Thursday, August 25, 2005

Catch 22

I have a problem, you see. I think I've blogged before about deciding to go to graduate school, and now I'm in. I had my Numerical Analysis class yesterday. It's a fairly bad sign when the professor says "You see this section? It's the only math the CS version of this class studies. We'll be covering it as one of six sections of this class." Ouch.

Hebrew is today. The teacher hasn't even given a book assignment to the bookstores yet, which might be good or might not. I'm not sure yet.

I'd question whether I can even stay blogging, if I weren't already not blogging. :)

Now, to get out of this, one has to be insane, but no insane person knows they're insane....

Saturday, August 20, 2005

I'll never get those two hours back

Number One Son is spending the night with friends, so Little Miss wanted a daughter's night out. And she wanted to go see "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D". So we went and saw it.

Now we know why that movie stayed in theatres about 5 minutes after the premier. It is AWFUL! Rodriguez's son came up with the idea, but it's really just a cheap knockoff of "The Neverending Story".

Do not pass go, do not even spend 1 US Dollar to see this movie. Like Sherlock Holmes tried to forget that the Earth was round, I fully intend to try to forget this movie as quickly as possible.

Thursday, August 18, 2005

The Great Fish Purge

We have a fishtank in my office here at home, and we've had a good number of freshwater tetras and barbs in it. Until last night. Milady went upstairs last night, to check on the fish as part of our zookeeping rounds, and fish were dead. We're used to having one die every now and then, that's kinda the cost of running a tank. This was different.

We had lost 6 different fish last night, and two more after we did a water change and tank scrubbing. The rest are looking puny enough that they may well not make it long either. What is so troublesome is the suddenness of it. Yesterday morning, they're fine, now they're mostly dead. Very disturbing.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Coveting

I can't sugar-coat it. I can't dance around it, and I can't come up with nice words. I am coveting a new Jetta TDI diesel.

We started out with a normal bemoaning of gas prices. We love everything about our 4Runner EXCEPT its gas milage rating. In the town, it sometimes can't even make 10 miles per gallon. On bad months, we're pouring $80+ per month down its gas tank. The 4Runner's only saving grace is that, when we get it on the open highway and turn on the cruise control, it can top 20 mpg even going 65-75 on the Interstates.

There's also one other big negative on the 4Runner: we are almost $4000 underwater on the car loan on it.

We decided to see if there were any vehicles that were nice, very fuel-efficient, and big enough to seat all 4 of us (and preferably a guest every so often). The only one that fit the bill seemed to be the Jetta TDI diesel. It was efficient enough that we could pay for the underwater part of our previous car loan out of the fuel savings alone.

IF we could find a dealer who would fall below retail. Which we can't. Instead, the Lexington dealership won't even talk about falling below MSRP. Very depressing.

I finally started praying when I cought myself taking the curves to Cades Cove Sunday, and dreaming about how the Jetta would be taking the curves so much better, and how the Tiptronic shifting automatic would work so well...

The feeling is easing, but it still is hard. Now, if one of you fine readers happens to be a VW dealer and can get me $2000-$3000 under MSRP, that would be very nice... :)

Stealth Upgrades

I suspect that no one even noticed that the site has been upgraded. That's good, because nothing should change for you. For me, things are much better, though, since I will be able to control the spam problems with greater ease.

If anyone DOES see a problem, please Email me ASAP.

Monday, August 15, 2005

Finding Suitable Headgear

Life is strange. You look up, and two weeks are gone. Oops.

I just want to know how my average readership went UP two hundred visits a day.... ;)

Friday night, we went out to eat, and Milady asked me what I wanted to do Saturday. She knew I was tired of fixing the house, and we all wanted a change. I thought for a minute and said "I want to go to Gatlinburg tomorrow." She thought about it for a minute, and then said, "OK, let's go." I love her so. :)

We were at Meijers a half-hour later, collecting groceries, and getting ready to go. By 10PM, Milady's neice (the social worker) had also asked to go, so we were collecting a five-some together.

We had a ball. I found Milady a "She Who Must Be Obeyed" T-shirt (read Rumpole if you have any questions). We did spend too much money on the kids' clothes, and a few for ourselves.

I even fed one of my clothing weaknesses. You see, I like fedoras and trenchcoats. I love to wear a brown fedora and matching trenchcoat. I have ever since my senior year of high school. I never picked up a desire to wear a suit or tie, but I always thought those film noir detectives were so COOL. I was in high school some years before Columbine, so no one thought it too strange.

I kept a fedora all through college, even while dating Milady, and she thought it was cool too. However, the only hat store in Lexington is fairly useless for simple things like helping one find the right hat size, so I gave up the habit.

Then I found wonderful hat Saturday in (of all places) a country-western clothing store in Gatlingburg proper. I just need to steam-reshape the brim a bit (still too cowboyish). It's also missing the traditional fedora ribbon, although the cowboyish leather ribbon isn't awful. I'll fix that sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Of course, I could never quite match this fellow in Hat Coolness, but one should have goals...

Monday, August 1, 2005

Who says you can't go home again

Saturday, Milady and I worked to finish the downstairs. Again. The floor looks really nice, and this time the house acts like it's really drying out. I just have to get one piece of flooring down to meet up with the stairs, and cut 5 pieces of quarter-round to match up the last missing pieces.

Sunday, we went to the farm to visit my grandparents and parents. My mom and dad asked Number 1 Son to stay a couple of nights and go on the farm with my dad. Number 1 Son hesitated some, so we let him decide when he got home. We got home, and number 1 son wants to go to the farm, but he doesn't like the idea of us being an hour's drive away. There's some level of seperation anxiety after his stay in the hospital. So, like the charitable person I am, I volunteered to take him to the farm Wednesday, and even to go out and work with him and Pa.

I swore, proclaimed, and declared that I'd starve in the gutter before I farmed again. I suppose this is one of the ways God is reminding me to be humble... Maybe the two of them will forget I volunteered to help by then. :)