A Ferret and a Calculator

There's a new show on SyFy (what used to be the SciFi channel) called Warehouse 13. (No, I didn't link to the SyFy official website for the show because I find it amazing annoying!) I haven't been able to watch it yet, but merely from a *description* of *one scene* I'm already a fan. It's a cross between the X-Files and Sanctuary with a little Eureka thrown in for good measure, and features two secret service agents (a la Mulder and Scully temperaments) being assigned to work in a warehouse full of... unique... artifacts. The scene is this: a magical teapot that grants wishes. But if you wish for something impossible it gives you... wait for it... a ferret. ::SNORT:: I have it downloaded on the computer at home, and I plan to watch it this weekend. But just from that alone, I give it a thumbs up!

Of course, it helps to understand that I'm someone who loves this kind of random behavior from inanimate objects. I am also a huge fan of Douglas Adams, in particular his Dirk Gently books. There's one scene in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency where Dirk buys a calculator, an "i ching" calculator. Let me quote:

The electronic I Ching calculator was badly made. It had probably been manufactured in whichever of the South-East Asian countries was busy tooling up to do to South Korea what South Korea was busy doing to Japan. Glue technology had obviously not progressed in that country to the point where things could be successfully held together with it. Already the back had half fallen off and needed to be stuck back on with Sellotape.

It was much like an ordinary pocket calculator, except that the LCD screen was a little larger than usual, in order to accommodate the abridged judgments of King Wen on each of the sixty-four hexagrams, and also the commentaries of his son, the Duke of Chou, on each of the lines of the hexagram. These were unusual texts to see marching across the display of a pocket calculator, particularly as they had been translated from the Chinese via the Japanese and seemed to have enjoyed many adventures on the way.

The device also functioned as an ordinary calculator, but only to a limited degree. It could handle any calculation which returned an answer of anything up to "4".

"1 + 1" it could manage ("2"), and "1 + 2" ("3") and "2 + 2" ("4") or "tan 74" ("3.4874145"), but anything above "4" it represented merely as "A Suffusion of Yellow". Dirk was not certain if this was a programming error or an insight beyond his ability to fathom, but he was crazy about it anyway, enough to hand over £20 of ready cash for the thing.

So hurrah for the strange and unexpected! (Like two posts from me in a single day!)

::Sigh:: What's wrong with the RSV?

I was in the Christian bookstore biz for quite a number of years. I saw all manner of kookiness cross the pages of some publishers' catalogs. I saw the advent of the "Bible Magazine" from Thomas Nelson (now in its 5th edition... ::shudder:: )

But now... there's a whole new generation of bizarro-Bibles meant to reach a particular audience. Are you a hip urban teen? Try THIS.

Most recently? Are you an environmentalist and keep careful track of your carbon footprint? Now there's a Bible just for YOU! The Green Bible (H/T Justin)

How far should publishers go to promote the Word of God (leaving aside for the moment the question of whether or not their goal is to spread the Gospel or make some profit) before they turn the Word of God into a laughingstock or a sad, sick joke? If I were an urban hipster, I would get a laugh out of that Bible, and not much more. Hmm - like the laugh folks gave Episcopal church when it published its hip-hop prayer book, with it's catchy 23rd Psalm "The Lord is all that, I need for nothing." (Oh, my eyes! My eyes!)

I admit the Bible can be difficult to read. And any translation suffers from the fact that it's... well... a TRANSLATION. But rather than trying to be hip and relevant to whatever audience you're trying to reach, doesn't it make more sense simply to preach the gospel? If you do that, honestly and earnestly, there shouldn't be any need for tricks or gimmicks.

A Visit to Middle Earth

We didn't actually intend to go to Middle Earth on our vacation this past weekend. However, we did go to West Virginia and visit our favorite biologist. And while in West Virginia we drove up to Fayetteville and visited the longest metal arch bridge in the Western Hemisphere. Which goes across the New River Gorge. Which is a national park. But I digress!

While hiking on the Canyon Rim Bridge Trail (which runs down from the top of the canyon about 2/3rds of the way down into the gorge, going under the bridge itself), I am fully convinced we crossed into Middle Earth.






We saw an Ent. Not Treebeard, but certainly one of his kin.











We walked along the Road from Hobbiton to Bree. (Alas, no elves!)










