Last year when we went to the Air and Space Museum with Kim and Mike, Flat Stanley came along.

Today Kim told me that Flat Stanley also made it to the Academy Awards this year.

To those who complain about WVU’s student newpaper, my reply has always been, “Hey, it’s written by students and it’s free. At least it’s not as bad as the Dominion Post, which is supposed to be a “real” newspaper, and you acually have to PAY for.

As further evidence, I present this article from the 31 March 2005 front page of the DP.

In this article about a car wreck, there are four paragraphs about the wreck, and two paragraphs about the weather forecast for the rest of the week.

I’ve been thinking about desire.

Not the kind that stars in movies and advertising, but the kind that makes people go–the desire that motivates people to achieve and succeed.

I have friends who are working to achieve their desires. One wants to be a poet and author. Another wants to be a mother. A third wants to be a romance writer. They know what their goals are, and they know what they have to do to achieve their desires.

Me, I wasn’t even sure I knew what my desire truly was. What motivates me? What is it that I want more than anything else? Then I realized that I did know what my desire was, but it is both more complicated and more simple than what my friends want.

I desire knowledge.

Not an education–although that can go along with it–just knowledge. I want to know things. To learn things. Many things. All different kinds of things.

I want to know about the founding fathers of the United States. I want to know how to fence. I want to know about the beliefs of the different religions in the world. I want to know how to make plants grow better. I want to know how photosynthesis really works. I want to know how to box. I want to know words–their meanings and how they came into being and how they’re pronounced and used properly. I want to know why people do the things they do. I want to know the perfect lemon cake recipe.

There is so much out there I want to know, and yet there is so little call for such knowledge, so little use for it. No one is going to give me a job because I know some plant physiology and I know some HTML and I know the basics of ethics. There’s just no call for it–yet they are all part of my desire.

And that, more than anything else, is why I sometimes have such a hard time. There is no call for my knowledge, and no one willing to pay me solely to learn stuff.

But there should be.

At this.

Is it just me, or is the world getting really weird?

The only good thing about this piece of ridiculousness, is that at least the idiot who wrote it recognized that West (by God) Virginia is a separate state.

WEST VIRGINIA

They call it the “Mountian State” because it is lacking in lakes and rivers

They also have a listing of West Virginia Lakes, which includes: Kanawha River, Monongahela River, Ohio River.

I found out today that someone I graduated from high school with died earlier this month.

I had only 42 people in my graduating class. It was a Catholic high school and we were the next to last graduating class. Mismanagement is probably the primary reason the school closed, at least that’s how it felt at the time.

I hated high school—I’d even go so far as to say I despised it. I was painfully geeky, and brought down upon myself all the teasing that being smart and ugly brought you in high school.

My class has not held a class reunion, despite the fact that it’s been almost 17 years since graduation, and I’m not sure if I’d want to go if there was a reunion. Maybe things would be different after all this time, but the idea of seeing some of my classmates again gives me a sick to my stomach feeling—as if all the intervening years had dropped away to make me who I was then, instead of who I am now.

And today I find out that Amy has died, and it brings the realization that despite there being so few of us, there are those I graduated with that I hardly knew. I pulled out my yearbook when I got home. Found what she’d written to me. “I don’t really know you, but you seem like a nice girl…”

It doesn’t make me feel bitter, as much as it makes me feel sad and small. Sad, because I never knew her, and now never will. Small, because part of me still doesn’t want to know my former classmates. Small, because I fear that I’ll have turned out to be just as pathetic as they expected.

Oddly enough, the mortality part of it doesn’t bother me as much as I’d have thought it would. I’ve made huge changes in my life in past years—quitting smoking, reducing my drinking, increasing my exercise—all in theory to improve my health and extend my life. Except that for the most part it’s the short term benefits of those acts that have been important, not the long. Smoking seemed to exacerbate colds, exercise makes me feel better physically and mentally, and the drinking went out the door with the smoking.

In my gerontology class several semesters ago, we were supposed to tell the class how we imagined our old age. I, like several others in my class, can’t imagine my old age. Such a thing is almost surreal to me, like the idea of interstellar travel. I have no idea that tomorrow will bring, so it makes little sense to worry about things even further down the road. (Despite that I still set aside extra money into my retirement fund each paycheck. I may be blind to the future, but I’m not foolish.)

