Looming Departure

Ugh. We leave on August 26. Not much time. I forgot to set my alarm this morning, so with the afternoon’s schedule, there is no time for the gym this morning. They close at 7 pm on Sundays, so if we manage to get back by the afternoon, I’ll hit it then. The impact on my energy level is best in the morning right after breakfast. It’s my fault for being unfocused. I’m totally behind in grading. Weekends are getting too busy. Preparation for this trip is taking too much time. But I can’t blow it off. I’ve got the get this data if I’m ever going to graduate.

I’ve been coping with power conversion for the past few days. Craig and my laptops work just fine on both power sets, and I’ve discovered my battery charger for the camera does too. I’ve bought plug adapters. Sadly, my cheap lamps don’t work on a universal basis. I bought a power converter, depicted below, to power my lamps.

It’s going back to the store. Israel is set at 230 volts, 50 Hz. We’re at 110 volts, 60 Hz. This particular converter can only “step down” from 220 volts, not 230. It also does absolutely nothing to the frequency. I’ve found one that seems to handle all possible conversions.

If these were normal lamps, I’d just buy them when I get there. But I have no idea what it would take to buy Israeli lamps with clamps and low-heat bulbs. I’d rather avoid wasting time and come prepared. I wasn't a Boy Scout for nothing.

I need a better lit review in my proposal. Iza Husin, one of my colleagues who has a real PhD and a real job now, recommended I look at Lisa Wedeen’s lit review from Ambiguities of Domination and Benedict Anderson’s lit review in Imagined Communities for ideas on how to mix an eclectic series of texts. There is no “natural” book review for this damned piece, so I sort of have to invent one. I’m going to try to photocopy the original texts for mark-up this afternoon.

Plus, I've been meaning to write a post about what Neil has been teaching me about baseball. I’m beginning to see that the reason that baseball appears to be so boring is that the strategic interactions between the players require a lot of previous knowledge of the batter and the pitcher and their choices. Without this knowledge, the game is boring, because there is virtually no action in it.

EDIT: Sorry if the link to the new transformer didn't work for you the first time. It's fixed now. (8/10/09)