Word of the Day: Accent

I'm from Oregon. I have no accent. The only word I pronounce strangely is "bandana" and that is only because I choose to change the a into an e and call it "bendena". It's non-scientific silliness. Anyway, I was flying back to DC from Oregon a week ago and I noticed something rather peculiar. I've known this for a while because my mom and sister do it, but I had forgotten until I heard it again and some people next to me laughed at the absurdity. The flight attendant was telling us that the flight to Washington DC would be boarding soon. Only she didn't say Washington, she said "Warshington". This would also occur when someone mentioned doing the warsh or warshing the car. I think it's strictly a west coast thing, maybe even just Oregon. But my coworker says that her dad uses the extra R there too and he's from Texas. So maybe not.

The other word I can think of that we use in the West that I don't think is necessarily used here is "sack" as in a grocery sack. People here only use the word bag.

So I took this quiz and it predicted my accent correctly in that it showed The West as being the highest donominator... but The Midlands? I don't think so. It seems to think that people from Pennsylvania don't have an accent and I greatly disagree...

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The West
North Central
Boston
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The South
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

Word of the Weekend: Architecture

I went to Chicago for the long weekend to visit a dear friend of mine whom I haven't seen in a while. She used to live in Washington and we were inseparable. Then she moved. :(

Anyway, she took me on this incredible architectural boat tour along the lake which taught us everything we'd ever want to know about the buildings of Chicago's downtown area, including the Sears Tower and the Woolworths buildings. I learned a lot of great things about both the architectural styles and Chicago itself, but the overall feeling I came away with was how depressing the Modern style is. Whoever thought that was a good idea (his name is Mies van der Rohe) was pulling a fast one over on everything. Imagine the money he made off of these designs. And all they really amounted to was a rectangular box with no ornamentation, no detail, no creativity. Just a black, lifeless box. Here's an example of the typical Mies van der Rohe design. Those buildings in the background have parking on the lower 20 or so levels. It's rather disconcerting to see cars hanging out where BBQs should be.

Oh and I tried two different kinds of Chicago deep dish pizza. So now I feel that I've had the Chicago experience and I can add it to my list of cities that I actually know something about. I'd never move there though -- too darn cold. While it was 75 degrees here, it was a mere 35 there. Brrr.

Word of the Day: Vow

vow 
noun: a solemn promise, pledge, or personal commitment

I went to Oregon last week for an emergency trip. The late notice ticketing of course gave me no options as to flight times, etc, and that makes for some crazy routing. Why one has to fly an hour north to get 2 hours south is still something I'm comtemplating days later. I had three layovers on each leg of the race -- er, flight. I have also discovered the worst possible way to spend your birthday. It involves a security gate, four-inch wide coach-class seat and the option to buy a pre-heated ecoli burger with onions for $10.

The trip was worth it though because I got to see my family, whom I often don't see but twice during the year, and I was able to see my grandmother, whom I see once every three years, if I'm lucky. She and my grandfather were married for 70 years. If only we could pull that off in our own generation. It took incredible amounts of dedication and patience, I'm sure, but today we are so divorce happy that a 10-year marriage seems long. Look at Britney... two years was actually kind of a long time to be married to that loser, but did she really go into that thinking she'd be happily married to Kevin Federline for 70 years? I don't think we go into marriage for the long haul anymore. I think we only consider marriage with our "today" glasses on. Maybe I'm wrong, but look at all these celebrities with kids and broken marriages.

No More Animals!

I've now read two articles today alone that discuss the idea that animals have become more human-like, even to the point that some animals have cognitive awareness of self and can identify themselves in a mirror. Not just chimpanzees, which have forever been the only animals to display human-like behavior. Now scientists think that elephants might have the ability to identify themselves (read this article).

Yesterday I read an article about how a honeybees genome sequence is more similar to a humans than any other insect. I know that sounds extremely boring, but this article says "Understanding the bee genome might lead to important insights into common mental and brain disorders, such as depression, schizophrenia or Alzheimer’s disease. The bee genome also might provide an important window into immunity and aging." I suppose it's a bit like mice and the fact that we can use them in studies to see how humans might react to drugs and to diseases like cancer, but it's still pretty amazing that researchers can use the DNA of a bee to determine how illnesses can affect humans. Of course, keep in mind that the only insects to be sequenced so far are the mosquito and the fruit fly.

