Other Interests

Other Interests

My default interests are my dogs: Brisco (3 parts catahoula leopard, 7 parts land-piranha); and Socrates who is a miniature dappled-dachshund whose primary goal in life is to become the world's first living playdough factory... only that's NOT playdough he keeps pumping out... Oh, yeah, how could I forget my cat Tony which is a shortened version of his real name - Tornado-Siren (believe me, this is a perfect name for him).

My baby sister (Jennifer) has a cute daughter and a handsome (redheaded) son , but she won't let me post their pictures on the internet (yet). We have this deal going where if she and her husband die, I get the kids. So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

I've been making fitful and generally unsuccessful attempts to reverse the weight that has accumulated over the past decade. I still have 45 (or so) pounds yet to go. My wife and I both enjoy going to the movies. My reading passion is science fiction, and related to this is my expensive interest in unusual (i.e., not StarWars or StarTrek) sci-fi plastic models (collecting at least, not so much building). I recently tried my hand at building one of the Jedi Knight's trademark tools: A Light Saber!

Cynthia's Art Gallery: I'm really happy to be able to show you some examples of my wife's artwork. She specializes in oil portraits, but as you can see, she works well with other subjects. (You should ask her to draw your portrait. She's very good!) Recently she has been expanding her talents into the water-color arena, and, she's learning a new technique of painting without brushes (she's painting only with palette knives, and some of what you'll see in the gallery are knife paintings). Check it out and email her if you'd like to know more (or just tell her what you think about her work: paulc@rmu.edu).

Some Potentially Interesting Links

  1. What does Dr. Paul want for his birthday? Or, he'll accept it as a Christmas gift... Or a Hanukah gift? Or, I bet he'd take this as a bribe for better grades! Wait, wait, he'll accept this ANYTIME, in fact, he'll trade his CAR for it... ok, that's not a good trade, but what about... you can have ALL his pets! That's a well-trained cat and one well-trained dog (don't ask what they're "well-trained" at though), plus a puppy that's RIPE for training. I KNOW, how about if I give you EVERYTHING?! House, car, wife, pets, comic book collection, toys, furniture, EVEN a kitchen sink! I just gotta have one of these!

  2. I make no secret of the fact that I'd like to become either a superhero, or, an immortal vampire. However, sadly, neither scenario has yet materialized. In the mean-time, though, I ran across this website that determines which superhero best matches your responses to some personal questions.

    Here are MY (not really very surprising) results: You are Superman

    You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.
    Superman
    		65%
    The Flash
    		60%
    Spider-Man
    		60%
    Robin
    		58%
    Green Lantern
    		55%
    Iron Man
    		50%
    Catwoman
    		40%
    Hulk
    		40%
    Batman
    		40%
    Supergirl
    		33%
    Wonder Woman
    		23%
    Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz.

  3. OK, here's more evidence of Dr. Paul's bizarre interests. Can't say I like EVERY one of their songs... But there's something about them that appeals to my horror-movie slash video-game side. Check them out (probably my favorite song is one or more of the versions of Gonna Getcha followed by We are the ones).

  4. WRFR 93.3 FM Radio. My brother-in-law (Kevin Kecy) hosts a Saturday morning radio show in Maine (8:00 to 9:00 AM). The link is for streaming audio, but here is the actual station web site: http://www.wrfr.org/.

    Related to "radio" is the website http://www.blogtalkradio.com. Here you can host your own radio show for free (as I understand it, broadcasts are archived as mp3's - become podcasts). You can receive callers (assuming anyone is listening) who dial in using a special number listed on BlogTalkRadio's programming guide. Incoming calls are queued and YOU activate, mute, or delete callers as you please. Shows can run in 15, 30 or 60 minute increments, but you can only broadcast up to ONE time per day.

    I did two half-hour "shows" but I'd rate them as mostly flops.

  5. In keeping with my recent "building light sabers" interest:

    • Build Your Own Light Saber: The site that actually inspired me to start this ugly "hobby."

    • Saber Site: Some nice ideas along with parts/prices list.

    • Parks Sabers: Don't want to make one, but have lots of money to buy a nice one? This is the site you've been looking for!

    • RMC Studios: Actually, the mock-ups made here are VERY affordable! I might have done this instead of making one, had I known...

  6. Depressing, but hypnotic to watch. I think it would be cool to see an alternative version of this clock that estimates things more positive to think about.

  7. OTHER STUFF:

    • Addicted to LIP BALMS?: If you, like my wife, are addicted to chapstick or some other lipwax crap, this site is a MUST SEE!

    • EUREKALERT: I really like this site for providing pretty up-to-the-minute scientific discoveries across virtually all disciplines!

    • The Dialectizer: Very funny site that transforms text or (almost) any web page you specifiy into some dialect (Redneck, Jive, Cockney, Elmer Fudd, Swedish Chef, Moron, or Pig Latin)!

    • The BrainTainment Center: Food for thought!

    • Dealing with SPAMers: A brief guide on how to defend yourself from SPAM.

    • Urban Legends! Veddy intedesting!

    • MATH! Hey, hey, hey, don't make those groaning noises! This actually is a pretty cool site even if you don't like math!

    • HTML Related Stuff

      • Basic HTML "getting started" primer: Compliments of the University of Illinois.

      • Beginners Tutorial: An interactive HTML tutorial.

      • Universal Grade Change Form: This will give you an HTML example of various form-posting formats. I plan to use something like this in my classes to get data and information (quizzes?) from students. Information is e-mailed to me. (I'm in the process of updating this, so it will have a very slight different look someday soon.)

      • COLOR: Need the HEX values for color in your page? Check this out!

  8. Healthy Skepticism: