BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Please note that this is not NPR. However, I would like to welcome you to Morning Edition…

Day 2 of 2009: A WillyCon Odyssey (The following takes place between the hours of 5:30AM and 12:00PM. Events occur in real time) <— I tried to get Sutherland for that bit of narration, but he was busy….

5:30 AM – AWAKE!

@mrsellars – There is no java in my room and the Student Center doesn’t open til 7… Oh, Coffee, why hast thou forsaken me?

@mrsellars – Watching morning TV in Wayne NE… Original Adam West Batman movie on… O_o

@mrsellars – Local news is well… Local. Rather be watching @VirginiaKerr and @PaulCooked…

@mrsellars – Jeez… I’m pretty sure I have socks older than that news anchor…

6:30 AM

@mrsellars – @cellphone: boop, boop, beep, bahp, beep, beep, boop, bahp, bahp, beep, boop… Ring… Ring… Ri!

@EK – Hmnomnip?

@mrsellars – Are you up?

@EK – Yam nonno nam nip mmm.

@mrsellars – Okay, just making sure. Didn’t want you to oversleep since I’m not there to wake you up like usual.

@EK – Uhmm nimna hibbit nomma.

@mrsellars – Okay, I’ll let you go then. Love you.

@EK – Wubtoo moo.

@mrsellars – Shower. Check… As coach Verby used to say, “Clean minds, clean bodies.” Well… At least my body is clean.

@mrsellars – Students call cafeteria here the “Gag”. Funny… Noms here are wayyyy better than when I was in College thir-koff-koff years ago.

@mrsellars – Srsly. Noms here really good. A ton to choose from too. Sandwich bar, tostada bar, soups, prepared meals of the day, etc… And they switch up all the time according to what I’m told.

@mrsellars – Had Swiss steak (Northern version = mushroom soup instead of tomatoes and onions, but not bad), steamed veggies, and a salad for dinner last night.

@mrsellars – Salad bar even had beets and unsalted sunflower seeds. How cool is that?

@mrsellars – Looking forward to good noms for breakfast.

@mrsellars – Someone above my head is moving furniture…

@mrsellars – Hmmm… That thud didn’t sound good.

@mrsellars – Wonder if there was a body involved?

@mrsellars – Why yes, now that you ask, everything REALLY IS book material.

@mrsellars – Local weather dude calling for foot of snow, blowing drifts, whiteout conditions.

@mrsellars – SF faculty advisor tells me they’ve been hearing stuff like that for the past couple of weeks and it never comes to fruition.

@mrsellars – Maybe their weather guy needs to talk to Matt Chambers in STL… Pick up a few pointers.

@mrsellars – Hmmmm. Is it Nebraska or is it the fact that it’s a college campus? Man in shorts when 24 degrees not fazing anyone.

@mrsellars – Of course, students are wandering about in t-shirts and ripped jeans. I probably fit right in.

@mrsellars – Familiar odor lingering on the air as I walk to student center. Cow manure. Smells like back home in Kentucky.

@mrsellars – {attack of nostalgia}{wistful sigh}

@mrsellars – Morning noms good. Eggs, pancakes, sausage, mini blueberry muffin, and COFFEE!

@mrsellars – Wonders what these kids would have called the cafeteria where he went to college. :-/

@mrsellars – Hmmm. Place looks almost empty. [Looks Around]

@mrsellars – Oh, wait… A couple of the SF club students I met last night are sitting over there. I should probably sit with them so they don’t think I’m full of myself or something.

@mrsellars – Walkies…

@mrsellars – @students_at_table: Good morning!

@student_1 – [STARE]

@student_1 – Goom nana. Ermm.

@student_2 – [STARE]

@student_2 – Grunt.

@mrsellars – @students_at_table: How’s it goin’?

@student_1 – Nerm goona, arbba tay. Ar ermmm. Nib.

@student_1 – [STARE]

@student_2 – [STARE]

@mrsellars – Umm… Yeah… Klattu Verada Nikto.

@mrsellars – [move to end of table. Enjoy morning noms in silence]

@mrsellars – Remembers his college days… Silently empathizes with the two students.

@mrsellars – Visited with faculty advisor. Signed book. Signed poster. Got more free nom passes for cafeteria.

@mrsellars – SCORE! Found coffee shop on campus. I haz large StarMakeABucks in hand. Life is good.

@mrsellars – Dorm room is about 12 x 24. Two smoke detectors. Must be looking for some pretty sneaky smoke…

ON TWITTER:

@mrsellars – Curse you, Perry the Platypus!

