Almost Alanmas Eve
It started Friday and has been snowing most of the time since.
It is supposed to continue in this vein for the foreseeable future.
Nothing new there then for a Wisconsin winter.
It has not been without its comical moments.
Philip was poo pooing the various neighbours who saw fit to go out snowblowing and shovelling this morning.
As it was still snowing, he quite rightly said it was a waste of time and he would do it in one fell swoop this afternoon.
Sounds reasonable.
He eventually dragged himself outside around 3pm during a lull.
I could hear the snowblower but it was making a funny popping sound so I poked my head out and asked what was going on?
I was informed that the poxy snowblower wasn't working properly.
He then started shovelling.
Oh bugger......there was an awful lot of shovelling to be done, especially when you are one Alan short.
Discretion being the better part of valour, I took myself back inside and did some hoovering.
I peeked out every so often to see a cold, red faced Philip valiantly shovelling heaps of snow from the sidewalks and paths.
He kept popping up at different sides of the house......and he didn't look happy.
After he had finished all the sidewalks and paths, I felt sure I heard a phantom snowblower.
On peeking outside again, I saw Philip with a now functional snowblower, clearing the drive.
Oh bugger this was even worse.
The poxy thing had decided to work after he had cleared 90% of the snow.
I couldn't hear him laughing exactly.
Shortly after this I saw him sprinkling rocksalt (2 x 25lb bags of rocksalt actually) so I knew he would soon be coming in.
When he did he was...............smiling.............SMILING.......... what foul magic was this?
He had found out what was wrong with the snowblower. There was nothing wrong with the snowblower. Philip had forgotten which was the choke and which was the accelerator.
Silly sod.
I was more than a little surprised that he found it amusing.
It must have been the relief of knowing that he didn't have to get it fixed.
In other news.
I am doing an Astrobiology online course.
I have to admit......so far.....it is boring me senseless.
I think I must have hit the jackpot with the first course I ever did. That was an archaeology course and was brilliant.
It was fun, informative, entertaining but also very structured.
I then did an animal behaviour one done by an Aussie university that was a bit slapdash but quite amusing.
The last one I did was paleobiology and was also excellent. That one gave the whole of the course contents at the beginning of the course allowing you to study at your own pace.
It was also fun, informative, entertaining etc.
I haven't had the results of that one yet.
Each one of these had a good format. There were forums, videos, lecture notes, helpful links etc.
I thought that as these were all run by Coursera that they would all have similar set ups.
They do not.
The one I am doing now is run by Edinburgh Uni.
It has no set up, format or anything else useful.
It just launches in to the lectures and then every now and again gives you a test.
There is nowhere to see what you have done, what is next to come or any sort of list of contents for the course.
Every time I log on I have to wade through all the lectures trying to figure out where I had got to.
There is just one lecturer who delivers all these lectures whilst reading from an ipad.
I must have done about 10 lectures now and he is still wearing the same shirt. He must have recorded all this in one day.
There is nothing fun or entertaining. No, interesting visuals, just him relating these 'dry as a bone' facts.
Philip, who sits playing Lord of The Rings at his computer near me in the basement, even comments at how boring this guy sounds.
Anyway, I doubt I will give up.
I do not like conceding defeat so I will continue for as long as I can but I hope I never do another one like this.
If this had been the first one I had tried, I would never had taken another.
posted by Sue Banks @ 5:55 PM
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