Totally Random

Well, this is going to be a bit of a chaotic post. I've got several things I've been meaning to post about, but just keep forgetting to or haven't gotten to yet or whatever. I'll try and keep it in some kind of coherent order, but no promises.
I'll start with this picture at the top. I've been lax in introducing you to two new members of the bear clan. The one on the left is DD. She came to us the week of Thanksgiving. You see, DD was given to my great-grandmother, Mum Mum, by a close friend over 20 years ago now. The friend's name was Dot Davis, therefore, the bear was named DD. A few years after DD came into her life, Mum Mum passed away. Therefore, Miss. DD stayed with Gram. DD enjoyed her status as only child. Sure, Jon and I spent a lot of time there over the summers with our own zoo of friends. But mostly she's been content to be the shoulder for a couple of older women. When we were down in Maryland visiting Gram the week of Thanksgiving, she asked Gak if he would adopt DD. She said that DD needed a good male role model, as she's never had one of any sort. Of course, Gak couldn't say no. I was planning on bringing her home with us eventually anyhow. She's adapting well. Having lived a quiet life, living with Mum Mum and Gram. She's not used to being one of several, especially some young rambunctious ones. She spends most of her time hanging out with AT and Sally.
The other little girl in this picture is Angel. She came to us the day that Gram left us. She's a very sweet little girl and has been a wonderful addition to our family. She loves coloring and playing all kinds of games. She is, however, very good at getting into all kinds of trouble with Scout leading the way. Usually this involves them ganging up against poor Sam. Well, he does deserve it, as he is the big brother and all. She's really been a bright spot around here since she came to us.

I got some, in my opinion, sad mail the other day. I found out that my advisor, former head of the biology department and head of the faculty at LVC, Dr. Paul Wolf is retiring at the end of the year. I learned a lot from this man and he's touched the minds and hearts of many, many students over the years. He even taught the son of one the biology teachers at my high school. He has a really gruff exterior, but inside, he's a real softy and cares a lot about his students. Most of us referred to him as Big Wolf, not usually to his face though even though he knew we called him that and I'm sure secretly enjoyed it. You see, there were two Wolves at LVC in the biology department. Big Wolf and Little Wolfe. Big Wolf is just that, a big man with a big presence. He was a marine in Korea and some of that drill Sargent-ness still hangs about him. Like I said, he is a real softy and cares a lot about the students though. Then there was Little Wolfe. He is a much smaller man in stature, not a whole lot taller than me, and a little scrawny. He's about the same age as Big Wolf I'm guessing. Little Wolfe is a much more soft-spoken, academic kind of person. He rules his class and lab with a quiet efficiency. Very different professors, but both very good at what they do. LVC is loosing one of it's best to retirement. I just hope that, in the far future, Big Wolf gets his wish... that he just keels over while working out in the salt marsh and they just leave him there. I'm sure they won't just leave him there, but that's what he wants. I know this because I took two semesters of Ecology with him and both semesters we did a marsh study. That and I did an independent project with him in the Delaware marshes. Hopefully now he'll have time to fiddle in his garden, hang out in his beloved marsh poking and prodding at things. I wonder if he's completely given up working with U of Delaware as well. Anyhow, I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to go out to school for his retirement party in the beginning of April. It's only 1.5 hours from here and it would give me a chance to see what all they've done to the Neidig-Garber science center. I'll let ya know.

Man, this is getting to be a long post and I've still got stuff to talk about.

Anyhow, Friday Gak picked up a used X-Box 360. A lot of the guys from work have one and play online with each other. We'd talked about it several weeks ago and told him then, not yet, there are other things that need done first. Well, he didn't eat as many lunches out and didn't buy any Warhammer stuff, so he had enough discretionary funds left over to pick one up this week. It's quite funny to watch him try and play it. Especially since the one game that the guys from the office play is a shooter, Call of Duty 4. He, quite frankly, stinks. He always has at these kinds of games. (I'm even worse, so we won't go there...) He did pick up a really cool game by Bioware, Mass Effect. It's an RPG and man, the graphics and the story line both blow me out of the water. It's great. Hopefully I'll be able to master all the million buttons on the silly controller so I'll have a chance. The one big thing I hate about the X-Box is that it isn't wireless. I'm spoiled by the Wii. The controllers are wireless. It connects to the network wirelessly and it comes that way. (I think he payed almost as much for a stripped down X-Box without a hard drive as we did for the Wii... He got a free hard drive from a coworker.) The X-Box does have wireless controllers, but they're extra. You can also get something to connect to the wireless network, but that's extra too. Hopefully Gak'll remember to pick up an extra long Internet cable today so he won't have to keep unplugging it after he's done, since the router and the X-Box are across the room from each other.

Well, I was going to share some crafty stuff I've been up to and pictures of the dining room, but I think I'll save those for tomorrow.
Mom is coming over today and I should probably get a few things done before then. Peace to all and may you have good weekends, even if they are a little random at times.