**Unbelievably luck**

Who would have thunk it. On the eve of my birthday, I find out I won the lottery! My letter of resignation goes in tomorrow. You may start making requests, as I don't need all this money:

新しいメールアドレスをお知らせします
新しいメールアドレス： ukonlinelotterywinningnotifys26@yahoo.co.jp

Your email address has won you $4.6M from the UK Lotto online draws held on 09/12/08 Lucky #: MX014926583 and Free ticket #: APP236566301307. Contact Henry Lrmbert henry_lambert07@yahoo.com.hk with your official names, Nationality and resident country, address, tel/mobile #, date of draw, sex

- UK LOTTERY ORGANIZATION

**Down Under**

Just a quick post to say that all is well. The conference went well. The other presentations varied in their interest. Not terribly theoretical, but then hey, they were mainly lawyers.

Landed in Christchurch, NZ on Saturday afternoon and wandered around downtown in the early evening. There was a large Indian (India) festival so I manage to eat some festival food. Sunday, we took off for the west coast. It took the greater part of the day to cross the mountains and once we got to Arthurs Pass National Park, it was raining. So we made one quick hike to the Devil's Punchbowl. Got soaked.

This morning, I am staring out a window at the ocean about 100 yards away. There is a big storm upon us. Started about nine hours ago. The surf looks just like a stormy Oregon coast, except it isn't - it is the Tasman Sea or the "Ditch" as they call it here. I am currently in Hokitika. They are famous for many things - a place where you can feed giant eels, carve jade and bone. Frankly, it is a tourist mecca. I was amazed a room was available 50 miles from this cultural mecca. Arthur's Pass Village with this famous resident, was nearly as impressive.

Actually the appeal of Hokitika for me is the largest above ground habitat of glow worms ( I would have a pictures, but it looks like a bunch of stars cause you can only see them at night.

The Hostel was nice and quiet and had wireless (thus the post). Our room had cute stuffed lambs and a larger than life picture of the killer parrots.

Today, we head south down the coast. Don't know yet where we will stay for the night.

**Exhale**

:)

**Sarah Palin**

This is becoming personal for me:

**Why I have subscribed to "The Nation" for 20 years**

And why you should read the longest running newsweekly in the United States:

From the Nov. 3rd print edition:

In case you haven't heard, there's a guy running for president named Barack Hussein Osama Nobama. This Nobama was born outside America and secretly schooled in Islamic terrorism at a Wahhabi madrassa. He then moved to the United States to take up the radical '60s teachings of the Weather Underground's Bill Ayers, while also organizing for ACORN, a subprime-lending, voter fraud-committing collective of affirmative-action welfare queens. All this happened before he became an elitist celebrity advocate of socialism, infanticide, the sexual abuse of children and treason.

Kind of sums up the insanity in the video below:

**Barama, baby**

OMG! Does my son go to school near these people? Do these people realize they are walking onto a college campus where reason and analytical thought are the modus operandi? Oh, wait, I forgot Mr. Intelligent Design is on the faculty there.......

**Some wonderful news in a difficult time**

In the New York Times today: A story on the Connecticut Supremen Court ruling on Gay marriage.

Some key quotes:

"The ruling, which cannot be appealed and is to take effect on Oct. 28, held that a state law limiting marriage to heterosexual couples, and a civil union law intended to provide all the rights and privileges of marriage to same-sex couples, violated the constitutional guarantees of equal protection under the law."

"Striking at the heart of discriminatory traditions in America, the court — in language that often rose above the legal landscape into realms of social justice for a new century — recalled that laws in the not-so-distant past barred interracial marriages, excluded women from occupations and official duties, and relegated blacks to separate but supposedly equal public facilities."

“Although marriage and civil unions do embody the same legal rights under our law, they are by no means equal,” Justice Palmer wrote in the majority opinion, joined by Justices Flemming L. Norcott Jr., Joette Katz and Lubbie Harper. “The former is an institution of transcendent historical, cultural and social significance, whereas the latter is not.”

Three states down; 47 to go.

**Saturday New York Times**

"...Now, as he spends his last months in office trying to avert a global economic collapse, Mr. Bush has been telling people privately that it’s a good thing he’s in charge."

Nuff said.

**Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, said**

“I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.”

