Sinkhole

Aerial view of the huge hole caused after a collapse in the sewage system in the neighbourhood of San Antonio, north of Guatemala city, 23 February 2007. A 330-foot-deep sinkhole killed two teenage siblings when it swallowed about a dozen homes early Friday and forced the evacuation of nearly 1,000 people in a crowded Guatemala City neighborhood. Edward Ramirez said he and other residents had been hearing noises and feeling tremors for about a month before the ground opened up before dawn, waking many in the poor neighborhood.

Sandworms begin their life as simple creatures known as sandtrout, or "Little Makers" to the Fremen. The sandworm begins the adult stage of its life at only about a meter long, rarely surfacing before reaching two meters, but their final size, as indicated above, can be several hundred meters. A joke among imperial ecologists goes: Question: What do the sandworms of Dune eat? Answer: Humans.

This weekend, I went back to the garage and pulled out the catapult. I had picked up more wood, and this time around, had a reinforced frame knocked together in no time, with extra bracing all around to ensure that the torsion engine (also known as the 'really tightly wound rope') wouldn't crack the frame again. No problem, right? I had the rope looped back through in a second, and began the winding. Yeah. The frame wasn't the problem. The rope was. Just a hair past where I had it last time, the rope split. No problem, I thought: I'll use a cotton line twisted double for extra strength. Same thing. Dammit! When all else fails - do what the Romans did: Go for nylon. This one lasted no problem, and I was able to get a good tension going. I also figured I'd let the sling hang over the edge of the retaining wall to give our ammunition/potato good clearance. With a little tweaking, we had this one hurling potatos 20 meters or so, and I think I can get a bit more out of it with a some adjustments of the sling mechanism. The neighborhood kids all came by and took a turn as well (which was great, because otherwise, it would've been me having to chase those potatoes, and that would be Quite Wrong). By the twelth or fourteenth launch, though, the whole thing was starting to shake itself apart on every throw. I kept having to bang the braces back together, add more nails, etc. This weekend, I'll head down to the DIY store for some metal strapping to brace the joints. And then? Then we'll go hunting for Visigoths... Who knew science could be so much fun? Click below to see a the 4 year old Critter operating a catapult.

As of last Friday, 9 February, we are officially without property. We had listed our California house on the market on the 2nd of January, and despite the many warnings from friends and family that the housing market was rapidly approaching the chill of Goodwife Nurse's mammary glands, we had multiple offers by the 14th. A little bit of paperwork later, and we've now closed the deal on the sale of our house in California with remarkably little fuss or bother on our part, especially considering we managed all of this from about 5,000 miles away. I must say that this is due in very large part to the fact that our dear friend and godmother to the Critter acted with our power of attourney to sign documents which couldn't wait for faxing, and to the fact that we had the World's Best Real Estate Agent. Seriously. She should wear a cape. And carry a golden lariat. And fight Nazis. Considering some of the stuff we had to deal with, she made the whole process relatively painless, moving parts, paperwork and people into place where needed to ensure that there were no surprises and a minimum of money (well, relatively speaking) that had to be invested in preparation for sale. Someone asked me if it felt different to no longer own the Bay Area home that we had put so much effort into over the past years. It was the first house we bought, and the home that we brought our first child back to from the hospital. And the answer is, yes, it feels different. It feels freaking great! Like a 54 year-old, two-story rock has been lifted from my back. Yeah, we put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into that house. But that was because it had sharp pointy bits that made me cry, and were hellaciously difficult to remove. And now that we're home-free (ha!), what are we going to do? Well, we're going to enjoy England for a while longer, and then we'll see. I can't exactly tell at this point what will happen. We've decided on very few requirements at this point: a) we'd prefer to move someplace besides California. b) although not a requirement, I'd really like to have my TiVo back. Hmm. Maybe we need to come up with some other requirements.