Is it only a matter of time before we realize that animals are smarter and more useful than we ever imaged? I don't think we're quite there yet, at least I don't want to admit that we might be, since I don't really have a huge affection for animals. But I think it's quite possible that we've underestimated the ability of animals.

Word of the Day: Milestone

Milestone: a significant event or stage in the life, progress, development, or the like of a person, nation, etc.: Her getting the job of supervisor was a milestone in her career.

This is my 201st post. I knew the blog had come full circle when someone I don't know found photos of Michelle and me online and then somehow figured out where we work and tracked us down. All because of this darn blog that I can't even remember why I started. The photo in question is last year's Steve-o-ween photos. Turns out some people were googling Steveoween looking for photos and came across my blog (because I'm popular like that) and then we also learned that someone who helps plan the party every year is from Walla Walla. It's a really small world.

So, this year Steve-o-ween is no more. It was called 1324-o-ween or something not nearly as witty. I couldn't stand the thought of supporting a party that ditched Steve, so I went to some other parties instead. The first, on Friday, was a really large event. The hosts dressed as Motley Crew and spent the latter part of the event throwing waffles to an eager crowd. The second, on Saturday, was the scariest halloween party ever. I went as a Corpse Bride and won 2nd place for best costume. Whoo HOO!!

And here is my favorite photo of all -- a duel between 007 and Rainbow Brite.

More Clouds

As you may remember from previous posts, I once had a major crush on taking photos of clouds. I think I posted a dozen or so on here. Well, here's the king of all cloud photos. This was taken from the plane when we went to Fort Lauderdale earlier this month...

Pumpkin Picking

This post is going to be mostly photos. Last weekend we went on a trip to the Great Pumpkin Patch, where we picked out many lovely future jack-o-lanterns. Homestead Farms is the best place for pumpkin picking in the area. I go there for apples too, but their pumpkin patch is awesome.


Cassie and I agreed, cut-out photo ops are the best!


And here they are, all carved up

Word of the Day: Malcontent

malcontent
1. One who is discontented or dissatisfied

I have for a very long time sung the praises of the best music download site in the world, a site that charges (it professes legally) something like .10 cents per song and $1.28 for an album. I know this sounds ridiculously illegal, and most English sites charge $1 a song. But our IPR rules are must more stringent and less forgiving and, well, basically Napster ruined it for everyone a long time ago.

But now, after years of buying music for next to nothing, the pressure on this site to shut down is so great that they are revamping their website to comply with the rules, though only slightly. They will apparently now offer free albums but you can only use their software to play it -- which means no more downloading to the MP3 player. So what is the point of that? Sure it keeps people from distributing more copies of the music that was once delivered as an mp3. But will people really go for this? We are picky. We are demanding. And we want music for the sole reason of playing it on our way to work on the metro and running on the treadmill.

So, thus, I am really malconent at the idea of my perfect Russian music site changing. Who needs change anyway? Why can't we keep things exactly the same forever? Is that really too much to ask?

Word of the Day: NOTHING

I don't have anything profound to say, but I am forcing myself to find something even horribly mundane to write about because I am forced to sit in my cubical of hell for another 1 hour, 18 minutes before I can escape the miserable boredom that sinks in around 3:28 every single friday afternoon.

I spent a few long minutes playing around with the random insult generator but I got a little annoyed when all it would randomly spit out was "You should find out if your university has a refund policy." I think I started to take it persoanlly. Then I tried to see who my soul mate was after the very same insulting website told me it could pinpoint it with great accuracy. I learned that he will have brown, green or blue eyes and his name with start with a U, Z or F. Yeah. Ok.

This one is kinda fun -- you are presented with two bad things and you have to determine which of them is the worst.

It rains every day of your beach vacation.
The weather is perfect, but your hotel room smells like sour feet.

Your boss gives you a 10% pay cut.
Your boss advises you to work 10 extra hours per week.

