I don't really feel that way, but when you are married to Kelly it is not uncommon to find Rod Stewart lyrics running through one's head. In this year of milestones and changes, it occurred to me that this is the first autumn since 1974 when I haven't been in school.
I am still adjusting to this. I have set my internal clock to the academic calendar for so long that it is hard to think in terms of "fiscal quarters" instead of semesters... as if one was any less arbitrary than the other.
It is good to have stepped away from the classroom. I had reached a stagnation point in improving as a teacher. What I wanted to do was to help students learn to figure things out for themselves, to see connections and to grasp fundamental concepts in a way that they would retain and apply rather than forget. The challenge of a classroom is that every student responds differently to the same process. By the end, I was staring too much at the students who didn't respond well to my style and was becoming frustrated at my inability to adapt myself.
Now I am trying to learn as frantically as possible. It is interesting to assess how much of my formal knowledge I use. I would say that a majority of the time, I am trained monkey. Do this, push that button, write down the result, fill out this form, blah, blah, blah. A good fraction of the time I am utilizing only the basic concepts of my education, but combining those with problem solving skills and a willingness to dive in and learn the particulars of a given problem. Only a tiny percentage of the time do I feel like a specialized piece of information comes in handy, but when it does it can feel like the key in the lock that makes everything move.
Kelly is taking two online classes right now, and I am intrigued by the concept. I think there is a lot of potential in the format. The learning relies very heavily on her ability to read the material, process it and figure out how to apply it. It is very labor intensive, if a student wasn't as self-motivated as Kelly it would go very poorly. I think with some tweaking, it could be a very effective format. The challenge with the current online framework is that if a topic is confusing to the student, it can be a complete roadblock since the resources to get clarification are not as prevalent.
I learned an interesting thing about teaching while watching a Nature special on PBS. Apparently humans are the only ones of the great apes who teach. Chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans are fully capable of learning by observation; but they don't actively work to instruct others. The show called it the "teaching triangle". If I point my finger at something, your eyes follow to the object. We create the triangle between the teacher, the pupil and the object. If a trainer with a gorilla points at an object, the gorilla stares at the finger of the trainer. (Commenter challenge: be the first to associate this fact with a scene from a movie. I am thinking of one in particular)
This has led to a summer of brushing up my biology. Despite having a fantastic biology teacher in high school (Hi, Mom!), my understanding of the boundary between evolutionary biology and anthropology feels weak. Perhaps the textbooks gloss over such things in a vain effort to not offend the nutjobs, or perhaps the knowledge is more recent than my biology class twenty years ago.
Given that chimpanzees share 99% of our DNA and are capable of learning, language, problem solving, play, cruelty, mathematics and personality, what does it mean to be human. What change was the crucial difference that led us down this path. After reading Jared Diamond's "Third Chimpanzee" and Richard Dawkins' "Selfish Gene", I keep coming back to the idea of teaching as the linchpin concept.
As Diamond points out, if an alien race arrived at the planet 100,000 years ago, humans would have been unremarkable and simply classified as a type of chimpanzee. He goes on to talk about some of the notable differences and similarities between ourselves and our primate cousins, but doesn't really speculate on what caused such notable shifts. Dawkins does a good job of explaining how a small genetic change can have large repercussions by reappropriating existing genes to new purposes.
It seems like the desire to teach is good candidate for the tipping point. Once humans began to teach our young rather than expect them to learn by imitation, evolutionary pressure in favor of richer language and cultural development grows. With language and culture come evolutionary pressures for extended childhood, menopause and the other human oddities.
I have no idea if I am even potentially close to correct, but it is fun to think about things outside of my usual subjects. Is it too late to go back for a PhD in anthro-evolution?
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
Worst. Shakespeare. Play. EVER.
