Heck yeah

Works for gators too

Will never forget seeing a gator climb a fence in Florida when I was 10

Gators can WHAT

@jadewolf-writes

   So, out of curiosity, I checked the price of pvc pipe at Lowes. A 10-ft piece of small, 1.5″ diameter pipe was over 5$ each, while the larger, 4″ diameter piece was $50 for a ten-ft section. So, assuming that you need one of each for this system, and your yard is 30 x 50 feet, it would cost about 55 x (3 + 3 + 5 + 5) = $880 just for the pipe, not the wire or the fence underneath. But let’s say you get a bit of a discount for buying bulk, call it $704 instead. That’s really still a whopping amount. And try to imagine how much it would cost to enclose an entire sheep pasture boggles the mind. Not that, say coyotes eating your sheep or gators climbing into your yard would be without cost. But, wow.

I love this, though, because my favorite thing about Superman is he isn’t Batman. I love Batman too, but Superman isn’t a dude who decided to live his life in pursuit of a vendetta against society when he was eight and then just did nothing for the next two decades but get super jacked, become the world’s greatest detective, and memorize every strategy used by every winner in every field of competition in history. Superman is a very good-hearted person who knows how to bale hay, use AP Stylebook, and break meteors into manageable bite-sized pieces by hitting them real hard. And I’m not saying Superman isn’t smart. He’s a bright guy, he’s just not like, one of the celebrated geniuses of the DC Universe. The best thing about Superman is he is basically a normal dude who happens to be orders of magnitude stronger than anyone else. Normal dudes have brain farts. Normal dudes are presented with a life-or-death situation they have less than four seconds to resolve and make a decision that is not optimal. Normal dudes aren’t typically asked to rescue a child from a 10,000 ton machine bearing down on him at 85mph, but if they were, they would probably sometimes panic a little and do dumb shit like ruin a train when they could have just whisked the child to safety.

I think sometimes Superman makes the wrong decision, not necessarily to the result of extreme catastrophe, but something like this, where everyone is standing around clapping and cheering and the kid’s parents are weeping in gratitude and they want to pose for a picture for the 6 o’ clock news with Superman and the conductor, and in the crowd someone is like “Why didn’t he fly the kid out of the way?” and rather than rolling with the fact that the emperor is naked his friend just says “Shut up, Drew, it’s Superman.”

And then, because I also love Batman for very different reasons, I imagine that later on the same day Bruce Wayne gets a phone call and Clark Kent is like “Hey, Wayne, I uh, need a favor.”

“Do you now.”

“Yeah, I, uh, kind of owe the Union Pacific Railroad $60,000.”

“Oh, and why’s that?”

“Come on, don’t do this to me. It was all over the news.”

“I’m prepared to write you a no-strings-attached check for the full amount on the condition that you explain your entire thought process from beginning to end.”

Anyway, that’s why I like Superman.

I think this is very accurate. One time a tree fell on me in the forest and while it would have made more sense to simply jump to the side and avoid it my idiot brain went through the fight-or-flight options and apparently chose fight, so I reached out my hand and caught the tree, then dropped it on the ground beside me. Ended up fracturing my wrist and wondering why the fuck my brain thought that was the best option for survival. I don’t think people are good at really weighing the optimal choices in moments of crisis. 

Bruce: “New Justice League policy. I am willing to pay for whatever damages you guys do in the name of justice and saving lives, but you have to write up a report detailing how the damage occured, including your thought process. Every once in a while, I will complie them into a presentation that we will go through as a whole to determine how you could have mitigated the collateral damage.”

Clark: “This is going to be a ‘name and shame’ type of thing, isn’t it?”

Bruce, lying through his teeth: “Of course not, don’t be ridiculous. This is to improve ourselves.”

The ones who admit “I don’t know what happened here” get a pass on shaming but they still get the alternative suggestions list

And on nights when he really needs a break, Bruce pulls those presentations out, watches the video, and laughs his tits off.

Forget the edgy “batman contingency: here’s how I’d kill all my friends” that’s all over YouTube Shorts, THIS is the series I want to see!

Will Smith Will Smith Will Smith

Hancock STOPS the train. Like an idiot.

Notes on the roosters

Henley we think, is a old English game rooster (and a sweetheart)

Piett is a D’uccle rooster (and is kind of shy)

Cluckwell is a silver sebright (and hates getting pictures taken)

Yangus is a Brahma (and the softest one)

College

   DeaR lORd today was the orientation at my daughter’s college. I did NOT know that they also had 5 hours worth of presentations for the PARENTS to sit through. I was sort of planning to read books in the library and stroll the grounds while she did her orientation. Nope!

   And, apparently, I now have a part-time job filling out forms. More forms. More than the ones I’ve already done. So many forms.

   One of the more notable little tidbits of advice the dean gave us was that they expect 3 - 4 hours study time outside of class for every hour IN class. Does. Does she know how to do math. I do. Let’s see:

(1 hr in class + 3 hrs outside) x 15 credit hours = 60 hr work week. Six ten hour days. For a teenager.

(1 hr + 4 hrs) x 15 cr hr = 75 hour work week

   Now I very much know that they ‘fudge’ these numbers and when they tell you 4 they actually mean 2, because they’re trying to mentally outmaneuver the students. Same often occurs with medical advice, etc. However, I think I would much rather hear the actual number of hours that an ‘average’ student should be studying. And I think they should be very, very aware that there are some students who will need more time than the average (that is how averages work!) and adjust their expectations accordingly. Like, if an average student needs to work 60 hrs per week, what is going to happen to the kid who takes more time to do assignments and readings? (I know the answer to this, because I’ve been dealing with it for three yrs now with my son)

   And make sure you do a sport! And join clubs and organizations! And do internships! hmmmmmm.

   Anyhoo. When I was in college we were told to spend 2 hours outside class for every hour in. A 45-hr work week. Reasonable and do-able. I generally got done in much less time, because I worked FAST, but I needed lots of time for farm chores and helping out my disabled mother and much younger brother. It all worked out.

This is is Smokey.

He’s a Djungarian hamster More known as a Russian winter white dwarf

Animals that are spheres:

Bob Kuhn Shady Spot (1996) 9.5″x12.5″ acrylic on board

That fur is just Masterful.

Okay, so, an announcement that's been long delayed:

The spouse and I are merchanting at Pennsic

Yep. We're sharing a booth (and the work and expenses) with friends. Jacob and I and the other couple are the primaries, but all told, we will be representing 3 lampworkers, a blacksmith/glass painter, a very impressive leather worker, a games maker, and a maker of reproduction jewelry. We have a large corner booth and will be running a torch and doing both lampworking and glass painting demos. The bookkeeping will be an absolute nightmare.

We're in it for the fun and the experience. We'll be working hard, but we'll be hanging out with a lot of cool people, doing a lot of educating, and having a lot of great conversations. Oh yeah and putting beautiful things out into the world for everyone to enjoy. We would like to make more than expenses, but if we don't, it won't impact the family budget, just maybe our pride.

If you're here seeing this and also going to Pennsic, I very much hope you'll stop by Caravan Creations and introduce yourself! (And spend money.)

Some more info here:

https://www.pennsicwar.org/pennsic-information/

It looks so fun! I hope you have time to get an accounting degree between now and then, op!

   Also, I note in the website the the SCA has an official bullying policy. I did NOT go read it, because many of the folks attending will be armed with swords, and I prefer to use my imagination as to what the bullying policy entails.