Leap Day

Well, it's Leap Day.

One of those strange abnormalities of a Roman calendar that decides to have fun with us every four years. It is the end of an equation attempting to balance itself.

I've always wondered how you would measure age if someone was born on this day. Do you cheat and count the day before or afterwards? What kind of karmic whiplash may come at you for being born on a day stolen from the process of time?

It's early and I haven't had coffee yet. I have strange thoughts.

I wonder what I'll get into on this 'stolen day'.

-Me

Gamers, be warned...

...when the World Governments AGREE to build a Doomsday Seed Vault.

From Cnn:

A vast underground vault storing millions of seeds from around the world opened Tuesday in a mountain on a remote island near the Arctic Ocean.

Dubbed the "Doomsday Vault," the seed bank is considered the ultimate safety net for the world's seed collections, protecting them from a wide range of threats including war, natural disasters, lack of funding or simply poor agricultural management.

Norwegian musicians performed Tuesday as part of an elaborate opening ceremony marking the opening of the vault, located 130 meters (427 feet) inside a frozen mountain. Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan environmental and political activist who won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, placed the first seeds inside the vault, followed by other dignitaries.

Anyone else a bit... unnerved by this announcement?

-Me

New Look

Well, as some people have commented - I always like to work on my blog.

I finally was able to get the template changed to accommodate three columns and once I made that change I was on a roll. I dug around and found an image of a notebook for the title and then renovated the color scheme.

It's very earthy.

-T

P.s. I just checked the new layout on my old desktop and WOW it looks wonky. The title text is cut off and the colors are all screwed up. However, when I checked it on Josh's computer and the laptop it looks fine.

If anyone sees any abnormalities on the page please let me know. I still have a lot to learn about CSS.

-T

A cold by any other name...

... means that I'm passed out on NyQuil for a day.

For those who have been trying to get a hold of me, I apologize but I've been sick. Since Friday afternoon, I've had the sinus cold that has been going around with my Students. The combination of sniffles, cough and dizziness usually means that I just have to sleep it off.

Thankfully, today I feel better and I'm on my way out of the snot-induced haze.

See ya.

-T

Ten Degrees of Separation

What Five Degrees you might ask?

The Ten degrees I woke up to this morning. BRR.

You've all had that moment; you wake up in bed just enough to realize that you are in bed and not exploring some ancient tomb to discover a lost manuscript. The bed is warm and toasty with your body heat (and the added presence of one or more cats who, because of their own gravitational pull, have caused all heat to be drawn to them - and if you're lucky you get some of the ambient glow), but you can feel that the air in the room as a chill to it. The bubble of warmth protects you like the shell of an egg and for FIVE whole minutes, you do not have to get up.

Your mind squirms with the age-old question, do you lay there and enjoy five minutes of blissful relaxation, attempt to fall back to sleep so that you can get your hands on that manuscript (Laura Croft keeps stealing it from me), or bite the bullet and crawl forth from your thermeonic embreo and start the day.

This morning I had little choice in the matter. As soon as I began to wake, both cats stirred and began to walk towards me on the bed like a pair of alien face-huggers.

I tried to resist and then one crawled atop of my bladder, knowing that the pressure would force me to rip myself free from the blanket-shelled coccoon.

They were hungry - again.

I stumbled through the house and banged my toe on the edge of the coffee table (I swear that they must move things like that so I'll trip over it. Imagine the math involved in calculating the probability of my path while half-awake. Hrm. Cat-scientists.). After putting food into their already half-full bowl, I stumbled back to crawl into the shower.

Ahh, there's nothing more satisfying than walking into a small room that has a heater. Though the house may be chilled in the morning, I know that the bathroom is always warm. Mmm. Small luxuries.

Off to class.

-Tom

It's not that I'm superstitious...

But god I feel wiped.

I was doing good until the sun went down, or there abouts, and then it's like someone stole my thunder.

I have been sprawled on the couch doing some work for tomorrow's classes and almost zonked out a few times. It's not completely abnormal since the couch has a +3 life-sucking enchantment. But normally it doesn't hit me if I've work to get done. I just ignore the siren call of seventies furniture.

Later tonight, I heard that there's a lunar eclipse tonight. In fact, Sarah, the daughter of my friend June, took this picture of it. V. nice work for a hand-held shot.

I have read the studies that the moon's phases do have some (not a lot, but some) influence upon our physiology (two studies in the late 70's; one in Cleveland and the other in Miami), but a lunar Eclipse? Ugh.

It's messing up all my water-mojo.

Zonk!

-Me

Snow, not so much

Most of yesterday and last night all of the news channels were broadcasting that we were under a Winter Storm Warning with snow on its way; like it was a plague or an invading army.

The snow was supposed to arrive early in the morning and really be in full swing by the 7-8 o'clock rush. However, the snow that we -actually- got was rather... limited.

We did not have 1-2 inches of snow on the ground. We did not awake to the sound of 'crunch' 'crunch' on the roads. Nope, the first thing I heard when my eyes flitted open was the sound of a car ripping down our road. Definitely not something that you'd hear if there was real snow on the ground.

So the cats decided to crash out in front of the windows and watch the flakes fall where they may.

So disappointing.

-Me

It's official...

...Winter is not dead.



I woke up this morning knowing that there would be some degree of snow on the ground. I watched the weather.com reports and as the hours ticked by last night, more and more emails begain popping up in my University box from students who were already going to miss class today.

As the emails were coming in, there was barely a dusting on the roads, but it was slick in some places (in the city). I assume that it must have been near apocalyptic conditions in the country since almost every student had the same message:

"Roads snowed in. Can't get out."

