Another One Bites The Dust

And there we have it, another year down, many more to go. Strange to think that last year at this time I was in Sydney, Australia. It seems so long ago.....

This year we were silly and we went out on the 30th, one night before New Years Eve. First we went to a Japanese restaurant, had a lot of sake and then came back to my hotel for some wine and karaoke (courtesy of Mrs. Batenga). Security was finally called on us at 1 a.m. because we were still singing “Living on a Prayer” at the top of our lungs. I thought it was about 9:30, I swear! The next day I thought I would just skip New Years and stay in bed; I was so tired…

Regardless of our stupidity and thanks to the rejuvenating comfort of the W bed, our New Years was great! Not too crowded, good music, good food, "free" booze (we paid a hefty fee to go to a private party), great view of the fireworks over the Mississippi at midnight, bathrooms with no wait (yeah, that is VERY much a plus!).... All in all, it was a good time. However, Nicole decided to stay home after all and Matt ran off to Florida at the last minute to hang out with his friend and his friend's fiancée and her friend and her friend's fiancée or some sort of tangled web of pre-marital bliss...so we were a small group compared to last year.

After Pat O's we went to the Gold Digger or Gold Nugget or Gold something-or-other, which was PACKED and smelled of smoke and you had to stand at the bar for twenty minutes to get a drink, but they had good music. We hung out for a while but all the girls had high heels on and our dogs were barking so we went home around 3:30. Canal St. was A MESS, with sleazy people making out and groping all over the streets, everyone drunkity drunk drunk, passed out, slobbering, swerving, fighting and yelling. There was trash EVERYwhere. Ick. After attempting to solve a random dispute between a young Japanese girl and her white boyfriend (they came up to me and asked me to), I finally got back to the hotel and sank into my 350 thread count, pillow top, cloud-like W bed and slept until it was Slim Goodie time the next morning.

LAST YEAR STATS:
Resolutions made: 0
Regrets: 0
Months traveled: 6
Different countries visited: 12
New foods: too many to count
New friends: too many to count

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Day 32: There is No "Easy" or "Conversational" About it

Well, hip-hip-hoorah! I think I finally figured out what an “easy conversational pace” is! The first time I experienced this so called “easy” pace was when I went running with Noel. Luckily, he runs about as fast as a turtle, which I was under the impression was wrong, but because of this I found out that the old saying “don’t knock it until you try it” really is true. The turtle run is the way to go! The day I ran with him, I ran about 5 miles with no problem. We even talked! Ha-ha! Conversation! And Running! At the same time! So this is what it is like!

Unfortunately, this pleasant new discovery eluded me when I ran by myself the next day. All of the other sports that I have done in my life have trained me to be fast, to be aggressive and to go get ‘em! This makes the attempt to set an easy, steady pace a difficult thing for me. I want to win; I want to be first; I want to go fast. Unfortunately, I don’t have the stamina to go fast for more than about a minute. So I set about trying to learn to be a turtle even when Noel wasn’t there with me. Yesterday I believe I may have been onto something. I ran 4 miles without even breaking a sweat. Whew. Of course I had to talk to myself a lot to prove that I had actually accomplished the “conversation” element of the easy pace, but hey, I think I got it down!


WEEK 5: HALFWAY POINT
Miles to run this week: 19
Miles run so far: 4
Miles to run today: 7

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It's a doggy dog world

Profgrrrrl, over at Playing School, Irreverently, recently wrote on "taking it all with a grain assault," about students who hear a word or phrase but get it wrong when they try to reproduce it on the page: "grain of salt" becomes "grain assault," "dog eat dog" morphs into "doggy dog," and so on. Her readers added other examples in comments: putting women on "petal stools" (pedestals), someone looking for an "escape goat" (a scapegoat), for all "intensive purposes" (intents and purposes), and more.

I've seen "deep-seeded" for "deep-seated," I think more than once. That one almost makes sense, at least more than that escape goat.

If you like this sort of thing, check out The Eggcorn Database (for "acorn," of course), which includes: giving up the goat (ghost), chickens coming home to roast (roost), French (fringe) benefits, and 566 others. (And you can submit new ones.)

Sometimes the problem isn't mis-hearing a word, it's relying too much on spell check. I'm sure that was the problem when a student wrote a paper for me a year or so ago about the American colonists fighting against Tierney.

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Historians Are the Best Teachers

But you knew that, didn't you?

I'll admit that I'm surprised at the margin, though. Historians finished on top, 79%. English professors were a very distant second, 11%.

Exact numbers here, from eSolutions Data, "The Global Leader in Statistics and Data Research." Gaze at the chart at the top of the page for a moment before you read the fine print.

Thanks to Dr. History for the link--and the numbers.

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"175-Ton Sculpture Collapses At Kennesaw State"

A couple days ago, I mentioned the "crash" (as a colleague called it) of Spaceship Earth.

WSBTV.com has photos. Click on "slideshow" under the picture.

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a waste of time

I've received this e-mail message several times in the last couple of days.

Hoenstly are no enfocred tests, classes, books, or interviews !

Get a_Bachelor,s Masters., MBA, and Doctorate (PhD) diploma.

Trun up the benefits and high regard_that come swith a.diploma !

