Roasting

Roasting students is not what this post is about. If you are a former or current (or future?) student of mine and feel you have been roasted.... Well, you simply didn't understand what was happening. In essence, you roasted yourself. (feel that burn?)

But this post is about a new culinary frontier recently bridged by yours truly: roasting my own coffee. I bought some green coffee beans (i guess they are actually seeds?) and simply fried them up on my trusty cast iron skillet.

Before ..... and ....... After

And, guess what?, it brews up a nice coffee thank you very much.

Now those green seeds really got a proper Rideout Roasting...

Lost in Time, Not Space

It's not too unusual (I think) to wake up in a new place and experience a moment of disorientation: Where am I?  Wait, I'm not waking up at home in my bed?

(The best incident I had of this was when I was about 27 and I was doing a lot of traveling for this company I worked for at the time, Viscotek.  On this particular occasion I was doing a whirlwind tour of sales and service calls on the other side of the world (Japan, Singapore, India, and Malaysia back to back to back to back).  I woke up one day in a hotel room and just stared at the ceiling and tried to figure out where I was.  I was so tired and jet-lagged and confused I was going through my itinerary and trying to figure out which places I had already been when I noticed a big red arrow on the ceiling.  I thought, hmmm, there's a clue:  Which country would put an arrow on the ceiling of an hotel room?  I thought - Malaysia here I am! (Gotta know where Mecca is if you want to pray in a new place and Malaysia was the only Muslim dominate country I was visiting))

Yesterday (Monday), I woke up a bit early but in the usual home bed and I experience a profound disorientation in time.  Was it Friday morning and I needed to get ready for work with some pep as the weekend was about the begin?  Was it Saturday or Sunday and I could decide how to spend my morning?  Or, was it, oh no, Monday?  I had to replay recent events in my head to decide Saturday and Sunday had just recently passed and therefore it must be Monday morning.  Woe is me.

I say disoriented in time because I think the usual expression is simply 'I woke up confused', but I think a lot about Space-Time and I think it is revealing that we are okay with getting disoriented in space but we don't reflexively think of time as having an orientation.

Next time a student arrives late for class I will ask them "Are you okay?  Experiencing some disorientation in time?"  Perfectly normal question, right?

Old and Slow

So, true confession, I usually feel quick witted.  As in, if there is some verbal sparring to be had, I feel I can hold my own.  I mean maybe this isn’t exactly fair since I’m usually hanging out with folks who have over 30 years less life experience than I do.  It’s one of the blessings of teaching high schoolers - I get to feel young in spirit by keeping up with them. 

I’m hanging out at a science competition event this weekend with a colleague and about a dozen teenagers.  GW, who was never a student of mine but a student in my school of course, breaks out some yarn and a hook and gets to work on a project during some down time.  I casually throw out the comment “I wonder what you will do when you are a grandma since you are knitting in your teenage years.” (‘crocheting’ my colleague dispassionately corrects me).  GW doesn’t even look up and shoots back “Maybe I’ll become a movie star”.  It takes me a full 5 minutes to fully process how she has completely and elegantly reversed my attempt at humor.  So, one ouch for not recognizing knitting vs. crocheting and another for being outplayed by a 17 year old.

A few minutes later, I’m trying to erase my previous embarrassment and change the subject of conversation.  I throw out the observation that our high school has a lot of clubs for a school of our limited size.  GW casually looks up and remarks, “But if most don’t have any members and they don’t hold many meetings, does it really count?”  I start looking at the time and wondering when the damage to my self esteem will end.  

One of my 'jobs' at the competition was to judge the merit of some 'builder logs' at the make-your-own-catapult competition.  As I am struggling to kneel down with any grace on the hard gym floor to read another report and use the rubric they provided me with, I am reflecting on my knees and ankles not really loving this up and down motion when my reading glasses unceremoniously slip off of my nose onto the floor.  When did I become this guy I wonder?

Of course, I get turned around leaving the competition in Boston and belatedly decide to hook my phone up to the car GPS my way back out to the suburbs.  Somehow, this old guy can not manage the 'data on', 'location on', 'bluetooth on', 'talk to Toyota' options while driving and pulls over to get his phone (without talking to the car) to navigate him home.

Maybe I should just stick to teaching circa 1600's physics and simply remember when I used to be witty, quick, and holding my own with teenagers…