just a moment

jumping ship

2007-01-03T12:56:00.001-05:00

The new website is now up and running, so I'll be abandoning my Blogger address.

When I get the blog software working on the new site, I will probably transfer this blog over there.

something new

2007-01-01T13:23:00.000-05:00

It's been a nice Christmas break. For my birthday, Mike and his other family members surprised me with an iPod Nano, which is really tiny and weighs approximately 0.000000001% of the ancient MP3 player I had before. We had a good time with family, too. This was probably the last Christmas for a while during which it will be easy for us to travel, so we saw as many people as we could. By far the coolest gift we got was a pair of table lamps designed and handmade by my brother for his summer design class at Virginia Tech. They're the first gift I've ever gotten that also fulfilled a class assignment. At Mike's family celebration, Nathan and Grace demonstrated their new piano skills with a duet.

So far Mike and Helen have spent the entirety of 2007 playing MarioKart on our new Gamecube.

We have officially reached the midpoint of the pregnancy (20 weeks), and we should find out tomorrow if the baby is a boy or girl! Now I have to stop putting off all the planning and stuff-buying and start getting ready for this child. In the past few days, Mike has been helping me get up to speed on new (as in newer than my 1997-era) HTML and CSS conventions, so I'm almost done with the new website. With that, finishing the music I'm working on, keeping up with my German, getting involved in our new church, and preparing for Baby, I don't know how I'm going to have time to work in the next 4 1/2 months. Suddenly my very boring life has become very busy.

unto us a child will be born

2006-12-22T14:28:00.000-05:00

Today is 19 weeks for Baby and 1,404 weeks for me! Mike left a mysteriously small and compact birthday/Christmas gift wrapped for me under the tree. I have no idea what it is, the tantalizingly coy thing.

Since I have now administered my last exam for the fall semester, and since I don't want to start grading them until after the holidays, I have put aside my books and devoted myself to becoming an über-housewife. Our house has needed a serious cleaning for a while now, so I've sneezed my way through the past few days dusting and organizing closets. I have also spectacularly botched some Christmas baking. (That pumpkin bread recipe called for two cups of pumpkin puree, not two cans.) C'est la vie -- the holidays, for us, are about eating food that other people have cooked.

It's pretty amazing to think that I'm almost halfway through this pregnancy. The second trimester has so far been the easy part. I don't feel sick anymore, and as long as I'm up and moving around most of the day, my legs don't hurt from circulation problems. (That's also behind my cleaning frenzy -- it keeps me off the couch.) The only problem is sleeping; one is supposed to sleep on the left side during pregnancy in order not to restrict blood flow to the baby, but I find that position most untenable. I end up tossing and turning most of the night. But Baby still seems to be happy and kicking. Since the discomfort has been minimal lately, we've been able to be more excited about how soon we'll have a child!

under a lucky star

2006-12-18T20:49:00.000-05:00

This weekend we went to Mike's office Christmas party at Rose Hill Manor in Leesburg. The company throws very nice Christmas parties. The food was good, of course, but the real star of the evening was the chocolate fountain. I had never tried dipping blackberries in milk chocolate before, but trust me that they're heavenly.

For the second year in a row the company had arranged a casino night. I re-learned how to play craps (which has convinced me even more solidly never to spend a penny of real money on casino games, but which is a lot of fun when there's nothing real at stake). Mike's colleagues are all computer geeks and mathematicians, particularly statisticians, and many have PhDs. Imagine trying to play poker or blackjack against four other people who can calculate in their heads the exact odds for every move and, in some cases, count cards. That's why I played craps.

I feel like I'm finally getting to know some of the guys our age that work with Mike and their wives and girlfriends. So when we go to the parties, there's a group of fun, interesting, and very intelligent people to hang out with. Plus we have won the gift-basket centerpiece every year we've gone, which means that we come home with lots of yummy things and a couple new bottles of wine.

Coincidence of the Day: I had a dentist's appointment this morning, and while I was getting my teeth cleaned, I heard a jackhammer pounding away. It wasn't some unlucky person getting a filling -- it was a construction crew right outside. But what a way to make people in the waiting room sweat!

if only it were this easy

2006-12-15T11:03:00.000-05:00

Since grading essays is the thing that I dislike the most about being a literature teacher, I greatly appreciated this blog entry from yesterday.

that music used to make me smile

2006-12-14T21:47:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is 18 weeks for Baby, and this evening I learned something new about him/her. I was driving out to run an errand tonight and had the song "American Pie" playing on my MP3 player. I was singing along, and Baby was kicking like crazy. Evidently our child is a Don McLean fan.

I'm almost done with Christmas shopping -- only one gift left to buy!

life lessons

2006-12-06T21:21:00.000-05:00

I learned the following things today:

1. Ritz Camera sells my preferred brand of black-and-white film at $1.50 less than does the pro shop I normally use.

2. I love shopping for Christmas gifts online.

3. Atlanta Bread has a truly fabulous chicken salad sandwich.

4.It's hard to tell whether baby kicks are just muscle spasms, but I think our little one is happy in there.

5. Christmas trees are worth the decorating effort. I took the picture with our digital camera set on a 13-second exposure and no flash. (It's completely unedited, though I did scale it to a manageable size.) Click on the thumbnail to see the real thing.

6. The Eastern world has a whole history that we never learned about in school. I'm reading a book on the geography of religion and realizing that half of world history is completely new to me. I'm currently fascinated with the history of India and southeast Asia.

7. My husband doesn't like all the same foods that I do. I made butternut squash soup for the first time (trying to find creative ways to sneak yucky but healthy vegetables into our diet), and my conclusion was that it looked, tasted, and felt like baby food, but he thinks it's pretty good. Oh well -- at least someone will eat it.

I'm currently working on designing my personal website (there's nothing there right now) so that, as the baby's arrival approaches, I can keep people up to date on things while still retaining control of the photos on my normal server, not Blogger's. Whenever I get things ready, I'll move this blog over there and post a link.

an update on baby

2006-11-29T17:09:00.000-05:00

I had an appointment with my OB today at 15 1/2 weeks. All is well! Baby's heartbeat is strong and I seem to be gaining weight at the appropriate pace. My next appointment will be after the New Year, and that one will be the 20-week sonogram. I'll post a picture if I can find a decent scanner.

wedded bliss

2006-11-27T12:30:00.000-05:00

So Sondra and Eric are married! We had a great time at their wedding, especially with the very funny multiple-choice test they handed out at the reception. Below I have posted some pictures. Unfortunately, I unwittingly had the digital camera on the wrong setting (it's that pregnancy shrinking-brain thing again), so the flash didn't go off indoors, and nearly all of the pictures I have that actually include Sondra and Eric are blurry. If anyone has other copies and would be willing to send them to me, I would be grateful!

We had to get a picture with all of the 1709 JPA girls (plus Petra, who is an honorary 1709 resident).

The husbands occupy themselves acting like real men while the girls catch up.

A few more pictures. Somehow the pictures I take of Amy and Dave always turn out well. You two must be very photogenic!

And this is one of the blurry Sondra-and-Eric ones, so I played with it.

Congratulations to the new Williamses! May God bless you and give you a long and happy life together!

Indian summer

2006-11-11T21:50:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was a busy day. I went downtown with Mike's parents and Lucy, mainly to go to the National Geographic Warehouse Sale at the DC Armory. I was excited to go because I had gone last year after hearing about the sale almost by accident, and it turned out to be a gold mine for teachers. I got a bunch of books for the classroom and some gorgeous school-quality atlases for between 50 and 70 percent off. This year it wasn't such a treasure trove for me -- they had a lot of the same types of books as last year -- but I was able to find a pile of children's books for my mom's classroom. I also got myself a book on American history with great pictures and a book on the geography of world religions.

The only bad part was that security at the Armory (which is basically a big run-down gymnasium) made us pour out all our liquids before entering. Ostensibly this was for our protection. However, no one in his right mind would ever want to blow up the Armory, unless the place were actually scheduled for demolition (which, from the look of the building, could happen any day). The real reason for the "security" was because the group that runs the Armory had set up a concession stand inside and was charging $4.00 per 20-ounce bottle of soda. The water fountains inside were mysteriously "out of order."

The day was unseasonably warm -- 75 degrees and sunny -- so we decided not to go right home. Instead, we went to the National Museum of the American Indian to eat lunch. It turns out the museum has a truly wonderful cafeteria. Instead of being just a traditional lunch-type cafeteria, it is divided into six or seven sections based on regions of the Americas. Each section serves native dishes and other food created with only native ingredients. I spent half the time just deciding what to eat -- I could get salmon at the Pacific Northwest station or turkey in Woodlands or totopos in the Mesoamericas. I finally decided on the totopos because it was pretty mild (I'm still having difficulty stomaching highly seasoned food!), and I was quite pleased. Now I just want to go back and try some other stuff.

After lunch we spent about an hour actually visiting the museum. Seeing the building was the best part: I've never been so affected by the architecture of a museum more than its contents. I was somewhat disappointed with how little the museum actually has in terms of exhibits, but my view could be skewed: we never made it to the fourth floor, where the exhibits that would have most interested me (American Indian cosmology and history) were. It was getting late, so we had to go home.

It's a good thing we left when we did: the new Marine Corps Museum was opening in Quantico, and all the HOV lanes on I-395 were closed for the "dignitaries" to use for a procession. Traffic was horrendous, in spite of the fact that it was a federal holiday. If we had waited until actual rush hour, we'd still be there. We inched back to Mike's parents' house for an hour and a half.

