Dulcet drips of tenacious time

The year’s end draws closer and I missed my second chance to get a photo of the banner that was hung in Coraopolis this month. It was there last year (for the first time, I think), but I missed that photo-op as well. The Pittsburgh Veterans take a trip to the WWII memorial in DC close to veteran’s day. A very nice idea. The slogan, however, leaves something to be desired in my book.

Here are two links about the “project”:

(1) Pittsburgh WWII Veterans Memorial Trip homepage

(2) Post-Gazette Article from last year

It’s bad enough that I ruminate so much about mortality as it is. I can only imagine what it will be like when I hit my 80’s (assuming I get that far). In fact, I don’t even like those life insurance commercials that try to guilt me into buying or upping my insurance as soon as possible so that my loved ones will enjoy greater comfort once I’m gone! There’s too much of a sense of URGENCY to those commercials. It takes me back to when I was a kid and I thought people in the TV could see me, or knew about me. Remember the birthday list on Romper Room!? Well, when I see that guy dressed in his ready-to-go-to-my-funeral-suit telling me that I could go AT ANY TIME, my paranoia thoughts start churning, “Is he talking to ME? Does he know something I should know?” You get the idea.

So, to think that someday someone might start a slogan to get ME to do something or see something or go somewhere or whatever, (BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!) makes me a bit uncomfortable. That sounds like a fun bus-trip, for sure. Every time I’d look up at the guy in the seat next to mine, I’d wonder, “Hey, that guy looks pretty old; wonder how much longer he’s got?” Of course, that guy’s looking my way and is probably thinking very similar thoughts about my raggedy face.

My neighbor is a WWII veteran (Leo). He loves to tell his war stories. He jumped out of airplanes as a member of the 101^st Airborne. Also known as the “Screaming Eagles”. Leo loves to tell his war stories, and Leo was well decorated. In addition to his love of telling war stories, he has a Screaming Eagles baseball cap and it’s decorated with miniatures of his medals (including the Purple Heart). He loves to tell his war stories. Whenever he is in public, the cap goes with him. You can rest assured, Leo will be telling some war stories. I’ve never seen him wear the cap and be ignored. There’s always someone who comments on it, or, thanks him for his service. And Leo is ready with stories to tell. Leo really loves to tell his war stories.

Leo lives right next door with his sister Anne, and they have become like family to us. It’s a nice feeling to see them there, and it’s a comfort to us that we can count on them to check in on our dogs if we need them to do so. I really think that Leo (and maybe his sister) would appreciate a trip to the memorial. We’ll have to set it up for them next year.

Before it’s too late.

Satanic Apples

Happy Halloween.

I’ve been very busy this month (and still am, frankly). But, I thought I’d take a few minutes to share a brief experience.

At the beginning of the month, I went to the John Edward presentation (or “event”) at the Sheraton Station Square in Pittsburgh.

Cost was around $200 per ticket.

He’s easy to listen to, and, I’d say that he has a nice sense of humor. Let’s just say he’s able to charm a crowd.

My father is very much “in to” the psychic scene (people such as John Edward, Rosemary Altea, etc.). We got him a ticket to the show (which is something he’s wanted for quite some time) and I got one for me, so he wouldn’t be there alone. Plus, I admit that I was interested to see how it worked.

We had a nice dinner before the show, then walked to the hotel where the seating would no-doubt be limited. There, we stood in line for about 45 minutes.

I’d wondered if he might have “plants” in the line trying to find information secretly to pass on to John before his show. There was a lone woman about in her late 30’s to early 40’s who stood behind my father and I. She was attentive and had her cell phone out frantically text-messaging while the three ladies behind her chatted about the tragedies they’ve endured in their lives. Loved ones lost, and so on.

“Ah-HA!” Was my thinking… I decided to stroll up and down the line to see if there were other “texters” who might be feeding info to the so-called psychic. There were maybe two others.

I decided to keep an eye on our texter and see where she sat, etc. I also wanted to follow the locations of the women we could all overhear talking about the dead relatives they were hoping to hear from. It would be interesting to see if they ended up as “targets” for Mr. Edward’s show.

We eventually got inside and sat knee-to-knee with other foolish-with-their-money folks. I lost track of our texter-lady… As I suspected might happen (but then later I saw that she’s sat a ways back behind us, oh well).

John showed up, to the obvious adoration of the many fans (mostly women, by the way). Probably there were 90 women for every five males in the audience. He never used any of the information I’d have guessed he’d use from secret text-messagers. So, probably there were none. I was just being super-suspicious.

Nonetheless, I was not impressed by his performance. It was all-to-clearly (to me) a cold-reading performance.

There were a lot of people there, and he would pick an area and “stab” with something like, “Is there someone here who has a father-figure who passed that missed a graduation?” He’d narrow to a small group and keep drilling for a hit. His approach is to ALWAYS try to make a “hit” in the sense that even if the person standing kept saying “no” he’d probe and push around until he could find some type of match. Occasionally to the delight of the audience.

In the above example, a small family stood and the younger adult male was answering “no” about his high school and college graduations. Dad made it to both. After a while of pushing, Edward finally got the guy to remember that, “Oh, wait, I got two degrees in college, and dad missed one of the ceremonies.”

OK, people, the hits are there if we can just open up to them.

Sure, that was a cool hit. But then later, a similar setup with a, “Your mother is saying something about New York?” Followed by nothing from the family. This went on and on, and even I could think of possible hits having to do with New York. Then out of desperation, a family member offered, “Well, sometimes when I drive to work, I think I go past a little restaurant called the New York Deli…?”

This was instantly taken as another one of those “Come on people, open up, the hits are there!” But really, despite the supportive laughter about another bone-head who can’t open up to the obvious hits, I wasn’t impressed by that one.

John is really slick in being able to tease out likely bits of general information, and the audience (or targets) embellish some details that can then be reworked into more specific-sounding hits. As another example, he picked a section and asked, “What’s the association with Gilligan’s Island?” It took a while, but someone was able to say that, in the country they are from, there is a little beach-island nearby that is called Gilligan’s Island, although she’d never been there. Again, I could probably have matched that also because my mother hated that show, even though we (my sister and I) watched it quite a bit growing up. I really think that would that have been close enough to match John’s probe.

