Vergil’s Coffee

Just seeing if the newest WP 2.6 is playing nice with Safari 3.1.2.

“That’s not too much to ask for, eh?”

Hello!

And like someone had mention on Twitter, it looks like the media bar is working fine. 

In older posts on this site, the visual editor looked right, but when you save and viewed the post, all breaks were erased and you were left with one big block of text. Here’s hoping that Safari and WP have worked out their communication issues; if so, I am happy; if not, I’ll have to use Camino for WP posts.

Peace!

It looks like Utterz has just updated its services and has focused its site around discussions (no more Cow theme?). I think Utterz has always emphasized this, but the recent facelift (and the changing of its calling menu) seems to be a clearer presentation in positioning itself as the Audio/text/video place for communication around topics or just whatever you like.

Which brings me to this Utterz from gtowna that I listened to this morning and feel compelled to share. Why? Not because I completely agree with him–I don’t know much about international politics; I think I know that we in an election year here in the States–I share it because I think I have to be reminded of how the actions of my country affect others (aside from Iraq). 

I get the feeling that folks in the US are a bit antsy about not being #1 and that as long as we can still be in the superpower club, then we can still call the shots. It’s the popular kids sitting at the popular kid table and everyone is (or should be) looking at what the popular kids are doing. All the while, there’s those who aren’t popular, having to deal with own issues of relevance and identity. 

I think that’s why I listen to NPR and BBC radio, read Christian Science Monitor and The Week, listen or read from sites like Twitter and Utterz: to try and get a better handle on a few of the single voices outside Goshen, Indiana.

Now, I’ve got to run to Wal*Mart.

During last week’s Indiana Teachers of Writing National Writing Project Advanced Institute on the University of Notre Dame campus, we had one prompt of “In 50 words, write about buyer’s remorse.” The 50 words motif is fairly popular as it is less intimidating to write 50 words as opposed to 250 words. It’s really a great way to get writing started and then, perhaps, one could build from the 50 words. I think the other cool thing is that you are limited to 50 words…so you’ll need to edit, revise for word choice in the piece.

So, here was my response to “Write 50 words on buyer’s remorse”:

Fully conscious suckers, we were
into allowing men to “just clean a room carpet for free” segueing into “how much would you spend for a vacuum cleaner that does all this?” Agreed,
creditcarded,”Let’s sleep on it,”
restless sleep as a sign,
then we canceled.
Now we have a Roomba.

What’s your 50 words on buyer’s remorse?

My first real car, the 1988 Ford Festiva of Love, got rear ended by a van full of Amish folk. The current car, the 1993 Ford Escort, hasn’t lived up to the myth-like status of the Festiva–the Northern California nights of a San Francisco Giants hatted Dominos driver blasting the soundtrack to Cats out of Spark-o-matic speakers whiles eating an extra slice of pizza getting 46 miles on a gallon of gasoline. Instead, the Escort has been the ugly step brother of cars: purchased with the settlement money from the totalling of the Festiva and little love has been put into the forest green Escort wagon with it’s missing grill, cracked front bumper and punched driver’s side bumper. It is ugly but useful and like most ugly useful things, it has been quite consistent in being the designated “Point A” to “Point B” car (6.5 miles each way). So when it didn’t start the morning of the last day of school, I was a bit shocked, a little annoyed and slightly disappointed that the Green Wagon couldn’t just hold it together for one more day.

So I had to take public transportation.

We don’t really have a lot of public transportation in Goshen, Indiana; it is a small community, and aside from riding your bicycle and perhaps calling one of the 2 taxi services, about all you got is the Interurban Trolley which conveniently runs by the public library (about 2 blocks from my house).

I’m running a tad later than I wanted and the last time I rode the Interurban Trolley I found out quickly that the drivers believe in a schedule to the point of being much like my in-laws after Lori and me got married: on time means 5 minutes early. I was able to speed walk across US 15 and head toward the library while looking back to check on the presence of the Trolley and it was acomin’. The nice thing about the Interurban trolley is that you can also flag it down if you are not at a designated stop–and I was not–but the driver did pull over and pick me up (this may have something to do with my height or that I was wearing my optic orange polo shirt).

I take my seat halfway to the back of the Trolley and pull out my cellphone to twitter a bit about my trip thus far (for these are the exciting things in life that people should be reading, eh?) And then it happened: I began to read some of the signs on the Trolley. There was the usual “No Smoking” sign which seemed appropriate enough and then there’s that “Don’t stand beyond this white line” threat. The one that confused me a bit, partially because of its message, but also because it was the biggest sign inside: “No Profanity Allowed!”

