Happy birthday to us!

This year, my school is celebrating it's 50th birthday. This past weekend was the official celebration and the school and the city went all out. I am constantly amazed at the relationship between Wilmington and CFCC. The school loves the city and the city REALLY loves the school. We get all sorts of perks. Students and faculty get free parking in the big parking decks downtown, which may not seem like much until you see Wilmington's parking situation. I routinely have people, upon finding out I work for CFCC, tell me "their story." And they all have one. Either they went to CFCC, or their parent or child has gone. So this birthday wasn't just a celebration of the school it was a celebration of the city that supports us. Every department was put on notice that they would so something for the celebration. We would invite the city and surrounding counties to come visit our home and see what we do. Our department decided to do a big display on "Information Technology Over The Past 50 Years." For the past 3 weeks I have kicked myself almost daily for all of the "crap" I threw away when I moved up here. It would have been PERFECT. But we made due anyway.Here is our main display. Yes that's a lava lamp. Our department is exceptionally cool. Just wait, we're hooking up the spinning lighted disco ball this week. No, I'm not kidding.Here is the display on Mapping and GPS. All 16 of those maps were dug out of the side pockets of my truck. I have a map fixation. Sitting on top is, of course, Sally 4th. So there's the old and the new. The computer is showing Google Maps view of North Campus. (I originally had it saying "You are here.")The Evolution of Music corner was a big hit. Yes we had records, 8-tracks, cassettes, MP3 players, iPods, and online music via Real Audio. The school has a contract for content delivery thru Real Audio so it streams unfiltered on campus. On Thursday as we were hooking up and testing everything out everyone in the office gathered around as we hooked the 8-track to the amp and then the speakers. Charlie Pride and Conway Twitty never sounded so good! But then we were hit with a sudden conundrum. How do you turn off the 8 track? The amp had an obvious off switch, but the 8 track only had volume and balance knobs. Turning them all the way down didn't turn it off. We scratched our heads for a while. Being computer geeks we are trained to look for an off button or off switch, a graceful and clearly marked method to turn the power off. We joke in the office because Michelle can't ever figure out if she turned the coffee pot off, since it has an "Oh" and an I on it. (All computer geeks reading this are now laughing, since it's obviously a 1 and a Zero, being binary for On and Off.) We thought about just unplugging the 8 track. The ideas was also floated,"What if we just pull the tape out?" This of course goes against EVERYTHING you are taught about computers. You never EVER just unplug stuff, for fear of damaging the equipment. I was preparing to place an emergency call to Jimmy, the only other person I know with a working 8-track. (Ahh all those afternoons in the basement playing pool and darts and listening to the Eagles on the Hi-Fi!) Melissa just grabbed the tape and yanked it. Problems solved. Those crafty 1960's engineers.The video entertainment section was of course the biggest hit. Sure the Nintendo DS attracted attention, but nothing like the Atari. We all laughed hysterically as parents explained to their kids that this was what video games looked like "in the old days." This was usually greeted by statements like "Those graphics suck!" All you spoiled punks with your XBoxes and Wii's!!! I would crush you in Pitfall or Yar's Revenge! Well i would except my Atari is in Chris' basement and he has no intentions of ever letting me have it back. Later this week I'll show you my portion of the display, of which I am quite proud, with one small exception that makes me sick to my stomach. More on that later. While we were having all sorts of Techno-Fun in our room, next door was the OST (Office Systems Technology) Department's display. I figured I better stop by since I am technically dual appointed to CIS and OST. OST teaches all of the typing and medical transcription classes on campus and their interactive display was a timed typing test. Those who know me know I avoid typing tests. I never listened to Ms. Cope in Business Ed in Middle School. My fingers never felt comfortable on the home keys, so they ran away from home a long time ago. Now they are homeless. In fact I only type with 5 fingers: index and thumb on both hands and middle finger on the right. (Why don't I use the middle finger on my left hand? Well I save that one to show to those who critique my typing!) I have long known I type very fast but my accuracy is poor. I also have to watch my fingers while I type making "copying" very slow, but "composition" (like this blog) flows very quickly. When Jarrett and I shared an office we'd both be typing at roughly the same speed. He'd be typing the correct way and I would be typing my dysfunctional way. Thankfully in the world of computers with spell check and "autocorrect" many (but not all) of my typos are easily or automatically fixed. However, since Blogger's spell check is barely functional you have experienced first hand my poor typing. During a lull in the festivities I wandered next door and was immediately attacked by the OST folks who wanted me to take the typing test. I protested and tried to sneak my way out, but they had the exit guarded. So I sat down and got the 15 second explanation of how it works. A book was placed in front of me with two paragraphs on it. I was told to hit tab when I was ready to start the 3 minute timed test, and then type what was on the page. I took a deep breath then started typing. When I had finished, I still had like 30 seconds left so I started looking around to ask how to stop the clock. Finally they came near enough I could ask them and they explained that I was supposed to just start over at the top and keep going. So that cost me about 15-20 seconds of my time. When I was done with my practice run, my score showed up on screen: 39 words per minute with 2 errors. My two errors were that I didn't know I was supposed to hit tab before each paragraph. When the results popped up there was a long pause followed by several comments of disbelief. I was then told that when I was ready for the official timed test I was to click a button and I could get started. This time they watched me.Here's how you interpret the scores: WPM is obviously Word Per Minute (57). The 3' means it was a 3 minute timed test, and the 3e means I had 3 errors. I scrolled so you could see two of them. As a side note, two of the errors I made would have been auto corrected by Word. I believe this qualifies me to be an entry level secretary! And just in time for National Secretary's Day! My errors are almost exclusively due to hitting the space bar too soon or too late, or poorly timeD sHifting. Basically these are the only operations that require BOTH of my hands to work together. One hand certainly knows what the other is doing, it just doesn't care. When I finished the test there was a round of applause and I was congratulated by all of the OST instructors. I was given my complimentary certificate and I went on my way. It was only 15 minutes later I found out that I had the fastest speed so far. At that point several other instructors decided they were going to go try and beat it. Somehow I had accidentally started a competition. I guess they didn't want to answer my Yar's Revenge challenge. (Chicken! Bawk Bawk!) At the end of the day I was called back in to the OST room where I was informed I had the fastest speed in the Faculty category. There was also an under-18 category, a student category, and then a non-student category. Since I had won in my category, I got the prize: a gift card to Office Depot. (I think it's $10.) So now it is official and documented. I type like crap, but I type like crap really really fast. But lest I allow my crushing victory to go to my head I placed a call to Courtney. Courtney is a medical transcriptionist, AKA a hired gun. The faster she types the more she earns. When she types it sounds like a machine gun going off. Computer keyboards cower in fear and run and hide when she enters the room. Courtney says she doesn't know how fast she types. I suspect she may be modest. Or perhaps she's so fast she doesn't register on regulation equipment. Perhaps they need to bring in a radar gun. She offered to take a typing test if I would find her one online, but I suspect I am going to pass on that offer. I don't want to lose my prized Office Depot gift card. Yeah, I may be chicken (bawk! bawk!) but I bet I could kick her butt in Yar's Revenge!