happy new year! now get the hell out of my house...!
Ok, I know it's the holidays and it's all about family togetherness and all that, but.... seriously... everyone needs to get the fuck out of here and go home or to school or wherever else they usually are, because I'm really tired of PEOPLE.
Friday, December 29
Thursday, December 28
Monday, December 25
Sunday, December 24
to celebrate jesus's (metaphorical) birth...
Tonight my wife has decided that she wants to attend Church at our old UU congregation at 7:30 and then bring the kids hoome and put them to bed, after which she will head to a midnight mass with her parents at the Catholic Church nearby.
I dunno... I think the only thing worse than being a "C&E Catholic" may be a "C&E Unitarian"!
Sorry - "S&E Unitarian". **
Maybe we'll sing some of my favorite Unitarian Christmas Hymns like "O Come, All Ye Doubtful" or "God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman, Women, and Transgendered Individuals" or perhaps "Angels Some Claim To Have Heard on High". That one's always particularly moving.
Anyway... Merry (insert-festive-december-occasion-here) everyone!
(**"Solstice and Equinox")
Tonight my wife has decided that she wants to attend Church at our old UU congregation at 7:30 and then bring the kids hoome and put them to bed, after which she will head to a midnight mass with her parents at the Catholic Church nearby.
I dunno... I think the only thing worse than being a "C&E Catholic" may be a "C&E Unitarian"!
Sorry - "S&E Unitarian". **
Maybe we'll sing some of my favorite Unitarian Christmas Hymns like "O Come, All Ye Doubtful" or "God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman, Women, and Transgendered Individuals" or perhaps "Angels Some Claim To Have Heard on High". That one's always particularly moving.
Anyway... Merry (insert-festive-december-occasion-here) everyone!
(**"Solstice and Equinox")
Saturday, December 23
and it shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of e. coli...
I have no idea where it came from or what caused it, but while the rest of the family was having dinner last night, I was slumped on the bathroom floor, praying for the sweet relief of death.
I'm feeling better now.
Have I mentioned how great this Xmas season is going so far?
I have no idea where it came from or what caused it, but while the rest of the family was having dinner last night, I was slumped on the bathroom floor, praying for the sweet relief of death.
I'm feeling better now.
Have I mentioned how great this Xmas season is going so far?
Thursday, December 21
someone kill me now...
Well, we've been cleaning all day as my wife's parents are arriving this afternoon and staying until the 29th.
This morning my Mom called to let me know their plans for their traditional post-holiday visit. The date they are arriving?
Yeah. The 29th.
Someone is going to flip out before New Year's Day, I can guarantee it.
Well, we've been cleaning all day as my wife's parents are arriving this afternoon and staying until the 29th.
This morning my Mom called to let me know their plans for their traditional post-holiday visit. The date they are arriving?
Yeah. The 29th.
Someone is going to flip out before New Year's Day, I can guarantee it.
Wednesday, December 20
if it weren't for those meddling kids...
I just noticed for the first time this year that my youngest child's birth coincides with the anniversary of the death of Carl Sagan. It's probably a good thing I noticed it after the fact, or the temptation to name him "Carl" (or heck, even "Sagan") would have been difficult to resist.
It's nearly impossible to overstate the impact the Carl Sagan and his series "Cosmos" had in cementing my career path as a scientist. I would have been 11 when "Cosmos" first aired on PBS, although I'm not sure I caught it on its first run. It seems to me I was a middle schooler, 7th grade perhaps, which means I may have caught the series re-aired a year or so later. I had been a science nerd since the first grade, of course... checking out astronomy and dinosaur books from the school library against constant protests and nagging from the school Librarian to check out some fiction stories now and then. (From time to time I'd pick out something from the stacks to humor her, then drop it in the "return" slot on the way out the door.)
So even though I already knew much of the science being presented by Dr. Sagan in "Cosmos" by the time I was 12, I remember the feeling that what I was seeing was important somehow. I had to see this, because this was what I was going to do. I watched the whole series on the black and white console TV in the back living-room, so as not to interrupt my Mom's viewings of M*A*S*H and what have you on the color cable TV in the family room. "Are you watching that boring show again?" she'd ask. Watching the DVD boxed set nowadays, the experience seems somehow inauthentic without the omnipresent UHF static.
When I found out there was a Carl Sagan Memorial Blog-A-Thon and the celebrating Sagan website, I knew I wanted to tell one story in particular - the story of my own moment of "contact" with Dr. Sagan himself. It happened around the time of the publication of his book "The Demon Haunted Word" - his call for rationality in an irrational time. At one point in the book, he is discussing how rare skepticism and rational investigation are in modern discourse, and he points out that, for example, there has never been a regular television show devoted to investigating claims of the paranormal and supernatural and revealing them to be explicable, mundane, or simply hoaxes. I had a quick and amusing realization that Sagan had missed something here, and that there was one program which actually fit the bill nicely... "Scooby Doo" - in which all manner of phantoms, spectres, and ghosts are revealed to be nothing more than an old man in a rubber mask. The realization made me chuckle and it occurred to my that Dr. Sagan probably had enough of a sense of humor to get a kick out of the observation as well. I typed up a quick letter, and rather than mail it to his publisher or publicist, I faxed it to the his departmental office at Cornell. (These were still the days before email!) I also added a sentence at the end explaining that I was getting my BS in physics and thanking him for the influence that "Cosmos" had on my decision to become a scientist and science educator. I didn't really expect a response, but to my surprise, a few months later, I received an envelope in the mail from Cornell. (I've spent an hour trying to dig up the actual letter, which I still have tucked away in a keepsake-box SOMEWHERE in this house.) In the letter, Dr. Sagan thanked me warmly for pointing out the oversight, saying that he was embarrassed not to have thought of it himself, given that he's watched the show many times with his young children. He even promised to add a footnote in future editions of the book holding up the Scooby-Doo kids as a model for healthy skepticism in the face of the seemingly supernatural.
