Vermont trip, Day 1

I had already arranged to take Friday off and leave early on Thursday - hopefully 3 p.m. Too bad I was feeling ready for bed before 2 p.m. Not an auspicious start for what would be a weekend full of driving and visiting. The hopefully 3 p.m. turned into 3:15 p.m. once I got into my car with CDs and Mapquest at hand and realized my water bottle was absolutely empty.

Driving through Ohio is supposed to be painfully, dreadfully boring. Once getting through the excitement of Fort Wayne interstate changes, I was delighted to discover that at least the speed limit suddenly improved to 70 mph. The first thing I saw in Ohio after the Welcome sign was an even bigger one proclaiming FIREWORKS! for sale. Ohio was only moderately boring, I guess, since I only missed one highway merge. It is pretty farmland, but definitely feels different - not like Iowa at all, and not really like Indiana... kind of Ohio-y-ish.

Some good friends of the extended family, whom I did not really know but called that week (!) were very hospitable, put me up for the night, shared a delicious dinner with real homemade apple pie, and drove me past the old Hoyt home and the high school where Daddy went and the church. And their three boys introduced me to Charlie, who is not just a guinea-pig but a Charlie-pig. He eats parsley like some of us eat chocolate and apparently does a really entertaining job of downing a banana... unfortunately the parents vetoed that show for the night, but we did watch him get started on a big fat carrot.

Vermont

Don't you like taking weekend road trips during the summer? I do. Vermont sounds just perfect for this weekend. Especially since my very good friend from Germany is there for the summer.

Just wanted to share that exciting news with y'all. :)


Okay, I had better go back and finish the dishes.

The End of the World and related matters

Look! We have Internet for a few minutes! It may be due to the open window, through which mosquitoes (baby ones too, I just found one on my hand) and other fascinating bugs are coming to investigate my screen light and the lamp.

(Shoot, my mosquito-slapping reflexes need to be honed.)

Everyone should read The Hunchback of Notre Dame, even in English. I know it sounds like a dry old classic, but it is truly more of a comedy, so far. Just listen to this:

Meanwhile, the licensed copyist to the University, Master Andry Musnier, leaned towards the ear of the furrier of the king's robes, Master Gilles Lecornu.
"I tell you, sir, this is the end of the world. The students never were so riotious before; it's the cursed inventions of the age that are ruining us all, -artillery, bombards, serpentines, and particularly printing, that other German pestilence. No more manuscripts, no more books! Printing is death to book-selling. The end of the world is at hand."
"So I see by the rage for velvet stuffs," said the furrier.

Yes, and when they come out with an automatic translating device that deals with idioms, it will be my turn to say "The end of the world is at hand!" And when they figure out a way to just tell computers and technology what to do, it will be the turn of my software engineering siblings. And when they develop a hybrid grass that grows to two inches and never past, it will be my darling mother's turn to say it.

Or it's like that weather forecast where the annoying sarcastic little dog gasps, "Oh NO!!! On Tuesday and Wednesday it is going to be cloudy in Hawaii! Hawaii, it is the Apocalypse for you!!"

By the way, while we are discussing the end of the world and other seemingly remote things, I would like to publish my last will and testament for if they ever get to Time Travel. Please, please, send me anytime but the Eastern Hemisphere before 1491. No matter how early or remote, life will always be civilized if there is chocolate. (And I really think life would be more civilized if we kept it to the days before they started adding sugar to it.)

The Importance of Being a Good Speller

(Is "speller" a word?)

Today I took one of those three-minute typing tests, in which the text tried to inform me how important it is to spell well. I tapped away while it told me in an awfully wordy, annoying way that, if you ask the best spellers -- really? who are the best spellers? -- they will all tell you that the dictionary is their best friend. (Or something to that effect.) It said bad spellers have terrible vocabulary -- although I didn't catch which came first, the poor vocabulary or the poor spelling -- And that writing with good spelling is lots easier to follow.

Well, that's not true if all the well-spelled words are constructed into a confusing mess of grammar and logic, but it does have a point. I mean, look at this:

Were hiring, start T oday-16 June 2008

Okay, maybe that's more a punctuation issue. But seriously, if spam email titles want to be read they'll have to stop being so depressingly inaccurate to begin with, going and telling people that if they had been on the ball, they could have been hired and could have been starting work
T oday.

By the way, 107 WPM is not sufficient to finish a typing test. I think it would take closer to 150 WPM for the whole text. (Not that anyone's missing anything by not finishing it!)

The blessings of bad reception

For most of the week I have been scarcely able to convince my wireless card to pick up the connection, even when the laptop has been happily plugged in all day and resting on its favorite chair with its back to the window, through which, I'm guessing, our beloved signal comes.

And then it hit me! Just take it outside!

It's 9:23 on a Friday night. There's still a little light. We have a tornado watch till 10 p.m., but come on, really - it's already done raining and the mosquitos are probably ready to have their opening-season party. The laptop rests just perfectly on the new mailbox-box containing the old mailbox, and an extension cord gives me enough length to sit comfortably just outside my window which is nicely decked out with wasp nests.

This is great. I think it will have to become a tradition!

The Force not so unDark as appear it may is

Feel like talking Jedi-Force-Master-speak I do. Just rather extremely annoying to be. Just also how annoying can be to show you I want, sentences which their verbs all the way at the end have, but which not the general "verbs ending phrases and sentences" etiquette allow, as for example the fine Germ languages exemplify does, which either the pronoun from the verb separation of dictates or as in other cases occur can the helping verb rather than the verb itself all the way to the end sends, all which the inferiority of imagination prove does, since Jedi-speak only a Darkly cheaply copied and twisted version of English word order present can.

Realize I do that thus discrimination against outer-space languages I myself practice and thus forfeit to be sued in the courts I do myself render.

Back from Aslan's world

Today is so beautiful! The world looks like Narnia did last night.

Normally I would never think to see a movie on Opening Night, but somehow everyone else instantly thought of that... I did make sure of our tickets by purchasing them Thursday right after work. What a great strategy, except that it was rendered moot by other friends who walked in and got theirs 15 minutes before the movie.

Okay, I won't critique Prince Caspian now, since most of my family hasn't seen it yet. Just a couple notes -

-It is beautifully made, and absolutely full of sound that vibrates you right down to the cellular level. That, or some of my sound sensitivity has been jacked up way too high, which maybe explains why I jump so much.

-Unlike Narnia I or Pirates III, there is no surprise post-credit scene... at least, there wasn't at our theater. No last scene almost makes you feel more gypped than missing it when it was there.

-Jason especially is going to enjoy it!

(Speaking of which - Jason, let me know when you get the soundtrack.)

New car photos - Edited

Okay, as promised, here are some photos of the lovely new '95 Honda Civic - that is, a link to an album with some photos:

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v603/SharonLHoyt/Warsaw%202008/

Hopefully that works. If it doesn't work I'll scream.

Just kidding!

I even threw in a couple photos of our place, for free.

-----

Edit Note: Apparently that copy-and-paste line above doesn't work. Let's skip the screaming and follow Mommy's bright idea:

Go down the sidebar to the Photos section
Click on "Photobucket Albums"
(You will be on my main Photobucket page)
On the list of Albums at the left, click on "Warsaw 2008"
Bingo, you're there.

As mentioned before - you are welcome to view anything I have on that Photobucket link.

A little letter

Dear family and friends,

I am writing to share some exciting news with you all!

It is especially exciting for me because it brings you all closer.

Internet access is finally here at home!


love,
Sharon

Latest

Guess what? I have a new car!

But I forgot to take a picture, so this little description of the most important points will have to suffice for now:

'95 Honda Civic, white, 114,000 miles, power windows and a CD player (provided by previous owner).

Can you believe all that? A '95, so extremely new! Less than 15 years old, unlike the '89 Toyota - which latter is practically as old as I am. Only 114,000 miles... wow, I can't remember driving a vehicle under 200,000. Power windows can be really annoying since I am always rolling my window down and forgetting to put it up till after I've turned the car off, but oh well, just have to train myself. And the CD player! There' s a radio with it, which is nice too. But having a CD player is just too wonderful.

