I was doing alright for a second wasn't I? I had three entries in a row. And all the time - behind the scenes here at LS Place - I was busy as a beaver, working to automate my entry process. As I have said before, the real pain of this site was hand coding each and every entry and then relinking the index and archive pages. But, as I also said before, I want to hand code things. I want to know what is going on beneath the HTML. Well, I got to the point, halfway through my automating, where I didn't want to write an entry until it was done. So each of the past two nights, instead of writing some actual content, I was slaving away at my macros. I just couldn't write anything until everything was just so. The same thing happened when I made the last layout change. I wouldn't write anything until everything else was perfect. Hah, perfect. I should say, acceptable. Anyway, it was all a big, throbbing headache but it is now done. I think. I won't really know until the end of the month. When I make my first entry for December, my automation should make a new archive page for the new month. I'll let you know.
Other news: This pregnancy is getting to Claudine in ways that the first two never did. First off, she has a small bleed inside. I don't really know what this means although she has tried to explain it to me. I think, that it means there is bleeding where the egg and/or the placenta has attached to the wall of her uterus. It doesn't mean that anything is going wrong, but she does have to take it easy until the bleed goes away. And how do we know she has a bleed? She scans herself on the ultrasound machine at her work. Since she is only two or so months along, she can't use the hand held scanner. She has to use the vaginal probe. I can't imagine doing that to myself. My lack of a vagina is the first hurdle, but even if I did have one, I just can't imagine inserting something into my genitals at work.
The other thing about this pregnancy is that it is kicking her ass all over the place. She is very tired now. And she is getting no real sleep, but is waking up with migraines and severe neck and back spasms. It makes for a fun morning. I feel badly for her, but there isn't much I can do.
There was an interesting article on Salon.com the other day about something called the western spruce budworm. Apparently these bugs feast on Douglas firs but don't eat ponderosa pines. That isn't really interesting in itself, but at the turn of the century (last century... you know 1900) the forests in the Northwest were about 30% Douglas fir and 70% ponderosa pine. The point about the story that is interesting thing to me is that now those percentages are reversed. They are reversed because man (us) have been putting out fires for the last 100 years. See ponderosa pine need fire. Fire cleans out the underbrush and gives them more room to grow. These pines have a fire resistant bark that allowed them to survive when a ground fire would spread through the region every decade or so. Every decade or so, before we started putting these fires out. Now the forests are full of underbrush and smaller trees. The Douglas fir likes shade much more than pines. The fir has gained an advantage and choked out the pines. Now the budworm has a feast. Past budworm outbreaks last 7 to 10 years with 40-60 years in between. But there is a break in Washington state that has been going on for 20 years and isn't showing signs of stopping.
I remember when I was growing up and making the connection that fire was actually good for the land. Good... GOOOOD... FIRE GOOOOOOOOOD! ...Sorry. Anyway, I remember being amazed when I made the realization that forest fires have been running unchecked through North America for millions of years. And that all the flora and fauna have adapted to that pattern. Only in the last 100 years has man stepped in and fouled that up.
(I just noticed that this entry will probably increase my hits from search engines. I was looking back and realized that I used the following words in this entry: Anal, beaver, big, throbbing, vagina, vaginal probe, genitals, ass, and uterus. It's probably a good thing I didn't use this sentence:
Graduating Magna cum laude made me feel like "cock of the walk".
Yeah, good thing I didn't put that in here.)
