Friends

... I remember making Columbus Day decorations when I was young and hanging them about the house. I was a strange child. I seem to recall my creations as having something to do with the Niña, Pinta, and the Santa Maria. I liked to repeat those names, well, repeatedly, because I liked the way they felt in the mouth.

So hey, I spent my holiday mostly scavaging in salvage yards for car parts. Salvage yards are odd places. Random car bits scattered everywhere, no apparent rhyme or reason, but always with a mysterious and cranky old guy who somehow knows where everything is - this is a salvage yard. As I was telling my brother, during one of the interminable periods of waiting as one of the limping minions apparently walked a mile or two to see whether any of their junked Aleros had the parts I wanted, salvage yards should really hire librarians to keep track of their parts. After all, one of the main things we're good at is putting things away in an organized fashion and then being able to find them again.

I was mainly looking for a rim, which wasn't even one of the things damaged in the accident. But now that Galahad is off at the shop getting all fixed up, I felt like fixing everything, and I had a rim with a couple chunks missing. (This was Not My Fault. My dad did it!) Paying $200+ for a new rim seemed a little excessive, so I went on a scavenger hunt instead. Unfortunately for me, normal Aleros have five-spoke rims, and I'm one of the lucky elite to have a six-spoker.  No, really, that's what they called it. I laughed too. That's what I get for buying the fancy version of the Alero, I guess.

So they're ordering one from some other salvage yard and I'll have to pick it up later this week. Which brings to mind a perplexing question: how do they ship auto parts, particularly large ones like that, and why did I only have to pay $7.50 in shipping?

[Edited for random adult brain-freeze moments]

Current Mood:

amused

kiwiria

I've bolded the ones I've read, struckthrough the ones I didn't like, and italizised ones know I would like to read .

What I want to know, though, is what is the list and who draws it up? And why did so many Picoult books get on it? *confusion*

( the list )

Current Mood:

curious

I am thinking about the word 'cold' as in Cold
Spring, the town on the Hudson River which is in
photos today and yesterday, and how for me the
association of cold in this place name is bracing,
and of how Yeats used 'cold' as a term of high praise
and of course in his epitaph wrote 'cast a cold eye...'
and then of Cold Mountain (the Chinese poet, Hanshan
or Kanzan in Japanese ,whose name, a pen-name, is
Cold Mountain. for me Kanzan has more the sound of
cold than Hanshan so let us call him Kanzan). Kanzan
was a man who left behind his life and went into
the mountains, religious but like Kabir in this perhaps,
one cannot really say of what practice. It could seem
he both was and was not Buddhist or Taoist.
So let's have a few of these here as we look at the
sunset over Storm King, seen from Cold Spring
if you will click to the right here.( Read more... )
So today these from Cold Mountain and Cold Spring
and as always I invite all your response on these or on
anything else at all, yours
+Seraphim
.
Sunset from Cold Spring

"There are people who are particularly good at the doubting game--
who can always sense a contradiction or lapse of logic even if
it is very hidden. It would seem they have a very fine, very
highly developed, doubting muscle. We see the same thing with
the believing game: some individuals are particularly good at
being many people, being a chameleon, seeing the truth in very
different and contradictory propositions or perceptions, making
metaphors and building novel models."
Writing without teachers. Peter Elbow.

This rings true doesn't it?
As always of course the opposites complete each other. unbalanced
in a person when not so completing.
Well I hope you may have found something of interest in our pictures
and as always I invite all your response on these or on anything
else at all, yours
+Seraphim
.
The Half Moon replica on the river yesterday.

But this is my formal Ciao! for now. I'll talk y'all in a week! If anything momentous happens, leave me a comment here, and I'll skip over to your journal and read it when I get back.

ruthette

Hmmm ...

http://www.tsgnet.com/pres.php?id=46832&altf=Xjoojf&altl=uif1Qppi

a note on it if you will, perhaps after seeing
the video, click here ( Read more... )
Today this...
I will be spending the day on a bit of an
excursion up the Hudson to Cold Spring,
but invite all your response as always and am yours
+Seraphim
.
a moment from the video.

rimrunner

McCain's hyperbole about Obama's wasteful spending is debunked by the Adler Planetarium (my emphasis in bold):

STATEMENT ABOUT SENATOR JOHN McCAIN’S COMMENTS AT THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

Last night, during the presidential debate in Nashville, Tennessee, Senator John McCain
made the following statement:

McCain: “While we were working to eliminate these pork barrel earmarks he (Senator
Obama) voted for nearly $1 billion in pork barrel earmark projects. Including $3 million for
an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois. My friends, do we need to spend
that kind of money?”

To clarify, the Adler Planetarium requested federal support – which was not funded – to
replace the projector in its historic Sky Theater, the first planetarium theater in the
Western Hemisphere. The Adler’s Zeiss Mark VI projector – not an overhead projector – is
the instrument that re-creates the night sky in a dome theater, the quintessential
planetarium experience. The Adler’s projector is nearly 40 years old and is no longer
supported with parts or service by the manufacturer. It is only the second planetarium
projector in the Adler’s 78 years of operation.

