I’m in training all day, for that software I was complaining about a couple weeks ago.

First session is over. We’ll see how the first half of the next session goes.

I may need to go get chocolate for lunch.

Memorial Day, 26 May 2008

As you enjoy your three day weekend, and the start of summer, please take a moment to reflect upon why we celebrate Memorial Day.

World War I 116,516 killed, 204,002 wounded.¹
World War II 407,316 killed, 670,846 wounded.¹
Korea 33,651 killed 103,284 wounded.¹
Vietnam 58,168 killed, 153,303 wounded.¹
Gulf War 382 killed, 486 wounded.¹
Iraq War 4,079 killed so far, at least 30,112 wounded.

Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.
~John F. Kennedy

What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world.
~Robert E. Lee

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
~Thomas Jefferson

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
~Abraham Lincoln

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
~Benjamin Franklin

Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
~H.L. Mencken

We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.
~William Faulkner

If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war.
~Pentagon official explaining why the U.S. military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War

War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory.
~Georges Clemenceau

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?
~Mahatma Gandhi

Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.
~Mao Tse-Tung

It is well that war is so terrible – otherwise we would grow too fond of it.
~Robert E. Lee

We make war that we may live in peace.
~Aristotle

For everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate,
A time for war, and a time for peace.
~Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Vietnam War Memorial
Korean War Memorial
WWII Memorial
The Great War

¹ from here.

Written by Michelle at 8:00 am    

Spent a good deal of time gardening this long weekend.

Biggest bloomers right now are the broom and the irises.

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Don’t forget your towel.

I’m still feeling moderately crappy, so I decided it was time to pull out the big guns.

I picked up fresh organic strawberries today, I have whipping cream, and I just prepared (minus the baking) molten lava chocolate cakes.
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Here’s some Friday Cat blogging, partially as apology for all the cranky and lack of blogging earlier this week.

We let Kat hang out on the porch with us. He often tries to bolt out the door when the weather is nice, so on occasion we put him on a leash and let him hang out on the porch. Being the cat he is, the first thing he does as soon as he makes it out the door is to stop, drop, and roll in whatever dirt/dust/pollen/whatever he can find.

I assume this is because he is partially white.
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Some guy just walked past my house wearing extremely white tennis shoes, what looked to be a pair of white boxers, and nothing else.

Neverminding the fact it’s only 62 F out here, that is really strange, even for Morgantown.

(skulks into office)

(closes and locks door)

(slouches down in chair)

ADDENDUM the First:
Michael and I are going out to lunch, and then we aren’t coming back.

Hopefully a long lunch, perhaps a drink or too, and then maybe browsing the bookstore or else sitting on the front porch reading will do the trick.

ADDENDUM the Second:
Went out to lunch and had a foofy drink (something coconut flavored and with fruit) and my favorite lunch (pecan crusted chicken salad with dried cranberries. Yum!) had chocolatey dessert, went and bought some good chocolate at Slight Indulgence, and came home to discover that the third (of three) Serenity comic was here.

So I’ve been sitting on the deck reading since I got home.

I still may need more chocolate, but I am much better than I was earlier. Thanks for all your suggestions.

Now I believe I have some more reading to do. And some double chocolate cookies to eat.

Because I was already in a bad mood, I decided to poke at the css on my splash page for my site.

(It may get technical from here, so if you don’t give a rat’s patootie about web design, just go admire my splash page, look at some of the book pages, and then come back and lie to me and tell me how lovely they are.)

First, I discovered that when I first created the page I made things harder on myself than I needed to. This was fixed, and so the next revamp should be a tad easier, primarily if I make further layout changes involving the menus. (Instead of placing all the menu items in a single box and just moving that, I was moving each item individually, figuring out each time how much each box had to move. This was… annoying.)

Second, I really truly deeply despise Internet Explorer. I’ve known since I first created my css menus that they wouldn’t work with IE. So I just made sure that the main menus would allow people to access a page from which they could visit the other pages. Not a problem, and no one would know what they were missing unless they’d first looked at the page in a real browser.

