SnOMG!!

I didn't put these on Facebook, but that doesn't mean I don't want to share them with this audience.  I just figured that most people would be burnt out on snow pictures. 

Snow day 2

The back yard sure was pretty at 5:30 this morning, as I sat in my chair with Little Red snuggled in my lap. 

Little Red does not like being cold; during our first jaunt outside, he got most sad when his little gloves got soaked through.

The Big Brother did great.  I tried to pull him on the sled, but the snow was too deep and fluffy; it made the going tough.

We've got a great spot out here for snow days; lots of space out back to wander. 

Snow day 1

I woke up at 5:00 this morning with Little Red standing next to the bed wanting to be hoisted up.  That got me thinking, "I wonder if this 'Winter Weather Event' is actually going to close campus today," so I soon thereafter got out of the bed and crept into the den to check the situation on ol' Jack Wilton II, my trusty MacBook.  It was completely dry outside, but to my somewhat mild surprise, campus was closed today.  So I went back to bed.  At just before 6, there was another little boy in the room; pretty soon, all of us were there in a row.  Little Red found it entertaining; he hopped up and said, "Mama," pointing to The Spouse.  Then, "Dada," pointing to me.  then, "Jonntenn," pointing to Big Brother.  He went back and forth with that for a bit, upon which we decided it was time to get up . . .

 . . . so, I made pancakes and coffee.  And soon, The Big Brother was throwing up, so we adjusted to that new development.  Turns out he has Strep.  I went out once to get medicine, narrowly avoiding the plague of young men proving their manhood by driving huge trucks at high rates of speed.  Meanwhile, it started snowing . . . and I publicly ate my words on Facebook about us not getting but a half inch or so.  The bathroom repair guy came and worked through most of the late morning and afternoon.  I read some stuff both for school (Castiglione) and for fun (Vinge).

There has been a lot of watching of Scooby-Doo cartoons today.  Right now, it's a John Deere DVD.  Yeah, they make those.  I did manage to take Little Red out with me to get the mail . . . he was most amused with the snow, and almost immediately bent down and grabbed some--and put it in his mouth. 

Well, it's a good night to cuddle up somewhere warm. 

Winter Storm 2010!!1!1!!!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

/sarcasm

Hythlodaeus

"But yet to despise the comeliness of beauty, to waste the bodily strength, to turn nimbleness into sluggishness, to consume and make feeble the body with fasting, to do injury to health, and to reject the pleasant motions of nature--

[Hey!  Is he talking about graduate students or academics here?  Just add the bad clothes and bad hair.] 

--else for a vain shadow of virtue for the wealth and profit of no man, to punish himself, or to the intent he may be able courageously to suffer adversity (which perchance shall never come to him)--

[Or when it comes, it will be in a form, size, scope he never could have predicted or prepared for.]

--this to do they think it a point of extreme madness, and a token of a man cruelly minded towards himself and unkind towards nature, as one so disdaining to be in her danger, that he renounceth  and refuseth all her benefits."

(More, Utopia.  Translated by Ralph Robinson, 1556)

What I want to know is, how did I manage to spend so many years convinced of what the Utopians find so ridiculous?  Of course life is for pleasure; to what other end could we have been made?

--well, at least it's a fun idea to think about.  Considering that it's all narrated by "Mr. Nonsense."

"Sing first that green remote Cockaigne"

...Where whiskey-rivers run,
And every gorgeous number may
Be laid by anyone;
For medicine and rhetoric 
Lie mouldering on shelves,
While sad young dogs and stomach-aches 
Love no one but themselves.


Tell then of witty angels who
Come only to the beasts,
Of Heirs Apparent who prefer
Low dives to formal feasts;
For shameless Insecurity
Prays for a boot to lick,
And many a sore bottom finds
A sorer one to kick.


Wind up, though, on a moral note;--
That Glory will go bang,
Schoolchildren shall co-operate,
And honest rogues must hang;
Because our sound committee man
Has murder in his heart:
But should you catch a living eye,
Just wink as you depart.

