Past 24 Hours

No shit there I was:

I'm heading up to Huntington to see if I can get some help from Best Buy with the Iphone my mom got me for Christmas. Since it's my mother, it's not a new Iphone but nearly that. It's one of the original models that a friend of the family had purchased a while back and then replaced. Since they weren't using it - it seemed a logical gift for me since my old cellphone kept dying.

Well... that's how things started.

I'm still trying to get the PHONE part of the Iphone to work (all of the other features work fine), but for now it's not wanting to connect to AT&T's network; unless you're standing inside an AT&T wireless store.

So when I show up to talk to the people, the problem of it connecting to the network is gone and I'm proven to be just another one of the brainless, techno-boobs who don't know how to use the technology in their possessions. When I walk away from the store, however, it losses signal and eventually drops the connection all together.

Annoying.

Later that day I found out that my Josh's dad, Frank, was in a motorcycle accident and was life-flighted from South Shore, KY to Huntington. He's now suffering from STML (no, not a new form of web code, that's "Short Term Memory Loss" to those who have never taken my Psych class) but nothing was broken.

So while up in Huntington, I offered to swing by the Hospital and help drive people - like Josh - back home because I'm sure that everyone piled in whatever car was available and drove up to be with Frank. However, before I left Chris "The Paladin" Ramey's apartment, his dog decided to take a hunk out of my left calf. At first it was thought that I stepped on the dog's tail and he had bit me to get me off of him. And then it turns out that I may have just scared him so badly that he turned and attacked.

Yes. Dog realizes that a six-foot, Bastet-ish Book-lover, has somehow shadow-stepped behind him for the kill and decided to attack first.

So with bleeding dog-bite marks I head over to the Hospital to pick up Josh and say hi to the family for a bit.

The first thing that Frank says when he sees me is "Vas est loss" (or some eqivalent in German). Considering that he couldn't remember why he was in the hosptial for longer than a minute or two - or why all of his family was hovering around him - it was a display of long-term recall to pull off a German phrase. He knew what he asked, that I would understand him, and my response. He just didn't know how he knew.

Gotta love STML.

So I drove Josh home and realized that my Iphone was still not working and will probably either have to replace it with a new, Iphone 3G, or see if the local AT&T store can do something. I wasn't able to take all the time I needed up in the Huntington Mall because Chris was with me and he doesn't like crowds.

Yeah, I'll never figure that one out.

But anyway. I wanted to update this thing since I'm now on winter break for the next two weeks.

Blah

Weekends.

-Tom

Tseo says...

Tseo says:

"This time, I think she's serious."

It is only fitting that the first day of finals, the finals that I am giving, would be met with two inches of snow.

I have already received, before ten o'clock this morning, three emails from students stating that they can not make it in for the final tonight. Yes, tonight. The final is not scheduled until six o'clock this evening.

I'm sure that several students are simply treating this final exam much like they did High School. Generally speaking there are only a few times in the year where the University is serious about sticking to a deadline; finals week is one of them. Students, however, feel that if there is a reason, any reason, that they should not attend class - they won't.

Snowflake in the air? Cancel.
Relatives coming (the next day) for a Holiday meal? Cancel
Rain might (might) make the roads slick for driving? Cancel

The students are ready for this term to be done. Perhaps that's just how fall terms go. Since so many students are still trying to fight the reality that this is no longer their high school, they will take any chance for the proverbial "Five more Minutes."

So, since the snow fell in earnest last night, I took this time to shovel my sidewalk and throw down some rock salt which I kept by the front door. You would think that an old, oatmeal tube full of rock salt would have been the least interesting thing in my house. But simply by placing it near my front door there was some level of curiosity aroused.

"Why do you have salt next to your front door?" A friend asked this past fall.

"Because that's where it's needed." I responded.

No need for magical intervention or supernatural explanations for this one. Keep salt by your front door (especially in a house like mine that doesn't see a lot of front-door traffic) so that when it snows or is icy you don't have to hunt down the bag from last year. I know that there's a bag of salt =somewhere= in my basement and I'll eventually dig it out, but it's quite handy to have just enough to hit the sidewalk whenever needed.

It may be magical in some circles, but it's practical in mine.

-T

New Movie: WOW

Click on the Picture to view the trailer.


UNDERWORLD 3:
The third film in the $200 million UNDERWORLD franchise delves into the origins of the centuries-old blood feud between the aristocratic vampires, known as Death Dealers, and the barbaric Lycans (werewolves). A young Lycan, Lucian (Michael Sheen), emerges as a powerful leader who rallies the werewolves to rise up against Viktor (Bill Nighy), the cruel vampire king who has persecuted them for hundreds of years. Lucian is joined by his secret lover, the beautiful vampire Sonja (Rhona Mitra), in his battle to free the Lycans from their brutal enslavement.

Watch the Trailer.

ANGELS AND DEMONS

The team behind the global phenomenon The Da Vinci Code returns for the highly anticipated Angels & Demons, based upon the bestselling novel by Dan Brown. Tom Hanks reprises his role as Harvard religious expert Robert Langdon, who once again finds that forces with ancient roots are willing to stop at nothing, even murder, to advance their goals. Ron Howard again directs the film, which is produced by Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, and John Calley. The screenplay is by Akiva Goldsman and David Koepp. When Langdon discovers evidence of the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati - the most powerful underground organization in history - he also faces a deadly threat to the existence of the secret organization’s most despised enemy: the Catholic Church. When Langdon learns that the clock is ticking on an unstoppable Illuminati time bomb, he jets to Rome, where he joins forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and enigmatic Italian scientist. Embarking on a nonstop, action-packed hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and even to the heart of the most secretive vault on earth, Langdon and Vetra will follow a 400-year-old trail of ancient symbols that mark the Vatican’s only hope for survival.

Watch the Trailer.

Field Book

A friend of mine wanted to know how I was taught to layout a field book. It's a simple process by which you can use almost any notebook for most forms of field research. I learned this technique when I was in Archaeological Field School at Ohio University almost a decade ago. You could use this format for:

1. Journaling
2. Writing (character /scene development)
3. Class Notes
4. Field Research

All you'll need is a lined notebook (or graph), some colored pencils and a ruler.

I always stuck the ruler in the back of the notebook because I had to lay out a grid in the notebook in case we found something on the site.

1. Lay the ruler against the outside edge of the notebook and draw a red line down page. For sake of ease, I would just draw the line the width of the ruler since it was usually plenty of space for what I needed in the margins.

2. In the margin that you've created, you can record whatever headings you need to outline the entry. When I was doing archeology, we had to record the date, what plot we were on, what level, etc. If you were using it for class notes or story ideas, then you can change the headings as you see fit.

3. Alternate the colors of pencil you use for the various functions in the layout. I usually used a blue pencil to divide one entry from the next as it was a good visual cue. The body of the text was written however you wanted it to be and along the margin I would list any buzzwords that I knew were important from the entry. This could be anything from a "buzzword" in a conversation, a vocab word from a class' lecture, or something that you would need to easily reference.


I would circle the buzzword in the margin and point to the entry that spoke of it. Usually this was done in green.

4. Anything that was a follow-up to what you were writing about, a to-do, was added and marked with a yellow pencil.

Since it was troublesome to carry a lot of colored pencils with me in the notebook and a bit too complicated to use them while entering the data in the field they were usually used when I got home as a follow-up.

