Chimaera Contemplations

This blog is not dead!

2012-01-08T19:27:00.000-08:00

It's just restin'

15 Book meme

2010-06-20T08:39:00.000-07:00

List 15 books you’ve read that will always stick with you. The first 15 you can think of in 15 minutes. I saw this meme last year on Billy the Atheist. Since it took me well over 6 months, I don't think I followed the instructions very well...

The Tolkien Trilogy - I liked The Hobbit, so I went on to read the trilogy when I was nine. I’ve since read the trilogy about 4 more times. So far.

The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins – it blew my mind when I read it in about 1986.

The Ancestor’s Tale, Richard Dawkins - How we are all related to every other living thing on the planet. It was fascinating.

The Fire Cat, Esther Averill – I read it over and over to kids I babysat, and then to my son.

Green Eggs and Ham, Dr. Seuss – I read it to my son so often that at one time, I could recite almost the entire book from memory.

Black Beauty, Anna Sewell – Anna Sewell was a Victorian era animal welfare activist who, with this book, single-handedly managed to get "check-reining" abolished. Check-reining kept a horse's head fashionably, but painfully, and sometimes cripplingly high. Anna did not live to see this occur.

Watchers, Lightning, Midnight - For a while, every Dean Koontz book I could get my hands on. I had to stop reading them, though. I couldn’t take it anymore. His writing is so descriptive, it felt too real.

The Robot Series, and Foundation Series, Isaac Asimov - That R. Daneel Olivaw sure got around.

The Complete Sherlock Holmes Treasury, Arthur Conan Doyle

The Dragonriders of Pern Series, Ann McCaffrey – I’m pretty sure Avatar poached the “telepathic link to your dragon” idea from this series.

The Hornblower series, C.S. Forester - Only the best Naval series ever written...

The Hunt for Red October – started me off on two tangents. One – reading every Tom Clancy book I could get my hands on, and two – finding every book I could on submarines.

Into Thin Air, John Krakauer - I had to read this for a class in business school, and I found it gripping.

The Last Herald-Mage series - Telepathic "horses" and magic. Need I say more?

The Incredible Journey, Sheila Burnford - One of the best animal stories ever written. It even says so on the cover!

James and the Giant Peach. Roald Dahl is just very odd. Apparently C.S. Forester encouraged him to start writing...

Lad: A Dog, Albert Payson Terhune - The reason I got a collie as soon as I moved out on my own, as I explained in this post.

The Railway Children, Edith Nesbit - Just a wonderful story.

The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas - I could include The Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask here.

Island of the Blue Dolphins, Scott O'Dell - Inspired by a true story of a woman stranded alone from 1835 to 1853 on San Nicolas Island off the coast of Southern California. I read it over and over.

Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransom – A tale of children, sailboats and adventure on the high seas. Well, the Lake District, anyway. BETTER DROWNED THAN DUFFERS IF NOT DUFFERS WONT DROWN.

Traveller, Richard Adams – The Civil War told from the point of view of General Lee's horse. You didn't think I would only have one horse book on the list, did you?

The Golden Treasury of Poetry – my favorite – The Tale of Custard the Dragon.

Belinda lived in a little white house

With a little black kitten and a little grey mouse

And a little yellow dog and a little red wagon

And a realio trulio little pet dragon.

A Lion Called Christian – after reading Born Free, Living Free, and Forever Free, I combed the library for other books about lions and found A Lion Called Christian. It’s an amazing story about two guys who lived above a trendy furniture shop in London back in the '60s who saw a lion cub at Harrods and bought him on the spur of the moment (yes, you could buy absolutely anything there, at least back then). The lion lived in their shop, and eventually got so large, they didn’t know what to do with him. One day, amazingly enough, the two actors who played Joy and George Adamson from the film Born Free, Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, walked in (the book said it was coincidental, but I’m sure someone told them, “Hey, you should go to this furniture shop! They have a lion there!). The two guys ended up taking Christian to George Adamson in Africa and introducing a 4^th generation captive-born lion to the wild. This is what happened when they went back to Africa a year later:

I only just recently found that video and am in floods of tears every time I watch it…

I think that's a few more than 15 books... I looked at my bookshelf. I could have listed 50 more.

Scenes from Truckee

2010-06-09T20:09:00.001-07:00

Not much of a post. Just a series of photos from the Truckee area.

The Truckee River is the only outlet to Lake Tahoe. Although Lake Tahoe is the second deepest lake in the United States, the dam at the lake outlet can raise the lake elevation six feet. This may not sound like a lot, but as the lake has a surface area of 191 square miles, this adds up to quite a bit of water. Here is a view from the dam looking toward the lake:

And of the dam itself:The Truckee River a little further downstream. A little later on in the season, this tranquil scene is completely obliterated by bank-to-bank large blue rafts:Here are the rafts piled up and waiting to go: Whitewater is somewhat of a misnomer in the section of the Truckee that they go down.

Squaw Valley:
Right now it's a big wet meadow.

Spot the mergansers:
When he noticed me taking the photos, the male merganser swam and hid behind the log. Typical.

The Donner Pass Bridge:
Sometimes called Rainbow Bridge. Even though it's grey.

Not very good camoflage. Unless they're really Porsches:

As I rode by, I noticed these guys had two bags full of wooden stakes. They must be really worried about vampires!

It was really WINDY!

Guest post from Brother Phil. Sort of.

2010-06-01T20:00:00.000-07:00

Hmm. It's been so long since I posted, my brother, Phil, is apparently getting sick and tired of waiting and is now sending me blog post material. But then, he also sent it to Click and Clack, so I guess I'm not that special. This is his contribution (unedited by me)(I take no responsibility for this post)(except for the fact that I'm posting it)(well, it is my blog, so I suppose I have to take some responsibility)(but no credit):

Brother Phil’s Fake Movie Names

Guy movie titles make sense and involve violent action. Chick flick titles either make no sense or involve chocolate. Sometimes both.
Find the chick flick:

Metal Death
Kill the Undead
Deader Than That
Even More Dead
Mostly Dead
How Much More Dead Can You Get?
Chase Until You Kill
The Ultimate Death Machine
Car Killer Chase Sport
Steal, Cheat, Lie, Kill
Robot Sport
Ultimate Blood Sport
Spy on the Dead
Confessions of a Mafia Spy
Spy Killer
Dead Metal Action Hero
Action Killer
Killer Hero
Hero Killer
Action Hero
Cooking the Flying Rose Society
Dead Hero
Metal Hero
Ultimate Car Chase
Two Drunk Idiots Steal Cars
Gun Killer
Gun Sport
Gun Hero
Gun Metal
Metal Gun Sport
Spring Break of Death
Beach of Death
Death Robot
Electric Death Monkey

Spot the guy flick:
A Lady and a Ruffian
The Chocolate Way
You Walk Into Gabardine
She's Pregnant
With Honesty
Monday, My Mother
A Credenza With Legs
Extreme Violence
Contrary Flowers
The Sisters of The Chocolate Icing
I Met My Mother
Cause and Chocolate
A Confluence of Blouses
The Wardrobe
Fried Chocolate
A Chance Encounter of Chocolate Flowers
Socks in a Dresser Drawer
Vanilla Isn't Plain
Like Hanna, For Instance
Hats, Blue and Red
Earnest Chocolate In Summer
Rain In Love
The Chartreuse Wardrobe Society of Flying Slingbacks
The Guy Falls For The Broken Wing (A Box of Chocolates)

Movies that flopped because they tried too hard to appeal to both women and men:
Chocolate Metal
The Chocolate Chase
The Zombie Sister Society
Red Zombie Blue Zombie
Action Chocolate Zombie Racer
Quarts of Blood, Gallons of Chocolate
Killer Hero's Baby
My Zombie, My Love
Chasing, Cheating, Chocolate
A Credenza With Legs, A Dresser Full Of Heads and a Closet Full Of Zombie Torsos
The Ultimate Death Machine of the Flying Electric Monkey Sister Society
A Stroll in the Park OF DEATH
She's Having a Zombie Baby
A Mother's Heart, A Sister's Legs, A Daughter's Head and Miscellaneous Parts Make A Zombie
Robots Have Chocolate Blood
The Red Shoe of Death
A Death Monkey Diary
Zombie Wedding
Action Killer Wedding Hero
An Hour to Wed, A Day to Die
Guns in a Dresser
Cheese
The Wedding Singer Killer
Perfect Heart, Rotting Soul
The Smell of Death in Springtime

Adult movies make plays on words. Children's movies appeal to a sense of family, involve animals or have the word "adventure" in the title.

Spot the adult movies:

Captain Rabbit's Secret Adventures
Robbie the Robot Rabbit
The Adventures of Abe, the Talking Donkie
Swiss Family Rabbitson
Debbie Does Donkies
Adventures in Rabbits
Nick Danger's Great Escape Adventure
Adventure Animal Family
Love Animal Style
Big Bear and the Bunny Rangers
A Bunny Family Christmas
A Playboy Bunny Christmas
Spy Family Adventure

Note from Laurie: Donkie is apparently not misspelled. If you don't know what it is, you'll have to look it up on Urban Dictionary yourself.

Conservatism

2010-04-05T18:42:00.000-07:00

I was never very interested in politics until...well, really until Bush Jr. got into office. I always figured that things sort of evened themselves out over time. Also, I wasn't a US citizen, so I couldn't really do anything about it anyway. I got my US citizenship in 2000 - just in time to vote in that election. Lotta good that did. I've slowly gotten more and more active - enough that I actually went in and volunteered to work on Charlie Brown's campaign for Congress against that lying, carpetbagging, scumbag Tom McClintock (did I just say that out loud?) because I felt so strongly about it (McClintock won - barely).

My son seems to have grown up with a highly developed sense of fairness. Being raised by me and two dads, he's been a gay rights activist from a fairly young age. He also refused to join a fraternity because they required a declaration that there might be some sort of higher being, and he felt that that discriminated against me (I think the "frat" part of that would probably have excluded me, anyway).

He's taking a Problems in American Politics class this semester. I keep getting calls immediately after he gets out of class that go something like this:

Me: Hi William. How much money do you need?

William: CONSERVATIVES ARE SO %@#$ing STUPID!

Me: Uh...yes, but...

William: ALL THEY %@#%ing WANT IS TO MAKE THE RICH RICHER AND THE POOR POORER!!!

Me: Um...Yeah, I think that's pretty much a given. Some of them don't feel....

William: My professor is trying to give a balanced viewpoint and let us draw our own conclusions.

Me: And your conclusion is...

William: Conservatives are MORONS!!

Me: *hysterical laughter*

William: We're learning about the healthcare debate this week. Oh, and I need to use PhotoShop for a class. Could I please have $60 dollars for 2 gigs of RAM so I can run it on my computer?

Me: *sigh* Try asking your dads first.

I was telling my mother about this conversation, and she completely agreed with William. I got almost the same response from her, without quite so many vulgarities. At least I didn't end up sending her money.

Exactly how long can I hold a grudge?

2010-03-02T17:06:00.000-08:00

I wouldn't say I was mechanically inclined overall, but I do enjoy DIY projects. For instance, I decided to extend the patio with paving stones several years ago, and did most of it myself while Bill looked on (slightly bewilderedly, I think - especially when I started digging an enormous hole in his backyard). I love putting things together from kits. This may have started when my brother and I got build-it-yourself crystal radio sets for Christmas one year. Only one station came in clearly, but I would lie awake at night listening to Houston Aeros Hockey (Go Gordie Howe! (Oh, wait. Does that date it?)), and the CBS Radio Mystery Theater with E. G. Marshall (Until next time,....Pleasant....dreams?). I wasn't allowed to have my light on to read (which I would have done all night if allowed), but I could listen to my radio without my parents knowing.

I also like messing around with cars. I once replaced the brakes and brake rotors on my Saturn (with minor help from my brother) and then spent the next eight years mildly surprised that the wheels hadn't fallen off yet.

Soon after he got his driver's license, my son got a 1988 Jeep Wrangler and he and I spent hours tinkering with the engine, trying to keep it running, during which time I think we taught each other some new swear words and spent way more money on parts than I could really afford. We actually managed to replace the head gasket on it at one point. After a few months, we gave up and got him a Honda Civic instead.

Just before William was born, David and I started having trouble with our Dodge Colt. It turned out to be a fusible link, and all we needed to do was twist the wires back together to keep it working for another couple of weeks, until it would burn through again (probably not the safest thing to do). When William was about a month old, it finally got so short the wires barely reached, so I went to Kragen Auto Parts, parked the car, unclipped the fusible link, carried it in, and told the guy I wanted a new one (I'm sure I said please, actually. I used to be extremely polite). He had absolutely no idea what it was.

While I was looking around to see if I could find one myself, William suddenly spat up - all over the floor. Fairly embarrassed, I bent down and started to wipe it up with William's blanket, and the guy suddenly loomed over me and said, "Does your husband know you're messing around with the car?"

Excuse me??? Today, I would probably tell him exactly what I thought of him, but at the time, I was only 24, and still had a lot of trouble talking to strangers (even after working with the general public for years). I couldn't think of anything to say to that. I didn't want to tell him that I knew WAY more about cars than my husband, because that would have been insulting to David. I mumbled something, finished wiping the floor, stood up, and carried William out. And refused to go back to Kragen Auto - any Kragen Auto - for about 16 years. I plugged the fusible link back into the engine and drove down the street to Grand Auto where they actually knew what it was and were able to help me.

Pet peeves

2010-02-17T20:32:00.000-08:00

This is a completely gratuitous post on: Things that irritate me or How to piss me off.

Fundamentalist religionuts and any pseudoscientific garbage, but those are just a given.

Mispronunciations. Especially people who mispronounce nuclear as nuke-yoo-lar (our favorite former commander-in-chief, for instance), realtor REE-lit-or (I've know actual realtors who can't pronounce this word) and mispronunciation mis-pro-noun-see-ay-shun. Bill is completely unable to pronounce labyrinth and pronounces it lab-er-nith, but that's just cute.*

People who say irregardless. The word is either regardless or irrespective, people! Pick one, but don't combine them. From my 1974 edition of Webster’s New World Dictionary, irregardless is defined as a substandard or humorous redundancy for REGARDLESS.

Snowboarders, with the exception of Kia, with whom I've never skied, and my son. He irritates me for other reasons. Snowboarders don't seem to have the brain capacity to understand that most skiers go back and forth across the slope, not straight down, and seem to be constantly surprised when skiers turn and go the other way right into their path such that they scream by at 50 mph barely missing and frightening the skier (me, anyway) half to death. In addition, skis make a pleasant shush, shushing sound - snowboards literally roar as they go by. I'm constantly swearing at snowboarders and calling them fracking moron idiots under my breath. Redundant, I know, but it makes me feel better. Ok, I don't always say fracking. Frelling? Smegging? (30 points if you can name all three Sci Fi shows - without a search engine). One ran into me earlier this year on a completely wide open slope with just the two of us on it, and then was bent out of shape when I yelled, "moron" at him (more out of fear and surprise than malice. Ok, maybe there was a little malice).

Led vs. Lead.

Lead (lěd) - a heavy, comparatively soft, malleable, bluish-gray metal, sometimes found in its natural state but usually combined as a sulfide, esp. in galena. Symbol: Pb; atomic weight: 207.19; atomic number: 82; specific gravity: 11.34 at 20°C.

Lead (lēd) - to go before or with to show the way; conduct or escort

Led (lěd) - the past tense of lead.

LED - light emitting diode

Fracking big SUVs, perhaps just when they're driven by idiots. UPDATE: Andrew reminded me that it's a general rule that fracking big SUVs are always driven by idiots.

People who say Safety Deposit Box. It is SAFE Deposit Box, people! We just watched an episode of Fringe where ALL the characters said safety deposit box over and over and over. I, of course, had to yell, "SAFE! The word is SAFE!" every time. Yeah, okay. I was probably more annoying than they were. Probably. Same thing happened recently with an episode of Alias.

Bigotry of any sort against anybody for any reason. Except snowboarders. Bigotry against snowboarders is fine.

Cruelty to animals. Humans included.

Having the television on just as noise in the background. I'm constantly coming into the living room and turning it off because NO ONE IS WATCHING IT! Unless I'm watching something in particular, I don't like it on at all. I have happily gone without TV for years at a time (I did use it to watch movies occasionally).

When I asked Bill to list things that irritate me, he said, "People who make slight grammatical errors and misproNOUNciations" (I already had that on the list). "And people who don't change lanes soon enough for you." No, Bill. That's just YOU.

*NOTE: Bill says he's not cute, he's ruggedly handsome.

(Note to self - figure out why there are no bullet points. Barry, help???)
UPDATE: Ok, now I have the funky flowers, but I guess they're better than nothing

Wild what chase?

2010-02-05T21:13:00.000-08:00

As I've mentioned in a previous post, since they retired, my parents have become licensed wild animal rehabilitators. What this means for the rest of us (that would be me and my brother), is that we can only visit at certain times of the year - when there are no baby animals. Otherwise, my mother is too busy feeding babies and doctoring injured adults to even speak coherently. She wears herself to the bone, and my father is just as busy going out on calls to pick up injured adults or more baby animals and taking many of them to one of several (wonderful) vets in the area that will administer to wild animals for free. My parents still end up spending A LOT of their own money on medical supplies, housing and food.

Other implications: They always need food for the carnivores. My father actually drives to a nearby state to pick up dead rats from a research facility. Once I was with my father and we passed a recently dead squirrel. My father slammed on the brakes, reached under the seat, pulled out a plastic bag, and handed it to me. I didn't even have to ask. I just jumped out, ran back and picked up the squirrel (first making sure it was really dead and not just stunned-I didn't really want to be bitten by an angry squirrel), got back in the car, and we sped off. At least my parents draw the line at dead skunks. I think.

A few years ago, my father picked me up at the airport, and we were dragging my luggage into the house. My mother met us at the door, gave me a hug (we only hug now that we live in different states and don't see each other more than about once a year - we're still British, you know), and said to my father, "We got a bird call while you were gone. You've got to go and pick up a Turkey Vulture." My father looked at me and raised his eyebrows. I said, "Sure, I'll go! Sounds like fun!" My father threw a large dog crate and a couple of big nets into the back of his Chevy S10.

I've had some experience with vultures before, actually. I volunteered for a short while at the Raptor Center at UC Davis, and the Turkey Vultures were everyone's favorites. They are highly intelligent, and when we went in to feed or clean out their cages (talk about stinky), some of them were tame enough that they'd come over and untie our shoelaces. They may be lumped into the raptor (birds of prey) designation due to superficial resemblances, but there is genetic evidence that vultures aren't really raptors, but are far more closely related to storks. This also makes sense if you look at their feet. They don't have the grasping talons of hawks and owls, and so can't pick up their dinner and carry it away, or even catch it in the first place.

This particular fairly young vulture had been hiding out in a culvert near a harvested corn field during the day. In the afternoon, he would cross the road and go up to this family's porch where they were leaving out hot dogs and steak for him. He then spent the nights on their porch, fairly safe from predators. After a few days, they finally realized that he couldn't or wouldn't fly for some reason and wasn't going to go away, so they got in touch with my mother. My parents do not recommend feeding your friendly neighborhood vulture hot dogs, by the way. They're about as good for the vulture as they are for humans. However, hot dogs can fill in in a pinch if you don't happen to regularly collect roadkill like SOME people.

