Kevin's Watch

aliantha wrote:I guess I'm firmly entrenched in US car culture, because the first question that comes to mind about No Movement day is: if people can't drive, how can they get to the polls?

I know, right? People did complain to me that because of the zones, they would have had to walk very far, and of course, they didn't. This is just a very messed-up country in general.

My personal favorite summer-camp song was "The Titanic Song":

Oh, they built the ship Titanic to sail the ocean blue
And the people said that the water would ne'er leak through
But the Lord's almighty hand said the ship would never land
It was sad when the great ship went down (glug, glug)

Chorus (It is important to clap and sing this very enthusiastically!):
It was sad, so sad, it was sad, so sad
It was sad when the great ship went down
to the bottom of the (husbands and wives little children lost their lives)
It was sad when the great ship went down (glug glug)

Oh, the captain stood on deck with a tear in his eye
For the rich refused to cooperate with the poor
So he sent them down below, where they'd be the first to go!
It was sad when the great ship went down (glug, glug)

Oh, the band stood on deck playing "Nearer My God To Thee"
And the ice did crack, but the ship would ne'er go free
And the little children cried as the water rushed inside.
It was sad when the great ship went down (glug, glug)

O, the moral of this story as you can plainly see
Is to wear a life preserver if you go out to sea
The Titanic never made it across the ocean blue
It was sad when the great ship went down (glug, glug)

So they built another ship called the SS Mary Lou
And the people said that the water would ne'er leak through
And they filled it up with BEER! And it sank right off the pier
It was sad when the great ship went down (glug, glug)

deer, this is what I heard in my head on reading that

'39 Queen

I wonder if anyone can tell how old that camp song is - haven't seen anything precise on that. Also found lots of text variations and many different clips with people singing it on YouTube, does sound to me somewhat like '39.

Well, it must have been written after April 1912!

How about John Brown's Body? Tune better known as "Battle Hymn of the Republic" I think, as sung by Elvis with "Hush little baby don't you cry". We sang a version that included - body lies mouldering in the grave, jumped ??000 feet (can't remember the exact number now) without a parachute, scraped him off the runway like a dollop of strawberry jam etc. etc. These were not the original words! JB was apparently an abolitionist, and the song was sung by Unionists during the Civil War, so 1865 ish. The tune is older. So how come I was singing this at school camp in the 1960s? How come the tune has become so popular so that most people know it? I've even heard "Stop the bus we want a wee-wee"!

Wikipedia has an interesting history of the song.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown's_Body#John_Brown.27s_Body_.28a_number_of_versions_closely_similar_to_this_published_in_1861.29

Effaeldm wrote:'39 Queen

One of my favorite Queen songs.
Brian May is a genius.

There appear to be a number of versions on YouTube, including one sung in a bathroom by Ellen DeGeneres. The internet is too slow (or I lack patience to wait) to find the "right" one, but '39 is certainly the right attitude for the Titanic song!!

Of course there are:
John Jacob Jingleheimerschmidt (his name is my name too)
Sammy Coochycatchycammy
Arky, Arky
Oh Chester, Have You Heard About Harry
Tell Me Why
Doodley Doo
Build Me Up, Buttercup (for some reason)

I've had a couple super days and wanted to babble about it...
I finally started doing a better job scheduling my tutoring students, and now I'm realizing, "hey, doing the actual work isn't half bad, (I love it) if I'm not worrying about the scheduling nonsense."

And I come home from tutoring today and my 2-year-old greets me at the door with a high-pitched squeal of, "We are making delicious food for you, mommy!"

Tomorrow we're going for membership in our church. Oddly enough, although we've been a part of 4 or 5 churches in the various places we've lived, this is the first time we've actually become members...

Also, I wanted to babble on hear about how last weekend Saturday was ridiculously busy and I thought it was going to be a lousy day with me tired and stressed - but it was awesome!
The day ended at a friend's Viking-themed "Leif Erkison Party." (seeing as it was around Columbus Day weekend.)
My husband made paper beards for him and the kids.