I would usually mark out the margins of a few pages in advance of where I was in the notebook so that I had plenty of room to write. Inside the book itself I would stash a green pencil since that was the color I used to mark anything important on the page.

You could easily substitute the use of colored pencils for high-liters if that's what you like

Have you ever wondered?

Have you ever wondered what your teacher does while you're sweating away on a test? Well,if you were in my Criminology class, you would have an idea.

I'm actually doing this to see if the keyboard still works. I haven't had the opportunity to use it that often since I got it back from you, but since it's with me I can toss it into my gymbag and write up lecturees, emails and such when I have a few minutes.

Not all of us have the cool, new IPhone so we have to make due with technology that is ... Eight years old?

God, I'm starving. My sinus gick finally decided to drain away about an hour before class tonight so now I need to put something on my stomach and quickly.

I wonder if that student realizes that wearing a low-cut shirt doesn't affect me like other professors? Ok, the question-mark is a bit harder to use since the keyboard is not as sensitive as my usual one.

You would think guys could bother to put on real pants when they come to class - it's not that hard. I mean, really - pajamas are cool...when you're in bed, in the dorms or stumbling towards an eight o'clock class.Not bothering to change for an evening class is just lack of effort.

Dude... Stop jiggling. Once is an itch. Three times and it's pocket-pool.

Ew.
Have I started rambling yet?

Yeah, I think that at least one of my students is not with it right now. He is just staring off into space and occasionally mussing up his hair as though the stimulation will create a static charge and it will somehow make the neurons fire ONCE more.

Feh.

Bottles of Mountain Dew: 14
Amp: 2
Ambiguous Coffee Cups: 3
Cans of Pepsi: 2
Guys who don't appear to have showered today: 4
Guys who don't appear to have showered for two days: 2
Women with a rooster-tail of hair tied back into a mess with something akin to a scrunchy: 4
Vacant stares by students up and to the right - 15
Concentrated stares down and to the left- 4
Number of strange looks by students as I type this out: 3

Well, I'm still waiting for a few of the students to finish. There are only four left in the room - one of them is a student who never shows up for class unless there is something to turn in or a test. He has a D and that's probably only because of the chapter reviews that post for the students to reference when they study.

I'm such a nice guy.

Don't sit there and snicker - I am.

Really.

I always try and help my students whenever possible. Professors who seem to have a chip on their shoulder and dare their students to knock it off have miss-placed priorities in my opinion. Yes, you should challenge your students but it should be challenging them to succeede, not to failt.

Hey, the skinny kid with the army buzz is done.

One more student left.

She's one hell of a writer though; her essays are always well-phrased and thought-out.

I think she's basically done so I'm goingto finishthis up and headout.

(yes, must focus on actually hitting the space bar to get it to work)

Later.

-T

Time for the Change

In every society that I have studied, there are moments when the there is a change, an evolution of the society to become something different. In early societies, this may have been the change that occurs in the great gatherings of the summer: leaders are replaced, the shaman are initiated and the boys and girls are recognized as young men and women. This change was an accepted element of their society, something that would occur every summer or so as the need arose.

As society has become more and more complex, the annual or semi-annual change was stretched out more and more until it became a rare event that occurred only once a decade.

In our world, change is embraced and feared in the same breath. We are eager to buy up the latest change in communication's technology with Iphones and laptops and the like. Technological change is almost too common. Every Thanksmas (the combined holiday of Thanksgiving and Christmas), people are all too eager to seek out the latest tech toys not because we may need them but because the consumption of new technology is not only 'GOOD' but also required.

Change, within society however, happens slowly.

Thankfully it does still happen.

Without yammering about the merits of the new President-Elect, I will let him speak for himself.

The "Yes We Can" speech has gone viral throughout the net. Though many people are looking to him for the salvation of the country, he doesn't seem like he is presenting himself as the "leader" of the country but more like motivator.

Not "Yes -I- Can" but "We".

Pulling ourselves out of the past eight- years will be difficult, but I think that it is time for a change. Oddly enough, this is the year of balance, of the Crane. It is time to learn from our history and find a place to stand that works for us.

It is time for a Change.

-T

Athens Halloween 08

Once more, the streets of Athens, Ohio were filled with the rowdy masses of the "Tweenty" Crowd (Eighteen through twenty) for the annual Halloween festival. The main street in Athens, Court St., was shut down and upwards of ten-thousand people walked from end to end drinking and carrying on in all manners of costumes.

My friend Dan and I walked down so that I could get some pictures (because everything is just fodder for the Blog) and it was nice to know that we had grown out of such things.

At one time it was fun to go up and make the laps around the 'party', but once you've done it a few times it becomes somewhat boring; especially if you're not someone who drinks alcohol.

There were scantily-clad guys and gals as far as the eyes could see. I tried to get some pictures of the throng of people, but my camera doesn't like taking pictures at night. There was also the problem that court street has a large hill in the middle of it; separating it off into North and South Court respectively. These shots are taken from the end of North Court looking back onto the street. Campus is at the foot of South Court with the Court House in the center.

To my knowledge nothing bad happened at the party. There are always going to be people who get arrested at the Party but I don't believe that there were any serious offenses.

It really made me miss my adopted "Home Town".

-T

A shot from Greenlawn

This is a shot I took today in the Greenlawn Cemetery in Portsmouth. I was surprised to find out that not all of the trees had lost their leaves and the vibrant yellows against the harsh browns of the branches was just too cool not to grab.

I may try painting this sometime.

-T

Home

Year of the Crane

Years of the Crane
2008
1996
1984
1972
1960
1948

Concept: The crane is a symbol of balance; balance through wisdom.

Born: Those born in the year of the crane are often faced with having to navigate through the hazards of life to find their own balance. Like the crane picking its way through the reeds at the edge of the waters, they move from one leg to the other - gently picking the way through potential danger. Cranes will have hardship thrown at them over and over again but they have the capacity to find a balance that may not work for anyone else.


Year: The year of the Crane is all about figuring out some sense of balance for your life. It may not work for other people but if it works for you - if you can find some sense of balance, embrace it.

Almost a Daddy

A friend of mine from High School, who has kept in tenuous contact with me over the past 18 years, appeared on my door step on Sunday with a tale of saddness and woe.

She, Stephanie, had seperated from her 48 year old husband (she's 36 like me) and her youngest son, Conner, had been having severe behavioral problems with the man over the past few months.

After the kid was put into handcuffs for fighting with other kids in school and threatening teachers, she had to remove him from that school and decided to drive all the way up from Florida to drop the kid off with her own parents here in portsmouth.

Normally, the child would have been sent to go live with his father, a man named Chris, but Chris had died in 2006 from... something. So there was no family on the father's side to take care of the boy. That left Stephanie's own parents to figure it out. Her own parents are getting on in years and her dad's health, from what I understand, isn't the best.

So she and two guys that she know made the road trip up to Portsmouth and she ended up on my doorstep. She said that she attempted to call me, but I probably ignored it since I don't answer numbers I don't recognize.

This is when it gets weird.

Since Stephanie, who has had no job for 6 months and is attending school in Florida for an Associates, is still living with her soon-to-be-ex husband, she wanted me to act as a "mentor" for her son.

It was clear that she didn't want me as a Mentor, she wanted me to be a dad to her son since her son "was just like me". I'm not sure what she meant by that since, at 13, I was damn-near homicidal, half-blind, and seriously in need of time alone.

