Battening Down the Hatches

The Ice Man Cometh. Or at least the ice storm cometh. The last real severe ice storm around here was at the end of 2004, and another pass about 50 miles north happened a week or so later. That was the same time my maternal grandfather passed away.

We still miss him.

SCIENCE

We spent the afternoon at the Capital City Science Museum going through their Major Exhibit that teaches problem solving in an archaeological dig setting. It was a blast.

Wood Eye

Or wooden hand.

I was cutting down some small maples that were growing too close to our barn, and when I got down to the place the trunks meet the roots, I found this piece of wood.

Nerdy-something

Son's science class this year is biology. They're studying the classification of organisms now, so I told him my Chordata joke. He rolled his eyes, patted me on the shoulder, and lovingly called me a nerd.

So I sent the joke to his science teacher and told the teacher to tell it to the class and credit me. Do not mess with nerds.

The teacher replied with this joke.

A tree leans over and speaks to a mushroom on the forest floor. "Mushroom, you're boring."

The mushroom replies, "No I'm not. I'm a fungi."

Corporate Letter from Brother 1

Brother 1 forwarded me this letter that he sent to the Wrigley company.

It is important to me to separate Lifesavers Gummies Sours by color so that I can fully experience the variety of delicious flavors. I have little problem with this when eating normal Lifesavers Gummies, as, barring exposure to temperature extremes, the oily coating keeps them from adhering to one another. However, in each package of Lifesaver Gummies Sours, I find that several tori, nearly always of different colors, are stuck together. This is not merely some weak adhesion that might allow me to separate the candies by pulling them in opposing directions, but a profound fusion requiring either some delicate operations with a very sharp knife or the simultaneous consumption of the fused candies.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy Lifesavers Gummies Sours tremendously. I estimate that only about 10% of the candies in each package undergo this regrettable union, and my enjoyment of the conjoined sweets is only reduced by approximately half. So my enjoyment of each pack of Lifesavers Gummies Sours is reduced by only about 5%. That means, however, that I am only able to achieve around 95% of the potential enjoyment in each package of Lifesavers Gummies Sours. One might argue that it is impossible to eliminate the loss of 10% of the package to this fusion process and that I should measure my enjoyment as a percentage of the remaining 90% of the candies, adding the 50% enjoyment of the remaining 10% of the candies on top of that as a bonus. I would offer the counterargument that by including the comingled candies in each package (or, assuming that they comingle during shipping or storage, by including the POTENTIAL for comingling), you are further reducing my enjoyment of them by promoting some immeasurable amount of frustration with my inability to separate them. As I say, though, this frustration is not measureable and should therefore be ruled out of our estimates.

In any case I believe that Lifesavers Gummies Sours might be improved by the prevention of the aforementioned process of fusion, leading to (barring any other unforeseen side effects of such changes) 100% enjoyment of each package.


Sincerely,
Brother 1 Lastname

Bifurcated Pain

Son has been working out with me at the gym lately. On Sunday, he did the hip adductor exercise for more or less the first time and tried to show off by lifting the whole stack of weights. Anyone who's ever been to a gym knows what happened the next day. Son was walking around with a bowlegged stance moaning like Dr. Smith, "Oh, the pain... the pain."

He did agree to go to the gym tonight, though.

Halfway

I had a dream the other night where I was part of a team with a goal of sending a nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed submarine back in time to help out the Union cause in the American Civil War. For some reason, we couldn't get all the way back from 2011 to the 1860s, so we had to meet our contacts in the 1930s.

At one point, I was trying to explain how the submarine worked to our 1930s contact, so that he could get the information back to the 1860s. The conversation wasn't going too well, so I left the room. A woman who was affiliated with a rival time-travel faction saw me and started pursuing me through long dark corridors and empty rooms. She may have also had a cover identity of an organized crime boss's girlfriend.

It was very film noir, and I hope the setting comes back for a reprise.

Four Word Movie Review - Despicable Me

Another adoption heartstring puller.

Cursed Cursive

This sign is in our cafeteria. It says, "Celebrate a Year of Living Well." From 10 feet away, and out of the corner of my eye, it looked like it said, "Celebrate a Year of Living Will." It's a very different thought.

