Illuminating times

I've finally got tie to finish blogging about our OBX trip over Spring Break. (I had 2 new classes start this week, intro to IT, which took up more time than i'd expected).

So, without further adieu, I give you, lighthouses of the NC Outer Banks!

First up, Bodie Island Lighthouse (pronounced "body"), on the Roanoke Sound side, north end of Hatteras Island. This was our first stop on the Grand Tour of Lighthouses.
























































































Next, the granddaddy of all NC lights, the Cape Hatteras Light - the quintessential American lighthouse (I think).













What is most impressive to me about the Cape Light is that it is now standing 2900 feet southwest of its original location (after being moved, intact, in 1999). This picture is taken from the site of the original 1903 foundation, looking towards its new home.


























Next, came the Ocracoke Lighthouse, on Ocracoke Island, one of the most remote areas I've been to in NC - as evidenced by the 13-mile drive from the ferry terminal to the first building on the island,























and the Currituck Beach Lighthouse, in Corolla.






















Last but not least, we visited the Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse, overlooking the Roanoke Sound, in Manteo.

Who's Famousr?

Won't you, too, waste a few hours of your life playing this game like I did today? ;-) My best streak so far is 35.

This is almost as addictive as the Sitcom/Dictator Game I know and love so well.

Hoppy Easter

The eggs have been dyed and hunted, and our fridge now reeks of vinegar (thank you, Paas Corp!), almost as if the eggs were for the passover seder and got mixed in with the horseradish.

To the lighthouse

In college and grad school, I famously loathed Virginia Woolfe's To the Lighthouse, so I am as surprised as anyone to see a blog post with this title, but, truly, it's the best one to describe our trip to the Outer Banks this week. I asked Ethan before we went what he wanted to see or do, and he said, "See a lighthouse." North Carolina has several, so I said OK, and promised we would. As it happens, there are several on the Outer Banks, and we managed to see them all!

The first picture here was taken at sunset on 4/3/07, in Kill Devil Hills, NC. it's the view from our table at dinner.

We stayed in Manteo, on Roanoke Island, a gorgeous little waterfront town, and the site of the first English colony ("the Lost Colony") of 1587.

My next few blog entries will be about the trip, but here's a sample of what we did and saw.

Bodie Island Lighthouse, Hatteras Island







Cape Hatteras Lighthouse







Ethan at the Elizabethan Gardens, Manteo, NC







Cape Hatteras Beach, 10am 4/4/07. No one was on the beach but Ethan and I!








Roanoke Sound








Another view of Roanoke Sound








Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse, Manteo, NC








Currituck Lighthouse, Corolla, NC

Fleeing the pollen

It's pollen time in Raleigh right now - the worst it's been in years, they tell us on the news. Sure, springtime always bring pollen, but this is just awful. I've got drifts (literally) of sticky, yellow/chartreuse pollen all over everything. My black car. The outdoor table and chairs. The little ledge on the front door. Everywhere. Yesterday I had to mop and vacuum on account of all the pollen being tracked in on our shoes. Ugh. What we need is a good cleaning rain to rid us of the stuff, but I'm not hopeful. Please, God, do't let there be pollen like this in CA! Partly in response to the pollen, and partly because it's Ethan's spring break, we are running away. We're headed to Manteo, on Roanoke Island, this afternoon for a few days. We'll be exploring lighthouses, eating too much seafood, and having a look around the first English colony in the New World. I've been reading some books like If You Lived in Colonial Times to Ethan to get him in he mood for what we will be seeing. He's enjoying it all so far. I think our favorite thing we have learned is that, if he was to write MItch a letter,rhe couldn't address it "Dear Dad..." but instead would have to write "Dear Honour'd Sir..." and then sign it "I am, with greatest respect, Dear Father, your dutiful son, Ethan." Ha!

More wisdom...

The typical teen in this day in age wears cloths that do not fit. Their pants half way hanging on their but and they walk bowl lagged even though nine out of ten they were not born that nor do they have a disorder. That is the prime example, they like disorder.

Can you guess the topic of the paper in which the above appeared?

Oh my... Can you tell I'm grading finals?

