Scattered Jottings

(1) I received my birthday present from my parents this week, two weeks early. It's a chipper-shredder. Two very important words: EAR PROTECTION!!!

(2)

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

(3) The project I've been working on is now done, so we're heading for the "opening the course up to students" phase. I'll be listed as "course developer" even though technically I was the "course editor." There was a conflict of interest thing. Because Alan is part of the administration, he cannot accept money from outside sources. He had been trying to work it out where the money would just be donated to the math department, but they ruled that he couldn't do that. So he approached me to help him finish things up. This involved (a) reading through the guidebook and asking questions where things didn't make sense (as well as catching typos and such); (b) Working through the software component of the course; (c) Looking over the suggested book homework problems (I suggested three changes, I think); (d) Making a Minitab Manual for students to use in connection with the course. (d) wasn't technically necessary, as there's already a good online guide (called the WILDEST manual), but I made a shorter guide tailored specifically to the class. Once the class gets going, I'll have an occasional set of papers and projects to grade, and be paid something like $100 a student. There are 7 things to grade for each student, so that boils down to a bit over $14 per item to grade. So long as they don't stack up too ridiculously, the extra money will be nice.

(4) Finally, I feel like it's actually summer. I've been going into the office four mornings a week, because I know I won't work on anything at home. A lot of the time there was just wasted, but that was where I got the manual done. There was a bit of an issue there, as I made it in Printmaster Gold, but my contact didn't have that program, so she couldn't make changes directly. I had to convert everything to pdfs to send her, then she had to tell me what needed to be fixed. It would have been simpler if we'd had access to a common editing program.

(5) I like radishes.