What happens when you're on your own for the week

Because Stacey left for a week of vacation in Florida, all this happened...

Sunday afternoon I had to amuse myself, started reading a book in a papasan chair after lunch, fell asleep and woke up with a headache and a stomachache thirty minutes before I had to leave for evening church.

Unfortunately, after waking up that night with the same persistent headache, I had nothing but Tylenol PM left and could not find anything else Stacey might have. So I took a Tylenol PM at 3 a.m., with the alarm set for 5 a.m. My word. (Excuse the strong language.) I have never in my life had so much difficulty waking up, or staying awake, or keeping my balance in the morning. Clearly, much as we take aspirin to prevent heart disease, we should take Tylenol PM to give our wake-up hormones a good workout.

Thursday our landlord had the place inspected for termites. No termites, but it looks like they will spray for ants, which means we have to say goodbye to our favorite clean-up crew that comes faithfully out around the kitchen trash every day.

Friday morning, sometime distinctly after 5:36 AM, I stopped to listen to the screen door rattle, then something that sounded like wind blowing hard but quietly. It was odd and almost gave me chills. Did I leave the screen door open last night, I wondered, knowing of course that I hadn't.

At work one of my neighbors stopped by to say Good morning and asked, "Did you feel the earthquake?"

Well no, that was after 5:36... it must have just been a tremor or aftershock. Still, how exciting!

So you see all the terrible and exciting things that happen when you're left to yourself for a week. My, I am so glad to have Stacey back!

There we were...

... on the deck of the ship.

I was looking over the edge into the water, it was night -

B-OO-O-M!

Something like a nuclear firework cracked deep beneath us underwater and vibrated everything - we all staggered, jumped back from the edge and braced - after 3 seconds - somehow I was still looking over the edge - the water parted! and an enormous missile shot up and out, shaking everything with its passing... arced away... exploded enormously and red in the night sky.

Much later...

Trevor, I missed your birthday. Happy 6th birthday!

Too bad, I was getting so used to telling everyone you are five-and-a-half. Somehow six seems a lot older.

If I come home to visit and you help make the bread, can you count up to five by yourself when we poke the loaves? I'm sure you can, from what Mommy has told us of your addition skills. You used to say "1, 2, 3, 7, 11"... or something like that.

Now be a good boy and learn to say your Rs this year!

Thursday afternoon

Wow! What a miracle! This post is being written at 4:51 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon. This was made possible by the Indiana county courthouse closing at 4:30 p.m. Since this is the same time as I finish work, I had to leave at 4 p.m. today just to get across town in time to squeeze in the half-page Indiana voter registration form. Somehow I got behind several slow vehicles (read: 5 mph below the speed limit) and in the way of several police cars (read: 3), but still made it. Whew. The polling notification should arrive in plenty of time for Indiana's relatively late May primary.

And so, here I am stuck at the library, one and a half hours before Chinese lessons begin, with nothing but Internet, thousands of books and my latest Chinese notes. Help. I think I'm going to die of boredom!

Ironic = Frustrating or Very Hilarious

Imagine this: You rent a nice little apartment but don't have Internet there.

One day, you discover you can get a wireless signal and even the password. You try everything you can think of with your wireless card, but cannot get on.

You just might need some updates for your wireless card.

Someone gives you the download information for these updates, and you go visit a friend who has Internet to download them.

At first you cannot get on your friend's Internet like usual. It takes you quite a while to figure out what you did to it earlier while trying to get on the other network, but finally, --- well, before you figure it out, it turns out that just wiping out and resetting fixes everything.

You get back to your place and happily mess around with installing the new updates. Unfortunately, they don't seem to work.

You pass this information on to your technical expert, who emails you a link for a new download. However, you are not at your own computer, so...

...You go back to visit your friend with the Internet again, in order to get the new download. Unfortunately, whatever you did to your wireless card while installing the new updates that did not work for it at your place apparently have made it not work anywhere.

You are definitely stuck between a big rock and a very hard place, because to try to get On at your place, you have to get On somewhere else to get important new stuff, but you can't get On somewhere else because you're trying to get On at your place. Not to mention that you never know, when you leave one place, what the On status at the other place will be.

How can life be so ironic and so funny!

Manual: How to Set Up Sunday School Chairs

I’m afraid this is only going to touch on the surface of a deep topic. We won’t even get as far as the technical details of chair type and placement today… just hit on a few theoretical points. Let’s see how much I can get out of one scanty semester’s worth of sociology, which I don’t plan to use at all, and the motto, “Most things can be reduced to geometry if you try hard enough.”

Your situation is a Sunday School class, pre-lesson. Said Sunday School class does not have an extremely high population value, but it is not extremely low either. (I.e. more than just you and your leader.) Your desired result for the combination of situation and population value is a room of happily talking people. How do you arrange this via the chair setup?

Your first thought is a circle of chairs. Just remember that 6 or 7 people (who know each other tolerably well) is the maximum number for a cohesive group. Any more than that, and your ratio of happy talking value to population value plummets. (Unless you are blessed with a high extrovert per head value) You will get either silence or a few scattered hushed chats.

Arrange the chairs in rows and you may not have everyone talking to everyone all the time, but you will have several free conversations going on, which easily provides you with a room of happily talking people. Since these conversations are not entirely isolated, every once in a while, you will attain the ultimate triumph – some topic will leak out of a group into the rest of the room and pull everyone into a conversation.

It’s all about geometry. And the moral of this geometry lesson is: Lines trump circles!

The end of winter

Pre-spring is here!

It has been 40 degrees for two days. That should qualify, right?

Why you should eat Coriander Seeds

I suppose this is true of any seeds used as spices, but coriander seeds are perfect because they are little and round and hard, and so, when you eat something with coriander seeds in it --

You will be chewing along on a delicious mouthful, and suddenly your teeth will hit on a seed and pop it open, and all the flavor that was locked in the seed even through cooking will make a little
!burst! into your mouth.

So you should eat them because they are so much fun to eat.

Question for you

While happily reading along in Chinese history today, I read of someone described as an "individualist, cynic..." etc.

Do individualists tend to be cynical, or do cynics tend to be individualists, or both?

I don't want anyone to get mad at me (which should prove I'm not either of those), so let me hurry to say this question doesn't imply anything negative about either cynicism or individualism. The world and indeed my own family is much richer with both traits! It just seems that those blessed with one seem blessed with the other.

What do you think?

Indiana Anniversary

As of 8 January 2008, I have lived in Indiana for one year. Do you believe that? I'm not sure I do.

Well, Indiana will have to put up with me through April. I shouldn't have any trouble putting up with Indiana, especially with its weather, which is so much fun because it changes every single day.

Enjoy these last two days of January, and don't forget that we will be getting a whole extra day in February!! Start planning your February 29 parties now.

Thursday morning's adventure

Thursday morning I got up at 5:00 as always, had my lunch all packed and was ready to walk out the door right at 6:50.

Then I realized my keys weren't lying on the floor by my purse. In fact, they weren't in my purse either. In fact, they weren't in my coat pocket or yesterday's pants pocket or dumped on the closet floor or left on top of the microwave... they weren't anywhere!

I was getting worried for about five minutes of perplexed searching, till I remembered that spare car key I had had made (after locking myself out of the car the second time). Well, that was all right, then, as long as I could get to work! Just had to leave the door unlocked and hope Stacey was around or at least not out of the country when I got home. After that, it was just funny. Funny imagining what I would have done without any keys whatsoever, and funny imagining what I was going to do... laughing kept me warm all the way to work.

I was walking into the building when I noticed that my coat was hitting the leg rather more firmly than usual. Whoops... yep... there actually was a little hole in one coat pocket corner, and they had slipped all the way to the lining.

That was funny too, only not so funny as it would have been to not find them at all. Oh well.

2008 Presidential Elections - in Europe

That is, President of the European Council. And there must be a vice-president-type post along with it. Because, according to this Le Monde article from Thursday, French president Nicolas Sarkozy possibly has the brilliant idea of a Blair-Sarkozy ticket for these top seats of European power.

