He's voluntarily attending summer school at Eagle Academy, finishing up 10th grade English, starting on 11th grade English, and is going to try to complete an entire school year's worth of World History.  If he manages this, he'll earn two credits.

There's still his math, though.  Math.  Bummer.  It's the 800 pound gorilla sitting in the classroom.  We'd planned upon him taking it at summer school, too, but the "real" math teacher is teaching a TAKS math class, due to the number of students who need to retake the math TAKS.  We're thinking of signing him up - after the Eagle Academy summer school session ends on July 9th - for Texas Tech's distance learning high school math course.  If he can get Algebra I finished up, and complete the courses at Eagle, he'll be in position to really make some headway toward getting caught up.

A couple of days ago a woman in a small community west of Fort Worth apparently hanged her four children (the youngest of whom survived, praise God) and herself. 

Here's the subject line of a story today at the online Dallas Morning News: Shelter staff call murder-suicide 'suspicious'

Gee.  You think?

From what I gather, the idea is that the staff at the women's shelter the woman had been at last summer find it impossible to believe the woman committed this crime, as they heard from her just two weeks ago and she was fine.  Their theory is that this was 'murder' from beginning to end, no 'suicide' involved.

It was still an odd way for the DMN writer to put it, though.

As soon as it's built, anyway.

Check this out:  All aboard for the Harry Potter rollercoaster

Don't tell me that's not going to be cool.  It's going to be wicked cool. 

Here's some additional info:

That last bit is very good to know.

IOW, this evening I went with my brother to play bingo and my ability to claim having never once bingo'd remains intact.

Lost again! 

....that were seated in close proximity to Tommy Tuberculosis, the jerk who apparently has to be forced to act in a prudent, responsible manner, but what about the people at his wedding in Greece?  Presumably they've been contacted, though the news reports omit saying so.

Who wants to bet that marriage doesn't last very long?  Assuming Tommy TB lives, that it?

Any guy who is told he has a form of tuberculosis that is resistant to first-line drugs and that it's preferable he not fly, but does so anyway, is not fabulous husband material, ISTM.  Yes, I understand it would be hard to postpone his wedding, but sometimes that's the type of difficult, hard decision people are called upon to make.  The fact Tommy TB rationalized that since he hadn't technically been legally forbidden to travel, and they don't know just how serious a strain of TB he has -  only that it is a serious strain - that "everything's fine" (his words), he is likely too self-absorbed and egocentric to manage a happy marriage over the long-term.

Don't you know he's endeared himself to everyone at the wedding and reception?  If I hadn't yet sent a gift, I wouldn't.

The man told the Journal-Constitution he was
in Rome during his honeymoon when the CDC notified him of the new tests
and told him to turn himself in to Italian authorities to be isolated
and be treated. The CDC told him he couldn’t fly aboard commercial
airliners.  “I
thought to myself: You’re nuts. I wasn’t going to do that. They told me
I had been put on the no-fly list and my passport was flagged,” the man
said.  He told the
newspaper he and his wife decided to sneak back into the U.S. through
Canada. He said he voluntarily went to a New York hospital, then was
flown by the CDC to Atlanta.

"[S]neak back into the U.S. through Canada"?  His wife's got shredded wheat in lieu of brains, too.

Tommy TB is a howl; believe it or not, he's outraged at how he's been treated:  "I'm a very well-educated, successful, intelligent person," he told the
paper. "This is insane to me that I have an armed guard outside my door
when I’ve cooperated with everything other than the whole
solitary-confinement-in-Italy thing."

Except for traveling when he'd been strongly advised not to, then, upon learning he has the strain of TB that has a survival rate of 30% and is resistant to both first and second-line drugs, evading the no-fly order by sneaking into the US via Canada, thus placing the unsuspecting people on his flight at risk. Other than that, why, his been behavior's been an inspiration to us all.  

He's home.  His flight from JFK, due to arrive at 10:20 p.m., finally showed its whiskers an hour and a half late, but still....the renewed civilian is back in Texas.

He'll fly back on the 4th to collect his car and drive it down.

You will NOT believe this.

You. Will. NOT.

On Wednesday of last week Charles had his car towed to a Karn's Auto Shop in Groton, as it wouldn't start, even with a charge.  There he was told they'd not be able to look at it till the following Tuesday.  (Personally, at that point I'd have paid to have it towed elsewhere, but my opinion wasn't sought.)  He was scheduled to be released from the Navy the following Thursday.

He got released alright, but the car wasn't fixed.  Turns out it was just a Really Dead battery and a lack of transmission fluid, so Karns was going to replace the battery and flush and refill the transmission and replace the gaskets.  Should be ready on Friday.

It wasn't ready yesterday.  Charles was understandably miffed, as he's staying in a motel with no transportation.

This morning he discovers the shop IS CLOSED UNTIL TUESDAY, due to the Memorial Day weekend!    Can you imagine?  They didn't bother telling him "oh, by the way, so sorry.....we're not finished and won't get to it again until TUESDAY.  Have fun in Groton."

We're going to split the cost of a plane ticket home for him, so he can at least cool his heels here instead of there.  No point wandering around Groton on foot, or stuck in an inexpensive motel room for days on end.  He'd have had Navy friends to stay with only the Dallas left for a month's sea test yesterday.

Unbelievable.  What kind of place doesn't tell someone they're going to be closed for three solid days? 

And of course, across the street from the motel he'd been at is a Midas, open today and working. 

This is the week of the Colonial golf tournament here in Fort Worth, and darned if it hasn't been raining off an on.  Naturally, Saturday's a big day for it (though, admittedly, not as big as Sunday), and play is scheduled to begin in ten minutes.  Check the current radar:

Oy vey!   What really hurts it it's mostly tracking from south to north, which is unusual for this area.  Look at that!  Dallas is bone dry, while Fort Worth  -  and Colonial Country Club  -  is covered with rain.  Don't you know that's driving the tournament officials absolutely nuts to see?

Have y'all tried the beta interactive combo satellite-radar maps at Weather.com?  You should!  They're fascinating.  Here's the current one showing the TCU/Colonial area:

See Texas Christian University?  And the dark green area to it's left?  Around in there is the golf course.  The general green, yellow, reddish colors are indicative of rain falling. 

And it's especially sweet when others basically do it for me, so all I have to do is cut and paste.  

From the Diocese of Fort Worth newsletter this month:

That's our Bethany on the left in the photo, and as it says in the last line, her mother (MY ELDEST DAUGHTER!!!), Kirstin, was the one who thought up the projects, organized them, and has been essentially riding herd on 'em. 

The children in Honduras will be so pleased. 

Dmitry is counting the hours until Friday, which bids fair to be a good day, indeed.

First, of course, it's the last day of school.  Always a good thing. 

But the Mega Treat is what happens after school gets out at noon, which is when I fetch him and Raven and take them and their respective luggage (a large suitcase for her, his backpack for him) to Carolyn's house, from whence they will depart with Carolyn's mother and stepfather for her grandparents' house in Oklahoma for two nights. 

Dmitry cannot wait.  "Is it Friday yet?  Now?  How about now?" 

If he has even half the good time he's happily anticipating, he'll have fun indeed.