Posted on 05/16/2008 2:04:56 PM PDT by GOP_Raider
While DaveLoneRanger is on vacation going to a touristy spot in a random blue state, we here in the House of GOP_Raider have a somewhat momentous occasion.
My brother (pictured here is going to graduate from college tomorrow. A grand event though this certainly is for the entire family and what not, I do hope you'll forgive me if I'm a little off my game this weekend, considering that I have the song of note from my high school graduation, Vitamin C's Graduation stuck in my head
This is where Wikipedia's disambiguation comes in mighty handy.
So anyway, we've all graduated from something--high school, college, trade school, and so on. What were you thinking during your graduation/commencement exercises? And while I'm on this topic, what would you think would be a great speaker for a high school or even a college commencement?
Enjoy the weekend and hopefully the world continues to revolve in your direction (with apologies to former FOX Sports anchor Van Earl Wright)
Seriously, I was proud of myself and so glad my family was there for the ceremony. But I'll tell you what, when a few months later I found out I had cancer, I starting regretting the time I lost with my family. Thankfully, it was easily removed and treated yet it served its purpose of realigning my priorities. Life is TOO short - Family is Everything!
That's my story and I'm sticking to it...
Thread is now up. I may need one of you to keep an eye on things for Saturday since our family is having a big dinner. I’ll ping the list, but I won’t be around the computer for most of the evening.
Hear, hear! I felt the same way.........only......I still have a year to finish my Bachelors. (1 day a week of video classes) I'm not sure I have the fortitude.
I remember the day I graduated I was jumping around like I just won the Lottery or the World Series. My patience for formal (or at the very least public) education wore very thin around my freshman year. It was almost as though everything I wanted to know I could find out on my own and if it was something that required some detail, I could either read it myself or just remain a dilletante on the matter.
I did end up giving about 3 semesters of community college a try, but hated that even more.
At least you aren’t saving up some money to go to law school like my brother is trying to do. We won’t know who he is anymore after he sets foot there....*shudders*
Oh geez. A Bachelors? More power to you...
While I was still in school, I was considering studying for some alphabet-soup title after graduation. Still haven’t decided if I want to do it or not, so all the books and notes are packed away...just in case. However, there is also a big note on the bin - “After my Demise - nothing in here of value. Burn the lot!” Save my family the trouble of sorting through all my junk here. LOL!
Sure hope this last year goes quickly for you!
I was like you in “what am I doing?”. Stopped half way thru PhD.. realized I was too lazy, had too many other things I wanted to do & was just doing it because everyone said I should (ego?)
Have a nice weekend everyone!
Go Cavs! Go LeBron!
Oh man, the PC crap has really infested the community colleges. I had attempted a different program about 15 years before trying again and finishing. The differences between some of the classes I had to repeat were incredible. Occasionally, it was a gas to lightly push an instructor’s button - however, there was too much work to do to really go for it. Spent more time on generals than on core classes - something wrong with that picture!
I've now had four graduations of some significance, and each of them gave me a slightly different feeling.
High school graduation wasn't a big deal. My feeling at the time was that graduating from high school shouldn't be a big deal. In 1981, we were long past the time in our history when finishing high school should have been a major challenge. For someone to graduate from high school before WWII was a big thing. In 1981, the only people who didn't graduate were those who actively avoided trying to accomplish anything with their lives, those who were skipping high school to pursue some unusual career path, those who had severe learning disabilities, and those who were in extremely bad economic circumstances. I was too young to be truly thankful that I didn't fit any of those categories, and I realized that I had much bigger challenges ahead. My mom even commented that while many of my friends were jumping around and making a big deal of graduating, my attitude was very casual. I went to McDonald's to eat with some friends, and we talked for a little while. Afterward, I went home. The whole thing was no big deal.
Graduating from Virginia Tech was a big deal. While I had always believed and expected that I would graduate, the path wasn't easy. I'd had a few times when I wondered whether I wouldn't make it. By the time I reached my senior year, things had largely fallen in place, so there wasn't much drama at the end. However, I was aware of having accomplished something big. I'm the oldest in my family, and seeing his first kid walk across the stage was a big deal to my father. I don't remember us talking about the whole thing very much, but I was aware of how big a deal that moment was to him. In some ways, I was more excited for him than I was for myself. I was headed to Penn State in a few months for grad school, so I certainly didn't have that "I'm finished" sense of relief.