Here's one I just made up myself:
You work in an office the size of a small bedroom but there are no windows.
You work in a very small cube situated along a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows.

I'm taking Michelle out to dinner and a movie for her birthday tonight in Dupont Circle. Maybe that's why I'm so bored today -- there's something really fun to look forward to.

Word of the Day: Inscrutable

inscrutable:
Difficult to fathom or understand; difficult to be explained or accounted for satisfactorily; obscure; incomprehensible; impenetrable.

Finally, after many days and nights of wonderment, I have discovered what those three incredibly vexing steel spears are that stick up into the sky near Arlington National Cemetary and the Pentagon. I have literally spent hours in dazed confusion over the seemingly random "art" that someone must think is worthy of displaying so prominently along 395 for everyone to see. As this Washington Post article puts it, "From a distance they look like the ribs of a crown roast, or a metallic flower or the graceful ends of a scallion sliced for the crudites platter."

It is none other than the new Air Force Memorial.

I am reminded again of a game in the Mole when I see these spears. The game was for half the team to create a work of art that would be displayed in a gallery opening alongside actual works of professional artists. They created this fabulous treasure chest with a boxing glove on a chain coming out of it -- I think you have to see it to appreciate it. Anyway, they ruined it by putting jewels just out of reach of the glove, which complicated it too much and destroyed the vision. This memorial does that to me. It might have been an interesting concept if it didn't include all these extra elements that complicate it (read the article for more detail). And for the fact that driving by on the freeway, there's no earthly way to tell what it is, and believe me, it's not apparent. To me it looks like a student art project gone wrong.

Word of the Day: Chocolate

I was devastated to learn just now that I am missing the 23rd Annual Chocolate Festival in Lexington market in Baltimore this weekend. I was wondering if such a festival existed, after nearly consuming an entire Caramello (not the regular small size, I admit). Of all the chocolate in the world, I might have the biggest weakness for Caramello. With exception of the insanely delicious caramels I found in a small shop in Brussels (where I learned the true meaning of "to die for").

The festival claims to offer lots of chocolate samples, but the best part, by far, is the chocolate eating contest. Imagine the stomachache that would produce! I mean hotdog eating is bad enough, but stuffing multiple chocolates in your mouth at one time invokes scary memories of the time on Amazing Race when they had to consume hundreds of truffles in search of one that had a white chocolate center.

And speaking of white chocolate, I took a survey to find out what kind of chocolate I was and as it turns out, I am...

You are White Chocolate

You have a strong feminine side with a good bit of innocence thrown in. Whether your girlish ways are an act or not, men like to take care of you. You are an understated beauty, and your power is often underestimated!

What Kind of Chocolate Are You?

Word of the Day: Incompetence

in‧com‧pe‧tence 
1. the quality or condition of being incompetent; lack of ability.

Finally we have an explanation for why all those terrible singers go on the American Idol tryouts even though they can't carry a note. Can they not hear for themselves just how awful they are? I've always wondered, and now we have an answer...

People who do things badly, Dunning has found in studies conducted with a graduate student, Justin Kruger, are usually supremely confident of their abilities -- more confident, in fact, than people who do things well.

So now I can imagine why people who really can't paint keep on doing it, and why there are so many horrible writers trying to get their novels published. The problem this poses, particularly in terms of writing, is that it's possible that my writing sucks too and I just don't know it. I can be assured by one thing -- I don't think my writing is all that good, and if I was incompetent I would think it was wonderful. So I don't think I'm afflicted by this.

"Incompetent individuals were less able to recognize competence in others," the researchers concluded.

My Space? Are you serious?

At least eight people in the past few months have asked me if I have a My Space page. Seriously, wasn't My Space a thing like 10 years ago, and shouldn't we be over it by now? According to a friend of mine, also a staunch participater in the My Space movement, this is a great way to get to know people. He suggests I add random people we know, but who do not know me. I don't know about that. Sounds sketchy.

So apparently it's a social hotbed for all the "cool" people who attend my church, McLean Bible's Frontline. And if I don't get on it, I'm going to be left in the dust of special society. Should I, or shouldn't I? That is the question.

