Erik Deckers

Mobile blogging and photos whenever the mood strikes.

Why I Am Avoiding the 2012 Presidential Campaign

I am not looking forward to the 2012 presidential campaign.

This is the time of year when every political junkie from both parties will examine every subtle nuance of every utterance from anyone the candidate has ever known, from his closest political advisers to some kid he waved at in the 3rd grade lunchroom.

These junkies, fueled by the myopic, out-of-touch punditry of their side, will pounce on any and all instances of What Is Wrong With the World, stamp their little feet, and shriek, "See? SEE?! Your guy is EVIL!!"

They'll clutch the evidence in their sweaty fists, convinced that everyone will see that the other guy truly should never, ever be President, let alone allowed to be a citizen of this country. They'll be surprised when no one else sees it that way, except for their own echo chamber, who will all shout a hearty "Hear! Hear!" in an attempt to drown out any reasonable discourse and debates that mature adults have.

And they will clang their swords on their shields whenever the opposition waves their own banner of What Is Wrong With the World, immediately comparing the opposing candidate to Hitler, Mussolini, and/or Pol Pot.

For the record, I know who I'm voting for. You will not persuade me. You will not affect my decision. Your finger-wagging admonitions of "you should keep an open mind" will go unseen and unheard. If anything, your banner-waving, shield-clanging shrieks only convince me that staying out of politics is the best choice for me, because I have better things to do than listen to the negative, anger-fueled bile spewing from both parties. Like translating Jackass The Movie into Pig Latin.

My mind may be closed, but so is my mouth. Now go away and leave me alone.

Top 10 Things That Annoy the Shit Out of Me

My good friend and No Bullshit Social Media co-author, Jason Falls, recently wrote a list, Shit That Annoys Me. I liked it so much I wrote one of my own. Here are the top 10 things that annoy the shit out of me.

10. People who drive the same speed in the left lane as the people in the right lane. Barely passing is not passing.

9. This one particular guy who runs a business and creates a new account on different social networks every time he identifies a new niche: Car Repair for Seniors, Car Repair for Baseball Players, Car Repair for Golfers, Car Repair for Left-Handed Dentists.

8. Being charged for cable channels I never really wanted in the first place.

7. People who earn a slight bit of celebrity in their very narrow niche, and think this somehow makes them a real celebrity. This happens a lot in my field.

6. Real celebrities.

5. People who hate lists posts. You know who likes them? Paying customers. You know hates them? People who don't hire me. You know who I'm going to appease? (Note: I put this one in there just to annoy the shit out of Jason. Same reason I made it a Top 10 list. It's #12 on his list.)

4. Truckers who merge into a space two feet bigger than their truck just so they don't have to hit their brakes.

3. TV shows for teenagers.

2. The Alanis Morrisette "Ironic" song. Absolutely nothing in that song was ironic. It made a whole generation of people think "ironic" means "coincidental."

1. Teenagers and women who use a little girl voice as their natural voice.

My New Workbench

When I left Syracuse, I left behind a gorgeous 12 foot workbench that I had built with my own hands. The thing was strong enough to withstand just about anything, which meant I couldn't take it with me, because I had lag bolted it to the wall. Anyone who has seen my computer desktop has seen the glory that was my garage workbench.

For nearly six years, I have had to make do with a small worktable I had built in a couple of hours. It didn't have the strength or majesty of my old workbench. But this past weekend, after an unseasonably warm weekend, I used a bunch of Lowe's gift cards, but the materials, and started building my bench.

This one is L-shaped, running along two walls. It's 17.5 linear feet, 36 inches tall, and 2 feet deep. I built it with 2x6s, 2x10s, and 2x12s. I still need to add some shelves, trim out the edges, and then put some coats of heavy-duty polyurethane on the whole thing. I'll do that in the spring when the weather warms up again.

Eventually the walls will be tricked out with 60 sq. ft. of peg board to hang all my tools, and I'm going to build a book shelf big enough to hold all my books.

If you're interested in how I built it, those details are below the slideshow.

If you're interested in the building details, here's what I did:
  • I lag bolted some 2x10s on the wall to build the rest of the bench on. I didn't want to use legs on the back because the studs are not placed where I needed them to be. Plus the south wall of the garage slopes about 1/4" every foot, and I didn't want to dink around with the measurements.
  • I used 2x6s for the legs. I also placed the horizontal 2x6s on top of the legs so I wouldn't rely on the strength of the fasteners to keep anything from breaking down over the years. This transfers all the weight and support to the legs and down to the concrete floor.
  • The top is made out of 2x12s, 1/2 OSB, and 1/4 red oak lauan. Eventually it will get 3 coats of a heavy duty polyurethane. I wish I had used 2x6s for the top, because 1) I had a couple of iffy 2x12s, and barely managed to make them work, and 2) the 2x12s were a pain in the ass to work with. I could have cut the 2x6s with the chop saw, but ended up using the circular saw, which made some pretty nasty cuts. I hate my circular saw.
  • I want to trim the edges with red oak, but think the white pine might look a little nicer.
  • I built supports for a storage shelf along the main part of the workbench (the section with the tools and small shelf hanging over it). I haven't added those yet, because I'm trying to decide whether to use a bunch of 2x6s, or some thinner wood and OSB. And yes, I'm fully aware that I'm overthinking all this.
  • I plan on building a writing desk that will fit under the last section on the left of the bench. It will roll on casters so I can roll it in and out as needed. I'll build the thing completely level, but I have to put it on the sloped floor, which means the lines will all look crooked, and that's going to bug the hell out of me.
  • The desk will be on locking casters so I can lock the wheels to keep it from rolling away.
  • In my old garage, I had about 120 square feet of peg board. This will be half as much, but I've gotten rid of so much stuff over the years, this will force me to be more selective about what goes up on the board and what doesn't. I'll trim out the bench after I put up the peg board. I want the trim to serve as sort of a backsplash. Plus, it saves me from having to make any cuts of the peg board to make it fit vertically.
  • I'm thinking of selling that old console radio in one of the pictures. If you're interested, let me know.

