posted 2008/04/27 at 20:36
This past weekend I've just taken some time for myself and tried to decompress. For the first time since Dad's death I didn't have anything that needed immediate attention from my students, although starting Wednesday I'll have some fifty or sixty portfolios to look at and get graded by the following Monday. I also start teaching Composition I at MCCC that Monday, so over the next couple of days I'll have to look at the required textbook for that class and try to figure out some kind of lesson plan. Yesterday and today, though, I kind of took some time for myself here to relax and unwind, play some video games, do some shopping, and watch a bit of television. (Unfortunately I was out shopping during the Red Wings' game Saturday and wound up missing Darren McCarty's first fight since rejoining the Wings, guh.) I'd wanted to do some cleaning in my room, but that didn't wind up happening and I'll probably have to get to it two weeks from now.
Leaves have begun to spring up on some of the trees in our backyard, and I can't help but think of how Dad's not here to see them now. As we've been going through his stuff recently, we've unearthed a lot of the sketches and paintings he used to do back before he started his own business; I had pretty much forgotten he'd ever done them, but once I saw them I remembered, "Oh yeah, I saw those when I was a kid." He had this way of drawing leaves on trees when he worked in pen-and-ink where we just made these curlicues all over the place, and somehow it worked; I remember trying to imitate that style when I was young and failing at it. (As always, stick a writing implement in my hand and all my manual dexterity goes to crap.) I'll probably put some of his work online here on the .org soon -- I've been meaning to do an online tribute to him, but time just hasn't been on my side for that -- but it's painful to realize that twenty years ago he just stopped doing that stuff because he got so wrapped up in running his business that he cut all his fun, all his social activities, out of his life. (In case you were wondering where I got that from ... yeah.)
As I see spring turn to summer here (although we may be getting some snow overnight after hitting 80 on Friday ...), I can't help but wonder if Dad was able to appreciate the changing of the seasons. We had that lunar eclipse a few days before his death, and I can remember him and Mom taking a look at it after I pointed it out to him, but a full lunar eclipse is one of those rare, irregular occasions you kind of make a point of observing. Even coming from a family of Wiccans, I don't think we do all that much to recognize when the seasons change and all the beauty that's out there waiting to be explored. If I were to pass away suddenly, I wouldn't want it said of me that I was too wrapped up in my work and my other pursuits to be able to enjoy the simple beauty of the first green leaves budding on trees in the spring. I think I'm overdue for a trip to Wildwood or the Toledo Botanical Garden. I'll do what I can to make that trip before I start getting weighed down with portfolios.
Labels: dad, personal, weather
posted 2008/04/25 at 18:14
Two things stand out on this day in history, both from 1792. On that day, not only did Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle pen "La Marseillaise," the French national anthem, but the first execution by guillotine, another French invention, was also carried out. As I remind my students on a regular basis, just because two things happen close to each other does not necessarily mean that one thing caused another to happen, but in a case like this you just never know. On that note, let's play the friday5.org Friday Five!
1. What’s something you love and is quite bad for you?
Given everything I've gone through the past two months, I have to answer fatty foods here. Seriously, don't even ask.
2. What’s something you hate and is quite good for you?
Vegetables. For a vegetarian, I sure don't eat as many of them as I should.
3. What’s something that’s about equally good and bad for you?
Going out and trying to meet new people, like I did last night after work. I need to expand my horizons here, but I'm still not sure that I'm mentally prepared for that at this point.
4. What’s something you’ve been told is bad for you but you suspect is not as bad as people say?
I'd say some people who are trying to get me to really ratchet down on the carbohydates I take in when I diet. There's no doubt that I should be getting more protein than I do, but I don't think carbs are quite the monsters that some people make them out to be.
5. What’s something most people consider ugly but you consider beautiful?
I refuse to answer this question on the grounds that my answer may serve to bring me grievous bodily harm.
