Anna's Muncie Internship

Hal writes:

I spent this past weekend in Indiana visiting Anna. She is currently halfway completed with her fourth internship. As a part of her internship, her CI works along with Ball State University. Anna is pictured below in the motion analysis lab where I got to play guinea pig. The descriptions I give below may be slightly inaccurate as I have forgotten some of the technical terms associated with the work.


The first part of the process was to take a look at how my feet make impact with the ground while running. Next to my shoe is a thin pad with about 600 pressure points that indicate where my foot makes contact, for how long, and how much pressure. You can also tell is someone has proper arch support. You can also see the ankle unit that connects to the pad and wires run to the computer.


With the pads in place, I took some steps up and down the lab. After each series of steps, we downloaded the information into the laptop and were able to watch my pressure points. Anna is reviewing my information below. It may be hard to see, but you on the left side of the screen you can see my left foot with pressure on the toes, front, and heel of my foot as it makes contact with the ground.

Now the fun begins. As you can see, I have been fitted with several indicators on my legs. These were not random placements, each was specifically placed on a joint or some other indication. On the ceiling and below the TV screen are a couple of the many cameras around the room that were filming my motion to provide a 3D analysis of my stride, gait, etc. It's difficult to see on the screen, but there is a side by side image. On the right is a video of me walking and on the left is a 3D image created of my movements. There is a better photo later on of this.

Anna records and observes my movements. Prior to moving around the lab, she had to assign all the censors on my body with their correct label so that the lines were correctly connected in between the dots.

Here is a closer image of the video next to the 3D image. The motion analysis lab can help provide valuable insight to both patients and athletes. The lab is equipped for someone to bring their bicycle in and get an analysis of their motion. Also people can see their running, walking, golf swings, throwing (baseball/football), etc. This is also the technology used to make video games look so real. Athletes are fitted with the same type of censors to turn themselves into video game characters. I asked if Anna could turn my 3D image into a dinosaur, but apparently the lab does not have that type of technology.

Most of the weekend we spent with Anna's cousin and her family in Evansville. It was a nice relaxing weekend spending time with the family and enjoying time playing with their kids and watching movies. One of the activities was going to T-Ball for children under 5. Below are Mia and Cooper with their Dad and Grandpa out in the field (indoor arena). The parents stay with the kids and help them learn the basics of the game (like, which direction first base is).

And, for added fun, we drove five miles south to cross the border. Hi Kentucky!

On the return trip back I volunteered for a later flight in Chicago for some added benefits. Here is a photo of my comp tickets, the cheesecake that was part of my free dinner, and the book my sisters gave me that I read start to finish in the airport.

Mmm... free cheesecake...

Mid-year Training, Boxes & Walls

Hal writes:

I wanted to start this post with a picture of me playing Dodgeball. Unfortunately, I have not been able to get any of those pictures yet, so they may appear in a future post. This last weekend was mid-year training for the RAs on campus. It was a jam packed weekend and I was in charge of planning a few of the events, so it made for a busy weekend. Since I was in charge of the evening social, I coordinated an open gym for just our group in the field house. In addition to Volleyball, Basketball, and Dodgeball, we played some camp games (ala "Fishy, fishy cross my sea!") The ten RDs took on RAs (in groups of ten) in Dodgeball games. We have a Dodgeball club on campus so we had official dodgeballs and rules. The RDs lost all the games (we almost won once), but the RAs had a lot of fun with it. I had brought my track spikes to see how fast I could make it around the track but after Dodgeball and some basketball, I decided against hurting myself further.

One of the projects that myself and four other RDs have been working on for the past couple of months is preparing a program called "Boxes & Walls". It is a tolerance museum that we set up in my residence hall (utilizing the multipurpose room, an entirely empty suite, and a study lounge). It felt like a wedding: months of planning, a couple of hours at the actual event, and then it's over. But the materials are still up as we are leaving it open during certain times for the public during the next two weeks.

I took a lot of pictures but for the sake of brevity I am only showing a few. So keep in mind that what you are seeing is just a glimpse of the overall program and you are withdrawn because you are not emotionally involved by walking through this with a group of people.

The tour begins in the multipurpose room. The first thing you encounter are a number of pictures of acts of hate that have occurred in the United States (see photo below). Also in the room are a variety of displays, a "library" of selected books we put together, some computer terminals to explore Internet resources, and a video running on the projection screen called hate.com.


My colleague and I created about 16 different informational boards. It doesn't sound like a lot, but when you take the time to research, print out, and put together one of these boards, it takes some time. Below is one of the boards I made on Religious Literacy. The idea for this board came from a book by Stephen Prothero that Jim had given me as a gift this last summer for being in his wedding party. There was a quiz on the board to see how much basic knowledge you knew (i.e. "What are the first five books of the Old Testament?"). The statement that I made with the board is that our nation is a very religious one in spirit, yet we don't have the knowledge/wisdom associated with the faith traditions.

After the multipurpose room, we move to one of the suites. I was in charge of the common area and my colleagues were given specific rooms. The picture below is the closet where I had hung a number of racial terms and what their origins were. On the closet door was a statement about the power of language and how easy it is to use offensive terms to hurt other people. In researching this project I came across words I had heard but some interesting ones that I had not. I won't put them on this site as I don't want to be flagged as a racist web site.

There were four bedrooms that were converted into specific spaces. Again, these are just brief snapshots. Each room required about eight pictures just to get an idea of what was in the room. The picture below is from a room dedicated to talking about African Americans and the struggle for civil rights. The table and chairs were set-up like a lunch counter and had stories and pictures on it about what "sit-ins" were like. We tried to have "experiential" activities in each area. Above the table you can see photos and stories from the civil rights era in US history.

This room was dedicated to issues that women face. You can see three different activities in the photo below. There was a mirror surrounded by pictures of women from magazines that asks the question "what truly is a 'normal' size for a woman?". The scale on the ground was set at 50 pounds instead of 0 and men were asked to step up on the scale and see how they felt when they saw their weight. On the right was a reflection activity for both men and women to write their thoughts down.

This is a relatively new concept for this type of activity, but the picture below is of a room dealing with mental health issues. Unfortunately, you cannot see the "padded room with bars" off to the side that talked about how people have been mistreated in the US due to mental health issues (i.e. electroshock therapy, asylums, etc.). When you walked in there was a noose hanging from the ceiling and there was information about suicide and depression throughout the room. The chair in the corner was another activity, but I forget the details of it.

Out in the kitchen area I did some displays about food consumption (US vs. the world in terms of caloric intake, types of food, etc.) and water. One of my students was impacted at the thought of how in the US there are a number of overweight people where in the rest of the world many are starving from not having enough food. The picture below is from my display about clean water. I highlighted a group called Engineers Without Borders that do great work around the world hoping that the engineering students we have would take an interest in volunteering their talents to help people bring clean water to areas that have none.

One of the many other displays we created. These maps show active hate groups in Minnesota and Wisconsin. I also researched some of these groups on my office computer, so the federal government might be raising an eyebrow to the types of websites that I have been visiting the past couple of months. ;)

After going through the suite, we moved to the first floor study lounge. Along the entire walls was a timeline of events in US history from 1500 to the present. There were also three posters with the phrases "I Wish", "I Think", and "I Feel" where students were able to add their thoughts as a part of the processing.

Again, I wish I could take you through the experience to give you a full glimpse of what we had worked on the past few months. But Anna wanted to be able to see some photos (since I have been talking about it for a long time and she was not here to see it) so you get to see some photos as well.

Pay me for my words

Hal writes:

I had my first paid speaking engagement earlier this month. At housing conference this past fall I was approached by an individual wondering if I would come and speak at their institution. A few others overheard her asking me and inquired as well. I am in the process of going to some schools to help train RAs during mid-year trainings or professional development nights. I enjoy these type of speaking engagements and now that I am able to charge a small fee I am on my way to becoming a professional speaker. (If I get paid for twenty speaking engagements in a calender year, I can be a member of national professional speaking group.) So, if you want me to movitate you and your colleagues, you should book me at my current rate (transporation, meals, and a small stipend) before I get too popular. ;)

Since Anna has the car in Indiana, I rented a car to get me to/from the speaking engagement. I felt that more than one time I was followed by a police officer during the trip, including one who turned around to follow me. It wasn't until the end of my trip that I noticed I had (way) out of state plates. The picture below is me in my pretty shirt and tie with the rental car. The best part about the rental (in addition to being able to fit comfortably inside it) was that it had some built in navigational equipment to tell me where to go.