My main sense, and what I did mostly, was watch people melt under the spotlight of having loved-ones let them know they are doing fine. Tears a-many were shed. Heads nodded at almost every morsel Edward blurbled out. It was a sort of rapture. It really made me sad.

If I wasn’t a pessimist before the show, I am certainly one now. The ease with which people seem to fall for this smoke paints a dim view of humanity’s future in my mind. Imagine taking the Jetson’s out of their cartoon and putting Fred and Wilma into it as replacements. We are a modern society with such superstitious and mystical beliefs being constantly recycled and perpetuated that I fear for humanity.

Actually, I fear for the world! Not because of what humans will do to it in their fiery spiral toward destiny, but because I doubt that we’ll be even good enough at doom to completely wipe ourselves out. The scourge will probably rise again to torture the planet and its non-human (and human) inhabitants some more.

Wow. How’s that for a downer of a blog-entry?

Techno-RANT!

WARNING: This blog-entry has displaced another blog-entry I’d planned to write. However, for the sake of the breakables around me during times of frustration such as this, it’s better I get the anger out of my system this way for now.

I am so alarmingly tired of the “technology experts” at my school.

Currently, once I press the power button to my work computer, it takes about an hour and fifteen minutes before it becomes as close to reasonable to use as it’s going to get. Sadly, that's NOT even an exaggeration. On the bright side, I’ve been promised a replacement computer. (But then again, I remember getting promised a pony when I was a kid.)

So, essentially, I cannot work effectively at school. But at least I have the equipment to work at home! All I need to do is access a program called Citrix and I can access what’s called my “H-Drive” at school (wasn’t there a bomb similarly named?). This H-Drive is where I diligently back-up my work every day in case my laptop dies (which it doesn’t have the decency to do; since laptop-death is pretty much the only way to get a replacement faster).

Oops, sorry Steve. The brilliant folks in IT (which I think is just the last two letters of their full acronym) have “upgraded” our access channels. NOW, the Citrix I used to use won’t allow me access to my H-Drive. In fact, now it only lets me use the school software from off-campus… of course, that means that I have to carry that stuff with me if I want to work on it away from school. See? That’s called “convenience” at my school!

So then, how do I access my H-Drive from home? The brilliant folks in IT have provided us a handy link on the web to a program called Netstorage. This program allows us to SEE what’s on our H-Drive, but that’s about it. The interface allows you to THINK that you can do stuff, but, like pressing the elevator key multiple times in succession, or, like moving the temperature dial up or down in a classroom, nothing really useful results.

All I can seem to download are files containing “links” to the information I want, except that the links do not really work. Of course, there is a trick where you can select multiple files to download, which then are packaged into a “zip-file” that is downloaded. This is particularly neat for Vista users who may run into trouble with zip-files, but ultimately there is little actual risk since the zip-file that is downloaded contains nothing anyway.

Before signing off, let me grudgingly apologize to the GOOD folks in the IT department who are subjected to the wrath of irate users (and abusers) when the decisions to make such brilliant changes to the system are out of their actual control. They do the best they can with what they have to work with (and in spite of their brilliant leaders who make such brilliant decisions).

Finally, although I hope it is redundant of me, I guess I should explain that when I used the word “brilliant” up above, I was using it in the same way I’d describe the thinking behind installing screen-doors on submarines. THAT kind of “brilliant”.

...and so it begins again...

The first week of classes has zipped by pretty fast for me. Maybe because I felt as though I was only just barely prepared for each class. Time really seems to fly when you feel like you don't have enough time to finish everything you want to finish.

Next week is a short week (Monday being a holiday). HOWEVER, as it turns out, my subjective feelings of short weeks depends on the way they are shortened: When Monday is dropped, the week seems LONGER than a regular week to me. BUT, when Friday is dropped, then it feels like a pretty short week.

I think the reason the Monday-off makes my week longer is because it screws me up. See if you can follow the "logic"...

Tuesday feels like Monday. But I have to keep telling myself, "No, Monday was yesterday, we are a day deeper into the week than you think!"

Wednesday feels like Tuesday, but not as much as Tuesday felt like Monday (I'm catching up, you see). Nonetheless, I still have to tell myself that, "No, Tuesday was yesterday, we are a day deeper into the week than you think!"

By Thursday, it actually feels like Thursday to me. BUT, that part of me that was trying to keep track starts in anyway with, "No, we had Monday off, so you are a day off. Thursday must have been yesterday, we are a day deeper into the week than you think! So it is really Friday"

But then there's STILL Friday waiting after Thursday. So, when I go to work on Friday, it feels like it should be Saturday because of the one-day-off logic. Therefore, I feel like I had to go an extra day which makes me feel like it was an extra-long week, even though it was short.

Don't even get me started on middle-of-the-week days-off! (That can end up feeling like TWO WHOLE WORK-WEEKS of work!)

Work-weeks should ONLY be shortened by taking off Fridays.

Portly Foreverglades

Summer is slipping too quickly through my fingers... So much to do, so little motivation, oh, yeah, and time... that too.

On the bright side, I am planning to go on a cruise in January!

For those who have never tasted the cruise, my advice is to not EVER go on a cruise. I haven’t looked it up yet, but I’m pretty sure that “CRUISE” is Italian (or Greek?) for “OCEAN-COCAINE”. The problem, though, is that I’ll have to fly to get to the port down in Ft. Lauderdale.

I’m really not afraid of flying, really; it’s just that I’m really just afraid of crashing, really.

What’s that? Statistically it is SAFER to fly than to drive the car? Really? Wow. Well, did you know that “statistically” it is safer to be driving (riding) in a car when the engine fails than it is to be flying when the engine fails? Also, since we’re on “statistics”, did you know that “statistically” more people die in hospitals than out of them. So, does that mean it’s “safer” to stay away from hospitals? Hmm, actually... maybe so:

Deaths in the U.S. as a result of preventable adverse medical events (i.e., doctor and nurse mistakes) EXCEED those of motor vehicle accidents AND breast cancer COMBINED? [Kohn, L. T., Corrigan, J. M., & Donaldson, M. S. (2000). To err is human: Building a safer healthcare system. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.]

Ok, that’s what you get for bringing up the “it’s safer to fly than it is to drive” crap.

