archival emails

Because I have the same computer that was purchased while we were in Utah, I have a cache of emails dating back to March 2003. One from the Old Inbox was from an NSF program officer who offered advice about when to submit a conference grant. Another was from a NARST employee who indicated the need to supply my SS# in order to be reimbursed – presumably for FARSE expenses. There is also email from my brother in which we solidified his flights from Iowa to Utah to help me replace the garage roof and go snowshoeing.

Since I am reluctant to delete emails from Adam, my inbox gets bloated – until I learned how to create archives. Undoubtedly, this archive is incomplete. For one, there are only 1300 entries and some are replies from me. Also, that we have been unable to recover the correspondence about the origins of the Crossroads name is evidence that there are some omissions — exhausting perhaps, but not exhaustive. Despite those gaps in the logorrheaic record, there are pieces that provide fascinating indicators about what was going on when they were first posted:

Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 09:32:46 -0600
From: "Adam JOHNSTON"
To: john.settlage@ed.utah.edu
Subject: brewing conceptual change

Some of us brew beer. Many more of us brew trouble. You brew both.

Your experience with the unfortunate orientation of your fermenter and
the realization of the physics concept invovled is surely exactly the
kind of conceptual change experience worthy of research and publication.
Perhaps in JEST. "Brewing Conceptual Change" . . .

Have a good time in COSprings. Hope that hops don't eat spouse and
house while you're away.

-a

There it is: the source of this blog's name. We transition into the post-email correspondence mode. I suppose I should have anticipated the "Dear John" letter. And deep down, there was a part of me that knew it was coming. Maybe it won't be so bad because change can be good. But if you catch me sighing or looking wistful, just know that I'm learning to accept the new arrangements. With luck, keyboards will still occasionally receive an aspirated misting of coffee.