Unemployed American men during The Great Depression waiting in line for charity bread. Part of the monument to Franklin D. Roosevelt in Washington DC. "Breadline" by sculptor George Segal. Click for larger.Publicke Notices
1. Amy & Mike -- uhhh ... did you just have an earthquake? You guys okay? It wasn't as big as The Big One in Southern Illinois last week, but did you get shaked, rattled and rolled? Should I phone FEMA? Details please.
2. In case nobody has figured this out, Vleeptron is your basic One-Man Band. It may SEEM that Vleeptron is produced by a staff of hundreds of dedicated professional journalists and world-class graphic artists, but such is not the case. It's pretty much all just Bob.
(This of course does not include our dozens of Human-On-The-Ground correspondents all around the Solar System who report on local news and cultural and sporting events for Agence-Vleeptron Presse, and whom A-VP pays in Pizza.)
So anyway, considering this whole Thing is furped out by 1 Single Solitary Human Being named Bob, this may explain why Vleeptron has been slowing down and producing fewer posts lately.
One-Man-Bob and S.W.M.B.O. are emerging from The Winter From Hell. Details on request, but suffice it to say that none of it was Health-Related or Life-Threatening. More like being attacked by 600 ducks pecking constantly at our ankles. After months of Alarums & Diversions at all hours which have driven us totally nuts, we are seriously considering an experiment to see if it is possible to Live Without A Telephone.
Bob is also way behind in a variety of promises, sworn oaths, vows, etc. We haven't forgotten any of these and will attend to them as promptly as possible. Most of the ducks have flown away and things are calming down a bit.
3. The Brilliant Occidental Mystic Mathematician RamanuJohn (who solved the 7-Node Travelling Santa Problem) rang our doorbell this morning and paid us a visit in Real Physical Space! What a treat! What an honor!
4. In a few minutes I'll go into our wonderful thrilling new kitchen (#**%&&#*%&#*&$~!!) and bake 24 Idaho potatoes for The Last Supper -- our volunteer team's last meal for my town's emergency winter homeless shelter. Until next Halloween, our homeless guests are invited to sleep al fresco under the stars and solve their nutritional needs in more ingenious ways, which will almost certainly include the dependable trick of Eating Less Food.
At this moment, all I can ask Vleeptron's readers to do is to think well of our guests and wish them good luck for the next 7 months. I have many more thoughts about my neighbors who have fallen on Hard Times and who depend on our church alliance shelter to get through and survive our ferocious winter. I shall try to assemble these thoughts and fling them at you soon.
I can only add that all this is happening in what's probably the most materially prosperous and well-fed nation which ever existed on Planet Earth.
See all of you later tonight after I bake the potatoes and my neighbors eat them (with big tubs of sour cream and soft butter).
2 comments:
Yes indeed, we did have an earthquake. Several actually. Before I get into stories, both Amy and I are fine. Friday's was a 4.7, which is the biggest Reno has had since 1953 I believe. Friday evening Amy and I went to bed around 10:00, but we decided to watch a movie since neither of us was really all that tired. Amy picked Stargate out of the old movie collection since we hadn't seen it in so long, and then she promptly fell asleep about half way through (par for the course with her). I finished off the movie, and had gone down to get another one since I was still not all that tired, and it was before midnight. Nature chose that time to deliver us a shaker. The whole house started rattling pretty loudly, and I hear Amy call down from upstairs. "Mike! It's shaking!!" I can't think of anything else to say at this point, so I just say, "I know." It was funnier in person, really. The only thing resembling damage we had was a picture frame fell off the shelf and crushed a poor unfortunate floppy disk. We actually had another one this morning of 4.2 around 4:30AM Pacific. We were both asleep for this one. Amy's response was "Uh oh". I respond. "Yep", and then it was over. Hopefully, the fun goes downhill from here. If it gets any worse, we might have to mooch a room from my brother for a while.
Mmm...potatoes! (wait...did I spell that right?)
Yep, pretty much as Mike said in the other comment. Is it so sad that I think earthquakes are kind of "fun" when they aren't terribly huge?
Before the biggest one on Friday, we had a couple of smaller ones. It's funny thinking back on it because the times I've felt a quake before, I always thought it was the cats being naughty! I was grading some exams on Thursday at home, and I'd forgotten my password to the online gradebook, so I was frantically trying to find the piece of paper that someone had put it on. My youngest cat, Ashley, was following me around the house "helping" and I'd wandered back upstairs to see if I could find it under the futon in the computer room. I see the futon move and my water bottle fall over and I was JUST about to say "knock it off, you guys", thinking the cats were in a scuffle under the futon. Nope...Ashley walked in about a minute after, no cats near futon!
I have the added bonus of having an alien creature dwelling inside of me that likes to shake/turn/kick as well, so sometimes I can't be sure if it's that moving, or the earth :) Such confusion!
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