Those &%!#* Solicitors

I don’t like being solicited at home, unless it’s something I invite. I screen out most email solicitations. It still requires time to go through junk mail and decide what needs to be shredded and what doesn’t. But these things are manageable. It’s those pesky telephone and door-to-door solicitations that bother me the most.

Many telephone pests are screened out by the national do-not-call registry. But there are some exceptions and loopholes that for-profit and nonprofit entities exploit.

• The politicians that created the registry cleverly excepted calls from political organizations. Go figure.
• Any entity classed as a charity can still call.
• Pollsters and survey takers can legally bug you. (Another loophole for the politicians.) Some businesses exploit this by taking a survey and then asking if they can follow up. The follow-up is a solicitation.
• Any company you’ve done business with sometime in the last 18 months can call you.
• Bill collectors can call you. (That’s probably understandable.)

Fortunately, the advent of caller-ID has allowed us to screen out many of those excepted by the do-not-call registry. (It is amazing how persistent some of these can be.) But sometimes we end up screening out calls we would like to have answered, simply because we don’t recognize the number. Those that are truly interested leave a message.

When I end up actually answering an unwanted phone call from a solicitor of any kind, I usually simply hang up without saying anything. If they are especially persistent at calling back, I stay on the line long enough to tell them to stop calling. They really don’t want to waste their time talking to someone that isn’t going to buy their product/answer their questions/support their candidate/donate to their cause anyway.

Then there are the people that go door-to-door. We have a “NO SOLICITING” sign clearly displayed by the front door. Most solicitors bypass our house, but some are not discouraged by the sign. I have gotten to the point that I am very brief and blunt with those folks, while trying to remain somewhat courteous.

Last week I saw a guy making the rounds of the neighborhood. He repeatedly bypassed our home. Then one day he showed up at our door with another salesman in tow. I suspect that it was his manager who was going to show him how it is done. One of my kids answered the door and came to get me.

When I got to the door, I asked, “What do you want?” As the guy began talking, he turned his binder toward me. That allowed me to tell that what they were peddling. Before he had said five words, I interrupted. I pointed to the blazingly obvious “NO SOLICITING” sign and asked in a polite tone of voice, “Excuse me, but can you guys read?” The man responded that he hadn’t seen the sign, but the two quickly departed.

A couple of years back, a guy selling some kind of miracle gasoline additive showed up on my doorstep. When I took the same kind of approach with him, he started in on a debate about why ‘No Soliciting’ signs do not pose a legal barrier to door-to-door solicitation. I think the guy could see the fire building in my eyes. I finally said, “I don’t care what your legal manual says. It should be clear to you by now that I don’t want to be solicited!” As I closed the door, he was still saying something about how I was passing up an incredible opportunity. I’m sorry, but that’s simply not the way to win customers.

Once a salesman caught me while I was out in the front yard with a couple of my kids, quite some distance from my protective sign. I nicely explained that I don’t allow solicitation. I think this man was an entertainer at heart. He smiled and started in on a very amusing spiel about how he was brought up to believe that solicitation had something to do with those fancily dressed ladies on street corners in certain parts of town. Before long, the guy had my kids in totally fascinated by his product demo. His act was so fun that I simply couldn’t turn him away.

I do have to say that the ‘miracle’ cleaner this man sold me is probably one of the best cleaning products I have ever used. But I’d probably have bought even if it wasn’t, as I considered his show to be worth the price. If you’re going to be a door-to-door salesman, this guy could teach you a thing or two. But I doubt that a talent like that is easily transferrable.

My wife is too kind to close the door on or hang up the phone on solicitors. She politely listens to phone solicitors until she finally tells them she’s not interested. But she has a very difficult time turning away people on the doorstep.

Perhaps I’m just cruel. But I feel as if I have a right to a certain level of privacy in my own home, and I have no problem making efforts to exclude those that would infringe on that privacy. I take no pleasure in being rude. But I do think it rather offensive when solicitors ignore my sign.

I understand the value of advertising. None of us would find out about products and services that greatly benefit us were it not for advertising, even if that marketing comes only by word of mouth. There are zones I visit where I expect to be confronted with marketing tactics. I just don’t want my front door or my telephone to be among those zones.

The Disney Dilemma

My daughter recently came up and asked if we could plan a vacation to Disneyland this year. My heart sank. I would love to take the family to Disneyland. Or better yet to Disneyworld. But we probably can’t swing it financially this year.

It costs a lot of money to take a family of seven to a Disney (or Disney-like resort). We are incurring a number of new expenses this year to provide opportunities for our older kids. Our investments still haven’t fully rebounded from the market downturn, so we have fewer resources to draw on.

We’ve done the Disney theme park thing a few times, and we’ve enjoyed each trip. My wife and I did Disneyworld before we had any kids. Nearly a decade later we did Disneyworld with four kids after I finished graduate school. It was a deal we cut with them for putting up with me being so involved with school. We’ve done Disneyland a few times, but my daughter was so young the last time we went that she doesn’t remember it.

I went to Disneyland with my family twice when I was a kid; once when I was nine and once when I was 12. One of the hot features back in those days was the Enchanted Tiki Room. Friends had raved about it. But the feature was closed for renovation or mechanical problems both times I was there.

I didn’t get to see the Tiki Room until I was an adult. By then, the technology that had made it spectacular was pretty retro. The show lasted way too long. And frankly, it was pretty lame. What was cool in the 60s was much less cool years later.  Some audience members simply walked out during the show.

The last time we went to Disneyworld, we spent very little time in the Magic Kingdom. We spent most of our time at Epcot, but we also enjoyed the Animal Kingdom and the Hollywood Studios. Although we quite liked the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Hollywood Studios, I was pretty disappointed in the Backlot Tour. It literally looked like nothing whatsoever had been done to update or even maintain it since we had been there years earlier. Peeling paint, and all that. I hope they’ve fixed it up since then. I heard that poor theme park maintenance was Michael Eisner’s doing. He got the boot half a decade ago.

The last time we went to Disneyland, one son had me ride the Indiana Jones Adventure with him multiple times. Another son had the whole family ride Pirates of the Caribbean over and over again. That was before it was renovated to include features from the movie series.

Disney isn’t the only enterprise out there with theme parks in the Anaheim and Orlando areas. The last time we went to Orlando, we spent a day at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure. It was a blast, but there are a couple of things you should know. One is that the music and sound effects are so loud in some parts of the park that you can barely communicate with the person next to you. Another is that you need to be prepared to get wet — very wet. There are so many features that are designed to get you wet that one reviewer quipped that you will get as wet as if you had participated in a full-immersion baptism. So wear swimwear (or something like it), and prepare some way to keep your electronics and valuables dry.

The last time we went to Disneyland, we took a trip to Legoland one day, and to Sea World another day. We had to do Legoland since two of my sons are true Lego maniacs. It was fun, but the park is really aimed at the under-12 crowd. It is not maintained or run at the same level you expect from a Disney park. Maintenance and management reminds me more of the Lagoon amusement park in Farmington, Utah.

It was quite rainy the day we went to Sea World. The shows were fun but were often wet even without sitting in the “splash zone.” One of our favorite features was the Journey to Atlantis ride. Since most park visitors had been driven away by the rain, there were no lines. So we rode the thing over and over again. Another fun attraction was the “4-D Theater.” The shows change from time to time. Just be aware that if you go to one of these shows, you will get wet.

When you go to a theme park with young kids, there is always the worry of getting separated. On our last trip to Disneyland, another family showed us their secret. One of the kids turned up his arm to reveal, “Mom’s cell #” followed by a phone number, written in bold characters with permanent marker from his elbow to his wrist.

We have found our visits to theme parks to be important family bonding experiences. Each time we have gone with the realization that everything you buy in a theme park — food, souvenirs, necessities — is horrendously expensive. We have tried to budget enough in advance that we could enjoy the trip without having to worry about every penny spent. When you add up these items with park tickets, transportation, lodging, and other meals, you run into a chunk of money. It’s just not something that we can afford to do very often.

On most of our theme park trips in the past we have avoided the summer season. While the parks have more features running during the summer, the crowds are unbearable. But then you end up taking kids out of school. We have generally worked around school holidays to minimize this impact. As our kids advance academically it becomes increasingly difficult to take them out of school for even a few days.

But we are also looking at the ages of our kids. The oldest two would likely find a theme park trip pretty lame at their current stages of life. But they would probably come with us anyway. The three younger kids are right in the prime range for such a trip. The longer we wait, the less suitable a theme park trip would be.

Unlike some families and institutions, however, our family is not prone to spend money we don’t have — especially for entertainment. Ah, dilemmas. You can’t have everything you want.

What I Did When My Wireless Network Stopped Working

I just had a disconcerting experience with my home network.  The wireless network suddenly stopped working. I checked the router's external displays, and everything looked fine.  But my password didn't work when I tried to login to the router.  It finally dawned on me to try the original default password.  I got in and discovered that everything had been reset to factory settings.

