32 W.D.L. Carpenter Ants and Colleagues.

Winged Male Carpenter Ant

 Yesterday provided two experiences that reminded me of how much I've enjoyed working at COCC.  The first involved dealing with a household pest.  The second was my very last faculty forum social.

Beginning with the pests.  We had five of these long bodied, long winged black ant-like things but bigger flying onto our big window in our dining area on Wednesday evening.  They so creeped me out.  While I like spiders (except the wolf spiders that drop on my head from the ceiling of the downstairs shower if I forget to look first) but I hate anything that looks like an ant or heaven forfend a flying ant.

Ick.  I know they fly.  They've been swarming in Deschutes one for decades.  Every year.  The winged ant swarm.  Ants creep me out more than spiders because of that episode of The Outer Limits.  That one with the ants with the faces of people.  The Zanti Misfits!

Bret Michalski

So I took this icky thing as yet unkilled but caught in paper towel and put into a plastic food storage box to visit with Bret Michalski, one of our Forestry guys.  He looked at it and said it was a carpenter ant, not a termite.
I was so relieved!!!!!!!

Jeez, I didn't want to deal with termites.  I was thinking bug bombs or hiring professionals.  But he said that regular ant traps would work with these flying creepazoids (though it might take a few weeks).  So I'll  toss some ant traps into the attic space and the woodpile behind the house and be done with them.  Unless they are aliens.

Getting to know folks in other disciplines has been one of the great pleasures of working at a small college.  If I'd gotten a job at a larger school I probably would have become stuck among my communication coterie.  But at COCC I've had the opportunity to work with people in the professional-technical fields as well as folks from other areas in the "transfer" side.

I'd actually worked with Bret many years ago when he asked me to develop a couple of public speaking lectures for his entomology class.  I called it "Bug Speech."  It was a mini speech course in two class sessions.  It was a fun service to perform.  I'm not sure if they are still using speech teachers in that role or simply requiring their students to take the full public speaking class now.  Or if they've just given up having them give presentations.

I didn't see him at the lightly attended Faculty Social last night. I did see several folks I enjoy and talked with people I don't often see.  One of the great things about forum socials has been meeting new people and seeing friends one doesn't see in the regular course of one's work weeks.  I chatted with Ken Mays and Ricky Virk (an HHP teacher) about the great quality of mixed company at COCC -- how wonderful it's been to get to know people from all over campus in so many different areas of study.  Ken said that the people at COCC were also high quality in their fields and as teachers.  I certainly agreed with that.  I've heard of very few poor teachers among the full time faculty over the past 25 year.  Oh, there have been some, but not all that many.

Last night's social was held at one of the private rooms in McMenamins Old St. Francis School.  For once the food there didn't suck.  We had pizza that wasn't raw on the bottom and really good meatballs along with cheese and fruit plates with various crackers and cheeses.  And, of course, there was the alcohol paid for by the union -- wine, beer, and hard liquor. 

I will miss these events as well as the wonderful opportunity to get answers to life's perplexing problems just by walking through the woods of a beautiful workplace.