Ready for Eats

While I was grading papers for the past several days, the wife was assembling a veritable banquet of delights, including these two beauties--a Dutch apple pie and a loaf of bread that, as you can see, is definitely standing tall.

And that's just a sample. Let's hope our designated eaters can make it through the storm bearing down on eastern SD. So far, it's not been bad, only snow and a little breeze.

Done Grading

I Suck at Photoshop, Too!

Okay, so I was patting myself on the back for having my proposal accepted at the Computers and Writing (Virtual Worlds) conference in May at Purdue, even though much of the incentive and the work originated with my friend and colleague Dr. Maureen Murphy, shepherd of the English department at DSU. Anyway, I got off-tracked by a hilarious, heart-wrenching tutorial video on Photoshop by MyDamnChannel. He's a savvy Photoshop user, but the tool he most needs, he thinks, isn't on the pallet. Cool!

Last Final, 2009 Edition

I finished up my last final exam for the fall 2009 year, and now I've just got papers to grade . . .

Before the Cold Came In--Hot Rod

My friend Eric sends this photo of his cool

'23 T-bucket that he took on December 1. Notice that it doesn't have snow tires on it, so it will have to remain in storage now for a while as the winter has arrived with a vengance and some staying power. Once spring comes, though, this baby will be back on the road.

Comfy Wally

Dr. Dan took this photo of Mr. W comfy in his winter sweater, blanket, and bed, comfortable and warm, within the reach of the wood stove.

Gangs on the Ridge

One of the poorest communities in the U.S., Pine Ridge seems to be facing a challenge from growing gang membership. What do they fight over? Good question. Check out the story here on the NY Times.

Greetings from Dakota State University!

Season's Greetings from Dakota State from Tom Jones and Kevin Rydberg on Vimeo. Colleagues put together this cool video to extend greetings from us here in Madison to you where ever you are. Cheers!

No Pleasure in this Walk

Little Walter doesn't have a lot of insulation on his bony frame, so getting outside on a day like today (about 10 degrees) to do his business just does not offer any bonuses. Does it help to add pink booties and a little doggie jacket? I doubt it.

The Poet Gets a Sack of Coal

Yesterday I had the privilege of attending Dr. John Laflin's introductory literary criticism class as a visiting poet. It was a pleasant experience, with students who don't typically get to see me in that role, and they had good questions that led to some interesting discussions about individual poems and about writing in general.

I noticed as I finished that there was a little cloth sack of gum called Santa's Coal Bubble Gum. Now you might think that poetry has no tangible, earthly rewards, but this gum, which has a short period--between being coal and being grey tasteless gum--of sweet and pleasant flavor. Kind of like some poems.

Being the Lampkeeper

We've got the tree and the lights up, last Friday after Thanksgiving when the weather was sunny and relatively warm (no need for gloves!), so we get a couple of weeks of holiday sparkle in the living room.

This morning I tried out what seems almost a magical little device, the Lightkeeper Pro. (Watch out if you click on the link here--you'll get the repeated sound of this little device doing its magic--very annoying. The videos, though, give a good look at what the gizmo can do.)

Basically, when you've got a dead section of mini-lights, or a dead string, you pull one dead bulb, hook the socket to the gun, and pull the trigger. When I tried it, the dead bulbs lit, I put in a new bulb, repeated the process, and voila! I had a fully lit tree. Sweet! It took about two minutes.

I got mine at Jones Ace Hardware here in Madison, SD.

Apocalypse with a Happy Ending

One of my students asked earlier this semester about doing a research paper on whether the world will end in 2012. I thought the student had in mind the Mayan calendar, but she was inclined more to the movie and other predictions. Having seen the "2012" movie last night, I gather that we really don't need to worry that much at all, as long as we can build a super-ark (complete with animals--one by one) that will carry us to the coast of Africa. I was struck by the closing scenes in the film, as three big techno-arks (Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria?) sailed toward the safest haven, the Cape of Good Hope, now the roof of the world, where the privileged and coddled would form the basis for a new beginning. This despite the fact that there are people already IN Africa, perhaps not ready to take in the tens of thousands of refugees and their rescued menagerie.

The movie is mostly made up of finely-detailed scenes of disaster--buildings collapsing into chasms, waves tipping a giant cruise ship into the drink, oceans washing over the Himalayas, whole landscapes yawing and sliding into the sea, airport runways cracking and crumbling beneath the airplane that bears our heroic family away from the destruction.

When all is said and done, the world looks new again, the continents rearranged, all the mistakes of the world washed away in 27 days--much tidier, say, than the lingering and ongoing disaster that is New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Apocalypse with a happy ending.

You'll Shoot Your Eye Out--A Christmas Story

DSU Theater will put on A Christmas Story ("You'll Shoot Your Eye Out!") in the coming week after Thanksgiving. In preparation, yours truly was up at the Playhouse helping build their gigantic set over the weekend, especially the Santa Mountain. It should be fun!

In preparation, wander over to the online BB gun shooting game sponsored by Office Max.

An Idea Ventures Forth--LOOK OUT!

