This Could Have Been an Alarming Development

I was surprised to wake up to Clock #2 this morning, which is set for four minutes after (and located on the opposite side of the room from) Clock #1. I wondered if I forgot to set the latter, but...nope, it was flashing 2:53, which means 1) the power went out at least briefly during the storm, and 2) the backup battery finally gave its last after years of service. (And that, my friends, is why I have a Clock #2 in the first place.)

If Today Had Remained As Bad As It Started, I MIght Have Just Gone Back to Bed

People sometimes refer to having a bad day by saying, "I woke up on the wrong side of the bed." Well, this almost literally happened to me this morning. I have two alarm clocks placed at opposite sides of the room, at four-minute intervals. I heard the far one (six feet away on the left) go off, and I inadvertently headed for the near one (two feet away on the right), which made me slam rather violently into my dresser. No actual injuries resulted from this, save for a mildly banged-up knee (yes, the one I had operated on five years ago) and some slightly stubbed toes. (Oh, and I may have said a naughty word when it happened.)

Thankfully, the day has been pretty decent since then. But what a start...

Fall Has Fell

The academic calendar says there's one more day left, but for me, the fall semester came to a close at around 10:30 this morning. Since the college is out this week, I was able to squeeze the bulk of five days' worth of students (save for a few taking exams) into just over three days. I have some teaching-related errands yet to run (most notably, finding an ensemble for a larger-than-usual group) and one more school concert tonight, but otherwise, Fall 2010 is in the books.

It was a busy, busy semester, without a doubt. Even a lot of the weekends weren't particularly "weekend-y" at times. But everything that's been occupying my time falls under the category of Good Stuff, so it's all been time well spent.

The public schools don't resume until January 4, and the college is off until the 18th. Commence relaxation. Oh, and happy Beethoven's Birthday! He would have been 240 today.

As We Are Reunited With Daylight Wasting Time

It's not that I didn't appreciate the extra hour of sleep last night; I did. And it's not that I didn't get the bulk of my afternoon errands (post-judging, post-meeting; there was no rest for the weary this weekend) done before it got dark. And it was a lovely sunset in my rear-view mirror as I drove down the highway.

But that being said, it still bugged me that it was dark by 6 p.m. Not so much for today, mind you; the productive part of my day was done, and all I had left was to eat dinner and watch the Cowboys game (and what a bad idea that was!). But I'm thinking about the rest of the week. Because you know what? I really, really dislike Daylight Wasting Time.

And why?, you may ask. I still can't say it any better than I did in the 2003 post that inaugurated this topic:

I think the really depressing part of DWT is that it almost always gets dark before I'm done teaching now. It seems to me that if you don't finish work until after dark, you've worked too long. In a way, I know my days are too long, but at least I can hide behind a little denial if I get home while the sun is still out. DWT blows that all out of the water, and I'm forced to come to terms with my workaholic self. Bleh.

It's still like this, of course; Mondays go till 6:00, Tuesdays till eight, and Wednesdays go till 6:30. (It's pretty much always dark when I'm done on Thursdays, but I teach a night class that ends at 9:45, so that's par for the course.) That leaves me with only Fridays to still have daylight when the teaching day is done, and even then, I'm within an hour of sunset.

I'm happy that DWT has been made shorter and shorter lately by the gradual expansion of Daylight Saving Time, but it's still too much for me. But what can I do about it? Well, complain--just like now. But it's only once a year; thanks for indulging me here, and I'll counter this with a bit of rejoicing every spring.

Words to Live By

I'm enjoying a partial four-day weekend right now (the "partial" part means that I'll be teaching college as usual on Monday and Tuesday, but the public schools are off, and any day that doesn't require waking up at 6 a.m. counts as a "holiday" in my book), so I'll be catching up on many, many incomplete blog posts in the next few days. But in the meantime, I had to post this great quote from James Lileks in his Thursday Bleat. Earlier in the day, he had words with his daughter, who was updating something and nearly missed her school bus. Eventually, the subject came around to work:

You work, you fill up the day, you tote it up when the day is done, and figure you earned your stint on the right side of the dirt. I have the usual panoply of failings as a person and a parent, but I think I’ve instilled in my daughter one lesson: make something every day. Make something that wasn’t there before. Produce. It’s what we’re here to do, after all.

