February 26, 2006

Bitter cold and the snow equals crazy wintricious

Okay, so it's not as bad as all that here today, but it's steady enough and ongoing enough that the roads never quite get clear, and it freezes when it hits the windshield, and when it comes down to it, after my fender bender a couple of years ago, I don't push it if I don't have to.

Worse comes to worst, I can always trudge up the hill to the RiteAid for some Mr. Pibb and some red vines.

Posted by cgbrooke at 04:46 PM | Comments (1)

January 30, 2006

Umm...what?!

Okay, I don't spend a whole lot of time attending to my telephone, so I don't have a great deal of prior events to compare this to, but this phone message, received at 10 in the morning or so on Sunday, is definitely one of the oddest I've ever gotten. For those of you not inclined to listen to the mp3, here's the transcript:

[breathy voice]
Hey, Collin.
How are you?
We had a great time last night.
If you want, you can still call me back, at XXX-X901.
I know it's exactly the same number as yours.
Coincidence, huh?
Almost the same anyway.
I wanna hear from you soon.
Call me back, baby.
Bye.

Umm. Okay. One of three things happening: either someone is giving out my name and number, someone's having a little fun with me, or someone's having a little fun with the person whose number is only one digit away from mine.

If this was really a person who knew me, then they'd also know that my Saturday nights are much more likely to be spent working in my office (which is where I was during our "great time together" last weekend) or in my apartment. And since my less-than-great times don't involve me waking up before noon on a Sunday, what makes her think that I'd be available at 10 am after the alleged great time?

Really, I'm almost flattered that someone would bother. Almost.

Posted by cgbrooke at 04:50 PM | Comments (4)

January 16, 2006

A Time to Freeze, A Time to Cry

I have to keep reminding myself to simply be thankful for the temporary warm snap that pervaded upstate NY last week. If I don't, I fear that I'll find myself more bitter than normal about the single-digit weather that we had last night. In roughly 48 hours, the temperature dropped almost 60 degrees, disproving once and for all the idea that we live in a zone that even remotely resembles temperate.

So it was a good weekend to stay inside, and inside I stayed, only to see the two teams I root for (Colts and Bears) stink it up. I feel a little better about the Bears, because they just hit the wall after having overachieved this season. The Colts, though, looked a lot more human than they were supposed to. The best observation I heard on ESPN was the fact that the Bears actually outscored the Colts, and I can't imagine what the odds on that would have been.

Classes start for us tomorrow, and while that might be cause for sadness for some, I'm not teaching this semester thanks to my various administrative responsibilities. Of course, thanks to those same responsibilities, I've basically been "at school" since last Monday--I had meetings every day but Friday. "Course substitution" doesn't sound as appealing as "course release," but really, it's the former that I've got. And as is sometimes the case with said "releases," it's not unusual to get a semester's release for what is effectively a year round task. Without sounding too much like I'm complaining, I hope, I will simply observe that there is a certain amount of this "release" that was earned last fall, believe me.

So, welcome back everyone. Here's hoping that we all have semesters that are productive and rewarding. That is all.

Posted by cgbrooke at 11:45 PM | Comments (2)

January 13, 2006

The City of Lost Nail Clippers

For another change of pace, I thought I might detail Something That I Bought Myself Over the Break That Doesn't Really Qualify as a Gift. Specifically, I purchased what may very well be the first of 20 or 30 nail clippers this year.

You see, while I know my apartment pretty well, having lived here for close on five years now, there remain parts of its geography that are still a mystery to me. One such is the City of Lost Nail Clippers, the place where each nail clipper I purchase retreats after one or two uses. This City, I have come to believe, has passed particularly liberal emigration policies, policies that are irresistible to each subsequent nail clippper I buy and bring home.

Once, I bought a nail clipper on the way to school, and managed to keep it in my office for close to two or three months. Somehow, it got into my bag, though, and soon joined its compatriots in the city.

And sometimes, when I'm feeling particularly stubborn, I like to imagine that someday soon, I'll just let my fingernails grow to epic proportions, give up typing altogether, and refuse to cut them until at least one of my nail clippers returns to my medicine cabinet.

In the meantime, though, I suppose I can't begrudge them their City. Their needs are few, as far as I can tell, and they're not interfering with my life other than the occasional bother of an extra 89 cents at the convenience store.

Posted by cgbrooke at 11:32 PM | Comments (4)

January 10, 2006

Best. Gift. Ev0r.

Rather than placing my various gift-givers in competition with each other, I thought I might simply compete amongst myselves, and tell you all what the best gift I gave myself for Christmas was. And yes, I got myself more than one, and yes, the gift I have in mind is the best despite the fact that one of them was a new television (replacing the one I bought me when I got my first job 8 (!!!) years ago).

This reflection is prompted by the fact that yesterday, I got online, and bought myself a gift box containing a six-pack of 8.5 oz. jars of mustard. Specifically, I bought myself Boetje's Stone Ground Dutch Mustard, and if I do say so, it is the best mustard known to Collin.

Shall I tell you of a quest for the perfect mustard that began some 20 years ago, when I left home for college and left the supply radius of Boetje Foods? Shall I tell you of my disappointment with the Grey Poupons and the stone ground German, Polish, and American mustards? Shall I wax nostalgic for the days when I could spread Boetje's on a sandwich or between a cracker and cheese, and it would evoke just the right combination of mustardy goodness with sinus-clearing, eye-watering spice? Shall I recount for you the number of sandwiches I've eaten in the past week, simply because I brought a jar of Boetje's back from the Quad-Cities with me? Shall I sing you for you the parody of the old Judy Garland song "I'm Just Wild about Harry" that I sing every December, wherein I announce that "I'm just wild about Boetje's"?

