Steven Harper's Blog, page 42
November 18, 2020
Big-Ass Free Turkey
My family agreed--we're only doing in-house Thanksgivings this year because of the pandemic. So I'm making turkey and fixin's for five instead of twenty.
Also this week, the Michigan governor announced we're going into semi-lockdown, starting on Thursday.
I realized I needed to do the Thanksgiving shopping. I also realized the store would be mobbed with pandemic panic shoppers. Darwin said I should just continue my usual practice--make out an online list and have the store get the order ready for me to pick up. I don't usually like doing this for holiday dinner shopping because when I'm at the store, I usually remember something I didn't put on the list. But I did the online thing anyway in this case.
On the list was a turkey. I asked for one weighing 10-14 pounds. A couple hours before the order was ready, the store texted me to say they had no 10-14 pound turkeys. I read an article a while ago that said turkey farmers started this year's batch of turkeys back in the early days of the pandemic, when no one was predicting we'd do reduced Thanksgivings. They hatched lots of big turkeys and few small turkeys, the exact opposite of the eventual demand. Oops. I suspect this is why the store didn't have any littler ones.
"Will you accept a 15-20 pound turkey for the price of a 10-14 pound turkey?" they asked.
I replied that I would. I wasn't as thrilled as you might expect with the idea of getting twice the turkey for the same price, but I wasn't quite. What are five people going to do with all that turkey?? First-world problems, I suppose.
Darwin went to pick up the groceries this evening while I was in my writers group Zoom meeting. He got back just as we were finishing up. Once everything was hauled upstairs, I glanced at the bags.
"Where's the turkey?" I asked.
"It's not in there?" he said.
"How you could you not notice carrying up a 20-pound turkey?" I countered.
The turkey definitely wasn't there. We checked the receipt. The turkey was mentioned in the space for substitutions, but instead of listing the price difference, it only said REVIEW. What the heck did that mean? That the clerk was supposed to review the order with Darwin? That the order was supposed to be confirmed?
Additionally, I'd ordered butter. It was missing, too.
So I called the store. "We seem to be missing part of our order," I said. "A box of butter. And a turkey."
The clerk rummaged around and came back to the phone. "I think we have it here. Do you want to come back and get it tonight?"
Why not? So Darwin and I drove back to the store, where a bemused clerk brought out the turkey.
"How did I miss an entire turkey?" she asked.
"We wondered the same thing," I agreed. We were actually more eye-roll-y than snarky. There's a pandemic on, you know.
We got the thing back home and hauled it upstairs, where I checked the weight.
Twenty freaking pounds. Forty dollars.
Then I had a thought. The store no longer gives you an itemized receipt with your order, something that annoys both Darwin and me, since this practice makes it harder to verify what you ordered vs. what you got. But I could check the TOTAL they charged us with the bank. The total was more than $20 under the store's original estimate.
So we apparently got a big-ass free turkey.
comments
Also this week, the Michigan governor announced we're going into semi-lockdown, starting on Thursday.
I realized I needed to do the Thanksgiving shopping. I also realized the store would be mobbed with pandemic panic shoppers. Darwin said I should just continue my usual practice--make out an online list and have the store get the order ready for me to pick up. I don't usually like doing this for holiday dinner shopping because when I'm at the store, I usually remember something I didn't put on the list. But I did the online thing anyway in this case.
On the list was a turkey. I asked for one weighing 10-14 pounds. A couple hours before the order was ready, the store texted me to say they had no 10-14 pound turkeys. I read an article a while ago that said turkey farmers started this year's batch of turkeys back in the early days of the pandemic, when no one was predicting we'd do reduced Thanksgivings. They hatched lots of big turkeys and few small turkeys, the exact opposite of the eventual demand. Oops. I suspect this is why the store didn't have any littler ones.
"Will you accept a 15-20 pound turkey for the price of a 10-14 pound turkey?" they asked.
I replied that I would. I wasn't as thrilled as you might expect with the idea of getting twice the turkey for the same price, but I wasn't quite. What are five people going to do with all that turkey?? First-world problems, I suppose.
Darwin went to pick up the groceries this evening while I was in my writers group Zoom meeting. He got back just as we were finishing up. Once everything was hauled upstairs, I glanced at the bags.
"Where's the turkey?" I asked.
"It's not in there?" he said.
"How you could you not notice carrying up a 20-pound turkey?" I countered.
The turkey definitely wasn't there. We checked the receipt. The turkey was mentioned in the space for substitutions, but instead of listing the price difference, it only said REVIEW. What the heck did that mean? That the clerk was supposed to review the order with Darwin? That the order was supposed to be confirmed?
Additionally, I'd ordered butter. It was missing, too.
So I called the store. "We seem to be missing part of our order," I said. "A box of butter. And a turkey."
The clerk rummaged around and came back to the phone. "I think we have it here. Do you want to come back and get it tonight?"
Why not? So Darwin and I drove back to the store, where a bemused clerk brought out the turkey.
"How did I miss an entire turkey?" she asked.
"We wondered the same thing," I agreed. We were actually more eye-roll-y than snarky. There's a pandemic on, you know.
We got the thing back home and hauled it upstairs, where I checked the weight.
