personal
pharyngula | August 30, 2006It's 1:30AM, and our daughter wakes us up, pounding on the door. We hear a babbling brook, the cheerful sound of a waterfall—wait a moment, we don't live in a rain forest! We run to the basement to see water rushing over the baseboards, and a lake, already ankle deep. I turn off the main water valve to our house, but it doesn't stop. We go outside, and there, rising from our lawn, is a huge dome rising up like a grassy pimple, and water gushing at a phenomenal rate from several points on it.
That's one of those big waist-high garbage cans out there, for scale. My wife tossed it out there in…
clock | August 30, 2006I already told you that my daughter is crazy about cats as well as getting really good at photography. Occasionaly I break down and post pictures of cats (but never on Friday!) just because she took them. So, you have had the opportunity to meet Marbles and also Biscuit and even both of them together. And she managed to catch me on camera as well. Nobody else wants their pictures online, but we forgot the dog! So, here is the first ever online picture of Millie, our toy poodle. Her real name - Millennium - comes from the date of her birth: just a couple of weeks before Y2K when the…
pharyngula | August 30, 2006Look whose birthday it is today: Skatje! You can all go wish her a happy day, although we're not having too much of a celebration, since it is that hectic first week of school for both of us.
Anyway, it is a tradition here that I embarrass the kids on their birthdays with ancient snapshots from their childhood. This one, though…you also get to see her funny looking dad! I may have to re-evaluate this tradition.
I threw a few more current photos below the fold.
She knew I was going to get her. Here's the first response: hiding.
Then pouting.
Finally, resignation and acceptance.
It isn't…
jstemwedel | August 30, 2006Suddenly your inbox is overflowing with messages from people you've never met expressing their intense interest in your subject.
And, driving across town in the morning takes twice as long as it did just a month ago.
And, your laptop takes a tumble and breaks a hinge.
Plus, the photocopier at work seems to be involved in a work action (but, curiously, can't be bothered to make a placard to announce its grievances).
And, the combination-locked computer-enabled classroom is suddenly without its all-important doorstop (which lets students get into the classroom), so you're reduced to cramming…
j7uy5 | August 29, 2006This meme involves going to the random quotations page, and picking
five quotes. The rules: “Go
href="http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3">here
and look through random quotes until you find 5 that you think reflect
who you are or what you believe.”
I saw my SciBlings doing it, but passed...until I saw that gonesavage
at
href="http://gonesavage.blogsome.com/2006/08/19/5-random-quotes/"
rel="tag">Cyberspace Rendezvous did it
too.
Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those
who find it.
Andre Gide (1869 - 1951)
Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free…
clock | August 28, 2006Summer is officially over. Kids are back in school. I am pretty much a stay-at-home-Dad these days and this is even more obvious during breaks in the school calendar.
And we certainly had a great summer, starting even before school ended, with our trip to New York City. We went to the pool a lot and generally had a nice laid-back family time together.
Coturnietta spent a week in a science-technology summer camp, then ran off to the beach with her cousins and my mother-in-law for a week. She read a bunch of books (all with cats as main characters - she is a huge cat lover). She had such a…
clock | August 28, 2006My daughter is getting really good at photography. Here is one from her recent set of pictures - our older cat, Biscuit:
oracknows | August 28, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
oracknows | August 26, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
terrasig | August 26, 2006Four years ago at 11:24 am EDT (1624 GMT), your humble blogger was handed the keys to a whole new vocabulary of love.
The gift came in the form of a 7 lb. 13 oz. (3,544 gm), 20.5 inch (52 cm) bundle of drooling, peeing, meconium-pooping bundle of baby girl, yanked from an incision in PharmGirl's abdomen.
The lessons of compassion and unconditional love I have been taught by these two women have comprised the most formative experiences of my life.
In return, PharmGirl has suffered tremendous indignancies on my behalf: the necessary biological machinations required to mix haploid DNA…
jstemwedel | August 25, 2006Thanks to all readers who responded with suggestions as to what my students should call me. As a number of you pointed out, what I choose here isn't just a matter of local custom (there seems not to be a unified custom on this at my university), nor of personal comfort (for me or my students). After all, the form of address is going to play a part in setting the tone for my interaction with my students.
And here, maybe my indecision about the right form of address reflects the fact that I have aims that are potentially in conflict with each other.
On the one hand, I am working very hard to…
clock | August 25, 2006From Thursday, February 16, 2006, another old post in the where did my son get his smarts vein:
When I went to pick up Coturnix Junior from school today (he is in 7th grade), we bumped into his English teacher who informed me that he did not turn in his book review. He started coming up with excuses, that he lost the book, or it was stolen, etc. She said something like "Well, you better read something really fast, so you can turn in the review tomorrow. And it has to be something at middle-school level, not Dr.Seuss".
I doubt Dr.Seuss ever crossed his mind up till that moment, but he was…
pharyngula | August 25, 2006The secret life of married couples is exposed by Belle Waring: my wife and I also sit up late at night in bed with our laptops.
If you're distressed at the idea that what you're reading was composed by a PZ in dishabille, though, no worries. I only browse and read in bed, and don't actually write.
jstemwedel | August 24, 2006OK, it's the time of the semester when I get a bazillion emails from students enrolled in my classes, and students trying to enroll in my classes, and assorted others. And, the emailers each choose a manner of address out of thin air, since usually they haven't met me yet and have no idea how I prefer to be addressed.
The problem is, I'm not sure how I would prefer to be addressed!
I am on record as feeling "How U doin?" is too informal an opening for email to one's professor, and as deeming beeyotch and its variants inappropriate.
I am not "Mrs. Stemwedel" (since that's my mother). I'd be…
pharyngula | August 21, 2006If you were appalled at the cavalier cops, here's another story to make you sneer with disgust. Jaquandor reports on a couple of kids who pulled a stupid prank that nearly killed a couple of teenagers (one had a broken neck and brain damage, and has been through 10 surgeries), and the judge gave them a couple of light sentences, and worst of all, delayed the start of their sentences…until the end of football season.
That's right, they're high school football players. It would be unduly harsh to prevent them from playing football, you know. And besides, the members of the football team must…
jstemwedel | August 18, 2006As I noted earlier, the population density in my office at school decreased enough to free up some room for a couch. The original plan had been to adopt an ugly orange love seat from a colleague's apartment, but it looks like the UOLS will be going in his office, since the couch he was planning to bring in for himself won't fit his office.
So, I hied myself to IKEA and bought the maximum amount of couch that would fit in the trunk and folded-down back seat of my car. (If you must know, it's a Prius. Not cavernous, but good with the mileage.) And seriously, if the flat-packed box of couch…
jstemwedel | August 17, 2006Because Julie tagged everyone:
The rules: "Go here and look through random quotes until you find 5 that you think reflect who you are or what you believe."
I'll add: Go with the first five that work for you (i.e., don't worry about getting global optima). It took me two bundles of quotations with the randomizer, but here's what I end up with:
"Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient." -Eugene S. Wilson
"The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two…
jstemwedel | August 17, 2006*Updating syllabi to reflect the coming semester's actual meeting days and assignment due dates? Really, really boring. The boredom further propagates when it requires updating a kazillion webpages, then uploading the updates to your site (one at a time, since Fetch thinks it's cute today to "lose" the connection when you use the feature that lets you set up the whole list of files to "Put" all at once). And don't get me started on the tedium of undoing the MS Word crappy formatting when you turn your word document into a webpage. I'm guessing there would be buckets of money (plus rose…