Tuesday, January 19, 2010

It's Like 2007, but with a 10

...and this time the SSNs are given out freely:

Dear student:

Early last week, the University of Missouri mailed Internal Revenue Service 1098-T forms to our students via U.S. mail. On January 14th we became aware that, for some of the forms, the Social Security Number on the form was partially or fully viewable through the envelope window.

I am sending this letter to all students who received 1098-T forms since we do not know which students might have been affected. You can determine if your SSN was viewable by visually inspecting how your form aligns with the envelope window.

If your SSN was indeed viewable and you are concerned about the risk of identity theft, you may want to monitor your credit which can be accomplished by contacting one of the national credit agencies: Experian at 888-397-3742, Equifax at 800-525-6285 or TransUnion at 800-680-7289.

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Friday, September 25, 2009

(Museum) Crawling in My Skin

Last week our fine University held a Art Gallery and Museum Crawl. The goal is to visit five locations around the campus and take in their exhibitions. Each place had a snack table and there will be a prize drawing for those who got their card stamped at every location. I was only familiar with two of the five, so off I went!

The State Historical Society had editorial cartoons from the 30's on display. They also debuted a brand new exhibit on Missouri portraiture, featuring portraits of Mark Twain and Harry Truman. There was also a collage of portraits drawn by kids.

As an added bonus they had markers and colored pencils out for you to draw your own portrait. Here is what they had so far. Can you see the one I did (click to embiggen)?

Link to Bigger: Portrait wall.

Our own Museum of Anthropology was also one of the stops on the tour. I've spent many-a-hour in there so I mostly chatted with the staff. I talked with Candy, the Associate Museum Curator (and awesome person) and met some of the new people I missed getting to know as I worked in my cave/basement for the past few years. They're a friendly bunch!

Here are more of my photos on Flickr:
IMG_1571IMG_1572IMG_1573IMG_1576IMG_1582IMG_1584IMG_1590IMG_1592IMG_1595IMG_1601Portrait Panorama

The Missourian has a short slideshow with photos from the Crawl.

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Monday, May 11, 2009

Park and (Get Taken for a) Ride

I was going to be a good soldier/grad student and not blog about this, but when I examined my parking ticket from last week I saw how ridiculous it was.

Here's what happened. I had to go to the Student Health Center to see my counselor (to get the Zoloft for the depression that being a grad student gave me). I also had to get to Ellis Library so I parked at a parking garage between the two buildings, Virginia Avenue Parking Garage. Sidenote: it's layout is the mirror image of Hitt Street Garage, which totally won't lead to accidents.... Anyway I figured, like Hitt Street Garage, it will have paid parking on the upper floors. So I drive... and drive... and drive to the top floor. And... nothing. No meters. Well I'm now on the top floor of a six-floor parking garage. There are maybe 10 cars parked up there so they weren't hurting for spaces. I have a schedule to keep so I decided to park up there.

Obviously this story leads to me seeing the parking guy putting the ticket on my car after returning from the Library to check for just such an occurrence. I laugh it off (not his fault) and drove off to park in the Student Health Center parking.

I get home and read the back of my ticket:

Parking ticket

Sure, $25. I can stand to lose that. Times are tough. The school needs money. But hold on! There are a lot of offenses that are fined less than $25. Let's see what I could've done instead of parking at the top floor of a barren garage blocks away from the Library, and saved a few dollars:

  • I could've stayed on the ground floor and parked on the yellow curb outside the garage. $10
  • I could've parked directly on the crosswalk leading up to the Library. $15
  • I could've parked in the Library's loading zone. $10
  • I could've parked in the official space in front of the Library. $15
  • In a real pinch, I could've taken two metered spots. $10
  • I could've found a ground level metered spot and not pay. $10
  • I could've popped a wheelie, went over a curb, or go reverse all the way there. $25 each
  • I could've blocked the street with my car. $25
  • I could've willfully disobeyed any Stop, No Parking, Yield, or One Way sign. $15.

But no, I parked blocks away, several stories up, not doing any harm, and got fined $25. Sigh.

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Saturday, December 23, 2006

Go #54!

My advisor Robert Benfer made Discover Magazine's top 100 science discoveries of 2006! He is number 54 on the list, not a bad showing at all. Bob made the list for finding the oldest known site in the New World that was used for astronomical observations. These observations were important for Andean groups for planning their agricultural seasons. I unfortunately haven't seen all of the cool alignments and stuff in person since I wasn't there the field season when the discoveries were made.

Only two archaeological discoveries beat Bob's Temple of the Fox on the list: a newly-discovered tomb in Egypt and the earliest evidence of writing in the New World. Omega-3 fatty acid-producing pigs was another MU development that made the list, at a surprising (?) #38. Alternative energy in general was the #1 story.

Bob's Article from Discover Magazine
Article from the Columbia Missourian
My glorious advisor's webpage with more information on the site.

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