Complaint Number One

What did I get on my final exam??????? [Answer - not what you wanted.]

I got [blah] on the first exam, and [blah] on the second exam, and did all the homework and missed [a few] quizzes.

I did [the other assignment] also!!!

I don't know why I got a [lower than expected grade], I was expecting to get [a higher grade than I got].

I answered by stating what they got on all of their tests, assignments and quizzes. Then what the average of that was. Which was a solid grade (i.e., 3 points typically separate grades, and they were 1.4 points into the grade.) I am not sure how to reply to this. Uh, you got this grade. Sorry that you don't like it.

Ok, I just figured out how to make a histogram in excel. I gave 20 A+s, 15 As and 16 A-s. I would have to say that this was an easy class. Too easy.

Blerg.

More SF Fun!

We are still in San Francisco, and are basically being forced to relax. The crablets go to bed every night at something like 7:30-8:00, and since we are staying in America's Smallest Hotel Room (tm), we have no choice but to sit there quietly and read for the next couple of hours until it is our bed time. Ah Shucks.

Last night I did have a stressful event, though. I logged on to the web page to enter my grades and couldn't figure out how to enter them. I looked around and around and around, but couldn't figure it out. Well, it turns out that one of the admin people in our department has to give me permission to enter my grades, and they sort of forgot. And it turns out that I had forgotten my own dongle thing that gives me the constantly changing password. It is in my winter coat in my closet in my mud room at home. The computer people were nice enough to send me a temporary password that would let me enter my grades, but it expired this morning. So, with no ability to enter grades and an expiring password, I was a little stressed out. I let it go though. No cursing. Aren't you proud of me?

This morning, the admin person gave me permission and the computer people gave me an extension. I entered my grades while at the poster session of AGU. Double checked them (only found 2 mistakes - good thing I checked!) and pushed enter. I think (please!) that I am done with this semester! Yeah!!!

Well, probably not. I would imaging that I will hear some complaints. I hope to God not, but I am not too optimistic. I gave something like 15 A+'s, so I would think that it would be hard as hell to get a C in my class. But, some people did.

I think that I have learned an extremely valueable lesson teaching this class - make a grading policy and stick to it like glue. No non-predefined extra credit. No wiggling on how much crap is worth. Make simple statements that can not be argued. I keep thinking that the students are reasonable people who want to learn and understanding that they have to actually work for their grade. Some are. Some are not. It is amazing how much energy you spend on the ones who are not willing to do work themselves.

Change of subject!

Tomorrow we are off to Muir Woods. That should be fun. The kids and Crab Mama have been having a good time in SF. They have been to the Exploritorium and other museums. They have gone to the Aquarium twice. They have taken a couple boat rides (one out to Alcatrez). We think that Crab Boy may have been very nervous about going to Alcatrez, since we think that no one told him that the jail wasn't actually used anymore. Can you imagine being an 7 year old boy and your mom is taking you to jail on an island. Yikes!

Alright, I have to finish some other work for the kid's school, so I should go now....

San Fransisco Treat

I am now sitting on a bed in a hotel in San Fransisco. Crab-Mama is reading her blogs in the corner chair, Crab-Girl is reading her book in bed, and Crab-Boy is asleep. We are in a hotel room that it probably quite large by European standards, but we are a long way from Europe. We may be closer to Japan. Well, it's bit by their standards too. Sh*t. The room is freaking small, ok? When someone is sitting at the desk, no one else can move in the room.

One of the great things about sharing a hotel room with people that you love is using the bathroom. Enough of that sh*t. Next subject.

I am attending the American Geophysical Union's Fall Meeting, which has about 14,000 people showing up. There are just a crazy insane number of people here. I feel very small when I am in a sea of people who are all scientists "in my field", and I don't recognize anyone. There are just too many freaking geologists in the world!

Last Friday was a complete cluster f*ck. It was a culmination of all sort of crazy things. For example, I held my final exam "make up" Friday morning. Didn't even think to reserve a room, since classes are over and all the rooms should be empty, right? No. They were holding some sort of a seminar on Friday morning at 9 AM in my room. F*ckers! So, I had to figure out where to hold my exam right there on the spot, with a bunch of student standing around waiting for it to start. Nice. So, I happen to see a sign that says the building supervisor's phone number on it, and call him. Nice Guy. Finds me a room right away. Fantastic! Problem solved. Students all take the test and we get on with the day.

