Campus Chatter – December 27, 2011
Today in history, greetings, and social banter here. (More)
Spanish King Ferdinand II approved the Laws of Burgos today (1512). Also, the Flushing Remonstrance was signed (1657), Portugal and England signed the Methuen Treaty (1703), Charles Darwin began his journey aboard the HMS Beagle (1831), “Jana Gana Mana,” now India’s national anthem, was first sung (1911), Show Boat premiered on Broadway (1927), the Radio City Music Hall opened (1932), the Cave of the Swallows was discovered in Mexico (1966), and the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station recorded an all-time high temperature of 7.5°F (1978). And radiation from the exploding magnetar SGR 1806-20 was the brightest extrasolar event ever recorded (2004).
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
Yesterday on Campus
Morning Feature – Mithellaneous? (Meta Monday)
Things We Did This Week – Share your stories of offline political activism
Midday Matinee – addisnana with Christmas Memories
Campus Question – How Much of our Understanding of the Great Recession will be Grounded in Fact?
Our Earth – Environmental Changes Impact Biodiversity
Today on Campus
Morning Feature – Winning Progressive with No, Shariah Law is Not Being Imposed on the US
Furthermore! – The BPI Squirrel with Ron Paul in the Spotlight
Noontime News at noon
Midday Matinee – Tuesday’s Tale: What Thing?
Campus Question at 6pm ET
Our Earth at 8pm ET – Poverty and National Parks
Good morning, everyone.
This morning, at last, after falling asleep in the middle of the day yesterday (again!) I finally feel no longer hung over from the eggnog I didn’t drink. I hope it lasts.
I hope you are all recovering as well, and if you have the week off, enjoying it. Having a clear brain this morning, I think I should take advantage of it and really get some work done. Yesterday my efforts yielded only half of what they should have. It was actually pretty pathetic.
Hugggs to all!
Today is addisnana’s (and her sister’s, and her son’s) birthday!
Time to tune up the BPI Staff Chorus and crank up Offenbach’s Orphée aux enfers, Act II, Scene 2, “Gallop” (better known as “Can Can”)….
Hmm..Hmm..Hmm..Hmm..Hmmmmmm
Birthday, happy happy
Birthday, happy happy
Birthday, happy happy
giggle guffaw chortle chuckle
Birthday, happy happy
Birthday, happy happy
Birthday, Happy Birthday
addisnana dear!
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
Happy birthdays!
I am off to addi-sit as she has no school this week. Happy BDay to Crissie, my younger sister, my oldest son and me. Great day for a Birthday.
Yesterday it was a record 52 degrees. They showed people skiing where they make snow and one guy was shirtless. Well, okay then. More ‘normal’ temps today.
Thank you, addisnana. addisitting sounds like a lovely way to spend a birthday!
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
Happy b’day, Crissie. B’days all over the place!
How fun to have most of a week with addi.
I’m sure you’ll have a blast.
As for the temps, we’re getting a “cold front.” Yup. We’ll rise to 75 today and freeze to death with 69 tomorrow. Then we climb again into more seasonable temps in the 70s. A relief from the 80s.
Oh, pity us.
Happy b’day, Addisnana. Hpe you have a fabulous day!
Happy birthday! I have to admit, that’s interesting to have all the same birthdays.
My younger sister was born three weeks early on my 5th birthday. I had been praying, “Dear God I want a sister for my birthday”. I was told it wouldn’t happen but then it did. As a kid I sure believed in the power of prayer. My son was born on my 30th a few days early but how could I miss such an auspicious day?
I can’t claim more than coincidence that Crissie was also born on this day.
Happy Birthday to All!
Happy birthday to addisnana’s sister and oldest son, Happy Birthday to addisnana, and Happy Birthday to Crissie!
If I could sing, I’d join the chorus. Take my word for it, it’s much better for everyone’s ears if I don’t, so please accept my warmest congratulations.
And hey, What’s it about March?
There may have been some “Will winter [the season, not Your Banyanence] never end???” involved in our birthdays….
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
There’s a cluster like that in my family. My oldest sister and I are “Irish twins” – she’s 8 days short of a year younger than I am. My oldest cousin is 25 days younger than I am, and her sister is two weeks plus a year later.
Happy Birthday to Crissie, addisnana, addisnana’s sister, and addisnana’s oldest son! I’ll join winterbanyan in not singing these wishes but sending the congratulations in a normal voice.
It’s been warm here as well, as the news showed golfers out yesterday. It won’t be quite so warm today, but it is still warm for this time of year, and CR has had no measurable snowfall yet this winter. There is a small chance that we will see a trace before the year is out, but the word is that if we see any snow, it will melt upon reaching the ground.
Today, I will see the Older W off and back to Ames, where he will be getting packed for his Rome adventure. I had to calm him down last night as he began to panic. We went over everything that needs to be done, and he saw that he had a lot of covered already. Within minutes of getting him calmed down, he started receiving texts from one of his traveling companions who was sure that he had made his travel arrangements in error. It was then the Older W’s turn to calm his friend down. The Older W’s girlfriend is driving him back to Ames today so that the car isn’t left behind in Ames, and will take him to the airport on Friday. I’m glad that she will be with him, as she will help keep him calmed down these last couple of days.
