Another Reason to Love Noise-Cancelling Headphones

The fragment of cellphone conversation I was treated to on the bus this morning before I managed to wrest my headphones from my bag:

Miss Mitchell?* No, honey, I haven't heard from Miss Mitchell in a while, not since she lost her house....Remember? That little girl's mommy turned her in to the State, and she lost her job and her house....Her house, down the street. You used to play in her yard when you were five....Yes, you used to play there all the time, and then that little girl's mommy told them Miss Mitchell hurt her even though she was hurt already....Yes, that was a long time ago. You weren't even in kindergarten then, and now you're going to be in third grade....No, she didn't want to move. That lady said she was bad and she lost her day care business and then she didn't have the money to stay in her house....It was mean of that lady to say she was bad and take her business away.

* Names have been changed to protect the (possibly) innocent.

A Reminder for the Cat

Me, last night: "I know those are the claws of love--but they still hurt."

How Did I Spend My Coffee Break?

Documenting the intersection of genetics and hair style, that's how!

The Birds

This blurry photograph doesn't begin to do justice to the presence of crows at dusk on the UWB campus. There are hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of them. Every single smudge you see in the sky here is a crow. The roofline seems to waver because the roof is full of crows. The noise is amazing--and, eerily, every so often it stops dead, and you find yourself walking through a completely silent murder of crows.

UPDATE (Feb. 11): One of my colleagues shot some video of the crows last night, which gives a much better sense of the situation than the photo above. You'll find his work here.

A Test of the Mobile Blogging System

...with a bumper sticker I admired in the Seattle Central parking garage last night.