Milking Mount St. Helens for all it's worth

Ten items or less

* Now the scientists are not sure when Mount St. Helen is going to erupt or even if she will blow her top this time around. She could keep puttering around with these little steam blasts and minor earthquakes for awhile, which in the end is good for Nebraska.

Why? Because of the publicity. Granted, the Cornhusker state is not mentioned as often as, perhaps, Oregon and Washington. But, Nebraska had merited a mention in about every other story I hear about the volcano's 1980 eruption and the ashes which traveled a 1,000 miles, "all the way to Nebraska."

We're getting all the free publicity without the danger of molten lava pouring over our towns.

* By now, most people have heard about the Minnesota motorcyclist who was ticketed with speeding -- at 205 mph. But the debate remains about whether Samuel Tilley broke the prestigious 200-mph mark on his 2003 Honda RC51. Motorcycle experts claim Tilley was more likely going 185 mph, a capable speed for his bike. One expert said that even if a person did a complete overhaul of the bike plus used jet fuel to reach 205 mph, that person wouldn't like be speeding around southern Minnesota. He would be on a race track.

The Minnesota State Patrol stands by their trooper who was watching from helicopter and used a stopwatch to measure the amount of time it took Tilley to go from Point A to Point B. (No word on whether the trooper was flying and ticketing at the same time.)

My question: What's the difference if he was going 185 mph or 205 mph? He was still going at least 120 mph OVER the posted speed limit and he still broke the record for speeding in Minnesota.

* While not fond of spiders, I can tolerate them long enough to usher them out of the house or sweep down their cobwebs. Snakes, on the other hand, give me the heeby-geebies just thinking about them. While out jogging, I passed a two-foot gardener snake sun-bathing on the country road last week. I had to run backwards for the next half-mile, just to make sure the snake wasn't going to follow me.

So, I don't know how I would have reacted if I lived in an apartment complex with Keith Berg in Bay St. Louis, Miss., who lost his 17-foot Burmese python late last month. Evidently, his girlfriend left the bathroom door ajar and the snake "snuck out."

First of all, what's the snake doing in the bathroom? I can't picture myself taking a relaxing bubble bath with a giant serpent slithering around the room.

Berg was not to concerned about the danger "Baby" posed to his neighbors since "he just ate last week" and won't have to eat for another three weeks. During her monthly feeding, Baby usually eats four rabbits, which are killed prior to the dinner to help keep Baby non-aggressive. That's reassuring to know when you wake up to a 17-foot snake crawling across your bed. According to the Associated Press story, there is no ordinance against keeping a python in an apartment. Of course, there's no ordinance against living without common sense either, but maybe both of those concepts could be addressed.

* We live in a disposable society. If something has a minor problem, it heads straight to the landfill. Yet, most of the time, it costs more to have an item fixed than to buy a replacement. Trying to not add to this problem, I'm trying to figure out what to do with one of my telephones. It's a perfectly good telephone. The ringer can be heard throughout the house. When talking to people who have called, I can hear them clearly.

The only problem: The No. 4 doesn't work. Since this eliminates calling anyone in McCook or anyone in the eastern half of Nebraska, I'm not sure what to do with the phone. My options are to turn the current phone into a play phone for the kids and buy a replacement or to live with not calling anyone and just let people call me. I'll probably go with the latter.

-- As a mother of five, Ronda Graff knows she needs a phone which dials out in case of an emergency, especially if she sees someone going 120 mph over the speed limit or a snake...of any length.