John Colton's blog

I just discovered this site, where you can have your picture analyzed to tell you which celebrities you look like.
http://www.myheritage.com
(Note--you do have to officially register for the site, but it's free.)

Here are my results. You be the judge:

The picture I submitted:



My top match was Jake Gyllenhaal 71%.

Great... one of the Brokeback Mountain actors. I guess he does look a bit like me, though.


There were only three names I recognized from my extended list:

Tony Bennett 64%


Vin Diesel 54%


Peter O’Toole 51%



I guess to me, I look about halfway between Gyllenhaal and Vin Diesel. (Cue jokes now.) I don't look much like Bennett or O'Toole, I don't think.

I just ran across this... it's from a Jazzfanz message board poster who goes by "Pearl". He posted this in a fast-food related thread last year.

Finally a thread which I no doubt have more experience with than the rest of you combined.

I am the Al Michaels of fast food:

Background:

I am old enough to remember when fast food was an event, much like the MLB Game of the Week and Lindsay Nelson's Notre Dame football highlights. When dad gave the word to load up into the Plymouth Duster for the 20 mile trip to the only KFC within 40 miles it was like getting a tee time at Augusta National.

With that in mind, much of my list is based as much on historical life significance rather than legitimate dining parameters.

5: McDonald's

The double quarter pounder w/ cheese. Pure, shameful joy. Nothing stands out alone but the combination is overwhelming. The real joy is that you know you shouldn't be engaging in the behavior but you can't stop yourself...willful self-destruction. Reminds me of the feeling you get when your wife introduces you to her new friend and she is hot as hell. The mind wanders, you put up a struggle, but you succumb.

If you hit the drive-thru and score the fries right off the line it is like winning POWERBALL.

Best fountain Coke of all the chains.

NBA Comparision: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, some love him, some hate him, everybody respects him.


4. Carrol's restaurant

Precurser to McDonald's in western New York. Not sure if it was a chain or what. I just remember that it was a burger joint with no eat-in facilities. 22 miles and an orange Ford Pinto ride away. Don't remember the food, only the Vanilla shakes. 100% humidity in July, sitting in the back of the Pinto with black interior and a vanilla shake. I'd slice my right arm off to be 9yrs old again and for that Vanilla shake.

No AC back in those days my friends.

NBA Comparison: Wilt Chamberlain, you don't really know how good he was, you just know that he was.



3. KFC

Also 20 miles away. the early restaurant only had a few eat in spots. KFC was one notch up from everybody else in the early days. My dad took this trip seriously, KFC was a little bit more expensive so it was rare...2-3 times a year. I truly believe that if my dad saw God in the road he would have ran him over on the KFC run.

Special procedures were instituted, like scrambling F-15's to intercept Russian Bombers. Mom brought the paper towels and a jug of water. Simple execution. Quick stop, no frills, One big bucket of chicken........only...........eaten in the car.........on the 20 mile ride back home. Not a word was said, only a hand in the air to signify that you required the water jug. Some families take trips, play golf, pray to their god, but I defy anybody's family to come up with a better family moment than that trip. Total ingress/egress..approx. 60mins.

NBA Comparison: Larry Bird It didn't look like much, but the genius was in the simplicity.


2. Arby's

Simple Roast Beef sandwhich....no sauce, no cheese, straight. up Like listening to records vs. CD's and you audioiphile's know what I am talking about. My mom's personal favorite.

Arby's required the special of special trips. The only Arby's was in the mall in Rochester NY. When you are 11, a trip to Rochester felt like flying in the Concorde to Paris. You knew it was Arby's for lunch followed by 5 hrs. of school clothes shopping.

Footnote: The mall had a play center in the middle, back then, everybody dropped their kids and shopped and picked em up hours later.....times have changed.

Unlike our usual "in car" procedures, Arby's was savored in the food court. Total joy for Pearl's mom. She still made this run once a year until she departed for the Big Arby's in the sky.


NBA Comparison: Michael Jordan, you knew you were witnessing something special


1. Disalvo's Pizzaria...Warsaw NY

14 mile round trip

Procedures:
Order by phone, pick-up and bring home.

Approximate frequency:
15/year.

The drive home was crucial. Dad had it timed perfectly as to arrive for pickup as they brought it out of the oven. The ride home provided the necessary cooling time for the grease to settle in.

We used to ride bikes about twice a summer down the back road to get a slice and a can of Mt. Dew. The pure joy of youth. I am more than willing to admit that when I walk into Disalvo's on my trips back I have to hold back the tears. It is the time capsule of my youth. Reason being is that this the John Stockton of food joints. Consistent for 30+yrs. Tastes the same as the summer of 1975. Complete throwback. Nothing has changed. The building, the sign outside, the menu signs inside and the table and chairs are the same when I was 12.....30yrs........


Mrs. Pearl about puked the first time she stepped foot in there. She turned and left and waited in the car and refused to eat the pizza. I finally coaxed her to eat a slice, she was speechless. I told her I did not mind if she never ate the pizza but she was never to say anything bad about Disalvo's....or I would punch her.

She believes me.

The pizza on first glance is unremarkable. Thinner than ave. crust, normal cheese. The genius is in the sauce, secret recipe that the employee's don't even know. The owner brings it from home everyday. That combined with pizza ovens honed for decades and the best pepperoni ever bring you literally to your knees. Like seeing Stockton play for the first time.....yeah right......him.....48mins later you are wondering who the hell he is and where he came from.