For over two years I have had a Linksys WRT610N dual band router.  It has been remarkably stable.  It is fast and reliable.  However, the internal antennae aren't that great.

The 5.0 GHz connection works great on my laptop, which is usually in the same room as the router.  It functions OK in other rooms on the same floor, but I live in a multi-level house, and the connection becomes somewhat flaky if I take the laptop to other levels of the home.

The 2.4 GHz connection, on the other hand, seems to have a more limited range.  But I have computers half a level down and a full level down from the router.  None of these has an adapter that will connect to the 5.0 GHz band, so they rely on the 2.4 GHz band.  The main interference with this band has been our microwave oven.  But standard human activity in the home has caused problems as well.  Even with a high gain antenna, the adapter on the basement computer was pretty shoddy.

Last year I had had enough of these problems.  I bought a Hawking 300-N Range Extender, which is a wireless network repeater that works on the N protocol 2.4 GHz band.  If it had been available at the time, I would have gotten the Wireless-N Dual Radio Smart Repeater, since it would work with both bands.  But since I don't currently have a computer distant from the router that can use the 5.0 band, the 300-N works just fine.

The 300-N is a very good repeater.  It is very stable.  The 2.4 GHz band is still subject to interruption from the microwave oven, but the repeater regains the connection almost immediately.  It has been very stable.  But if you get one, DO NOT use the automatic installation.  Follow the instructions for manual configuration instead.

I learned by sad experience that the automatic configuration grabbed an IP address for the device without checking whether the address was available.  This caused a conflict that crashed my whole network.  It took me a couple of days to figure out what was going on and to remedy the problem.  Fortunately, resetting the device and following the manual installation instructions worked like a charm.

A good thing to do with any wireless device following configuration is to go to the administration page of the device's configuration utility and backup your settings.  A file will be created, and it is important for you to remember where this file is stored.  Then if you have to reset the device — or if it resets itself — you can get back in business quickly by going to the admin screen of the device and restoring the configuration from the backup file.

I was able to get my router up and running again, but the repeater did not automatically reconnect.  Moreover, I couldn't get the repeater's configuration utility to come up using a web browser.  I had to bring the repeater into the office and connect it to the router with a cable before I could get to the repeater's configuration utility.  I re-applied the network settings, and then the thing worked fine.  I was able to put it back where I had it.

Still, the whole episode was kind of scary.  There was no reason for the router to reset.  My previous router started doing that kind of thing intermittently until it finally completely died.  I suspect that once a router starts resetting itself, it's only a matter of time before it will need to be replaced.  Fortunately, if that happens there are now better devices on the market that cost less than my current router did when I bought it.

Klondike Derby Lasts Nearly Until Summer

Last January I presided over our Scout district’s Klondike Derby — an overnight outdoor winter camping experience, complete with winter scoutcraft games. All Boy Scout units in the district are invited to participate. We had 39 of 68 units attend. Of the 450 people in attendance, about 70% were youth and the rest were adult leaders.

I have a love-hate relationship with Klondike Derby. Let me explain.

I attended my first district Klondike overnighter 31 years ago. I had been on winter campouts prior to that, but just with my own unit, not with a whole district. The event was held at a county campground, the same location where we held this year’s affair. But the location was far more rustic back then. Since that time, I have attended many winter camps, often camping in snow shelters.

While some adventurists go winter camping for enjoyment, that is hardly my purpose. If that were my sole concern, I would never go winter camping again. Ever. As lame as it sounds, I do this for the kids.

Comedian Jim Gaffigan quips that his parents never took him camping as a kid because they loved him. You’d think that would apply to winter camping to the 10th power. But I take youth camping:

• To help them learn the basics of winter survival.
• To help them find out that they can do (and even enjoy doing) something they thought was impossible for them.
• To provide an adventure.

But it takes a lot of work. It takes an awful lot of work to go winter camping. Every time I go, I lament to my wife that it takes as much work to go on one winter overnighter as it does to go to a week of summer camp.

Everything takes much longer when participating in cold weather camping, but you generally have quite a bit less daylight. Moving gear, setting up a shelter, building a fire, preparing a meal, changing clothing, or anything else you usually do when camping takes much longer when you’re winter camping. A good rule of thumb to use when planning a winter camp is that everything you do will take three times as long; even longer if it’s windy or precipitating. Cleanup is a chore as well, because you’ve got to dry everything out before you put it away.

To some that have never been winter camping, it seems counterintuitive to think that a snow cave can provide good shelter from the elements. But a foot of solid snow can provide enough insulation to keep an enclosure much warmer than the outside, especially when temperatures plummet at night.

Despite the wonders of snow caves, I have never liked them. Six years ago I learned to hate them when I had one cave in on me during construction. Since then I have avoided spending much time inside any snow cave, although, I have helped with construction. I prefer to sleep in a snow trench. Or if there’s no wind, I like to set up right on the top of the snow. That works better if you can find a spot that has some kind of natural wind break. But I have found that many Scouts crave the adventure of camping in a snow cave.

Getting back to this year’s Klondike overnighter, some lament the lack of participation by the 29 units that didn’t come to the event, but I’m not unhappy with the turnout. Finding a venue that can handle that many winter campers, most of them camping in show shelters, is problematic. The venue must:

• Be big enough to accommodate the group.
• Be accessible by vehicle.
• Have adequate parking.
• Have decent annual snowfall.
• Be relatively close to the homes of most campers.
• Not be too expensive.
• Have low avalanche danger.
• Be able to be reserved months in advance.

Despite the extensive outdoor recreation possibilities in my area, there aren’t many venues that meet all of these criteria. The venue we use has its problems as well. Almost every year when these problems are noted, I tell those complaining to find me even one other place that would work. They always end up perplexed enough to conclude that we picked the right place.

Another possibility — and one that would be more in line with Leave No Trace principles — would be to split up the event. Instead of inviting all of the district’s units to the same event, several smaller events could be planned throughout the winter. Each event could be for two or three zones so that 15 or fewer units would be in attendance at any of them. Less parking would be needed and impact on natural resources would be more dispersed.

The problem with multiple small events is the coordination effort. A volunteer staff would need to be recruited for each event. Those that work with volunteer organizations know that this can prove difficult. Perhaps an even greater challenge is the cultural shift. One of the reasons that some attend these events is for the camaraderie of being around hundreds of others that are pursuing similar goals. (Of course, there are those that stay away because they dislike big camping events.) Fewer units can also mean less keen competition. Still, the dispersed Klondike is something that I will encourage district leadership to consider.

Last Saturday also brought home another thing I dislike about Klondike Derby. Saturday was the BSA’s national day of service. My son’s unit went back up to the site where we held the Klondike overnighter to do some cleanup. There was still too much snow to clean some parts of the venue, but other parts were relatively clear of snow.

While most units strictly obeyed the rules on having fires only in raised fire pits and hauled out their ashes, a few dunderheads built fires right on the ground and left their ashes. Although vegetation was scarred, none of these fools succeeded in starting wildfires. Scouts — and especially Scouting leaders — should know better. It steams me when Scouts mistreat camping resources. We cleaned up their messes and hauled away the ashes.

The worst offenders were other users of the area, which is groomed during the winter season for cross country skiing. These fires were never near the remains of snow shelters. They were always adjacent to the ski trail and were almost always littered with beer bottles. I suppose it may be too much to ask of the general public to follow the Outdoor Code.

We still have one more major project next weekend to do some rehabilitation and summer season prep work at the campground where we held Klondike Derby. And then we put the event to bed until next fall when we start getting everything ready for next winter’s event.

Although I have been winter camping for years, I still have a number of years left to go winter camping with my kids before I can hang up my snow gear. I delight in the adventure this provides. But I hate doing it.

The Coolhunters

A number of years ago there was a strange phenomenon at the local high school. Many high schoolers just had to have this certain brand of designer jeans. Adjusted for inflation, a pair of these pants cost $128 in present day dollars.

I don’t know about you, but that’s an awful steep price to pair for a pair of everyday breeches. These pricey pants were of no higher quality than much cheaper run-of-the-mill jeans. The “unique styling” really wasn’t very unique at all. But stores that sold these things couldn’t keep them on the shelves. Telephone chains spread the news whenever it was leaked that a store had gotten a new shipment. People would wait in line and stores sometimes sold an entire shipment in minutes.  Ka-ching!

Within a few months, other manufacturers put out specialty jeans, seeking to capture a piece of the hot market. Some even had styles that looked nearly identical to the preferred brand. But snobbish teens with a heightened sense of coolness could easily detect those wearing pants with an inferior label.

I assumed that the designer jeans fad would fade away by the next school year, but it didn’t. The French clothing designer brought out a greater variety of styles and had ramped up production so that stores usually had adequate supplies.

A coworker at that time reported that she gave her high schoolers a clothing allowance. One daughter spent nearly her entire allotment on a single pair of French designer jeans and a pair of “must have” designer tennis shoes (that she didn’t dare wear when it was wet or snowy). The other daughter, deciding that status was less important than variety, bought enough sensibly priced clothes to last the season and put the leftover funds in her bank account.

