I made a spider-suit for him. Four leg holes for his legs and 4 additional legs to hang off the sides. This photo kills me for hilarity. He is trying to escape/trying to stand up...
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Kiki doesn't want to be a spider...
The costume would've fit better if Kiki's fur wasn't growing back so readily! Curses... I'm going to have to sew in a back panel to prevent him from toppling over to one side every time he tries to stand. The hilarity of it all!
Fox Theatre
The Fox Theatre is Bakersfield's answer to Kingston's The Screening Room.
So here I get to see fantastic independent films, in a theatre with great ambiance, for 1/3 the price of going to see a crappy movie at your average run-of-the-mill cineplex.
I LOVE the Fox Theatre!
So here I get to see fantastic independent films, in a theatre with great ambiance, for 1/3 the price of going to see a crappy movie at your average run-of-the-mill cineplex.
I LOVE the Fox Theatre!
The Fox
At first I thought this bulding had something to do with the network. I was mistaken, but I'm very glad I was!
camera
an old fashioned hand crank camera - decor in the ladies room. I feel that the fire extinguisher adds a certain... je ne sais quois
The Kern County Fair
I went to the fair last night with Karen and Kim (three science teachers going to an American Country Fair - you can imagine the fun!) we saw all sorts of fun things.
Big steers. Big horses. Really little horses. Deep fried zucchini. Elvis impersonator. Blimp. Crazy people. Drunk people. Crazy drunk people. If you look really closely at the giant steer photo you can see the top of the bull over the sheet that hides him from the public who won't pay the dollar to go in and see him.
Big steers. Big horses. Really little horses. Deep fried zucchini. Elvis impersonator. Blimp. Crazy people. Drunk people. Crazy drunk people. If you look really closely at the giant steer photo you can see the top of the bull over the sheet that hides him from the public who won't pay the dollar to go in and see him.
My office - and addendum to "I AM LIVID!"
I can't believe I never posted the photo of my office. This one is taken before I got a computer (the one featured in the photo is not functioning, except to take up space). Please note the couch. It seems that wherever I go, I have a couch in my office!
Now, the addendum... And I can't believe I didn't post this either! But with the chaos of the day, I must've overlooked this other event. After I came into my lab on Thursday afternoon, fuming about the notice from the door, I noticed that the seismometer was not writing anything. I investigated it, and while it was running, the ink had decided to not flow anymore. I tried to make it work properly, but it appeared to be plugged, so even though I'm "in charge" of it, and no nothing about running one, I just decided to give up and turn it off. DURING the test that day in walked a strange man.
"May I help you?" I ask, while the students become distracted
"I'm from channel 17 news" he says, "may I see your seismometer?"
"It's over there" I point, "but the ink isn't running so it isn't recording anything right now"
He looks shocked. Aghast. "We just had an earthquake" he says, "you didn't record it?"
I'm thinking GREAT we FINALLY have something worth recording and the damn ink isn't running and the news people come in to try to get a story and I let down the college by not being able to run the stupid thing.
The students, of course, start freaking out. "Was there damage?" "Did anyone die?" "My momma's property's on the fault line! Oh my god! I have to call! What if everything's ruined?" some starts to cry. The news guy is now even more taken aback by this INSANE reaction - I mean, did any of us FEEL it in the class???? NO! We did not!
So he reassures them that it was a 4.0, and there was no damage. Do they believe him? NO! They continue to freak out until I say, "ok, you need to FOCUS ON THE MINERAL TEST right now, a 4.0 is NOT a big earthquake, we didn't even feel it". It was not a good lab day!!!
UGH.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Cold Stone
On the brighter side - I have to mention this fantastic place.
Cold Stone is an ice cream place, and not to revoke my dedication to White Mountain back in Canada, this place can certainly hold a candle to the hand rolled waffle cones.
