Get off my lawn. And take PowerPoint with you.

So here I am in my data networking class. Yesterday the class was based on 179 PowerPoint slides. Today's deck has 190 slides.

You know, I used to be a technical instructor, both in the Navy and for my company. In neither of those jobs did I use PowerPoint to discuss the concepts of the class - I used a student guide, a white board, and a lab. I found these tools perfectly adequate to teach the skills in my curriculum, and in fact, the white board was highly conducive to discussion and interactive response with my audience.

But every class I've attended in the last 5+ years, both at University and in my profession, has included pages and pages of excruciating PowerPoint, with each template more gaudy and eye-bleeding than the last. In my experience, the use of this Thor-forsaken application reduces discussion, puts students to sleep, and serves only to deaden the learning experience to some sort of drone-like Stepford Wife existence.

So why is it so ubiquitous? It makes absolutely no sense to me, but perhaps that's because my mental acuity has been dulled by the hundreds of slides that are now burned into my retina.

The Bus, Let Me Show You It...

...so I can throw you beneath it.

Okay, not really. That's not really my style. But I am coming to learn that throwing someone under the bus is not the same thing as failing to rescue them when they repeatedly throw themselves beneath the wheels. There comes a time when "helping" someone perform their daily tasks isn't being a good teammate - it's helping an incompetent retain their job when they should really be doing something more in line with their native abilities. Like being a Wal-Mart greeter, for example.


"I'm the guy who does his job. You must be the other guy."

Indeed.

____________
That snickering sound you hear is the Smart Man, who has been telling me for years to let people fail after giving them a reasonable chance to succeed. Shut up, Smart Man. Rubbing it in when you're right is very unbecoming.

The Lost Art

I spend a lot of time on line. Part of it is due to the nature of my work and lifestyle - I spend 8-10 hours a day, five days a week, at my home office desk, in front of two computers. Periodically during the day, I take little mini-breaks and look at my RSS feed or Facebook.

But it seems like the older I get, the more I end up writing letters. Yes, real letters, using ink pens and note cards, carried by the U.S. Postal Service.

Part of the current crop of letters are heading to the Navy's Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, IL. The only form of contact the Smart Boy is permitted to have is Snail Mail, so I've been sending two or three notes a week, offering encouragement and such. But I also send notes to some of the elderly women in my life who don't use computers, as well as a few friends who do use computers.

It just seems more personal to write things out longhand, and I know the ladies on my weekly distribution list appreciate and enjoy my boring little missives.

I wonder how long it will be before no one writes personal letters anymore?

The Dark Side, Join It I Have

I've been a front line sales associate for my company for over ten years. During that time, I have fiercely resisted the temptation to integrate my mobile phone into my work applications. I never wanted to be one of those people - you know the ones. The ones who were constantly checking their Blackberries because THE WORLD IS CLEARLY GOING TO END IF THEY DON'T STAY TETHERED TO THE COMPANY NETWORK FOR EVERY SECOND OF EVERY DAY, INCLUDING VACATION DAYS. I never saw the point of that behavior. When I'm working, I try to give good value for the money my company pays me, but the idea of being constantly tethered to my e:mail and company phone number made my skin crawl.

But last night I finally relented and had my cell number changed to a Blackberry Storm with a data plan and this morning I put a request into IT to have my company's mobility application integrated to my number. But not e:mail. I still don't want my work e:mail to come to my personal mobile device.

::cue ominous music::

The reason I'm using the Smart Man's old Blackberry because this is a test. I'm counting on my meat friends to give me a good kick in the pants if I fail to maintain my boundaries with this new gadgetry, and if work starts to encroach on my downtime, I'll be disconnecting the damn data plan and the work application forthwith. If it turns out that I like having the integration, then I'll use my "free" upgrade and get the latest and greatest device.

Now get off my lawn...

Being Customer-Centric

You know that stupid Myers-Briggs personality test? The one managers make you take to determine what "type" of personality you have when they don't know what else to do?

Yeah, I hate that test.

But every time I've been forced to take it, it's been "revealed" that my first dichotomy is "X," instead of "E" (for extrovert) or "I" (for introvert). This supposedly means that I'm equidistant from these two places - that I'm equally likely to want to be alone or with others. What it means to me is that I'm uniquely suited, from a personality point of view, to the job I have. Technical people are usually introverted, but sales people are usual extroverted. Since I do aspects of both jobs, I need to be able to find contentment in both aspects of the job.