@ perryplatypus – @mrsellars GrRrrRRrRrrRRRrRRrrRr

@mrsellars – Bwuhahahahaha! That just never gets old…

BACK TO PSEUDO TWITTER:

@mrsellars – Temp at 5:30 AM – 24… Now, at 10:30 AM – 44. Supposed to hit 57 before it starts into a nosedive. Then the white shit falls on our heads.

@mrsellars – Camera is loaded and ready.

@mrsellars – Fox squirrels EVERYWHERE. Fat bastards too. Used to see them in MO, but all I ever see there these days are the smaller greys.

@mrsellars – Named one of the reds Skippy this morning. He sat with me and ate acorns while I drank coffee. No shit. Damn near right next to me.

@mrsellars – Tamer than the family of greys I feed at home, and they’re pretty damn tame, so that says something.

@mrsellars – Prevailing theory – the squirrels buddy up to students and sell them the answers to exams. Squirrels are sneaky like that.

@mrsellars – Taking camera with next time.

@mrsellars – You know… Now that I think on it, animals can predict weather even better than Matt Chambers…

@mrsellars – My “country boy sense” is saying these little farts are telling us the sky really is going to dump on us tomorrow.

@mrsellars – #fuckme

11:30 AM

@mrsellars – Coffee empty. Library with coffee shop across campus… Go for more, or relax for a bit and get some when I go for noontime noms?

@mrsellars – Decisions, decisions…

And there you have the morning edition…

More to come…

Murv

Well, maybe not “carnage” so much, but our Red Bud tree took some damage from the freak March snowstorm that struck overnight here in Saint Louis. Only a few inches of the white stuff fell, but it was in a very, very short period of time. Plus, it was the heavy, wet snow that tends to weigh things down.

It was around 4:45 – 5:00 AM when I heard the sickening sound of cracking lumber. In my half sleep I actually felt a bit of panic because there used to be a large oak right outside our back door, and it had been dying for years. I finally had it taken out summer before last, but in the past it had dropped limbs and exacted a toll on both our house and that of our neighbor.  However, up until I had it removed I had harbored a fear that it would some day send one of the larger branches through our roof, and if that happened, our bedroom would be right in the damage path.  Still in a semi-dream state, this was my muddied brain’s first thought. I hooked an arm around E K as I rolled to the right, but before I could push her off the bed and out of harm’s way, I heard the heavy thud of the branch hitting the ground outside instead of coming through the roof on top of us. My brain woke just a bit more and in that instant I remembered that the oak was gone.

Good thing too…

E K was still asleep, but if I had pushed her off onto the floor, I’m betting she wouldn’t have been for long.

I crawled out of the bed and looked out the back window of our bedroom. Snow covered the landscape in an uneven, spotty blanket. And there, in the middle of the yard, was a major branch of our Red Bud tree. At that point, I pretty much sighed and then muttered, “This ain’t good.”

Since it had been in the 70’s and 80’s for the past couple of weeks, trees were budding and sprouts were sprouting. If you are familiar with the Red Bud, you know that in the spring it is covered with tiny reddish-magenta flowering buds for a week or two. Unfortunately, those miniscule flowers formed enough of a lattice to capture and hold the snow, making the weight on the branch too much to bear.

This particular Red Bud was one I had given E K as a birthday gift around 15 years ago. Actually, I gave her a stake with an orange flag on it and told her to go stick it in the yard wherever she wanted a tree. And, no, before you ask, I didn’t make her water it or anything … Two days after she stabbed it into the ground like a Van Helsing disciple offing a vampire – (and she looked pretty damn hot doing it too, as I recall) – the nursery arrived while we were at work and planted the tree she had been telling me she wanted.

At any rate, as promised in my “tweets” early this morning, below are a couple of pictures of the tree…

This would be the view from our bedroom window on the second floor. It was taken by E K early this morning while it was still extremely overcast, so I had to adjust it a bit in Photoshop. (click photo to enlarge.)

From the back of the yard, later in the day. As you can see, the snow disappeared within a matter of a scant few hours, and the sun was brightly shining. What isn’t obvious is that the ground is saturated (it rained all day before the snow arrived) and there is even standing water in the depressions throughout the lawn. (click photo to enlarge)

There you have it. Our backyard carnage. Looks like I am going to be pulling out the chainsaw in the next day or two before I have to jet off to Nebraska.

More to come…

Murv