February weather & gifts

So far the winter season of 2016-2017 has been quite mild.  Very little snow; none in January.  And now a significant thaw in February with high temperatures reaching the 50s and low 60s.  Lots of our early spring flowering shrubs are exhibiting bud swelling, and one witch hazel is already in flower.  Snowdrops are in bloom in a neighboring garden, but again none of this is too extraordinary given the mild temperatures.  However if it's too mild for too long in February, cold weather in March will be quite damaging.  Several shrubs in our gardens have been planted in shady areas deliberately to forestall early flowering because these species tend to flower at the first thaw and then get frozen.  Rather have them flowering late than getting frozen. 
Hopeless romantic that he is TPP was constrained by his wife's wishes regarding any gifts for Valentine's day: don't buy me anything sweet and fattening; don't buy me any flowers (we have several things in flower now); and just back from a vacation doesn't leave her in a mood for dining out (yet).  But yet a guy wants to show his affection, so what better than a new implement of destruction/gardening tool?  Buy candy in a heart-shaped box if you must, fellows, but getting her a new garden toy that looks very mean, that's a show of affection.  If you garden you probably recognize the brand; it isn't shown or mentioned because of our non-endorsement policy (they haven't offered to pay!). If you can't do something useful with this bad boy, you don't have much of a garden. Having a reversible handle usually means the "lefty" can use it OK.

End of the semester, at last!

Well, that's another fine semester shot to hell.  While too busy because of competing demands upon TPP's time, it was a good semester student-wise, really!  Four-fifths of the students in my botany class got As and Bs at a ratio of 1:2, a ratio that has not changed in this class for over 15 years.  The other fifth got Cs and Ds (poor study skills that survived junior college and poor work ethics).  The more advanced rainforest ecology class was probably the best ever, uniformly hard-working, bright, cooperative, and not in the least annoying.  How great is that?  There's always a feeling of great relief to be done, at least with the course work.  TPP started the task of cleaning up the semester debris that had accumulated in the lab and other work areas (the desk is still piled high), and picked up a project started about 2 months ago to figure out where things stood.  Spent some time trying to figure out how to distinguish, easily, yews from plum-yews.  It's a piece of cake if you have reproductive structures, but how often does that happen?  Having always had trouble thinking about holidays during a semester, it was time to think about some presents and then take some action.  So TPP visited 4 shops this afternoon.  One clerk asked, "Panic shopping?"  What's the date?  "The 17th." Well, until it's the 24th, it isn't a panic.  The 17th is really early shopping.  This is the problem when you starting holiday shopping back in November.  Came home and got a lot of great help from the kitty girls wrapping a few things, well, just one cat really, but she's such a help especially with ribbons.  Still need some cookies and other treats for a few special people, so tomorrow, maybe TPP will bake some cookies.

Ethics training

Lincolnland requires all its employees to have annual ethics training.  Without question there are many ethical issues that confront university faculty; too bad the training has nothing to do with these situations.  You see the dummies that construct the training modules don't know anything about universities other than the business side of things, so the training modules ignore them with one single exception in this year's training, whether it is ethical to accept a gift from a student.  The majority of the training module concerned interactions with vendors.  Clearly important, but nearly irrelevant for faculty.  TPP also has one major concern and that is the state and its universities claim to have the right to prevent you from accepting any outside employment.  In other words, to work a second job, TPP needs to ask their permission.  This is pure bull.  As long as TPP functions such that he fulfills his contractual obligations to the university, they have no compelling reason for having such power.  Can TPP review this textbook?  Can TPP write a book?  Really?  When your regular job duties take way beyond the official 37.5 hour work week, the university has some nerve suggesting that they have the power to decide what else may or may not be done with your time.  If they can't control how many hours are spent volunteering or on a hobby, or reading or watching reality TV, then how can they restrict paid activities particularly before they ascertain whether they interfere with your university job?  So no, even though technically unethical, this faculty member will not be asking permission for paid outside gigs, if such gigs actually exist.  It's a matter of principle. That and thousands of hours of unpaid overtime.