CMBC: Cranky Monkey Broadcasting Corporation

You Can Appear Popular. Here's How.

2006-12-24T00:29:00.002-05:00

In the game of life, it often comes down to this:

Some people are socially attractive.

Others aren’t.

Some people upload scores of pictures that show themselves surrounded by those who are desirable and delicious.

Others don’t.

For those who are already socially attractive, uploading these pictures is no prob. They have tons of them—just from this month.

But for the rest of humanity—the other 97% of the population—life is not so exciting. And that’s a problem because the appearance of popularity translates into social capital.

What to do?

I can imagine service that will take pictures of you with attractive people in a variety of enticing social environments.

Let’s say I start this service. We’ll use some imagination here.

I would begin by hiring a pool of attractive people to include in the photos with you. These people need to be attractive, but not so attractive that the shots with you in them become too hard to accept. We could squeeze you into this appropriately attractive cast of characters for a variety of group shots. For example, there could be pictures of you on a hay ride, surrounded by attractive members of the opposite sex. They are clearly laughing at a joke you just told. Fresh smiles. Sparkling eyes. All directed toward you, you little devil.

Of course, there would also be several pictures of you just one-on-one with other members of the opposite persuasion. You are irresistible, and the pictures don’t lie.

Would you do this for $99.99?

Or what about a Photoshopped version for only $49.99?

Would you do this if you were confident that no one would discover your secret?

What would paying for this service say about you?

And if this business became successful, what would it say about our culture?

The Luck of the Irish at Red Lobster

2006-12-23T17:23:00.000-05:00

We went to Red Lobster for lunch, even thought we didn’t have the excuse of a gift certificate this time. How indulgent of us. After noticing an empty parking space on a busy shopping day, I challenged Raul Matthew and Melissa to guess the color of the next vehicle to pull into that spot. I guessed white, Melissa silver, and Raul Matthew green. On the line was who would get to select the dessert. I felt fairly confident as about 30% of the cars passing on US 31 were white. Surprisingly, several minutes went by and the space remained empty. I knew one thing: No green car would pull into that space. I hadn’t seen a single green vehicle pass by in minutes. It was then that I remembered, WE have a green car. It was parked on the north side of the parking lot where Little Raul couldn’t see, so I decided to have a little fun with this. I excused myself from the table and moved our green car into the parking space under contest. In the end, Little Raul technically won but at least he chose the lime cheesecake for dessert, so I guess we all won.

Manatees, Fabio, and Canonballs--at IU Kokomo

2006-12-23T17:18:00.000-05:00

The fact that IUK is in Kokomo is the giant manatee in the bath tub that no one wants to talk about. And, there isn't a lot that can be done to change the facts of the situation, at least in terms of the physical side of the equation. Kokomo will continue to be seen as a strip of blight on U.S. 31 and IU Kokomo’s campus won’t look like Frank Lloyd Wright’s capstone project any time soon. There are clearly some limitations when it comes to marketing the school. It’s kind of like the frumpy dude I saw in Meijer last night who tried to make a pass at an attractive woman as they pushed their carts past each other. I could see this one going down in flames before she even met his eyes. Some things just aren’t going to happen.

On the other hand, it's okay that people aren't coming to the school from across the globe given that our mission is to serve an 11 county area and that we aren't a residential campus. What the school needs to do is to more effectively market itself to potential students in the north central Indiana region. Interestingly, according to Robert Nowack, one of IU Kokomo's Vice Chancellors, the majority of the school's graduates remain here in the area. So, the school needs to market itself here at home and become the best that it can be in servicing the students it recruits. Like the cart dude, IU Kokomo ain’t no Fabio. And like the cart dude, the school will have to promote what it can offer. “He’s no Fabio, but he can sure steer a mean cart.” Finding out what can make IU Kokomo great for its more localized market—and achieving this in such a way that current and potential students perceive this greatness—is what the changes should be all about.

In the end, we’ll see what gets done. As for yours truly, I proposed to the humanities faculty that the school hold next year’s Freshman orientation meeting at Kokomo Beach. And, I was only ½ joking. This is a new event in which all new students show up on campus to become indoctrinated about the IU Kokomo way. This fall, we had a funeral processional of the faculty into the big black hole that is Havens Auditorium where students listened to “wisdom” about the value of a higher education, and then we had a barbecue. That’s cool, and students seemed to get something from this. But we need to make ourselves distinct—a different type of school. And what better way to welcome in your college education than the sight of Chancellor Person doing a cannonball from the high dive?

Beef, Books, and Bodywash

2006-12-23T17:14:00.000-05:00

I loaded up the fam and headed to Lafayette to meet Mike, my college roommate from my sophomore year, at the Texas Roadhouse near the Tippecanoe Mall. This time I used both my gift card and my digital camera. After dinner, we headed across the parking lot to Richard Nixon’s Sporting Goods where I ended up beating Raul Matthew in air hockey by a score of 20 – 15. Actually, it was Florida State beating Purdue according to my son, and this was sad given that this was taking place on Purdue’s “home field.”

We then headed to Barnes and Noble where I once again looked for something to spend my $50 gift card on. I took another look through the music area and didn’t find anything that I felt compelled to purchase. Had this just been a matter of spending $50, I could have found any number of CDs or DVDs to get. But given that this $50 was a gift for my graduation, I felt restricted, as if the purchase needed to mark the occasion somehow. It’s interesting how we can create mental boxes that hem us in. Maybe I’m just speaking for myself. I almost got a box set of Mozart’s symphonies, but decided against it when they all seemed to sound alike when I listened to the first few seconds of each clip on one of the preview listening stations. I’m sure it also didn’t help that I was trying to listen as a 7 year old was persistent in asking when we would finally be going back to the kids section. So we left there and headed to the cooking area. I knew what I was looking for, but I couldn’t find it. But after asking for help at the information kiosk, I struck gold. They had one copy of Perfect Chef by the Culinary Institute of America, and it’s now mine, all mine. I don’t know if this is “the definitive cooking guide,” but it sure looks like it. Great pictures. Great explanations. Great cultural overviews. Great about everything. I’ve been wanting this book ever since I first saw it a couple of years ago at the Williams-Sonoma store at the Keystone by the Crossing mall in north Indy.

We then went to Meijer on the way out of town where I purchased some ingredients (sherry, garlic, and an onion) to make a Cuban-Creole chicken dish for dinner tomorrow night. I also looked for annatto seed, which is combined with olive oil to create annatto oil—a foundational sauce in many Cuban dishes, but not as widely used as the sofrito sauce which serves the same purpose. I don’t have the first clue about Cuban cooking, but I’m kind of interested in it given that I lived in Hialeah, Florida during the late 70s. I don’t ever recall eating much of the local flavors during my time down there, but I’m drawn to the thought of using fresh and tropical ingredients to broaden my culinary experience. The fresh part may be a challenge given the limited produce sections in the Kokomo area, but I’ll see how it goes.

One other thing about Meijer--over the 14.5 years of my married life I have often found myself camped out for prolonged periods of time in specific areas of a store. When life comes to a standstill during times like these, I've found ways to keep myself from falling asleep by engaging my powers of observation. Tonight, it was the body wash aisle--an entire aisle of nothing but sleek-looking plastic bottles of body wash. It's obvious, I guess, that there are two basic types of body wash. About 3/4 were for women and 1/4 for men. Many of them were in the androgynous category, but given the fruity scents and frilly scripts, I'm just putting them in the female category. In this genre of gels there are a wide range of scents going from the relaxing scents of lavender to the indulgent scents of honey and cream to the invigorating scents of citrus blends. Most of these smelled good, but the cucumber melon--why take the risk? As for the guys, there was a variety of words to describe what was in the bottle--artic blast, glacier cool, ice mountain, etc.,--but there was only a single male scent in the bottles despite the variety of names used for marketing. Oh, and a few of the male bottles had broken caps, whereas none of the female brands had been dropped. It made me wonder if any male ex-cons had anxiety attacks after fumbling on the soap aisle.

On the way to Meijer, we passed the Lafayette Journal and Courier building east of Lafayette on 500th street, and it was really cool because the entire side of the building facing the road was nothing but a giant glass wall revealing a two-story newspaper printing machine. It was like the Krispy Kreme of the publishing industry—a glorification of the gears of production. It takes that which has in the past been kept out of view and shines a spotlight on it. That got me thinking—I wonder if more businesses will do this. It’s kind of cool. Just then we passed the next building—the Arnett Clinic Surgery Center. Despite this cutting-edge idea, I don’t think I’m ready for the glorification of surgery quite yet.

A Close Shave with Ronald McDonald

2006-12-23T17:13:00.000-05:00

Raul Matthew and I went to Lowes to look for a gas burner so that we can start doing some serious wokking. We wanted something that looks like the back end of an F-15, to use the wording of Alton Brown. This burner wasn’t sold separately, so there I was taking apart a turkey deep fryer in the middle of the aisle and reading the directions to see if it was up to the wokking task. It was. Now I just need to figure out what to do for the propane tank part. I’m guessing I’ll just buy my own tank and have it filled at those places—wherever they are—that do such things. After my son tired of hosting a cooking show back in the kitchen cabinet area of Lowes, we left there and headed to McDonalds—my son’s choice (even though he said he was “full” a mere 5 minutes before when I suggested that we pick up some Chinese food).

So we were in line at the McDonalds near campus when I looked up and saw a bottle of Colgate shaving cream in one of the higher up windows that was between the first and second drive through windows. This got me thinking a number of thoughts that the marketing people at McD’s didn’t anticipate. Enough about that.

What really surprised me were the double pink lines I saw when I got home.

A Tale of Two Tasks Forces at IU Kokomo

2006-12-23T17:09:00.000-05:00

In light of Liz's insightful comments to the last post (on Facebook), I'll offer a better description of what the faculty is doing to pull its weight. Liz proposed forming a task force, and that's what has happened.

There are two task forces that are basically answering the same questions. The first was formed in the School of Arts and Sciences (SOAS) under the leadership of Dr. Sue Giesecke, the dean of this school. A group of about 30 of us faculty members have been meeting throughout the academic year to find creative ways to take our school to the next level. We've been studying the basic themes of the popular business book, Good to Great, and exploring ways to create a higher degree of excellence at IU Kokomo. Tiffany's negative experience in the campus bookstore should be a rare oddity, but it probably isn't at present. :) Although we have met a couple of times as a larger group, most recently on December 8, most of our work has been carried out in five smaller brainstorming groups. There is great potential to get things done with the SOAS, which is the largest of the schools on our campus, and by extension, there is potential to influence the rest of the university as well. At the end of the last meeting, Dr. Giesecke asked for volunteers to join a leadership team that will take the SOAS to the next level. Yours truly was one of the two who has accepted the call, and I'll be working with Sue and any others who volunteer to do what we can to take some major steps toward making our school great. So, that's the first task force.

The second task force was called by Chancellor Ruth Person and was a more direct response to the budget shortfall that hit us this year when enrollment took a hit. I'm also a member of this task force, and I've been assigned to work on a committee that is brainstorming ways to promote our institution to its key publics. This committee is more short term in nature. Our final reports are due Feb. 15, and after that, I guess we'll exist no more. This task force is oriented toward developing broader goals and leaving the details to someone else. For example, ideas to promote IU Kokomo via facebook, or student blogs, or K-GOV channel 2 have been dismissed as being too specific. This group does not promote a "rubber meets the road" discussion, but seeks to strategize at a broader level.

In the end, it will be interesting to see which group does the best job of bringing about the type of organizational change that results in IU Kokomo having more students and offering a better educational product. On the one hand, the chancellor's group includes all of the key administrators who hold the legitimate power to get things done. On the other hand, the SOAS committee is composed entirely of tenured or tenure-track faculty members who have the most contact with our students. Perhaps the SOAS group should focus more on retaining the students we have through offering the best educational product possible while the chancellor's group should focus more on recruiting students to IU Kokomo from withing the 11 county area that is our market.

Personally, I expect to have far greater influence through the grass-roots orientation of the SOAS group which aggressively seeks my input and involvement than I'll have in the other group, which is far more top-down in focus. I'll keep you posted.

One last thought--shouldn't there be some students involved in this process, at least in terms of offering input? Seems obvious to me.

Your man on the inside,

Raul

IU Kokomo Town Hall Meeting

2006-12-23T17:07:00.000-05:00

I attended a special meeting at 2 PM today that was called so that Chancellor Ruth Person could address the growing concern among staff over the school’s recent moves to outsource the campus bookstore. Naturally, employees in other areas, such as maintenance and custodial work, would also wonder if their jobs were in danger as well. We met in Kresge Auditorium where Vice Chancellor Bill Yost forced everyone to sit in the front section of the auditorium.

Chancellor Person began her manuscript delivery by explaining the trends that were affecting the IU system. There is a system-wide move toward reassessing organizational structures. IU Northwest, for example, had recently reorganized a significant part of its academics. There is also a move to outsource in-house operations to compensate for budget shortfalls. The IU East campus in Richmond has a budget shortfall of around a million dollars while IU Kokomo is running with a shortfall of about 1/3 million. In particular, the transportation at IU Kokomo has already been outsourced. On the potential chopping block are the campus bookstore and the current food service provider, AVI.

What to do? Person suggested the following three solution steps: Creativity in finding new solutions, working on recruiting new students, and understanding the potential need for RIF—reduction in force. In short, every IU Kokomo employee must be actively involved in recruiting new students.

Interestingly, I saw only one other IU Kokomo faculty member there.

Last Day of Company

2006-12-23T17:00:00.000-05:00

Breakfast

We went to the Courtyard by Marriot at 7:35ish to meet Raul and Lucy down in the restaurant for coffee, and we found my mom down there as well. So we pulled a couple of tables together and had breakfast as a group. Raul and Lucy left about 8:00 to head for the airport, and we then went to my mom’s room to help her pack her bags.We then gave a driving tour of Kokomo that included passing by Walnut Creek Apartments where we used to live (wow did that place look run down), and going up 31, west on Markland and over to the Seiberling Mansion area, and then on to IU Kokomo, where we stopped for a few minutes and saw my office. Mom wants to take pictures that look out of people’s windows just to appreciate this vantage point. We then went back to our apartment to open a few gifts. We then loaded up and headed down to Carmel.

Helios Gift and Tea Shop

We ate at the Helios Gift and Tea Shop on Main Street in Carmel. It was definitely a flowery, female environment and I was the only man there. The tea room was set in an older house that was crammed with pinkish gift items. I ordered the chicken salad sandwich. The cinnamon flavored tea was good, and the desserts (especially the raspberry cheesecake) were excellent. Before we left, I checked the fluids on the car because the check engine light kept coming on during our way to the restaurant. The coolant may have been a bit low, so I added about 2 cups of water to the reservoir tank.

Airport

We took my mom to the Indianapolis International Airport a couple of hours prior to her flight on Northwest Airlines. My mom and I jumped out at the Northwest area, and Melissa and Little Raul parked the car on Level 2. After checking in my mom’s bag at the curbside service, we joined up with Melissa and Raul Matthew and window-shopped at a jewelry shop and the B. Dalton bookstore. We saw my mom off at the security checkpoint at Concourse A.

Greenwood

We stopped by Kim (Melissa's sister) and Tim’s to drop off some food from the weekend. Kim was working in the kitchen and Tim was repairing a door on their entertainment system. I played a few downs of football with the kids in the front yard and also tried to throw the football from their driveway over a tree and into their neighbor’s yard to the north. Instead, the ball fell down into the tree and thankfully didn’t get stuck. Their road had just been repaved, and the circle in the middle of the cul-de-sac was bare dirt. I tried to convince Carter that the ND emblem on his ball cap stood for “No donuts” instead of “Notre Dame.” He didn’t buy it. Brianna was doing a Suduko puzzle. We then went to Half Price books were I found cookbooks on Asian and Cuban cooking. Melissa picked up a few books for Raul Matthew in addition to a computer program for learning Mandarin. We then went to the Byroms for dinner where I worked on blogging about this weekend while we all watched the Colts play the Bengals on Monday Night Football.

