How have you all been? It's been nice around here this autumn. Relatively mild temps (accompanied by next to no snow...boo!). I mean, seriously...last year, to hang the Christmas lights, I had
to break out climbing gear so I didn't fall off the ice - encrusted, WI 4 roof. This year? I was up there barefoot.
Anyway, things have been great. The term is over, and it was rad. I've learned to say no to a bunch of committee work, which frees up a teeny bit of time for curriculum development/refinement during the term (but, really, I do 95% of that off contract...not that I mind; I truly enjoy spending hours developing Monte Carlo randomizations for inferential statistical modeling. It's a total trip!).
Speaking of COCC...we recently went over to a VOIP phone system, and we were all told to clear out our voicemail boxes or we'd lose all the data. Now, I've been saving Max's phone call messages to me for about 1.5 years, so I decided it was time to get those treasures off of there. In chronological order):
I love how a) his words go from almost indecipherable (and fed by Jen) to really clear and imaginative, but b) he still sounds like a cat's squeaky toy all throughout the 18 months. In other Max news, he's begun to recognize patterns ("Look Daddy! A pattern: blue, green, blue, green!") and can count to 6 in spanish and to 20 (+/- 15) in English. We're working on what letters certain words start with, and he pointed to a truck yeaterday and said, "Look, Daddy...a hundred!", while pointing to, yup, "100" on the back. He's also developing a totally rad Bend/Cowboy/Mississippi twang in some of his words ("shell" becomes "shayle", for example). I pretty much am rendered either speechless, engaged, or doubled over in laughter (and sometimes all three) whenever he opens up his mouth. Between him and my awesome wife, I am the luckiest guy in the freaking world.
Oh...and remember when CERN proved that Einstein was wrong? yeah... they didn't (I also thought that the "6 billionths of a second over c", or whatever it was, even for super precise scientific instruments seemed a little too within - a - margin - of - error - ly, and it turns out I might have been right).
All right...time to go update the other websites. See y'all! Have a great New Year!
(Speaking of which...any East Coasters who need something to do on New Year's Eve...don't forget it's Plow United's first headlining show since our reformation! With 3rd Year Freshman, The Crash and Jake and the Stiffs, it's gonna be rad!)