Okay, maybe not. But I kid you not when I say that I've tried every mustard I could lay my hands on, and never found one that I like half as much. As dorky as this entry may seem, the fact of the matter is that if I had to name a favorite condiment, this would be it. And while the absence of Boetje's never stopped me from eating a sandwich, its presence will make a condimental difference in my life. Okay, I just wrote that sentence so that I could use the word "condimental."

Maybe it's the nostalgia of putting it on crackers and cheese at my grandparents' house when I was a kid (and figuring out how much I could put on before it would make me cry). I don't know. But as goofy as I felt yesterday ordering jars of mustard online, not to mention talking about it now, believe me when I say that I'll thank myself for it in a few days...

That is all.

Posted by cgbrooke at 04:49 PM | Comments (6)

December 31, 2005

Collin 3, Winter 0

I must say that I never realized just how many "Icy Pavement Zones" there are in between Syracuse and Binghamton, and I would have continued in my ignorant bliss but for the fact that it was night, there was a light snow drizzle, and it was about 25 degrees.

Despite the adrenalin rush that this weather prompted, the drive was pretty easy, as I completed the 3rd of my 3 holiday legs without incident. In fact, driving to the store today, I encountered more snow in that brief trip than I had over the 2000 miles (and change) that I drove in the last few weeks.

And now I can begin the year-long process of steeling myself for next year's MLA. Unlike this year, where we had no one on the market from Syracuse, it's possible that we'll have as many as 7 or 8 next year, and so I'll have other duties to attend to, in addition to any potential interviews that I might have (up for tenure = on the market).

All in all, from the perspective both of a potential interviewee and the chair of our program's Placement Committee, it was probably a good thing for me to be there this year as part of an interview team. You never "forget" the experience, but it doesn't hurt to freshen up the memory...

Oh, and a happy new year to all...

Posted by cgbrooke at 05:58 PM | Comments (0)

December 20, 2005

Five Holiday Treats Appearing on a Gift/Plate this Season

1. Chocolate Crinkles


2. Golden Cookies


3. Holiday M&M Cookies


4. Homemade Toffee


5. Peppermint Bark

It's mostly old standbys this year, as arriving in Iowa last Friday night doesn't leave me with loads of time for baking. But baking I've been doing, with more to come.

The house I grew up in is finally sold, and so this is the last holiday that I'll spend in this kitchen. It's been a little bit of a challenge, because most of the kitchen gear is sitting in boxes at the new house, and I've had to make do a little more than usual, including a supply trip for new cooling racks, sifter, spatula, pan, etc. And that trip included the obligatory encounter with someone who was astounded that I do the baking 'round here.

Oh, and I think my wrapping's done for the most part. Not bad at all.

Posted by cgbrooke at 12:12 AM | Comments (4)

December 06, 2005

On this day in history

The Irish Free State is declared (1921)
Kitty O'Neil sets a new women's land speed record (1976)
Comedian Steven Wright is born (1955)
The US gov't standardizes the size of license plates (1955)
Agnes Moorehead (Endora on Bewitched) is born (1900)
A federal judge rules that Ulysses is in fact not obscene (1933)
The Great Halifax Explosion! (1917)
Ira Gershwin is born (1896)
Orange County goes bankrupt (1994)

And for good measure, on my own 25th birthday, Elián González was born in Cuba (1993)

Just so's you know.

Posted by cgbrooke at 11:39 AM | Comments (12)

December 05, 2005

Who's feeling old?

I spend roughly one week of any given year contemplating my relationship to time, calendars, and age. For me, it began on Saturday. I woke up a little earlier than normal that morning, and zoned in front of the television, taking in what felt to me like pretty sparse programming. VH1's "Top 40 Videos of 2005" seemed like as good a choice as any.

You might think that I'm about to wax nostalgic about how I used to recognize most of the videos and/or artists on such a show, but in fact, I'm not. I still recognize most of them, and while I don't consider myself particularly attuned to the pop scene, I do still keep an ear open now and again. Instead, I want to talk about the show itself. In most cases, we got maybe 10 seconds of video, and then 2 minutes of random J-list celebrities (including a disproportionate number of unemployed comedians) literally explaining the videos to the audience.

Here's my question, which betrays my age, I fear: on what planet are there people who want to watch random pseudo-celebrities explain music videos to us rather than just watching more of the videos themselves? It's not like videos are a genre given to excessive narrative intricacy in the first place--I certainly don't need someone to explain them to me. It's as though Exposition has been elevated to the level of programming.

Maybe I'm just being curmudgeonly. I'm allowed, given that tomorrow I begin a year-long transition from my mid-30s to my late-30s.

That is all.

Posted by cgbrooke at 12:38 PM | Comments (3)

November 20, 2005

A girl after my own heart

Met up this afternoon with Douglas, Enslow, and Marlo, who were in town over the weekend for a bridal shower. First time I'd met the latter two--Douglas and I were compatriots at the Arlington School back in the day. I tried to see them last month whilst I was in NYC, but my trip coincided with Marlo's birth.

