It was a long weekend in Hoquiam, Washington, where I attended my brother Jim’s remembrance. It was a quiet event, no ceremony, just friends and family gathered and talking and looking over old photos, feeling sad.

Here’s a young Jim.

He always was better looking than me, although I never admitted that to him. He told me often enough.

For comparison, here’s a photo of the Myers kids sometime around 1970. Nobody call attention to my ugly teeth, please.

All that’s left of that handsome boy now are ashes, nicely stowed away in his old work thermos.

Now I’m getting sad again. Must stop.

I just got confirmation of my textbook selection for my spring term course.

CONCEPTS OF GENETICS
9780134604718
BY KLUG, WILLIAM S., CUMMINGS,
MICHAEL R., SPENCER, CHARLOTTE
A., PALLADINO, MICHAEL A.,
KILLIAN, DARRELL, KLUG, WILLIAM,
CUMMINGS, MICHAEL, SPENCER,
CHARLOTTE, AND PALLADINO,
MICHAEL
PUBLISHED BY PEARSON ED
(PRENTICE)
12
PUBLICATION DATE: MAY. 9, 2019
LIST PRICE: $246.65 😱 🤯

!!!!!

Registration is coming up soon. I’ll be sure to inform the students that old editions, used books, any alternative is fine. I’ve hung on to a few copies of past editions I’ll loan to students who are desperate.

I’m in Washington state today, and in a few hours will be heading down to the Pacific Ocean with family to say goodbye to one of the people in this photo.

The weather is looking a bit grey. I call upon Odin to bring down an appropriately dismal drizzly rain today.

Did you know that you can actually get formal training in how to stage an effective peaceful protest? I got some non-violent activism training years ago. There really are experts in this subject who are steeped in the history and statistics and strategies.

I guess these two bozos skipped the class.

I am so entirely supportive of the cause of reducing oil production and consumption, I would be cheering on the cause except…

Their chosen form of protest was to throw tomato soup (what symbolic message is that sending?) on a famous Van Gogh oil painting (is that supposed to be a connection to the oil industry?) and super-glue themselves to the wall. This action sends only one message: the members of the “Just Stop Oil” protest are fucking irrelevant idiots.

Here’s their weak justification:

What is worth more: art or life? Is it worth more than food? Worth more than justice? one of the activists yells, adding, are you more concerned about the protection of a painting, or the protection of our planet and people?

She continued, The cost-of-living crisis is part of the cost of oil crisis. Fuel is unaffordable to millions of cold, hungry families. They can’t even afford to heat a tin of soup.

The problem with that logic is that putting art in a museum does not at all conflict with the goal of reducing oil consumption. Are they suggesting that sacrificing art is necessary to protect the planet and to feed the hungry? They’ve also “called for roads across London to be blocked every day in October to protest fossil fuels” which sounds like a stronger protest than defacing paintings. There’s at least a strong connection between the action and the goal.

Also, the painting was protected behind a sheet of glass. They couldn’t even get the defacement right.

Oh boy, I get email.

I’m reaching out one last time about featuring your brand in influencer-generated gift guides for the upcoming holiday shopping season.

I have 20 fabulous influencers who are doing holiday gift guides and they have a combined reach of over 3 million consumers who are eager to hear about your brand.

I’m running a special where I will feature your brand in all 20 gift guides for $4,000. It’s a one-time fee and it covers the influencers’ fees.

Gift guides are the most impactful way to get the word out about your brand to consumers who are looking for gifting ideas. This is the 4th year that I’ve run this campaign because every year, my clients get fantastic results.

Spaces in these gift guides are filling up fast and I don’t want you to miss this great opportunity!

Please feel free to reply to this email if you have any questions and/or if you would like to be part of this campaign.

Look, you’ll never persuade me with a tease that features the words “brand” and “influencer”. That’s a great way to get me running in the opposite direction.

I notice also that I am expected to cough up $4,000 to be mentioned in these “gift guides” from 20 different “influencers” who have almost certainly never even heard of me, while the “influencers” are getting paid. Seems a little unfair? I think I’ll pass.

I’m going to have to get on an airplane this weekend. I’m not happy about it, and Sun Country (which had the cheapest, low budget flight to Seattle) is not reassuring me.

Masks are now optional for all passengers and crew members onboard Sun Country flights within the United States. For international flights, masks are optional for Sun Country customers and employees, except where required by applicable governments for international travel. Please continue to bring a mask with you as required for international travel.
At Sun Country Airlines, safety is our number one priority, and we remain committed to maintaining a clean, healthy environment on board.

Why do they do this? They announce safety is our number one priority, while stripping all the health safety requirements from the flight. Isn’t it obvious that safety is not their number one priority? Is anyone fooled by this double-speak?

I’ll be wearing an N95 the whole way there and back.

Sorry, SETI, I already deleted it all. Maybe Google can recover it?

I do kind of wonder why so many aliens want to sell me insurance, and others are sending me photos of weird aliens without any clothes on.

I was contemplating my crowded daily calendar, and I noticed a gap — there’s an unfilled time slot on Thursday afternoon! This cannot stand. Therefore, I’ll fill it with an Open Q&A session from my office at the University of Minnesota Morris, and invite you all to stop by and pester me with questions and comments and complaints. Let’s try it and see how it goes.

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Oops. And then I remembered there was a one-time temporary change to my teaching schedule for just this one day. Rescheduled slightly to start at 10:30am Central.