All-Time Train Dodge

I'm back in the Fort for the Easter weekend. I hope you all have a wonderful time wherever you find yourselves today. I just have a couple of things to share with you today:

... Yesterday morning, on our way to Database class, Tom and I ran across a team of VT employees watering the plants near the Donaldson Brown Hotel. This in itself wouldn't be worthy of note, except that it was already raining. And they were in a truck equipped with a snowplow. We felt sure that they were the new guys on Tech's clean-up crew, and their boss had given them this greenhorn job as a practical joke. I later saw them by the Drillfield, still diligently watering the flowers, so at least they're dedicated professionals.

... I watched Stand By Me last night, a DVD I'd bought on sale months ago and had never gotten around to looking at. I remember watching this movie on TV with my brother when I was in elementary school, probably around the age that the four kids are in the movie. The one scene that still stuck in my mind after all these years was the swamp with the leeches - though I never swam in places where leeches could be a problem, just the vivid image of those four guys flailing around trying to get the bloodsuckers off pretty much scared me.

What really impressed me, though, is how accurately Rob Reiner depicted those little conversations and interactions that define twelve-year-old friendships. In short, what a great movie. And of course, it was cool seeing child actor Wil Wheaton (who I knew on TNG, of course, and now admire because of his blog) and a younger Kiefer Sutherland being mean. Good stuff. It's a good throwback to childhood, for at least two or three generations.