That evening, after Mike finished work, we went to see Stranger Than Fiction. In general, I enjoyed the movie. However, I think the NY Times review states my opinion more succinctly than I could: it's a clever movie that, in general, is quite well done, but it lacks tightness. I do like how it poses questions about the real worth of artistic integrity and the relationship between an author and her creations.

13 weeks, 1 day so far!

Lost is losing me

2006-11-08T23:14:00.000-05:00

Aside from their bone-headed idea to take a 13-week hiatus right when the show's status with its fans is shaky, Lost's official decision-makers have entirely lost control of their story. The last six episodes, which total somewhere around four and a half hours of air time (not counting commercials) have probably only had about 30 minutes of actual forward plot movement. I'm not talking about action scenes or anything -- I mean relevant story development. It's as if Lindelof and Abrams really only made a two-hour movie and are trying to stretch it across three seasons.

The reason I liked the show so much from the beginning was the characters. The ensemble cast was well balanced and well cast, and the characters had a lot of potential for development. But now the writers seem more interested in killing them off mysteriously rather than taking the time and energy to develop them. It's the lazy way to write: just introduce a new mystery or character so we don't have to think deeply about exploring the ones we've already got.

So I'll watch the first episode that airs in February. If Sawyer dies, I'm gone. I don't have any great attachment to Sawyer; it's just that killing Sawyer would prove to me that the writers are haphazard and sloppy, and that they really have no focus or purpose to their story-telling other than sustaining suspense. As killing Eko hobbled a major thematic leg of the story, killing Sawyer would not fulfill or serve any thematic purpose. It would just provide an empty shot of adrenaline.

a good excuse

2006-11-07T21:38:00.000-05:00

I know, I know -- I haven't posted anything on here in ages. If anybody even reads this, they've probably stopped by now. But I've had a good reason:

We are going to have a baby!

I have been sick and miserable for the past 8 or 9 weeks, and, honestly, blogging about it is not very high on my priority list. And since I haven't really gone anywhere or done anything but teach, there hasn't been anything to talk about.

But now there is! The baby is due sometime between May 18 and 23 of next year.

That's all for now -- more to come when there's something to report!

our attempt at nature

2006-10-10T16:44:00.000-05:00

All the rain this weekend brought out the turtles that live in the fake-lake in the subdivision behind us. There's a male box turtle in our backyard who's been hanging out since Sunday. During the summer a male-female pair of turtles spent a week or so around, and I wanted to keep them nearby as pets, so I did some reading on taking care of turtles. It turns out that box turtles need an elaborate apparatus inside to be sufficiently cared for, including temperature differentials and full-spectrum lighting. That's more than I have space or time for. Moreover, I learned that box turtles can live 50-100 years in the wild, but once they're brought inside, their life-expectancy drops to 2 years. I realized that I couldn't deprive these nice amphibians of 98 years of their lives, so back outside they went. Last time I went by the fake-lake, I saw some baby turtles swimming, so maybe they succeeded in reproducing. The one I saw earlier today is still out back. He's not the same male that was here this summer -- he's smaller -- but I think he's a male because he has red eyes.

Having grown up in rural Virginia, I get inordinately excited when I see any wildlife in the soulless suburbs here. I was always one who liked being up to my knees in a creek searching for salamanders. Mike and I still go back to Sugar Hollow in the summer just to play in the water. I'm envious of people who get to live in places like that all the time. Around here, I occasionally see a great blue heron, and there's a family of Eastern bluebirds that comes by every spring. We also have spotted hawks, which is great because that means that we don't have squirrels, the rats of the suburbs. Squirrels practically run UVa -- I remember being scared nearly to death once as I walked to Gooch-Dillard and one jumped out of a trash can at me. Ah, the memories.

reading list countdown

2006-10-05T15:16:00.000-05:00

Around last January I went through a spate of buying a bunch of used and new books, and I found that, unfortunately, my eyes were bigger than my available reading time. So I piled the books in the family room and vowed not to buy any new ones until I had gotten all the way through the pile. Back in the spring there were maybe twenty books there. Now I'm within sight of the end! If I can just get these read (in addition to school reading) by Christmas, I'll be able to use the gift certificates I'm sure I'll end up with as presents.

Here's what's left in the pile:
Swimming Lessons, by Rohinton Mistry (just started)
Selected Stories, by Alice Munro (I'm halfway through)
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard
The Double, by Jose Saramago
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, by Tom Stoppard
Arcadia, by Tom Stoppard (already read this, but I like it so I'm reading it again)
Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, by Edward Albee
Look Homeward, Angel, by Thomas Wolfe
The Unfolding of Language, by Guy Deutscher
Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World, by Nicholas Ostler

the hapless gourmet

2006-10-01T19:37:00.000-05:00

Last night I tried to make cheese enchiladas for dinner. I've made them many times before, but I don't know where my brain was this time. First I forgot to buy cilantro for the filling, then I got the wrong-size tortillas. For some reason the cheese mixture for the filling didn't stretch as far as I expected it would (I still haven't figured that one out), so I ended up with fewer enchiladas than I expected. I accidentally used the wrong shaped pan to dip the tortillas, so tomato sauce got all over the kitchen counter. Then I baked them for the time the recipe required, but the bigger tortillas must have insulated the filling more than I expected, so they were underdone when I took them out. But that wasn't all -- I had also forgotten to spread sauce on the bottom of the baking dish before putting in the enchiladas, so the tortillas stuck to the dish and unrolled when I tried to lift them on to a plate.

They actually tasted great.

Since I left college, I've become a fairly competent cook. I like most of the things I make, and I have been able to leave behind boxed mixes and pre-packaged food. I'm especially picky about fruits and vegetables -- I love them fresh, but I'm not a fan of them frozen or canned (unless they're in some kind of casserole or something). There's one processed food that I just can't leave behind, however: Velveeta. I know that it's not cheese. I know it bears almost no resemblance to any dairy product at all. But this morning, even though it meant we were late to church, Mike got up and made me two scrambled eggs with Velveeta slices melted over them. It was the best breakfast ever.

Them's some good eats.

cha-ching

2006-09-29T15:50:00.000-05:00

I know I've been neglectful about posting lately. There just hasn't been all that much to talk about. The truth is that we actually live a very boring life.

I did hear this report on NPR's "All Things Considered" yesterday. I don't think there's really anything technically wrong with what the people in the story are doing, but somehow it still leaves me a little uncomfortable. Maybe it's the fact that the words "business," "profitable," and "capital campaign" are used in the same report as "pastor" and "church."

daily detritus

2006-09-19T21:25:00.000-05:00

I have a few minutes before Futurama, so I thought I'd post a little something.

We just got back from a trip to Borders, where I got a chai latte and Mike got two books. It's nice to go to Borders at night, when it's quiet and there are chairs available to sit in. When we first moved here, we lived in a little hobbit-hole basement-level one-bedroom apartment about two blocks or so away, so we came several evenings a week just to get some ambience.

Now that I've gotten most of our photos hung, our living room is getting cozier, however, so I'm feeling more desire to sit in there and read. I hung three photos from our trip to Niagara Falls and one from Pawleys Island. (I would post them, but they're film prints, and our scanner is crummy.) The best one (that is, the one I didn't take), though, is one we bought as an anniversary gift to ourselves from Chromasia. David Nightingale, the photographer, is a (semi-?) professional in Blackpool, England, and he does some stunning work. I heard about him through the webvine (grapeweb?).

And boo hiss to the folks at Adobe, who have seen fit to release Flash versions 7 and (reportedly) 9 for Linux, but not Flash version 8. Now I can't view a whole bunch of websites that have just upgraded to 8. And it screws up my Mega Sudoku games.

update: 8/16/06 post

2006-09-18T09:43:00.000-05:00

In reference to the earlier post about Ali Soufan, I have found that, although the original article is not posted on the New Yorker website, the author, Lawrence Wright, has posted a PDF version from his own site. The article is called "The Agent: Did the CIA stop an FBI detective from preventing 9/11?"

denial is a development in Idaho

2006-09-15T11:55:00.000-05:00

Since the cold, cruel world of the twenty-first century is apparently too much for some, now there is a wonderful opportunity to escape reality and live in a nostalgic world that never existed! For only several millions of dollars, you can purchase a fantasy in the Gates of Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, a community of custom luxury homes built to replicate the gushing sentimentality of Thomas Kincaid, "Painter of Light." And to those who don't want to be so far away from Tiny Tim back East -- God Bless Them, Every One!© -- never fear; the Gates at Old Hawthorne in Columbia, MO, is not far behind.

Since all of your problems will be solved, you can turn your attention to other matters, such as feeding starving orphans and rescuing abandoned puppies, growing rainbows in your garden and training butterflies to sing.

The only drawback is that, since Thomas Kincaid is currently in a spot of trouble (such a vicious smear campaign!), he probably won't actually be designing the houses. Real architects will.

(This post is for Josh King, who would not be surprised that Kincaid is allegedly not even painting his own work anymore. I threatened to give him a Thomas Kincaid painting as a wedding gift, and he said that he would hang it in the bathroom.)

such idealists

2006-09-14T13:52:00.000-05:00

Looks like UVA is in the news again. This time it's not students camping out on Carr's Hill to protest wage caps, but a Cavalier Daily student cartoonist who has drawn controversial religious cartoons. Of course, this will now become a huge debate over the meaning of free speech. (See the cartoons below.)

I don't really care for the cartoons, but I also don't care that they're in the paper. You know why? Cav Daily cartoons are universally terrible. I read the newspaper every weekday for five years and not a single one ever made me laugh. The cartoons can be as controversial as they want -- I'm not sure anyone will even read them. Folks, if you're gonna have a big argument about free speech, at least make it over something worth all the hoopla.