No matter how thoroughly I think I’ve prepared, I’m always a bit scrambled on the morning before a trip. There’s always something I’ve forgotten, or think I may have forgotten. You might share with Older W a lesson I’ve learned over many, many years:
Other places have stores too.
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
Poor Older W! I can sympathize with his anxiety and I’m glad he has you and his girlfriend to help calm him. The first time I went to Europe, I way overpacked. The next time I went (and for more than twice as long) I carried about 1/3 as much.
How different he is going to feel once he’s been there a few days. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when he calls in a week or so.
Good morning from the outer limits of Beltway Blogistan! Back home with MIL in tow for a two week visit (she’s already driving iriti nuts). My inner geek was well and truly fed this Christmas, with tools, camera accessories, a Kindle Fire (which I’m using right now), and a book written by a friend of mine (The Cancer Chronicles by Trey R. Barker). No major casualties – always a good thing.
Welcome home, trs.
Sounds like you had a wonderful Christmas. Enjoy the Kindle Fire, the tools and the camera accessories. Sounds like plenty to keep you busy. 
As if you weren’t already….
We’re glad to have you back!
Glad to be back! The catsitter spoiled Gaffer and the others, as usual. We are so lucky to have her.
Finding a catsitter who’s good isn’t easy. I was going to leave mine with the vet last year until I saw how they’d be kept. It pained my conscience. I was fortunate that my youngest son was able to get permission from his apartment management and roomies to keep them for ten days.
The year we had two dogs and a dogsitter didn’t turn out so well, though. She noticed our older dog was getting edgy as the New Years fireworks started, but she ignored it and left them home alone. We came home a couple of days later to ripped up doors and walls….
Never again.
Our catsitter is a tech at our vet office, and she has cats.
Happy Birthday to all celebrating
You learn something everyday.
Over the Christmas weekend I leatned that my son-in-law is the grandchild of a very accomplished flyer
Good morning. It’s currently 27 degrees, and it looks like we’re supposed to get rain turning into 6 inches of snow.
I rather hope the rain report is wrong, but it means I’m probably going to be doing a lot of shoveling.
I’m going to be spending the next week or so trying out new themes on my blog. I was using “Pilcrow,” but it’s been a year, so I thought I’d change things up. “Dark Wood” had readability problems, so now I’m on “Adventure Journal.” I might roll through a couple of others before locking things down for the year.
Scratch that last post.
I mean to show this.
Son-in-laws grandfather was the first, maybe the only, pilot to fly under NYC river bridges. I could have used him for all the commuting I did.
Very, very cool, Mike! Although I’m not sure my nerves could have handled flying under the bridges.
I hope you had a great weekend visiting!
Me neither!
Good snowy morning!
It appears we’ve had the ideal snow overnight……… The trees and their remaining leaves are white, as is the soil surface, but the drive is sorta spotty. I am liking this! The old thermometer says 30 out there, the new says 34.3, hmmmm……….. Mebbe will be a good day to move the remote sensor around out there, see if we can co-ordinate……
The old cat is stretched out in front of the woodstove, which reads a toasty 450 digesting oak, hickory, and maple. Coffee, 50/50 Moonbux Caramel and Seattle’s Best Grade 5, is fresh and stout (like me). Stop on by and I’ll fix us breakfast, then we can go for a walk in the woods! …..the only other sound’s the sweep, of easy wind and downey flake….
Best, Gardener
Oh that sounds beautiful, Gardener. You painted such a wonderful picture of a peaceful lovely morning. Thanks!
And the best part is, there’s leftover sausage rolls available for scrambled eggs! PW rolls pie crust around mini-sausages, bakes in oven 350 degrees for 15-20 mins. I think, and voila! I like ‘em with scrambled eggs, esp if the eggs are from Ivan, the neighbor, ’cause the chickens are free range, and the yolks are golden, like they should be!
Fun Fact: It doesn’t do you any good to have an timepiece that’ll communicate by radio somehow-or-other, with the “Atomic Clock,” IF yer set for Pacific time and really are in Central……..
OK, so go ahead, ask me what time it is, I’m accurate to within a cat’s whisker!
Cool watch, but what are you going to do with that nanosecond mistake every hundred years?
I hope it’ll work better than your thermometers. 
No kidding…..!
Happy Birthdays to all. You know who you are.
Beltway Blogistan forecast 47 degrees or 52 degrees and half inch or so of rain. Watch where you put the gages.
Ah, you’re reminding me of the winter I spent in Biloxi. Amazing. Nonstop 36 degrees and rain. I had just come from the North so you’d have thought that would be nothing. Hah! That rain was cold.
Keep warm and dry, Jim.
Especially dry.
Hoy hoy Webmistress! You haz mail…….!
Oh, my, I did
From Gardener:
Beautiful photo, G. Thanks!
Thanks for sending the photo Gardener, sure is beautiful.
Happy Birthday to Addisnana,her sister and son, and to Crissie.
Thank you all for the birthday wishes. I’m sorry I couldn’t hang around for the party. The Squirrel needed the keyboard. And Gardener shouldn’t miss today’s Furthermore!….
Good morning! ::hugggggs::
Thanks for the birthday wishes. It turns out the baby is home sick and also needed sitting. Sorry for the late reply. The first prop we created for the doll’s house was books. Thankfully it wasn’t a request for an ipad. Yeah…another reader who loves books.
Sorry to hear the baby is sick.
I hope it passes quickly.