Jeremy Herndon

I’ve seen pictures of the Smart car on the Internet, and on television, but not “for real” until today.  I was waiting to pull out of a parking lot and a large tractor trailer passed me by, followed by a Smart car.  What a huge difference in size that was!  It was a cute little thing, a bright red, but it brought back memories of many years ago when I saw the results of a little car being in an accident with a tractor trailer and it made me shudder.  I don’t know how safe I would feel in such a little car!

My younger brother is coming to spend the weekend with me this weekend.  In a short while I have to leave to go pick him up at the Metro rail station.  He took the bus from New Jersey; it only costs him about $15 to take a bus, and he brings his laptop and works on his laptop or reads on the bus ride down.  It will be good to see him again; we haven’t seen each other in a few months.  I asked him if there was anything special he wanted to do while he was here - any sightseeing, etc, and he said no, he just wanted to relax and hang out.  So that will be the plan of action, we’ll just hang out, play some games, watch some flicks and stay up late and sleep late as much as possible.  I’m looking forward to the visit!

Tonight a group of my friends got together to eat dinner at our local Applebee’s restaurant.  That’s one of our favorite places to eat, the food is always good and it is always reasonably priced.  The only thing that we don’t like about it is that it has a “smoking” section.  We always ask for a seat in the “non-smoking” section but we still smell the cigarette smoke, which is just plain and simple nauseating to smell.  Never mind the health consequences of smoking and second-hand smoke, it just plain and simply smells nasty!  We were surprised that last night they allowed smoking; there are times when I’ve gone there and it was all non-smoking.  Maybe that’s only on Sundays.  Next time we think we want to go there, I’m going to call them and ask them when they have smoke-free dining.

Do you know what parthenogenesis means?  I didn’t until I read it in an article that was talking about how a second case of asexual reproduction in sharks was documented this week in Virginia Beach.  It seems that a female blacktip shark, having been the only kind of her species in an aquarium, gave birth without benefit of having a mate.  The article also mentions that last year a hammerhead shark in a zoo in Omaha also gave birth without benefit of mating.

I found this to be quite fascinating!  I knew that there were some animals that could do that, but not sharks!  Considering how many people are afraid of sharks, this could be very scary news to some people.  I would not be surprised to see this story on the Colbert Report’s threat down sometime soon!

I was shocked to hear on the local news that a bridge in Gainesville VA that is part of the I-66 highway collapsed over part of RT 29 today shortly after noon.  The bridge that collapsed was undergoing demolition, so the roadways were cleared (thank goodness) but I did not find that out immediately.  I was very upset when I first heard the news because I have a lot of friends and family that drive over and under that bridge!  So I was freaking out; wondering if anyone I knew got hurt.  When I finally found out that the roads had been closed and only one person was hurt (minor injuries, one of the work crew) I felt quite relieved, but a little bit angry that such an accident could have happened in the first place.  I know that it is going to be investigated - I hope that they can figure out a way to prevent a situation like that from happening again!