Project Complete...

Done. Finis. Installation of twelve speakers, a new shelf in the closet, relocation of the stereo system components (CD player, tuner, amp, speaker distribution switches, etc.), all wiring, mountings, etc. -- all done. Including cleanup. Merry Christmas, Dubby. New shelf (above), and components. The flash washed out the control panels and controls. Below: Kitchen corner speaker. Below: rear view, showing the cable coming out of the ceiling. Below: A wallplate in the living room, containing the Ethernet port, phone lines, and speaker connections for the right-hand living room speaker. (There are already 24 Ethernet connections and 16 phone jacks throughout the house -- a result of an earlier project.)

Below: Left speaker in Dubby's office, on top of her cabinets. Notice her Degas ballerina print on the wall.

Below: notice the swag hooks supporting the speakers in the dining room and kitchen. Christmas cards line the door to the front foyer.

Thanks to fiberglassmonkey for doing the high-altitude work, the soldering, and many other assorted and sundry project tasks.

FiberglassMonkey

We had a great Christmas. Nice and relaxing. We had the Fair's over for supper, enjoyed a nice lamb roast with twice-baked potatoes, croissants, green beans, corn, and dilled carrots, with magic-cookie-squares for dessert. Afterward, we all played Apples-to-Apples for a couple of hours. Lotta fun. Good Christmas. Lint Monkey is also a fiberglass monkey. She and I spent the day installing speakers around the house, part of Dubby's primary Christmas present: a system whereby she can listen to CD's and the radio all over the house as she moves from her sewing room to the exercise room to the kitchen to her office to the dining room and into the living room. Lint monkey climbed into the attic and crawled around the trusses and supports and dug through the blown-in fiberglass insulation, miner's lamp on her head, hand-held radio for communication in her pocket, armed with a tape-measure, while I drilled holes in the ceiling and fed wires up for her to take to the various locations where the speakers are now mounted on the ceiling. Toggle-bolts go so much quicker when someone is on the other side of the wallboard holding the toggle! Lintmonkey is a soldering virtuoso, too, since we had to splice some 14 guage wire to the 12 gauge stuff to get it to fit the speaker connections. By the end of the day, she could solder a connection in five seconds flat. We strung almost 400 feet of wire today, installed four speakers on ceilings, six more on shelves/cabinets, and re-wired to the two speakers in the living room, making a total of twelve speakers, all powered by the amp, tuner, and CD players that will be located in her office closet as soon as I can get to Home Depot tomorrow morning to get a shelf to install in there to hold the equipment. All the wires are run, the speakers hooked up, ready to go. Hopefully by lunchtime, Dubby can be listening to music. Or more likely, talk radio. Whatever floats the boat, as they say. Thanks to Lint Monkey for giving up her day to be half of the installation team. And thanks too to Bopnopper for holding the flashlight tonight as C and I stood on our respective ladders making the electrical connections.

Onion Volcano, and Angelfood Cake

To celebrate the arrival of Link Monkey's luggage, we all went to Masaki (Bopnopper can't spell it, it's Japanese). Here is Linkmonkey's photo of the onion volcano. We celebrated both girls' birthdays tonight with Dubby's famous chocolate whipped cream frosted angel food cake. Forty candles on that cake (19 for DJ, 21 for Catkim) melted the icing just bit. Tonight's Christmas Eve. We're having a good time making music. Merry Christmas everybody!

Christmas Tree

LintMonkey has arrived for the holidays. Her luggage has not. Thanks to Grandma for the hospitality and special thanks to Uncle Jeff for the midnight airport pickup. Thanks to Bopnopper for driving to Raleigh and back in one day to pickup the LintMonkey. It's cold outside. I made a nice potroast for dinner: a beef roast, celery, carrots, potatoes, onions, and some herbs and seasonings. Oh, and crescent rolls, too! Yum. The Christmas tree is up and mostly decorated. We've had Christmas carols playing all day. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here...

JMU-tube

Yep, it's honestly called JMU-tube. No joke. The university has set up a site where professors can post their videos for students to download and play. This site is gonna make it a lot easier for me to give students access to my video lessons that I use in my course. I'm experimenting a little by uploading the video of my summer grant report. Normally summer grants require the professor to turn in a binder containing a written report of the project at the end, a report that *nobody* ever reads. So, being the smart-donkey I am, I decided to try to see if I can get away with posting a video report instead of wasting my time putting together the binder and paper report. I don't know if the powers-that-be will let me get away with it, but hey, it's worth a try. Non-linear video editing is a lotta fun, once you overcome the learning curve of the software. In fact, it's so much fun, you have to restrain yourself from using too many nifty features and making the lesson distracting. If you've got six minutes to waste and nothing better to do, you are welcome to "read my report" on "what I did on my summer vacation". Click on this link, and then when the applet appears, you'll have to click on the "Play" button on the bottom left of the applet window.

Good Music .... Ahhhhh...

I'm working at the office long hours trying to get caught up before relaxing for the holidays. So tonight, I came home, ate a yummy dinner (cooked by Bopnopper, I believe), and tonight, I sat down in the La-Z-Boy chair, put on some Christmas music on the CD player, and turned up the volume. Dubby found our Christmas CD collection. Mannheim Steamroller, the Mo-Tab, some medieval mandolin/recorder/flute/lute/dulcimer/harpsichord/horn combo's, and several others of my favorites. Patapan, Adeste Fideles, Joy to the World, the original Away In A Manger, Far Far Away on Judea's Plain, O How a Rose 'Ere Blooming (one of my favorites of favorites), Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Silent Night... If you haven't heard some of the latest Mannheim Steamroller carols, you're missing out. Hey, hey -- How 'Bout Them Horns!!

Finally....

Finally, after 12 years and a total of almost half a million miles, .... something finally needs fixing on a Toyota! Unlike the Dodge minivan (which has essentially been rebuilt one part at a time, continuously) and unlike the Chryslers (which also each required major repairs every couple of months), and unlike the Oldmobile or three Fords we've owned, we have never, ever, had anything, ever break or go wrong or wear out on any of our three Toyotas, -- even though we have driven 2 of the 3 of them each far more miles than any other car we've ever owned. Until today, that is. And unlike the Dodge and the Chryslers and the Oldmobile and Fords, the Camry didn't actually break or quit on us. It was just something that kinda wore out. I took the Camry in for new tires, and decided to have an alignment done, and the local repairman said the steering tie rods were worn so bad the car wouldn't hold an alignment. This is the very first time that ANYTHING has gone wrong on one of our Toyotas. The Corolla was driven for 195,000 miles and then we sold it to a family where it is still going strong, with nothing ever breaking or busting or wearing out. And the Camry now has 210,000 miles on it, and the mechanic said it is in great shape and well worth keeping in good repair, he said he wouldn't be surprised if we could get another 50,000 out of it. And Debbie's Scion (made by Toyota) has almost 80,000 miles on it and hasn't given us any trouble. Contrast the Toyota's with the Caravan -- which by 70,000 miles had had not one but two new power steering pumps, not one but two replaced serpentine belts, a replaced idler pully, a replaced starter and a replaced water pump (all seven of these BROKE and stopped the car dead in its tracks each time), major work on the air conditioner, three repairs on the door locks, a replaced power window, a dead rear-window defroster, and replaced shocks. Of course, I don't mind regular maintenance, such as replacing spark plugs every 70,000 miles, changing oil and filters, new batteries, bulbs, wiper blades, tires, and even maintaining the brakes every 75,000 miles or so, -- on any of the cars. (The Oldsmobile gobbled brakes like a starving Rottwelier gobbles burglars: we were replacing the brake pads every 20,000 miles for a while, and had to turn the rotors several times before we finally sold the thing at 180,000 miles. No one could explain why the Cutlass Cruisers were so hard on brakes once they passed 90,000 miles...) Oh, and to be fair and honest, during the inspection today on the Camry, the mechanic found a loose connection where the exhaust system enters the catalytic converter. He welded a shim onto it which should fix that problem permanently. Anyway, we now have new tie-rods on the Camry, four new tires, alignment, fixed exhaust system, and a new state inspection sticker. Just under one grand. After the grand and a half on the van last month, our old cars had better stay running a while. If you're thinking of getting a new car, allow me to recommend the Toyota brand. We never thought twice about repairing cars, until owning three Toyotas has shown us that, yes, someone somewhere, really can design and manufacture a car that lasts... and lasts, and lasts...

Final Grades...

I taught five classes this semester. One of them (my on-line MBA class) isn't over until January 10. One of them is a graduate class, full of master's students. Eight students, four A's, four B's. One of them is a class full of seniors. Sixteen students. One A-minus, five B's, seven C's, two D's, and one F. (In the accounting school, a D is essentially an F and doesn't count towards graduation.) This is the second time I've taught this course in five years that I didn't have a single A grade. (The A-minus was actually benevolent. The student earned two points under the A cut-off, but there was a big gap between this student and the other five B's. Rather than a B+, I decided to be generous... because I've had this student in two earlier courses, and she failed both of them! To earn the high B was worthy of recognition. She was also obviously coming down with the flu on the day of one of the exams.) My last two classes are junior level classes. Between them: 85 students, five A's (including 2 A-minuses), thirty B's (including a sprinkling of B-minuses), forty C's, seven D's, and 3 F's. It must be noted that all but one of the students earning the D's and F's wouldn't have been helped even if I had added 20% to their grades. I advised every one of them to drop after the mid-term, but did they listen? (Nooooooo. )

End of Semester

I've been working long hours this week, creating exams, giving exams, grading exams, grading student projects, reviewing student group peer evaluations, completing paperwork, doing assessment documentation, etc. JMU is playing Montana for the final playoff before the National Championship game tonight. Gas is below $1.45 per gallon again. The van is acting up again. I caught a computer spyware from somewhere, and it took about 2 hours to troubleshoot, diagnose, and get rid of. I offered to bring in the Christmas tree and boxes of decorations from my garage, but Dubby didn't want me to yet. Don't know why. Oh, well...

