Verna Elizabeth Hreha
May 22, 1929-April 30, 2012

Beloved neighbor, friend, and surrogate grandmother.

Rest in peace, Verna. I'm glad you have clarity again. We love you.

Okay, all...I rarely do this, but right now I want to make a request for aid, not for me, but for some people I love. My very dear friends Sabrina and Joe, after years of planning, are moving forward with their dream of opening a restaurant. The place will be called Joey Z's, and it's a meatball-sandwich shop featuring a wide variety of homemade meatballs and sauces...not just your usual Italian meatball subs, but such creative offerings as chicken meatballs with Alfredo sauce and bacon and General Tso's pork meatballs. I've tried Joe's meatballs, and they're amazing...if this restaurant successfully gets off the ground, it's going to be fantastic.

Now here's where you come in. To raise money for startup, Sabrina and Joe are using an awesome website called Kickstarter that allows anyone trying to fund a project- business, artistic, whatever- to solicit the Internet as a whole for startup capital rather than enriching a bank or binding themselves to a venture capitalist. The way it works is that you (as in, "you, the prospective funder") go to their Kickstarter page, and pledge any amount of money you want to help them out. It can be as little as a dollar or as high as your generosity runs; even tiny gifts help, because the more backers they have, the more visible they become on Kickstarter's main page, and therefore the more likely they are to attract more backers. You don't actually pay the money unless they meet their fundraising goal within the specified time (in this case, $10,000 within 30 days; they're hoping for a March opening). Here's the link to Sabrina and Joe's Kickstarter page:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joeyzs/joey-zs-meatballs

The page has a cool video they made talking about their project and tantalizing you with pictures of Joe's yummy meatball sandwiches. Pledging has its rewards, too: Sabrina and Joe have set up a tiered system of rewards for pledgees, ranging from a thank-you-for-supporting-us placemat in your name at the restaurant to free sandwiches and t-shirts to having a meatball sandwich party catered by them in your home anywhere in the US, based on how much you give to the cause.

As of today, they've raised just over 10% of what they need in 3 days of funding; they've got 27 days to go to hit the 10K mark. It can be done, but they need more people to back them.

So if you love meatball sandwiches, or like the idea of grassroots support for budding businesses, or if you want to help great people realize their dreams, or just as a favor to me if none of the above apply, go check out the Kickstarter for Joey Z's Meatballs and offer them some support, even if it's just a dollar or five. And please share word with any friends you think would be interested in helping a project like this come to life; the only way to advertise this right now is by word-of-mouth (or word-of-internet). Thanks so much!

Merry Christmas, one and all!

Richard Parker Davis
October 31, 1944- December 9, 2011

Rest in peace, Dad. I don't have any better words right now except that I love you, I miss you, and I'd trade anything that I have to get you back right now.

Blessed Samhain to you all! It's time to reflect. Maybe in the next few days I'll actually have time to do that here.

There we go...all the people who added me ages ago that I should have re-added back have been re-added, all the communities I never look at purged. At some point I should probably comb through my interests and see what I need to adjust, but that's a task for when I actually have time, as well as making more substantive entries than this.

In just about four hours, I'll depart for my longest stay ever at one of my favorite events of the year, Origins Game Fair in Columbus. A sizable chunk of my gaming group is also going (Steve, Chuck, you're in my sights for next year). I'm unlikely to be on here again till Sunday.

Life is good.

Four years ago today, Stacie and I stood together in First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh and pledged our eternal love to one another. Four years later, I keep loving her more and more each day. Happy anniversary, my sweet one. Thank you for making my life so beautiful.

Even if we know each other well, I am curious what your answers would be. Feel free to skip a question that is too personal, too boring or too annoying and replace it with one of your own (or not.)

Also posted to my LJ so sorry if you see this twice...I only expect one answer :)

01) Are you currently in a serious relationship?
02) What was your dream growing up?
03) What talent do you wish you had?
04) If I bought you a drink what would it be?
05) Favorite vegetable?
06) What was the last book you read?
07) What zodiac sign are you?
08) Any tattoos and/or piercings? Explain where.
09) Worst habit?
10) If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride?
11) What is your favorite sport?
12) Do you have a pessimistic or optimistic attitude?
13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
14) Worst thing to ever happen to you?
15) Tell me one weird fact about you.
16) Do you have any pets?
17) What if I showed up at your house unexpectedly?
18) What was your first impression of me?
19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
21) Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
22) What eye colour do you have?
23) Ever been arrested?
24) Bottle or can pop/soda?
25) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it?
26) What's your favorite place to hang out?
27) Do you believe in ghosts?
28) Favorite thing to do in your spare time?
29) Do you swear a lot?
30) Biggest pet peeve?
31) In one word, how would you describe yourself?
32) Do you believe/appreciate romance?
33) Favorite and least favorite food?
34) Do you believe in God?
35) Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you?

It's been a weird few weeks.

