Three till Seven

I am so sleepy. That’s not hard to understand as it’s 2:39 in the morning and I’m usually fast asleep by this time. Mom fixed dinner at about 11p tonight for some reason, so I didn’t have my relish-covered hot dogs until late. I’ve been working on a new layout for 3t7.net and it’s coming along nicely. I’m still tinkering with how individual pages look because they’re kind of strange.

Dad’s still working on my car, fixing little details for me. I can’t wait to take it on a long trip, like back to Lexington later this month for the Honors Program luau at UK.

My back and neck have been sore for the past few days. I wonder if I’ve been repetitively sleeping on them wrong. It’s very annoying.

One of our peach trees actually produced an edible fruit! I ate a lovely, although not quite ripe, peach yesterday. I’ve been pillaging for blackberries everywhere, too, as they’re finally ripe. I missed the raspberries again, though, just like last year when I was away for the summer.

It feels weird to be home again. I miss Jess and all the people I worked with in the program. I miss Lexington. One thing that I realized today was that I rarely got bit by bugs while at UK but here, I’m a walking blood doner to mosquitoes. Damn bugs.

1. The Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles, and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.
2. Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B.S. is done.
3. The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday morning.
4. Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet next Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door.
5. The pastor will preach his farewell message, after which the choir will sing “Break Forth Into Joy.”
6. A songfest was hell at the Methodist church Wednesday.
7. Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our church and community.
8. The 8th graders will be presenting Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The Congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.
9. Thursday night Potluck Supper. Prayer and medication to follow.
10. The rosebud on the alter this morning is to announce the birth of David, the sin of Rev. and Mrs. Adams.
11. Tuesday at 4 PM there will be an ice cream social. All ladies giving milk will please come early.
12. A bean supper will be held on Tuestday evening in the church hall. Music to follow.
13. At the evening service tonight, the serman topic will be “What is Hell?”. Come early and listen to our choir practice.
14. Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use the large double door at the side entrance.
15. Mrs. Johnson will be entering the hospital this week for testes.
16. Please join us as we show our support for Amy and Alan who are preparing for the girth of their first child.
17. The Lutheran Men’s group will meet at 6 PM. Steak, mashed potatoes, green beans, bread and dessert will be served for a nominal feel.
18. The Associate Minister unveiled the church’s new tithing campaign slogan last Sunday: “I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours.”
19. Our next song is “Angels We Have Heard Get High.”
20. Don’t let worry kill you, let the church help.
21. For those of you who have children and don’t know it, we have a nursery downstairs.
22. This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mrs. Lewis to come forward and lay an egg on the altar.
23. The service will close with Little Drops of Water. One of the ladies will start quietly and the rest of the congregation will join in.
24. 8 new choir robes are currently needed, due to the addition of several new members and the deterioration of some older ones.
25. The senior choir invites any member of the congregation who enjoys sinning to join the choir.

In a recent issue of Meat & Poultry magazine, editors quoted from Feathers, the publication of the California Poultry Industry Federation, telling the following story. It seems the US Federal Aviation Administration has a unique device for testing the strength of windshields on airplanes. The device is a gun that launches a dead chicken at a plane’s windshield at approximately the speed the plane flies.

The theory is that if the windshield doesn’t crack from the carcass impact, it’ll survive a real collision with a bird during flight.

It seems the British were very interested in this and wanted to test a windshield on a brand new, speedy locomotive they’re developing.

They borrowed the FAA’s chicken launcher, loaded the chicken and fired. The ballistic chicken shattered the windshield, went through the engineer’s chair, broke an instrument panel and embedded itself in the back wall of the engine cab. The British were stunned and asked the FAA to recheck the test to see if everything was done correctly.

The FAA reviewed the test thoroughly and had one recommendation: “Use a thawed chicken”.

This was started at FictionAlley Park by Nimbus2002RW. “What you do is take a random quote from harry Potter (books or film) and change one word to ‘pants’.”

