So, I replaced a window screen for the bedroom window last Saturday. Here's a look at what I found underneath the screen when I removed it - an aged window (pics at the end).

It looks like the landlady's approach to dealing with the old windows in this house has been to go shopping for the cheapest possible replacement windows. The big window in my room is one such replacement. The downside to these replacement windows is they completely lack screens, as well as the means to add screens. So if I open them, they would let out my cat, and let in the mosquitoes and any pirates who happen to be wandering through the neighborhood in search of houses to plunder. I'm concerned that if I bring up the window situation with my landlady, she'll just go ahead and replace the remaining windows, and then the house will become even more of a suffocating box than it already is. Not ideal.

The most immediate problem with these windows is that most of the glazing has fallen off, so the panes of glass are on the verge of falling completely out. If someone were to conduct an energy audit on this house, I think they would probably laugh hysterically while watching air whoosh out of these windows, and out from around the back doors.

Anyway, I know a couple of you folks are more knowledgeable/experienced at thinking about and dealing with these kinds of things. Do you have any thoughts or ideas about what to do? Would it be worth my while (and a couple bucks) to remove all the paint, prime, re-glaze, and repaint these puppies? Or should I cut my losses and just use some caulk to hold the glass in place?

Bedroom window Some ancient, single-pane windows.	Weathered windows It's kind of hard to tell in this photo, but the upper window is a bit warped. The paint is flaking off in a grand fashion, and most of the window glazing has fallen completely off.
An idea of the wood's condition	Warped section, close-up
The second window in severe disrepair The pane must have cracked when the window AC unit was installed. The fix was to screw a piece of plexiglass over the inside of the window.

I read a fun post yesterday by a well-published children's book author, that dove into the details of the editorial process for getting books published. It was a pleasant read, as it sounds like the editors she's worked with have taken a kindly approach to story development/revision. It got me wondering about how the editorial process has evolved over the centuries that humans have been publishing books.

It's kind of funny to consider how most books are authored by one person, and yet the vast majority are greatly improved by feedback from one or many other people. In most cases, the author writes glowing tributes to the folks who have provided all of that feedback, and that's the extent of what those other people get. Editors working for publishers are fortunate to get recognition for their efforts in terms of financial compensation, and that's also why we value things from publishers differently from things that aren't vetted.

I'm pondering all of this just in terms of my own experiences with working with others to revise my academic writing. The major people I've worked with have left me with a strong sense of unease about my writing ability; I have doubts about my ability to create academic content of the appropriate caliber, at an appropriate speed, because often my experiences are that the people who are giving me feedback are most interested in pushing their own agendas. I'd rather hear something along the lines of, "This seems to begin abruptly; can you remind your readers about the broader context of what you're working on?" rather than "Add an intro sentence!", as an example. Then again, my expectations are based around my undergraduate training as a Writing Fellow, which emphasized the role of the Fellow as a sympathetic reader responding to students' writing (i.e. not an editor holding a red pen and pointing out mistakes).

The trouble with a lot of academics is that they get elevated to positions of authority in terms of teaching, writing, and mentoring, but without necessarily receiving direct training in those skills. Instead of employing the "best practices" that have been developed explicitly by those who study teaching, writing, and mentoring, many (most?) academics simply adopt the habits of those they have worked under previously. Also, being a good writer is not the same thing as teaching writing skills effectively, although the two can go hand-in-hand.

Anyway. I'm writing this by way of procrastinating on revising a manuscript because I'm annoyed by the style of feedback that I've been given, even though I can recognize that the feedback is correct. Also, it sounds like manuscript revisions are much, much more extensive than book revisions. Perhaps that's because most books just get rejected outright, so most revisions happen under different circumstances (prior to submission).

This is mostly just a "State of the State" post. I had hoped that, once I got through gum surgery, my finances would be at a point where I could follow through on some wishes and dreams and such - mostly, going up to Seattle in July to ride in the Seattle-to-Portland with my dad and friends. Alas, all told, I've had to spend around 1k on my mouth area over the past month or so. And that's *with* dental insurance. That, coupled with the need to be close to the lab to get experiments done, probably means I'll have to be No-Fun Rebecca for the summer.

Sigh.

I mean, it could be worse. I've got a roof over my head, food on the table, and am getting these darned student loans paid down. I just have to keep creating adventures here in Texas, I guess. In the grand scheme of things, one must live within one's means. I'll get in plenty of adventures with crew in the fall, anyway.

