5th week? Space-time seems to be breaking down

Ignoring the lack of continuity with time in regards to life vs. school, or relationships for that matter... this reading was interesting, but it seemed like more of a review instead of something new. "Read out-loud", "re-check your sources" , find a 'reader' ... Was I just working ahead of myself if I've already done this?

I have to slam refdesk! "Fast Facts"? Really??? It's too easy to get lost in the mas of links that... well.. are just there. Maybe I just love Google too much, or other search engines, but refdesk needs to be burned/nuked/removed from existence.. maybe that space-time rupture could suck it into oblivion. Ok.. enough of the slam. I'm sure there's great information buried in all those links, but like the annoying Bing.com commercials, I just wanted to scream "LOS LINKS!!!!!" and cry. The other search engines that we talked about previously in class were much easier to use and navigate. I'm really glad we weren't required to use this as a resource. It's possible that at the time CR was written that these other sources hadn't grown up yet, but today, these fast facts are found much faster other ways... and with a lot more knowledge backing them up.

This doesn't mean it's not useful information, it just means that I was kind of let down after reading 11 pages of the CR manual and not coming out with anything that I consider new.. =\ Maybe there's a hole in my glass after reading this and I'm viewing through a half-empty foggy glass... or do I just need more beer?

The semester is almost over ... does this terrify anyone else?

The Fifth Week-Matthew Curtis

This reading seemed to cover a lot of things we went over when preparing our final portfolios for English 101. The main thing we did not cover in that class, but is mentioned in this reading, is the section on reading your paper aloud to yourself. I agree with the author when he say’s “You may find the experience a little unsettling”. This is something that I’ve never really been able to do completely. I’ll start reading it aloud and then usually get to a point when I tell myself that I can’t go any further. I always figure that someone’s only going to be reading this to themselves, not out loud. I never figured that just because it made sense to me as it was written that it would make sense to a different person.

The section on using a reader was helpful, so I had my wife read over my unit 2 and she came up with some good ideas for to change some things. Instructor feedback is also incredibly useful when doing revisions, as they can sort of direct the focus of your paper into something more coherent.

I did look back at some different research that I had previously come across, but didn’t find anything that would add more substance to my revisions. I was curious about his praise for the site www.refdesk.com, so I thought I'd check it out since I had never heard of it before. I found the site to be incredibly confusing and full of way too many links to click on. I think Google Scholar and the Albertsons Library search engine have served me better while being much less confusing. In all, it was an interesting read, but I don't think I came away from it any more prepared than I already was.

The Fifth Week

First and foremost I would like to say that I wasn't particularly happy with this reading assignment for one reason. The story in the beginning about the author and his high school girlfriend was never finished. I do realize he might have finished the story in the end of his piece but unfortunately I couldn't get to the end because the assignment kind of stopped in the middle of the authors little shpeel and so I was unhappy.

With that said everything else in this paper was, I think, very good. The author captured my attention in the beginning with his story and continued all the way to the end using metaphors like the one were he compared the elusiveness of getting a hold on a thesis, or main point of a paper to a slippery fish or comparing a researching student to a weak wrestler.

The real reason I was so interested in this particular piece wasn't the creative writing style of the author though. I think the real reason I was so interested was because this piece seems like it could be very useful in helping me re-vise my papers. He has some very good suggestions how to go about revising a paper. The assignment seems to be written as a step by step guide to revising. Yet, his suggestion to cut up the draft paragraph by paragraph scares me a bit. The idea of doing that and trying to piece everything back together again seems daunting. Plus I have somewhat of a fear that I will have a larger reject pile then save pile. He was right when he said that authors have a hard time messing with something they worked so hard on.

He also used many examples of how people should and should not write. For example he talked about sounding too “colloquial” which I must admit I didn't understand. However, he posted up an example of what he meant about being too colloquial and I got it. I was a little saddened when I read the example though because in all honesty I think that my writing style is kind of like that. Oh the sadness.

I really like the templates that the author used in his earlier writings that we have read. I found them to be pretty useful so when this assignment ended right where the templates seemed to begin that was a bit inconvenient. Yet I guess the idea of being a writer is to try to be original in your writing so using someone's templates won't help anyone accomplish that.

All in all it seems I have a lot of work ahead of me if I want my revised papers to be anything like the author indicates they should be

Unit 3b-I forgot to post yesterday!

Why Our Public Lands Need A Solid Climbing Management Plan

In a 1979 essay written by world-renowned climber Reinhold Messner, he wrote that “bolting is the murder of the impossible”. Never has that phrase held more truth than today, when our public climbing areas have become damaged and littered by climbers with no regard for either other visitors to the area, or the land itself.

