Incidents and accidents

Well, I’m still working on getting the archives back up. I have 218 out of about 700 posts back up, taking me through June 2003. I still have the rest of 2003 to get through, then all of 2002 and 2001. The slowest part about this whole process is that I’m suck a photo-geek. I took and linked tons of photos in my posts, and going back and pointing the photos to the right places takes forever. It’s somewhat fun re-reading the old posts though. I never go back through my archives unless I’m looking for something really specific. Most of the stuff from that far back just makes me cringe. I know it was only two years ago, but some of the posts just sound so dumb. I shudder to think of what the ones from 2001 will sound like.

A few days ago, a hatch year male humminbird showed up with what can only be described as breasts. Or a boa. I think it must be fat sacks he’s got under there, but I’ve never seen anything like this at all. He’s very agressive and has run off most of the other birds. The silly male that sat and preened on the feeder instead of the tree is gone south for migration now. I still have two or three around here, but activity is certainly slowing down for the year. I posted around on my hummingbird forums to see if those things really are fat or an actual deformity, but so far no answers yet. For now, I’ll just call him “Mr. Man Titties.”

I teach a room full of two-year olds. Eight of them, all day long. (John told his sensei what I do for a living and he says “Teach two year olds? You don’t teach two year olds. You spray for them.” LOL) We’re working on potty training, because it’s fewer times a day I have to fold them in half and wipe poop off of everything. Most of my eight are getting it. I have three that pee in the potty every time, three that are a bit spotty but are getting it, and two that are scared of the potty (this is quite common). Unfortunatly, none of them actually poo in the potty yet, so most of the diapers I look at everyday have shit in them. Fun. They mostly poop solid-ish poo, but I have one whose crap is squishy-wet every time. We had corn yesterday, so that makes them crap everywhere the day after. So, I walk in this morning and the squishy one greets me with “Miss Heather! I pooped!”

The hummingbirds are becoming quite ruthless in the defending of territories that my feeders are in. This is normal, especially for this time of year when they’re fattening up for the migration back to Costa Rica. At dusk, it’s quite common to see four or five fighting over the same feeder. Most hummingbirds choose a small leafless branch in a tree near one of the feeders to guard it from other birds. The newcomer swoops up for a drink and the watcher plumets out of his or her hiding place and chases the new one away. Well, I have one little boy who likes to sit ON the feeder instead. He doesn’t always use the feeder to drink from, just sits there. He preened on it this morning, just parking there to claim it as his own. This isn’t common and I wonder why he’s doing it.

In other hummingbord news, I picked up this book at a new discount bookstore yesterday. It’s three books rolled into one, all three about a woman in New York state who saves hummingbirds from the cold winters there by keeping them in her sunroom. I keep thinking about how cool it would be to go visit her when she has a resident. John says I want one in my house, but I assure him that I don’t. It would be neat to watch, but hell to take care of. Then there’s the little fact that I don’t even have a sunroom.

I LOVE TIME SQUAD! Seriously. Taken from here: Time Squad, Cartoon Network’s tenth original Cartoon Cartoon first aired on June 8, 2001. Created by Dave Wesson, the series is a true homage to Jay Ward’s Peabody and Sherman. Time Squad explores the humorous, yet unknown events in our world’s history.
The story involves an orphan, Otto Osworth, who happens to meet two time travelers from 100 million years in the future. Time Squad officer Buck Tudorussel, an overly excited, trigger-happy time cop, and his partner, the Larry 3000, a communication robot. The two end up taking Otto under their wing because of his extensive knowledge of world history. In an effort to enforce the past to protect the future, the trio travel back in time to pivotal points in history to correct it. With Otto’s knowledge of the past, Larry’s technical know-how, and Officer Tudressel’s brute force, the squad travels from era to era convincing historical figures to stick to their original in plans to maintain the time-space continuum.
This has to be one of my most loved TV shows ever. I check every 3 months or so to see if anyone knows any more about it or if it’s being shown again. I found out today that it’s back on Cartoon Network Saturdays at 5am. I soooo need. I always check to see if there will ever be a DVD release. I mean, it’s only 26 episodes, but nothing so far. I have a few episodes on blank tapes here, but none in any order, and they’re all really really hard to find. I even check P2P sharing, but still no Time Squad at my fingertips. There aren’t even any t-shirts. Somebody tell me that you have all 26 episodes on tape for me… Yes? Yes? Maybe?

Some of you may have heard that Georgia had a gas shortage scare yesterday. I was unaware that it was ONLY Georgia. I expected to read about nothing but gas prices on the web and news, so I didn’t even bother. Imagine my surprise when I check this morning and discovered it was only us idiot Southerners who fear everything but the President… I personally had ringside seats to the 2005 Georgia Gas Panic. There’s a station right outside my window at work. At 10am, there was no one there and the prices were $2.60/Gallon. At 2pm, gas was $2.99 and there was a line down the road. We had parents coming in to get the kids early thinking something bad was happening to the teachers.. etc. One said that where she had just come from gas was $3.69 and there were people out in the middle of the main road. I saw on NBC that prices in Atlanta proper reached $6.00, with people lined up around the block for it. Luckily, the governer has put an end to the price gouge and prices are back down to the $3.50 mark. Though, I can’t say I feel sorry for the dumbasses that paid $6 for it. I didn’t go get gas yesterday because I didn’t need any, but you can bet that if I’d had ‘net access, I would have sure checked the news first. I have photos, but my camera is out of batteries, so they will come later.
Edit: Photo here.