Short Month

Gadzooks! It's the end of Feb. What a month. Two of our friends had babies. Three of our family members had birthdays (mine included). We survived some hefty snowfall and enjoyed a day or two off from work.

Now, alas, it's over. Here I am in a hotel in my hometown, lamenting how you can never really come home again. Things are so very different from year to year, generation to generation. This place hasn't been my hometown for 30 years, but the homestead my grandfather founded is still standing...yet even it's changed too much for my tastes.

Maybe I'll get a picture of the tumbleweeds at our old place. It's crazy.

Follow me, I'm your Daddy.

We have so much influence on those around us, particularly the younger set.

I don't think I've been a good role model to anyone, most particularly my own offspring. Living up to my own standards is next-to-impossible, though, so it's no wonder I feel as I do.

I wish a camera crew was following and filming me every step of the way, every hour of the day. Maybe there could be a highlight reel of things I do well. I know there would be plenty to compile for a blooper reel...or worse, deleted scenes. Wouldn't it be awful to have scenes from life just deleted? Even the negative moments are valuable. Even those flashes of wrath, poor stewardship, bad grammar, or picking my nose have a Reason to Be.






I really like the photo in this blog. I will look back at it frequently, for it really helps me put my behavior into perspective. Knowing as I do that little ones learn so very much by example, by watching (even before they can speak or completely process thoughts), and by mimicking us--it's all so potent. It's all such a responsibility!

I feel blessed and lucky to be a daddy. I will strive to continuously improve in my performance as dad. I figure I may have something like 40 years left to do my ever-increasing best. So long as I keep things in perspective, keep looking at pics like this one, maybe I can eventually feel like my life deserve to be immortalized in film (or at least fond memories) instead of on the cutting room floor.

Hand it to Hans

Listening to the soundtrack of Sherlock Holmes by Hans Zimmer. I've praised his work before, but (as the kids say) OMG!!! This soundtrack is so great it should be recognized as a character in the film. Truth is, I'll be jamming to this long after I've forgotten all about the movie (and I liked the movie).

I am no music critic, but this soundtrack has full blown orchestration at times, like the Batman soundtrack Zimmer is known for: moving, haunting, heavy and forceful passages of sound/music that loom then dive, sweep me through (in this case) the seedy side of London right up into Parliament! Tense moments are strained out on a single violin note, and then the violin morphs into a rollicking gypsy/Irish jig. I am shaken and stirred by the blast of brass, followed next by a driving pounding of strings and drums that makes me panic!

Gadzooks! It's hard to image some people don't like music. This one will be on my internal iPod all day long.

Carnism

I listened to a professor on NPR as she shared the thesis of her book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows. In it, Melanie Joy explores the invisible system that shapes our perception of the meat we eat, so that we love some animals and eat others without knowing why. She calls this system carnism.

Carnism is the belief system, or ideology, that allows us to selectively choose which animals become our meat, and it is sustained by complex psychological and social mechanisms. Essentially, she discusses this disconnect that we are all willing to participate in to allow us to eat meat.

I think this is interesting. Maybe it's related to my theory that people should be conscientious and thoughtful of what we eat. I agree with Dr. Joy that carnism may lead us to turn a blind eye to what our 'meat' is made of. I do not know that I would eat meat if I had raised it. I know that is squeamish of me, making me inconsistent (at the best) and certainly uncomfortable.

Follow this link to attend Dr. Joy's lecture at YouTube. See what you think.

I grew up on a farm. I live on a farm. I am surrounded by ranchers. I eat meat (love steak, pork roast, etc...). All that said, I am a thinking omnivore, and sometimes I review my diet and choices, even if I have yet to change.

Sproing!

Sproing! Spring will just bounce in like that, and I will be caught unaware--unless I'm always keeping an eye on the calendar. I noticed other people are already ramping up, turning their gardens, buying seed potatoes and bulb plants, burning fields....

I have SO MUCH TO DO once the weather warms. Unfortunately for me, the weather change will be about the same time as my workload gets back breaking. I know, work comes first.

Yesterday I was talking w/my inlaw at the grill, looking over the garden. Here's a short list of what must be done, in some reasonable priority:

1. tune up the mower and tractor
2. build raised beds for garden
3. plant garden (early bulb crops)
4. burn fields (preferably all of them)
5. arrange for top soil, compost, gravel, etc.
6. contract said inlaw w/equipment to move the arranged {and woodchips }
7. finish pirate ship playground
8. finish garden
9. finish carport

Of course, in my mind all this ought to be done by or during Spring Break, less than a month away. Likely other plans will over-ride mine.