**GRRR**

Joe Garofoli of the San Francisco Chronicle:

The McCain campaign is attempting to do something unheard of in the modern political era. It is not just running against the mainstream media, it is running around it. It's about the GOP's continued sheltering of its vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov Sarah Palin. She has yet to hold a major press conference 32 days after McCain announced her as his running mate - and that's not changing anytime soon. McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb said Palin will do at least one news conference before election day. That could mean that the person who could potentially lead the free world will have done one national press conference before being sworn into office. The Democratic vice presidential nominee, Joe Biden, has given more than 89 national and local interviews over roughly the same period of time

**Sitting here...**

Proctoring an exam, working on my paper for my Australia trip, but so tempted by the Rough Guide to New Zealand sitting right next to me on the table......

**Don't Know Why, But it is Cracking Me Up**

Two tidbits from the NY Times:

RE Supercollider in la France:

But last Friday the machine was shut down after an electrical connection between two of the superconducting electromagnets that steer the protons suffered a so-called quench, heating up, melting and leaking helium into the collider tunnel. Liquid helium is used to cool the magnets to superconducting temperatures of only about 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit above absolute zero. Stray heat can cause the magnets to lose their superconductivity with potentially disastrous consequences.

To make repairs, it will be necessary to warm the magnets up and then cool them back down again, which takes at least two months, engineers say. And that leaves scant time to run the collider before it has to shut down for the winter in early December to save money on electricity.

And also in the NY Times... the headline:

Athletes to Leave Their Brains to Concussion Study

By ALAN SCHWARZ 6 minutes ago

A dozen athletes, including six N.F.L. players, have agreed to donate their brains after their deaths for research on the long-term effects of concussions.

**Why did the chicken cross the road?**

Viral email sent to me. I thought it was funny....


BARACK OBAMA: The chicken crossed the road because it was time for change! The chicken wanted change!

JOHN MC CAIN: My friends, that chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.

HILLARY CLINTON: When I was First Lady, I personally helped that little chicken to cross the road. This experience makes me uniquely qualified to ensure right from Day One! That every chicken in this country gets the chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn't about me.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either for us or against us. There is no middle road here.

DICK CHENEY: Where's my gun?

SARAH PALIN: Where's MY gun? That chicken's got no choice!

COLIN POWELL: Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.

BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with that chicken. What is your definition of chicken?

AL GORE: I invented the chicken.

JOHN KERRY: Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken's intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.

AL SHARPTON: Why are all the chickens white? We need some black chickens.

DR. PHIL: The problem we have here is that this chicken won't realize that he must first deal with the problem on this side of the road before it goes after the problem on the other side of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he's acting by not taking on his current problems before adding new problems.

OPRAH: Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I'm going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

NANCY GRACE: That chicken crossed the road because he's guilty! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.

PAT BUCHANAN: To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

MARTHA STEWART: No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer's Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.

DR SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I've not been told.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die in the rain, alone.

JERRY FALWELL: Because the chicken was gay! Can't you people see the plain truth? That's why they call it the 'other side.' Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay, too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like 'the other side.' That chicken should not be crossing the road. It's as plain and as simple as that.

EVERYONE'S GRANDPA: In my day we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

BARBARA WALTERS: Isn't that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heartwarming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its lifelong dream of crossing the road.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.

BILL GATES: I have just released eChicken2008, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook. Internet Explorer is an integral part of eChicken2008. This new platform is much more stable and will never reboot.

ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one???

**He knows how to soundbite**

Gotcha moment from Obama.




Also, I am so impressed with this NY Times writer Timothy Egan, and not because he is from the west. His recent entry, Moo, is worth reading.

**Lake Conneware**

I have been thinking a lot about this lake in southeastern Australia as Ike bore down on my niece who lives close to a similar lake on the edge of Galveston Bay. They both are in relatively low lying areas, probably have varying salinity levels based on lake levels and tidal flow. They both are relatively shallow (certainly more shallow that the glacial lakes in my area).














So as I fretted along with everyone else about the storm surge, I remembered Lake Conneware. No storm surge there but it faced other shallow lake challenges - low water levels and correspondingly high salinity.











This lake was the location of E.'s research and we spent a morning there collecting mollusks (I think) and measured them. We are not talking 10 or 20 little shelled creatures, but about 700, most smaller than a pinky fingernail.









