The way I figure it, on the day you notice the Playboy centerfold is younger than you, you’re officially an adult.
On the day you notice the president of the United States is younger than you, you’re officially an old man.
Barack is 48 years old. *whew* I’m safe for another four years. Maybe eight.
I went to a benefit show at Devil’s Point last night. Some random observations:
And wow, were these performers amazing! From start to finish (when I was too tired to go on), every performer was first rate. I mean, wow! Hell of a show.
Which wasn’t true for the one performer I saw before the benefit proper started. Attitude counts for a hell of a lot. All the slick moves and acrobatics in the world won’t cover for a performer who is bored and going through the motions.
This was the first time I’ve ever see someone strip to the theme song for Ghostbusters.
One dancer wore a house coat, curlers and fuzzy slippers, stripping to “Stacy’s Mom (Has Got It Going On)”. Absolutely inspired idea.
There was a fellow at the show dressed in a full unicorn costume. *shakes head* It takes all kinds.
I saw dancers perform to James Brown, Brian Setzer, Iggy Pop and the Dead Kennedys. Not the usual set list. I loved it!
One dancer did a full on belly dancer set. Wow! That shift from anterior pelvic tilt to posterior tilt snapped back and forth, with mechanical precision and amazing speed. Let me say again, wow!
Someone in the crowd was talking to their friend using a Elmo finger puppet. Again, the mind boggles.
If you attempt to extinguish a flaming torch with a damp towel, and the towel has gotten so saturated with fuel that it ignites, maybe you should use a different towel to smother the next torch. You’d think this would be obvious but… not so much.
Things to note:
A pine needle in my spokes sounds faintly like a playing card stuck in your spokes from back when you were a kid. What brand of playing card? Bicycle, natch!
Thirty minutes is plenty of time.
Even with a stiff headwind. Ooof!
Nasty traffic accident at 252nd, blocking all but one lane for both directions. Sobering. Be careful out there!
Looking forward to Critical Mass tonight!
Ladies and gentlemen, the grand shower renovation of 2008 has concluded!
All told, 21 days and *mumble, mumble* dollars.
Tonight I did some final tidying and straightening, then put privacy film on the window, hung the hospital-style ceiling curtain track for the triple-length shower curtain, and cleaned and straightened all over again.
And then finally took the inaugural shower.
Oh my, yes.
The best shower I’ve had since I don’t know when. 🙂
I’m looking forward to doing that a lot!
Small tweaks are still to be done. I need to do a bit of touch up with some white paint on the ceiling. I am not entirely settled on the shower heads yet. I need to find a place to hang towels and wash cloths. I need a new bathroom rug. But that’s just details and noise in the big picture. This shower rules!
How long before I decide I need a bigger water heater? *grin*
The entire album of photos can be found here.
You think you remember experiences from a year ago, then you experience them again all fresh and shiny, and realize you had no bloody idea.
Tutoring at the local community college started today. For those who didn’t read my blog a year ago, here’s a brief recap of how it works:
The Tutoring Center is a big open room, with lots of long cafeteria tables in it. Each table has a little sign on it – Algebra, Trig, Pre-Calculus, Calculus, Physics, Engineers, Chemistry, Accounting, Economics. Students sit at the appropriate table for the subject they are working on. This is kind of nice, because it gives the students a chance to talk with each other about problems or concepts. But when they get stuck, they flip up a red mailbox flag on the sign. That’s the cue for one of the tutors to come scurrying over to help.
The general idea for the tutor is to tease information out of the student, try to lead them to the right ideas, give them just enough help to get them back on track, and then scurry away. There’s a strong emphasis on not doing the work for the student, but to really help them in the learning process. And be quick about it, because there are two other flags up already. Ooops, three.
This makes the experience fairly dynamic for the tutors. For instance, today I bounced from teaching someone how to solve simple algebraic equations, doing a physics (Newtonian motion) word problem, graphing lines, some pre-Calc (calculating average rate of change between points on a curve), explaining that g(x) is really no different a concept than f(x), simple word problems (oh no, one side of the field is bordered by a river!) and doing unitary conversions in Chemistry, etc. I was slammed, for two hours solid. I finally begged a brief break to use the head and realized I had worked past the end of my shift without even taking a moment to breathe. Sheesh!
I’m finding that I really enjoy tutoring at the CC level. Yeah, the students and subject matter aren’t always as advanced as I might like. But, I have yet to meet a single student who wasn’t deeply engaged and eager to learn. It seems like the typical undergrad these days is there because, well… it’s what comes next after high school. And maybe they are there to learn, but they’re just as likely to be there for the parties, the Greek scene, getting drunk, getting laid, getting stoned, football games. Preferably all at the same time. By contrast, the CC students I’ve met are all highly motivated. They are there because they are eager to get into some training program for a new career, or to get out of manual labor into a profession, or as catch-up and prep for an undergrad somewhere. But they are all there to learn, and they are desperate to soak up the information, if someone can simply put the concepts in a form they can digest.
So yeah, I’m tutoring again. Good times. 🙂
New pictures are posted to the gallery on Picasa.
The curb is in place, cement poured, rubber membrane installed, cement board on top of all that.
And tile is being installed on the floor outside the shower pan.
Well, at long last, I signed the (first of many) big check for the remodel on the downstairs bathroom. Here it is “before”. The angle is awkward, I know.
The little triangular shower is coming out. We’re putting in a large shower, roughly 4′ x 8′, with two shower heads. The gray vinyl flooring will be replaced with a black tile I’m quite fond of. Tile walls, new paint, yadda, yadda.
Today, the basic demolition happened. Sheet rock removed, modular shower removed.
Tomorrow the new shower pan will begin construction. I’m told the entire job will be something less than a month. And less than *mumble, mumble* dollars. Here’s hoping. 🙂
You know those annoying silicon “livestrong” bracelets? There are a thousand variations on them these days. I’m going to propose yet another set. I want a full set of bracelets in colors and with text that match the Department of Homeland Security (long liebe mein Fatherland) terror alert chart!
Come on, don’t you want an orange bracelet that says “HIGH”? Or maybe “ELEVATED”?
The marketplace so very clearly needs this.
A couple of weekends ago, I attended the Fire Arts Festival in Oakland CA.
I attended a forerunner of the show about 6 years ago. The show is hosted by The Crucible, an educational artists’ space for crafts like blacksmithy, ceramics, enameling, glass blowing, welding… all seemingly fire related.
There’s a cliche that says time moves faster as you grow older. The cliche certainly holds true for me; I cannot fathom that 2008 is half way over already. Hell, I can’t believe that I’m in my 40s already!
This morning, I started wondering if that syndrome has anything to do with why gardening is a hobby that seems to have a greater appeal to an older demographic. When I was a kid, plants seemed to grow and mature at an agonizingly slow pace, glacial, even. Continental drift, I’m saying. Now? It seems like I can see more changes in the yard with every passing day. Each morning I see something new in the yard, or I reach new conclusions about what’s working and what isn’t.
The current enthusiasm for watering seems to be paying off dividends for the bamboo and the small raspberry. There’s lots of fresh green growth and little baby raspberries.
We’ve also planted a tiny plot with some wheat grass and some catnip. My hope is that the cats will develop a fondness for that area, and will be less likely to throw up wheat grass, compared with the daily deposits of bile and mundane grass that they are leaving me.