CelestialFamily

Noah's question for today: "What is the point of using Jedi mind tricks on stupid people?"

Discuss!



Thank you, Teacherninja, for the nomination.
• Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
• Link the person who nominated you.
• Name seven things about yourself that no one would really know.
• Nominate ten “Sugar Dolls.”
• Post links to the ten blogs you nominate.
• Leave a comment on each letting them know you nominated them.

Finding seven things that people wouldn't really know is rather difficult. I thought that listing that I was a control freak would be considered universal knowledge, so I had to move unto something else.

1. I believe dogs and cats should be spayed, or neutered to help decrease the sad circumstances that are produced by unwanted and uncared for animals.
2. I have fond memories of square hamburgers because my maternal grandmother would drive in to Columbus near the "Bypass" to go to Krystals. She would always put napkins around the salt and pepper shakers because, "You never know who touched them before you got there." I love mustard, dill pickles, and bread. I don't deviate from what I order there, or Subway for that matter. My brother is autistic, but he hasn't cornered the market on repetitive behavior. For example, Subway has a menu that offers so many choices, but I always order: a 6inch Subway Club with pepper jack cheese, toasted with lettuce, sliced dill pickles, tomatoes, heavy on the spinach, and plain yellow mustard (I can't stand the other stuff, which surprises me, yet is absolutely true).

3. I like so many different things and enjoy talking about them without ever having mastered any of the subjects that I come off as a repository for useless and inane facts, but Hey I like it that way. My guess is this tendency has led me to spend an inordinate amount of time watching the series QI on youtube.com.


4. I consistently lose Scrabble games against my husband. He is a master of getting words that count in two directions, while I am looking to make the coolest word. This really is my only strategy because I don't think well on multiple planes. I'm like the triangles in Flatland...one dimensional and dangerous if you bump into me (that is why we stopped playing Monopoly too).

5. My daughter says I'm not funny...maybe I was twice...in her opinion. I sometimes get laughing so hard at something I, alone, find witty that my sides ache. That is a good time, my friends.

6. I will go to the store to buy something and find something incidental on the way. If I continue shopping I will make the case for and against buying the incidental object. Usually not buying wins out (even in the case of chocolate...tell no one).



7. I think the spork is one of the handy dandiest of cool inventions.


:::::::::::Book Review::::::::


Amelia Peabody is tired of the Victorian trappings both ideologically and physically. I think she would burn her bra, as well, but by the author's description of Amelia that wouldn't be a great idea. Amelia is someone who speaks her mind and due to an inheritance can do so without worrying to much about the consequences. The information on Egypt was interesting along with some of the preservation techniques. There were a few times where I would think to myself, "get on with it already" because the author rehashed things a bit too much, but the characters have a lot of potential. There were several pithy lines between the sparring couple Amelia and Radcliffe Emerson. I enjoyed their interacctions. Not an outstanding beginning to a series, but still worth checking out book 2.


:::::::::::::Yearbook Music:::::::
I have been working on the kids yearbook again this year and I'm becoming "snowblind" looking and relooking at photos, but I thought of this song and it made me nostaligic and I just think it's cool:

:::::::::::::Who Lives in a Pineapple Under the Sea?

Spongebob Squarepants, as many people know. We had a request from a friend and her daughter to help make a 1 year-old's party a bit more fun in the cake department. I enlisted the help of my favorite creative genius and we used date night to help decorate this birthday cake:

Everyone pitched in. Favihola (grandmother to our birthday girl) baked the cakes, made the tube worm and some sea grass. Michael trimmed the cakes. I frosted and covered them with fondant. Michael made the pineapple the red & orange coral, and the cute pink octopus. Alex (uncle) made Gary the Snail and cut out the flowers, Christina (mom) made Nemo, the jellyfish, sea stars, bubbles and some seagrass. Favihola made Planktons body and ears and I stuck on his eye bits. Richard (dad) made a giant clam with a pearl.

The toothpicks will get pulled out today for the party. Happy 1st Birthday, Eliana!

Rachel's Vocabulary Quiz Show brought to you today by the letter S.

So Rachel quizzed Noah the other day, "Noah do you know what scrupulous means?"
Noah replied, "Isn't that a part of the body?"

Noah's response brought upon him hails of derisive laughter. I think we will keep him for the comic relief alone. We did eventually tell him what scrupulous meant after several attempts at coming up with some new anatomical definitions in the form of a sentence.

