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Were you also fans of the two-seasons of HBO’s Rome series? Take heart! Ray Stevenson (Titus Pullo) says that there might be a Rome movie.

Tonight I set aside two hours out of my busy schedule (I know, I should have been marking essays) to watch a special episode of my favourite home building/home renovation show Holmes on Homes: Lien on Me.

Mike Holmes tore down a substandard home reno, all the way to a hole in the ground, then restored it to a brand new, eco-friendly house. This wasn’t just a whim. The house needed to be totally rebuilt as the previous contractor had horribly botched the job from omitting footings all the way up to installing the roof improperly. (Despite being paid in full for his contract, this guy then had the temerity to put a lien on their unfinished and unsafe home, claiming he’d added a further 340,000 in value to it.)

Mike’s motto is “Make It Right” and, by gum!, he does that in every show. This time was no exception as he made it possible for this family to have a home again after over three years of renovation hell. They now have a great house with a green roof, solar panels, manifolds to run the water supply and oodles more cool features.

I love this show. I only wish that Mike Holmes would make a house call when we’re ready to re-do our kitchen someday because when I watch his show or read his book, I realize all the way someone else could do it wrong. But thanks to Mike Holmes, I’m learning some of the ways to “Make it Right.”

That’s how high the stack of documents are piled on my desk. They’re not for my research, no. They’re not for my teaching, no. They’re for my role as internal reviewer of a group of other undergraduate programs at my U. We’ll be reviewing two of the three programs in the next three weeks, eating up three full days of my own (and every other reviewer’s) time. That’s not counting the preparation time and any work towards drafting the report. And there’s still the third related review to get through sometime before the end of term.

I’m actually pretty interested in this activity. I’ve volunteered as a reviewer for programs inside and out of our university several times before they asked me to assist on this review. I’ll learn a lot about the way in which other programs structure and support their undergraduate mission. I’ll meet some interesting people and gain valuable insight into other aspects of our university’s functioning. Hopefully I’ll also be able to provide them with something useful from my participation in the review process.

Still, when people tell you that all professors do is stand in front of a classroom and talk for 8 or 9 hours a week, remember this, please?

The Guardian reports that a privately held manuscript of puzzles, De Ludo Schacorum, written circa 1500 by Luca Pacioli, appears to have been illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci. Neat.

The Guardian’s Chris Arnot also profiles Nick McDowell who’s editing Milton’s Tenure of Kings for the Complete Works. I love his story about how he came to his doctoral research topic:

I found that I could follow the fault lines from 17th-century England to the Northern Ireland of the 1970s and 80s. I remember being very excited and energised by this discovery. The language of religious conflict just clicked with me.

“The difficult relationship between politics and religion is central to what happened in England over 360 years ago, as well as to the civil war that I grew up with. Initial arguments may have been about territory and power, but the splits were along religious lines.

Welcome to my new blog. If you’ve migrated over from the old homestead, I hope the change isn’t too jarring. If you’re new to the scene, even better!

I tend to write about my academic discipline of history and life as a university professor. Occasionally, I’ll venture opinions on matters political and personal.

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