THEN when the above list is done, there's the deck to build, and the mowing can then begin in earnest.

Topical

My students are proposing research project essay topics, many of which are a bit predictable if not dog-eared. I encouraged them to surf the Internet, to watch some vlogs. I gave them an abundance of issue-hosting sites like this one. I shared a "don't go there" list, too, forewarning them away from some topics I've yet to read a good paper over....here's a listing of what I'm getting:

• death penalty
• abortion
• gun control
• welfare reform
• drinking age
• alternative energy
• immunizations
• texting
• social networking
• sexual identity

...I wish I could say these were going to knock me out with stunning research findings and mind-blowing arguments/insights. I wish they took ownership of their issues and really wrestled with controversies they are unsure of, initially. Do understand, some students are actually slugging through issues, like the last one, questioning the uncertain sex of athletes like happened last summer (I think it was)...or like the guy (himself a music major) who's exploring the claim that music education could be a reasonable chopping block item in a tight school budget. Some students are fired up about advertising and body image, in part from our exposure in the current readings/assignment. A couple are still angling around, seeking that something they might care about enough to commit to 2000 words.

I feel for them. I try to help them. My thinking is, helping them helps me, for I'll have less mediocre papers to grade later. Selfish, I know.

Life just got better...

I discovered over at the Internet Archive free, downloadable mp3's of about everything from books to live concerts to famous speeches. Here's a tune from a bluegrass concert by the Bluegrass Alliance (September 23, 1975):

Why do I read others' blogs/journals?

This is a good question: why read other peoples' blogs, journals, facebook pages? Is there some strange voyeuristic principle at work? Is there some loneliness that is sated by the practice? Am I simply nosy?

Why not. Maybe, no, no.

In class I admit to assigning and reading journal entries so I can learn about them, their demographic, and maybe better reach them as the audience of the course. I also offer it as an outlet to vent, be expressive, etc. in ways the other course assignments might not allow. All that is true.

But, offering credit to become "friends" in Facebook? That seems a little bit out there, no? I would say, again, there's an academic angle. The demographic research is there, sure, but so is the more instant access between myself and the student. They are in the medium of Facebook, not my college's email platform or learning management system. They are attuned to engaging in Facebook, checking it several times a day, even during class, even at peril of being called down for such things by some teachers.

Still, can I admit to a little bit of vicarious living through them? even a spark of titillation from reading their extra curricular lives? Steadfastly I say, "No." Professionally, I say, "No."

...but for anyone reading my blog (hmmm....why are you here?) I would argue that there's likely something endearing about reading of their life/times firsthand. Yes, I hope it makes me a better teacher, but I also hope it makes me a better person to have these digital, once-removed interactions.

In the same way, I feel I benefit from reading the scads of non-student blogs I frequent...and from the Facebook friends I have who are as distant as 30+ years ago, when we were classmates. I benefit from reading what people have to say about themselves, their life/times, culture, etc. Likewise I benefit from reading more public accounts of their lives and worlds-- Whether it's a work of non-fiction or journalism. Also, I find benefit in reading the make believe, fictional accounts of people interacting, even in fantasy realms.

Bottom line, for me: I grow from engaging with others, real and imagined, public and private. I have to raise an eyebrow at anyone who would argue otherwise.

Only a few decades, really...

I find it very interesting that the most engaging and entertaining periods of history were actually only a decade or so in length.

For instance, I'm mesmerized by pirates, buccaneers, privateering, the whole gamut. Still, the heyday of pirates was only from 1690-1730. Even tighter (and perhaps more glamorized), my kids are enamored with the wild west. That period of gun fighting and untamed cowboys ran only from about 1860-1880 or so...only 20 years. An average individual could have easily lived through an entire epoch we so often think of as the stuff of legends.

This is just one more insight in my continuing reckoning with time. As I age, I come to see time lines as being more compact, not so unreasonable. I am coming to see generations and lives of individuals in perspective. Like seeing the populations of the world as one, as the earth being much smaller than I once imagined, I am also truncating time. The industrial revolution was something my grandfather knew of, perhaps. I will have known of the advent of mass communication, the Bomb, Bedazzlers...

I find this new vantage point to be intoxicating.

