Poseidon, a cat of action, is ready for 2026. He’s been helping us put things away, like the Christmas dishes, which have been used since Thanksgiving, back in their place of honor in the heirloom china cabinet.
Phoebe, she’s more of a thinker, and she’s not at all sure about 2026.
We are now launching a campaign to try to convince them both that nothing of substance will change this year. They’ll get cuddles throughout the day. They’ll still be fed in the evenings. The squirrels and the birds and the rabbits will all be outside, just beyond their reach.
I wonder what their resolutions would be, if they made them.
All of my online class feedback has been sent out to the various hard-working student groups. They’re making mock up plans for the social media accounts of local non-profit organizations. Some of the groups are in terrific shape. One or two have a little way to come, but there are still a few days, left, and there’s always the last minute miracle.
What I was looking at today and yesterday was the print version of their plans. The good ones are about 15-17 pages. One or two went a bit longer. A few were just under. I try to give some substantial feedback, best I can, given that I don’t know the operations they’re working on nearly as well as they do. Also, there’s some formulaic strategy in preparing such campaigns, but there’s also some art and subjectivity, too. Sometimes, the advice I can offer is about what you’ve missed. Or what you might miss if you aren’t prepared for it. Sometimes it feels like the Rumsefeld matrix, the unk-unks of the military industrial complext, the stuff you’d talk about in project management and strategic planning.
So I prattle on, hoping something in there can be useful to the groups that are diligent enough to read a few hundred words.
You’d be surprised.
I say that, because I am surprised, all the time.
Today the finals for my media criticism class were all turned in. Now I’ll be grading them. Tonight and tomorrow. On Monday, those social media finals will appear. On Tuesday, the finals from the org comm class will be waiting for my attention.
At some point, I have to work on next semester’s classes, too.
Anyway, this is the starscape from the back step just now. That’s Jupiter, right in the center of the photo.
That planet is some 402.7 million miles from us right now. That light took 36 minutes to get here. You could put 1,000 earths inside a hollow version of the gas giant.
I could tell you these stats all night long, but I’d still have work to do when I was done.
Rowan / Thursday / video — Comments Off on Penultimate day of classes 4 Dec 25
I would not be so bold as to say I am the best teacher in the world. Nor would I be so self deprecating (yeah, I don’t know what’s going on with this sentence either) to suggest that I’m the worst teacher in the world. I’m probably somewhere right in the middle of the top tier or near the bottom of the “also receiving votes” bunch, depending on the material.
But no matter what, I can read a room. And today’s vibe, in two classes, was “Enough with this semester already.”
Just one more day of putting up with me after this, guys. You can do it.
We watched the highly compelling 30 for 30 documentary, “June 17, 1994.” No one has uploaded a trailer equal to the thing, but this is from Netflix.
It follows a unique day in sports history. The Rangers had won the Stanley Cup and there was a ticker tape parade in New York. Arnold Palmer was wrapping up his legendary PGA career with one last round. The Knicks and Rockets were fighting in the NBA playoffs. The World Cup was opened in the U.S. by President Bill Clinton. Ken Griffey Jr. had a day, and also, there was one other bit of news that evening.
This is the view from the sixth floor, and apparently the sun broke through just in time for the sunset.
O.J. Simpson in Al Cowlings’ white Bronco.
The documentary is different because it is told in original found, and archival footage. There’s no contemporary narration or interviews. It’s just editing selections, juxtaposition, musical score, and those video clips. It’s a nice 51 minute piece, which you can find on ESPN and, as of this writing, Netflix.
In org comm we talked some more about scandal and image repair. They’ll wrap up with image repair on Tuesday. And everyone will be into finals mode.
Even the sunset is sort of over the day, I think. Here’s the view from the sixth floor.
Two more classes to plan, six more course notes to send, and about 108 things to grade.
I counted them up on the drive home, in the pitch black of night.
It was 5:15.
Rowan / Thursday / video — Comments Off on This long day featured shooty hoops and a diversity lecture 20 Nov 25
In my criticism class we talked about this documentary, which begins with a basketball tournament hit by a dangerous storm. In fact, a desperation three-point shot at the end of one game sent it to overtime, which kept everyone in the Georgia Dome, while a tornado hit downtown Atlanta. Hence the title, Miracle 3. But in the second act, the tournament officials have to figure out how to continue their event because the Georgia Dome is now unusable. So they moved across town to Georgia Tech’s gym, which seems like an impressive feat of logistics.
And in the third act, Georgia, who had a thin and bad team that year, went on the most improbably run, winning three games to win the SEC tournament, another miracle 3, of a sort. But not more so that the jump shot that may well have legitimately saved lives.
It’s a pretty good documentary. The class was into it. We talked about media aesthetics and a few of the tangential points included in the documentary. Someone looked up something about the film as we talked. If nothing else, we’re fostering some good curiosity. But, hopefully, we’re doing more, as well.
In org comm we discussed diversity. We started with the SPLC’s Frame acrostic. We talked about diversity, and stereotypes, and explicit and implicit prejudice, and different sorts of discrimination, your standard greatest hits collection.
Then we tried to tease out some of the things that weren’t included in the basic overview, which allowed us to discuss sports and people with special needs. Turns out that 47 percent of kids with special needs are playing a sport, and some 30 percent of adults with a disability are physically active.
And then we talked about this story I ran across recently. A small town high school had a local elementary school student take part in some pregame football ceremonies. The kid is autistic, so they had to figure out how to accommodate her needs. They talked to some experts, and local businesses, and they set up a place where she could enjoy the game. Then this amazing thing starts happening, other people in the community start coming to the games, people who had never gone to games before. We also talked about the Philadelphia Eagles, who have a hugely robust Autism Foundation. The franchise has hired 35 employees who are on the spectrum, in a demographic that experiences 85 percent unemployment. They’ve also trained 700 stadium works to work appropriately with fans with autism, and they have sensory facilities. Some Eagles execs have personal connections to autism, and that’s how it began six or seven years ago. And, since then, the Eagles Autism Foundation has raised more than $10 million autism research and programs.
Which was a great way to end the day, teasing Tuesday’s discussion about inclusion.
I drove us home in near silence. The day had just wiped me out, somehow. And the drive seemed to take longer than usual. This evening, one set of things has been taken off my plate, annoyingly so. But there’s still much to do. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get back to that.