Cold Stone's gimic: "mix-ins" - they have a set of pretty standard, and some pretty darn fantastic ice cream flavours: banana, chocolate, vanilla, mint, berry of some sort, coffee, and others of the like, then these 2 that are to die for: cheesecake! and oatmeal cookie!!! But the kicker are the "mix-ins" - there's about a million of them! To your ice cream you can add any number of (although it costs more as you add more) the following: chocolate chips, chocolate shavings, chocolate sprinkles, rainbow sprinkles, brownies, fruit of numerous types (ACTUAL fruit!!!), nuts of any type imaginable including pralines, graham cookie crust (for authentic cheesecake concoctions), chocolate sauce, peanut butter, caramel, fudge, just about any type of candy bar known to man... the list goes on.
It's BRILLIANT! FANTASTIC! DELICIOUS! You never run out of options! You can buy it by the pint if you desire! They take a big ol' scoop of ice cream, slap it on a cold marble stone (hence the name) add in your stuff, stir it up, and pop it in any of a bowl, cone, waffle cone, waffle bowl, chocolate dipped either of the aforementioned, chocolate dipped with sprinkles, etc etc etc.
I had oatmeal cookie with chocolate shavings and caramel last night, and while it was fabulous, I think my favourite may remain cheesecake with graham cookies and fresh raspberries. Mmmmmmmm.
Just thinking about it makes todays mineral test less horrid. Unfortunately it doesn't make it go away.
Cold Stone is an ice cream place, and not to revoke my dedication to White Mountain back in Canada, this place can certainly hold a candle to the hand rolled waffle cones.
Cold Stone's gimic: "mix-ins" - they have a set of pretty standard, and some pretty darn fantastic ice cream flavours: banana, chocolate, vanilla, mint, berry of some sort, coffee, and others of the like, then these 2 that are to die for: cheesecake! and oatmeal cookie!!! But the kicker are the "mix-ins" - there's about a million of them! To your ice cream you can add any number of (although it costs more as you add more) the following: chocolate chips, chocolate shavings, chocolate sprinkles, rainbow sprinkles, brownies, fruit of numerous types (ACTUAL fruit!!!), nuts of any type imaginable including pralines, graham cookie crust (for authentic cheesecake concoctions), chocolate sauce, peanut butter, caramel, fudge, just about any type of candy bar known to man... the list goes on.
It's BRILLIANT! FANTASTIC! DELICIOUS! You never run out of options! You can buy it by the pint if you desire! They take a big ol' scoop of ice cream, slap it on a cold marble stone (hence the name) add in your stuff, stir it up, and pop it in any of a bowl, cone, waffle cone, waffle bowl, chocolate dipped either of the aforementioned, chocolate dipped with sprinkles, etc etc etc.
I had oatmeal cookie with chocolate shavings and caramel last night, and while it was fabulous, I think my favourite may remain cheesecake with graham cookies and fresh raspberries. Mmmmmmmm.
Just thinking about it makes todays mineral test less horrid. Unfortunately it doesn't make it go away.
I AM LIVID!
This week I am administering mineral tests. I can't even count how many of these I've given over the years. They are always the same: 2min per sample, an inordinantly long period of time for those who know it and seemingly an eternity for those who don't.
For the person administering the test, that would be me, it's 10 times more painful. Here's my job: stare at the students and my watch alternately, one for ensuring no cheating, and two for keeping time. Then at the 1 minute mark I say "one minute" and then 30seconds later I say "30 seconds" and finally at the 2 minute mark I say "switch". It's hideously dull, plus I usually end up giving FAR more than the students end up taking, especially with multiple lab sections.
Anyway, that being explained, the three mineral tests I gave this week went from great to bad to unbelievably horrible, no good, very bad, chaotic, painful, embarrassing, mortifying, excruciatingly unbearable.
Tuesday morning: students follow the directions, do the test, do well
Tuesday afternoon: students don't follow the directions, elect to invent names of minerals rather than use the list of possibilities I have written on the board, some do ok, many do poorly
Thursday afternoon: I arrive to the lab to find that some "clever" student, clearly wanting out of the test, has posted a sign on the door to the lab "class canceled" it said, "instructor is ill", along with the details of the course code, name, and my name of course - so that it would be official.
Naturally, the good students, the ones who arrived early to lab to do some last minute studying, saw the sign and left. The not-so-good students, the ones who typically arrive late, did not see the sign, since I took it down, and they are the ones who wrote the test.
