iPods and Facebook challenge beer on campus
I found this interesting. iPods picked up a lot of points over the past year. And even though iPods are on top of beer, the iPod picked up points somewhere else because beer is really only a close second. Not surprisingly for me, Facebook appears out of nowhere and ties beer in the Top 5 “In” things on campus.
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Handicap update
Here’s my latest. Sure wish there was more time to play…
Dan Cane picks up SIIA CODiE Award
Dan Cane has always said that he’s “the biggest fan of Backpack.” It only seemed fitting that Dan would be the one that attended and picked up the 2006 Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) CODiE Award. Blackboard Backpack won the category for Best Education Technology Solution for Productivity/Creativity.
As I’ve written before, Agilix has partnered with Blackboard to develop Backpack. Backpack is a personal learning and student productivity software application that extends the Blackboard Academic Suite into “offline” study settings.
Students use Backpack help students to:
- Download courses for anytime, anywhere use
- Organize their life
- Personalize their study with digital annotation, note taking, and search.
Another picture of Dan…
2006 golf club obsession
Not sure what is happening this year. Perhaps it’s because I’ve gone so long without purchasing golf clubs. But 2006 is a banner year for club aquistion so far. Clubs I’ve added and taken out of my bag this year:
- Callaway X-Tour irons — more forgiveness w/ forged irons. In for a brief 3 months… I couldn’t hit the long irons (3,4,5) so I went back to my old Precept Tour Premium irons.
- Odyssey 2-Ball Putter — 41″ long belly putter (changed my life!).
- KZG Gemini 10.5 loft w/ Fujikura Tour Platform 27.3 (SST Pured). This one…not in the bag–no idea where the ball is going off this thing!
- Titleist 905R 10.5 loft w/ Aldila NV shaft — hitting this one pretty good.
- Bridgestone J33 Cavity w/ Project X 5.5 rifle shafts — still under review 😉
So what’s in the bag:
- Titleist 905R 10.5 degree w/ Aldila NV stiff (frequency 244)
- Titlesit 980F 17 degree w/ Titleist Speeder stiff
- Precept Tour Premium (2000) 3-PW
- Titleist Volkey 56.14 wedge Black Nickle finish
- Cleveland 588 51 degree bent to 52 degrees RFT finish
- Odyssey 2-Ball DFX 41″ belly putter
- Titleist X-58 stand bag (red)
11 days until I visit Ray’s Pizza and Flo’s
Can’t hardly wait. I’ll be back in Scottsdale soon.
I can visit my friends, favorite golf courses (We Ko Pa), and most importantly, get good Chinese food at Flo’s Asian Kitchen. I can almost taste the spicy cinnamon shrimp now. And of course, since I’m a lover of pizza, I can get a slice of ultra-thin crust New York cheese pizza at Ray’s at the corner of Pima and Frank Lloyd Wright.
18th on the Faldo course at JW Marriott’s Desert Ridge Resort
Dallen breaks 100 for the first time…
Dallen birdied #8 — stuck shot
to just 4 feet from the pin
(image at UtahFairways.com)
Dallen and I played golf on Saturday morning at Old Mill Golf Course. We played with my younger brother Scott; my Dad/Grandpa Baldwin; Brian and Carter Babcock; Scott’s father-in-law and brother-in-law (also a Brad).
Dallen shot a 51 on the front nine and a 47 on the back nine for a total of 98. Was a very exciting day for me. I remember the first time I broke 100, and I was a lot older than 13!
Congratulations Dallen! Keep it up!
Scott quoted in the Desert News
Deseret Morning News, Saturday, May 27, 2006
Neumont honors first graduates
By Erin Stewart
Deseret Morning News
Neumont University sent its first graduating class into the workforce Friday, marking the third anniversary of the school’s founding.
The university tweaked the traditional four-year degree into a more hands-on 30 -month curriculum just for students earning bachelor’s of science degrees in computer science.
That new approach earned the accolades of both Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and Nicholas Donofrio, IBM executive vice president of innovation and technology, at Friday’s ceremony.
“It’s not just IBM that’s interested in what’s going on at Neumont University. The whole country needs to pay attention to what’s happening in Salt Lake,” Donofrio told the 28 graduates at the Rose Wagner Theater.