Problem number two. I am getting my office renovated. When would be the best time in the world to get your office renovated? While you are on travel! So, they are starting the renovation tomorrow, which is fantastic. The problem is that I had to have all of my stuff out of my office by the time I left on Friday. Everything. Every Freaking Thing. So, Wednesday, I pitch (well, recycle, which doesn't roll off the tongue like "pitch"...) about 4,000 pounds of paper and pack up a lot of crap. Thursday I do a little bit more. And Friday I have to move my computers and my desk and clean up the pile of crap that I can't decide what to do with. Nice.

Problem number three. I am leaving for AGU the next day and have a poster. That means that I have to print the poster. Which means I have to finish the poster. I had a nice blank spot on the poster for a certain project that I was working on, that I had hoped to make more progress on, but alas, I did not have the time (surprised?) So, I found some results from an e-mail that I sent out while on my trip to Finland (hey, you can read about that in my blog!) and stuck those on my poster. Problem solved! Now, I just had to print the thing.

Printing the poster shouldn't be a problem. You just export the inDesign document to PDF and viola, you have a universally transportable document. Bull Sh*t. Everytime I have tried to print a document from a PDF from inDesign, I get screwed. So, this time, I (a) make a PDF; (b) make an EPS; and (c) take the inDesign document and all of the figures and crap with me. Then, when it doesn't work, I can just whip out a new one. Well, crazy thing - the place that I go to (at the university!) doesn't allow you to print to the poster machine from a Mac any more. F*ckers! Turns out that the PDF file looks fine on the Windows machine, but when we print it, it misses the bottom 1/3 of the poster (preview printing, not full up...) The EPS file is missing all of the fonts, so it subs in some crappy looking crap that craps out. Then, printing directly from inDesign appears to work! Hells yeah! Except it doesn't. 35 minutes later, the poster is still stuck in the queue and they don't know why. I spend the next 30 minutes while the guy behind the counter tries 100% exactly the same things that I tried before (PDF, EPS, inDesign - works! come back in a little while.... come back... hey it didn't print - got stuck in the queue....) F*ckers! I blow a freaking gasket at this point, since I was now late to pick up the kids (read problem four below). I stomp over to a Mac, load up my poster and make a gigantic TIFF file at 300 DPI (104 Megabytes). Even f*cking Windows can't screw up a TIFF file. I should have done this about 4 hours before. Next time, no f*cking around - strait to TIFF. Anyways, the poster printed. I ran on the ice to my car and drove like the wind to pick up the kids.

Ok, let's take a moment to calm down. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out. Stop dropping the F-bomb. You can do it. In. Out.

Ok, I can continue.

Problem number four. Crab-Girl had a play-like thing on Friday evening at the school's curiculum fair. At 5:30. On the night before we leave for 8 days. Well, timing is always key in these adventures. I, like the Dr. Dumbass that I am, agreed to drive all the way across town to pick them up at Grandpa-Eyore's house and take them back to school (Crab-Mama works 5 minutes from Granda's house and 5 minutes from school.) So, in the midst of the poster delema (as revealed above), I tried to call Crab-Mama to ask her pleasantly to please pick the lovely children up and take them to school, since I would be running perhaps a little behind schedule. As later reported, Crab-Mama's cell phone was set to vibrate and she never received my 20 phone calls - the last of which went something like "F****************************!". I call Grampa to ask if he has heard from CM, but he hasn't. So, I drive like a freaking maniac over to his house to pick up said children. But, in the little burb where I hail from, you can't drive like a maniac, because there is really no where to pass people who are driving 5 MPH UNDER the speed limit. F*********************!!!! DRIVE!!! DRIVE!!! COME ON!!!!! HOLY SH*T!! CAN YOU NOT PRESS ON THE LITTLE PEDDLE????? THE ONE TO THE RIGHT!!!!! F******************!!!!!

Breathe. In. Out. In. Out.

We make it with 2 minutes to spare. The "play" starts 10 minutes late.

And that was Friday. Oh, I forgot - we had to pack once we got home.

Saturday we pack up the rest of our stuff and take off to the airport. Now we are in the big city.

