Gettin’ edjicated

Been on the receiving end of a lot of schooling lately …

I just had a really odd dream. I dreamed that the community college where I teach and the university just up the road got together to provide a workshop for instructors working to prepare students for careers in film production, not just instructors in the film programs, but those teaching such things as English (e.g., script writing) and accounting (production budgeting, etc.). It was a really intense workshop, a week long, and it involved not only classroom work but field work as well; participants were picked up from their campuses by bus and taken to each day’s lesson site. One day involved going out on the water in boats – the one I was assigned to was a nasty green aluminum runabout that seemed designed to make sure its occupants ended up soaking wet and very cold.

At the end of each day of study, there were gatherings to dine and socialize in a large banquet hall at the university. At the end of the final day of the program, spouses were invited, and all went well until Pat tried to hog all of the bread in the bread basket on the table. Then he was told he had to pay for the bread.

As the gathering broke up, many of the participants said they would be looking forward to the next year’s program, but the folks running the show said there would be no repeat – this had cost too much money and was too much hassle to put on.

As Pat and I were hiking out to where he had parked the car, it was uphill. And then it was even more steeply uphill. And I was tired, and getting more and more tired, and my muscles were aching. And the path kept getting steeper, and I kept getting more tired, until finally, I couldn’t stand up anymore, and I was crawling toward the car, which kept getting farther and farther away.

I woke up, and I was still aching. Ugh.

But the whole idea of a workshop like the one I dreamed about really seems like a good idea, since New Mexico is trying to encourage the film industry to produce more movies in-state. We already have good programs in place to train support personnel, and it would be great to have more higher-level personnel close to home.

In real life, Pat and I have been spending a lot of time lately in classes, although these classes are related much more to sailboat racing than film production.

In early November, we headed up to Denver, where we took two workshops over the weekend, one on race management, and one on race judging. Our time there coincided with the first snowstorm of the season, small by Colorado standards, but still enough to ice things over. One of the highlights of that weekend was meeting people from regional and national organizations, including a bit of information about changes in the rules that will be taking place in the new year. We also enjoyed the company of some of our classmates, such as the commodore of the Aspen Yacht Club (yes, there IS a yacht club in Aspen!), and some people we’d already worked with at regattas in Colorado. Part of the idea is to get people doing race management in places other than their immediate home waters, in order to get regional race management certification.

Later in November, we came to Arizona for another workshop. This one was put on by the Arizona Yacht Club, and it featured Dick Rose, who is one of the people who actually wrote the new rules. It was great to learn not only what the major changes in the rules are, but also why those changes were implemented. For example, there is a new rule (although I suspect the vast majority of sailors were already abiding by the practice) that bans intentionally putting trash in the water. There are some adjustments to rule changes made four years ago, for example, fine-tuning the rules about outside assistance.

Once my fall teaching was over, it was back to Arizona for a long-term stay and another training session, this time in handling powerboats and in operating such boats in support of a sailing regatta. There were two four-hour classroom sessions, and then there was a day out on the water, in order to learn hands-on how to operate a powerboat, and in particular how to operate the boats that belong to the Arizona Yacht Club – after a couple of incidents, the club decided to make a rule that those who wish to serve on race committee duty must learn how to operate the boats. The classroom sessions went well – they covered a lot of material, very quickly, since the people attending the class were already reasonably familiar with boats and the water.

The on-the-water session, however, was another story. It was cloudy and rainy, and although the forecast said the weather would be clearing out by midday, it never did. We worked on low-speed maneuvers, and we began to do the capsized-boat recovery, but by that time, it was raining heavily, and it was breezy as well. I was on the first team to attempt the recovery, on a nasty green aluminum runabout that seemed designed to make sure its occupants ended up soaking wet and very cold. The 14-foot boat that we were to recover didn’t just capsize; it turned all the way upside down, making the recovery even harder. One of my classmates on the boat commented that the instructor had certainly arranged realistic conditions, unlike the videos we had seen in the classroom, shot in calm water and clear weather. The instructor decided to declare a break, go to the marina restaurant to dry off, warm up, and decide what to do next. Eventually, the decision was made to finish the training at a later date, with better weather.

Every year, I get a performance evaluation at work, and one of the things I am supposed to do is show how I plan to improve as an instructor in the coming year or two. Continuing education is one potential way to do that. I’m not sure, however, that my supervisors would count dreaming of an intensive film program workshop or taking sailing race-management courses toward that requirement. I guess I’ll have to find something else.