The previous post cited G.E. as the source of a great idea, but a magazine article I read afterward put a real buzz-kill on that, noting how G.E. is the scourge of the Hudson, pouring millions of gallons of PCB's in the river since forever ago.

Anyway, more ideas about killing ideas appear in the graphic to the left. Which is your favorite? (Don't get any ideas).

The drawings are from Doobybrain.com, who got them from somewhere else.

A Virtual Wind

My friend Dan has turned me on to augmented reality--no, not the kind where you have to ingest peyote and roll around on the porch until you find your spot, ala Journey to Ixtlan. Rather, it's a project whereby a graphic on your webcam identifies a spot to project another object on to your video. No comprende? Me neither. Read about it starting here. Or watch my test of GE's use of it in the video below. Or see other examples here.

Flying the Flag

As I buzzed around town today, doing errands, helping neighbors, tending my own business, I couldn't help but notice the many flags flying to commemorate Veteran's Day, once a day celebrating the end of war. We do seem to have lost some of our aversion to war, though perhaps too few of us pay enough attention to the costs, in life, respect, and dollars not spent on better things.

I'm the soldier on top of the tank here, probably still only 19 years old, proud here to have converted this war machine, an M-60 tank, to a part-time bulldozer. Note the dozer on the back end. My buddies, Gilbert "Hombre" Lovato and Jerry "Puente" Puent are there probably to mark my achievement. We were stationed at Ray Barracks, Friedberg, West Germany, 122nd Maintenance Battalion, 3rd Armored Division, mid-1970's. Jerry, from LaCrosse, WI, was bigger, but I could out-wrassle him, and Gilbert, from Mountainair, NM, was generally just an all-right guy. I haven't seen either of them since then.

I hope they're well. Happy Veteran's Day, soldiers.

Too Many Kids on the Corner

23 kids in two houses? Next door to each other? That's what it was in the 1970's when the Johnsons lived next to the Nelsons in Ft. Pierre. There were more kids on the block, including the Comptons, whose boys were notorious for mischief.

The father of the Johnson brood, Dale Johnson, recently passed away, and I stopped by the service last night to pay my respects and see who turned up. All of them did.

We reminisced a little, and I stopped by the Johnson home here to visit and enjoy some company. Like our family, many of them are artistic, creative sorts who take life by the horns.

I was reminded too of the plight of poor Mrs. Jacobsen, whom I remember as an old crab who chased kids off her lawn. She lived in a little house behind ours, crowded in there among the rambunctious children, then young adults. Poor old lady--she had a reason to grouse.

Maxine Hong Kingston, a Full Moon, and Ghost Stories

Saturday night, while most people were either offering up candy to kids in costumes or being kids in costumes, some of us were in Vermillion, SD, to hear Maxine Hong Kingston, the keynote speaker of the John R. Milton Writers Conference. She read from her published works, including Warrior Woman and China Men, focusing on ghost stories, especially one from Warrior Woman, where Maxine's mother takes on the hairy sitting ghost that appears in her girl's dormitory.

As she read, the glass wall behind her revealed the full moon illuminating the light clouds visible behind the podium. It was a good Halloween.

My other favorite part of it was seeing the wife in her witchy costume.

Hearing Poets Do What They Do

It's always a treat to be able to rub elbows with writers and be able to talk. I'm down in Vermillion at the John R. Milton Writers Conference, where I got a warm reception yesterday for my own reading and have enjoyed others reading their work, especially Brian Bedard reading a new story about a prom queen and a parade and Lee Ann Roripaugh reading a few poems from her new book--On The Cusp of a Dangerous Year and her dad, Robert A. Roripaugh, read from a book of stories about Wyoming. Ed Allen, author of a novel, Mustang Sally, and a short story collection, Ate It Anyway, read from a work in progress that is a novel told in the form of a series of limericks. It worked a lot better than I thought it would!

More today, including Wang Ping, Maxine Hong Kingston, and a host of others.

"I Hate Hamlet" and Other Birthday Goodies

The wife had yet another birthday on Sunday, so we took the day, went to Sioux Falls, debating along the way about whether a movie might be in order or this play we knew little about. We did the play, and neither of us was disappointed. Produced by the Sioux Empire Community Theatre, the performance featured some fine acting, a great set, and a beautiful theater.

The funny and touching play is about a TV actor, played here by Barton Workman, who loses his series and goes to New York to rekindle an old love for the stage, landing the lead role in a production of Hamlet, to be played in the park. He doesn't want to do it. He hates Hamlet. His agent appears from California with a lucrative offer for another TV series, "Night School," to feature an idealistic high school teacher who moonlights as a semi-super hero.

What should he do? Inspiration comes in the form of the ghost of John Barrymore, famed boozer, womanizer, and strider of the boards, played to great effect here by Tom Roberts.

Things get interesting, and these two, along with a fine supporting cast, carry the audience through the struggle to decide what should come. It won't be quite what you expect.

Check out the play, just $15, showing Oct. 30-Nov. 1 and Nov. 6-8, with matinees.