Unfortunately, not everyone is completely enchanted by this idea, one being former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who "didn't refrain from speaking all the evil he thought of it".

What evil? "The future president must be in sync with the majority of his own country, and belong to a country that respects all the European rules." The second clearly not something that the U.K. can overcome, seeing as they "practice the 'opting out' " regarding said rules - to use the journalist's expression (and yes, that's "l'opting out" in French. Doesn't that just hurt?).

But of course, the real evil is what Edouard Balladur (former Prime Minister of France) told Le Monde - credibility. Because, as Edouard Balladur (former Prime Minister of France) reminds us, the president of the European Council must have an attachment to the independence of Europe - and how, how, "how would Mr. Blair be credible to incarnate this ambition when, in the disastrous Irak affair, he always held zealously to the U.S. side?"

No, he's right, of course. A President of the European Council who sides with the U.S. is impossible. It would kind of defeat the whole point of the European Union.

Here we go in 2008

Life continues!

I guess I will give up those detailed updates I used to try.

2008 began like a a year should -- lots of snow to drive through between Iowa and Indiana. The trip was so interesting that I never got around to turning on the radio. Just like the trip out to Iowa, except that time I was having too much fun singing Christmas songs in the car.

I returned to an almost snowed-in apartment. So the first task was to clear out around the car's parking spot and the entrance to the drive, which had, of course, been liberally helped out our friendly neighborhood snowplow.

The next week, the weather decided to warm up, drastically. That is, it reached 64 degrees Fahrenheit, which is a 50-year record, and melted all the heaps and heaps of snow we had received, plus rained several days. So we have just had the worst flooding anyone has seen for a long time. Fortunately, Stacey and I don't have a basement. We did enjoy watching Center Lake lap up onto the parking lots as we drove by this morning.

Not much else exciting has been happening...

Stacey and I have not even set off the smoke alarm once this year, yet. We did make a whole crockpot-full of taco soup and have eaten every bite (practically) and it only took us a week.

Last night we had Kendra and Stacey's friend over and watched two movies in a row! Meet the Robinsons and Sahara. Our favorite line had to be from the second movie: the right-hand good guy hurling his rifle down and yelling, "I'm so tired of getting shot at!" Poor guy, I think he was really upset.

Chinese is getting more fascinating by the week. I think I can't resist studying it outside of class much longer, especially with the CDs Mommy got me for Christmas.

Well, that will have to do for this week. Time to run home and get ready for company!

So fascinating, so slightly pointless

Is there anything more entertaining than sitting around and listening to media members sit around and speculate over the possible election outcomes that they, in their vast political experience and foresight, kindly deign to provide us?

And you sit here and wonder, "Friends in the media! By December, most of your year of 2008 will be rendered obsolete. Doesn't that hurt?"

The latest in dentistry logos

Crocodile.

This is an important question. "Is this a suitable emblem for a service which wishes to emphasise trust and hygiene?"

Christmas vacation report

In this lull of real life between the first caucus and the first primary...

Christmas vacation was a tremendous blessing. My kind employer and supervisor offered and encouraged me to take off the three days after Christmas. So I did, which made for over a week at home with my beloved family. That's the most I've seen them since last Christmas! (since the June Hoyt reunion was barely a week)

As mentioned before -- The drive home turned out to be an exciting race against oncoming freezing rain, which I won by 10:30 a.m. (Iowa time) and a good 4-hour margin. Then there was a nice short weekend with Ardith.

Driving from Cedar Rapids to the homestead was very interesting, with that good old Iowa wind blowing lots of snow -- one second whiting everything out, the next second clearing a panoramic landscape.

We had so much fun!

Christmas Eve was hunting up presents.

Christmas was, of course, kids counting down the minutes till presents... and testing out all three games Ardith gave the family, all day long... and watching a new Veggie Tales and then, of course, our new Christmas tradition of Narnia... oh, and there was a delicious dinner in there somewhere.

Wednesday was a shopping run for Mommy and Carolyn, which was fortunately extended with a $100 Goodwill gift certificate! Those that stayed home played more games. It was such a treat to make bread again (and pies, twice, though the crusts turned out abominably), and worked in the garage -- that is, Daddy did.

Thursday was Applesauce Day #2. Making applesauce is actually pretty involved:

1 - picking apples out of the boxes in the addition
2 - washing all the apples (with the smallest trickle of water possible that still has both hot and cold in it)
3 - halving apples
4 - coring apples
5 - slicing apples
6 - filling saucepans with apples
7 - cooking apples
8 - mashing apples in - that thing
9 - sugaring applesauce
10 - cooling applesauce
11 - filling containers with applesauce
12 - storing containers in freezer

Most of this is done on foot, so yep, it wears the old leg and foot muscles out, mostly from sheer inactivity. Ardith pitched in till she left for her home in the afternoon.

Friday - what did we do on Friday? I think the kids persuaded me to make that the Age of Empires MultiPlayer game day. Derek, Melinda, Carolyn, Ethan and myself, and it was a lot of fun, although I forgot to get out of the Stone Age (or some age) till the others realized I was getting wiped out in every skirmish. I think we finished on Saturday... that is, Carolyn, Ethan and I defeated Derek and Melinda.

Saturday was Mommy's and Kendra's night out, so I got to cook supper - spaghetti. All you need for good spaghetti sauce is tomato sauce (and meat) and some good spices to experiment with.

Sunday most of us made it to church.

Sunday afternoon we went sledding down the neighboring icy driveway! First we were just skidding down on boots... then we found out the sleds worked... then we hooked the two sleds together and went down five at once... then we tried four on one sled and made it down about 3 times, once with no wipeouts or injuries!

Monday night most of us kids made it back to church for the New Year's Eve party.

And New Year's Day was the day to drive to Indiana!

(...continued in a following post...)

Today!

Do you know what today is?

It is a great day for any American who calls Iowa home, because --

1 - It is the very beginning of the U.S. presidential elections!

2 - It is the day that Iowa gets a showing at the top of BBC's home page, all day!

So we all, Iowans or not, wait eagerly to find out who breaks out of the gate first.

The Very Last Birthday in the Year

Happy birthday to Jason! - who left the 'teens forever on 30 December.

(The following photos and message have not been approved by Jason.)


Photos -

[There has been a technical error. There are no official photos of Jason.]

[Override: The previous technical error is no longer valid.]

Jason's birthday, from Mommy's blog.


Words of polite commentary...

"What an unmitigated piece of junk!"

"I don't call that 'sprawling suburbs'. I call that an irresolute housing development."

...and words to eat later...

"Ardith prides herself on thinking she can cook."


Next to Daddy, Jason has probably put in the most work on the house. He's even now out in the garage, spending part of his Christmas break at helping Daddy to put up the wood sheeting that will finally permit complete and total garage insolation! What a milestone that will be.

Ethan's birthday!

Happy birthday to Ethan, who turned 11 on 17 December!

Photos -

Mommy has pictures of Ethan's birthday here.
Ethan has such a talent for fantastic faces! Just look at this and this.

Words of encouragement...

Melinda: "Nolan! This is a big day! You lost your first tooth! Now go look in the mirror."
Ethan: "You'll see a lot of blood."

Ethan (to Carolyn, the horse lover): "What can horses do? They could make you lose your lives, even!"

...enlightenment...

Ethan: "I know what I was born for! To be loud!"

...and wisdom...

Ethan (describing the laundry he carted down the stairs): "It was 2 feet by 2 feet, compacted-"
Kendra: "Really."
Ethan: "-like 500 clothes in 1 square foot!"

...and wheedling...

Ethan: "Carolyn, Melinda and I want to do something with you."
Carolyn: "What is it?"
Ethan: "It's a cree-tlimb -- a tree-climbing contest."
Carolyn: "How about we just climb trees for fun?"
Sharon (nailing in the garage roof above them): "You know, Ethan, that might result in..."
Ethan: "What, Sharon?"
Sharon: "Never mind. I changed my mind."
Ethan: "Come on, Sharon, what did you say?"
Sharon: "I didn't say it, so I don't have to finish it."
Ethan: "Come on, Sharon! Say it!"
Sharon (laughing helplessly): "Ethan!"
Ethan: "Come on, Sharon! Ple-e-e-ease?!?"
Sharon: "Ethan, do you know how tired it makes me to laugh on an empty stomach?"
Ethan: "Sharon, p-l-e-e-e-ea-s-e?! Please?"
Carolyn: "Ethan, stop acting like a baby."

