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January 24, 2006
The Job I want
I'm doing it wrong. That's what I've decided. Here's the job I want next time: get hired, fail, get fired after 1 year. In the firing, receive $4.5 mil, plus have my house bought by the company, plus get reimbursed for $3.6 million in "remodeling" costs.
This is what Nike Chairman Phil Knight is paying outgoing Nike CEO William Perez.
$3.6 in remodeling? What'd he do? Buy the Pittock Mansion and try a little facelift?
Geez.....
Posted by cageyer at 06:13 PM | Comments (0)
January 23, 2006
Steelers v. Seahawks (that's right - Seahawks)
For a long-time Seattle girl who can't get past calling Seattle home, yesterday's playoff games were amazing. I figured Pittsburgh could get past Denver (though there was this small part of me that thought it would be delicious to have old AFC rivals Seattle and Denver be THE main event). Everyone I talked to (well, okay, it wasn't that many) figured Carolina would go out to the Emerald City and stomp on Seattle. Wow. Not even. Seattle played strong, they played aggressively, and they played to win. It worked. For the first time in the franchise's 30 year history, they not only made it to the championship game, they are going to the Super Bowl.
This is significant to me in more ways than just having the home team finally make the big game. I was in the all-state marching band that played the night the Kingdome opened. I was there when the same Kingdome was imploded as outdated and too poor a facility to field a winning team.
I was there when Jim Zorn was the young quarterback steering the expansion team with such notables as Steve Largent and Steve Raible at his side. Largent became a U.S. Congressman from Oklahoma. Raible is now the evening new anchor on a local Seattle station. Last night I was amazed to see that Zorn was the quarterback coach of the champion team, looking not all that much older for the 30 years that have passed.
I was there when Dave Krieg was a walk-on quarterback with some quirky abilities that helped rejuvenate the team, at least for awhile, and was there for the painful loss to Oakland early in the playoff season. I was there when the Nordstrom family decided football wasn't in line with their expansion interests and sold the team to flaky, egotistical California real estate developer Ken Behring, who damn near ruined the team forever, particularly with that circus stunt unautorized move to Los Angeles to try and grab the franchise there when the Rams bolted. I was there, and relieved beyond measure when the NFL actually made them move back. I was there when Behring decided to take his marbles and go back home.
I was there when Paul Allen stepped up and bought the team, keeping them firmly attached to their Seattle home, and acknowledging the support of the Seattle fan base, who were always present and always vocal, even when the team was losing season upon season. Last night I watched Paul Allen salute those fans by hoisting #12 up the flagpole, a strong salute to those whose voices made the Kingdome, and now QWest field, one of the loudest, least friendly venues for any visiting team.
I was there when the voters said "no, we won't build you a new stadium" and when the state worked a deal and built one anyway. I was there when Mike Holmgren became the head coach. I was there when the Seahawks played at Husky Stadium for a season, and the fans ripped new quarterback Matt Hasselback constantly, taunting him, insulting him, generally behaving badly at high volume. But by the time time that same coach Holmgren and that same quarterback Hasselback took the team to victory, it wasn't really my team anymore. Too much had changed - the names, the venue, the conference. So I'm not really counting myself part of the #12.
But it is awfully nice to see the home team finally make the big one. It surely is.
Update: Be sure to check out Leah's description of actually BEING THERE over on penn.
Posted by cageyer at 09:54 AM | Comments (2)
January 18, 2006
Theorizing Practices of PhD studenthood
Part of yesterday's productive meeting focused on the differences between master's work and PhD work - a difference that seems to really show up at the comprehensive exam level (there is much to debate here, I realize, so let us say this distinction was particular to English and Comp/Rhet in our discussion). I'll return to the specifics, but to begin, it is connected to the difference between the consumption of knowledge and the production of knowledge.
Rewind to August, to the CCR Community Day that is the traditional kick-off of the year for our program, the one time in the year that all CCR students and faculty in all phases of work come together for a day of learning and socializing as a community. In one of the panels, Louise Wetherbee-Phelps talked about the nature of PhD work, of the nature of becoming an academic, a scholar, a producer of knowledge rather than a consumer of it. What I wrote was:
becoming a scholar is shifting from being a consumer (reader) and to being an inquirer (of a question to which you do not already know the answer) and a writer (offering new understanding or view or knowledge).
Sounds simple, until I try to actually do it. I'm a reader. I've always been a reader. I consume texts, often uncritically, and sometimes repeatedly. There is so much still out there to read and learn that I am continually looking outward for new material.
Problem? As an academic-in-training, a scholar-in-development, I am past that luxury. I have to read differently. And for the first time, I think I actually understand what that means and how to do it.
Rewind to October 2002. A comment on an early (bad) attempt at applying "critical theory" in an English class. Instructor's comment: rather than trying to show how the text exemplifies (or not) the theory, consider both the text and the theory as part of a larger system and theorize about that. My response at the time: Huh?
My response now: This is starting to sound familiar (read: repetitive). Yesterday, in the productive meeting (I should cap those words), it translated like this: take this text and lay it alongside that text or this other text and find what's interesting about that pairing, what larger claims can you make about those texts?
Now, why it suddenly makes sense to me, I don't really know. But while it does, for at least this brief moment, I'm trying to capture it and get it inside so I can "do" something with it.
Another tip: reading at this level (i.e., as in preparation for exams) means knowing more than just who said what and having a nice set of quotes to demonstrate having read it. It means knowing who said what, and from what position, and in response to which other whos and who aligns with whom and how opposes whom and how the larger conversation fits together SO THAT I, the scholar, can take a place in that conversation, take a stand and make claims of my own that respond to, align with, or oppose the whos already there.
The interesting part about this last point is that I was the one who said it.
I might actually be ready to do this thing.
Posted by cageyer at 12:47 PM | Comments (0)
New Year's Resolution
It helps to know that I don't make New Year's Resolutions. I stopped that ritual long ago, in part because for me the "new" year always, always, always begins around the first of September, the first day of school, and in part because it didn't make any sense to make a list of to-dos in this regard. It made more sense just to do something.
Anyway, after the disastrous last two semesters of my academic life, I swore I wouldn't take another course I didn't have to take. So, naturally, when the opportunity presented itself to take an interesting seminar in the law school, I took the steps to get signed up.
Yesterday, after a really productive meeting with a professor over a really bad semester final project, I reconsidered my resolve. Focus, she said. Yes, it sounds interesting. But there are other avenues to pursue that pertain directly to your work and your interests. That's what you need to do.
She was right. GR was right when he said the same thing. Anyone else who has told me to focus has also been right. I heard them. finally. and this morning, I wrote to the law professor and said "sorry, but no, thank you."
That's a first. So I thought I'd make a note of it.
Posted by cageyer at 12:41 PM | Comments (1)
January 11, 2006
Six Degrees of Michael Stipe
And now a word from the Department of How Could You Have Missed This?:
Michael Stipe, as many more tuned in people know, is the lead singer of R.E.M., whose song Losing My Religion is one of my soul-striking favorites. I only learned this recently - his name I mean, since although I loved the song I knew nothing about the band. So yesterday, I was reading an old edition of The New Yorker and I found a many-full page spread about a Sundance series called Iconoclasts. One of the six parts features Mario Batali on - you guessed it - Michael Stipe. The ad described Michael as a friend of Batali, among other things, and shows the two holding hands.
So now, with this one connection to one of my favorite Food Netword chefs, I start to do some browsing. I find all these fascinating connections (in addition to Batali):
1. Kurt Cobain
2. Alton Brown
3. Natalie Merchant
4. Coldplay
5. Being John Malkovich
I'm off to go re-read Duncan Watts. I think I've missed many more things than just this.
Posted by cageyer at 09:33 AM | Comments (0)
January 09, 2006
Travel Notes
Airline travel used to be fun. Back in the day, I had my own copy of Delta's timetable - the booklet that lists every flight and includes information about the aircraft and type of service provided. (I haven't seen one of those printed in years.) I was a reasonably frequent flyer and used to comb the book to find just the flight and service I wanted. Upgrades to first class could be had for a mere $60 if you didn't have enough miles. Alaska Airlines was the airline of choice for any trip in their service area. In addition to the extra legroom that made them highly attractive, they offered such amenities as free wine on their flights. Ah, those were the days.
Fast forward. Airline travel is not fun. I have done it a few times since I moved to Syracuse and really, it's almost worse than riding the bus. The rows get increasingly close together (remember that rule about putting your head on your knees and covering in case of an emergency? Fat chance!). The seats measure in a 17.3 inches wide. Do you know anyone with a 17" shoulder span? No, me either. Well, except for a some younger folks who also wear size 2 and 6, respectively, or a group under the age of 12. Seriously - you don't have to be overweight to not fit on the plane. It really is like packing sardines into a can. It makes me think of that program where they put the couple in a house for a year where everything was about 3/4 size and they had to live as if it were all normal. Drove them nuts with frustration and anger. It's the same - crammed into a too small space for a long time. And yet we do it - many of us - enough to oversell just about any flight that comes here - because it's still the way to get from here to there and back in a reasonable amount of time and with a minimum of personal wear and tear.
In the current edition of American Way magazine, the president wrote in his column about a proposal to open Love Field (in Dallas) for long haul flights. Apparently this would benefit the field's chief occupant - Southwest Airlines. American, with its big hub at DFW, is opposed to this change, and some of the implications from the impact study suggest they are right to do so for reasons even beyond their own competitive positioning. But that's not the part that was interesting to me. The interesting part was when he referred to Southwest Air as the wealthiest domestic airline.
Now, I've "known" Southwest Airlines since they were "born", so to speak, and the reason I find their wealth interesting is because from the beginning they did it differently than the rest of the airlines. At first, that meant they did things that business travelers, in particular, didn't like and wouldn't fly because of. But now, I think it means something more interesting - something to do with not carrying the weight of prior labor agreements in various forms, not having to maintain the kinds of long-haul and international systems that the other domestic airlines still carry. Lots of interesting business choices and an interesting result in a globalized world.
Southwest Airlines is a case study in many business success books. If I had the time, and I don't right now, it would be interesting to do a project studying the course of the airline, what business pundits said about it, what has happened, and how it came to be that a small start-up with a used fleet, no seat assignments, and a reputation for the quirkiest safety announcements in the industry came to be the wealthiest of all. (Book suggestions or other references gladly accepted).
Posted by cageyer at 10:17 AM | Comments (0)