Where to find me on MySpace

Word of the Day: Vexation

vex·a·tion (vk-sshn) Pronunciation Key
n.
The act of annoying, irritating, or vexing.
The quality or condition of being vexed; annoyance.
A source of irritation or annoyance.

So I'm standing at the grocery store the other day. I have four items. Dutifully, I get in line behind a woman with a cartful of things that she is unloading from her cart. This is the shortest line. I only have four items.

The woman stands and watches as the checker scans her 412 items and waits for him to give her a total. And once he does, she sets her bag on the counter and begins the tedius task of routing around for her CHECKBOOK. After what felt like 15 minutes of her scrawling in the checkbook, she tears out the check, hands it to the cashier, who quickly scans it through and hands back a receipt. Then the woman folds up the receipt, flips through her wallet to the section where she stores receipts, rearranges a few things, then inserts the receipt. I think she's leaving now, finally, so I sort of rudely sidle up to the front with my debit card in hand. But no, she's not done. She's now filling the amount of the purchase into her check register.

I implore you. WHO STILL KEEPS A CHECK REGISTER????

So today, Gene's chat is back after three long weeks on hiatus. I was very happy to see it's return. And even more happy to see a link to a column he did last week regarding the very pain I just described. Gene understands me.

Here's a short excerpt:

My profound impatience about small matters of everyday living is both a curse and an embarrassment. At these times I enter my own personal space, in which I become something that rhymes with "glass bowl." This is my Glass Bowl Mode.

Glass Bowl Mode is wordless but, sadly, not entirely interior and private. I roll my eyes. I fidget. I take long, deep, sighs. That is why, when I finally make it to the front of the line and the anxiety ebbs, I am filled with remorse and self-loathing and become overly cordial to the point of obsequiousness. It is hell being me.

Exactly.

Word of the Day: Laudable

Laud‧a‧ble: Deserving praise; praiseworthy; commendable

We had another extremely successful small group social last night. Over 12 groups were invited to a Spanish Fiesta at Ashley's house. At least 55 people made it out and we had way too much food and... candy. My fault on the candy, but I couldn't help but get a pinata. It was a Fiesta -- what kind of host would I be without providing a pinata. It was shaped like a chili pepper and Ashley smashed it and all the candy against the wall with the handle of a broom. It was well worth the effort.

Next month, being October and one of the best months of the year, we will be having three pumpkin picking socials and "hopefully" a haunted forest social, if someone with less fear than me will agree to host it. I don't know, maybe people don't like haunted things anymore. Maybe as we get older we give up on being scared as something "fun" to do. Next to go -- roller coasters and sledding down extremely steep sheets of ice. Oh and skydiving. Ever since plummeting to what should have been my death from a crop duster 12,000 ft in the air, I have changed my perspective on the activities I do for fun now. Being firmly attached to the ground at all times is a good start. Haunted houses have never really been my thing. "Monsters" with fake blood dripping down their faces and arms protruding from their necks, welding (albeit plastic) butcher knives as they jump from a thicket of trees and scare the night out of me is just no longer fun. I still remember when my dad took my sister and me to a haunted house when I was maybe 5 years old. I'm sure it was the stupidest haunted house ever built, but I was so freaked out we had to leave through a stage door halfway through. I just went geocaching with my parents today and we had this tarantula travel bug that I had wrapped in a plastic bag so I didn't have to look at it. I made my dad take it away. It's been in my possession far too long. You know you're old when... a plastic spider scares you.

Apple Picking!

It's my favorite time of year again... And why I love it so much is based entirely on my obsession with apple picking. I think this stems from my childhood -- I was raised in a house that was completely surrounded by apple orchards (except for the one rogue cherry orchard). The best time of year was September because we could walk 50 yds in any direction and pick a ripe apple or 50 right off the branch. Now, I make the trek up to Poolesville, Maryland, every year to relive the joy I got from this activity as a child.

This year was lovely, but not quite the same with out my friend Dawn there, whom I've gone apple picking with for three years. This year, Brian and Michelle and Eric went with and we came back with some good apples, with which I aspire to make a deliciously apple crisp... if things ever slow down long enough for me to slice the apples and be home long enough to not burn down my condo because I forgot I turned on the oven.