And at this little observation followed by a chuckle, I came to the conclusion that I was doing a good thing: taking public transportation instead of stomping my big-ass carbon foot print in the sands of this day and time. No, I was riding the Interurban trolley while others, who could have done the same, were speeding by in their gas-guzzling, smog spewing, environmental death bombs that will certainly lead to the destruction of all things green and damn our children to an impossible, irreversible future of breathing air through a mask.

I was, in a sense, doing my part to help the future of the Mother Earth and was finally being a submissive fellow earth walker and a responsible one too.

I decided that I would skip getting to school 30 minutes early and get off at the Starbucks about a 1/2 mile down the road from school (and that was an easy decision: coffee or people?)

So, for about 15 minutes, I walked to school along US 33 South as a myriad of death inducing vehicles sped past me (remember, I’m tall and I’m wearing an optic orange shirt with a Starbucks coffee in hand, walking along a roadway where very people tend to trod).

Again I felt smug; in fact I even Twittered about it (so imagine the lanky orange pylon holding a coffee in one hand and texting with the other). Indeed, I was good.

And that didn’t last.

I remembered the absolute fear in second grade that we all would be swimming in our own garbage by the year 2000 (and then the tear rolls down the face of the Indian chief and fade to some recycle message in white on back). Hostility returned to my smug face as I recall how fashionable now it is to “Go Green” and buy expensive light bulbs, not use toilet paper and buy a hybrid car. Isn’t interesting that in order to “Go Green” you have to buy more stuff?

Douglas Rushkoff points out in his Frontline video “Merchants of Cool” where he comments on how the metaphor for consumerism is not a mirror (where the ads and media are only reflecting back to us images of ourselves) but more of a feedback loop (where the “cool” new stuff is seen in people and the media picks up that “cool” and then sells it back to the mainstream and by the time “cool” hits mainstream, “cool” has been effectively killed…it’s no longer cool).

And that’s when it hit me: It’s a giant feedback loop. The media watches kids and then sells them an image of themselves. Then kids watch those images and aspire to be that mook or midriff in the TV set. And the media is there watching them do that in order to craft new images for them, and so on.

This idea that by the time something becomes popular or hits the mainstream consciousness should be a clue to all of us that something is amiss. When Leonardo DiCaprio tells us about his use of energy-saving lightbulbs or that entire networks are having “Green” weeks where both the advertising and the content of the shows are reflecting this “Go Green” message, you have to wonder what’s being sold.

And really, how much will a hybrid car help the environment? If one really thinks that burning fossil fuels is bad, why then (you upper middle class guilt-ridden suckers) would you spend almost twice as much for a car that still uses gasoline? “Every little bit helps” has been the slogan to sucker money from so many people who may truly care about various causes.

And it’s not over: we’re ready to enter into the SuperBowl of US Politics this summer and we really have to realize that every single motto, every single stump speech, every thing that can be squeezed on a bumper sticker is for a vote and not so much a promise to keep.

After moving through the smugness into hostility, a car pulled in front of me in a driveway to the one of the many car dealerships on US 33S and I recognized the person as a colleague from school. She asked if I would like a ride and since I was only 5 blocks from school, I said no but thanked her for stopping. And I remember feeling a bit mixed on if I had done the right thing by refusing a Good Samartian offer. Perhaps I should just take the offer as a reminder of the more important things in life, instead of getting guilted into a cause for someone else’s financial gain. Perhaps, it’s more important to remember the nice things people do every once in a while and to appreciate even the ugly but useful things in our lives.

Besides, about the most “Green” you see me get is when I hit my “mid-age life crisis” and do what I can really get excited about: buy a Segway. It’s useful and ugly.

A power song idea is from the iPod Nano+Nike mash up whereby you select a song that you play during your workout or run when you need a little musical “pick me up.”

I don’t have an iPod Nano+Nike thing, but I do have a Shuffle and I’m looking for some suggestions on what song to use for this weekend’s Sunburst Marathon in South Bend, IN (”from the College Hall of Fame to the 50-yard line at Notre Dame”).

Last weekend’s marathon was easy because Lori and I ran in the Cleveland Rock n Roll Marathon and I can’t tell you how many times I listened to the Presidents of the US sing “Cleveland Rocks” (good song to get from iTunes Store ).

Here’s some suggestions so far from Twitter friends:

Any other suggestions?

(on having a former teacher asking me what’s been happening in my life since 1984 via Facebook)

Dear Mr. Noble,

And I start that way because what student has the gall to called their teacher by the first name? It just sounds and feels funny, so I’ll simply address you the same way I did in high school: Mr. Noble. (Besides, I think the students that called you by your first name were just being daring. To call your teacher “Dick” is both funny ha-ha and probably the result of some silly dare at the expense of your first name, perhaps).

