Earl Babbie

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July 12, 1999

We are back in paradise--aka Woodbury, Vermont.

The trip was a challenge.  We boarded our flight from Orange County (aka John Wayne) at 11:00.  Then the pilot announced that Dallas/Fort Worth was shut down by thunderstorms.  His first announcement was that we'd sit on the runway for an hour; the second announcement prescribed a second hour.  Ultimately, we spent 2-2.5 hours on the tarmack in Orange County.  They served lunch, however, and it was the smoothest meal service ever.

When we arrived in Dallas at 7 p.m., our connecting flight to Boston had left (somehow it got up despite the shutdown), but I rebooked us on the 8:23 p.m. flight, already rescheduled for 9:23.  It eventually left at 10:55, and we arrived in Boston at 2:50 a.m.  Having managed to flight with carry-on only, we reached the hotel at 3:30 and were in bed by 4:00.  Four hours later, we were having breakfast with Sheila's family, in preparation for our bus ride to Vermont at 10:00.

Reached Montpelier at 2 p.m. and were settling in at the camp by 3:30.  It was all worth it, though we may be sleeping in for a couple of days.

We'll be here until August 13th, though I'll be in Chicago for the ASA, August 5-10.

After returning to Anaheim on the 14th, we'll be in Portland, OR, Aug 17-20 for the opening of Aaron's hotel.  Shortly after that, the fall semester will begin at Chapman.
 

July 19, 1999

As indicated above, we arrived in Vermont pretty tired from the trip.  Rather than sleeping for a couple of days, we launched into getting set up, and Sheila is paying the price now, fighting off a cold/flu or return of pneumonia. My recovery continues to progress.

Initially, it looked as though we had brought an end to the heat wave plaguing the East Coast, but after a couple of cold days, the heat is back.  For the most part, we've enjoying it.

The surgery and recovery slowed my work down more than I anticipated, but I am getting to work now.  My main projects for the summer are revising The Practice of Social Research and preparing to teach Social Problems in the Fall.  The latter will tie in with my writing of Solving Social Problems, which also got delayed by the surgery.

Yesterday, we enjoyed a visit from friends from New York and Philadelphia.  The two guys are my oldest friends--dating to high school.  It always amazes and pleases me to see how well we get along and how much we enjoy each other's company, despite quite divergent lives and careers.  In fact, I think we are growing closer together, as we recognize that the stuff we diverged on is not as important as it once seemed.
 

July 26, 1999

Ah, Vermont!  The fact that I often find myself on the highway alone, driving UNDER the speed limit may say a lot about my experience of being here.  We have a family of ducks living on the pond again.  Sheila thinks it's the same mother than lived here two years ago--with a new family of teen-agers.  Yesterday, I introduced them to the world of trout kibble (we feed the huge trout) and they are now much more comfortable around humans.  I have mixed feeling about the whole thing, since their life expectancy would be enhanced by fear and distrust of humans in general.

The weather has been, well, Vermontish: all kinds within a single day or few hours.  During one of the thunderstorms, three deer emerged from the woods at the far side of the pond and began splashing around in the water.  The smallest--a fawn still with the dappled markings--seemed to be frolicking with joyful abandon.  Then I realized the same behavior would be produced by the panicked discovery that your hooves were sinking into the much on that edge of the pond.  Sort of like the same facial expressions being produced by sexual ecstasy and root-canal.

We are being visited for a few days by the Cromleys, friends we first knew in Hawaii thirty years ago in Zero Population Growth.  They now live in Portland, OR.  You may have friends you can be away from for months or years at a time, and then, when you do get together, it's as though you've been seeing each other every day.  That's the quality of friendship we are experiencing again for a few days now.

This past weekend, we've also spent time with another couple we first met through Zero Population Growth.  Bill Ryerson has recently founded the Population Media Center to continue his work in creating enormously popular soap operas that promote family planning, safe sex, and the emancipation of women in third world countries.  Typically, the soaps become the most popular ones in the country and have a demonstrable impact of sexual and reproductive bahavior.  His wife, Leta Finch, established a program to train people in former Eastern bloc countries in establishing medical insurance systems.  She has spent time in several countries, including all those that ends in "stan," and her work has now expanded to include economic development in general.

Sheila, who has been digging her way up out of exhaustion based in seeing me through my surgery and then moving us to Vermont for the summer, has now begun feeling human again.  It looks as though she'll live, and we're all happy with that.  I think the first hopeful sign was when she murmured, "Blueberries, I need blueberries."

Me, I'm sitting around, writing about research methods and feeding the ducks.
 

August 2, 1999

Well, the ducks have turned ugly.  All that food I was putting in one end has started coming out the other end--onto the boat dock.  It's not a pretty sight, which Sheila has pointed out to me in case I didn't notice.  So, we're not feeding the ducks any more, but they don't seem to understand.  And, although I'm not putting food in, it's still coming out the other end--that's right--on the boat dock.

Equally important has been the realization that I leave Thursday for the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association in (sic) Chicago.  Ultimately, I will have only spent a month in Vermont this summer, if you include five August days in Chicago,
where, I understand, everyone is dying of the heat.  Here on Walton Pond, the sky has become overcast and has threatened rain for the fourth time in the past three hours.  Otherwise, it's been a hot and sunny day so far.

