Currently reading: The Machine in the Garden by Leo Marx

There is a section where the author is talking about a writing exercise that was recorded by Nathaniel Hawthorne in July 1844. Hawthorne goes out into the woods, sits down, and writes everything he sees, hears, feels, smells, and experiences in intimate details. Beautifully, of course. Apparently nothing ever came of the eight pages he wrote that afternoon but the awe from his words is incredible.

The humbling part was this last line, "When we see how little we can express, it is little wonder that any man ever takes up a pen a second time."

The text he wrote while sitting there is of course near poetic in his descriptions of the woods surrounding him and yet that is his only reaction. * woah *

This book has made me want to re-read Atlas Shrugged. I thought I would try the audio book this time with my 1 1/2 - 2 hour commute. I am on the waiting list at the library. There are 42 CDs for the book. 4 2 ! ! ! ! Well I knew it was long, I've read it before but that is huge!

School - a lot of work

Eyes - well fuck! I need glasses. Never had glasses before. Not happy about it now. Pleased that these are not old-age glasses. Apparently I have had issues but my right eye (the stronger one) would compensate. But when faced with 10-12 hours of reading and computer work a day . . . well anyway. They are ordered. If it makes the headaches go away then I am happy. I blame laurachicken for this. She is the one who told me "I bet its your eyes - you should get your eyes checked"

Work - no words. Just no words. I will be in Daytona Beach Wed-Sat running a conference for work. Plenty of school work time at night.

Me - hanging in.

:o)

I want all of these things!!! Yes I am a geek.

Light Emitting Wallpaper

Magnetc Curtains

Wow - this stuff is TOO COOL!!!

Ripple Faucet

A Printing Toaster

A Rideable Vacuum Cleaner

A Maze Chain Door Lock

I want the faucet when I remodel my bathroom. I really, really do!

Here is an update to the article posted yesterday:

Still a horrible situation

I think this teacher is going to be smoke very, very soon.

This is unbelievable! I am . . . speechless

Students Vote 5 Year Old Autistic Child Out of Class

Not only am I just plain MAD - that teacher should be OUT ON HER ASS!

ETA:
Mrs. Marcia Cully- Principal cullym@stlucie.k12.fl.us

Mrs. Patricia Gascoigne - Assistant Principal
gasgoignep@stlucie.k12.fl.us

http://www.stlucie.k12.fl.us/mse/staff/administration.html

Tell these ladies what you think of this article - I think they might actually do something about it!!!

Yeah, so I knew it would happen and I did warn you all. Me = not posting, not commenting, and not reading.

I just did a skip 120 and then called it quits. Prior to that it is too far gone to be relevant. I did make a few comments along the way.

HP Fan Trips - did not realize the first one had sold out. Looking at the second group and thinking why not? Hubby wants to go and we are both a little concerned with the rooming with random folks. Wondering if anyone else is going? Can you list who you would like to room with? Clearly would prefer to room with folks we already knew!

Thought utkari02 was going and I am very sad :( that she cannot make it. Was very much looking forward to seeing her.

School = hard and interesting. I am happy to report I am very much liking my class this summer. History of Technology it is interesting, engaging, and the prof is cool. I have never, ever been a fan of history but the books are awesome (all NINE of them) and the class discussion is great. Yay for a good class!

Scrapbooking will happen all day today. Really, as soon as breakfast is cleared away, I have a friend who visiting. We will move furniture, pull out the large tables and sit! Yay! I am very excited. Scrapbooking fulfills the create needs but not something I usually get to do while in school. Yay!

Helped laurachicken move yesterday. My right arm is about dead. Biggest issue - she moved a third floor apartment. T H I R D F L O O R!!! ugh! That was fun in the Bright, Sunny, Noon-Day Sun of Orlando!

{{{hugs}}}} to madam_minnie

redblaze I am glad to hear you are mostly healed and back in the world. :)

sophiamaria03 I want to hear ALL ABOUT GERMANY! You are going to have such an awesome time.

{{{{BIG VIRTUAL HUGS}}} for utkari02 Time can heal all wounds.

Best I can do for right now - hope the rest of you are well.

As heard on the radio - I am still in utter shock.

Starbucks Voters - Obama supporters

Wal-Mart Voters - Clinton supporters.