But of course he wasn't, he was just being his cheerfully and loquaciously persistent self.

Why we have sisters

Today's entry is in honor of my older sister Ardith, who kindly put me up on the way home, not to mention put up with me - especially for getting there way too early.

This is Ardith shoveling her drive! - early on a Sunday morning with a windchill in the single digits.

Not to mention that she cleared all the snow away from my car.

And this was the view from Ardith's front window. Doesn't she have a lovely neighborhood? Especially when it's decked out with snow.

By the way, no matter what you may hear from skeptical acquaintances or cynical family, Ardith is a fabulous cook. She fixed up a delicious creamy chicken curry for Saturday's supper. Everyone who knows her should go pay her a visit sometime in 2008 and let her show off her cooking.

How to beat the sleet

It is so good to be safely home for Christmas!

My very very first idea was to leave for Iowa right after work on Friday. That idea lasted all of about ten seconds. Because it then occurred to me that driving home in daylight on a good night's sleep with a properly packed car would probably work better. What were a few hours with a whole week of vacation waiting?

Of course, it didn't really work out like that.

Pack properly? The week before Christmas is full of all the non-family Christmas festivities. I had to make cookies and fudge for friends and colleagues, and get ready for the party that someone decided Stacey and I should host. It was fun, just a little late for a Thursday night. Then on Friday night I had to squeeze packing in around washing up the mountain of dishes and visiting a good friend just back for Christmas.

A good night's sleep? Well, I'm sure that would have happened if it weren't for 1) the excitement of going home the next day, 2) the excitement of driving home all by myself, and 3) the excitement of adventurous weather. Apparently the sleet was to hit Ardith's part of Iowa by early afternoon. So I set the alarm for 4 a.m.

Driving in the daylight? Yes, if you don't leave the house at 5 a.m. in December and drive west into dense fog, you might have daylight. Come to think of it, I don't remember even having gray skies till getting well past Chicago.

The most exciting parts of the trip?

1 - Getting off 30 West onto 65 North
2 - Getting off 65 North onto 80 West
3 - Trying to get out of the I-Pass lane at the 80 toll
4 - Getting almost completlely convinced that the car was tilted left and would flip at any moment - till getting back into the right lane
5 - Getting the car to go (around) 70 mph without the constant whine
6 - Getting off onto 380 North
7 - Getting off on the right exit and finding that the directions miraculously worked out to lead to Ardith's
9 - Driving onto Ardith's sidewalk, which was a solid sheet of ice, and trying to walk up to the door

Yes, Ardith's driveway was definitely the most treacherous part of the entire trip. But that's my fault. I arrived too early (10:30 A.M), before she could get back with the salt.

That was Part I of the trip home, and it was so much fun!

On a December evening

After a long, busy, enjoyable day at the office,

Is there anything more relaxing than stretching out on the living room carpet, to read the consolidation loan promissory note by Christmas tree light, and to laugh over its enchanting little remarks, such as,

Item 6: Enter the date of your birth. Be careful not to enter the current year.

The joys of winter

I had forgotten how exciting winter can be!


First, when you hop out of a warm bed into a chilly bedroom, then later put on your coat and scarf and gloves in anticipation of the cold outside... it wakes you up and makes you excited for the day.

Second, it is so much fun to drive in the snow. Especially when road work keeps creating new detours and you have to invent new ways to get to work every morning.

Third, power outages turn the morning get-ready-for-work routine into a new adventure.

Fourth, it's just so much fun to stomp around in boots.


There are lots more reasons, but my time is up. So please add to the list for me!

Goodbye Thanksgiving, Hello Christmas!

Actually, most people started gearing up for Christmas right after Halloween, but some of us did enjoy our Thanksgiving... especially those of us who made it home!

I know it was awfully selfish of me to spend all my time with my family and not to post when I actually had Internet. Sorry.

In other good news, my illegal status has been resolved. You were right, Jason!

(Nothing to do with music downloads, Derek.)

Why?

Why don't people like country music?

Imagine it is 9 November 2007

I bet you thought I missed your birthday, didn't you, Melinda? Nope! I was just waiting this long to give an EXTRA BIG Happy 15th Birthday!!

I know you'd want me to share some of your words of wisdom with the world. Unfortunately, I just can't find more than one single quote in my notebook from 2004, but it has held true for these three years and I expect it will do so for another decade at least.

"Timers never lie. They just lay."

One week before Thanksgiving

It's SNOWING!!!

Hooray!

13 years old!

Happy birthday to Carolyn, the newest teenager in the family! Here are pictures from Mommy's blog.

I cannot believe you are 13 years old!

In honor of Carolyn's birthday.... She would voluntarily sleep on a mattress on the floor and risk getting stepped all over, just to give me a bed when I came home on break. She potty-trained Trevor. That alone deserves some kind of Big Sister's Nobel Prize. She is just about the sweetest girl in the world who can still fight fiercely in her brothers' war games. And she definitely inherited Ardith's speed-reader genes. She can polish off one of the LOTR volumes in one or two days.

9 days to go

I got stabbed! That should be good news for my family.

So now can I come home for Christmas?

Why?

Along with all the deep philosophical questions you can get out of that word, I have another one:

Why should I buy the CD when I can download all the songs free off the Internet?

The only problem I can think of would be how to listen to them in the car, which isn't a problem if your car doesn't have a CD player.

Please, no!

Let's not have winter yet!

The other day, after we had been getting up several mornings in a below-60-degree house, Stacey finally decided to turn on the heat. Unfortunately, that set off the smoke alarm. Which we thought was extremely funny, but of course it's extremely disastrous. Oh my, I can't even imagine how many clothes we'll have to wear in a few months if that happens again. At least the dust seems to be burned off now.

Then, after she'd turned on the heater in my room, I couldn't get it off all the next day. The closest thing on the knob to "Off" was "Lo". Finally I tried turning it all the way in the opposite direction of "Warmer", and that killed it. Heat is wonderful, but not heat you don't want.

I'm not sure why I agreed to stay around for a northern Indiana winter. Then again, would an Iowa winter be any better? At least this means my blog address is staying valid a few more months.

Better old than nothing

Last weekend I typed up a blog post, then never had a chance to post it. So I may as well do it a week late!

This was not the plan

Life never goes like it’s supposed to. Isn’t it great?

Here it is Friday night in a cozy little house where the TV is on. The plan was to watch a movie picked up at the library specially for tonight. That’s what a good, modern-day college graduate would do, right? She should have started it right after supper. Instead here she is, after getting sidetracked on things like calling a friend to chat, and washing the dishes, and turning on the TV just to see what fraction of those four channels come in with a little delicate antenna adjustment… and out of the fuzz appears the baseball game on FOX. Now, the Red Sox are playing, and they’re probably playing somebody, but it’s hard to say who they’re playing because the announcers never get around to mentioning them, and it’s probably not important who they’re playing since they are, after all, the Red Sox. For all we know, the other team could be the Yankees, since they’re so frequently referenced…. Oh, wait, no, that other team is Cleveland.

Okay, that’s it. I’m going to be a typical annoying Hoyt and settle on a team without any background information whatsoever. Anyway, these announcers are annoying me, so Cleveland it is. Go Indians! Oh my goodness, they’d better really go. I just saw the score, 1 to 8. It’s the top of the 6th.

Cleveland is in Ohio, isn’t it? That’s a lot closer than Boston. Yes, I picked the right team.

Best of all, I can almost guarantee you my family is sitting around watching the exact same game. Most of them will be for the Indians, maybe a few for the Red Sox, just to be contrary (you guys know I know who you are). That’s really why I’m watching the game, of course. To spend the evening with my family. They all feel close via the TV, and via my laptop, since I know whoever isn’t watching it is on their computer. And I’m spending the evening with you by thinking of you all – whoever, wherever you are – while typing this out in tranquility at home, instead of hastily dashing off a post tomorrow during those few precious hours online.

