Things that make me worry, Part 264

I get worried when I find post-it notes on my desk with a date and time scribbled out in my handwriting, and no other information.

Today I found a slip of paper under a stack of papers on my desk which read "1/30 10:00am".

I have no idea what that is. Do I have a meeting with someone? Am I supposed to be somewhere? Do I have a presentation to give? Is the Dean stopping by? Or is that when the big meteor's gonna hit and wipe out all life on Earth?

This is gonna bug me for the next few days.

Mrs. Cheap Cheap Cheap!

So is it any wonder I married this woman? Check out the email I just got:

Today's Expenses and Cheapskate Report (all items charged to Discover Card):

• Gas at Get/Go, $23.80 (for a FULL TANK!--savings of $21.10 in FuelPerks)

• Old Navy, stuff for Abra primarily for next winter but including a summer nightgown, $7.57 (total "sticker price" on everything was $58.50 plus tax, but I got everything on clearance plus used a $25 gift card from MyPoints).
  

• $32.98 at CVS, which included the $5 off extrabucks. I earned another $1 (whee!) for buying Colgate kids' toothpaste which we were actually out of anyway.
  

• And I found a dime in the parking lot.

Be still my heart! All that savings, and a dime's worth of new income, to boot! She's the perfect woman for me...

LOL Cats!

(for those of you who are not familiar with the concept of LOL Cats, take a visit over to the ever popular icanhascheezburger.com...)

So here are some of our live-in LOL Cats, except that I'm too lazy to add the on-image text. Feel free to make up some of your own!

First there's Abra and Santa Nelson:


Or there's Healy curled up inside the firelog box:


Then we have a photo from the nightly ritual called "Shut Pearl in the basement so she doesn't climb all over the food in the kitchen during dinner." When this happens, Pearl angrily mashes herself against the basement door and waits impatiently to be let back upstairs. Sometimes parts of her leak through the door into the kitchen:


And of course in winter, the radiator is always a popular feline hangout:


(dang, we have a lot of cats...)

Healy is always ready to help in the kitchen:


And Nelson likes to sleep under the covers on Abra's bed:

The Computer Gods are Angry with Me

So Wednesday was pretty productive scientifically. Several projects showed interesting results, after rather lengthy periods of inactivity. Yay, science! It seems like science happens rarely these days, it's nice to actually get some research done.

So I get into the office yesterday, ready to capitalize on a productive Wednesday and really start pushing back the frontiers of the Universe. I sit down in front of swayback (my workstation), fire up my mail reader, and get the response

Terminal type 'xterm' unrecognized.

Say what? I mean, I know what it means, but its the same terminal type I've used for the past 15+ years of my life. Today you have a problem with it? What gives?

So I muck around a little bit and try and fire up a text editor

emacs: command not found

What? The text editor I've also used for years? Look pal, all this stuff worked fine when I went home last night. What's up?

So I kill the whole windowing system and drop into the console. Except I don't drop into the console. The screen goes blank and sits there. No response. No remote logins accepted. A blank screen.

So what's left to do? All together now: Power cycle!


So I punch swayback's power button, and it happily starts to reboot. Immediately upon checking the disks, the message from hell comes up. Yes, that message. That message that causes your whole body to pucker up and start secreting cold clammy sweat from every pore:

File system error; please enter the system password to run fsck manually

Now fsck is only one letter away from how I'm feeling at this point, because everyone knows when you get that message, the computer is toast.

She's going down, Captain -- abandon ship!

So I call in the marines (i.e. our system manager Charley), grab my laptop, and head to class. When I get out of class, Charley confirms the worst: swayback's system disk is dead. Finito. Kaput. Ready for a new life as a doorstop.

Now happily, Charley has also been backing up my home directory every night, so the data on that disk is not lost. But swayback needs a new system disk and system install -- basically a complete brain transplant (I'm having flashbacks to old Star Trek episodes at this point...). And then the backup copy of my home directory gets laid back in place. But of course, swayback is now an idiot savant -- a newly installed system, my data in place, but all the applications missing. I can't do much of anything, and it's going to be a slow road back, bringing all the software back to life. (Yes, I can edit in vi, and yes I can use mailx to mail -- but that's painful, jack!)

Now bless Charley for rescuing it as quickly as he did, I clearly could have been in really deep trouble without his valiant work (as he was rushing to leave for the observatory in the afternoon, I might add).

But then as I sat down with the reinstalled swayback, I noticed something odd. There were a bunch of files there that I had deleted months and months ago. And now they were back! All my new files, too, nothing was missing, but there were legions of old files suddenly resurrected from the past. My computer was being haunted by the reanimated corpses of long dead files -- what the heck?

An army of dead log files return from the grave...

So it turns out we're using rsync to backup our directories, which means deleted files never really get deleted -- they are archived indefinitely. And if we have to restore from the archive, the past comes back at you in full force. (If only the White House computers used rsync -- but I digress...)

So anyway, I now have a new hobby. Aside from bringing swayback back up to full functionality (Help me, Charley!), I get to go back and delete a years worth of files that need to be re-deleted.

