Oooh! Happy birthday, askye!

I think it's more Entire freakin' planet and whatever is on Mars except for the US..

Wait, but NASA sent that last Mars ship, right? Are they working on it with centimeters and their friends, rather than those units who need other units in order to simply say the height of a person (and which I still can't convert properly)? lori? Oh, and does that mean that if a Martian posts here, s/he/it will have to do so in the UnAmerican thread?

What can I do, here at the office, to complete the job of getting nail polish off my nails?

Dana, is there a chance that anybody around you may have some sort of chemical stuff, for whatever reason, containing acetone or the like?

At some point I may have to ask you how you managed the pets while the work was going

Anne, my contractor Will is a pet person. They have a bunch of cats and, until last year, had an elderly dog a la Frank. So he was very concientious of and aware of them all the time. For example he made sure the cats didn't run out when he needed to have a door open. He put up plastic between the kitchen and dining room for the first few weeks while the demo was going on. And that pretty much kept them out of the mess. He also would take Frank for walks a few times when I needed to do something right after work. And gave them lots of attention all the time. Really it was an ideal situation.

Canadian astronaut brings first bagels into space:

MONTREAL - The famed Fairmount bagel is reaching new heights thanks to an astronaut with a yen for that distinctive treat.

It seems Montreal-born astronaut Greg Chamitoff, who began a six-month stint aboard the International Space Station yesterday, was quite excited about the idea of floating in space with the comfort of the chewy, slightly sweet variety of bagel this city is famous for by his side.

When NASA officials asked Chamitoff for a favourite food to take aboard space shuttle Discovery, he picked the humble bagel as his preferred snack for the flight.

And thanks, you'll be getting something in a few days.

Thanks!

Oh no -- Big Boss just came into the office. She was supposed to be on jury duty! But I guess she postponed it again.

Dana- I don't think anything will get it off besides acetone. Maybe there is some sort of cleaner that has acetone? Or lighter fluid, maybe?

Nilly, yes we usually use metric for everything, but end up having to convert back to Imperial for press conferences and the like. Har.

Dana, is there no store you can get to? Even the newsstand inside my building sells nail polish remover, I'm pretty sure.

lisah - is that Armstrong flooring? If so, how did it get installed?

we usually use metric for everything, but end up having to convert back to Imperial for press conferences and the like.

Wait, so that means you don't *think* in the metric system, but rather in your feet and inches? Even when you work with the centimeters and their friends?

That's strange. I can't imagine working in units if I don't have a good intuition regarding their sizes.

Dana, I have no idea if this is crazy or not, but - is there any perfume or anything with some sort of alcohol around? I have no idea if it removes nail polish, but it does remove a lot of stuff.

There was once this lesson I was supposed to teach, and the board was completely full of tiny thick writing in a non-erasable marker. I ended up running to one of the labs in the building (yay chemistry, even though it's a physics building), borrowing some strong alcoholic solution, soaking some tissue papers in it and using them to wipe the board completely clean. I do suspect I was a bit tipsy from the remaining alcohol vapors that were around me all lesson long, but I think I didn't embarrass myself completely in front of the students, so all was well.