Yesterday, Jeremy and I drove our first rescue transport, and I am absolutely hooked! We got involved when driveforlife was spotlighted a few weeks ago, and I've been waiting for an empty Madison run to come up. I thought it would be something fun for us to do on our one day off together, and a chance to use the Forester for the powers of good!


We drove Mercy, an English Setter, from Madison, WI to Rockford, IL for Above and Beyond English Setter Rescue. Mercy went from Zimmerman, MN to Haverton, PA to a permanent home, which she should reach some time today. She is tiny for an English Setter - I'm guessing some breeder decided she wasn't show material and abandoned her, and there's evidence that she's already had a litter, even though she's only 18 months.

From anubis75
Antarctica: To me, it symbolizes deep time; a continent that once supported lush tropical vegetation, and now is buried under miles of ice. 15,000 foot mountains barely peak above the surface, and flightless penguins are the only native animals. Ice cores reveal climatic change going back half a million years. It's also the one land mass on earth that doesn't belong to any one country. It's home to the harshest weather in the world, endless miles of ice, and half the year, it's shrouded in darkness. I find the place completely fascinating, and can't wait to go there one day.

Dark Beer: I love dark beer - Guinness, yes, but especially porter (McNeil's in Vermont is my favorite).

Sousa's Nantucket Pie: My good friend and paleo-colleague x_pyewacket_x makes a mean Nantucket pie, which is a tart-like dessert with good Maine cranberries.

New Burlesque: The burlesque revival is really exciting - the theatre geek in me loves the idea of dressing up in vintage costume, but with a sexy twist. I love that the emphasis is on talent and tease, rather than tacky nakedness.

Megafauna: Mostly referring to large, recently extinct animals - mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths, black-bear-sized giant beaver, American camels, dire wolves, the short-faced bear (taller than polar bears, and able to run down prey). These were roaming about at the end of the last ice age, until humans showed up and they mysteriously disappeared. I tend to favor the human hunting cause of the extinction.

Living Fossils: (Someone else picked this, too, but I'll do it again): This refers to coelacanths and other organisms that live outside their era - coelacanths were thought extinct (from fossils) until they were rediscovered in the last century. They've basically gone unchanged for millions of years.

Wine: I haven't been able to drink this as much as I'd like lately because it sometimes triggers migraines, but I have a fondness for wine. It's a more conversational and lustier drink than beer, and has helped me make some fond memories. I tend to prefer sweets as opposed to dries, and especially like Rieslings, Pinot Noir, Shiraz, and Vouvray.  

A real update comes tonight, but for now:

A meme from brdgt and delqc:

If you comment on this post, I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.

Or, if you prefer, list some interests of mind you'd like me to explain and I'll answer in the comments.

From brdgt:

alchemy: I'm really fascinated by the origins of modern chemistry in ancient alchemy, and especially the way it was also a spiritual/philosophical/mystic discipline. It represents to me an integrated way of looking at science that isn't the cold, objective form stereotyped today.  I'm also fascinated by the history of science in general, including the Medievalists, Islamic Empire scientists, ancient Greeks, etc.

beringia: The land bridge that brought over the first humans (probably) and a lot of the megafauna. Now sadly buried under water. A lost landscape that symbolizes the last ice age for me.

chacos: Performace sandals! I love these. I've had my pair for about six years now, and I wear them all the time. They've come with my up Mount Mansfield, on remote Maine islands, kayaking Lake Champlain, coring lakes in Upper Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana,  and would go to much more exotic locations if I could afford it. Toe loops are not an option.

cellos: In a past life I was a cello virtuoso. I love the earthy sound of cellos, and I've always maintained a goal of learning to play.

kick-wheel pottery: One of the most wonderful, therapeutic, and de-stressing activities. I took a class at Goddard and really took to it. Someday I'll have my own wheel and kiln, but it has to be a kick-wheel, not an electric wheel. Pottery is the one "art" form I can actually do (can't draw or paint or sculpt).

living fossils: This refers to coelacanths and other organisms that live outside their era - coelacanths were thought extinct (from fossils) until they were rediscovered in the last century. They've basically gone unchanged for millions of years.

spying in checkout lines: I love to look at other peoples' groceries, and tell stories about them in my head when I'm waiting in line. I'm a very nosy person, inherently. I love to listen to strangers' conversations, or make up a past for a random person I see at the bus stop. A drunk Irishman on the T in Boston once told me I was like a sponge, soaking everything up around me.

