Giddyup

I'm making one last, awful push to be done with this semester. It will all be over by midnight on Tuesday! In the meantime, I want you all to read this article (at least read the first page), and discuss among yourselves until I get back. Carry on.

Quick Update

I only have time for a quick update - the Police concert was great! Aside from getting drenched on the way in. I may be going again tonight, we'll have to see how things shake out.

If there are any White Stripes or Sonic Youth fans out there, there are some concerts you can download here and here. And Elvis too! I only mention this now because these things don't stay posted very long. The bad part is you have to download each track separately.

More later, for now "I has homewerk".

SPC - My Environment 4

I don't really have anything clever to say about this. It pretty much speaks for itself anyway.



To see what others are doing, click here.

Bird (on my) Brain

Yesterday I finished my homework early (if 6 PM is early) and then went out with my camera to take some pictures of bees. Like these next few photos:

It was really windy, making it difficult to get lots of bee shots, so I wandered a bit farther afield.

Raccoon tracks?

I was taking some photos of some flowers when I looked up, and saw my current bird crush, a painted bunting! I took tons of photos. I realize the quality isn't the greatest. But he was relatively far away and I need a better lens. Now that I know where he hangs out, I hope to get some more photos at some point.

And then I went home and made fried okra. All in all, a good day!

The Halfway Mark

OK, I have to write this quickly or I will lapse into lazyland, and I just can’t afford that right now.

School suuuuuuuuuuucccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkksssssssss. It’s just nonstop, there’s no time to catch a real breather. Although actually today I don’t have anything due. But I have to work ahead or tomorrow will be bad. One of my classes is management, which for me is a real snoozefest. I’m only taking it because I have to. I have no interest in being a manager – it’s just too much BS for me. I don’t want to “motivate” people. Last Saturday I had to go “observe” a manager at the local library and then write a paper about it.

My other class is abstracting and indexing, which I’m finding kind of interesting. I guess I never really thought about it before, but a lot of work goes into creating an index. We’ve had to create indexes for a journal article, some book chapters, and next are ones for images and music. Those last two sound kind of difficult.

I guess I’m about halfway done with the semester. It kind of depresses me that it’s only halfway.

And oh yeah, I thought this story was really bizarre. Be careful on those beaches, people!

What's Up Doc?

On the Saturday before school started I was lounging around in my backyard. Had a few visitors.

Daddy cardinal

Mama cardinal has a tasty bug for baby.

Baby cardinal

Damn, look at all this grass!

How could I resist: I'm in ur yard eatin ur gras.

Looks kinda like a kangaroo.

Aww, look, he thinks he's people!

This was almost the coolest picture EVER!

OK, these two photos aren't the greatest, but this little booger wouldn't cooperate. I was very excited though, because this is a painted bunting. I think they're the prettiest bird in the U.S. See a much better photo here. Or here.

SPC - My Environment 2

Unfortunately, this is my current environment. I am in the process of taking 2 courses towards my masters degree in the first 5 week session of the summer semester. It's pretty intense. They are both online courses, so I'm spending lots of time finding readings online, posting to the message boards, participating in chats, submitting assignments. One of my textbooks is even online, and I have to read it at the computer, I can't copy the text to read later. So I feel chained to the computer sometimes.

This photo is pretty bad. The lighting is awful, it's drab, it managed to catch a corner of my room that has absolutely no wall adornment. But somehow all this seems appropriate. As far as my relative state of undress? Well, if all you're going to do all day is sit in front of the computer reading, why bother with more than underwear? Plus it's starting to get hot around here.

To see other peoples' environments, click here.

Sunrise and a Breather

This is the first night since last Thursday that I haven't had any homework due. Things have kind of settled into a groove a little bit, I'm trying to stay just a little bit ahead of the homework.

It's a good thing I answered that question in my last post - today somebody from France visited after performing a search for "baby ate soil". I hope they found the answer they were looking for.

Here are a few sunrise shots I managed to sneak in last week. These were taken on two different days. Hope you all are doing OK!

Ask JC

The schoolwork is coming out rather reluctantly today. But it needs to start flowing better because I have 2 things due tonight. So I'll keep this short.

From time to time I get people coming here via strange queries. Queries that have nothing to do with this blog. So sometimes I like to help these people out by answering their questions.

The question: What would happen if you ate soil?
The answer: You would poop dirt.

Glug, Glug

Just a quick update - I'm drowning. Drowning in information, that is. I'm taking two classes at the same time running until July 6th. I have assignments due about every other day, sometimes there is only 1 day in between. So I'm not being antisocial, I just literally don't have time to do anything else besides read and do homework. Other than when I'm eating breakfast and sometimes when I'm eating dinner, I have watched no TV whatsoever since Monday. It's going to be a rough month, but it's for a good cause. I'll try to check in on your blogs when I have a spare moment!

SPC - Environment 1

This is a photo of my hand about to pull a large weed in my yard. This time of year, the environment of my yard means a battle with weeds. Especially this year because it's already rained more here year-to-date than it did for the entire year in 2005. It's making the weeds grow like, well, weeds.

I love having a yard, but I wish we were allowed to have more environmentally-friendly ones. The "perfect" turf grass yard is an outdated paradigm, it wastes a lot of water and results in lots of people using harmful fertilizers to keep the yard looking nice. Unfortunately the pesky homeowners association even dictates what type of grass we're supposed to have! Maybe that will change someday.





To see some other environments, click here.

Hey, You Guys Want to Play Baseball?*

Ruh roh. Summer term started today. I'm taking 2 classes in the first 5 week term and none in the second. The amount of reading for these classes is insane. This isn't going to be fun at all. I don't think I'm going to be around much until July.

This post was in the pipeline:

You guys probably don't give a crud about sports, but I still do somewhat. Even though the past year has been a giant kick to the sports nuts of the DFW sports fan. Mavs blow a 2 game lead in the finals last year to lose to Miami, get butts kicked in first round this year. Cowboys lose playoff game due to a bobbled snap on an extra point. Rangers are the worst team in baseball. There's always next year, right?

On Memorial Day weekend I saw the Rangers play the Red Sox. Took a few pics.

Hey man, you got a quarter?

Best name in baseball? Coco Crisp.


Sammy Sofa

Third base? That way.

Freakin' spider, I'll squish you good!

I wish I knew how to quit you.

Hey now!

A swing and a miss.

Manny needs a smaller belt.

Hey, you think that guy stuffs his jock?

Hell yeah I can do The Robot!

Ptooey.

This is Manny after he hit a triple. Check out the look on that kid's face!

It's 5 bucks if you just want to see it. 10 bucks if you want to touch it.

Oh my god, I'm only getting paid 5 bucks to run around in a dot suit! Kill me.

Whoops.

* Bonus point if you know the movie in which the post title is quoted.