Amen and amen. And those last three sentences should be printed out and plastered on the bathroom mirrors of everyone who works in government, not to mention those who believe that said government should take care of them, rather than relying on their own personal productivity.

End of sermon. Have a great day! Updates linked as they get completed.

Commence Summer

As of this afternoon, the public-school portion of my academic year has concluded; the college semester having ended two weeks ago, I can officially say that it's summer (which, for someone in academia, does not correspond with the beginning of that season as stated on a calendar). There are a couple (literally, two) of non-exam days next week, but I have jury duty on Tuesday, so it's pretty safe to say that any teaching that goes on next week will be at Casa de Kev and not inside a school.

There were a few challenges this year--most notably during the fall semester, when I was doing some extra teaching in relief of an ailing colleague while undergoing my own recovery from knee surgery--but there were a lot of rewarding moments, and some really good music was made.

It's not a true vacation, of course; summer teaching starts a week from Monday, and the schedule still needs to be finalized. But I'm looking forward to a few days of doing very little, starting now.

Spring Has Broken, and Daylight Is No Longer Wasted

Spring break may have started at the close of business on Friday, but I can finally celebrate it today. This past week has been consumed by preparations for the reactivation of a fraternity chapter yesterday (and congrats to the brothers of Sigma Omega!), so today is the "I can finally exhale" day. (In fact, the rest of the week is set to be pretty relaxed, minus practicing and the traditional spring cleaning.)

And with the break comes an extra perk: The first week of Daylight Saving Time. I've noted many times on this blog that I'm a big DST fan, going as far as to refer to Standard Time as Daylight Wasting Time. As I said in that 2003 post,

I think the really depressing part of DWT is that it almost always gets dark before I'm done teaching now. It seems to me that if you don't finish work until after dark, you've worked too long. In a way, I know my days are too long, but at least I can hide behind a little denial if I get home while the sun is still out. DWT blows that all out of the water, and I'm forced to come to terms with my workaholic self. Bleh.

So now, it will be light out at the end of nearly every teaching day (save for Thursdays when I teach a night class until 9:45), and I can enjoy the "saved" hour of daylight, rather than having it at six in the morning when there's pretty much nothing I can do with it. (UPDATE: A bit of the history of DST may be found here.)

With the break, I should be posting regularly and getting caught up on some unfinished entries from the past few weeks.

Enjoy a piece of Pi today: Today is also Pi Day, and if I'd remembered that a little earlier, I would have done this post about an hour ago (3/14 at 1:59).

The Best 13 Bucks I've Spent in a While

For the past several days, the trackpad problem with the computer (which I mentioned here had reached a critical stage; it got to the point where I could hardly get anything done at all on here. The increased level of frustration made for an awful way to start the day, and productivity was truly suffering (and the iPhone wasn't always a good substitute; trying to copy and past multiple links into my web-based school email took a good ten minutes this morning).

This whole time, I was really hoping that the problem was strictly with the trackpad and would thus be solved by simply obtaining a mouse. Thankfully, I was correct. Having both a little bit of time and money, I headed to the Giant Corporate Electronics Concern and Tech Geek's Nirvana Spot Which Shares Its Name with a Futurama Character after rehearsal tonight and parted with a mere 13 simoleons, acquiring a perfectly serviceable USB mouse in the process. (As convenient as a wireless mouse would be, I can't part with that kind of money during the holidays, and as much as I'd like to stay all-Apple, all the time with the MacBook, I knew that such things weren't a requirement.)

Sure enough, I got home, plugged it in, and the problems of the past several weeks vanished right away. (Do I really need to download software from the manufacturer, as the installation instructions suggest? It appears to work fine as it is, and I don't need to do anything fancy like programming the buttons to do special things.) I still have a few small things to work out, such as the lack of USB ports (since I'm also running a peripheral keyboard--yes, this laptop is acting more and more like a desktop these days--and my speakers, and I'm trying to find a way to use all three simultaneously without messing with the extra wires and cables of the old powered USB hub left over from my old iMac), but it's nice to be able to do things on here on demand again. I can feel the wave of relaxation settling in already.

