Philco 38-12

While attempting the tireless feat of packing up the house, I came across an old radio in the closet. It had been given to me to use as a prop in a play that I had directed while teaching in school. I was about to throw it out- I'm a big believer that a move is an excellent opportunity to trim the fat- when I decided to plug it in for the heck of it. The thing worked! You could hear the hum of the tuner and see the orange glow of the vacuum tubes. Even the little bulb that lit up the dial turned on.

I did some research on the internet and discovered that it was built in 1938. It boggles my mind how something that old can still work. It doesn't look like anything major has been replaced, other than the speaker. The case is made out of wood and was nailed together with tiny tacks. I'm hoping to restore it. I think maybe I've found a new hobby.

It's weird to think that you own something that someone might have used to tune in WWII news updates. I told my dad about it, and he said that they used to have little machines at the corner drugstore where you could test your vacuum tubes. He also told me that if it were that old, it would have to be an AM-only radio, since FM had yet to be used.

Does anyone know how vacuum tubes work? My best guess is magic, but then again, I'm an English major.

What I Hate About Atlanta

Now that I'm leaving this place, I think I'll get in some parting shots.

1. It's never truly dark.

This, above all, drives me nuts. Right now, it's two in the morning, and if I were to walk outside the trees would still stand out against the sky. Atlanta is so large that it creates a hazy glow for miles around that surrounds everything in a gloomy twilight. Stars? Forget about them- I don't think I've seen one since I've been here. There's a reason, I suppose, why there aren't any observatories in the area.


2. Traffic

Imagine. Having. To. Read. Every. Sentence. If. They. Were. Written. Like. This. And. Then. You. Have. Some. Idea. What. It. Is. Like. To. Drive. In. Or. Near. Atlanta.


That's about it, really. If you don't mind sitting in traffic in eternal gloom then it's the perfect city. I, on the other hand, will be heading to an empty highway lit by the stars.

Observation

One day as I walked through a native wood
I saw some berries bright and bold
Clinging to a wispy branch
That danced about as the wind took hold

How red they were, like lovers' lips
Intent on finding truth in trust
Nothing dared disturb their peace
Yet I knew that time would prove their dust

For the cardinals and the bluejays too
Know to avoid that which marks the eye
It is better to eat the lowly worm
Than a beautiful poison paralyze-

Home Sweet Trailer

My wife found us a place to stay!

It's a trailer north of Jackson that sits on six acres. The owner knows we have four dogs and doesn't care. He's faxing her the lease agreement tomorrow.

Hopefully, I'll be able to move on the 4th of July weekend (oh, the sweet blessed irony!) In the meantime, I've got to start packing, giving away, or throwing out everything in the house.

I'm so looking forward to staying in one place for three years straight.

The March Begins

Today I received a packet from Mississippi College. In it was a suggested reading list that ran two pages and a list of times to pick up a sample case to brief. It's all starting to seem real now.

I just finished reading Scott Turow's One-L, the classic account of his first year at Harvard. It really made me realize what an awesome time commitment law school will be. There were moments that I grew so connected to the text that I felt emotionally drained, as if I were living his experiences. I think reading his work, combined with the aforementioned packet, really brought home the point that law school starts in less than two months. After that, I'll be reading for hours a day. This is strange, because right now I'm doing next to nothing. Posting on this blog might just be the most actively intellectual thing I do all week.

I just started reading A People's History of the United States Supreme Court, which is a lusty 500-page tome that focuses on more than 80 Supreme Court Cases. I say lusty only because the author (whose name escapes me at the moment) mentions an episode where a man was killed for having sex with a sheep. He's attempting to illustrate the Biblical foundation for the colonial criminal code, but it's hard to focus on theory when you have such a vivid practice.

I'm wondering how my experiences will compare to Turow's; after all, the differences are profound and numerous. He attended Harvard; I'll be attending a regional school unknown to most people outside the Deep South. He attended thirty years ago, a time that was vastly different from my own.

