I can only write in cook books and text books I'm not sure I could write in any other books. Partly because once there's a mark my eyes are always drawn there and it's hard to ignore it and focus on the rest of the text.

My library in my new town is in a strip mall. It's right next to my insurance office, as a matter of fact. I guess it's a more of a branch to the county system than an independent city library.

Anyone have a special celebratory treat on Friday? or reward yourselves for making it to Friday by having some treat? Something you usually get on Friday but you wouldn't usually get on other days?

I'm indulging way more in the internets today than I do the rest of the week, but that's not just a Friday thing. I'm celebrating the fact that the last two weeks have finally started to pay off. I'm actually going to have a fun weekend!

But you are already competent readers. If you aren't, and you are a given a sonnet and you see what other people have said to and about the sonnet on the same page? EXTREMELY helpful and powerful.

When I copy text I actually leave at least half the page for notes and annotation.

So, I know I've mentioned my crazy boss and her bizarre need to control before.

Today, I had a meeting with her boss at 9am. at 8am, crazy boss comes into my office and tells me that my meeting has been cancelled. I know damn well it hasn't because I just got an email confirming it. I mention this politely to crazy boss.

Maybe ten minutes later she calls to tell me my meeting has been moved to 10. Okay, whatever.

I finally get to the meeting at 10 and big boss asks, very nicely, why I had to move the meeting with her. Umm, err, not sure, talk to crazy control freak boss?

Cash, radon is an extremely easy fix. Basically you just need to vent the space.

Not exactly annotating, but one part of my former conservative religious background that I don't regret is the time my InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapter spent doing a manuscript study of the Gospel of Mark. We had double-spaced manuscript printouts with all chapter and verse indicators removed, boxes of highlighters and colored pencils for marking up the text, and stacks of reference materials--although since Mark is supposed to be one of if not the earliest New Testament book, we weren't allowed to reference anything else in the NT--the goal was to insofar as possible not use anything to interpret the text that wouldn't have existed for the original readers. Except, you know, highlighters and colored pencils. Anyway, I can't remember ever being more excited to delve into a text--taking something very familiar and unpacking it in such a way that it was like reading it for the first time.

Still can't bring myself to write in my books, though! It just feels like a sacrilege.

Radon is just in the ground, right? It was a big deal when I lived in MN, but not so much elsewhere. I thought it was sort of like CO2, in that it could build up and poison you, but like Sparky said, easily dissipated.

I think radon has been more of a problem in recent years because houses are so well insulated now. In a poorly-insulated house, the radon can escape easier, but it tends to build up in a well-insulated house.

That, or the men in black are burying radon in the yards of people they have an... interest in....

Here's the EPA's radon links: [link]

Radon is in the ground. The fix is venting the basement/lowest level of the house. We were told this usually costs about $1000-2000 around here because they sometimes have to break up the slab to install a pipe or two.