Here I go again...

As some of my Loyal Readers know, I teach online classes in business law for the University of Phoenix. I'm starting a new online class this week. Thing is, I'm only halfway through another class now. I just spent about an hour teaching the first class and another hour setting the second one up. I do my best to copy my work from one class to another to save some time, but there's still some tedium involved in setting up the online classroom.

Ideally, I'd only teach one class at a time, but I turned down something like four classes to go visit the folks last month, so I want to keep my faculty scheduler at University of Phoenix happy. So that means that for the next two weeks, I'll be teaching two classes. When I was otherwise unemployed after moving here to Tennessee, I had as many as three classes at one time -- but that kept my hands pretty full. Two classes and full-time work out to have me at about the same fever pitch of intellectual activity.

The good news is, it's some extra money, which we can start salting it away for our eventual down payment on a house. It's nice to think that despite a rough landing here in Tennessee, we're now in a position where such a thing is possible and, while perhaps not within our grasp this instant, within the realm of a reasonable short-term future. After all, being able to buy a house was one of the big reasons The Wife and I came here in the first place.

Cutting the cord

We're cancelling our regular telephone service and replacing it with... nothing. No more land lines to The Estate at Louisville. Anyone who wants to reach us, will need to do so by our cellular phones. Loyal Readers who do not have my cell phone number may feel free to send me an e-mail or to call the old land line and get the forwarding number from there.

For some, this may seem like a bizarre thing to do. Some people I deal with here in Tennessee have had the same telephone number for fifty years or more. They still give out their numbers with letter mnemonics (like "Transylvania 6-5000") left over from the days when phone numbers changed from being four or five digits long to the current seven. But people my age and younger seem more willing to change phone numbers (or change in general, which is a different topic entirely). The Wife and I had only cellular service when we lived in California and now that we've found a provider of decent quality here, we're happy to do so again.

From the Red States

An extremely insightful comment from a blog I do not ordinarily read. Also a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with. I just don't know where to look for a genuine advocate of limited government on the Federal scale.

Weekend Summary

Interesting events this weekend included:

• Finishing grading and revising my online students' papers. Always a big chore, I made it through three less-than-well-written papers with revisions to point out where they failed to cite to authorities, made grammar mistakes, and lapsed into weak passive voice. The Wife points out that most of my students don't care whether or not they actually learn anything from my class. I say, someone has to care about their educations, and if they won't do it, well, that's my job. They're paying for the service and I'm going to give it.
• Bought a professional-grade lemon zester. It will make making crepes much easier -- which is one reason The Wife may have been so insistent that I get it.
• Taught the dogs to sit pretty (or at least, got them to do so on command).
• Secured a repair deal for the lawn mower, which includes pickup and delivery while The Wife and I are away at work.
• Saw two movies, neither of which are worth investing time in reviews: Fantastic Four and Must Love Dogs. Suffice to say that in Fantastic Four, the characters spent way too much time talking about their feelings instead of having superhero-style fights with super-villains. Must Love Dogs was so sweet and devoid of substance that I felt close to entering diabetic shock by the time I left the theater. While both movies had some redeeming qualities, I have no desire to see either again and do not recommend either to any of my Loyal Readers. I'm sure The Wife has a different opinion about Must Love Dogs, to which she is of course entitled.
• Got a good, short, corporate-style haircut. Also, I let my facial hair grow. Now the hairs on my cheek feel only a little bit shorter than the hairs on the side of my head. This will all change tomorrow morning when I have to look scrubbed and groomed for work, but I'm enjoying it for now.
• Continued rehabilitating my computer from the hard-drive wipe that took place last week. (At least my pop-up ad problem has been solved.)
• Was flattered to see a note and reference from Professor Stephen Bainbridge, whose blogs (one on law and one on wine) I read periodically. I have no idea how many hits on the blog I've got for that highly amusing video or how many to thank Prof. Bainbridge for. Welcome to any new readers who find my daily musings and activities amusing!
• Finally, I've grown annoyed at the flower-shaped bullet points on the blog. Anyone have any idea how I can change them to simple, professional-looking round dots?

