"Up In The Air" Was a Total Lie, Or: Bernice, Live from Ft. Lauderdale International!

9:25 AM

After spending the last five days in sunny south Florida, I had a flight to catch to get home. The plan was this: 11:25 flight to Toronto, 4 PM connection to Montreal. This allowed me a buffer zone of 90 minutes to clear customs, re-check my bags, and get on the second plane. Risky, I know, but riskier airplane connections have certainly been made. When I get to the airport, the check-in lineup is four people wide, stretching around the back wall of the terminal building, snaking around corners and staircases. crap. At this point, I should add, my Toronto flight has been delayed 35 minutes until 12:00.

10:00

I get pulled out of line and asked to check in at the automated kiosk, because my flight is soon and I've made virtually zero progress so far. Boarding passes now printed, I go to the special baggage drop-off counter and the woman looks at my boarding passes and laughs at me. I smile, ask what's up, and she says in a jolly Caribbean inflection, "Dere is no way you ah makin' dat connection!". I laugh, I was already resigned to that, so she says she'll try to get me on another flight. Cool. First, though, she makes a joke that I'll first have to pay for my mistake of going to the kiosk, when I should have known that I would miss my connection. I hate when people at airports, restaurants, or school do that because you have absolutely no way to tell when they're kidding. I mean, I don't know the rules for when you express-check in to a connection you're probably going to miss, but they lady tells you to use the express in order to make your first flight that's already delayed. Anyway, she tells me that "I shouldnt be doin' dis, but I can get ya on de flight direct to Montrayal at two fitty-five. But dat means you be doin your waitin' heah instead of in Toronna because all de Montrayal flights in de rush howa ah full". That will get me into Montreal at 6:15, only an hour behind schedule, which has since long been shot anyway. I reply "Hell Yes". My flight boards at 2:15, which means I have four hours to kill in the airport! hello, Liveblog!

11:00

It turns out that there's free wi-fi in the entire airport. Sweet. This makes it way easier to kill all this time. My original, former flight to Toronto is now leaving at 12:30, which means that i would have had to get a connection at 5 the VERY EARLIEST, and every single flight in toronto is delayed. this direct flight might be the only way I get home tonight. The only goal is 9:30, in time to watch the hockey game. I really want a vanilla coke, i've only had one since i've been here.


11:30

I had two novels to buy this trip that I need for school next week. I went to a Barnes and Noble and a Borders, no luck at all. They were BOTH in the airport bookstore. the day is looking up. Toronto flight now at 12:45.

12:20

I checked my baggage at 10:15 AM for a 2:50 PM flight. I'm afraid that they're going to lose it, or they sent it on the 11:30 to montreal. - why? are we that distrustful of airports that we assume that if any thing is remotely out of the ordinary, then they're just going to screw it up?

12:50

So now, all flights in and out of New York are cancelled due to weather. uh-oh. Toronto flight just left.

1:15

Still waiting for my flight, hasn't been cancelled yet. boarding at 2:15, in 60 minutes, but the plane hasn't showed up yet. no worries, it's got time. However, i took a stroll to the duty-free and saw A BOTTLE OF PATRON FOR 35 dollars, and the gold kind for 40! what the hell? that shit is 70 bucks AT LEAST in canada, and 90 for the gold! I wanna feel like a rap star! WHY THE FUCK AM I NOT 21?!?!

2:15

just destroyed a sbarro personal pizza. feel sick. should be boarding right now, ain't for whatever reason. for a while behind me there was a french guy telling what must have been an unbelievably entertaining story, because everyone he was telling it to was screaming and laughing the whole time. he's gone now, and the mood round these parts is definitely less upbeat. hopefully boarding soon.

2:25

the plane just got here everyone is getting off this is getting really intense! people are standing up and stuff as if it'll make the plane take off faster! in other news, i'm sitting in the gate across from someone who must be a charter member of the John Calvert Look-alike club.

2:45

Boarding! Success! Five hours waiting for a flight complete! See y'all soon

The Education Conflation

TRANSACTION. Supplier. Consumer. Product. Price.