My father and I arrived, and the woman told us that he was probably across the road in the culvert where he had been spending his days, so we grabbed our nets and marched over. As soon as he saw us, the vulture took off running, with me and my father in hot pursuit. At the time, my father was still playing soccer regularly (he played until he was 66 or 67 and his knees finally gave out on him), so he was in pretty good shape. This vulture obviously couldn't fly for some reason, but he sure could run, especially when he used his wings to give him a boost. The recently harvested corn field was mucky and uneven, and the vulture just ran circles around us. At one point my father almost had him, but tripped and fell (actually injuring his knee). I would try to cut the vulture off, but he just veered off in another direction and stayed well ahead of me.

Finally, he got tired of running and decided to make a beeline for the house across the road, where there was more cover, and he had been safe on the porch. He was far ahead of both of us, and I was freaking out in case he got hit by a car as he crossed the relatively busy county road. He ran up to the road stopped and looked both ways and ran across. Yes. I couldn't believe my eyes. I yelled to my father, "Did he really just look both ways?" My father saw it, too. This Turkey Vulture was smarter than most 10 year old humans. In his many trips across the road, he had obviously had a close call or two and learned from them.

We chased him around the farmyard, and eventually managed to trap him up against a fence. My father grabbed him, and turned around and handed him to me so he could talk to the woman. I put my arm around this very large bird, pinning his wings, while my father told me, "Keep his head up! Keep his head up or he'll vomit on you!" Thanks Dad. NOW YOU TELL ME. I quickly grabbed the vulture's neck and lifted as he tried to lean down to retch - mouth open, tongue out. I carefully kept his body pinned against mine and gently, but firmly held his head up, while he panted at me and looked in my eye - promising to vomit if I allowed him the slightest opportunity. Great. He was also more than a little smelly.

We eventually stuffed him into the dog crate and drove home. This was a while ago, and my parents get so many animals each year that they don't remember what happened to this particular vulture. He was possibly released. If not, all their unreleasable vultures have ended up in either zoos or nature centers.

This is Dexter, one of their more recent Turkey Vultures. Aptly named, but I'm pretty sure my parents don't watch the (really good, but more than somewhat gory) Showtime series. My father said he got the name because his left wing is injured.

It is illegal for most people to do what my parents do. My mother has federal and state licenses and is fairly strictly regulated. If you do find a sick, injured, or baby wild animal, call your state Department of Fish and Game/ Department of Natural Resources. You could also try a veterinarian or web search to find the number for a local wildlife rehabber.

Why was I reminded of this particular xkcd.com? Oh, right. I was listening to The Carpenters today in the car...

PZ Myers!

2010-01-30T17:57:00.000-08:00

Well, I actually cut band rehearsal on Thursday night. This is almost unheard of for me. The only times I've ever missed rehearsal, I was either ill or in England. I did have what I consider a really good reason, though. PZ Myers was speaking just down the road at Sierra College!!!

Author of the blog Pharyngula, PZ Myers is one of the top science bloggers AND one of the top two atheist bloggers (the other being the much "friendlier" Hemant Mehta). The Sierra College stop wrapped up a whirlwind eight day speaking tour of mostly Northern California for him that included UC Davis, UC Berkeley, and Stanford. I'm not sure how Sierra College managed to rate a stop, but I'd like to thank the Freethinkers of Sierra College for hosting.

His blog may be strident and snarky, particularly about religious insanity, but in person he really is very soft-spoken and polite. He gave a very interesting talk about creationist's sometimes seemingly deliberate misunderstanding of evolution and the differences in the ways creationists (including intelligent design advocates) and scientists get their points across to the general public.

During the question and answer period after the talk, a creationist in the audience actually identified himself and asked questions. I felt kind of sorry for him. His hands and voice were shaking. It must have been awful feeling as though he were the only theist (he wasn't, actually) completely surrounded by a sea of atheists. Oh, wait. I know exactly how that feels, as I'm sure did all of the other atheists in the audience.

Part of the exchange between PZ and the creationist went something like this:
Theist: Blah, blah, blah, ontological argument, blah, blah (Ok, so now maybe I'm being a little snarky. Oops)
PZ: [reasoned and rational explanation of the ontological argument and why it is based on circular, fallacious arguments]
Theist: No it's not!
PZ: [reasoned and rational explanation...need actual evidence]
Theist: No it doesn't!

PZ is well known for going out for drinks after he gives a talk, and Thursday was no exception. About 30 people met afterwards at a local brew pub (including the theist, surprisingly!), and guess who somehow managed to snag a seat right next to PZ! I'm not quite sure how that happened... Unfortunately, all I had was my phone, which doesn't take the best photos.

Thanks to Brett for taking the picture!

I got the opportunity to tell PZ that, when I first started an "atheist" blog, as I said in this post, my mother was very concerned that religious nutcases would shoot me or burn crosses in our front yard. I told her that there were other far more prominent atheists out there (meaning PZ, among others. Especially PZ) and I would be way down on the list. He's of the opinion that you just can't live your life in fear, and the vast majority of theists of any religion are decent people. It's only a very small percentage of the most radical theists who are actually dangerous.

The famous Crocoduck tie. There were two made, and the other belongs to Richard Dawkins (there are now knock-offs you can find on the internet). I really wish I'd remembered my camera...

PZ was recently interviewed by reddit.com, so you can see how soft-spoken he really is:

I wish I were still that naive

2010-01-22T08:47:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking about learning to scuba dive, and for some reason this has triggered some memories from when I was a lifeguard at a swim club for four summers in high school. Well, I was only actually a lifeguard for three summers, because after they hired me, we all found out that, even though I was completely certified, since I was only 15 I was too young the first summer. So they put me to work as the Gatekeeper (no Keymaster jokes!) keeping out the hoi polloi (of which, if I remember correctly, my family was part, because we didn't live in the right part of Benicia and couldn't join). One of my jobs was to answer the phone, which happened to be a pay phone in the clubhouse. Most of the time it was questions such as, "When do you open?" and "How do we join?," but one day:

Me: Southampton Swim Club, may I help you?

Him: I'd like to [redacted] and [redacted]

Me: (thinking) I must not have heard that correctly
I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. Could you repeat that?

Him: (louder) I'd like to [redacted] and [redacted]

Me: I can't have heard that right. It doesn't make sense.
I'm sorry, but it's really loud in here. I still couldn't hear you.

Him: I'D LIKE TO [REDACTED] AND [REDACTED]

Me: Ok, that's what I thought he said.
(long pause)......Um...we don't have a pool table here.

Him: OH, FORGET IT! (click)

As I turned away from the phone and started walking back through the clubhouse, I bumped into the chairwoman of the board who had recently hired me. I must have looked confused, because she asked me what happened. I relayed the conversation to her, and was startled when she burst out laughing so hard that she actually couldn't speak for a minute or two. By this time I was REALLY confused. When she finally was able to get control of herself, she wiped away tears, put her arm around my shoulders, and said, "Honey, you just had an obscene phone call!" Then she told me to stay innocent for as long as possible.

Non-Believers Giving Aid

2010-01-17T09:20:00.000-08:00

The Richard Dawkins Foundation has set up a site for non-believers to donate money for Hatian relief. One hundred percent of the money donated will go to Doctors Without Borders and the International Red Cross.

According to a tweet by Michael Shermer, the site raised over $50,000 in less than 24 hours (of course, being a skeptic myself, I'd like to see where he got the information).
Update: Over $124,000 in 24 hours.
Update again: According to PZ Myers, over $150,000 in 24 hours. Currently at over $180,000.

I don't care where you donate, but please donate. The situation in Haiti is critical.

Update: Poodles reminds us not to forget about the non-human animals caught up in the devastation...

Ceilidh

2010-01-14T18:47:00.000-08:00

My parents got a new dog last week. My mother is completely enamoured. Their 17 year old Australian cattle dog, Butch, died several months ago, and my parents wanted a companion for their 12 year old and still very active border collie, Duffy. They have had Border Collies most of their married life (close to 50 years), and my mother started searching through the Border Collie rescue sites. Duffy is getting older, and has always been at the bottom of the pecking order, so she wanted to make sure he wouldn't be picked on by any new dog. One that caught her eye was a little female who had been hit by a car and had spent weeks at the vet's and months recuperating. She's only got three usable legs, and she's really still recuperating. She's possibly been a little stunted by the accident, because she's half the size of Duffy, but apparently he's being a perfect gentleman to her. My mother named her Céilidh (Caylee), which, as I said in my last post, is a Gaelic dance.
One of the first things my parents did when they got married was to get a Border Collie. Gammon was three when I was born. He was more like an older brother to me, and being a Border Collie, of course looked out for me. One day when I was a toddler, my mother looked out in the front garden, saw that I had somehow managed to open the front gate and that Gammon and I were gone. She rushed out, looked down the street, and way off in the distance there we were. Gammon was slowly walking next to me, leaning into me and herding me out of the street. Most other dogs would have bolted for freedom, but he stayed right with me. He, of course, could have stopped me from leaving at all, but he was always up for a walk.

Another time (when I was even younger), we were camping, and I crawled into an adjacent field full of cows. Cows are fairly curious, and so they all started crowding around me to have a look. Since we were in a campground, Gammon had to be chained up, but he actually became frantic, broke his chain, and flew into the middle of the cow herd, scattering cows in all directions and protecting me until my parents could get there a few seconds later (my parents really weren't nearly as careless with me as this all sounds. Really...).

When I was older, I would try and order Gammon around and I swear he would just raise one eyebrow and look at me. I could actually see him thinking, "Hmph. Like I have to do anything you say." Gammon owned, to borrow a phrase from 101 Dalmatians (the book NOT any of the lame movies), one of the keenest brains in Dogdom. He died when I was nine, and I'm not sure my parents have ever completely gotten over it. He was their first child.

After Gammon, we got a half St. Bernard half Weimeraner. She was the size of a Great Dane, and looked a lot like a giant Rhodesian Ridgeback (especially when she had her hackles up). Poor Shandy was probably very intelligent in her own way, but she could never live up to Gammon. She lived in his shadow for 15 years.

Other Border Collies they've had:
Whisky — who was found near a rest area (I think) by a friend of the family who knew of my parent's fondness for Border Collies. They thought she may have fallen out of a truck. I think my parents had her for 13 or 14 years.

Heidi — She was the sole survivor of a head on collision. Again, my parents got her because someone heard (through me, actually) that they were fond of Border Collies. She was about 11 when they got her, but she lived another 4 or so years.

Vixen — wasn't really a Border Collie, but she was a collie mix. She looked like a giant fox. She came from the Humane Society and had been kept in a basement for the first nine months of her life.

They often seem to name their dogs after food. Duffy is Plum Duff, Gammon is a cut of bacon (their cat was named Streaky - another cut of bacon), Shandygaff is a beer flavoured with ginger beer (can I just interject? - blech! I don't like beer OR ginger beer), and Whisky was Black and White Scotch.
I think they're lucky to have Ceilidh, but she's also very lucky to have them. Note - That is her tail and a chew toy, not her bad leg...

Scenes from Scotland: Edinburgh or More Photos of my Brother

2010-01-07T20:35:00.000-08:00

Scotland is very welcomingUnless that part in Gaelic actually means Now Go Home.

We only had about three days in Scotland, so we spent most of our time in Edinburgh on and around the Royal Mile, which runs between Edinburgh Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse (Holyrood Abbey, to be more specific). Holyroodhouse is the Queen's official residence in Scotland.

Of course we first had to find the statue of Greyfriars Bobby. We almost tripped over it, actually. I think every bus we took went past it. It's entirely possible we might have been breaking the law if we hadn't found it AND taken a photo.

View from Greyfriars Kirkyard.

St. Giles Cathedral. St. Giles is the patron saint of ~~cripples~~ (just doesn't sound PC anymore) disabled people, lepers and Edinburgh. And horses, breast feeding, mental illness, rams, forests, sterility...He was apparently a very popular saint.

St. Giles front door, the very impressive stonework of which I believe dates to a restoration done in the late 1800s. Phil managed to get in the way, of course.

Holyroodhouse gate. And Phil.

A lion, the symbol of England, holding St. George's Cross.

A unicorn, the symbol of Scotland, holding St. Andrew's Cross. And if you superimpose the crosses and add St. Patrick's Cross (British readers please bear with me for a moment — this isn't generally taught over here), you get the Union Jack (Poor old Wales is just lumped under the Cross of St. Andrew). Image snagged from Ward's Book of Days

Meanwhile, at the other end of the Royal Mile:
Edinburgh Castle

Phil and Bill. I prefer not to stand under a portcullis, myself.

The medieval seigegun, Mons Meg. And Bill. And Phil.

Do I have to even say?

The Lion and Unicorn fighting for the crown.

A view of Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth (a fjord) from the castle.

And just so Lesley doesn't feel gypped:
Me eating haggis (you probably don't even want to know. But it was good) at the Royal McGregor pub on the Royal Mile, which is a tourist trap according to Mr Farty. He prefers the Worlds End pub down the street where he can get a really good Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster. Also check out the photos on Mr Farty's sidebar at Better Oot Than In for better views of the entire area.
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I remarked that I was posting some photos of Scotland, so my mother wants me to mention that they got another border collie yesterday (they have two now) and named her Céilidh (pronounced Cay-lee) which is a traditional Gaelic dance. She promised to send me photos.

So Bob, did it work?

On being alone

2009-12-31T20:07:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: Being alone is all well and good, but sometimes it would be nice to have another person in the car when I'm going skiing and have to put chains on the tires to get there...

At the age of about 8, I was lucky enough to have a horse-crazy mother who was finally able to fulfill her lifelong dream by getting me a pony - Paleface - and then later, a horse - Najmah (she also got herself a horse for a while). By the time I was a young teen, I was doing things like riding Najmah through the Dairy Queen drive-thru and sharing a hamburger with her. I ate the burger, she ate the bun. This was Texas in the '70s, so the only really unusual thing about that was that I was riding English style instead of Western. Although I often rode with friends, we lived in a rural area where I was also able to just saddle up and ride off by myself pretty much whenever I wanted. It was very liberating.

It would be just me and Najmah. Usually Whiskey, our border collie, would come — ostensibly for protection, but in reality she mostly just chased squirrels (she did attack and drive off a much larger Keeshond who was trying to bite Najmah's heels once). I had a feeling of exhilaration and well-being and thought I never felt alone or lonely because I was enjoying the company of other beings. I had these same feelings years later with my horse, Sandpiper.

The weird thing is, I get the exact same feelings when I'm skiing, and I'm almost always alone when I ski. I even prefer to ride the lift alone if the resort isn't too busy. Making conversation with a complete stranger on a long lift ride can be interesting, but is sometimes just too stressful. My mother actually recently asked me if I get lonely skiing. No, never. It doesn't bother me to have lunch at the resort restaurants alone, either.* I have more recently started riding my bike regularly, and yes, I get those same feelings. I often ride with friends, but far more often alone.

I actually kind of find it sad that the "company" was all in my head. This, of course, doesn't mean that I didn't love the horses. When we left Texas for California, we had to leave them there, and I missed them terribly and cried for weeks (that was back in 1979, and I'll still get choked up thinking about it). Or perhaps I should say that I WAS enjoying their company, but that wasn't why I wasn't lonely.

I like company, but I guess I'm also just comfortable being by myself.

* My mother told me once that she had never eaten in a restaurant alone. I was flabbergasted. I've even been to movies by myself.

Lolcats, birds, horses, elephants, goats...

2009-12-27T11:00:00.000-08:00

I know. Lazy post. Hey, I did all the hard work of weeding through icanhascheezburger.com for you!

Yah, I would have been right up there with them. Srsly.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

He might actually be able to catch that starling...

If I know horses, he's actually just about to rip out the spark plug wires.

If my mother reads this (highly unlikely), she's just going to worry in case he hurts himself. She's probably worried about the upside-down starling, too.

Zombies are more of a problem in our front yard.

My brother actually sent this one to me.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Proof that I've been to Scotland

2009-11-26T21:44:00.000-08:00

I took Bill to England two years ago last October/November for my grandfather's 99th birthday. Since this was the second time Bill had ever been off this continent (he went to Hawaii once), we decided to cram as much into the three weeks as possible. After heading down to Devon with my parents to see my grandparents, my aunt Hilary gave me a few driving lessons (it was very nice of her to put her car at such risk), and Bill and I rented a car (well, I rented a car. Nobody wanted Bill to try and drive on the other side of the road, including Bill) and headed back to London (with a side trip to Stonehenge) where we met up with my brother. After a few days in London, we took off on a road trip that went up the M1 up through Leeds (I might do another post on the Royal Armory at Leeds) and then cut across through Jedburgh to Edinburgh. Bill was in archeologist heaven the entire time.

Before we got to Scotland, we had to stop at Hadrian's Wall (Phil, does this count as another post about you? It does have photos of you...). You can see in this photo that the wall was built as two parallel walls, and then the interior was filled in with rubble and concrete: There were several forts along the wall. This is the ruins of Vercovicium (Housteads) The pillars supported a raised floor (some of which is still there). Hot air from wood burning stoves circulated under the floors for central heat. The Romans were big on comfort. The granary:The latrines:And an artist's rendition of what the latrines probably looked like:We could tell we were getting close to the border, because we met a large Border Collie. He looked very similar to and was about the same size as (huge) the one my parents had for their first 12 years of marriage. We finally made it to the Scottish border, and took the typical touristy pictures:Bill is in the Vauxhall Astra in the background because it was cold and rainy and he's a wuss.
Next post - maybe some actual photos of Scotland....
All photos taken with my Canon PowerShot A540.

Kiva - Loans that change lives

2009-10-30T12:23:00.000-07:00

Over the past year or so, several atheist blogs I read (but mainly the Friendly Atheist) have mentioned a microfinance site where you can loan money to specific low income entrepreneurs throughout the world as a way to fight poverty. A couple of months ago, I wandered over to take a look.

It sounded like a good idea, so I joined the Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and the Non-Religious (AASFSHNR) team but didn't make a loan for a while. Via a lot of blog promotion, the AASFSHNR has become the number one lending team on Kiva, but I felt I had to research more about it before I actually gave Kiva any money.

The way it works is you loan to an individual or group somewhere in the world and the loan gets paid back over a specific period (like any loan, of course). Then you have the option of either loaning the money again, donating it to Kiva to cover operating expenses, or withdrawing it. Although Kiva does not charge interest, the loan goes through a field partner in the borrower's country, and they do charge the borrower interest. The loans you make are interest free, so this is not a way to make money, and in fact, there is a chance you will lose it if the borrower fails to repay. Researching what might be going on (e.g., political or economic problems) in the part of the globe to which you're sending your money, and the microfinance field partner is probably a good idea. Over $99,700,000 has been loaned worldwide through Kiva so far.

Then, Bobby Henderson, founder of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, made a plea on the AASFSHNR message board because the FSM team was getting close to the $100,000 mark (note that, although the AASFSHNR name is rather long, and in fact might possibly be the longest team name on Kiva, it does NOT include Pastafarians). I went over and checked, and found that the FSM team is the number two lender in the religious organizations category! It seemed as though I was being tapped on the shoulder by His noodly appendage (or maybe I just had an itch. I don't know), so I, of course, had to make a couple of loans (Ok, if you click that link, you'll notice 11 so far). I figure that I can afford a few dollars better than most of the people on this planet. I've already been able to re-lend a substantial amount of the money I've loaned, so my "investment" is fairly minimal.

On October 7, the AASFSHNR team became the first group to loan over a million dollars (the number two team is still over $300,000 away). Here is a press release regarding the event. We are currently over $1,100,000.