My Graduation from Purdue

2006-12-23T16:51:00.000-05:00

Breakfast

I drove to the Courtyard by Marriott at 8 AM to pick up my mom. While I waited in the lobby, I collected and read through the brochures for the regional attractions and found a few places that I would like to take the family for some R&R—most of which involve an indoor swimming pool. There is something about an indoor pool and the smell of chlorine that spells r-e-l-a-x-a-t-i-o-n to me. At about 8:30, I asked the front desk to call her room, and they were kind enough to give me her room number (109). Nice room, by the way! The bed reminded me of an extremely comfortable one I had at a Sheraton in St. Louis. We got back home a little before 9 AM, and by then Melissa had a nice breakfast of eggs and fruit along with pumpkin pie and some kind of ginger spice strudel from Bob Evans. Raul and Lucy showed up about 9:30, followed by Melissa’s parents at 10:15. I ironed my doctoral robe, and we headed out for West Lafayette around 11:20. The drive to Purdue was gray and dreary. It wasn’t the ideal weather, but it wasn’t all that cold, so I can’t complain too much. In as sense, it was a fitting way to end my higher education, all of which has taken place in the Midwest. Melissa did most of the talking from the back seat on the way over—kind of a movie director’s commentary on a DVD. Oddly, there were few cars (if any) at FBC Russiaville as we passed by there around 11:30.

Pre-Ceremony

We go to the University Street parking garage about 12:30, so we snacked on some grapes and apples as well as pinwheel sandwiches before we parted ways—me to the Armory and the rest of the family to the Elliot Hall of Music where the ceremony was held. I had to report to the Armory at 1:20, so I was there quite a bit early, which was fine with me. I was feeling a bit nervous and just wanted to check and double check that everything was in order. Upon entering the Armory, a woman worker gave me an information card to fill out regarding the pronunciation of my name, etc. I took this card to a station on the west side of the room to get a picture of me taken with my cap, gown, and a diploma cover. After this, I went over to the Graduate School table to line up behind the “Doctor of Philosophy” sign. I was assigned #57 in the marching order, and the worker at the grad school booth folded my gown over my left arm, and I kept it there until the marshal took it from my arm during the hooding ceremony. I had about an hour to wait around, so I chatted with a couple of other Ph.D. candidates, Harsha Gunawardena from the Triangle Park area in NC who was graduating in analytical chemistry and Maryse Jayasuriya from El Paso with a degree in English.

At 2:03 PM—the same time that Melissa and I were pronounced man and wife 14 years ago—we began marching from the Armory to Elliot via the scenic route. One of the Purdue trains was parked outside the door as we exited the Armory. We turned east, and headed east toward Elliot Hall as it began to sprinkle. It was a shock to the whole line when we realized that the processional kept marching past the entrance to Elliot and toward the engineering square where the giant fountain was. We marched toward the far end of the square and then toward the fountain, which was off given the time of year. For the most part, we marched without anyone saying a word. It was just the sound of high heels clicking and clomping herd-like along the wet walkways. Our line parted around the main fountain and then headed toward the stairs of Hovde Hall where the same mascot train met us once again. There were also two plain-clothes security guards scanning the crowd. They looked as if they were from some eastern European crime organization. Climbing the steps and going into Hovde Hall was a surprise to me, and it seemed odd to march past the place where we had to pay our bills. We walked through the 2nd floor of Hovde and across a second story walkway that led into Elliot. A woman was filming us with a large, mobile TV camera as we marched into the building, and although we didn’t know it at the time, the feed was going live to the large screens in the front of Elliot. I looked for the family as I marched down the aisle, but didn’t see them. As it turned out, they were on the second row of the first balcony. We filed in to our rows and waited for the rest of the candidates to enter.

Ceremony

After the national anthem and a moment of reflection, Martin Jischke, the President of Purdue, gave an excellent address to the candidates to mark the school’s 200th commencement. He gave an extended illustration about Harvey Wiley, one of the first faculty members at Purdue and the “father of the FDA.” He also made the point that we have a valuable resource that the wealthiest older people would trade their wealth for—time. So, what are we going to do with this time. He also mentioned that the Space Shuttle flight currently in orbit is commanded by a Purdue graduate.

Following the conferral of an honorary degree on Deborah McDowell, an expert in black critical feminist theory, it was our turn to be hooded. Our section was asked to stand and make our way to the stage, and the hooding ceremony began. It took 3 or 4 minutes before it was my turn to walk across the stage, but in that time, it was fun to look up and see those ahead of me being hooded. I felt emotional when thinking about their accomplishment, almost as if I was somehow a distant observer of the event. When it was my turn to be on stage, I offered my hood to the marshal, stepped in front of the wooden rostrum while facing the audience, and was hooded by Cindy Nakutsu, the interim dean of the graduate school. I then walked over the Martin Jischke, who handed me my diploma while saying: “Congratulations, Dr. Mosley. Great job and best of luck in the future.” I then left to the stage and returned to my seat where I was relieved to be done with my part of the ceremony.

When the ceremony was over, I scanned the audience for a couple of minutes before finally spotting Melissa on the first balcony. I made my way toward the back of the auditorium as Melissa took pictures and Little Raul waved from the balcony. I went up to the balcony and we took pictures for a few minutes until it was obvious that the event staff was waiting on us to clear out the balcony. Plus, my robe was supposedly due back to Follett’s by 5 PM, which was only about 10 minutes away. We took a group photo in the lobby and then rushed to Follett’s where I was able to return my robe down in the text book section on the lower level. As it turned out, the store closed at 6.

Dinner at Olive Garden

I ordered the Tuscan Garlic Chicken, which was excellent, although I could have just as easily gone with the Roma Chicken. I sat at a round table with Raul, Lucy, and Little Raul, while the rest sat at an adjoining rectangular table. Although the tables were pushed together, the conversations took place mainly within each table. I talked mainly with Raul about my dissertation and how Raul is planning on writing some articles on the topic of immigration.

Drive back.

The drive back was dark and rainy. What a dreary and depressing landscape when it is raining at night in north central Indiana. I caught up with some of the news from home. We stopped to see Christmas lights at Oaklawn Acres between Lafayette and Kokomo. This was a great display, but somewhat hard to see through the foggy windows.

Back at Home

We got back to the apartment and loaded the boxes that were in Raul and Lucy’s rental back into the Byrom’s Suburban. We spent about an hour chatting as Raul Matthew played on his Pearl Harbor computer simulator game. Raul and Lucy left about 9:30. Mom then gave us a couple of gift books—one dealing with the Advent season and the other was a childrens' book that had flashing Christmas lights embedded inside the back cover. I took my mom back to the hotel, and returned home to work on recording the day’s events.

You can check out photos of this day at http://community.webshots.com/user/RAMosley.

My Graduation Reception

2006-12-23T16:39:00.000-05:00

Starbucks

At 8:30 AM, we drove to the Courtyard by Marriott to meet Raul and Lucy before heading to the Kokomo Opalescent Glass factory. While waiting in the lobby, I heard a familiar voice coming from the dining area, a voice I recognized as being a sports announcer or commentator on 1350 AM in Kokomo. I figured that he was just having breakfast, but as it turned out he was doing a live radio broadcast with coaches of some of the area basketball teams. I verified this by going through the front doors to where Melissa was parked directly outside and turning on the radio to hear the live broadcast. I jokingly told Melissa, “Tell me if you hear a loud sneeze when I head back in.” When Raul and Lucy came down, we headed in separate vehicles to Starbucks where I got a medium-sized Raspberry Mocha Latte. With caffeine in hand, we drove to the KOG for our tour.

Kokomo Opalescent Glass Tour

Lindsey was our capable tour guide, and she did an excellent job. I used this opportunity to mainly take pictures of unusual objects, such as old carts that had been used to haul glass probably since the early 1900s. After the tour, Melissa and Little Raul headed back to prepare lunch while I stayed behind in the gift show with Raul and Lucy. After a while, I headed outside to take pictures of the abandoned Continental Steel site with its broken windows and rusty water tower. It was a good feeling to have the emotional freedom to spend time taking creative pictures without feeling guilty that I’m not working on my dissertation. Back at the gift shop, Lucy asked me to show her some glass gift that Melissa would like, but I couldn’t find anything that I thought would strike her fancy. Instead, I suggested that they do something that related to learning Mandarin Chinese, or that related to Chinese culture, etc. We went the apartment and had the superb butternut squash soup that Melissa made. You can check out pictures of the tour at http://community.webshots.com/user/RAMosley.

Setup for the Reception

It took us a couple of hours to setup for the reception. Before we headed over to the club house, Lucy and Raul encouraged Melissa to go get her hair done, something she had voiced a desire for a few times throughout the afternoon. So, she finally got an appointment at Solutions, and she headed there as Raul, Lucy, Raul Matthew, and I headed over to the club house to set things up. The first thing we did was to rearrange the furniture in accordance with the schematic Melissa handed me. In about 45 minutes or so, we had rearranged the place, which basically involved reversing the order of the room. We also set up the coffee pots, plugged in the crock pot, laid out the chips and trail mix, etc. When the Byroms showed up with my mom, we had a ton of food and party supplies to unload from the Suburban. After about an hour of unloading and organizing, the place was looking functional again. It was great to see my mom again. My mom helped Mrs. Bryom set up the cake area while Raul and Lucy worked together in the kitchen to wash the fruit and prepare the veggie trays. Once things were mainly in place, I asked Mr. Byrom to drive me back to our apartment so that I could get changed and pick up a few items. I changed into my black outfit with my gold tie, and we headed back to the club house.

The Reception

Melissa began by presenting me with a large, thin package to unwrap, and this turned out to be a poem she wrote entitled, “Twas the day of graduation.” She read this aloud to us all with a performance that impressed everyone and made several people ask, “Who’s the one with the doctorate in communication?” She did a great job and made it through without crying, which she had been concerned about. She then presented me with a spectacular scrapbook that chronicled our life together since the fall of 1999 when we started the doctoral program. The cover page was one of her word pictures that spelled out “Doctor Raul Mosley” in the shape of a college graduate. I got several other great gifts from the rest of the family, but I won't mention them here because they might not want that. Thanks to all of you nonetheless!

People basically came to the reception in waves. First, there was family. Then, members of First Baptist Church of Russiaville showed up. Then Mike Knoerzer and his family came during the presentation of gifts. At 6:44, I realized for the first time that none of my students had come, despite the fact that 7 had indicated on facebook.com that they were coming and another 33 showed that they might be coming. Closer to 7:15ish, Don and Jennifer Sedberry showed up, followed by Faith Rose Scales, and later by Lori Cardwell.

Clean-Up

I rearranged the furniture by myself this time to the best of my memory, and it turned out well, but was different from the original arrangement. Mr. Byrom took me back to the apartment where I changed into jeans and a sweater and I also picked up the Dyson vacuum. The most time consuming part seemed to be loading all of the stuff back into the Suburban and also into the back of Raul and Lucy’s rental SUV. We also delivered a few loads to our apartment. And, I delivered a few loads of trash to the more than full garbage dumpster. My mom left with the Byroms from the club house to head back to the hotel, and Raul and Lucy dropped Melissa, Little Raul, and me off back at the apartment. After we were alone, Melissa gave me a personal tour of the scrapbook she created. Very touching.

You can check out pictures of the reception at http://community.webshots.com/user/RAMosley.

Dinner at Chilis

2006-12-16T00:39:00.000-05:00

Melissa, Raul Matthew, and I met my father and Lucy at Chilis for a late dinner tonight. I thought we might have the luck of having Ashley Toor as our server, but she had just been “cut” from the floor 15 minutes prior to our arrival. She was still kind enough to come out and chat with us, and she assigned us to David who took good care of us. I got the Southwestern Cobb salad and the Blackberry Ice Tea.

It was good to touch base and catch up on the latest developments. My father has been busy in his new position as an appointed judge on the Ft. Worth city circuit. I didn’t know much about his position given that he has been doing this for just a few weeks now, but he explained that he is responsible for accepting pleas and setting bail for those who have received citations in the Tarrant County area. While he holds court in a court room downtown, he sometimes also works from inside the city jail where judges accept pleas around the clock. In a city in which over 200,000 citations are issued each year, it’s no wonder there is a need for night court and the 24/7 services like that at the jail. The more serious crimes and repeat offenders are channeled to the Tarrant County court system rather than to the circuit for the city of Ft. Worth. I don’t know much about the structure of the legal system in terms of how criminals move through the process, so this was an interesting conversation. Lucy and Melissa mainly interacted with my son as he was working through his activity book, so I missed that part of the conversation at our table.

My father and I also chatted a bit about technology, and he mentioned that the new version of Dragon Naturally Speaking, a program that automatically types what you say, is a significant upgrade from previous versions, especially when used with a quality microphone. He recommended a brand called “Know Brainer.” It runs about $150 and is an aftermarket adaptation of a Radio Shack microphone. This would be cool as I could just speak my blog entries, letters, e-mail, syllabi, and whatever, instead of having to type it. I’ve tried this program in the past, but found myself frustrated with having to edit the text when it confused words like “in,” “an,” and “end.” This new version touts itself as being 20% more accurate than the previous version.

After dropping Raul and Lucy off at the Courtyard by Marriot hotel, Melissa and I chatted about how it seemed odd that the weekend graduation had finally arrived. I commented to Melissa that tonight was like the outer bands of a long-expected hurricane finally reaching shore. I think my outlook for this weekend is more positive than this metaphor of natural disaster suggests, but there is still an edge of anxiety for me given that I’m the center of attention for this whole event. I guess I wouldn’t make a good king. King Raul’s. Sounds like a Creole restaurant in New Orleans, or something. Off to bed. Tomorrow is already here.

Canisters, Coffee, and Cucumbers

2006-12-15T18:27:00.000-05:00

I spent a couple hours this morning downloading and installing the new Office 2007 suite. What a nice upgrade, especially graphically! If you attend a university where you get the upgrade for free, then go for it. IU Kokomo students can download it at http://www.iuware.indiana.edu/. More on this at some other point.

Friday also found us doing the last minute preparations for the reception tomorrow at our club house and the graduation ceremony at Purdue on Sunday. I did my regular vacuuming this morning with our yellow Dyson, which I can’t say enough about. I’m not convinced that the Dyson is any better than the Kirby we already had, but it sure is more fun to use, and this explains why I go out of my way to use it on a daily basis. It’s kind of like what Alton Brown of the Food Network said regarding what the best chef knife is to use: “The best knife is the one that feels comfortable in your hand, because that is the one you will most often use.” Another feature of the Dyson that amuses me is the transparent canister that enables me to see what I have sucked up. But enough about vacuums.

Raul Matthew and I headed out when the low oil indicator light on the dashboard went off, so we switched cars and headed first to Panera Bread to check on ordering some coffee jugs. I saw Tara Lancaster working the counter, but I didn’t recognize her at first because I was in my own little world (very rare!), so she probably thought that I totally blew her off. Hi, Tara. :) Unfortunately, Panera didn’t have the type of large, 100+ ounce container available at Krispy Kreme for only $9.99 (with a dozen glazed donuts tossed in for free) but only a much smaller box that reportedly (according to what some customers had told the cashier) amounted to 6-8 cups of java, and this for $11.99. So, I went about finding a Plan B.

