Just bought BarCode Scanner for my HTC Droid Eris. I can look up consumer opportunities and find the best deal. It turns out that the 9.5 oz. box of Hot Tamales price ranges from $3.00 at Amazon.com to $1.79 from Alwaysdirect.com. I already have two boxes so I should be able to survive until any order I place arrives.
The end of the semester is drawing near. The college book store has contacted me to determine if I am going to assign the same textbooks next year. Now is the time to explain the “beer money ploy”. I am not certain just who should benefit from understanding the beer money ploy. Knowledge of this ploy might be applied in offensive or defensive mode. My lot is not to take sides, but to educate.
The beer money ploy offers an opportunity for students to generate a little extra spending money as the semester ends. This is useful at a time when money tends to be tight, but the ploy must be executed strategically. Apply this strategy too early and your GPA may suffer. Apply the strategy too late and all your buddies will have left for home and you will have no one to party with. The beer money ploy is based on the differential between the initial cost of textbooks and the price the book store will pay you to sell your books back. Say you have a book that costs $100. Think of this as an investment – in your education and in your beer fund. If you rely on help in purchasing your books, it is important that the full detail of this ploy remain somewhat hidden. It helps if you complain a lot about the high cost of textbooks. At the strategic time, after you have studied for your finals and before your friends have left, you head to the bookstore and sell your book back for $50. Like magic – $50 beer money.
Follow this site – from time to time I will offer other helpful financial tips. Next – borrowing money from your roommate.
What do you think of the title? My wife says I need a more positive attitude so I am trying. Actually, this is typically not the way things go.
For years, many, many years in fact, I have been plagued by the row of crab apple trees lining our street. These trees are planted on the berm. I never heard of this word before I came to North Dakota either – it is the area in your front yard between the sidewalk and the street. The city seems to own this land, but you have to take care of it. So, if they decide to plant some stupid tree such as the crab apple that has a pretty bloom for a couple of days in the spring and then is good for nothing the rest of the year except leaving this residue of rotting small apples that get smushed and caught in the cleats of your boots so you bring them into the house and then get yelled at, you can do nothing about it. (with apologies to any composition instructor or editor I have ever had)
I guess thinking about it these trees have had an occasional redeeming quality. They do play a prominent role in my recent and popular video short – “A North Dakota Blizzard”.
Actually these trees were not removed because the city realized that crab apples are a stupid and messy tree and an inconvenience to any home owner forced to deal with them. The city decided it had to dig up my front yard to replace some underground pipes and the trees happen to be in the way.
Hey – the stump of that tree seems to contain an image of someone or something. Now, I am going to have to spend the rest of the morning figuring out who or what that is. Maybe this is a sign of some kind. I have decided that it is a map of the Big Island. I am supposed to leave North Dakota and move to Hawaii!!
See, sometimes your problems simply disappear.
This is a new addition for the category “excuses instructors hear”. My colleague Ric reports that he has been approach by a student asking for an alternative for an examination to be given on Wednesday. This request is pre-emptive. It turns out the student will turn 21 on Tuesday and evidently plans on celebrating. Ric, being quite quick witted, asks for proof that the student will be unable to take the exam. The student volunteers that he can check her driver’s license demonstrating the she will in fact have a 21st birthday on Tuesday. The next logical question concerned the certainty that while it was apparent that Tuesday was her 21st birthday, just how would this be proof that Wednesday would not be an appropriate day for an important examination. I am not certain that I understood what was offered as the response to this questions. Ric does report that classmates of the student in question did report that the predicted state of incapability was in fact highly probable.
It felt strange on campus today. Late yesterday the Board of Higher Education in North Dakota decided to retire the Fighting Sioux logo and nickname. I am still not certain how I as a member of the UND faculty for 30+ years feel about the decision. I guess the one thing that annoys me is when anyone implies that people should not feel bad about the decision. Our individual experiences are part of our personal identities and those of us with this length of commitment are likely to feel like someone has taken a piece of who we think we are. So, while I do not know what the right thing to do was, don’t tell me that I or anyone else should not feel like something has been taken away.