My prostate--or rather the lack of one--still seems to be healing about "as fast as expected."  It's just short of two months since the surgery, and I'm beginning to think the docs meant it when they said full recovery would take 12-18 months.  I sort of figured they meant for other people, but I may fall within the norm.

Although I've found it harder to get back to serious writing than I'd expected, that seems to be turning around as well.  I woke up around 3:00 this morning with a new book--yea, a new literary genre--annoying my mind.  When it refused to go away, I got up, found a computer, jotted down some notes, and finally got back to sleep an hour or so later.  Once again, the world has been saved from a lack of things to read.
 

August 8, 1999

Well, the five ducks has become as many as fifteen!  So far the interlopers haven't invaded the lawn or the boat-house, however, and the resident family have improved their toilet habits.

Last Thursday, I flew to Chicago for the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association.  Sheila has stayed in Woodbury, where she's hosting a girl-friend from California.  Evidently, it's been raining most of the time since I left, which pleases the parched farmers but isn't great for hostess and guest.

Friday I gave a presentation on my experiences as a textbook author.  Saturday morning, I met with the Honors Program students, which was the high point of the meetings for me.  In the afternoon, I participated on a panel discussing the needs for teaching sociology in the new century/millennium.  My last commitment is tomorrow night, co-chairing a discussion of departmental needs for technology.

I leave Chicago Tuesday and return to Vermont.  I'll be in Woodbury Wednesday and Thursday, leaving to Boston on Friday and Anaheim on Saturday.  After a couple of days there, we fly to Portland, OR.

Throughout all these activities, I continue healing from the surgery and continue writing about research methods.  Hey, I just noticed the sun is out and it's a beautiful day outside.  I can see some body of water--a Great Lake, I think.  Meanwhile, back to Chapter 5.

August 16, 1999

We are back in California, briefly, arriving yesterday afternoon.  Getting here was less traumatic than our flights to Boston a month ago.  The only excitement was arriving late in Dallas, at nearly the farthest gate from our connecting flight, but we arrived with 5 minutes to spare.  It's hard to say we are getting settled in, since we'll be leaving again tomorrow for Portland.  Then we'll be back here on Friday--just in time for faculty retreats and then  classes.

We especailly hated leaving Vermont this year, since our stay was so short.  We worry whether the ducks will survive without us.  (Well, I worry about them.  Sheila called them names after they pooped on her deck.)  However, we've already arranged for our return in 2000.

We spent a night in Boston on the way to California.  We stayed at the Airport Ramada--on its last night of existence.  It's being torn down to support the highway construction that has tied up the airport area for years and will do so for years to come.  At check-in, we received a letter saying that check-out was 12:00 noon and they were not in a position to allow for late check-outs.  Sheila and I had images of the wrecking ball swinging back and forth as we checked out, but it didn't happen.  It was a bit ironic to stay in a Boston hotel during it's last night, then rush cross-country to stay at a Portland hotel on it's first night of operations.

August 24, 1999

The key events of the past week happened in Portland, OR, where Aaron opened his hotel: The Westin of Portland.  We were there four days. The hotel is great and we were esepcially proud of Aaron.  I can't imagine how you go about getting people to make reservations in a hotel that hasn't been built yet.  As it turned out, Aaron sold so many rooms that the staff had trouble getting them all ready in time.  The Ortalia Restaurant, opening at the same time, offered some great meals--not to mention a perfect place to set up a computer and work early in the morning.  As the number two person in the hotel, however, Aaron was kept ridicuously busy.

When Sheila and I expressed concerns that he might not be getting enough sleep, Aaron indicated that he was usually getting a reasonable number of hours of sleep--and the remainder of the 24 hours were spent at the hotel.  He had no life other than work and a few hours of sleep each day.  We assume that will change before too long, and Aaron is committed to that.  All that notwithstanding, I look at what he's done since February as an accomplishment of heroic proportions.  What a great thing it is to look up to your son as a hero.  I feel truly blessed.

While in Portland, we also had some wonderful times with my mother, who came up for the opening, with Ara, and with some very good friends who live in the Portland area.

Now, it is time to play professor again.  I have been to two faculty retreats in two days and, strangely, I enjoyed them.  Classes begin next week.
 

September 7, 1999

This semester, I am teaching two sections of my social research design class and one section of social problems.  I converted the former to powerpoint presentations a couple of years ago, which is nice, and I am converting social problems to that format as well.  This semester, the social problems course will focus heavily on solving social problems.  This has been very powerful in the past, and I am looking forward to that aspect this semester.

I am still finding I can't work as much or focus as well as before my surgery, though that is slowly and steadily improving.  The revision of The Practice of Social Research is giving me an opportunity to track my progress.

A few days ago, I had a bit of a scare when I found I was bleeding lightly from the bottom end of my surgery scar.  After living awhile with images of my stitches opening up and. . .well it wasn't a pretty sight, I called UCLA and the surgeon said it sounded like one of the stitches had been ejected.  For the most part, they are supposed to be absorbed, but sometimes the knots don't do that completely.  In those cases, the body deals with them like a splinter, slowly forcing them to the surface and out.  (Realize that I could have said, "Out damn knot!" but I avoided the temptation.)

