Month: April 2004

Nuggets from the current issue of « Harper’s »: ‘The phrase “national security” undoubtedly will make numerous appearances in the campaign speeches between now and the November election, and if the ritual holds true to form it will add to the country’s inventories of fear instead of increasing its store of courage. To define the…

Perhaps I’m doing something right in the classroom … As I arrived at a northeast Ann Arbor high school this morning, I met a student who was in a history class I guest taught over a month ago. He stopped me and asked me if I was going be in that class again today and…

And Sunday’s “move-out today,” or so goes the scuttlebutt (heard as I walked by a couple of people sitting out in front of Ambrosia this morning, one of whom was talking about how much she was looking forward to the atmosphere of the town once all the students are gone).

Helicopters circling over central campus, lots of clueless out-of-towners wandering around, lots of ties and shirts and trousers as opposed to jeans and shorts, people scrambling around to assemble poses for video cameras, the worst traffic on State and South U that I’ve seen in weeks if not months ….. yep, today must be graduation…

I’m done. The end of the year has come for me, and I seem to have survived. (The true test will come when grades get posted, but I’ll assume for now that I did okay.) Damn. One year under the belt, one to go. I don’t think it’s sunk in yet.

Today’s Duke Ellington’s birthday. A tip of the hat to the incomparable Sir Duke.

One of the north-south streets through East Pasadena is Michillinda—it starts up in Sierra Madre, near where my sister lives, and descends into San Marino. Something I never knew (I always assumed it was just a corruption of an Indian or Spanish name) was that Michillinda was named by the original families that settled in…

Things are beginning to look up; I should be able to get back to posting soon … and lord knows there’s plenty to post about. Unfortunately, LunarPages has officially trashed my MovableType installation and it’s all dead. The other sections of this site which I controlled with MT are temporarily dead until I get TextPattern…

I had no earthly idea that I was living with a closeted “Love Will Keep Us Together” fan. Good lord, you think you know someone … But having said that, I suppose I am forced to disclose myself. I’m more comfortable, as mentioned before, with movies; I’m a real Homer Simpson when it comes to…

Meanwhile, record-breaking temperatures back on the left coast. Pasadena, my hometown, hit 99 degrees (breaking a record set in 1992 by 7 degrees). The weather station at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, near where my friends Kit and Erin now live, recorded a temperature of 103. Normally temperate Santa Barbara hit an intemperate high of…

srah said it was snowing this morning ….. and sure enough, when I took the dog out, there were unmistakable flakes in the air. I never thought I’d see the stuff this late. Amazing.

In the interest of full self-disclosure (to a point), people in glass houses, etc., I hereby present a brief (and by no means exhaustive) list of songs that I love that would probably be highly likely to appear on a 50 worst list somewhere, and probably, in fact, do appear on such a list (double…

Says the National Weather Service: ‘Tuesday Night: Patchy frost. Otherwise, increasing clouds, with a low around 34.’ Oh, c’mon now, people, it’s pretty much frickin’ May already. This southern boy shouldn’t be seein’ ‘patchy frost and 34’ forecasts in the weather … Lord, will I make it another year amongst the yankees and eskimos? (No…

More candidates that I hadn’t thought of for 50 worst songs (from Stereogum): Chris De Burgh “Lady in Red” (truly horrific) Patrick Swayze “She’s Like the Wind” (ditto) Don Johnson “Heartbeat” (tritto) However, Swing Out Sister should not be on the list. “Breakout” is cheesy in retrospect but no other song screams 1987 quite so…

An amazing quote from a new biography of King James I by Alan Stewart that I’m saving to read until after the end of schoolwork (the quote is from a memoir by the seventeenth-century writer John Oglander): “If he had but the power, spirit and resolution to have acted that which he spoke, or done…

I went to work around 9.00 this morning and the campus seemed blessedly deserted. I saw maybe five people cross my path as I walked from the corner of State and South University to the Undergrad Library. By the time I got off work at 12.15, though, the campus was exploding with people. The fourth…