We stopped in at Qdoba to pick up lunch, and I was surprised and delighted to find that they had finally expanded their menu to include some type of Mexican gumbo. I got the steak version, and it was excellent. In my opinion it’s the best food offering that the chain has going for it at present. A few more such additions and the restaurant might raise itself to the level of a Chipotle’s. While there, I also chatted in line with Cayce and Michael from IU Kokomo. Congrats to Cayce for joining the Honor’s Program, which just got a major upgrade by her addition.

Later we headed out to the Marsh on Washington to pick up a few more items, and I learned from my cashier that thefts had skyrocketed in the store since Marsh added the liquor aisle a few months ago. Interesting. I have personally witnessed two shoplifting incidents in the Kroger down the street. Both of those occasions took place about midnight, and one involved two women, a full cart of groceries, and a beat-up blue get away car. The other incident involved some dude in his early 20s who was drinking energy drinks and then leaving the empty cans behind the glass doors of the frozen food section.

These incidents reminded me of two accounts related to me by an officer in Bartow, Florida. In 1984ish, the police were called to the Publix grocery store when some dude flipped out and started randomly launching cucumbers at people. For over 20 years now, I’ve often wondered about how fun it would be to see cucumbers soaring through the air, tumbling end over bumpy end, as people scurried for cover. If l ever lose my mind, you’ll probably read a similar account in the local newspaper. Hopefully, I’ll still have a good throwing arm. The thought of Randy Johnson hurling a 96 m.p.h. fast cucumber makes me smile. On the same day, across the street at the Winn Dixie, an old guy was spotted with blood trickling down his head. When workers attended to the old man, they removed his hat to find a steak on his bald head. I guess he didn’t think the steaks were high enough, or something.

We also stopped by Big Lots, taking a quick peek into the Second Time Around sports equipment store in that same corner. The place was crammed with treadmills, etc., but it was hard to see them given the thick layer of cigarette smoke hanging in the air. Now there is a marketing nightmare! At Big Lots we found a black thermos with a pump that will be perfect for the coffee setup during tomorrow’s reception.

My father, Raul Canez, and my step-mom, Lucy, will be flying in tonight from Ft. Worth, Texas, and it will be great to see them again. My father has a law practice in Ft. Worth and has also been appointed as a judge. Lucy teaches at a Montessori school in the area and is an advanced yoga instructor, something she has been doing for probably 30 years, I’m guessing.

My mom, Bonita Mosley, will fly into Indy from Florida tomorrow afternoon. She is an art instructor at Lakeland Christian School in central Florida, the same school I graduated from. Unfortunately, my dad, Michael, won’t be able to make the graduation festivities as he is heading up a construction project for the Alcoa company down in Jamaica. I guess pictures will have to do for now.

My in-laws, Dale and Carol Byrom will also be coming up tomorrow to help host the reception. My mother-in-law, Carol Byrom, has done a lot of work in preparation for this reception, including making a graduation cake. Making cakes is one of her specialties, and she had done a lot of weddings in the past. The family has also scheduled time at 5:30 PM tomorrow to give me some gifts, and then the reception will start at 6:00 PM. I’m not really sure how many people will attend, but I’m guessing about 50 total including maybe 20 students from IU Kokomo. It will be great to see all who come.

It’s time to use the Hoover SteamVac to clean up a jelly donut spill on the carpet. Really, I’m not always this domesticated. I'm heading out in 15 minutes to hunt for deer with my bare hands.

Out of Town for Cap and Gown

2006-12-14T22:39:00.000-05:00

While Melissa remained behind in Kokomo to continue her secret work for the upcoming weekend, Raul Matthew and I headed to Follett’s Purdue West bookstore to pick up my cap and gown for graduation. I hadn’t expected to pay anything—silly me—but I’m hoping the $45 I shelled out will be the last expense of my formal education. By this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if I have to pay a fee for my diploma during the graduation ceremony itself!

With cap and gown in hand, we headed to the McDonalds near the Tippecanoe Mall. This was my son’s culinary choice, although I would rather have gone to any of the ethnic restaurants near campus. That’s one thing I miss about being in a more diverse community—the smell of ethnic food. Nonetheless, we headed to McD’s. My son said, “After a good meal we can head to Toys-R-Us.” I’ve never heard “good meal” and McDonalds mentioned in the same sentence, but I guess it’s a matter of perspective. This particular McDonalds had a cool kids section, so we ended up playing foosball and several video games such as dirt bike racing, air hockey, and tennis.

With the “good meal” behind us, we headed to the Barnes and Noble where my relatively new Columbia coat set off the security device at the front door—something that has happened a few times lately. With the alarm chirping in my wake, I headed straight to the customer service counter to explain that I had nothing on me—just to cover myself because I knew it would likely go off as I left. When the alarm went off AGAIN as I entered the music section inside the store, the clerk there asked me if my coat was new, and demagnetized a security tag inside the coat for me. I had a $50 gift card from my grandmother, so I began looking for a couple of DVDs. I was leaning toward getting a production of Puccini’s Turandot filmed in Beijing, but I wanted to read some reviews of this recording before forking over the $34.99. There was also a $19.99 Australian production of Pucinni’s La Boheme that is good, but the storyline is depressing. So, I skipped it.

I also was tempted to get Godfred Reggio’s Powaqqatsi and Koyaanisqatsi films, both of which are artistic commentaries on the fast pace of contemporary life in juxtaposition to traditional ways of tribal cultures. Both movies in this twin-pack featured the mesmerizing musical scores of the minimalist composer, Philip Glass. I was first exposed to Glass’s work during the last weekend of my freshman year in college. I had just been dumped earlier that day by my first serious girlfriend, and I found myself disinterested in sleep that night. My roommate and good friend from high school loaded his soundtrack of Pawaqqatsi into the boom box, and I passed the hours thinking deep thoughts as I looked out the dorm window and into the shadowy fog of the dismal night air. I went years without ever putting the Glass’s score and Reggio’s movie together, but I finally watched the movie about a year ago. It used to be that whenever I heard just a single bar from that soundtrack my emotional state would head south at warp speed.

We then went to Toys-R-Us across the road for 10 minutes (I set my watch), and then briefly over to the mall where we went to only the John Deere store. This was just a temporary store for the holiday shopping season, so the red neon lights that criss-crossed the metal ceiling seemed more than a few barns away from the farming theme and much more in synch with some edgy fashion shop that no doubt used to be there.

Our final stop was at Krispy Kreme, which has turned into my favorite place in Lafayette. To me, the place represents victory over the Ph.D. process as I stopped there to pick up coffee and donuts for my committee so they would have something to snack on during the defense of my prospectus and final dissertation. The next time I go there, I plan to buy one of their coffee mugs to keep around the office, more as a symbol than anything. Granted, it ain’t no coat of arms, but it’s something meaningful nonetheless. Come to think of it, I am planning on developing some type of symbol for me. Why not?

The Baptists and the Blood

2006-12-14T14:24:00.000-05:00

I had a totally bizarre dream last night in which I returned to my hometown of Bartow, Florida, to take pictures inside First Baptist Church, the place I attended from 1980-1986. This was noteworthy for me as I have an intensely strong, psychological desire to venture back to various places I’ve lived just to take digital pictures. You know, of schools, houses, stores, etc.. I’m not sure why this is, but it just is. Returning to Hialeah, Florida, where I lived from 1978-1980 is probably the place I most want to return to, but Google Earth is holding me over in the meantime.

In the dream, I found myself inside FBC with my digital camera. It was a Wednesday night in my dream, and that’s when the church would serve the weekly dinner that preceded the midweek service. The church building itself was constructed in 1925 and seated about 600 people on its beautifully finished oak pews that curved gently toward the front of the sanctuary. It had a wrap-around balcony that sat between the upper and lower sections of stained glass windows. There was also a 37-rank Mohler pipe organ in the front of the sanctuary with 427 pipes exposed in two console boxes that were mounted on both sides of the baptistry. The church itself has an interesting history, and one of its former pastors is Dr. Charles Stanley, who is now pastor of FBC in Atlanta. I’m sure you’ve at some point seen his “In Touch” TV program as you have flipped through the cable lineup. I always wondered if the pastors after Stanley were jealous when many in the congregation would rush back home on Sunday nights to catch Stanley’s TV broadcast.

Bartow itself has a colorful history as it was the first major white settlement in the state of Florida built to defend settlers against the Seminole uprisings that were coming from the southern part of the state. This “city of oaks and azaleas” was originally named Ft. Blount, but it was later renamed in honor of the first Confederate general to die during the Civil War. The town itself is relatively small—about 15,000—but at one point it had the highest per-capita income in the country, at least that is what I’ve heard over the years. It’s not too hard to believe because there are a large number of historic mansions along its oak-lined streets (although there are fewer oaks than before given that the eyes of 3 hurricanes in 2005 passed over Polk County).

The main industry in the county has been citrus, phosphate mining, and cattle. One of my most vivid memories was playing Dixie Youth League baseball on manicured fields as the sweet smell of burnt orange rinds wafted through the warm summer evening air. (That’s what the orange juice plants would do with the rinds—burn them, and they smelled great. It’s better than the smell of the Staley plant in Lafayette!).

All that to say that I’m back home and with my digital camera in hand. My imagination gave me a high-definition experience inside the church, but for the sake of time and space, I’ll describe just a few observations. First, the sanctuary itself was about 3 times larger than what I remember it being in real life. This struck me as odd, even in my dream, as the places of our childhood are usually perceived as being smaller when viewed later in life. The sanctuary in my dream would seat 1,500 easily if the traditional pews had still been in place. What shocked me more than the size increase was the layout of the main floor. Although some oak pews were in place—there was a section of pews in the front and center that had obnoxiously thick red cushions on them—the remainder of the main floor had been transformed into various arrangements featuring oak dining sets. Most of the dinning tables were standard height and were pushed together in groups of 4 or 6 tables, but in the section immediately behind the oak pews, there were several clusters of bar-height chairs and tables that spread across the width of the sanctuary.

Although I haven’t been back to the church in 20 years, I was struck with the postmodern significance of this physical rearrangement, despite the use of the traditional oak wood in the new furniture. Rather than having church members face the front of the sanctuary, they were now oriented toward one another. In other words, the fellowship of believers had taken precedence over any proclamations from the pulpit, which by the way, is a nation-wide trend at present. So, this was a kind of illustration of the decline of expository preaching in churches and the rise of the legitimacy of the average person in the pew when it came to interpreting and applying the teachings of scripture. I’ve been thinking a lot about this issue over the last few months, so it’s interesting how this theme worked itself into my dream via an architectural metaphor.

I had only taken a couple of pictures when I noticed that my camera was not functioning properly. In dream-like fashion, the icons on my view finder were in the wrong place, and even worse, I found that I had only 6 images left. I could have taken at least a 100. At least. So I made my way up to the platform area to get one final picture that looked over the pulpit and toward the congregation. As I lined up my shot, I saw that a few people had now congregated into the pews in the center section. They were just standing there, talking, and seemed oblivious to my presence. As I framed my image, I became annoyed that there were now two white marble slabs extending from the sides of the pulpit outward to a distance of about 10 feet. They also ran from the floor all the way to the ceiling. They were like giant, marble blinders for anyone in the pulpit. Being self-conscious because of my new group of onlookers in the pews, I snapped my final shot, but only to find the flash icon on my viewfinder had turned into a brilliant hue of red and that a slow rain of virtual blood drops began to pour down over the freshly captured image on my viewfinder.

Then I awoke.

Shopping for my Graduation Party

2006-12-13T22:36:00.000-05:00

Raul Matthew and I went shopping for chips, dip, trail mix, and a bunch of other stuff for my graduation party on Saturday. We stopped by Aldi in hopes of getting some cheap chips and dip, but I found that the chips were more than what I see at Wal-Mart or Kroger, and they didn’t have any dip, so we left. That’s wasn’t so easy, however, because the store’s only way of escape was the lone open checkout aisle—and that was clogged with big bottoms and bulky boxes, so navigating through this final obstacle was a major challenge. I can’t help but guess that this setup might be in violation of some fire code.

The Deals store in front of Wal-Mart was no better, although I did run into Aaron Pitzer who was stocking some Christmas items. Get it—Christmas items, stocking? Never mind.

So we ended up getting most of our things from Wal-Mart after all. I am proud to report that I resisted the temptation to put 3 cans of fruit cocktail in Cassie Myer’s bread aisle. I walked away, but it wasn’t the easiest thing since sliced bread. Sorry.

Then we headed to Kohls to look for three bowls to place trail mix in. I looked for Charles Allison, but didn’t see him this time around, so I wasn’t able to stand 3 feet from him and page for help in the men’s section as I did last time. Oh well. I found some interesting bowls at Kohls, but I didn’t want to part with over $30 for what we really didn’t need and might not use again, at least not on a regular basis. At TJ Maxx, I found 6 smaller bowls for only $2 each, so I got those instead, along with a couple bottles of the mango habanero sauce that is a great deal at $3.99 a bottle. It’s great stuff!!! I’ve made a similar sauce from scratch using a Bobby Flay recipe, but I’m too lazy to think about making it right now.

I thought about making the trip over to Follet’s Purdue West bookstore at Purdue to pick up my graduation robe for the ceremony on Sunday, but decided to stay home tonight and make the trip tomorrow. Besides, Micah Quick will have a better chance of once again seeing my vintage Lincoln gracing Purdue’s campus.

The Future of Podcasting at IU Kokomo

2006-12-13T21:37:00.000-05:00

I attended a fascinating online presentation about the technical aspects of podcasting. This was part of a monthly faculty training series that I try to attend that is entitled, “2nd Wednesdays at Noon.” This was a virtual meeting, which means that those of us physically meeting at IU Kokomo were joined via the Internet with several other institutions and individuals. We formed a virtual network that allowed the virtual attendees to interact with a team of presenters. We had 4 presenters today, one from Ball State and another from the Ivy Tech campus in Ft. Wayne, I think. I had to duck out of this meeting early to attend another one, so I didn’t catch the names and locations of the other two presenters.

The highlight of the presentation for me was to see what Ball State University was doing in terms of having a group of students blog their way through college. Check out http://www.bsu.edu/reallife/ to “follow the lives of 12 Ball State students.” It’s pretty cool. As you move your curser across the main image on the top of this page, the students will walk Beatles-like across a street on campus. You can get to their blogs by clicking on any of the walking students. These students are given free reign in terms of what they want to blog about, and this contributes to a level of authenticity and street cred. I think I heard that this project is in its second year. In the first year, 7 of the 12 students were from the Honors Program, but I think this year’s crop of bloggers is more like the typical BSU student.

I think this is the type of engaging technological experience that would be perfect for giving voice to the creative expressions of our communication majors here at IU Kokomo. In the long run, student bloggers could play a key role in marketing the entire institution, but it might be better to start small. Personally, I would hope that our official bloggers would get some form of monetary compensation, tuition remission, etc. If you help us successfully market the school and our enrollment jumps because of you, then you should share in the increase. Anyway, we have a number of highly creative communication majors who would make great bloggers. One of my colleagues mentioned Mike Glassburn’s name when I mentioned the podcasting possibilities, and I couldn’t agree more. I could see Mike posting not just pictures, but potentially videos from his concerts as well. At BSU, these students are given (I think) a Sanyo camcorder that can record video in MP3 in addition to taking digital pictures (5.1 megapixels). BSU paid around only $400 for these cameras, so it would be cool if we could secure funding to put 3 or 4 of these in the hands of our students and turn them loose to be creative in their blogging.