Labels: fridayfive
posted 2008/04/23 at 21:03
As much as I used to follow computing news and trends back in the 1990s, the combination of leaving the Website design business, going back to college, and losing access to Tech TV after the fire caused me to kind of withdraw from that whole scene. Later, when I stopped working for Dad's business to focus on my studies, I lost access to the computing magazines he always subscribed to. I still knew enough to build my own computer (Yggdrasil Mark I) back in 2003, but then I got into grad school and I started teaching, and of course these past couple of months my life has been turned upside down. (I promise, once the current semester ends next week and I have one last weekend of reviewing student work, I will make a strong effort to return to blogging on a regular basis, not to mention other things that fell off of the radar after Dad died.) I have to stay up on Internet stuff just because of my job (in addition to teaching and researching online I also need to know the "Internet culture" of my students to be able to communicate effectively with them), but as far as the hardware stuff goes I kind of haven't paid attention to that for a long time.
I've mentioned here for a long time that I need to start making Yggdrasil Mark II soon. However, Mom says that she wants a computer so she can do Internet stuff, and as soon as she suggested that, she also suggested that I give her Yggdrasil Mark I and she'd buy me the components for my next computer. Well, unfortunately I'm beginning to have problems with Mark I -- I think she needs a new power supply and new fans -- and I don't want to have to perform major surgery on Mark I until it's time to get it cleaned up for Mom. At the very least it is now time to start pricing things out for Mark II, and yes, I'm building another PC, so Mac loyalists are advised to save their breath trying to get me to switch.
Unfortunately, my lack of knowledge of current tech trends is really coming back to bite me in the butt now. As I did with Mark I, I'm going to use an Asus motherboard at the heart of my system, and I'll probably get a current low-end Intel model. Unfortunately, PC architecture has changed so much that I find myself lost looking at the specs for motherboards. (Right now I'm looking at the P5N-E SLI, but I may get a higher-end model depending on how much money I can save up.) I look at the specs for the motherboard and what kind of RAM and hard drives it can support, and then I look at the RAM and hard drives that are on sale, and it seems like the components have all these additional variations that I can't match to the motherboard's listed specifications. I've tried to puzzle these things out on my own, but I'm having no luck, and it's getting to the point where I've given serious consideration to having a local computer store just build a computer for me, even though I'll probably spend at least an extra $250 just on price markups and labour costs.
I could use some guidance, if any of my readers have advice on components and stuff to get (apart from "Get a Mac"). Unlike my old computers which were mostly full of bargain-basement (but reliable) parts, I actually want something "nice" here because I'm past my "all I need to do is write papers in Word and look up plain text Websites" stage of my life; I plan on doing a lot of music and 3-D stuff with this new computer, so I'll want things to be nice but not go overboard buying bleeding-edge stuff. I don't want to overclock, and I don't need to burn Blu-ray discs (I already have a DVD burner from when I was going to put a new computer together for Dad), but I'd still like to know that I can run current-generation software quickly and be able to do a fair amount of multitasking. As I said before, an Asus mobo and Intel processor are givens (the one AMD computer I owned didn't work out too well for me), but otherwise I'm fairly open to suggestions.
posted 2008/04/18 at 17:28
[Quick note: At least for the moment I am on Twitter. If I find it a useful tool over the next couple of weeks I'll add a feed to the .org; follow me at your own peril.]
Today is the 32nd birthday of actress Melissa Joan Hart. While the students I teach are more familiar with her turn as the titular character on Sabrina the Teenage Witch, people my age will likely always remember her as the titular character of Nickelodeon's Clarissa Explains it All. That makes her exactly one month younger than me, which begs the question, what in the Toot have I been doing with my life? On that depressing note, let's play the friday5.org Friday Five.
1. What’s a buzzword or catchphrase that gets overused at your workplace or in your classes?
I've been too busy with other things to spend time talking with the other instructors at MCCC, and I can't think of a phrase my students have used a lot in class lately. Given how much I try to encourage original thought in my students, I hope this is a good sign that I'm doing my job.
2. What item in your house has seen too much use lately?
My French press. I've been so pooped lately that I've developed the biggest coffee addiction I can remember having in a decade.
3. What’s a word or phrase your friends would ask you to use a lot less, if you were to ask their opinion?
The moment anyone who knows me asks me to talk less than I currently do is the moment I become a monk.
4. What’s something in your life that’s pretty much been used up and needs replacing?
I had to replace the black ink cartridge in my printer last weekend; does that count? Seriously, I overuse everything to death, so I can't come up with just one thing here.
5. In what way have you been overused lately?
Trying to figure out answers to the millions of questions Dad's death has raised, for the family and our lawyers and seemingly everyone else on the face of the planet.
Labels: fridayfive
posted 2008/04/16 at 12:01
While we continue to inventory and appraise all of the things Dad had in his office at the time of his death, my sister found the missing piece for my old articulating keyboard drawer, the metal plate that attaches to the bottom of the desk and works as a runner for the drawer to slide in and out of. Not only do I just generally prefer articulating drawers so I can angle my keyboard to my liking, but I needed a new keyboard drawer anyway. When I put together this desk I bought from OfficeMax about eighteen months ago or so, some of the screw holes for the keyboard drawer that came with the desk were too big. Eventually the weight on that side proved too much for the other screws to handle and they ripped themselves out of the desk, so for several months there half of my keyboard drawer was attached to my desk with little more than duct tape. It took me a while before I could find the time to install the articulating drawer, and I think I put the plate on at an angle, but all in all it's been working out for me quite well.
This, however, created a new problem, because the chair I'd been using since I put this desk together -- I'd used the edge of my bed as a "chair" until then -- was too high, and it was never that comfortable. It was one of the spare, cheap office chairs Dad got for the old office, and it was hard to sit in it for long periods of time, especially since I could never get it to go down low enough to where I could use my keyboard drawer and monitor at comfortable heights. I needed a new chair, and for some reason I went back to OfficeMax even though I'd had those problems with the desk. (Although apart from the keyboard drawer issues, I admit that this desk has worked out fairly well for me.) I have to admit I didn't quite test all of the chairs out as much as I should have, but when I went in the store was empty and I kind of felt self-conscious being alone in the middle of the store sitting in chair after chair. I got what was a fairly well-padded chair, but only when I got home did I realize that the chair didn't recline, which was kind of a big issue for me. That in and of itself wouldn't have been much of an issue, but then on top of that the chair was a total pain to put together because it was impossible to attach the back to the arms without putting all my weight on the chair back to line the screw holes up. Eventually those screws worked themselves loose about a week or so after I got the chair, and now the back of the chair folds back onto the seat if you do anything more than look at it.
I needed a new chair, again, and I didn't know where to look. By a remarkable coincidence, I just happened to walk by the furniture department at Meijer this past week and saw that they had a budget glider for fifty dollars off. I tried the floor sample, and not only was it incredibly comfortable, but it reclined to just the right angle for me as well. I wasn't sure whether or not to buy it for a while because I wasn't sure if it was going to be the right height, but on Saturday I picked it up. (That in and of itself was troublesome because I couldn't get anyone to help me with loading the box in my cart and then into my minivan; Meijer has gone downhill in a hurry since the nearby Wal*Mart expanded and became a Wal*Mart Supercentre.) Sunday I put it together -- a difficult task because the instructions were kind of unlcear -- but not only is it super-comfortable, but it's just the right height. If I lean it all the way forward like I am now, I'm in a fairly standard typing position with my keyboard and monitor right where I like them. If I recline and pull the keyboard drawer forward, everything stays at the right height and I can take a load off while I work on here. Apart from the base of the chair being kind of big, making it hard for me to walk around it to get to my closet, this glider is absolutely perfect. (Once I have time for recreational reading again, I'm guessing that the reclined position wil be perfect for that.)
