Dottles on the Ides of March
1. The wind was really howling last night. It was causing this weird creeking in the roof over my bedroom. A house sound I've not heard before.
2. WBAL - Baltimore's news and talk radio station - announced yesterday that it was dropping Rush Limbaugh's show. Yeeeeehawww!
3. A- came home from school last Sunday for a visit. He brought a surprise: his goatee.
4. My employer is constructing a building right outside my office window. It looks to be four stories. They're using this huge, monster crane (at least 200' tall) to hoist the steel into place. I've been enthralled with cranes my whole life. I can barely keep my eyes on my work.
5. I just sent Man on Fire back to Netflix. Next up... High Noon.
6. Fearless Final Four Forecast: Connecticut wins it all.
7. I missed Pi-day yesterday when we celebrated the 400th anniversary of the number pi. It occurred at 1:59 yesterday afternoon. Get it? 3.14.... 1:59.... 3.14159? I believe the plaques on the Pioneer and Voyager spacecrafts each have a binary representation of pi. (And I hope I don't have to remind anyone of this but pi is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. Pi crops up in math and engineering all the time.)
8. Let's hear it for Sandra Day O'Connor... her recent harsh criticism of Republican attacks on the judiciary went largely unnoticed. I guess Fox was too busy whipping the country into a Bennish frenzy to pay attention.
9. If you're interested, you can take a virtual tour of the Washington Nationals new stadium. Opening day for the Orioles is less than 3 weeks away.
10. Birding note: ring-necked ducks and hooded mergansers have been hanging out in my employer's front yard pond. Never seen them in the pond before.
K-
1. Know exactly what you're talking about.
2. Ditto on the "Yeeeeehawww!" Get it? Ditto.
3. Oh dear.
4. Love cranes. Love big construction. Very distracting.
6. Cha-ching. But, not.
7. That whooshing sound you just heard was the air going between my ears.
10. Our local Red Cross set up a shelter in a high school gym immediately after our tornado. According to reports, there were 30 people, two dogs, a cat, and a mallard. All got along well. Thought you might like the mallard part.
1) I can identify maybe 3 causes of the 21455 mysterious noises that mine and most houses make. They must be in the building code.
4) I love cranes, too. My new favorite construction distraction, though, is that machine with the gigantic arm that deposits concrete everywhere. Don't even know what it's called. Cranes and fire trucks, Kem? Cool stuff.
5) I loved the performances in Man on Fire but could make very little sense of it.
6) Ditto
4. There's a glass enclosed walkway that connects my building to the adjacent building. It gives a perfect, close-up view of the crane and all the other construction activities. Since last summer when construction began, you can always find 4 or 5 people standing in the walkway watching what's going on. Once I passed through and saw my department head standing there checking out the construction site.
7. I'm not buying it, Marie, not for a second.
10. I do like the mallard part. I especially like the part that the Red Cross specifically called it a mallard rather than the more generic duck. There's no telling where the Far Side will pop up.
K-