When you walk into home depot, and you're a tall guy and wearing an orange bowling shirt.. people ask you questions because they think you work there. They just see the orange. 

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9/27 '14 7 Comments
I've wanted to go to Target in a red shirt and khakis and give misinformation. Nothing too crazy, just right under the radar. "Paper towels? Oh, there in Automotive now. Yeah, we changed it, based on our sales analytics. Just go straight through here and make a left at Camping Equipment."
ARGH! and by "there" I meant "they're!"
My name is Matt and I approve of this message.
Those are the exact actual directions to Automotive, at least at my Walmart. You'll even find paper towels there, though they are the heavy duty blue ones for sopping up oil.
Also you're the guy who looks like he knows what he's doing.
Orange you glad you didn't... oh never mind.
Heh. Yeah. I've even had the same thing happen when not wearing orange. Course, the way I usually dress, folks probably figure I'm a contractor and I know where everything is because of that...
 

Hmm.

There were wonderful teachers, like our choral director Gordon Adams, who definitely got more than one kid through those four years, compromising with punk rockers on the performance dress code ("you can wear your boots if you wear the suit") and taking heat from the administration over it.

But high school wasn't so bad honestly. My peers matured a lot when we all hit the ninth grade and merged with another school. I made lasting friends and did nerdy and less-nerdy things with impunity. Hell, I lettered in cross country.

Before that, though, I was public enemy number one. Yep, from the day I arrived in town in the fourth grade and said, "hey! have you guys heard about the gas crunch?"

Yes, I was that kid: full of adult knowledge and words, and hopelessly socially unskilled.

I was verbally, though not physically, pummeled for the ensuing five years. I had no friends that lasted; as soon as someone warned them I wasn't cool, they got the hell away from Toxic Boy.

So I have to give props to my mom, who said:

"Adults are going to tell you these are the best years of your life. Don't listen to them. I remember being your age. It was terrible."

Mom was on the "It Gets Better" train before it was cool.

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9/26 '14 7 Comments
Gordon Adams even allowed quasi-transvestism in his choir, bless him! Definitely got me through high school.
I had frenemies. "Mean Girls" is a good approximation. I got myself through, with a healthy dose of Star Trek. And then I was free, and I met folks like Patch and the whole HamFam group... good times.
I started to answer this, and it was turning into a long wordy reflection of high school post. I'll save it for a OPW entry of my own . .. but in short: no one got me through high school. I was oblivious introvert not realizing I should be hurt or that I should socially want more, biding my time till college. Mom and my nature instilled this tendency, but I highly recommend obliviousness as a coping mechanism. Also, oddly, CTY - that summer camp for talented youth - gave me something to hold onto reminding me that there is life outside smalltown Delaware for ducks like me. quack.
I tried to reply to this, and... well, deleted it. Still not ready after 30ish years, I guess. Exciting times, though.
Yeah, it's heavy stuff.
1. Props to Mom. That's pretty awesome.
2. When in Detroit, I too was the social lepper. Got beat up a LOT until I met Mike Sowa in our mutual study hall. Giant of a guy (made me look small) and as nice as they come. Still remember being surrounded by bullies in the hall until Mike walked up and simply said "Problem Matt?" and I watched as the bullies scattered like cockroaches.
3. When I moved to PA, I...had no such problems. Other problems cropped up (it WAS high school), but my friends got me through. I got really lucky in that department. Mark, you know, and you've probably met most of the others over the years because we've got quality friendships to this day. Yeah. Really damn lucky.

(Thanks for posting this and giving me an excuse to respond - in depth.)
I tell my students that high school is the toll you have to pay to get to college.
 
 

Knowing I just have one chance today to post here gives me a bit of stage fright. What if I don't perform well?   Silly goose-me.  My friends are here.   

I wish I could heal faster.  I wish my spine were straight.  There are many things I can change, but my herniated and collapsed discs, not so much.  I'm having a bit of a pained day. I sprained my knee and then reinjured it in the past few weeks, and my spinal nerve pains are layering a caramel sauce of tiny stabbings over that pain scoop.  I shall go get spinal cortisone injections to help ease the sensations, but they won't change the wedged wear on my vertebrae.  

I haven't the wearwithall for art today.  

