Honors College Alumni

Ed Tanguay has an eclectic website. Info ranges from parenting info to book reviews to tech tutorials.

Students

I can't decide if my students are cynical or apathetic.

I am having a harder time connecting with my "best and brightest" than with my "regular" students. Aarg.

I'll figure something out.

Weekend

Love the three day weekend.

I started tiling the kitchen counter-top. Twelve inch tiles with one inch accents. Lovely. Now if I could only get the dishwasher installed so I could finish installing the tile and grout and so forth. Cutting the cement board was honestly the hardest part. Stumbling on the John Bridge tile forum was a godsend. There I learned about carbide blades and learned that no one really can cut cement backer board with a utility knife. If you see it done on television, it is evidently a special knife or a camera trick.

I really should be reading for my assignment tomorrow. At least I have the class I am teaching tomorrow planned out.

I have almost finished adding the affiliate ads to the website that I have been building. I did the style sheet, the graphics and everything.

Being social

We laugh that we are anti-social, but really, we are just insanely busy. Tonight, however, we went out with a bunch of my friends and friends of friends. I guess there were ten of us all together. We had so much fun. We don't get out without the kids all that often. Usually just for functions that are mandatory, like an office party. But Meleah had all region jazz band practice (she made second band) and NaDean was having Olivia over tonight anyway, so we asked if she could take Walker too. And, bless her heart, she did. Afterward, everyone went over to Mike and Amanda's to play games, but we picked up the kids and came home. Sometimes it stinks to be a grown-up.

Women, piano, karate and camera

The plight of women in Afghanistan continues to horrify me. I suppose it is better than when the Taliban was in charge, but they are still treated badly enough.

Meleah went to piano last night-- first time for the new semester. She is back with her old teacher, which she loves. It is quite the drive. Meleah has agreed to pick up some jazz music in addition to the classical.

Speaking of firsts, the kids took a karate lesson tonight; the first one in years. They really liked it. Well, Meleah liked it. Walker is up in the air. Todd may start taking lessons with them next week.

I fixed my camera today. Well, sort of fixed it. The mode indicator fell off of my Camedia 5050. I was horrified. This camera takes fabulous pictures and I love it. But I was not sure if I loved it enough to pay a couple hundred dollars to fix it. But I found this site that assured me that I could fix it myself with a nylon bolt. It worked. The indicator is now a little picky, but it is on and it still takes pictures. And that makes me happy. I would try to find a #4 bolt instead of a #6 if I could do it over though, to see if that would work. The bolt is almost a little thick for the circuit paper thing that actually sets the mode.

I was reading student blogs to see if any were interesting enough to refer to here. The one that probably would have been was shut down. I'll miss "Slouching Toward Bethlehem."

Charlie linked to this article which disturbs me. A town in New Jersey is shutting its public library down after school because teenagers are running amok in there. And one person they interviewed for the article had the nerve to criticize them for doing so because now the teens don't have a place to go! How on earth is that the library's problem??? Maybe the parents should consider taking responsibility for their children? I have an 11 year old and a 13 year old and I make sure that I am available when they get home from school. Shoot, I pick them up from school! I can't imagine just leaving them for hours to find their way home, or not. I understand that some jobs are not as flexible as mine. But one reason I have my job instead of one that pays better is so that I can supervise my children.

Catch up

Today has been a catch up day. Yesterday we were without water. Not because I forgot to pay the bill this time, either. We were installing the new cabinet and nicked the water line and it was the next day before our plumber could get here. That was fun (not). All three kids and no water. And it was a wasted day because we couldn't do any more work on the cabinets. And I could not do laundry.

I did, however, work on my web portfolio. It looks kind of nice now, and needs to be translated to a brochure. A guy at one of the computer shops in town was asking me if I had one...

My cousin Joshua gave me the address of his Myspace where he has a couple of awesome songs that he has been working on. It always shocks me when someone I have known forever does something so cool...

I still need to work on the annotated bibliography that I have promised, and work on my syllabus for spring. And find a reading for my lecture for Core II.

And on a related note, I discovered that I am requiring over $100 worth of textbooks in my classes. More like $130... For real, I am going to look at using the Wiki text books. I just need readings. I could probably find readings online. I tried putting readings on reserve at the library, but students stole the hard copies and could not figure out how to use the online ones. That was frustrating. But $130 is excessive. I think the book for my Comp II class was $24. Granted that was a *long* time ago, but I can't see why those have increased sixfold in 15 years...

I did get the Christmas tree taken down before we ripped up the kitchen. I guess that is something. And I did get Olivia's defective FurReal pet returned. She spent the money on a bike helmet and elbow and knee pads. She is a happy as she can be. She *loves* riding her bike. And Todd loves riding with her. He has so much fun with that.