Twenty freaking pounds. Forty dollars.
Then I had a thought. The store no longer gives you an itemized receipt with your order, something that annoys both Darwin and me, since this practice makes it harder to verify what you ordered vs. what you got. But I could check the TOTAL they charged us with the bank. The total was more than $20 under the store's original estimate.
So we apparently got a big-ass free turkey.
comments
November 16, 2020
The Pandemic Clamps Down
Here in Michigan, the pandemic is clamping down hard. Hospitals are filling up and predicting they'll be unable to take more patients in just a few days. Governor Whitmer announced yesterday that we're going back to the restrictions we had last spring. Everyone who can work from home, MUST work from home. Secondary school buildings are closed. Elementary school buildings are open if the individual district decides to keep it open. Restaurants are closed to on-site dining--takeout and curb-side only. Movie theaters and other gathering places are closed. No public gatherings of more than 10 people. Private gatherings should be limited to members of two households. This includes Thanksgiving.
The Wherever School District had already taken its secondary schools to virtual learning only. Elementary schools were closed until last week, when they had in-person instruction for the first time. But they said if a certain percentage of students or staff tested positive for COVID-19, the individual school would go back to virtual learning. Three days into in-person learning, TWO elementary schools had to close. A day later, a third had to close. That's three schools closing in three days. The board moved up its bi-monthly meeting to tomorrow in order to discuss closing the rest of the elementary schools. I have the feeling they're going to do it.
I feel I should point out that several school districts around Wherever have been doing in-person learning or hybrid learning (half the students come to school on a given day and spend the other days with distance learning). A passel of parents bitched and moaned that Wherever had elected virtual learning for all its schools when they opened this fall, and these parents enrolled their children in West Bloomfield and Huron Valley and Novi. Now it turns out those schools will have to go virtual as well, which means that the parents now have to deal with virtual learning AND the fact that their kids are enrolled in a distant district. Huh. Who knew?
Already online I'm seeing people who claim that the governor is a despot, that they're going to have Thanksgiving no matter what, that they'll do everything in their power to ignore this. My normal thought is, "Well, let them get the disease, then," but of course, these people will also spread it to everyone around them, including people who are following the rules.
Weeks ago, my family discussed Thanksgiving and Christmas. We decided to cancel both. We can live without them for one year so that we can attend them in the future. We don't want to say next year, "And we miss our dead loved ones so much" during the Thanksgiving prayer.
The pandemic is getting worse because people aren't taking basic precautions. It WILL affect you and your family eventually if we don't all act. Please follow the precautions.
comments
The Wherever School District had already taken its secondary schools to virtual learning only. Elementary schools were closed until last week, when they had in-person instruction for the first time. But they said if a certain percentage of students or staff tested positive for COVID-19, the individual school would go back to virtual learning. Three days into in-person learning, TWO elementary schools had to close. A day later, a third had to close. That's three schools closing in three days. The board moved up its bi-monthly meeting to tomorrow in order to discuss closing the rest of the elementary schools. I have the feeling they're going to do it.
I feel I should point out that several school districts around Wherever have been doing in-person learning or hybrid learning (half the students come to school on a given day and spend the other days with distance learning). A passel of parents bitched and moaned that Wherever had elected virtual learning for all its schools when they opened this fall, and these parents enrolled their children in West Bloomfield and Huron Valley and Novi. Now it turns out those schools will have to go virtual as well, which means that the parents now have to deal with virtual learning AND the fact that their kids are enrolled in a distant district. Huh. Who knew?
Already online I'm seeing people who claim that the governor is a despot, that they're going to have Thanksgiving no matter what, that they'll do everything in their power to ignore this. My normal thought is, "Well, let them get the disease, then," but of course, these people will also spread it to everyone around them, including people who are following the rules.
Weeks ago, my family discussed Thanksgiving and Christmas. We decided to cancel both. We can live without them for one year so that we can attend them in the future. We don't want to say next year, "And we miss our dead loved ones so much" during the Thanksgiving prayer.
The pandemic is getting worse because people aren't taking basic precautions. It WILL affect you and your family eventually if we don't all act. Please follow the precautions.
comments
November 10, 2020
Foot, Locks, and Drama
When Darwin and I closed down the house in Albion, we had to rent storage space for a bunch of stuff. Our condo here doesn't have a garage or a basement, you see. In late October, we got snow, and I decided it was time to put my bike away for the winter. Up here, there's no good place to ride a bike, so I keep a bike rack on my car's trailer hitch. When I want to ride, I pop my bike on the rack and drive down to a trail. It's not the best arrangement, but it'll do. For me, a sign that winter has arrived is me taking the bike rack off the car and--now--putting it and the bike into storage.
The day after I took care of this chore, I tripped and fell down the condo stairs, about the last half of them. I was too stunned to get up for quite some time, and when I finally managed it, I realized my left ankle was badly sprained. I dosed myself with ibuprofen and even a little codeine and kept it well iced. I couldn't put any weight on it, so Darwin went out and bought a crutch. This let me get around, though there was no way I could keep up my usual running schedule.
And then the weather turned.