Nobody si turned down

Anonymiyt secure

Ring Anytime +1 (270) 818-7244 24/7

I'm upset to learn that I wasted several years of my life in graduate school to achieve those "benefits and high regard."

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Tollywood, Kollywood and Sandalwood movies

www.bharatmovies.com - (very good) - Good collection of Movies, and Video songs for movies from Bollywood (Hindi), Tollywood (Telegu), Kollywood (Tamil), Sandalwood (Kannada), Malayalam & Bengali movies. Good collection of movies sorted alphabetically. You can search by starting alphabet of the movie names, both for movies or song videos.

www.saradaga.com - good telegu - Collection of Telugu movie links, making a telgu portal kinda thing, audio songs, movies in andhra talkies, baby names, photo galleries, forums and some telugu literature if you can read.

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Ronald Numbers at Salon

Salon.com has a good interview with Ronald Numbers, historian at the University of Wisconsin and author of the newly reissued The Creationists.

Raised in a fundamentalist home, being "never exposed to anything other than what we now call 'young earth creationism,'" Numbers still counts among his family and friends a number of people who believe in a literal reading of the first chapters of Genesis. In his work as a historian, Numbers is less interested in proving them wrong than in understanding them. This is something that, in the current evolution-creation debate, many of us neglect.

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"Kannada Sex Stories", "Erotic and sensual Stories", "Indian Aunties cheating"

ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ಪೋಲಿ ಕಥೆಗಳಿಗಾಗಿ ಹುದುಕುತ್ತಿದ್ದಿರಾ? ಹಾಗಿದ್ದರೆ ನೀವು ಸರಿಯಾದ ಜಾಗಕ್ಕೆ ಬಂದಿದ್ದಿರ .. ಕೆಳಗಿರುವ ಕೊಂಡಿ ಗಳು ನಿಮ್ಮ ಮನಸನ್ನು ತಣಿಸಿ .. ನಿಮ್ಮ ಸಾಮಾನನ್ನು ಉದ್ರೇಕ ಗೊಲಿಸತ್ತೆ .. ಮಜಾ ಮಾಡಿ ..

The following includes adult content and should be viewed by someone above 18 years of age .. If you are below 18 years, please quit now ..

Shrungara kannada sex stories in PDF Kannada sex story collections Sexy Kannada stories for the horny Erotic stories in Kannada font for young and aunties Indian Movies, stories and videos Pranaya Padmini - A Kannada aunty's personal sex stories Hot lady - A novel of sensual stories for dirty kannada minds Watch Kannada TV online free Erotic stories in Kannada font for young and aunties Pranaya Padmini - A Kannada aunty's personal sex stories Hot lady - A novel of sensual stories for dirty kannada minds ಕನ್ನಡದ ಹೆಣ್ಣು ಬರೆವ ಸೆಕ್ಸ್ ಬ್ಲಾಗು.. from Kannada sexy lady ರತಿ ರಹಸ್ಯ ಬ್ಲಾಗ್ - Rati rahaysa sex blog ಸ್ಖಲನ ಬ್ಲಾಗ್ - skhalana Kannada Sex stories blog ರತಿ ಮದನ ಬ್ಲಾಗ್ - Rati madana erotic story collection ತುಂಟಾಟ ಬ್ಲಾಗ್ - Thuntata blogger and blog posts ಕನ್ನಡ ರಸಿಕ ಬ್ಲಾಗ್ - Kannada Rasika maja blog Pranaya Padmini Private Blog HubbaLLi Maava sex guru My sex experiences in Kannada language fonts

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Happy New Year!

A pretty good day today--which, according to superstition, means the rest of the year will be good. (I hope.) I went for a walk in the woods this morning, then messed in the office for an hour or so before an early dinner (and a little TV football) with some friends.

The hike was along the new Pine Mountain Trail. In the past, I've usually gone to Red Top Mountain or the Etowah River. Pine Mountain is a bit more strenuous than Vineyard Mountain, which starts at Allatoona Dam, and not quite as scenic, but I like it. All are about 10 minutes from home, hence convenient.

Campus was quiet today, something that will begin to change tomorrow as the university reopens after the holiday. Classes start the end of the week. The big news on campus: Spaceship Earth has crashed! Spaceship Earth was a large (15 feet tall) globe made of Brazilian blue quartz--actually pretty striking, once the thing was polished. The stone had nice colors. Bronze pieces were added to indicate land masses, and then on top was a lifesize bronze figure of a man, environmentalist David Brower. (Some folks said it looked like Ronald Reagan, but then none of us knows what Brower looked like.) You can see the statue here; the web cam feature apparently no longer works, and that's the new social science building in the background.

Anyway, a few nights ago, Spaceship Earth collapsed. I've heard that the culprit was water seeping into the joints and then freezing when we had a cold snap recently. The piece is in a couple hundred pieces now. The bronze figure is on the ground, face up, a huge block of stone on his chest, his arm still outstretched as if calling for help. Sad.

Dinner was nice. We had pork roast with black-eyed peas, collards, and cornbread, and that green bean casserole with the fried onions on top. Mighty good.

It wasn't a perfect day, but all in all, a good one.

This blog, less than a month old, has had 968 visitors. I'm pleased with that. To those readers, and to everyone else, Another History Blog wishes you a happy new year. May 2007 be good for all of us!

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