quarterly report

i’ve posted nothing here for several months.
i don’t exactly *plan* to return to regular posting;
we’ll see what happens.

fall quarter was much the busiest i’ve been
with actual *paying work* in several years…
so there’s my excuse if any were needed.
i started the quarter with a 2-section
Teaching Assistant post (Calc 4; 3D stuff
and whatnot). then 2 grading positions
came along (Abstract Algebra & Intro Analysis)
and i snapped ‘em up. finally, several weeks
into the quarter, the instructor for a
Linear Algebra class took a rest-of-quarter
medical leave and i stepped in and took over.

i also posted *almost* nothing in
MathEdZineBlog. again, i make
no claims about my future behavior.

my “home” connection, never reliable, appears
to be getting worse. meanwhile, my mac is
almost three years old and more and more
online software refuses to deal with it
until i download this-or-that; it’s worked
these three years *without* taking such risks
and’ll probably go right *on* working
for three more if i keep refusing;
meanwhile the net will become useless
to me on that particular box. i’ll still
have *TeX* and “garage band” if i can just
learn to move the files around. you’d think
i was joking but i sadly assure you i mean this.

very likely i’ll get a new, internet-capable, phone.
it’s making me sick to my stomach just thinking it,
but there it is. university people just assume
you’re well-connected and will cheerfully refuse
to deal with you if you can’t keep up. businesses,
too.

i’ll have told the story before somewhere but
here it comes again: i was, for once, an early
adopter when i got a t-mobile “sidekick” in early
2003 and they fucked me but good. there was a
yearlong contract and it quit working in june.
when i tried to get it fixed i was three-quarters
of an hour on the phone before anybody even
*claimed* to be able to help me. and maybe
they could’ve… but they didn’t (i was supposed
to be sent a new username-password combo
but never got it). so i decided to hell with it.

naturally, when i got online (on somebody else’s
connection) to report the bug and explain why
they weren’t gonna get any more monthly checks
i was confronted with a robot rat-maze designed
to gather information about me without helping
me in any way and i soon quit. so the bills
kept coming in and i kept throwing them away.

which would be the end of the story if the
account hadn’t originally been set up on
my then-wife’s credit card. they kept dunning
*her* and she kept wanting *me* to do something
about it. it got pretty fucking emotional.

well, now she’s gone and of course the
whole “mobile phone” racket has undergone
umpty-blue-million updates. meanwhile,
literally millions of people have signed on
and now use the god-damn things routinely.
so how hard can it be? even without
mountains of money or endless patience?

on the other hand, “go with your gut”;
i’m not kidding about this making me
want to throw up.

lay down your weary tune

soundcloud was acting up yesterday
but finally i succeeded in posting
this version of “for john henry”.
difficult, madam? would god
it were impossible.

how public like a frog

video of me playing three-string guitar. recorded by john martin. studio space, computer, and wi-fi connection by madeline.

fingertips

sit in front of a microphone and open a vein

i’ve finally learned how to upload “garage band” tracks.
here’s my “soundcloud” page.

i’m posting a lot in MEZB, btw.
updates might get more frequent here but
don’t count on it. music stuff will probably
end up in the livingston review.

posted in 2010

(selecta; subject to change [01/02/10])

january
01/02/10 posted in ’09 partial contents
01/07/10 lovely dark and deep math ed zine debut
01/19/10 prehistory of MEdZ, part i really of the ten page news
01/27/10 Photo 96 Math Ed Zine #1

february
02/02/10 dekist’s hot shelves photo
02/07/10 January 2010 rambling self-annotation
02/08/10 the domestic arts in the age of digital distribution part i first of the DAADD photo series.
02/11/10 daadd part ii photo of madeline

march
03/04/10 more than 4K characters for sue v. math eddy ramble
03/05/10 threehundredsixtyfive days music update
03/09/10 yet another crosspost: from adj-l autobiographical snippet
03/11/10 like it’s twenty-eleven verse
03/25/10 why i don’t live at the p.o. anti-gov’t screed
03/27/10 i’m not there “reimagining economics” thread

april
04/04/10 a petri-disch community my life in schools
04/07/10 the swirling beachball of doom more “life in schools”
04/10/10 madeline’s front room (with guitarist) selfportrait
04/10/10 not for auction this machine kills fascists

may
05/07/10 pascal’s triangle (so-called) MEdZ #0.8 p.7
05/20/10 it said there’d be some thunder at the well i ching
05/20/10 stop me if you’ve heard this more pp. from #0.8

june
06/26/10 i’m not there imminent death of the net

september
09/24/10 university hall basement get back to work

november
11/06/10 midterm report discrete maths at big-state-u.
11/23/10 now here’s something … and more “lectures without words”.

december
12/01/10 community college calculus contents page for short-lived blog
12/29/10 more than 4K characters for k. nowak comment on “log laws” thread

see also:
Vlorbik on Math Ed (partial contents)
the n-page news lyrics and other non-bloggy writings

posted in 2010 (early edit)

