A clear and unequivocal corporate statement on its customers

For a place as cold and wet as Seattle, it's always surprised me that our local major amusement park is half water rides-- slides, pools, "river rafting" and the like. It's fun, in a very power-hungry way; it's a little disconcerting to see the radiant heat blasting away from exhaust stacks in 72F (22C) weather, all to keep megaliters of water just a little warmer than the ambient air.

Earlier this year the partk announced it had a new attraction. That linked-to article claims that the now-named "Riptide" attraction has a "patented exit mechanism" to ensure that riders will eventually be pushed out of the centrifugal bowl portion of the ride, but hydrodynamics is more or less the same at a scale of a half-meter across, or 15 meters across, and there is just no getting around this fact: the ride looks, and acts, exactly like a toilet bowl. You are not so much "pushed" as "flushed." You get an authentic turd's-eye view of the process.

Damned Spider...

Stormy is in tears. Her tarantula escaped its cage.

I told her if she doesn't find that damned bug by this evening, I'm going to the hardware store and buying a household fogger and nuking that entire wing of the house. As much as she loves having a spider, the rest of us are more than a little freaked out by the idea of that eight-legged freak crawling around us in the middle of the night. I know Kouryou-chan will not sleep until she knows that spider has been found and neutralized, somehow. Omaha and I might be able to sleep, but I doubt it.

I hated telling her that, but I don't have a choice. She suggested that she and Kouryou-chan could sleep in the basement tonight. I said, "What, abandon the house room by room until... when?"

"Until we find him!"

"What if we never find him? Should we just abandon the house forever?"

The other problem is that their bedroom is a mess. Although they keep it clean, it's a hoarder's paradise of childhood mementos and miscellany. And every time I go upstairs, I find her not working because it's all too much.

Dammit, I have work to do today. I took part of yesterday afternoon off to take the kids out to the park. Now I'm stuck thinking about that damned bug. And what if it's not in the back of the house? What if it's in the living room, or the kitchen? What then?

If she doesn't find it by 5pm, I'm using this stuff on it.

[Edit: The spider has been found. We are now triaging the situation.]

Stormy's a good kid after all.

Stormy found her spider hiding in a box of drawing supplies. We quickly taped the box shut, then walked down the street to the hardware store to buy a pipe clamp. Using some metal screening left over from when I replaced a damaged window screen, we clamped that sucker into its bowl but tight.

For all the emotionalism, I'm glad it didn't come to me bug-bombing her spider to death. And I'm going to let her keep it, as long as she keeps it in its damn cage.