Today I got to drive to work on a cool morning. At lunch I went to Breckinridge Park. I took a picture of a bird I cannot identify--it looks a bit like a vireo, a bit like a northern parula, and a bit like a lazuli bunting. I hope to sort out what it is in due course.

One of my postal chess games looks even more clearly lost. Perhaps I will resign soon, but I must see if I must give up hope instead. I read about the Tennison Gambit today during lunch. Otto Tennison was a curious fellow. He was a Louisianan who was a Union high-ranking officer who switched sides in the middle of the war. He invented the gambit after the war. The gambit, a forerunner of the Budapest Defense, appeals to me because it is very odd. It goes: 1. Nf3 d5 2. e4. I rarely play gambits in real games, though.

Tonight I stopped by Oak Point Park on the way home and shot several pictures of a singing dickcissel. I watched "Nashville", which packed a very heavy if soapy punch. I read that Pidora has been invented. That gives me incentive to fire up my raspberry pi.

Back in the winter quarter, our Hebrew class went to hear Nathan Englander talk about translation at University of Denver, which cuddled up to Iliff School of Theology when it was built back in 1864, because:
- our brilliant and beautiful instructor Amy had been working with us on basic translation issues from way before we could read any Hebrew to speak of, and
- Englander, though normally a novelist and short story writer, had just had a Haggadah he was commissioned to write published.

Englander is a deliciously manic and highly referential speaker, who came straight from the airport on little sleep and lots of caffeine. He said many fantastic and evocative things that lit my life. But I didn't make notes, and don't have much listing faculty. Also, you don't want to a long screed reproducing a talk, I imagine.

But what I think I'll always be able to remember about the talk is how he started.

He said, "I mean, all writing is a form of translation, right? When I say, ` the copper dish hung on the kitchen wall,' each of you gets an image of the kitchen and of the dish. Maybe it's one of those shaped like a fish-- you remember those? But even with us all speaking the same language, each of us has a different kitchen and a different dish. And it's the writer's job to decide how much to work where, to bridge the gaps that are there."

( A couple of thinks coming out of that and out of Hebrew work.Collapse )

I sure lurve wine.

Now that I am a "dog person" I have discovered that they have these dog "happy hours" where a pet supply store will serve beer and wine while your dogs play. I went to one last night at Bark Bark Club and tonight at a store called Jameson Loves Danger. So basically getting drunk while surrounded by cute dogs, and giving "social time" to my own dog.

After socializing and drinking tonight I got ice cream at George's in Andersonville and felt very triumphant drunk, eating ice cream, and walking my adorable dog all at the same time. Life is good.

Like a scene straight from Final Destination....

Driver Impaled By Flying Metal Pipe On I-580 In Livermore

LIVERMORE (CBS SF) — A man was killed in a freak accident on I-580 in Livermore when a metal pipe crashed through his windshield.

Officers responded to the crash near Grant Line road shortly after 8 a.m., and found a Volvo XC70 station wagon in the median.

The 33-year-old man was driving west on the highway when the metal pipe flew through the windshield of his 2003 white Volvo XC70 and impaled him, CHP Officer Tyler Hahn said.

The Volvo veered left into the center divider, went up an embankment and came to rest. The CHP arrived to find the driver deceased inside the vehicle and the engine still running, Hahn said.

Hahn described the pipe as about 2 feet in length and 2 inches in diameter. He said it is not clear where it came from.

“No witnesses saw it bouncing down the road, nobody’s called in to say that they lost anything of this sort,” he said.

Part two

So life went on and I forgot all about the beautiful boy at Tower of Power. I worked, I continued to spend time with Jonathan and Chili. We were in the finest season of our youth and we planned our days in order to take full advantage of it

I had recently been laid off from a job at a union hotel. I was not overly disturbed by this, I saw it as an opportunity. I took a few Lit and creative writing courses through correspondence and decided to collect unemployment insurance. I was tired. I had been working steady since I was fifteen and wanted to have some fun. The money from UI more than covered my expenses and I supplemented my income by working under the table at a small funky cafe called The Excellent Eatery located conveniently two blocks from where I lived.

The Eatery was a strange place. The cafe in my fable "Cafe La Lune" is actually modeled after it. Let me give you a little background on the Eatery. It was run by two very short gay Filipino ladies in their forties. The food was amazing, the menu was a combination of Californian and ethnic foods and we had the best coffee and dessert menu in the neighborhood. It was an extremely popular restaurant, packed from lunch until closing time; which was midnight except Sundays when they locked the doors at ten.

The staff was the oddest mix of characters I have ever seen; at least they were a progressive leap for the workplace in Vancouver at the time. Our manager was a beautiful exotic waif of a girl. If the Devil had his own cherubs, then Kelly would have been his finest. She came to work each day in a different color Sari with a matching shade of hair. She wore her black liquid liner so that it came in at the corners of her eyes in the shape of tiny spider legs. The little beauty marks she painted next to her eyes were tiny webs or the spiders themselves. Her full bowed lips were covered in the most gorgeous cocksucker red lipstick I have ever seen and she NEVER came to work without a baby snugly strapped to her back. The snugly had a cabbage patch doll sitting in it that sort of bobbed over Kelly's head while she went about seating and serving customers. If anyone asked her why she wore it; she would tell them her biological clock was ticking and because it wasn't a good time for her to start a family, the doll (I can't remember what she called it) eased her childless angst. When she sat down to take her break at the staff table she would pull the doll out and rock it while she ate.

The kitchen manager, Dale was an ex bass player for Skinny Puppy. He wore a giant silver cross which hung upside down against his white chefs jacket and he made a mean pesto tortellini. He was a stud, or rather, he thought so. There was a huge carving block in the kitchen that had numerous markings in the wood for each of the girls he had slept with at work. Judging by the amount of marks on that cutting block I quickly surmised the place had a high staff turnover and made a mental note to attain complete immunity over his charms. I loved the staff. I loved the head waiter Mark who came to work dressed in drag and danced through his shift. Gary, one of the night waiters and I would spend hours on the patio sitting in the sun admiring the boys who walked down Broadway while he invented new margarita recipes. I was enthralled with Graham; Dales pensive assistant who recorded dark, angsty music in his studio apartment we later danced to at Love Affair or Graceland.

I had a torrid and brief affair with Peter. He was a young poet from Ireland who made all our desserts. He was effeminate and delicately gorgeous. His skin was the same color as the cream he squirted on our fruit tortes and he had the clearest green eyes and sootiest lashes I have ever seen. I fell in love with his dark trench coats and the smoking jackets. I would sneak in to the coat room and breathe in the scent of them, which always reminded me of the musty scent of the second hand bookstore up the street. I was fascinated by his endless notebooks full of scribbled poems he wrote while he sat chain smoking and drinking altogether too much coffee. I pondered their contents. I wondered about his pain. He was the first tortured artist I ever fell in love with and he ruined me for ordinary men. He wrote everywhere, including the darkened dirty corners of the punk bars we frequented. I would flit over from the dance floor and sit next to him laying my head on his shoulder; hopeful of a glimpse into those notebooks I was sure were full of wise things. Peter let me dye his hair since I was too scared to experiment on my own. He didn't mind when the peroxide turned his hair green. He wrote me poems and brought me hand picked flowers he lay on the staff table without a word. He encouraged me to write, he was silent and sweet and made me feel beautiful. I wonder what happened to him?

I seem to have gone off on a tangent but that's where I ended up working for the next two years. It was too much fun to leave and the little Filipino ladies were very flexible. They held on to their veteran staff members to the point where if we had other projects and jobs they would schedule us for one day every two weeks if that's all we could manage. Those were good times. I worked from eleven thirty to five most days. That left all the time in the world for me to party, which I was doing just about every night with my roommate or my friends from work.

I still saw Jonathan and Chili, though less frequently. They often came to see me at the Eatery or I would meet them after work and we would go out dancing. Some nights we left the bar at three a.m and went on to an after hours club ending up finally at a tiny hole in the wall called "Elbow Room" (literally) where we ate breakfast and tried to ignore the scratchy feeling in our tired eyes. The two of them had recently started up another band and were gigging regularly at several small venues in town. Chili talked a lot about their new bass player trying to lure me into going to see them. He said V, you would love him. You guys are perfect for one another. I remember glaring at him with evil eyes. Chili thought being single was the worst thing that could happen to a person. Still I kept promising I would go and see them play.

My relationship with my high school sweetheart had finally died what I believed to be it's last death. I was fully embracing my new freedom. I loved living my life solo. I shied away from any semblance of serious commitments and threw myself into the liberty of having lovers that knew the score. I wanted to enjoy their companionship and to share physical pleasure without any attachments. I had everything I wanted. The roommates I had came and went. I had an arrangement where if someone I knew had recently left a lover they could live with me until they found a place. Most of my roomies stayed no longer than two months. I had more than enough money and no responsibilities. My life was simple. When the spare room wasn't rented it became a little art studio; the walls covered in a painted mural almost everyone I knew had contributed to. Those walls of the "Spare Oom", which it came to be called, were painted in the story of my life at that time.

About six months later Jackie was renting my spare room and her and Jonathan became lovers shortly thereafter. One night after having dinner at the Eatery we were planning an evening out and she mentioned that Jonathan and Chili were playing at the Waterfront. We had our usual itinerary of five different things we wanted to do which we argued over a little. I wanted to go to the Love Affair where everyone wore black, danced to the Smiths and it was gauche to smile. She had made plans for us to get together with a couple of old girlfriends from highschool and go to a heavy metal bar for ladies night; which would be over in time for us to see Jonathan and Chile play.

The idea of going to a heavy metal bar was distasteful to me. I was curious about ladies night since I had never been and it had been awhile since I had seen a man naked. I figured Ladies night would be over by ten, Jonathan and Chili's show would be over by midnight and I could still go to the Love Affair for the last hour; life was grand when you could have it all and then some.....
to be continued

Ever since I had my dishwasher installed, I've been taking delight in loading an unloading it. Is that weird? I hated my old dishwasher so much that I would wait 3-4 weeks before running it and just hand wash and reuse dishes during the week. I've just been running it once a week, but it sure is nice.

So, we went to kuk sool finally after many days absence to discover that all the cherry blossoms had bloomed, so OF COURSE we had to take some petals home and have a little shikai battle. You'll have to imagine (a lot), but also that I have Zabimaru.

I kind of like how the blossoms look like magic spikes. (Mason makes a good Byakuya, neh?)


My sad death. Luckily, I'm headed to the Soul Society!


No, I will rise again, like Renji!

The healing process continues for my broken foot. It's been four weeks today and there is real progress. In fact, I just graduated from the ginormous boot to this very ugly sandal/shoe.

My swimming lesson was exactly what I was looking for.  Alvin was in good form. I got there early and figured I'd swim til time but he figured we'd just do it so we did.

Turns out, I was totally doing it all wrong.  My kick, especially, totally off.  I know this because when I did it like he told me, I felt it big time all across my abdomen and my feet did not cramp up like they do when I did it my way.  He told me what to do with my arms, how and when to breathe, that my posture was very important and how to keep it correct.  And... he's going to write down a workout schedule just for me and have it for me tomorrow.  He said to give it 3 or 4 months and then we'd have another lesson.  Perfecto!!!  Seriously. I was just delighted.  I am so glad I found swimming.

I got the electronic refund of the money I sent to the electrician.  Then I got an email directly from him (the other had been from his bookkeeper).  He said that he was sorry he had not warned me of the price but he has to charge that much to keep his business up.

I replied that I had no problem with his charges. He's free to charge whatever he wants.  But, I had hired him because the fix was to work he had done and I kind of thought of him as a friend.  But, I noted that a friend would have pointed out the option of my being able to get the same work done for 1/3rd the price.

I'm done with the whole thing.  It's an expensive lesson but what the heck today is all about lessons!

I got all my Flickr pictures in one place and now it's time to organize.  The ones I brought over were from 2005 and earlier!  It's fun to go back and see them. I'm going to enjoy my organize project.

Someone left about 24 cans of Fancy Feast on the free shelf in the garage.  I'm going to have to teach Betty how to write a thank you note.

http://yoisthisracist.com/post/51090563155/hungrych-asked-have-you-ever-thought-that-maybe

semperfiona arrives tomorrow. I'm competing in LJ Idol Exhibit B. My birthday party is Saturday.

Of COURSE I land a job interview. Tomorrow.

Let me rephrase:

OMG Y'ALL, I HAVE A JOB INTERVIEW!!!!!!! AT A USED BOOKSTORE!!!!!!

*Kermit flail*

So the electrician did not come. He sent his assistant.  His assistant took 5 minutes to replace the plug (the electrical socket and wallplate) that never worked right after they installed it last year.  Then his assistant took 15 minutes to explain how I can know what air conditioner will not blow out my circuits.

He left and 5 minutes later I got a bill for $257.  Two hundred and fifty fucking seven dollars???!!!!  For 20 minutes of work and $5 worth of materials.

Totally my fault. I didn't ask.  I could have hired Amy the Handy(wo)man. She'd have done it 2 weeks ago for $97.  I could have done it myself - total bill $5.

Man, live and fucking learn.  I did send an email reply to the billing explaining that I thought half that was expensive but the full amount was not even reasonable for the task.  I assured them I would pay but asked for a reduction.

Since I'm never doing business with them again, I don't really give a shit what they think and the worst they can do is say no.

That was NOT my smartest move by a long freakin shot.  I'm going to pay them via Google Wallet - at least they will have to work a little (setting it up) to get their hands on the cash.

I'm very annoyed with me.

EDIT:  I got a very quick email back saying they would revise the bill to $165 and explaining that there were also charges for gas and procurement of parts in addition to their minimum which, the billing person explicitly said that Walker apologized for not explaining to me ahead of time.

I feel better.  Next time I will 1) get the freaking part myself and 2) ask ahead of time... but, I really do feel better.

And I paid them via Gmail which really is a great feature. I know they will, eventually, slap a fee on it so I'm playing heavy while it's free.

EDIT again:  Turns out the total bill is $212 (they only discounted the hour minimum) and I got an email "send paper check, we do not accept google payment".

So... you are fine with electronic invoicing but not with electronic payment?????

I'm pissed again but I'm going to let it go.  I don't have to deal with them any more and I won't.  I have the money so it's not like they are stealing food off my kids' plates but...

I send them a reply that they need to hit the 'return money' button before I will pay them.  I will get a refund on June 5th if they don't and I'll pay them then. I am going to deduct the cost of a stamp, envelope, prep and mailing from the bill - $1.50 works for me.  Cost of doing business the luddite way.

It is 1:50 PM Wednesday afternoon. I took Rudy to the groomer's this morning after walking him at Window on the Waterfront city park. I had Rudy at the groomer's at 8:15 AM. After dropping off Rudy I do some errands and visit a thrift store. At this thrift store I found only two used paperback to ADD to my library-

"From Our House" A Memoir by Lee Martin

"The Grasmere Journals" by Dorothy Wordsworth

After visiting this thrift store I came home and wandered the house. I read my books and then wrote in my diary. I left the house to get Rudy around 11:50 AM. After getting Rudy I visited a bookstore and bought one book titled, "Dharma Punx" A Memoir by Noah Levine. After visiting this bookstore I drove over to Salvation Army thrift store to look at their used books. I found only two used books at Salvation Army-

"Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History Of Punk" by Lee McNeil & Gillian McCain

"Continual Lessons: The Journals Of Glenway Wescott 1937-1955" Edited by Robert Phelps With Jerry Rosco

Glenway Wescott
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenway_Wescott

After Salvation Army I headed home. I stopped at KFC and got lunch to go. When Rudy and I got home we ate my lunch. So has gone by existence. While I was gone Carol called to see how I was doing. Her Nursing Convention ends tomorrow Noon. She will spent the rest of the day with Caleb and Emily.

Nothing mind blowing came in the mail today. I received in the mail two books Josiah had borrowed years ago.