The only real problem I'm having is that the chair might be too comfortable. I'm still busy as all get-out with the items of business that came up after Dad's death (which, in turn, caused me to fall way behind in getting my students' work reviewed and returned, but I'm catching up there now), and even now that I've started drinking coffee on a regular basis again (which I don't think I've done in a decade), I run out of energy far too quickly for my liking. In that regard, I think that having such a comfortable chair to work in might be working against me here, since it's perhaps too easy for me to get comfortable and into a physical position where my body naturally turns on its "relax mode." I can't afford to relax now; I've still got too much work I need to do before things can return to normal around here, or at least what will pass for normal after Dad's death.
Labels: personal
posted 2008/04/11 at 20:40
On this date in 1921, Iowa became the first state to impose a tax on cigarettes. The very next day, the Libertarian Party was founded. Okay, I made that second part up. On that note, let's play the friday5.org Friday Five.
1. Among your acquaintances, who’s the best screamer?
I will simply say it's Katy, but I will not say how I am aware of this particular fact. (Seriously, how could I, or anyone, answer that question without raising eyebrows?)
2. When was the last time you had to shout in order to be heard?
Given how often I have my classes engage in small-group discussions over things, I invariably have to shout over them to get them back into a large-group discussion, so, um, yesterday.
3. When was the last time you cheered for anything?
When Darren McCarty got an assist in the Red Wings' last regular season game, although that wasn't a "cheer" so much as it was a fist-pump. The last time I seriously cheered was for Magglio Ordoñez ALCS-clinching home run in 2006. I'm not much of a cheer-er.
4. Whom did you last yell at?
It's been so long since I actually berated someone that I can't remember clearly. Sadly, I think the last person I can be said to have yelled at was Dad when he got on one of his "anyone who fights in hockey should be banned for life" tirades. (You see what the Stanley Cup playoffs do to my attention.)
5. When did you last lose your voice, or at least find yourself hoarse?
Just before last semester ended I got incredibly sick. My first day back I literally had to type everything I wanted to "say" to the class on the data projector.
Labels: fridayfive
posted 2008/04/09 at 21:21
You know we're getting into the heart of April in this part of the country when buds start appearing on some of the trees, you see young people milling about in promwear on Fridays and Saturdays, the post office gets busy with people filing their taxes in the last week to do so, and, of course, the Detroit Tigers are mathematically eliminated from the pennant race. Seriously, I don't know what's caused the Tigers to have this startling of a collapse in the early part of the year, but it is disconcerting to say the least. Things have to turn around at some point -- right? -- but all those early-season hopes of another playoff run have been fairly well dashed already. I expect Jim Leyland will last until the end of the season, but I doubt his contract will be renewed after the season is over. Is it too much to ask for that the Tigers bring Kirk Gibson back and make him the skipper like they should have done back in the Trammell era?
Of course with the Stanley Cup playoffs going on right now, I can't really care that much about baseball. I only wish I could be more confident about the Red Wings' chances given their propensity to choke in the first round when they win the Presidents' Trophy. Nashville was probably the best first-round opponent the Red Wings could have drawn simply because it will cut down on travel so much, but Nashville is due to finally win a playoff series here. If the Red Wings can win the series in short order and get more of their players more time to recover from the injuries they received this season, then maybe they've got a shot, but the Western Conference is just a huge mess these days with eight teams seemingly equally capable of making it to the finals. I'm going to say that the Red Wings make it to the finals this year, but I'm predicting they lose to Montreal there for two reasons. For one thing, I've been clamoring for an all-Original Six final for some time here, and of course there's the whole "be careful what you wish for" thing going on there. Secondly, for whatever reason (and I really can't think of a good one right now), the Canadiens' fans' chants are really getting on my nerves these days. I'd like to see the Red Wings get their eleventh cup this year, but I don't feel like there's a good chance of it happening.
