Jeff, one of my friends from college, has succeeded in getting his PhD in Chemistry and is teaching his first classes this semester. It is quite interesting to see college from the other point of view, and unfortunately quite sad to hear his stories about his intro to chemistry class. Jeff recently gave his second test and is in the process of grading them. He has been relating the weird answers he has gotten in addition to the successes and failures of his students. Unfortunately there are a lot more failures than successes.

Number of electrons in one metric ton of silver. 5.58kg.

Jeff is having a difficult time getting his students to think. The are so used to just regurgitating facts as they did in high school, that they are unable to take the facts that they have learned and apply them to the problems he has given them. Apparently this is a higher standard than the other professors in his department are using to judge their classes. Jeff is also having a hard time balancing the concern of being “too hard” on his students with actually feeling like he is treating them appropriately as college students.

How many electrons in one silver atom? -2

They also appear to lack the common sense needed to look at a problem and get a ballpark answer in their minds as they go through a problem. This is a skill that improves with time, but I would hope that by the time someone has entered college they at least have a general idea of how to approximate an answer.

So as Jeff was talking about this exam, I suggested that maybe Matt and I could take it and he could use us as an example for his class. Jeff didn’t think he should tell his class how we did, but he was amused by the idea of us taking the exam. Now as a point of reference, the last chemistry class I took was about 8 years ago, and I think Matt indicated it was 10 years since he took one. I have a physics dgree which gives me some edge, and Matt has an English degree.

I took an hour, a periodic chart, and a calculator (the same as his students) and completed as much of the exam as I could and Jeff said he would look at it in the morning, so I will hopefully get an answer I can post tomorrow. I am quite confident I should do better than his lowest grade seen so far; a 5 (and you get 4 points for signing your name). But we will see if I pass :)

Not much to talk about today. Today was a day of rest. Funny how that should happen on a sunday given my atheist nature. Some might like to say that is a sign of my very wrongness. Oh well. I just call it being productive yesterday.

I finished the third toilet today. I am getting quite good at that. Maybe toilet repair is a potential fallback (ok, fall WAY back) career. Now all of our bathrooms are operating at peak efficiency. Woo Hoo!

I did some layout updates to this journal. Nothing major, just the continuation of some of the tweaks I have been making for the last few days. Some small font changes, an actual “title” to my journal, and some other small stuff that is insignificant to any but me.

I am such a nitpicker when it comes to graphics and layout. I remember someone once calling personal websites “mental masturbation” and although I can see it being that, I don’t think I am doing this for my ego. If I am, I am doing a crappy job.

In a return to one of my youthful activities I worked a little on a bird-feeder this afternoon. When I was in middle school, I was the owner and sole emplyee of Beker’s Beautiful Birdhouses and had two sizes of bird-house and bird-feeders available for sale in my neighborhood in Connecticut. They even came in three colors.

At the height of bird season here, the birds can empty our current little birdfeeder in a week or so and we hate it when we forget to fill it. So I want to make a few more bird-feeders to help our feathered friends.

Back to work tomorrow.

A misadventure of sanitary proportions The toilets in our house have been getting annoying. There has been an increasing tendancy for them to not stop filling after they have been flushed. No overflow or mess, the flapper inside just doesn’t drop back into place when it has let all the water out. So today, I put on my plumber hat and decided to fix them.

Trip 1. Go to Lowes and buy new parts.

I am basically replacing all the moving parts in the toilet. This involves taking the tank off of the bowl which isn’t hard it just exposes areas normally not exposed to the light of day. Crevices on toilets are a bad idea. Toilets should be completely round, no edges, no corners, and definately no crevices. Life would be better. I am sure that is a patentable idea.

The removal (and cleaning of aforementioned crevices) all went quite smoothly until I turned the tank over to unscrew the ring that tightens the drain and flapper assembly onto the tank. This required a wrench that could open about three inches. I didn’t have anything anywhere close.

Trip 2. Go to Ace (which is closer than Lowes) and get 16” Chan-nel-lock pliers.

With this new tool, the ring came off just fine and I was able to attach the new parts to the tank and replace the tank on the bowl. Just one thing left to do, reattach the water to the fill valve and we are all set. Jeremy is foolishly lulled into a sense of accomplishment at this point.

I need to put the new compression nut onto the old water pipe. The old one comes off, but the new one doesn’t fit. I fight with it for a while and then try using the old compression nut. But it is a different size and doesn’t quite fit (which results in water squirting out when you turn it on. Water is supposed to stay in the toilet; Not acceptable.)

Trip 3. Return to Ace prior to our haircut appointment for new water pipe. The ones they have don’t look right and I left the old one at home. Trip aborted.

Interlude 1. Get hair cut, go grocery shopping. Come home. Plant Clemitas in the back yard. Get eaten alive by mosquitos. I swear they were just waiting in their little homes during all the rain we have been getting and came out today shouting “Paaaarty!”

