Tuesday, November 13, 2012

How many emails????

I was struck today by the claim that was made in the disgraced-generals-have-inappropriate-relationships case that there is a strange assertion floating around: that Kelley and Allen had 20000-30000 emails etc going back and forth (and that some of them were inappropriate).

Now, a standard work week in the US (2 weeks holiday, 40 hours per week) runs 2000 hours.  This means that assuming that they have been communicating for a couple or years, say, they are still sending an average of 5 emails per hour.  Now, over short periods I could see someone doing that, but over a sustained period, of months?

Wondering if Allen/Kelley both have verbal diarrhoea...

Yours, having an email load rather smaller,
N.

Monday, November 12, 2012

The Undead Hotel

A short story, by Boo.

The Undead Hotel

Today, my family and I are going on a Halloween vacation.  The hotel is called The Undead Hotel.  I guess it's called that because it's a theme for Halloween.

We've just been told our room number.  The person behind the counter told us that to get to our room, we have to go up some "possessed elevator."  Well, here we go.  My brother is about to press the floor number three button when "don't press that button." my mum say!  "Why?" Skibo asks.  Suddenly, he spots it.  There's a face on the panel.  It's a ghost face!  It starts moving.  We look around the cramped elevator and notice lots of other moving ghost heads.  My brother presses the button really fast and finally we're on the right floor.  We step out of the elevator and into a long hall. I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this place.

We walk down the long hall.  I see millions of wax statues.  I notice George Washington, Henry Hudson and Rosa Parks.  "Anybody hear something behind us?" I ask uncertainly.  We all turn around. "Ahhhhhhhhh!"
we all scream together.  There are wax figures following us.  I remember the man at the counter telling us to beware because there's danger lurking around every corner.  My family and I dash to our room.  We lock the door behind us.  I can hear the wax figures pounding at the door.  I can hear my heart beating as loudly as the wax hands at the door.  We all turn around to catch our breath.  Uh oh, the wax figures aren't our only problem now.

"Any body else getting the creeps?" I ask.  "Wow." James exclaims.  We can't hear the wax figures anymore, so we walk away from the door.   The room is so quiet, it's horrifying.  The room is full of zombie figures.  I see some in chairs and there's two on a bunk bed.  It looks like a zombie family.  I  see two zombies that look like kids, two that look grown up and, oh look, a zombie dog!  I thought that they didn't allow animals in hotels, but I guess they make an exception for zombies.  "This is so cool!" announces my brother.  "Shhh, don't talk so loud." I whisper to him.  Uh oh, it's too late.  The zombies in the bed began to sit up.  They got out of bed and headed our way.  The ones in the chairs followed them.  The dog started to bark.  "Brains, brains!" the zombies started shouting.  They were about to attack us when we ran right through the middle of their group.  "Look, a door!" I shout.  We run straight through the open door into a dark, smelly place.

We stumble around the dark place for a while, trying to find our way around.  "Ow!" I shout as I stumble over something on the floor.  I fall flat on my face!  Luckily, I fall on something soft and furry. "Grrrrrrrrr! I feel a slow rumbling underneath me.  Then, the object I am laying on, stands up!  I hear a growl coming from the object!  Finally my dad lights a match, and puts it in the lantern he found.  The whole room escapes with light.   I look around.  There's a fifteen foot bear standing on its hind legs in front of me!  Two tiny cubs stand beside it.  "Don't make a sound, and don't move!" Mama whispers.  The bears charge towards us. We make a run for it.  There's an opening at the end of the cave.  We run out right before the bears catch us.

Finally, we're out!  I never thought that I'd see the light again!  We're surrounded by millions of trees.  Wait, what's that lurking in the shadows?  Suddenly, something jumps at me from behind.  I duck down just in time!  Vampires appear from the shadows.  They slowly come closer and closer.  When they were just inches away from us, they took one whiff of us, paused, and flew away into the night.  I was puzzled by why they flew away, when, it hit me.  I remembered reading that vampires were allergic to garlic, and we had garlic bread for dinner, so we still smelled of garlic.  We have made it out of the woods, and are standing at the edge of a maze-like place.   I wonder what horrors await us inside.

We enter the maze.  I touch the hedge.  "Ouch!" I exclaim in pain.  Electricity shocks my whole body.  I fall to the ground in pain.  "Are you ok?" Dad asks with a worried look in his eyes.  "Yeah, I'm fine, just a little dazed." I answer in a small voice.  I stumble to my feet.  "Now let's get out of here!"  I announce.  I stumble around, still feeling dazed.  We walk around the maze for a while, feeling lost.  We come to a a few dead ends a couple of times.  I hear a groan coming from around the corner, I look up, up, up, and there stands Frankenstein!  "Grohhhhh!"  He groans again.  He walks toward us.  The ground shakes as he walks.  Thud, thud, thud, goes his shoes on the ground.  Now, this may seem asbsurd, but Skibo and I got these little water pistols for Christmas, and now we carry them everywhere.  So, we take out our water pistols and start shooting Frankenstein.  We short circuited him and as he fell to the floor, we ran around him and out of the maze.

Now we're standing at the top of a tube.  I think that it's a slide.  It curves and twirls around and around.  "Looks like this is the way out." James announces.  We each hop into the slide.  It twists, twirls and curves.  It takes us over small bumps.  Finally, at the end of the slide, we land in a small pit of sand.  "Yes.  We're outand I'm alive!" I shout, happy to see daylight again!  After everyone's out of the slide, we journey home, exhausted from our long adventure!

And now, a word from Boo's sponsor.  I'm thrilled by this!  It is so far beyond anything I was asked to do at the age of 10!
Yours, publishing her story, copyright Boo, 2012,
N.

I've been remiss in posting...

But tonight I have an incentive to post!  Boo had a writing assignment, due tomorrow, and sat down with me as she finished it.  She's to write a short story, a scary story: and I'm stunned by the job she's done.  I don't think I was expected to work at this sort of level until I was 12 or 13, not just turned 10!

Yours, thrilled,
N.

Friday, November 9, 2012

Happy Birthday, Boo!

Double digits!!!
Yours, parentally proud,
N!