Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Skola's LiveJournal:

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Friday, November 27th, 2009
11:18 pm	Christmas Music Help Hey all, I figure a number of folks who read my post are either a.) musically inclined or b.) raised Christian of some denomination or other. To that end,I seek help with Christmas music. ( now the fun begins ) Current Mood: exhausted (17 Observations | Make a Skolarly Observation)
Monday, November 9th, 2009
6:18 pm	Signal Boost Walmart bans gay couple, harasses their special needs children, etc Current Mood: annoyed (2 Observations | Make a Skolarly Observation)
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
10:23 am	Tech help needed Does anyone know how in either openoffice or MS office student edition, I could make a graph with axes going from 0 to 10, in which I could enter in 4 points that would make a shaded in square, and then several other points could be plotted to see if they fell in the square or not? Thanks in advance. (3 Observations | Make a Skolarly Observation)
Friday, October 2nd, 2009
6:19 pm	Quick help? So somehow my library, my library's backup, the backup's backup, and the backup's backup's backup all died, and thus I am recreating my music library in advance of coming out of my DJ retirement tomorrow night. At some point several years ago, I was smart enough to make some data CDs. Now I need to use ITunes to rip the music back in, so here's my question. Is there a setting in ITunes (or another program that is free and does the same thing), that can take a data CD, import all the files into the library (skipping the ones already in there automatically), and eject the CD when finished? If so, how does one access this? Thanks in advance, ~Gil Current Mood: rushed Current Music: 1 a.m. - 1000 beats (black mix) (5 Observations | Make a Skolarly Observation)
Sunday, September 27th, 2009
12:08 pm	Yearly Reflection ( My yearly post ) May you all be inscribed for a good year. Current Mood: anxious (4 Observations | Make a Skolarly Observation)
Thursday, September 10th, 2009
1:03 pm	Great Teacher Award for Dr. John Scott Masker Hey all, So the time for nominations is up again for the Great Teacher Awards, and we're looking for you to help! I will be hanging around campus with a copy of the petition nominating Dr. Masker for the award, and looking for people to sign. In addition, though, the thing that carries the most weight is letters. If you can take the time to write one page about your experience with The Great Scott (tm), I will collect them. I can be found on campus either in Gladfelter Hall or at the TUGSA Office (1515 Cecil B., 3rd floor, across from the Liacouras Parking Lot), or I can be mailed to Gil Cnaan/111 N 9th St. #300/Philadelphia, PA 19107 or e-mailed at gilcnaan@temple.edu. I willl be collecting signatures and letters until November 1, at which point I will be attempting to file the new petition, and see if we can make it work this time. Please feel free to forward this to others, and e-mail or call me (610 306 8858) if you have any questions. Best, ~Gil Cnaan (Make a Skolarly Observation)
Monday, August 31st, 2009
1:15 pm	Advice? Hey all, So I am looking to acquire a voice recorder to do two very special things for me. 1. Record lectures. I find that if I'm taking notes during lectures, sometimes I miss things, and when I participate in discussion, I forget to write everything down. Having a backup would be good. 2. Let me talk to myself about SPARC/to-do, what have you as I wander around. That means it needs to: A. Record/Play back well B. Be relatively rugged (those of you who know me know I'm utter hell on my equipment) C. Preferably be able to attach to a computer so I can download and log things afterward (bonus points if there's a good transcription software, but I can live without). Thoughts? Current Mood: bouncy Current Music: Ego Likeness - South (5 Observations | Make a Skolarly Observation)
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009
1:20 pm	Announcing SPARC! (x-posted all over the place, with apologies if this is already in your inbox) Dear Friends, As some of you know, we (Becky and Gil) have spent a large part of the last three years trying to put together a residential academic summer camp for gifted children. From our experiences with such camps before, we decided that the best way to make sure our camp provided the highest quality of education was to make it a non-profit. We are pleased to announce that The Summer Project for Academic Reach and Creativity is now a federally recognized, tax-exempt entity. Over the next few months, we will be working hard to open SPARC with a session in the summer of 2010. If you would like to help us get started, please let us know. If you are interested in working with us during the summer, please e-mail Timna Frank, our staff coordinator, at timnafrank@gmail.com. We will be updating our website soon, until then, if you are interested in donating, we would gladly accept mailed checks to: SPARC 111 N 9th St. Unit 300 Philadelphia, PA 19107 Finally, we would like to direct your attention to a worthy cause. We have created a team on The World Community Grid, a project run by IBM that uses extra computing power to help solve global problems. If you are interested in joining us in this, please go to http://tinyurl.com/SPARCWCG to register and download the software. Thank you for your time in reading this, Becky Robare and Gil Cnaan Current Mood: excited Current Music: And One - Sternradio (2 Observations | Make a Skolarly Observation)