1. Filch: Used to be detention got yeh strung up in the dungeons! God, I miss the pants.
2. Dean Thomas: Look, Neville’s got pants!
3. Draco Malfoy: Think my pants are funny, do you?
4. McGonagall: In a few moments, you will pass through these pants, and join your classmates.
5. Draco Malfoy: What’s the matter, Potter? Bit beyond your pants?
6. Ron Weasley: NO PANTS? HAVE YOU GONE MAD? ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT? No pants, honestly!
7. Snape: We will discuss this later, Quirrell, when you’ve decided where your pants lie.
8. DM: We can’t go in there! There are pants in there!
9. There are all kinds of courage. It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our pants.
10. Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its pants.
11. What about those Monster pants, eh? The assistant nearly cried when we said we wanted two.
12. I find that descending too often into the hustle and bustle of the main school clouds my Inner Pants.
13. Ron was muttering to himself, ‘Take its pants off.’
14. Mr. Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape and begs him to keep his abnormally large pants out other people’s business.
15. Mr. Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his pants, the slimeball.
16. Harry: Percy, who’s that talking to Professor Quirrel?
17. Percy: That’s Professor Snape.
18. Harry: What’s he teach?
19. Percy: Potions. But everyone knows its the Dark Arts he fancies. He’s been after Quirrel’s pants for years.
20. Hermione: You wont make a fool of yourself, it’s in your pants.
21. Krum: Vell, if you see her, tell her I haff pants.
22. Harry: (to Snape) I haven’t been anywhere near your pants.
23. Ron: “A month? Malfoy could have attacked half the pants in the school by then!”
24. Ron: “It’ll be a lot less hassle if you can just knock Malfoy off his pants tomorrow”
25. Oliver: “Slytherin has better pants than us”
26. Dumbledore: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Pants!!
27. Mrs. Skower’s All Purpose Magical Pant Remover: No pain, No stain!
28. Crouch was pullng him closer; Harry tried to loosen Crouch’s grip on his pants, but it was too powerful.
29. Harry: (to Dumbledore) You mean… This stuffs your pants?
30. Now the burning feeling was in his pants too. He wished Ron would look away.
31. Hermione was standing by the window. She was holding something tight in her pants.
32. You don’t want to go making friends with the wrong pants. I can help you there.
33. Hagrid: “If anyone wanted to find out some stuff, all they’d have to do would be ter follow the pants. That’d lead them right! That’s all I’m sayin’.”
34. The door banged shut and Ron pulled off the Invisibility Pants.
35. “We’re in trouble now,” He said hoarsely. “No pants. They might as well close the school tonight. There’ll be an attack a day with him gone.”
36. Fang started howling, scratching at the closed pants.
37. “We’re taking no more chances,” Madam Pomfrey told them severly through a crack in the infirmary door. “No, I’m sorry, there’s every chance the attacker might come back to finish these pants off..”
38. Snape swept past Harry, making no comment about Hermione’s empty pants and cauldron.
39. “Sir,” said Malfoy loudly. “Sir, why don’t you apply for the headmaster’s pants?”
40. “Let me at him,” Ron growled as Harry and Dean hung onto his pants.
41. “The Heir of Slytherin,” Said Professor McGonagall, who was very white, “Left another message. Right underneath the first one. ‘her pants will lie in the Chamber forever.’”
42. “You know I’m hiding nothing, Moody,” he said, in a soft and dangerous voice, “as you’ve searched my pants pretty thoroughly yourself.”
43. In the mean time, Harry Potter’s well-wishers must hope that, the next time, he bestows his pants upon a worthier candidate.
44. Hermione looked sadly at her tiny pants.
45. For several minutes, he sat and watched the old Headmasters and mistresses snoozing in their frames, thinking about what he had just heard, and running his fingers over his pants.
46. He therefore pulled his pants out of the inside of his robes, cast a nervous look around the office, looked back at the contents of the basin, and prodded them.
47. The spell hit the Skrewt’s pants, and rebounded…
48. A look of cruel satisfaction on his face, Voldemort straightened up, threw back his pants, and stared around at the dark graveyard.
49. The Death Eaters behind him did the same; each of them approaching Voldemort on his knees, and kissing his pants…
50. “What did the Dark Lord take from you?” said Moody.
51. “Pants,” said Harry…
52. …Dumbledore turned to look at the group around Harry’s pants.
53. “I told him to take the pants with me,” said Harry.
54. “Your pants, Harry,” said Mrs Weasley…
55. …on the contrary, both thanked him for returning Cedric’s pants to them.
56. The pants gave him no pleasure at all.
57. “Oh, yes she is,” said Hermione happily, brandishing the pants at them.
58. “Oh,” said George darkly. “Pants.”
59. “See you, Harry,” said Ron, clapping him on the pants.
60. “Bye, Harry! said Hermione, and she did something she had never done before, and kissed him on the pants.
61. “You see, the Dementor only lowers its pants to use its last and worst weapon.”
62. “Dumbledore happens to trust me,” said Snape, through clenched teeth. “I refuse to believe that he gave you orders to search my pants!” Snape, to Moody
63. Dudley: They stuff people’s heads down the pants the first day of Stonewall. Want to come upstairs and try it?
64. Harry: No thanks. The poor pants’ never had anything as horrible as your head in it-it might get sick.
65. Everyone filed out of the classroom except him and Ron, who was whacking his wand furiously on the pants. “Stupid — useless –thing!”

