Matching Tracksuits

Month: February 2008

Odd Support

Wednesday 27 February 2008

In France’s 2002 election, socialists and other left-wing party members backed Jacques Chirac (who is, despite what many Americans think, on the right side of France’s political spectrum) in order to avoid the far right-wing Jean-Marie Le Pen from winning. That’s like communists voting for Bush.

Many in America seem unwilling to do something similar.

Two things:

First, many conservatives are upset with the McCain nomination:

“I’m really depressed today because this is the first time that I find myself in a position that I will not work for the nominee (McCain),” said a caller to host Rush Limbaugh’s conservative talk-radio show on the verge of tears. (Reuter’s)

Second, Michelle Obama, on the possibility of Hillary winning, said:

GMA: Could you see yourself working to support Hillary Clinton should she win the nomination?

MICHELLE OBAMA: I’d have to think about that. I’d have to think about that, her policies, her approach, her tone.

GMA: That’s not a given?

MICHELLE OBAMA: You know, everyone in this party is going to work hard for whoever the nominee is. I think that we’re all working for the same thing. And, you know, I think our goal is to make sure that the person in the White House is going to take this country in a different direction. I happen to believe that Barack is the only person who can really do that. (Source)

It seems odd to me that people — Democrat or Republican — would risk someone they vehemently oppose (i.e., the opposing party’s candidate) winning because they didn’t like their own party’s candidate.

Fork

Tuesday 26 February 2008

Religion, Education, and the End Times

Monday 25 February 2008

A client at the day treatment program I used to work at asked me an odd question one day.

“Is it true that people are going to have computer chips implanted in them at some time?” the boy asked, “Because my foster mom said that that was going to happen.”

“Ah,” I thought, “you just told me an awful lot about your foster mom.”

What I actually said was somewhat more toned down: “Nah, John, that’s not necessarily going to happen, and even if it does, it probably won’t mean what your foster mom seems to think it will mean.”

And immediately I thought that perhaps I’d said more than I should have, for it seems to be a theological/religious statement I made. I did qualify it: “not necessarily” and “probably.” Still, I’m sensitive about discussing anything having to do with religion with students.

When student teaching, I had an interesting exchange with a student about this. He was concerned that I had crossed some line by explaining the Christianization of Britain. I differentiated teaching and proselytizing. “If we’d been discussing the Turkish empire, I would have discussed Islam. If we’d been talking about the partition of India, I would have discussed Hinduism and Islam.”

After all, who am I to make judgments about whether or not the Beast is rising? Who am I to say that chip implants will not necessarily be a sign that the Beast?

I wonder if I didn’t overstep some boundary with that…

And they all came tumbling down

Sunday 24 February 2008

Well, not quite tumbling.

We cut down a half-dead cedar tree yesterday, but it was so entwined with vines and such that it didn’t quite fall. It took some encouragement.

No, Really — Again

Saturday 23 February 2008

BurnerIt turns out that the whole time there has been a major malfunction with our gas pack that has been preventing it from firing correctly. “It probably came from the factory that way,” said Shane, the technician.

Between six and eight technicians have looked at it, with one of them changing the gas regulator on the burner just inches away from the whole problem, and not one noticed it.

The problem — highlighted in the white square — was that the gas injectors, coming from the manifold (running along the bottom of the picture), should be in the burner, not hovering a centimeter away from it, or, as was the case with one injector, hovering a centimeter away from it and bent downward.

Once again, the technician said: “It probably came from the factory that way.”

DSC_3216So, to review, the following parts have been changed in the unit itself:

  • Burner,
  • Gas regulator,
  • Control board, and
  • Some gas valve (not the regulator).

Within the zoning system, the following things have been changed:

  • Transformer,
  • Entire control board, and
  • One damper.

Folks, we basically have an entirely new system…

Never

Friday 22 February 2008

ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever buy a house with a gas pack. They’re more delicate than your grandmother’s hip.

Top Five Drafting Albums

Thursday 21 February 2008

My sophomore, junior, and senior years, I took drafting. I thought I wanted to be an architect. By the end of my junior year, I realized it wasn’t going to happen. It just wasn’t in my soul. But for some reason, I went ahead and finished up the whole three-year drafting, taking the two-block drafting III class.

