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Trout festival, showers, and a farewell
This past weekend W. and headed north so she could attend a wedding shower for her brother’s fiance. It happened to be the weekend of an annual celebration for W.’s hometown known as the “Trout Festival.” The carnival comes to town, people spend to much money on rides and elephant ears, but overall it’s a positive thing for the community I think.
After dropping of an Aunt1 we headed to Kalkaska. The father-in-law, my nephew, and myself went to the flea market while W. and others decorated the church for the shower. I didn’t buy anything, but if I were looking for a sword, some tools, old toys, or leather goods, I would have been all set. The highlight of it was taking Duke’s ‘49 Chevy to the fair and getting a lucky spot front and center.
The next day during the shower I headed into Traverse to have lunch with my mother and brother. It was nice spending time with them. We were able to chat about things going on in their lives without being hurried or having to hold a phone to our heads. My brother needed to call his son to find out when they were meeting up with him so I loaned him my phone2. I enjoyed spending time with him and my Ma. We have a good time and laugh a lot.
Later I found myself at the local watering hole where W. ran into friends from high school that she hasn’t seen in fifteen years. We hung out just long enough to enjoy the live music, break a beer bottle3, and experience the hoppin’ Kalkaska night life. It was hoppin’. Good times.
Which brings me to the farewell. A close friend called us on the way up Friday to tell us about her mother that had been hospitalized with pneumonia and wasn’t doing well. Turns out it was serious as she passed away that afternoon. The short of it is we’re headed up tomorrow for her funeral. This was quite unexpected and we’re all reeling from it. My heart aches to hear the pain in their voices and to think about what they must be going through. The ache of finality is the futility of it. Farewell Fran, your family and friends love you.
Image: This is a picture of my father-in-law’s garden protectors. Funny that it was a CD for students. He strung these up hoping they would scare the deer and other critters away from his garden. I’m not sure how well they worked, but I smiled when I saw the title of the CD.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ We rendezvoused with her in Mt.Pleasant and dropped her off at her sisters in Traverse City. [↩]
- His battery was dead on his phone…cause who doesn’t have a cell phone these days? [↩]
- She didn’t mean it. It just slipped out of her hand is all. [↩]
And now onto summer
My obligations to school1 are complete. Does it feel good? Sure. Why am I not more excited? Not sure. Like I mentioned to W. when she asked me that question, this semester was different in that the work was up front. The finish was a quiet affair. No tests, no huge papers, no final exams. It was a bit anti-climatic. But still, it is nice to be done for now. I’m ready for a break from reading, writing, meeting, and presenting. At least when I’m paying to do it that is. Being paid to do it is another matter.
Now I turn my focus toward things around the house, vacationing, and renewing my focus at work. And work is looking to be pretty serious this summer. But I’m totally ready for it. I need to experience the challenge of a thousand spinning plates. Lucky that I work with a great team or it might really be the suxor.
A number of my classmates are graduating this Friday. Sadly, I won’t be there smacking my palms together for them. Walking to my final class last week I came upon the DIAG (central part of campus) and found the entire area, grass and sidewalk, covered in this this plastic flooring. This is where graduation ceremonies are held and they’re prepping for chairs. Crazy looking.
A sincere and heartfelt congratulations to all my classmates graduating this year. I think school is going to seem like a casual walk compared to what lies ahead for some of you. Granted, a few will find work doing what you love. Others may end up loving what you do. Hopefully you all fall into one of those two categories. So go forth and make your living people, now is the time.
And don’t be strangers.
ADDED: A classmate took pictures of the DIAG after the chairs and stuff were added.
Image: Yet another self-portrait taken last week while enjoying the sunshine before my last class for the semester. It was beautiful out, people were happy and light-footed as they skipped past. But I can tell, summer is peaking around the corner and it’s going to be a hot one. Stay tuned, this could get interesting.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ For this semester at least. I have two more years to go before I’m DONE. [↩]
Engaging Wisdom and Compassion
Today I spent two hours in the presence of the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso. There were thousands of people there. He is so balanced you could level a world with his perspective. I’m still glowing.
The in-laws were with us this weekend but were ushered out early1 so W. and I could head into Ann Arbor, find a parking spot, and make our way to our seats in Crisler Arena. We value our time with the units and felt bad we had to herd them out. We’ll see them next weekend though; maybe it isn’t such a bad thing.
The Dalai Lama conducted the last of three sessions on teachings of wisdom and compassion. It consisted of readings from Arya Nagarjuna regarding the idea that all phenomena lack intrinsic existence because they exist dependently. There is only dependent arising. My understanding of this is basically that no thing exists independent of any other thing. As a result, we are the result of all that exists up until this point. Perhaps you wonder why this is important? If you don’t exist independently but as a result of everything else, then you and I are a continuation of all things and don’t exist independently from each other. This is what it is…and will continue to be. We all matter and we’re all matter.
