Mist You

Overheard in the Office

"There are worse things than NOT being married...
like BEING married"

certainly not always true but sometimes it's right on the money

This Just In

It seems to be an Eastern Garter snake after all. He was very aggressive but that's probably because I had him in a bucket (ya think so?) One thing I learned was that most poisonous snakes have a triangular shaped head, like this one which is not poisonous so go figure. anyway, I love living with the little creatures of the woods even if the deer poop all over our yard

Anyone know what kind of snake this is?

I found it on the side of our house which is in lower NY State. I don't think it's a garder snake, they are more yellow. It did have a nasty attitude possibly because I put it in a Home Depot bucket. I let it go in the woods after Grif and everyone saw it.
It was about a foot long and as thick as my thumb

I've Officially Bottomed Out...

WASHINGTON - Why did the chicken cross the ocean? To get to America before Columbus and from the other direction according to a new report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Many scholars had thought chickens arrived in the New World with the early Spanish or Portuguese explorers around the year 1500.

When Juan Pizarro arrived at the Inca empire in 1532, however, he found chickens already being used there, raising the possibility they had been around for some time.

And now, researchers led by Alice Storey at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, report finding evidence that may ruffle some scholarly feathers. They found chicken bones of Polynesian origin at a site in what is now Chile.

Radiocarbon dating of chicken bones at the site on the Arauco Peninsula in south central Chile indicated a range of A.D. 1321 to 1407, well before the Spanish arrival in the Americas.
The researchers were able to obtain DNA from some of the bones of these early birds, and found they were identical to ancient chicken bones previously found in Tonga and Samoa.

Chicken had been used in the Pacific for at least 3,000 years, spreading eastward across the region as Polynesians gradually populated the islands.

The DNA from these chickens also shared some unique sequences with modern Araucana chickens from South America and some current chicken types in Hawaii and Southeast Asia, the researchers found.

My Blue Heron

I made it out again this morning in the kayak. It was rather cloudy but I got out at around 6:30 am so there was no fantastic sunrise. I did spot one of the herons that come back to this lake every summer. I got pretty close to him before he took off, circled around and landed in a tree. I turned around after that because I didn't mean to scare him off but I did get too close for his comfort.

This week was nice and warm. We opened the pool last Friday and the water temp was about 65 degrees. After a nice sunny week with the solar cover and heater, the water is now up to 80. The only problem is that the weather has turned to rainy and the air is barely 70. Not swimming weather. The water peaked at 82 yesterday and Dana had told Grif and myself that if it got to that temp, she would go in. I will say that she is good to her word, it took her forver to get her butt in the pool but she did go in and stayed for about 30 min.

So that's about it, I don't have a lot to say on the blog, I'm back to work and that's great. I take things a day at a time

I Finally Got Out

So I finally got my butt out on the lake. I think the last time I went kayaking was in January when we had a few 70 degree days. The lake was so beautiful. I didn't do the length of it because it would have been too much but I did a sort of diagonal trek that was just right. The water temp wasn't too bad either, I think if it were a little warmer out I would not have minded falling in.

Next task is to get the pool opened

Viagra helps hamsters overcome jet lag

But researchers had to turn down dosage to shrink a certain side effect...
(is that a carrot in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me???)

WASHINGTON - The male impotence drug Viagra may be useful for treating jet lag as well, according to Argentine researchers who gave it to hamsters made to feel like rodent globe-trotters.

The researchers manipulated the schedule of turning lights on and off to induce jet lag in the laboratory animals, they reported on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Adult male hamsters given Viagra, also called sildenafil, recovered from jet lag up to 50 percent faster than hamsters that were not given it, the researchers said.

The scientists stopped giving the hamsters the highest dose they had been using in the experiment due to a certain side effect.

“However, we used the intermediate dose for the rest of the experiments because at that dose animals did not manifest the effects of sildenafil-induced penile erections,” they wrote.

Flying across multiple time zones can confuse one’s sleep-wake cycle, resulting in the condition called jet lag, marked by insomnia, sleepiness and difficulty concentrating.

Researchers Patricia Agostino, Santiago Plano and Diego Golombek of the Universidad Nacional de Quilmes in Buenos Aires gave doses of Viagra to the hamsters at night, then switched on bright lights six hours early to simulate eastbound flight.

They judged how well the hamsters adjusted to the changes by observing when they began running on exercise wheels.

The drug helped the rodents cope with jet lag only when given before the equivalent of an eastbound flight, not the reverse when they delayed turning on lights to simulate westbound travel, the study found.

This article raises some questions, the first being how in God's name did they stumble on this? Did Fuzzy the hamster find Professor Limpet's viagra stash then it took a flight to meet some female hamster in Tahiti? The second, and more frightening one is what does a hamster with a hard on look like?
Yikes!

A Joke from Mom

A little boy wanted $100.00 very badly and prayed for weeks, but nothing happened. Then he decided to write God a letter requesting the $100.00

When the postal authorities received the letter to God , USA , they decided to send it to the President.

The president was so amused that he instructed his secretary to send the little boy a $5.00 bill. The president thought this would appear to be a lot of money to a little boy.

The little boy was delighted with the $5.00 bill and sat down to write a thank-you note to God, which read:

Dear God: Thank you very much for sending the money. However, I noticed that for some reason you sent it through Washington, DC., and those assholes deducted $95.00 in taxes.

Sunday in the City

We went in to NYC to celebrate my Aunt Grace's 90th birthday yesterday. She really is doing very well. So far she holds the family record of longevity. Her main health issue is that she can't hear (as opposed to my Mom who doesn't listen - but can hear). We went to a nice little Italian place in da' Bronx called Josephina's.

Afterwards, Dana, myself and the boys went down to Manhatten to visit the Museum of Nostril History as Jack calls it. They are having an exhibit on GOLD that is really very interesting. They have many old coins adn pieces that were made centuries ago. They also had a scale that tells you what you are worth in $$$ using $600 a troy ounce as the measure.
I'm worth over $1, 650, 000 :-)
Another very cool thing they had was a room that was about 12x12x12 (ft) that was lined with only 3 ounces of gold. That is a coin about the size of a Kennedy 50 cent piece. Not very big at all. It was to show how malible the metal is. They also had some Grammys, Oscars and other awards on display along with other GIANT nuggets that have been dug up. We are members of the Museum for two years but this was the first time that I was able to make it in. Dana had taken the boys there before once or twice. I'm looking forward to getting in to see more things over the summer. We also saw some of the dinosaurs and spent some time in teh bird area. the great tihing about being a member is that you can go in for 1/2 an hour if you want and it's not like you spent a lot of money and didn't get your monies worth.

Not to backtrack to Friday at work...It is so hard to come home some days and say what a rough day I had. I got an email around 9 am from a friend in the Design dept. They dictated that at 9:30 am, it would be bananna split time. A few people chipped in and bought banannas, ice cream, whipped cream, cherries, choc syrup, sprinkles, nuts and other goodies. What a company! I asked what the occasion was and there was none other than it was Friday. I said that we can do this because we are grown ups and we're allowed to eat ice cream for breakfast.
My kids couldn't believe it...
It was a good day