Her own father is ill enough that he couldn't go tromping the the woods with the boy - which is what Stephanie wanted. I told her that I had no interest in being someone's surrogate father. Immediately she back-peddled and tried to explain that it wouldn't be that much and just a few hours a week or so.

Her plan, it was revealed, was to drop the kid with her parents here in Portsmouth and bring me in as a surrogate role-model for the boy if they couldn't keep control of him. This would work, in her mind, long enough for her to finish her Associates degree (by July of this year) and then she could collect the boy and reunite him with his older brother (at 15 years old) . The three of them would find some new place to live and everything would be great - once she has her degree.

So... a woman I haven't seen but for maybe a half-dozen times in eighteen years arrives with a thirteen year-old son and wants me to watch over him because he can't stand her near-fifty year-old husband. Rather than pulling both of the boys out of Florida and relocating to Shawnee State (since the only thing holding her there is the degree that she's working on down there), she's dropping a child with parents who are ill-prepared for a teenage boy and wanting me to pull up the slack.

Even though I had such a perfect role model as a father, I would somehow be able to utilize my uber-cool teacher mojo to take care of a child that I've met twice.

Yeah.

So, I was almost a daddy.

And then it happened.

Yes, it happened.

Listen for it....

"Oh HEEEeeeEEELL No."

Politely, yes politely, I explained that her entire process of thinking lacked any sense of logic and that she was being selfish. She was focusing on her own life more than her children's. She wanted her degree. All things will be better once she has her degree. She's not realizing that an Associates' degree isn't going to solve all of her problems and that even when she gets it, she'll have to go back and pick up the pieces of a child that has been fostered upon her own parents sixteen hours away from its mother.

I gave her a hug, some coffee, and sent her back into the game. She needs to fix her own problems and not include someone from high school.

Oh, and get this:

She continually tried to site our friendship in high school as 'eternal' and something that has lasted for the past eighteen years. Granted, I have kept in touch with a few people that I knew in High School - one of them I've lived with, attended his wedding on my birthday, etc., and he's even a soulless red-head, but come on. She is someone that I've seen only sparsely, for a few hours, once every two or three years. For her, nothing has changed because she's still living as though it were the day after high school graduation.

Those people are quite disturbing.

So... for those people who are reading this and wondering "WHAT THE HELL?"... there ya go.

Hopefully it was more entertaining for you than it was for me.

My life has more drama than a production of Les Miserables.

Fall, I missed you

It's official, Lady Winter is wining the fight against the Lord of Leaves.

Like a pair of boxers sweating it out in a ring, the weather has been going back and forth for the past week or so but this morning I think Winter rang Autumn's bell. Waking up to 37 degrees outside was a bit of a surprise. Waking up to some outside cats screaming for food at eight in the morning meant that I had to brace myself against the frigid temperatures.

So, with a cup of kitty kibble in hand, I dashed out to fill their offering bowl and then quickly ducked back inside and scampered back into the nest of my blankets and covers.

Day-um. It be cold out there.

-T

Bucky Paper

If the pen is mightier than the sword - what about the paper?

Since the Ancient Egyptians wove sections of papyrus together, we have enjoyed the ability to record our thoughts upon a medium lighter than stone or wood. While browsing through Cnn.Com today, I saw something that caught my attention.

Revolutionary paper, in general, is something that I'm always interested in. I have been looking for paper that is made from more renewable sources (hemp, etc.), but there's not much research going on in the field as of late. When I saw the link to this story I had to check it out.
I doubt that anyone will be using this new type of "paper" to scribble on any time soon. The new paper, called "Buckypaper" was developed through research into composite materials at Florida University A&M.

From CNN.COM

Buckypaper is 10 times lighter but potentially 500 times stronger than steel when sheets of it are stacked and pressed together to form a composite. Unlike conventional composite materials, though, it conducts electricity like copper or silicon and disperses heat like steel or brass.

From Wikipedia:
Buckypaper is a thin sheet made from an aggregate of carbon nanotubes.^[1] The nanotubes are approximately 50,000 times thinner than a human hair.^[1] Originally, it was fabricated as a way to handle carbon nanotubes, but in 2008 is being studied and developed into applications by several research groups, showing promise as a building material for aerospace vehicles, body armor and next-generation electronics and displays.

I don't understand all of the physics, chemistry or mad alchemy behind such a material, but I hope that this might lead us to a continued appreciation for where such innovation originated.

Though researchers now are more likely to use laptops more so than small notebooks, it's good to hear that "paper" and pen have yet to be completely forgotten.

Personally, I find the notebooks of early researchers (Leonardo Da Vinci), to be treasured works on par with illuminated bibles.

Free Notebooks?

It's almost a pick-up line to someone like me.

I have been looking for a good notebook for a very long time. I have gone through a number of different designs from the fairly cheap to the expensive. One of the more common notebooks used today is the Moleskine. It's not a bad notebook but it has two fatal flaws: A) it's two and sometimes three times as expensive as the others out there and B) it's not 'exactly' what I need when I'm looking for a notebook. Depending on the model, it is either too skinny or two narrow or doesn't have enough pages to make it worth the expense.

One of the sites that I follow is a blog that reviews Moleskine alternatives, is a blog called "Black Cover".

Black cover is a great site that gives practical reviews of almost a dozen different varieties of notebooks out on the market. For those out there, like me, this helps us in the quest for the right notebook for the right job.

I'd recommend Black Cover to anyone who is looking for a selection of notebooks to choose from.

-Tom

New Schedule for Spring

Well, it seems as though my schedule for this spring is going to be one of the more "creative" ones that I've had in near two and a half years of teaching at Shawnee.

The sections that were made available for the part-time faculty were all over the place. Some in the day and some at night as though they were made without really thinking about the students.

My Criminology course is two days a week next term rather than one night like it is now. The once-a-week classes are really rough on the students and myself. You're trying to cover a whole chapter of material in one night. However, as most of the students are already suffering from symptoms closely approximating ADD, they just can't focus their thoughts for three hours. Normally I give them a break about every 45 minutes or so - enough time for people to go down and grab something to drink or burn a bit of tobacco or cloves. It's long enough that they can relax their mind - relax their attention, for long enough so that when we get back into the lecture they have a bit more mental stamina.

My Sociology course is going to be three days a week - meaning that I'll have to be on campus on both Monday... AND... Friday. Ugh. I rather enjoyed having a four day weekend. Oh well.

It will be interesting at least.

-Tom

Franken-built

Well, with the death and mysterious resurrection of my desktop, it was only fitting -considering the halloween season - that we end up having to create a new machine from scratch.

So with pieces from Josh's old desktop and most of my desktop we have been building a replacement most of the evening. With my motherboard, processor, memory and the like - we installed it all on Josh's frame with my old DvD Rom and Josh's DvD Rom as well.

Then we took Josh's old hard drive (which was still running Windows xp when his motherboard died a year ago) and installed it as a slave.

What does this mean?

Sometime tomorrow - I think - I'll have a clean install to corrupt all over again with an additional 120 gig hard drive for extra storage for all of the series I keep downloading plus two dvd roms to burn the stuff too.

Who knows - I might ask Mike to put Ubunto (A version of Linix) on the system rather than windows. See what happens.

Maybe I'll be turned into some uber Leet, white-hat something.

or... not.

I still think in Analog.

-Tom

Yup, I changed it

It was getting to that point and I wanted to update my blog.

After I searched through the web for a cool, new template I found one that reminded me of my fondness for journals and notebooks.