It went from freezing and cloudy to warm and sunny. Early summer warm and sunny. And I was stuck inside. I felt restless and unhappy. Nice days in a Michigan November are rare in the extreme, and winters are even worse. When the weather is good, you want to go out and enjoy it, store it up for the awful months that will arrive any moment. I regretted putting my bike away.
In a couple days, my ankle healed enough that I figured I could ride, which would be a decent substitute for running. So I went down to the storage place to drag out the bike and rack. When I put the key into the padlock and twisted, though, the key snapped like a stick of butter.
Oh, I was unhappy. Pissed, really. I called the storage place to complain--I had bought the padlock from them--and the very apologetic lady who answered the phone said she'd call maintenance worker on Monday to remove the lock, and she'd let me know when he'd be out to do so.
Monday morning passed, and I got no phone call. I finally called on my lunch break to ask for an update and discovered the Very Apologetic Lady had forgotten to call maintenance, and she promised to do so right away. I was upset and let her know this.
A few minutes later, the VPL called back to say maintenance could get there on Tuesday afternoon. Again--pissed. He was supposed to come out MONDAY, and the nice weather clock was ticking.
Today (Tuesday), Darwin and I met the maintenance man at the storage area, and he cut the lock off with a nifty machine that looked like a belt sander had mated with a table saw. I had bought a new lock, a combination lock, thank you. But it didn't fit the weirdly-shaped latch. Seriously ticked, Darwin and I drove to a nearby hardware store and bought another combination lock. In the parking lot we tested it, and discovered the combination that came with the lock didn't work. We went back into the store to get another one, but they had no other ones in the model we needed. We finally, grudgingly, settled on a key lock that we hoped would work.
Back at the storage area, we got the rack and bike out and then installed the new lock. It went on, though with some fiddling. I put the key in my car so it would always be there when I needed it.
And then, at last, I was able to go on an autumn bike ride. It was seventy-five degrees and breezy and a fine ride that gave me the exercise I've needed.
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The day after I took care of this chore, I tripped and fell down the condo stairs, about the last half of them. I was too stunned to get up for quite some time, and when I finally managed it, I realized my left ankle was badly sprained. I dosed myself with ibuprofen and even a little codeine and kept it well iced. I couldn't put any weight on it, so Darwin went out and bought a crutch. This let me get around, though there was no way I could keep up my usual running schedule.
And then the weather turned.
It went from freezing and cloudy to warm and sunny. Early summer warm and sunny. And I was stuck inside. I felt restless and unhappy. Nice days in a Michigan November are rare in the extreme, and winters are even worse. When the weather is good, you want to go out and enjoy it, store it up for the awful months that will arrive any moment. I regretted putting my bike away.
In a couple days, my ankle healed enough that I figured I could ride, which would be a decent substitute for running. So I went down to the storage place to drag out the bike and rack. When I put the key into the padlock and twisted, though, the key snapped like a stick of butter.
Oh, I was unhappy. Pissed, really. I called the storage place to complain--I had bought the padlock from them--and the very apologetic lady who answered the phone said she'd call maintenance worker on Monday to remove the lock, and she'd let me know when he'd be out to do so.
Monday morning passed, and I got no phone call. I finally called on my lunch break to ask for an update and discovered the Very Apologetic Lady had forgotten to call maintenance, and she promised to do so right away. I was upset and let her know this.
A few minutes later, the VPL called back to say maintenance could get there on Tuesday afternoon. Again--pissed. He was supposed to come out MONDAY, and the nice weather clock was ticking.
Today (Tuesday), Darwin and I met the maintenance man at the storage area, and he cut the lock off with a nifty machine that looked like a belt sander had mated with a table saw. I had bought a new lock, a combination lock, thank you. But it didn't fit the weirdly-shaped latch. Seriously ticked, Darwin and I drove to a nearby hardware store and bought another combination lock. In the parking lot we tested it, and discovered the combination that came with the lock didn't work. We went back into the store to get another one, but they had no other ones in the model we needed. We finally, grudgingly, settled on a key lock that we hoped would work.
Back at the storage area, we got the rack and bike out and then installed the new lock. It went on, though with some fiddling. I put the key in my car so it would always be there when I needed it.
And then, at last, I was able to go on an autumn bike ride. It was seventy-five degrees and breezy and a fine ride that gave me the exercise I've needed.
comments
November 1, 2020
Begging the Question . . . Incorrectly
People use the phrase "that begs the question" wrong all the time! They say things like, "The Senator said he never heard of Mrs. Brown, which begs the question of how he knew her name." That's wrong!
"Begs the question" means to form a question in such a way that it requires (begs) a certain answer. "Have you stopped beating your wife, yes or no?" begs the question because no matter how you answer, you admit to beating your wife. So is, "Tell me how much you love the cake I made." You have to answer in a way that says you love the cake.
The phrase most people are looking for is "RAISES the question," as in, "The Senator said he never heard of Mrs. Brown, which raises the question of how he knew her name."
You have been informed. Now go forth and do it right!
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Leaving Albion
Darwin is no longer working for Albion. The council decided to give him a severance package. As you probably guessed, there's a whole lot going on here. The short, polite, version is that the council made a mistake, and now they're paying for it. Good.