Word of the Day: Aficionado

aficionado: an enthusiastic admirer; a fan.

I have for a long time been an admiring fan of tea. Black tea, green tea, white tea... There's this great place called Teavana that supplies my expensive habit for exceptional loose leaf tea. They have some of the best mixes I've ever tasted -- such as the Jasmin Dragon Phoenix Pearl with Rooibos Tropica and Ginger Peach Apricot. It's been so dreary and gray here the past week, I've been drinking multiple cups a day. Now I hear that store-bought tea bags are going to get fancy. They're finally going to start selling high-quality long leaf tea in nylon mesh bags shaped for a better brew, in place of the left-over crumblings of low-quality tea in paper teabags. I'm excited.

In other news, Walla Walla, Wash., which many of you know is where I grew up, has been named the top place to retire in the U.S. I think their reasoning is a bit faulty, but is there really any place in the world that is perfect for retirement? The Walla Walla area used to be nothing special, but now there are hundreds of wineries, rolling hills of grapes, cute eclectic storefronts and three colleges. The population is only 30,000 and the median 3-bedroom house costs roughly the same as my 700 sq ft one-bedroom condo. I definitely remember a time when it was more podunkville than anything else. But yay for Walla Walla.

Word of the Day: Alfresco

alfresco \al-FRES-koh\, adverb:
1. In the open air; outdoors.

I went on a retreat this weekend with 500 other people pretending to be 10 again at summer camp. It was a very, um, interesting weekend, since the majority of us were over the age of 25, some even approaching the over the hill mark. That did not stop anyone from making complete fools out of themselves. Why is it that packing a backpack full of clothes, going away from home and sleeping in groups of 10 on bunkbeds in cabins makes us feel young again? This camp was unlike any other I've seen. It was a walking, talking liability in every imaginable form. We had to sign fourteen forms releasing the camp of all responsibility before we were able to set foot outside the registration building.

The cabin I stayed in was called Miner's Mountain. This was no ordinary cabin. It was a "luxury" cabin. There was vinyl siding. No hot water, but that's a different story. So we go in to pick our bunks and realize that someone has elected to bring their mother on the trip. Their very out-of-place 70-year-old mother. My first thought: do they really think we need cabin moms at this age? My second thought: Oh, that's so sad. And it really was. This girl was the highest maintenance morning person I have ever encountered. She had to get up 6am just to make it to breakfast at 9am. She took one hour to shower and get dressed, one hour for makeup, one hour for hair. I am not exaggerating. At 8:20am on Sunday morning, after the whole camp had been up until 2:30am the previous night, she bolts out of bed and yells "Girls! Wake up!! Breakfast is over. We missed it." I am a very light sleeper, and had been awake laying in my bed cursing her since she'd gotten up. But now she was frantic because we had all overslept. Only... we hadn't. Breakfast didn't even START until 9am. I, as politely as possible for being woken up on numerous occasions during the night by her incessant snoring, informed her that I would be getting up at 8:45 and I did not need her help in preparing myself for breakfast. She probably rolled her eyes at me. Sure enough, at 8:45 I got in the shower, and I was waiting for breakfast before the doors even opened.

The camp had this big giant thing called a blob that was floating on the edge of a man-made lake. You'd jump off the tower onto the blog then position yourself precariously on the edge and wait for someone to jump down and catapult you off the edge and into the water. Cassie and I enjoyed watching people splat on their faces. There was a zip line that dropped you into the lake near the blog. This afforded great laughter as we saw numerous people lose their shorts upon hitting the water. There was a rock-climbing wall, two water slides, a very large sling-type swing, a thing they call "The Pole" and a ropes course. I'm telling you, it was a liability waiting to happen. Fortunately the only injury was when Greg got pelted in the face by a dodgeball and ended up with a black eye on his birthday. Good times.

Word of the Day: Grandee

grandee:
1. A man of elevated rank or station.

A new study shows that taller people are smarter. And not only are they smarter, they make more money. According to the study, "For both men and women in the United States and the United Kingdom, a height advantage of four inches equated with a 10 percent increase in wages on average."

