On This Spot is an awesome blog featuring then and now photography of historical locations, including a lot of WWII European theater sites.
I spent the first two days of this week working from home, but had to come in to the office Wednesday to film participants at a seminar. Washington is strangely quiet due to the snow, but life moves on. Meanwhile, Finn has been off all week because Baltimore County couldn’t be bothered to plow the sidewalks in front of her school.
Our first week of teaching at UMBC got cancelled as well; the move-in/first day stuff got plowed under and pushed back everything. I don’t know if they’re going to extend the semester another week to make up for time lost, but we’re ready to roll when the doors open back up. I’ve got 13 students in total, two of whom I had last semester. This class is going to be heavy in Illustrator and information design, which is an exciting new avenue to explore.
After the game on Sunday, I found myself in front of the TV when the new X-Files came on, reconfiguring my syllabus for the third time. Much like the old X-Files, the new version is a retread of the same dumb plot point bullshit I remember:
Character introduction
“It’s a conspiracy”
Weird shit depicted in lousy CGI
“This conspiracy goes deeper than we thought”
All evidence gets blown up by guys in black suits
Roll credits.
Fuck the X-files.
Looking over the sheet metal recently, I realized the inner kick panels are probably the worst area on Peer Pressure (that I can see). Super Scout Specialists has new kick panels for $60/ea. or $36/ea. for the lower halves. One of my wish list projects is to have these areas cut out and replaced with good metal. First I’ve got to go out and survey each area to see if I need full panels or if I can get away with buying half heights.
While I’m there, I’m going to preorder the International Scout Encyclopedia, which looks like it could be an interesting reference book.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
We walked over to the elementary school with the neighbors yesterday to do some sledding as the sun went down. What a great way to end the day.
Ha ha ha ha ha FUCK YOU. I’m so glad truth won out over obvious bullshit.
You may have noticed that smell coming from your toolbox. It wafts all the way across the shop from one end to the other. It smells like bathtub cheese gone bad.
Huh! I’ve always wondered what the smell coming from my toolbox was. I’ll have to go sniff some screwdrivers later today.
Here’s the cold, hard truth every prospective student, and every parent, should know: In the vast majority of subjects, when you have an adjunct professor instead of a full-timer, you are getting a substandard education.
I’d have to respectfully disagree in my own case; I’ve knocked myself out to give my students the best possible bang for their buck. But I’d wager there are plenty of contract teachers who punch the clock and nothing more. It’ll be interesting to see how things are when Finn is looking at colleges.
We’re hunkered down under about 20″ of snow here in the ‘Ville, and it looks like it’s finally stopped falling. The roads outside are quiet, and there are 3’ icicles hanging from the fancy new LED streetlamps.
Finn and I spent the morning in front of a DVD of Mythbusters building her Christmas LEGOs, warm and cozy in the den. After a late lunch we got curious, bundled ourselves like eskimos and crawled over the drifts outside to make it to the road. I borrowed my neighbor’s snowblower and cut a path on the front sidewalk. By the time I was done the first stuff I shoveled was under 3″ of new snow.
We came back inside and made some dinner, then watched it in front of Hotel Transylvania 2 while the wind and snow howled outside. It finished at about 11 or so, but the wind is still shaking the trees and lifting the eaves. I’ll be out tomorrow shoveling but I doubt anything is happening on Monday.
I’m still here. Things are very busy, and like most other Januaries, my photography output has slowed to a crawl. Things will pick up soon, I promise.