8 Things Meme

OK, I've seen this meme at Russian Violets, Dr. Crazy, and others. No one tagged me, but I thought it might be interesting to see what I can come up with, then to tag some folks and see if anyone actually follows through.


Here are the rules to play:

1. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.

2. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.

3. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.



So -- 8 random facts about Dr. Bad Ass:



1. I have a bad habit of picking at my cuticles; I can only keep myself from doing this by giving myself frequent manicures and keeping my nails painted.

2. When I was in third grade, I told a fellow third-grader (yes, a "popular" girl) that I had broken my leg the summer before. Somehow, I thought this would make me cool.

3. I went to Girl Scout camp every year between the ages of 8 and 14. Then I became a Girl Scout camp counselor.

4. When I graduated from high school, I wanted to be a truck driver. My mother did not approve. Now I'm THRILLED that I didn't become a truck driver, since I hate driving 45 minutes to the mall in the next town over!

5. I like going to conferences, but I rarely go to sessions not presented by me, my students, or my grad school colleagues (yeah, Margaret, Gwynne, Melanie, Cheri, George, and Alison!).

6. The young adult lit course that I taught last spring was my best experience as a college teacher ever. You guys were fabulous!

7. According to my mother, when I was two years old, I wanted to do everything "my-by-self." Still do.

8. I love our Farmer's Market here in town, but I wish they would just give away baskets of cherries and forget everything else.



I know I'm supposed to tag 8 people, but .... I don't think 8 people who blog read this! So here are the folks I'm tagging:



Tessa (your mom or dad can do it for you!), Jen, Kathryn and/or Paul and of course, anyone else out there who hasn't already done it.



Connie, it's time for you to have your own blog, now . . .



8-)

Once Again, with the Old Manuscript

Now I'm finally back to revising (for the umpteenth time) that old manuscript. We got a revise and resubmit for it, and fairly good and substantial reviews, so I'm at it again. I do like revise and resubmits, for the improvements I can make to my writing. However, having been burned last year with two revise and resubmits that were later rejected, I've become a bit cynical.

Some of you may find that hard to believe.

But really, the reviewers are asking for additional data (which we have!) and it's a matter of polishing up, adding material, being thoughtful about our implications, and in general, good researchers and writers. I think we can do it. Whether it will then get accepted and I can stop messing around with this old thing (which is now called version 17) is yet to be seen.

Anyway, it's Friday, and I've about done everything I can on it.

Bullets

• Recovering from a Weird Virus. Well, first Loving Spouse (hereafter known as LS) had it. Then I got it. What is "it" you may ask? It's a weird virus that only made us a little sick, but sick enough to feel crappy, dragged down, and lie around in our easy chairs for several days. Neither of us could figure it out, but we did lots of sleeping and lots of complaining for the 3-4 days that it took to work out of our systems.


• Underwater Video Progress. I've already got the camcorder; two days ago LS ordered the video housing for me. Yesterday I ordered a battery that should last 100 minutes. Next thing you know, I'll be posting videos from our next dive trip on this blog.


• Work Stuff. Movement toward this year's T&P review is underway. I won't say more about it, but getting confirmation of a manuscript's acceptance several weeks ago leaves me feeling pretty good about it.


• More Work Stuff. The Weird Virus (see above) put a big kibosh on my work, which means I have tons to do this week and it is already Wednesday! So I should stop blogging immediately and get to work. But I won't.


• LibraryThing. Love it. I can spend HOURS cataloguing my books, which means hours not spent working.


• Window Boxes. We put up window boxes on our house and filled them with flowers. They are beautiful!

Happy Nude Hiking Day!

OK, it's really the Summer Solstice, but to long-distance hikers, it is Nude Hiking Day. In 2001, I was hiking through the Shenandoahs on June 21st, so I didn't hike nude. Why, you may ask? Well, because I didn't want to freak out the little children and their parents (tourists) that I encountered multiple times a day as the trail crossed the Blue Ridge Parkway. I didn't think that little children should be exposed to adult hiker nudity. Way too hairy, believe me!

I did see several hikers who hiked nude, though -- using bandanas for strategic coverage. Let's see, the trail names of those folks were Hippy Longstocking, and a couple of others I can't remember . . . maybe Stovetop? I know that my buddies Skidmark and Balloo hiked naked in 2003, cause that's the kind of folks they are. Fun-loving and crazy. Anyone who takes their three-month old on her first camping trip has my complete love and respect.

