This seems unnecessary...

A few notes from a conference

• Finding two other conference goers on the plane, we decided to share a cab to the hotel. The cabbie was a talkative sort of fellow who told us unbelievable tales of his past. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, offered us a deal. "You scam your boss, I scam mine." I won't say what happened, but I will say there seemed like only one way to get multiple receipts.^*
  
  
• The speaker giving one of the plenaries sounded a lot like Harry Shearer . This was especially evident when he used "Alright" as his verbal pause.
  
  
• I went to one session given by someone had developed a seminar course on the topic I am planning to run for a freshman seminar next year. He passed out a detailed schedule, with reading assignments, discussion topics and weekly short writing assignments. Given that I like what I heard, this simplifies next Fall considerably.
  
  
• With some time to kill after the end of a conference I went to the Borders in the very large mall next to the conference hotel. Something was odd, but I could not place my finger on it. Somehow, people in this Borders just looked a little different from what I expected. Soon the reason becomes clear: I had just walked into a Bill O'Reilly book signing.
  
  

^* I lost a shuttle receipt from my last trip, so I'm not going to lose any sleep over this.

Yesterday's Gone

I haven't felt this hopeful since 1992.

A question for a student of mine

I have a student in danger of failing for no good reason, but lots of bad ones. Here are the reasons I have identified so far:

• He didn't buy the book because someone told him he "didn't need it"
  
• He has not had high school PhysChemBio. Instead, had a similar class 8 years ago in middle school that he doesn't really remember much about.
  
• That class was taught in a different language.
  
• He skips class regularly.
  

I've suggested he come and see me once a week (in addition to, you know, showing up for class). Today, he came to my office hours for help.

Here's the question I really want to ask him: Did you think it was a good idea to show up in the office of a professor whose class you may be failing reeking of pot?

Wrong on so many levels....

The other day I went to a Math seminar that had some relevance to BioChemPhys. At the end of the seminar, I took a cookie from the provided refreshments. As I did, a man I did not know said to me, "Those are fattening, dear."

Moments in time according to Dalton and Curie

Yesterday: Anytime between birth and the last time he or she slept

This day: Today

Tomorrow: Anytime after the next time he or she sleeps

A long time: Anytime longer than 2 seconds

Too long: Anytime longer than 0.5 seconds

Yesterday a long time ago: Anytime between birth and about three weeks ago

Every day: Anything that has happened at least one other time that he or she can remember

A little while: As long as he or she wants to.

Veto

My kids vetoed the matching bug costumes I purchased and insisted on going as witches. I have boy-girl twins. They have not been introduced to the words "wizard" or "warlock" - hence they are both in dresses. It isn't the first time.

Update RBoC

Just a few things that have been going on while I have not been blogging:

• I've become addicted to PackRat on Facebook. It's Addy's fault, really.
  
  
• I've also become obsessed with RealClearPolitics. I have only myself to blame.
  
  
• My mother was quite disappointed Hillary did not get the Democratic nomination. I was worried she was going to vote for McCain. She lived in Arizona from 1976 until May of this year, and generally felt positively towards McCain. Sarah Palin took care of all that. Yesterday, my mom voted for Obama. In Florida.
  
  
• My conservative cousin who is turning 36 this month voted for Obama a few days ago. He has never voted before. Ever. He lives in Texas, though, so no help there.
  
  
• My mom is a victim of the mortgage crisis. More on this later.
  
  
• I went to a CUR (Council on Undergraduate Research) workshop as a member of a team from my institution. It was fantastic.
  
  
• We hired fabulous adjuncts this year. Awesome.
  
  
• Three comics I like about work, life and woo.
  
  
• A little vignette from my house, while trying to convince the kids to get dressed:
  
  

  
  Dr. H: Hey, who don't you both wear your kitty shirts? Then you can be twins!
  
  Curie: We're ALREADY twins.

  
  

  
  
  

It has been a long time.

Let me explain.

I unintentionally stopped blogging at the end of July because one of our cats went missing. I intended to write a blog post about it, but had trouble because we had no closure. I didn't want to write about anything else, because everything else I had to say was about something too silly (or required me to be too snarky) given the situation. I didn't want to go back that before discussing the cat. Anyway, I've been ready to write about it for awhile, but having been away for so long was a bit of a hurdle.

