mountainmelody

About 98% of Americans will eat turkey today.

Enjoy!

Someone gave me a book full of words to use in your dissertation. Since I know you'll all want a copy, I'll provide a preview while you wait for the book to ship:

words:
concretize
encapsulate
exacerbate
intimate
promulgate
surmise
vitiate

phrases:
The question arises...
The literature is replete with references to...
The ideas expressed by __ lead to a broader conceptualization of...
...having no intrinsic relation to...
The general theoretical context of ___ is assumed to be fundamental to...
This phenomena derives from...
...token applicability to...

And while we're on the subject of wish lists, I've updated mine at Amazon. Caveat emptor.

I know you check here multiple times every day for scintillating reports of life on the mountain, but I've been busy: driving, working, driving, sleeping, working on my dissertation, thinking about working on my dissertation...

I'll work on some of my pictures later and put them up. In the meantime, I'd recommend that you find some other sites or hobbies to occupy your time. Maybe this will get you started: http://www.fsi-language-courses.net/

Almost half of Americans under age 30 have a tattoo.

Happy birthday to me!

interesting

A 75-year-old Swedish grandmother has the world's fastest internet connection. She can download a full-length movie in less than 2 seconds.

She uses her connection to read Web-based newspapers.

Leader: Do you remember what kind of bad weather they have in Haiti? Remember--it's an island.

GA 1: Tornadoes?

Leader: No, but you're close.

GA 2: Volcanoes!



Me: What does giving someone clean water have to do with what this verse says about doing something unto the 'least of these' like you're doing it for Jesus?

GA 3: Ooh! Ooh! I know! It's like today I gave my brother a whoopee cushion. When I gave it to him it was really like I gave it to lots of people.

Americans work longer hours than people from any other country.

In case you're wondering, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth.

I don't have anything exciting to share from my trip, but I'm back home now. You can look for scintillating posts in the days to come, I'm sure.

Traffic on 459 was terribly slow again today.

Turns out there was a grass fire on the side of the road, not a mile or two from where the truck burned yesterday.

At least my house didn't burn down.

This morning the fire alarm went off at work. (Supposedly there was a loud "boom" before that, but I didn't hear it.) The fire trucks came, but I guess everything was okay.

Today on my way home from work, a tractor trailer caught fire on the side of the road. I was just a couple of cars back--I came to it several minutes before any police or fire trucks came. It must have just happened.

I sat on the interstate for an hour watching it burn. Flames and smoke were going everywhere--even leaping out across all three lanes of the interstate. At one point there was a large "boom," and more fire.

Here are some pictures from my phone:



I'm just hoping my house doesn't catch on fire tonight. ;)

Nature is the art of God.
-Dante Alighieri

Just more random trivia for you:

Did you know that the average time devoted to dusting has fallen significantly in recent decades?

In my cleaning habits, I'm just trying to keep up with the trend. ;)

I'm in Nashville, but you'll have to take my word for it. I've been too busy to get out and take any pictures, and I don't figure that a photo of the inside of my hotel room is that exciting.

But at least I posted so you'll know I'm alive. (Takes a load off your mind, I know.)

(during a discussion about world hunger)

GA: If I were starving, I might even eat brussel sprouts!

things I don't like about living here
1. dial-up internet
2. dial-up internet
3. dial-up internet
4. driving a million miles to get anywhere
5. wasting my life in traffic while driving a million miles to get to work

things I like about living here
1. peace, quiet
2. beautiful mountains, trees, lake, etc.
3. open space
4. rootedness, heritage, sense of "place"
5. community

I've been meaning to mention an experience I had in DC. At the conference, they mentioned that anyone who was interested could join a choir to sing at the banquet.

Along with a handful of other women, I showed up at the choir rehearsal, which took place right before the banquet. That's when I learned that we'd be singing three songs--two of which I had never heard of.

And from the music I heard, it sure didn't sound like the other women had, either.

Instead of dragging this story out, let me just mention three small things I learned from the experience:

1. 45 minutes is not really long enough for a group of strangers to learn three new full-length songs together.
2. It's not a good idea to perform a song in a concert when you didn't quite get to the second half of it in rehearsal.
3. While "letting the Spirit lead" sounds very spiritual, let's just say you may be led places that the music's composer never imagined.
   

If you knew how long it took to upload this, you'd forgive me for the shaky camera work. :)

Okay, people. I'm having a horrible time uploading stuff tonight. (Hmm, wonder if that has anything to do with my awful dial-up connection?)

So I guess you'll have to wait in suspense one more day, if you can hold out that long.

Hello from on board an airplane!

Wireless internet is a wonderful thing.

Getting to the airport before the sun comes up is not.

Every time you flush a toilet you use more water than the average person in the developing world uses all day for cooking, cleaning, drinking--everything.

overheard in front of a perfectly normal ice cream freezer at the grocery store:

Dad: Sarah, do you want Auburn ice cream or Alabama ice cream?

Toddler: Auburn!

Me: What are you excited about in GAs this year? (thinking playing games, learning about other countries, trying cool foods, etc.)

Girl 1: The aquarium!

Girl 2: Dancing!


As far as I know, we don't have any plans to go to the aquarium or dance during GAs, but maybe we should make some...

Chapters written: 2
Pages written: 98
Words written: 31,136
Sources consulted: 292

I'm taking off from most everything until September 5 to work on my dissertation. So unless something unusually interesting happens in the meantime, see you then.

Girl [to me]: You're the goddess of GAs!

Same girl: Kenya? I know about Kenya! They don't have libraries there, so camels carry books to them on their backs!

From a report written in 1888:

Annual amount contributed by Christians in the United States,
for home and foreign missions, $5,500,000;
for dress goods, $125,000,000;
for kid gloves, $25,000,000;
for ostrich feathers, $5,000,000;
for tobacco, $600,000,000;
for liquor, $900,000,000.

If I die today, tell everybody that I was planning to clean the house tomorrow.

Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier.

-Kathleen Norris

71% of Americans think of themselves as leaders.

www.paperbackswap.com

If you have any old books you don't want, I'll take them!

Guy: Yeah, I grew up here, but then I moved away.

Me: Oh yeah? Where did you go? (thinking Chicago, Nashville, DC, etc.)

Guy: Well, we tried Pelham and Homewood [both suburbs of Birmingham], but we liked Argo [another suburb] best, so we came back home.

Today someone called me (at work) and asked if I wanted a job as a Latin teacher.

Ne sutor ultra crepidam.

Pennies, nickels, dimes we are,
Rolling near and rolling far;
Little wheels, how swift we go,
Bearing to a world of woe
Tiding of the Lord we love,
Messages from heaven above.

There are bigger wheels, you know—
Quarters, halves, yes, dollars too!
Set them rolling, friends, and see
What a buzzing there will be—
How the tidings that they bring
Will make lonely hearts to sing.

If a big wheel you can start
With its message to some heart,
Do—O! do not be content
With a nickel or a cent!
But the big wheel—friend, don’t wait;
Drop it quick upon the plate!

Many late adolescent young people today are four to six years behind the previous generation in sociological and psychological development.