not enough hours between...
This morning, I was reminded of some movie or commercial or TV show or something... where a guy takes off his clothes, climbs into bed, gets under the covers, and as soon as his head hits the pillow his alarm goes off... he pulls off the covers, gets up, puts back on his clothes...
5 hours of sleep last night and 7 hours from the time I left the train to the time I got back on it this morning. Those aren't very many of hours.
I almost, almost, almost stopped in the middle of putting on my shirt this morning and went back to bed. I would have only missed the team-taught class, and I wasn't scheduled to contribute today. But I was a good boy and went to work and contributed to the discussion and had a fairly nice class of my own.
But wow. Tired.
Tuesday, February 28
aggressively health-food shopping...
They recently opened a Whole Food Market at Union Square, which is way closer to my office than the one on 7th Ave. I was running out of tea, so I figured I'd walk over there today and check it out.
Fucking. Zoo.
Seriously - I have never seen so many people in a grocery store. It was like taking Grand Central Station at rush hour and giving everyone a shopping cart.
The lines were enormous, but here's the thing - the store has 36 registers and all but TWO of them are open. And they have line wranglers shuttling people to the next available checkout. Hence, I waited in line for LESS time than I usually do at our dinky suburban grocery store with 3 cashiers.
This is what I love about New York. They do NOT fuck around.
They recently opened a Whole Food Market at Union Square, which is way closer to my office than the one on 7th Ave. I was running out of tea, so I figured I'd walk over there today and check it out.
Fucking. Zoo.
Seriously - I have never seen so many people in a grocery store. It was like taking Grand Central Station at rush hour and giving everyone a shopping cart.
The lines were enormous, but here's the thing - the store has 36 registers and all but TWO of them are open. And they have line wranglers shuttling people to the next available checkout. Hence, I waited in line for LESS time than I usually do at our dinky suburban grocery store with 3 cashiers.
This is what I love about New York. They do NOT fuck around.
the repor(t)...
Went to the filming of The Colbert Report today - by myself. We couldn't really score a sitter for such a late night event, and let's face it... I have no friends. It was fun, if a bit of a long wait. An hour outside in the cold (sheltered from the wind in a covered alley, but still cold) then an hour inside standing in a crowded room, then an hour listening to the warmup comic (there was a delay, nobody explained why) all for a 20 minute TV show. I never fully warmed up before it was time to walk back to the train station.
Anyway. To summarize - Fun. Cold. And as is always the case when you see things like that up close and behind the scenes... a little surreal.
PS> I got to "high-5" Steven Colbert
Went to the filming of The Colbert Report today - by myself. We couldn't really score a sitter for such a late night event, and let's face it... I have no friends. It was fun, if a bit of a long wait. An hour outside in the cold (sheltered from the wind in a covered alley, but still cold) then an hour inside standing in a crowded room, then an hour listening to the warmup comic (there was a delay, nobody explained why) all for a 20 minute TV show. I never fully warmed up before it was time to walk back to the train station.
Anyway. To summarize - Fun. Cold. And as is always the case when you see things like that up close and behind the scenes... a little surreal.
PS> I got to "high-5" Steven Colbert
Monday, February 27
seasons...
It may not count as a "sign of spring" but it certainly is a step in the right direction. This morning when I left for work, the sky was starting to brighten with honest-to-goodness morning twilight. Another couple of weeks and I'll be leaving for work after sunrise! This is very good for my psyche.
Of course it's still 10 fucking degrees this morning, so... I'm not exactly frolicking through fields of flowers just yet.
It may not count as a "sign of spring" but it certainly is a step in the right direction. This morning when I left for work, the sky was starting to brighten with honest-to-goodness morning twilight. Another couple of weeks and I'll be leaving for work after sunrise! This is very good for my psyche.
Of course it's still 10 fucking degrees this morning, so... I'm not exactly frolicking through fields of flowers just yet.
Sunday, February 26
cordless in seattle...?
We watched "Flightplan" on DVD tonight (lame) and now we're watching Sleepless in Seattle on cable. The weird thing about this movie? Nobody has a cellphone. Tom Hanks's kid calls him at a restaurant and the waiter brings him a phone! Nobody even has a CORDLESS in their HOUSE.
It's like watching the fucking Andy Griffith show. "Hello, Mabel?? Get me Sherrif Taylor!"
Anyway, I know my wife and I saw this when we were dating (1993) so it makes me feel very, very, very old.
We watched "Flightplan" on DVD tonight (lame) and now we're watching Sleepless in Seattle on cable. The weird thing about this movie? Nobody has a cellphone. Tom Hanks's kid calls him at a restaurant and the waiter brings him a phone! Nobody even has a CORDLESS in their HOUSE.
It's like watching the fucking Andy Griffith show. "Hello, Mabel?? Get me Sherrif Taylor!"
Anyway, I know my wife and I saw this when we were dating (1993) so it makes me feel very, very, very old.
Thursday, February 23
damned right i'm "compelling"...
I think I mentioned the other day responding to a "call for contributors" to write essays for a new sourcebook in the history of science. Well, yesterday I got this response from the publisher...
... which means that by the end of the year, I could have some stuff published by an honest-to goodness textbook publisher. (I googled the editors to make sure they were legit, and they seem to have put together more than a half-dozen of these sorts of publications for a major academic press.)
It's about time I fell ass-backwards into one of these textbook projects. I have colleagues who work on them, and they can never adequately explain how they wind up doing so... it just kinda falls in their lap. Finally something falls into MINE.
