News and Updates

1. Continuing our recent mechanical woes, the microwave died last night. Kim put a little bowl of roasted green beans that we had from Monday’s dinner in to reheat and there was a zapping sound and then it just went black. We’re pretty sure it wasn’t the green beans that did it but you never know. They were some fine garden beans. Everything else in the kitchen still runs, so it’s clear that this was a localized failure. We are looking into replacing it, not having much in the way of a choice in the matter, and while Kim enjoys the hunting and gathering aspect of such projects so far my only nonnegotiable point is that whatever we get will be installed by someone else.

2. Also, whatever is installed will not be a “smart” appliance. I do not need my microwave to be connected to the internet, and if any appliance tries to greet me when I walk into the room I will take a baseball bat to it.

3. For those of you keeping score, the list of broken things since mid-July includes two window blinds, a garage light, the water softener, all of the plumbing in the upstairs bathroom including four different showerhead arrangements (the current one still needs a minor tweak but no further new parts), both of the toilets in the house, the front hose connection, my Waterpik, the barbecue grill, and one headlight and all of the tires on my car, all in about eight weeks. This does not count some expensive dentistry (not covered by insurance), the as-yet-unfilled need for new glasses for me, and my general sense of well-being and trust in the nation’s future though to be honest that last one has been crumbling for a while.

4. Speaking of broken things, it was roughly during this same period that HR decided to impose a brand-new software package as a hot-patch – one day everything just switched over – and it has gone as well as you’d think. On the one hand, that was a fiendishly complicated switch and you have to expect some of that. On the other hand, Kim and have already had to take action to recover over $1500 of our money that mysteriously vanished from our paychecks and even after correcting this HR doesn’t know why it was deducted in the first place, which does give one pause for the future.

5. I’ve been mostly trying to focus on getting this summer’s stories written down here so I don’t forget them – there’s still one more post to go – but every now and then I poke my head above the ramparts to see what the rest of the world is up to and sweet dancing monkeys on a stick but that’s not a healthy thing to do these days. Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and his minions, lackeys, cronies and slaves continue to impose Fascism on the United States while embarrassing themselves and the nation every step of the way – a fascinating combination of incompetence, authoritarianism, and twisted immorality that will someday be considered a case study in how to destroy a once-proud nation assuming there are scholars around someday to consider it. If you’re looking for signs that the end of the American republic is rapidly approaching he certainly provides them in bulk. Israel isn’t even bothering to pretend it isn’t committing genocide against the Palestinians anymore, and the irony of the nation founded as an example of “never again” being the nation currently doing it again is considerable. Ukraine continues to hold out against Putin’s increasingly desperate attempts to wipe it off the map – attempts that now seem to be aimed at bringing NATO into the war directly, which won’t end well. It’s a mess, and at some point I will try to get back to writing about such things. But for right now I will have to be content with a simple declaration that I dissent from all of this, with every breath in my body.

6. It makes it very hard to grade assignments when the world is on fire and your own government is making it worse. But you do what you have to do, I suppose.

7. We are less than a month into the school year and already it has been a time, for all sorts of reasons that will not appear in this space.

8. On the other hand, my students this year have rediscovered the art of asking questions and that has been fun. Also, they seem to be enjoying the classes overall. This week some of my Western Civ students decided to bring in what they said was a homemade replica of a Tudor crown to see if I’d wear it in class, and I did for the first couple of minutes. I’m not a great fan of hats when the temperature is over 60F, but it seemed fair to put it on at least for a bit. Yes, there are photos. No, I don’t have any of them.

9. They keep telling us that the main road on our side of Our Little Town will be completely fixed sometime soon and I’d like to believe it. I can tell they’re getting close because suddenly early this week things got a whole lot worse, which means that they’d finally scraped off a good chunk of what had to be replaced, and today on the way home some of it was already filled back in. So it could happen.

10. I always record my history classes, because I throw a lot of information at students and they find it helpful to have those for review. I’ve been doing that for over a decade now – longer if you count pure audio recordings – and a) it has had no impact whatever on attendance that I’ve ever been able to quantify, and b) student comprehension and grades have both improved. This works very well when the technology works, but as you might imagine the reverse it true as well. Today the internet down at Home Campus was acting up and halfway through class the Zoom recording died, so I had to spend an hour and a half of my evening re-recording it. The jokes are the same.