Our new fireplace arrived…

by | Nov 4, 2009 | Journal

Jane, as usual, has a slideshow. It’s not much during the day, but it’s very convincing at night. Has an on-off switch for putting out a mild heat, or not; it sits right in the original fireplace, plugs into the wall. And artificial fireplaces have come a...

Can evolution happen twice with an identical result?…

by | Nov 3, 2009 | Journal

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091029125532.htm Basically, a shrew and a lizard, hardly cousins, evolved the same poison from a similar source—digestive enzymes, which evolved to a venom—a pretty nasty venom—that aids both species....

A very overdue thank you to some wonderful people…

by | Nov 2, 2009 | Journal

I refer you to Jane’s site. It’s been a very stressful couple of months—and a great comfort has been caring people who have been so good to us. We sent word that we wanted to do something special for the people who got this together for us—and...

And here comes the fire truck…

by | Oct 31, 2009 | Journal

…big bang, flash outside. Nope, not the mate to the Indonesian meteor: an electric line to the neighbors house just broke and dropped into the city arterial that flanks our house. We lost power briefly, and then a pumper firetruck shows up, blocks traffic while...

Sadly, we lost one of our koi.

by | Oct 31, 2009 | Journal

Our littlest, Rukia, that never grew much, that we tried specially hard to feed and help into her first winter. It was my fault, my inexperience. I saw her up swimming that one cold morning, and looking up the problem, found that it was a symptom of hypothermia:...

My aching fingers…

by | Oct 30, 2009 | Journal

We have collected all the disks from the last 20 years of writing and doing business and having lives onto a terabyte drive, and I have begun to edit them for duplications. There’s method in this: this enables me to find the text files for past...

Back to the rink…it tried to snow today, but didn’t.

by | Oct 29, 2009 | Journal

I was sore today and so darned sleepy (probably allergies) that I wasn’t worth much. We did run into old friends, had lunch with Kay. I’m still just exhausted, for no good reason, and had trouble breathing…just a little asthma, I think. No other...

Back to the rink…it tried to snow today, but didn't.

by | Oct 29, 2009 | Journal

I was sore today and so darned sleepy (probably allergies) that I wasn’t worth much. We did run into old friends, had lunch with Kay. I’m still just exhausted, for no good reason, and had trouble breathing…just a little asthma, I think. No other...