And to think that, for a brief tiny moment of time, I was finally getting some science done for a change....

Ann B. Davis Day

So I woke up this morning and, with all due respect to Dr. King, declared today to be Ann B. Davis Day, and that we were going to celebrate as a family by cleaning this house.

As you might imagine, the girls immediately disappeared with a neighborhood kid, Brenna is online playing Webkinz, the dog is lying on the floor shedding tumbleweeds of fur, Pearl ran into the kitchen and barfed, Tango and Healy are fighting and letting the fur fly, and Nelson is looking at me like I'm off my rocker.

This is why, for those of you who are familiar with the ranking scheme in the house, I come in at #9 (of 9, of course). Honestly, though, I prefer to think of it as me cracking the Top 10.

Ah well, it's an excuse to play the Beastie Boys at top volume while I vacuum...


Now of course there's a critical difference between me and the beloved Alice from the Brady Bunch: Alice, I'm sure, happily picked up the kids' stuff and put them away. I also put their things away, but "away" for me may well mean "in the trash." My philosophy is: if something has been lying on the floor for a few weeks, it must not be getting any use, and so out it goes! In that sense, I am more like the Grinch, stuffing all the toys up the chimbley.

I have noticed that my tendency to throw things away means that when I clean, people keep a sharp eye on me. Particularly on days like to today, where my cleaning urges fall on trash day. There's gonna be a big load for the trash man tomorrow!

Happy Ann B. Davis Day everyone!

Uh oh

Thalia just asked me how to spell "Notre Dame".

No good can come of this.

Paging Dr. Braunschweiger

Wacko is getting up there in years, and sometimes appears to be getting kind of slow moving the old hip joints. So I figure maybe arthritis is starting to show.

We got him a bottle of glucosamine/chondritin tablets -- meat flavored, no less -- which is supposed to be a big help with doggie arthritis. When I tried to give it to him I rolled it up in a piece of salami. He started to eat the gluchon-laced salami, bit down -- crrrrunch! -- and gave me a look of what I can only describe as pure disappointment and resignation. "Oh, human," he seemed to be saying, "did you really just try and slip me something in the middle of this tasty salami? And to think I trusted you." Then -- spitAW! -- out came the tablet and he walked off.


So we needed a new strategy -- what does this dog love more than life itself? What does he love so much that he wouldn't even blink an eye about wolfing it down with a little health supplement hidden inside? Yes, that's right -- braunschweiger! (aka "liverwurst"). Mmmmmm, braunschweiger...

Brenna went out and bought a big package of braunschweiger and now each day I secretly hide the gluchon pill inside and he inhales it without a second thought -- this has earned him the title "Dr. Braunschweiger". So now every time it's time for his pill, I yell "Paging Dr. Braunschweiger" and he comes running in, along with "Nurse Hopeful", his little grey-and-white assistant.

Another little vignette from our lives....

Grad School Letters

So one of the aspects of my job that really should be enjoyable is writing letters of recommendation for my students applying for graduate school. And I do enjoy writing the letters for the most part. But submitting the letters has gotten to be such an aggravation that it just sent me into a steaming rage, loudly swearing a blue streak that could be heard up and down the departmental halls.

So what has happened? Well in the good old days you would just write a letter, print it out, and hand it to your department assistant to mail out. Simple, easy.

Now? Sweet fancy moses, what a pain in the ass it has become.

Now we have to fill out forms online. Each school has a different process, and the quality of implementation is often abysmal. Some places want you to "create an account" or "reuse your existing account". Create an account? Give me a break -- this isn't online banking here, I'm just trying to send a letter. Reuse my account? I do this once a year, you expect me to remember some disposable account password I use once a year? Yes, I know I can contact your technical support group, but for crying out loud, I'm just trying to send you a letter.

So here's the report from just one student's application:

• Wisconsin: online, worked fine.
• Virginia: online, and I had to create an account, but it then wouldn't accept an uploaded letter. It wanted me to type my letter into a silly little webform box, which would mean reformatting, etc. So I killed that online form, and put the letter in the mail.
• Illinois: online, create an account, and it crashed my browser when I tried to submit it, so I had to go through the whole process again. The second time it worked.
• Indiana: online, same 3rd party software ("ApplyYourself") that crashed my browser for Illinois. No problems on this one, but after submitting and getting a confirmation that it was received, about a week later the department says they in fact never got it and asks me to email the letter again.
• Ohio State: online application that again wouldnt let me upload a letter, but wanted my to type my letter into a webform. But they also want me to send in a duplicate copy of BOTH my letter AND my rating form. So why am I asked to submit it online?
• Penn State: seems to be paper only.
  

So here are my pleas:

To my students: I'm happy to write you letters. It's my great pleasure to see your successes and help you attain them. But this has become a real time sink, which is why I ask you to get me all the information well ahead of time; please do so. And it's why you should deliver me a six pack of good beer when I am done.

