The Man, The Myth, The Legend…
…how does one lead to the other? When you’re as surefooted as I.
My good friend, Jen, and her family were in town for Thanksgiving with her husband’s family. I’ve known Jen for oh… 17 years. Through the years, we’ve become quite close, so our spouses indulge us, allowing us to get together every so often to reminisce and catch up. We took the opportunity to do so during my week’s vacation surrounding Thanksgiving.
Turns out that might be the wrong question.
I’ve been struggling to complete a paper that’s already a week and a day late. This paper will be, when all is said and done, my first attempt to break into the sphere of academically-published works. The subject will be open source software and its use in local governments for eGovernment purposes. Time management issues have, together with health issues (I nearly broke my hand and wrist last week in a fall, my kids had been ill, the dog ate my homework - pick two of three… I swear two of them are true) have conspired to keep me from this extremely important task.
I hide behind my e-mail, blog, Twitter, and instant messages. My BlackBerry is always attached to my hip, even when I’m at the dinner table, when sometimes it finds its way out of its holster and into my hands while I’m trying to enjoy my family. I’m a geek. Technology rules my world.
Because. I. Let. It.
Dr. Ganapati (he may check out my blog, he may not… he is my advising professor in my new program, and is an instructor of mine in my IT and E-Government course this term) said something quite thought-provoking last night, after I said “Technology is merely a tool.” He said: “We need to control it.” Unstated, but no less profound were the words he didn’t say but was clearly thinking - before it controls us.
Perhaps better words would be: “Before it consumes us.”
Pretty soon people might think that I’m a bit nuts. But that’s okay.
I’ve got a few minutes left on my lunch break, and figured I would answer a question that I posed to myself in this forum on November 15th: “So… do I really want this Ph. D. or what?” .
My answer is a simple “Yes.”
I have the drive and the ability to do the research necessary to set myself apart in the academic realm.
Now all I need is to do it.
We took our kids yesterday to see Peter and the Wolf put on by the Frost Symphony Orchestra at the University of Miami. It gave me a chance to visit my cross-town rival, while giving my kids an experience of quality music they have never had before.
The kids were a bit restless, but no more so than any of the others who were in attendance. It didn’t help that the University of Miami’s auditorium was having a problem with the sound system, and every time the narrator of the story moved even a single millimeter, a loud pop went out over the speakers.
All in all, we had a great experience… we may become subscribers.
I’ve been giving the Ph. D. I’ve been chasing some serious thought. Do I want it or not?
I took the summer off trying to figure out if I want it. I’ve transferred into a new Ph. D. program, this one in Public Management, because I thought it would suit my needs better. (I’m not interested in International Relations as much as I am interested in information technology, communities, transportation, and the environment.)
In technical terms, this move would suit my needs better.
But do I want the degree? Do I want to go into the academy? Do I want to pursue education for the sake of education? Or do I want to pursue my interests as an avocation?
If I pursue my interests purely as avocation, I still would want to continue my education in my profession, which is Public Management. So does this merely change the focus of my education?
Nothing but questions this morning… wish I had answers.
Had a lot of fun this weekend, we’ve had some beautiful weather. For about the last week and a half, the warmest it’s gotten during the day has been about 84 (Fahrenheit), and it’s been relatively cool during the evenings - 60 or so. After a summer where it certainly felt like one of the warmest on record, it’s been nice to have the house open for the whole of the last ten days.
We got a new gadget. It’s a Hoover FloorMate. All of our floors in the house are terrazzo, and my wife and I have been having a time of keeping them clean, what with the kids and all. So the FloorMate works hard to help us keep the floor nice and clean. If you’ve ever been in the shopping mall after closing, or if you’ve ever seen one of those drivable floor cleaning machines, it works like that - only it’s in a vacuum cleaner package. No no… we don’t need to be able to drive the vacuum around our house. Yet.
The boys have been in various stages of sickness, and that’s kinda cut into my studies a bit; I still owe quite a bit of work to one of my professors, and am still working on it. But it’ll get done.
All in all, it was a nice three-day weekend.
So, I took my pal, Jim, a.k.a. DynamoJoe to lunch today for his birthday. We chose to dine at the fine restaurant, Quiznos. Okay… it’s not haute cuisine, but it’s better than our typical haunt, Wendy’s.
I’ve been trying to watch what I eat lately, something that has become more important, since I’m now on Exubera, and have had a couple of situations where my blood sugar has “tanked”. Being mindful of what I eat, why I eat, when I eat, and how I eat are becoming more and more important.
While I chose the Black Angus sub, and broccoli & cheese soup, with a Diet Mountain Dew to wash it all down, I promise that I have been better with my food choices. For example, yesterday I had a 6″ turkey sub from Subway, dressed with spinach, tomato, green peppers, on honey oat bread. I had the same thing for dinner. Then after my walk home from the bus yesterday evening (after class), my sugar level came crashing down to 72 (anything below 70 is abnormally low, and must be treated immediately with glucose), so I overloaded on candy to bring me back to “normal”.
Anyhow, back to work!
Happy Birthday, Jim.
I’ve been looking at the candidates who are running for President of the United States of America, in the Democratic Party field, and I am happy to throw my support (and my money) behind Mr. John Edwards, the former Senator from South Carolina.
For quite a while now, I have been under the impression that Ms. Hillary Clinton is beholden to special interests, and, while I don’t see a proverbial “smoking gun,” I would rather not wait for the evidence to come in the form of a proverbial “mushroom cloud.” You see, it’s not that I don’t like her - I just feel that it’s difficult to get a straight answer from her on any questions that are asked. I don’t prefer that in my politicians. I prefer direct answers to direct questions.
As far as Mr. Barack Obama, the senator from Illinois, is concerned, I like him. I think he’s the genuine article. I can see why people in his great state would send him to the Senate to get their bidding done for them. However, in reviewing his plans on-line, I find them to be lacking in the substance required in order for me to make a decision in his favor.
I urge those who read this blog to, of course, make their own minds up based on the evidence presented to them. However, before making your choice, ask yourself if this country can survive another four years at the hands of a president who is at the beck-and-call of special interests who only have their pocketbooks in mind.
In addition to surprising my sister, Jennifer, with a cake of her own at my son’s birthday party today, she surprised me with a gift for my birthday (October 25th, if you happen to care, although I would wonder why you would if you did…). The gift was quite special.
My family, in my sister’s and my growing-up years, took frequent trips from Homestead, Florida, where we lived, up to North Carolina (to see my folks’ farm) and up to the Chicagoland area (to see my extended family). The gift was a walk down memory lane.
To start, there was a card showing an airstream on the cover, talking about family trips. Then there was a whole boatload of memorable statements on the card that worked very well to transport me back in time to a much simpler era. The era of the “Steelman,” “John Denver,” and “ignore, Sean,” all of which are fond memories of my childhood, which has long since passed.
Then, the actual, physical gift was a CD with a song on it. She bought it from this website, which is still producing the songs on tape, CD, or (now) DVD. I received an original flexible record (that you had to put coins on to play right) back when I was seven, that had the same song on it. Yes, I listened to Captain Zoom sing Happy Birthday to me from the Moon!
I miss the “good old” days. I’d love to go back to experience them. But alas, time marches on.
Thanks, Jenny, for helping me relive those special times.
You really are quite a special person to me.
We had a party for Donovan, my (now) six year-old son, today. It was a fun time: we had some of his friends over, and some of our relatives. We even got to surprise my sister with a cake of her own, seeing that her birthday is on the 10th of the month.
They grow up fast…
It pays to take time out to enjoy my family.
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