Anyhow, we met up at Starbucks, and spent a nice hour over coffee & tea, and the entire time, despite the yammering of parents and friend, despite the bustle of a campus coffeeshop, and despite the music that's always pitched just a little too loud in the Bucks, Marlo slept like an angel. D & E will look back upon these days with fondness in the months ahead, as I'm sure she won't always sleep like that, but for now, I was pretty impressed.

That's all.

Posted by cgbrooke at 04:32 PM | Comments (0)

November 17, 2005

Small consolation

I hear tell that this is perhaps the latest we've ever gone before our first "hard" frost/snow, but really, that's small consolation when it was in the 60's two days ago, and tonight I had to sweep snow off the car before driving to the store.

Ah well. I do live in the north, and it's not like this is the last snowfall I'm likely to see this year/month/week. I can't really complain, except to note that it always takes me a few days of sub-freezing temps to get used to dressing for it properly and steeling myself sufficiently when I go outside.

No real Lost commentary this week. While I appreciated the backstory for the Tailfolk, it was a lot of time compressed into the episode, and I didn't feel like we got much. There was a different Dharma logo (an arrow instead of a swan), and a hint about the U.S. military. I'm looking forward to next week, when the two groups of castaways finally interact--I hadn't really realized how long it had been since we'd seen some of them...

Posted by cgbrooke at 10:59 PM | Comments (1)

November 16, 2005

Who's your uncle?

Last night, at around 8:15 I think, my nephew was born at a healthy 9.4 lbs. I won't actually meet young Patrick for another month yet, but if some pictures happen in my direction, I'll be sure to post them here...

Congratulations, Tom & Jen!

Posted by cgbrooke at 02:29 PM | Comments (3)

November 08, 2005

The opposite of silver lining

I've come to the conclusion that there is only one thing worse than having your dental work take longer because you are bleeding, and that's having your dentist tell you this in an accusatory tone, as though you were bleeding intentionally.

Don't get me wrong. I understand that there are things that I can do over the long term to cut down on gum sensitivity (i.e., abuse them gradually to inure them to the abuse that they might take in the dentist's office), but there's not a whole lot I can do when I'm under the drill.

I'm just sayin.

Posted by cgbrooke at 11:05 AM | Comments (3)

October 26, 2005

Crowning/Achievement

The peoples, they sometimes ask me, "Collin, we know that there's no way that we will ever be able to achieve the level of encyclopedic, dictionarious smartitude that you yourself display on a daily basis, but if you were to imagine for a split second that such an impossibilistic transformulation might be achievocated, where would you suggest we begin?"

My answer is a simple one: cryptic crosswords. At the back of Harper's and the Atlantic every month, you'll find cryptic crosswords--they're crossword puzzles on steroids. Each clue is itself a puzzle, and often even placing the answers into the grid requires a little extra as well. Here's an example clue: this month's Harper's puzzle, 5 down: "Put new flavor in substance mess." "Mess" is the synonym for the answer, and the rest requires you to put "new flavor" (N+TANG) into "substance" (ELEMENT), arriving at ENTANGLEMENT. Simple, right? Every clue is like that. Much of the time, I have to let clues sort of sink into my subconscious, where the rules for doing things with language are a lot more fluid. I'm usually better at solving them late at night for that reason.

I'm feeling in a bragging mood today, because I completed this month's puzzle much more quickly than I normally do (and during the day no less), suggesting that perhaps my genius biorhythms are beginning to peak for the month. Usually these puzzles take me upwards of a week, and that's when I manage to finish them, which I do probably only a third of the time.

So that's the "achievement" part of my title. I'm also in a decent mood because today was the final step in the dental cycle that included drilling, scraping, a root canal, and finally, today, a more or less permanent crown. I didn't fully realize, I don't think, how much dread both preceded and accompanied this process, a fact that became clear only as that dread lifted.

So yeah, it's not been a bad day.

Posted by cgbrooke at 06:46 PM | Comments (0)

October 11, 2005

BEST. IHE. EV0R

As you might gather from previous entries, it's rare that I offer unqualified praise for sites like the Chronicle. In fact, I'm a little behind in the sense that I haven't yet thanked CHE for publishing something sensible about weblogs (and by someone who actually knows about weblogs).

But leave it to Inside Higher Ed to publish something so brilliant and timely on the topic of technology. In their Views section today is a piece called Mirror, Mirror on the Web, and it's specifically about the relationship between print journals and the websites that mirror them. I don't want to ruin your experience of reading this modern masterpiece for the first time, but here was one of my favorite parts:

Although the quantity and quality of writing that I read online almost certainly differs from the scholarly reading I do, I would argue that the biggest change is that I practice reading differently. And this is a truth that, traditionally, disciplines in the humanities have been slow to accept. We are still prone to thinking of technology as something added to what are already substantial professional duties, instead of conceiving of it as a way of approaching those duties differently.

Oh. My. God. The amazing thing about this is that I was just thinking this very thing not more than a couple of weeks ago. This writer has absolutely nailed it. And in what is perhaps the most impressive part of the piece, he goes on to explain how he's trying to make this insight concrete in the form of the journal website he's editing.

All I can say is Wow. But don't take my word for it. Go read it yourself, and take its insights to heart. This could be the opening gesture for a radical transformation of the academy as we know it.

Really. It's just brilliant. Brrrr-illiant. That is all.

