Bball bball bball... hot.

A great day in college basketball. Tommy Amaker and his Harvard team (Woot to KG!) defeated Boston College, their first win over a ranked opponent. Go Tommy! Duke beat Davidson, besting national scoring leader and all-around cutie Stephen Curry. Aw.

The only downside was that for some reason, ESPN was doing an NBA/NCAA announcer trading thing that meant Dickie V was doing the NBA game, and Jeff Van Gundy (huh?) was doing the game at Cameron. I'm beginning to realize that the reason I can't stand the NBA isn't all the fault of the game. Some of the blame must be placed on the shoulders of their terrible, and terribly distracting, announcing.

In other news, major flooding in our neck of the woods, but I'm fine. Campus closed early. We'll see if I have to go to work tomorrow. (Please, no!)

Late October

I've got a bunch of random stuff to throw in here. This might as well be a "random bullets of" post.

• I voted! It felt really good.
  
  
• The foliage is magnificent this week. The commute has been lovely.
  
  
• A couple of bumper sticker/roadside signs to report: "Jesus for President" (shall I point out why that is constitutionally impossible?); "McCane Reigns" (you spelled reign right, but misspelled the other part? WTF?)
  
  
• My kids are back after a visit to their grandparents. I'll admit it. I missed them.
  
  
• My spouse is back too. I missed him a LOT. (And not just 'cuz I'm reading those addictive, sexually frustrating -- and yet totally awesome -- Stephenie Meyer vampire books!)

Seeing Red

Frustration at the politics and elections? Yes. Stressed about the start of the new school year and more time away from the family? A little (on the other hand, relieved to be back into using my brain and interacting with adults, quite frankly.) Solution: knitting lessons.

My college has a fairly active knitting community. I had my first lesson last week. I have "homework" to complete for this week. My new boss knits, and suggested I aim toward doing one of these:


Red Scarf Project

(He seems like a great guy. Good old Cascadian Hippie Knitter type.)

I'm working on putting up some pics of my recent crochet projects also. I finished a sweater for Baby W and am still truckin' away on the duckie blanket.

Working in the Sticks

My job is in a small town community, and the college feeds a larger rural community surrounding it. Which is kind of cool, as I have interaction with rural folks that I've never really had, being an urbanite or suburbanite my whole life.

Fun stuff: a flyer posted around campus with a picture of Fonzie. Caption: "Hay! Hay for sale, call xxx-xxxx." Besides that, there are at least occasional offers of free farm products: apples from peoples orchards, eggs from their chickens and geese, and even the occasional "Does anybody want a lamb shank this winter?"

Scary stuff: I'm talking about developing a team-teaching course with another instructor. He says the best way to plan this out would be if I came up to his place (WAY out of town), ride some horses, and then we do work. He just got 3 horses and is tremendously excited about them. I'm a little terrified of horses. Wish me luck.

I Hate Ike

This is the email I got this morning from a good friend in Houston:


I hate Ike, but we're fine. I took in some other friends and dogs. Ike went right over us. 6am the back side hit hard; forced rain water through some windows and actually through my wooden front door--the door, not the edges of it. All under control, minor other damage. Little rain/wind now, but not going out yet. Still have electricty, a/c, tv, ec. --one of the only parts of the county with electricity. Water supply may be bad, but plenty of bottled water and alcohol. Buffalo Bayou that goes through downtown has overflowed its banks, NOT from rain, but from the tidal surge tht forced water back all the way from Galveston Bay into town. One of my best friends had a 60' pine tree go through his home. He's safe.

It was as bad as everyone said it would be, and I/we got damn lucky.


Just as a side note: Buffalo Bayou is about 50 miles from Galveston Bay. That's a hell of a surge.

Geez, I am so glad I moved.

The Birkenstockmeister

I had reason to visit the local Birkenstockmeister (seller of Birkenstocks) recently. I have a pair of sandals purchased on my honeymoon in Munich -- CHEAP! -- nine years ago and they've just about bitten the dust. Time for some new ones. And since I have no upcoming trip planned to the Fatherland, I must do my purchasing locally.

When I got there, the very nice hippie gentleman who waited on me showed me an identical pair to my old ones, priced at $80. OR, he said that he could refurbish my old Birkenstocks: recork, resole, whatever. And that would be $65. With the prices so similar, I asked him what the advantage to refurbishing would be. "Oh, well you could buy the new AND refurbish the old, and that way you'd have a pair just to kick around in."

Now, I may be Northwestern enough to have a good fleece, but do I really need "good" Birks and "kick-around" Birks?

Hey, you know what?

Sunshine is awesome.

The Perfect Storm

Today, the Perfect Storm hit. In my book, that's a snowstorm that cancels school where I work, but not where my kids go. This was the best: not only was their school open and on time, but the roads here were perfectly clear.

What did I do on my snow day?

• Graded 30 short assignments.
  
• Finished reading A History of the World in Six Glasses. Hat tip to Liz for the suggestion.
  
• Watched the rest of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with Spouse. I loves me some Weasley Twins!
  
• Worked on my crocheted skirt. Nearing knee-length.
  
• Took a bath. Ahh....
  