I think the last time I saw you was at your house and I can’t remember for the life of me who was with me, but I remember it was probably after graduation and before a lot of us heading to the Midwest for college (or, in my case, post-high school education <g>). And I think your wife was there and your daughter (the one whom you proudly told us could say the Pythagorean Theorem by the age of 4). Wait, maybe it was Peter (who later said he had AIDS but I think is in Canada now) who was with me. Anyway, it was a nice visit and I think we made a lot of small talk and if I am correct, you even offered us iced tea and we accepted and sipped it (and why is it when we invite people into our homes do we give them tea or coffee or water? Maybe it’s a carry over from the olden days when traveling meant more).

From then, I sort of lost contact with you. I had heard a few reports of how you might have slightly ignored authority (creative teacher decision) and took some of your students to see Schindler’s List even if it was rated R (content over labels). I didn’t confirm the rumor, but I didn’t think it was that far out of your character. I don’t mean that in a negative sense; in fact, I think that’s one of the things I learned from you.

Remember when we were getting to Chapter 19 in Biology and you prompted us to say the “magic word” when a certain history teacher came in the room in the portable classroom you taught in? Yes, to the book, Chapter 19 was “Human Reproduction” but to our Biology class we gleeful answered your prompt “Class, what are we learning about today?” with a chorus “Sex!” This teacher-student exchange could be wrong on several levels: 1). You did it to possibly get a desired reaction from the unsuspected history teacher that walked in; 2). You were encouraging teenagers to say the word “sex” in public in the 1980s; and, possibly most damaging, 3). We were in a Christian school, weren’t we? And yet, there was so much more that I learned from your pedagogy than making someone a tad embarrassed and that was the power of being human and calling out sacred cows and celebrating things that make a lot of people uncomfortable. Sometimes the purpose of humor is to say the things that are unspoken in public so that we can simply get over ourselves.

And I’m not sure how he pulled this off, but I can say that Todd was a good “tally man” in Algebra II. Early in the semester you had made a mistake in a computation on the board and someone called you on it. Your response (and perhaps this is where the Christian school comes in) was that Jesus said that we need to forgive one another 70 times 7 (of which we all calculated to be 490). And we took it literally as most Christian folk take things in the Bible and Todd kept a running count of your mistakes, miscues and blunders (even if you corrected them immediately) until the end of the semester. When we reached 489 we decided as a class to have a celebration the following day and when you hit 490 the next day, we celebrated your mistakes with cake, ice cream, pop and other sweet stuff.

Probably what confused me the most about you was the Timothy group (I think that’s what you called them) where a few of us got a special invitation to meet as a group off campus to talk and have a look at the book of Timothy. It was a bit different of a group than I was used to and I really can’t remember any of the conversations or even topics that we discussed. I think I remember feeling like this was something special and that I was invited to be a part of it and I sometimes wonder why I was invited. For me, it was one of the few times that a teacher actually wanted to do non-school stuff outside of school. This wasn’t a school-sponsored club or even; it was something that you did for us and it was out of the ordinary.

Granted you did pick me up in Sebastopol every morning for a year or two. I would hop on the county bus at 6:20 a.m. in Monte Rio and get off by that corner where you would swing by in your … what kind of car was it? It had fins and was some shade of gold or silver or both. I think you also tried to explain why a manual transmission was better overall than an automatic one (it had three on the tree didn’t it?) And you are correct: I was a mooch for getting rides to places. I don’t think I every gave you gas money for the trip and perhaps you’d like to prorate your pay back in today’s gas prices, eh?

My oldest son, Evan, turned 11 Friday and he had two of his friends over for a slumber party thing.

Colin, the 7-year old, did his part in dressing up as a ninja/Darth Vader/bad guy from Meet the Robinsons. Lori is still a tad sore from last week’s running in the Cleveland Marathon…I got to help pace her to a new personal best of 4:44. (And, btw, this is the second year we’ve run a marathon on our anniversary and I wouldn’t exactly recommend that type of a weekend when you get a chance to get away from the kids). We’ve been married for 18 years, Lori and I, and we’ve been living in Goshen, Indiana for 12 years. She’s a SLP and works on private contract through the state with the 0-3 year old population. She’s the first person I met that really read a lot of books and had quick wit (though I’m proud to say that I beat her every time in Scrabble).