This one incorporates the important elements I wanted: Green, Notebook and uncluttered.

Whatcha think?

-Tom

Zombie Computers

Well, oddly enough the desktop has come back from the dead.

Last night, after I had already pronounced the desktop as dead, I reached over and punched the power button once more out of sheer habit. I needed to look something up and the laptop was in the other room and as soon as I hit the power button I realized "Duh, it's dead."

Well, this time - rather than it turning on for a few moments to start it's power-up process and then die when it 'accessed' either of the two CD/dvd roms - it actually fired up.

I'm not sure whether or not a faulty cd / dvd rom would cause it to fail to boot, though I did try disconnecting both to see if that would remove whatever the problem was before I declared it dead on Sunday.

So as of right now, it's up and working. However, I'm not going to try and jinx it by restarting the system until I have more info.

In somewhat related news, Bryian the technomancer and part-time chinese herbalist, sent me a link to a mini-laptop that Walmart is putting out. I am a huge fan of the mini-laptop concept. The very title of my blog is a "Digital Notebook". It's something that I've been toying with for ... more than a decade. My notebook is almost a symbolic representation of myself. Wherever you see me, there is my notebook - in one form or another. The problem that I have had is that the notebook eventually runs out. I would rather have a notebook that I could keep typing on and the like.

With the new Dell Mini-9 and the Everex 7" Cloudbook, I'm getting closer and closer to achieving a "digital notebook".

-Tom

It's dead Jim.

It's official.

My desktop is dead.

This morning I found out that the desktop computer will not turn on. Once you turn on the power, it starts to fire up but even before the monitor would display the first image, it dies.

I'm sure that means something so I'm trying to look up what it might be but for now it's dead.

Thank the heavens that I still have my laptop or else I would be disconnected.

fffear.

Later.

-Tom

Hammies and the curse of the sadistic bastard

Guess what I discovered?

I found out that I have hamstrings once more.

Hamstrings are the muscles on the back of your thighs. I haven't really used such muscles in quite a while. However, my "Sadistic Bastard" of a weight-trainer (aka. Will) has had me doing some pretty messed up things in the gym of late.

After Wednesday's workout my legs were tight but nothing more than that. I stretched out and all that and thought that they would be fine. The next day, while I was giving my Criminology students their first exam, I could feel those hamstrings start to tighten. It's not like I could start stretching out my muscles as people were writing out their essays so I took it in stride.

Then, later at home, I realized that they were more than just a "little" tight. They were starting to really make their voices known. By Friday morning I was half-crippled every time I tried to bend over or take a long stride while walking.

Today, after a soak in the hot tub yesterday, my legs are less of a chorus and more of a whisper. I can still feel them but they're not crippling me.

Sadistic Bastard!

New Gear

Not that I have it yet, but I'm seriously considering it.

Not since my friend Bryian gave me (yes, gave me) an NEC 780 mini-laptop a few years ago have I come across anything that seems like it could replace or augment my notebook.

This mini notebook is only 9 inches by 7 which is smaller than some of my analog notebooks that I've used over the years.

It's the Dell Inspirion Mini 9.

At only 350-450, this would be the perfect "WORKING" laptop that's an actual laptop and not a portable computer. It's designed for people who need to word process and hit the net but stay mobile.

This might have to happen.

-Tom

Letter-Writing Folio

As I write a lot of letters, I was running into the problem that I couldn't find any kind of folder or folio to hold all of my letter stuff in one place. So, being the true bibliophile, I decided to make what I needed.

Basically, the folio had to hold envelopes, a writing pad and something to write with. You would have thought that it would have been easy to find. Any kind of office supply place should have had something that could of worked but nope.

With some scrap pieces of cardboard, file folder and gray board, I grabbed the handyman's secret weapon (duct tape) and started pulling the elements together.

I added a slot to the back of the folio so that whatever writing pad I was using could be slid into it. I wanted it to be held closed so the letters would fall out or get loose in my bag so I added a closure flap to the right with some velcro squares.

The pencil loops was just so that I had some place to keep a utensil.

Duct tape makes a perfect joint; it's flexible and fairly strong.

If I were doing this folio for real, I'd probably use leather; preferably pig skin.

This design is a working prototype so it's not about polish or presentation. It just has to work until I can figure out where corrections need to be made. Give it while and I'll probably make a version for real. Just in time so that I can find a folio that I was originally looking for.

Once the folio is closed, the velcro strips line up to keep it held closed. I may cover the thing in paper or something even though it only is a working prototype.

I'll post some updates if I make revisions.

-Tom

A Squatting Ent?

You find the mythical world in the strangest places sometimes.

This is a shot of a strange bit of greenery in the local cemetery.

Does it not look like some huge ent has leaned up against a tree and is watching something in the distance.

Btw, if you were to line up where the figure is looking, the first thing he would be watching is a funeral home.

Makes ya wonder.

-Tom

Update

Well, it turns out that Josh was hurt more than previously thought.

Even though his muscles have started to relax and the swelling has gone down, he was in more and more pain. He couldn't figure out why his arm was hurting more as it got further from the date of the wreck.

Today he called me up to ask if I could pick him up because he was in wincing pain just to stand still.

After a trip to the emergency room he found out that he had fractured his clavicle. The swelling of the muscles apparently disguised the break in the original x-ray.

So now he's on better pain killers and wearing some kind of cloth harness to keep his shoulders straight and allow the collar bone to heal.

Once more Josh is crashing at my place this weekend because he's not able to easily crawl into the top bunk at the dorms.

I'm such a nice guy.

NSTIW

It's been one of those days.

Today was my first weekend since classes start. It's the time when I try and get into a rhythm to clean the house and work on projects for the coming week. Well, I am still in the process of cleaning and de-junking the house so my project today was to launch another assault on the front room. However, before I sent in the army, I wanted to at least start on a project that I've been meaning to play with for several months.

To start things off I was working in the guest room and starting a project that I had on a shelf since Josh, my ex-roommate, had moved in. A friend of mine had asked me to repair a book of fairytales for her. It's an older book from the sixties or seventies that was well warn and very well loved and the pages were literally falling out of the spine. The pages had to be cut free from the spine and separated and then repaired. Each page can take hours to repair - not for the actual repairs but for all of the time it takes to allow the cleaning agents and glue to dry. So once I had one page in the drying phase I could attack the front room.

While cleaning on the front room I got a call from Dan, the Fish. He was in the area and wanted to swing by and catch up before he headed back up to Athens. So I took a break when he got to the house. I hadn't gotten much information about "The Family" lately but assumed that things were progressing well and measured as most things (save for people screaming on a roof) tend to do. Heather was on her way to Indiana, Morgana was in preparation to move into the dorms and start her education at Ohio University, and Dan was gearing up to start classes in Lancaster.

After a while Dan had to go because he was needing to get back to Athens so he could change in time for his weekend gig as a drummer for Barbara's restaurant, Salam. Yes, my friends are just that cool. So I bid him fare well and started to attack the front room once more.

A bit later, Josh and his buddy, Mike, showed up to grab a load of Josh's stuff. They were in and out in only a few minutes but it was another small break. Once they were gone, the spot that was once occupied by Josh's box was cleaned and things were moved to accommodate the new, open design. (AKA: No More JUNK.)

Em wanted to come over lunch and I decided that I could use some of her AbFab (that's ABsolutely FABulous) sense of design with me moving things around in the front room. A few more boxes got cleaned before she showed up and I took another break to catch up with her after her first week of classes.

