Mike

A dog's life

Father's Day is coming up

Amazon has Season Three of Two and a Half Men on sale.

I'm just saying.

Overheard

When the flight attendant said that we could turn our cell phones on the woman sitting in front of me phoned someone and said, "We just landed and are taxiing to the gate.  Pick me up in the Jag, not the Porsche."  The Embraer 145 that we were on is a small aircraft and I feel sure that the other 48 passengers heard her, which is probably what she wanted.

Australian Sidewalk Graffiti for Joan

[You can make it bigger.]

Champ is in the house

He's sporting his new bandanna that Justine bought him in Byron Bay.

OOL to AKL to LAX to IAD to CHS

It took 28 hours to get to Australia but because I had long layovers in Auckland and Los Angeles it took 38 hours to get home again.  I am unable to sleep on planes or in airports so by the time I got to Charleston yesterday morning I had been awake for 42 hours.  As much as I would have loved to climb into my bed I knew that if I did it would screw up my internal clock more than it already was so I kept busy and managed to stay awake for another 11 hours.  Needless to say I was asleep seconds after my head hit the pillow at 9 last night.  I feel great this morning so I hope that I have avoided the effects of jet lag.  I'll know more after another good night's sleep.

I have over 300 photos to sort through and I hope to have them posted on Flickr later this week.  I'll also post a recap of the trip on the blog in the next day or two.  For now I have to rescue Champ and Psycho from the kennel.

Happy DNA Day!

Happy DNA Day Everyone!   Today marks the 55th Anniversary of the publication of the Double Helical Structure of DNA.   

We will spend the day working with students all over the St. Louis area talking about DNA, DNA Sequencing, the Human Genome Project and how modern genetic research will impact human health.

To learn more about DNA Day, and activities near you, please visit Genome.gov.

We are also celebrating the US Senate FINALLY passing the Genetic Information Non-discrimination Act yesterday.  The bill must go back to the House to approve the Senate changes.  Once the House approves (hopefully next week), the President has said he will sign it.

Have a great day!

-- LittleMike

We'll be on the beach and you won't

Posts will be few and far between until I get back to the States.  That's mostly because Justine and I have better things to do rather than sit in front of a computer, but also because 99.9% of Australian businesses have yet to grasp the concept of WiFi and the 0.1% that have want $4 an hour.  (We're on campus at the moment where WiFi is free everywhere except the dorms which are wired for Ethernet.)

I'm in Australia. You're not.

Several of you wanted proof that I'm actually in Australia.  Here are a couple of photos.  I'll save the rest for when I get back and can organize them in a Flickr folder.

The beaches here are awesome.  The waves on a calm day are way bigger than what we see at Folly Beach.  This is Surfers Paradise this morning.  The flags show you which parts of the beach you can swim on.

The Surfers Paradise chair.  I have no clue, either.

I'm in Australia. My luggage isn't.

I knew things were going too well when all of my flights left and arrived on time.  My luggage may be at LAX.  It may be in Auckland.  If it's in Auckland the earliest I can get it back is tomorrow since there is only one flight to Gold Coast a day.  I was on today's flight.  The bags weren't.  If they are in LA I may never see them again.  More later.

Update:  Anita from Qantas phoned and said that my bags were flying from Auckland to Brisbane this afternoon.  Someone will walk them through Customs and then drive them to me in Surfers Paradise later tonight.

Leaving for Australia in a couple of hours

At least that's the plan.  With airlines as screwed up as they are you never know.  If all goes well I'll step off of the plane at Coolangatta airport 28 hours after I leave Charleston.  I'll check in the first chance I get.

E\A/R\T/H\Q/U\A/K\E

5.2
120 miles east of here (here being St. Louis).
Shook us pretty good.  Woke us up.   It shook for about 20 seconds.

This is pretty rare for the midwest, and was a bit un-nerving.  I'm sure those of you on the west coast are used to it, but we are not.

-- LittleMike

Your tax dollars at work

A study funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism discovered something shocking - Men are clueless.  Crap.  I could have told the researchers that for free.  Evidently men often confuse friendly non-verbal cues with cues for sexual interest.  In guy-speak that means that she smiled at you and you thought that she'd like to go to bed with you.  Less widely reported is that men are more clueless than you would think.  Sometimes a woman smiles at a man because she really does want to go to bed with him and he thinks that she's just being friendly.

For the record, if you are a single female and want to have your way with me make your intention clear from the git-go and use small words.  "Let's go back to my place/your place/the hotel and have hot, sweaty, monkey sex" is guaranteed to get my attention.

I think he does it just to wind up bloggers like me

Brian is using his favorite S-word again.

Brian, it's April.  It never snows in Charleston in April.  In fact, as you probably know by now, it rarely snows more than a trace in Charleston regardless of what month it is.  The over/under in Vegas is once every five years.  Take the over.

Make way for ducklings

[As always, click it.]

