Summer Vacation, Part 1

I label this post Part 1 not because I know there will be subsequent parts, but because there might be, and because it implies that there will be, so people will keep coming back in anticipation of future "Summer Vacation" posts. Seriously, they will. I'm sure of it.

So I've been finished with the school for 5 days now, and what have I been doing with myself? I had thought, "Once the semester is finished, I'll have time to make a blog entry every day. How exciting and modern I will be! Everyone will want - nay, need to be my friend." (Perhaps I need a catchy slogan.)

I should have known better, of course. Summer vacation has been, at least initially, a time for sleeping in and watching TV, and doing a bit of reading, and avoiding anything that smacks of responsibility. Until today.

Today, I moved several dozen strawberry plants. The story goes like this: A couple of years ago, Ben's mom gave us a 5 or 6 very sickly little strawberry plants that were of a variety she didn't care for. I figured I'd stick them in the ground & see what happened, but was more keen on getting them to grow than really getting anything out of them. They were planted in very poor soil, but watered regularly, and seemed to perk up.

Then they started spitting out runners. And this year, there was a thick mass of strawberry plants covering about 30 square feet. So I moved them, and decided that if I spaced them about 12 to 18 inches apart, they would have enough room around them to spread a bit. We now have about 100 square feet of strawberries, and I'm curious to see what happens over the next couple of years.

Then I moved some daylilies. I had moved a few when we first moved into the house, and they were doing fine in their new home. The problem was, that new home was getting overrun with weeds, and was also a place better suited to the strawberries. So I moved the lilies again, and now I have to go back outside and move the others that are still next to the house. I've no idea when they were last divided, but I can imagine it's been a while. Also, because they are currently in heavy shade, they haven't bloomed since we've been in the house. Their future home has more sunlight, so maybe we'll get to see what they look like in flower - though I suspect they're the standard yellow or orange ones, which can be nice, but a bit boring, no?

Wow. If you made it this far, you have a higher tolerance for boring rambling b.s. than I'd anticipated. Maybe I'll need to try harder next time, yes?

My hero

This guy ought to win a Darwin Award - although at 48, he might already have reproduced. Then again, there's no mention of a grieving widow.

I think I'll call it ... Delores

http://tropist.com/media/800-hotdoll (not necessarily NSFW, but a bit risqué)

Yes, the "hotdoll" part makes it seem like this link will take you to a sex-toy. It's so much better than that.

The only way they could make it better would be if it vibrated. And additional colors might be a nice touch.

Now I just need to find my nearest retailer.

**UPDATE**
Check out the lower left part of this picture (again, not necessarily NSFW, but a bit risqué). Realize that this thing needs to be cleaned. "Regularly."

Not for the squeamish

I mean it. If you're easily offended by things like bestiality, don't click this link (SFW, visually, but disturbing). Also, probably stop reading this post right now. You've been warned, & you choose to read it anyway, don't come crying to me blah blah words.

I only point out the article because of my favorite phrase in it. One of the people says, of his fellow zoophiles, "I'd invite them to my home, and I'd treat them like any other person that was in my house. I did summertime barbecues, Thanksgiving. I did Christmas dinners. One year we did a turkey and a ham (emphasis added)."

Really. A guy who likes to f% (or be f%ed by) horses shouldn't say things like that. Although it raises the question: Is it still bestiality if you f% a pig after it's been dismembered & part of it has spent 20 minutes per pound in a 325 degree oven?

Is that one of the horsemen I see in the distance? ;-)

Yea, it is Death, and at his side Famine, heralded by the emoticon at the end of that title.

But seriously folks, "reality" TV just keeps getting weirder.

Yay! My final was canceled!

I had a final in my American Cities class today. At 1:30. So I've spent the last few days trying to cram as much as possible in to my brain about public policy, local government fragmentation, local public financing, racial and ethnic segregation, concentrated poverty, third-world urbanization & its attendant slums, and urbanization in China. I got to the room a few minutes early, and everyone was trying to spend their last precious minutes studying. (*That seems silly to me. Around 12:00, I realized I'd reach saturation, and wasn't going to learn anything more on the matter. So I took a nap. If I don't know it by 10 minutes before the exam, I'm not going to know it.)

So, 1:30 rolled around, and the instructor (Ed) hadn't shown up. The guy's never late. Plus, he's the associate dean of the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. He's not a flake. So what's the deal? After five minutes, people were getting very loud, and throwing out ideas like, "I wonder if he'll let us skip one question to make up for the time" and "How long do you think we should wait around?"

10 minutes, still no prof. WTF? This is the final exam! It's not like it could easily be rescheduled.

15 minutes. Ok, now I think I'm about to leave. Some people wondered if something had happened to Ed - traffic accident, or something like that.

17 minutes: The door opens, and Ed steps into the doorway. Now, the entire semester, I've never seen him look really upset. He's typically easy going & in good spirits. Today, though, he seemed preoccupied, & was rather abrupt. He told us the final is canceled, and that he'll grade us on what we've done to date, and have a good summer - and then he disappeared again. Nobody knows what happened, but one student who had seen him about a half hour before the exam said he seemed to not be having a good day. (Hang on, I think I need some Scotch tape for that infinitive. Ha!)

That makes 2 finals in 2 semesters that have been canceled. Of course, the other one for a rather different reason (but that's a story for another time).

SO, the upshot is: I was going into the final with a solid A- in the class. I don't know how I did on the last paper (we were supposed to get those back today), but I'm pretty confident that it was in the A to A- range. The final was the one thing I was worried about, & that's been removed from the equation. Yay me!

No, those are my Kleenices

Ben also sent me this other fun item. I had always wondered what was missing from my life, and now I know. Not a customized Kleenex box (an oval box, no less - since when do Kleenices have rounded corners?), but a customized set of Febreze ScentStories. They could send you a set of absorbent paper of some sort, and you could rub them on the things that you want replicated in your smell-o-box. Then their elite team of scentologists could go to work replicating each smell -- sorry, scent -- and in 7-10 business days you'd have a new set of fragrances to spruce up your home. Presumably. Because FSM knows we need more scent-delivery options for our homes.

Exploiting the universe for personal gain? Yes please!

A while back, I posted an entry about The Secret, a scheme aimed at relieving morons of their money by asserting that their thoughts hold the secret to (a) getting everything they've ever wanted and (b) manipulating the universe to do so. Well, today Ben found this thoroughly enjoyable article from Slate illustrating how effective the secret actually is.

Are your nuts dirty?

So I'm correcting papers from this undergrad landscape ecology class. One question addresses habitat for a raccoon that eats pinon pine nuts, and needs clean open water where it can wash them, "because it has no saliva." One of the students refers to the fact that (in the context of the question, involving the impact of development on the raccoon's habitat), the raccoon is still within an acceptable distance "of water for them to wash their nuts in."

Funniest thing I've read this semester.

***UPDATE!***
A second student used the same phrasing, but he italicized it: "If it is like any other raccoon, it will not shy (sic) to go around the buildings at night to wash its nuts."

Oh, and if any of my students are reading this (probability approaches 0 for this event), thank you!

Faster! FASTER!!! (Kill, Kill?)

Although this story doesn't involve pussycats....
So apparently, if you restrict your dietary intake to only water for 10 days, politicians will do what you want? Is it just me, or are religious people not very bright?