fidlmath

Diana the Spider Wrangler

us and them

"Animals that can do two important things at the same time, like eat and watch for predators, would be better off, she said. And animals with two brain hemispheres could avoid duplication of function, making maximal use of neural tissue."  Guess this is why we can multi-task?  This is from an article that friend, Martha emailed me earlier.  Interesting.

posted by: mafidl at April 27, 2007 10:03 | link | comments (3) |
nature, pets, critters

update

Good news - my all-in-one has been delivered.  Somewhat bad news - it's at my office and will require the help of friend NN, my poor luggage cart NN's SUV to get it home.  It took the alertness of one of the ladies in the Admissions office, who saw my name and math department, so knew where to send it. 
I gave my first final this afternoon and after all that's been frustrating me the past few days, was ready to either collapse or relax - chose the latter and am drinking a glass of white wine with/after dinner.  Then to grading.
I wish all my Motime teacher and student friends the best of luck these next few days/weeks.  I have extra office hours every day except tomorrow, when I'm giving my next test and have second appointment with counselor later.  Wednesday, office hours followed by interview, Thursday office hours, Friday office hours followed by the common final - proctoring my 2 classes along with friend R and his class.  Then finish grading.  I am so glad I don't have to grade papers - like essays, etc.  TTFN

posted by: mafidl at April 23, 2007 20:11 | link | comments (6) |

lyrebird

This bird is truly incredible - and I thought our Mocking Birds were talented.
And how sad at what it imitated - the chain saw cutting down it's own home.

posted by: mafidl at April 22, 2007 22:25 | link | comments (1) |

flying

This definitely doesn't do anything for my confidence about flying. 
Extreme Pilot Footage - Awesome video clips here There's a comment "Pilots can be crazy mofos" - what about incompetent?

posted by: mafidl at April 22, 2007 13:38 | link | comments (5) |

Cat Abuse?

I was beginining to commence to start to think about writing the Trigonometry test that I have to write today.  Then friend NN called that he was having a hotdog, so I decided to take a break and have one, too.  Then he called out -"Oh, NO!" and then "see what's in the sink. " Anyone else want to say "Yuckkkkkk!!!"  Oh well, one of the cats had pooped in the bathroom sink.  The only difference from before is that it was at least half full of water.  Double Yuckkkk!!  Managed to get it clean, scoured with cleanser with bleach, then refilled it and put bleach in - I'm assuming their noses are adequate to keep them from drinking that?  Well, it might not be necessary.  Realizing that I hadn't scooped litter last night [night before?  Hmmmm], I took one of my large newspaper plastic bags, went into that bathroom, and there was more than the usual amount of whatever in it.  Then came upstairs to find there was an amazingly large amount of whatever in that one.  Since I had cleverly decided back a couple of months ago that 2 litter boxes would suffice for 4 cats, that was all.  Now so far that system has been working [having noted that when there were 3 of them, the 3rd one got very little use] - BUT, I have been very careful to scoop daily.  I probably don't need to say any more.  It is obvious to me that I either have to have a 3rd litter box, or religiously, as is said, scoop daily.
Now to quit procrastinating and write my test.  I've had all sorts of useful suggestions from my colleagues R and M, including offer to let me use one of their tests.  I won't be doing that, since it is being given later than mine and there could be sharing of info - not good - so back to the drawing board.

posted by: mafidl at April 22, 2007 12:58 | link | comments (1) |
teaching, kitties

Frustration Rant

Frustration seems to be my middle name today.  After having a nice lunch with 2 colleagues/friends, then going to have a relaxing manicure and pedicure I came home to spend, off and on, a couple of hours on the phone trying to have a shipping address for my replacement printer,etc, which would have been delivered today had bloody HP not managed to put the billing address, which shouldn't have had my name on it in the first place, as the shipping address, which should have been my home address, and the very friendly Indian gentlemen, now 5 of them, whom I have talked to, 2 of those calls having been dropped, assured me that FedEx had indeed been sent the correct shipping address, but they haven't and won't be, now, until Monday, when they will probably try to deliver the "package" to the wrong address again, where they don't have my name and are too stupid to look me up in their University directory, but probably couldn't get FedEx to deliver it to my home, where it should have been delivered to begin with, and the bloody thing is too big for me to pick up there anyhow, and I am ready to cry - I hope you're following this, there will be a quiz later.  Drat and Damn for the 3rd time in, what?, a week.  I know there are more important issues in the world right now, but I need this damn thing and can't do a thing about this.  Hence, FRUSTRATION!!!!!!!  Or as some peanuts [?] character used to say "arrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

posted by: mafidl at April 20, 2007 18:31 | link | comments (8) |

JustMe63

I am now officially more bummed out than before.  The dreadfulness and extreme sadness of the shooting at Virginia Tech is sinking in more.  But, also, Rog, of JustMe63 blog seems to have carried through on his statement about leaving Motime.  I don't know whether this was caused by his dismay that none of us had said anything about the shooting - although many of us probably, like me, had been pretty isolated at work during the day and didn't hear about it until late afternoon or evening.  Perhaps some of our comments, sometimes pretty rough, upset him.  I don't know.  However, I do hope that no one else decides to leave due to the occasional strong, possibly insensitive, comments that some of us sometimes make.  I may have contributed to that voice last evening, but didn't mean for Rog to leave.  I value his comments, insights, links, occasional rantings and will miss them.  There have been several other Motimers whose blogs I like, visit, value and comment on, who have decided to make their blogs private.  I have been fortunate enough to be allowed to subscribe to them so have not lost them.  Perhaps Rog could have done this instead - and maybe he will decide to reconsider.  I hope so.