Oh, and one more thing. … I did participate in National Novel Writing Month this year, and as usual, I did get to 50,000 words, with “Murder at the Wedding.” I got to bring back some of the colorful characters from the family reunion a few years back, and various confusions, including a couple of neo-Nazi skinheads who were attempting to assassinate a cat, only to find out that the feline was more than their match. Even worse, the skinheads were the last people (other than the murderer) to see the murder victim alive, so they really didn’t have a good day.

And yes, I did, as usual, participate in National Cat Herders Day, although I was so busy herding cats that I didn’t get a chance to put up my usual post.

It’s the most wonderful time …

Cat Herders Day is here again!

It is time once again to celebrate Cat Herders Day, the official holiday of Five O’Clock Somewhere, tomorrow, December 15. Those of my followers in Europe are already enjoying the holiday.

The holiday was originally invented by a couple in California who have made up other wacky, offbeat holidays to celebrate. The date for this one, I’m sure, is a reflection on how busy most of us are at this time of year, with shopping, holiday arrangements, parties, entertaining, decorating, cooking, wrapping gifts, shipping gifts, writing and mailing holiday cards, traveling, coping with nasty weather, and sometimes also finishing up an academic semester or term with the accompanying final exams or portfolios and the grading thereof. Even those whose households are devoid of felines may feel like they’re herding cats.

Then there are those who are literally herding cats. Perhaps they have a house full of the critters. Perhaps they’ve taken an interest in a colony of feral cats, possibly even going to the trouble of participating in trap-neuter-release programs to reduce population growth and improve the health of cats in the colony. Perhaps they volunteer for a local animal shelter, fostering cats who need more special care than they can get in a shelter environment or providing kittens with a highly interactive environment to help them learn the socialization skills that will help them to get adopted.

This year, I’ve set up an event on Facebook for Cat Herders Day. You’re invited to come and share the ways you will be celebrating the day. You may post photos of the cats you herd and share your own cat-herding experiences, or if you don’t herd any cats yourself, express your admiration for those who do.

Of course, the Byrnes cat herd is small, consisting of only two cats.

Dulce was adopted in January 1997 from the organization now known as Animal Humane New Mexico. She had been picked up as a starving stray in a blizzard in Edgewood the previous Thanksgiving. She has been living in the lap of luxury ever since, and after all these years, I doubt she has any memory of her deprived early years.

Scratch came last year from the City of Albuquerque Animal Welfare Department, and his beginnings were happier. Although he and his littermates were turned over to the shelter, they were placed in a foster home where they socialized not only with humans but with many other animals, so he was a totally friendly and outgoing young cat. Gerald hadn’t intended to adopt a cat, but Scratch picked him out at an event in the parking lot of a local sporting-goods store.

So my thanks go out to the cat herders whose efforts led to two wonderful cats ending up in our household.

How many cats is a three dog night worth?

Trying to keep warm

It’s a cold night in Albuquerque. It’s also a windy night. The predicted low is 24 degrees (Fahrenheit), and the winds are howling, gusting to 50 mph and sometimes even higher. According to NOAA, the wind chill means it really feels like 12 degrees or colder.

During the day, a wind gust of 78 mph was clocked in the far northeast part of Albuquerque, and the Sunport reported a gust of 53. Our storm door was flung off its hinges, and in the process, the hydraulic closing cylinder punched a hole in the front door. The result is that the door is letting cold air in, so it’s hard to keep the house warm.

I was listening to my favorite radio station on the way home from work, as my little Vibe was getting knocked all over the road by gusts of wind, and the DJ commented that it was going to be a “three dog night,” as a segue into a song by the band named after that concept.

For those who don’t know, the phrase comes from medieval times, when home heating was, to put it mildly, not exactly efficient. On an especially cold night, the humans in a house would derive extra warmth by having their dogs, often large ones, in their beds to help keep them warm. A “three dog night” was an especially cold one, as it required three dogs to keep the bed warm enough.

Unfortunately, all Pat and I have is a cat. And Dulce is not exactly a large cat – she probably weighs in at about six pounds. So she’s about a tenth of a large dog.

Now, we do have friends who could be described as cat herders. These friends have large numbers of cats on hand. And those cats are probably larger than Dulce – I’m guessing the average cat is 10 pounds or more. Also, cats’ normal body temperature is slightly higher than that of dogs, so maybe it doesn’t take as much mass of cat as of dog to produce the same amount of heat.

So I open this question up to the cat herders I know: If it’s a three dog night, how many cats is it?

More long and winding ...

Another long way home, this time by way of the Rio Grande Gorge.