Wednesday, July 29th, 2009
6:02 pm	webmaster sought Webmaster sought for www.sparcsummer.org a non-profit academic summer camp. Requirements: Redesign of current website and ability to address future issues as needed. We are looking for a webmaster to redesign our website. The general information, as well as logos, should remain the same. However, we are looking to change the architecture of the website so that our staff can upload and remove blog posts, classes, and professors to the site without a great deal of hassle. Please send mockup, projected schedule and price, and link to other works. For more details or to submit, please e-mail gil@sparcsummer.org Current Mood: busy Current Music: Voltaire - Hell in a Handbasket (2 Observations | Make a Skolarly Observation)
Saturday, July 18th, 2009
4:32 pm	Music/DJing stuff ( I'm looking to resume DJing, and need some equipment advice. ) Current Mood: sick Current Music: Einstürzende Neubauten - Feurio! (13 Observations | Make a Skolarly Observation)
Thursday, July 9th, 2009
6:31 pm	BOINCing, or, my futher adventures in bureaucracy. For the last few weeks, I have been on the phone and fax several times a day with either our case manager in the IRS or the state of New Jersey, trying to get SPARC its tax exempt status. In the process, I realized I'd forgotten to post about a good deed that I'd like all of you to join me in. For those of you not aware, there is a lovely program called BOINC (http://boinc.berkeley.edu/) that uses your spare CPU cycles and your screensaver to help do big things. For those of you old enough to remember those halcyon days shortly after Al Gore, blessings be upon him, created the internet, you saw it in its early form, when it was used as SETI, which helped us search for alien intelligence. Now we can use it for things like helping cure forms of cancer, finding new drugs, etc. I personally am connected to the World Community Grid (http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/) in order to try to do good things. I ask all of you to consider downloading BOINC, and, if you can find it in your hearts, connect to the World Community Grid, which seems to be doing a lot of good work. If you don't feel comfortable creating a new account there, I will temporarily lend you my account information long enough to connect you to them. If you do feel comfortable joining, and wish to go a step beyond being an individual user, I have set up a team page for SPARC, which I invite you to join. Most people I know use their computers fairly often (and hey, if you're reading this, chances are you're on a computer right now). You can easily set the program to use a very minimal amount of CPU cycles if you're worried about it slowing down your computer at all, but every little bit helps. Even if you don't do it, thank you for at least taking the time to read this. ~Gil ETA: If you've signed up already, http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/team/viewTeamInfo.do?teamId=72SGXRKKNV1 is the link to the team, and if you haven't, and are curious, http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/reg/viewRegister.do?teamID=72SGXRKKNV1 will let you sign up and automatically enter you into the team. Current Mood: determined (5 Observations | Make a Skolarly Observation)
Friday, July 3rd, 2009
12:23 am	Happy anniversary, or, thank you. Four years ago today, I was woken up early in the morning by my elder sister who told me that finally, after months of waiting, of being hooked up to an Left Ventricular Assist Device that left me wired to a wall most of the day, and generally unable to be out of bed for more than a few minutes at a time, a heart had come in for me. My immediate family came to see me off, and I was taken downstairs in the elevator for surgery... ...to find out that the heart was no good. After promptly informing the doctor that I considered him to be a horrible tease, I spent the day rather depressed, and in the evening, my stepfather woke me up and asked if I wanted to try again. This time it took. Since then, my life has improved dramatically. There are many people I've met for whom my life has been made better by knowing them. There are people who I became closer to either during that time or after for whom my life has been made better. There are those who I lost touch with, either due to my words and actions or theirs. To all of them, I offer my apologies. Maybe if I were a better person, maybe if I'd said or done something different, maybe if I'd exercised a bit more restraint, maybe we would still talk. I miss you. Today, however, is a day I will spend trying to be happy and upbeat and celebratory. I have accomplished a lot since my transplant, and hope to accomplish much more. I hope you all have a safe, happy, and wonderful fourth of July, and wonderful lives. ~Gil Current Mood: loved Current Music: Wolfsheim - Once in a Lifetime (35 Observations | Make a Skolarly Observation)