:::::::::::::Copious Book Reviews::::::::



This book was recommended to me by a very well read member of our book group. She knows what types of books I like and this does fit the general bill for me. Elna Baker writes about her experiences, hopes, and dreams. It is book worthy because of the juxtaposition she finds herself in being a single Mormon in a community largely made up of non Mormons in New York City. Her insights, especially, in the beginning chapters is spot on about Singles dances and attitudes in the church. She comes off as rather neurotic, but understandable in the context of being someone who by nature questions everything, but is in a religion that requires faith. She reminds me of an adrenaline junky that wants a constant thrill, but needs to run back to the comfort of familiar beliefs. She is an actress, so the personality is not surprising. Faith is an intregal part of her life and I had the feeling it was like an imbilical cord that was both a life line and something she felt like she was growing out of and was trying to cut the cord. She is an amazingly sharp witted person, but her inability to make a decision left me feeling somewhat the way I imagined her ex-boyfriend Matt felt, rather frustrated.



Dr. Carson was brought up in poverty by a mother who had episodes of depression that had her checking herself into the hospital. He had a brother who was a good example and got him involved with ROTC. Dr. Carson's ability to analyze his life and work past his intense anger issues and early poor study skills to become the skilled pediatric neurosurgeon he is today he attributes to his faith in God who gave him the talents to begin with. He tells off the long hours of studying and internships, which tired me out just thinking about all of the hard work. His ability to think spatially has helped him see how the parts of the body, specifically, the brain works in all its varied parts. I enjoyed the stories of some of the specific cases he has encountered and how they have effected him, as well as, the patient. I appreciated his emphasis on procedures as being a team effort realizing that one person can't get it done. He has kept his humanity in the face of the opportunity to be a celebrity. He acknowledges his talents and achievements, while remaining humble. I was impressed by his wife, who is an accomplished woman in her own right and maintains their family amidst her husband's long hours.


This is not just a book of eye candy. You might think bugs aren't eye candy, but the photographs in this book are outstanding. I might not want to meet these bugs in person, but I loved going over and over this book and looking at the variously hued insects and their funky appendages. The introduction is very well written and a definite solid beginning to a fabulous book.


If looking at freaky cool bugs isn't your thing, then maybe photographs of freaky cool plants and their bits might just be. Pretty colors that are worthy of any lsd trippin' Timothy Leary types (that is purely a guess on my part...about the lsd...I mean...I think the hardest thing I've done is Nyquil for a cold back in 1990...but I digress). This book is so cool. It even has words, which explain the photographs...BONUS I highly recommend this one.


This was a solid sequel to Simon Bloom, The Gravity Keeper. The effects of the octopus dna in the kids was really fun. I love the characters of the narrator, and Ms. Fanstrom from the Historical Society. I even think the Books from the different orders are very intriguing. I could have used less running about finding and fighting folks and had more of the cerebral stuff regarding the Books and how they interact. I'm hoping for a sequel that gets more into the scientific and less about the physical Fight Club aspects of finding out the mysteries of the Board of Administration.

Peace out my Peeps!

I've never seen the "Dragon's Den" before. If this is the straight forward, nonsense intolerant stance they take to every issue I may have figure out what channel it's on and start watching.

I am a space nut. As a kid I built models of the Apollo lunar landers. I was too young to remember the Apollo project first hand, but I do remember Skylab and the Apollo/Soyux missions. I even got permission from my folks to skip school and watch the first shuttle launch and landing. I also remember quite vividly the first pictures sent back from the surface of Mars by the Viking lander. I remember thinking how lucky I was to grow up in a time when the Voyager’s grand tour was even possible. I watched the first raw image returns from the Cassini missions live as they came in from Saturn in 2004. Every day I check multiple Astronomy websites and I make a conscious point to look up in the mornings as I walk to the car and see if I can locate the planets that are currently visible.

So with this introduction you might find it odd that I applaud the announcement to all but kill NASA’s manned space flight program. I don’t have a problem with manned space flight in particular. We just need to look at it honestly and objectively and see what kind of return on our investment we’ve gotten on manned space flight when compared to robotic missions.

While Voyager was taking pictures of Jupiter and all its moons Apollo Soyux was just trying to see if we could get Russians and American’s to shake hands. While Cassini Huygens was taking the best shots of Saturn ever manned missions were trying to figure out how to not burn up another shuttle during re-entry. While Mars Pathfinder more than doubles its life expectancy and continues to send back data from Mars manned missions are trying to figure out how to rescue a shuttle if tiles get damaged on the shuttle. While Hubble continues each day to amaze us with images from the extremes of the universe the ISS is trying to figure out how astronauts can process their own urine and re-drink it. I could go on and on with these examples but my only point is that while the robots are doing real research and doing a bang up job in the process the manned missions are quite literally doing little more than trying to figure out how to stay alive.

