Day: July 12, 2008

Anachronism

> He read up on the situation. The USGS estimated that Antarctica held perhaps fifty billion barrels of oil; only a couple more decades’ worth, at current consumption rates. _*But at twenty dollars a barrel, that was a trillion dollars.*_ Which was only a year of the U.S. government’s budget, and only a year of the world’s military budgets; but more than enough to pay off all the debts that had the southern nations lashed to the harshest austerity programs the World Bank and IMF could devise. He could see how the logic of the system might drive them to it.
>
> Kim Stanley Robinson, _Antarctica_ (1998)

[Oil sets new record near $147 a barrel](http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i5TtajgUpSm7KY5jf-lCJGHBB-tAD91RLHAO0).

11 July 2008

Yesterday…

* The kids had a makeup swimming lesson since their Wednesday lesson was rained out.
* We drove to the hospital so I could have an ultrasound. (No, not _that_ kind of ultrasound.) My chest was gelled and squished and generally made uncomfortable for a diagnosis of nope, nothing. (Which is good, a diagnosis of nothing is _good_, just uncomfortable.) Marcus and Becca watched Spongebob in the waiting room while I strapped Madeline into her stroller and fed her jellybeans. The ultrasound tech was highly amused with the jellybean technique. I hate Spongebob.
* We stopped by the fabric store to pick up thread, and Bloom to pick up hot dog buns and lettuce.
* I vacuumed the living room and kitchen and Swiffered the kitchen.
* Matthew brought home a washer and dryer from Craigslist. I now have a washing machine that does not sound like a twin turbo jet engine when it runs the spin cycle. Also? I no longer have to turn it to spin cycle manually. I can actually wash a load of laundry without having to babysit every cycle change!
* The old washing machine, in a fit of pique out of a Stephen King novel, burped water the entire trip down the stairs. Much cursing ensued. A sledgehammer cannot be taken to it soon enough.