Twenty-five dollars is the minimum you can loan, but you can re-loan it as often as you like. That $25 can turn into $50, $75 or much more. Go and loan now. Join any of my teams, or a competing team (we like the competition! It means more loans!). There are plenty of them: GLBT, Team Obama, Animal Lovers, and even Beer Goggles Never Lie...much. Or you can start your own team. It doesn't matter what team, or even if you aren't on one - for a minimal amount of money, you can help change lives. This may not be an investment for you, but it is an investment in the world and our future.
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Paraphrasing LeVar Burton, you don't just have to take my word for it:

'Revolutionising how donors and lenders in the US are connecting with small entrepreneurs in developing countries.' (actually, there are lenders from all over the world)
-- BBC

'If you've got 25 bucks, a PC and a PayPal account, you've now got the wherewithal to be an international financier.'
-- CNN Money

'Smaller investors can make loans of as little as $25 to specific individual entrepreneurs through a service launched last fall by Kiva.org.'
-- The Wall Street Journal

'An inexpensive feel-good investment opportunity...All loaned funds go directly to the applicants, and most loans are repaid in full.'
-- Entrepreneur Magazine

The Prince's Rainforest Campaign

2009-09-08T19:40:00.000-07:00

Not much of a post, but this wouldn't fit in my sidebar. I was floored at the speed of the counter at the top of this page displaying the m² of rainforest that has been destroyed since the page is opened. It is really, really depressing.

On the other hand, Princes William and Harry are really cute in this video.

Earthquakes

2009-08-14T15:11:00.000-07:00

The first earthquake I ever felt was a small one that barely shook the stage while I was in band rehearsal a couple of months after we moved to California. The Drum Major screamed, "Earthquake!" but the rest of the band just sat calmly as the room swayed back and forth a little.
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I was also in class at UC Davis when the 6.9 magnitude Loma Prieta earthquake (otherwise known as the earthquake that interrupted the World Series that almost nobody cared about anyway) hit the San Francisco Bay Area on October 17, 1989. Davis was about 100 miles from the epicenter, and we actually felt it quite strongly. I was in Human Physiology in the largest lecture hall on campus, and everyone in the room thought that the person behind them had kicked the back of their chair. Hard. The professor was standing, and couldn't feel it, but slowly realized that he had suddenly completely lost everyone's attention. Finally the class managed to point out to him that 1) his bike was rolling back and forth behind him, and 2) the trees outside were whipping back and forth without wind.

I got out to my car after class, and KGO, the Bay Area talk radio station to which my radio was always tuned was off the air. That's when I started worrying about my parents, who were living in the Bay Area at the time. By the time I was able to get home and call them, the phone lines were completely overwhelmed and useless.

Cut to my parents:
My parents were sitting on the couch watching everything swing and sway around them, and after a while, my mother said to my father, "Do you think we should get in a doorway or something?" by which time, it was over. They sat and watched as a large vase on the wall unit spun around and around on it's base, but eventually righted itself rather than falling over. My collie, Robin, was staying with them for a few months, and had had a couple of dizzy spells. They said he stood in the entryway with his legs splayed, obviously thinking this was another one.

KGO was off the air because their radio transmission tower...broke and fell into the bay.
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I happened to be in Redlands, CA when the Landers and Big Bear twin earthquakes hit, June 28, 1992. I was doing field work for the consulting firm for which I worked and I had dragged one of our field technicians, Burt, down to Southern California to help. We had fyke nets in the Santa Ana River and Big Bear Creek up in the San Bernardino Mountains that we were checking a couple of times a day.

Unusually for me, just as I was falling asleep on the 27th, I thought to myself, "What would I do if there's an earthquake tonight? I'll get under that table." No, I had never thought anything like that before. No, I'm not psychic. I either felt one of the pre-shocks, or it was just a coincidence. I was literally thrown out of bed when the 7.6 magnitude Lander's quake hit at 4:58 AM (Redlands was ~40 miles from the epicenter), and woke up under that table thinking, "Damn! I should really wear more clothes to bed. I can't run outside wearing this!" Yes, if the building had collapsed, I would have been killed due to modesty.

I wasn't really frightened - more excited than anything. When I finally got dressed and outside, it was mostly over, the water was sloshing around in the pool a little, and the completely freaked out Burt was at my door with his bags packed, ready to leave. I convinced him that we should at least eat breakfast first. I also called my parents to tell them I was OK even though it was 5:00 AM, because I knew from previous experience that the phone lines would soon be overwhelmed.

A fairly strong aftershock hit while Burt and I were eating, but I convinced him that we should just stay and finish our job. We couldn't just leave the nets there, and "What are the chances that there will be another earthquake," I said, rolling my eyes. I remember saying this several times.

We left to go up into the San Bernardino mountains and a really strong aftershock hit while we were gassing up the truck. This helped him convince me that we should go back to our hotel and at least call in to see what our supervisor said. While we were on the phone, the 6.7 Big Bear earthquake hit. Although it was a much smaller earthquake, it was also much closer (~25 miles away) and a MUCH sharper jolt.

It was probably one of the most exciting things that has ever happened to me. Burt and I were taking turns yanking the phone out of each other's hands and relaying the earthquake to our poor supervisor blow-by-blow. We were on the second floor, and had a pretty good view.

Large amounts of water in the pool started sloshing out, which was just amazing to see.

The television in my room kept tilting forward until it was caught by the cord, and then thrown back onto the table.

The hotel we were in was right next to a freeway overpass, which was swaying violently back and forth. The teflon-lined joints in the road bed were doing their job, and sliding against each other - one half of the overpass was going one way, and the other the other way. The friction was so great, the joint started smoking. Although it was only offset by a few inches, it was incredible to watch!

It was an unusually clear day, and as I looked out at the mountains, it suddenly looked as thought they had spontaneously burst into flames. What looked like smoke started billowing up all over them. I realized this must be from numerous simultaneous land slides and relayed this to my poor supervisor.

Everything calmed down fairly quickly, and Burt was finally able to convince me to leave. Before we left, we drove out to explain to our client's office to let them know we were going and ask them to pull the nets when they got a chance. They told us that they had several work crews stuck up on the roads unable to move because landslides had blocked them on either side. Yes, the very same roads we would have been on if I had had my way. Later, we also found out that the nets had actually been buried under boulders. THAT would have been exciting had we been there... The nets were only a few miles from the epicenter of the Big Bear quake.

Amazingly enough, there were only three casualties from these two quakes, although sadly one of them was a three year old boy.

I haven't written enough posts about my brother. Apparently.

2009-08-07T22:49:00.000-07:00

Ok, I've tried to keep several members of my family pretty much out of this blog. My father has really been the only one that reads it regularly, and he never comments except in person (well, usually on the phone since they live thousands of miles away). He does send me blog material occasionally. He's a retired helminthologist, and when I was growing up, dinner table conversation often turned to such interesting things as parasitic nematodes and tapeworms. This was sort of an unofficial litmus test for potential boyfriends (and girlfriends in my brother's case) — if they didn't run to the bathroom and vomit, they had promise. If they joined in, even better.^[1]

My mother is terrified that I will be found and shot or harassed or lose my job or something because she feels that the religious nuts in this country are highly unstable and I shouldn't be putting myself and family in danger by actually coming out as an atheist. I've told her that there are a lot of far more prominent atheists out there, and I would be way down on the list if people started gunning for us. I think she doesn't read my blog for the same reason that when she's a passenger in a car, she won't look over the edge of a cliff in case the car goes off.

It's also partly because she and my father are really busy as licensed wild animal re-habbers. When my mother sends my father out on a wild goose chase, he usually comes home with an actual wild goose. No, they don't get paid, they do it for the animals, and yes you do have to have both federal and state licenses to do it, so don't try this at home. Oh, and thawing rats (to feed the carnivores) on the kitchen counter can also be a BIG turnoff for potential dates for both me AND my brother.^[2] Just sayin'

In addition she's...well, lets just say my brother and I both got her the same birthday card this year:

Outside - Mom, This year I'm going to program your phone to play Happy Birthday whenever it rings

Inside - And you won't be able to do anything about it, will you?

My brother Phil, on the other hand, actually has commented several times, but wanted to remain anonymous due to what I can only assume are some shady dealings at some point in his life. He did at one time frequent a speakeasy, after all. Or maybe it was something about not wanting any of his ex-wives to find him. Whatever. He also has stated that he doesn't want to be associated too closely with me when they start rounding atheists up and putting us into concentration camps. SORRY PHIL. Too late. They have a file on you now, too. Not that he's paranoid or anything, but then again, he used to be a registered Republican. Which could possibly be a symptom of mental illness in itself. Luckily, the previous administration brought him to his senses. Now he's in the Prohibition Party, AND the Marijuana Party, which causes him a lot of cognitive dissonance.^[3]

When he discovered he wasn't exactly internet anonymous, he started commenting more and suddenly became REALLY NEEDY! For example:

See why I don't spend much time reading this blog? It has nothing about me in it. The whole page and nothing. She took days to write about her whole life, tomatoes, hives, horses. Me? Nope. Oh, wait. She mentions me in a reply to a post. Here. On this little backwater of a page. Humph.

Did anyone who reads this know I had a brother? (PLEASE SAY YES, OR I'LL NEVER HEAR THE END OF IT!) And congratulate him. He's getting married soon! Again! Hey, wait. Do I have to get him yet another wedding present? I can only assume she passed the dead rat litmus test already.^[4]

He's my younger brother, and I was always really mean to him. For instance, I slammed the door shut in his face once. Unfortunately, the door was exactly the right height to rip the toenail off his big toe. I also pushed him down a vine out of a tree. Unfortunately, the vine had a broken offshoot which caught him in the groin area. He had to have several stitches. I'm sure he still has that scar. Considering how I treated him, he's always been really nice to me. I don't know why...

He's actually posted a picture of himself on his profile (Yes, it's the same link as before. He doesn't give me much to work with).^[5] I like this photo better, though.And you thought I was odd. Obviously the orange peel should go the other way around. Sheesh.

^[1] Both Bill and David passed with flying colours

^[2] Again Bill passed with flying colors. He was also accidentally fed rice that had confused flour beetles (they WERE cooked!) in it. Well, it wasn't actually accidental. My mother and I looked at the rice and then at each other, and quietly and quickly started picking the small black things out. We didn't tell my father and Bill until AFTER dinner, and Bill STILL married me two years later. It didn't bother either of them at all. But now nobody is ever going to come to my house for dinner again. Especially not my son, who has an irrational fear of insects (No, William. You were not there. As far as YOU know).

^[3] I suppose I should put a disclaimer that, no he is not in either the Prohibition or the Marijuana party. Especially not the Prohibition Party. I don't think...

^[4] Getting to Wallis and Futuna for the wedding is going to be a pain in the butt.

^[5] Contrary to what his Blogger Profile name might indicate, my Brother Phil is definitely NOT a monk.

Tomatoes

2009-07-26T20:10:00.000-07:00

Warning: Boring tomato post. If you couldn't already tell that from the title.

Bill and I usually have three tomato plants in tubs in our backyard, at least two of which are heirloom. This year we have Bull's Heart (my favourite - we grow it every year), Belgium Giant (Bill picked it out), and Jetsetter (which, contrary to the name, was the last to ripen yet again this year). This usually means we have so many tomatoes we can't eat them all before they rot, so I can many of them. Last year started out promising, but ended up being a dud. I canned 4 jars of Bull's Heart, and we easily kept ahead of them and ate the rest as they ripened.

This year:
First harvestA few days later it had grown into a big scary pile. Time to can:After the massacre:Done deed:This year they are very juicy. I usually use a slotted spoon to spoon them into the jars, and that only leaves a little liquid at the bottom. Usually. I actually canned 3 more jars after this photo was taken.

When you grow tomatoes, tomato hornworms often show up eventually and can do some major damage. I call them an attractive nuisance. They're really quite pretty.(click to embiggen) Bill called me outside to see a small black wasp "stinging" this one. I ran out and there was a pitched battle going on. The wasp was landing on the hornworm's back, and the hornworm was flinging it's head and upper body violently around at it. I said, "Um, no. It isn't stinging. It's laying eggs."

Then I wouldn't let Bill kill the hornworm (what he normally does when he finds them) because I thought we should allow the parasitic wasps to survive to adulthood. The hornworm hung around in the top of the Belgium Giant plant for about a week, and then disappeared yesterday. I didn't see any signs of wasp infestation (it is apparently fairly obvious when they pupate). Now I don't know if it died due to the infestation, or has gone further down into the plant to pupate and metamorphose into a moth.

WOW! She got it EXACTLY... well, maybe not.

2009-07-14T20:45:00.000-07:00

Although PZ Myers already posted about it, I thought I'd throw in my two cents worth.
This woman sums up what a lot of people seem to believe about atheists. Because they know us better than we know ourselves. Apparently.

There are some key factors involved in this thinking by atheists that are not usually published. (Actually, these idiots write about it all the time)

Being the hot topic of the day, any discussion of atheism, should include these 'difficult to admit' points:

Firstly, atheists claim that they themselves are god. They claim they have superior knowledge then* the rest of us by trying to say that they have better knowledge because of their own thinking. They will not acknowledge anyone else to be above them.

I have been an atheist all my life and have never once claimed to be a god or goddess, except in the kitchen and maybe once in the bedroom.** Come to think of it, I may have only used Green Goddess salad dressing in the kitchen, and may have only been called one in the bedroom.

I love PZ's response to this - Personally, I only rank myself as a lesser demon.
*Note, I refrained from correcting her misspellings, but not from making fun of them.
** If you are my father - DON'T READ ANY FURTHER!

Secondly, atheists have been hurt somewhere in their lives, can't understand suffering, and are mad at God — so it is easier to deny there is one.

Um, nope. I'm a generally happy person who has not been hurt any more than anyone else, very happy with how my life has turned out so far, very much in love with my husband, happy that my family is in fairly good health, and happy in my job (except for the potential 20% pay reduction - but at least I still have a job!). I have occasional "down" periods, but those are just part of normal cyclical ups and downs.

I'm not sure what she means by "can't understand suffering." Suffering is a normal part of life. I know many people who suffer or have suffered both physically and emotionally far more than I have, and I know I've been fairly lucky so far. Suffering actually seems to me to be an argument against the existence of any sort of "loving" god. A truly loving and omnipotent god wouldn't allow it, and would actually be an evil god if he/she/it could stop it, and yet still allowed it. However, suffering has to be explained somehow, so it seems to be a big part of the religions of many cultures.

As for being mad at God - how can you be mad at something that doesn't exist? It's like being mad at the Tooth Fairy or Santa Clause or the Loch Ness Monster. I am sometimes mad at religious idiots, but not at their imaginary friend.

Thirdly, atheists are looking for God for the same reason a thief would be looking for a police officer. They don't want to be accountable to a higher being because of the wrong things they do.

I knew someone would finally catch us on that. Bill and I will just have to stop having sex in the street* and robbing banks. We tend not to do illegal things (well, I speed a little sometimes) not because some magic book tells us not to, but because they are either illegal or morally** wrong.

*I actually had someone ask me what stopped me from having sex in the street. That would be...HELLO! cars and a healthy sense of self preservation. Oh, and not only would it be illegal, it would be WRONG! I'm an extremely private person and wouldn't do it even if it was legal.

This same person then went on to accuse me of having sex with my dog. Now I loved Charlie more than any other dog I've ever had (or possibly ever will have), and we had a very, very strong bond, but if I had wanted to do that, I wouldn't have had him NEUTERED, would I?

** Morals have been around far longer than any present day religions, and the basics (such as the taboos against murder and incest, and reciprocity (aka the Golden Rule), are most likely evolved, while many others are learned depending upon the culture in which you live. Many other animals also exhibit morality, and they certainly didn't learn it from a magic book.

Fourthly, atheists forget that when a person goes to a museum and admires a painting, that there was a painter/designer of that art piece. The art piece is absolute evidence of a painter and not caused by random nothingness.

All of the world, stars, animals, plants, oceans, and mountains are absolute proof of a divine intelligent being (beyond our human ability and thinking) who made these things.

Can the atheist make a tree? It is scientifically impossible for bees to fly (laws of physics) and yet they do. It is impossible for our eyes to see and yet they do. What more proof does an atheist need than their own heart pumping in their chest without them commanding their heart to pump each beat in perfect timing each and every second necessary?

Of course things weren't caused by random nothingness (except maybe this woman's brain). Evolution by natural selection is actually the opposite of random, and over millions and millions (sometimes billions) of years only gives the illusion that something was designed.

Complex, image forming eyes may have evolved up to 100 different times, so obviously they are a handy thing to have. Actually, if you look at the physiology of the vertebrate eye, it is not "designed" very well at all - sort of back-to-front, actually - because the light photons have to travel through all the nerves and blood vessels to get to the photoreceptors, which are pointing backward. These nerve cells and blood vessels all come together at the optic nerve, and create a blind spot. This is exactly what you would expect from something evolved, but not purposefully designed. Cephalopod eyes, on the other hand are "designed" correctly. The photoreceptors are pointing toward the light source rather than away, and there is no blind spot, as the nerves are behind the retina rather than in front of it.

Can the theist make a tree? If not, then why should an atheist be able to?
This interesting article shows it's not scientifically impossible for bees to fly and they in no way contradict the laws of physics. Obviously, SINCE THEY FLY! Duh!

Fifthly, denial is a strong coping mechanism in crisis, but does not serve anyone in the long run. Like an ostrich with its head in the sand, an atheist denies God not because God does not exist—but because the atheist doesn't want God to exist and does not want to see the truth and evidence in front of their eyes.

I would rather believe in God and make sure my life is doing what is acceptable to this Superior Being than to not believe in God and find out I will be accountable to this God for everything I've done after I die. With 84% of the world's population believing in the existence of God, I think the majority rules in this case.

Yeah, actually there is no evidence of a god. If there were, I would believe, but nobody's come up with anything at all convincing or that could only have a supernatural explanation yet. Gods were invented by man to explain the unexplainable. Over the last 1000 years or so, we've been slowly chipping away at things that previously could only be attributed to a god until we will eventually understand every one.

Pascal's wager (better to believe than not just in case there is a god and he gets mad at you) has been done to death. An omniscient god would be able to tell you were only believing in him because you were afraid not to. I would ask her how she knows for sure she's worshiping the correct god? There are so many. What if the Hindus or followers of Shinto are actually right? Maybe the ancient Greeks were. What if she's following the wrong type of Christianity? There are numerous Christian sects. Maybe the Amish or the Mormons are right.

At one time far more than 84% of the world's population believed that the Earth was the center of the universe. Did majority rule make that correct? Up until the latter part of the last century, most people believed that the continents were static and had always been in their present positions. Did majority rule make that correct? And 84% may believe in gods, but does she believe that Mohammad was the true prophet and flew up to heaven on a winged horse? I doubt it. And to which version of Christianity (I'm assuming she's one of the many Christian sects) does she adhere? There were numerous Ecumenical councils where church leaders got together and decided what biblical canon to keep and what to throw out.

And introducing...Clio!

2009-07-02T21:32:00.000-07:00

Alright, already! I'm being badgered by someone who shall remain nameless to post some photos of our new kitty, Clio. A little while after both Kitty and Isis (yes, she's the gorgeous fluffy goofball in the fishtank) died within a month of each other, Bill thought we should get a kitten. I did a little online research and found a cat rescue place nearby, so we went over. It turned out the woman and her husband also rescue horses (no we already have one, thankyouverymuch).

