This week's big purchase

Bought myself two of each of these items...

It's kind of sad how excited I was when I found these on Amazon. I need to replace a few of my originals because they didn't survive the shipping for summer camp.

They're great for demonstrating that crystals with more empty space make for less workable metals. See, the top ones (the rainbow ones) have individual ice cube trays that are close together, little space between them. The trays slide back and forth past each other easily when they're turned so the ridges of one tray are against the ridges of the other tray.

The other ones (the white ones) have more empty space between them, bigger gaps. When you show the wider-spaced trays trying to slide back and forth past each other, the individual trays get stuck because they dip down into those gaps of the other tray.

More empty space = less workable metals

Wants and duty

I've been a Netflix subscriber since October now, having finished up Breaking Bad then working all the way through Archer, Sherlock, Better Off Ted, and as far as Good Eats allows on Netflix as well as almost all the way through Buffy the Vampire Slayer and about halfway through Mad Man and Peaky Blinders. Feel free to check out what I've watched. I've got no secrets on that list.

But there's a little bit of a problem...

See, it looks like Netflix's CEO, Reed Hastings, has a bit of an opinion about education. To quote from the Washington Post...(where they're quoting the transcript of his speech to the California Charter Schools Association)...

And so the fundamental problem with school districts is not their fault, the fundamental problem is that they don’t get to control their boards and the importance of the charter school movement is to evolve America from a system where governance is constantly changing and you can’t do long term planning to a system of large non-profits…The most important thing is that they constantly get better every year they’re getting better because they have stable governance — they don’t have an elected school board. And that’s a real tough issue. Now if we go to the general public and we say, “Here’s an argument why you should get rid of school boards” of course no one’s going to go for that. School boards have been an iconic part of America for 200 years. So what we have to do is to work with school districts to grow steadily, and the work ahead is really hard because we’re at 8% of students in California, whereas in New Orleans they’re at 90%, so we have a lot of catchup to do…So what we have to do is continue to grow and grow… It’s going to take 20-30 years to get to 90% of charter kids….And if we succeed over the next 20 or 30 years, that will be one of the fastest rates of change ever seen around the world for a large system, it’s hard. [applause]

I've been forgoing Chik-fil-A sandwiches for a while now, but giving up the Netflix will be way harder.

Maybe I'll just start writing letters to Mr Hastings every couple of days.

Consumerism for a good cause

The Friends of the Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County (who desperately need a better, shorter name) are currently holding their annual, biggest book sale (which really means books, DVDs, CDs, and probably antiquated cassettes and video tapes) at the downtown branch, the coolest library branch in the city.

The sale goes through this Friday, and all proceeds go to supporting the best library in the country.

Humble Bundle...a humble bargain

Go and buy the Humble Bundle right now.

For about twenty bucks, you can get the entire Locke and Key series (digital format, not print), one of the absolute best series in the past decade.

And that's only six of the more than sixteen collected editions (including Alan Moore's full Nemo series) that you'll get.

Seriously, go...buy...it...now.

Memories for sale

Princeton High School (PHS) was built in the late 1950's seeing its first graduating class step from the doors in the spring of 1959.

In the fall of 2013, Princeton Community Middle School (PCMS) students walked into the newly-constructed 6-12 campus of both PCMS and PHS. The next fall, that of 2014, saw high school students start their new era in the new PHS at 100 Viking Way, across the street from the old school.

This spring will see the start of demolition of that old school. It will have survived nearly but not quite sixty years, seeing probably fifty-thousand students pass through its halls over the years.

And what's left is for sale via an online auction through the services of Penny Worley Auctioneers.

Here are some of the highlights as I skim through the pages. (All of these comments were made on a snow day last week, 2/18. Prices, at least, probably should be updated before posting.)

The two most valuable items are a pair of vending machines (178 and 179) . Currently going for $400 each. I had no idea that Princeton owned those. I assumed they were all leased or just put there for a cut of the profits.

The remaining contents of my classroom are up for purchase as lot 1855. If anybody's curious, I can sign anything in there to increase the value.

The auctioneers do have a sense of humor, or at least the person writing the descriptions does. Check out this lot (1323) of 'footballs (partially deflated-Patriots style)".

I can't remember whether I got a 'silver' Viking pin or not, but this lot of pins (1579) certainly seems like something we should have moved across the street with us.

