignorant of world affairs, the neo-cons were working on Bush, playing on his natural instinct to avenge his father. We know the result.

Bush, from every account I have read, including Clarke's book, does not actively seek information that may deviate from his faith-based views. I don't mean religious faith — although that clearly plays a big role. I mean faith in his own instincts.

Contrary views are not fully aired. Bush admits that he doesn't read the newspapers or watch much television news. Presidents cannot make decisions based on what they see or read in the news, but any president who ignores the way most citizens get their information is open to being manipulated by aides with an agenda . . .

. . . Bill Clinton has one of the most active and inquiring minds of anyone who has ever occupied the White House. Clinton read voraciously, and actively challenged and pushed his aides, including Clarke.

Bush, by contrast, never asked Clarke — who by all accounts knew more about terrorism than anyone in Washington — for a personal briefing. . .

We are all paying for this lack of intellectual curiosity. It is now quite obvious that we went into Iraq on false pretenses. Secretary of State Colin Powell has admitted that he was given bad data when he went to the United Nations. David Kay, Hans Blix and other experts have declared weapons of mass destruction cannot be found. No link has been discovered between Saddam and al-Qaida, as Clarke told Bush on Sept. 12, 2001.

In other words, we went to war on Bush's faith and instincts, which he relied upon rather than seeking advice and data that might contradict that faith and those instincts . . .

I think Mr. McKay has described fairly succinctly what has been going on in the White House for the past three years.

I will be looking at Common Dreams regularly in the future.

"He's not pausing at the commas"

From In Passing, a truly comical slice of life:

"His phrasing is weird, it's offbeat. He's not pausing at the commas. Hear that? Wait a minute... Dude, he's pausing at the big words."
--A girl watching Bush's press conference on the TV in the lobby of my hotel.

Incubation, not Procrastination

from a composer that I really like:

"I think that procrastination is nothing more than incubation and that an idea is not simply born, it's thought out. Whether or not it's conscious or unconscious, you just need time."

-- Thomas Newman

Thomas Newman has composed the music for the films, The Shawshank Redemption, Erin Brockovitch, American Beauty, Road to Perdition and Finding Nemo, among others.

I just have to add that he created the score for the HBO film, Angels in America. Fantastic score for an unforgettable film!

One hundred thirty-nine years ago . . .

. . . it was April 14, 1865.

On this day, President Lincoln was shot and mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth while attending the comedy "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. He died the next day.

Taxes DONE !!@#!!@#!$

Yup, my taxes are done, thanks to $74.99 and Turbo Tax. It looks like I owe about $500 to the feds and will get about $180 back from the state. It's not great, but it's certainly better than previous years and better than what I feared.

It's always such a RELIEF to finish doing taxes. I'll celebrate with a beer and then, where's the couch?

Post-holiday and pre-taxes

My honey and I returned late last night from a simply superb weekend with Lina and Yosh in the mad, Mad City across the lake.

We had a great time!

And now, I'm home today (sort of playing hookey) in a post-holiday mood. *Big sigh*

And, tax day is two days off . . . and I must finish my taxes today! Arrrrgh!!!

I wonder if unkymood has a face graphic for pre-tax anxiety??

I'm in a purple kind of mood today!

I am excited today, as I begin a four-day holiday and time off from work. Steph and I are leaving tonight, heading to Mad City to visit our beloved daughter. We are taking the pooch as I didn't have the foresight to make boarding arrangements. I hope that she isn't too snarly with Lina's puppy, Dakota.

Anyway, my purple mood. I picked out a casual linen jacket to wear this weekend, along with a purple knit top.

Getting dressed this morning, I picked out an old, broken-in purple corduroy shirt with a long-sleeve purple top under it. As I'm here at work for only four hours today, I decided to go very casual and very, very comfy.

I have another purple corduroy jacket at home that I think I will take for this weekend, as well.

Enough purple?

I also put on my purple, teal and silver earring that Yoshie gave me for Christmas. Oh yes, and I'm wearing a purple-and-green glass beaded bracelet that my honey gave me several years ago.

Maybe this is in honor of spring? Maybe this is in honor of Passion Week?

Or maybe I am just feeling downright royal today?