For those of you who haven't heard from Anna recently, don't worry, we just are having issues with our cell phone plan. Our "national plan" truly wasn't national and we ran out of minutes for the time being. But starting this Friday we are on a new plan (a NATIONAL national plan) and she will be able to return the phone calls that she hasn't been able to respond to.

Today Anna assisted with Charlie (her grandma's husband) who was celebrating his 90th birthday today. In addition to getting a birthday card signed by the President (or, as Mr. Keillor says, CURRENT OCCUPANT), there were over 200 people who showed up to his party. Anna helped by running errands and setting up the day before as well as serving a lot of cake today.

Kevin came to visit me this weekend and we commiserated while our sweethearts were away and didn't get into too much trouble. But since he's an official pastor now, he has to return on Saturday's to make sure that his sermon his ready for Sunday morning.

This last week and this week I (and some of my colleagues) have been putting a lot of work into Boxes and Walls, a special program for our RA mid-year training happening later this week. It is too difficult to explain, but I will post some pictures at the end of the week after the RAs have gone through the experience.

Iowa Caucus

Hal writes:

This evening my colleague Trapper and I travelled across the border into Iowa to observe a caucus. Four years ago I was an Iowa resident and experienced my first caucus, but was a mere observer this year. Now, keep in mind, that the thoughts accompanied by photos are based off of my previous caucus and are posted prior to any results being posted through the media.

Now, regardless of your political affiliation, you should know that the Republican process is a closed door, secret ballot process, so for Trapper and I to actually observe a caucus we attended a Democratic precinct.

Here is me by my sign in the "media" area. Trapper and I were among a handful in a corner reserved for media or other ineligible to caucus (under the age of 18, out of state, etc.).

Here is the registration table. We were in the ballroom in the student center at a Catholic College (hence the crosses that you may periodically see in the background). Outside the door were people making last minute appeals (and handing out stickers) for their candidate of choice.

The population at the caucus was a mix of college students (this being a college campus) and then older residents for the surrounding area (mostly 50+ years old).

Below is a picture of the empty seats. You can see in the background some political posters where later in the evening supporters will stand to support their candidate. The room was in alphabetical order, so you can see Biden signs to the left and Clinton signs to the right. Each candidate had a single sign with their name on it, but supporters came in early to add signage. (Well, except for Kucinich, who did not get a lot of support, but I'll get to his group later.)

The caucus was called to order by the Temporary chair. I was really unimpressed by the manner in which it started. With a large number of college students registering late and not paying attention, you couldn't hear the Chair. He explained the caucus rules and then read one page letters from each candidate, but nobody could here them. The "Millennials" (as current college students are known as) came late, had to do day of registration because they didn't register ahead of time, and were talking to each other and on their cell phones while the chair was speaking. The older population simply sat and pretended to pay attention, but nobody could hear. The chair weakly asked for order a couple of times to no avail.

Here is the group of late arrivals quickly registering. The doors were closed at a certain time and then the division of caucus goers began. People who arrive after the doors were closed (again, Millennials) had to stand in my area and could not participated.

Here are people not paying attention to the chair. He did get their attention of the doors were closed and elected himself (without objection) as the Permanent Chair. Also, it didn't help that he was chomping on gum while he spoke.

After getting the groups attention, he asked if everyone knew what to do next (since he just read the entire process) to which the group replied "no". So then he briefly explained that it was time to divide into groups and explained the math process to elect the seven delegates from the group. The picture below was the caucus agenda and the explanation of Caucus Mathematics.