A new term* and a new year are well underway, and that always leads to a certain measure of disorientation, as I have to learn a whole new schedule of classes, rooms, and dates scattered across my three campuses of employment after spending the previous four months on a schedule similar enough to be disorienting but not close enough to be helpful. Add that to the usual cognitive dissonance of having the year change, in this case to a new tens place after a decade of "'0x" and the usual slight seasonal confusion as the Christmas season gradually ends for different people at different times, and the start of January is always a tad strange for me to begin with.

So my term began; 22 credits this time, which is heavier than last term, but with no new courses this time, meaning my time outside of class, save for grading and tweaking quizzes and exams, is largely my own, and that's a definite improvement. But still the schedule was different enough to take some getting used to. After two weeks, I just about had it down.

Then we traveled to New York for our usual Martin Luther King long weekend trip, a destination we've not visited in three years, though it didn't feel that long. New York as lots of fun, and much more comfortable than our journey of a few years back, and featured a long day spent at Ellis Island. Since I've been deeply involved in genealogy this past year, this was a quasi-religious experience for me: walking through the very halls that my great-grandparents waited in to be processed, standing at the desk where their names were registered, looking at a photo of a young Gypsy immigrant and wondering if she was my great-grandmother. It was deeply moving, and I highly recommend it to anyone with relatives who came through there. But needless to say, it also added to my sense of displacement in time.

Then I returned to Pittsburgh, was further bebuzzled by the four-day workweek when I wasn't yet used to the five-day schedule of the term, and got severely sick five days after our return, likely as a result of a plague caught on the cold, rainy ferry ride to and from Ellis Island, which I must argue is a fairly authentic snapshot of what many of my forebears experienced upon their arrival. The upshot of said plague was that I spent the next week in a diseased, medicine-addled haze. When it became a sinus infection the following week, I missed two and a half days of work- the most I've missed since I began teaching for any reason- further cutting me off from any semblance of a normal schedule. But the time to convalesce helped, and by Friday I was still coughing and stuffy, but definitely on the mend (which is about the condition in which I still find myself, three days later). In any event, I was ready to resume normal life and finally get into a rhythm.

Then came the storm.

Those of you in the northeastern U.S. and parts of the southeast and Midwest already know about what my wife and I have been calling "Snowpocalypse '010**" firsthand; those of you elsewhere have no doubt seen the news reports. It's as bad as they're saying- Pittsburgh has not seen this much snow since 1993***, and it's officially the fourth-biggest snowfall on record here. Allegheny County has been essentially paralyzed since Friday night. My parents and many of my friends lost power the night of the storm; as of an hour or so ago, everyone I know, to my knowledge, has it back. Many roads remain unplowed and impassable, and those that have been plowed are still unsafe; several friends got into bad driving situations as recently as today due to bad road conditions. pghkitten and I spent literally the entire daylight portion of the weekend taking turns shoveling and realizing in a very graphic way exactly how much driveway we have, and my mother came and took shelter with us when the lack of heat, hot water, and internet got to be too much for her on Sunday night. We hunkered in our neighborhood all weekend (not that we had much choice till Sunday evening, when we finally dug out the cars and a path for them to leave), canceling plans ranging from gaming to painting to polyamorous rendezvous...and then did so again today, when every college I work for was closed due to roads not yet safe after a full weekend of plowing, and a water main break at Stacie's office. Today one of our gutters broke due to ice overflow.

And I've just gotten word that tomorrow is another snow day; the city government has asked all area colleges to remain closed for reasons of safety, and Stacie's office is still closed. And as if the city hadn't been it hard enough, another 6-10 inches of snow is expected between tomorrow and Wednesday, which will probably throw the region into further chaos and lead to at least one additional snow day, if not two.

Lest it be thought that I hate snow- I truly don't. I love it, love how it looks, love playing in it- I've built a giant snow katamari and a snow goblin, and the only reason I haven't made a snow fort is because the embankments of snow from shoveling have essentially already turned my entire yard into one- and at some level I've deeply enjoyed seeing the first real, serious snow we've had in a decade. And paid snow days are one of those neat little perks teaching gets that few other professions do. But my enjoyment of this extended vacation has been leavened by all the trouble it's put a lot of my friends and loved ones to, and the realization that, between this and my illness, I have no idea how I'm going to make up the lost classtime once the dust (or in this case, the snowdrift) settles.

In short- my academic schedule is entirely shot, I feel like I'm on Christmas break, I'm likely to spend the next few days shoveling snow off my driveway for the second time in a week, and I'm unlikely to ever gain any sense of time or schedule at this rate. So please forgive me if I'm a bit more absent-minded than usual for a little while; at some level I have yet to recover a normal pattern since, oh, mid-December, and by the time I do so again, spring break will probably begin.

On the plus side, cold nights are good for a nice drink, and I have discovered I rather like Sandeman port. We poured it properly, without invoking His Excellency the Bishop of Norwich****, and that and a copy of Spider Robinson's Mindkiller, which should be part of the sci-fi canon but isn't for some reason, made for a cozy and relaxing wind-down after a day behind the snow shovel.

