Flying Armadillo Free Blog

Leisure Kings

2008-01-04T00:13:00.000-05:00

I'm sure Sean is far too modest to post any links, so I'll mention that Aaron & I saw the Leisure Kings at Agio yesterday. You can read all about it at my knitting blog, here.

Christmas 2007

2007-11-26T11:00:00.001-05:00

Ellen and I will be in Indianapolis from the 21st through 27th. I'm looking forward to meeting up again this year. When will everyone else be in town?

Sub-deb clubs

2007-05-31T15:26:00.000-04:00

I'm trying to help someone at the Historical Society track down information about the "Deb-ette club," a Jewish sub-deb club that was at North Central from the '30s to 1986.

Anyone know anyone? Anyone know anyone who was in one of these kind of clubs (it doesn't have to be a Jewish one), and could talk to my colleague about what sort of stuff they did?

Anyone near Greencastle?

2007-05-01T04:58:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone,

Does anyone live near Greencastle? The reason I am asking is one of my senior swimmer is going to Depauw for school next year. I am just looking to see if anyone could look in on her every once in a while. Well let me know. Email me at sean.barrett2@gmail.com . Other than that life is going great for me out here. If you are coming out to Hawaii drop me a line.

Things Looking Up

2007-04-04T10:59:00.000-04:00

Did everybody see that the anti-gay-marriage amendment FAILED in its House Committee!?! It's amazing what five people can do.

Here's the story from the Star.

It can still come back next year, but this has to be a good sign. And to think Mitch Daniels was afraid that the absence of Daylight Savings Time would make Indiana look backward.

Go Colts!

2007-01-21T22:58:00.000-05:00

Did you see that the Bears quarteback played for Bloomington South High School? Some people might think it's silly to carry a grudge for 15 years, but this is important, right? Perhaps I'll get nostalgic and make some blue-and-white tie-dyed underwear for Super Bowl Sunday. Go Colts!

Christmas

2006-12-04T10:47:00.000-05:00

Time to start talking about Christmas, isn't it? We don't have firm plans yet, so let me know what y'all are doing, and maybe I can plan better!

Who's on Skype?

2006-11-14T22:24:00.000-05:00

I've been using Skype to keep in touch with Aaron, and I'm really happy with it. Has anyone else taken the VOIP plunge? It's a great way to avoid running out of minutes.

I'm on Facebook, too, for those with a .edu address. I feel so trendy.

US Patent #7071969

2006-07-06T18:33:00.000-04:00

Click the link, and search for the patent number above!

Studying Abroad on Spring Break

2006-04-02T21:40:00.000-04:00

32 students, 2 crochety old professors, and me. See my spring break trip to Munich & Greece at Snapfish.

Racing in San Diego

2006-03-08T21:59:00.000-05:00

I drove down to San Diego last weekend to compete in the SCCA Solo National Tour. After a fairly shaky performance on Saturday, I got my act together on Sunday for 4th place in class. The car is parked at the California Speedway in Fontana until this coming weekend, when I will fly back down for the ProSolo. Fontana is not far from Claremont, so I'll be visiting the Mongolian BBQ, The Hat, and other favorite dining spots...

Another Bookstore Surprise

2006-02-22T23:29:00.000-05:00

Look what I found on the remainder rack at Borders. I didn't know Paul Jaskunas very well in high school, but it still comes as something of a surprise that Someone I Know has published a novel. I didn't buy it, since it didn't look like the sort of thing I usually go for, but maybe I'll have to go back and satisify my curiousity.

Not that I've gotten around to reading Richard Curtis's book, yet, or any of the other books in my to-be-read stack. Why does school have to put such a damper on reading?

I did get to read The Plot Against America, in preparation for an upcoming talk here at Purdue. Charles Lindbergh was a bad, bad man.

Dumb, but Irresistible!

2006-02-12T23:05:00.000-05:00

bold the states you've been to, underline the states you've lived in and italicize the state you're in now...
Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C. /
Go HERE to have a form generate the HTML for you.