However, there are some commonalities that bind us. To a large extent, the law school curriculum hasn't changed. Laws are updated, but traditions are strong, and the pendulum of legal reform moves slowly. Something in my gut tells me there will be more correlations than common sense would seem to dictate.

This observation thrills and worries me, all at the same time.

You Can Go Home Again

Orchestrating a move is a huge affair- we've accomplished almost all of it- except for the little detail of finding a place to stay and actually moving all of our things. My wife managed to find a job in Mississippi, but I have to stay behind in Georgia to look after our animals until we find a place. I hope to put a deposit on a place in a few weeks- as soon as I find a cheap place with a fenced yard that allows pets.

Law school doesn't start until mid-August, but I'd like to be settled somewhere by mid-July. The last thing I want to do is worry about unpacking while I'm sitting in class.

Bells and Whistles

It's been a few weeks since I stopped teaching, and I think the time has allowed me to view the situation more objectively. Don't get me wrong- I still hated it- but now my criticism should be more disciplined.

If I had to nitpick one basic character trait among my students, it would be the fact that (almost) none of them could or would focus on any one topic for more than fifteen minutes. Countless times I tried to engage them in conversations where I anticipated exploring different mental passages in a voluminous cavern only to have them give the "textbook answer", smile at themselves smugly, and wait to move on. There was no interest to actually question the response or ponder what would change if the situation were different. They are water-bugs, gliding soundlessly over the pond of thought. They give no heed to the depths, content to move quickly across the surface.

In high school, I liked to take a problem and work it around a while. There's a mysteriousness to silence I've always enjoyed. It is refreshing to just sit and let the mind think sans distractions.

My students were exact opposites. They searched out distractions, as if afraid of what might happen if they stringed more than two thoughts together. They were afraid to be alone with themselves, if only for a moment.

Of course, the modern recourse is to shout, "ADD!" and all is necessarily forgiven. I believe that ADD is a true condition (parts of which I suspect I may have) but overall I thinks it's wildly over diagnosed and used as an excuse for every single behavior.

If I were a physician, I would administer the following test for ADD. I would sit the kid in a room and bring in a huge stack of one dollar bills. I would tell the kid that for ever dollar he counted he could keep, but he had to know the exact count when the experiment was over. A true sufferer of ADD would quickly lose focus and look for something else to do- whereas the average student on medication would sit for hours and hours counting the money, stacking it into little neat piles and keeping count. Why? Because kids can't focus on schoolwork because they don't want to do it. I've seen some of the worst students spend hours on the library computers designing their race cars- choosing paint colors, adding rims, spoilers, the works- but they can't sit and work on vocabulary for ten minutes.

ADD my ass. They're not learning because they have no vested interest to do so.

Sidebar: I've told countless students that I suffered from SUB-tract disease- not a one of them ever got it.

Poem

Beneath all the decorum lies
A savageness- a truth
So bitter in its vagary
Rebellious and uncouth
That if we ripped the cover bare
It would burn us to the tooth-

Is There a Venture Capitalist in the House?

Here's an idea I've played around with for a few years, and I'm convinced it'll work. If there's a random millionaire out there reading this, feel free to steal it- I doubt I'll ever have enough money to make it work.

My idea is to take four vans and convert them into a mobile fast-food restaurant. Each one would open on the side and serve a different purpose. One would be the grill; one would handle fries, side dishes, and condiments; one would handle drinks and desserts; and one would be for supplies (tables, chairs, lights, napkins, etc.).

You would have a set schedule of traveling around small towns (south Georgia would be perfect) and setting up shop for a few hours a day before moving on. You could set up the four vans in a square shape and place the (collapsible) tables and chairs in the middle. Once the towns grew accustomed to the schedule, business would be steady (since nothing happens in the towns I'm talking about.) The beauty of the system is that you'd be able to make money off of towns that typically aren't large enough to handle a fast-food restaurant if it stayed open all day everyday. So you'd travel on a circuit, maximizing profits and moving on after you'd helped all your customers at that particular location.