I’m not denying the political chest thumping advantage of being able to say we are the only country that has ever set foot on the moon. But let’s not deny that that’s all that it really was. The science was at best and afterthought. We only actually put one scientist up there and he was bumped up to an earlier mission when we realized that we were going to be discontinuing the program. If we feel we need to thump our chest again to show how great America is let’s do it after we’ve taken care of some issues much closer to home. But let’s just not disguise it as a scientific pursuit.

A few years ago when Constellation and Orion were announced I was more than a little annoyed. Why were we spending so much money to rebuild 70’s era technology to do something that we’d already done? So I’m actually glad that the current budget is choosing to cut it. Let Richard Branson, Burt Rutan and the rest of the private sector spend their own money to figure out how to make a toilet that functions in zero-G. Let’s invest our tax dollars into something based on science and with a cost effective return on our tax investment. The robots have proven that they can do that exponentially better than any manned mission.

Looking Down Dicks Creek

A few years ago a celebrity got a DUI and while he was being arrested he slipped into an anti-Semitic rant. In his apology he acknowledged that he had an alcohol problem and blamed the anti-Semitic comments on the alcohol. I don’t believe that is how it actually works. The alcohol may have turned off some of his filtering software but the ideas were still there, inside him, just waiting to come forth once the filters were weakened. I felt then that this celebrity needed to not only address his alcohol problem but he also needs to confront what caused him to harbor those ideas in the first place. I trust him when he says he’s making good on correcting both problems.
Now here’s where this post gets personal. For some reason I don’t quite understand I haven’t been getting hardly any sleep for the last week or so. I don’t feel overly worn out in the mornings. It’s just weird that I just seemed to lie around and wait for the alarm to go off. I’ve just been writing it off to having too much to worry about.
Anyway a couple of times lately I’ve been a little punchy and let some comments slip that I really wish I hadn’t said. But that’s not what bothers me. Like the celebrity’s anti-Semitic comments my comments had to come from somewhere. That’s what’s bugging me. I need to go back to the drawing board on these areas of my life and re-evaluate what I value and try to figure out why those ideas were even in my head in the first place. It’s simply unacceptable to blame this on my lack of sleep. It was easy for me to criticize the celebrity and I’d be a hypocrite to try to use the same logic he did to avoid facing the real problem.
I know I have quite a bit of work to do to become the person I’d like to be. This just kinda hit me out of left field and from and area that I thought I already had taken care of.

Shoals on Dicks Creek MMX-I
Before this weekend it had been almost six weeks since I got out to shoot anything nature related. I finally got away and headed for the mountains to shoot some waterfalls. North Georgia was hit by an ice storm this weekend, and I had hoped to see some ice or snow around the waterfalls, but I apparently picked an area untouched by the winter weather. I did get out in nature, which is always good for my soul. I also got to see a waterfall that I never had before, though I'll need to revisit it to get some better shots.All in all, it was a good trip.This shot is a detail view of the shoals above Dicks Creek falls, at the confluence of Dicks and Waters Creeks in Lumpkin County, Georgia. 

I love PhD comics. Here's another one that's right on the mark.

One of my favorite podcasts lately has been Point of Inquiry. DJ Grothe has great guests and he does a great job of showing multiple different approaches to rational thinking. So it was with mixed emotions that I heard the news that DJ would now be President of the James Randi Education Foundation. I suspected that this would mean fewer episodes of Point of Inquiry.
Well I was pleasantly surprised to see DJ is hosting a new podcast for the JREF called For Good Reason. Check it out. I just finished listening to it and I enjoyed it. This episode had an interview with James Randi about the future of his organization as well as some information about some scams that have hit the news lately. I don’t know if DJ will be able to continue to be able to host both podcasts but I look forward to future episodes.
One small disappointment: In the intro to the podcast there is a segment by Jamie Ian Swiss. It’s brilliant but has a few not safe for work words. I loved the podcast but would have loved it more if I could have been able to recommend to my kids and family members without having to give this caveat. I think many podcasts in this genre disqualify themselves from a large audience, school children, by not exercising a little restraint when it comes to their language.