Fantasy update

My fantasy football team had its first win this week, thanks in large part to Carson Palmer who earned 21 fantasy points. I went from 10th, or last, place to 8th. I'm not too happy with my wide receivers right now. Hines Ward didn't earn any points for me this week. None of my receivers are scoring many points for me this season. In fact, I'm the player in the league with the lowest number of points. I'm thinking I won't make the playoffs this year unless something changes.

Killer semester

My first semester teaching four classes -- three different courses, one of which is a writing course. I'm forever feeling like I'm grading papers and prepping lectures. Little time is left for blogging.

Thursday was the first test in my Intro class. Ninety-one students were all freaking out. Several students earned extra credit by participating in a focus group for students in my campaigns class. According to my campaigns class, the intro students were stressing out about my test.

As usual, the first students were done in 15 minutes. A few minutes later a student rushes back in. "Ms. Quackenbush, one of the girls blacked out!" I look out the door. Sure enough, one of my students left the test and was now in the prone position in the hallway. I look back to the class. Eighty-something students left in a crowded lecture room. There was no way I could step out of there during a test. The girls were buzzing around the passed out girl and someone called 911. I try to keep one eye on the girl and one on the class.

Then I remembered J. Every day he sits on the front, taking notes. An attentive student. He looks a bit older than 20, or at least has a maturity about him. His haircut and demeanor are military-issue and quite often he wears a t-shirt from a local fire department. "Excuse," I whisper as I walk towards him, "aren't you military or a firefighter or something?" He tells me he's a fireman and I tell him the problem. Two seconds later he's out the door.

Eventually the EMT arrive. The girl is awake, but shaken. She has low blood sugar and doesn't eat much. The Coke and M&Ms they are feeding her is as much as she's eaten all day. By this time, most of the class has finished the test and have seen the girl in the hall. Given nasty bump on her head, she agrees to go to the hospital. I offer J an opportunity to take his test another time, but like the trooper he is, he finishes his test.

I piece together the story from other students. The girl finished the test and as she walked out the building she collapsed on the concrete steps. She revives enough to be helped back into the air conditioned building, where one of the other girls called the EMT. Before the ambulance takes her to the hospital, I ask who her next teacher is. It's my friend G, so I call him and let him know one of his students won't be in class. I ask the girl if she wants me to throw out her test and allow her to take it another time. This is the one time I am willing to bend my absolutely no make-up tests policy. The girl shakes her head, saying she thought she did well on the test.

The girl leaves. The final three students finish their tests and we leave, talking about what happened. I walk into the Mass Comm office and folks what happened. "Guess you'll now have the reputation of giving hard tests now -- ones where the students pass out when they are done." The jokes are funny, but I am worn. "What to do when I student passes out during a test" wasn't in the faculty handbook and I hoped I handled the situation okay.

I head to my office where I take a minute. Then I start grading the tests. This semester is going to be a doosey.

Concert Luck

Saturday night we attended the Strings Attached Beatles White Album concert. It's difficult to describe Strings Attached, but it's sort of like chamber music, with violins and cellos, meets rock 'n roll. There are six shows a year, each with special guest stars, Austin muscians of note. The White Album concert featured 20 artists, such as Trish Murphy and Guy Forsyth. This concert was outside, at the Nutty Brown Cafe.

Before the concert, we were worried if it was even going to happen. All day the sky was ominous, with the threat of a storm. As we left Pflugerville for Dripping Springs, the sky broke open and it downpoured. However, we called Nutty Brown and it wasn't even raining there. As the show started, there was a light show in the background -- some city to the south was getting a huge lighting storm.

The concert was great; it was interesting to hear the various muscians put their own spin to the classic music. We heard some singers we weren't familiar with and they were great. Carolyn Wonderland, in particular, blew us away. Think Janis Joplin meets the Beatles; it was cool.

A drawing was held during intermission. Guess who was a winner? Doug's name was the last called, but of course, it was called. He won a backstage pass, but after 5 minutes of just standing around not knowing what to do, he came back to our seats, grumbling that he would have rather won the CD.

We really enjoyed the show and are looking forward to seeing more Strings Attached shows.

Lucky bastard

Sometimes I get really annoyed with Doug. On these occasions he just laughs. He thinks I over react, but really, it's not fair.

Doug has this uncanny ability to win raffles. If we are somewhere and there is a drawing, he wins. I, on the other hand, never win. Once we were at a dinner event with 100 people. The event had door prizes -- about 90 of them. Everyone at our table, except myself, had won a prize. Doug had probably won two. Close to the end of the drawing, I gave up. "I'm not going to win anything," I said as I threw down my ticket. Doug picks up my discarded ticket. Next number called was my former ticket. I glare at Doug; he just laughs.

It's gotten to the point that I won't fill out raffle forms. I have Doug do it. Last month we were at a home and garden show and I have him register for a few things. Of course, he wins a draw for a $200 gift certificate for window treatments. Then he wonders why I hate him.

This weekend we took a glass fusing class. One of the projects in the class was to make a community bowl, meaning all the students make a part of the bowl and then the bowl is fused together. The teacher put all our names in a drawing and the winner got to keep the bowl. As I write my name and put it into the drawing I comment, "you know, Doug is going to win this." I went on to say how he wins everything and I never win anything. I think the other students thought I was joking. Later, the teacher draws the winning name and it was, of course, Doug. I look at him and growl. He laughs.

Even when he thinks he loses, he wins. At one raffle they called the number 6968. Doug looked at his ticket and has 8969. He didn't win. I looked at his ticket and realized something -- he's holding the ticket upside down. He was the winner. Go figure.

Doug likes to attribute his winnings to good living. He is so full of it. Then he tries to rationalize it, saying I should be happy when he wins as we both share in the winnings. I'm a constant loser and I should be happy? I don't get it.

The thing is, I should be winning. It runs in my family. Like Doug, my grandmother was lucky and always won things. From winning a turkey at bingo, to winning cash prizes, if she played, she won. I inherited her father's clock, her glass Virgin Mary, but not her winning streak. What is wrong with this picture?

Granted, I earn things through hard work, but just once I want my name to be picked in a drawing. I want to feel the adrenaline rush from having won something. I want to be lucky. Instead, that thrill goes to Doug. He's the lucky bastard and I'm envious.

5 years ago

I remember that morning -- it was surreal. It was a Tuesday and I already was worried about the future.

That spring it seemed like you couldn't go a day without hearing that one Austin company or another had layoffs. Even the PR agency I worked for, which had prided itself on never having a layoff, had let some folks go earlier that spring. It was tough for our clients, which in turn meant it was tough for our business.

In March Doug and I bought our first house; the afternoon of the closing I walked into my VP's office and asked him if there was any reason we shouldn't go through with it. "Dara, I'm your boss, but I'm also your friend. I would tell you if you had a reason to be concerned. Believe me, you are the last person in this office who needs to be worried about losing their job." In a strange twist of events, he was right.

Doug and I moved into the house the first weekend of May. We were excited and although we knew the economy was on a downturn, we were optimistic about our future. Doug worked at a start-up and he was spearheading a customer implementation project for big names in the real estate market, which were investors in Doug's start-up. On June 15, the weekend before Doug's project was to go live, the new CEO of the startup decided to pull the plug on the project with no warning. Doug was let go.

Still, I had a good job with the PR agency and we knew we'd be okay. Doug felt he could afford to be picky and find the right job. Then came Friday, Sept. 7. The founder and CEO of my PR agency flew in from Dallas. Business was down and a few months earlier we had been bought by a larger agency. The Austin office had to close. I was one of three people asked to continue with the company on a freelance basis to help close the office. I ended up being the last one out; I turned off the lights.

It was Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001 and I was driving to the shell of an office. What once was bursting at the seams with 35 employees now only had three. I was listening to my favorite radio station on my commute when the deejays started talking about a plane flying into the first tower. I called Doug to tell him. I keep driving to the office and then the other plane hit. I called Doug again. I didn't think he was paying attention, but later I found out he turned on the tv after my first call. He saw the second plane on tv as it happened. He was stunned and couldn't speak.

I got into the office and shortly after I arrived, my colleague Jack arrived. We were both a little freaked out. Besides being concerned for our country, because we were out of work, we were concerned about our future. The phone rang. It was Doug. A plane just hit the Pentagon. We didn't know what to think. The third person in our office arrived. She was young, maybe a year out of school. We told her what was going on and it didn't seem to register.

Eventually the three of us left the office and went home. There was no work to be done that day. We knew our lives had changed.

It was 11 months later before Doug found a job, a contract position for the state. To date, Doug continues to contract, working for several months and then being out of work for several months, simply because the jobs are still not back. I started freelancing, working as a consultant for a marketing company, but it was a tough go, both in terms of lack of business and also in terms of the personality of the CEO. After two years I had to leave for the sake of my sanity. A year, and a retail job later, I started grad school. Now I'm teaching, but earning 30% less than what I was making five years ago and 50% less than what I could be making now, that is, if there were jobs at my level. Those are few and far between.

