Aquifer and Conifer...

...The two lovely terms from my undergrad science course that I have been saving for about ten years to use as names for girls... probably not going to use them after all. Darn.

That was a really great general science course. I remember things from it almost daily. The instructor was the hugest geek possible, so I think he really knew his stuff. I especially enjoyed playing Fish Banks and Strategem, games which I intend to find an excuse to purchase for my own classes someday--to illustrate economic principles, of course.

Anyway, I've been thinking about hydrogeology again today, as one does. The information about our shrinking aquifers really stuck with me all this time, and I think subliminally informs my ideas about where I want to live eventually. Not that there is any place really safe from our water-strip-mining, but some places are already a lot worse than others (>cough< Colorado River area >cough<).

Noooo, Not a Sandra Bullock Movie!

Sometimes (rarely) my fiction ideas pop out of my dreams, quite conveniently. A few months ago I had what I thought was a really cool dream that I might place in my idea bag and eventually write up as a story.

In the dream, TheLimey and I were just meeting each other again, but it turned out that we actually lived about 50 years apart and were in separate times. That is, I could see him, and he could see me, but we couldn't see each other's surroundings, and our acquaintances couldn't see the other person. (If you see what I mean.) So we could only meet in places that existed in both times, and so forth. We also couldn't physically touch each other.

When I woke up I began thinking of a lot of the ramifications of such a relationship, and how it could be made to work, and of course weird things like: what if whoever was born first was still alive (but old) when the other was born? If we had kids (it could work, with technology!) would they be able to see both of us, unlike others around us? And so forth.

I thought it would make a great sci-fi story of the kind that I like. And before you say Somewhere in Time, please note that we were not time-traveling, but remaining in our own times. Which is the plot difference that makes it sci-fi and not just another Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court with kissing (or trying, anyway.)

But that's all blown out of the water, as now I've seen the trailer for The Dumb Stupid Lake House Dammit. My story would just seem derivative! And worse, derivative of a Sandra Bullock movie. With, I might add, Keanu Reaves to boot. Good grief.

@merican 1d0l

I hate that BS. And I am so sick of it being everywhere. I can't believe someone is spamming my blog about it, no less.

Did you hear that the number of people who voted for this dumb thing last night is nearly the same number that voted for each candidate in the last presidential election? (That should tell us something about the results of elections in general, too.)

Occasionally I have watched part of the initial program, in which they're in a mall (or whatever) and scads of random people come in to try to qualify. It's funny because of the really, really bad ones. But even those still make one cringe in embarrassment.

The Crazies

I had this one professor whose advice I always believed. Even the advice that I pooh-poohed at the time turned out to be right later, of course. So one thing that he always said worried me for a long time. He used to say something to the effect that "it's after marriage that The Crazies come out".

It doesn't matter how long you've been dating, or whether you live together, or whatever--making that commitment to make the person legally your family is the acid test of the relationship. And it usually happens right away!

This makes a lot of sense, as we've all seen those couples who've been together for seven years, get married, and are divorced within three months. There's just a different type of interaction when you're really viewing the person as family, with all those associations, good and bad.

You can often get a preview of what's ahead by viewing your own family of origin. I know every family has their thing, but my family certainly has its share of issues, I'll-tell-you-whut.

Therefore I was secretly worried for quite a while about exactly what kind of Crazies would come out if I got married. Would I suddenly turn dependent? Mean? Ravenously insecure? Depressed? Lose myself entirely? Be argumentative? Turn out to be lazy and selfish? (Okay, that one's not a big stretch.)

And this was just the potential for my side of the problem. Who knew what a completely other person would have lurking inside.

However, I have been waiting for the shoe to fall for ... oh, about nine months now, and I'm relieved to say that I really don't seem to have changed very much at all, and neither has my spouse. In fact, I would say that grad school changed me a lot more within nine months than marriage has.

