There are common stereotypic images that are evoked by the word professor. Ordinary folks not acquainted with real live professors tend to think of them pejoratively, as in dull, absent-minded, preoccupied, detached, eccentric and living mostly in the non-real world of abstractions. Professorial types see themselves as bright, erudite, scholarly, meritorious, eminent, etcetera. Most professors I have known, in addition to thinking what they do is necessary, are at one time or another all of the above. [read the rest of the day]