• Bathed my dogs. Not fun, but really needed to get done.
  
• Got the oil changed in my car (and the headlight fixed, and the axle regreased or whatever...)
  
• Had alone time.

Communist Fire-Ants

In my so-evil-it's-grand African American history course in grad school, we read a book by Pete Daniel called Lost Revolutions: The South in the 1950s. Good book. I enjoyed the stuff on Elvis, on stock car racing, and most of the rest. But the class as a whole -- me included -- had big issues with his take on fire ants. He drew connections between foreign threat, anti-communist rhetoric, and the influx of Argentine fire ants to the US South. So were the fire ants (who are red, of course) communists? Just symbols of communism?

Our class debated this part and basically determined that Daniel was far too sympathetic to the evil little critters. Fire ants aren't Communists... they're Satanists! They literally try to kill you with their bites. And while the chemical assault was dangerous to the environment and expensive, it STILL didn't manage to get rid of the fire ants. Why? 'Cause they're fru-its of the de-vil.

So reason #482 that we're glad we moved back to the Northwest: no fire ants. On our recent trip down South, DQ got 3 ant bites on her toes. That was a week ago. Last night, she was up twice (1:30 and 5:30am) crying about how much her toes itched and hurt.

I think I might have to pull an Eddie Izzard and seal her feet in a block of concrete should we ever go back there. For starters!

Spouse goes Native

Spouse: "Have you seen my fleece?"
Quinn: "Right there."
Spouse: "No, my good fleece."

What's So Amazing About That Sweet Glazing?

Thanks to Dr. Corndog for the post title, which is perhaps the best thing ever.

I've been super busy with the new job, keeping my head above water teaching two classes I've never taught before, and one I haven't done in a long time. But there's a bright side. Or two.

1. I love it.

2. There's a donut shop across the street from campus. It's the local chain that existed when I was a kid in my hometown... the one that my mom used to take my sister and I to every Sunday after church. It was like my sugary reward for surviving an hour of Catholic exposure each week.

Perhaps I've found it, the donut connection.


ps. Corndog: awesome new subtitle for your blog.

Diss update... again

I think I've come to the sad conclusion that it is time to sit down and read the whole damn thing straight through. Not for editing purposes, but to give me an idea of how the whole thing works together. This will serve two purposes. One, I hope to cull a short list of decent titles for it. (I've come to hate my working title... so much! Flames... on the side of my face!) Two, I need to figure out just where to go with my conclusion, and right now I'm very torn.

I'm hitting the new Cascadia library tomorrow to apply for guest privileges, and to (hopefully) check out the four books Second Reader wanted me to read. I received her full edits in the mail today. Add that to the stack of crap.

On the good side. I bought bookshelves! Yay!!!

Random Bullets of Moving

(TM Phantom Scribbler Ianqui)

Forgive me as I shamelessly steal terminology from Ianqui, but the random bullets method seems to really be effective for covering vast amounts of material in a short time. Too bad my dissertation couldn't be written in random bullets! :)

The house:
*LOVE IT!
*no train. I was amazed at how much I had grown accustomed to living near a train crossing (5 years). But the silence at night is spectacular.
*we have butterflies who congregate in the backyard. DQ is fascinated.
*the cavernous master bedroom looks like it will accomodate my rocker and a "crafting nook." Yay! Currently shopping for a low shelving/drawer unit to put under the window there.
*Don't hate the paint colors as much as I did when we first house-hunted. One of the main reasons we selected this house was that it had great spaces, but poor cosmetic appeal. And for the price (about 50,000 less than many others we considered), we can buy lots of paint. Now, that's not become to vital.
*Neighborhood. We have just about everything within walking distance. Including an Indian grocery store. Go figure.

Settling in:
*Seven days without phone lines, cable, or internet. I come to realize it really is the internet I miss most (although I could do with a good dose of cable right about now... give me my Colbert Report!)
*Kids start "summer camp" this week. I'll keep everyone posted.
*We've got at least 3 pre-schoolers on our block. We've got at least two parks within walking distance. We've walked there everyday.

Getting back on track:
*the last thing to unpack is my office. Unfortunately, we have no bookshelves at present, so we have to do a little shopping before my 27 boxes of books get cleared. Urgh.
*I received preliminary comments on Chapter 6 right before leaving Lawndale. In short, needs a lot of work (I agree.) But the next thing Advisor wants to see is THE WHOLE DRAFT! Complete with rudimentary introduction and conclusion, and all the fun stuff I've added into chapters 1-5. So that's a big step. Advisor also floated a suggestion to send the draft to the other committee members when I send it to her, which I think bodes well.
*I'm emotionally and mentally ready to work again. Once childcare gets situated, I may actually get some stuff done!

You know, for kids!

Just so you don't think I've completely given up on this whole dissertation concept, here's a tidbit from today's research.

I'm reading the early scouting handbooks, including Ernest Thompson Seton's 1906 "Birchbark Roll" guidelines. It gives suggestions for setting up your own scouting troop: by-laws, organization, merit badges, etc. I skimmed the merit badge section until something caught my eye: mountain-climbing. Suggestions: Mt. St. Helens.

Nothing like climbing an active volcano to make a man outta ya!