This past term, I had the rare privilege of awarding a final grade of "AEG", short for "Aegrotat". Of the several non-numeric grades that can be awarded for courses, this one is the least common. It's a passing grade with no specific number, and is awarded in special cases where the student was clearly passing the course but was unable to complete all the work due to illness. In my case, a strong student got very sick just before the final exam and missed it. Rather than making him do a make-up exam (annoying) or awarding him an INC ("Incomplete") and having him finish the course the following term (he was in his last term), we agreed to give him the mysterious Aegrotat. He passes the course, graduates, but receives no grade.

I don't know why the opportunity to award an Aegrotat makes me so happy. I think it's a bit of the trading card mentality: Collect them all! Trade with your friends! And I managed to find the true rarity.

Actually, it reminds me very strongly of the Infocom game Zork II. In Zork II, the Wizard of Frobozz would appear out of nowhere and cast spells on you. Some, such as "Freeze", "Ferment", and "Filch" happened all the time and weren't much to get excited about. But in the book of hints for the game (the "Invisiclues"), you learn that there are some other, highly specialized spells, such as "Frobizz", "Frobozzle", and "Frobnoid". In all the time I played the game, I was never the target of any of those spells, so I don't know what they do! Maybe Eric can fill me in. That's what the Aegrotat reminds me of. Frobnoid sounds so... exotic, so mysterious. What does it do? What do I have to do to be Frobnoided?

Ahhh, the power of words. Now that I've handed out an Aegrotat, I'll have to go off in search of my next conquest. Perhaps I can lobby the university senate to introduce the grade "A suffusion of yellow".

Last year's big house project was the replacement of all the windows. There have been a couple of minor upgrades since then, but the next big change happened two weeks ago, when we got a new roof.

By last year, our roof had begun to look pretty mangy -- in any kind of wind, shingles were abandoning their posts and leaping for the ground. I was disappointed, given that the home inspector had promised us we'd get a few more years out of the roof. On the other hand, I later discovered the receipt the previous owners had kept for their roof. Sure enough, the receipt was dated from 1991 and called for the installation of 15-year shingles. It's hard to argue with that.

Like every other aspect of our 80-year-old house, the roof was partly architectural and partly archaeological. It was made up of a bit of everything: asphalt shingles on top of plywood on top of tongue-and-groove in most places. On top of cedar shingles in a couple of places. Not to mention the flat gravel roof in back and the tarpaper over the carport. Well, we went right down to the rafters and built a sensible new roof. The reason for tearing everything down was that the contractor could then spray expanding foam into the exposed rafters. Our house is only one and a half stories tall, and we sleep directly under the rafters (even more so since we bought a taller bed). This change should keep us warmer in winter, and might have the added side effect of keeping critters from crawling around in the ceiling directly overhead.

The whole operation went very smoothly over about three days. The contractors left the area around the house cleaner than it was before they started. And the price was very reasonable. The only unresolved issue is the frikkin' dumpster in our driveway that the haulage people haven't picked up yet. What -- do they rent these things out by the year?

And now it's on to bigger and better things. Hopefully, REEP will make a second visit to evaluate the new efficiency level of our home, and the government will issue a rebate cheque. The last major-but-short-term change to the outside of the house will come in a few years, when we replace the siding and use the opportunity to insulate the walls from the outside. At that point, we can start talking about sweet, sweet air conditioning without too blatantly bringing about the end of civilization.