Alcohol....

I do not take drinking lightly. I take the words of Barenaked Ladies seriously: "I thought that drinking just to get drunk was a waste of precious booze. But now I know that there's a time and there's a place where I can choose to walk the fine line between self control and self abuse."

And today is that day.

I think I figured out exactly why I am so down. It isn't 911, the fear of terrorism, failure of my nation's leadership to ... DO something, shit or get off the pot already as it were.

It is because
no
one
listens
to a
fucking
thing i
am
saying.

Specifically -- Professor MF. And it is starting to really get on my last little frayed nerve.

For weeks now here people, you've heard me say that this isn't going to work. Well, it came about 60% close to working, which is about 40% better than I initially expected. So I'm kind of impressed.

But the other missing 40% from the success rate makes me 100% convinced that I am right. This class isn't going to work online this way, and teaching it augmented on web will be 1000% perfect.

All the students were on screen, some doubled together in the lab. MF sat with a student because the audio on the instructors PC didn't work, so I sat there zapping people out of the room because the brand new feature to block people sucks ass and doesn't work.

The students who were at home pretty much had it down, some of them were experts in minutes. Except for the two girls. The one girl had no audio, mic or speakers. So I typed to her in the chat area when I wasn't busy kicking people out of the room. The other girl would just not stop fucking talking, and with the audio delay, her words were coming in over Professor MF's, and no one could follow, no one knew what was going on.

MF would tell people to switch over to the internet browser they were in (there are 2 things open on your desktop, the Internet logged into the course content at Blackboard, and the tool for Cu-Seeme. Half the kids understood how to use the toolbar on the bottom of the screen to move from Cu-SeeMe over to blackboard, click on the content they were supposed to read/watch/listen to.

The other half--like the lead character from "Memento." They have clues. They have some idea. They just can't fit everything together. They have no short term memory. What are they supposed to be listening to? What week are we in? Who am I? Someone killed my wife and I have to find who did it and kill them.

It was very very frustrating for them and for me by the middle of the second hour, and I could see them getting mad, and I know I was. MF started to get the flow down, instructing kids NOT to talk if it wasn't their turn, to mute their microphones (girl 2 decided she wasn't being spoken to, everytime I looked at the screen her mouth was going all jabberwocky. So her efforts were fruitless.

She pressed on with the class... and when they were done, we all felt like we'd pushed a rock up a hill together and it rolled down upon our limp, sweaty bodies. At that point, she got the students to talk in the chat box, since some of them couldn't speak or be heard, to say whether or not they wanted to come back in this format next week or meet in person.

She wants very badly to make this work... and a bunch of the students do too. Some, like me, think this is a waste of time. She told them she'll give each of them an A if they hang in there, and 106 credits. All joking aside, it's nice that there are willing participants, but I think that it is just not fully realized.

But no one listens to me.

One kid can't take the class in person at all due to his schedule, so he'd end up dropping and it's past the add/drop period now. So she's got that to contend with. There are real academic issues here facing her. She has to decide what to do and do it fast. I'm amazed that I've been home an hour and the phone hasn't rung yet.

My sister emailed me during class and told me to do this:

"take your left hand, place it her right shoulder. take your right hand, place it on her left shoulder. tighten grip on shoulders and BEGIN TO SHAKE HER BACK AND FORTH AND SIDE TO SIDE WHILE SCREAMING "WHY THE FU*K WON'T YOU LISTEN TO ME? JEST B'CAUSE I AM NOT A PROFESSOR I STILL KICK YOUR ASS IN TECH MATTERS AND YOU ARE AN INCREDIBLE UNREALISTIC OVER EDUCATED IDIOT!!!!"

"**you may smack her a couple of times between shakes, and to punctuate between insults. preferably with your right hand in a back-hand style as she is trying to right herself upright from being shaken the other direction. a back hand accompanied with a flat out slap across the face works well with satisfactory results.

"to inflict more harm on the back hand be sure all of the rings on your fingers that have stones or designs of any kind are full out and upright to cause facial scratches and dings."

Too bad I'm not wearing any rings.

