061117b

It has been a few years since we visited the Birmingham Botanical Gardens (a little bit less than an hour away by car). We are going to day. I may apprehend a report to this, but I doubt I will take pictures. I can't easily get decent ones, as followers of this blog know! Anyway, the last couple of times we visited the gigantic greenhouse full of tropical foliage and cacti was being renovated. I hope that this time it's open, because it is my favorite part. Most of it is wheelchair accessible.

I am nearly caught up on Dreams and Nightmares submissions. The only submissions in my designated inbox come from the last four days. The next issue, 107, is completely full. 108 is about two thirds full. That is the January 2018 issue. I am not closing to submissions, I have never done so, but I'm letting you know how far ahead I am buying.

A friend of mine is hosting a small but important international scientific meeting in a couple of years, and asked me to run registration for it. I have agreed, but I've never done that for any meeting before. If anyone reading this has been suggestions that come from relevant experience, please give them to me either in the comments or in email. The last time I played a major role in running any kind of a conference, I think I was an undergraduate college student. Since then, I have helped out with plenty, but always in relatively minor roles. Well, what's the worst that could happen? HHOK!

the rare post about life chez human

This seems to be the season of no news (is it also the season of good news?). The House GOP delegation decided that Al Qaeda wasn't destroying our country fast enough, so they offered to take over the job. Middle-school-art-teacher Spouse likes her students, but one student who seemed in serious trouble last week was back in school on Friday. He threatened to attack another student with a hacksaw, while waving the hacksaw. That's only slightly more threatening than threatening to attack another student with a noodle while waving the noodle. But it's a wee-pon fer crissake! We finally may have a customer for our yellow watermelons. The story so far: volunteer watermelons grew past fry size for the first time in more than 20 years. Big! Beautiful! Plenteous! Yellow as a pale yellow...lemon! Unfortunately, this led to the realization that we don't like yellow watermelons. Neither do most of our friends. One friend had never tried yellow watermelons, and was willing to do so. If he likes them, he gets the rest! I have continued to work on the crustacean trace fossil paper. We do not yet have a complete first draft, and we still don't have a smoking gun...er, shrimp, but we have Venerable Shrimpologist on the case. Worst-case scenario: he confirms our belief that No One Knows! It rained hard long enough to puddle yards & drench cripples [me]. Alas, a day later weed roots are dry as old bones: there ain't no justice! Sadie, Spouse's new dog, likes to toss things around if we go away and don't lock her up. I would always do so, but Spouse-who-trusts-too-much doesn't feel that way. The only thing she has actually eaten that I know of is a plastic grated cheese jar. Biggest news: daughter #1 used TeamViewer to fix Spouse's computer remotely from Finland. This ain't yer Gramma's future. So where's my friggin' jetpack!?