"Shaking the Magic Google Ball"

I've been socked this week by a stack of research papers, student yowls, and end-of-semester freak-outs. So the writing time? Very small. You know what that means, right? Memetime, lads and lassies!

Thanks, Lone Grey Squirrel, for inspiring this meme: typing my answers to the following prompts into Google Image and then choosing a photo off the first page that pops up. Images are the perfect antidote to a week when I am tapped out and my words are--how you say it?--not having way.

Photos it is.

1. Age at My Next Birthday:-









I'll be the cost of sending you a piece of junk mail. Hell, I am junk mail.

It's not the size of the dream, my friends. It's the quality.


2. Place I'd Like to Travel:- Bulgaria. I heard they have soup there.



The Alexander Nevsky Cathedral stands near the center of Sofia. It is dedicated as a monument to the Russians who liberated Bulgaria from nearly five centuries of Ottoman rule in 1877-78.

3. Place I've Been:-

Akureyri, Iceland

The thing about Iceland is the towns have swimming pools in the schools which are open to anyone, including travelers; these pools are heated thermally, by local hot springs.

I should have gone to high school in Iceland. My pours would have been thermally tightened, and then all the fellas would have been clambering to take me to the Winter Formal.


4. My Favorite Food:-




















I'm full of suprises.


5. Place where I was born:-

Billings, Montana. I drank a lot of beer on those cliffs (known as the Rimrocks or "Rims"). One time my cousin, Luke, was so drunk he fell a couple hundred feet off one of 'em. My dad got to put on his trench coat at 3 a.m. and go bail him out.

I miss my dad.

6. Place where I live:-

Duluth, Minnesota


We're all about bridges, ore boats, and splashing.




7. Name of Past Pet:-

This is Professor David Dandy of Colorado State University. I wish our poodle had been named Professor. Or David.

But if we'd shaved Dandy really close, he'd have looked like this guy--although maybe a tidge less manic.


8. Best Friend's Nickname:-

"Groom" wore no jacket, tie, or boutonniere when we got married. But he did wear a vest.

And that's all he wore.













9. My First Name:-




As if Blogger Jocelyn would ever strike "The Liberty" pose in a gym full of seething hormones. Instead, I keep my posing restricted to home base, where I've perfected the high-flying Hand on Remote Control stunt.


10. My First Job:-
When I was 10, Mrs. Baker across the street came flying over, breathlessly telling me she had to go pick-up her older child from an emergency situation, but her 10-week-old baby was sleeping in the house...and she needed me. She needed me for money. Thus, a twenty-year career in babysitting was launched.

















And if you don't want to count babysitting as a "real" job, what with the non-taxed pay, then this was my first job: The summer when I was in 8th grade, the Pepsi Company of America ran a promotional contest, where drinkers of their beverage could, upon opening a can of fizzy sugar water, check the pulled-off tab (not like this new-fangled one in the photo) for a letter of the alphabet. Players of the game would then collect letters on tabs until they could spell out words ("S-O-D-A") or, for the ultimate prize, a phrase...something like "Pepsi Rocks the World." Woefully, the Pepsi Company Factory of America made a little error and printed, instead of a handful of tabs with the elusive "R" (the letter that would bring about a big-money win), about a thousand of them.

For you math majors out there: a thousand x Big Money = A Quathwajillion of dollars. The Pepsi Company of America did not want all those "R" letters hitting the public. So I and a couple of my pals were paid to sit in a warehouse and open pop cans, eight hours a day, for weeks, our eyes trained for "R"s.

I never did find an "R," or surely I would have pocketed it and would now be sitting in my mansion that cost exactly one quathwajillion of dollars.

Instead, I sit in my modest home, grading my 44th research paper on "the obesity trend in our fast-paced society."

Apparently, my students inform me, we Americans drink too much Pepsi.