Posted by cgbrooke at 11:12 AM | Comments (7)

October 01, 2005

World enough and teeth

It's been a thin week here, not the least reason for which was the fact that I had my first root canal. Imagine my joy. In fact, it's really been a week or so since I was able to shove aside the excitement of my impending oral surgery in order to get some work done. And blogging has, well, suffered.

Here are the posts that you would have gotten to read this week, had I been able to write them. If you're lucky, and really really nice to me, perhaps I'll crank one or two out this weekend:

• A much more elaborate read of Weinberger's "The New Is"
• A TV rundown, wherein Alias, Lost, Prison Break, Invasion, and Threshold are considered
• A response to the "pink locker room" scandal at the U of Iowa
• At least one or two linked replies to stuff I've browsed but haven't been able to think about
• A combination post where I praise LibraryThing, and talk about my upcoming appearance in NY (10:45 am)
• An exhortation to brush one's teeth more regularly and effectively
• A fond farewell to the MLB regular season

That's about it for this week. I'm pretty sure, had I not had mouth troubles, that this would have been my best week of blogging ever, so I can only apologize to all of you who have checked back daily expecting to see more than a couple of lame entries. Rest assured, though, that the pain you feel at your loss is a distant second to the pain I'm feeling. Really. Trust me.

That's all.

Posted by cgbrooke at 08:59 PM | Comments (3)

August 01, 2005

Happy Joe's

Happy Joe's Pizza and Ice Cream Parlor is a Quad-Cities institution. It's a regional pizza chain, and when I was growing up, it was the place to have a birthday party. Anyhow, when I was in junior high and high school, our family used to join one or two others for a weekly Sunday night trip to HJ. Needless to say, as kids started leaving for college, the tradition kind of fell by the wayside.

Last night we had something of a Happy Joe's reunion, even though most of the "kids" are still elsewhere. We took over a corner of the place with about 16 or 17 people, zipped through several large pizzas, and had a lovely time. The pic above (which links to the Flickr set of our evening) is of my sister-in-law's kids (my step-nephew and nieces?) Kate, Matt, and Natalie. Oh, and that's Happy Joe himself who's staring out at you from the menu. And the beverage cups. And the pizza dish. And the napkins. It's hard not to feel that Happy Joe is still watching me as I write this....

Posted by cgbrooke at 10:19 AM | Comments (4)

July 30, 2005

For Sale

I forgot to mention the other day that we did finally get the online ad up for the house where I grew up. I can take credit for neither the pictures nor the text that accompanies them, although I did spend a little time taming some of the prose, and entering the more mundane data.

So...if any of you are contemplating a move to the ol' Quad-Cities, and are looking for a nice family home, act now! I have it on good authority that there will be a discount for regular Collin vs. Blog readers.

Posted by cgbrooke at 08:18 PM | Comments (0)

July 29, 2005

Girls don't make passes

The one thing that I wanted to do this summer with the "extra" money I received for teaching was to upgrade the old eyes. It's been 5 or 6 years since my last exam, and the prescription on my sunglasses was even older (and more fishbowl-inducing) than the one on my normal glasses.

So, Wednesday was Lenscrafters Day--my stepmom and I spent roughly 4 hours within the sphere of influence of the Crafters, from eye exam to trying on some of the ugliest things I've ever seen to the few minutes I spent seriously contemplating my options. The result is that I'm bespectacled much more trendily than I was last week, and I won't be getting headaches on the road when I switch over to shades. My eyes thank me.

These are the old ones, and when I say old, I mean it. When the finish starts to wear off, and the lenses start to permanently tint from age, if you're me, that apparently means that you have to wait three years for the next pair.

These will take a little while, even though they have the advantage of making my face look tanner. I'm still not quite used to the spaces where I no longer have lens to look through, and I still smirk a little at the trendiness of them, but I think they'll do all right. I didn't succumb to the temptation of glare resistant lenses, though, partly because I would have had to wait an extra 2-3 weeks, because I would have paid another $40 for the privilege, and mostly because I've heard that you can scratch such lenses just by thinking about them funny.

In other news, this weekend is the local Bix Fest, which includes all the jazz you could ever want to hear, as well as one of the best road races in the country. I've mostly been helping my mom get ready to sell her place--flyers, data sheets, etc.--and trying to do a little writing in those spare moments. I'll be here for another week or so and then it's the road once more.

Posted by cgbrooke at 01:16 PM | Comments (5)

June 24, 2005

To Dance or to Coma, that is the question

Why aren't I dancing around my office, you might well ask?

Well, do you remember rain sticks? There is a shocking level of correspondence between the sounds that rain sticks make and the creaking coming from my limbs right now, the only difference being that the movement of my limbs is also accompanied by loud groans and moans.

You see, on Wednesday, the people in charge of my building dropped by to check on my progress (which was fairly substantial). I said that I'd be ready on Friday to move, and they told me that there'd be "some guys" coming by to "help me." Already I'm a little suspicious, because my understanding was that "helping me" had originally been defined as "moving my stuff for me, considering the colossal disruption that this process will have already had on my life." Alas. "Some guys" ended up being the property manager. I recruited Derek, and the three of us moved me from one building to the next.

So, anyway, I'm moved, and if I'm lucky, the ache in my body will vanish sometime in the next week. If I'm luckier, I'll find a comparably priced place to move to, since I'm boxed up anyway and less than pleased at the phantom "some guys" that may never have existed in the first place.

Why might I dance around my office, you might ask?