I had always thought of this as "the ultimate date". Shakespeare, a picnic dinner, a bottle of wine, a beautiful view and an amazing woman with me. Perhaps it is best that it never came to fruition until I was with my wife. If my companion had been anyone lacking such a steadfast commitment, it might have been the "ultimate date" only in the sense of being "the last date".The food was delicious, Kelly being a chef par excellence even under the challenges of the food having to survive travel in a cooler for 24 hours. The scenery was excellent. The wine was quite tasty. The woman by my side was amazing and beautiful.
The Shakespeare was awful.
When I had first heard of this many years ago, I imagined professional actors. When I saw the listing on the website, I still thought of semi-pro actors like the Dayton Theater Guild. When we arrived on the site, I was hoping for high school amateur. Even that was above the talent on exposition.
Twas a "Midsummer Night's Dream" turned into auditions for American Idol. Highly abridged by design... further abridged by missed lines. Moderately passable scenery of the mystical wood inhabited by less passable wooden acting.
The only point in its favor was that it was SO bad. Had it been slightly better, it would have been less enjoyable. It was like they expanded the subplot of the rough craftsmen of the town performing "Pyramus and Thisbe" into the whole play. Perhaps that was a mindblowing deliberate artistic recursive metaphor.... or perhaps it was just funny to watch a four year old faerie toddle across the stage wearing a winter coat.
Now the ultimate date will have to be redesigned. Any ideas from blogspace?
Monday, August 11, 2008
If It Is Big and Brown, Flush it Down
I was all serious in my previous post. I tried to change gears in mid-blog, but my bloggy clutch pedal is broken. I ended up with a wretched stink of burnt oil and confused metaphors.
If you were reading back in May when I was lamenting how nothing had gone right with the move, I mentioned that I had shipped out most of my clothes with the shipping company associated with big brown trucks that say UPS in gold letters on the side. In this Coke vs. Pepsi style competition, I had always been a UPS guy, though not for any particular reason. Not anymore. If I have to ship something important, I am a FedEx man.
When last we left the story of shipping incompetence, the company was unable to find a 8000 cubic inch box which I had entrusted into their care. Their not being able to find a box containing all of my work clothes and a piece of wedding memorabilia that I thought would be safer with them than with the moving company was only part of my frustration. The biggest frustration was that UPS would not talk to me about it. You see, despite the fact that I boxed it up, it was my stuff and I paid to have it shipped.... I was not the shipper. No, the shipper of record was the manager of the store that I had shipped it from.
And so begins a recurring pattern. I call the store, manager isn't there, I call back, manager isn't there, he calls me, I can't take call, call back, not there. Miracle of quantum mechanics occurs placing manager and me on the same call at the same time. I explain that the tracking data for one of my boxes stopped in Illinois whilst the other box continued to California. Manager says he will call to put a trace on it. Which is exactly what the lady on the phone said should be done, except she couldn't do it for me because I wasn't the shipper. Apparently having a box addressed to California be stuck in Illinois for a week isn't enough to institute a trace either.
Two weeks pass with me compulsively checking the tracking data every day. The only change has been the addition of a line saying "Trace in progress". I call UPS frequently, to hear one of two answers "It takes a while to search all of our warehouses", or "I can't tell you anything because you are not the shipper." Finally, while on the phone asking how they could lose a massive box and would it help if I gave them a list of the contents, I am told that they found it. The story-du-jour is that the label fell off. I am given the helpful advice to put the destination address on a piece of paper inside the box also, so that if the label happens to fall off they can figure out where it is supposed to go by opening it.
A wave of relief passes over me. I had bought extra insurance on the box, but not enough to replace everything. The relief is short lived.
A box arrives. It is a different box that the one I shipped with a different tracking number. I open it up. It is my stuff, but the memorabilia item is damaged. The stuff is packed differently and not as well as I had done. Then I notice something else. A significant portion of my stuff is covered in a dried black crud. My best guess is that it was ink.