Quite honestly, Doug and I have struggled these last five years. Often we feel like we are treading water, just trying to stay afloat and not moving ahead. Still, we've somehow managed to stay together. That says a lot about us; many couples would not have survived the stress. We still have the house, and have several new, dear friends we've met since then. Without permanent jobs, we've found other ways to define ourselves, through our hobbies and interests, not through what we do. Things which were important then, like would we get married, what about the promotion, those all important stock options, are just not that important any more.

Often, I wonder what would have happened if 9/11 hadn't happened. How would our lives be different? It's difficult to say. Maybe things would be better, maybe not. But like most everyone else, we've had to learn to pick up the pieces, do the best with what we have left and hope that tomorrow is better.

Isn't it ironic

Saw this posting on Craigslist. A student wants to hire someone to write his/her term paper on ethics. Seems like the student has already flunked the ethics lesson.

Thank you for smoking

Doug got a new toy yesterday -- a smoker. It's small, but we hope that it will do well. Tonight we are attempting to smoke a brisket, but we may have started a bit late to have it ready for dinner. Doug is so looking forward to Sundays for the new few months, what with football and smoked meat.

Calling all bats

Last night there was a strange signal in the Austin sky. Austin was going batty and we needed the help of a super hero.

Actually it was the 2nd annual Bat Fest. Austin loves its festivals and we love our bats, which makes me wonder why it took us so long to start a festival to honor our bats. But finally we did, with the proceeds going to Bat Conservation International. Instead of the usual cars and trucks, the Congress Avenue bridge was crowded with arts and crafts booths, food and beer vendors, kiddie rides, music stages, and of course people, all doing their part to keep Austin weird.

Doug and I took the dogs down there last night and spent some time looking at the sights. One of the things we noticed was the Batmobile Corvette (okay, not authentic) and the Bat Signal on the Hyatt. It must have worked because we saw both Batman and Robin walking around the festival. I asked if I could get my photo taken with them, but they kept walking away. Maybe bats don't much like dogs.

Welcome to my fantasy

Put me in coach, I'm ready to play. Yes, I am now a coach of a NFL team. Okay, not a real team, but a fantasy football league team.

Last year Doug coached his first fantasy football team and really got into it. That's fine. I'm not much into football other than my blood bleeds Arkansas Razorback red. Even living in Austin, to me the proper way to do the hook'em horns sign is with the horns pointing downward. Doug, on the other hand, has always been a huge NFL fan and I try to go along, if, that is, going along means that I leave him in peace to watch football on Sundays.

Doug had such a great time with fantasy football last year, saying it really helped him to get more enjoyment from all the games, that he's playing again this year. Because they had an odd number of teams, Doug decided to put my name in the hat and draft a team for me. I was there, and I put the names of my players on the board, but let's face it, I don't know Ronnie Brown from Josh White. I know a few of the Chiefs players because Doug is a fan, I know a few of the older Dallas players from when I lived in that city and they were the only thing talked about (but most of those guys are retired), and I know the big names that everyone knows, like Peyton Manning. Let's just say I saw Doug Flutie's name on the draft list and thought, "didn't that guy retire 10 years ago?" I really don't keep up with this stuff.

Except I did know Matt Jones, a receiver for Jacksonville. Of course, he is a former Razorback quarterback who turned receiver in the pros. Luckily, I drafted him. Of course, no one else even cared about him except Doug. Even if he wasn't predicted to have a break-out year, I would have drafted him simply because he was a Razorback. Unfortunately Doug didn't let me draft my other favorite former Hog, Cedric Cobb, because Cobb may not even be picked up this year and even if he did, he wouldn't play much.

My roster is below. Make any comments you want, but keep in mind, I don't know who is who. I also picked last, so often I didn't get much of a choice. However, according to Doug, I had a pretty good draft and should be in contention to make the league playoffs. He's really hoping we come in #1 & #2 this year.

Running backs

• Ronnie Brown, Miami
• Julius Jones, Dallas
• Chester Taylor, Minnesota
• Lendale White, Tennessee

Wide receivers

• Hines Ward, Pittsburgh
• Joe Horn, New Orleans
• Andre Johnson, Houston
• Matt Jones, Jacksonville

Quarterbacks

• Carson Palmer, Cincinnati
• Jake Plummer, Denver

Tight ends

• Randy McMichael, Miami
• Chris Cooley, Washington

Kicker

• Josh White, Seattle

Defense

• Indianapolis

That's hot

This week Austinites are excited about the weather. The temperature has finally started to drop. Several days were only in the 90s, instead of the 100s. Today's Statesman reports that this year was the hottest recorded August ever recorded in Austin. It's not that we set a lot of record highs, but we were consistently high and our lows were just not that low this year.

Yesterday was the History of PR lecture in my Intro to PR course. At one point I talk about how PR really shaped the idea of Manifest Destiny and the push west. I then mention Texas and comment about how great Stephen F. Austin must have been with PR to get all these folks to move to Texas, enduring our summers without air conditioning, much less electricity. At this point I ask the students would they move to Texas without air conditioning. For the first time, someone said yes. It's a guy on the front row who is usually into the lecture. "You would?" I ask in front of the class. "Yes," he answers, "that way I would have the whole state to myself." I think this guy is the epitome of a true Texan.

Talked out

My high school chemistry teacher, Mrs. Baker, wrote in my year book that she expected to see me as a talk show host. The comment meant I talked a lot. Others who know me agree. Still, today, I am talked out. I talked for 5 1/2 hours, and that just counted the students. It doesn't count talking to other faculty, the HR folks or Doug. Three hundred and twenty-five minutes of lecture. I'm sure by the end of the day my students were as sick of hearing my voice as I was. This evening I'm barely grunting.

It should be better. Three of my four classes are senior-level. At this point, I am trying to make sure we are all on the same page. My writing class, which is 100 minutes, should never again be all lecture. I will introduce our topic for the day and provide their assignment. On my campaigns classes, we will have more discussion and less lecture. Today was the exception. I have to believe that or else I will never get my own talk show.

Dogs vs. kids

Have you ever seen the saying about my dog being better behaved than your child? This video proves it.

My least favorite time of the year

Living in central Texas, this has to be my least favorite time of the year. At this point of the summer, we've had more than two months with temperatures greater than 100 degrees. By mid-August the heat becomes oppressive, like one is weighted down with 50 pounds of chains. There is no escape. At 7 a.m. the temperature is already 78 degrees and the humidity engulfs you like a wool blanket. At 7 p.m. temperatures are starting to drop for the day -- it was 101 and now it's only 99 degrees.

In the car, at the store, in the office, in the classroom, you can't escape it. The back of your neck stays clammy from perspiration, while sweat runs down your legs. By late afternoon you notice the somewhat sickening smell of an unwashed body and you realize that it is you; your morning shower, deodorant and personal hygiene has lost the battle of the heat.

Unfortunately, the heat will remain for at least another month. It will be awhile before the temperatures slowly start to dip. It is the burden we have to bare for living in such a beautiful place with such mild winters. We all wonder what the cooler weather will bring. We are experiencing a severe drought right now. Water levels in the area lakes are dropping a foot a week. Business and tourism is suffering. We know it will end – it always does – but with the end of the drought comes a flood. The joy of rain, when it finally comes, will be short-lived as the rain becomes the enemy.

Last night we went to a pool party to celebrate the birthday of a friend. There was not much pool to the party as most people opted to stay in the air conditioning. Someone brings deviled eggs and I step outside to give one to Doug, who has opted to sit underneath the fan on the patio, next to the pool, rather than inside. Ninety seconds in the heat and I am sweating when I walk back into the house. Later, after the sun begins to disappear in the night sky, several of us are outside, dangling our feet over the edge of the pool. The water feels good and we decide to go for a swim. We change into our suits and jump in, realizing that the water is deceptive. It's not cool and refreshing, but warm and engulfing. It's like lukewarm soup, but at least we aren't sweating.

Today is the annual hot sauce festival. We like festivals and Doug likes hotsauce, but most years we pass on this event. It's just too hot to be outside in a crowd of people. We've yet to decide whether we are going or not, but it isn't too likely. Instead we will remain inside, in the air conditioning, praying for the god of autumn to bless us sooner, rather than later.

Chocoholics in the house

This weekend we had my (1 week) belated graduation party. The special treat was the chocolate fountain, provided by Austin caterer/personal chef, Cindy Feyereisen of Pretty Dishes. She is one of the best dessert chefs in Austin, and has done several cakes for me, all works of art. The chocolate fountain, however, was unique, interesting and quite fun.

Cindy brought the usual stuff, including strawberries, pretzels and nuts, but then she added unique flair. For one thing, she served kiwi on the tray. Kiwi and chocolate, who’d a thunk it? And dried pineapple chunks – yum! She also served a variety of spices that you could add to your chocolate-covered dreams – several kinds of chili powders, espresso, citrus salt, and a Chinese five-spice. It was absolutely to die for.

