File This Under: Things That Are Interesting Only To Me

I read an interesting fact about the sleep patterns of giraffes (I KNOW. I'm *such* a nerd.) on Wednesday. (Are you ready for me to share the interesting fact? Well, I'm going to tease you just a bit longer.) Then on Friday, my Discover Magazine arrived and it had the same fact in it. I've never heard this in (almost) forty years and then, POW, twice in one week. I think there should be an official name for this phenomenon, maybe something like Factoid Synchronicity.

Oh! The fact: Giraffes only sleep for an average of 1.9 hours a day. (Look in the table at the bottom of this article for corroboration.) I guess they spend the other 22.1 hours of the day loping around the savannah and trying not to get eaten.

You Know You Haven't Blogged in a While When You Can't Remember Your Password

As you might have guessed, I've been a tad busy lately--what with the school and the work and the teeny, tiny little things like sleeping and eating. I cannot believe that I let my advisor talk me into taking three classes. Three! Of course, one of them is a one hour class, but it is still eight semester hours and with working full time, I seem to be continually quite frazzled.

Not that anyone else really wants or needs to hear the rambling whining from me. ("Oooh, poor Inertia Girl. All that school must be so *taxing*!!") So feel free to click along to something else if you find this a little too much to take.

I've been wigging out over school and work alternately, and sometimes school and work simultaneously. I'm guessing that it's been quite a hoot for my BFF, Pam and, of course, the mostly underrated TLS. Pam was talking me off the ledge the other day (by reminding me that it is only my rampant over-achieving that is making me insane and that I might want to take it down a notch--good advice for me no matter what's going on in my life) and I realized that it truly will take a village to get me through grad school. (So thanks to all my fellow villagers. You know who you are!)

And on a completely unrelated note, is it unhealthy to be checking the weather sites about once an hour for updated Ike tracking?! Such a weather nerd. (Or nerd in general.)

To Do List - Part 1

Things to do before leaving on vacation (a work in progress):

1. Charge phones, iPods and camera. (Be sure and bring chargers for all!)
2. Pack the U.S. atlas
3. Decide on books to bring for plane rides
4. Prepare checklist for feeding and care of animals to give to neighbors
5. Set out of office agent for work email
6. Change outgoing work voicemail message
7. Pack the nerdy manila folder full of Important Vacation Information (including, but not limited to, rental car confirmation, directions to rental cabin and necessary phone numbers)

Countdown to vacation departure: 5 days, 13 hours, 5 minutes. But who's counting, right?!

Hey Inertia Girl, Do You Know How To Work The Internet? Apparently Not All The Time.

The post I wrote the other day about our idea for "classic Father's Day gifts" was meant to be an open dialog with my numerous readers; however, apparently when I posted the entry, I did not include the ability to enter comments. How I did this, I'm still not sure. Maybe I should have my internet blogging license revoked.

Of course, I did finally figure out how to do this: strikethrough. I can't adequately describe how excited that one, simple application of HTML code made me. I kept reading other people's blogs and seeing them do it, but Blogger doesn't have a "strikethrough button" which meant that I had to go in search of instructions and that I'd have to face the scary "Edit Html" tab in the publishing section. But I did it. Hooray for me!

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.

**Nerd Alert -- Lepidopterist Edition**

Confirming that it is like Wild Kingdom here at Casa Inertia, I give you pictures of a luna moth that came out of its pupa today. (TLS found several pupas around the yard last summer and kept them in the garage over the winter. Apparently, today was the appointed day for luna moth #1 to make its appearance.) Photos for your enjoyment and edification:

Luna Moth #1 on TLS's glove

#1 (as moth), #2 as pupa outside of the husk and #3 still inside the papery husk

How To Know If You're a Sci-fi Nerd

A simple quiz:

Someone gives you an orange tabby cat. You name it:
A) Jones
B) Something besides answer A

Someone mentions the "Kwisatz Haderach". You say:
A) "Arrakis. Desert Planet."
B) "Gesundheit!"

Someone calls you a "nerf herder". You say"
A) "Thank you, Princess Leia."
B) "Huh? A what?"

Someone mentions that they are experiencing a feeling of deja vu. You:
A) Wonder what "They" changed in the matrix.
B) Do nothing and continue on your way.

Someone asks you to make the Vulcan salute. You:
A) Face your palm forward with the fingers parted between the middle and ring finger with the thumb extended and say, "Live long and prosper."
B) Ask, "What's a Vulcan salute?"

Ron Weasley's rat's name is:
A) Scabbers
B) Who's Ron Weasley?

For all A answers, give yourself one point.

For Score 0-2:
Congratulations! You are "normal." Carry on.

For Score 3-4:
You're a sci-fi dabbler. With only a little more effort, you could become a full-fledged nerd.

For Score 5-6:
Welcome to life in the "dork forest"! Can we hang out?