Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit....I cracked a tooth. DAMN IT! I have needed a crown on a tooth for two years now and I have been putting it off because of the major expense it is and because my dentist is a quack and now I think I cracked the front part of the tooth off. THIS SUCKS...now it's going to end up costing me more and be a more painful procedure. I hate my mouth!!!!!!!!

I've been out of town Wednesday and Thursday this week on business, so I haven't had a chance to blog about a lot of things in the news. I will try to recap my thoughts on a variety of subjects here without boring anyone too terribly much.

The Demon in the Freezer
Richard Preston, author of the excellent yet chilling novel The Hot Zone, about an Ebola outbreak in suburban DC in the late '80's has recently released another book called The Demon in the Freezer: A true story . This one is about an equally chilling topic: Smallpox. As we are all well aware, smallpox was essentially irradiated in the 1960's through immunization, however it has become a hot topic as of late because of the idea that terrorist groups might have access to smallpox as a biological weapon. Everyone knows that the release of a biological weapon would have a horrifying effect on the United States. But, until I heard a radio interview with Richard Preston yesterday I hadn't realized just how effectively Small Pox (and the chemically enhanced forms of small pox) collapses the human body, with effects worse than HIV and Ebola and the ability to infect as many people in 3 weeks as AIDS has in 20 years. I was considering recounting the stages of the disease here to illustrate just how horrible they are, but I can't bring myself to write about it, all I can say is that after listening to his interview and an excerpt from his book I am suddenly forced to be aware of the devastating effect that smallpox will have as a weapon and the real danger it's existence is to humanity.

North Korea
Have you ever noticed that when two trouble maker kids are together and one of the two is getting attention from someone, the other one either sneaks off and tries to get away with something because they think they won't get caught or they do something in the hopes of getting some attention directed towards themselves. Ladies and Gentlemen...I present, Iraq and North Korea...two troublemakers you might say. The big surprise in the news this week was North Korea's announcement that they have been working on creating a nuke, thus directly violating the 1994 agreement under which North Korea said it would no longer seek to develop nuclear weapons. Everyone knows that the US claims that Iraq is also trying to develop nuclear weapons. So what does this mean for the US? We have just passed a highly controversial measure in Congress stating that Bush has the right to use violence against Iraq...but what about North Korea? Are they any different from Iraq? Their "president" is as equally repressive as Saddam is and they are part of the Axis of Evil as outlined by President Bush. Both countries are violating said agreements not to produce weapons of mass destruction, so why are we singling out Iraq? I hope that the Bush admin. and the UN think clearly about both of these countries and the similarities of their situations prior to launching into a war with Iraq.

Florida Murder Case
When Derek and Alex King were convicted last month of beating their father to death I was furious. The entire situation with simultaneously trying two cases for the same crime and sealing the one verdict was insane. I am thrilled that the judge threw out the conviction, however I do hate the fact that these boys have to sit through another trial if the mediation fails. I don't know if these two kids did kill their Dad or not. Either way what happened wasn't right, it's never ever ever ok to murder someone. But, what gets me all riled up about this case is that the father was abusing these boys, the mother was out of the picture and the man previously cleared of the murder was sexually abusing the boys with the father's consent. I think it's truly horrifying to think of the situation that these children lived in and that there would even be the question of whether or not the boys killed their Dad. No kid should ever be in a situation like this.

Good Morning...I have a lot to post about today since I've been MIA the last few days, but I'll start slow with Friday Five as I clean up my desk from two days out of the office...

1. How many TVs do you have in your home?
We have three TVs that are plugged in and working. We have two more in a closet that we don't use.

2. On average, how much TV do you watch in a week?
I watch 2 hours a week for sure. I never miss Alias or West Wing. Beyond those shows my TV watching is sporadic. I usually watch the morning news as I'm getting dressed and I catch about 20-30 minutes off and on in the evenings, but I don't watch much TV at all. In fact, I tape two soaps everyday and see about an hour of them a week.

3. Do you feel that television is bad for young children?
I don't think that TV is completely bad. I think a lot of how TV is for children depends on the shows that kids are watching, how often they are watching TV and if parents are involved with what their children are watching. I watched a lot of TV as a child, but my parents had strict rules about what we could and could not watch (no MTV, no Three's Company (?)) and I think I turned out ok. Just like everything else in a kids life, there is a time and place for TV and ultimately parents involvement with their kids is the most important determinant of if TV is bad for a kid or not.

4. What TV shows do you absolutely HAVE to watch, and if you miss them, you're heartbroken?
Most of the TV shows that I absolutely had to watch have been canceled (Gideons Crossing and Once and Again for example) so I'm down to just these two, like I mentioned above, West Wing and Alias are must-see-TV for me. I like to watch Emeril Live, Friends and Will &Grace, but if I miss them it's not a heartbreaking affair.

5. If you had the power to create your own television network, what would your line-up look like?
My network would be weird. I would air the Today show in the morning, and news up until noon. After that I would show my favorite soaps for an hour and a half then I would air cooking and home improvement shows. I would resurrect Gideons and Once and Again, have them producing new shows that I could air in prime time. The rest of my prime time line up would be political commentary shows (anchored by my witty husband), sports (all Hawkeye football and anything college basketball) and reruns of the oldie moldie's like Cheers, The Cosby Show, etc.

A bad omen...

Blogger just ate the same lenghty post twice on me. Either that means that the post was so pathetic that blogger made the determination that it should not be shared with others (if that's the case I suppose I respect blogger) or it means that I am going to have a very bad day.... Let's hope it's the first.

Stay tuned, I will try to retype the post, but I have to work now.

