Maria’s in front, Olivia’s in back. They’re in the boy’s bed ’cause it’s so comfy and has a big stuffed Pac-Man in it.
Anyone remember when Maria was skin and bones and we didn’t even know if she would make it?… Read more
😉… Read more
“So… you’ve had a 20+ year career in a field that you didn’t study for at any point?”
“Yes. Don’t get me wrong, the journalism major I originally started out with helped.”
“They’re not called majors anymore. They’re called specializations.”
“Humor me, I’m old.”
“So you didn’t study computers in high school or college.”
“I had a semester of introduction to the internet in college. I was already using a computer daily before high school.”
“You didn’t study art or design in high school or college?”
“I’ve never taken a formal class in either one.”
“You said you were looking at a fast track to getting a degree, when you had at most 25 credit hours from a school you went to 20 years ago.”
“Yes.”
“And the school has closed?”
“No, the school has joined the University of Arkansas system. They’ll still have me on file.”
“And you want to ‘test out’ of some courses even though you’re not following the same academic track?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Work experience.”
“This is a very technical field you’re talking about.”
“This is 20 years of work experience I’m talking about.”
“Why aren’t you still working there now?”
“The company moved my job over an hour’s drive to the north and didn’t offer relocation.”
“And what are you doing now?”
“Sitting here talking about going back to school.” (I wanted to add “So do you want to start helping me with that?”, but I was trying to be nice.)
The first day of doing serious digging into the possibility of going back to college. A mixture of encouragement, discouragement, the feeling that nobody groks why I’m looking into this, and the feeling that – at least at the recruiting/admissions stage – I’m a product on an assembly line. But it’s early days. As a wise man named Tom Petty once said, in the absence of his retinue of Heartbreakers, I won’t back down.
But I also won’t put my son in the position of still paying for my student loan by the time he needs to be worrying about his higher education.
The above was one only-semi-helpful conversation. I had another one which lasted nearly two hours, but at some point I’ve gotta get some other stuff done around the house, and the $70,000 price tag quoted to me (GAH!) kinda let a little air out of the balloon. That was for an online school. Ouch.… Read more
I finally got a response, after over a month of waiting, on a job I’d hoped to get at the only TV station that’s still maintaining any kind of credible presence south of the Bobby Hopper tunnel. And the answer was no. Ah well. To be honest, with the lengthy wait, I’d given up and started carpet-bombing the whole city with my resume and applications anyway.
But it was nice to hear a “no.” Which brings me to this thought.
Since when has it become the accepted behavior model for businesses who don’t hire you to simply never let you know one way or the other? KFSM sent me an e-mail (and a personalized one at that); AETN never failed to mail me a letter every time I’ve gone tilting at windmills in the direction of Conway.
I could count the number of instances of e-mails, phone calls or rejection letters from other local businesses on one hand.
I know that there are often single-person HR “departments” that don’t have the time for phone calls or the budget to send out letters. And I’m sure the current ratio of people-seeking-work to job openings is probably a staggering ratio. But it does make me think much more highly about the ones that do bother.
In vaguely related news, it appears that the station group that owns KFSM has reserved a new set of call letters for KPBI when the deal finally goes through for them to buy it: KXNW. They may not need me as a promo producer now… but sooner or later, they probably will. It’s a pity that the KPBI callsign will be disappearing though. A minor chunk of local history whose significance ceased at some point in the early 2000s. Not unlike myself.… Read more
You know, regardless of your beliefs or your political leanings, it’s important to remember this:
It’s a free country
…with the purchase of another country of equal or greater value.… Read more
Children challenge you in ways you hadn’t imagined, by forcing you to re-examine and explain/justify stuff you hold to be somewhat self-evident. Case in point:
Little E’s favorite movie right now (and mine too, if I’m to be honest) is WALL-E. He likes cute robots doing stuff without a lot of 
dialogue required to understand it. I think it’s actually a cracking good little high-concept science fiction piece that got snuck in the back door in the packaging of a kids’ movie (nicely done, Pixar!). And the soundtrack by Thomas Newman is just this side of brilliant – with the long, dialogue-free stretches of the first half of the movie, Newman has the responsibility of cluing the audience in on the implications of what’s going on.
During the scene where WALL-E is chasing a laser dot (part of the landing sensors of what he doesn’t realize is an approaching spacecraft), the music really kicks in, and at one point, out of the blue, on what had to be WALL-E viewing #39 at the very least, Little E said “Dad, why is that music doing that?”
That brought me up short. I was enjoying the music tremendously, but my enjoyment of music is very much an instinctual, gut-feeling sort of thing. And now I had to explain it. Uh…?
I quickly turned it around into a question. “How does the music make you feel?” (At about this point, WALL-E was burying himself to protect himself from the heat of the ship’s engines.)
“Scared,” he said.
“I bet WALL-E’s pretty scared right now too,” I told him.
He thought about it a moment. The movie continued and the music quieted down, and took a different tone as EVE started exploring the planet. “What is WALL-E feeling right now?” he asked.
I responded, “Well, what’s the music telling you?”
“I don’t know,” Little E said.
“Well, WALL-E doesn’t know anything about EVE yet either,” I said.
He either started to grok what I was saying, or he was tired of me answering his questions with further questions. It’s a very Zen teaching method, but I can also see where it’s an exasperating one at times. (I think that’s why I’m not a teacher.)
I really hope that it was the former, because the movie score (and its frequently budget-addled nephew, the television score) is an art form I love dearly, and I’d love to share my knowledge (and sheesh, my library) with him. He’s showing signs that he may just be “getting” music on the same gut-feeling level as his old man, who couldn’t sight-read sheet music to save his life or sing well enough for his supper. If this is an Area Of Interest, maybe some more intensive edumacation – more than what I’ve ever gotten – is something he’d be up for.
One thing that I think my mom got absolutely right with her parenting method was that she never, ever tried to steer me toward being a doctor, a lawyer, or anything like that. She waited for these Areas Of Interest to make themselves known and would kick some doors open to fuel those interests and see if there was Something There. That, too, is a bit unorthodox, but it’s something I intend to turn into a family tradition.
In the meantime, thanks to WALL-E, my son can hum “Also Sprach Zarathustra” from memory (I’ve played him the full version of the movement quoted briefly in the movie) and knows the words to that Peter Gabriel song in the end credits. Not a bad start.… Read more
…there are two kinds of people in the world: those who can complete a coherent sentence, and those who… Read more
Before anyone asks…
Nope, I didn’t feel the 5.6 earthquake in Oklahoma here. I felt the 4.7 earthquake in central Arkansas earlier this year, but that was closer.
However, my cats and dogs have been going nuts since it happened.
A little bit of research (and I stress: only a little bit) and a general lack of sleep led to this funny but (hopefully) informative forum post, which may wind up having amused me more than it will amuse anyone else, but hey, give it a shot. I’m of a firm belief that communicating information with a healthy dose of humor helps to cement that information better in the mind of the listener or reader. Not everyone I’ve ever turned in a research paper or a paid writing assignment to has agreed with me, but hey, this is why I’ve got a blawg.
It’s just one of those little pieces of writing that I’m (insufferably) happy with, so I thought I’d share.… Read more
…and by the wild thing, I mean Little E. Tonight we were at Wild Things Farm in Oklahoma. I really wanted to go meet some critters, but the little guy… well, he was all about the bounce-arounds.
I also posted this in the forums, but I know there are a few folks (I’m going to guess it’s a number that roughly equals 99.759% of the internet) who don’t bother with the forums, so I’m gonna blawg it too.
And the answer is… … Read more
… 