Hodgepodge

I haven't done a "What's New" post in a while, not that there's all that much newness springing forth from the corn oven, but there are few pieces of flotsam and jetsam that seem somewhat blogworthy.

• I underwent my official third year review during 07-08 academic calendar. Having met with the tenure committee and the dean, I finally received my official review letter. Excellent marks across the board. In fact, the Dean commented that my teaching evaluations were "quite remarkable" and among the best he'd ever seen. What this means is that if I continue doing what I'm doing, tenure proper will not be a problem.
• The summer has been relatively school free. I committed to teaching a summer session but enrollment has been abysmal across the college and the course didn't receive the necessary students to justify having the course. In fact, I had zero students registered. While the money would have been nice, a commitment free summer has been even nicer.
• I'm working on a couple academic pieces. One is a collaborative rhetorical criticism of Barack Obama's epideictic rhetoric. More specifically, we're arguing that Obama's rhetoric is an excellent example the performative nature of "We the People." Or something like that. We're spending the early part of this week nailing down the theory. Once that's finished, we'll move on to the rhetorical criticism proper. The second piece is a potential book chapter proposal regarding Lost. My idea for this piece is to examine The Island as ethical community. I have the basic idea for the proposal mapped out in my head. As the proposal is due July 31, I need to decide whether I want to submit this proposal or focus on projects I already have in the works.
  
• This summer continues to be the summer of home improvements. Inspired by Big Damn Roof project, we took on the Big Damn Drainage project. When we bought the house a couple years back, we noticed that in one area the yard sloped back toward the house. Negative slope + rain = water in the basement. We have a stone foundation so water in the basement should be expected, but we thought we'd see what we could do to minimize the amount (we never had more than a 1/2" puddle in two separate parts of the basement--nothing major compared to what others deal with in this area). So, with some help from my ultra-knowledgeable father, a man I swear was some kind of construction engineer in another life, we planned and installed an exterior drainage trench/French drain over the course of two days. The worst part of constructing something like this is all the damn shoveling. The rest isn't all that time consuming or difficult. Positive slope + drainage trench + rain = dry basement.
• I ran the local 15 yesterday and improved my time from previous years. Two years ago I ran the race in 1:12, last year in 1:07, and this year in 1:05. That's an average of a 7 minute mile--not bad for a 40 year old. Other than a blister or two, my body is holding up exceptionally well this running season. I backed off on the actual running miles and increased cross training, especially the exercise bike. Three days a week I run for an hour + and three days a week I do most of my mileage on the bike. Since I'm feeling so well, I'm targeting a half marathon at the end of August. If that race goes well, I may shoot for a marathon at the end of October. We'll see how the body holds up.

And that's all the exciting news from the corn furnace. Life is pretty darn quiet around here.

Scootin

A few weeks back, Michael posted some thoughts on his attempts to minimize the rising cost of gasoline. As numerous news stories have pointed out, people are making significant lifestyle changes in order to cope with the new and improved (okay, maybe not so improved) petroleum expenses. My household is fortunate in that our income allows us to absorb increased gas prices without too much trouble. With STK commuting 110 miles a day for 9 months of the year, however, the rise in prices is noticeable.

To help offset some of the added expense, we've made two major adjustments. First, we decided to hold off on purchasing a new car. Our commuter car, a 1995 Honda Civic, has 196,000 miles on the odometer and we'd hoped to replace Old Reliable with a new Civic. Given that the 2008 Civic Sedan only gets 36 MPG--the 1995 Civic still gets 45 MPG--we've decided to hold off on a new purchase for at least six months. I've talked to our Honda service folks and they assure me that, with a little regular maintenance, the '95 Civic will run indefinitely. We're hoping the car will hold out until a new Honda hybrid, based on the profile of the FCX Clarity, gets released in 2009. If Honda hits their financial mark, the new hybrid will come in at around $19000 and that's a realistic price range for our income level.

The second major adjustment also happens to be fun. In April of this year, we made space in the garage for an extremely economical mode of transportation:

I've always wanted a scooter and, at STK's encouragement, I started shopping around for deals and found one at our local Honda dealership. I use the scooter for my short commute to school, to run errands, a trip to the workout club, etc. To date I've covered 150 scoot-around-town miles on 1.5 gallons of gas for an average of . . . 100 MPG. At that rate, the scooter will pay for itself in about five years. Making a significant expenditure may not be the most logical way of combating rising gas prices but it sure is fun.

Not News: Pets and the Presidential Election

This story was on the front page of several news sites. Ugh.

Up on the Rooftop

Given my deep enthusiasm for home repairs, I decided to tackle this project starting tomorrow AM. I'm about as prepared as possible for the project. My father, a man who rivals just about any old construction contractor in terms of home building knowledge, passed along a file containing numerous articles, book chapters, and even VHS videos on how to accomplish the task. After several days of reading, watching, and surfing, I feel confident I can pull off the repair. My bucket of tools is ready, shingles and waterproof membrane are already on the roof, and tomorrow's weather looks ideal (read: nice and cool) for doing some roofing.

Wish me luck. If all goes well, I figure I'll save myself between $500-1000. Not exactly how I want to spend my summer vacation, but a day or two of hard work is well worth the savings. If all goes well, STK and I may take a DIY shot at roofing the garage.

The Fall of the Starbuck's Empire

The news is splashed on almost every major news website I've visited this morning:

Starbucks to Close 600 Stores.

Personally, I don't believe this has anything to do with the recent economic down turn. The struggles of Starbucks rest firmly on the introduction of the company's Pike Place Roast. Positioned as an "everyday" coffee, whatever that means, Pike Place Blend offered the casual coffee drinker a beverage similar to those produced by Dunkin' Doughnuts and McDonalds. Boy, did Starbucks miss the mark on this putrid brew. I've tried the foul concoction on three different occasions (I even added a shot of espresso during one taste test--nothing could salvage that cup of coffee) and I don't see much difference between Pike Place Blend and Folgers. The family and I did a bit of cross country traveling during middle two weeks of June. During that time I visited two or three different Starbucks (Starbucks is often the only coffee in town), ordered my quadruple americano, and offered my opinion to the Barista of the hour. I kept my critique short and too the point: "Pike Place is bad. Really bad." I'm apparently not the only dismayed customer. To add insult to injury, Starbucks stores no longer offer a "bold" (dark roast) option after noon. WTF?

Wake up and smell the coffee, Starbucks. I don't frequent your stores on a regular basis anymore (the closest Starbucks is 50 miles away), but I used to be a regular customer back in the day. Starbucks is still my oasis during my travels throughout the year. Or should I say used to be my coffee oasis. No matter my location--airport, interstate, suburbs, downtown--I knew Starbucks would have a better than average cup of coffee waiting for me. That, I'm afraid, is no longer true.