...nearing the end

Next week is the last week of regular classes at DMACC and the week after that is finals week. I have their last essays to grade and then their final portfolios to grade before I'm done with the semester. I feel a lot like the girl in the comic.

...I just spent the last 20 minutes dinking around looking for a comic to post....so clearly...I should be grading papers.

Molly's Tricks

Here's a little video I took while working with Molly on some of her basic tricks. I had given her the "down" command as I started recording. It's hard to run the camera and shake her paw and give her treats at the same time, but you get the idea :).

She also knows how to roll over, turn in circles (but only going one direction--she has a hard time switching), jump up, beg, and stay. Her fetch is hit and miss. She doesn't like to give the ball back.

Spring has Sprung

Downtown Des Moines recorded a high of 90 degrees yesterday. It was not a record high. Today was a much more seasonable 65 degrees. On Saturday they are forecasting a rain/snow mix. Even with the crazy yo-yo Iowa weather we're having, it is feeling much more spring-like. Daffodils are blooming, the trees are sprouting leaves, and our Lilies are starting to come back up. Spring is the best time of year in Iowa. Here's to more 70 degree days (but the 90s can wait until July)!

A Geeky Teaching Moment

A few weeks ago I had a special moment as a teacher. A moment when the stars aligned and created an instance of great geek-i-tude. I'll try to recreate it for you. But, like all amazing moments, it loses some of its brilliance in its retelling.

I'll set the scene. It happened during my Comp II class. We were discussing fallacies of reasoning. My lessons on reasoning are my favorite part of the semester in Comp II. There are always a few students who seem to really understand (or "grok" if you prefer) and relate to these lessons. At any rate, we had already gone over the basics and I was on to providing more elaborate examples.

And so it began.

Me: "Did anyone see last night's episode of the Big Bang Theory?" [two-thirds of the class raised their hands] Well on last night's episode...

Student in the Front Row: WAIT! I haven't seen it yet!

Me: Don't worry, this won't ruin it. ...In last night's episode, Sheldon used the Appeal to Tradition fallacy when he insisted that they eat supper at Sheldon and Leonard's apartment instead of at Raj's apartment because they "always eat supper at their apartment on Thursday nights." [Some nods and smiles of recognition spread across the class.]

Student #1: Hey, didn't they mention post hoc ergo propter hoc in an episode of the Big Bang Theory?

Student #2: I remember that. It was on the one where they all got back from Antarctica.

Student #3: The one where they all came back with beards?

Student #1: Except Sheldon, he just had a goatee.

Student #2: Yeah! He looked like evil Spock!

Student in the Front Row: Khaaaan!

I smiled and told them they were all awesome. A good half of the class had no idea what they were talking about, but it didn't matter. For that moment, I felt like I was in the company of a great group of geeks.

Continuing the Quest

As I blogged months ago, back when I wasn't completely delinquent about blogging, Rob and I have been trying to visit the best locally owned restaurants in Des Moines. We've now been to 27 of the top 100 Restaurants in Central Iowa. So now that I have the Ipod with the camera, I've been taking pictures of our conquests. The photo above is from our trip to Mojos in Johnston. We also recently visited Fire Creek Grill. Both restaurants served delicious food and had friendly service. We'll definitely go back. One of our current favorites from the list is Skips. Skips has one of the best cheeseburgers I've ever eaten...and their fries are good to :).

Spring Restaurant Photos

Dog Pictures

For Valentine's Day Rob gave me a new ipod touch with a camera built in. Which means I take a lot of silly little pictures for no good reason...but it's been fun. :) Usually the cutest thing in my general vicinity is our dog...so I take lots of pictures of her. Some of the better shots I've posted in a set on Flickr.

Eurogaming?

Some of you may know that I like board games (which is a bit of an understatement really). But most think that means I play a lot of Monopoly. Some of the names for the types of boardgames I play are Eurogames (because they are mostly imported from Europe), Hobby Games (because they are bought at hobby type stores), or Designer Games (because they have the name of the game's designer on the box). Some folks have heard of Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride...but if you haven't, here's a nice little feature about these "new" board games that will hopefully make it all clear.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7361550n

Happy Holidays!