It's that time of year.  Ducklings everywhere.  These were in my backyard but before I could grab the camera Mama took them to the other side of the ditch.  As you can see she's still keeping an eye on me even though I'm at least 50 feet away at this point.  The most striking thing about this photo is that there are still seven ducklings in the brood and that they are no longer tiny.  Every spring the Mallards and Muscovy ducks hatch ducklings, usually seven or eight to a brood.  Unfortunately there are also lots of predators in the neighborhood - dogs that people let run wild despite the leash law, cats*, owls, and lately a fox that has been stalking Psycho.  I'm not sure which are to blame but one day you see mother ducks with seven ducklings, a day or two later with five, and a day or two after that with one.

*Psycho swears that he's never had anything to do with it and I believe him.  He's the cat that went on a hunger strike because I gave him food with poultry in it.

Quote of the Day

"Wait until you're 88.  You'll find out."

  -- Ms. Hilda, after I made the mistake of complaining about growing older.

It's safe now!

A kid just got eaten by a shark here in Australia, in case you haven't seen it on the news.  Guess where he was!!!  He was at a beach called Ballina, which is just below one of my favorite beaches on the Gold Coast!  I plan on taking Dad down that way.  Luckily for us, out of the 15 shark attacks that happen every year in Australia, only about 1 is fatal!  So now if we get bitten, we won't die.  It'll just hurt real bad...

Fatal Shark Attack

Apparently, the last guy that got bitten hauled the shark up on to his boat first!  IMO, he practically ASKED the thing to bite him!  I don't plan on asking any sharks to help me fish.  I think I've got it.

--Justine

It must be a slow news day

The New York Times is reporting that bloggers are dying from stress and long hours in front of the computer.

The Times' reporter admits, "To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic."  That didn't stop him from filing the story, though.

Regardless, impending death is now my excuse for not posting that often.

Like taking candy from babies

Mike +$10
Justine -$2
William -$8

Justine and I both have Kansas winning so there's no hope for Justine there.  William tapped out when North Carolina lost.  He has to hope that Memphis wins in order to cut his loss.

On to the Final Four

Mike +$7
Justine -$2
William -$5

I don't think either can catch me now although they can cut into my lead.

Sometimes lo-tech is the best-tech

I know that my Mac has an app called Stickies but this is so much easier and harder to ignore.

[Click it if you want to know what I'm up to.]

Before you can ask, I was a blond, probably a dumb one, before it all went grey.

The King of the Jungle

Psycho is jealous.  He thinks I take more photos of Champ.

It's a miracle!

24 hours and 60 mg of prednisone later and Champ has almost stopped scratching.  I think I'll skip giving him a bath today and see how it goes.

I now have the prednisone side effects to cope with.  Champ is drinking 3-times as much water as he would normally drink and peeing 4-times as much as he would normally pee.  Don't ask me how that last part is possible, but it is.  There's no sleeping through the night for either of us.  When he's got to go, he's got to go.  I wonder if this is what my old age will be like when my prostate packs it in.

Champ also wants to eat continuously.  I'm not letting him because I don't want my 70 lb dog ballooning into a 100 lb dog over the next 3 weeks.  He's currently playing hockey with his empty food bowl because he's pissed at me for not refilling it after he ate his breakfast.  I guess I'll have to listen to that thump-thump-thump! until dinner time.

Prednisone also makes some dogs, fixed or not, try to hump everything in sight.  Be content with the mental image because there won't be any photos.  Photos live forever on the Intertubes.

Do they pray for God to save my soul? Probably too late.

Two years ago I poked gentle fun at the name of a Lutheran church on Bees Ferry Rd.  Since then I've had little reason to drive by the church because developers built a new street into Shadowmoss from Bees Ferry that gets me home quicker.  This morning while driving from Walmart to Bi-Lo I passed the church and noticed that it has a new name.

Is it because of something I said?

Beard Award Finalists

I mentioned last month that a number of Charleston chefs made the initial list of nominees for this year's Beard Awards.  The finalists were announced today.  Making the cut were Sean Brock from McCrady's for Rising Star Chef of the Year, Mike Latta from Fig for Best Chef - Southeast, and Robert Stehling from Hominy Grill for Best Chef - Southeast.  The winners will be announced on June 8th at a gala at Lincoln Center, New York.

Poor Champ - 2008 Edition

Last March Champ developed a severe allergy to something and went on antibiotics and prednisone for a couple of weeks.  I wondered at the time if the allergy was caused by all of the tree pollen swirling around.  By the time he finished the prednisone he was fine but pollen season was over, so it was hard to tell if that was the problem.

Now I know.  Tree pollen season started two weeks ago and so did the scratching, licking, and chewing.  The symptoms were mild at first and I thought maybe Champ and I could last it out but it wasn't to be.  This weekend all Champ did was scratch, lick, and chew if he was awake.  I took him to the vet this morning and he's back on prednisone for the next 3 weeks.  Since he hasn't yet chewed any sores on his legs he didn't need the antibiotics.

The vet suggested that I bathe Champ every day to wash off the pollen.  Oh joy!

It's going to be a very Sweet Sixteen

My lead continues to grow.

Mike +$7
William -$2
Justine -$5

William surges, Justine sinks

Mike +$6
William -$3
Justine -$3

At the end of Round 1

It's a good thing we're just playing each other and not people who actually know something about college basketball.  We all got burned yesterday.

Mike     +$5
Justine  +$2
William  -$7

After Round 1 of Round 1

Mike +$4

William -$2

Justine -$2