Category: Pondering

Day 5: Our remains are not all that are left behind

Dried Daisy seed pods
Looking at the remains of life, we see only the path that was taken and  the things encountered along the way.

Walking through the garden when winter is leaving and spring hasn’t arrived gives you a chance to reflect on what was, think and plan for what will be.  Every year I say that my garden is too big, and next year I am going to cut back.  Every year, my garden gets bigger.

Last year, I was finally successful in giving my wife a garden of white daisies.  She had subtly hinted about it for several years and I finally picked up the hint.  Those beautiful white daisies, petals withered and dropped to the ground, left behind a sculptured garden of patterns and the illusion of motion.

Stiff enough that they don’t blow in the breeze, they illustrate the paths that each stem and flower took to find a way to find the light that they needed to grow and to thrive.  They also left behind patterns in their skeletons that some would say are as beautiful as the flowers were themselves.

I guess that is true of all things to some degree or another.  We sprout, we grow, hopefully we thrive, and all the while we are taking a path that no other living thing has ever taken before, and no other thing will ever take again.  And then we die.  And what we leave behind is the shell of our living self, the path we took, and all the things we encountered and influenced along the way.  For good or for bad, this is the way of life.  That is why we are here.

The only way to have an interesting life is to do interesting things.  Live your life in a way that you will be proud to look back on when you have nothing left but the path you chose and the interactions you left behind.

Peace!

KT

Categories: Friends garden Pondering

Day 4: Seeking the light

First seedling up in tray of tomato seeds.
Someone has to be first.

I think everybody who knows me is aware that I have been working on a new degree program at UW-Stout.  The last 4 years have been spent building curriculum to address the needs that our industry partners have identified as needed in their workforce, but which were not being provided in college programs.  The last 15 months have been spent in meetings and negotiations, researching and building.

Now I am at the stage where their is only one group left to address, and that is the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents.  We have requested that the degree program be on the June agenda.  If they approve it there, then we will have our new program for enrollment in Fall 2015.

So why I have I chosen to speak about this in relationship to the image of the first seedling poking up from a tray of seeds?  Well, someone always has to be first.  And once that first one is up, many others are sure to follow.

The program I have been working on is a Bachelor of Science in Digital Marketing Technology.  Go ahead and Google that, and see what you come back with.  Go on, I will wait.

…

What did you find?  Information on degrees in digital marketing is about as close as you will come.  But if you look at what I said the name of or degree is, you will find that there are no others with Marketing Technology degrees.  You won’t even find ours yet, because just like that seedling, we have just popped our head up out of the soil and when we look around, there are no others there.

The thing that makes us different is the focus on the technology.  This is a technology degree, and it happens to be that the technology of focus is digital marketing technology.  That is what sets up apart from the field, that is what makes us first, that is what makes me think of the seedling in the picture.

The other thing you might have noticed is that (if you Googled it before April 1, 2015), that the first result, the paid ad at the top of the Google results is the the MarTech 15 San Francisco Conference.  This is the second MarTech Conference, and the second one I will be attending.

The last time I went saying we were planning a degree (In Boston last August).  This time I am going saying we are one step away from a degree, and by the way, send us some students.  The degree will be offered completely online for at least the next two years, then we will try to bring it on campus.

The demand for students with this kind of education is huge, and there are no other schools in the pipeline that have this as a focus.  This is about to get interesting.

If you know any students that would like to get in the ground level of a whole new world of high demand technology skills, have them send me an email at tharpk@uwstout.edu.

PEACE!

KT

Categories: Education Pondering

Day 1: A cleansing Breath

Birdhouse

You know, sometimes people just suck.  I don’t mean everyone sucks.  I just mean that sometimes you have just had enough of people.  Right now I am like that.

I hesitate to tell you how disappointed I am in the people who have seized control in the US and beyond.  To me, greed, power lust and selfishness are the least desirable human characteristics.

But, I periodically find myself wrapped up in the games that are being played.  And don’t get me wrong, it is important to be informed and look forward to anticipate where things are headed.  But sometimes I get carried away and sometimes I get caught up in it all.  When this happens it begins to slowly suck the joy out of my life.

I let this happen every once in a while, and then I have to find a way to dig myself out so that I can have some peace of mind.  This is a recent post I made to Facebook:

“I think the solution for me is that every time I find myself fixated on the evils of unchecked power, that I need to pour that energy instead into artistic creation. I want to take up painting, return to writing, and improve my photography and music. I will smile more often if I do.” (3/21/2015 08:14)

So that is what  brings me here.  Today is the last day of Spring Break 2015, and I took my camera out  to try to start the “improve my photography” part.  And while I was out taking pictures and anticipating a snowstorm, I came to a conclusion.  I decided that I could use a blog as a way to take care of a couple of these things at the same time.

So, this is my first movement toward pouring my energy into artistic creation.  I am going to post something every day.

Birdhouse
Looking for light, I came upon my birdhouse

This birdhouse was one of the things I photographed.  I was drawn to it by its texture, but then as I was focusing on the opening I “saw the light”.

Blurred light seen through the entry to the birdhouse.
Looking at the entry into the birdhouse
View of the crack in the roof of the birdhouse
Looking inside the birdhouse
Visible trees through hole in birdhouse roof.
Looking through the birdhouse.

This set of photographs was inspired by Peter Galante, “Learn to see the light”.

So that is enough for today.  I will post again tomorrow.

Categories: Pondering

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A little something I am doing for myself.

Indoor Garden

Hi, and if anybody reads this, welcome to my blog.

Let me be brutally honest.  I am not a blogger.  I have for my whole life tried to blog, or write a diary, or in some way get into the daily routine of writing about whatever comes to my head.  I have never, ever been in the least bit successful.  If I ever get a second post up, I have done good.

But, I am going to try this once more.  I think that if I ever got to the point where I wrote on a daily basis, that at the very least I could have a great time with it.  Maybe if instead of thinking of writing a post everyday I could supplement them with video blog entries.

We’ll give this a push out the door and see where it heads.  The journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step.  So here goes.  But first, to try to give this a chance, I am going to give myself a challenge.  I challenge myself to post at least one thing a day for the next 50 days.

I had tried this some time ago, and it didn’t work out so well.  So when I came in today I had to update my WordPress, widgets, apps and database.   Now, I am ready to launch.

Categories: Pondering

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