Trip 4. Return to Lowes with old pipe for comparison. Get new pipe.

Now I have what I need. The final installation goes wonderfully. First bathroom done, two left.

The installation in our master bathroom went quite well even though their is alot less space. Inserting one’s head in between the wall and the toilet is not exactely what I recommend as a “fun” activity for every weekend (aka “becoming intimate with your toilet for fun and profit”). We keep a pretty clean household, but I found a few areas we missed. They are clean now. Thanks for asking.

At this point I have put off doing the last bathroom until tomorrow. It is the smallest and I am sure I will have to attempt all sorts of contortions to get everything done, but I have the process down and it should be good (he tells himself).

I logged into my work windows box from home today to test something out, and what was there but spam. Things brings to light the fifth type of spam I have seen.

1. Paper spam (aka junk mail)
2. Phone spam (aka telemarketers)
3. Email spam
4. Voice-mail spam

And now, new for 2002!

1. Windows popup spam

This is just sad. I am amazed on one hand with the creativeness of the spammers, but on the flip side, I think they should be run out of business.

Make the pie higher

Today was a drippy day. Well, my demo at the SIT team meeting went quite well. Took about 45 minutes as I was constantly peppered with questions of what we could and couldn’t do with the system that often ran off on bizarre tangents. But I honestly like demos more when they are interactive. I think that is the root of my dislike of public speaking.

The un-interactiveness of giving “speaches” makes me ill. In contrast, when I am in a meeting or a group of people where I am presenting an idea or just participating in a discussion, I always sepak up, and I often end up running the meetings. I find that I act as a sort of human catalyst and focus the work of the people around me into one cohesive whole; GAH! that sounds like I am a leader or something.

I was going to give the demo again at our staff meeting in the afternoon, but the other people in the meeting (I was not going to get involved) got sidetracked on numerous other topics. The only thing I spoke up on (and was a hard-ass about) was a few security issues. People didn’t seem to realize that if there is a security issue with a system, not distributing a tool that could be used to access the stuff you don’t want them too is not the solution. I need a big sign; “Security through obscurity is not security!”

Our Clematis arrived this afternoon. I think these are definately fast growing plants. In the time that it took them to get from Connecticut on Wednesday to Williamsburg on Friday, the two plants had started to grow into and cling to each other. Very needy plants; probably had traumatic childhoods. We seperated them and put them out in the rain to keep them happy. Planting will probably take place tomorrow.

We are making a new recipe tonight; Chicken in Garlic and Shallots. Wow it smells good. I can’t wait to eat it. Yum Yum Yum.

Good night.

Meeting with the Boss-man. More Senate blather. Easier to ask forgivness than ask permission. Today was a busy and relatively productive day. Given the recent budget crush (complete witrh talks of pay cuts, layoffs, and furloughs, oh my) I had been feeling quite pessimistic regarding the prospects of the hardware purchase being funded for the project I am working on.

We currently have a test system up, but have no hardware for a production system, making it quite difficult to go live. I along with others came up with two plans, aptly named “Plan A” and “Plan B” which cost around $111,000 and $66,000, respectively. When we first made the plans, I knew that “Plan A” was aggressive, but I felt good about “Plan B.” But as news got worse on the budget front, I was feeling more negative about our chances for even “Plan B.”

This morning we met with the Boss-man (aka The Associate Vice Provost for Information Technology) and after starting with “Plan A,” talking for an hour, returning to “Plan A” he approved it. I was quite shocked. I don’t know what orifice he is finding the money, but hey, I don’t care.

Today I mostly listened to the Senate proceedings. I have come to the conclusion that , althought senators are more eloquent, they aren’t much better than their counterpoints in the House. With one exception. Listening to Robert C. Byrd (D from W. Va) is a hoot. He seems to be the last of a generation of truely great orators. Aside from his politics except on this issue I am not familiar with his views, so I won’t judge him in a more general way.

But listening to him counter the arguments for the resolution authorizing force in Iraq is great; he regularly quotes long passages from the Federalist Papers, the Bible, and other text that he finds relavent to the discussion. It may seem trite that he caries a copy of the Constitution in his poket at all times, but I don’t think it is.

And he obviously has a sense of humor. His off the cuff comments after reading the 69th Federalist paper regarding the powers of the Commander in Chief was to wonder if anyone in the White House has read them. He then muses out loud to send the President a copy for free. I was cracking up; it was beautiful

Back to work stuff. Kelly and I made further progress in preparation for our meeting with the SIT team. (I’m not going to go into what the SIT team is. I just wish we had a BURP team like one other College we work with.) I ran a program our DBA was telling Kelly we shouldn’t run, but it all worked out in the end. I went back to my further experiment to give Kelly (who likes things all organized) plausible deniability with respect to my “unauthorized” activities.

So hopefully the demo works tomorrow, but of course it will break at the most inoportune time as demos always have a tendancy to do. More news later.

