WHAT?!?!

Apparently coffee is good in a crisis...

It is Time to Dig Out Another File

It's been a pretty rough week, and there are a lot of transitions happening in my life right now, so I'm feeling off kilter. The good news is that I got a new job and will be starting next week. There has also been alot of tough stuff going on and so it's easy to lose sight of good things happening in the world. This is precisely why I have my Happy Heart File, so I can get a little lift during times like these. Here is one of my favorites. Improv Everywhere decided to make this Little League's game the "best game ever". You won't believe all the things they pull off!

If the video doesn't work, click here.

I always have a smile on my face by the end of this video.

=) Deanna

News In All Its Forms

There are a few words in the English language that just sound weird when they hit my ears. "Pubescent", no matter what the context, just makes me crinkle my nose when I say it. Perhaps this is why this headline made me take a double take:

"Telescope finds space blobs are pubescent galaxies"

I just had to laugh that they used that adjective to describe a galaxy, but... oh wait... it gets better...

Wednesday, June 24, 2009
WASHINGTON - Mysterious space blobs aren't infant galaxies as astronomers once thought. Scientists say they mostly consist of galaxies going through puberty, all hot and bothered.

Wow! Someone was either having fun with their journalistic liberties or they are raising a young teenager and their homelife snuck into their work... well, maybe both. I doubt any of these kids are reading this article, but aren't they going through enough? I'm sure their older sister's have referred to them as "gaseous blobs" enough... they don't need it cemented in news print.

...One theory was that they were young galaxies cooling off. But the new research says they are hot and chaotic with gas halos, growing supermassive black holes and about to stabilize....

Oh, I remember breaking out in quite a few supermassive black holes...

;) Deanna

Happy Heart File: Update on the Ducklings

Apparently the ducklings I wrote about have become an annual event! Here's another video to add to my happy heart file!

lDeannal

Life Disconnected

Wow, I (Deanna) haven't been my usual bloggy self lately. Why you ask? Ah, the answer is simple, I've been disconnected. My internet has been down for a couple of weeks and thanks to wonderful aparmtent life, the many channels I must go through sometimes slow down, get blocked or have their car break down so they have to take the bus to get to the building they manage, but don't actually live in. I've been able to sneak in access here and there, but the truth is, I pay my bills, shop, talk, apply for jobs and a billion other things through my computer so I'm feeling a bit unsettled. Do you even realize how long it's been since I've been able to play a decent game of Chicktionary?! Besides, what if I have to email something very important to somebody very important? Luckily, I do have a few minutes to send bits of intellectual stimulation to the people in my life. How else would I alert my fine readers about this breaking (and actually true) news?

Pedestrians ran in every direction and a woman and her dogs jumped into a lake as a 77-year-old motorist led officers on a wild, yet slow, ride through the hub of Port Orange near City Hall.

If that little snippet doesn't make you want to read the full article, how about:

At one point, a policeman ran alongside her car and was able to open the door and grab Hollifield's left arm. But that only strengthened her resolve. She put the car in reverse, revved the engine and rammed into the officer's squad car before roaring off, police said.

As you can see, it is paramount that I get this internet issue fixed immediately.

The Rescue - Tales from my Happy Heart File

OK, those of you who know me may know that I have a Happy Heart File. Inside this file is stories, cartoons or anything on paper that makes me smile even when nobody's around. This file is especially important for those days when life seems overwhelming. I decided I should share the love in my HHF. Here's a fairly recent story I added that I first found on my Snopes.com urban legend update. I was so excited to find it was true and the cherry on top is that it happened right here in Spokane! Here's the article written about it on KREM 2's website :

Man catches ducklings jumping from ledge
05:23 PM PDT on Wednesday, May 28, 2008
By KEVIN BLOCKER; KREM.com
SPOKANE -- As a senior loan officer at Sterling Savings Bank downtown, Joel Armstrong has spent a considerable amount of time helping people realize their dreams and bailing people out of financial jams at the same time. He would have never imagined that his most memorable rescue would have occurred while helping a mother duck and her recently hatched offspring down to the river on Tuesday.

"It was an amazing site; I'm an animal lover at heart," Armstrong said from his office on Thursday.

Outside Armstrong's office window one month ago he noticed the mother duck laying eggs in a cement awning, which rests 10 feet above the ground. Those eggs hatched on Monday. When he arrived to work the following day he observed the mother standing at the edge of the awning before swooping to the sidewalk below. What he saw next took his breath away.

"The first duckling goes to the edge and... smack. Just hits the sidewalk," he said.

Horrified, Armstrong darted out of his office and to the sidewalk below. The duckling laid motionless for about 10 seconds before regaining its senses. The next thing Armstrong knew, all the ducklings had instinctively lined up on the ledge ready to follow the first one's lead. Now lined up a like a centerfielder, Armstrong proceeded to shag ducks like falling baseballs from the sky with his bare hands.

"In one instance two jumped at the same time," he said.

Armstrong caught both.

"I truly think the entire time the mother duck could sense I was trying to help," he said. "She just stood there and allowed me to catch them."

But that was only half the battle. The next step was to get them to the river. Armed with a gaggle of co-workers from the office, Armstrong and some of the Sterling Savings staff were prepared to serve as guides for the ducks to the water. However, it was clear that between traffic, and the ducklings inability to move at an expeditious pace, it was going to be a tedious journey. So one of Armstrong's colleagues retrieved an empty box, placed the ducklings in it and walked them to the river.
Finally, at a calm location along the river, the mother duck welcomed her newborns to a setting clearly more indigenous to their native habitat.

"It was amazing watching them jump," Armstrong said. "Could you imagine the second day of your life having to jump from a building to get home?"

Just Another Tough Montanan

So, you may have heard this, but if not I didn't want you to miss it. A school teacher in Missoula was riding his bike to work the other day and guess what he ran smack into. A black bear! Isn't that crazy?! He was riding to (and this is a great Montana name) Target Range Middle School and he T-boned the bear at about 25 miles an hour. Both escaped with some harsh scratches and bruises.

"Well, cubs, you'll never guess what Papa ran into today on the way to the berry patch..."

D