B
@rustyfingers
It's here! I muddled through a Cole Porter tune (You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To) and Theme from The Apartment before I had to leave for a physical therapy appointment.
I'm very, very rusty because I couldn't play at all while I was not in my home, and when I finally got there my old Yamaha Clavinova had broken and couldn't be repaired.
I'll play some more after dinner tonight.
Big Al
Congratulations to her. I've always had particular respect for people who secured their education via the night school/remote learning pathway. It takes an extra degree of dedication.
Big Al
The noise generated by massive data centers and bitcoin mining operations is a nuisance appearing in more and more areas.
I think there are arguments pro and con about the spread of data centers to support the cloud and spread of AI applications. I think the expenditures of energy to mine bitcoins is among the least defensible of these arguments. IMHO, bitcoin mining is the consumption of energy to create a product that has no physical purpose and exists only to satisfy the whims of those who would divorce themselves from civil society. I include the present POTUS among those people.
Big Al
If that material can be successfully implemented, it would be a revolutionary improvement in concrete structures exposed to elements like road salt.
Epoxy-coated rebar is now widely used in things like bridge decks. Stainless steel and fiberglass rebar find use in some applications but the cost differential is extreme. This product, if as effective as described, will be a great step forward.
Big Al
I scrolled through the pictures and couldn't make head or tail of what I was looking at. Without a floor plan or an aerial view, I have no idea how the various areas connect. I saw what looked like two different kitchens. I'm not sure what local prices are, but it looks like a lot of square footage and acreage for the asking price.
Big Al
I love cheese, but I think I'd rather purchase mine from the cheesemonger than risk my life to procure it.
Big Al
@wtg said in Fire the historians:
How bizarre.
Trump issued executive orders in March stating that he wants to shape the narrative of U.S. history in curriculum and museums to avoid “a sense of national shame.”
I hope the historians are still around and free to write the story of national shame relating to the Trump administration in 30 years.
Big Al
@wtg
In fact, I did. I'm anticipating delivery around noon tomorrow.
We had a meeting with a small group from our church yesterday afternoon. My wife made a lemon meringue pie (a specialty of hers) to share in honor of may birthday.
Last night, we had a ground lamb. eggplant, and tomato dinner that is always a very good meal.
Thanks for all the birthday wishes.
Big Al
@Bernard
It was fortunate in one way. The storm occurred near the end of May so the weather otherwise was fairly mild. It's hard to access the panes on a glass building that large. It took them most of the summer before they completed the repairs and all the portions of the buildings could be reopened to the public.
Big Al
@AndyD said in Very inspirational:
The glass was fragile, seems like every year a pane would crack.
That remark recalled to memory an incident that occurred while I was a college student. I was just leaving a class when a thunderstorm broke so I remained sheltered under an outside portico. Shortly, large hail bagan to fall.
The campus was adjacent to Schenley Park, a large public park in Pittsburgh where the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens is located.
The sound of shattering glass as the hail pelted the building was an awesome and frightening sound that your post made me recall.
Big Al
There's a lot to like about that house. I didn't much care for the gray kitchen, but a lot of the other parts are very well executed. I have a certain aversion to crawl spaces unless they are very well encapsulated.
Big Al
The columbines have been proliferating around our house. They're seeding themselves in new places and have really thrived this year. There are no spectacular colors, though. They all range from near-white to shades of purple.
Big Al
@rustyfingers said in Hey there, long time no post:
BA, what a nightmare, and did you really say they used leeches?
Yes, they really did use leeches. As the plastic surgeon explained to me, the leeches feeding on the blood promoted vascularization of the muscle that was inverted and transplanted into the wound left where all the dead tissue and knee cap had been removed. Without the growth of new blood vessels, the muscle could probably not have survived. The leeches came from a leech farm that one of the local hospitals maintains for this purpose.
They would be applied a couple at a time and were about the diameter of a pencil and less than an inch long, They proceeded to ingest blood and became about as big around as my finger and about twice as long as they started. When they had finished feeding, they would release their grip and try to crawl away. At that point, the nurse would collect them and drop them into a jar of alcohol, which ended their lives.
There was great interest in seeing this procedure in the hospital. I counted as many as twelve people in my room watching once.
Big Al
Hello, RF. It's good to catch up with you and your family.
I've had my portion of tribulation with the knee replacement failure I've recounted here. Nonetheless, my wife and I are still in our home and keeping on with various activities.
Your saga of instruments prompts me to relate mine. My Yamaha Clavinova began losing notes. A technician determined that the keyboard sensors were failing. No replacement parts were available and no used parts became available on eBay or wherever else the tech looked.
I'm now looking at a replacement. The leading contender is the Yamaha NU1XA hybrid piano. It has the action of a Yamaha upright piano but with sensors that activate the electronic portions of the instrument. I've been very impressed with the feel of the keyboard and the sound is also very impressive.
I'm probably going to proceed with my purchase this month.
Please keep us apprised of events in your household.
Big Al
I think you will find the tutoring to be an interesting experience. My wife tutored ESL for several years after she retired from her job. I asked her what advice she might have. She offered a few suggestions, some of which have already appeared in this thread.
Try to discern why student wants to learn - is it to make everyday activities easier, in which case familiarization with things like shopping, banking, hobbies, etc. may suggest particular agenda items? Do the students have children or other family members that they might share materials with, like student reading materials? One of my wife's students chose to work on reading a Harry Potter book because her son was also reading it. Do they read pretty well, but have trouble with spoken language? My wife said that some of her students learned to understand her well, but struggled with other speakers. She used podcasts to give them greater exposure to different speakers and accents. Would they like to go on outings to stores, restaurants, gas stations, public transit, or such to learn how to deal with activities in such places? What might they like to show you or explain to you that they know? Confidence in a subject can help conversation concerning it. Idioms can be a stumbling block because their literal translation often makes no apparent sense.
My wife's career as a teacher in an adult community corrections facility gave her some background in dealing with students who had limited language capabilities, but her ESL students fell into different category, being generally capable in their native language, but trying to absorb the complexities of English and how to use it in the USA.
I hope you enjoy this experience and find it rewarding.
Big Al
Welcome back. It's always a delight when some long-departed poster reappears. Tell us more about how your family is doing these days.
Big Al
I do like a good biscuit and particularly one served with sausage gravy. I wouldn't have supposed that it would be so hard to recreate what I think of as a simple food from ingredients available in Ireland.
I do admire a lot of what Rhiannon Giddens has accomplished in her varied musican/historian endeavors.
Big Al