Well I will close to recover from life.

Actually I'm waiting for Walker, the electrician.  The plug he put in behind this chair is the plug I asked him to and it's just not working. I plug in my laptop and, in a few hours, it turns off because the battery is dead... huh?  I look and, sure enough, the plug has fallen out of the wall socket - again.  Plus, I want him to check to see how many BTUs I can handle if I have to replace the air conditioner.

Replacing the air conditioner seems a rather moot point these days as it has cooled off again really nicely.

Right now the thermometer by my chair says 66 degrees.  Perfect for me.

I finally got the photos from my old Flickr account downloaded with all their details (dates and stuff) and next is uploading them and closing down that old account.  Then I'm going to get serious about organizing the remaining account.  I have nearly 6 thousand photos in it and way more than half are totally tossed in the shoebox.  If I want to find a particular one, I am toast.  It will be a nice little long term project.

I've been meaning to do it for a long time but really couldn't get too serious about it as long as Yahoo's fate was in the wind.  But, now that there's a serious driver in the driver's seat and she has clearly put some elves on the Flickr project, I feel like it's truly worth the effort.

Then I have my swimming lesson today.  I did some research last night to figure out what I wanted to cover - breathing, kicking, strokes and body position and then anything else he's got.  Alvin is the Goldilocks of trainers.  When he's focused and on task he's very very good and otherwise, he's a dud.  He gets all distracted and is worthless.  Lately he's been at his best. I hope that lasts through this afternoon.

I finally got Cash by gmail going and yeah!  First of all, it's easy and first of all, it's free.  At least for now.  I'll be able to use it for Chef Anita which will be very cool because I will be able to pay her with Discover Card (cash back!!) and not have to write out a check and she'll have the money in her bank account before she gets home!  (Her bill is groceries plus labor and so I don't get the bill till she gets here and it varies as much as $25-50 a time.)

The Mariner game is at 4 but after last night's 5th loss in a row and a handing the Angels a 12 run shutout, I'm not too enthused about watching another hatchet job.

But I probably will.

Yes - this works so much better than trying to force myself to clean and throw out old stuff - instead focus on building the NEW! And maybe the old will be processed out of the way (gently) as a byproduct of working on the new.

It is 9:44 AM Wednesday morning. It is now raining outside. I am down in the lower level of our house writing on my lap top. I thought I would quote from the book "A Spiritual Appeal to Christ's Bride" by Jodocus van Lodenstein. Everything I write in Livejournal is connected. One the themes found throughout my blogs is how does a person come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. How does someone come to the knowledge of God.

"In our text Paul contrasts this blindness with "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." He addresses the light that is essential and requisite in a truly converted person.

In our text, we observe (1) the benefit of the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ, and then (2) the moving cause of this light. God commanded the light to shine out of darkness and "hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

First, observe the benefit of the light of the knowledge of God's glory. This light has to do with the supernatural illumination of the heart, without which repentance cannot follow. It also has to do with the light whereby man is rendered fit to illuminate others by his instruction, for the preceding verses Paul referred to himself as an apostle and teacher. He thus expounds the last part of the preceding verse.

He states further that this light was of the knowledge of the glory of God. Thus, it does not pertain to some earthy skills, but to God's perfections. It pertains to the most glorious mysteries whereby the Lord is glorified. It pertains particularly to God's counsel regarding man's salvation and glory.

Therefore, the soul first beholds God's glory, as well as the fact that everything exists for Him (Rev. 4:11). The soul then beholds God's all-sufficiency (Gen. 17:1), and the more he reflects on this, the more he loses himself in wonder and awe. The beholding of God's all-sufficiency and His infinite glory constitutes our felicity (John 17:3; Matt. 5:8).

The greater our knowledge of God's glory and worthiness, the more we see that all creatures must exist for God, and that it is God alone of whom and to whom we live and have our being (Rom. 11:36). This understanding powerfully influences man daily to turn more and more from self-from his own profit, ease, pleasure, and advantage. By heavenly light, the soul learns to see that God alone is worthy. Hereby the soul perceives within himself as great an inclination toward God's glory as to his own salvation-two things that are inseparable from each other. It is then that the illuminated soul is truly happy.

