{"id":414,"date":"2010-03-25T22:29:13","date_gmt":"2010-03-26T03:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/?p=414"},"modified":"2010-03-26T09:11:03","modified_gmt":"2010-03-26T14:11:03","slug":"deer-diary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/2010\/03\/deer-diary\/","title":{"rendered":"Deer Diary…"},"content":{"rendered":"

24 March 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whilst in the lab working diligently as usual this morning (~9 AM), my co-workers were involved in some sort of pointless ridiculous banter. At one point, one of them said: “Is this what you’re gonna blog about today, James?” And I said, “No, I already have something to blog about for today.” Which is this:<\/p>\n

I pulled out of our apartment’s parking at 6:00 this morning. About 15 seconds into my commute,just as I passed over 35E, but before I passed Summit Brewery, I saw a shadowy 4-legged thing moving behind some trees. I slowed down. The thought: “Was that a dog?” entered my brain, but I immediately dismissed it, as no dog is that<\/em> big. Going even slower, I drove forward about 100 feet more and saw not one, not two, but TEN deer nibbling in the grass and walking around. I brought my car to a complete stop and just stared. There were eight mature does, one juvenile, probably a year old, and another that was somewhere between yearling and adult (tween?). A couple of them looked up at me, and a few began walking past, but not hurriedly. The closest ones were fifteen to twenty feet away; close enough so that my car’s headlights gave their eyes that weird we’re-in-league-with-the-Devil look that my cat so often sports at 2AM.<\/p>\n

Another vehicle approached from behind. The driver slowed as (s)he passed me, presumably because it’s odd to see a parked running car that early in the morning on that empty street. But then they sped away. They must not have seen the deer. But, I guess if you drive a Ford Explorer, you’ve long since abandoned noticing anything beyond your own dashboard. The re-acceleration of the Ford gave the herd a minor panic, and a few of them pranced away, past the railroad tracks, another thirty feet or so from the road. I watched them vanish behind the trees, then I took off for work.<\/p>\n

Also – one of my co-workers emailed this flow chart to me today (if you click on it, it’s easier to see):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

She thought I would find it amusing. I did.<\/p>\n

25 March 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

Owen and I stopped at the library on the way home today. He selected a whole bevy of books including titles such as:\u00a0You can be Pretty like Barbie<\/em>, Princesses are Fun<\/em>, and Mermaids are Real<\/em>. Just kidding. See, Owen is a boy, and so we were allowed to check out books with titles like Watching the Moon<\/em>, Jupiter<\/em>, and Dwarf Planets<\/em>. Okay, so I guess I’m still harping on that thing from a few days ago. Princesses. Jeez.<\/p>\n

Speaking of books, here’s my latest book review: The Heathen’s Guide to World Religions<\/a>. This entirely mediocre tome is currently taking up precious space on our book shelf, so if you’d like to read it, I know where you can get a copy from.<\/p>\n

Owen claims that everything he hears adults say aloud, he has to repeat in his head. This causes him frustration, and that’s why, he says, he tries getting us to stop talking so much. He also says he can stop the repeating if he makes these electronic\/laser\/robotic noises. I know this sounds unbelievable, but, coming from the son of someone who used to have to repeat everything backwards<\/em> in his head, it seems as if the family genetics have improved with this generation. My wife says she’ll talk to Owen’s teacher about it tomorrow.<\/p>\n

I received an email from the President of the Maple Grove Critical Thinking Club this evening. I didn’t even know such a club existed. More importantly, what are critically thinking people doing living in Maple Grove? \u00a0Anyway, she (yeah – she<\/em> – can you believe it? I wonder if she’s a princess. Okay, I digress) wants to know if I want to come speak to her Club in June. On the topics of atheism and Jehovah’s Witnesses. \u00a0Hm. I don’t know. I’m not an atheist “expert,” it’s just what I call myself because I see no evidence for gods, and, in fact, the evidence presented falls flat. Much like Santa Claus. (I’m also aSanta, too.) But I don’t really care if people think there’s a god, just so long as it doesn’t make them do crazy stuff, and I also don’t know all the finer points of defending\/explaining such a worldview. I mean, for that matter, I’m also pro-gay rights, but I don’t think I’d be the one to lecture on the logical reasons for allowing same-sex marriages.<\/p>\n

I do, however, consider myself an expert on the topic of Jehovah’s Witnesses, so maybe I could just talk about that for the bulk of the hour. This is unfairly easy, though, as I am confident there would be no one there offering counter-arguments to my Watchtower polemics. I guess I’ll have to think about this one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

24 March 2010 Whilst in the lab working diligently as usual this morning (~9 AM), my co-workers were involved in some sort of pointless ridiculous banter. At one point, one of them said: “Is this what you’re gonna blog about today, James?” And I said, “No, I already have something to blog about for today.” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":423,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions\/423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}