Down by the old mill stream.... no, wait...

I've had a bunch of education, courtesy of my job. I've also managed to take a few college courses on my own. Unfortunately, because of the nature of my work, it's difficult to enroll in a school and stay there all the way through to graduation. Fortunately, there's Excelsior College. Now, there are those who think of it as just another diploma mill, but I must beg to differ. Excelsior (formerly Regents College of the University of the State of New York) is accredited by an actual U.S. Department of Education-recognized accreditation organization. It doesn't offer credit for "life experience" or "alternative study." What it does offer is acceptance of transfer credits from other accredited institutions, in addition to its own distance-learning courses. This is a great boon to people like me. I can take my 15 credits from XYZ University, my 37 from PDQ State, and so on, and transfer them to Excelsior, who will evaluate them and give me credit toward an Excelsior degree. Just like any other school. The big difference is that Excelsior doesn't have a residence requirement. They don't insist that I earn a certain number of credits through them. They'll offer courses if I need them, but if I have enough credits for a Bachelor's degree spread around several different schools (because I've moved around a lot) Excelsior will award me that degree. It saves me having to repeat classes just to satisfy XYZ University's requirement that at least 30 credits be earned in their classrooms. The difference between Excelsior and the diploma mills is this: with Excelsior, I actually did take classes, earn grades, and learn something. With a diploma mill, you pretty much send them a check.

So why do I mention this? Well, as I said, I have had a lot of education, but it's spread out around a few different schools. I recently earned a promotion at work, and the (as yet) unwritten rule is that for the NEXT promotion, a Bachelor's degree is pretty much required. Oh, you CAN get promoted without one, but the statistics are something like 95% of promotees have one. So anyway, I decided I would finally gather up my credits and see what I needed to finish. I sent all of my transcripts to Excelsior, and waited. Last night, I got a notification that they had reviewed my transcripts, and decided that for my desired degree program (BS in Liberal Studies) I needed...

3 hours. 2 hours of "Natural Science/Math" and 1 hour of "Information Literacy."
That's not bad, not bad at all. Wow, I had no idea I was so close to being able to change the "education level" checkboxes on all the forms I'll fill in in the future. Yep. 3 hours. 2 classes. I can probably CLEP the math; I can't imagine they want me to get an upper level math for a Liberal Arts degree. That's three credits. One credit of overkill. So all I'll need is the one credit of...

Wait... what? "Information Literacy?" Yep. It seems they've (along with most other online-type schools) decided that I need a course in "how to properly conduct research in the 21st century, using the internet." Things like, if I'm researching a medical question, do I trust the AMA website more, or do I choose to get my information from some guy who thinks everyone would be healthy if only they drank their own urine every day?

This SEEMS like a reasonable request. But... it's a "self-paced" class. It's "taught" by their librarians. It's scheduled for 8-weeks, but it can be successfully completed in 45 minutes (I know at least one person who has). And it costs $270. You'd think that anyone who could find Excelsior's website, create a login, register for the school, retrieve the email and check their course progress would pretty much have demonstrated the required proficiency. But they need to know that I can do it "properly." Oh, they say they're willing to accept it as a transfer from another accreditied school, but I also know someone who tried to do THAT, and... they hoops he had to jump through? No. I'm going to pay it. Well, actually, no I'm not -- my employer is. But if you know where I work, you know who's really going to pay it.

Rest assured, however, that I will be lodging a very strongly worded complaint with the college regarding this... travesty.

Just as soon as my diploma arrives.

Sleep tight...

Because of my lengthy commute, usually I arrive home just in time for dinner and then bedtime. We have some bedtime rituals in our house that make chivvying two children off to dreamland just a bit easier for us: Lily and I have "a race" up the stairs. No matter who wins, it's always "a drawl," which is a cool thing because only if we have "a drawl" do we get to share a special "draw hug" involving an extra-tight squeeze around my neck. Since Lily expects this race every night, if I head up without her she gets quite upset. On the other hand, if I just suggest that tonight I might actually win the race (by getting a head start) she will immediately drop everything (including the "but I don't want to go to bed now, I'm not tired" game) and head peaceably off to bed. Then I brush her teeth, and we "race" to her room, where I read her two stories and sing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." After that, I'll turn on her musical night-light, which she's had since she was born (sort of), at which point she'll usually tell me she can't sleep. So I will suggest she count something. The first time, I suggested that old standby, sheep. The next night, however, she said, "I counted all the sheep." So I picked some other animal. Then one night she wanted to count gummy bears. Ooookay. Then it became "gummy (somethings)" every night. Next we progressed to "chocolate gummy (somethings)," and we are currently counting "mint chocolate gummy (somethings)" each bedtime. Oh, and now I have to have her count TWO things. So tonight she's upstairs counting "mint chocolate gummy rhinoceroses" and "mint chocolate gummy giraffes."

