pedablogical

Today’s Failed Experiment

Well, today’s diet experiment didn’t come out very well. Had brussels sprouts around midday when i got hungry. Wasn’t hungry before then. then around 3 wanted a mocha, so got that. Felt full and didn’t eat anything else.

By the time I got home at 7ish, I was hungry. Went about cooking something (cabbage, whole wheat couscous, some beef stock). Suddenly I was so dizzy I thought I was going to fall down or pass out. I haven’t been that dizzy in a very, very long time, and certainly not on the very first day of a diet. I don’t know what happened. And at that point, I gave up again and ate several things that I shouldn’t have.

Why can’t I figure out a diet that I can actually manage to succeed at? Why can’t I get my head to do things properly? I hate being such a failure :(

E-ports and Lesson Revision

This week’s Inbox is out. The Ideas section was inspired by the e-portfolios statement adopted at CCCC last week. I worked in a link to Kathi’s “Postmodernism, Palimpsest, and Portfolios: Theoretical Issues in the Representation of Student Work” (link only works for 21 days). My related NCTE Inbox blog entry offers some commentary on the thinking that should be behind students’ Web-sensible e-portfolios.

Also (finally) finished revisions of the lesson plan that ties to the English Journal article that I published this month (link only gets you to a login, but hey, I’m published on paper). The lesson Many Years Later: Responding to Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool” explores the poem and then asks students to adopt the persona of a character from the poem and write about their thoughts from a modern-day perspective. Not necessarily a new idea, but a fun assignment nonetheless.

Yesterday’s Favorite Photo

Okay, I know it’s pretty much a stock photo subject, but it came out well and I like it. Tonight I’m going to try to get some building shots.

Hokie Fan in Illinois Country

Uncle Buddy passed away Sunday

Charles Melvin Sullivan, 83, Rockwood, passed on March 4. A graveside service will be held at 1 p.m. Thursday at Rockwood IOOF Cemetery.

Blizzard 2007

I know, long time, no post. I’ll explain all that later. Had an ugly blizzard Monday & Tuesday that dumped tons of snow. Took some pictures to demonstrate the evil of it all. I was only able to shovel out the sidewalk and a little path into the garage before my back seized up. Ended up having to over-medicate with Tylenol and go to bed early. Couldn’t sit in the chair anymore without pain.

I had decided that the construction crew working on the house behind mine was driving up and down the alley, so I’d be okay without any more digging. I thought that the drifts in the driveway were lower than the ones in the yard, so I thought it would all be okay. Just needed to get some momentum out of the garage and all would be well.

So at 9:15 this morning, I tried to go to work this morning and was stuck at the end of the driveway, trying to turn into the alley, within about 60 seconds. Got out, put on boots, and tried to dig it out a bit around each tire. Tried again. Still stuck. It really looked impossible, but I was supposed to be at work, and I was just certain that if I could get into the ruts that the construction guys had made I’d be okay. So more dig-dig-dig. Tried again. Still stuck. Called in to work to say I’d be late.

Next thing I knew the construction crew shows up with shovels. 1/2 of them were Mennonite or Amish from their appearance. They tell me that their trucks are higher than my Vue and that they had been dragging the bottoms of their trucks every time they went up and down the drive. Told me that I would never make it.

And then they took care of getting me to work. The Mennonite guys and the foreman pushed my car back into the driveway. One of them asked me if I lived here alone, and I said I did and that I had tried to dig out but I have a herniated disc can couldn’t get much done. I thought they were just making conversation. Next, a couple more of the Mennonite guys pulled this forklift/backhoe thing that they had been using to lift things up to the second story of the house out into the alley. They had put a piece of chip board across it to create a make-shift plow. They lowered it to the ground and pushed the snow out of the alley so that I could get out. Mennonite guys not working the forklift/backhoe thing were shoveling the edges of the drive between the forklift’s passes. The guys who WEREN’T Mennonite stood around, holding additional snow shovels and watching, which tells you a lot about values systems.

So within about 15 minutes they had me out of my driveway and on my way to
work. Now they had some self-interest, since they couldn’t get their
trucks back down the alley till mine was moved, but they really could have
stopped once they moved my car back into my driveway. They were just nice
guys who came out to help me and apparently felt sorry for me because I didn’t have anyone else here to help me.

Want more proof? When I got home from work this evening, I found that they kept working on it after I left. They drove their trucks and such up and down the alley till it was all flattened out about a car width and a half wide and they hand shoveled my drive down to the concrete. Mennonite construction guys (or Amish or
whatever they were) rule.

My Writing: California English arrives!

My article has officially been published. I have two beautiful shiny copies of the journal right here on my desk to prove it. I love the smell of new journals, but they are especially wonderful when your article is tucked inside :)

I was looking for this Fiesta Ware pattern that I saw in a gift shop on the West Virginia Turnpike. Amazon says:

No results match your search for “snowman fiesta” in Home & Garden. Did you mean “norman feast”?

O_o

Yes, please pass the mead. A Norman Feast will certainly work as a substitute for a snowman platter. Thank you Amazon.

“He was already gone”

PapPap passed away in his sleep yesterday morning. His wife Mary got up as usual and went to make coffee. When she returned to wake him, “he was already gone” (her words). I don’t have any more details.

There are some errors in the obit below, but I’m posting it as is so that we have a record once that newspaper Web page is gone. I did find their little American flag graphic sort of appallingly horrible, so I replaced it with a nicer looking one.

I’ll post more later. For anyone who might have looked for me, I won’t be in Nashville now for the Annual Convention, as I have family things to attend to.

Earl P. Hahn, 91, passed away November 13, 2006.

Earl P. Hahn
He was born April 6, 1915 in Independence, W. Va., then moved to Uniontown, Pa. at age 2. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and retired May 5, 1976 from the Uniontown Post Office. Earl was a member of Johnson United Methodist Church, V.F.W. Post 47, and American Legion Post 51.

Earl was preceded in death by his first wife of 53 years, Eleanor (nee Goodwin), who passed away in 1990. He is survived by his wife of 12 years, Mary, whom he married Aug. 5, 1994 in Akron. Earl is also survived by his daughters, Patti Gardner and Cheryl White; five grandchildren, Traci, Kerri (Randall), Holli, Noel, and Heather; two great-grandchildren, Kelli and Eryk Drewry; sister, Mabel Bubonovick; stepchildren, Robert Long and Cheryl (Rick J.) Kaderly; two stepgrandchildren, Richard D. Kaderly and Michelle (Bryant) Anderson; soon-to-be stepgrandson, Hunter Anderson; and extended family, Kris (Fred) Beitzel, Kathi (Dan) Witt, Kevin (Wendy) Conner and families.

Friends may call at the Bacher Funeral Home, 3326 Manchester Rd., on Wednesday from 3 to 7 p.m., where services will be held Thursday at 10 a.m., Pastor Scott Wilson officiating. Interment at Ohio Western Reserve National Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Johnson United Methodist Church, 3409 Johnson Rd., Norton, OH 44203, in memory of Earl. Funeral home map, directions, and the Hahn Family condolence book are available at www.bacherfuneralhome.com. (Bacher, 330-644-0024.)

Published in the Akron Beacon Journal on 11/14/2006.