Back in Class on 9/26

I forgot to take a picture of my 6:00 p.m. Spreadsheets class until they were packing up at 8:00 p.m.  I have 67 students in the elegant 70-seat Eaton Hall 112 classroom.  This is twice the size of my normal classes.  Most of the students bring Apple laptops and I am at a loss to tell them how Microsoft Excel differs on a Mac.  But they are seeing that for themselves.

Only 6 of 17 graduate students passed the MOS 77-727 exam this month after my efforts over the summer.  They'll be back to retake the exam with my undergraduates starting October 17.  At least this was a bit better than the 5 of 24 who passed on the first try last summer.  Dr. LaBrie was their teacher.

Even my own score fell from 924 to 891 on the new version of the exam.

Photos from the Distant Past

Laurie left many slides with Debbie Ellis to scan, and Debbie sent her aunt and uncles a CD with all of them.  The shots here were culled from this surprise collection.

Here is proof that in my pre-high school days I played the trumpet.  It is one of my life’s minor regrets that I never mastered it.  Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass produced music that I loved from 1964 to 1969, matching my own trumpet playing years.  Herb Alpert’s first hit was one of the few songs I played well, The Lonely Bull.  One small benefit of my years with the horn was that I earned the Bugling merit badge, with Mr. Don Snow, my Scoutmaster and summer music teacher at Lafayette Elementary School, serving as my merit badge counselor.

Photography was a hobby which began with Kodak Instamatic cameras and included Olympus rangefinder cameras in high school and through college.  I still have the camera I carried up Mount Rainier, but never intend to shoot film again.  Someday I’ll come across the photos I took of the Mount Rainier climb from summer 1972.

For all of my years in Scouting, 1968-1976, I’m surprised that I have so few photos.  The same is true for my high school athletics.  My father was an avid photographer and took vacation, skiing, and Christmas movies, but did not attend my races. 

These two shots show that I wore cowboy hats (and many other hats) long before our three week family trip in May 2001 where I bought my first fur felt cowboy hat in Cody, WY.  Randy had an "Aussie hat" he wore regularly.  I was one of the few Scouts I knew that was in correct Scout uniform, even on hikes.

I often consider my teen summers at Camp Parsons as a Scout, and my later three summers there on the staff, as "the best of times."  For some reason, Laurie had a shot of "my beach" (Pier beach) taken from the Mt. Constance camp site.  In the summer of 1973, between high school and college when I was 18, I was in charge of the west most beach at Camp Parsons.  My #2 on that beach was 15 year old Erik Ploof.  I became an expert at throwing the life ring from the top of the pier, able to hit any spot in my swimming area on the far side of that pier.  We also managed the larger boats.  My cabin, for my 1st and 3rd summers, "Enna," was at the foot of the pier.  From the Camp Parsons history, "Sometime in the early part of this decade (1930's) Enna, Lewis & Clark, and Dosewallips (the director's cabin) were built just east of the Pier where all three still stand today. Enna, a name derived from the Chinook Jargon word for “beaver” was originally known as “The Drake Hotel” and apparently served as the camp office for a period of time."   

I switched from the coveted Beach Crew position of my first staff summer to become the Ecology Director for years two and three.  I was in charge of all of the Nature and Conservation merit badges, including ones like Fishing and Astronomy.  It allowed me to be my own boss, lead nature hikes, and staff Fort Duckabush, known originally as the Blockhouse when it was built in 1926. I turned it into a nature museum with a large central display case where scouts could bring critters they found, mostly snakes.  For a while, I even had a tiny baby snake I played with as a pet.

Many nights after Vespers were spent out at the south end of the pier teaching eager Scouts the summer constellations, which I still know well.

'Twas at the royal feast, for Persia won
      By Philip's warlike son:
            Aloft, in awful state,
            The godlike hero sate
      On his imperial throne.
   His valiant peers were placed around;
Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound:
      (So should desert in arms be crowned.)
   The lovely Thais, by his side,
   Sate like a blooming eastern bride,
   In flower of youth and beauty's pride.
         Happy, happy, happy pair!
         None but the brave,
         None but the brave,
         None but the brave deserves the fair.

First stanza of Alexander's Feast; or, The Power of Music: An Ode in Honour of St. Cecilia's Day, by John Dryden