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This time around, we took the scenic route eastward along U.S. 64, a drive best known for fall colors. This early in the year, just a few of the cottonwoods and willows along the streams were just beginning to turn gold. Unfortunately, insect ravages (tent caterpillars in the aspens, bark beetles in the firs) have made for less than vibrant colors in recent years. Still, the scenery was dramatic.

At Tres Piedras, we took a right and took the back road to Pilar. The descent into the Rio Grande Gorge is rather rough, but before the high bridge was built in 1965, that was the way to get from one side to the other. The stagecoach ride from the train station at Taos Junction into Taos must have been grueling.

By this time, it was dark, so we didn't get as much enjoyment out of the scenery as we might have. Darned days are getting shorter now.

(Stats on this journey, according to Google Maps: 214 mi.; 4 hours, 28 minutes.)

Writing project: approaching a milestone

So, what should the prize be this time?

This blog is about to reach a historic milestone. As I start to type this post, Sitemeter has registered 99,677 visitors. That means, in just a few days, I will be seeing the 100,000th visitor to this blog.

To mark the event, I want to provide a really cool prize to Visitor #100K. In the past, I've offered such things as dinner at my favorite brewpub or a sailing trip on Black Magic, but, alas, nobody has yet made it to New Mexico to claim such a prize.

So, I'm open to suggestions. To sweeten the deal, not only will I grant the prize to Visitor #100K, but also to whoever comes up with the winning suggestion. So, let the writing project begin. You have from now until whenever lucky Number 100,000 shows up.

Long and winding road update

One detour I wish did not have to be ...

A major section of the last route shown in the previous post is currently off-limits, and once it is no longer off limits, it may no longer be as scenic as it used to be.

The Las Conchas Fire in northern New Mexico began early Sunday afternoon, and within hours, it had consumed several thousand acres. This section of the road is now closed:

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The fire started at one of my favorite picnic spots in the mountains, the Las Conchas recreation area just past where Highway 4 (westbound) leaves the vast grassy area called the Valle Grande, a crater caused by the collapse, about a million years ago, of a huge volcano.

The fire has spread mostly eastward but also outward in other directions. The thumbnail photo above was shot by Lupita L. Tom-yepa at Cochiti Pueblo, about 20 miles southeast of the blaze, Sunday night. Pat and I were on the way south from Heron Lake to Albuquerque, and we went through thick smoke from Española through Pojoaque and on to Santa Fe. From Pojoaque on, we could see the flames erupting from the ridgelines. We were getting gas at Santo Domingo, near Cochiti, about the same time Lupita took her photo -- alas, that tiny picture does little justice to how scary it is to see such a huge portion of the mountains on fire.

As we were driving, we tried to get news on the radio about the fire. We tuned in to KRSN, Los Alamos' local radio station. The signal was poor; the smoke plume from the fire caused a lot of interference. But there was a live interview with one of the people in charge of fighting the fire, and he was reassuring -- while there were mandatory evacuations in parts of the mountains, people in Los Alamos and White Rock with respiratory problems should evacuate, but everybody else could stay put but be prepared in case of mandatory evacuations. I had a mental flashback, to the La Mesa fire in the late 1970s, with the late, legendary Bob Burns, patriarch and owner of KRSN, reassuring everybody with his gravelly but comforting voice. The station normally signed off at 11 p.m., but during that crisis, it was on the air all night. Bob is long gone, but he is fondly remembered.

We got fed up with the poor signal and decided to change from KRSN to Albuqueruque's all-news station, KKOB. We were just in time to hear an official Emergency Broadcast System alert that there was a fire emergency in Sandoval County. Well, duh.

Just over 11 years ago, I was cleaning out the guest room in case my folks had to evacuate because of the Cerro Grande Fire. They did have to evacuate a couple of days later. Now, we're cleaning out the guest room in case they have to evacuate again. This time around, there shouldn't be as much danger, since the Cerro Grande removed much of the fuel that would take the Las Conchas into the town. But still, the flashbacks happen.

More long and winding roads

Exercises in getting from here to there, or there to here

In planning for this weekend, we had a bit of a problem. I had to return to Albuquerque to teach my classes Tuesday, but Pat has to stay at the lake until his dockmaster duties end Wednesday. So we had to drive up Friday in separate vehicles; Pat took Enterprise with the fifth-wheel, while Dulce and I had Galileo.

Being in a larger, clumsier rig, Pat took a route that emphasized big roads and faster travel. According to Google Maps, this route is 166 miles and takes 3 hours, 11 minutes. That seems about right.

