I saw Wanda Sykes' comedy special on HBO "on demand" a couple of weeks ago. She was delightfully naughty, which made me say the words "wicked" and "wanda" adjacent to one another. I suddenly had an epiphany, remembering a comic strip character from Penthouse magazine named ... "Wicked Wanda".

Wicked Wanda was a dark-haired statuesque character -- an avowed lesbian -- who had an ambisexual diminutive blond-haired side-kick named Candyfloss. The two of them had many an adventure from solving crimes to intervening with history and politics. Of course, since this was a comic strip in Penthouse, many of their adventures were of the prurient variety, and most story lines ended with Wanda and Candyfloss entwined in mutual pleasure.

My epiphany was in the imagery of that final scene. I realized that these two characters were the models for our more recent heroines Xena and Gabrielle. Of course we wanted them to kiss! They did that and more when they were Wicked Wanda and Candyfloss!

Spring sprang and is now done. It whizzed by as usual, but I managed to get a little more done than teach my course and work full time. I attribute that to the extra 12 hours a week that freed up when Grandma passed. Summer was official last weekend, but only just now has it gotten hot enough to feel like summer. On July 1st, it will have been an entire year since Grandmother died. I've been thinking about her a lot lately.

Pretty soon, I expect to finish going through the last of her stuff, and tidy up some loose ends. That's my summer project.

It's all good.

I am usually way too busy to consider contacting my political representatives, but the other day I was seized with a moment of citizen concern and actually took the time to write my senators and congressman. This had to do with news I had just read that the rebuttal stimulus package removed or cut proposed extra funding for NSF, NASA, NOAA, NIST, and DOE. This shocked and upset me because it undermined this country's very necessary investment in technology and science infrastructure -- not only in a financial way, but also in way that signaled that science and technology are not very important to the country.

In the original Senate stimulus package, a substantial amount of funding was earmarked for NSF, NOAA, DOE, NIST and NASA. The rebuttal package involved cuts of 100%, 35%, 38%, 38%, and 50%, respectively, totaling approximately 50% cuts to these agencies. Thanks to the grass roots efforts of Sci/Tech Citizens like myself who contacted their people on the Hill, the compromise package reinstated some of the funding, to a total of only 10% cuts. You can read the facts here: http://www.sciencedebate2008.com/www/index.php?id=60

We all know that discovery and the resulting technology drive our economy. Funded scientists and engineers are the people who make the discoveries and create the technology. Such funding helps train and sustain Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) professionals, of which there is a shortage among US citizens. The science and technology sector has to import many of its professionals.

Why aren’t there enough US citizen STEM professionals? Mainly, I'd say, because US culture doesn’t VALUE them and the hard work and extended time it takes to get to the point of productivity. I believe that cutting funding for agencies that use or support STEM workers perpetuates the Bush-era trivialization of science and technology. Our country's future depends on robust funding and appreciation of all that science and technology can do. What will become of our future society when no one knows how to fix or invent anything?

So I wrote some letters, and I encourage you to do so, too. If you care about science and technology funding, I hope you will email your senators and congresspeople to ask them to continue to support robust funding for science and technology, and thank them for what support they have given. This is important — not only because of our interest in our jobs, but also because of the impact of science and technology on our country's future. You can find your senator and congressperson contact information at http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov/ , respectively.

Quite a few years ago I noticed some sticky pink residue on the face of our stereo system on on the areas adjacent. As we had just had a party in the house, I assumed that one of our friends had spilled a drink. Annoyed at them for not cleaning up after themselves, I muttered and grouched about them while I cleaned it all up. I convinced myself that whoever spilled on the stereo was too embarrassed to confess, and mentally profiled which one of them must have been the culprit.

A couple of weeks later, I found fresh pink sticky stuff. But we hadn't had a party, so my theory about negligent friends began to dissipate. As I was cleaning it up, I noticed our gray kitty boy glowering at me with furrowed brow. I became suspicious of his demeanor, and began spying on him. Although I was never able to catch him in the act, my worse suspicions were confirmed by the following circumstantial evidence: fresh liquid on the stereo and kitty-boy bolting out of the room upon my entry. Now I was certain of three problems: a pissed-on stereo system, a bad kitty, and a bad kitty with a UTI.