Since I’m already on the subjects of death, I’ve been looking in the mirror lately and haven’t liked what I’ve been seeing. BUT, guess what I figured out?

Stop ffffffricking looking in the frickingggg mirror!

Since I’ve stopped looking at the (contrary) evidence, I’ve been feeling a lot younger, healthier, slimmer, and handsomer! I prefer it that way. Besides, if God had wanted us to be looking in mirrors, he’d have put eyes in the front of our heads and given people the smarts enough to invent mirrors to hang on walls in the places we live, and... oh... wait...

Ahhhhhh... frickkkkking God!

Change Strange

I stumbled across this website: http://www.snowcrest.net/fox/str.html and MAN did it bring back some memories AND remind me of how different the world has become since I was a tyke! Take a minute and check out the toy. Then come back.

I do not recall ever asking for this toy, it just showed up one christmas morning. My parents knew that I was a science fiction dork and they probably figured I'd like the toy. Chaa! Try LOVE it!

It had SOOOOO much additional potential as a toy. Now, there's NO WAY any kid could get a toy like this today. In fact, other than giving a child a blowtorch in their christmas stocking, no other toy would be as dangerous, either... but hey, I was a responsible (for the most part) child.

Basically (for those of you who decided to just keep reading even THOUGH you were told to take a look at the website above first), the toy was a single-burner electric stove. There was a plastic dome to "protect" youngsters from inadvertent fingerprint meltage. Not to worry, the dome of protection could be popped off without a fuss.

Now frankly, a single burner stove-top in the bedroom SHOULD be toy enough for ANY eight year old (or older) kid. BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! There was a little crusher machine that, when you put stuff into it, you could... umm, CRUSH it! Just crank the crush-o-matic wheel and SPLOOSH, whatever was in the "danger chamber" (as I like to think of it) was squished!

Now, of course, some things that were DESIGNED to be used with the toy came with it. Little plastic dinosaurs that you were supposed to heat on the "burner" and then throw into the crusher and squish into flat little plastic squares. Later, putting the squares on the burner would allow them to spring back into their dino-shapes. Yeah, that WAS cool. But think of all the OTHER stuff in a little boy's bedroom that DIDN'T come with the toy... but that could still... interact with it!

I'm really tempted to try and recapture my youth by finding one on eBay... [sigh] Why couldn't my "mid-life crisis" be the one where I get the red convertible sports-car and the beautiful young model(s)? Oh... I remember... my wife would be the one to get the Strange Change machine and guess who'd be looking out of the "danger chamber"?

What did I see you eating under there?

There’s a new movie coming out that I fully expect I’ll hate. (Can you guess what it is?) Apparently, I’ve now pretty much aged myself out of the primary target demographic for movies. They mostly all suck. Of course, that’s probably always been true. But, what’s worse is that the number of sucky movies that I’m willing to see is getting smaller. Reminds me of when cable TV showed up. We went from four or five channels to over 100, but worthwhile (to me) programming all but vanished.

To be honest, the movie I’m looking forward to see can suck all it wants as long as the theme song is faithful to the original, except longer (not necessarily in terms of lyrics; maybe just the instrumentals).

FAT CHANCE!

It will probably be some kind of (in honor of the president) “C-grade” rap bastardization. Or, what I like to call, “Crap” for short.

On the bright side, summer has arrived to caress my face and shoulders with her loving touch. Pass the sunscreen!

Unfortunately, in looking into making plans to travel north to help my father pack up his house for a big move, I’ve ended up filling all my summer break with “things to do”. That makes me feel like summer’s almost over already! I can feel Fall Classes breathing down my neck and I still have 64 hours of teaching left to do before then! (Yes, I keep track of how many hours I have left to teach.)

I’m starting to hyperventilate.

So, here’s where I stand:

1) Summer is almost over already.
2) I can’t look forward to (and enjoy) movies anymore.
3) My blog has become a crazy-person’s rant-space.

What to do, what to do. . . Maybe I need a new philosophy? OK, I pick the “Philosophy of niece” which is summed up by her phrase (following a deep sigh): “What-ev.”

Bad Days and Bad Ways

I’m not a big fan of Winter. Maybe the idea was good back when someone thought it up, “This will get people to appreciate Summer!” But, I don’t need it; I already and always appreciate Summer. Winter, to me, is a long five months (November through March). And don’t give me any of that solstice-equinox crap. Winter is when it’s COLD. I’m only allowed 365 days a year, and Winter takes about 150 days of them! So, that leaves me with a mere 215 (at best).

Why am I complaining when Spring is already here? Why complain when I can hear Summer upstairs dressing for breakfast? Because despite my love of Summer, I’m an idiot like the rest of you.

Winter days are strings of “bad days” in my book. Sure, not everything is bad every day, but overall, more bad than good. So, now that my so-called “good days” are coming, I will still be paying a “good day tax” which whittles into my remaining 215 days. The “good day tax” is paid on a random cycle. It is paid with bad days. Bad days can be bold, or worse, they can be sneaky.

Sneaky bad days are really betrayals because I usually cause the misery. They are sneaky because, like straws on the proverbial camel’s back, no single ingredient is enough to justify calling it a bad day. It happens out of accumulated irritating experiences. So you never know you’re having one until it’s too late. Below are just some of the ingredients to my sneaky bad days:

• A hangnail.
  
• Spontaneous public coughing spasms caused by breathing in my spit when I should have been swallowing it. Usually people make it worse by offering me something to drink when this happens.
  
• Driving past the exit I wanted and having to drive another 5 miles just to get to an exit that will let me drive 5 miles back to the one I missed.
  
• Losing my page because my finger slips or I drop the book.
  
• Just finishing getting dressed when I’m nearly late for something only to have the last button on my shirt just pop off.
  
• Blowing my nose but never being able to get the passages completely clear.
  
• When tipping a glass to drink the last bit and the ice at the bottom suddenly collapses (avalanches) down onto my entire face.
  
• Getting halfway through cooking a meal before finding out that an important ingredient (like chicken) I though was in the fridge, isn’t.
  
• Throwing trash at the waste basket only to have it catch an outside edge, or worse, bounce OUT.
  
• When the last tasty bite of a great meal or dessert falls off the fork and onto the floor.
  