As you can tell from the photo, she did a wonderful job with the presentation. What you can’t tell, as they were cropped out, was how all the party guests just loved the fountain. All of us seemed to be chocoholics. My friend Mary said she wanted to do one for her birthday party this weekend. Luckily, Cindy was available, although Mary’s roommate is keeping the fountain a secret. Pretty Dishes is just starting to add the chocolate fountain as a party option, but it should be a success. I just hope Cindy doesn’t get too busy where I can’t hire her in the future. Maybe Doug and I should go ahead and plan our Christmas party now so I can book Cindy before the holiday season.

New school year, new faculty member

Wow. I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted. Needless to say it has been busy around here.

Classes begin today at Texas State University. There are several new faculty members this year, including myself. The past two weeks have been spent learning a new course management system, various training and orientation sessions and other meetings. We had a faculty party last Thursday. Yesterday was the convocation/campus-wide faculty meeting with the president of the university. From there, we headed to a college faculty meeting with the dean. After that, it was the faculty meeting for the school of journalism and our new director. Then a meeting for us newbies with our departmental admin and academic advisor, going over important procedures.

In between all this stuff, I've had to take care of stuff, like getting a parking sticker and faculty ID card. Then there is all the piddling little things, like prepping for classes, planning out the semester, and developing syllabi. I am teaching three courses (four classes total) this semester. Even with the Intro class I've been teaching for a year, we've switched texts, so I have a total of three preps. Luckily my first classes aren't until tomorrow, as I don't have my first day lectures/materials ready yet.

Through it all, there is weird feeling of transition. I am back on campus, but this time as a teacher, not a student or as a student who is teaching. I get all the perks of faculty that I didn't get as a teacher when I was still a student. One of these is my office. I know it's small and windowless. Others have complained, but I am just thrilled to have my own office, one I don't have to share with five other people, one where I can hang my own photos on the walls.

Then there is the parking situation. As a student, I had to park way off campus and take a bus in. This added 20 minutes to my commute. Even when I was teaching, I was still a student. I would walk out of the classroom, cross the street, and wait for the bus with my students. They always thought it was weird. I didn't like it much either. This year, I have coveted faculty/red parking, complete with an access card so I can get through the gates and park next to our building. Evidently the faculty that complains about parking have not been a student on the campus. Of course, having 8 a.m. classes not only saves me from the traffic, it gives me the primo parking spaces.

The strangest part of the transition is what to call other faculty members. For two years they were my teachers and I called them Dr. Weill, Dr. Peirce, Dr. Niekamp, Dr. Rao, and so on. Now they are my colleagues and as such, the protocol is Sue, Kate, Ray and Sandy. It feels a bit funny and isn't easy to transition. Maybe I'll just call them "hey you" for awhile. :-)

Commence to speaking

Last night was graduation and I was selected as commencement speaker. The text of my speech is below.

Mark Twain once said, “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” For many of us, today’s graduation ceremony marks the end of our formal schooling; we will never again set foot in a classroom as a student. Others of us will continue on to graduate school, earning master’s and doctorial degrees. Whether today is the last day of school, or a mere pause before continuing studies, I challenge the class of 2006 us to remain students in our hearts and pursue the goal of lifelong learning.

What is lifelong learning? It is the continuing of education well beyond graduation. Knowledge is not gained only in the classroom. It can occur in the workplace, at home, and with wireless Internet access, even at McDonald’s. Lifelong learning means that we have an opportunity to continue our education without worrying whether a class will fit into our degree plan or whether some fact will be on a future test. The idea of lifelong learning puts our future education, and ultimately our own success, in our hands.

Often when we transition from school to the workplace, we place our education on a backburner. We learn what we need to know to do our jobs, but seldom do we strive to learn more; we become mediocre. Having been a working professional for 12 years before returning to graduate school, I often heard comments from co-workers that they were too busy to attend a specific training session, or that they would go back to school but only if their employer paid for it. While these people did okay in their jobs, they never quite excelled. The people who excelled in their jobs were those who valued education and took the initiative to learn everything they could.

One of the people closest to me has a philosophy of investing in himself; each year he takes 10 percent of his salary and applies to personal and career training. For each dollar he invests in his education, he receives that dollar back in form of a salary increase. If I had one piece of advice to give to graduates, it would be to invest in yourself and strive to be a superstar, not just mediocre.

Lifelong learning doesn’t have to be just career-related. We are now at the point in our lives where it is up to us to learn what we want to learn, when and how we want to learn it. Having a job doing corporate sales doesn’t preclude one from taking cooking classes if he or she wants to learn to be a gourmet chef. Someone with a degree is in mass communication can still study Japanese art if that is their passion. Some scholars argue that the true measure of learning is whether a student is passionate about a subject and continues to learn about that subject outside of the classroom. I would urge each of us to discover what things we are passionate about and learn all we can about those subjects. That is the true measure of lifelong learning.

Today may be the end of our schooling, but my hope for the class of 2006 is that it is the start of our education.

Redecorating relationships

You always see those lists of what events cause stress on relationships. Usually it's things like finance, jobs and kids that are on the list. What isn't on the list, but should be near the top, is decorating and remodeling. I can't imagine many things that are more stressful than this.

What started as a simple, yet massive, organizing and decluttering project at our house has now turned into remodeling our front room. We have emptied the room, threw away a ton of stuff, painted from baseboards to ceilings, bought both new and used furniture, and bought and installed a new ceiling fan. While we are pretty excited about what we've done and how the room looks, there have been little squabbles along the way. Things like,

• "Yes, I want to add color to the room, but no, lavender and lilac won't be the colors."
• "Read the directions. They will tell you how to install it."
• "Tell me where you want the bookshelves. Once they are in, they stay there. They are too heavy to re-arrange to see how they look."
• "Your painting job isn't as bad as I thought."
• "Humor me. Just put that there."

From Home Depot, to the recycling center, we have gotten into discussions along the way on how to do things, where items should be placed, how to load, unload items, colors, and of course, cost. To top it off, we have a tight deadline to get everything done. My parents are coming to visit this week and we have to get Doug's office looking less like the place where he collects everything, and more like a guest bedroom. We are making progress, but needless to say, we are behind schedule. Doug had wanted to steam clean this weekend, especially his (former) office, so it wouldn't smell like a whino died in there. One too many exploding beer bottles have taken their toll.

On the other hand, it is a bit exciting to see what can be done in a room. Our next goal, later this fall, will to be to redo the smaller room, making it more useful. We (me especially) have been watching all sorts of home decorating shows on HGTV, DIY and TLC -- anything with initials and paint will do. In the meantime, I have more work to get done on this renovation before bed.

I can breath again

It's done. It's over. The Ts are crossed and the Is are dotted. Despite the misunderstanding 10 days ago, my thesis is signed (by the Dean), sealed and delivered (to the library). There is nothing more that could happen to impede my degree. I am all but graduated, and that will happen in 11 days. Needless to say, I was grinning from ear to ear as of 11:40 this morning. I am glad it's done.

Top place to shop

Granted, I didn't inherit the shopping gene in my XX chromosomes. I can think of 294 things I'd rather do than go to a crowded mall, even if there are bargains. Still, I think it's pretty cool that the outlet malls in San Marcos were recently named one of the world's top shopping destinations. The other day my mom mentioned that she saw it on the Travel Channel. Now the women on The View agree. Dubai, New York and San Marcos -- go figure.

Despite driving to San Marcos 3-4 days a week for two years, I admit I never made time to go shop. Of course, every so often Doug and I would take a weekend trip down as he likes Brooks Brothers and likes to shoe shop down there. There's a kitchen store I like, as well as a place with cute Christmas ornaments to feed my holiday fetish. I heard there is a new Create & Barrel store open, but haven't had a chance to visit it yet. I have a meeting on campus Monday. Maybe if it doesn't take too long, I'll do some shopping. This way I can say I've shopped at one of the world's top shopping destinations.

50 movies to see before you die

Here's an interesting article where experts list the 50 films one must see before they die. I'm not sure who the experts are and how they define the best movies, but this list is somewhat suspect to me. After all, Sexy Beast, which I found painfully slow and boring, is #5, but Casablanca is no where on the list. I truly liked The Royal Tenenbaums, but it isn't a must-see movie, the same way The Godfather is. Movies like Casablanca and The Godfather are a part of our collective culture. Lost in Translation is not.

So if you had to pick movies in your top 50 must see before you die, what would you pick? Let me know and I will post mine in a later entry.

Little sneaks

Lately Allegra has gotten plenty of opportunities to perfect her “Little Miss Innocent” look. Ears back, head down, big brown eyes looking up at you, standing next to you while you point and accuse, “Did you do that? Did you?” She has gotten this look down to an art, hoping that you will think she’s not the culprit. After all, it was her brother Dante who turned tale and ran outside, thinking that out of sight means out of mind, not daring to come back in until the yelling subsides. Still, you know that both dogs are guilty of the crime, and lately there have been several indiscretions.

