Verbisaurus Blogicus

Thursday, 20 December 2012

Today my department at work held their annual holiday party. I got to leave work early and I drove over to a nearby restaurant. We held a gift exchange. Or maybe it’s more of a gift grab, since we all picked numbers and then selected gifts based on our number.

 I arrived with a gift in much the same fashion as last year. Last year, I checked out Google Images until I found a Barnes and Noble coupon and, finding a 30% off coupon, I went and purchased something. The price limit on the gifts is $15, but with a good discount like that, I selected something that sold for $20, but paid less than $15. They also had free gift wrapping there, too.

So…same thing this year. Only I couldn’t find a 30% off coupon, just a 25% off coupon. But that worked out fine.

I left with a gift card to Best Buy (the gift I selected) and a bottle of fancy-schmancy beer provided by my boss. A really big bottle – like the size of a wine bottle.

Today I actually scored two bottles of beer – having earlier been given a bottle of homemade “Apocalypse Ale” from a co-worker – and two gift cards, having finally received my Amazon.com gift card for winning a writing contest at Hamline back in September.

Friday, 21 December 2012

 Happy Solstice! And…surprise…the world didn’t end.

(People have been talking about the coming apocalypse today, but it didn’t happen.)

I think it’s funny that most people go through the day without acknowledging, or maybe even knowing, that it’s the winter solstice, especially since it’s truly the reason for the season. I didn’t hear anyone mention it at work, unless I said something first. I wished a few people “Happy Solstice,” and they gave me that “you’re a weirdo” look. I get that a lot.

It’s better to call it the December Solstice, or Southern Solstice, than to say “Winter Solstice” (like I did, above), since it’s not winter in the southern hemisphere. The southern hemisphere’s Winter Solstice is six months from now.

Here’s an article about all the holidays celebrated on the shortest day of the year, regarless of whether they’re celebrated now or six months from now.

And here’s the latest episode of Atheists Talk that I hosted: “Vegans, Vegetarians, and Atheists.”

If you want something a little lighter to watch…check out Isla singing with her cousin a couple of weeks ago…

Saturday, 22 December 2012

 Today is my first of eleven consecutive days of no work.

I bottled some home-brewed beer this morning. I wanted to have it ready in time for Christmas and…well…it won’t be. But I’m still gonna wrap up a few of them and include the min the dice game we play with Jennifer’s family on Christmas Day. I’ll just have to include a note with them that says something like, “Don’t drink or refrigerate until January 10th (or after).”

I’m also slowly making progress on a wood robot. I’ll post about it later this month, if, indeed, I do have it done by Christmas Day…which is the renewed goal I’ve set for myself.

Our holiday festivities today featured my sister and her husband coming over to our house. We walked to a nearby restaurant that we like and then they came back to our house and we swapped gifts. They had gifts for our kids – including shoes for Isla that she immediately put on and wanted to wear even tonight as she was falling asleep – and a helicopter that really flies for Owen. We gave them some gifts for their dogs. And a home-brewed beer. Not for their dogs.

Wednesday, 19 December 2012
My holiday break began at approximately 12:30 this afternoon. Yes, yes, I still had to finish work today, and there are still two more days of work to go this week, but the tough stuff is all over.

As I mentioned in my last post (see: Last Post), school is done for the semester as of yesterday.  But, as of early this afternoon, I also completed one of the toughest speeches I had to deliver in Toastmasters.

After completing the Competant Communicator book back in May, I needed to select two books from the Advanced Communicator series. One of the books I chose was Interpretive Reading. My hope was that this book would make me a better public reader (which I have done with increasing frequency lately, having had my writing published in a couple of books). But I also figured it would be an easy book to get through, since I wouldn’t have to write any speeches, I would just have to read stuff. And easy is good, since I’m often busy with homework these days.

Well, it started off easy enough; I just had to read a short story. Then there was a poetry reading, which I managed well enough. Well, for speech #3 in the book, I had to recite a monologue.

Okay, first: Recite? Yikes. I can’t memorize entire monologues!

And, second: Monologue? What was I supposed to do, find a Saturday Night Live bit I liked and memorize that? The assignment did say that I could use a stirring speech, but assignment #5 is a recitation of a speech, and I didn’t want to duplicate.