I don’t mean to lump all climbers in to this category. I think that a majority of climbers do have respect for other people who use the land as well as the environment. But there are some out there who want to get to the highest places, to scale something that’s never been climbed before, so they can get their fifteen minutes in the spotlight. Bolting is a thing that, when used properly and sparingly, aids climbers in safety and helps them achieve their goals. Safety is the main issue I put forth here. On long climbs, bolts are a necessity for climber safety. They prevent climbers from falling great distances, as well as letting the climber know whether they should continue to attempt a specific climb.

There are some climbers out there who, after failing to succeed at a climb, will just grab their drill and some bolts and put more bolts in all the way up the rack face. This allows them to accomplish a climb that otherwise would have been impossible for them to accomplish. This was the “murder” that Mr. Messner was talking about in his essay. He thought that if you did not have the ability to do it with little or no aid, you had no business being up on the rock.

In January of this year, the National Park Service released a memo from the director establishing new rules regarding bolting in national parks. It places an immediate ban on all new bolting, and will require a permit from the park director to place any new bolts. In order to acquire a permit, you must follow the guidelines set by the specific parks’ climbing management plan. The problem with this, notes the Access Fund, is that not all parks have a climbing management plan, so therefore the ban would be all encompassing, as no permits would be issued due to no person having the authority to issue one.

The Access Fund, a conservation group focused on rock climbing, applaud the new rules, but want a few changes to be made. The main thing they want is for each park to have a climbing management plan in place, not one that lumps all the parks together. Each park is different, they maintain, as is the terrain and the people who use them. They believe that it is only through effective management can this issue of bolts be put to rest.

I wholeheartedly agree with the Access Fund. Though not all climbers will be happy with the new rules, I think it will effectively discourage those who continuously bolt a climb from placing those bolts, and might make them re-think the skills they may need in order to succeed at a particular climb. Through effective management along with the help of the climbing community, we can all pitch in to make our public lands usable for generations to come. I don’t think bolting is the murder of the impossible, but rather a guidebook to use when judging your own abilities.

Otherworldly Freaks! (3b)

      “What’d you do this weekend?” A friend of mine asked me after a long weekend of heavy drinking, sleeping in, and eating everything in sight. “I got a Tattoo!” I replied. Apparently it wasn’t the answer he was looking for. One eyebrow slowly rose and his head tilted to one side; almost like a puppy with that look of “I know you’re talking to me, it sounds important, but I don’t understand.” That wasn’t the response I was expecting to my admission. The extrovert side of me wanted my friend to be overly excited and demand to see my new work.

      Could it be that the act of decorating my body with a work of art is still such a foreign idea to people? Our sports heroes proudly display their works of art during every game that we watch. Steven Slivka who writes for The Rebel Yell, a college newspaper in Nevada, estimates that 70 percent of NBA players have tattoos! Even NFL and NHL players are heavily tattooed. These voluntary changes to their bodies don’t make us sit back any further in our seats during the spectacular plays on the field that almost defy the laws of physics… no! We’re at the edge of our seats watching, in almost slow motion, the ball float through the air and land into the hands of this god of sports who somehow just leapt inhumanly high into the air to pluck the ball from the sky. When he does his funky little victory dance, we see his tattoos glisten in the lights of the stadium. The tattoos haven’t changed this man into something different. He’s still our hero for the night! So why, when I told my friend that I now had a tattoo, did I get a look like I was from another planet?

      As I continued through the week, that thought stuck in my mind. Why was I treated differently all of a sudden because of my tattoo? My eyes searched the world around me, trying to find clues as to what had happened to me. Tattooed or not, I started to notice something. People with darker clothes and long dark hair (the goth’s), were given a wide path to walk down the sidewalks on campus, almost as if they were contagious. A few people with rainbow gay pride buttons on their backpacks received second glances and hushed whispers as they went out of ear-shot. A heavily pierced girl with orange hair actually had people stop and stare as she walked down the sidewalk. Each of these people decided to change their appearance in ways both subtle and obvious. Moreover, they were all treated differently because of how they portrayed themselves to the world. Something I had read from a tattoo artist came into my mind, “They’re not freaks, they’re just like you and me.”  Gregor Glinski was talking about people he had worked with over the years, in his book Masters of Tattoo. These people that I observed weren’t freaks from another world; they were normal people, only expressing themselves differently.