Another Snow Day

Not to complain, but why couldn't it have been on a day I actually have a class? Why couldn't they have called before I had already driven 20 of the 22 miles to work? Oh well. In truth, it's worked out great, for I am THE ONLY one in this building, and so it's a nice, quiet work environment. I'm catching up on grading (only 4o some-odd pieces remain) and I'm going to get some prep work done for the week (namely my podcast, lecture notes, etc).

Originally, I was intending to come home at noon and enjoy the snow, but I heard something about 15mph winds. That's not sounding pleasant. I'll likely hold out for play tomorrow.

Which brings me to the point--tomorrow should be the snow day, for it's to freeze hard and ice over and generally be terribly treacherous tomorrow. This brings up the whole idea of being pre-emptive. Reactionary.

I once had to make a weather-related decision that was very tough: cancelling a major event we hosted annually for 8 or 9 years. It was a senior-senior prom, a dance for elderly folk. We had 600-1000 guest annually for this little shin-dig, and the forecast was awful. It was knee deep snow during the week, but--welcome to Kansas--the night of the dance it would have been fine! That was one of those moments I kicked myself and every weatherman I could think of (metaphorically, of course).

Another was when I decided to go see a girlfriend in Denver during a blizzard; ended up snowed in with two lawmen and a convict in a little motel room in the middle of nowhere...but that's another snow story.

e-Failures

So, yesterday we had a very slow loading Internet interface that could have botched a presentation we were doing. Fortunately, I had made screen capture handouts and my associate was good at pulling up the site on another browser as we forged ahead.

The day before, something similar happened to me in class, when I was attempting to demonstrate some tool of the web-supported class.

The day before that, my iTunes had to be reloaded.

The day before that, my vehicle would not start.

...and last week, a student handed me his cell phone to read a joke, and I almost toasted the phone in attempts to navigate on it. (Ended up at some very interesting pictures before I handed it back to him with a shrug.)

What I'm listing here, what I'm offering is: technology fails. "Epic fail," as the young'ns say today.

I enjoy technological advances. I depend (too much) on them. However, I also know full-well that they are fickle and inconsiderate. They are not always going to serve me, so I should be prepared (like yesterday) for the occasional flight of whimsy. I have come to be okay with technology's temperament.

Now if I could just get my Ever-sharp (mechanical pencil) to work right!

I'm okay with that...

Maybe I'm just feeling complacent today:

• I got up late today, and now my whole day's off schedule, like daylight saving's time...but I don't really care, for I'm overall ahead of schedule.
• There were grounds in my coffee--faulty filter this morning. That's okay.
• Nobody contacts me back in Facebook, email, etc... *sigh*
• Punxsutawney Phil predicts six more weeks of winter. OMG!

This last item in particular surprises me, for I have not been one to enjoy winter. Maybe I'm getting older, sentimental or something. I just hate to see this winter end. I've always been this way about summer, but winter? me?

I guess I've finally come to that point that I like seasons, every season. I know winter is difficult sometimes, but it's also so uniquely beautiful. It offers some recreation and some wonders that no other season can touch. (No other season gives us snow days, for example!)

I know the flashy season, spring, is about to bud. Then we have all the bravado of big storms, torments of rain, and a kaleidoscope of colors as everything comes to life....but spring also means more work than winter asks of me. I'll be mowing and gardening and raising livestock and rearing children outside (unleashed madness). I'll be back to picking ticks.

I'm content to have six weeks before all the excitement. I can curl up with a cup of coffee, look out at the snow, and read my seed catalogs.

Heartbreaker

Why can't you just go away!

Since Thomas Etheredge is on trial at last for his financial wizardry, every hour on the radio I hear about it again. Every time I drive down 135 (which is almost daily, it seems) I am reminded of it--for the sign with that stupid cowboy is still there!

My 3 year old son and I spent many hours laboring over a coloring contest that led to naming this stupid cowboy, and not only did we lose that contest, we lost the whole park. (We were going to name him "Hickory Slick," but the name they chose was "Wild West Willy.) He's never forgotten being let down so harshly by the closing of this park. In ways, I take some blame, for I really hyped it up. We bought season tickets, in person, on the grounds, the first day one could purchase them. I was totally suckered in, so very much so that I still would like to think that Mr. Etheredge may not be such a bad guy.

Nevertheless, it is so very painful to be reminded daily (hourly) of a dream never to be fulfilled.