Of course, the revised 2nd edition of "Demon Haunted World" never came to pass, and Carl Sagan died a few years later in 1996. I found out about his passing from an airport television tuned to CNN as I was traveling alone to a scientific conference.
It was with a mixture of pleasure and sadness that I picked up Carl Sagan's new book, "The Varieties of Scientific Experience" last month in a bookstore. It would have been easy to dismiss it as a cheap effort to make a few bucks by cobbling together a few lectures into a posthumous work whose narrower-than-usual profile was a pretty clear indication that there was not that much IN there. And yet it was so good to hear Sagan's "voice" again that I couldn't help but read it with a smile. Especially since I hear so much of his voice in my own, as I teach today. Not so much the sound of his voice, which would be foolish to try to replicate, but something of the cadence... the patterns of pauses and emphasis. I even catch myself taking on Carl's signature habit of surrounding the word "billion", a word which you get to say a lot as an astronomy professor, with a little bit of space before and after... four hundred -billion- stars... a -billion- light years... thirteen -billion- years old... The pause places the word in a tiny space of its own, emphasizing its vastness. I don't do it on purpose, but I wouldn't blame me if I did.
Hell, I even have the jacket...
I just noticed for the first time this year that my youngest child's birth coincides with the anniversary of the death of Carl Sagan. It's probably a good thing I noticed it after the fact, or the temptation to name him "Carl" (or heck, even "Sagan") would have been difficult to resist.
It's nearly impossible to overstate the impact the Carl Sagan and his series "Cosmos" had in cementing my career path as a scientist. I would have been 11 when "Cosmos" first aired on PBS, although I'm not sure I caught it on its first run. It seems to me I was a middle schooler, 7th grade perhaps, which means I may have caught the series re-aired a year or so later. I had been a science nerd since the first grade, of course... checking out astronomy and dinosaur books from the school library against constant protests and nagging from the school Librarian to check out some fiction stories now and then. (From time to time I'd pick out something from the stacks to humor her, then drop it in the "return" slot on the way out the door.)
So even though I already knew much of the science being presented by Dr. Sagan in "Cosmos" by the time I was 12, I remember the feeling that what I was seeing was important somehow. I had to see this, because this was what I was going to do. I watched the whole series on the black and white console TV in the back living-room, so as not to interrupt my Mom's viewings of M*A*S*H and what have you on the color cable TV in the family room. "Are you watching that boring show again?" she'd ask. Watching the DVD boxed set nowadays, the experience seems somehow inauthentic without the omnipresent UHF static.
When I found out there was a Carl Sagan Memorial Blog-A-Thon and the celebrating Sagan website, I knew I wanted to tell one story in particular - the story of my own moment of "contact" with Dr. Sagan himself. It happened around the time of the publication of his book "The Demon Haunted Word" - his call for rationality in an irrational time. At one point in the book, he is discussing how rare skepticism and rational investigation are in modern discourse, and he points out that, for example, there has never been a regular television show devoted to investigating claims of the paranormal and supernatural and revealing them to be explicable, mundane, or simply hoaxes. I had a quick and amusing realization that Sagan had missed something here, and that there was one program which actually fit the bill nicely... "Scooby Doo" - in which all manner of phantoms, spectres, and ghosts are revealed to be nothing more than an old man in a rubber mask. The realization made me chuckle and it occurred to my that Dr. Sagan probably had enough of a sense of humor to get a kick out of the observation as well. I typed up a quick letter, and rather than mail it to his publisher or publicist, I faxed it to the his departmental office at Cornell. (These were still the days before email!) I also added a sentence at the end explaining that I was getting my BS in physics and thanking him for the influence that "Cosmos" had on my decision to become a scientist and science educator. I didn't really expect a response, but to my surprise, a few months later, I received an envelope in the mail from Cornell. (I've spent an hour trying to dig up the actual letter, which I still have tucked away in a keepsake-box SOMEWHERE in this house.) In the letter, Dr. Sagan thanked me warmly for pointing out the oversight, saying that he was embarrassed not to have thought of it himself, given that he's watched the show many times with his young children. He even promised to add a footnote in future editions of the book holding up the Scooby-Doo kids as a model for healthy skepticism in the face of the seemingly supernatural.
Of course, the revised 2nd edition of "Demon Haunted World" never came to pass, and Carl Sagan died a few years later in 1996. I found out about his passing from an airport television tuned to CNN as I was traveling alone to a scientific conference.
It was with a mixture of pleasure and sadness that I picked up Carl Sagan's new book, "The Varieties of Scientific Experience" last month in a bookstore. It would have been easy to dismiss it as a cheap effort to make a few bucks by cobbling together a few lectures into a posthumous work whose narrower-than-usual profile was a pretty clear indication that there was not that much IN there. And yet it was so good to hear Sagan's "voice" again that I couldn't help but read it with a smile. Especially since I hear so much of his voice in my own, as I teach today. Not so much the sound of his voice, which would be foolish to try to replicate, but something of the cadence... the patterns of pauses and emphasis. I even catch myself taking on Carl's signature habit of surrounding the word "billion", a word which you get to say a lot as an astronomy professor, with a little bit of space before and after... four hundred -billion- stars... a -billion- light years... thirteen -billion- years old... The pause places the word in a tiny space of its own, emphasizing its vastness. I don't do it on purpose, but I wouldn't blame me if I did.