      I’m proud of my tattoo, and look at it as another part of what makes me who I am. I asked one of my friends, Dustin Hiersekorn, if he had encountered anything negative from his tattoos, he told me “No. if anything it’s more of a conversation starter. Like at work, people will ask what my forearm tattoo means.” I hope I’ll have that type of opportunity. I’ll never be a sports hero that you breathlessly watch on TV, but I can still be a positive and memorable influence on the world around me. I am not my tattoo; I am a normal guy who happens to have a tattoo that means something to him. Speaking for the majority of the tattooed population, we’re not freaks from another world, we’re just like you. When you see someone with a work of art on their body, take a moment and ask them about it. You might realize you’re not as different from them as you previously thought. You may even realize that you’re not so alone in this big scary world either.

Unit 3b

The Big Times

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary the definition of obesity is a condition characterized by the excessive accumulation and storage of fat in the body. You will also see a picture of the United States of America right next to that definition. I'm Just kidding. Seriously though the problem of obesity in America is no laughing matter. It has become quite the epidemic. Around an estimated 300,000 deaths are linked with obesity and yet we just keep on eating.

Many of us love going to fast food restaurants because, to us, it's delicious, easy and pretty darn cheap. Realistically though all of the things we think of as advantages are really not as good as we think they are. In the long run we lose. Big time.

A McDonald's supersize extra value meal has 1,500 calories. That meal is packed with hydrogenated and saturated fats. It's not just McDonald's though its restaurants everywhere. According to a wonderful little book called “It This Not That” by David Zinczenko many meals that you didn't think were too bad are actually quite harmful to your health. For example Applebees has made quite the concoction with their appetizer sampler. It has 2,510 calories. Even the avocado and grilled chicken from Cheesecake Factory has an unimaginable 1,750 calories.

Yet it's not just the calories. It's the amount of food we ingest as well. We “super size” everything. From McDonald's up to the swanky restaurants and even the movie theaters we eat more than we've ever eaten before. Even our dinner plates are made bigger these days then they were just several years ago. The dinner plate has been enlarged ten to twelve inches.

So what comes from all of this unhealthy overeating? Well did you know that health that the medical care costs of obesity in the United States in 2008 totaled about $147 billion? Obesity is known to be a direct link to all sorts of diseases. Diabetes, stroke from diabetes, heart disease, cancer and even arthritis can be directly linked to being overweight. That's kind of what happens when we think that eating a McDonald's value meal is cheaper than eating some fruits and vegetables. In the moment yeah it's cheaper but in the long run it's very expensive. All the medical bills you'll be paying will hurt your wallet more than those fruits and vegetables ever did.

Many people believe that eating fast food is, well, fast and really easy. No need to cook, just head on over to the nearest fast food joint and you'll have your order in a couple of minutes. For the most part that isn't quite as true as most people believe. By the time you get in your car, (Because Lord knows your not going to walk to the fast food joint two blocks from your house) get in line, pay and finally get your food you could have easily made a quick sandwich which will probably not only be healthier but also a smaller portion then that big mac.

Whats that? You won't be full after just one normal sized sandwich? I bet you, you will probably feel just as satisfied from that sandwich as you are from when you eat a big mac. How do I know this? Well because of a little experiment done by Barbara Rolls, a nutrition professor at the Pennsylvania State University. In Rolls's study she took several lean young men who where known to eat normal portions of food and gave them different portions of mac-and-cheese on different days for lunch. When they where given the jumbo twenty-five ounce lunch they ate fifteen ounces of it even thought a day or two ago they had been given sixteen ounces and ate only ten. That was fifty percent more than what they had eaten before. So basically if there are bigger portions given to us then we will eat them no matter how much we normally eat and we still feel just as satisfied even when portion sizes are different. So when eating food, if you do go out to a restaurant, automatically put like half of whatever you have into a doggy bag and set it aside or if you eat at home use a smaller plate. You'll feel just as satisfied.

So you see my friends, eating healthy food in normal portions is good for you and thankfully, for all of our sakes, America is becoming obsessed with losing weight and eating healthy. There are T.V shows like “ The Biggest Loser” which shows overweight people trying to lose weight. They give many tips and recipes that we, the viewers, can use ourselves. There are popular programs such as Weight Watchers that help people to eat healthier and lose weight. Plus restaurants are getting healthier things on their menus, and because of the government restaurants must now show consumers the nutritional value of their menus if we ask. Even Michelle Obama is getting on the health wagon.

So instead of getting the big mac get the salad or just make a sandwich at home. If you do I promise you'll feel better not only in the moment, knowing you made the better decision but you're body will also thank you in the long run... and so will you're wallet.