I'll let you in on a secret: I never liked Albion. I pretended I did, and tried to see the good parts of the town. Cute park, surrounded by some nice countryside. But the longer Darwin and I were associated with the place, the less I liked it. Run-down, dumpy, half-empty, and filled with insular, short-sighted people. Half the stores downtown are empty and decaying. A furniture place has dedicated more space in its show windows to Trump/Pence banners than to actual furniture. Sure, the town has Albion College, but the college keeps itself to itself, even requires the students to live on-campus. You don't see any students or other young people around the town itself. There's no night life, no shopping, no real activities. The big event of the year is the Festival of the Forks (think "river forks"), and it's a boring, badly-organized affair. Getting groceries involves a 40-minute drive. The town has one movie theater that closes at 9 PM. You get the idea.
Here's a tidbit: back when the Cedar Point amusement park--the one that evolved over the decades into a world-class roller coaster park--was getting started, it selected Albion for its location. Cedar Point saw the town's many advantages. Albion is just off a major highway, is equidistant between Detroit and Chicago, easy to reach from a number of places in the Midwest, and is surrounded by inexpensive land that would allow for easy expansion. It would bring hundreds of jobs to a blue-collar town that had been recently devastated by several factory closings.
Albion said no. They didn't want an amusement park in their backyard. Cedar Point instead went to Sandusky, Ohio and became fantastically successful there. This tells you everything you need to know about Albion.
Our thinking was that this would be Darwin's last job before he retired. We'd put up with being separated during the school year until I could retire and move there with him. I had toyed with the thought of looking for teacher job near Albion or even taking early retirement and eating the financial loss so I could at least be with my husband. So very glad I did neither.
We put the house on the market, hoping it would sell quickly. The real estate market is hot, hot, HOT everywhere, right? Also, Albion's housing market is filled with houses that are either super expensive (because they're near the college) or super cheap (because they're falling apart). There was literally NOTHING mid-range and decent on the market. Ours was the only house in that category. Easy sale, yeah? Nope. Not in Albion. We got only a couple showings and no offers.
Meanwhile, Darwin took a temp position as city clerk and treasurer in the city of Charlotte, which is within commuting distance of Albion. He could continue occupying the house in Albion while we tried to sell it. We still got nothing.
After a couple months, we were about to take the house off the market when we got a surprise offer. Yay! Darwin alerted the temp company that he would have to leave Charlotte in a few weeks. They made noises about paying his rent at a hotel or apartment if he'd stay for a couple more months, but it didn't actually happen. C'est la vie.
We closed down the house in Albion. We packed everything up and divided it into two parts. One part was stuff that would go to the lake condo in Waterford, and the other part was stuff we'd have to put into storage. Fortunately, I found a storage facility that's literally within walking distance of the Waterford condo.
It was tricky finding a moving company. Albion to Waterford is legally a long-distance move that requires a special license, and many companies won't handle that. With a growing sense of anxiety, I called all around the Albion and Waterford areas. At last, I found a company that would do the job. It was a small, mom-and-pop organization, but as long as they did the move, I didn't care how they small they were.
On moving day, two guys showed up with a U-Haul truck and a U-Haul trailer. The company was so small, they didn't have their own truck! The guys muscled everything aboard. At one point, Darwin overheard one of the guys saying that he hadn't had breakfast, and the other guy said that, yeah, he was getting a hunger headache, too. I went up to them and said, "I'm heading over to MacDonald's for a sack of hamburgers. Do either of you want anything?"
Huge looks of relief, and one of the movers offered a high-five. I dashed out and returned with bags of food, which everyone devoured.
Once we arrived in Waterford, the guys muscled a couple huge pieces of furniture upstairs, including a heavy dresser and a bed. The high-five guy collapsed theatrically to the floor once he set the dresser down. Then they hauled down a bunch of stuff from the condo that also had to go into storage, drove it over to the storage place, and unloaded it. It was nine-hour day, in all. I tipped them huge.
And then Darwin and I had to unpack and rearrange a whole bunch of stuff.
The entire thing had me thinking "Didn't we JUST do this?" in despair. Because of course, we had.
But now we're consolidated into one household again. Darwin is living with me and I with him, and Albion is receding into the distance like a bad memory.
comments
I'll let you in on a secret: I never liked Albion. I pretended I did, and tried to see the good parts of the town. Cute park, surrounded by some nice countryside. But the longer Darwin and I were associated with the place, the less I liked it. Run-down, dumpy, half-empty, and filled with insular, short-sighted people. Half the stores downtown are empty and decaying. A furniture place has dedicated more space in its show windows to Trump/Pence banners than to actual furniture. Sure, the town has Albion College, but the college keeps itself to itself, even requires the students to live on-campus. You don't see any students or other young people around the town itself. There's no night life, no shopping, no real activities. The big event of the year is the Festival of the Forks (think "river forks"), and it's a boring, badly-organized affair. Getting groceries involves a 40-minute drive. The town has one movie theater that closes at 9 PM. You get the idea.
Here's a tidbit: back when the Cedar Point amusement park--the one that evolved over the decades into a world-class roller coaster park--was getting started, it selected Albion for its location. Cedar Point saw the town's many advantages. Albion is just off a major highway, is equidistant between Detroit and Chicago, easy to reach from a number of places in the Midwest, and is surrounded by inexpensive land that would allow for easy expansion. It would bring hundreds of jobs to a blue-collar town that had been recently devastated by several factory closings.
