"It's one more day til Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! It's one more day til Halloween! Silver Shamrock!"

So, it's Halloween. Tomorrow that is. Witness this conversation from 30 years ago:
What are you going as?

Mr. Spock.

Cool!

Yeah, it's got a plastic Mr. Spock mask with this real sturdy rubber band to keep it on!

Wow.

It's also got this neat uniform with it. It's got Mr. Spock's picture on the chest and it's super-durable!

Wow, you'll look just like the real thing!


Yeah, so it's been awhile since my last entry. There has benn a lot happening in Candle Light World, so the time to post has been lacking. The leaves have turned their color and the smell of a bonfire fills the air. It's fall, baby, and I ain't talkin' about the pull of gravity. I'm getting close to being done with DT3. MIV3 got shoved back due to a host of reasons. It was supposed to be the summer of MIV3, but that's something I'll tell you about later.

Well, go get some candy. Peace out, Mr. Ohman, Grig and Conal Cochran.

My favorite things...

Actually, this is only one of them. But love it I do. Over on Neil Gaiman's blog, there's a lot of talk about pens, specifically, older pens, and their various virtues and vices. Me, I love the moderately-pricey Zeb-Roller.I used to get them at the local Dick Blick until they moved to a bigger location and shrunk the pen choices. Now I get them through mail-order which leads to being sent comically large boxes with a handful of pens inside. It's got a nice rubbery grip, a barrel like a Husky Pencil, and the .5 tip (not shown here--those are silver) is dead-on for writing on napkins. Ultimately, ballpoints are best for napkins, but once you get a good sweep of the hand going, these beauties do a fine job too.

I just had to stand on my little mountaintop and declare all this. Back to what you were doing.

Keep grip.....

I just want my new glasses.

Now.

These keep falling off, and they are so loose that they can't hold a pencil on my ear.

I feel like Samson after his haircut, or Superman wearing a piece of Kryptonite-bling round my neck.

Pencil.....glasses......unnnnhh.......

Carter hits it home again!

Heyhey.... new review of Carter Allen's And The Sky Turned White over on Erasing Clouds! Check it out!
http://erasingclouds.com/wk3105comics.html

Come hither......

Wow.

That's a, uh, a......great shot of her, y'know.....

Hot.






OMIGOD IT'S JERRI BLANK!!!!!!!! RUUUUNNNNN!!!!!!!!!

POW!!!!

So, I ride my bike to work each day.

Near the end of my ride to work is a concrete spiral ramp leading to a pedestrian/bike bridge over one of the busier streets in town. Normally, I stand on the pedals and pump my way up this ramp, but today I saw the university cross-country team, as they often do, running in a herd, coming my way down the spiral. I was dismounting and attempting to step to the side to let these fine gentlemen pass, but it was too late. They came careening towards me, and before I knew what happened, I had collided VERY FAST AND HARD head-on into one of them.

I let my bike fall away to my right, as much out of traffic as I could, because I didn't want the rest of the herd to trip up on it and get tangled and cause a human pile-up. I think I hit the young man right in the face (with MY face). My glasses exploded away and went flying into the brush below the ramp. I was dazed and kind of short with the rest of them as they crowded around to see if I was okay. I said something like, "...nevermind, whatever, just leave me alone..." and wheeled my bike down to the base of the ramp to begin looking for my glasses. I was, of course, the LEAST QUALIFIED PERSON to search for a pair of glasses in three-foot high weeds because, well, I had just LOST my glasses in three-foot high weeds. And been hit in the head VERY HARD. My eyes were not those of an eagle, y'know?

These guys leapt into action and pushed past me down the bank. In a matter of minutes, they had found the popped-out lens, and the two (only two!) pieces into which my glasses had fractured. I kept asking, "Who is the one I hit? Which one did I hit?" and finally this kid steps up and we shake hands and apologize to each other. I reach up and realize I am bleeding from a cut above my eye (undoubtedly from my glasses) and I start worrying about him.

"Are you okay? Are you okay, huh?" He had a small cut on his forehead, and looked about as dazed as I was.
He insisted he was fine and we apologized again, and then the herd took off.

I work at the hospital, and always park my bike in the rack right outside the emergency room.
Convenient, at least. Three hours and a call to my supervisor later, I was headed home to put some ice on my swollen face.

I just want the University of Iowa cross-country team to know how sorry I am for the accident we had together, and how unbelievably thankful I am for their finding my glasses for me. That was a very upstanding and noble thing to do, and I deeply appreciate it.

Sometimes, when I ride home at 1:30 in the morning, I get to weave through a lot of stooopid drunk kids downtown, and I get to feeling like all young people are like that, stupid and drunk like that. Even though I was one once, I curse at them and consider them beneath contempt.

A good solid impact to the face and the human compassion in the afterglow remind me that they are not all repugnant children.

Some are right-solid, alert and kind-hearted. Stand-out human beings.

Good kids.

Keep on runnin', guys...I promise not to get in your way again!