You see, the label didn't fall off the original box. The label must have been obscured by a FREAKING GALLON OF INK being poured on it. Seeing how it ruined a bunch of my clothes, I am betting that my hypothetical backup address inside the box would have been obscured as well. I am just fortunate that the topmost item in the box was a cheap beach towel and that took the worst of the hit. UPS apparently has a motto "We think our customers are freaking idiots", because rather than tell me what happened, they repackaged my stuff in a new box and hoped I wouldn't notice black stains the size of my head.
So begins the new cycle. The dance of "pay me some money for the items you ruined". I call UPS. They send me an email. I fill out the email and include digital pictures. They email back to tell me to call the shipper. (Insert wait for quantum synchronization complicated by time zone difference). Manager asks me to send him digital photos so he can submit them to the same place I have already submitted them. Weeks pass. I call UPS, they tell me to contact the manager. I call manager (quantum synch time), he says he doesn't know anything.
Finally, after much delay and many wasted hours trying to persuade either UPS to talk to me or the store manager to act like he cares that the box was marinated in ink during transit and get some answers for me, I finally get a check. In case you missed the meme here, the money to reimburse me for what I lost due to UPS incompetence is actually written to the manager of the store. He, in turn, has to write me a check.
We used the check to open up our new bank account out here.
If you were reading back in May when I was lamenting how nothing had gone right with the move, I mentioned that I had shipped out most of my clothes with the shipping company associated with big brown trucks that say UPS in gold letters on the side. In this Coke vs. Pepsi style competition, I had always been a UPS guy, though not for any particular reason. Not anymore. If I have to ship something important, I am a FedEx man.
When last we left the story of shipping incompetence, the company was unable to find a 8000 cubic inch box which I had entrusted into their care. Their not being able to find a box containing all of my work clothes and a piece of wedding memorabilia that I thought would be safer with them than with the moving company was only part of my frustration. The biggest frustration was that UPS would not talk to me about it. You see, despite the fact that I boxed it up, it was my stuff and I paid to have it shipped.... I was not the shipper. No, the shipper of record was the manager of the store that I had shipped it from.
And so begins a recurring pattern. I call the store, manager isn't there, I call back, manager isn't there, he calls me, I can't take call, call back, not there. Miracle of quantum mechanics occurs placing manager and me on the same call at the same time. I explain that the tracking data for one of my boxes stopped in Illinois whilst the other box continued to California. Manager says he will call to put a trace on it. Which is exactly what the lady on the phone said should be done, except she couldn't do it for me because I wasn't the shipper. Apparently having a box addressed to California be stuck in Illinois for a week isn't enough to institute a trace either.
Two weeks pass with me compulsively checking the tracking data every day. The only change has been the addition of a line saying "Trace in progress". I call UPS frequently, to hear one of two answers "It takes a while to search all of our warehouses", or "I can't tell you anything because you are not the shipper." Finally, while on the phone asking how they could lose a massive box and would it help if I gave them a list of the contents, I am told that they found it. The story-du-jour is that the label fell off. I am given the helpful advice to put the destination address on a piece of paper inside the box also, so that if the label happens to fall off they can figure out where it is supposed to go by opening it.
A wave of relief passes over me. I had bought extra insurance on the box, but not enough to replace everything. The relief is short lived.
A box arrives. It is a different box that the one I shipped with a different tracking number. I open it up. It is my stuff, but the memorabilia item is damaged. The stuff is packed differently and not as well as I had done. Then I notice something else. A significant portion of my stuff is covered in a dried black crud. My best guess is that it was ink.
You see, the label didn't fall off the original box. The label must have been obscured by a FREAKING GALLON OF INK being poured on it. Seeing how it ruined a bunch of my clothes, I am betting that my hypothetical backup address inside the box would have been obscured as well. I am just fortunate that the topmost item in the box was a cheap beach towel and that took the worst of the hit. UPS apparently has a motto "We think our customers are freaking idiots", because rather than tell me what happened, they repackaged my stuff in a new box and hoped I wouldn't notice black stains the size of my head.