Most of the conversation, after the consumption of some pizza, was flavored with me cleaning and pitching junk from the piles of things in the front room. While in the last throws of sorting, I received a phone call from Josh's cellphone. It wasn't Josh.

Mike was calling me to let me know that he and Josh had been in a wreck; the word he was used was 'T-boned'. I'm not sure exactly what I asked him but it was something akin to "PUT JOSH ON THE PHONE." I'm sure it was polite and civil (in my usual manner) but there was no doubt in my mind that I could, at that very moment, teleport through the phone if only to make sure that Josh was ok.

Josh explained what had happened but there were a few words that popped into my mind and didn't want to leave. Words like: Jaws of Life, and Backboard, are hard to miss when someone's telling you that they're ok. I think he actually repeated that he was 'ok' a few times in between his description of how they had to remove the ENTIRE PASSENGER SIDE of Mike's car. Not the door, the whole side. That is, both the back door, the front door and the connective membrane of metal that would separate the two.

At that time, Josh was waiting on the results from his x-ray to see if anything was broken. Josh's mother works at the local hospital were he was taken (and is also skilled in the taking of x-rays) so she was right there with him. I asked him if he needed anything, but since he didn't know when they were going to tell him what was going on and his mom was there - he didn't need anything at the time.

So I got off the phone with Josh, told Em the basic jist, and then unleashed a torrent, nay - a stream of cleansing energy; that is to say that I cranked up my tidy genes and organized and pitched with more gusto. My friend was hurt but there was nothing much I could do for him at that particular moment. So, being the controlling person that I am, I decided to bring some much needed order to my house - whether the universe wanted to allow it or not.

A few minutes later Josh called me and asked if he could get a ride from the hospital. Mike's car was totaled and his mom couldn't leave work. So Em took off so she could get ready for work and I put the Saturnator's headlights (they're the closest things to nipples) to the wind and was off to SOMC.

Long story short....


.... Too late.


Josh is crashed in the guest room right now with the right side of his body aching and twinging with pain. There is no bruising after several hours and he's on some mighty good pain killers and muscle relaxers. He could have gone back to the dorms but his bed is the top bunk. He would not have been able to crawl up to the top with his body so whacked out of shape by the wreck. So, since I had just cleaned the guest room and such, ran him to get his 'scrip filled at Walmart and down to his dorm to get some clothes and piled him on the couch for a while. Mike's parents eventually came and picked him up so he could figure out what he will do because of the accident (he was sited for failure to yield to a stop sign).

After I got some chicken-rice down him so that he would have something on his stomach to help the meds work, I poured him into the guest bed so that he could try and sleep to let his body heal.

Yes, it's been one of those days.

-Tom

P.s. NSTIW: No Shit There I Was... How -else- do you begin a blog such as this?

Bon Anniversaire

Yes,

it's that time once again.

With the start of the 2008-2009 academic year at Shawnee State University, I celebrate my birthday.

This morning I was up with the birds (couldn't sleep) and went down to campus for our first 'Professional Day' whereby the university's administration made several presentations about the growth of the campus and some other topics.

There were some interesting stats about this year: we're getting closer and closer to 4k students enrolled; a huge step for Shawnee. We've seen a huge jump in enrollment over the summer though I don't know the specific stats. I would guess that the increased enrollment was a result of the local, shrinking economy. More people are choosing to enroll for classes if jobs are scarce and they're going to Shawnee because we are generally less expensive.

One of the presentations today said that most students will have something close to $16,500 in debt when they graduate. This doesn't seem to be too bad for a four-year degree. When you're faced with low income and you need to improve your marketability for jobs, the cheapest solution is often the only solution.

The rest of the presentations were a bit wordy - they were more like lengthy lectures on topics that no one cared about. Even though a lot of the faculty would bemoan students for getting up and walking out to grab a drink in the middle of a class; checking their cellphones or talking to their neighbor - almost everyone was showing their boredom.

I love irony.

After the presentations, we were treated to a nice lunch of BBQ chicken and pork. I got to sit with a few other of the professors and a fellow adjunct from my department. I made the joke that maybe we should be sitting at the "Kid's Table" since we weren't full-time faculty.

It was a brief lunch and then I wanted to get some work done, but I found that there are now three other faculty sharing my office. One of which were using it so I just decided to come home and change out of my 'professor gear'. After a summer of living in little more than cargo shorts, t-shirts and Teva sandals, getting dressed in khaki's and a dress-shirt was a bit constricting.

Tomorrow night is the first night of lecture for me. I was hoping to teach during the day again, but my classes are all at night. Oh well, it just means that I can sleep in more.

There's not much more going on right now. I've been able to rearrange and clean the house a little and I'll probably jump into it again here in a few, but I wanted to get a post up.

I haven't been blogging much lately because there's not been much going on. Now with classes getting back into full swing that'll change.

See ya later.

-Tom

Merry Moving Day

Well, it's come.

Today is Moving Day.

Josh is in the process of gathering up his stuff to move into the dorms today around 1 p.m. We've already hauled most of his furniture to his parent's place and now he just has the little stuff that he'll take with him.

Well, I shouldn't say "little stuff", because he's got the idea that he's going to take a TON of things along with him. Josh plans on hauling all of his kitchen stuff with him so that he can cook in the dorms. He's never lived in the dorms and is operating on the idea that the dorms are just like an apartment.

The dorms are very similar to an apartment (two large bedrooms with three people each and a connecting living room) and there's a small kitchen area there for people to store food or to cook.
At 25 years old, Josh will be one of the oldest people in the dorms.

I'm sure that this will be a very interesting experience for him.

Once he's moved his stuff out, I'm going to be cleaning and rearranging the house a bit. The house has had a 'cluttered' feeling ever since Josh moved in. There just wasn't much room to put all of his stuff away so a lot of it sat in baskets and boxes in the front room. That combined with some stuff that I am storing for some other friends just junked up the front room.

Not that many people came over to the house, but the first thing that they would see was all of the stuff cluttering up the front room and it just bugged the hell out of me.

Oh well, that'll be fixed soon.

More later.

-Tom

...Giveth and it Taketh away

The very day that I got approved for the next batch of "Summer Funds", my computer chair decided to break. I've had the chair for at least the past five years if not longer and when it finally gave up there was no repairing it.

I'm quite certain that the metal bits in the chair weren't designed to be used for as long as I have had the chair so when they finally broke - several of the bits actually 'ripped' apart.

So, as soon as I get some funds back in my wallet - the universe decides to encourage me to spend it quickly.

Oh... joy.

Boomdiada

Because I can't get this blasted song out of my head.

I had to share.

Click here.

-T

What goes thump?

There are many things that make noise,
crickets, cats, and cicada and boys
but few of them make a thump in the night.

Now even if you allow
for the occasional growl
there are few things that go thump.

But that is exactly what awoke me at four in the morn,
a thump that sounded as loud as a horn.

The thump was that of a tree as it fell,
more accurately as it's crashing death's knell.

With a strong summer blow,
the trees twisted to and fro
and one did go thump in the night.

As I launched from the door
to see ever so more,
I spied what had given me such a fright.

'twas a branch and a limb and two trunks did fall,
for when one tree fell
it took them all.

Now I know the answer
of what goes thump in the night.
It's the sound of a tree
attempting to flee
and forgetting that trees can't take flight.