*It recently occurred to me that, with the exception of the brief period between the end of grad school and the beginning of full-time teaching, my entire life for the past quarter-century has been framed by the academic calendar; I automatically break up the year into semesters and/or terms, and am likely to view time through this lens at least until I retire, if I ever retire. I think this tendency to compartmentalize time in a way that most of the world ceases to once they finish school may contribute to the air of detachment and absent-mindedness many academics seem to possess.

**Our circle of friends had spent considerable intellectual energy debating what to call the new year. "'010," pronounced, "oh-ten," seems to be the winner so far.

***Further lessons in feeling old: The morning of the storm, I mentioned the blizzard of '93 to my half-filled classes- and got blank stares in return. Then I asked how many of them were old enough to remember said blizzard, and got four hands raised out of about 16. I wish I'd thought at the time to remark that some of them were likely conceived during said storm, since I teach biology and can get away with remarks like that; espirit d'escalier.

****In proper port etiquette (and there's more to it than this), one is supposed to pour one's share out of the decanter and pass it along. If someone fails to move the port to the next person, it's considered gauche to ask them directly to do so; instead, you're supposed to ask if they know the Bishop of Norwich (or Winchester). If they are of sufficiently proper breeding (measured for this purpose in degree of familiarity with obscure forms of etiquette) to recognize what this means, they are supposed to acknowledge that they do know him and pass the port, appropriately abashed. If they indicate that they are not acquainted with His Excellency, you reply, "He's a good fellow, but he doesn't pass the port*****." I love British aristocratic culture.

*****If they still fail to get the hint, you are permitted to batter them about the head and neck with an antique silver salt-cellar and seize the decanter from their unconscious fingers.

So...2010.

Now, I'm one of those calendar geeks who will tell you (and be right) that the Aughts aren't over yet, and that the next decade doesn't really begin till 2011. But every time we hit another year that's the name of an Arthur C. Clarke novel, a certain measure of introspection is inevitable.

First off, this is a year that I never really thought I'd see. Not because I expected the world to end before then, not because I expected to die young...but just because, well, years that high are just in the future. Maybe it's a consequence of this being a year I grew up seeing mostly in sci-fi contexts, maybe it's a product of having been alive during three decades that began with "19" and not yet fully accustomed to those beginning with "20," but something about 2010 just seems a bit unreal to me. It's like the people in charge of the calendar just gave up on framing time in terms of realistic, believable years, and starting using a bunch of silly futuristic ones, except that now we're living in one. Something about it is just unreal.

And people keep saying, "Okay, if we're living in the future, where are the flying cars? Where are the food pills?" As far as I can tell, we are living in the future. I have in my pocket a personal communications device about the size of a deck of cards that can store the phone numbers of everyone I know with hundreds of slots to spare, and from anyplace I happen to be standing, that device can allow me, within 20 seconds or so, to talk to people thousands of miles away, even if neither of us actually knows the other's physical location. And said device is actually something a dinosaur, because it's too big and doesn't have the capacity to allow me onto the world-wide network of millions of computers which allows me to do everything from convert dollars into yen to search for the name of the guy who invented Silly String with a few keystrokes. People with enough money can fly into space for vacation, growing numbers of cars can be plugged into a household outlet in lieu of gasoline, eggs and sperm can now be converted back and forth by pulling the right genetic levers, televisions now have roughly the same dimensions as paintings, and I can pay for my groceries by waving a little plastic card at a sensor. If all that isn't the future, I'm not sure what is.

It's been a hell of a decade. We've seen the rise and fall of the closest this nation has ever come to totalitarianism, we've seen an analog world turn digital, we've seen the PC transform from an expensive toy to the engine of modern life. We've seen the fashions and media of our childhood make comebacks as retro styles. The world is increasingly tun by people who came of age in the era of Star Wars, He-Man, and Rainbow Brite. Premarital cohabitation is no longer shocking, and more than 10% of the states now allow gay marriage. Entire new countries exist that didn't a decade ago. Carrot Top has retired into the comfort of a long-term Vegas gig. Michael Jackson is dead; Britney Spears is old news. A black man is President, and Palpatine is the Pope. All in all, it's been pretty weird.

And me...well, I started this decade as an ambitious anthropology student, newly initiated into the world of paleoanthropology but not yet even possessed of a bachelor's degree. I'm ending it with dreams of archaeology largely shelved and happy memories of the time spent in that life, but equal excitement about passing the dream onto others through my teaching. I'm still a scholar and always will be, but I never could have predicted where I'd end up or what it'd be doing. I've got a smart, beautiful wife, a house, two intelligent and adorable kittens, a car, and a mortgage. I have awesome friends and two incredible girlfriends. I make my own decisions about everything from insurance to where to go for dinner. I fly on airplanes two or three times a year. Somewhere during the past ten years, I became a grown-up.

But some things remain the same, too. I still ask for fantasy novels and video games for Christmas. I still play Dungeons and Dragons once or twice a week. I still write down quotes in little notebooks, still collect coins and comic books, still vote liberal, and still quest after the exact shape and meaning of this universe. I still honor ancient pagan festivals eight times a year, although I also now deliberately eat prodigious quantities of meat at the beginning of every Lent. I still check my e-mail first thing in the morning, although the computer is better. I still hang out with most of the same people I did back then, though I've made some wonderful new friends in the meantime, and see a few others far too infrequently because we're not yet far enough into the future to have teleporters.

