Hallowe'en and the Gremlins!

I was running a bit late this morning and missed the bus (by 3 minutes!) that comes by my place. But I knew the next bus would be along in less than half an hour.

A few minutes before the next bus arrived, I walked up to the stop. But by then, the sky had clouded over and it had cooled off some. I also forgot my phone. So I ran back inside (the bus was nowhere in sight, so I had a chance), grabbed my jacket and found my phone.

My jacket was being obstinate - one sleeve was halfway inside out and the sleeve lining had bunched up. I wrestled with the sleeve as I got out the door...oops! Forgot to lock the apartment. Locked the door and headed back up to the bus stop.

I knew it was going to be close.

It definitely was close - I'd missed the bus by less than a minute!

If I waited for the next bus, I would have been really late. My students are taking their tests online today, but I wanted to be sure to be in my office should something come up.

However, the campus is only a mile, maybe less, from my place, and my office adds a little more to the distance, but I walked it anyway.

The clouds decided to start a slow drizzle, and the non-pavement part of my journey was already wet from last night's rain. Fortunately, the drizzle didn't get much worse, and I made it to the office faster (but wetter) than I would have if I'd waited for the bus.

When I got logged in, I saw the first of the emails with questions about one test. Then another one popped up. Then a reminder that faculty and staff could get their flu shots today if we remember a copy of both sides of our insurance cards (yay! I get to use the quirky copier!) and the filled out form - link attached.

The link went nowhere.

I scrolled through my emails to see if there was another link, or perhaps one with an attached document.

Found it!

And by then, it was too late to get over to the Student Union (the #1 Student Union in the nation, I might add! GO POKES! We're #1 at awesome student unions!) to get the shot.

And now other emails have popped up regarding tests...and quizzes...and why wasn't anyone in class today (from a student who wasn't in class the last time and didn't know that the test was on line).

I've responded to the emails, corrected my mistakes (so far) on the test questions, and since all that stuff has already happened, I'm looking forward to the rest of my day.


HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

A Picture Would Be Worth a Thousand Words, But...

I really need to carry a camera with me. 

It was so hot when I got to my office this morning, I opened the window. I don't have a screen (somebody at some time decided to cut the entire screen out of its frame).

A few minutes ago, a squirrel scrambled up to the widow sill and sat there playing with a leaf. I said something, and it poked its head in, sniffed (a guess to see if I had any food that would be interesting), and then climbed back down.

Tomorrow, I'm bringing popcorn. 

And a camera. 

If it still works.

Weird Dreams on a Thursday Night

Last night I had a dream that all whole numbers from zero to 8667 had been stolen. Fractions were okay, as well as whole numbers less than zero or 8668 and greater.
 
When I woke up, I woke up inside another dream where the numbers had been restored, and I had a one question lab practical which I aced (I had to measure exactly 0.2ml of water and put it into a test tube).
 
Then I woke up from that dream and couldn't find my backpack, which I'd left in Mrs. Dougal's classroom from my elementary school.
 
I finally found my backpack and now I'm awake (I think) in the "real" world.

So... how was your Thursday night?

I nearly drowned once

It had been a hot summer, and the start of fall was still pretty warm. We had a company picnic out at Lake Carl Blackwell, at a spot with a "swimming beach" (back then, it was a small area with a semi-sandy shore and some buoys in place about 100 yards off shore). I was in pretty good shape back then, so I decided to swim out to the buoys and back while the burgers and dogs were grilling.

The lake water was colder than I'd expected and it wore me out quickly. I managed to reach the buoys, but I was really tired. My plan was to hang onto a buoy until I got my strength back and then swim back to shore, but the cold water was numbing me. Also, the buoy was smooth and round, with a slippery algae-covered chain descending into the depths. There really was nothing for me to hold onto, and I couldn't climb onto the one-time inviting sphere that was too slippery to grasp. I tried to get the attention of my friends on shore, but they thought I was just waving, and waved back cheerily before turning their attention to the food and fun. 

