The Soap Box
A place for me to dump my brain and you to pick thru it

This Society is Sick
9:54pm

There is definitely wrong with the great United States. How do I know? Look around. We have kids bringing guns to school to kill fellow classmates and teachers and 10 year olds beating up a homeless man. Since when in our society has a human life meant so little? How are these children brought up without compassion for other human beings? When did someone's material worth dictate if they should live or die in a rage of adolescent violence? It's really sick.

Violence against the homeless is on the rise in a big way. Now consider that a significant amount of homeless are either veterans, mentally ill or both, and you have a society preying on exactly the people it should be protecting. (Approximately 40% of homeless are veterans and 15% are seriously mentally ill.) Many that are veterans just could not adjust back to civilian life after fighting and killing at the request of this country. Some thank you, huh? Thanks for fighting for us. Good luck back home. Don't let the door hitcha on your way out.

If you consider that these teens are the FUTURE of the country, what does that say about where we are going? Who taught these kids that violence against innocent people was the answer to their frustrations? Is it the press? You don't like someone so you can go to war against them? Is it TV shows like Law & Order and Criminal Intent? Is it taught at home in houses where domestic violence is how disagreements are settled? Who taught them that preying on the weak or disadvantaged was courageous or right or...or...well, what exactly do they get out of it anyway?

I'm seriously asking. Where are these things learned? What does it mean for the future of this country when human lives are so dispensable...other American citizens' lives...possibly someone in your family's lives...

I Got Nuttin'
6:54pm

Well, I exhausted my body enough that now I'm sick. I guess my body was holding out long enough for me to finish that damn take home test. I sent it to my prof at 8pm Sunday and woke up Monday not feeling well. I'm not "wishing I were dead" sick but sick enough that I can stay home from classes without feeling too guilty. I figure if I take care of it now, it won't get worse. At least that's the plan.

So, in case you read about the mercury spill in the psych building, it turns out it was a broken thermometer. BFD.

If you want something a little more exciting to read, try this. I'll try to think of something more interesting to post later this week.

It's the End of the World As We Know It
7:08pm

OK, it's not the end of the world. I'm totally exaggerating but really weird-ass shit is happening in the psychology building at UNM. Yesterday morning, the staff was greeted at 8am with an office ceiling on the floor and water streaming into the office from above. Then the department chair realized his ceiling was dripping. And then the entire lighting structure fell into his office with him in it! And while I was presenting my client at case conference (nerve wracking to the max), others were running around trying to save computers and projectors and VCR equipment and everything else from the deluge coming down from the second floor.

So get this. There have been animals housed on the 3rd and 2nd floors of the building and sometimes this has caused the sewage system to stink, as you can imagine. So, to get rid of the stench, people have in the past poured concrete into the drains so the smell won't come up from the sewer into their labs. Which is BRILLIANT when you have a fucking flood. There is NOWHERE for the water to go but down. Some people are wondering if the building is going to be salvageable or if it will be closed for a certain amount of time due to mold, etc. It probably doesn't help that the APA is coming to visit in April to see if we should be an accredited program. Yikes!

Now today, even though it is Saturday, I was at school for a special training. Around noon, the department chair stops the training to tell us that there has been a mercury spill in the building and the mercury vapor would be distributed throughout the building via the air ducts. Well, mercury vapor is VERY toxic. It's a neurotoxin actually. Charming! So we all leave the building and finish our training in the parking lot, which was still too close to the hazardous waste monstrosity for my comfort. I was supposed to work in our lab (located in the basement) after the training but I hightailed it out of there instead.

I'm kinda scared to go back in the builidng on Monday! What's going to happen next?

Interesting Easter Product
11:17pm

Is it just me or does this seem sacrilegious? And I LOVE the quotes around "tasteful."

PS: I still haven't finished my take home exam.

Procrastinating
9:28pm

I have this take home test that I was supposed to do over break but it's still not done. I'm trying to work on it tonight but man, it's hard to get going on it. So far, instead of working on it I've:

• Cleaned my kitchen
• Pulled weeds out of my front and back yard
• Cleaned the cat box
• Blogged
• Updated 3 web sites that I'm in charge of
• Ripped a Beck CD and listened to it about 5 times
• Chatted with a long distance friend via Yahoo IM.
• Realized that there are more bad definitions of addiction than good ones. Some are downright wrong.
• Marveled at the amount of misinformation on the Internet

And with that, I'm gonna go back to work on this test and try to figure out which definition of addiction is less wrong than the rest so I can finish one of the questions on my test.

Wish me luck!

Oh look! Something shiny to look at instead of working on my test...

My Ear Holes and Eye Holes Can't Stand It No More
11:45am

Is it my imagination or are commercials more annoying these days? The top 3 of my list for annoying commercials are:

• The DQ one where they have to inhale when they talk to keep flames from shooting out of their mouths
• The Gap's Boyfriend Pants ad with Claire Danes. C'mon girl. Is your career that bad off these days?
• That one (I don't even know what it's for) where some test engineer is playing Smoke On The Water using gears of the cars he's testing.

Gah! Any of those ads and I just turn off my brain in order to protect it from the bombardment of crap. Good job, ad guys.

The Kitten is About to Lose One of His 9 Lives
11:01pm

I'm spending my last free night of my spring break cleaning kitten vomit out of the carpet that I had professionally cleaned just 2 days ago. Figures, donit?

After I discovered the pukefest, I put him outside while I cleaned and he started to play with a dead bird. Great. If cat food makes him puke, what the hell is going to happen after he plays with carnage that's been dead for at least 12 hours?

Damn good thing he's so cute and cuddly and currently purring in my lap.