By the next summer, the French designer jeans fad went bust in our area. Stores were slashing their prices by late spring and the once expensive jeans soon found their way to bargain racks.

After availability increased, pent up demand kept prices high for a few months. But once that demand was met, retailers had a hard time moving the pricey products. Gradually they eased prices to free up space for better selling products. Decreasing prices meant that more people could afford the pants.

As the French jeans proliferated among the high school students, the utterly cool pants suddenly lost their coolness. No longer able to distinguish themselves by wearing expensive designer jeans, the status conscious crowd soon shifted to a different fad.

We like to think that we outgrow this kind of childish one-upmanship as we mature. But I’m not sure that we do. It seems, rather, that we simply shift to more elaborate ways to demonstrate our supposed superiority over others. A certain segment of our adult population is forever on a coolhunt for the next elite status symbol. Most of the rest of us pursue the coolhunt at least in a minor way.

Of course, we don’t ever see ourselves as being into superficial fashion the way some others obviously are. Rather, we seek to demonstrate our superiority in the stuff we own and in our various pursuits; our hobbies, the things we eat or drink. Sometimes we wear the façade of piety either in spiritual or secular religious pursuits.

Latter-Day Saints along the Wasatch Front like to be seen in the finest Mormon Assault Vehicle. Some secular religionists show their devoutness to the god of social consciousness by driving a politically correct hybrid. Aging baby boomers dress like bad boys and gals tearing up the roads on expensive Harleys.

Our continual quest for higher status doesn’t stop with what we drive. We engage in myriad fads, not unlike the high schoolers in my story. One entire line of high end media devices is almost wholly aimed at those that willingly pay more to have products that are perceived to be more elite than the devices used by the masses. Almost from its inception, this company has sought to carve out a niche for smug status hunters. I’ll let you guess which firm that is.

Sometimes we seek to demonstrate superiority in our ability to get deals on stuff, in the amount of food storage we have, in our educational credentials, in the music we enjoy, in the causes we support, etc.

The main goal of our coolhunting is to achieve a sense of being exclusive — of being superior to others. The most elite coolhunters are constantly changing their target because the moment anything that is exclusive reduces in cost to the point that it achieves more general usage, it is no longer exclusive. Thus, the never ending pursuit of the next exclusive thing.

The human tendency to seek for superiority often gets a bad rap. It is frequently viewed as a moral negative. And sometimes it definitely is. But it is also a very important and essential piece of human nature. Despite constant pleas to compete only with ourselves, we simply cannot help competing with others. It is this competition that defines who we are — that helps us discover who we are.

It is this very competition that is responsible for almost all advances in quality of life. But like all good tools, it is a double-edged sword that can be used for good or evil, for mutual advancement or for stupidity. But even in using this tool for what we believe to be good, it is wise to avoid the smugness that so easily accompanies any sense of superiority.

I may know this, but I’m a long way from that ideal.

A (Wonderfully) Fateful Meeting

The first thing I noticed about my wife upon our initial meeting was her smile. When I first saw her, she was seated in the passenger seat of my friend’s car. Her blue-jeaned legs were sticking out of the open door. Her feet were on the ground. She was bent over tying her hiking boots so that I couldn’t see her face.

As I neared the car, she looked up and flashed a dazzling smile at me, gazing at me in a way that said that she already cared about me. My heart picked up a few beats as I felt something inside that told me that she was special.

My wife’s memory of our first meeting is different. She recounts how we had met five years earlier at the local LDS institute of religion. Upon later being reminded of that event, it took quite a bit of work for me to fully retrieve the memory. Following a Friday evening dance at the institute, I was playing a currently popular song on the piano when two girls approached.

Having grown up with only brothers, I didn’t know that girls never do anything by themselves if they can get another girl to go with them. Heck, they even go to the restroom together. One of the young ladies standing near me asked where I had served my LDS mission. Upon answering, she asked if I knew another missionary serving there. I did. In fact, we had worked on Boy Scout camp staff together.

A conversation ensued. Being kind of shy around girls and having only brothers, I was oblivious to the fact that the girl was trying to come on to me. I wanted to ask for her phone number, but I felt uncomfortable asking only one of the girls for contact information, and asking both seemed ridiculous. My limited understanding of female social customs prevented me from realizing that the other girl was merely providing moral support.

As the next five years passed, my wife served a mission for the LDS Church and completed more schooling. I did school and advanced in my career. On several occasions friends ask me if I knew this girl. I didn’t (or at least I thought I didn’t). Several remarked that they needed to get the two of us together because it seemed like we would hit it off well. But no arrangements were ever made.

Then one day I was called by one of my former Boy Scouts. He asked if I would double-date with him on an excursion to the mountains to do some Dutch oven cooking. I said that I’d be more than happy to oblige, but that I didn’t have any prospect for getting a date on short notice. No problem, he explained, because he had already arranged a date for me. I had been on plenty of blind dates, so I didn’t mind, especially since I would be helping a friend.

I was unprepared for how beautiful my blind date ended up being. She was friendly and outgoing, quite uninhibited about the situation. She put me at ease. Then when my friend and I started building the campfire, she jumped right in without being asked. Moreover, she knew what she was doing. I was very impressed. About 4½ months later, my former Boy Scout acted as my best man when my wife and I wed.

A number of years have passed since that day, but my wife’s beautiful smile still makes my heart beat a little faster. We’ve had our challenges. Facing them together hasn’t always been comfortable, but it has strengthened our bonds of love.

I thought I loved my wife the day we knelt over the altar and were joined in matrimony. And I did. But today there is a depth and a breadth to our love that I couldn’t have even fathomed back then. I hope that years from now I will be able to look back on this day and honestly say the same thing.

Our List of Charter School Pros and Cons

In my last post I began discussing our two-year experience with our children’s charter school. In this post I will list some of what we view as the pros and cons we have observed during this experience.

What we like:

• Dedicated and innovative teachers. The expeditionary learning model encourages (requires) innovation. Perhaps that’s why none of the teachers are union members.
• Our kids like the charter school.
• Minimal administration and red tape.
• High percentage of motivated parents.
• Mixed grades and mentoring.
• Collaboration and teamwork are integral.
• Hands-on learning, including frequent forays outside of the classroom.
• Comprehensive learning modules (“expeditions”) where learning from all subjects is actually applied. (This doesn’t work well for some students. More below.)
• Frequent leadership opportunities for most students.
• Personal ownership of expeditions as demonstrated at public events. (More below.)
• Opportunities for motivated parents to actually be involved.
• Quality music band program.
• No extracurricular sports programs.

Expeditions require a high degree of student responsibility and teamwork. This works quite well for the majority of the students, but some students just don’t mesh well with this model. They end up being outcasts. Actually, some of them prefer it that way. But they miss out on a lot of valuable learning. My wife believes that many of these student would actually fare worse in the traditional system.

Older students and students with more knowledge on a given topic are tasked with mentoring and tutoring other students. This seems to work very well both for the tutors and the learners. You learn much when you have to teach someone else. And there’s nothing like feeling needed and performing a truly worthwhile service.

Once each week, all crews in a pod get together for a short student-led program where a particular crew reviews its progress on its current expedition. Every few weeks the entire student body gathers for a similar program on a school level. We recently attended one of these events where our first grader was one of the MCs. It was very impressive to see how these young kids handled the program.

I am frequently amazed at the depth of knowledge our children exhibit about their expeditionary subjects. Our youngest knows more about arthropods than does the average high school biology student. Our fourth grader can still give details about the Transcontinental Railroad (from last fall’s expedition) that I never learned about before.

Some would say that the lack of extracurricular sports programs is a drawback, but we think it’s a plus. Instead of blowing funds on a handful of jocks, the school is able to use those resources to provide more opportunities for field learning for all students. For example, a few months ago I accompanied our junior high schooler on a SCUBA diving activity. Besides, there are plenty of non-school athletic programs available for those that wish to enroll their kids in sports programs without eating up educational funds.

Drawbacks:

• Few schoolmates are neighbors. This complicates friendships. (More below.)
• Inadequate performance feedback mechanisms. We too often find out about problems only after it’s too late in the term to do anything about it.
• Commuting.
• No foreign languages are offered at our school.
• The kids complain about short lunch breaks.

Let’s face it; the social aspect of school is a big part of life. When our kids attended the elementary school a few blocks away, all of their classmates lived fairly close. Now they have friends that live as much as 20 miles away. Moreover, they don’t share school experiences with the kids in the neighborhood, so they have less in common with neighbors.

The local junior high and high school have individual student web portals where parents can see how a student is performing in any given subject. Of course, not all teachers keep these up to date, but enough of them do so to make it a valuable tool. Our charter school doesn’t have anything like that.

Like most bright junior high aged boys, our son sometimes acts like he’s brain dead. Or he fails to turn in assignments. Or he goofs off in class and doesn’t get his work done. Unfortunately, we usually only find out about this at the end of the term when it’s too late to effect any grade improvement. This is perhaps our biggest complaint. We understand that systems like those used by the school district are expensive to obtain and maintain and that the school has limited funds. But the lack of timely feedback is a problem.

