BIG BROTHER 5 HOUSEGUESTS, FIRST GLANCE

Big Brother, in their infinite wisdom, has selected and made known at least 13 of this year's houseguests. Three blocks on the BB website remain blank, and this time without the big Question Mark. So, are there 13 players or 16? Guess we'll have to wait to see if those will be filled by 3 more players.   Here are my quick takes from the photos and brief Q&A:  

Adria - 30, married, Web Designe, AL. Seems stable but watch out for clashes in the kitchen with Marvin who considers himself a gourmet cook and sees this as part of his winning strategy.  

Diane - 22, single, KY, cocktail waitress. Likes gossip but is afraid of snooty girls in the house. Vulnerable, but maybe not.  

Drew - 22, single, college grad, OH. Weakness is women, will miss his cell phone, afraid to trust. 'Do what makes you come alive' attitude. Probably uses women and blames them, and will be used back.  

Holly - Model, 20;s, sinle, LA-CA. loves cats, considers she is caring and goes out 'on a limb' for others, possibly vegetarian. Likely to be used, hurt and discarded by more focused players.  

Jase - 28, single, Vol. Firefighter, IL. How he'll win? 'A controlled mess! Like falling on the ground, yet missing the dog turd.' What he'll miss from the outside? 'Um, well gee, me on TV."Already I think he might be the Most Annoying. Possible gay.  

Jennifer - 21, TX, single, Restaurant Hostess - says she's artistic, funny, stubborn, odd, overly judgemental. Will miss hearing about world events. Plans to become friends with people, figure them out and then use it against them.  Being overly judgemental does not bode well for her long-term chances, but she does seem to have a viable strategy if she can stay under the radar.  

Karen - 30, married, Portrait Artist, NJ - judgemental, opinionated potty-mouth; an artist and highly competitive. She will clash with Jennifer over artistic things and Mike, and possibly Scott, over politics. Her competitiveness reminds me of Nicole and her potty-mouth reminds me of Krista.  

Lori - 26, single, Yoga Instructor, MA - her big fault is being messy...otherwise she seems 'normal'. She is this year's physical fitness instructor. Ok, I'll play along. Yeah, right. As a player she seems like the type that could slide under the radar if she gets in with the stronger group.  

Marvin - 36, single, mortician, SC. Considers himself to be dynamic and a maverick, Christian, 'too real for some people', wants a 6-person alliance, backstab & be the chef. He is going to be too 'dynamic and real' and may be unable to hide his strategizing ways; he'll clash over the kitchen and be an easy mark to be voted off.  

Michael - 23, engaged Dad, Security Officer, OK. I took one look at his photo and thought "Josh". Here's what he says about himself: 'caring, loving'...weakness? 'my emotions'. Plans to go into the house 'with my head up and be myself'. Yup, Josh. Overly Sensitive Man with self-esteem issues. Watch him find a 'Roddy-type' and become his emotional pawn.  

Mike - 41, single dad, commercial painter, MI. says he's competitive, loyal and smart. heroes are Bush and Limbaugh. Weakness is he's not exciting. Strategy is to be friendly, agreeable and win key competitions. He looks like he could be agreeable and low key. He will be the older person who has some self-control while the young people show their hands and fight it out. I am starting out liking him.  

Scott - 26, single, Sales Rep, PA. says he's savage, outgoing, relaxed, strong and in control. Mentions fame twice, and his looks, so he's a famewhore. Plans to be friendly but deceitful. As Katjam observed, Roddy 2.0. I'll take it a step further and say that Michael will become his Josh. Scott also has cold eyes and reminds me a bit like photos of Scott Peterson. Dangerous.  

Will - 26, single, registered nurse, MS. Slings the slang left and right in his Q&A. Will miss his cell phone and new's about Whitney in the tabloids. My take: thinks too highly of himself and is gay [Whitney?? cell phone??]. Plans to slide under the radar, but that could be hard for such an ego to do.

LET ME TRY THIS AGAIN

"AOL ate my blog entry!"

I had this multiple-paragraph rhapsody composed about the joys of the start of summer and was adding in the links. Gone! Now I'm too tired to sing the full song.

Joyful signs of summer:

1.  The grill, even if red-hot coals do fall onto my 'deck' from time to time. Hope no one was below. May the chicken fat sizzle!

2.  Thanks to persistant accolades by a chorus of Chat friends, I have a new Official Summertime 2004 drink.  And a First Runner Up.

3.  New music, thanks to Rhapsody and friends at Looking Good. Nick Cave is a keeper with a list of other artists to check out.

4.  Delly, my new laptop, and it's wireless router, software and the USB flashstick so that my summer obsession (see below) can be close by and I can free myself from sitting at a desk chair. I've needed the past month to get it set up and accessorized for work, home, and integration with my desktop computer.

5.  Hamster Time has been refurbished for a new group of Houseguests, friends are starting to gather again, Green Tuna has completed her NC vacation, and we are all preparing and anticipating a new summer Big Brother madness.

