RBOC: Random Friday Funky Edition

Much of this week has felt steadily less coherent to me, and so it seems fitting that the post for a Friday afternoon would emphasize that theme. As above, so below or some such.

• Job stuff continues. I've managed to get a little time before I have to make my final decision from Job 1. No news from Job 2 about whether I'm in or not, though I remain hopeful.
• Near-mutiny in one of my classes where the upper classmen are insisting that being asked to read and to write on each reading is unreasonable. Earlier this week, I ended the discussion with the phrase "Honestly, stop whining. You guys are ridiculous." The following class saw 2/3 of the group skip.
• Came across this and thought it was interesting idea. I've actually considered a similar project, and so I'm going to follow this with some interest to see how it goes and whether people will really contribute some little bit to help out like this. My donation is in the mail.
  
• Today is my father's birthday. Some part of me had hoped to have the job search done and good news to give him as part of his birthday present.
  
• Interestingly, the position we're hiring for has received very few applicants despite the rough economy and its ties to a very popular field. My chair is panicking.
• For musical goodness this week check this out.

Back to general office stalling.

RBOC: Planning and Griping Edition

Busy trying to clear things off my desk. Feels like the workload for my year (or maybe just the term) has been front-loaded.

But progress has been made. The following items are in the planning stages and need feedback:

• I'm planning the meal for the closing banquet of the conference we're helping with. Honestly, who left the guy from Texas in charge of a menu for a group that's guaranteed to have lots of vegetarians? Even worse, our caterer has just stopped giving prices with their catering guide so I'm going into this blind and well-aware that I'm going to have to negotiate. Anyway, how does this sound for a vegetarian menu:

1. ravioli porcini morel (the main course)
   
2. fresh mesclun salad
3. baked sweet potatoes
4. baby squash
5. angel food cake with seasonal berries

• I think I've got a widget/gadget/whatever the hell Blogger is calling it this week to help deal with the job search status questions (incidentally, there didn't seem to be a great counter for Blogger, but there was a spiffy one for WordPress). My question is what things would you like to see me track? I was thinking about the overall cost; the number of jobs found, applied for, contacted by, and various types of interviewed for; and maybe the number of requests for particular types of documents. Anything else?
• On a different note, one of my soon-to-be-graduating seniors said, in response to a discussion about Interlibrary loans, "Wait...so the library will give us a loan?" They were quite disappointed when a fellow student said "Yeah. Of books and magazine articles."
  
• My Mac is still softwareless. It's a $2600 web browser at the moment (oh, and it plays "Spore" - see the example at the right of one of my creations). I tried to request the software I'd need for it, and am now locked in a battle with IT over whether I should have to buy copies of software that the University has upgraded to and that I'm required to use in teaching for this computer.
  

And on that note, good night.