It was great hearing his teachings today. Most of what was covered I’ve read in various forms over that last twelve years2 but the experience of seeing and hearing these teachings with an audience of thousands was moving.
A special thanks to the couple next to me that gave me their book covering the three sessions. Apparently they gave these out yesterday but ran out of them today. They noticed I didn’t have one and offered me one of theirs. I made sure to hold it up so they could see the verses being discussed today. Thanks strangers.
The rest of this afternoon I relaxed and hung out at home with W. We had dinner, watched some shows then decided to call it a night. When I headed up to bed W. was writing in her old-school paper-and-ink journal so I figured I’d take this time to pound this out.
I still have a few pages to finish on my paper due Thursday but have reserved time this week to work on it. Besides that, this semester is done. No more classes until September. Lots planned this summer though, so stay tuned.
Image: While I normally don’t like to use pictures that I don’t take myself, I wasn’t allowed to bring my camera into the arena today and actually followed this rule. So I searched the web and found this image taken from this article regarding another visit of his.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ B-Ma & The Duke…sorry about rushing you out. I know you understand though. It was the Dalai Lama after all! [↩]
- I’ve been studying Buddhism since I came upon it in college years ago. Though still an amateur, I’m very interested in the approach to living Buddhism prescribes. [↩]
Evaluating whether I’m “getting it”
I find myself sitting here working on a final paper due in my class on evaluating systems and services.1 This paper is a chance for me to demonstrate the practical methodology of this masters program as it relates to what I do in my professional career. Therein lies some hefty potential.
This 6-8 page paper is due next Thursday (basically one week from now). Normally this isn’t a terrible amount to write, especially when you have 8 methods to discuss. That is slightly less than one per page (I have an intro page that frames the paper). I’ve been thinking about this assignment and how it represents a good opportunity for me to document in a declarative and descriptive way, the value of the methodology, design, and evaluation skills I’m learning.
Ha, sorry if you fell asleep just then.
So I printed off all the final analysis we handed in for each milestone and will be reviewing them as I write. This experience was a good one and really made me think critically about these methods. I am appreciating the qualitative value of these methods and hope to show that with my “reflection.”
But damn, enough of that boring school shix already! Aren’t there other interesting things going on worth sharing?
Of course interesting things are going on. Like golf season starting soon, my niece’s play this Friday, seeing the Dalai Lama this Sunday, my brother-in-law fiance’s shower next weekend, a site resdesign I’m considering tackling2, my goal of sharpening my skills with Perl, Ruby, and PHP this summer…not mention my efforts to capture a picture that stuns and amazes or to paint a watercolor that will make you cry.
It’s late and I want to go to sleep very soon. Like in 15 minutes.
Image: Took this of my cool-cat Bailey while he was pawing for attention while I was working on my paper tonight. He has since run off and is probably waiting for me somewhere between here and my bed. “Wrap it up already!”, I can imagine him thinking in his little walnut sized nubby cat brain.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ The professor prefers to call it “Evaluating Interactive Systems” and I hope he officially changes it in future curricula. [↩]
- Shh…I haven’t mentioned to W. yet. [↩]
Halfway dare I say?
Though I haven’t blogged in a few days, I think about it a lot. Not just this blog, but blogging in general. This social networking the Internation affords is changing how we relate to the world.1.
Seems of late my NADD only allows for quick peeks at the Twitter cloud, the monitoring of no less than four email accounts, various projects, analyzing statistics, and reviewing comments. You know, blogging, forums, IRC, bulletin boards, telephone, telegraph, mail, smoke signal, courier, messenger…are all related. Darwin would agree I’m sure.
Keep in mind that I’ve just spent weeks2 reading research articles on blogging, motivation, and social influence. And I must say (Ed Grimley style), the blogosphere is a complex thing…if one can even call it a thing. More like a continuous thought. Can’t help but wonder, what’s next?
As I drift a little at the end of this semester3 and my focus on the Internation wanes, I find myself checking GoogleReader less often. The entries I haven’t read stack up.
Had my last group meeting for the semester today. One more time this semester will I be walking across campus to class. Next Friday is my last lecture (actually 3 hours of student presentations).
This weekend was pretty tame. We ran errands yesterday, had my group meeting today, watched the Tigers getting spanked…and now I’m hammering on this keyboard. So are the days of our lives.
Image: A self portrait from last Sunday. Taken on my way to a group meeting. Sunny springtime.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ I just made that up. Internet + Nation = Internation. A nation of Internet citizens. Interzens. [↩]
- Read or review just 5 academic research articles on blogging and you’ll start to look at the phenomenon quite differently. [↩]
- I have two classes that by some bizarre coincidence, do not have exams. [↩]