What I Did on my Summer Vacation (2016 edition) Part 2

Last time, I wrote about part of my summer vacation in Florida. This time: Disney World. (Hey, it was a big, long, expensive trip. I’ve got to get at least two posts out of it.) Did I mention it was expensive? The poor exchange rate really hurt my wallet. Add to that the fact that Disney tries really, really hard to separate your money from you. Whatever Disney-related item you desire, you can get it--clothes (including costumes and all kinds of hats), mugs, toys, kitchen utensils, cookies, decorations, and various miscellaneous collectibles. I’m pretty cheap, but the huge Disney Store in Disney Springs managed to break me down: two Star Wars ties and a pair of, er, boxer shorts. I'll be wearing the ties this term; they're not too flashy, so you'll have to look closely. No, you won't be seeing the boxer shorts, sorry.

So...many...Elsas....

Our hotel (Art of Animation) was nicely themed, including our small Little Mermaid-themed room. Unfortunately, being a cheap room, it was far from the main building and bus stop. How far? My Fitbit calculated it to be 0.6 km away. That’s Disney World: lots and lots of walking.

A pretty typical day in Disney World.

I was looking forward to the Star Wars attractions in Disney’s Hollywood Studios. We waiting in long lines to meet “Kylo Ren” and “Chewbacca”. Maybe they were the real thing, I dunno. (I called Kylo Ren a big jerk before running out the door.) Character greetings and autographs are a big thing these days. There are long lines for princesses, especially Anna and Elsa. But the worst was Joy and Sadness, from Inside Out. We waited over 90 minutes to meet two oversize stuffies in a lineup full of impatient, screaming children (not my kids, incidentally). My favourite movie of the year so far is Zootopia, but aside from a Nick Wilde character in a parade, and a small display of character sketches in Animal Kingdom, there was nothing to see. (Marketing opportunity, Disney!)

 

 This is one of the nicest pics I took.

There are always ups and downs when you travel with kids. Especially if one is a really picky eater, who doesn’t like scary (read: all) rides, and develops a pain in her leg so bad that you have to rent a toddler stroller in the Magic Kingdom. OK, so mostly downs. Luckily, I have another child who is a real trooper, eats almost anything, and has energy, patience, and tolerance. And is probably a better parent than me. So why bother traveling? You hope that by escaping your usual surroundings you see the world differently; you share experiences (for better or worse) that bond you together as a family. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, there are moments of joy and wonder--like watching your kids’ tired eyes light up when the Main Street Electrical Parade goes by.

Sadly, this parade is ending in October, 2016.

Of course, I didn’t spend the entire summer in theme parks (thank goodness). After spending so much time and money on our big holiday, we cut back on other things--not as many trips to the lake as we usually take. (Upside: pleased to see that Sylvan Lake has an actual beach now again. Downside: Aspen Beach at Gull Lake is overrun by wasps--avoid.) We were going to skip K-Days completely--how can that compare to Disney World? Except Rachel Platten was a featured performer this year, and I have two daughters who completely love her. So we had to go after all--in the rain. At least I got to have my annual deep-fried Twinkie. (All photographic evidence of that has been destroyed.)

Because you'd rather see a picture of Rachel Platten than me eating a Twinkie.

All of these fun things were squeezed in between work, of course. I’m not on vacation from the end of Spring term to the start of Fall term; I’m just not teaching. As usual, I updated all of my courses based on feedback from students last year. I spent a lot of time clarifying things that the data (from assignments and exams) indicated were particularly difficult to understand and apply. (See? Your term work does more than just contribute to your final grade.) I also did two textbooks reviews for publishers, giving them feedback on what I liked and hated in new textbooks they’re working on. I also applied for and received a grant to do...well, that’s a post for another day.

There were a couple of things that made me a little grumpy over the summer. I’m trying to get over that, I really am. I’m excited--a new term is starting, my classes are full of enthusiastic, energetic, hardworking students. What could go wrong? Well...I guess the Internet flaking out, freezing the classroom computers on the first two days of class...that could go wrong. Aaaaand, I’m back to being grumpy.

I'm a little grumpy. Get it?