Btw, Sarge- I liked your post above about your "art father"; I had been wondering if we'd hear more about him out of ya.
The story is really touching & neat.
(but sad for the loss, which probably seems really pointless and in vain)

Hi, Linna!

Linna Heartlistener wrote:And I come home from tutoring today and my 2-year-old greets me at the door with a high-pitched squeal of, "We are making delicious food for you, mommy!"

Aww, that's adorable.

I spent today with Magickmaker -- first we went to Stitch & Bitch, which amounts to chatting and lunch with a bunch of women, with some craft work thrown in. I'm currently knitting an advent garland of mini-mittens -- only 21, as our holiday is on the solstice, but still, each little mitten takes a couple of hours. So far I've got 13 done. Anyway, then later we went to the pet store and got some dinner. It was a nice day.

Oh dear, my new super hub broadband thingy has arrived from Virgin, complete with instruction booklet and plastic spanner. Time to call in one of the children I think. C did say she would drive up from Spalding to help, but as A lives nearer I'll see if he will cycle over sometime. It's wireless, and presumably can be used as not wireless as well. I have no idea whether this computer has wireless or not. If it does, perhaps we can get on-line on hubbie's computer downstairs then he can look at his own emails, and not take hours typing them on my computer.

Linna Heartlistener wrote:And I come home from tutoring today and my 2-year-old greets me at the door with a high-pitched squeal of, "We are making delicious food for you, mommy!"

The day ended at a friend's Viking-themed "Leif Erkison Party." (seeing as it was around Columbus Day weekend.)
My husband made paper beards for him and the kids.

Linna, your family sounds so fun!! I could NEVER get anyone to go to a Viking party. We watched that movie a while back "Role Models" where they end up in an RPG all costumed up and swordfighting and I'm thinking how much fun it looks like while my hub and dau are rolling their eyes...

Anyway. Got a new puppy AND inherited a grey parrot from friends who are leaving the country, so we are building quite a menagerie here. With a week off we hosted a sleepover last night then dropped the shrieking teens at another house and went to the pool for an afternoon of swimming, reading and napping by a hotel pool, which we had all to ourselves. Sweet!

Oh yes, and I went to the doctor this morning and found out I have a slight valve regurgitation problem, but the palpitations are not worrisome. He said I could take a beta blocker if they bother me, but it doesn't bother me that much. I can get back to running, etc. Yay!!

Iolanthe wrote:Oh dear, my new super hub broadband thingy has arrived from Virgin, complete with instruction booklet and plastic spanner. Time to call in one of the children I think. C did say she would drive up from Spalding to help, but as A lives nearer I'll see if he will cycle over sometime. It's wireless, and presumably can be used as not wireless as well. I have no idea whether this computer has wireless or not. If it does, perhaps we can get on-line on hubbie's computer downstairs then he can look at his own emails, and not take hours typing them on my computer.

Iolanthe, I'm sure your children will fill you in admirably, but just to be helpful: if your computer does not have built in wireless, you can buy a plug in wireless modem for pretty cheap.

Thanks, Cambo, that's comforting to know. There is some mention of connecting to wireless network, but at the moment I am on cable. I am sure I will get sorted sooner or later. I really shouldn't refer to them as children as they are 37 and 35!

Doing okay.

In the continuing saga of Torturing Ali to Death by Degrees, today I attended my first mandatory Windows 7/Office 2010 training program at work. Today's class was 3 hours long; tomorrow's will also be 3 hours long; Thursday's is only supposed to be 2.5 hours long. I've had Windows 7 for a couple of years now (I just realized the netbook came with Win7 Starter pre-loaded) and have been running Office 2010 at home for nearly a year. I'm trying very hard to be a good sport about it, but I have to tell you that I have yet to learn much of anything new. I *really* wish I could have taken the option they're giving the partners -- a one-hour deskside coaching session. Alas, I am a lowly secretary, and so I must sit through 8.5 hours of listening to other people in the class going, "Wait...where was that?...what did you just do?...show me where to find that Quick Links thing...etc."