So, if anyone has EARNED a drink, so help me Lord Jebus it is ME tonight. And I don't say that lightly. I don't look at alcohol as a reward for a hard day.

'cept right this very fucking minute.

She (MF) hugged me and sort of cried and moaned "God, I need a drink!" after the kids had left. She then collapsed onto the floor and curled up in a foetal position and said "Tell me why... WHY!!?? Why doesn't it work?"

I told you why it doesn't work! You didn't listen! You won't listen. You refuse to listen. And the funny thing is, the content of the class is Interpersonal Communication -- you have sections on how to listen. But you, yourself, a doctorate-holding communications specialist refuse to communicate, listen, accept and cope. Would Alanis say "Isn't it Ironic?" and be...correct for a change?

You, darling, have created this hell. And it is up to you, darling, to undo it and do it right. Teach the course as a web enhanced lecture class. Teach it the way it will work right. Teach it better than any class they will ever EVER take. I've told you this a million times. A billion million. Please. please please listen.

I didn't say it like that -- I told her that the course is wonderful but she is putting the technology before the learning, that the technology has to take a back seat to the teaching, or the kids are going to get nothing out of this.

Working with technology as an educator doesn't mean that you do the top tier of what can maybe be done -- it is when you use manageable technology which augments and enhances the learning experience. Not technology which needs to be a learning experience on its own.

If we had 2 weeks to just work with the technology and get the flow down 100% for the kids, iron out all their bugs, and make that portion of things work, I'd be 90% behind this. As is -- from one week to the next some of these kids are like goldfish and the little plastic castle will be a surprise every time... to steal from the lovely and talented Ani.

Sigh.

Top all this off with the fact that no one in my own HOUSE listens to me either. Specifically, The Boy. And the Puppy. And the Girl. And sometimes the Husband. Which is pretty much everyone. I feel like I'm talking to myself, or I'm watching a movie and yelling at it--of course getting no response, the actors will still do what they want in the scene even if I know what the outcome will be.

I'm hoping to talk to MF tonight. Tell her that she can run the class in cyberspace next week, but that I think she is totally wasting time.

Well, tomorrow should be a better day. Another Cateringman day, hopefully I won't have to cut as many onions as I did the other day. Tra-la, tra-freakin'-la. Shoot me now.

I am Sisyphus. This is my rock.

The Terminix guy came today for his monthly check to see if our traps had any bugs in them. One did. The very first one up by the corner of the front of the house. Near where we park. He said that based on the number of termites in there, the colony is very small, and is probably right under our parking area... All the other trap/poison thingies had nothing in them. He said that's a very good sign that this one spot is all we've got and will be dead by spring.

Well isn't that great. Thank God for good news.

He pulled the bait wood out of the tube, and it was crawling with the little bastards. He crushed it and them after getting a count. He was a really nice guy doing a real pain in the ass job on a very very hot day.

So -- thanks Terminix guy. You are awesome.

---

And also -- thanks to the people who sent me email to cheer me up. All three of you rock supreme.

I'm much better now. Sometimes I just get all sad and mushy over something, and it passes. I'm happy that's the way I am -- if I obsessed or got depressed and didn't come back up for hours or days or months, that'd be an issue. So I'm much better this morning, except the Patriots totally spanked the Steelers.

I'd hoped for a closer matchup, a better game.

But Kordell was more like Korsmell, and the Bus got a flat. And Tom Brady knows how to throw a football to his guys, and his guys know to get the down and out of bounds and stop the clock immediately instead of running and screwing up and dropping it or having it stripped from their hands (ahem, Bus? Hello? That'd be YOU!)

My buddy Chad, the soon to be father to twin boys, was thinking of taking the night off of work so he could watch the game. I sure hope he didn't... it would have been the equivalent of taking time off of work to shoot yourself in the head.

I'm all about the Patriots -- I love them. But. I love the Steelers. So when they meet I'm happy one wins. But. But but but... I love seeing a GOOD game instead of a shellacking. And I got to witness a shellacking. last night. I went to bed before the start of the fourth quarter.

But I'm totally in a better mood today. In spite of.

