Never been to Rome?
Me either. Not yet, anyway.
But I’ve heard a lot about it from people who have been there. Sounds like one crazy kinda town.
I found an interesting write-up about what it’s like to visit Rome by Jim Geraghty of National Review’s Kerry Spot.
So why not . . .
TAKE A VIRTUAL LITERARY TRIP TO ROME.
Ciao!
Never been to Rome?
Me either. Not yet, anyway.
But I’ve heard a lot about it from people who have been there. Sounds like one crazy kinda town.
I found an interesting write-up about what it’s like to visit Rome by Jim Geraghty of National Review’s Kerry Spot.
So why not . . .
TAKE A VIRTUAL LITERARY TRIP TO ROME.
Ciao!
A friendly reader posted a link to where my appearances on Family News In Focus responding to Sen. Kerry’s speech involving religion can be found:
IT’S HERE. (.wax format; works with Windows Media Player; my segment starts a little after 3:30 minutes into the broadcast)
I also was able to find a link to my appearance on California NRP talking about stem cells:
IT’S HERE. (.asx format; works with Windows Media Player; my segment starts about 20 minutes into the hour)
This morning I’m sheduled to appear on XETV FOX channel 6 (the local San Diego FOX station) to talk about stem cells again. I should be on about 7:15 a.m., though the segment should be short.
MORE INFO ON CALIFORNIA’S PRO-STEM CELL PROP 71 HERE.
If it gets passed in this state, it will create competition among other states to fund similar initiatives, lest they get left behind in a “stem cell race.”
Today I’m going to be on Family News In Focus, a production of Focus on the Family that is heard on many/most Protestant radio stations. I’m giving reaction to Sen. Kerry’s recent speech involving his Catholic faith and the role it does/doesn’t play in his political views. Check your local Protestant radio station’s listings for times if you’d like to catch it. Gave them the soundbites today. Don’t know how it’ll sound once they do the editing, but you might tune in.
On Wednesday I’m going to be on a state-wide PBS radio broadcast in California debating stem cells. It’s scheduled to run from 10 a.m.-11 a.m. on all the public radio stations in California. My opponent will be a researcher who I’ve debated a number of times before on this subject. Despite his views of stem cells, he’s a nice guy. He also works with mouse embryos, not human ones, which is a good thing (or I’d have to deck him). Given the liberal NPR audience, any pro-life Californians who read this and would like to call in on the show would be welcome!
Right now people are singing the praises of the blogosphere’s collective expertise in picking apart the CBS forgeries.
Let’s put this blog’s collective brainpower to the test.
A reader writes:
Hi Jimmy,
My name is XXXXXXXXXXXX and I am a member of XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX cathedral in XXXXXXXXXXXXX. I am helping out our priest, Fr. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, purchase and send some laptops with encyclopedia and word processing programs to a seminary in La Ceja, Columbia (Seminario De Cristo Sacerdote). They have roughly 200 seminarians with no computer or internet access.
I was just curious if you knew of any charitable organiztions or any type resources where decent used or refurbished laptops could be purchased for a decent price. If not, no problem.
I’m afraid that *I* don’t know of a good place to recommend, but how about the other readers of this blog? What good, cheap/refurbished laptop places do y’all know about?
Use the comments box to leave suggestions for our friend.
Much obliged!
This is not the Labor Day weekend I was expecting!
Around the office on Friday, people were wishing each other a good weekend and asking if they had any special plans for the holiday.
My major plan was to do laundry. Probably watch some DVDs. Maybe do some writing and studying Indonesian.
Saturday I answered my door, and as I did so, I noticed a bee buzzing under the Venetian blind, trying to get out of the glass.
“How did that get in here?” I wondered.
I killed it.
A few minutes later I was heading out the door to get what I needed for a home improvement project, when I saw another bee on the Venetian blind on my front door.
I killed it, too.
But wait: Two bees in the same exact place indoors within minutes of each others?
There could be a group.
My mind flashed back to a time when I was out for a lunchtime constitutional and ran across a whole swarm of bees buzzing around a service access duct poking up through the blacktop of a parking lot. (I marched quickly past it and then called the owners to let them know they had a bee hazard in their parking lot.)
So I went out my front door and stood in front of the house, just observing.
A bee went by.
Then my eyes settled on a ventilation duct at the peak of my roof.
