Headdesk...

...which is Internet slang, of course, for, "D'oh!"

So, I'm reading this perfectly lovely piece of smushy fluff (yeah, yeah), by this mostly literate author (I can't read any other kind anymore; in my early days online, I read everything, but now...), and...I....

"Blah blah blah, then all visages of sleep left."

NO.  No, no, no, no-ity, no!

Visage = appearance (his ancient visage = his old face).

Vestige = stuff left over (vestigial organs = organs that are left over that used to be important and aren't anymore).

You meant "vestiges of sleep."

As on, all little itty bits and pieces of sleepiness went away.

Threw me right out of the moment, it did.

The Question

Since before your sun burned hot in space, and before your race was born, I have awaited a question. -- The Guardian of Forever

Maybe the Guardian could solve this dilemma for me. Which event to try and summarize in a single sentence (my favorite of this year is summing Stalin up with, "On blah blah blah, Russia's mean leader Josef Stalin died."):

• The Taiping Rebellion?
• The Treaty of Versailles?
• Legalized gambling in Nevada?
• Televised Academy Awards?
• Sarajevo reuniting?
• The start of the Iraq War (Version 2.0)?
• Or Mahmoud Abbas becoming Prime Mister of Palestine?

In a way, I prefer boring days. It's easier to summarize boring things like, "Montana became the xth state of the United States." But these? Eesh.

For the record, since I'm asking the kids to watch the news each week for election coverage anyway, I'll probably go with the Iraq War, but...well...geesh. Depressing much?

Edited to add: While procrastinating for this decision, I did a side to side comparison of a base Mac Pro and a high-end iMac, and the iMac is nearly $1000 cheaper, all told. However, once I upgrade the components up front that I would upgrade myself later on with the Mac Pro (memory and hard drive space), the price is nearly identical. C'mon, bank account....

(Also, my computer nerd mojo has deserted me. I just now realized that ETA = Edited to Add in blog-speak. I am shamed.)

It's Darwin!

(I guess Roy Scheider's recent death put SeaQuest on the brain.  Sorry, non-fannish folks.)

However, this shows two things:

1.  I knew I liked dolphins for a reason.

2.  Dolphins are way smarter than we give them credit for.

(To be fair, apparently so are monkeys.  Someone needs to invent that glove they had in Congo -- the only cool part of the movie, to my recollection (but I only saw it once in high school, so who knows) -- so the monkeys of the world can request all the green-drop-drinks (martinis) they want.)

(It is disturbing to me that that movie is 13 years old.)

(Almost as disturbing as it is that Patrick is turning 21 years old on Monday.)

Rigid Thinking

One fairly common aspect of many cognitive disabilities is what's called rigid thinking. That's kind of a black and white absolutist view.

For instance, for Patrick, Sunday is Subway day. This is his routine. You cannot have Subway at a different Subway, nor can you have Subway on a Saturday, because it's not just about having Subway. It's about having that Subway on that day.

Or, if someone says, "Take your medicine at 4:30," you might find someone who just doesn't take it if they notice that it's 4:33.

So, today, M had diarrhea twice in two hours. We called home. Both M's parents have cognitive disabilities. Her mom asked to talk to me.

"The doctor said that the medicine we give her for her constipation could cause diarrhea."

"Oh...she started a new medicine?"

"Yeah."

"Really? When did she start it? Because she hasn't done this at school before."

"November."

Oh.

See, M's doctor probably did say it could cause diarrhea. And in M's mom's rigid thinking, if she has diarrhea, that must be the cause.

Figuring that we were all well and truly contaminated no matter what happened, I decided to compromise.

"Well, I'm not sure that's it, since this has never happened before, and she's been on it so long."

"Oh."

"But, I'll tell you what -- I'll let her stay for right now, but if she has diarrhea one more time, I'll have to send her home, because this just isn't what we've seen with M before."

"Okay."

Lo and behold....

Tech Woes

I got behind last week, while I was fighting off the insidious illness that had me flat on my back from 3:30 Friday afternoon to about 10:00 last night.

That means that I've been making today what the kids will be doing for their journals tomorrow.  Homework just got printed (fortunately, between our field trip and two short weeks, I had an excuse to make it a 2-week homework assignment).

I haven't been running this close since probably 2 years ago.  Lately, "behind" has meant "madly printing out next week's stuff Thursday evening so I can get it ready on Friday."  It's been a long time since "behind" meant "making tomorrow's journals."

But anyway.

My poor dying computer froze twice to the point of the mouse cursor not moving for five minutes twice today.  There was a POST-code-like beep (except I thought those only happened at boot-up) each time.

But that's not my main tech woe, other than it made it take way too long to get everything printed (I broke my no-school-stuff-after-8:00 rule SO hard today).

My tech woe is this, and pardon the second CAPSLOCK OF RAGE in two days.