• Forgetting to completely rinse off and finding that soapy patch when drying.
  
• Forgetting to completely dry off and getting that cold wet patch of shirt clinging to my back once I’m dressed.
  
• Pulling a hair out (from ANY-damn-where) by accident; caught in watch or eyeglasses.
  
• Being really tired but can’t sleep once in bed.
  
• Bending a fingernail back on itself.
  
• When my hand spasms for no apparent reason while drinking and I splash my own face (and/or shirt).
  
• Getting an eyelash floating around on my eyeball while I’m driving.
  
• Using scissors on some project, but halfway through I can’t find them any more because I somehow just hid them on myself.
  
• Feeling that I have an itch on my shoulder or back or arm... but not being able to find it.
  
• When the soap falls on the tub and it’s so thin that it won’t let me pick it up without squishing my fingernails into its sides.
  
• Sometimes, reaching to adjust my glasses, I accidentally poke myself in the nose (or eye).
  
• When I put something away before I’m done using it.
  
• Missing the light switch more than two times when I’m walking by and I have to actually walk back to the wall to turn it on/off.
  
• Get distracted when I walk into a room and forget the real reason I originally went in there. Then I have to come back again when I remember that I forgot.
  
• Parking on a slight hill so that the door slams into my back or my leg when I’m not looking.
  
• Reach up to my face to adjust my glasses only I’m not wearing them.

I think you get the idea.

Of Guilts and Fears

I have been feeling guilty about my blubber-ness. Guilt is not a very productive response. I find that it makes me hungry. Fortunately, I have discovered the REAL underlying problems. My weight isn’t really MY fault at all! The blame actually belongs (in alphabetical order) to: Asian Grill, Bahama Breeze, Bravos, Cadbury, Damons, Don Pablos, Jackson’s, Johnny Carino’s, Mmm Mmm Pizza, Olive Garden, Outback Steakhouse, Red Lobster, Sapporo, and the Sharp Edge Restaurant. The weight of guilt has FINALLY been shifted from my shoulders (to my gut).

Tomorrow is April Fool’s day. That’s no big deal when it happens on a weekend. However, what is a big deal is that I am going to be presenting awards to two students. This will take place in front of their families. If you haven’t been keeping up with my rapid-pace blog entries, then you don’t know how much I fear public speaking. It’s taken me about a decade to learn how to appear relaxed in front of a classroom full of students. When I see them on campus (or worse… OFF campus), I find myself feeling the way I did in junior high when I’d get tongue-tied if a pretty girl spoke to me (actually I still get this way).

I have been trying to stay awake until I can barely keep my eyes open so that when I hit the pillow, I go right to sleep before my mind can start thinking things like, “Steve… what are you going to say?” Or, “You know, you’ll be talking about these students in front of their FAMILIES… in front of their PARENTS. What will you look like if you stutter or say something IDIOTIC?” (By the way, the chances of my saying something idiotic are actually really high. KNOWING this doesn’t make it any easier to cope.) I am only allowed two minutes per student. So, knowing that I have a 2-minute limit will make me fearful of going over. THAT will make me probably try to rush through whatever I come up with. (T-minus 20 hours to come up with something.)

Last night I slept like a baby. That is, a baby with a tooth ache that’s also being bit by the jealous dog and has a toy under his back and an ear ache. Yeah. I slept like a baby. Maybe if I go find something to eat I’ll feel better.

Phabulously Phlavorful Flegm: The Conspiracy!

I thought I was doing well. I thought I was keeping my fingers out of my mouth, eyes, and nose (at least until after I washed them). I thought I was covering my mouth and holding my breath whenever a student snarkelflarted in my vicinity. Alas, no. Somewhere, somehow, from someone I was phlegmed.

The past week I went from breathing clearly to gurgling and wheezing out of 3/7 of the holes in my head.

If “they” can’t cure the cold, at least someone could come up with a way to make the disgusting parts more tolerable. A simple phlegm-flavoring shot, for example. Wouldn’t it be easy enough to find a way to inject (or swallow) a chemical into our system that would convert snot-flavored phlegm into, say, strawberry-flavored phlegm?

Frankly, I cannot believe that the technology isn’t already available. Somewhere, there’s a government or big-industry person walking around with a cold and periodically swallowing a backflow of booger-drainage that tastes as sweet as fresh picked strawberries; Or cherries; Or chocolate.

Why are they keeping this from the masses? Well THAT’S obvious! It’s for exactly the SAME damn reason that we don’t have “fart scenting patches” to stick on our skin somewhere. That’s right, “fart-scenters” convert the foul poopie flatulence smells we normally make into flower-fresh scents that would drive women crazy! OK, if you’re not the flowery type, how about other pleasant smells like chocolate chip cookie dough? Or pizza? You get the idea.

Yes, that’s two fantastic ideas in one blog entry. “Tasty-phlegms” and “Fart-scenters” should have been placed into widespread use years ago. Why haven’t they?

Consider: Imagine meeting your future in-laws (or fill in a suitable visitation scenario on your own) for the very first time. As you are walking into their house you catch that playful whiff of PIZZA! With delight, your eyes widen and a big saliva smile wraps around the words, “MMmmm, is that PIZZA I smell? I love pizza! If I was to be stranded on an island and could only have one thing to eat there for the rest of my life, pizza it would be!”

Here is where you notice that your future mother-in-law has started to blush and avoid eye-contact. There’s an uncomfortable silence filling air already thick with pizza-smells. It finally dawns on you that “someone” has been using the patch!

For the rest of your life, whenever you go into a pizza joint (or wherever there’s legitimate pizza going on) you’ll think back to how you almost got married and how good your almost-mother-in-law’s farts smelled. In fact, you’ll never be sure again if it’s really pizza that you’re smelling. Perhaps it might even happen that whenever you smell pizza, your lips will curl in disgust as you choke back a dry-heave.

Who’s going to allow THAT to happen to an American dining staple? Would you eat a cookie that smelled like poop? Well how about a chocolate-chip cookie that smelled exactly like a chocolate-chip cookie fart thanks to “Fart-scenters?”

