update on my trap shooting experience. I hit 7 and 11 and bruised the holy heck out of my arm. I know when I did it. I just didn't think it would be this bad this fast. That'll teach me to unmount the gun from my shoulder half way through swinging...but OWIE! I've got at least 5 extra colors on my arm, including this lovely cadet blue. I mean I know you call bruises black and blue but this is probalby the first of mine that's ever been really blue. It's also pink, purple(dark and light), red and tinges of green. I expect it'll go away quickly.. but right now it's something to see.

Well I'm back from shooting my first two full rounds of trap. I shot 7/25 and 11/25. Not too shabby. I'll have to give it another try soon.

Also I replaced both headlights in my car today. One of them was burnt out. I expect that means the other one was due to go soon anyhow.

Tonight I'm going to go see Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy at midnight.

I don't recall if I've gushed here about how much I loved the series Firefly. I have it on DVD. I'm about to buy a second copy of the DVDs as the first copy hasn't been home from the office in 8 months as it's been on near permanent loan. I am the purveyor of Firefly smack. The show was canned after one season. Which made me sad. There's a movie coming out now. Actually the initial release was to have already happened. However today the trailer came out.

Go watch the trailer.

I will be seeing this movie. If you are local to me and want to borrow the DVDs just send me an email (lthomas at gophergrenadier dot org) and let me know. I'll get you on the list.

Tonight I drove over to River Falls, Wisconsin. The purpose of my visit was to see Virginia (her website) and to buy some really nice photographs from her. These were pieces shown in her senior show, she's an art major. We also had dinner at Perkins. Then I took her to meet a group for class. They were missing. So we went back to Perkins, to the amusement of the staff. We had fantastic converasation. It was a most wonderful evening.

Free Driving Lesson: Stopping your Car.

It must be spring. Idiots are driving again. Oh wait, that's every day. Today we're going to talk about stopping and four way stops. This isn't that hard, at least not to me, but apparently for some it is.

These things indicate you should stop all forward movement of your vehicle:





When you stop you car, that means it completely ceases to move. The following are NOT stoppping:
--your spedometer needle hit the pin,
--your spedometer needle crossed the 0 or
--you slowed down a bunch and looked both ways (or didn't)
--you get really close to stopping but your wheels keep moving
--you talk on your phone clear through the intersection without trying to stop

Your car must actually stop moving. You can tell this happens because there is a settling feeling in the back of your car. It might be quite abrupt the first time you try and actually STOP at a stop sign or traffic signal.

Rules for 4 way stops:
When you stop your car you should notice if there are other vehicles at the interesection. The vehicle that stopped first, goes first. If there is a tie the vehicle on the RIGHT HAND SIDE goes first.

This is not your opportunity to scoot past some sucker who actually stopped their car by rolling through. If you're going to run the stop sign just run it at speed it's safer and less confusing for everyone. The others at the intersection aren't lulled into believing you have a brain in your skull and that you'll correctly yield the intersection to them.

Rules for Traffic Lights:
Red lights. You are not supposed to enter the intersection on the yellow lights, let alone the red ones. Yellow lights are for clearing the intersection if there is no way you can safely stop. This allows time for the intersection to clear by the time the light turns red in your direction it's clear for the people for whom it turns green. Then we can cycle MORE people through every green light, with less waiting for stragglers and the idiots who get stuck in the middle.

I have an incontenent dog. He's male, nuetered, and about 7 years old. He was incontnent before he was neutered, or so I'm guessing because he was given up for not being housebroken. I got him at just under two years of age and had him neutered right away. He's been on PPA nearly as long as I've had him. It's never been fantastically effective. I'm looking for alternatives. There aren't many. Hormone replacement, who's effacy I suspect would be low since he leaked pre-neuter. Diapers, which only really work on female dogs.. think of the external anatomy for a minute if it isn't clear.

So I start googling on natural incontence treatmetns. I find a few kinds of drops and pills and such. I haven't really gotten to cross checking them or their pruported effects, because well I've been looking for like 5 minutes right? Then I run across a link, a link that so completely demonstrates why I don't go for homeopathic solutions to anything. This is why I've sold my soul to western medicine. It's a CD that plays tones tuned to the chakras of the pets in the house, and comes " revolutionary antenna that emits a subtle energy carrier wave that stimulates your pet’s meridians" I will however buy that it is totally harmless.

Today is Toad and my twelfth anniversary. Shocking, and believable all the same. Hard to believe it's going on 1/3 of my life with her. Anyhow I sent her flowers and took her to dinner. Tonight she cut my hair, and one day next week we're going to the restruant supply place to get me a real lime squeezer, and maybe any other gadgets I think I can't live without.

too hot.

How do people live with their windows open? I can hear every conversation on my street. I can hear the dribbling basketball two doors down. I can hear all the cars moving around. It's driving me nuts. I suppose it doesn't help that I'm in a room on the front of the house but still.

Now you may be wondering how I could ask such a question? Who doesn't open their windows? I basically I NEVER open the windows. From the day the heat goes off the AC goes on. I have allergies, and I grew up in the south, where we run the AC whenever it's warm enough, no suffering until June or July or whatever for some mythical suffering is better than spending money cause.

However today I am thwarted, for some reason, probably related to me flipping a switch or a breaker or something, there's no AC running at the moment and since it's 70 outside and 80 inside I opened the windows hoping to cool off the house a bit. Tomorrow I'll troubleshoot the AC. I suspect I shut off the AC breaker, so it couldn't accidentally get turned on in the winter and do damage to itself, but I'm working on a paper so now isn't the time to go digging around the basement to figure it out.