Albion said no. They didn't want an amusement park in their backyard. Cedar Point instead went to Sandusky, Ohio and became fantastically successful there. This tells you everything you need to know about Albion.
Our thinking was that this would be Darwin's last job before he retired. We'd put up with being separated during the school year until I could retire and move there with him. I had toyed with the thought of looking for teacher job near Albion or even taking early retirement and eating the financial loss so I could at least be with my husband. So very glad I did neither.
We put the house on the market, hoping it would sell quickly. The real estate market is hot, hot, HOT everywhere, right? Also, Albion's housing market is filled with houses that are either super expensive (because they're near the college) or super cheap (because they're falling apart). There was literally NOTHING mid-range and decent on the market. Ours was the only house in that category. Easy sale, yeah? Nope. Not in Albion. We got only a couple showings and no offers.
Meanwhile, Darwin took a temp position as city clerk and treasurer in the city of Charlotte, which is within commuting distance of Albion. He could continue occupying the house in Albion while we tried to sell it. We still got nothing.
After a couple months, we were about to take the house off the market when we got a surprise offer. Yay! Darwin alerted the temp company that he would have to leave Charlotte in a few weeks. They made noises about paying his rent at a hotel or apartment if he'd stay for a couple more months, but it didn't actually happen. C'est la vie.
We closed down the house in Albion. We packed everything up and divided it into two parts. One part was stuff that would go to the lake condo in Waterford, and the other part was stuff we'd have to put into storage. Fortunately, I found a storage facility that's literally within walking distance of the Waterford condo.
It was tricky finding a moving company. Albion to Waterford is legally a long-distance move that requires a special license, and many companies won't handle that. With a growing sense of anxiety, I called all around the Albion and Waterford areas. At last, I found a company that would do the job. It was a small, mom-and-pop organization, but as long as they did the move, I didn't care how they small they were.
On moving day, two guys showed up with a U-Haul truck and a U-Haul trailer. The company was so small, they didn't have their own truck! The guys muscled everything aboard. At one point, Darwin overheard one of the guys saying that he hadn't had breakfast, and the other guy said that, yeah, he was getting a hunger headache, too. I went up to them and said, "I'm heading over to MacDonald's for a sack of hamburgers. Do either of you want anything?"
Huge looks of relief, and one of the movers offered a high-five. I dashed out and returned with bags of food, which everyone devoured.
Once we arrived in Waterford, the guys muscled a couple huge pieces of furniture upstairs, including a heavy dresser and a bed. The high-five guy collapsed theatrically to the floor once he set the dresser down. Then they hauled down a bunch of stuff from the condo that also had to go into storage, drove it over to the storage place, and unloaded it. It was nine-hour day, in all. I tipped them huge.
And then Darwin and I had to unpack and rearrange a whole bunch of stuff.
The entire thing had me thinking "Didn't we JUST do this?" in despair. Because of course, we had.
But now we're consolidated into one household again. Darwin is living with me and I with him, and Albion is receding into the distance like a bad memory.
comments
Samhain, 2020
Samhain was low-key this year. I didn't have the energy for anything huge, and anyway, I'm the sole Witch in the house these days.
I went down to the lake just after sunset, and the full moon was rising over the trees. Deer watched me from the cover of the woods, whuffing their nervousness at my presence. I performed a ritual. Samhain is a time for banishing, and there was a lot of that to do.
I don't have a full outdoor altar anymore, but I had appropriated a corner of the balcony for my outdoor statuary and ritual objects. Just before midnight, I brought them inside, as I do every year, and put them under the altar in the living room. I lit candles, sent the God on his way, and dealt out Tarot cards to see what the coming year is going to be like. In a word? Chaotic.
Fall has ended, and Winter begins.
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I went down to the lake just after sunset, and the full moon was rising over the trees. Deer watched me from the cover of the woods, whuffing their nervousness at my presence. I performed a ritual. Samhain is a time for banishing, and there was a lot of that to do.
I don't have a full outdoor altar anymore, but I had appropriated a corner of the balcony for my outdoor statuary and ritual objects. Just before midnight, I brought them inside, as I do every year, and put them under the altar in the living room. I lit candles, sent the God on his way, and dealt out Tarot cards to see what the coming year is going to be like. In a word? Chaotic.
Fall has ended, and Winter begins.
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The Attack
It's been in the news. Wherever Schools were attacked by a computer virus. Ransomware. The district refused to pay, and the criminals brought down the network for the entire district. No Internet, no phones, no network drives, no email, no grading, no attendance records.
So while we're under siege for the coronavirus, we got hit by a computer virus.
It was (is) bad, bad, bad, and the only thing that kept us functioning on an educational level was the fact that we're all delivering instruction through Google Classroom, which was unaffected. However . . .
Nearly all us teachers keep our materials on our network drive. Everyone has their own section of the network, and I've been keeping my lesson plans and instructional materials on it for years. In the old days, everyone kept a master copy of worksheets and projects and tests in a filing cabinet. I still have my filing cabinet, in fact. It's monstrously huge. And empty. Years and years ago, I scanned all my paper materials into PDFs and when I create new materials, I do so on a computer. And everything goes into the network drive.
