Archive for April, 2008
So, okay, I know you all want to see pictures from this weekend. And you all know how much I just love pictures. [ahem] Even so, and at her own risk, Lori insisted on taking pictures of everydamnthing being our official photographer and emailed me a bunch of pictures to post. But she said she had to “clean them up a bit” before I could post them. I assume that is a highly technical term, the results of which appear to be somewhat unpredictable. Clearly, it is STILL all her fault.
I did manage to steal borrow Lori’s camera for a while and here is a picture I took of Lori, JenB and Wapak, sitting on the pier at Carolina Beach. The focus seemed a bit off, so I adjusted it and then took a bunch of pictures of hunky guys the waves and the sand on the beach. Lori says she has no idea what might have happened to those pictures, but claims they were not in her camera.
Then she took the camera away from me for bad behaviour to take some pictures of her own. She got one of me before I could stop her. I was aiming for the camera lens. How was I supposed to know she’d lower it just as my beak made contact with her face? She says she can still see perfectly fine out of the other eye and she won’t sue me not to worry.
Here is Lori’s attempt to find out how serious NC is about not littering on the beach. We were starting to get used to her belligerence inattention to details and were not surprised when she claimed she hadn’t seen the cute young officer who came over to yell at her for littering. He was not impressed by her claims about photographic composition and making an artistic statement. She turned on the Minnesota Nice and he agreed not to arrest her. Or something.
Here are Lori and JenB walking on the beach. Don’t they look happy? I have no idea why people seem to think all my friends are imaginary.
We didn’t take any pictures on Saturday. Really. After the whole aim-that-at-me-and-I’ll-poke-your-eye-out thing at the beach, I think they started to take my threats requests about that more seriously. Besides, there were now eight of us and that means there were that many fewer opportunities to take pictures. This is well-established CB logic. JenB dragged us kicking and screaming graciously invited us over to her house, which was beautiful, and then we went to lunch at A Southern Season. A restaurant with delicious food. Attached to a store. With lots of stuff I didn’t buy and some I did. Who needs pictures of that? Go look at the website. Buy stuff. Pretend you were there.
Then we came back to my house and talked and ate dinner and talked and sat on the new deck and talked and drank and talked. And laughed a lot too, because we all are very funny. Here is my new deck. Isn’t it gorgeous? I love it. Please note: no animals were harmed and no humans were irritated in the taking of this picture.
Oh yeah, and here is GP’s fancy new car that has a mind of its own. It turns itself off when it stops. Which is weird um charming very high tech. A perfect match for someone who tried to make us do math at midnight last night. No, I am not kidding. She went inside and came back out with her calculator that can only be operated by rocket scientists GP. She let Lori hold it. The rest of us cringed and put our hands behind our backs smiled politely and declined. We knew we were not worthy.
So now Wapak has gone back to Wapakoneetakateekah. Which I finally know how to spell, since I can copy it right off the lovely afghan Wapak gave me. And McB and RSS have embarked on the return leg of their road trip. And GP’s car told her it was time to get in and leave, and it would be handling all the details and not to worry. Probably it’s making breakfast for her tomorrow.
I think Lori and Andi and I are off to do more things in a minute here. I have no idea what. JenB might join us later. Tomorrow too. But I have now used up all my words. I don’t have any more. The words that are left in my brain are ones I seldom use and if I tried to put them together into a sentence, they wouldn’t make sense. Well, less sense than usual. A weekend with CBs will do that to a person. If you just can’t avoid it ever get the chance, I highly recommend it. This weekend has been a blast.
And since I now have my very own shovel pin, I figure clean-up shouldn’t take more than a week. Or two, tops.
~ pics are clickable now - - bjw
April 27th, 2008
Oh, you know what I mean.
Another Friday. And something tells me my weekend is going to be seriously unproductive. 
April 25th, 2008
Albert Einstein, in describing his theory of relativity to reporters, said this:
“Meet a room full of CherryBombs for the first time, and it seems like you’ve known them for years. Spend the whole weekend with them, and it seems like just a minute. That’s relativity.”
