So I was out listening to Le Not So Hot Klub with a friend from work tonight, and I happened to see a flyer advertising the bistro's summer specials. The last one on the list was "Leek and Pea Soup." Make of that what you will.

e-mail fun

"I am definitely qualified and certainly be interested in helping out with this project, though I'd need some more information before saying so with certainty."

... wait a second . . . what was she doing in the first part of the sentence if not "saying so with certainty"?

Would Jesus Discriminate?

As I was driving to the local Wal-Mart this past weekend, I noticed a new billboard that asked, simply, "would Jesus discriminate?" Clearly we are supposed to have a gut reaction of "No! Of course not!" Indeed, this was my initial reaction, but very quickly I began to think about the word discriminate. While the word has gotten a bad rap lately, to discriminate is not necessarily a bad thing. All it really means -- and the Oxford English Dictionary backs me up on this one -- is to distinguish or differentiate between things. To say that I discriminate does not mean that I treat certain groups of people poorly. It could merely mean that I can tell the difference between apples and oranges.

Now, Jesus came to save the lost, correct? If He did not discriminate, there would be no difference between a murderer and a saint. Thus, no one would need to be saved. While I can't imagine Jesus discriminated between black and white or rich and poor, I'm certain he discriminated between good and evil as well as between repentant and unrepentant. If there were no discrimination -- no differentiating one from the other -- then what was the purpose of His coming?

So, in answer to the billboard's question. Yes! Most definitely, yes. Jesus would, and did, discriminate. And we are blessed because he did.

I just ironed a book! And it worked! I had a book in my lab whose thin layer of plastic covering the cover was delaminating, and while I have never repaired anything like this before or read anything telling how to fix this kind of problem, I took a wild guess that the plastic was probably originally adheared using heat, so I took my tacking iron to the book! First I put down a barrior layer of silicone release paper, to that I wouldn't get melted plastic on my iron, and then I went at it. I couldn't believe how quickly and how well it worked! Yay for experimentation!

Warning: Rant to ensue

I'm discovering that being a unit manager might not always be as easy as it thus far has proven to be. My most pressing concern at the moment is that my graduate library assistant (GLA), who signed a contract at the beginning of the semester to work 320 hours, did not show up yesterday and is already over an hour late today without calling about either one. The larger issue, though, is that he is 50 hours behind with only 19 days to work the remaining 130 hours of his contract. I knew from the start that he would be out of the country for a week, so I didn't expect to see him last week, and he has assured me that he would have plenty of time to complete his hours after returning, since his classes would be finished by then, but he also assured me that he would be back in my lab by yesterday. I'll give him until this afternoon to show up before I start calling around to see where he is. But I called the administrative office this morning to see what happens if he doesn't complete his required hours, and it is as I expected. If he doesn't complete the hours, they will have to dock his pay check, since they've been paying him based on his working 20 hrs/wk rather than on actual hours worked. Moreover, if he doesn't work at least 50 hours during this last month, he will have to pay the library back. Meh! Somehow I'm going to have to convince this boy to work 7 hour days for the rest of the month. I'd feel so much better about this if he would at least call in to tell me why he is now 1 1/2 hours late for work!

I'm just glad my head doesn't melt

I blame it all on Megan. I told her about a week ago that we were supposed to get snow, and she laughed, saying it would never happen. We didn't get as much as they predicted, but we had a good 1/2 inch. As if that weren't enough, she claimed that it would be the last snow we'd see this year. So what happens? We get another four inches within about five hours yesterday! Megan is going to have to learn to stop making such silly claims. We were sent home three hours early due to hazardous roads, and we even had a snow day today since it was considered too icy this morning to go in. I'll not complain; I never really expected snow days in Texas. Roads were really nasty yesterday, and it took and hour to get home where it usually only takes 10-15 minutes. When I finally made it into my apartment, I got all bundled up and took my camera for a walk through a nearby park. There were people (mostly adults) everywhere building snowmen. It's amazing to me to see the joy snow can bring to people who so rarely experience it. Already the snow is melting away, and there are only a few patches left in shaded areas. A few of the snowmen still have the bottom two snow mounds, but most are down to just one. I didn't spot any with heads today. Such a short life in Texas, but a happy one.

To bake?

My smoke alarm is out to get me. All I did was try to bake cornbread muffins, and in that short time the alarm reduced me to a quivering leaf, standing on my ottoman and fighting off tears while waving a pillow under my smoke detector and pleading with it that "Nothing's burning. Please stop!" I'm not the kind of person who typically talks to inanimate objects, but it just insisted on screaming at me with steady, loud beeps. And, seriously, nothing was burning. The beeping started about ten minutes before the muffins were finished and continued for a good fifteen minutes after I turned off the oven. I had to remain on the ottoman nearly the entire time, for if I stepped off to open a second door or to take the muffins out of the oven, the alarm would sound again before I could make it back to the ottoman. Nor would it allow me to rest for a moment from my constant fanning without punishing my ears. By the end of the ordeal, I was near wits end as I found myself pleading in a broken voice that it please just stop as nothing ... NOTHING ... was burning. As the odors of my baking died down, there were 3-5 minute lulls where I could go about my business thinking that perhaps it was over, and then it would beep at me a few times while I looked at it in horror, prepared to wave my pillow in supplication once again. Had it gone on any longer, you probably would have found me lying in the fetal position under my smoke alarm in the morning.