On such a day, this little sore atheist returns once again to Henley's poem Invictus for the strength and inspiration I need to do the dishes and interact with humans, and see my friend Corprew, who delights me.  

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.

 

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9/26 '14 1 Comment
Ach, the passage of time!

We must WIDEN it with INFERNAL MACHINES

 
I've had a series of late nights due to crises domestic and otherwise. Tonight? Things are okay! Knock on wood!

Tonight I am going to... Sleep! Aw hell yeah. And you can sleep with me! At the same time, that is.
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9/26 '14 2 Comments
I have been run fairly ragged. The punch line is I'm on vacation this week. Ha ha.
Dude! I don't think so, UCLA at ASU is only in the first quarter.
 

I didn't realize how much mental space and emotional energy tenure took up (I guess I did in theory, but didn't recognize the real toll of it) until I came back to work this month not having to think about it.  It's pretty amazing how much more focused I feel on mentoring students without the crazy pressure, and publication balls in the air. I have three students working on independent research projects with me at present and two of them are carried over from last year.  Being able to sit with drafts of their papers and focus on one thing at a time this week has been a revelation! I hope settling in to this new phase continues to create more normalcy.  I was commenting to a colleague that in academia we all spend so many years clawing our way through (grad. school, field research, dissertation, job market, tenure process, etc.) that now that I've finally come out the other end it's hard to rest with the concept of just "being where you are" rather than continually struggling for what comes next.  Phew.

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9/26 '14 3 Comments
Thanks! Been cultivating those for years. Now I can allow them to hang out at work.

Congratulations!
Congratulations! Now you can cultivate your eccentricities.
 

(adapted from Marion Cunningham's The Breakfast Book)

  • 2 packages dry yeast
  • 1/3 cup warm water (~ 105 degrees F)
  • 1-1/2 cups milk
  • 1/3 cup vegetable shortening
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 t salt
  • 2 t nutmeg (freshly grated, if possible)
  • 2 eggs, lightly beaten
  • 3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour + 1 cup whole wheat flour, combined
  • 4 T (1/2 stick) butter, melted
  • 1 cup sugar + 2 t cinnamon, combined

Put the milk and shortening in a saucepan and gently heat until the shortening is melted.  Cool until lukewarm - about the same temp as the water for the yeast.

Sprinkle the yeast over the warm water in a small bowl; stir and dissolve for 5 minutes.

Put the yeast in a large mixing bowl and add the milk mixture; stir in the 1/4 cup sugar, salt, nutmeg, eggs, and 2 cups of the flour mixture.  Beat briskly until well blended.  Add the remaining flour and beat until smooth.  Cover the bowl and let rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

Dust a board generously with flour (I used about 2 cups of flour during this part of the process) and turn the dough onto it.  Pat the dough into a circle about 1/2 inch thick.  Use a 3-inch doughnut cutter and cut out the doughnuts, placing them (and the doughnut holes) on greased baking sheets, 1 inch apart.  They don't spread much; they rise.  Preheat the oven to 435 degrees F.  Let the doughnuts rest and rise for 20 minutes, uncovered.

Bake about 10 minutes, until they have a touch of golden brown.  Remove from the oven.  Have the melted butter and a brush ready.  Brush each doughnut and doughnut hole with butter and roll in the cinnamon sugar.  Serve hot.

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9/25 '14 2 Comments
Hmmmm I think I can adapt this!
Thanks for the reminder. I forgot to include an attribution.
 

I have used dreamwidth in the past and continue to do so from time to time because it is a thoughtfully designed, professionally managed, user supported site that genuinely listens and responds to the needs of its user community. I recommend it as a social blogging platform with a strong, rich set of access controls.

On September 24 I wrote a post locked to a group of authenticated people on this site.

Shortly after I wrote that post, Tom Boutell commented on it with the concern that the information in the post was available to Google and would be cached.