When we're within range of the district's WiFi, we can access our network drives through any computer, using the file explorer. Very easy. At home, we can access the network drive through the Internet by downloading files to our own computers. Very clunky.
When we shifted to virtual school back in March, I was forced to download my files, one by one, to my home computer through the Internet. It was slow and laborious and tedious. I finally had enough of frustration and solved the problem by taking an external hard drive to school (eerie empty hallways) and downloading the contents of my network drive to it. Much easier!
Then the computer virus struck and the network drive went down completely.
Like everyone else, I was scrambling to deal with this new problem. Without our school email, we shifted over to using our GMail accounts, which took some configuring. We couldn't upload grades from Google Classroom to the school's online grading program, and Google Classroom's grade book isn't accessible by the parents, so the parents had no way to know how their kids were doing. I had no way to contact parents, since email addresses and phone numbers are stored on the network. Grades dropped sharply as kids realized no one was overseeing their progress except me, and I was just an image on a screen.
At least I had access to my materials. Most all the other teachers didn't. They had to start all lessons from scratch and find or create new materials in an already stressful and difficult environment.
The network was down for about three weeks. We teachers got very little in the way of information about it. We got a couple-three carefully-worded emails from the administration that basically just said we were hit by a computer virus and they were working with a tech company to restore what they could, please sit tight.
The district didn't say it was a ransomware attack.
The district didn't say that our personal data, including social security numbers, was compromised.
The district didn't say that the personal data of a pile of teachers and students was posted on the dark web.
As of this writing, the last communique we got about this from the district was a sheepish email that basically said, "Well, it looks like some teachers' information got out. We're sorry about that. We'll let you know in a week or so who it was."
A blog that tracks ransomware attacks learned of the attack and found the teacher information on the dark web. It showed some of the files, with names and other personal information redacted. If this site knows about it, the district must also know. But still we haven't been told anything.
(Small side note: when I registered the boys as students at Wherever Schools, they asked for their social security numbers. I refused categorically and asked why the wanted these numbers. The registration person said it was routine to collect them, and I really needed to hand them over. I refused again. "We keep them safe," the registration person said. I refused a third time. When the registration person grew a little belligerent and made noises about my refusal delaying or stopping their registration, I said, "State law says you must accept my sons into the school system, no matter what. I don't have to give you a damn thing except their address and birth dates. Drop it." She dropped it, and the boys were registered. Without their soc numbers going into the school computer. Looks like a damned good decision on my part, dunnit? Never, ever give that number to anyone who isn't giving you money or extending you credit.)
I'm already registered with two credit- and data-protection services. I get an alert every time someone tries to do anything in my name. I don't keep a list of my personal passwords on the district software anywhere. I think I'll be all right. I hope I'll be all right.
The network is back up now. I had to bring my school laptop to the high school and hard-line connect it to the school's network to update the virus protection. The grades and email were restored. I didn't think to check if my network drive was restored, but I haven't heard howling from other teachers, so I'm assuming it was.
I'm hoping.
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So while we're under siege for the coronavirus, we got hit by a computer virus.
It was (is) bad, bad, bad, and the only thing that kept us functioning on an educational level was the fact that we're all delivering instruction through Google Classroom, which was unaffected. However . . .
Nearly all us teachers keep our materials on our network drive. Everyone has their own section of the network, and I've been keeping my lesson plans and instructional materials on it for years. In the old days, everyone kept a master copy of worksheets and projects and tests in a filing cabinet. I still have my filing cabinet, in fact. It's monstrously huge. And empty. Years and years ago, I scanned all my paper materials into PDFs and when I create new materials, I do so on a computer. And everything goes into the network drive.
When we're within range of the district's WiFi, we can access our network drives through any computer, using the file explorer. Very easy. At home, we can access the network drive through the Internet by downloading files to our own computers. Very clunky.
When we shifted to virtual school back in March, I was forced to download my files, one by one, to my home computer through the Internet. It was slow and laborious and tedious. I finally had enough of frustration and solved the problem by taking an external hard drive to school (eerie empty hallways) and downloading the contents of my network drive to it. Much easier!
Then the computer virus struck and the network drive went down completely.
Like everyone else, I was scrambling to deal with this new problem. Without our school email, we shifted over to using our GMail accounts, which took some configuring. We couldn't upload grades from Google Classroom to the school's online grading program, and Google Classroom's grade book isn't accessible by the parents, so the parents had no way to know how their kids were doing. I had no way to contact parents, since email addresses and phone numbers are stored on the network. Grades dropped sharply as kids realized no one was overseeing their progress except me, and I was just an image on a screen.
At least I had access to my materials. Most all the other teachers didn't. They had to start all lessons from scratch and find or create new materials in an already stressful and difficult environment.
The network was down for about three weeks. We teachers got very little in the way of information about it. We got a couple-three carefully-worded emails from the administration that basically just said we were hit by a computer virus and they were working with a tech company to restore what they could, please sit tight.
The district didn't say it was a ransomware attack.