It’s now 2 to 9 and only the bottom of the 6th. I think this is really promising.

Oops

Really? There was a tornado warning last night?

Is that why it was so windy, stormy, and wild.

I guess I should turn on the TV once in a while.

So far, so good

The wolves haven't caught me yet, and tonight there is actually Internet to let you know. So much to be thankful for!

It is time for a little update from this corner of the world, despite all the more important events occuring elsewhere.

Last week, my colleagues and I were expecting Friday to be our last day of work, since that was the end date given. But our supervisor has extended it since the project will take several more weeks. Temporary jobs are excellent for developing a day-by-day perspective on life.

This week was the call-in for the 90,000 mile checkup on that well-cared-for car. But it's not respectful to laugh because it is apparently a Volvo.

I woke up this morning and thought that it felt quite late. Yes, it was, already after 6:00 a.m.

It is already October, but Winona Lake doesn't seem to have realized this. This weekend brings temperatures in the 80s. It makes one afraid that the heat will keep going and going until, one day in November, everything crashes and blizzards hit. Till then, the heat is lovely!

Missions conference is coming up at church. Somehow, my housemate, who just happens to be running it this year, has decided that I would be the perfect person to take care of the flag ceremony. This involves the 5th and 6th graders marching through the auditorium with all the flags of countries in which our church supports missionaries. But it should be fun, since half of the work is ironing all the flags.

Last night was Friday night, which means movie night! Fortunately I was prepared, because while at the library for Thursday's Chinese lesson, browsing through the movies, I almost skipped for joy on coming across O Brother, Where Art Thou?. Ardith showed this one to me some years back while she was in school, so I passed the torch by having Kendra over last night to watch it with Stacey and me.

Don't forget that it is just one week and one year till the presidential election.

[Edit: Make that one month and one year.]

Coyotes or Wolves?

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

Visiting the Internet

Hello. If it weren't for my job and an hour-long lunch break, I wouldn't be here. So you should thank DePuy!

(Actually, you're probably thankful to have a break from this blog.)

My sister Kendra is all moved into Grace and even has an ethernet connection in her dorm room, which is more than I can say for myself.

This is just to let the few readers know that all is well. Stacey has moved into our new apartment too, and we are having fun evenings of cleaning and organizing. I did almost burn the house down yesterday by turning on the iron, leaving it to warm up and forgetting that it was lying down on the ironing board, not standing up... God has been very gracious to let me grow up, I think sometimes!

This weekend's excitement

Too bad! I give up on not writing another personal blog post. Too much exciting stuff is happening.

First off, tomorrow Mommy and Kendra drive out here from Ioway! We have big plans for registration and the Big Dorm Move-In on Saturday.

Tomorrow the gas is finally coming on in the apartment. It will be a very fun Friday night of cleaning and cooking my very first meal and messing around with technology set-up, like rigging up the sound system for the bedroom.

It should be a very enjoyable weekend -- family, virtually no phone, and hopefully very little Internet.

Out in the middle of Everywhere!

When I went to put the first groceries in our new apartment, I met the couple that is moving in to the studio right next door. Guess where they're from. Waterloo, Iowa.

My "adopted" brother and sister just got back from a missions trip to Brazil. Hannah told me that they were going through an antique shop and saw a license plate selling for at least $50 or $60 bucks. It was an Iowa license plate.

Oh my goodness, life is just too funny sometimes, isn't it?!

August 13

Happy birthday to Daddy! the most wonderful man in the whole wide world.

My mom has a great picture of him on her birthday post today.

The big day

Yaaayy! Tonight we start moving in!!

Wedding photos

Long overdue, but here are some photos of the 3 June 2007 wedding, when my dear friend Rachel married Luke.

If you click on this link, you should find the photos on the second row, captions included!

If you prefer, here's the album homepage; click on the album "Tysons" and click to the second page.

That decides it

The first paycheck! I'm very thankful.

But the amount of taxes withdrawn is enough to make me a libertarian.

No More Screen, Please

I mean to post more, but real life keeps distracting me.

The new job is going well. It's quite fun to be on the inside of a big company. Someday, if anybody could be interested in anything so ridiculous, you may get some Perspective on the Corporate World from an insider-of-all-of-two-weeks.

And now, if you don't mind, that's really enough looking at a screen for one day!

Real independent adults

Oh boy, this is exciting! My friend and I signed a lease on an apartment today. The most exciting part is that we signed it without getting the keys, and now we get to see if they turn up tomorrow.

No sooner do we begin mentioning the plans to church friends than they offer us all kinds of furniture, dishes, even tea. Best of all is having to pick between TWO mattresses to borrow. Guess all we need to buy is food and a shower liner.

9:30 and feels like bedtime.

Just because I can

It's 12:22 and I'm sitting in my cubicle during lunch break. And I'm online because they finally came around and installed my computer! How exciting is that!

WOW Russia!

You will have fun exploring this site!


Wow, Russia is the biggest country in the world. Aloha!

Yes, guys, it is. So everybody knows that there are two cities in Russia - Moscow and St. Petersburg. That is also true. The rest of the country is called Siberia. That's it. Pretty simple geography.

So what else do we have in Russia? We have bears, of course. Lots of different bears. Some of them wear lapti and play balalayka all day long, some of them drink vodka all the time, some of them can fly, some live on the Internet, some went into politics and some are just hanging out in the streets.

--Elena Marus


Go find out more and just try to keep from laughing and learning.

Tomorrow

The first day of the first job after college!

Inherited sarcasm

Yeah, I enjoyed meeting your brother. Now I understand where you got that terrible personality.

So you really owe your success to your sister's failure.

Girls: If you have older brothers, feel sorry for yourselves. You smile at guys too much.

Guys: If you don't have older sisters, feel sorry for yourselves. Girls don't like you as much.

Nope, you actually aren't a good listener. You were just forced into pretending you were because you weren't an only child.


What? That wasn't me, that was just my older sister coming out in me. You would have known that if you'd read the article: "The New Science of Siblings".

BG Answers

Thanks to this round's participants, Ma Hoyt and Derek!

Here are the answers, with the participants' intelligent guesses in parentheses:

progeggrammenoi -- marked out (I am a programmer, I am commanding)

zophos -- darkness (from the planet Zophos, wisdom)

despotayn -- master (I wish to be a despot, tyrant - Bingo! Both basically right!)

asteres planaytai -- wandering stars ("something about" stars, heavenly bodies/beings)

It's hard to say who was closer. Probably Derek, since Ma Hoyt took some elaborative liberties at the expense of single-word translation.

Derek, that zophos was confusing, wasn't it? Sophos would be "a wise man".

I was racking my brain trying to come up with a prize, till it occurred to me that of course I couldn't think of a prize to give someone who hadn't really won.


Now, in case you'd like to see those words in their Jude context --

For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand programmed for this condemnation, ungodly persons who... deny our only Despot and Lord, Jesus Christ (4)...
these are the men who are... planets, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever... (12, 13)

Balderdash Greek

Forget language classes. Learning another language is more like a game! I will prove it to you. Let's start with Greek!

Greek uses a different alphabet, which is very beautiful. But to make this simple, I will just use English letters.


Guess what these words mean:

progeggrammenoi

zophos

despotayn


And, just for kicks, a bonus easy one:

asteres planaytai


(Big Hint: These words are all taken directly from the book of Jude)

Forms never die

Today was another first: apartment hunting!

Guess what? Many landlords want you to fill out an application. You probably knew this already, but I didn't. So much for ever escaping applications. I suppose you have to fill one out to retire, too?

Speak up

Imagine you grew up in a place where everyone valued social harmony, not individual expression. Silence is much better than speaking. Asking a question of someone in authority is nearly unthinkable.

Then, one sunny day, along come reformers who tell you it's time to modernize and democratize. They put you in a courtroom to serve on a special kind of jury that questions the defendant and deliberates with the judge over the sentence to hand down. Suddenly you have to speak up, express your opinion (were you supposed to have one?) and perhaps argue with the judge.

How would you feel? Terrified, maybe?

