Last lecture of the semester

Today was my last lecture of the semester. Like yesterday, I was teaching my MW class about blogging and other trends and issues in PR. All that is left now is the last test and finals. I know the students are looking forward to the semester break.

Speeding toward the end of the semester

I know I haven't posted much lately. It seems like closer it is to the end of the semester, the faster it is that the time goes by. I seems like the entire month of November has only been two weeks long.

I'm skipping my workout this morning to finish something for class tomorrow night. Because of conferences and Thanksgiving, we haven't had a Thursday night class since Nov. 10, yet still I struggle to finish the homework. Part of that is the amount of work. The prof said we had 120 pages of reading, but two of the articles were photocopied two pages per sheet, so in reality, it was 200. I truly spent time working on it every week, but it was just a lot to get through. I am still working on answering the objectives from the readings so I can study for the quiz tomorrow.

I've also spent a lot of time on what I'm teaching. I assigned both classes papers, which took me two weekends to grade. They have a test this week and then finals in two weeks. I've developed their test for this week, but still need to do their final. Plus I need to work on their final grades.

I also had a group project due this week. We conducted a focus group on blogging and then wrote the results. The project went well. Unfortunately I have been so busy I haven't had time to work on the 15 page paper due for this class in 12 days. Ugh! But before that's due, I have a take home final for my Thursday night class, which will end up being a 10 page paper. I hope to knock it out this weekend and then spend all next week on my paper. As for my thesis, I just haven't had time to work on it.

Sigh. I am looking forward to the semester break for no other reason that to get caught up.

Serial killer or computer programmer?

Can you tell the difference between a serial killer and a computer programmer? Take this quiz and find out.

You would think that with all the CSIs, Law & Orders and various serial killer biographies I watch on A&E and the History Channel, plus all the computer folks I hang out with, I would be good at this. However, I only got 2 out of 10 correct and one was the Son of Sam. How well can you do?

A new way to meet the neighbors

Evidently we have a busted pipe in our house. We realized this today when our next door neighbor stopped by to tell us that there was a foot of water by our water meter. It was freezing last night, so I don't know if something busted then or not. Since that time, several people walking by the house noticed it and stopped to tell us. I figure that is one way to meet new people. The plumber is coming tomorrow; we hope this will be covered by our home warranty.

Teaching about blogs

Today I am teaching my TTH class about trends in PR. Specially we are discussing search engine optimization and search engine marketing, podcasting, and of course, blogging. I am discussing moBlogging, or mobile blogging, by taking their photo on my cell phone and posting it on the blog in just seconds. I only wish the camera phone had a wide-angle lens so I could have included the other side of the classroom in the shot as well. :-)

Power shift

Normally in our house it is the dogs that terrorize the cat. As a general rule, Dexter stays as far away from the dogs as possible. However, recently Dexter learned how he can terrorize the dogs.

Our dogs have been trained not to go after food until we give them the command. They will sit there for 5 minutes with food in their dish, waiting to go after it. In fact, once I walked away to do something and forgot all about the dogs -- 15 minutes later I notice them outside, with a big puddle of drool on the ground and food in their dish, waiting for mommy to say they can eat.

Of course anyone who has ever had a cat knows that it's very difficult to train one, and waiting for food is just not in their nature. Dexter is using this to his advantage with the dogs. The other night Doug and I were having ice cream and placed the empty bowl on the floor for the dogs to lick. As they were waiting for us to let them go at it, Dexter comes up between them -- which is normally like Odysseus trying to navigate the Scylla and Charybdis. Feeling confident, the cat licked the ice cream bowl while the dogs looked at us with big, sad eyes. "Why is kitty getting the bowl and we can't have it," they seemed to say.

Dexter had his fill and went back to his lair, knowing that at least momentarily, he had the power over the dogs.

Teacher's pet

Tonight Dexter is helping me grade papers. I know I haven't blogged much lately but it's been real busy.

All's quiet on the Austin front

In the no news is good news department, it's been a busy, yet relatively uneventful week. I was fighting a cold and it won, but other than that, it's just been school work. Finals are in less than a month, so it will be crazy between now and then.

Cyber kitty

Tonight Dexter is helping with my homework. He is helping create a list of questions for a focus group on blogging -- a group project for my theories class. I'm lucky to have such a helpful cat.

My name is Dara and I am a slave to technology

Tomorrow I have a two-page due on why, "New technologies are not improving the quality of our lives, they are making us slaves of technology." I'm not really sure what this has to do with mass communication theories, but I will leave that to another post. Of course, I don't believe the point of view that technology is evil, but I do believe in making an A in a class. G, one of my classmates, read the paper and thought I did a good job of meeting the paper requirements, but proving my side. For this reason, I thought I'd share.