Sunday, Sheila and I went for an off-road adventure, the first since my surgery.  We discovered Thomas Mountain, which gives great views of the desert.  It was nice to get away from the teeming crowds that are Southern California.

Saw two great movies over the weekend: The Muse and Outside Providence.

Off to class.
 

September 20, 1999

The past two weeks have been relatively calm, mostly devoted to classes and textbook revision.

I'm very pleased with the Social Problems class this semester.  I have students solving a social problem each week, and their first-week inventiveness and commitment was moving to me: ranging from litter-picking to getting a friend out of an abusinve relationship.  I leave Thursday to give a talk on solving social problems at DeKalb University in Illinois.

This last week saw the tragic shooting in Fort Worth and also the stupidest public policy pronouncement I've heard on this topic.  Orin Hatch's office explained to CNN how the senator saw the problem of gun violence:

            He's been talking on the Judiciary Committee about how the Clinton-Gore Administration
            has done poor job of prosecuting gun crimes. If we made clear that anybody who used a gun
            in crime would be severely punished ... that is what we need to be doing.

So let me get this straight.  The guy kills seven worshippers and then kills himself--all of which would have been prevented if he knew he would be severely punished?  Maybe I'm missing something.  Or maybe Orin is.  Either he's the dimmest bulb in the marquee or he thinks we are.

I think I'll make up a bumper sticker: "Guns don't kill people.  The NRA and their Congressional mistresses kill people."
 

October 6, 1999

This update is a few days late, due to being more active than absolutely necessary.

Two weeks ago tomorrow, I flew to Chicago and then pressed on to Northern Illinois University at DeKalb.  On Friday, Sepatember 24th, I spoke to a group of students and faculty about "Solving Social Problems."  I was hosted by an old friend and colleague, Clint Jesser, and I enjoyed the talk.  Nobody booed or threw things, so I guess it was well received.  I flew back home Friday night.

Then, last Thursday, Sheila and I flew to New York City.  Bill Ryerson, founder of Population Media Center is friends with Paul Winter, the musician, and the Paul Winter Consort was presenting its annual Earth Mass at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.  Bill was able to get tickets from Paul and invited us to be his guests.  We were joined by Barbara Pyle of CNN.

The mass honors St. Francis of Assissi, and the cathedral was filled with animals.  People all around us had brought their dogs, cats, monkeys, parrots, snakes, pigs, and enough other species to stock an ark.  The animal-blessing procession was led by an elephant and a camel.  In addition to the Paul Winter Consort, there were gospel singers, several choirs (including one from Hardwick, VT--next door to our summer digs in Woodbury), dancers, and other elements of a festive occasion.  As this was a rare appearance for me at church, I decided to violate one of my more profound personal convictions and wear a tie.  I was one of the few people who did.
 

In addition to the mass, Sheila and I were able to visit friends and just walk the streets.  It's true what they say: New York is cleaner than we recalled.  (I hadn't been there in three years.)  As we recalled, however, there is always something happening in New York.  We stayed in a hotel on 42nd street, near the UN and spent some time in the Nigeria Independence celebration on Saturday.  When we left for the airport on Sunday, three of the southbound avenues were shut down for events, so we had competition getting out of the city to the Newark airport.  Nonetheless, 40 minutes with a kamikaze cab driver was better than nearly two hours on a non-air-conditioned bus going the other way on Friday.

Though I enjoyed both trips, I'm happy to have no trips planned until the end of the month.  I can live with being a homebody.
 

October 18, 1999

Didn't go anywhere these last two weeks.  Enjoyed it. Found plenty to keep me busy.

On the health front, my post-prostate recovery is still progressing satisfactorily.  A recent "spit test" (don't ask) indicates that my cortisol (relevant to adrenal glands) is way down, possibly indicating a high level of stress (go figure).  So now I'm being conscious about not getting stressed.  (Don't worry.  Be happy.)  (Don't drive in Southern California.)

I now in the process of looking at how to alter my ways of working.  Over the years, I've been a lone-wolf writer, and it now seems times to learn to play with others.  To that end, I am hiring a research assistant.  In the past, I've had trouble delegating anything, but I'm committed to breaking through that barrier now.

Finally, I've begun organizing my thoughts for a novel that'll knock everyone's socks off.  I think it's a sure fire winner, and I'm excited about it.  In large part, it has been coming to me early in the morning during basketball, so I now carry a little memo recorder to the gym.  More on this later.
 

November 2, 1999

This has been an eventful two weeks.  Two pieces of good news and one bad.

The period began with the decision to hire a research assistant to support my writing, and I am delighted with prospects for the future.  I am now rediscovering what I miss by Chapman not having graduate students in sociology.  But thanks to UC Irvine next door, I can now pay a charming young woman to talk sociology to me.

Last Thursday, I flew to Berkeley for the annual meetings of the California Sociological Association.  Early the next morning, my mother called from Marin to say that my stepfather, Morris Burch, had died in his sleep.  As a consequence, I spent much of the weekend with my mother, helping to handle everything involved in the survival of a spouse.  Two hours were spent with the funeral director, reliving what Jessica Mitford called "The American Way of Death."  Although Morris had been adamant about keeping his departure simple and inexpensive, that flies in the face of the funeral industry and their motto: "The State of California mandates. . ."  For example, Morris wanted to be cremated, which would rule out an obscenely expensive casket in which to ride out eternity.  The industry fall-back position, however, was a casket for displaying him during any memorial services.  When we indicated that we didn't want him on display, we learned that Calfornia mandates that he be transported to the crematorium in some container. . .like this $750  casket.  Although the young mortician was polite, unpushy, and complaint, the default position at every decision point was "give us all your money."

