No hardwoods underneath the bench so we will have to lay some ourselves - someone had laid some sub-floors there within the last 10-15 years. My contractor told me it looked like there might have a stove in the room at one time. We just re-finished our hardwoods last year, but didn't even think to rip out the bench. At that point, it still seemed like a charming detail. Oh well...live and learn. :)

Oh no! I had no idea either! And though I like DST later in the year, and I LOVE SPRING and am soooo ready for it, it's just now getting to the point where it's light at a reasonable time in the morning here! Now it's going to be dark an hour later. On the bright side, for me anyway, is that I start work at 5 a.m. and it's dark then anyway, and would be until later on in the season even if we didn't start DST.

I'm a scientist and I teach how to find and verify objectivity and evaluate the quality of information. There are many ways to slant news, but the number one way I see things going on now is just not reporting stories. It costs money to keep news desks staffed with investigative reporters. Much easier to stick with the easy tried and true stories that don't require any thought, research or hard hitting analysis. The same six stories get played over and over. Today on the way to work I listened to a substantive discussion on trade policies and how they affect jobs and the economy on the Diane Rehm show. If I had not had to go into work late, I would have never heard boo about these major issues. Oh, and the four panelists had widely varying views and information on the subject, and they were able to discuss and disagree based on experience, facts, in depth knowledge, perspectives of different parts of the country and different sectors of the economy, etc. I would never see such a thing on any other network, Fox included. The shallowness of the news is mind numbing, but I know why that is, because to sell you have to be short, catchy, simplistic like an advertisement, based on a few motivating human emotions (conflict being one of them).

Some fanciful 60s: Dream about the pictures that I play of changes... Across the morning sky, all the birds are leaving. Ah, how can they know it's time for them to go? And this classic. We can't return, we can only look behind from where we came