With scrottie's help, a decent amount of stuff got done around the house yesterday (despite the fact that I spent about half of the day lying down). We started out with a trips to the local hardware store and Ye Evil Giant Big-Box Store, in search of various items for various purposes.

One of the projects that I tackled involved some window screen replacement. My cat, like many cats, likes to sit in the window to watch birds. I've got two windows in my room, one of which is screened, the other of which lacks screen (a common theme throughout the house). I think the landlady has been replacing windows by buying cheapo replacements whenever the windows reach a point where they're basically rotting out of the frame. The only downside to the replacement windows (which tend to be large and let in a lot of light) is that they lack screens, so I can't leave them open, especially with an indoor cat, and especially during mosquito season. Anyway, with the recent warm weather, I've been keeping the screened window open. Trouble is, one night, while my cat was lying in the window looking outside, she must have spied something really riveting, because she popped through the bottom part of the screen in pursuit of it, whatever it was. Of course, the minute she got outside, she turned into the world's largest scaredy-cat, so I had to run outside and fetch her from where she was trying to jump back in through another screened-over window.

The screen replacement itself went smoothly; I popped out the old stuff, got the right size of spline, put on some fresh screen, and reinstalled the screen. I also put in a board along the base of the screen for Emma to rest against, so she won't pop the screen out again. The only bummer was discovering the full condition of the window underneath the screen; half of the window glazing has fallen off, so the windowpane is basically being held in place by cobwebs. I'll probably wind up doing a half-assed refurbishment job on the whole window because the paint is peeling horribly and I just don't know if the wood is worth saving - it has been exposed to the elements for quite a long while, by the looks of things. On the other hand, I really don't want the landlady to replace this window with yet another window lacking in screening, because then I won't have any good way of getting fresh air in my bedroom. There's another window in the dining room that's in equally bad shape. It's just sad to see an old house where all of the original materials are wearing out due to poor care, and where they're being replaced by crappy plastic components (see: the shower, the carpet, the gutters...). Fixing up an old window could be a relatively cheap project, so long as it doesn't eat up too much of my time.

While I worked on the screen, S worked on steam-cleaning as much of the carpets as he could. We don't know what is causing it, but he's still reacting to something that's in the house. Even though our efforts may be futile, we still have to try and clean as much of the house as we can, to eliminate any possible remaining sources of organophosphate pesticide residue. Not fun work, but on the other hand, all of the carpets are shiny-clean now, and in cleaning the kitchen we've found all sorts of interesting objects (apparently someone lost a remote control underneath the stove at some point). Cross your fingers that these measures work; it would be really nice if S could stay in the house and not have to worry about managing his exposure levels. Part of me is really tempted to just take out all of the carpeting and put in better flooring, but that's an even larger project to tackle.

I also got a washer and dryer up and (mostly) running yesterday. You cannot underestimate how happy I am to have a washing machine in the house again. A graduate student put this washer and dryer up for sale and I managed to leap on the bargain in time. There were some interesting initial moments where I had to figure out how to balance the washer, but now, ahh. Having to plan out trips over to the laundromat has been part of the stupid cognitive overload for me.

Well, gum surgery happened this morning. Once again, the periodontist was phenomenal and the procedure itself went more smoothly than the fillings I had about a month ago. I only felt like I was going to choke once.

All was well until the anesthetic wore off. They gave me prescriptions for a huge pile of antibiotic pills ("take until they're all gone") and some painkillers. Whee. I'm not going to be doing very much for the next couple of days, I suspect. I'm glad the anticipation is over, and I will also say that I hope I never, ever have to go through this again.

Tomorrow and Thursday are going to be busy days, so as I made plans for the week I realized that tonight was pretty much my only night to cook anything. On top of that, I'm borrowing a dehydrator from J and K, and so I feel compelled to maximize my use of it (need any dehydrated grass? How about dehydrated leather? Ummmm, maybe I went overboard?).

Also, it turns out that Texas does berries! Blackberries, in fact. Unlike Seattle, where they ripen in August, they ripen in May around these here parts. So of course I picked some up. Hopefully at some point I'll find some places to pick my own. On top of that, it turns out that Texas peaches aren't always disgusting; the ones that are ripe at the moment taste about as good as the tasty Arizona peaches that ripen up right about now. In some respects, it was good that the Farm Patch ran out of the local peaches. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to stop myself.

Anyway, tonight's cooking extravaganza included:

-Rice and bean stew (hey, a girl has gotta eat)
-Blackberry jamsauce (somewhere between a jam and a sauce)
-Banana Cake II got some bananas and whipped cream on top
-Loaded up another trayload or four of bananas in the dehydrator (I probably bought around 5 pounds of overripe bananas today)
-Started some Banana-Brown Sugar Ice Cream for Friday

And, well, that was it, I guess?

