Ahh Summertime

I have pledged to myself that this summer will be different. I usually run hard from about June 1 until May 15 every year (with a significant gap at Christmas). Part of the hard running, of course, is that I have usually spent something like five weeks every year in Washington DC, which does cut into my time here. That's going to change now. Mom doesn't have the enormous house which needs gardening and everything. And somehow, sleeping in her back bedroom at the senior residence isn't quite so appealing.

Anyhow, I'm here in Mansfield, probably unemployed for the duration, at least until the end of August. So what do I do?

Lots of cleaning. My apartment suffered from my depression and burnout this year, and summer is always my time anyhow for carpet shampooing and all that. So I've been working hard most afternoons. Bought myself a tiny carpet shampooer too—gotta help the economy in China.

I haven't exactly been unemployed either. Almost every day I work on material for the autumn courses. I've got all the "nuts and bolts" stuff figured out (basic course schedules, policies, etc.). Now I'm going to take a deep breath, find some of the books and papers I read in grad school, and rethink what I do with these guys. If I hit my goal, I'll have both fall and spring semesters essentially nailed down when the end of August rolls around.

Finally got back into the gym too. And the bike trail (33 miles yesterday). Maybe that's why I feel so tired.

Aphorism

As a moth is attracted to a flame, so is an adolescent male foot attracted to a newly painted wall.

Ho Chi Minh's birthday

Yup. That's today, May 19. Back when I was an undergraduate, we had a massive celebration every year for his birthday.

Well, actually it wasn't quite like that. The real history is a bit different. A couple of years before I got to Washington University, Dr. Riesenberg was having lunch with some students in Wohl Cafeteria and said something like "you guys are such wimps that you can't even start a decent food fight," and heaved a plate of pie across the room. The resulting food battle caused mass devastation (the cafeteria was a modern design, surrounded on all sides by plate glass windows).

It was during the Vietnam war, but apparently the date was just a coincidence.

The food battle became the stuff of student legend, so the University had to do something to minimize the damage the next year. Their plan was ingenious. They set up a fake student organization, the "Student Liberation Front" (not the same as the later political organization) and used it to funnel money for a water fight. It didn't cost much, after all—mainly a lot of water balloons, a few posters, and some surgical tubing (makes a great water cannon). For 29 weeks of the school year, the SLF did nothing whatsoever, then it came to life for the water fight.

The FBI got wind of it and spent weeks watching an organization whose main activity was ordering beer and pizza.

Probably the height of the insanity was my senior year, 1968. Campus police cordoned off the South 40 (dorm area), a low-lying area was flooded about six feet deep, and a TV crew showed up.

Alas, the schedule has changed now. The students have been home working for two weeks and nobody even remembers who Ho Chi Minh was.

Now I know why

I often wonder why I cannot communicate with my students. Now I know why.

A few days ago, I sent that e-mail about the Petition 2493 hoax. All I did was to add this message to the top of the hoax letter and click "reply all."

This is one of those evergreen urban legends that floats around christian circles. The FCC has pointedly denied that it exists (http://www.fcc.gov/mb/enf/forms/rm-2493.html). Focus on the Family says it's a hoax (http://www2.focusonthefamily.com/focusmagazine/christianliving/a000000143.cfm) and Snopes (the organization that looks into urban legends and the like) says it's false (http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/fcc.asp).

Actually, the FCC has received over 30 million enraged communications from christians who were duped by this particular piece of fiction.

The pastor's teenage son has added his name to the bottom of the message I sent and forwarded it to dozens of friends. Did he even notice my paragraphs? I doubt it.

FCC Petition 2493

I may have just made a few enemies. I just got one of those breathless e-mails from the youth pastor at my church, saying that the atheists are going to get preaching banned from television. After a strenuous 90 seconds of Internet searching, I found a denial from the FCC, a comment from James Dobson's Focus on the Family that it's fake, and a detailed discussion from Snopes.com of its status as an urban legend.

So I sent this to the youth pastor. I clicked "reply all." So all two dozen of the people he sent this to have my reply.

Wonder how this will come out.

No More Recycling

I just lost my last recycling place.

Recycling in Mansfield has always been an elite affair anyhow—it's the kind of thing for fancy people who drive Volvos, eat tofu, and say "He and I saw the cow." (Not "Me and him seen the cow.") It's an extra-cost option for people who live in single-family houses. Not available to apartment people.

The Mansfield problem was always money—only one company is really in the scrap business, and they could never figure out a way to make a profit selling scrap plastic and cardboard. It's cheaper just to bury everything.

Because of this, I always used to truck everything to Ashland (with just a twinge of guilt) because they had a public recycling bin. No more. When I arrived with several bags of material today, the whole thing was gone, with signs warning us not to leave material behind.

I suppose recycling is the victim of the global economy. Most of the market for scrap used to be China, but with the economy slowing, there is less market for cheap Chinese junk merchandise and the packaging it used to come in. So I guess I will, with a pang of regret, take my aluminum cans, plastic bottles, and cardboard back to my apartment, put it in the dumpster, and vow to use less stuff in the future.

Still here

People keep looking in, and that's very gratifying. I'm snowed under at the moment, grading my last few papers. With luck, Akron gets finished tomorrow and Ashland early next week. Then I can blog again.

UPS: The ongoing story

Rather foolishly, I ordered something from the West Coast, a keyboard for the church's new Mac Mini. I haven't seen the keyboard yet, but I've had plenty of interaction with UPS.

Wednesday, I was home, grading papers. Didn't even have the music on. I heard a little sound like the door rattling (maybe it was the wind) and discovered that the UPS man had stuck a "no response" notice on my door.

Of course, I was irritated. I did a little Internet checking and discovered that there's something called the UPS Phantom Delivery (Google the term to find some great commentary). Essentially, it's a delivery attempt in which the driver doesn't actually knock on the door—simply sticks the notice on and goes away.

Now I've been down this road before, and one problem with UPS is that there's no way to actually talk with a human there. The e-mail complaint box just has check boxes. However, after a little searching, I did find an obscure way to actually write an e-mail message to them, which I did.

Thursday, I got a phone call at 6:30 a.m. Could I accept delivery today? Well no—I actually had to go to work. How about Friday? I've been down this road before. If I say I will be there after 2 p.m. and they promise delivery between 2 and 6, they will attempt delivery at 10 a.m. and take it back to the warehouse. I pointed this out to the lady on the phone, told her that the phantom delivery is obviously an attempt by drivers to get paid for more work. I promised to be home for all 24 hours of Monday. I also put a very detailed explanation on the door of my apartment, complete with a large arrow pointing to the bell button.

Here I am in Ashland on Friday morning. I'll be back there by 1 p.m. We'll see if they try to deliver the thing today. Or maybe they've already done so.

All this for a $20 part. Next time I'll demand USPS.

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Update

They did show up on the appointed day, and this driver was candid enough (after my neighbor across the hall agreed with my complaint) to say that the "phantom delivery" (ring the bell and run) is a genuine problem of several drivers.