Aims,

I am nodding and smiling and giving my computer screen a thumbs up.

Aims, I totally approve of your bother. And everything else that makes you feel good right now.

ImemeawesomeN: A mutual acquaintance pointed David Weinberger to a post I wrote a while ago, and Weinberger linked to it today and wrote about the issue in question. I'm once again amazed by the internet and never gonna wash the statistics page of my blog again.

Also, it seems like my mind is totally broken from years of certain genre of jokes and can't reply to *any* "how do you get (n) into (a vehicle)" question in an answer that isn't "the ashtray".

Aims, I'm glad your brother was able to give you a brighter perspective.

The road trip is down to about 360 more miles of road and then it is over. We should be home before 9pm. Sad. It has been a great trip. K and I haven't spent this much time together so there was always the chance that we would bump heads making all the driving awkward. But that hasn't been an issue, which has been a great relief.

Almost 8 days of traveling, over 3000 miles covered, 10 different cities visited, countless cities in our rear view mirror, 1 a's game, 2 hotel nights, 1 bottle of caramel vodka, 8 Australian hunks, 9 different Starbucks, 1 bottle of absinthe, 8 bottles of wine, and 2 tuckered ladies.

Almost 8 days of traveling, over 3000 miles covered, 10 different cities visited, countless cities in our rear view mirror, 1 a's game, 2 hotel nights, 1 bottle of caramel vodka, 8 Australian hunks, 9 different Starbucks, 1 bottle of absinthe, 8 bottles of wine, and 2 tuckered ladies.

This montage needs to be narrated by Morgan Freeman. Or Sean Connery.

Not Attenborough documenting the behaviour of the Wild Bitca outside her native habitat?

Aims, you and Joe and Em will be very much in my thoughts. I'm glad you were able to talk to your brother.

In other news, I divided my iris colonies today. I started with 7 rhizomes 3 years ago, and now I have 87 separate plants. It would have been more, but I lost most of two colonies to rot thanks to an unusually wet spring and soil that wasn't draining as well as it should have. The rhizomes have had a bleach water bath to kill off any mold, and now they're out on the patio so the places where I divided can scab over before replanting.

Anne,

that is incredibly impressive.

Not Attenborough documenting the behaviour of the Wild Bitca outside her native habitat?

We should have people audition. Because I just heard James Earl Jones say, "This is Buchmann" in my head and now I want him to narrate us.

Off topic (from any conversation in the past 48 hours) Martial arts question.

Every now and then in fiction you run into a guy (always a guy) winning a fight against a better opponent by dropping all defense, and going to pure attack and aggression. I always though that would be a good way to lose faster.

The way I see it, against a male opponent doing this in a real life situation (not a contest - so no cup) the obvious choices would be take advantage of his lack of defense to go after balls or throat. But that particular attack could change his mind, and those are easy areas to defend from non-defensive positions. So maybe better a stomach or kidney punch.

Then it occurred to me, why guess? There are people (especially ita ! but not limited to her) who know what they are doing on this list. A male, who you know is less skilled in combat than you, is using the "no defense" tactic against you? He is not wearing a cup. For the sake of argument, the "no defense" thing actually is letting his attacks be effective - gets him to your level if you let him continue. How do you best take advantage of his lack of defense to either immediately win the fight or at least curb his ability to attack effectively? balls, throat, eyes, stomach, kidney, other?

We are two exits from home. Thanks for indulging my road trip ramblings.