---

I have been actively working on the food pantry for the church over the last few days and have come to find out that the pantry we supplied wasn't calling us for food not because they had enough but because they closed down.

I think that perhaps there isn't a need for us to maintain a pantry, because they're gone. The coordinator is retiring and moving to Minnesota to be close to her family. There is no one in their church taking it over.

The other food pantries in the area are all set for their own storage space... so when I think about it clearly, we serve no further purpose other than to supply ourselves or to be there if the local police or fire department let us know they come across a need. Which hasn't happened in years.

So I'm going to talk to Doug about what he thinks we should do, and talk to our vestry.

But... in the meantime, our pastor's wife used to supply protein products to a group that fed kids in Haiti. The guy had called me in the spring and he and I played phone tag all summer. He's coming up here on Friday to gather what he can take which can be shipped down. So I'll be able to unload all our tuna fish, peanut butter, dried and condensed milk... that kind of stuff. I'd like to keep supporting them, because they do really good work. They also are looking for toiletries for the kids, so I'm going to start a drive for that which they can pick up in a month.

I don't want to stop doing some community service in some form. If we stop the food pantry -- I want our parish to be involved with something... we don't have a huge outreach program. In fact, this is it really. So dropping the pantry would really dissolve our participation in helping the rest of the planet. There's a lot to think about... and I don't like thinking (grin).

---

I can't find my car keys, again.

I have half the set, I split them up one day when Jessica needed my house key, and the house key is the glue that holds the set together. The half that is missing is to the car I have sitting in the driveway. The other half is to the car Doug has right now.

So I had to borrow my tenant's car this morning.

She is the best. I LOVE YOU JEN!!!!!!! I got Geoff to school on time, but only after I dumped all our dirty laundry out in the yard looking for the pair of shorts that I wore yesterday. No keys in the pocket. I didn't freak, yell, panic, or get nasty the way I've done in the past. I know they are somewhere around here. Hell, I used them yesterday. They can't have gone far. Geoff told me the keys were "in the laboratory..." his word for this seat. He thinks the computer is in his laboratory, like he's Dexter or something. But they aren't.

So I'm trapped here for the day. I have a baby shower gift that I have to go pick up, so I guess I have to wait for Doug to get home and go do that. Sigh. I wanted to run some errands... meh.

I have a confession to make. I think I'm being kept here in the house by Divine Intervention. My house is a mess. A wreck. A pigsty.

My house looks a mess -- and I've procrastinated, dragged my feet, made excuses, watched Jerry Springer and Law & Order in efforts to evade having to do anything about it.

But I can't deal with it anymore.

I deliberately stopped cleaning up a few weeks ago because I was sick to death of picking up, leaving a room, walking back in and finding that everything had been undone. I do the dishes, clean the stovetop, make everything nice, then Doug hits the kitchen... makes an ungodly mess and leaves trash in the sink. That's right. Trash IN the sink. If he opens a packet of pasta, the box or the plastic sleeve goes in the sink instead of the trash. Cuts tomatoes? The stem goes to the sink. Brews iced tea? Tea bags -- in sink.

The livingroom. I pick up all the toys. I vacuum under the couch. I clean the top of the table. Geoff comes in. Food everywhere. Crayons, paper, toys. Everywhere.

The dining table... well, that's my bad. I fuck that one up all the time. I fold laundry in my room, walk out the door and put it on the dining table in part of a step to get it to Geoff or Jess' room.

But then I never take it the rest of the way there. So I absorb all the blame for that.

Jessie's room is a nightmare right now because the puppy keeps using it as his personal poop and pee grounds. We clean it up, reprimand him, try and correct his behavior... he does it again. The room is fairly clean, but the carpet needs an industrial sized shampooer applied to it and fast. I can't stand going in there. I don't know how the poor girl sleeps in there. Feh!

But it doesn't bother her.

Our whole family. We're lazy asses. We don't clean up after ourselves... and when the boil comes to a head, I'm the one who pops.

I made serious efforts yesterday after I finished working with Professor MF. But to no avail... it's all undone today.

I am Sisyphus. This is my rock.

