Verbatim

"It's not long like the Jell-O, it's short like the castanets."

—Fiona, discussing Deborah's hair

Healing Huehnergard

So what do you do, when you want to reprint a classic book... but you've got corrections for it? Well, normally, you could just re-edit and re-set the whole thing, and there you go. In this case, though, the book was John Huehnergard's Ugaritic Vocabulary in Syllabic Transcription, and the text was very complex. The author's corrections and additions alone ran to 32 pages, so we decided to just make an index. It then fell to me to take the scanned pages, and let the reader know that there was supplemental material:

Later that week, after describing what I was working on, Deborah summarized what I'm doing as "the laying on of hands."

I thought it was quite appropriate.

One Seventh of a Back Yard

This afternoon I dropped off my down payment on a new back yard, and had the opportunity to chat with Brent Wilcoxson, who is pleasant and funny when no one is protesting. There was to be a public hearing this afternoon regarding the sale, though, so there may be protests yet.

In the mean time, all sorts of spray painted lines are decorating the gravel and grass back there, identifying the locations of property lines, phone lines, and power lines. From the looks of it, we'll still have the alley (mostly) as it stands. If we want to get rid of it, we and our neighbors will have to take it up with the town council ourselves, unless they suggest it first.

My Favorite Light Bulb Joke

Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Bathtub full of power tools.

Just thought I'd share. Feel free do discuss my sanity (or lack thereof) in the comments. (Mom's a psychologist, and she maintains I'm sane. She's such a sweetie.)

And they're waving the checkered pillowcase...

They race beds in South Whitley. In fact, they're the bed racing capital of the world — you can pick up a green wedge in Trivial Pursuit for knowing that. Rules? Minimal: One bed. One passenger, four runners, no interference. Safety? Sign a waiver — no brakes or steering mechanisms allowed! The atmosphere? Good fun.

We arrived late in the afternoon, and walked over to main street just as the zero-turn mower square dance was finishing up, and staked out a spot in front of the fire station while I went off to get a few photos.

Hey, sweet mama, wanna go... bed racing?

A real racing bed. I think this is one of the ones available to teams who haven't constructed a bed of their own. Apparently steering mechanisms weren't always disallowed — I wonder what prompted that particular rule change?

Teams this year included Manchester United ...Methodist Church, Night of the Living Bed (my favorites), Team Dynamite (I think these were the sixth-graders), Big Blue (the high school track team, if I'm not mistaken), MSC (Manufactured Structures Corporation), and the TK Bed Sled Team, resplendent in Hawaiian shirts and bike shorts.

Night of the Living Bed, with their entry, the new and improved Grateful Bed II.

The TK Bed Sled Team, like most, picked the smallest member as passenger. Only the winning team actually had them lie down in the bed — presumably for better aerodynamics. When was the last time you heard "beds" and "aerodynamics" in the same sentence?

I dig the welded rebar "spiderwebs" on the Grateful Bed II. Night of the Living Bed would go on to win the "best theme" prize.

The heats were short, fast, and furious, and the cheering was genuine. Manchester United, Team Dynamite, and MSC fell in the opening rounds. The remaining three teams battled it out. Night of the Living Bed was dominating until they veered off course and had to stop to avoid a collision. TK Bed Sled Team moved on to the next round, the final showdown against Big Blue.

It was a close race, too close for me to tell from where I was standing. In the end, Big Blue got it, and were declared the 2008 Bed racing Champions.

The victors return. There's something poignant about this photo; I'm not sure I can place my finger on it, though.

For the non-bandwidth-challenged, you can see my videos on YouTube here, here, and here.

And... that's it for this year! Anyone want to put together a team with me for next?

Huh?

Fiona brought home this paper the other night. I'm... confused. Someone expain this to me?

What are they teaching kids in Sunday School these days?

Orange Flags, Red Tape

The surveyors are out surveying. Given that they were going along, finding the edge of each property line, it looks like we'll have a back yard, rather than apartments, in back of our house.

Back when I was in high school, and thinking of becoming an architect, I took a drafting class. Good thing: I discovered that it was, while a valuable skill, not really to my liking. A further class field trip, where we surveyed the school grounds, drove that point home. Start at a known point, lay out the measuring chains, measure the temperature, calculate the expansion or contraction of the chain... entirely too picky and mathematical for my taste. It made me appreciate what these guys were doing, and all the more, the shortcuts: previous surveyors had sunk steel spikes into the ground at the edges of the property lines, and finding your fixed reference point was a job that could be done in 30 seconds with a metal detector and shovel. I knew there had to be an easier way to do it than how Mr. Watson was showing us!

According to Brent, the purchase agreements are off in the hands of the lawyers, and then there's a two-week examination period (presumably to allow for public protest... Jan, you hush now!) and then, finally, the closing and excavation, although I'm not certain about the order of the last two. Will it be a month? Several? Will it still happen this year? No idea. In the meantime, I keep scraping together what money I can.

The Optimist, Part 2

There was a detail about the last post that I left out, because I wasn't sure — but now, James confirmed my memory. Take another look at the price board on that wagon:

See the part where the first digit has been painted out? I thought maybe I had been imagining it, and that it used to be an 8... but no, my memory was right... it was a three! Yes, folks, they raised the price. Get it now, before it goes up again!