Overall, so far the whole thing is a lot more easy and pleasant than you'd think, based on popular culture. I guess given my field I'm not very well-placed to see all the people who are doing just fine thanks, so I may have a skewed image from a personal viewpoint, as well.

But so far, it's really quite fun! Even just sitting around together. A lot of the time it's like having a constant sleepover. I mean, sure, we've had to work out agreements about money and so forth, but once you're in agreement about that, it doesn't seem like a big deal. Well, as long as you both follow through with the plans you make, of course. (I know that money is a big marriage-buster, if not the biggest, so that's one you really do have to hash out.)

Even after spending all this daily time together, we can still laugh ourselves sick over something silly. Oh, our kids are going to be so humiliated by us. (But they'll thank us for it later.)

Now, kids--that's another point where The Crazies come out. I guess we'll see soon enough...

Non-entry

I wrote a more or less proper post, but it hung when I tried to post it, so there it isn't.

I don't feel very bloggy lately anyway. Probably because I don't need an outlet for everything going on at once, for once.

Anyway, the image I was posting, in a nutshell:

background: captured from TV ad for allergy meds
image: added in (obviously) to show our future ideal living room

Library Versus Squirrel Librarian

Now this is just wrong (though it's somewhat old news).

(I hear that her previous infraction was caring for a baby bird on her breaks.)

Good Stuff

This is good to know:

Scientific American: Working Moms Healthier than Full-Time Homemakers

And this is just good to look at:




(If I already posted this pic before, then...I guess you're just lucky.)

The connection? Hmmm....

Well, I could make the point about the wire monkey mothers and the fur monkey mothers that this blogger has already made, but she's already made it pretty well.

The moral I get from it is, treat yourself well, thrive, and be a Fur Mummy.

It Figures

That my superhero results'd turn out just like my sister's.

Your results:
You are Superman

Superman 90% Spider-Man 90% Robin 80% Wonder Woman 77% Supergirl 72% Batman 70% Green Lantern 70% Iron Man 70% The Flash 60% Catwoman 40% Hulk 35%

You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

Maybe I Was Wrong

After hearing the Colbert roast of Bush, I wish I could remember in which class we learned about the greater number of neurons in the gut than the brain. Because I passed that on to my own students. They probably think now that not only was I wrong about that (and I still don't know if it is true or not), but that it casts doubt on my entire philosophy.

And tangentially, two organizations in which I can't participate fully for at least another year.

However, for a limited time I could be in this activity, if we held one around here. (Notice I said could, not will.) It doesn't really seem like an equal trade...

Gmail RSS feed / Web Clips

Maybe one of you has an idea. Here's a question I recently posed to an online help bloke. I can't seem to find any reason for my inability to do this, nor any discussion of anyone else having the problem anywhere on Google. (Certainly not in their help section!) What am I doing wrong?

******

Dear [web guru],

I have had a Gmail account for quite a while now, and I love its many features, including the customizable webclips. Therefore, I am in the process of converting my husband to Gmail (Oh, he'll do it, eventually).

I set up an account for him a while ago, and I recently thought it would be fun to customize his clips so when he starts using it in earnest, there will be items on Mars, robots, Italian cookery, and his wife's latest blog posts.

Now, everything works fine up to the point where I try to add the custom clips. (My blog or our friends' blogs, specifically.)

If I use the search feature, for example: "doctorlizardo", my blog feed does appear as an option to "add". But when I click "add", it says that the feed url is invalid.

I logged back into my own account and tried deleting a few of my favorite blog feeds and re-adding them. They worked fine.

But when I log back into my husband's account, I still can't get it to add those feeds, even if I search using the exact feed address (for example, http://doctorlizardo.blogspot.com/atom.xml --it just comes up nonexistent in the search.)

Now is the Time on Bloggets Vhen Ve Dance

Life is beginning to resemble an episode of Sprockets.

(I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing!)

Maybe "beginning" is the wrong term ...Now, where's my black turtleneck?

Happy May Day

If this image doesn't capture the spirit of Spring, I don't know what does.