Well… I ended up choosing a speech anyway. I couldn’t find any monologues I liked, so, after posting for suggestions on Facebook, one of my friends suggested Chaplin’s closing speech from his 1940 film The Great Dictator. I actually found this movie kind of boring and overwrought, but the closing speech is among the best five minutes in the history of cinema.

So, after introducing the speech – by drawing attention to Chaplin’s reluctance to move from silent film to talkie, and his desire to draw attention to the plight of citizens in Germany – I recited this:

Tuesday, 18 December 2012

I turned in my final paper for class this afternoon. I went to the professor’s office, knocked and, when there was no answer, I slip the paper underneath the door. I’m done with school for the semester. Another four credits in the can – a total of 12 credits for the year. Yay for me. Oh, also: beginning next semester I will officially be a senior. And, at my age, that’s starting to feel about right.

I’ve alluded to this in other posts, but now I’m gonna talk about it more… I am dumbfounded at the lack of effort other students put into their work. Last week, we had to deliver panel presentations on our final paper. At least one student didn’t show up. Either day. So she got a zero. And since you can’t pass that class without doing every assignment, I’m not even sure she’ll get credit for the class, even if she aced everything else.

The presentations were to last 8-10 minutes, and at least three of them were under 5 minutes. One of them was closer to 3 minutes, I’d guess. Each panel was supposed to have a leader who provided an introduction and tied the presentations together in a theme. At least two of the four panelists didn’t seem to know this, as they both kicked off their panels by saying “Well, I didn’t know we were supposed to give an intro…so…I’ll just start, I guess…and then we’ll go from there.” As for the presentations themselves, a few of the students verbalized their scatter-brained approach to the assignment, flipping through their papers willy-nilly and assenting that they only had a rough idea of what their final paper would be about. This, I remind you, was several days after our rough drafts were due. And, even on that day, only about a quarter of the students turned in anything.

It occured to me that this didn’t happen when I was at Century College.

Well, okay, it happened, it just didn’t happen as regularly. In every class, there was always a student here or there who griped that they didn’t have time to finish an assignment or who showed up on test day completely clueless that there was a test scheduled. But, for the most part, the students I worked with took the assignments seriously, and were prepared for class. I graduated from Century with a 4.0 GPA, but in every class I took, there were always other students who received A’s, too. In fact, when I look back at several classes, I know that I was not the highest scorer. In a biology class I took, the teacher told us the high score for every test (“Someone scored 48 out of 50!”) and only once was the high score mine. Another time, a student whined that he didn’t think anyone in the class could possibly get an A, and the teacher divulged that a few students were, in fact, exceeding 100% at the moment. In another class, I ended up with a 91% (just barely an A), while the students who sat to my left and right both said they were doing better.

So, what’s the deal? Was Century easier and, therefore, easier to score A’s, and easier to get the work done on time?

From what I’ve seen…no. If I was to list the college classes I’ve taken from most difficult to easiest, the top five would consist of four classes from Century, and only one from Hamline. Of course, I took ~20 classes at Century, and have only completed 7 at Hamline (this includes the so-easy-I-didn’t-even-know-it-happened internship)…but, still. Maybe English is easier than Chemistry (yep) and maybe Chemistry majors are more diligent and nerdy than their English counterparts (again, yep). And maybe Chemistry is just more interesting than English (oh my god, yep!).

But here’s another thought: Maybe, just maybe, getting a degree from Hamline – even if you recieved all D’s – is more prestigious than a degree from Century – even if you received all A’s.

Century was populated with students who were gunning for that certification, award, or Associate’s degree that they’d need to get a better job. Many of them were adults who were already in the job market, and either didn’t like their job, or wanted to get an even better job. That described me. I worked in retail: shitty hours, incompetent managers, lousy dress code, mediocre pay, and – worst of all – dealing with the public. I yearned for the opportunity to use my brain at work, to be managed by and work alongside non-idiots, to have better pay, better hours, to not have to dress like a stooge every day, and to not have to deal with other people as much. I knew that, one day, I would show up for a job interview, and my Associate’s degree would be pitted against someone’s Bachelor’s, and I wanted to be able to say, “Yes, it’s justa two-year degree, but – goddammit -I paid for it myself and I kicked ass. Notice I graduated with high honors!”

