Fossil Fuels

The other day I had a conversation with a retired schoolteacher who said that she didn't understand how oil and coal were fossil fuels because "there weren't that many dinosaurs." I tried to explain that any organic matter (plants, etc.) was part of the fossil fuel equation. She countered with the taxonomy of "animal, vegetable, mineral", so if coal is a mineral, it can't have been a vegetable. It's Lent, so I decided to give up.

Kay Caddy

Sadly, the subtle colouring of this car doesn't come across well in this photograph, but this is a genuine Mary Kay pink Cadillac, which was parked across the street from my house today. I got to meet the driver, who was heavily ornamented.

Albuquerque

I know I haven't written anything for a while, but I've had a lousy cold, so didn't have much to say beyond "Ate soup today."

But now I'm the picture of health and I'm in glorious New Mexico for a conference. The conference is not particularly well populated because the great Snowmageddon/Snowpocalypse of the East has made it impossible for people to get here, but that means that you can eat more at the receptions (which are surprisingly fancy), so I don't mind. At tomorrow's keynote address they're going to serve tea and crumpets - no joke. I'll be first in line.

I have wanted to visit New Mexico for years, and it is not disappointing. I've never been in a landscape of burgundy soil and blue-grey grasses - it seems hyperreal. More exploring to come.

Post-tenure Partying

Last night I attended a collective birthday party for my many colleagues who have birthdays in January. Throughout the evening, the hostess kept saying "this is the kind of party you can have once you get tenure." Allow me to explain.

The hostess (who was also a birthday girl) is an expert in literatures of the Southwest - she studies cowboys, landscapes, intersections of Latino/Native American/White Folks culture, etc. Naturally, the party featured a piñata, which was shaped like a unicorn. At a certain point in the evening, her husband called everyone outside, where he had suspended the unicorn from the tree in the front yard. Another guest jumped in his pickup truck, and re-positioned it so the festivities would be illuminated by his headlights. Guests took turns being blindfolded, spun around, and handed a big stick with which to smash the piñata. The first couple of blows decapitated the unicorn, and its head got stuck in the tree. It looked quite amazing in silhouette against the full moon (sorry, too dark for a photo). While this drama was unfolding, an enterprising Girl Scout circulated through the crowd, taking orders for cookies. I signed up for two boxes - thin mints and peanut butter. Finally it was my turn. A fellow faculty member spun me around, and I let fly at whatever was in front of me. I am satisfied to say that I dealt the death blow, and the piñata's contents exploded across the yard.

This is where the post-tenure part comes in: the contents were entirely "adult-oriented", i.e. tiny bottles of booze, condoms, silk baggies containing racy underwear, and buttons featuring rude words and dirty jokes. I picked up one that read "Slut", explaining to everyone that the word's original meaning was "bad housekeeper." Indeed, my house is not so tidy right now, on account of my constantly writing lectures and conference papers.

Later that evening, as I was putting on my coat, the hostess' son, a boy of eight or so, approached and showed me his toy gun. He demonstrated how it made cool noises and could convert from a gun to a bowie knife. We discussed its potential uses in different tactical situations, and then he said "You know what's cool? You hit that piñata really hard."

All in all, a successful party - I made away with a bottle of coconut rum and reputation as a badass (at least among Lubbock's eight-year-olds).

Visual Argument

These are stickers on my neighbor's truck. I have questions.

I'm not sure about the rhetorical implications of the NRA sticker plus bullet holes. The bullet holes imply that your gun ownership does not deter armed attackers, which is one of the key arguments supporting free access to firearms. They also suggest that you are someone worth shooting at. I don't necessarily disagree with this point, but it seems an odd thing to advertise about oneself.

Set Up

Today's post-class conversation with a student (a woman in her thirties) went like this:

She: Professor Whitney, do you have kids?

Me: No, I don't.

She: If you don't mind my asking, how old are you?

Me: I'm 34.

She: Wow, really? You don't look it.

Me: Thank you.

She: I'd love to set you up with my fiance's brother - he's a really sweet guy, and a firefighter.

Me: (laughing) Hmmm, probably best if we hold off on that plan until after you've graduated.

She: Of course, he's only 27 - just a baby. Ok, see you later!

Me: Ok, bye!

I'll let ya'll know if I end up raiding the firehouse/robbing the cradle.

Professor Whitney Wilson

My relationship with the various computerized systems at Texas Tech has not been an easy one. My struggle to get an email address lasted for months, and I managed to teach for an entire semester without my actually existing within the University's system - I began my first class by reassuring my students that even though they would find no record of me on campus, I really was their professor. I thought things had been sorted out, but a couple of weeks ago I tried to log into something called "Digital Measures", a system that faculty members are supposed to use to report on their professional activities. Not surprisingly, I couldn't log in, and thus began many days of confused emails to and from various IT people. I finally got an email saying that my account was ready, so I logged in, only to be greeted by a page welcoming "Professor Whitney Wilson". For the occasional reader who doesn't actually know my name, it is not Whitney Wilson. I sighed, and began another round of emails to correct my identity. When I mentioned this to a friend of mine from my Georgia Tech days, she suggested that I could take this opportunity to make Professor Whitney Wilson into a George P. Burdell figure.

Who is George P. Burdell, you ask?

Here's the story: In 1927, a student received two acceptance forms to attend Georgia Tech. He decided to enroll as two people: himself, and an imaginary person named George P. Burdell. Students who were in on the prank would complete assignments and sit exams on George's behalf, and he eventually received his degree. This has become an important part of Georgia Tech culture, such that GT folk can always find one another by, for example, paging George P. Burdell at an airport to see who shows up. Good fun.

Anyway, my friend and I started to fantasize about what sorts of things Prof. Whitney Wilson could accomplish in her time at Texas Tech. I am open to suggestions.