My stepfather passed away over the weekend so I probably won’t be blogging (or corresponding) much over the next few days while I travel to Memphis to be with my family for the various memorial services.

I really appreciate the condolences I’ve received from those I’ve heard from so far.

Update: The obituary is online at the funeral home’s website.

I had a few beers this evening at Buffalo Wild Wings with Frequent Commenter Alfie and Frequent Facebook Correspondent Annie while watching the Ole Miss-Vanderbilt baseball game and various other sporting events, including part of a UFC contest. The onion rings were very good, as was the company, and even the beer wasn’t that badly priced.

I’m very happy to announce to all of my readers that I’ve accepted a tenure-track position as an assistant professor of political science in the Department of Social Sciences at Texas A&M International University in Laredo, Texas beginning in the fall. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to teach and conduct research at one of America’s newest universities in a dynamic, rapidly-changing community.

Perhaps most happily, I won’t be getting there until well after all the politicians leave town!

The “Chris Lawrence needs a job” campaign will be making an important announcement regarding the future of the campaign sometime Monday, likely in the early afternoon, here at Signifying Nothing.

I’m Chris Lawrence and I approve this message.

Just in case it isn’t clear, this package is supposed to be coming to my house. Which, when I checked this morning, was not in Mississippi.

February 15, 2008       04:35:00 AM     JACKSON MS US   Departure Scan
February 15, 2008       01:09:00 AM     JACKSON MS US   Arrival Scan
February 14, 2008       09:53:00 PM     NEW ORLEANS LA US       Departure Scan
February 14, 2008       07:59:00 PM     NEW ORLEANS LA US       Departure Scan
February 14, 2008       06:48:00 PM     NEW ORLEANS LA US       Arrival Scan
February 14, 2008       10:14:00 AM     MESQUITE TX US  Departure Scan
February 14, 2008       08:23:00 AM     MESQUITE TX US  Arrival Scan
February 14, 2008       03:41:00 AM     OKLAHOMA CITY OK US     Departure Scan
February 14, 2008       12:27:00 AM     OKLAHOMA CITY OK US     Arrival Scan
February 13, 2008       08:55:00 PM     TULSA OK US     Departure Scan
February 13, 2008       08:38:00 PM     TULSA OK US     Shipment picked up from seller's facility

I guess I won’t be reading The Last Colony on my trip to [interview location redacted] after all.

I managed to get through all of The Ghost Brigades while working the polls Saturday; we averaged a measly 7.4 voters per hour, mostly Democrats enthralled with Obamamania.

In other news, I have a job interview next week; it’ll make for a very busy week, since I have to go to San Jose for TLC just after getting back from the interview, but I’m looking forward to it and the people there seem very excited to have me come visit.

Last, but not least, this isn’t the news you want to read the first day you use the streetcar (and a ¾-mile walk) to get to work.

I finally had it with the messed up factory tape deck in the car and ordered the Sony MEX-BT2500 to replace it. In the end, for the money I decided that the built-in Bluetooth connectivity would be more useful than competing units with either HD Radio (which is going nowhere fast and only seems to be available built into a half-dozen head units) or iPod control (which is apparently clunky on most units, and which probably isn’t any safer to use while driving than just fiddling with the click-wheel), and there wasn’t any point to migrating to an integrated XM or Sirius receiver from my still-serviceable SkyFi2. I may, however, pick up one of these dealios to get my iPod to integrate wirelessly with the Bluetooth stuff in the receiver. Allegedly even a technical incompetent like me can install it myself; I guess if I can build PCs from components putting a radio in a car shouldn’t be too hard.

Now watch my car completely self-destruct the day after I install it.

I realize this is a little late for readers on the East Coast, but Merry Christmas nonetheless!

This morning I lost a conflict with the sidewalk on St. Charles Avenue. Thankfully all that was damaged besides my right palm and left knee was my ego (which was probably due for some deflation anyway).

In a recent phone interview, I pretended to be interested in golf and fishing just to be able to act like I cared about recreational opportunities. Next time I think I’ll ask about jogging trails and bungee-jumping. And wind-boarding. Or base-boarding. Or free-basing.

I’m pretty sure none of those are real outdoor activities, but somehow I think people believing I have a serious coke habit would make me a more interesting job candidate than the truth, which is that I’m just plain boring. The most exciting things I’ve done in the past month outside of work, in rough descending order of excitement:

• I spent about 14 hours in my car to visit Memphis and see Ole Miss lose to Florida one weekend.
• I visited a friend who’s just starting out in a job in Baton Rouge.
• I watched a lot of TV.
• I sent out a paper for review.
• I got my laptop back from CompUSA in Metarie.
• I did laundry a few times.