FOR THE LOVE OF THE LORDS OF KOBOL (cough! Battlestar Galactica season 4 coming soon! cough!), I DON'T CARE IF IT'S THE PRINTER, THE PRINTER DRIVER, WRITING WITH SYMBOLS OR SOME COMBINATION OF THE THREE, OH-MY-FRAKKING-GOD WOULD YOU PLEASE PRINT THINGS CORRECTLY?!

Ahem.

In English:  When Writing With Symbols doesn't like a printer, it prints the first two lines on a page over each other.  Some mystical combination of font size changes, additional lines, and other random things sometimes help.

In all seriousness, I am now carefully weighing the various costs involved in between an iMac and Mac Pro.

iMac plusses:

* cheaper

* one piece

* purrrrty

iMac minuses:

* I would need an external DVD drive to run Writing with Symbols and Boardmaker concurrently ($$)

* I would have to buy a USB hub to connect my external hard drives PLUS the DVD drive ($)

* 2 core

* I'd have to upgrade the memory ($$)

* I'd probably upgrade the hard drive at purchase, 'cause it's harder to upgrade

Mac Pro pluses

* 8 core standard

* easy to upgrade (memory and/or hard drive space), so I can do it later myself and not pay the Apple premium

* multiple DVD drives

Mac Pro minuses

* more expensive

* I'd have to buy a monitor

      ** well, I wouldn't have to, but my measly little 15 incher would look pretty sad

At some point, I'll have to sit and do the math.  It may be that once I upgrade the iMac to the specs I'd want, the equivalent Mac Pro would be more or less the same price.

Here's hoping Sparky Jr. can hold on.

Now, about the epidemic in my class.

In my first year of teaching, we had this horrible flu bug that made the rounds among kids and adults alike for nearly a month.  Despite judicious application of hand washing, Clorox wipes, hand sanitizer, etc., we just couldn't get rid of it until we had spring break and were gone for a week.

I suspect we've got that going on again.

Superhero was back today, but he wasn't here for more than an hour and a half before his fever spiked back up -- to about 102! -- and we sent him home.  Elastigirl was sick with M's stomach flu yesterday, was here for a while, then went to the doctor.  Sleeping Beauty coughed the whole way home yesterday and was gone today.  The Boss was grumpy, and I suspect she's getting it.

Oh, and Bulldozer and Mr. Voice were both warm, but not enough to show as a fever.

Yet.

Meanwhile, I'm mostly better.  I had to take a nap after school today and by 1:30 or so I was tuckered...but that was a lot better than making it to 8:15 yesterday!

Also? Memo to Safari

I love Safari.  I really do.

But I have to vent.

I love having an integrated RSS reader.  It makes keeping up with so many blogs really easy; plus, I don't have to have a separate program open to keep up with everything.

But.

(Pardon the CAPSLOCK OF RAGE.)

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S GOOD AND HOLY, STOP REFRESHING OR CLEARING YOUR MEMORY OR WHATEVER THE FRELL IT IS YOU'RE DOING EVERY 20 MINUTES THAT MAKES ME HAVE TO DISPLAY ALL MY RSS FEEDS AGAIN JUST TO MAKE YOU REALIZE I'VE READ THE STUPID THINGS.

Ahem.

I feel better.

Or, I will, until that first bookmark folder suddenly has a (58) or a (12) or a (248) next to it.

More Boggling

Another random Discovery Health show.

(What?  I was sick.  I fell asleep when I got home (I made it until 8:15 or so at school before I realized I was being ridiculous and put in for a sub) and slept for three straight hours and then laid in bed for about five more.)

This firefighter is in a fire and -- long story short -- ends up with cortical blindness.

And the narrator, in this deeply sympathetic voice, says that now she -- an avid reader -- "can't do something she loved: read."

Or something to that effect.

Um.

Braille?

Audiobooks?

I mean, I know not everything is available, and that does suck.

But...she can't read?  At all?

Perspective, Part 2

So, Discovery Health is on for background noise, and then I hear this:  "It's one of the deadliest bacteria around -- responsible for over 50 deaths each year."

Which, yeah, sucks for the midwestern town that got hit with it.

But you gotta stop and say: 50 deaths?  Tell that to most of the Third World.

Illness update:  Fever is mostly gone (though it made a reappearance tonight).  I'm planning to go to school tomorrow, because I was actually conscious most of today, and I'm worried about the chaos that will ensue if I don't.

But that means I'll probably crash -- hard -- the moment I get home tomorrow.

Also?  I curse my internal clock and circadian rhythms, which are absolutely certain that it is not 9:25.

And -- if it's Daylight Savings Time from March until November -- No-freaking-vember! -- (that's 8 months, folks)...isn't that, kinda by default, our "Standard" time?  By virtue of being 2/3 of the year?  Shouldn't the blessed few months that are normal be, like, Daylight Shortened Time or something like that?