Why am I this way? I think that I learned a lot from the way I grew up. I inherited the skills of housekeeping from my mom. Not to disrespect her or anything...

I know she's reading -- and I don't want her to think I harbor some sort of left over childhood angst because she didn't keep a meticulously clean house and drill me to death to clean my room and do chores. She pretty much let us be and do what we wanted. If our rooms were messy -- whatever. And I liked that kind of freedom. But it definitely didn't prepare me for home management of my own. The lack of an upkeep of the home gene is part of my DNA. And I married someone with that same genetic defect. And like two people getting together who carry the CF gene -- we've passed it on to our kids. We are sloth siblings and should have never mated.

I do the mandatory. Don't get me wrong.

I keep the dishes clean, and the laundry clean. The bathroom sink and toilet -- clean. The tub wasn't clean when we moved in and looks permanently dirty even though I scrub that bastard weekly.

The laundry is clean but not put away. The daily mail piles up on the table next to Doug's seat on the couch.

The study -- a paper bomb went off in here. There are books, and junk mail, and CD cases...

My bedroom is a wasteland of clothing that does not fit, read and unread books and magazines piled up beside and under the bed. The Nordic Track is a clothes horse because Doug can't get over to the closet to hang anything up on a regular basis.

The content of the house is disheveled and disorganized. Even though I've made several attempts at organization and resheveling. It is a sad, sorry state of affairs. I had a long list of things to do when I got laid off. So far only a fraction of them have gotten done.

Today I'm taking on Geoff's room. I need to go through all the toys and get rid of anything resembling a toddler toy or younger. I need to go through all his clothing and get rid of anything under a size 7 and archive for future use anything that got dumped in there which is larger than size 8. I need to get him a bedframe. His mattress and boxspring are on the floor - I want to either build a platform for him and have shelves and storage under, or just get a used bedframe someplace.

He took fingerpaint and painted his bedroom walls a few weeks ago -- so I have to repaint.

I think one of my problems is, that when the rock rolls over me down to the bottom of the hill, the way it does every night, I get tired and frustrated. I get shell shocked. I get sad. I give up. Then, I get renewed desire, like today. Maybe my mom had that same problem -- that sense of "whattayagonnado."

Today though, I'm reborn. Rededicated to the cause. I'll see it through to its clean conclusion -- (only to see it all undone again, I'm sure...) Maybe my keys are in his bedroom.

Wish me luck.

I'm in a mood...

Not necessarily the best of moods. I could make myself happier with some caffeine, or a nap. Not both -- I'd confuse my poor body if I tried to mix those. I'm in a mood because I made a webpage yesterday...

I got hooked up with a friend's mother in law to do their website. I'm donating my time and services to do it. That's not what's got me down. I'm so glad to do it, to take the time and have the ability.

What's got me down is the circumstances that have transpired in life to make this webpage have to be.

It's for a memorial run for a kid who got killed by a drunk driver as he crossed his street in 1995. He was 14, and he was my good friend's brother in law. So the run takes place every July 4th weekend in the Niagara NY area. I'm glad to build them an ass kicking site. I want it to be lovely, beautiful, wonderful.

I did some looking around online for info on the kid, and found a webpage called Donor Moms. It's out of date, but his mom's entered on there his particulars. And seeing all these pictures in a row of kid after kid after kid, mostly teenagers, dead -- and little paragraphs by their moms saying how much they will be loved and missed, that kicked me in the ass so hard this morning.

I mean, what would I do if I lost one of my kids? There's no question in my mind that their organs would be donated. In a New York Minute they'd be, for damn certain. I'm all for that.

Philosophically.

The thing that has me in a mess right now is the concept of losing them. The actual loss of a child. There is no doubt I'd do the right thing and let a living legacy go forward from one of my kids... but I couldn't imagine not having them in my life at all. Or having to bury them.

Meh!

So I'm all schmoopy and verklempt. Email me a joke. Make me laugh.

Speaking of making me laugh, Prof MF bought me the full version of CuSee-Me so I could fill in a missing person for a day when a kid is not in a class session (she still wants to do this... WHY DON'T PEOPLE TAKE ME SERIOUSLY WHEN I TELL THEM NOT TO DO SOMETHING!!!!! AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH! sorry. Venting). and I set up a room and no one is coming in and getting naked.

