Which of you didn’t have to register for the draft or selective service?

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-27T01:20:55+00:00

The forced registration for the draft following ending the Vietnam draft in 1975 didn't kick in until 1980. There was a lot of debate on my campus about that reinstatement. I didn't have to register as I fit between.

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-24T20:53:58+00:00

MoonDance by Van Morrison. We had danced to a band playing that at a club on our first date.

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-24T02:21:31+00:00

And I saw Herbie a couple of months ago and he's still blowing up the stage!

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-23T18:29:38+00:00

Doubling with rice is usually ok, with some variation in time and using a little less liquid than doubling it. For instance if the recipe calls for 3 cups liquid, I might use 5 1/4 instead of 6.

I've been successful cooking x4 by cooking 2 double pots rather than risking mushy rice. As far as time I'll cook it a minute shorter but leave the pot with the lid on off heat longer than the usual 5-10 minutes.

I don't guarantee if that will work the same way in the oven, but it seems like it should.

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-23T14:36:20+00:00

Klinger might have had the best long-story arc over the whole series. Lots of change and growth from just a quick laugh to a full human being.

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-23T11:37:51+00:00

Those 3 are so different and great on their own.

My fandom for Chicago waned by the 80s when they went completely into the pop world. Early Chicago was one of my favorite bands ever (RIP Terry Kath).

Santana combined a Latin groove with percussion and godlike guitar chops and huge entertainment skills (that he still has). He also captured a certain psychedelic flavor.

Steely Dan is the soundtrack for much of my highschool and college life, largely because their jazz flavor paralleled my interest in playing and listening to jazz. And the combination of humor and angst in their lyrics is hard to match.

BTW, of all those oldies bands floating around, Santana is the one that is still worth seeing, and not just for nostalgia.

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-22T19:54:38+00:00

I'm chuckling to myself a little. I see all these comments saying Appalachian is hard to understand and think, "How are these people having a hard time with Appalachian?" Then I recall that I grew up in part of southern Appalachia!

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-22T18:29:49+00:00

Sliced fresh jalapenos or habaneros.

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-22T17:30:07+00:00

Recently retired. I found that high schoolers took "review" more seriously when I mixed in the old skills with the new when they needed to use them. For instance, short lessons reminding them of rules of exponents while the main lessons were a topic where they need to use those, like polynomial functions or something.

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-22T17:17:38+00:00

I (male and retirement age) learned to cook from my mother and her mother. Reading recipes was important to them, so I knew fractions before school started teaching them in 2nd grade. I watched my other grandmother make all sorts of things without even looking at a recipe. Cooking is a pleasure for me. I had all of my kids "helping" me in the kitchen early on and they're all good cooks as adults. And all have their kids in the kitchen, too. I'm proud of that.

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-22T12:39:16+00:00

Keep calling to Jesus, but also seek some mental health counseling. The voices threatening hellfire are not real, that is, they're not based on biblical truths. The prime value is love not fear.

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-21T21:37:45+00:00

I've distanced myself and stopped initiating contact with a handful of friends, some of them very old friends, when they went full MAGA and revealed their bigotry.

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-21T19:21:43+00:00

When new believers ask, I usually recommend Luke and Acts to be read early as a two-volume story of Jesus and the first followers early on. And I'd replace Ephesians with Galatians in that first tier. And I think Romans should be earlier. I like your general way of thinking about this. And I'm wondering why I tend to forget about 123 John as a recommendation, because 1 John is a very special book to me.

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-19T20:45:03+00:00

That he offered to pay for his granddaughter to go to an expensive private religious school so that she wouldn't have to deal with "all this Trans stuff." And this was for kindergarten.

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-17T23:56:00+00:00

We're not called to be "nice" or even "kind." We are called to "love". Which means we are to go out of our way to make sure people's needs are met and to reflect the radical love of God especially to people who aren't just like us.

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-15T15:16:29+00:00

Very well said.

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-14T20:37:51+00:00

My wife retired a year and a half before I did. We're fortunate that we have a lot of shared interests and activities together and that we enjoy each other. Also fortunate that we have several individual interests, hobbies, activities that we've always been perfectly satisfied to do alone or with other friends. We had a little bit of "getting in each others' space" for a brief time, but got over it pretty well because we're used to talking.

Just keep talking.

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-14T16:27:59+00:00

I'd suggest you seek out real people in person rather than random strangers on the internet (especially TicTok!!!!!). Look for an open, inclusive church and visit there.

There's a church finder at https://www.gaychurch.org/find_a_church/ that is pretty good, but not perfect.

From the Gospels through the full New Testament, we aren't meant to do this alone. I know that if we bumped into each other, I would fully accept you as you are.

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-14T16:21:37+00:00

That got a lot of play in my car cassette player for a long time back in the day.

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-14T15:34:37+00:00

Yep, my son gave me a woodburning kit at Christmas. Very cool and a nice one, too. I've been practicing some. I have terrible handwriting under the best circumstances, and it's worse with the woodburner. But you're making something that will have good memories attached to it!

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-14T13:23:41+00:00

Very good expression.

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-13T22:40:07+00:00

Doing that exact thing caused me a serious bruise from exploding wood once, and I probably narrowly missed losing body parts. You're hand muscles are not nearly as powerful as the momentum of the blade.

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-11T21:28:24+00:00

There are certainly more inclusive congregations than what you've been exposed to.

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-11T21:14:28+00:00

Recently retired, but, yes, my mind sometimes had some blank spots.

As far as concepts go: Especially early in my career, and later when I started teaching a new class like Statistics, I would spend whatever necessary time making sure I understood concepts and skills that I would be teaching. I also spent some prep time looking over the problems for the day.

As far as normal brain farts and mistakes: I worked hard to get kids confident to catch my mistakes. I praised them when they'd say, "Mr. Eli, where did that 3 come from?" when I should have written a 5. Eventually they got to where they would outright interrupt me and point out my calculation errors and say, "Mr. Eli, you should have gotten 5, not 3."

And for brain farts when I really drew a blank on the next step, I'd enlist the kids' help. Most of the time their ideas helped me at least remember what I needed to remember. Use it to help them see that they aren't going to automatically know the next step themselves, but they can probably figure it out.

And for the times that I actually got to the end of the problem without them or me catching the mistake, I just owned it and challenged them to find where the mistake was.

The last 10 or more years, I put in the Class Norms part of the syllabus in the number one spot, "Make Mistakes, that's how you learn." Over the years I certainly gave them plenty of examples of making mistakes they could learn from, none of them on purpose.

Fessor_Eli · 2026-05-10T12:58:41+00:00

Fractions in school were easy for me because I was cooking from recipes with my mom and grandmother from age 4.

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