So begins the new cycle. The dance of "pay me some money for the items you ruined". I call UPS. They send me an email. I fill out the email and include digital pictures. They email back to tell me to call the shipper. (Insert wait for quantum synchronization complicated by time zone difference). Manager asks me to send him digital photos so he can submit them to the same place I have already submitted them. Weeks pass. I call UPS, they tell me to contact the manager. I call manager (quantum synch time), he says he doesn't know anything.
Finally, after much delay and many wasted hours trying to persuade either UPS to talk to me or the store manager to act like he cares that the box was marinated in ink during transit and get some answers for me, I finally get a check. In case you missed the meme here, the money to reimburse me for what I lost due to UPS incompetence is actually written to the manager of the store. He, in turn, has to write me a check.
We used the check to open up our new bank account out here.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
The End of the Journey
The four month saga is now over. Kelly and I are officially Californians and only Californians. Our house in Dayton sold on Thursday.
At the moment, I feel okay about that. I think on one hand, it hasn't completely sunk in. Hell, there is a part of me that doesn't really believe my parents moved out of the old homestead. I know they have been living in a new place for six years, but there is a part of my brain that thinks I could swing by the old place and walk in the back door like nothing had changed.
On the other hand, the house had become a source of worry and frustration. The challenge of trying to sell it while at distance has been very frustrating. Getting it ready nearly finished off my wife. And the size of the rent payments out here made selling it imperative.
On the left foot (I ran out of hands), I think I may have had my bad moments. The worst was the day that I signed the lease for our new house. I woke up at 2 AM, and something about the sounds and the light through the doorway made me think I was back in our bedroom in Dayton. When I realized I wasn't and that I never would be again, a wave of immense sadness swept over me.
On the right foot, we are finally getting our feet under us out here. I am glad that we grabbed this house when we had the chance. We were lucky to get it. It is also to good to finally stop feeling so impermanent. As nice as the corporate apartment was, the knowledge that it was temporary kept us from settling in. Now we have a place we know we will be for a while. Our stuff is out of storage and around us. With every passing day it feels a little more like home. It is a place we can start bringing friends into and building new memories with.
At the moment, I feel okay about that. I think on one hand, it hasn't completely sunk in. Hell, there is a part of me that doesn't really believe my parents moved out of the old homestead. I know they have been living in a new place for six years, but there is a part of my brain that thinks I could swing by the old place and walk in the back door like nothing had changed.
On the other hand, the house had become a source of worry and frustration. The challenge of trying to sell it while at distance has been very frustrating. Getting it ready nearly finished off my wife. And the size of the rent payments out here made selling it imperative.
On the left foot (I ran out of hands), I think I may have had my bad moments. The worst was the day that I signed the lease for our new house. I woke up at 2 AM, and something about the sounds and the light through the doorway made me think I was back in our bedroom in Dayton. When I realized I wasn't and that I never would be again, a wave of immense sadness swept over me.
On the right foot, we are finally getting our feet under us out here. I am glad that we grabbed this house when we had the chance. We were lucky to get it. It is also to good to finally stop feeling so impermanent. As nice as the corporate apartment was, the knowledge that it was temporary kept us from settling in. Now we have a place we know we will be for a while. Our stuff is out of storage and around us. With every passing day it feels a little more like home. It is a place we can start bringing friends into and building new memories with.
Friday, July 4, 2008
PHENOMENAL COSMIC LOCATION.... itty bitty living space
After writing one more massive check as part of the moving process, Kelly and I now know where we will be living for the foreseeable future. We did some searching for apartments last weekend. We didn't see anything that we were particularly excited by. The combined challenge of space, dog, cost and location made it clear that it would be a tough challenge.
Then, on Tuesday, I saw a house for rent on Craigslist. It was in our price range and only 1.5 miles from work. It has a garage, which I think will be very nice and a big improvement over an apartment. It also has a nice dog-friendly back yard with a peach tree and a cherry tree. Go out and pick your own breakfast! The competition for the place was fierce, but thanks to a good credit rating and writing a cover letter to the application that helped us be more than names on a piece of paper, we won.
