New camera = bad pics

We bought a new point and shoot camera. It is tiny and the picture quality in low light is significantly worse than I expected. Nevertheless, the pictures are still worth a thousand words. No none has ever clarified if the thousand words being referred to are a static group of words shared by all viewers, or if the thousand words change based on personal interpretation. I think that every viewer has a unique set of a thousand words to associate with a picture. Some of your thousand words associated with this picture might include: awesome, buff, handsome, ethnic, cool, sexy, "caber toss anyone?", "is there anything under there?", "that sporran rocks", "I want him now" OR ALTERNATIVELY scary, disgusting, gross, skirt, fanny pack, man purse, and Scottish crap.



My thousand words include: breezy, macho, and "why didn't I do this before?"

Living in SoCal

When I was on my CSUF job interview, I asked my sister "what was the best thing about living in southern California?" She responded something to the effect that she could get whatever she wanted in a day. She said that it might take all day, and it might cost more than she wanted to pay, but she could get it in a day. The other day I finally tested that statement.

Not being one of convention, I have wanted a kilt for a number of years. Kilts have the benefit of not clinging to the inside of my huge thighs on extremely hot summer days, yet they retain their manliness through historical legacy.

Commencement provides a great excuse to purchase a kilt because it can be seen a more formal than functional. As I pondered purchasing a kilt, I googled kilt makers and found that a leading kilt maker, Sportkilt, was located just outside of Long Beach. They do not have retail stores, but they have a very small retail room at their facility. Rather than ordering something online and waiting a couple of days for it to arrive, I decided to visit the factory. I took E. to the location (a hole in the wall door in a industrial park) and walked right into the offices. They were surprised to see someone in person (they do all of their sales online) but quickly ushered me to their retail room (9'x10') and told me that everything in the room was 50% off of the internet price because they had all been custom ordered and later returned. I tried on a few, tried to discourage E. from wanting one, and then settled on two. Although my tartan is McNab, it is a more obscure tartan than Royal Stewart and Armstrong, which I purchased.

I am a believer that you can get whatever you want in a day in SoCal. My wife wishes that it weren't so, but it is. I am now the proud owner of two kilts which I will wear with pride... everywhere.

Breathe

With an impending graduation ceremony, a visit from my family, a visit from the in-laws, a visit from another set of extended in-laws (what do you call your sister's in-laws?), a pile of papers to grade, a final exam to administer and grade, and grumblings about the stature of students from the faculty (i.e. how many can we afford to fail?), I am treading water. There are a number of hopeful seniors in my classes who will not be completing their degrees this semester. Without grading the final exam and papers, I am expecting a failure rate near 30 percent. Hopefully I am wrong.
Many of the faculty in the division (PAJ) have decided to stop rubber stamping students through our programs and maintain our standards. In previous years, there has been some pressure to hit a GPA standard for each class, but this semester's students have pushed us beyond our tolerable limits of grade inflation. My Dean recently said that "if you can't look yourself in the mirror and feel that you have maintained your standards, you need to [start failing more people]." I expect some backlash, but there are enough of us facing this situation that there is some safety in numbers. Now I need to breathe and grade, just breathe and grade.
Here comes the red pen.

Looking at the stimulus package [A title for B.M.]

I see so many stories that could be used for examples in class. The problem is that I forget them. Here is one example.

When we talk about legislative oversight of the bureaucracy, I try to point out that members of Congress have the responsibility to make sure that the laws they pass are executed according to legislative intent. But, lawmakers would rather make laws than oversee their implementation. It makes sense that an elected official needs to bring back to their district some proof of their work in Congress in order to beg for reelection votes. Oversight simply isn't as sexy as a new law. According to today's Washington Times article, that forces oversight of the stimulus bill onto all of the citizens, or no one. Guess which outcome is more likely?

Concert list

I just saw this post and wanted to document my concerts (well known only)... Mostly for me, but you are invited to read...

The Dead Milkmen
The Blake Babies
NRBQ
The Twistoffs
Lenny Kravitz
Peter Gabriel
Fishbone
George Clinton & the P-funk Allstars
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (among other Lollapalooza side acts)
Cypress Hill
Green Day
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones (5x I think)
Lucious Jackson
The Beastie Boys
Smashing Pumpkins
Blues Traveller
The Breeders
Phish
Dave Matthews Band
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Indigo Girls
James Taylor

I thought that there were more... I'll update later

Procrastination

Grading stinks... funny things are good.


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