Hell, I even have the jacket...
Tuesday, December 19
last exam...
I'm in the middle of it right now. (One of my favorite things! Look at them scribble away!) So, this is it for me. I'm not coming back to campus until after the new year. I still have a mountain of grading to do, but... the semester is now officially OVER.
Aah, the periodic finality of academia. It can't be beat.
I'm in the middle of it right now. (One of my favorite things! Look at them scribble away!) So, this is it for me. I'm not coming back to campus until after the new year. I still have a mountain of grading to do, but... the semester is now officially OVER.
Aah, the periodic finality of academia. It can't be beat.
seems obvious...
I won't detail the events that led me to this consideration but... Why doesn't Post-it make a glue stick? Like... their patented weak-ass semi-sticky glue in stick form that you could smear on any piece of paper... wait a minute or two for it to dry, then... just like that, you've made anything you want into a big Post-it.
I can't imagine there are any huge technological obstacles to this. Someone must have thought of it before me, right?
-------
PS> Well, i'll be god-damned. Why wasn't I told? Has the Nobel Prize committee heard about this??
I won't detail the events that led me to this consideration but... Why doesn't Post-it make a glue stick? Like... their patented weak-ass semi-sticky glue in stick form that you could smear on any piece of paper... wait a minute or two for it to dry, then... just like that, you've made anything you want into a big Post-it.
I can't imagine there are any huge technological obstacles to this. Someone must have thought of it before me, right?
-------
PS> Well, i'll be god-damned. Why wasn't I told? Has the Nobel Prize committee heard about this??
Monday, December 18
don we now our gay apparel...
Tonight is the faculty Xmas party, so this is going to be a looooooong day. I really have no idea when I'll be trying to get home. The trains get pretty scarce after 8:00 PM, and the party doesn't start until 7:00. I'm thinking there is something 9:30-ish I could probably catch. I'd really rather not take that train that gets home at 1:50.
But in honor of the festivities, I'm wearing my black pants and black/purple striped shirt to go with my new velvet blazer. (See subject line.) Actually TWO new black velvet blazers, since I picked up one this weekend that fits a little better and I need to take the first one back. They are cut ridiculously small. I usually wear a 42 regular in off-the-rack sportscoats, but I could barely move by arms in a 42R, so I went all the way up to a 46R to get the arms to fit. It was a little too long in the waist, but not ridiculously so. But when I went back the other day, they had a 44L that fits better. So, the one in the closet goes back. Eventually.
(I have officially been married to my wife TOO LONG.)
I was hoping for a relaxing train ride today. I'm giving one final exam, which is already written and ready to print, and I'm doing a review session for Astronomy. So I figured I had nothing to prepare for... maybe I could even grade a few papers. But then I remembered I have one Astro student who needs to take the exam early. So I have to write that exam this morning. Fuck.
The weekend was full of shopping fun. I ran all over Saturday afternoon and again Saturday night, with only marginal success. (Grandmom and Dad done, brother almost done, Mom nothing.) Then on Sunday we took the kids to the mall to get their pictures taken in the matching sweaters my wife knitted (insane!) for them. Then on the way home we got a flat tire on the van, which I had to change in a gas station parking lot. At least it wasn't on the highway!! Merry Christmas!!
Anyway, there is other stuff going on today, but I really need to get to that exam, so...
Tonight is the faculty Xmas party, so this is going to be a looooooong day. I really have no idea when I'll be trying to get home. The trains get pretty scarce after 8:00 PM, and the party doesn't start until 7:00. I'm thinking there is something 9:30-ish I could probably catch. I'd really rather not take that train that gets home at 1:50.
But in honor of the festivities, I'm wearing my black pants and black/purple striped shirt to go with my new velvet blazer. (See subject line.) Actually TWO new black velvet blazers, since I picked up one this weekend that fits a little better and I need to take the first one back. They are cut ridiculously small. I usually wear a 42 regular in off-the-rack sportscoats, but I could barely move by arms in a 42R, so I went all the way up to a 46R to get the arms to fit. It was a little too long in the waist, but not ridiculously so. But when I went back the other day, they had a 44L that fits better. So, the one in the closet goes back. Eventually.
(I have officially been married to my wife TOO LONG.)
I was hoping for a relaxing train ride today. I'm giving one final exam, which is already written and ready to print, and I'm doing a review session for Astronomy. So I figured I had nothing to prepare for... maybe I could even grade a few papers. But then I remembered I have one Astro student who needs to take the exam early. So I have to write that exam this morning. Fuck.
The weekend was full of shopping fun. I ran all over Saturday afternoon and again Saturday night, with only marginal success. (Grandmom and Dad done, brother almost done, Mom nothing.) Then on Sunday we took the kids to the mall to get their pictures taken in the matching sweaters my wife knitted (insane!) for them. Then on the way home we got a flat tire on the van, which I had to change in a gas station parking lot. At least it wasn't on the highway!! Merry Christmas!!
Anyway, there is other stuff going on today, but I really need to get to that exam, so...
Thursday, December 14
I couldn't be more proud...
I got this email from my wife this morning, recounting a conversation between my 7 year old daughter (K) and the 9-year old girl across the street (M) over breakfast this morning.
K (daughter): Did you know that one thousand billion years from now, the Earth is going to explode. It's true. I read it in a book.