Above the memorial pond - in a courtyard that our students weren't allowed to even see for the last five or so years of the school's existence but where thousands of students ate lunch over the decades and which had a plaque honoring our fallen Vikings like Kelly Freeman to whom the pond was once dedicated (I've no idea whether the pond was dedicated to someone who was forgotten before Kelly) - there once hung a Viking head medallion that was probably four or five feet in diameter. The medallion was taken down when the pond was being rehabbed a decade or so ago by Judy Maciolli (now Judy Kelly and teaching with us again). For a year or so the medallion sat and aged outside before I rolled it into my room where it sat for a while longer before I passed it along to our tech folks who rebuilt the sign and trimmed the head from the medallion. Lot 1153 is all that seems to have survived of that medallion. That makes me really sad, though I have to admit that I passed it along and didn't follow it enough to complain.

Lot 566 is the only one that really tempts me to dive into the bidding. That would look pretty sweet hanging in...on my...next to...

I have no idea where I would hang a four-foot Viking head that doesn't even follow the branding guidelines.

So, does anybody want to buy my memories?

Thank you, Styx

Who doesn't love a good illusion, especially one you can play with?

Grand-Illusions.com has a fun assortment of novelties for sale and a digital museum of other fun toys that the owner has collected over the years. To make things even better, they have videos showing off almost all of the items.

I'm most interested in...

The nitonol spoon...

Help me choose

Which Lego tie should I get?

I'm not asking which style or which maker? That's decided. I'm ordering myself a Brick Your Neck! tie in the original long style.

What I need to know is which color I should order: red, white, blue, or black?

They all come in plain and can be adorned in all sorts of brilliant ways, none of which I would frequently have time for, sadly.

Lego, not Lego

The Lego group has a bunch of adult fans of Lego (AFOL) - me among them.

Some of those fans are dedicated enough that they just aren't satisfied with just the official Lego releases.

So they turn to BrickArms where they can get Lego-scaled rocket launchers...

...or custom Shaun of the Dead figures...

Or they turn to MMCB for their most custom of cloth, minifigure-sized accessories like custom-colored, phoenix-printed capes...or general dracula-style capery for their minifigures...

...or Arealight for their custom Star Wars-themed Lego-ish figures

...of Brickforge to get all sorts of minifigure-fitting weaponry and accessories...

...and Custom Crazy's Shop for war hammers and skull armor (and lots more)...

...Brick TW's store for oriental accessories and fully-chromed minifigs...

...or Citizen Brick's ink or 'botany' enthusiasts...

Me, I'm just going to be happy with the collectible minifigs series 11.

Update: Hope ya like the new me

source

It's been seven years (almost to the day) since I posted a list of things that I would buy/do when I won the lottery.

With the lottery PowerBall jackpot currently up in the $300 million range again, The Girl and I spent another ride home from The Hometown daydreaming about how we will be spending our clearly inevitable dosh.

Lots of the things haven't changed, but there are a few updates and additions.

First, the job at PHS is almost certainly going to go by the wayside. I'm more eager to travel than I was back then, so I'm not going to hang around in Cincy for nine and a half months of the year.

Next, The Girl and I are going to rent a house somewhere on a warm beach every summer. We'll also invite a bunch of close friends (and their kids, since pretty much all of 'em are breeders at this point) to join us for as much time as they can manage (a week, a weekend, a couple of weeks), and we'll pay to fly them there.

I'll sponsor a couple of ASM's summer camps. I may or may not still work at them. I enjoy the heck out of doing that.

I'm going to pay to have Richard Thompson play the Southgate House (Revival, officially) and reserve myself the table just over his shoulder when he's on stage. My mom gets to pick where Bob Dylan gets to play for her. The Girl and I are going to see John Mellencamp at the Bluebird in Bloomington (I know, sis, you've seen him there already.) And we'd be flying Calen with us to see U2 at some bar in Dublin. Heck, she's been there, so I'll let her pick the bar.

And, in the biggest change, we'll be buying 7475 Lesourdsville-West Chester Rd (google maps & bing). It's not too far from where we live. It connects diagonally with The Best Man's backyard. It's got a whole bunch of trees and space to keep the subdivision rats a bit away. Then we're going to call up This Old House to build us a new old house. We have some ideas of what we want in this new, fantastic house...

• lots of windows (like this house)
• a sound system built into the walls and with ipod docks around
• a deck with built-in grill and a hot tub
• a room for the dogs to hang out in when we're gone, with outside access to a fenced run
• LEED certification
• a great garden layout from Roger Cook
• a guest house for friends 
• more trees - probably in a variety of species so no one pest can kill 'em all

Update: The buying spree beckons

One dam has broken in the eminent buying spree.

