Detective work takes time and patience. You can't always solve a small mystery overnight.
Suppose that, one particular week, you've been busy in the evenings and haven't gotten to bed till after 10:00 p.m. For some reason, you keep waking up around 2:00 or 2:30 a.m. How odd. And you even have the windows open and the fan on all night, to keep the room cold for sleeping. Maybe falling asleep after 10 p.m. automatically pulls some magic trigger for a 4-hour alarm, but that's kind of absurd. Maybe the full moon happens to reach the window over your pillow right at 2 p.m., but that is just so mundane. There must be a more interesting cause.
Friday night you don't go to bed till 11:30 p.m. But this time you didn't put the fan on because, frankly, the night air was already freezing by the time you went to bed, and there is no pressure of getting up to require the soothing background sound.
2:00 a.m. comes around and you wake up to hear coyotes howling... or maybe wolves. You lie huddled in your bed after getting up to check the lock on the door, several times.
The next morning it occurs to you that this could have been going on all week, every night, but you never quite heard the sound when you woke up because of the fan. But you're still not sure if those were coyotes or wolves because both howl at the moon.
Conclusion:
Clearly, the herds of deer roaming the neighborhood are disturbing the ecosystem balance and attracting predators, which could be coyotes or wolves due to the howling, but really must be wolves, because it's impossible to imagine coyotes going after deer.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Get to six digits at least
The other day I overheard someone calling in for an 88,000 mile checkup.
Some people just obsess about their cars, don't they?
I can't even remember driving a car with mileage under 200,000.
Some people just obsess about their cars, don't they?
I can't even remember driving a car with mileage under 200,000.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Beautiful Saturday
Hello from the Grace College library, where wireless does work for guest users!
Maybe you would like to see some pictures of our apartment? They are all in one of my Photobucket folders, the Summer07 one, beginning the third row down and continuing on to page 2. Commentary isn't up yet but will be, eventually.
Here are a couple to start you off: the main hall, the kitchen, and the living room. There are some of my room, complete with laptop and the beloved iron and ironing board. I even included one of the closet - it was rather well-packed that day, but I wanted to show off how big and roomy it is.
Of course, I completely forgot to take pictures of the exterior, but you can see some other shots of our surroundings, such as the herd of deer visiting us and the gorgeous morning glories right by our front porch.
It's the coziest, darlingest little apartment ever, and you all need to come out and visit. Oh, and we have a TV now too! So we can even watch movies with you!
Maybe you would like to see some pictures of our apartment? They are all in one of my Photobucket folders, the Summer07 one, beginning the third row down and continuing on to page 2. Commentary isn't up yet but will be, eventually.
Here are a couple to start you off: the main hall, the kitchen, and the living room. There are some of my room, complete with laptop and the beloved iron and ironing board. I even included one of the closet - it was rather well-packed that day, but I wanted to show off how big and roomy it is.
Of course, I completely forgot to take pictures of the exterior, but you can see some other shots of our surroundings, such as the herd of deer visiting us and the gorgeous morning glories right by our front porch.
It's the coziest, darlingest little apartment ever, and you all need to come out and visit. Oh, and we have a TV now too! So we can even watch movies with you!
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
The Blue Screen of Death
Finally, finally that computer experience I've always missed out on.
Yesterday morning, as usual, I turned on my computer as soon as I arrived at work. Moments after I had logged in, it jumped to a blue screen to inform me that it was beginning to dump the physical memory. I almost passed out!
It told me that if this was the first time I had seen this screen, I should try to restart the computer. But it refused to respond to anything, Ctrl-Alt-Delete or the power.
So I unplugged it, and that fixed everything.
Yesterday morning, as usual, I turned on my computer as soon as I arrived at work. Moments after I had logged in, it jumped to a blue screen to inform me that it was beginning to dump the physical memory. I almost passed out!
It told me that if this was the first time I had seen this screen, I should try to restart the computer. But it refused to respond to anything, Ctrl-Alt-Delete or the power.
So I unplugged it, and that fixed everything.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
15 September
Happy birthday to my wonderful mother! also known as Ma Hoyt, votre chère maman, querida mama, etc. etc. ... but most especially as Mommy.
What can I say in tribute? There is really too much to choose from. But one of the dearest memories is how she read to us (nearly) every night, and still does to the kids at home. So many good books... the Max the Rabbit books, the Avocado Baby, The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and of course all the great series: Little House on the Prairie, Narnia, Redwall (great, hmm), Lord of the Rings, etc. etc. etc.
Thank you, Mommy, for helping us all to love reading and books!
