NoJoMo 8 in NoJoMo 2014

I apologize for yesterday’s abrupt termination. As I said, I’d been plunking away on it off and on, but really hadn’t gotten it in condition for posting. And I was absolutely exhausted. I slept harder than I have in an awful long time. Home with my wife, full belly, a beer, and….

Well, on to the prompt: If you attended college, talk about your alma mater. Did you have a good experience? Are you happy with the major you selected? Are there any lessons that’ll stick with you forever? Do you have people you keep in contact with?

I attended Christopher Newport University. When I started there, it was an “open enrollment” school. They had one dorm^H^H^H^H residence hall. Virtually nobody lived on campus, me included. I only applied because my father had met the new university president in a civic leadership group.

When I enrolled, I was looking at it as kind of a community college experience. I’d knock out my general education requirements, then transfer to a “real” university to finish up. Life had other plans for me, though. While I was attending, I broke in to broadcasting, first at a local TV station, then in radio, and figured it’d be my “life’s work.” I majored in Government Administration, which gave me a BS, and decent preparation for law school. I never got to law school, and ended up in IT. Go figure.

My major selection, while it didn’t turn me into a lawyer handling somewhat hapless clients, did teach me about the importance of being able to back up whatever you do through laws/regulations. With what I’m doing now, there’s supposed to be documented requirements, which finally trace down to specific technical features. Any design artifact should be traceable forward and backward. I had to do the same sorts of thing when I was writing legal briefs; the particulars are different, but the principles are the same.

As for lessons that’ll stick with me forever, there are a few. Certain professors certainly affected my writing. Others drove home points, sometimes in an unsubtle way. (I’m thinking of one final, where I wrote what I thought was an amazing explanation about how to handle an issue as a tort. The comment on the paper was something along the lines of “your reasoning is perfect; you should have used the UCC. C.” Fuck me gently with a chainsaw.)

I also experienced, while dealing with a prestigious university up the road a piece, the disparity that exists between “common people,” and the privileged. I didn’t attend a fancy private school. My family wasn’t “rich.” As I get older, the more I understand, and the more I understand what my parents were dealing with where they grew up. (And now I’m thinking of Dan Akroyd’s Bob Dole impression from 1988 to George HW Bush…..)

I keep in contact with a few people, mainly through various online tools (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn [aka Facebook for self-important professional types], fantasy football, etc.). Facebook tends to show which have married, formed babby(ies), etc. I only know of one person who’s in Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison. I don’t know of anyone who’s assumed room temperature. This is a marked contrast from high school, where several are dead or incarcerated.

I’m going to quit now, before I go on a rant about my present plight. It’s better that way. As for CNU, I’m still upset by a few things, and I don’t have any money to give you. Sorry.