Today's Winning Turn of Phrase: "Yeah -- Milton uses enough allusions to choke a horse." (One of my students, upon plowing through the first two books of Paradise Lost)

babel and the barbaric yawp

2006-09-13T18:21:00.000-05:00

Most literature teachers in middle and high school don't spend time re-reading the books that they teach (they only read books they haven't read before). Instead they just research them or follow general lesson plans. But I am fortunate enough to have such advanced students -- or unfortunate enough to have a memory like a sieve -- that I have to re-read the books in order to contribute to and lead a meaningful discussion of them in class. So every year I get to revisit the same works, and each time I see them differently and learn something more about them. Even if I could get by without re-reading and reading criticism, I find that the extra investment pays off. I'm a better teacher for it, and I get to admire again why the books are considered well crafted works of literature.

I just finished Beowulf again. I've always been drawn to the raw beauty of Old English and the Anglo-Saxon worldview (particularly as illuminated by the latest Seamus Heaney translation). What an evocative, resonant phrase is hron-rade, the whale-road, for the sea! But this time I understood the final episode of Beowulf's fight with the dragon. It's not just that he's playing his role as an epic hero, or that he's giving in to an eventually fatal desire for glory; Beowulf is facing Death itself, a force that will always be reawakened by humanity's faults, that no hero can destroy. But he has to try. His stand against the dragon is an expression of his own anger that Death comes for all in the end. The fight may be futile in the long run, but in a world where life is short, violent, and harsh, where the light of human community can carve out only a small circle in the darkness, and where Death stalks even kings and heroes, all someone can do is stand and shout in defiance. Beowulf and Grendel are really not all that different.

It also happens that the time of year that I read Beowulf in Old English is the same time that I am reviewing Latin in order to teach that, too. The past two years have been particularly bewildering, because I have been trying to study German in the fall. On top of that, we have a bunch of family dinners with Mike's family, where half the family speaks Hungarian (of which I can pick up a few words and phrases), and others speak Spanish (of which I know a little but can pronounce fairly well). And this year I'm reviewing some ancient Greek terms so that I can contribute a little more depth to our study of The Odyssey. Concurrently, I've been reading a language history of the world, and I'm at the part where the book discusses ancient Semitic languages of the Middle East. Sometimes when my Latin students ask me a simple question in class (like "What's the word for 'very'?"), I honestly can't figure out whether to say verum, sehr, nagyon, or muy. More ironically, I am completely unable to speak a language fluently other than English. What's that about Jacks-of-all-languages? Oh right -- they become language teachers.

So for amusement's sake, here's what I would look like if I were a cartoon. (They can't spell, but the site is amusing when you need a brain break from work: Make Your Own Simpsons Charactor [sic].)

ein Abendessen mit neuen Freunden

2006-09-09T20:54:00.000-05:00

We just got back from a really good dinner with some friends from our neighborhood. We met them this summer at the pool because one of them, Karin, was talking to her son in German, and I decided to introduce myself. Finally, all that small-talk vocabulary I learned last fall could be put to good use. It turns out that Karin and her husband, Dirk, were a few years older than we are and had only lived in the U.S. for a few months. Tonight we went over to their house and had dinner while hashing through conversation in fragments of three languages (German, English, and Russian). Fortunately Dirk is all but fluent in English, so we managed to have fun and make ourselves understood. We even watched clips of Die Simpsons (auf Deutsch). As we left, Dirk and Karin loaded me down with their son's second-grade German reading books so I can keep teaching myself.

Dirk and Karin told us about growing up on opposite sides of the Berlin Wall and witnessing reunification. They said that people in Berlin seem, to them, more rushed, more frantic than people here. I was surprised to hear that because most people say that the Washington, D.C., metro area is one of the most frantic, success-driven parts of the country. Dirk talked about how he was accustomed to driving on the Autobahn at 140 kilometers per hour, but how he thinks that Germans have fewer "crazy accidents" than Americans. If you're driving 140 km/hr., he said, you're looking straight ahead with your attention wholly on traffic; you don't dare fool with the radio or your cell phone. Here, he said, Americans have a sense that they're safe enough driving to do two or three other things at once.

When we asked them what their thoughts were on America as compared to Germany, they both concluded that they liked it here and would be glad to stay for a while, and that they really couldn't call one experience better than the other -- just different. According to them, if Americans could only recognize -- as northern Europeans have -- the wonders of the public sauna, they might just stay forever.

ups and downs

2006-09-06T17:26:00.000-05:00

Lately I've been feverishly watching gas prices the way speculators watch the housing market. I think that maybe if I can just hold off till tomorrow, the price will drop another penny a gallon. Sometimes I win that gamble; sometimes I lose.

Not to be eclipsed by the recent unveiling (ain't she a Thetan doll!), lots of stuff has been going on around here.

- Our church has finally closed its doors. Though the four families left at the end cared deeply for each other and for the church as a body, we couldn't support a full-time pastor for just a house-church. It was sad to officially say goodbye, but we probably won't lose track of each other -- we'll be checking out churches together, and maybe we'll end up in the same place!

- We recently got to see Sondra and Eric! We had lunch in Fairfax, and they told us about what things were like working in Muslim countries, in the Middle East and West Africa, respectively. I have always admired Sondra a great deal, and I'm happy that they won't be too far away. (Well, Baltimore is a lot closer than the Arabian Peninsula, at least.) We took these pictures by balancing the camera on top of a trash can and a pile of trays, so they're not exactly my best work, but they do the job.

- I got a new laptop. It's a Dell Latitude D820 all spiffied up with stuff that Mike put on it, and it's a measure of how I've changed since marriage that I actually asked for a Linux operating system (I'm running the Ubuntu whatever-it-is). Now I am a fully certified member of Mike's family: I can sit in front of a movie or tv show on IMDB calling out random facts about the actors.

- And the rabbit with whom I ratified a live-and-let-live treaty is once again eating me out of yard and garden. So much for diplomacy; time for harsher sanctions. (And to all those cynics out there, anthropomorphization schmanthropomorphization.)

crisis in britain!

2006-09-02T10:58:00.000-05:00

Fortunately, the problem has been rectified. I thought about just posting the Reuters article, but this blogger has a very nice take on the situation.

The Hedgehog Apocalypse, Averted for Now

It helps that hedgehogs are cute and fluffy. If this were the Slime Creature from the Black Swamp, do you think anyone would care?

stop the presses

2006-08-31T17:18:00.000-05:00

I was just killing time playing my hand-held Yahtzee game, and I got four yahtzees in a row. I scored 627, blowing away my old high score by 100 points.

Thank you, thank you.

Also, since August is almost over, I shouldn't forget this: Happy Belated Birthday to my dad, my brother, and Uncle Steve! (I was unable to post on their actual birthdays.)

But the big news is that our house renovation is nearly complete. We've been working on the weekends for the past three weeks. (Well, I did the painting, puttying, and spackling. My dad and Mike did all the rest.) We only have a few touch-ups to do now. Click on the pictures to see our progress.

First, we tore out the existing half-wall that separated the living room and two-story foyer.

Then, we laid the subfloor.

Mike wired an outlet and cable/ethernet jack. Yummy wires.

We dropped part of the new ceiling downstairs and drywalled everything. My dad put in moulding and finished the ceiling.

After my dad and I replaced the baseboard and painted everything, we had a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

thank you! come again!

2006-08-28T15:43:00.000-05:00

In honor of the recent Emmys (yay "The Office"!), I have decided to post the Shoppies, my completely unscientific and opinion-based award list for the best and worst customer service experiences in western Northern Virginia. Feel free to weigh in. This is just what I came up with in the car on the way home from errand-running.

First, the good stuff:
The You're Awesome! Award goes to Wegman's grocery store, for being the most wonderful grocery store ever. Not only are the prices competitive, but the shelves are also always stocked, the cashiers are friendly, and the selection is vast. On top of that, the guys at the seafood counter are so nice that they taught me not to be afraid of buying fish!

The Grape Soda Award goes to the Main Street Bagel Deli in downtown Fairfax, whose friendly manager and yummy lox spread keep me coming back. They also have the grape soda I really like. It reminds me of childhood.

Now, the rest:
The Congenial or Creepy? Award goes to Atlanta Bread at Dulles Town Center for the young cashier who was either just being charming or trying to hit on me.

The Gotcha! Award goes to Linens 'N' Things in Cascades for unfailingly failing to match the label on a package with what comes out of it.

The Moroni(c) Award goes to Home Depot in Ashburn, where, when faced with a tricky problem that they evidently did not understand, the sales associates politely repeated to us over and over the last thing they had said, just as the Mormon missionaries who talked with us once did.

The Garden Nazi Award goes to Williams Nursery in Sterling for selling outstanding plants but scaring me into avoiding the employees.

And, last but definitely the worst, the Abject Squalor Award goes to the Sterling Wal-mart for the all-around most dismal shopping experiences of my life, from the cart- and trash-littered parking lot to the incompetent cashiers and everything (I mean everything) in between. Too many times have I been burned; now I would drive to Target if it were twenty miles away.

wedding bells are in the air

2006-08-23T17:46:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to Mary Kim and Sondra, the latest of my roommates/best friends/confidantes/honorary sisters to get engaged! And belated congratulations to Sarah Chang, who, I just found out, is getting married in a couple weeks. All three guys are lucky to have such amazing, admirable women.

It looks like Mike and I have hit the Second Wave: that rush of weddings of late-twenty-something friends. The First Wave came right after college, when there were sometimes up to eight weddings a summer. That's a lot of "Copacabana."