Slack-Jawed Astonishment

The anniversary of the Watts Riots in Los Angeles was just a few days ago. A tough time for the city and the nation, as the ugly reality of poor race relations, police brutality, and the fragility of the thin line between civilization and anarchy became revealed for all.

So it is with my jaw well and truly agape that I learn that Huey Newton's widow is going to start selling "Burn, Baby, Burn Revolutionary Barbeque Sauce" in the near future.

I can see the label now: "A tasty sauce with a tasteless name."

Allergies

It turns out that I'm allergic to every kind of grass, and about half of the trees and shrubs, which thrive here in the sultry humidity of East Tennessee. And not just a little bit allergic, either. So pretty much, if it's green and grows here, I need to stay away from it. I'm also allergic to cats, which I knew but for some reason I never had an adverse reaction to Ginger so I'd hoped I'd developed an immunity to them. Turns out, not so much. Ginger must not shed a lot of dander is all. I'm also allergic to dust mite droppings (ewww!) which is apparently a very common allergy. My only food allergy is scallops, which again I knew before seeing the allergist. Other shellfish are OK.

The temporary solution is Allegra and Rhinocort. Since I'm taking them jointly I don't know which is more effective. Rhinocort is squirted directly into the nostrils, and contains an artificial steroid, so I'd better not try out for a professional sports team any time soon. (Not much danger of that.) It's annoying and I'd rather not have to do that.

The long-term solution will be a three- to five-year long course of shots intended to immunize me from my allergy triggers. About 1% of patients undergoing this therapy experience anaphylactic shock and must get immediate, massive injections of adrenaline or risk death. On top of that, it's expensive! So of course I signed right up.

Flag update

It seems that the Maryville School District has found a way to ban the Confederate flag without explicitly saying that's what they are doing. I notice line in the article "Some flag defenders have threatened a lawsuit." That ought to make for an interesting argument.

Fanaticism and hype

I was thinking the other day that those with true confidence in their beliefs tend not to proselytize -- and when they do so, they use the soft-sell -- which is amazingly more effective in the long run than using high-pressure techniques. When what you're selling is a belief, your job is to persuade, not to cajole or threaten. Maneuver X is the most critical part of changing people's minds. Fanatics are incapable of executing the maneuver.

So I serendipitously ran across this quote in my readings today:

You are never dedicated to something that you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.

Good thought. The quote is by Robert Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It calls to mind a great many different kinds of fanatics in today's world -- the religious and political fanatics blowing themselves up in Iraq as if that is going to change anything; the fanatics who flew planes into our buildings; religious fanatics seeking to shove their beliefs and the implications of those beliefs down the throats of others; even the idiots at NARAL who thought that smearing John Roberts was going to somehow benefit their cause -- a mistaken belief pointed out to them by a friend they desparately need to keep.

Video of the day

Some college kids and other supergeniuses like to take an ounce or so of 151-proof rum, light it on fire, and then shoot it.

This turns out not to be such a good idea.

(The linked video no longer works. Try clicking here for a look at the truly horrific video; there is some profanity in the background audio.)

Whaddya know? I'm a shafarist!

Props to Hydrogen and Stupidity for a link to an eloquent, if plaintive and leftist, plea for recognition and respect by a fellow non-believer. I'm not sure I'd call President Bush or Prime Minister Sharon "false prophets" as they are secular leaders who do not rely upon religion as the primary justification for their actions -- but I quibble. The larger point is worth reading.

Space Station

Listening to an NPR story this morning about the space shuttle inspired me to find an interesting site; I like it so much I have provided a permanent link to it on my sidebar.

Intense weekend

After buying the staff a beer Friday night, I went to the hospital to visit my relative. After going home, I was called back -- awaiting the results of an emergency surgery kept me and a large group of people there until four in the morning. My relative is now in stable but critical condition, but again we've been given reason to hope for the best rather than to fear for the worst.

I've been in kind of a daze ever since the late-late night hospital session. In order to fall asleep that morning, I used some Tylenol PM and sleep aids like that always throw me off big-time. The night after, a pitcher full of martinis shared with friends returning from California helped spur me on to sleep, but I decided to eschew chemical assistance last night and wound up unable to fall asleep until 2:30. When I woke up about three hours later to feed the dogs, I felt like a zombie.

