Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #233 - One photo; snow day!

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #233 - One photo; snow day!


Hey Mom,

Guess what? SNOW DAY!!

I stared at this picture for a long time, as it took me a very long time to realize that it's backwards, like many of the slides my father has scanned. You will see it, too, Mom. This is the path Dad dug out to the front door (surely I helped some, but I am probably eight years old here, which would make this 1970 or very early 1971). That is the Owens house behind us, which, if looking at our house from the front is to the left, but the path, which would lead toward the garage would be to the right, which means, IPSO FACTO, that this picture is reversed (left and right are switched).

Maybe I am just tired, but it took me a long time to see that reversal.

Okay, so following up on yesterday's post, SNOW DAY!!!

I woke at my usual time and checked closings as soon as I got to my office. WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY IS CLOSED!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks Eclipse (who is the personification of chaos).

I needed a break and some extra time to get help on my computer program.

BTW, WMU's method for reporting snow days is AWFUL. I am pretty sure I signed up for alerts, and yet I received no alerts. And there was never a post on the university web site, the gowmu one we faculty and students use, about the snow day. I have always felt that the gowmu web site is one of the worst sites I have ever seen, and this is a new low for it's poor design and lack of usefulness when there's never a notification of the school being closed anywhere (at least no where clear and obvious) on the site. Given that I am learning to re-design and program things like this, WMU should hire me and my team to re-design gowmu and make it actually useful.

I tried to work on the program, but I was quite stuck. I did not know how to fix the previous null pointer error, and now I had a new one. So after I waited a bit so I was not texting at 6 a.m.. I texted my good friend and computer tutor, Colin MacCreery, to beg him to help me on a snow day, AND his birthday.

After a while, I was able to get a hold of him, and he agreed to meet me.

Since I was stuck on the program, and making no progress, I switched to work and banged out the Park discussion grades that I was supposed to do Tuesday. I also did daily work.

I met Colin at 1:30 at Bilbo's (BTW, their Internet sucks... FYI) . Within minutes, he had solved my null pointer exception errors, and so I enlisted his help finishing the rest, which was easy, and so we were done by four p.m. MEANWHILE, before I left, I emailed my TA and begged for one more day because of the campus being closed. Once I got home (after buying chicken feed). I checked my email, and the TA had granted me the extension through Friday, meaning I could watch some LOST with Liesel and go to bed. After one episode, she was "bored" with LOST, and so we tried to watch a Bergman film -- Through a Glass Darkly -- which was pretty tedious and kind of awful.

Then to bed, with plans to get up the next morning and finish my program and then try to do as much work as possible before going to Calculus, where I knew we would have a quiz.

But success! One of my strengths is interacting and building relationships with people as evidenced by how I managed this situation and succeeded.

Thanks for listening, Mom, and for your support, which means a lot.

Reflect and connect.

Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.

Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

- Days ago = 235 days ago

- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1602.25 - 10:10

NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.