While no one wants to go through the death of a family member, I was glad I was in the Bay Area so my mother didn't have to handle the crisis alone.  Late in the weekend, she reminded me that this was the second time I had helped her in that way.  The other time was 34 years ago, with the death of Herman Babbie.  Though technically my stepfather, I still consider him my father.

Now the second good news.  The UCLA docs confirmed today that I have an undetectable level of PSA in my blood: i.e., prostate cancer seems a thing of the past for me, and that's the way I like it.
 

November 15, 1999

The past two weeks have been relatively calm.  I didn't go anywhere.

My writing is going well, and I'm back at basketball several times a week.  I made my second basket from the center line (out of about twenty tries).  My hook shot remains strangely effective, and I still can't jump more than two or three inches off the floor.  I think it's racial.

Last week, NPR reported on the five missiles fired at US and UN buildings in Islamabad, quoting an official as saying they suspected it was a "coordinated action."  I guess the alternative was a horrible coincidence.
 

January 1, 2000

It's been awhile since I've updated this page.  That's largely due to my concentration on my writing.  The semester came to an end, students were examined and graded, and I didn't really take a break.  I'm engaged in the most extensive revision of The Practice of Social Research (the 9th edition) so far.  Originally we all agreed it would be a light revision due to my delicate state, but the revision sort of took on a life of its own.

Sheila and I welcomed in the New Year and, arguably, the new century and millenium last night in Honolulu.  It was fun watching the event progress around the world, courtesy of CNN, and finally arrive in Hawaii.  By the time midnight arrived, the air was so thick with sulphur smoke that it was difficult to see the skyrockets any more.

The Y2K bug wasn't what I expected.  My Mac is fine, but I've come down with a cold.  As a result, my celebrating was muted by my need to rest and to run nonalcoholic liquids and herbs through my body.  The other consequence is that my writing has been hampered temporarily.  However, I hope I have things in perspective.  All in all, Armageddon wasn't as bad as the advanced billing suggested.

I am in Paradise without having to die.  Even though Hawaii continues to evolve, it is still a very special place on the planet, and I am more conscious of that as we turn the calendar in a big way.  As to the Millennium debate, Sheila and I have decided to treat the year 2000 as a "Gateway to the Millenium." (I preferred "Bridge" but Sheila wanted to separate her plans from the Clinton/Gore "Bridge to the 21st Century.")  Whatever you call it, it seems a great idea to devote this whole year to deciding what you want to do when and if you grow up and taking concrete steps in that direction.  That's our commitment.  I am presently giving serious attention to whether I want to grow up.

Happy whatever-it-is-in-your-cosmology.
 
 

February 1, 2000

The remainder of our stay in Honolulu was excellent.  Aaron and Ara joined us on the 3rd, which made a wonderful trip more wonderful.  It was Ara's first trip to Honolulu, so we had great fun showing her all the high points: where Aaron was conceived and where he was born, for example.  (What's the sense of being a parent if you can't embarrass your kid.)

I had a birthday dinner at Alan Wong's, a restaurant so good it doesn't both to advertise, nor would you be likely to stumble across it.  When we made our reservation a month in advance, we had to settle for 5:00 p.m.  It was worth it, even though it became a year harder to justify feeling like an adolescent.

While I'm speaking of age: Sheila and I just visited her aunt in Chico to celebrate her 90th birthday.  It was inspiring to be with someone so lucid and alive at 90.  I'm not clear how long I'll last, but if I make it to 90, I'd be happy to be that mindful.

Tomorrow I begin classes to learn how to teach online.  It's an interesting undertaking for me.  I still have mixed feelings about online classes, so this will be a useful experience for me.  I love being in the classroom and will continue doing that, but I also love being online.  Since I'll be teaching the same course in two modalities in the Fall, I'll be interested to see which works best for my students.
 

March 2, 2000

I'm excited about the prospects of teaching online!  The instruction program I took early this month was excellent, and I've been busily at work since then, developing materials.  Perhaps the best indicator of my new enthusiasm is that a part of my brain is continually working on how I can make the new materials available to students in my conventional classes.  I'm sure there will be surprises (and problems) when I actually teach the online course in the Fall, but I'm mostly thrilled by the prospects.

My recovery continues apace.  My biggest problem now concerns my lazy thyroid, which manifests as a body temperature a couple of degrees below the other kids (e.g., 96.3 this morning) and a metabolism perpetually geared to storing fat for the winter (and doing a helluva job of it).  I've been experimenting with a variety of Chinese herbal mixtures (Gilbert's Chinese Herbal Set #33) and acupuncture, which haven't produced dramatic results so far.  A fellow prostate-cancer-survivor and confidant has had a similar problem, which he says was totally corrected by some Western thyroid medicine, with no side effects, so I'm not alarmed about my prospects in the long run.

Actually, although my temperature hasn't improved, my energy is on the upswing.  I'm getting up around 0430 now, working out for about an hour, and getting to work at a reasonable hour.  I'm pleased with that progress.

