Gary
3/31/10
It is just possible (crossing fingers) that Spring has sprung here. It was warm enough yesterday and today that I left the house without a jacket, for the first time since sometime last fall. It was reported that yesterday was the first 70-degree day since November 5. So nice to drive around with the windows down! March came in like a lamb and is leaving like one too, so there goes that bit of folk wisdom....

I haven't heard of any unusual plans for the weekend, so it is looking like a quiet Easter around here.

I hope your job has settled down a bit, Emily. I'd hate to think every day was as crazy for you as it was a couple of Sundays ago!

Oh hey, John and/or Marsha (whoever sent the bird video below): Tristen and Teghan watched it last night at Grandma's and really enjoyed it. Funny stuff! :-)

Somebody at work said that Tristen and Teghan were becoming such a regular fixture there that if I ever wanted to quit the girls could just take over my job. ...Come to think of it, I wonder if that was a hint...? Whatev! --Gary

Tristen: Teghan's making a rug, out of paper.
Teghan: Done!
Tristen: I'm coloring some mushrooms and porcupines.
Teghan: Welcome to Teghan's, Gary's, and Tristen's Office! I am writing on the rug "Welcome."

P.S. Hang in there, Emily. The days to come can only be better than that one!

I hear that. --Gary

Well, there's more. Last Wednesday I got a subpoena to appear in court today as a witness for a "maintaining disorderly house" bench trial for this guy. I assumed from this that the cops must have cited him that night, which I hadn't known before. After getting the subpoena I did a quick Google search and found a few "disorderly house" cases in Lincoln where the penalties ranged from fines to up to 30 days in jail. So, even though the guy had moved out just a few days later and I didn't care about this whole thing any more, I thought "This could be interesting."

I showed up at the courtroom at 9 am. No jury, but it was a courtroom in all other respects. I presented my subpoena to the bailiff and took a seat. I had never laid eyes on the noise-guy, so I didn't know which of the other people in the courtroom he might be. But then (a few minutes after 9 -- he was late!) a guy came up to the door and gave his name to the bailiff, so I knew that was him. I'm pretty certain he didn't recognize me, even though he watched me from behind his curtain that next day; he came in today and didn't react to me at all, and took a seat nearby. Then "All rise for the honorable" etc etc, and court was in session. There were three cases ahead of this one -- traffic stuff like driving with a suspended license and such. After that, the bailiff called this guy's name and told him to approach the bench. The judge read the charge (disorderly house, which she said for some reason I didn't catch had been reduced to disturbing the peace), and asked for his side of the story. He told a very cleaned-up version of the events: "I was out for the evening, and gee, I guess I must have left the TV on, etc." Then he went on to say: "I suppose other people in the building might have heard it, because I know I hear noise from other apartments. The guy downstairs makes a lot of noise, and I hear all that." Whaaaat?? I was fuming at this, and now was more than ready to say my piece. But that didn't happen. The judge said, "Have you taken any steps to make sure this doesn't happen again?" And, like Eddie Haskell, this guy says "Oh yes, Your Honor!" So she fined him $150 plus costs ($48) and it was all over. I never got called. I never even got acknowledged. The next case had already started and I'm sitting there thinking, "So...am I done?"

I left the courtroom and found the bailiff out in the hall. I asked him if I was done, and he said "Lemme check." He went down the hall and into a room, and a minute later poked his head out and yelled, "Yeah, you can go!" Oh good, thanks so much! This whole thing had been a bigger annoyance than the late-night music. And what's more, I realized if I ever run for President, two things are waiting to be found on the record: One, the cops came to my place at 3 am one morning because someone complained about noise from my apartment, and two, the records of this trial will read that while this guy might have left his TV on a bit too loud once, he heard a lot of noise from my apartment on many occasions. Arrrgh! I should have done what the Bush White House staff (Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, et al.) did and ignored the subpoena....

New photos up today -- thanks, Amanda!

Here's another example of the number-crunching at Fox. This chart of theirs shows the 2012 presidential choices of 193 percent of Republicans... :-)

My pleasure. :-) --Gary

And Gary, you sucked this year! You scored the same as me, yikes!

We didn't watch the Oscars this year, but that's fitting as we never watch any of the movies up for Oscars until well past the Oscars, ie: out on DVD. Tristen had a dance thing that night so we were out. It's DVR-ed but I don't know that we'll get around to watching it, kinda like knowing the score to the game but watching it anyway. I don't think I heard of any amazing 'plays' that make it watchworthy.

There were some funny moments between hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, but otherwise it was a pretty lukewarm show. And yeah, I was off this year... Sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn't. As for two Oscars, hmmm.... I used to send the under-17 winner a gift assortment of popcorn and Jr. Mints and suchlike. This system started in 2002 when Donna and Marsha tied; they would have shared the trophy six months each, but Donna offered it to the under-17 winner Emily. And we've done it that way ever since. But maybe we should get a second Oscar! --Gary

Dreary and rainy here today (and yesterday). Getting rid of some of the snow, but still lots more to melt.

Emily had her first real day of work on Saturday (15 hour shift). She really liked it. She did have to chase one kid down and put him in a hold to bring him back.

Right you are. I re-checked my math and came up with the same result. Sorry for the false alarm, John. And my apologies to Marsha for briefly linking her name to that loser John. :-) Fixed now. Go here for complete results and stats! --Gary

I got a call from Tristen last night on their way home from Avatar. Sounded like they all loved it. I'm hoping she will drop a note here to the newsletter and tell us all about it.

Awesome! You won't regret it. You'll be talking about it all the way home. For you others reading this, Amanda's note was sent via her blackberry from the theater. Cool! --Gary

Excellent. Good luck! --Gary

I also put this on Tristen's Cool Sites page.

Well, I've got some bad news: It just got worse. In the past week, our 24-hour day has literally gotten shorter. The earthquake in Chile was so strong, scientists say, that it moved the poles three inches from their old positions -- and the effect of that was to actually shorten our day by a little over one-millionth of a second. This article has a good analogy for understanding how it happened:

"It's what we call the ice-skater effect," David Kerridge, head of Earth hazards and systems at the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh, said today in a telephone interview. "As the ice skater puts when she's going around in a circle, and she pulls her arms in, she gets faster and faster. It's the same idea with the Earth going around if you change the distribution of mass, the rotation rate changes."

And I was also going to put a recipe on here. I can't spell it right now but it's German and it tastes like french toast! I make lots of different foods in my 1st period, and today we made Runzas just like the way Grandma does! We've also made funnel cakes, yeast bread, quesadillas, sopapillas, and some other foods... But that's all I got to say so I'll talk to you all later!

Livy, you're making me hungry! :-) French toast is one of the best things France ever invented, right up there with French fries, French silk pie, and French onion soup. And it's better than French's mustard. Please send in the recipe! --Gary

The Oscar votes are in, and here they are! Printed versions of this scoresheet will be arriving in your mailboxes soon. Oscar night is also a school night (why can't they do it on a Friday or Saturday night??), but if anyone in the Lincoln area wants to drop by Grandma's that night you'll find a wild party. As always, Grandma will be preparing the same menu Wolfgang Puck does for the Oscar night Governor's Ball:

Either that, or popcorn and Junior Mints -- she hasn't decided yet.