Move it before we get there, please

As I ponder the various details about our Aegean/Middle-Eastern adventure next month, I'm very glad we're going to have a Norwegian captain. And I hope they get Santorini's sea neighborhood cleaned up before we get there:

SANTORINI, Greece (AP) -- Scores of passengers climbed down rope ladders to rescue vessels after a Greek cruise ship struck a reef Thursday in the Mediterranean and started listing, forcing the evacuation of 1,600 people including North Carolina high school students.

Authorities said most of the nearly 1,200 passengers on the Greek-flagged Sea Diamond were American tourists. At least two school groups from Canada, more than 100 Spaniards and a crew of almost 400 were also on board when the ship hit the rocks off the island of Santorini shortly before 4 p.m.

One of the U.S. student passengers had a bit of trouble getting his mom to believe him (of course, given my wise-ass tendencies, I'd have trouble, too):

David Land, 17, of Middle Creek High School in Apex, North Carolina, said in a telephone interview that he was taken to a restaurant after being evacuated and was due to travel to Athens on an overnight boat.

"Everybody is perfectly fine," he said.

His mother, Deniece Land of Raleigh, North Carolina, said she had talked to her son several times this week during the trip.

"They had been around Greece and Athens and were coming back from Turkey. He called ... and he said, 'This ship is taking on water, and we're going down.' I said, 'Don't play with me.' He said, 'I have a life vest on.'"

Heh.

Move it before we get there, please

As I ponder the various details about our Aegean/Middle-Eastern adventure next month, I'm very glad we're going to have a Norwegian captain. And I hope they get Santorini's sea neighborhood cleaned up before we get there:

SANTORINI, Greece (AP) -- Scores of passengers climbed down rope ladders to rescue vessels after a Greek cruise ship struck a reef Thursday in the Mediterranean and started listing, forcing the evacuation of 1,600 people including North Carolina high school students.

Authorities said most of the nearly 1,200 passengers on the Greek-flagged Sea Diamond were American tourists. At least two school groups from Canada, more than 100 Spaniards and a crew of almost 400 were also on board when the ship hit the rocks off the island of Santorini shortly before 4 p.m.

One of the U.S. student passengers had a bit of trouble getting his mom to believe him (of course, given my wise-ass tendencies, I'd have trouble, too):

David Land, 17, of Middle Creek High School in Apex, North Carolina, said in a telephone interview that he was taken to a restaurant after being evacuated and was due to travel to Athens on an overnight boat.

"Everybody is perfectly fine," he said.

His mother, Deniece Land of Raleigh, North Carolina, said she had talked to her son several times this week during the trip.

"They had been around Greece and Athens and were coming back from Turkey. He called ... and he said, 'This ship is taking on water, and we're going down.' I said, 'Don't play with me.' He said, 'I have a life vest on.'"

Heh.

Am I a bad person?

When I see stories like this one, they make me smile (okay...snicker)...and wish I could use this same mechanism occasionally. I have candidates:

AMANDA, Ohio (AP) -- A substitute teacher's tool for silencing chatty kindergartners -- clothespins -- doesn't wash with school officials.

Four boys said spring-type clothespins were placed over their upper or lower lips for talking too much in class, Amanda-Clearcreek Primary School principal Mike Johnsen wrote in a letter to parents this week.

Ruth Ann Stoneburner, a retired school nurse who had worked as a substitute for several years, confirmed to Johnsen that she had used the clothespin discipline March 26, he said.

Yes, it was a poor choice of tools, and they're little kids, and she's a grownup, and all like that.

I still snickered.

Am I a bad person?

When I see stories like this one, they make me smile (okay...snicker)...and wish I could use this same mechanism occasionally. I have candidates:

AMANDA, Ohio (AP) -- A substitute teacher's tool for silencing chatty kindergartners -- clothespins -- doesn't wash with school officials.

Four boys said spring-type clothespins were placed over their upper or lower lips for talking too much in class, Amanda-Clearcreek Primary School principal Mike Johnsen wrote in a letter to parents this week.

Ruth Ann Stoneburner, a retired school nurse who had worked as a substitute for several years, confirmed to Johnsen that she had used the clothespin discipline March 26, he said.

Yes, it was a poor choice of tools, and they're little kids, and she's a grownup, and all like that.

I still snickered.

Memory upgrade...for the *wetware*?

A team at USC's Center for Neural Engineering has made a silicon chip that will talk to brain cells...the first step in development of chips to help brain disorders and, it is to be hoped, to eventally help millions of American men find their car keys without having to ask their wives...and millions of American women find their cars without having to push the button on their car keys and wait for the car to tell them where it is.

Damn, that was a long sentence...about long senescence.

Memory upgrade...for the *wetware*?

A team at USC's Center for Neural Engineering has made a silicon chip that will talk to brain cells...the first step in development of chips to help brain disorders and, it is to be hoped, to eventally help millions of American men find their car keys without having to ask their wives...and millions of American women find their cars without having to push the button on their car keys and wait for the car to tell them where it is.

Damn, that was a long sentence...about long senescence.