The Northward Contrail

Happy fun reading for Friday

In lieu of any content of my own (which wouldn't be interesting, anyway, given how little I've accomplished the last couple days), some things written by others:

:: Reflections of a former sports nut on why he quit.  I know how this guy felt.  I used to be the kind who would be genuinely dejected when my favorite team didn't do well, and then one day I said "enough."  Now I watch it more for amusement than anything else.  (And when a team I don't like does well, I remind myself that, regardless of what happens, I still gotta get up and go to work the next day.  It does wonders for my perspective.)

:: Happy fun reading about a tour of a Titan II silo and the security measures meant to keep from blowing ourselves up unless it was the real deal.  This makes great bedtime reading.

:: And, since I'm fascinated by evangelists, here's an interesting take on Oral Roberts, who was finally called home this week, and his influence on modern evangelism.

Git 'er done

So yesterday I spent the day getting a lot of errands done.  Central to it was a lunch meeting with a colleague, and we got a lot of business discussed and solved a few problems along the way.  It was really great, the kind of meeting where you come away from it really feeling like you got something done, and feeling really good.  (And lunch, of course, always helps.) 

While in town I also got a couple items I needed for the office and got printing quotes for a recruiting project.  (I also got a couple or three items for me, but we ain't gonna talk about those, right?)  This was really good.  During the academic year, I'm usually so busy that I don't get the opportunity (or have the remaining gusto) to go into the nearest big city to see after these kinds of things.

There were also a couple personal items I had to see after.  Perhaps the biggest was getting my car's maintenance scheduled.  She's coming up on 100,000 miles, and is close enough to it that I'd rather take her in for maintenance while I have the time off.  (Given that I was told they'd need the car the whole day, it was a good call.) 

It ain't gonna be cheap -- the estimate I got was around $600 -- but I'd sure rather have a bill for $600 and get peace of mind in return.  Right now, the last thing I want, or need, is a monthly payment on a new car for the next five years, a higher property tax hit every year, and the higher insurance rates that come with a new vehicle.  No, thanks.  As long as my little one keeps going, and gets me where I need to be, I'll stick with her.

It's so quiet

Graduation is this week, and at the end of the week, the campus goes into a brief winter's nap.  In my office, things are in order.  Papers from last semester are filed away, and things for next semester are ready to go.  It's the one time of the year when things feel in order.  Of course, early next month, they won't stay that way for long.

Now, it's a time to take a breath.  The Fall semester was hectic, had a few unexpected surprises, but we came through it okay.  The upside is, we're halfway home.  Before we know it, it'll be Spring Break.  And then May commencement. 

For now, it's time to relax a little and enjoy the quiet.  It won't last, so enjoy it while it's here.

The big shot

Some Tuesday viewing: assorted clips from the coverage of Apollo 4, the first launch of the Saturn V, in November 1967.  Included are some real treasures, including Uncle Walter's excited commentary about the studio window vibrating.  And some vintage Bergman, too.  Enjoy.

Paranoia won't come out in the wash

So yesterday it was nice and quiet, and I caught up on a few chores.  Among them was getting the laundry done.  For whatever reason, doing the laundry fills me with existential angst.

It used to not be that way.  A decade or so back, doing the laundry was one of those random tasks that made a place feel like home.  There was something soothing about hearing the dryer running.  It was one of those homelike white-noise things that made you want to take a nap.  I could hear the dryer running, and it made me somehow feel everything was okay.

Cut to a few years later, maybe my second or third year teaching.  I'd been burned at one job, and had this feeling that the one I'd just gotten was going to blow up in my face.  Sunday afternoon meant laundry detail.  In the evening, as I'd sit in the floor and fold these warm, clean clothes, I came to associate it with another week about to begin.  And the dread that I felt would come.  The red light on the telephone.  Imagining it would be the academic dean wanting to have a conference with me about something I'd done, or hadn't done.  Funny, those things never happened.  But every Sunday, I'd live in fear of it happening.

It's now years later.  I'm comfortably settled into this job, I have a certain degree of seniority, and so on.  I know my way around the institution.  I've taught enough to have the savvy to stay out of most forms of trouble.  But, still, to this day, a basket full of warm, unfolded laundry, especially on a Sunday afternoon, can give me about three-percent nausea, and it's six years ago all over again. 

I don't know why.