Things CC thinks about at odd moments

1. Wouldn't it be cool if Weird Al made a song about civil war re-enactors called "Preoccupied with 1865."

2. The phrase "go postal" facinates me. It dates back to 1994, a year when something like three disgruntled postal workers opened fire on their workplaces. Whatever program the postal service put in to combat this problem worked. I don't believe anything like that has happened since. Mostly, my sixteen-year-old SAT students don't know the origin of the phrase. But they still use it.

I saw an episode of "Star Trek:The Next Generation" once with something about a society that had a language made up of references to things that had happened in their social history. Neat stuff.

3. Linguist Friend likes to hear stories about what CC was like as a little kid. Tonight, I thought about something I got in a lot of trouble for. When I was ten years old or so, I had an idea that I thought might help with America's solid waste problem. I figured landfills should be big tanks of water. I thought waste would decompose faster under water. So for weeks I would hide away food scraps from dinner. After my meal, I would divide the scraps in half. Half went into the jar full of water, half into my control jar. I hid the jars on my windowsill behind the drapes.

I was right. The scraps floated around and especially with the light refraction on the water, the garbage underwater did decompose much faster. Unfortunately, before I could document my findings and revolutionize the landfill industry, my father found the jars. The only phrase I can recall of the conversation that followed is "DO you have ANY idea the sort of DISEASE that is FESTERED in something like that?"

I told the story intending to get across what a bratty kid I was, but Linguist Friend sounded pleased and pointed out that there was a certian amount of intelligence and creative thinking involved in that project.

I still remember what those jars looked like. They were a disgusting kind of beautiful.

CC