Saw this today on Metafilter—a nice place to compare statistics and see photos of cities all over the country. I pulled up the stats for all the place I’ve lived in over the last 40 years to see how they stacked up against each other and my current residence, AA, MI. Sorta kinda interesting. (All…

There’s a seven-minute (or so) segment in the bonus features on the DVD of Jeffrey Blitz’s 2002 documentary “Spellbound” that features a semifinalist from Ann Arbor. There are a few seconds of footage of the town at the beginning of the segment, with interesting choices for shots—the Greyhound bus depot on Huron and the bridge…

Today, a first: a trio of homeless people kicking back with their cadged shopping carts in Frisinger Park. They must have been there because the police rousted them from the center of town for the Book Fair. I was surprised to see them—the homeless in Ann Arbor are virtually invisible, unlike in San Francisco, where…

It’s Ella Fitzgerald’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Lady Ella, wherever you are.

Strange how you can have two very different experiences at two not-all-that-dissimilar chain restaurants. We had dinner at Macaroni Grill on Thursday night, and that was fine. The food was great, and although the restaurant was somewhat crowded, all we had to contend with was a loud cell-phone chatterer at a table behind us (and…

Pickerel Lake is hardly a unique appellation. Turns out there’s at least 22 other lakes in Michigan with exactly the same name.

We drove past campus today and saw undergrads dutifully trundling their belongings out to sidewalks and cars, along with a few half-hearted, exhausted lawn parties sputtering along and a ton of “For Rent” signs all the way from the center of campus out to past Zeeb Road as we drove out to Dexter-Huron Metro Park…

Maybe we didn’t give it enough of a chance, but I was kind of underwhelmed by the Ann Arbor Book Festival today. (It fills a portion of North University for a couple of days every year around this time.) There were a sizable number of people there, but nowhere near as many as I expected,…

I’m really, really going to have to take (and see through) 502 next winter. Damn. Having said that, I know (especially now that the term’s essentially over) that there’s no way on God’s green earth I could have taken it this year (along with my other courses and my job and my DFE) and survived….

Can’t recall the last time I slept for 10 hours straight, but that’s what I did last night. It felt great.

I was on the bus this afternoon and passed through Party House Row on South State. One of the roofs had about fifteen subscriber newspapers, still in their wrappers, scattered all over it. I wonder what that was all about.

Sometimes I wonder where the hell I’m living. It seems that the Michigan House has just passed a bill that, if it gets approved by the Senate, will permit doctors and other health care providers to refuse to treat a patient on “moral, ethical, or religious grounds” (with the exception of emergency treatment). Those grounds…

Done, done, done ….. up till hours I’m ashamed to divulge finishing it, but it’s done ….. don’t know how coherent the product is, but it’s done. Hallelujah. Now, the CS 810 paper awaits. But that will actually be fun to write (I tell myself).

The beagle is once again in his customary final exam support role, next to me down here in the basement as the wind from the approaching thunderstorm howls outside. Superstitious though it may seem, I know I’ll make it through as long as he’s around.

Well, ugh. That’s my reaction after completing the first three assignments for the first of four undergrad courses the University of Michigan is forcing me to take before I will be permitted to join that exclusive club, grad school, on 29-June. UM’s School of Ed pointed me to, of all places, Brigham Friggin’ Young University’s…

Between converting this site to Textpattern—since LunarPages is no longer interested in helping resurrect MovableType (if they ever were)—and starting my 12 hours of undergrad courses in preparation for grad school 29-June and substitute teaching, I’ve had very little time for updates here, sorry. But let’s take a quick look at how the Boy War…

Blender and VH1 have teamed up to list the 50 worst songs of all time. I would agree that Starship’s “We Built This City” is a plenty bad song, but the worst? The worst? Have these people never heard Bryan Adams’ ”(Everything I Do) I Do It for You?” Michael Bolton’s “How Am I Supposed…

How long will it be before all the ash trees in southeastern Michigan die out? I heard a figure on the radio just now of 6 million ash decimated by the emerald ash borer and almost did a double take. Unbelievable.