And I began 2010 just as I began 2000, with Stacie in my arms, kissing me. She's just got my last name now. All in all, it's been a good few years.

So I begin the year of being 31 as a college professor, still angling for tenure. I'm not yet published, but I'm presenting my first professional paper since grad school in a few months, and have high hopes for some of my fiction. I still need to travel more to see distance friends and loved ones, still need more time, and still hope to update this journal more. And I've given up on trying to predict where life will take me next.

Happy New Year, everyone. Let's make it a good one.

Merry Christmas, everyone! Tomorrow, pghkitten, the kittens and I will spent Christmas morning with my folks, then repair to New Castle for Christmas dinner, to return to Pittsburgh on the 26th. Hope all of you have a safe, warm, happy holiday!

...at this hour, I was putting on my suit, although the tuxedo waited till later in the afternoon. A few short hours from now, about the time she'll be coming home from work today and falling into my arms again, Stacie was holding my hand as we pledged to stay together forever.

It's been hard at times; we've had tragedy, privation, and all the fears that come with making your way on your own. But through it all has been that shining silver thread of love and happiness, and even as we endured life's trials, never for a moment have we doubted that we made the right choice that day. And the joys have outnumbered the trials many times over, and the shining beacon of the love we share has given me hope that, even in the darkest and hardest times, everything would be all right, because we'd always have each other.

Happy anniversary, my love. Here's to a million more, each as joyful as the last.

So when I saw a headline on Yahoo about a new movie starring Debbie Gibson and Lorenzo Lamas involving a giant shark and a giant cephalopod, I assumed it was some sort of Internet meme or joke. Apparently I underestimated the potential of the modern world to yield things that no sane brain would ever conceive.

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus

This movie has everything. Prehistoric Sea Beasts- Frozen in Mortal Combat for Ten Million Years! Giant sharks rearing out of the water to bite the Golden Gate Bridge! Lorenzo Lamas piloting an armed submarine! Giant sharks leaping out of the water to bite an airplane! Giant octopus tentacles swatting at airplanes from below! (I never would have guessed that a movie about colossal sea creatures would involve so many air-based casualties.) Debbie Gibson standing dramatically at the seashore, contemplating the forthcoming doom of mankind! I don't see how this can fail.

It's a direct-to-DVD release, which is sort of sad, inasmuch as it clearly follows in the tracks of the groundbreaking Snakes on a Plane and would thereby attract the same general audience to a theatre. But the real tragedy is that I find myself looking forward to seeing it.

I'm back.

Most of my readership has some sort of dealings with me in day-to-day life, so the reason for my long absence is no mystery to a lot of you: I've had an incredibly busy several months, career-wise. I might have mentioned last semester that it was, at the time, the busiest term I've had since I started teaching- classes at three schools, an entire curriculum to design for one of them, three evening classes per week. My posting and presence, both online and off, dwindled considerably.

This term was busier still. I taught a total of 19 credits, again scattered among several colleges. It was almost entirely upper-level courses, two of which I'd never taught before, and one of those (Anatomy and Physiology II) at a college that had never offered it before and therefore had no supportive structure in place for it whatsoever. So not only was I contending with all the usual day-to-day concerns of teaching- lessons, grading, designing exams, fielding requests for help and letters of reference, and so forth- but I was also doing so around writing five new lectures per week, designing new lab assignments and acquiring supplies for them, and generally learning the ropes of dealing with a higher level o0f students than I normally cope with. On top of that, my History of Science course at Duquesne, which is the most time-consuming class in terms of grading (two papers and exams that are mostly essays), was bigger than it's ever been, at 41 students. And to top it all off, the schedule was brutal- morning classes every day, evening classes three nights a week, only one day a week when I didn't have to commute between schools at least once (and two days I had to go back-and-forth twice due to schedule timing). And naturally no one's spring breaks matched up, so there was effectively no time off, save for snow days in January, which served only to put me behind schedule at multiple colleges simultaneously.

Oh, and because I just wasn't busy enough already, I also took on two additional projects. Firstly, I was a co-instructor for an online Forensic Anthropology course. I didn't have much to do with it- mostly proposing a lesson topic, and grading the resultant assignments- but it was my first time teaching anything to do with my actual field of study since grad school, and that made me very happy, even though the head instructor was a total flake and getting any useful information from her about what I was supposed to be doing was a trial. Secondly, I was invited to be a guest speaker at the community college (my primary employer), presenting a talk on the life and influences of Charles Darwin for his 200th birthday, as well as helping judge a Darwin Day poster presentation there. Seeing as Darwin is a personal scientific hero of mine, and his ideas are largely responsible for my entire career, I jumped at the opportunity. The presentation was decently well attended (about two dozen people), and I felt it went very well. Not a major time sink, but I did have to devote some time and effort to designing the PowerPoint (not a tool I typically use in my classes) and whittling down my usual two-and-a-half-hour Darwinian Revolution lecture from my History of Science class to an hour-long presentation for general audiences.

