Labored Day

I finished the weekend by emptying the cans of resurfacer of the deck and the driveway. For the third night of the four, it's a nice night to sit out on the porch.

I looked up the internet to get the boiling point of spiropentane. It actually boils higher than regular pentane (39º vs 36º). Would a cyclic alkane be so strained to overcome lower boiling points as it approaches spherical geometry?

I finished the language tapes today, adding to the space in German with my notes from 1976. There must have been better techniques to learn any langugage. I thought of flash cards, tapes, and Mo Berg.
Medical physiology reminds me of highschool biology with Sister John Ann. There is so much to plow through in that review.

Mom had me up at 1:30 this morning to get Tim out of bed. I suppose we were quite active last night.

I had a thought of rewriting the old adventure in 1978, and calling it "The Case of Chris's Crisis". I have a later view of such a Chris from Dr Kao's lab in 1989: tall, blond, with scattered freckles.

Summer Romance

Finally the hot weather broke, although I still have heat rash on my arms, legs, and belly, and it's still itchy. Tempertures in the morning are in the teens, and twice, on Thursday and yesterday, I was tempted to stay outside awhile after dark, just to watch the stars. Unfortunately, the weather won't last.

Wednesday afternoon, I had to take the bus to Franklin Mills, rather than into Franklin Mills, so I had to walk through the mall. I went into Boarders to discover that the audio version of Aron Ralston's "Between a Rock and a Hard Place" was available at a discount. I spent much of yesterday listening to it during my brainless job.

My other work progresses slowly. I just finished my review of stereochemistry in Morrison and Boyd, and I can pick up the concepts much better than I did when I took the courses in 1976-7. Of course, going through the well-worn chapters ranks easy, until I reach the chapters my courses never touched, the unknown nine.

Sun 4 Sept
The weekend proceeds as well as expected. I spent yesterday maintaining Midnight with a furcut and a bath. I started cleaning the basement but little else. Today wasn't much better. I can't seem to get the peeling paint off the window frames. Tim has diarrhea, and we had to clean him twice. I tried to send Philipp an email, and the MSN service ate it.

William Hubbs Rehnquiest died yesterday. Now Schrub has two vacancies, just as his incompetence pushed his approval below 40%. Hurricane Katrina brings up the question -- What if it were a terrorist attack on the levees in New Orleans? Would Schrub interrupt his vacation? Allowing oil companies to damage the coast and destroy wetlands, along with cutting funds for the natural defense of New Orleans to give more welfare for the wealthy, have all come home to roost. Will the American electorate finally wake up and throw out Schrub's fascist theocrats? Must we have another Great Depression before this revolt against the twentieth century returns to the 1920's?

Back to Rehnquist: he was the most reactionary of Nixon's Gang of Four. Rehnquist didn't just make up excuses for crooked cops like Byron White, he actually made up excuses for others in criminal justice. (IL vs Rakas, 1976 comes to mind.)
The last time a Supreme Court justice died in office was in 1953, when Chief Justice Fred Vinson did. It turned out to be a tremendous event because Earl Warrn replaced him. I doubt if we'll be as lucky this time.
Rehnquist was an afterthought when Hugo Black and John Marshall Harlan both retired in September and died before 1971 ended. Lewis Powell, a brillain lawyer from Virginia was to replace Black, but Harlan gave Nixon an unexpected fourth coice. The Rehnquisition provided Nixon with revenge until now.