About a week a left the house for a about 20 minutes, just to pick up a few things at the store for dinner that night. The night before I had roasted some seasoned chickpeas in the oven, seeing a recipe where they make healthy, crunchy snacks. I placed some in a plastic baggie on the counter for Doug to take to work, but he was so preoccupied that morning, he forgot. While I was gone, the dogs discovered the baggie on the counter, stole it, tore open the plastic and devoured the contents. I was livid! “Did you do this?! Did you do this?!” I screamed while shaking the plastic remnants at them. This was one of the few times Dante didn’t run, and as I was shaking my hand accusingly at him, he turned his head in such a way that the knuckle of my right index finger hit is head. Although there are times we call him “cement head,” we’ve never thought his head to actually be made from cement. I was wrong. Banging my knuckle on his head caused extreme pain and a bruise. I guess that’s one way to keep me from fussing at them.

The next incident occurred two days later. Again, I wasn’t gone for a long period of time – just long enough to go to the gym and back. I came home and they looked guilty, hiding in the kitchen, just waiting for me to fuss at them, but I didn’t see any evidence of wrong doing. Later, I went outside to feed and water them and saw it – my square glass baking dish that weighs a ton. I had made a breakfast casserole a few days earlier so that Doug could simply re-heat it and have breakfast on the go. We finished the casserole that morning and I had left the dish on the counter to clean later. Somehow when I was gone, the dogs managed to get this dish off the counter and outside to lick clean without so much as chipping the glass. I’m still not sure how they managed that one.

Talking to my friend Debbie over the weekend, she again reminded me of leaving red pepper flakes on the counter. This worked when her Zoey was counter surfing. I wasn’t sure how it would work on my dogs, as they have been known to eat a jar of Adobe chilies, but I decided it couldn’t hurt. Saturday I left paper plates of red chili flakes on the counter and table when we went to run errands. I’m not sure if I would count it as a success or failure as they didn’t get into the flakes (which we wanted), but then again, they didn’t get on the counter to get them (which we didn’t want).

But the sneaks have been into other things lately. We’ve been working hard to declutter the house. I’m packing up my graduate school papers, getting rid of a lot of my novels, and organizing magazines into what to keep, what to toss, and what to give away. We’ve also been going through certain magazines to pull articles before we toss. Anyway, our living room had stacks of magazines and boxes of books when Doug and I had to run errands. Thinking of all the books and papers the dogs have destroyed, I had Doug put the dogs outside, but instead of sliding the metal doggie dog in place, he simply propped it against the wall. Coming home after trying unsuccessfully to sell our books at Half Price Books and going to the grocery store, we came home to find the dogs in the house. Luckily, they hadn’t gotten into anything. We had only come home long enough to put up the groceries and when we left, I had Doug slide the doggie door in place. It didn’t work. Somehow these dogs where able to pull the metal door out of its track and come inside. Guess they thought they should be in the air conditioning instead of the 100 degree heat. Again, they didn’t get into anything, so all was well.

Until last night, that is. The decluttering process has moved into drawers and closets. I figure if I haven’t looked at or touched in three years, it goes – either to Goodwill (if appropriate) or the trash. I had two trash bags of 10 year old half-empty bottles of suntan lotion and assorted stuff, which Doug placed by the door to remember to take to the trash this morning. “Do you think the dogs will get into that?” I asked. He didn’t think so as it wasn’t food, wasn’t rotten, and that usually our bedroom door is closed. I figured that he was right. Of course, I didn’t remember this at 3:30 last night when the dogs woke me up to go outside and I was so tired I simply left the door open. This morning when Doug gets up, he comes back into the bedroom. “You’re not going to like this,” he informs me. Evidently the dogs did get into the trash. Maybe they liked the aloe vera lotion in the bag or the broken hair clip, I’m not sure. “Did you do this?” I started in on the dogs when I got up to see the mess. “Did you?” Allegra is just standing there, looking pitiful and innocent as I point, while Dante is outside not daring to come in. They know they are little sneaks and have been discovered once again.

Murphy’s Law reigns

Thursday I was feeling on top of the world. I had finished my thesis revisions and emailed them to my thesis chair before he got back in town Wednesday night. I had a good workout at the gym that morning and I was getting chores done around the house. Life was good. Then I checked my school email. There, in the midst of e-newsletters about online marketing tactics, was an email from the dean of the graduate college telling me I missed the deadline for getting my thesis to the dean and would not be graduating.

WHAT?!?!

I almost had a coronary there on the couch. From the thesis guide I downloaded, it said the thesis was to be to the dean 21 days before graduation. I might not be good in math, but counting on the calendar, that was Friday. A million things ran through my mind, including the fact I am supposed to be the speaker at graduation, my parents were coming to graduation and am teaching four classes in the fall. I immediately emailed my thesis chair and graduate advisor. Then I tried to calm down. Breath, breath, breath, I kept reminding myself. Once I felt calm enough to talk and not just babble incoherently, I called the dean’s office to talk to the person listed on the email. She told me the deadline had been Wednesday and when I explained my chair had been out of town, she said I could get an extension and he would simply need to email her.

Long story short, my chair requested and was granted an extension. He approved my thesis revisions and I could take my thesis to San Marcos on Friday. Still, Mr. Murphy and his Law were working against my frayed nerves. Friday morning I woke and started printing a copy of my 85 page thesis. With 10 pages left, I ran out of black ink. That’s okay, I told myself, I’ll get some more and stopped into Office Max on the way to the gym. Once there, I realized I had forgotten what model printer I had. I spoke to a sales guy, who thought he knew what it was and gave me the appropriate ink. I went on the gym and worked out. Arriving home, I went to the printer and realized wrong model, wrong ink. I had a C-84 and the ink was for a C-80 and unfortunately, didn’t fit. I took a deep breath and then jumped in the shower. I then headed back to the store for an exchange. This time I came home with ink for a C-84, but opening the package, it didn’t look like it fit – it was much wider than the cartridge already in there. Another deep breath. Okay, I thought, this is working against me. I will just go to campus and print it out there. Maybe I should have done it in the first place, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

By this time it was 1 o’clock Friday afternoon. I jump in the car, heart still racing from the day before, and I’m ready to lay rubber for the 42 miles on I-35 from Pflugerville to San Marcos. Unfortunately, the traffic didn’t agree with me – it was crawling, stop-and-go all the way through downtown Austin. “Can’t you M-F’s go any faster?!” I yelled in my car as I pounded my steering wheel. Calm down, I told myself, the last thing I needed was to be in a wreck. Finally I made it to campus found both parking and an open computer lab, printed out the thesis and delivered it to the dean’s office. For the first time in 24 hours I was able to take a deep breath.

So now the dean is reviewing it and I should hear back later this week if there are any changes. Once approved and I get his signature, I have to make several copies on bond paper and take it to the library by Aug. 3. If this doesn’t happen, I don’t graduate. Now, there really shouldn’t be an issue at this point, I’m as good as done, but given Thursday’s email, until I get the dean’s approval and deliver the thesis to the library, I’m going to be on edge. Already today I’ve checked my student email five times, as if between 2:30 Friday afternoon and 11 a.m. Monday, they would have read my thesis. Given the way Murphy’s Law has been, it will be the morning of Aug. 3rd before I hear anything. Until then, I just have to keep reminding myself to breath.

Is your city haunted?

This is a neat website that lists haunted places by state and city. There is even a haunted spot in Pflugerville, out by our dog trainer. As for the ghost in Old Main at Texas State University-San Marcos, I have spent a lot of the time during the last two years in that building and this is the first I've heard of that ghost and I've never seen her, but I swear, there are time that their are gremlins in the computers.

Clerks Redux

Sorry it's been awhile since the last update. I will actually have a few interesting stories to post later.

This morning, however, Doug and I went to see Clerks II. We, myself especially, are big Kevin Smith fans. I love all the View Askew movies (these are the ones with Jay & Silent Bob), including the much maligned Mallrats. Clerks II was the funniest movie we've seen in a long time. We were laughing so loud that we missed parts. We thought it was better than the original Clerks.

Other than that, we've got a quiet weekend planned. We are trying to work on organizing the house. I'm starting to go through the last two years of school work and seeing what I should keep, store and throw. Doug is trying to organize his office/guest room in preparation for my parents' visit in a few weeks.

Survey says...

It has occurred to me that many readers don't know what I did my thesis on, and even those who do, they don't know what my reseach told me. Now that my defense is done, I will give a brief summary. If you would like to read the paper in full, all 84 pages of it, I will be happy to share it once I finish my revisions.

The introduction of a new medium provides an opportunity for scholars to revisit existing theories of mass communication. Blogging is a medium that has grown tremendously in recent years, from just a few dozen blogs in 1999 to more than 42 million blogs today. One function of blogging is providing opinion and commentary on news from the mainstream media. In this way bloggers act as intermediaries, much in the same way Lazarsfeld described opinion leaders in his two-step flow of information theory. This research examined blogging from the framework of the two-step flow to see if readers looked to bloggers as opinion leaders. Results showed that bloggers were not opinion leaders and blogs were perceived as less credible than mainstream media sources, but that blogs do play a role in opinion consideration and opinion reinforcement.

Despite the hype surrounding blogging, it is unlikely that blogs will dramatically change the way media operates or how the public receives and processes information. It is true that the number of blogs have increased dramatically, from 8 million in 2004 to 42 million today. Additionally, blogs have become easier to use and have increased functionality, now allowing bloggers to post photos and videos. People who have never been computer savvy now have blogs in an effort to keep in touch with their friends and family. However, this research suggests that blogs are more likely to be utilized as an interpersonal communication channel rather than a mass cmmunication medium.

