Sunday, February 27, 2011

The Constellation Project

Welcome once again to Kermit Elementary, where Mrs. Kirk's second-grade class attempts to form a line in order to go see the hall project.

Fourth and fifth grades were pressed for time, so instead of constellations, they did pictures of planets surrounded by Christmas lights.  Or wedding lights, to be exact.

Sadly, this must all be taken down after about a day, in order to prepare for the much-dreaded TAKS test.





The inflatable sun.

All together now:  "My Very Educated Mother ...

Just ...

Serves ...

Us ...

Nine ...

um..."

Oh, I miss Pluto!

The asteroid belt looks suspiciously like a bunch of wadded paper.  No asteroids can be hung from the ceiling due to fire code.

This asteroid looked so much like a fortune cookie that Liz added a fortune, much to the artist's consternation.

And around the corner is third grade's project.

This is Draco the Dragon.

Canus Major.

The Big Dipper.

Canus Minor.

Even the exit doors have snappy star paper on them, to darken the hallway.


Leo the lion.

Orion the hunter.

The rest of the second-grade teachers did the phases of the moon.

Saving the best for last, this is the beginning of Liz's section.  This remote-controlled moon model above can show all eight lunar phases.

Ursa Minor.  Liz included drawings of the animal, person or object represented in the constellation.

Ursa Major.

Libra, the scales.

Aquarius, the water bearer.

I put up most of the door.

Student-made comets.

As you may know, the zodiac was redone in January, probably by the same people who voted Pluto out of the solar system.  My astrological sign (not included in this project) is now Ophiuchus,

the serpent handler.  What a happy thing!  You don't want to mess with this guy!

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Railroad History

From flickr.
The Ruckus Rails blog has a very detailed history of the Texas-New Mexico Railroad that runs through Kermit.  Check it out!

Friday, February 18, 2011

Satan in the Shower


You’d think that cleanliness was next to godliness, but for the Csrefko family of Budapest, Hungary, they’ve stopped using their shower after seeing the devil’s face in their brand new shower tile.

According to the World Net Daily:

"I was naked coming out of the shower and I could suddenly see his eyes staring into me," said a horrified wife, Andrea Csrefko, after bathing for the first time. "I just screamed and ran.”

“We can't clean it off and it wasn't there when we put the tiles up," said Andrea's 52-year-old husband, Laszlo. “It just appeared overnight and nothing can move it. The room is always ice cold no matter how high we turn the heating up and we've just stopped using it because it's too spooky. We wash in the sink downstairs now."

The family has now hired an exorcist to purge the evil spirits from the bathroom.

My biggest question is how clean can you get in a sink?

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Fragile Moments

"There are things that we don't want to happen but have to accept,
 things we don't want to know but have to learn,
 and people we can't live without but have to let go."

Author Unknown

(In honor of our friend.)

Monday, February 14, 2011

Happy Valentine's Day!

Photo from an Arabic site.
The Night Has A Thousand Eyes
by Francis William Bourdillon

The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying of the sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.


Saturday, February 5, 2011

Dr. Arafiles Placed on Probation

From NewsWest9:
Associated Press - February 4, 2011 4:15 PM ET

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Texas medical regulators on Friday placed on probation a West Texas doctor involved in the unsuccessful prosecution of 2 nurses who complained anonymously that the physician was unethical and risking patients' health.

The Texas Medical Board meeting in Austin technically suspended Dr. Rolando G. Arafiles Jr., but said he could continue to practice medicine while on probation for four years, if he completed additional training.

In January, Arafiles was indicted on two counts each of misuse of official information and retaliation that stem from the prosecution of Anne Mitchell and Vickilyn Galle, both former nurses at Winkler County Memorial Hospital.

Charges were dropped against Galle, and Mitchell was exonerated in February 2010.

In June, the medical board filed a complaint against Arafiles, alleging he used "poor medical judgment."

Friday, February 4, 2011

Lucas Believes World Will End in 2012

(Thanks to Rawhide.)  From the Toronto Sun:

Funnyman Seth Rogen was left stunned by a recent encounter with his moviemaking hero George Lucas - because the Star Wars director spent 20 minutes telling him the world would end in 2012.

Rogen was left speechless when Lucas and Steven Spielberg joined a movie meeting he was a part of - but the encounter has left him worried his life will be over next year.

He recalls, “George Lucas sits down and seriously proceeds to talk for around 25 minutes about how he thinks the world is gonna end in the year 2012, like, for real. He thinks it.

“He’s going on about the tectonic plates and all the time Spielberg is, like, rolling his eyes, like, ’My nerdy friend won’t shut up, I’m sorry...’

“I first thought he (Lucas) was joking... and then I totally realized he was serious and then I started thinking, ’If you’re George Lucas and you actually think the world is gonna end in a year, there’s no way you haven’t built a spaceship for yourself... So I asked him... ’Can I have a seat on it?’

“He claimed he didn’t have a spaceship, but there’s no doubt there’s a Millennium Falcon in a garage somewhere with a pilot just waiting to go... It’s gonna be him and Steven Spielberg and I’ll be blown up like the rest of us.”

CAN'T WAIT TILL 2012?

Harold Camping's ministry says the world will end on May 21, 2011.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Lost and Found in Odessa: Dusty Hill's Hat


From the Odessa American:

Hat gone from dressing room before Odessa concert
January 19, 2011 4:40 PM
BY LYXAN TOLEDANES

Missing: Gray-brown Stetson. Reward: $150 worth of ZZ Top merchandise.