There were cats (and horses) everywhere. We went into the detached mother-in-law's cottage which was entirely devoted to cats. There were about 5 cats who immediately came out to greet us, one of whom was a skinny little long-haired calico who had just been spayed. Bill's eyes literally lit up as soon as he saw her, and she was the first one he picked up. Over the hour and a half we were there, the woman kept bringing more and more cats in to show us. Cats of all ages, but mostly Maine Coons, Ragdolls, Turkish Angoras and Siamese. I wanted to take them all home. Bill couldn't stop picking them up and cuddling them, but he kept coming back to the calico. I finally told the woman that it looked as though he'd fallen in love, and we'd take her. Here is a photo from the day we got her. On the way home, Bill suddenly said, "Clio. I think we should call her Clio after the Greek muse of history." We got her home, and she immediately jumped up and tried to steal my dinner. I pushed her away, and she just looked affronted and swatted at my hand. I pushed again and she swatted again. Bill picked her up and put her on floor. She jumped up again. About 12 times. She doesn't take no for an answer.

She quickly made herself at home.Bill happily smothered in cats.

A few days after we got her, one of her eyes started watering slightly and she started squinting a little. It didn't look very bad, and I didn't think much of it. Then suddenly both eyes started watering and she could hardly keep them open. I figured she had pinkeye, and we had just decided to take her to the vet when they opened on Monday when Alice suddenly got really lethargic and wouldn't come out from under the couch - very un-Alice-like behavior. When we dragged her out, she obviously felt absolutely crappy. Alice is the love of Bill's son's life, and Bill completely freaked out. He rushed her to the outrageously expensive emergency clinic on Sunday, found out she had a very high temperature, and came back with broad-spectrum antibiotics, but no diagnosis.

Bill then took Clio in to our regular vet on Monday, and came back with more broad spectrum antibiotics for both her and Alice, eye ointment, and a diagnosis for both cats. Feline rhinotracheitis or herpesvirus (FHV-1). The antibiotics were to treat the secondary bacterial infections. I was really concerned about my son's 11 year old cat, Smokey, but I'm not sure if she ever got it. She was really sick when I found her next to the road when she was a tiny kitten, and perhaps she had FHV-1 then. She did, however, cough a few times and suddenly completely lose her voice, so I got her some antibiotics too, even though I believe they are way overused. The vet was concerned that she would contract a respiratory infection more easily than the younger cats, and after Kitty and Isis, I was NOT going to lose another cat. We then spent the next two weeks dosing three not-very-happy cats twice a day.

Clio was already looking at us suspiciously before all this, but us grabbing her twice a day, stuffing nasty bubble-gum flavored Clavamox down her throat, and squeezing ointment in her eyes just confirmed all her worries. She still really doesn't want us to catch her and pick her up, although she's getting better about it.

The vet thought she was a very small 8 month old when we got her, and she has grown tremendously over the last couple of months because she never stops eating. I think she was starved before she was rescued. She's supposedly at least part Maine Coon, and they can keep growing for up to five years, so we'll see how big she actually gets. She'll definitely grow out if not up.She's almost as big as Alice now. They love this crunchy tunnel, by the way. Clio loves jumping on it, so we just have to fluff it back up every 3 minutes.I keep interrupting their wrestling to take photos. They stop as soon as the red-eye reduction light comes on.
We even got them all a big new toy from CozyCatFurniture.com
Please stop flashing that nasty light in my face.

Poppies and lupins and a bridge?

2009-06-14T09:15:00.000-07:00

This is a photo I took of California poppies down in the Sacramento Valley.
And lupins from the same area.Here are some poppies just struggling to survive in a rocky river floodplain up in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Ditto for the lupins. You sometimes find poppies that are lighter or darker than the typical California poppy. I was trying to take a picture of the bee, but she kept moving.This rocky river floodplain is not natural at all. It is 30 or 40 or more feet higher than it should have been because the bottom of the canyon was filled in back in the late 1800s due to hydraulic mining during the California gold rush. I talked more about that in this post. This gravel layer makes a very unstable substrate on which to try and build a bridge. The gravel is slowly being washed out from under this tree. Note the rocks embedded in the roots.

Donated blood today

2009-06-02T14:46:00.000-07:00

That brings it up to 4.5 American gallons (~3.75 UK gallons). I've been deferred twice in the past 3 weeks, but I finally managed to get my iron levels up high enough. Must have been the maple and brown sugar Cream of Wheat.Can you tell the clip art was free?

100 things about me

2009-05-25T08:28:00.000-07:00

1. My feet are so ticklish, I can't even touch them sometimes. Seriously. Don't even try unless you like being kicked in the teeth.

2. My husband, Bill, is 15 years older than I am.

3. But his kid's ages bracket my son's age.

4. I have the worlds worst memory.

5. I was once pissed on by a lion.

6. I have met several other people who were pissed on by lions, so it's apparently not that uncommon.

7. I did not think it was funny at the time, but my mother almost died laughing.

8. I have never believed in a god.

9. Any of them.

10. I vaguely remember believing in Heaven — sort of the same way I believed in Santa Clause — until I was about 7 and someone told me that non-human animals don't go to Heaven. Then I decided it wasn't anywhere I would like to go, anyway.

11. This was right around the time I was pissed on by the lion, but I don't think the two were related.

12. One reason I became a fisheries biologist was because my father used to take me fishing. He let me gut the fish so I could cut open their stomachs and see what they had been eating.

13. Another reason was that I started out as an Animal Science major in college, and was wrestling with a sheep in Ani Sci 101. Sheep stink.

14. I decided to change my major and went through the catalog alphabetically. I made it all the way through to W and found Wildlife and Fisheries Biology, and the rest is history.

15. I married my high school sweetheart, David.

16. Anybody who's read this blog a while knows that he turned out to be gay.

17. Actually, he's one of my four readers, and I'm pretty sure he knows he's gay, since he married his partner of 16 years.

18. I've had to have my appendix and my gall bladder removed. I'm running out of extraneous organs.

19. I used to get really awful stomach gripes, and then come up in hives all over my entire body.

20. The doctor thought that it was systemic mastocytosis, but the only way to tell for sure was to biopsy one of the hives the next time it happened.

21. I haven't had hives since.

22. I still get the stomach problems, and the doctors can't find anything.

23. Both Bill and David used to be avid comic book collectors.

24. I have a skull collection.

25. Pseudoscience of any kind irritates the hell out of me. This includes, but is not limited to; astrology, homeopathy, phrenology, acupuncture, anything to do with the paranormal, chiropractic, crystal healing, magnetic therapy, intelligent design/creation "science," therapeutic touch - they are all bullshit. The list goes on. And on.

26. Intelligent falling, and the terrible threat of Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) however, are real. I was appalled to find out that DHMO is even an additive found in my tea, and I drink gallons of that!

27. I was born in England.

28. All my relatives except my immediate family and two cousins live in England.

29. I was a resident alien for over 30 years.

30. I got my US citizenship in 2000 because I wanted to be able to vote.

31. Lotta good THAT did.

32. I have three college degrees.

33. I only really use two of them.

34. They look impressive on the wall, though.

35. I have oligodontia - I was born without eight teeth, including my wisdom teeth.

36. I think I passed this on to my son, but I don't remember (see #4)

37. I've always joked that I am just more highly evolved.

38. I hate milk. It is only acceptable in tea, and sometimes on cereal. It also usually contains DHMO (see #26).

39. I had to drink it while I was pregnant, though. I hope my son REALIZES THE SACRIFICE I MADE FOR HIM!

40. I also don't like many other dairy products very much, such as yogurt and ice cream. No, I don't think I have lactose intolerance - I've tried cutting it all out, and still get the gastrointestinal problems. I just don't like them.

41. Many people don't have a problem with my disbelief in a god, but they think that not liking ice cream is just UNNATURAL.

42. One way I will eat ice cream: smother vanilla ice cream with hot fudge, raspberry sauce, and put it all on top of warm chocolate cake. With a cherry on top.

43. Contrary to everything I just said about dairy products, I love all kinds of cheese.

44. I hate clowns.

45. But I like mimes. The mention of Shields and Yarnell brings back fond memories. Of Laugh In. Even though they were never on Laugh In.

46. I may have a terrible memory (see #4 again), but I can remember everything that ever happened to Ross and Demelza Poldark.

47. I've lived in California all except two years since 1979, and I've felt quite a few earthquakes, including a several fairly large ones.

48. Bill has lived here for about 56 years, and he's never felt one. Does that count? It isn't really about me.

49. I've also lived in tornado prone areas (twice). I'll take an earthquake over a tornado any day.

50. During my time in Texas, I experienced a couple of tropical storms and a "mini" hurricane (it blew up off the coast of Texas with hurricane force winds, but it was very small and didn't even get a name). Hurricanes spawn tornadoes, therefore I'll take an earthquake over a hurricane any day, too.

51. Speaking of tropical storms, I'll have to do another post about the time one hit while my parents were away, and I brought the horses out of belly-deep water and into the garage. My mare, Najmah, then broke through the back door into the house. Twice.

52. I'm the worlds worst slob. Seriously. Oscar Madison is my hero. Dirt and filth, piles of clothes, boxes, etc. - it just doesn't bother me. When I lived alone, I was fine as long as there was a fairly clear path through the crap on the floor. I would wash the dishes, sometimes even before they started growing mold.

53. Luckily for me, Bill is slightly obsessive-compulsive the other way. He just follows along behind me, picking up.

54. The older I get the more Monk-like I become. I'm talking Adrian Monk, not the religious kind. THAT would be a nun. I think. But I'm not religious, so I'm not really up on whether there are female monks. Maybe female Buddhist monks. But I digress.

55. Bill wishes I would be more OCD about cleaning the house, and not wander around leaving a trail of papers and articles of clothing, but my Monk-like behaviour only seems to apply to germs.

56. Almost anything you say can and does remind me of a show tune.

57. Does anybody else go around with music constantly playing in their head? And no iPod or Walkman, or whatever? I don't need one.

58. Right now? Caravan (Duke Ellington).

59. Sometimes I have trouble concentrating on anything if there is music playing in the background. All I can hear is the music.

60. I'm one of THOSE people who walks through the supermarket singing along with the Muzak. Out loud.

61. I am an extreme introvert. I have to work hard all the time to overcome it. I am the awkward moment queen.

62. This also means that I generally avoid controversy.

63. Unless I'm right. Which I always am. Bill still hasn't learned this.

64. Controversy avoidance is why I have generally stayed in the atheist closet until I get to know people a little.

65. Because I was so shy, I, of course, was labeled "stuck up" in school.

66. I'm fiercely loyal to my friends.

67. I used to read books constantly.

68. Then my son got a new computer and I got his old laptop and discovered blogs. Now all I do is read blogs, (sometimes) write blog posts, peruse Facebook, and Twitter. I don't have time for actual books.

69. When I was young, one of my favourite books was Lad: A Dog. The first dog I got when I moved out on my own was a collie.

70. My favourite books of all time are the Tolkien trilogy. I've read them numerous times - the first when I was nine.

71. I used to have a cat named Mink who was a slightly pinkish color. Her nicknames over the years were: Pinky Minky, Sinky Minky (she sat in the sink a lot), and Stinky Minky. My father called her Scrut.

72. Music in my head right now? Turk Murphy - Trombone Rag.

73. I switch between English and American spellings, usually depending upon to whom I am writing.

74. Even more entertaining for my friends - I occasionally switch between English and American accents without realizing. People used to frequently ask if I was Canadian. Not as much nowadays.

75. I had a really weird accent when I lived in Texas. One of my best friends had the same accent, as his mother was from England, too.

76. I have an extremely bad temper.

77. My temper is usually short lived, though.

78. On my first date, I went to The Muppet Movie. With the guy in #74. His mother drove.

79. I have an irrational fear of spiders. Ticks are included, but I don't consider that irrational.

80. However, I won't let anyone kill a spider in the house. They have to be put outside.

81. I once shared the shower with an enormous wolf spider, and didn't condition my hair for several days because she was hiding behind the conditioner bottle. I knew that if I moved the bottle, she would jump. I finally started worrying that she would starve to death if she stayed there, so I moved the bottle. She jumped, and I screamed (several times) as I put a (large) glass over her and put her outside.

82. I actually don't like to kill anything. I feel that all life is precious (except perhaps insects such as ants, flies or mosquitoes that invade my space).

83. I am not a vegetarian, so I guess this means I'm also a hypocrite.

84. I've only had three long-term boyfriends, two of whom I married.

85. I've only had four boyfriends.

86. About 5 years ago, I dislocated and broke the little finger of my left hand so that it stuck out sideways at a 90 degree angle. It has never been the same since. And never completely stopped hurting.

87. This has made me realize that I could fairly easily do something that could cripple me for life, so I probably don't take as many risks skiing, with horses, bike riding etc., as I might have otherwise.

88. I was pissed that the hospital wouldn't let me keep the x-rays, because they were really cool.

89. Did I already say I have a bad memory?

90. I like the smell of skunk.

91. I don't like the smell of lavender.

92. I think Best In Show was one of the funniest movies ever made, but most of my friends vehemently disagree.

93. The other funny ones are: Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Princess Bride, History of the World: Part 1, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and A Mighty Wind.

94. The funniest, of course, was Young Frankenstein. Damn your eyes! Too late.

95. I love Sci Fi. TV and books. It all started with Star Trek reruns and Star Blazers.

96. Does anyone reading this (if you actually made it this far) not know that I play the bassoon?

97. I can't decide between Rose's Mango or Pomegranate martini mix. Pomegranate, I think.

98. My attitude is that we only have one life to live, and it is VERY fragile, so we might as well make the best of it.

99. It took me over a month to write this. On and off. Mostly off.

100. Current song in my head: The theme to NCIS. Oh, wait. Bill turned on the TV.

I'm all of a Twitter

2009-05-13T22:02:00.000-07:00

I've been on Twitter for a while now and it has been entertaining, hilarious, as well as heartbreaking, and sometimes just downright odd.

Here are some of my observations:

Wil Wheaton really is just this guy, you know? And proof that nerds can be popular!
Brent Spiner pretty much wrote a very entertaining short story/elaborate April Fool's joke 160 characters at a time throughout April,
George Takei doesn't say much,
William Shatner doesn't say much either, but does some self promotion,
I unfollowed LeVar Burton because he was just too religious and not very interesting,
Anybody else seeing a pattern here?
The Bloggess is just as hilarious on Twitter as she is on her blog, if that is possible (I'm kind of surprised she hasn't been arrested, because that much hilarity isn't generally allowed in Texas),
The Bad Astronomer is actually quite good.
Stephen Fry went to film on location in Malasia and tweeted and twitpic-ed it all.
Al Yankovic? Yep, still weird.
I don't know how PZ Myers finds time to tweet anything what with all the blog posts he does. He must not sleep.
The Onion and NPR tweets can be virtually indistinguishable sometimes,
I even follow a fish. Erica's fish.

I have also found several bloggy friends there. Andrew was the first person to ever comment on my blog, and we've commented back and forth periodically on our blogs, as well as on Atheist Nexus. He and Stephen got into Twitter swine flu pun wars the other day (really, really bad puns - Gammontee, Andrew? Please!). Luckily nobody else was around to hear me giggling.

Anybody who's read my blog for any length of time knows Mr Farty. I won a competition on his blog over a year ago and he sent me a VERY nice set of coasters imprinted with Scottish words such as eejit, crabbit, and numpty, and their definitions. I put them in our curio cabinet, which Mr Farty thinks is just plain odd. He obviously doesn't have a house full of teenagers where things get moved and disappear never to be seen again. Currently he's changed his picture (avatar? icon? I don't know either, Lesley) from a flaming fart to Robbie the Robot. Now he's being stalked by all the zombie robots on Twitter. At the time I was typing this, both he and Andrew were commenting on the same TV show. Something about #eurovision?

Lesley from Um..What?? was my first Twitter follower. My big fluffy, and fairly young cat, Isis, (the one whose photo I used to use for this blog) died suddenly of diabetes (which caused a cascade effect of liver and kidney failure) last month, and Lesley was one of the first people I told. She sent me a tweet because she was concerned, and as she was the caretaker of a diabetic cat, and she is just a really, really nice person, I knew she would understand. My grandfather died the next day. It was a very bad week. I, unfortunately, understood completely when her Moses the Cat suddenly became ill and died less than a month later. Sorry, I wasn't planning on turning so maudlin...

There are numerous other interesting people I follow, for instance Lesley's best friend Mo (The Daily Snark), Debra (iamdebra), Steph (quirkyblogger), although I'm not so sure about Clay (mayopie). Oh, all right. He's interesting, too. Liza (wickedlibrarian) just got a cute haircut I might have to copy once the temperature here reaches over 100 degrees. Oh, wait. It's 98 right now. I might need a haircut sooner than I thought.

Oh, and I don't like to brag, BUT Barack Obama is following ME!

So remember:
You're no one if you're not on Twitter
And if you aren't there, you've already missed it.
If you haven't been bookmarked, re-tweeted and blogged,
You might as well not have existed.

Go to your chiropractor to protect yourself FROM SWINE FLU???!

2009-05-13T22:00:00.000-07:00

I found a link to this article on Planet Chiropractic.com on the James Randi website. I'm really hoping it's a farce, but I'm afraid that's just wishful thinking. The article indicates that if you're adjusted twice a week, your immune system will be "boosted by 400%! Sounds good, except there is no scientific evidence for this whatsoever. The only thing that will be boosted will the the chiropractor's pocket book.

I can't believe that people actually BELIEVE this crap! Bullshit like this just make me see red. The only reason to go to a chiropractor is for a good massage, which can also be gotten via a good physiotherapist. These people are just stealing your money. The only thing listed in the article that will actually help protect you from swine flu is washing your hands.
/rant

Batshit insane politicians

2009-04-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

Phil Plait of the Bad Astronomy blog has been keeping up on some recent Republican insanity (Republican insanity might actually be redundant). I seriously don't know whether to laugh or be afraid. This is a United States Congresswoman:

Yes, the same one that wanted a McCarthy-like hunt for all the left-wing "anti-Americans" in the US Congress.

The scary part? She actually got re-elected after this. And her eyes.

Concerts - not mine for once

2009-04-20T20:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't seen many live concerts. Well, I've seen lots of live concerts—heck, I've been in lots of live concerts—but not many involving world famous people. The first one I remember (although, granted, my memory is notoriously bad — just ask my family) was:

Miles Davis
When I was in high school, we had a Japanese exchange student, Yoshiyuki, stay with us for a couple of weeks. Miles Davis was apparently really big in Japan at the time and just happened to be playing in Berkeley while Yoshi was here, and Yoshi was a HUGE fan. All he could talk about was Mile Daybees this, and Mile Daybees that. I wouldn't be surprised if he had coordinated his trip to coincide with the Miles Davis concert. I had never heard of Miles Davis. So my father bought tickets, and we found ourselves in an auditorium on the UC Berkeley campus.

Yoshi was ecstatic, but my father and I weren't that impressed. All Miles did was walk around blatting notes at the ground while his band played. I was more transfixed by the wall changing colors behind him. It was far out! Lest you think I'm kidding about the blatting at the floor, note the third photo down on the Wikipedia article. Blatting. At. The. Floor. He obviously did it a lot.

Yoshi ended his visit by insisting on making dinner for us which consisted mostly of tofu from a can. It was still shaped like the can, and looked like canned, white, opaque, cranberry sauce. This English family of the '70s thought it was extremely odd. We ate it politely, but I don't think any of us had the courage to try tofu again for years.

