The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
Dear Google
I realize that I don’t pay you a dime for the use of your awesome blogging service. Although I have offered. And dutifully set up some Ad Sense stuff.
But will you please, please set up some more templates? I get tired of looking at mine, then I go to change it. And decide I don’t like the change but I can’t seem to go back to what I had before because I spent hours on the color scheme and have no idea what it was that I did.
Now I have a lame one, but don’t have the time or patience right this second to do anything about it. I would appreciate your help.
Gotta Check in Once in a While
Once upon a time, I had a serious Barnes & Noble habit. I’m going to call it $100 a month, mostly online. Then I discovered the used book stores. And then I started school. And then came the cable TV and DVR in my bedroom. Now I am down to perhaps $25 a month. I still pay for the membership, so I still receive the 15% off coupons regularly, I just don’t use them nearly as often as I once did.
I was in the Glen Town Center this morning and discovered that the Book Market finally re-opened in its new space. It wasn’t a great store, but I would make an effort to buy something from time to time. I found a darling children’s edition of Beowulf for $5, so I picked it up. Then, wandering around, I saw Luke Skywalker’s face on a book:
Scholastic book – I have the Darth Vader one and I rather enjoyed it. Sixteen bucks. I put it down. Then I remembered that I have a BN coupon sitting in my inbox, so I wnt home and got online. Those who know bn.com know that the minimum for free shipping is $25. So when I picked up my $16 book for $11.51 I had to “fill out the order”.
I looked at DVDs for five minutes, then remembered that I don’t have time for them and don’t want to spend the money on a TV season right now, anyway. Music.
You know what I found? Trans Siberian Orchestra has an album coming out the end of next month. I loved Beethoven’s Last Night in a Stranded on an Island way – easily in the Top 10. (Thank you to my friend Rich who doesn’t even remember that I first heard it at his old apartment in Crystal Lake.) I didn’t look to see what this album is, but I pre-ordered it. I am expecting a rock opera of some sort. Of the not-Christmas variety. Wait – Night Castle. Does that suggest Halloween? I going to go back to look.
This is why I should check in at Barnes & Noble more often.
More Notes from the Road
I realized this morning, when I started to create my expense report, that I hadn’t even printed out my flight itinerary. I hadn’t even been able to check into the flight from home because the printer is buried under things in the construction zone. I left the house, went to the airport, boarded an airplane, spent a few days, boarded another airplane and came home without looking at a flight number or departure time until I was standing in the terminal.
Force. Of. Habit. Because I make this trip so often.
And.
I forgot to go to the ATM last weekend, so I had $25 on me during this trip. I realized it Monday afternoon, when I was buying lunch. Then it became a game. Can I travel on plastic alone? Even if I forgot my Metro card in my other carry on?
The answer is yes. I went out with $25 in cash and came back with $10. For everything else, I used the credit card.
Eh.
My allergies were bugging me and my ears went insane on the airplane. I had such a bad headache on Monday that I left the office early, canceled dinner with Holly, ordered room service and did some homework.
In front of the television. Because there was NCIS on the USA Network.
The next night, I got on the Metro to go meet Holly and I had a moment. Normally, when I land in Washington, I grab my luggage and get on the Metro and as soon as I board the train I think something resembling:
“Yay! I’m in Washington!”
Tuesday night, I realized that I hadn’t had that moment the day before. That felt sucky. I hope it was just because I didn’t feel well.
Wednesday night, Joy and I had dinner at the boss’ house. Because he is retiring and his wife rocks.
I came home to find that the bathroom isn’t done, the dog has gone insane, I’m still behind on the homework and NCIS is still on the USA Network.
Video Killed the Radio Star
Check out this new theory about Internet education:
Students starting school this year may be part of the last generation for which “going to college” means packing up, getting a dorm room and listening to tenured professors. Undergraduate education is on the verge of a radical reordering. Colleges, like newspapers, will be torn apart by new ways of sharing information enabled by the Internet. The business model that sustained private U.S. colleges can’t survive.
I gotta tell you: I love my online Masters program. But I can’t even picture..how much it would suck to miss the experience of going to college.
I chose to go to The American University as an undergrad because even while I was shooting for a business degree, I loved the atmosphere filled with political science and international service. Breathing the air with these kids that seriously thought that a life of some kind of public service was for them…watching election returns was like Super Bowl Sunday in the dorms. Oh, don’t get me started. Here is the point:
College taught me that I could leave Chicago, go somewhere else, start all the way over without knowing a single soul, be successful and have a great time. You don’t get that from an online program.
This article talks about the economic reality. Online courses are just less expensive to produce, and so many students say that money is the #1 barrier to completing a program. I know that isn’t the entire story, because I have also been reading a lot about people dropping out because they just can’t keep up. Oh, and may I add that my $680 per credit hour is not exactly a bargain.
