off to...

Co-Flacinum

I woke up one morning and this word was written on the notepad next to my bed.  It's oddly clear.  I have no recollection of writing it, and a Google search provides no clue to what might have triggered it.  Curious.

Up to

It's been a busy few months in Flint.  I'm settled in to the fifth week of classes, and I've reached the limit on my library account (we only get 15 books out at a time).  The students are impressive, and my colleagues are friendly, smart, and helpful.  We've begun an assistant professor writing group, and I just submitted the first draft for review (scary for a newbie!).  More importantly, perhaps, they've been supportive of my car-free lifestyle by driving me to the hospital (an overreaction) and out for grocery trips. 

I've spent much of my time in the kitchen, canning, slicing, and curing.  Some pictures to follow.  I miss my friends and regular haunts in the Twin Cities.  Catching Lake Calhoun or the Metrodome or the skyline during a sportscast is always surprising.  I'm determined to get back soon.   

In the mean time, I've got grading to keep me busy, and a house to clean in preparation for my parents' visit. 

Squaring off some pork belly for home-cured bacon:

Prepping a Lake Huron salmon for filleting:

First day perks

Closing the office door and rocking out before class.  The PhD was worth it for this alone.

Oops

Last night I dreamt about my nephew Charley.  We were playing and eating some cauliflower and I accidentally dropped a piece into his ear.  It was a rather large floret, and it went right in and down, far away, into the cavern of his ear.  There was no way to retrieve it.  I got very nervous.  Charley then began to complain of a sore throat, because, you know, there was a large floret stuck in the cavern of his ear, probably near--or even in--his throat.  I woke up thinking that if he just drank a lot of water and swallowed enough, surely it would just dissolve over time...

Henry and Spaghetti and Cake

Arc

No matter what I do in the future, nothing will be as stressful as driving the monorail crane in the Kohler foundry.  Below the crane swung a ladle filled with four and a half tons of molten iron.  I transported it from the melt furnaces to the holding furnaces, lowering it, raising it, keeping it from swinging.  At five thirty in the morning, there is nothing more mesmerizing than the arc of molten iron burning through four feet of space from the lip of my ladle into the trough of the furnace. But, after an especially mesmerizing pour, when, transfixed so thoroughly that I missed the signal to stop, I overflowed the holding furnace risking the lives of a few co-workers, I stopped appreciating the arc so carefully. 

A Day With the Boys

I arrived in time to help put shoes on.  Henry was stunned and cried when I picked him up, then we went all aboard for a morning of garage sales and sun.  Charley on my shoulders and Henry in the stroller, we wheeled and dealed for books, knives, clothes, and candy.  Back at home, it was peanut butter and jelly, chips with lime, and a Gala apple.  The big kids reminisced while Charley told stories about his future friend Wanda and Henry amused himself with smiles and giggles that made their own sense.  Then it was bike riding, golf, and trouble all in quick succession.  I escaped before discipline, and drove home happy with my day.  I'll be back soon. 

I didn't take enough pictures with my camera.  But I'll post two.  The first I call "Drippy and Drooly," and it reflects Henry's facial status all day.  The second is aptly titled "Ring Pop," and I think the ring part is still in the cup holder of the car.  Sorry Sarah! 

Hose

The waves never stop.  We're five, spread out, singing, wading, head down seeking stones.  The beach is nearly empty but for us.  The water is cold.  Mid-July in Sheboygan, and it's enough to get within sight of the beach to cool off.  Mom carries three sets of shoes as we see whose ankles are hardiest for Lake Michigan's icy water.  The lake wins.  We're chattering soon, heading back to the car baking in the sun.  By the time we get home, we're warm, ready for dinner, just about to erupt into sibling snarls.  But our feet are still full of sand, and they're not allowed in the house until they're clean.  And that means the hose must be turned on and Dad has to spray them off.  No one likes this idea.  We use the towel, we wipe them in the grass, but no, the hose.  For some reason we forget this step.  We forget the requirement, the protests, and we forget, most importantly, that if we would just shut up, time it right, we could all get clean feet with warm water that's been sitting in the hose all day.  Dad reminds us of this every time, yet, inevitably, we all dawdle.  So what should be a simple, unmemorable task, has become a low trauma learning experience.  And the image that lingers is not one of us happily washing off and then heading in to change, it's of my Dad standing, the yard as his backdrop, holding the green garden hose, smiling goofily as all the warm water arcs, wasted, onto the bright green grass.

Crashed

The transit way was empty and free of snow, but I crashed nevertheless.  For some reason, my cold hands slipped and snagged something on my handlebars, turning my wheel 90 degrees at 15 mph.  The front wheel hopped once against the pavement, I spun sideways and then flipped over, landing hard on my backpack in the middle of the road.  The casualties included some grease on my jacket, a bit of fender busted in the road, and a smashed box filled with tapes of Romeo and Juliet that I was going to mail to my  niece.  I picked myself back up, assessed the bike, then got my frozen ass back on and laughed the rest of the way to school.  

As the middle child...

I now realize why I have two sisters: if you lick both beaters and the bowl you get an upset tummy.  See, this is just smart parenting.  Way to go Mom and Dad.  Lesson learned. 

Grabbing

Smiling

A Very Nephew Christmas

The Pan Hobby

I've learned lessons.  But mostly it's nice to have my shower back.

