This Could Be Tricky

[stoutfellow]

Next week is finals week. I'm scheduled to give my calculus final Monday afternoon; the geometry take-homes are due on Tuesday; the statistics final is Thursday morning; and I'll be winging my way west Friday morning. Grades have to be in by noon the following Monday, but I'll post them Thursday afternoon.

That's if everything goes according to plan. Unfortunately, winter seems to be settling in, and if the weather is bad enough on Monday or Thursday to force the university to close, any finals from that day will be postponed to Friday or later.

I've missed two straight family get-togethers. (Err... no, it's three; I arrived too late the year before.) I could eat the airfare and stay to take care of the finals, but... no. Not again.

I can see a way of getting everything done - a kludgy, Rube Goldbergian way - but there are too many places where it could go wrong. (It involves finding a proctor, overnight mail, e-mailing myself an Excel file, and accessing the grade-posting software at long range. Any of these steps could prove impossible to execute, for one reason or another.)

:crosses fingers:

Comments

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

more fingers crossed in support

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

Thanks. The Yahoo! forecast for Monday is "light wintry mix", which is a good sign.

Are you anywhere near the path of the NE ice storm?

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

North of the bad ice. We had a bit of freezing rain, and one walks carefully on any unsalted pavement, but the power outages are mostly south of us.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear it.

kludge

[(Anonymous)]

Jim .... I can't open EXCEL files....I don't have it on my computer. Don.

Re: kludge

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

Problem foreseen. I think I have a way around it....

Re: kludge

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

I'm bringing coals to Newcastle, but we all know about the free Excel Reader, I trust. Or, in a Linux pinch, Open Office? Sorry for the egg-sucking lesson, but you-all are much to young to be my grandmother.

Re: kludge

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

A reader would be a less-than-satisfactory solution, since I'll need to enter the data on the finals to compute the overall scores. (I could do it by hand, but that would be even less pleasant than the other possibilities.)

Re: kludge

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

Ah. I don't know your restrictions. But you can copy and paste from the Viewer into something more useful. e.g.
PROGRAMCODE PROJECTTOWN
BEF Northfield
I use 1-2-3, partly because I worked for Lotus for years, partly because I try to avoid giving money to Microsoft. But the rest of my world uses Excel; hence I do this a lot.

You'll have to regenerate any formulas in whatever you choose to use, of course

[filkferengi]

[crosses toes in sympathy & hope.]