As a mass communication channel, blogs do not have the level of credibility of other MSM sources. Respondents tended to view other mainstream media more frequently than blogs and did not see blogs as an important source of information. It was much more likely that blogs would serve as reinforcement of currently held beliefs, than to motivate opinion change.

Just call me Master Dara

"Congratulations, you have new letters behind your name." This was how my committee told me they passed my thesis, which means I'm graduating. The letters they were talking about were MA or Master's of Arts. What a relief! I knew that it wouldn't be bad, but it actually went easier than I expected. Either that, or I felt comfortable enough with my research that there were not any problems with what I was asked. The toughest question wasn't about my thesis, but was what book was most useful to me in grad school. This is from the teacher who assigned 4 or 5 books. Thing was, many of my classes in the department were seminars, which used assigned articles to read and not text books.

I still have some revisions to make on my thesis. This isn't that unusual, especially as there wasn't a lot of time for other committee members to review earlier drafts of the thesis. So I will need to make those in the next week. Once those are approved, I already have the signatures to take the thesis to the Dean.

For the first time I am getting excited about graduation. Prior to this, I was blase. It almost felt that it was no big deal getting a MA. It just didn't quite feel the same as getting a BA. Maybe it was because a BA really is a changing point in one's life -- the end of school and the start of the career. I would think a PhD would feel like quite an accomplishment, simply because the hard work for a dissertation and the fact so few people have one. But there was something about getting a Master's didn't make it seem like a big deal.

But now that my thesis is done, it does feel like a big deal. Of course, being selected as a commencement speaker helps. I found out that my speech is 2-4 minutes -- not a lot of time to depart words of wisdom. Today I bought my cap and gown, so that's done. Really, the big thing now is to get the thesis revisions done, get the sign-off from the Dean, and get my thesis bound.

Good news!

Mark your calendars for August 11 at 7 p.m. That is my graduation and I have been selected as the graduation speaker. I interviewed for it yesterday and just read the email from my advisor. How cool is that? Guess I need to order my cap and gown! :-)

Today I will defend my thesis -- at 10 a.m. From talking to my advisor and one of my committee members yesterday, what will happen is that there will be suggestions to my thesis, and I will have some revisions to make. So that's the rest of this week. One last round with my advisor, Dr. Niekamp, and then it will be good to go to the Dean.

Top 10 politically incorrect movies

This is a great list. I think I'm one of the few people who actually liked Team America: World Police. It was so politically incorrect it was funny. I mean, only the creators of South Park would have puppets having sex on the big screen.

Speaking of South Park, I was thrilled to learn that last week the Tom Cruise in the closet episode was nominated for an Emmy. If you haven't seen it, you are probably out of luck because thus far Cruise has blocked the rebroadcast of that episode. My top three South Park episodes have to be the in the closet one, the one with Ben Afflick and JLo (or should I say Cartman's hand as JLo), and the one where Cartman confuses NAMBLA (the North American Marlon Brando Look Alikes) with NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association).

Sigh of relief

My thesis is done...well, almost done. I have finished writing, rewriting, editing, proofing and double-checking. My advisor approved my final chapter this morning and I emailed the complete thesis to my committee this afternoon. I still have to defend the thesis, which will take place Wednesday at 10 a.m. If any reader is in San Marcos and would like to learn about blogging and opinion leadership, let me know. :-)

I'm not quite sure what to expect on the defense. My advisor told me I had 20 minutes to present my thesis and could do it in whatever format I'm most comfortable. Call me crazy, but I really prefer Powerpoints because without them, I think the audience can get lost with the data.

The past few days I've been having crazy thoughts, equating my thesis defense to the Albert Brooks' movie Defending Your Life. The premise of the movie is that when you die you are sent to a place where the powers that be hold court on your life. If you didn't get it right during life, you are sent back to Earth to try it again. Daniel (Brooks) has to work hard in his defense to prove that he is worthy to stay. Julia (Meryl Streep), on the other hand, finds it a breeze going through the judgment process. I just hope that my thesis defense is more like Julia and less like Daniel.

What's my beer personality

Not sure how accurate this is. Given that our house is full of homebrew and beer is an art around here, I would have answered the questions differently than the choices allowed. For example, it asked in which city I would like to do a pub crawl. I answered Amsterdam because it was the closest city to Belgium. Maybe I should have answered my hometown because quite honestly, I could drink enough beer at home so that I would be unable to crawl out of the house.

You Are Heineken

You appreciate a good beer, but you're not a snob about it. You like your beer mild and easy to drink, so you can concentrate on being drunk. Overall, you're a friendly drunk who's likely to buy a whole round for your friends... many times. Sometimes you can be a bit boring when you drink. You may be prone to go on about topics no one cares about.

What's Your Beer Personality?

Thesis help

Allegra has decided to help me this afternoon. I am on deadline, trying to finish rewriting the last chapter of my thesis. The ideas aren't flowing as readily as I would like, so Allegra decided to take a look to see if she could make any suggestions.

Top 10 wine movies

Interesting list from the SF Gate. Of course Sideways would be on it, but I never thought about Casablanca. Also, there is some interesting trivia about Hannibal Lecter and his famous quote about fava beans and Chianti. Only people who read the book would know that Lecter would never drink something as common as Chianti.

Sunday update on Jim

Barbara just called. Evidently Jim is much improved overnight and the doctor is releasing him today. This is good news because they thought it would be tomorrow. Meanwhile Doug is on a flight back to Austin. It lands in an hour, so I need to leave soon to pick him up.

Guess all is well and Barbara will continue the updating on her blog.

Acknowledgements

Last night I wrote the Acknowledgements section of my thesis. Since most readers won't get an opportunity to read my thesis (or would want to reach an 80-page research paper on blogs), I decided to post my Acknowledgements section here.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Writing a thesis is not just a research project, it is a learning process and an opportunity to synthesize one’s graduate studies. For this reason I would like to acknowledge all the graduate faculty members of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Texas State University-San Marcos. Each class I took had an impact on this thesis.

I would like to especially thank my thesis chair, Dr. Ray Niekamp. His enthusiasm for the subject matter and ability to help me see the forest through the trees was invaluable.

I appreciate all the assistance Dr. Kate Peirce gave me with research methods, statistical tests, and the dreaded SPSS. She spent many extra hours with me, trying to help me understand it all. Dr. Sandy Rao is tireless in her dedication to the graduate program and I value all her assistance in completing both this thesis and my course of study.

Finally, I would like to give special thanks to Doug French, my significant other. He sacrificed many times over, supported me both emotionally and financially, and kept me focused on the end-game so that I could fulfill my goal of attending graduate school and becoming a teacher of public relations. I dedicate this thesis to him.

This manuscript was submitted on July 5, 2006.

Saturday update on Jim

There is not much news today on Jim. He continues to improve and seems to be doing well. This morning the doctor said it will probably be Monday before he goes home. Doug and Barbara are heading back to Chillicothe this afternoon to get some stuff done and ready for Jim's return. They will spend the night and then head back to KC in the morning, where Doug will catch a flight back home.

Bugged

When I’m on a deadline and get into a zone, I sometimes forget to stop for personal hygiene. I know it sounds gross, but I’m in air conditioning, on the computer, with no one around but the dogs, and let’s face it, they have no room to complain. Late yesterday afternoon I had reached a stopping point and decided that it had been 30 hours since my shower and I was feeling gross.

Looking forward to hot shower and several minutes away from the thesis, I cranked up the radio and turned on the water. Ready to step into the tub, I looked up and saw a cockroach the size of my thumb. Shrieking, I leapt away from the tub, letting the curtains fall. Of course, the dogs came running to see what was wrong. Normally, I’m not a girly-girl, but when it comes to creepy, crawly things, I am. Snakes, cockroaches, rats, anything icky, I’m out of there. So here I was with a dilemma, I really wanted this shower, but it was blocked by a bug the size of Rhode Island that looked like it could eat a cat whole. When this has happened before, I’ve been able to do what any brave-hearted woman would do – get my man to kill it. But Doug is in KC with his dad, so that wasn’t an option. I did the next best thing and got my camera phone, took a picture of it, and sent it to Doug, but he chose to ignore it and let me figure it out myself.

I thought for a minute. I couldn’t just use the other shower, as Doug had it filled with blueberry wine, thinking a shower was easier to clean than the kitchen. I did think about waiting until Doug’s return to shower, but I don’t ignore my hygiene to that degree. Standing there, wrapped in a towel, I realized that this was one battle I was going to have to fight on my own. Steeling my nerves, I picked up my weapon, my Executioner, and hoped that I didn’t electrocute myself doing battle in the tub.

