This week we tried a new Dry cleaners here in town. I had a coupon and decided to give them a try- Middleton Cleaners. They did a nice job, but it has been about a year since the last time I had any clothes dry cleaned and the price has definitely gone up since then. I am definitely looking at the tags of any new outfits to make sure they are washing machine safe from now on.
Unfortunately I couldn't play games at this week, since I was preparing for my Wednesday observation. Mark, Kathleen and Matt Lavine played Through the Desert, Turn the Tide, For Sale, and Arbos. From the sounds I could hear working in the back room, it sounded like everyone was having a wonderful time.
Fortunately my observation Wednesday went well. Preparing for the lecture took much longer than usual since I didn't like the format of the notes. Usually the prepared notes just need some additional examples and minor tweaks for lecture, but for the measurement system, metric and English systems were tossed in together. Well I decided to separate them, and Mark had a good idea to add some history of measurement mistakes (such as the 1999 Mars satellite). I also made good use of wikipedia to find the background of the more archaic Furlong, rod, etc. It was nice to find out the reasons behind using some of the tools that I take for granted everyday.
I was also fortunate to get my first tutee for the semester in Algebra. Meeting at the Memorial Library was perfect and it was really exciting to work through more challenging material than I am currently teaching. I could almost feel my brain cogs working to remember the problems I worked back in middle school. With the money I earned, I purchased the instructor's edition of the text used here at UW-Madison so I will be ready for my next tutee appointment.
Mark and I are still hooked on Lost, Invasion and Alias (thank goodness it is getting better). After sampling the Papa Johns new perfect pan leftovers from Mark and Brett’s Monday night meeting, we picked one up for ourselves as a Friday treat. While it was getting ready we headed out to Netherworld (the second game store in Madison) and were impressed with the selection of such a small store. While we enjoyed our delicious pizza (why does it taste so much better than the regular?) we watched Threshold and were impressed with the decent plot line- it wasn't too hard to pick up the facts even though this was our first show.
This week we also enjoyed our first NetFlix via mail. Our first treat was 4400, a cable tv show that our local video store doesn't stock. It was really captivating and we can't wait to get the next one. We also watched Magnetic Storm, a fun Nova pick. We can't wait to get the next movie in our queue!
To round out the week we headed out to the Arboretum to take some pictures of the changing fall colors. It still amazes me how biology can create such wonderful changes. Mark found a great site that discussed how some trees will have red leaves on the outside layer of leaves to protect the chlorophyll from the sun- in the Arboretum we saw several cases, mainly in Ash and Maples, where the side hit by the sun had a red layer of leaves protecting the yellow leaves underneath- Amazing!