David's ritual is much easier now, although it was quite nearly as complex in the past. Now, all I have to do every night is make sure to "give him his bed animal." See, once upon a time, when he was about 2, I said to him one night, "Good night! Sleep tight! Don't let the bed... um... (pretending to forget what bites you in bed)... alligators bite!" He giggled and said, "No, daddy, BUGS!" So the next night, I played for the laugh again (hey, I know my audiences!) and chose some other creature to lurk in wait in the bedclothes. We've done this now nearly every night since. He MUST correct me ("Bugs!!!") or the ritual is incomplete. Sometimes, when I'm away, I'll enlist Susie's help, either by giving her a list or a topic, and she acts as my proxy. Topic? Yes, since we've been doing this so long, we've made more of a game out of it. It started out by me trying to name a different animal each night starting with successive letters of the alphabet. Then it was all mythical creatures, then extinct creatures, and so on. The deal now is, I think of a unifying characteristic, and each night one animal from that group is the biter. He has a week to figure it out. He's quick, I'll tell you. He's never needed more than three days, but now he's testing me. Once he figures it out, he writes it down, and waits for the end of the week to see what animals I've chosen to fit the pattern. This week's group started on Tuesday, with penguin, followed by flamingo and tiger. And so I'll end this post the same way I ended my day with David:

"Good night! Sleep tight! Don't let the bed raccoons bite!"

Just like old times.

Looks like I'm all moved back in over here. All the posts from there have been posted here. I still need to unpack the rest of the boxes (add the labels, see if the comments will transfer) but for the most part, this is it. Aren't you glad you waited?

No, you aren't imagining things...

Yep. I've moved this blog back to blogger.com. The stats feature at wordpress wasn't doing what I wanted it to do, so there ya go. If there's anything you liked there, I'm going to be slowly moving it all over here, but it's a cut-and-paste-and-adjust-the-date kind of process. If you can't wait (and if you haven't read it yet, you should go, you don't know what you're missing!) you can go back over to the other host and see it by clicking here. Eventually all will be as it was. Except better.

Well, NOW I've done it...

Since I can’t seem to remember to write over here, I’ve gone and signed up on a writers’ community website, WritersCafe.org. Don’t know what they do there. I guess I’ll read a bit, and maybe write some short stuff. Who knows, maybe I’ll even remember to come back and post here now and again. Hope so. Stay tuned!!

EDIT, about 10 minutes later: Ooookay. So, I signed up for that site. Looked good. Came here, posted that above. Went back. Looked around. Um… not so much for me, I think. Lots of angsty writing, lots of “groups” of, shall we say, “specialized interest” writers. Lots of, hmm… let’s say “women writers of science fiction, who feature cats prominently in their writing.” I don’t know what that means, really, but it’s a type of writing Susie and I have noticed that should probably be its own sub-genre. And things like this story. OK, it’s not so much a story as a rant. And as such, it’s mildly amusing, although I’d say a bit trite, and the writing level is that of a reasonably intelligent high-school freshman who’s seen a few episodes of “Seinfeld.” But what gets me is the gushing of the reviewers. “Well written.” “Wonderful.” Um, no. Sorry. I’d post my own review, but since I don’t have any writing of my own (except for what’s here in this blog) to contribute, I don’t think that would be very nice. I know, I know, I’ve just slammed the guy pretty hard here. But do you know how I found this story? It’s listed as the number 1 rated story on the site. Sigh. What do you think, oh hordes of faithful readers? Should I go and call the kettle black? Anyway, I guess I’ll keep looking around. I want to write, you know. I’ve said it before. I’ve already signed up to be reminded for this years NaNoWriMo. And who knows, maybe I’ll even write a science fiction story, about a strong woman and her cat, just to post it back to WritersCafe.

MUCH better than an iPhone!

I’ve been reading about this project for a while, and I’m glad to see it finally go into production. A $100 laptop, designed for children, to get computers into places where there has been a historical lack of technology. Three cheers for OLPC!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I’ve read it. I liked it. No spoilers here.

It's probably the only way *I'll* ever get one...