I am teacher, Mr. Noble, and though I choose English as my subject, some of the teacher persona comes from my observations in that portable classroom in that little school in Santa Rosa, California. I tried for a mathematics endorsement through college correspondence courses, but my heart wasn’t in it and I loved words more (though, I think they’re all symbols–math and English–and it’s all about language anyways, eh?). My students like appreciate respect me and have creative ways of showing it–and I think you know what I mean. Whereas somebody drew the numbers “666″ on the forehead of every one of your pictures in my 1984 yearbook, my students write “DDJD” on my board or on our class website or even on their Google Chat status indicator. I think one year, a student even made bracelets to hand out to the class with “DDJD” on it. I smiled. (Die Die Judson Die, btw).

In short: when you messaged me via Facebook: “I’m interested in you and your family and your work, etc, etc” I can tell you that I am happy, that I have a wonderful life with Lori and Evan and Colin (and sometimes LukeTheCat), that I am amusing myself in my work, that, and I think I got this from you, the classroom is not so much a place to learn about stuff for the future but a place where one can live a life. I think of you often: about a 4-year-old girl saying “The sum of the square of the legs equals the square of the hypotenuse” and a father smiling in approval, about Chapter 19, about 490, and about someone enjoying what they do and the people that watch him perform each day. And, about the improbability of impacting human lives and the randomness of words and how sometimes the whole business of life is a bit funny.

Thank you.

Peace,

Chris Judson

Class of 1984
(Geometry, Biology, Algebra II and Basic Auto Theory)

We’re simply not ready for this: the state of the Indiana actually matters on a national level election (well, even if it is the Democratic nominee, it still is probably the most exciting voting thing here in the Midwest since… let me think about that for a moment).

Anyway, I got my first attack mailer from the Republican the Democratic challenger to Barack Obama that tells me that Obama is a liar and is in the same poker game as the “Bush/Cheney Administration.” Oooo, that just is so poetic, isn’t it? Not just Bush or Cheney, but BushCheney.

Why are you lying to me, Barack? I thought you were going to be the person to change things, to give me something to hope for and in? Now, I learn from www.citizen.org, and, well, “Paid for by Hillary Clinton for President,” that “Indiana families can’t afford Barack Obama” because “Energy company employees donated over $650,000 to Barack Obama and GOT WHAT THEY WANTED.”

Perhaps I should just vote for McCain.

Sometimes I feel like I’m getting payback for how lazy I was as a child. I was not helpful around the house and I watched a lot of television in the 70s until I got to school and then I was busy with whatever sports season it was or whatever social engagement was happening. Oh, and I wasn’t a great student until my senior year.

Did I tell you that Brad Frost mowed our lawn? Maybe I didn’t, but my best friend through sixth grade, Brad Frost, apparently came from a more industrious background, because he mowed our lawn. Oh, we had a lawnmower (one of those manual push mowers with exposed swirling blades of death), but I think my mom got tired of asking me to mow the lawn, and probably offered Brad Frost five dollars to do it and he did (I think he even planted grass seed in a big dead patch to the south side of our front lawn).

Where did he even learn that stuff?

Anyway, two weekends ago, my wife asked about the upstairs bathroom sinks and commented how both sinks were draining “terribly slow again.” Yes, “again” is the operative word here as I’ve written about the same “fixing of the sinks” on my second “Coffee Stain.”

I gruffed and decided to just get the stupid thing done “once and for all.” This, by the way, is not a pronouncement you ought to make when working with plumbing as it is generally “wishful thinking” or just plain stupid talk. Whereas electrical work will usually yield an immediate result (be it that the lights go on, the lights don’t go on, or you hear a “pop!”); plumbing is a lesson in patience, humility and economics. And fortunately for me, this day I would face all those lessons.

I’ve mentioned this before, but that liquid “Genie-unplug-my-gunky-filled” pipe opener rarely works as advertised. Instead, you really have to get the hands dirty and snake that mother-of-a-gunkball out of its lodging and physically remove it from your house. (It’d be really stupid, you know, to flush it down the toilet or, better yet, wash it down the drain). So, that was the plan of action…for the adjacent sinks: to remove both S-Joints and get the snake-thing in there and remove the gunk.

Then several more variables entered the equation that equaled more time, effort and humility. One of the pipes had holes in it and the main outflow pipe’s threads were unusable.

Trip one of eight to the hardware store(s) began at 10:30 a.m.; I finished putting away my tools at 2:05 p.m.

Time+Effort+Humility=an amateur plumber.

Or at least that’s what I got from the Helpful Man at Ace Hardware on trip #2 when I was still jokey and happy. I was making some comment about how I try and remember to bring all the original parts with me in a plastic bag as to make sure I get the right size pipes. He had mentioned, in passing as I was checking out, that the average amateur plumbing job takes 3-5 trips to the hardware store. I laughed his little comment away, confident that this trip #2 was all I needed.