Science literacy is an urgent issue in the United States. To remain competitive and ensure
national security, it is vital that we educate and inspire the next generation of explorers to
pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math.

Senator McCain’s statements about the Adler Planetarium’s request for federal support do
not accurately reflect the museum's legislative history or relationship with Senator Obama.
The Adler has approached the Illinois Congressional delegation the last few years for federal
assistance with various initiatives. These have included museum exhibitions, equipment and
educational programs we offer to area schools, including the Chicago Public Schools.

We have made requests to Senators Durbin and Obama, as well as to 6 area Congressmen
from both political parties. We are grateful that all of the Members we have approached,
including Senator Obama, have deemed our activities worthy of their support, and have
made appropriations requests on our behalf, as they have for many worthy Illinois nonprofit
organizations.

As a result of the hard work of our bipartisan congressional delegation, the Adler has been
fortunate to receive a few federal appropriations the past couple of years.

However, the Adler has never received an earmark as a result of Senator Obama's efforts. This is clearly evidenced by recent transparency laws implemented by the Congress, which have resulted in the names of all requesting Members being listed next to every earmark in the reports that accompany appropriations bills.

October 8, 2008

(Article over at MSNBC.com, too.)

Wasn't sure I'd make it to this point, but here I am and it is Nice.

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/ideas-commentary/looney-tombs

Yesterday he came down and remarked that it was the anniversary of the wreck of the Maine. He explained that he knew it because the ship had been blown up on his birthday and that he was 15 yesterday.

At once the girls began to tease him. They told him that on such an occasion he desereved a kiss, and every one of them vowed that as soon as office hours were over she would kiss him once for every year that he had lived. He laughingly declared that not a girl should get near him, and was teased about it all day.

As 4:30 o'clock came, and the boy's work was over, the girls made a rush for him. They tried to hem him in, and he tried to break their line. Suddenly he reeled and fell, crying as he did so.

"I'm stabbed!"

I read the NYT article and noticed it was published on my birthday, the day after his ill-fated attempt to escape deadly kisses, which were offered to him in honor of his birthday.
This is one of my Favorite Stories Ever.

ADDENDUM: Clumsy early 20th century syntax led me to believe that he was born on 14 February, which adds so much more to the story. Let's remember it that way.

(via cartoon brew)

Now, Lt. Jensen is being told to get an irrigation system and landscaping on his property as soon as possible or face legal action from the Oak Hill Country Estates Homeowners' Association.

"I really don't give a [expletive] where he is or what his problem is," said Chick Edwards, owner and developer of the 47-lot subdivision at the south end of Oak Street in Kennewick.

"It doesn't matter to me," said Edwards, who insists Jensen has violated terms of the homeowners-association covenants requiring that landscaping be completed within one year after an occupancy permit is issued for a home.

"[Jensen] doesn't have the right to walk away from his obligation," said Edwards, who as the developer is the only member of the homeowners association. "I have most of the property still, so I am the homeowners association," he said.

There may be a hitch here, Mr. Homeowner's Association: the Servicemember Civil Relief Act, which has a useful provision you might want to know about:

(1) PROTECTION AFTER ENTERING MILITARY SERVICE- After a servicemember enters military service, a contract by the servicemember for--

(A) the purchase of real or personal property (including a motor vehicle); or

(B) the lease or bailment of such property, may not be rescinded or terminated for a breach of terms of the contract occurring before or during that person's military service, nor may the property be repossessed for such breach without a court order.

Just a suggestion: if you're hauled into court for violating the act, "L'etat c'est moi" isn't that impressive a defense. It merely means that the judge has a simple process to stop, and only one place to go.

UPDATE: Courtesy of pithhelmet in comments below, the rest of the story, including an attempt at shamefaced denial of his actions by our one-man homeowner's association, and an outpouring of neighborliness and community spirit. Problem solved, and with fewer lawyers, than usually the case: I'm impressed with the community. Read the whole thing.

Current Location:	Santa Monica
Current Mood:	annoyed

Not so much a cure therefore as - we hope - a permanent reprieve. We hope it will come quickly, and be affordable.

In the meantime we hope for Aricept, which is not a cure but acts as a line of sandbags against the rising tide of unknowing. However, it is available free only to those in the moderate stages of the disease: others must pay £1,000 a year, which I do.

Eligibility is determined by the MMSE questionnaire test, and it would be so easy for a patient in the mild stage to cheat their score into the free zone that I take my hat off to
those too proud or responsible to do so. I cough up.

...Alzheimer’s is me unwinding, losing trust in myself, a butt of my own jokes and on bad days capable of playing hunt the slipper by myself and losing.
You can’t battle it, you can’t be a plucky ‘survivor’. It just steals you from yourself.