RunawayJim.org

This post is in response to a post written by Erin Scott, aka The SMiChick. Her post, titled “What would you do if…” explains her views on how technology has forever changed, oftentimes for the worst, interpersonal relationships. It also goes into our dependence on technology. While I agree with quite a bit of what she has to say, I disagree with some of the basic premises she puts forth.

Erin starts off by saying we are dependent on technology. That we have lost touch with the each other and with the world. Part of that dependence, however, is necessity. Technologies that Erin doesn’t mention (automobiles, trains, and planes) have moved us around. She mentions a simpler time when people basically lived off the land. What she fails to mention is that in those times people did not travel. People stayed as close to a home base as possible. Sure, they wandered off in search of supplies, but only as far as their feet or horse could carry them. Would I like to see more people paying more attention to their local environment rather than worrying about what’s going on in the rest of the world or venturing off to far away cities to have fun? Of course I would. In fact, I think everyone should be doing that. However, technologies have allowed us to travel and travel we did. People never lived an hour drive away from work. They didn’t live a 2 hour train ride from their office. Instead, they lived within walking distance of the trolley or bus or even their place of employment. They lived within the same city, sometimes in a streetcar suburb just outside the city. But with the travel came a need for more technology to keep in touch with family and friends that were far away.

Do you see payphones anymore? I don’t even know where I could find one now. I used to always know where there was a payphone when I was out and about by myself. Now, they’re hard to find. That explains the dependency on cell phones and why parents get them for their kids (I’m still of the opinion that I will never pay for a cell phone for my kid, if he wants one, he can pay for it himself). My car broke down back in 1999 on my way to RI to pick up my brother for Thanksgiving break. I had no cell phone. I walked down to the commuter lot at the end of the exit ramp and used the pay phone to call my parents. It didn’t work. I took a ride with a random dude to a gas station even further away and found one that worked. I stayed there until my father was able to pick me up. Having a cell phone in that situation would have been helpful. I may have been crazy for taking the ride, but he looked like a nice enough guy (actually, he looked like a Phishhead).

I have heard people say that we have become out of touch with the world and each other because of technology. I disagree with that. I have a few personal anecdotes to explain my reasoning. I have met lots of people on the internet. When I first moved to RI, I didn’t know anyone. I went on a few dates through Craigslist and ultimately met my wife through that site. I made some friends through online postings. I met people in Providence through local forums. Since joining Twitter, I have met a bunch of people interested in Phish. We met up at shows in June. In fact, I am going on a trip to California to see Festival 8, a 3 day Phish festival around Halloween. I’m flying to Las Vegas, meeting 6 other people from Twitter, and we’re all renting an RV together and driving the 4 hours to the festival together. The Internet has brought us together. Finally, one of my closest friends was met online. I have never met her, but we met about 12 years ago in a chat room on AOL. I know it sounds super sketchy, but we have stayed in touch ever since. We have gone through ups and downs in our lives together. We have helped each other through rough times. It’s a relationship like no other, but it would not exist if it weren’t for the Internet.

People have come together to become more in touch with the world because of technology. Look at the phenomenon of flash mobs. Look at all the people who joined together to support the problems with the Iranian election or those who came together for the people of Darfur. Sure, most of that was meaningless gestures, like changing your Twitter avatar green. But there are many people who have actually made a difference because of it. Look at what social media did in our own elections. Barack Obama would not have won such a decisive victory if it weren’t for his creative use of social media.

Technology has changed the world. Sure, some of that change is not good. It has caused people to become more isolated. However, I think that it has brought more people together. It has led to meaningless gestures to show support for some issue, but it has also brought “doers” together to actually make change. It has helped people (to be super cliché) to be the change they want to see in the world.

Do I think we should all join the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps and travel the world to help others? Not at all. In fact, I believe we should start right at home with our own communities. I believe that change must start locally. I believe in the “think globally, act locally” sentiment. If everyone did just that, the change we should see in the world would happen. In fact, one of the things I use the Internet for is local issues. Technology has helped this movement.

