Your guide to the perilous waters of the internet

3-20-10

Got a bad stomach ache last night around 9pm. We were supposed to climb at exit 38 today. By 11 I was really suffering. It was that standard thing I get now and then where all the food I've been eating backs up, as if it has hit a roadblock in my gut. By around midnight the pain got so bad I forced myself to barf. Filled up a pot twice over the next four hours. Sue had a bad stomach ache a few days ago but didn't barf.

By 4 am I was able to fall asleep and slept most of today, instead of climbing. It was very relaxing to feel that I could lay around on the couch all day and ignor my todo list, because, after all, I would have been climbing anyway, and not getting anything done....right?

We finally got all the paperwork done that admin has been pestering us about. Well, not all, but the major "outlines" done of how our program will look over the next couple years. Smaller details still have to be done but they can wait. Now I have to start grading. Oh joy.

3-11-10, 4AM

Woke up, couldn't sleep. Winter has returned. Even with my bad hearing I can hear the rain belting down, and the wind blowing through the trees. The house is nice and cozy, I don't know why I woke up. Climbed Sunday with Craig, Fletch and Lisa at Index. I was super rusty, afraid of even the 5.8's but had fun on the easy stuff.

Sue and I skied Skyline trail on our plastic tele boots Saturday. Hiking up to toxic shock Sunday was very hard with my snow tired legs. Climbed at the gym with Clint (and Craig) Tuesday. First time I've climbed with Clint in 6 months or more. His shoulder is getting better finally after a lot of PT.

We had a tenure track meeting yesterday where the 20 new 'probationers' were introduced to the College Board Of Directors with great fanfare and we had to say a few words. I sort of lost my way breifly trying to describe how we shape artists into designers. I paused, searching for the word shape, or mold...kind of stupid but that's how it goes in a non prepared speech in a high stress environment.

I've had many, many students, teachers and deans tell me I am a good, maybe even a great teacher. In my heart though, I feel I fall short. It's not that I don't think I can teach, it's that I miss doing pure web design. I feel like the industry has left me behind. I try to keep up, but because I am constantly teaching entry level stuff, there is no time to learn the cutting edge stuff.

I fell into teaching because I was a laid off web designer. It turns out I am good at it. I have moderate to above average intelligence, I take my job seriously, I do care about the students and I try my best to teach them enough to get them a job. And whether they really want to work or not, I give it my best efforts. But at the end of the day I envy my students who go out and get "real" jobs working in industry. They get to do the really cool stuff. They get on the job training in state of the art stuff. They build job skills that are transferable anywhere to a full time job, or they can take those skills and freelance. Meanwhile, I teach. Sigh...

And then the administrative stuff like scheduling and planning what to teach non-web students, and who to hire to replace Janet. Yikes, this quarter has been the hardest one on record...I thought it would never end. The dean and Joyce have been very supportive, though they pushed us almost to the breaking point before we said enough already. I told C. D. that if they were intentionally trying to strangle us with too much work, they were doing a great job. I was joking of course, but it helped them to understand we were overworked.

So enough whining about my job already. I was bored with my old blackjack 2. I'd been hearing the buzz about the iphone for a few years, and many people I know have them. ATT wanted $80 a month for one and I refused to pay that. For $75 I was able to buy my way out of my ATT contract. I bought the Motorola Droid, said to be the iphone killer, for $230 and will pay $45 a month: $10 to add a line to our Verizon family plan, and $30 for the data plan, which I didn't need.

Getting the Droid to sync with my mac calendar has been a monstrous pain. I've had to learn to use the Google calendar, even though I don't like their email address or software. It's much less refined than outlook or mac mail. I'm getting closer to a workable sync situation but it's still iffy. The phone developers have spent so much energy getting the phone to surf the net and play games that they've forgotten some of us use our phones to manage our appointments and work schedules and need a reliable, as in, bulletproof, reminder system.

I also feel bad that I've not done any painting lately. It's been all work or climbing, as if I've forgotten that I have this unused talent, waiting patiently in the wings for me to open the door so my inner artist can come out of his closet and see the light of day.

3-3-10

Climbed at vantage Sunday with Craig, Vladimir and Desiree (pronounced Desert ray). I got up air guitar without flailing, though vantage point 5.8 caused me to hang on the rope. Work continues to be nuts. I worked Saturday on a lesson plan for todays flash final, recording 1.25 hours of video in camtashia which I t

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