spacemonk

went to a clam bake. don't eat clams and neither does anyone in my family. the kids had a blast. it was kind of fun, but a bit boring. seemed like all the other adults were too tired for a party...

bravo is showing strictly ballroon this weekend - i caught the very end last night, now watching it in it's entirety, even as we speak. a quirky, yet highly entertaining flick, i've seen a bunch of times

i had an odd dream last night, i dreamt that i had a part-time job that i hadn't shown up for in a while. i realized i had missed work for several weeks and i couldn't even remember where i worked, exactly what i did (i thought i was a custodian or something, but was trying to get in with the boss to do a diff job), or what days i worked. in my dream, i couldn't even remember or figure out what days i worked given my normal teaching schedule is pretty busy. i don't think you need to be freud to parse this one out - the basic, garden variety anxiety dream - fear of leaving something undone. what was odd was when i woke upo from this in the middle of the night, the dream was so vivid, i couldn't tell if i dreamt it or if it was real. when i finally decided it was a dream, i still had lingering thoughts that maybe aspects of the dream were about something real. it took a long time to convince myself that i really do not have some part-time job somewhere that i am blowing off.

ok....i have, thru the magic of javascript, made it so that for any new posts commenting is only thru haloscan, for old posts only thru yaccs and a couple of transitional posts have comments for both!

newsflash: got a 14/15 on my project, which means i can play this weekend at least some, instead of having to re-work it. which means the only thing i really have to get done is create a test for one of the classes i am teaching. and no, wagner, you may not help.
:-)

i had an appt today at cleveland state with my faculty adviser in my master's program - a relatively eventful day from a number of perspectives:

nostalgia: though there are many more buildings, students now have cell phones and drag luggage behind them and misc. changes in style (students wear different kinds of t-shirts and jeans) everything else was just like when i went there in 19-uh, well, sometime in the last quarter of the 20th century...looked, sounded and smelt the same. the college environment is so alive compared to the business world. one reason i think i like teaching. people do things just for the heck of it - like most of the courses i took. csu is an urban, commuter school. attending it was like going to a job; i don't think i have the warm memories of "the college experience" as those do who attended other colleges. still i liked csu - though when recently called to see if i wanted, as an alumnus, to attend homecoming, i was like "why on earth would i do that?" i literally can't even think of the names of more than a handful of people i went to csu with, and that's not even a self-deprecating old joke...

tcb: got my curriculum approved and all that - even found i could petition out of the "Computer Programming" course i have to take...20 yrs software development plus a bs in cis prob gives me a diff background than most of the people in my program, who are for the most part career k-12 teachers - with the risk of sounding bold, don't think i'd learn much there

narcissism: visited the award i won when i graduated. made sure my name plate was there. found they stopped awarding it in 1991 - or at least stopped engraving the nameplates then

unlikely opportunity: about 2 minutes into discussing my background with my adviser (mind you, this is the first time we met), she starts telling me about a grant proposal she is writing and seeing if i would be interested in teaching there as an adjunct a few years down the line if this project comes to fruition, NICE! academics are funny. she was very helpful though, esp re:getting my class waved...

i've seen this for a while...taking the plunge and trying it myself


the friday five

1. If you could only choose 1 cd to ever listen to again, what would it be?
hmmm. my biggest worry is answering this when i'm in one of my "phases" where i am really into a cd. i'm not sure why this is so tough, i didn't read the fine print, but i am reasonably sure they don't come and force you to live out your answers. i guess i'll go with INTRODUCING RUBEN GONZALEZ - if i'm going to only listen to one it better be a. darn good b. something i don't tired of and 3. something i'm almost always in the mood for - this cd fits these criteria better than any i can think of - watch out for p.s. posts though

2. If you could only choose 2 movies to watch ever again, what would they be?
crouching tiger, hidden dragon and dr. strangelove - this one was kind of easy

3. If you could only choose 3 books to read ever again, what would they be?
alan watts: the wisdom of insecurity
lance armstrong: it's not about the bike
hmmm..and maybe thoreau's walden - so i could finish it or maybe rushdie's the moor's last sigh
yeah, we'll go with rushdie...if i'm going to be forced to live by these arbitrary rules, i'm not sure reading a crank like thoreau would help


4. If you could only choose 4 things to eat or drink ever again, what would they be?
pasta (lot's of variety there)
bananas
peanut butter (the natural, nothing added kind - esp. no critter)
water

