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Politics!

So there's this woman, last name of Palin. She wants to be vice president under a Mr. McCain. This woman has stated that she favors abstinence only sex education. I may have mentioned before now that I think abstinence only sex education is not only ineffective, it's wasteful and harmful. In any case, Palin's daughter is gonna have a baby. I say "gonna have a baby" and not "pregnant" because she fully intends to keep the child. I suppose that having a mother who is the governor of Alaska is as good a support structure as you can hope for, as far as teen pregnancies go.

Did you get a chance to see the eclipse tonight? Was it any good? Blacksburg was overcast and gross, so I couldn't see a darn thing but the orange glow of sodium lights reflecting off the clouds.

Oh well, fingers crossed for 2010.

Tuesday night Dr. Ruth Westheimer came to Tech for Jewish Awareness Month at VT. It's common knowledge that she is a holocaust survivor, but I learned that she was also trained as a sniper. Fantastic! Not only is she nearly as old as my grandmother, 4'7" tall, and still touring the country and writing books about sex, but she can put a bullet between a man's eyes at half a mile! OK, I don't actually know that she can still do that, but she was a sniper during the fight for Israel's independence. Regarding the explosion that seriously wounded her legs and ended her military career at 20, she said, "It didn't have any affect on my height." Anyhow, she did talk about sex, because that's what she does. After that I went home and wrote 9 pages on the problems with abstinence-only sex education programs in intermediate and secondary schools. I didn't even make that connection until just now, to be perfectly honest. It's funny how these things work out.

Entirely unrelated to that, Amy (my roommate) got a new dog. She's about the same age as Sebastian but larger. She was rescued from a pound where she was soon to be euthanized, but the guy who saved her could not keep her. Amy, now down to one animal in the apartment (both cats have moved in with her mom) decided that it would be a good idea to adopt her. She needs some work, but she seems to be obedient at least, and is certainly intelligent. Based on the (short) time I've spent with her I'd say she is dominant and insecure, which is leading to some issues with territoriality around her cage and possessiveness of toys. It doesn't help matters that she is currently in heat, but she will be spayed within a couple of weeks. That issue was probably not particularly important to the pound that was going to euthanize her or the rescuer that couldn't keep her.

I'll post pictures once I take some.

I'm basically settled in at DreamHost, and I know I have a lot of time to account for, but I'm not doing it right now. It is once again Sunday night, and I have no idea what happened to the rest of the weekend. I know I told some people that I'd have an update by Friday, but it just wasn't happening. Sorry Scott.

I'm a bad bad boy. I've not written a thing since the beginning of December. Actually, that's not true. During the week I spent in the Dominican Republic I wrote almost every night. I just haven't posted it yet.

I acquired an ipod over break, and have subsequently become addicted to podcasts. They're nice for passing the massive gaps in my schedule. I have replaced those awful white earbuds though. They don't stay in, I don't particularly like the look of them, and I don't feel like looking like an ad for Apple. I have replaced them with a pair that stays in, have a black cord so as not to look like a silhouette advertisement, but are still reasonably ugly. Two out of three ain't bad.

I'm moving to a different host. They offer a better product for the same price. I'm hoping the transition will be pretty seamless, but we will see. In any case, that's why I've been reluctant to post new content.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

It's storming pretty nicely here in Blacksburg. Luckily I need not fear for cold, nor wet, nor loss of internet (*gasp*) because I can just sit here and chill in the student center. Their power and wireless serve me just as well as my own, and they have generators to back it up.

On a related note, I think our wireless router is dying. For the past couple days I've had to leech off some unsuspecting neighbor with an unsecured network. One of these days I should really replace it, though.

There was a dense fog over Blacksburg when I woke up this morning. That's one of my favorite things about this area. We get some really good fog. Some people don't appreciate it, but I think fog is very romantic. This is a picture taken from the front of War Memorial Hall, trying to see Burruss Hall across the drillfield. In the full-size version you can sort of make out the tops of busses letting off in front of Burruss.

I also took a picture of a spider web with the morning dew still on it. That's the only way I can ever capture them, my hand isn't steady enough and I don't have a big enough tripod to capture them when they're dry. Any pointers?