Maybe this is the new reality. But if it is…what a damn shame.
Awesome!
I have been known to complain about how the banks have all of these great promotions for new accounts, but not much for the people that have had accounts since…(here is where my mother is rolling her eyes)…the day they built that branch in 1977! Seriously – $100 gift cards right and left for opening accounts, but no love for the ones that have stuck with them through four mergers. My checks still say Bank One.
Chase won some points back today when I logged on, checked my bank account and found a credit for a hundred bucks and change with the entry, “Chase Pays Your Bills Winner”.
I seem to remember a commercial for that promotion, but I thought it was just for debit payments. I don’t do debit payments, since I use credit cards for everything, but it looks like it works for online bill pay, too.
I am most pleased.
Apple Picking with Alex
Scott and I took Alex to Oriole Springs to pick apples. Alex has been there before, but was too young to remember. He declared the place “cool” and went to work. I suggested that he twist the apple before pulling and after that started to work for him, he taught his father how to do it. Pick-your-own orchards, in my experience, have dwarf trees so that people can reach them. But we even found some Alex’s height. See him in there?
Last Summer Day
My awesome employer offers an optional summer hours schedule. We work long hours for nine days and get the tenth day off. For years, my Summer Fridays were for going to movies and reading books and generally doing nothing. This year..not so much. What I did today:
- Got up at 6:30 to give Kiwi her medicine and bring her up to my bedroom before the contractor got to the house.
- Got dressed and left shortly after the contractor arrived at 7am. Had breakfast at the Corner Bakery. I don’t recommend the oatmeal.
- Walked a lap around Lake Glenview. The mind wandered to, “You know what would be really cool? An NCIS/X-Files crossover episode.” Made a mental note to check into the fan fiction. Because I really have time for that.
- Got my allergy shot. Want to know a secret? I read trashy magazines at the doctor’s office. I carry a tote bag around with me all day so that I am never without a book, but I insist on reading that garbage in the doctor’s office. I am now all caught up on Ted Kennedy’s funeral.
- Hit the Carson’s Goodwill Sale. I really need new clothes. The Christmas trees are up already.
- Just made it to my 11am appointment for a mammogram. I was behind an old lady that told everyone and their dog that there were no paper towels in the ladies room. And each person responded by telling her that the hospital doesn’t use paper towels in the ladies room anymore. Only air dryers. Did she serioisly think she was going to get a different answer after the third time?
- Had lunch at Noodles.
- Went to work. Because I forgot to do something and I am going to be in Washington next week.
- Went to Costco. I thought I could get some ice cream on the way out, but the line was snaked back for about ever.
- Got home to a cranky cat who has been locked up with the cranky bird. Turned on the Doors special on VH-1. And now I have to do some homework.
I have squandered a summer full of Fridays.
Having a Craptacular Week
I went to the doctor for my annual exam on Monday morning. Felt great until I got to work and then my throat was icky and …bleh. I have spent two days on the super-boost allergy meds and gargling anti-bacterial mouthwash.
Side Note:
People, I am serious about the anti-bacterial mouthwash. I remember once in college I commented that I had just run out and had to go to the drugstore and get some more right that second and my boyfriend laughed his head off. Keep laughing, Buddy. Knock on something, but I haven’t taken an actual sick day since I was diagnosed with chronic sinusitis (due to allergies) in 2005. Here are my secrets:
- Wash your hands. A lot.
- Get enough sleep.
- Anti-bacterial mouthwash.
Anyway. While I was crazy busy at work, the techies informed me that an army of Trojan soldiers were sitting around somewhere in my system drinking coffee and they had to close the gates and hunt them down with BB guns and re-build the Great Wall of China or something so I couldn’t log on for half a day.
My internet was down at home for two days. I was two days behind on my homework, but I am close to caught up.
And they are still working on my mother’s bathroom, and Kiwi had been gone for 2.5 weeks so when I got to the rescue tonight I couldn’t just leave her there so I borrowed the travel cage again and she will just have to be locked in my room all day eating banana chips and watching soap operas.
I’m going to bed now.
Who’s Afraid of a Large Black Man?, by Charles Barkley
I came across Charles Barkley’s Who’s Afraid of a Large Black Man? at Half Price Books. I’ve always rather liked Barkley (except when he was playing the Bulls) and in this book, he interviews a whole bunch of people (Tiger Woods, Bill Clinton, Samuel L. Jackson, George Lopez)about race relations in the U.S. Yeah, I know. He’s kind of a blowhard, but he has a brain. Can he write? He doesn’t have to write; he hooked up with journalist Mike Wilbon to edit.
The Next Dark Age 