Seriously, Folks
5:11am

Someone just called on my super-secret cell phone that I only give to my clients in case of emergency. As I was sound asleep, I didn't get to the phone in time and there was no message left. So now my options are that it was a wrong number at 4:53am or it really was a client in crisis. I didn't recognize the number that the call came from or I would have called back. The message I put on the phone for when I can't answer it before it goes to voicemail states that if it is an emergency to hang up and call 911. I hope if it was a client in crisis, that's what they did. If it was not a client calling, then for God's sake, don't call my number at 4:53am! And if for some reason you just need to call then, you could at least leave a message so I know you're not calling because you're thinking of killing yourself.

As for me, I have a feeling I'm not going to sleep for a while.

Sigh.

One More Hoodoo Pic For You
8:53pm

Bisti
8:37pm

Sunday, we went to Bisti Badlands, about 30 miles south of Farmington, NM. I'm not gonna say a whole lot about the landscape. I'm just mostly going to let you look at the pics.

The thing below is called a hoodoo. They are all over the place and are extremely cool.

Hoodoos come in all different shapes and sizes.

The one below is my favorite:

There are so many vibrant colors here. It's really stunning.

And tons of petrified wood. You can see the petrified log on this ridge.

Here is a pic of a ridge from far away:

And here is a closeup of the same ridge:

Obviously, the black rock is eroding faster than the white rock. Walking on the black rock is like walking on sand. It's really weird because it looks like rock but is so soft.

Conversely, the rock below looks like a sandcastle but is really much more permanent.

And just because I didn't post them before, here is one more pic of Chaco Canyon, of Pueblo Bonito to be specific:

And a bird petroglyph also from Chaco Canyon:

Chaco Canyon
11:06pm

So, Chaco Canyon is the location of an ancient civilization that occupied the canyon from 800-1200AD. There were several sites where people lived. The one below is now called Pueblo Bonito and had between 650-800 rooms.

The really cool thing about Chaco Canyon is that you are allowed to walk through the ruins, which you can't do at most places.

In the picture below, you can see remnants of the original wooden beams, known as vigas, used for ceilings. You can tell that there were at least three floors at this particular part of Pueblo Bonito. It is thought that some parts had a total of 4 floors.

The people of Chaco Canyon are known as pretty advanced astronomers. The corner window below is very hard to create but apparently has something to do with the winter or summer solstice. The sun would shine through such corner windows during these times only.

It's very difficult for me to properly show the size of these living sites. This is the external wall of a smaller site called Chetro Ketl, a short walk from Pueblo Bonito. The external wall just goes on and on...

The entire area of Chaco Canyon was built over a few hundred years. Chetro Ketl was one of the later areas built. Archeologists can tell when different areas were constructed by the masonry style. This style is called Type 3; a very exciting name, I know, but the style is quite attractive.

One of the rooms still has its original ceiling. It's pretty much pitch black in there. One of the questions archeologists have were how all the rooms were used since they can't figure out how they were lit. There were not hearths or oil lamps as far as they can tell. Here's a pic from inside the original ceiling room looking out. Again, the wood on the top of the doorway is the original wood used over a thousand years ago.

So there is your mini-tour of Chaco Canyon. BTW, if you want to go there yourself, it's about 3 hours from Albuquerque and down a dirt road for 20+ miles.

Tomorrow, I'll try to post some pics from Sunday's visit to the Bisti badlands.

MIA
11:52am

Yeah, I know. I've not been blogging much. This past weekend, Nick and I took a mini-vacation and went to Chaco Canyon and Bisti badlands in the NW part of the state. We took no computers and while we did take a cell phone, it didn't have any service for most of the trip, which was rather nice. Between the 2 of us we have 3 cell phones which is really too much.

For now, you'll have to be content with the picture below but I swear I'll put more pics up when I have time.

Lookie What I Got!
9:55pm

It FINALLY came in the mail yesterday.

It makes it all the more real. I'm super proud of myself! Yay me!

Random Stuff
8:30pm

Goran Visnjic is reportedly leaving ER. Figures. No couple is allowed to be happy in that show so I guess Maura Tierney will have some interesting story line once he goes. I'm bummed about him leaving but there it is.

Ann Coulter's web site is losing advertisers. "Verizon, Sallie Mae and Georgia-based NetBank each said they didn't know their ads were on AnnCoulter.com until they received the complaints...Verizon, Sallie Mae and NetBank said the ads were put on a variety of sites by a third party company. In many cases, advertisers do not know which sites feature their ads." Interesting. What other companies are on her site without their express permission, I wonder.

You know that caveman in the GEICO commercials? Well, ABC has ordered a pilot that revolves around him living in Atlanta. Yeah. I predict it's not going to last long, if it gets on the air at all, especially since the person writing the pilot is the guy who wrote the 30 second commercial. As we all know from SNL sketches being made into movies, things that are funny for 30 seconds are tedious for 30 minutes.

Talking about new shows, Nathan Fillion, the actor who plays the captain from Firefly, is starring in a new show on Fox called Drive. Wouldn't you think that after what Fox did to Firefly, Fillion would pass on doing a new show for them?

So the first dozen or so times I saw the commercial for the new movie 300, I thought the ad was for a video game. I actually had to ask my husband what the hell that ad was for. And now that I know what it's for, it still looks like a video game. What's up with that?

And just because I know you couldn't care less, Shaq and Posh Spice are both supposedly going to star in some sort of reality show. Not together, of course.

Ann Coulter...
9:06am

...is evil and clueless and an embarrassment to her gender.

Blog Name: The Soap Box
Email: jenben[at]g-r-c.com
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