Got it!

The disaster from last night was not so terrible after all. I did have version 12 of the document at the office to revise, and I had at least done one edit before. It took me some time to more or less reconstruct what I'd done and a little more time to finalize the work as I'd intended. At the end of the process, I only lost about three hours total. With some support from EYLC and the paralegal, I've been able to get the opposition finalized. At present, it's being copied for filing and service under seal. Whew!

I'm even in a position to help out my co-counsel in D.C. with last-minute changes to their briefs. Hopefully we get everything from them in time -- the clerk's window closes at 4:30 so that gives them about an hour and a half to get everything down to me and me enough time to hand-file their stuff.

After that, I'm going to buy my crew a drink at the downtown brewpub. They've earned it, and so have I.

Unhappy at Microsoft

If you've ever felt the impulse to scream "Noooooo!" like Darth Vader at the end of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, but lacked the motivation to do so, may I suggest using Microsoft Word for a critical project?

See, I've been trying to work on a summary judgment opposition for more than three weeks now. Thanks to the fact that I'm in a small office and in charge of a large number of files -- and effective cleanup batter for everything file the entire office is handling -- I've not found enough time to complete the task until the night before it's due. Since I have family obligations (my relative is recovering nicely, as a visit to the hospital tonight proved) I e-mailed the twelfth draft of the opposition, which incorporated edits from my co-counsel in Washington, D.C., here to work on at home.

Here's the thing. I saved my work as I went -- many times. Not quite an hour and a half into the project, all my argument was where I wanted it to be, the internal editing marks were all removed except for areas where I had indicated a need to consult documentary evidence that I don't have right here in front of me at home. And I saved it, I saved it, I really really did many many times.

So when I finished it and saved the file one last time, and then closed the file so I could e-mail it to myself, I was fully expecting to find it in the "My Documents" folder. Imagine my panic and anger when it wasn't there. Imagine how that panic and anger escalated when twenty minutes of searching revealed that it wasn't anywhere.

All my work -- gone. Vanished into the digital ether. I'm so screwed.

Critter behavior

It occurs to me that two dogs are playmates; three dogs are a pack.

After several days together, Abby's presence has turned The Estate at Louisville into a doggie den. Sassafras has become the alpha dog. Abby wants to be the alpha but is simply not big or strong enough to do so; Sassafras can put her in her place almost immediately, and Abby shows all the classic signs of subordination to Sassy -- tail tucked between legs; low, slinking posture; rolling over on back. Not so with Abby and Karma; neither will subordinate to the other. Abby often tries to hump Karma as a show of dominance and frustration, and Karma sometimes just takes it. That would seem to make Karma the bottom dog -- except Karma obviously does not like it and will sometimes become assertive with Abby when she's had enough of the humping and pulling on her tail. Karma fights more aggressively, but is not as big or strong as Abby, and the ongoing struggle for beta status remains indecisive. For instance, Abby and Karma chased each other in circles around the coffee table in the basement, and then wrestled and growled for about twenty minutes last night.

As I'm learning, cats react to proximity to the dog pack with aggression towards other cats. The kitties are doing much more sparring and fighting these days than I've observed in the past. I think Jordan is still upset about, and scared by, Abby. She's taking out her frustrations on Ginger, who seems to relish the opportunity to fight back on the new cat in town. Interestingly, Ginger, who is one of the biggest scardey-cats I've ever met, has become completely placid about all three dogs -- and quickly takes a more aggressive posture when sparring as compared to Jordan.

Just hate it

Don't you just hate it when you start a conversation with someone, to provide that person with a single piece of information, and the conversation suddenly shifts to a completley different, unrelated, and unpleasant subject which you were not prepared to discuss? And everything you say or do in the conversation just makes it worse? I just shut down when that happens. Ugh.