This cockroach, which given its size survived the comet that killed its neighboring dinosaurs, was just above the tile, in the corner of the shower. Standing on rim of the tub, the Executioner in one hand, balancing myself with the other, I took the first swing. I heard a small zap and saw a blue bolt of electricity, but knew it didn’t work. The location of the cockroach in the corner didn’t allow for full electrical grid contact with the bugger – he got as much of the plastic racquet as he got the electricity. Pulling back, I saw Goliath twitch, so I went after him again. This time, when the electricity hit him, he jumped off the wall, into the shower caddy and then jumped again. I didn’t see where he went as I was too busy screaming and trying to get off the tub and away from the shower without breaking a leg. The dogs stood there dumbfounded, trying to figure out just why I was acting like a crazy lady.

I wait a few seconds to see if this monster is going to emerge. Nothing. I gingerly pull back the shower curtain, ready to step back if I see him. When I don’t, I think maybe he’s playing hide-and-seek in the shower curtains, so I start batting them with my Executioner racquet, daring him to come out. After several minutes, I think maybe he’s crawled down the drain, so I turn the water back on to see if he’ll come back out, or, better yet, if I can drown him.

A few more minutes go by and no roach. I start wondering if it’s safe to go back into the shower. I decide to take a chance, timidly stepping into the tub, but leaving the door to the bathroom open in case I need to make a quick getaway. I look around as I start to lather my hair, making sure the beast is not going to jump out at me. I’m startled as I feel something nudge my big toe; looking down, it was only water splashing off the bath mat. The water feels good, but I am unable to relax, worrying that creature will come back. I shower quickly and step out of the tub, shaking the towels before I do to make sure he’s not hiding on one of those. At that moment I couldn’t think of anything more gross than drying off with a cockroach. I’m safe for the moment, but spare no time getting dressed and getting out of the bathroom.

Friday morning update on Jim

Spoke to Doug briefly this morning. His dad is doing well and is up some, walking and moving around. One thing though, Jim is getting some fluid build-up on his lungs. This is not completely unusual, but it is something that they have to watch and be concerned with.

In other news today, I have been nominated to be a speaker at summer commencement. There is a whole nomination and interview process, so who knows if I'll get it. In the spring I had been nominated for outstanding graduate for the College of Fine Arts & Communication but lost out to a music major. Let's face it, in my mid-30s I'm really not into student organizations and campus life, which is what I think hurt me. I guess being nominated is one more reason to finish the thesis. Funny thing is I wasn't even sure if I would attend graduation or not. I definitely wasn't making a big deal out of it. Guess if I am selected as a speaker I will have to go.

Thursday evening update on Jim

Just talked to Doug. He sounds exhausted and I know Barbara is, but the good news is that everything seems to be going well for Jim. He got out of ICU and into his own room about mid-afternoon. Doug said the color is coming back to his face, although he's still pretty groggy. They think he'll be heading back to Chillicothe Sunday or Monday.

The plan is that Barbara and Doug will stay at the Embassy Suites tonight and tomorrow night and will head back to Chillicothe Saturday. They need to get some errands done in town and get a few other things done. They'll spend the night at the house Saturday and drive back to KC Sunday. Doug has a 9 a.m. flight home on Sunday. I know things must be going well for Jim as Barbara is being her usual "we don't want to be a bother" self and is insisting that Doug sticks to his flight plans (when in reality we just booked a return flight because we had to and knew we could change it). Given that this blog has significantly increased the number of readers from Chillicothe, I'm sure Barbara will get plenty of help if she needs it once she gets home.

One thing Doug told me is that Barbara is going to have to start chauffeuring around Jim while he's in the back seat. Evidently with all the front-passenger airbags and safety equipment, they don't want heart patients to sit in the front seat in case of a wreak and the airbag is deployed. Let's hope this doesn't have to last too long, as I don't see Barbara taking kindly to Jim being a back seat driver. Poor Barbara! Jim will insist she back into every parking space!

If/when Doug calls tomorrow, I will try to do an update. In the meantime, no news is good news, meaning Jim is doing well in his recovery.

Thursday morning update on Jim

Just spoke to Doug. His dad got through the night okay, but is still pretty groggy and out of it. He'll be in ICU until later this afternoon. Doug and Barbara can go in and see him for a few minutes every half hour. They'll see him at 11:30 and are then going out for a bite of lunch, shopping and fresh air.

At 1 p.m. Barbara will be attending some sort of class at the hospital on after care of heart patients. Doug wasn't sure what that was about, but figured it would be things like cooking and exercise requirements or something. Doug has actually been able to get some work done and will continue to do so this afternoon. His buddy Mark might try to get together with him later on.

That's all the news for now. Will let you know if I hear anything more.

Update on Doug's dad

Doug just called. Jim is out of surgery and everything went fine. Doug and Barbara will get to see Jim in a half hour after the anesthesia wears off, but they said Jim probably won't even remember.

The doctors will keep Jim in ICU for 24 hours to monitor him. This is a critical time and what happens now will tell the doctors how he is recovering. Some time tomorrow afternoon he will get into his room. After then, they will have a better idea of when he gets to go home to Chillicothe.

Barbara and Doug are staying in the hotel (Embassy Suites) again tonight. Barbara is doing well, but as you can imagine, is exhausted. It sounds like they are going to see Jim at 4:30 and then head back to the hotel. They go back to the hospital in the morning.

All of your prayers and well wishes are appreciated. I know Barbara will enjoy reading them when she gets back online.

Fw:DAD THINKS HE IS BRAD PITT

Note and photo from Doug as Jim heads to surgery. Not sure what the Tom Cruise comment means. Guess they have Jim some great drugs this morning!

Florist recommendation

This is for the folks from Chillicothe who are looking for updates on Jim. If you are thinking about sending flowers to the hospital, I recommend Westport Floral Designs at 866-391-7673. I just spoke to John, the owner, and he was very friendly and helpful. He actually had a better timeframe of what was going on than Doug, because he deals with it every day. He thought Jim would be out of surgery around lunch time, would then be in recovery and ICU. It might be late tonight or the morning before he gets to his room. However, they will get the flowers to him once a room number is assigned. Also, you will want to send the flowers to James D. (Jim) French, as I'm not sure if he is checked in as James or Jim. HIPPA regulations won't allow the hospital to give out patient's names, so if you send it to Jim French and he's checked in as James, they will say he's not there (I'm sure it's the same if you make any phone calls).

Anyway, I'm huge on customer service, as folks who know me will attest. Whenever I find someone good, I like to funnel business their way. This guy really impressed me.

A pro-smoking neighborhood

This is one of the few places in Austin where smoking is allowed and encourage, although it's not the kind of smoke you inhale. If Doug reads this article, he'll want to move there.

More details on Doug's dad

Doug made it to KC this evening, landing at 7. He hasn't seen his dad yet, but spent some time with his mom. She was very happy that he flew up for the operation.

Jim is in St. Luke's Hospital, the one near Country Club Plaza. His surgery is some time after 9 a.m. tomorrow, although Doug wasn't sure exactly when. Word is that Jim's heart is strong, there are just those blockages. This is very positive. If everything goes well, and there is no reason why it shouldn't, Jim should be back in Chillicothe this weekend, either Saturday or Sunday.

Will let you know more after Doug calls me tomorrow.

Jumping horses

I'm trying to learn how to take video clips from my camera and upload them to the blog. I think I may have figured it out. This video is of my friend Karen, practicing jumping her horse. The video was taken at her ranch back in March.

Testing video feed

I'm testing video capabilities from YouTube.com. This is not my cat. Dexter is not nearly as agile. This morning he missed when jumping from the edge of the bathtub to his ledge. Luckily there was no water in the tub.

Doug's dad

We got word this morning that Doug's dad will have to undergo heart bypass surgery in the morning. I was able to get Doug on an afternoon flight to Kansas City, using our frequent flyer miles. Unfortunately I won't be able to go because of my thesis deadline. Doug thinks it would be too difficult revising drafts in the hospital.

I'm still not sure all the details with his father, but will keep readers posted as I know. In the meantime, I need to drive Doug to the hospital to catch his flight.

Stressed

You probably won't hear much from me in the next week or so. I'm on a tight deadline to finish my thesis. I need to have everything finished by July 5th so that my committee can receive it and I can defend it July 12th. Because of faculty vacation, if it's not done by then, it won't meet the deadline for summer graduation. If I don't graduate, there is an issue with my teaching employment in the fall (because I was a TA, I can't join the faculty until I have a degree). Thus far, my thesis advisor has approved my first three chapters, but one of my committee members wants revisions. I've done the results chapter first draft, but it needs major revisions. I'm writing my last two chapters and will have first draft to my advisor today.

Ugh!

You're not going to believe it

Doug's flight was delayed again. He was supposed to leave Providence, RI at 6:30 this morning, but as of yet, the flight crew isn't available -- they got in late last night. So now he's on a different flight, heading first to Cleveland, changing planes and heading to Houston, then changing again and heading to Austin. But here's the deal. Checking his new flights I noticed that his flight from Cleveland to Houston is already delayed 33 minutes. This means as of right now, he has 13 minutes to catch his connecting flight, assuming his plane isn't delayed any more.

