Tom is Away

a student, analyzing the potential audience for a Snickers commercial featuring Patrick Ewing: “The audience is most likely old people, because they’re old enough to remember who Patrick Ewing is.”

awaiting the deluge of student essays.

My entire life as a sports fan has been defined by always expecting the worst possible thing to happen at the worst possible time. This year’s Phillies are the lone exception to that rule. I pretty much always expect them to come through.

digging through memorabilia, trying to make a book cover happen.

the problem with scrawling essential to-do lists on the backs of old one-a-day calendar sheets and stuffing them in arbitrary pockets is that they’re very easy to lose.

back… scrambling.

this trade for Cliff Lee has to be one of the best deadline deals ever, right?

Well, it’ll be nice to (apparently) have a low-stress Phillies game.

I’ve disagreed with every single decision the Eagles have made re: Michael Vick, beginning with the signing, and including the way they’ve actually implemented him in the gameplans.

weddings ending at 8 PM = kinda confusing re: drunkenness.

pretty much the worst possible non-hurricane weather for going down the shore.

getting ready to head down the shore for the weekend (for a wedding)

waiting on tim and duke (and, I think, Keri) to watch the Phils game.

context: In the hallway outside my office, there’s a free books table, where teachers dump the outdated or stupid junk they don’t want in their offices anymore.

question: How could this ever find its way to the free books table ? (check the author, if you’re confused).

slow day today– class plan consists of reading silently while the students do work.

trying to get ahead.

reading a friend’s 400+ page draft of a book.

already halfway through the semester. I can’t believe how fast this stuff goes.

Part I of book done (and in need of major revision, but that’s for later). Tallies:

320 pages; 108,997 words (the completed first book is about 83,000 words); 1 scene involving a flare gun and a 10-gallon bucket of spiders; 0 scenes, so far, involving orca.

Stray dog saves another dog from the highway– pretty amazing video.

catching up on some old DVR-ed shows