Tonight, scrottie and V should roll in, sometime within the next hour. Tomorrow morning, I'm hoping to transport the refurbished sculling oars back out to the lake. Tomorrow evening, I've arranged to buy and pick up a washer and dryer (on the cheap, hurrah!). Thursday morning, I go in for gum surgery, and after that I don't have much planned.

Oh, I've also got two manuscripts to work on in the meantime. Gotta keep busy, right?

Saturday was the final regatta of the spring season, the Space City Sprints down on "Clear Lake" near Houston. Overall, it was a good send-off regatta; the team got in some solid racing and had a good time. Once the thunderstorms cleared up. Just as we wrapped up dinner on Friday night, the clouds opened up and the lightning show began. We took a look at radar images of the storm system, but there wasn't much we could do other than try to get a good night's sleep and see how things looked in the morning. The storm hung overhead all night long, and was still going when I got up at 5:45. Our host, GW, had headed over to the race course at 5:30, and relayed back that we'd be delayed by at least an hour, so we took our time over breakfast. By the time we reached the race course, things started to look like they were clearing up, so we hung out for another hour and then got underway after a two-hour delay. In the grand scheme of things, it all worked out fine; we just wound up having lunch at 3 pm instead of at noon.

It was interesting to see how things played out over the course of the regatta, from a coaching standpoint. I put myself in a boat (rowing) with the team one last time, but I think that in the fall I'll keep my own racing separate from the team's racing. It's time to make sure there are enough coxswains as well; I came home with some annoying bruises from squeezing into seats that aren't built for someone my size. There are enough rowers to fill seats, and it's simpler to keep things from turning into conflicts of interest that way. Plus, I'd like to scull instead.

I'm generally satisfied with how I arranged boatings; the Men's A 4+ got the record race time for the day (3:17), which means that not only did they win their event, but they were able to move the boat quickly and effectively. The Women's A 4+ (which I stroked) won its event, but the boat felt heavier than it felt during the previous two regattas, so in addition to switching me out there will be some other changes to that line-up. Hopefully the women will coordinate their schedules better in the fall so they can practice together more frequently. The Women's B 4+ also had a good race, from the sounds of things; that boat contained a mixture of novice and experienced rowers who were all just about the same size (smaller than me), so my hope is that the race gave them a chance to feel some nice swing.

Oh, and the Mixed A 4+ had a good time as well; I put a promising novice rower in the boat so she could have a chance to see what the big leagues are like, and she did well and had a good time.

The more interesting drama tends to happen in the middle and back of the pack, really. A rower in the Men's B 4+ fell off his seat and had to row arms+back down the course, and then caught a crab when we were only 10m from the finish line (I was coxing; stern pair brought the boat across the finish, managing to keep the boat barely ahead of third place). There are a couple of other rowers in that boat who are almost at a point where they're challenging the A boat, which could translate into a fast 8+ in the fall. They were faster in this race than at the previous regatta, but haven't quite caught the A boat yet. I'm going to keep playing those two sets of guys against each other in an effort to make all of them faster. In a heat, a rower in the Mixed B 4+ caught a crab that sent her oar into her jaw, but that boat managed to hold on to enough of a lead to qualify for finals. From the look and sounds of things, that boat got some redemption in the finals and earned a solid second place finish. I'm grateful that that rower had a chance to recover from the situation, as she was pretty upset right after the race (but held it together as best as she could).

There were three main challenges for me, as a coach. First, one rower with a bit of an entitlement complex; I needed one last rower to fill a seat in the Men's C 4+, and that person flat-out refused to race in the boat. Not good for team morale. So now I have to decide how to respond to that kind of behavior in a manner that is fair to the team but that still recognizes that that rower does work hard. I feel that it's important to emphasize the point that my decisions as coach are driven by the desire to be fair to the whole team. I've tried to make it clear that boatings will generally be based on effort, participation, and attitude, but I'm working with incomplete information at the moment because I've only been head coach for three weeks and I don't know everyone all that well. I'm tempted to let this particular situation slide, but I am concerned that it will come back to haunt me in the fall. Time to repeat the message that the best rower can get into *any* boat and row well.

