Recently in Boxing Clever Category

I like Sarah Palin for the same reason I liked Dan Quayle.

Comic relief.

Please run, Sarah.

In other news, I have discovered just how well insulated my house is. My heat pump quit working, so I have been without air conditioning. Despite several days near 100 degrees, a couple of fans running in the house have made it tolerable. Well, that, and I have been spending most of my time outside, so inside the house feels cool, even at 80 degrees.

But a new heat pump will be delivered and installed Tuesday nonetheless. And relocated to the north side of the house. Which means it will be off my deck, and out of my field of vision. I hope the toad(s) that live under the old one relocate to under the new one because it will be outside of the fence and thus outside of the canine torture zone.

I can tell from the dogs' jerky movements when they have a toad or frog cornered on the deck. It's fun trying to get 150 pounds of dogs away from a one ounce amphibian. They don't have the "leave it" command quite down yet, but we are making progress with their training. Both new screen doors on the porch are still intact. Hudson has quit chewing on the house.

Yeah, Bradley Cooper was all cute speaking French, but Cesar Millan gets my vote for Sexiest Man Alive. Well, right behind the surgeon that fixed Busted Stuff. There are a few degrees of straight that I likely never will regain in that finger. And occasional feelings of what I call "clumpiness." But I can play the piano and my harp again. And type as well as I could before. And snap my fingers. And safely operate all my power tools. And scratch both dogs at the same time.

If necessary, I'd do a bang-up job of ringing those bells, too.

Oh, how I do enjoy clever people.

No, the entries from 1997 to 2008 were never deleted. They were takn off the links of the main page, but still exist.

If you go here, then you will be on a page with a back button that will take you to the earlier entries.

Clever people will be able to tell from the link how the archives are organized.

Knock yourselves out.

I'm pondring in analogy form this morning.

I'm a baby. I get hungry. I can't say to you that I'm hungry, so I cry. When I cry you come and get me and fuss over me and feed me. I get content, I stop crying.

Then I need my diaper changed. I express this the only way I know how. I cry. You come and attend to my needs.

I learn that when I cry, comforting takes place. So sometimes I'm not hungry, or wet, or unhappy, I cry to say, "Please come pick me up and soothe me." And you do.

And I'm smart. Pretty soon I can have you running at all hours of the night, even though, technically, I don't need anything. I'm fed and dry and warm in my bed. You know this, yet you come running anyway, because that is what you do.

One day, however, you realize I as the baby need nothing, and you're going to let me cry myself back to sleep, so you can get some sleep.

It's hard.

I cry a little bit, and wait. You don't come running.

I cry harder. Nothing.

I don't see you in the other room, or just how hard it is for you to NOT come running. What you're doing is really helping me grow, but my immediate myopia keeps me from understanding that.

I start to scream. The crying didn't do it, so I crank it up a notch. That will bring you running.

Huh. Still no comfort.

I, as a baby, have a setting called "cry so hard as to go silent and turn purple." You've left me no choice. I turn the knob to purple. I won't have to wait long. You can't resist this.

Well, you've never been able to resist it in the past. Tonight though, I'm screaming my little lungs out. Can't you hear me saying, "Waaaaaaaaa."

Yes, little one. I hear you.

I have the monitor next to my ear. And a screen that lets me check often to make sure you are not tangled in your jammie feet, smooshed against the wall of your crib, or otherwise in real peril.

Yes, little one. I hear you. It may be a long time before you understand how I can love you at the same time I let you cry yourself back to sleep tonight.

So, my hotel room is on the 9th floor, and has a great big balcony which overlooks a very busy highway. (I'm not certain there is any other type of highway in Houston.)

I walked out onto the balcony last night, looked down onto the highway, and saw a tow truck, an SUV, and a police vehicle stopped on the outside lane - (no shoulder) tow truck in front, disabled vehicle in the middle, and cop car at the end.

There was a single flare on the ground about two car lengths behind the police car.

Once the tow truck had pulled away, I watched the cop walk back to his car. I asked myself what he was going to do about the flare - not considering for a moment that the answer was going to be "just leave it there and let it go out by itself."

But that is precisely what the officer did.

Did I mention the flare was in an active traffic lane, not the shoulder? Did I mention it was night? Did I mention I'm in Houston?

So the cop pulls away.

And almost immediately cars begin to react to the flare in the road. Some apparently don't see it until the last minute then swerve to avoid it. Some people slam on their brakes. Some just cruise into the next lane at a high rate of speed, causing the other three lanes of traffic to react.

I would have to look on my camera for the time stamps, but that flare burned for 10 minutes. Five or so minutes into watching it there were three cars that came within inches of a three-car pileup. I saw it coming, heard the squealing rubber, and just braced myself for the sound of metal crunching. Fortunately the driver at the back stopped just in the nick of time.

Surely there is a procedure for putting a flare on the road during a traffic stop. One would think there would be a procedure for putting the flare out.

And if there is, someone should tell Barney Fife.

In other news, folks are still finding pondring because they are Googling short interval control.

(Here's a hint - you will see better SIC numbers if you stop Googling shit at work and spend your time on your to do list.)

I also get a lot of links from a web site about rare words. It would seem that my spelling of pondring is mainstream-er than I thought, while at the same time being rare in some way.

Delightfully appropriate description of pondring, I think.