I'll try to use some of the next few days to get caught up on old posts and the like. As always (how many times have I said this during this semester alone?), thanks for your patience.

No Black Cats Crossed My Path Today...

...nor did I teach anyone named Jason. I guess I made it through Friday the Thirteenth unscathed. (And there have been years where I've taught Jasons on that day, which was always good for a laugh. The best one may have been on one of the days when I was subbing for an out-of-town band director, and I queried the class as to how many Jasons were in it; about eight kids, including two girls, raised their hands.)

If anything, I may have had my personal Friday the 13th last Thursday, which was the day when nothing seemed to go right for me. And while I didn't have to deal with black cats, broken mirrors or ladders today, I wonder if I would have been defiant in that situation, just because.

Since my Friday the 13th was so normal, I might as well share a great tune by Thelonious Monk by that name (unfortunately, no videos by the man himself). Hope you like it...

How did your Friday the 13th go? Feel free to comment if you had something unusual happen.

One oF Those Days

You know it's one of "those" days when...

• Mere minutes before you're supposed to leave the house in the morning, the zipper on your pants breaks. IAnd it was one of your favorite pair of work pants to boot.)


• You get to your first school, and the class has already started; they're on a different schedule today, and nobody bothered to tell you.


• You make an ATM deposit, and the machine doesn't like one of your checks (evidently made on someone's computer at home). It attempts to spit the check back out to you, but that action fails, and eventually, the machine gives you your card back without a receipt, much less a clear acknowledgment of the rest of your deposit.


• At the beginning of class at the college, you can't play them a particular song because your iPod has run out of juice.


• At various other times during the day, you're just a bit loopy--forgetting to call out a particular scale or having trouble expressing yourself.

That was my day in a nutshell. Ever have a day like that?

UPDATE: And now, after this trite post, I read the news about Ft. Hood and realize just how meaningless the entire post above really is. (That's par for the course on this day too, I guess.) Thoughts and prayers out to the survivors and the victims' families.

I Must Be Having Fun, Because Time's Flying

I was talking with a colleague at the college this afternoon, and I think it hit both of us at the same time: School starts in two weeks! How could that be? Where did the summer go?

I know where a lot of it went, of course. The spring semester in the public schools didn't end until a few days into June, at right about the same time that the summer session began at the college. June was spent getting ready for surgery, having surgery, and recovering from same. That went into July (I can still remember how immobile I was on the Fourth), and, right about the time I was feeling better, it was time to go to my out-of-town convention, which segued immediately into Jazz Camp. By the time that let out, it was only a week until August...and here we are.

As I've said, it's been the least "summery" summer that I've probably ever had, especially in terms of getting to do my typical summertime activities. Out-of-town trips, save for convention? Nope. Swimming? Nuh-uh. Concerts? Not a one (again save for convention and--duh-- Jazz Camp). Rangers games? Only on TV so far, though I'll be using up my annual tickets in September, when I can likely fit into a stadium seat with little discomfort. Movies? One; I finally saw the new Harry Potter a few weekends ago (thanks, AMC, for having the handicapped row). I guess I'll have to find a way to pack a bit of "summer" stuff into the fall.

How was your summer this year? Was it pretty routine, or quite a deviation from the norm? Talk to me in the comments; it's been kinda quiet there recently.

Meet My New Role Model

An outstanding Metroplex-area citizen was profiled today in the papers and on the radio. His name is Jack Borden, he's a practicing attorney from Weatherford, and he was named "Outstanding Oldest Worker of 2009" by a nonprofit group that's dedicated to seniors in the workforce.

But the term "senior" means different things to different people. So just how old is Jack, anyway? Well, he's 101. And that's not a typo.

By the way, he barely came in under the wire for this award; you have to be 100 or older to qualify! (And the linked story points out that he's not even the oldest lawyer in Texas; there are three living members of the state bar who could rightfully call Borden a "kid.")