You may have noticed I’m a bit of a geek, and I loves me my gadgets. So when the iPhone was announced, I could hardly wait to see it. Then I saw it, and I wanted it. Then I saw the price tag, and the fact that it’s tied to a specific network, and I would have to use it on “international roaming” all the time, and, well, the joy went out of it a little.
You may also know that my wife is an avid knitter. She has her own blog about it, The Knit Farm, which is where I stole got the name for my blog from. She’s done some amazing stuff, and right now she’s doing some mystery pattern thingy.
What do these things have to do with each other? Just this. Is that the coolest thing, or what?

Here, there, and everywhere

Where to begin? We went back home at the end of July, for Berit’s memorial. Because we purchased our tickets late (having to do with my not getting approval to leave until the last minute because I was away) we found that it was actually not much more expensive to purchase tickets on MaxJet, an all-business-class airline, than it would have been to get last-minute coach tickets elsewhere. It meant flying into Dulles instead of somewhere more convenient, but hey, I’ve made that drive dozens of times. So, cool, right? Except that when we arrived at the airport to leave, we found out that our flight was delayed. Bad, right? Except that MaxJet had set aside rooms for us at the airport Radisson for us to hang around in to wait. Good, right? Except that (ok, I’m gonna stop the “good new/bad news” thing now…) they called to tell us that the flight had been cancelled. Long story shortened slightly, they put us up there for the night (in two adjoining rooms), paid for our meals, and the next day paid for a van/cab ride from Stanstead to Heathrow so that we could catch the evening flight on Virgin Atlantic… in Upper Class, including access to the “Clubhouse,” where EVERYTHING is complimentary. Sweet! Now, I did some research, and found that according to EU rules, they did everything they were required to do (and probably to a slightly higher level of quality than required) except for one thing: They’re required to compensate us with cash as well. To the tune of 600 Euros. Each. Now, let’s hold that thought for a moment.
Cut to the return leg of the trip. There we are at the check-in counter at Dulles, and the desk agent says, “We had some equipment problems with our aircraft.” Now, by this time we’ve done some research on MaxJet, and discovered that they only own three airplanes. Because of this they’ve had some problems meeting schedules, and had in fact cancelled several (some would say “many”) flights in the past few weeks. But they also had a partial solution, which some of the bloggers we had read were a bit lukewarm in their reviews of. And in fact, although we expected the agent to continue with, “so we’ve had to cancel the flight,” instead he said, “so we’ve leased an aircraft from another company. We think you’ll like it, it’s the Dallas Mavericks‘ team plane.” I leaned back to Susie and gave her this bit of news, and she told me how she had heard of people getting the Mavericks’ plane and the reports weren’t great. I mentioned this to the agent, and he seemed surprised. “It’s nicer than our planes, I think,” he said. Then he explained that since the plane was configured differently from their regular planes, we weren’t able to get the seats we had pre-selected. “FAA requires us to put families together, so we put you in the ‘club’ seats. That’s two seats facing two other seats, with a table in the middle.” Sounds good to me.
So, as he’s checking in our bags, the gate manager comes over, and says, “We’re really sorry for the inconvenience of you not having the seats you selected, so to compensate you for that, and for the uncomfortable nature of seats that face backward, we’re going to give you a $500 travel credit. Each.” Great! We proceed to the lounge; as “business class” passengers, we were entitled to use the NorthWest Airlines lounge… free drinks, snacks, open bar… not as nice as Virgin’s Clubhouse, but better than the standard uncomfortable gate-area seating. When the flight was called for boarding, we got on, and found our seats. Now, I can’t really describe this as well as these few pictures can, so here’s the View Forward from my seat, here’s the view aft. Here’s Lily watching a movie (look at how massive her seat is!) and here’s me helping David with his homework. And these are the seats that the VP of Customer Service refers to as “uncomfortable seating” in his email to me with the instructions on using our $500 travel credits. Uncomfortable? I guess my standards aren’t high enough…
But the real question that remains to me now is… remember the first part of our trip, where the flight was cancelled? Remember the 600 Euros each we were supposed to get, “for our trouble,” under EU laws? Yeah… what do you think?Should I write to them and ask for what I’m entitled to by law, or should I let it go and call it good? Comments welcome!

Gee, I sure know how to keep 'em coming back...

OK, so it’s been, what, 4 months? But frankly, just after my last post, things didn’t seem so blog-worthy for a while. (If you read Susie’s blog, you’ll know why.) Then I was away, then we went away, and, well, you know how when you get out of the habit of doing something, it’s extra hard to get back into it? Yeah.

Anyway, I’ll be posting more. Promise. And I know, I’ve made that promise before. But this time I mean it. I hope. Gimme another chance?