Last Thursday was a rough day - hectic at work with the end of the quarter sending seemingly every student to me needing just one more thing followed by coming home to destruction (a library DVD, a shattered ceramic bowl, poop, pee) from the new dog. As I found the filth, I had my older flip phone in my hand, and I'm not proud to say that I yelled a vulgarity and spiked the phone onto our tile floor. It's the second time in about five or six years that I've broken my phone in frustration. The other time saw me hurl a phone into our patio doors (thankfully no damage to the glass doors that time.)

This left me without a working phone, vastly accelerating the purchase of a new phone. The need left me either diving directly into smartphone territory or choosing to forgo a smartphone for another two years, until the new contract would be up and I would be eligible for a new phone.

...and if I was getting a smartphone, by golly The Girl was getting a smartphone. So we are now smartphone people with Otterboxes on the way from Amazon to protect the new investments.

I'm the sheepish owner of a Samsung Galaxy S2 Epic Touch (sheesh, the names)...

...and The Girl is the proud owner of a Samsung Galaxy S3...

Of course because I spiked my phone and couldn't get it to turn on anymore, I lost all my old contacts.

Thanks to The Girl and Calen, I was able to enter most of them, but if you think I'm supposed to have your phone number, send me a text with your name, would ya, please?

And, what apps are must-have for an Android platform?

Now I just need to make sure I don't spike this one.

Let's take a trip

I'm thinking I'd like to start visiting some of the best college basketball arenas in the country, maybe one a year, probably over Christmas break.

I'd rather get to them in the heart of conference season, maybe sit courtside during the big rivalry game, but that could be a bit cost and time prohibitive.

So, what are the best arenas in the country?

• According to ESPN's Andy Katz...(arenas where I've already seen a game crossed off)
• Kansas - Phog Allen Field House
• Duke - Cameron Indoor Stadium
• San Diego State - Viejas Arena
• Louisville - KFC Yum! Center
• Butler - Hinkle Fieldhouse
• Indiana - Assembly Hall
• New Mexico - The Pit
• Gonzaga - The Kennel
• Arizona - McKale Center
• Kentucky - Rupp arena
• According to Travel Channel (repeats from prior lists avoided)
• Syracuse - Carrier Dome
• Arkansas - Bud Walton Arena
• Oklahoma State - Gallagher-Iba Arena
• Vanderbilt - Memorial Gym
• Stanford - Maples Pavillion
• UCLA - Pauley Pavillion
• Utah State - Smith Spectrum
• Penn - The Palestra
• North Carolina - Dean Dome
• Minnesota - Williams Arena
• Fannation (repeats avoided)
• Michigan State - Breslin Center
• From RantSports (repeats avoided)
• Wisconsin - Kohl Center
• From Rivals.com (repeats avoided)
• Florida - O'Connell Center
• St Bonaventure - Reilly Center
• UNLV - Thomas & Mack Center

Of those, anybody have a particular recommendations?

Update: The buying spree beckons

The Girl added one more purchase for the list of things to get once she's gainfully employed again: a family photo.

I've long wanted to get a family photo of the two of us and our pets. It's a little late to get one with LeRoy, but it's not too late for Ayla and Harlan.

She proposed getting a sitting with the Phodographer, a Cincinnati woman who does studio or in-house sessions for pets (and secondarily their owners). She's a little pricey, but she does good work - both of high quality and of charitable mind, particularly for Adore-a-Bull Rescue, about whom I might have some news soon.

Check some of her work with the Adore-a-Bull folks here...

How cute're they?

The buying spree beckons

The Girl isn't far from joining the world of the employed again after three years of undergrad and graduate school. Three years ago she was RIFed from her school librarian job and headed back to school to get her masters degree as a Speech/Language Pathologist. At that point we went from being a two-income couple to a one-income couple paying for grad school. We've been financially okay, but things have been a little less consumery around here for the past few years.

Come June, however, we go back to being a pair of DINKs, and that means that the purse strings will be loosened a bit. So we've been doing some early dreaming.

Things in the considerations for purchasing upon resumption of DINK status...

• cable television - We currently have basic cable, the kind of cable that the customer service representatives answer with 'you mean standard cable'. Nope...basic. Twenty-some channels, no ESPN. It's mostly local stations plus Bravo, WGN, Ion, E!, and some other crap channels. That means I miss BCS bowl games, early rounds of grand slam tennis tourneys, and some other sporting events that I would like to watch. I would be okay with watching them on my computer (or eventually computer hooked to the TV), but that requires an ESPN subscription through cable for now.
• steak - The Girl and I once spent something like $1500 on steaks in a year. Seriously. She said that to me a couple of weeks ago, and it's totally true. I don't think we need to go that crazy, but I do kind of miss going out for nice dinners from time to time.
• cookware - The Girl is a cook. She's not a chef or anything, but she's a pretty good cook and enjoys doing it. The skillets and saucepans are pretty banged up and not-so-non-stick anymore. We need better stuff to use. Cooks Illustrated has an a la carte set (reg required) that we would most likely consider.
• smart phones - Man, I want one of those. The Girl wants one a little less. We're both cheapskates, though, and don't like the idea of paying for the internets twice a month.
• television - The television that we're currently rocking - there is only one in the house, by the way - is about fifteen years old now, a flat screen with a bit tube behind it. It's also not as big as we would like to to be - about 29" diagonal - meaning it's a little tough to have four people play Mario Kart together and that movies are a little less impressive than we would like them to be.
• mattress - The Girl really wants a memory foam mattress, ideally with the flexible base so she can sit up in bed. Personally I have no interest in the bendy thing, and I think she'll quit looking at one if and when she sees the price of it ($2800 from tempur-pedic for the split queen).
• vacation - It's been far too long since we got out of town. We're both a little stir crazy. Vacations for us can be anything from camping for a week or so (cheap) to a couple of weeks in DC or NYC or Chicago (expensive). We just need to get out.

There's no rush for any of these things, but the thinking has begun.

More want

Man, I want this to be offered as a purchasable poster...

Taco Punk - pairah or savior?

My mom sent me a a pair of clippings from the Louisville Courier-Journal this week.

One was about Wabash hiring a new president. Good to know because I didn't even know they were looking.

The other one was of more interest, however, as it was about a Wabash alumnus - whose time in Crawfordsville overlapped mine - and has opened a Louisville restaurant named Taco Punk. The restaurant markets itself as using only locally-sourced meets (and produce where possible), paying their employees a livable wage, composting or recycling nearly 90% of their waste, and serving high quality, quick service (fast?) food - primarily tacos. The restaurant is owned and cheffed (?) by Gabe Sowder, a Wabash grad from a year after me, and a native of Jeffersonville, Indiana, next door to New Albany, where I grew up.

This past summer Taco Punk got a scathing review in the University of Louisville's student newspaper, the Louisville Cardinal. questioning the revitalization (or gentrification, I'll admit I know nothing at all about the area other than where it is) of the Butchertown/Phoenix Hill/NuLu area of Louisville. The review reads to me like angry, college newspaper writing looking to yell about yuppies and rage against the food machine, all of which just might have colored the reviewer's opinions of the food.

Or maybe not; I haven't been to Taco Punk yet - hadn't heard of it before this weekend, honestly.

Sowder wrote a reasoned and polite rebuttal to the Cardinal review on his Facebook page, and he has since put up a Kickstarter to help them expand their catering business, build an outdoor dining/performing/art area (earning a metro sewer grant for rainwater runoff management), and keep the business afloat a little longer. The Kickstarter campaign has supporters and detractors again lined up and enraged.

I don't know about the gentrification (or revitalization) or the NuLu neighborhood. I'm more in the know about the Gateway Quarter in Cincinnati proper (and I'm not terrifically in the know there).

What I do know is that a Wabash man - a contemporary of mine, a guy from right next to my home town, is trying to do something good - for the environment, for his employees, for his hometown (or the major metro area in which he grew up, anyway), for local charities (promoting donation nights), for his neighborhood, and for his customers,

I pledged $50 to support him, and I wish him well.

If you happen to have a few bucks, feel free to pledge a few his way.

Pretty pixilated calendar

We're more than a week into the new year, but I've found the 2013 calendar that I want hanging on my wall: the Pantone 2013 wall calendar.

It's a gorgeously designed (not shockingly) twelve-month calendar that focuses on one color each months and includes a drastically pixelated image for the upper half of the calendar. It's pretty stuff and is available from Amazon and other retailers.

There are a few more images where I got these two...

Thoughts on series 9

I'll admit it. I'm sucked in.

The Lego group has beaten me. They've won. They've dragged me kicking and screaming into the world of Lego collectible minifigures.

I'd resisted until a year or so ago when Meijer had the series 5 figures for half price. I bought a bunch at random then went feeling through the bags to complete my collection...with a number of duplicates (anybody need a cavewoman or six?)

Luckily, I never saw series 6, but I did stumble upon series 7 and its outstanding Scottish highlander.

I didn't quite finish that one off via feel - still needing the ocean king.

Series 8 tempted me with the red cheerleader and Santa with his sack. I managed a nearly full set there, still lacking the fairie (her wings and scepter are supposedly easy to feel but befuddled me).

And now Lego has given us images of the series 9 minifigs with the very cool-looking chicken man, Dr Jeckl/Mr Hyde, and the roller derby queen.

