What Planet IS That?!

I’m having trouble deciding how to work this blog-thing out… Do I want to be “political” do I want to be creative… what?

For example, I planned to come back and fill in the details of the last entry… tell you about the two neat-o things I learned. (1) The reason US Currency (actually this applies to ALL world currencies eventually… e.g., the Euro) is so colorful, and (2) My plans to make a killing in the paranormal field of “alternative energy” for cars.

However, I’ve become less interested in filling in all that stuff as each day passes. I think about it; then lose interest as soon as something else comes up. The most recent “up” deals with the mild embarrassment I feel at my school’s university banner. I’ll get to that below. For now, and just for closure’s sake, though, here goes the rest of my earlier blog-thoughts:

(1) Currency is colorful in order to make it LESS easy to use when you travel back in time. Yup. The color of money is all based on government time-travel fears. (I had a while lot more defense of this, but now don’t feel like elaborating on the joke.) My interest in this waned when a check-out clerk drew a brown streak across my brand new colorful ten-dollar bill. I told her that it’s just an iodine pen that is basically a scam to make money for two parties. One of course being the makers of these more-expensive-than-they-should-be pens, and the other group being the serious counterfeiters. She condescended to me that “Oh no, these have already caught a few fake bills.” Sure. Take a new ten or twenty dollar bill and spray it with spray-starch. Now go try to spend it at a store that uses those pens. The iodine reacts to starch which was in the crappy paper that counterfeiters USED to use all the time for fake cash printing. The problem now is that all these cashiers will NOT see a fake bill if the iodine pen streaks brown. Too much reliance on a scammed pen.

(2) I’m sickened by all the money being spent on alternative medicines. Partly because it makes me feel that humans are stupid. (I know, some are just desperate.) But also partly because I’m not getting any of that cash from stupid people. So, with gas prices soaring… what we need are alternative approaches to improving gas mileage! I have a bunch of crystals and will eventually be putting together a photo gallery of ways that the “healing properties of crystals” may be used on your car to improve gas consumption, reduce pollution, etc.! Wouldn’t it be worth it to spend a measly hundred bucks… no, wait, a measly five hundred bucks on a set of crystals to make your car work better and use less gas?! Of course it would! I will work on the photos and testimonials to PROVE they work and then get back to you.

Anyway, the real blog-content for this month starts below.

The University I work at had its 82nd Commencement ceremony. At the back of the stage hangs a banner to represent each of the university schools (i.e., School of Adult and Continuing Education; School of Business; School of Education and Social Sciences; School of Communications and Information Systems; School of Engineering, Mathematics and Science; School of Nursing and Allied Health). Each banner has a symbol like three keys, a quill, an open book, etc.

Well the School of Nursing and Allied Health has a pretty good emblem of the Earth (stylized a bit, but recognizable) with two pairs of hands reaching across them… I think they are two versions of Michael Jackson, though, because each has a single gold glove on one hand.

MY school is the School of Education and Social Sciences. It too has a planet depicted on it… but it is NOT the planet Earth. Maybe it is a secret planet that some of the administrators originally came from? Was this their sneaky way of getting some home-planet recognition? I don’t know. BUT, you’d think that the school containing EDUCATION would have a banner containing a more widely recognized planet on it. Otherwise, I think the symbolism gets lost. HOW does the planet Fermelagg fit into the themes of Social Science and Education?

I Almost Died Over One Thousand Years From Now

I can't believe I actually made it back...

Maybe I'm NOT back... Jesus, that would be a kick in the head. Maybe I'm still there... caught, "drugged" (or whatever they call that stuff they do to people... or maybe I should say "people" instead...?

My mistake was buying the time machine instructions off the web and going FOREWARD in time on my first trip, rather than BACKWARD. If I'd gone backwards, I would have had a chance to figure out how to navigate better.

Wow... look at how long I was gone... I missed weeks of classes... I'm going to have to go back and teach those classes... I don't want to lose my job.

