Time flies when you are wasting it on Facebook.

... and Scott started giggling over winning jockey Calvin Borel. Borel has won 3 Derbies in the past four years and is an excellent rider, despite having southern accent so thick that he needs subtitles. And, well ... he looks like Gollum.

Rain has been in the forecast all week. Yesterday morning I found my aging Saturn covered in ... MUD. Snow or ice would have made sense. But the entire car streaked with mud, as if she had been splashing in puddles all night?

Apparently, the recent winds covered everything in a thin layer of dust/dirt. Then it drizzled during the night, just enough to get the cars moist and turn the dust into mud, which then dripped down all the perpendicular surfaces. The moisture rapidly dried, and every car that wasn't in a garage is now coated in a thin, opaque layer of brown crud. Spunky, Scott's Jetta, looks even worse than my Tethys.

Weekend project: wash off the mud and put on fresh duct tape.

I've been a lousy blogger for some time now. After years of posting, I just stopped writing and couldn't figure out what had caused my loss of motivation. Was it because I was unemployed/partially employed? Too much time on Gaia, Facebook and FetLife?

Hypothesis: It seems that I am compelled to post "cool" things, or comments on my Friends blogs. But I don't just sit down and read them at home. I come to LJ when I'm eating lunch at my desk at school. When I don't have a school, I find somewhere else to go on the web. It also doesn't help that Mouse and Jamie are the only ones left who consistently post on LJ, so there are fewer things to read and comment on.

Bio classes were in the library today, working on a research project. The crazy behavior 2B class has greatly improved, since I've been getting to know them individually. That personal connection goes a long way when they need a little motivation or restraint. One boy has been absent lately, so he missed some of the "fun teacher" things. A boy at the computer behind him showed me a "Demotivational" poster that he found, and I commented that it looked like Aisha Clan-Clan from "Outlaw Star". Absent Boy's jaw dropped (yes, that really does happen) and he stared at me with his mouth open. I asked him what was wrong (knowing exactly what he would say) and he sort of gasped out "How do you know that?!"

I think some of these kids must only know completely clueless adults, because they get SO excited when they realize that a teacher can like the same things that they do. The longer I'm in these particular classes, the more I think that their regular teacher was a real "girly" girl, who had no idea how to relate to the boys, which makes all classroom management turn into a power struggle.

from Comcast: "It’s time to switch from McAfee to the top-rated Norton ™ Security Suite – it’s included with your Comcast High-Speed Internet subscription at no additional charge! (Norton Security Suite is a $160 value). This means you'll enjoy an even better combination of speed, performance, industry-leading protection, and ease of use with security powered by Norton 360TM technology."

and "Norton Supports Macs Enjoy universal support for Intel® and PowerPC® processor-based Mac computers."

from me: "Your recent email indicated that the free Norton Security Suite would be available for MacOS customers. I was pleased, since we've always had to purchase security software while the PC users received theirs gratis from you. However, the Mac version cannot be reached from the link/website you provided. I had to spend half an hour online with a Symantec service tech to get the Mac product, and they insisted on installing it remotely rather than just providing the download. Mac users really aren't second-class citizens, and we'd appreciate the common courtesy of services and products that are equal to those of the Windows users. I am not surprised: merely disappointed. When we first got our Comcast cable modem, I had to do the install myself, because your techs were unable to work with Macs. In fact, they wanted to watch me configure the router so that they could do it in the future. Perhaps you can see why Mac users are reluctant to use Comcast as their provider.

I hate xmas cards, so this year I decided to send "Squeets":



This is totally me as a kid. I still have many of my toy horses.



This is the card I gave to Scott. The big pic was on the front and the dog was on the back. The one on the back looks like Mouse's dog Spike in his "Manly Belt of Power".

