It’s midnight, and I should really be sleeping, but my brain is hyper-alert right now. I think it’s the chocolate cake we ate for dessert. Or maybe I’m just dehydrated, I don’t know. This has been an interesting week so far.

Biking

My third straight week of biking was this morning. I have only missed one day, and that was because I got my first pinch-flat. (Rear tire wasn’t inflated enough and I went over a bump a little too hard and it popped the tube). Fortunately for me, Mark & his family were able to come over that evening for dinner, and he helped me do my first tire patch. Exciting! It rides great now. i just have to keep the tires better-inflated; comfort be damned.

Moths

A few weeks ago, we had bought some grain products from the Co-Op and unfortunately discovered that some of them (Bulgar Wheat? I forget which ones) were infested with grain moths. We had it happen once before, but the problem was self-contained since we had never gotten around to opening the container before we discovered the moths.

This time we weren’t so fortunate. It’s been nearly two weeks and the population finally looks like the reproductive frequency is flagging, but we’re still killing up to a half-dozen moths per day. I suppose the only promising part of this is that the moths I’ve squished over the past few days have been progressively younger and younger — hopefully this means we’re culling them away before they have a chance to lay eggs.

How frustrating!

Wifey

Mel has been reading some Regency novellas lately. She always acts embarassed when I ask her about them because she thinks I’m going to make fun of her. I’m just curious though. For those of you unfamiliar with the genre: As I understand it, the Regency setting is like “Pride and Prejudice” or “Casanova” — when everyone lives in luxurious homes but doesn’t work. They just complain about how they have no money, but still have a dozen servants to prepare their food, clean, and maintain their menagerie of animals. I think she’s reading Jane Eyre (pronounced “air”) and a paperback novela compilation.

She’s also just recently listed a bunch of new products on her Etsy store — you should go buy them right now!

Mel has been experimenting with Veg*n cooking (courtesy of THE VEGANOMICON) — she’s made some really outstanding dishes lately; combining foods bought at farmer’s markets, vegetables and herbs from our garden, and a few odds and ends from the supermarket. (Tofu and Tempeh, for example) She made some Chickpea cutlets that were DY-NO-MITE the other night. Seriously. Non-Veg*ns would totally dig this dish.

One thing we’ve discovered is that certain foods that use egg, such as Crepes and cakes, really need it for the emulsifying properties. It’s hard to substitute that. Flavor-wise, you don’t really notice — but it just doesn’t have the same physical properties otherwise.

Sullivan

Sullivan gives high-fives.  This is a recent development. No video for it yet, but we’ll take some soon. He also has a big-boy bed now; We removed his crib-wall and put the safety-bars on the head and foot of the bed — so now he can climb into (and out of) his bed at his whim. The only real difference I’ve noticed is that when he wakes up in the middle of the night he’ll get out of bed and seek out one of us. He still goes to bed just as easily (or as testily) as usual.

Last night, he woke up around midnight and was very upset. I picked him up and tried rocking him in the chair, holding him, bobbing him around; Nothing seemed to work. He really wanted boobie. Or at least I thought that’s what he wanted.

When he wants something, he points to it and verbally gesticulates. As I stood there, bobbing him around while he screamed, he would occasionally point to his bed. I know him well enough to know that his crafy mind had figured out that if I put him in his bed, he can climb out and run free.

But I was curious. So I did it.

As expected, he climbed out of bed, walked past me, and towards the door. He’s making a bee-line for the boobie, I thought. He stood on his tiptoes, reached up and turned the doorknob, then walked into the dark hallway, stepping slowly. Even with adjusted eyes, it was pretty hard to see things. He took several steps forward towards the bedroom, then made an unexpected deviation to the right, pushing the door to the dining room open. I was curious, so I continued following him.

He made his way through the dark dining room, cautiously moving towards the living room. His crying had subsided into occasional sniffling by now.  In the living room, he climbed onto the couch. I sat next to him. He looked at the streetlight through the window, then crawled over to me and curled up on my chest. I leaned back and he fell asleep.

(After about 30 minutes, I tried taking him back to his bed, but he woke up; So I took him to Melissa and slept on the couch. Oh well — partial victory I guess.)

School

Summer semester is over. I got an A- in my Decision Support Structures & Data Analysis class (Informatics 430). Not too bad! I just priced out my books for my upcoming fall semester and it looks like I’ll only need to buy one textbook, an $80.00 lab manual for one of the courses I’m taking.

The roster is:

• General Chemistry I lab (CHEM-125) — I had missed this one when I took Gen Chem I lecture a couple years ago.
• Organic Chemistry I lab (CHEM-343) — ditto, except it was last fall. I’ve already taken Organic II lab.
• Calculus I (MATH-215) — Third time’s a charm, I suppose.
• Piano I (MUS-104) — First time playing piano in 10 years. I’m excited.
• Weight Training (HPER-219) — honestly, taken so that I can get 12 credits. But I’m hoping to learn some better weight-training techniques as well.

Tough classes for this semester are, I expect, Calc and Piano — the two lab courses, since I’ve already had the lectures, shouldn’t be too challenging and should be very little homework. I’m not sure how much time the weight training course will require — but since the gym is right down the hall from me, it’ll be a lot easier to pop over there for 30 minutes.

Work

This is going to be a busy week. The new IU East website, on which we’ve spent the past 4 months laboring, is finally going to launch on Friday morning. We’re frantically scrambling around, correcting and modifying content in a frenzy, like the proverbail decapitated chickens. Monday starts fall semester, and the IT Director wants to do the launch on Friday so that we’ve got a day to handle any unforeseen problems.

Last year, when we did our launch in the summer, things went pretty smoothly. So I’m hoping for a repeat of that. We’ll see! The URL for the development site (codenamed Apollo) is here: http://test.iue.edu

Teaching

I’m going to be teaching CMCL-334: Fundamentals of Web Design in Spring 2009. It’ll be part of an independent study, so I’m technically going to be paying to do it — but I’ll get to work under the supervision of a Prof, which will be helpful. I’ve done workshops before, but I’ve never had to develop a course curriculum. I feel very honored to have this opportunity, and also very excited.

My hope is that the course goes well, gets reviewed positively, and that my curriculum is adopted for future runs of the course (there has been some informal talk of me teaching it as an adjunct after I graduate in the spring).

Off to bed!

Tags: biking, school, sullivan, vegetarianism
Categories: Friends, Family & Pets, Health, Musings, Sustainable Living, Ziggy aka Sullivan