Supposedly they started showing up in some stores before Christmas, but I checked a couple of local WalMarts and Meijers with no success.

Stupid completist mentality...now I want to go back and get all of the first four series, too...especially the clown, wrestler, the maraca man, baseballer, fisherman, gorilla suit guy, lawn gnome, hazmat team, mad scientist, lady liberty, and the leprechaun.

Plus they've already announced series 10 and series 11.

I'm gonna be buying these for a while now...sheesh...

I wish me a merry Christmas

Each year - well, most years, anyway - we hold an Ugly Christmas Sweater Day at Princeton, and I'm getting tired of not having an awesome Christmas sweater for myself. All I have is a sad cardigan in Christmas colors but that has absolutely no Christmas design in the least. At some point I'm going to just break down and buy one of these awesome Christmas sweaters...

My eventual purchase probably won't come from Tipsy Elves because their selection seems to lean more toward the dirty jokes - Santa writing his name in the snow, reindeer mounting reindeer, Santa in black face - most of which I probably couldn't wear to school and still claim it to be professional.

Ultimate Ugly Christmas has some more passable options, particularly (as of the weekend writing) this snowman council sweater. I wish some of their 'sweaters' weren't really sweatshirts - like Be The Tree.

The Sweater Store also offers a decent selection of pullovers that fit the bill, but all of their sizing information seems to be for women, something that doesn't help me all that much.

Ebay, of course, has thousands of ugly Christmas sweaters, but they're thoroughly hit or miss with the titles being misleading, the sizes being wrong, the prices up for grabs. Four of the sweaters, though, did catch my eye.

Vintage Ugly Christmas Sweaters has a few drawbacks - it's Canadian, and their sweaters all lack sizing information - but does have a decent selection, especially in the vest category.

The Ugly Sweater Store does break things down by sizes, and I appreciate that. My three favorite sweaters there, though, have already been sold.

Weirdly, a label called LA Police Gear has a number of sweaters that they're marketing as being ugly Christmas sweaters, but theirs come with a weird little attitude - like this Milk Boarding sweater.

My current favorite sweater, though, comes from My Ugly Christmas Sweater where they have a section they call Vintage Reindeer sweaters where this outstanding option with an Eddie Bauer reindeer on front and back. It's even in my size. If only it weren't $125. That's a bit much for a once-a-year gag. Be careful, though, because this site has a number of sweaters that they have adapted by sewing on fringe, Santa faces, lights, and other non-traditional sweater accessories.

Want...

A year or so ago I read an article saying that the IUPAC was going to make a change to the atomic masses listed on the periodic table with a dozen elements being listed with ranges of average atomic mass depending on the isotopic abundance. When I initially read the article, I went hunting a poster with the new masses but had no luck.

This past week, however, I finally found the 'finished' product which has some spectacular visuals showing the relative abundances of the isotopes.

From what I can tell, however, the poster isn't available for sale yet. There is a pdf (or here), and I found an older (August 2010) presentation from the IUPAC detailing the plan for the poster/digital product and a much newer article

Now I need to see if that pdf is a larger enough file to get good resolution if printed (in color, of course) really big - like 36" by 24" - because I WANT/NEED this on my classroom walls.

Gifts for a ChemGuy

I'm doing everything I can not to run out and buy all the Lego collectible minifigs that I can from the local stores - Wal-Mart, Meijer, wherever. See, I screwed up and bought some of the series 5 minifigs when Meijer put them in the $1.50 clearance rack. I blind bought a bunch of the figures and quickly had twelve of the sixteen figures (plus extras of most of the ones I did get).

I, however, have a disease. My name is ChemGuy, and I'm a completist.

See, I had twelve of the sixteen, but I didn't have all sixteen. That's four that were floating around out there that weren't a part of my collection. So I went back and grabbed a few more at the clearance price but didn't get any of the four I needed.

So I learned and worked a little harder, figuring out how to identify each of the figures by feel through the still-sealed, opaque bags. I picked up a few that I wanted more of and found the four I had been missing. By feeling through the bags, I hit six of seven on what I thought was in the bag, and I finished the collection...of series 5, anyway.

Which is a dangerous place to be because there are seven series, and I've only completed one of the seven series - so far.

I'm going to try and be strong, however. I'm going to try not to buy any more collectible minifigs and just remain with one complete set and a few multiples from that set.


If, however, you wanted to pick a little something up for me - or wanted to set my completist nature into a tizzy, here are my favorite non-series-5 collectable minifigs...



From series 1...

From series 2...

From series 3...

From series 4...

From series 6...

Form series 7...