SIDE NOTE: I was up late last night writing this because I couldn't sleep. Today, one of my Friends M (I have three Friends M) sent me an e-mail which included the sentence, "It was kind of like you seeing Miles Davis." I got the e-mail on my BlackBerry and FREAKED! I was saying to myself, "CRAP! I must have accidentally posted it, but it was only HALF DONE!" Turns out I hadn't posted and it was only a coincidence. I'm just really, really boring, and apparently tell the same stories over and over again.

Maynard Ferguson
I didn't always play just the bassoon. I started out on alto saxophone, and played it in my high school jazz band. The jazz band rehearsed before school and I got up really early (Hey, an hour early is a major sacrifice when you're a teenager) for four years.

In about 1980, we got to go to Reno, Nevada and compete in the Reno Jazz Festival. That particular year, we had a lot of musicians who played more than one instrument, and our band director arranged one of our pieces so that at a certain time, we all put down one instrument and picked up another. Instead of a row of five saxes, we had a flute, clarinet, oboe, bass clarinet and bassoon. In the brass section which normally only had trumpets and trombones, we had at least one French horn and a Sousaphone. We won third place in our division against some stiff competition.

The headliner that they had come and play for the school bands was Maynard Ferguson. Since I recently just had a not-so-great experience seeing another trumpeter, I wasn't looking forward to the concert. Certainly not as much as our trumpet section was. I don't remember much, except that I thoroughly enjoyed it, loved the music, and Maynard Ferguson could play really really high notes. And he didn't point his trumpet at the ground once.

Billy Joel
In high school, my brother's friend won two tickets on a radio show giveaway, wasn't a big Billy fan, gave them to my brother, who knew I was a HUGE Billy Joel fan, so he gave them to me. Yes, I DO have the nicest brother in the world. Who doesn't read this blog, so I don't know why I'm being so nice to him. If I was really mean, I'd stick in the photo of him with orange-peel teeth that he texted me, but I put that as my wallpaper at work, instead. Where was I? Oh, right. Billy Joel. I took my future ex-husband, David.

Fantastic concert, and since it was in 1982, he hadn't had that many hits, and I knew almost everything he sang by heart. AND people all over the building lit up as soon as the concert started and I got slightly high from all the secondhand weed. At least I imagined I did. I asked David what it was, and he said the same thing he said when I asked him what the F-word meant. "What do you think?"

Basia
Fairly soon after David and I broke up, I lived in an apartment in the San Francisco Bay Area with William, my Dalmatian Charlie, and my cat Pepper. Charlie weighed 75 lbs and I lived in one of only three apartment complexes in town that allowed dogs over 15 lbs. Because of this, virtually EVERYONE in the complex had a huge dog, and there were several large areas to allow them to run around.

The guy downstairs had a golden retriever that played with Charlie occasionally. He won tickets (the guy, not the golden retriever) to a Basia concert at the Concord Pavilion from a radio station (Gee. Sounds familiar. Probably the same station), and asked me if I wanted to go. I had never heard of Basia and I was in the process of getting a divorce and certainly didn't want to start dating anyone, especially not someone I saw as frequently as the guy downstairs just in case it didn't work out, but for some reason I said yes.

He drove, and I was acutely embarrassed for him because...the poor guy had the worst flatulence I've ever...er...smelled. While in the car. With me. The silent-but-deadly kind. I was too polite to say or do anything and just pretended I didn't notice. Nowadays, I would just exclaim, "DUDE!" and roll down the window while making rude gagging noises. That's what I do with Bill, anyway.

The main thing I remember about Basia was that she hurt my ears. I think I knew Time and Tide and Promises, but that was about it.

Fortunately Basia's opening act was:

Spiro Gyra
Again. Me. Never heard of Spiro Gyra. I was completely blown away. They were AWESOME!! (although I would have said something like, "Bitchen!," or "Outragous!," except that I was a complete unhip dweeb who only started using, "Cool!" relatively recently. Yes, I was a real Joanie). Basia was even impressed that they opened for her.

And any band that's named after filamentous green algae is fine by me, anyway. I would probably have liked them if they had been called Cyano Phyta.

Billy Joel redux
Or maybe it was Billy Joel's dad. Well, I certainly don't look the same 26 years later, either. I blogged about it here, so I won't say too much other than it was FANTASTIC and he's still got it. Whatever it is.

Leon Redbone
Very recently, my Friend M and I saw him in Sacramento. He was really good, and really funny, but I had some personal things going on so I had a hard time listening. It could also have been due to the two Long Island Iced Teas. We were slightly disappointed to find out (before we went) that he did NOT sing I'm Just a Bill OR Conjunction Junction.

Angels make sense for once!

2009-04-18T08:43:00.000-07:00

So why doesn't he reduce human misery and suffering?
Apparently God and all the angels have Australian accents, too.

Found on Pharyngula

WOLVERINES!!

2009-04-15T20:30:00.000-07:00

It's been a long couple of weeks, but taxes are done and maybe eventually I'll feel like talking about other crappy things that happened. But not right now.

Right now I'm just going to say WOLVERINES!! Which you won't get unless you follow The Bloggess on Twitter. UPDATE: I guess I should note that I saw this while skiing the other day. Or maybe that's obvious. Wolverine Bowl: about this steep \

Wolverine fact: The first documented wolverine in California since 1920 was photographed last year by a graduate student who had set up a remote camera to study the effects of landscape change on American martens. It caused quite a stir. Click here if you want to see a good picture of a wolverine butt. They have more recently captured video of what they're pretty sure is the same wolverine.

Contrary to the title of the article, the pine martens the student was studying are NOT birds, and are, in fact, members of the family Mustelidae - the same family as the wolverine. I think they were getting them confused with Purple Martins. You'd think that something called Science Daily would have done a better job with their fact checking.

Brilliant post. Did I say brilliant? I meant boring.

2009-04-03T22:12:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted recently, and I think that, along with Mr Farty, this may be my crappiest post ever. Not that Mr Farty's post was crappy. It was totally awesome! It said so in the title.

Right now, I could either be sewing my ~~pirate costume~~ full pirate regalia for an upcoming Flying Spaghetti Monster party, or writing this post, or sleeping. I've had a couple of gin and tonics, and if I can do this:sober, imagine what I can do ~~completely drunk~~ slightly tipsy. (Sorry for anyone who already saw this on Twitter (Hi Lesley!!). Strike while the iron is hot, unless you're ironing suedecloth. That works better on medium. (Speaking of Twitter, as soon as I twittered about male and female strippers, The Bloggess started following me. I'm just sayin')

[WARNING: Completely arbitrary change of topic]
Remember the post about Twister the one-eyed wonder horse? You know. The post before last? Someone (named David) pointed out to me that perhaps Twister is NOT soaking his hay to soften it up, but is, in fact brewing his own alcoholic beverage. A sort of hay beer. He does occasionally bump into things, which I attributed to his blindness, but maybe he's just tipsy.

She blinded me...with Science! She was not blinded because she was wearing her 3D glasses.

2009-03-21T08:09:00.000-07:00

If you don't read Um...What??, specifically this post and this post including the comment sections, you COMPLETELY will not understand this post and think that I have perhaps entirely lost my mind (very likely true, but that's beside the point). Note to ~~all my hundreds of~~ both my faithful readers (Hi Pater and Kia!)(because most of my friends, my mother and my brother all refuse to read this blog)(Except David, who DOES read this, and he's my ex-husband! AND he's gay! Which has absolutely nothing to do with anything): GO READ Um...What??!

Proof positive that scientists DO wear 3D glasses. See?
You: Say, aren't those Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D glasses from the DVD?
Me: Uh.......no?
You: Then why do they say Journey to the Center of the Earth on the side?
Me:........... Hey! (pointing) Look over there! Isn't that Wil Wheaton? He's just this guy, you know?
Also, you can tell from these photos that, not only do scientists wear 3D glasses, they never wear any makeup. Female ones, anyway. The male ones might, if they're English. Oh, wait. That's just women's clothes they wear (will this prompt my British scientist father to comment? Probably not. Maybe Andrew? Great. I've probably just insulted half my readership. I'll just hope that Mr Farty never sees it).

The only real makeup I have is from when I got married and two of my friends M took me to have my makeup done, so its about three years old now (married to Bill, not to David - that makeup would be 22 years old now)(Note to self: Find out if makeup ever goes bad).

Then there's the professorial look:
(Note to self: Make sure you clean your lunch debris off your computer desk prior to any future photo shoots. Oh, and put some makeup on, will ya?)
Like my Hallucigenia mug from Charlie's Playhouse?

Special thank you to the Wildlife Forensics Lab for the loan of the lab coat and glassware (yes, really - you don't even want to know what smells occasionally waft down the halls at work. You should have been there the day the guys in my office accidentally left a net they found that had contained three dead otters ON MY DESK!!! (yes, there are evil people in the world who do nasty things to poor innocent wildlife, but that's for another post). The guys had been out counting salmon carcasses (the salmon died of natural causes) and APPARENTLY COULDN'T SMELL IT which was almost completely unbelievable to the rest of us standing in the hallway - because you couldn't actually go into the room without ~~vomiting~~ gagging. They figured that it was OK, since they had taken the otters out (I am really, really glad I have my own office now).

I would also like to give a really special thank you to my friend S who enthusiastically took the photos.

UPDATE: On reading through this again, I think I could almost rival (((Billy))) the Atheist for number of parentheses. Almost.

Twister the One-eyed Wonder Horse

2009-03-13T20:43:00.000-07:00

WARNING: IF YOU'RE SQUEAMISH ABOUT EYE-SOCKETS, DON'T EVEN LOOK AT THIS POST

UPDATE: Apparently, don't look at it if you are squeamish about the trots, either. (No pun intended)(Okay, I lied. Pun intended)

Yes, I have one of the smartest horses in the world, and I'm not the only one who says that.

A little bit about Twister: He's about 25 years old, and we've had him since he was 18 and William was 12. Come to think of it, Bill and Twister came into our lives right around the same time.William and Twister's first 4-H competitive trail ride. Third place!

As I've said in previous posts, he was born with a huge cataract in one eye, and developed equine recurrent uveitis, aka moon blindness in the other. When we got him, he had had recurrent infections for many years, and his eye was very scarred and caused him constant pain. It was very light sensitive so he kept his eyes closed and fell asleep a lot:About three years ago it abscessed and I had to have it removed (and not put back in like SOME people). He's been MUCH happier ever since. Interestingly, Twister isn't the first blind horse I've had. Paleface, the Pony of the Americas I had when I was growing up also went blind due to moon blindness. He also adapted and lived for many years after. (Yes, the common denominator seems to be me, but Twister had it well before I got him)

Other problems we've dealt with are: mild arthritis, mild navicular, occasional very painful hoof abscesses, and a leg wound that didn't heal for well over a year. Oh, and his teeth are almost worn down to nothing on one side, and not much better on the other, so he can't chew his food properly. I am an expert at bandaging legs, packing hooves, putting ointment in eyes (the left one, anyway), and giving shots. He also had almost constant diarrhea, for which I took him to the vet several times. They just told me that he's an old horse and there wasn't anything I could do.

What's this banana slug photo doing here? Oh, right. I'm a biologist.

Last summer, I started noticing that his poop (yes, this is a technical term - if you're a sailor) was more horselike and less cow patty-like (a scientific description). The ranch owners and I also started noticing that his water was full of hay, disgustingly stinky (another scientific description), and had to be cleaned out far more often than all the other horses. I thought he was just drinking with his mouth full, and dropping some hay in. We also thought he might be accidentally pooping in his water - after all, he IS blind. Well, turns out he's blind but he's not stupid.

One day, while I was cleaning his paddock, the ranch owner came around to feed. While we were chatting, Twister grabbed a huge mouthful of hay, carried it over to his water trough, and dropped it in. The owner and I looked at each other. Did he just do that on purpose?

I went over, scooped it out and said, "Twister, don't do that, you idiot!" He immediately sniffed around, picked it up and plopped it back in. He then spent the next few minutes slurping it off the surface. He went back over and picked up another huge chunk of hay, carried it over and dunked it in the water, and then happily slurped it up. I couldn't believe it. He was softening it up so he could chew it. We were astounded. We watched as he did this with the rest of his hay. He must have originally done it accidentally once or twice, and discovered the hay was softer and easier to chew when soaked for a while. I would never have credited a horse with the reasoning abilities to connect the dots.
And because he's able to digest his food better, an added benefit is that he managed to "fix" his own diarrhea problem.

I just have to clean out his ~~bathtub~~ trough frequently. I might think it stinks, but Twister's next door neighbour, Spicy, thinks it's delicious when I drain it. After:Is that a smart horse, or what? Handsome, too.

What's the square root of hemoglobin?

2009-03-03T17:08:00.000-08:00

In honor of Square Root Day, I donated blood today.

My blog is good for something, because I looked up the last time I donated. July 17, 2008. I'm up to 35 donations or 4.375 gallons, now. It will be YEARS before I hit 5 at this rate.

I would donate far more frequently if they wouldn't keep deferring me because they say I don't have enough iron. Although, no, they didn't defer me all seven months. I've managed to donate 35 times in spite of low hematocrit and other things. Other things such as: (Kia will remember this, and thanks Mr Farty for reminding me) The second or third time I donated, the needle hurt a lot. Then my mouth went very, very dry and I started feeling queasy. I could feel the blood draining out of my body.

"Does anyone ever throw up while doing this?"

Every phlebotomist in the place was suddenly looming over me holding a waste paper basket. I leaned over and threw up, managing to miss every single one. The needle was immediately whipped out of my arm, my chair was tipped back so my head was lower than my feet, and a cold compress placed on my head while I croaked, "I'm sorry." over and over. They wouldn't let me finish donating, even though I asked....

I've made sure I'm completely hydrated before going in ever since.

My father was the one who got me into it, and took me to the Indiana Blood Center the first few times about 13 years ago. He's donated gallons and gallons over the years, but he is now ineligible. His cumulative visits to England between 1980 and 1999 added up to more than three months, so his blood isn't considered "safe" anymore. Those darn mad cows over there. (Photo poached from Mr Farty)

It's definitely worth doing, though. There is never enough blood. Depending on the phlebotomist, most of the time the needle doesn't really hurt at all. And don't let one or two bad experiences stop you. It took three before my mother finally gave up!

Religious thoughts

2009-03-01T16:17:00.000-08:00

The other day, a friend of mine was going in to have fairly major surgery. I've known her for quite a long time, but she is a friend from one of the areas of my life where I'm mostly in the closet. The last time she had this surgery done, it didn't go as well as expected and it was a long and painful recovery. We were talking about this as we were leaving, and she asked me to pray for her. I was completely taken aback. I've actually never had this happen before. I wasn't quite sure what to say. I leaned toward her and sort of stuttered in a low voice,"Uh..well, I don't believe in all that stuff."

She said,"Well do it anyway! I need all the help I can get. Just tell him that you haven't done this in a while."

Actually, never would be the operative word.

I felt bad about telling her no, but I felt that it would be worse to lie to her and tell her I would. Should I have just told her yes to make her feel better even though that would be a lie? (She says she's doing much better than last time, by the way)
________________________________________________________________
On another note, the Freedom From Religion Foundation put up one of the Imagine No Religion billboards here in Sacramento! Isn't it pretty? Although FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor got the name switched around in this article. It's Atheists and Other Freethinkers.

Deer, oh deer

2009-02-27T00:00:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, Bill and I watched the first episode of last season's Grey's Anatomy on DVD, which involved Izzy saving the life of a deer that had been hit by a car. The deer was played by a cheesy animatronic deer until it jumped up after Izzy zapped it with the paddles. Then it was played by a real one.

We recently started watching the first season of Crossing Jordan from 1991, and the episode we just watched involved the exact same animatronic deer. Seriously. The EXACT SAME ONE! There must be a limited supply of animatronic deer, because I don't even think that they are on the same networks. It was lying on the table in the morgue moaning and weakly lifting it's head, and I kept yelling, "Zap it with the paddles! It'll be fine! Zap it with the paddles!"

Unfortunately they generally don't have crash carts in morgues, so they had to wait for someone to sing Love Me Tender to the nearby dead Elvis impersonator, which apparently has the same effect.

CLARIFICATION: The Elvis impersonator was dead; he wasn't impersonating dead Elvis. That would just be gross.

UPDATE: Someone pointed out that there could be numerous identical animatronic deer, which could just give the appearance of there being only one. Maybe each network has one.

UPDATE 2: Bill pointed out that the Crossing Jordan episode was from 2001. I've never been very good with subtraction. Unless my son reads this, in which case, I am GREAT at subtraction and I use math in my job EVERY DAY

Ski report

2009-02-25T03:35:00.000-08:00

Fog
When I went skiing the week before last, the top of the mountain was completely fogged in. The main high-speed 4 person lift to the top was closed, but they had the very old two-seater-no-safety-bar one running. I took this to the top, and almost regretted it. Visibility was less than 10 feet. Here is an actual picture I took with my phone:See the tree? Luckily, I knew the mountain well enough - I wouldn't go off any cliffs because the top portion is a bowl (with very few trees), so all I had to do was keep going down - and stay on the groomed bits. The problem is estimating speed when you can't see anything. I couldn't tell if I was skiing uphill, across, or down, and kept realizing I was skiing much faster than I thought. It was the weirdest feeling. If I looked down at my skis, I would start to get vertigo, so I kept my head up and my eye out for the very few other ~~idiots~~ skiers who had ventured up. I actually found it fun, in a strange way, so I did it two more times before moving on to more visible parts of the resort. It snowed on and off, and Lake Tahoe was almost indistinguishable from the menacing sky.
A lot of kids that age would be screaming
While I was riding a lift up last Friday, I watched a mother slowly working her way down some moguls with her 6 or 7 year old son, telling him exactly where to go and how to do it. I skied down, and just before I got to them, the little boy made it to the edge of the groomed area, at which point his skis flew out from under him, and he went sliding off down the fairly steep slope sprawled out on his back, slowly rotating clockwise. He slid about 20 or 30 feet and did one complete rotation before coming to a stop. His mother worriedly skied down, and as I skied by, he looked up at her and exclaimed,"That was FUUUUN!!! Can I learn how to do THAT?"

Darwin Day Week Month?

2009-02-23T18:40:00.000-08:00

~~Yesterday~~ ~~Last week~~ Two weeks ago Sunday, Bill and I went to the annual Darwin Day event put on by Atheists and Other Freethinkers, the Humanist Association of the Greater Sacramento Area, the Anthropology and Biology Departments of Sacramento State University (Bill's alma mater), and the Sacramento Organization for Rational Thinking, among others.
There were quite a few people who came to see the founding publisher of Skeptic Magazine, Director of the Skeptic Society, and popular author, Michael Shermer. For more information about him, push the bar below.

He was quite popularNo, I'm not fawning! Well, maybe a little...

And he was gracious enough to pose for a picture with Mynga Futrell, the Co-Chair of the Darwin Day event, as well as Co-Director of The Brights' Net.And for a picture with me
Brian Malow, Earth's Premier Science Comedian was the really hilarious opening act... ...which was actually taped and posted on YouTube. It's worth watching:

The Darwin Day program was extremely interesting, but you don't have to take my word for it. For a video of the entire Darwin Day event, go here.

This is another very interesting Michael Shermer video.