Or something like that.*
*actual quote: Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.
April 23rd, 2008
Well not really. But it soon will be. We get out very early here.
Today School is Cancelled due to excessive Fog. Our district includes a lot of rural area that makes it very hard for buses to see. That means that all my worker elves get to be here all day and we get so much done!!!!! What a great Monday gift.
We lived for delays and cancellations due to snow, ice, or fog. College was such a disappointment when we just had to keep trudging to class and never cancel. Well, you could just skip!
No, I am not going to ask your favorite part of high school- but what unexpected gifts have come your way to make your day better! It can be an oldie or a new one!
I am supposed to post on Thursday, but I will be somewhere else, with some other people, doing a lot of something and I might be busy sometime.
April 21st, 2008
comments will disappear soon, so just throwing this up…
April 19th, 2008
I checked the schedule, and unless I’m totally confused (which is entirely possible) I’m not treading on any toes with this post. I need help. More so than usual.
I’m doing something wrong, I must be.
So here’s the thing.
I wrote a post on Cranky Fitness, the blog where I spend a lot of my non-CB time, about how people could win a free bicycle simply by leaving a comment. Lots of people read the post; I can tell by the sitemeter statistics. About 1% of the people who read the post commented.
The conclusions I’ve drawn from this are:
1. No one wants a free bike that’s valued at $400.
or
2. My writing was too busy being trying to be interesting and creative, which obscured the essential point of the post.
Frankly, I find #1 hard to believe and #2 damn depressing, considering I get paid to write.Granted, what I’m paid to write is dull, technical, and so far removed from creativity that it might as well be accounting, but it is, technically, writing (albeit technical writing). I know that I wrote this post in a hurry and whilst trying to fend off a migraine, but still — a free bicycle? I must be doing something very wrong.
So what am I doing wrong? This is a blog filled with people who are discerning readers and writers. Surely someone can gently and kindly give me an educational kick up the backside on this one.
The post in question:
Stay young and win money, bicycles & stuff
April 17th, 2008
I have a very active fantasy life and recent conversations on this blog have made it even more active than usual.
I also like to prowl eBay and buy lottery tickets.
As I write this the PowerBall Multi-State Lottery is 91 million dollars, 46.7cash payout, and I have a ticket. After this investment of $1.00 turns itself into a winning ticket, I take the cash payout and pay taxes I figure I’ll have around 20 million dollars. A nice, simple to manipulate number.
Here is what I’m going to do with some of that money.
$775,000 is going to buy this http://tinyurl.com/6k8vzd
I found it on eBay, doncha know.
5 BUILDINGS 14 ACS CENTRAL KENTUCKY- FORMER BOARDING SCHOOL
- approximately 14 acres +/- in Millersburg Kentucky approximately 25 miles northeast of Lexington on Highway 68
-The property was formerly Millersburg Military Institute which was founded as Millersburg Male and Female Seminary in 1852.
-All buildings are fully furnished.
-ADMINISTRATION BUILDING has 10,032 total square feet, built 1852, 3 stories, with 2 apartments
-WOMACK MCMONAC GYMNASIUM 31,438 total square feet has fully stocked weight room and basement rifle range
-MILLON HALL dorm building 14,151 total square feet 2 stories, basement and 38 dorm rooms
-MESS/DINING HALL 8,976 total square feet has basement, library, work shop
-RANKIN HALL classroom building 19,354 total square feet has 12 classrooms, 2 stories and basement, 26 dorm rooms.
-The grounds include a football/soccer field.
What’s going to happen to it after the purchase? Well….
I figure it will take 5-10 million for renovations. I would be willing to bet the water and electric need updated. There will also probably be asbestos abatement, roofs, heat and tons of other things that fall into disrepair over the years and need updated, repaired or replaced. But that’s just the basic, make it habitable and usable stuff. After that comes the fun part.