(This post brought to you because I can't get that damn 'Hippy Grandma' out of my head)

-Tom

I've been blogged!

Ok, so it's only Em's blog about my outdoor kitchen, but still.

Have a look here.

-Tom

Cellphone Problems

Just FYI:

For the past few days my cellphone has enjoyed dropping calls, not ringing, sending calls directly to voice mail and the like.

I have no idea what's wrong with it and I am in the process of getting a replacement from AT&T. It seems to work best when it's plugged in (usually at night).

I will try and call people back (it hasn't stopped doing that part yet) if it tells me that I had a call.

Otherwise, find me on yahoo or email.

Patience.

-Tom

How to freak out your host in 13 steps

Step 1: Wake up at 8:30 a.m. and realize that the 'small' leak you discovered in your car yesterday may not have been so small with the torrential down-pours that we've been having of late.

Step 2: Investigate the 'small' leak and discover that not only is your driver seat wet, but there is an INCH of standing water in the floor board. Yes, an inch.

Step 3: Momentarily loose your icy facade and grumble out demonic slurs upon the birds and squirrels within ear-shot.

Step 4: Investigate the leak further to discover that what attempts you have made to seal what -might- be a leaky spot has been completely ignored by the rain as though it were the Maginot Line.

Step 4.a.: Wonder if Saturn was invented by the French.

Step 4.b.: Scribble note to self, "Saturn. French? Dig!" in notebook.

Step 5: Check weather.com and discover waves and waves of rain clouds heading for your position.

Step 5.a.: Fully understand what it might feel like to be the commanding officer along the Maginot Line after the first wave of German soldiers have gotten past you and then find out that there are more coming.

Step 5.b: Consider your options and decide that rather than use a French answer to this problem, try Welsh.

Step 6: Realize that your car, though parked under a friend's deck, is also pointing nose-in to their garage.

Step 7: Decide that the best option is to simply remove yourself from the field of battle until you've properly prepared yourself. (And hope your hosts won't freak when you want to borrow their garage for the rest of your visit.)

Step 8: Investigate their basement.

Step 8.a: Realize that for the years that your hosts have lived in their house, you've never seen them use their garage as a container for anything other than boxes (both full and empty).

Step 9: Organize their basement / garage into a space that's large enough to accommodate your car.

Step 9.a.: Move piles and piles of card board bits thither and yon. (Can I use thither in a thentance?)

Step 9.b.: Discover lost pages for the Pilgrim's Journal in the piles of empty boxes that have been scattered about.

Step 9.c.: Fight overwhelming urge to tidy your host's garage / basement.

Step 9.d: Become stumped at the presence of a weight bench in their basement cocooned by box-debris.

Step 9.e.: Really fight the urge to tidy your host's garage / basement.

Step 9.f: Discover that the large lump under the pile of boxes is actually a couch. (so that's where that thing went.)

Step 9.g: Really, no kidding, fight the urge to tidy your host's garage / basement. (This is where I'm channeling my inner Welshman. Yes, I'm still Irish but I bare a striking behavioral resemblance to a certain Welshman named Ianto and we'll leave it at that.)

Step 9.g.1: Fight the urge to sing 'Captain Jack' by Billy Joel while writing this blog.

Step 10: Finish cleaning a space for your car and go back into your host's house to ask if you can do what you've been preparing to do for the past thirty minutes.

Step 11: Quietly creep up the stairs to their bedroom since they're still not moving this morning. (around 9:30 a.m. - which may be early for some people and especially if there's a baby involved.)

Step 12: Ask the question: "Can I borrow your garage for the rest of the day?"

Step 12.a: Wait for their sleep-induced, mental-lethargy to catch up with what you just asked.

Step 12.b: Explain the situation about your car and pause dramatically for appropriate snickers and repeats of "What? What?" from your half-asleep hosts.

Step 12.c: Wait for one of them to say, "It won't fit." and then explain that you've already made a spot for your car.

Step 13: Gratefully accept your host's permission to use their garage for a while and move your car out of the range of fire (or rain) that is headed your way.

Step 13.a: Wait for them to fully wake up and wonder if your asking to borrow their garage was actually a dream or something.

It Happened alright.

Well, It Happened.

Last night I went to see the movie "The Happening". I wasn't too sure how it would turn out and the only thing that I read about it was something close to "Nature Strikes Back". But, as it was an M. Night Shyamala(h)-ding-dong movie I was hoping that there would be his usual plot twist at the end like he's done with Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and The Village.

However, what I got was a whole lot of wasted time. The movie's plot was so completely out in left field that I was reeling from it within the first ten minutes. I tried to find some redeemable quality in the concept, but all I could see was a bunch of shock-based scenes intended to give the audience a scare in between their moments of confusion.

The filming of the movie was so terrible that you ACTUALLY see the boom mike coming down from the top of the screen to follow the various actors who are on camera. Now normally I would have chalked it up to a single mistake that they didn't catch in editing but this happens over and over again. It's so noticeable because the microphone has a big red line around the end so you can see it switching direction from one actor and then to the other.

Normally, in disaster movies such as this, the audience can become involved in the movie by watching the characters figure out the 'rules' to the disaster. Either it's something as simple as: "Get out of the city" or "Stay in the light." But this movie's plot is so far out there that there isn't really a 'rule' that you can hold onto. Anything and everything that is green wants to kill you. The end.

So, there's about two hours of my life that I will not be getting back.

Grade: F

Flying a Kite

On June 15, 1752, Franklin successfully drew an electric charge from a rain cloud using a key tied to a kite.

Franklin a truly interesting person. His inventions and ideas on politics and technology were, in some ways, revolutionary; literally.

I wanted to blog about something this morning and found that I was more interested in a kite than the actual holiday celebrated today. The accomplishments of a man flying a kite with a brass key during a storm is more interesting, to me, than a holiday celebrating a figure that I've never known.

Similar to discussions about mysteriously ephemeral figures and prophets, I have heard my friends relate their thoughts on the matter and regail me with all of the stories associated with their childhood, but in the end I am left ignorant.

Perhaps my lack of faith in the figure celebrated today is connected to the lack of faith in the figure celebrated in late December and again with the first days of spring.

So, today, as families gather and phone calls are made back and forth - I will think of a man on a hill with a kite and a key.

At least -he- kept a notebook. :)

-Me

Sitting in a pool of gasoline...

... and that was only the beginning of my day.

In response to a trouble call from my grandfather, I ended up running out to give his van a jump. He couldn't get it started even with a jump so he had to call a tow-truck. He said that he didn't need my help beyond that so I came back home.

At this point, I hadn't even grabbed a shower yet. Before I could get one toe wet, my grandfather called again and asked for an extra pair of hands. I should know better, but he's my last grandparent so I threw my clothes back on and headed back over.

Within ten minutes, we discovered that his fuel line had a crack in it and I was sitting in a pool of gasoline while it drained into buckets. This then progressed into cutting the rusted section out of the gas line and replacing it with high-pressure hose.

I've found out
a) My Gerber pocket knife can cut through high-pressure hose like it's butter.
b) Gasoline is not shampoo.
c) Even with an electrician, an auto mechanic, a carpenter and a few plumbers in the family I am -STILL- no where near mechanically inclined.


So I'm going to jump in the shower - there's been no follow-up calls for 10 minutes. I think it's safe.

Later.

-Tom

I went to the Hospital today...

And for all of you who were only skimming the blog for a title, hah!