M (neighbor): Well, it doesn't matter because God is going to end the world soon. (turns to wife) Do you believe in God?
Wife: Yes.
M: Does she?
Wife: I don't know, you'd have to ask her.
M: Well, have you been saved?
Wife: We believe in a different kind of religion.
M: Well *Christians* --
K: But it's *science* --
Wife: We're Christian, just a different flavor of Christian than you. There are lots of different religions, you know.
M: I know, but when Christians die, they all go to heaven, and ... I don't know what happens next, but I guess I'll see you guys in heaven.
K: Well, the Earth is going to end one thousand billion years from now, but it doesn't matter, because we won't still be alive.
M: Did you know that back in the time of the Bible, people lived for 300 years?
Wife: Some people think that that was just a way of showing respect to people.
M: It's true! It's in the Bible.
K: Sometimes the Bible lies.
Wife, intervening: People believe different things about the Bible. Some people believe it literally, and some people think it's more of a story. Right?
M nods.
Wife: Can we please move on to a different topic??
I got this email from my wife this morning, recounting a conversation between my 7 year old daughter (K) and the 9-year old girl across the street (M) over breakfast this morning.
K (daughter): Did you know that one thousand billion years from now, the Earth is going to explode. It's true. I read it in a book.
M (neighbor): Well, it doesn't matter because God is going to end the world soon. (turns to wife) Do you believe in God?
Wife: Yes.
M: Does she?
Wife: I don't know, you'd have to ask her.
M: Well, have you been saved?
Wife: We believe in a different kind of religion.
M: Well *Christians* --
K: But it's *science* --
Wife: We're Christian, just a different flavor of Christian than you. There are lots of different religions, you know.
M: I know, but when Christians die, they all go to heaven, and ... I don't know what happens next, but I guess I'll see you guys in heaven.
K: Well, the Earth is going to end one thousand billion years from now, but it doesn't matter, because we won't still be alive.
M: Did you know that back in the time of the Bible, people lived for 300 years?
Wife: Some people think that that was just a way of showing respect to people.
M: It's true! It's in the Bible.
K: Sometimes the Bible lies.
Wife, intervening: People believe different things about the Bible. Some people believe it literally, and some people think it's more of a story. Right?
M nods.
Wife: Can we please move on to a different topic??
this is only a test...
Since I had no time to write a blog entry on the train cuz I was writing a final exam instead, I present for your reading pleasure... a final exam on heat and thermodynamics.
Very straighforward... no tricky questions. Anything less than a passing grade on this exam should be cause for shame.
Since I had no time to write a blog entry on the train cuz I was writing a final exam instead, I present for your reading pleasure... a final exam on heat and thermodynamics.
PART ONE: ENERGY
1) What is energy? Give a definition if you can, then list several examples of various kinds of energy.
2) Imagine a car driving down the road at 50 mph. The car has kinetic energy. Where did the car’s kinetic energy come from? Where did THAT energy come from...? Trace the energy of the car all the way back to its origin, through as many transformations as you can.
PART TWO: THEORIES OF HEAT
1) Imagine the following scenario: You make hot cup of tea to help you stay up late and study for your physics final;. The phone rings. You set your hot tea down to go answer the phone. You come back a half hour later to find your tea is now lukewarm. Explain what has just happened in terms of the caloric theory of heat.
2) Now take the same scenario above and explain what has just happened in terms of the kinetic theory of heat.
3) What observations and experiments by Count Rumford led him to reject the idea of ”caloric” ?
4) Describe the experiment conducted by James Joule. What did this experiment demonstrate?
PART THREE: HEAT AND TEMPERATURE
1) What is the difference between heat and temperature?
2) You can safely reach into a 400ºF oven and touch the top of a cake with your finger to test and see if it is “done”. But if your hand touches the rack, or the cake pan, you will be burned. Why is it safe to touch the 400º cake and the 400º air, but not the 400º metal?
3) Suppose you have 1 kilogram of lead and 1 kilogram of water. The lead is heated to a temperature of 180ºC, while the water is at a temperature of 20ºC. The hot lead and the warm water are placed into the same container and allowed to reach equilibrium. Would you expect the final temperature of the water and lead to be…
A) greater than 50º?
B) less than 50º?
C) 50º?
Explain your answer. What additional information would you need to know in order to answer this question exactly?
PART FOUR: The Laws of Thermodynamics
1) State the First Law of Thermodynamics below...
2) State the “Zeroth” Law of Thermodynamics below. Why is this law necessary, and why is it numbered “0” instead of “1”?
3) State the Second Law of Thermodynamics in as many ways as you can. (In terms of entropy, in terms of engines, in terms of heat flow, etc...)
4) State the Third Law of Thermodynamics below…
5) Explain as best you can what physicists mean by the term “entropy”.
PART FIVE: Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics
1) Briefly describe the “Maxwell’s Demon” thought-experiment?. What point was James Clerk Maxwell trying to make with his scenario?
2) What are some of the practical and theoretical obstacles to achieving a temperature of "absolute zero"?
Very straighforward... no tricky questions. Anything less than a passing grade on this exam should be cause for shame.
Wednesday, December 13
tivo to-go...
I am currently writing my blog stuff and reading my websites on the train while watching a documentary about Jupiter's moon Europa that I TiVo'd off the science channel and transferred to my laptop.
Yay for TiVo, right? Not quite.
The only reason I was able to do this on a Mac was that the DRM copy-protection used by TiVo was cracked by hackers. Once this happened, it took exactly ONE WEEK for someone to write software for the Mac to handle the transferring and decoding of shows. One week.