The soul does not behold God's all-sufficiency only in Himself, but also for and to the benefit of His creatures-especially rational creatures. When a soul begins to know God in this fashion, he begins to know God as He is, and that constitutes the salvation of the soul." pg. 96,97 Jodocus van Lodenstein

old diary entry

Glorycloud
http://glorycloud.diaryland.com/060514_30.html

Regorafenib

I've spoken to the specialty pharmacy, and my Regorafenib should be arriving in Portland today. To my mild surprise, they are treating this as a pharmaceutical co-pay in line with the insurance company formulary. This is often not the case with specialty pharmacy prescriptions, I'm told. I'll start the medication next Monday when I'm back in Portland. Apparently, the side effects are a real treat.

The Nebula Awards Weekend

I'm still parsing the Nebula Awards Weekend from an emotional perspective. I'm not hung up on losing the Best Novella Nebula — that's just the way the game is played. Rather, as I said the other day, I'm struggling with my sense of being on a farewell tour. It really was a terrific weekend in a number of ways, but the reality of my foreshortened mortality is starting to grind me down.

Tension

That same reality of foreshortened mortality is grinding down the people around me as well. This is creating drama among my immediate circle of family and friends. I am very ill-equipped to handle that sort of drama. I dislike it in general, and right now my reserves are stretched so thin that dealing with such things is a profound distraction. There will only be more of this down the road as well all respond to my deepening illness.

Reserves

Those aforementioned reserves really are an issue. I have no depth these days. Anything small can upset me. I don't have the bandwidth to do everything I want. I frustrate easily, and have trouble tracking and staying with both emotional issues and projects. Right now I cannot tell if this is stress from the new diagnosis, which at some point I'll integrate, or if this is my new reality. I resent every step of loss.

More critique yesterday. More food. More fun. My Aunt M—, who lives in Colorado, turned up with pies. @dratz of Waterloo Productions arrived last night to shoot some Lakeside footage here at Rio Hondo.

My METAtropolis: Green Space novella "Rock of Ages" is being critiqued tomorrow. This means I don't have to do any critical reading today, so I'm cooking momos [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ] for tonight's dinner.

Still struggling a bit with the altitude. Had a terrible night's sleep last night. I did okay the night before, thanks to my friend Lorazepam, and will probably have to do that again tonight. And I regret not being able to go out hiking here during the day, as my UV issues from Vectibix linger on.

All that being said, I am very glad to be here.

It is 8:38 AM Wednesday morning in the flow. It is a gray wet morning here by Lake Michigan. It rained during the night. It is 67 degrees. I opened up the house this morning to let in the wet morning air. I just got back from dropping off Rudy at the groomers. Before taking him to the groomers we took a short walk at Window on the Waterfront.

I got up this morning around 6:05 AM this morning. I made a pot of coffee and messed with our main computer. Next I ate some food and wrote in my paper diary. I read from this book this morning before going off into Zombie Land "A Spiritual Appeal To Christ's Bride" by Jodocus van Lodenstein (1620-1677) [Classics of Reformed Spirituality].

I pick up Rudy at Noon at the groomer's. I will visit thrift stores after picking up Rudy. The day will go by.

Last night Carol called around 10:35 PM from Boston, she was going to bed.

Well not much else to report. Last night I mainly read a book titled, "Sweet Communion: Trajectories of Spirituality from the Middle Ages through the Further Reformation" by Arie de Reuver [Translated by James A. De Jong]. I read also last night from these books before going to bed.

"The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross"

"Soul Recreation: The Contemplative-Mystical Piety of Puritanism" by Tom Schwanda

"Heart Treasure" by Oliver Heywood (1629-1702)

Well since I am falling asleep I will close to read my books and meditate.

I'm headed back to North Dakota where I'll be spending time with some of the fabulous academics who make up the North Dakota Man Camp Project, we'll be doing oral histories, interviews and photographs of people living in temporary work force housing springing up around the Bakken Oil Boom -- truckers, roughnecks, engineers, and all the people who support them -- carpenters, welders, pipe fitters. It was a really amazing experience when I went in February. Looking forward to seeing another face of that state this time. We'll be in Western NoDak around Williston and I think south maybe as far as Killdeer.

