mattbelcher.com

The whys of kitchen renovation:

Why you should always repaint the walls when you repaint the ceiling:

Why you should always replace the floor when you're painting the walls:

Why you should always replace the kitchen sink when you're painting anything at all:

Why you should always, always tape:

And finally, some of the results of days 3 & 4. I know you'll all be relieved to hear that the inside of the radiator cover is now red. More importantly, here are a couple of shots of the kitchen after two coats, with a little help from the tiny bit of natural light that was able to creep in through the cloud cover and so-called "rain" we've had for the last three days:

Something else happened today, and since I've hijacked a blog, I may as well use it as one. Besides, you all seem to need something to read; God knows there isn't enough content on the internet as it is. So you can check out this New Yorker article in which I'm quoted briefly. Margaret Talbot (who, by the way, is wonderful) called a few weeks ago to interview me on the subject of my graduating class in high school, in which there was a controversy about the valedictorian. More on that in the article.

Revisiting this disquieting period in my past has made me think more about the underlying patterns of the different responses to what Denny and the school did. At the time, I only recognized that Denny thought of the title of valedictorian differently from Kylie or me. At this distance, I seem to see a bit more clearly what the difference was. It's easiest to think about it as revolving around an ambiguity in the term "earn". You can "earn" a prize or "earn" an honor, but you do it in different ways. A prize is something you earn by succeeding according to a certain set of rules. In order to earn a prize, you have to know what the rules are governing it. In other words, prizes are given in game situations, where you have to know the win conditions before hand. Denny and Paul Storm and Dan Kennedy all seemed to think of the valedictorian title as something you earn in this sense; hence they emphasize that Denny broke no rules, broke no rules, broke no rules. They're right. But Kylie and I were offended. Why? Because we thought of valedictorian as something you earned in the same sense that you earn an honor. An honor is something that comes out of a situation where you aren't playing by a predetermined set of rules. Instead, you are accorded recognition because someone else deems you worthy of it. It can be a person or group that plays this role, but they must have some kind of authority or prestige to give the honor. A good example is the knighthood in England. You can't go to court and sue because you've earned the knighthood and it has unfairly been withheld from you.

So much for boring preliminary theory. Here's where I am intrigued. The school had a valedictorian policy, a very complicated and yet extremely dull set of rules to determine who was number one in the class. It's not worth details here, but it was based on quality points and quite minute. My point is that the very existence of such a policy (an "algorithm" as Matt astutely named it) implicitly placed the school on the "game" side of the question. However, when they finally offered a compromise, naming Kylie and Denny co-valedictorians, they basically asserted the school's right, regardless of the policy, to name the valedictorian (or valedictorians). In other words, they undermined the ruleset, implicitly sliding from the "game" point of view to the "honor" point of view. I don't know what that means, but it's sort of interesting. Ironic, maybe. It makes me go "huh".

And since I have to end this one a truly "bloggy" note (else Matt might not let me come back), I beat "The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap" today. It has a really cute ending!

Over and out.

Kim B.

N.B.: Post title unrepentantly stolen from "Sim-Hilarities",
by Electric Funstuff.