It was swarming with bees. I estimate between one and two dozen were visible.
“They must have a colony in my attic,” I realized. So I got ahold of my landlady. I had trouble at first getting her to understand the exact nature of the problem, but I brought her over to see it for herself. When she did, she instantly realized the danger the bees posed.
A colony of potentially hundreds of bees infesting a house, including its living quarters . . . that has possible anaphylactic shock and lawsuit written all over it.
From her perspective.
From my perspective it has possible anaphylactic shock and death written all over it. I don’t have a bee allergy to my knowledge, but then many people who have the allergy don’t know it, and it can develop suddenly, without warning. Also, if a swarm goes after you, you can get stung enough times to have a life-threatening reaction just from the toxicity of the venom, even if you aren’t allergic.
Further, since Africanized “killer” bees have invaded Southern California (killer bees being “killer” only in their aggressiveness, not their toxicity), every untested swarm has to be assumed to be Africanized and thus more likely to attack. Thus I have to assume that I have killer bees living in my attic.
I’m not staying in my house again until those bees are gone!
Unfortunately, it being a holiday weekend, they couldn’t reach the exterminators and probably can’t get anyone to start the (long, complicated) process of bee de-infestation till Tuesday. I estimate that I’m likely not to be able to live in my house for a week or more.
Even when I finally get back in, I won’t be comfortable for a while.
So the bees have forced me to do what the fires last November didn’t: evacuate. At one point when the fires were raging and the world outside looked totally apocalyptic, I had the truck packed and was within five minutes of evacuating, but it didn’t end up being necessary. With possible killer bees infesting my house, though, it is.
I did go back in for a few minutes to get a few essentials, but as I did so I noticed a third bee on my front door’s Venetian blind. It waggled its antennae at me menacingly, so I grabbed far fewer essentials than I originally intended and hustled out of the house as quickly as I could.
Afterward I found myself thinking: “I hope no bees are stowing away in my stuff, ready to crawl out and sting me like what happened to Agent Scully in The X-Files movie.”
While on my recent vacation, I happened to pass through Groom, Texas. As I did so, I saw the GIGANTIC cross that this town is home to.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get a good picture of it as I passed through (I didn’t stop to get a more stable picture), but fortunately a lady in a comments box provided this link.
It’s a MASSIVE cross.
The kind that any TEXAN could be proud of.
Kudos to Groom!
While on my recent vacation, I happened to pass through Groom, Texas. As I did so, I saw the GIGANTIC cross that this town is home to.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get a good picture of it as I passed through (I didn’t stop to get a more stable picture), but fortunately a lady in a comments box provided this link.
It’s a MASSIVE cross.
The kind that any TEXAN could be proud of.
Kudos to Groom!
You know those scenes on Star Trek where somebody (the doctor, the captain) orders somebody else (the captain, another officer) to take his vacation?
Well, something like that happened to me not so long ago.
As a (regrettably) single guy, I don’t have a family to motivate me to take vacation, and it’s easy for me at present to throw myself into my work. As a result, I’ve accumulated a whopping huge number of vacation hours, and Karl recently ordered me to get out of the office and start taking my vacation.
So I did.
The last couple of weeks I’ve been gadding about the country in my pickup:
1) First I went to Roswell, New Mexico, where I did the outer-space tourist thing.
2) Then I went to Oklahoma City, where I visited a friend (who I recently gave away in marriage) and her new husband.
3) Next I went to Fayetteville, Arkansas, where I visited my dad and my brother and his family (including my brand new nephew).
4) Afterwards, I went to my family’s cattle ranch in Deep East Texas (though my 85-year old grandmother recently sold the cattle, she still gets out with the brush hog and mows down the tough stuff that grows wild on the ranch).
5) Subsequently, I went to Houston (South East Texas) to visit the multiple aunts and uncles who live there.
6) Then I shot back to San Diego, crossing Texas (more than half the journey!), New Mexico, Arizona, and California in a two-day period.
It was a great trip.
Six states. Twelve days. Four thousand miles in a pickup.
I got a lot of family business and fun stuff accomplished, including taking some great photos and getting some great stories.
More on those soon.
I normally do my blog entries in advance of when they go up, and this weekend I was real busy–what with going to the San Diego Comic-Con and doing work for This Rock magazine.
As a result, my blog entries today (Monday) won’t be that long. Just recommended reading links.
Enjoy!