As far as other sports go, I'm even less interested in basketball now than I can remember being before, and of course the Bengals' continued problems with Chad Johnson and players getting in trouble with the law make it hard to care much about football. I am looking forward to the NFL Draft like I do every year -- even if I don't follow college sports at all I just enjoy the "chess game" aspect of the draft -- but I have no choice now but to pin a lot of my hopes on the Red Wings, hopes that I somehow doubt they'll be able to fulfill.
posted 2008/04/06 at 20:57
With all of the craziness of the past couple of months I failed to note Björk getting into the press on a couple of occasions. First she went after another photographer (and this time couldn't claim she was trying to protect her son like she did the first time this happened), and then there was the incident of her chanting "Tibet" over and over at the end of her song "Declare Independence" while performing in China. I'm still not really bothering to keep close tabs on Björk or Tori Amos these days, though; in addition to just not appreciating their more recent works like I do the stuff they were making a decade ago, and just generally not having time or money to follow them like I used to, I've definitely been on a big new age kick for a few years now, probably because I'm finding it much better music to do work to. I'll still pick up the new CDs that they release, but I'm not going nuts trying to get every single released in every country like I used to do (not having Media Play to go to any longer contributes to that as well), and I've got far more in my own life to be concerned with to spend that much time following their lives.
That being said, I did pick up a couple of non-new age CDs for myself for my birthday; Low's Secret Name and Under Byen's Samme Stof Som Stof, the latter of which I'm listening to as I type this blog up. These are a couple of artists whose work I've come to enjoy through Urge Radio's Blue Room channel, which I would love a lot more than I do if they didn't seem to keep playing the same eight-hour rotation over and over again. (I hear that's a general concern with Urge Radio as a whole, though.) I'm definitely hearing a very strong Björk influence in Under Byen, and as much as I love to know that there are other big artists out there who are being influenced by Björk, it's disconcerting to know that Björk has been around long enough to start having a new generation of artists influenced by her work. Not that I mind that Björk is getting older, but that means that I'm getting older as well, and that's kind of worrisome.
On that same topic, I was looking through my Amazon.com wishlist before my birthday trying to decide on what CDs to buy for myself, and I have a number of 90s CDs up there just because I'm a fan of the decade in general when it comes to music. (Although I fell in love with Björk and Tori I still enjoy most of the stuff that came out then), and at first I was kind of happy to see that a lot of the iconic CDs I want to pick up from then were selling for ten dollars. At first I attributed this to the effects of the digital music revolution causing CD prices to be lower in general, but then I realized that the true cause of this phenomenon is simply that the CDs are so old that they're considered to be "oldies" in terms of CD pricing schemes. That really made me feel old, and the fact that I haven't really found any recent artists to get into (not counting new age artists) makes me wonder if I'm getting crotchety in my old age.
posted 2008/04/04 at 18:50
Forty years to the day that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was fell by an assassin's bullet. Only in recent years has more attention been paid to the work he did in showing the plight of the poor and speaking of the injustices that got us into Vietnam, but of course his work on race relations transcends any superlatives that anyone could hope to attach to it. On that somber note, let's play the friday5.org Friday Five.
(Gee, talk about an uncomfortable segue ...)
1. Where can you get some really good pancakes?
Mom used to make great pancakes from scratch, as did Dad (although he tended to make them only at night for our "breakfast-as-dinner" meals), but ever since Fast Shake came out, that's been the standard in this house. When I get the craving for pancakes these days, I'm usually stuck going to IHOP (which only came to Toledo a few years ago, strangely enough).
2. How do you like your pancakes?
Normally with just a bit of margarine and syrup, but since I've been going to IHOP I've tended to get their fruit pancakes.
3. What’s your theory on why restaurant waffles are so much more expensive than pancakes?
Lack of demand, I'd guess. Either that, or they're much more time-consuming to make because of specialized equipment. Besides, as everyone who has watched MST3k's treatment of Viking Women Versus the Sea Serpent knows, waffles rule the world.
4. The pancake chef is going whip up a batch of the most interesting, creative pancake invention you can imagine. What will you order?
Probably something more familiar and comforting to me. I'm not in the mood to experiment with my food right now.
5. When was the last time someone made you pancakes, not counting visits to restaurants?
I honestly cannot remember; it would have had to have been before I went vegetarian, which was back in 1992. Egads.
Labels: fridayfive
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon