Facebook was restored at the Crunk Factory just in time.

Not because it gave me the chance to learn of celebrities dropping like flies, but because it gave me something to do other than PowerPoint.

You see, I don't use PowerPoint at work very often. In fact, usually the only time I dust it off is for training classes I do during the summer. And with those classes coming up, I decided to get a head start this week in updating my stuff for this year.

As luck would have it however, Rita also needed my help for a presentation she had to give in her last class this semester. The fun began though not with teaching her how to cut and paste slides, but over the material she had to collect and collate from her group partners. Once we had receipt of their portions, then it was time to reconcile the master product.

Of course, I tend to follow a different philosophy about what you do with PowerPoint than some might. I try to put as few words as possible on a slide and instead focus on images and the line of sight. For example, I try to move the text and picture around on each slide so that if you see the picture on the right at first, then advancing to have the picture on the left. I also tend to enjoy using panoramic shots and other pictures that draw the eyes of the audience around. This forces them to pay attention, subconsciously.

I was trying think where I got such inspiration. It occurred to me this week that one of my favorite pastimes as a preteen was reading "The Cartoon History of the Universe" by Larry Gonick. History it turns out, is great material for a graphic novel. But few have done what Gonick has, using a graphic medium to illustrate both text and images at once.

But as you might imagine, it's not that easy to find pictures on the web without violating copyright. That's why I like to pay a visit to Wiki Commons. Yes, I know, you think this is probably lame, don't you? But in all truth, I find it fascinating the sort of photos I find there, historic or otherwise. Use the right font and you can have a very simple, but very powerful slide.

Of course, the other thing about PowerPoint is that it reminds how hard it is to teach. That for all the cool designs and hip technology, getting people to pay attention is difficult. Now you might wonder, Thomas, why don't you teach for a living? And the answer to that is pretty simple. Teaching is not a valued skill anymore. And by that I don't mean for students in high school or younger. No, I mean in the nation's best universities and graduate programs...teaching isn't what pays the bills...research does. And it really breaks my heart (if such a thing is possible) to imagine myself having to choose between research and teaching. Not because I think research is bad...because education is really about succession planning if you will. It's about replacing human capital before you die.

But as I told one of my coworkers along time ago, I could still be convinced to teach in a vocational setting. But I wanted to have real-life experience first, so that the poor students don't feel that I'm wasting their time...with my great oratory or my rad PowerPoint slides.

Echoing a sentiment I heard at work today, you never really know how much you appreciate time off until you lose it. And so, this was first full weekend in a while, allowing me to partake in that whole American Dream thing.

Originally, Rita wanted me to come with her to the annual 80's theme party sponsored by a local radio station. But I wasn't sure if I would have to work, so I passed on buying tickets. Not that it matter....because Saturday night we had an invitation to a friend of her's house party.

However, it was hardly close by. We had to leave the safe harbor of Cougar County to travel beyond Pointy Rock, and even the Silicon Desert to Frontierland. (Okay, I admit, Rita has lots of friends out there...but as you can imagine...I didn't want to be fighting the effects of both sleepiness and alcohol.) Ostensibly the plan was to do drinking games which were hilarious enough. But soon it gave way to someone saying the dreaded "T-word".

You know, Twister. A game which I've never forgotten since, oh kindergarten, but never played in about as long. And so if you thought that driving another man's Tahoe late at night was strange...imagine Rita and I being a team in a Twister tournament in the middle of the night in someone elses...yeah well it gets better.

One of the big cracks against Alta Sonora is that we have a lot of "refugees", I mean...transplants from other states. Coincidentally these other states are either very cold in the winter, or in economic decline (or in the case of Michigan or Ohio...both). But wouldn't you know it, Rita's friend is from Ohio and her roommate...Michigan! I mean, that's impressive by any measure of one's imagination. To say nothing of the fact that another couple whom the friend had known from high school was also at the party because they had moved here from Ohio...a week ago.

Not that I'm complaining. Just that I thought I would have already had an "authentic" Alta Sonoran house party experience before this one.  But it just goes to show you that even when you think a place has no more secrets or surprises left...there's always something new waiting around the bend.

 

There no coincidence so far as I can tell about the decision to block access to Facebook at the Crunk Factory and the civil disobedience in Iran. But as far as the week goes, it has to be the most significant revelation. Here’s why.

People are not machines. Employers since the dawn of the industrial revolution, I was told in college, have never really acknowledged that human rhythms have nothing to do with a forty-hour workweek. Indeed, I knew academics who favored being a student or professor because the pattern was much more human paced. (You might assume they meant slower, but what they really meant is that activity was broken into waves and not uniform over the course of an entire year.)

Facebook, however, with its functions like chat, games, and quizzes is bound to make any employer nervous that all productivity be irrevocably lost. Ironically though, I actually use the website as intended…to interact with my friends…especially those who live far away and I can’t keep in touch with on a regular basis. I also like to share news stories that I find are thought-provoking.

Of course, market researchers don’t like Facebook. “Social networking” encourages people to spend more time on the computer and less with family and flesh and blood friends, they say. But what they really mean is that social networking exposes people to something other than Procter & Gamble. Nobody was pounding sand when television was brought into the American home and disrupted family dinners. (Families amazingly still can eat dinner together if they want to.)

But here’s the thing. Facebook’s popularity just reflects social trends that people aren’t keen to highlight because of…well Procter & Gamble. Nobody wants to be told that society is as fragmented as ever and that alienation has made young adults more willing to keep in touch with friends through the Internet than introduce themselves to their next door neighbors. Or that “Generation Next” would rather meet friends with common interests online (like say kayaking) that attempt to do it at a local house of worship.

As the Cigarette-Smoking Man once said on the X-Files: “It’s about access.”

And while it would be convenient to say the same thing about Iran, I can’t. There, people expect and believe government to censor certain things or otherwise influence their behavior. It’s here that expectations are different.

Rest assured though, I’ll find something else to do on my lunch break. But the revolution isn’t going to be televised…unless Procter & Gamble is involved.

Everywhere you look, there is a hand to hold on to.

For it was looking like my services would be required again this weekend at the Crunk Factory, and I would get the prestige of working several days in a row yet again. But as luck would have it, as Saturday turned to night...I was sent home and told it was unlikely I would be needed on Sunday. Rita decided to go out dancing with a friend of hers and I was finally able to relax.

Then I got a call from her, telling me that Chey and his new girlfriend were going to get married that Monday. I thought it premature to say the least, but that's not the important part of the story. It's that the next morning, the woman called me and said I needed to pick Chey up. They had split up.

Chey had nowhere to go, and his car was still in the shop. Rita and I literally had to rescue him. We didn't think twice about it, but we did wonder if it was for certain. By the end of the weekend, it was clearly over.

So now, Chey is living with ... us.

But before you cringe, it's actually turned out well so far. With Chey out of work, he gets to see his daughter now all day. Rita has someone to talk to while I am gone during the day. And when I'm around, she and I get more time alone.

Now if I can just get people to avoid any comparisons with Bob Saget....

 

Chances are if you heard Kool and the Gang’s signature hit on the radio, you wouldn’t make the same association I do: playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for days on end. Watching the the horizon twinkle with pink and blues.

But things at the Crunk Factory being what they are these days…I ended up piping in some “Summer Madness” as a way to relax. Sure, I know, summer does not officially start until June 21st….but with Rita’s kids on summer vacation…it sure feels like lazy days until I step into the office.

Another person enjoying his time off is Ed (of Ed from Ag fame). He’s been the Dean of Students for a school on the reservation and absent from scene for while. We used to have lunch together, and so on Tuesday we met up again.

But I know, you don’t really think my mind has dulled that much. And you’d be right: but do you really want me to say that I’ve been entertaining myself listening to national health care insurance policy proposals?

Probably not.

 

I’d love to tell you the reason for this title had something to do with my experience this weekend driving around another man’s Chevy Tahoe at 12:30am looking for cheap Mexican food, but that would be a lie. No, it’s because all week Rita and I had been looking forward to the most recent (and conceivably best) movie by Todd Phillips, “The Hangover”.

You might think my eagerness to see “The Hangover” is because of the subject matter. You know, an interesting amalgam of guys head to Vegas for a bachelor party and awake to find the groom missing. But actually that’s not quite true.

It’s because way back when, in a time when I was still a fawning young undergrad at UCLA…we were treated to a relatively uncommon movie filming during school hours. The picture was “Old School”, which marked a sea change in evolution for comedies over the last few years. There used to be far less focus on dialogue, as well as less bawdiness. And there used to much less incest, or should I say…directors are producers recycling the same cast of stars for multiple films to the point of insanity.

So with no “name actors”, I knew Phillips was taking a risk that his plot and art would be suffice to carry the picture into moviemaking’s future. And let me tell you, it does.

Consider “The Hangover” as a big mystery with comedy infused instead of horror. Unpredictable and seemingly irrational developments await you around every turn. You likely won’t guess the ending, even if you try. All you will think is that each of these actors did a great job (with everyone seemingly agog over Zach Galifianakas) and marriage might just be the worst thing that can happen to a man. That said, the movie does reveal a couple unsettling trends about comedy’s future.

First, too often humorous dialogue was poured on so thick the audience barely could catch its breath before laughing. And then there was a seeming desire for character development that was also gratuitous. The story makes us believe that each of the characters are so different they could hardly be friends beforehand. But as it were, the rest of movie makes you wonder why that was really necessary given how awkward all of them act at various moments. Is this movie about male camaraderie or fart jokes?

Nevertheless, I think about how I ended up driving another man’s Tahoe at 12:30am and realized perhaps Phillips has it right. Lucky for me, the Mexican take out joint was open, and my sojourn ended without incident.

 

One of the more obscure developments of the past week or so was the decision by my landlord to offer me a renewal on my lease. (Hint, hint it’s not up until October.) After opening it up, I saw that contrary to what everyone had predicted; it proposed an increase of about 7%. (Rents have been dropping fast all year.) That revelation combined with the cost of gas going up made me wonder what exactly was going on.

Rita and I, meanwhile, had our eyes on this new complex which we thought was much nicer than both of ours combined. And up to now, it too had seen a big drop in rents. But when I checked yesterday, no such luck. Suddenly the landlord (who is part of a larger corporation) had raised rents all over Cougar Country by hundreds of dollars.

Our plan though hasn’t been derailed, but it would have been bad news if I had to keep living by myself. But maybe this too is all about our favorite villain these days, speculation.

There’s really no sign after all, that the economy is recovering. Instead, there’s simply an acknowledgement that “things aren’t getting worse”. But that’s a misappropriation of fact, as the new fiscal year approaches on July 1. Humans tend to overreact to threats that are proximal to them (close-up) and obvious and ignore threats that are distant and oblique. So as the economy continues to struggle, people will react based on their perspective, not on the big picture.

Nevertheless, I do think there’s a simply explanation for the sudden increase in rent and gas prices. The dollar is beginning to weaken as an investment alternative and money is flowing into stocks, commodities, and the like. Only problem with this thinking is, as workers lose their jobs or the ability to earn more…there won’t be the demand to sustain such prices.

In the meantime though, the speculators can enjoy the thought of arbitrage-fueled fantasy. I, on the other hand, have more work to do.

 

This weekend was supposed to be about the great outdoors. Rita’s friend was going camping, and the kids and I were to tag along and give her some company in the wilderness. So imagine my surprise that after buying all the gear, and planning a menu, she learned that I would be able to join her: I had to work.

Now someone started this dirty rumor that “government employees” work good hours. Now, I don’t know who they are talking about…since that certainly does not apply to police, firefighters, soldiers, spies, and occasionally yours truly.

However it was not a total loss. I was able to catch the NBA Seminfinals and I discovered some excellent new restaurants as a consequence. One was a takeout Indian place, another perhaps the best pizza in Alta Sonora. Rita for her part, got rained on and came back from the trip early.