A peek at the life, times and thoughts of John during his two-year stint in Knoxville.

Subway's $5 foot long special is about to end. I know because I was told by an employee today. It was fun to get a sub that usually costs $4.79 for a 6" in the foot-long variety for $5.

--Happy Mothers' Day. I'm not sure if punctuation technically belongs in the "Mothers" part. Is this a day that mothers own to themselves? If it's possessive then I'm correct. If it is just a day full of mothers then no apostrophe is necessary. I'm not sure what the case is.

--The Hebrew alphabet (and vowels) are coming slowly for me. Today I will add the last of the vowels to my flash card deck and then set about focusing on not only remembering the names and the forms but being able to put it all together from memory. So far I can go through and by looking at the characters tell what the names are. For the test I have to provide it all myself. We'll see how that goes. The test isn't until Tuesday, so we've got some more time.

--I'm still a bit sore from tennis and reminded how out of shape I am. I've never really had my ankles/lower shins hurt the way they do from Friday's adventure. I would love to hit the court 4-5 days a week, but as tight as my schedule is this quarter that doesn't seem likely.

--Getting back to the Mothers('?) Day theme: the founding of the holiday in the United States is attributed to a West Virginian. That West Virginian is from a town called Grafton which is not too terribly far from my stomping grounds. Another town near me claims to have had the first observance of Fathers' Day, but there seems to be more room for debate as to whether they really "invented" it or not.

Nonetheless, West Virginia can theoretically claim to care more about parents than the rest of you states. Take *that*!

--American Apparel is expanding. Don't ask me how (I don't know anybody who has ever bought an item from American Apparel), but they are now advertising on Facebook too. I've noticed that Mindsay is prominently featuring Travelocity today. We're moving on up!

-John