Fall Backward?

Well, what I mean is that it's almost time for the clocks to change their time, and therefore the unofficial - but more convincing - fall of Fall is nearly upon us. I don't expect much qualitative change in either the weather or the moods around here, but there is this upcoming election business, and maybe after that we'll finally be able to get on with our lives and stop complaining about how things are or could be or were or should be. All that money wasted, to convince us that one essentially well-meaning politician is wholly good, while their opponent is wholly evil. I'm still not sold on any of that. But this isn't supposed to be about politics.

Somebody stole my lucky pen last week. So I was going to write sooner, but I couldn't, because of the pen thing. Also, check this out (see photo):

"But, Benficafiend," someone might exclaim, "didn't you buy a Taylor 110 off that guy on craigslist?" Indeed. "And doesn't the Taylor 110 come with those crappy Ping p.w. 1 chrome tuners (with the 1:14 gear ratio)?" It does. "So does this mean you bought a brand new, higher-end Taylor guitar off some chump on craigslist for far less than it's worth?" Nay. Methinks that one Taylor guitar is enough for our household. "So you've traded the 110 upwards for a superior model, with gold Ping/Grover p.w. 2 tuners (with the 1:18 gear ratio, and Taylor stamped on the back)?" Wrong again. Maybe stop asking questions now. It's really quite simple: while I was very happy with certain features of the Taylor 110 that we found on craigslist, e.g. the volume, action, and sound depth, certain other qualities left me a little unimpressed, namely the crappy stock tuners and the nasty plastic (tusq) saddle, with it's slightly-off-center intonation. So I have had to invest $40 in some upgrades, which involved replacing the plastic saddle with a bone one that I made and buying the gold tuners from a fellow Taylor-owner on craigslist. I would venture to guess that it's about the nicest Taylor 110 now in existence (because who else would be stupid enough to try to upgrade such a cheap guitar?!).

Meanwhile, the search for a worthy owner of the other guitar that I bought off craigslist continues, mostly because I'm just not really investing any time in trying to sell the poor thing. It's not a hated guitar, just not as nice as the rest of the flock, and, now that the Taylor is around, not a particularly welcome member of the club. So much for things having to do with guitars.

As may be expected, the vast majority of my time is still consumed with the editing and revising and rearranging of the dissertation, which I am happy to say has been building some steam over the past several weeks. Eventually, it will all be arranged into something that people can read all as a single object, but for now it's still chopped up into six different and only-slightly-related chapters. It's getting a little out of control, meaning too long and too involved, but I'm pretty sure it will eventually be as thoroughly ignored as it deserves. After I've cleared that final hurdle, I suppose I'll have a job all lined up somewhere, but I kind of have to do all the work to make that happen, so I've been sending out the occasional job application in my spare time. There are some pretty nice jobs out there, and I'm a fairly interesting candidate, so you might expect a benficafiend to pop up just about anywhere in North America over the January-to-March interviewing season. Or not. I suppose they could just as easily ignore me as give me a job. I'm not really worried about the job market, because in the worst-case scenario, I just find something else that I really enjoy doing, finish writing my second book, and pick my next job offer based on where it is and the quality of students the program attracts. Not a bad situation to be in, if it comes to that. But I'm sure my wife would much rather see me in a new job by August of 2011, so you can all hope and pray us in that direction.

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