I am a self-admitted technophile; almost 10 years of working with technology companies will do that to you. I think of most things in terms of technology. If I need to talk to my sisters about the holidays, I email them; if I want to check a local move time, I look it up online. It doesn’t help that I live in a city that is a technology hub and that most of my friends are also techies. I strongly believe that technology is a positive force in our lives. Still, I realize how easy it is to become a slave to technology.

Today we can be plugged in 24/7 and communication is at our fingertips. We can access email from work, school, home, and even the local sandwich shop, but this isn’t always a good thing as often we forget to unplug. I get home from class after 10 p.m. and my first urge is to check my email and see what I missed in the last four hours. I wake up in the morning and grab my laptop and get online before I get out of bed, reading the morning headlines and checking email. With my laptop and wireless Internet, I can be online anywhere at any time and when I’m not, I feel disconnected. In this way I have become a slave to technology.

The ease of accessibility and the immediate nature of technology is what make us slaves to it. When I started my career working at the corporate offices of Wal-Mart, we had a strict “sundown rule” which said all telephone calls had to be returned before leaving work. The thought was that if it was important enough for someone to pick up a phone and call you, then it was important enough for them to receive a call back. The Internet takes the thought out of communication. For example, I often get email questions from students that they could easily have found the answer to themselves by looking on Blackboard. This is not unique to students – in general, people would rather email someone for an answer instead of finding it themselves. Unfortunately, the receiver often feels that it is necessary to respond immediately. As I am working on this paper students email me with questions regarding their class projects. Not wanting to slow down their progress, I interrupt my writing to answer their questions, which actually slows my progress. Yet because it was a personal message to me, I feel like I have to respond now. This is another way I am a slave to technology.

Sometimes technology can become a crutch, becoming so engrained into our way of thinking that we can’t possibly imagine doing something without using technology. Last Thanksgiving Doug and I went to Little Rock to see my family. Doug was contracting for Dell and had a project report he had to finish that weekend. His laptop was configured so that he could only access the Dell network through a wireless connection. We didn’t see this as a problem because we thought that all bookstores and coffee shops had hot spots and we could just spend a day there. Unfortunately we found that there were very few hot spots in Little Rock. Even when we found one, Dell’s external network connection crashed. We cut our trip short, driving back to Austin late at night so Doug could go into the office to complete his report.

I am old enough to remember the days when we had only four television channels, microwave ovens were science fiction, and telephones were rotary dials. Maybe that’s why I appreciate it that now I can take my laptop into a coffee shop and sit for hours chatting with a friend on the other side of the globe. I believe that technology has allowed us to become less isolated and more connected to the world around us, but it is that convenience and connectivity has also enslaved us. It is almost too easy for us to communicate and allow others to think for us and provide us answers. Because of the immediate nature of technology, we are more likely to respond to communication as though it is urgent when it is not, and it is difficult for us to imagine completing a task without technology. Still, we must remember that the rise of technology has taken only a few years; perhaps if we give it a few more, we will learn how to make technology work efficiently for us instead of us working for technology.

Welcome to sweeps month

Four months a year television stations pull out all the punches to try and get ratings. These months, known as sweeps, are important because ratings from these months will set advertising rates for the rest of the year. November is probably the most important sweeps period because is the first ratings period for the shows introduced at the beginning of the new television season.

Local news is not immune to sweeps; this is when you get the most sensationalistic stories. Often, it's stories that would not normally make the news and usually it is sensationalism over substance. Last night KXAN aired one of these stories, about prostitution on South Congress. More specifically, it was about how some Katrina evacuees have joined the working girls on South Congress. The reporter interviewed a vice cop and evidently the cops have noticed five more working girls on the street.

What got us was the tone the reporter took and how she was trying to make a big deal out of it. It sounded like she was reporting on a horrendous disaster rather than just 5 more prostitutes. Heck, I bet at least 100 working girls come to town during SXSW. Of course, SXSW happens in March, which is not sweeps.

The other thing that got us was the interview with the owner of Opal Divines, a local watering hole. Opal Divines has an outdoor deck and during one police roundup of hookers, customers on Opal's deck would sit there with their beer, watching the arrests and would applaud every time the cops napped someone. The police would then look up at the restaurant crowd, wave, and get another girl.

Now that's Austin for you.

Fun beer game

Jim Small sent this fun little beer game. Enjoy!

No news is good news

This weekend has been very low-key and no news to report. Yesterday Doug and I went to see the movie North County, which was really good. Other than that, he played poker and watched football while I did homework.

I turned in my final draft of my book chapter for Instructional Comm on Thursday. Glad that project is over; it frees up a bit of time while my other class is starting to heat up. Just a little over a month until the send of the semester. I am so looking forward to the spring.

Making headway on my thesis

Not sure how, but I have a bit of time to breathe this week. This means I have was able to finish and post my survey for my thesis. The survey examines the reliance on the Internet as a source of news and information. This survey will take less than 10 minutes; if you could take it, it would really help in completing my thesis.