Next, I made a couple of decisions on boatings that could have been better; I put a rower who is still too green in a B boat, and put a rower who deserved better in the corresponding C boat. Part of me wishes I could give those two individuals some feedback about how things worked out, but I think the rower in the C boat has a good sense of her/his merit and will stick with it. I also think the rower in the B boat is tenacious enough to make some good changes and keep the pressure on for the fall.

The last thing: I've got one rower who is really bringing others down, and who is socially isolated from his/her teammates. This is a rower where I'm not sure how coachable this person will be over the course of the next year. I've had students like this in the past, too - the misfits, I suppose. I'm going to have to crack down on the rower's teammates to make sure that everyone tries to remain open and accommodating, and then I'll have to balance that out with making sure that no one feels like they've gotten inappropriately stuck with the misfits.

Ahh, yes. The joys of coaching. At least things will be relatively quiet for a few months, so I'll have time to roll up my sleeves and prepare for the fall.

I keep on going back to thinking about that terrible case of JV-itis that I felt in association with the Paris-Brest-Paris. I don't know if I've recovered from it yet, mostly because I've only had a limited number of opportunities to randonneusse since then, and the subsequent opportunities have been mixed experiences. On the one hand, riding down to Houston and doing the Populaire with the Houston Randonneurs and then riding back up to B/CS was a tremendously good time. I feel like I've gotten in a lot of solid centuries around here. Same goes for the permanents I rode last fall out of College Station. All of those rides happened on the Jolly Roger, where my expectation isn't so much for speed as it is for just finishing the ride, being comfortable, enjoying the scenery, eating what good food I can eat, and going "Wheeeeeee!" on the downhills. On the other hand, I felt pretty terrible after the Fleche, mostly due to not being able to breathe, partly due to feeling a lot of push-pull over whether to stop, when to stop, where to stop, how long to stop, when to keep going, how fast to go, when to eat. I wish I knew how to hit stride more effectively with other riders. At the same time, I know it's possible to do so because I have in a lot of the positive situations.

Altogether, I really haven't had a chance to test out anything close to the Paris-Breast-Paris yet. It will take another 600k at least, to know if I can wrap up a long distance and feel tired but elated. I'm on the verge of getting a new bike for long-distance riding, but there's still a question mark in my mind over how I am going to feel when riding it on future long-distance adventures. Really, I won't know unless I try. The hard part is, when will I get to try? The type of work that I am doing here in B/CS, plus rowing obligations, are going to make it difficult to commit to full weekends of traveling plus riding anytime in the near future. Plus, it's getting warm around here.

I had a dream that I somehow lost the Jolly Roger and it made me greatly upset.

I don't know if I just overdid it on running-around activities while sick, but I could not get myself out of bed this morning. I hate days like this. I've still got some residual snot in my sinuses and a lingering cough. So attractive. Today just feels so totally useless. I just hope that this will give me motivation to get up and at 'em once I'm actually feeling better.

Get a Grip These were the old grips. The oar on the left is actually missing an end cap, so I'll have to wait until the replacement arrives before I install the new grip.	Worn-out plastic The white pieces are the sleeves, and it's kind of a miracle they're still attached to the oars. I replaced those today, and will replace the collars (black pieces) once I get in a new set.
Worn-out paint job I'm hoping the sculling oars can get repainted when the sweep oars get repainted this summer. Fiberglass is visible on the closer oar, and overall a fresh coating of paint would really help to protect the edges.	One new grip - it's a start!
Removed old sleeves Time has taken a toll on these.	Fresh glue I could use some more practice with the caulk gun.
Freshly installed sleeves	Lawnmower-sharpening Just turn the crank a couple thousand times!
Sharpening compound Look, it's made for lawnmowers - there's a lawnmower on the sticker! The compound was sparkly blue, full of grit to sharpen the mower blades.	Pepper plants return The pepper plants out in front have regrown, so I may actually get some peppers out of them before things freeze over next fall. One of the tomato plants is making a comeback, but I think it will be too late for the summer.
Rescue tomato plants These two plants were seriously overgrown when I picked them up from the store. Hopefully they've managed to establish enough roots here to produce a few tomatoes before it gets too hot for tomato pollen (90 degrees).	Patio garden Dill and basil sprouts are coming in nicely, but the cilantro is lagging. There are some seedlings in the background, along with the new Texas introductions. And what's that way back to the left of the satsuma tree? Yep, regrown tomatoes.
Looks like there might be a few tomatoes yet	Other potted plants are pretty content The eggplant is flowering and fruiting again. I suspect that the ant colony living in the blackberry pot is going to claim the blackberries for itself. Also, apparently May is blackberry season around here. Time to go hunting for some good patches of wild blackberries...