Hospital Waiting Rooms

Hospitals are strange places; there a buzz of constant activity, tension, and mystery going on throughout a hospital's labyrinthe corridors. And, I sue hospitals and their denizens for a living. Both of which combine to make me feel very awkward and ambivalent when I'm in one -- particularly one that seems to generally have its act together, one where it generally seems like things are working the way they're supposed to.

My relative who was taken to a hospital today would feel strange and awkward about my describing the details of her hospitalization on the internet, and out of respect for her feelings, I will skip over the circumstances which caused me to spend half my day the hospital awaiting news of her condition. Suffice to say that I received an alarming phone call late this morning, and dropped everything to wait in a room next to the ER designed for the purposes of providing people like me with a comfortable and comforting environment in which to await word of another person's medical condition. So I'll confine my comments here to a few musings and observations about waiting in a hospital.

Why do people spend hours in a waiting room? Why did I drop everything and rush out of work to go wait in a hospital's lobby? I can't change what the doctors are doing. I can't help. Information trickles out of the treatment rooms at what seems to be a glacial pace. But to not be there (if being there were a reasonable possibility) seems to lack in empathy and humanity. And although I spent a lot of time idly waiting, I was glad to be there and glad to get such information as I could, directly from the doctors and nurses ministering to my loved one.

It was pretty comfortable for me and the other non-patients out there in the lobby -- there were nice chairs, attractive and professional decor, televisions broadcasting sports and news, recent magazines, a large aquarium, and friendly staff with access to the hospital's centralized patient database. There was even a large cafeteria with a good selection of food at reasonable prices. While the food was not what I would call "great," it was a few steps up above the level of "edible." (I also noticed that hospital staff and doctors could buy their food with a scan on a bar code on their name tags, to speed their meal purchases along; I thought that was a very smart thing to set up considering the time and emergency pressures medical staff may be under while in a hospital.)

It was clear that someone had put a lot of thought into creating an appropriate environment for people to wait in. I felt grateful that someone had put such thought and attention to detail into the aspects of the hospital I could see, and it assured me (or at least gave me hope) that similar attention had been put into the medical side of things.

That doesn't mean I'll stop doing what I do for a living, or even hesitate to go after this particular hospital if I find evidence that it made a mistake. The point of doing what I do is to encourage medical providers to not make the mistakes in the first place. Which is what I really want to happen with my relative. Based on what I know now, I can guardedly hope that she will be fine, soon enough, but that does not relieve the anxiety and concern I feel in the meantime.

Recipe for hanging a dartboard

Figure 1 (above): Completed dartboard. Figure 2 (to right): Stupid little fucking hacksaw (with soda can for scale comparison).

I left work early today so I could meet the electrician. Over the course of the early afternoon, the following things happened:

• The electrician came and solved the electrical problem in ten minutes. Actually, it only took him three, but he stuck around long enough to "check for other problems" as a sop to my ego.
• The garage doors did not work. I had to dismount the brackets, bend them back into shape, and remount them before they would.
• The blade-pan almost did not reinstall on the lawn mower.
• The lawn mower repair company did not answer its phone all afternoon.
• Both The Wife and later, my parents, gave me lengthy speeches about why I need to hire a lawn care service. The Wife seemed quite emotional about this and I could not explain to her until after she had vented her emotions that I had been instructed to try and get the lawn mower professional repaired.

So you can imagine that I was feeling more than a little bit emasculated at this point. My solution was to try and hang the dartboard that The Wife and I bought at Target last week. I will relate my experiences hanging the dartboard in handy recipe form so you can easily re-create my experience this evening for yourself.

You will need:

1. One dartboard
2. One brass bracket for dartboard
3. Three brass screws
4. Three rubber stoppers
5. Four 1/2" finishing nails
6. One sleeve of 1" brads
7. Ten 1 1/4" finishing nails
8. 1x2 pressure-treated, unfinished pine moulding
9. One patient and well-meaning but ill-timed and unfortunately curious wife
10. Cordless drill
11. Corded drill
12. Philips head screwdriver bit for drills
13. Philips head screwdriver
14. Electric screwdriver
15. Rubber mallet
16. Claw hammer
17. 3/8" drill bit
18. Measuring tape (at least 8')
19. Breaker bar
20. Circular saw with rotating-angle plane
21. Level
22. Electric brad gun
23. Dremel tool with nail removing head (unattached)
24. Fingernail on right index finger
25. Stupid little fucking hacksaw (see figure 2, above right)
26. Handle for stupid little fucking hacksaw (see figure 2, above right)
27. 2 cement cinder blocks
28. 2 pieces extra 4x4 stud
    