The district didn't say that our personal data, including social security numbers, was compromised.
The district didn't say that the personal data of a pile of teachers and students was posted on the dark web.
As of this writing, the last communique we got about this from the district was a sheepish email that basically said, "Well, it looks like some teachers' information got out. We're sorry about that. We'll let you know in a week or so who it was."
A blog that tracks ransomware attacks learned of the attack and found the teacher information on the dark web. It showed some of the files, with names and other personal information redacted. If this site knows about it, the district must also know. But still we haven't been told anything.
(Small side note: when I registered the boys as students at Wherever Schools, they asked for their social security numbers. I refused categorically and asked why the wanted these numbers. The registration person said it was routine to collect them, and I really needed to hand them over. I refused again. "We keep them safe," the registration person said. I refused a third time. When the registration person grew a little belligerent and made noises about my refusal delaying or stopping their registration, I said, "State law says you must accept my sons into the school system, no matter what. I don't have to give you a damn thing except their address and birth dates. Drop it." She dropped it, and the boys were registered. Without their soc numbers going into the school computer. Looks like a damned good decision on my part, dunnit? Never, ever give that number to anyone who isn't giving you money or extending you credit.)
I'm already registered with two credit- and data-protection services. I get an alert every time someone tries to do anything in my name. I don't keep a list of my personal passwords on the district software anywhere. I think I'll be all right. I hope I'll be all right.
The network is back up now. I had to bring my school laptop to the high school and hard-line connect it to the school's network to update the virus protection. The grades and email were restored. I didn't think to check if my network drive was restored, but I haven't heard howling from other teachers, so I'm assuming it was.
I'm hoping.
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The At-Home Routine
The pandemic and the virtual schooling have pushed me into an at-home routine. It usually goes like this:
6:45 Out of bed. Turn on computer so it can boot up during morning chores.
7:25 At computer. Open up Google Classroom, email, attendance program, lesson plans, Remind.
8:03 Post codes for Google Meet to first class of the day.
8:05 Send Remind message: "Come to class, folks."
8:10 Even though a third of the class is missing, begin class. Class has a sub-routine:
+Take roll with a daily check-in question ("Who is someone that makes you smile?" or "What's your favorite streaming service?"). Students must respond. This establishes a classroom norm and ensures students are present and listening.
+ Remind students to turn their cameras on. Over and over. Several times per class.
+ Deliver instruction or presentation.
+ Give directions for individual work.
+ Give students time to perform individual work.
+ 5-10 minute stretch break.
+ Return to large group for processing. Remind students to turn cameras on.
11:40 Lunch
12:15 Return to teaching
2:00 End classes for the day, start prep work. This also has a sub-routine:
MONDAY-WEDNESDAY Create lesson plans and materials. Post to Google Classroom on a timer so they show up on the appropriate day. (This is HUGELY time-consuming. Normally, I make lesson plans, then run copies, and do other things while the copy machine is running. The online version requires posting the same stuff over and over again and it's the worst part of my week.)
THURSDAY-FRIDAY Grade student work, update grading program, email weekly progress reports.
3:00 Brain is dead. Shut down all school related material. Get snack, go on treadmill run. Housework.
5:00 Make supper.
6:00 Resist temptation to check school email because there are always a thousand of them and it'll send me down a rabbit hole.
7:00 Try to get some writing done.
11:00 Bed
October was an enormously difficult month. It had no days off, no half days, nothing. And six hours of video meetings plus additional screen time for work is exhausting. A number of studies have show that video meetings create enormous amounts of stress--you have limited ability to process the facial expressions and body language of the people you're talking to, but your brain keeps trying anyway, which builds and builds and builds more stress. And I'm spending way more time at work than I have since I was a first-year teacher.
I want to sock people who say, "Oh, it must be so much easier teaching from home."
I'm trying to see the positive. No commute. No navigating crowds of dangerous, inexperienced drivers on my way to work. No going out in bad weather. No noisy hallways filled with teenagers who shout and shout and shout. But these advantages don't outweigh the difficulties.
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6:45 Out of bed. Turn on computer so it can boot up during morning chores.
7:25 At computer. Open up Google Classroom, email, attendance program, lesson plans, Remind.
8:03 Post codes for Google Meet to first class of the day.
8:05 Send Remind message: "Come to class, folks."
8:10 Even though a third of the class is missing, begin class. Class has a sub-routine:
+Take roll with a daily check-in question ("Who is someone that makes you smile?" or "What's your favorite streaming service?"). Students must respond. This establishes a classroom norm and ensures students are present and listening.
+ Remind students to turn their cameras on. Over and over. Several times per class.
+ Deliver instruction or presentation.
+ Give directions for individual work.
+ Give students time to perform individual work.
+ 5-10 minute stretch break.
+ Return to large group for processing. Remind students to turn cameras on.
11:40 Lunch
12:15 Return to teaching
2:00 End classes for the day, start prep work. This also has a sub-routine:
MONDAY-WEDNESDAY Create lesson plans and materials. Post to Google Classroom on a timer so they show up on the appropriate day. (This is HUGELY time-consuming. Normally, I make lesson plans, then run copies, and do other things while the copy machine is running. The online version requires posting the same stuff over and over again and it's the worst part of my week.)
