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Great Ideas
Posted 11:23 AM, Jul 3, 2008 |
I have had many great ideas lately; I always forget to share them with you.
My latest good idea is to jam the blue plastic recycle bin for, say, newspaper, into the blue plastic recycle bin for plastic. It’s meta-recycling.
I had another good idea that involved a gymnast doing a cannonball into the judge’s table, one that is funnier if you picture it while watching gymnastics, something you will not find me doing. Usually. |
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Brushes With Greatness
Posted 9:08 AM, Jul 1, 2008 |
Two stories:
1) On Friday night, the EC and I went to the Upright Citizens Brigade improv comedy show. The way the show works is, in brief, there is a guest monologist who tells a story or two based on a suggestion from the audience; then, four improv artists riff on details in the story, creating humorous scenes and situations, and hilarity ensues.
On Friday, the guest monologist was Jenna Fischer (Pam from NBC’s The Office and, like your favorite blogger, a fellow alum of Truman State University). The EC shouted out “Truman State” as the crowd quieted down; I’m just thankful she didn’t follow it with a dog woof and a fist pump, spilling her beer all over the people in front of us. Thank heaven for small favors.
Jenna was suitably surprised and ended up telling her first story (and thus fueling the first half of the story) about Truman State and Kirksville, MO. Nice time.
2) In 7th and 8th grade, I knew this girl, Kara Wheeler. We had to sit next to one another in English class on the first day and had to interview one another as our first assignment. We became reasonably good friends, I suppose.
Kara was always an excellent runner; when she got to high school (a different high school than mine), she and another girl dominated track and cross-country for 4 years, creating a dynasty. They just tore it up.
Since middle school, Kara got married and changed her name to Kara Goucher. On Friday evening, she came in second in the 10,000m at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, OR, and thus made the U.S. Olympic team. (She’s competing in the finals for the 5,000m on July 4th, as well, having posted the fastest time in the semifinal heats.)
Not that she’s reading, but way to go, Kara. |
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Rerun
Posted 8:30 AM, Jun 29, 2008 |
My episode of Merv Griffin’s Crosswords will re-air on Thursday, June 10th in select markets. If your market airs two episodes of the show daily, mine will be the second show aired. If your market only airs one episode daily, well, forget it, mine won’t re-air in your neighborhood.
In Los Angeles, check out KNBC at 12:30pm.
In Minneapolis/St. Paul and Duluth and Minnesota in general, forget it.
Check additional air-times here. |
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Two Trivia Questions I Wrote
Posted 11:36 AM, Jun 28, 2008 |
1) The chemical symbol for what type of acid can be made by rearranging some of the letters in a South American country?
2) What band released an album that shares a title with the name of a film directed by Gus van Sant?
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Summer of Lull
Posted 4:41 PM, Jun 24, 2008 |
While most people I know look forward to summer, particularly those involved in education, I can’t quite do it.
Just this week at Ye Olde Math Shoppe, we switched our hours around a little bit, adopting our summer hours through the end of August. This results in me actually working 1 additional hour per week, but working 1 fewer day per week. So, I work longer on M-Th, but have Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off each week.
Ah, yes, three day weekends every week! Not so great, actually. (If, at this point, you’re bemoaning your 40+ hour workweek, best to tune out now.) It turns out having a lot of time off is really boring.
I only work 29 hours per week as it is (28 during the school year), so even on days that I work, I have some free time, and now I have a whole other day to fill up. I’m looking into various ways to fill my time, from buying a keyboard and re-exploring how to play a little bit of piano, along with keeping up on the guitar. Still lawn bowling. Bought and am reading a book on stock market investing, and am also doing some research on that online as well. Looking to play more tennis. Maybe, if you’re lucky, some more blog writing. So it seems like I have plenty of things to occupy my time, and we haven’t even talked about following sports, which could occupy some people’s entire waking lives.
Yet still, boredom creeps in. During the summer, as my hours change and I’m home by myself less (instead of going to work at 1:30 or 2:00 in the afternoon after spending the entire morning wasting time, I go to work around 10:30, which is much better), I’m less bored at home. Unfortunately, since YOMS is an educational business, it’s slow in the summer, leaving me with huge chunks of time in which the only recourse is to investigate offshore drilling and write rambling blog posts. YOMS is kind of like a cemetery in the summer.
So it’s a trade-off - less boredom at home during the summer, more boredom at work; less boredom at work during the school year, more boredom at home.
Any way you slice it, it’s boredom reigning supreme. Maybe I’ll start another blog. |
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