Sadly, Joe Paterno Deserved to be Fired

Penn State fired Joe Paterno as their head football coach after 46 years of service, ending the longest running coaching tenure of any sport, because of what Paterno did and did not do after former defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky, was allegedly discovered raping a 10-year-old boy in the Penn State football showers in 2000. The Board of Trustees also fired Penn State president Graham Spanier.

As the story goes, Sandusky was found by a graduate assistant who told Paterno about it. Paterno reported the incident to Penn State athletic director Tim Curley, who in turn reported it to Gary Schultz, VP for finance and business. However, Curley and Schultz did not report the incident to police, and Sandusky was free to allegedly prey on children again.

And yet people are pissed — pissed! — that Paterno was fired. He was fired because he did the bare legal minimum by reporting what he had heard to his boss. He did not call the police He did not take any other action. He did nothing. And Sandusky preyed on one more boy after that incident in 2000.

I feel bad for Joe Paterno. The man is a coaching legend whose football team did some great and wonderful things over the years. And he should have been able to retire after a long and illustrious career with his head held high as one of the giants of college football.

But instead he's been fired. Because he didn't, wouldn't, couldn't, was afraid to call the police after being told an assistant had been raping a 10-year-old boy.

Now his legacy will be "his coaching tenure ended before the season was over because he didn't call the police on a pedophile."

The thing that really pisses me off are all the college students who are protesting Paterno's firing. They're angry that Paterno was fired. They're not angry that the athletic department covered up a 15 year rampage by a pedophilic predator. They're not angry at Jerry Sandusky. No, they're rioting and destroying property because a football coach couldn't pick up the damn phone and call the police about a child rapist.

"Honor" and "Pride" Ignored, Tainted

Football — especially a storied program like Penn State's — is steeped in tradition and history. They use words like "honor" and "pride" the same way the military does. You honor your team, you honor your school, you play for pride.

Joe Paterno showed no honor, he showed no pride. He was a coward who did just enough to not go to jail, but did not do enough to save one more young boy from the clutches of a pedophile.

As the father of a 9-year-old boy, I can tell you that any parent who loves their sons and daughters would never condone Paterno's inaction. Every parent lives in mortal dread of their child being harmed by someone else. And to be the parents of any of those boys is devastating. But to be the parents of the final boy — the one who was attacked after Paterno told his boss about Sandusky — has to be the worst feeling in the world. To know that your son was preyed upon because of the moral failure and cowardice of one man who teaches his players about honor and pride, and the other university administrators who financially benefit from that man.

I really do feel bad for Paterno. From now on, when we say "Joe Paterno," we'll always think about how he failed to stop a child predator. We'll think about how his career ended on November 9, 2011 because of a sex scandal. And I am sorry to see such an amazing and awesome career end under this cloud.

But as a father, I think he got what he deserved. I won't feel bad when the lawsuits against the university come. I don't feel bad that president Graham Spanier was fired, or that Tim Curley and Gary Schultz face jail time. And I certainly won't feel bad when Jerry Sandusky goes to prison.

Because if it was my kid, I would be screaming my throat raw for all of that and more.

 

Can you translate this shorthand postcard?

My friend Jen Booth, who I met at Blog Indiana this past August has an interesting puzzle. She has a postcard in the genealogy department at the Muncie Library that she needs translated. No one knows shorthand though, since it was primarily a handwriting skill taught in secretarial school as recently as the 1970s. Nowadays, no one takes dictation anymore, so it's a skill that's rarely taught.

Can you translate the postcard and help Jen solve this problem? We've thrown it open to our Twitter networks, and may have a couple of bites. But in the meantime, I'd love to see if anyone else has any luck. If you can translate it, let me know in the comments. I'll publish the translation in another post.

If you click on the photo, you'll be taken to Jen's full-size version. Or you can download it and view it on your computer's desktop.

 

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Is Starbucks sexist?

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I stopped at the Starbucks in Gas City, IN off I-69 on the way home. As I walked into the men's room, I saw a Baby Changing Station sign for the women'a bathroom, but not the men's.

Apparently only moms can change diapers, dads cannot. Is this sexist to dads, saying we cannot take care of our own children? Or is it sexist to women, saying this is women's work only?

When my kids were younger, I changed plenty of diapers and paid attention to the establishments that made it easy to take care of my kids, and the ones that perpetuated outdated gender-specific roles.

I figured Starbucks was above that. Apparently not.

Someone Hates "No Bullshit Social Media" But Never Bothered to Read It

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I've officially seen the most disingenuous panning of my new book, "No Bullshit Social Media" from a guy who has not read a single word of the book.

For his next trick, he will review a restaurant he's never eaten at, followed by a minute-by-minute critique of a movie he's never seen. Maybe he could even do some counseling of my personal issues. 

After all, we've never met.

Look, if you don't like the book, that's fine. I recognize that some people 1) don't care about social media, 2) don't like Jason Falls' and my writing style, or 3) will be offended by the words "social media" in the title. (That was supposed to be a joke, but is actually not that far off from what bothered this guy.)

Just read the damn book first. Once you have read the book — once you have actually done the work of informing yourself before you render an opinion — then you can hate it all you want.

Until then, you just look like a misinformed, disengaged, unaware boob.

But I could be wrong.

After all, we've never met.