Markus Likes to Read Instructions

We laugh about it, but every time we put him in his playpen, he angles himself so he can look at the words. So strange.

In addition to instructions, he is fascinated by lights, ceiling fans, and window blinds.

Overdue

I had a library book out that was a couple weeks overdue, but I hadn't returned it because I couldn't find it. Sami found it yesterday.

This morning I woke up early and couldn't sleep. I kept thinking that the overdue library book was giving me bad karma or something, and if I just returned it, maybe the baby would come (I'm 8 days overdue now).

So I had a nice 3.4 mi. walk to the library (photo) and back, and I even tried out the swings in the picture... they were surprisingly stress relieving. Still no baby though.

Lights Out

The wind during the past day or two has been incredible.

Around 6:30 PM, the power went out. I wasn't concerned, just lit a few candles and it looked so nice I started taking pictures.

For some reason it didn't occur to me to call the electric company and tell them our power was out. Luckily someone else must have.

Cyclamen

Sami came home around 8 and started to worry. He was afraid of being cold at night and searched everywhere for the inverter so he could power the pellet stove from the car battery.

He didn't find the inverter, but the power came back around 8:45 PM just when we were leaving the house.

Aaron's friend Veronica had a bunch of free tickets to Harvey's comedy club, so we saw a hypnotist make a group of volunteers do really stupid things. It was pretty funny, but not as good as the one we saw at University Towers.

Maples doing Laundry

Last night the temperature got down below freezing and this morning was very foggy. My walk to work was something like a dream.

This particular street is lined with maple trees every 30 feet or so. On tuesday, when I last walked down the street, most all of the trees still had their orange leaves. Today, the leaves were all laying on the ground in tidy little piles.

The first thought that came into my mind was the the trees had suddenly taken off their clothes and put them in piles to do the laundry.

Of course I know this is actually the work of groundskeepers, but the fog is just so enchanting.

My other photos from today's walk to work are: foggy morning, maple leaves on moss, sunlight breaking though the forest, curious sheep, and abacus birds.

Are you famous?

I am decidedly not famous, and that is just fine with me. However, I have discovered that my sister Becca (#271) is pictured on a table in Chapel Hill, NC.

Viviparous Mutant Tomato

It was a regular morning. I (Sami) was tired, hungry, and the coffee was still dripping. It wasn't until I had already finished my breakfast sandwich (with tomato slices on it) when I realized there was something seriously wrong about this particular tomato... It was still alive!!

Why?

Apparently store-bought tomatoes do this sometimes. I did some research on google before posting this photo. Often a mutant gene causes the seeds to start growing inside fruit. Sometimes it happens because the tomato was harvested and taken off the vine and then kept in cold storage for a long time before being purchased and eaten.

So, there you have it. And look at the number of those sprouts! I could grow a whole tomato garden with those....

Back from the Land of Excess

Yep... KBIS seems perfectly suited to Vegas (or vice versa). I'm talking about the Kitchen and Bath Industry show, the conference I went to earlier this week. I forget exactly how much area it covered, but I remember it was measured in acres rather than square feet. Over 1000 exhititors. I've never seen so much toilet flushing in my entire life. Or so much tile, or sinks, or ovens or cabinetry. Anything you could possibly think of relating to kitchens or baths was there. It was crazy. They gave us pedometers the first day we were there. I never managed to make mine work properly, but I asked someone else and they said they walked 13 miles in one day inside the convention center.

And back to the toilets... there were toilets with fish tanks in them, toilets that glowed in the dark, toilets with customizable logo lids, and toilets with double size "Big John" seats. If you wanted literature on a particular product, you just let the exhibitors scan the barcode on your namebadge. It was like we were all grocery items in some super-busy-super-size-supermarket.

Unfortunately photos weren't allowed in the showrooms, so I couldn't take pictures of the insanity indoors. Outside, I kept thinking I'll take some later, but I only managed to take a handful of photos during my three days there. Sami's camera doesn't take night pictures as well as mine. I didn't think about that when I decided to take his instead of mine. We realized on the plane ride home, that we never even took a picture of our little group from school. Oh well.