Anyway... where do I start? It was AMAZING... I didn't mean to go so far ahead... HECK, I've always figured humanity would be long dead before 1000 years go by. I just wanted to slip ahead about 10 years to see what was going on. Ten years should have been a safe bet. Surely the world wouldn't end in 10!

Damn, like I said, I should have practised that time-travel thing a bit.

Anyway... I'll tell you about what's going on there... then, I mean...

But first, like I said, I need to go back and teach those classes. Plus, that will be good practice.

Not a super-hero...

OK... It's been over 40 years now and I'm STILL not a super hero.

What's the deal? How patient does a guy hafta be? Does ANYONE know of any 40+ old people who've been turned into super heroes?

No.

None of the comic books I've EVER come across have them.

I've been more than obliging in making myself available for scientific accidents to happen. I've been out quite a number of nights just wandering around waiting for the glowing meteor event, or the dying alien hero, or the alien abduction slash augmentation experiment... No black van has stopped to throw me into an illegal but desperate genetic manipulation experiment...

The sun doesn't do much to me except burn my skin. My parents weren't killed in front of my eyes as a child... (plus they were never rich enough to have a butler).

I'm really getting nervous that this might not happen. You know, I can only wait SO long before... well, you know... before I DIE OF OLD AGE!

So, this is just a general alert to the powers that be... a little little tug on their shirt sleeves that perhaps they've left a customer waiting a bit too long...

OK.

You know, as soon as you can... when you get the chance...

THanks.

BLAHg

It seems this has become less a BLOG and more of a BLAH + g.

Here's my problem... I find myself really busy during the day (12-14+ hours of work, etc. the usual sort of crappy excuses...), but when I get a chance to daydream I think about the rants I'd want to post on my blog. Daydream-time usually comes during important department or university meetings of course, and NOT when I'd have an opportunity to actually write anything. So, by the time I actually FIND any time to write my blog, I sorta feel like I got the issue off my chest already during daydream-time and it seems redundant to write it in my blog.

March will bring with it some extra time for me to attend more vigilantly to this shirked responsibility of blogging.

An alternative is for me to wax a little fictional... Like the previous entry, I always seem full of stuff like that. OOH! Maybe a POEM?!?!? Yeah! What about that?! Maybe I can work up some poetry juices and spit them out here?!

Let's see... My taste is not for the mundane... so howsabout I START something, and see if anyone out there can help me fini sh it...? (Bernard, the space in "finish" was intended so that it would be a bit ambiguous as to where it SHOULD be attached... the preceding word fragment, or the following one "it" But of course you knew that.)

There was a sweet rain
upon my window pane
which trickled down
to where the body had lain.

The pools of blood
thinned in to the mud and

There... what comes next?

Time Terror

Tell me, my wealthy friend... do you lose sleep at night wondering for your personal safety?

Have you become more concerned about he potential for terrorism? Hell, do you wonder if the next terrorist attack might come from your very own neighbor?!

How will they get you? WHEN will they get you?

Homeland security measures are up. Inspections at airports and train stations are up. Why, it's getting where a "respectable terrorist" can't make a decent killing in America ANYMORE...

Well don't get too snug in your rug, friend... it's only a matter of TIME before the terrorists figure out the one door America and Homeland Security has left wide open!

What door you ask? Why the door to the past. More specifically, the door to YOUR past!

For less than $100 dollars ANYONE can buy the plans for all sorts of time travel devices! Check it out! http://www.futurehorizons.net/time.htm

What is going to stop terrorists from acquiring these plans, building their own time machines, and going back to kill you when you were just a child... or worse, killing your parents, etc.?!

This route isn't just open to terrorists, but also to the guy you cut off on the highway, or the jerk who thinks it's not fair that you have a better job then he does. ANYONE could sneak into the past and harm you, your family, friends, lovers... or, they could do worse than just harm you...

The TIME for protection, the TIME for action, the TIME for somebody to do something about this is NOW! Don't wait a moment more! Someone could be firing up their freshly built time machine at this very moment!

WHAT can we do, you ask? Why protect our time-lines of course!

