Nerd, Nerd, Trend-Setter

On the nerd front...

I spent ten hours over five days watching the documentary, Carrier, on PBS last week. In case you weren't nurturing your inner nerd and managed to miss them, you can watch full episodes online using the link above. Quick summary: A documentary crew spent six months on deployment with the U.S.S. Nimitz filming every aspect of their experiences and opinions. It was fascinating (I thought). Even though TLS declared that he didn't have time in his schedule for that kind of commitment, he did drop in for several of the episodes. I think his favorite was the one when the pilots had to try and land on the pitching deck of the carrier in the midst of a huge storm in the Indian Ocean. Check it out.


And in more news of my nerditude...

What did TLS and I spend last Sunday afternoon doing? You know us--two wild, crazy hipsters. I'm sure you might guess partying like rock stars, but you'd be wrong. We were ... wait for it ... berry picking. (I know everyone wants to hang with us now; I'm currently taking names for the waiting list.) There is a long fence row across the street from our house that has a ton of wild blackberry vines. We managed to pick seven cups of berries--enough for the blackberry cobbler I made last night. Deelish!


I labelled this one as Trend-Setter for lack of a better word. You be the judge.

Just about the time I pulled into the parking garage today, the rain started coming down in buckets. It was a deluge of biblical proportions, if you will. I took the stairs up to the exit door so I could walk the two blocks (with two street crossings) to my office building. As I got to the vestibule at the top of the stairwell, I came across about eight guys standing around with umbrellas in their hands. I paused and was about to ask why everyone was just milling around aimlessly, when someone opened the door to reveal the torrents of rain. I knew from looking at the radar before I left home (yet another NERD ALERT!) that it wouldn't be ending anytime soon, so I wondered why all these big, strapping guys were afraid of a little water. It wasn't as if they were all green and gnarly like the Wicked Witch of the West and would be mellllltinng when the rain hit them. I waited about 30 seconds and then clutching my umbrella like a baton, I strode past them saying, "No time like the present!" I wanted to fling a "You big weenies!" on the end but decided better of it. Of course, the bottom of my pants (up to about knee level) was damp until about 2 o'clock this afternoon, but I felt I held the moral high-ground.