Giving Thanks

Tuesday early morning I drove up to Chicago (close to downtown) to see some friends of mine  who were visiting their daughter and will leave this weekend back home. It was a short visit and I did not have time but to chat for a couple of hours and then drive back home, but first I got stuck in Chicago's traffic jam. It took us (Taylor and I) three ours to drive 40 ML from Maria's home. It reminded me of highways in LA. Then once out of Chicago I just kept driving... stopped once to get some gas and by 8PM we were home. Driving almost 12 hours to be there 3! It was worth since I did not see my friend Maria from long time.

I hope next time I will get to see more of Chicago. That will be pretty soon in next Spring at AERA conference.

Maria and Doru enjoied Chicago and hope to come back and visit and might next time around they will come down to Edwardsville :-)



Last night my computer crashed... I graded some papers in the morning, responded e-mails, was working well. Then in the evening when I wanted to continue my work the computer just did not turn on... I have Sophos and Firewall and I am very good on not opening e-mails from not known address, I also have filter on all my e-mail accounts. So, I have no clue what happend. Might be one of the new and smart worms. If I think well one single thing was weird yesterday. A pop-up window was installing something and just was there not finishing it. So I clicked cancell and the window never went away. I worked and then turned off the computer. Then I could not turn it on again.
I called some friends computer geeks, tried to start it from CD-ROM but was something weird so we just dropped the idea by doing over the phone. Then I was able today to start in safe mode and took me 4 hours to save some files from my project. I am also pretty careful on backing up all files, but as it happens I did not back it up since mid September! Lots of work would be lost. I was in rage, desperate, furious on computers and myself, almost in tears, and with a solemn promise that I will be compulsive. It's not for the first time. I lost a final exam like 3 years ago a day before the due date. Then I kept saving everything at least once a month. Lately I forgot to be compulsive saver... bad idea!
Good lesson again to save it compulsively or upload to Z:/
I realize how lost I am if I loose my work and don't have back up.

In the end I was thankful that it is only my computer the sick one and not myself!

A tree was killed in my back yard...

I know this news will not be broadcast by the CNN, and the local news papers will not mention it, not even the Holiday Times, but a tree was killed in my back yard...
The old Cottonwood tree planted by some previous owners on the property limit. A tree that from the height must have been 25 or 30 years old was the ONLY adult tree and ONLY shade on my property. I loved the shade in my back yard in sunny summer days, from sunrise till around 11AM. Taylor loved the tree all year round and could spend hours watching the squirrel to visit the tall tree.

My neighbor did not like it because "it was so messy" with its flying puffy seeds in the spring, and being too close to his house, he complained that branches might fall on the house. His house is there long enough, as the tree was there also. Last summer after the tornado he did not have any leaves and branches on his house, and not even in his drive way, all were fallen in my back yard. The winds blow here from NE, and that protects his house from branches that fall in the opposite direction, away from house. It was I gathering 10 big black trash bags of leaves this fall, all in my back yard, the wind did not blow the other way...

My neighbor wanted me to pay half of the price of taking down the tree, since being on the limit half was mine, and half was his. I gave him the permission because I understood his concern that the branches might fall on his house and produce damage, but I really could not pay to killing a tree that I loved and did not want to loose.

Some guys from a tree cutting company came and chopped my tree to the ground...
Taylor is searching for the tree, still looking in dismay that the tree with the visiting squirrel is no longer there... both of us feel the empty place... our tree is missing. Now my house will be like a sunflower in the summer with no shade at all from sunrise to sunset. The back yard is towards East, the front is towards West. No shade means higher AC bills in the summer, and no more reading under the shade of a tree in hot summer mornings...

The first picture on this page was the BEFORE and here below is the picture of AFTER the tree was killed in my back yard....

Texas ranger :-)

I did not find yet my Sunrise Ranch in Texas, but I was there last week; weekend to the Conference on Curriculum and Pedagogy.

I loved to be in warm weather, with small bushy like vegetation, and to meet again my friend I did not see in three years. Even though I have spent all day at the conference I did enjoy the driving from Austin to Balcones Spring where the conference took place. I learned about some nice research (mostly qualitative), and enjoyed meeting with other faculty across the country.

Again I realized how much I miss the Southwest. I had the feeling that people are more talkative, bubbling of welcoming thoughts, everything seems much faster. I saw the green hills and farms with horses and cows. My childhood dream was searching for evidence in reality :-)
I also enjoyed the welcoming home of my friends, such a big house!

Then I had to get back to Illinois and 51F for the high of the day... winter is really here.
My friends still enjoy mild temperatures of the fall and need no heating yet in their big home.