From delqc:

Beringia: see above!

Canada: I have an aunt and uncle in Alberta, Canada, and there are so many wonderful places I love there (Jasper and Banff, Montreal, Petit Manan Island, etc.). Universal health care, Coffee Crisp, and a nice northern climate. What's not to love?

dandelions: Possibly my favorite flower. I love the cow pastures in Vermont that become covered with dandelions at certain times of year.  They are NOT weeds, and you will never see me trying to eradicate them from my lawn.

spring peepers: Another something I love and miss from New England, these are the tiny frogs that make a fabulous cacophony around May and June near wet places.

zhang yimou: I somehow fell in love with Chinese films (not kung-fu) a few years ago, and subsequently the language. Zhang Yimou (Raise the Red Lantern, Not One Less, House of Flying Daggers, Happy Times, Shanghai Triad, To Live) is my favorite director - he works often with Gong Li, who seems to be something of a muse for him.

Disclaimer: I typically dislike this sort of thing, because it comes across as cold and impersonal. To paraphrase what jackshoegazer recently said, it feels weird to make such a deliberate statement of "friendship," rather than allow organic processes to unfold. With that in mind:

I've gone through a flist weeding - I'm finding that I have less and less time to devote to livejournal, and I want my time to be quality time. So, if one or more of the following is true, I probably defriended you: 

• You haven't posted in the last few months.
• You habitually don't comment on my entries, and/or I find myself skimming yours
  
• You post several times daily (aka, I don't have time to give you the attention you'd like)

For those of you where the above is true but I didn't defriend you, I've probably kept you on because a) we know one another from "real life", b) you're good friends with someone I know from "real life," c) I enjoy reading you, or d) you've been active in the past and I'm holding out for a future return.  Having said that, I may cut you at some point in the future.It's probably not personal. If you got cut and rather I hadn't, just drop me a comment; if you're not big on commenting but like to read, just let me know.

Conversely, if you find yourself disinterested but were waiting for the right opportunity to exit stage right, feel free to do so now.

You may now continue with your regularly scheduled flist.

I've done my patriotic duty for the 4th of July: I ate Thai food, did some science, and updated theclimateblog with a Global Warming Guide to the 2008 Presidential Election. Amusingly, even though I'd been tentatively supporting Hillary, Edwards came out ahead. Also, after this research, I'm less and less inclined to support Obama. I gave everyone grades; no one scored an A, and two out of the three top-running Republicans got F's. No surprises there - climate change is a partisan issue?! I just thought it was science!

Feedback or free advertising are appreciated.

Last night, agent_mph and her husband lost everything in an apartment fire. They didn't have rentor's insurance, and have literally lost everything they've ever owned. Out of two cats, one is still missing. I can't even fathom that kind of loss.

I have created a PayPal account to collect donations for them. By clicking on the button below, you can make a donation of any size, which will go to their family in some form. We haven't been LJ friends for long, but I can't help but feel that international networking forums like livejournal offer a really unique opportunity to help someone in need, even if they're a stranger. I would do the same for any of my LJ friends. If you can't donate, I understand. If you can: thank you. A little goes a long way in a situation like this.

For those of you working on a thesis or dissertation, check out gyttja's kickthesisbutt, a community where you post weekly goals for yourself and check your progress on those goals. We'll all hold one another accountable and show our support. The layout is very strongly influenced with Piled High and Deep, a web comic by Jorge Cham about adventures in graduate school. It's funny 'cause  it's true and all that.

Dear schmecky, lagizma, and choogy,

I miss you. Come back soon. Things just haven't been the same lately around here, and I don't have the luxury of getting to laugh and cry with you in person.

Love,

Jacquelyn

PS mananath: It's good to have  you back.

Poll #790234 Customer Satisfaction Survey
Open to: Friends, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 23

Recipe posts!

Book reviews!