(W. H. Auden, "Prospero to Ariel," The Sea and the Mirror)

We're studying this (cockaigne, not Auden) this week.

"Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."

Reading job applications and marveling at what I'm seeing.  Often, not in a good way.  There are some real crackpots applying for this job. 

On the upside, I got to see this award listed on a CV: 

"Alien of Extraordinary Ability," US Department of Justice. 

What is this, an award for E.T.'s glowing finger healing touch thing?  The alien bounty hunters from The X Files?  Deanna Troi's Betazoid empathic abilities?  Odo's shapeshifting?

Bittersweet Sunday

 It's AFC and NFC Championship Sunday.  Hurray!  Fun football watching.  But this means that football is about to end for the remainder of the year until August. Boo!

I just don't care about any other televised sports, really. 

On the upside:  more time for reading.

First weekend

It's been bathroom destruction week!  "The Man," as he is known by Big Brother and Little Red, has removed all the old cabinetry, the old shower, knocked out the walls, and removed all the electrical fixtures.  He's put in the new tub, the new shower & faucet, the new walls, and new subflooring.  The boys have been most helpful, sitting just outside the door asking questions and offering advice.  The boys also brought out their many tools just in case The Man needed any help.  Next week:  the vanity, the flooring, and paint.

**
It has also been that really strange first week of classes where I go in and do my usual, to mixed reactions from my students.  I think it's initially off-putting to many students--I notice it most frequently in the really fratty and sorority-y (??) types.  Generally it evens out as the term goes on, but we shall see.  I'm sure my style of teaching doesn't work for everyone, even though comments and reactions are positive for the most part.  My most difficult bunch appears to be the 11:00 group of composition students . . . they were remarkably unresponsive yesterday.  It's probably good that I have a Supplemental Instructor in that class.

**
The work week, I have to say, ended very very well.  That's good, because next week, it gets "interesting."  What with MORE meetings and MORE fires to put out and MORE MORE MORE

**
The Spouse and I have been inexorably working our way back to watching the three Lord of the Rings films again.  The soundtracks came out of their hiatus a week ago, so the 9+ hours of the whole thing can't be far behind.  Still, watching those movies is not something we can do halfway. 

**
We have been playing Lego Indiana Jones 2.  A very different game from the previous one, but since we are big Lego fans around here, we're having a good time with it.  Apparently, a Lego Harry Potter game is coming out sometime in the coming year . . . we will be on top of that one as well (think of it:  the layers of nerdiness/geekiness boggle the mind!!)

**
Preparations for the baby are being made; we are in the process of moving Little Red into the Big Brother's room.  To his credit, the older boy has been receptive to the idea.  I foresee some nights in which commotion from that room lasts deep into the night.   Speaking of the two boys and commotion, the big hit toy from Christmas, the inflatable fire engine, has pretty much been destroyed due to a combination of kitty teeth, kitty claws, and preschooler roughhousing.

**
Right now, Big Brother is making up a story of some kind with a beanie-baby type elephant.  Evidently it involves scrubbing around on the floor and banging the poor elephant against a table leg.  Little Red is building with Duplos.  Apparently that involves sitting with one's tongue slightly sticking out.

**
I've got more utopia than you can shake a stick at (did you see what I did there??  hahahahahaa).

**
Here's the challenge in preparing a lecture like the one I'm doing in a couple of weeks:  maintaining a balance between rigor, intelligibility, and (frankly) showmanship.  Can I do it?  If not, to borrow a phrase from Inigo Montoya--"humiliations galore!"

**
We . . . are . . . going . . . to . . . have . . . three . . . of . . . them . . .

Things that are awesome, Vol. 14

The Namiki/Pilot Vanishing Point fountain pen and Rhodia paper. 

I write a lot.  For the past several years (probably working on ten years or so now), I have spent time every morning writing in a notebook or journal.  As time has gone on, I've gotten more selective in what I use.  I started with basic composition books (cheap!), then tried the Miquelrius leather-look notebook, then went with Moleskine (or Wal-Mart knock-offs) for a few years.  Meanwhile, I have tried all sorts of different kinds of pens.  Since I do so much writing by hand, I've come to enjoy using different kinds of pens on different kinds of paper, just to see what the differences in ink and texture feel like.  Ask The Spouse:  she'll tell you that I have all kinds of different papers & pens & pencils.

