Days: Kurt’s PLog -- selections from letters home

2/1/07

As always in class, I learn more and more how dated I've become -- we have some test questions about reference material, asking the order in which you would find information; the point in question being that proper names go last-name-first, everything else from the first word. Guys sort of know it; sort of don't; to explaiin I usually tell people to imagine they were looking through a phone book. Today, two guys told me they've never used a phone book -- technology has trumped me again.

9/18/06

Yesterday there was a huge number of geese flying overhead, though not in a V, not even in a straight line, but in a somewhat disorderly line, which is kind of unusual. I saw another praying mantis and a few butterflies too -- a dark brown and black one in particular -- enjoying the last days of summer. Then there was the weirdist rainbow; odd because there was no rain and little sunshine (it was dusk). Looking to the east, one cold see a half-a-rainbow; not solid, it was indistinct in parts, but still one could make it out. On the other side there was what looked like the other end of the rainbow, no color in it, it was like a solid blue flat board sticking up through half the sky.

7/11/06

I started quite a search for the full moon last night. It had been too light to see when I went in at 8:00 pm, so at about 9:30 I started to check out various places in the unit to see what I could find. Other guys noticed I was looking; at which I discovered that I wasn’t the only one who tries to catch the full moon with his eyes each month. Unfortunately, I had no luck; not even able to see the moon’s reflection in the opposite window.

No luck that is until 10:30; then there was a knock on the door; one of the guys who I had talked to told me it was now visible. I climbed out of bed and sure enough there was the moon, looking beautiful …

1/18/06

… when I was out on the blacktop in the evening before recall. Moving around in a fashion straight out of a Disney cartoon in the big yard (closed to inmates) was a skunk – a solitary skunk, interesting in itself, as we hadn’t seen one for months. This particular skunk, however, was in a mood to show off, squeezing itself under the fence to where we were, squeezing itself back into the outer yard, then coming back to our side, walking along the length of where we were, then squeezing out the other side of the fence and disappearing.

…So much for the skunk; how rational its actions were I can’t say; more than the rationality of some of the decisions they make here. Thus today they took all the chalkboards out of the classrooms in order to replace them with these marker boards; a bit of modernity (sort of) that doesn’t bother me, though I do prefer the chalk. What is irrational, however, is that the new boards are smaller than the old ones, which, since the old ones were up for years, also necessitates painting the wall. There is little doubt, though, that if one wall of the classroom is painted, they would have to paint them all – a rather bigger project than anticipated. Thus now they are talking about purchasing additional marker boards so that the whole space can be covered. Of course that kind of purchase will take weeks, if not months, hardly a solution to their problem.

At least it is their problem, not mine, although at the moment we have no board up at all.  Still, the whole thing makes no real sense; the old ones were serviceable, and one can think of better uses to the put the money spent. What’s more, marker boards require markers, which, unlike chalk, are a highly-prized commodity. Either the markers will be stolen or kept under lock and key – in any case not accessible.