posted by: mafidl at April 18, 2007 08:53 | link | comments (4) |

Virginia Tech

Senility is imminent.  I'm almost sure I wrote a post which included my feelings about what happened in Virginia.  Perhaps I did it in my dreams?  Anyway, it is really sad/terrible that this kind of tragedy has happened.  Now they are saying the young man was a loner, showed all signs of real emotional/psychological problems, was recommended for counseling - but what happened?  It is so sad that someone who apparently needed some serious help was allowed to fall through the cracks that way, and scary that this was the result.  It seems to me that this kind of incident is happening more frequently - and to younger people.  We need to develop some kind of safety net and catch these people before tragedy happens.  I wonder how?

posted by: mafidl at April 17, 2007 19:40 | link | comments (4) |

Multi-tasking

I've had one mug of hot coffee and half a glass of iced coffee - so I'm probably wired and usually not completely aware of it.  I have been multi-tasking since I arrived at school around 8:30 this morning.  I've contacted a doctor's office to see if they have something I need [they do - I'll pick it up tomorrow afternoon], worked on the corrections for the common final [disapproved by a colleague - so back to the drawing board after my 11AM class], talked to my broker about Wachovia's strange figures [he figured out what was missing and will get back to me], completed my ballot for department committees [which has to be in by 3PM] - surely there's more.  I've only been here for 2 1/2 hours.  Oh well, more later,probably.

posted by: mafidl at April 16, 2007 10:49 | link | comments (4) |
work

weather +

Drat and damn again.  I love/hate cordless mice - I moved it by accident and cancelled the post I was writing.  Sobbbbb!!!!!
Ok so try again.  It is or was a little while ago, 57 degrees - cold for South Florida - I love it.  I was able to wear my now not so new kitty sweater.  It is only supposed to go up to low 70's today.
Yesterday the weather service was having some kind of a fit, I think.  Early on there was a severe weather warning: tornado watch, possible 1 1/2 inch hailstones and up to 70 mph wind gusts - and, oh, heavy rain.  Guess what?  None of the above.  We had wind - maybe 30+ mph gusts and light rain only.  It had us day captains at the Zoo nervous because: 1.  we no longer have our cart with the drop down heavy transparent plastic curtains and 2.  some of our volunteers are outside and one is in a tin box - our information booth - neither location good when there is severe weather. 
Saturday I only left my desk to go potty and eat - until about 3,  I realized I was still in my nightie and needed a shower.  Then back to the drawing board.  I wrote 2 tests, graded some quizzes and a test and started amending an old final exam review for one class - the one I haven't taught since 1999.  So have been writing my notes only a day or so before I had to lecture, since I have been unable to find my old ones.  That has been fun.  I always use notes so that I won't forget anything important and so that I have, I hope, good examples that are, mostly, different from the ones in the book.  That's so that the brave few who actually read the book will have alternate examples to study.  Study?  Hmmmmm, that seems to be a vanishing concept - again sobbbbb!  Actually, this class, Trigonometry, is pretty good.  At the beginning there were 14 of the nearly 50 enrolled, who didn't have the necessary prerequisite, having finished it the previous term and our filter didn't catch that.  Thank goodness, I went thru and checked all of their prerequisites, put a note on their webpage and announced in class that either they drop or I would drop them.  Miracle of miracles, by end of day 11 of them had dropped, 1 had a valid reason for being allowed to stay in [pending grade change] and the others dropped the next day.  So the remaining 40, after a few more joined the class, actually had the prerequisite - hence have done pretty well.  They are mostly a hard working bunch, apparently, and my one island of happiness with my teaching this semester.  I will not, now, say more about my other 3 classes.
Today I am making corrections/revisions to the 4 forms of the common final we will be giving week after next.  That has been somewhat of a 3-ring [actually 6-ring] circus, since there are 6 people on the so-called ad hoc committee and we often haven't been able to agree on anything.  Or at least not a majority.  The only good news is that one who is supposed to be on the committee left early our first meeting and hasn't attended the 2 or 3 we've had since then.  So 3 of us - not always the same 3 - are able to accomplish as much as we can.  One problem we have is that the software which is being used to create 4 different versions of the exam only varies about 60% of the questions and, frankly, some of the questions suck.  I am trying to create alternate ones for several and, mind you, physically, cut out and paste these into the tests.  Why, you ask, not do it on the computer?  It was created in Adobe Acrobat and can only be edited with AA Writer, which I don't have.  What I do have is a math editor called MathType, which I use handily and hence the archaic mode of corrections.
Now back to corrections.  Today and tomorrow I am giving 1 test each day and then, probably, I'll give a last quiz to each of the classes who aren't getting tests this week, hoping that will help them, if they bother to study, with the material that hasn't been tested.  They also have a fairly good final exam review on their webpage and with some sort of effort on their parts, might even pass.  Sigh!
Oops - forgot the kitty update.  The miscreant, who has been prevented from pooping in the downstairs bathroom sink - which is half full of water - and has not pooped in the large tub upstairs for a couple of months - is at it again.  Yesterday there was a large pile of the stuff in the tub, sigh.  So now that door will stay closed except when I'm in there - for awhile at least.  I hate to do that, since the 2 youngsters love to play in there. 
OK - back to the grindstone.  Later. Ciao. TTFN.  etc.

posted by: mafidl at April 16, 2007 09:39 | link | comments |
weather, kitties, zoo

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