(selecta)

january
01/02/10 posted in ’09 partial contents
01/07/10 lovely dark and deep math ed zine debut
01/19/10 prehistory of MEdZ, part i really of the ten page news
01/27/10 Photo 96 Math Ed Zine #1

february
02/02/10 dekist’s hot shelves photo
02/07/10 January 2010 rambling self-annotation
02/08/10 the domestic arts in the age of digital distribution part i first of the DAADD photo series.
02/11/10 daadd part ii photo of madeline

march
03/04/10 more than 4K characters for sue v.
03/05/10 threehundredsixtyfive days music update
03/09/10 yet another crosspost: from adj-l autobiographical snippet
03/11/10 like it’s twenty-eleven verse
03/25/10 why i don’t live at the p.o. anti-gov’t screed
03/27/10 i’m not there “reimagining economics” thread

april
04/04/10 a petri-disch community my life in schools
04/07/10 the swirling beachball of doom more “life in schools”
04/10/10 madeline’s front room (with guitarist) selfportrait
04/10/10 not for auction this machine kills fascists

may
05/07/10 pascal’s triangle (so-called) MEdZ #0.8 p.7
05/20/10 it said there’d be some thunder at the well i ching
05/20/10 stop me if you’ve heard this more pp. from #0.8

june
06/26/10 i’m not there imminent death of the net

november
11/23/10 now here’s something you’ll *really* like… and a bunch more “lectures without words”.

to be continued.
see also:
Vlorbik on Math Ed (partial contents)
the n-page news lyrics and other non-bloggy writings

lazy idle little schemer

i’m back at work slinging the math.
i’ve posted a few details in MEZB.

4mad1

oh! … you!…
gotta gotta gotta gotta
gotta gotta gotta gotta
gotta gotta gotta
give ‘em hope.
OU
gottagottagottagottagotta
gottagottagottagotta
gottagotta
givem hope.
oh. when.

there isn’t any isn’t any
isn’t any hope
you
gotta give ‘em gotta give ‘em hope
be, cause, there,
isn’t any isn’t any isn’t any
isn’t any isn’t any isn’t any hope…
that’s, why, you…
gottagivem gottagivem
gottagotta gottagivem
gottagotta gottagivem
hope. just when there
isn’t any isn’t any isn’t any
isn’t any gotta give ‘em
isn’t any hope.
and… so… you!…

the swirling beachball of doom

my life in schools.

fast forward.
bill carroll’s humanities initiative
at ohio dominican college.

if word-choice were anything like
as influential as many in politics
(and almost all academics)
like to pretend, why then,
my “indoctrination” would have been
*over* when i got my “doctorate”.

but one door closes when
another one opens and
as far as “turning pro”
goes, i was almost completely
unprepared. (that this was
in large part because of choices
i’d made with eyes *at least*
as wide open as the generic
next-guy player in whatever
game it is we’re here considering
[or are *about* to; somebody
say "go"]… well, that’s very likely
true i hope and feel. so what.
[i hope you don't like it
and want to do something
about it].)

“i hope and feel.”
“trust” doesn’t enter into it of course.

personal slogans of the season part n+1.
‘our medium is handwriting.”,
“trust no one.”,
“tools at hand.”,
“no yin without a yang.”,
“look again. look closer.”,
and “where was i?”.

to name but a few.
where was i?

bill carroll and humanities at dominican.
of bill i know but little and will
say only slightly less. young administrators
“going up” some career “path”
(a “graph”? a “*tree*”??) will…
or so conventional wisdom has it…
generally try to distinguish themselves
by *changing things around*. if nothing
too horrible happens, they’ll have proved
that they can get people to *do things
their way* (instead of some tried-and-true
*other* way)… which, on some prominent
world-running models anyway, is pretty
close to the *whole point* of “administration”.
(or, as i’d rather call it, “management”.)

anyhow, when i turned pro in ’92
and moved to columbus to work at
dominican (as a newly minted
math Ph.D.), bill was academic V.P.
there and was energetically recruiting
faculty from all departments
to teach in a newly-redesigned
humanities program.

i loved this idea and signed on right away.
so along with teaching my math classes,
i sat in as an auditor-with-benefits
on (young theologian) leo madden’s
Hum101 (as i’ll here style it;
the actual course number is lost
to me and good riddance).

it was great. just for the regular
direct contact with leo, it’d've been
totally worth it. but the big draw,
as you’ll’ve guessed if you know me,
was the *texts*: the iliad,
the aeneid, luke and
acts, some readings in plato
(“the death of socrates” and,
the intro to the whole course sequence,
“the parable of the cave”),
and (alas) the confessions
of augustine. (i’m pretty far from
catholic [nanny converted to marry
owen thomas ("senior"); their son
owen thomas ("junior") was my--
owen thomas ("the third")...
"owen by the way"...--dad;
dad was raised catholic
but *never* spoke of church
matters (with me) except
in the abstract; some years
after his death i was somewhat
surprised to be reliably informed
that he (dad) had considered
studying for the priesthood
as a young man]; as a lifetime
academic one cannot escape
having a certain respect for
the “catholic school” tradition;
that’s about it.)

anyhow, one semester later i was ready
and led my own classes. and i’m sure
i had a point when i begain this ramble
and i even expect to get *to* it…
at some later date. suffice it to say
here that i taught Hum101 three times
and 102 once (a “team teaching” situation;
we-must-do-our-*ex*ercises…) and
loved it and that i even have some notes
left over (that i’ve had it mind
to port up onto the net for quite
a while now and maybe soon will).

more light!