And now, let's start the fun! The 278 participants went to stand by their candidates sign (or the "uncommitted" sign). To be a viable candidate, 15% (in this case, 42 people) were needed to be with a candidate. If after the first round a group did not have 42, they would be considered not to be viable and would have to realign with another group.

Here is a picture of the few Richardson supports. To the right, one of two in the uncommitted group (I was surprised there was not more in this group). When the Richardson group saw that they were not viable, they tried to convince the Obama group to lend them a few people so that they could be viable after the first round and then they would align with Obama in the second round. When that deal did not go through, they then spoke with the Biden group, also no viable at the time, to see if they could combine for either candidate.

The Obama group had a large gathering to begin with. Here they are gathering in one corner. I would say that 90% of the college students went to this group. This group had 136 supporters after the first count.

Here is the Edwards group. (Insert some joke about the age different (and how well they arranged their chairs) compared to the Obama group here.) At the first count they had 47 supporters, just slightly above the 42 needed to be viable.

Clinton's corner was filled with largely female supporters. Similar to Edwards, the group was just barely viable, and had 48 supporters at first count. I heard an upset Clinton supporter calling into the Clinton Iowa headquarters very upset that the group was barley viable.

The sullen group in the back are the five Kucinich supports (without any stickers or signs). The the first vocal vote for each candidate was announced, the spokesperson for the group announced that there were "five geniuses" in the group. It got a laugh, but unfortunately for those students who were smarter than the other 273 people, their votes counted the same as everyone else.

After the first count, only Edwards, Clinton, and Obama were viable. At this point, those groups could send people to the Biden, Dodd (well, he didn't have a single supporter), Gravel (again, no supporters), Kuchinich, Richardson, or uncommitted groups to convince them to switch. Once candidate groups were considered to be not viable after the first round, they could not stay in that group. Supporters had to either go with one of the viable groups or go to uncommitted. Here is the "leader" of the Biden group trying to convince the group to move together as supporters from the other group come to make their cases.

The photo below is of the Obama group during the second and final vote. There were so many in the corner they had to do the "keep your hand up until you're counted" method. In the end it was 163 supporters (4 delegate votes) for Obama, 61 supporters (2 delegate votes) for Edwards, and 51 supporters (1 delegate vote) for Clinton.

Here are three that remained uncommitted at the end of the caucus. Who could them be calling? Just a friendly phone call or checking in with friends at other precincts? Are they calling campaign headquarters to let them know how it went?

The evening continued with election of delegates, resolution and platform discussions, and other official business. Or so was posted on the agenda, I didn't stay for that fun. Unfortunately, this ends my campaign coverage as I have to start work on Monday and I am not able to travel to New Hampshire to continue my observations.

Happy New Year!

Hal writes:

Well, my wife left me. No, not like that. Anna left this morning for a two month internship in Indiana. In addition to her being gone for internships, there have been many times when we have been separated by distances during our relationship. During the time I lived in Illinois and Iowa, Anna was in Minnesota and Nicaragua. Needless to say, I lack in sympathy for some of my students who live "so far" (45 miles) from their significant other and "never get to see them" (see each other every weekend and sometimes during the week).


Our typical pattern of Christmas traveling occurred with drives to and from each set of parents houses. This year we were limited by time with a snow storm to start off the trip and then returning early to attend Matt and Molly's wedding in Iowa. Pictured below is my family together in Minnesota.





While in Wisconsin I had two opportunities to ski on groomed trails (as opposed to blazing my own the first few times I went out). On the second trip Dale not only had all three daughters on skis, but both his son-in-laws and both grandchildren out on the trail with him. Brian took the picture below of the "ski train" in the woods.

Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos from Matt and Molly's wedding. It was held in a beautiful small chapel called Church of the Lance at the Living History Farms outside of Des Moines. Here is a special picture just for Rachael:

Last night we met friends in Galena, IL for New Years. After eating at a new restaurant, we went to a different pub and played card games for a while.

As the regular season of the NFL is complete, I am happy to report that I took first place in my Fantasy Football league and third place in the NFL "pick 'em" league. For those of you who play fantasy sports, you can check out my new virtual trophies online.