The net result of all this busyness? Most other aspects of life vaporized. Recreational reading? I haven't finished a novel since Christmas, and have mostly confined myself to reading short stories and gaming books- things I could digest in little chunks without losing the thread of the story or getting sucked in and thereby losing too much time. Gaming? My players were immensely patient with me, even though I probably canceled one session out of every three. Visiting friends and family? I became a stranger to a lot of people this semester. Correspondence? My long-distance friends and loved ones have barely heard my voice for awhile now. Sleep and regular meals? I managed them, but not as often, as long, or as healthy as I would have preferred. And oh, yes, there was stress. I can't say I didn't come out of this with at least some psychological damage.

But there was some payoff. Financially, for one- I get paid by the credit, so teaching 19 credits meant a significant raise (at my best, I used to do 14 per term, and of late it's been 11 per term more often than not, since the community college cut hours for adjuncts, a policy they've thankfully reversed). I wish I could say that that helped Stacie and I recoup savings spent on the house last year, pay down debt, or make some significant progress towards other goals, but alas, most of the raise got eaten by car repairs, helping family in need (and no apologizing, Wendy), and recouping from the first two months of the years when, due to the nature of adjunct contracts, I don't get paid. But at least that meant we could field all those expenses when they came up, so the raise was helpful, even if we found ourselves largely in the same place financially speaking as before the Term from Hell. Alas, I have yet to be paid for either the forensics class or the Darwin talk (I expect I'll eventually get a check for the former but not the latter).

Professionally, there were some good dividends as well. I've got my name in as a good and reliable instructor at another college (Point Park University), who is now reliably offering me 6-8 credits per term, and more if I want them, and has a good chance of hiring me on in a permanent capacity once their Forensic Sciences major gets off the ground. My CV has been considerably expanded, and I've now got several additional courses fully planned out that I can use in the future. In the fall, I'll be assuming full control of the online forensics class I was only a partial instructor for this term, and that opens the door to other anthro classes in the future. I've been asked to do the Darwin presentation again next year, and possibly a talk on Neandertals this fall. And, for the first time since I've been teaching it, I got through the entire curriculum of my History of Science course without falling behind and having to cut at least one lecture.

Personal dividends? Lest it be thought this term was simply an exercise in overwork, let it be understood that I love my job. Teaching is deeply fulfilling to me, upper-level teaching more so, and I really liked working with the classes I did. I'll be the first to admit the quality of my work was not as high as it should have been this term- a casualty both of my busyness and the growing pains of teaching so many classes for the first time- but I feel like I did a good job, my students gave me overwhelmingly positive reviews, and, as always happens when I teach, I learned, both about the subjects I was teaching and about how to teach better. With each passing term, I feel more and more secure in this unplanned choice of profession, even though my heart still twinges every time I read an article about a new hominid discovery.

But, all that being said, I'm glad it's over. As much as I love my job, I don't want to live for it. I'm passionate about science and history and teaching, but more passionate about family, friends, and my creative projects, all of which were neglected to one extent or another these past several months. Now I want to start focusing more on those things, which are, at the end of the day, the things that matter. So to everyone who had to deal with my erratic schedule, whom I bailed on or wasn't there for, or who otherwise suffered from my professional advancement (especially my incredible wife, pghkitten, who made it possible for me to cope with all this), I'm truly and deeply sorry, and I promise I'm not becoming a workaholic. I don't want another term like this. I'll probably have one, whenever I get tenure and have my first semester as a full professor, but in general, I want to shape my future in such a way that times like this are the exception, and not the rule as they have been of late. I want my life to be focused on what I do when I get home, and I don't want the primary at-home activity to be getting ready for work the next day. And to all of you who were patient, supportive, and provided me with essential distraction, social time, and reminders of why I do all this- thank you. Your love and friendship makes his kind of punishing schedule bearable, and at the end of the day makes everything else worthwhile.

So what does my schedule look like from here? This summer, it's going to be blissfully quieter. I deliberately turned down extra classes in order to facilitate a lighter summer term- just two classes, both Tuesdays and Thursdays during the day, 9 AM to 4:30 PM. So I'm totally off Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays this summer, and have no evening classes. I intend to spend the time seeing friends and family, doing fun things around the area (and a few little weekend trips, although financial concerns have already thwarted our annual pilgrimage to Otakon in July), tending to my weed-choked and long-neglected creative garden, and planning ahead for the fall. I'll make less this summer than I usually do, but the tradeoff in time, peace of mind, and reconnecting with the people and things I love is more than worth it. We've got two planned trips- our usual trek to Origins at the end of June, and a long weekend in Seattle at the beginning of June- and are entertaining the possibility of one or two other weekend expeditions, as time and funds allow.