It's been a week or so of helping Continental Divide Trail (CDT) thru-hikers. Today we shuttled Sly to Cheyenne, so he could take a bus to Glacier in Montana; and we dropped Haiku off at the bus station, where he's taking a bus to Denver as I write this. None of them were naked, by the way.

I spent a good bit of time today -- no, not being naked, get your mind out of the gutter! -- checking the edits of my fantastic chapter authors. You should know that almost all of them got their edits back to me within the deadline, and they did an excellent job of addressing all of the queries posted by the publisher. I just had one clarification to make, and it was easy. All of THAT makes me a happy co-editor.

I have a manuscript to review, a dissertation to read, and a manuscript to revise, but maybe I'll get to all of those tomorrow . . . when it's NOT nude hiking day.

Near our campsite at Lower Silas Lake . .

was this big rock. Cool, huh?

Lower Silas Lake

On Saturday, we drove to Rawlins, picked up Sly (a CDT thru-hiker) and drove to Lander, where we had a lovely lunch at the Gannett Grill. In Lander, we ran into Haiku (another CDT thru-hiker); we then drove both of them to Atlantic City/South Pass City so they could get back on the trail.

More driving (on a narrow, twisty Forest Service road) took us to the Christina Lake trailhead. We hiked in about 2 and a half miles to Lower Silas Lake, where we spent the night. Lovely campsite, quiet and peaceful.

Sunday morning we saw a moose munching on bushes across the lake, and we were glad that we were out there and not at home.

After we hiked out, the driving began again -- back to South Pass City to pick up Cheers (yet another CDT hiker), to Atlantic City for lunch, and then back to Laramie. Lots of driving, a little hiking, and then back into work for another week.

Wikis in Plain English

Yipparific!

Found out yesterday that our candidate for the literacy endowed chair has accepted the position. Hoorah! Hooray! Love that guy -- can't believe he's coming here -- so excited!

Cayman Islands Highlights

Our first week of vacation was spent scuba diving from a live-aboard (the Nekton Rorqual) around the Cayman Islands. We were married on this boat (by a captain named Chris Christofferson, but that's another story) and this was our first return trip. We've made other trips (several!) on the other Nekton boat, the Pilot.

Travel to Grand Cayman was seamless -- we arrived on Saturday early afternoon, and spent the rest of the afternoon sitting at the bar at Sunset House with City Girl (Loving Spouse's daughter) drinking bear and enjoying each other's company. The Rorqual crew picked us up at 7:00 and took us to the boat.

A week of diving, eating, and sleeping ensued. Some cool diving events:

• Being 40 feet underwater when it started to rain on the surface. Did you know that when this happens, it sounds like Sizzling Rice Soup? And with the visibility of 60 to 80 feet, we could see the dimpled surface. Very cool.
• On a late afternoon dive, we came across two Hawksbill turtles circling each other. We think they were competing for access to a tasty bucket sponge. One would circle in, wedge himself against the spounge, take a few bites. Then the other one would come in, take the first turtle's place, and take a few bites. We watched this for about 15 minutes, until 1 swam away and gave the other total access. Loving Spouse took some pics, but they turned out a bit dark, because of the lateness in the day.
• Great wreck diving -- a huge Russian destroyer and a boat used to carry bananas around the Caribbean.
• Interesting people on the boat, including a somewhat fundie group of tec divers who were extremely regimented in their routines and gear. But they weren't evangelical, so that was ok.

Traveling home got a bit sticky. We had only an hour to go through customs in a big southern city before catching our next flight. Needless to say, we missed our flight, but Continental was kind enough to give us a hotel. We arrived home a day later than we had originally planned and spent Sunday rinsing gear and doing laundry.

Now back to yard work, writing, and trying to continue the relaxation. Oh, and losing the 10 pounds I gained on the boat!

In the meantime,

While I'm waiting for Loving Spouse to get his pictures burned on a CD or otherwise sent to me, here's a link to a website with photos and video from the underwater world . . .

http://www.rnrscuba.net/

Enjoy!

Coming Soon . . .

Travel tales that will make you extremely envious, because you were not there when we spent last week on a dive live-aboard around the Cayman Islands, scuba diving every day.

And pictures.

But for now I'm so pooped from traveling (and missing flights!) and rinsing out scuba diving gear -- though to be honest, loving spouse did most of that -- that I must adjourn to my own bed and begin snoring.

I'll post some stuff in the next few days.