According to the polls, 80% of Japanese are "dreading" (quote) this odd variation on the jury system, slated to take effect in 2009.

[Note: Unfortunately, the New York Times online is now only providing abstracts of archives, even for online subscribers. Hopefully this link will let you read the abstract.]

Maybe this will be a good thing, and everyone will quickly overcome their very natural fear. But it doesn't seem right to force a society to change cultural behaviors that have served them well for millennia, right into the age of technology and globalization. At the very least, it seems odd to jump into a jury system even more oriented toward public individual expression than, say, the American system.

Good news!

[This post has been specially adapted to make more sense and be less weird. Sorry for any lost comments.]

I have a job!

It is a temporary position, doing data entry. But it is a good start. This temporary agency works with DePuy Orthopaedics, a division of Johnson & Johnson. The project should run 6-8 weeks and perhaps a good bit longer.

Of course, definite employment does depend on passing the drug screening.

Overseen

Seen on the way down to Texas with Ardith (17 June):


Got Ego? Stroke It!

The Nice Law Firm

Marked Tree (name of a city - ask Ardith for the story)

Mid-South Community College

"Buckel Up. Drive Safely." (seen twice)

Tanya's Hair Affair

Back!, Part 2

[Read previous post first.]

And so the three of us went looking for a train that would take us in to the Chicago Loop. Just missing the Blue Line train gave us the chance to take the Pink Line, a new one even for the Chicago veteran with us. It seems to function fine, if you ever want to try it. We spent at least an hour walking through town, along the Chicago River, under the John Hancock building, up the nifty fountain in the Water Tower Place, past the Hershey's and Ghirardelli shops, and lingering over the exotic cars to get our fill of Lamberguinis, Ferraris and Bentleys. Now, I didn't learn to pick out anything besides a Lamberguini, but I did learn the names!

At this point in the story, it's important to understand that there were three parties: Zach and his family, the three of us, and the two others (the cement fetchers). Each party had at least one cellphone and all were aware of the plan to meet at Lou Malnotti's for pizza. Zach and his family arrived first and went ahead and ordered the pizza, since it could take up to an hour. Our threesome understood that we were to meet the twosome at Moody. They still were not showing up after several calls. Finally we discovered that they had parked some blocks away, much closer to the pizza place than to Moody, and it was up to us to meet them. Not that this hurt us any -- it just goes to prove that as far as cellphone technology has come, it has not yet removed the human factor.

(Sidenote: I plan on not acquiring a cellphone for as long as possible.)

After all that good visiting, accompanied by deep-dish pizza and a little dessert pizza to top it off, the five of us squished ourselves into a VW Bug that Loren had borrowed from someone and went back home. We considered renting a movie, but just couldn't work up the energy. We ended up sitting around Loren's apartment, occasionally talking about wedding pranks or other fun topics, before finally falling into bad.

Friday morning it was back up on our feet - not quite so early - to meet for breakfast, this time down in Zach's end of town, at the Valois. We didn't run into any of their previous notorieties, like Barack Obama or Jesse Jackson, but it was still good, quick, inexpensive food.

Having saved a church the day before, we headed back to the Apartment Rescue Mission to switch from OCD to OCC (from Operation Concrete Destruction to Operation Cement Creation).
An cement-experienced man from church drove out to join us that morning, and after plenty of planning and prep, everyone switched into full gear. Two operated the cement mixer, one directed the wheelbarrow up and down the narrow plank path, Clif shoveled and smoothed the cement, and I helped everywhere and took pictures (everyone seems to want pictures these days.) The cement mixing team soon called me up to train me in the water spraying department. Later I got sidetracked with helping pull the 2x4 floater and patch holes. I landed this particular job by proving I could execute it while balancing on the far edge of the form, a couple inches from the wall. Loren kept busy buying more cement. We polished off the first 40 60-lb bags before he got back, but fortunately he had been forced to buy stone instead of gravel. Stone went a lot farther.

And so the first quarter of the basement was successfully laid. We cleaned up, packed up, and took the scenic Lakeshore route out of town. One of our number kept us entertained with stories of how he had been kicked out of college for going to Wendy's and many other exciting stories of student life at his conservative Christian school.


Oh my goodness, look at the hour. It's 10:00 p.m. High time all little girls were in bed!

Back!

Come to think of it, three nights ago!

Perhaps once or five times a year, everyone should have a complete change of pace. Change of location, schedule, energy output, diet, company, access to technology, and overall lifestyle.

Wednesday through Friday, some of the church College & Career group (try not to feel intimidated) went up to Chicago as a "workteam". To work on what? Zach, a Grace grad who had attended our church, is starting an inner-city school and needs money. How do you get money? Fix up old apartments and rent them out.

We did work, mostly as planned. Accidentally arriving an hour early should have tipped us off. But you see, driving up to Chicago feels like driving up, not driving west, so that extra hour was left somewhere. For our Chicago friends, anyway!

That first morning we went to the apartment. It was a dump in relatively good condition, despite the termites. We tore out a lot of old stuff, such as the only toilet that worked, and plenty of cement, and well-aged fiberglass. If you think new fiberglass is fun to work with, try the old stuff. Fortunately, the guy in charge of the project (Loren - not my dad - from a different church but teaming up with Zach for this project) had stocked all the essentials: gloves, safety glasses, and face masks, which we used liberally. Someone even forgot the face mask which he had flipped up on his head and went looking for another, till we caught him and finally agreed not to lock him up for old age.

That night Loren showed us around his part of town. He lives right on the street separating two worlds: African-American to the north, Hispanic to the south. I got to use my first Spanish in weeks. His church is just across the street from his apartment, four-story, so we climbed up to the roof and took in the Chicago skyline at dusk and the far-off Navy Pier fireworks.

Thursday we all got up at 5:30 a.m. to have prayer with Loren's friends at 6:00 before heading off for breakfast with Zach. Some of the party had beans for breakfast for the first time ever. We didn't go back to the apartment, though, because an inspector had come by Loren's church the day before and informed them that those columns on either side of two doorways had to come down, since they were ready to fall at any moment and scared him just to look at them. Besides his feelings, there was the matter of the $4,000-per-day fine till they were down. Since Loren's pastor couldn't get workers in that fast, a few guys and ourselves took on the project Thursday. They went at the pillars with jackhammers and we went at them with sledgehammers. They had me take lots of photos of their superb prowess, which included spraying down hundreds of bees from that nest they accidentally found. Finally those eight solid columns that were on the verge of falling were pounded and smashed and torn down, mostly anyway, to reveal a delicate structure of brick cores with thick cement surrounding. The three of us who didn't have to go buy cement (for the apartment) spent an hour and a half tossing, pitching, finally heaving bricks and cement pieces into the dumpster. We filled it! Flushed with that success and having no more dumpsters at hand, we had no choice but to clean up and head off to Chicago early on the L (the train), to get in some sights before meeting up with the others for deep-dish pizza.

I really hadn't intended to drag on like this and here it is already 10:30, so you get to save some yawns for tomorrow night's exciting conclusion!

Analyzometrics

The porteños (descendants of the original European inhabitants of Buenos Aires) love to analyze and debate everything. Snow is no exception, though it is just a little harder to argue a topic once every century. I thought you might like to read part of this article, dated 10 July.


"When it floats, it's snow," said someone, as if, when happening upon the topic, to open a debate in which the majority of the porteños had never thought to participate... until yesterday. And once having set themselves to analyze whether this matter falling from the sky were actually snow, sleet (a more humid subtype), or ashes from some chimney, they pulled out all kinds of reasoning.

"It doesn't stay on the ground: it's sleet", fenced the doorman of a building in the street Santiago del Estero, in the heart of the Monserrat quarter. The man is from the province of Entre Ríos and had never, not even from a distance, seen this phenomenon which surprised the incredulous inhabitants of the city. Even so, he stated his opinion with an authority of expertise before the neighbors, who also tried to contribute something scientific. "The temperature didn't fall to zero [Celsius], so it isn't snow yet," offered a woman who had come down from the third floor to observe the still falling snow.

...[Brief scientific explanation]...