My focus since moving to West Tennessee has been on acquiring fountain pens of various kinds (I've been partial to LAMY, Pelikan, Cross, and the bombproof Rotring 600).  I like the flexibility in choosing inks, and the way a line looks when it's on the page.  The ne plus ultra, though, is what I acquired this Christmas:

The pen is a marvel.  Never mind the whole click-top mechanism, which is amazing enough, but the incredibly smooth way the gold nib writes.  All of my other pens have steel nibs (which makes them cheaper and a bit more durable), so I can say that the flexibility of the gold does make a difference.  I'd say it's one of two really Fine Writing Instruments I own.  Prior to this, my favorite writer was a black Waterman that my mother picked up in Germany--but Little Red got to it and now the nib looks more like the tongue of a snake.  Oh well.

What has also made a difference is the Rhodia paper, which takes fountain pen ink beautifully.  I have always liked the construction of Moleskine notebooks, but I have noticed that certain ink/nib combinations bleed through the paper.  Not so with the Rhodia.  It's got the same form factor as the Moleskine, but apparently the paper is sturdier or something.  I chose the color; it also comes in black.
I do wish they offered the notebook with their graph paper (which I favor for some reason), but oh well.  There aren't many luxuries in my little life, but this is one I allow myself.

Training

One of the things I'm trying to do this winter is not get caught in the trap I've been caught in every other winter:  going all of January through March without hardly getting on the bike at all.  I've been pretty regular this month about getting on my trainer, and I'm forcing myself to continue the habit. (62 miles so far this month; I tend to do it in ten mile chunks).  Riding inside is boring as hell, but at least this way I'm not playing catch up (as much) in April and May when I start riding outside again.  I actually did go out this past Sunday (it was just warm enough), and though the wind was pretty stiff, I thought I did a respectable 11.5 miles. 

It may also help that once the weather warms up, I'll be riding to work as well.  Perhaps. 

No backing out now!

File under "Trust but Verify"

Colleagues,

I contacted Anthony Haynes yesterday with concerns about Section 5 of the Higher Education Bill having no mention of faculty participation with THEC in determining the curriculum for general education courses.  Subsequently this afternoon, Todd Diacon, UT Executive Director for Academic Assessment and Program Support, has called and assured me that what UT Martin is already doing in transferring general education courses is the goal for other universities.  Nothing that UT Martin isn’t doing already in transferring general education courses is being sought in Section 5, according to Todd.

I will continue to keep you “in the loop” with information.

*Peanuts teacher sound effect*

When a certain colleague is droning on about some minuscule issue, and is making a fairly tendentious point, and boring all within the sound of his/her excessively mannered loquaciousness--I say, when said colleague then protests that he/she is not trying to "play politics" or "make a mountain out of a molehill," or "cause trouble," etc., it makes one wonder:

1.  does he/she enjoy the sound of his/her own voice that much??
2.  if the disclaimer is not forthcoming, does that mean he/she is playing politics??
3.  would it be bad form to shout, "shut yer pie hole!"??

First week

It's always interesting to see what I find when I walk in those rooms for the first time.

Before & After

Bathroom Destruction Day was a good time!

Before:

After:

Bonus picture--the boys getting an eyeful of destruction:

Keep your eye on the little one

. . . or he'll get into stuff.

and we're going to have another one; imagine that.

Before the plunge

This was an especially productive week . . . on Friday.  Right in time for the long weekend, naturally.  In fact, I took care of almost everything . . . save the necessary preparation for the big event coming up in three weeks or so. 

**
Today, we finally stowed all the Christmas decorations and cleaned up the boxes that had formed huge snowdrift-like formations in the garage.  Also went and studied bathroom fixture options at some of our local home improvement stores.  And why would we do something like that?  Because starting this coming Tuesday, the hall bathroom is being torn down to the studs and the subfloor and everything is being replaced.  What will we do with only one bathroom, you might ask?  Well, we only use one bathroom anyway, to the great chagrin of The Spouse.