The destroyed CD component was replaced, but the kitty was not replaceable. Instead, we sent him to board at the vet's for UTI treatment and a little OCD medicine. Meanwhile, we methodically cleaned the house of all piss-markings with a special enzyme. We got a new cabinet for the stereo system -- one with doors on it -- so Mr. Bad Kitty couldn't destroy more of the components with his corrosive stream.

He destroyed the door on the new cabinet, but we thought the stereo components were safe. However, over the years, the dried salts of his effluent began to exude from the crevices of the amplifier and the tuner. Little by little, the connections in the amp began to corrode, such that now -- five years after Mr. Bad Kitty's demise -- it began to short out. So much so that we got to enjoy approximately only one hour of music this Yultide season. We gave consideration of tearing apart the amp and cleaning it of corrosion product, but we just didn't have the energy to do it.

So we went shopping instead. Went to the audiophile store where the system was originally purchased, and told them the amp model we were looking to replace. They showed us a lovely current equivalent, to the tune of $1200!. I was in sticker shock. Sweetheart, having recently pulled off a $0.5Million negotiatory coup at work, was in the mood for a good poker game with the salesfolk. Plus, she'd already done a little research on realistic pricing for amp systems. Playing off my frank confession of sticker shock, Sweetheart smacked the salesfolk with our acceptable range: $400ish. The salesdude behind the counter, already bonding with us as part of his alumni community, offered up the demo Marantz tuner/amp on the floor for $375, with the original 3-year factory guarantee. "Sold!", we said to him. "Merry Christmas", she said to me!

Of course, the new component didn't fit in the old cabinet, the veneer of which was peeling from the prior pissings of Mr. Bad Kitty. So we decided to get a new cabinet. After a little internet research, we decided our best bet would be an assemble-it-yourself audio pier, and decided to try the in-store stock at Target, Sears, and K-Mart -- in that order. Walked into Target, browsed the shelving aisles, found the only container of its kind, got a clerk to take it up to the register, got another clerk to load it in the car, and got the hell out of there. All in less than 15 minutes.

The box was too heavy for us to lift out of the car. We opened it up in the car, and carried the pieces into the house, one by one. We spent the afternoon assembling the new cabinet with nary a cuss word. We disassembled the old cabinet, wiped off the good components, and began to place them in their new home. Except that the width of the components was greater than the opening in the cabinet. There was enough room inside, but a 1.5"-wide molding prevented directly placing them. This required everything to go into the cabinet 45-degrees to the vertical, with subsequent adjustment to horizontal. As each component went in, there was less room for angling the next component in. Never ones to walk away from a challenge, we worked this thing like a three-dimensional sudoku. Finally, all the pieces fit in. As an added benefit, all wires and plugs were correctly connected on the first try. We even earthquake-strapped the cabinet into place.

The beautiful cherry wood surrounding the dark anodized finish of the components is breathtaking. Our LP albums from the olden days are nestled in the cupboard below the shelving. The giant volume and multi-jog knobs on the tuner/amp give us analog control to a second decimal precision on the digital display. The ready LED winks at us from across the room. "Play me", she says. "Play me."

Music is once again non-stop in our house, and we loves our music!

So the other day, sweetheart and I were on our way to a post-Thanksgiving shopping trip. As always, I am driving. However, I was driving one-handed (as I am also typing one-handed), on account of a severely sprained wrist/hand. As we accelerated onto the freeway, I realized that the sunshine on my left side is in serious need of visor positioning. Having no twist, grip, or pull functionality with my right hand, and having my left hand committed to the navigation-stabilization of an accelerating vehicle, I asked sweetheart to pop the visor off of its holder. Sweetheart, eager to be helpful, decided that she should also swing the visor into position to save me the trouble. What she didn't know was that there is not enough clearance between the visor and the driver's head to execute a full visor swing without evasive maneuvering on the part of the driver. Not realizing her helpful intent, and focusing on my freeway merge, I didn't move out of the way of the oncoming visor. Next thing I know, the visor edge had not only smacked me in the face and smashed my glasses lens to my eyes, but had also pinned my head to the head rest.