Goodbye Kitty

2009-02-21T08:13:00.000-08:00

I haven't felt much like writing this week because we've had a dying cat in our bedroom, which can be very depressing. Kitty could be one of the meanest, nastiest cats you ever met, or one of the nicest. One second she would be sitting on you purring and rubbing her head against you, and the next, she would turn, bite, slash (often drawing blood), and run before you could react. But her extra-super-loud purr made up for a lot. I've never heard a cat with such a loud purr.She disliked most humans, but she absolutely hated all other cats. Bill and his kids have had several cats over the years, and she hated all of them. She had been an only cat for a while when I moved in with Bill, bringing Isis and Smokey. For about two years they were relegated to William's bedroom, the laundry room, and the kitchen - about 1/3 of the house. She wouldn't allow them past the kitchen. If they did, they risked sudden ambush. Isis (half again as big as Kitty, but not very bright) would wander out occasionally, and come flying back with Kitty in hot pursuit. Then she would hiss at Smokey. We don't think Isis's eyesight is very good, because she often couldn't tell Kitty from Smokey - with whom she had lived all her life. Smokey just stayed mostly in the bedroom; she was terrified of Kitty.Isis and Smokey couldn't even sit in a warm window without being tormented. Kitty was an indoor-outdoor cat, while the other cats are indoor only, and if they decided to sit in the sun next to a window, she would suddenly jump at the window and hit the screen with a crash. This petrified them (a squirrel used to frighten them in the same way at my old house - they really are a couple of wusses).

Kitty was actually Bill's son's cat. She slept with him and loved him in her own way, although he does have scars where she scratched him over the years. Then he got a new kitten - Alice.After Alice arrived, things started going downhill for Kitty. She was physically unable to defend her territory against three cats, one of whom was a boisterous kitten and not afraid of her. First Isis started venturing further out; usually to play with Alice. Then Smokey occasionally tiptoed out.

Kitty was getting old. To make matters worse, she also started losing her teeth. Once the other cats realized she was vulnerable, the tables were turned. She had to sneak around the house risking ambush. She couldn't move without being attacked, and started spending all her time outside. She was really miserable.

Her life changed again about a year and half ago when someone managed to snag her head with a claw, and she developed a really painful abscess and ended up with a cone on her head and drains in her ear and cheek. We had to keep her separated from the other cats so we kept her in our bedroom. Bill has never in his life allowed cats to sleep in his bedroom. He was adamant that cats don't belong there, whereas I've slept with my cats since I got my first one when I was about nine. For Kitty, he was willing to share.

She finally felt safe again, gained weight and thrived. She got to go outside whenever we were home, and sleep on us at night - often purring so loudly I had trouble sleeping. Sometimes she would get what Bill calls a wild hair, and dash around the room in the middle of the night, sometimes running over our heads. But most of the time, all she wanted was to be petted...and the occasional taste of human skin.

Then she started rapidly losing weight. Bill feeds the cats and last week he said that she hadn't eaten anything for three days. I took her to the vet, who found a mass in her abdomen that turned out to be enlarged lymph nodes. She had moderate to severe lymphoma. We started her on Prednisone, and crossed our fingers, but she kept going downhill. One night she lay on the end of the bed and didn't move all night, but we could hear her purring. Every time she stopped purring, Bill sat up and touched her to see if she was still alive, and she would start purring again.

Yesterday, Bill took her in to get a boost of sub-cutaneous fluids, and they discovered that her ears and gums were turning green, which meant that she was in acute liver failure, so it wasn't really hard to make the decision. She wasn't in pain yet, but she would be soon. He said the whole time he sat with her she never stopped purring.

I always felt a little sorry for her because she never rated an actual name, but at least we have a framed portrait of her, taken a few years ago by Bill's son, on our wall:

Kitty (Early 1994 - February 20, 2009)
Classic Kitty Expression

Darwin - the Musical

2009-02-13T20:53:00.000-08:00

This is great! It combines two of my favorite things: evolution and music. Richard Milner reminds me of the original Dr. Doolittle, for some reason. Or maybe a cross between Rex Harrison and PZ Myers.

His English accent is...well...better than Dick Van Dyke, maybe? Maybe not.

Thanks to my father and his friend Larry for the New York Times video link!

Happy Darwin Day!

2009-02-12T17:58:00.000-08:00

I'm too tired to post a real post, and I have to go to band in a few minutes, so this may be updated tomorrow with actual photos of Michael Shermer from the Atheists and Other Freethinkers and Humanist Association of the Greater Sacramento Area Darwin Day celebration last Sunday.

Can someone please explain?

2009-02-06T21:06:00.000-08:00

In my ~two years of reading "atheist" blogs, I've noticed something interesting. I seem to be one of the few atheists (blogging atheists, anyway) who has never been a theist. Most of the atheist bloggers seem to be originally Christians, although a very few, like Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta, and KafirGirl were other religions (Jain and Sunni Muslim, respectively). Keep in mind, I only read blogs written in English. These are people who had to go through often extremely emotionally painful realizations that god really is imaginary. Many of them have deconversion stories. UPDATE: Andrew from Artificial Habitat pointed out the de-conversion blog. It is amazing that people are able to escape this type of brainwashing. Critical thinking can really hurt sometimes and I am very grateful to my parents that I never had to go through that.

The religious nutcases in this country are desperately trying to take us back into the dark ages. When school officials suspend a kid for witchcraft, and suspend a teacher because he's suspected of being a liberal and an atheist, and we have creationists constantly attacking real science, and trying to get (un)Intelligent Design taught in science classrooms along with evolution, it indicates a huge problem. So far this hasn't always worked, and common sense has prevailed. UPDATE #2: Florida is currently trying to legislate the teaching of (un)Intelligent Design. My mother even asked my why we shouldn't teach the controversy, as it's only fair. People don't seem to understand two things:

1) There is no controversy in the scientific world about whether life evolved. It did. The only scientific controversy is regarding the mechanisms of evolution. The "controversy" about whether or not evolution happened is entirely made up by the creationists.

2) Science isn't fair. Science is about the truth. Science has specific rules that are followed to find the truth. The supernatural has never been shown to exist in anything other than people's minds.

Belief in this nonsense is harmful, even if you say, "Well, I'm not one of those theists! I don't believe that." Enough of you do. Parents already poison the brains of too many of our young people. We cannot allow this bullshit to creep into our classrooms, too. It will be an uphill battle since it is estimated that 47% of Americans believe that the world is between 6000 and 10,000 years old. FORTY-SEVEN PERCENT! I can tell you from personal experience that people in other countries (Ok, England anyway) think that Americans are completely NUTS! (Demographic wikifactoid:United States - 5% atheists, England - 35% atheists.)

I've always been mildly surprised when a scientist turns out to be a theist, but this has happened numerous times. At least one of my college professors went to church every Sunday.* I find it even more surprising when it is a biologist, because they know that there is a much better explanation for life on earth than that some sort of supernatural being created it. As far as I can tell, most of them were indoctrinated early in their lives. I just want to ask them why? Why do you still believe against all the evidence. Or maybe I should say why do you believe in the supernatural when there is no evidence?

I had a scientist say to me once, "Well what about the extra energy? Where does that go when we die?" My reaction at the time, "Uh,.........." I couldn't understand the question, and it wasn't just because I was drunk. Huh? What extra energy? The same thing happens to us as happens to any other living thing on the planet. Do worms have extra energy, too? What about trees? Bacteria? Whales? Dogs? I really have ab-so-lutely no idea what this person was talking about.

Saying "you just feel that there's a god" doesn't answer anything, either. The human mind can imagine all kinds of things. I know someone who "felt the battle" when she went to Culloden and various American Civil War battlefields. This does not mean this person is actually feeling anything, it just means she has a well developed imagination. In fact, she has often exclaimed to me in frustration, "Well, you just don't have any imagination!" Because that's ALL it is. And no I don't. When I feel that there's someone watching me while I go to the bathroom, and feel that there are people who are in a different dimension who can see me, but I can't see them, I realize it is just my imagination and that I've obviously read far too many science fiction books. Ok, maybe I do have an imagination. Or it could be the guys who just installed the new ducting in our house left a camera in the vent. But that's just being paranoid, although it's far more likely than being watched from an alternate dimension or by some supernatural sky daddy who can read my thoughts.

Many people claim that the human body/world/universe is too complex to be explained naturally. Complexity does not need a god. The complexity of the universe can be, and is being, explained non-supernaturally. Just because we don't know all the answers now, doesn't mean we won't eventually, and filling the "gaps" with some sort of god is just silly. I touched on this in a previous post.

There will be no hope for this country to stay a superpower if we don't start doing a better job teaching the general public about reality rather than being respectful of ancient superstitious bullshit. Anyone, especially biologists, believing in iron and bronze-age myths is just not logical. I just want to ask why?

And when you realize why you don't believe in any other gods that man has ever invented, you'll understand why I don't believe in yours.**

/rant

*When this was pointed out to him, one of my atheist professors said, "Well, nobody's perfect."
**Paraphrase of a quote by author Stephen F. Roberts.

I'm a heather! Oh, wait. I misread that.

2009-02-03T17:14:00.000-08:00

Daniel Florien over at Unreasonable Faith had a link to this quick quiz so I could test how my morals compare with those of the bible.

Your morality is 0% in line with that of the bible.

Damn you heathen! Your book learnin' has done warped your mind. You shall not be invited next time I sacrifice a goat.

Do You Have Biblical Morals?
Take More Quizzes

Is anyone surprised? (I really did read it as heather. My mind must be warped.)

A Gay Hula - part deux. In which I get really drunk and feel myself up.

2009-01-31T12:27:00.000-08:00

I'm doing a second, hopefully happier post on David and Pete's wedding, because my last one apparently made everybody cry. These photos are much better because they were taken by a professional photographer AND they include pictures of ME!

But first an action shot of David and Pete jumping the broom: And William making David cryI wasn't too drunk yet. Only one gin and tonic.
But I soon made my way back to Surfer Willy's Tiki Hut. Oh, look. The nice photographer cut off half my butt. Always a good thing, in my opinion.
Oh. She got all of it here.This is exactly the reason I wore a slip. You never know when a shaft of sunlight might reveal all. Sort of like when I found lice on William's head. But that's another story.

Mmmm. Zombie. I actually like this photo a lot, even though I'm sticking my tongue out. In my last post, I only showed the guys dancing, but the girls got their chance, too. David and Pete got to dance both the guys AND the girls dance. Well it was their wedding.I had actually thought to myself, "Gee. I didn't get any pictures of my really cute shoes." Luckily the photographer must have thought they were really cute, too! I bet she was jealous.A male photographer would have been more focused on boobs. Especially with all the coconut bras nearby. A straight, non-transvestite male photographer, anyway. Speaking of boobs, it was right around this time that I realized my boobs had fallen out of my bra and were in imminent danger of escaping their confines completely. But it was okay, because the only way anyone would have been able to see was if they were higher up than I was. I peered blearily (hard to peer any other way after two zombies and a gin and tonic) down my dress, stuck a hand in, shifted things around and pulled the bra up on one side, then realizing how this must look, surreptitiously glanced around to see if anyone had noticed me fondling myself. Nobody was staring at me in shock and horror, so I quickly ~~groped~~ readjusted the other side.

This prompted another foray to Surfer Willy's. The purse is hiding my big butt. Unfortunately, it isn't hiding my back.

When I came back, I didn't realize Surfer Willy and his girlfriend followed and sat right behind me. Actually this was probably the time my boobs were making their attempt for freedom, and neither William nor his girlfriend said anything! You'd think he could have said something like, "Mom, XYB (Examine your boobs)", or "Mom, do you know your boobs are showing?" to which I would have had to reply, "No, but if you hum a few bars I can fake it." But no. He was probably just completely embarrassed that his sloshed mother was going around flashing people. I think if I had just worn coconuts it would have been less revealing. NOTE: NO I AM NOT ABOUT TO GROPE MYSELF IN THAT PHOTO. I'm reaching across to take a picture. Perverts.
Cute guys talking to David's mother Betty. Sorry girls and other guys. These outrageously cute guys are married. To each other.
Gratuitous William photos:Surfer WillyHe's going to make a great bartender some day.
William factoid: He has always exhibited more than a passing resemblance to Shaggy. For a 4-H costume contest, I once made a Scooby-do costume for his pony, Howdy, and we just put a green t-shirt on William and told him to walk like he normally does, and they won first place. We did have to draw the scraggly beard on back then. Not anymore. (He and Twister won first place the next year as Harry Potter and Fluffy the three-headed dog (William was Harry Potter. In case you were wondering). I make kick-ass horse costumes. Unfortunately it isn't really a marketable skill)

Gratuitous Buddha photos:
Buddha happy!Buddha disappointed
William giving the toast.I think William could give Bossy's son a run for his money. But I'm probably biased.
David and Pete toasted with the glasses that Bill and I bought them.
I think these guys were a little nervous I was going to fall on them. But I'm a well seasoned drunk. I rarely fall down. I always find the nearest wall to hold me up.Fairly soon after this ~~I staggered out to the car with Bill~~ ~~Bill carried me out~~ ~~Bill and I left~~ I don't really remember what the hell happened...

A Gay Hula!

2009-01-24T15:16:00.000-08:00

Gay in every sense of the word. David and Pete were married last Sunday! In a beautiful ceremony presided over by their good friend Dee.

They had a Hawaiian wedding - sans Hawaii. Our son was the best man AND bartender. Surfer Willy's Tiki Hut was set up in the living room. There was even a frozen drink machine that dispensed virgin Strawberry Daiquiris and non-virgin Rum Runners. A float of Captain Morgan Tattoo extra dark rum on a Rum Runner turned it into a Zombie, which in turn turned me into a zombie, which is why most of these photos are very slightly out of focus. (UPDATE: In looking at someone else's photos, the dark rum was actually Whaler's)

Bill trying to hold the two other best men, Homer and Buddha, still for a photo op. What a handsome dude!Another handsome dude.And there's yet another handsome dude with a beautiful dudette.The ceremonyDee included aspects of various cultures in the ceremony. She had them taste the four elements, and William recited a Native American poem while Dee played a Native American flute. She spoke eloquently about gay rights, human rights, and reminded everyone that it wasn't that long ago that African Americans in this country couldn't marry who they wished. Then David and Pete jumped the broom!
Mothers of the grooms. Both bawling. Which made me start. Sheesh. Did anyone else notice their dresses have exactly the same design, just in different colors and upside-down?

The wedding party The wedding party plus parentsAnd another photo of Buddha because he's so goshdarn ~~ugly~~ ~~photogenic~~ ~~cute~~ adorable. And how many other husbands would go to the wedding of his wife's ex-husband and his partner and give a congratulatory hug to both the grooms. (I think he's secretly really happy that David being gay meant I was available...you can just leave me in my own little fantasy world)

This handsome dude seems to make the rounds with all the gorgeous dudettes. Ok, this gorgeous dudette happens to be his girlfriend.Woah, bright dudes!Cool dude and another stunning dudette aka Bill's kids.Best friend dudes.Then the hula dancing began:

Pete played the conch shell to start the festivities, Don Ho started playing the drums, and hula dancers came out - trapping Pete! You can see him thinking,"Oh, crap! How do I get out of here now?" Ok, he may not be Don Ho, but he did sing Tiny Bubbles and Hukilau...
Oh, look! There's Buddha againThen it was time for others to learn how:Getting a little more into it:Here's a better view:
She is totally flirting with PeteNice coconuts!

Then they showed us how it's really done:
After the dancers were done, my son gave the toast:

I wanted to get up here and tell you that my father has always been there for me...but that's not true. The truth is that both my fathers have always been there for me.

As long as I can remember, Pete has been there helping my father...and my mother...raise me, and get me where I am headed.

That is why I couldn't have been happier when I found out...through a text message, I might add...that they were finally tying the knot.

I know that you have brought each other and the people around you happiness for 16 years. Here's to many more. I love you both.

Talk about tears.

It was all too much for this tired dude.

Kitty, the inaugural parade (WOO HOO!), and a faceplant is not a flower

2009-01-20T17:08:00.000-08:00

The other night I was startled out of a sound sleep by Bill suddenly sitting up and yelling, "Get off me, you BITCH!!"

I thought perhaps he had had a bad dream, since he never speaks to me this way (he knows better). And I wasn't even touching him, much less on him. "Whas wrong?"

"Kitty just jumped on my head THREE TIMES."

Given the early hour and his lack of sleep I think he can be forgiven for mistaking her for a dog.
________________________________________________________
My friend S and I happened to be eating lunch today and the inaugural parade was being shown on a big screen TV near us. We were chatting about what a nice car Barack Obama's limousine is and how it’s probably bullet proof and bomb resistant (it is) when President and Michelle Obama got out and started walking. We were saying, "What? What's he doing? He's getting out? No! No! Get back in!!!" It was scary.*

When I told this to another friend (B), she says she wakes up every morning and listens to the news - worrying and half expecting something horrible has happened to him. This is going to be a loooong presidency. I can tell. Especially if he does frightening things like getting out of the car. TWICE!
________________________________________________________
I did what is termed “a faceplant” yesterday while skiing. I allowed my son to convince me I was good enough to try a funbox in a terrain park. This is a slippery box that you slide down and jump off the end. I did fine the first three times, but then I was feeling a little cocky and tried a bigger one. I'm really glad I wear a helmet, although I have a huge bruise above my eyebrows up past my hairline where my goggles and helmet tried to come through my skull. My head actually bounced. The rest of me is slowly seizing up today - especially my neck and elbow. Yes, this is my daredevil son. Why on earth did I listen to him?
________________________________________________________
Photos from David and Pete’s very cool wedding will be posted as soon as I can move again.
________________________________________________________
*We knew the security was out of this world tight. It still made us nervous.

Celebrations

2009-01-16T21:05:00.000-08:00

This is a photo from this past Christmas. Note the influence from my side of the family. For you American(s), Christmas crackers have been a British tradition since they were invented in 1847. Inside you find a paper hat or crown, a prize and a joke. Bill found these at Costco. Apparently you can get anything at Costco. Its sort of like the warehouse store version of Harrods.

The other influence would be the quote on William's sweatshirt: Apathetic Agnostic; Don't know, Don't careBill and Brad Pit. I mean Buddha. Easy mistake.
Each year, David and Pete give me a fishy ornament. This year they gave me a bassoon instead!! It looks just like mine.
Pete cooking brunch.

David and Pete are finally tying the knot on Sunday - their 16th anniversary. They actually got married a couple of weeks before bigots and other mor(m)ons voted in Proposition 8. This is the ceremony that counts, though.

Here's a link in case you haven't seen Prop 8 - The Musical.

Theme music

2009-01-11T07:42:00.000-08:00

Bill had just spooled up Bones on the DVD player while I was in the kitchen getting something to drink. The theme music, composed and performed by The Crystal Method, was playing softly in the background, and apropos nothing, Bill commented, "Don't you miss theme songs?"

I immediately started singing:

Come and knock on our door
We've been waiting for you
Where the kisses are hers and hers and his,
Three's Company, too.

Come and dance on our floor
Take a step that is n....

At this point, Bill turned up the Bones volume and drowned me out.

Blues are relative

2009-01-06T18:05:00.000-08:00

No, I'm not depressed. No, it's not about John Lee Hooker, who's death may or may not have been caused by one of my friends M. But that's another story.

I'm talking about ski runs - what else?! View of Nevada from Heavenly Resort
Here in North America, the ski runs are rated green (easy), blue (more difficult) and black (most difficult, with a sub-rating of single diamond or double diamond = expert only). I think the corresponding colours in Europe are blue, red and black. I have now managed to ski in five(?) resorts, and generally do the blue runs, although I have recently started black diamond runs - groomed only, and at least initially with my heart in my mouth. Eew. But fun. The definition of blue seems to be relative to the other runs at a particular resort and varies greatly between resorts. My son and I were skiing at Keystone in Colorado last January, and we headed off down a slope that was labeled blue both on the map and at the trail head. It was ungroomed, virtually vertical,and had moguls. Note for non-skiers: Once you start down, it can be very difficult to go back up. That's why they have ski lifts.

