I'm gonna buy a lottery ticket

I just landed in Detroit - 30 minutes early - at gate A18. My connecting flight to Milwaukee goes out of gate A19. I got an upgrade to first class on both segments. And the escalator up to the Delta Sky Club is right by my gate! This has got to be a sign that it is my lucky day.

I had another "it's a small world experience." The guy sitting next to me on the plane looked pretty unfriendly. He also had two Vodka and cranberry cocktails at 9:30 in the morning. I did not "engage" him in conversation until about 10 minutes before landing. He mentioned that he grew up in northeast Ohio around Akron. When I said I grew up in Alliance, he laughed and said he grew up in Minerva, a town even smaller than my hometown. He always says Akron because nobody has ever heard of Minerva. He is an ecologist from Harvard on a two year assignment with the NSF to chair a committee or something related to energy and climate change. I asked him if all this stuff is real. He said yes but the real problem is the big stuff like airliners. The irony is his job requires him to fly about 150,000 miles a year. I think I will still recycle.

This is my third posting today. I'm trying to get ahead in case I don't have internet access again until the weekend.

PS Veteran's Day

I forgot to send wishes for a relaxing Veteran's Day to Chris, Carrie, Fav, Jeremy and other military personnel. I am proudly wearing my pin that Chris and Carrie gave me. Chris, did you know that Outback is giving away one of your favorites--a blooming onion-- to military members today? I hope you have a good day without any classes.

I finally made it to Terminal A at Reagan. The rain wasn't bad and a train came relatively quickly. I even got a seat. When I got to the airport, I realized that my flight is a Northwest route that leaves out of Terminal A. It was close to a mile walk from the Metro stop to this terminal. The good thing is that no one else is here so the security line was easy.

It's 35 degrees in Milwaukee

I'm just about ready to hike over to the Metro to catch my flight to Milwaukee this morning. Of course, it is raining lightly so I need to try to get myself and my rollerboard there without getting too wet. I just checked the weather in Milwaukee to be sure that I packed the right clothes. It is only 35 degree there this morning! The daytime highs will be in the 50s though.

I only remember going to Wisconsin once before--when Mike interviewed for a job there many many years ago. The campus of Concordia is on Lake Michigan so it will probably be a beautiful campus. On Friday when the visit is over, I am going home for the weekend. I'm really looking forward to that.

The news has been very interesting in DC this week. Last night they executed the DC sniper. The news coverage was somewhat unnerving. They reviewed the killings that occurred here and had interviews with family members on both sides. It was interesting to talk to people who lived here at the time and hear how afraid people were--just to go to the gas station was a major traumatic experience.

The Army psychiatrist who did the killings at Fort Hood was born and raised here in Northern Virginia so there has been more than the normal national coverage at that story also. Needless to say, the news has been depressing.

It is time to log off and get over to the Metro. I may not have another entry until Friday if I don't have internet at the hotel in Milwaukee.

Monday morning

It's going to be a warm day in Virginia -- 70 degrees. That means it will be warm in the office today. I only have two days in the office this week. Wednesday morning I leave for an accreditation visit to Concordia University in Milwaukee. I hope the weather is unseasonably warm there too. It is interesting to go to new schools and see how they organize themselves and their curriculum. They have a unique advantage over existing schools that are now scrambling to revise curricula to meet the new standards for experiential learning. They can plan the new requirements into the schedule from the beginning.

My document collection is going pretty well. I have documents from 56 schools so far--trying to get to 100.

It was a quiet but beautiful weekend. I spent most of it reading the documents I need to complete before Wednesday. The binder is about 2 inches thick so it takes a while. I also watched lots of football. Both of my teams won. The Buckeyes looked surprisingly strong. Kentucky seems to have lots of injuries. I hope they can make it 7 wins to ensure a bowl game. Four in a row would be awesome.

I guess I'd better get to work. The next two days will go by in a hurry.

Happy Saturday morning

I got another message yesterday--this time from my mother-- that she also reads my blog every day, so now the pressure is really on to post regularly. So, Mother (GG and G-ma), this one is for you.

I got an early start today when the garbage truck came by closely followed by the sound of an emergency vehicle probably over on Duke Street. I have already straightened up the condo and started a load of wash. Living here has made me think more positively about downsizing at some time in the future. It is so quick and easy to do the housework here. There isn't much that needs to be done in such a small space.

It will be a beautiful weekend here. The weatherman just said this will be the first sunny weekend since the first weekend of October. I should be able to get some exercise and enjoy the great weather.

Of course one of my regular tasks on Saturday is watching college football. I will be watching College Gameday this morning at 10. They are broadcasting from Colorado Springs for the Army-Air Force game. I saw some promos for the show already. It is sad to see the flag flying at half-mast in honor of those killed at Fort Hood. I don't know if Chris, Carrie, Fav and the others will be in the crowd, but I will be watching for them. Go Falcons!

