Geek Habitat

I finally got around to staining the new run (66 feet, plus two gates) of our backyard fence. Five gallons of stain, several hours (3 PM - 7:15 PM), and sore muscles later and the end result looks nice and, more importantly, should delay our next carpenter ant fence feast for at least several years. (The last fence was literally eaten from the inside out by carpenter ants!)

Due to the difference in time of day, and thus lighting, between when I began the project and when I finally wrapped up, the photos don’t do it justice:

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms and grandmas in the Blackburn and Moore clans, and by extension the LaRocque (Justin’s sister and her family) and Hemming families as well. Extra kudos to Karen and Jason on the birth of their baby boy, Eric Stephen Moore, earlier this week.

Nothing much to write, but I thought I’d share a photo from the 7-mile mountain bike ride Justin and I did Saturday morning at Government Canyon State Natural Area. (Shout out to Diane & Daniel — how cool was that to run into you and your “puppies” on the Savannah Trail?)

While checking out at the grocery store today, the female teller smiled and wished me a “Happy Mother’s Day!” I smiled back, and said, “You Too!” But the gears in my head started whirring as I wheeled my cart out to my car. What if I were a woman struggling with infertility? A woman who’d just gone through a miscarriage? These are just a couple very good reasons why wishing someone a “Happy Mother’s Day,” if they have no visible signs of actually being someone’s mother seems a little “off”. I suspect 99.9% of women, even those going through the scenarios I mention, just nod and return the well-wishes — that is the polite thing to do, after all — but still. I’m not a fan of “politically correct” (PC) speech, but I don’t really see this as qualifying. It’s more like speech that’s used without much thought — like asking someone, “Hi, how are you?” and not really expecting an answer. It’s a way to break the verbal ice and get on to the task at hand, in this case checking out my groceries and sending me on my way.

God, I really have become a blogger. Somehow, I managed to milk three entry’s worth of blog content over the mysterious disapperance of my 4GB iPod Nano.

We have the whole “death and loss” cycle played out in three blog entries:

1. Denial
2. Identifying something precious is now gone.
3. Anger, Resentment & Blame
4. Acceptance

While cleaning out my ‘06 Ford Escape Hybrid for the fiftieth time, looking for my stolen/missing iPod Nano, I had a flash of recollection — “There should be a $5 bill between my front seats, or under them! And it’s not there, either!” I went to the doctor about two weeks ago, and in the process of getting a couple $1 bills out to pay for my parking, I dropped a $5 between my seats. I tried to grab it, but quickly realized it would have to live there for awhile… and I promptly forgot it. It, like the iPod Nano, should still have been in the vehicle after my car wash on Tuesday morning, and it, like the Nano, is nowhere to be found.

In the hopes that this entry will cause the space time continuum to return to normality (ouch — mixing Star Trek and Hitchhiker’s Guide analogies…), here goes.

My 4GB iPod Nano is missing.

While there is a possibility I lost it, I have looked everywhere it could possibly be (it certainly feels that way, anyway) and cleaned up everywhere it could have possibly been, twice, just in case.

I have a strong suspicion that not only is my Nano missing, it was stolen.