William whisked off down it on his snowboard, and was patiently kneeling down at the bottom looking up at me while I v...e...r...y slowly worked my way down. Picked my way all the way across one way. Stopped. Carefully turned around trying not to accelerate. Picked my way all the way across the other way. Repeated - each time descending about three feet.

When I finally got close enough (after 6 or 8 times back and forth) I yelled down in a nervous, high voice (very unlike my normal husky, sexy one), "This is blue??" The word blue pitched up into an unintentional squeak. It's a little stressful to be afraid for your life.

He yelled back, "I would hate to see one of their black ones!"

It was really cold there, but I was sweating profusely and my legs were wobbly by the time I got down. Good exercise! Or something. We headed straight for the bar at the bottom via the nearest green.

Another random photo from last year

All the resorts I've skied:

Boreal Mountain Resort (previously Boreal Ridge)
Heavenly Ski Resort
Northstar-at-Tahoe
Sierra-at-Tahoe (previously Sierra Ski Ranch)
Diamond Peak (previously Ski Incline (I can see why they changed it))
Homewood Mountain Resort
Alpine Meadows
Sugar Bowl
Keystone
Perfect North Slopes (aka Dinky Ball of Solid Ice in Southern Indiana)

Ok, that's more than five.

This is in the California Bar in the California Lodge at Heavenly. I think they should have called it The Grizzly Bar, but nobody ever asks me. Well, at least I used some of the photos I took last year...

View

2009-01-01T16:00:00.000-08:00

This is the view I had first thing this morning.Sometimes it changed a little.My son was dogsitting for David and Pete (the Pug and Bichon Frisé) and Grandma Betty (the Maltese), and wanted to go to a New Year's party two hours away, so I dragged myself out of bed this morning (after several vodka martini things last night) and took them out for a walk. Aren't I a nice mother?

Of course, being me, I managed to find an empty lot right near one of the busiest streets in the Sacramento area. While we were on sidewalks, the dogs were happy to trot ahead, but as soon as I dragged them into long wet grass, they all looked at me as if to say, "What the @#$% are we doing here?? It's #$&@ing wet. And $%#&ing cold. Ick." City dogs. They swear a lot.

This was on the lot. I tried to get one of the dogs to stand next to it for scale, but they were too concerned about the wet grass touching their stomachs. I have no idea what it is. A well cap, maybe?Miko cannot sit still for anything. Certainly not a photo. Yes, that's my arm. I had to stop him spinning in circles somehow. I think that's my finger in the lower right corner, too.
Homer. Named after Homer Simpson.
Buddha. David and Pete call him the Brad Pit of pugs. I think he looks more like Marty Feldman, myself. Now I'm in trouble...

A new ski resort!

2008-12-31T16:35:00.000-08:00

New to me. Alpine Meadows has actually been around for 44 years.This is the view from the top of the Lake View lift. If you squint, you can see the slopes of another resort across Lake Tahoe - Diamond Peak (previously Ski Incline).

Church sign

2008-12-26T11:25:00.000-08:00

This sign is in front of the church next to my gym. What a wonderful, loving god these people have. If you don't accept our loving god, YOU WILL BURN IN HELL FOR ETERNITY! Nice. They probably don't realize that their god would consign literally billions of people to hell. Do they realize how hateful that is, and what a completely evil god that would be? Do they care? Using fear tactics is always a good way to win over converts, too.

I'm currently reading godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists by Dan Barker. Bill got it for me for Christmas :-) It's extremely interesting so far, but one of the things that struck me was something his mother said. She and his father were born again Christians who raised him in one of the Charismatic churches where they spoke in tongues, and "healed" people. Because of his explanations about why he didn't believe in God anymore both of his parents eventually became atheists.

Within weeks Mom concluded that religion was "just a bunch of baloney," as she told [a] reporter. She felt a "tremendously great disappointment in God." She began to do some reading and thinking of her own, and eventually started calling herself an atheist. "I don't have to hate anymore," she said happily.(emphasis mine)*

Doesn't my new phone takes good pictures, though!
*Pg. 58

On misanthropy II

2008-12-20T21:00:00.000-08:00

In a previous post I talked about how much I like to be alone.

This may be one reason why I've never had very many friends. Wherever I've lived, I've only had at most 3 really good friends at one time - sometimes just one or two. My son and Bill's daughter live for friends - especially Bill's daughter. She seems to think that the reason for going off to college is to make new friends. Hopefully in her case, some non-Christian ones, although that seems doubtful. The easiest place to find friends is apparently church. Especially when you need friends to help reinforce the supernatural bullshit they're feeding you. I always thought the reason for going off to college was to learn enough to eventually be able to get a good job.

I just don't understand the need for lots of friends, because I just don't have a need for lots of friends. It's a foreign concept to me.

The number of friends prior to high school with whom I have kept in contact: None.
High school: One. My ex-husband, David. And honestly, although I'm very fond of him, we probably would have drifted apart if it weren't for William.
College (B.S.): None. Never made any friends.
Job during college: Two. Claire and Carol, the husband and wife for whom I worked, although I haven't seen them since my wedding. They actually went to both my weddings.
First job after college: One. Noel, although I haven't seen her since my wedding, either.
Graduate school (M.S.): One. Kia. We keep in contact mainly via our blogs, although I have invited her to come skiing/boarding sometime...After January when the kids are all back in school and we have extra rooms would be good.
Graduate school (MBA): None. Never made any.
State career: Several, but only two really good friends. M and M (I have three friends M. You might notice there isn't another name starting with M here. Some names have been changed to protect the innocent). UPDATE: I guess I should probably include Bill here. Oops.
Not quite random: Pete, because he has been David's significant other for 15 years and helped raise our son. And he's a really great guy.

I was just talking with Bill about the fact that I have a couple of friends that I worry about more than I worry about the kids.

Although some people might not agree, I am very much an introvert. I was one of those kids in school who was sometimes labeled "stuck up" because I was too shy to talk to many people. I've learned to be much more outgoing over the years, but I can still suddenly become awkward, even with friends. Some situations are stressful enough that I become physically ill later, although it took me years to connect the dots.

I find being in groups of people to be very stressful, sometimes even if I know some of the people. Bill and I went to a birthday party for the 1 year old child of a friend of ours (Ok, she's not on the list but we don't see her very often now that we don't work with her). There were lots of people there - mostly her relatives, and when we got home I said, "Whew. Well that was stressful, wasn't it?" Bill said,"No, not really. Why?" Hmm. Maybe it's just me. Booze helps.

Another time (eons ago) I had just gotten my first job after college, and David, William (then two) and I went to the holiday party. We were all leaning against the wall in a row, and as one of my new coworkers walked by, she exclaimed,"Look! A whole family of wallflowers!"

Am I a hardcore atheist?

2008-12-16T19:17:00.000-08:00

Short answer - yep. Friendly Atheist posted this list and asks how seriously you take your atheism. Things I've done are in bold.

1. Participated in the Blasphemy Challenge.
2. Met at least one of the “Four Horsemen” (Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris) in person. Richard Dawkins - twice. And I have pictures to prove it
3. Created an atheist blog. Um. Yeah.
4. Used the Flying Spaghetti Monster in a religious debate with someone. Sort of. More just used the FSM in conversation.
5. Gotten offended when someone called you an agnostic.
6. Been unable to watch Growing Pains reruns because of Kirk Cameron. They still show Growing Pains reruns?
7. Own more Bibles than most Christians you know. Nope. Just one. I've tried to read it, but found it excruciatingly boring. No pun intended.
8. Have at least one Bible with your personal annotations regarding contradictions, disturbing parts, etc. I have trouble defacing any book. Even the Bible.
9. Have come out as an atheist to your family. Not really necessary as I wasn't raised in a religious household.
10. Attended a campus or off-campus atheist gathering. Atheists and Other Freethinkers. Nothing to do with a campus at all, though.
11. Are a member of an organized atheist/Humanist/etc. organization. The Brights, The Skeptics Society, the American Humanist Association.
12. Had a Humanist wedding ceremony. Two of them. I would have called them Secular, rather than Humanist, though.
13. Donated money to an atheist organization. Several.
14. Have a bookshelf dedicated solely to Richard Dawkins. No, but I have about 6 of his books.
15. Lost the friendship of someone you know because of your non-theism.
16. Tried to argue or have a discussion with someone who ~~stopped you on the street~~ came to my front door to proselytize. Jehovah's Witnesses, of course.
17. Had to hide your atheist beliefs on a first date because you didn’t want to scare him/her away.
18. Own a stockpile of atheist paraphernalia (bumper stickers, buttons, ~~shirts~~, etc). And it keeps growing.
19. Attended a protest that involved religion.
20. Attended an atheist conference.
21. Subscribe to Pat Condell’s YouTube channel.
22. Started an atheist group in your area or school.
23. Successfully “de-converted” someone to atheism.
24. Have already made plans to donate your body to science after you die. After any usable parts are given away. Note to self - MAKE A WILL
25. Told someone you’re an atheist only because you wanted to see the person’s reaction.
26. Had to think twice before screaming “Oh God!” during sex. Or you said something else in its place. Unfortunately, "Oh Flying Spaghetti Monster!" or "Oh Invisible Pink Unicorn" just don't roll off the tongue very well.
27. Lost a job because of your atheism.
28. Formed a bond with someone specifically because of your mutual atheism (meeting this person at a local gathering or conference doesn’t count). Well, both Bill and I had a lot in common. Homosexual ex-spouses for one, but the both being atheists was a big part.
29. Have crossed “In God We Trust” off of — or put a pro-church-state-separation stamp on — dollar bills. No. Defacing US currency is a crime. I want to show people that atheists are good people, not feed their misconceptions.
30. Refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. I recite all except the "Under God" part, and have done so since at least high school.
31. Said “Gesundheit!” (or nothing at all) after someone sneezed because you didn’t want to say “Bless you!”
32. Have ever chosen not to clasp your hands together out of fear someone might think you’re praying.
33. Have turned on Christian TV because you need something entertaining to watch.
34. Are a 2nd or 3rd (or more) generation atheist. 2nd. My father never really believed any religious bunk.
35. Have “atheism” listed on your Facebook or dating profile — and not a euphemistic variant. I have "atheist" on Myspace, but "Pastafarian" on Facebook.
36. Attended an atheist’s funeral (i.e. a non-religious service). I don't know if she was an atheist, but her funeral was certainly not religious.
37. Subscribe to an freethought magazine (e.g. Free Inquiry, Skeptic) Skeptic
38. Have been interviewed by a reporter because of your atheism.
39. Written a letter-to-the-editor about an issue related to your non-belief in God.
40. Gave a friend or acquaintance a New Atheist book as a gift.
41. Wear pro-atheist clothing in public.
42. Have invited Mormons/Jehovah’s Witnesses into your house specifically because you wanted to argue with them. Nope. Just talked to them outside the door. See #16
43. Have been physically threatened (or beaten up) because you didn’t believe in God.
44. Receive Google Alerts on “atheism” (or variants).
45. Received fewer Christmas presents than expected because people assumed you didn’t celebrate it.
46. Visited The Creation Museum or saw Ben Stein’s Expelled just so you could keep tabs on the “enemy.” No way. I wouldn't want to give either one my money.
47. Refuse to tell anyone what your “sign” is… because it doesn’t matter at all. I don't tell them because I can never remember it....because it doesn't matter at all.
48. Are on a mailing list for a Christian organization just so you can see what they’re up to…
49. Have kept your eyes open while you watched others around you pray.
50. Avoid even Unitarian churches because they’re too close to religion for you.

~21. Not bad.

On misanthropy

2008-12-14T11:22:00.000-08:00

I've always enjoyed being by myself. I love just sitting alone and reading a book, messing about on the computer, or even taking a nap. I like going into the office really early, because there's nobody else around.

I've never minded going to restaurants alone. I just take a book. Once, while I was getting my degree in Indiana, my parents were in England, and my son was with his dad in California, I was alone for several weeks. I was working on my thesis, but I decided to take a break one night and go to Grindstone Charley's, a fairly nice restaurant. When I mentioned it later, my mother was shocked that I had gone to a restaurant alone. I, in turn, was shocked that she had never been to one by herself in her life.

I've also gone to movies alone several times. I went to a late-night showing of Jurassic Park when it was still in one of the huge domes of a Century Complex theater. I think they've since subdivided all those into smaller screens. There were three other people in a ~500 seat theater and they all sat down in the front. I had pretty much the entire theater to myself, so I sat back and put my feet up on the chair in front. When the velociraptor lunged for Laura Dern's feet as she was yanked up through the ceiling, I actually jerked my feet back. Embarrassed, I looked around but there was nobody to see....whew!

I used to ride horses a lot, and I loved going out with only the horse for company. My 3/4 Arab 1/4 quarter horse, Thalj Najmah and I would go out for hours just enjoying ourselves. I could talk to her, and I could justify it as not just talking to myself. She was always willing to do whatever I wanted, from suddenly taking off at a mad gallop to herding a neighbors wayward calf back through a hole in the fence (which probably looked odd with my English saddle and jodphurs, but hey)(did I mention I lived in Texas at the time?). I did have a few human friends, but if you ask me who my best friend was when I was a young teenager, I would have to say Najmah.

Now, most of the time I go skiing and ride my bicycle, I spend literally hours alone, and surprisingly to me, find it just as enjoyable as riding a horse. I always thought I had the horse for company, but maybe it's always been just me. Don't get me wrong; I like going with friends, too, but if I waited around for someone to go with, I'd never go.This is the only picture I could find of Najmah. I'm sure my mother has others. The white pony was our much loved Pony of the Americas, Paleface. And there's the Mirror dinghy that my father built one winter when we lived in upstate New York.

Tradition

2008-12-07T19:52:00.000-08:00

Well, we got our Christmas tree today. We brought it home on my car, and I just thought this was a funny juxtaposition: A Christmas tree on a car with a Darwinfish, Invisible Pink Unicorn, and this bumpersticker: Note that the COEXIST magnet has NASA images rather than the usual religious symbols. I just didn't want all those religious symbols on my car.
From the side:Enlarged side view:Gee. Those water spots really show up. You can tell I'm not very fastidious about my car. Or about much of anything, really (anybody who knows me is nodding right now).

Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour

2008-11-23T11:03:00.000-08:00

I was commenting on a post over at Better Oot Than In, and I realized that I really am a Novelty Song Geek. My friends and relatives can all attest to this. Loudly. As in, "No! No singing! Not AGAIN! SHUT UP!"

When my brother and I were kids, our parents gave us a "Loony Tunes"¹ record. I think my mother picked it because it had My Boomerang Won't Come Back by the late, great Charlie Drake (his catchphrase was,"Hello, my darlings" which my father still occasionally says). Other great songs on that album included:
Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah - Alan Sherman,
The Witch Doctor - David Seville,
Does Your Chewing Gum Lose It's Flavour (On The Bedpost Overnight) - Lonnie Donnegan (actually, this one may have been the reason my mother bought the album for us)
Shaving Cream - Benny Bell
Charlie Brown - The Coasters
Transfusion - Nervous Norvus
Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport - Rolf Harris (Um..., maybe this one was the reason)
Dinner With Drac - John Zacherly
The Streak - Ray Stevens (I'm pretty sure this wasn't the reason)
the #1 novelty song of all time, They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa - Napoleon XIV
And Tip-toe Through The Tulips - Tiny Tim. I do a very good Tiny Tim imitation, if I do say so myself (soundwise only).
We pretty much wore that record out.

One of my friends M (I have three friends M) made the mistake of telling me her new boyfriend knew the song, Along Came Jones and asking if I knew it. "NO! I DIDN'T MEAN SING IT!" Too late. Of course I know it.

In the early '80s, I discovered Dr. Demento. Luckily, Weird Al Yankovic had discovered him several years earlier, or we wouldn't have such classics as Eat It, Fat, and I Lost On Jeopardy. Other songs included:
The Ballad of Irving - Frank Gallop,
Everybody Run, the Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun and Cause I'm a Blonde - Julie Brown,
Existential Blues - Tom "T-Bone" Stankus (I don't even HAVE a little dog Toto),
I still get The Cockroach That Ate Cincinnati by Rose and the Arrangement stuck in my head occasionally.

Barnes & Barnes came out with what would become the Aquatic Ecologist's theme song: Fish Heads. Or is that Wet Dream by Kip Addotta?

And who could forget Tom Lehrer with Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, and the Masochism Tango.

Ray Stevens and Weird Al certainly compete for the title of King of the Novelty Songs, but I proclaim Ray Stevens to be King. One, because his are unique, whereas Weird Al makes a living taking the mickey of current hits, and two because it's my blog and I can do whatever I want :-Pppppppppffffth.

Guitarzan, Would Jesus Wear a Rolex, Mississippi Squirrel Revival, Shriner's Convention, It's Me Again, Margaret and the completely un-PC Ahab the Arab.

Nowadays they just don't write songs like Purple People Eater, Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, and Rubber Duckie (Warning - mildly disturbing naked Ernie version).

Yes, I know all the words to Steve Martin's King Tut. Even the parts he missed in this video. Like He gave his life for tourism (wrong place), Golden Idols!, He's an Egyptian, They're selling you. Ok, my next post is going to be about how I'm obsessive enough to criticize Steve Martin singing his own song. I could do the same for several of the Ray Stevens ones, too...

Soon, 'tis the season for Elmo and Patsy's Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer. Can't wait!

¹ Put out by the now defunct Grants store, and not affiliated with Warner Bros. Looney Toons

Scenes from Dartmoor Zoological Park

2008-11-16T19:45:00.000-08:00

My mother heard this interview on the Diane Rehm Show on the NPR station WFYI in Indianapolis.

It's a pretty amazing, heartbreaking, and uplifting story, if you take time to listen to it. In 2006, Benjamin Mee and his family decided to buy a dilapidated zoo on Dartmoor to rescue the animals, many of whom were going to be shot if nobody bought it within 10 days. After a lot of trouble both with banks and family members, he and his wife, his brother, and his mother finally owned an unlicensed zoo with about 200 animals on the edge of Dartmoor. Four days later, Sovereign, the jaguar escaped. Then Ben's wife's brain cancer recurred and she died leaving him with two young children to raise alone. They finally managed to open on July 7, 2007. If you listen closely, you'll find something unusual in an interview like this in the United States. There is no mention of God anywhere.

There was also a BBC2 documentary about it that several of my relatives had seen, so we decided to visit the Dartmoor Zoological Park while we were there.

Animals I wouldn't have expected to find on Dartmoor:I love capybaras. I hopped up and down and squealed,"Look! Capybaras! Capybaras!" As I've said before, it doesn't take much to excite me.

There were lions: Solomon and his mother Josie

And tigers Vlad (Siberian tiger)

And bears Ben (European brown bear)Hailey (European brown bear) and Fudge (Syrian brown bear)

Oh, my!

I looked down into this enclosure and thought, "Humph. These aren't very exotic." Then I remembered I was in England:
Snowdrop and Attitude, the hand raised Asian otters were hungry and begging from anybody who walked by. They were absolutely adorable and sounded like very loud squeaky toys.
According to the book written by Benjamin Mee, Ronnie the tapir is apparently gay. And wouldn't stand still for me to take a good picture. In the book, Mr. Mee explains how common homosexuality is in the animal kingdom - eventually he wants to add gay animal exhibits. This is already being done at the Artis Zoo in Holland. The UK version of the book is here.

