Sunday, June 15, 2008

Here Comes the Rain Again....

Good lord, I never thought I'd say I was sick and tired of the rain after all the snow we had this winter, but it's official, I'm tired of it. Constant rain and thunderstorms equals lots of flooding. In a period of one week, there were 18 confirmed tornadoes in southern Wisconsin (9 one day, nine another). Thankfully they all missed Madison. So, except for a flooded parking lot and periodic power outages, things have been ok.

I realize I haven't updated this blog in ages, but there's really not much to update. I've been working on my thesis and I finally turned in the outline and first chapter to my adviser before the end of the semester. Now I'm working on another chapter detailing magic ('merveilleux') in 12th Century Arthurian literature, and the following chapter will detail how magic in 13th Century Arthurian texts has been sanitized and Christianized. When it first appeared in 12th Century grail quests, the grail was just a mystical serving dish, it wasn't figured as the cup of Christ until Robert de Boron in the early 13th Century. I hope to get another chapter or two done this summer. I also desperately need to find a summer job or I'm going to get awfully hungry next month, haha.

Let's see, in other news, I had an awful red flatworm infestation in my reef tank--it was so disgusting, there were tens of thousands of flatworms covering everything. I tried natural methods, added predators, but they didn't make a dent. So finally, I added some chemicals and I nuked the bastards. Fortunately, I siphoned off as many flatworms as I could, so the toxins from the dying flatworms didn't kill anything. However, the flatworms did smother many of my corals, and I lost many of them. Oh well, nothing like starting out from scratch I guess.

I've been working on my camera, so I got some decent pictures. Here's a random sampling:






Well, that's all for now, I hope to do better in keeping up with this blog. Yeah right, I know, I've said that before. ;-)