Then each little creature was counted and measured and released. These little dudes have an amazing ability to adapt to varying salinity levels. Ah, field research, how inspiring!

**Great Ocean Road**

We spent much of the second day in southeast Australia traveling the Great Ocean Road. What is not pictured here was the paralyzed look of inexplicable fear when I was departing the farm of our delightful hosts and started driving down the road. I was still in the mode where every move with the car is second-guessed because 32 years of driving means nothing when everything gets switched.

Before even my first exhale, I see a car coming straight at me on the road. My first thought is "crap, I am on the wrong side of the road." But I was on the wrong side of the road, which is the CORRECT side of the road. Turns out it was our host, completely messing with me. He will not like the payback next time he comes to the States.

Nevertheless, I was grateful for the gentle reminders offered up by a helpful Australian government.

















The Great Ocean Road is much like the roads along the U.S. west coast. We spent some time looking at famous surfing beaches and checking out local national forests. We quickly learned that we would be eating our first of many PBJ sandwiches because any restaurant food was going to cost a more than I could regularly spend over three weeks. Fish and chip lunch for 4? $50.

Of course, we became quicly obsessed with the graphical signs around Australia. Here is the first of several pictures we took during our visit. No sugarcoating anything here:




















Homes are pricey along the road as it, apparently, is still commuting distance to Melbourne. This was one of the more interesting houses. It actually is a rental:














Picnic site in Otway National Park:

















These trees were really impressive. Heights similar to Douglas Firs in Oregon:





















Silver Creek Falls State Park flashback....











This little guy was nestled in the trees along the dirt road to Otway NP. I just caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye. When we drove back several hours later, he was still there and in the same position.




















We wandered into on little town because we heard you might see kangaroos on the golf course. There were many and people just played golf around them. Those little round dark spots scattered densely on the golf course. Not rocks. Not tree nuts. You guess.















On the way back we watch the sunset light up the waters over Bells Beach - another famous surfing beach.






































































And, apparently, like one might expect an abundance of deer at sunset, we were treated to this silouhette on the way home.

**Missing Spring**

These were a couple of the pictures I took of some of the spring and summer birds that frequented our feeders.



The rose-breasted grosbeak and its female (pictured on her own) isn't around these days.





































The woodpecker and cardinal still come by. Tons of sparrows and chickadees.























And of course the finches - red and yellow.


I never saw any orioles although they are in the area. We will get some fresh fruit out in the spring to attract them. On the shopping list for the fall is a nice birdbath as we will drain the pond when things begin to freeze

**Ahh, yes, I did travel somewhere last May, didn't I...**

Okay, it is about time I starting posting stuff from Australia. My lack of blogging about it was because the number of photographs were simply overwhelming. I have only labeled the first two days of the trip. So maybe trying to put a couple pictures and description from each day will help.

So voila, Day One in Australia....

We arrived in Melbourne after 23 hours on a plane. E. met us. She had arranged well in advance (because she is that way) for a car rental. But, there was no rental on record. We are all pretty tired, and a little giddy, but we manage to find the rental car receipt, only to discover that Budget Car Rental services more than one Melbourne and we had, apparently, rented our particular car at the airport in Melbourne, FLORIDA.

Regrouping... a theme of the trip... begins.

I am not going to lie to you or embellish this tale. They had more cars and we got one of them and were on our way. But, since to list anyone but a middle-aged, female as a driver would dramatically increase the rental fee, it was up to me to do all the driving on the trip. Sooooo. I IMMEDIATELY learned how to drive on the "other" side of the road. This leads to a couple of quick observations:

While at this point in my life, driving is completely intuitive, driving on the "other" side of the road is not.

I will be much more patient with ANYONE who drives slow, or tentatively... or has wet or extraordinarily clean windshields... or seems otherwise paralyzed with panic because they, too, may be learning to drive on the "other" side of the road.

Manufacturers who ship cars to Australia flip the locations of the turn signals and windshield washers on their cars (see above).

So, slowly.... we headed off to Geelong, the Aurora, Colorado (meaning a sprawling suburban bedroom commuting base for people who work in nearby cities) of Melbourne.

I can't say Geelong was that impressive, but was built on a bay where there were plenty of these:















And these:













We stopped in at local uni (Deakin University) to see where E. had been hanging out for a year.