But here's the problem.

I also have a distinct lack of patience, which sometimes translates into a less than customer-centric attitude. My tendencies toward introversion means that, occasionally, when my customers need my help, I'm less inclined to ask them how I can assist them, and more likely to wonder why the Hell everyone appears so damn helpless. Don't get me wrong - it's not like I tell my customers to die in a fire when they have the temerity to ask me for help. I know who pays my salary, and a large part of my job is customer service. Most days, I do want to help my customers - if they're successful, then I'm successful, and I want them to think of me as someone who's there to help them.

But some days, especially days when I've had to spend a lot of time with other people (as opposed to living, cave-like, in my basement), I want someone else to help them, and for everyone to go away and leave me the Hell alone.

I've been working on that patience thing for years, like my whole life. It's a never-ending tug-of-war between the "E" and the "I." I'm hoping once I'm retired I can just drop it, become a curmudgeon, and tell people to get off my lawn.

A girl can dream...

Counter-Protesting the WBC, Wingnuts Extraordinaire

I've never protested anything before. Yes, I know - I'm a big slacker.

But the Westboro Baptist Church will be sullying my fair city on April 22-24th, and if there's a group that's capable of incenting me to actually leave my house and be around other people, they're it. Unfortunately, I have professional obligations on the 22nd and 23rd, so I won't be able to counter protest on those days, but on the 24th, there are ample opportunities to stand up and be counted at one or more of these locations:

- 8:30 to 9:00 AM ~ Temple Sinai, 3509 S. Glencoe St. Denver
- 10:00to 10:30AM ~ Temple Emmanuel, 51 Grape St. Denver
- 1:00 to 1:30 PM ~ Jewish Community Center, 350 S. Dahlia St. Denver
- 5:00 to 6:00 PM ~ EXDO Event Center, 1399 35th St. Denver


I am seriously considering this event, but I do have some doubts. There's a part of me that thinks a counter-demonstration is legitimizing these fucknuts, and if there's anything in the world I'm not interested in, it's legitimizing Fred Phelps and his merry band of whackadoos. And yet, the members of the Jewish communities who have been targeted for the 24th deserve to know the larger community supports them against the likes of the WBC. So I'm fence-sitting in true dithering style.

There's also the issue of my temper. I truly despise these motherfuckers, and although I'll be leaving the Shovel of Doom™ at home, I know myself well enough to know I'll be tempted to punch them in the throat just on general principle. Which would be problematic.

There's a Facebook Group dedicated to help organize people for the WBC's visit to Denver, and additional information may be found there, if any of my local readers are interested in participating.

But I'm still dithering. Is there value in counter-demonstration, when the demonstrators are so clearly off the rails?

Damn Kids! Get Off My Lawn!

This was the scene in front of the Big Yellow House this morning when the Smart Man and I awoke to begin our daily activities. Our tree was the only one so decorated in the neighborhood, so we suspect our selection was personal, although we have no evidence. And since it seems most unlikely that the Smart Man and my friends could stay up long enough to accomplish the deed without waking Boogie the Giant Schnauzer, we have also concluded that this was probably the work of some young group of folks out looking to foment some harmless trouble. The Smart Boy has indicated he doesn't think it was his friends, and I have to admit it seems a bit juvenile for college students, so it might have been a random event.

In any case, the Smart Boy had a chore waiting for him when he got up this morning, and the Smart Man and I have even more reason to tell those damn kids to get off our lawn.

Attention Liberals

I'm a liberal. In my typical contrarian way, the older I get, the more liberal I get. At the rate I'm going, by the time I'm 50 I'll be a full-fledged socialist.

So I tend to agree with most liberal positions. I think abortion should be safe, legal and rare. I believe our health care system needs to be fundamentally overhauled so that everyone has access to services, like in the rest of the civilized world. I strongly support gay marriage rights.

But I'm not a bread-and-circuses liberal. You can't have all these nifty services without actually, you know, paying for them. I guess that makes me a tax-and-spend liberal. I strongly believe in a balanced budget and freeing our economic security from the kindness of strangers, so to speak.

And my fellow liberals are embarrassing me, and they need to cut that shit out.