I've begun meditating in the morning, in a manner suggested by the Dalai Lama.  Part of it involves cherishing yourself as you breathe in and cherishing others as you breathe out.  In the latter part, I take it, you aren't just supposed to cherish the "nice" people but the others as well.  (Another part of the meditation involves recognizing how everyone is looking for the same thing.)  This may or may not produce enlightenment, but it takes all the fun out of the political campaigns.  Cherishing yourself has a clever twist.  To do that, you need to step outside your "self" (or outside that whining bag of complaints you often mistake for your "self") in order to do that.  You have to experience being something bigger than yourself in order to cherish it.  Very sneaky, these Tibetan travelers.
 

April 1, 2000

This has been a busy month, including a day at the Happiest Place on Earth, aka Disneyland.  Aaron and Ara, plus Ara's 10-yar-old niece. Autumn, came to visit for a weekend.  We spent all day Saturday with Mickey & Co. plus three-fourths of Southern California. We then spent Sunday at Newport Beach.  The latter included a boat ride to view the houses of rich people.  All told, it was a great weekend.

On one day, I visits from my best former student and my best graduate school professor.  The former has spent the past year in Argentina, working with the Grandmothers of the Disappeared, while the latter recently passed 80 and seems to have stopped aging many years ago.  It was a day of good feelings.

This year's Pacific Sociological Association meetings were in San Diego, always a great city to visit (and probably great to live in).  Wadsworth had a launch party for the ninth edition of The Practice of Social Research, which was fun.  The party was located on a busy hallway on the way to the Presidential address, and some 25 bottles of wine were consumed in about an hour.

As always, the meetings were a chance to connect with old friends and make new ones.  I particularly enjoy meeting students and attending their paper sessions.  The only downside was my contracting a viral eye infection that is evidently sweeping the west coast.  I've been taking eye drops several times a day for the past week, and I can convince myself it is getting better, though it's still bad enough to stop the Elephant Man in his tracks.  This is evidently another episode in my current experiment with physicality.
 

April 2000

April was an active month, with the main events occuring mid-month.  On the 14th we flew to Miami to visit friends and relations.  As an unexpected turn of events, we went walking with our host one night and discovered we were on one of the street sets of There’s Something About Mary.  Re-watching the movie later on, I could identify our friend’s house, where we were staying.

While I had thought the Elian frenzy in the nation (especially the media) was a bit much, Miami was something else.  Rightly or wrongly, I found myself being cautious about expressing opinions to anyone I didn’t know well.  Our initial plan had been to drive from Miami to Sarasota to visit friends there, then return the car to Miami and fly to New Orleans.  Under the threat of Elian’s faux family tying up the Miami airport, we decided to drive from Sarasota to New Orleans and turn the car in there.  (National lets you do that; Avis doesn’t.)

The change of travel plans was fortuitous.  An old friend from Hawaii was riding his bicycle from California to Florida, and an update via email indicated we’d cross paths.  So, through the wonder of email and cell phones, we arranged to meet in Panama City, Florida.  We got him a hotel room (he’d been camping a lot), fed him a couple of meals, and then put him back on the road. My age, this was his fourth or fifth bike trip across the country but the first one alone.  Different strokes.

The main purpose of the trip was to attend the Southern Sociological Society meetings in New Orleans, where I’d been asked to give a keynote address.  I don’t think I embarrassed us any more than absolutely necessary.  If you have too much time on your hands, you can hear the first part (prior to the recorder filling up) by going to the end of "Publications and Papers" on my website.

In addition to the meetings, we had a great time in the French Quarter.  Being there for Easter Sunday made it impossible for us to fly out until Monday, but there were advantages, too.  After an eye-opener of black coffee and bignets at Café du Monde, we took a walking tour of the French Quarter.  Then, as the Easter Parades began full-steam, we had brunch at Arnaud’s, on a busy parade corner.  Inside, we were treated to a strolling Dixieland trio, and one of the parades concluded by marching through the restaurant.

In the course of the trip, I learned that a colleague had come down with pnumonia.  As a result, I came back to Chapman to teach the final weeks of her demography class.  At the same time, my work on the online course remains exciting.  I’ve put a mockup of the course (under construction) on my webpage in case you want to get an idea of what it is like.  It’s not too exciting yet, but it will be.

May 2000

With commencement having occured last Sunday, I now have a little breathing space to look back and review May.  It began with a trip to Boston to celebrate our nephew's Bar Mitzvah.  Sheila and I both participated by reading a passage from the altar, and I'm proud to say that Judaism seems to have survived.  It was also an opportunity to spend time with family, including Aaron, who flew in from Portland.

Another blood test shows my PSA at < 0.1, reconfirming the lack of prostate cancer.  At the same time, my insulin was a bit high, so I'm taking that as a reason to clean up my diet and weight.  I'm monitoring everything I eat via a program on my Palm computer, and I've increased my exercise to an hour on the treadmill six days a week, plus muscle training.  I'm already seeing results from the new regime.

I'm looking forward to a relaxing but also productive summer.  I'll be working on my online course and revising another textbook.  (I just finished revising my main text for its NINTH edition.)

