Tag Archives: Rindo

General, Uncategorized

Added Benefits

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In the process of working on some thesis-related paperwork, I had occasion to review a story that I wrote about three years ago for a fiction class.  I enjoyed most of it, and I did feel like I was able to give it a solid, honest critical assessment, having not even looked at it in such a long time.  I was saying to Wordy that I could probably clean up the ending a bit and try to send it out for publication.

Then just this afternoon, I was having a conversation with Ron Rindo, my thesis director, about a very similar thing: what a fabulous idea it is to finish a piece, set it aside, and don’t even think about it for a couple months so you can look at it with a fresh perspective.  That not something that I’ve always taken the time to do in my academic career, but where this thesis is concerned, I think it’s absolutely necessary.  It’s a shift of thinking to go away from a standard, stone-set academic calendar to the notion that this is MY project, that I get to do at MY pace.  Quality has to be most important thing, and I’m going to try to be mindful of that from here on out.

Climate, General, Uncategorized

The Return of the Monday

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I said to Michelle last night that it would be nice to get Mondays back after the conclusion of my basketball season. Like I mentioned to her, when you typically only spend 4 nights a week at home, getting a 33% boost in time to do stuff is pretty huge. I think I’ll work on… well I don’t quite know what I’ll work on tonight yet, but I know that it’ll be at my house.

Had a somewhat non-descript yet enjoyable weekend. Got a gradual start to my Saturday, wherein I made it to Milwaukee eventually, and spent a little time reading a Ron Rindo story while I drank some coffee in Red Arrow Park. Michelle was looking at an apartment someplace up Prospect with her mom, then met me there afterward. It was a really nice afternoon.

We took a walk around downtown for a bit, but when the wind picked up it got sort of chilly. It was right about then that the fog rolled in off the lake, and it was IMPOSSIBLE to drive near the water. We swung over to Grandma’s house to drop off her other 2 dollar coins, but nobody was home. Christy’s phone was there, though, so we changed her wallpaper.

Had dinner rather early (about 5:30) at Louise’s. We ate a pizza. It was good. The booth was a little cramped, though. We were thinking of going out and maybe bowling or throwing darts after that, but we didn’t want to get started right away. We didn’t want to drive all the way back to waukesha, either, so we stopped over at the Mundschau’s and watched a DVD for a while. Michelle had been up really early on Saturday in order to get to a meeting for work at about 7:30, so she zonked out pretty quick. We watched 1 disc worth of The Office, then called it a night. Pretty low-key.

Made it to St. William’s for 10:45 mass on Sunday morning, and it was a pretty full house. I noted that the deacon was a very, very young guy. He had a well-constructed homily that started to drift at one point, but I was impressed when he tied it all back together and made some sense.

Michelle has been stalking Girl Scouts for about 5 or 6 weeks now (ever since the cookies went on sale), and after church she made what I imagine will be her final purchase of the year– a dozen boxes of Thin Mints. Yes, that’s correct– TWELVE BOXES. I hope she can make them last. When I have treats around the house, I can’t help but eat them, so that’s why I usually don’t. Michelle has a lot more self-control…

We took a ride into Pewaukee and had lunch with Michelle’s mom @ The Chocolate Factory. They were woefully understaffed, but I think that had more to do with the uncharacteristically warm weather than anything else. I imagine that they can usually get by with 2 people working there on a Sunday. Anyway, the sandwiches and ice cream were good.

We did stop over to visit Grandma and ate another sandwich a little later in the afternoon. The drive up to Vegas was quick, and there was no need to eat anything else.

Now that the kids are back from spring break, I could go for a week or two of vacation.

Hope you had a nice weekend. I’m back on the job…