With 10 grades in the school, it is a challenge to efficiently move all of the students through the lunch process. Our kids complain that lunch breaks are too short. Sometimes they feel like they don’t get enough time to complete their meals. (This may be perception. The kids might just be messing around. We haven’t actually spent time hanging out at lunch. Perhaps we should.)

Overall, we have to say that we think the charter school is proving to be a better educational experience for our children than our traditional public schools. And that is saying something, because our local public schools actually rank pretty well. Still, we are considering enrolling our junior high schooler in the local junior high so that we can do a better job of staying on top of his performance.

We have a very positive view of expeditionary learning. Even for those that have difficulty with this model, it may be better for most of them than traditional pedagogical methods. I hope that more charter schools come into being. Different schools with different approaches would allow for more educational experimentation and opportunities to fit students into models that most suit them.

How the Charter School is Working Out for Us

We started sending our three youngest children to a charter school at the beginning of the 2008-09 school year. We are now less than two months away from the end of our kids’ second school year with the charter school. I figured that it would be good to analyze how it has worked out for us.

Our kids’ charter school didn’t exist at the time that we applied. A charter had been granted by the state (and believe me, that requires a lot of work and dedication), but no school facility had yet been built. Our involvement began when my wife saw a lawn sign about the school and visited the website shown on the sign. Eventually we attended parent information meetings and we decided to apply.

One of the early drawbacks was that the construction project fell through when the contractor failed to obtain financing. School officials scrambled and arranged to lease a vacant school in the Ogden School District for the 08-09 school year. The building didn’t really meet the needs of the charter school, but they made it work.

The new building was constructed in the meantime and was ready for the 09-10 school year. It’s a decent facility that lends itself well to the school’s methodology. But parking is inadequate for larger evening events to which families are invited. The facility is about seven miles from our home. The drive to or from the school takes 10-15 minutes depending on conditions.

When I say “school officials,” I mean the principal and the all volunteer board made up of parents of students. The school also has a secretary and a part-time vice principle. That’s the extent of school administration. Some administrative tasks are handled by volunteers.

Our children’s school uses the expeditionary learning model. There is a greater focus on hands-on learning, getting out of the classroom, and using all skills learned in a comprehensive way. So the basic teaching style is somewhat different than the traditional public school model. Each teacher must certify in expeditionary learning.

Busy classrooms and field trips are expected in expeditionary learning. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t quiet times. But students often work in teams and participate in collaborative activities. Schoolwork is peer reviewed and improved before being handed in.

The school is divided into pods: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9th (that sometimes joins with the 6-8 pod). Each pod has a number “crews” consisting of a teacher and 25 student crew members. Except for Kindergarten and 9th grade, grades are mixed in each crew. Older students mentor younger students.

The school has a uniform policy that is more like a dress code. Students don’t have to wear official school clothing. The clothes can be obtained from any source, as long as styles and colors are right. Shirts may be one of three solid colors. Pants and skirts may be one of two solid colors. Certain styles are prescribed, including collar size, sleeve length, pant/skirt length, and waist style (no low riders).

Nobody gets uptight about the uniform policy. It provides for plenty of flexibility, but the policy is strong enough to keep students looking modest.

That provides some of the background about the charter school. In the next post I will list pros and cons. Some of the latter are nontrivial. But for us, the pros presently outweigh the cons.

That Old Time Rock and Roll

One day while riding to college with my oldest brother, we discussed some aspects of the music we were listening to on his car radio. I laughed derisively when he suggested that once I hit age 30 I would never listen to rock and roll again.

Well, my brother was at least partially wrong. I have continued to listen to rock and roll in the years since I turned 30. But my brother was also partially right. My consumption of rock and roll (and of all pop) music dropped off precipitously somewhere along the road of life.

I have recently been finding clips on the Internet of artists I used to appreciate. I have also started looking into what has become of some of these people. It has come to my attention that during my teen and early adult years I liked a category of music I never even knew existed. At least, I never realized there was such a classification as American progressive rock. I liked music from various other categories as well.

My first thought on finding more recent clips of some artists I used to listen to was, “Geez, these guys are old.” Some of them look like they’ve seen a lot of years of hard living. Indeed, the profiles available for these artists often tell of difficult challenges they have faced, frequently the result of their own self destructive choices. A few, on the other hand, seem to have lived full and happy lives.

Video clip comment streams are often quite polluted, so I usually pay them no heed. But sometimes useful information is offered. I clicked on a link to a 1996 performance by a band I once enjoyed. The lead singer was terrible; certainly a far cry from his earlier days. But a comment explained that the concert had taken place at a low point in the singer’s life. He didn’t start to get cleaned up from his addictions until the following year. The singer was indeed much improved in 1999 and 2002 performances.

A few of the artists from back in the day have passed away. But it is surprising to me how many are still active in the music industry. Some have been involved in a broad range of activities, from writing ad jingles and video game tunes to performing with symphony orchestras and producing works for other artists.

Another thing that I have realized is how young a lot of these artists were when they hit the big time. I never thought about it back then, but most of these people are only about 10-15 years older than me.

What must it be like to hit the spectacular apex of your career by the time you’re 30? Maybe a life of huge arena tours isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Maybe playing studio backups for obscure bands and TV shows isn’t such a bad life. Less fame, more stability.

The kids of my day (me included) listened to music that drove their parents nuts. Today’s kids do the same. One of my teenagers is a fan of metalcore music. My brainiac son (my wife says he’s got the brain of an engineer and the heart of a poet) is drawn to the genre’s highly technical riffs and breakdowns. He has written metalcore songs for his own band. (To be fair, he has also written and performed classical piano pieces.)

Even though some of the metalcore lyrics my son likes have distinctively Christian messages (if they could be understood), I doubt I will ever arrive at a point in life where I will enjoy such music. I find it harsh and agitating. Even beautiful lyrics can be unpleasant when shouted in a death growl. When my son alerted me to the actual words being screamed in one Christian oriented song, I explained that I find it inappropriate to discuss divine matters in such a tone of voice.

My son’s fascination with metalcore music bothers my wife. I kind of take it in stride, figuring that he will work through this phase at his own pace. Trying to prevent him from accessing this style of music wouldn’t be any more successful than were my parents’ attempts to turn me from the music I listened to during my teen years.

I can’t help but wonder, however, what kind of music my grandchildren will listen to that will drive their father nuts. I hope to have a good laugh at that point in time.

In my mind’s eye I can see my currently teenage son as a middle aged father sitting in front of whatever media device they have at that time, searching out clips of artists he liked when he was a teenager. I see his kids standing in the background rolling their eyes at their father’s odd musical choices as the generational cycle repeats itself.

The Sticker Parade

Back in the 80s it was common to see bumper stickers that read, “I ♥ [something].” That something might be a pet, an activity of some sort, a location, or a sports team. I mentioned in a previous post the humor I found in a ploy on this sticker that read, “I ♠ my dog.” (It might have been an ad for a veterinarian.)

Another popular sticker in those days read, “I’d rather be [doing some activity].” It might be wind surfing, rock climbing, motorcycle riding, sailing, horse riding, hiking, cycling, or some such activity. One I saw read, “I’d rather be doing genealogy.” Another common theme was, “I’d rather be in [some location].”

Some found these advertisements of what people were fond of or what they’d rather be doing to be tedious or obnoxious. I once saw a sticker that read, “I don’t care what kind of pet you have, what you love, where you’d rather be, or what you’d rather be doing.” I occasionally heard the comment that if people would rather be somewhere else or doing something else they should just go there and do it without pestering the rest of us about it.

Times have changed and so have personalized automobile decorations. In recent years I have noted a dramatic increase in cutouts made of white tape showing a family’s configuration. These are usually placed in the rear or rear side windows of vehicles. Most of these stickers show family members in order of age and by proportionate size. Most show the sex of each family member.

Some of these family stickers include the names of family members. Some show the family’s surname. Frankly, I have privacy issues with doing stuff like this. Do I really want everybody that looks at my car to know my kids’ names or even how my family is arranged? There are enough strange folks around to make me uncomfortable with turning my vehicle into a traveling billboard showing this kind of personal information.

When these family configuration stickers first appeared, most of them depicted fairly simple stick figures. That has changed over time until there is now such a broad variety of shapes, sizes, hair and clothing styles, positions, etc, to provide a very distinctive customization. I have seen a van around town that has a Boy Scout symbol on the license plate. The father and the sons depicted in the family stickers on the van are dressed in Scout uniforms.

Some people get carried away. An older couple I know has covered the whole rear driver side window of their van with figures representing themselves, their children, children-in-law, and grandchildren, along with all of the extended family’s associated pets. Some stickers are more casual. Yesterday I followed a car that simply showed a pair of flip-flops of various sizes; one pair for each family member.

