Glad for my Mac

The whole Apple thing is almost a religion, and I've tried to avoid being obnoxious about it. Everyone knows the jokes about having a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness on the doorstep.

But it's difficult, given the agony of doing very ordinary things on a Windows machine. The last gasp of the church's old Windows machine was the 45-minute project downloading eight PowerPoint songs to my flash drive. Then I talked them into a Mac Mini.

I should have learned my lesson, but no. I had to tempt fate. Today I've got my students writing a brief final essay, and I suggested that the ones in the non-computer classes could use their laptops and load their papers onto my flash drive. What a mistake. Ignoring the fact that the simple act of plugging a flash into a Win machine starts a 3-minute installation process, the thing was still a nightmare.

1. Click "Save As"
2. Find the picture of the computer and click that. Then scroll down and find the fairly obscure picture of my flash drive and click that.
3. Computer says the flash drive is empty, which is odd, but perhaps it just means empty of docx files. Type a name for the file and click "save."
4. Computer response: "File not found."

Now this is the point where the Apple user begins to lose his mind. I wasn't searching for anything. I wanted to make a new file. But the computer couldn't find the file that hadn't been made yet.

Maybe I shouldn't blame Windows, though. After several different fruitless tries, we plugged the flash drive into a different USB port and everything worked. Windows could recognize the first port enough to say that something was in there, but not enough to say what it was. Maybe the problem was cheap hardware after all. The whole project only took fifteen minutes.

They're baaaack!

Over the Hedge was a good movie (not great in the sense of Stardust but still pretty darn good). I never knew it was a print cartoon too! Yep! Here's the link to Over the Hedge.

Springtime in Ashland

We got hit with it big time today. The temperature is 80, the sky is blue, the cherry blossoms are full and fragrant. Cute girls with long blond hair are walking hand-in-hand with tall muscular boys, exchanging a quick, chaste kiss before they must separate to go to class. (No snogging here, and somehow the non-cute people got put in some cupboard today.) It's a scene directly from Pleasantville, except that things are in color. Redbuds are at their peak today.

Even Archway Cookies is back—today's flavor had a lot of cinnamon (you can smell it as you drive up Claremont Avenue). We thought we'd lost them, but (as this Wall Street Journal article says) they came back from bankruptcy, complete with their mascot, Archie. Whatever Archie is.

More on Street Treats

I guess I should have learned my lesson from my years working for Joe. NEVER post anything on the web without first doing a Google search! It seems that the world of trademark identity hasn't come to street vendors, so if you Google "Street Treats," you get a company that has vending machines full of dog biscuits. Nope. That's not the sandwich I love. With a hyphen, you get a company that runs those soft ice cream trucks (complete with an annoying melody that plays when you hit the website). Still not my beloved sandwich.

I have no idea how they managed it, but my Street Treats is the only private stand-alone food concession allowed on the University of Akron campus. The Union has a Subway and an Aunt Annie's Pretzels and (of course) a Starbuck's, but this one is away from all that, out in the open near the Polymer Lab.

It's an odd visual experience. On the left, as you approach, three or four large yellow-brick buildings from the 1950s. They look like government buildings or (better guess) geology buildings. Maybe the quest for clean coal is valuable, but they don't rate much in the pizzazz department when it comes to architecture. On the right, a small dormitory left over from the days when Akron was 100% commuter and only a few dozen hardy residents lived on campus. In front of you, the pride of the campus, the garish Goodyear Polymer Center, rising twelve stories into the air, covered with reflective glass, and containing two classrooms. And square in front of you, a little red trailer with a red umbrella and a line of people waiting for the two hard-working employees to make their sandwiches.

Ah those sandwiches! Always pita bread. Several meat choices: steak, chicken, hot dog (never tried that one), or gyro meat. Sauces: overpowering steak sauce, honey mustard (my favorite) or "gyro sauce" (I don't think the locals can pronounce tzatsiki). Provolone cheese? It'll cost you an extra dime. Veggies? Of course: lettuce, tomato, and raw purple onion.

Get a bottle of iced tea (and don't forget the spork.) Sit in the sun and watch the odd combination of nerdy engineers, goofy freshmen, and skateboarders walk by.

I lost my last chance.

