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This year I’m thankful for….  all ten of my readers.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

A few weekends ago I made my way to Carlsisle Pennsylvania. What might make me head all the way out east? Well Rachel lives in Carlsisle. Now i’m sure you’re thinking, “But TJ, your title says ‘On Roadtrips’ surely you didn’t drive all the way to Pennsylvania in one weekend?!” Oh, but I did!

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Above you can see the route I took (both to and from Pennsylvania).  The trip went pretty well.  I was caught in a trafic jam outside of Columbus and I was caught in a speed trap in Pennsylvania on the way back but other then that the driving was pretty good.  I only had one class on Friday and I worked ahead and did all my weekend work and took off early Friday morning.

Rachel and I just spent a leusurely Saturday and I took off Sunday morning back for Iowa.  A bit nuts but well worth it.

I’d been wanting to expand on this but I decided that I’d probably never get to posting if I didn’t do it now.  Considering I’m flying out there tomorrow I figured I’d get this out on the intarwebs.

One of the main things I’ve been working on as part of my position as GSB’s Director of Information Technology has been working with the Computation Advisory Committee (CAC). CAC is a university level committee that advises the Provost; technically, however the decisions of the committee are pretty much accepted wholly. The main part of CAC’s job is to apportion and distribute student computer fees that are collected every semester, the fees are about $110 for most students and can be nearly double for some . For example engineering students pay $218.50.

With this much money floating around (~$6.5 million) and so many different groups receiving funds (9) directly from the committee and numbers more receiving money directly from the initial 9 finding out where it all goes is a big deal. At the moment the committee asks for reports every year in the fall semester for the previous fiscal year’s numbers. These reports come in all shapes and sizes, and levels of completeness.

To say the reports are incomplete would be kind, and I’m feeling kind tonight. The reports as they currently stand have no requirements on them at all. You’re probably thinking “But TJ obviously they have simple things like a total amount spent and report everything they charged to student fees?” Well apparently the colleges and departments don’t think that this is so obvious. Things as simple as totals at the bottom of the report (I kid you not, one was simply 6 pages of items and prices) or reporting every cent (a particular college year after year failed to report any operating expenses) haven’t been done. In addition to this yearly departments set aside funds for large projects such as buying whole new labs (completely understandable) but the result is even less is reported on these reports.

How bad are they? Well for the three most recent fiscal years that reports are available (2003-2006 school years) on average (without further investigation into spending, only going off of the reports) student fees went 18% unspent. 18%, for most students that would be ~$40 back in their pockets. Now further review of the situation finds that it’s likely that the funds are indeed being spent and used properly but without good reports it’s truly impossible to tell.

As a result of prodding by GSB the committee has taken a faster step towards a formalized reporting policy. The former chair (he retired, didn’t resign in disgrace, to his defense he took over the committee this fall) has submitted a draft proposal and I have submitted a separate draft. We’ll be debating the proposals at our meeting on November 29th and I think that we’ll be able to pass a good policy but we’ll have to see.

So that’s part of what I’ve been working on. As a result of this rather scandalous poor reporting the Iowa State Daily printed an article on the topic which I think is a pretty good read.

And students say that GSB doesn’t do anything.

The Picture of the Week hit two years old yesterday.  I forgot it’s birthday,  know, I’m a horrible person.  Since it was so popular last year I’m going to open up the PoTW to submissons again.

1. The pictures can be of absolutely anything and should be e-mailed to me either using an address you already know or to the one in the “Contact the Webmaster” link at the bottom of every page.

2. Pictures will be judged by me for only one thing: how much I like them. A pointer on this, I’m probably more likely to like a picture if it has something to do with me but not necessarily. If it’s a particularly beautiful picture that has nothing to do with me you’ll probably do alright and have a fair chance of beating out pictures that involve me. I mean really… I bring down the quality of a picture just by being in it.

3. You must be the artist or photographer of the drawing or picture.

4. Rachel does not automatically win by dating me and no matter how much she pouts it’s not going to do her entry’s any good (this was true last year and is still true this year). Although she may do slightly better then she would have otherwise… but not likely.

5. 7 Pictures will be selected for the week leading up to December 15th.

6. All pictures must be sent to me before 11:59:59 PM CST on November 30th.

7. Bonus points if the picture is holliday themed (I don’t care which holliday but preferably one that occurs this time of year).