Well, I just picked up Nouvelle Vague, which bills as an album of bossa nova covers of new wave music. Think smoky French lounge covers of the Clash, Joy Division, XTC, Modern English, the Cure, Sisters of Mercy, etc. Très intéressant, si vous me demandez.

Ok. It's not really dance-around-your-office music, but it's kind of fun.

Posted by cgbrooke at 07:00 PM | Comments (2)

June 22, 2005

"None of us is promised tomorrow."

John wrote that exactly a month ago, in a post on the occasion of the 2-year anniversary of his blog, where he reflected on what he had accomplished over those two years:

In looking back, I think I've pretty well accomplished my central purpose, to document my work as a writing teacher in a large two-year college. I write from the context of 40 years of full-time teaching, with an annual course load of 8 classes, typically loaded this way: 5 first-year comp (150 students), 1 developmental comp (25 students), 2 elective courses, one in literature, one in linguistics (90 students), for an annual total of 265 students. Over that time, I also taught summer session about 80% of the years. What I have tried to do here is describe some of the day-to-day realities of teaching, service and professional development work that fits most of the people who teach college composition full-time, namely my community college colleagues.

I've also tried to address issues of theory and practice as they have been articulated by leaders in our profession through journals and conferences. And, frankly, I count myself as one of those leaders.

That post also made reference to the health problems that claimed his life yesterday, problems that kept him, over the last month or so, from posting at the prolific rate that he had established for himself over the last two years. This should have been a sign, I suppose, but John was also adamant about his blog as "a public place, not one where I will go into personal and private matters," and so I had no idea that his health was so precarious.

I can't say that I really knew John all that well, having only met him face to face in March in San Francisco, but of course I knew him better than that. Anytime I posted something critical of the field (and granted, it's not all that often), I could rely on the fact that he'd leave me a comment, not out of a desire to defend the field so much as to let me know that "the field" was listening. There are some people who do that, who listen so well, that it ceases to matter so much whether or not they agree. A lot of the time, it's enough to know that you're taken seriously.

And it was important to me (to many of us, I suspect) that John, whose experiences were vastly different from my own, took me/us seriously. Maybe that's why, even though I would be hard pressed to demonstrate that he and I were anything more than acquaintances, I feel like I've lost a good friend today. I feel like we've all lost a good friend today.

Posted by cgbrooke at 03:01 PM | Comments (3)

June 06, 2005

Hiat-ish?

I know. It's hard to argue that I'm "back" from hiatus if I'm only posting once a week.

I've got tons of stuff going on right now, though, and much of it isn't especially bloggable, I suppose. One of the background processes that's taking up a lot of spare time is my upcoming pseudo-move. They're going to be working on my building in a month or so, and so my rental company is going to move me to another building for a month and then back (they'll be working on that other building after they're done with mine). And that means that I have to spend the next couple of weeks slowly dis-embedding myself from the space I've occupied for four years now. Ugh. And I don't even have a supernewbiggerbetter place lined up to provide a light at the end of the packing tunnel. I'm going to end up in the same damn place.

I will probably make some decisions, though, about how embedded I want to be upon my return. I've filled up about a dozen boxes so far with books that I'm mentally filing into long-term storage, and I'm doing what I can to be a little more willing to pitch the junk.

As happy as I am about that, it hasn't helped for this to be going on while I'm teaching another grad seminar, working on dissertations, getting CCC Online going, revising my book manuscript, etc. I assumed that my schedule would lighten up after the semester ended, and if anything, it's been even worse.

And the blog, it suffers as a result.

Posted by cgbrooke at 09:39 PM | Comments (3)

May 19, 2005

Hiatus

Other than a long day tomorrow, and a handful of 711 projects still outstanding, the semester is done.

And partly in celebration, partly in hibernation, I'm going to be taking a 2-week hiatus from the blog, from my feeds, from my department, and so on. If you need to reach me, email is the most likely way. I'll be back on the SU campus during the last week of May, teaching a summer course, but until then, I'll be pretty scarce, and most likely enforcing a strict window on my online activity.

Happy Mother's Day, and I'll see you in a couple of weeks.

Posted by cgbrooke at 05:36 PM | Comments (1)

May 05, 2005

sync-o de mayo

Happy birthsday to Derek, Donna, Kenny B, and Karl. If our proposal gets accepted for next year's CCCC, I'll be on a panel with at least two of them.

On a completely unrelated note, I wanted to toss a link towards Matt Welch's latest article for Baseball Analysts, Watching Dave Hansen: Living Vicariously Through the Career of a Pinch-Hitter. More and more, this country has become a football and basketball nation, with baseball occupying this weird place that's part sport, part business, part mythology. Whether I'm watching games or not, and even if I'm focused on other sports at the time, I'm a lifelong baseball fan through-and-through. I know not everyone comes here for baseball updates, but Welch's profile is worth a read anyway. Hansen's the kind of athlete that I wish we heard more about, regardless of the sport.

Posted by cgbrooke at 11:48 PM | Comments (1)

March 30, 2005

Sisyphussy

And then there are weeks where the prospect of changing out of sweat pants is almost more than you can bear emotionally. There are all these things to do, and you have no idea where you might begin. There's that hill, and all those boulders, and you can't escape the feeling that every single one of them is rigged to roll just as you crest it.

It passes. It always does. You've been around this track often enough to know that there's an inevitable energy dip right around this time every semester, where the break was just long enough to get you longing for summer, where the distance between here and there is just long enough to encourage everyone into thinking that they can get just one more big project finished up (with your help, of course).