As for this fall, at first blush it looks like I've not learned the lesson of this semester, since I'll be teaching 20 credits rather than 19, a courseload other instructors tell me is psycho (in more or less those terms). But it'll be a much more manageable schedule- only one new class (Intro to Physical Sciences for non-science majors, which I have all summer to design), most of my classes in the mornings, only two afternoon classes (Tuesday and Thursday labs), and one evening class a week (History of Science on Wednesdays). The forensics class is an online one, and therefore can be done on my own schedule, and demands far less time than a class that meets in person. Everything else is a class I've taught before and know my way around. So in other words, so long as I'm efficient this summer at planning ahead for my one new section, this fall should be a lot easier, and in any event the time distribution of courses means I'll have a lot more free time when other people are also free from their jobs. So it promises to be a lot less punishing a schedule, and a much more lucrative one (only one credit more, but more of them are at the community college, which pays better than Point Park). And ideally, barring large unforeseen expenses, Stacie and I can actually start reaping the financial benefits of my workload, paying down some debt and saving for the future.

This has been a long delve into the most dominant aspects of my life for the past several months, but it's by no means the full summary of all I've been about and done. I have had other things going on, and they bear discussion; this just seemed to me to be a necessary prelude to everything else, especially for those who aren't local and may have bene unaware of the reasons for my absence. Over the next week (I have a full week off before summer term starts!), I plan to make several other posts on other exciting things that I've had happening, including but not necessarily limited to (listed here as much for my own convenience as anything else): Gaming, genealogy, family, writing, conventions, travel, thoughts on the current state of the world and politics, gardening, plans for the summer, and life with kittens.

I'm back. And for a little while at least, I'm free.

My grandmother is dead. She passed away on February 27th; I only just found out. I'm not grieving, but am gradually coming to the awareness that that entire generation of my family is now gone; I no longer have surviving grandparents. More to say about this and other things later.

Best road signs ever.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29017293/?GT1=43001

I'm not often one to wax poetic about a sports team...but damn. The Steelers just won an incredible last-second game, making them the only time in the NFL to win six Super Bowls. They didn't play their best...our vaunted Steel Curtain defense was evidently a bit rusty...but we pulled some amazing plays and came through. And as a storyteller, I truly appreciate the energy, tension, and catharsis of a last-second victory, even if it's stressful in the leadup.

After the game, (which pghkitten and I watched with her co-worker Russell and his girlfriend Simona), we drove as close as we were able to Pittsburgh's South Side, parked, and joined the happy, chaotic throng of revelers filling the street, waving Terrible Towels, cheering, flagrantly violating Pittsburgh's open-container laws, and generally proving that this town knows how to share in its home-team victories like no other. I lost count of how many high-fives I collected from total strangers- I did get two spinning hugs, got pulled into two or three spontaneous victory dances, and, in a surge of uncharacteristic masculine bravado, participated in two running chest bumps, one of which caused both myself and my co=bumper to go flying several feat and land flat on our backs in the middle of Carson Street. I somehow escaped injury, for which I blame adrenaline, and got pulled to my feet and clapped on the back by several other black-and-gold-clad revelers. All in all, it was really awesome way to celebrate a really exciting game, and now I'm deeply exhilarated. I sincerely doubt classes tomorrow are going to be very rough for me- half my students aren't going to make it in, and those that do will be too hung over to make much trouble.

More relevant postings to my life in general will hopefully come soon. For those unaware, I'm currently teaching 19 credits plus some noncredit assignments, including two new classes I've never taught before and am creating as I go along, hence a serious lack of time for, well, anything else. But I should hopefully be able to set aside a few minutes soon for some discussion of what's been happening in my world. For now, though, I'm riding a high born of Pittsburgh pride. Sometimes it's good being an empath.

(Yes, I know my icon is from the 2006 Super Bowl win. But I made it for that game, and it's only seen use once, so here it is again.)

The kittens are home. Eris was released from the hospital after she received an appetite stimulant and started eating, and the same was sent home for Mina. The two of them are very happy to be back together- I think the strain of their first separation since birth has worn on them and slowed their healing- and now both are playing, eating (less than normal, but definitely more than they were before), and cuddling with us every chance they get. We're still feeding them an appetite stimulant twice a day till tomorrow, but this morning they begged for and ate breakfast without it, so we're encouraged that they'll be able to eat without it once it runs its course. The antibiotic is proving a little more difficult to swallow, literally- cats do not like having a cc of liquid squirted into their mouths with a syringe, even chicken-flavored liquid. But it's all for the best, and they don't seem to be holding it against us.

So yeah...they're still not at 100%, and I won't be totally relieved till they're back to gobbling down two cans of Friskies between them per day. But they see to be well on the road to recovery. Thanks to everyone for all of their good wishes.

Out kittens are sick. They haven't eaten except for a few nibbles in two days, are listless, and Eris is throwing up. We took them to an emergency vet today, but there's no clear diagnosis; could be a bug, could be worms, could be a bad reaction to the rabies shot they had the other day. In any event, they're home now, and sleeping on a chair together after getting an injection of fluids from the vet and being further traumatized by us shoving antibiotics and a deworming powder down their throats. We're supposed to watch them, and bring them back to the pet hospital if they continue vomiting, don't resume eating, or show any signs of hypoglycemia, which can set in fairly quickly in a kitten with insufficient nutrition.