Anyway, perhaps feeling a bit nostalgic, I decided to drive to the arena after work at about 6 to take a picture. I am in this frame of mind thinking about how different people have reacted. I know there have been gatherings. I know stores have sold tens of thousands of dollars of Sioux merchandise. As I walk toward the arena to take my picture for the day, I see people and I see this clown. I am attempting to interpret what this clown is doing there. Was this a comment on the logo decision? Was this an attempt to cheer everyone up? Was this someone mocking those who might be upset?
I noticed that most of the crowd gathering consisted of groups of 6-10 year old kids and a parent. It turns out the circus is in town.
We spent the Easter holiday in Minneapolis. I like Minneapolis a lot. There are many differences between Grand Forks and Minneapolis. The size difference I get. With larger size comes options. There is the Mall of America. I can get by with about one visit to “The Mall” every couple of years. The Twins are a great draw. I even have tickets. There are lots of fine coffee shops, interesting books stores, and people who look different than me. I like that too. However, you don’t need to be any larger than 30,000 or so for a decent bagel shop.
What I can’t figure out is why Minneapolis and nearly every other place I have visited has fresh bagels and Grand Forks does not. The frozen kind you ship in do not count and neither do the soft kind that seems to be some form of donut without the sugar. I am talking the kind you boil and that has a crust. There actually have been a couple of great bagel shops in Grand Forks over the years. I arrived at one on Saturday morning a few years ago and found the front door closed with a chain and padlock. I kind of figured that was the end. There was another shop and it was even owned by lawyers so I thought the chain and padlock was less likely. It just closed. No chain and padlock, but closed just the same.
So, why don’t the fine folks in Grand Forks eat bagels. We have lots of Mexican restaurants even if you don’t count the chain store variety. There are plenty of places to eat steak. We have several Chinese places – even the kind with that big heating surface they throw the stuff on that you pick out yourself. Bagels can’t be that complicated and the modern bagel can be eaten so many ways. There is the traditional way with cream cheese and maybe lox. Or, you can pretty much substitute a bagel for a sub bun and repurpose the offerings at a Subway. I am a big fan of the breakfast bagel (see above).
I thought for a while I might open a nice bagel shop when I retired. It would likely be a bagel/coffee combination with Internet access. I am thinking there is easy money in coffee drinks – the kind that requires heated milk in some form or another. Probably a dumb idea. Maybe I will just move to Minneapolis.
I was walking in from the parking lot to my office this morning following two women faculty members in high heels pulling those large rolling brief cases through the slush, snow, and ice. I am walking in my boots and I carry nothing in my hands because you are supposed to have your hands free in case you slip on the ice. I have my Blackberry and reading glasses in my right jacket pocket and my iPod touch in my left. Sometimes I carry a backpack with my computer, but most mornings there is just my jacket and the predictable content of my pockets.
I am not certain why the combination of high heels and a rolling brief case annoys me. Maybe it is the sound of the wheels clicking along over the side walk and the sight of it sliding around in the slush. Then there are those trails of mud and water down the hallway carpets. At least leave your boot prints as a sign of your entrance. If I offered my honest impressions on this matter, I would probably also be accused of being sexist, anti-lawyer or some such nonsense.
I think I regard those folks with rolling brief cases as posers. If they would have been male faculty members, they would probably wear jackets with patches on the elbows. What could you possibly carry in a rolling brief case that would be worth the effort. If I read 100 or so pages in an evening, I would regard my evening as productive and would have had time to do no other work. One book is more than enough. You really don’t need your computer. Most of us have multiple computers. Do your writing in Google Docs and just connect from your home desk top. The library offers online access to far more journals than I have on my shelves and how would I know what I want to look at 5 hours from now anyway. No need to load up a suit case and carry it with me.
Maybe those in the rolling brief case crowd are not so much posers as unable to plan ahead.