I also found the pictures I took at Colin and Bethany's wedding with Matt Pritchard's camera. You can view them at Matt's Facebook site. That was July 2005, but I'm still waiting for Matt to e-mail them to me.

back to school -- but where?

2006-08-22T19:14:00.000-05:00

Today was my first day of classes, and things got off to a good start. I'm really excited about the material and students I'm teaching this year.

Apropos, the Washington Monthly, a magazine that I don't regularly read, has an article about how well colleges actually teach students: Is Our Students Learning? The author asserts that, due to universities' fear of damaging their reputations, data on how colleges ensure student achievement are withheld from public view. It's no secret that higher education is really an industry, and like any industry, is interested in promoting and perpetuating itself by gaining customers (students). But colleges are also mired in hundreds of years of tradition (some of it venerable, some of it musty), and part of that tradition has been the ivory tower, a sense of disconnection from the masses. Moreover, most people inside academia -- though I'm sure there are exceptions -- would admit that few universities are more concerned about how their professors teach than about the research their faculty do and the professional notoriety they achieve. So while rankings like Newsweek's top high schools are commonly based on (arguably) objective achievement data, rankings for colleges are based more on secondary indicators like alumni giving, average SAT score, and so on (see the current edition of US News and World Report).

How many professors do you know who have ever taken a course in pedagogy? How many professors have you had who were brilliant but unapologetically terrible teachers? I can think of several from UVa, like the one who told us on the first day of class that he was far more interested in his work on Piers Plowman than what we learned in class. I am even aware of some who consider it a badge of honor to throw obstacles in the path of their students' learning, which they think dissuades the uncommitted. (Some of the intro physics and organic chemistry classes were like that -- where the tests were so disconnected from the material taught that students with curved A's scored 15 percent correct. How would you like to know that an engineer could only build 15 percent of a bridge?) Investing time and energy into instruction can actually impede professors who seek tenure because it takes time away from new research. Yet parents who cry foul when asked to pay incrementally more in taxes to support their qualified, accountable public grade-school teachers rush to be the first to write the enormous check to Harvard or Yale based on hearsay-reputation.

The snag in all this is that it's not enough just to give college students standardized tests, too. The standardized tests that public grade-school students take are dismally unreflective of actual learning and put a chokehold on teachers, so just replicating the system for colleges would be doomed from the start. Faculty retention is not based on student performance anyway (and I'm not arguing that it should be), so what motivation are test scores for better teaching?

The truth is that learning is not easily quantifiable. I know that statement is often tossed out as a flimsy excuse for poor teaching, but I'm saying it, and I'm not a poor teacher. I work tirelessly to make sure my students achieve, and I see results. But I can't control every factor pertinent to that achievement. It's hard to compare the quality of my teaching to that of a teacher down the hall because we're different people with different students. Quality can be measured in broad strokes, but fine differences are often misleading or hard to pin down. The same thing is true with respect to high schools and colleges. I don't think that all comparisons should be done away with, but that they should be multifaceted, and parents and students should view them with a large, healthy dose of skepticism. Sure, Jefferson is a great school. But, at least in Loudoun, a child will not be eternally damaged or knocked off track by going to the local high school. Princeton, in the USNWR rankings, is at the top of its class, but I know a lot of successful and happy adults who went to Virginia Tech instead.

Does it matter where a kid goes to school? Of course. But does it matter if a kid doesn't go to Harvard? No. There are good teachers -- maybe even better ones -- all over the place.

how do they have time for this?

2006-08-18T10:50:00.000-05:00

The Daily Shave: A guy named Brian talks about stuff every morning while he shaves.

Ask a Ninja: This guy does vidcasts in a Homestar Runner vein, and he's pretty funny. The site is ad-heavy, though.

And for good measure, William Shatner's interpretation of "Rocketman." What I can't believe is that the audience is not laughing. I laughed so hard I was practically falling out of my chair.

inconceivable

2006-08-16T19:52:00.000-05:00

I got behind on my magazine-reading this summer, and now I'm swamped. It seems like I can hardly finish one before two more arrive in the mail -- and I don't have that many subscriptions.

I'm still trying to digest an article in the July 10&17 issue of the New Yorker, called "The Agent: How 9/11 Might Have Been Prevented." (I would post a link, but the article wasn't featured online. Instead, you can read a Q&A with the author, Lawrence Wright.) The article discussed the work of Ali Soufan, perhaps the most effective Al Qaeda intelligence-gatherer in the FBI, and how his ability to avert the tragedy of September 11 was thwarted by the FBI and CIA's turf wars. I had seen articles about such things in the newspaper in the past couple of years, but none of them had laid out the issue in such stark detail. Though I'm sure there are a lot of factors behind the events that coalesced into September 11, it's shocking how much the American government could have done that it didn't. Much of that negligence can be attributed to the fact that, before 9/11, the American public just didn't believe that they were really threatened by terrorist plots. Government time, money, and attention go to issues that the public considers important (or that are highly visible to the public), and I think that pre-9/11 America just felt a little too safe. Of course, that's no excuse for the intelligence agencies to impede their own work with clannish pride, but it explains the inattention that allowed that pride to grow into a real obstacle.

The article also emphasizes the importance of interrogators who know the cultures of the people they interrogate. This is what made Ali Soufan so effective without resorting to torture for dubious results. When Soufan interrogated Abu Jandal, a Yemeni emir with Al Qaeda ties, right after September 11, Soufan recognized that Abu Jandal would have to justify the destruction of the World Trade Center and huge loss of life within his understanding of Islam. Reading the passage below revealed the first concrete glimpse I've had that even Muslim jihadis don't necessarily want to carry out the widespread murder that certain ultra-radicals do, and that many jihadis can't conceive that a real Muslim would commit such acts. A suicide bomber's killing a few people in a subway -- that makes a statement to the West, Abu Jandal seemed to think, but killing thousands and thousands in an act of war, especially when many Muslims are among the dead? It seems that few people really understood to what extent bin Laden and his associates would go.

Coincidentally, a local Yemeni paper was on a shelf under the coffee table. Soufan showed it to Abu Jandal. The headline read,"TWO HUNDRED YEMENI SOULS PERISH IN NEW YORK ATTACK." (At the time, the death-toll estimates were in the tens of thousands.) Abu Jandal read the headline and drew a breath. "God help us," he muttered. Soufan asked what kind of Muslims would do such a thing. Abu Jandal insisted that the Israelis must have committed the attacks on New York and Washington. "The Sheikh is not that crazy," he said of bin Laden. ...

"I know for sure that the people who did this were Al Qaeda guys," said Soufan. He took seven photographs out of the book and laid them on the table.

"How do you know?" Abu Jandal asked. "Who told you?"

"You did," said Soufan. "These are the hijackers. You just identified them."

Abu Jandal turned pale. He covered his face with his hands. "Give me a moment," he pleaded. Soufan walked out of the room. When he came back, he asked Abu Jandal what he thought now. "I think the Sheikh went crazy," he said. And then he told Soufan everything he knew.

um ... do you like ... stuff?

2006-08-14T20:07:00.000-05:00

(Another gold star to whoever can identify the source of that quote.)

I collect a lot of things, like old books, coins, blue glassware, interesting looking bottles, Star Trek DVDs (told you I was a geek), and seashells. When I was younger, I was avidly involved in my coin collection; I could spend hours sorting a mountain of loose change. Somewhere along the line, however, before I crossed from dabbler to full-fledged numismatist, I ran into the central problem of modern life: someone else has done it already. The really interesting coins are already in the hands of serious collectors, who are willing to pay for them. (I'm not willing to pay very much for collector's stuff -- to me, the fun part is finding rare or valuable items in the everyday world.) The same thing is true with old glassware: people expect you to pay $15 for a three-inch-tall Civil-War-era bottle in an antique store. Well, anybody could find something rare in an expensive antique store in Middleburg. I'm more interested in finding out what my great-grandmother had in her attic. And since, in spite of the assertions of a recent Post article claiming that we're all descended from royalty, no one in my family has really ever been famous or important, we don't have many original copies of Shakespeare's plays sitting around unnoticed. That means I content myself mostly with things that I think are valuable.

I recently recovered a chair that my grandparents found at an estate sale. I think they paid about five dollars for it. It was covered with blinding red crushed velvet fabric, which, I found, hid mustard-yellow 1950's-era cloth underneath. When I got the fabric all stripped off, the frame of the chair was hardly worth using, and the padding had disintegrated from age. But with my dad's help, I replaced the padding, bolstered the frame, and recovered the chair with new upholstery fabric, which itself cost twelve times what the chair was worth. Maybe it wasn't worth the effort and cost, but now I have a strong emotional attachment to this chair, and it matches the kitchen.

So even though I guess you'd have to have gotten here a long time ago to have anything worth money in some absolute sense, I'm happy with my collection of state quarters and my blue and yellow chair.

why I am proud to be a geek

2006-08-13T12:07:00.000-05:00

Because other geeks think of things like this.

Slashdot led me to these hilarious Star Trek inspirational posters. Visit the site to see many, many more.

oops ... silly me

2006-08-10T20:03:00.000-05:00

It turns out I'll have to rescind Jackie's gold star for being the first commenter on my blog. She was actually the fourth -- I just didn't realize that the "moderate comments" option was clicked, but I hadn't yet entered an e-mail address, so I didn't get any notification that other people had posted. The gold star actually goes to Ryan, who is really on the ball and commented on my first non-test post. A silver star goes to Helen, whose comment I thought had been eaten by cyberspace. A bronze star goes to a nice person who surfed in randomly. Jackie, unfortunately you don't get anything. But have a nice day! ;)

Right now Mike the anti-handyman is gamely helping my dad do an interior renovation to our house. We're putting in a section of floor in a space that used to be two stories tall. Mike is so good-natured -- I volunteered him for this job, and he didn't once complain about having to do it. My dad is helping because he loves me and because this kind of thing is what he's good at, but Mike is helping simply because he loves me. My job in all of this is to stand around Home Depot. (Well, actually I'll have a lot more to do when it's time to install the hardwood flooring and paint the walls; I'm just a useless weakling when it comes to heavy lifting.) All that time in FYP Tech is finally paying off.

a little local color

2006-08-07T21:31:00.000-05:00

We got back from our very nice beach vacation on Saturday night after spending twelve hours in the car. It only takes six hours to get home from Oak Island, but we needed to stop in Lynchburg to pick up a car at my parents' house, and in Burke to pick up a car from Mike's parents' house. We also got to see Garren and his friend Lindsey, who was visiting for Garren's birthday. My mom, celebrating both the fact that it was Garren's birthday and that a Coldstone Creamery has finally opened in Lynchburg, got a chocolate-chocolate-with-chocolate ice cream cake, so rich that one bite would fill you up.

The other reason it took so long to get home was that we spent forty-five minutes inching three miles toward Raleigh at 0.000001 miles per hour due to North Carolina's blithering incompetence at managing road-improvement projects. By the time we were on our way home up 29 North, our conversation had deteriorated into dumb jokes and silly noises, so I started thinking about how 29 has been the backbone of my life in Virginia. I've lived in counties all up and down the line, and I am used to marking the remaining length of a trip by how many counties are left to go. This time through, I found myself thinking about the nice little county signboards with bland, pleasant mottos like "Gateway to the Blue Ridge." I could think of way better mottos than that, ones that actually tell you something real about the county. These are the ones Mike and I came up with, in no particular order.*

Amherst County: We Still Have Native Americans.

Nelson County: Where John Boy and John Grisham Hide.

Greene County: 60 Means 60, Speedracer.

Madison County: Yeah, What Greene Said.

Albemarle County: Now You Can Speed Up.

Culpeper County: Too Far from Everywhere.

Fauquier County: Not Northern Virginia.

Loudoun County: No Thru Traffic (But Leave Your Tolls at the Border).

Fairfax County: One Million People, Six Million Cars.

Prince William County: Hey -- You Get What You Pay For.

* Disclaimer: Having lived in many of these places or knowing family or friends who do, I mean these in all fun. I'm proud to be a homegrown Virginia girl.

man vs. nature

2006-08-01T20:39:00.000-05:00

Ahh ... vacation. For the past four days, I've been relaxing (with my husband back again!!) at Oak Island, NC. Although the weather has been unseasonably hot, I've had many chances to sit on the screen porch facing the ocean and read books in the midst of the sea breeze. It's also the week that loggerhead turtles hatch on the beach, so Helen and Trisha have been going out every night to check the nests.

Mike has spent a lot of time telling us about and showing us pictures of his San Diego trip. Below are a few photos of creatures that he and his colleague encountered: a whale, dolphins, and a hammerhead shark. I know these things exist because I have learned about them and seen pictures, but it really brings it home to me that they exist in real life when I see photos like these: un-posed, unedited, and of an animal living life in its own habitat.

I have spent most of my time on the beach looking down. To begin with, that was because I took a beach walk on the very first morning we were here and promptly dropped the house key into the ocean. But after that problem was remedied (the rental company was very easygoing and just made us another one), I became a beachcomber. I found some pretty amazing stuff on our previous vacations on Pawleys Island, so I didn't expect that I would have the same kind of luck here -- since the beach faces south and has heavy surf -- but I've been pleasantly surprised to find that the variety here is in the small things. In the tide pools, Helen and I found handfuls of hermit crabs each less than an inch long. We very much enjoyed watching them crawl around in our hands and fight each other for bigger shells.

Beachcombing and sunrise photo ops are just about the only things that could ever get me out of bed at 5:45 a.m. At sunrise on Monday, I came upon the piece de resistance of all beach finds (excepting only sunken pirate treasure ships), but I can't post a picture of it yet because I'm not done cleaning it up.

Trisha and Immanuel introduced us to Thai food tonight, too, and despite my aversion to most Asian cuisine, I rather liked it. It's nice to know someone who's local, someone who can tell us which restaurants to avoid and which to try. And on top of that, the first-run movies down here are only $4.50! $4.50! (Folks down here must not have heard that there are people in the world who are willing to pay a highway-robbery nine dollars for the same thing.) We're going to see "Pirates of the Caribbean" sometime soon.

In the next few days, I might even be able to get Mike out on the beach with me! More photos to come when I can upload them.

another reason we need a cat

2006-07-28T20:46:00.000-05:00

It seems that even a now-spotlessly-clean house doesn't keep mice from getting in. That's just what I need: another rodent vendetta.

dad-gum blasted stinkin' gosh-darn ...

2006-07-27T16:57:00.000-05:00

Our lawn just got the worst cut it's ever had. Since Mike is gone, I had to do the mowing myself with our crotchety, recalcitrant mower. I haven't mowed a lawn since I was about twelve: I've always had allergies as an excuse. But now, it's up to me to get the grass cut before the HOA sticks the BAD NEIGHBORS sign up in our front yard. (Also, it's going to rain the next few days, so it was now or never.)

So I coaxed the mower out onto the sidewalk and, with a little sweet talk, got it running. It was almost too heavy for me to push, but I managed to cut the front yard and one swath of the side yard before the mower completely died. I checked the gas -- okay. I checked everything else -- nothing was wrong. I guess it just stalled on our (barely perceptible) hill.

I wheeled it back out to level ground and tried starting it again. Nothing. I turned everything off and waited a little more. Nothing. I thought, maybe I've flooded the engine. I went back inside for fifteen minutes to let things settle, then tried again. Nothing.

Now I was left with something worse than an overgrown yard -- a yard with half-cut grass and overgrown patches. (There are dead patches, too, but they don't factor into this story.) Words were exchanged, for which the words in today's subject lines are PG stand-ins, whereupon the offended lawn mower stalked back to its spot in the garage and sulked. I borrowed the neighbor's mower to finish the job.

It may look shoddy, but the grass is cut, and I can mark it off my list. Done.

In return for finishing my epic battle with the yard, I entertained myself with some videos:

Zach Braff in His "Babysitters' Club" Days

Public Service Announcements from the Cast of "The Office"

the sky is falling

2006-07-25T21:26:00.000-05:00

You know, if I listened to and believed everything Fox News told me, I'd spend my life huddled in a fetal position in a dark corner, muttering to myself. According to them, just about everything everywhere could -- and likely will -- kill you, including hotel rooms, teenagers, thunderstorms, MySpace, the DC police force, and Rhode Island. And even if those things won't kill you, they're very scary and dangerous.

The real catastrophe is that another rabbit has found my yard and started nibbling on my plants. It's a really little one I haven't seen before, so I think it's a younger sibling of the ones I caught. ::sigh:: Back to the front lines. Those things must be breeding like rabbits. (Har har.)

Three days until I see Michael again!!

growing things

2006-07-24T20:07:00.000-05:00

For Michelle's benefit, I wanted to post a list of the things we have in our front landscaping this year.

Perennials:
English boxwood
Carpathian bellflower (Campanula, "White Clips" and "Blue Clips")
Blue phlox
Aster ("Purple Dome")
Mums (something yellow)
Mini irises (purple)
Bearded iris ("Jurassic Park")
Dianthus (red)
Asiatic lilies (red and orange)
Crepe myrtle
Tulips (white, for spring)
Monarda (bee balm, "Blue Stocking")
Echinacea (purple coneflower)
Leadwort (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides)

Annuals:
Lobelia ("Blue Moon")
Nicotiana ("Havana Purple" -- I had no idea this was a tobacco plant!)
Pentas ("New Look Red," "Mars," and "Butterfly Light Lavender")
Lantana ("Lucky Yellow" and "Patriot Desert Sunset")

Can you tell I'm a big fan of brightly colored flowers? Soon, though, I think the sun is going to toast them all. I'll enjoy them while they're here.

happy berfday!

2006-07-22T21:15:00.000-05:00

Many happy returns to my sister-in-law Helen and cousin-in-law Nathan! It is reflective of this family's outlook on things that, at the joint birthday celebration dinner, Nathan, who is 9, got mostly books (about science, history, etc.), while Helen, who is 24, got mostly toys. The shock of the evening, for me, was learning that, owing to his current interest in Native American cultures, Nathan had gotten a mohawk: that's dedication to study! We also got to see Jackie, who is visiting from FL, is a fourth-grade teacher, and likes to take pictures of Helen making funny faces.

I am back home in our vast suburban wasteland once again. In the four days I was gone, it looks like no rabbits have visited my front landscaping! Maybe even with a score of 4 (them) to 2 (me) I can still win ...

On the way home, I made another of my periodic pilgrimages to Whole Foods in Charlottesville. There are Whole Foods (Whole Foodses?) up here, too, but they have a paltry selection compared to the C-ville store, especially in the bulk foods section. Whenever I can stop in C-ville, I hoard pumpkin spice granola.