One of Crab-Boy's comments was something like "I don't want to stay in one of those big buildings because if an Earthquake comes it could be knocked down." A boy after my own heart.

Ok, I think I am going to go piss my wife off. The 14,000 pound dinner burrito is not really sitting well with the $2 piece of pizza I had for lunch. It sounds like they are having quite an argument. Why couldn't they at least put a freaking fan in the bathroom....

On a Cold Night in December

Man is it cold outside. Perhaps I am a pansy. Perhaps I am just weak. Perhaps it is really freaking cold. Who knows. I just walked over the the neighbors house to pick up Crab-Boy from his sledding play date. He stayed over there all afternoon and ate dinner over there. We just finished dinner here and all, so I get all bundled up and walk over there. It is probably about a 1/2 mile round trip. Grueling, I tell you. It is also dark. Anyways, I trudge over there, only to find out that they are in the middle of a movie, and can Crab-Boy stay longer. Who am I to deny a little crab some Kung Fu Panda? So I turn around and trudge home. Oh well.

A couple of weeks ago we hosted Thanksgiving. 26 people over. A freshly killed free range organic turkey was the main course, while others brought tons and tons of food. We also made a bunch of pies. Others brought lots of desserts to. I would say that if you didn't count the turkey, we had more desserts than other food. I ate so much food the my stomach hurt all of the following day. It was great to see all of our family members and talk about life. Everyone got along great, and a good time was had by most of the people.

Crab Momma's sister and boyfriend spent the week with us. This was an interesting time. In case you don't know, Crab Momma doesn't really like people. Especially people who are not Crabs (i.e., the 4 of us). And to have non-Crabs spend a week was quite stressful. And there was much arguing. Then, to add a little fuel to the fire, my sister and her husband come up from Miami to spend Thanksgiving with us (therefore they spend the night before and the night of Thanksgiving). My Mom also came over for the same time. So, it was like taking Crab Mamma and putting her in a pressure cooker for a few days. Incredibly, she survived and didn't kill anyone.

The crab-lets are learning to play "Yellow Submarine" on the guitar. Crab-Girl learned how to play the beginning of "Wish You Were Here" today. Guitar lessons are pretty fun for the kids. Their teacher is fantastic. He really knows how to entertain the kids and teach them on the level that is appropriate.

Monday is the last day of class, except for the final exam. I can not express how incredibly happy I am about this. But, with the end of the semester comes the end of class grovelling. Many of the students who are getting crappy grades are now coming to me asking what they can do to not fail the class. I have to say that my class is not hard. It is not hard to get an A in the class. It seems impossible to me to actually fail the class. They have to just do a few things like come to class, do the homework and do a mediocre job on the tests to get a B in the class. Miss a bunch of classes and you might dip down to a C. To get ewer than this, you have to do little homework and royally f*ck up the tests. Anyways, enough bitching about students.

This was a mish-mash post. I am sure that you forgive me.

Crab-Girl Speaks About Bunnies

I have 4 pets, Draco the bearded dragon, Fishy the goldfish, Sunset the guppy, and Paul the bunny. I love animals!!!!!!!

A long time ago, we worked at Pig Hoppers, which was a shelter for bunnies. One day we went to the bunny hospital, there we saw Paul, he was stuffed in a tiny cage. We were there to look for a friend for Sarah, my bunny who died. I wanted to see if they would be friends, they were. I wanted to bring him home, but I couldn't because there was a fair that week so I had to wait until the bunnies and the people came back, and hope that Paul wasn't sold. He wasn't so I got him and still have him.

Here, There and Everywhere

Last Wednesday I headed off to Berkeley to help with a proposal. I got to visit my buddy Tom and his family over there in hippy-ville. I learned a lot about how to write a NASA satellite proposal. I have to say that it is just nuts. NASA requires a HUGE amount of work, with the proposals covering every single aspect of the design and build - from how to fit together the instruments to the bus to how many meetings per month the project manager should have with different team members. Everything. The review that I was at was to make sure that they actually accounted for everything, and not just almost everything. This happened on Thursday.