So, this morning when I got out of the shower, I fired up the laptop to see what was happening in the world. I normally just hit weather.com to see if there's anything remarkable about the weather but for some reason, I decided to pop by the University's page to see how many more emails I received in the wee hours of the morning. That's when I saw it:

"Morning classes are cancelled."

So, I decided to go out in my sweats and shovel the drive since I knew that the combination of snow, slush and ice would spell certain doom for me either while leaving or later when coming back. This wonderful weather combination usually means that my driveway will become a solid sheet of ice. The water drains off the hill and right onto my drive. The wind is often buffeted by the two houses and the space between becomes a wind-tunnel and will aid in the freezing process. So rather than swerving into a gas meter, I decided that it was best go get steamy.

And steamy I got. About every third shovel, my cellphone would ring with someone telling me about the weather or that the classes were closed.

I'm so loved.

I, then, felt it my moral obligation to call up a friend in Huntington and inform him of the maddness. He had already heard of the weather and that Marshall was on a 2 hour delay and was laying in bed and being lazy; not that he doesn't - on occasion - deserve it.

My roommate, Josh, was still asleep when I walked out to start shoveling, but as his bedroom is in the back, there's no way to sleep through the constant 'scrape-toss' sounds of a plastic shovel on a drive.

I'm sitting in my office now and watching the slush to continue to congeal. The Univ. trucks are attempting to push the snow out of the way and it seems like all they're doing is stirring a parking-lot load of icy-slushy goodness.

it's days like this that I wish we had a BIG (I'm talking bubba big; so big that even bubba is saying 'Da-yum') mess of snow so I could make snow-cream.

Snow-cream is sort of an ice cream made with snow, sugar and vanilla that my mom used to make when I was growing up. It's basically just vanilla-flavored water with sugar mixed in, but I remember that was the BEST thing to slurp down as your nose tried to stop running after a morning of wintery warfare.

Ok, back to work. I have class in a half-hour or more.

I doubt that I'll have more than 20 students.

-Tom

Tattoo

Tattoo
Originally uploaded by marina chaccur

Now this is hard core.

-Me

School Shooting in Portsmouth

From: WOWKTV.COM

PORTSMOUTH, Ohio -- Police are investigating a shooting and possible stabbing near Notre Dame Elementary School.

Police confirmed that Christy Layne, a teacher at the school, has been shot. Her condition has not been released, but authorities have said the victim was taken to an area hospital then flown to a Columbus hospital.

Police believe this is a domestic situation.
Law enforcement and SWAT teams are now at a home in the 2500 block of Argonne Road. At this point, they believe the suspect, Michael Layne, is inside the residence. According to the Portsmouth Daily Times, shots were heard fired inside the home.

Police have locked down the elementary school and Notre Dame High School as they continue to search for a suspect. Police have also locked down nearby businesses and asked people who live in the neighborhood to stay inside their house.

Police said students have been accounted for and no students were injured.

FROM USATODAY.COM

PORTSMOUTH, Ohio (AP) — A man shot his wife at her Ohio elementary school Thursday, but no children were injured, police said.

The condition of the woman was not immediately known, and the shooter escaped. Authorities said they were in the process of trying to apprehend the man, but did not elaborate.

The shooting happened at Notre Dame Elementary in Portsmouth, a community in southern Ohio near the Kentucky border.

The school and another Catholic school nearby were locked down, said Deacon Tom Berg, vice chancellor of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus.

"We are mobilizing our crisis team and sending them down," Berg said.

FROM WLWT.COM

Portsmouth's mayor, James Kalb, told a reporter that the man is barricaded in a home several blocks from the school with several weapons.

Raw Video: Ground Video From Standoff Scene
Video shows officers around the home, and a neighbor said at least five shots were fired in the home.

Layne was airlifted to Southern Ohio Medical Center, then Cabell Huntington Hospital in Huntington, W.V., where she is listed in critical condition.

There are no reports of any injured students.

Parents, many with cell phones clutched to their ears, congregated in the parking lot across the street from the school. They began leaving with their children around 10:30 a.m., said Kathy Hall, office manager of Cornerstone United Methodist Church.

"I wasn't afraid for my own safety, I was afraid for the children, because these turn out so terrible, you know," Hall said.

The school and another Catholic school nearby were locked down, said Deacon Tom Berg, vice chancellor of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus.

"We are mobilizing our crisis team and sending them down," Berg said.

Public schools also were put on lockdown, said Superintendent Jan Broughton, who oversees the community's public schools.

About 160 children from preschool through sixth grade attend the three-story, yellow brick school, which has 15 teachers.

kitchen blogging

Since my roommate moved in, I have had the opportunity to cook a lot more than before. When I was the only one in the house, I didn't really care how I cooked and generally ate very poorly. It's really difficult for me to cook healthy in small portions. So tonight I had the chance to throw somethings in the wok.

As my friend Barb is off handling a family medical matter, I thought it fitting that I would try and post tonight's creation.

Fresh Veggies & Beef

Ingredients:
1 Green Pepper
1 Red Pepper
1/2 Cucumber
1 yellow onion
1/2 pound of stew beef.

I chopped all the veggies fairly large so that they don't get lost in the mix but chopped the meat smaller so it would cook up faster. The whole thing had some chopped fresh ginger added and a bit of lemon juice.

Oh, and this medley is served with brown rice.

Normally there would be a long post on the procedure involved in making such a meal but as this is only as Chinese as the Wok that it's cooked in, I'll assume that everyone reading can toss some veggies in a pan and make it work.

I'm just really enjoying the idea that I'm blogging from my kitchen.