Check this guy out; he's amazing:

Borden reads without corrective eyewear and hears without an electronic aid. Though he needs a walker to get around, he regularly serves as a greeter at the First Baptist Church of Weatherford, about 30 miles west of Fort Worth.

He also co-hosts a local radio show on Parker County history.

Feeling, however, that he would be unfairly blamed if he were involved in an automobile accident, Borden has given up driving. Mostly.

"I still pick up my dry cleaning on Saturdays," he said.

He arrives at his office at 6:30 every morning and leaves a little after 6 p.m. In deference to a bout of pneumonia four years ago, he now takes a 45-minute nap just before noon.

Reluctantly bowing to prevailing standards, he comes to work on Fridays casually dressed.

Radio show? Casual Fridays? I want to be this guy when I grow up. (OK, I could do without the 6:30 office arrival, and I've never had much use for dry cleaning, but still, this sounds like a man after my own heart.)

I've made my own opinion on retirement known in an earlier post:

I think I've said this before, but, as a musician, I have no intention of ever fully retiring. I have older friends in their 70's (and beyond) who still gig regularly, and I've been blessed with the chance to perform with some amazing musicians (Clark Terry and Jimmy Heath) who were nearing 80 at the time. I've often joked that every musician's secret fantasy is to die on the bandstand, at a ripe old age and after a really good solo, and that's not too far from what I'd actually like to happen a long time from now. But in the meantime, this creative person sees no reason to stop creating just because the clock seems to tell other people to stop working.

While Borden may jokingly reply to those inquiring as to the secret of a long life ("Not dying," he says), he also waxes philosophical at the end of the article:

"I believe that God has something for us to do, and he wants me to work to do some good," he said.

Besides, Borden added, "If I quit, I'll die. I know people who retire and two years later, they're gone."

Ahh yes, the Bear Bryant Syndrome. It's named for the legendary Alabama (and Texas A&M before that) football coach who died within a few months of his retirement, and, as referenced here, it may be one of the reasons that Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno have continued coaching for as long as they have. But it sounds like Jack Borden still has an awful lot to offer his community, so I say keep going; you're an inspiration to us all.

(Be sure and check out the timeline at the end of the DMN story on Borden; the world was quite a different place in 1908.)

I asked this question in the earlier post, but it's been a year and a half, so I'll ask it again: Do you plan to retire at a specific age (and if so, what age is that?), or do you intend to keep going as long as you can? Your thoughts are always welcome in the comments.

Commence Summer

For those of us in academia, the seasons are still defined by a calendar, but it's a very different one than the rest of the world uses. Fall and spring are defined by the long semesters at our schools (which got a little screwy last year when the public schools in my area tried an ill-fated experiment with holding fall exams in January), winter is the time off for Christmas and New Year's, and the time between spring and fall is summer. It may not divide the year into nice equal portions like that, but it's how we roll.

So my summer either started today, when the last of my schools let out, or it started two days ago upon my departure from a single lesson to go to a doctor's appointment. EIther way, the long school year is done, and it's time to get into summer mode.

Except that this summer will be quite different, thanks to the accident. Whenever my surgery happens, I'll be sidelined in general for a few days (at most, they say) and from driving for a few weeks. I won't exactly get to do a lot of "summery" stuff until my recovery is well along--no swimming for me anytime soon. I'm attending a convention next month in Orlando, but my participation in the time they've given us to attend the Disney parks is highly in doubt (I won't exactly be riding Space Mountain that soon after surgery, and even Epcot sounds like it'll be too much walking). And I'm really annoyed to be stuck wearing long pants all the time (because of the knee brace), though it does make my laundry loads a bit lighter. I just hope that, as of this morning, I've jumped through the last pre-op hoop and can get surgery scheduled post-haste.

But still, there are some advantages to summer. It's a time to recharge my batteries a bit (which hopefully will include some writing this summer, since I've gotten the hang of notation software now); you can't beat my 15-step commute to work (that's the distance from my bedroom to the studio room here, since all my school lessons are taught at Casa de Kev during the summer; and six a.m. alarm clocks are mostly a thing of the past until August.

