Nancy and Bob Murdock, Editors - murmuse@erols.com


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March and April, 2003

CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:

FINDING OLD FRIENDS (Roy Murdock) Click
NO MAGNA (Christel Murdock) Click
WINTER POEM (Claudia Lindsey) Click
A PARTY (Meredith Murdock) Click
FAN OF THE WRONG RASCAL? (Meredith Murdock) Click
A FUN VISIT (Becky Murdock) Click
OUT ON A LIMB (Gene Murdock) Click
SUMMER MEMORIES (Darrel Murdock) Click
WINTER GARDEN WORK (Darrel Murdock) Click
PUBLISHED (Meredith Murdock) Click
MOVING TIME (Lori Turner) Click
ICEMAN (Ian Murdock) Click
CONTAMINATED EMAIL (Art Murdock) Click
CAT HUMOR (Valerie Davidson) Click
MUSE (Polly Soberg) Click
RECENT PHOTOS (Jerod Davidson) Click
Click for Part 2
THINGS I THINK ABOUT AT 1:00 IN THE MORNING (Christel Murdock) Click
FINISHER-UPPERS & ARE-NOTS (Nancy Murdock) Click
PUNCTURE (Gene Murdock) Click
ANOTHER DOWN DAY (Gene Murdock) Click
UPDATE FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE (Polly Soberg) Click
HOWLETT REUNION 2003 (Cathy and Johnny Howlett) Click
TEACHING TRAFFIC SCHOOL (Valerie Davidson) Click
CHECKING OUT VIRUS WARNINGS AND HOAXES (Doug Howlett) Click
CATARACT SURGERY SUCCESSFUL (Margery Aukstikalnis) Click


FINDING OLD FRIENDS
Roy Murdock

On February 15 we had Khendra's induction into Phi Theta Kappa. I think I mentioned that she was invited to join this. It's a national honor society for anyone attending a Junior College who has a cumulative grade point average of 3.5 or better. She signed their book and they gave her a white rose. The ceremony was nice- not too long.

I don't know if you remember Mike Wise. He was a friend of mine in 6th and 7th grade. He was in my accelerated class. Anyway, I found him on the Internet and sent him an e-mail. He responded warmly. Mike is a nationally recognized Bible scholar. He recently published a best selling book on the Dead Sea Scrolls, which he and another guy had translated.

So, thanks to the Internet, I have now been able to contact Scott Wieker, Kirk Elias, Jim Holloway, Fat Dan, and Mike Wise. You probably remember "Fat Dan" (Dan Christopherson). He's now a DJ in South Dakota. Jim Holloway is a real estate agent in San Francisco. Kirk Elias is a track and cross country coach at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock. Scott Wieker is a painter and high school cross country coach in New Hope.

It's so cool to be able to find these people through the Internet and make contact with them.


NO MAGNA
Christel Murdock

I am very disappointed to announce that my transcripts from Chapman were miscalculated by the registrar's office and at this point, there is no way I could graduate magna cum laude with only 6 units of credit to go. It could be worse though; I will be graduating with honors still, but it will be cum laude, which is one below magna.


WINTER POEM
Claudia Lindsey

I received this cute poem from my cousin Alberta (on my Dad's side) . A few of you may have met her the last time I was in N.E. She lives in Douglas, MA, which is South of Worcester. Thought you would all enjoy it since most of you live in the cold weather.

It's winter in Massachusetts
And the gentle breezes blow,
70 miles per hour at 52 below!
Oh, how I love Massachusetts
When the snow's up to your butt.
You take a breath of winter air
Your nose freezes shut.
Yes, the weather here is wonderful,
I guess I'll hang around.
I could never leave Massachusetts,
'Cause I'm frozen to the ground !
A PARTY
Meredith Murdock

My friend Margaret and I went to the mall recently, and what a sight we saw! Seagulls were having a party in the parking lot. Someone had left food near a car, and these birds were feasting! A couple of the birds were calmly sitting right on the hood of the car. It looked like a bunch of teenagers having a tailgate party. I wished I had an invitation, because these seagulls were having an absolute blast!