Drspeg Industries, Inc. has made a critical breakthrough in temporal distortion attenuation fields. They have discovered a method by which your personal time line can be isolated from the time stream flux. Simply by placing a sample of your DNA into the isolation and extraction chamber of the Temporal Distortion Attenuator (TDA), it is able to encapsulate the chronopath of your DNA back to the moment you were conceived.

Until researchers at the Drspeg Institute for Advanced Theoretical Metaphasic Physics developed the newest branch of chrono-quantum physics, this technology was considered mere science fiction at best!

How did they do it? Well, to make a complex story simple, they developed an extrapolated set of Fourier based retro-chronological calculus formulas that proved DNA timestream encapsulation was POSSIBLE! From these calculations, the TDA was born!

And not a moment too soon!

For a mere $8,500 you can purchase a TDA for your own personal use.

Only $8,500 as a one-TIME payment for a lifeTIME of security.

NOTE: Once calibrated for use by a single person's DNA sample, the TDA CANNOT be used for another individual. However, additional or replacement isolation and extraction chambers may be purchased for $750 each. This is especially recommended for protecting loved ones who may not (yet) be able to afford their own personal protection TDA.

Currently, there is only the personal model. Drspeg Industries, Inc. in conjunction with Drspeg Institute is hard at work attempting to develop TDA’s that can accommodate one's entire family tree (retroactively, of course).

Prepare yourself. The future of terrorism is the past!

Belief

This is probably going to be much less lengthy than it should be to convey my thoughts clearly. However, I find that I don't actually start to think about what I want to blog until I'm in bed TRYING to fall asleep at 2:00 am. Yep. School's about to start and so, naturally, I am losing sleep.

Right now (in my life) I am interested in the idea of BELIEF. Specifically, I am fascinated by the dynamic underlying belief formation, maintenance, and change. Truthfully, I am mostly interested in the "change" part, but the other two interest me as well. Actually I have a hunch that belief maintenance and belief change are the most closely related of the three possible pairings.

Let me quickly add that I'm not picky about what type of "belief" exactly, although I can appreciate the religious baggage (strong association) that seems to come with that word.
Almost everything that we are and that we deal with is essentially belief-based. So unfortunately, the term "belief" is too broad to be studied to everyone's satisfaction. For this entry, though, rather than elaborate on my definition/specific interests, I wanted to jot down my insomniac thoughts from last night (this morning).

First, the basic concept of "belief" cannot be what differentiates humans from other creatures. Clearly all creatures that interact with (respond to, etc.) their environments must maintain or form beliefs. That is, concrete beliefs: "That thing hurts/causes pleasure/etc." And, "That animal is a threat" and "That animal is somehow depriving me, or threatening to deprive me of something valuable like food, etc." (not that I think my dogs are articulating their beliefs... I'm just using words to convey the basic sense of what I mean by "concrete beliefs").

It occurred to me last night, though, that humans are likely to be the only critters that form abstract beliefs and act on them as fiercely as if they were concrete. That is, I can imagine a wild animal defending its turf/food/mate/etc. -all concrete things- when it believes that turf (etc.) may be taken by some competitor (another wild animal). We, on the other hand, are capable of just making up some shit in our heads that has NO CONCRETE SUBSTANTIVE MANIFESTATION (like belief in a particular god) and defending that belief aggressively if we perceive a threat to it.

By the way, I'm NOT trying to make a particular religious statement. The same kind of reaction happens when we make up our minds about a loved one, or an adored celebrity, etc. If another person mocks our belief (e.g., one my wife hates is when I refer to Barry Manilow with the same term I might use to describe something the dog did in the yard: BM), or disagrees with it, etc. we take offense, get angry, punch, kick, scream, make fun of one of their beliefs. For some reason the threat against an abstract belief is treated the same (nearly? sometimes more so?) as a threat against a concrete belief.

Take away my food and I die. Take away (change) my belief and what...? NOT die... technically, I've just been "educated." But look at how people react! We kill others who don't go along with our views (ok, another shot at religion... but it's true of other beliefs as well).