I know it's likely not a big deal, and they'll probably be okay. But I'm really worried right now. They're so tiny and helpless and were completely vibrant and eating well just a few days ago, and it's scary to see them ill and not know what's really wrong or what else we can do to help them.

EDIT: Well, Eris continued vomiting and having diarrhea, and neither was eating, so we took them back to the pet hospital as per earlier instructions if their condition didn't improve. It was a late night; lots of people had sick or hurt animals, and we didn't get home till 1 AM. More in-depth testing has revealed a roundworm infestation as they likely cause of troubles; they've been dosed with a powerful worm remover and are still getting an antibiotic as a preventative in case there's a secondary infection. Mina is home, ate a little food, and is currently happily playing with a toy mouse, showing more energy than she has since Thursday. Eris, for her part, was fairly dehydrated and has been kept overnight to get IV fluids and monitor her vomiting, but the vets say she should be able to come home tomorrow and there's little expectation that she'll deteriorate. The vets say it was good that we brought them when we did, in order to give them vital fluids and aggressive parasite removal treatments before things got worse. We're still mildly worried, especially with one of our babies in the hospital tonight and the other still not having had a solid meal, but we're optimistic they're going to be okay.

Ohio has just been called for Obama, and Pennsylvania was about half an hour ago. Barring an u8nexpected upset in a state that no one expected to support McCain, it's now become mathematically impossible for McCain to win the election.

I'm too happily stunned for words. More later, but now I'm off to watch the polls.

I guess the point of this meme is to come up with something for each question beginning with the first letter of your last name. Not terribly inventive, but I have two minutes and was vaguely interested.

1. What is your last name?...................... Davis

2. 4 letter word................................ Deva (a broad category of supernatural beings from Hindu and Buddhist mythology)

3. Vehicle: .................................... Dirigible

4. City / Neighborhood: ........................ Duck Hollow (Pittsburgh's smallest neighborhood)

5. Boy Name: ................................... Damion

6. Girl Name: .................................. Daphne

7. Occupation:.................................. Dragoman (a medieval translator and guide)

8. Something you wear:........................... Diadem

9. Food: ........................................ Dim sum

10. Found in a bathroom:......................... Dove (the soap or the bird, depending on your windows and local fowl)

11. Reason for Being Late........................ Deosculation (vigorous kissing, which can distract)

12. Something you shout.......................... Damn!

13. Animal:....................................... Deinonychus (the velociraptor's much larger and meaner cousin)

14. Body part:..................................... Dens (the small knob of bone on your second cervical vertebra that acts as a pivot for your skull, allowing rotation of the head)

15.Word to describe yourself...................... Distractable (hence filling out this meme)

16. Foreign Country............................... Dacia (an ancient kingdom overlying what's now much of the Balkan Peninsula)

[1] Who was your FIRST prom date?
I only went to one, my senior prom, with little__one. It was lovely.

[2] Do you still talk to your FIRST love?
Setting aside unrequited middle- and high-school crushes, yes. I'm actually on good terms with nearly everyone I've ever dated.

[3] What was your FIRST alcoholic drink?
When I was about 5, I took a swig of beer from a can my dad was drinking out of; the can was blue and white and red and I thought it was Pepsi. I blame the resultant cognitive dissonance and revulsion in large part for my general distaste for non-lambic beers to this day. Aside from that and occasional sips of wine at holidays or weddings, first real drink was probably a white Russian, which Paul bought me legally in Montreal when we were 18.

[4] What was your FIRST job?
Host at Eat'n Park, a job my dad hooked me up with about four days after I turned 16 and which I continued to do as high-school and college summer work for nearly seven years. Interestingly enough, I was listed as a "hostess" in the computer system, which had no accommodations for male hosts, until they changed the title to "greeter" about three years after I started; I used to joke that I hoped to be promoted to waitress.

[5] What was your FIRST car?
The current one, a beige 2000 Honda Civic named Eowyn, who has a hillbilly hat in her back window, a lobster pendant on Mardi Gras beads hanging from her rear-view mirror, and a large collection of bumper stickers that clearly profile me as a liberal, geeky scientist.

[6] Who was the FIRST person to text you today?
A student, to let me know she wasn't going to be in lab. My students have also started friending me on Facebook. Technology is changing social interactions in strange ways.

[7] Who is the FIRST person you thought of this morning?
pghkitten, who woke me up.

[8] Who was your FIRST grade teacher?
Mrs. Chiapetta (Pronounced Chia Pet-a), who didn't much like me because I tended to write things I wasn't supposed to be writing (like short fiction) whenever she was trying to teach me math. This remained a problem well into middle school, when I recall Mr. Rubinsak seizing a notebook in algebra because I was writing about my D&D campaign setting when I was supposed to be learning the quadratic formula. As I expected at the time, the material in the notebook proved much more valuable to my future than the quadratic formula has.

