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.

Waterfall - 1934

lake-11
Originally uploaded by Green Pilgrim

In 1934 several things were happening around the world.

May 23, Police kill Bonnie and Clyde
May 11, Massive Dust Storms sweep across the Great Plains
Oct 16, Chinese Communists break through the Nationalist enemy lines
Aug 11, Alcatraz Island is opened as a Federal Prison.

And...

Some guy carved the date and stuck the rock near this waterfall in Scioto County, Ohio.

While out with some friends at the lake yesterday, I came across this waterfall. The fall is actually there to drain water from the hill above the lake and under the roadway. However, the drain is reinforced with what appears to be a stacked-stone wall. (I don't have a larger shot of the whole wall, but the stones here are tiny compared to the larger stones that stretch out down the hill.)

I took a moment to see if I could capture the water as it fell from the rocks and down to the splash-point. I'm still learning how to use my camera to capture "action" shots such as moving water. It wasn't until I got home and was sorting through the pictures that I saw that someone had carved the date 1934 on one of the rocks (I was at a considerable distance when I took the picture) near the fall.

I wonder if the waterfall was built in 34 or if someone just decided to commemorate the year for some other reason. Who knows.

It was still a nice day to go out to the lake.

-Tom

Bedside Archaeology

Archaeologists often identify people by the objects found along side them in their graves. However, I was wondering what someone could tell about me if they were to examine the contents of my bed-side table.

So the question evolved into: What's beside your bed?

1. Field Book
2. Coffee Cup full of Pens
3. Lamp
4. Cellphone (and charger)
5. Laptop (and charger)
6. Dictionary of the Supernatural (Published in the 70's)
7. Introduction to Watercolors (Borders bargain books)
8. A small, cast-iron pipkin (think mini-cauldron)
9. Bottle of Water
10. A sleepy cat named Rusty (he decided to sprawl himself across the top)
11. The history and truth of the Unicorn* (A faux 'journal' with illustrations and some awesome calligraphy)
12. Marine K-Bar knife with sheath
13. Stack of blank note-cards

It's supposed to be ... Spring?

Well, that's the rumor that I've heard.

I'm out on my front porch this afternoon to enjoy a bit of the not-cold weather and guess what - it's still cold. The high today is just barely within the 50's. I was hoping to enjoy some not-winter-like weather and get some work done out on the front porch today. That doesn't seem to be a good choice since everytime the wind blows my fingers seem to stiffen.

Classes are going fairly well this week. There's nothing on the schedule; no exams or papers to grade. Next week, however, I get to tackle the mountain of Criminological ephemera that will be thrown at me in the shape of research papers. Can you hear the sound of joy in my voice? No? Well, that's because it's been squashed under the foot of aggravation. Every time I read my student's papers I'm hoping that I will at least be able to track what they are writing about; never mind how they're writing it. If I can at least follow, with some clarity, what they're talking about and where they're going with their topic, I'm fine. When it comes to HOW they write, I try not to get too freaked out. I remind myself that these students aren't what I would call 'academically minded'. Though part of me would hold them to a standard that I was used to at Ohio University, there is another part of me that is a bit more practical about such matters.

This is not the place to begin a crusade.

The University is slowly starting to up the bar on its students, but such things are done with patience and lots of meetings. Not only do the students have to be coaxed up out of their shell, some of the professors also have to be encouraged (sometimes with a lead pipe) to come out of their Ivory Tower and...well... teach.

We have some professors who are keeping their students involved and participating in their lectures and others just drone on as though they were giving a presentation to a group of people who already know what they're talking about; ignoring any question presented to them because it 'disrupts their flow'.

If your students are unable to learn the material, how can you 'Profess' to be an educator of any kind. I've had my fair share of students who just don't give a damn, but when the ones that are trying don't understand and, more importantly, can't get clarification, there's something wrong.

The job that I was hoping for on campus, apparently has been sucked through the black hole of a budget sheet. Lack of funding. So I will have to find something else to occupy myself. I have been told, several times, that I am appreciated and an asset in the Department. I love working on campus and if I had the choice, I'd continue to work there in other capacities, but that requires that they have the money to pay me.

Ok... fingers really getting cold now. Going to have to shut down and go back inside to the constant drone of 'World of Warcraft' in the guest room.

Ugh.

I wish it was warmer.

-Tom

Donkey!

donkey
Originally uploaded by Green Pilgrim

A morning in Athens with my beat-up satchel, heavily used notebook and new Donkey Coffee mug.

Life doesn't have to be complicated to be good.

-Tom