**
It's football playoff time, which means that the TV is on a lot.  Which means lots of commercials.  Let me again reiterate how absolutely creepy/disgusting/deeply strange those Viagra & Cialis commercials are.  On the less creepy side, those new Windows 7 commercials with the schlubs are funny--especially the "recreations" in which they imagine themselves as male models.  What I can't believe is how many viewings it took before I caught on.  Oh well.  I never claimed to be observant. 

**
It's football playoff time, which means we're close to losing football until August.  I know this is heresy to most of my associates, but college basketball (on TV) is a feeble substitute.  There's plenty of creepiness that surrounds college sports in general, and certainly football--but that pales in comparison to the creepiness that one finds surrounding college basketball and TV broadcasts thereof.  brrrr.

**
I'm reading a really good book.  Here's a passage about whether our tendency to push 17- and 18-year-olds into college is such a wonderful thing (hint:  no)--


Different kinds of work attract different human types, and we are lucky if we find work that is fitting.  There is much talk of "diversity" in education, but not much accommodation of the kind we have in mind when we speak about the quality of a man, or woman:  the diversity of dispositions.  We are preoccupied with demographic variables, on the one hand, and sorting into cognitive classes, on the other.  Both collapse the human qualities into a narrow set of categories, the better to be represented on a checklist or a set of test scores.  This simplification serves various institutional purposes.  Fitting ourselves to them, we come to understand ourselves in light of the available metrics, and forget that institutional purposes are not our own.  If the gatekeeper at some prestigious institution has opened a gate in front of us, we can't not walk through it.  But as a young person surveys the various ways he could make a living, and how they might be part of a life well lived, the pertinent question for him may not be what IQ he has, but whether he is, for example, careful or commanding.  If is he is to find work that is fitting, he would do well to pause amid the general rush to the gates.

--Matt Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft, pp. 72-73

**

The boys have become accustomed to my presence, which means that now that I'm spending time at work during the day, they are peppering their mother with "where's daddy?  where's daddy?  when's daddy coming home?"  Well, mainly the Big Brother. 

**

I've spent far too long on this, and it's not getting any more interesting.  I'm done.

Arguing.

Women are better at it than men.

Really.

(full disclosure:  this is mainly an excuse to post one of the funniest LOLCats I've ever seen, up there with the "you come here often," "morning person," and "lestat" ones.) 

Bracing!

I've been reading Matthew Crawford's book Shop Class as Soulcraft.  It's an extremely challenging book (frankly, it's kicking my ass up & down the street.  which is a good thing).  This passage was like a splash of ice-cold water:

Given our democratic sensibilities, authority cannot present itself straightforwardly, as authority, coming down from a superior, but must be understood as an impersonal thing that emanates vaguely from all of us [note].  So authority becomes smarmy and passive-aggressive, trying to pass itself off as something cooperative and friendly; as volunteerism.  It is always pretending to be in your best interest, in everyone's best interest, as rationality itself.

The risk is of being deceived into thinking there is a common good where there is not one.

[note:  I owe the formulations of this paragraph to Manuel Lopez.  In a related vein, he likens eruptions of obligatory office fun to "a high school pep rally, without the more natural enthusiasms generated by cheerleaders.  They're more like pep rallies led by a principal and middle-aged teachers, for example those 'say no to drugs, get high on life!' rallies that forced one to view the stoners with a new respect, or at least discover within oneself newfound powers of contempt" (personal communication).]

More to come.

Things that are awesome, Vol. 13

Levi's 501 Blue Jeans.

You may not care about this, dear reader (but it's my blog, so nyaaah nyaaah nyaaah), but I've had only one pair of jeans since 1990 that was NOT a pair of 501's.  When I was in high school, because of the effects of one day of sweat and Manila pollution, I had about seven pairs in various stages of wear.  By the time I finally learned to dress, I paired them with Chucks, and, though still a dork, assuredly, was a dork with a little bit of ability to dress.  I've gone from 30/34 (!) to 32/34 to 33/34 to 34/34 and back down to 32/34, and nowadays have to go to some effort to get a pair when I need one. 

