Math’s Eagle Honor Court was very nice. The ceremony was great, and I had a great time after, talking with people. It’s always good to spend time with my grandmother, and to be honest, my family is a lot of fun, although they always make me feel rather boring in comparison. And I got to talk with Ben a bit more, which was nice, although I wish our visit could have been a little longer.

I also discovered that Math is definitely taller than me. By a lot. Which means that the only people I’m taller than now are Grandmom (who has lost height as she’s gotten older) and Liz (who is not yet 15). I’m pretty sure that I’m going to end up the shortest person in the family, which doesn’t seem quite fair.

Guess I got more than my fair share of my great-grandmother’s genes. Despite being the shortest person in my class throughout elementary school (and Jr High for that matter), I was taller than my great-grandmother by fourth grade.

So I get to look forward to always being the shortest person in a family of small giants. Oddly enough, my brother, clocking in a 6’5″, is the tallest in the group, which means that unless Liz has stopped growing, we would bookend the family if we were to line up by height.

The only bad part of the whole trip was spending an extended period of time in the car with my mother. Let’s just say that it’s amazing how things can regresss a decade or two when you’re not paying attention.

According to the radio, as of today, 5 March 2005, 1500 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq.

Baltimore Sun Digital memorial. View names by name, state, and in chronological order.

Digital Memorial for those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Assuming the weather stays clear, will be travelling to Baltimore/VA for Math’s Eagle Court of Honor today. He’s the alst Eagle Scout the family will have for awhile, as after him, only Liz will be left in high school, and for obvious reasons, she won’t become an Eagle Scout.

Michael forgot to request off pager duty, so he has to remain home and study.

At this.

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

I’m not going to comment on this, only link to it and let you read for yourself.

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.

Still working on the site. I’ve pretty much finished the “Books” section.

Obvious the main page is Movable Type, but all the categories (listed on the right side of the main page) I’ve redone. Nothing exciting as far as design goes, but I did get the text formatting exactly how I wanted it, with only a minimum of hair loss.

I’ve also updated some of the more geeky pages.

ADDENDUM the First: The book page really needs an image or something, doesn’t it?
ADDENDUM the Second: Morgantown Things that Are No More has been modified as has the rest of the Misc stuff
ADDENDUM the Third: I admit it. I’m rather pleased with the bullet for the Townies page.

I seem to have come down with a cold. (Not a surprise, considering where I work.)

I’m going home soon to curl up on the sofa with hot tea and a good book. So don’t be expecting anything profound until my head clears.

Freedom & Necessity (1997) Steven Brust and Emma Bull

Delving back into Brust section of my bookshelves, I came back with Freedom and Necessity, a book that I remember as complicated, although good. And since I remembered nothing of the plot, I figured it was a good candidate for re-reading.

I have to admit that as much as I like this novel, reading it makes me feel stupid.

Read more about Freedom & Necessity

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.

In my on-going effort to learn more about CSS, I’ve redesigned the main page of my site.

I’ll probably be redesigning other pages in the site over the next several weeks, but you have to start somewhere.

…All the Other Rats are Doing It

Quiz Time!

Interesting that I’m as likely to become Republican as I am Nazi.
(more…)

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.

First, science is fun.
Second, because of places like this.