In the uni student parking lot some guys were attempting to assist a poor helpless.... BABE... jump start her car. My son, who has been brought up to always help those in need, lept to her assistance, (although you can see in the image below that he was not alone in his eagerness to ease the troubles of a stranded driver).

The "assistance" went on for quite a while, and, I might add, it did not seem to bother any of these young men one bit that this young lady had no idea how to pop a clutch.

Honestly, if someone (not completely under a hormonally-induced sense of civic duty) had not stepped in to end this pattern of pushing the car up the hill and pushing it back down the hill, G. and probably everyone else whose asses you see in this picture would still be there.

Did I mention the young female was quite attractive?

G. has told me, with not a small degree of frustration, that this is NOT the picture he would have gotten if he had the camera. And the adventure begins....

**Phew**

See below ;)

**3:30 AM**

So, it is 9:36 EST and I am going to bed. The supercollider is set to be tested at 3:30 AM in the morning. So.... if I don't wake up ever again, I guess the whole black-hole-sucking-the-planet-in is, well, not so much a theory anymore..... So see you tomorrow?

**For Your Consideration...***

From the front page of the NY Times online edition:

Thailand's prime minister was forced to resign along with his Cabinet on Tuesday after the Constitutional Court ruled that he had violated the constitution by hosting TV cooking shows.

So that is what all those protests were about!

**Lost in Space**

Normally, when things are looking this grim, I search the job ads in Canada. But alas, no openings for next year. So instead I must do something.

Interesting fact check article on the Rep. VP candidate.... I love Alaska, but.... its not enough.

And then there's the other half of this ticket.... I will actually meet the producer of this video next week. I look forward to talking to him about this:

**Under Pressure**

Given that my promotion file is due in less than 24 hours, this seemed like a good time to update my ring tone to the classic Queen song. It was the first music video I ever saw, not that that has anything to do with anything, except maybe allowing my to digress even further from the deadline looming before me.

Looks like, given those who are able to accompany me on the "down under" adventure, the south island of New Zealand is the front runner for a week of avoiding the real world.

**Rack Up Those Frequent Flier Miles**

I just found out I get to return to Australia in November to deliver a paper to the University of Melbourne Law School. It would be one of those papers that would make my sister crazy as it will address normative issues of constitutional law, e.g. what should be as opposed to what is. But that is the liberty I get to embraced living in the ivory tower and not in the courtroom.

So, now I have to figure out what to do with a potentially free week after the conference. There are no classes the week of Thanksgiving, so I could continue traveling anywhere I wish before returning to the US of A. But without a traveling companion, it would not be fun. Need a traveling companion......

**Our summer guest**

As sometimes is the case, when one moves to a new place, others who are curious about the new digs pop in for a visit. This one, however, was not expected:

**Browsing the jobs**

It doesn't matter when I have started a position or how much I like it. I still watch the job ads. Maybe this explains why I ended up in Oregon and now NY. Both position were ads I happened upon while perusing the academic classifieds during lunch. I see today that Temple University and Southern Illinois U. have openings that would be career steps up for me. Temple is an awesome program and big, but living in the city would be hard on me. SIU is a very impressive program, but in Illinois, which is well, like when I was in Michigan. Flat.
Actually some of my old Michigan colleagues are pressing me to apply for the School's Director position - opening next year because my dear friend is retiring. Those were the best colleagues ever and the town was great for raising kids. But I don't think Michigan is my home. I also got wind that my advisor might be retiring in a year or two. Now there is a location to which I would not mind returning.... I am like a douglas fir. No depth to the roots.

**Chicago**

I am staring out the 23rd story window of my hotel room looking south down St. Clair Ave. The skyline at night is beautiful. One block over is Michigan Ave. aka the Magnificent Mile. In two minutes I could be at Neiman Marcus, Tiffanys, the Nike superstore, and the Apple store.

In a couple hours, I will start winding my way to the EL and O'Hare. Most of today, I am on a plane. I get a 6 hour layoever at home and then off to Utah. Chicago is an amazing city. I good friend of mine just landed a deans position here in the city. Very cool, but I am a country girl. I am ready to sit around waiting for Lone Star Geyser to erupt. I love how the thermal features at Yellowstone force to you to adhere to a different sense of time.

**Blink**

The lazy days of summer just evaporated before my eyes. The "endlless summer" feeling that comes in early August has morphed into Chicago conference trip next week. I managed to keep that to a 4 day trip.

