My view, for study's sake, should be only of stats, not trees and the setting sun. I should move to a seat with no view. But I probably won't.

Just got my new higher-res camera & trying to see how goes it with my old bwsk (thanks to fellow hiptop Nation bwskrs for figuring this out!)

It's so nice out that I don't want to go back in to work from lunch. I just want to sit on this bench and take a little sunny nap. --heidi

I'm in Minneapolis and walked along the route for day 2 of the Big Urban Game (BUG) that goes through Sunday here. You can check it out online. I'm on the red team. There are two other game pieces, yellow and blue, all taking different routes through the Twin Cities. Even barges root for the BUG! We got a horn blast from a barge as the red piece passed over a bridge tonight. (A crew carries the inflatable game piece through the city on the route of the day in a race against the other teams.) --heidi

I often see dead birds on the sidewalks downtown. I never quite get used to seeing one, but it doesn't surprise me.

Today though I saw what looked like a little dead bat. (Either that or it was exhausted from the insane heat we're having.)

I've never seen a bat this close outside of a zoo before. I hope this doesn't become frequent, but I confess to being kind of mesmerized by seeing one up close (even if it was dead).

Other creatures downtown are prettier and artificially inert, such as this one in a large ground floor window. --heidi

Somebody somewhere in my building is either getting some kind of work done in their apartment or running a nail salon. My bedroom smells strongly of something like nail polish remover, which is giving me a headache. --heidi

I just realized that I finally managed to luck into wearing light shoes on the day I have my annual exam @ the doctor. I always forget and end up wearing my heavy boots that day. (They weigh you in your shoes. I forgot today too, but this is the first time I haven't been wearing those damn boots.) --heidi

It's been so hot and muggy here in KC lately that I had to stifle the urge to jump in the water from this fire hydrant that was open on my way to work. I pretended for a second that the water lapping up on the curb was Lake Superior on Park Point, but it was such a sad, sad substitution. --heidi

We all have aspects of our lives that serve as frames for how we see the world. For some it can be their religion or a disability. One of my main frames is being a nondriver in the Midwest.

Others frame how they see life through movies--the Godfather, Star Wars, Caddyshack, or the Rocky Horror Picture Show. While sitting at the bus stop tonight, I realized that Gremlins 2: The New Batch has infiltrated my brain. I watched a rabbit hop away from the bus stop bench and realized I can't look at a rabbit without hearing a gremlin voice saying "Bunny rabbit!"

(I am, of course, referring to the "Technical Difficulties" scene where gremlins take over the movie theater projection booth, make gremlin-hand shadows, and demand to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarves until Hulk Hogan commands them to cut it out. The DVD version is the original film version and is the one you want to see; the VHS version is not as funny.) --heidi