I had to choice but to swim back to shallower water. The lake water was way over my head as I struggled to swim to shore. The cold water made my arms and legs feel heavier with every struggling stroke. When I got too tired to swim, I tried to float, but I'm a "sinker" - throughout my life, every time I try to float on my back, my feet sink, pulling the rest of me down. My next plan was to try to kick off the bottom and towards the shore.  The first time, I nearly panicked when the bottom was much deeper than I'd realized. I kicked up and shot above the surface, sucking in sweet, sweet air. I tried to swim a little farther, but I was getting more and more tired, which didn't help my near-panicked state of mind.
 

Eventually I reached a point where the water was only a couple of feet over my head. I took what I thought was my last breath, sank down and into about six inches of mud, then kicked off the bottom toward shore. I lunged up and forward, gasping for air, but I couldn't get a full breath. Resigned to my fate I started to go down for the last time.
 

Miraculously, when I touched bottom, my head was partly above the water - if I tilted back, both my nose and mouth were able to suck in air. The panic had already subsided - I had accepted the fact that I would drown had my head not been high enough, and so I was able to calmly take slow, deep breaths as hope came pouring back into me. I finally managed to catch my breath and wade to shore.
 

When I got back to my friends, I asked why nobody noticed I was drowning. They thought I was just clowning around and trying to act like a dolphin each time I shot above the surface.
 

This was one time I wish I hadn't had a reputation for being a buffoon.
 

The point of all this is that you might be careful this summer when you're swimming or with others who are swimming. Drowning doesn't always look like it does on TV or in a movie. Since then, I make sure I'm aware of my limitations, and I watch out for others who looking like they are having fun, but may actually be struggling.

I Can Do This

This post will be pretty brief. I'm typing it on my Kindle Fire, which is awesome, but once I got away from one-finger typing, it's been tough to get back into that except for short notes.

A week or so ago, I spilled a small amount of coffee on my laptop's keyboard. No major damage, but several keys are stuck (I sugar up my coffee most of the time). I can use my onscreen keyboard, but it's kinda cumbersome.

Fortunately, I've found out my Kindle 's onscreen keyboard works just as well, and much more portable. As long as I have some WiFi available, I can update my blog when the spirit moves me.

My next task will be to see if I can use one of the note taking apps to write something offline, and then post it later.

Whoa! I think this is gonna work pretty well!

I MacGyvered Some Fries Tonight

I thought french fries would be good to accompany supper tonight, so I fired up the oven to about 425 and went to the freezer to pull out the....oh, cr@p! We were out of fries and I didn't want to go to the store for just a bag of frozen fries.

However, I did have several potatoes on hand. And a knife...erg! The one I wanted was in the dishwasher which was barely into the wash cycle.

I pulled an apple corer out of a drawer. It's one of those doohickeys that not only cores the apple, but slices it into wedges at the same time. I found that it also works well on potatoes, with the core being (bonus!) a cylinder of potato. It was much faster than slicing those potatoes into wedges.

Next step - putting the wedges into the baking pan and brushing them with oil. Except I didn't know where the little basting brush was. 

Not a problem! I put the wedges into a zippered plastic storage bag, along with a little grapeseed oil (because that was what we had), closed the bag and shook the heck out of it for about 10 seconds. Voila! Evenly coated potato wedges!

Now I poured them onto the baking pan, sprinkled the wedges with seasoning, popped them in the oven and half an hour later we had the best fried (well... baked) potato wedges we've had in a long time.

Maybe I should write this down, in case I want to do it again.

Oh, wait!  
I just did!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

This day commemorates the activities of the tiny fishing village of Pollo del Mar, which had a cannery, a bakery, and not much else. The people of the town were tired of their diet of fish and bread. One day, however, a crate washed ashore and changed everything. Inside the crate? Five jars of mayonnaise.

The baker sliced loaves of bread and some guy named Charlie mixed the mayo with tuna from the cannery and the community discovered that their food supply would go farther, and was tastier than plain tuna and bread.

Every year the people of Pollo del Mar celebrate the anniversary of when the five jars of mayo washed ashore.

I'm sure there is probably another version of why Cinco de Mayo is celebrated, but I thought this story should be thrown into the mix as well.

*Ding!*

Ahhh... My chimichangas are ready!