Prep Pages Notes of days gone by....

June 2002

July 2002

August 2002

September 2002



10/08/02

  • Jane tried out the Venier stuff to do heart rate, with, at best, mixed results. We are going to write up her experiences and post it here for your perusal.
  • How is the new division of labor working for the instructors?? We have yet to hear any feedback. Send us mail, call, stop by ... or maybe we just have to break out the ouija board to find out.

10/01/02

  • What a weekend, now back to work (sigh), you have all read the news, no reason to rehash it. Here are the prep pages as we have them, if you could take a moment to update and send to us we would appreciate it.
  • Old Blog stuff has been moved off.. to the Old Blog Page

9/25/02

  • Well the first meeting went really well, I think that it signals a new direction for the prep room and a whole lot more organization. I think that you all are going to like it. There is a page that will let you know about the changes and what the future has in store as well. Well, OK, I don't have it ready yet, but I will soon :)

9/24/02

  • In the attempt to get a bit more organized we are going to have the Prep room meetings on Thursdays at 3:30.
  • Also we are going to have a form for lab schedules - yes I know, one more piece of paper work for you to look forward, but organization at the moment is our Achilles heel so we would like to give this a try.

9/19/02

  • Well, we are going to try something new in Micro. In the future we are going to start keeping the stock bottles of stains in the glass cabinets in the room so that there will always be enough in the room for use. I will prepare a document that will list all the stuff that will be up there so that commentary can be given if needed.
  • We are going to start a weekly meeting for the Prep Room staff and any Faculty that would like to attend we are looking for input from anybody who would like to be there to find the best time if we can.

9/18/02

  • It would seem that Jane grabbed the bull by the horns and tried out our new technology for her 2201 class looking at fermentation. It went, well rough, but then I expected it would.
  • Is it a good idea to keep copies of the model keys with the models? Can we do this without losing/messing them up? Whadda ya think?
  • If you have not taken a look at the Tech Pages, you should the three big lists of stuff are all out - go see and comment.

9/11/02

  • A year ago today...
  • After having my comp go down for several days we are back in business! so much to do so little time.

9/04/02

  • Minor snafu yesterday caused the web pages to mess up, sorry about that. Onward and upward.
  • Made my first set of germs for the new semester, and then I made some for Micro (bu-dump bum dum, thank you, thank you, I do two shows a night, three on weekends)
  • Venier stuff on Friday, cool.

08/28/02

  • Can you believe that I forgot when my classes were? How embarrassing. what a mess. (*sigh*) OK, on to better things. We had to reference our one and only Tech Page today, it was kinda nice.
  • My schedule (and hopefully Jane's in a few minutes) are posted - Kathy was more on the ball than the two of us combined.
  • Labs are still going smoothly, so I hear.
  • Kathy told me that we have money to buy 8 very nice laptops (please 'o please 'o please) from the last budget cycle ....

08/27/02

  • There is a new area for information on our internal web, the Tech Pages, it doesn't hold much at the moment but it will grow over time :) One thing that it does have though is information on how to use the new VCR/DVD combos in the labs - take a look!
  • First labs went well as far as we know anyway. How exactly do you wash immersion oil off anyway?

08/26/02

  • Let the semester start!! There are a number of important things to bring up such as -
    • Jane is back as a CLA for us. Yeehaw!! We are very excited to have her.
    • The dishwasher is in and working, I have already messed up with it, on the first load of dishes, wow, almost fast as light!
    • We lost Goliath, what a true downer.
  • Updates should be a bit more frequent now that I will be around more. If you have any submissions please let me know. :)

 

08/12/02

  • Well, back from Seattle and life is pretty good. I went to the most amazing fish/farmer's/million and one shop/ market/bazaar that I have ever seen.
  • Well, we may get some extra help into the lab soon - more on this later.
  • They are starting today to get the projectors into the labs ... they even told me that I get to claim credit for having done it :)
  • Orders for the coming semester have started to roll in, somewhere my deliver date got ignored...oh well, the fridges will be packed for the coming semester.
  • I stand corrected, the new projectors are in and they ROCK! We have new projectors and DVD/VCR combo's to go with them, they accept computer input AND, we can hook those #@$%@! Laser disc players to them. they have onboard sound (though, in reality they could use some better sound) cant wait to mess around with them some!