did the pt at inservive monday. was worried because of my ankle surgery. needed 75 points, got 87. thanks to my awesome coworkers who cheered me ona nd made sure i pushed through every event. ladder climb, sandbag lift and carry, push-ups, situps, squats and what i thought would do me in - the track. did the track in 4 minutes and 38 seconds. (people in shape make it under 3 minutes)

the track was the hardest, but i limped through it. the instructors were very encouraging as well. i have lost some weight, but no where near what i had lost before (somewhere around 140 lbs) but i will lose enough to get a 100 on the course nest year. shooting tuesday. in twelve years i have only had to refire once. so that should be no problem.

shooting tuesday - needed 7 out of 10 on the ar-15. got 9 out of ten. needed to get 21 out of 30 on the .357 - got 29. (but the distances are so close on the pistol, you should get that many) - the shotgun is load, unload, load and shoot. oddly enough this is the biggest problem on range day. i am not comfortable with the unloading method. i pass it every year, but need to handle the weapon more to get comfortable with it.

HI all, Its been a busy week or so...A couple of emergency runs to the hospital 4 hours away.

My daughter ended up having to deliver 3 months early and yesterday we welcomed a 1lb 5oz baby boy to the family. August Orion will now spend the next 3 months in Ped ICU. Both seem to be doing just fine.

Her BF got through the C section just fine but then passed out in the recovery room. Passed out in a way that he didnt catch himself at all and ended up with staples in his head and a CT scan. He will be fine. He was dehydrated and hadnt slept that night or eaten that morning. But I, however, wont let him live that one down any time soon.

Wow, 3 months premature? That sucks. Hope he does alright.

Congratulations Soulbiter, and welcome August Orion! I do hope the baby progresses well, and that his parents are recovering. My son has witnessed 3 C sections now, and didn't pass out once.

I'm tired and frustrated. Work was sucky, short staffed again and ended up being manager on duty and copy & print which is nearly impossible when you are busy in the copy center. I got on our new department manager promotee Jason's butt though. I told him he had to walk the store and make sure the recovery was good because if our boss asks me I am going to tell him that Jason was in charge of recovery and blame any issues on him. He stepped up. I've also been on a crash course in technology sales and service and so today I did a virus removal, two pc checkups, a data transfer, a pc cleanup and optimization and sold two laptops with protection plans. Most of you won't know what that means but Sorus will know what a big deal that is. Also, today was my first day doing most of that stuff and my teacher kept getting called away so i ended up winging most of it and figuring it out on my own. I think my teacher was impressed a few times when he checked back with me and my response was, "Oh, I figured that one out and it's ready to go, I'm on this service now." Hee Hee. I keep telling them I am smarter than I look....

Congrats and good luck to the family SB.

--A

I'm not getting anything done lately. The perils of MMORPGs - I kond of feel like I need to do all the various daily quests every day to make sure I'm as ready as possible for when my guild starts raiding. But then if you throw in other things like my internet not working for an hour last night and by the time I'm done I've not got enough time to do the rest of the things I should - books reviews, book reading, Heart of God turn processing.

My book-a-week thing on my blog has fallen apart because of it - I haven't blogged in a month. And the people playing Heart of God have seen how I keep putting off processing each turn.

I just keep thinking soon, soon I'll have enough reputation to stop doing these quests, then I'll have enough time to do other things... but then I spend an hour pet battling or something and prove I'm just terrible at managing my time.

See, when I read that I know I can never get myself involved in online RPGs. Murrin, how do you do that, and read, and have a life?? I know it would put me over the edge.

Having such a nice week off from school... the stay-cation ended today because I had several hours of work to put in to lesson plans... but it's nice to stop for a snack or a nap whenever... it rained for hours today (still is) which is really weird for October. Should be clear skies, but not yet bone-dry like it will be by December.

On a really gross note, I had to squeeze about a dozen mango worms from the skin of my puppy's chest. Poor little guy. There were a lot more but he couldn't take the aggravation. Then it started raining and it's not an indoor activity. I've had them once or twice and trust me, not the kind of African experience you want to have. (Google the image if you really want to be grossed out; we're used to it at this point.)