By the way, there is a growing number of us at IU Kokomo who are catching a vision of what our campus can become, and technology will be a key part of that. Not just technology for the sake of having techy stuff on campus, but technology connected with the academic experience of our students. Instead of a blog, maybe you would like to be part of a TV show that runs on the new K-GOV channel on Insight Cable? That’s a possibility. I am also working with our outstanding staff in Information Technology to develop an electronic portfolio system that will revolutionize how your work is evaluated and assessed. Plus, I’m also working with Catherine Barnes and others to bring the advising process out of the Stone Age. More on this later.

I plan on cranking up the podcasting machine by Fall 07, if not earlier. I’m going to need a ton of storage space, however, as I would like to post downloadable videos instead of just audio files (technically, “vodcasting,” I think). This means that if you miss one of my classes, then you will be able to download and watch one of my lectures on your iPod, computer, etc..

Minda Douglas and I have a number of ideas on how to overhaul the physical campus at IU Kokomo including expanding the space for student lounging and overhauling the concrete courtyard in the Main Building into something student-friendly. A café out there would be a nice addition, just for starters. These physical changes are not likely to take place in the near future without a flood of capital from generous donors. However, we can immediately begin to overhaul the virtual world of IU Kokomo.

If you would like to be highly visible in terms of maintaining a blog or being on K-GOV TV, then please let me know. We are going to do a lot more to make our students visible within our region, and these activities would look great on a resume.

Rush Limbaugh is, Little Tortilla Boy

2006-11-05T21:26:00.000-05:00

Um, the following is an adaption of Pablo Franciso's Little Tortilla Boy. My apologies in advance.

MOVIE VOICE: In the world of broadcasting...you must fight to survive. Rush Limbaugh sold tortillas on the air. But the newly-empowered Democrats wanted in.

HUGO CHAVEZ (D-MA): “I heard that Diablo on the radio yesterday and my car still smells like Sulfur. I want him and his tortillas...DEAD!”

MOVIE VOICE: He had one chance. And his chance was to fight back.

RUSH LIMBAUGH: "These are MY tortillas, not those of illegal immigrants, and I'm not going to give them up without making a profit! I'm telling you now, and trust me on this folks, Michael J. Fox is behind this shakedown."

MOVIE VOICE: These tortillas were about to get burned.

KEANU REEVES: “We burned the tortillas, dude.”

MOVIE VOICE: Experience the romance.

ANN COULTER: "My sweet Rushy Poo, who were those men with the donkey? What did they want?"

MOVIE VOICE: Experience the adventure.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: "Listen to me Rush! You have to get out of here, Howard Dean and John Kerry are trying to take your tortillas!”

HOWARD DEAN: “We will take them to New Hampshire! We will take them to South Carolina! Then we’ll take them to Arizona and New Mexico, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan! And we're going to take them to Massachusetts! And North Carolina! And Missouri! And Arkansas! And Connecticut! And New York! And Ohio! YAAAAARRRHHH!!!”

JOHN KERRY: “And they’ll also end up in Iraq.”

MOVIE VOICE: Double the excitement.

SALMA HAYEK: “We have both flour and corn tortillas.”

MOVIE VOICE: Triple the cover up.

BILL CLINTON: "I did not have tortillas with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."

MOVIE VOICE: With music by Aerosmith.

“Sweeeeeeeeeeeet, tortiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillas…”

MOVIE VOICE: And cameos by Chris Tucker…

CHRIS TUCKER: “Don’t you EVER touch Limbaugh’s tortillas!”

MOVIE VOICE: …and the GEICO caveman.

CAVEMAN: “No, thanks. I don’t have much of an appetite right now.”

MOVIE VOICE: One man. One Solution.

THUMP THUMP, THUMP THUMP, THUMP THUMP, THUMP THUMP...

MOVIE VOICE: Rush Limbaugh this November is...

RUSH LIMBAUGH: The feminazis are coming! NOOOOOO!!!!!

MOVIE VOICE: ...Little Tortilla Boy.

(Pause)

"I'm Mark Foley, and I approve this message."

Baseballs, Golf Balls, Limes, and Rocks

2006-09-11T17:49:00.000-05:00

I have a confession. I grew up without video games. So, I found other ways to entertain myself. This blog entry is about one of those ways. It is not about the time that I set a f_ _ _ _ d on f _ _ e. Nor is it about putting c _ _ _ _ s on r _ _ _ _ _ _ d t _ _ _ _ s. (Sorry, my lawyer advised me to block those out.). Instead, it is hitting rocks with a stick. Actually, that's WAY too narrow of a description. My block was in danger--grave danger--whenever I grabbed my tennis racquet and headed for the lime trees behind my house. If you've never hit a few hundred lime home runs with a tennis racquet, then you don't know the meaning of that fresh citrus smell. And, the entire neighborhood was in danger whenever I came across a stray golf ball. Aside from the top of an imaginary upper deck, I was never sure where some of these balls landed after exploding off the fat barrel of a well-balanced Easton aluminum bat. Mainly, though, I hit rocks, and this led to trouble including on the following occasions:

Port-au-Prince, Haiti

I was helping build a medical clinic on the outskirts of the Haitian capital. It was lunch time, and next to me was a large pile of medium-sized rocks. In my hand was an ideal rock-hitting stick, and 250 feet in front of me was a large church sanctuary topped with a slanted aluminum roof that reflected the noontime Caribbean sun. Most of the rocks fell short of the sacred house of worship, but the occasional rock slammed down on the metallic roof with a crashing boom that could have been heard for blocks away. I'm sure it was much louder inside the church, but what did it matter during noon on a weekday. As it turned out, my unholy trinity of homers interrupted a mid-day prayer service. This was brought to my attention by a deacon who flew out of the sanctuary like a bat out of, well, you know.

Meadeville, PA

While helping to build a small church in Pennsylvania, I found myself in rock-hitting heaven. The property on which the church was being built featured a long driveway that was covered with smooth rocks. 300 feet ahead was a tree line serving as an outfield fence. I took less than 10% of the rocks "downtown," so it took a while and over 360 rocks to reach and surpass Dale Murphy's stat of 36 home runs for the 1983 season. For an aspiring major leaguer, it was cool to pass Roger Maris' mark of 60 homers. Then came 100. 200. 300. The next day I joined the 500 club. Next came the passing of Babe Ruth (715), Hank Aaron (756), and even Japan's Sadaharu Oh (869). By the time I had hit 1,100 home runs, I had cleared out over 11,000 rocks from the church driveway. It was only after I was done that I noticed the 40-foot bare spot in the middle of the driveway.

Bartow, FL

I was in the 8th grade, and Marvin Owen and I were waiting for the 7 AM school bus to pick us up. In the meantime, we were taking rocks from the front of the Bartow Public Library's downtown building and seeing how closely we could hit or throw them to the side wall of a building across the parking lot. This was a bit risky as a road ran along the side of this building and a church blocked our view of traffic. There was the danger of hitting cars that came suddenly into view from behind the church. Occasionally, a rock would fall short of the sidewalk and land in the middle of the road instead. I vividly remember Marvin Owen picking up a particularly fat rock, and clumsily chucking it toward the building. This rock was bigger than the others and was oddly shaped. I could see it wobbling in the sky like a meteorite with vertigo. The rock reached its apex and began its return to earth. All of a sudden, here came this police car that was slowly driving along at maybe 20 M.P.H. Falling rock. Putzing cruiser. This was not looking good. We could tell that this was going to close--really close. I'm no rocket scientist, but from the best I could tell, the rock was going to slam down on the back of the cruiser's trunk. Of course, the officer had no clue what was coming down. He was just driving along and minding his own business. He wasn't even aware of Marvin and I standing in a bed of rocks at his 9:00 position. As it turned out, the rock missed the back steel bumper of this cruiser by what had to be less than an inch. I'm convinced that rock and bumper exchanged at least a few electrons in their outer shells. The rock landed with a heavy thud on the asphalt and the officer never broke his gaze from the road ahead.

I wish I could say that this was the only police car incident when it came to rocks, but it happened again in during the same trip to Pennsylvania that I had written about earlier. After clearing rocks from the middle of the driveway, I went to the end of the driveway near the road where I saw how far I could hit rocks while landing them on the 3-foot wide strip of grass that was between the road and the sidewalk. The problem: The road slanted downhill after about 200 feet which meant that I could not see oncoming cars until the crested the hill. The trick, of course, was to hit rocks far but to also land them on the strip of grass and not on the road. Occasionally, though, I would toss an "inside pitch" to myself which would cause me to pull the rock to the left, or over the road. That hadn't been much an issue as the rocks just landed harmlessly in the road. But, there was this one rock that I really nailed. It was a fairly good sized stone, and it hit it on the sweet spot of a sturdy stick. I got all of this one, but I had pulled it and could tell that it was going to land in the road. Just as I was admiring my Ruthian blast a police car crested over the top of the hill and in line with my rock. This was one of the cruisers with the dome canister lights on top, so I had a field goal thing going on. My extreme concern was making a "field goal" without hitting the upright. So I'm standing out there with a big stick and all these rocks around me and I'm looking straight into the front windshield of the cruiser. The car continued to come. The rock continued to fall. Thankfully, my rock made it through the upright. As with the Bartow incident, the officer had no clue what had almost happened. Nonetheless, this scared me so much that I didn't hit rocks for at least another 5 minutes.

S205 Posts

2006-08-21T11:59:00.000-05:00

If you are a member in my S205 Introduction to Human Communication class, then please leave a comment to this post after you have registered your blogger account.

S229

2006-06-30T13:42:00.000-05:00

If you are a member of my S229 Summer II course, then please add a short comment to this post.

[Important Reminders: (1) Post your Entry #1 comments in your own blog rather than as comments to my original post. (2) I've noticed some helps for doing the blogs under the "resources" tab on Oncourse.]

As of 7:03 on July 6, I've recieved 12 of the 30 Entry #1 postings. 2:57 to go. :)

Note: If you can't get the blog working right, then just send me Entry #1 via e-mail at ramosley@iuk.edu.

Learning from the Bay of Pigs

2006-06-28T11:23:00.000-05:00

The first Bay of Pigs invasion happened in the Middle East. Over 2,000 swine perished that day, and it must have been quite a sight to see that much bacon lumbering over a steep cliff and plunging into the water below. Come to think of it, this must have been where brining pork got its start. For more on brining pork, see Alton Brown's Food Network episode of Good Eats entitled, Ham I Am. Anyway, for more background on this event, see Mark chapter 5 in the New Testament of the Bible (or p. 1245 in your Mosley Authorized Scratch-and-Sniff Study Bible). But enough about that Bay of Pigs invasion.

I have in mind the 1961 version, which technically was not a bay of pigs, but of fish (cochinos), at least according to Wikipedia. Regardless, the so called "Bay of Pigs" fiasco involving the Kennedy Administration's failed attempt to overthrown the government of Richard Simmons is often used to illustrate failure on multiple levels, not the least of which is the failure of small groups to determine the best course of action. Of particular note was the presence of "Groupthink," which is when the entire group agrees uncritically with the leader or with the proposed course of action.

In our S229 Discussion and Group Methods class at IUKokomo, we are beginning to explore ways to make working in groups both more effective and less of a hassle for group members. What follows in this entry are the insights generated by the class on our first night regarding (1) the problems we face when working in small groups and (2) some solutions. I've included these responses below, and they are valuable because they reflect the real-world insights of working adults.

Problems with Group Work

Not staying on track; having your ideas shot down; having your ideas made fun of; lack of ideas and input; members failing to pull their weight; too few people to accomplish the task; power struggles; distraction of outside influences; butting heads; gender differences; the difficulty of being completely honest; cliques; inappropriate talk; too much sharing; conflicting issues; dealing with “know it alls.”

Solutions for Group Work

Interpersonal Relationships

Know one another by doing personal introductions; get to know others in the group; tell about yourself; see each other as equals; let the difficult people know they are being difficult and talking over some heads; don’t bump heads with the leader; have good relations with members.

Time

Have lots of time to go through ideas and work them out; be there on time and ready to go.

Before the Meeting

Don’t dig through purse or briefcase for supplies during a meeting; be prepared to listen; know background information on the subject; know background information on the speaker; have questions on hand about the topic; teach the new tech to the old fogies; have ideas for new discussions or to support the topic in question; make sure ideas are ready to be presented the best you can; bring day planners to the meeting.

During the Meeting

Know the names of your group members; demonstrate candor; listen to comments or ideas; focus on the meeting; use the “devil’s advocate” to your advantage; have a note taker; every topic should have time for rebuttal; share ideas with each other; not letting one person completely take over; have someone who can keep things on track; ask questions; communicate ideas out loud; have a group brainstorming of ideas; ask questions to make sure you understand; choose the best way to communicate (e.g., e-mail); read the group’s minutes from the previous meeting; record the meeting; make sure what needs to be done is cleared with the leader; open with questions.

After the Meeting

Don’t say “I’ll get back to you” then don’t.

Attitude

Don’t be afraid to do something new; be open minded and ready to think outside the box; be objective regarding the subject and people; don’t reject “bad” ideas—build on them to create better ideas; be open if you don’t understand the objective; be willing to compromise; don’t judge or be critical; be accountable.

The Leader Should…

Make sure all group members have each other’s contact information; don’t burden anyone with too much to do; make everyone do equal share of work; make sure everyone has a say in things/ideas; don’t allow slacking; punish skippers or lazy members not helping the group; bring materials for you and enough for the whole group; have a leader who doesn’t dictate; make detailed descriptions of objectives; try to give everyone a shot at discussion—don’t play favorites; relate meeting topics to employees; ask for a show of hands regarding your group’s position on a topic; pass out information; give reminders about the location, time, and equipment needed for upcoming meetings; outline what will take place; make them feel that their ideas count; use PowerPoint for presenting ideas; make sure to give tasks to the ones who can do them; make the topic clear and not too broad; give everyone a say; talk to the quiet ones before hand and let them know that their opinions are valuable; create a positive environment; allow others to speak freely; divide the topic into subjects; have a leader; manage time; give positive criticism; hold members accountable; formulate an agenda; define roles within a group—give everyone a task; find out what each of us is good at for a group; have a good environment for meetings; deal with group concerns when the first appear; have coffee on hand to get the ideas flowing.

Perhaps if we follow more of these solutions we'll improve our group communication, and more importantly, overthrow machete-wielding dictators who sweat to the oldies.

Public Speaking for My Peeps

2006-06-26T08:19:00.000-05:00

Yo, RMo here with the lowdown on public speaking.

Let the following tips run barefoot down your mental hallway. You will be a better speaker for it.

Be Yourself.
Don't imitate someone else's speaking style at the expense of losing your identity. Sure, you can learn a thing or two from other speakers, but don't be a carbon copy of someone else. The world already has them. What it needs is you--and you offer a uniqueness that can only come from, well, you. Where would civilization be if Jim Varney had tried to imitate Martin Luther King, Jr.? Okay, never mind.

Be Prepared
In other words--practice your speech in private before you get on the "big stage." Personally, I recommend camping out in an empty classroom or auditorium--preferably the one you'll be speaking in--and running through your speech several times.

Be Visual
Let's face it, we live in a visual culture. Although some listeners get distracted with visual aids, most of us appreciate the help. It keeps our attention better. In fact, anything you can do to engage the five senses is likely to help your audience.

Be Unpredictable
Predictability is the spice of boringness, or something. Zag after you have zigged. Change gears abruptly. Leave metal shavings on the rhetorical highway. Just make sure your audience can handle it. Hint: If you listeners can't watch CNN because the scrolling headlines are too distracting, then you might be more traditional in your approach.

