Daily Update

Weight: 225

Currently Reading (fiction): The Templar Legacy, Steve Berry. It’s taking me forever to get through this book because I have such little reading time now. I’m going to try to finish it this weekend. Probably won’t start another one right away, simply because there’s not much time to read. I hate taking 3 weeks to read a book...it’s harder to stay with the plot when you do that.

Currently Reading (non-fiction): Walking the Bible, Bruce Feiler. This really is a good travelogue of the various sites in the first 5 books of the Old Testament. Very interesting and entertaining.

Currently Listening To: Stories We Could Tell, Jimmy Buffett. Buffett’s new album is due out on Tuesday. It’s called Take the Weather With You. Apparently he decided on a new name, because in September, the album was to be called Paddlin’ Out.

Rush Lyric of the Day: Green and grey washes in a wispy white veil. Mist in the streets of Westminster.

Food Update: Someone brought in fresh, warm Krispy Kreame glazed this morning. Warm Krispy Kreames are the best sweet food on earth. And so utterly terrible for you. I ate two, and I’m thinking about having another. Heart attack be damned!

School Update: I had three tests this week. I think I made a perfect score on my test last night, unless I made a stupid mistake. I missed one or two on Wednesday’s test, but there were five bonus questions that I know I got right. I made a 99% on Monday’s test. All three tests were very easy. Next week, I have tests on Wednesday and Thursday, but none on Monday or Tuesday. I finally got my student ID and my scrubs vouchers, so I’ll be getting my purple scrubs this weekend and wearing them to class starting on Monday.

Last night, we were learning the basics of biology in our Anatomy and Physiology class. Cell structures and that sort of thing. One of the types of tissue we learned about is called “pseudostratified.” There is a girl in the class who is the type that is constantly asking questions and interrupting the lecture to get clarification on some totally obscure, non-test-worthy issue.

Anyway, last night, during one of her clarification interruptions, she was asking about this psuedostratified type of tissue, and she called it “puh-swade-o-stratified.” I literally almost laughed out loud. I sat there giggling under my breath for five minutes.

Hailey Update: Hailey has been doing better this week. She hasn’t shit her pants at all, and has been going on the potty when she feels it. We’re really hoping that maybe these bowel issues are behind us. Also, she whispered to her teacher twice yesterday, and also did her work at school. So that was a big step. I am going over there at lunch today to have lunch with her.

Sydney Update: I saw Sydney awake this morning, for about 30 seconds. First time I’ve seen her awake since Monday night...when I saw her for about 2 minutes.

Today in History, October 6:

891 – Formosus is elected pope. He is best remembered for being the central figure of the Cadaver Synod in 897. He had died in 896, and his successor brought charges against him that he had been unfit to sit as pope. His corpse was dug up, dressed in the papal vestments, and set up before a courtroom to be tried. He was convicted of the crimes, all his rulings and measures were reversed, his papal vestments were torn from his corpse, the three fingers he used to give blessings were ripped off his hand, and his corpse was thrown into the Tiber. Gotta love those Catholics.

1888 – Birth of Roland Garros. Garros was an early French aviation pioneer, and was one of the first fighter pilots in World War I. In the early years of the war, before Anthony Fokker’s invention of the interrupter gear, allowing machine guns to be fired through the propeller, Garros came up with a scheme of his own to fire through the propeller. He put steel plates on the propeller, thus allowing the bullets to deflect away from the propeller, and inevitably allowing some bullets to get through. He managed to shoot three aircraft down in this fashion. However, in early 1915, the steel plates failed, and he shot off his own propeller. He crashed landed in enemy territory and was taken prisoner. He escaped in 1918 and rejoined the French army. He was subsequently shot down and killed one day before his 30th birthday, on October 5, 1918, only a month before the war’s end. France’s most famous tennis court, the home of the French Open, is named in his honor.

1889 – Thomas Edison premiers his first motion picture.

1892 – Death of Alfred Lord Tennyson, who took his own advice and “did and died.”

1898 – The honorary music fraternity Phi Mu Alpha Symphonia is founded in Boston. I am a member of this fraternity. Betcha didn’t know that, did you?

1927 – The Jazz Singer premiers, the first major talking picture.

1945 – A Greek immigrant named Bill Sianis attends Game 4 of the World Series at Wrigley Field. He brings his pet goat with him, and is permitted to keep the goat at the game, even getting to parade the animal around on the field before the start of the game. However, later in the game, the Cubs owner forced Sianis and his goat to leave, citing the “stink” from the animal. Sianis was outraged, and (so the story goes) put a curse on the Cubs, swearing they would never win another pennant or play in another World Series at Wrigley Field. Since then, the curse has stuck.

1973 – The Yom Kippur war begins as 80,000 Egyptian troops cross the Suez Canal and attack Israeli-held positions.

1981 – On the 8th anniversary of the day his troops invaded the Sinai, Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat is assassinated by Muslim extremists.

1992 – Death of British actor Denholm Elliot, from AIDS. Although he was married twice and fathered two children, he was a bisexual. He garnered an Academy Award nomination for his role in A Room With a View. His most widely-known role was as the bumbling academic companion of Indiana Jones, Marcus Brody, in the first and third Indiana Jones movies.

1995 – A planet is discovered orbiting Pegasi 51, a star in the Pegasus galaxy, 49 light years from earth. It is the first extra-solar planet ever discovered.

1997 – Death of Johnny Vander Meer, the former Cincinnati Red who is the only pitcher in major league history to throw two consecutive no-hitters.

2003 – Timothy Treadwell, a bear enthusiast who chose to live among bears, is killed, along with his girlfriend, and partially eaten by....you guessed it...a large brown bear.