What I do

Not really anything to report today.

The radio is blaring in the background. Spirits are a bit higher probably due to the arrival of nice weather (please, let this be the beginning of consistently warm days).

The producers are calling and emailing, preparing what you’ll hear in the next couple weeks.

Reporters are walking around or writing their scripts. The printers are spitting out ink. A conversation about the day’s events and other job-related activities (what else?) is flowing in the corner behind me.

And I can’t help but think: it takes action to cull and present action.

Oh, and the intern sits with his back to it all…typing. Nothing more.

Superman in Cali

I really don’t have much to report today besides the fact that somehow Jack is updating the podcasts all the way across the country.

I’m not sure how you can do what Jack’s doing from that distance, but when you’re the Yoda of the Internet I guess nothing should come as a surprise.

This man does a superhuman amount of work…and still manages to keep an intern busy thousands of miles away. Thanks Jack!

Happy Wednesday.

Your captain speaking!

Ahh. Back to school.

Jack’s going to be out of the office for a couple weeks, so it’s basically me holding up the WILL site.

Yes, we’re already experiencing problems.

So far, I can’t get the podcast updated and am frantically trying to contact Jack in his warm and beautifully lulling climates.

If your computer starts to foam and hiss the next time you visit, promptly press the “Stop” button on your browser and hope for the best. This could very well be the most interesting two weeks in WILL history, folks.

We’re hoping for good things, but with Ryne Nelson at the helm, haha…well, we’ll just have to find out!

Full Linkage

Today is the day The Full Nelson gets linked.

Mark your calendar - on March 15, 2006, at 2:15 – 5 o’clock, The Full Nelson has officially become official. I’d like to take this moment to thank my one reader who voted on the poll and all you others who left a total of 0 comments over the past few weeks.

If The Full Nelson hasn’t been widely popular yet, it’s about to. With the support of the immensely popular WILL website, this site may soon take off into the blog stratosphere!

Michael Jordan didn’t get into North Carolina without the help of the Adidas ABCD basketball camp (and his coach’s gross inflation of his statistics). Tiger Woods didn’t become the great golfer until he donned a Nike golf polo. And Mark Cuban certainly didn’t become the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks without the added convenience of a Flowbee.

David Beckham wouldn’t be Beckham without Posh Spice.

So if I was Jim Cramer and this was a beta internet site about the go public, I would be shouting, “BUY, BUY, BUY!!!”

The Full Nelson has everything to take off (special feature: favorite snack food poll on the side), and now has all the reasons to do so.

Next step, government investigations and court cases.

Happy (Official) St. Patrick’s Day and Spring Break!

Wind burn immunity

Wind burn.

I never really understood the concept, and I still don’t today. Although, if there was ever such a thing, I’m pretty sure the name originally came from a Six Flags roller coaster.

Wind is so furious that you have to watch for aerial attacks by stray umbrellas, half-full chocolate sauce bottles and 14-pound Shakespeare anthologies. Unfortunately, the wind hasn’t heisted my Shakespeare book yet.

Weather channels have gone from predicting tornados to hit last night to consulting bird calls and wind chimes. When Champaign didn’t even get a single drop of rain, word had it they gave up the Doppler for the good ‘ole licking-the-finger technique.

Winds have reached the speed where contemporary methods of weather monitoring have become obsolete. Things are definitely wrong when dung can be smelt four miles upwind from the University’s official horse and swine laboratory.

However, this does not worry me in the slightest.

I am assured safety inside the newsroom because, as a general rule, nothing ever happens to news reporters! As a way to secretly palliate the effects of the stereotypical dismal monetary compensation, news reporters are granted lifetime hazard immunity. Almost all reporters die rich of natural causes and laughing at life insurance agents.

Today, I’ve seen all sorts of things. One kid’s hat blew into the middle of the street just seconds before entering the bus, and two trucks promptly ran over the hat. More than three consecutive blades of grass where green, two women were running with scissors and 29 chef’s aprons ended up in various trees on the quad.

So be careful today. WILL will be watching safely.

Peace, it's Friday!

Friday!

How can we not start this off without talking about the overtime college basketball upset thriller last night?

Syracuse knocked off No. 1-ranked U-Conn. Whoopee!

Now…moving on.

This is a good day just to let your mind rest. If your week has been anything remotely similar to mine, things have been pretty crazy. Let’s take this moment to take a breath of the (thankfully) super-fresh air outside and smile at Spring.

Yes, I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say we’re not going to be seeing anymore snow until September. Ahhhhhh.

Let this day represent the rebirth after the rebirth. Make this the moment to rededicate yourself to those New Years resolutions. Remember to call your mother this weekend. Choose olive oil rather than Ranch dressing tonight. Go all out.

As I alluded to before, March Madness is just around the corner. This is another reason to get pumped up for the rest of this month.

March is such a great time because of all the changes that occur. Don’t be one to sit inside and let it all fly by. Watch life paint the world again. Suck it all in through your nostrils. Absorb it all with your eyes.

Treasure it with your brain.

Peace!

Amazon gets stuff done

I think the value of any experience can be measured in the number of new places it takes you.

That’s why being a WILL intern is so important to me.

For the first time in nearly two years on campus, I went to the Grainger Engineering Library. There, WILL internet director Jack Brighton was testing the interface of a new OAI (Open Access Initiative) site – CIC. To my knowledge, CIC archives the content in Big Ten special collection libraries.

Jack and I were pretty impressed. Searching content among these sites was fairly sleek and straight-forward, almost like searching the UIUC library catalog but better. It included thumbnail pictures of some of the sites, and a lot of good metadata.

As far as I could see, the interface only had two major problems: 1) Unclear search directions, and 2) No one really wants to search special library collections!

The best part, though, was that Jack got a $15 gift certificate to Amazon.com for providing his critique of the site!

We also got some good ideas for WILL’s own OAI project, which is still in the woodwork. Walking back from Grainger, we pretty much decided on the next step:

$15 gift certificates for grad students knowledgeable in creating databases and OAI.

The advice diet

Whooo weee! It’s a nasty day in March!

No one wants to be outside in the gross weather. And that’s cool…because it’s Monday and we can still afford to be somewhat lazy.

And what a better way to spend your time inside than with WILL?!

Listen to the radio, for instance. Right now I’m listening the Afternoon Magazine to a certified nutritionist and owner of Nutrition On The Move, Susan Kundrat, who’s dolling out tips and secrets like Santa does presents on Christmas Eve.

Try the television. Try the internet. Make a trail mix of media on your downtime…all without spending a cent of your rainy day stash.

You need to circuit train your brain in order to prevent it from idleness. This does not strain your brain muscle. It helps it recover from the pounding it takes during the day. WILL is your recovery after strenuous brain tissue exercise.

Here’s some food for thought, and this should hit home with anyone who saw The Island this summer. What if personal fitness technology developed to the point where machines would dictate our diet for every meal? In the movie, a computer analyzed one’s urine in the morning and laid out a specific diet for the day.

Of course, this might aid in human nutrition and health and would shelve all these confusing and sometimes contradictory claims we hear from different health “experts” everyday, but would we really want to give up our favorite foods, deserts, snacks, etc.?

Even more so, would we want to depend on a computer for yet another part of our life? Listen to our podcast and form your own opinion while listening to Kundrat’s advice to callers. Personally, I’m never sure whether I’m eating correctly or exercising enough or whether I should care at all anymore.

Sometimes too much information combined with a great desire to learn can be deadly.

Be careful when you enter this marketplace of knowledge and ideas. Measure everything with a grain of salt and be sure not to make drastic changes based on what an “expert” says.

Of course, it’s okay to try something new, but if it’s not working then listen to your intuition. Lifestyle is personal. Advice and statistics are general.

Stay warm and have fun!

My major is "Genius"

I’m involved with a class of graduate students. Yes, the University felt I was so good that they slipped under the table a degree in “Genius” and sent me on my way to my Ph.D. Sugar.

So you want to know two things: 1) Why am I telling you this, and 2) How do I do the same thing?

First, let’s tackle the far more difficult first issue. WILL is currently tackling the issue of archiving content and metadata. While others can say they’re doing the same thing, none have near a complete product. I see this as a real test of U of I’s digital archiving brainpower. Get pumped. Uhh.

They want to create a digital nexus of archived content – video and audio – to make it easier for the public to find old programs and for them to easily search past programs. This is not easy, but would be GRRRRREAT!!! if these grad students can make any headway on this project.

So this is why I’m involved with this graduate student class. I, as intern emeritus of this project, will continue my great duty of updating The Full Nelson, and keeping YOU on top of all the positive (of course, there won’t be any negative) progress.

Coooool.

Now, to the second issue: how do you get the University to under-the-table you that coveted piece of paper? As I said, it’s simple.

Become a WILL online intern! Peace.

Quiche at work

Man, there's so much to talk about today here at this WILL newsroom!

First, I'd like to mention quiche.

If it isn’t already part of your regular workday, fie upon you! Go ahead, get out to the store, find an oven and get cooking!

The good folks at WILL discovered today that quiche is a great-great-great-cousin of the most successful, powerful food in the entire world: the egg. Basically, the quiche is a couple single cells inside a bed of crust with whatever you want mixed in!

Fortunately, this is all made easy for today’s busy worker like you and (almost busy) me. All you have to do is find this morning’s Focus 580 podcast on the WILL site. Doyle Moore, WILL Chef-in-Residence, extols all the virtues of quiche and how and how not to pronounce this food…AND…allergies!

Listening to this could cause the greatest utility per minute of 2006. No kidding.

So while you’re making this masterpiece, listen to this podcast. It’s an infallible way to become the most popular person at work…and most certainly put you up for promotion. Feed the boss the best quiche and display your suave listening choice by playing WILL.

Then, for Lent, it might be best to give up this 600-calories-per-slice pie, if not for any other reason but to allow yourself time to digest.

Alright, I’m hungry, so I’m going to continue listening to this podcast. It’s almost as good as eating the real thing.