Comments on Comments (For the Preceding Week)

I sure as hell HOPE I wrote and posted this comment reply post in the fashion I did last time, so it is easily readable by folks.  Please let me know if I am in error.

Also…. please note, comments from yesterday’s post will be in next week’s comments.  I try to take excerpts of comments from the preceding Monday-Friday.

AC stated:

“I have PF and usually try to slip my feet into something with a bit of a footbed whenever I get up at night or in the morning.

I have done that too!  But for this specific heel related PF, I have found that the position is not enough.... nor consistent enough to be helpful with the footboard pressure... especially since I am a very active mover much of the time when I sleep... rolling and moving around quite a bit.

“Long johns notwithstanding, you must be missing the winter storm that has begun here.

I mentioned it on your site too, so this may be a bit redundant.... because of a peculiarity of weather related lake effects, the storm swirled above and below us for some reason and we were relatively snow free (only ~2 meager inches).  

“Tis a rather glorious thing for you. I hope you get to meet a few fellows.

It is truly a very helpful/valuable thing for me.  It has allowed me to establish more NON-WORK friends that had somewhat declined over the years (mostly due to the passing of friends and relatives, but also sometimes due to their having moved to quite distant places).  I truly look forward to the comaraderie each and every week.  It feels joyful, it feels like I am MORE of a complete person by having these new friends.  

“Being ‘read to’ is often a pleasure.

I really like your statement.  I had not really thought of audiobooks in that way!  It is true... it is almost akin to being read to by my parents or by my elementary school teachers... which I did love.  I am finding this audiobook to be quite enjoyable and fun so far.  I am going to keep thinking about future audiobooks I may check out..... in that form of reference.... I am getting the joy of “being read to”.  

Margaret stated:

“I haven't owned a pair of long johns since skiing in my early 20s. It sounds like you'll be too warm inside yet comfortable outside, which is what I would prefer. Hope the cigar group goes well!

I have only started wearing long johns (other than when cross-country skiiing) about 20 years ago.  I actually like the feel of them on my skin.  I now wear them virtually all the time other THAN work.... during the Winter.  And, like I said in my post, I have sometimes now work them TO work as well.  

“I hope some of your friends are still there. Cigars and pipes aren't the same at all. No offense to your cigar group, but the smell of them is unpleasant, in my opinion. A pipe's smell is lovely and reminds me of books and a roaring fire. And my dad who smoked a pipe for a while.

I can fully understand your sentiments.  A lone indulger in a cigar in a space can be disruptive.  But, truthfully I can see that same sort of disruption being felt by folks in the presence of a long pipe smoker as well (and I have previously experienced their disprovement).  But... in the shop, when there is a full cadre of fellows all indulging in a cigar together, it is hard to describe, but it is wonderful, normal, and aromatically proper and pleasant.  In a similar vein the lingering aromas of my many pipes... that scent, which I can still capture glimpses of in my den, my U offices and U labs feels so beautiful and right as well.

“I'm not an auditory person and have avoided audio books. However, many of my friends LOVE them. They are versatile for people who are better listeners than I am. Those friends tell me that much depends on the narrator(s). There are great ones and awful ones and a whole bunch in between.

I have been truly surprised at how enjoyable this audiobook has been for me.  AC talked about how it is like being read a story as a kid... and that is exactly how it feels to me.  I suspect... at least for me, it has to be the right KIND of book to capture that type of enjoyment.  So, after I conclude this beautiful book about Hemingway, I will need to search carefully for another audiobook I hope to find as captivating.  

Pam J stated:

“I hope you’ve seen the Ken Burns/Lynn Novic 3-part documentary on Hemingway. Or maybe I hope you haven’t, because it’s great and generally available and you would probably like it. My husband is a big Hemingway fan, I’m a lesser fan, mostly because I let my feelings about Hemingway the man influence my feelings about him as a writer. His life provided good material for novels about his wives. I’ve read several.

I have!  It is/was so wonderful that I have watched it THREE TIMES.  I greatly enjoy Burn’s work overall.... but this was especially valuable for me.  I tend to find the ample good and ample bad aspects of Hemingway as a man are quite intriguing to learn about, and I think that is what attracts me to Hemingway biographies.  In some fashion it helps me to better see and recognize how psychologically complex we all can be (and likely are) inside.  I have read all his novels, and have enjoyed most.  The lesser known “Green Hills of Africa” and the well known “Old Man and the Sea” are the two that have resonated the most with me.

“Your Chill Guy has an entire wikipedia entry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chill_Guy

I thank you for finding the above out for me!  It was VERY, VERY interesting to read.  After your link, I ended up in a bit of rabbit hole exploring this character, the creator and his art.  Very interesting!  

Pat M. stated:

“Isn't "Learning Management System" really a euphemism for "Professor Management System"? Not only does a LMS allow a student to proceed through a course with greatly reduced interaction with a professor than used to be the norm; it requires the professor to adjust his course content to conform to the limitations of the LMS. Isn't this exactly what university administrators would want to promote if their goal was to minimize the personal mentor/mentee aspect of academia that was once its core, and replace it with a standardized consumer model where the differences between a course taught by a tenured professor and a course administered by an adjunct are greatly minimized and university policies become the dominant influence exerted evenly across all LMS-administered coursework? Great for bureaucrats, and for students who want their courses to be as interchangeable as items in a vending machine. But it's a very different model from how students progressed through their university education a generation or two ago.

I agree with you whole hearted on what I can be and can become.  I have tried to (I think successfully) to dig in my heels and to use my various LMS’s only for what I feel is MY benefit.... MOSTLY to make it easier for me to get documents and other things to students.... and to HELP ME keep track of documents myself and to HELP ME keep them more organized than I had typically been in my old acetate/overhead days.  

“Do the five binders imply that you are teaching five entirely different courses at once? Or are two or three binders perhaps for the same course but for different sections with different meeting times? I would think that having to keep up with five entirely different sets of curricula at once would be beyond exhausting!

Yes... five different courses.... four with different content, and one seminar.  One is more of a struggle because I only teach it sporadically, so I am not as easily able to rattle off lectures by simply walking in and talking.  For that sporadically offered class, I have review a bit and run through in my mind the ways I can smoothly segue between topics as well.  For the other three, I feel more like a well-oiled machine as I teach them much more regularly and frequently.  

PipeTobacco