THURSDAY-FRIDAY Grade student work, update grading program, email weekly progress reports.
3:00 Brain is dead. Shut down all school related material. Get snack, go on treadmill run. Housework.
5:00 Make supper.
6:00 Resist temptation to check school email because there are always a thousand of them and it'll send me down a rabbit hole.
7:00 Try to get some writing done.
11:00 Bed
October was an enormously difficult month. It had no days off, no half days, nothing. And six hours of video meetings plus additional screen time for work is exhausting. A number of studies have show that video meetings create enormous amounts of stress--you have limited ability to process the facial expressions and body language of the people you're talking to, but your brain keeps trying anyway, which builds and builds and builds more stress. And I'm spending way more time at work than I have since I was a first-year teacher.
I want to sock people who say, "Oh, it must be so much easier teaching from home."
I'm trying to see the positive. No commute. No navigating crowds of dangerous, inexperienced drivers on my way to work. No going out in bad weather. No noisy hallways filled with teenagers who shout and shout and shout. But these advantages don't outweigh the difficulties.
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September 28, 2020
It Can Only Happen...
From the "It Can Only Happen to Me" files.
Today, a company came in to clean the carpets in the common stairwells and landings in the condo complex. They did a fine job, packed up their stuff, and left.
A bit later, I realized it was time to change the cat box. I use a litter pan liner to make things easier. I closed up the old one, set it aside, filled a new one with fresh litter, and took the other down to the dumpster.
On the way back, I noticed the trail of cat litter.
There must have been a hole. With a growing sense of dread, I followed it, back through the parking lot, back to the main door, and . . . here we go . . . into the hall, up the stairs, into our condo, down the hall, and into the closet where the cat box is.
Did I mention that, mere hours before, the common-area carpets had JUST been cleaned? Did I mention that? Did I?
It took nearly an hour with the friggin' vacuum cleaner to undo the damage, and I was praying the entire time that none of the neighbors would poke their heads into the hall to see what the noise was about. I REALLY didn't want to explain how I'd managed to pour a stream of used cat litter all down the steps. The ones that had been fresh cleaned, did I mention that? Did I?
Fortunately, none of the neighbors seemed to notice. I put the vacuum away and vowed only to share this with a few thousand of my closest friends.
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Today, a company came in to clean the carpets in the common stairwells and landings in the condo complex. They did a fine job, packed up their stuff, and left.
A bit later, I realized it was time to change the cat box. I use a litter pan liner to make things easier. I closed up the old one, set it aside, filled a new one with fresh litter, and took the other down to the dumpster.
On the way back, I noticed the trail of cat litter.
There must have been a hole. With a growing sense of dread, I followed it, back through the parking lot, back to the main door, and . . . here we go . . . into the hall, up the stairs, into our condo, down the hall, and into the closet where the cat box is.
Did I mention that, mere hours before, the common-area carpets had JUST been cleaned? Did I mention that? Did I?
It took nearly an hour with the friggin' vacuum cleaner to undo the damage, and I was praying the entire time that none of the neighbors would poke their heads into the hall to see what the noise was about. I REALLY didn't want to explain how I'd managed to pour a stream of used cat litter all down the steps. The ones that had been fresh cleaned, did I mention that? Did I?
Fortunately, none of the neighbors seemed to notice. I put the vacuum away and vowed only to share this with a few thousand of my closest friends.
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Dropping AWAY
I'm dropping AWAY. It's not science and exploration and adventure in space. It's "everyone has a shitty life, so let's make everything shittier by sending a bunch of people into space who clearly should NOT be in space, and then make everything mechanical go wrong so often that you wonder who the hell designed such a POS ship." Nearly every scene goes on for two or three beats too many. We linger on tragedy and people weeping. (Not one of the astronauts comes from a stable, positive family background, as we learn in long, dull, weepy flashbacks.) You can tap the pop-ahead function four or five times and not miss a thing.
The characters make no sense. We have a doctor who doesn't seem at all concerned that a big chunk of someone's foot fell off, and who is carrying a disease that should have instantly disqualified him from this mission. We have a cosmonaut/engineer who's self-centered and bitchy and so unable to get along with other people that I can't believe he got assigned to this mission. We have a Tragic Gay (a lesbian who is unexpectedly outed and disallowed from ever contacting her love again). We have a botanist who lets his faith influence his science. And we have a wishy-washy commander who can't focus on her mission. (How was she selected, again?)
I stuck with it for six episodes, hoping it would get better. It's only gotten worse. I'm out!
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The characters make no sense. We have a doctor who doesn't seem at all concerned that a big chunk of someone's foot fell off, and who is carrying a disease that should have instantly disqualified him from this mission. We have a cosmonaut/engineer who's self-centered and bitchy and so unable to get along with other people that I can't believe he got assigned to this mission. We have a Tragic Gay (a lesbian who is unexpectedly outed and disallowed from ever contacting her love again). We have a botanist who lets his faith influence his science. And we have a wishy-washy commander who can't focus on her mission. (How was she selected, again?)
I stuck with it for six episodes, hoping it would get better. It's only gotten worse. I'm out!
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