I’m going to look into this documentary to see if there is a way that I can watch it. I think it looks interesting!

Frankly, the internet in 2014 kind of sucks.

While I don’t think that we need to go back to the days of the Prodigy internet message boards or the original America Online, I do think that as we’ve moved further down the path of “Social Media Life” we’ve actually removed much of the interaction that we used to have with our online friends. Even as close as 10 years ago I could log-on to the internet and have my Yahoo Messenger load up as well as my AOL Instant Messenger and immediately engage in any number of one-on-one conversations with both my “real life” friends and my internet friends. And the conversations weren’t useless or the type of silly drivel that you read on these humor websites. No, we were making connections and having real conversations. It was fun!

Today, everything seems to need to be filtered through a Facebook or other social media-like portal and I don’t like it. I want to be able to log-on and talk to the folks who originally made the internet fun for me. I also want to be able to pick these people’s brains in a more readily available manner than sending a message into a seemingly black social media hole. There’s no connection in that method of communication.

Unfortunately, though, I don’t think that we’re ever going to get back to that level of meaningful one-on-one interaction on the internet. I think we’re stuck in a mess that doesn’t allow people to grow real friendships through shared online interactions. And given the friends that I’ve made through these online interactions, I think that’s a real shame for future generations of internet users.

Which brings me to one of the two social media platforms where I do maintain accounts: Facebook.

Facebook seems to have become "Happy Birthday-book"

I’m sure that most of the folks reading this entry have a Facebook account – it seems like most people on the planet have a Facebook account these days. And, if you’re like me, then you’ve noticed something weird about Facebook in the last few years. No, it’s not the fact that Facebook seems to constantly change their layout without the consent (or considered happiness) of their users. And no, it’s not the fact that spam-loving companies have found a way to breach even Facebook’s strong security measures. Instead, if you’re like me you’ve noticed that Facebook has been reduced to a single phrase for most people…

“Happy Birthday, buddy!”

I can’t tell you how many of my Facebook friends only interact with me on my birthday. And, admittedly, there are scores of my Facebook friends who I only interact with on their birthdays. Over the last year, I’ve made a conscious effort to not send happy birthday greetings to people who I wouldn’t go out of my way to call or text with the same message. Sometimes, I find that there are social strictures that require me to send someone a happy birthday note. Other times, there are folks who I would go out of my way to say happy birthday to if I saw them during the day, but I refrain from doing so online because it seems somewhat weird.

But more than any other observation about the oodles of birthday messages that are flung around Facebook, the most pressing observation is just how weird the whole exercise is for everyone. I mean let’s be honest – how many different ways can you say, “Happy Birthday, [INSERT NAME HERE]! Enjoy!” or something similar each year to the same person before it gets redundant, repetitive, and just bizarre? With some of my Facebook friends I’ll go in and check what I wrote on their wall the prior year and most of the time the message that I’m crafting for the new happy birthday message is eerily similar.

The whole thing is just bizarre to me. However, the weirdness factor aside I have no plans to get rid of my Facebook page. The truth is that Facebook is too ingrained in our society today and we are all too reliant on that particular social media platform. So, while I may be a little exasperated with the happy birthday messages that I see on there every single day, I think it’s just part of the platform that we’re going to have to accept.

By the way, my birthday is next Tuesday, January 31st… and I’ve grown to expect many birthday greetings on my Facebook wall!

This has been a pretty happy place for the last week and a half.

About a week and a half ago, nearly a one-third of the planet’s population began celebrating the Easter Triduum. The Easter Triduum is the three day period leading up to Easter Sunday and the celebration of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Certainly something for believers like me (and some 2.1 billion other believers in Christ) to celebrate.

On the first of two personal notes in this entry, one of the young men that I advised when he was an undergraduate in Sigma Pi Fraternity became a member of the Roman Catholic Church during the Easter Vigil mass. For him – and those of us who know him – this was also a reason for celebration.

After a solemn, joyous Holy Week the world then began preparing for the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Normally, I wouldn’t cite this as a reason for the world to celebrate. However, following the tragic, paparazzi-fueled death of his beloved mother Princess Diana, there were many people who saw this past Friday’s wedding as a sort of victory for civility. The Sun Newspaper (based out of the United Kingdom) estimated that up to 3 billion people might watch the wedding. I’ve read post-wedding viewership figures as high as 2 billion, so I don’t know the exact number of people who saw the wedding, but I’m sure that most folks out there either saw the wedding live or saw footage.