During our senior year, the teacher — an odd fellow who, judging from his hair cut and ties, was definitely stuck in the 70’s — allowed us to listen to music while drafting.

Choices, choices.

My friend and I set out to find the perfect drafting album, to match the list of perfect albums for this or that activity.

A few albums that made it into my personal rotation with a great deal of frequency were…

  • R.E.M. Document
  • Metallica …And Justice for All
  • Sonic Youth Daydream Nation
  • Pink Floyd Momentary Lapse of Reason
  • Anything from Gabriel-era Genesis

Were I to do any drafting now, I’d more likely head to Thelonious Monk or Chick Corea, Bill Monroe or Lightening Hopkins.

First Batch

Wednesday 20 February 2008

We finished the first batch.

First we rubbed down the meat with some papryka:

Papryka II

Then we hung them:

Ready

Smoked them:

Smoking

Cooled it:

Post-Smoke

And ate it:

First Taste

Finished product:

Finished Product

Sales Reps

Tuesday 19 February 2008

I am a sales rep. I have to get my students to buy into what I’m trying to teach them. Psychologists call this motivation; educational professionals from central office call it “activating strategies”. It all amounts to the same thing, though: convince your students that what you’re teaching them is

  1. interesting,
  2. useful, and
  3. worth their time.

I don’t really recall any teachers doing that with me. I don’t remember having “activating strategies.” We walked into class and the teacher told us what we were going to be doing that day. I don’t recall the teacher worrying so much about whether she’s “hooking” us. I, for one, paid attention because I knew at some point, there would be some payoff. It was more difficult in some classes than in others, particularly in middle school (or junior high as it was called then), but I had some kind of strange faith that the teachers knew what they were doing, and that I would, eventually, use all this stuff.

Today, though, we talk about hooking students, competing for their attention, differentiating our instruction to keep it fresh and interesting. These are all good and worthy things, but when they start to be the focus of evaluation and training, it starts to be a little much. Add to it standardized testing and NCLB accountability, and you start to get the feeling that students’ failure to learn something is your fault, and your fault alone.

Even not doing homework is your fault. You see, when a student flatly says, “I’m not going to do it,” you have to “find another way to structure it so the student can learn it.” He refuses to do the homework; you have to trick him into learning the information another way.

You didn’t differentiate to account for different learning styles; you didn’t hook your students; you didn’t provide think-pair-share debriefing.

How about, “The students just didn’t do the work”? How about, “The students just didn’t care”? Well, you have to find a way to get them to do the work; you have to find a way to make them care.

I’m not sure a teacher’s job is to motivate, though. We spend all the time motivating and massaging and coaxing, and in the meantime, the Chinese and Polish students who sit in quiet, disciplined rows for hour after hour outperform our students in that Holy Grail of NCLB achievement, standardized testing.

The difference is, to some degree, cultural — a thought that is both soothing and depressing.

Thud on Northern Illinois University

Monday 18 February 2008

Common sense:

In this country you can own a gun and still not know how to use it. And even if you know how to fire it, you don’t necessarily know how to fire it under pressure. The people who are supposed to respond to situations involving firearms go through a lot of training which prepares them to deal with these situations. It’s the rare armed civilian who’s going to be anything more than a hindrance in a firefight.

“More Guns, More Problems“

Dancing Again

Monday 18 February 2008

The Girl has added some moves

The Girl, Updated

Sunday 17 February 2008

Maja commented about preferring pictures of L to pictures of a very blue 55-gallon drum. (I didn’t provide a translation, but trust me, that’s what she said. To which K replied, “I just hope we won’t become known in the neighborhood as ‘those people with the blue barrel’.”) And then Nana and Papa mentioned the lack of Girl pictures of late.

How did this happen? Are we not doting anymore?

Well, we have been taking pictures. I just haven’t been posting them.

How about a video instead?

To Do List

Saturday 16 February 2008

Rather, “Done” list:

  • chop wood
  • haul wood to storage location (i.e., corner of the carport)
  • carry unusable wood to the roadside
  • make a trip to Lowe’s for various equipment
  • chop, cut, and pull large stand of thorn bushes
  • dig, cut, pull up half of the impressive root system of said bushes
  • take bushes and roots out to the roadside
  • rake up leaves formerly inaccessible due to the stand of bushes
  • vacuum car
  • wash car
  • work on clogged drain
  • do grocery shopping
  • drink beer
  • collapse

Out, out!