And now on to sleep.

waves of the future

2006-07-21T22:43:00.000-05:00

After I bought a new/used car (yay!), and after dealing with the DMV foolishness, we went today to see my brother at that school in Blacksburg. We got to see his design studio, which is really cool, and while we were there some guys from the furniture design class were setting up their coffee tables. They were also really cool, especially the one that was actually a sheet of metal slitted and held in a set of four curves by its own tension. The most interesting part, though, was seeing the solar house and getting an impromptu tour. I was quite impressed with how the architecture and interior design students managed to make a house essentially the size of a trailer look so spacious, light-filled, and appealing inside. The only problem, according to my tastes, is that the decor looked a little too much like what might fall out if you turned an Ikea upside down and shook it. (What is the design obsession nowadays that everything that uses modern technology has to have a mid-century-modern Swedish look? Would it break some immutable law of physics if someone put solar panels on a neo-classical building?)

Then we went to Lowe's so Ryan could pick out a bunch of materials that he'll be using to design and build a lamp.

Now I'm really tired and it's late, but Mike is going to call from way out there in San Diego, so I want to be up to talk to him.

Oh, and since coming home, I learned the truth about the mystery of Thomas Road Baptist Church's member list. Turns out that they can state their membership as 24,000 because they do count every student at Liberty University as a member, and they also offer membership to people all over the country who just watch the TV show and send money. (So all those examples in the Bible of people coming together and sharing their lives in real family-communities, working through difficult trials and sharing their lives together, must not be what church membership really means -- unless you send money.) In their gigantic new building, the choir loft is way too big for their actual choir, so for the grand opening service, they put out a call that anyone in the area could come and be in the choir for that day, regardless of whether they attended the church or not (or, I assume, whether they could sing). That way, when the TV cameras swept over the front platform, they would broadcast to the world how big and wonderful TRBC is.

I'm probably harping too much on this subject -- and I'll drop it after this post -- but it bugs me, because this image is cultivated to be very public. It seems to me like the public viewers are getting a whitewashed and just a shade disingenuous picture of what the church -- and consequently, what Christianity -- is like. I mean, I just can't think of a way that such posturing glorifies God more than it glorifies Falwell, LU, and TRBC. (Thank goodness the city council drew the line when the organization pressured them to change the name of Candler's Mountain to Liberty Mountain -- when members of the multigenerational Candler family in Lynchburg stepped in to protest.)

Okay, enough. In short, being a Christian is about glorifying God, and if something starts to take greater precedence, it's better for us if God takes that thing away rather than allowing us to become enslaved to an idol, no matter what that thing is. And even though I'm coming down hard on TRBC, the truth is that every church has some kind of flaw in it, though some churches' flaws are just more public than others. I've often heard how many people refuse to consider becoming a Christian or going to church because there are "just too many hypocrites." Well, you know -- they're right. I am continually shocked at the hypocrisy and pride in my own life, and I know that many others are like me, whether they look good on the outside or not. It's easy to look at the flaws in the church and sigh and walk away, knowing that they can never be completely fixed. But we "see through a glass, darkly": the church on earth is a dim and distorted reflection of God, but if you look long and close, you'll see that many of those same hypocritical people are desperately aware of their own faults, and that the real work of the church involves the daily -- even momentarily -- surrender to God of those sins. Through that surrender, God engenders in us love, compassion, humility, and self-sacrifice, the characteristics in which lies the real power of the church to be effective in glorifying God and caring for all His children.

astonishing

2006-07-20T22:24:00.000-05:00

My parents happen to have the freeware Google Earth on their computer. Forget teaching -- I've found a new calling: looking at satellite imagery. It's simply breathtaking. First of all, it blows my mind that I can zoom right in to Dubai or Kowloon and see everything from the palaces to the slums just as they are. But then I zoom out a little to look at the landscape. The earth is truly a work of art. I wish I had years to spend just scrolling through the photos, close and distant, wondering at the beauty of the earth.

There's even an image of an African herdsman tending his cattle, completely unaware that we can see him.

Something about this satellite stuff fascinates me in a different way than normal photography. I love fine art photography and travel photos, so I'm an avid National Geographic fan, but there's something more immediate and real about these satellite photos. Maybe it's that I can move around and see the whole landscape. It's like traveling around the world without the passports and strange diseases.

Check out a few images from God's handiwork, then go download Google Earth.

Iceland

Andes Mountains, Chile

Yemen

The Eternal City

Washington State

Himalayas, Nepal

nothing to do

2006-07-19T18:38:00.000-05:00

Ahh ... it's nice to be home, where there are trees and where "traffic" is two cars in a row. Finally, a chance just to sit and read for a while. Mike is incommunicado in San Diego, since the base where they're working doesn't have cell phone access. I met Petra for lunch in Charlottesville, where we talked about how she should quit her PhD program and relax a little so she can work on her novel and get some sleep. Tomorrow I'm going up into the attic to go through twenty-six years of boxes and clean, toss, and give away all my junk.

Bored? Build your own Suri.

better than candy

2006-07-18T16:11:00.000-05:00

Meghann and I spent yesterday morning sweating our brains out while we picked peaches, blackberries, and sour cherries at a farm in Maryland. Today I'm spending the afternoon sweating my brains out while I cook the peaches, blackberries, and sour cherries. After that, I'm going to the pool. The heat index is 103 degrees today. Blech.

I'm making Peach-Blackberry Crisp and Meggy Leves (Hungarian Sour Cherry Soup). I love summer fruit, as well as fall Concord grapes. Who needs junk food when you have the nectar of the gods?

Today's Really Cool Thing: Michelle showed me an amazing video of Chris Bliss the Juggler. Isn't it just astonishing how God gives people such awesome talents? I mean, who else would think of creating someone with the unique skill of tossing balls to music? It's just another example of how God custom-builds us all.

poetic justice

2006-07-16T13:36:00.000-05:00

Beer Baron Coors Loses License for DUI

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I'm all by myself now. ::sniff:: Mike gets to live it up in sunny San Diego while I sit at home and take potshots at rabbits.

fruits of the enlightenment

2006-07-14T08:18:00.000-05:00

Happy Bastille Day! Today the French commemorate that momentous occasion in 1789 when revolutionaries stormed a mostly-empty prison to make a symbolic gesture toward the downfall of the monarchy and institution of the Republic. Democracy for all!

As part of the celebration, consider these anecdotes to see just how far the concept of the "rights of man" has come:

April 2005: [A] woman picks a doctor out of the phone book to do her liposuction. When she has complications, she says she never would have chosen that doctor had she known he wasn't Board Certified in the procedure. (She believed the phonebook over asking the doctor, or looking for a certificate on his wall?!) So she sues ... the phone company. And wins.

November 2005: [A] man is mystified by professional magicians, so he sues to demand they reveal their secrets to them, or pay him as much as $50 million. The basis for his suit: he claims that they defy the laws of physics, and thus must be using "godly powers" -- and since he is God, they're stealing that power from him!

-- from the True Stella Awards. Names withheld to protect the ridiculous.

cough, cough, sneeze, sneeze

2006-07-13T12:31:00.000-05:00

I'm taking a sick-day today. A sick-day, for me, doesn't look much different from a normal day, since I'm a teacher and am only gainfully employed during the school year, but I've been surprisingly busy for the past several weeks. I haven't had a moment to sit down and read a book in days and days. So today involves my lying on the couch reading Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie, and drinking tea with honey. (It has made my sore throat feel much better.)

By the way, ever since I read The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy, in college, I have come to love Indian and Indian-American authors. I recommend books by Rohinton Mistry, Jhumpa Lahiri, Rushdie, Manil Suri, and Anita Desai.

One more rabbit has been relocated! Homo sapiens is turning the tide of the Battle of the Landscaping!

Rabbits: 4
Me: 2

mystery solved

2006-07-12T19:11:00.000-05:00

So five minutes after I posted the last entry, Mike found what I was looking for online. What I saw was a hummingbird clearwing, a type of sphinx or hawk moth, of the family Sphingidae. Apparently they are all over the country and are often mistaken for hummingbirds. The image below is a much clearer photo of one type of hummingbird clearwing. What an amazing freak of nature!

what on earth?

2006-07-12T17:07:00.000-05:00

What is this thing? It visited my bee balm plant this afternoon right after a thunderstorm. At first I thought it was a hummingbird because of how its wings moved and how it flew, but it doesn't have a bird-shaped head. Is it some kind of bee? It would be the largest bee I've ever seen. Its body looks like it has colorful feathers, not insect exoskeleton. And it has antennae like a butterfly's. Sorry for the blur -- I'm not normally a cinematographer. (Double-click to start and stop video.)

Guesses welcome.

the taming of the shrewd

2006-07-12T13:15:00.000-05:00

Rabbits aren't that smart. The first night after borrowing the trap from Laci Bácsi, I caught number one. In contrast, it took me two weeks to catch the stray kitten that I took to the shelter for adoption. Now, this rabbit has gone to ... um ... a better place. (Just kidding: I couldn't kill a poor, defenseless, and -- I admit -- very cute animal. I took it to a wilderness park where it can live out its natural life with an unlimited, appropriate food supply.) But before my asters can thank me for saving their lives, I still have that rabbit's two family members to catch and release. So the war continues. See the carnage by clicking on the thumbnails.

Score:

Rabbits: 4

Me: 1

Used car salesman are, however, very smart. We spent all yesterday evening wrangling with the Toyota dealer over a 2001 Camry. Now that is a lesson in practical psychology. In the past, Mike and I have felt very inexperienced dealing with negotiations: usually Mike is too easy to convince, while I'm too hard-nosed. This time, though, we had a little more time, patience, and background knowledge, and negotiating was a whole different mind game. Above all, we realized the power in being able to walk away from the sale. First, we had done our research; second, we made sure we didn't fall in love with the car (which can be saved for after purchase); and third, we kept in mind that, in spite of what the salesman said, we were not losing the sale of a lifetime. If this particular "great deal" car was there on the particular day that we came, it would be likely that another "great deal" car would be on some other lot on some other day. Patience pays off. Mike and I don't exactly strike imposing figures, so we had great fun observing the salesman's demeanor change from confident to servile as he realized that we weren't pushovers. I couldn't hide a grin at Mike's poise when he actually gestured permission for the salesman to sit down at his own desk after we calmly took the visitors' chairs.