And I had to hope that that would work, because the next candidate would walk in and say, “Yeah, my GPA was 2.3, and I missed four or five classes every semester, and I turned in half-assed work, if I turned it in at all. But notice I graduated from Hamline!”

Sunday, 16 December 2012

After a year in the making (primary footage was shot in December 2011), I am pleased to announce the latest Zimmerscope Filmlet…

I originally came up with this idea last fall, and I determined to film it during the holiday break between Xmas and New Year’s. It occurred to me that nearly the entire year had passed without me creating a single filmlet, and I didn’t want that to happen, so I recruited Owen to assist in squeezing in a filmlet during the last three days of the year. As it turns out, I didn’t need to bother, since I had created a filmlet already in 2011. That was Footage from the Day of Prayer, that I had somehow forgotten about.

Regardless, I now had some raw footage to work with as 2011 became 2012. In January, I edited the film. In fact, I worked on it in the car on the way home from Janesville, Wisconsin, where I had been on a business trip (I did not drive). By mid-February, it was kind of languishing, primarily because I was busy with school.

I took it up again this summer, by which time my wife’s computer suffered a full meltdown, which was too bad for my video editing because her computer was the only one equipped for scoring the filmlet.

I skirted that issue by recruiting the assistance of a friend; in November I emailed Eric and asked him if he’d be interested in putting my creation to music. Awesomely, he agreed. It took some back-and-forth finagling to get all the kinks worked out but, finally, about two weeks ago I had an amazing score for the filmlet.

Over the last few days, I’ve spent a few minutes here and there polishing it up. And, well, now it’s in the can, as they say.

Enjoy!

Sunday, 16 December 2012

 In the wake of the terrible tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, our biggest concern here on the homefront is how best to stockpile our weaponry with a bleeding heart liberal of a president breathing down our necks to deal with this with Owen.

He’s quite anxious, nervous, and sensitive about violence and harm befalling children. He recently watched about 5 minutes of some 1970s B-movie (on TV one weekend afternoon) and saw a baby get killd in some natural disaster, and now he’s been upset about it ever since. He comes downstairs 10 or 15 minutes after going to bed and cries to us that he can’t get the image out of his head.

So…the recent murdering of 20 elementary school children would surely weigh far, far heavily on his mind.

We’ve decided not to tell Owen.

The problem is, not all parents of seven-year olds are sure to feel the same way. And that’s just fine; I’m not deriding their parenting. I’m sure some kids out there can handle this sort of news, and I’m sure many parents are probably thinking, “Well, I better tell my kid, ’cause I don’t want them finding out some other way.” But the thing is, even if mom and dad are discerning as to whether to tell their kids, I don’t think the same can be said for the kids themselves. Bottom line: there’s a good chance Owen would overhear the news on the playground tomorrow.

The other problem is, we live in the information age. We don’t blare the radio news in our house, we don’t subscribe to any newspapers, and we only turn the TV on when we have a specific show to watch (even then, we mute the commercials). But even with all that, it’s tough to keep the terrible news from Owen. Just this evening, in fact, we turned on the TV to watch the season finale of Survivor. Thanks to the NFL, it was delayed, so when I turned on the TV at 7:00, 60 Minutes was airing. …And they were airing a story about the shootings. We shut off the TV for a half hour (until Survivor was supposed to start), but then there was live broadcast of President Obama’s address…about the shootings. Two hours later, just before the host announced the winner of Survivor, he requested a moment of silence out of respect for Friday’s victims. My quick thinking wife switched to a different channel momentarily.

Anyway, Jennifer was in touch with Owen’s teacher and one of the school counselors this weekend, and the latter recommended keeping Owen home from school tomorrow. There are no plans at his school for an official meeting or discussion of the events, but it will likely be a topic on the lips of many of the kids throughout the building.

I am curious how other parents of 5-10 year olds are handling this, or plan to handle this. I checked on Facebook for some insight, but since I try not to read posts written in all caps or exceeding three exclamation marks, there wasn’t much rational content there.