How do we justify this strange approach? We tie the abstract beliefs to concrete ones. If I believe that being gay is wrong, what's the big deal if someone tries to change my mind?

Well, if I want to get people to really defend (maintain) such a belief, I need to tie it to something that results in a concrete threat: So, obviously, if we let gays marry, then that pure fresh clean strong moral fabric of society will be torn and people will start raping each other and taking away their kids to force them to become sex-slaves and then I'll lose my job, be unable to pay bills, become homeless and have to buy a gun to rob people so I won't starve.

OK, clearly I'm too tired to make my points clear. Sorry. I'll stop. Good night.

Introverted Monkeytard

Not to trivialize horrible diseases, but, sometimes it seems as though being an introvert is like having something incurable and smelly. 

I've seen people (extroverts, of course) actually pause and then, after a moment of thinking about what it must be like to be introverted, convulse slightly. The same type of convulse I'd expect to make if I watched a child slowly pull a long wet slug-noodle out of their nostril and then eat it. THAT'S what it must be like to be shy... huh... imagine. 

 So, what does a maximum intorvert do in life (besides spell introvert wrong)? I stand in front of groups of strangers for about 12 hours a week and lecture to them. 

Public speaking.

"Then you must NOT be an introvert!" 

Mustn't I?

When I am forced into social situations I find myself becoming incredibly interested in digital hygiene... my cuticles are beginning to grow over my finger tips (not really, but you can imagine). I am relieved to be left to myself in a crowd and will simply become autistic. The more social pressure there is to interact, the more autistic I appear. 

My students generally peg me as an extroverted party-person. Until the horror that is graduation and they corner me into forced civil exchanges with their parents. It isn't that I don't ever smile, but WOW... my fear of making idle chit-chat coupled with a complete inability to come up with comments related to anything OTHER than the weather puts me into perma-grin mode which begins to hurt my smiler muscles. "If you can't say anyhing, Steve, at least you can look friendly while not saying it." At least so says my inner voice. So when I get cornered, I try... 

After five minutes of what I imagine must be awkard silences deflated with occasional odd remarks... "So, are you here for the graduation ceremony?" "I see that you noticed the sky was blue today." "Did you visit the restrooms while on campus? They have fancy motion-activated paper towel dispensers." ...we part ways and I feel terrible for a week thinking about how stupid I must have sounded. 

 How can I teach to a bunch of strangers? At first (10 years ago), I couldn't. I was so afraid of what the audience must be thinking about me ("Did he say 'um' again?" "Why is he touching his nose?" "Did you hear that warble in his voice?") that I started really to focus on the cues I was afraid they could pick on. 

Content suffered a bit back then, but I needed to make strides that meant the most to me first. I learned to fake that I wasn't scared peepee-less to talk in front of a group. BUT, once I got rid of the danger-cues I started to imagine that the audience was hostile... or at least waiting for some excuse to become hostile. So I needed to find a way to befriend the audience. 

Step 2 for me wasn't to improve the content of my talk, but to add humor. Nervous humor of course. But if I could SEE a smile, I felt a lot more comfortable. Basically I guess because I felt that I was in control of the smiles. There are a lot of reasons why your audience could laugh at you. Best to make it mostly purposeful... then those occasional times you really do mess up won't sting so much. 

 Even after 10+ years, the start of a new semester brings the tummy-aches of anticipation. The first few lectures every time are the hardest to get over for me. But I doubt the students notice. 

===End Ramble===

Spring!

It's coming! Slowly but surely! Spring is creeping closer. Why, in just 8 short days we'll hit December 21 and THAT means that the days will begin to get longer! Yes indeed, I can almost feel that warm weather already!
I'd best prepare by washing all of my shorts! Musn't bring in the new Spring with dirty shorts!

