October 30, 2013

I made a flower!

Big thanks to Neusole Glassworks for offering up a groupon through which Calen and I got to take a class and each make a glass and a flower on our fall break (a new thing this year - supposedly to help with second quarter's discipline stats).

It'll be a week before we can go pick up our product (annealing and grinding and all, natch), so no final pics just yet. For now it's just production stills.








October 28, 2013

Last week's rainbows

This rainbow was hanging over my house last Wednesday.

Or, rather, these three rainbows were hanging over my house last Wednesday...





The highest rainbow, the one going the opposite way from how you would expect, probably came from the ice crystals in the upper atmosphere because we had our first few flakes of snow the night.

October 26, 2013

Guys, we gotta stay away from 32 Elm Street...



October 22, 2013

My comic recommendations

Because I'm always trying to hunt these three posts down, I'm putting them here together with one single tag that should help me find them quickly.

October 21, 2013

Red Hot Nickel Ball is red hot



It seems to amazingly simple: heat a ball of nickel up to red hot and drop it into stuff.

But it's just so fascinating to watch.

Click through to see my favorite, Pop Rocks.

October 16, 2013

One-album wonders

I was listening to the brilliant 3 years, 5 months, and 2 days in the life of... album by Arrested Development and got to wondering about other one-album wonders, artists who popped into the popular consciousness for a single album then receded or disappeared entirely.

In doing a bit of research, I found a number of sites with pretty good lists of one-album wonders:
  • Rocksound - never heard of any of their choices
  • NPR - I had no idea Milla Jovovich, but I want to track down her album soon. Sounds good.
  • SitarHero - I've head some of these albums. Good choices
  • Flavorwire - Interesting list...makes me want to track down The La's and The Avalanches.
  • 411mania - First list with Arrested Development on it, but I'm starting to get some overlap with the albums. Why are The Cars just off the list?
  • Alan Cross - Again, overlap developing (Lauryn Hill, La's, Buckley, Death From Above 1979, Sex Pistols, Derek & the Dominos)
  • IGN - Overlap continues
  • Paste Magazine - Same overlap...
  • Treblezine - I don't know any of these albums.
 As it turns out, I don't have much to offer to these lists.

Heck of a blog entry there, ChemGuy.

Good call...

October 14, 2013

I need a few new ties...

I've been wearing more neckties again this year, something about trying to be good and work with the culture plan in the hopes that the situation at work can get better. So, I'm on the lookout for a few new ties...

I want but am to cheap to pay for some new chemistry ties like...

This one...

This one...(really want this one)...

This one...
This one...

This one...


This one...

This one (and in red, too)...


I already have a few novelty science-themed ties...
And there are a number of science-themed ties that don't do much for me, just kind of meh...








October 11, 2013

So take a look at me now...


New Avett's

The Avett Brothers' new album, Magpie and the Dendelion, is available in full on NPR's site.

I'm not saying, but I'm just saying.


October 9, 2013

We're # 469!

I had no idea at all that there was a website that ranked every college football team in the nation regardless of division.

Luckily, though, I came across the Massey Ratings which ranks all 916 college teams together in one, giant list using what I'm guessing is a pretty complicated formula. The important things...
  • The top of the rankings are about what you would expect: Alabama, Oregon, FSU. 
  • An Ohio State University comes in at #14, far lower than where the AP Poll has them and just barely above Riverside Community College Tigers out of the California Penal League Community College Athletic Association (seriously - Riverside comes in at #16)
  • Linfield College (out of Oregon) is the highest ranked NCAA DIII team, coming in at #255.
  • The undefeated Wabash College Little Giants come in at #469, #33 in DIII after a thrashing of Wooster this past weekend.
  • The worst team is the Itasca Community College Vikings out of Grand Rapids, MN at #916 who just lost 64-6 to #912-ranked Fond du Lac Tribal & Community College. Could be a rough year for the Vikes.

Looks like the Little Giants need to step up the strength of schedule. Playing the #816 schedule isn't going to help get into the playoffs if they have a down year.

I do wish there was a column to tell you what division the teams were in. It's one thing to see all the NCAA teams together, but it would be more informative to see which ones were DI FBS vs DI FCS vs DII vs DIII - as well as to see where the CCCAA comes in.

October 7, 2013

Update: ...because Eagleton sucks...

I mentioned on Saturday that Guillermo del Toro's Simpsons opening had a ton of references.

Thankfully, somebody has cataloged them.


Cartoons...in real life

From Real Life Adventures...


I think I could test out of the introductory-level course.


Be careful out there, folks, never know what could develop...


That's about how I feel much of the summer. It's rough, ya know...

October 5, 2013

...because Eagleton sucks...




October 2, 2013

Pride and...something else...

My job is becoming increasingly impossible to accomplish between the new methods of teaching we're supposed to use, the new materials we're supposed to teach, and the new ways we're supposed to be evaluated (which involves a whole lot more paperwork).

But...

Every now and again something pops up and that makes me think maybe this job - in this place - might be worth doing for a little while longer. Today's piece of evidence comes to us from AKC09 on LiveJournal.

See, AKC09's a PHS graduate from way back...like 2001. She recently posted some reflections on her time at PHS and reasons why it wasn't that bad.
I had a group of other nerdy girls. We talked about philosophy and biology and art at our little nerd lunch table and our little nerd slumber parties and kind of thought we were the s***. We lucked out that we ended up in the same class; this made a HUGE difference, and without having those ladies as my core group of friends, I have a feeling high school would have been practically unbearable. The effect here is similar to the fact that:

...

We had an incredibly diverse class. My high school, being a big public school in suburban Cincinnati, drew in many different demographics. We had rich kids, poor kids, suburban kids, rural kids, white kids, black kids (not a big Asian or Latino presence while I was there (ten years ago? Whaat?), but what can ya do). Because of this, there were a number of different social hierarchies, and it was basically impossible to be at the "top" of all of them simultaneously. This turned out to be a great thing, because hey, it mirrors the real world!
From the lone time I've met AKC09 and the religious following of her blog, I can say she seems to have turned out just okay, partially, I would like to think, thanks to her time at PHS.

Go AKC09!