Invariably, April is paralyzing. Don't believe it? Check me out a year ago this Friday:

I must confess to having been more than a little depressed for the past couple of days. Whether that's the cause for my absence from cgbvb or a result of it, I don't know. I suspect a little of both. Work piled up, and I simply wasn't prepared (landing in Syracuse Monday night) to take on a heavy week of classes and meetings. At the end of the semester, it seems like every couple of hours adds yet another thing to the old to-do list, far faster than I can get things crossed off.

Ahhh, the good old days. That is all.

Posted by cgbrooke at 11:48 PM | Comments (4)

February 16, 2005

In Praise of Sloth

I want to pause for a moment, and express my sincerest thanks to all of those sites whose feeds I've aggregated and who have blogged only lightly in the past week or so.

It used to be that I worked pretty hard to keep my unread feeds in the double digits, which can be challenging when you're subbed to sites in the triple digits. Nevertheless, I managed it. This week, I neglected my Bloglines, and as a result, I'm closing to topping the 1000 mark in unread posts. And unread most of them will remain, I fear, although hopefully not unskimmed. I make no guarantees, however.

Thanks too to all who responded, publicly or privately, to Monday's little slice of toxic. I'm calmer now, although some of the underlying disappointment persists.

That is all.

Posted by cgbrooke at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)

February 14, 2005

There are days

There are days where I wish with all of me that I kept a pseudonymous blog.
There are days where the rules I set for myself, and not just here, keep me from saying what I should.
There are days where it all just seems uphill and getting steeper.

There are days where I don't have a lot of love in my heart.

And days where being dramatic feels better than being wise.

That's all. And here I thought that cranky was last week.

Posted by cgbrooke at 07:26 PM | Comments (7)

December 31, 2004

Dear 2004,

I haven't been as attentive here towards the end as I know I probably should have. But then, my years always seem to end with more of a slow fade than any sort of big send-off. Blame it on circumstance--I always wait until after the turn of the year to leave Iowa, and as a result, I've never really celebrated NYE. Yeah, I know there was that one year in New York, but it was so cold we didn't end up seeing the ball drop. Fact is that if I weren't always awake at midnight anyway, I probably wouldn't bother.

At the same time, I feel like I owe you more than a disinterested shrug. I mean, this was going to be a pretty big year, an end-of-the-tunnel year, right? I did finish a draft of the manuscript, and got a start on a second one. That's pretty solid. I took a real vacation, physically and psychologically, for most of the fall. And it was my first full calendar year with this site--granted, momentum's fallen off a bit lately, but you can't complain too much about that. I honestly didn't believe I'd last more than about six months, enough to say I'd done it and that's all.

Subtract all of the run-of-the-mill, and what else did I accomplish? I'd like to think that I've gotten a little more reflective, in specific ways, and that perhaps I've even added some clarity where before I didn't have it. Most days, that feels like a good thing. I don't know that my life's changed as much as I'd hoped it would a year ago, but perhaps that'll give me enough incentive to change it more than I expect over the next year. Then again, who doesn't say that? How many years have I experienced where I've wished for less change?

Still, all things considered, not bad. Not bad at all. So long, thanks, and I'll see you round the corner.

cgb

Posted by cgbrooke at 02:07 AM | Comments (0)

December 12, 2004

Shopping List for the Temporarily Damned

4 cans, Campbell's Chicken N Stars soup
3 2-liter bottles, Canada Dry Ginger Ale
1 box, Original Premium Saltine Crackers
1 bottle, Pepto-Abysmal, Cherry

Repeat as necessary.

The blog eyes me suspiciously, but only for as long as it takes to hear my stomach continue its long stream of alien noises. I know that this is surely a failure of imagination on my part, but right now, it's hard for me to imagine a weekend much worse than one where my sole focus is on rehydration, at least when the dehydration is neither voluntary nor alcohol-related.

That is all.

Posted by cgbrooke at 11:31 PM | Comments (5)

December 06, 2004

Anni-Vs. Blog

Now, I promised myself that, no matter what, I would avoid waxing tragic on the occasion of my birthday. Figuring that the easiest way to fulfill my promise was to simply avoid posting, I almost decided not to. Instead, though, I'll confine myself to a couple of observations:

I've been more conscious lately of how, when you're growing up, birthdays are an occasion to gather people together and to make a big production of things. At some point, for me at least, that sort of flipped. My plan today? Go see a movie, maybe get myself a new pair of kicks, and avoid the department faculty meeting. It's like the difference between freedom to and freedom from. Now, birthdays mean I get permission to avoid big productions and indulge my will-to-hermit.

And like BicycleMark, I tend to be very conscious of the old-man/nerisms that I've started to pick up. For whatever reason, I find myself drifting back to a mild Texas-ish accent from time to time (that's "tahm to tahm," for those of you keeping score). I've noticed that my identifications when I watch tv or see a movie have started to skew older--it's now harder for me to identify straight protagonist. I'm increasingly convinced that life is too short to care about every little detail. On occasion, I find that I'm all right with being the villain in someone else's epic, even at the cost of being the hero of mine. I'm still passionately in love with my own symptoms, at the same time that I quietly disparage others for their own irrational attachments. Blah blah blah. I'm not quite ready to roll my trousers and whine about peaches and mermaids, but I feel older today than I think I did last year at this time (tahm).