Tomorrow

Tomorrow, Friday, April 9th, also Good Friday, is the 11th anniversary of my mom's death.

As I won't have access to a computer tomorrow or the rest of this weekend, I wanted to remember her in my blog today.

I can hardly believe that it's been eleven years. I think of her often, remember mostly the good things about her, and love it when she visits me in my dreams.

I love you, Mom.

A troubling vote

Another thing I usually do in the morning is peruse and vote in CNN's unscientific poll for that day.

Today's poll asks the question, "What should the U.S. military do in Iraq?"

Usually I vote quickly (with my gut), and then, being the social creature that I am, check to see how my vote compares with others.

Today, I couldn't vote. I asked myself the question, and I felt troubled with all the choices.

I finally just looked at the results. They are:

Send reinforcements 45%

Keep current troop numbers 14%

Withdraw 41%."

Over 107,000 people had voted when I looked.

I don't like any of America's choices right now in Iraq. I think of all the people, innocent and guilty, terrorist and bystander, killer and victim . . . and I feel sick at heart. This is a civil war and we are in the middle of it.

Surgeons and video games

I was doing my cursory scan over CNN's website this morning when I found this article.

Paraphrased, here it is:

"Researchers found that doctors who spent at least three hours a week playing video games made about 37 percent less mistakes in laparoscopic surgery and performed the task 27 percent faster than their counterparts who did not play video games.

"I use the same hand-eye coordination to play video games as I use for surgery," said Dr. James "Butch" Rosser, 49, who demonstrated the results of his study Tuesday at Beth Israel Medical Center.

Rosser said the skill needed for laparoscopic surgery is "like tying your shoelaces with 3-foot-long chopsticks."

Who woulda thunk it?

Muchas gracias, mi hijita muy 'BRILLANTE!'

Thanks, Lina, for your CSS skills and your patience and forebearing. I don't mean to be a pest. It's just how I come off sometimes, especially when I'm excited about my blog! Thanks again, hon!

And now I've enlisted my 'hijita' and her CSS skills . . .

. . . to help me *nudge* that little unkymoods graphic so it is right justified to the sidebar. Arrrgh, I wish I knew more than I think I really do!!!!@?!

YIPPPPP-EEEE!! It worked!

For all the grumbling I've done and the grudges I've held, over the years, towards my parents (Dad in particular) for pushing me towards a major, I guess that computer science degree does have some small rewards.

I figured out how to create yellow highlighting in my blog after seeing it in another.

Good job, Mary!

a test, a test, a test

Here is a test.

And here's another one.

And here's another one, too!

Oh yes . . . about the NCAA Championship . . .

Kind of anti-climactic for everybody in the country, everybody in our extended family pool and for me, personally.

UConn beat Georgia Tech . . . resoundingly!

I think many people anticipated it to be a match-up that definitely favored UConn. Most people in our pool had lost interest when their brackets got covered with red, crossed-out mis-selections. Many brackets looked like they had been redlined to within an inch of their lives!

And me, well I was sitting in our little house on Hyland, listening to the game on an AM station on our shortwave radio. Listening to a basketball game is just not the same as watching it on the ol' TV.

So . . . so there ends March Madness for another year.

(sigh) I do enjoy March Madness!

tidying up

Today, I want to read blogs, not post in mine. I have spent way too much time reading others' writing instead of publishing my own thoughts.

Do I have any thoughts today?

I'm in this introspective, hunker-down, barricade-the-doors kind of mode.

Why? I don't know. I am feeling protective of . . . me, I guess? What's feeling so vulnerable that I need to throw on the turtle shell is over there, outside of me, outside of my awareness.

I guess I'll be a turtle.

But I did tidy up my blog a bit, adding a few blog links that I mentioned yesterday and also adding my secondary email address, on the slim possibility that anyone would care to contact me.

(big sigh)

Time to pull in to my safe, cozy shell.

Waaah . . . I wanted to blog . . .

. . . but I started reading frog blog and from there I found One Good Thing and then Real Live Preacher and one thing led to another and I'm out of time, no time, time to log off, go home, walk the dog. Arrrrgh!

Hope springs eternal.

Maybe tomorrow?

the word is . . .

Bone - tired. Time to go home and sleep.

Maybe I should give the colored boxes a rest, too, huh?