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Cat's in the Cradle
Oct. 5th, 2015 11:00 amBeing out in the rain and cool air weekend before last took its toll. Wednesday morning, I started feeling poorly - sore throat, coughs and sneezing. By Thursday evening, it was a full-on bad bad cold. Managed the symptoms as well as I could, and headed to Liberty after work on Friday.
An interlude: A classmate is getting herself into serious trouble. Worse, she's assigned to one of my working groups, and her loose understanding of plagiarism policy is making the rest of us look bad, as well as have to rewrite a lot of her straight-up copy-and-paste submissions to group assignments. Friday morning, I had an off-the-record chat with the relevant professor. He seemed to know what was up as soon as I entered his office. The student in question is doing the same thing in other classes, other professors know about it, and despite several official warnings, she is continuing, and the School is preparing expulsion proceedings. It sucks for her, but this is something that SPHIS (and UofL) takes seriously, cultural differences be damned.
Anyway, got to the farm in the early evening. Mom&Dad were about to leave for the wilds of, I think, McCreary County, so I laid down for a nap. That nap lasted about 12 hours, interrupted by a few coughing fits severe enough to make for abdominal pain. Had an appointment with a tire shop on Saturday morning. On the way to the shop, some damn stray dog decided to commit suicide-by-Focus and bent a tie rod when it ran under me. No local shops had that part on hand, so Dad and I arranged to trade vehicles for a few days. Back to the hous, and I went back to the couch, and there was NyQuil and football and sleep and hallucinations, I think. UofL beat NC State during a heavy rain, and WKU ran all over Rice.
Hurricane Joaquin has made an ungodly mess out of South Carolina. A 70-mile stretch of I-95 was closed due to flooding over the weekend, and no small number of smaller roads are washing out. State of Emergency, all the heavy stuff. I do not envy anyone involved in this mess.
More adventures in transportation. Driving back to Louisville last night, I get stuck behind a slow car somewhere in Washington County. Finally get room to pass this guy and start making up for lost time around the Washington/Nelson line. There's a lengthy grade, although not too steep, and as I start up it, I smell smoke (distinctive burning motor oil smell) and see flashing lights at the top of the grade. First thought, Oh crap somebody's wrecked out. Got closer, and nope. Some joker in a Monte Carlo is trailing a 35-year-old Chevy pickup that's trailering a junked Camaro. Said pickup is burning enough oil to create a screen behind it - headlight beams visible in the smoke. He can't get much over 35MPH, the stink is getting worse by the mile, and it's a ways before I and this other fella can get enough room to pass. We finally do, and man, that Chevy sounded like it was about to come apart right there on US150. I was quite happy to watch those headlights disappear in my mirror. And got into the Ranger this morning to discover a dying alternator. So, yay TARC and free passage as a UofL student. Dad's bringing the Focus up this afternoon, and I guess we'll swap in a new alternator then.
Thank dog (but not the suicidal one) that the first couple days of this week are our fall break. I've got to be at the front desk, but there's no one around.
An interlude: A classmate is getting herself into serious trouble. Worse, she's assigned to one of my working groups, and her loose understanding of plagiarism policy is making the rest of us look bad, as well as have to rewrite a lot of her straight-up copy-and-paste submissions to group assignments. Friday morning, I had an off-the-record chat with the relevant professor. He seemed to know what was up as soon as I entered his office. The student in question is doing the same thing in other classes, other professors know about it, and despite several official warnings, she is continuing, and the School is preparing expulsion proceedings. It sucks for her, but this is something that SPHIS (and UofL) takes seriously, cultural differences be damned.
Anyway, got to the farm in the early evening. Mom&Dad were about to leave for the wilds of, I think, McCreary County, so I laid down for a nap. That nap lasted about 12 hours, interrupted by a few coughing fits severe enough to make for abdominal pain. Had an appointment with a tire shop on Saturday morning. On the way to the shop, some damn stray dog decided to commit suicide-by-Focus and bent a tie rod when it ran under me. No local shops had that part on hand, so Dad and I arranged to trade vehicles for a few days. Back to the hous, and I went back to the couch, and there was NyQuil and football and sleep and hallucinations, I think. UofL beat NC State during a heavy rain, and WKU ran all over Rice.
Hurricane Joaquin has made an ungodly mess out of South Carolina. A 70-mile stretch of I-95 was closed due to flooding over the weekend, and no small number of smaller roads are washing out. State of Emergency, all the heavy stuff. I do not envy anyone involved in this mess.
More adventures in transportation. Driving back to Louisville last night, I get stuck behind a slow car somewhere in Washington County. Finally get room to pass this guy and start making up for lost time around the Washington/Nelson line. There's a lengthy grade, although not too steep, and as I start up it, I smell smoke (distinctive burning motor oil smell) and see flashing lights at the top of the grade. First thought, Oh crap somebody's wrecked out. Got closer, and nope. Some joker in a Monte Carlo is trailing a 35-year-old Chevy pickup that's trailering a junked Camaro. Said pickup is burning enough oil to create a screen behind it - headlight beams visible in the smoke. He can't get much over 35MPH, the stink is getting worse by the mile, and it's a ways before I and this other fella can get enough room to pass. We finally do, and man, that Chevy sounded like it was about to come apart right there on US150. I was quite happy to watch those headlights disappear in my mirror. And got into the Ranger this morning to discover a dying alternator. So, yay TARC and free passage as a UofL student. Dad's bringing the Focus up this afternoon, and I guess we'll swap in a new alternator then.
Thank dog (but not the suicidal one) that the first couple days of this week are our fall break. I've got to be at the front desk, but there's no one around.
