This semester is much better than Fall term (which was hellish), but I have one complaint. Wednesdays are my bad day: I’ve scheduled two different classes back to back with minimal time between them. I hope I don’t confuse the content when I get into the classroom! My morning is going to be all about packing my brain with the data I need to teach.
If you just want to listen to something soothing because the world sucks so bad right now, I have news for you: 31 years of Bob Ross’ The Joy of Painting, 1983-1994, is now available in one place online. Start here with this playlist.
Some of us might need this.
Classes are scheduled to start tomorrow. I’m ready, I’ve got a couple of weeks of lectures in the can, swarms of flies at the starting gate, and a grand plan for lab work that’ll take me all the way to May. Students are probably trickling back this weekend, except…
It’s -12°C, snowing, and we’ve got 40kph winds howling outside my window. It’s supposed to drop to -20°C tonight. There are travel advisories up all over the place.
I’m anticipating a half-empty classroom tomorrow. I don’t anticipate the school being closed — this is Minnesota, we take a stubborn pride in plowing ahead through the most frightful weather — but I might have to offer the class over Zoom, for just this one day. I have a strong allergic response to Zoom anymore, but it might be the safest recourse.
Yesterday, I got my Genetics class all set up — Canvas page assembled, syllabus written, first lecture prepped. Today I’ve got to do some lab work, setting up another generation of the fly stocks we’ll be using in the lab in two weeks (next week’s lab is all statistics and probability tools that we’ll be using throughout the term, and it’s all ready to go). I’ve also got to get my writing class organized today.
Also on my agenda: on Saturday, 11 January, Dr Sarah and I will be discussing a pair of wonderful parenting books: Boymom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity by Ruth Whippman and Progressive Parenting: Harnessing the Power of Science and Social Justice to Raise Awesome Kids by Kavin Senapathy. I’m only a grandfather now, but I have memories, or concepts of memories, that might be relevant, and also all of my kids turned out perfect, so maybe I’ll have something to say.
If you’ve got suggestions for books in a similar vein, let us know about them!
We’re back from our excursion to Madison — a day driving there, two days with Iliana, and a day driving back, but totally worth it. You may recall that I mention the distinct change at the border with Wisconsin (“adult novelty stores, billboards for cheese, and roadkill as far as the eye can see”), but we also saw something in common: so many “Pro Life Across America” billboard spread across both Minnesota and Wisconsin. They’ve gotten more condensed over the years, at least. Nowadays they’re just a photo of a cute, plump 6-month old babies with the words Heartbeat 18 Days
. That’s all. Not even grammatical. We’re just supposed to leap to the conclusion they want.
I have a much more interesting statement: Poop 19 Seconds
.
That’s from Bethany Brookshire’s Insomniac Academy of brief YouTube shorts with fascinating facts about anatomy. Check it out!
Now, live from Wisconsin!
It’s amazing how sharp the boundary is between Minnesota and Wisconsin: you cross the border and suddenly it’s adult novelty stores, billboards for cheese, and roadkill as far as the eye can see.
Why try to foretell the future by pawing through entrails when the gods send such a clear sign?
This is not an omen. This is just the brain of a 53 year old man-child raised on 4chan, who has somehow acquired more money and power than he knows what to do with.
Elon Musk has changed his X profile.
His avatar is now Pepe the Frog, a mascot adopted by white supremacists.
His name is a Latinisation of “Kek”, a phrase used by neo-Nazis.
Musk has also backed AfD in Germany, the political home for racists.
The man is telling us explicitly what he’s about.
Could someone please let him know his immaturity is exposed?
Also, haven’t all the cool kids moved on well past the “kekistan” nonsense? This is so 2015.
The Aztecs would rip out still-beating human hearts to honor the sun god Huitzilopochtli, so that the sun would continue to rise. I too have performed a ritual every year, in a tradition taught me by my father. On New Year’s Eve, we consume a root beer float to honor the passing year and propitiate the new one. Every year since I was a wee little tyke I have performed the sacrifice.
Until last night. I no longer have children at home, and my wife was at work. I was alone with the cat when I suddenly realized at 11pm that I had none of the sacred ingredients, neither root beer nor ice cream, it was -10°C outside, and even if I felt like taking a walk, no store would be open at this hour. I must confess I also didn’t feel much like saving the world this year.
I apologize if 2025 turns out to be a disastrously bad year — it will all be my fault.
The omens have already begun. The US Capitol building was struck by lightning last night, something that I’m sure almost never happens.
The sale of my mother’s house is imminent — closing is on 3 January. I have spent my afternoons since last week trying to cancel utilities and various services to the house, and it hasn’t been easy. I’ve sat on hold on the phone for an awful lot of time, because, as it turns out, most of these services are reluctant to lose a paying customer, even if she is dead. Much of what I’ve had to do is call, wait for an answer, get told an email address to send a death certificate and letters testamentary, and then wait for a verification phone call. And then discover that the electric company had misspelled her name, which was not an obstacle when billing her, but becomes a problem when telling them to stop billing her.
But finally, it’s all done! The house goes dead on Friday, only to come back to life with new owners.
Next step is to go through a long list of annuities and get them cashed out. Also, a minor thing, I have 21 silver dollars that were in her bank deposit box, I’ll have to get those appraised. I checked out a few of them on the web, and they were selling for somewhere between $10 and $50 each, but I have to wring every penny I can out of everything before I’m done.
