Still reading The American Gun Mystery. It's an early one- part of the formula title series (the nationality item mystery)- featuring Queen as the too too clever fellow written by the too too clever boys. Less than a hundred pages in he's already quoted something in German and made a reference to some obscure essay - "do you remember what John Doe said in "to the field mouse"?" or some such thing.
The murder is a pretty clever setup- at the Madison Square Garden stand in, there's a Wild West Show and the lead in the show, a retired Western movie lead- is trying to make a comeback and is killed, shot, during a exhibition shooting demonstration.

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Reading Ellery Queen's The American Gun Mystery, published in 1933. Ballistics plays a part in the novel and there's discussion of of the striations on the recovered bullet versus those on a test bullet- even matching the lines under a microscope. To the 1933 crowd, that must have seemed cutting edged. To someone who has the first three seasons of CSI Vegas on DVD, it just seems...cute. Like kittens.
That said, Ellery Queen is still my favorite tv detective- even more so than Columbo.

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At the funeral of the father of a classmate from elementary school. It's at the church I went to in my teens. People from high school are there.
There's excavation going on outside the church and a woman is screaming at a homeless person about how he can't sleep in the furrows. I go to wait for us to be called into the chapel, we're waiting in one of the children's Sunday school rooms. I go to the washroom and when I come back everyone is gone.

I'm in a class, algebra or freaky math involving letters and formulas and the teacher wants us to do the even problems, 20-80, with the help of a classmate. The one I'm assigned is talkative and even though I could do the problems easily, I still don't finish on time because of her prattling.

I'm at the home of a woman. I ask her to let me know when she's moving out because I want to photograph the house without furniture.

--
I have no idea what any of this means. The funeral was for the father of someone I haver encountered in over 20 years outside of friend of a friend on facebook.

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One of my classmates from high school lost her mother this morning. Reading about it made me realize: yes, if I'm getting old, my parents are getting older.

Hmmm.

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Current Location: US, Virginia, Front Royal, Warren, S Royal Ave, 759

I just deleted a crapload of emails. Six years worth, as matter of fact, stuff I never bothered to delete til now. I used to- still do as I write this- have a domain and a fancy me@me.com address.
Vanity.
Ego.
A silly waste of money. So I'm not renewing it again. Maybe when I become *CLAY HORNIK*, I'll set it up again.
Til then I'll be happy with my aol address.

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Current Location: US, Virginia, Front Royal, Warren, S Royal Ave, 739

So, apparently high sodium foods cause water retention. Who knew? Like the pasta sauce and sausage we had last night.
I gained some weight, according to the scale, anyway.
I suppose I'll have gained some more weight tomorrow. But even after eating a quarter box of saltines, I still came in under calorie count today.
Perry says it'll adjust soon enough.

Next step is to map out a mile walk.

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Current Location: US, Virginia, Front Royal, Warren, S Royal Ave, 768

Working on losing weight, actively and passively. I have an ap that counts calories consumed and burned; there have been a couple of days where I'm burning more than I'm consuming after it factors in things like driving (1153),standing at an auction (864), and sleeping (726) for a total burn of 2743c. This on a day where I consumed 2704c.
I'm allowed 2719c a day, based on wanting to weigh 185 by mid September.

After weighing in at 250 at Christmas time, I'll be happy to see 200.

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Current Location: US, Virginia, Front Royal, Warren, S Royal Ave, 773

A little late here, but I have been working on them:

1. Blog more, here as well as on blogspot, professionally for the antiques blog and just to clear cobwebs here on lj.

2. Write more. I don't think more than a paragraph made it from my brain to paper in 2011. I'm going to fix that.

3. Lose weight. Christmas Day I weighed myself. 250 lbs. I blame sweet teas and milkshakes. If I can quit smoking cold turkey, then I should be able to adjust behaviors that lead to weight gain. Or I could develop an eating disorder.

4. Read more. We have an awesome library here in town. I'm going to make the most of it.

5. Learn Яussian. Yes, I *do* realize the я=/=R. When I see that now, I sort of cringe because I know better know- like in the poster for Borat, where they replace the A with a Д because it looks all Eastern Europey but knowing the Д = D actually makes that sort of thing hurt more. Yes, I'm rambling. It's 4am. When people hear I'm learning Russian, they often ask why. I tell them it has fewer letters to learn than Icelandic.

6. Reconnect with lost friends. I'm a crappy friend sometimes- there are people I've lost track of that I want to reconnect with. I'm going to make that effort this year.

Now, I'm going back to bed.

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Current Location: US, Virginia, Front Royal, Warren, S Royal Ave, 773

Just woke up from a crazy dream- I was in Disney World, running around the property like Eloise at the Plaza. It was the night before I was leaving on a trip to Japan and I was trying to get things taken care of before I go. And then I realized my passport was here in Virginia with Perry. That freaked me out- enough to wake up!

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Current Location: US, Virginia, Front Royal, Warren, S Royal Ave, 773

Dream:
Working at a weird hybrid of the indy store and the mall store. I hear a gurgling noise from behind a bookshelf; moving it I see a crack in the wall with water streaming from it. The shelf blocking it was all that kept the leak in check and moving the shelf causes the wall to burst, flooding the store. I go and find the owner and she blames me for the leak. She goes off to do something and I start to complain to her assistant manager and the AM tells me she doesn't want to argue about it while I'm trying to explain to her why it wasn't my fault.
--
The indy store I worked at actually had real bad leaks from the ceiling to the degree that we had plastic drop cloths to cover the shelves with during heavy rains. If I recall correctly, this had something to do with the putting green the lawfirm upstairs had installed on a rooftop patio.

Bookshelves next to walls in bookstores aren't that easy to move. Ok, there pretty darn impossible to move.

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Current Location: US, Virginia, Front Royal, Warren, S Royal Ave, 769