Think of it as the evolution of the ice cream truck.

The best part is the name. (Keep in mind we'd serve milkshakes.)

Mooovers and Shakers.

Package

I can't swear to it, but I think I have the ability to heal people. I haven't developed it or given it much thought, but recently an event has made me reconsider.

A few weeks ago one of my students was hit in the eye with a hacky-sack that another student had thrown. I walked over to her and checked on the injury, naturally looking at her eye as I did so. The bell rang and I forgot about it until I realized that my eye was hurting as I was driving home- just like I'd been hit. A part of me wonders if I didn't somehow subconsciously transfer her injury to myself.

I'm going to do some research and see what I come up with. All I know is my eye felt just like someone had thrown something at it.

Shameless Attempt to Increase Blog Traffic

Did you know that Paris Hilton plays a cameo in the movie Star Wars III? I won't tell you where she is, but that George Lucas, he's pretty clever. Good times. Have you seen the new sitcom with Pamela Anderson in it? It's so bad it's good, if you know what I mean. The people stand there with blank looks on their faces when people talk to them. I mean, come on, they're not even trying. Isn't the first rule of acting to react?

So, Carrie won American Idol. Shocker of the year, huh? The pretty girl who is obviously an animotronic device won over the bearded guy- Bo Bice- who doesn't photo well- really, who saw that coming? (I heard that when she cried on the finale she almost blew a circuit- they'll have to watch that in the future.)

My wife was bored last night so she tried to watch Britney Spear's Chaotic. She told me after a few minutes she was inspired to turn it off and grab a book. Note to TV execs: your latest creation is so bad its inspiring people to read. You've been warned.

Why is it that popular culture is like a wave- a small faction of society deems something cool and then the whole world jumps on, thereby making it uncool? Poker is a good example. Anime is another. I swear, if I see one one animated guy with blue hair I'm gonna go nuts.

I don't like the WWE. There was a time when wrestling, although fake, was not so soap operish. I don't need to see muscleheads who can't act trying to work out there feelings with bimbos. If I wanted that, I'd still be a teacher. Some of us remember the guys like Junkyard Dog and Hulk Hogan. That's when it was fun.

Can somebody please, please tell me what Lindsay Lohan does. Besides attending the Paris Hilton School of Talent, that is.

I bet all the guys in racing are wiggin' out over Danica Patrick. Consider glass ceiling shattered.

Remember when KaZaa didn't suck? I do. Of course, I remember the glory days of Napster, when you could download entire genome sequences- and every song ever made by Wham!

Did you hear that Brooke Burke was gonna star in the new Dragonball movie? Cause I didn't either.

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are in a movie together. I really, really hope it doesn't suck, because divorcing your wife to increase publicity is really a bad move if the movie tanks. I'm just sayin'.

I'm oh so tired of Constantine Mourolis. Everytime I look at him, I'm reminded of the Price is Right girls who made love to the product they were trying to sell while smiling into the camera. One day I swear he's gonna start literally kissing the microphone- the don't make a carpet cleaner strong enough to clean up the projectile vomit which will surely come flying out of my mouth should I ever have to witness that.

I had a dream that I was admired by millions of old women, gay men and prepubescent girls. Then I woke up and realized that I wasn't Clay Aiken after all.

Seacrest out.

Rain, Rain, Go Away...

It's rained here for the last five days. Sometimes it pours, other times a sprinkle- earlier this evening the air was filled with a fine mist, and I had the eerie sensation that I was meandering through a sluggish sea. (Ironically enough, it's starting to thunder as I type this.)

The weather man thinks this will last through the rest of the week. I hope not. There's a reason I didn't move to Oregon. The high today was 66, I believe. Sixty-six. In Georgia on the first day of June. I'm finally through teaching and all I want to do is run through a field and scream and now I can't because I'll sink in the muck up to my knees.

Here's hoping that wherever you are, it's sunny and beautiful. Take advantage of it, cause I know I would.