FAN OF THE WRONG RASCAL?
Meredith Murdock

I was talking to people at work today about the Robert Blake interview. I told them it was tough for me to think he might be guilty, because "Mickey" was actually my favorite Little Rascal, so of course I don't want to think badly about him. My coworkers told me: "Forget him, we like 'Froggy' because he worked with this company a while back and he's a true sweetie!" Then one girl pointed to a group picture on her file cabinet, and there he was at a company picnic.


A FUN VISIT
Becky Murdock

I just wanted to share what a nice time we had over President's Day weekend. Sunday we all got up and took a ride down south to Robert's house in Clairemont Mesa. We were especially excited because Payton was there, and we couldn't wait to see her (she is so cute)!!!

We all decided to go to Mission Beach and hang out, so we packed into 2 cars and off we went. When we got there, Ian wanted barbecue so we went to this little place on the strand and had some good eats. Afterwards, we did a little shopping and headed off for the rides.

There was this scary looking roller coaster that was just screaming out for riders (only brave souls need apply). So off went Robert, Natalie, Dee and Anthony (they are such good boys)!!! Natalie is usually a daredevil, but this coaster scared her...she couldn't wait to get off. Tim headed over to his favorite place--the arcade. A very pregnant Carolyn, and Payton, went on the merry-go-round, while Ian took pictures.

As for myself, I was just enjoying the scenery, and wishing we lived closer so we could have more of these fun adventures. Well, it was now dark, and we had a long ride home ahead of us. So after wishing everyone a warm farewell, with promises to get together again soon, off we went, La Mirada bound. Life is good!!!!


OUT ON A LIMB
Gene Murdock

I got a request for information on William Shakespeare to see if there is any family relationship to us, and unfortunately, there isn't. Both William and his wife Anne Hathaway were born to lower class common folk, and there are no valid genealogies on either of them.

But there are many other noted personalities of the past that I haven't reported on yet consisting of kings, queens, rogues and scoundrels along with Saints, Crusaders, Druids, Vikings and even a Pope! We will be traversing the family tree and going out on many an interesting limb as I tell these tales. My primary reference is Ancestral Roots of Sixty Colonists by Frederick Weis. Later editions of the book are titled Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists. These lines are all well-researched and accurate and are generally accepted by the major genealogical houses. I will be doing a series of short genealogies and biographies of some of these noteworthy ancestors and if I use a source other than Weis, I will state it.

This is a fascinating fun book and is available and very popular in most libraries. If your library doesn't have it, it would be a good item for you to purchase and donate to them. That way it is there for you and your family to use and for hundreds or thousands of others as well. You can get a good first edition on the Web for about $200, or go to Higginsonbooks.com and order a reprint for $25. If you do get hold of a copy let me know and I will show you where we tie in to the genealogical families.

Some of the more interesting characters we are descended from or related to are William the Conqueror, Charlemagne, Lady Godiva, Bertha of the Big Foot, Queen Boadecia, Ercc the Viking, Julius Caesar, Ruric the Viking and founder of Russia, and the Basques of Spain.

Out here in Iowa I am having a rough winter of snow and cold compounded by two tire punctures in two weeks! As soon as a decent enough day breaks I am heading for Des Moines (about 250 miles) to visit the botanical gardens and see real flowers in bloom (inside, or course) and then slog through the slush to the antique malls.


SUMMER MEMORIES
Darrel Murdock

Here is a link to a 12 pic automated slideshow of my garden.


WINTER GARDEN WORK
Darrel Murdock

Hello to all my family and friends of the Mighty Muse from the snowy plains of Minnesota! And only recently has it been snowy, we didn't have a snow cover until late January this year. I watched it snow like the dickens on the eastern side of the nation, but all storms here passed over or under the Twin Cities until we finally got a foot dumped on us.

My winter garden work aka AAALynx's COOL 101 is winding down after updating nearly every page. It was a successful season as this year I had a spectacular counter installed to track traffic, and utilized the info to improve navigation and search engine findability. My page hits crept up to about 2000 a month, making me feel it was all worth it.