So, the same would be true of “Phlegm-flavors.” Would you open a jar of phlegm and spread it on toast? No? OK, then how about a jar of strawberry jam that tastes like phlegm? No? How about strawberry jam that tasted exactly like strawberry jam that tasted like strawberry flavored phlegm? If you swallowed something that TASTED like strawberries, wouldn’t you wonder, “Hey, did I just swallow someone’s strawberry flavored phlegm instead of strawberry flavored strawberries?”

The food industries would oppose our flavoring and scenting of these nasty, disgusting excretions.

Besides, what would ever taste or smell good to us again if these phabulous products really did hit the shelves one day?

We should all just be thankful that our flegm and pharts have the phlavors and perphumes they have. Be thankful that the government suppresses some technologies for our own good.

Apologies to Eric and Julianne or RTFM

I’ve been doing a crappy job on my blog since November of 2006. What started in my head never made it to the blog. BEFORE my blog was started, I’d imagined all the sorts of amazing rants and profound blurbles I’d be writing about. Then, I found a host for my blog and set it up (as best as I could figure out... it promised me at the time that I could change the look of the page, but it was never clear to me how, so I just used a selectable format – which is fine).

After about ONE entry, I became really resentful with the idea that I’d have to keep up with my writing EVERY damn day. I consider myself to be a super-introvert. By that I mean that I’d prefer to be so by myself that I’m often not alone enough with my own thoughts. (I crowd myself?) So, writing my thoughts was like having to entertain myself as a guest, when I’d really rather just be left alone thank you.

ALSO, when I fantasized about writing a blog, part of that fantasy included the idea that thousands of people would read it and leave commen-ta-toes (as I say in class). I think I only ever got ONE comment from a passer-by who also had a blog. (Someone named “ice” which is a cool name, huh?)

Ahem, well, recently the blog hosting site changed (something) and I had to click on some buttons and enter some passwords (for some reason). As a result, I came across a note that said I had, like, 30-something comments to moderate. Huh? Ohhhh, well apparently all that time I was supposed to click on a link to check for comments left by others every so often. Once I approve them THEN they appear in the blog. The only reason Ice showed up was that Ice was a registered blog person. Everyone else (including stupid web-bot comments like “Hey drspeg, check out this cool site, it reminds me of your blog!” that I deleted) went into the awaiting moderation purgatory.

An old (let’s say WICKED old – yes, boy is HE old, like probably WAY older than ME now since I never aged over the past years) friend of mine [Eric] had left a message and his email address. OK, after a year apparently the people hosting his email realized how old he was and just cancelled his email address because it didn’t work when I finally discovered it and tried to send a message back. PMO.

ALSO, a previous student of mine [Julianne] who I’ve wondered about from time to time because she had apparently forgotten all about how critical to her past, current, and future successes I was; seeing as I was her favorite college teacher EVER, and all. (I don’t think that was very grammatical – especially for a college teacher.) Anyway, she dropped me a message bragging about all of the great things she’s done since she last had dinner at our house and NEGLECTED to put in two things: (1) thanks to me for her successes, and (2) a way to email her back – since I either lost her email, or, she never gave me her most recent email address.

So, here we are. Now I’ve wasted a blog entry on this sweet apology.

Ineligant Design

My reasoning (to reduce guilt) is that locking our kids in the house by themselves when we go out to the movies or to work or... oh, wait.. "kids" means our two dogs and our cat. Ahem, let me begin again.

My reasoning (to reduce guilt) is that locking our PETS in the house alone during our outings only means that they sleep on the blanket down cellar (where it is probably warmest) while we are away, rather than sleeping under foot while we are home. So, really, there's not much difference. They're just going to sleep and bark at noises wherever we are (home or away).

REALLY, my guilt is that we leave the radio on for them while we are gone. Because I think that they would rather hear voices (and music) than static, I've tried to find a station that remains stable while we are away. There have been many times when I've left a nice clear station going only to come home to a now static-laced channel.

As it turns out, the best (most stable) station I've found is a very anti-science station (some people would call it a religious station).

I cringe hearing the non-scientific arguments against evolution and pseudo-scientific arguments for intelligent design. Part of me worries that SOMEHOW the animals understand and that it would be driving them insane like it would me if I had to listen to that drivel all day. But they cannot... right? To them it's just non-sensical human vocalizations (hmm, I mean that literally for THEM - I understand the words, but it's still nonsense to me).

Last night, or I should say, this morning when I wasn't able to sleep (I'm getting the pre-semester jitters), I was mulling over one of the "arguments" in support of intelligent design and it occurred to me that it was such a perfect example of non-scientific reasoning. BUT, if you've read this far and HATE my bias, then you may be thinking at this point something like, "Well science isn't the ONLY way to think about things!" I'd agree. (Although as "flawed" as scientific reasoning might be, what is BETTER? I haven't heard of it yet.)

Rather than argue, I'll make a comparison:

(1) The argument I overheard had to do with the "obvious" complexity of some things (like eyes) and how "random chance" (a straw-man attack against evolution in and of itself) couldn't possibly account for it. Therefore its appearance MUST have been guided by some intelligent force.

(2) When I was a kid, my father once made a wager with me (the details of which I've forgotten). He took out a coin and, in my eagerness to win a simple 50-50 toss, I agreed to his terms whilst the coin spun in the air, "Heads I win, tails you lose!" Guess who won/lost...

Now, I hope you see that (2) isn't really fair. Then how does (1) = (2)? Think about it. If I were to accept the ID argument that complexity supports the idea of an intelligent guiding force, then what about the simple stuff? Can I hold that up and say, "Here's an example of where no intelligence was guiding?" Doubtful. ID arguments MUST hold that BOTH simple AND complex are the result of intelligent design. Otherwise they begin down the slippery slope of finding the dividing line between what makes something "simple" (or truly random) and what makes something "complex" (non-random). Heads they are right, tails everyone else is wrong.

The reason this argument is non-scientific is because it cannot be articulated in a way that would allow it to be potentially falsified. That is, it is untestable because no matter what evidence you hold up, it must still support the ID bias.

Maybe I should spend that can't-sleep time either finding a new radio station (static MIGHT be preferable) or sitting down with the kids and trying to de-program them.

