Posted by Brad on September 30th, 2008 — Posted in Journal
I went to Baltimore Research yesterday after school. It’s an organization that gathers regular folks together and asks them questions about specific topics or products. Then they report the answers back to companies who deal with those topics or make those products. It’s market research.
I was invited to participate in a focus group about Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS). I haven’t been diagnosed, but I’m pretty sure I have it.
There were only five people invited. Two of them were sent home right away, leaving three of us. The moderator woman showed us various texts about RLS and asked us to rate them according to their thought-provoking-ness. A text would say something like “Lost Time: Are you tired of losing time because of your RLS? Lost time with your family? Lost time with your friends? Lost time at work?…”
It was interesting, but I was bothered by the fact that the two other guys didn’t have RLS. They were just fidgety people. They either lied in the interview process or they didn’t realize what RLS was.
We looked at the texts and gave our opinions for an hour and a half. Then they sent us home with $100 in our pockets. Nice.
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Posted by Brad on September 29th, 2008 — Posted in Journal
I didn’t really do anything very productive yesterday, so I’ll let my work on Saturday count for the whole weekend.
I went in to school early Saturday morning and put up the bulletin board in the hallway for the eighth grade verse. They chose that perennial favorite of kids, 1 Timothy 4:12 “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you’re young…” I’ll have fun telling them the guy that was written to was in his thirties.
I think I actually kind of enjoy doing bulletin boards. But don’t tell anybody.
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Posted by Brad on September 28th, 2008 — Posted in Journal
I went to the Baltimore Book Festival yesterday. Gris Grimly, children’s book illustrator, was speaking and signing books. Before he was Gris Grimly, he went to college with Beth, and I went to college with his sister Stephanie, so I went to say “hi”. His pictures are cool. They’re kind of victorian-inspired-pale-children-gothic stuff. I ended up buying three of his books.
His presentation was fun to watch. He had kids make requests, then he drew pictures on a big easel, then he gave them the pictures. It reminded me of that segment from Captain Kangaroo where they read a book and some guy drew pictures with a marker. Or was that a separate show? Anyway, Gris Grimly’s pictures were a little different from what you might have seen on Captain Kangaroo. hehe
When I talked with him, he didn’t have many memories of college. Or he wanted to block them away. Perhaps it’s bad for business as a grim illustrator to have gone to college in Nebraska. Nebraska might not be grim enough. (Wasn’t he there in the dead of winter? That’s pretty grim.)
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Posted by Brad on September 27th, 2008 — Posted in Journal
The fish in the aquarium in my classroom have babies every once in a while. I usually don’t notice them until there are only two or three left. This time, I noticed right away. There are at least a dozen babies. Or, there was yesterday. The adult fish eat the babies, so not many of them survive to adulthood. If they do, sometimes they’re healthy, but sometimes they’re deformed. Fish stock can get a little inbred. After all, the fish in my tank are brothers and sisters. Around here they’d say my fish tank is an awful lot like West Virginia, because West Virginia is often the subject of incest jokes. Not having met any romantically involved brother/sister couples from there, I haven’t observed any substantiation of the stereotype. Still, it makes a good joke. I mean, when does the Pope ever walk into a bar with a rabbi and a Buddhist monk?
Anyway, to help keep them alive I grind up flake food really fine so the tiny babies have food, and I hope they’re smart enough to hide in the plants so they don’t get eaten.
The babies were hard to get a picture of. My camera kept focusing on other things. A baby fish is just to the right of center in the picture below.
A closeup:
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Posted by Brad on September 26th, 2008 — Posted in Journal
I absolutely LOVE being able to record TV shows. Of course, digital cable makes it lots easier than using a VCR machine. I just go to the TV guide screen, select the show, and press “record”. But even if I was using old-fashioned tapes I would keep recording. It’s awesome!
By the time I get home and settle in, it’s 5:30 or 6. I can then watch whatever I recorded the night before and be done before 8. The machine records my next shows while I do some work or get ready for bed or whatever. I’ve been in bed by 9pm most of this week. I have a cold, so it’s good for me to be getting extra sleep. (It’s always great having an excuse to sleep.)
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