However, the approaching Spring has already seen the completion of three mini-greenhouses full of blue and purple perrenial and annual seeds. Actually, the seeds were brown but choo know what I mean. The seedlings help pass the remaining time until the Crocus begin the color-show outside. I did poichase a 6'H-4'W-8'L greenhouse to set up in April this year so I can get more sun on the babies until the last frost. That way I can be putting larger-rooted healthy plants in the ground that will take off faster for my slow-motion-3-season-fireworks-show.

Anyheedle, I hope everyone is surviving all the present administration's front-page actions and all. I do have a son in the military (Jason) and he is Korea-trained, so I'm watching the rhetoric very closely there. I was shocked to see that not every household already had duct-tape, though. How can those people fix stuff without it? And with the recent discovery that duct-tape can kill planters-woits quicker than Compound-W I thought that everypeeps would have it. After all, 80% of households have WD-40 in them.

Until next issue, have a bunch of happy thoughts and stuff!


PUBLISHED
Meredith Murdock

Dr. Laura published my letter! It's at Dr. Laura's Letters web page.

[Ed. note: If that web page is no longer available, Meri's letter can be found in the Nov. 2002 Muse.]


MOVING TIME
Lori Turner

Thanks so much for the birthday card; I love it. And I promised myself I would not eat too much chocolate cake and candy February 14, with celebrating two special dates.

I sold my house in January and I will be moving to Wisconsin where my cousin and her family live. I will be leaving Idaho with the U-Haul truck and all my belongings on Feb 25th heading for Wisconsin. I love it here and it's nice to have family around. I did rent myself a 3 bedroom apartment only a couple of houses down from my cousin's house so I will be nice and close.

I did transfer to Bath N Body, my part time job, and they are happy to have me at their store. I applied with an insurance company for full time and should have the job there by the middle of March. I did testing this week and had an interview and they are very impressed with me and my skills. I did very well with the typing, 10 key and math tests. The lady said that I aced them with high scores off their record which made me feel pretty good.

I will now only be about 5 hours from Darrel so we will be able to meet in the middle and I will also fly him here so he can see it and see my place.

I had a good birthday; my cousin bought me an entertainment center which I need for my TV and stuff.

We are going snowmobiling for the day so I better get ready to go. I am also buying a snowmobile from my friend in Idaho to bring back with me.


ICEMAN
Ian Murdock

[Ed Note: The following came in response to Ed. Bob's message to Musers about a recent virus hoax.]

I ABHOR e-mail hoaxing, having no tolerance for it at all - and that one sounds like it could have gotten me to at least fret over it and waste my time researching the allegation, since I am very concerned about viruses. I have even installed a program to 'sniff out' viruses and spyware, a little program usually bundled with free games and such, that lives parasitically in your computer and sends your private information to a remote site without your knowledge or permission.

That's the downside of Internet e-mail. For what I think is a good example of the upside, consider this exchange between myself, who had a question about the "Iceman", a 5,300-year-old mummy recently found intact in the Tyrolian Alps, and Dr. James Dickson, world-renowned paleobiologist, whose website (with e-mail address) I found while researching the answer. I feel that to have had this exchange, quirky though it was at my end, was amazing: A question popped into my mind, so I wrote a quick letter to a famous leading expert on the subject before I went to bed and found, upon awaking, that his gratifying and informative personal reply was waiting for me in my Outlook Inbox. Read on:

>>> [My query:] Greetings from California, Doctor! I serendipitously came across your website via a bbc.co.uk link, with which you are no doubt familiar. I read with rapt attention the meticulous cataloguing of the floral artefacts that accompanied the 'iceman' (pardon the expression) in his final moments. ...... that every fire-starting flint-carrier would necessarily tote....... for this conclusion. As I found little else on this particular topic on the Internet, and being no expert in the scatological concerns of the long-deceased (on which I suspect your conclusions may be partly based), I do not know which school to believe, and any illumination that you could provide would be gratefully received.