After more than a month of waiting, ZZ Top’s bassist and vocalist, Dusty Hill, is ready to get his beloved Stetson back. Hill’s hat went missing a few hours before ZZ Top’s concert at the (Odessa) Ector County Coliseum Dec. 9 (which we attended - DK).

“You travel all over the world and then it comes up missing in Texas,” Hill said. “It just killed me.”

In an attempt to recover his hat, Hill and the ZZ Top team are offering up a $150 reward to spend at the ZZ Top merchandise website to the person who currently has the Stetson.

“We’re going to give that person the key to the ZZ Top website,” Bob Merlis, ZZ Top’s publicist, said.

Merlis said there will be no questions asked of the person, and they can even remain anonymous.

Hill has worn his Stetson, trimmed with a ribbon of black horse hair, to most of the shows for the past two ZZ Top tours. Fans at the Coliseum, however, may have noticed that instead of the cowboy hat, Hill wore a baseball cap.

The day of the concert started out normally for Hill, spending that Thursday afternoon performing a sound check with the rest of the band and crew. Shortly thereafter, Hill went back to his hotel room, leaving his hat in his dressing room. He returned later to find the hat gone.

“About 30 minutes before the show, my hat’s (still) not there. Everyone was scrambling around trying to find it,” Hill said.

Hill said he tried looking again after the concert, but the search turned up empty, and Hill left Odessa the next morning, hatless.

 “Dusty Hill walked into Ector County Coliseum wearing his hat, and when he left the hat was gone,” Merlis said. “It sounds silly, but it’s a big drag separating a Texan from his favorite hat – that’s harsh.”

Hill’s attachment to the hat is reasonable, considering the fact that it’s was custom made for him when he had a cameo appearance on the third season of HBO’s “Deadwood.”

“I went and had one made by the people who do that show. It’s not shaped like your everyday rodeo hat, it’s more round,” Hill said.

Hill hopes that the person in possession of his Stetson will return the hat as soon as possible. He even wants to thank the person, should they choose to return it.

“The thing is, if I were that person, I wouldn’t get my satisfaction out of wearing it or showing it to people under the circumstances,” Hill said. “It’s not going to create a lot of enjoyment in their hands.”

UPDATE 1/24 - ZZ Top bassist's Stetson returned

ZZ Top’s bassist and vocalist Dusty Hill can finally breathe a sigh of relief.

After more than a month of searching for his missing Stetson, the custom-made hat was found and is now sitting in the Odessa American office waiting to be returned to its owner.

Hill lost his hat just hours before ZZ Top’s Dec. 9 concert at Ector County Coliseum. The OA reported the hat’s missing status last week and that a reward to spend at the ZZ Top website was offered.

Photos of an unidentified man wearing the hat were emailed to the OA over the weekend.

Several people called and emailed about knowing the whereabouts of the hat through the weekend. On Monday morning, one person, who declined to give his name, discreetly dropped the hat off outside the OA office.

The Stetson will be shipped back to Hill later in the week, per arrangements with ZZ Top’s publicist, Bob Merlis.

Merlis said Hill was “over the moon” on hearing his hat was
found.

The hat was made for Hill during a cameo on HBO’s “Deadwood.”

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

The Frozen Man of Carlsbad

From the Carlsbad Current-Argus:
Woman allegedly froze husband's body, kept receiving his retirement
By Matlin Smith
Current-Argus Staff Writer
Posted: 01/26/2011 04:14:32 PM MST


CARLSBAD, New Mexico — Investigators with the Eddy County Sheriff's Office have released bizarre details in the case of the man's body found Monday evening in the freezer of a home south of town.  (Video here)

According to information from Capt. Jeff Zuniga, at 7:50 p.m. Monday, the body of a human male was discovered in a chest-type freezer at a residence on the 1200 block of Haston Road.

The body was discovered by a daughter and son-in-law who were cleaning out the home of their mother, Barbara Sharpe, who passed away in November 2010.

Upon finding the body, the pair loaded the freezer into the back of a pickup truck and transported it to the Carlsbad Police Department. After determining that the incident occurred in the county, the CPD turned the investigation over to the sheriff's department.

"The body located within the freezer may be that of James Sharpe of Carlsbad, who has been unaccounted for since 1997," said Zuniga.

James Sharpe was known to be the husband of the late Barbara Sharpe, who died of health complications at the age of 63.

Before her death, Barbara Sharpe most recently went by Barbara Campbell, after assuming the last name of a male companion who came into the picture a few years after Sharpe's death.

According to investigators, at this point in the investigation nothing has surfaced to indicate that the companion was aware of the body in the freezer. Prior to its discovery, the freezer reportedly was in Barbara Sharpe's bedroom on Haston Road.

Investigators say information uncovered so far leans towards the possibility that James Sharpe may have died due to a terminal health condition in 1997; he would have been in his early 70s then.

"Barbara had mentioned to a health care worker prior to her death that she had stored her late husband in a freezer. The health care worker dismissed the statement due to Barbara Sharpe's grave condition," Zuniga stated.

The health care worker is the only person who has come forward with any knowledge of the body thus far, said Zuniga.

Additionally, documentation allegedly drafted by Barbara Sharpe was found in her personal property explaining why her husband was in the freezer.

The documentation reportedly indicated that she was remorseful, but couldn't afford to survive without his retirement income.

"The ECSO Special Investigations Unit will continue to work closely with the Office of the Medical Investigator to confirm the official identity of the decedent as well as the cause and manner of death," said Zuniga.

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