All a dream

I have discovered a wondrous ability to dream. I start by meditating on something and gradually I fall asleep. I am immediately in a dream-like state. The other day I went from meditating to dreaming to awake again in under ten minutes. It is a great way to nap.

Unfortunately, Portland seems like a dream. I remember the students faces, going to my office, and apartment, but it seems so surreal... almost as if I had never been there. I realize that I was there, but it is all fuzzy and gray in my mind. Maybe it really was fuzzy and gray there... It was Portland.

Summer break

The semester is over, the final grades are in, and I am going to enjoy being with my family. The last four months away were a good experience, but they were long. Now I get to enjoy the fruits of the academic lifestyle... summer break (without a paycheck until 1 October).

My to do list:
write two publishable papers
prepare two classes
buy a house in a deflating real estate market
move to California
perform all of my domestic duties
lose 20 pounds

Ambitious? yes. Manageable? who knows.

My Ferrari Weekend

I slipped away to Cannon Beach to grade papers. After I graded them all (about 80), I went downtown to see the annual Ferrari show. This is the view down the side street with the cars. Not only were there Ferraris but there were Mazaratis, DeTomasas, Lamborghinis, and a few others.


I was totally surprised when I saw this F40 with its hatch open. I spent a significant amount of time looking at the transmission, intakes, engine, and other farkles. Needless to saw, I am sure that it is a safe car, but I wouldn't want to get in a fender-bender with it.

I was also impressed to see this machine on the road. The Maclaren - Mercedes Benz SLR is everything you could expect from those names. It has a gigantic hood that looks cartoonish. They say that it can get from 0-60 in 3 seconds. This one had a license plate holder that offered napkins for the droolers. I guess you can expect that from a car with a base price in the $400Ks.
In the end, I couldn't choose where to spend my money. So, I got both the 308 and the 328. Who can argue with their class?

Encyclopedia

The last time I picked up an encyclopedia, I was in high school. I don't even remember what I looked at, but I do remember that it was a World Book Encyclopedia. They seem to have cornered the market on library resources for secondary education. It is now over a decade ago that I last touched a paper encyclopedia. Our current pluralist conceptualization of information has spawned Wikipedia, the ever changing, not quite always reliable source of information about all things. As a professor, I am conflicted about allowing its use as a source of information. A year ago, Wiki ate my favorite website for electoral institutions information. Electionworld.org fell prey to the instant accessibility of Wiki. I felt sheepish when I told my classes this semester to look up electoral systems information on Wiki. I told them "you can use it for [this information], but please don't tell your other professors that I condone its use as a scholarly source." Obviously I do not encourage its use, but why not look at it to get a start on finding higher quality information? More importantly, what happens when a reliable source becomes part of the monster?

What differentiates Wiki from the World Book? Obviously content can change very quickly on Wiki and it is reviewed and modified constantly by interested parties. Who wrote the World Book, and why should I trust them? The librarians did, so should I?

This question has hit more closely to home as I write my encyclopedia article. It will appear in a hard-bound, true-to-life, paper encyclopedia (that is if I can finish it in time). Yes, they still make them. Yes, these people know about the information on the internet. Yes, they invited me to write an article. But what makes me more suited to writing an encyclopedia article than the multitudes of people who contribute to Wiki? With the exception of my degree, I haven't figure that out. There are editors who will correct major errors, so there is a check in the system.

It is scary to me that someone may pick up a book, find my entry, and consider it trustworthy because it came from a paper encyclopedia.

A true antique in the age of Wiki.

Luddite

In case you didn't know, my lovely wife has never seen any of the Star Wars movies. One of our friends indicated that if you didn't know what a "snap-hiss" was, you might be a luddite. I contend that if you don't buy a flashing cell phone headset, but rather use your ear lobe to hold the phone during mobile conversation, you might be a bluetooth disabled neo-luddite.

More mice

Since the last mouse update, I have prevented at least another 10 mice from breathing more of my precious apartment air. Supposedly there is a mouse population explosion in the vicinity, and thus I get to see them in my house. It is going to snow tonight, so I expect more kills. I will carefully bait the traps and wait for the cold weather...

No physical disability for me in Scotland

According to a Glasgow tribunal, I would not receive disability payments for emotional injuries that occurred due to my personal deficiency. I prefer the Elisha method of setting the score straight.