This post is for pagans only. So stop reading if you’re not pagan.
Ok, now that it’s just you and me, pagans, I have three treats for you:
1) Kids that trick or treat in Sacramento are smart.
2) Best costume since Tetris pieces.
Last week I made my third trip on I-80 from Illinois to San Francisco. This time our travelers included one person, one cat, one TV, three bikes, three computers, and various other sundries.
Here are the four major events:
(1) I wasn’t even on the road yet before I made my first mistake. During the game of musical vehicles I was playing to put my car in Odie’s garage to facilitate packing, I broke a key in the passenger side lock of Odie’s car. This was the only key within the state of Illinois at the time. It’s rightful owner was out of town, attending an Okkervil River show at the time in fact. Luckily, it was parked in an unzoned parking space with a city of Chicago parking sticker, so it was in no danger of being ticketed or towed.
(2) I had travelled no further than 100 yards from Odie’s place before making my second mistake. I picked up some cash from the Chase bank and hurried back to the car to get on the road. Apparently it was too much of a hurry because a woman ran toward my car and knocked on my window. I had left my ATM card in the machine.
(3) Once I got out of Chicago, the first day was uneventful. I had a nice conversation with a gas station cashier in Iowa about her plans to bake a wedding cake for her daughter. (That’s small town values!) The second day, however, was more exciting. Snow was expected for Wyoming. Stopping for lunch, I overheard truckers talking about how dangerous the roads were to the north. Continuing west on I-80, there were isolated spots of flurries, but no substantial accumulation. Outside Little America though an amber alert read “I-80 closed 43 miles ahead.” I stopped in Little America and tried to get some information on the storm and road conditions. After calling mom and Melissa to check the internet and the Wyoming and Utah transportation authorities, there was no indication that the road was closed. I did learn that the snow was expected to get worse later in the day, so I proceeded west, trying to get into Salt Lake City before a larger storm passed through. About 40 miles ahead, traffic did build up, the result of a huge accident, because there were a number of cars turned around and in the ditch. That must have been the reason for the road closure, not because I-80 was covered in 12 inches of snow as I feared. There were threats of more snow in Nevada the next day, but they didn’t materialize.
(4) Arrival:
And in case you don’t think we live close to the Pacific…
Odie.
By request…
A couple of thoughts before we all forget the Olympics happened. During coverage of the women’s gymnastics competition, the commentators mentioned that the Chinese gymnasts start training intensely at age 3, while the Americans don’t typically spend that amount of time in the gym until age 10.
How well did that work out? Well, the American women were in position to win the team competition until Alicia Sacramone’s stumbles on the beam and floor, allowing the Chinese to take the title. I’m sure some people will beg to differ, but I’m not sure that those seven years per athelete were necessary or even consequential in this competition.
3) Unreproducible results
2) Broken Keck clip
1) Biologists editing chemistry papers
So for those of you who were asking, no, I didn’t get scooped, and I also didn’t have to raise at anyone. Except for myself, because I didn’t realize the Keck clip was broken.
Thank you to all for your concern with this matter.
5) Unreproducible results
4) Coworker uses up reagent, doesn’t reorder
3) Glassware missing; nobody admits to borrowing
2) Broken Keck clip
1) Getting scooped
Can anyone guess which two happened to me this week?
Joe Morgan is the analyst for ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball. ESPN must consider him an expert to give him this job. His responsibilities include following baseball games and news and providing intelligent commentary. He does none of these things. Consider the following exchange from last Tuesday’s chat on ESPN.com:
Lee (NYC): Joe, thanks for taking my question. I am a Yankee fan but I have always been a huge Willie Randolph fan. I feel that Willie Randolph has nothing to do with the mess the Mets are in. Shouldn’t Omar Minaya take most of the blame? He put this team together.
Joe Morgan: He has to take his share of the blame for putting the team together, but the manager usually takes the blame first. If Willie is fired, the focus will go to the GM. If he stays, the focus will stay on him. But it would be that way in other cities too. The Mariners are way under .500, for instance, but no one is criticizing the GM, they’re looking at the manager.
I’m guessing that the average fan in Kansas City or Houston doesn’t know who the manager and GM of the Mariners are. But Joe Morgan, the top baseball analyst for ESPN, should know. He should also know that the Mariners’ GM, Bill Bavasi, was fired the day before this chat took place while the manager was not.
This is a diagram of the typical route of the CTA #174 bus from the University of Chicago to the Garfield Red Line station:
This is a diagram of the route we took last night:
The driver was clearly lost. My coworker JJ asked the driver what was happening. The driver said he missed a turn and was going to get back on course. He added that he had been driving the route all day, insinuating that JJ should sit down and mind his own business. A few minutes later, we were heading back toward campus. JJ again asked where the driver was going. He replied that he was going back to the university. My coworker then explained that he had just picked us up on campus. The driver changed his story and said that he was new to the route. Finally, he let JJ give him directions to the Red Line, and we made it there just in time to watch the train head off toward downtown.
Since I’m sure CTA doesn’t care, I will likely send this story to the IOC.
tie-5) Any of the 50 people who were standing on the trail with no intention of moving
4) The female who was rollerblading very slowly across the entire width of the trail while talking on her cell phone
3) The guy riding toward me on the far right edge on a very crowded trail and made no attempt to avoid a crash with me
2 & 1) The two guys walking toward me who were kicking a soccer ball back and forth across the trail
I saw this crazy bike outside the Art Institute. It’s sort of an art vehicle so I got the picture.
However, when I walked behing it, I discovered that it’s actually a mobile puppet show. Seen here are a penguin and a monkey.
At PuppetBike.com you can see all eight of the puppets and reserve the bike for a party. Someone out there must be organizing a party in Chicago this summer…
As I recently learned from Mental Floss, “arachibutyrophobia” is a word. According to dictionary.com it is:
noun
a fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of one’s mouth
Is this really a condition? Even if it is, does it need a specific word to describe it? This is a general problem: most phobias don’t deserve to have a term defined for them. I understand having words for the fear of heights or fear of spiders. Those are natural, evolutionary survival responses. But do we need a word for the fear of flutes (aulophobia)? Or the fear of sitting down (kathisophobia)? Defining terms for these conditions removes their irrationality. Someone who is afraid of flutes does not need validation; the person needs help, or at least the shaming that comes from saying the words, “I am afraid of flutes.”
Check out this list of phobias for hundreds of other words we don’t need. Except for scabiophobia. Let’s keep that one.