Thursday, June 11th, 2009
10:30 pm	Book moving party! Hey all, Those of you in the Philly area this Saturday should join me for a ( Book Moving Party! ) Current Mood: excited (6 Observations | Make a Skolarly Observation)
Thursday, June 4th, 2009
7:22 pm	Baby issues solved! From an e-mail to my dad: "Shalom, I'm dealing with my final project at school these days an am lacking a buckle which is used only in the babybjurn carriers, I tried to contact the babybjurn company but it's impossible to send me only the buckles so I started to look for some used carriers, the problem is that in Israel they cost more then double the price in the us. Is it possible for you if I'll buy some carriers through e-bay and send them to you in Phili, so you will bring them here when you'll come? If so, when is the last day for me to do the delivery issues? Toda, Yael" All is solved. (15 Observations | Make a Skolarly Observation)
11:29 am	Further Updates on the Mysterious Magical Baby Supplies So it appears that all credit cards, bank statements, etc, are untouched. The thick plottens.... Current Mood: amused (Make a Skolarly Observation)
Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009
11:36 pm	Unrelated to any mysteriously appearing baby supplies... ...do any SIG folks remember what classes I taught or TAed? P.S. That is my favorite subject line for an update. Current Mood: amused (2 Observations | Make a Skolarly Observation)
7:53 pm	My father needs some help, or, mischief abounds So my father posted the following on his facebook, and I am reposting it, noting only that I would appreciate any help solving this mystery: OK, I need help. no crack remarks please. I am trying to solve a mystery. serious help will be appreciated. Last Thursday, two packages reached my office (3815 walnut). One was sent from Hamden CT and the other from Lincoln NE. Each contained a product called “baby Bjorn.” It is a sling/gear that mothers/fathers tie onto themselves and carry their baby. My children are all too old and big for it. I asked my family in Israel and in Canada and they all stated that they did not send it. Interestingly, none of the packages contained the name of the seller. Although the one from Nebraska was sent by a Brian Fink who lives in Wildrye Ave (there was a receipt of something he bought in the box). But, I could not locate him. I called eBay and they told me that as my account was not charged they cannot provide me with information on any of the transaction. Today came a third package with the same product and again no sender, no seller, and not even a city of origin. I am baffled and in need of serious ideas. Please keep the jokes for later. Thanks Ram Any thoughts? Current Mood: confused (27 Observations | Make a Skolarly Observation)
Thursday, May 28th, 2009
9:33 am	In Illinois until June 6 (1 Observation | Make a Skolarly Observation)
Saturday, May 2nd, 2009
9:30 am	Gone to Toronto, brb. (1 Observation | Make a Skolarly Observation)
Friday, April 17th, 2009
1:16 pm	Union Stuff So in a sign of how strange the world has become, I am the Business Manager Elect of the Temple University Graduate Student Association, which is a chapter of The American Federation of Teachers. I have mixed feelings about this. While I support unions in general, as I see them as a good way to protect people who would be otherwise taken advantage of, I have also seen what happens when unions go overboard, which is part of why I don't do events at the PA Convention Center anymore. However, TUGSA has been good to grad students at Temple. Because of TUGSA, the baseline salary of graduate students is currently above the poverty level, and we have health insurance, which for me is important. However, our negotiations come after that of AFSCME and TAUP (Temple Association of University Professionals) which includes professors and library staff. Both AFSCME and TAUP have been working without contracts for months now, and TUGSA will be in negotiations in the fall. Here is where my problem begins. ( Cut for those of you who don't care ) HERE IS THE IMPORTANT PART!!!! This Monday, April 20th, there will be a rally for TAUP at Alter Hall at 3:15-4:30 PM. If you think that our professors deserve to be treated well (regardless of how you feel about the rest of the employees), or if you just think that Temple should behave better, or if you just like to see huge gatherings, or if you just enjoy some chaos, please come. To paraphrase a professor of mine, you don't need to be a political scientist to know that the administration will be counting heads and bodies. I don't want to step into negotiations in the fall knowing that Temple still hasn't closed with two unions that are bigger and more cohesive, because that will not end well for anyone. For more information, go to http://www.taup.org and http://www.dc47afscme.org/local_1723/default.htm Thank you for reading, and please, repost or come to the rally. ~Gil x-posted to Facebook, Dreamwidth, Livejournal, Myspace, and Twitter Current Mood: determined (5 Observations | Make a Skolarly Observation)