I was walking away from the Tv playing in the lunch room when I noticed the sharp reduction in television volume when I had turned around. Instantaneously I noticed what had been in front of me for nearly 23 years or rather what had been beside me. Human ears are uniquely shaped to funnel in sound most efficiently from the direction in which the person is facing. By contrast, if you’ve ever seen a deer’s ears you know that they face sidways and can swivel to a certain angle towards the front and back. I thought a little more and came to the conclusion that this was just another example of predator/prey biology. Lions, bears, and other predatory animals I could think of also had them facing forward. Elephants were another gargantuan example of prey having ears that faced to the side. This, of course, makes it harder for predators to sneak up on prey from behind. Of course, prey already have the advantage of having their eyes close to (or on, in some cases) side of their head, allowing them to see to the side and, in some cases, backwards. I cannot figure out, however, why it would be advantageous for predators to have their ears facing forward. Perhaps, the same way that having both eyes facing forward allows for stereoscopic vision, having the ears facing forward gives the predator a 3D auditory experience. I can’t see a real benefit for this in humans, but for animals with hearing far stronger than we do, perhaps it provides them with additional details about their enviroment. Just another example of the wonderful design of the Creator who strives, it seems, to make an equal playing field. Neither predator nor prey seems to have an advantage - and that’s a good thing. Otherwise either the predators would eat all the prey or the prey would multiply too numerously. Neither outcome would be good for the environment.

what do you do when the one thing you have been waiting for all day is denied to you? Sleep and hope that tomorrow brings better luck

And just seven until I see my bride-to-be again. I wish this time would fly by a little faster. Unfortunately, work has been a little slow. I’m in a place at work where I think I may be close to finishing up my project, but I have been making a lot of requested revisions and, as such, have to meet a lot with people. They happen to be a little busier than me, so this has been stopping me. Perhaps today I’ll ask for another project to keep me busy. I think I’m more anxious about the wedding because the wedding means that I’ll get to see Danielle again. If she were living in Tampa, I probably wouldn’t be as anxious, maybe only seventy percent of my current level. The only part of my day that’s flying by right now is the afternoon because I have so much work to do to help my parents get the house ready for the reception next Friday. (and it actually has to be done by the rehearsal dinner on Thursday) So my days drag on while my evenings and nights go by way too quickly.

If I were someone else, I’d cry. I don’t cry for much, though, so I’m not. Today I got some luggage as a wedding present from my grandmother who passed away during Spring Break. She actually had a little piggy bank where she had been saving up money for my wedding present. It came out to be enough for the suitcase and an overnight bag. I am sad because she was so important to me and she’s missing from my wedding. That’s why I put more pictures of her in my wedding video than anyone else in my family. I miss you so much Abuela. Danielle misses you too! Thanks for the presents, I’ll enjoy them a lot.

That’s what the Chesire Cat told Alice in the Disney version of the story when she informs hims that she doesn’t want to visit the March Hare or the Mad Hatter because they’re both mad. I feel as though the entire US has fallen through the rabbit hole. Don’t get me wrong - I love my country; it’s got the best combination of freedoms and protections that exists in today’s world. But the things people have been saying recently have been scaring me a little. Long-time readers of my blog (who have been with me since the beginning) will know that ever since the 11 September attacks on the US, I have been a bit wary of how our political system has been becoming more and more like IngSoc. There are days that I feel that those speaking for the US are part of the Ministry of Truth in Orwell’s 1984.

just 12 more days! Less than two weeks before I get married.

I finally got Fedora Core 4 running after nearly 12 hours of installation. Boy, that was a little rough on my patience. The first change I noticed is that the default “time left” bar is candy cane striped now instead of solid blue.

I decided to boot first into Gnome and see what this new “Clear Looks” theme looked like. It pretty much lived up to my expectations. It is a much cleaned-up version of Bluecurve, just as everyone claimed before. By cleaned up I mean that it’s a much more streamlined-looking, post-modern theme. It’s more like XP inthat the corners are more rounded and the buttons look nicer. Unlike XP there’s no annoying red “X” button. The other icons look the same. It may be me, but they look like they are rendered a bit nicer, but it could be in my head. Gnome also seems to run faster than it previously did, but I have no way of testing this. I didn’t do any benchmarking before and my other Linux computer is on a significantly slower processor.

Americans may remember George Bush’s comments this last election in which he said that America had to check to see if it was ok to import drugs from Canada. When he said that, my jaw dropped to the floor. Did he just say that we had to check and see if drugs from Canada were safe? We’re talking about Canada here, not some developing nation. I am pretty sure that the Canadians have equal or higher standards for their medicines; Europe usually does. Basically he didn’t want to upset the drug companies who had paid Republicans so much money to keep being able to charge Americans higher prices than our neighbors to the north and he didn’t want to upset Americans who might not vote for him if he flatly told them they wouldn’t be able to buy these cheaper drugs.

I started upgrading my laptop from Fedora Core 3 to Fedora Core 4 today. After 9 hours it STILL wasn’t done. This is because I was installing it on a P3 600 Mhz computer. Hopefully I’ll get to play with it a little tomorrow. If not, I’ve got all the time after the wedding to play with and explore this sucker. Plus, the way people are complaining about different issues on the Fedora List-serves, it’s apparent that waiting a few days probably wouldn’t be such a bad idea as it will give the teams some time to patch up whatever software isn’t working quite right.

After two days of downloading, finally got Fedora Core 4 downloaded. Currently burning the discs, but I won’t get to play until I get back from work. It’s going to be an ancy day.