I was able to spend much of the day with family or friends, and that part felt good. I'd made some very good friends at Virginia Tech, and being able to see them on that day of celebration meant a great deal. After my folks left for home with a load of junk, I finished cleaning the apartment and took another drive around the area. I then spent some time talking to a friend and headed home.
Getting my master's degree from Penn State was different. I had finished my thesis early in the fall of 1988 and did not attend the December graduation. My folks were okay with my not attending, and I was using the time to take a big after graduation trip. I didn't experience the feelings of a graduation day, but I felt that sense of having completed my schooling. I would now leave school and try to be a success in the real world. For the most part, I believed that I'd be better in the real world than I'd been in school, so I was happily anticipating that change. I was ready to begin my real life.
Getting a second master's from Tennessee Tech was another kind of different experience. I had been a very good corrosion and materials engineer, but the layoffs and the job market had been bad to me. I went back to get a chemical engineering degree in hopes that a slight change in direction would open more opportunities. I had finished my thesis in April but not in time to graduate in May. My official date of graduation would be August. Again, I felt good to have finished. I felt that coming back after some time in industry and changing fields was a significant accomplishment. However, any joy in that accomplishment was diminished by concern about whether the job market would be any better for me with a second master's degree. As it turned out, I ended up back in the corrosion field.
Bill
With that thought in mind, I would eliminate most people who are famous. Political figures will alienate half the audience on one side or the other. Those who try to steer too near the middle to avoid these problems will often offend everyone. Most entertainment people do not owe their success to their college life. Maybe college did some good things for them, but they are rarely associated that strongly with their universities. I certainly wouldn't want someone like Rush Limbaugh to speak at a college graduation because he didn't graduate from college at all. Some sports figures are still strongly associated with their former universities, but the life of a sports star on campus is often so removed from the life of the average student that they don't count. I think astronauts or military people can be good graduation speakers. People who become presidents or CEOs of companies can be good as well as people who rise to the top of some professional organization. I would generally prefer to have an alumni of the school speaking at the graduation even if the person speaking is less famous or seemingly less accomplished.
Bill
High school: I was worried somebody would throw something at me when I walked across the stage (I wasn’t very well liked). Nothing like that happened.
College: I was worried that an enemy I had made earlier in college, who graduated with me, would poke fun at me while I walked across the stage. I didn’t notice anything, however.
Grad school: I didn’t go, but I suspect I would be worried about something happening to me as I walked across the stage, had I achieved an M.S. But I still have plenty of time in my life to get to that point, should I choose to do so. :-)
Funny, I heard Rush talk about him giving the commencement speech at his high school in Cape Girardeau many many years ago and he said to them "enjoy your beer and wine coolers and make sure not to get busted by the cops". Amazingly he was never invited back to give it again. :D
Naw.....I just have to pay back 30k worth of student loans. *chuckle* Sad thing is.... I make less at my job now......than I did when I started! Isn't THAT a hoot!
I'll wait until I'm through the whole program....then put the books up for sale at 1/2 price. The good thing is....most of them don't change from year to year.
During my undergrad graduation from Michigan, someone yelled at the speaker (I believe the then-president of Yale), “F... you!” To the day he died, my step-father would recount that story and laugh, ‘I’ve never been at a graduation where they yelled, ‘F... you’ at the speaker.’ (obviously this was many years before the current craze of dissing the speaker. He thought it was a hoot.
I wasn’t going to go to my PhD graduation last year, mostly because I had moved from the area and didn’t want to travel back, but was talked into it. I’m glad I went. It was great to see the other students and to get back together with some students from my cohort. I was my chair’s first PhD student and she was just beaming. It is the custom for your chair to ‘hood’ you, and it was just great. None of my family came, (I was a ‘mature’ student, most of my family is too old to make the trip) but it was great, nonetheless.
I’d say between my law school graduation and the PhD, the law school seemed like getting out of prison; it was something I thought I had to do (stepfather was lawyer), but my heart wasn’t in it. The PhD was my own thing and I loved every minute of it and love being a prof, especially a conservative prof!
I’m glad I don’t have to go to my students’ graduation, I don’t want to sit thru that stuff. We do a small thing in our department and that seems enough to me.
I think Rush Limbaugh giving the speech at his high school would be appropriate. I guess I don't remember any guest speakers at my high school graduation.
I'm not sure his subject matter was however. ;)
My brother didn't want to go the student loan route, so he's going to try and save the money on his own. Which is somewhat silly, if you're a lawyer and you become a very liberal one, things just take care of themselves...you would think...
I have been away most of the day today, I was at the Dayton Hamvention (Hamfest) today and will be there the next 2 days, to sell some junk I have lying around. I sold about $275 today, and hope to sell at least $200 more before the end of the weekend. MY friend Greg (who ALWAYS manages to see the dark side of even the most silver lining),who sells with me complains that I sell my stuff “too cheaply” often—but I got a break on most of it, and so—why not give someone else a good deal, while STILL making plenty on stuff that is just “lying around” in the first place”, I figure??
Anyway..I was just sitting here thinking..about how MUCH differently I now view my prospects on finding a mate, or at least companion, from this time last year.
About this time last year, I had just “Failed” at another attempt for a friendship with a woman, Tami. What started out to LOOK like it was going to be a REAL friendship, quickly dissolved, leaving me to think even MORE strongly that I was destined to never have ANY meaningful friendship of any kind with a woman again. After all—it ALWAYS seemed to end in failure; since I knew Kim Rose and missed my chance with her, and I figured it always would.
Thankfully. I was VERY wrong in that regard. COMPLETELY wrong, in fact!!
A year or so later, and my now BEST friend Laurie has now managed to pretty much TOTALLY erase all of the old fear and doubts i had about ever having a female friend. By giving me a friendship like NO woman EVER has in my life,(INCLUDING Kim), that is COMPLETELY honest and pure, she has healed most of the damage caused by the cruel women I knew in the past, and re-ignited a desire in me I thought as not asleep, but DEAD—and I now AM ready to ACTIVELY seek out someone like Laurie for myself. (IN FACT—my old “distractions” of collecting and storing electronic items to fill the “void” in my life—no longer seems enough. For now—Laurie’s friendship is filling that void to some degree.)
And SHE is VERY happy I am going to do this—and plans to HELP me to “look my best” and offer any advice I may need. I told her i was not too experienced in the dating arena(which she must had already figured out) and she did NOT laugh or make fun of me, but offered her gentle, caring advice and support to me. As for my questions about why I am still single, or why some women block me on yahoo personals, she just answered...”It was not God’s timing for you, or she was not the one God has picked out for you” and such. This was just a few days ago.
She also told me that she has taken it upon herself to see that she gets me “hooked up” with a decent, Christian woman, and also, she intends to see to it that I become “self-confident, full of optimism, and successful” and will work to accomplish this in my life, because “she believes in me, knows I have been hurt a lot in life, and believes that soon this all will change”. Upon me expressing doubts on this being possible and me commenting that some women had told me in the past that I was about as “sexually appealing as a dead fish” (after another lady there said I had sexy eyes,) she quickly laughed, then smacked my shoulder, gently but firmly enough, to “get a point across”, saying “but you’re not going to think that way anymore, are you?”.
Hearing her talk this way about me touches me inside to the point that I sometimes get watery-eyed just thinking about how much she cares about me. And those around me, including my boss and mother comment on how much better my nerves are today, and how much happier and more optimistic I seem nowdays.
And to think...that all of this came about because Laurie saw fit to prevent me from making a big mistake about 4 years ago, upon hearing about me about to sell out the rights to my novel to a publisher that WOULD have cheated me..and warned me about it.She had NO obligation to concern herself with me in that regard, but did so out of compassion... And the rest..is history. Too bad it took ME so long to allow a meaningful friendship with her.
What a difference a year makes. In this year which has been difficult for my family and myself..the Lord has seen fit to give me a friend of the type which I had thought I was simply not capable of having...and which has helped me immensely in this difficult year. Had Laurie not been there for me many times this year already..I may not have been able to maintain my sanity.
IN fact—my friendship with Laurie is such that FIVE minutes talking to her is more meaningful than more than a HOUR or MORE of talk with one of my male friends, ALL of which are usually very pessimistic and/or are not Christians, or of the same beliefs as me.
Well..I have to get to bed soon. I have to be INSIDE of the Hamfest area by 8am and SET UP, or I will NOT be able to drive in at all, till after 6PM!!
Evenin’ folkses... I should participate more than just lurk, I was thinkin’...
Graduation from Wazzu... Frankly... Don’t remember much of it. I’m sure it was nice. :-).
Grad school... Well... Got most of my MBA but never bothered to finish. A promotion intervened and took my spare time, and my career wouldn’t have been improved by a new degree anymore so I let it slide.
