Nicki's Night Out

We celebrated Nicki's birthday in style this year. It was a surprise for her - I had warned her to keep Tuesday evening unscheduled. For dinner we did the annual college staff picnic - held under a big circus tent the college uses for the almuni/graduation weekend - tons of food and lots of locals. Then we drove toward Cleveland. We parked near the airport and took the rapid into Cleveland. At that point I let her in on the secret which she would have figured out eventually given the tons of people getting on the train with Cavs shirts. The game was very good - lots of noise and excitement - intensity - and the Cavs won 91-87 which evens the series and gives them momentum. We even got free t-shirts and waving towels. We didn't get home till around 1:00 AM which made for a long and very excellent night.

Illumination & Herons

Laura, Nicki and I took Ursula to the Oberlin College's Illumination in Tappan Square Saturday evening. It's crowded but you see everyone worth seeing, and there's pie and ice cream and band music and Chinese lanterns (lit with real candles). Ursula didn't last long but we went back to absorb some of the atmosphere. It turned out to be a very comfortable night. Oberlin is a very special place during this weekend.



Today (Memorial Day) we first dropped Laura off for her flight back and then loaded the kayaks and went to Findley Lake. The birds are back especially the herons. Tell me what you think the bird with the fish in its mouth is. There were lots of people fishing and picniking but the kayaks allowed us to get away from the crowds and sneak up on the birds. A good way to end the long weekend.

Some Grand Pianos to start the weekend

Nicki and I started our weekend with the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music's Grand Piano Extravaganza featuring the piano faculty and some of the 2007 graduating class. A very interesting and impressive concert. 1 piano piece played entirely with only the left hand, 8 pianos (all Steinways of course) played by 8 pianists - later by 16 pianists, 6 rushing and running pianists playing 3 pianos, and 1 piano played with 6 hands. Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Copland, Chopin, Bernstein, and Rossini. Players in costume, toddler ballerinas, grand Steinways, mini Steinway, and rigged gameshows between pieces. And given we had free tickets it was a good way to spend the evening.

Oberlin College has their annual alumni events as well as graduation ceremonies this weekend. Laura is home. And if the weather holds it should be a nice weekend.

Kayaking Again

Great day for kayaking. Windy which gave Findley Lake a little chop and going one direction was a bit of a workout but of course the other direction was a breeze. We did a couple hours in the late afternoon before we decided it was getting too cool.


Saw a couple Great Blue Herons, a lot of geese, and a couple of our usual exploding carp. Also were a lot of swallows skimming the lake surface - hadn't seen groups of them doing that before. There weren't any bugs in the air so we're not sure what the swallows were hunting.


It was a good day for taking photos. Nicki is working on hers while I do my blogging. Otherwise the weekend has been spent with a little shopping, housecleaning, mowing, Cavs game, Indians games, our dogs visited Ursula, and I took a couple hundred photos of student artwork at Prospect School in preparation for a Fine Arts Evening we'll have this Thursday.

Tech Levy Fails

It’s been a long and interesting week. The big news is that our school’s technology levy did not pass - 1,094 to 747 - which for Oberlin is a substantial loss. Evidently a lot of people who said they were going to vote yes changed their minds in the booth. We could probably blame it on the electronic voting machines but more likely it was a combination of a lot of negative issues. Even a New York Times article about schools giving up their one-to-one laptop programs that appeared a couple days before the vote was a factor. I could go through the list but you’ll get a better idea of what we faced if you go to Community Diaries - a blog that was formed by a group who might have been opposed to the levy to discuss the campaign. Don’t know how effective it was as a lot of people stopped reading it after a while but it does highlight all the questions that came up. The campaign website that I worked on can be found at LEAP for Oberlin. The photo above shows a house painted encouraging viewers to vote No (Elizabeth you'll note the grammar). It is right next to the High School. That livened things up a bit. I had expected the vote to be close so the result is frustrating. We’ll need to reform and put a new issue on the November ballot. Otherwise our technology funding will disappear as of January 1st - a situation I would prefer not happening.

Life in Technology

This is how I spend an evening at school. Silly teachers.


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