Needless to say, Doug is extremely exhausted. He actually has a good rant about airlines and on-time claims, and how they run their business, but I will leave that to him. It's just is flight up there was delayed and now he can't seem to get home. All I know is that our goodwill towards Continental is quickly diminishing. We were thinking about changing our credit card frequent flyer miles from American to Continental, but now we have to think long and hard about it.

Delayed

After four nights in Rhode Island, Doug was supposed to be on a 7 a.m. flight home this morning. I was looking forward to picking him up at noon and heading out to lunch before coming home and writing my thesis. As I sat down to write this morning I decided to check the status of his flight. He only had a 45 minute layover, so I wondered about his connection.

Looking online I noticed his connecting flight was delayed. This was good, I thought, as he didn't have to worry about missing the flight. However, it put him in Austin at 2. I decided to call him about his delay. When I grabbed my cell I realized I missed a call when I was in the shower. It was Doug calling to say that he was delayed. The catch was, he wasn't going to come in until tomorrow. Huh?

I called him back. Evidently his flight out of Providence had been delayed, which was going to cause him to miss his connecting flight in Newark. Since Thursday is a busy travel day with all the road warriors trying to get home, all the flights were booked. There was only one seat available for the rest of the day -- a late flight connecting through Houston, in a middle seat, arriving in Austin at midnight. Being exhausted after a long week, Doug opted not to take that. Instead, he's staying an extra day and catching the early flight out.

Deciding to make the most of it, Doug is driving to Cape Code today to check out the area. I know when he was a road warrior back in the late 90s he used to love to stay extra days and go exploring. It's got to be great weather this time of year -- much better than when we went in February. I'm a bit jealous, but I'm too busy on my thesis to have taken this week off.

Doug may also go to Foxwoods Casino tonight in CT. Out of four nights of this trip, he's been there three times to play poker. All total he's up more than $800 on the week. I think he's ready to hang up his free, play for fun, poker league and play for money tournaments. Too bad it's illegal in Texas.

As for me, one more night home alone with the dogs and cat. At least I should be able to get some writing done before he returns.

Two dog night

Doug is out of town on business this week, which always means I don't sleep as well. In addition, I'm under a deadline on my thesis and am stressed. The girl who might have 1 Diet Dr. Pepper every day or two had 5 yesterday. And we are waiting to hear whether Doug's contract will be extended beyond the end of this month. It's no wonder I didn't sleep well last night.

But it was more than that. Normally the dogs aren't supposed to sleep on the bed. That doesn't stop them, but they usually sleep on Doug's side of the bed, well away from mom and her tendency to kick, push and shove until they get off the bed. In their quest for the right side of the bed, they tend to nudge Doug to the very edge of the bed. Often the only place for his feet is hanging off the bed.

Last night the dogs took it upon themselves to cuddle with me and make me feel better when I went to bed. Dante laid on Doug's pillow, propping himself up like a king. After awhile he stretched out and started pushing against me. Allegra, on the other hand, curled up at my hip. As the night wore on, she too stretched out. When I got out of bed to turn on the fan to cool down the room a bit, I noticed that instead of having the run of a king-sized bed, I had a small sliver, towards the edge.

At this point I decided that I would push, shove and make life generally miserable to get some space back. Usually it's just a shove or two and the dogs get annoyed enough that they'll opt for their mat on the floor. But last night Allegra decided she was going to hold her ground. She stretched out in the middle of the bed and was not going to move, no matter how much I pushed and prodded. Her 51 lbs. felt like it could have been 151 lbs. At one point I even used her to prop up my leg and still didn't get a response. I could doze off for an hour, but as soon as I rolled over to get more comfortable, there she was, blocking my movements and in the process, waking from my sleep. A knee in the back didn't work -- it was like resistance training. She was smart enough to stay in the middle of the bed because at the foot of the bed she would have had a foot in her ribs. At one point in this wrestling match I started thinking that something was wrong as she absolutely wasn't moving. Then I felt her breathing as I propped my knee across her chest.

Two nights down, two more to go before Doug returns. I think I will have to forego the cuddling in hopes of better sleep.

Let me in

Our friend Ray, making us laugh at the WOW tasting last night.

June WOW tasting

Last night was the June wine tasting for Women of Wine and the Men Who Adore Them. Instead of doing the usual tasting at someone's house and we all bring bottles of wine, we held our tasting at Water 2 Wine, a custom winery. Not only does Water 2 Wine sell wine, allowing you to sample before you buy, they also allow you to make your own wine. Last night we sampled 5 whites and 5 reds. Like our gatherings, we had great food (Cindy's savory cheesecake was the best!) and lots of fun conversations. Unfortunately, we won't have another WOW gathering until the weather cools down in October.

Must-read interview

Watching the movie Hotel Rwanda, I was really moved by the story. One thing that struck me during the movie is that I didn't remember hearing of any of the events. Since watching the movie, I've seen other shows about what happened in Rwanda, including Sometimes in April.

Today I had another one of those realizations that I know little about what's going on in the world. Austinist interviewed Gilbert Tuhabonye about his book and the genocide in Burundi. As an Austinist, I knew who Tuhabonye is. However, I never heard of his country, Burundi, nor did I know what happened there. Now I am interested in reading more. It's amazing these massive killings go on simply due to someone being from another tribe and we Americans hear little of it. If you get a chance, read the interview.

Need education, not laws

The Austin City Council may broaden the current bicycle helmet law, requiring all adult cyclists to wear helmets while riding. If passed, people on bicycles would wear helmets, but people on motorcycles would still be helmetless. This makes no sense to me, especially after what happened this week to Ben Roethlisberger.

I am a novice rider and enjoy my rides. So far my rides are short (the route is 7.5 miles) and slow (average speed is 8 mph) and on a hike/bike path. Chances are that I won't get anything more than a scraped elbow, but I do wear my helmet. Even when I was test-driving my new bike in the parking lot of the bike store, the folks at Buck's Bikes had me wearing a helmet.

I think cyclists should wear helmets, but I think we should get people to wear them through education, not through laws. Most of the serious cyclists wear helmets; you never see anyone on 360 or 2222 without helmets. It's the novice riders like myself who don't wear helmets. We should be encouraging folks to ride more, not punishing them when they do.

How many movies can you find?

There are 100 movies represented in this photo. How many can you find? Add yours in the Comments section. Doug and I will get you started:
1. Napoleon Dynamite
2. Toy Story
3. Dances with Wolves
4. Saw II
5. 12 Monkeys

We can go on, but it's your turn.

Summer salads

It's so hot here, who wants to cook (or eat) much during the summer. Lately I've taken to making salads for dinner. These two were real winners. Original recipes were meatless, but I live with a carnivore, so I add grilled chicken. I'm not really sure of all the exact measurements as I just use recipes as a guide. I would just add to taste. :-)

Chicken/Blueberry
I took this to a pool party and folks loved it
5 oz. mixed greens
2 grilled chicken breasts
4 oz. feta cheese
Toasted almonds
Blueberries (maybe 2 cups?)
Dressing:
2 Tbs olive oil
1 Tbs red wine vinegar
1.5 tsp honey
(Doug actually thought there should be a bit more dressing on the salad)

Salad 2
Doug raved about this one last night
Mixed greens or green leaf lettuce
2 grilled chicken breasts
4-5 oz goat cheese (chevre)
Toasted walnuts
Dried cranberries
1 mango, diced
1 apple, diced (recipe didn't call for this but I added)
Dressing
3 Tbs of rice wine vinegar (or some other light vinegar)
6 Tbs of olive oil (or oil of your choice; recipe called for walnut oil, but that's expensive)
Honey (to taste)
Dijon mustard (to taste)

Drive-by shooting

Last week a friend of mine was shot. It was early evening and he was riding his bike, ironically on the way to a meeting of the Austin Cycling Association. Despite the large number of cyclists in Austin, including Lance Armstrong, it seems like we have a lot of incidents where motorists are harassing cyclists. I’m a novice rider but want to get more into it, especially after I bought a new bike this weekend. Unfortunately, stories of harassment make me want to stay off the road and away from motorists.

My friend, G, was in south Austin, near Sunset Valley, when a white van pulled next to him. A teenager, maybe 19, started yelling and shouting obscenities at G, and threw trash at him. G, keeping his composure, just smiled, waved, and kept riding as the van passed. A few blocks later G noticed that the van was stopped at a light. Catching up to the van, G stopped, went to the passenger’s side, put his hands on the open window and asked, “Is there something you wanted to say to me?” Looking in, G noticed that the van was driven by a little person (e.g. a dwarf). The harassing passenger was visibly startled, see G at the window, but the light finally changed and the van drove off.

G makes it through the light, continuing his ride. A little bit up the road he notices the white van pulled into an empty parking lot and senses trouble. As G passes, the passenger pulls out a pellet gun, aiming it directly at G. At this point, G starts peddling as fast as he can. He feels the first pellet fly past him. The second pellet hits his shoulder. As the van drives off, G turns around to see if he could get a license plate number, but couldn’t.