The dorm building will be reconfigured. We’ll have cozy rooms for one or two and big rooms for a crowd. No more dorm room metal bunks with thin mattresses, the beds will be comfy and most will be made of wood. The bathrooms will be nice but serviceable. The hallways will be painted something fun and will have plush carpet.
There will be wireless internet all over the property.
There will be writer’s workshops and retreats.
There will CB get togethers and Cherry get togethers and it will be used by all of our favorite authors when they want to have fan gatherings.
And we will beg really really really loud and Her and Him will come and play with us since it only 1.5 hours outside of Cincy.
There will be alpacas and merinos and other lush fur babies. There will be classes on spinning, and dyeing and many of the fiber arts.
There will be bartending classes, big porches, lazy dogs, and cabana boys.
There will also be the bail fund so we can ensure that every CB can be at every CB meet.
What other classes should there be?
April 15th, 2008
Inside every sane person, there’s a madman struggling to get out.
- Terry Pratchett on CBs
April 15th, 2008
I do love my gadgets. Gadgets are a grown up’s excuse for playing with toys. iPods, computers, digital cameras … if I had more money and less willpower I’d be in serious trouble. My enthusiasm for my iPhone has seriously annoyed a few people. Heck I even like the nifty can opener that avoids the sharp edges on can lids. Actually, learning to operate that one took me longer than learning my iPhone did. And oddly enough it’s almost as much fun. Like my whiz bang yarn swifter that I actually get to crank and make it whirl around. Yes, I am very easily amused. I’m sure it’s a throw back to my childhood, but I’m rarely having so much fun as I do when I’m pushing buttons or cranking handles. I’m not alone in this; I’ve seen too many adults in toy stores succomb to the lure of a jack-in-the-box. It’s a deep seated primal thing, we just can’t resist. A lot of it has to do with innate curiosity. Just how many turns on the handle will it take before *WHUMP!* Dang thing got me again. Maybe next time. My inner child; I’m very fond of her.
But a lot of it too has to do with making something happen by my own actions. That’s one of the things that’s slightly dissatisfying about the computer age; there’s so little demand on the user that we’re almost superfluous. One of these days my iPod is going to start choosing it’s own playlist. And that might be one of the ways we are cheating the next generation. We’ve stopped putting literal bells and whistles on things, we push fewer buttons and nobody cranks anything by hand anymore. My keyboard doesn’t even click when I type. It’s all much too sedate. Where’s the visceral thrill of cause and effect? I miss old fashioned pinball machines, too. I don’t care how realistic the graphics are, clicking a mouse doesn’t create anything like the excitement of slamming the levers and buttons by hand. I’m hoping for a nostalgic wave to hit the arcade industry so they’ll start bringing those back.
Until then I’ll just have to amuse myself with something else. Where did I put that can opener? While I’m looking, let’s hear about your most, and least, favorite gadgets.
April 13th, 2008
Just to give McB some breathing room, a space for you to talk and a face to go with the stories.
They are blurry because he kept trying to see where I was hiding behind the black box.
In the second photo Yoda had a banana, Ky was licking up the crumbs. Immediately after I pressed the shutter, panic set in when Ky noticed banana in claw and Yoda noticed Ky eyeing him.
April 11th, 2008
Previous Posts
I did manage to 
Then she took the camera away from me 
Here is Lori’s attempt to find out how serious NC is about not littering on the beach. We were starting to get used to her 
Here are Lori and JenB walking on the beach. Don’t they look happy? I have no idea why people seem to think all my friends are imaginary.
Then we came back to my house and talked and ate dinner and talked and sat on the new deck and talked and drank and talked. And laughed a lot too, because we all are very funny. Here is my new deck. Isn’t it gorgeous? I love it. Please note: no animals were harmed and no humans were irritated in the taking of this picture.
Oh yeah, and here is GP’s fancy new car that has a mind of its own. It turns itself off when it stops. Which is 