Perhaps I’ve missed the point of Erin’s post, but it said 2 things to me. The first is that we have become too dependent on information technology (I disagree with the spirit of that statement, but not with the statement itself) and the second is that we need to step away from these technologies to experience real life, to learn to be happy without them, to really have a personal relationship (again, I disagree for the reasons listed above). As for that first part, look at dependency on older forms of information technology (they were technological for their time) – newspaper, radio, television. The computer allows us to experience other things that we wouldn’t normally experience in our lives. Not everyone is given the chance to visit other countries and see other cultures. Heck, many of us can’t even visit other parts of our own country. The computer and Internet allows us to travel without leaving our home. I have never been one to believe that to be cultured, you have to travel. I believe there is plenty to discover in your own backyard. You just have to seek it out, and technology can help you find it.

This post is almost a week overdue, but I know some people who read this blog will benefit from it.

I decided on a whim to check out Darkstar Orchestra, a Grateful Dead cover band of sorts, at Lupo’s last Monday. I had heard great things about the band and figured I should see them while they were in town. I had originally planned on going alone, but one of my friends from Twitter decided she was also going with a friend on a last minute decision (more on that later).

Darkstar Orchestra is known for recreating entire Grateful Dead shows. They pick a date and play whole show start to finish. This was one of the reasons I had wanted to go see them. I have liked the Dead for many years and have seen Phil Lesh and Friends twice, which was pretty close to seeing the Dead. The only thing was, I wasn’t overly familiar with a lot of their music or the whole vibe at their shows. Phil and Friends was mostly younger people from the current jamband generation. This show was different. It was full of older heads.

The band started the show with Bertha, one of my favorites as it’s a super fun danceable song. From that, they went into the Greatest Story Ever Told, another song I knew (though didn’t know the name). The crowd was loving every minute of it. Other highlights of the first set were Row Jimmy and Let it Grow, which closed the set. During the setbreak, I was on Twitter (big surprise) and was going back and forth with some people trying to figure out which show it was. Oddly enough, someone came up with a date that had the same exact first three songs, but I was missing some others. Just as the second set started I got the tweet that it was Sept. 30, 1989 as the band opened with Iko Iko. The second set was even more fun than the first (with the exception of some douchebaggy guys that couldn’t just listen to the music during Drums->Space). It was the first time I really listened to Drums->Space and realized that I really like Drums, but I wasn’t crazy about Space. This Drums was vibrating the whole building. It was insane. The second part of this set brought down the house. A Brent tune following Space followed by The Wheel, Watchtower, and Touch of Grey with a US Blues encore. After the encore, they announced the show and then brought out a young woman to sing a tune. I don’t know what the song was, but it was very bluesy and she had an incredible voice.

If you get the chance to see this band, do it. They’re worth every penny. I had a chance to listen to the original show and I have to say that I actually preferred the show I saw. I had a blast and will definitely be going the next time they’re in Providence. They’re really more than just a cover band, making it that much more enticing.

Now, as to my friend who tried to come, she got thrown out, but not after being royally harassed by the bouncer (yes, she got thrown out before she even got in). You see, she had some prescription medication on her, unfortunately, not in the bottle. It was partially her fault for it. They wanted her to toss it. They weren’t going to let her go back to the car. After arguing a bit, they said one of them could go back to the car (neither familiar with the city). She didn’t want to go alone or be left alone with the bouncer who had already verbally harassed and basically threatened her. After he and a woman who worked there started making comments about her, she got upset (and rightfully so). They eventually just told her to leave. I felt really bad. Lupo’s normally isn’t that bad. This dude was a total doucebag. She’s working on getting a refund (which I have no doubt she’ll get) and I had already emailed the band about what happened. I plan on sending Rich Lupo a letter explaining this. As a Providence resident and someone who thinks the music scene is important (and Lupo’s being important to the local music scene), behavior like that from the bouncers is unacceptable. The problem with the setup is that they search you (which is weird to begin with) after they rip your ticket. Of course, once your ticket is ripped, they don’t let you back in. It’s basically a lose-lose situation for someone with something they consider contraband. The last time I was there, I had a mini Leatherman on my keychain. The guy searching me saw it and I had to explain to him that it was scissors and not a knife. He let me in. I wasn’t about to throw it away because a place that has no sign or posting anywhere (including on their website) about what is and is not allowed in determined it to be contraband. I would’ve put up the same stink as my friend had they done that. The worst part was, that was at a much larger show (Trey’s last solo tour).