But the best laid plans of laziness are cut short. Now, I return from Chicago for about six hours - enough time to repack and sleep for a couple hours. Then it is off to the Utah and Wyoming. The lure of joining my sister traveling there for a few days was irresistible. With some strategically placed phone calls, I have managed to get a cabin at Mammouth Hot Springs for two nights and a cabin at the Old Faithful geyser complex for a night.

Yeah for seeing Yellowstone again!

I will return the day I go back to a full time contract and the school year begins again.

Somewhere in the next 24 hours, I have to fire off a paper proposal to a Nov. conference in.... MELBOURNE! Looking for travel companions as I could squeeze out about 9 days of travel after the conference if anyone is willing to do emu, or kangaroo or crocodile for Thanksgiving dinner.

**Makes you wonder**

I was poking around on line this morning, procrastinating to avoid the piles of filing I need to do. I googled "Montana wildfires" to check out the fire season as all we hear about is California these days. I found the wildfire report released on Friday the 23rd. Nothing atypical except at the bottom of the report (available to the public, mind you), is a set of "talking points" for officials to use when talking to the media about Montana wildfires....

I am struck by the irony of such an effort to manipulate public perception and then, at the same time, release the document on line that discusses the agency's effort to manipulate the public perceptions.

Here are the talking points:

• When speaking with the media regarding facts:

• Use non-threatening terminology such as “precautionary evacuation” or “temporary closure”.
• When talking about size of the fire or number of acres involved use percentages rather than numbers.
• If evacuations are in place, distinguish between “voluntary evacuations” and “mandatory evacuations”
• Stress that any closures are “temporary” or “only partial closures”
• Accentuate the positive. Fire does have a natural role in ecology.

**Early Summer in NY**

It is lunchtime and I am poking around the net. I have found a live videocam of Old Faithful geyser and am watching as it is about to erupt. Skies are clear, brilliant blue. I have sat there many times watching this very scene. Wish I was there.

I am VERY slowly going through photographs taken this summer (including Australia). I found some pictures (... there goes Old Faithful....!) of the house after returning from a month of travel. When I left there were the leaves were just emerging on the trees. The bulbs were blooming and the grass was cut just before leaving (barely needed it but we wanted to try the new tractor).

This is what I cam home to:



A jungle. Beautiful, but nevertheless.

We have never had to water once this summer. We have been told it is an unusually wet summer - mostly torrential downpours each day and then nice weather around it. But everything is so lush here.... Did I mention, things grow quickly?

We decided to leave the back 4 acres or so natural and the local flora and fauna have moved in quickly. The tall grasses, conifers and maple are home to all sorts of birds. We see them at our feeders next to the porch. There are the same feeders that attracted a local bear about a month ago. Still waiting on the cell phone picture taken by a friend of E.'s when they came home and interrupted the bear's seedfest.

The field also is growing all sorts of wildflowers, wild rasberries and strawberries. We are thinking if we become survivalists, we might just be about to graze the land during the summer months and do quite well.

**On The Fence About This One**

I just read a quick review and excerpt from David Carr's new book. Carr is the media critic for the NY Times. His book is autobiographical. A memoir. To quote the beginning of the Washington Post story on the book,

David Carr's latest subject is a pathetic human being, a thug, a manipulative jerk who uses people and puts his own kids in danger. [...] He is unsparing as he rips the protective bark off his life, baring his past addictions to crack and alcohol and the utter depths to which he sank.

I am unsure how I feel about this "bares all" story. He says he did it in part to finance his daughter's college education. But there are a lot of people's lives exposes and wounds ripped open by the decision to publish this memoir. By all indications, he is harsh, but most harsh on himself. I think I am especially intrigued by how he learns his memory of events past is so completely wrong at times. Something we all should keep in mind.

I will probably read it as the excerpt suggests some fine writing. But will it just be a well written spin on a theme we have heard before? Is there nothing new in the story of redemption?

There is an except in the NYT magazine here.

It's Election Time

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"Where is the Summer Going?"

So much going on, it is hard to post, which may be why I am not. I almost don't know where to begin.

I am still sorting through the Australia pictures and a trip report is long overdue.

I have this wonderful series of pictures of a robin's nest and the eggs hatching. Haven't even downloaded those from my camera.