"The forecasts from Thursday and Friday were giving snowfalls in the Capital, but we hesitated to say this in advance, because a phenomenon that happens every hundred years is very difficult to announce...." said an inspector from the National Meteorological Service.

... For now, this experience of snow in the city... has turned into a challenge for the ever-ready "analyzometer" of the porteños, more accustomed to other kinds of debates.

Bastille Day

What happened 218 years ago? The Paris prison la Bastille fell, and thereafter the French have commemorated 14 July as the national day of independence.

Here is a short video of the day. If you'd rather not listen to the French, don't turn the sound up. President Sarkozy renovated the parade a little by inviting soldiers from European Union countries to march.

Gone

Vacation to do hard manual labor.

Breaking news from B.A.

Look! It snowed in Buenos Aires! For the first time in 89 years.

Some of the people I lived with had never seen snow, and others had only encountered it after traveling hours to the south and further inland. For the first time ever, the porteños have built snowmen and have had to clear off their cars in the morning.

Here's a brief rundown in English. If you visit this article of La Nación, and look at the links below, you'll see some entitled "Fotogalería" - visit these for pictures. A good one is the palm tree dusted with snow.

Of course, even one day's experience with snow is enough to start a heated porteño debate. I'll tell you about that if I find a little time later (or someone else can).

Your turn to do the math

Try this one: 8 articles of clothing with savings of $227.36. How much did she spend?

You'll never guess!!

Two

Two of the many simple joys in life, lately discovered:

Throwing wood blocks. That is, yanking or hauling little logs out of a trailer and throwing or heaving them into a stack. The best size is the size just too big to toss carelessly but not big enough to struggle over.

Ironing clothes. It is so much fun! This gives me a great idea for self-employment -- performing over-the-phone interpretations while ironing clothes for the highest bidder (and probably the customers willing to pay shipping).

$82 billion

Amazing, isn't it? Not the money, but the plans people come up with in order to use it, just because they want to and they can. People like Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, who's deciding to make Dubai the new hub of world aviation.

Of course, if I were one of the royal family of a very little country and had $82 billion sitting in my pocket, I'd probably do something to make my family and country extremely important and famous, too.

Showdown

Le Monde seems to be the only site having a current article on the latest news in Turkey: the Constitutional Court has ruled in favor of universal suffrage for presidential elections. However, this old BBC article (from when the reform passed the Turkish parliament) covers most of the same ground in English.

Basically, this is the story: the Islamic party AKP (Party of Justice and Development) and 'their' prime minister Erdogan failed to get their candidate elected as president, so they decided they wanted universal suffrage for future presidential elections, instead of seven people in Parliament making the call. But no, said the secular Turkish president, speaking for the supposedly secular Turkish nation, and vetoed it. When it passed Parliament again, President Sezer had a problem, since reforms can only be vetoed once. He had to request that the Constitutional Court get rid of it. Just today, six of the eleven judges on the Court denied this request (a surprise decision), which means the reform must go to a referendum. Now everyone waits to find out what happens in the referendum... well, that is, they wait to find out first of all when this referendum will take place, as the president has not yet set a date. We do at least know when it will not be. It will not be at the same time as the legislative elections scheduled for the 22 July, since he said this to the AKP back in the middle of June.

And now, on a much lighter and less politically tense note, it seems there is a particular trend in the style of sunglasses sported by the Turkish military (as seen in the above link to the Le Monde article) and the prime minister himself.

By the way, did anyone else notice that Le Monde catalogued that article under "Pacific Asia"? Is it just me, or is that halfway around the world?

4/7/07

From the Library of Congress online, here is the Declaration of Independence. You can get even higher resolution views by clicking on links above the document image.

And here is a History of the Fourth over the years. Did you know that 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time (14h00) is the hour that the Declaration of Independence was originally approved?

One of the last entries in this second source informs that in 2001, "From the International Space Station, astronauts proclaim 'We give thanks to our ancestors ... to all Americans, Happy Independence Day.' " I would like to close by saying, "I give thanks to God for this country, and to all my fellow Americans, Happy Independence Day!"

2 X Happy Birthday!!

Just ignore how completely remiss someone is regarding our two June birthdays.

Time for tributes to Nolan and to Kendra!

Nolan, now 8 (can that BE?) is a great kid. He pops out with the greatest comments. For example, when cousin Erica and Kendra and myself had begun a game of Dutch Blitz during the reunion, he came up to watch us and after a particularly rapid sequence, observed to Erica, "You're a fast woman." I really don't think he could have said it to any female cousin who would have appreciated it more!

Ten years farther along, Kendra is the Dutch Blitz champion and hair styling expert of our family; she organized and catalogued our entire VHS and DVD collection, meaning we're aware of our entire selection and can have even more stimulating family discussions over what to watch. Most especially, everyone should know that she and Jason were senior partners of the Keep-The-Family-Running home business that experienced extreme growth in the fall of 2004. And I have the honor to pass her the Grace torch this August!

What happened in Michigan

Last Friday evening I drove up to spend the weekend with my dad's cousin Ivan and his wife Kim and get in another first (besides Macs and Michigan) -- meeting my second cousins!

On Saturday, a friend of theirs from church had a high school graduation ceremony in the morning and an open house all afternoon and evening. The theme for the open house was "Tea from around the world", so they had some five or six tea stations, including Indian Chai, Southern Tea, and (of course!) Argentine maté. I helped Uncle Ivan with this last station... even though he did have some 20 more years of experience living in Argentina (he and Aunt Kim are heading there next February as church-planting missionaries, Lord willing). He explained the tradition of maté - slowing down and spending time together - and many people did indeed sit down to pass the maté around and talk. It was quite a good way to meet and chat with a lot of people, not to mention get your stimulants in for the day. Uncle Ivan and I must have had a least fifteen or sixteen rounds of maté each. We also had the opportunity to try some roasted maté, a new experience for us both. It is certainly milder. I also had a mango tea and a bubble tea (tapioca, ice cream and Earl Grey). However, I did try to stop drinking around 6 p.m., which must have worked, since falling asleep at 11 p.m. was no trouble.

Sunday it was time to get up and start making the cucumber sandwiches and other goodies for the bridal shower for Natalie, the girl marrying my second cousin John. At the same time, Natalie and John were busy finishing up mini muffins and fruit kabobs for Sunday School breakfast. It was enjoyable to share in the Sunday services at Countryside Bible Church, though Aunt Kim and I did have to wander around a while during offertory to find three seats left together. All the seats that looked open from afar were actually reserved with Bibles once we got up to them.

After church, it was back to the kitchen to melt the chocolate for fondue and attend to other (less important) preparations for the shower. It was a nice little shower. The fondue did start curdling, but some intelligent person put a spoon in near the end, so we could scoop plenty out on our plates. Then several people had the bright idea of having me write the gift list (since I knew everyone, of course).

We went home and crashed on the sofa for about an hour before heading off to the local park for a picnic and concert the church was holding there, through which they hoped to meet more of the community. They had homemade ice cream - yum yum.

Here's a link to a few photos. The last is a short video of one of the quartet's numbers.

Unfortunately it never occurred to me to take pictures till those last few hours, and then none especially of the Ivan Hoyts... but I'm sure I can obtain some soon.

After that it was off for home, with the last of the dark chocolate fondue to keep me company and alert, which it did tremendously well.

What's better to do on a weekend than take a road trip to visit family?

For my brother

In defense of his allergies to cats. Next they should study the idea that exposure to cats might create allergies.

The Macs got me!

Can you believe it? I'm posting from a MAC!

That's because I'm at Uncle Ivan's house and it seems the Michigan Hoyts all use Macs. (That's the other first -- being in Michigan.) Typically, it was new-generation influence from the son.

At first the mouse was driving me nuts because all the pushing in the world wouldn't move the cursor... until I figured out the feather-light touch approach. Wow, you can practically move it with your finger's brain!

You know, even the browsers have different names. Skimming over the icons brought up "Safari", and, well, I'm not that dumb. But I just realized there is no Backspace and that Delete took over Backspace. This means using the mouse to get to the end of whatever I want to delete and backspacing it with Delete.