I don't want to get into a philosophical argument about DRM and the ethics of breaking such restrictions, my point is this... TiVo has been promising to bring this functionality to the Mac for something like a year and a half. (Windows users have been able to perform these transfers with official TiVo-provided software for quite some time.) And they keep putting us off and putting us off and making excuses... and here, a couple of guys working for free have given us what the company couldn't provide. They should be ashamed of themselves. What will their reaction be? Probably to change the DRM and break the hack that makes their product more useful to a large fraction of their customers. What SHOULD they do? Hire the guys who wrote this software to make official TiVo To Go software available for the Mac in early 2007.
(end rant.)
I am currently writing my blog stuff and reading my websites on the train while watching a documentary about Jupiter's moon Europa that I TiVo'd off the science channel and transferred to my laptop.
Yay for TiVo, right? Not quite.
The only reason I was able to do this on a Mac was that the DRM copy-protection used by TiVo was cracked by hackers. Once this happened, it took exactly ONE WEEK for someone to write software for the Mac to handle the transferring and decoding of shows. One week.
I don't want to get into a philosophical argument about DRM and the ethics of breaking such restrictions, my point is this... TiVo has been promising to bring this functionality to the Mac for something like a year and a half. (Windows users have been able to perform these transfers with official TiVo-provided software for quite some time.) And they keep putting us off and putting us off and making excuses... and here, a couple of guys working for free have given us what the company couldn't provide. They should be ashamed of themselves. What will their reaction be? Probably to change the DRM and break the hack that makes their product more useful to a large fraction of their customers. What SHOULD they do? Hire the guys who wrote this software to make official TiVo To Go software available for the Mac in early 2007.
(end rant.)
so, dr. gong... we meet again...
A student taking a history of music course emailed me asking for help finding resources for a paper she is writing. She wanted to find images of the vibrational modes of a Chinese gong. I checked my acoustics bible ("The Physics of Musical Instruments" by Fletcher and Rossing) but came up empty. So I tried Google.
What do you think you get if you Google "vibrational modes" + "gong"...?
Yeah - you get 1000 hits on Qi Gong healing and 1000 papers on acoustics written by Chinese scientists named "Gong".
Luckily I eventually figured out those things are really called "tam-tams" and hit the jackpot.
A student taking a history of music course emailed me asking for help finding resources for a paper she is writing. She wanted to find images of the vibrational modes of a Chinese gong. I checked my acoustics bible ("The Physics of Musical Instruments" by Fletcher and Rossing) but came up empty. So I tried Google.
What do you think you get if you Google "vibrational modes" + "gong"...?
Yeah - you get 1000 hits on Qi Gong healing and 1000 papers on acoustics written by Chinese scientists named "Gong".
Luckily I eventually figured out those things are really called "tam-tams" and hit the jackpot.
Tuesday, December 12
sleep in heavenly peace...
I feel like a million god damned dollars this morning, and for no other reason than the fact that I turned out the light at 11:08 last night instead of staying up and fucking around until 12:30. Amazing how sleeping makes you, like... NOT TIRED.
Someone should really publicize this connection.
Not only to I not feel sleepy, but I'm in a good MOOD. Which is weird for me, especially during finals week when I have all kinds of crap to do and meetings to go to. I may even grade papers today WITHOUT the accompanying sense of overwhelming dread!
The plan for today... Pull into town on the "late" train. Take the PATH up past my usual stop to 22nd... hit the B&N... pick up "Lisey's Story" and the new Paula Poundstone book for my wife for Xmas... maybe a book for me ("The Road" by Cormac McCarthy... anyone heard of it?) and maybe sit and grade for a little while in the café. Have a cup of tea. Walk down past "The Container Store" and pick up some paper-file-boxes for taking care of some end-of-term organization. Head down to the office. Post these blog entries. Print out a review sheet for the physics final. Print out a follow-up to the diagnostic test I gave them the first day of class. (Ha! They have to take a quiz they don't know about! The day before the final!) Deal with some administrative crappo re: students. Have another cup of tea. Go to class. Chill out for an hour afterwards. Go to a committee meeting. Pretend to be interested. Put together another pile of grading for the train. Sleep on the train instead.
A full day.
I feel like a million god damned dollars this morning, and for no other reason than the fact that I turned out the light at 11:08 last night instead of staying up and fucking around until 12:30. Amazing how sleeping makes you, like... NOT TIRED.
Someone should really publicize this connection.
Not only to I not feel sleepy, but I'm in a good MOOD. Which is weird for me, especially during finals week when I have all kinds of crap to do and meetings to go to. I may even grade papers today WITHOUT the accompanying sense of overwhelming dread!
The plan for today... Pull into town on the "late" train. Take the PATH up past my usual stop to 22nd... hit the B&N... pick up "Lisey's Story" and the new Paula Poundstone book for my wife for Xmas... maybe a book for me ("The Road" by Cormac McCarthy... anyone heard of it?) and maybe sit and grade for a little while in the café. Have a cup of tea. Walk down past "The Container Store" and pick up some paper-file-boxes for taking care of some end-of-term organization. Head down to the office. Post these blog entries. Print out a review sheet for the physics final. Print out a follow-up to the diagnostic test I gave them the first day of class. (Ha! They have to take a quiz they don't know about! The day before the final!) Deal with some administrative crappo re: students. Have another cup of tea. Go to class. Chill out for an hour afterwards. Go to a committee meeting. Pretend to be interested. Put together another pile of grading for the train. Sleep on the train instead.
A full day.
deck the halls with smoke, blood, and broken glass...