In an attempt to write more here (self-therapy? HA!) I’m going to attempt to write a bit more than I have been. I will still continue with the links and other tidbits, but I will try to actually “talk” a little more As any who know me, about a year ago (actually it will be a year this friday), RSA (formerly 3GI) shut down my whole office and I was dropped off the end of my own personally dot-com roller coaster. This has once again been dwelling on my mind lately and having a detrimental effect on my moods.

My current workplace is a good place to work, and I don’t dislike it at all. I think that may be part of the issue. I don’t “dislike” it, but neither can I honestly say that I actually “like” what I am doing. The work that I am doing is not challenging in an intellectual manner, something that I learned to enjoy (and I admit, crave) at 3GI.

During my lunchtime walk today, Roger mentioned that he has a friend out in Oregon that just had a similar situation happen to him. The startup he was working for had their financial backer pull out. (I originally misspelled that “baker.” Amusing mental image.) Roger was concerned for his friend but was mildly confused in that his friend seemed not to be reacting very much to the situation one way or another. I explained to Roger that my feeling from experience was that his friend was a sense of “disbelief” at the situation that occurs when something that you have put your heart into gets “taken away” even if you knew it was coming.

I still have that feeling regarding 3GI. It seems at times that I am just on some weird vacation and that any day now I will head back to my old office and pick up where we left off. And scarely, I am confident that even given the year passing, I could pick up the technical issues we dropped immediately. I know for a fact I could give a rundown of what my staff was working on no problem. It makes finding satisfaction in ones later work very difficult. I remember one of my former coworkers saying that in response to the question “Are you enjoying your new job” he had to say “I would love it if I hadn’t had my dream job.” This is my feeling as well.

Focus. Something I do not seem to have lately. I am planning to take some graduate classes this next semester and I hope that will impose some intellectual rigour on my brain.

Ramble Ramble Ramble. New Topic. Or at least some random thoughts

Tonight is Alton Brown night! Woo Hoo!

Our Clematis shipped today. Should be here friday. More planting! But thankfully only two plants.

My hands still hurt from all the planting last weekend (1, 2, 3). I thought it was all better, then I went to staple some paper together and grabbed the stapler in my right hand and squeezed. Ouchie. Muscles still need some work there. Heal Faster! Go Go White Blood Cells! And the damn healing blisters itch like crazy.

Bouncy music is a good thing. I pulled out one of my Lenny Kravitz CD’s on monday when E and I went out to dinner with the Brandt clan. Unfortunately E was not in a bouncy mood and wasn’t up for loud music, but I have been playing it loud in the car for the last few days since.

Today was the first of three days that the House and the Senate will be debating the joint resolution to authorize the president to potentially use military force againts Iraq.

In an attempt to learn more about the debate, I have been listening to the debate on NPR for much of today. My opinions on the issue are very clear; I do not feel that we as a nation have the legal right to interfere in Iraq without a clear mandate from the United Nations. (Granted I do not think we have the moral right to interfere even with a UN mandate, but that is beside the point here.)

Most of the debates NPR was covering came from the House. The formal process by which debate occurs in my opinion is very rarely what I would consider a “debate” but more different representatives listening to themselves talk. And given the granting of minutes, usually they only get 4 to 6 minutes at a stretch.

Given that I was limited to the audio feeds from the debates, I was not able to ascertain the number of representatives entering and leaving the chambers, but it seemed from the subject matter that all of the speeches were made completely devoid of reference from other speeches. The representatives repeated one another to such a large extent on obvious points I was amazed; as if their fellow representatives needed to be reminded that the 9/11 terrorists used planes to commit their killings.

Another observation was in the use of titles. Aside from the normal title of “gentleman from the state of blah” many representatives felt the need when yielding time to a colleague to add a complete list of their titles in the House. Now this seemed appropriate for representatives who are the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, but I did find it odd when the chairman of the Inland Wetlands Committee was introduced as such.

Our elected officials also seem to be masters of exaggeration and leaps of logic that are quite beyond me as a mortal man. The repeated comparisons of Saddam Husein to Hitler were to me an amazing stretch of the imagination. And I was particularly fond (not) of the belief that Saddam could threaten the US with his weapons of mass destruction even though he has no missiles that can travel past Israel.

In all of the tak I heard today, I did not hear one representative speak who was unsure of his vote. I assume that the each representative is speaking to an audience of his peers who are as yet undecided. Or at least I hope so, as otherwise they are making these speeches for my benefit and I would rather they just put the matter to a vote and move on to more important matters.

So the debates will rage on for another two days and then they will vote in a manner whose outcome is effectively predetermined. This point was even made during the couse of some of the speeches. Odd. Very odd.

But such is the way of government.

From an email I received a few moments ago:

“Xxxxx Xxxxx’s mother passed away today. We have ordered a tray of deli-meats and cold cuts to ease her burden as this difficult time transpires. We will be delivering this gift to her tomorrow.”