Be Uniquely Differentiated
A prominent motivational speaker talks about the "Unique Differentiating Factor"--that element that makes you distinct as a communicator. It's Walter Cronkite ending each CBS broadcast with the line, "And that's the way it is on...(insert date here)." It's Marty Brenneman, the broadcaster of the Cincinnati Reds ending each Red's win with, "And this one belongs to the Reds." What unique stamp could you place on your speeches?

Be Original
I'll leave you with some examples of speeches I've seen that have been original:

Joshua, a student at IUK, gave a speech against eating meat. He pulls out a food storage container in which he has kept a pound of meat--for a week--under the front seat of his car--in the middle of July. If anything could simulate the smell of--let me put this delicately--a person implementing the facilities in the grossest of all possible ways, this was it. Some students walked out, while others recoiled in horror. Skunks fainted. Onions cried. NO ONE has forgotten about the time that Joshua pulled back the lid on that that rancid putrification. [For the record, I didn't eat meat for a week after that.]

Wyatt Folds, the former Senior Pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Lakeland, Florida, gave a sermon on the text in James chapter 2 from the New Testament that says if you have broken one of God's laws, then you are guilty of having broken them all. So I walk into the sanctuary on Sunday morning and I see on the platform, the largest light bulb I have ever seen. The thing must have been twice the size of a basketball, and a grid of ten sections had been drawn across the surface of the bulb with a marker. All through the singing, guess what I'm thinking about? "What's he going to do with that thing?" In the beginning of the sermon, guess what I'm thinking? Still, "What's he going to do with that thing?" Finally, at the end, he takes out a hammer from behind the pulpit. Now he's really got my attention! Remember the claim: If you break just one of God's laws, then you are guilty of breaking them all. The ten areas represented the 10 commandments. The question: What would happen if you broke only one commandment? At this point, he smashed the hammer through only one of the 10 surface areas on the light bulb causing the whole thing to shatter with a great puff of smoke. Cool. Very cool.

Request for Counseling

2006-06-17T23:19:00.000-05:00

Here is a real page from my third-grade English workbook.

"One day a rinoe got lose, it came charging far are car and nacked it over. It damiged alot of cars. the rhno charged for the zoo again, it went rite through the camel fence, and then the camels got lose. And then the loins and tigers, monkeys, and all the animals go lose the crocodiles got lose. the people went wild, and all the animals went away. there were only a few monkeys left and the zoo blew up."

The fact that monkeys perished in the explosion perhaps partially explains why in a previous post I had written that we need more representations of primates in our sports teams. I guess I had been looking for a way to honor their sacrifice after all of these years.

Metaphysical Reciprocal Affirmation

2006-06-17T22:52:00.000-05:00

This doesn't seem much to look at, but this was one of the satellite images/maps I got from Google and used in a trip last year to West Palm Beach. The pink on the map is my highlighting of the route, and if you look closely you can see a clump of trees on the map on the inside corner of where the pink makes the turn. Looking up ahead out the front window, you can see the trees in real life. I found myself intrigued by the relationship between the trees on the map and the trees in the ground. Obviously the map reflects the trees in real life, but up to this point, my only reality had been the map. So, the real trees became, to me, a more tangible reflection of the map trees. There is a reciprocating loop of metaphysical reaffirmation, or something. It's kind of like "trees" (pointing to real ones) are like "trees" (pointing to map ones) which are like "trees" (pointing back to real ones) which continue to be like "trees" (pointing back to map)...and on and on the loop goes. Of course, making the turn to avoid being killed cramps the philosophical process. But that's why there are digital cameras so that we can continue to ride the circuit of metaphysical recipriocal affirmation thereby appreciating the manner in which two objects in human perception can mutually reaffirm the existence of each other.

Note to self: Go get a life. What's wrong with you? Seriously?

If the name fits...

2006-06-17T22:03:00.000-05:00

So I'm waiting at a red light when I noticed a well-used, white dump truck with "Grites Excavation" painted in green on the driver's door. To me, the name and the truck seemed to fit. If you are born a Grite, then you probably have an excavation-type career in your future.

Of course, I'm probably completely off the mark. Someone is going to write me back and ask, "What about Prime Minister Grite who led Great Britain in the late 1880s?" Or, "What about the great Giovanni Grite, the Milan-based fashion inspiration for both Versace and Armani?"

On the other side of the coin, I have trouble imagining a dump truck with the name, "Rothenfellows" on the side. If anything, it seems as if it should be "Rothenfellow's Fine Excavation"--written in a cursive script, of course. Naturally, I'm likely off the mark here again as someone will write me to tell me that his uncle works for Rothenfellow's Waste Management Systems in Milwaukee and that there is a Rothenfellow's State Penitentiary in Iowa.

So, is there a positive correlation between names percieved as noble and occupations percieved as noble?

I'm not sure, but perhaps decendents of Thomas Crapper who randomly come across this entry would be kind enough to weigh in.

The Tarantula has Found a Home

2006-06-14T11:32:00.000-05:00

Blogger's Note: The following was posted as a comment to my "Regarding the Tarantula" post of May 11. It was too creative not to get space on the front page.

Dear Mr. Mosley,

May we first convey our deepest regrets at the news of Mrs. Mertleman’s passing. Certainly your words suggested that she was a delightful woman. We, of course, can neither confirm nor deny at this time that Mrs. Mertleman was of any acquaintance with our client, Dr. Rudd.

Due to Human Subjects Review Board Provision 2B. III. 4-6. a., any subjects involved in the garage sales research project conducted by Dr. A. Rudd were granted confidentiality as to their identity. When our client, Dr. Rudd, consulted us for legal advice regarding the organ you refer to in your letter, we were, of course aware of the fact that said confidentiality may not, indeed, pertain any more to Mrs. Mertleman because of her recent passing.

Except for the unique ruling in Dante vs. Oklahoma (1995) (but overturned in an appeals court in 1998, currently pending on an extended docket for the state supreme court) confidentiality agreements have generally been limited to the lifespan of the signatories. However, as you know, the strange permutations of Dante vs. Oklahoma (1995) have rippled out to jurisdictions and domains heretofore unimagined. The upshot? We have advised our client that his confidentiality agreement, if it ever existed with Mrs. Mertleman, is still in effect. We must draw your attention to the clause in the last sentence, “if it ever existed” to reinforce that this sentence is not intended to mislead you into believing that Dr. Rudd ever did in fact know Mrs. Mertleman. We can neither confirm nor deny that fact.

We do apologize if the particulars of the preceding paragraphs misled you to believe that we would, indeed, be able to recognize Mrs. Mertleman’s relationship (if she had one) to Dr. Rudd. We do like to, as a firm, be able to recognize the human dimensions that infuse all of our work as a legal entity and never be simply callous to the legal codes and expectations that constrain our expeditious, yet judicious decision making. In honor of our commitment to humanness, and in honor of Mrs. Mertleman’s passing, we too would like to pause for a space of white:

*if the preceding passage was rendered a color other than white due to the technological constraints of the computer you are reading this letter from, Brunderman, Brunderman, Acres and Howellstein does not accept responsibility. (Horowitz vs. Shiawasee County, 1975) We do still hope that you accept our token of respect, honor, grief and general humanness.

Now. On to the matter of the Tarantula. Our Client, Dr. Rudd informs us that one of his subjects, given the fictitious name of Mrs. Bertleman in his dissertation, due to Human Subject Review Board Specifications (as outlined in the sub-codes III.a.viiii.), a delightful woman who played her pipe organ vigorously throughout his interview with her at her garage sale, spoke quite vigorously about her commitment to the professional roller skating associations of America. As a result, our client Dr. Rudd has taken the liberty to contact Whirling Wheelchairs of Wheeling WV, a retirement community strictly occupied by former national level roller skating champions. Whirling Wheelchairs has agreed that the Tarantula would be a lovely acquisition for their recreational rink. Please ship the organ post haste to the following address:

Whirling Wheelchairs
546678 Main Street
Wheeling WV 26003

We must again affirm that your compliance with these arrangements made by our client, are purely voluntary and not in any way reflective of an admission of the identities of aforementioned persons. We should further clarify that if any of the residents of Whirling Wheels are injured during the skating and playing of the tarantula, neither Brunderman, Brunderman, Acres and Howellstein nor our client accepts any liability for injuries sustained.Thank you for your efficacious execution of Mrs. Mertleman’s estate and your rigorous talent at pipeology.

Sincerely,

Phineas Brunderman Jr.
Associate PartnerBrunderman, Brunderman, Acres and Howelstein

Regarding Transportation for the Tarantula

2006-06-14T00:35:00.000-05:00

Mr. Phineas Brunderman, Jr., Esq:

It is with pleasure that I inform you that arrangements for transporting the Tarantula to Whirling Wheelchairs of Wheeling, WV, have been finalized. I am posting the letter I have just recieved from the transportation company.

Middle Tennessee Donkey Transport
237 Catoosa Road

Wartburg, TN 37887

Mr. Raul Mosley
2300 S. Washington
Kokomo, IN 46903

Dear Mr. Mosley:

Please accept this letter as confirmation of our agreement to transport a pipe organ (i.e., the Tarantula) from Kokomo, IN, to Wheeling, WV. We will haul ass through Indiana during the last week of June (i.e., the 23rd) and will pick up the organ within that time frame.

Sincerely,

Dr. Alan Monroe,
VP of Operations

Highlighting: It's not just about hair anymore

2006-06-09T10:21:00.000-05:00

And now, for my most nerdy post ever.

Chances are, you won't want to read this. It has to do with how to strategically color-code (i.e., highlight) textbooks, scholarly articles, etc.

So, if remembering the information you read isn't your thing, then click the back button immediately.

Go ahead and click.

No, seriously.

Still here?

Okay, here's the deal: About six years ago, I developed a highlighting strategy that has significantly upgraded my ability to read and retain information. Best of all, it is simple and works across a broad range of literary genres.

In a nutshell, here's the system:

Highlight key terms in pink.
Highlight key names in green.
Highlight key themes and "signposts" in orange.
Highlight whatever else you find interesting in yellow.

It's that simple.

Of course, the colors are arbitrary. Use what suits you best.

While key terms and key names are obvious, let me briefly explain the types of statements that I am likely to highlight as orange:

"The most important argument for..."
"The basic theme of this chapter..."
"My main reason for writing this book..."
"My central idea..."

When I review something that I've read, such as a book that I haven't picked up in a few years, I'll look at the orange statements first because they capture the most important themes.

I also use orange to highlight "signposts" like this: "There are four essential characteristics of..." Then, I will underline (in orange) the words "first," "second," etc., as they unfold in the reading. This makes it easy to find key points.

I've found that this system works well in textbooks, scholarly articles, newspaper articles, biblical literature, and even novels.

Occasionally you might need to adapt the colors to the particular needs of a specific genre. For example, I also use blue to designate organizations when I'm reading through business literature, and I use purple to indicate statistical techniques when I'm working through scholarly research articles.

I'll end with a caveat: Following this system may slow your reading down, if for no other reason than having to mess around with multiple highlighters. I think it's worth it, though.

If enough people are interested, we can get together for a highlighting party. I'll bring my 5-pack.

Regarding the Tarantula

2006-05-11T11:39:00.000-05:00

Grundelman's Pipe Organs

2300 S. Washington

Kokomo, IN 46903

Dr. Andrew Rudd
Associate Professor and Chair
Department of Communication
515 25th Street NW

Canton, OH 44709

May 11, 2006

Dear Dr. Rudd:

It is with considerable regret that we inform you of the passing of Mrs. Ethel Mertleman of Foppsberry Acres, North Carolina. She spoke warmly of you and your research regarding garage sales. As a tribute to Mrs. Mertleman, let us pause for a space of white.

Thank you.

I write also to inform you that the estate of the deceased has bequeathed to you a 1932 steam powered pipe organ. Known as the “Tarantula,” this instrument was the largest Dutch-built pipe organ in America until 2001. Its 417 ranks are sure to bring you and your family listening pleasure for years to come.

Please kindly inform us regarding your method of transportation for this fine instrument.

Sincerely,

Raul A. Mosley,
Estate Pipeologist

"Grundelman's--Kicking Liturgical Hiney Since 1890"

Analysis of a Speech

2006-05-08T22:31:00.000-05:00

Tonight I had the privilege of presenting the Outstanding Student in Communication Award during the annual Honor’s Program at Indiana University Kokomo in front of about 500 people. I’m always encouraging my public speaking students to reflect on their speaking experiences, so I am using this blog entry to reflect on my performance tonight. For starters, here is the text of the speech:
_ _ _ _ _
Years ago, there was Nike advertisement that pictured a lone runner moving across a distant horizon.

The caption read:

He’s fat and he’s soft
And he’s wearing your clothes,
And he’s gotten too old,
And he was born on your birthday,
And you’re afraid if you stop running he’ll catch up with you.

Just do it.

This has become a life metaphor for Navi Van Wormer—the recipient of this year’s Outstanding Student in Communication Award.

Navi, would you please come forward?

I know this ad because Navi has shared it in my classes, and she was kind enough to give me a copy of the ad on the final day of classes, and I will hang it with honor in my office.

Everyone who knows Navi knows that she refuses to stop running--despite the challenges that life had thrown her way. This is woman who is obsessed with improving her performance in the race of life—and that drive has led her to shine not just in the classroom, but also in her social contributions to the IU Kokomo community.

Navi, when you graduate tomorrow, you will be crossing a finish line of sorts. Knowing you, you are going to keep on running. You will not let mediocrity catch up to you. But for tomorrow, take a breather. You deserve it. And, drawing on the immortal words of Nike, when-you-walk-across-that-stage tomorrow-take-pride-in-the-realization-that-you have “just done it.”

Congratulations.
_ _ _ _ _

Okay, so that’s the speech. I wanted it to be a bit different than the typical speech that is loaded with lines like, “And Billy Bob was an excellent student in my class as he earned the top score on Quiz 3 during the 4th week of class….” No one remembers that stuff anyway, unless the accomplishments are unusually noteworthy: “Angela finished first in the nation on the National Plumbers Entrance Exam.” That would be unusually noteworthy, as would the “Golden Plunger Award” that would no doubt go with it.

I wanted this speech to be all about Navi—the person—and not just be a recitation of Navi’s academic bibliography. Although I had written a previous version of this speech—a version that was officially printed in the proceedings of the event—I decided to write a completely different draft of the speech after Navi had given me a copy of the Nike ad during our last class of the semester. To me, this was a no-brainer as I knew how much the words of this inspirational ad have meant to her over the years. Plus, it was my way of thanking her for her gift. Further, I wanted to share her inspiration with the audience.

So last Friday, my mind went to work on the theme of running on the road of life. I started with a single thought that I wrote down on the paper to the left: “She has set herself apart not just by taking the road less traveled by pursuing a degree, but also by how she has traveled that road.” I didn’t end up using this, but it was a start. Another road-related line I decided not to use was: “Navi is nothing if not ambitious. When she comes to a fork in the road, she picks it up and takes it home. One example of how she has taken advantage of opportunities was…” I dropped this both because of time and because I didn’t want to have an overkill of metaphors.

I didn’t start writing the speech in earnest until 2:42 this afternoon, which was about 3 hours before we were supposed to line up for the ceremony. I felt this would give me plenty of time to write and practice the speech, and it did. I printed off my draft of the speech, and headed to the East Building in campus where I found an empty classroom on the first floor. I did what I encourage my public speaking students to do--I closed the door and practiced by talking my way through the speech. You can get a closer look at the draft of this speech by clicking on the image to the right, and you will see that I had made a number of changes to make the wording flow more smoothly. For example, in the first line you can see that I changed “ad” to “advertisement” because it was a bit easier to say, even though also a bit longer. “Ad” seems like the easiest word to say, but I found myself tripping over it as I practiced the first line. Many of the revisions that I made were nothing more than making the wording easier for me to say. And the (P) notations are reminders of where I wanted to pause for effect.