I was told that Amy left behind three children, at least one of whom will never really know their mother, and that does sadden me. Somehow, those children and their loss seem far more real to me than their mother.

And that too is sad.

There’s nothing like trying to learn something by yourself to make you feel like an absolute idiot.

And so as a reprieve from idiocy….

The Infinite Cat Project: Cats, looking at cats, looking at cats…

The Treason Trial of Aaron Burr. I have to admit that everytime I hear the name Aaron Burr, I immediately think of the milk commercial. (clip available here if you scroll down.)

And the bird flu, an on-again off-again threat since ’97, is once again garnering attention and worry. Is the world prepared for a flu pandemic? Probably not. But then if we can ignore genocide, we can probably ignore almost anything.

So, they’ve cancelled “Enterprise.” the last Star Trek show left on the air.

Michael and I have not watched it (he, for lack of access; me, for profound lack of interest) but my mother (who has a framed certificate saying she graduated from Starfleet Academy) hated last season, and pretty much gave up watching. (Though I know that this season she at least watched the episodes with Brent Spinner.) So I’m not really surprised at this turn of events. Michael, however, is a little saddened, since this will be the first time for years that there won’t be a Star Trek show on.

To be honest, I could care less, since the only Star Trek show I really liked was “Deep Space Nine.” I can watch “The Next Generation” but can’t stand any of the other shows (and I’m pretty vehement about it too. Michael watched an episode of “Voyager” where they landed the ship on a planet. I think I made fun of that for years. [Giant ship. Itty bitty legs.]).

But he’s right that it is strange. No more Star Trek on TV, and no more movies.

Whatever will I mock?

Oh, wait. Reporting like this:
“Star Trek” movies also have been released.

Really?

The schedule for this years Festival of Ideas is out. Except for “Ethical Leadership in Business” they all look very interesting. (Though come to think of it, ethical business values may be pure fantasy, so it COULD be interesting at that)

Monday, Feb 21 · Constance Morella
The Marshall Plan: The Gift That Keeps on Giving
The Legacy of the Marshall Plan
Mountainlair Ballroom · 7:30pm

Wednesday, Mar 2 · Julian Bond
Civil Rights: Now and Then
Mountainlair Ballroom · 7:30pm

Monday, Mar 7 · Carolyn Kepcher
Ethical Leadership in Business
Mountainlair Ballroom · 7:30pm

Monday, Mar 21 · Cyril Wecht
Role of Forensic Pathology in Modern Day Society
Mountainlair Ballroom · 7:30pm

Monday, Mar 28 · Moral Values Debate
Reds vs. Blues: The Question of Moral Values in America
Mountainlair Ballroom · 7:30pm

Monday, Apr 18 · Morgan Spurlock
Supersize Me
Mountainlair Ballroom · 7:30pm

Monday, Apr 25 · Seymour Hersh
The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib
Mountainlair Ballroom · 7:30pm

I’ve always been rather fond of today’s word.

fey \FAY\ adjective
1 a chiefly Scottish : fated to die : doomed b : marked by a foreboding of death or calamity
2 a: able to see into the future : visionary b : marked by an otherworldly air or attitude c : crazy, touched
3 a: excessively refined : precious *b : quaintly
unconventional : campy
Merriam-Webster’s.com

Taking a minute or two to get caught up…

I received e-mail from Howard Chalkley last month, who kindly linked to my book pages. His weblog, where he occasionally talks about books, is hchalkley.blog.

I also discovered that a weblog called Reasonable Liberalism that had linked to me.

From Gina:
Go to: http://mappoint.msn.com/DirectionsFind.aspx
1. In Start and End, pull down “Address in” and choose Norway. 2. In
Start, enter “Haugesund” into City. 3. In End, enter “Trondheim” into
City. 4. Press “Get Directions”

Engrish.com

It’s like walking through the foreign food aisle of Jungle Jim’s, only better!

Sometimes I feel like an indificul, but I don’t think that’s what they meant here.

Kim is the best!

She gave me the newest album by the “Falling Run Bluegrass Band,” ‘going back’.

I’m very excited about it, and was going to listen to it at work, but people came in, so I couldn’t.