Doubtless this was just infuriating for some and hilarious for others (and pointless for everyone not in the feud). I hope my esteemed Master cousin reads this and notes my cultural open-mindedness.

(Please don't kick me out of the will, darling mother.)

C'est pas juste

Oh dear, is this fair? It reminds me of that time I was helping Mommy bring in the groceries and slipped on the ice and broke my arm. Well, guess what I destroyed today while sweeping the house. (Don't worry, it was mine -- again.) Is the moral of the story "Stop trying to do nice things"?

Have more, smarter children

At least that's one implication you could draw from this interesting sibling IQ study. This two-page article is especially interesting, and Dr. Sulloway's comments are worth reading as well.

I would have to agree that the IQ point difference has held true in our family, at least from objective data and semi-objective observations. But don't be discouraged, all younger siblings: Ardith may always top us in the scores and the Nobel Prizes, but you could discover the next planet or determine whether empty space is truly empty. Anyway, who's easier to remember - Copernicus or the latest Nobel Prize winner?

But let's not start competing. Long live the sibship!

Ahh, the life of the unemployed

What a bum rap... I had to go to the library today to find books to read. Two books, just enough to entertain and stimulate the mind.

Finally, finally, I will get to finish reading The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. That's nobody's fault in particular, though we could indirectly blame Ardith, since her library has been offering me the piecemeal chance to work on it every couple months. I think it started when she picked me up from France - not that night of course, the next day, while we were recovering from our dead tiredness of coming in at 2 a.m. The next opportunity must have been when I visited her that summer. The last time must have been when she took us three next-oldest-ones to her place for a post-Christmas bash. So they have only been six-month lags.

The Teach Yourself books have a jazzy new makeover (or at least the Arabic one does) complete with pictures on the cover and semi-modern type inside. Looks like the book has 18 units. Looks like I have a week minimum left in Indiana. Aren't challenges exciting?

-- Oh, look, someone thoughtfully left a bookmark inside for me! Right at the exercise for correct verb suffixes. It has a pretty picture of Stoli Blueberi and recipes (on the back) for those very refreshing drinks displayed alongside the bottle. Why, what do you know, Stoli Blueberi is Blueberry Flavored Russian Vodka. What a good idea for summer!

In very small type at the bottom: "Please Drink Responsibly. Stolichnaya Blueberry Flavored Vodka, 35% Alc/Vol. Vodka distilled from grain." Goodness, that's a lot of alcohol for a blueberry drink. And that type is so small it makes my eyes hurt to read it. Time for bed.

Enough traveling!

At least enough traveling by car for a while. But it was very much worth all that sitting to be at the stupendous Hoyt reunion once again!

I guess I still owe photos and some reports for two weddings, maybe graduation, and the family reunion. Well, sorry... participating didn't leave a lot of time for photos, but let's see what I can dredge up. In the meantime, it's time for a


Better-Late-Than-Never-Father's-Day-Mention

This is in honor of wonderful Daddy.

Last Sunday was Father's Day. I celebrated by forgetting to pack the printer about which Daddy had reminded me twice. Then I didn't see him or talk to him all day, since Ardith and I spent the entire day driving down to Texas and almost getting lost in Tyler.

After the reunion and post-reunion travels, which deposited us back in Iowa, Daddy drove me out to Indiana on Monday. We arrived to find that [my] blue Toyota, left here for the week, wouldn't start. He spent some time that evening messing with it, and the next morning, while I disappeared for an interview, he dug out spark plugs, got new parts and had it all fixed up and ready to go by the time I got back. Then he spent another long afternoon and evening driving back home.

(By the way, Daddy, step #1 of the project has been successfully accomplished.)

Oh boy!

The family excitement has already started. Yesterday some of us Bakers congregated in Uncle Doug and Aunt Cindy's church's kitchen to start cooking for their son's Gabe's wedding, which is today. Uncle Solly and I nearly froze our fingers slicing 40-some pounds of frozen chicken for doro wat, a spicy Ethiopian chicken stew. (Then, of course, all we non-immediate-family-relations went off for dinner to the traditional Baker restaurant, Old Country Buffet)

Today I have been shopping, packing and cleaning, waiting for Ardith to arrive so we can attend Gabe's and Bethany's wedding together. It is almost 3:30 and we need to leave in an hour. I do hope Ardith shows up sometime! Especially since we were planning to drive down in Ardith's car. As no one is answering her cellphone number, I am living by faith and reckoning up how much she will owe me for whatever won't go according to plan.

Next week is the Hoyt Family Reunion! Better than Disneyland.

Colonialism is not dead

(Pardon the late mention.)

Here is the location of the Islands mentioned below.

It was interesting, back on the first of June, to see on the front page of LaNacion that the British nation - specifically, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - was introducing a coin collection commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Falklands War. In this brief war, British troops fought off the Argentine invaders and freed the islands.

2 April is a national Argentine holiday, officially named Día del Veterano de Guerra y los Caídos en las Islas Malvinas -- Day of the War Veterans and the Fallen in the Malvinas Islands.

On the Islands themselves, the day to celebrate is 14 June - "Liberation Day".

It is very kind of the British to commemorate this special event, especially for the sake of the Argentines. They'll want to remember that cruel military dictatorship of the '70's and '80's, during which going to war to defend the Malvinas Islands gave them something to live for, even if it was just the old political ploy distract the people from difficulties at home with wars elsewhere.

In my German class at Grace, a girl whose parents were missionaries to Argentina devoted one of her German speeches to explaining this part of South Atlantic history. She refused to call them the Falkland Islands. They had been and always would be the Malvinas.

Time and blood

Why does time seem to pass so much faster as we get older? That moment that happened last week is so vivid that it seems just like yesterday. Someone will have to give up and admit that memory improves with age.

Speaking of vividness, if you want a movie of people vividly and seriously wounding each other, my recommendation is The Patriot. Maybe that would fall under my brother Jason's category of "grisly stories with high morals".

By the way, is it just me, or does it seem sorrowfully stupid that lines of soldiers would advance and fire on each other?

Goodnight and pleasant dreams! Try to remember them. It's good exercise for your brain.

Look! It's back

Hah. I bet you thought I was slacking, didn't you? Wrong - it was the Internet connection slacking, or my computer recognizing that the connection was there, or something like that. Or maybe my computer just likes this particular room and this particular outlet for its power.

Anyway, that was a pleasant vacation from being online. Too bad it wasn't a vacation from sleep deficit. It took two nights after the wedding to get back to the 9 p.m to 5 a.m. schedule, and then suddenly school was done. Friday morning I went back to clean up and get graded on my job performance. Then we spent all afternoon getting ready for Hannah's open house, which was from 4 - 9 p.m. After two days of standing and walking to help with exams and a day of standing and walking to fix food and greet guests, the poor feet were ready to retire (although not so desperately as after that three-day weekend in Paris of 10+ hours per day footwork - museums, sight-seeing and walking everywhere between).

Saturday morning, we spiritual ones got up to help clear land for a church out west of town. After that was the open house next door, which of course it was only neighbourly to attend. At 3 p.m. it was time to go babysit. Once Elijah was in bed for the night, around 7:30 p.m., I curled up on the living room floor and went into a state of semi-dozing. I think that went on till at least 11 p.m. It was a lot of fun. It's not bad at all to not sleep if 1) you have time to lay around and nowhere to go the next day except church and 2) the only thing making you tired is falling in and out of sleep.

All that not to get sympathy, but rather to extol the joys of sociability and no school!

Now time to turn the job-hunting position from part-time to full-time.

Okay

Yeah, I know, haven't been responsibly keeping this up.

Tonight I guess I do have an excuse... the Internet and cable went down for a while, so I was stuck with boring work like making paper lists of email addresses to avoid another Intergate (somebody really picked an unlucky name, didn't they?) and practicing right-to-left script. Now it's 10:00 and high time for bed, since tomorrow are two big exams for 2nd and 3rd periods. In the first exam I have one student, in the second exam around twenty-five. That's a great number to help all at once on five different exams and to keep relatively not noisy in a library. I can't mind because I'm going to miss the kids so much in two days.