I will also be keeping tabs on the Wildcats via the web audio broadcast. They play Eastern Kentucky today so it should be an easy victory. Go Wildcats! Finally, Ohio State plays Penn State at 3:30. That game is important in the Big 10. I hope OSU can find some offense. Go Buckeyes!

While all that is happening, I will be on the laptop finishing slides for a talk in December and reading the materials I need to evaluate before my trip to Wisconsin next week. So it will be a busy day.

I hope all my readers have a wonderful weekend.

A request from my son

This afternoon I got a text message from Chris asking that I get back to posting to my blog. I was flattered to know that he reads it and cares to keep up with what I am doing, so I will take the hint and try to return to regular blogging. John has also told me that he regularly reads my blog while he has his morning coffee. I hope he has been able to drink his coffee even though he hasn't had regular reading material.

I forgot to mention last week that it was American Pharmacy Educators' Week. For all of you non-pharmacists, it would have been a good time to honor me with gifts and notes of appreciation.

It has been a pretty busy week. I have been collecting promotion and tenure documents from schools of pharmacy for my project. I currently have 57 sets of documents. It will not be fun to read them. They are pretty boring. I hope to have close to 100 sets of documents when I am finished. So I will have to curb my partying ways (at least that is what Brittany thinks I am doing) and get to work.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the AACP Board of Directors met here in Alexandria and I was able to sit in on the meeting. It is interesting to get updated on what is going on in pharmacy education on a national level. Oftentimes, we are so focused on the issues in our own school, we lose sight of the big picture. The meeting was at the Hotel Monaco on King Street. It is part of the Kimpton group of hotels and is quite nicely decorated. I thought of Melody when I saw the decor. It seemed like the kind of place she would choose to stay. I overheard the board members talking about the robes they had in their rooms--either tiger or zebra-striped. Sounds pretty interesting.

Part of attending the meeting is having meals with the group. I really enjoyed that because I didn't need to worry about shopping or cooking for two days. On Wednesday night there was a retirement reception for Sam Tart, who left AACP after more than 20 years. Even though I didn't work with him for very long, he is a wonderful man who will be missed by all at AACP. He likes horse racing so we had some interesting conversations about handicapping the horses.

One of the board members stayed overnight last night because it made several hundred dollars difference in plane fare. So I hiked back down to the Hotel Monaco last night and she and I went out to dinner--back to one of my old favorites, Il Porto. I will have leftover veal parmesan for dinner tonight. Yum.

It should be a quiet weekend on my own in Virginia. I have lots of work to do reading for an accreditation visit next week and finishing slides for a presentation in December. I hope to watch UK and OSU football tomorrow if I can find them on the TV here. If the weather is good, I will get in some walking time too. I have noticed that it gets dark quite a bit earlier here than in Lexington. By 5:30 it is really dark. Unfortunately, that means winter is coming soon.

I hope this meets Chris's expectation for some blogging. I promise to do better.

Back to Virginia

It has been a while since my last post. Things have been busy. On Tuesday night, I flew home to participate in the Kentucky accreditation site visit. It was an interesting experience since I have been on three accreditation teams since the last time we had a visit at our school. It was helpful to me in preparing for the sessions and took away any nervousness about the process. I thought I talked too much in the curriculum and assessment meetings. But both committees had new chairs, and I didn't want them to be put in a bad position trying to answer questions about what the committee did before they even attended a meeting. Anyway, I had to get my money's worth for the plane ticket I bought! The outcome was good with only a small amount of monitoring requested. The team liked the new building and dubbed it the Taj Mahal or "taj" for short.

It was good to see all my co-workers at Kentucky. Everything seems to be on track for the move to the new building. My suite moves on December 4th. I had hoped to finish packing but that didn't work out too well. I still have four days when I get back to campus in December, so it should be okay. I guess I spent too much time visiting while I was there. Actually, I made some progress on my project while I was home thanks to the rotation students. They helped me clean up the department chair lists and we started sending out the emails requesting promotion and tenure documents. I will send out the last hundred emails today and start collecting replies.

For the weekend, Mike and I went to Louisville and stayed at the Horseshoe Resort. John and Brittany came and spent time with us. We had a nice dinner and tried something new for us. We were offered free tickets to the Roger Daltrey concert so we went to check it out. For those of you below the age of 35, Roger Daltrey was the lead singer for The Who. If that doesn't help, think of Tommy, the Rock Opera. I posted a picture that Mike took during the concert. I guess Daltrey is about 65. He looks to be in pretty good shape for an aging rocker. At least he looked better than most of the audience. It was quite funny to watch a bunch of 50-60 somethings acting like teenagers. They started out standing but couldn't make it through the whole concert, so eventually everybody sat down. Sometimes they sang along or waved their hands. It was pretty funny. I enjoyed parts of the concert but wouldn't have paid money for the tickets.

Now it is back to Virginia for three weeks and get my project to a good stopping point before Thanksgiving.