I enjoy reading about (check all that apply):

I typically skip over:

I usually read:

Welcome, scullybully!

scullybully, aka Val*, aka Scully, is a longtime friend and new livejournaler (I finally got her to peek in here, so be nice to her or she'll run back to MySpace!). We first met back in Vermont when I worked at Friendly's, and then spent several years at Waldenbooks together. She's currently in college for psychology and women's studies, and wants to work with adolescent girls on body image. She's funny, sweet, and wise, and is probably the only person I know who can pull off pink without being Paris Hilton about it.






*Not to be confused with x_pyewacket_x, aka Val, aka Sousa.

I've decided to follow up on my plan to make most of my journal friends-only. As part of this plan, I'm going to have jackshoegazer make my friends-only post graphic. It's going to be the front and back covers of a book, as though my journal were the actual book and I was the author. For the back cover, I'd like to have some select blurbs by my readers to put on my dust jacket, just like a book! You can make them sound like actual blurbs, if you like, and feel free to sing my praises! If I like yours, they'll end up on the back of my dust jacket.

I'm also thinking of renaming my journal from "Beringian Dreams," but I'm not sure (this would be the title of the book). I can't decide if it sounds too...new agey? I dunno.

(Or, "I need to focus on something that isn't seen through an eyepiece right now.")

This week I will be going to see An Inconvenient Truth, which I'm planning to use as the kick-off for theclimateblog, which will be my scientific alter-ego. It's going to be a proper blog on climatology and climate change science, dealing with climate-related topics ranging from paleoclimate, society, health, biodiversity, politics, humor, technology, books, and of course my own personal opinions. I'd eventually like to have it set up for an RSS-feed for non-livejournalers to enjoy. Friend The Climate Blog if you'd like to read up on or discuss this topic, which also happens to relate to my graduate work and future career.

scrabbleshots has also gotten off the ground. This is the brainchild of jackshoegazer and myself, with a very simple premise: post pictures of finished Scrabble games. Yeah, it's pretty kickin'.

For those of you who haven't been subjected to my other communities, I also moderate literal_libris, a nonfiction discussion group, and thelunarsociety, a salon-style science group named after the famous gathering of thinkers that are credited for helping to spawn the industrial revolution. We're not at all pretentious, though- post topics have included alien-abudcted cows, insect-derived food dyes, the biology behind homosexuality, and whether Atlantis existed.

Oh, and you should totally be my Netflix friend. lagizma did it and it's a lovely diversion. My Netflix e-mail is:

paleoecologist at yahoo dot com

Feel free to pimp your own communities or those of your friends in the comments. In addition, any  publicity you'd like to provide to my growing groups would be greatly appreciated. jackshoegazer's iconomicon doesn't need any promotion, because he already has over 400 members in just a couple of months. He does makesome pretty spiffy icons, though.

Passed along from a post by jackshoegazer , who got it from someone else...

The LiveJournal Abuse Team has decided that icons featuring nursing babies are "inappropriate" for default icons and are threatening users with permanent suspension if they don't change their default icon. We've tried responding to the LJ Abuse Team but they're standing by their decision and so this has been escalated to contacting the parent company (Six Apart) and if that doesn't produce results, we're bringing LJ's attempt to censor breastfeeding to media attention. We're trying to get widespread awareness of this on LJ and have as many supportive letters as possible written to Six Apart (contact@sixapart.com) and feedback@livejournal.com as well, so if this is something you care about, please take a moment to write to those addresses, and repost about this issue in your own journal. The original message that kicked it all off can be found here.

My own thoughts:

I find this offensive and disturbing. A breastfeeding woman is NOT pornography and it is NOT obscene. It is against the law to ask a woman to stop breastfeeding in public or ask her to leave, so this should be likewise illegal. I am informing livejournal that if they don't change this policy, I will not be renewing my paid account (and I in fact have a breastfeeding icon, made by jackshoegazer).

I don't usually like to use livejournal to discuss livejournal, but:

When I started this journal, I decided never to write for an audience; at least, not to censor myself based on my fears of what other people would think. I feel that I've held true to that, as much as possible (maybe sometimes sharing more that some people are comfortable with, granted). Sometimes I post raw, awkward poetry. Other times I'll ramble on about my past, rant about my current frustrations, confess my worries and hopes and fears. In general I'm more inclined to recapture a moment in time than recount the events of my day, like a diary. But I like to think that I've always been very open, very personal, and as honest as possible, even when it means showing a side of myself that I would rather hide, or sharing information that I probably wouldn't tell my casual friends and relatives.

