Thursday, April 29, 2004
On Shopping for Paint, Buying Some
We're officially in phase I of home-sellers' sprucing. Walked Lowe's tonight for just over an hour: paint supplies, ceiling fan light bulbs, a light switch, door stoop outdoor carpet (to replace the ragged mat uglying up the front step right now...it's all nicked up from someone's overzealous chipping of ice cakes this winter...I'm not naming names), and fairy dust for a few well-placed gleaming glints to attract the new homeowner's affection. Lowe's in Kansas City on a drizzly Thursday night while Survivor All-Stars is on: it was so empty we couldn't find anyone to mix the paint. Until we found someone.
Now, if I can just figure out how to apply a cascading style sheet to our living room walls, neutralize the bold green just a mite...then I'll have more time to blog tomorrow and over the weekend on
1~Who is the audience for this? Is it just more higher ed doom and gloom warning of the perilous market? To what end? Is it meant to discourage students? Scare people away from advanced study? Or is it building toward deeper critiques about crises in contract labor? Plenty of other careers and prospects for fulfilling employment suck. Okay, right, I don't pay attention to those articles either--if they exist at all (on how much it sucks to study athletic training, then take a job rubbing the feet and necks of strangers, or how much it sucks to take a law degree, then haggle in traffic court for the rest of your days).
2~Muchiri, Mulamba, Myers, Ndoloi on "Importing Composition"
3~Eyeing an instructor listserv for folks teaching the FY composition sequence and intro to humanities in the computer-mediated distance program at my current Uni.
4~Saying farewell to graduating students (who I had in FY comp four years ago!), lining up returning work-study students (all two of them) with warm and agreeable supervisors for the fall, and putting a box of free stuff outside my office door to see whether any of it holds a value for passers-by.
5~Catching heat about the final examination arrangement required by the administration for the FY composition sequence, then packing up a loaded email-response on the crapshoot, IMHO, of flat assessment systems for online composition, then sending off that email to a bunch of folks, then waiting to see whether I left too much tail hanging out in the whole process.
Perfect. Now I've got plenty to write about in the days ahead. No. 2 is a certainty; all else, as paint to these walls--spread thin, soon forgotten.
Posted by Derek Mueller at April 29, 2004 10:42 PM
to Unspecified
Re: 1
It's for those who view the glass as half empty. Reality is a creation that is a result of a personal belief system. Change your beliefs, change your reality.
pops
"If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought." - Peace Pilgrim
"We tend to get what we expect." - Norman Vincent Peale
"All that we are is the result of what we have thought." - Dhammapada
"You don't always get what you ask for, but you never get what you don't ask for...unless it's contagious!" - Franklyn Broude
"A no may be a blesing in disguise." - Mark Victor Hansen
"Being denied a ticket on the Titanic would have been a blessing." - Anonymous
"Be tenacious, persevere, never give up." - Winston Churchill
"For every negative event is the seed of an equal or greater benefit." - Napoleon Hill
"You miss 100% of the shots you never take." - Wayne Gretzky
"Man who waits for roast duck to fly into mouth must wait very, very, long time." - Chinese proverb
"The wind and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators. - Edward Gibbon
"Life has meaning only in the struggle. Triumph or defeat is in the hands of the Gods... So let us celebrate the struggle!" - Swahili Warrior Song
"The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible." - Arthur C. Clarke
Well-timed comments! About celebrating struggle--the evil paint gun we bought the other day will not work (recalling, vaguely, a *good* experience you mentioned using a similar gun to recolor the house in Raytown a few years ago). It refuses, sputters, taunts, makes an unbearable mess. I need meditations beyond cooling out in the back room after the rile. Zen meditations, as in painting the walls with a dry brush. *trying hard to concentrate on the mantra, "It's in the hands of the Gods"* Does that mean Lowe's will take back a gunked up paint sprayer in exchange for more brushes and rollers? Do you have any quotations on that, Dad? Maybe under the section "painting makes your youngest son horribly miserable"?
I tried everything on the troubleshooting list except thinning the paint. I figured since we got the paint at the same store, it ought to suit the sprayer, especially since the dude staffing the desk recommended it. All the neutral colors and fumes are filling up this place with an institutional aura. Or maybe it's just me.
Now I'm going to go remind D. that my life has meaning because of this afternoon's struggle. Well-timed, yes.
Posted by: Derek at May 1, 2004 4:38 PMRemember, my son, a long time ago, and in a place, far, far away, when I taught you and your bro 'bout, "If it don't kill ya, it'll only make ya stonger?"
S and I were at the Soaring Eagle the past few days. I was attending a seminar on water boundaries. S was along for the ride and R & R.
After I emerged from the last session, and was walking down a corridor, dazed and confused, there walking toward me was D's mom. Eternity is truly a small planet. A planet named Ocean?
A quick drive by the old Homestead indicated that it was still there. What more does one need on the planet.. Ocean?
Posted by: pops at May 1, 2004 6:42 PMFunny. Where else would you find D's mom? She hasn't called lately; probably means she won big at the Soaring Eagle. (Okay...better cut out the mother-in-law jokes or D. will start reading this blog on a regular basis.)
As for the place on M-20; what'd'ya expect? We practically rebuilt it from the foundation up. I still have scars (mental, if not physical) from chipping away--one chisel-tap at a time--all of the gaps between the stones holding the place up. Pretty sure the basement will never leak again. Ever.
Posted by: Derek at May 1, 2004 7:11 PM