Things I Did Today...

In more or less chronological order...

Made a decision - to not go to Church. Cheryl woke me about 8:30am and asked it I wanted to go today. We’re kind of between churches. There's a small church nearby that we've been to a few times. We'll probably go back. Just not today...

Got up. About 9am.

Had some coffee and checked my email. Cleaned out my Google Reader.

Wrote an entry for Guuki.

Cooked breakfast: sausage, eggs & cheese, grits, toast, some leftover bacon. Biscuits and sausage gravy for Cheryl. Wished I had tomatoes, but we just set those out last weekend...

Wrote and published an entry for my education blog on Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's activities this past week. Wrote a second entry that will drip onto my ed blog later this week.

Cleaned out by Google Reader. Drank more coffee.

Created a Twitter background for my profile page.

Washed the breakfast dishes.

Listed to the stuff they do on the Speed Channel before the pre-race show comes on for NASCAR while I did other stuff.

Took pictures of the baby tree swallows. They've been alive five days now. Not much difference from yesterday. Waiting for the eyes to open.



Figured out (finally) how to download a video off of YouTube for later use. Since YouTube is blocked at school, this is a very useful skill. I downloaded a handful of potentially useful videos on social networking, social media, and Twitter for a presentation I may get to do this summer.

Listened to (and, intermittently, actually watched portions of) the Autism Speaks 400, today's NASCAR race in Dover. Wanted Kyle Busch to win, but I think he can in some place near 20th...

Cooked dinner: grilled steaks (sirloin, on sale for $2.99 a pound). I rubbed the meat with garlic powder and salt; mine also got some red pepper and curry powder. Baked potatoes, green beans, and part of a cucumber.

Watched the end of the race.

Took a 90-minute nap. (My dog also took a 90-minute, curled up in the small of my back...)

Cleaned out my Google Reader. Drank some green tea I brewed myself yesterday and put in the fridge.

Worked on a Guuki entry.

Did the dinner dishes. Fixed the coffeepot for in the morning.

Ironed tomorrow's cloths.

Fixed breakfasts and lunches to take to work tomorrow: Cheryl has mashed potatoes and meatballs (with a sauce made from Concord grape jelly and chili sauce), plus cottage cheese and blueberries for breakfast. I have a sausage muffin w/ egg and cheese to heat in the morning and a mix of rice, lentils, and peas in a butter & curry sauce with onions and some beef, along with some wilted spinach in bacon grease. (I know, my arteries...)

Turned off the TV.

Had a glass of Burgundy while I listened to Yo-Yo Ma and blogged. Purchased a couple of new Yo-Yo Ma pieces from iTunes.

Went outside and sat on the deck breifly. Cheryl went to bed a while back. There are lightening bugs. I saw my first ones for the year last night. Wondered when the screech owl will arrive.

Now considering going to bed early, but I will probably resist the temptation.

Weather, Pollen and the Start of School

I have not died. But it has been almost two weeks since I managed to publish a blog post. The start of school, combined with a few days away from my keyboard for Labor Day weekend and a sense of mild depression over the Tennessee Volunteers not winning their first football game of the season, has simply made it difficult for me to blog...

I suspect that heat has also played a role in my inactivity. There have now been at least 17 days this summer where the temperature at the airport in nearby Bluefield hit at least 90. Laugh if you must, but 90F degrees is hot here. And 17 days of such weather was the all time record. We have had two days of 90-plus temperatures in September. This is the first time in 50 years the mercury has reached 90 in September. Most of our schools have no air-conditioning at all and relatively poor ventilation. Since I first went back to my school on August 24, parts of the many building have felt like working inside an oven. I come home damp from sweating all day and dehydrated and tired. And then I nap instead of blogging.

Goldenrod is also in full bloom. It has taken over the hillside behind our house and most of the valley's I drive through to work. It creates a pretty color to the countryside. But it also turns my eyes red and makes the itch. Oh well; it happens every year. A nice rain would wash the pollen out of the air for a few days. But we are near drought conditions and no one remembers the last nice rain.

Well, time to make breakfast. Perhaps I'll blog more about the new school year soon...

My Favorite Things

I enjoyed reading Sherry's bog on favorite things, so I thought I'd post my own list. Obviously I'm not including people with things here. The list is alphabetical because I can't really rank them (although Tennessee Football comes close to the top). Enjoy...

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Breakfast. It’s really unspecific. It’s not that I like the first meal of the day. I like bacon and sausage, and salted country ham with red eye gravy. I like grits (but not as much as just plain hominy). I like biscuits, though toast will do. I like eggs: scrambled, fried in an omelet, baked in a quiche, poached on a muffin, but not just fried. Waffles and pancakes don’t really do it for me, though they're okay. It’s more about protein, though dirty rice or hash browns are nice. I like breakfast – sometimes for dinner.

Coffee. I drink it all day long. I take it with me to work in a thermos (two, actually). I drink French Roast most mornings. I like it strong but not overpowering. In a perfect world I’d drink Sumatran most of the time. If I win the Powerball I’ll probably stop buying the French Roast. With Splenda.

Drambuie. In a brandy snifter. With two (maybe three) cubes of ice. the price means it’s not something I taste often....

Good Literature. Steinbeck and Hemingway, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Camus and Proust, Pramoedya and Rushdie, Homer and Aeschylus and Sophocles and Euripides, Joyce and Yeats – I could go on. I like novels and poetry (Blake and Burns, Dickenson and Frost, and others) and short stories. I like good literature.

History. Not so much U.S. history (since I usually know how the story ends), but a good article about the Taiping Rebellion or the rise and fall of Srivijaya; or a good biography of Akbar or maybe something on the Punic Wars.

Kindergarten. Last year I got to spend a small portion of my work day involved in reading instruction in a kindergarten classroom. It was the best part of my day at work.

Languages. I’ve studied Latin and German, Malay and Chinese. I’ve done linguistic field work with native Finns and speakers of Luganda. Ands I've been fortunate enough to live in places that exposed me to languages like Thai, Tagalog, Chamorro, Hawaian, Tamil, Pohnpeian, and a few other tongues. Studying a foreign language often makes you think about the way you think. There’s nothing like a good discussion of ergativity to make you question the grammatical categories in your head.

Loud Music with the Windows Rolled Down on a Cool Morning. I’m eclectic. The music isn’t really the issue so much as the volume. Sometimes it’s Hank or Waylon, sometimes it’s Van Morrison, sometimes it’s Skynyrd or the Allman Brothers, sometimes it’s Kenny Chesney. There’s something about driving through the fog at 7:30 AM on a work day, scaring the deer with Stevie Ray Vaughn or Johnny Cash.

News. I love current affairs and politics. But I also like following world events. NPR is a good source. But I enjoy reading news more…

Scenery. I enjoy driving through rural Appalachia. Other places will do…

Steak. Ribeye or porterhouse, t-bone or a good sirloin. I like a nice thick steak, seared on each side but still cool in the middle…

University of Tennessee Football. What can I say? I bleed orange and white.