A few weeks ago I did a bit about new things that will change the world. One was a nigh-infinitely rechargeable battery and another was a vaccine for cervical cancer. The CDC approved that vaccine, Gardasil, today. I should have bought some stock in Merck, because I know that’s going to be HUGE. There’s a little debate about giving Gardasil to girls who are nine years old or so, saying it encourages them to have sex while young (as it also prevents other diseases). I quite disagree with that and think it should be given to every girl who is able to get it. At some point, chances are that a girl will have sex in her life, and if cervical cancer is easy to get from having sex at some point in your life, pre- or post-marital sex, give it to everyone. Here’s some more information on the subject.

You can get Gardasil up until you’re 26, so I’m hoping they make it available very soon so my wife, Amanda, who is 26 for another ten months, will be able to get it.

Speaking of things changing, Netscape, at least as of last night, changed their format from a standard portal to one driven by stories fed to the site by average people. At the top of the page they have stories picked out by their own people, but below that are also stories regular people have submitted. I think it’s a really cool concept and I intend to start submitting things to it. Not that I think I’m all that or that my opinions are really all that special, but I think it can help my site gain some traffic. That site is going to be absolutely SWAMPED with people submitting information to them, many of them just to help their search engine rankings. You can leave comments in each article submitted and they make it super easy to submit an article with a little plugin you can just drag into a browser’s toolbar. I’ve already put it on Firefox and submitted yesterday’s bit about the Russian special forces going after the Iraqi insurgents.

I wonder how much absolute crap will be in there. Some people have complained about the new setup, but they did so by singing into the service and making an article, so I guess they can’t hate it all that much. I dig it; it’s like a newswiki almost.

I didn’t really take much of a lunch today. Why is that, you may ask? Work certainly wasn’t slow, but it wasn’t busy enough to keep me from eating. I guess it was steady enough though, and I still have a few things I want to accomplish before the end of the day tomorrow.

Once I finished working, I ran out to Lowes to pick up a bathroom vent fan cover, but it barely covered the massive sqaure hole we have in our ceiling. I guess it did the trick enough. I took our chihuahua, Bruce, with me there and when we got back I noticed that our across-the-street neighbor, Chris Clayton, was there. He and his wife are moving and in fact should be finished up by now. I went over to talk to him for a few minutes and Bruce came along to sniff out his yard. He behaved pretty well and didn’t wander off. The only time I couldn’t find him was when he slipped into the back yard. Chris is a botanist, so Bruce had all kinds of things to smell.

While we were still in Chris’s back yard we heard the beep that sounds when the Jetta is remotely locked. Bruce is trained by now to know what that sound means, so when we heard it his ears perked up and he ran across the street to go gret his momma. It didn’t hurt that she brought home some Krazy’s Pizza. I tell ya, that stuff is good. It’s not New York style, but it’s good. I don’t think I’ve ever had any before today.

In the continuing mini-saga of what we’re going to do with Bruce concerning the upcoming trip to Kentucky, I called my grandma today to start a dialogue on how serious of an issue she feels our bringing Bruce is. I whined enough about it in last night’s entry, but here’s the gist of what’s happened/happening.

Plans were made for me and Amanda and Bruce to stay with my Uncle Steve. Not that I have anything against staying with my uncle and his Dotsey branch, but our leased Jetta, by the time we get back from Kentucky, will almost be out of miles for the year and we’ve got three more months to go. (This is mainly due to a period of time in January when my maternal grandfather, Jack Horner, died, and we went back and forth from Wilmington to Durham a lot.) On top of that, Bruce is used to being able to go outside to relieve himself whenever he needs to, as a result of my office being in the home, so we’d have to bring him with us when we came over to Baba and Pap’s anyway.