08/06/02

  • Ah, yes, the Semester, she is coming. Jane's class got off to a bang this week, one sugar experiment down, 9 to go.
  • It occurred to me as I was updating things that there are a total of ten (!) faculty in the department this fall. And I was wondering - do we all meet on duty days? Do we need to schedule a meeting of some sort? What do you all think?
  • Hopefully goliath will get a new tank soon, Thursday I am going to look at one with Kathy (you remember her right?) , lets hope.
  • I got an email on Monday, it seems Kathy H (the other Kathy in the prep room) has applied for a job as a student lab attendant at the U of M. I was asked for a reference for her by someone who I have worked with in the past ... I will be giving a phone call up there Thursday to say some nice things about her.
 

07/31/02

  • Well, technology frustration, it's like road rage but with stuff that weighs less. In a vain hope to get the comps in the student project room up to snuff enough to actually handle the Venier stuff I have had to go back to square one. If all goes well we should be ready for tomorrow...yeah right, like that's going to happen.
  • Cleaned a bit, watered the plants - the plant room's front door has sprung a hydraulic fluid leak - please do not use it for now. 

07/30/02

  • Cleaned, washed, pressed, hassled the guys putting in the plumbing for the dishwasher. And updated the web page some.
  • Speaking of which, if you need any help getting your web page on it's feet let me know. I can help with what ever you need - graphics /html /programming etc.
  • Speaking of which I got the database for the quiz program put together I will upload it later toady from home and see if I can get it running. If anyone could email me any old multiple choice quizzes it would be much appreciated.

07/29/02

  • Getting web page stuff done today. Links fixed, the buttons are finally beginning to look like they are supposed to, and I am going to start a little programming. I have come up with quiz software to create example quizzes for students. I thought this might be a way to answer the age old "what is the test like?" problem. What it will eventually be is a way for you to go to a secure database and input the questions and answers toa quiz and have it immediately available to studets.

07/25/02

  • Don't ask about today....make Jane tell you what I have been doing with my time.
  • We are going to try to get folks together to look at the Venier stuff from 1-3 on Thursday the 1st August. I 'spose we will meet in the Prep Room, man, I got to get cleaning...
  • Ignore this.

07/24/02

  • It would appear that my appeal has gone through and I will be here for the rest of the summer. If you need anything in the Department let me know through the regular channels.
  • Orders (what little I know) are set, mostly it was a cut-n-paste job, but still, at least I didn't order a bunch of stuff we already have, I think, wait a sec let me check something....

07/18/02

  • The web server was down for a few days so that's why this may seem a bit odd, if it doesn't usually that is. The semester went out with a whimper which is just the way I like it. I have been trying to pull together ordering for the next semester, what a pain. I can't honestly believe that Kathy puts up with it every year.
  • Though I am done today for the summer I have left myself a little time to come in and submit the order and get the killed stuff out of the lab ( I honestly do not know as of this scribbling what our hazardous disposal setup is like, it just changed and higher minds are dealing with it). The upshot is that I will submit the Fall orders next Thursday the 25th, if there was anything special that you all needed for the coming year you should let me know by then.
  • Oh, hey I just noticed, the website is a month old today! YA!  
  • We just got word about our student work hours, we got 255 for the year. Yep the year. This represents a 50% cut in our student work hours for the two regular semesters not to mention the 160 we were allocated for this summer. I talked to John Pogue and was told that the state is no longer funding student work hours. The quick math is that it works out to be 6.75 hours per week for the three semesters, or ~8 hours/week for just the two main semesters. This is going to pinch, a lot, ouch.