I know I'm making a difference! ;-)

I have two writing classes in their last week right now. For one class, it's gone well, but the other has really struggled. it amazes me how much each class has its own personality - I have def. seen the "birds of a feather flock together" phenomenon (both for good and bad) at work in my classes! Anyhow, one of the things I do at the end of each course is ask some general review questions, like "what was your favorite assignment," "what do you know now that you wish you'd known then," etc. This morning, I got the following reply (from a struggler, as you can imagine).

What I liked most about the main class assignment was typing. I love to type although I advice the new comer's not to type too much and drop off the subject of what they are doing.

It's so nice to know I'm making a difference ;-)

All the y'alls

It's a good thing we are moving out of the South soon. Today I actually came across this referenced in one of my students' homework.

YA'LL/Y'ALL

"How y'all doin'?" If you are rendering this common Southernism in
print, be careful where you place the apostrophe, which stands for the
second and third letters in "you." Note that "y'all" stands for "you
all" and is properly a plural form, though many southern speakers treat
it as a singular form and resort to "all y'all" for the plural.

(from Common Errors in English by Paul Brians).

For the record, I do not, have never, and will never say "y'all." I am firmly in the "you guys" camp.

Red Nose Day

Mad props to Liz for sending me this clip. It's a great clip for Comic Relief 2007/Red Nose Day, which was this past Friday.

Early St Pat's

A friend reminded me this morning of this oldie but goodie from The Onion.

What will you be eating or drinking to celebrate this weekend?

A March Madness bracket to care about

I don't care at all about the basketball March Madness season, but I do care about good TV. Our local paper, the News & Observer, realizes that rational people care for their TV as much as some people care for their sports, so they re doing a cool TV-based bracket contest. Here's my bracket (which I can and may change up until noon on Thursday). You can fill out your own bracket to vote, too.

Continuing the theme...

So, my last post was about of one music's high points. Continuing the theme (of music from the 80s, not musical high points), this post from Go Fug Yourself is absolutely spot on.

20 years ago today...

Twenty years ago today, one of the finest albums of all time was released. U2's The Joshua Tree. How can it have been so long ago?

Excuse of the Day

Student excuse for late work of the day:

Sorry this is late, my son was sick then I got married so I fell a litle behind. Hope this is okay.

Yeah, I just hate it when that sort of stuff happens all at once.

Favorite news item of the day

The Princes voicemail prank on the Queen

LONDON, March 5 Prince William and Prince Harry reportedly pulled a prank on their grandmother the Queen, recording a fake message on her answering machine.

The princes who were asked to help with the machine after the Queen was baffled by the technology, recorded the message Hey wassup! This is Liz. Sorry I'm away from the throne. For a hotline to Philip, press one. For Charles, press two. And for the corgis, press three. Britain's Sky News reported that the Queen was very upset at first but later saw the humor in the prank while thinking about who may have heard the message.

But, Queen Elizabeth's private secretary was not amused, said the Daily Star, adding that he almost fell out of his chair when he heard the message.

Copyright 2007 by UPI

Lost in Translation

私は、日本酒の素晴らしさを多くの人に広めたいと思っています。
I think so familiarize for many people that excellently Japanese sake.

I like to think of myself as quite fluent in Engrish, but the above has be absolutely baffled. Anyone reading this who cares to take a stab at a better English translation, be my guest!

St. Patrick's Day is coming

And I'm definitely going to see some of this.

California, here we come!

At long last, it's true... we are moving to northern California! Watch this space for more details :-)

Liz - send me an email we need to confer!

Minnesota

If ever there was a reason to move to Minnesota, Al Franken has finally given me one.

Good luck to Al!

It Had to Be Mitch

It's Valentine's Day, and Mitch and I have found ourselves on opposite sides of the country :-( So, I was sitting here thinking about him while I did my boring work, when iTunes played me a little Valentine song - Harry Connick Jr's version of "It Had to Be You." Not only is this version of the song from perhaps my all-time favorite movie ("When Harry Met Sally"), it is also the song we used for our first dance at our wedding. I don't have a video clip of the dance to post here, so I'm making do.

Also, we're a bit Harry and Sally ourselves. We were friends first. We didn't date for a good 6-7 months (though we were together as often as possible nonetheless) before we declared ourselves a couple, and God knows I'm the uptight one who gets cold when it's 71 degrees out, while he's the fun-loving Mallowmar eater :-)

These are for you, Mitch!