So I've been absent. What's been up? Let's start from last Friday:

Funeral - had my aunt Shirley's funeral on Friday, which went as well as a funeral could go. Saw a fair amount of family that I'd not seen in a while, and the rain managed to hold off for the most part. I did get to spend some quality time with the neices and nephews, which is always good. We got back to the house late in the afternoon, actually pulling up at the same time as our...

Houseguests - the wife's cousin and her husband are over from England, and they stayed with us for a few days. It was great fun, as we got to sightsee a bit, drank too much, and probably watched more Olympic coverage than they'd have liked (though we did see a swimming event where the Brits went gold-bronze, which went over well). I didn't get to spend quite as much time with them as I'd have liked, thanks to...

Work - our big graduation was today, and we added a little over 500 new alumni to the rolls without too many problems. We did have a few more problems than usual, though, thanks to a database problem on Monday that kept us from releasing grades to students until Friday. We could see them, so I was able to do a fair amount of my usual pre-graduation work, but parts of it got pushed back. I had a nice little plan going into the week, which was summarily blown to hell. We should have seen this coming when we closed grading with fewer than 20 individual grades missing. When I did get home, it was time to settle in and relax with...

The Olympics - which would be fine if I was in as much in love with swimming and gymnastics as NBC would like me to be. I wound up missing some sports entirely (cycling and judo), which others I've only caught fragments when I managed to catch a recap or the start of early morning coverage on one of the cable outlets. I feel like there was more variety to coverage in 2004, or at least the scheduling allowed me to see more.

So there it is. Back on the blogging wagon this week. Expect multiple appearances of the Book Log.

Sorry for the hiatus, work picked up quite a bit with our May graduation on Sunday, where we added 108 new alumni to the rolls. It went quite smoothly, but given all the other stuff we have to along with graduation it's a tough week to do anything extra.

This week isn't much better, but I have found a little time to blog about the network TV upfronts on Tube Boob, which should now be linked on the right. I've posted there more this week than I have in the last three months.

Not much else to say right now, sorry to say.

40 Days, 40 Churches

Day 28: Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral, Boston MA

This cathedral is located right across the street from campus. I've never been in, but it sounds impressive from the description. Certainly more impressive than their web site, or the job of the person who was supposed to pay their web host but apparently forgot.

Then again, the business office is located in Brookline, so it may be that they lost the check while in transit.

Fun work-related note is that, in changing our graduation dates back to Sunday from Saturday, a fair amount of parking normally used by celebrants is going to be taken. Not to mention that the start of the liturgy there may be interrupted by the drone of bagpipes. Fun times for our community relations person, no doubt.

With the variety of employers letting people out early today, we again stand resolute in the face of winter weather and remain open. The reason, according to our HR office:


"This is due to the fact that the majority of our students live on campus and require service and support from all areas."

Questionable writing style aside, this is at least more logical (and more honest) than the previous response to wintry weather. Still, an afternoon off would have been nice.

If you work for an institution of higher education, and you're looking for a way to drive staff morale through the floor, cancel classes during a snowstorm but require staff to come in. Nothing says "you're expendable" better than that.

We have a consultant working in the office due to a staffing shortage, and she sits in the cubicle right in front of mine. For the most part this isn't an issue; we don't interact more than to say hi, and in fact I'm not even sure of her name (which seems bad, but from past experience the consultants don't get particularly chummy with anyone).

But this morning took an interesting turn, as all of us in the back were serenaded with this album. I'd admit surprise that Hall and Oates had made a Christmas album, but that would indicate I've considered their career since, say, 1990.

And while I'm not as positive about the album as the reviewer, I do think it could have been worse. Still, it wasn't something I was looking to hear, and it leads me to consider what I could play in return. Outside of looping "Christmas in Hollis" or the dogs barking "Jingle Bells" for an hour, I'm open to suggestion.

We had a fire at work today. OK, it wasn't in my building, and as it turns out it wasn't even in a building owned by the school. It was in a private apartment building that's between two of our apartment buildings, and is about 50 yards from my office. I got to spend part of my lunch hour watching the proceedings, which involved a lot of smoke and many, many public safety vehicles.

There don't appear to have been any injuries, which is pretty surprising. In a building full of college students, you have to assume that at least a couple will be home and asleep at any given time. No word on the extent of the damage, but our students who live in there are being moved to on-campus spaces for the time being. I have a feeling they'll be there for a while.

Adding to the afternoon of craziness, an outbound Green Line trolley was stopped in the middle of the intersection about a half-hour ago, with a couple of police cars to keep it company. No idea if it broke down, hit someone, or contained a passenger of interest to John Q. Law, but it eventually got moving again.

I don't know if I really believe in the Rule of Three, but I may walk over to the Orange Line to go home. It's not the afternoon to tempt fate, apparently.

Finally get a chance to surface. It's been busy.

Work - Wentworth has 450 or so new alumni after our graduation ceremony on Saturday. Busy as hell in the couple of weeks leading up to it, as we have more than four times as many students graduate in August than in May (a ratio that will only get worse once the new architecture curriculum is fully in place).

At least next year I'll get an extra day, as both of our ceremonies move back to Sunday. They'd moved to Saturday after a lone complaint about having graduation on Mother's Day. It may just be me, but I think seeing my child graduate from college would make a swell Mother's Day present.

Me - As mentioned before we had birthday fun to deal with, capped by a trip to Maine. Not only did we have the requisite birthday cookout, but we also got to take in the 150th anniversary celebration for Stockton Springs. We caught the parade, and I even have pictures if you're into public safety vehicles or horses.

I did not manage to get a picture of Susan Collins, the junior US Senator from Maine. I'd forgotten she was going to be there (it was mentioned in the paper). This is easily the closest I've been to a sitting Senator, at least since the time I got to ride the shuttle underneath the Capitol. Fair to say I'd not have recognized most of the Senators at that point.

Or now, I suppose.

Other crap - the only thing of note here is that I broke the lawn mower yesterday. Or rather, it broke itself. I was pushing it along, minding my own business, and a wheel just fell off. Thankfully I was close enough to done that I could freehand the rest with the weed whacker.

I spent about 15 minutes trying to put the wheel back on, but didn't succeed. I can see how it needs to go on, and even had a wrench that'd allow me to fasten the wheel securely. I just didn't have the third hand necessary to manage the wheel, the mower, and the wrench at the same time.

That's the sort of thing I didn't miss when I was renting or living on campus.

It should also be noted that while the sweet pea isn't in the same league as kudzu, it is one hearty plant. One of the neighbors has it growing along his bushes and grape arbor, and it's everywhere in my backyard, both growing up the side of the house (the one I yanked down yesterday was a good eight feet up) and in the middle of the yard. I fear that I'm going to have to invest in some sort of lawn care products to give the grass a fighting chance.