bintlog v2.0
Monday, January 24, 2005
 
Cool
Kaleidoscopes
Sunday, January 23, 2005
 
dead
or just wishing I were, anyway. Managed to come down with the flu overnight on Thursday, and spent the next two days sweating, shaking, and doing my best Jackson Pollack impression. Oh, and having a recurring nightmare that I really really NEEDED to write a lengthy paper analyzing The Name of the Rose, and then I would sort of half wake up and start composing paragraphs on monastery life and turmoil among the Catholic orders. All pretty horrifying, really. My temp on Saturday was hovering in the mid-97s, which doesn't seem good. Today I feel much better but have no energy at all. I think tomorrow's a wash, too... I picture myself walking to the El and collapsing in an exhausted but grateful heap somewhere on Irving Park. Bah.

Luckily, the world pretty much stopped for me (just as I always knew it would!), as we had a massive snowstorm this weekend that filled the yard with lovely drifts of sugar. As an extra bonus, I never had to shovel once.
Sunday, January 16, 2005
 
Proof...
that newspapers really need to run their headlines past a 13-year-old boy before publishing.
To wit, from today's Trib: "Titan probe has scientists gasping."

At least the Sox got rid of Bartolo Colon. I was having a hard time with all the headlines proudly describing the Sox' amazing Colon.
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
 
Back to school!
...or, in other words, Back to the bar!

Seriously, our post-seminar trips to Little Joe's on Taylor St. make me giddy with happiness because it's been so long since I've had a group of people to hang out with like that. Therese used to say that the friendships she made in grad school were the best friendships she ever had, and I looked at my acquaintances in CUPPA and wondered what I was doing wrong. Now I feel like I belong. Or maybe that's the pitcher of McSorley's talking. ("McSorley's?!" you say. It beats PBR, I say.)

Had our first sessions of core class and evolution today. Am starting to feel some research-type questions coalescing in the back of my mind. I'm thinking it will be like shopping... I'll walk around a mall for an hour and find nothing worth buying, then buy one little thing and suddenly the floodgates are opened and I see all sorts of things I want. Perhaps I start out thinking too big. Baby steps, man. Baby steps.
Friday, January 07, 2005
 
More snow pics








I had a dream last night that I can't remember much of, except I know that the phrase "slack-jawed yokel" figured heavily into it, as did a grumpy dude in a cowboy hat.

Classes begin again next week. I only have a few more days in which to revel in the fact that I'm not behind on anything.
Thursday, January 06, 2005
 
* * * * more snow! * * * *



Wednesday, January 05, 2005
 
* * * snow * * *


At home today, waiting for the guy to come and install our new garage door opener. We've had so much trouble with that opener (and it's not that old - we installed it about 8 years ago, but apparently we bought the very last one in existence because trying to find a replacement clicker was nearly impossible) and with the door itself. We had the rollers and springs replaced a while back after one of the springs snapped in frightening fashion (we attempted to fix it - not sure what we were thinking) but the opener remains finicky. Hopefully after today, all of our problems will be solved, and not just in the garage. A new opener will be the key to overall happiness and things no longer breaking down.

Also: Ryne Sandberg was elected to the HOF yesterday. !!!!! He's my favorite player ever. Every baseball fan has a player they sort of grew up with, and he was mine, playing from 1982 to 1997 with a temporary retirement near the end (and I remember exactly where I was when he announced his first retirement - the lunchroom at the Mt. Prospect village hall), covering much of my childhood and young adulthood. Besides just being an excellent player, he seemed shy and kind, an appealing sort of person that anyone would enjoy being friends with. So, congratulations, Ryno; you deserve all the rewards that baseball can give you, and I'm sorry that you never got a trip to the WS but maybe this will make up for it.

Incidentally, I wonder if my signed baseball has gone up in value in the last 24 hours? ;)

Okay, Ron Santo, you're next. Fingers crossed.
Monday, January 03, 2005
 
Cool
Watched a Nature special on Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia. The water there has such a high concentration of calcium carbonate that it rapidly forms new limestone deposits on anything in the water that doesn't move quickly enough. The limestone is called travertine and encases the mosses and water plants in stony ropes at rates up to one inch per year.

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