The schedule for the 2004 Festival of Ideas is finally out:

February 24 . Sylvia Nasar
A Beautiful Mind: Genius, Madness, Reawakening
February 26 . Minnijean Brown-Trickey
Return to Little Rock
March 1 . Barry Scheck
DNA Evidence: The Innocence Project
March 22 . Leon Wynter
American Skin
April 6 . Jon Meacham
From FDR and Churchill to Bush and Blair: The Changing Face of Leadership
April 7 . Steve Squyres
To Mars and Beyond
April 20 . Ken Auletta
Who Rules the Media?

All talks will be in the Mountainlair and will begin at 7:30.

Thought it would be nice to have some good news to end the week.

As half of the crew continued working, Dan Martin, a van driver from Lancaster, watched as the barn roof was carefully placed across trusses. “When I got here Monday morning, it was a pile of debris; and look what they have now,” Martin said. “It burned Saturday, they don’t work on Sundays, and they’re going to have this finished in less than a week.”

What struck me most about the story was that it was not just the Amish community that gathered to help, but the entire community.

I was also fascinated by this quote:

“Years ago, the Amish were all farmers, and you wouldn’t have seen all these electric tools,” King said. “Now, probably half of Amish men work in construction, work as carpenters. If you’re going to be competitive with the English, you can’t show up with just a hammer and saw.”

I thought that “worldliness” was the cause of the split between the Amish and the Mennonites. It would be very interesting if these groups were converging, even just a little bit.

Slate is 88.
Kat is 40.
Kit is 34.

The original point of the exercise was to find human equivalencies for cat years, just so I could make sure I wasn’t making a mistake by refusing to let Slate have the surgery. I don’t think I am.

Find your cat’s human age equivalent.

I’ve done some work on cleaning up the family photo. You can see the results if you like.

I’m not sure what to do about the background. It’s really uneven but I’m not sure whether I should clean it up or not. otherwise, I’m pretty pleased with the way it turned out. This weekend probably I’m going to print a copy to see how it turns out.

Any suggestions about further cleaning up the picture, feel free to share.

At dinner tonight (It’s late class day. We went out.) I was whining (I’m being honest, it was whining) about how tired I was when Michael and I had the following exchange:

Me: …I’m even having bad hair!
Michael: It’s not really bad hair…
Me: Right.
Michael: It’s not bad. It’s more chaotic neutral.

Jon Blake Cusack, from Holland, Michigan, told local newspapers the US practice of adding “Junior” or “II” after a boy’s name was too common.

So, when his son was born last week, he decided on the name Jon Blake Cusack 2.0, as if he were a software upgrade.

I really can not believe that he talked the mother into it.

The again, someone I used to work with swore up and down that he went to school with a Lemonjello and Orangejello, so I guess people are more than willing to give their children strange names.

Just last week I was thinking about how bothered I was by the fact that I had not had any really vivid, memorable dreams in awhile. Yes, some of my dreams are extremely creepy, but some of them are very good, and when I awaken all I want is to go back to sleep, to continue dreaming.

I was beginning to wonder whether the fact that we’d be watching so many videos was the problem, since we have gone through two complete seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine since the beginning of January. Well, Friday I had an extremely vivid dream, so I decided that my theory was kaput. (Saturday’s dream was also vivid, but extremely disjointed, so there was nothing I could salvage from it, except the feeling.)

I did discover, however, that there are other problems with watching so much TV–it makes me physically ill. Okay, you can stop laughing now, but I’m serious. I’ve noticed before that on days when we had watched a lot of ‘Buffy’ I’d have a headache before we were through. Well, Saturday and Sunday we watched the entire 6th season of Buffy. Friday I went to bed with a headache. Saturday with only two and a half episodes left, the headache was back with a vengeance (despite aspirin) and we had to turn off the TV completely because it was making my sick to my stomach. Really. For about five minutes I was serious afraid I was going to vomit, and I ended up napping for about an hour. Only then was I up to finishing watching the rest of the season.

What on earth is wrong with me? Normal people don’t get sick just watching TV!

Good grief.

At least I know now that I should definitely continue to avoid cable.

That said, however, we’re eagerly awaiting Season 3 of DS9 to arrive–this to be watched at no more than a couple of episodes at a time. It’s better that way.

Of course I’m not sure that I need more darkness right now. Since Christmas we’ve watched seasons 5 and 6 of ‘Buffy’ seasons 1 & 2 of ‘DS9’ and I have also reread ‘The Sandman Library’ as well as some of Charles de Lint’s darker books. I figure that to round things out I just need to rip through Thieves’ World again.

