Fund Raising time

Ok everybody we are getting close to the time for the Tri State Trek again. It a 270 bicycle ride from Boston to NY to raise money for ALS research. My fund raising page is here. My goal this year is to raise at least $1800. I appreciate everything that all of you did last year to help out. I know that times are tough for a lot of us but I hope that you can find something to give to this charity. Thanks

I'll Give You a Topic...

Is it too much to ask to get, say, a 2-hour window for delivery/installation/service whatever times? Rather than a 4-hour window or larger? I understand delays and problems causing delays and whatnot, but it seems like a 2-hour window would be sufficient to work within.

(Oh, and btw, 6 year blogiversary this month, yadda yadda bleh.)

Celebrity-time-travel

Cool results of a competition to answer the question "What if celebrities had lived in different time periods?"

See the slide show here.

see more here.

*Ask Jen: Dogs are Gross Edition

Victor writes, "Why do dogs like to eat poop? You figure an animal with that developed a sense of smell could tell that poop smells really bad."

First of all, Victor, what is with your ongoing campaign to point out how gross dogs are? We can't all be rat people.

As mentioned previously, dogs smell things differently than you and I. What we think smells gross may be fantastic to the canine nose. So there's that.

There is also the practice of animals occasionally eating their own fecal matter in order to get a second chance at the nutritional value contained therein. There is also the practice of "Bear" Grylls eating bear poo in order to get at the nutritional value contained therein, but that is just disgusting.

Do you have a question for me? You can e-mail it. If I know the answer, I'll answer it. If I don't, I might make something up.

Round, Round, Get Around

Pete forwarded this article to me. Basically, it says (Oxford) history majors are the school tramps.

My knee-jerk reaction was to, of course, disagree. But then I considered the history majors who are not me...the ones I knew/know well enough to be familiar with their sex lives. And I’m going to have to say, they weren’t all that big on fidelity. You would think it’d be those hippies in anthropology getting all free-love on it, but the history majors I knew were more promiscuous.

Why would this be true? Perhaps historians have a better realization that those before them spent an inordinate amount of time focusing on carnal pleasures—especially if those before them were trying to deny other people the right to do so. Maybe historians are more likely to subscribe to the theory that life is short, so they want to enjoy it while they can. Or maybe historians are just more likely to meet strangers and get those strangers to talk about themselves, thus appearing more attractive to said strangers.

Any thoughts? Are the history majors simply revisionists? Do we need to re-poll the theater majors?

The Woodsy Type

So I decided to go commune with nature over the weekend...and some of nature decided to commune with me.

Normally I go camping in northern Wisconsin when the rest of the fam is around. There are either extended family members also camping out, or I have a niece and nephew with me. This weekend I was flying solo in the campgrounds. Me and my tent. My dad was with, but staying across the street in the cabin.

So within the hour of arrival, a porcupine was checking things out. He was rummaging about until I came to take his picture, and then he went up a tree...

(It was dusk, btw.)

He must have decided I was harmless, because he only went up a few feet before returning to the ground and continuing on his way...

I snapped his picture and finished setting up camp. There was some visiting with the locals (people), and then it was bedtime. I probably fell asleep about 10:00 p.m.

At midnight, I was awakened. I didn't know what woke me at first, so I just rolled over and snuggled back into my sleeping bag. Then I heard what sounded like someone climbing into the bed of my dad's truck and getting on the ATV. Did I mention the truck was 10 feet from my tent?

So it seemed odd that my dad would have waited until midnight and the pitch dark to unload his ATV. Hmm. Either a person or a bear would be sounding that heavy in the back of the truck.

"Hello?" I said in my sternest, you better not be trying to steal my dad's ATV voice. The noise stopped. Absolute silence. I decided we had a bear on our hands, people. I made a loud clapping noise, and it was off like a shot. Definitely a bear--too fast to be a person. Awesome. In the morning, there were definitely paw marks on the truck...from the rear wheel well along the bed to the roof (including the top of the roof). Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of them. It rained before I thought of it.

So it turned out Dad had left his dinner wrapper plus most of our groceries in the truck...with the driver's side window cracked open. I mostly blame the chili cheese dog wrapper, though. When I opened the truck to see what was up, it *stank* of chili cheese dog.

Anyway, after the excitement of the bear, you can only go downhill, right? So here is a picture of a woodpecker that hung out with me all weekend...

He didn't actually let me get closer than 15 feet at any given time, though.

There were many deer, some chipmunks, a turtle, and the usual flock of whippoorwills and loons in the distance. No more bears that I know of, but there was something walking around the campgrounds Saturday night. I pulled the covers over my ear, couldn't hear it anymore, and promptly fell asleep.
:-)