Anyway, they have a specific entry list. They are looking for 6000-8000 word essays on things like gravity, relativity, and quantum mechanics. (Also things like polymers, organ transplants and trigonometry in other fields.) They pay between $900 and $1200 per essay, which is fine, and somewhat more than a "pittance", but really - it's not about the money. It's about padding the big folder when my faculty appointment comes up for review. This project should serve nicely.
Yay, me!
I think I mentioned the other day responding to a "call for contributors" to write essays for a new sourcebook in the history of science. Well, yesterday I got this response from the publisher...
"Dear Dr. Dave,
Thanks for your response regarding The Encyclopedia of the History of Science. We quite enjoyed your writing samples; they did indeed show you to be a compelling writer. We'd be happy to give you a better picture of this project and hope you'll be interested in writing one or more entries."
... which means that by the end of the year, I could have some stuff published by an honest-to goodness textbook publisher. (I googled the editors to make sure they were legit, and they seem to have put together more than a half-dozen of these sorts of publications for a major academic press.)
It's about time I fell ass-backwards into one of these textbook projects. I have colleagues who work on them, and they can never adequately explain how they wind up doing so... it just kinda falls in their lap. Finally something falls into MINE.
Anyway, they have a specific entry list. They are looking for 6000-8000 word essays on things like gravity, relativity, and quantum mechanics. (Also things like polymers, organ transplants and trigonometry in other fields.) They pay between $900 and $1200 per essay, which is fine, and somewhat more than a "pittance", but really - it's not about the money. It's about padding the big folder when my faculty appointment comes up for review. This project should serve nicely.
Yay, me!
daveflix...
I don't have much work to do this morning (one class on the Solar System today... it's "eyes closed" stuff) so I'm about to watch "Constantine" on my laptop. I have a new scheme when it comes to Netflix movies that only *I* want to see and not the wife, which is to order them, rip them to my HD and send back the disk immediately. Which is probably illegal in the very strictest sense, but as long as I only watch the movie ONCE and then delete it, it SHOULDN'T be illegal, since nothing different has transpired than if I had just watched the DVD on my computer. It just speeds up the turnaround time with Netflix by a couple of days.
Anyway... it's me and Keanu this morning. Please keep your comments to yourselves.
I don't have much work to do this morning (one class on the Solar System today... it's "eyes closed" stuff) so I'm about to watch "Constantine" on my laptop. I have a new scheme when it comes to Netflix movies that only *I* want to see and not the wife, which is to order them, rip them to my HD and send back the disk immediately. Which is probably illegal in the very strictest sense, but as long as I only watch the movie ONCE and then delete it, it SHOULDN'T be illegal, since nothing different has transpired than if I had just watched the DVD on my computer. It just speeds up the turnaround time with Netflix by a couple of days.
Anyway... it's me and Keanu this morning. Please keep your comments to yourselves.
Wednesday, February 22
promise broken...
I know I promised I'd be more interesting, but the thing is... here's the problem - I'm too BUSY to be interesting in the morning and too TIRED to be interesting after work. So you people are just Out! Of! Luck!
The only good news I have for today is that I know there are Girl Scout cookies waiting for me at home. Eighty-six cases of them, in fact.
Don't worry... I won't eat them all. A few are for other people.
I know I promised I'd be more interesting, but the thing is... here's the problem - I'm too BUSY to be interesting in the morning and too TIRED to be interesting after work. So you people are just Out! Of! Luck!
The only good news I have for today is that I know there are Girl Scout cookies waiting for me at home. Eighty-six cases of them, in fact.
Don't worry... I won't eat them all. A few are for other people.
fifth grade was HOW many years ago...?
Busy day ahead... I guess. I'm giving a big lecture on E=mc^2 to a combined group of my physics class and the department chair's class on the Atom Bomb. It'll be nice to teach in a "lecture hall" for a change. Then a science department meeting, then my music class. I've come to the conclusion that the textbook I've chosen is just way too much for these kids. I'll be hard pressed to come up with some questions on the readings that they can actually answer.
We're talking about woodwinds and brasses today, so I brought my trumpet with me. It occurred to me this morning that this trumpet is older by far than any of my students. Very depressing. I should probably set aside some time today to practice producing a steady tone before I go trying to demonstrate the harmonic series for my class... it's been a long freaking time.
I got some fun toys in the mail yesterday from the science supply company... strobe guns and sound meters and metal plates shaped like violins... much of which would have been more useful had it arrived 3 weeks ago. Oh well.
That's about all I have on my mind this morning. I'll try to be more interesting on the way home.
Busy day ahead... I guess. I'm giving a big lecture on E=mc^2 to a combined group of my physics class and the department chair's class on the Atom Bomb. It'll be nice to teach in a "lecture hall" for a change. Then a science department meeting, then my music class. I've come to the conclusion that the textbook I've chosen is just way too much for these kids. I'll be hard pressed to come up with some questions on the readings that they can actually answer.
We're talking about woodwinds and brasses today, so I brought my trumpet with me. It occurred to me this morning that this trumpet is older by far than any of my students. Very depressing. I should probably set aside some time today to practice producing a steady tone before I go trying to demonstrate the harmonic series for my class... it's been a long freaking time.
I got some fun toys in the mail yesterday from the science supply company... strobe guns and sound meters and metal plates shaped like violins... much of which would have been more useful had it arrived 3 weeks ago. Oh well.
That's about all I have on my mind this morning. I'll try to be more interesting on the way home.
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