We spent the week before Christmas in South Dakota and came back to Iowa on the 26th. We were in Miller for the first part of the week and had an early Christmas with Vera. We received many lovely gifts and went to Alco several times (For those of you not familiar with Alco--it's a very small town K-mart-type store. I've never seen an Alco in a town with a population over 5,000.). The first time we went to Alco they were having a special one-day sale on Wiis. We had wanted a Wii for a while but were waiting for the price to drop or some other good excuse. Well they had them on sale for $179.00 bundled with two games which is the best price we'd seen for them all holiday season. They also had a promotion that day if you spent so much money you got a $20 gift card. So we purchased a Wii in Miller, SD at Alco. It was pretty surprising to us to be quite honest. We've played several games of Wii bowling since :).

On the 22nd, we moved on to Estelline--we planned on traveling on the 23rd, but there was an impending snow event that was supposed to start early on the 23rd...it stalled out and didn't get to Estelline until around 4pm...but at least we were safely there without having to drive through snow. Kris and Marie opted to come early to avoid the snow too. When we arrived in Estelline we spent much of the evening helping Mom and Dad get ready for new carpet that was being laid in the living room and guest room upstairs. We moved furniture and helped dispose of the old carpet etc... On the 23rd the carpet layer came and was done by around lunch time. We then had to move all of the furniture back in. Marie and I took the opportunity to get our hair cut for cheap in downtown Estelline, and then met up with some high school friends at the local bar for supper. On Christmas Eve Stephanie made it down from Fargo. We put of the Christmas tree (one of the casualties of the new carpet was no Holiday decorations), went to church, ate Sweedish meatballs, and opened presents. After a lazy Christmas day (partially due to a touch of the flu) we headed home on the 26th. All in all a busy but nice Christmas. I hope everyone else had a lovely Christmas!

More holiday photos.

Molly

Two weeks ago, Rob and I took a trip (one of many in the last couple months) to one of the local rescue shelters to check out the dogs. We had met a dog at the pet expo the weekend before that we liked and thought it would be nice to see her again and whatever other dogs they had. Well, after a walk, we decided that we just had to bring home Molly. She's about one year old. She's a beagle mix. We're not sure what she's mixed with--my current theory is boston terrier (which would make her a boggle :)). We've been busy trying to get her everything that she needs (since she's our first dog) and changing our schedule a bit to accommodate her. She's still not fully house trained since she's spent the last 4 or 5 months at different shelters. But she knows how to sit and lie down and is picking up on many of our house rules pretty quickly. She is super friendly and loves people and other dogs. She was very well behaved on Beggars Night (that's trick-or-treater night in Des Moines). She wanted to see all of the kids, but she didn't bark, and as long as someone was sitting with her, she wouldn't rush the door. We feel very lucky to have found such a friendly dog from a shelter.

You can find more pictures of Molly here.

In Appreciation of The Paper Clip

As a teacher, one of the most useful tools in my office supply arsenal is the paper clip. I use clips to bind together handouts, quizzes, worksheets, etc. Paper clips keep me from losing student work and help to keep me organized. What's really fascinating about he paper clips is just how simple it is. It has survived virtually unaltered since the late 1800s. There is some confusion over who invented the traditional paper clip as it has no official patent on record. A machine used to create the Gem or Double Loop paper clip was patented in the 1890s and several other types of paper clips were patented later, but none of them as simple and effective as the Gem paper clip. Before paper clips were used, people bound papers together with string or ribbon. For a short while, after the mass production of stick pins came about, folks would pin their papers together, but this was only effective for small stacks of paper. Paper clips are extremely inexpensive, very effective at binding papers together, and can be reused over and over again. How many items do you use every day that were invented more than a hundred years ago?