Besides privacy concerns, I also wonder about putting something static on a vehicle when families are dynamic. Maybe it’s OK if you keep your cars for only two or three years. We tend to keep our vehicles much longer. Although we average about a decade for a vehicle, we have a van that is 17 years old. You might put stickers on your car showing the baby in diapers and the eight-year-old with a crew cut. Four years later, the kids look a lot different. 17 years later, the whole family looks very different.

Another sticker phenomenon I see in the area where I live is huge flashy words and symbols in the rear windows of tricked out 4WD trucks driven by guys in their 20s or 30s. These trucks are usually jacked up high and decked with lots of extra chrome. They’ve got stylish rims and beefy looking tires that will likely never leave the pavement.

The stickers on these fancy muscle trucks either depict some kind of skull design or near pornographic silhouettes of slutty females. (Women only look like that in real life after surgical enhancement.) My oldest son dismisses these guys, saying, “They’re trying to compensate for something, if you know what I mean.”

As I said in a previous post on this subject, I derive a certain amount of entertainment value from the stickers people use to decorate their vehicles. Our family’s vehicles are unadorned and rather plain. My wife has suggested putting some kind of design item in the rear window of the cars to make them easier to spot in a parking lot. I think they are already fairly easy to spot in a parking lot. I just look for vehicles that are sticker free. There just aren’t that many.

The Art of Storytelling

I first fancied myself a teller of stories when I worked on Boy Scout camp staff during my teen years. It seems that stories get told whenever people sit around a campfire at night. This common ritual predates recorded history and spans every culture.

But storytelling exceeds hearth and campfire settings. Indeed, it permeates our lives. We tell each other stories during breaks at work and around the dinner table. Some of the most popular songs encapsulate stories. The entire motion picture industry exists to tell stories. We tend to remember information better if it is attached to some kind of story.

It is true that we tell stories to connect, inform, entertain, educate, and convey moral values. But perhaps the main reason we tell stories is to transmit culture. This is particularly true of intergenerational storytelling.

Storytelling seems to be an innate part of us. We all tell stories. We all appreciate a good story. But sometimes we have difficulty telling good stories ourselves. What elements make for a good story?

Telling Good Stories
Delose Conner, who was my camp director when I worked at Camp Loll years ago wrote and self published two books about storytelling, the first in 1980 and the second in 1992. Eventually, he published both books bound into a single 136-page paperback titled Folk and Campfire Stories. He privately sells the book for $10. If you are interested, please email me and I will happily provide contact information.

Delose’s book includes 27 stories that range from comical to scary to inspirational. Some are tailored hand-me-downs, while others relate personal experiences. The stories are a treasure by themselves. But another great trove is comprised in the storytelling tips Delose provides. Only a few of these tips are contained in the book’s initial concise instructions. Many of the best tips are scattered throughout the book in copious footnotes.

I have learned a thing or two throughout my own years of storytelling. In my mind, there are two major things that make for a good story. Most other factors can, I think, be classed under these two headings:

• Own the story.
• Practice to perform.

Make the Story Your Own
A good story comes from inside the storyteller. That happens naturally with personal experience. But it is also fine to take someone else’s story and make it your own.

I need to qualify that last statement a bit. You need to know your setting and audience. There are settings (rarely around a campfire) where failing to give credit to a story’s source could be construed as plagiarism.

It’s usually fine to embellish, tweak, or filter story elements when you’re entertaining or when you make clear that you are merely using a partially or wholly fictitious story as a teaching tool. But you must never stretch or diminish accuracy when credibility is important. Otherwise, your personal trustworthiness could be permanently compromised. True and credible stories can be entertaining and/or educational. But not all entertaining/educational stories are true and credible.

To make a story your own, you need to internalize it. That doesn’t mean that it has to be in first person, although, that is an attention grabbing approach. Think through the details and be ready to drop these elements into the story as necessary. It is more important that you have the details internalized than that you actually voice them.

Think about the different characters. What is each feeling at any given moment? What does each notice in the scenes where they appear? What are their various perspectives? What kind of movements do they make? How does Charlie’s face feel when his friend embarrasses him? What is Charlie doing with his fingers at that moment? What is the hair on the back of the dog’s neck doing when it senses the snake?

Think about the objects in the story. What do they look like? What are they doing? How do the dappled shadows on the north side of the old shack look in the light of the last quarter moon? Is the glass in the shack’s windows thick and rippled? How does the smoke curling up from the fire inside the old chief’s tipi move? What is hanging from the chief’s lodge pole? How do the horse’s leather reins feel in your hand when you loop them around the saddle horn? What does it feel like inside your shoe when your foot sinks into the mud?

Little details like this add spice to a story and give it an air of reality. Even if you don’t voice all of these details, knowing them implies a sense of authenticity that helps draw your audience into the story. In effect, they become part of the story. They become invested in it.

A very important part of the art of storytelling is knowing just how much detail to give to an audience. Nothing makes a story better for a listener than filling in bits and pieces from their own imagination because your listeners’ imaginations are better than your words. Listeners themselves make the story funnier, scarier, or more inspirational, as the case may be.

Too much detail robs the listener of this experience. Too little detail prevents them from having enough to germinate the process. Getting it right takes practice and skill development. It may need to be tailored to the audience.

Delose says to picture an old master storyteller in your mind. What does he do that makes his stories so good? Focus on those points, and then become the old storyteller yourself by employing those factors in your stories.

Practice and Perform
Storytelling is performance art. A storyteller “performs” a story every bit as much as a singer performs a song. A good singing performance is usually preceded by a lot of preparation and practice. A singer will drill on general technique and will practice a song over and over again before performing it. Good storytelling requires the same level of preparation.

This will come across as strange to some because many swear that the stories I tell seem to come so naturally. I prepare to tell stories by “performing” them for myself in my office and in the bathroom in front of the mirror. When I am ready, I perform for a small audience, usually family members. Not only do I solicit critique, I find out during this telling how people respond to different points. I find things to tweak.

Stories as performance art are more than just words. How you say the words is important. When a character says something in an exasperated tone, you need to say it in an exasperated tone. When tenderness or harshness is expressed, the audience needs to hear it in your voice. If a character has an accent, mimic that accent. It also takes practice to deliver a subtle punch line with just the right inflection.

Facial expressions, hand motions, and other body language actions are a vital part of each story. Act out the motions of the man with his pants down around his ankles trying to run away from what he thinks is a ghost in the outhouse. When Jane slaps Tony, you can act out both the part of both the slapper and the slappee. When the tough guy realizes that what he’s got in his mouth isn’t berry pie, you demonstrate his facial expression. When the miner brushes away the rock chips to see if he has found gold, you act that out.

Another part of preparation is story organization. If you’re picking up a story created by someone else, this is likely already done for you. But even in these cases, you can choose how you will develop the story, which elements to emphasize, and which elements to soft peddle.

When creating your own stories, consider what you are trying to achieve. Are you going for a punch line that will draw laughs, a climax that will elicit screams, an eerie ending that leaves the audience anxious, a specific educational point, internalization of a moral value, or a soaring inspirational sense? Are the elements of your story laid out in such as way to achieve that goal and to get the most bang for your buck?

Don’t forget to plant seeds along the way to the conclusion of your story. If the punch line of a story revolves around a man eating his hat for losing a wager, drop little hints along the way. For example, you might give hints from different angles about how valuable the man’s hat is. Or maybe the thing is filthy and soaked with years of perspiration.

Setting is something over which you don’t always have control, but you should try to get the best setting possible for your storytelling performance. An evening around a campfire is often ideal, but even then there can be distractions that you have difficulty controlling. Just do what you can. And remember that a well told story can often overcome an imperfect setting.

Conclusion
Storytelling can be a lot of fun. But it can also be a serious matter in the right context. Even in these circumstances, practice helps to get your message across more effectively. This is so even for tales that are completely true. Good story organization is important, but the presentation of a story is at least as important as the plot.

Good storytellers rarely just happen. They develop their stories and hone their presentation skills. Chances are that you will have the opportunity to tell a story fairly soon. Maybe it will be around a campfire this summer. If you want to make the best of it, start working on your storytelling right now. You will enjoy the experience a lot more that way, and so will your audience.

Denial

We live in a neighborhood that was constructed in several phases over a period of about ten years. The oldest homes in our development are about a quarter century old. By my count, about 40% of the homes are still occupied by original owners.

We have watched each others’ families grow up. Our kids have played and hung out together in each others’ homes. We have taken turns working with each others’ kids as school, church, and community volunteers. We have shared each others’ joys and sorrows as we have seen neighborhood children grow up and embark on their own paths in life.

One of the sorrows we shared was when the high school aged daughter of one neighborhood family developed serious substance abuse problems. The dad worked in youth corrections. The mom was a registered nurse. Both had professional training in recognizing and dealing with substance abuse issues. But somehow they failed to see these symptoms in their own daughter until she collapsed in the entryway of their home upon returning from a night of partying.

Fortunately, once the problem became clear, these parents knew what steps to take. Their daughter went into a rehab program. After the initial treatment, she attended a school that was part of the treatment program for many months until she was able to graduate clean. Still, her adult life has been somewhat troubled, although, she is currently a fairly responsible adult.