Preparation: deny yourself food for at least five hours, or such time as is necessary that blood sugar levels are low enough to induce irritability and impatience before beginning. Allow yourself adequate time -- two and a quarter hours -- to complete task.

Phase I: Uninstall ugly shelving located opposite wall where dartboard is intended to go. Give up on using regular philips-head screwdriver upon realization that previous owner used 3" deck screws to mount ugly shelving; switch to electric screwdriver and muse idly about carpal tunnel syndrome. Discard shelving upon removal.

Phase II: Remove dartboard from container, separate brackets and other hardware. Note lack of instructions regarding what to do with extra nails and rubber stoppers. Verify height for bracket (68" from floor) with instructions and official rules of darts. Install bracket on moulding with rubber stoppers as buffers. Find center of dartboard by taking four diameters of board with a straight edge and noting point where all four intersect. Install mounting screw on dartboard at center thus located. Play two rounds of darts and note that dartboard works fine.

Phase III: Show off handiwork to wife, expecting compliments for a job well done. Instead, endure questions regarding angle and purpose of rubber stoppers. Try and make wife happy by removing bracket to re-install hoping for better fit without use of stoppers. Endure wife's observation that bracket is not mounted perfectly level. Note that moulding will no longer hold bracket thanks to holes previously drilled. Respond to wife's questions about "all those lines on back" of dartboard.

Phase IV: Reinstall brackets and center-mount screw, hang dartboard. Watch dartboard twist and turn like Wheel of Fortune on wall. Use profanity.

Phase V: Grow frustrated. Use breaker bar, claw hammer, and rubber mallet to remove molding from wall. Re-measure height for bracket, verifying level of pilot holes using level. Drill new pilot holes, install bracket. Note loss of power in cordless drill. Switch to corded drill. Note corded drill having enough power to twist segments of concrete storm drain; strip threads on screws with overtorque until they look like rivets in under one second.

Phase VI: Grow bitter. Use rubber mallet to knock the shit out of screws, pressing them flat into wall. Hang dartboard. Note stationary and steady mount of dartboard with smug satisfaction. Hold molding next to dartboard, take measurements for top and bottom of board.

Phase VII: Build makeshift sawhorse from cinder blocks and 4x4 studs. Set circular saw to 45 degree angle for intended attractive bevel cut; wallow in hubris of using powerful circular saw on wimpy 1x2 molding. Make first cut on moulding, noting blade seizure just before completion. Remove circular saw, become unable to restart circular saw. Enjoy visit from wife, who has been wondering what all the noise is about. Endure questions about why a circular saw is being used instead of a smaller, less powerful piece of equipment; explain that it is the only saw you own. Be reminded by wife that there is a hacksaw. Grow very angry and afraid of own acid tongue while rummaging through toolbox looking for stupid little fucking hacksaw. Dismiss wife with curt unfriendly words and rationalize that what you just did was better than completely venting all frustruations and contribute to an expensive, inconvenient divorce from someone you really do love. Vow to eat upon completion of task.

Phase VIII: Find and assemble stupid little fucking hacksaw. Use hacksaw to complete cuts on moulding, giving up on idea of attractive 45 degree bevel cuts. Note presence of unnecessarily long wire nails in moulding. Unsuccessfully use claw hammer to remove nails. Install nail remover on Dremel tool using right index fingernail; tear nail while screwing nail remover head on Dremel tool. Experience pain; cut nails off moulding.

Phase IX: Use brad gun to adhere moulding to wall. Note that 1" brads do not provide adequate penetration for 1x2 moulding. Search for and use 1 1/4" finishing nails instead with claw hammer to mount moulding on wall.