Here's the camera shot description of this scene for that wacky untitled physical comedy I've been working on all my life, as viewed from the passenger side:
Driver, head pushed to the headrest, has a visor impaled in her forehead such that the long axis of the visor is parallel to the direction of travel, the un-impaled end permanently affixed to the hinge above the windshield. Driver loses control of the car, and careens up the embankment. Airbags are triggered, the resulting expansion of which pushes the visor into the driver's frontal lobe, lobotomizing the driver into oblivion. In the comedy version of this scene, the driver is already such a doofus that nobody notices any changes.

In real life, here's what happened:
Upon visor impact, I closed my eyes for a millisecond. Then I remembered I was driving a car at high speed in the middle of a merge. I opened my eyes and exclaimed the eff-word, while simultaneously pulling and twisting the visor back to position with my splinted dominant hand, with nary a swerve or change in speed. Vision now impaired by a greasy eye print on my glasses lens, right wrist throbbing from the exertion, we wheezed from laughter all the way to Costco as we imagined all the movie scenes and criminal charges that could precipitate from the worse case scenario.

BTW, the wrist is improving...slowly.

Sweetheart asked me this morning during pillow talk what I am grateful for. Everything, really. Love, friends, and family, mostly.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

I was moved to tears when the election was called for Obama. I am so happy that our country finally gets a chance to be led by a smart and charismatic person, not to mention downright proud by proxy that a person of color has broken the barrier of internalized bigotry. Obama fills me with hope for a better world! May he be as skilled in running his administration as he was with his campaign!

This is a bittersweet hope, however, because with 95% of the state results in, it appears that Proposition 8 -- the anti-gay marriage amendment -- has been approved by ~52% of the voters. While this is better than the 65% approval of Prop 22 in 2000, it shows that people still have their knickers in a twist about gay people and are willing to deny us basic civil rights. And it puts my own recent civil marriage in limbo, as my life-partner and I tied the knot in specific anticipation that we may never have the chance to do it again. While our day-to-day life will change naught, we do take the outcome personally and protest with the utmost indignation!

Let the lawsuits begin!

Hordes of deliciously costumed children paraded through our neighborhood last night. As I was passing out candy to a group of goblins, I noticed a man in suit and tie lurking by our bushes -- just under our No on 8 sign. He sees me see him, and greets me: "Are you saved?". I pretended he was referring to the financial crisis, and said something glib about stuffing my money under the mattress. The children disperse, and the man does not go with them. Next thing I know, he's up on the porch, practically in the door, once again inquiring about my savings plan. But now he's asking more clearly "Have you accepted the Lord into your heart?". I couldn't tell if this was his idea of a cool costume, or if he was serious. As I was about to trivialize his would-be mission by dropping candy into his bible-toting satchel, the rest of my posse decided that he was the real deal. "Yeah, I'm saved", one said, "I worship the Goddess". "Get of my porch right now", my spouse commanded. "No on 8!", another blurted out, as the man skulked into the night.

No candy for him! His costume was way too scary.

I'm glad to know that somebody else goes to the sick and twisted place of Monty Python whenever they hear the name Palin. Here's the dialogue in today's Get Fuzzy comic strip:

The set up: Bucky has been frothing on about conservative political matters for the past few days, and recently tried to sully Obama in a smear campaign by associating him with filthy Ferrets.

Rob to Bucky: Admit it. You're worried about your guy's V.P. choice.

Bucky: I stand by Palin.

Satchel butts in from the side of the panel, preening: IIIII'm a Republican and I'm OK! I work all night and I sleep all day!