My prediction for moving to California was absolutely true... half the living space and twice the monthly payment. It is also a little earlier than would have been ideal. But I think the quality of life will be much better than it would have been in an apartment. The odds of a place like it opening up in the next month... and winning that competition... were too slim to pass on this chance.
Don't send us any housewarming gifts just yet. We will probably take most of July to move in and set it up like we want. After that we will be open for visitors. Check your email for snail mail address updates.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Meta-posting
With a little luck, the life updates in this blog should get a little more boring. Kelly joins the dog and I in California today, and should be able to get some well deserved rest and relaxation. The house is still on the market, but that is a worry for another day.
I expect to fill this space more with my philosophical ruminations, which I find more fascinating than most of my daily life. Hopefully, you will too.
I came up with the title for this blog almost two years ago. Samwise Gamgee has always been my favorite fictional character ever since seeing the animated "Return of the King" at a very young age. ("Where there's a whip... there's a way..."). In some ways, it is odd that I grabbed onto him rather than Frodo. It could be that by starting with the RotK (it took me a couple more years to finish the books for the first time), my first impression of Frodo was a whining, tired and indecisive hobbit while Sam did all the real work.
While my appreciation for Frodo has grown with the dozen or two times I have read the books, so has my admiration and identification with Sam. I have always seen myself as the able assistant rather than the leader. I tend to be the practical minded supporter who figures out how to make it happen rather than the idea creator.
Which brings me to the quote... "Where there is life, there is hope, as my gaffer would say. And need for vittles, he'd mostwise add." When I was younger, and EVEN more idealistic than I am today, I think I only focused on the first part. Just having hope in the middle of Mordor surrounded by a million orcs is a significant achievement. But the power comes from the second part. Without a practical mindset, hope is an ephemeral and transient entity.
The challenge comes in finding the balance... how much practicality and how much idealism. Samwise knew when to stop saving food and water for the return journey from Mount Doom and to just concentrate on keeping Frodo going. The challenge is finding the balance that you can live with in your own head.
That was old Hamfast's advice for his son. My dad offered advice from the confusing "You can't have your cake and eat it too" (what else do you do with cake?) to another of my life mantras "There are two things in life worth their money every single time... education and travel." On this Father's Day, anyone reading the blog is encouraged to leave comments with good, bad or humorous tidbits their fathers passed along to them.
I expect to fill this space more with my philosophical ruminations, which I find more fascinating than most of my daily life. Hopefully, you will too.
I came up with the title for this blog almost two years ago. Samwise Gamgee has always been my favorite fictional character ever since seeing the animated "Return of the King" at a very young age. ("Where there's a whip... there's a way..."). In some ways, it is odd that I grabbed onto him rather than Frodo. It could be that by starting with the RotK (it took me a couple more years to finish the books for the first time), my first impression of Frodo was a whining, tired and indecisive hobbit while Sam did all the real work.
While my appreciation for Frodo has grown with the dozen or two times I have read the books, so has my admiration and identification with Sam. I have always seen myself as the able assistant rather than the leader. I tend to be the practical minded supporter who figures out how to make it happen rather than the idea creator.
Which brings me to the quote... "Where there is life, there is hope, as my gaffer would say. And need for vittles, he'd mostwise add." When I was younger, and EVEN more idealistic than I am today, I think I only focused on the first part. Just having hope in the middle of Mordor surrounded by a million orcs is a significant achievement. But the power comes from the second part. Without a practical mindset, hope is an ephemeral and transient entity.
The challenge comes in finding the balance... how much practicality and how much idealism. Samwise knew when to stop saving food and water for the return journey from Mount Doom and to just concentrate on keeping Frodo going. The challenge is finding the balance that you can live with in your own head.
That was old Hamfast's advice for his son. My dad offered advice from the confusing "You can't have your cake and eat it too" (what else do you do with cake?) to another of my life mantras "There are two things in life worth their money every single time... education and travel." On this Father's Day, anyone reading the blog is encouraged to leave comments with good, bad or humorous tidbits their fathers passed along to them.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Power of positive thinking time....