When I talked to Baba a second (and more in depth) time about it, she said she wasn’t trying to hurt any feelings or anything, but the last time Bruce was around he’d mes in the house and bark at some of my younger cousins. To this I mentioned that the twins (Steve’s daughters Elizabeth and Felicia Dotsey) played with him and petted him and the only person who had an issue was Bernie’s son David or Hank (I’m not sure if they’ve decided what to call him yet), who is now two years older than he was before and probably doesn’t even remember Bruce. Plus there’s the fact that Bruce is very patient with my nephew, Jackson Sawyer, who grabs him and all kind sof stuff at the ripe age of one and a half.

I responded to the issue of the messes with the fact that last time Bruce was in Lexington he was still a puppy and he’s gotten better (though he’s not perfect) and that my mom’s dogs, Emma and Schatzi, who will be at the house, are certainly no better than Bruce in this regard. She said she knew she was “being a mean old Baba” but that she just wasn’t comfortable with Bruce.

Now, I don’t think she was being mean, because that implies malice, and I know that’s not her intent. I told her I didn’t think she was being mean, but I felt bad that she’d think I was thinking that. I think the thing that bothers me the most about the whole thing is that everyone loves Bruce and it’s my grandma who’s not giving him a fair shake. Really, EVERYONE loves Bruce. Even oft-cynical people like my friend Jason Revill is sometimes affectionate towards him.

Actually I think Jason’s not as cynical as he used to be. Are you, Jason? That’s just a test to see if he’s reading this. I don’t think he ever does.

Anyway, I talked to Steve shortly after that, who said he thought it would be fine for Bruce to stay at his house. My newest concern, though, was when I asked if his dog was friendly to other dogs and he laughed. He said we’d be able to coordinate, but that made me nervous.

I talked to my mom after that and she came up with the idea of asking John and Mary Jo Quinn if we could stay with them. They’re old friends of my parents and I’ve always enjoyed seeing them. Plus they live literally one street over from my grandparents, so going to visit the family won’t be a big deal, and neither will finding a place for Bruce to stay if we go out (to go see Superman Returns, for example).

I felt bad imposing on John and asking him something like that out of the blue, but he agreed right away. Their older dog, Tiny, is 18 years old and pretty set in his ways, but he seemed to think it wouldn’t be a big deal to keep him and Bruce apart. So that solved that problem.

The rest of the night was spent finshing the trim in the bathroom and going over some problem spots by me and cleaning, picking up and laundry by Amanda. She was about to get off the phone with her mom when I brushed my last stroke. I told her to wait a second before hanging up so I could share the joyous news: ALL THE PAINTING IN THE HOUSE IS DONE! I have finished painting.
Okay, that’s not entirely true as a few rooms have some spots to touch up, but it is the end of major operations. Praise God and Hallelujah!

I spent a little more time putting the upstairs bathroom back together; mirror, rack, curtains, etc. I also put back up the washer and dryer closet doors in the downstairs bathroom. Amanda came down and offered to help, but I was able to get it. I appreciated her moral support though. That sounds sarcastic, but it’s not. She was all ready for bed at that point, but she came down to help without my asking. Earlier we had put up the cabinet that Amanda’s dad, Phil Mercer, made for the downstairs bathroom. It looks nice. I just hope it stays up since I don’t havea stud finder. I did knock on the wall to make sure we found as solid a spot as we could though. Hopefully that will be enough. He’s making another, smaller one for the upstairs bathroom. Things are moving right along.

Hopefully we’ll leave for Kentucky tomorrow. There’s a lot of cleaning and picking up Amanda would like to accomplish before we head out. Being the Friday before the 4th of July, I don’t expect to be too busy. Watch, I’ll probably be slammed.

Oh yeah, Jason sent a couple links he found for some upcoming movie teasers; Spider-Man 3 and the live action Transformers movie. I’d seen a sort of test clip before, but it looks like they’ve flashed out the story at least a little more now. It’s late now, so more comments on those when I’m less tired. Maybe during the 10 hour trip to Kentucky.

Zach Dotsey