I won’t fight about it, but I’m not so sure I’d agree that Rush L shouldn’t be a guest speaker merely because he didn’t go to college. If anything, it doesn’t hurt for new grads listen to somebody with his message, and to hear that it’s not college that makes them smart. College just provides evidence that you’re smart. At best, the most important lesson of college is that you learn how much there is in the world that you don’t know.
But don’t show up for work at the new job and pretend that you know anything. That’ll come later.
High school graduation, I felt was the most boring waste of time EVER, and I would have skipped it if I thought I could get my parents not to care. I spent most of the day trying to think of every possible way to break the dress code (or, more importantly, figure out which ones I could pull off) and all kinds of more interesting places I could be or things I could be doing. I also fell asleep during the ensuing grad party, cause everyone ended up either chasing each other around with caterpillars, or trying to get the caterpillar-wielding children to behave themselves, so I just went in the living room and crashed on the couch.
While I agree that college graduates need to realize that a college degree doesn't mean that they know everything, graduation day is not the time to push that point. Graduation day should be a day to celebrate what graduating means to the graduates and their families. To me, that celebration means more if the speaker is someone who has shared that experience.
Bill
Hmm, let’s see. I was homeschooled up through high school, so my graduation ceremony for that was fairly simple: my folks rented out a room at a local college (where my dad was teaching and I had taken classes), put up decorations and old pictures of me, and spent the better part of a weekend making the refreshments. I gave a short speech, and concluded by begging for paper extensions— technically I still had a few English classes going, and was even worse about meeting deadlines then.
For college (Illinois), I had the choice of three ceremonies: one for English, one for Comparative Lit, and one for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Since I had relatives coming into town that, um, weren’t exactly on speaking terms with one another, I ended up attending all three ceremonies so someone could watch me walk across the stage twice (the College graduation only let MA’s and PhD’s walk; everyone else just stood up to be graduated). At English, I was the first one on the list, and since no one bothered to tell me about the photo op at the end, I kinda breezed by the photographer by accident! And at Comp Lit I was the only one from my whole department graduating class to show up. I don’t remember much about the speeches, other than the fact they were overly cliched (you must remember I was a pretentious English major with a low tolerance for rhetorical grandstanding) and boring.
Technically I just finished up my M.A. so could march in another ceremony this summer, but since I’ll be coming back in September to start the PhD anyway, I didn’t think it worth the time and expense.
Jr. College was ok. I wore the cap and gown and it was held in a nice city park. It was a beautiful day.
Then for my B.A. graduation it was a huge school, I had to work and I never went to the ceremony.
So they were all good. I remember for high school it seemed every merchant in the little town had a free gift for each graduate. There were only 30some of us. I remember the bank let you come get a nice pen and pencil set, the hardware store had a tool set for the boys and a nice radio for the girls. The hatchery offered each person baby chicks or ducklings or wind chimes. Stuff like that. It was nice. I mean look at me talking about it decades later. I do not remember a single thing anybody gave me personally but I remember the merchants’ gifts.
Fair enough. That’s a good point.
Oy! I’m planning to go to law school...!
Just be prepared...it’s like a leftist minor league system at a lot of law schools.
By the same token I have learned a lot about the higher education system from guys like Thomas Sowell who have seen just about everything in the world of academia.
LOL! I work with and know a few WSU alumni and they have remarked to me that much of their stint in Pullman was something of a blur. ;)
Any school will be leftist, pretty much.
But I tend to change things as often as they change me, so who knows.
Just checking in, I graduated high school in 1985, nothing much happened although I still hang with the same guy I did since we were in 5th grade (1977).
I wish you all the luck at Dayton, I’m an amateur radio operator myself, I’d like to go but lack of money factors into that.
1. I suspect so.
2. I grew up during that time, but I don’t really remember sign-offs. I do remember the test pattern. I’m willing to bet that, if I ever to get high on LSD or pot in the future, a test pattern would look pretty damn neat. However, test patterns have been replaced by infomercials, at least on cable.
On #2 ... sorry, I started developing my insomnial habits at an early age (a waaayyy too active brain) and I hated the TV going off at midnight.
Many a morning was spent getting up before they came on (I think it was 0600), and I saw the bars (now color, but grey scaled then) blip to the test pattern and then I think it was The Today Show with Dave Garoway.
I'd better stop here, I'll reveal my ill spent youth in front of the tube and folks here will ponder ..."So THAT'S what's wrong with knarf ... I THOUGHT so."
Congrats! Best wishes to the graduate!
Ultimately, the most successful efforts were later private efforts. The fur traders eventually found a more efficient route to the Pacific coast. I'm sure that when private companies are in a position to make money from space exploration, they'll end up finding more efficient ways to travel and make more profitable use of what they find. However, I can't criticize having the government take the first steps.
Bill
I had a friend who used to love watching that sign off. Mostly, he liked watching because the local station showed footage of fighter jets as they played the national anthem.
I got there about 7:40 and had no problem getting to drive in and park. BEFORE I set ANYTHING out, a guy who had been at our spot the day before, came and requested to buy a Masco tube amp, that me and Greg BOTH had IDENTICAL ones of. And then..I sold ANOTHER tube amp, which had some missing tubes and knobs and got $100 for both of them. Once again—Greg thought I sold them too LOW, but the man had bought from Greg the day before and my other amp, and so I gave him a “break” on the other one, the Eico St70.
A bit later, we had set up. Greg was scared I would get in trouble for parking in the vendor area, but I KNEW it would be no problem since there were a LOT of empty spots, on both sides of my van. He was also afraid it would rain, but I had asked God to hold off on the rain till after 6—(which he DID do.). And of course Greg was not very optimistic about making much more money—but he ended up making about $500 more or so. I attempted to get him to be more optimistic and look on the “bright side” of things, but he did not bite. He said it is best to be pessimistic all of the time, and then if something good does happen, you are pleasantly surprised. I told him that is a BAD way to look at life. (Guess Laurie's friendship is rubbing off on me a bunch nowdays.)
Within a couple of more hours, I sold my Military tube tester for $100, and a junk Zenith amp chassis for $10. Before noon, I sold my antique Jensen speaker(which needed reconing) for $70 more—and the guy came back and gave me the rest of the money from the Peavey guitar amp from yesterday.
So—all told, today and yesterday—I made about $550. ALL of this was just stuff “hanging around” that I would not do anything with most likely. My total expenses for this year's fest are less than $100, including gas and purchases.
Going back tomorrow, but I am not sure if I will sell much. I would like to sell my realistic STA-2200 receiver(the BEST receiver they ever made) and a couple of other things, but already—I have exceeded my goal a BUNCH. If I don't sell another penny--I will not be disappointed.
What happened to Snugs?
I went to college twice and have 2 associates degrees. The first one for a AAS degree was from 1987-89. It no doubt was “helpful” in me getting my “foot in the door” on a number of jobs, but I did not really “learn that much”. I made NO “life long” or even semi-long term friends there, either.
The second go-around was for a network engineer class. This was from 2002-2004. This as a HUGE mistake, and if I could do it again—I would NOT. Not only was it a TOTAL waste of time and money( I am NOT qualified or experienced enough to get a “real” computer job”), but the whole mess with Holly and such in spring of 2003 RUINED college for me, and caused me to withdraw and avoid much of any meaningful friendships, or even serious conversations, with women, and only recently has this changed somewhat, mostly thanks to my wonderful friendship with Laurie which has managed to heal most of those wounds--wounds I thought not long ago would be there forever..
Thanks! I’ve got a few pics of the current holder of a Bachelors degree in Business Administration once I get off work in a half hour or so
Thanks to my job, a test pattern (or what is known as "NTSC Color Bars" is something I've seen almost every single day of my life for the past 8 1/2 years, so it's becoming old hat for me.
The days before satellites were in orbit was a completely different world for the drive-bys...
Depends on the station and the type of maintenance. If it's maintenance at the studios itself, then there's not much need to do it. At the transmitter on the other hand, a station's engineering staff can simply cease transmission during overnight hours--or what used to be called "cutting the carrier"--on their over-the-air signal without having to actually sign off, since most cable systems get their local stations via fiber optic line instead of from directly over the air, they can still transmit on cable and the satellite providers and they can still charge their advertisers/clients for the spots that were set to air, even though they aren't transmitting via "rabbit ears" (over the air).
Now, I'll have to research this, but I believe the stations in Pittsburgh are union shop, so anytime you have engineering staff doing maintenance like this in the wee hours, the local's bylaws may state that the station may have to pay shift differential (or what works out to something ridiculous like double time and a half) for doing the maintenance beyond their normal hours.
snugs said she was busy this weekend and that she was taking a weekend off of the thread. She’s still around though. :) DaveLoneRanger, WFTR, snugs, and myself are doing this singles thread by committee for the time being.
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