X-rays at the hospital show that the pellet didn’t break G’s skin – he was simply nicked, thank goodness. The police took his statement and seemed to chalk it up to kids and vandalism. They said that since school has been out, there have been increased reports of vandalism with pellet guns. This, in and of itself, is alarming to me. It also bothers me that the police can’t find a little person who drives a white van. As I joked to G, they would be able to find it if it were Law & Order.

What bothers me the most, however, is that this kid seemed to think it was funny to harass a cyclist and that it was okay to shoot another human. This raises all sorts of questions of where we are as a society. But for the time being, I’m just glad my friend is okay.

Statistics is for the dogs

"Hey Dante, if we want to compare how frequently people read blogs to credibility ratings, what test would we run?" I'm at the table, running statistical calculations on survey data for my thesis. Dante is on the floor next to me. He looks up when I talk to him.

"I'll give you a hint, Dante. The frequency, since there isn't an even space between the categories, is ordinal data. Credibility is integral data." Dante shifts his weight. "With ordinal data and integral data, we have to run a Spearman's Rho," I tell him. Dante sighs, laying his head back down. After all, he is a dog and the only statistic he cares about is the frequency he gets fed compared to the amount of petting he receives.

Actually, I'm right there with him. It's been a year since I took my Research Methods class, which was confusing to begin with. As a result, nothing stuck. I'm just as lost as I was when I was in the class. The sad part is that I was one of the better students in that class. I spent two years writing and administrating market research surveys, so I have that down. But when it comes to statistics, ugh! Oh well, if I can get through this part, I will be on track to finish this summer and graduate.

Why Doug brews beer

A recent study from Oregon State University shows that there is an ingredient in beer hops that helps fight prostate cancer. No wonder Doug is so into brewing!

BTW, two years ago this month Doug started brewing. Since that times he's made 57 different beers. This doesn't include the beers that he's made multiple times, like his Mexican Pilsner. No wonder our house looks like a beer storage facility!

Blueberry explosion

"Doug! Come into the kitchen, please!" It's morning and he's still in bed. "What do you need?" he groggly moans. "Just come into the kitchen, please, now," I answer. He walks into the kitchen and sees why I'm yelling at. "Holy sh#*," was all he could say. Our kitchen is covered in blueberries.

As I wrote the other day, we decided to try our hand at making blueberry wine. Monday night we crushed the berries, placing 6 lbs. of crushed blueberries in each of three 1 gallon glass carboys. We then added camden tablets to kill any wild yeast that might be on the berries. Last night we started the fermentation process by adding 2 lbs. of raw sugar to each carboy and then adding our yeast. Each carboy got a different type of yeast, as we were experimenting with the recipes. The carboys were definitely full, but Doug thought it might be okay. Usually wine is not that active.

Unfortunately, this recipe, given to us by the blueberry farmer, was very active. As he was cleaning this morning, Doug decided to place the carboys in the shower that we don't use much, so that if they explode, they will be contained and easier to clean. Of course, they exploded again today. It looks like thus far we've lost half of each gallon of wine.

Of course, we are trying to laugh about this, but we are still finding spots of blueberry juice on the ceiling, carpet, and the dogs' paws.

Finding my thrill on blueberry hill

In our quest to make wine, this weekend Doug and I decided that we would make some blackberry wine and some blueberry wine. We had planned on doing it over Memorial Day weekend, but from talking to some farmers, blueberries weren’t going to be quite ready yet. We decided to wait until this weekend and do both.

First off, I must say that it is not easy to find blueberries near Austin. The Texas Pick Your Own site listed two places out towards Bastrop, and one place 90 miles northeast, past Taylor and on past Hearne. Blackberries can be found all over the place, but not blueberries. One of the guys out towards Bastrop swore that he had the juiciest berries in all of Texas, but he didn’t open until after noon on Sundays, and we didn’t relish the idea of picking in the heat of the afternoon. Plus, he never sent us directions.

Originally Doug and I were just going to head out towards Bastrop and see if we could find any fruit stands. Yesterday morning, about 8:30, we loaded the car with the dogs and headed out. Doug, thinking that the farm to the northeast was closer to Taylor than it was, and because it opened early on Sunday, headed out that way. About 45 minutes into the trip and Doug realized it was much further than he thought. Another 30 minutes and we knew that we were committed to picking, and not to just buying at a roadside stand (especially when there weren’t any).

About 10:15 we arrived at the De Zavala farm, 8.5 miles east of Franklin, and about 30 minutes north of College Station. It was run by a nice older couple. Blackberries and blueberries were $2.75 per pound if we picked them, and $3.50 per pound if they picked them, only they didn’t have any picked. Their farm hand was out on Friday and they didn’t have enough for us. We figured that was okay. Mr. De Zavala drove us around the farm on his golf cart. He showed us his blackberries and explained that one batch had been picked over, while the other batch probably wouldn’t be ready until this weekend. He also showed us his raspberries, which intrigued me, as I love raspberries and want to try that as some wine. Unfortunately, raspberries aren’t commonly found in Texas and I knew from the Pick Your Own site he is one of three farmers in Texas that grows raspberries. Mr. De Zavala said that they too would be ready next weekend for large batches, but that the season was only two weeks in length.

Then we got to the blueberries. He explained that normally blueberries don’t grow this far west in Texas (must be why only found a limited listing of farms), but that he specially treats the soil. Since neither of us had ever picked blueberries before, he showed us something about the berries. One thing to know is that the berries don’t all ripen the same. You’ll see a cluster of 5 berries and maybe two will be ready to pick. He showed us the difference between blueberries that were all blue, and thus ripe and sweet, and blueberries that still had spots of red, which were more acidic. Bottom line, you had to pick each berry by hand and individually – there was no just grabbing a clump and being done with it.

I guess I didn’t know what to expect, but the blueberry picking was different from what I imagined. First, I didn’t realize that trees were more like hedges, and grew 6 feet tall. I was thankful for this, as it didn’t mean being bent low like when picking strawberries. I also didn’t know that it would take so long – more than 2.5 hours for three buckets. Hoping that we would find a roadside stand, I didn’t wear sunscreen and my shoulders got burned. Doug was in jeans. And while we could go up to the farmhouse and get water, we really would have liked to have some there with us. The dogs were okay with the picking. The car was under the shade of tall pines, but they wanted to be in the hot sun with us. After a while we had to leash them because they would start back to the farmhouse in search of water for themselves. Occasionally they find shade under a blueberry bush, but would want to wander as we moved down the path. Dante did find a nice patch of hay, which was covering a pile of fertilizer (aka manure), and decided to spend five minutes rolling in it. He was as happy as a pig in mud.

When it was said and done, we picked 3 buckets of blueberries, which came to just over 19 pounds. As we were paying the couple, and getting more ice water, Mr. De Zavala talked wine with us and let us sample his blueberry wine. He admits he makes it a bit sweet, but it was good. He and Doug talked about the process and he gave Doug some good suggestions for the wine.

It was almost 4 p.m. when we got back home. Tonight we’re going to start on the blueberry wine. Next week we may go back and get blackberries and raspberries and try our hands at making some of that. We will keep readers posted on how our wines turn out

Interpreting the president

This video is hilarious! It's an excerpt from the annual White House Correspondents Association dinner. President Bush’s presentation included an impersonator, Steve Bridges, who "interpreted" the president's remarks for laymen.

Get on the bus

We saw the strangest thing today at Parmer and Mo-Pac -- a British double-decker bus. It was complete with the driver on the right-hand side of the vehicle. We're not sure what it was doing in Austin, or where it was heading (maybe to Dell as it continued past I-35). Let me know if you have spotted this bus. It has my curiosity piqued.

Weekend of diversity

The big thing going on in Austin this weekend is the Republic of Texas (ROT) biker rally. Each year thousands of bikers from across Texas and the nation roll into Austin. Driving around town you will see nothing but bikes, bikes, and more bikes. Tonight there will be a huge motorcycle pride through downtown.

What I think is funny, however, is that this weekend is also Pride weekend, put on by the Austin Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. Not to be outdone, tomorrow night there will be a huge parade. Last year there were 1,300 parade participants (including my friend Sandy who offered her convertible to chauffer a drag queen) and 40,000 spectators.

I don't know why, but I think it's funny that the bikers and the gays have their celebration on the same weekend. It's seems like such a dichotomy of culture and that it could be a recipe for disaster; luckily, that hasn't been the case in the past. I know the stereotypes of bikers being rednecks are untrue, and that Harleys cost a lot of money, but many of the bikers I've met have been a little rough around the edges. Last year I asked one of my gay friends about the festivities being on the same weekend and he laughed, saying lesbians were really into to Harleys.

For Austinites who aren't into bikes or gay pride, a memorial concert will be held for Clifford Antone tomorrow night. Antone is responsible for bringing the blues to Austin. Jimmie Vaughn is one of the performers.

However, Doug and I will be at something completely different tomorrow night. We are volunteering at the Zachary Scott Theatre, which is bringing back its hit show, Crowns. The premise of the show is about African-American ladies and the fancy hats they wear to church. Some of the best singers Austin has belt out inspirational gospel. I really wish they would do a recording of it.

Motorcycles, gay pride, blues and gospel. Is there anything we are leaving out this weekend? Austin is nothing if not diverse.