At any rate, I'm looking forward to a little relaxation. Hopefully my leg will heal like it's supposed to and I can enjoy a few summertime activities before school cranks up again.

An Early Report From the Polls

As I said a few weeks ago, I don't talk about politics on this blog, but I certainly don't mind talking about non-specific parts of the process--more specifically, early voting.

I did this today at lunchtime, and I'm happy to report that I was in and out in fifteen minutes, despite double digits' worth of people in line. The process was pretty efficient, the touch-screen machines worked easily, and the workers were very helpful (it didn't hurt that the one who brought me to the machine was the mother of a former student). Quick and painless.

So why vote early? In my case, I might have had time to vote on Election Day, but why push it? My mind was already made up on everything, and nothing between now and then could make me vote differently. There's talk of big lines at the polls on that day, and my polling place is an elementary school with minimal parking, so there might be issues there. And, knowing me, I might space out and completely forget on that day, since I don't pass that school once it's open. It's just much easier to be safe than sorry.

But this brings up an interesting point: How did Election Day ever get to be on a Tuesday in the first place? And, perhaps more importantly, why does it continue to be there? As people work longer and longer hours, and two-income households are the norm, what's the point of having it on a workday? (And don't get me wrong--I'm definitely not suggesting that the polls stay open later to accommodate the working folks; it takes long enough to finalize results as it is.) I say it should either be moved to the first Saturday in November or be made a holiday (which would likely bump it back to a Monday).

Agree or disagree? Cast your "ballot" in the comments.

Am I Splitting Hairs Here?

I had a long break from teaching yesterday morning, thanks to trimester exams at the high school, so I went to get a badly-needed haircut. What happened next was predictable, as was my response.

As I sat down in the chair, the stylist asked me if I wanted a shampoo after my haircut. (I'd actually never heard this request in that sequence before; I'm usually asked if I want one before the cut.) My reply was the same as always: "No, I don't pay people to do things that I do myself." Usually, the stylist will chuckle in an understanding fashion and carry on, but this one was a little feisty, almost defensive: "Well, it's no different than going to Jack in the Box or Taco Bell," she said, with a decided frown upon her face.

Seeing as how she had scissors in her hand, thus holding a portion of my destiny at the moment (I have a concert with my college groups tonight, so I could just see her giving me a reverse Mohawk or something if I made her mad), I didn't push the issue. But if I had, my response would have been that I may not always have time to cook for myself (I'm thinking about the day my evening combo rehearses; if I waited until after then to eat dinner, I wouldn't be eating until 10:30 and would be well on my way to weighing 900 pounds by now), but I always have time to wash my own hair.

I'm pretty stingy in that respect; I rarely pay for something that I could do myself (which is one of the reasons I don't like valet parking either), and I don't pay extra for a very small convenience, such as anything larger than a small drink at a self-service restaurant where you can get your own refills. (This doesn't keep people from trying to suggest the medium drink over the small, and I usually--kindly, mind you--call them on that as well, saying something like "There's no reason to pay extra when the refills are free.")

I'm not much for "upselling," either; I almost never buy the extended warranty plan (after getting hosed on that with a few small electronics in college), and I don't order the suggested extra food items if I've just stated plainly what I'm getting; if I wanted fries with that, I would have already said so.

I understand that it's people's job to suggest add-ons, but it's not hard for me to resist. It's probably just a small part of what I consider to be the inherent dishonesty of so much of the business world (noted in this post), but it really would be nicer if we could all just be more truthful with each other.

Do you usually get suckered in by upselling, or do you stand your ground?

This law might be for the birds: It may soon be illegal to feed pigeons in New York City.

Your closet may be hiding a fortune: Christie's auction house is taking bids this month on a collection of classic rock concert T-shirts from classic '60s and '70s bands; the shirts are expected to go for up to $4500 apiece.

I can has lg pizza w/ ssg & mshrms? K thx bye: Papa John's Pizza is now accepting orders by text message.

Christmas Time Is Here...Already?