Respectfully, Ian Murdock Scottish-American pseudointellectual and autoeffacing hemidemisemipedant

[His reply:] Dr James H. Dickson - Div. of Environmental and Evolutionary Biology, IBLS Graham Kerr Building, University of Glasgow , Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK. e-mail:gbty08@udcf.gla.ac.uk

Dear Ian Murdock, You should buy the Scientific American in May this year because therein will be an article I have written on the Iceman.

In the meantime there are two fungi found with Oetzi, the pleasing nickname that the Iceman has been given. Firstly, the True Tinder Fungus (Fomes fomentarius) which he was certainly using as tinder because it was found in his bellybag with flints and iron pyrites.

Secondly, the Birch Bracket Fungus (Piptoporus betulinus). There were two shaped pieces strung on leather thongs. This fungus is known to have medicinal properties and so it is entirely reasonable to think it was being used for such a purpose or for medicospiritual practices, as claimed in the official volume 4 by two mycologists.

I hope this helps, Jim Dickson. >>>

Wow! With opportunity like that abounding, who wants to throw his or her time away starting a hoax?

Anonfully, Ian Murdock S.A., PsI, & A.E./HdsP


CONTAMINATED EMAIL
Art Murdock

For any or all of you who may have received a contaminated email which appeared to have come from Lorraine and me, we apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused you. We do not yet know how this demon got into our address, but we can assure you all that we do not and will not send anything with attachments without first contacting the recipients by phone or other safe means. We also will delete any such email which we receive.

On Wednesday, January 29, we had a new cable TV and broadband system installed by Charter Communications. That appears to be when the problems began with this worm or whatever kind of prank it may have been. We are protected by McAffee as well as another through our server but when the system was being converted I do know that our McAffee was disabled for at least two hours. Because of our now outdated system, there were several stumbling blocks hindering our attempt to install this new high speed service. Consequently we were without any email for a couple days and another day without being able to receive that new mail which had been in limbo. Time to upgrade the old Hewlett Packard ? Definitely !

This email address may change soon. We will notify all of any changes when the dust settles. Thanks for your notes and calls and especially for your patience and understanding.


CAT HUMOR
Valerie Davidson

I have always believed that our five-year-old tortoiseshell cat, Samurai, has a genuine sense of humor. Well, today matters reached a new level of hilarity.

Her nose was slightly out of joint because she has to deal with a new kitty roommate, so she stepped out on the back porch and I attempted to appease her with a couple small scoops of canned cat food which I placed in a bowl in front of her.

All cat owners know about picky kitty eaters. Well, Sami's message was clear: she stepped toward the bowl, then reached pointedly beyond it, and began scratching imaginary kitty litter over the top of it. After several such pantomimes, she delicately sniffed the offending food, and then scratched several more imaginary scoops over it.

I've been told, huh?


MUSE
Polly Soberg

Thanks for the great edition of the Muse. I enjoyed every bit of it and have made a copy of the birthday/anniversary list. It looks like you put in a great deal of work on this issue. Many thanks for helping us all to keep up with family affairs as well as reading about other's lives and interests.

Hope all is going well in this new year. I feel as if we are in a frozen state!!! We are looking forward to Wednesday when it might reach freezing again.

Clyde keeps us apprised of the weather minute by minute as he has a weather station... Carl keeps busy doing the shopping, taking Clyde to appointments, cooking, cleaning, and working a few hours two days a week. Now he knows what all women go through!

I'm still working and hoping I can keep my job for the remainder of this year. Our mental health agency is in serious financial trouble and they are trying to cut back in many ways. Today we were notified that upper management had to take a 10% cut and the agency is no longer matching the 5% of pay being put into a TSA. This hurts!

To keep myself sane I have started going to a health club for nautilus and other exercise. Today I got my first introduction to about half of the machines. I think this will take some doing.... Will keep you informed.


RECENT PHOTOS
Jerod Davidson

I'm living with my friend Dan near downtown Redwood City, about ten minutes from where I spent my whole life!
Here are a couple of pictures. (I went skydiving in August 2002)


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