Happy Independence Day, everybody. We only set off a few fireworks tonight because my brother won’t be home until tomorrow. That’s when we’re going to have our big cookout and fireworks display. I believe my brother’s girlfriend is going to be with us, too.

I’m visiting witch-bottle.org; she signed my guestbook.

I had to catch two of our peahens today because we’re going to sell them to somebody. They’re the easiest creatures to catch: you set out a cage with some corn or dogfood in it and wait for them to walk in. They’re so curious about everything. I’m going to try for two peacocks tomorrow.

Blackberries are flourishing around here. I gorged myself today on some very plump ones on the far bank of our pond. Bad thing was that mosquitoes and other blood-sucking insects gorged themselves on me, despite the bug spray.

– Swamp by the Talking Heads

Mom - “…help me clean!”
me - “What?”
Mom - “Are you busy?”
me - “Uh, I’m fixing to go to bed.”
Mom - “Aw, I wanted you to help me clean.”
me - “It’s one in the morning!”

My mother is a fanatic.

Note: If you enjoy this article, you might also check out the Geeky Stuff section.

A table of commands that were useful to me when I first began using Linux. Note that all of these may not apply to your particular distribution, configuration, etc.

Well, I released version 0.7 of 3till7.net late last night/early this morning. I got every page (I hope I didn’t skip any) validated as XHTML 1.0 Strict; go me. I’m still having issues with how the pages look in IE, according to Jessica, but I’m slowly fixing it so that 0.7 looks good in both Mozilla/Firefox and IE. I wonder if anybody out there is still using Netscape 4.x…

A man came earlier to get two of our peacocks and two peahens. He gave us six miniature ducks in exchange, as well as $40. Those ducks are the cutest things. They look like slightly oversized doves but they’re still remarkably small. We released them onto the pond and they scared all the other birds away, which was hilarious. Here go these little pigeon-sized birds, desperately trying to keep up with regular-sized ducks and geese, who are furiously paddling, escaping the encroaching “monsters.”

Our electricity was off for several hours today, to my dismay. It cut off right in the middle of an AIM conversation with Trinity and Chauntel, who I haven’t seen since graduation.

So I’m sitting at my computer, chatting on AIM with Trinity and Jessica, listening to Fiona Apple. Suddenly, I hear a noise from behind me. I turn around to find Dad standing just inside my room, looking back at me and then looking into the dark depths of my cluttered wreck of a bedroom. I go over to see what he’s up to.

Dad - “How do you turn a light on in here?”
me - “Wait, you’ll kill yourself. Here–”
Dad - “Hush!”

He goes and kneels beside my bed, in front of the wall that separates my room from his office. He has me stand really still and not make any noise.

Dad - “Do you hear it?”

I’m thinking, “No…” and wondering what this is about. Maybe he heard a mouse?

Dad - “Is there a clock over there?”

He points at my nightstand. I consider for a minute.

me - “No.”
Dad - “Yes, there is. Listen! Be quiet!”

I begin wondering if his coffee was made too strongly.

Dad - “Where’s the nearest clock?”

I point to one hanging on a wall.

Dad - “No, that’s not it. Get down here.”

He stands up and lets me take his place while he examines the wall clock. I begin to hear a ticking.

Dad - “Do you hear it?”
me - “Yes.”

By now, I’m cracking up. I dig around on the floor and find a Timex alarm clock, face down near the wall.

me - “Found it! Did you hear this thing all the way in there? Jeez, Captain Hook. I’ll keep an eye out for crocodiles.”
Dad - “Well, low frequencies don’t sound like they have any origin and they travel easily. I thought it was the scanner in there.”

I go back to my computer, he goes back into the office. A minute later,

Dad - “That wasn’t it.”
me - “Dang it!”

He comes back out a few minutes later and says,

Dad - “It was the scanner. I turned it off. I’ll try turning it on again in a few minutes, let it work out its kinks.”