Here we are, just a week after Halloween. Thanksgiving is in two weeks and one day (I think that's the shortest possible interval between those two holidays, if I'm not mistaken). And tonight, I saw my first lighted outdoor Christmas tree of the season (in front of a shopping center, if you're curious). I also went to hear live jazz tonight, and I heard my first Christmas carol quotes of the season tonight ("The Christmas Song" and "Jingle Bells," if you're also curious).

Upon seeing the tree, one of my friends asked, "Can't we just have Thanksgiving first?" Another one pointed out that it wasn't likely that someone would put a lighted turkey in front of their shopping center, but the first friend's point was well taken.

Do holiday decorations go up too early nowadays?

NEXT DAY UPDATE: I noticed at lunch today that Firewheel is decking its own halls...umm, streets, that is. And I saw Christmas lights on a house in Plano on my way back from dinner.

DAY-AFTER-THAT UPDATE: I heard a high school band rehearsing "Sleigh Ride" for the first time this year. Before all is said and done, every band (except the beginners) at every public school where I teach will play this song. I don't know how much of a royalty goes to Leroy Anderson's estate every time a school plays it, but I bet his grandchildren go to really good colleges. (Fun Fact of the day: 2008 is Anderson's centennial year...so maybe it's his great-grandchildren who are attending good schools.

Daylight Wasting Time Delayed

Today marked the beginning of what I call Daylight Wasting Time. (I trust that you know that by now, or you've been an hour early to everything so far today.) I'm not a fan of the extra hour of daylight in the early morning; as I said in the earlier post,

I think the really depressing part of DWT is that it almost always gets dark before I'm done teaching now. It seems to me that if you don't finish work until after dark, you've worked too long. In a way, I know my days are too long, but at least I can hide behind a little denial if I get home while the sun is still out. DWT blows that all out of the water, and I'm forced to come to terms with my workaholic self. Bleh.

But it was interesting this year to have the start of DWT delayed by one more week. Some people think that this was brought on by the candy manufacturers, who wanted there to be an extra hour of daytime for trick-or-treating. And surely the retail merchants appreciated another week with some daylight left at the end of the workday; that's bound to result in more people going shopping on weekdays.

There were some interesting technological glitches, though, as not every computer system "got the word" about the one-week-later changeover. I had a friend who was an hour late to lunch with me last Sunday because his clock auto-updated a week too soon; I also noticed that the clock tower at Firewheel was running an hour behind last week as well. And something went weird on my cell phone network today, as I had to disable the "auto-update" feature on my phone until just now in order to get the time to read properly.

Making this time change is no small undertaking at Casa de Kev; I had to change my watch, my two alarm clocks, the VCR, the kitchen range, the microwave, the clock on the mantelpiece, the living room light timer, the landscape light timer and the clock in the car. (The computer updated itself, and as I said, the cell phone should have done so.) While it was unseasonably warm today--which really made the early darkness feel weird--the oddest thing I did all day was use the headlights on my way home at 5:00 p.m.

So a little survey here:

• Which time period do you prefer, Daylight Saving Time or Daylight Wasting TIme? (Yeah, no prejudice at all in that question. Heh.)


• How many devices did you have to change manually today (or last night)?


• Did you remember to do so on time? Have you ever forgotten about either the fall or spring time change?

If nothing else, the extra hour of sleep was enjoyable. Hope you spent the 25th hour doing something nice as well.

UPDATE: Here's a time-change primer from MSNBC.

One more reason to dislike Daylight Wasting Time: A study shows that pedestrians walking during evening rush hour are three times more likely to be killed by a car during the first few weeks after the time change. (It's not the darkness itself that causes this, but rather the adjustment to the darkness.)

Scary headline of the week: Man gets probation for assault with pickle.

It's Saturday; Go Ahead, Relax.

On a weekend with a busy start (judging Region Jazz auditions this morning), I was happy to read in the paper today that author Eric Weiner has given us permission to slack off:

I bet you're reading this at work – and feeling guilty about it.

