Who knows how long this will last, but as we’ve taken great nostalgic joy in noting the gas price signs in movies, we may as well document this unintentional slide in gas prices. Thanks, Saudis.
Who, here, ever says that, by the way? In November of 2008 gas was nationally dipping to $1.87 — and there was no mention of the Middle East in the story. That was my first fall at Samford. We are typically a bit below the national average, but I can’t readily find a state story to verify it for that time.
Anyway, today was the first day of classes. Got into the office, noticed with resigned expectation that the printer was on the fritz. It wouldn’t be a Monday or a first day of classes if you can’t print.
And it isn’t like I ask it to print a lot. I’m going to print one syllabus here and then go down to the copy room where the Xerox machine lives and make duplicates for everyone. That machine staples. And collates. And faxes. It will also send an autoreply to those Nigerian prince emails and give you periodic updates of your stock portfolio. The Xerox machine is nice.
The HP in my office has a minimum state unsteady aerodynamic force coefficient matrix of what constitutes a paper jam is something the guys at JPL are still working on. It is a highly sensitive 20th century machine and it “jams” constantly. Take it apart and you find a wave in the paper barely perceptible to a Lilliputian’s most sensitive measuring equipment has caused the problem.
So, no, I’m not concerned about the machines taking over, just yet.
Class was fun. Met a room full of students, sitting in the room where I did my job interview several years ago. I’ve never actually taught in that room, though, until today. I sat at the front of the room, as I did on that August day, when I learned beyond doubt there’s no such thing as “summer wool.” Happily, they liked what I had to say and I’ve been having a great time working there ever since.
This class is on storytelling, so today we talked about the various challenges and obstacles. We’ll spend a day or two on information glut and go from there.
And the rest of my day was spent making phone calls. The last round of recruiting calls of the year. There are 220-some high school students on my list. I spend a lot of time on the phone. This was not one of those things we discussed in that interview, but it helps the department, which has a story to tell, a good one, and we think that those seniors should hear it.
It helps them make decisions, we figure, between how the campus sells itself and all of the literature we send them over time and then these high touch phone calls — and have you heard about our scholarships yet? — and then in the next year or so they are showing up in my classes. There are three or four from this class today whose names I remember from an old spreadsheet.
And that, I suppose, helps pay for the gas in my car.
So we’ve come full circle.