What would be most helpful, however, is if you could forward this survey to people that you know, people in your address book, and mailing lists that you might be a part of. The issue of doing surveys regarding the Internet is that there is no centralized database of Internet users. As such, the academic community generally conducts what is called the "snowball technique" with these types of surveys -- basically asking people to forward the survey on to others. The fact that I don't know who you send it to, and that it can go anywhere, allows this survey to be more random. However, this only works if you forward it to others, and ask the people you send it to do the same.

All responses will remain confidential; I will not know who takes the survey.

I appreciate your assistance with this.

Texas state of mind

It's 10:30 a.m. and I am driving down the "highway of death" (aka I-35); I'm just south of Austin on my daily commute to San Marcos. My mind is racing, thinking about school and an issue that I have to deal with. My brain wanders, thinking about what I will do after I finish grad school. As I play out various senarios, I suddenly realize that ZZ Top is on the radio. The song is "Tush," and at this point I have to crank up the stereo. The song takes me to a completely different state, the state of Texas, where being is all that needs to be. A smile crosses my face and my problems seem to fade. I look at at the road ahead of me and I notice what a blue, clear sky it is today. At this point, I crack open the vent on my sun roof; I don't even mind that there is still a nip in the air; temperatures in the 40s feel nice, especially as it will warm by the afternoon. I am happy and content. This is what is great about living in central Texas. This is what I would miss if we ever moved.

My mind begins to wander again, this time thinking about how great a band ZZ Top is. I have loved them since I was a teen, but appreciate them more now that I am older. You hear parents today talking about bad lyrics in songs, but let's face it, ZZ Top was the worst. Not that parents ever knew it. Heck, even as a teenager we had no idea what they were talking about.

I remember when my friend Mary first told me what a pearl necklace was. I think we were seniors in high school. After I spent a minute thinking about it, I asked Mary "do you think that's what the ZZ Top song was about?" Mary answered that she wasn't sure. Of course the next time we were in the car and the song came on, we turned it up and sure enough, that was what the song was about. We thought that was so cool.

I don't remember how old I was when I realize that "La Grange" was about the Chicken Ranch. I must have been in my 20s. Even today I get into discussion with folks about the lyrics. I'll admit, part of the problem is that they are singing "home out on the range," and unless you know the title and know about the history of the Chicken Ranch, you don't put two-and-two together.

I'm tapping the beat with my fingers on the steering wheel when the song ends; I come back to reality. I don't want the Texas state of mind to leave, so I start punching the buttons on the radio to find the right song. Nothing works. The CD has John Mellencamp -- mid-western boy is just not the same. I realize that the Texas feel-good moment was fleeting and now it's gone. I turn down the radio, as what is on is not worthy of being blasted through the speakers, and I close my sunroof. I slip back to thinking of the issue of the day. Tomorrow I have to remember to grab a ZZ Top cd and put it in the car.

If you don't like October in Texas you don't like Texas

Believe it or not, I'm actually quoting former UT football coach Darell Royal, which I know could cost me my Razorback card. However, Coach Royal's saying is true -- October in Texas is the best. The weather is perfect today. Doug and I took his parents to Lucy's Boathouse Grill for dinner on the pier. I could sit here forever.

Who do Sudoku?

It seems as though the French family has gotten caught up in a craze, and Doug and I have become a part of it. A few weeks ago Doug's mom emailed us that Aunt Margaret had gotten into sudoku puzzles and told Doug's dad about it. His dad bought a few books and was hooked. Doug's mom thought Doug might like it. Doug, ever looking for another hobby, downloaded a few puzzles; when he found an online electronic version, I got hooked.

Sudoku is a puzzle with a series of boxes, numbered 1-9. A few numbers are filled in, and you have to deduce the rest. I like the electronic version because I know right away if I made a mistake or not. It's like crosswords, but with numbers.

An article in Yahoo today said that Sudoku is really taking off and the books are selling like crazy. Nice to know we are trendy in something.

Dissecting the blogosphere

As part of Mass Comm Week we are have folks talking blogs. It's quite interesting.

Late nights, early mornings, long days and wrong shoes

I am exhausted and my body hurts. There is not enough time in the day to get everything done, especially this week. Monday night I had a midterm; it was three, 2-page essay questions and a 1-page bonus essay. Dr. R thought we could answer each question in a half hour and be out of there by 8. I'm glad she didn't hold us to time. In my effort to be complete, my essays went over two pages and I had to ask for a second blue book. My hand hurt. I also stopped to talk to someone on the way out, so it was after 9 when I left, which is normally what time we get out of class. No biggie.

Usually on Tuesdays I can sleep in, but not yesterday. I had to be back at school at 8 a.m. for a meeting regarding a group project. That means leaving the house by 6:30. Unfortunately this week is a lot of early mornings just to fit everything in.