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Meanwhile, Dulce and I took a more scenic route. It's shorter in miles, but it's decidedly not suitable for bigger, clumsier rigs. Google Maps says it's 153 miles and takes 3 hours, 55 minutes. The time estimate is WAY off. This trip, Pat and I left at the same time, and while he had to stop for fuel and spent 15 minutes getting lunch, I arrived ahead of him by about the time he spent on fuel and lunch. On other trips, Gerald and I have arrived sooner via the scenic route than Pat on the big roads. My guess is that Google Maps underestimates the travel speed on New Mexico's state highways, some of which are unpaved but still can be traveled at a fairly high speed. Sure, I had to stop a couple of times to wait for some cattle to mosey out of the way, but, hey, that's part of the appeal of the back roads.

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Then for the trip home, I chose a route that I already knew was going to be more time-consuming, but that would also be fantastically scenic. If Google Maps had an option to select the most scenic route, this is how it would tell people to go. It's 193 miles and 4 hours, 8 minutes -- an accurate assessment, probably because none of the roads are unpaved. For out-of-state visitors, the reverse of this route is what I would recommend to get from the airport to Five O'Clock Somewhere; it provides the best of the best of scenery, plus a nifty bonus: the chance to stop at Viola's Restaurant in Los Alamos for lunch. On this route, it wasn't cattle but deer that I had to stop for until they decided they wanted to wander over to the side of the road.

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In case you're wondering, I hate freeways. I also dislike road construction. When a route involves both, I'd rather find some other way to go.

Food project results

Not such a great turnout, alas …

All right, so the turnout for the invitation to write about cuisine was less than spectacular. We had a total of four entries, by three contributors.

First, we had Tillerman with his entry answering New Mexico’s Official State Question: “Red or Green?”

Next, O Docker popped up with “A Kernel of Truth,” technically past the deadline, but close enough.

So then, I extended the project deadline in hopes of getting more entries. Captain JP came in with two, both having to do with coffee: “My favourite drink” and “Alas poor cafetiere.”

Thanks to the three who entered. But, dear readers, you may not have heard the last of this topic. Some of my students wrote great essays, and I plan to invite them to submit their work as guest posts. We’ll see what cooks up.

Woo-hoo, new shoes!

The time of financial austerity is over ...

For the past few years, Pat and I have been operating on an austerity budget. Part of that program has meant that I haven't had much in the way of new clothes for a very long time -- we've been shopping at thrift stores for most clothes. But now, at long last, I have the first pair of actual new shoes that I have had in about five years. And they're magnificent: delightful little black numbers that fit my feet like gloves, but with just enough extra stretch that in really cold conditions I can wear a pair of wool socks underneath.

Especially over on Facebook, many friends, including old high-school classmates, have reveled in their shoes -- how many they have, the special virtues of each pair, the stylishness, the excitement of finding just the right pair. Now, I can join them.

Meanwhile, it's not just my feet but also my boat, Black Magic, that is enjoying the end of austerity. We came down to Elephant Butte Friday with the hope of sailing with Zorro as well as working on boats. As it turned out, it was too windy to sail. First, I helped Zorro with patching some cracks in Constellation's deck and re-rigging the outhaul, which had been fouling far too often. Then Pat joined Zorro and me at the mast-up storage lot where Black Magic is, and we replaced a lot of the rigging: backstay control, mainsheet, jib sheet, traveler (including some blocks and other hardware), jib tack, mast block shock cords, and tiller tamer. Zorro also mixed up some epoxy filler, which he used to patch up some gouges in the keel as well as some dents in the deck.

Saturday, we had hoped that at least in the morning, we could get in some sailing; the weather forecasts predicted a breezy morning and a windy afternoon. But it was blustery from the get-go, much too windy for sailing. Zorro did some work on Constellation while Pat and I paid a visit to our favorite used-book store in the universe, Black Cat Books in Truth or Consequences. Gerald has a rule of thumb that a used-book store is not a proper used-book store unless there is a cat on the premises. I think I agree. Pat and I ended up getting a wide range of books, including a German grammar book, a collection of essays about what it means to be human in a technological environment, and a James Patterson (plus one of his more trustworthy co-authors, Maxine Paetro) thriller.

After that, Pat and I stopped by the hardware store to look for bolts to use when replacing the old cam cleats on the boat. In stainless steel, the longest bolts the store had were two inches, so we bought only four, two flathead and two pan-head, with the idea that whichever fit best, we could come back and buy more, and if neither fit, we weren't out much money.