Firstly, if someone wanted out of the test - they should've pretended that THEY were sick rather than post a sign. a) clearly I would notice the sign and realize that it wasn't real (oh wait, perhaps I AM sick, oops, what am I doing here today?) and obviously would know that a student was responsible. b) do you think it would put me in a BETTER mood having to find time to reschedule the test??? NO!!!! of course the make up test is going to be painfully impossible to punish the loser who is responsible for the crime. And that makes me mad too, because I am also punishing my good students who came early and saw the sign and then left. So of course, once the test is done today, I go to mark it. Seriously, it's like these students NEVER looked at the minerals before at all. Even though they had 2 full 3 hour lab periods to learn them under my tutilage and all the time they wanted between labs to come in and study. And then, it's like they weren't even looking at the minerals DURING the test - because even if they couldn't identify the mineral itself, they should have at least been able to recognize if it was metallic or glassy in appearance, or notice if it happened to be a perfect cube. But no, instead they not only don't look at the minerals DURING the test, they also don't bother reading the questions associated with them: what is the hardness of this mineral? "brownish". Since when is BROWN or any associated earth-tone considered to be a scale of HARDNESS????? I mean "hard" would have been a better answer. With the answers I was getting, I might have even given a mark for "hard". YEESH!
And that's the summary of that.
For the person administering the test, that would be me, it's 10 times more painful. Here's my job: stare at the students and my watch alternately, one for ensuring no cheating, and two for keeping time. Then at the 1 minute mark I say "one minute" and then 30seconds later I say "30 seconds" and finally at the 2 minute mark I say "switch". It's hideously dull, plus I usually end up giving FAR more than the students end up taking, especially with multiple lab sections.
Anyway, that being explained, the three mineral tests I gave this week went from great to bad to unbelievably horrible, no good, very bad, chaotic, painful, embarrassing, mortifying, excruciatingly unbearable.
Tuesday morning: students follow the directions, do the test, do well
Tuesday afternoon: students don't follow the directions, elect to invent names of minerals rather than use the list of possibilities I have written on the board, some do ok, many do poorly
Thursday afternoon: I arrive to the lab to find that some "clever" student, clearly wanting out of the test, has posted a sign on the door to the lab "class canceled" it said, "instructor is ill", along with the details of the course code, name, and my name of course - so that it would be official.
Naturally, the good students, the ones who arrived early to lab to do some last minute studying, saw the sign and left. The not-so-good students, the ones who typically arrive late, did not see the sign, since I took it down, and they are the ones who wrote the test.
Firstly, if someone wanted out of the test - they should've pretended that THEY were sick rather than post a sign. a) clearly I would notice the sign and realize that it wasn't real (oh wait, perhaps I AM sick, oops, what am I doing here today?) and obviously would know that a student was responsible. b) do you think it would put me in a BETTER mood having to find time to reschedule the test??? NO!!!! of course the make up test is going to be painfully impossible to punish the loser who is responsible for the crime. And that makes me mad too, because I am also punishing my good students who came early and saw the sign and then left. So of course, once the test is done today, I go to mark it. Seriously, it's like these students NEVER looked at the minerals before at all. Even though they had 2 full 3 hour lab periods to learn them under my tutilage and all the time they wanted between labs to come in and study. And then, it's like they weren't even looking at the minerals DURING the test - because even if they couldn't identify the mineral itself, they should have at least been able to recognize if it was metallic or glassy in appearance, or notice if it happened to be a perfect cube. But no, instead they not only don't look at the minerals DURING the test, they also don't bother reading the questions associated with them: what is the hardness of this mineral? "brownish". Since when is BROWN or any associated earth-tone considered to be a scale of HARDNESS????? I mean "hard" would have been a better answer. With the answers I was getting, I might have even given a mark for "hard". YEESH!
And that's the summary of that.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Hello Kitty
As prevalent as she is in Japan, I can only assume that she is worshipped at least 50% as much here in California. During our weekend in the OC, Karen and I happened across the Hello Kitty Boardfest. So surfers are also Hello Kitty fans... does that make them less manly?
Pepperoncini peppers
These should last me a lifetime, if not a month. Note the giant orange juice for scale.
Officially "Californian"
I now have a California driver lisence, and car to match... note the new plates!
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