Average height for women is 5'4". I find this study intriguing because it doesn't seem possible that height could have anything to do with your financial success, unless there was a trend of employers choosing to hire taller people because they appear more responsible and/or capable. However, that doesn't seem to be the case, because the study shows that the advantage begins early in childhood when height isn't necessarily a factor. Even before schooling begins, researchers were able to determine that children who grew up to be taller than average had higher than average test scores pre-school age. Now that's interesting.

Word of the Day: Pluto

As Michelle eloquently put it: Poor Pluto.

All this time, we've been referencing Pluto as the planet farthest from the sun, little cute Pluto out there, holding it all together. But no. Now we learn that Pluto can't even follow the rules. In order to be considered a plant, each must keep an orbit that doesn't disturb it's neighbors, and apparently Pluto has been encroaching on Neptune for quite some time now. It's oblong rotation around the sun, which my coworker pointed out today takes

The funny part is that there is a faction of astronomers in Prague discussing the issue at this very moment and they can't seem to get along.

That plan proved highly unpopular, dividing the group into factions and triggering an acrimonious debate full of angry denunciations that ultimately sunk Pluto.

Can't you just imagine a bunch of hyper scientists fighting tooth and nail to keep Pluto? Just today they decided to no longer consider any of Pluto's three moons for special status -- so now even they've been downgraded and are no longer "moons".

And this leads me to speculate that we really don't know a darn thing about the solar system or the universe. We could be orbitting inside some alien's aquarium in a whole different dimension than we think, and amount to microscopic atomic waste for all we know. Clearly enough to show that our brains are infinitesimal.

Word of the Day: Languor

languor \LANG-guhr; LANG-uhr\, noun:
1. Mental or physical weariness or fatigue.
2. Listless indolence
3. A heaviness or oppressive stillness of the air.

Today's word is highly appropriate. Being a federal employee (if only in appearance) I am one of those poor slobs who has no work for the entire month of August while everyone of importance jets off to the beach or other places of interest (insert Laura's mental wish: Greece, Prague, Ireland). Us low-on-the-totum-pole people stick it out in August because one day we hope to be the jetsetter. That makes for one really long and boring month.

I am trying to be positive though, and so I'm attempting to view the time with optimism instead of last year's pessimism. So here is a short list of the things I was able to do thanks to everyone being on vacation. The day's not over yet, so if the list drags on it's probably because this is the only thing I have to do.

1. I am now a certified expert in the Jon Benet case.
2. I know the minute details regarding every conflict occuring in Israel between AD 120 and the present.
3. Yemen has one of the world's highest birth rates; the average Yemeni woman (life expectancy 59 years) bears seven children.
4. I've read fifteen Washington Post chats this week, including Gene, Dining Out, Real Estate Live, Life at Work, Metro, JonBenet Murder Case (duh!), Tell Me About It, Weekend Now and Travel -- I'll stop there. The rest were boring.
5. Researched travel to Greece and realized I won't be going anywhere soon unless the airlines get nice and slash their prices in half.
6. Did one full lap around CVS and bought a Caramelo to share with co-workers who are equally as sunlight deprived.
7. Watched people run on the mall while pretending I was a tourist on a bench near the National Space Museum.
8. Zzzzzzz

Word of the Day: Befitting

be·fit·ting
Appropriate; suitable; proper.

A few weeks ago I bought a new computer after a long and arduous battle with my old machine, replete with beeping and clicking and system 32 folders that refused to give in to logic. I finally had to let it go the way of all antiquated electronic devices and find a suitable replacement. Which I did, after many months of research. And it arrived last week.

And it was a Dell with not one, but TWO Sony batteries that now, according to news reports, may cause a spontaneous fire in my apartment. Fire Hazard Causes Dell To Recall Laptop Batteries. It appears to be spontaneous combustion, even, not having directly to do with running the computer until it overheats, as one would imagine.

The National Transportation Safety Board last month held a hearing about the safety of lithium batteries on airplanes after a fire occurred Feb. 7 on a cargo jet. The UPS plane, which was carrying lithium-ion batteries, among other items, caught fire in flight and landed safely in Philadelphia.