My book pages are a bit more problematic. If you visit my fantasy page in any browser except IE (or a really old browser like Netscape 4) you get the nice css menus at the top of the page. Now I admit that the font size of the css menus is off in Safari, but they at least they work. When IE7 came out, I thought that some of these problems would be fixed.

No. My css menus still don’t work properly in IE7, and to add insult to injury, on the splash page they work a tiny bit, in that the sub menus appear, but you can’t actually select any choice other than the top.

And then there’s the fact that the links footer, which is simply a box within a box, doesn’t layout properly in IE6. Even though I’m not even doing anything strange with the code there.

All of which is just maddening. I don’t really want to make an IE only version of my front page, but if it’s going to look half-assed, I don’t see as how I have much choice.

So, like I said: I hate IE. And I wish I had the power to make the computers of Bill Gates and every other jackass who maintains IE EXPLODE with just the power of my mind.

I’m sure that would make me feel much better.

Now I think I need to go eat chocolate ice cream or something.

This didn’t help any.

I’m now tired and cranky.

(stomps off)

Beware: I am in an extremely cranky mood.

So don’t look at me funny or I’ll snap.

Everyone knows the story of Tom Thumb. Some even know that it was Tom Thumb’s father who first said, “Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.”

What is less well know are Tom’s exploits as a young adult in the years before he met, courted, and then married Thumbelina. (What? You didn’t know that? That’ll teach you to believe everything you read in fairy tales.)

You’d think the incident with the fish would have taught him a lesson, yet Tom decided to take to sea, and signed on with a pirate ship. Tom and his pet Raven acted as watch, ranging out to find booty ships. (There wasn’t a British Navy at that point, so for true adventure everyone know you had to become a pirate). For a couple of years they traveled far and wide, and eventually ended up pillaging the coast of the Orient.

This turned out to be a mistake as the Chinese ships were apparently made of sterner stuff that the Occidental ships they have been pillaging. The Captain and the First Mate were beheaded, and much of the rest of the crew were sold into slavery. However the cook, the Second Mate (who was a wizard at languages and quickly learned enough of the local lingo to converse with their captives, [and told them many tales, some of which may even have been true]), and Tom caught the attention of the Chinese captain and they were placed directly into his service.

The cook, whose talents had been wasted on the pirate captain, soon became close friends with Chinese Captain’s cook; together they created a fusion cuisine whose like would become popular centuries later in the New World–a land yet unknown except to the natives, and some Norsemen who weren’t sharing their secrets with anyone.

Tom, however, fascinated not just the captain, but the entire ship. With some small assistance from the Second Mate, Tom (who could already speak Raven) soon learned how to converse with the locals himself.

Upon learning that Tom considered himself something of a brawler, the Captain proposed a match between Tom and one of the members of the local rat population. After Tom handily won the bout, the Captain had made for him a sword and warriors outfit, and allowed Tom–from a safe height–to train with his warriors.

Soon, news of Tom’s exploits moved up the coast, and the Captain took to the seas again, this time to display Tom to the local Magistrates and then Provincial Governors. Eventually, Tom’s fame spread even across the sea, and they received a request to visit the Emperor of Japan.

Tom’s performance so delighted the Emperor, he invited Tom to stay with him for several months, and eventually gave him the title for which he became famous throughout Japan: Tom Thumb, Bonsai Warrior.

Confused? See here.

Thanks to John the Scientist for the inspiration.

As much as Manchin isn’t my favorite state politician, I appreciate his statement regarding the scandal and the resolution.

I am not in a position to make a recommendation to them in this instance even if I wanted to because, regardless of what it might be, it would not be viewed as being made objectively – and I absolutely understand and accept that.

I don’t think he was involved in the scandal, although I do believe that the fact he is governor strongly influenced Garrison’s decision making.