Phase X: Measure 8' on perpendicular line from dartboard on floor for official throwing distance. Mark spot with duct tape. Note dizzying array of tools and supplies surrounding installed dartboard as if a tornado had hit Home Depot. Find food before you pass out from blood sugar depletion. Figure out how to apologize to wife for acting like a shit all evening.

Final product should look like figure 1, at top left. Keep cat away from dartboard while in use (optional).

Reached my limits

This is an embarrassing post to write. But, the truth is that I'm going to need professional help fixing the lawn mower. After two hours on my back in the garage, it is clear that the broken belt cannot be replaced without performing major surgery on the blade-pan and I just don't have the tools or the facilities for it. There's a double pin and a cable for the brake, and I can't remove them.

After talking it over with Dad, it is clear that I simply don't have the time to do it anyway -- even if I do have the abilities. So I'll now have to get it taken to a shop for professional help.

In a way it feels like I've failed; I've tried to get the thing fixed and gone to the limits of my mechanical abilities. I admit that those limits are not as extensive as some other men might have, but still fixing things seems like the sort of thing a man should be able to do. Having to acknowledge that I don't have this ability is a little emasculating. Still, what choice do I have? The lawn grows every day; it seems like there is another inch of grass grown every day. So the mower has got to get fixed, whether it hurts my pride or not.

I can console myself that I can generally fix a software problem on the computer. I can generally hook up electronic equipment properly (albeit with some difficulty when the instruction manual is incorrect). I can spit and talk football and scratch myself. So I'm not entirely deficient in the manly arts.

Local History

A local controversy has arisen concerning Maryville High School’s Confederate Battle Flag as a school symbol and efforts to stop using that flag and the name “Rebel” for its sports teams and mascot.

There are some very passionate, but also very articulate, apologists for the flag. These defenders claim that the flag is merely a symbol of the South and a celebration of Southern heritage, and has lost any racial overtones it might once have had. Now, a more-than-cursory glance at history reveals that this symbol was not the original national flag used by the Confederate States of America, but that it was incorporated into subsequent national flags of the Confederacy. In my opinion, the evidence is lacking that the Civil War was fought primarily over tariffs, as some such apologists claim. Certainly the North didn’t think that was the reason for the war. The North was motivated by a desire not only to keep the union together, but by the political powerful and morally compelling arguments of anti-slavery abolitionists. The North won, the South lost, and winners get to write the history books.

Regardless, in the modern era the flag has been a source of controversy. Whatever it might have meant or symbolized at one time, it has been appropriated by various hate groups and other unseemly sorts with whom I personally would not want to be identified. Fortunately, Tennessee's flag does not make any significant allusions to this symbol, so I need not (and do not) feel any particular state identification with it. In fact, East Tennessee was largely pro-Union during the Civil War era.

With the benefit of at least five generations’ worth of historical perspective between 1865 and 2005, the idea that “Southern Pride” is what is at stake lacks weight. Modern celebration of this flag represents a modern affirmation that what the south was fighting for was right. I do not doubt that many Confederate soldiers thought they were fighting for the side that was in the moral right, and I will (reluctantly) concede that at the time of the war, what was morally right may not have been very clear -- at least, not to everyone involved.

But things are much clearer now. Slavery was morally obnoxious and it is a terrible stain on this nation’s moral history that it happened at all here. Slavery was an integral part of the economic foundations of the early nineteenth century in the mostly-agrarian South, and Southern politicians were in the moral wrong to defend it. Even taking the Confederate apologists’ claims at face value that the Civil War was not about slavery but rather about economics and the struggle to be free from the heavy hand of government telling the individual what to do, the manner in which Southerners sought to express and exercise this so-called “freedom” was by enslaving fellow human beings. This bizarre form of "freedom" was wrong then and it’s wrong now.

To say that such “freedom” is worth fighting and dying for is an insult to the very concept of freedom – an insult born of ignorance and specious reasoning, perhaps, but an insult all the same. Many other symbols exist which better express the political sentiment of freedom from an oppressive government.

So I hope that the Blount County Board of Education follows through and changes the symbols for what appears to be an otherwise outstanding high school.