Attention, fellow liberals!

If you want to indulge in a ranting screed about how the pharmaceutical companies are greedy, greedy bastards who could cure the common cold, or cancer, or any other disease, but don't because it's far too profitable to let people suffer, please have some ACTUAL DATA to back up your position. The comment "everybody knows it's true" is not actual data, and you're embarrassing me with your sloppy argument.

If you want to promise entitlement services for every man, woman and child who lives here in the U.S., please have some sort of actionable plan as how you will actually PAY for such services. Money doesn't grow on trees, as my Hot Mom used to say, and someone has to pay for your grandiose plans. If you want to tax the shit out of the top 5% of earners in this country to pay for your services, then grow a pair and just say so. You're embarrassing me with your lack of fiduciary acumen.

If you believe there's a right-wing conspiracy surrounding the financial crisis, and that the entire thing was part of some back-room plan to stick it to the little guy for the benefit of the bankers, please ensure you can support your accusations with EVIDENCE. Please note that I myself personally believe the financial Masters of the Universe were criminally negligent, so I'm not necessarily saying you're wrong. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and so far you've produced exactly shit. You're embarrassing me with your tin-foil hat theories.

If you think that our current food production and distribution system in this country is inherently unhealthy and causes myriad diseases in the population, please ensure you can produce a sustainable, actionable system to replace the Food Industrial Complex. Ranting about the prevalence of antibiotics, hormones and chemicals in our food supply does no good if you have no plan to produce food on the scale that's needed to feed the population. You're embarrassing me with your Pollyanna vision of local food production.

In other words you need to actually engage your brain before you engage your mouth and use some critical thinking skills. You're currently an embarrassment, and you need to cut that shit out.

Thank you for your attention.

Get Off My Lawn While You Text

The Smart Boy recently decided he wanted to use the texting function on his cell phone, which he had previously been uninterested in.

Wisely, he chose to pay for the "unlimited texting" option for his line.

Wise, because last month he sent and received over 6,000 messages, averaging over 200 messages a day.

This is in addition to hours-long conversations with various and sundry.

200 messages a day. Really? When does he have time to do anything else?

I don't get it. And get off my lawn while you text.

You Have Crappy Manners

I am so sick of people who have crappy manners.

SICK. AND TIRED.

It's really not that hard to have good manners in public. Simply hold the door for folks who want to enter a building behind you. Say "excuse me" when you bump into people. Say "please" when you ask for something, and "thank you" when someone provides you with a courtesy or a service.

NOT HARD.

But apparently it is hard, at least for some people. They're too busy, or too special, or just too ignorant to abide by the social contract.

Well, I'm taking another step in my insuppressible slide toward curmudgeonliness.

I've decided to tell people when they're acting like ill-mannered asshats.

I'm not going to shake my fist and yell "Get off my lawn!" I'm not going to break my own rules about courtesy when I inform people that they've broken the social contract.

But I'm not going to shake my head and move along anymore.

I started my new found crusade the other day at the library. Our library is quite small - a holdover from when Parker was a very small horse town, not the booming bedroom community it is today. As a result, there's not very much parking, especially during their busiest hours, typically from 3:00 p.m. to about 6:00 p.m.

I went to the library after work to return some audio books, and pick up some new selections that had arrived. When I pulled in, it was crowded as always, and I looked around for a place to park. As I drove past the last row of parking, I found a spot next to a white Toyota...that was taking up two spaces.

Now, the spaces in that parking lot are quite small, and sometimes it's hard to pull in and "stay between the lines." If the Toyota was just creeping over, I would not have thought much about it. But the tires of this vehicle were straddling the line. The driver clearly intended to take two spots - I can only assume because they were afraid someone might ding their door. I'm actually okay with that strategy - provided the person parks their vehicle way out in the boonies where there's no shortage of parking. But I guess white Toyota is not only too special to require a single parking spot, but is also too busy to walk 100 feet to the larger parking lot where things were not as tight.

So before I left, I put the following note under the windshield wiper:

You really don't need two parking spaces. Perhaps next time you'll be more considerate.

I suspect white Toyota will read the note, curse at me, and continue on their merry way without even considering their behavior might be less than optimal.

But from now on, when people have crappy manners, I'm going to say so. Silence is acceptance, and I'm not going to stay silent any longer.

And get off my lawn!