My life was nearly claimed by the tiny ceramic Christmas village yesterday when I over-tightened a bulb, causing it to shatter, spark, and burst into flames in my hands. It was quite spectacular. I'm not sure I've ever been cut, burned, and electrocuted simultaneously before.
Merry Christmas everyone!!
My life was nearly claimed by the tiny ceramic Christmas village yesterday when I over-tightened a bulb, causing it to shatter, spark, and burst into flames in my hands. It was quite spectacular. I'm not sure I've ever been cut, burned, and electrocuted simultaneously before.
Merry Christmas everyone!!
the curse of heredity...
My 7 year-old daughter went to her first real eye-doctor appointment yesterday (apart from the in-school screenings of the "ok, you aren't blind" variety) and she was prescribed glasses for reading. It was inevitable, I guess, since both her parents wear glasses, but 7 seems a little early. The weird thing is that she has one eye that is much worse than the other, just like me.
Genetics is just bizarre.
Anyway, she actually seems marginally excited about it. (She picked out purple frames, apparently!) I tried to be upbeat about it when I came home from work yesterday. I told her I bet she would look older... "I bet you'll look EIGHT!". Her response? "I already look eight... it's because I'm in the third grade."
Fine, never mind. Clearly your self-esteem needs no boosting from me.
My 7 year-old daughter went to her first real eye-doctor appointment yesterday (apart from the in-school screenings of the "ok, you aren't blind" variety) and she was prescribed glasses for reading. It was inevitable, I guess, since both her parents wear glasses, but 7 seems a little early. The weird thing is that she has one eye that is much worse than the other, just like me.
Genetics is just bizarre.
Anyway, she actually seems marginally excited about it. (She picked out purple frames, apparently!) I tried to be upbeat about it when I came home from work yesterday. I told her I bet she would look older... "I bet you'll look EIGHT!". Her response? "I already look eight... it's because I'm in the third grade."
Fine, never mind. Clearly your self-esteem needs no boosting from me.
Monday, December 11
deck the halls...
Remember I like a week and a half ago I mentioned that we took the decorations out and bought a tree and started decorating...?
Yeah. We're about halfway done now.
The thing is, my wife insisted on starting this project while she was in the middle of two big work deadlines, so what it amounted to was one half-deocrated tree and a dozen plastic bins full of Xmas crap all opened and half-emptied into the living room. Only yesterday has this situation started to improve slightly. The outside of the house is decorated with lights and wreaths and whatnot, thanks to the purchase of a $180 foldy-extension ladder from Lowes. The absurdly priceless Lenox Nativity is in place in the china cabinet. The artificial tree is set up in the computer room ready to be paper-chained and snowflaked by the kids. (A task which seems to have excited them for all of 10 minutes.) The village is in place but unlit, due to a bad multi-light string that we can't find a replacement for. It's basically still a mess, though. The deadlline for getting the house in shape is this Sunday, which is The Boy's birthday party. Only one person has RSVP'd though. The wife thinks I'm joking when I say we should tell him his birthday is in June. I am not. This is our last chance to make the change before he is old enough to remember.
So... anyway... this is the last week of real learning at school, and also the last chance for administrators to pack in meetings, so... it's going to be a long week in that regard. Late meetings Tuesday and Thursday mean I'm probably going to blow off the University-wide Xmas party on Wednesday. Three late nights in a row is just too much. It sucks, though because it deprives me of a chance to wear my festive(*) new black-velvet blazer. At least I still have the smaller Xmas party for my College. And the wife and I may throw a small Holiday party for some friends and neighbors. Or maybe a New Year's Party. Perhaps an Oscar party. We'll see how things go. You know how Dave loves the parties.
The need to do some grading has grown from "pressing" to "urgent". I have a packet of papers tucked in right next to me here on the train. I dread opening them... the papers are boring as fuck. I don't blame the students, really. I need to learn how to design assignments such that grading them is not torture. Also, the requirements for this paper were kind of fuzzy, so I can't find much reason to reduce anyone's grade. It looks like nearly everyone will get an A or A- on the assignment, which makes me feel like I'm not doing my job.
Anyway. Off to slog through a few of these.
dave
(*) i.e. "gay"
Remember I like a week and a half ago I mentioned that we took the decorations out and bought a tree and started decorating...?
Yeah. We're about halfway done now.
The thing is, my wife insisted on starting this project while she was in the middle of two big work deadlines, so what it amounted to was one half-deocrated tree and a dozen plastic bins full of Xmas crap all opened and half-emptied into the living room. Only yesterday has this situation started to improve slightly. The outside of the house is decorated with lights and wreaths and whatnot, thanks to the purchase of a $180 foldy-extension ladder from Lowes. The absurdly priceless Lenox Nativity is in place in the china cabinet. The artificial tree is set up in the computer room ready to be paper-chained and snowflaked by the kids. (A task which seems to have excited them for all of 10 minutes.) The village is in place but unlit, due to a bad multi-light string that we can't find a replacement for. It's basically still a mess, though. The deadlline for getting the house in shape is this Sunday, which is The Boy's birthday party. Only one person has RSVP'd though. The wife thinks I'm joking when I say we should tell him his birthday is in June. I am not. This is our last chance to make the change before he is old enough to remember.
So... anyway... this is the last week of real learning at school, and also the last chance for administrators to pack in meetings, so... it's going to be a long week in that regard. Late meetings Tuesday and Thursday mean I'm probably going to blow off the University-wide Xmas party on Wednesday. Three late nights in a row is just too much. It sucks, though because it deprives me of a chance to wear my festive(*) new black-velvet blazer. At least I still have the smaller Xmas party for my College. And the wife and I may throw a small Holiday party for some friends and neighbors. Or maybe a New Year's Party. Perhaps an Oscar party. We'll see how things go. You know how Dave loves the parties.