Books and Biking

• Just finished The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.  If I had read this book eight years ago, I would be finishing a dissertation in a completely different field.
• Snagged a monograph called Depression and Philosophy by Robert Redeker from the library's New Books shelf, and loved it.  Two lines stand out: "The illusion of being an individual is the fake nose of conformism" (37) and "[The massification of the human] constructs a flat human, the human without obscurity, whose wind-swollen vanity drives shamelessly the loud gondolas of tele-reality" (34).
• I biked yesterday.  It was -30 or so with the wind chill.  I fell in front of a blue mini as I turned off of Como onto the transit way.  Humbling, but I was late, so picked myself up and pushed on.  When I got to the center, I had to run my thumbs under warm water.   

It's the Free Willy part that really finally breaks me

Google Adds Outliner

Google added a ToDo list application to its ever improving email interface.  However, I'm going to take the geek to another level and point out that this same application can manage outlines very effectively.  This is perfect for those late night, drunken rants that you need to organize effectively, or for those delicate emails to students explaining why, yes, they will fail your course because they didn't complete the assignments. 

Artisan Bread

Like many, I've hopped on the No Knead Bread band wagon.  It is brilliant, tasty, and I love making it.  I won't go into how each loaf is different in neat ways, or how it crackles as it cools, or how the crust explodes when you cut into it.  Give it a go on your own.  You will not be disappointed.  What's interesting, is that I've started to bake more and more bread even as I read and teach a book on the dangers of carbohydrates.  It's been an interesting experience, to say the least.  And one day two weeks ago, I brought in a loaf and some of my sister's awesome strawberry jam, and the class and I made peace with the carbohydrate. 

I wasn't sure how teaching Gary Taubes's excellent Good Calories, Bad Calories would go.  Some of my friends were skeptical, and my younger sister, a dietician, won't even talk about it with me.  And going into class, I expected a lot of resistance, at least as much resistance as they showed to Postman's Technopoly.  But by the end of the book, the majority of the class seems to buy Taubes's argument (in brief: Taubes's argument is that the carbohydrate hypothesis is at least viable enough to warrant scientific experiments; they're haven't been any, and at the end of the book I think most people will be convinced, not that they should give up bread, but that some degree of scientific due dilligance is in order.)  Surprisingly, some of my students seemed to agree even more strongly with Taubes after we read a harsh review of the book by an expert in the journal Obesity. 

It's been an interesting journey with this text, and a longer discussion of it in my class is probably in order.  On the last day, however, I did tell them what I think are the major points to remember, and they aren't that they should stop eating bread.  Instead, they had to do with writing, research, argument, tone, style, and the effectiveness of treating a scientific topic in a sophisticated way.  Taubes's book is an exemplar for showing the public how science really works, and I hope that my students walk away with a sharper eye for how people can and should write effectively about issues in science and technology.  If they paid attention as they read, these lessons could not have missed them.

And the bread?  I plan on baking it for a long time to come.  Here's what you're missing:

Two Faces

Sounds like: "waaaarahhhhh warah wa"
Means: "No Photos!"

This one makes you feel like he just pulled a fast one on you.

Spiderman Pajamas Self-Shot

Greg Seeks *Real* Employment; Father Sighs in Relief

Updated map of my epic job search.  It's been a super fascinating process, and I'm glad to have friends going through it with me.  We're competitive, to be sure, but it's exciting and supportive, and mostly we all just want each other to get awesome jobs in sweet locations so we can be invited as guest speakers on the university's dime.

Hello Chicago!

We have a new president.

How To Frighten My Students

I couldn't sleep tonight, so I decided to do some research into paragraph structures.  If my students knew how excited I got when I discovered this 1909 copy of Paragraph-writing: A Rhetoric for Colleges by Fred Newton Scott, Joseph Villiers Denney I think I would lose any street cred I've amassed so far. 

I can't stand to read it online. I'm going to nab a copy from the library tomorrow. 

Note to Self

Even amidst the dissertation and job market stress, keep this in mind: Enjoy the fall.   Enjoy the winter.  These are the last nine months you'll spend in the Twin Cities, and perhaps the last nine months you'll spend in the midwest.  Don't take them for granted.  The place you live next may not have seasons.  It may not have snow.  It may not have a metropolis.  It may not be this close to your parents or your sisters or your nephews.  New adventures await, surely, but pay attention as this adventure comes to a close. 

Coming Home

Sometimes I'm so happy that I tidied up before leaving.  It's nice to come home to this:

Taking a Student's Question Seriously

And I learned something in the process.

Breadlines, part II

Three Good Things

First, my sister is swimming again.  Yay!  I remember when I first beat her in the pool, I think it was some small hotel pool in Florida, and my mom was the timer.  I was very proud.  Keep it up! 

Second, I help people! This is feedback from one of my online consultations this week:

"greg was great! i wasn't anticipating to make so much progress from one chat. i think i got a lot more done then i would have if i had came in for a consult. at one point, probably 15 minutes into the chat, i couldn't think of any other questions and was going to end the chat. greg assured me he would wait if i wanted to review my work again because i still had a half hour left. i ended up using the entire 45 minutes and got so much accomplished! i was so grateful for his help!"

Third, a morning with the nephews:

Breadlines

This is my bicycle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

The Perfect Circle from Matthew on Vimeo.