Three months ago was the last time we saw Alex. We have come to the unfortunate conclusion that we lost her to a coyote. Please, please, no recriminations about outdoor cats. I have two other cats that were indoor only cats for 12 years, and Alex was an indoor only cat for 3. We got Alex as an adult cat and she spent much of her waking time trying to get outside. Before she came to us, she was in a foster home which informed us she had belonged to a homeless person for the first year or so of her life. She wasn't fond of walls. We could only open windows about an inch - she was able to rip through screens in about 4 seconds. Once I caught her be her hind quarters as she tried to jump out of a second story window, having ripped through the screen in a window that a house guest had left open too far. Constant vigilance was required to keep her inside.

Then, one day, my children got big enough to open doors by themselves. And then all of our cats became indoor/outdoor cats.

Almost three years after making that decision, my worst fears about this materialized and Alex didn't come home one day. We canvassed the neighborhood, put up signs, checked shelters, called vets, called the people responsible for removing deceased animals from the roads - all the things one is supposed to do. The only news was this: at least two other cats went missing right around the same time and there had been some sightings of coyotes in the neighborhood. There are no outdoor cats in our neighborhood now.

Alex was the first cat that Dr. H and I adopted together. She was soft like a bunny, always had a wet nose, loved Cat Chow, didn't like cat treats or expensive cat food and was great at removing mice from basements. She loved being outside. She was also the only cat that got along with Dr. H's cat, who hated all other cats on principle. We don't know why. We assume Alex got along with her because she deferred to all alpha cats (my alpha included). She had the most trouble with my beta cat, until they worked out that Alex was, in fact, beta. (At the time, we had four cats. Dr. H's cat we lost to old age some number of years ago.) Alex was our most cat-like cat, but very friendly and great with the kids. When the kids were really young she often avoided them, finding their unpredictability disconcerting. However, in the last year or so, Alex started to bond with Curie, and I was sure Alex was destined to become Curie's cat one day.

One of the hardest things has been explaining it to the children. More on that another time.

She was a great cat. We miss her very much. I thought I had gotten to the acceptance stage of grief. But last night I had a dream she came home. Does that mean I'm in the denial stage, the bargaining stage or the depression stage?

The Trouble with ......

[My mom and I are discussing Star Trek (the original series):


My Mom: What were those furry things called again?

Me: Tribbles.

My Mom: Yes that's right! Gerbils!

RBoC in Pictures

• The garden is in bloom:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Cats are cute:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• We have a lot of weeds.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Dr. H. thought he wasn't allergic to poison ivy. He was wrong.
  
  
  
  (The picture is from a week and half later, a few of those days with prescription steroids.)
  
  
  
• Ugh, just ugh.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Fun in lab:
  
  
  
  
  

Another Chapter

In my last post I told a little story about my eighth grade math class. Let me tell a more positive math class story that may put the eighth grade story in context.

Fifth grade was fabulous. My teacher, Mrs. Plunk, gave me and one other student the math book, flipped a good way through it and said, "Start here." The starting point for each of us was the first section we didn't already have proficiency in. While she gave the rest of the class a regular lesson, the two of us were allowed to work on material chapters ahead of the rest of the class on our own. When I felt like I had done enough practice problems in a chapter, I went up to Mrs. Plunk's desk and she gave me a post-test. If I got a 100%, I moved on.

That year was the year I discovered I loved math. Everything was so new! So cool! So much fun!

When I finished our book, she went and got the sixth grade book, flipped through it to the last unit and again said, "Start here." I asked about the earlier stuff in the book and she said "You know how to do all that." I looked through it. She was right.

That moment is the moment I realized that all the math books I had used in that state started all over again with addition and subtraction. At the time, I thought this was incredibly stupid. Later, someone told me this approach to math is called spiraling.

In sixth grade, I moved to a new school in the same state. The year opened with us studying addition and subtraction all over again. I told my new teacher "I know how to do all of this already." She said to me, "What do you want? A brownie button?" I didn't say much after that.

In sixth, seventh and eighth grade, I sat through math classes, bored out of my mind. Occasionally, I refused to do homework in rebellion. You have no idea how happy I was to go to high school.

It is not an exaggeration to say that Mrs. Plunk changed my life. From that year on, I thought of myself as someone who loved math and was good at it. But that one year did have the side effect of making the next three years really painful.