This is a text-only version of my Fall 2026 schedule for people who rely less on visual sight (a.k.a., "visually-impaired," but vision is more than just eyeball use, and I don't think people less reliant on eyeballs are any more impaired than anyone else).

Monday

8:00-9:00 - Getting up to speed - this is when I try to assess what needs to be done and try to prioritize the day's projects.  I know that many other problems will pop up throughout the day and totally throw off any plans that I had, but I like the old Eisenhower quote, "Plans are worthless, but planning is everything."  (A more pro-active and less hostile variation on the more popular "no plan survives contact with the enemy.")

9:00-10:00 Office hours - in Boehm 135

10:00-11:00 Economic Geology lecture - teaching people about where stuff comes from - in Boehm 126

11:00-12:00 Office hours - in Boehm 135

12:00-1:00 Geology of National Parks lecture - I'd like to think I'm teaching people about our amazing national parks, but I know that a lot of the students in the class are distracted, which is sad because they're missing an opportunity for a richer awareness of the natural world

1:00-3:00 Research with students preparing their presentations for a big international conference

3:00-4:00 Visiting a very dear friend (English professor Dr. Jennifer Forsyth) - it's important to make sure this kind of thing happens in our lives


Tuesday

8:00-9:00 Loafing around (but contemplatively!)

9:00-10:00 Office hours - in Boehm 135

10:00-11:00 Meeting prep - hiding so I can focus

11:00-12:00 Meetings - either Geology Club or department meeting or Undergraduate Research Committee meeting

12:00-1:00 What Edwin Starr said war was good for ("Absolutely nothin'!")

1:00-2:00 Lab preparation - Lab prep  (selecting microscope slides, getting other instrumentation ready for lab class in the afternoon)
 
2:00-5:00 Economic Geology lab in Boehm 126 - hands-on practice and exploration of the stuff people dozed through in lecture


Wednesday

8:00-9:00 - Whimsical petty crimes

9:00-10:00 Office hours - in Boehm 135

10:00-11:00 Economic Geology lecture - teaching people about where stuff comes from - in Boehm 126

11:00-12:00 Office hours - in Boehm 135

12:00-1:00 Geology of National Parks lecture

1:00-2:00 Preparing the scanning electron microscope for lab this afternoon

2:00-5:00 Scanning electron microscopy lab - teaching people how to operate instrumentation that reveals our world at the microscopic and nanoscopic scale


Thursday

8:00-9:00 Calculated acts of villany

9:00-11:00 Variable - probably not accessible

11:00-12:00 Meetings - either Geology Club or department meeting or Undergraduate Research Committee meeting

12:00-5:00 Open time working with students in the Scanning Electron Microscope Lab, or doing other research with students, depending on student need


Friday

8:00-9:00 Random acts of kindness

9:00-11:00 Research with students preparing presentations for a big international scientific conference

12:00-1:00 Geology of National Parks lecture
 
1:00-5:00 Open time for working with students in the Scanning Electron Microscope Lab, or doing glaze research with professor gwendolyn yoppolo or  or ... !!  <8-0





Here is a good quote for you to ponder:

    “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” – Anne Lamott


And here is a nice poem by Danusha Laméris titled "Small Kindnesses" for you:

Small Kindnesses

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead — you first,” “I like your hat.”