June 2000

The highpoint of June has to be our cruise through French Polynesia.  We flew (7.5 hours) from LAX to Papeete, Tahiti, and boarded the Renaisance Line's R3 for a ten-day cruise.  After a day to explore Papeete--which reminded us more of the Caribbean than Hawaii--we set sail for Huahine.

The ship tended to do its steaming at night, and the first night, both Sheila and I were awakened by what we took to be an earthquake.  Eventually, we both realized it was just the ship being underway.  Given my past Navy experience, I was mostly embarrassed that our TV was hanging out of the cabinet at its full extension, and the papayas we bought in the Papeete market were rolling all around the cabin.  I should have remembered to stow things properly for getting underway.

We took a bus tour of Huahine and then went snorkeling.  Most of the fish were similar to those we've seen in Hawaii and in the Caribbean, but there were also, sometimes subtle, differences.  The water was clear and warm.

Our next stop was Moorea, where we took another tour of the island the first day and went snorkeling the second.  The snorkeling tour was a small one, with only four other tourists.  At first, we snorkeled inside the reef, where, among other things, we saw a very large moray eel and learned to recognize fire coral (don't touch it) (don't touch any of the coral is a better guide).  Then we moved outside the reef and anchored in about thirty feet of water.  I was the first person in the water and found myself looking eye-to-eye with a shark, about three-and-a-half to four- feet long and about twenty feet away.  We agreed to disagree and he left.

The isalnd of Raiatea, our next stop, has been slow to welcome tourists, though they are now building facilities to cash in on the industry.  We wandered around town a little, trying to find some place to eat Polynesian food.  Part of our problem was timing: choosing to come ashore during siesta time.  We bought a little junk food and went back on the ship.

Bora Bora was the most impressive to me.  Imagine a large, circular reef with only one opening to the sea, with large islands inside the circle and others as part of it.  You can leave the main island, travel four or five miles by boat to the reef and be in knee-deep water again. Our snorkeling tour of Bora Bora involved a shark feeding that lacked sharks.  Imagine a group of tourists in masks and snorkels, clinging to a rope like popcorn strung for a Christmas tree, while the guides thrash around in the water ten to twenty feet in front of us, dumping chum in the water to attract the sharks.  In any event, we saw some interesting fish who ate the shark food.  The second stop was to feed sting rays, and they were there in great numbers.  We were in water about four feet deep, and you tried to stay afloat so you wouldn't step on the carpet of sting rays below you.  In the midst of watching the sting rays (averaging about four feet across), I swam to the edge of the activity and found myself looking at another shark, about the same size as the earlier one.  Fortunately, people in the boat also saw it, so I wasn't acused of shark fantasies.

The second day on Bora Bora, we took "Le Truck" (a bus consisting of two benches along the sides of a truck body to explore the island on our own.  We ended up at a very nice hotel, where we had a lunch including "poisson cru," the national dish of French Polynesia.  It consists mainly of raw fish, marinated in lime juice and stirred into a collection of chopped vegetables, spices, and coconut milk.  It was pretty tasty but, like sashimi, I don't think I'd make it my main diet.

I was able to work on the ship, having brought my subcompact Sony Vaio.  It served me well, especially after I found a 110 outlet behind the coffee station, where I could get coffee and tea very early in the morning.  I even survived ten days without email.  The world also  seemed to survive my being out of communication (which was a little disappointing, to tell the truth).

The ship itself was great.  We had a spacious suite with an equally spacious lanai.  We enjoyed (1) no smoking, (2) no children, (3) no dressing up, and (4) no fixed seating for meals.  The food was great, the staff were, by and large, great.  And in addition to cruising, Sheila and I both had out bodies pampered.  I had some kind of electrical/herbal body wrap, a massage, and a PEDICURE.  The last of these was a delightful surprise.  I had great resistance to doing it, and now I'm looking around to see where I can get it done regularly.  I was able to work out in the fitness center or walk the exercise track on an upper, outside deck.  This, plus watching what I ate, resulted in my gaining half a pound, thus keeping up the momentum of my current fitness commitment.

Back in Anaheim, I been working at the office and getting ready to leave for Vermont.  Next month's update will probably be all about Woodbury, Vermont, where, I just learned, there were three days in June when it DIDN'T rain.  Hope they've gotten it out of their (weather) system.
 

July 2000

Vermont is often cold and rainy this summer.  (There's a complete downpour, as I write this.)  But then again, it's Vermont, putting the pluses well ahead of the minuses.

A weeklong visit from Aaron and Ara, just ended, was a high point of the summer already.  We were especially delighted to share Vermont with our future grandchild (YAY!), due to appear January 1, 2001.  My mother's visit to Vermont has been complicated by a bout with blood poisoning, but she is recovering and was able to enjoy a belated 80th birthday party.

This summer has thrust Sheila and I into a primeaval battle for supremacy.  The camp we rent in the summer is located on 15-acre Walton Pond, a private body of water, created by some 30-40 springs and the source of a brook running down the hill off the property.  We noticed the brook was running a bit dry the other day, however, and the level of the pond was creeping up the side of the dock.  The cause, we found, was a beaver dam, located at the head of the brook.

Sheila and I waded the end of the pond to rip apart the intricate dam and loose the flow of water.  So much of our current lives are urban and suburban, it was a nice feeling to be back in nature.

The next morning, a better, more intricate dam was blocking the brook and raising the pond.