In any event, the adoring crowds in the United Kingdom reflected the joy and happiness that most people shared for the young bride and groom.

And on a personal note – this past Friday a good friend of mine got married. I was honored to be one of his groomsmen and the excitement of the wedding helped make this past weekend a really great one for me and the hundreds of people who are celebrating this wedding, too.

And then Sunday, May 1st came. For the more than 1.2 billion Roman Catholics in the world, we celebrated the beatification of Pope John Paul II – now known as Blessed John Paul II. The beatification mass was viewed around the world as a man who many knew as a world leader took the final step before being declared a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. Certainly a reason for celebration among the faithful Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church communities!

Of course the only way for such an amazing week and a half period to come to completion was with the announcement that the United States had located, stormed, and killed the most wanted terrorist in the world. And not only was I excited about the confirmation of Osama bin Laden being killed, but I was proud about the way the United States citizens celebrated the victory. I posted this message on Facebook late last night about our national celebration:

When certain countries on the other side of the world celebrate a big event, radical extremists come out in the streets and burn effigies of world leaders and flags of other nations.

When America celebrates the death of a global mass murderer, we have men, women, young, old, Republicans, Democrats, black, white, Hispanic, etc. all celebrating together chanting “USA! USA! USA!”

We win. Again.

Followers of freedom and believers in liberty have a big reason to celebrate this news. Congratulations go out to the men and women of our military and intelligence services on a job well done.

As I posted on Twitter last night – I feel like this week and a half period of happiness and celebration is the beginning of something great for this world. Let’s hope that the good times keep on coming and that we continue to receive good news (or the Good News, as it were) in the coming days, weeks, and months! Enjoy!

From Garfield High School...

After the game, a Facebook page that purports itself to be Austin’s official page had this to say:

My passion for football began at Garfield.. not sure why yall are so upset that I repped them for once instead of Monmouth. Yall should know I love MU and always will.. But without Garfield and the support I received there, I woulda never made it to Monmouth. Kids need to know that high school is a time to find your talent or passion and run as far as you can with it.

Now, I’m not sure if this is Austin’s real Facebook page or not, but the blurb above makes sense in my world. Of course, before Austin posted this on his Facebook account, I commented about how hilarious I found the whole situation. In the comments following my blurb, I wrote the following:

[My Roommate] and I figured that thousands of MU alumni started laughing out loud when he said “Garfield High School” while dozens of MU employees and administrators were confused as to why someone would do that in the first place!

And this point is the crux of this entry. I guarantee that all of the idiot “yes men” ass kissers that I went to college with had no idea why Austin wouldn’t even consider announcing himself from Monmouth during that opening game. I also guarantee that some exorbitantly paid administrators at Monmouth who are so full of their own bullshit started to panic after hearing “Garfield High School” during what should have been the shining moment of their delusional impressions of my alma mater. The fact is that many of the folks working in the administration at Monmouth are out of touch with the student body. And when they need to get student opinions on issues and items, they choose their “yes men” and ass kissers to provide feedback for the general population. It’s useless.

Oh, and I speak for a super-majority of the current students and alumni from the school? How do I know that? Very simple. I looked at a copy of Monmouth University’s most recent results on the National Survey of Student Engagement. One of the questions asked, “How well do students get along with administrators and staff?”

The answer?

Some 35% of first year students find the administrative personnel and offices helpful, considerate, and flexible. Gah! If 35% of my clients thought that I was helpful, considerate, and flexible to their needs I’d get fired on the spot! Because if 35% think that you’re great, then 65% want to bang their head into the wall each time they deal with you!

Anyway, for the reason that Austin stated in his Facebook update and because of the results of the national survey – and for the many less-than-pleasant encounters I had with the administrators over there when I was an undergraduate – I’m glad that Austin said he was from Garfield High School instead of Monmouth University. It serves them right. There’s clearly a disconnect that the university isn’t addressing and, quite frankly, doesn’t seem to know how to address.

So for this Giants fan, my favorite Cowboy is Miles Austin. And that’s in light of the fact that Tony Romo and I are in the same fraternity (Sigma Pi Fraternity)!