Then Pat and I returned to Black Magic, where Pat set about working on replacing the old cam cleats on the console with the new ones that we had ordered. The old cleats were ancient and decaying even when we first got the boat, but we had never had time or money to replace them all -- when one of them failed, we put a new one in, and we kept saying that we needed to get them all replaced. It took Pat 20 minutes to remove just one cleat. We discovered that flathead bolts were the best for the new cam cleats, but two inches was too short -- we needed three-inch bolts.

Meanwhile, Zorro had done some more work on Constellation but had learned that the Sunday weather forecast was for even more wind, far too much to go sailing, so he decided to put his boat away and head back to El Paso. He stopped by Black Magic before heading south, and he and Pat worked on the shrouds -- we're looking at replacing turnbuckles at the very least and possibly at replacing the shrouds completely. We made plans to do more boat restoration next weekend, including new bottom paint at least on the parts of the keel that got patched. In the meantime, we can get the three-inch bolts and a few other bits of hardware we need. Top of the agenda for next weekend is completely redoing the outhaul on Black Magic so we can depower more effectively in a gust. There have been a lot of those lately.

Zorro is super-eager about all of these repairs and refurbishments, because he really, really wants to see Black Magic racing next weekend. And I do have to admit, I'm excited about seeing my boat finally getting back into a condition where she can sail well. But I'm feeling ambiguous about actually racing. I'm not sure I want to support the RGSC's current leadership -- the current commodore who, when he was vice commodore, tried to call meetings of the board even though the club constitution doesn't give him that power, and on shorter notice than even those who have the power are permitted to do; Zorro's replacement as race committee chairman to whom I gave the blog nickname "Space Invader" because of his creepy behavior toward me even before I learned of the New Mexico court records about him and the many restraining orders women have taken out against him; the club management that failed to notify one of our favorite restaurant owners that the sailing club was planning to hold a skippers' meeting in the restaurant's back room and thereby royally pissed off the restaurant owner ... I don't know that I want to race and thereby seem to support the current club leadership.

I think I'd rather just go sailing. And wear my new shoes.

A new writing project

Imagine you're a student in my class ...

OK, I've been accused of trying to turn this into a food blog. It does seem lately that I've been digressing into food-related matters. Well, here's another digression -- and everybody is invited to go foodie.

The origin of this writing project is an assignment in my Essay Writing class. During the term, the students write two in-class essays as a way of learning how to take essay exams -- preparation, time management, and those sorts of skills. The students are given readings on the essay topics and discuss them in class ahead of time, and then on the day of the in-class essay, they have the whole two-hour class period to write the essay in the form of an open-book, open-note exam.

Because I believe students write better when the topic is something they care about, I let them choose the in-class essay topics each term. Usually, the topics are fairly standard issues: DWI, the death penalty, same-sex marriage, and the like. This term, however, the students chose two unusual topics: Egypt and cuisine.

Egypt is a challenging topic because it's such a rapidly moving target. One of the students has proven to be a great resource in class discussions -- her husband is Egyptian and they lived there for seven years. With the insights she provided, the students had really good background to write their essays.

And then there's cuisine. There are all sorts of directions a writer could go with that one. The readings I gave the students included an article about the revival of home cooking and a very, very scholarly treatise from the James Beard Institute.

By the time I got done writing the essay prompt, I realized I had some interesting questions that might be fun for more than just my class. So I'm opening it out to my readers in the form of a writing challenge. Pick one of the topics in the essay prompt below and write a blog post about it. Unless you're actually enrolled in a college-prep composition course, you don't need to restrict yourself to the conditions of an essay exam; just write what you want to write about the topic. Once you have written your post, put a link to it in the comments here. Or if you don't have a blog, email your entry to byrnes.carol.anne (at) gmail.com and I will post it here for you. Deadline for entries is March 31.

Essay 4 (in-class)

Choose one of the following topics and write an essay that meets the English 0950 course objectives (clear main idea, good support, consideration for an educated reader, organization, reasonably correct mechanics):

· What is your favorite cuisine? Give details to explain why.

· Define “American cuisine.” What sets American cuisine apart from others?

· How does the enjoyment of food bring people together? Give examples from your own experience and/or from materials you have read.

· Red or green? Explain.

· Write a review of your favorite restaurant. Use details and examples to show the reader why he or she should eat there.

· In what way does the cuisine of a country or region reflect its culture? Show the connection using specific details.

A foodie dream

It's a good thing that in dreams one never gets full ...

I had a dream, in which my high school classmates were celebrating a reunion. Yeah, you know this is going to be fun with the classmates I have!