A howling wind tore through the boulevards of the southeastern Michigan town, stirring up dust motes, leaves, beetles, and memories of regret, pathos, and anomie.

This year’s Lyttle Lytton Prizes (a spinoff from the better-known Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, sponsored every year by San Jose State University) have been announced. The winner: This is the story of your mom’s life. Runners-up: I am pleased to announce that, although attitudes have improved immensely, the beatings will continue. And: While a hellish yowl…

Tornado weather, says Hillary ….. great! The one that passed through the day we arrived last August was enough for me, but I suppose that’s wishful thinking. (On another subject, Hillary has a great post about John Negroponte, Bush’s new “ambassador” to Iraq.)

Let’s see. Prediction from the National Weather Service: possibility of thunderstorms 20%; temperature will rise to 76 by noon then fall to 67; and the winds will be between 25-30 mph, with gusts as high as 49 mph. Great. I don’t know whether to dress for wind and rain or for a luau.

This weather is almost astonishing in its California-ness. Blue skies, sunlight for most of the daylight hours, temperatures in the high 70s, and lots of dry wind. I suppose, on second thought, it’s more like a typical spring day in Merced, but that’s neither here nor there. Wildflowers are popping out all over the complex….

The dog was back to his old tricks today, though he seemed to be somewhat more drowsy than usual (which is to say, he spent somewhat more than his usual 22.5 hours a day asleep). He ran without much apparent impairment down the stairs to be let out this morning, darted speedily over to the…

The nightmare that is the last few weeks of school is almost over ….. yet it seems right now as though it will never be over. April 29 seems very far away.

We no longer have cable, so we’re already unwittingly doing it, but if you have cable and are of a mind to do this, it’s something to consider. [Link courtesy LibraryJuice.]

   [First pic: We’re going somewhere? Now? YAHOO!!! Second pic: Ummmm, this is a really long hike, dude. Third pic: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!] Today, we demanded too much of the geriatric and overweight in our house. And I’m not referring to myself or Frank. We took the beagle on a very long (too long) hike around Pickerel…

The archival permalinks are now working. I missed a step in the Textpattern setup regarding ‘clean URIs’ that I didn’t see the other day. So, we should be back running. No word yet on if or when LunarPages can resurrect Movable Type; the server is scheduled to go down Sunday at 04:00, so even accessing…

« Here’s how the Boy Emperor supports our troops ». Dr. Strangerummy made the announcement: ‘The Pentagon formally announced Thursday that it had stopped the planned return from Iraq of some 20,000 American troops, giving commanders the extra firepower they believe necessary to confront an insurgency that is taking a mounting toll on the U.S.-led…

    Proof that Ann Arbor is not always a ‘sunless horror, devoid of joy and hope,’ was provided by a gigantic orange ball in the sky the last couple of days; beagles were especially grateful as they took the opportunity to get in some serious tanning. (No, he’s not mad in that last pic, he’s…

Weekend Magazine, The Michigan Daily’s, well, weekend magazine, put out its Best of Ann Arbor issue today and a very well-deserved Best Blog award was given to Rob over at Goodspeed Update. We weren’t even mentioned. Alas. I’m beyond crushed. The nod to GU is great, but the article’s true genius is the final paragraph,…

Technology is a wonderful thing … until it crashes and burns spectacularly. We’ve had our own problems (obviously) with technology here around the manse this week; the crash of our Movable Type CMS punted us back into the dark ages of hand-coding web pages (oh the horror!). But at least we weren’t alone. I went…

Until I straighten out the fight between Movable Type and Textpattern over my single SQL database, older comments you may have made on posts will not be available, but they are not lost. However, the commenting system is working fine, so feel free to rant away … that is all.

Today really felt like the first day of spring. Classes were sitting out holding their sessions in circles on the grass, there was some massive groovy “Goodness Day” event going on in the Diag, and every available spot on the grass was covered with sunbathers or Frisbee throwers. A lot of out-of-town visitors now too,…