Why aren't you studying?

What I Did on my Summer Vacation (2016 edition)

I guess the biggest news is that my eldest daughter, being of the appropriate age, went to Hogwarts. Well, actually, the whole family did--to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at The Universal Orlando Resort, that is! (Oh, and we went to that other resort in Orlando, too.) A big trip like this takes a lot of planning (and money, ouch!), but making it even harder was the fact that my wife and I tried to keep it a secret. We worked up "invitation letters" to Hogwarts for both of our daughters, and only delivered them a month before we left (not by owl, sadly).

The dragon breathes fire every 10 minutes. Nice and warm!

If you're any kind of fan, the Harry Potter-themed areas of Diagon Alley/London (in Universal Studios Florida), Hogwarts/Hogsmeade (in Islands of Adventure), and the Hogwarts Express train going between the two are mind-blowing. The attention to detail is amazing. Of course, we all had (frozen) butterbeer. Frozen, on account of the temperature being around +40 C every day. I'm not used to that kind of heat, whew!

There goes USD$7.00!

Naturally, my Potter-obsessed daughter had to do the wand-choosing ceremony in Ollivanders Wand Shop. A small group of people are allowed into a back room of the shop, and there's a brief spiel with some special effects in which the wizard guide randomly chooses one member of the group, who then tries to match the person with the right wand. If you are chosen, you do NOT get the wand for free; you still have to pay for it. It told my family that, if anyone in the family is picked, we are, under no circumstances, going to pay USD$50 for a plastic stick. And what happens? My Potter-obsessed daughter was chosen. She looked up at me with big puppy-dog eyes, and my heart melted, and I said, "No!" (It didn't melt all the way.) Lucky for her, my wife allowed her to buy the wand. Goodbye money!

They have surprisingly many expensive plastic sticks.

Of course, there are so many other cool attractions. Men In Black Alien Attack. The Simpsons. Dr. Seuss. The Hello Kitty store. I have a particular fondness for the Terminator 2: 3-D ride, formerly called T2: Battle Across Time. My then-fiancee, now wife saw that attraction when we were last in Florida 20 years ago. The Despicable Me-themed Minion Mayhem ride was really cool. One of the Universal hotels has a character breakfast with Gru and a minion. You can see that Gru is very happy to meet me! (I do a pretty good Gru voice. I told him that I was Steve Carell. He was impressed.)

Gru with "Steve Carell".

I'm also a huge Back to the Future fan, and was happy to see a DeLorean time machine on display. It is not, as is reported in some places, the B-car. It is one of several stunt cars. How can you tell? Check out the Mr. Fusion. See how tall it is? That was never in the movies--it was part of a botched restoration attempt years ago. Still looks pretty cool, though. (I contributed to the Kickstarter-backed OUTATIME documentary. If you love DeLorean time machines, you have to watch it.)

When this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're gonna see some serious shit.

Aside from the extreme heat, and even more extreme cost (did I mention that everything is expensive?), there was another thing I didn't like: crowds. Wow, it was elbow-to-elbow everywhere. To mitigate this, however, I relied on the super-useful Touring Plans website (and their appropriately named app, Lines). There a lot of data and science behind it: the travelling salesman problem, bin-packing problem, evolutionary algorithms. Really cool stuff. They predict how busy each park will be, and also give you an estimated wait time for each attraction. I found it to be a lot more accurate than anything reported by the theme park itself. Totally worth the small amount of money they ask for a 1-year subscription.

Looks like I have to get to class. See part 2 for the rest of the trip. (As if you aren't jealous enough already!)

Why aren't you studying?

The Classroom Software (or, IST Screws Up Again)

In late May, I got into a snit over IST’s decision to revoke University licensing for Adobe software, including Acrobat DC, which I constantly use on a daily basis. (Brief summary: the decision was done without consulting end users, gave 4 days’ notice, and was announced in the middle of term at the end of a Friday; I had to shell out several hundred dollars to buy software again that I had just bought.) I complained loudly and bitterly. (This led to an discussion with the VPIT--well, until he ignored the email I sent him on May 30th. Am I that big of a pain in the butt?) My hope in raising a fuss was that IST wouldn’t make a blunder like this again.