Links and photos will be edited in. I need a nice little summer nap.

WHEN WILL I EVER LEARN?

Bedtimes this past weekend:  3:30 am - Friday night, 3:30 am - Saturday night, 4:00 am Sunday night.  

Ok, I guess it's bad policy to begin playing Zuma at 11:30 pm. On the other hand, perhaps I'm just in training for late-night Big Brother Live Feed watching.  

ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz.

PASSING THOUGHTS

This weekend I'm consumed with scanning my slides into the computer. This first required sorting the slides into some kind of life timeline. Sometimes the slides were stamped with a processing date and sometimes not and the latter needed considerable effort to place, particulary those from the 70's when I never seemed to stay in one place for a long time.

The problem was compounded because in my travels I crossed the USA several times. For instance, I lived in California twice but at four addresses. These were interspesed with stays in New York state. In one case I lived with my parents in the same house three different times. Identifying which Third Street stay, the one in 1972, 1973, or 1975 I was looking at took some detective work.

Perhaps this doesn't seem important, but when you get to my age and you recognize that you're forgetting a LOT and that it's harder to stir up the old memory banks, it's time to nail down some basic information....names and locations. Heaven forbid that something gets out of sequence in a complicated timeline to cause even more befuddlement.

So, along with the scans, filed by Year, and in some cases in special event folders within the year, I'm going to write a text file with notes about each year so I can get my life sorted out once and for all in text and photo.

In the process of working on the most complicated portion of the timeline (mentioned above) my thoughts went to a Russian 101 class I took in college in about 1981. I liked the sound of the Russian language and it's grammar and it's very charismatic instructor. He said there were jobs in the government for translators and for a time I entertained the thought of going into this field. Aside from the fact that I was not motivated enough to do it, I also thought of the background check I'd have to undergo, listing where I've lived and where I went to school and who I knew and in the complexity of my life I knew, even at that time, that I'd never be able to pull this information together. So, now I'm attempting to do it 20 years further down the road.

As a final rambling passing thought, I recalled that Russian instructor, so charismatic and impassioned about his area of knowledge, and I remembered my first college Chemistry professor; he was bald and not 'sexy' charismatic like my Russian professor, but he had a joyful, uplifting spirit and a love for Chemistry. I loved Chemistry, and chose it for my major, because of his love and enthusiasm for the field. Unfortunately this love was not sustained to where I developed my own passions. I became capable enough to become a good lab technician, but could never dedicate myself to it to become a good Chemist.

Enough mental wanderings for now .... back to the slides.

PROGRAM NOTES

While we wait for the A-list Reality shows [The Amazing Race and Big Brother 5] to start:

Tuesdays at 9 pm on UPN: Top Model, season 1 - rebroadcast [well, it is new to me!]

Wednesdays at 9 pm on Bravo: The Restaurant, season 2

VERY GOOD NEWS

My Dad made it successfully through the surgery today!

His broken neck was pinned and the surgeon said he should be able to move it again. One of our fears had been that it would be pinned without mobility, but this is thankfully not the case.

We are so relieved and grateful for all the prayers and good thoughts that have supported him, and us, through these past several days. Please continue to remember him for a strong and quick recovery.

He is on a ventilator for some lung infection/pnumonia that he has been battling all year, but other than that things are looking quite good at this point in time. He will, of course, be on pain medication and the introvenious feeding for a while yet. He may also have limited ability to speak during the post-op healing.

We will not have a good idea of his post-surgery prognosis for a while, but I must say that we have been greatly encouraged at this point.

Just as an aside, my Dad was a ceramic engineer and during the course of his career he worked on the development of many new technologies. One of these was fiber optics which was a key part of the surgical equipment used in today's operation. He has been very fortunate to have the technology and surgical skill that attended to him today.

Thanks be to God.

PRAYERS ARE WELCOME

My sister in Arizona just called. My father is in the hospital tonight in stable but critical condition. He fell this morning in his bedroom and hit his head and broke his neck.

At first he did not have feeling in his extremities. The feeling thankfully returned in the hospital; he is under traction and being attended to by a neurosurgeon. His vital signs are good and he will have more tests and perhaps additional treatments tomorrow.

My family will appreciate prayers and good thoughts for his recovery, sense of peace and whatever ongoing care he will need, and also for my sister who is bearing so much to care for him.  Thank you so much.

Monday update:  The surgery did not happen today; info is hard to come by, perhaps they are still doing tests or waiting for the swelling to lessen. My dad is apparently still stable, which is good. My sister took care of necessary legal matters and will see him tonight.

Tuesday update:  No surgery today. I haven't talked to my sister yet, but the nurse said his condition remains about the same. I asked about the surgery and she said it might be Wednesday, but she did not have anything definate yet.

Wednesday update: My dad is scheduled now for surgery Thursday morning at 8:30am , Arizona time. It is called a 'stabilization surgery' to pin the broken part of the neck. We are hopeful that he can come through this.