The high point of the reunion was a progressive dinner in the finer restaurants in old Santa Fe -- apparently the planners of the reunion couldn't decide on one, so they picked four: one for appetizers, one for soup and salad, one for the main course, and one for dessert. So we were a couple of hundred people traipsing around the narrow streets from one gourmet haven to another.

The appetizer course was a buffet with lots of tasty tidbits, mostly seafood-themed.

The soup-and-salad course featured French onion soup, with gobs of gooey cheese on top.

The main course was cabrito, slow-simmered birria-style, with spicy seasonings.

Dessert was another buffet, with plenty of yummy bites of this and that, some sweet, some tangy, some chocolaty, some creamy, some crunchy, some chewy, but -- ooh-la-la! -- one dish stole the show: mascarpone and raspberry filled ravioli with white chocolate sauce. Now, I've never heard of a restaurant here in New Mexico (or anywhere else either, for that matter) serving mascarpone and raspberry filled ravioli with white chocolate sauce, but it does sound like something the trendy, upscale restaurants in old Santa Fe would come up with.

When I woke up, the big toe joint on my right foot was aching, as if I actually had been on a walking tour of Santa Fe (or the way it aches when the weather is about to change), and I was drooling.

(And, no, these aren't actual pictures of the food I dreamed, just the closest approximations I could find on the Internet. The cabrito is very similar to the dream, but I couldn't find exactly the right ravioli picture.)

You are here

Well, actually YOU aren't here, but I am ...

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Chile vs. chili revisited

Coming back to a hot topic

A couple of years ago, I posted a lengthy explanation of the semantic distinctions of two words, Chile vs. chili. In particular, I focused on the New Mexico definitions (drawn from the Albuquerque Journal style guide), which differ from the definitions in the rest of the world. In most places, the word chili is used interchangeably, but in New Mexico, chile with an e at the end refers to the fruit of the capsicum plant, while chili refers to a stew made using chiles. I also posted a recipe.

Of course, there are discussions also about the composition of chili (the stew). Some people disagree about whether the meat in it should be beef or pork, or whether either is acceptable (I prefer coarse-ground pork, but I’ll use beef if that’s what’s available). And then beans are a huge area of contention. Some people say that chili should not have any beans, while others say chili must have beans, and among the bean proponents, there is disagreement about what sorts of beans are acceptable – pinto beans only, or other sorts, such as kidney beans, black beans, or navy beans. (I like kidney beans myself.)

And then there’s that other form of chili found in Cincinnati, which doesn’t have so much chile in it (but does apparently include cinnamon and – surprise – chocolate?) and which is served over pasta and topped with grated cheese and chopped onions. I remember watching a Monday Night Football game during which John Madden gave Cincinnati chili a resounding endorsement. I’m going to have to try it someday.

One update on the recipe in the link above: Since I wrote that post, the Chimayo chile production plant has been bought by Bueno Foods, and the former Chimayo brand is now available as the Bueno Select product line.

Time for a breather

The summer term draws to a close …

Because the summer term is shorter than the fall and spring terms, it's more intense. Classes have 12 weeks to get through 15 weeks' worth of material. At least I'm not at a university where the work is packed into eight or (gasp!) four weeks. Still, even condensing the term by three weeks makes for a more intense experience.

Making matters worse is that this has been a rough time for both instructors and students. Some of it has to do with economic woes – both institutional (state funding being cut) and personal (unemployment and underemployment are rampant among my students). But it's not just about the economy. In just my department, four colleagues have died unexpectedly this term. And many of my students are going through various sorts of turmoil – illnesses and injuries, relationship problems, deaths of loved ones, and more.

Last year, as part of efforts to alleviate possible H1N1 outbreaks, the college issued each instructor with a bottle of hand sanitizer and a box of tissues. But it was a very small box and didn't last very long. This term, I brought my own, jumbo-sized boxes of tissues – one to keep at each of the campuses where I teach. Now I'm nearly out of tissues; my students and I have used a lot of them.

So, this week is the last week of the term, and I have my students working on their portfolios, so I'm not buried under papers to grade. Friday will be intensive portfolio grading; then I will enter grades into the computer system, and then I will have two weeks off before the fall term begins.

And if you hear an enormous sigh of relief coming from the Southwestern U.S. late Friday afternoon, you will know it's me, looking forward to that breather and hoping I won't need so many tissues next term.

Poetry Corner: Walt Kelly

Look up and to the north …

Gerald is making coffee, preparing to go sit on a mountaintop with a friend and watch for the aurora.

