From Maeve:
Starburst Candies is screwing with my little autistic world. They have “new tropical flavors”. They replaced two “old” flavors and put in two new ones. Can you guess which flavors they ditched? Yep, Pudd’ns favorites. That is the only candy he’ll eat and it’s only those two flavors. Those were the best motivators for speech and other things to get him to comply. I called the company and lodged a complaint. If they get enough complaints, they may bring back the “old” flavors.
Go forth and give Maeve and Pudd’n a hand.
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I’m hoping that the email I just received from my Astronomy professor from last term is a joke. A very bad, very silly joke. I’m more than a little worried that an actual astronomer could look at the picture below for longer than the 5 seconds it took me to realize that there’s something very wrong.
This is the sunset at the North Pole with the moon at its closest point. And, you also see the sun below the moon. An amazing photo and not one easily duplicated. You may want to save this and pass on to others.
This is NOT a picture taken of a sunset at the North Pole. How do I know? Because by Week 2 of that astronomy class, I had learned about ‘angular size’. The short explanation is that angular size is how astronomers measure the size of a celestial object, in this case the Sun and Moon. We know that if you were to place the two side by side, the Moon is much smaller than the Sun. But because the Moon is closer to Earth than the Sun, they both look to be about the same size.
This is a very basic concept in Astronomy and I’m more than a little worried about exactly what the atrocious amount of tuition I’m paying is being spent on.
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If TheEx were to see this post, he’d drag me off and shoot me. Probably with my own gun.
I own two handguns. Many years ago, after a traumatic incident in my life, I had good cause to become interested in gun ownership. I had always been around guns and rifles and often accompanied my hunting friends as a teenager, but never really felt the need to own a gun. TheEx and his father taught me to shoot all manner of firearms in my late teens/early-20’s, so I’m fairly comfortable with anything you put in my hand to shoot.
When it came time to actually own one, TheEx thought he was doing me a favor by buying me a Lady Smith S&W .357. Apparently this is a gun made specifically for women and has a smaller grip to accomodate women-like hands…probably a lot like those Derringer pistols you see women pull out of nowhere in old Westerns. It’s very easy to use and is also very ‘pretty’. It also took all of the fun out of shooting for me. There’s no challenge to it, which makes it dependable - but boring. And I never really got used to the smaller grip. Another thing I don’t like about it is just the fact that it’s a revolver and takes time to load. When the kids were younger, I wasn’t comfortable keeping a loaded gun around the house and didn’t think that an intruder would be willing to give me time to load the silly thing.
Enter the Glock. 9mm semi-automatic. Holds 17 bullets in the clip…I figure if I can’t kill an intruder with 17 friggin bullets, I deserve to be shot. It’s ugly as sin and feels like a plastic toy gun, but it SOUNDS serious. An officer/friend of mine hunted it down for me after I had tried his out and was reminded that shooting practice could be FUN.
The unfortunate thing is that I’m notoriously lazy when it comes to cleaning my weapons. My friend J took the guns about 6 months ago because I hadn’t cleaned either of them in years and he still has them. That’s the problem with a casual gun owner like myself…once the guns are out of sight, they’re out of mind. I haven’t been out target practicing in almost 5 years or so. And if I’m completely honest with myself, I probably don’t even remember how to take apart the guns and clean them.
That’s why this guy’s idea is something I can totally get behind. I’ll never be a true blue gun FAN…they’re just a means to an end for me…but it would be good to have that reminder to clean the damn things AND go out and get some practice.
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