These are not fancy jeans.  I know some makers sell their jeans for a lot more, and I guess they are considered to be more stylish or whatever.  And evidently, despite the wonderful utility of button-fly jeans, it's hard to find them if you don't want to wear 501's.  The only problem I've ever had is that in some cases, once the jeans get really worn (and comfortable), one of the buttonholes frays, and the button doesn't want to stay buttoned.  Fortunately, there are 5 buttons.  This may not be a big deal for many of you readers, but--perhaps paradoxically--501's are remarkably easy to remove.  One smart tug with a slight twist, and shoop! 

I guess the other thing is that these are not "loose" jeans unless you want to get a size that's overly large.  Relatively slim guys like myself appear to be the target.

Out here, a lot of folks tend to favor Wranglers, I've noticed, but I attribute that to certain cultural factors.

Oh, and I hate hate hate the new Levi's commercials.  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

Sir Epicure

"For Epicurus thus presents his Wise Man who is always happy; his desires are kept within bounds; death he disregards; he has a true conception, untainted by fear, of the Divine nature; he does not hesitate to depart from life if that would better his condition.  Thus equipped he enjoys perpetual pleasure."

--Cicero, De Finibus I, xix, 62

One last Wednesday as Mr. Mom

There's been a running theme recently--

Yesterday I had to head home early to be with the Big Brother while Little Red went to the doctor.  Again (bronchitis. . . we had no idea!).  We had a specific agenda:  there was a large lego set to complete.  And we did.  The result:  one happy 5-year-old, and one happy daddy.

(the pirate isn't actually part of this set.  Still, seemed like a good addition.  He's not Somali, but what can you do.)

Winning phrase for the day

"It is rough because I have to make a judgment about how much detail the owner is interested in, and also about how truthful it is prudent to be."

M. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft, p. 112

Came across this when looking for a Justus Lipsius excerpt

...yeah, don't ask.

Old meeting notes, circa 2004-05.  I will say, though, that this is an illustration of why my friends used to laugh at me during graduate student teaching staff meetings.  Well, that and the grinding of teeth & rolling of eyes.

Actually, this is mild.  I don't know where the one is chronicling the meeting where I almost strangled the person yammering up front.

"Now get back on that horse and ride"

Let's see.

For today:

I need to read about three books.
I need to write a bunch of writing assignments.
I need to carry a box of evaluations to the next building.
I need to write a brilliant lecture for a month from now.
I need to formulate a plan for the rest of the week.
"Another article would be good."
I need to get some Vitamin D, now that it's all balmy outside & everything.

Oh, and there are a few things at home to take care of.

Her joyous presence and sweet company

  In full content he there did long enjoy,

  Ne wicked envy, ne vile gealosy

  His deare delights were hable to annoy:

  Yet swimming in that sea of blisfull joy,

  He nought forgott, how he whilome had sworne,

  In case he could that monstrous beast destroy,

  Unto his Faery Queene backe to retourne:

The which he shortly did, and Una left to mourne.

(FQ 1.12.41)

Zeno

“Well-being is attained by little and little, and nevertheless is no little thing itself.”

Liberal Arts.

The question she asks is a good one:


"It just seems that PhDs are not worth it anymore. But what do you do if history or some other liberal arts major is your talent and passion?"

It may seem that I'm saying this from the catbird seat, but it actually makes me terribly sad.  It does, however, parallel quite neatly the Crawford book I'm reading about work.

I am ambitious for a motley coat

Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest,
Ride more than thou goest,
Learn more than thou trowest,
Leave thy drink and thy whore,
And keep in-a-door,
And thou shalt have more,
Than two tens to a score.

**
"I marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are:  they'll have me whipped for speaking true, thou'lt have me whipped for lying, and sometimes I am whipped for holding my peace."

