Enemy of Entropy
Archive for April 2008
Birthday Boy and Girl!
Happy Birthday to the inimicable
Goodbye Dr. Hoffman
Dr. Albert Hofmann died yesterday, April 29, 2008. Why haven’t I gotten one of those “urgent news updates” from CNN or the Atlanta paper? Losing him is certainly more newsworthy than most of the things they do alert me about, like sports scores!
A commenter (and I don’t know where the comment went, unfortunately) let me know that I’ve confused two people. Abbie Hoffman, whose quote is below, died in 1989.
From his own mouth, the closing words from a speech at Vanderbilt University in April 1989:
We are here to make a better world. No amount of rationalization or blaming can preempt the moment of choice each of us brings to our situation here on this planet. The lesson of the ‘60s is that people who cared enough to do right could change history.… in the nineteen-sixties, apartheid was driven out of America. Legal segregation – Jim Crow – ended. We didn’t end racism, but we ended legal segregation. We ended the idea that you can send a million soldiers ten thousand miles away to fight in a war that people do not support. We ended the idea that women are second-class citizens. We made the environment an issue that couldn’t be avoided. Now, it doesn’t matter who sits in the Oval Office. But the big battles that were won in that period of civil war and strife you cannot reverse. We were young, we were reckless, arrogant, silly, headstrong…and we were right! I regret nothing!
Pain Doc Day
Today was the monthly visit to the pain doc, which requires trekking across town to Fascist County. It was somewhat amusing to see “Drought Threat Level 4 Measures in Effect!” right next to CVS watering their little patch of grass.
The doctor doubled my breakthrough pain med, so that I’m allowed to take it more often. Maybe that’ll help.
It’s always nice to have that time with Sam, although I feel bad that he has to take time off to get me there. We try to schedule multiple appointments, but one of Katie’s doctors just totally flaked today, so that one had to be rescheduled. The orthodontist appointment had been rescheduled to allow for that appointment, so now we have that to look forward to, too. Oh joy.
When Katie and I were out on Monday, we found that two places we needed to go to were closed for Confederate Memorial Day. Excuse me? Since when is it a state holiday? I know we didn’t take that day off from school when I was growing up, not even in Alabama. When did this resurgence occur – as backlash for MLK Day, maybe? I find it ridiculous.
Where are my Gravatars?
I obediently updated to WordPress 2.5.1, and lost my Gravatars. I’ve checked the settings, and they’re still enabled. They’re definitely still in my templates, but nobody gets anything but the default “no gravatar” picture. Buh?
Weekend Update
We had a very nice weekend, fairly quiet for me (as usual). Katie went out with her beau Friday night, and Sam and I finally got to see the first season 2 Torchwood episode, “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.” It was worth the wait! I wonder how much BBC America bowdlerized it? Unfortunately, we don’t have the second episode. Pout 
Saturday night was date night. I’ve been craving “breakfast,” as in eggs and bacon and so on, so that’s what Sam fixed for dinner. Yummy! Then we had a very lively game. Sidhe invasions are not fun, especially when they turn your own populace against you with enchantment. There was far too much plot to handle in one session, so we’ll continue the fight in our next game.
Today was dinner with Sam’s mother, and a fellow podcaster interviewing Sam. Katie went to her boyfriend’s mother’s wedding reception, and was received very well by the family. (The ceremony was family-only.) I started my classes. There are only 7 students in the technical communications class!