What can I say in tribute? There is really too much to choose from. But one of the dearest memories is how she read to us (nearly) every night, and still does to the kids at home. So many good books... the Max the Rabbit books, the Avocado Baby, The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and of course all the great series: Little House on the Prairie, Narnia, Redwall (great, hmm), Lord of the Rings, etc. etc. etc.
Thank you, Mommy, for helping us all to love reading and books!
Saturday, September 08, 2007
Back to Saturday
It's been another exciting week of work, a few hours of life after work, and sleeping. I just don't know where the time goes when a full-time job takes up residence. Who came up with this idea of trading away all our time for money? Maybe a stomachs' union came up with it, some years back?
Yes, life stays exciting (and I'm not being sarcastic). It's too much fun to work with different people, come across problems to solve, spend one's evenings quietly at home, or cooking, or with friends. Especially fun is sleeping!
The Warsaw library offers Chinese lessons every Thursday night, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. I went to the first one last Thursday to see what it was like. Nothing very hard to keep up with, but it may get more challenging, and it's good to hear a native speaker and have him correct our attempts at writing. What's especially fascinating is hearing the musical interval difference between words in a sentence!
The little blue Toyota is a happy car again, with the mud cleaned out of its wheels and "new" tires on the front. I don't see why people like new cars. I could never bring myself to get one.
Stacey and I have a nice little project given us by our very first guest. There is a Ziploc bag of Friendship Bread happily fermenting on top of the microwave. Each batch makes three small loaves of bread, which is just the perfect amount. Three loaves means finding three different ways to flavor, fill or fix it, and finding two other people to give a loaf to, since we can really only handle one between the two of us.
Everyone have a lovely weekend!
Yes, life stays exciting (and I'm not being sarcastic). It's too much fun to work with different people, come across problems to solve, spend one's evenings quietly at home, or cooking, or with friends. Especially fun is sleeping!
The Warsaw library offers Chinese lessons every Thursday night, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. I went to the first one last Thursday to see what it was like. Nothing very hard to keep up with, but it may get more challenging, and it's good to hear a native speaker and have him correct our attempts at writing. What's especially fascinating is hearing the musical interval difference between words in a sentence!
The little blue Toyota is a happy car again, with the mud cleaned out of its wheels and "new" tires on the front. I don't see why people like new cars. I could never bring myself to get one.
Stacey and I have a nice little project given us by our very first guest. There is a Ziploc bag of Friendship Bread happily fermenting on top of the microwave. Each batch makes three small loaves of bread, which is just the perfect amount. Three loaves means finding three different ways to flavor, fill or fix it, and finding two other people to give a loaf to, since we can really only handle one between the two of us.
Everyone have a lovely weekend!
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Sharon's Exciting Life as a "Single"
Except that, between me, myself, and I, there are really three of us getting into adventures!
Well, it was Tuesday night. My apartment-mate was off watching a movie at a friend's house. Having been inspired by my Indian colleagues who always brought delicious dishes for lunch, I decided to try cooking up something interesting. So I pulled out the oil and all the spices I had, and started chopping onions and vegetables.
Before I even know the oil was heating up in the pan, the smoke alarm went off! That was startling. I used one of those handy barstools to take it down and tried heating up the pan without the oil in it the next time. This went better.
I was having a lot of fun frying up my spices, when it occurred to me that this would be a perfect time to put a music CD into the laptop in my bedroom, turn on the speakers and get beautiful sound by which to cook. It took a while to get the laptop booted up and password-ed, since I kept getting distracted by adding the vegetables and chickpeas to fry. I had checked and everything was plugged in. The laptop power, the speaker cord. I put in the CD and flicked the speaker and -
nothing happens! What? How can that be? Yes, everything's plugged in, both the battery and speakers into the the extension cord - oh, is that the lamp cord and not the speaker cord? No, the lamp's plugged into the wall. So what's the deal? Did I somehow leave everything plugged in that night when the power must have blinked since the microwave clock was unset again in the morning and that somehow zapped the speaker system completely? What?! How can this happen to my lovely speakers? Can I live without ever hearing music of beautiful sound quality again? Oh, this is so sad....
Oh wait, the extension cord isn't plugged into the wall!
I turned off the heat under the (hopefully) deliciously spiced and fried chickpeas and suddenly remembered that it was high time to check the oil in the car. True, it was about 9 o'clock, but there was still a little light, and even if it did turn out to be too dark, I could always pull out the flashlight. Off I ran through the long damp grass - after turning off the stove, surprise, surprise! I got the hood up and the oil stick out, just enough light to see - wiped to put it back in and double-check... except I couldn't quite see to put it back in. Time for the flashlight! Ran back in and started hunting it up, only to realize that I really had no idea where it was, since everything was still all misplaced and un-put-away from the move. Frantically hunting through all the boxes, bags, and closet shelves, with the hood still propped up and the oil stick still out on the engine cooling off in the gathering dusk... I couldn't find the flashlight and I couldn't go ask the neighbors - that would just be too bad - and I would have to leave the hood up and the oil open all night...