[9] Where did you go on your FIRST ride on an airplane?
Minneapolis, Minnesota, at age 18 months, the first leg of a three-flight series taking me to Montana (where my godparents then lived) for my baptism. The first flight I was old enough to remember was to Orlando, Florida, in 1995, for my high school band's appearance in Disney's Magic Music Days parade.

[10] Who was your FIRST best friend and are you still friends with them?
Vince, who I met in pre-school at age 3, about 27 years ago. We've stayed friends, and in fact just e-mailed one another a few hours ago.

[11] What was your FIRST sport played?
Aside from backyard baseball and similar, the first organized sport was soccer in 1st grade, where our coaches quickly learned to assign me to whatever position kept me furthest from the ball. The one time I actually got control of it, I scored the one and only goal of my soccer career. Against my own team. In the championship game. Which our opponents won. By one goal. I didn't play soccer the next year.

[12] Where was your FIRST sleep over?
At Jason Caliguri's creepy old house, where we spent the night skulking around searching for ghosts and watching R-rated movies in hopes of seeing boobs. Everyone has a friend growing up whose parents don't care what movies they watch, and that friend is a key part of your early sex education; Jason was that friend.

[13] Who was the FIRST person you talked to today?
Stacie, when she woke me up to get ready for my early lab.

[14] Whose wedding were you in the FIRST time?
Laz's, in which I was the best man.

[15] What was the FIRST thing you did this morning?
Thanked Stacie for waking me up before staggering into the shower in the vain hope that hot water would bring me to full consciousness.

[16] What was the FIRST concert you ever went to?
A violin concert by my grandfather, who was first-chair violinist in the North Pittsburgh Civic Symphony for many years. First pop concert was Rusted Root, who performed at a high-school student council conference when I was a freshman and they were still a local band; the claim to fame of that one is that it was their first public performance of "Send Me On My Way."

[17] FIRST tattoo or piercing?
Never had either, unless you count the time when I was 4 that I ran down a hill at a friend's house, crashed into a rusty metal fence, and got one of the wires that made it up clear through my forearm. Amazingly, neither tetanus nor scarring resulted.

[18] FIRST foreign country you went to for vacation?
Canada, at somewhere between ages 3 age 5, to visit a family friend in Hamilton, Ontario. I dimly remember Niagara Falls and a visit to a safari-style wildlife preserve with a bus tour, in which a monkey rode on top of our bus the whole time.

[19] What was your FIRST run in with the law?
A warning for speeding at age 16, when I was nearly late getting home after visiting Steve and was pulled over while trying to make up lost time. Ironically, I'd have been only about 5 minutes late without speeding, rather than 35.

[20] When was your FIRST detention?
Sometime in grade school, in which I was getting teased by my then-archenemies Scott Madar and Jay Nikolich, and the lunch monitor, a music teacher named Mr. Leech, meted out his usual one-size-fits-all punishment to everyone involved, including me. This resulted in my missing a week of recesses sitting in his office, which struck me at the time as the most profound miscarriage of justice I'd ever witnessed.

[21] What was the FIRST state you lived in?
Pennsylvania, and it remains the only place I've lived for longer than three weeks.

[22] Who was the FIRST person to break your heart?
Again setting aside unrequited crushes, socalledhipster. But she's long since forgiven.

[23] Who was your FIRST roommate?
Brian Mastrosimone, a business major at Mercyhurst on a soccer scholarship, who lived with me in place of the guy I was originally supposed to room with, Drew Morris, whom I'd learned after one phone conversation was utterly incompatible with me. Brian got injured a few months into freshman year and was moved to a dorm room that was on the first floor (we were on the third), switching places with...Drew Morris, whose roommates couldn't stand him. This led to a rooming situation that was the stuff of situation comedies, in which I was unfortunately the straight man.

[24] Where did you go on your FIRST limo ride?
To the prom with little__one, thus bringing this meme full circle.

Just so anyone who might have been trying to reach me the past few days is aware (and I know that chaeri and little__one have sent me texts or voicemails I've not gotten this weekend), I managed to drop my cell phone in a puddle on Friday; seems there's a hole in a pocket I never use just large enough for a cell phone to slip through, and I absentmindedly put my cell phone in that very pocket as I walked near enough to a puddle for it to fall through, bounce, and land squarely in the deep part. I've dried the phone out, but several keys don't work, specifically those necessary for me to make calls, send texts, dial my voicemail, or make calls that contain the numbers 1, 4, or 7 (thus making it impossible for me to dial anyone in the Pittsburgh area due to our area codes). So I can receive texts and calls right now; I just can't reply to them or check messages left. My apologies to anyone who might have been trying to reach me; my phone is getting replaced this afternoon, so I should again be reachable in the near future.

In just a few hours, pghkitten, guendolen_sama and I are are leaving Pittsburgh for Otakon, where we will spend the weekend consuming vast quantities of media primarily in a language we don't understand. We'll return Sunday may or may not be back for Sunday gaming, depending on what time we leave the con. If you need to contact us, we can be reached by cell phone throughout the weekend, but if we don't reply immediately, it probably means we're in a viewing and will get back to you soon.