Only in Vegas (baby!)...
Iowa is favored to beat Indiana this week (duh) by a line of 12.5 pts. The confusing part is that Ohio State (#4 in the country) is only favored to beat Wisconsin (who was beat by Indiana last week) by 7pts. Since Iowa doesn't play Ohio State this year we'll never know what the line on that game would be, but with lines like these set up I think it's safe to assume that if Iowa can beat Indiana by 12.5 pts who beat Wisconsin by 3 pts and Ohio State can only beat Wisconsin by 7 then Iowa would be able to beat Ohio State...right???

I think it is unhealthy when being at work makes me angry for 10+ hours a day....why do I put myself through this....

Burning the flag
Jeff's post this morning about the Harkin v. Ganske Senate race here in Iowa reminded me of a point that I've wanted to bring up on my blog for the past few days.

Greg Ganske is running a TV ad criticizing Harkin, this is no shock in this campaign, but this particular ad is horrible. He has an actor at a hometown parade, interviewing members of the crowd about Harkin's record. It's a bad commercial, but the part that bothers me most is that the reporter/actor says "Did you know that Tom Harkin once said that outlawing flag burning is the most asinine thing he had ever heard. That doesn't sound like Iowa does it?" Outlawing flag burning is asinine. It directly violates our constitutional right to free speech. Violating constitutional rights doesn't sound like Iowa does it?

I love our country. I love our flag to the point that the entire first floor of my house is adorned with the stars and stripes...but I also love my right to go outside and light that flag on fire if I want to. This campaign is not about flag burning like this ad implies. It's becoming about discrediting the other candidate in every way possible. It's become completely ridiculous

I need to a new radio station....
Since the clinic I work at was built in 1970, prior to advances in technology such as overhead music speakers, I have a radio that sits on my desk that entertains me during my day. My desk is in the basement of a brick building so I am extremely limited on my radio station choices. The one that I usually listen to is a Pop station out of the quad cities....but....I can't handle it anymore. I have been at work since 7:30 this morning (4 hours) and I have heard Kelly Clarkson's Amercian Idol song 3 times and Avril Levigne's Horribly infectious teeny-bopper Skater dude song 5 times. I just can't handle it anymore! I hate silence, but I think it might be better than the constant din of obnoxious poppy songs.

It simply doesn't get better than this...
Weekends just don't get better than this! This has been one of the best weekends I've had in a long time.

The weekend was off to a slow start Friday night. Jeff and I couldn't decide what we wanted for dinner (as happens to us frequently) so we got in the car and started driving towards Iowa City in search of a restaurant. Being the culinary Mecca (or something) that Iowa City is we were just overwhelmed by our choices and we settled on the new restaurant in town, the Okoboji Grill. The food was marginal at best and the service wasn't that great. But...the Goose Island on tap was cold (even if it tasted watered down)...thus giving the weekend a boost. After dinner we headed to the Airliner downtown to meet us with Amy and Jay who were in town from Chicago for the weekend gridiron festivities. We had another Goose with these guys and decided to call it an early evening and ward off the end of my cold from last week and the beginning of the cold's cousin who has taken up residence in Jeff's sinuses.

Saturday.....oh sweet Saturday...
We slept in a little and around 8:30 we finally dragged ourselves out of bed. We contemplated going to a neighborhood tailgate/campaign rally for our state representative, but decided that it would have to wait until we made our weekly trek to the coffee house for java and a scone. (after driving by the "rally" on the way to the java...we decided we wouldn't hurry back since there were 3 people there.) We got home from our java run just in time for the opening kickoff of the Iowa vs. Michigan State Football game. To make a long story short. The next three and half hours were the best three and a half hours of Iowa football I think I have ever watched (remember I didn't start watching Iowa football until 1994...not the glory years of Iowa football...) We were incredible! The team that we have on the field right now is at the top of their game. There wasn't a weakness in the Defense, the offense or the special teams. The only weakness on the field, besides Michigan State, came in the form of the officiating. I have loved Iowa football through some of the worst of times...and I am happily loving them through the best of times! We had to watch the game from home Saturday (rather than from our season tickets at Legendary Kinnick Stadium) because Jeff's company was holding their annual corporate banquet Saturday evening and we would have been too crunched for time to do both. So, we got dressed in our best duds and headed up to Cedar Rapids late Saturday afternoon for the annual festivities. The evening starts with an award presentation at the Theatre Cedar Rapids and concludes with a dinner at the Cedar Rapids Country Club. The entire evening is a first class affair and even though we weren't all that excited about going it was well worth the time. We had a lovely time and we were home in time to watch College Football Tonight and hear all the props thrown out for our Hawks. It was AWESOME!

Sunday...
Homeownership Duties called. We had to get out in the hay field we refer to as our lawn and prepare it for the coming winter. Since there was a killing frost (finally!) last night our 12" tall impatiens now looked like limp spinach on sticks and my beautiful Dahlias had turned black. So, as Jeff gave the grass it's winter cut, I cut down and dug out four drum liners of plants from my gardens. It's a truly bittersweet day for me. I love doing it because it means that winter is coming. But...I put so much work into my plants all summer that it's sad to see them crumpled into black plastic bags. Plus...I just hate the work. But, the sun was shining, there was a chill in the air and it was a beautiful afternoon to be outside. Once I finished in the yard I decided that since I was motivated to do housework I should clean the inside of the house as well. I cleaned out our kitchen cabinets and tidied up a little more from last week's party. We met up with Dave and Sheila for our weekly Sunday night dinner together, this week at my favorite Mexican restaurant and came back to our house to watch Alias (another new weekly tradition.)

This weekend wasn't good because did anything extremely exciting...it was good because it was good, because we were home, doing our thing, on our own..... I just wish I didn't have to ruin a great weekend by going back to work tomorrow....