To most graduate programs: STOP THIS NONSENSE! Just give me an email address where I can send you a letter and be done with it.

To the few graduate programs who do have a simple online recommendation process: Thank you.

To my colleagues writing recommendation letters to Case: I hear our online recommendation form is also abysmally bad. Just skip it entirely, and e-/snail-mail me your recommendation. I'll get it into the right hands.

Good god, weren't computers and the intertubes supposed to make our lives easier?

Two Coaches

So this season both head coaches for my football teams have retired. Last month, Lloyd Carr announced he was stepping down after 13 years as the head coach at Michigan, where he won a national championship and five Big 10 titles. Today, Joe Gibbs retired from his second stint as the head of the Washington Redskins; after winning three Super Bowls the first time around, he came back to lead the team into the playoffs twice in four years.

There are similarities, I think, to both situations. Both Carr and Gibbs were larger-than-life coaches who achieved the top success with nationally prominent teams, and then in later years had to deal with charges that the game had passed them by. In both cases, there may have been some truth to that, but what I'll always remember from both men is they way they represented their school/team. I always knew, no matter what, that the Wolverines and Redskins would come to play. Sure, they didn't always win, but I never questioned the heart of a Gibbs team or a Carr team.

And both coaches went out with a final statement. Everyone expected Michigan to get waxed by Florida this year in their bowl game; instead, Lloyd Carr led the Wolverines to a wild, wonderfully improbable 41-35 win over the Gators. Meanwhile, Joe Gibbs, faced with four straight must-win games to get into the playoffs, coached the team to wins in all of them, and then played the Seahawks tough until the final few minutes. All of this with a team dealing with the horrible death of Sean Taylor.

In sports today, there seems to be way to much of a "win it all or else..." attitude among fans that I really can't stand. Teams that don't win championships every year are called losers, coaches that don't win championships every year are called incompetent. Nonsense. Give me the teams these men fielded any day of the week. Always competitive, always classy, and often winners. That's what I want out of the teams I root for.

So whether it's Lloyd Carr talking about another "tremendous" effort by the Michigan team, or Joe Gibbs saying "Well, I'll tell ya'..." at the start of every interview, I'll miss them both. Thanks, Coach Carr; thanks, Coach Gibbs.

Next fall is going to be interesting indeed....

Neighborhood Dinner

So it seems like as the world grows more and more interlinked, in many ways people become more and more disconnected from each other. We have online communities, cell phones, cheap airfares, internet messaging, email, all these things that keep us in touch with one another no matter how far the distance. Yet, at the same time, many people I know barely know their neighbors. Heck, *I* barely knew my neighbors until a few years ago, when something new came into my world, something called "Neighborhood Dinner".

So a few houses down from us live Dwight and Colleen. And just about every week they host Neighborhood Dinner -- one night a week where us neighbors all sit down and eat together. It's kind of potluck, althought it's usually Dwight and Colleen making the main course, but the rest of us try and bring side dishes, wine, bread, dessert, etc. Here's a snapshot from a recent dinner, with all of us around the table.


And believe me that table gets big -- last time, the table extended out of the dining room, into the foyer, and nearly on into the living room!

It's quite a group -- we have teachers, an engineer, a doctor-to-be, several musicians, a writer, a mathematician, an astronomer (ahem), and now our own defense lawyer (and I know I'm forgetting a few others...). And a pack of great kids, too. I'm constantly amazed at all the things our group is doing -- last summer while Brenna was passing the Ohio Bar exam, Molly was defending her doctoral thesis, Richard was completing a cross-country bike-ride, Suzette was finishing her degree program, the list just keeps on going. Here's a mug shot of the group:


Now usually after dinner is over, the girls like to put on a show. Dwight spins the tunes -- an eclectic mix to be sure -- and the girls dance away. Thalia has her patented one-leg-hopping dance, while Abra and Lily twirl around with the flashlights. Sometimes we have a puppet show, or last time we even had live music -- Richard brought his viola and Gretchen got out her guitar.


(To my delight, and Brenna's horror, in this picture Richard is playing "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" on his viola...)

And my gosh we do this weekly! Well, ok, actually not always weekly -- Dwight and Colleen went and retired from the working world, and now they do all this worldly traveling while the rest of us slog through our daily routine. But we try and fill in the gaps by rotating the hosting of Neighborhood Dinner while they're gone.

But my point is that we sit down as a community regularly and we've got all these great people in our lives! This was particularly wonderful this year when Brenna and the girls moved here. Moving to a new place and leaving behind all their friends in Wisconsin was a huge jump to make, but our neighbors did such a great job of welcoming them -- Neighborhood Dinner was an instant hit and a great way to bring them into the neighborhood.

The girls pretty much summed it up perfectly -- I'm not sure if this was Abra's handiwork, or Lily's (update: Abra said she wrote it), but they got it spot-on:


Yep, I love Neighborhood Dinner, too. Our neighbors are great, and thanks to Colleen and Dwight for hosting us all for these wonderful events....

(ps: thanks to Dwight for sending along these pictures, too!)