(King Lear 1.4.108-117, 164-167)

Preparing a face

"In an age when conduct was so often interpreted in terms of types, models, or precedents, More showed an exceptional facility in assuming personae and his writings frequently suggest his awareness of social life as a dramatic performance.  This is not the stoic commonplace of the world as a stage but a more developed sense of role-playing as an essential device in self-definition.  Again, it can be seen as an integral part of the rhetorical tradition that the self is not presented as a 'personality' or a 'substantial self' but as a source of raw psychic energy which assimilates the possible forms offered by society."

(Dominic Baker-Smith, More's Utopia, p. 10)

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas

(Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi: Adoration of the Magi.)

The Second Wise Man

My faith that in Time's constant

Flow lay real assurance

Broke down on this analysis--

At any given instant

All solids dissolve, no wheels revolve,

And facts have no endurance--

And who knows if it is by design or pure inadvertence

That the Present destroys its inherited self-importance?

With envy, terror, rage, regret,

We anticipate or remember but never are.

To discover how to be living now

Is the reason I follow this star.

The Third Wise Man

Observing how myopic

Is the Venus of the Soma,

The concept Ought would make, I thought,

Our passions philanthropic,

And rectify in the sensual eye

Both lens-flare and lens-coma:

But arriving at the Greatest Good by introspection

And counting the Greater Number, left no time for affection,

Laughter, kisses, squeezing, smiles:

And I learned why the learned are as despised as they are.

To discover how to be loving now

Is the reason I follow this star.

(W. H. Auden, from "The Summons," For the Time Being. [1944])

Happy Feast of the Epiphany, everyone.

Clearly, I did a good job.

The comment from this past term's evaluations that was the absolute best:

I liked the The philisofical style of the coarse.

"A blunted knife was of more use than I"

I have wondered recently what it would be like to be off the medication. 

Don't panic, I'm not going to stop taking the damn pills.

But, I am curious:  it's been so long since I've not slept like a log almost as soon as I get horizontal, so long since I've not had a dull edge.  What would it feel like to be really sharp again?

Something Bracing for the first day at work

"The truth, of course, is that creativity is a by-product of mastery of the sort that is cultivated through long practice.  It seems to be built up through submission (think a musician practicing scales, or Einstein learning tensor algebra).  Identifying creativity with freedom harmonizes quite well with the culture of the new capitalism, in which the imperative of flexibility precludes dwelling in any task long enough to develop real competence.  Such competence is the condition not only for genuine creativity but for economic independence such as the tradesman enjoys."

--Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft, p. 51

This book is challenging on many levels.

"Well, so that is that."

If the muscle can feel repugnance, there is still a false move to be made;
If the mind can imagine to-morrow, there is still a defeat to remember;
As long as the self can say "I", it is impossible not to rebel;
As long as there is an accidental virtue, there is a necessary vice:
And the garden cannot exist, the miracle cannot occur.

For the garden is the only place there is, but you will not find it
Until you have looked for it everywhere and found nowhere that is not a desert;
The miracle is the only thing that happens, but to you it will not be apparent,
Until all events have been studied and nothing happens that you cannot explain;
And life is the destiny you are bound to refuse until you have consented to die.

(W. H. Auden, 1944)

**
The Christmas decorations got packed up today, put back in their boxes.  Too bad it's cold outside, 'cause we could really afford to send the two urchins outside to play.  They have been bouncing off the walls all day long.  One thing I have observed a lot over the past month:  Little Red is now into imitating the Big Brother as closely as he's able--body language, phrases, etc.  The elder just threw himself on the floor in anguish over somethingoranother, and Little Red followed right after.  Laughter ensued.

**
The picture above is from our post-Christmas trip to the Georgia Aquarium, which was really amazing.  Today, though, Big Brother told me that he didn't want to go again, because someone might throw him in the water.

**
Tomorrow, work starts for the upcoming semester.  There will be plenty.

A New Year, a new reading list

Items include:

2666 by Bolano
War and Peace by Tolstoy
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by DFW
The Bad Girl by Vargas Llosa
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Shop Class as Soulcraft
Fordlandia
An Imperial Possession


...and more science fiction/fantasy than is reasonable, I'm sure.

At least, that's a start.