Donofrio also told graduates they will have to adapt to a changing market to keep pace with the computer science industry and become lifelong learners.
“This is the end of nothing for you. This is the beginning,” he said. “You leave with a sense of your ability to learn and a need to continue to learn.”
All 28 of the graduates from the South Jordan university have accepted jobs or are mulling over several offers, valedictorian Scott Baldwin noted. That rate is a testament to the success of the school, which focuses on one-on-one instruction and real-world practice, he said.
Like many of his fellow graduates, Baldwin left a career in computer science to get the additional training offered by Neumont. Now, Baldwin has a job with IBM as a WebSphere consultant.
“What we have risked is real and it’s paying off,” he said.
Huntsman noted this year’s graduates are pioneers in alternative methods of higher education and will likely become a model for schools to provide a better-trained crop of entry-level professionals.
“This is a first. You are beginning to blaze a trail that many will follow. The nation is taking note,” he said.
Huntsman also noted all but one of the graduates plan to work in Utah, providing a boost to the information technology workforce in the state.
Neumont University Graduation
This afternoon, I attended Neumont University Graduation. My brother just completed his Computer Science degree at Neumont. Neumont provides a focused education experience with mentoring and peer reviews and real-world, project-based learning. Scott graduated as Valedictorian. I have attached his speech below as an MP3 audio track.
This was a neat experience since this was the first graduating class at Neumont. Most universities are hundreds of years old. Neumont is new and different.
The event include Keynote addresses from Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr. and IBM Executive Vice President for Innovation and Technology, Nicholas M. Donofrio. Mr. Donofrio was awesome. He is one of the executives steering the higher education process at the federal government level. He believes Neumont is the example of how the “new” education process should work.
Latest listenings for me
It’s official. After a long evaluation, Beck in now on my Favorite List.
Cold Brains from Beck’s Mutations disc/album/playlist has joined U2’s Pride (In The Name of Love) and Bullet the Blue Sky; Radiohead’s entire OK Computer; Smashing Pumpkin’s Cherub Rock; and AC/DC’s “Back in Black” as all-time favs.
It’s a huge inconvenience to listen to Guero when I’m unable to listen from start to finish. Sea Change, while on the mellow side, is a great listen with tracks like “The Golden Age” and “Little One.” If Beck isn’t in your collection somewhere, give it a try. I did prune a few explict songs — sorry to the purist artists out there who feel this is a violation of all thing sacred.
Another band I’ve been dabbling in is Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. I really dig their track “Rifles” from their B.R.M.C. release. The feel of the song is a frustrated build up with a consistent guitar. Following closely behind is “In Like A Rose” from Take Them On, On Your Own. Again, the guitars completely mesmorize me at the introduction — much like AC/DC did back in the early 80s with Hells Bells.
Associated Press connects to bloggers
Technorati teams up with the Associated Press. Wow. Now that makes perfect sense for the people feeling the greatest pressure from bloggers: paid journalists.
The media needs good sources to provide and confirm facts. Bloggers, by their very nature as distributed authors, tend to leverage the Web as a personal publishing platform. Bloggers and blog tools (templated web pagess / RSS / news readers) have changed the way that news is gathered, reported, delivered, consumed, and archived.
Of course I love reading the polished copy of trained journalists. Their story construction, editorial copy read: correct spelling, and polished presentation make reading their output a pleasure. I will continue to read the breaking news in Techmeme, Rojo, or a handful I respect inside Microsoft product teams or others close to the news like TechCrunch or Engadget.
If I hear about something in a print publication any more, it’s really the “official” news of what I probably read hours or even days before. Bloggers often are closer to the news and provide a peronalized, human slant on the story. Bloggers are truly the new journalists armed with modern day pen and stenographer’s notebook laptop and web connection; printing press WordPress, Movable Type, Blogger.com; and photo equipment digital cameras and Photoshop touchups.
I’ll keep my eyes and ears open for that big-scoop-story from time to time in the Wall St. Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, or New York Times. But it’s highly likely by the time the big boys report, the story will be old news. Blogging has got to be another frustration for print publishers and editors everywhere.
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