Occasionally Wright

Mr. T

Great teachers don't get enough credit.

I had one in grade 12 for chemistry. He was also my homeroom teacher in grade 11, and we got along great even when he cut me form the high school volleyball team on the last day of tryouts when a new guy showed up and made the team, just because he was 6' 9". But I got over that. Obviously.

Anyway, Mr. Theuerkauf is the kind of teacher that people remember their whole lives. He's either brilliant or he fakes it really well. Or he's just smart enough to appear brilliant to high school kids. Either way he had (and presumably still has) a knack for telling great stories and for coming up with great and memorable lines. I was digging through some old keepsakes and came across my organic chemistry notebook that I wrote a lot of his quotes down in. Yes- I used to be good at organic chemistry.

Anyway, here are some of the quotes I wrote down all those years ago. Some of them won't make any sense except to people who know Mr. Theuerkauf, but I still think they're worth sharing. And Steven- if you're reading this- you helped me paint the inside of his house. He went on a rant about the Bare Naked Ladies cover of "Lovers in a Dangerous Time." He went on and on about how the BNL wouldn't know dangerous times if they bit them in their ass.

So back to the quotes:

"They often called me Captain Mellow."
"Somehow a crazy man with a banana is a lot scarier than a crazy man with a gun."
"Ben- you just finish up what you're doing and go back to your higher plane of thinking. You know- celestial beings and all that."
"I'm sorry. you all have to fail. I can't have my name associated with any of you."
"A threat goes a lot farther than actually carrying it out."
"Improve your life and get a thesaurus. And it's not a little dinosaur."
"Fighting is stupid. Why would I risk my tissue over my ego?"

And Mr. Theuerkauf's rules to live by (which he probably lifted from Reader's Digest or somewhere else):

1. Compliment at least three people each day.
2. Watch a sunrise at least once a year.
3. Look people in the eye.
4. Live beneath your means.
5. Buy whatever kids are selling on their front lawns.
6. Make friends but cherish the old ones.
7. Keep secrets.
8. Don't waste time learning the tricks of the trade- learn the trade.
9. Admit your mistakes.
10. Be brave. Even if you're not- pretend to be.

All of this from a man who actually put this question on a high school chemistry review sheet:

My uncle Edgar, who was known for his stories and aberrant behavior, once told me of an encounter with a member of the rodent genus; a big mother rat. It seems that Uncle Edgar was banished to the barn after arriving home late one night with C2H5OH in his breath and long auburn hairs on his personage- aunt Esther was a brunette. When he climbed to the loft he laid down, got comfortable, then he heard a hissing sound. He opened his eyes to see a protective maternal rat and her five little ratlings scurrying around behind her. In the fracas that ensued uncle Edgar received a few scratches but something curious also happened. The rat emptied its urinary bladder into one of his plastic-lined coat pockets. Since he was an inquisitive man and could no longer sleep, he decided to test the pH of the urine. It was 7.52. I'll leave you as he left me- wondering what was its [OH-].

The stuff that I've forgotten form that class blows my mind.

Bye-bye Net Files

I figured it was time. I hadn't posted on The Net Files since February of 2006 and I could save $40 by pulling the plug on it, so it's gone. Naturally I backed up the file so I still have a digital copy of everything I wrote, but it was still tough to do. It was a good site, even if I didn't know what I was talking about half the time. It got me my current job, so the $40 per year that I spent on it was well worth it, but there just wasn't much of a reason to keep it alive. So The Net Files is gone from the intertubes.

Cousin Zwerg

It's not every day that you discover that you're related (through marriage) to a recording artist. It's also not every day that you discover that that same recording artist was in The Sopranos. If I actually watched it I might have recognized him.

American Dream?

Back in the day when I was taking full-time French training they kept telling us that we'd know when the French was taking when we started dreaming in French. Well, I dreamt in French but still didn't pass the final oral exam. Oh well.

My question is, if dreaming in French is a sign that you've learned the language, can you assume you're Americanized when the money in your dreams is all green? And don't give me any of that "people dream in black and white" nonsense. I dream in color all the time.

Snowed Out

According to CNN's sources White house Press Secretary Tony Snow is going to step down within the next month for financial reasons.

It's relatively early on a Saturday morning, so I'm not inclined to do much research, but I'd love to know how many press secretaries George W has gone through and how that number stacks up to previous presidents. It seems like there's a change every 18 months or so.

Times Have Changed

You know you're living in the digital age when you take a picture of a two-year old and as soon as you tell them they can move they run over to see the picture on the digital camera screen.

Imagine their confusion when the picture is taken on an "old" 35mm camera.

Good Eats

I've had two great eating experiences in the past week and a half, and since good restaurants seem to be hard to find I figure they're worth mentioning.

Here in Atlanta I went to Tijuana Joe's- a relatively generic Mexican joint that has seven locations around the city. I'd been there once before and went out on a limb by ordering the fajita stuffed baked potato and the stuffed peppers. Both were decent but nothing special. Then last night we went with another couple and we got the fajitas for two. Let's put it this way- both couples ordered the same thing and when the waiter started putting down the food we asked him if the platter of meat, peppers and onions was for all four of us, because it easily would have been big enough. Nope. There was another platter coming. The food was great, and there was enough of it that there's still some in the fridge, even after having some for lunch today.

The other experience was at the Monsoon Tearoom in Charlottetown (full disclosure- the owners are friends of my family so I can't claim impartiality).

I'm not a sushi guy and I don't generally like seafood but I hadn't been home since the tearoom had opened so we went in to say hi and we stayed for lunch. I like meat, so I was a bit skeptical when we got the salad rolls. I shouldn't have been concerned. They were absolutely fantastic, as was the other dish we ordered that escapes my memory. Ruth and Aung do an incredible job running the place (they moved to PEI years ago and are originally from Burma) while also running the sushi counter at the SuperStore on University Avenue. On top of that, Ruth had her third child in mid-May and is back at the restaurant, working away. Great food and great people. If you can catch the Monsoon when it's opening it's definitely worth stopping in.

Now can anyone tell me where to get some good hush puppies in Atlanta?

Barely Beating the Heat

I may not be certain of a lot of things, but I am certain that my outdoor digital thermometer should never say that it's 102.6 degrees Fahrenheit (40 C) in the shade. That's not factoring in humidity or "feels like" temperatures. It also shouldn't be 84 F after midnight.

On the bright side, people aren't running their dogs into the ground like they're prone to doing in the summer. As my wife the vet pointed out, it's simply too hot for owners to be out running with their dogs, so most dogs are taking it easy.

Current Favorite Sites

In the rare moments when there's downtime at work (who knew the hockey off-season would be this busy this year?) there are three sites I check on a consistent basis. Lifehacker and Wisebread give all sorts of tips for daily living, from cost-cutting advice to how-to-features to web and software tricks. Then there's Fark, the news site dedicated to putting sarcastic spins on all sorts of random headlines.

Happy Webiversary To Me

I was giving some serious thought to pulling the plug on this blog (which turned 4 years old yesterday) and then I went home and had half a dozen people mention that they kept tabs on me through the site. Who knew? They couldn't have learned too much over the last year given how infrequently I've been posting, but I swear I'm going to give it another go and see if I can get back into the swing of things. You may or may not have noticed that I've now posted something for four straight days for the first time since just about never. Well done me.

What got me thinking about killing Occasionally Wright? Facebook. I was finally convinced to open an account, and though it was addictive for the first week or so the luster has worn off, even if it did get me back in touch with some dear old friends. But no more thoughts of giving up this habit. At least not at the moment.