But don't worry, "Sony said there have been only "a small number" of fires linked to lithium-ion batteries." Good thing, I was starting to get worried.

One more thing before I go -- I was reading the Washington Post today (i.e. EVERY SINGLE LINE in my infinite boredom) and found this article which is amusing, at the least, about how 50 Israeli couples were treated to one big mass free wedding yesterday because they had to call off their weddings during the "war". Seriously. 50 brides in one room.

Each couple was allowed 100 guests. But with wedding-crashers, press and other interlopers there were at least 6,000 people, organizers said. The 50 couples were chosen from more than 300 applicants after the war interrupted the busy summer wedding season.

Word of the Day: Deduction

de·duc·tion n.
The act of deducting; subtraction.
The drawing of a conclusion by reasoning; the act of deducing.
The process of reasoning in which a conclusion follows necessarily from the stated premises; inference by reasoning from the general to the specific.
A conclusion reached by this process.

I opened up my web stats today for my blog as I do every friday to see who's been looking at my blog (or at least to speculate on who has been on my blog). On any given week, somewhere around 120 people view my blog. I can usually tell the main suspects based on location, and that's about all the more indepth the stats go. However, this week I was shocked to see that my numbers have gone up to over 200. That's not an exaggerated leap, I know, but my numbers are always very consistent. So what brought about this change? Was it something profound I might have said? Was it that I'm so witty that word of mouth has spread the good name of my blog all the way to Argentina and Yemen? The frequent Springdale, Arkansas, and College Place, Washington, were still as prevalent, but what's with all the Ohios and Kentuckys and Icelands?

So I clicked on the search terms that led these poor unknowing, and clearly lost, internet surfers to my blog. I should have just gone on thinking that I was prolific. Nope. There's a definite reason.

You thought it was going to be the lottery didn't you?

Wrong.

It was Ricki Ticki Tavi. I'm not kidding. At least a quarter of the hits came from searches for some combination of the phrase Ricki Ticki Tavi. And I blogged about that at least a month ago.

Word of the Day: Sough

sough \SAU; SUHF\, intransitive verb:
1. To make a soft, low sighing or rustling sound, as the wind.

Did you hear that sough? That was me losing the lottery. I tried to win. I bought my $1 worth of tickets and waited anxiously, all the while determining what I would do with my winnings. And when the numbers were revealed, I was highly disappointed to learn that I'd lost.

Why do we spend money on seemingly useless endeavors like playing the lottery? As one winner said, "If you don't play, you can't win". That's true enough. But just how lucky do you have to be to win? A player who wants to win ten dollars in the Tic Tac Toe scratch-off game would have to spend an average of $112. To put these odds in context, suppose one buys one lottery ticket per week. 13,983,816 weeks is roughly 269,000 years; In the quarter-million years of play, one would only expect to win the jackpot once. Luckily, I only spent a dollar.

I buy tickets very infrequently, and usually only after the jackpot has hit a number greatly exceeding anything anyone could ever hope to frivolously spend in a lifetime or two. I do it for the momentary hope that I would not have to return to work the next day or for the rest of my life and could instead travel the world on a private jet. Sure the hope only lasts for as long as it takes them to pick the losing numbers, but isn't it worth one measely dollar? I think so.

Photos from Oregon

Here are the photos of my Oregon trip that I promised yesterday. I have a ton and it was really hard to choose just five. But here is a walking-tour through the state you'll never visit:

First, just try to tell me this isn't the most gorgeous, pristine beach you've ever seen?



The first thing I did when I got there was go to the Tillamook Cheese Factory. I love going here because they make squeaky cheese. I knicknamed it that because it actually squeaks on your teeth when you chew it. They also make my favorite ice cream of all times "Oregon Strawberry". Not usually a fan of strawberry, but this is the best ice cream you've ever tasted.







One thing about the west coast, you don't go playing in the water like you would on the east coast. The water is literally frigid. It was 45.7 degrees the day we went in it. Every so often, my sister and I get daring and we get in, slowly going numb, until we can stand to let the waves wash over us. We're insane.



And finally -- if you weren't convinced of its beauty to this point, you must concede this is the most amazing beach photo you've ever seen.