Weird Wet Week

It's been a really weird week. School (and the library) were closed again on Wednesday. I think some idiot hates their class and is really screwing it up for the rest of us. So, again I only got half a paycheck and I have no idea how we're going to learn everything we're supposed to for our estimating class. It's only 6 weeks and we missed two.

Then on Thursday, my Kitchen and Bath Planning class was supposed to meet at this house to see a kitchen that had been remodeled. There was an accident on the highway and I realized I'd be a few minutes late, so I called my instructor. She said don't worry - she'd just gotten a call from the homeowner saying the dog had to go in for emergency surgery and we wouldn't be able to do the tour.

Today I went first thing in the morning at 8:30 am to get my truck inspected so I could renew the plates and it failed the emissions test with three different errors. So I had to take it to the mechanic, the original quote was $1,4o0. I almost decided to junk the truck. Then I talked with them, "do you really really have to fix everything or is there just some way to pass the exam... " I know the truck has problems, but we don't drive it that much. Only when we need a truck. So in the end, I got it halfway fixed and passed the test for $500. I got to the DMV right at 5 pm and managed to sneak in the out door and pay for the registration, so it's finally done.

Oh, the wet part... the flowers are looking pretty good. I think most of the fruit flowers were killed off in the frosts a couple weeks ago, but i can see a few baby pears growing. We also got some volunteer chives. They're pretty, but I don't actually like to eat them. It's rained and hailed and sun-shined rained and hailed all week. Yesterday I stood just between the living room and dining room and watched it rain in the back yard and be sunny in the front yard. I couldn't believe it. Oregon is weird.

Google Says What ?? !!

Sami sent me the following forward today. His coworker Carol always sends truly funny forwards. Don't read any of the comments before trying it. They may give away the surprise.

Take 60 seconds to do this. I guarantee you will show someone else - it's too funny not to.

1. Go to www.google.com

2. Click on "maps"

3. Click on Google maps then at the top of the page click "get directions"

4. Type " New York " in the first box (the "from" box)

5. Type " London " in the second box (the "to" box) and hit search maps

6. Scroll down to step #23

I Must Be a Ninja

Excellent advertising.

If I didn't already have these, I think I'd have to buy some.

...My sister is a cow?

I'm trying to convince Becca to make her own blog. I haven't been successful yet, but I did manage to get her to set up a flickr account so she could at least share photos. This is what she posts... and yes, those are udders.

running of the bulls, originally uploaded by bekawalker.

Fish in a Tree

This was my lunchtime entertainment at work today. :)

Not a spam blog - really

Now that I'm finally well enough to start doing things worthy of posting, I can't post! Saturday, when I tried to write, I got this message:

WARNING

This blog has been locked by Blogger's spam-prevention robots. You will not be able to publish your posts, but you will be able to save them as drafts.

Save your post as a draft or click here for more about what's going on and how to get your blog unlocked.

So, of course I clicked:

Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog. (What's a spam blog?) Since you're an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive.

We received your unlock request on March 4, 2007. On behalf of the robots, we apologize for locking your non-spam blog. Please be patient while we take a look at your blog and verify that it is not spam.

Find out more about how Blogger is fighting spam blogs.

And clicked again:

What Are Spam Blogs?

As with many powerful tools, blogging services can be both used and abused. The ease of creating and updating webpages with Blogger has made it particularly prone to a form of behavior known as link spamming. Blogs engaged in this behavior are called spam blogs, and can be recognized by their irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text, along with a large number of links, usually all pointing to a single site.

So, that's it, I guess I'm "irrelevant, repetitive and nonsensical". And that was before I posted "Garden Love Rock". Oh, and I have a large number of links all pointing to one site. Yeah, uhh, that would be my photo hosting site. Of course blogger should know that though since they are set up to use that site.