Really?!?! R E A L L Y!!!

I am sure we could locate who first used these terms and go egg his/her house. Brand voting? Who decided this was a GOOD idea?

* crawls back into hole *

I found Midge Ure!! I really liked this guy when he was around. I also really liked this song.

Could not find him on itunes. Could not find this song in any of my 80s collection.

But now, thanks to the wonder that is www.seeqpod.com I now have Midge Ure's Dear God on my playlist!

For those who are new: Seeqpod is just WONDERFUL!

We think my car was hit recently - maybe even today. The break is very "new" looking. As in, no bugs or road grime can be seen in the frayed mess of fiberglass where the grill is cracked. I am just not happy. Probably someone in a truck or SUV with a hitch backed into me. As I said in the other post, the bumper does not even appear scratched, just the car's grill on the passenger side. f - u - c - k that just make me mad.

Classes start tomorrow. I am taking two classes this summer. I get two weeks off in August and then two classes in the Fall. I will check in to gripe about being tired and stressed. I will rarely comment and honestly will have a hard time justifying the reading of too many posts. I am hopeful that when I do log in, the most recent posts are the people I care about most. I think maybe one or two pages of friends posts per week might be possible. Maybe by Christmas things will settle back down.

Off to bed. Must have a good nights sleep before my first day back at school :o)

Today - we think Yoshi (our dog) has had a stroke or a series of mini-strokes. She is acting just plain wrong. Listing to one side - very confused. If our emergency vet did not suck I would take her in. We will take her to the regular vet in the morning. I am very sorry she has to be clearly out of sorts for a full day but our emergency very TRULY sucks. I am more comfortable leaving it until tomorrow. Yes, the vet is that bad.

Somebody hit my car. Not sure where or when. I washed my car last weekend and I am VERY certain the the grill on my car was completely normal when I washed it. But today, the passenger side grill on the front of my car is smashed in. Not the bumper - just the grill. The fiberglass is split from the headlight the the middle of the car and the side grill is smashed in. fuck-fuck-fuckity-fuck-fuck.

Other than these two things, it has been a really nice Mother's Day. I hope yours was good as well.

Can we say O V E R K I L L ??

Woman Pregnant with 18th Child

That just makes me tired!

Okay, the State of Florida has done a really terrible job with home owner's insurance legislation. Period.

In answer to this really bad legislation, the Senate has done this State wide day of prayer .

I am not sure I have any words left in me after watching this.

In Orlando there is a scrap book supplier called www.scrapyourtrip.com. They have the ability to custom cut their embellishments because they have a laser cutter. (I have worked with laser engravers in the past - actually tried to get a job at this place but the pay was too low. it is a small business!)

Anyway several months (maybe a year ago) I sent them an email to put the idea in their heads about creating custom embellishments tailored to Harry Potter scrapbooking and card making. As most of you recall, I had custom stamps made of the four house crests just to be able to include it with my crafts.

Well, it would appear they have taken my advice!!! Check out these two NEW embellishments just added to their web site. I think the "Wizardry" one is a clear indication that they liked my ideas. I also mentioned to them about the 2010 HPEF conference being located in Orlando and that they would be a nice vendor at such an event! YAY! I grabbed these off of their website - again it is www.scrapyourtrip.com. I ordered the Wizardry one. :)

Image One:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/enelya_oronar/2463886773/

Image Two:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/enelya_oronar/2463886729/

And aside from these items, they do have some really great items for papercrafting that are un-wizard related. I LOVE their stuff!

Does anyone else feel pressure form their Netflix Que? I have 51 selections in my que.

I keep saying silly things like "I won't add any more to the que until I get through at least a third of these." That just never works. It seems to be another one of those tasks I will never be "caught up" with.

Although there is the best selection around of the weird span of genre's I like in films, I still cannot find "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time." I really want to see this movie!

On that thought. Here is a really nice interview with the background artist from the soon-to-be-released Miyazaki film article here. I hope they release this film in US theaters. * crosses fingers *

I recently rented "Whisper of the Heart." What a truly cute film! So perfect for my daughter's age right now. I want to keep it but the pressing Netflix que is always there. I wish I could copy the film w/o the guilt. I could have ALL of Miyazaki's films if I could just copy them. But I can't. I feel bad that I am not giving the artist their due credit or something along those lines.