I suppose this isn't helped by the very hot laptop on my lap.

Well 24 hours later I still have 10 healthy looking cardinal tetras (aka neon tetras). They add a lot of movement and optical pop the tank had been missing. Now to decide what to add next. Maybe somehting a touch bigger, or something else with bright colors. Maybe half a dozen or 8 red eye tetras (Moenkhausia sanctaefilomenae). They might not have enough color to do what I want though.

must be spring

This morning I got the mower running and reversed the mower/snowthrower locations in the garage. Toad mowed. Then we went and got lunch, and new fish! 10 brand new neon tetras. They're schooling away in the tank happily enough at the moment. I think I need to take one of my Thursdays and dismantle all the tank gear and clean it really well, it is starting to get sort of crusty.
Also we cleaned the aquarium, which has pretty much needed to be done for at least a week.

Tonight I think I'll watch my movie for Epi class. Polio: A Paralyzing Fear. Dunno if it's any good or not but I have to write a paper on it either way.

Reasons we shouldn't take away all the guns

CNN.com - Woman beats off burglar with gnome - Apr 15, 2005

So this little old lady has to defend herself with a garden gnome. If she'd had a gun the burglar would be dead, and the garden gnome alive.

The injustice of it all escapes you I'm sure. Also.. Really getting a rolling pin to be her backup weapon. Even if she'd run him off with a gnome, having something more potent than kitchen wear would have been handy I think.

Texas Red - Classic Recipes

Texas Red - Classic Recipes

Historical Chili recipies. What could be cooler? I find it fascinating that beans and tomatos were added to chili over the years.

Soldiers of the U.S. Army on the Western frontier had been eating chili since the war with Mexico (1846) but not necessarily in their messes. The first Army publication to give a recipe for chili was published in 1896, The Manual For Army Cooks (War Department Document #18). By World War I, the Army had added garlic and beans; by World War II, tomatoes. This was a national pattern: Fannie Farmer did exactly the same (see the editions for 1914, 1930, and 1941)

Go make some historical chili.

I wonder if I know what to do with a vacation day. Today I went to the bank, and the hardware store. At the store I bought a bunch of fluorescent fixtures to replace the ones that had burned out in my kitchen. The room is now bright enough to do surgery in again. Not that I do surgery in the kitchen mind you.

I also learned that are not comfortable in my boots. I dropped one. Couldn't find it...wasn't under the stove as far as I could reach nor the fridge... I figure must have rolled further back. Nope...in my boot.

Tonight, aquarium stuff.

I just discovered Cross Canadian Ragweed if you liked the country/southern rock stuff of the 70s you'll probably like them. They're part of the outlaw country movement growing in Texas at the moment.


See I warned you all you were in trouble when I got blogthis working under firefox.

Blogger Help : What is BlogThis! ?

Blogger Help : What is BlogThis! ?

BlogThis works from firefox now. I guess you're all in trouble again. When I stopped using IE I stopped blogging mostly.

They're tearing down my dorm

Saturday, May 28 2:45 p.m. - Decommissioning Service for Wahlstrom Hall – Wahlstrom Hall

This is depressing in a way. I loved that building, it was a dump, the rooms were tiny, it was home. Home to me and close to 200 other geeks, freaks, weridos, and stoners. It was a place where you could walk up to anybody in the lounge and start a conversation about the most recent Star Trek Next Gen episode and they had a passionate opinion.

The Horde, (even when the people who didn't like us called us the Spotties) was born in Wahlstrom, concieved in Pitmann J-Term of 1992, but Born Fall 1993 when the boys got section 202. I lived in 303, close enough to be close to them, up a flight and a half of stairs so they wouldn't stop by all the time. I chose carefully I could have kept my room in 203 and been 6 steps away. The boys occupied that section for the next three years.

The building was not as important as the experiences had there.. but it's also intwined in those experiences. Me and Cutter building lofts for cash at the start of our junior year. Me being the only girl in the dorm with a power drill and two sewing machines in an 8x10 room.

I'm sure a more modern comfortable dorm will go up in it's place. Probably one where the rooms have more than a desk lamp. I'm sure that the feel of the new dorm will be different but GAC will still have it's freaks, geeks, and weirdos, and they will have a dorm on south campus.

I am feeling better for those who were worried. My brother sent me the sweetest email ever. I really should get around to answering it, but i get choked up every time I read it.

Work's going ok. The house is ok. The car just got fixed. The dogs are fine. The cat is her usual evil self. I've been playing who put my world in the dryer and shrunk it again this week.

It's not all that bad I suppose. I'm certain that somewhere somebody will read that last post and think "Hey what am I chopped liver?" and no you're not. I'm just feeling really down right now. There are people who care about me. I'm certain that at times I really am quite important to people. My parents, my brother, some subset of my friends, the cat thinks I'm quite the thing as I'm typing this. It just feels very much like right now I'm doing all the reaching out to the world and if I stopped nobody'd notice. I won't stop. Because, well maybe nobody'd notice and I'd be right. Or maybe people would notice and think I wanted to be left alone, and I'd think I was right anyhow. It's all very dumb and self centered and I know it. Everybody's got stuff to do. Everybody has a life. Everyone's life doesn't revolve around me, nor should it.

have you ever felt worthless? really worthless? have you ever found yourself wishing that just for ten lousy minutes you could be the most important thing in somebody's world. anybodys? right now i'd give my left eye for five minutes of feeling like i mattered to anyone. mattering to toad would be nice, but at this point if the dogs even noticed me it'd be an improvement.