That is all.

Posted by cgbrooke at 08:31 AM | Comments (11)

November 18, 2004

Riiiiiiicola

Growing up, I was pretty care-free, health-wise. There were some allergies that ran in my family, but through dumb luck, I never fell prey. I got the occasional cold, blah blah blah. All that changed when I lived in Ohio for two years--people warned me that they had nicknamed our little corner of the state Sinus Valley for the detrimental effect that it had on people's health. I don't know whether it was acid rain or what, but ever since then, I can count on Quarterly Sinus Reports.

Such as the one that's going on now, in roughly this order:

1. Clog, where it feels as though a balloon is being inflated inside my head
2. Drain, where it feels as though my head is being melted and poured down my throat
3. Rasp, where that meltage cleans off the pesky protective surfacing of my throat, reducing my voice to a pale croak of its normal self
4. Clog, where it feels as though (a) I've been kicked in the chest, and/or (b) elves are reassembling my head inside of my ribcage

Permeating all 4 stages, of course, is Ache, where it's so difficult for me to sleep that I inevitably locate the worst possible positions for doing so, thereby guaranteeing that my arms, shoulders, and back will punish me for the sin of motion during my waking hours. We're currently settled into stage 3, battling it fiercely with our comrades-in-arms Vitamin C, Ginger Ale, and Orange Sherbet. If we can make it through the night, we have it on good authority that reinforcements are soon to arrive in the form of Chicken Soup and Saltines, completing the 5 Food Groups of Sick.

The funny thing is that, other than the Ache, my body doesn't feel that badly. It's not as though I don't have normal energy--I'm not bed-ridden or anything. But ask me to focus for more than about five minutes? Not bloody likely. Ugh.

Posted by cgbrooke at 02:36 AM | Comments (5)

August 11, 2004

What do you do?

My brother and his family stopped by Syracuse on their way to NYC, so I spent most of last night and part of the day today spending a little time with them. Anyhow, last night, at Pastabilities, I was sitting next to their youngest, Kate, who's six, I think.

Kate: What do you do for a job?
Me: I teach.
Kate: Do you teach big kids or little kids?
Me: Big kids, and sometimes big kids who act like little kids.
Kate: What do you teach little kids?
(brief pause)
Me: I teach little kids to fear me! (I shake my fist in the air here.)
Kate: You do not!
Me: You're right. I was so bad at it that they only let me teach big kids now...
Kate: What do you teach big kids?

and so on. I often feel like all I'm doing is pushing my students to develop their ideas, and sometimes I wonder if development isn't so much something that we learn as it is an ability that we forget as we get older and think we know more than we do. There is always another question, and I'd rather have to teach my students when to stop asking questions than trying to get them to start. There's more, perhaps, to development than simply anticipating possible questions and answering them, but even that can be a tough sell sometimes.

Please Note: If you arrived at this page looking for my write-up of a panel from the Media Ecology Association conference, the permalink got shifted while i was upgrading to MT3. Sorry for the inconvenience...

Posted by cgbrooke at 05:42 PM | Comments (0)

July 28, 2004

bad habits

How I know I am a geek: Whenever things start piling up, and I don't seem to have any spare time, somehow, I manage to free up about three hours for the most purposeless activities. Case in point: tonight/this morning, despite having more than enough to do, I decided to blow about three hours redesigning my homepage. And before you ask, no, I don't think I could be any more of a dork.

As you'll notice if you visit, the inspiration is drawn directly from Scott McCloud, whose Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics, and 24 Hour Comics are all sitting on the shelf beside me. I may not have his talent, but at least I've got decent taste. The self-portraits were all generated at Abi Station, which I'll credit on the page itself soon enough. Also credit-worthy is Blambot, for the fonts that I futzed with in putting the page together.

Posted by cgbrooke at 06:27 AM | Comments (6)

June 23, 2004

fun knee business

"The thirties is the time when the back gives out."

Fortunately, I wasn't stupid enough to post any sort of rejoinder about how my back's doing just fine, and me in my mid-thirties and all. Back in the day, I used to wreck my ankles every couple of weeks playing soccer or tennis (or ultimate frisbee in college), but that was quite a few years (not to mention pounds) ago. Now it's my left knee, and after hoping for two weeks that it would just heal up on its own, I've finally admitted my age to myself, and gone out and gotten a knee brace and a couple of ice pads.

And you know what? My knee feels so damn much better now. I've spent the last day re-learning how to walk without a limp, how to walk up and down stairs leading with alternating legs, etc. And that's after playing softball on it on Monday.

It's almost enough to make me forget my plan to switch over to bionics. Almost.

Posted by cgbrooke at 12:12 AM | Comments (1)

May 10, 2004

Climbing the charts

"For Mother’s Day, Jo Anne Barnhart, Commissioner of Social Security, announced the top baby names in the United States for 2003." And where, you ask, does Collin rank?

My single-L variant cracked the top 100 for the first time last year. But more interesting to me is that little stretch in '96-'97, where double-L actually sneaks ahead of single-L. My best guess? That's about the same time when country music star Collin Raye was hitting his peak, give or take 9+ months...