There it was!
My goodness, that was close. I almost had to resort to turning on my headlights to see if they shed any faint rays backward into the hood, which of course they didn't and was completely pointless.
By the time Stacey got home, the car hood was back down and the kitchen cleaned up and I just had to put the smoke alarm back and test it, which made it beep, which made me almost fall off the stool and break my neck and certainly made Stacey laugh!
Tuesday night was a very, very enjoyable night.
Well, it was Tuesday night. My apartment-mate was off watching a movie at a friend's house. Having been inspired by my Indian colleagues who always brought delicious dishes for lunch, I decided to try cooking up something interesting. So I pulled out the oil and all the spices I had, and started chopping onions and vegetables.
Before I even know the oil was heating up in the pan, the smoke alarm went off! That was startling. I used one of those handy barstools to take it down and tried heating up the pan without the oil in it the next time. This went better.
I was having a lot of fun frying up my spices, when it occurred to me that this would be a perfect time to put a music CD into the laptop in my bedroom, turn on the speakers and get beautiful sound by which to cook. It took a while to get the laptop booted up and password-ed, since I kept getting distracted by adding the vegetables and chickpeas to fry. I had checked and everything was plugged in. The laptop power, the speaker cord. I put in the CD and flicked the speaker and -
nothing happens! What? How can that be? Yes, everything's plugged in, both the battery and speakers into the the extension cord - oh, is that the lamp cord and not the speaker cord? No, the lamp's plugged into the wall. So what's the deal? Did I somehow leave everything plugged in that night when the power must have blinked since the microwave clock was unset again in the morning and that somehow zapped the speaker system completely? What?! How can this happen to my lovely speakers? Can I live without ever hearing music of beautiful sound quality again? Oh, this is so sad....
Oh wait, the extension cord isn't plugged into the wall!
I turned off the heat under the (hopefully) deliciously spiced and fried chickpeas and suddenly remembered that it was high time to check the oil in the car. True, it was about 9 o'clock, but there was still a little light, and even if it did turn out to be too dark, I could always pull out the flashlight. Off I ran through the long damp grass - after turning off the stove, surprise, surprise! I got the hood up and the oil stick out, just enough light to see - wiped to put it back in and double-check... except I couldn't quite see to put it back in. Time for the flashlight! Ran back in and started hunting it up, only to realize that I really had no idea where it was, since everything was still all misplaced and un-put-away from the move. Frantically hunting through all the boxes, bags, and closet shelves, with the hood still propped up and the oil stick still out on the engine cooling off in the gathering dusk... I couldn't find the flashlight and I couldn't go ask the neighbors - that would just be too bad - and I would have to leave the hood up and the oil open all night...
There it was!
My goodness, that was close. I almost had to resort to turning on my headlights to see if they shed any faint rays backward into the hood, which of course they didn't and was completely pointless.
By the time Stacey got home, the car hood was back down and the kitchen cleaned up and I just had to put the smoke alarm back and test it, which made it beep, which made me almost fall off the stool and break my neck and certainly made Stacey laugh!
Tuesday night was a very, very enjoyable night.
Labor Day Weekend
Happy Labor Day Weekend, everyone! I hope you are all with family or friends and relaxing and having fun.
This weekend is turning out to be a great treat, even just by Saturday. Everyone has gone camping. I have the whole apartment to myself, a borrowed car while mine waits to be fixed, and free reign in the house where I was living during the last semester and summer - just for feeding the cats!
That means real Internet access for the first time in two weeks, since moving into the apartment.
That means cable TV too! Except that, somehow, all those exciting movies and shows aren't so appealing. Just the Lawrence Welk Show and the Sound of Music.
That's enough because I can't wait to tell you a story! Next post.
This weekend is turning out to be a great treat, even just by Saturday. Everyone has gone camping. I have the whole apartment to myself, a borrowed car while mine waits to be fixed, and free reign in the house where I was living during the last semester and summer - just for feeding the cats!
That means real Internet access for the first time in two weeks, since moving into the apartment.
That means cable TV too! Except that, somehow, all those exciting movies and shows aren't so appealing. Just the Lawrence Welk Show and the Sound of Music.
That's enough because I can't wait to tell you a story! Next post.
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