48hrs of life in the 80's

I had a nice timeline journal but most of it was spent just "chronicalizing" my construction of an awesome winter coat for my spring break in the unforgiving snowy landscape of Michigan. Ironically that little journal is now sitting at my brother's house in the frozen tundra of Michigan.

I had two three-day weekends and one spring break to do this assignment, however Id much rather spend those hellish 48hrs in the ever torturing existence in the hot and timid deserts of St.George than waste 48 of my 168hrs in the comfortable lands of KZoo Michigan. That was/is my attitude of this project.

Having one whole week devoted to the humanity of hedonism was exactly what I needed to compensate for the painful day-to-day stress and sacrifice of college life(Utah College mind you...).

I will say that the week I spent in the icy cold refreshing lands of Kalamazoo more than made up for the punishing,unrewarding and unrelenting adventure that is Fall 2012-Spring 2013 so far. I'm glad I didn't squander that time spent with long-lost relatives sitting in a cave of technological impotence.

This assignment, especially towards the start really made me pity those whom lived before the 1990's. Then again Im sure future generations will pity me for putting up with data caps and 1MBps Internet speeds at 60$ a month.

So it starts at 10:50PM, my goal was to start at 10, but I had other homework to do before Saturday which would ruin the project's continuity (thanks online classes). Presidents' Day weekend, I text everyone telling them if they need me to come knock on my door, I turn off my Xbox, Computer and Phone and grab my pre-emptively rented books of everything.

My extra plan fell through, recording radio shows on Cassette for playback during the 48hr tech purge. So I turn to 90.5FM (if memory serves) and listen to the BBC world service, at which point I notice two things I have never before of the BBC:WS; #1 it is on a 30min loop slowly divulging more info on a topic every cycle and #2 every announcer takes loud and shrill deep breaths before saying anything, no matter how lengthy or small.

So I look through the DIY almanacs I rented, most of them are either childishly impractical, like catching elephants or too obvious like how to de-salinate a salty stew/sauce. I leaf through a few cool midrange ideas that would actually pan out like tabbing solar cells or building furniture out of 2x4s, write them down for future reference and then move on to the main project of converting a sweater into a winter fur coat.

Of course like any plans I have set months in advance I quickly realize I got screwed over by Joanns Fabric ladies whom made sure to tell me that I could see using those "micro-shoelace" looking threads. This once again cements the concept that any home-improvement or DIY store knows absolutely nothing about the products they sell. Most of my time spent at Lowes/Homedepot/RadioShack/Joann's Fabric is "hey do you have ______?" To which those experts always reply "no". Then I go to checkout with the thing they "didn't have" and usually imagine how the store would look burning to the ground....I digress.

So I go to the Smiths store at 11:30PM looking for sewing thread. Without the use of my iPhone I had to just drive there and hope they had it. They did, after telling me they didn't-bought it and I drove back home, listening to BBC world service's 30min coverage of Oscar Pistorias shooting his wife in South Africa, all the way home. Heavy drinking sets in and I realize how much drinking is a gateway to entertaining activities, all of which I couldn't use. So there I sit, quantumly smashed off of some great new cocktail I invented with nothing to do but listen to BBC, Sew or read. Clearly being the party animal I am, I continued the meticulous work of sewing by hand an entire winter coat. Eventually I head to bed with the hood of the coat already encased in zebra-looking fur. I turn off the lights and attempt to sleep to the sound of the ringing in my ears.


I awake to several slams on my door so I head on out to see what the fuss is about, it's my parents, visiting from up north surprising me with an added bonus of my other brother whom I rarely see anymore. "Why didn't you answer your phone", they ask violently. I can't remember from the missing/relocated journal if they got the text and forgot or if I sent the text through iMessage and they didn't receive it until they got to a wifi zone. Either way they all kind-of implied how impractical it was of me to do homework before they surprise visit me from 600miles away. So cool, I suppose, I'll head over to their house when I'm bored and hangout with the dog and family.

Most of the 48hrs consists of sewing together the coat, trying to avoid listening to TNT's President's Day screening of the Independance Day movie playing in the other room(which I know by heart) and my parents continuing to ask me if I'm avoiding tech for fun or for a class(outstanding listening skills/memory retention in my family). I take a few hours to hit the swimming pool and throw back some homemade beers and then drive back home, which is dead silent, with nothing to do but read,sew or listen to the BBC. This was the painful day. The nothingness of 80's tech, but worse, without cassettes I was really stuck in the 1930's of entertainment. Yet again I attempt to sleep, but with nothing to do but sew, I stayed up until 4am which I guess gave me the benefit of a nearly complete coat by hour 28. The next day, the final hours were a breeze, most because I had the hour 48 to look forward to.

I went to go hangout with the family and had some burgers n' beer. I finished up the pockets of the coat and sat around with nothing to do but listen to radio or swim, having the full 8hr life story of Oscar Pistorias thanks to the BBC, I went for yet another exhaustingly long swim until "the guy" showed up at 10pm telling me it was closing time. Closing time, but "no worries, no rush, take your time" as he awkwardly stares me down for the next 10mins I decide to get the hell out and head home. I get back and take a really long,long shower at 10:20PM hoping that by the time I get out It'l be mere seconds from 10:50, so I get out and check the stove (my only other non-computerized clock by most standards...) and see that it's 11:10PM. Past the time I needed, so I turn on my phone and depressingly check my zero new text messages and get everything back online. The next 5hrs or so I watch 2 movies and a few TV shows while playing some videogames. I have a few beers, set my progressive-musical alarm clock app and sleep to the wonderful sounds of Above & Beyond or the smooth jazz of Damon Albarn. The next day I awake with a deeper love for technology. To truely understand the role Tech plays in our lives we should live without it, though it doesnt really take 48 hours to understand that, just wait until you have to check if a store is open, or has what you're looking for before you go there. Wait until you have to randomly stumble upon a song you like on the radio. Wait until you have to ask a question in person instead of via call/text.
You have online homework due on a Saturday at 11:59PM? Ha!

Nothing to sleep to nothing to wake to. Nothing to live to.

But I was lucky, I had a car, an in home radio, family, booze and access to a swimming pool. Imagine those who have none of that. I'm sure I could have had more fun if I was into walking on paths to look at rocks,had a jet ski, or owned a bike, but I don't think that this exercise is all that useful if you just go do fun stuff all day instead of doing what you'd normally do. I feel guilty just for swimming since I rarely do when I actually have hands-on access to my music and film. Technology is the second to last thing keeping our nation (sorta) on top. So it's a given that our culture is built around what we possess and how we use what we possess. Cut yourself off from tech and you learn that it takes a lot more physical interaction to have fun without electricity in general. Which might explain why the Amish/anabaptists are so damn productive. But even the growing majority of Amish now use cell-phones and lightbulbs.

There's a point where if you don't bother to catchup, you get left behind. I'm staying ahead of the herd in every slow gallop.

Slides for Convergence presentation.

This is the problem with multilayered slides...a one time visibility.

Interesting speech results

So there was a close competition in the speech scholarship today.
60
62
74
75
87

32

Averaged a 65

If that 32 was replaced by the median of other scores, a 74: 72.

Kind-of a proof of concept for the speech itself isn't it?

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQww4LzujqE

Oh well, I guess I'll keep fighting the good fight.

Slides coming soon

Stby, laptop needs new battery...ill move the .ppt to another computer and then post it here(currently using iPhone)

Here's the deal;

I go to Michigan to report on the new Silicon Valley and I get extra credit. I'll stop by ypslanti,Detroit and KZOO Deal or no deal?

Lights eh?....

Ok here's the deal, I'll buy the LEDs if someone else can route power and program the functions for it.

We'll put it right next to the big D on the hill thingy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxYeZ9GOdpQ&feature=player_embedded#!


Also whats the big deal with some guy putting red bags over the lights? Dont they do that anyway? Is that front page material? If I were pulling a prank I'd do a something more interesting with those lights than just "lol I'll make them red even though they shouldn't be this time~oh man imagine the look on people's faces when they see that its red more often than usual..."

At least cover half the lights or something so it looked like a "U". Idunno', maybe its just me but the Utah pranks division seems to be a little too clean for any sort of controversy. Whats next? Some edgy mailman delivering parcels on a sunday?