Yesterday I went to lunch with my friends G and R; we walked to a Chinese restaurant across from the university. For whatever reason, G decided to cut across the grass and go down a muddy hill -- the closest point/straight line theory I guess. I was wearing these open-toe slip-ons and my feet got caked. R laughed and said no one would notice because no one did when I wore different shoes.

A couple of weeks ago it was a busy Thursday morning and I went to slip on a pair of shoes. I have two open toe-shoes I like, one is black with two straps and one is navy with one. I put on the navy shoes, or so I thought. Once I got to campus I looked down at my feet as I walked to my office and noticed I was wearing two different shoes. One navy and one black. I was mortified. Just the day before I left my work clothes at home when I drove down to work out with my trainer at the campus gym; I ended up doing a short workout and driving an hour back home, getting ready, and driving an hour back. I might have cancelled class if I didn't have guest speakers.

But here it was the next day and two different shoes. There wasn't enough time to go home and get shoes. I knew Doug couldn't bring me the right shoe. I was embarrassed, but I decided I just had to live with it. Once in my office, R came in to visit. I pointed it out to him my two different shoes, but he said he hadn't noticed. Later, I taught and had a guest speaker, so I didn't stand the entire time in front of the 55 students. That night I had class, but we sit around a conference table and no one can see my feet. I went the entire day, at least 9 hours, and no one said anything about my mismatched shoes. I didn't have to die from mortification!

Until yesterday. I worked to get the mud off my shoes, but there is always a residue. At least they matched. As the students arrived, one of the girls who sits on the front row noticed the shoes and asked what happened. I explained, making the comment how no one noticed when I wore two different shoes the other week. "Oh, I did," said one girl. "I thought you were just doing it to see if someone noticed." Yeah, I'm doing an ethnographic study...I don't think so. "I noticed too," the first girl said. Evidently my students did notice but just didn't say anything. I was so embarrassed to think that everyone saw my fashion faux pas. Obviously I am just too exhausted to pick the correct shoes.

Brew your own damn wine and beer

Yesterday we saw a business idea that at first blush, seems great. It's Water 2 Wine and they call themselves a custom winery. I'm not sure if that is accurate, but what you do is make your own wine. The store wasn't open yet, but the guy let us look around. The set up is a tasting room, where they say they have more than 100 wines from 12 countries. You get to taste wines and when you find the one you want, you can make it. Since they are technically selling you grapes, there is not the taxes.

We didn't get to see the process, but we think they are selling wine kits that have the crushed grapes. It's almost as simple as adding the yeast and there you go. The store takes care of the primary and secondary fermination for you, so you simply come back in 45 days and your 5 gallons of wine is ready. You pick out your bottles, make labels and you have 2 cases of wine.

Doug and I thought this was a great business idea and started working through the idea. Basically we do the same process at home when we make wine (from the kits -- although generally we make it from scratch, where we have to crush the fruit). For folks who aren't homebrewers, they could get a taste of what it is like to make wine without being worried about equipment costs or being intimidated by the process. We actually pictured folks getting together like at a Paint Your Pottery place and making their own wine.

Then we did the numbers. The cost for wine kits, yeast, bottles, etc. Would run about $150. Of course that's retail, but that's what we had to go on. The store would almost have to sell the process at $200 per batch. That's not unreasonable, but the store would have to do quite a few $200 kits to pay for rent and turn a profit. We just started wondering how many folks a week would be willing to pay $200 to make their own wine. Of course, we didn't talk prices with this guy so we don't know what they are actually selling the wine for. We still think it's a great concept, we're just not ready to start our own store.

On the other hand, Doug is taking the beer brewing to the next level. He wondered if he could started a brew your own beer business, but I reminded him there is a cooking process involved and it's a bit more complicated. Not that he couldn't do it, but with wine, you can get that going in a matter of minutes, not hours. Anyway, Doug and Robert are going to take the final step and go to all grain brewing. Right now they do what's called mini-mash, which is some grain and some extracted. Robert is building an all-grain set up which will be brought to our house Monday. In the meantime, Robert has bought a fridge that he is going to turn into a kegerator for his house. That means that we are getting his two tap kegerator here at the house. Doug says that will get the kegs out of the extra fridge we have in the garage.

I was happy about that until he told me that freeing up the fridge will allow them to use it so they can make lagers. Somehow he is pulling one over on me because when he brought that fridge home he told me we would use it to chill wine and soft drinks and that I could use it for food storage when we had a party. I can't even fit a tiramisu in it, much less party trays. Oh well, who needs to serve food when you have beer. In fact, I think we now have beer in some form or another in every room in the house except our bedroom and the bathrooms. I'm sure if he thinks about it, Robert will figure out a way to but a kegerator in the bathroom as well.