Test 2

Love this picture.

This handsome bloke would have been 71 years old today. Miss you dad. Every day.

Love this picture.

This handsome bloke would have been 71 years old today. Miss you dad. Every day.

Watch Prince completely upstage these rock icons.

I ran across this video of some legendary rock and rollers playing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” in a tribute to George Harrison. Prince comes out toward the end and completely shreds a guitar solo. Insanity.

A lot of the fuss in the past few days since the news of Prince’s death has focused on the impact that he had on popular music, and the reclusive lifestyle that he led. What I find missing from the coverage of his passing is the fact that… dude could shred.

Prince was the type of musician that didn’t need fancy production or guest musicians. He could play any instrument in the room. Better than anyone else in the room.

Sure, he had a huge impact on popular music. But, more importantly, Prince was the rare pop artist that above all else was a really good musician.

I haven’t seen it yet, but from what I have heard, I can’t wait. James Gunn (the dude who brought us Guardians of the Galaxy) makes some excellent, albeit vulgar points about Hollywood’s obsession with producing the “next big hit”.

/Film:

However, Gunn argues, the real lesson of Deadpool should be that audiences crave originality (or at least, as much originality as they’re going to get in a spinoff about a decades-old comic book character who previously appeared in a different spinoff from the same long-running franchise). “Deadpool was its own thing,” writes Gunn. “THAT’S what people are reacting to. It’s original, it’s damn good, it was made with love by the filmmakers, and it wasn’t afraid to take risks.” According to Gunn, the right lesson for studios to take from Deadpool should be “Boy, maybe we can give them something they don’t already have.”

And therein lies the rub; so many productions in Hollywood are re-makes or re-hashes of projects that have met with great success.

Gunn has a great rant that you can see on the Faceyspaces here.

So, I got this email in my work-related account the other day. My immediate reaction was concern, because PayPal = MY MONEY.

While I do have a PayPal account, it is not associated with my work email. So that was my first clue that this person needs to step up their phishing game.

Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the writer of this message has no concept of capitalization. Just look at the first full sentence:

Your PayPal Account has been temporarily Locked!

Why were “account” and “locked” capitalized?

And don’t even get me started on the broken grammar and poor spelling:

We detect unauthorized Login Attempts to you PayPal Account from other Ip Adress.

Yikes.

Beter luck nxt Times, terible phshing Person.

For months, I have been working on the LionPATH project for Penn State. This is the enterprise student system that will be replacing the legacy system that the University has used for more than 30 years.

LionPATH went live in mid-August, which was an achievement for sure, but initially we were only collecting applicant data. We hit a major milestone last week when we produced the first admission decisions in the new system:

That’s the first pile of offers of admission to Penn State.

That is my fantastic colleague Caley, modeling the very first offer of admission latter that was produced from the system.

“So what?” you say? “What’s the big deal?”

The project has been going on for nearly two years (even though I joined up a couple of months ago), and it has taken lots of great folks a LOT of hard work to get this thing up and running.

So, this is merely a self-congratulatory post because I think that it is pretty friggin’ awesome that this thing works – and works well (so far)!

I was on the teevees the other evening as part of Dr. Eric Barron’s “Higher Education in Focus” program. We chatted about Penn State’s application and admission processes.

…and I was the only one wearing a bowtie. BOOM.

Dad. Why did you need SOOO MANY drill bits? These are only the ones that I kept!

Upside: I now have a working table saw, drill press, belt sander, and a ton of other stuff. WHO WANTS TO BUILD A BAR?! This guy does!

Dad. Why did you need SOOO MANY drill bits? These are only the ones that I kept!

Upside: I now have a working table saw, drill press, belt sander, and a ton of other stuff. WHO WANTS TO BUILD A BAR?! This guy does!

A peek inside of an Instant Message conversation between The Wife and I had recently:

The Wife 2:23 pm: phew The Boy got a 91.38% on his math test today

Admissions Dude 2:23 pm: NICE. Attaboy!

The Wife 2:23 pm: this access [to his academic record via an online portal] is addicting

Admissions Dude 2:23 pm: haha... *thump, thump, thump*

Admissions Dude 2:24 pm: that’s the sound of your helicopter blades

The Wife 2:24 pm: he’s 12

The Wife 2:26 pm: it’s going to go like this:

• 12 years old = helicopter,
• 13 = toy heliopter,
• 14 = paper airplane,
• 15 = occasional snowflakes,
• 16 = sprinkles, and
• 17+ = special ops helicopters that only come when called upon

Admissions Dude 2:24 pm: hahahahaha
"special ops"
BRILLIANT

The Wife 2:24 pm: well thank you

She’s awesome. And I’m not worried about helicopterizing my kids – given all of the helicopter parents that both The Wife and I have experienced in our work in higher education. We have made vows to each other that we won’t be like THAT. Hopefully.