From a more sane perspective, perhaps I should watch the ‘Princess Bride’ and reread some Terry Pratchet–just to balance things out.

We shall see.

And to add insult to injury. It looks as if someone I know has gotten one of those e-mail harvesting viruses, which has been spoofing my e-mail address to send out viruses, as I have received several “Returned to sender addressee unknown” replies, for messages I never sent out.

This really pisses me off, as the account that is being spoofed is one that I have used for several years (since 99) and yet have managed to keep spam free. Grrr….

From a response I made to Erin:

Bovine is Cow. Ovine is Sheep. Caprine is Goat.

ADDENDUM the First:
Gina doesn’t think the sheep I found are cute.

Humph.

Just got an e-mail from my dad’s cousin, Anthony Bogdan, that his geneaology pages are back up and have been updated.

He has a very nice file with the history written out, not just names and dates, but a little something about that part of the family if he knows it. The bits on my great-grandparents are around page 39 (Adobe numbering, 31 document numbering)

Here is a bit that Anthony had sent us a couple of years ago on The Lithuanians in Baltimore, written by one of my grandmother’s brothers.

Anthony mentions the 50th wedding anniversary of my great-grandparents that was written up in the Baltimore Sun. I have a copy of the actual article, as well as pictures that I’ve scanned by never taken the time to add to my site. (Which reminds me, my dad gave me a picture of my grandfather and his siblings, taken during WWII, that I am supposed to scan and give back, but have not yet done so. Slacker.)

You must read this. Really, you must.

http://www.teemings.com/extras/truelife/scylla6.html

I’d quote some to draw you over to read it, but I can’t, really. You’ll just have to trust me.

Go there now.

(found because it was nominated for a Most Humorous Post award. The other posts nominated are nowhere near as funny as that one is, unfortunately.)

Instead of firing bullets, the Taser gun shoots out two metal barbs tethered to long wires. As soon as the barbs find their target, the wires transmit a 50,000-volt shock – enough to floor the most aggressive of individuals. The victim recovers when the current is turned off.

Taser International’s government affairs spokesman, Steve Tuttle, claims the company has proved “beyond a shadow of a doubt” that the guns are safe to use on planes. Mobile phones may occasionally cause problems because of the frequency of their signals, but the Taser is more like a weak lightning bolt, which the avionics are designed to cope with.

“We have fired the Taser into every piece of equipment aboard every platform that United Airlines has, trying to damage it – without success,” says Tuttle. He also reports that they managed to land an Airbus on autopilot while repeatedly discharging a stun gun in the cockpit.

New Scientist 17 January 2004

Happy Year of the Monkey!

Sent the e-mail cards out early, posted late. Go figure.

Unusual comments heard frequently at my house:

“You! Get out of the dishwasher!”

What I want to know, is how do you convice people that yes, you really do want books for Christmas? Perhaps a movie thrown in for variety, but mostly you just want books. Any kind of books: Mysteries, Fantasies, Novels, Histories, Comparative Theology, Science Books, Cookbooks–just books. No more Stuff.

This comes up because I am cleaning the house, which desperately needed done, and I am also going through looking for stuff to donate to Christian Help, or barring that, throw away, and I began to wonder how I ended up with so much Stuff.

You know, Stuff. It’s not useful per se, it’s just something someone thought was neat and thought that you would like.

Not that I don’t like my Stuff, mind you. Much of my Stuff is very nice, and I like looking at it. But it’s just Stuff. It takes up space. In fact is often takes up valuable space where books could go. This is not a good thing, because in the battle between books and Stuff, Stuff loses every time. (Unless I don’t like the book, or it’s extra-special stuff, like the collection of elephants given my over the years by the Christmas Elephant and Birthday Elephant.)

Why does Stuff lose? Becuase we have a Very Small House. You know, the typical 40s and 50s house with small closets (if there are closets at all), tiny bedrooms, small living room, small kitchen, and damp basement. With books in every single room, that doesn’t leave a lot of room for Stuff, yet it seems like every time I turn around, we have more Stuff.

So what do you do with the Stuff? If it has a use, I give it to Christian Help, but so much of it is just plain Stuff, cluttering up shelves, cluttering up the floor, taking up space. No use, just pretty. Or neat. Too nice to throw away, but too much trouble to have a yard sale.

Maybe I’ll give all my Stuff to my sister-in-law and she can sell it on E-Bay, after all, it is Nice Stuff.