The Thrill of Repetition

In most fields of human endeavor, there are a select few people on the frontiers, pushing the boundaries of what can be done and occasionally challenging a paradigm or two. You know -- guys like Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Einstein, and Chuck Norris. These trailblazers do the heavy lifting of our development. Then there are the rest of us, whose lives are dedicated to filling in a corner or two. I fall soundly in the latter camp, although I once had aspirations of the former. Making matters even worse, I find myself immensely excited over stuff the rest of the world takes for granted.

As a demonstration, I spent most of my non-grading time last week writing a piece of computer code to approximate solutions to an equation using Euler's method (the man's name is 'oiler,' by the way -- pronounce it like the first fifteen seconds of this at your own peril). I felt like some sort of savant, despite the fact that no self-respecting person past his or her junior year would ever use this scheme for anything that matters. In defense of arguably the most prolific mathematician of all time, he developed this technique centuries ago, and the method is still a valuable pedagogical tool. Unfortunately, no such argument can be made for me. This pattern repeats; I became similarly ecstatic last fall when I generated code to perform straightforward calculations.

Maybe a part of me enjoys simply playing around with computer programming. After all, I did minor in computer science. I am also a student of a person who gets a charge from things like this. Dr. Page, my undergraduate calculus professor (and in many ways, the model for my teaching style), displayed great pride in a program which seemed to duplicate one of our graphing calculators' built-in commands.

Be careful if you are around me for a long time. It would seem that this disease is communicable. Sandi and I have been participating in Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University for the past several weeks, and part of the package is ninety days of access to his website's budgeting and financial tools. We spent most of Sunday afternoon recreating these tools within an Excel spreadsheet. This followed a Saturday dominated by the license board from Final Fantasy XII. What sort of nerds are we, anyway?

Have a great week, and go buy some Lysol® before you catch the bug!

The Power of the Intertubes

We had another relatively quiet weekend, filled with everyday things like laundry and our PlayStation 2. We had a slight -- almost microscopic, really -- windfall from the sale of Sandi's remaining rubber stamp collection, which gave us the opportunity to go out to eat on Saturday. This was a fortuitous circumstance, as Sandi has had a craving for Fatz Café salads for the better part of two weeks. One of my former students was our server, and she described me as an 'awesome' teacher. Wow, that sounded less arrogant in my head.

I have mentioned previously that we have put one of our cars up for sale. I have also promised myself that no tears will be shed, but that is beside the point. We posted the car at craigslist.com and have gotten a fair bit of interest from the site. Recalling a suggestion from our home inspector, we also posted our oil tank in the 'for free' section. What oil tank, you say? At some point in the past, whoever owned our house evidently had taken it upon himself/herself to heat half the block for several winters at a time. Our heat pump made the thing obsolete, but its ludicrous bulk left it as a hideous five-hundred-gallon fixture beside the house. A couple of guys in the area contacted us and agreed to haul it off our property so that they could use it for a furnace. While the initial contact was made last week, climatic conditions forced us to wait until today for the removal.

This evening, the guys came by with a Bobcat to make the pickup. None of us really expected the hijinks which ensued. For starters, the beast was buried close to a foot into the ground, which added something like six tons (more or less) to its mass. We also have a very narrow channel of real estate leading from the side of the house to the road. To make matters worse, the ground around the tank is still a bit damp from last week's precipitation, so the Bobcat could find no purchase as it tried to drag the tank upward. Moreover, we probably still had thirty or so gallons of oil inside the stupid thing, which makes me thankful for safety and lack of explosions over the past eighteen months. The whole operation took about an hour, but the monstrosity is no longer our problem. I have a newfound respect for what two good old boys and a Bobcat can accomplish. In other news, hooray for this guy for all the help in this transaction!

I have some other stuff to do before bed, so I bid you adieu here. Um . . . adieu. Seriously, this is it. Get off the lawn!

Keep It Together, Man

I am sorry for having to step away for a moment. Sandi can vouch for how close I feel to that car.

Our weekend was uneventful yet productive. We caught up on laundry and the dishes, ate out within our budget, and still had several hours to just chill with Final Fantasy XII. That last bit was all thanks to Sandi, as either the laundry or the dishes can easily take up a whole day if I tend to it by myself. I have to find out why I drag that stuff out so much.

It is time for tests in my classes, so I was in the office until late this evening writing up the first of the beasts. Oddly enough, the hardest one to write will probably be the one for my calculus class, because my time at Virginia Tech never gave me the chance to write a test for that material. I have found that getting the initial skeleton of the test in place takes longer than working from the blueprint for future classes. Have any other teachers noticed this?

The weather caused a delay at King this morning, and there may be yet another tomorrow. It has the side benefit of making my walks home from the office prettier -- if more frigid. Moreover, the snow and cold strand Ranger indoors, which taxes all our nerves. I came home tonight to a rearranged living room, whose origins lie in blocking his view of us from his kennel. Sandi wants to do more, but the current electrical and cable configurations stand at odds with her vision.

Wish me luck as I administer and grade stuff for the next week and a half. Take care and be safe, everyone!

If You Love Something . . .

Very little of consequence has occurred around here of late, with the exception of a momentous decision on my part. Caesar and the Rubicon have nothing on this, I tell you. I have . . . bear with me here . . . I have . . . this is really tough to say . . . I have put my beloved Saturn, Wayfarer, up for sale. With my walking to campus, the poor thing has just been sitting idle in our driveway for weeks at a time. I think I drove her somewhere once in the entire month of January, and she deserves better than that. If you know someone with a lot of love in his or her heart who needs a dependable car, let us know.

Um, would you excuse me for a moment? I think I have something in my eye.