I'm done!

1702 hours.

What have I done in July? If you recall, about a month ago a large chunk of the east coast was under water. Ever since the roads opened, my crew and I have been doing flood clean-up in nearby towns Sidney and Walton. Mostly shoveling mud out of basements and carrying warped and waterlogged things out to the curb into somewhat menacing piles. This ( Read more... )

Ever misuse a word, accidently or purposefully, in conversation with someone only to later overhear him misuse the same word in the same way you did?

People are such fakers.

Gathered from the wik:

Philip Henry Gosse, a 19th century naturalist, attempting to reconcile the conflicting takes on the earth's age (Biblical and geological) posited that God created the world AS IF the teachings of geology were true.

Gosse, however, pointed out that life ran in cycles: birth and death and birth again; rain to river to ocean to ( Read more... )

The other week, as I potted hundreds of seedlings of various tree species for the DEP (a job that was later finished by inmates), I contemplated the engineering of trees.

If you look at a tree as a machine, you'll find something close to perfection, in my estimation. It's compact, efficient, simple. It can synthesize sunlight into a chemical energy ( Read more... )

My blood pressure is 119 over 65.

"That's quite an armband you've got there. What does SIMUVAC mean? Sounds important ( Read more... )

I don't want to birth a fish-human, because everyone will want to see what it tastes like.

- Jill, 2/15/06

We weren't even talking about fish-humans.

Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.  I'm recommending this book to everyone. It consists of the author's reflections on being a mail pilot in the 1920s and 30s. His language is lyrical, his images keen and his insights sublime. More than that, it's a book that heightens your senses and makes you glad to be alive.

( An Excerpt )

Here we go:

1. The Spanish Tragedy - Thomas Kyd
2. Tamberlaine the Great Part I - Christopher Marlowe
3. The Known World - Edward P. Jones
4. Dracula - Bram Stoker
5. Blue Like Jazz - Donald Miller
6. A Passage to India - E.M. Forester
7. Burmese Days - George Orwell
8. The Day Room - Don Delillo
9. The Return of the Soldier - Rebecca West
10. ( Read more... )