On Thursday night, I flew down to Los Angles to spend a day with my friend Joe. We spent the night chatting about crap. Then in the Morning I got to see how a different family does school in the AM. I was amazed. The kids got up and watched a little TV. Then, when Joe got up, they got dressed and got ready to go. Joe handed them a granola bar, grabbed their lunches and we left. Holy Crap! No 20 minutes of eating Rice Krispies! No arguing about wearing jackets or coats (since it was 70 degrees!) It was like a Festivus Miracle! If only we lived in LA! The grass is literally greener on the other side, since it is snowing here.

After dumping the kids and a nice breakfast (no granola bars for us!), we went looking for a bike for me to ride. We found a place that rented mountain bikes ($20 for the day!!) I don't think that there was actually a new bike in the place - all used. It was interesting.... We debated for a little while about getting a patch kit and a pump, but hey who every gets a flat?

Next we drove north on the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway for all you non-hipsters out there) past Malibu, to a little state park. We unloaded the bikes and started off down the trail. Joe had only been to this particular place once, so, of course, we got lost. No big thing. We biked about 7 miles in before I got a flat.

Turn around, start walking.

We come to a fork in the trail, and being smart and all, we decided to take the route that we had not gone down before, thinking that it would be a short cut. We also thought that there may be more people. We did run into someone after about 1/2-1 mile. He had a patch kit and all, so I changed my tire. Here is a nice picture of me in action with the nice fellow who helped out.



At that point, the guy (who Joe called "Frenchie" - you will never guess why) informed us that we were going in the wrong direction. We were like "nu uh!" and he was like "you guys are morons". After the tire was changed and all, we got back on the bikes and went back the way that we came. At the branch Joe whipped out his iPhone and realized that without cell service, the GPS doesn't provide much info. So, being tricky (and a smarty pants), Joe holds his iPhone up to the sky. God beamed down the appropriate information, and we got the map. Frenchie was right. We are idiots.

On the way back from biking, we stopped in Malibu to go to Starbuck's and hit the bathroom. Interestingly, Joe knew exactly where there was a public toilet. Of course, with kids, you know where every bathroom is within 20 miles of your house (in LA, this is expanded to 100 miles, I guess?) After that, we headed back home, had dinner and headed to the airport to catch the red eye.

I actually slept a little bit on the plane, which is pretty good for me. I think that this is two flights in a row (both red eyes!) that I slept on. The airport is always fun at 5 AM - all the stores are closed, there are people sleeping on benches, and it is typically quite empty. Anyways, I grogged out to my car. When I went to the airport on Wednesday, the lot was quite full, so I had to park someplace different than normal. So, of course I walked out to my normal spot, looked around, and realized what a moron I am, turned around, and walked back to where my car was. Did I mention that it is much more cold in Michigan than in California?

I then head off to Monroe High School, where Crab-Girl had a Lego Robotics competition. Her school entered the competition with no real experience with the Lego robots or the competition or anything related to it. So, with a month or so to go before the dealy, they started working on a robot and accomplishing all of the things the robot was supposed to do. Crab-Girl is leaning over my shoulder while I write this, so I will defer my description until later. As a small taste of the event, envision, if you will, 150 middle school students trapped in a cafeteria with free access to Mt. Dew, Pizza, Candy and robots. Yeah, you get it. Here is a picture of Crab-Girl with her team mate at the competition, running the robot. She was the lead programmer. Hell yeah.



We stayed there until about 4 PM (after arriving at 6 AM, 2 hours before anyone else...) We gave her team mate in the picture a ride home, and who would guess that they both love fishing? There was much Bass-Talk in the back seat as we drove the hour home (she points out that they were also discussing Pikes). Once home, we collapsed. Well, at least I did. Who the h*ll knows what anyone else did.

What a wonderful week

Good things that happened this week:

1. Obama was elected president.
2. A conservative judge was replaced by liberal judge on the MI supreme court.
3. We went to a Coldplay concert on Monday night.
4. My students did their talks on Friday, so I didn't have to prepare a lecture.


Relatively bad things that happened this week:

1. I had to make a make up a test for the class.
2. I had all day meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday with visitors from Japan, then had individual meetings with them on Thursday and Friday. While the meetings were interesting and I got to talk to people who do a lot of stuff like I do, they took a long, long time.
3. I have yet another proposal due early next. It is a great idea. I just need to utilize the concept that I don't have to act on all of my ideas.

Overall it was a pretty freaking good week.