We then launched into a quick “what did you see?” chat about the man whom I saw get arrested in front of the BMV. I said that I was watching from the van as the police officer appeared to be using calming gestures and tones while the little Irate Man kept waving some paper around in some type of protest of something that happened (or didn’t happen) in the BMV. Irate Man took a few steps toward the police car, the police man did some type of warning thing, Irate Man put his hand on the police car, policeman handcuffed Irate Man and off they went downtown.

Or that’s how I saw it, I told the Ace Hardware chat group. They nodded in acceptance and off I went to find out that there was not way short of a large hammer, that I could connect the new piece to the old piece.
I did a lot of floundering from this point on as I tried to figure out a way make the connection with a few more trips to John Hall Hardware store. I went to John Hall Hardware store not so much because it’s a bit more “local shopping” as much as being taunted by those “amateur” words. In fact, as I was leaving the Ace Hardware store, the Helpful Man said, in passing and I think he meant no ill: “At my other job, I used to do that same plumbing job in less than 6 minutes.” So, I avoided the my own mockery and having to face the “6-minute man” and went to John Hall instead.

And it was after I found a workable and safe solution on my 4th John Hall trip that I got the mockery again.

“You know,” said the Old-Timer Hardware Workerman. “They say that most amateur plumbing jobs take around three trips.”

Is this part of the hardware business training? Did he just get a phone call from Ace Hardware Helpful Man and was told: “Oh, hey John Hall Old-Timer Hardware Workerman: there’s a guy who looks like an amateur that’ll be coming your way. Why don’t you give him the ‘3 times’ business, okay?”

Only thing is that I’ve apparently skewed the averages with my 8 total trips to the hardware stores. I suppose I’m not average, you know?

To my credit, though, I will say that I’ve fixed a plumbing problem that was directly caused by someone’s inability to do the job correctly, and who had merely stopped the leaking drains (and there’s a difference between the two).

I’ve been told that the word amateur has at its essence the idea of one who loves what they are doing. It’s not out of being paid for the job (a “professional”), an amateur does the job out of love of doing the job. I do not love the job of plumbing for the sake of plumbing; I do the job of plumbing because I couldn’t get my lazy butt off the couch and mow the lawn. Instead, Brad Frost (the amateur and possibly entrepreneur) mowed my family’s lawn and I have a feeling Brad Frost likes plumbing more than I do.

And as I look at the people that I really like, those in my house, I see Evan, the amateur of Ape Escape 3 1/2 game design and of a pretty well-developed sarcasm; I see Colin, the amateur of making Cast Lists and illogical pronouncements; and I see Lori, the amateur of mothering the boys, and of words (though I still can be her in Scrabble to her astonishment). I suppose those people don’t see me as Chris, the amateur of plumbing and mowing and picking the hair out of the Roomba. I hope not, as sometimes Lori will comment: “How did you know how to fix that?” and I will say something about serendipity and instinct (also known as luck or fate or perhaps, like many things in life that get “fixed”: time and effort and humility).

I think about my last Coffee Stain and some of the response that students have given regarding my not advising Student Publications next year. You should know that I don’t really view advising or teaching as my job; even though I am paid for doing it, I consider myself an amateur of teaching and learning and the whole business. I simply can’t view teaching as a job; I can’t see anyone else doing what I love to do (not even Brad Frost).

Because I can.

And that is perhaps the long and short of it.

As it stands, my teaching schedule does not include Student Publications nor Beginning Journalism and that is a first since I’ve taken this position at Concord High School 13 years ago. The change also has me not in Room 138: a room I’ve occupied since it was built 12 years ago. I will no longer be responsible for the Journalism program at Concord High School and it’s a change that I requested–a change that has been in the works since first trimester of this year and so it has little to do with the current newspaper staff and more to do with some necessary changes in my life and my department.

I requested from my department chair (Livrone) and principal (Cunningham) that I teach sophomores again and that in order to do that I would give up my teaching and advising responsibilities of Newspaper and Journalism. My schedule for next year will still include the other classes that I have been assigned this year (English 12b, Biblical Literature, and yes, AP English Language and Composition) and then sections of English 10A, 10B and another English 10 class to be titled later.

The teacher that will be taking the Student Publications teaching and advising responsibilities along with the Beginning Journalism class is Ms. Lauren Martin. We will probably be swapping rooms as we swap teaching assignments.

I’ll be adding more to this post tomorrow, but for now I thought it was time that you know.