  • Tom may have overlooked the visual indicators of access on the post and erred in his statement
  • The site may have failed to honour my request to limit access to the post
  • Tom may have tested access, found it was effectively public, and warned me
  • Tom's software or privilege model may be buggy
  • Tom's understanding of access rights may be deeply flawed (this certainly matches discussions you can find elsewhere on this site: it takes a lot of hammers to convince the guy to not dismiss out of hand requests and explanations from people who want to give him a chance and use his stuff)
  • There may be a different explanation

The result when I went to bed was that I do not trust this site, nor anything else authored by Boutell, to honour access controls I place on my data. When I continued writing this, having received an email in the interim that started "Oh lord, Dawn. I am so sorry," nothing has substantially changed. I don't want to use this platform and I certainly don't want to encourage people I like and trust to use it.

It will take more than an apology to build my trust of Tom -- and more importantly, of a system he designs, writes, or maintains -- to a level where I will be comfortable placing anything other than "for public consumption" materials on this site or any other authored or co-authored by Boutell.

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9/25 '14 1 Comment
I understand that I have lost you as a supporter and that you no longer trust me. That is probably the cost I have to accept for speaking thoughtlessly last night.

It is ironic, because I would not have reached out to you about a possible privacy concern if I was a person who didn't care about privacy matters. But I should not have done so hastily and incorrectly. By doing so I squandered your goodwill. If I were in your shoes I'd have the screaming heebie-jeebies about this site too.

I have added a prominent privacy status icon to the title of every post on the site. That is the measure that would have prevented me from making a dumb mistake yesterday.

If there is a conversation you would like to have with me about improving or verifying the privacy of One Post Wonder, I am open to it. Until then, I'll leave you in peace.

Again, I'm sorry and I wish it were otherwise.
 

This is where I'm supposed to answer the question "Who the devil is this guy?", right?  The answers are not too different from what they were five years ago, kinda different from ten years ago, noticeably different from twenty years ago, and so on.

I live in Colorado, as do at least a couple other guys with my name.  I'm the one who also announces roller derby under the name "Brad Example", and if you see the name "Squiddhartha" online, unless it's referring to a west coast band, it's probably me.  I'm an IT manager who still occasionally gets his hands dirty mucking about with code, at a major national scientific research institution.  Happily married for 20 years, with sons in 4th and 11th grades, plus a sweet-tempered basket case of a pit bull and a giant fluffy white brat of a cat.  My wife teaches kids to swim, including itty-bitty babies.  I also help out at StarFest and Nan Desu Kan, two Denver-based cons.

I'm a life-long science and technology geek, with particular interests in astrophysics, aerospace, and paleontology, and also languages.  I'm an atheist and what would have once been called a moderate but by modern standards is a liberal hippy freak.  If any of that bothers you... sorry.  (Note: not actually sorry.)

That's the nutshell version.  You wanna know more, stay tuned.

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9/25 '14 2 Comments
11th grade!
Terrifying, ain't it?
 
I am willing to blow my whole post to simply say: Drunk History is one of the funniest friggin' things I've ever seen. I cannot get enough of it. I want to be in an episode so badly, but alas, I don't really drink anymore. I can't think of the last time I finished a drink, let alone got a buzz, and forget being capital-D-Drunk. I'm not against it; I just don't care. I'd rather have a good root beer or something. 
I didn't mean for this post to turn into a thing about alcohol... I just wanted to say "Thanks, Amazon Prime!" as I stream the lulz.
OK, nighty night!
xox


ETA: "Can we come in and see the true condition?"  (A quote from the First Ladies episode we're watching right now. We are DYING. okbye.)

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9/25 '14 12 Comments
I want to be in Drunk History too. I think I have been.
This is the first show I have seen in recent memory where I had to pause it because I was laughing so hard.
I have somehow still never seen an episode. I need to fix that.
Woo! I emphatically support "blowing one's whole post" on any damn thing.

I gotta watch me some Drunk History.
I've been meaning to show you this. I know half the guys in this video.
http://youtu.be/DB2M5yp7As8
I LOVE THAT SHOW!! ALL CAPS!!!!!!

I would be happy to drunkenly narrate some history if you'll act it out. Comedy Central had a fan video contest. It's over, but we can still make one!
I want to make Drunk History History, where a drunk person recounts the last episode they watched.
I want to make Mormon Drunk History, where a mormon drinks all the diet coke and accurately recites the entirety of the Iliad.
According to Homer, archaeologists, or will they teach the controversy?
Have I mentioned recently how much I love you people?!
Yo dawg I herd you like drunk history so I put some drunk history in your drunk history