A few years ago, I was able to have a long chat with the father of this family while we were together at Boy Scout summer camp. He explained that there were many warning signs that he and his wife had been trained to see. But both parents were blind to these symptoms because they were in denial.

After all, their daughter was popular. She had achieved a spot on the cheerleading squad her first year in high school. Her grades had been pretty good going into the school year. She was focused on her goals. Or at least, that’s how the parents perceived her.

The other side of the story was that the girl kept stashes of substances and related paraphernalia in the house. Her parents accepted her lame excuses about this. Her grades slid as she increasingly kept late hours. Her older brother didn’t want to get her into trouble, but sometimes made remarks to his parents of being concerned about her keeping bad company.

These and other warning signs made no impact on the parents. My friend said that there was no other explanation than to say that when it came to their own daughter, he and his wife willingly chose — perhaps somewhat subconsciously — to ignore the obvious. Seeing these same signs in any other family’s child would have caused them to take action.

I think this is a very natural human tendency. We want to believe the best about our loved ones. Sometimes it’s easier to avoid conflict than to bring up uncomfortable matters. At times we tolerate objectionable activities in the name of love, when true love can require these to be challenged. If we ignore problems long enough, we think, maybe they’ll go away on their own. We hate to see our own apple cart upset.

This principle probably has broader application as well. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see where else it applies.

The Demise of One of My Childhood Icons

As a kid, we would on occasion go to McDonald’s. The drive-in, which was a couple of miles from my home is in my earliest memories of my town. I didn’t realize it, but that place was the first McDonald’s restaurant in Utah.

It was once a white building with a single-plane roof that slanted front to back. The sides of the building were graced with large trademark golden arches that extended above the roofline. The building contained only the kitchen and the retail/delivery counter. There was no indoor space for customers.

If my memory is correct, this McDonald’s was seasonal, so that it was closed during cold weather months. I do remember that they eventually installed outdoor heaters above the retail windows. This helped keep the customers nearest the windows warm in cold weather. A few years later, they added a mostly glass enclosure to shelter customers, but there was still no indoor dining facility.

Sometime during my adolescent years, the entire McDonald’s chain decided to change its look. The white buildings with prominent side arches were replaced with red-brown brick structures. Our local McDonald’s underwent extensive renovation to make the change and to add a dining room. When Ronald McDonald, the corporate mascot was joined by a host of other whacky cartoon-like characters, images of the characters began to grace the place. They added an outdoor playground too.

As a senior in high school, I went looking for work. I had gotten a food handler permit to work at a little joint that was started by the family of one of my Mom’s co-workers. After I went to work twice, it became obvious that these folks had been overly optimistic about the enterprise, so more than half the staff was cut. I applied at various food service businesses and ended up landing a job at McDonald’s.

By this time, there was another McDonald’s at the other end of town, and another one in the south end of the county. I enthusiastically began my short-lived career at McDonald’s, only to discover that working in fast food was not for me. After only a couple of months, I handed in my uniform and went in search of other employment.

During my brief tenure at McDonald’s, I learned several things. Employees at our installation were not permitted to stand around. “If there’s time to lean, there’s time to clean,” was a common refrain. Many things, even rather arcane matters, required strict compliance with corporate rules.

As far as food quality, the temperature of foods was strictly regulated, as was the amount of time between preparation and delivery of foods. The oil in deep fry vats was changed on a regular schedule to keep it fresh. Back then, we had two kinds of hamburger patties: 10-to-1 and 4-to-1, meaning one-tenth or one-quarter of a pound in a quick frozen state. (A fair amount less in a cooked state.)

I didn’t mind doing the work. I learned the rules fairly quick and rapidly made it to the esteemed rank of head shift cook. But I didn’t like the way our store’s owner dealt with employees. There were lots of other jobs available, so I quit. (The guy was later indicted for embezzling from the franchise.)

As the years went by, I had steadily fewer occasions to go to this McDonald’s store. (For one thing, there are now two stores closer to where I live.) The joint was renovated numerous times. They replaced the outdoor playground with an indoor play place. They expanded the capacity of the drive through. The place seemed to always have plenty of business.

Yesterday afternoon when I drove by the place, it had been demolished. There was a big tractor parked atop the rubble. One of the kids said that he heard that it had been closed for renovations. I have since discovered that they are completely replacing the structure, which was 50 years old.

I don’t mind the progress. But seeing this building torn down also leaves me with a kind of melancholy feeling. I’m not completely sure why. I rarely patronize McDonald’s nowadays anyway. Perhaps it’s because I kind of grew up along with the place and its demise gives me a sense of my own mortality. I’m sure that after the new structure opens nobody will miss the old place much.

Tron: Old Technology, Some Quirks, but Enjoyable

My son recently showed me the trailer for the upcoming movie Tron Legacy, which is a sequel to the 1982 Disney film Tron. It had been many years since I had seen Tron, but I remembered it as being a pretty great movie.

Tron was the first movie to extensively use computer graphics in an age when green screen technology was in the stone age by today’s standards. Tron captured the interest of the video gaming genre that was burgeoning at the time. It was different, new, and exciting. But it only earned modestly at the box office. The video games it spawned produced more revenue than the movie.

Having been piqued by the trailer for the sequel (to be released just before Christmas 2010), we took an opportunity to sit down and watch the original film again. My oldest son said that he was just a kid the last time he saw it. I told him that he was born years after the last time I saw it.

It turned out that my memory of the movie was much better than the movie itself. Don’t get me wrong. We had fun watching the film. But some of the acting was lousy. Or perhaps some of the direction of the actors was lousy. And of course, the development of technology over the past 28 years makes some of Tron’s erstwhile awesome special effects seem poor, quirky, or even campy. (It is amazing to compare the 1982 Tron technology with what you see in the trailer for the sequel. We’ve come a long way.)

The constant black background in the computer scenes in the old Tron is wearying to me. The dark sets and re-colored monochrome faces sometimes make it difficult to tell which character you are seeing. Some of the film’s transitions are also rough.

The last time I saw Tron, I had not yet begun my career as a software systems engineer. I had to laugh when I saw the boxy monochrome screen computers that were state-of-the art back in those days, because I remember working on such machines. I also laughed at the klunky interfaces. Sure, these things were done for art, but they weren’t that far off from the real thing. My kids were amazed when I pointed out that no computer in the movie had a mouse. To them, computers have always had mice. Except for video games, the only input devices shown were keyboards.

I was reminded that once when my brother and I were in college, we managed to borrow a dumb terminal from a neighbor who had obtained it cheaply when a nearby hospital had shut down. We put this massive thing up in our basement. We’d dial the phone number of the college’s mainframe computer and then put the receiver of the old AT&T rotary phone in a cradle that attached to the monitor. After a series of tones, a login prompt came up on the terminal.

Once logged in, we could write and run our BASIC, COBOL, and Fortran programs from home. The transmission speed was interminably slow, but it was faster than driving to the college and waiting for a terminal in the computer room to become free. And by golly, it beat having to use a keypunch machine (like I did in my first two computer courses).

Back to Tron. As far as acting goes, David Warner does a fairly decent job as all three villains. He’s insidious and tyrannical, but he’s not completely ruthless. He is, after all, a Disney villain. As the human Dillinger, he finds himself unpleasantly subjected to the Master Control Program, a computer program he wrote. In effect, he’s the program’s stooge, but he must never let anyone discover this, lest his career be destroyed. As the computer program Sark, the MPC’s main agent inside the computer, Warner is cold and cruel.

I had not remembered how wooden Bruce Boxleitner (Alan/Tron) is when playing his real world character, Alan. Or how huge the lenses on his 1980s glasses are. At the very beginning of the movie when Alan walks into the bad guy’s office, his acting comes across as stiff as something I’d expect to see in a high school drama production. He’s better as the computer program Tron than as a human. Cindy Morgan’s character (Lora/Yori) is way too simple. She seems almost goofily willing at times. Jeff Bridges (Flynn/Clu) seems more believable, but he has some stupid lines as well.

Several transitions and plot devices in the film are odd. Flynn seems far too willing to tell Alan and Lora about his stymied attempts to illegally hack their company’s computers. When he explains that he is trying to get justice, Lora (who is a scientist with a PhD) immediately and without supporting evidence suggests that they break into the plant so they can infiltrate the computer internally. While they are sneaking around the place, Alan and Lora seem too little concerned with the idea that they could lose their jobs and/or go to jail for their activities. Perhaps the writers assumed that having a PhD doesn’t mean that one has good judgment.

When Ram is dying, the transition from a casual to an intense connection between him and Flynn seems too abrupt. Then the moment lasts too long. Flynn’s willingness to jump into the Master Control Program seems odd. Sure the computer programs he is interacting with have human features and tendencies (in fact they get more human throughout the movie), but even a computer geek isn’t going to kill himself to save bits of data. Maybe Flynn is supposed to know that jumping into the MPC will restore him to the real world, but I don’t think that’s explained in the movie.

