OK, so I posted a whole buncha stuff today. Apparently Blogger doesn't like too much posting at once, so they make it difficult to post more than about 15 posts in an hour or so. So I'll quit for now and let y'all feast on the abundance of posting joy set out below this post.
More sometime soon, I hope.
Monday, May 14, 2007
oddball
Here's an older picture of Ellie in her Seuss-ical outfit, with socky hands.Not a terribly flattering picture, actually. But kinda funny.
Well...
...this picture has gorgeous color. Otherwise, I'll not comment.(BTW, that's Alyssa on the left.)
Doo-bee doo-bee dooo...
Don't you hate when the tall guy sings before you, and you look like a midget behind the mike?No, no...
..get the ice cream, not the waffles. The ICE CREAM!This pretend-shopping gender-role indoctrination happens at the same place where Ellie pretend-harpooned some fish, so I guess it all balances out in the end.
Lawn care gone bad
Apparently this grainy image is captured from amateur video of a lawn mower attacking a small child. The lawn mower seems to be enjoying itself tremendously.More on this story at 11 after the game.
Um...I'm not really sure
So apparently she's dressed in a smock and is harpooning fish or something.This is at some place Tina and her friend Amanda take the girls (Ellie and Amanda's daughter Alyssa).
I guess it's a real blast. I'll take their word.
Instilling good nutrition habits early
Yes, it's a milkshake.Yes, it's almost larger than her.
Hey, you try to keep a shake away from her when she's been in the car all day.
She's still quite good in the car, and this is probably part of why.
more clocky fun
She looks unusually tall in this picture.Yes, I know she's standing on a chair. But even so, she looks really tall.
Her favorite clock
This is the clock at Mammaw's house that started it all. On the hour the face splits apart and does a little dance. Among Ellie's first words was "clock" because we kept saying "clock" to her.She seems to be over the clock thing, probably because she can say more words now. But if I try hard enough I can get her to have the same infatuation...er, I mean, appreciation for fine timepieces that I have.
Choc-goatee
Here's Ellie-bean learning how to eat an ice cream cone.The shirt has never recovered. Maybe we shoulda started with vanilla...?
Snow in Cleveland on Easter
Here's my parents' deck. You can see the depth of the snow piled up on
the chairs -- by the end of the weekend it was over 2 feet deep.
I particularly liked the cool folded-over snow on the railing in the background. it reminded me of the Peter B. Lewis Building at CWRU, probably because I interviewed there that weekend.
OK, where to begin...
I can see from my last post that my blog left off where the rest of my life did -- March 31. I began April by starting a 23-day, 6-interview road-show trying to get some poor sucker to hire me. In order, I went to the following:
As I'd expected, the job market was generally in my favor, as I got offers from 5 of those 6. At the end of the day we (yes, we) chose Xavier U. It has several things going for it, in no particular order:
And the best part is how God made in clear that He was the one that opened the door to get me there. A couple of weeks before the deadline on the offer I was considering, XU had two profs resign to go move nearer their families. So they were eager to hire, which suited me just fine, of course. (I love when people are eager to hire.) Tina and I had been driving ourselves and each other nuts trying to micro-manage all our options and contingencies and what-ifs and then just said, forget this -- we'll let God decide where to put us. And right then is when I got a voicemail from the person at XU who does the hiring. Not a coincidence.
- Western Illinois U., Macomb*
- Case Western Reserve U, Cleveland*
- Wayne State U., Detroit
- George Mason U., Fairfax VA
- U. of Wisconsin - Milwaukee (you figure out where it is)
- Xavier U., Cincinnati*
As I'd expected, the job market was generally in my favor, as I got offers from 5 of those 6. At the end of the day we (yes, we) chose Xavier U. It has several things going for it, in no particular order:
- Cool "X" motif in the name
- Very bright students
- Great hoops program
- Fantastic alumni relations so I can get lots of cool research opportunities
- Cincinnati is our kind of city -- right size, good location, very middle-America. It's actually very much a white-collar, service-economy sort of city, so it's very different from blue-collar , industrial Cleveland where I grew up. Plus the sun shines a lot more, which isn't hard because the sun almost never shines in Cleveland.
- Jesuit foundation will challenge me to not be so self-centered and make me more service-oriented
And the best part is how God made in clear that He was the one that opened the door to get me there. A couple of weeks before the deadline on the offer I was considering, XU had two profs resign to go move nearer their families. So they were eager to hire, which suited me just fine, of course. (I love when people are eager to hire.) Tina and I had been driving ourselves and each other nuts trying to micro-manage all our options and contingencies and what-ifs and then just said, forget this -- we'll let God decide where to put us. And right then is when I got a voicemail from the person at XU who does the hiring. Not a coincidence.