07/15/02

  • Well, Mondays, you hate 'em I hate 'em. Luckily we have most of the autoclaving done for the semester (ya!). Sadly, we have no firm contract with our hazardous waste disposal company (boo!). So here I sit, King of all the BioHaz I survey. Not the best but certainly better than this lady's job. Wow, OK, I'll never complain about the autoclave again, ever.
  • I mailed out a work up of the lab use coming for the fall. Did you notice that 211 is in use for 10 hours straight on Monday? Yikes! As you can see the charts are posted to the web. heh heh.
  • EGADS! I almost forgot! the dishwasher came the other day (confetti falls). Today it got hard wired into the wall. No plumbing as of yet, but I am sure it is on the way. It's shiny. :)
  • Oh? that thing? that's an emoticon, to be exact. :) (smiley) :( (frowny) Some folks even give them noses :-) or :^) ok now you figure them out - 
  •   ;)      :/      :'(      :O    :P    , and by the way there will be a quiz later.

07/11/02

  • Ok, back to the future, er, present. I did some work creating new graphics for the web site. The process of doing that sort of thing is slooowww. So it is going to take a while but I hope to have a set of cool new buttons for us by Monday. One of the things that I am trying to avoid is the use of any art work that is not copyright free. I also am trying to get away from a 'standard' FrontPage look for our web. More on this later.

07/10/02

  • Egads! This blog is coming to you from tomorrow. (We have control of your TV, we control the Vertical, we control the Horizontal,...remember that show?) Anyway, I spoke with Mark P. today (yesterday) and it seems we will have new computers to roll out to support our new venier stuff, where in the world we are going to put them is another matter entirely. Did some updating of the web today and some general cleaning about the department.

07/09/02

  • Do you hear that? No? Well that is the sound of Microbiology labs wrapping up for the semester, and let me tell you no one is more thrilled than me. A busy day on the micro front today. I have posted a prep page for all of the labs for Micro now, they are all open to revision and addition, and I hope to get some (any?) feed back on them.
  • We still have fridge problems, of course we had no air conditioning yesterday morning either. the combination of the two allowed for partly cloudy conditions in the fridge with (real!) rain showers when the door was opened or anything on the inside touched.
  • Shelf numbering begins soon, if you haven't weighed in on what you would like to see now is the time!

07/08/02

  • Well it has been a busy but quiet day in the lab. The semester is winding down and the last Micro lab has been prepped. Me, I'm excited by the thought. Now that things are going to be a little more calm perhaps we can get back to working on the micro prep manual. I also have been working on new buttons for the site which you can see here, let me know what you think.

07/02/02

  • Been blogging? Well no, I've been working. Ever since we have gotten the green light to put up a web page I have been working to get a bare bones one up and running. Unfortunately this has brought the prep pages to a grinding halt. I hope to get back on track soon, as I would dearly love to get the new micro pages up for review before the fall semester hits.
  • On an up note the alpha test of the excel sheets for the slide trays is here. Thank you Jane for your hard work. This will eventually be a web based database that you can simply type in what you are looking for and viola - it is there.
  • In the same vein we hope to do the same thing with the drawer contents of all the rooms. I spoke with Mark P. and he stated that we can set up a secure web site at some point for you all to have access to that would house this sort of information.
  • Oh? Blogging? Blogging is a web based log. It is sort of a daily or regularly kept journal of some sorts. What you are looking at right now, is my blog.


06/26/02

  • Well, we have water draining out of one fridge and the other has frozen up on us, somewhere between the two is a working fridge I can just feel it. The semester is a little over half done now and we in the prep room can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. No new stuff today, well, except we are on the web!! Woot! Props to Mark P for setting this up!

06/25/02

  • OK, the lab blew up. Well at least the lab for today did. I spent many hours last night getting Wednesday's lab ready and next Tuesday's lab ready so that they were ready this week. After irritating everyone (apologies to Kay) I got the stuff ordered for what we need to do the lab for next week. Ug.

06/18/02

  • Several more pages have been added to the Micro prep. It also looks as if Jane might be able to start taking a whack at one of the prep books sometime soon.
  • On a related note we should have the brand new index for the slides up soon.
  • Also, to reach the height of education check out this virtual pig disection or this one or this one. Cool huh? I thought so too.

06/17/02

  • We have started to look at a numbering system for the drawers in a room. As I see it we have a couple of options
  • The first Page of the new prep manuals is done WOOT! see it here
  • and in fact there are more getting done every day. You can go to the general page for Micro to see them.