Those Bastards at Coke

My drinking life growing up was different from that of many kids I see running around today. In particular, my nieces’ and nephew’s beverages of choice have been essentially inflicted upon them by over dominating regime-loving parents (i.e., my sister and in-laws). That sounds bad, but it’s only because I wanted to be the one to push a beverage choice on them. Naturally, that beverage would be COKE^TM.

I cannot recall a time in my life when I wasn’t drinking a Coke^TM. I remember the frantic buying frenzy I went through when the BAC (Bastards At Coke^TM) forced Bill Cosby to push that vile Pepsi^TM-wannabe piss-drink called “New Coke^TM” back in the whatever it was… 70’s? 80’s? I wasn’t old enough to have much of an income, so my supplies weren’t going to last very long.

Since I wasn’t going to drink brown carbonated piss-water, there were NO cola options left for me once my supplies ran out. Fortunately, though, after losing zillions of dollars, and a great deal of face, not to mention the support of Bill Cosby, Coke^TM flushed the remainder of its CPW (carbonated piss-water) and brought back the original recipe: Classic Coke^TM.

Then I went to grad school and thus began my lethargic trek into obesity. As a compromising strategy to slightly slow the weight-gain, my wife talked me into trying the switch to Diet Coke^TM. Frankly, this was only barely better than CPW, but I persisted (perhaps because of the drugs they put into their sodas to create brand loyalty).

Eventually, I became a Diet Coke^TM drinker. This ruined me on regular Coke^TM because now THAT tastes only two steps up from CPW. (Note: So you can get an idea of the scale I’m using here, Pepsi^TM would fall six steps below CPW.)

After a while, I realized that I’d need to make an additional transition from the caffeinated beverage to the de-caf version. It took a couple of weeks (withdrawal headaches, crankiness, sneaking into the closet to drink my blues away, etc.), but I finally managed.

Now I’m running into the problem of FINDING restaurants that serve my Coke^TM! I don’t really care if it has caffeine or not… I can handle THAT. Now, I’m starting to get hooked on (unsweetened when it arrives) iced tea. My strategy was that by first asking if they serve Coke^TM and hearing that they do not, my obvious disdain and snobby reply, “Well then I’ll have Iced Tea instead – NO lemon” would highlight the error of their ways and NEXT time they’d have that beverage problem worked out.

That’s not working too swell. Maybe I should switch to, “Well then, please take my glass and scoop out some water from your cleanest toilet for me because Pepsi^TM only nauseates.” No, I’d be too worried that they’d just spit in my glass to get me back for having better taste than them.

Those BAC need to get their asses out here and push out the competition. I cannot do it by myself.

Path of Least Resistance

It’s Halloween and it’s raining. This is the first crappy Halloween we’ve seen since moving to Pittsburgh. It seems fitting, though, in a way. We also bought crappy candy to give out. Part of me hopes that not many kids come by, but another part wants them to ALL come by so that they’ll take all that crappy candy out of our house. We’ll see what happens…

Anyway. The idea of wearing masks got me to think about the ones I’ve worn. I really do not feel like the same person who was the “me” in high school. Not so much because of any traumatic life event or any conscious decision on my part to change. Rather, it just seems that the masks I’ve put on in order to get through life have gotten stuck.

Frankly, the idea of pretending (what I mean by wearing a mask) in order to cope with situations or events has never had any great appeal to me. I’d rather just avoid situations that tend to put me in that position. Yeah, I guess I’m just a pretty passive person. FINALLY, I’m getting to the title of this essay!

When I was in junior high (I think?), I took a career interest test and it revealed that my ideal job would be something in the sciences. NOT that I had any special aptitude for science (it doesn’t measure that), just that the idea of discovery and knowledge was appealing to me. Let me say right now that I WAS NOT A NERD. Not that I didn’t want to be one, but I really didn’t want to put the effort into becoming one. Maybe I’d describe myself as a quasi-nerd.

When I graduated high school, I signed yearbooks by saying I would someday be a psychiatrist. That would be a person with a medical degree who later specialized in mental health. There were not a lot of yearbooks for me to sign (fortunately) and as it turned out, my first semester in college (pre-med) was a disaster. I was not advised about what to take or avoid, so I ended up overloading myself and doing poorly. [If I remember correctly, my schedule was something like: General Psychology, Calculus, Zoology with a lab, Chemistry with a lab, and Physics with a lab.] I was a severely introverted mediocre student; one of three students sharing a dorm room designed for only two people. By the end of the semester I was invited to find an alternative educational/career path.

So much for pre-med. So much for college. (I was the first in my family to go to college, by the way.) I got a job and started working 40+ hours a week. The time FLEW by. My job was inane (and it’s probably obsolete now since even THEN I could see how a computer could be made to easily do my job). The people around me, I noticed, were fixated on the lottery. It appeared that all of them had dug themselves into their current lives so deeply that all they could hope for was a big win. That scared me a little, but not as much as how quickly and effortlessly eight months had flown by. I could all too easily see myself 10, 20, 30 years later in the same job but much older and checking my lottery stub against the latest drawing. I decided to re-apply to college (I was accepted) and take a more educated approach to education.

Despite my apparent explosion of motivation, it only lasted a short time. Much like how when you are driving at night and feel your eyes close slowly and then your head nods off. The sudden burst of fear and adrenaline fools me into thinking that there’s no way I could fall. . . asleep . . . againnnnn . . . YIKES!

In college, I took a proficiency exam to get out of the math requirement and stuck to courses that interested me, but that I was sure I could pass. This began the path of least resistance. I ended up majoring in psychology because I didn’t need to worry about those terrible science classes (even though the quasi-nerd in me wished I would take them). From the bachelor’s degree to the doctoral degree, it was psychology. Although I appeased my science urges a bit by shifting away from clinical psychology to experimental psychology, I think I will always wonder what would have happened if I’d taken my interests more seriously and traveled down the physics path.

Now I am second thinking myself. Maybe I’m still that same high school quasi-nerd.

What's that question on my mind?

And so. The so-called pseudo-blogger tries again to meet the LAZY-ASS deadline of just ONE blog entry per month.

I was a lot more fired up with this when it all began. But, even then, there wasn’t a great deal of written glorp from me.