We didn't actually give them an answer on the car, though they came running out after us with a last-ditch offer. We'll call them tonight, and, if the car is still available, give them our final number. If the car has been sold, we'll happily search for another one, after costing the salesman hours of his time and money. Car or no car, our time was well spent, in my opinion. It was definitely more interesting than sitting at home and watching reruns.

mish-mash

2006-07-08T18:56:00.000-05:00

Apparently Mike can tolerate watching three soccer games in one day. I, on the other hand, will "watch" those three games and come away knowing nothing more about soccer than I did when they began. I am glad, though, that Germany achieved a respectable third-place World Cup ranking. They were the team I was pulling for (after the U.S. was unsurprisingly knocked out early), mainly because I am trying to learn German. That's how much I know/care about this game.

In other news, we learned that our car is officially totaled, though we don't have an estimate from the insurance company yet. The guy who hit us sheared off the back passenger door panel (and very nearly the whole door), banged up the front passenger door, and broke the back passenger window. There was also damage to the front and back passenger quarter panels. (Click thumbnail for full-sized image.) Thankfully, we were okay. We're just down one car for a while. Anyone want to sell us a Camry?

The guy at the tire shop where we got four new tires for our other car looked, sounded, and acted exactly like Locke on "Lost." Mike and I independently had the same reaction when we talked to him. Just as Locke accurately predicted that it would rain within two minutes, this guy accurately predicted that my car would be the next to be taken into the shop for work. (He did not, however, accurately predict that I would have to wait an hour longer than he originally said for the job to be done.)

Today's piece of advice: don't waste your time on The Legend of Zorro. Our consensus (with apologies to my two brothers and many friends who have passed through Blacksburg on their way to a degree): it's hokier than a Virginia Tech student.

the persistence of memory

2006-07-05T16:31:00.000-05:00

We had a good Fourth of July with Dave and Heather, particularly the grilled mustard and sage chicken, which was nagyon finom ("very good" in Hungarian). I learned two very interesting things: first, that Heather is afraid of sparklers, and second, that you never know whom you might be talking to.

After watching "Everything Is Illuminated," we naturally drifted into a discussion of family history. The movie blends comedy and pathos in an examination of what makes our memories and how we can never really escape from our past, especially when it comes to "generational trauma," a historical event that has left a negative mark on an entire group of people. We weren't discussing the Holocaust in particular, since none of us is Jewish, but Mike brought up how his grandfather had to flee Hungary when the Soviets rolled in after World War II and recalled the fledgling democratic government's diplomats home to be executed. Mike's granddad was in France at the time, and when he got the summons, he just never went home, later working in America as a representative for that government in exile (even traveling to India to drum up international support, where he met Jawaharlal Nehru). Psychologists who study immigration patterns have noted that it's actually the third generation after the immigrants that receives the pressure to maintain the culture. The first generation born in the new country is raised with the emphasis on succeeding, learning the language, becoming economically stable. It is the children of the children of the immigrants upon whom the burden rests to preserve the way of life that had been left behind, like Jonathan Safran Foer's trip to find Augustine, or Mike's mandatory Hungarian lessons beginning at age four. And the trauma that caused the first generation to leave home gets passed down and re-formed with the added stress of being strangers in a strange land.

Or it could be like Dave's family. His great-great-grandmother was in line for the Chrysanthemum Throne in Japan, but she gave up her position for marriage and emigrated to the U.S. (This isn't exaggerated -- it's really true.) So Dave's great-aunt grew up among the Hollywood jet-set in the forties and fifties: Ava Gardner was her best friend. Not exactly the same kind of hardship, but an impressive pedigree nonetheless!

It occurred to me during our conversation that I probably had the least historically significant family of anyone in the room. My family's claim to fame is not meeting Nehru or abdicating a throne -- it's the Cow-deer. Back in the 1970s(?), my great-aunt and -uncle, who live near Chattanooga, Tennessee, and run a farm, noticed that one of their cows had given birth to a strange-looking creature, something that looked most like the (hypothetical) offspring of a cow and deer pairing. (There is actual documentation of this animal -- I've seen it, and it really does look weird.) No one knew how it had come to pass or what it really was. After the Cow-deer lived out its natural life, it was donated to the University of Tennessee for further study.

Not a diplomat, not royalty -- a mutant.

I'm not surprised, because everything we've learned about my family's genealogy suggests that, since the beginning of time, we have been farmers and peasants. When Frederick III ruled much of Europe, my ancestors were scratching a living out of the Schwarzwald (and a few from the Swiss Alps and Wales). When rumbles of revolution spread through America and France, my ancestors were settling in western Maryland on farms. When the Depression swept the country, my great-grandmother (ninety-three, still sharp as a tack, and with a fine sense of humor) said, the family had so much food that they hardly knew there was a depression on! After that, those who did not keep growing food, animals, and children became teachers or pastors. For my parents' generation and my own, computer and engineering jobs seem to be on the rise. No real notables, though we're distantly -- and through marriage -- related to a few presidents.

But does it really matter? The kings and heroes are the ones the history books remember, but every great civilization in history has been built on the bent backs of peasants and slaves. My family members are some of the most skilled, intelligent people I know. Nearly every single one of them is bright and interested in learning. Nearly all play at least one musical instrument (some of us three, four, five instruments). The unspoken family philosophy is "never pay for something you can make yourself, and if you can't make it, learn how." Both of my grandfathers can build just about anything out of wood (including houses), and what they make is more beautiful and higher quality than anything found in stores. My grandmothers (and great-grandmothers) quilt. My cousin builds guitars and takes artsy photographs. And we have the Cow-deer.

How many glorious royals, genius thinkers, and famous artists achieved their status as much by chance and opportunity as by skill? How many unknown wonders passed quietly out of existence while tending their livestock? And how many great minds were suppressed by poverty, war, exile, or hardship? What stories have dissolved and been lost!

P.S. Herzlichen Glückwünsch zum Geburtstag / Boldog születésnapot kivánok to my father-in-law!

shout-outs

2006-07-01T13:45:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to Debbie on her job offers!

Hooray to Michelle for being the first friend I have officially hooked on "Lost"!

And a fond goodbye to my favorite Charlottesville restaurant, Southern Culture, which has officially closed its doors. Alas, I will miss its wonderful Cajun Fried Chicken with Mashed Potatoes and Collared Greens. It was the place where I first encountered good local cuisine, where Mary, Sondra, and Amy threw my surprise 21st birthday party, where Matt and I went the day he graduated and left UVA for good, and where Mike and I would get together with friends after our annual Carter Mountain Orchard trip. Farewell, my friend.

the kingdom of God / the kingdom of Man

2006-07-01T12:23:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is going to be a momentous day: Jerry Falwell marks the 50th anniversary of Thomas Road Baptist Church, which opens a new facility on the old Ericsson property in Lynchburg. From the tone of the Post article, this is clearly a joyous occasion for Falwell's organization and conservative Christians everywhere. While I applaud Falwell's perseverance and his (at least stated) desire to serve God with all his heart, this expansion program doesn't evoke the same feelings in me.

I grew up in Lynchburg from birth. While Falwell may irritate and provoke people in the nation at large with his poorly timed and inflammatory comments to the media, it is the local power politics and questionable dealings with the city that, in my opinion, more undermine his organization's stated purpose to serve Christ. Even the process by which the group acquired the old Ericsson building, according to what I have been told by local friends and family (who receive their information from the Lynchburg news and grapevine), is tainted by allegations of back-door dealing and string-pulling. Granted, I don't know the details of these situations. In fact, I wish that the Lynchburg News and Daily Advance had online archives so that I could read their stories of that deal and others. I have heard accusations (disclaimer: I have no evidence for or against the truth of these -- just oral reports from people I know) that the Lynchburg mayor received payoffs for certain services; that the housing development on the hills above Liberty University was a fiasco of broken promises, neglect, and outright lies; and that the organization has a long history of threatening and strong-arming the Lynchburg city council when the normal political process does not favor the group's aims. It is very likely that the actual situations may have been inflated or misrepresented (intentionally or not), but I have to say that if any one of them -- or all -- turned out to be true as described, I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised. (Speaking of inflation, TRBC claims its membership rolls to be nearly 24,000 strong. I don't know where they get that number, especially since the greater Lynchburg area only has about 80-100,000 residents, and I can say for certain that much fewer than one in four Lynchburgers is even an attender of TRBC, much less a member. Is the church including all of the students at Liberty University in that total?)

I wouldn't be surprised, but I would, however, be -- and am -- saddened. There are many people in the greater Christian community and in central Virginia who admire and respect Falwell. There are also many who cringe when his name is mentioned. I strongly believe in the importance of commitment to the local church, to telling others of the good news of Christ's salvation, and the need for Christians to participate actively in the institutions of their culture (schools, government, economy). But 1 Peter 2:12 resonates loudly when I think about Falwell's reputation: Peter directs his readers to "Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us." If Christians involve or associate themselves -- even to the point of possibly credible allegations -- with dirty politics or business practices, it damages the witness of all Christians. Hypocrisy makes a much more powerful statement than mere defiance. Even Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, discussed the importance of "self-purification" in the process of standing up for the truth. (It was one of the few details upon which he and Malcolm X agreed -- that, no matter one's methods of persuading others of the rightness of one's beliefs, one must be above reproach as a testament to them.) Though the alleged shady dealings of Falwell's organization may result in gains that further the kingdom of God in the immediate sense -- lengthening the reach of their message, expanding their services to others -- do they not have a more profoundly negative effect on God's kingdom as a whole? I wrestle with this question anytime I observe outspoken evangelicals in politics who command a large power base and millions of dollars for achieving their own ends. I'm sure God uses people in high levels of government and politics just as He uses those in grassroots service, but perhaps the temptation for those high-level people is to amass power and wealth for their own sake.