Just in case they should read this, I really hope my daughters do not pull rolling brief cases. I doubt it, their mom is a great role model. She has this giant bag of tech stuff she carries over her shoulder. Need a mini projector. Need a cord for a 1998 Mac to monitor interface. A miniature screw driver set in case you must take your laptop apart. A couple of terabytes of backup. She is ready. Now that is planning ahead.
OK – I feel much better now. Tomorrow a comment on those big, hard plastic water bottles.
People who use simplistic expressions they pick up elsewhere and think they are being profound annoy me (since I am a curmudgeon). “It is not about the technology.” OK, you did not create that expression. You probably heard it at a conference or read it in one of blogs you follow. Does it describe your situation and what exactly is that situation? Is it an excuse?
Sometimes it is about the technology and knowing how to use it. If you mean to say that technology for you or your studenta is a tool that you are using to accomplish some end (which is what I assume you may mean if you use this expression), please note that the end is only achievable if the technology is working and everyone involved knows how to apply the tool.
I have been very busy with my real job lately, but my tech toys have also been causing me some problems. Real work and failing technology are a stressful combination.
I post to three blogs that have three different purposes. There is my more professional full-length blog (Learning Aloud). There is this blog and there is the blog that I used mostly to point to useful resources generated by others (something like how many others use Twitter). It is this “resource blog” that failed. I explore software by using it. Someone has to do it. I found a simple blogging tool called Chyrp (get it – like an alternative to tweet) and decided to give it a try. Once I decide to experiment with software, I have two options. I can load it on a server I operate at the university or I can load it to a commercial server I lease. When I have the physical server in my possession, I have the greatest amount of control, but also the most responsibility. Doing this kind of thing is not like firing up Microsoft Word so you can write. You must understand the operating system of the computer (I use old Macs, but the free software I use is pretty much using the BSD Unix that underlies the mac system). You must understand the enabling software (PHP and MySQL in most cases) and you must understand whatever software application you want to use. These different layers also seem somewhat sinister in that they must be coordinated – the version of one layer must be consistent with the version level of the other layers – or things stop working. Great freedom and complete control, but sometimes it is just you and a machine that does nothing. No help except the many online comments and remedies and complaints about it still nor working. No one to call. The alternative for me is to use a commercial service that keeps the layers in proper coordination and will even automatically install certain designated software applications. Things just work.
I made a crucial mistake. I installed a third party application on a commercial platform. They don’t mind. However, this is kind of the worst of both worlds. You don’t really have complete control to tinker and you do not always know what they are doing (like upgrading). Chyrp worked for over a year and I accumulated several hundred posts. Then it stopped. I know the company did upgrades and my best guess is the old application I was running contained code no longer supported by something that was upgraded (probably PHP or MySQL). I am often aware of upgrades, but I also like to modify the open source code to accomplish some task. I like what the software then does, but cannot remember exactly how I made it work. So, I stick with the older software rather than going through that entire discovery process again. I could contact support, but there is a new message suggesting that if you have a MySQL question you need to call rather than chat and it was starting to look like they were probably not that thrilled with folks like me who liked to experiment.
So, the old blog is no more and I am now using one of their general, but well supported blog tools. I was able to save the data from the database and I can find the images and videos I included. It just takes a lot of time to add the old content to the new blog. I have now moved some of the old posts to the point I am just after the election and reliving the enthusiasm of that time. The timing is kind of interesting. I am reliving the enthusiasm post by post while listening to the conservative talking heads on Fox complain about the dire consequences of the new health care plan. I take some pleasure in this. It is kind of like switching over to listen to the Minnesota gopher hockey announcers when the Sioux are winning.
I feel like a wimp. Like my tech chops have failed me. Like I am not up to working until 3 AM to make it work any more. Maybe this summer.
Anyway, the old blog is kind of working again – Learning Together. Actually, if you want to relive the enthusiasm and optimism of the 2009 election, you would connect at about the right point in history. If you want something more current, you will have to give me another week.
Sometimes it is about the technology.