I am waiting for my daughter's friend to email her cell picture of the bear the two stumbled upon in our yard, feasting on the bird feeders.

Tons of stuff to write about.

I will try.

In the meantime, I perused the Chronicle of Higher Education today. CHE released a study of the best colleges and universities to work for. There were probably 20 different parameters, from compensation to retirement, to professional support, to facilities..... Consistently on the list was Stanford U. Would love to teach there someday. There is a position in my area, but I suspect, like the guys (and I do mean guys) who teach at University of Vermont and University of Colorado, I will have to wait for a retirement cause no one in their right mind would voluntarily leave those places.

I also was impressed by how often Cornell appeared on the list. Mentioned in almost every category, except work/life balance & job satisfaction. Lot's of resources and compensation, but like many ivys, high stress. University of Michigan made regular appearances. A surprising name in numerous categories: State University of New York at Buffalo. Although, it would take lots of job incentives to get someone to live there so maybe the listing does make sense.

Of course I can sit here and comment on institutions like this from the comfort of my secure position. How quickly one forgets applying for ANY job that seems remotely relevant, prepared to move just about anywhere. Well, almost anywhere, I did turn down an interview offer at the University of South Alabama in Mobile. I think the reasons are self-evident, although maybe premature as living near oil refineries might might mean cheaper gas.

I also remember a phone interview with Berry College. I though it went exceedingly well as measured by the fact my children in the background were successfully bribed with candy and never interrupted. I was confident of a campus interview, but alas it never came. I found out later that they called my references and my adviser in his enthusiasm to talk about what a hard worker I was, explained how I had progressed through all my graduate studies and research assistantships while raising two young children as a SINGLE PARENT. Check out the Berry College overview, mission and history on their website and you will get a sense why they were NOT impressed.

**Forget Mortgages, Live on a Plane**

Starting late next week, I will spend more time on planes over the course of a month than I have I feel quite sure I EVER would wish on anyone. Except maybe Bush - flying coach, of course.

I leave for Australia, and before I return to the east coast of this continent, I will have taken 11 flights. I am home for all of 36 hours and then fly on four more planes in order to get from this little town to Minneapolis. So in the course of one month, almost to the day, I will have taken 15 planes.

Without setting a foot on the first plane, I can say, with absolute certainty, I don't recommend this.

**There Be Real Signs of Spring Here**

Okay, so this image would suggest that the trees have not yet leafed out. I concede they haven't, but there are buds on bushes and daffodils are blooming. I am told the trees do leaf out before they turn fall colors.




We are in the process of building a garden. Of course that first meant tearing down the ratty mess of a fence left from the previous owners. It was functional, but an eyesore (see above shot) when trying to look at our serene landscape out the picture window with G&T's in our hands (see above shot and imagine a G&T in it). Of course the garden was home to an established planting of rhubarb... oh and a very established planting of WEEDS. Weeds by the way grow well, even in soil composed largely of the contents of the wheelbarrow below:




It did not take long to give up on the ideal of using local soil. We are putting up the beds I took from Oregon and filling them with lots of compost from a guy who stopped by our house looking for directions and just happened to have with him a truckload of shit.











And this picture is for Julie. She wanted to see the new toy. The dealer didn't give us a John Deere baseball cap. S. was disappointed to say the least. It is nice, but suffers from Kubota envy.

Note: The dog is not there willingly, but did acknowledge that S.'s lap was an improvement over when I made her ride in the cart.

**:(**

A missing freshman was found in one of the ponds on campus today. Been missing for a couple days. The pond is maybe 500 feet from my office window. Fire trucks, cherry pickers, divers and the wondering have made thinking about anything else, difficult to say the least.

Stories are circulating about possible connections string of suspicious deaths of young college men around the country over the past 11 years - 40 of them. One happened at my alma mater about 4 years ago.

The family is here from the midwest. I can't even comprehend their grief. I need to see my kids. soon.

**Across the Street**

Sometimes I wonder if I bought our house not for what is on our property but, rather, what is across the street. I feel personally responsible for its maintenance, so that downed limb will be cleaned up.



















One set of stones (not pictured here), upon careful reading, reveals that four children all died in a very short window back in the mid to late 1800s. Illness? accident? How does a parent recover from that? A lot of the stones - more likely concrete, are broken, or worn down so you can't see the information.

**End of the Semester**

**The Dawg**

Seems to finally have adjusted to NY.