Here's a post from the last time I was there which contains beautiful photos of a snow covered landscape.

If you want to follow along, I'll be updating the blog as wireless allows (who knows when that'll be) but also I'll be tweeding with the hashtag #OilCampsND

Here's me in NoDak during our last trip in February. I'm packing lighter this time.

Clickenzee to Embiggen!

Your Wednesday moment of zen.



Washington state woods. Photo © 2008, 2013, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.



This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Cloned video GIFs — This is so cool. (Via threeoutside.)

The Phosphorous Atom Quantum Computing Machine — An Australian team unveils the fundamental building block of a scalable quantum computer that could be embedded in today’s silicon chips.

New Efforts to Overhaul Psychiatric Diagnoses Spurred by DSM Turmoil — (Via Marta Murvosh.)

If the Earth had rings — (Via Lisa Costello.)

Red Sprite Lightning with Aurora — A strange photo from APOD. Well worth reading the write-up.

Had the Cookie Crumbled Differently: East and West Dakota

Pat Robertson shrugs off adultery, CBN regrets the misunderstanding — Robertson said the “secret” was to “stop talking about the cheating. He cheated on you. Well, he’s a man. OK.” So glad religious conservatives had this viewpoint during the Clinton years. Imagine the political circus if they'd taken adultery seriously back then.

Asked by Wolf Blitzer if She Thanked God for Surviving the Tornado, Oklahoma Woman Responds: ‘I’m Actually An Atheist’ — Heh. It's a stupid question on the face of things. If we're supposed to thank God for surviving such an event, aren't we equally blaming God for the lives lost? (Via shsilver.)

Anti-Sandy-relief Oklahoma Senator: Aid for Oklahoma is “totally different” than Sandy — The only difference is that the tornado victims vote in Oklahoma. Just like government support for hard working farmers is totally different from food stamps for the lazy urban poor. Ah, that justly famed conservative intellectual consistency.

Oklahoma GOP Sen. Tom Coburn Will Seek To Offset Tornado Aid — At least he's being intellectually consistent in his conservative cruelty, unlike Senator Inhofe cited above. Unusual for a Republican, that.

Fisheries could be in hot water due to climate change — Warming waters are altering the distribution and abundance of fish species. Amazing, the lengths liberals will go to for their global warming hoax. Even to warming entire oceans. Thank god for Rush Limbaugh and the Republican party, otherwise we might have to do something about this.

Will Republicans Screw Up Again? Some Are Already Overreaching — Republicans allowed themselves to look as if they were primarily interested in scoring political points and overturning the results of the 1996 election, even if it meant paralyzing the government. That same danger exists once again for the GOP. "Look as if…" That's remarkably kind to a party whose top legislative priority was ensuring that Obama was a one-term president. Not jobs. Not the economy. Not healthcare. Not our foreign wars. No, overturning the results of the 2008 election. And now, the 2012. They're practically built their entire brand and message around it.

QotD?: What did you read yesterday?

A tornado watch occupied much of yesterday. We do not get many tornadoes in the Dallas area, though we are perhaps marginally in Tornado Alley. But everyone was tornado-conscious after the devastating tornado in Moore, Oklahoma, a four hour drive northwest of us. In the mid-afternoon, we got a monster thunderstorm, which, despite high winds, did no damage and brought some much-needed to rain to this drought-bordering land. In our office, we all learned where the local storm shelter is located.

At lunch time I went to Breckinridge Park. In addition to photos of an American kestrel, an eastern kingbird and a scissor-tailed flycatcher, I got a photo of a barn swallow. Barn swallows are very common in the Spring and Summer, but they do not readily pose for photos. I was glad to snap some pictures of this lovely bird.

Last night I spoke with my father, and made plans to go to Arkansas on an upcoming Saturday. I fell asleep early last night, and woke to a cool, moist morning, a throwback to early Spring.