Why I can’t just be a normal person and admit my non-work interests mostly revolve around watching Pardon The Interruption and The Office and being generally socially awkward are beyond me.

Saturday marked the long overdue wedding of my good friends Alfie and Annie in a lovely ceremony at The Chimes in midtown Memphis, followed by a very nice catered reception next door, where I got to bust out my stunning old-school dance moves to classic tracks like “Baby Got Back” along with some vague efforts on my behalf at ballroom dancing, and a post-reception gathering at Celtic Crossing. Congratulations to the happy couple, pictured below in much less formal attire:

Pretty much the most enjoyable thing I’ve done thus far on my birthday is spend 90 minutes reviewing for my methods exam with about a half-dozen students.

The least enjoyable thing was walking back and forth to East Campus when I realized about 30 minutes ago that I’d left the canvas bag with said exams in it on the damn C-1 bus.

Fighting with PeopleSoft to get my grades entered for the other class, watching a couple of DS9 reruns on TiVo, and breakfast at Elmo’s Diner appear somewhere in the middle of that hierarchy.

As I alluded to in the comments of the previous post, the offer I was hoping would materialize in Frozen Tundra country seems unlikely to do so. Them’s the breaks; I guess that gives me an extra incentive to sell myself well on the phone interview with a relatively small private university on the west coast I have scheduled for Tuesday at noon. And it gives me the opportunity to do the complete revamp of my application materials—most notably, my thoroughly unsatisfactory statement of teaching philosophy—I’ve been thinking about for the last two weeks.

You can go home again; it just won’t feel much like home.

On the other hand, it was nice seeing a lot of folks again, and you can’t ask for better dinner companions than Kamilla and Andy (Sunday) and Kelly (Monday).

This time next week, I’ll be off for an interview at a secure, undisclosed metropolitan state-supported university in the former Northwest Territory (of Northwest Ordinance and Northwestern University fame). I am also cautiously optimistic about the prospects of an interview in the same general region (a bit norther, up in badger country, one might say) at a selective liberal arts college with a strangely familiar name, but such things have yet to be confirmed. Both, as it turns out, saw me first at the meat market. Score one for speed dating.

A job by Thanksgiving would be nice. Two competing job offers at Thanksgiving might even be nicer. A third (from left field, perhaps, or a blast from the past)—be still my heart!

After 8 days of the cold and an intermittently-painful earache that started yesterday, I cancelled my morning class and went to visit the doctor—long story short, she believes I have an ear infection, so I’m now on a nuclear-powered decongestant (complete with heavy machinery warning) and antibiotics for the next ten days.

I still have the rather nasty cold, but I think it’s finally getting better. I think spending most of today in bed helped.

Lucky me: I have apparently caught a cold. At least I only have to lecture in one of my two classes tomorrow—the other class gets to take a midterm. Lucky them.

My soon-to-be-ex-colleague Suzanne and I went to see Wedding Crashers on Saturday afternoon and laughed our butts off, followed by an early dinner at Amerigo, where I think Suzanne was disappointed by her meal and, while I enjoyed the lasagna, I tend to think that Old Venice and Bravo! are better choices for Italian in Jackson.

I just uploaded a bunch of photos from my hooding ceremony last year and a family picnic to Flickr; most of the pictures were taken by my dad on his 35mm film camera. Hope you enjoy them…

Ugh.

I just got back from the dentist’s office after receiving the first of two fillings I’m due for. Except for the fact I can’t talk, and probably shouldn’t eat or drink for a while (not that the dentist told me anything), I think I’m fine.

Incidentally, there’s more personal crap at the other place, wherein I talk about helping Kelly move her stuff into storage last week. It’s probably rambling and overly detailed, and a healthy chunk of the more amusing stuff is omitted anyway, but the post is there nonetheless.

Somehow I managed to lose eight pounds since the last time I visited the HAC (which I’ve narrowed down to “sometime after the time change”), and I don’t have the faintest clue how I did it—indeed, all I’ve done lately is misbehave on the diet and exercise front. I guess that’s good.

Today, Kelly promised me that she would avenge my death, should it be from unnatural causes. I feel strangely comforted by this promise, although I am at a complete loss to explain why.

Well, if you happen to live around Starkville and want some good music, try the University Union, 3rd floor, Small auditorium at 7:30pm. I have it on good authority that these guys are great. I know with our MILLIONS of readers and such short notice, the turnout will be overwhelming.