h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Back from the vet. Sadie has been deemed fit enough for a cat dental op under anaesthetic. He says she has tartar build up and gingivitis which they can sort out.

She refrained from biting him this time, but clawed (and ruined) my raincoat instead. So I know have to buy a new coat as well as fund her op.

Caer, hope she gets well soon! I'm sure once her teeth are fixed, she'll be feeling much better.

About driving kids to school vs speed limits - when the local police spent a morning outside the schools monitoring the traffic, it turned out that it wasn't the truck drivers, bus drivers or 'just passing by' drivers that speeded - it was the parents!

This strikes me as odd - surely parents would care about their own children enough to stick to the speed limits near the schools? But oh no - they are obviously in too big a hurry to care - or???

That is not any suprise to me Ti. I watch the idiots that drop their growing idiots off at the school in my neighborhood race through my streets all the time. We have a speed limit of 25 mph, this is a theory however and is oft ignored. The lady who hit my truck two winters ago was doing an easy 50 mph.

Lots of people define themselves and others by their possessions - car, house, watch,clothes, whatever. Others define themselves by an academic degree or a job title. These people are insecure and/or shallow. The trouble comes when they try to make the rest of us feel badly about ourselves and cause us to compete on their level. Their definition of success rarely includes such things as character, making time for yourself and your family or being happy with what you're doing.

*Matina, bring me a please. Preaching is thirsty work.

Candi, sorry to see your link's been moderated...

I recollect the school traffic jams in Florida, as well -- but I think they are due to child-abduction neurosis. In the cases where I have been caught behind school busses, I see a parent waiting to escort their kids home, or waiting for them in the car, or waiting in the car until the kids are picked up...

But not in New Mexico. At least, not in this part.

I drive a compact SUV because I need to -- it would be that or a truck, and I preferred something enclosed. I have to drive a round trip of 75 miles for my main groceries. It's 25 miles to get a paper, and about 35 to refill a prescription. And that's on the kind of roads that make your ears pop constantly as you change altitudes.

And speaking of all that, here's a picture I took this past Sunday:
http://www.asterlil.com/h2g2/gusty.htm

[c]

So, was the second sign painted during one of these potential gusts?
I walk past a school drop of point every morning. Being Surrey (my political leanings are showing again ) the kids are off to some posh school which arranges a bus to pick them up each morning. However, this is a fifty seater coach so it collects a lot of kids at a few points (I assume, I don't prowl round Woking looking for the other pick up points, you get arrested for that). The one I walk past is always very busy with kids hanging around cars with their mums in. Often it looks like the bus will never be able to find space in which to stop, there are so many cars, and certainly no passing traffic can get past. Luckily it is just off the main road. Unfortunately, due to the headlines of the summer I sympathise with the parents, weren't like that in my day thankfully.

*drops into sofa, exhausted*

I managed to forget my cold while I tried to figure out how to take a photo of my Nefertiti papyrus - I've been running around like crazy trying to find things to use...

First of all using flash was out of the question, not only because it's behind glass and frame, but also because the black background that it's fixed on is slightly glossy in quality

Moving it was also out of the question, since it's already hanging on the wall with most empty space around it

The lamp in the ceiling was reflected in the glass, tried my uplight floor lamp for the first take together with belonging reading lamp, replaced the reading lamp for the second take with a spotlight mounted on my music stand - hunted around some time for something to soften the light with, and add some colour - tried napkins and pieces of cloth and oven paper, until I finally found a flimsy red plastic bag that I cut open and taped to the music stand in front of the spot light

And I still haven't gotten around to get that... that... camera stand (drat, Lil told me what it's called but I forgot) - and since I needed to use the function with prolonged time of exposure (it's a compact camera) and my hands are too wobbly to take clear photos with that function, I had to come up with something...

I took one of those long cardboard tubes you get posters in, placed it on top of my living room table plus some thick books (I'd like to thank Arthur Hailey, Pauline Gedge and Elizabeth George) and flattened one end of the tube slightly, enough to squeeze in one end of the camera

Setting the function to 'no flash, night photo' and adding the self-timer, aiming - and hey presto! After all the trouble I do hope the photos come out looking OK!

I had a feeling that link would be moderated , that's why I gave an alternative....for those who didn't spot it, here's how to get to it:

[Broken link removed by Moderator]

Apologies to all those who have/had trouble accessing it...this is the best I can do at the moment. Thanks MT for the positive feedback

We live very close to one of the most popular schools in the area. My two have always been able to walk to all of the schools they have attended and only ever got dropped off or picked up by car if I was on my way to or returning from w*rk and the weather was really bad, once they were old enough to walk unaccompanied of course.

But the start and end of the school day causes chaos with inconsiderate parking and thoughtless driving, it is a time when I try and avoid going out. The difference during the holidays is amazing, a 30 minute trip can be reduced to 10 minutes, the congestion created is that bad. It is the same anywhere you go in Britain, I would say.

The school coaches are not free and space is very limited, they cover quite a large catchment area and if a child is late, they don't wait. Many is the time I have passed kids forlornly trying to walk in from a Surrey village or two. Which is why so many kids get driven in, a sensible alternative would be to car share and I know some mothers do try to organise them, but they never last longer than a term. The kids fall out with each other and refuse to go to school with former friends.

Sadie is now sulking and avoiding me, I wish I could make her understand that its for her own good! I would like to pick her up and give her a big as I was pretty convinced that the vet would say there wasn't anything he could do because of her age. But she keeps running off and hiding! She will have forgotten by tomorrow though. Thanks for the kind thoughts, they cheered me up.

...tripod?

I only remember being driven to school once. And that was in a blizzard so bad that I only remember one other kid turning up. I remember being very annoyed that no one else had bothered.
I am surprised the buses aren't free. My secondary school (12 to 18) was five to six miles away and they ran buses from every village. They even ran free taxi's from the more remote farms.

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Caer - forgot to say welcome home, glad you enjoyed your hols, and here's a for poor Sadie .

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*getting tired of seeing Candi's links removed*

The link wasn't broken when I clicked on it! Will register later to listen, Candi...

*consults her desktop h2g2 note pad, very useful for cut and paste when you suspect there might be difficulties*

The site belongs to a company called mp3 - add /candi_nook

I was only bused when I was in highschool. And the only reason for that was because I lived in an area of Salt Lake that was high minority. The integration laws dictate that there has to be a certain ratio of minority students to caucasion. As it was I would have preferred the school I was going to over the alternatives anyway, but sometimes it chaffed to have to pass one school on the way to my own.

Luxury!
When I were schoolchild we had to run to school, 20 miles that were.

No seriously, I don't know whether it's the case for England, but over here they now have the schoolbusses all tarted up with flashing red and yellow lights and unfolding stop signs. Traffic has to stop, in both directions, unless it's a dual carriageway. And don't the kids know it.

for poor old Sadie

I hope Amy's feeling better today -- has anyone seen her?

[BB]

H

Am trying for the 4th straight week to get a long weekend. Will go home and take the phone off the hook. No good. They know where I live.