Near the end of the film the computer prints off “evidence” that Flynn developed games for which the villain Dillinger has gotten credit. Anybody could print something like that. It hardly seems like enough evidence to result in Flynn becoming the boss of the company. Reportedly, original shots showed more of a database printout, but the film makers worried that audiences wouldn’t get the connection. So they simplified it. Too simple, I think.

The main plot device — man’s fear of technology — is older than history itself. The fear of technology has been a recurring theme ever since humans began to use rudimentary tools. Science fiction in the computer era has frequently focused on machines becoming tyrannically powerful. The hero is usually a fallible human underdog that exploits some hubristic weakness in the machine. Tron’s plot fits nicely into this story line.

As a software developer, I have to laugh at the ongoing superstition about the coming of omnipotent computers. I guess that most people don’t realize the lengths to which we must often go to get computer programs to do things most of them think of as pretty simple. While we are much better at getting applications and computers to communicate than in the old days, the idea of artificially intelligent computing omnipotence seems like extreme fantasy to me. Computers in the real world aren’t that efficient.

Tron has its flaws, but it is still a decent movie to watch. It captures a time a generation ago when video arcades were a popular social phenomenon; before kids could carry around dozens of video games on pocket-size devices. It was an important film in that it opened the eyes of the entertainment world to the possibilities of computer assisted film making. Since then, computers have become essential tools to pretty much all film making.

If you think you might want to watch the Tron Legacy sequel that comes out late this year, I suggest that you first watch the original Tron movie as a refresher. You too might get a few laughs from old technology. Just don’t expect to see any computer mice.

Everything is Still Vanity When It Comes to Politics

In a comment on my last post, Travis Grant suggested that he’d like to see me do a political post again. In December, I wrote that I would be taking a break from political blogging for an indeterminate time.

During my hiatus from overtly political posts at this site, I have continued to be politically informed. On occasion I have made comments on other political blogs. But my commentary has followed more of a sniper pattern. I fire off a comment and then leave.

Over the past three months, I have spent more time doing things with my family. I have dedicated more time to family history work than in the past. And it has been pretty pleasant.

It takes time and dedication to write a decently researched political post. It is much easier to spout stuff off the top of my head while concerning myself little with referential linking. But such posts are less fulfilling. Besides, psychologists know that we all tend to use logic to support what we already think anyway.

As I noted in my December post, an important part of blogging is maintaining the comment stream. I just don’t presently have as much time for that as I used to. And frankly, I don’t care to respond to some comments. Taking time to respond to certain comments seems to cross the line of absurdity, as it often leads to meaningless pro-forma debates. And yet, it doesn’t seem quite right to leave such comments unrefuted. Ah, the dilemma.

Actually, I have written a handful of political posts over the past three months, only to end up tossing them. Most often, I have ended up muddling around when attempting to drive to a conclusion. Other times I have written conclusions, but on reflection have found them unconvincing even to me. It would be ridiculous to post such dreck.

Perhaps the root of the problem is my growing political cynicism. Rather than basing my thoughts on political arguments and posturing, I have started to pay closer attention to what politicians actually do. The result has been a drastic lowering of expectations of politicians and of the whole political system.

Since lowering my expectations, I have rarely been disappointed by a politician or by a political outcome. There has been an abundant supply of politicians that live down to my abysmal expectations. If I wait long enough, the seemingly rare exceptions to this rule often end up proving the rule correct.

But I have become aware that there is a healthy market for political saviors. Vast swaths of people exhibit with deep religious ferver their faith in salvation through politics, despite the abundant evidence that such a belief is based in something other than reality.

Of course, supply always pops up to meet demand. Thus, there is no shortage of political entrepreneurs that are eager to play the demanded role of savior. This would all be comical if the consequences weren’t so serious.

I suppose you could say that I have lost my faith in the religion of politics. I still observe politics and formulate theories about what is happening and why. But I feel as if I am outside of the congregation of political believers.

Still, I hold certain political principles to be true. But I am also aware of others that are deeply devoted to opposing principles. And I am aware that some of the principles that I cherish most dearly are broadly ignored — something that calls into question the validity of my beliefs. Or perhaps, it makes public statements of these beliefs seem like a futile exercise.

I don’t really have anything to tie all of this rambling together. But that is where I am with respect to politics at the moment. Maybe this helps explain my current aversion to writing political posts.

Finances and Responsibility

At one point in my career, I worked as a bank branch operations manager. It sounds a lot more prestigious than it really was. I handled customer service issues that the tellers couldn’t immediately handle, made sure that each teller had appropriate amounts of cash on hand throughout the shift, helped tellers periodically balance out, managed safety deposit access, and helped with required reports. I didn’t actually manage anyone.

One of the main features of the bank where I worked was to supplement low salary with prestige. Lots of people that wore nice clothes to work, sat at nice looking desks, and had nameplates with important sounding titles really didn’t make much money. One of the things that caused me to search for other job opportunities was when I realized how little many of the bank’s long-term titled employees were earning.

One day a hot looking Corvette pulled into the parking lot. The driver climbed out wearing a black leather jacket, shades, tight jeans, and leather boots. I noticed some of the female tellers eyeing his build, chiseled features, and wavy dark hair as he sauntered into the building. Not only did this guy drive a Vette, he looked every bit the part.

He came to my desk complaining about nine bounced check charges that he said were erroneous. He said that merchants had piled on more charges of their own. I said that I’d be glad to help. I asked him to explain how he knew that the charges were improper. He showed me his checkbook register and said that his records showed that he still had money in his account.

I pulled up the guy’s account records and saw that he was dramatically overdrawn. In fact, it looked like he hadn’t achieved a positive balance for months. The balance in his check register bore no resemblance to the bank’s records.

When I explained the balance mismatch as diplomatically as possible, Mr. Corvette nonchalantly said that he had at one point written his overdraft protection amount in as a deposit. He simply considered the monthly overdraft charges to be acceptable fees. These monthly charges were pretty high. It had never previously crossed my mind that anyone would consider purposefully paying them month after month.

I pulled this man’s last couple of bank statements and asked him to show me where he felt the bank had erred. He became irritated and said that he had no idea where the bank had messed up because he hadn’t reconciled his checkbook for those months. Looking at his register, I said that I’d be happy to do the reconciliation for those two months, but I needed him to show me where he had completed the previous month’s reconciliation.

At this point, the fellow looked at me with contempt and said that he had never reconciled his account in the six years he had had it. But he insisted that his math was accurate and that the bank’s math wasn’t. I realized that the only way to find any possible error would be to reconcile the customer’s check registers against the bank’s records for six years running. The charges about which he was angry may well have stemmed from a miscalculation five years earlier. Unfortunately, the man no longer had his past check registers. So, even that avenue was closed.

I explained that without evidence, I had to consider the bank’s records to be accurate. Bank policy did allow me to reverse duplicate charges where some merchants had tried to submit the same check twice, resulting in two bounced check charges. But there was no way I would be permitted to cancel all of the charges.

Anger flashed in the man’s dark eyes. He said, “I have been a good customer of this bank for six years, but now I am going to take my business somewhere else!” I wanted to say that his statement would be true if he dropped the word good, but instead I said that I would surface his concerns to the main customer service department. He then said that he wanted to close his account. I explained that he would have to expunge the negative balance before the bank could close the account.

The unhappy customer grumbled something, stalked out of the bank, jumped into his Corvette, and drove away. For a long time afterward I wondered what I could have done differently to provide a better outcome. I finally concluded that I had done everything possible to help this man, but that his poor financial discipline prevented a happier result.

Life is like that. Sometimes we make poor choices that prevent good outcomes down the road. It is natural to be angry and lash out when the consequences of these unfortunate choices strike. But the path from that point will be much better if we accept personal responsibility for our choices.

Reunion Aversion

I don’t attend my high school class reunions. I am very selective about attending other types of reunions. A few years ago I attended a reunion of missionaries that served in the mission where I served. (Those familiar with LDS culture in the Wasatch Front area know that mission reunions are commonly held each six months, timed to coincide with the church’s general conferences.) The reunion I attended was OK. But I note that I haven’t bothered to attend subsequent ones.

I do, however, attend my wife’s high school class reunions. She derives much more enjoyment from these kinds of events than I do. Since I love her, I go with her.

During two of the years my wife was in college, she was a member of a performing folkdance group at the LDS institute of religion adjacent to the college. She and I courted during her final few months as a member of that group. Although my dancing skills were and are limited, I often attended the group’s practices, performances (as a spectator/helper), and socials. The group performed dances at our wedding reception.

Last weekend that folkdance group held a reunion for all 670+ people that have been members of the group at anytime during its 32-year existence. My wife was on the reunion committee. That meant that I was an adjunct member of the committee. I found that my place was to help with setup and cleanup, which was OK with me. This was the third such reunion of the group, with the first being 20 years ago and the second being 12 years ago.

We arrived a couple of hours before the event to get things set up. That situation required more working than socializing. As the start time for the event rolled around, I looked around the large hall to see members of the reunion committee along with a handful of others. We were set to handle more than 200 people. I began to wonder if the event might be a bust, but the committee head assured me that at least 150 had solidly committed to attend. Within an hour the place was bustling. Almost every seat was filled, although, some people stood chatting and never sat down.