In the last week, I've had reason to be on the receiving end of some really supportive words in the face of some sobering (and potentially embarassing) news, and then again today with my (commonplace but still very uncomfortable) wisdom teeth extraction. Again and again I see the same people, some new and some from my distant livejournal past, coming forth to offer their support, humor, stories, opinions, and validation. Yet some people are notedly absent, regardless of whether I'm sharing my amateurish poetry, gushing over my latest culinary obsession, or revealing my inner vulnerabilities.

I make a concerted effort to read all of the journals on my friends list and comment as much as I can; I feel that it's a part of the dialogue that is livejournal. I've never asked anyone to read my journal, but I certainly wouldn't expect anyone to participate in this dialogue if I weren't showing an equal effort. And yet, lately, with the addition of a number of strange faces and the disappearance of some old familiar ones, I'm wondering if I should be as open as I have been in the past.

I'm considering my options: I could go friends-only, as many of you have done. I could cull my friends list of the people who never give an indication that they read my journal at all. I could go on as I have, reading, commenting, and just chalking it up to the different ways in which we all move through the world. But, as personal as this is, I'm starting to feel a little uncomfortable with some of the silences.

In classic Jacquelyn form, I'm not making a decision, but rather writing about my indecision. I don't like making these kinds of self-referential posts, even though it's something that's been on my mind for a while. So, my question is (ah, she gets to the point!): What has been your experiences with changing the mode of your journal- more or less rewarding? The same? Do you even read my journal? Feel free to self-select yourself off if you'd like. Commenting that you couldn't go a day without reading my fabulous pontifications is equally acceptable.

Carry on.

Wasting away my last precious drops of free time, I decided to use the livejournal function that allows you to see the most recent posts, hoping for something inspiring, or a nifty new friend (rapunzelyn found me that way!). Instead, I found perhaps the best procrastination tactic ever! Check out these gems:

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I was snapping and being curt with all the customers, WHAT THE FUCK lol like my boyfriend is in the hospital?!


And I'm not going to some huge college so it works for me! My.. grades are pretty screwed.. Needless to say.. For all these years.. Can you say.. BAD ASIAN?!!


Ok, I noticed a wendys on the way over where bojangles used to be, I had some cash, so on the way back I stopped there for supper. I don't know if it's because they are new and haven't sunk to the average level of fast food yet, or if they're just good, but that was probably the best wendys food I have ever had.


Don't you hate when your at the local HEB or Safe Way or wherever you go ,and you see this little kid cry about some stupid candy he isn't going to get?


I'm so proud of my brother. He rigged a two-foot, leopard-print dildo to jump out of his friends locker.


i love getting mad at my computer
to a point where i start shouting out stupid things like
"you wanna be so slow, so ghey, ohh ohhh you wanna be so ghey why ,.. why dont you just move to ghey land? huh, huh. tell me why not.?"


i went to norfolk last night and got drunk and high with justin and jackie and watched 'the crow' which was a creepy movie. oh and their house and some other houses got egged by drunken frat guys. then someone retaliated with a paintball gun. then a fight broke out. we just kept watchin our movie. i like how chill that house is. weed might have something to do with it.


oday my roomate got mad at me because i wouldnt tell him who i slept with last semester. he, of course, hearing that from jess who heard it from maria. or maybe directly from maria. anyway, i shouldn't have told maria i did that, it was a petty move on my part - but i was drunk, and i was drunk when i cheated.


help.
i need help with an embarrassing problem.
my ears must be asymmetrical to each other. i have plastic framed glasses, which i <3 very, very muchly. unfortunately they sit crookedly upon my face and i think i must look rather ridiculous. if i wear my hair up i am able to stick the arm of the glasses between my pulled back hair so they sit evenly.


my first prom, and mike's 7th. prom 2k2!!!


*************

Seriously, that last one cracked me up. Mike's seventh prom? How many years are in high school? Ha!