Today I rode over to the local Hospital with Josh. It's about a 3 mile round trip so it was a little further than I was used to riding, but it was a good ride.

The seat has been fixed and the handle bars have been raised so I'm not hunched over so much and having problems with my 'sitting bones'.

Riding has become something that I do now each day to build up my endurance and shred some calories. This is also, unfortunately, giving me more sun than I'm used to so I'm also enjoying a the pleasure of some Advil before I head out.

Glasses of Iced Tea: Lots
Bottles of Diet Pepsi: None
Cravings for cookies, pizza and diet pepsi: incalculable.
Number of days I've saved gasoline: 4
Number of house projects conceptualized: 13
Number of house projects I can afford: (tba)

Owie

Miles Ridden: 2
Money spent: too much
Lessons learned about bike seats: 1, Owie.
# of 'Pain in the ass' jokes: 47

Rather than being stuck at home all the time because gas prices are just too high for luxury driving, I opted to invest a few bucks into something that I hope will pay me back two fold.

Yesterday, I went out to the store and picked up the cheapest bike possible as a means to hopefully save a few bucks in gas and, more importantly, get more exercise into my weekly schedule. The bike was only $70 dollars but once you factor in the other little bits that are needed to do any kind of riding, it did start to add up.

Bike Lock, $10.
Air Pump, $10
Seat Cover $15

Speaking of the seat cover, let's just go back to how I enjoyed my first, two-mile ride yesterday.

When we got the bikes, both Josh and I got locks but I picked up the air pump, figuring that the tires would need to be pumped up before we could ride, and he got a gel seat. At the time, I didn't think that the cover was necessary.

Riding after almost twenty years was a lesson in just how much I'm out of shape as well as how the construction of something as forgetful as a bike seat can cause you more than a little pain. Josh and I immediately wanted to ride over to the cemetery and back; approximately a two mile round trip. I realized about half way into the trip that my ass was hurting more than my legs. I assumed that my legs would burn because I haven't used them for that kind of work out in a while. This was a different kind of pain.

Now, not to get weird but I think that this pain stemmed from the fact that I don't have much of an ass; well, at least not now. After sitting on the bike seat for a quarter mile, I realized that somehow my pelvis (specifically, the ischia are your sitting bones. They carry all your weight when you sit down.) was not cushioned at all and I was actually getting bruises. By the time we got to the cemetery, I was almost standing up on the pedals to avoid from sitting on the seat.

So when we got home yesterday, I was in more than a little pain and my legs were alternately going numb because of the shooting pains down from my ass. We got into the house and I immediately crashed on the couch in a drip of sweat.

Riding is going to be a fun activity, but the seat is a joke. If I wanted to have a pain in my ass all summer... (yea, you can take it from there).

So now I'm nursing my bruises and waiting to wake up a little more before I head back up to Walmart.

Owie.

-T

OMG! WTF? GAS $$$ UGH.

Ok,

So I have been talking about getting a bike to ride around town this summer (and beyond) because of the rising gas prices. A few days ago I had to put some gas in my car to keep it running and it cost me $16.00 for a QUARTER tank; roughly 4 gallons. I have a small, four-cylinder car so it normally doesn't take that much to fill it up. I haven't FILLED my gas tank in months.

I have gotten into the habit of walking down to the store for groceries or odds and ends rather than jumping in the car to conserve on gas. Today, as a matter of example, I went down to the store to get a few things on foot. Josh and I then went down to campus in the car because he had to pick up a few boxes of stuff from this past quarter that would have just been too hard to carry. When we got back we walked across town to the movies; again, to conserve gas - and to preemptively burn off the calories of dinner.

On the way back from the movies we got picked up by my pal Jim to go out to the lake with his dog, Jake. It was a great time to go hang out and stuff but here's where things get interesting.

Once we were back into town, the price of gas had shot up to $4.20 a gallon for the cheap gas. When we drove down to campus around 1 p.m. it was still $3.99. I was hoping that it would stay just under four dollars for Memorial Day. I guess I was completely wrong. The oil companies knew that Memorial day would be a big travel weekend, even if it's just out to some local park for a BBQ, and are grabbing up as much money as they can.

Something also to consider, the Economic Stimulus checks that everyone is getting to help boost the economy is probably going to go directly into everyone's gas tank.

Ugh.

-T

Fluffy Muffin Taters

Must


Not


Kill.


The coffee house has been besieged by a middle-school, girls, soccer team.

My monastic mental discipline has allowed me to fend off the Urukai-like assaults to my senses, but the sheer vacuum of cogent thought is starting to suck my mind out through my right ear.

I am not sure what they're talking about, but the few syllables that break through my rapidly failing shields have formed the phrase:

Fluffy....Muffin....Taters.

I'm afraid.

-T

Denison-Trip

I'm sitting in a very nice coffee house in Granville, Ohio near Denison University. Jim and I drove up at o'dark-thirty this morning for a meeting.

The coffee house is not what one would imagine as being a traditional caffeine den as it's built within a beautiful house on a road near the river. Aptly named, it is called the River Road Coffee House.

Within five minutes of stepping through the doors I am immediately filled with sense of both longing and disappointment. I would love for Portsmouth to have such a coffee house near campus - but I don't think it will happen for several more years if at all. This place, the River Road, has a very warm and inviting atmosphere. It encourages people to spend a few hours and relax. Just from where I'm sitting, there are tables full of laptops and text books and students / professors a plenty.

Ahh... Academia.

Feels like home.

More later.
-Tom

Ancient Curse

Well, that's what it feels like sometimes.

I had plans to work in my backyard since before Finals Week. I need to haul all of the sandstone blocks that once made a retaining wall out from behind the car port and use them elsewhere.

However, since I made arrangements to borrow tools and set aside time to work on this phase in the project, it has decided to rain. Not -just- rain, but down pour. The temperature has dropped and it's stayed cool and wet which has mostly removed the idea of yard work.

One of these days I'm going to swear that my fate is the result of an Ancient Curse.

And one of these days I'll be right.

-T

Chai Goodness

So..

This morning I had to crawl out of bed early to take my cat, Cinder, to the Vet to have her fixed. I was not going to go through another Heat or another batch of kittens with her. So I was up at the crack of dawn (7:30 a.m.) to begin the cat-wrangling.

Thankfully, she often sleeps at the foot of my bed so she was easy to catch. I snuck up to her and offered her a head-scratch before I figuratively threw a black bag over her tiny head and stuffed her into the box. Well, that's what you would have thought by the noise she was making. While she yowled in her cat-crate, I tried to get myself together and get going.

Here's the interesting part:

My roommate Josh is heading to Yellowstone National Park for two weeks for a school trip. He leaves today sometime in the afternoon. They are going to drive straight through and switch out drivers as necessary. Since he's going to be one of the drivers, he stayed up late last night so that he would sleep in today. I, foolishly, stayed up with him - to a point.

With yowling cat-crate in hand, I stumbled out of the house and immediately remembered that I needed to get gas. Gas here is up to 3.79 a gallon. So while I'm not-filling up my tank, everyone around me hears the painful yowl of my cat in the carrier.

I get a few strange looks (she was yelling so loudly that she could be heard through closed car doors), but eventually got back on the road.

Dropping the cat off was much like going to a doctor's office. They ushered me into a small waiting room and asked me about this and that for the procedure.