What happened to me? I ask myself that every time I look in the mirror. I ask that when I’m outside in my undies looking at the stars at 3:30 in the morning because Brisco needs to pee (Brisco is one of my dogs). I ask it when I don’t find certain movies funny. (Apparently, I am moving out of the target demographic.)

This is going to be a downer if I keep going. I’m guessing that part of my mood is tied into the changes in the season. I really don’t look forward to winter - except that I can start wearing my heavy corduroy shirts. (MY GOD what's happened to me?!)

I’m Immortal I Chortled

When I was a teen, I was pretty confident that I couldn’t easily be hurt too badly in an accident (like a car crash or a plane crash). I was reckless. (Illusion of invulnerability.)

When I graduated from high school, I had been running cross country track for about two years (maybe less). During that first summer I was jogging about two miles from home when my right knee “exploded” all of a sudden. I couldn’t put weight on it and it felt as though someone were trying to ply my kneecap off with a flat-head screwdriver. Apparently, I have flat feet.

I gave up the idea of running any more and thankfully, computer games were about to become much more sophisticated than Pong.

Over the (many) years I’ve had ample opportunity to experience the failings of my body. Tripping is my main facilitator toward these opportunities.

Most recently, I broke my left elbow and now I can’t completely straighten out my arm. It still POPS out of joint and grinds a bit every once and a while. Oh, also I slipped on my back stairs and jerked my right hand out like a karate jab to balance myself. I swear, had a person been in the path of that deadly blow, I’d have blood spatter on my forehead. As it turned out, the corner of the HOUSE was in the path of that deadly blow. Now I can’t form a good fist with that hand; plus when I use those fingers to indicate three of something, my ring finger splays weirdly too far from the other two fingers. My house pretty much “shook it off.”

I’ve never liked the idea of someday dying. But it seems more real to me today than it did when I was in high school. Two weeks ago my father’s girlfriend died. We weren’t close, but the closeness of that loss is disconcerting.

Now I’m into a brand new school year. In front of me in each class I see youthful life-filled faces. Then, when I step outside to go to my office or another class, I have to forge a path through their swirls of smoke.

My father-in-law died of lung cancer. I was there when he died. My mother lost her “battle” with cancer most likely because she was weakened by years of smoking. My father gave up smoking about a year ago (hopefully for good this time). His main motivations were that he was winded from doing mundane tasks: just getting dressed; walking from the driveway to the house; shopping. He has emphysema due to smoking.

I try not to be preachy to my students who I see smoking away their lives, wrinkling their faces (corners of their lips and eyes), burning away their lungs. (Hell, I freely admit to having an eating disorder!) But frankly it is offensive to me that they would squander themselves that way, so openly, and with apparent disregard.

If it were just a behavior, then they could probably just choose to stop. But there’s the addiction part of it that makes it so difficult for them to stop. Part of them knows it, I think. I’d like to see them prove to themselves that they have the willpower to stop… just quit for a month (lent?) and see if they can do it. Ultimately, what I hear, and expect to continue to hear, are their rationalizations. Things like, “Yeah, as soon as I graduate.”

“Riiiiight,” I think to myself. I’ll start holding my breath.

FATTY FAT FAT FAT FAT

Blubber-boy, obese, chunky, chubby, overweight, gravitationally enhanced, fatty-boombalatty.

When I was (much) younger, I had a real stubborn streak. My aunt thought that it was remarkable that a kid would turn down dessert in order to not have to finish his liver and onions (or whatever). There was a time when I actually didn’t eat unless I was HUNGRY. Nowadays, I eat lunch and supper whether I’m hungry or not.

There is also the possibly generational thing where it was drilled into my head that I had to clean my plate. I feel guilty whenever I leave food on my plate. But I try to reason it out to myself. If I could scoop all the fat off my body and throw it away, I would do it. So, why not throw it away before it becomes fat? Better to let it go to waste than to let it go to my waist, right?

OK. So, how to get rid of the waist I have?

I’ve tried lots of stuff: Diets, exercise, Weight Watchers, public humiliation (with the more-than-willing help of my father), etc. I just don’t seem to have retained that stubborn streak I had as a kid. I give in to my desires and all too willingly allow myself to eat meals when I don’t need them.

I think I will try a new-ish approach. The Weight Watchers program did ok for me, until I fell off that wagon. But, I remember that when I did start to go back to my old habits, my system had become used to less food. I found it difficult to “clean my plate” when they were easy to clean before the program.

Bottom line: I need to commit to a lifestyle change.

But dammit! I love to eat! I love food! It’s wonderful! I could live off that stuff!

20th Anniversary

In a few short weeks I will be celebrating my 20th wedding anniversary (August 10). So, I’ve been reflecting a bit on things.

I can honestly say that the roughest time in our marriage was while I was going to graduate school. You see, our “honeymoon” was pretty much packing up a truck and driving to Kansas (away from our families in New Hampshire) so I could start my graduate education.

Once there (University of Kansas), I found that the relatively LAZY approach I’d since taken in school was NOT going to work. My mentor (Dr. George Kellas) was the best person to serve as my advisor as he was pretty no-nonsense when it came to educating his students. He expected us to be there no later than 10:00 am (earlier was better) and to pack it up for dinner only AFTER he left for the day (maybe around 6:00). Then of course we were to be back in the lab ASAP to work on research stuff, homework, etc. until maybe 11:00. Actually, we were usually there until closer to 1:00 or 2:00 (but not EVERY night).

Saturday was a work day. Sunday was probably a work day as well, but George rarely showed up to see who was/wasn’t working.

He has a distinctive “ka-clop ka-clop” footfall on the tiles in the halls leading to our (his graduate students’) offices. So we’d hear him coming about 4-7 seconds before he’d appear in the doorway… usually enough time to be certain that we were busy working on something by the time he could see us.

My parents would call each weekend and ask about when we were going to come home to visit. Meanwhile my wife busied herself at home (Jayhawk West Apartments). We didn’t know anyone in Kansas and her life was essentially work, home, bed. Neither of us really felt all that confident being so far from the support of our families. We were truly “on our own” which was very scary at times. We didn’t have the luxury of a parent to call when we got in a jam (broken down car, etc.).