The chief purpose of the event was to socialize and renew acquaintances. I had the pleasure of rubbing shoulders with a few childhood friends, as well as friends made during college days. It is always amazing to see people a decade or two after having last seen them. It is surprising to see how little some have changed and how much others have. There were a couple of people I was able to recognize only after reading their nametags.

It’s like I’ve got a snapshot in my head of what each person should look like based on what they looked like the last time I saw them. It somehow seems like a shock to see that people have aged since that snapshot was taken. Besides, there were videos playing around the hall showing these people dancing back in their college days. So it seemed natural to make now-and-then comparisons.

It was good to catch up a bit with people that we hadn’t seen for a while. Most were just busy with their families and careers. Most seemed to be doing well. One friend that went through a painful divorce a few years ago attended the event with her fiancé, who seems to be a very nice fellow. I hope the best for them. A fair number came without his/her spouse, as some spouses sensed little personal connection to the group.

One feature of the evening was a performance by current members of the folkdance team. Another feature was when attendees were invited to step out onto the dance floor to try their skill at performing some of the dances they did when they were on the team. I watched, but did not dance. I was grateful that my wife was able to partner with a friend of ours whose wife is not a dancer.

When it came time to wrap up, several spouses of dancers joined me in cleaning up while dancers danced and visited with each other. It was still pretty late by the time the members of the committee closed up and left the building.

My wife has been somewhat self conscious in the past couple of years about the amount of gray showing up in her hair. But she has been reluctant to consider hair coloring. Once you start, she says, it’s constant maintenance. Besides, I think she looks great without coloring her hair. On the way home, she hoped that I wouldn’t think her too vain if she opined that her hair looks pretty good compared with some of her contemporaries.

I try to avoid reunions when I can. I am more likely to attend a rare or one-off reunion than an ongoing event. Part of me has moved on. I am busy with the present. My heart and head generally don’t live in that past realm, so why should I repeatedly go there? On the other hand, I have to admit that attending my wife’s folkdance team reunion turned out to be quite a pleasant experience.

Boy Scout Hiking In Yellowstone Preserved

Last month I posted about the prospect of Camp Loll losing most of its back country hiking opportunities in nearby Yellowstone National Park. In my post, I asserted that this condition arose pursuant to a Sierra Club lawsuit. It turns out that this was a misunderstanding. I apologize for spreading this idea. Rather, the park service was working to respond to recent heavier use of the Bechler area of Yellowstone.

A number of Camp Loll’s supporters called or wrote to their congressional delegations, Yellowstone’s superintendent, and the chief of Yellowstone’s Concessions Management Division. I received a prompt reply from the park superintendent assuring me that a park delegation would meet with representatives of Camp Loll and Trapper Trails Council, BSA to address the issue.

That meeting occurred yesterday. Camp Director Delose Connor provides a brief report on the congenial meeting in this post. The rangers were very interested in accommodating Camp Loll’s hikers, but they also clearly outlined the need to limit impact to the Bechler area to preserve its wilderness quality. The rangers’ main concern was daily impact.

The rangers explained that the notification demanding that Camp Loll obtain a conditional use permit was meant for commercial entities and had been sent to the Scout council in error. The camp is, however, required to obtain a special use permit that is essentially an agreement on usage. Any other nonprofits with outdoor aims that want to use the area on a regular basis will need to do the same. The good news is that the park appears very willing to work with such groups.

At yesterday’s meeting, the ranger staff and the Scouting representatives worked together to craft a plan that would maximize Yellowstone back country hiking opportunities while achieving the goal of moderating daily impact on the Bechler area. Delose will provide more details when the agreement is complete and signed, but the gist is that it is a win-win solution.

The camp will be able to continue its current program for the 2010 season. Beginning in 2011, the camp will split its hike day across two days. During the season, half of the camp will hike on each Wednesday while the other half participates in the normal in-camp program. They will switch these activities on Thursdays. Camp Loll will need to hire a few more staffers to maintain its ability to run a competent in-camp program while a number of staffers are off hiking. But it is exciting to note that a couple of new hiking opportunities will be made available to the camp’s hikers.

All of this will work together to reduce daily impact on the Bechler area, while still allowing the camp to send roughly the same number of hikers into the park each week as they have for years. More hiking variety will be available. Units that go on shorter hikes and return to camp earlier in the afternoon will have the opportunity to participate in programs that have previously been closed on hike days. With fewer hikers going to Union Falls on any given hike day, hikers will be able to spend more time at Scout Pool.

I am breathing a sigh of relief. Not only will I be able to hike to Union Falls with my son and his Scout troop this summer, the new agreement between Camp Loll and Yellowstone will be an improvement for all interested parties and for the environment.

A Journal is for ... What?

I first started keeping a regular journal when I began serving as a missionary for my church at age 19. Over the next several years I wrote faithfully, eventually filling two binders. In time I slacked off. Instead of writing four or five times weekly, I found myself writing several times monthly. That rate decreased to sporadic entries that were sometimes months apart.

Then in the dawn of the personal computer era, I began keeping my journal in electronic format. This was in the days before WYSIWYG was common. I once again kept my journal faithfully. But like many back in those days, I had a poor understanding of data security. My only copy was on a floppy disc.

I can still remember the desperation I felt when my journal file died. No amount of effort, even by my super geek friend, was able to restore the file. In the blink of an eye, an entire year of my ramblings disappeared forever. I was so upset by this that I quit writing for a year.

After repeated admonishments by church leaders to keep a journal, I made a New Year’s resolution 14 years ago to do so. I have kept that resolution to this day. I average about five journal entries per week. I keep my journal in word processing files, creating a new file for each month and keeping each year’s files in a separate folder. You can bet that I keep this stuff redundantly backed up. I don’t want to lose it again.

Recently I started working on bringing my older files up to modern protocols. Paper can deteriorate and ink can fade. But as long as it is kept from the elements, advancing technology usually doesn’t render your pen and paper writings obsolete. Not so with electronic files. No one can guarantee timeless support for old computing protocols. (Of course, it is difficult to do word searches using paper copies.)

Not only have I copied my old word processing files to new ones, I have been creating a composite file for each year, which I have then converted to PDF format. PDF used to be a proprietary format, but it is now an open standard. Hopefully that will keep it viable for some time. But even open standards drop support for older versions as they are updated. So I anticipate the need to repeat this exercise in the future.

I have long considered getting my journal printed. A local shop prints and binds long electronic documents for a fee. Of course, you pay extra for heirloom quality paper and printing. I do have some concerns about doing this. For one thing, I have realized during my project that I now have thousands of journal pages. Printing these would be somewhat pricey and would produce a number of volumes. What time period would be appropriate for a volume? Five years? Ten? Maybe it’s simply a function of size, say 400 pages.

Then there are privacy concerns. Although most of my writings are horribly mundane (and probably inane to others that might peruse them), there’s some pretty personal stuff in there. I’m not too thrilled about the idea of employees at the print shop having access to all of that.

During my upgrade project, I have begun to reflect on my purpose in keeping a journal. It turns out that there are times that my electronic journal has helped me find an important date or event. But that’s not really why I write. Is it for posterity? To be honest, I can barely stand to go back and read the glop that I record in my journal. It seems like gross fantasy to assume that any of my progeny might someday pore over thousands of pages of my routine daily events interspersed with mawkish musings.

A Romanian blogger named Ririan gives 10 reasons to keep a journal in this 2006 post. Most of Ririan’s reasons — stress reduction, improved organization skills, keener personal insight — focus on self improvement. Professional writer Jack Oceano gives eight reasons in this 2007 post. Some of these parallel Ririan’s thoughts. Others focus on the craft of writing. But Oceano’s number one reason is that journal entries are like snapshots that capture raw emotion in a way that photo snapshots never can.

I have just looked at a host of articles about how to keep a journal and have discovered that I have been doing it wrong all these years. Most articles suggest that your main writing emphasis should be your immediate thoughts and feelings. Humdrum details should be kept to a minimum.

My writings have this equation exactly reversed. I record what some would consider minutia. My personal feelings occasionally break through the particulars to spill onto the page, but even then they are often guarded and much less raw than Oceano proposes. I find that I am more likely to express my positive emotions in writing while being cautious about letting my negative emotions show.

I am not opposed to learning to do something different if I deem it to be beneficial. Positive growth entails (sometimes uncomfortable) change. But I am not certain that altering my journal writing to feature emotion above information would reflect me better than does my current tack. Nor am I certain I would find it as fulfilling. Details are important to me.

I guess that I write a journal for similar reasons that I exercise daily. It is a positive effort that requires a certain amount of self discipline and that provides certain psychological payoffs. I am not certain that anyone else will ever read from my journal. Frankly, I don’t expect them to. But if they do, I hope that they read enough to get a broader picture of who I am and gain some understanding of the growth process that led me to this identity.