They offered meds for the cat. They offered shots, and boosters and a number of other services even though I told them I was just there to get her fixed. The vet-tech was nice and personable but really was pushing their other services and I was only half awake so I numbly sat through her recitation of how many flavors of topical antibiotic they had. (I think she said flavors)

I just kept repeating "Just fix her..."

Once that bit of joy was finished, I was on my way back home and remembered that, as it was Friday, I was going to run by and grab some chai for my mother and I. There's only one place in Portsmouth that serves Chai - Hatti Beasleys. They're really attempting to make their shop work, but I think that it would have a better market if it was closer to the University. Right now, their only real market is the nearby Hospital and all of the "Tomb Walkers" who walk around Green Lawn Cemetery around dusk.

Well, now I'm home and I'm out on the front porch so I don't wake up Josh.

Finals are over.

I have Chai.

I'm on my laptop.

Life is sometimes not so bad.
-T

My first morning

So I was hoping to sleep in a little today, as it's my first day off, and enjoy a lazy morning.

Well, that didn't happen.

My bathroom sink has not been draining well of late and I had it on my list (actually #11) for things to tackle. This morning I hear my roommate, Josh, tell me - "Dude, the sink doesn't work".

This is Josh-speak for:

"Thomas, I believe that the drain is clogged and you may need to have it fixed more quickly than anticipated."

So I crawled out of bed and grabbed my tools and went to the basement.

I SO need a tool belt.

The problem wasn't in the main drain it was at the sink.

Now let me paint you a picture of my skill with plumbing. I have none. So I took the sink apart (yes, the whole sink) and took the various parts out to the driveway to spray it out with my garden hose. Once things were cleaned out, I put it back together (and surprisingly had no spare parts) and it works fine now.

After some breakfast, I'm going to head into my next project: Beating my driveway with a sledge hammer. It's been quite uppity lately and needs to be taught a lesson.

Later. :)

-Tom

p.s. yes, that image of the plumber's crack will haunt you for the next 30 minutes.

I'm Done

That's right,

I'm done!

Today was the day of my final exams; Psychology, Sociology and Criminology all in one day. So for six hours straight today, with only a half-hour break every two hours, I was giving, grading and posting grades.

JOY.

I've been caught up with getting things finished for the term for the past week or so (tons of papers to grade) and haven't been posting much to the blog. There really hasn't been much to publish other than "Yes, I'm -still- reading papers". So I decided to postpone any substantive post until I was finished. And now...

I'M DONE!!

God it feels good to say that so I'll say it once more.

I'M FINALLY DONE!!!

Ok, anyway.

It's not that I don't like my job. I love my job. I even like a percentage of my students. However there's something that I need to get off my chest.

There is a new form of evil in the world. Yes,

E-vil

Back in the chapters of history, we all knew this horrible concept as simply as self-important girls who attempted to twist anything and anyone to do their bidding. Oddly enough they were able to turn schools, clicks and whole athletic teams into their disciples. You all knew them. They were at your school in one form or another. Their evil was known by another name:

HEATHERS

This evil was was thought to have been destroyed and forgotten with the shoulder pads for which they were known.

Stalking the halls like an unholy quadruplet of attitude (that's At-ta-tude for those who know how to pronounce the head-shake devil language spoken only by click-chicks, drag queens and poorly acted villains of the 80's), they simply assumed that their powers of accessorization and haircare gave them ultimate authority.

Now let us move forward to college, let's say a small University. This evil has been reborn not with shoulder pads or with poofy 80's hair, but with something much much worse.

Hip Huggers

Dressed like their momma's didn't teach them how to pull up their damned pants, the evil struts their way around our campus and heads turn.

The girls want to be them.

The guys want to be WITH them.

They are the spawn of an ancient evil.

And their name is:

ASHLEY

The Ashley, they are plural and are therefor named as such, are an evil horde of women that descended up on Shawnee's campus and more to the point, my classes. I have three Ashley's in Criminology, two in Psych and one in Sociology. Each one of them is a clone of the other. They do not participate in class, when they actually bother attending. Each of them had to be told "Do not text on your phone in my class," only once. I say once, not because they stopped the behavior, but actually because they just stopped coming to class.

Only attending on test days, sometimes missing the test day completely, they routinely scored below 50% even with an in-class review of the material on the previous class and hand-outs to help them study. To me, this was their inability, or unwillingness to put forth any effort towards their classes. According to one of the Ashley:

"Grades aren't important. Life is just like High School - it's not WHAT you know but WHO you know."

So now that we were winding up the course, the Ashley attempted to once again use their powers to their own end.

This is when one Evil met another kind of Evil.

Sparks flew through the air and the ground broke apart to spew fire and death.

The Ashley met opposition and for the first time in their lives (according to the shocked looks on their faces) they were not given what they wanted.

Yes.

I crushed their widdle egos.

I ruined their widdle lives.

I failed their sorry, hoochy-momma, crack-whore-thong wearin' asses!!

And...

I'm Done!

Expect more frequent updates now that

On the Shelf

Normally I don't read much fiction. I will get too caught up in the concepts and ideas of the story and then crash into disappointment when it's not as real as I want it to be. (I -WILL- have an army of robots at my command. Mark my words...)

However, I am starting to experiment with new things and one of them is to read a series of books by Jim Butcher, the author of the Dresden Files.

---

Harry Dresden is the best at what he does. Well, technically, he's the only at what he does. So when the Chicago P.D. has a case that transcends mortal creativity or capability, they come to him for answers. For the "everyday" world is actually full of strange and magical things -- and most of them don't play well with humans. That's where Harry comes in. Takes a wizard to catch a -- well, whatever.
There's just one problem. Business, to put it mildly, stinks. So when the police bring him in to consult on a grisly double murder committed with black magic, Harry's seeing dollar signs. But where there's black magic, there's a black mage behind it. And now that mage knows Harry's name. And that's when things start to get... interesting.

Magic. It can get a guy killed.

---

The books were turned into a pilot series on the Scifi channel but it only had 12 episodes shot. I would have liked for them to have made more. The characters of Harry (the wizard), Bob (the ghost of a warlock who is condemed to live in his skull for eternity) and Murphy (the plucky, street-wise detective) is a bit archetypal but still fun to watch.

Just something Funny

Power Outtage

Shawnee Obelisk
Originally uploaded by Green Pilgrim

Tuesday marked a weird event on Shawnee's campus.

While I was teaching my morning Psych class, the power went out across the campus. One minute I was talking about fear and phobias and the next we're sitting in almost complete darkness with just a faint glow coming through the doors. There was nothing to do but to close the class early and let them go.

So I went out to the President's Porch and grabbed my notebook for a bit of a break. I didn't know if they were going to cancell classes for the rest of the day or if it was something simple like a blown fuse. Well, it was something close to a blown fuse but it would take more than someone flipping a switch to repair it. Rumors began to spread from group to group as to how long it would take for the problem to be fixed.

And then security upped the anty.

Several security guards wandered from group to group and told us that it would take between six and eight hours to fix the problem. The immediate response from all of the secretaries and faculty was:

WHEN ARE THEY RELEASING US?

It took about a half hour for the word to go out that classes were going to be cancelled for the rest of the day. As soon as I heard, I jumped into my car and headed for the exits because I didn't want to be caught in what would have been a huge traffic snarl; all of campus leaving at once.

Well, two hours (or so) later they sent word, via the emergency call-back service, that power had been restored. By then, I was on my way over to a friend's house to head out to the lake again.

Somedays you don't argue with the universe. You just accept things as a gift and move on.