Friday 15 February 2008

There’s a revival of the practice of exorcism in Poland.

One of the recruits is the Rev. Wieslaw Jankowski, a priest with the Institute for Studies on the Family, a counseling center outside Warsaw. He said priests at the institute realized they needed an exorcist on staff after encountering an increase in people plagued by evil.

Typical cases, he said, include people who turn away from the church and embrace New Age therapies, alternative religions or the occult. Internet addicts and yoga devotees are also at risk, he said.

“This is a service which is sorely needed,” said Jankowski, who holds a doctorate in spiritual theology. “The number of people who need help is intensifying right now.”

Jankowski cited the case of a woman who asked for a divorce days after renewing her wedding vows as part of a marriage counseling program. What was suspicious, he said, was how the wife suddenly developed a passionate hatred for her husband.

“According to what I could perceive, the devil was present and acting in an obvious way,” he said. “How else can you explain how a wife, in the space of a couple of weeks, could come to hate her own husband, a man who is a good person?”

I guess gone are the days, by and large, of attributing demon possession only to cases of people with spinning heads who spew pea soup, or at the very least, speak in tongues unknown to the victim new a husky, gravely voice. But there are still cases of Regan-esque possession:

Exorcists said the people they help can be in the grip of evil to varying degrees. Only a small fraction, they said, are completely possessed by demons — which can cause them to display inhuman strength, speak in exotic tongues, recoil in the presence of sacred objects or overpower others with a stench.

In those cases, the exorcists must confront the devil directly, using the power of the church to order it to abandon its host. More often, however, priests perform what some of them refer to as “soft exorcisms,” using prayer to rid people of evil influences that control their lives. (Washington Post)

Prayer is so much less dramatic than burning holy water, though.

What’s troubling about the article is that there is no representation of the opposing viewpoint. Not all Catholics believe that internet addiction can be cured with holy water and prayer. Not all Catholics attribute mental illness to Satan. Not all Poles think that Yoga leads to possession.

Test Smokin’

Thursday 14 February 2008

We did a test-burn yesterday.

DSC_3619

The draw was almost too strong, Dziadek said.

The next step was to get the meat ready for real smoking:

DSC_3627DSC_3629
DSC_3632DSC_3634

Next step — apply a carcinogenic coating to the meat.

Smokin’ (Part II)

Tuesday 12 February 2008

Whenever Papa comes here to help, I often end up helping him. It’s always been that way.

It was no different with Dziadek and the smoker.

DSC_3575

So now the smoker’s almost done, but not tested.

DSC_3573

That’s tomorrow. And next weekend, the first adventures.

Hedges

Monday 11 February 2008

Prophetic comments about ten years before his own death coming home from a concert.

And then there’s the music.

Smokin’

Sunday 10 February 2008

“There’s no good sandwich meat in America!”

Dziadek has stated several times. And that’s critical, for sandwich meat — cold cuts, in other words — is a cornerstone of the Polish diet.

What else are you going to eat for breakfast?

Nothing fills you up for the day like, say, a head cheese (which, for the uninitiated, is pretty much what it sounds like) sandwich with a cup of hot tea.

What are we left to do? Dziadek decided there’s only one solution: make our own cold cuts — which requires a smoker. Which requires a cinder block foundation and a 55-gallon drum. Yes, we’re going high class.

Yesterday, we dug out the foundation, mortared the cinder blocks together, began making the necessary modifications to the drum, cut down a dead oak, and went to Home Depot at least half a dozen times.

Today, we build the fire pit and attach the drum to the base. And eventually paint it.

Aesthetic concerns aside (how much does that privacy fence cost again?), I’m looking forward to having homemade ham.

Charleston

Saturday 9 February 2008

Last weekend we were in Charleston. Fun city — European, old, classy. At least that’s what I heard. I didn’t get to see much because the Girl decided to get sick, and I stayed with her in the hotel.

Dziadek and K went to see the USS Yorktown

DSC_3459

And Fort Sumter

DSC_3503

Looks like fun.

Meanwhile, L and I sat in the hotel room, playing games, laughing, napping, and having a generally nice Saturday.