The “rough times” came about because my old self was going through some death-throws. I felt trapped and claustrophobic by my life. It seemed that ALL my time was split between school (98%) and home (2%). I couldn’t sleep and all I ever thought about was school. I needed escape… but I didn’t know from what. I started taking to the campus at night… skulking around exploring places I probably shouldn’t have been exploring. Abandoned buildings, buildings that were supposed to be locked up…etc. I’d drive on the long flat roads with the tape-player blaring and see how fast I could get… how far away from campus I could go in the shortest time… I was snippy and irritable. Probably a real A-Hole.

I remember standing outside the apartments at night (watering the dogs) and looking at the stars and wondering, “What the hell am I doing out here in KANSAS?!”

I was naive in that I’d gotten into this Ph.D. thing figuring that once I was done, I’d go back home to New Hampshire and get a job there… Ahem… unfortunately, you are pretty much at the whim of wherever the jobs are.

My first decision, once I was a Ph.D. was whether to take a “real job” in Charleston or a relatively temporary position (a post-doc) at Washington University in fabulous St. Louis. I sometimes wonder what my life would be like now had I taken the job in South Carolina.

After the Post-Doc, I was offered a job in Mississippi, so off we went. Now, after almost 15 years, we are in Pittsburgh. Only eleven hours away (by speed-limit) from family. Or, what’s left of family. My mother passed away in 1999 and Cindy lost her father a few years before that. I really wish we’d gone home more than we did.

So, how does a marriage last 20 plus years?

Going into it, I knew SOME things would be different married versus single (e.g., I really didn’t like that if I bought some snack-thing and put it in the fridge… my “roommate” might help herself to it… BUT, even though I didn’t like it, I knew it was part of that marriage deal, so I coped). But, there really is more “settling” of options than most people expect. There’s going to be compromise… in other words, you are going to have to give up some things that were part of the single-you. BUT, you gain stuff you’d not have without the married-you. How much you emphasize the lost things over the gained things probably correlates with your marital happiness… and also how many anniversaries you get to celebrate.

What Planet IS That?!

I’m having trouble deciding how to work this blog-thing out… Do I want to be “political” do I want to be creative… what?

For example, I planned to come back and fill in the details of the last entry… tell you about the two neat-o things I learned. (1) The reason US Currency (actually this applies to ALL world currencies eventually… e.g., the Euro) is so colorful, and (2) My plans to make a killing in the paranormal field of “alternative energy” for cars.

However, I’ve become less interested in filling in all that stuff as each day passes. I think about it; then lose interest as soon as something else comes up. The most recent “up” deals with the mild embarrassment I feel at my school’s university banner. I’ll get to that below. For now, and just for closure’s sake, though, here goes the rest of my earlier blog-thoughts:

(1) Currency is colorful in order to make it LESS easy to use when you travel back in time. Yup. The color of money is all based on government time-travel fears. (I had a while lot more defense of this, but now don’t feel like elaborating on the joke.) My interest in this waned when a check-out clerk drew a brown streak across my brand new colorful ten-dollar bill. I told her that it’s just an iodine pen that is basically a scam to make money for two parties. One of course being the makers of these more-expensive-than-they-should-be pens, and the other group being the serious counterfeiters. She condescended to me that “Oh no, these have already caught a few fake bills.” Sure. Take a new ten or twenty dollar bill and spray it with spray-starch. Now go try to spend it at a store that uses those pens. The iodine reacts to starch which was in the crappy paper that counterfeiters USED to use all the time for fake cash printing. The problem now is that all these cashiers will NOT see a fake bill if the iodine pen streaks brown. Too much reliance on a scammed pen.

(2) I’m sickened by all the money being spent on alternative medicines. Partly because it makes me feel that humans are stupid. (I know, some are just desperate.) But also partly because I’m not getting any of that cash from stupid people. So, with gas prices soaring… what we need are alternative approaches to improving gas mileage! I have a bunch of crystals and will eventually be putting together a photo gallery of ways that the “healing properties of crystals” may be used on your car to improve gas consumption, reduce pollution, etc.! Wouldn’t it be worth it to spend a measly hundred bucks… no, wait, a measly five hundred bucks on a set of crystals to make your car work better and use less gas?! Of course it would! I will work on the photos and testimonials to PROVE they work and then get back to you.

Anyway, the real blog-content for this month starts below.

The University I work at had its 82nd Commencement ceremony. At the back of the stage hangs a banner to represent each of the university schools (i.e., School of Adult and Continuing Education; School of Business; School of Education and Social Sciences; School of Communications and Information Systems; School of Engineering, Mathematics and Science; School of Nursing and Allied Health). Each banner has a symbol like three keys, a quill, an open book, etc.

Well the School of Nursing and Allied Health has a pretty good emblem of the Earth (stylized a bit, but recognizable) with two pairs of hands reaching across them… I think they are two versions of Michael Jackson, though, because each has a single gold glove on one hand.

MY school is the School of Education and Social Sciences. It too has a planet depicted on it… but it is NOT the planet Earth. Maybe it is a secret planet that some of the administrators originally came from? Was this their sneaky way of getting some home-planet recognition? I don’t know. BUT, you’d think that the school containing EDUCATION would have a banner containing a more widely recognized planet on it. Otherwise, I think the symbolism gets lost. HOW does the planet Fermelagg fit into the themes of Social Science and Education?

I Almost Died Over One Thousand Years From Now

I can't believe I actually made it back...

Maybe I'm NOT back... Jesus, that would be a kick in the head. Maybe I'm still there... caught, "drugged" (or whatever they call that stuff they do to people... or maybe I should say "people" instead...?

My mistake was buying the time machine instructions off the web and going FOREWARD in time on my first trip, rather than BACKWARD. If I'd gone backwards, I would have had a chance to figure out how to navigate better.

Wow... look at how long I was gone... I missed weeks of classes... I'm going to have to go back and teach those classes... I don't want to lose my job.

Anyway... where do I start? It was AMAZING... I didn't mean to go so far ahead... HECK, I've always figured humanity would be long dead before 1000 years go by. I just wanted to slip ahead about 10 years to see what was going on. Ten years should have been a safe bet. Surely the world wouldn't end in 10!

Damn, like I said, I should have practised that time-travel thing a bit.

Anyway... I'll tell you about what's going on there... then, I mean...

But first, like I said, I need to go back and teach those classes. Plus, that will be good practice.