This is the single greatest thing I share with my Dad. We see eye to eye. Before my trips home he boycotts the place for 6-8 weeks in preperation for a week long marathon......one of the greatest ways to show your love for your son. We order on the way from the airport, no family members allowed on the first one, just us two. Like fishing that special spot, dad giving you a sip of beer when you were 10, or Dad overruling your mom and letting you watch Monday Night Football past Howard Cosell's half-time highlights.

One large cheese and peperoni ordered 15 mins out from arrival. (Yes, I do schedule flights around the time that the joint is open)

My brother and his family know that we are not to be disturbed.

The pie is brought to the house, a bottled labatt's for dad, a can of MT. DEW for me, chilled in the fridge prior to arrival.

We sit on opposite sides of the kitchen island, simply open the box. The phone is unplugged and the TV is off The rules are unwritten but based on 35 yrs of tradition (except the new rule instituted approximately 4 years ago that all cell phones must be off). We each know we get half and the code is never violated. 15-20 minutes of joy...not a word is spoken. If Jennifer Aniston and Angie Dickinson came through the door they would have to wait silently...even if naked. And I am not kidding.

Here's a book review of "Bridge of Birds". It's a book I read a month or two ago, but never got around to writing a review here.

Bridge of Birds, by Barry Hughart. 7/10. Winner of the 1985 World Fantasy Award. This was almost more of a historical fiction book (set in ancient China) than a fantasy book. However, it did include magical elements in the plot, and interactions with minor gods & goddesses which is I guess another fantastical element. Certainly not the typical fantasy. The book was about Master Li and his helper and the story's narrator, "Number Ten Ox". Number Ten Ox recruts Master Li to help cure his village of a dreadful malady, and they undertake various quests to find various parts of the cure. The nice thing about the book was that it didn't take itself too seriously. There were many cute parts, and although the similarities in some of the quests got kind of repitious at times, it was entertaining.

Well, I got the trip to Madison out of the way. The conference was fine--it was mostly to update the other Teaching Fellows on the status of our project, and to ask for and offer help on the various projects going on.

I'm not sure if I've described my own Teaching Fellows project. Last semester we gave our graduating seniors the Physics "Major Field Exam", a test by the makers of the SAT and GRE. The MFT is designed to assess whether our students are learning the stuff we're supposedly teaching them in the standard undergraduate physics classes. Well, what we found out is that the students did *horribly* on many of the easiest questions, mainly because they didn't have equations memorized. In most physics classes at UW-L, the instructors either give the students an equation page, or let the students make up their own formula sheet for use in exams. The thought is that then the exam can focus on more meatier problems, and that after a while, the students will come to know the most important equations even without having had to memorize them along the way. Well, with a single semesters' data point, that doesn't seem to have happened.

So, that's the background against which I came up with my Teaching Fellows project. I've decided to look at closed book/closed notes exams vs. exams with a page of notes allowed. I don't think I can answer all the questions about whether not making students memorize equations for exams helps or hurts them in the long run, but maybe I can get at some things. I'll give the students exams in various formats, and later ask them things about the exam like their study time, motivation, stress/anxiety, whether they felt the exam accurately assessed their ability, and so forth. Next semester I actually plan to divide the Circuits class in half; for the first exam Half A will take it as a closed book/notes exam and Half B will take it with a page of notes, then for the second exam the two halves will be reversed. That way I should be able to see whether the students being forced to take it closed book/notes do substantially worse than the open notes students.

Anyway, I think it's an interesting "Scholarship of Teaching and Learning" research project!

___

While at Madison, I also gave a talk to the condensed matter subset of the Physics Department. The talk was at a non-standard time, but I would guess there were still about 15 people that showed up for it (faculty and students). I think I did a good job on the talk, and there were lots of questions. That's always good--when there are no questions (like my talk at this past APS March Meeting), you never know whether it's because (a) you explained everything so beautifully, the audience couldn't help but understand it, or (b) you confused everyone so much that they don't even know where to start asking questions to fill in the gaps, or (c) you completely bored the audience and they just want to leave. Or some combination of the three, or maybe with other options I haven't considered. Anyway, long story short: questions are good.

I haven't written anything on the blog for a while, but I'm still alive! A week ago I had a deadline for my "promotion folder". I'm going up for promotion from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor. As part of that, I have had to create a folder that demonstrates my excellence in all aspects of professorship: teaching, research and service. That includes the various awards I've won, papers I've written, samples of student work, thank you cards, and so forth. Took a lot of work, but I met the deadline.

Since then, I've been catching up on things that didn't get top priority while I was working on the promotion folder. This week I've also got a conference in Madison on Friday, as part of the "Wisconsin Teaching Fellows" program, and a talk that I'm giving for their solid state physics group as long as I'm in town. So there's preparation for that as well. To top things off, I finally heard back the the reviewers on a paper I submitted for publication a couple of months ago in Physical Review B. The reviews were mixed-- one reviewer thought it should be accepted, and one thought it shouldn't because it wasn't "novel enough results" for that journal. So, in my "copious spare time", I've got to write a response to the reviewers' comments and try to convince the second reviewer and/or the editor that it really does contain especially novel results.

So, those are the work-related things I've been working on!