In today’s installment of Adam Savage’s One Day Builds, Adam re-created the first thing he ever engineered with a releasing mechanism: a ping pong ball launcher. He first made one as a 16-year-old high school student. It involved 3 rubber bands, a spoon, a length of coat-hanger wire, a hinge, some twine threaded around a …
Read more “On Reunions with Lost Selves – or – Whimsy v. Vogons”
I woke up yesterday thinking about what I wanted to write. And today, same. Yesterday I stayed in bed for a while, enjoying being able to puzzle through ideas under the warm sheets, knowing it was -15F outside. Today, I didn’t lounge – even though it was even colder outside. I got out of …
I drove past a small boulevard tree the other day, maybe 8 feet tall with a 1.5-inch diameter trunk, which was completely engulfed in a plastic sheet. A big sheet. I’ll bet it was 10’x 25’. Heavy too. Probably 15-20 mil thick. It was the day after a winter storm that had brought 12 hours …
I had been hoping to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame while I was in Cleveland. I had even made a point to schedule a little extra time into my travel plans, to make it easier to fit that visit around the conference agenda for Crossroads. So I didn’t necessarily need the extra …
It happened last night. The Mutiny. And it made me happy. There is a point in each semester that I give a task to students in a class I am teaching and they ignore it and do something else. If the students already know me, it happens early on. But if they come to …
We have snow on the ground again in Fargo. It seems like it came late this year, but mid-November is a fairly normal time for the first snowstorm of the season, historically. It only seems late because we have gotten early storms the past two or three years – which made our most notorious season …
I am sure we’ve all been there. Trying to stay out of sight from a second-floor window, while surreptitiously watching, enraptured, as the septic guy installs the new drainfield. That’s a thing everyone does, right? How could you not get caught up? Right? It’s an amazing thing to behold. How did he know exactly …
I am not entirely sure when hacking became a good thing. Hacking computer software or systems used to be considered a nefarious endeavor. For the most part, it still seems to be – though there are a handful of people who seek to use this superpower for good. Comedians refer to people who recycle tired …
I got my first adjunct instructor gig while I was still in grad school thanks to my mentor in the Preparing Future Faculty program, Ron Brisbois. The member of the faculty in his department who was becoming the chair was getting a course release, as part of the compensation for the new role. So they …
My office door isn’t plumb. That bugs me. It isn’t far out. You can’t see it. Really, its only noticeable if there is weight on the coat hook on the back of the door. Because then it falls partially-closed. Not fully-closed mind you. Not even mostly closed. Just closed enough to look sloppy. If my …