The need to do some grading has grown from "pressing" to "urgent". I have a packet of papers tucked in right next to me here on the train. I dread opening them... the papers are boring as fuck. I don't blame the students, really. I need to learn how to design assignments such that grading them is not torture. Also, the requirements for this paper were kind of fuzzy, so I can't find much reason to reduce anyone's grade. It looks like nearly everyone will get an A or A- on the assignment, which makes me feel like I'm not doing my job.
Anyway. Off to slog through a few of these.
dave
(*) i.e. "gay"
Friday, December 8
Thursday, December 7
absolutely...
Well, today was the last day of new material for the Physics class. We talked about the 3rd law of thermodynamics and the idea of Absolute Zero. Fitting that the semester should end on a topic that describes a state completely devoid of energy.
I think we can all relate.
The thing is, it was a really good class, which was all the more notable for the fact that I've never really devoted an entire lecture to this topic before and I had to put together a new Keynote presentation on the topic. I'm pretty sure you have no idea how rare this is. Most of my presentations are recycled from PowerPoints that I've been using and re-using for 6 years or more. So a new presentation is a very rare and exciting event. I'm quite proud of myself for bothering with such a thing this close to the end of the semester.
And so with that sense of accomplishment firmly in mind, I shall take a nap.
Well, today was the last day of new material for the Physics class. We talked about the 3rd law of thermodynamics and the idea of Absolute Zero. Fitting that the semester should end on a topic that describes a state completely devoid of energy.
I think we can all relate.
The thing is, it was a really good class, which was all the more notable for the fact that I've never really devoted an entire lecture to this topic before and I had to put together a new Keynote presentation on the topic. I'm pretty sure you have no idea how rare this is. Most of my presentations are recycled from PowerPoints that I've been using and re-using for 6 years or more. So a new presentation is a very rare and exciting event. I'm quite proud of myself for bothering with such a thing this close to the end of the semester.
And so with that sense of accomplishment firmly in mind, I shall take a nap.
Tuesday, December 5
smarter than your average slacker...
We got this email from the Dean of our College this morning...
My first reaction was "Oooh! Who is it?!". My second reaction was, "Wait, you mean I could have been coming to class 30 minutes late and just canceling it whenever I want but now the jig is up?!". But I finally realized that these other people are just stupid. If you want to be a slacker, don't come to class a half hour LATE... end class a half hour EARLY. That way, instead of inconveniencing your students, you'll be perceived as doing them a FAVOR. Nobody complains, and you still get just as much time to goof off.
Amateurs...
We got this email from the Dean of our College this morning...
"Dear Colleagues,
This semester many students have complained about professors who cancel class and/or who are frequently late to class--by as much as half an hour. I would not think it necessary to remind you of such matters, but clearly we have to be more mindful of our basic responsibilities. [...]"
My first reaction was "Oooh! Who is it?!". My second reaction was, "Wait, you mean I could have been coming to class 30 minutes late and just canceling it whenever I want but now the jig is up?!". But I finally realized that these other people are just stupid. If you want to be a slacker, don't come to class a half hour LATE... end class a half hour EARLY. That way, instead of inconveniencing your students, you'll be perceived as doing them a FAVOR. Nobody complains, and you still get just as much time to goof off.
Amateurs...
it's the most wonderful time...
It wouldn't be the holiday season without a little complaining about the weather, now would it?
It's fucking cold this morning.
And yet, the real story is how remarkable it is that this is the first day I've broken out the full scarf/gloves/earmuff ensemble, and it's taken until December for that to happen. But yeah, it's really winter now.
In other complaining news...
I have a splitting headache this morning. It could be that I stayed up too late. It could be that I had M&Ms for dinner last night. It could be all the tantrums associated with tree decorating. One never knows.
I have a mouthful of scrapes and sores in my delicate under-tongue region from the dentist this past weekend. I have a narrow mouth and all kinds of bone intrusions inside my lower jaw that make the dental X-ray experience something akin to the scene from "Marathon Man". Is it safe? The X-ray-chick was nice and apologetic and all while she scraped off all my mouth flesh with plastic film rectangles, but it will be weeks before the shit heals.
My thumb hurts. The left one. It hurts right on the side of the main thumb joint. It feels like it could be sprained. It has hurt for a month and it is not getting better or worse. I've considered going to the doctor, but it seems like a stupid complaint of the "Doctor, it hurts when I do THIS..." variety. But it really hurts.
Also I'm tired. Thus I will nap now.
It wouldn't be the holiday season without a little complaining about the weather, now would it?
It's fucking cold this morning.
And yet, the real story is how remarkable it is that this is the first day I've broken out the full scarf/gloves/earmuff ensemble, and it's taken until December for that to happen. But yeah, it's really winter now.
In other complaining news...
I have a splitting headache this morning. It could be that I stayed up too late. It could be that I had M&Ms for dinner last night. It could be all the tantrums associated with tree decorating. One never knows.
I have a mouthful of scrapes and sores in my delicate under-tongue region from the dentist this past weekend. I have a narrow mouth and all kinds of bone intrusions inside my lower jaw that make the dental X-ray experience something akin to the scene from "Marathon Man". Is it safe? The X-ray-chick was nice and apologetic and all while she scraped off all my mouth flesh with plastic film rectangles, but it will be weeks before the shit heals.