5. If you could only choose 5 people to ever be/talk/associate/whatever with ever again, who would they be?
hmmm - definitely my wife and kids
either one of my brothers or my sister - since i can't pick all three, rather than exclude only one i'll pick one of the three randomly and assume they'll keep me posted on the other two
lastly, my yoga teacher

well, the black and white cat returned a minute ago. the only sign of him thru last night was our one neighbor thought she saw him a few houses down from her yesterday morning, which would have placed him several houses away from us, on the other side of the block - nut the details were sketchy. this cat is stupid enough to get into some kind of trouble. he's gotten caught on our shed roof before where i had to rescue him, etc.... but low and behold, this morning, everyone is sleeping in cause no one has work or school, i wake up, come down and turn on the deck light, and in a second there he is. i open the door and he runs right for the food dish and starts munching- which is no suprise cause that's what he does if he's out for 5 minutes.

i can't wait to see evil white cat's reaction to the triumphant return. she seemed as giddy as a teenage girl at an n sync concert. yesterday. big, fat, friendly grey seemed uneffected throughout...

thanks to suggestions by taz and sharon i am trying out comments by haloscan

for a while, i will continue to have both new comments (labelled "use these comments") and old comments (labelled "don't use these") while i test out the new system, make sure old threads are closed off etc...) then i'll get rid of the old, or, if i'm feeling ambitions, write a little code so that old posts have old comment system new posts have new comment system...

our little black and white cat is missing. neither my wife nor i are too concerned, cause, well, you know how cats are. a while ago, one of our cats disappeared for over a week and we had her marked off as dead, then she waltzed in, a bit dirty, a bit thinner, but not really any worse the wear. besides, the little black and white one isn't really my favorite anyhow. but my duaghter is concerned. so we reassured her that he's probably ok and will turn up soon.

on the other hand, it probably wouldn't hurt to start questioning the evil white cat. she looked awful smug this morning.

i seem to recall one of my blogger friends writing about yo la tengo. i saw their cd "and then nothing turned itself inside-out" at our local library a week back and picked it up. my first listen threw me for a loop. i really didn't know much about them. and on first listening, i really didn't know what to make of them. but after a few closer listens, it's really a great record.

starving. microwaved a lovely plate of pasta w/olive oil, garlic, veggies and sundry spices - really tasty...anyhow, set the microwave wrong, left, when i returned, it was on it's SECOND pass of 3 mnutes on high, instead of the one pass i was intending. it was sizzlikng like fajitas from chi-chi's. so i am posting it to take my mind off how hungry i am while i give it a minute to cool. took a few bites and while it was still tasty, it was tres chaud...

"...i've got nothing to say, but it's ok..."

a frequent inhabitant of my cd players these days is jazz musician brad mehldau's largo. epsecially good is his cover of radiohead's "paranoid android". the melody of this song is really gorgeous and meldhau's stripped down version really showcases it. additionally, given it is an instrumental, i am not distracted by having to try to parse thru the lyrics...

mehldhau is the real deal. a jazz musician steeped in the tradition that allows himself to be influenced by other styles of music, but in an organic way - i.e. it doesn't seem forced - he plays the music he loves.

this is the first mehldau cd i own, he has a bunch of more traditional recordings. from what i hear, for better or worse, in this cd he breaks out and is finding his own voice. a welcome blast of individuality in the at times stale world of jazz - which seems to be split between yucky, boring smooth jazz (which really isn't jazz) on one end and neotradional music/reissues on the other (which might be great, but somehow more is needed if jazz is to be a living art form). on this cd, which might not be perfect, mehldau plays jazz the way i like it - balancing a respect for tradition with his own need for individual expression. right on, brad!

speaking of mehldau, in reading his bio, i realized i prob saw him perform w/joshua redman in the early 90's. i think he recorded with redman on mood swings, a favorite of mine, which i need to dust off...small world

today's twist on the age old optimism test:
am i half awake or half asleep?

was alias on last night outside the cleveland area? i turned on abc at 9 and the browns were on. yet the screen said espn sunday night football. i think it's because of an archaic rule from back before everyone had cable that if your local team was on a cable channel, it had to be shown on a broadcast channel as well...

shucks...

i read in discover magazine that by forcing a smile - or even a facial expression that resembles a smile - you can lift your mood. research shows that, paradoxically, it may be the emotion (happiness, sadness) follows the physical expression (smile, frown) rather than the other way around. the article explained that from an evolutionary perspective, if like, you were a caveman and a dinosaur was chasing you, you wouldn't have time to think about the situation, become afraid, and then run...in other words, we evolved to have the emotion fear of situations that caused us to run away. of course, i have no idea if this is right or not, but perhaps as an experiment, i will glue a smile on my face all day and observe the results. what's the worst that could happen: being mistaken for an osmond?

no will to blog. were i to post it would be about the balance between tradition and individuality/innovation in jazz music vis a vis brad mehldau's largo. feel free to make up your own entry re:what i would have said.