I am trying not have this blog be subtitled "Michael bitches and moans about having to work at a really cool job in the spectacular weather of the Bay Area", so I have held off posting until I can temper the challenges of moving with some positive thoughts.
I want to give a big shout out to my wife. As hard as this has been on me, this has been seven times harder on her. She managed to juggle working, school and getting the house on the market and has done it all very well. I went back to Dayton over Memorial Day for a brief fly-by and the house is amazing. We have had some interest and foot traffic, so hopefully that will pay off with a sale before too long. Kelly will be out here in about a week and finally able to take some long deserved relaxation.
Another shout out goes to Carol. She made me a phenomenal scrap-book of Dayton sights, stories and histories. It really is a work of art that captures what makes the place so special. Then to cap it off, when I thanked her she added some great wisdom.
I could feel that most strongly when "other" Michael and I went to watch the San Jose Earthquakes play. Standing in the crowd, screaming my lungs out with my great friend by my side reminded me of some of the positive memories of my previous California adventure. And there will be more good memories to come.
I am looking forward to finally going on my ultimate date (with my ultimate woman) to watch Shakespeare under the stars at a winery in Sonoma. I am looking forward to lots of friends coming to visit (hint, hint). I am looking forward to lots of tennis, biking, hiking and other things that are so often weather precluded in Ohio. I look forward to lots of mini-vacations to places that were too far to visit from back east, like Yosemite, San Diego or even Hawaii.
It is hard to stay focused on the future when the present is so turbulent, but calmer waters are ahead.
On a side note... Mazel Tov to Stephen and Hannah who got married in New York last weekend. That was one of the most fun weddings I have ever been to. The circle dancing and partying was like a scene from a TV show or a movie, and the ceremony was a wonderful blend of traditional and personal.
It also gave me the opportunity to utter the immortal words... "A wife is like an adventure person".
I want to give a big shout out to my wife. As hard as this has been on me, this has been seven times harder on her. She managed to juggle working, school and getting the house on the market and has done it all very well. I went back to Dayton over Memorial Day for a brief fly-by and the house is amazing. We have had some interest and foot traffic, so hopefully that will pay off with a sale before too long. Kelly will be out here in about a week and finally able to take some long deserved relaxation.
Another shout out goes to Carol. She made me a phenomenal scrap-book of Dayton sights, stories and histories. It really is a work of art that captures what makes the place so special. Then to cap it off, when I thanked her she added some great wisdom.
So, in San Jose, . . . you will appreciate the little things that you will find in your new home. ... but you have to earn all the memories. And you can't give up just because there aren't any memories there yet.That is so true. A place has meaning because of the stories associated with it. Some of those stories are personal experiences and others are curious pieces of history that one has to learn. I need to be open to those experiences here.
I could feel that most strongly when "other" Michael and I went to watch the San Jose Earthquakes play. Standing in the crowd, screaming my lungs out with my great friend by my side reminded me of some of the positive memories of my previous California adventure. And there will be more good memories to come.
I am looking forward to finally going on my ultimate date (with my ultimate woman) to watch Shakespeare under the stars at a winery in Sonoma. I am looking forward to lots of friends coming to visit (hint, hint). I am looking forward to lots of tennis, biking, hiking and other things that are so often weather precluded in Ohio. I look forward to lots of mini-vacations to places that were too far to visit from back east, like Yosemite, San Diego or even Hawaii.
It is hard to stay focused on the future when the present is so turbulent, but calmer waters are ahead.
On a side note... Mazel Tov to Stephen and Hannah who got married in New York last weekend. That was one of the most fun weddings I have ever been to. The circle dancing and partying was like a scene from a TV show or a movie, and the ceremony was a wonderful blend of traditional and personal.
It also gave me the opportunity to utter the immortal words... "A wife is like an adventure person".
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