Things have been pretty quiet around here since I put my phone number on the Federal Do Not Call List. It's a bit lonely, actually. I used to return home to at least four answering machine messages, offering me a chance to refinance my home, escape my credit card bills, or (my favorite) take advantage of the LAST CHANCE to pay for an extended warranty on my car. Things have gotten so quiet that I actually answer the phone now. That's how I got into this:

Her: I'm calling to offer you a chance to extend the warranty on your car.
Me: Ah yes! You folks call several times a day to give me one last chance to put a warranty on a car I sold three years ago.
Her: click

I shouldn't feel too bad, though. Political organizations and charities are exempt, so I still get those bogus "surveys" from the Conservatives: "Are you aware that Barack Obama favors allowing absolutely anyone to perform an abortion on absolutely anyone else?" (No, and neither is Obama aware that he favors this. Don't you love people who try to promote righteousness by telling lies?)

Spring on Campus

Spring in Akron. All the things that seem so normal to me (and so odd to others).

Blimps

Nothing in the world sounds like a blimp. Slow, piston-engine propellers, but not as big a sound as a helicopter makes. They hover low over the campus, make a turn, then go back. Over the years, I've become sort of an expert on blimp handling (at least an expert in watching them from the ground). The slightest breeze really shoves a blimp around, so they are rarely pointed in exactly the direction they are going. They fly to advertise, so they are rarely very high either, like about a thousand feet. And always with an American flag flying from the tail. They're so common that people don't even look up any more.

Chicken pita sandwiches

Yes, Street Treats is there right through the winter, through snow and sleet, but I can't quite bring myself to wait in line for a chicken sandwich when it's a blizzard, so these semi-Greek delights are mainly a warm-weather thing for me. One friend, visiting campus with me, called the sandwich "orgasmically great." I don't think I'd go that far, but they are good.

Street light sculptures

When I first arrived at Akron (seems like a lifetime ago), I noticed three things: the incredible blue sky, the smell of bread baking (Wonder Bread is just at the edge of campus), and the odd little sculptures on the tops of the street lights on campus. They seem to be cobbled up from left-over TV antennas, and at first I thought they were some sort of microwave communication system, but no. They all have little wind-chime bells, and most of them are made to look something like the human form. They have the general feel of a sophomore art project, but they have been there, tinkling away, for at least eight years now. And again, yes they are there all year around, but I only notice them in the summer. In the winter, I'm so intent on getting to class that I can't be bothered with beautiful or whimsical stuff.

We only have two more weeks of class, and the campus is at its best in high summer. That's a shame. So few people are there for the lawns, the flowers, and the Dorothy Martin fountain. I don't know who she was, but her name is attached to a modern fountain that flows rather than splashes. She's not turned on yet. I guess frost is still possible. Today a student was up on top of the pillar, playing with his girlfriend's shoes there while she giggled and shrieked.

---

Jon phoned today and I told him that I'm in the middle of my usual springtime funk. How could I get through an entire semester and tell my students so little? How could they make so little progress? How could we be such a failure? But that's only half of the story. One of my Ashland football players (who was in my Developmental class last spring) has turned out to be a fine writer, and asked my permission to name me as his favorite teacher at a halftime ceremony tomorrow. I need to remember that one when I get depressed.

Speaking of which—

I got my course list from the community college and decided to go ahead and ask for some courses, but on my terms this time. I'm going to ask for literature courses. The "current-traditional" approach (which is Composition jargon for "old-fashioned") favored there is pretty far from what I want to do with beginning English classes. And I never get to do any Literature courses. So I'm going to ask for courses that will make me happy.

And a voice from the past—When I looked at the e-mail from the college, one of the names in the "To" list caught my attention. One of the high-school boys in my Youth For Christ group from years back. Small town. Small world.

Honeypuff Redux

Ah memories of the little semi-Greek bistro where Joel and I worked a few years ago! Between having an amateur owner and a very green staff, we did about everything we could to kill that place (except steal and introduce rats). Maybe it was the location. After a stunning three-month run, the restaurant shut down and stayed empty for a good long time. Then a pizza place bought it and looked good for nearly a year. Then they vanished too. Now Athens Greek Restaurant has opened a branch operation there. I hope they make it, though I do wonder.

Athens is everything the owner of the Honeypuff despised: Greek travel posters on the walls, spaghetti on the menu, and cloves to hold the layers of filo together in the baklava. When I was at their downtown location recently, my three small dolmades appeared in the company of a large portion of cottage cheese. Not exactly what I was hoping for.

