“Be my Valentine, hooman.”
Or …
“If I were bigger I’d eat you. Since I’m not, I’ll rest my head on you and purr.”
Related: Do you know how difficult it is to build a PowerPoint when all of that is staring up at you?
Monday
2
Feb 15
Super Bowl commercials
This was my favorite of the bunch:
We talked about them in class today. The consensus winners were the puppy spot from Budweiser and this one:
The idea seemed to be that, in a different year, that spot gets overlooked and forgotten. This year it stood out. Weak field, the class thought.
The Dove dads spot was also well-received:
No one seemed to like the Nationwide spot, but a few did make the case that, yes, it was something we’re talking about and, sure, it is an important topic. Someone had missed the spot, so we watched it. It didn’t seem any better to the rest of us upon a second viewing.
Which spots did you like? Which did you dislike? And why?
“It was funny” or “It wasn’t funny” aren’t sufficient answers, though.
26
Jan 15
Welcome back
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.
19
Jan 15
Back to the routine food schedule
We are having to eat normal food again, which means we have to prepare it or go out for it. Since we are still recovering from our travels we’ve not yet made it to the grocery store, which means we are eating out.
We stopped between the airport and home to get lunch yesterday at Zaxby’s. They’ve been in decline for the past few years, it seems, no matter the store. The slide has seemingly accelerated now that they are partnered with the Duck Dynasty brand. Not sure why. The burnt chicken niblets this time were perhaps a last straw.
For dinner last night we had barbecue at Jim ‘N’ Nick’s. Standing in line, waiting to be sat, The Yankee said “Don’t look,” because she knows one of my 21st century pet peeves is waiting for a table when there are plenty of tables available. I looked. And then I counted. A full 40 percent of the tables were empty and read for guests. We stood and waited. The head chef finally sat us. He and two other staff members came by to continually apologize for the delays. This seemed excessive. You got blindsided on Sunday evening. No one likes that, it is a staffing shortcoming, but it happens. And then the head chef took our orders, too.
We had breakfast at the Barbecue House this morning, because they have the best biscuits and they know our usuals. We try to go once a week or so. I’ve been going there for far, far too many years, but the breakfast is delicious.
We miss these guys, who brought us all manner of delicious foods on our cruise. This is our waiter, Iresh, from Mauritius. We’d learned his whole life story by the end of the cruise, and it is a good one. Now we are all Facebook friends.
This is Selvin, who was working as Iresh’s assistant. He is from Honduras, and was quiet and shy. Nice guy who was always Johnny on the spot.
Also, I miss the desserts they brought.
12
Jan 15
Now, Barbados
And also, turtles!
The leatherback sea turtle, or Dermochelys coriacea, to be precise. They grow quite large, averaging three- to five-feet, but the ones we saw today were on the smaller size. They are the largest of the turtles, and the most widespread. They eat jellyfish and small fish, as you’ll see in the video below. Once they grow to maturity they have few natural predators, which is why the estimated age range is from 30 to 60 or more years. They are most in danger when they are young and, of course, from humans.
These particular ones are as socialized as a reptile can be. Watch the video:
My lovely wife — who is shooting pretty much all of the underwater stuff, by the way — pronounced it the most amazing experience ever. We laughed, watching people jump off the catamaran, see a turtle, and then climb back aboard. As if to say “Yep, mission accomplished.”
We never want to get out of the water.