Video Saturday

The men's room on the first floor our our skyscraper tower had one faucet that whined (or whinged, if you prefer). It reminded me of the episode of Corner Gas where Hank lost at golf and whined for days. The first sound is the soap dispenser, but wait for the magic of the faucet.



I checked out the faucet two days later, and it had been fixed, probably by our corporate plumber that, I swear, looks amazingly like Mario the plumber from the Nintendo games. Timing is everything.

Foto Phriday - It Mite Grow

This is, I think, an icicle that fell off our truck onto the ground and stuck in the snow. Then it melted slightly and refroze so it remained vertical. Nifty. You'll almost certainly have to click to embiggen.

Snowfall Two Point Oh

This snowstorm is the real thing. My normal commute is about 25 minutes, garage to garage. Today was about two hours.

Summers Gone By

In the cold, let's remember the summer of 2007. Here is Harry Potter about to duel Draco Malfoy.

Muskles

Son and I have been working out at the gym for a couple of weeks. He's doing a great job keeping motivated so far. I have lost a few pounds and am feeling some muscles come back that I haven't seen for years. Like I told the lady who was there with her daughter, and who remarked that we seem to be on the same schedule, "Six weeks, and we'll all be cover models."

She laughed.

Revisiting The Lost Room

We're rewatching The Lost Room on DVD. I heard that there was a plan for a follow-up comic book in 2011.

Ski Down, Ski Done

We went skiing today at the place just down the street from GPop's parents' house. The expedition ended after I had fallen the second time getting off the chair lift and after GPop fell hard on his head.

When I was in high school, you knew to get the heck out of the way when you got off the chair lift. Evidently this is not taught in today's clime.

Yum

I saw this.

Maine Man

Governor LePage, stay classy.

Happy Birthday - Math Edition

Happy Birthday, Mandy!

Not Necessary

My dad is really into guns and knives and such. When I was growing up, I shared a little of that. I own a couple of pocket knives, and we always know that a good gift for Dad is a knife. I have a really nice knife sharpener that lets me keep a fine edge on all of the cutlery in my home.

I was thinking today about where those knives are. I put one in my basket o' cr@p where I keep my keys, gift cards, and other miscellanea in aggregate. I haven't touched the pocket knives in probably two years. Then I realized that I don't carry one around. Then I realized that I when I was young, the conventional wisdom was that you should carry one around, because you never know when you might need one. I haven't needed one in quite some time, I guess.

Snowpocalypse Was a Dud

The five to seven inches might have ended up being two.

Turkey Dream

The other day, I dreamt that I was doing some kind of detective or bounty hunter work. My task was to find the turkey killer. Not a person who killed turkeys, but a turkey who was a killer. He was on the lam.

I had a number of close misses, but eventually I tracked him down. He was marching in a Thanksgiving parade, and he was dressed as a Gilded Age industrialist. I knew it was he, because his beak was broken in such a way as to give him a distinct underbite.

The event of his capture was the end of the dream. I don't recall if I woke up right away or if I had another dream in between, but the turkey's fate is still unknown.

How Can I Keep from Singing

I joined our corporate choir today. Yes, we have a corporate choir. The implant led me to the room.

Four Word Movie Review - TRON Legacy

Visually sizzly. Plottily spottily.

Four Word Movie Review - How to Train Your Dragon

Surprisingly good. Yes, really!

Foto Phriday

You can look this up on Google Maps.



Click to embiggen.

Mom

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Trek 234

I had forgotten how much I liked the Star Trek movies. We watched The Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock, and The Voyage Home on successive nights. They were really fun.

Back to Work - New Boss

Our team has a new manager. We will learn the identity of this mystery person at 3:30 today. What fun!

UNO

Just for the record, playing UNO with a willing colorblind friend is entertaining.

My Trek

We are working through Star Trek: The Next Generation on DVD. We just watched the final episodes of season 1, where the first big Tasha Yar surprise happens.

Happy 2011

Happy New Year, everyone!

Here's to a great new year. May your health be healthy, your kids (or neighbors) well-behaved, and your finances in order.

Four Word Movie Review - Angels & Demons

Howard tries polishing turd.