I especially wanted to use my vocal qualities to bring the words of the ad to life. The copy of the ad doesn’t flow all that smoothly, so I went over it several times to get the feeling for what it was trying to say. I decided to say the first three phrases (or two lines) without pausing:

He’s fat and he’s soft
And he’s wearing your clothes, (Pause)
And he’s gotten too old, (Pause)
And he was born on your birthday, (No Pause—Build the intensity/volume in the next line)
And you’re afraid if you stop running (Longer Pause) he’ll catch up with you. (Pause)

Just do it.

In the speech itself, this part went well, but my nervous energy began eating me up about at this point and I probably didn’t paint the words with the same vocal color that I might normally have if I had been more relaxed. That’s the funny thing about public speaking, especially for those of us who tend to get a bit more nervous than most people, and I include myself among the nervous. I had also planned to make eye contact with all parts of the auditorium, and I probably came close to this, but I realized after my speech that this had completely slipped my mind once I started speaking. Actually, now that I think about it, I botched the “And you’re afraid if you stop running” line a bit, and that threw me a bit off balance. I began to focus more on “don’t mess up again” and less on other elements of the speech.

The one part of the speech that I was by far the most concerned about—by far—was the final line. It’s kind of like sticking the final landing in gymnastics, I guess. And yet, that’s exactly what I messed up despite going over the line at least 30 times. The line itself should have been:

And, drawing on the immortal words of Nike, when-you-walk-across-that-stage tomorrow-take-pride-in-the-realization-that-you have (Pause) “just done it.”

The dashes between the words were my reminder NOT to pause until after the word "have." I did this for dramatic effect so that the final pause would pack more punch. I wanted a perfect cadence that built up to the final pause, but this drive to keep words coming out of my mouth is exactly what tripped me up. The words came, but they weren't the ones I had planned.

Instead, it went this way:

And, drawing on the immortal words of Nike, when-you-walk-across-that-stage tomorrow-take-pride-in-the-recognition…

Recognition? Not what I had intended. Now that I had just driven my bike off the sidewalk, I needed to figure out a smooth way to get back on track and set up another run for the final phrase and to do this without being too wordy. That was the plan, at least ideally. Instead, I think it came out something like this:

And, drawing on the immortal words of Nike, when-you-walk-across-that-stage tomorrow-take-pride-in-the-recognition-that-you deserve, (Pause) and in the realization that you have (Pause) “just done it.”

It was okay, but not great. I learned a lesson from this: Look at your notes more. I had the speech completely memorized and could recite it perfectly before actually giving it. There is such a thing as being over-prepared, but I don’t think I had that problem in this case. All I needed to do was to have glanced at my notes to make visual contact with each of the phrases in my final line. I didn’t do this because I wanted to maximize my eye contact with Navi during this part of the speech. I wanted to make this personal and a special occassion for her. Plus, on another level, I didn’t feel that I needed look at my notes again because I had gone over the wording and cadence of this line so many times in practice. There was a very good chance that I would deliver the line with perfection. But then, enter “recognition” instead of “realization.” If I were to do it over again, I would read every word of the final line directly off the paper UNTIL I got to the final “just done it.” Strong eye contact here with these last three words would have done the trick. [This is very different from the speaking I normally do in that I hardly ever use notes, and I also use a lot of visual aids.]

In short, I look forward to my next speaking engagement on the big stage. Personally, I am far more at home with a small audience of 20 students in a more intimate setting. There is something about being on an elevated stage under the bright lights, and hearing my voice over the PA system that makes me feel like a bug under a microscope. I’m very at home with smaller audience, but come to think of it, I’ve used a microphone less than 10 times in my life. As with anything, practice helps. I just got back from the IUK Cosmic Bowling event in which I scored a 108 on the one game I bowled. Not spectacular—but, you give me just 100 more games to practice, and I’ll be okay—assuming that I’m reflective on my performance and can make the needed adjustments to improve. I think public speaking is a lot like that. The cool thing for me is that I know exactly what I am going to work on for next time, and I’m fairly confident that it will work. That confidence will also carry over into other aspects of my delivery—such as increased vocal color. Waiting until next time….

VFVCs

2006-04-29T17:45:00.000-05:00

In all of my professional career, I had likely never written the word "lions" in my office. That was until I entered "Lions Club" in my calendar for an upcoming speaking engagement.

And in all of my professional career, no colleague had ever appeared in my office doorway to talk to me about lions--the animals.

And, yet, these two verbal events happened at exactly the same time--my colleague stood in my doorway and said "lions" exactly as I wrote "Lions" on my calendar.

Most people might not have caught this--and we call those people normal--but to me it's just too freaky not to at least notice. These coincidences are also verbal. So I am calling these types of odd experiences Very Freaky Verbal Coincidences, or VFVCs for short.

VFVCs happen to me a lot, perhaps once a week. I've thought about keeping a list of them, but they are usually so trivial that writing them down seems pointless--and that's because it really is.

Regardless, here are some examples:

As I drove through Greentown, Indiana, I heard the word "mouse" in the lyrics of the country song, The night the lights went out in Georgia, at the same exact time that my eyes landed on a sign for a store called The Church Mouse. Both parts of this equation are odd. I don't usually listen to country music or to songs with "mouse" in the lyrics. And, I pass through Greentown maybe 10 times a year, and this was the only time I had ever seen the sign for "The Church Mouse." So for these to have happened at the same time was freaky.
I was walking across my living room floor when my eyes randomly landed on a jigsaw puzzle piece of Alaska at the exact instant I heard Jerry Seinfeld say "Alaska" on TV. I rarely get a chance to watch Seinfeld, and I don't recall the show talking much about our 49th state. And the jigsaw puzzle of the USA--that was on the floor maybe 2 days out of the year.

Does anyone else have these experiences, or is it just me? (Yes, I know Audrey, it's definitely just me.)

Pre-Trib Raptor

2006-04-28T10:49:00.000-05:00

A Thank You to my Sponsors--NASCAR Style

2006-04-27T10:34:00.000-05:00

It's the end of the semester, so I figured I would use this entry to say thanks to all my sponsors for making this a fun and enriching semester.

[Raul enters classroom wearing a TIAA-CREF t-shirt, a McGraw-Hill baseball cap, and carrying a copy of The Chronicle of Higher Education in one hand and a cup of steaming coffee in the other.]

*Begins remarks by taking a sip of coffee with Folgers clearly labeled on the side of the mug.*

"It feels great to be here. First, I want to thank the team at Sony for the data projector we had in here. This thing ran like a horse all semester long, and I can't say enough about it. And we couldn't have stayed alert throughout such a long semester without the smell from those Expo dry-erase markers, and their partner, The Chronicle of Higher Education. I also want to thank the editing teams from McGraw-Hill, Prentice-Hall, and Wadsworth. You all make this thing happen. We had a good run this semester, but if Professor Jones plays one more loud video in the room next door, we're going to have to take this thing outside. God bless you and thank you all."

*Takes another sip of Folgers coffee and waves the copy of The Chronicle of Higher Education upon exiting the classroom.*

Surfake

2006-04-27T10:29:00.000-05:00

"Dude. That lecture was so out there. It wasn't just surreal, it was surfake."

Sir Dunks-A-Lot

2006-04-26T20:44:00.000-05:00

While attending an Indiana Pacers game last year, I had an interesting idea to spice up the half-time entertainment: Sir Dunks-A-Lot, the dunking knight in full medieval armor. You show me a knight who can dunk wearing that getup, and I'll show you what is likely to be an interesting half-time show.

Dining by the Numbers

2006-04-26T12:12:00.000-05:00

The following three numbers have meaning tied to my dining room experience while living on campus at Cedarville University: 31, 9.5, and 1,200.

The 31 is the number of consecutive times I made it into the cafeteria (a.k.a., "Chuck's) without showing my student ID card, which was required for entry. For the record, I had my student ID with me, but I wanted to see how many times I could enter by confidently flashing a host of cards ranging from library cards to credit cards. The key here was not the card, but the confidence. Now that I think about it, this was probably during the time that I was working on a forensics speech on biometric technology that featured a part about the inadequacy of outdated security systems. I challenge any of you current Cedarvillians to best my mark, if it's logistically possible. [They might just scan the mark on your forehead now. Oh, wait, that's Antioch College.]

The 9.5 is the number of miles in height that I ascended by climbing the stairs to eat on the upper level of the dining hall. Given that I was never thrown off the balcony of the second level, it just so happens that this is also the same distance that I descended via the stairs. The bottom line is that while the total ascent was 21,132 feet higher than Mt. Everest, I ended up with a net ascent of 0 feet when accounting for descents.

The 1,200 is the number of dollars my two buddies and I could have wasted by leaving 5 uneaten grapes behind on the floor during each of the three daily meals. Note the "could have wasted" wording. I don't remember how I arrived at that calculation back in the mid-1990s, but the math works out to be 37,800 grapes in total that could have been wasted. If there is someone else out there who is willing to update the dollar amount, you could buy a bunch of grapes, count the number of grapes, divide the price per grapes, then multiply this price per grape by 37,800.

Just some food for thought.

Calling about Camels with No Hands*

2006-04-17T13:19:00.000-05:00

Have you ever thought that someone in a public place was talking to you only to find that they were talking on a hands-free phone? This can still be a bit confusing at times, but I generally figure things out when I see the earpiece the other person is wearing. With the way technology is progressing, I can't help but wonder what is next. And my guess is that other people are thinking the same thing.

So, I propose to play on this uncertainty by placing and answering "phone calls" in public places, but without using any visible communication device. The trick here is to sound completely convincing in the imaginary dialogue, and I figure that a waiting room with a captive audience might be the best place.

Chances are that the "audience" may not notice the absence of a phone at first, so I might have to create a bit of attention. Perhaps I'll transfer a call to someone on my contact list--all while holding a magazine in both hands.

"Christina, let me transfer you to homicide." [Then, let the silence hang heavily in the air.]

I also need to have an exotic topic that compels people to listen. Sure, they are thumbing through a worn-out copy of People magazine, but there is no doubt that they are listening to me as well.

"Frank, I talked to my man in Hong Kong this morning, and we going to cancel the deal."

[Pause for 5 seconds.]

"That's what I said. I told him, 'Mr. Secretary, If you want to continue the camel trade in Southwest Egypt, then you are going to do it without me! I will not have my people go through another Cairo incident.'"

[Pause for 10 seconds.]

"Yeah."

[Another pause.]

"Okay. No problem at all. Hold on. Let me get a three-way call going here with Abdul...."

*Title sponsored by a generous grant from the American Foundation for the Advancement of Misplaced Modifiers (AFAMM).

Drinking from the Fountain of Truth

2006-04-16T16:05:00.000-05:00

This is a close-up image of the drinking fountain in our hallway at IUK. I just posted a print out of this image above the fountain itself along with the following caption: "Don't let this bother you. It's the same as it has always been."

If you are a little weird, then you can click on the image for a closer look.

I might use some CLR on this in a few days, but in the meantime, I'm making an artistic and philosophical statement about how we respond when confronted with the ugly facts of reality. Or, maybe I'm just messing with people? Will someone rip the sign off the wall in hopes that the problem goes away? Will some people drink less from the fountain this week? Will someone actually clean it? Will someone call and have maintenance clean it?

Larch Tributary Community Church

2006-04-16T15:09:00.000-05:00

I noticed a pattern in the naming of churches in the seeker-sensitive tradition, and it goes like this: Type of Tree + Body of Water.

It all started with Bill Hybles in South Barrington, IL, with the creation of Willow Creek Community Church. This church in the Chicago suburbs grew in popularity and eventually formed an association of over 2,000 churches that share a similar ministry mindset.

One church in Kokomo with strong ties to Willow Creek is Oakbrook Community Church--again, tree + water. That got me thinking: If a minister wanted to form a new church and pattern it after Willow Creek in both mindset and name, what naming options are available? It's really a matter of coming up with lists of trees and water and seeing what works. Naming a congregation Aspen Lake Community Church is catchy, but how about something more unique? I propose the following:

Kentucky Coffeetree Bog Community Church

Or, if this is an uppity neighborhood, you could go with the more scientific name: Gymnocladus Dioicus Bog Community Church.

Personally, I would scrap the whole tree/water trend and go with My Three Cappucinnos Community Church.

Facing the Music

2006-04-15T11:08:00.000-05:00

I recently heard a concert by a local flute group calling themselves "Flutation." That got me wondering about what other groups are out there, such as "Tubation," but I won't go there.

With all due respect for the expertise of this group, I still have to confess that I generally don't like a straight dose of flute music. All of that breathy chirpiness makes me think of butterflies with vertigo, or something.

This got me thinking about how an activist might write a book against flute music, and a catchy book title is always a good start. Many books that rail against some evil in the social structure--did I say that flutes were evil?--have a title that includes the word "nation." Examples would be Derber's Corporation Nation and Schlosser's Fast Food Nation. So, in the fine tradition of the muckrakers who have come before me, I propose the following book:

Flutation Nation: The Rise of Flute Music in America and How you can Fight Back.

Chronic Drive Thru

2006-04-06T15:28:00.000-05:00

I'd like to build a restaurant next to Sonic and call it Chronic. It's open 24-7, available all the time, and hence, Chronic. There are details to work through, such as: "Would you like to Chronic-size that?" Not sure if that has a ring to it.

But if that goes well, I could also build a "Dead Lobster" right next to it's more famous cousin.

Cheeseburgers in a Philosophical Paradise

2006-04-05T10:54:00.000-05:00

I’m a big fan of learning new content by comparing it to knowledge structures that I’m already familiar with. Perhaps no discipline is better suited for such a learning strategy than philosophy with its abstract thoughts about reality, knowledge, and ethics. Trying to nail down some of these abstract lines of thinking can feel as futile as trying to attach a strip of Scotch ™ tape to midair. That’s why I would like to create a grand analogy called “Philosophical Paradise”—an imaginary (or real if you have the money) theme park that illustrates the significant thinkers and thoughts of philosophy in the western tradition.

The premise of the park is fairly simple: Create sections of the theme park that illustrate the major movements of philosophy. Disney World, for example, has “themed lands” such as Tomorrowland, Neverland, and Frontierland. Each of these sections has rides, shows, landscaping, restaurants, gift shops, and other attractions that feed on their respective themes.

So, what are the major themes of Western philosophy? In other words, how would this theme park be laid out? Personally, I think using the layout of Disney’s Epcot theme park would work the best given the way the park splits directions soon after you enter. You either go right or left to see the attractions around the lake. In philosophy, there is a similar divide as seen in the works of both Plato and Aristotle. In fact, it’s been said that all of western philosophy is nothing more than a footnote to Plato and Aristotle. Or, to put that another way, philosophy in the last two millennia has worked to articulate and reconcile the relationship between rationalism (Plato) and empiricism (Aristotle).

Before I deal with these lines of thought more concretely, allow me to back up the courtesy tram to give you the big picture.

When a visitor comes into the theme park, he or she might walk through an introductory pavilion focusing on the work of the Milesian (or “pre-Socratic) philosophers such as Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Thales, and Anaximander. I’ll leave the details of this to your imagination, but this introductory pavilion might feature a flowing river to illustrate Heraclitus’s notion of change—“You can never step in the same river twice.” And, for Pythagoras, there could be some kind of mathematical attraction illustrating his quest to achieve purity of soul through number crunching. Math was much more than a number thing to him; it was about being a clean person. Oh, and he also discouraged people from eating beans, if you get my drift.