That was a busy summer for me. I worked nearly 40 hours at the restaurant (sometimes opening in the wee hours before dawn) and taught a course at North Central State College. I felt about the same when I worked in the book warehouse and taught a course. I'm about 85% convinced that I should take this summer off, do some genuine reading (both professional and pleasure) and get my academic house in order. It wouldn't be a bad idea to get my literal house in order either. The rug needs shampoo.

Great free stuff for your Apple

Just a quick list here of free computer programs I love using on my Apple:

• Caffeine keeps the Mac from falling asleep or going to screen saver. Great for presentations.
• Cyberduck, a great FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, and Cloud Files browser/uploader
• Easyfind because Mac needs some help with finding things. It will search for a file within a folder and do a lot more.
• Sweethome, a program to help you plan the interior of your house.

I assume everyone knows the standard programs like NeoOffice. Everyday stuff for me.

Hallucinations

It's spring, and people are wandering about the campus in shorts and T-shirts (temperature about 60). Every so often I think of a Mansfield resident who is well-known to a lot of us. He's a tall, thin man who walks constantly up and down the roads, speaking to an unseen companion. Rumor has it that he watched his best friend get killed in Vietnam and has never been the same since.

We have a lot of that here, but it's cell phones, the kind that look like a small pack of chewing gum attached to the ear. People walk along, having a loud, one-sided conversation, totally oblivious to the idea that they might look and sound weird. Apparently one must speak loudly for these things to work because the users often attract my attention, even from a distance of 30 yards or more.

We ought to buy one of these for the guy in Mansfield. We don't even have to put a battery in it. Then he'll look normal.

Wall-E Here

I feel a bit like the little mobile trash compactor.

I've been in non-stop work mode since Christmas (and feeling somewhat depressed on top of it all), so my apartment is a mess. Jared came in and said, "Wow! You really have been feeling bad!"

A box of books from Mom's made it about three steps inside the front door, then stopped and stayed for three months. The radioactive Fiestaware still sits on the breakfast nook table.

It's time for all that to change—I hope. It doesn't matter much where I start because there's something to do anywhere I look. It's like Wall-E and his piles of trash. There's something everywhere. Like the little robot, I have my insect friends, but in my case they are huge black ants. Another difference between us is that I actually try to kill my little friends. 700-year-old Twinkies? No (I learned this Christmas to look at expire dates), but I do have some herbs and spices that are over five years. Probably should throw those out. And, like Wall-E, I'll probably get distracted playing with some of the things I find under piles of stuff. Perhaps I'll even find a green plant in here. Beautiful robot from another planet? I doubt it.

Signs of the Times

As I sit grading papers, a student knocks on my door. She points to the sign taped there, which says Ms. [my office mate's name]'s English 112 conferences are CANCELLED for today, April 14, 2009. That's today's date.

As she points to the sign, the student asks where my office mate is. She's got a conference.

There are some situations that even I cannot help.

Back home again

Back from a really quick trip to see my mom in Washington DC. I had Good Friday and Easter Monday off, so I made it a long weekend with her.

A fine afternoon at the botanical garden, some time with my brother and his wife. Shopping with Mom (we bought one pair of nylons at Sears). Good time was had by all. I even got to show her some family pictures on Facebook. ("Who is that good-looking girl?" "That's Becky." "Oh my goodness!")

Marshmallow Peeps

The Washington Post had a feature on Marshmallow Peeps this Easter. They have progressed quite a bit, but when Rachel and I first discovered them years ago, they hadn't quite become the media darlings. We were just amused by the little misshapen yellow birds with a brown eye in the middle of their foreheads and another where their ear might be. Someone who was running the eye machine wasn't quite up to par.

I think Rachel decided I needed help with the candy after the "Easter Bat" incident. It's one of those fatherly mistakes that one never lives down.

She was already savvy to the whole Santa Claus myth, and we were living in a very conservative (read: funless) Christian community, so one day near Easter she came to me and asked, "Do we believe in the Easter Bunny?" Without a moment's hesitation, I replied, "No, honey, we believe in the Easter Bat." Then I proceeded to make up some tale of the bat that flies around and brings good children Easter candy. I sort of got into this thing, so that night, in addition to the regular Easter baskets for the kids, I made her a special one, with dark purple grass, dark chocolate eggs, and licorice jelly beans. The next morning, when she found her black-on-black Easter Bat basket, she was crestfallen. Even when I produced the conventional basket, she was still unhappy.

