Thank goodness I currently have two more friends than my dad. It's not like I'm trying to break some Facebook record, but I think it'd be throughly embarassing if my dad had more friends than me on Facebook.

On a related note, it must be really nice to be retired. Too bad I have 37 more years until I can find out.

Facebook

1. I was never going to join a social networking site (mostly because I know my kids will eventually find it and some of you all don't get the whole let's not mention certain things as to help me keep my job with its weird rules and morality clauses) and would have to censor myself to make it worth my while. Then my sixty some year old parents got on my back about not having an account. So, through parental pressure, I joined Facebook (I bet I am the only person who gets to say that).

2. I would like to point out the approriateness of my dad's profile picture. It's like he actually knew what he was doing when he put a picture of he and my mom drinking.

OMG....

I have no possible way to explain how much this makes my mind spin and spin and crash and reboot and spin and spin to fully let you appreciate how ridiculous this is.

At first, I thought, this has got to be a joke. Apparently, not so much.

I live in a nice area -- Or, shit always happens when I'm out of the building

Two years ago I took of a couple of days to make a five day weekend and went on a minivacation with Ben. The last day I wasn't there, there was a bomb threat at school. The kids didn't even come into the building; they sat outside on the field, in the 90 degree heat, all day. Apparently it was pretty bad. I don't know, I wasn't there.

I was out of the building today at a department chair meeting (the theme, bling it on -- I kid you not. We got plastic, fake gold, dollar sign necklaces). When driving home, I noticed a large number of unmarked and marked police cars speeding down route 1, in the general direction of my school. I thought, great, we had a fire near us on Monday that delayed the start of school, and now there's something going on now, stopping the kids from getting home (it was around 3 in the afternoon).

I went into the local bookstore to see if they had a book someone suggested at our department chair's meeting, and when I came out about fifteen minutes later, there were two more unmarked police cars weaving in and out of traffic, heading in the same direction. An interesting side note, one was an unmarked white ford taurus (classy) and a white suv truck thingy.

So, I came home, finished reading the book I bought (I had been listening to it on CD today while I drove to my meeting and it was so good, I had to come home and finish reading it -- and I can read a lot faster than the people on the CD can), Ben told me that route 1 was closed between Lockheed and Fordson, two roads right before my school. I looked it up, to his suggestions, on WJLA's website. Yes, someone was holding a bus hostage at gun point.

Fairfax County police are engaged in a standoff with a gunman on a Fairfax Connector bus in Hybla Valley.

Police have closed Route-1 at Fordson Road in both directions.

SWAT teams are on scene. Authorities say the standoff started around 2:45 p.m. Wednesday afternoon. The suspect allowed the other passengers as well as the driver off the bus unharmed. Officers are currently negotiating with the gunman.

ABC 7/NewsChannel 8's Jay Korff has learned that Fairfax County Police are also working a suspicious death near the area of Telegraph Road and South Kings Highway.

Police are investigating whether or not it is related to their ongoing standoff.

Note to readers: I used to drive by South Kings and Telegraph all the time on my way home from work (I now live near the intersection of South Kings and Route 1). There is this weird place called Crossroads near the intersection of South Van Dorn, South Kings, and Telegraph. I think that it's a rehab place of some sort considering that it has locked doors and a security entrance and what appear to be dorms of some sort. My prediction: someone left there after killing someone, got on the bus (the stop is near the place), and then drove along until he decided to take the bus hostage. Now, let's just see if my predictions are true.

And now, it's time to play video games with Ben.

Ice Cream

This is a pretty good ice cream recipe. I've made vanilla ice cream from it and mint chocolate chip ice cream. Both were very good. Up next to try is cinnamon, chocolate with peanut butter cookie dough, maybe strawberry, and maybe an Indian like ice cream with cardamon, pistachios, and honey. I think that last one would be delicious. I need to find people to eat this ice cream because the batch made a lot more than I thought it would. I've already managed to pawn off two of the six containers on my team and a third one on my mentor to take home to her kids.

Now, if I could only not be at school 55 hours a week, I could make more delicious ice cream, and work out enough to eat it.