**Observations on Office Pixs**

E. noted an interesting part of my office picture. I would say it pretty much sums up the yin/yang of my academic life- Buddhist prayer flags next to Post It notes.

**Sorry Ma'am, I am Here To...**

enumerate your dog. Yes, there IS a Dog Enumerator for this county. Knocked on the door. Handed us an enumeration letter. Fined us for not having a license for the dog (who made it hard to deny her existence over her incessant barking).

The remaining mystery: Who narc'd?

I do have a better sense of what the INCREDIBLY high property taxes fund in this county.

**Spring and the Office Window**

While it is the 21st of April and the trees have not yet fully leafed out, the grass IS greening and forsythias are blooming. At least in town. The view out the office window is improving with all the sunshine. I think the view of the lake will be more obscured when the trees are full of leaves. When I squint I can see sail boats on the lake. Nice.












Then there is the fact that I miss E. more and more each day. It is time for her to come home. I hung the Ecuadoran weaving she gave me. It goes nice with the Starbucks yellow on my office walls.

**Yes Everyone Else is...*

posting this, but for good reason. I watched it about 10 days ago when the story appeared in the NY Times. Best use of a lunch hour in a long time.

**Heard it on the radio**

In one of my classes, students do a mock oral argument before a mock Supreme Court. The case we just completed was an invasion of privacy suit against Playgirl magazine. The suit was filed by Jose Solano, who played a lifeguard named Manny on the show, Baywatch. The cover of Playgirl showed him in his Baywatch swim trunks. The text on the cover suggested he was nude inside.

He wasn't.

Solano, was/is apparently quite religious, and wanted to protect his image as a role model for Hispanic youth. Notable aspirations, albeit somewhat diluted when I imagine him testifying in those swim trunks.

That aside, I was amused by a recent story about how Hugo Chavez banned the Simpsons from Venezuelan television because he felt it wasn't the best program for children's moral development. In a move that will help you understand why I am writing this entry, Chavez replaced the Simpsons with......

**Frak me**

Starting watching my Tivo'd episodes of the final season of Battlestar Galactica. As gripping as ever. But now I am faced with the looming reality of the series ending. This at the same time I am about to watch the final season of The Wire. Need good TV suggestions. Now. Gotta keep Netflix busy.

**College Branding**

In an age of college admissions that is ALL about branding and creating a sense of specialness, Harvard has taken it to a level that other schools can only watch and weep:

Read and weep for yourself in this NY Times op-ed:

Teaching near to, but not exactly at, an ivy league school, I can only saw....

I bow to the master.

**Pissed**

It is one thing to have a public administrative position against abortion, but it is another to rig the most comprehensive medical database so that one can't find information, or after allowing use of the search term again, removing articles that are pro-abortion. What happened to the the principle of challenging ideas one opposes with other ideas? Mill and Milton and Justice Holmes are probably turning over in their graves.

From the NY Times:
April 5, 2008

Health Database Was Set Up to Ignore ‘Abortion’

By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON — Johns Hopkins University said Friday that it had programmed its computers to ignore the word “abortion” in searches of a large, publicly financed database of information on reproductive health after federal officials raised questions about two articles in the database. The dean of the Public Health School lifted the restrictions after learning of them.

A spokesman for the school, Timothy M. Parsons, said the restrictions were enforced starting in February.

Johns Hopkins manages the population database known as Popline with money from the Agency for International Development.

Popline is the world’s largest database on reproductive health, with more than 360,000 records and articles on family planning, fertility and sexually transmitted diseases.

Mr. Parsons said the development agency had expressed concern after finding “two articles about abortion advocacy” in the database. The articles, he said, did not fit database criteria and were removed......

For the rest of the story: click here.

**For Rosie**

**Yep, new job is a bit different**

Within a 10 day span....

Dinner with MSNBC & Today Show anchor
Dinner with CNN chief international correspondent
Dinner with former assistant to President Clinton and a television commentator/news journalist
Listening to a presentation by a NY Times columnist on Darfur.

Conclusion: I am going to need better work clothes.

** Ahhh, Spring.**

**For the First Time Since Moving In...**

The inside of the house was above 55 degrees in the morning. In fact it was 66 degrees - the highest reading every recorded on the inside thermostat.

After all this.....





























We can credit the warm house to this...