Tacking a 4-5-day visit to England onto our Sweden trip this year. Hoping in June to take a drive around the countryside and geocache in between bed & breakfasts. Now investigating potential 3-day loops from London that might also be fun for a 3-year-old. Suggestions welcome!

I was just leafing through some old (old!) schoolwork, and found some theses from composition class, circa 1993. I don't even remember writing this particular paper, and my fingers itch to improve deficiencies my 37-year-old eyes detect today, but I'm sure pleased to see that I was open-minded and progressive at the tender age of 17 ( Read more... )

The other day at work I had a bizarre experience. Our library barcodes contain 14 digits, the last two of which can be anything from 00 to 99, I was checking the last two digits for accuracy while processing some items when I encountered the following sequence:

• XXXXXXXXXXXX22
• XXXXXXXXXXXX22
• XXXXXXXXXXXX52
• XXXXXXXXXXXX52
• XXXXXXXXXXXX42

This evening during the car ride home, Kajsa and I were talking about her upcoming birthday.

Kajsa: "I'm going to be three. Then four, then five, then six, seven, eight, nine, TEN! Then I'm a grown-up."

About a month ago while looking at a piano we were interested in purchasing from a friend, we noticed how sweet and cute her cat was. It planted a little seed of an idea, which has since grown much bigger -- so big that as of next Tuesday we will be proud parents of two little kittens ( Read more... )

...until Beaver Camp!

My annual scrapbooking retreat. 4 days away from home. No responsibilities!

I close my eyes and sigh in anticipation.

Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America

Highlighted passages (I took notes):

Deny the science, or pretend the problems don’t exist.

In an age when most major public policy challenges revolve around science, less than 2 percent of congresspersons have professional backgrounds in it.

It’s little wonder we have more rhetoric than fact in ( Read more... )

Unlike several states who are having votes to legalize it, on the ballot here in Minnesota this November is a measure to add a permanent government ban on marriage for same-sex couples. You see, it's already not legal -- they just want to make it MORE not legal ( Read more... )

We’ve all read stories about women of a “normal” weight endangering their health because the image they see when they look in the mirror is not that of a thin person. To observers who aren’t anorexic or don’t otherwise have an eating or body image disorder, this seems totally crazy. We think, “How can they not see that they are not fat at all ( Read more... )

It came to me one day that many issues that conservatives feel most passionate about seem to be motivated by fear. I did some Googling, and it turns out I'm not the only one to whom that thought has occurred. It's some interesting research and, external influences notwithstanding, could suggest that one some level we may be biologically predisposed ( Read more... )