I'll leave you with another quote from King's Letter that sums up my thoughts:

So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust. ... I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour.

recipes

2006-06-30T15:23:00.000-05:00

Here are the recipes for some of today's lunch selections.

Hungarian Sour Cherry Soup (Meggy Leves)
(pronounced "med-yuh levesh")

All amounts are very approximate. I often make this soup with sweet bing or black cherries, so I adjust the sugar accordingly. (However, the soup definitely tastes best with sour cherries.) I developed this recipe from watching my husband's Hungarian great-aunt make it, then added a few changes of my own.

2 lbs. sour cherries, pitted
4 C water (or enough to cover cherries in pot)
1 C sugar (increase or reduce to taste)
12 whole cloves
1 tbsp. allspice
1 tbsp. + 1 tsp. rum or port wine
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. salt
2 C cranberry juice
2 tbsp. flour
2 tbsp. French Vanilla Coffeemate dry creamer
2 tbsp. cornstarch
3 tbsp. sour cream
1/2 C milk

In large stockpot, cook cherries, water, sugar, cloves, allspice, rum, and vanilla until cherries are tender and sugar has dissolved, stirring occasionally. Drain cherries, RESERVE LIQUID, and set cherries aside.

Return cooked liquid to heat. Add salt. In separate bowl, whisk together flour, creamer, and cornstarch. Add cranberry juice to dry ingredients and whisk until well blended. Add cranberry mixture to soup. Heat to boiling, reduce heat, and cook for 5-7 minutes, or until soup begins to thicken, stirring frequently. (To increase soup thickness to yogurt-like consistency
instead of thin soup, add 1/2 tbsp. cornstarch and dash of creamer mixed with 2 tbsp. cranberry juice at a time until desired consistency is achieved.)

In separate bowl, whisk sour cream and milk until well blended. Add to soup, straining or whisking to ensure that it is mixed well. Heat, stirring frequently, until smooth and all lumps dissolved.

Add cooked cherries to soup. Refrigerate until chilled, and serve cold. Soup will continue to thicken as it cools.

Serves 8-10.

Andrea Salad (Spinach-Walnut-Apple Salad)

I call this "Andrea Salad" because she was the one who taught me how to make it. She is not its originator, however, so I don't know who first thought of it.

1 7-oz. bag baby spinach leaves
1 Granny Smith apple, chopped
1/2 C crumbled bleu cheese
1 C glazed walnuts
3 tbsp. olive oil
2 tbsp. white vinegar
1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Toss spinach, chopped apple, bleu cheese, and walnuts in large bowl. In separate container, whisk olive oil, vinegars, salt, and pepper together. Drizzle over salad just before serving.

Serves 6-8.

Hot Crab Dip
Recipe courtesy of Eric Olsen, middle-school social studies teacher.

1 8-oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened
1/2 C sour cream
2 tbsp. mayonnaise
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 1/4 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp. garlic salt
1/2 tsp. dry mustard
2 tbsp. milk
1 C grated cheddar cheese
1 pound backfin crab meat
2 tbsp. Old Bay seasoning or paprika

Remove any remaining cartilage from crab meat. In large bowl, mix cream cheese, sour cream, mayonnaise, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, garlic salt, and dry mustard until smooth. Add milk 1 tbsp. at a time until mixture is creamy. (May require more than 2 tbsp.) Add half of the grated cheese. Fold crab meat into mixture. Pour mixture into 1-quart casserole dish. Top with remaining cheese and Old Bay. Cook uncovered at 325 degrees until bubbly and browned on top, approximately 30 minutes.

Serves 8-10.

cooties and crowding

2006-06-29T19:20:00.000-05:00

Heather and I had an interesting discussion today about single-sex classrooms. There are many school systems that are experimenting with all-girls or all-boys classes, particularly math and science, to help children learn with fewer distractions and with instruction tailored to each gender's unique needs. (For specific information, see the website for the National Association for Single-Sex Public Education.) I understand how boys and girls benefit from interaction with each other, but as a teacher of middle-schoolers at all academic levels, I can see how many pre-teens and early adolescents might benefit from the gender separation. The boys I have taught, in general, respond differently to me than the girls often do, and occasional or part-time class separation could allow me to alter my instructional methods accordingly. I have also heard positive reports from parents of an all-girls middle school in Charlottesville.

Ultimately, though, reducing class sizes would go farther toward improving educational quality in general. Most research I have read (links to specific studies to be added when I locate them) finds that, more than any other factor besides socioeconomic status, class size has a direct correlation to achievement. There's a catch, though -- reducing class sizes by three or four students doesn't have noticeable effects. It's only when class sizes fall below fifteen students that real gains are observable. My own experience would confirm those results: six classes of 20-25 kids leave me feeling like I never get to know my students well enough to truly educate them as "whole children." In the instances where my classes have been 8-10 students (more recently, since I changed jobs), I see marked, consistent achievement gains by students no matter at what skill level they enter the classroom. The overhead required for classes that size in the public schools, however, would be prohibitive. But teachers and students everywhere would benefit from that arrangement.

Enough thinking: "The Office" just came on.

tv worth watching!

2006-06-28T10:40:00.000-05:00

Within the past year, I have become a rabid fan of two shows, each through different encounters.

One Thursday night Mike was out with his work friends playing strategy (i.e. boring) games, so I was at home enjoying my privacy and a Red Robin burger, and I flipped to a weird show on NBC where these people who looked like the insurance company employees I used to work with were racing with their feet tied to paper boxes. It turns out it was The Office, which may just be the first groundbreaking comedy since Seinfeld. Maybe it's only that I've been a fan of British comedy since Winnie the Pooh, or maybe it's that Steve Carell has made me laugh since he was on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, but as much as I didn't quite get that first episode, I thought it was worth giving "The Office" a second chance. It only took another few minutes for me to get used to the pace of the comedy, and now I'm a loyal fan. Surfing around yesterday, I came across a link to an early interview with John Krasinski, B.J. Novak, Rainn Wilson, and Jenna Fischer. One thing that captivates me is how the primary actors on the series are really just normal people, although they are a) good-looking, and b) very funny. In many ways, they remind me of a lot of people I went to high school and college with.

The second encounter came about when our friends Meghann and Duncan were visiting, like this:

Meghann: I bet you guys would really like that new show "Lost."
Me: Oh yeah -- I saw some ads for that on tv. It didn't really look that interesting to me.
Meghann (knowingly): Trust me. But start from the beginning, or you'll be completely lost. (Hee hee.)

I was dubious, because it seemed to me that the whole idea of the desert island had been done before -- I mean, we knew that Gilligan wouldn't be rescued, because the show would be over -- and the conspiracy theory idea was fully mined by The X-Files. But we were recently faced with the prospect of renting the bottom-feeders "Wedding Crashers" or "Saw II" from Blockbuster's wonderfully expansive selection, so to the TV section we turned. Lost it was. We crawled to bed at about 2:00 a.m. that night, blearily debating "maybe just one more?" and called three Blockbusters the next day to find the second disc for rent. Since May we've made it halfway through the second season, relying on ABC's summer reruns. DON'T TELL US WHAT HAPPENS! We would have to kill you before you finished talking.

Other shows that are fairly entertaining:
- My Name Is Earl: Dumb, yes, and it has waaaaay too much voice-over, but it's funny.
- Scrubs: Seems too goofy, until you realize that the show is really a "live-action cartoon" (in the terms of the show's creators). Has a great ensemble cast, though what is it with NBC and voice-overs?

Happy viewing!

competition?

2006-06-27T11:50:00.000-05:00

I've debated starting a blog for a long time now, mainly because I feel that there's already plenty of people out there making plenty of comments about plenty of things, so who needs mine, too? But recently I caved to pressure. The defining moment: when my favorite coffeeshop ever, Greenberry's Coffee and Tea, opened a store in Leesburg. I was overwhelmed with a need to tell everybody I know, particularly because Greenberry's was founded in Charlottesville, and, to my mind, still counts as a "local" coffeeshop. At the very least, it's competition for Starbucks and Caribou Coffee up here. (Though, now that Greenberry's is technically a franchise, does that mean it's no longer local? Does it count that I fell in love with Greenberry's when it was local, so it will always be local to me?) And since I am actually not a caffeine addict (though, yes, I am still considered an American citizen), I like my coffee candied up with chocolate and fruit syrups and such, and Greenberry's has a wonderful selection of my type of drinks. I have made it my personal responsibility to ensure that this new shop is not overlooked by Leesburgers.

So I thought it was time to create a blog. I wrestled with the same philosophical objections again, then realized that I love reading other people's blogs just to see how they're doing, and it occurred to me: what a great way to keep my friends and family up to date on my life! I know that I'm about four or five years late catching on to that idea, but, for a tech-savvy person, I have surprising inertia.

On top of it, I like to talk.

So raise a cardboard cup of Greenberry's Raspberry Truffle to my minutiae.

CQ ... CQ ... this is W9GFO. Come back?

2006-06-26T21:37:00.000-05:00

Okay to go.