Rob to Bucky: Just say it. You'd rather have someone else! Like Whitman, or Lieberman!

Satchel: I'm afraid we're fresh out of Lieberman, sir!

Rob to Satchel: Satchel! Stop shouting Michael Palin lines, we're talking politics.

Satchel: No-body expects the Alaskan politician!

For full enjoyment, read it here: http://www.comics.com/comics/getfuzzy/

I could hear them on my morning walk, a marauding cacophony hidden by the trees. As I stepped around the street trees, I was able to watch a flock of parrots just as they infested a pink-flowered park tree. These were very large sit-on-a-pirate's-shoulder parrots, easily 12 inches tall, bright green with gnarly-looking beaks and red hats. Their raucous commentary was punctuated with cussing, gluttony, and parrot-poop. It was hard to believe how big they were, since I could've sworn they were smaller at prior observations. Just as that thought formulated, a group of smaller parrots landed in the same tree. Delicate, squeaking, and noisily playful, these little bright green parrots had a red mask right above their nose. Aha! Juveniles and Adults, or two species. Most certainly two sizes, and now I could have confidence in my personal calibration system.

But this was not a play zone they had landed on. This was a morning meal. One by one, the long pink flowers on the tree disappeared before my eyes, their succulence slurped and swallowed for Sunday brunch by these wild and colorful birds.

I've been a little busy for the past four years, looking after Grandmother. She passed away this afternoon, gently and naturally. She was 96. My heart is so full of indescribable love, energy, and peace about this. I know she will rest in peace.

On my way into office hours yesterday morning, I spied a colorful drake and his frumpy hen off the path in front of me. I wished I had a camera, and then remembered that my fancy cellphone has one. So I shot me some ducks:



I wondered if they had a nest nearby.

Non-Sequitur comic for March 17:

Panel 1:
Danae is riding her talking horse, Lucy, and laments "I wish I could be an inventor...It seems like that would be fun". Lucy responds "So what's stopping you?".

Panel 2:
Danae says "Oh come on, Lucy... All that science and engineering is Boy Stuff!"
Lucy replies "Really? Who says girls can't do it?"

Panel 3:
Danae ponders and ponders hard. The expression on her face reveals that she's had an epiphany.

Panel 4:
Now Danae is in a huff, with her hands on her hips, and finally indignantly responds to Lucy's question from panel 2. "Mostly stinky boys, now that I think of it..."
Smug Lucy points out "Wow, what a coincidence...".

Read the whole comic with graphics at http://news.yahoo.com/comics/uclickcomics/20080317/cx_nq_uc/nq20080317

Highlights of the past two months....

December:
While I was in the throws of trying to finish up a spare-time website redesign for some micromanaging technophobes, relatives from out of state came to visit during christmas week, thereby increasing our obligation load beyond capacity. As soon as they left, my college-aged niece came to visit for a few days. On the tail end of that, we all rendezvoused with my nearly-completed-with-college nephew (now on his 6th year...) who was visiting home between semesters.

January:
While prepping for my first ever colonoscopy, I read an article about a psychotic condition in which a person believes that another person is a copy, not the real thing. This reminded me of my grandmother's dementia, in which she believes that the place she lives is a copy of the real place (of which there are many copies...). Without leaving the throne, I pulled out my solstice gift from sweetheart -- an iTouch -- and started googling the psychosis via the house wireless network. I immediately found a description of grandmother's kookiness. It's called "reduplicative paramnesia", is a subset of the psychosis I had read about, and is common in dementia patients, especially those with vascular dementia. RrrreDUPlicative PARamnesia. Imagine 'enry 'iggins teaching Eliza Doolittle this phrase. So fun for the words to roll off the tongue. So nice to know grandmother has company in the kooky jar.

At the end of the week, we hosted the annual party for sweetheart's lab. Fortunately, the clutter was still in order from December's social obligations.