Normally, we don't get auroras in New Mexico – we're too far south. But NASA has reported a massive coronal mass ejection (CME) from the sun. In plain English, that means that there is an unusually strong wave of ionized particles headed our way. These particles interact with the Earth's magnetic field to create the glowing displays known as auroras.

The peak of the first wave is supposed to be about 1 a.m. MDT. Gerald's ham-radio friends are already reporting a high level of electromagnetic activity, and he's hoping not only to see the aurora but to photograph it – he does have a good camera for that sort of thing, as his pictures of Earthshine during last summer's eclipse attest.

I can recall one time when I actually did see an aurora in New Mexico. It was faint, and I'm sure it could never compare to the spectacular displays that folks further north can see. It was September, and the sun was in a phase of high activity. The high-school astronomy club had a star party (if I remember correctly, it was to look at a comet) in the very small hours of the morning. We saw very faint wispy glowing streaks, in pale yellow and green. It was not exactly spectacular, but it was an aurora – in New Mexico.

In honor of the aurora, here is Walt Kelly, the creator of the Pogo Possum comic strip:

Oh, roar a roar for Nora,
Nora Alice in the night.
For she has seen Aurora
Borealis burning bright.

A furore for our Nora!
And applaud Aurora seen!
Where, throughout the summer, has
Our Borealis been?

For more about the CME, check out NASA's official announcement.

In Memory of Richard Dittmar

Yee-Haw!

Yee-haw!

All right, let's try it again, Yee-haw!

Now, again, with feeling, Yee-haw!

OK, that's better.

Everybody who sailed with Richard, whether on the same boat or on another boat at the same regatta, knows yee-haw. It was his signature line.

He could use it in many ways. If conditions were brisk, knocking his boat down in ways that only a low-budget, water-ballasted, non-racing boat could ever demonstrate, his "yee-haw" was one of excitement. In a drifter, where even the fast boats were barely moving, and his boat wasn't really moving at all, the "yee-haw" was full of irony. He could shape "yee-haw" to whatever emotion he wanted to express.

Irony can also describe the way he got into sailing. He was an insurance salesman, and his idea was that he could join the sailing club, and then he would be rubbing elbows with all sorts of well-to-do yachtsmen, and then he could sell them insurance. He didn't realize until after he joined the Rio Grande Sailing Club that its membership did not contain the sorts of customers he envisioned – we have a whole lot of working stiffs, middle-management types, unemployed and underemployed people who sail because it's something to do, and a sizeable number of other insurance people. I don't know that he ever sold any one of us a policy.

But he did discover that he loved sailing. And he learned to do it well. He had a Hunter 26, a boat designed to be comfortable and affordable to middle-class Americans, but not designed for high performance. In spite of having a low-performance boat, he entered races, and he managed to do well. He learned the ways of the fickle winds on Elephant Butte Lake, and on occasion, he even put the higher-performance boats to shame.

In recent years, he did buy himself a true racing boat, an International Etchells, but his declining health prevented him from realizing its potential – if he could get the sort of performance he did out of the Hunter, there is no telling what he could have done with the Etchells if he had had the chance.

Unfortunately, that was not to be.

Yee-haw, Richard, wherever you are.

Poetry Corner: Tom Lehrer

One more echo from the class reunion

I grew up in an extremely odd place. In many ways, it was like a military base, since just about everybody there came from someplace else, and to a certain extent, it was metaphorically distant from the surrounding communities. Many areas are not open to the public, and even away from the lab, what was formerly military-base-style housing is readily visible in many parts of the town.

But then, there were other ways in which it was not so much like a military base. For one thing, the place has, I have been told, the highest per capita ratio of PhDs of any community in the world. For a while, there was a Nobel physics laureate living across the street from me. The high school's football and basketball teams were perpetually struggling, but our chess team, soccer team, and band always brought home the trophies. The graduating class prior to mine had 11 National Merit finalists, which seems impressive until one learns that my own graduating class had 36.

I am talking, of course, about Los Alamos.

Once upon a time, the satirist/songwriter Tom Lehrer worked at Los Alamos. As he had previously done at Harvard, he ended up writing a song about the place, in the style of a classic cowboy ballad: "The Wild West is Where I Want to Be." This song is soon to be given new life, as the Los Alamos barbershop group, of which my dad is a member, is preparing a barbershop version of it – Lehrer himself has given permission to create the new arrangement and might – just maybe – show up at the performance of the premiere.