Next would come Socrates, the first giant figure in philosophy. Perhaps this first “themed land” could be shaped like a question mark to emphasize his relentless questioning of premises—hence his Socratic method of questioning. What attraction, display, ride, or architectural feature could be built to illustrate his notion of serving as a midwife in giving birth to the philosophical ideas of others? What would best illustrate his fight against relativism, and his death that resulted from that fight?

Moving on, a visitor would either zig left to Platoland or zag right to Aristotle’s themed area (name?). The footprint of these two park sections would perhaps be the largest in the entire park given the scope of their thinking and the range of their influence. There are many attractions that could be added such as Plato’s Myth of the Cave Roller Coaster or Aristotle’s Marine Life Pavilion—he actually had over 1,000 people scouring the waters of the Mediterranean to collect marine specimens for his research.

But perhaps the most pressing question is this: How will each of them come to know “the cheeseburger.” In other words, if you brought Plato and Aristotle into a room and asked them both to explore the essence of what a cheeseburger is, you would find that they would have two radically different strategies for arriving at this “truth.” It would take too long to unpack in this blog entry, but I’ll offer a brief explanation in the next 2 paragraphs.

Plato, a rationalist, would seek to explore the inner recesses of his mind to find out what a cheeseburger is (cheeseburger NOT included). In fact, the further Plato could run from a physical cheeseburger, the better. His goal was to find the “form,” or the “ideal” burger—the one explanation that encapsulates exactly what a cheeseburger is—and not just one particular cheeseburger, but EVERY CHEESEBURGER. He was after “cheeseburgerness,” so to speak. So, Plato might lock himself in a mop closet, kill the lights, and search his mind for the real meaning of a burger—a meaning that he believes has existed from eternity.

Meanwhile, Aristotle would be slobbering like a contestant at a BubbaFest rib-eatin' contest. As an empiricist, the main way Aristotle feels that you can learn about a cheeseburger is through the senses. In other words, he would stay out of the mop closet of philosophical introspection and belly up to the bar of real world sensory experience. This kind of makes sense if you think about it. Who collected physical specimens of squid, sea squirts, etc.? Hint: It wasn’t Plato. Mr. Plato--let's call him Bob--would head back to the mop closet to learn about creatures like the Mediterranean yellow-striped sea bass.

To summarize, it all comes down to a single question in Western philosophy: What are you going to do with the cheeseburger? If you believe that truth about burgers is best explored through the mind, then you are likely a rationalist. You will frolic in Platoland and be delighted to move on in that same direction around the left part of the lake by exploring similarly-related themed lands devoted to Augustine and Descartes.

On the other hand, if you believe that scarfing burgers is the path to truth, then you will likely be an empiricist and prefer Aristotle. You will find yourself invigorated as you move on along the right part of the lake by exploring the themed parks featuring Aquinas and British Empiricists such as Locke, Hume, and Berkeley.

That leads us to an important decision at the far side of the lake. Do we erect a wall to keep the two lines of thought apart? Not according to the one philosopher whom many consider to be the greatest of them all—Immanuel Kant. His ambitious plan was to unite the two schools of thought. In other words, Kant felt it best to eat the cheeseburger in the mop closet. So, Kantland, or whatever, will explore this synthesis.

Oh, and what to do about modern philosophy? One might propose drowning it in the middle of the lake, but another choice would be to extend it beyond Kantland in the opposite direction of the main entrance. Of any of the themed land areas, this part of the park will be the most difficult of all to construct. Its thoughts and thinkers are more often characterize not by what they are proposing, but by what they reject. This is a theme land of philosophical negation in which you can never know the truth about what a cheeseburger is. There is no CHEESEBURGER, but only individual cheeseburgers as perceived by our individual and subjective experiences. In this place, you might say, "The cheeseburger on my plate is the best burger in the world," only to be met with, "Well, I respect your right to believe that there is a cheeseburger on your plate, but that's not my reality. I choose to believe that you have no burger before you."

Anyway, this is a general overview of the Philosophical Paradise theme park that would make even Jimmy Buffet proud. I’d add more, but I’m getting kind of hungry—for a cheeseburger.

Digital Solutions to Helter Skelter

2006-04-04T18:22:00.000-05:00

I just heard a report on Fox News about a tornado that touched down in Tennessee. Apparently, a police officer was in his patrol car when the tornado picked up the car and tossed it some distance with the officer inside. The segment ended with the officer saying, "It's something I will never forget."

Really, now?

Let's fast forward 20 years from now. His buddy asks him, "Remember that tornado that picked you up back in 2006?" Can you imagine the officer saying, "Dude, I barely even remember that one. Did you say that I got picked up by a tornado or something?"

What's more odd, perhaps, are the events we are likely to remember for the rest of our lives. I can remember thinking as a 15-year old that a painfully awkward situation really didn't matter in the grand scheme of things because "I'll never remember it 20 years from now." As it turns out, I still remember!! Sometimes the events are noteworthy, but other times they are less remarkable, such me as hiding in the back of a car trunk as a 6-year old with a friend while singing Play that Funky Music White Boy to people walking by on the sidewalk (unrolling bathroom tissue out the back of the nearly-closed trunk included).

What is interesting to me is that this upcoming generation could remember virtually every event in their lives because of the traces of digital photography they have created. I figure it this way: If I take pictures of my 6-year old son at an event--let's say to a car show, for example--and then review those pictures with him every three months, he likely would never forget the experience.

What's scary is that you could strategically make memory imprints on the minds of youngsters about an event as mundane as eating at Bob Evans. Fast forward 30 years: "Son, do you remember that time we ate at Bob Evans back in '06." "Sure, Dad. That was the time when we had the Word Find on my Kid's Activity Book about the National Parks. You took lots of high resolution pictures of that too."

Further, from a parental PR perspective, one could strategically create a set of photos for the sole purpose of proving to your kids later in their lives that they did, in fact, have a happy childhood. "The pictures don't lie, Johnny. You grew up in a happy and stable home. So stop blaming me for your emotional problems." Too bad Mr. and Mrs. Manson didn't have a digital camera to take snapshots of their dear little Charlie.

Tyrone's China Buffet

2006-04-03T12:55:00.000-05:00

This cultural fusion could have some interesting culinary outcomes. Any ideas out there?

Thanks for the Memories

2006-04-01T00:01:00.000-05:00

With the semester drawing to a close, I feel that the time is right for me to make a major announcement regarding my future career path. But first, I want to say how much I’ve enjoyed the last decade of teaching, and I sincerely hope that my interactions with my students and colleagues has in some way made the world a better place. I know that I am a better person for all that my time in academe, and I hope that in at least some small way I have returned the favor.

The time has come, though, for me to turn the pages and enter a new chapter of life. Following the end of my two summer courses at IUK, I will fly to Tucson, Arizona to attend a week-long orientation for my new position as the Associate Director of Public Policy for the Ostrich Ranchers of America (ORA). This position is ideal for me because it allows me to do many of the skills I’ve taught over the years. One of my major responsibilities will be to represent the ORA to key policy makers on the state, national, and international levels. The great thing is that I’m already scheduled to present my paper on public perceptions of exotic meat at the Western Wildlife Association’s conference in Denver in July as well as at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “Livestock for the Future” symposium held in Kansas City in early August. There are also plans in the work for a trip to Perth, Australia in May of 2007. How cool is that?

In the meantime, my family and I will be leaving on Friday of next week to look for a townhouse in Tucson, AZ, and that is kind of cool because it puts me close to my grandparents in Bisbee, which is only a couple of hours to the east. If you haven’t driven across Arizona in the last few years, then you may not realize how many large ostrich farms there are in the stretch between Phoenix and Tucson. My office at the ORA will actually be on the 4th floor of the Sidd Finch Building on the main campus of the University of Arizona. I’m not sure if that is going to make me a “wildcat,” but after having been a Crusader, Viking, Yellow Jacket, Golden Eagle, Boilermaker, and Hoosier, I guess I’m open to almost anything.

For those of you wanting to stay in contact with me, I plan to maintain this blog after the move, and I’ll also keep my account on facebook.com. Maybe the next time you see ostrich offered in the meat section of your local grocery store, you will think of me and the opportunity I have to promote the ranchers of this growing industry.

A Merit Award, Kind of

2006-03-30T14:42:00.000-05:00

As I had mentioned in a previous post, I had ridden the school bus for 2,300 hours. During my high school years, bouncing along with me on the back of the bus was a calculator sporting a Random Number Generator. Because of this, I could entertain myself by working through playoff brackets using randomly generated numbers as the team scores.

Working through a playoff bracket of 16 teams is cool, but using a bracket of 64 teams offered more opportunity experience both the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. So, I thought to myself, if 64 teams is cool, then why not create the "Mother of all Playoff Brackets." 128 teams would work, as would 256, and 512. My bracket, however, featured 1,024 "teams."

I put "teams" in quotes because I had to be creative in my generation of so many tournament entries. My paper spanned 16 pages taped together with 64 teams on each page.

Now, there were maybe 100 teams in the four major sports back in 1984, and if I tossed in another 100 college teams, then I would still have to come up with another 824 teams. So, I included a number of high schools, local churches, the local library, radio stations, a handful of nation states, and there were probably several Popes tossed in there as well.

And this made for some interesting match ups, no doubt. Who would have thought that the state of Alabama would face off against Pope John Paul II to see who would go on to play the winner of the Detroit Red Wings versus Fat Albert?

In the end, though, it was Merit Island High School of Florida that waltzed through the biggest dance of all to claim the grand prize. At 22 years after the fact, I felt that it was time to announce their victory to the world. Congratulations, Merit Island. Congratulations indeed.

"Let the Eagle Soar"

2006-03-29T14:02:00.000-05:00

But enough about former Attorney General John Ashcroft's singing career. This blog entry is about a study break during my sophomore year at Cedarville University. Two desks were parked side-by-side in a dimly-lit rectangular dorm room. At one desk was Mike Knoerzer, studying for an exam in Dr. James McGoldrick's Western Civilization course. At the other desk was your's truly, studying for an upcoming honor's exam in the year-long sequence called the Making of the Modern Mind. Long story short--these two minds were essentially fried on this particular night. We had arrived at the saturation point--and then went beyond. Yet there was far more to cram in our brains before the next morning.

Enter the study break. Enter, also, the imagination--that powerful human process whereby two weary students could mentally transport themselves from their bleak existence in the "land of corn and pigs" (that's what I used to call Ohio) and into a more celestial locale. On this particular night, it was alpine majesty that came calling, and the dialogue went something like this:

Mike: "Somewhere, there is a mountain range of incredible grandeur. And above the mountain tops soars a majestic bald eagle, floating effortlessly on its outstretched wings. It soars high above the snow-capped mountain peaks, and then dips down into the valley below."

A thoughtful pause ensued as we both could see the image in our mind's eye.

Then, I offered the following: The sound of a shotgun being cocked.

Kind of ruined the moment, but made for a good study break.

How Babies are Made

2006-03-28T12:13:00.000-05:00

I learned something about sex ed from my 6-year-old son the other day. My wife relayed the explanation to me, and it went exactly like this:

"There are two ways to get a baby. First, you can get one through adoption. And, second, you can have one through special circumstances."

Interesting indeed.

On a completely different subject, he also came up with the following poem while riding in the back seat of the car on a hot day:

"If you don't have your water

and you don't have your tea,

go get a Polar Pop

from the BP."

People with Hangups

2006-03-27T21:41:00.000-05:00

This morning, the faculty in my hallway found our normally bland corridor splashed with the color of 46 sheets of red paper hanging from the ceiling. At present, I wish to neither confirm nor deny personal involvement in this incident. That being said, though, I will offer a few observations based on my interactions with my colleagues today.

First, I was stunned at how quickly and confidently the finger was pointed at yours truly. What gives? Where are the pictures of me hanging these up? Where is the personal testimony of someone who had caught me red handed? In spite of evidential dearth, nearly every conversation I had today began with "You did this, didn't you?" Others didn't need to ask. They just gave me "the look."

Second, I was intrigued by how many speculative conversations I heard in the hallway throughout the day. "It couldn't have happened on Saturday because I was here then and they weren't up." "Could have been Raul. I saw his car in the parking lot on Sunday." "I thought it was maintenance marking where work needs to be done." "It might be for the upcoming Renaissance Festival." "This obviously took a long time to do." And on and on it went--all over 46 sheets of paper (not that I've counted or anything).

Third, I have to admire the safety consciousness of the artist. If you look closely--and you can click on the picture above for a better view--you can see that the papers in no way obstruct any view of the EXIT sign near the door to the left. Remember Mr. Van Gogh: Safety first, artistic expression second.

Finally, I heard chatter about "our red paper being wasted." (Okay, so it was really "discourse" and not "chatter" given that it took place in the Humanities hallway.) Regardless, my guess on the matter is that someone conscientious enough to avoid blocking the EXIT sign would also collect and reallocate those papers for instructional purposes. Just a guess--not that I know anything about the particulars of this incident.

In the end, it illustrates that few things in the workplace draw as much attention as a person with hangups.

My Blog Entry about Nothing

2006-03-23T16:16:00.000-05:00

Another Cephalopod

2006-03-04T10:37:00.000-05:00

I was listening to Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall on Thursday night when the following new lyrics came to mind. My apologies to the sea food industry.

We don’t need no calamari

We don’t need no Nemo chew

No fried seafood in my lunch box

Fishers leave the squid alone

Hey! Fisher! Leave them squid alone!

All in all it’s just a slimey cephalopod

All in all you would be better off fishing for cod.

The KJV Study Blog

2006-02-25T11:38:00.000-05:00

As I've been playing around with this blog during the last few weeks, I've been faced with the choice of writing entries that are timely versus entries that are timeless. Timely entries focus on the cutting edge of life as it unfolds right now. The payoff: It's generally more interesting for the reader. The problem: It becomes quickly outdated. Take my "Death of a modern caveman" entry, for example, in which I referenced FedEx and Geico commercials involving cavemen.

The alternative is to write in a style that has a timeless quality. An example of this could be my entry on "The day my dog flew." Your offspring could read this entry in 100 years and still get the essence of what I was saying. It was sufficiently vague in its references to my current situation and it also touched on general themes of the human experience (e.g., We know how it feels to be powerless in embarrassing situations.). Writing in this timeless fashion makes me more readable to future generations, but it also loses a sense of "life-as-it-is-happening-now." I want to capture that too. What can be done to resolve this tension? How can blog entries be made timely and timeless?

Infomercial Announcer (in blue): Do your blog readers fall asleep when you write about general themes without reference to current events? [Footage: Man falling asleep in front of computer.]

Do your friends struggle to interpret your pop culture references when they read your blog entries from last year? [Footage: Woman pulling her hair out in frustration while looking at computer monitor.]

Struggle no more. Introducing (strategic pause) the all new Study Blog! [Footage: An attractive, smiling woman seated in an oversized chair. She is reading from a laptop computer.] This revolutionary development will forever change the way your blogs are read. This patented and innovative design features annotated study notes on the bottom of each entry to help readers make perfect sense of even your most obscure references!

Testimonial: [Footage: A grandfather-type who removes his bifocals before addressing the camera with his slow, smoker's voice.] "Well, I'm 72 years old, and I read blogs better now than when I was 70. I didn't know what my grandson meant by DDR, but now I do, and I can tell you, the Study Blog really works."