We tore the dam apart again, and it reappeared overnight once more.  Having demonstrated conclusively who's the boss in this matter, we called our landlords, who have asked us to report any beaver activity.  They have assured us the beavers will be trapped and taken to live in the country so they can play with other animals.

In the midst of all this, I am hard at work on my online course for the Fall, writing computer modules and uploading them to servers in Colorado and California.

Finally, I would like to draw your attention to the new, underwhelming web site at ebabbie.com.  I have registered the domain name and have created a couple of rudimentary web pages.  Turns out that babbie.com was already grabbed up by Babbie Mason, the gospel singer who also shows up if you search for Babbie on the web.  Actually, I had been leaning toward ebabbie for the double entendre.  If you have an interest in this sort of thing, there are hotlinks on my website to an organization that will get your name registered ($35 a year) and will host up to three web pages for your site.  I'm assuming I can take the name to some other server later on.  What a tangled web we weave. . .and it's a hoot.
 

August 2000

This busy month was mostly spent in Vermont, including Woodbury Days, aka Firefighhters Day, when the town gathers for a parade that extends about 200 yards and shuts down Route 14 for about half an hour.  The chicken barbeque and auction are not to be missed.

Early in the month, I went to Washington, DC, for the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association.  Just prior to ASA this year, I was given the Lester F. Ward award for distinguished service by the Society for Applied Sociology.  I was asked to give a short keynote address on the conference theme of "Unity," which you can hear if you have ten minutes with absolutely nothing to do.  It's on my web site at http://www.chapman.edu/wilkinson/socsci/sociology/Faculty/Babbie/Unity.html

We flew home to Vermont on the 22nd and I left again on the 25th for a Rocky Mountain reunion of the Holiday Project.  I've put some pictures on the web at http://www.chapman.edu/wilkinson/socsci/sociology/Faculty/Babbie/HP2KR.  I returned to California on the 27th, with classes beginning on the 28th.  It's been a bit hectic, as the beginning of classes always is, but I'm excited about the new semester--especially my first try at online instruction.  The course is located at
http://www.chapman.edu/wilkinson/socsci/sociology/Faculty/Babbie/201online/Sociology%20201.html and you're welcome to check it out.  So far the course is requiring a lot of flexibility on my part and, I hope, on my students' part.  As my interactions with students have now begun, I'm still excited by the possibilities.  I anticipate that I'll be in email conversations all through the day--a far cry from the old image of computer instruction, where students only interacted with computer programs.

My mom is back in Marin, and her recovery from blood poisoning is moving along steadily.

My own health continues to improve.  My weight is declining, as is the likelihood of diabetes, I hope.  And cancer seems to slip ever further into the world of distant memories.
 

September 2000

This was a busy month.  Not only did the new semester get fully underway, but that included my first attempt at an online course and service as chair of the Academic Committee, which I’ve previously characterized as the Internal Affairs Division of the faculty.  The month ended with the first of two quick trips to Honolulu (where I am drafting this report).

The online course is going great.  It had an inauspicious pre-show when the established service I was supposed to use fell through, and I had to create the whole thing from scratch on my own web site.  As it turned out, I think that was for the best.  I’ve gotten to create the pedagogy from the ground up, and I’ve had complete control over the product.  Most important, I now can see what online instruction can look like.

Prior to last Spring, my only image of online instruction came directly from the Computer-Assisted Instruction experiments of the 1970s and 1980s.  In my experience of that, you created an instructional program and sent it into the world to automatically educate people forever and ever with no further, human intervention (unless you count the students, which we often forget).  The online model I am using (which, I believe, is the current norm) structures an interaction between teacher and students, but it definitely does not work on its own—thereby assuring full-employment for teachers.  By the end of the first two weeks of this course (with 18 students), I had logged over 300 email messages (in and out) specifically about this course.  While some of those messages had to do with the design of materials, most were with students and potential students.

While I am still in the early weeks of the course, I have high hopes for this as a pedagogy of the future.  Eventually, I should be able to carry this into retirement, still teaching without having to be within the sound of faculty committee meetings.

Speaking of which: the Academic Committee is responsible for overseeing the undergraduate curriculum and a variety of other matters.  Over the years, it has developed the aura of a stern, punishing parent—not letting departments do some things and rebuking them for doing others.  I first joined and now chair the committee out of a sociological imperative: I was fascinated by the fact that the committee could seem to work in opposition to the faculty when (1) it was composed of faculty and (2) the faculty members on the committee turned over completely every two years. It’s too early to say how this particular dynamic occurs or whether it can be undone, but that’s my commitment.  So far, I’ve been pleased with the way the committee members work together with each other and how we’ve been able to work in partnership with the few departments that have brought issues to us so far.

As reluctant as I am to buy new computer equipment (  8-]  ), this month saw the arrival of a Macintosh G4 dual-500mzh computer. Whereas the traditional definition of a "supercomputer" (e.g., Cray) has been the ability to process a billion instructions a second, this baby will process over 7 billion!  It’s the one advertised on TV with a circle of tanks around it, to dramatize the fact that it can’t be sold to various nasty nations.  (I didn’t know the tanks were optional at extra cost, which was a disappointment, but. . .)  The Apple Cinema Display (22" flat screen) should arrive any day.  Then it’ll be time to bring in a supply of canned goods and a chemical toilet—and nail the door shut.