Here is Lehrer's own introduction to the piece, and its lyrics, courtesy of sing365.com:

The Wild West Is Where I Want To Be Lyrics
Artist(Band):Tom Lehrer

Now if I may indulge in a bit of personal history, a few years ago I worked for a while at the Los Alamos scientific laboratory in New Mexico. I had a job there as a spy. No, I guess you know that the staff out there at that time was composed almost exclusively of spies... of one persuasion or another. And, while I was out there, I came to realize how much the Wild West had changed since the good old days of Wyatt Earp and Home on the Range, and here then is a modern cowboy ballad commemorating that delightful metamorphosis called The Wild West Is Where I Wanna Be.

Along the trail you'll find me lopin'
Where the spaces are wide open,
In the land of the old A.E.C. (yea-hah!)
Where the scenery's attractive,
And the air is radioactive,
Oh, the wild west is where I wanna be.

Mid the sagebrush and the cactus,
I'll watch the fellas practice
Droppin' bombs through the clean desert breeze.
I'll have on my sombrero,
And of course I'll wear a pair o'
Levis over my lead B.V.D.'s.

Ah will leave the city's rush,
Leave the fancy and the plush,
Leave the snow and leave the slush
And the crowds.
Ah will seek the desert's hush,
Where the scenery is lush,
How I long to see the mush-
room clouds.

'Mid the yuccas and the thistles
I'll watch the guided missiles,
While the old F.B.I. watches me. (yea-hah!)
Yes, I'll soon make my appearance
(Soon as I can get my clearance),
'Cause the wild west is where I wanna be.

Now I need to get back to grading those papers …

Reunion Saturday night

Looking good

Thanks to classmate Nicki, who got a good photo of me and Pat (well, a good one of me, not necessarily as good of Pat) at the formal Saturday night dinner-dance at the class reunion. I was wearing the Zuni needlepoint turquoise-and-silver jewelry that all of the burglars have missed so far, and my hair was looking really good for a blustery evening more than a month after Vicente had last worked his magic on it. I was told that I looked "very Santa Fe."

The class reunion was a blast

80 rules!

This was probably the best class reunion we've had so far. And technology has a lot to do with it. The chairman of the planning committee was in New Jersey, of all places, but thanks to modern communications, he was able to coordinate a team of classmates to put together a great event.

And on a personal level, communications helped me a lot. Before the reunion, I was able to re-establish contact with friends I had lost track of, and I was also able to get to know people whom I didn't know so well back then, and make connections.

Waves

Coincidence, serendipity, whatever you call it …

OK, this post is going to be a tracing through of a lot of one thing leading to another leading to another, a la the former PBS/BBC television series "Connections" (which reminds me, I still haven't explained how the Earth's being spherical led to my car getting totaled, but I'll get around to that).

First, Captain JP put up a post about a website that maps photos taken online. This website not only plots where the photos were shot; it also makes an educated guess about how many photos were shot by locals versus how many photos were shot by tourists. Now, according to this website, London is not only the most photographed city in the world; a preponderance of photographers in London are actually locals and not tourists.

This got me to thinking about Japan, a country whose people seem especially fond of cameras and photography. I have heard it said, for example, that Mount Fuji is the most photographed mountain in the world. Think about it; there's even a brand of film named after it.

That led me to think about Fujiyama itself – even before there were cameras and film, the mountain was special to the Japanese people, and artists were making images of it. The most famous of these artists was Katsushika Hokusai, (1760-1849), who created a series of woodblock prints depicting the mountain, Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. The best-known of these prints is "The Great Wave off Kanagawa," which depicts three boats whose occupants are taking refuge as a massive wave crashes down upon them. Fujiyama is merely part of the background of this drama. This picture is also used as a signature image on Zen's Sekai II, although Zen has stretched the picture horizontally, so the wave isn't so steep.

In 1985, the science fiction author Roger Zelazny, who lived in Santa Fe at the time, wrote the novella "24 Views of Mount Fuji, by Hokusai," inspired in part by the mountains of Northern New Mexico, and in part by Hokusai's work. Zelazny won a Hugo and was nominated for a Nebula for the novella.

Meanwhile, mathematicians have been looking at Hokusai's style. I can't pretend to know very much about fractals, except to admire the images they produce, but the way Hokusai depicts the foam on the waves in his art is, according to what I've been told, an accurate rendition of fractals in action.

Then, Joe over at The Horse's Mouth put up a video featuring big waves. Duuuude! The weird thing was that I kept looking for fractal curls in the foam of the waves – at least during the few nanoseconds when I wasn't watching for the surfers' next moves – or wipeouts. What would Hokusai have done if there were surfers in his view?