Getting Near The End

As some of you may already know, I will be terminating my employment with Cardinal Stritch University as of the end of this month. It has been a wonderful part of my career. I started at Stritch in the mid-80's under Jim Kasum and Linda Simmons. Meeting these two people was probably the best thing that ever happened to my career. They were both wise as scholars and as people. They helped me mature as a teacher and guided my way while I was at Stritch.

As part of my Masters program in Computer Science Education, I did a bulletin board. This was before the internet and when telecommunications was something for airlines and big corporations. We logged over 50,000 calls before we shut it down and went all internet. It was suppose to be my Grad project but I never gave it up, until the internet made us.

Here is the brochure that I used when I went to professional conferences to hawk our program and the board. This was so cutting edge that many people could not get their heads around what we were talking about.


SIE 1988HORIZ.rotated.rotated

SweetWater.com is my new Favorite Guitar Store

I just bought a new guitar, ok, my friends and family know that's not a big deal. In this case I bought it from a new store. SweetWater. They are in Fort Wayne Indiana. Here is what is so neat about them. They act like my new guitar is a big deal. They talk to you on the phone like a person and then behave as if you are valued. Where do you find that kind of service online.

They offered to set it up and put my brand and guage of strings on it. Not only did they set it up and restring it, but they sent me pictures of my actual new guitar. They must have a guitar portrait studio. 

And the service.... Unbelievable. Bought it on Monday, arrived on Wednesday with my gauge and brand of strings and all set up and ready to play. Not just restrung but actually set-up. Spot on intonation, pickups adjusted. A pleasure to play right out of the box. These people are incredible. If you need a guitar, give sweetwater.com a peek, they deliver in many ways. They even threw some candy in the package for my grandchildren.

This guitar is just like my first electric guitar. Originally Fender wanted to grab jazz guitar players with a special circuit just for Jazz. Now later in my life it has a great set of my favorite features, including the belly cut for my past middle age middle. It also has single coil pickups and a great look. This model has a little hotter pickups than the original but it still has that single coil pop that I love. It also has that great jazz circuit, just like I remembered it. Thanks Sweetwater.

What is this Omer Counter Thing doing here?

As a child, holidays came and went. Each had its own rituals and foods. Some I didn't even notice, others were pretty much good for a day off from school. Now that I am older, and have time to think about these things, I spend a little more time wondering what it is all about.

When my dear daughter asked me to write her an Omer counter I had to look it up to find out what it was. I find the idea interesting for many reasons. Most of which it makes the counter, if you choose to be one, congnizant of the passage of time and the season more than ever. It gives us a chance to prepare for the holiday that celebrates G-d giving us the Torah.

The Torah, everything you need to know about life in one easy to handle scroll, is an amazing gift and however you believe it came to be, it certainly has had a profound impact on Jews and non-Jews alike.


I found a couple of interesting articles on Counting the Omer. The first is from the blog PunkTorah regarding the counting:

So, what does this all mean to us now? Well, it can mean many things. Counting the Omer can be used as a tool of self reflection. We can take this time to recognize the miracle of the Exodus from Egypt, from the gift of our freedom. The Sages tell us that G-d freed us from slavery in order to give us the Torah on Shavu’ot, so this should be a time of preparation. Counting the Omer gives us the time to learn from the gift of freedom G-d has given us and incorporate it into our lives, to grow one day at a time, taking a spiritual accounting, to make sure that we are heading in the right direction, to look at what we are doing that is right or wrong and to try to make ourselves ready to receive the honor of the Torah.
Counting the days is another way of directing our mindfulness to the passage of time. Be aware of the days as they pass, count them, give them meaning. We have been freed from slavery, rejecting the confusion and idolatry (philosophically, literally, and spiritually) of our own Egypt’s and are being made ready to re-focus our lives.

I guess a good take-away from all of this is that one must make each day count. Make each day worth living for you and the people you love. 

(This is a repeat of a post from a few years ago)

Computing in the Clouds

Welcome to my personal Blog. I will have all the websites, links and goodies from our session, Monday March 11, 2013 assembled here for you to use. It will stay here so don't worry about losing the resource.

These presentations are shared from my cloud.

• Don't Blink 
• Cloud Computing
• Cloud Computing II 
• The Death of Flashdrives   
• The Perfect Marriage (Web apps)