Posted by cgbrooke at 02:47 PM | Comments (0)

May 06, 2004

Wheels

Monday and Tuesday, I spent a fair chunk of time over at Romano Toyota--the lease on my 2000 Camry "matured" on Tuesday. And despite my thoughts about going with a different car, I decided to re-up with Toyota and re-up on a Camry, the results of which are pictured here. Graduated from 4 cylinders to 6, and have spent the last couple of days getting used to the fact that the new one sits the driver a little higher, comes with different console positions, is a little more sensitive in terms of starting and stopping, etc. I also continue to be struck by the fact that the Camry has moved away from the "used bar of soap" model of car design--it's a little more angular and the body has more in the way of decorative ridges and grooves on it.

Posted by cgbrooke at 05:23 PM | Comments (0)

April 29, 2004

A fresh start

Two nights ago, it snowed. (only for a little bit, and it didn't stick)

Last night, it started out cold, and then remembered that it's almost May.

Today, it felt like early summer. And so, today, in honor of what I hope will finally be spring-like weather, I shaved my head. There's something kind of fun about starting a head of hair from scratch. Most summers, I use clippers and take it down as low as possible, but I don't usually shave it--it's really way too much bother to maintain, and the scalp tends to be pretty sensitive and nick-prone.

But today, I felt like changing things up a bit. I'm sure it'll freak a few people out when I show up at school tomorrow, but that's a price I'm willing to pay to feel the breeze on my head for a few weeks...

Posted by cgbrooke at 10:22 PM | Comments (0)

April 27, 2004

Whereupon the author contemplates the various uses for a brick

This will surprise just about no one--my octometric creativity graph:

Now, of course it's a self-assessment. But I don't really have that much stake in being thought of as more creative than the average bear, so it's probably pretty accurate. And it would make sense that abstraction and complexity were my strengths (and boldness my weakness, for that matter). The test is courtesy of a site from a company called Creax, home of Innovation Suite 3.1, "tools to systematize your creativity."

No, I wasn't able to type that last bit with a straight face.

Posted by cgbrooke at 11:27 PM | Comments (1)

April 22, 2004

I'm so vain

I bet I think the web is about me (via Googlism):

collin is my cousin
collin is an md specializing in adult medical care with emphasis on nutritional and alternative medicine
collin is now the first
collin is the author of the bestselling altered state
collin is a senior majoring in mass communications with an emphasis in electronic media
collin is emeritus professor of history at the university of new orleans and the author of the new orleans underground gourmet and theodore roosevelt
collin is a frequent lecturer on the topic of secured transactions in the united states and canada
collin is the 7
collin is most often associated in the public mind
collin is our technician
collin is one of the boys on our waiting list
collin is everyone and everything
collin is strange
collin is a performer in the truest sense
collin is our service manager
collin is forbidden to reconstitute
collin is on a specialized diet due to an intolerance to gluten
collin is now running a low grade temp and is pretty cranky
collin is here
collin is a salesman and entrepreneur who started as an engineering trainee
collin is the best bet for a control the park victory
collin is one of the best at singing ballads that make you laugh
collin is sure to bounce back and have some more hit songs on radio
collin is a bona fide star
collin is a member of the national advisory council for environmental policy and technology
collin is actually quiet for a moment
collin is all about
collin is the bang behind the beat and the motion in the groove
collin is the best musician in the world and he will never be forgotten
collin is now over 17 pounds
collin is in many ways the main catalyst of the story
collin is a freshman catcher who has tremendous potential
collin is back in school in sulphur springs surrounded by his friends and classmates
collin is taken by the beauty and serenity of the town as the well as the charm of its natives
collin is much more of an idiot than he had previously been aware of
collin is not excelled as an agricultural county by any other county in any other state
collin is doing great
collin is a chicago
collin is a good example of double up boards
collin is whole
collin is one of a limited edition of twelve
collin is a very personable performer
collin is an internationally experienced speaker and is a member of the usa based nsa
collin is found dead in his washington
collin is having an exhibition at the stewart gallery in johannesburg at present
collin is still in the icu at edinburgh royal infirmary
collin is the posse x genius
collin is a gracious host and a top quality chef
collin is intrigued with the townspeople
collin is the owner and principal designer of cogneo
collin is passionate about professionalism and is a safe pair of hands for your training and consultancy requirements
collin is from tucson
collin is a freelance columnist and an expert on all aspects
collin is secretary
collin is the president of core consulting services
collin is a dark man dressed in arabic robes
collin is happiest when he's playing in the sea or on the snow
collin is baby 194
collin is the patrolman working this route
collin is the happiest baby
collin is no exception
collin is the author or coauthor of more than 150 technical papers and five books on electromagnetic theory and applications
collin is joining in the fun and getting healthier every day
collin is one of france's top
collin is the first of the townsmen to enlist
collin is involved in this and he swore to her that he had nothing to do with the shooting
collin is doing as well as can be expected
collin is a sophisticated skincare range from paris
collin is due to have a further colonoscopy this year and the programme is running behind due to current capacity constraints
collin is serving his first year on the orchesis board
collin is by no means alone in taking this position; indeed
collin is feeling better i'll introduce him to you

Posted by cgbrooke at 12:00 PM | Comments (5)

April 21, 2004

Colorstrology?

"Expressive and dramatic, no one can tell a story like you can. You have a great imagination and a verbal flair that people seem to remember you by. Many people born on this day have had a lot of success in the sports world. It is actually the challenge and the achievement of goals that really turns you on. Dusk Blue reminds you to stay balanced and to understand that moderation can be a helpful tool, not a boring prescription."

Oh. Okay. What's your birthday color?

Posted by cgbrooke at 12:47 AM | Comments (1)