Solonor's Inkwell

Just got home from sunny Vermont, and it was beautiful. Not only that, but the client I went to visit makes their own maple syrup to sell in their stores, and they gave me a 32 oz jug of it. Yay! Schmoke und a pancake?

Note for any pilots out there: If your passengers have been sitting on the Philly taxiway for 50 minutes, don’t bother telling them that you’ve finally been assigned the 9th takeoff position….’cuz some of them can still do math…”lessee…9 times 5 minutes per plane (if we’re lucky) equals…WTF???”

Sadly, I don’t get there until late tonight, will be getting up wicked early for an all day meeting, and am leaving tomorrow night. So, no sampling of the Vermont wares. 🙁

We have company. There’s a big, fat hole in our front yard indicating the presence of a gopher tortoise (plus, our neighbor across the street saw it digging its burrow).

Guess what? Gopher tortoises are a protected species! You can’t just cover up their hole and hope they’ll go away (I tried that before I knew). You have to either live with it or go through a long process of permits and stuff to get permission (maybe) to trap and move it. So, until further notice, I have to watch out for this big, probably snake-infested, hole in yard.

Most of the gopher tortoise’s life is spent in and around the burrow. The gopher tortoise establishes a well-defined home range which increases in size as the tortoise grows older and larger. For refuge the tortoises dig burrows which average around 5 to 1O feet in depth and may be 1O to 2O feet (or more) in length. The burrow becomes a more or less permanent home although there may be alternate burrows in the area. Several other species may also share gopher tortoise burrows. Some commonly known burrow asssociates include the eastern indigo snake, the eastern diamondback rattlesnake, and the gopher frog.

I love Florida.

The slide show I made from Pepperkat’s VBS pictures was a hit at church Sunday. Well, that was fun. Now, it’s back to real life. We did take one, last fling at laziness this weekend, though.

On Friday night, we went out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary. It was number 20 this year, so I’m starting to think this marriage might work out after all. We exchanged sappy cards, and I gave her a rose and some beef jerky. Then we went to a Spanish restaurant and then to see A Prairie Home Companion.

Speaking of which, what a delightful movie. Not much of a plot, and definitely not for the Lindsey Lohan crowd (unless, of course, their parents make them sit and listen to the radio every Saturday night as all good parents should), but I loved it. I especially liked the Woody Harrelson/John C. Reilly duet called “Bad Jokes” (of course). So, if you’re a PHC fan or a Kevin Kline fan or a Meryl Streep fan or someone with whom I’d ever want to have a meaningful conversation, get thee hence, if thou hasn’t already hence be got.

What else did we do this weekend? Nothing!

I fooled around on the computer for most of it, while the rest of the clan watched Mrs. Henderson Presents, Transamerica, and the new version of The Omen. I did break away long enough to watch the season finale of Doctor Who, naturally.

That’s about it, really. Summer continues.

This is what I’ve been doing all week. That’s Harold the Monkey. He steers the ship. We also have Rainbow the Lazy Parrot (our lookout), Sam the 7-foot tall invisible Seagull (our cook), and Harry the Miniature Wonder Horse (‘cuz we were going up the Mississippi River and needed a little horse…power…yeah, that was the same groan I got when I said it to the kids, shut up).

And this is what 60 kids from pre-K to 5th grade will do to you.

Ever since I got back from my 2 weeks in Boston and Nashville, it’s been non-stop un-blogging. I’d like to say that I’ve been busy with my new record deal or on world tour, but actually it’s just summertime.

Last week, I spent most of the time playing around with the new version of our baseball sim, and the weekend was centered around goofing off and Venita’s birthday.

This week, I am putting on a skipper’s hat and teaching vacation bible school in the morning (Peperkat is my Gilligan), and goofing off in the afternoon. Pictures of one or more of these activities may follow.

Life’s rough.

So, anyway, all you get for content is a bunch of links I ganked from other people. Most were passed to me by Sgt. Grump. The rest are from various unsuspecting bloggers. Enjoy!!

Don’t Try This At Home – No more kids chemistry sets and no more chemistry experiments in school. How sad.

Philosopher, Scientist, Farmer Crack Chicken-Egg Question

Websites as graphs (not sure what it means, but it’s purty)

The Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas recreated with Diet Coke and Mentos

The Mentos experiment on a human (via Cablman)

Misspelled Movie Titles (via Sarcasmo) – My favorites are “Dismember the Titans” and “The 40-Year Old Virgil”.

Oh, and Happy “Number of the Beast” Day!!

What? What do you mean it was 5 days ago? (or 5 months ago, if you’re from Europe)??? Doh!!