Anyway, it was a great show. Go see them. Screw the douchebag at the door at Lupo’s. I’ll go back because I love music. She’ll get her refund. It’ll all work out in the end.

So I totally turned to the dark side and got an iPhone last week. I had been holding out for a decent Android phone on a decent network. Unfortunately, that’s not happening anytime soon. The MyTouch 3G is kinda neat, but not exactly what I wanted in a phone. Nevermind the fact that it’s also on T-Mobile, which isn’t bad here in Providence, but would be horrible once we go skiing. So I broke down and went with an iPhone after playing with one while I was at ResNet (mainly to see if I could deal with the keyboard).

I have to say… I love this thing. I’m a geek through and through and this phone is like a wet dream. I like being connected all the time (though I do enjoy my time away from technology). I mainly love that I always have Twitter at my fingertips. When they say there’s an app for everything, there really is. I have a Peanut Butter Jelly Time app, a farting app, a light saber app, a beer app (that actually gives descriptions of beer), and many many more.

If you weren’t sure about the iPhone for whatever reason, it’s definitely worth it. In addition to the phone, I had to get a case. At the recommendation of one of my Twitter followers, I got the Mophie Juice Pack Air. It’s an extra battery plus case. It does add some weight and size to the phone (mainly to the thickness and height), but it makes the phone easier to hold and type one handed for me. It has a nice indicator on the back to tell you how much life is left (similar to MacBook batteries when they still had removable batteries). It also has a switch to turn it on and off. The only downside for me (I don’t mind the extra weight or size) is that it covers the dock port because it needs to plug into the phone. It nearly doubles the batter life (I’d say it adds an additional 80-85% to the battery). It’s not cheap at around $80 (the Apple store had it for the same price as the website, I thought they might try to rape me), but I feel it’s well worth the money. Considering the most popular case (the InCase Slider) runs about $35, you’re paying only $45 for an extra battery. I will admit that I am considering the purchase of the Slider case as well, mainly to use when I’m at work or know the phone isn’t going to see quite as much usage and I won’t need the extra battery life. I just have to wait and see if it’s really necessary.

I won’t really go on any longer. I don’t really have anything to say about the iPhone that hasn’t already been said about it. I did jailbreak my phone. It allows for some nifty customizations and apps. I won’t go too much into it, but if you want app recommendations, let me know.

This post may end up long, but I’m bunching a whole bunch of topics into this single post.

ResNet is about a whole lot more than simply attending presentations and dealing with work-related stuff. It’s about making connections, meeting new people, seeing old friends. It’s about volunteering and helping out. This post covers the stuff that the other 2 didn’t. It covers all the stuff that happens at ResNet that happens outside the actual conference.

I’ll start by saying how ResNet is one big family. Everyone is friends at ResNet. If you weren’t friends with people there, you most certainly are now. I met up with some people I had met over the past 5 years of being part of this great organization. I also made some new friends.

I’ll admit it. The stuff that happens outside the conference can get a little crazy. As someone once described it, it’s like a bunch of college IT folks pretending we’re in college again. That is true to a certain degree, though usually things don’t get quite as crazy as they may have when we were in college. So to complete this thought, some beer is involved. And since beer is involved, I have to comment on the local beer I got to try.

The best of the local stuff was most definitely from Surly. I was able to drink the Furious and Bender on tap. Bender is described as a brown ale, but I’d call it more of a porter. It’s a very tasty beer. Furious is one of the best and most balanced IPAs I have ever tried. I brought some Bender, Coffee Bender, and Bitter Brewer back with me. I also got to drink some Summit, though it was only the Extra Pale Ale, which is just a pale ale. It was good, but got boring after a while. I tried some Schell’s, but I don’t remember what it was. It was pretty pale, but still pretty good. I think it was an adjunct lager of some sort. I also tried a couple New Belgium – the 1554, Mighty Arrow, and Fat Tire. The 1554 was very good. The other 2 weren’t anything special. I stuck mainly with Surly for most of the trip. Needless to say, if you’re in Minnesota, drink as much Surly as you can. The stuff is awesome.

One of the evenings brought about some shots of Jagermeister. Now, I’ll admit it. I love Jagermeister. I haven’t had the stuff since college. I’m also not one to normally do shots of anything. This was a fun way to end a night (after the lights in the bar came back on). In fact, the waitress even did a shot with us.

We tried a couple different bars in town. St. Cloud is a small place with not much to do but drink it seems. In fact, I counted no less than 3 shops selling bongs and other smoking devices along the main strip downtown. There were also a ton of bars. The first bar we tried was MC’s Dugout. It was a strange place where beer was not the drink of choice by most of the locals. In fact, they were all (including the bearded, pierced, tattooed, burly men) drinking what I would call “girly” drinks. They were pink and orange in color and served in curvaceous glasses. I later learned that those drinks are pretty high in alcohol and called a Hairy Buffalo. The second bar was The White Horse. This place had the best beer selection in town. The problem was that it didn’t seem to have any air conditioning. We were literally sweating just sitting there. The live music that was ridiculously loud didn’t help either. I would have loved to stay at this bar, but the atmosphere just wasn’t conducive to a bunch of people wanting to drink and chat. We ended up at the bar where we would return a few times, Tavern on Germain (aka The Tav). It provided us with lots of great beer (they had Surly on tap, which was all I needed) and a great jukebox (all I have to say is there was a biting incident while Weird Al’s “White and Nerdy” was playing). We were all worried about being on a dry campus, but the downtown area wasn’t far and the beer flowed like the Mississippi in town.

The town is pretty small, but it’s nicely setup in a grid (at least the downtown and surrounding areas are). It’s pretty walkable, but if you didn’t want to walk, there’s regular bus service (though I didn’t try it). It was about a 10-15 minute walk from the campus to the downtown area. Part of the problem was that the main road through town was under construction and you couldn’t easily get across it. The downtown area is pretty small, confined to a 5-6 block strip that’s only a couple blocks wide. Towards the outskirts, it looks like most suburbs with lots of strip malls and parking lots.

On the half day, I went to the Mall of America with a bunch of people. All I’ll say about that is that it’s a mall, just a really big mall. The only thing that sets it apart from any other mall is the amusement park in the middle, complete with roller coasters. The outside is about as inviting as any other suburban mall and the mall part has the same stuff, just more of it. It had some extra sit down type restaurants, but besides that, it’s still a mall.

While there, I did get to try some of the local cuisine. We ate at a Thai restaurant downtown one night. I enjoyed my meal and the waitress was really nice. It’s called Sawadtee (I found it amusing because we have one in Providence called Sawaddee). We also had some local foods. One of the lunches in the cafeteria had a dish known locally as Tater Tot Hot Dish. It’s a casserole with some kind of meat, some gravy, some peas and corn (maybe carrots, too) and tater tots. It was interesting and pretty enjoyable. We also had pickles-on-a-stick, which were really good. Apparently, they have lots of food on a stick in the Midwest. The last of the Midwestern food I had was at the airport. I tried some fried cheese curds, which were a lot like mozzarella sticks, just not as stringy.

This ends my reporting on this year’s ResNet Symposium. It was a lot of fun and I learned a whole lot and made lots of new friends. I can’t wait to see everyone next year in Bellingham, WA.

Now that my ranting about the travel is over, I figured I’d share my thoughts on this year’s symposium. Overall, it was a great conference. I went to some awesome presentations and got even more out of talking to people one on one (or sometimes in small groups).

I attended 2 PDS (professional development) sessions. The first one was on customer service. It wasn’t exactly as I thought it would be, but I did get a lot from it. I’ll be going back to that when I put together my student training at the end of the summer. The second session was on being the boss. It ended up with so many tangents that I couldn’t follow. I wish it had continued the original path, even though it was helpful for many people to get their own questions answered. I did get a bit from it, but I’ll be reading through the booklet we were given to get a bit more out of it.

I missed the keynote on the first day of the actual symposium. I had gone out the night before and forgotten to take my phone off vibrate after the PDS sessions. I woke up after it had started, but heard that it was pretty boring from others. Out of the 5 ResNets that I attended, I really only enjoyed 1 keynote. That was last year (it’s about halfway through that post). I attended 2 sessions before I had to present my own. The first session was on managing and evaluating students. It was interesting to see how the school did it, but they have almost 200 student employees and don’t even know them all by name (I have a hard time, but I can usually guess who the student is with mine). They use a neat piece of software along with several student supervisors to take care of the process. It’s a great system, but it seems more designed for larger institutions. I was taken aback when they said they were going to package the software and sell it. Most colleges package it and release it as open source. The second session was on strategic planning of a computer lab. I had hoped it would go more into the actual planning process rather than be about the lab, but I did get a bit out of it.

My first presentation was a panel discussion on Helpdesk Ticket Tracking systems, though it didn’t end up in a lot of discussion. I only had about 10 minutes to do my portion of the presentation because the first 2 guys took too long. I think if we do something like it again, we’ll organize more of it beforehand rather than have each of us make up a presentation and just do them one at a time. It seemed well received and I got some comments from people afterward that it was helpful.

The second day was a half day of presentations followed by our own activities. I had a presentation first thing in the morning. My presentation was on our department’s outreach efforts to get input from the college community (mainly faculty, staff, and students). I had originally asked for a 90 minute session, but the scheduling put both of my presentations back to back. I was offered a 60 minute session and took it, not really wanting to present for an hour and a half and unsure that I had enough content to fill that whole time. In fact, I was worried I wouldn’t fill an hour session. I guess I just needed to have a little faith in myself. My session went 5-10 minutes beyond the slated time, and most of the people didn’t seem to mind. There was a lot of great discussion, and I received a lot great feedback both in person and through the evaluations (if you were at my session and want more information on any of it, please feel free to email me, I ran out of time to get through all of my information).

As part of my role on the Program Committee, I moderated the next session on starting a walk-in help center. Unfortunately, it’s probably not something we’ll be able to do, but some of their procedures were interesting. I do want to start a walk-in center, but we don’t really have the space for one (though we are working on it). Money may also become an issue for us in the creation of this space. We’ll see how things pan out. The session had a lot of great discussion about the various procedures they use.

The final day had a single morning presentation session. I attended an awesome session on Microsoft Live@Edu by the guys at Western Carolina University. As a school that just implemented Live@Edu, it was perfectly timed. I learned about all sorts of great features available in the product.

The session was followed by a town meeting for the organization. It included many great suggestions for keeping the organization alive and bringing in some money. As someone who has been a part of ResNet since I was a student at UConn (with a couple years absence), I am committed to the organization (so long as I stay in the same line of work). They are considering a membership fee of $25, which I would gladly pay myself to become a member and support the group. What’s up in the air is what the fee will include.

This was the last major event of the symposium, aside from closing dinners and raffles and the like. All in all, it was a great event. I think I made more connections at this one than any of the others in the past (getting involved paid off it seems). I am really enjoying presenting at this conference. It’s more like a large group of friends than just a bunch of people from the same industry (of course, I do have a bunch of actual friends in the organization, made some new ones this year, too). If you’re involved with student computing of any sort on a college campus, this conference is for you. It doesn’t matter if you’re a network admin, a helpdesk guy, a technician, or even just a student manager with few technical skills. This conference has something for you. It’s not just residential networking anymore.

ResNet Symposium

I’m gonna break up my ResNet posts into a couple different ones about various aspects of the symposium. The first will be the travel as it’s the most recent part of the experience for me.

I traveled from Rhode Island’s TF Green Airport in Warwick to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. We were given the option to fly to the St. Cloud Airport, but it wasn’t really worth the extra cost as I would have had a long layover at MSP. So I opted to take the professional shuttle service that runs from MSP to St. Cloud, Executive Express. It’s an hour and a half long drive, but I figured since it was a professional service, it’d be comfortable and I’d get to see some of Minnesota.

My flight to MSP (direct, on Northwest Airlines) was a pretty good flight. My only complaints were that NWA puts their seats really close together and the seats themselves, though the plane was newer, were extremely uncomfortable. My flight left early and arrived really early. I was lucky. I had hoped this would happen so that I could make the shuttle at 8:00pm instead of 10:00pm. Unfortunately, the luggage took forever to come out and I missed the earlier shuttle by only 3 minutes. I had some time to kill in the airport. I found my way to the shuttle, leaving the secure area, and checked in. I needed food and found the only restaurant nearby that served real meals. It was in the process of closing up, but I managed to get an order in. I had a beer and a sandwich and then headed back to wait. The annoying part of this shuttle area was that it had no wifi. I had a computer, and I was more than willing to pay to get online. It wasn’t gonna happen.

I eventually met a couple locals who were also going to St. Cloud and we were on our way. It was a newer van with very comfortable seats. I was dozing off for most of the drive (after all, 10:00pm CDT is 11:00pm EDT and I wasn’t getting to St. Cloud until almost midnight Central Time). I made it and found my way to my room.

The return trip back to RI was the “fun” one. I had schedule the shuttle to pick me up at 8:15 at the university. We waited where the earlier shuttle was picking us up. Of course, it showed up elsewhere. The driver found us and we boarded. We were then informed that we’d be dropped off at a hotel in town and another van would be bringing us to the airport. The driver seemed to be in his 80’s and drove to the hotel with his turn signal on and wipers on (it wasn’t raining). We arrived at the hotel and he transferred our luggage to a trailer behind another van (it’s important to mention these are older 15 passenger vans). He tells us to wait in the hotel, though the driver is already outside. We just hung around outside. The new driver seemed even older. He had the same issue with the turn signal only we were on the highway. There were a few moments I thought we were gonna die, but luckily, he didn’t kill us.

We arrived at the airport safely and he tells us that airlines other than Delta/NWA get off at the first stop. A bunch of us sat in the shuttle expecting to be dropped off elsewhere in the airport. Instead, the driver moves about 4 car lengths and pulls over. We’re all thinking, “thanks, but we could’ve walked the 30 feet rather than staying on this shuttle”.

The worst part about the Executive Express vans are the stickers on the windows that say “driver tips appreciated”. While I appreciate the service, it wasn’t cheap (and I had a discount) and it wasn’t comfortable (ok, the ride to the campus was, but a full 15 passenger van with people sitting with bags is not comfortable for 1.5 hours).

I enjoyed the wifi in the airport ($7.95 for 24 hours) and had some lunch while waiting for my flight (I had a couple hours to kill). I had upgraded my seat to an exit row (yes, NWA charges $20 to do them a favor and sit in the exit row) so I could have extra leg room. Unfortunately, I ended up next to a fat man who didn’t give a crap that he was invading my personal space. I generally do everything I can so my arms aren’t crossing over into the seat next to me, and I have pretty broad shoulders. This guy just didn’t care. He was gonna sit and relax and make everyone around him uncomfortable. I managed to sleep on and off for much of the flight (after all, I was up at 5:30 to someone saying “goodbye” to me who thought I was leaving at 6 and then again at 6:30 when my alarm went off, all this after a night of drinking until 1:30 and then packing until almost 3:00).

So I made it back. I decided that next time I’m going on a trip somewhere 1.5 hours from the airport, I’m renting a car, even if I have to pay for it myself. I also decided I’m gonna try to avoid NWA from now on (they’re added to my list that also includes US Airways). I do still like the Providence airport. It’s so easy.

Oh, and one last cool thing about my trip. NWA gave me the option of a “mobile” boarding pass. They sent a picture message to my phone that I scanned at security and at the gate. I thought that was pretty cool. It’s one green way to make travel a little easier (less paper is always good, especially if I don’t have to carry it). That and the fried cheese curds were the best part of my travel experience.