Rob got a new job in North San Diego County, so we're moving again to get closer to his job. He's not a good commuter and can't take the traffic in stride.

I hate moving. I hate doing change-of-address notices to the utilities, the banks, the credit card companies, the post office. I hate packing and unpacking, I hate wrapping dishes and teapots and worrying about our volunteer helpers dropping something down two flights of stairs. I hate trying to convince Rob (usually unsuccessfully) to hire movers or at least hire a truck.  You don't know how much I'm not looking forward to this move in the middle of the hottest summer in San Diego history.  Every time we move I feel like I've aged 5 years.

I gave Rob an ultimatum - this had better be the last damned time we move into an apartment for a few months, the next time we move it'd better be into a house where we will live for years and years. And if he then gets a new job 90 minutes away, he can commute like the rest of us. Or, if he wants to move closer to that job, he's welcome to do so but I would not be joining him this time.

I'm still not thrilled about moving, but I try to look on the bright side - coming home to a happy, relaxed husband every night instead of a cranky, nervous wreck. Also, the little cul-de-sac where we live now used to be pretty nice, but MTDB turned our formerly lightly-used, quiet and snug Trolley station it into a big, bustling bus depot, so with the increased traffic, noise, smog, and shifty characters using the shelter, it's starting to look a little shabby and feel a bit frayed and kind of grimy sometimes... OMG I sound like a total elitist snob - "I don't like the poor people looking at me going to work so we're moving to la-di-dah Carlsbad."  Sigh. Next you know I'll be driving an SUV, voting Republican and being scared of black people.

I think I'm in love
Topic: Fun

Nerdy? Check

Obsessed with 'facts'? Check

High probability of social awkwardness? Check

Do you think he'll go to the Sadie Hawkins Dance with me?

Simon Pulsifer has never really blended in with the crowd. In kindergarten, he began building elaborate, fantastical buildings out of Lego, already bored by the construction plans on the back of the box.

In Grade 8, he, attired as Stalin, and other friends re-enacted the Yalta conference on the balcony of a friend's house. In university, he became the Trivial Pursuit champion at his college, and even won when the whole residence took him on.

Today Mr. Pulsifer, 24, is known internationally as the world's most prolific author on the on-line encyclopedia Wikipedia, with 78,000 entries edited and 2,000 to 3,000 new articles to his name. He can't remember the exact number.

Topic: Opinion

"When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses," Boyd preached. "When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross."

Evangelical Pastor Keeps Politics Out Of His Pulpit

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN The New York Times

Published: Jul 30, 2006

 

Whoa Nelly
Topic: Personal

Spent the weekend shopping at various San Diego county alls for a new, professional wardrobe to go with my ew, professional job. I think I must have spent quite early a thousand dollars in two days, and am a little breathless at my own extravagance. I came away from it ll with four new suits, the highest two pairs of eels I've ever owned, and a new, ginormous purse eavy enough when filled to knock out an importunate mugger.

Breaking out of my usual Hot-Topic and The Express shopping destinations, I actually ventured into the rown-up world of Macy's and its environs to look for rown-up clothes. I briefly visited Neiman-Marcus and
Nordstroms, but even with the Annual Sale their fare were far too dear for me. Who pays $500 for a pair of Manolo Blahnick shoes, or $700 for a Louis Vuitton handbag, anyways? No one I know. And for $700, that handbag better purify my drinking water and improve my complexion. What? It doesn't? Well then forget it.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen
Topic: Personal
...and San Diegans, go out in the midday sun.

La Mesa tied an all-time record of 109 (Fahrenheit, for you foreigners), Escondido 112 (114 at the Wild Animal Park), and even Oceanside topped out at 79, right there on the coast. Anyone sensible would be lying low, staying indoors, in the shade, with a tall, beaded glass of water and nothing more strenuous to tackle than a frothy bodice-ripper or a tale of international intrigue.

Not San Diegans, though - people were out attending firefighting exhibitions at the football stadium, going to the Wild Animal Park, and the maddest of them all were out hiking in Ramona and had to be rescued - to no one's surprise but their own I'm sure. Compared with these neighbors, we were positively prescient to spend the day in the shade of the Del Mar Racetrack grand-stands.

The temperature was still stunning between here and there - I opened the door in the morning to a wall of impenetrable, stifling heat and light - like first being hit in the face with a hot towel and then smothered with it by an angry man. Rob and I met two of our guests for lunch in a Mexican restaurant, and all I could do was ask for an iced tea and a salad - just reading the rest of the menu - cheese, chili sauce, sizzling meat platters - made me slightly ill.

Things only improved after we found our seats with the rest of the Otay Water District group, and even then I was getting a little dizzy, having walked through the big parking lot. I had on sunscreen and carried a parasol, but after 10 minutes of milling about near the gates looking for our guests (we had their tickets), the pavement reflecting more heat and light up under my parasol, a panic started to rise in my throat and if Rob hadn't noticed my distress and fetched me a iced tea, things would have gone unpleasant very quickly. And by unpleasant, I mean unpleasant for everyone, not just me; no one wants to watch someone else dry-retch.

The grandstands were very nice though, the shade was cool, the breeze from the sea occasionally moved a hair off my neck or a hem of my new red polka-dot dress, the nearly-awful moment on the pavement receded into the bottom of my cold drink, and I started to take an interest in the horses. We lost every pick, of course; even Rob who spent hours studying the racing forms. But that is not the point, is it? In the shade, a good time was had by all, our guests enjoyed a little excitement, and there was not a single horse-wreck on the tracks all day; which, considering the speed at which they travel and the fact that thoroughbred horses are all a bit insane and unpredictable to begin with, not having a horse-wreck every time defies probability improbably.

It's amazing to think I lived in toasty Riverside for 4 years, walked everywhere that was within walking distance, in the Summer, during the day, worked at an outdoor turf research station, not only survived the baking but enjoyed myself immensely. It seems that San Diego's mildness, the air-conditioned desk-jobs I've had since Fallbrook, learning to take care of Rob, have all served to turn a brown, tough, strident and jeans/T-shirt kind of girl to a cossetted, coddled, and perhaps more agreeable version who favors perfume and black-lace, and carries a parasol in the sun.

Still, only mad dogs and Englishmen...

.................................................................

A car-stereo commercial you will never see on American TV
Topic: Fun

Dogs can drive a car
Topic: Cute

...but not very far.

Two poodle-mixes drive a pickup truck into a fence.  Great Danes might have fared better, they can reach the pedals.

How much fish can one cat carry?
Topic: Cute
We might never know but for the efforts of wacky Japanese TV.

Watch the weight (in gram) of the fish go up and the announcers start elimination rounds.

Video: http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/2006/07/feral_cat_carry.html

I like museums and all, but...
Topic: Fun
...maybe can skip these.

Barbed Wire Museum www.barbwiremuseum.com (guess where it's at)
Curried Sausages www.currywurstmuseum.com (getting queasy just thinking about it)
Phallus Museum www.phallus.is (NSFW).

TimesOnline.UK's quote from the Phallus Museum curator:
"[The 1.7 meter long sperm-whale penis] gets the most attention, but I have more than 200 penises," says owner Sigurdur Hjartarson modestly. "They include examples from every mammal native to Iceland...except one. But an Icelandic gentleman who is 91 has pledged to donate his phallus when he dies, so it's only a question of time."

And we have lift-off!
Discovery takes off!

Watched it on CNN; they showed live-feed images from the camera mounted on the external fuel tank - my favorite moment was when the shuttle left the atmosphere, and the angle of the sunlight rotated around the shuttle and suddenly Earth popped up blue against the darkness beyond.