That’s it!

I just uploaded and captioned some pictures of Ian’s and my place. The old pictures were all of the place before we moved in. Ian and I had a small shin-dig this weekend and had the place clean so I figured it would be a good time to take some pictures. Enjoy.

“Girl 1:Seriously, I can’t believe it; He expects us to be in class every day. He goes over material that’s not in the books!

Girl 2: I know! It’s like he like [sic] expects us to both read every part of the reading and be in class every day to get everything in the course.

Girl 1: What did you get on the test?

Girl 2: Oh, I did better then on the first test, like a B

Girl 1: Me too

Girl 2: I hated the first test and like that stupid geography section on the first test! what was that about?!

Girl 1: He actually expects us to know that Afghanistan borders Iran. It doesn’t have anything to do with Anthropology”

–Overheard in my International Studies 235 class, presumably two freshmen discussing an anthro class.

This is going to be a bit of a rant and I apologize for that. This semester I’m taking International Studies 235 to fulfill some graduation requirements and boy am I regretting it. I’m sure you’re thinking “Oh? But TJ, it’s only a two hundred level class, it should be easy!” You’d be right, it is easy. Very easy.

One example of how easy it is. The class has seven (yes seven) books assigned to it. Load of crap, each costs around $15 or more (used) resulting in about a $120 book bill. With that much fluff I decided to not buy the books before the first day of class and see if some were really optional and avoid some ding to my wallet. Turns out they’re all required but further examination reveals that they’re all also at the library, some at the Ames Public as well (yep that’s how “academic” this is, you can get the books at the public library). So I’ve yet to buy a book and I’ve managed to do all the needed reading with ease without checking a book out. There’s so little information in them that I’ve never had to leave Parks with a copy in my hand.

Next example. The professor loves the idea of using multimedia to enhance the learning experience. At least that’s the way I’m sure he’d put it. Most people I know have heard me rant about this before. By multimedia I mean YouTube, and by enhance I mean supplant. We watch so many youtube videos (relevant videos but still videos) that I call this my YouTube class. We generally spend between 15 and 30 minutes each class (90 minute classes, twice a week) to watch Youtube. It’s ridiculous. One day the professor’s laptop wasn’t working and he actually lectured. AND IT WAS GOOD! The guy is a good lecturer! He can teach! I was so happy with the class I sent him an email and told him that I thought that lecture was really good that day and that maybe he should consider cutting back on the videos because they seem to detract from his abilities to teach.

I never received a reply and he went right back to playing Youtube the next time the class met.

Today was going to be my day to work on my “Indy Research Assignment” (yep he said “Indy” instead of “Independent”) which is really just a 4-5 page research paper (double spaced). I downloaded the assignment from the class website and read it over for the first time It’s due thursday so I have plenty of time but wanted to get started. Then I got to the bottom of the second paragraph: “First, you need to pitch me the project. Please send me an e-mail with your topic and a brief description of how you plan to approach it. … The sooner I receive your proposal, the sooner you may begin.” WHAT A LOAD OF SHIT! I’m livid. I realize that this is a sophomore level class but that kind of crap I wouldn’t expect of a class past the sophomore year of high school!

We’re college students not kindergartners, you don’t need to hold our hands on picking research topics or for crossing the street. I sat down today planning on being productive and getting this assignment done. Instead I sit here twiddling my thumbs because I have to wait for this moron of a professor to send me the second half of the assignment because he doesn’t think I’m capable of picking a simple research topic. Wasting your time (class time) with me by showing me Youtube was bad enough now you’re wasting my time Dr. Carter.

Since OS 10.4 Apple has included the Spotlight feature in the OS. Spotlight indexes files for various pieces of information (metadata, for those who are picky) and then makes them easily searchable. Spotlight is a useful tool but the indexing can put a slightly heavier load on machines, although minimal after the initial indexing. If you want to get rid of this indexing (and thus Spotlight’s functionality too) there are some pretty simple steps to follow:

1. Open the Spotlight system preference pane.
2. Go to the “Privacy” tab where you can disable locations.
3. Press the “+” button to add a location to disable.
4. Press Cmd+shift+G to open the “Go to Folder” dialog.
5. Type /Volumes and hit return.
6. There is no step 6.

Now it should be noted that this will remove your ability to use Spotlight and everything that depends on it, specifically searching for files with the finder, so use with caution.