Five or six years ago, I got Scott a talking Yoda toy for Christmas. He's a very cute rubber replica, about 8 inches tall, who gives cryptic answers to "yes or no" questions when you squeeze his left hand. Most of the time he utters things like, "The answer I sense is 'no'." After a session of hand-squeezing, he'll wait about 5 minutes and then announce "Clearing your mind, are you? Or have you another question to ask?" Startled the heck out of me when he did that in the cart at Target!

When Yoda first arrived, he began repeating the same inane answer several times in a row, so Scott threatened him.
Scott: "Would you like us to put you over there by the Cave Troll?" (A 12" tall LOTR monster, armed with a large club and a spear.)
Yoda: "Strong with the Force am I, but not that strong!"

This was the first time he had ever said that. We fell over laughing and have always told people that Yoda is surprisingly astute for a small plastic and latex toy.



Tonight Mouse came over for sushi and early xmas gift exchanging. One of her "re-gifted" goodies was a mechanical Dr. Octopus gripper arm that I got for Scott back when "Spiderman 2" was in the theatres. Unfortunately, it was designed for kid-sized hands, so Scott was never able to work it very well. Mouse has dainty girl hands, so she is able to use the gripper to full effect. While practicing picking things up, I brought out Yoda. She grabbed him by the head, and I squeezed his hand. His first statement was normal, then he GIGGLED and blurted out, "Tickle me you have!" We've played with this toy off and on since before SW:Ep III was released (Yoda went to the premiere with me), and he's NEVER said that before. While gasping for breath in between fits of laughter, we squeezed his hand a few more times. He said a few normal things, then repeated the "tickle" statement TWO more times, both while Mouse was squeezing his head with the gripper.

Does Yoda have secret sensors that tell when someone is grabbing him roughly? It just isn't that sophisticated a toy, more like fancy a Magic Eight Ball, and I paid less than $15 for him. I guess he's just strong with the Force after all.

"Crittercam" is a National Geographic program that puts video cameras on wild animals to study their behavior. As camera size decreases and digital resolution increases, researchers are getting wonderful videos of and by wild animal species. They make me a bit motion-sick, but are still very cool.
More at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/crittercam/about.html

Tree Kangaroos from New Guinea are adorable ... and are pretty good videographers.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/12/091216-crittercam-tree-kangaroo-video.html



Giant Galapagos tortoises are a bit harder on the equipment:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091124-crittercam-galapagos-tortoise-missions-video.html

Even traditional human-controlled videos are improving and helping us to learn amazing new things about nature. This one makes me feel guilty about enjoying tako (octopus) sushi!
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/12/091214-octopus-carries-coconuts-coconut-carrying.html

In the interest of keeping up-to-date on current trends in education, I signed up for a bunch of Cherry Creek district courses on student literacy. I figured that I would have the time to put into them, since I'm only partially employed. (Subs don't work every day, and we don't have homework.) Unfortunately, the courses are geared for "working teachers", and much of the "homework" involves collecting student samples and profiling students. Not the easiest thing to do when you don't have access. Class is tonight and I need to finish 3 student profiles with writing samples. I guess I'll have to go with 3 former students, either those who wrote long pieces in my yearbooks or who have blogs from when they were my students. Um ... hope you guys don't mind, because that sounds like most of my LJ Friendslist.

I wish I were better able to focus. After two weeks on antibiotics, I STILL have a headache. It ranges from a dull, ignorable ache to a blinding agony that makes it hard to keep my eyes open, and has been present in some form for about a month now. It makes me want to pull off the front of my head and dig out the infection with a spoon.

Today Denver expects a high of 10F (-12C) with light snow. This Woodchuck really wants to hibernate!

According to Dr. Who/Torchwood, the city of Cardiff, Wales sits on a rift in time and space, through which various aliens reach the Earth and get stranded. Recently eyeless, white, flesh-eating slugs have been discovered in gardens in Cardiff. Speculation is that they somehow got from caves in Turkey to urban Wales. Hm ... maybe they fell through the Rift?

Seriously -- http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/07/080716-slug-photo.html