Signs you might be getting a cold:

-Your nose runs when you eat cold lettuce.

-Your nose runs when you eat pudding (also cold)

-Your nose runs from eating a doughnut

-Your nose runs when you eat anything, no matter what its temperature, period.

and Greatest

Last week was the latest. This week will be a good one. (I'm already hedging my bets that this won't be the greatest, but it will be much better than snow/rain/sleet/clouds/snow and lots of work as so many of my recent weeks have been.)

-Finished the book by Clarence Thomas; I highly recommend it.

-I may have lost the office NCAA March Madness pool (eh, Memphis! How you kill me with your pitiful and pitiable free throw shooting), but at least I came in second place. I won my lunch money back.

-It's supposed to be 70° today! (Yes, 70°!!!) And the sun is shining simultaneously.

-I started reading books I should've read in high school but never did. Up now, F. Scott Fitzgerald.

-I got off work ON TIME last night...and then promptly got stuck in traffic the whole way home. It's amazing how a few months of leaving work late most evenings causes one to forget what rush hour traffic is like.

-I'm no longer a C&E violinist. I actually am playing in the church orchestra again this Sunday (and it's not Christmas or Easter! A first this season!).

-Our rowing season starts in a few weeks. The disadvantages of working so much is the lack of working out. There is light at the end of the tunnel, though, and I have started back up, albeit rather slowly. I am still quite afraid that I will die the first few weeks of practice, with the most likely cause being having left a lung out there somewhere on the river.

The Eating Spectrum

Toothpastefordinner.com

the Latest

-I'm currently winning the NCAA March Madness office pool. I have both teams in the championship game. I need Memphis to win tonight to win, or else I'm stuck with 2d place. Never before this year did I think I'd be cheering for the Memphis Tigers...

-I'm reading My Grandfather's Son by Clarence Thomas. It's very good thus far (I'm about half way through it).

-A couple months ago I taught myself to knit with four needles (no seams!), and have to admit I'm enjoying it immensely - it's even more fun than all the two-needle projects I've done over the years. It's soothing to start a new project, and then about halfway through it, I just want to be done with it, and impatiently knit faster and faster until it's complete. (Baby projects for friends are preferable since they're so small.)

-I did my taxes this weekend. I really do not enjoy doing them, and despise having to send in even a small amount to the feds...

-It snowed again on my way to work this morning. I'm so over the snow. Begone already!

Quote of the Moment

"There was a time when an apple a day kept the doctor away, but now it's malpractice insurance." -Dr. Laurence J. Peter

Happy Easter!

My song is love unknown,
My Savior’s love to me;
Love to the loveless shown,
That they might lovely be.
O who am I, that for my sake
My Lord should take frail flesh and die?

He came from His blest throne
Salvation to bestow;
But men made strange, and none
The longed-for Christ would know:
But O! my Friend, my Friend indeed,
Who at my need His life did spend.

Sometimes they strew His way,
And His sweet praises sing;
Resounding all the day
Hosannas to their King:
Then “Crucify!” is all their breath,
And for His death they thirst and cry.

Why, what hath my Lord done?
What makes this rage and spite?
He made the lame to run,
He gave the blind their sight,
Sweet injuries! Yet they at these
Themselves displease, and ’gainst Him rise.

They rise and needs will have
My dear Lord made away;
A murderer they save,
The Prince of life they slay,
Yet cheerful He to suffering goes,
That He His foes from thence might free.

In life, no house, no home
My Lord on earth might have;
In death no friendly tomb
But what a stranger gave.
What may I say? Heav’n was His home;
But mine the tomb wherein He lay.

Here might I stay and sing,
No story so divine;
Never was love, dear King!
Never was grief like Thine.
This is my Friend, in Whose sweet praise
I all my days could gladly spend.

Lyrics: Samuel Crossman (1624-1683), The Young Man's Meditation, 1664
Score: John N. Ireland (1879-1962), 1918

It's Easter weekend?

You would never know, looking out at my parents' backyard this afternoon:

It's not really stopped snowing since, oh, sometime in the wee hours of Friday morning.

Maybe it'll stop soon...

My New Favorite Blog

Pictures of Failure. My favorite so far is the "Spare Wheel Fail," which looks like the guy stole a wheel off a shopping cart and threw it on the ol' VW.

Homeschoolers v. those public kids

As I noted previously, I spoke to a group of homeschoolers a while back. I am happy to announce that homeschoolers are way cooler and far more polite than their publicly-educated counterparts.

Since I spoke to the group, thank you notes have been trickling in from the students. The ultimate thank you note came in today - a hand-crafted card that obviously took time and effort. When I showed these off to a co-worker (our education researcher, no less), I pointed out that not only would public school students not write thank you notes, they would not be spelled correctly, use proper grammar and punctuation, or be signed legibly (with cursive!).

Moments like these make me proud to have been homeschooled.

ET has been caught making meth in Arkansas.

Skyway Golf Tourney

This was my fun and entertainment about a week ago. Turns out I know one of the architects who helped design the crowd-winner hole: the hybrid golf/pinball hole. I heard they took it back to their office and reassembled it so they can play with it at work. Video courtesy of James Lileks at buzz.mn.

Deceptive Sun

it's March now. (You've probably noticed that already and needn't be told.)

I love all the sunshine, but find it rather deceptive. I hate getting up on a sunny morning, and walking outside without gloves on or coat buttoned and finding it a mere 12 degrees outside. It just seems wrong.

However, it's barely March, and it's Minnesota, so I should know better and expect nothing less.