In the book, he notes that he was heavily influenced by one of my childhood heroes, Gerald Durrell. I spent many an exciting night reading My Family and Other Animals, Birds, Beasts and Relatives, and Catch Me a Colobus. I would have loved to have owned a zoo. Fortunately for the Dartmoor Zoological Park, Mr. Mee managed to reignite his childhood dream.

We had a very nice lunch overlooking the ostrich/llama/alpaca/fallow deer enclosure.

What struck me about this zoo was that most of the animals actually looked content, and some even seemed interested in us. Nobody was neurotically pacing, the enclosures were large, and most of the animals were out and about even though they could go in and hide if they chose. The grey wolves were a bit restive and kept snarling and attacking each other, but I think it was near feeding time.

Scenes from England

2008-11-15T17:45:00.000-08:00

The Birthday Boy. The button says, "I Survived Damn Near Everything."

My Nanna. Next June will be their 70th wedding anniversary.

I got to know some of my relatives a little better:
Seems as though I've known them all my life, after all. The dogs are definitely part of the family.

The evil flat coated retriever of Torrington Commons.
aka Mack.

People who think English food is bad or boring have obviously never eaten in the right places. And many pubs still allow dogs, which is just cool.

In a recent post (caused by me), Barry over at Staring at Empty Pages indicated that a never-ending loop will start due to Newton's Third Law of Pub-Motion - “For every beer treat, there is an equal and opposite beer re-treat.” Definitely true. There wasn't a sober evening while my cousins were around. I actually got up and sang karaoke in a pub one night, which I'm sure embarrassed my brother. The same song I always sing if I'm drunk enough and there's a karaoke machine nearby. The Shoop Shoop Song. My cousin Sarah's daughter Lauren (does that make Lauren my second cousin?) found it on the list after I cery varefully staggered over and couldn't find it. So of course, I had to sing it.

Going back: I flew Virgin Atlantic and took this picture of the seat in front of me just before we got to Greenland

Tagged!

2008-11-11T09:40:00.000-08:00

I was tagged by The Darwin Report. Luckily it didn't hurt very much. Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random (or arbitrary) things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Six random things about me:

1. I just flew in from England, and boy are my arms....[shift forward in time 14 hours] actually my brain was too tired to think of 6 random things last night. Hopefully it's better this morning.

2. I have a concert tonight to which I'm driving the truck, although I'm a little out of practice with both the bassoon and driving on the right side.

This is one we do at a local retirement community on Veteran's Day every year, and makes me cry every time. For the first few years, they had WWII veterans in uniform carrying the flags (very slowly) down the aisle. Last year, I think they were replaced by Korean War veterans. I get all choked up when we play the Armed Forces Salute and veterans of each branch stand as we play their respective songs. Seeing the music through tears and playing with a lump in your throat isn't easy, I can tell you.

3. While in England, apart from attending my Grandad's 100th birthday party and getting to know some of my many relatives a little better, we went to the Dartmoor Zoological Park. I highly recommend going if you're in the neighbourhood. And even if you're not.

4. I didn't know until recently that Alcoholics Anonymous is a load of religious crap.

5. My son appears to be becoming a gay rights activist. He's really pissed off about how the passing of Proposition 8 could affect David and Pete (his Dad and Step-dad). I have more than one reason to be proud of him! Oh, all right. Lots, actually.

6. After 33 years in this country, I got my U.S. Citizenship eight years ago because I was tired of not being able to vote. Finally it's going the way I voted...

Hmm. Six people I can tag? I had a hard enough time coming up with 6 arbitrary things about me...

1. Kia at A Blog About Everything, who is definitely still alive.
2. Mr Farty at Better Oot Than In
3. Barry at Staring at Empty Pages
4. Andrew at Artificial Habitat, even though he hasn't posted anything for months, and may, in fact, be dead.
5. David at Musings by the Hairslave. Welcome to the blogging world!
6. The King of Ferrets at Ferret's Cage

You're it!

How to make a mother proud

2008-11-03T00:00:00.000-08:00

My son had to create a representation of something alive for his Theater Arts Stage Electrics class. Electrical plugs, switches, wires, and bulbs: $55The eye-stalks are switches.
Styrofoam ball, glue gun, glue, and googly-eyes: $35Mother's pride in surprisingly expensive electrical art project: PricelessEveryone's interpretation of the FSM is different. In some Pastafarian sects (possibly more closely related to the Rastafarian) he obviously has glowing meatballs.

I'm off to Devon!

2008-10-26T20:18:00.000-07:00

I'm leaving for England on Wednesday. My grandfather is turning 100 and there's a big party. With their six children, 19(?) grandchildren, various spouses and great-grandchildren, its going to be a fairly big party. Since my grandparents are pretty much housebound, we're all going to squeeze into their tiny house. We know it can be done. We did it for Grandad's 99th birthday last year.

I put a question mark next to the number of grandchildren, because I can never remember how many cousins I actually have. I'm the eldest, my brother is the second eldest, and I can remember the names of the first 7 or 8 after that, but I'm a bit fuzzy on most of the ones around my son's age and younger. It didn't help that we moved to the U.S. before they were born, so the most I've ever met any of them is 3 or 4 times. I come from a huge family, but feel as though I come from a tiny one with just my parents and my brother.

My cousin's children? Might as well forget it. I'll never remember their names. Except Poppy. She came to our wedding, and then "long-distance-dated" my son's best friend for a while.

The two cousins I feel I know best are the two daughters of my mother's youngest brother, because they've actually come over and visited for a while. Nicky (15 years younger than I am) came to stay while I was doing my thesis, so I put her to work. She got to slog through cow fields and slosh around in streams for her vacation. Gwen (3 years younger than my son - 27 years younger than me) and my Aunt Jayne fared a little better on their recent visit.

My mother mentioned the name of one of my cousins and said she was Grandad's favourite, and I almost burst into tears. I never had the chance of being Grandad's favourite (although I probably was at one point because for almost three years I was the only one).

I actually feel much closer to my aunts and uncles, although I suppose I really don't know them any better. Most of them have come to visit over the years, and my mother's youngest sister is only nine years older than I am.

My parents live ~2000 miles away and my brother lives ~2700 miles away, and it seems as though the only time we all get together nowadays is 5371 miles away. I'll be back in a couple of weeks!

Beethoven's Symphony No. 9

2008-10-26T09:20:00.000-07:00

Last night we went to Beethoven's 9th Symphony at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Sacramento. Pete conducts the Orchestra and Chorus of All Hallows, one of only two Catholic parishes in the United States that have a full symphony orchestra. The other is Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York.

The performance was superb. The orchestra and chorus played and sang flawlessly, as far as I could tell, and Pete got us upgraded to the Conductor's booth, so we had some of the best seats in the house. Could have used a little padding, but hey. The music was so beautiful and moving, I had tears streaming down my face at the end. It was an amazing experience. I am really grateful to Pete for inviting us.

The Cathedral was built in the 1880s/1890s and has undergone a recent renovation. It is very, very pretty inside and out, and the Diocese has every right to be proud. I probably would have been much more impressed if I hadn't visited cathedrals all through England and Scotland. Unfortunately, it sort of reminded me of Aesop's jackdaw. And I didn't see any cathedrals in England with a giant (a little bit tacky?) Jesus on a cross suspended from the ceiling, which according to Wikipedia weighs 2000 lbs. I wouldn't want to be sitting under it in an earthquake. One of my friends M (I have three friends M) went to the concert too, and reminded me that a few years ago we watched from a nearby high-rise as a very brave man put gold leaf on the cross on top of the cathedral spire.

Luckily, neither Bill nor I burst into flames, even when I stuck my finger in the holy water (David sort of dared me to do it).

Conversation snippet

2008-10-19T18:26:00.000-07:00

Friend M: I'm not going to invoke your Flying Spaghetti Monkey or whatever....

Me: (interrupting) Monster, please! Flying Spaghetti Monkey would just be silly.

Projector not your average Joe the Plumber

2008-10-16T06:19:00.000-07:00

$275 overhead projector from Staples:

$449 overhead projector from Staples:

Do teachers even still use these?

$3 Million "overhead projector" of the type McCain keeps going on about:

Is he that stupid? Does he think we are? Has he ever even been to a planetarium?

By the way, you can donate to the Adler Planetarium to help them buy this, because what McCain leaves out of his little tirades is that it was not funded.

Hat tip to Pharyngula, Bad Astronomy, Gizmodo, and one of the other blogs I read, but I can't find the post right now.

Freethought Day

2008-10-13T09:11:00.000-07:00

Well, yesterday I got to meet Lori Lipman Brown AND Matthew LaClair! Actually, Bill and I went to a Freethought Day fundraiser the night before and listened to them both speak, but didn't really meet them.

Freethought Day is a Celebration of Reason, Freethought and Church-State Separation held in Old Sacramento in October. It commemorates the decision 300 years ago by Governor William Phipps of the Colony of Massachusetts that spectral evidence would no longer be admissible in court, bringing an end to the Salem Witch Trials. Freethought Day is jointly put on by Atheists and Other Freethinkers of Sacramento (AOF) and the Humanist Association of the Greater Sacramento Area (HAGSA). This year, Lori Lipman Brown emceed, and Matthew was the featured speaker.

Lori is the director and lobbyist for the Secular Coalition of America. This is the national lobby representing the interests of atheists, humanists, agnostics, freethinkers and other nontheistic Americans. I mentioned this group in a previous post. She was also on The Colbert Report recently.

As a 16 year old high school junior, Matthew secretly recorded his history teacher teaching creationism and telling kids that they would go to hell if they didn't accept Jesus Christ. He then warned the school about what the teacher was doing. The principal called him in to a meeting with the teacher (not allowing his parents in) where the teacher denied it. Matthew produced the CDs proving that he did and was lying (isn't there some sort of commandment against bearing false witness or something? Maybe that's not the same thing as out-and-out lying). The school STILL didn't do anything about it so Matthew eventually took the story to the media. When people started calling him a liar, Matthew also went public with the recording he had secretly made of the meeting with the principal and the teacher. Don't EVER mess with Matthew!

Matthew is an amazing young man, who is willing to stand up for his own and other people's rights. And he's an extremely good public speaker.

I don't know if the featured speaker is always put to work setting up. What teenage boy wouldn't jump at the chance to pound things with a sledge hammer, though?He also enthusiastically helped tear down.

It was a really windy day. This is Paul Geisert, co-founder and co-Director of The Brights, holding down the canopies while Matthew pounded the stakes in. We were a little concerned that he might be carried away. They are big canopies. Bill Potts, President of HAGSA is standing next to him. This is Mynga Futrell, the other co-founder/co-Director of The Brights. Can you tell it was chilly?It did warm up a little.Lori and Matt standing near my table. I have manned a table for Mynga several times now which displays the California approved resources that she and Paul developed for teachers teaching about religion.

I, of course, managed to get my picture taken with Lori. Since she was standing right there.Matthew speaking:
While Matthew was speaking, the crowd was actually standing room only.
Another speaker was Dr. Michael Newdow, a Sacramento lawyer and physician, who sued to have the words "under God" removed from public schools' recitals of the Pledge of Allegance. I completely agree with him. From a very young age, I have always just left it out, and nobody has ever noticed. He's got a really good singing voice, too.Some of the books at the Banned Books booth.We went out to eat (and drink) afterwards.It was a long day, but a lot of fun.

Awesome. Like, totally.

2008-10-11T16:22:00.000-07:00

From Pollster.com via the Daily Kos.

Religulous review

2008-10-05T15:35:00.000-07:00

Bill and I just came back from Bill Maher's new documentary Religulous. If you haven't heard of it, Bill Maher, who is not an atheist, but is very critical of religion, went around the world interviewing people of various religions. He was non-denominational in his disapproval. He skewered (crucified?) Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, Mormonism, Evangelical Christianity, Creationism, Scientology, Cantheism, and some guy who believes he's descended from Jesus.

The two funniest parts were Evangelical Christian Senator Mark Pryor from Arkansas saying that you don't have to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate, and someone's hair catching on fire. I won't say who, so it won't ruin it if you see the movie, but I will say no one was hurt. I especially liked the interviews with the priests at the Vatican who more or less said that most of the stuff in the bible was obviously all just stories, but what can you do when so many people believe them as fact? The giggling, raspberry blowing priest was actually more than a little weird.

They filmed a reenactment of the crucifixion of Christ at the Holy Land theme park in Orlando Florida, and I, like Roger Ebert, found the people clapping when Jesus fell down and was whipped and kicked by a Roman soldier to be a bit disturbing.

I was a little apprehensive going in because this town is in the mini-bible belt of California. The audience applauded at the end, which I think is a little odd, considering it's a movie. Who's going to hear? I guess they liked it, though.

On our way out, I overheard a conversation behind me.
Man: Well, that wasn't too offensive.
Woman: No, not at all.
Man: I would like to see it again. Actually, I would like to see a part two.

Considering that this town has churches on every other corner - several of them megachurches - chances are they are a somewhat religious couple.

Unfortunately, I think that most of the people who should go and see this movie won't.

Bill actually chuckled out loud in a couple of places, which he rarely does. I give it a thumbs-up, and Bill gives it 3 out of 4 stars. He subtracted a star because it wasn't Sci Fi.

But it's not even Halloween yet!

2008-10-03T08:46:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Hey! PZ stole the title of this post! At least his wasn't about band.

Last night I missed most of the VP debate because I had band rehearsal. Yes, I know. That's dedication. A few years ago, our Holiday^[1] concert was ~~not up to our usual standard~~ ~~pretty darn awful~~ sucked because for various reasons we only rehearsed for it twice. Since then, our Director has started inserting holiday music into rehearsals earlier and earlier, which is how we ended up playing White Christmas,^[2] The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire), Silent Night (the Mannheim Steamroller version), and Greensleeves^[3] on the second of October. I'm already getting in the spirit! I feel the urge to run out and buy presents right now! What does everyone want? Unfortunately, we've never played my favourite Christmas song - Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.^[4] My mother has never liked that song for some reason, even before she became a grandma...

Thank ~~God~~ ~~the FSM~~ our Director we also rehearsed the un-Christmassy Gustav Holst's Second Suite in F for Military Band,^[5] and Richard Rogers' Victory at Sea.

[1] It may be called a Holiday Concert, but the vast majority of music is Christmas music. We did play The Dradle Song one year, but I don't think that makes up for it. Lucky Christmas is now a secular holiday.
[2] Written by that famous agnostic, Irving Berlin
[3] Since when did a traditional 16th Century English folk song supposedly (but not likely) written by Henry VIII for Anne Boleyn become a Christmas favourite? What's next? O Tannembaum becoming the state song of Maryland?
[4] Actually, my favourite is really Sleighride by Leroy Anderson, which we do play.
[5] I love Holst. Maybe I'll get a bumper sticker to that effect to go with my Darwinfish, COEXIST with NASA images rather than religious symbols, Charlie Brown for Congress, and Obama/Biden ones.

Debate thoughts

2008-09-28T10:54:00.000-07:00

We watched the presidential debate Friday night. I've never wanted to watch a debate before, and I don't remember ever watching one all the way through, but I was really looking forward to this one (maybe I'm finally growing up?). I spent most of the debate e-mailing back and forth with my friend M (I have three friends M) who was watching on a different channel, while Bill yelled periodically at the TV. Ok, I admit I yelled, too.

McCain spent a lot of his time telling folksy stories, while Obama actually explained his stance on the issues.

I thought that both candidates did quite well, but the main things we all noticed (me, M, and Bill) was the body language. Obama addressed many of his comments to McCain while looking directly at him, while McCain almost never looked at Obama, and leaned away most of the time, Even when they shook hands.Charles Dharapak/AP Photo

Obama actually addressed McCain directly, calling him "John," while McCain spoke only to Jim Lehrer, using the third person, "Senator Obama." The condescending and frequent "Senator Obama does not understand this issue," only irritated me because it was obviously not true.

I can't wait for the vice-presidential debate, although I'm going to have to have someone tape it for me, as I have band rehearsal that night. I mentioned to a kindly little old lady while I was volunteering at the Charlie Brown for Congress office yesterday that it should be painful to watch. She startled me by vehemently exclaiming,"I hope so!" (Maybe I should re-think the little old lady part. She might get mad)

After all this, I'm still up in the air about who to vote for* because McCain is obviously a closet Pastafarian.

*NOT!!

Pirates attack Navy Tanker

2008-09-25T17:32:00.000-07:00

Brother Phil sent me this link today. Pirates apparently attacked a Navy Tanker off the coast of Somalia yesterday.

A security team aboard the vessel opened fire on two small boats near Somalia after they ignored warnings and pursued the ship, a U.S. Fifth Fleet spokesman said.

"From all appearances it does look like it was a pirate attack and the incident is currently under investigation," he said by telephone from Bahrain.

Ok, my only question is WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? It's a US Navy ship for crying out loud. They were in SKIFFS! Are they complete idiots or only halfwits?

On the other hand, this is obviously very good news for global warming, since there is a scientifically proven inverse correlation between global temperature and the number of pirates.

Luckily, the Flying Spaghetti Monster only needs large numbers of pirates. Common sense and intelligence apparently don't enter into the equation. And he was obviously protecting them with his noodly appendages, as they survived the attack.

ARrrrr and RAmen.

Dear Elizabeth Dole UPDATE

2008-09-20T07:55:00.000-07:00

I received this e-mail a couple of days ago from the Kay Hagan campaign in response to this e-mail I sent to the Elizabeth Dole campaign. At least it looks as though an actual person might have read it and responded with a modified form letter. It also took them three weeks to get back to me, which also makes me think that someone is actually reading Kay's e-mails and responding personally.

Dear Ms. Soule,

Thank you for your support! Kay is focused on running a grassroots campaign and she is proud and excited to receive support from a diverse group of people. The reason she has been able to make it this far is due to the support and efforts of folks like you, and it really means a lot to us. Be sure to stay up to date and visit our website frequently, and I hope you'll take some time to help us get the word out about Kay by telling your friends and neighbors. Thanks again!

My original e-mail was appended.

Saturday Night

2008-09-14T11:29:00.000-07:00

I try not to post too many videos on this blog because I know at least one reader (Hi Pater!) has dial-up and can't download them, but this one was too good to pass up:

Wildlife? or Scenes from the garage

2008-09-13T11:02:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, Bill slammed the door of the house open and yelled, "Laurie! Come out here! NOW!" I rushed out the front door, rushed back in and through the house, snatching my camera up on the way, and went out the garage door in time to take this: Yes, a flock of foraging wild turkeys had just made its way around our house and was headed across the street. We counted 23 of them, and then these two came running at top turkey speed around from the front yard (we live on a corner) to catch up.As you can see, we live in a housing development which wouldn't appear to be conducive to wildlife, although we often have the smell of skunk wafting in in the evenings (Bill had one in the garage once, stealing some catfood), and treefrogs can be surprising loud in the evenings. Bill has lived here for 20+ years, and he used to see the occasional coyote. Up until West Nile virus hit, we had large, loud flocks of yellow-billed magpies. It is rare to see one anymore. Apparently they've been replaced by turkeys.

A few minutes later they came back the other way, and even later, we saw them going past our house and around the block again - still with all 25 of them.
Why, you might ask, is all the landscaping green when we live in an arid state in the middle of a drought? I ask myself that all the time.