Idea Warehouse

Last Week of Summer 2006

Random thoughts. . . Next week marks the last official week of summer for me, since school starts Aug. 28. I'm finishing up the Technical Writing syllabus today and will finalize the other one by Wed. for sure. We may go to see Scott and Lisa and family this weekend, but that's yet to be determined.  Retired colleague Ron Woodland died this past week; even though he wasn't around the office halls anymore, it'll be weird knowing he's just not here with us anymore. Nephew Jay stayed with us unexpectedly this past week and will be leaving this morning. I did not expect the visit; It is hard to get any work done. What do I want to do in these last few days of summer? Go swimming, see a silly movie, travel early in the morning, have a cold O'Doul's on a hot day, maybe even go to a fair. I had my debut acting stint at Fallingwater last week, which seemed to go well. I certainly hope it works out for their film, which is sponsored by NHK (the Japanese public television station) and produced by M Square, can't wait to see the actual documentary. I loved that place! After being there for nearly 16 hours in two days, I began to feel like I could live there! I wouldn't mind being a tour guide there in the summers, actually. Well, enough about dreaming of summer even though I'm still in it, back to work....(if I can concentrate).

Hi, Mom and Dad, Deede and Greg

Hi, Mom! (and Dad, and Deede, and Greg)

Since Mom was the one to whom I originally told about this blog thing, I figured I'd address my comments mostly to you, but this goes to all of you. Right now I'm taking a break from my grading and my organizing of my class stuff and my book revising, and  just plain old posting on here. Plus I figured you (Mom and Dad, maybe not Deede and Greg) didn't want my main or last post to be "A Sad Day." Oh well. What's new?/....hmmmm, well I told you about Hamline University and University of Minnesota possibilities. No news yet. I'll tell you when and if we hear. Oh yeah, did I tell you I was asked to give a talk to these school librarians about plagiarism on Oct. 21? Well, I did, and I guess it turned out all right. I was the luncheon  (keynote??) speaker there, so that was kind of interesting. I actually put my talks online, but there's a glitch in the link which I still need to fix before it works. Also, I was asked to write a book review for a journal called Composition Studies. Oh yeah, this book just came out with this article that I published in it. I should put a link to it here. It's kind of impressive-looking. Well, gotta go, but I'll write more later.

Connecting to Friends

One thing I love about the Internet is its ability to allow you to find old friends more easily through each other's "web presence," whether that is a personal home page, work home page, or through various postings on the web. Recently, when I was visiting my brother in NJ, he told me Bonnie Hart had emailed him asking about me. I was so thrilled! Even cooler were the emails we exchanged when I got in touch with her. We were best friends in junior high, and we had so much fun together. Discovering Screaming Yellow Zonkers, sitting out in the middle of Broad Street in the middle of the night, (me) getting caught stealing pretzels from the kindergarten snack storage at Walnut St., watching the very last of the cigarette commercials on TV on December 31, 1969, or was it 1970, can't remember. I think we also walked uptown together during the first moratorium in April, the first Earth Day, and we also experienced being allowed to wear pants to school finally. Remember Mr. Wright? Mr. Cologne, Mr. Kirby?? Did we go to Gettysburg together, too? Some of it's fuzzy now, but we had a lot of fun, I know. Anyway, I can't wait until we can meet again and reminisce, as well as get to know each other as adults. Bonnie, that picture of you on the web page is amazing; it looks like you haven't aged at all, plus, it captures your adventurous side very nicely. I hope to connect with Maria Canonica, and I wonder if Nancy has any web sites now. Never know....

Family Photos

There are some neat sites out there that can post photos; Lindsay Warren, my 20-year-old niece, has a bunch online, and so does Jeff Warren. Lindsay's are at http://www.clubphoto.com and you have to type in her email which is lkw2006@columbia.edu and Jeff's pictures are at http://www.t300.com/jake.html. Also, Dave Greeves' pictures are at http://www.greeves.de/index.html but I can't remember the password for the life of me.