School started at the end of January. This meant syllabus prep up to the last minute for the spring chemistry course I'm teaching: Quantitative Analysis. This part-time gig overlaps with my full-time consulting chemist job on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

February:
It took a couple of weeks to become physically adapted to the rigors of a 45 minute lecture followed by 2.5 hours of lab supervision: speaking loud enough to be heard, standing, being high priestess to 26 needy neophytes. The major push in the evenings at home was getting ready for a science conference for mid-February, and finishing the afore-referenced website redesign. As usual, February has flown by, but not without a little drama: last Thursday morning, campus had a 1-hour lockdown because a man with an assault rifle was spotted on campus. We were told to lock the classroom door and stay inside. Well, MY classroom door would not lock. We decided to evacuate the classroom to the lockable lab three flights up the stairs. It was frightening, and a wake-up call about campus emergency preparedness. Fortunately, the gunman turned out to be an out-of-uniform ROTC guy carrying his disabled practice rifle in unsequestered visible site, against the regulations, of course. Aren't we lucky? Plus, we all got to bond over the shared trauma. That's a good thing, right?

Now, if only this vertigo from the travel to the science conference would go away. I feel like I've been on too many elevator rides...

On a friend's site, I saw a list of 10 obscure things about them. That got me to wondering if I could come up with 10 things about myself that my personal posse does not know. I don't know if it is possible, because I keep falling asleep as I try to enumerate them. Here's what I've thought of so far:

1) My full set of teeth includes a baby canine tooth. The adult canine grew in across my gums and had to be pulled. This is what po' people do instead of orthodontia.

2) I am computationally challenged, but high mathematics proficient. This means I'm great at setting up word problems, but have to use a calculator to assure my computation is correct.

3) Probably rooted in issues with the same memory function as #2 above, I have to recite groupings of my abc's to locate a word when using a dictionary. But I am really good with learning languages (computer, body, foreign) that involve syntax and context.

4) I worked at a church one summer during college, was a church deacon while in high school, and was on worship committee while a church deacon. For those of you who know my heathen practices, it will come as no surprise to you that my summer job involved elder outreach, and that my deacon gig involved ritual (oops, I mean worship service)planning.

5) Klutz. Somehow my mental image of myself is smaller than my actual body, feet included. Hence, even when I see the offset in the sidewalk, I still trip over it. Fortunately, I've gotten good at landing on my feet.

6) I am a strong dreamer, and a practitioner of lucid dreaming when I want to. Only thing is, who wants to? It is much more fun to dream randomly.

7) Substance and alcohol free since 1977. Caffeine free since 1985. Sugar and chocolate free since... nevermind.

8) Sappy movies about horses bring tears to my eyes. Come to think of it, so do most sentimental scenes.

9) I like to read maps and carry a compass. Not that I need either where I live.

10) I can fix anything, most of the time. You can do it, too, as all this involves is opening up the cover, jiggling wires and changing batteries, closing it all up, and turning the power back on.

Pearls Before Swine, November 28, 2007:

Panel 1. Goat is drinking coffee, typing on his computer:
Rat: Hey Goat, you writing your blog?
Goat: Go away, Rat.

Panel 2.
Rat: You know, I really like blogs. I really do...You know why?
Goat: Go away, Rat.

Panel 3. Closeup of Rat, pontificating:
Rat: Because they provide their frustrated creator with the delusional outlet of being a published author. Sort of like how the prison warden lets the psychotic inmate scribble 'poetry' on the cell wall so he doesn't beat his bunk mate with the toilet seat.

Final panel. Rat standing with his head shoved up Goat's coffee cup. Goat has left the scene:
Rat: Perhaps you didn't like the analogy.

Full visual at http://www.comics.com/comics/pearls/archive/pearls-20071128.html

This is me, today....

Everybody is blogging.  I don't have time for this, and I'm stymied as to how anyone else finds the time.  I don't even have time to answer my personal emails.  Well, maybe I have time to answer them, but I defer them for later when I can sit down and write a really good letter.  So don't expect much from this blog.  I just got a free account so I can spy on my friends when they go "friends-only".