Gingerbread House, and 70 Years as a Ham Operator

Dubby and Bopnopper made some gingerbread houses tonight. A couple of graham crackers, a little cake icing, some various pieces of colorful candy, and a styrofoam platter like those used by the meat department of the grocery store, and voila... a work of art.

Richard Weaver, amateur radio operator W3HXH, is in his 90th year, and has been a ham since he was 20. His first license was issued Dec. 24, 1938. He also is a founding member and served as the first president of what today is the Massanutten Amateur Radio Association, Inc.

As the 2009 President-elect of that organization, I had the pleasure of presenting him with a certificate of recognition honoring his 70 continuous years of being a licensed amateur radio operator. In addition to being a ham, he operates the official weather station in the Shenandoah Valley for the U.S. weather service, and is an ordained minister in the Church of the Brethren. He recently had his hip replaced, ergo the cane. He jokes that he's now joined the ranks of the "cane-anites".

Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods

I can't remember which one of my kids recommended that I read Bill Bryson's "A Walk in the Woods". I was thinking it was Allen. But it might have been Bryan. And when I found out that Bryson was knighted to the Order of the British Empire for his work as an expert in the English language and his work in that area, it dawned on me that it might even have been Cathryn. But whoever it was, I have to apologize to them. After having it recommended to me so highly, and even having been presented with my own copy of the book, I procrastinated and put off reading it for months. The book sat idle, gathering a thick coating of dust on the headboard of my bed. Today, I cleaned off my dresser, nightstand and headboard, and found it. I placed it on the reading stand beside my la-z-boy chair. Tonight, after watching a couple of DVD episodes of The Office and enjoying those laughs with Dubby and the Bopnopper after Bopnopper's birthday dinner, I picked up Bryson's book. And now I'm kicking myself for waiting so long! It's fantastic, -- right down my alley. Like Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything' and his many other acclaimed books such as Mother Tongue, Made in America, and Dictionary of Troublesome Words, this one too is non-fiction. This one is the tale of his hike on the Appalachian Trail which he started when he was in his early 40's. Hmmm. A middle-aged, out-of-shape old man suddenly gets a burning desire to go hiking in the wilderness. An aging over-the-hill'er feels an inner yearning to experience the forest, the woods, the lure of the trail, the attraction of the summits, the call of the wild. Although not as metaphorically satirical as Pat McManus (author of A Fine and Pleasant Misery and They Shoot Canoes Don't They?), Bryson's humorous accounts of his adventure on the Blue Ridge, in the Shenandoah, and along the rest of the A.T. is every bit as funny and entertaining. His Thurber-ish narrative style reminds me so much of my own adventures, misfortunes, and experiences from my many walks in the wilderness. It's great reading. I love it. To whomever recommended this book to me: Thanks! I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get around to it. I admit I've been missing out. Although I'm only 10% of the way through, I can already tell this is one book I'm going to thoroughly enjoy reading and re-reading.

Bad Week

This has been a bad week. Too much to do, not enough time to do it in. Too little help doing it all. I had to charge a student with an honor code violation, a process that takes hours and hours of time and is emotionally exhausting, especially since it is a career killer... (this student currently holds security clearance for the government and a cheating conviction in his grad class means he loses his job and probably his career. But it is unquestionable he cheated, and then blatantly lied when I asked him about it.) I had to buy, make, and assemble the framed certificates to present at the MARA club meeting. I had to prepare for and meet my on-line class, teach my normal classes, grade and return projects for two classes, grade and return group projects for another class, calculate cumulative weighted and scaled presentation grades, make a faculty senate meeting, meet with students to answer questions, make up two quizzes, prep for classes, create three complete exams for finals next week and get them ready to be duplicated, and put together and send out the ham radio newsletter. I had to purchase and stock office supplies for the church office. I had to update the Belgian student reunion page and make some arrangements on that event. I had to hunt down my Belgian cell phone and deliver to Dr. Wright to add some time to while he's in Antwerp this coming week. I've put in 15-hour days at the office almost every day this week. And now, I've got to get up again at 6 in the morning to meet the LDS emergency ham radio net on the 80-meter shortwave band tomorrow morning. I still have some projects to grade, and then I have to post almost 300 student scores on the on-line student gradebook. I've got to prepare a Sunday School lesson for Sunday morning, and start with the church's year end financial rituals. It's time to start thinking about bringing up the Christmas tree and putting the lights out in front of the house. And I'm just getting over one of the worst colds I've had in years. Bad week.

Yet Another Casualty of the Economy...

If you have four minutes of time, you might get a chuckle out of this youtube video. It shows one more person who's getting really hurt by the economy. Enjoy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNmcf4Y3lGM