I'm sort of disappointed. I could have used a good laugh. People keep coming in and just ... gawking. Oh well.

Anyway. I'm going to do some housework. MF is calling me after 5pm when she's done with some meeting. Please pray for me that I can convince her to not do this live online crap. It ain't gonna work.

Mission Accomplished...

I'm back.

What a day. What a class. What a mess it will be if I cannot convince the professor to run the course 100% in person and instructor led, web augmented.

The first part of the day we went over the info on Cu-Seeme and ivisit, and when she took attendance kids who signed up for the class the other day weren't told the class was intended to be taught online. Two of the kids were kind of pissy... they didn't have computers at home, they were angry (sorta) with her that there was a limit on the class size of 11 people.

It was hard on Professor MF to have to tell them to go away. If she taught this class instructor led with blackboard.com and in person web augmentation -- it would SO rock the party. And she'd never have to turn a soul away.

And it would be awesome.

We demoed Cu-Seeme for the kids, and while I was in the room two people came in, and started text chatting -- in Italian.

Thanks jerks. So they didn't even speak english and were not leaving the room. They weren't naked, but it showed the kids that promptness is the key for this class if we are to use it.

We also talked to the students themselves and one of them suggested using Yahoo Instant Messenger's web conferencing feature. I loaded the software on the instructor PC, and it looked pretty cool, but it froze the computer twice. I don't know if we can put 12 talking heads up on a screen. It does have a nicer feature to set up a room and INVITE users into a conference when you find them online... That would work out perfectly for Professor MF to set a room up and then check the list for when people log on, and then pull them into the room.

Last time I checked Yahoo's web conference didn't support too many users at once. So this could be... ineffective. But we'll test it this weekend. I still have to on this with her. But, I know ... I know I am right.

I feel it in my heart. I don't want to disrespect her vision -- but until we have a 100% penis-free web conferencing solution that can host 12 individual faces at a time... well, then I don't think we should run the class online.

She has such a strong vision. And a strong will. And she gets so down when things aren't going the way she wants them... even though I've told her to expect this.

We could do it if we had so much money. A private room, the technology wholly owned by the college. But no. Those things are not available to her.

The class seemed to really enjoy the session today, once we got into the actual content of the course. They watched the vignettes on first impressions that Professor MF and I had volunteers come and improv (myself included -- how embarrassing) back in June. They laughed. They got it. It was outstanding.

And I swear. This could be the best class she ever teaches. And the best class they ever take. Why deny them and her the experience just to do something that we could do halfassed (or full penised?)

Enough. I'll keep you posted if you care. But who gives a frick. My journal -- I'll write about it no matter what. Neener Neener Neener!

Tonight is open house at Jessica's school. Parents of her grade are to report to school at 7:40. I forgot that the older your kid gets the later in the evening you're required to show up for grade level crap like this. Jessie insists that I go. I am kind of rolling my eyes in the back of my head.

There's football on tonight -- season opening baby!

There's wicked good tennis on tonight. Andy "Dragonball Z" Roddick vs. Pete "Monkeyman" Sampras.

The nicknames are wholly my own, of course. Pete Sampras' headshot always looks like a monkey when they show it on the TV. Andy Roddick wears these retarded visors that make his hair stick up out the top when he's playing, resulting in a look that is rather like the blonde firey haired guy on Dragonball Z, whatever his name is. The guy on top of my car in this banner. Actually, in this picture Andy looks more like a baboon at the zoo and Sampras... well. Not like a monkey, but it was as good as I could do to get these pics put together for the purpose of this entry.

On Wednesday night Roddick played an amazing match. I'm not a huge tennis fan, but I was astounded by his performance, like I was last year when I watched the Aggassi/Sampras Semifinal match.

So tonight it is margaritas and Flushing Meadows... wish I could be there in person one of these days for a great final/semi/quarter performance. After open house.

Well, I should cook supper. Play with puppy. Brush hair. I look a mess. What a day. What a day...