It all seems so simple. Someone makes something, someone buys it from them, everyone goes home happy. Sure, market terminology can't cover all human interaction, and shouldn't be asked to--but where there's a money purchase involved, there's bound to be a product. And usually everybody involved knows what the heck it is.

I spent $6,011 last year on a product I can't describe. I don't mean that in a surly, "I'm not learning anything" kind of way (I am) and I don't even mean it in a pontificating, "What is the value to society" kind of way (who cares)--but in a purely descriptive, non-pejorative sense, I have no idea what I'm supposed to be getting for that money.

Let me explain.

There are really two traditional schools of thought as to what a university should offer to society: the "knowledge transmission" version and the "knowledge factory". In other words, a university will supply pedagogy or research, and often it dabbles in both. So far as the undergraduate is concerned--with the exception of the occasional lab assistant and so on--the research is moot, simply because we don't carry it out, profs usually don't tell us about it, and we don't benefit from the growth in human knowledge very much more than the average person outside the university does. What does that leave for us? Pedagogy.

But we all sort of know that that's not the only thing we're getting out here. So what does the university sell to an undergraduate, really? There are two answers, one cynical and one idealistic, perhaps, and both are correct: it sells teaching, and it sells a diploma. We can call these two products education and accreditation, the separate tasks of cause people to know things and to know how to do things on the one hand and collect information about people's skills and provide that information to employers on the other. I think both are important--you couldn't very well have a complex, globalized, knowledge-based, 21st-century-Web-2.0-blah-de-blah-blah-bloo economy if people didn't keep learning after high school--and as much as we may hate the notion, the diploma/GPA/honour roll/whatever acts as a valuable lubricant in the economy by helping employers find the best of the best without having to spent that much time or money trying to evaluate them. It lowers, in other words, the transaction cost of finding the best man (woman) for the job. What's more, it's worthwhile for a bright young student to be able to pay to get "certified" in order to differentiate himself from his dumber/less educated/less talented peers. So both these products are socially valuable, and it may be that to get both at once is a bargain.

But I begin to think they entail fundamentally divergent production processes--in other words, the task of educating and the task of evaluating have different and contradictory requirements--and that they should perhaps be carried out separately. It seems to me they have been conflated mostly in order to solve a problem of motivation, and their conflation obscures that problem and its obvious, though perhaps unpalatable, solution.

Weaselbag, Big-City decency does exist. sometimes.

I was going to put this as a comment to the old WB's post, but I thought it would be more effective as its own post.
Watch This, sorry about the pop-up player.

This happened in Long Island, Just outside of New York City.

I know that people on the subway can be cold, but I drive on the busiest highway on the continent enough (twice a day, every day, for about 15 kilometres each way) not to believe that Toronto drivers are patient, curteous, and empathetic when it comes to 16-lane standstills. Strangely, it's not that hard to feel a comradery when you're sitting in the late-afternoon sun boiling your ass off with the window open looking at the guy next to you who's doing the exact same.
Also, when I leave for work early enough, and beat the traffic, I get this feeling like I've conquered the system in some way, and I have a different, snooty comradery with everyone else on the highway then. But maybe I just dis-proved my point.
Regardless, check out the video. It's a trip.

BeeTeeDub, someone called me a "quick young journalist" this morning. It felt awesome, but I fear the time when I will just be a "young journalist", and then the worst kind of all, a "journalist". That time when you're between potential and accomplishment, I fear that greatly, and I see many people around me who are there. Anyway, back to editing! yay!

Amster-DAYUM, son!

Greetings from Amstery Park, NJ. Some reflections on this great Dutch city for your enjoyment:

- Everyone here is attractive, slim and under the age of 50; all the men wear blazers and all the women look like they would dominate in bed.

- The one man I noticed over the age of 50 was wearing a tweed blazer with light blue jeans, a pink woven undershirt, a poofy red scarf and matching red socks with very nice brown shoes. His hair also made my own father's mop look like a crew-cut.

- Everyone here is very determined to get where they're going--cyclists will opt for a crash before they wince at intersecting traffic, I have not seen a car slow down once, and all the well-dressed men and women look like they're en route to the final stage of their spy mission.

- In spite of the above point, people are generally friendly, although one is likely sooner to experience the apocalypse than a waiter give you the time of day.

- The newspapers here make the Epigram look like the New York Times. Mind that I cannot read the content, but the oversized tabloid papers are just hard on the eyes.

- Couples will sit and smoke on a patio with seemingly nothing to do in the middle of the day. It's Wednesday, people!

I think that's all for now. More on this zany adventure as it develops. Tonight, jetlag sleep; tomorrow, windmills!

Return to the t-town

sorry for the lack of real posts everybody.
schoolwork, lifework, yadda yadda.
I've been busy, we all have been.
Regardless, i'll be seeing Whirlwind soon, that'll be nice.
Today I'm hitting the rails with my girl, Icgyatbl, Rabbi, Weaselbag, (Astolphe? is astolphe coming?) and the ever elusive Mr. Sir. (Remember Mr. Sir?)
anyway, maybe there will be a train update when i get home, if something funny happens. I think I'll just watch UHF and take a nap.
For an update on the gang, in case anybody forgot:
Terry Collier is in Guatemala taking it Beliz-ey. A report should come, i'll force it out of him.
Thug Wrangler is in Sexico, as of this morning.
My Mom thinks i'm funny is still in Halifax, because he's lame (or planes are expensive, whatever)
Mr. Skylight is in Florida, taking in some sun. Correspondance is expected, if he can get to an internet box. good luck.
Icgyatbl is heading off to the proverbial American paradise, good ol' Santa Barbara, California. Correspondance is also expected, and i will be disappointed if it isn't there.
I think everyone other than that is either in T-Town as well, or sticking around in the Mo.
For those in the big smoke this week, there'll be an upcoming DT fest. details to follow.
Otherwise, Have a good break everyone, i hope to hear from you all soon.


yadda yadda rock DT.

Bad choices

"How did we get into this mess?". The words slipped out of my mouth, crept around the strange women in white masks and found their way across the closet-spaced room. My brother replied with the same urgency and uncertainty in his voice, "I don't know". We were old enough to make our own decisions, but too young to make the right ones.
It was the summer of 2004 where my family embarked once again on our almost-bi-annual trip to Beijing. My brother, a year my senior, and I decided that this would be the year where we did not need the supervision of an elder to navigate the massive city. We traversed our way around the circular city with ease, stopping occasionally to "ooh" and "aah" at the surrounding history. I traced my pointer finger along the subway route until it met with our final destination: the shopping district of Xidan.
As I held the rail on the train car crowded with black heads swaying in unison, I couldn't help but wonder how many millions of people have touched that exact spot. I made a mental note to wash my hands when we stopped.
A homogeneous stream of people poured out of the train at our stop. The first thing to greet us as we stepped outside was a damp cloth of humidity that smelled like millions of meals being cooked simultaneously, followed by countless solicitors seeking our business. The stock response was, and has always been, "wo bu yao" (I don't want). But for some reason, the words "free" and "come try" have sifted through my language screen and intrigued us enough to stop the flow of foot traffic to listen fruitlessly to what was being offered. The frustrating language barrier could not be broken, as it stood proud and mighty, laughing in our faces. This was when the lady spoke universally with a motion of her arms: follow me. I'm still uncertain as to who took the first step, both literally and figuratively, to the most questionable and sinister experience of our lives thus far...

From Whence We Came

We're all tired, overworked, busy, chinese, arborist mountain men, sleeping on a train to godknowswhere, or cleaning up after children (and some i forgot), yet something has remained solid amongst our faithful - the oncoming urgency of our glorious reunion.
We forget it is soon - at some point, frank, icgyatbl, myself, the kid, a special appearance from terry, fiver, and the others whom i dont remember to mention, just to keep it exciting, are going to be back marauding our fair country once again.

Let freedom ring, and the countdown begin.