So that's how we ended up going to Ben Franklin every year to buy candy, with her doing all the choosing. We'd spend $20 or $30 every year, and we always looked for the most grotesque Peeps we could find.

Teachers, rednecks, money

I was sitting here remembering high school teachers, and amazed that I can put together names, faces, and stories from 1963. It's also amazing that I cannot remember much of the content they taught me, but I can remember the people.

• Mr. Maclay, the retired Presbyterian minister, who told great stories about going fishing in Pennsylvania. He always remembered that he was the adult and we were the kids, but he wasn't above squirting a kid with a confiscated squirt gun before returning it to her.
• Mr. Sickafus, my band teacher, who was perpetually disorganized, passionate about his work, and always began the class with a great little story (usually one that ended up getting us to laugh at some little event in his life)
• Mrs. Boone, my French teacher, who kept a bottle of Coke in her filing cabinet (very much against the rules) and drove a Lincoln Continental. She explained that she loved the car and her husband made enough money to support her, so she supported the car.
• Doc. Merritt, the retired physician, who came to high school to escape the pressure. He drove a pink Cadillac.

Probably the most interesting thing is that they all influenced me strongly, but mainly because they were willing to let out the human side, just a bit anyhow. Miss Ruddle, who was all business, may have gotten a lot of English into me, but I don't remember anything positive that she contributed to my life.

About those cars

The Lincoln and the Cadillac reminded me of a story from Madison School District. When my kids were in school there, the Superintendent nearly lost his job over a car. The word went out through the barber shops and the beauty salons that Fred Slater had bought a new van with school board money. When he proved that he actually had leased it with his own money, things didn't get much better. Who was he to think he could have such a nice vehicle?

Redneck-ism is kind of funny. If he'd put $30,000 into a totally pointless four-wheel-drive pickup truck, nobody would have objected. But somehow leasing a van was a problem. It's all a "you people versus us people" class warfare thing. And that's kind of odd and, to some extent, anti-American. (Yes, Rednecks are essentially out of touch with America's basic ideas.) We are amused and amazed when we read an English novel where servants are cautioned not to socialize "above their station." We're dismayed when we read pre-Civil War accounts of a black person getting in trouble for being "uppity." But today's rednecks love their low status, defend their right to be ignorant, and really look down on anyone from any culture that is built on literature, art, or education.

Fun Size

One of my students brought in some Easter candy today. I guess that's politically correct--she didn't force it on us or anything. My selection was a "Fun Size" 3 Musketeers bar.

I'm old enough that I remember exactly what the "3" in a 3 Musketeers bar was all about. When I was a kid, the things were huge. For a nickel (OK, I'm really old) we got an enormous candy bar that was some sort of fluffy chocolate stuff with a chocolate covering and two dents in the top. We could separate it into three pieces, one for the kid who bought it and one each for two lucky friends. Now I don't know about you, but for me this defines at least two kinds of fun. What could be more fun than a trio of sticky six-year-olds sharing some candy? Maybe it's a six-year-old with an enormous glob of chocolate, far too big to fit into his mouth in even three bites.

My "Fun Size" candy bar today isn't quite as big as one third of the old one. It's just big enough to pop into my mouth, chew briefly, and swallow. Fun? It's like comparing a bump in the road with a roller coaster. I miss the old one.

Maundy Thursday

It was my dear friend Egon (now, sadly, departed) who first pointed out the meaning of the name. When I was a child, I assumed church people were, for weird reasons of their own, mispronouncing "Monday Thursday." That made little sense, so I paid no attention to the weird phrase. Egon knew more Latin than I did and said it came from "Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos" ("A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you").

Interesting stuff, because it's from John 13:34.

John 13 begins with the well-known incident of Jesus washing the disciples' feet. What isn't so well-known is that the job of foot-washing should have gone to a slave or to the least honorable person in the room (if no slave was available). That would have been John, probably a teenager. Few preachers point out that John is telling of his own failing here. And fewer notice the next place we see John: leaning against Jesus' chest.

There's a lot of stuff written about Peter's denial and about Judas being treated well right up to the end, but this little bit about the teenager who didn't do his job and still was a friend—this reaches out to me.

Palm Sunday

Yes, today is Palm Sunday again. I never do quite get into the dancing and branch-waving that some in the church love so much. There always seems to be a 50-year-old woman bouncing up and down and seeming very troubled that I don't want to do the same. I think it's always the same woman too.

