E-mail etiquette

Several days ago I received an email at my school address from a Gmail address I didn't recognize, attached to a name I didn't recognize. The subject line read "calculator", and the message consisted of the single sentence, "What kind of calculator do I need?". I checked, and this name did not appear on any of my class rosters.

Here is my response to the email.

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Dear ---------,

I would like to answer your question, but I'm afraid your message is very mysterious. The following information would be helpful.

1. Who are you? Are you a student at Lenoir-Rhyne?
2. Are you taking a class with me this coming semester? If so, which class?
3. Are you asking about what calculator you need for a particular class, for a particular exam, for a particular secret mission, for a certain profession, etc.?

(Also, for extra credit, your message could have begun with "Dear Professor," or "Hello, Professor".)

If you can provide a little more context, I will be happy to help.

Have a nice night,

TG

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I have not heard back from this person.

On the plus side, at least the single sentence was capitalized and punctuated correctly!

Halloween 2011

Since Halloween was on a Monday, I dressed up for my classes. Here are some pictures my students took. (Click on them for the original size.)

Volume 4

I now have a title for the fourth volume of my future autobiography.

The Tim Goldberg Story, Volume 4: Chasing the Burrito

This evening I planned to join some friends for dinner, probably burritos or something similar. It was a little late at night, so the first place we went was just about closed, and the second place we went apparently closed up shop about 6 months ago. Fortunately, we struck gold, as well as burrito goodness, with the third place. We decided to call tonight's adventure "Chasing the Burrito".

In other news, Richard Dawkins is my new hero.

I have a problem.

They say that's the first step, right? Admitting that you have a problem? Well, my problem has to do with desktop wallpapers for my computer. I change my wallpaper constantly (figuratively speaking), and spend lots of time online searching for new images that might make suitable wallpapers. At one point I thought I had solved my problem by having my wallpaper automatically rotate through a folder of different pictures, but now I spend hours sorting and resorting pictures into different folders, instead of just picking individual images. I can't help but feel that all of this is a great waste of my time, (although an argument can be made that I get a certain sense of relaxation from the sorting process, looking at images I've collected).

Just to be clear, these images are almost entirely natural landscapes or inspired by comic books and super-heroes. I'm not talking about pornography here.

There have been periods where this compulsion has abated, where I've stuck with a single wallpaper, or even a specific slideshow of wallpapers, for as long a couple of weeks. But this never lasts too long.

I've thought about using only a wallpaper-of-the-day, such as those offered online by National Geographic, but I just don't like most of those pictures.

I've also thought about trying to bribe a friend to pick wallpapers for me, but I haven't stooped that far yet.


I think the main reasons of my wallpaper-changing compulsion are the following.
(1) I want a pleasing image on my desktop, both aesthetically and psychologically.
(2) I feel that my choice of wallpaper should reflect my interests and personality, and be a good advertisement of them.
(3) I like to procrastinate doing the actual work I should be doing.

Both (1) and (2) lead to wallpaper-changing because of my indecision and changing views regarding what pleases me and what impression I want to give about myself.

What's funny about all of this is that when I'm actually working on my computer, I don't really see much of the wallpaper anyway!

As I write this, my desktop wallpaper is a large version of this picture, from X-Men: First Class.

Excellent, excellent.

Your results:
You are Superman

Superman 85% Spider-Man 75% Robin 65% Green Lantern 60% Batman 50% Supergirl 50% The Flash 50% Iron Man 50% Wonder Woman 45% Hulk 40% Catwoman 30%

You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

Someday

I now have titles for the first three volumes of the autobiography I am going to write someday.

One Burrito Too Many: The Tim Goldberg Story

The Tim Goldberg Story, Volume 2: The Cheese Stands Alone

The Tim Goldberg Story, Volume 3: It's Only Paranoia If You're Wrong

Title? I don't need no stinkin' title!

More tattoo-related news. Yesterday evening I went to get my hair cut. I noticed that one of the stylists had a tattoo on her leg of a pair of scissors. I complimented it, and told her about my recent experience with a bus-tattoo-sporting bus driver. The stylist told me that her friend who works at a pizza place said he was going to get a tattoo of a pizza slice on his leg, but was actually just making fun of her. This all made me think that maybe I should think about getting a math tattoo. (As a side note, it turns out that if you do a Google search for "math tattoo", you get some very interesting pictures.) There was once a period of several days where I was seriously considering getting a small tattoo on my arm of the Green Lantern symbol, but my sister eventually convinced me not to do it. I had forgotten, you see, that I don't like getting jabbed with needles.

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This morning I went with some friends to get some coffee to fuel our "work". We went to the Manndible Cafe on campus. I ordered a "Dragonfly", which is a peppermint-mocha-type coffee drink. This is why the image at the top of this entry came from. My friend ordered a "Wooly Bear", which I believe is something with mocha and orange in it. It occurred to me that "Wooly Bear" might make a great nickname for this friend of mine, although she might disagree. I'll have to try it out and see what happens. If I never write another entry, I guess you'll know.

On the other hand, I think I could be quite happy with the nickname "Dragonfly". (Did you know that, according to Wikipedia, despite the fact that they have six legs, dragonflies are incapable of walking?) I don't think I've ever had a really great nickname, except of course "Tim" instead of "Timothy". (Not that I mind my full name. People just seem to gravitate towards the shorter version. For a period of time I preferred the full version, but now I am quite happy with "Tim". I think it has connotations of both dependability and fun.)

I do have a friend who still sometimes calls me "Kiki", (or "Kiks", or "Kikster"), after a particular anime film, whose title happens to sound not just a little bit like that of a porno flick. A couple of girls in high school very occasionally called me "Teggy", after my full initials. A different girl in high school called me "Tim-who-mothed-he", or something like that, based on an elongated and distorted pronunciation of "Timothy". Finally, when they were little little little, both my brother and sister used to call me just "T". I think my grandmother did, too, come to think of it.