Few and Proud

Today in 1985 (don't you DARE do the math) I graduated Marine boot camp at Paris Island South Carolina. I have pictures but no scanner right now so you'll have to wait till next year to see em.

Old friends

Reading Isaac Asimov is like talking with an old friend. A very freakin' smart old friend.



(ok hands up who gets the picture??)

Random things

Ok so profgrrrrl did this and it was pretty cool so what the heck I figured I would too. The deal is that you write 6 totally random things about yourself. There are some other rules too but this is the internet and we don't need the MAN'S rules.
Ok six random things
1) If I can help it at all I don't walk into dark rooms I'll feel around the wall for the light switch before walking in.
2) If I had it to do over I might be a lunar geologist.
3) Yes Archeogrrrrl I pretended to like U2 way more than I do to get you to like me when we were dating. (actually it was a little more than "get her to like me" but this is a g rated blog)
4) I am so not gay but if I was... Daniel Craig
5) Speaking of Bond. I want to be Sean Connery when I grow up.
6) I feel like I should like baseball: the statistics, the tradition, the stately pace. But every time I try to watch it the stately pace puts me to sleep.

Working it

It's been a rough week here. I'm working on getting my head back straight. Meanwhile here's some paleo porn.

I am so not hip

... as evidenced by the fact that I use the word "hip"
but also this from the incomparable profgrrrl in the comments.

... Turns out you kids WERE up to something, and it wasn't taphonomy either.

what the?....

Ok I can understand a grocery store selling ping pong balls (I guess), and beer no problem. But in the same aisle?? And it wasn't some random thing, there were two distinct ping pong displays in the beer aisle.


Have you kids figured out something having to do with ping pong balls and beer? (Other than playing ping pong drunk because I've done that and it was.... underwhelming)

... once more with feeling

Ok I've just emerged from another blogging crisis. My blogging crises have two parts 1) why would anyone bother to read what I write and 2) if I had "real" content it might be more wortwhile. Problem is, real content tends to be time consuming. Right now with two publications waiting at the door, a lab manual to finish writing, an online class to develp and a book publisher waiting for material blogging with very few people reading seems a bit less important. But I do want to build this blog into something and that requires effort.
So the new model: more content, real content but in shorter posts.

if you blog it they will come...

Ok I came in this morning, I unlocked the class room for my students. I unlocked my office, I went back down to the departmental office for coffee. Given this exceptionally simple sequence of events...
where the HELL are my keys?!?

Update: In the office supply store room. My across the hall colleague figured it out because she saw me with some office supplies, knew I had been in there, knew I wasn't finding them anywhere else, hadn't heard me mention the store room and so figured I had forgotten I was in there and they were in there.
Elementary Watson
I work with very smart people

.... over compensating for the previous post

I want this rifle



If I start driving a Hummer someone shoot me

Getting in touch with my feminine side

I want this bag.
If I start posting about shoes someone shoot me

Just in case

If someone out there has an extra 850 dollars laying around (yeah right)

I take a 60 cm frame
(HEY ... it's worth a try .. you never know... )

DING DONG

In case there's any one here who doesn't read profgrrrl. She's getting married so pop on over and congratulate her.

crisis

I'm having a bit of an existential blogging crisis here, namely: "why would I think that anyone really cares what I have to say". That, and I've been a bit sick lately. I think the resolution to the first problem is: even if no one else cares it's still fun to write... and I am feeling a bit better. So blogging will hopefully resume soon.

it's over.....

Graduation was today and so it ends. Blogging will resume shortly. Coming soon Uniformitarianism... yummy... tastes like chicken

fun notes

The great thing about what I do is I have all this .... stuff... in my office. Which sometimes leads to some interesting circumstances.

things to NOT sign me up for

Robotic prostate surgery
I saw a billboard for this on my way to my mom's house this weekend. There were two smiling surgeons with a machine behind them that had two ... shall we say ... metal fingers that looked poised to... um... open.

oh HELL no...

just wanted to make that clear.

ok, I'm freaked out

So I get in the elevator the other day and the phone starts to ring (the elevator's emergency phone, not my cell). I don't answer it but apparently it answers itself. There's someone on the other end saying "hello, hello" so, being the generally genial person I am I say "hello". The person on the other end asks who he's called. I tell him that he called the elevator in this building of this campus of this college. There is a long pause followed by "boy did I dial the wrong number".
You can call an elevator??? Not to be paranoid but a person could call the elevator and just not say anything and listen.
Just because I'm paranoid doesn't meant they're not out to get me.

at last our long nightmare is over.

Seriously isn't there anything more important. I mean... DAMN

anyone want to buy a television?

I won't be needing mine any more.
The Wire. The best show on television EVER is over. It ended after 5 seasons but more importantly it ended when it finished telling its story. Unlike another HBO drama (you know ... the "S" one) it didn't linger on life support for three or four seasons. If Shakespeare were alive today and writing for television he would write The Wire. I just thank god for my DVD's.

Spring Break

It's spring break so blogging's been a bit light lately. Fear not gentle readers I have plans for the coming week including an effort to drag the blog back into more G rated territory.