I do always remember Brady and Luke doing palm-leaf origami, though. It normally came out to be a cross. I've still got one from years ago. Thought of them when I saw a palm-leaf chain that wrapped around a LOT of chairs, about ten feet of it.

Got all fancy today: looked up the liturgical colors and showed up in a red satin shirt (for Palm Sunday) and a lavender tie (purple for Easter). That's a lot for Grace. I even stood up at the microphone and said something, dressed that way.

Lost my home

I've been feeling very depressed and disoriented since about Thanksgiving. Having trouble getting work done, etc.

I think a bunch of stuff is piling up on me. One (which deserves a whole blog entry of its own) is that my dear friend J is departing for the Southern Hemisphere in about a month (and has been very busy getting ready for the move). Another, though, is that I lost my home.

My parents moved into their "new" home in suburban Washington DC when I was a senior in high school. The house was a split-level, built to the exact standards of 1960s suburban taste (formica, vivid colors, and a patio). I never quite loved it, but it was there. During my college days I tried to become independent, and there was a time during the 1980s when I didn't get to Washington for quite a number of years. Finally, though, I decided about 1990, that these were my parents, this was my ancestral home, and I should be visiting more often.

When I divorced and realized that I was going to be spending every Mansfield major holiday alone, I began to make a LOT of trips to Washington. When I could manage it, I went for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Spring Break, and a hunk of time in the summer. It was usually about six or eight weeks a year. After Dad died, I found myself doing plumbing, trimming hedges, putting up Christmas lights, and generally being at home there. Washington is where I can go to the theater, buy a fountain pen, or find a really good pair of shoes. If I barbecue something, I don't have to eat it all myself. The restaurants are not all fast-food franchise. Fresh fish has actually seen the water some time in the last fortnight.

As a side note, my friends in Mansfield have wondered why my apartment here is usually such a shambles. It's because I never moved in. I never really lived here: home was in Washington, and I sleep here while I work in Ohio.

Well, all that has changed now. A four-bedroom house was just too much for Mom, and even though she protested bitterly, I think she's better off in the seniors' apartment. An astonishing amount of her furniture actually fits into that two-bedroom apartment, so there's a place for me to sleep and even a second bathroom for me. But it just isn't home. I think that will hit me when I go down there for Easter.

Much, of course, will be the same. I'll take Mom to her church for Easter Sunday. She'll probably have an Easter lily to bring home (and complain about). She says she never gets out any more now that she can't drive, so I'll haul her around to a couple of shopping malls. But it will be difficult.

At least now I know what's facing me, and I often feel that the demons are less of a problem when I know their names.

Not environmental

I bought a new package of the yellow legal pads I love to use. A package of a dozen 50-sheet pads set me back $8.29. That's virgin fiber. If I had wanted to go with the identical recycled item, it would have been more than $17.

Now I'm a reasonable guy. I can see the point of spending several dollars on a fluorescent light to save a lot of electricity and a fair amount of money down the road. I can understand the point of driving my recyclables to the next county because we don't have any way to recycle in Richland County. I pull plastic bottles from the laundry room trash can, use the last half-dose of detergent, and recycle the bottle. But to double the price of an item that's already overpriced—just to buy recycled? I won't do it, and I can't imagine anyone else doing it either.

It's spring and ...

The light snow we had Sunday evening is gone, my winter coats are back from the dry cleaner's, and

• Finally daffodils popped up on the Ashland campus today. I was reminded of Wordsworth's poem, which was forever ruined for me when Mrs. Poole made us memorize it in the fourth grade. I like the Mad Magazine version better now: "I wandered lonely as a clod / Just picking up old rags and bottles / When all at once I saw a crowd / A host of golden axolotls."
• Another sign of spring: the latest Crate & Barrel catalog, in all the greens and oranges. I'm severely tempted, though I'd have to smash some dishes to make room for new ones, and I'm about as likely to give a garden party as I am to sprout wings.
• In obedience to today's forecast of rain, I wore my waterproof high-top boots, so the sky was totally clear all day

I'm finally going to give up on the dream of sitting in my Ashland office and cranking out piles of graded papers. It's tiny, windowless, and depressing. I can do about four there before I crack up. So today I messed about a lot, graded my four papers, then came home and forgave myself. Now I'll put on some music and grade four more.

But spring reminds me of ...

This classic British news clip about the harvesting of the Swiss spaghetti crop.