Guess what?

With 8 days to go before Fall term starts, a message from IST was included in an Employees-digest email that everyone gets. It announced some relatively minor updates, but ended with this:

-All centrally managed university lab and classroom computers were updated to Microsoft Office 2016, except when teaching requirements prohibit the ability to upgrade.

In other words, basically all classroom computers have already been upgraded from Office 2010 to Office 2016. No warnings, no announcements, nothing. IST has a listserv, called ITpulse. This lists just about every IT-related update on campus, from UWS to servers to front-end systems. I went back through it to see if I missed any announcement on this. Nope, nada.

What’s the big deal? Let’s go back a few years, to August 27, 2009. Here’s an announcement made by AICT (Academic Information and Communication Technologies, the precursor to IST):

This is a notice that we will be installing Microsoft Office 2007 on all
the Smart Classroom computers effective Friday, August 28.

Sound familiar? With less than a week before classes started, they foisted an unannounced upgrade on end users. Worse, PowerPoint 2007 broke almost all of the media embeds in my presentations, which were created in PowerPoint 2003. I only discovered this breakage in class, trying to get my slides to work. I must’ve seemed like a clueless newbie, futzing with the computer, trying to get things to work. On at least one occasion, I had to end class early because things were so broken. I had to go through every single one of my slides, testing to ensure they worked. That’s thousands of slides, and many hours of work. Thanks for nothing, AICT.

Why did I have such problems? Here’s the thing. The software installed on my computers is exactly the same as that running on classroom computers. That’s why I currently run Windows 7 with Microsoft Office 2010. If something works on my computer, it should also work on the classroom computers. If anything breaks, I figure out how to fix it on my computers first, so that I can also fix it in class as quickly as possible. This way, I minimize disruptions and wasted time in class.

This exact situation happened in September, 2015. An update to Adobe Flash (19.0.0.185) broke PowerPoint presentations with embedded Flash. I reported this problem to Adobe, but I couldn’t wait for them to bring out a fix. Fortunately, I was able to find an independent way to fix the problem and the impacts on my classes were minimal.

When I’m up to my eyebrows prepping for the extremely busy Fall term at the end of August I don’t have time to buy and install new software on all my computers, and check all of my (thousands and thousands of) slides again. Some advance warning would have been nice. Not 8 days warning, mind you. Maybe, “We’re going to upgrade Office. Here is the timeline so you can prepare.” Or even asking opinions in the first place, like, “We’re thinking about doing this. What do instructors think?”

Maybe I should be more proactive? How’s this: on April 29, 2015, I sent the IST helpdesk an email asking if they were planning on updating classroom computers to Windows 10 and/or Office 2016 (support ticket RITM0065916). The result? No plans to upgrade Windows or Office. Maybe I should send that request every year?

“IST” stands for Information Services and Technology. Once again, they’ve shown that they are having difficulty with the “information” aspect of their name. Open? No. Transparent? No. Responsive? No. More than anything, they--once again--remind me of Mordac, the Preventer of Information Services.

I'm not, by nature, a cranky person. Or an inveterate complainer. I work hard--really hard--and spend a lot of time creating a certain level of in-class experience. I like using technology, but I don't ever want it to get in the way. IST, perhaps despite their best intentions, is getting in the way. When there's a technical glitch in the classroom, they don't have a face a class of 300 students--staring at them, disengaging, losing interest--I do.

Just to prove I'm not all about the complaining, I have a constructive solution. Maybe IST could set up some kind of committee or consulting group about these kinds of classroom issues. I'm assuming they don't have one now, if they do, they need to work on consultation and communication. I make a lot of use of classrooms, typically teaching eight courses per academic year. I'd be the first to apply for a position on such a committee.

Update: 8/25/2016 @2:53
IST has responded. This was part of the response:

In regarding to the timing of the communication, efforts were initiated earlier this summer to develop a communication plan and inform campus of the upcoming changes. The intent was to communicate the changes in early July to allow professors to test and adjust course material accordingly. Clearly, IST did not effectively communicate these changes in a timely manner. Please accept our sincere apologies.