My thumb hurts. The left one. It hurts right on the side of the main thumb joint. It feels like it could be sprained. It has hurt for a month and it is not getting better or worse. I've considered going to the doctor, but it seems like a stupid complaint of the "Doctor, it hurts when I do THIS..." variety. But it really hurts.
Also I'm tired. Thus I will nap now.
Monday, December 4
christmas time is here...
The Dr. Dave Family went out and bought themselves a Christmas tree yesterday. It involved trips to two nurseries and two home improvement chains, with a break somewhere in between for everyone to go home and nap, but we finally came home with something. Not the best tree we've ever had, but it'll do. (7' Douglas fir, slightly squatter than I like, but very densely branchy.)
Two places where money was spent wisely in the past few years... a NEW Craftsman hand-saw that cuts through a tree trunk like a knife thru hot butter (you should have seen the pitiful thing I was hacking at trees with before I bought this thing), and a tree stand, which I believe is actually called "The Ultimate Tree Stand". It's plastic with a VERY wide base and EIGHT thumbscrews in groups of two, one above the other, with plastic tips so that they GRAB the tree instead of just drilling into it. We like big trees, and this thing is super stable.
So I got the tree in the house and mounted and vertical after the kids went to bed last night, and put what lights we have on it (not enough) so that the wife and kids can get a jump on the decorating after school today. Then there is the artificial tree to unbox and assemble and set up in the other room for the kids to decorate with paper-chains and whatnot... then there is the Xmas Village to set up, and the Lenox China Nativity Set goes in the china cabinet, and the Xmas Train needs to go someplace (maybe around the artificial tree?) and all of the knick-knacks and tchotchkes need to come out of their bins (Oh! The bins! SO MANY BINS!) and find places on the shelves and the walls, and the wife and I need to have our annual Argument About The Outside Lights because once again, we have put it off until it is freezing cold, and we still don't own an extension ladder...
Do we see why Dr. Dave gets grumpy about the holidays? I should take a picture of our stack of Xmas bins. I bet Macy's uses less storage space for decorations.
Anyway.
We are down to the last 2 weeks of classes, basically. The 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st are still school days, but I dunno... I think I want to finish a little earlier than that. I may have my exams on the 19th, mostly. But for now I'm still working on how to wrap things up over the next 4 class periods. I'm seriously considering walking into my "What is Science?" class today and saying - "Ok, kids... it's been a great semester and I've had a lot of fun and all, but I am fucking DONE... what do you want to do for the next four days?"
In Astro, I'm going to be ok, and in Physics I think I'll be able to stretch things out thanks to a time-consuming in-class activity I've been working on all weekend. (It has to do with simulating Maxwell Boltzmann statistics by assigning discrete energies to an ensemble of four molecules and I'm still not sure it makes sense technically, but it WORKS, and it gets the idea across without calculus... just by counting numbers in squares, so... I think I'm going ahead with it.) But I'm babbling, when really I should be GRADING, so... I'm off for now.
The Dr. Dave Family went out and bought themselves a Christmas tree yesterday. It involved trips to two nurseries and two home improvement chains, with a break somewhere in between for everyone to go home and nap, but we finally came home with something. Not the best tree we've ever had, but it'll do. (7' Douglas fir, slightly squatter than I like, but very densely branchy.)
Two places where money was spent wisely in the past few years... a NEW Craftsman hand-saw that cuts through a tree trunk like a knife thru hot butter (you should have seen the pitiful thing I was hacking at trees with before I bought this thing), and a tree stand, which I believe is actually called "The Ultimate Tree Stand". It's plastic with a VERY wide base and EIGHT thumbscrews in groups of two, one above the other, with plastic tips so that they GRAB the tree instead of just drilling into it. We like big trees, and this thing is super stable.
So I got the tree in the house and mounted and vertical after the kids went to bed last night, and put what lights we have on it (not enough) so that the wife and kids can get a jump on the decorating after school today. Then there is the artificial tree to unbox and assemble and set up in the other room for the kids to decorate with paper-chains and whatnot... then there is the Xmas Village to set up, and the Lenox China Nativity Set goes in the china cabinet, and the Xmas Train needs to go someplace (maybe around the artificial tree?) and all of the knick-knacks and tchotchkes need to come out of their bins (Oh! The bins! SO MANY BINS!) and find places on the shelves and the walls, and the wife and I need to have our annual Argument About The Outside Lights because once again, we have put it off until it is freezing cold, and we still don't own an extension ladder...
Do we see why Dr. Dave gets grumpy about the holidays? I should take a picture of our stack of Xmas bins. I bet Macy's uses less storage space for decorations.
Anyway.
We are down to the last 2 weeks of classes, basically. The 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st are still school days, but I dunno... I think I want to finish a little earlier than that. I may have my exams on the 19th, mostly. But for now I'm still working on how to wrap things up over the next 4 class periods. I'm seriously considering walking into my "What is Science?" class today and saying - "Ok, kids... it's been a great semester and I've had a lot of fun and all, but I am fucking DONE... what do you want to do for the next four days?"
In Astro, I'm going to be ok, and in Physics I think I'll be able to stretch things out thanks to a time-consuming in-class activity I've been working on all weekend. (It has to do with simulating Maxwell Boltzmann statistics by assigning discrete energies to an ensemble of four molecules and I'm still not sure it makes sense technically, but it WORKS, and it gets the idea across without calculus... just by counting numbers in squares, so... I think I'm going ahead with it.) But I'm babbling, when really I should be GRADING, so... I'm off for now.
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