Richard Dennis

2005-12-12T12:54:00.000-05:00

Richard F. Dennis 74, of Indianapolis, died on Thursday, November 10, 2005. Born on October 10, 1931 to the late Stephen and Susan Dennis in Luzerne County, PA, Richard was quite active as a teacher, violinist, conductor and adjudicator on the local, state, national and international level. He received his Bachelor of Music Ed. from Ithaca College in NY, his Master of Music in Violin Performance from Butler University and attended Indiana University while working toward a PhD. Richard was a member of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra from 1953 to 1956, and 1958 to 1960. He was a violinist with the 7th Army Symphony in Stuttgart, Germany from 1956 to 1958. Mr. Dennis was orchestra director and music teacher at Anderson High School from 1959 to 1963 and at North Central High School, Indianapolis, from 1963 to 1995. His or! chestr! as consistently won superior ratings, with many state championships, and a successful Carnegie Hall concert. He taught many clinics and collegiate classes in Indiana including at Indiana University, Indiana State University, University of Indianapolis, Purdue University, Anderson University, Butler University and I.U. Southeast. Richard conducted the Philharmonic Orchestra of Indianapolis, Indiana Opera Theater, and was associate conductor and concertmaster of Starlight Musicals for many years. He was also music director for Footlite Musicals, The Dick Dennis Chorale, RCA Chorus, L.S. Ayres Chorus, and the Columbians of the Knights of Columbus. Mr. Dennis' career as a violinist includes 28 years as concertmaster for Henry Mancini's touring orchestra, as well as many tours as concertmaster for Julie Andre! ws, Johnny Mathis, An dy Williams, and Burt Bacharach, among others. Mr. Dennis' awards include the Gold Award of Merit from The American String Teachers Association, Teacher of the Year twice in Indianapolis' Washington Township, runner-up for Indiana State Teacher of the Year, Outstanding Instrumental Teacher of the Year by the Indiana Music Educators Assoc.%2

What about Christmas?

2005-12-08T13:33:00.000-05:00

So who's coming to Indy for Christmas or other winter holidays? I'll be there sometime for the period around Christmas and New Year's, but don't have specific plans yet. Aaron thinks we can do Christmas Day in Indianapolis AND Rabbit Hash (yes, that's really the name of a Kentucky town), but I don't know if that will work.

Thanksgiving

2005-11-17T23:59:00.000-05:00

So, what are Thanksgiving plans? Anyone coming to Indianapolis? Anyone doing something cool someplace else?

Max

2005-09-14T19:26:00.000-05:00

I've found out that the editing features don't work with Safari, but they do work nicely with Firefox. So I'll test out the photo upload feature with this picture of my adorable dog, Max. Feel free to respond with comments about how cute he is.

Racing in Topeka

2005-09-12T12:26:00.000-05:00

This week I'm out racing in Topeka at the SCCA ProSolo Finale and Solo2 National Championships. I was able to just fly in and drive, because some nice folks from Texas are allowing me the use of their cars. The ProSolo Finale finished yesterday. I drove an MR2 Spyder, which I had no relevant previous experience driving. Saturday night I was sitting in last place due to hitting pylons. Fortunately, the results are not cumulative, but are based on your best time through each of the two courses. On Sunday everyone got two attempts at each course, and I was able to turn times good enough for 3rd place in the C Stock field of thirteen drivers. That finish was also good enough to put me in third place in the year-end standings!

Today is a break before the Solo2 Nationals start, so I will do laundry, walk the courses, buy snacks and Gatorade, and otherwise get my act together for the competition on Tuesday and Wednesday. For the Nationals, I wil be driving a Miata that's just like mine excet for a significantly different suspension setup. It should be fun!

More generally, I am still living in Sunnyvale, California, and working at National Semiconductor. Ellen has found a great job in Baltimore, so we have been flying back and forth across the country and looking for a job in Baltimore that I'd like to do.

Update: On Tuesday it started raining right at the start of my first run, then I was a cone-head on Wednesday and couldn't complete a run without bopping a pylon. A disgraceful performance compared to the ProSolo, but I had fun doing it. The photo above is from my last run on Tuesday.

Newbie blogger

2005-09-12T01:28:00.000-05:00

Well here goes; I've never used this blog thing before but what am I waiting for? Testing 1-2-3; Hi everyone (and who is everyone?) This is Lauren here; I'm glad Laura is facilitating social aggregation for former NC students and friends!

Dumb, but Lucky!

2005-09-11T18:33:00.000-05:00

I was somewhat shocked, when reading Nuvo, to learn that former congressman Andy Jacobs now writes for Indy's hip alternative newspaper.

But the shock of that was nothing compared to seeing a review of
this book. Remember Mrs. Curtis? Beth Curtis, who taught U.S. History? This is her husband.

"My husband flew a P-51 during the war, you know," is one of the few things I remember hearing in class. I'll have to get the book soon and read the entire story.

It's kind of funny. After reading the review, I really wish I could look back and say "you know, she was one of my favorite teachers." But I can't, and I don't know why. I think she was a kind woman - she seemed to take an interest in us - I think she was downright amused by me & Milele. I don't think she was a bad teacher - aside from the dreaded Hofstadter papers, I can't remember anything terribly boring. And I obviously like the subject.

I can only think that being a stand-out teacher is harder than it sounds - that there's more than just being a good person. But what is it that makes the good ones so good?

Love the class or hate it, it's certainly nice to know that the Curtises are still well and happy and together - 60 years of marriage is pretty impressive!

Welcome!

2005-09-11T18:10:00.000-05:00

Why wait for the vacation-time group e-mails to say "oh yeah, I should keep in touch"? Here's the Flying Armadillo Free Blog, a place for former troublemakers to chat.

Looking for a good first post? Why not a reminder of contact information - and your birthday!