In other unrelated news - my travel budget for the YEAR just disappeared. Father-in-law had a heart attack last week. Mild. Recoverable if he is willing to change his diet and life style, but hubby is going to go home for Memorial Day weekend. Unexpected and unarguable trip. Portus is now completely off the table and I am looking at the HPFanTrips Equus/movie premier weekend and wondering if it will even be possible. Maybe just me is possible but hubby would like to go and two of us . . . that is still being negotiated in the budget. I need to somehow convince him that I SHOULD get to go because of the whole Sectus and now Portus thing, but that is a tough sell. Oh well, we'll see.

Two classes this summer = TWELVE books! O M G!!! It will be a while between posts until break in August. That is a given.

Enough randomness - time to go make pancakes.

Thanks to fyrestar1 for a lovely p0rn evening last night. I can tell you all, don't waste your money on Buffy the Vampire Layer. It was really, really bad. Follow that with we watched Pirates again. I told them I would have to get my hands on some Damon and Hunter as most of them admitted to never seeing guy - on - guy p0rn ( W T F !?!?!?! ) and also rent Shortbus again because you know at least there is a strong plot in that film! The evening included laurachicken, lezlishae, <-- sister, mandala, and two of fyrestar1's friends. I liked the "drink when they spit" type drinking rules more than the movies themselves!

My pets (and everyone elses) are so funny.

Daughter's cat, Percy, has spent the last 15 minutes chasing a round piece of dog food around the kitchen and my office. There is a step down to my office so this has actually been quite an adventure for him. He is about 18 months old so he is doing the whole "leap and attack" inanimate objects game and having a really great time. Very entertaining.

Along comes on of the dogs, spots the food on the floor and eats it. Percy (the cat) is just staring at the dog like W. T. F.! You bitch! That was mine?!?!?!?

* still smiling *

I tell you what folks - PhD School TOTALLY ROCKS!!!

I just looked up the books for one of my classes. I have a course-required, must-buy, a Assist Professor at my University is making us read . . .



In case you cannot read it - The Technology of Orgasm: Hysteria, the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction.

I can tell you graduate school is looking a little bit more engaging!

From Amazon:
It will surprise most readers to learn that the vibrator was invented in the late 1880s as a time-saving device for physicians, who had been treating women's "hysteria" for years with clitoral massage. Denying the sexual nature of the treatments, doctors instead saw the technique as a burdensome chore and welcomed electric devices that would shorten patients' visits. Maines, an independent scholar in the history of technology, presents a straightforward account of the mechanism from its beginning through the 1920s, when it came into disrepute as a medical instrument. Going far beyond a mere summary of therapeutic advances, however, she wryly chronicles the attitude toward women's sexuality in the medical and psychological professions and shows, with searing insight, how some ancient biases are still prevalent in our society. Maines's writing is lively and entertaining, and her research is exhaustive, drawing on texts from Hippocrates to the present day. Proving her point about how women's sexuality is still perceived as an unapproachable subject in some quarters, Maines describes her travails in vibrator historiography, including the loss of her teaching position at Clarkson University. A pioneering and important book, this window into social and technological history also provides a marvelously clear view of contemporary ideas about women's sexuality.

I would like a

FULL OUT STANDING OVATION


for laurachicken Who has just made her first ever "A" in a college level math course. AND received a very complimentary email from the professor on how hard she worked in the class.

* a p p l a u s e *

:oD YEAH!

Okay, hubby says we need to look at the numbers.

He seems to think if we do the Non-Hotel version with only me getting the full package for the Equus-HBP Premier in NYC package at HP Fan trips, then we can swing it financially. Basically, he comes along, does not see Equus with us but DOES attend the movie and we pick our own hotel. Honestly, he was not that interested in Equus.

The only drawback is I really, really want to see Naked Boys Singing and I don't think that will work out with the HP Fan Trips schedule. Ever since dream_wia_dream posted the prettiness of that show, I have been watching the clips on youtube and I really wanna go! * whines *

Still crunching the numbers and looking at President Bush's tax refund and wondering if we really need a new television now. HHmmmm

P.S. I am also trying to work out Portus - but would need a cheap room. Anyone found such an option yet?

I find this very amusing . .



:o)