My health continues to improve.  I’ve been following my own program for weight loss (posted on my web site) and it’s working.  I’m currently under warranty as prostate- and colon-cancer free.

I’m currently in Hawaii for a variety of reasons.  Sheila will be here for a week+ as a birthday present and is exploring possible real estate investments.  Today (October 1) is the 24th anniversary of Babbie Enterprises, Inc., a Hawaii corporation. And we are working with a Hawaii marketing firm on the marketing of my textbooks.

All that notwithstanding, the most exciting thing in our lives is the countdown to 01-01-01.

October 2000

I am a happy camper.  After weeks of waiting, I now have my 22" flat-screen Apple Cinema Display monitor.  It is so big and so clear.  Combined with 384 mb of RAM, I now spend my days in an ADD paradise.  I have enough memory to open up everything I might want to work on, and I can have the files scattered all over this very large monitor.  And it's a Macintosh--a real computer, not a PC pseudocomputer.  I told Sheila I might never buy another computer.  I won't report what she said.

This has proven to be an extremely busy month.  I am deeply into my revision of The Basics of Social Research, I am teaching my first online course, I have another 53 students in my regular methods course, I've decided I need to teach my data analysis course primarily in the form of a one-on-one tutorial (essentially tripling the contact hours), and I'm chairing the Academic Committee at a time of change at Chapman.  I feel as though I'm juggling a couple dozen balls at once.  As long as I keep them all in the air, it's an exhilarating feeling, but if I drop one ball, I think they'll all come crashing down on me.

The California Sociological Association meetings were held in Riverside, at the historic and somewhat enigmatic Mission Inn.  Parts look like a Catholic mission, established to convert the Indians, parts look like the Republican National Committee retreat grounds, and several of the sessions I attended were in a room dominated by a gigantic statue of Buddha.

As the month was closing, Sheila and I went to Valerie Harper's play about Pearl Buck: All Under Heaven.  It's a one-woman performance, which Valerie helped write and which Tony Cacciotti (her husband) produced.  Without any costume changes, Valerie plays a dozen or more roles, including the Dowager Empress, a Chinese servant, and a couple of men.  Facial expressions, lighting changes, and superb acting ability bring about amazing transformations.  Val and Tony are doing the play as a benefit to raise funds for a long-established but homeless youth drama group.  The play is being presented in the Ivar Theater, which is being renovated and will be turned over to the youth group afterward.  Here's a picture of Val with Sheila and her niece, Jessica, who is an aspiring director.

There is a good chance that ABC will have Val and Tony do a three-hour special on Pearl Buck--which much of it shot in China.  Look for it.

November 2000

Another good, though busy, month, three-fourths of it largely consumed by the indignation and humor of the non-election.  My personal prediction is that Bush will be inaugurated on January 20th, will serve two years under a cloud, resulting in a Democratic takeover of the Congress in 2002, which body will impeach Bush for vote tampering, a shocking development that gives Cheney a heart attack--and Dick Gephardt finally becomes president.  Or something like that.  Whoever eventually becomes president, I'm willing to bet the extent of his bipartisanship will be to nominate the loser as ambassador to Chad.

I'm gearing up to teach my methods class online during January.  Initially scheduled to have 20 students, a glitch resulted in there being 31 enrolled (and a dozen or two being turned down).  I've hastily restructured the course to accomodate the enlarged size and the compressed time frame.  The 17 (nee 20) students in the fall online course have generated a discussion involving 941 email message in and out so far.

We spent Thanksgiving introducing Jessica to Death Valley.  On the drive in, we visited the Trona Pinnacles, which are normally surrealistic.  This time, we stumbled onto this:
 

Turns out that the new Planet of the Apes is being filmed here.  I assume this is supposed to be the old wreckage of a space ship.  Either that or somebody needs to talk to the crew about taking better care of the equipment.

Getting ready to wrap up the semester and head North to await the arrival of our grandchild.
 

December 2000

The first part of this month was spent wondering who would be out next president and whether we really need one for that matter.  Finally, of course, the Supremes dubbed Bush Junior the victor and warned that counting the votes would only undermine his credibility--an already scarce resource.  It wasn't our finest hour as a nation, but wasn't our worst, so time marches on.  Some have exaulted in the fact that "the system works," a slogan first put forth, I believe, by Bill Gates with the introduction of Windows.  It may not be perfect, it may not do what we intended, but something is getting done.

I'm tempted to say it's time to move on with a firm resolve that it will never happen again, but I'm sure that's what Democrats said in 1876, when virtually the same scenario played out--with "RutherFRAUD" B. Hayes given the presidency by a Republican-majority election commission that refused to count contested ballots in Florida and refused to look into charges of election fraud there.  Hayes assumed the presidency with a one vote margin in the electoral college, despite losing the popular vote nationally and--according to subsequent historians--losing the vote in Florida.  Never again again.

I am writing this from Portland, OR, where we are awaiting the big news of the new year/century/millenium: the birth of a grandchild.  It is "officially" due today, 01-01-01, but punctuality is not newborns' strongest suit.  So, waiting for the new baby is also an opportunity to be with family, and that's not bad in and of itself.  It's surely the best way to begin the new era.

Happy New Year.