Rest easy. You are not alone. A recent survey found that the typical American worker wastes slightly more than two hours a day, not including lunch and scheduled breaks. The insurance industry is particularly rife with time wasters (can you blame them?), and Missouri, for reasons not entirely clear, is the state with the highest percentage of slackers.

The No. 1 time-wasting activity is surfing the Internet and sending personal e-mails (a finding perhaps skewed by the fact that the survey, conducted by AOL and Salary.com, was Web-based), followed by socializing with co-workers, conducting personal business and just plain "spacing out." All of this loafing is supposedly costing employers $759 billion a year in lost productivity.

The findings were greeted, predictably, with much hand-wringing about the declining American work ethic. I find the survey disturbing, too, but for a different reason. American workers, it turns out, are wasting less time than they did just a couple of years ago – 19 percent less. We must stop this dangerous trend.

I can relate to this. I tend to teach 12 to 14 hours a day during the school year, and when I get home, the first thing I often do is get on the computer. But even if I have 20 emails in my inbox, I might not answer them right away; a lot of them are related to work, and the last thing that I want to do when I get home is more work. And as a musician, it's easy to feel guilty about not practicing enough, so that's hanging over my head as well.

But there's no doubt that we all need some downtime. Perhaps we should all back off on the guilt a little bit and learn to embrace our inner slacker. Weiner says this is a good idea:

Despite all of this fretting, we are no slacker nation. The U.N.'s International Labor Organization recently issued a report that found that the U.S. leads the world in worker productivity – and by a wide margin.

So why do we feel like such slackers? For one thing, we are a nation ambivalent about work. We cherish it and resent it. I suspect that some of this loafing is a subtle form of revenge. With work now sloshing over into personal time (think Blackberry), it seems only natural that personal time should slosh back into work. Technology is fast rendering distinctions between "work" and "leisure" meaningless. This is a problem. If the U.S. is to stay strong, we need to goof off more at work, not less.

Thus the recent Web survey gets to the heart of the paradox. We are a nation of doers, hard workers, yet we are also a nation of ideas, big ideas. These two aspects of the American personality constantly rub against each other; great ideas require idleness, but idleness makes us uncomfortable.

So let's all pledge that, assuming we actually get things done this week, we'll slack a little more and not feel guilty about it. I'm In.

Fido meets file cabinet: In this country, "Take Your Daughter to Work Day" has been popular in some circles. But in the U.K., it was dogs who were visiting the office on Friday, as part of a fundraiser for an animal charity.

Schoolyard brawl, bizarro-world edition: It's bad enough when a student and teacher get into an argument and the student hits the teacher; it's even worse when the teacher hits back.

Don't fear the reaper, but fear the low clearance: Massachusetts authorities, growing tired of having trucks smash into low-clearance bridges in their state, are considering reviving a novel solution: More cowbell.

Repeat of Restau-Rant Averted

I have to offer mad props to the Subway workers at lunch today; they actually managed to work me around the lady in front of me who just kept on ordering sandwiches, one at a time, off a big list in her hand. (If you missed the original Restau-Rant from back in the day, it's here; the gist of it is that, if you have a huge order at a fast-food place--as in one for your entire office--it's much more courteous to all involved if you call that order in ahead of time, and you really need to pay for it all at once, not as a bunch of separate orders.)

In this case, the woman was very, very indecisive and very, very slow to order each successive sandwich. I'm really glad that one of the workers seemed to observe my plight and vaulted me ahead while the lady kept ordering again and again. What I thought might turn out to be a lousy start to the first real Monday of school was anything but that.

Hey, fellow North Texans: Did it rain enough for you today? I looked out a school window at about 9:30 this morning, and it was as dark as midnight. I'm so glad I replaced the Ghetto-Brella last week...

This story just had to be connected to California in some way: A San Francisco-based artist has opened a theatre with an unusual theme: Plant porn.

A Happy Camper

Jazz Camp starts in just a few hours, so posting will be spotty this week; I may still have something every day, but it will be more of the "weird news" variety as opposed to hard-hitting commentary, just because the camp will "own" me from 8:30 a.m. until about ten at night. I'll definitely post some accounts of getting to play with our two guest artists this week.