Okay, I won't beat the commercial thing to death (anymore than I just did). But, it did get me thinking about parallels between my study blog idea and many of the Study Bibles sold today. In turn, this got me thinking about how some people might feel more comfortable reading my blog if it were written in the language of the King James Version. In other words, I might be able to combine the best of some Study Bibles by including both annotated study helps and the majesty of the 1611 tongue. Let's see how this might play out. My post on "The day my dog flew" might start something like this:

If thou werest to goest unto mine past sleepy neighborhood in Bartow, Florida, thou wouldst hath seen little evidence with thine own eyes that I had livest there. Thou mightest, I say unto you, hath foundeth a baseball rotting atop a neighbor's patio roof, and if thou werest to hath diggeth deeply enough--thou sick fiend--thou mightest hath foundeth a dead dog that hath been verily buriethed in the backyardeth of my former houseth. But it cameth to passeth in the summer of 1987 that my doggeth wuth very mucheth aliveth and thateth it...

Okay, now for the study notes. This one could go a number of different directions, but I'll limit my discussion to only two possibilities.

First, a sample study note in the tradition of the NIV or KJV Study Bible published by Zondervan: "The word livest in the first line is taken from the Greek term, zoe, which means life. When Raul writes about living, it is usually done in reference to a specific geographical location. Such living is stated in contrast to death, or thanatos, in the Greek. For more on this notion of death, see the reference to 'kill' found in the 3rd line of the 'being square' blog entry and also the entry on the 'death' of a modern caveman." This would be a bit dry, but it would also be the best approach for explaining obscure cultural references, such as to the Avacor commercial alluded to in the above testimonial. Oh, you didn't catch that the first time through? Ah, now you see the need for annotated comments.

A second direction these notes could head would to be in the tradition of the Life Application Study Bible, also published by Zondervan. "A central theme in this passage is that of finding. We should try more than ever to find what is most important in life. We can do this most effectively by asking ourselves these two questions: (1) What is it that I'm looking for in life?, and (2) Am I finding what I'm looking for? If you struggle to answer these questions, then consider asking someone to help you find yourself."

This may all seem like a lot of work right now, but perhaps there will be a payoff when future generations make better sense of what thou and I didst meaneth when we bloggethed.

Getting to the Root of Being Square

2006-02-22T18:56:00.000-05:00

2,300 hours.

That's how long I spent riding school busses during my less-than-illustrious K-12 career. If a person were to work a 40-hour week beginning on January 1, 2006, he or she would need to keep working until February 18, 2007, just to log in the same amount of time I spent riding a bus. This is the kind of self-directed learning takes place when one has 2,300 hours to kill.

My 14 months on the bus also allowed me to ponder some of the more overlooked questions of the human experience. For example, "I wonder if my home phone number is the only one in Bartow, Florida that ends in a whole square root?" As it turns out, it was. What are the chances? There were, after all, 12,000 other people living there at the time.

Ironically, the square root was 2,309, which is almost exactly the number of hours I had spent on the school bus. Go figure. (Never mind, I guess I just did that.) The only other phone numbers that could have joined this elite class would have been the squares of 2,308 and 2,310. After a check with the city's authoritative phone guide in the public library, I learned that these two numbers did not exist. Further, the phone numbers for both 2,307 and 2,311 were beyond the range of the city's directory at the time. Bottom line: I could rest assured that my home number was unique. Now, what to do with such utterly useless knowledge? Write a blog entry, I guess.

One might think, based on my early preoccupation with numbers, that I'm good at math. I'm not. So, it's a bit odd that I discovered this odd fact about my phone number. Mysteries like this, though, are waiting to whisper themselves to those people with 2,300 hours to spare. I guess that means I had less excuse in college when I told people they could dial 726-JERK to reach me at my dorm. Anyway, math has never been my best subject, but perhaps it's being rough around the mathematical edges that keeps me from being a total square.

The Death of a Modern Caveman

2006-02-20T13:38:00.000-05:00

In the past, our ancestors met untimely fates in various--and sometimes creative--ways. Take the caveman who didn't use FedEx, for example. Today, though, we are more likely to be stomped underfoot by a Stressasaurus. This looming threat was made more real to me last night when I watched a DVD entitled, Caught in the speech trap: Information age overload. Put simply, workers in industrialized nations are working themselves to death as increased hours and rising levels of stress lead to heart attacks, stroke, and brain hemorrhages--not to mention workplace violence. That reminds me--I need more stamps. The bottom line is that I realized that I am a prime candidate to meet the untimely death of a modern caveman.

After viewing the video, I determined to get off this deadly track, and I'm off to a good start today. I slept in late, which I badly needed given that my bedtime had averaged around 3:00 AM last week. More than anything, I need rest.

The teaching part of life comes very easily to me, and good organizational skills help here. The factor that really adds the stress is that teaching is not my most pressing obligation--finishing the dissertation for my Ph.D. at Purdue is. If I were to reorient my life according to my values, I would be spending 40 hours a week working on this research, but unfortunately, there are days in which I can't even get to my dissertation given my other responsibilities.

There aren't too many things that I can cut out of my life at present, so my strategy for the time being is to add moments of scheduled relaxation and continue to find creative ways to alter my teaching obligations. I would love to give the "mother of all lectures" for any of my 75-minute classes, but I don't have the 5-6 hours to prepare for this, especially when I consider that I would still have another 25 hours and 15 minutes of class that week to also prepare for. So, if you happen to be in a class of mine this semester, don't be surprised if you see a few more videos followed by discussion segments. It's this modern caveman's way of staying alive (Bee Gees not included).

I also plan to get back to cooking, and grilling in particular. There is something primal about cooking meat over an open flame. I find that cooking is slow-paced. And I need that right now. Rachel Ray's 30 minute meals usually take me about 90 minutes to prepare.

But, that's okay.

It slows me down.

So, I'm putting more cooking on this caveman's menu, and right now, the roast duck with mango salsa is sounding pretty good.

The Day my Dog Flew

2006-02-17T16:29:00.000-05:00

If you were to go to the sleepy neighborhood in Bartow, Florida, you would see little evidence that I had lived there. You might find a baseball rotting on top of a neighbor's patio roof, and if you were to dig deeply enough--you sick fiend--you might find a dead dog buried in the backyard of my former house. But in the summer of 1987, that dog was very much alive and was more often than not chasing after baseballs that I hit in a field that was situated in the middle of our block. All houses backed up to this field that was maybe 200 feet long by 100 feet wide. In general, this was a quiet block in a sleepy, Southern town, but there were exceptions.

One notorious exception involved a sunbathing woman, a baseball, and a "flying" dog. Dusty was my 3-year-old black lab whose favorite activity was to fetch baseballs that I would hit onto this field. One sunny afternoon, I hit a ball that sailed majestically through the air and landed 40-feet deep into a neighbor's back yard. Enter Dusty, my dog, running at full speed to fetch the ball. We're talking about a flying fury of focused animal energy.

Now, these neighbors had a log "fence" that stood about 2 feet high--short enough for a person to step over, but tall enough to keep a dog from seeing what was on the other side. And what happened to be on the other side--as I saw to my horror only as Dusty was at full speed and beyond the point of distraction--was the woman of the house wearing a purple bikini and sunbathing on a reclining lawn chair only feet from the other side of the fence. To make matters worse, she represented an exact point on the quickly shrinking line running from dog to ball.

The dog is now fully airborne, so let's pause the action Dukes of Hazard style.

It all really comes down to physics--the speed, the weight, and the angle of liftoff. As I was assessing the situation, I guessed that Dusty likely had the speed to make it over both the fence and the woman. It was a Mrs. Adams, I believe. I had previously timed her on this field to see how fast she was (my dog, not the woman), and I did this by hitting a baseball through two walls of flags placed a precisely measured distances. I would hit the ball to the other side of the flags and then measure the time between Dusty hitting the first and second row of flags. Dusty's best time in the 30 meters was 2.54, which ironically is the number of centimeters in an inch. "Coming up on Dateline: The hidden connection between animals and the metric system. What you need to know." The bottom line on speed is that we have a very focused dog traveling at 26.6 miles per hour. She also weighed in at about 60 pounds. That doesn't sound like much, but we're talking about 60 pounds at 26.6 MPH and aimed claws first at an unsuspecting and scantily-clad Mrs. Adams. So it all really came down to the angle of liftoff.

And, in fact, that is exactly what happened.

Since then, seasons have come and gone, and with the passing of time came also the passing of my baseball fetching buddy. But memories live on, and I'm confident there is one woman will never fully erase the memory of a black lab performing a bikini-clearing jump that would rival any you'll see in the Winter Olympics, just without the skis.

Pitcher Perfect

2006-02-17T13:37:00.000-05:00

If I could do any job in the world, I'd like to be a starting pitcher in the National League. This would sure beat the pants off Mike Rowe's gig on Dirty Jobs. When I say pitcher, I'm not talking about a chump who goes 6-15 on the season with a 4.78 E.R.A. I'm talking about a perennial 20-game winner who can dominate a game with lights out "stuff." I'd want the fastball of a Billy Wagner, the knee-buckling curveball of a David Wells, the nasty slider of a John Smoltz, and the devastating change-up of a Trevor Hoffman. Add to that arsenal a Greg Maddux-like ability to locate the ball, the on-mound poise of a Tom Glavine, and the intimidation factor of a Randy Johnson.

It's that intimidation factor that has me intrigued. In the era of media driven sports, even the best starting pitcher could use a well-run image campaign. My personal PR campaign would center around the most intimidating pitch of all--a fastball with great movement thrown consistently in the mid-to-upper 90s and capable of hitting triple digits when I reach back for that little extra (insert "grunting" sound effect here). A fastball like this deserves a denotative upgrade. I will call mine--drum roll please--the "Velocitor."

That's a good start, but I also need an image to go along with the name for marketing purposes. It's a bit fuzzy in my head, but I can see this picture beginning to form, of a velociraptor atop a pitching mound. I can see it's piercing eyes glaring in toward home plate, and it has a baseball clinched in the claws of its prehensile-like throwing arm. Well, it's a start anyway. And, the marketing potentials are promising. I can hear Stuart Scott on Sports Center stating emphatically: "The Yankees will not be able to hit the Velocitor in the opening game of the 2006 World Series!" Then there are the t-shirts, the freezer mugs, the ball caps, and of course, baseballs with claw mark etchings. And with the continued growth of the Christian gift store industry, there could also be the Velociraptor Study Bible in the NIV with a special section on how to "strike out sin" in your life. "Special Offer: Buy this Bible and get two upper-deck tickets to see the Velociraptor pitch in Jurassic Park." But enough about the Korean connection.

There are also drawbacks though. A flare-up of tendonitis could lead sports writers to pen articles with headlines like "Armasaurus." And in the National League, I'm just begging to be called "Buntasaurus" when it's my turn at the plate. Inevitably, there is also the obnoxious fan in a frigid, late October Yankee Stadium holding a sign that reads: "Watch out Velociraptor--the Ice Age is coming." Yeah, very funny. Now put your shirt back on.

The biggest drawback, though, to the velociraptor image boils down to simple physics. Let's face it, there's no way it's dog-like arm could throw a ball to home plate, much less throw a pitch resembling anything close to the almighty Velocitor. So, don't send those Bibles to the press quite yet.

Perhaps an orangutan with it's longer arms would be a more logical choice. Does that mean I'd be the "Velocutan?" Not quite sure if that works, although there are also endorsement opportunities. Commercial: "Hi, I'm the Velocutan, and when it comes time for me to jump start my day, I reach for a tall glass of delicious Tang..." Hey, it would be money I don't have right now, even if it was only "chimp-change." And speaking of the zoologically-challenged, I would also dread groupies hoisting signs over the dugout reading, "We're ape for the Velocutan," not to mention signs on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball reading, "Entertainment Sports Primate Network."

Well, if anything in this entry, I've monkeyed around with a plan to become a dominant pitcher in the National League. Now, I just need a few other things to fall into place, such as being able to throw a major league fastball, being 15 years younger, and being in superb physical condition. In the meantime, though, it's time for another glass of Tang.

Paging Mr. Fudpucker

2006-02-13T10:17:00.000-05:00

I've known Orville E. Fudpucker for 22 years. The problem is that I've never met him. Nonetheless, his name has lived with me from the time I heard it used in vain in the back of a school bus. Apparently normal interests were too routine for fellow 8th grader, Greg Brill. Somehow, he was moved to "read" the local phone book. My guess was that he was just feeding his adolescent curiosity by looking up a few choice words, but that's only a guess. Perhaps it really was by freak chance that Greg had stumbled upon the noble surname of Fudpucker. Laying aside Master Brill's research methodology, the real issue is that while Greg has likely forgotten about Mr. Fudpucker, I haven't. And after 21 years, I feel compelled to resolve an epistemological tension I have between knowing the name but not the person.

So, I've decided to contact Mr. Fudpucker.

The only problem is that I'm not sure what to say. This would no doubt be one of the oddest letters anyone has ever received--even odder than the letter my family got from the U.S. Department of the INTERIOR that had NOTHING in it. Anyway, here's a rough draft:

February 13, 2006

Mr. Orville E. Fudpucker
1021 E. 15th Street
Plano, TX 75074-6221

(Yes, that's his real address, and he might be happy to hear from you also.)

Dear Mr. Fudpucker:

I've known about you since 1984 when a buddy of mine on the school bus came across your name in the phone book while looking for the "F" word. Anyway, I just wanted to write and say "Hi." I just figured that since I have known your name for the last 21 years, it's time you know mine. Granted, my name isn't as fun to say as yours, but it's what people call me.

Well, that's really about all I have to say.

Sincerely,

Raul Mosley

PS The kid on the bus who was making fun of your name was Greg Brill. There are only 14 of them in the country, so best of luck in tracking him down.

The Seattle Satans

2006-01-31T09:33:00.000-05:00

What's up with the names we give sports teams? Some just make sense, others don't. Take the Dolphins, for example. They do in fact frolic off the coast of Miami. Cool. But other names make little sense, especially after teams move to a new city. How many Mormons have you seen lately jamming on a sax? And yet we have the Utah Jazz of the NBA.

Our society generally selects names that reflect our values. We don't have the St. Louis Slugs or the Denver Dung Beetles to cheer for. However, some values are underrepresented. Take technology for example. What about changing the Phillies to the Philadelphia Faxers (or Phaxers?). That would be a tribute to human progress. Nobody knows what a Phillie is anyway. And how about the Miami Modems instead of the Miami Heat? Imagine Kobe Bryant of the Lakers squaring up for a foul shot as 20,000 Miami fans “log on” in their loudest modem imitation. Kind of begs the question, “What would Jesus Do?,” but I’ll move on.

Along with technology, primates also get short changed. Think about it. We have teams named after cubs, sharks, marlins, timberwolves, bulldogs, and cats of all stripes. But do we have any tributes to humankind’s closest cousin? I mean no disrespect to the packing industry, but wouldn’t the Green Bay Gorillas be a more intimidating mascot than the "Packers"? I can see it now--a 90-foot tall King Kong-like creature pounding its chest in the end zone after each touchdown. Much cooler than filling another tin can with sardines, isn't it? You know it is. Or what about Curt Schilling taking the mound for the Boston Baboons?

I have one more suggestion to spice up modern sports: I propose changing the name of the Seattle Seahawks to the Seattle Satans. Picture this: A lake of fire smoldering away just beyond the end zones. After each Satanic score, cheerleaders toss an effigy of the opposing team into this pit of hell. Granted, there are PC issues that need to be resolved for home games against Washington and Kansas City. And, PETA would get their dander up regarding most other mascots. When it comes down to it, though, this proposal isn't likely to gain traction until hell freezes over. But then again, we are talking about Seattle in January.