We climbed the Straight Stair towards the pass atop Cirith Ungol.
(We were lucky as no Shelob met us at the top.)









And finally under the bridge itself, as the cars drove by far overhead, we seemed to hear the wail of the Ringwraiths. The enormous bridge made us feel quite Hobbit-like, and as we trekked back up the steep trail we were happy to see the top of the canyon once again!

Table Project, Completed

I've never been reticent to admit that the philosopher and I are pretty handy around the house. We've hung sheetrock, rewired boxes, fiddled with plumbing (successfully), repaired walls and floors, installed insulation, and dozens of other things. When we took on our most recent project, though, I was afraid we'd bitten off more than we could chew.

Some of my errant thoughts over the last two weekends:

"This table is 100 years old... what if we damage it?"

"We just bought these chairs, yeah, they're unfinished but what if we muck up the stain and ruin them?"

"We've matched the stain as close as we could, but what if the chairs and the table don't look right together?

"Can you get polyurethane out of leg hairs, or will we need to shave his leg?"

At the end, though, it was worth every bit of the 100 degree days in the shop, the layers of stain and poly coating fingers and clothes (and yes, legs), the sanding masks and the ventilator masks as we applied the stripping compound.


And here it is, set and ready for Father's Day dinner with my dad. Yay!!

Vacation memories...

Well, my vacation (such as it was) is over. As I said before, we didn't really go on any adventures, but we did have some great "down-time" and recharged the batteries a bit. I'm not getting a full week off this summer, but I am getting three smaller "vacations". My next one will be Fourth of July weekend, when we actually ARE going out of town to visit our favorite biologist in West Virginia. Yay!

But I digress - what did we do this past weekend? We started a project long anticipated... we stripped and started the refinishing process on my grandmother's dining room table. We had always assumed it was walnut. Nope. After we got the 100 years of stain and shellac off, we discovered a beautiful wood that was almost pink in color. But it's not cherry. It's mahogany. And it's absolutely gorgeous. To prove it, here are a couple of photos. The first is the professor (in full respirator gear) as he started the stripping process.


This next picture is the table after two coats of polyurethane. We decided not to add any stain at all, and just let the wood speak for itself.

I can't wait to see how it looks when we get the chairs finished too. (We bought ones like THIS at Wood You in Opelika.) We're planning to go to the local paint store and get them to custom color-match the table with their computer system. So theoretically, even though the table is mahogany and the chairs are parawood (from the rubber tree), the coloration will be very, very close. We're hoping to finish up the process this weekend. If we succeed, I'll post a before-and-after pic for your perusal!

Vacation!

"Vacation, all I ever wanted, vacation have to get away....."

Well, it's a vacation from WORK, anyway. We're not actually going anywhere exotic, or doing anything fabulously interesting. But it's a few days away from the library, and that indeed is a Good Thing. But, we will do some fun things, like...

*Visit the philosopher's sister who lives a couple of hours away
*Go for a hike on the Pinhoti (this time Salem Church Road to the High Point trailhead)
*Watch movies and do some scrapbooking (yes, at the same time)
*Lounge in the hammock (or maybe even *in* the pool if it's really hot)
*Cook something fun, bake something tasty
*Complete one designated house project (as yet to be determined)

So there you go. And off I go!

Happy Birthday!

No, it's not my birthday but the philosopher's. We're celebrating with dinner out. I already gave him his present... new hiking boots. Though we may go shopping for a new weed whacker this weekend, that in no way counts as a present. It would be like him giving me a vacuum cleaner! I told him yesterday that this weekend was his. We'd do whatever he'd like to do, whether it be hiking or talking philosophy or reading Tom Clancy, J. K. Rowling, or Stephen King (oh wait - that would be me. He'd probably be reading Wodehouse or Charles Taylor). As of last night, he was still considering all the possibilities!

A Random Aside:

We received TEN POUNDS of napa cabbage in the most recent farm delivery. Holy cabbage, Batman!!

UPDATE:
So, we went to Olive Garden for dinner. We went to his favorite coffee shop for lattes and dessert. We went hiking at Cheaha State Park (and found ourselves trailblazing off the wrong trail. More on that in a later post.) My mom took us out to lunch on Sunday. We spent time by the pool, the philosopher on a float and me in a hammock. It was a great weekend!