Holiday Spirit

When I was a kid, both Christmas and my birthday were the two BIGGEST days of the year! My mother made sure that as many of our (sister and me) wishes came true as possible. Especially festive was December 25. She spent a lot of time decorating the house (I'll have to tell you about the evil elves someday...). Lights in every window, mistletoe, wreaths, tinsel on the tree, etc. If you were in my house at night, it glowed warmly and softly with the various candles (electric and flame). Very cozy.
Even four feet of snow didn't bother us much. Although we had to shovel the driveway, it usually meant a day off from school and sledding in the back woods. We couldn't WAIT until Christmas morning!
My sister and I tried almost every year to go to bed early so that the morning would seem to come extra-fast. My parents wised up, though. They made Christmas eve our delivery day. We loaded presents in the car and visited all the relatives to drop off their gifts. (And pick some up!) We'd be pretty tired by the time we finally got home. No more Christmas mornings that started at 4:00 AM!
The rule of the house was that NOBODY was allowed into the living room (where Santa had presumably visited while we slept) until after breakfast. We weren't even allowed to peek. Every year my parents would sit and try to have a second cup of coffee at the table as part of their breakfast. I can't imagine a worse torture for a kid.
After enough snotty whining from us kids, my parents would allow that breakfast was over. My father got to enter the living room first to turn on the tree lights. Then the parade! We filed in and were always almost speechless at the sight of so many gifts. "Santa" had a way with artfully stacking boxes under the tree to make it look like hundreds of gifts.
As much as we would have liked to tear into the presents like sharks at a feeding frenzy, we were only allowed to go one person at a time. This was excruciating, but also nice as it made the wonderful morning last longer.
In 1999 my mother died of cancer (lymphoma). She took Christmas and birthdays with her. My sister does her best at holding it together for her family. She tries to make it as wondrous for her children as our mother did for us. Deep down, though, I know it isn't really Christmas for her without our mother. It's a show she puts on for her kids.
As it turns out, this will be the first year her oldest experiences the holiday knowing who Santa really is. She was devastated at learning the truth and decided she wanted nothing more to do with the day ever again. THAT won't last. The magic of seeing the decorations, the music (inescapable isn't it?), the TV shows, the shopping, the crowds, the presents... She'll come around to appreciating it again. Not quite the same, but it's still there for her.
We don't have kids, so it's been over five years since we've made any real effort to get into the holiday spirit. Maybe this year will be different.
Miss you mom.

Effort

It seems to me that a blog should contain more than just an introductory blurb. Although blurbs SOUND like they should be part of blogs, just blurbs in blogs could get pretty shallow.

So this brings me to effort. When I had the idea to begin this, there were so many ideas flipping around in my mind that they kept bumping into the things I was trying to think about (like work, getting the car fixed, etc.). I couldn't sleep that night trying to figure out what my first real entry would cover. Then a day went by... I got busy. I shared some ideas with my wife. Time passed some more. Finally, today, I spent 3 hours at the mall waiting for my car to be fixed, then rushed to school to get ready for a meeting (buying snacks, making copies, readying my powerpoint slides for NO reason since it turned out that there was no technology in the presentation room, etc.), stopped at the library on the way home... made dinner, checked email... then almost logged off for the night. [If students are reading this, note that the previous sentence was TOO LONG and you should not emulate my creative writing styles in your own scientific or professional writing.]
I really don't feel like writing anything.
Instead, let me list the topic ideas I wanted to rant about:

1. Course outcomes assessment (Woohoo, there's a fascinating one!)
2. Paranormal beliefs (Better...)
3. What I'd do if I was really really rich (Yeah, like anyone'd care...)
4. Introversion and insecurity (Huh?)
5. My eating disorder (Yawn.)
6. How to build a temporal distortion attenuator for personal use or to sell for less than $8,000.00 (Ooooooh!)
7. The story behind the title for this blog site (OK, maybe interesting...)
8. Status on my plans to become an actual superhero (Isthey erson'spay azycray...)
   

That's good for now. I look forward to seeing whether I actually get to these topics or become distracted by others.

Introduction

So... I've developed enough ego to start a blog.

Clearly I'm finally living up to my over-educated/under-paid self-image.

Why do this? I guess just to air my gripes and concerns like most others.

We'll see how this goes.