However, there is one thing that I absolutely hate about this time of the year and you can find it on Facebook. That’s right, an anti-Facebook message on JerseySmarts.com!

What I hate is when all of these teachers and education industry people get on their Facebook accounts and complain that they have to go back to school. WHAT?! You’re complaining that you’re dreading going back to school!?! First of all, what balls to say that in New Jersey where there are thousands of laid off workers who only wish they were going back to school!

Second, it’s your JOB! Sure, I bitch about my commute quite often and yes, I might get annoyed at one of my managers from time to time, but you’ll NEVER catch me (or anyone with any common sense) complaining that they have a job to go to tomorrow. That’s utterly ridiculous!

And, without fail, the same bevy of complaints come in from teachers and education industry people that are in near-comatose states of mind because they’ve spent the last three to four months sitting around doing as close to nothing as possible. Get real, people! The entire world is out there working everyday of the summer and teachers have the gall to complain that their three to four month vacation is coming to an end? Shut up!

Complain about your commute, complain about your bratty little kids that you teach, complain about the extremely overpaid administrators in your districts…but don’t complain that you have a job to go to and don’t complain that you actually have to work for a living. Good grief! And people wonder where this entitlement mindset comes from with some of these teachers?! Then again, it was no surprise to anyone with a year-round job (i.e. 90%+ of the entire workforce) that teachers complained about having to pay into their healthcare system. I wonder if the teachers heard that collective laugh when they started complaining about the 1.5% or 2% (I don’t remember what it was) that they had to start contributing.

A final thought – I’m a guy for education reform at all levels. For example, teachers should absolutely pay more into their retirement system, but they should also receive an increase in pay (not necessarily on par with the money that they’re paying into the system, but some small increase to bring them closer to a living wage). That said, teachers are government employees – plain and simple. When the government has no money, then teachers should not get raises. It’s part of having a government job.

However, one of my favorite education reform ideas is increasing the school year. Think about it – we prepare our students for the real world by telling them, “You’re on vacation from the end of June through the beginning of September – go have fun!” Completely ridiculous. What does that prepare them to be in life? Well, I guess you could argue that it prepares them to be teachers, but we have enough of those already! I bring this up because imagine the complaints coming from the teachers and education industry if summer vacation was reduced from two and a half months to two or three weeks!? Ha!

I played around with the button last night (which, if you are on the front page, you can see by clicking on the title of title of this entry – it shows up right underneath the title) and tested it out to see how it works. I’m not really sure of the dynamics of the button, but I think when you hit click on it there is an update to your Facebook wall saying that you liked that entry on the blog with a link to the entry for your Facebook friends to see.

Oh, and I tried the Like button in Internet Explorer and it didn’t work. I don’t know why, but the majority of this site’s traffic comes from Firefox or non-Internet Explorer browsers so I’m not overly concerned. Plus, Internet Explorer has been bulky and clunky for the last few years anyway. If you’re not using Google’s Chrome or Mozilla’s Firefox (or even Apple’s Safari), then you’re missing out on a much better internet experience.

But back to the point of this entry – we now have a Like button so if you see something that you like (and you’re not using Internet Explorer), then feel free to hit the button so your friends on Facebook can see what JerseySmarts.com has to offer, too!

Recommendations anyone?

Which brings me to Skype. On my recent trip to Nashville, I was talking to one of my fellow Board Trustees told me about Skype’s effectiveness and cost efficiencies. From our conversation, I went on Facebook and asked whether anyone had any ideas or comments about the Skype product. These are some of the comments that I received from my Facebook buddies:

it essentially is like aol instant messenger with more options. You can make phone calls around the world, and also do video chats.. I use it for work a lot. Skype can also be added to some phones to make free phone calls if u have a skype account.

just remember that when your network or electric goes out… so does skype… However if you have a cel at home too… maybe not necessary.. also at times the quality is “Iffy” but as a positive, you can also do video calls…

Skype is wonderful. I talk to people all over the world, conference calls all for free!!

Get a Skype enabled phone and you can benefit from VoIP at home or even just sync your Bluetooth headset to your laptop and walk around making calls. I’ve used it while traveling overseas and it was a great cost saver.

Skype is sweet because its free and you can communicate with someone from long distance instantly.

All of this is good information. Based off of these seemingly good reviews, I did some more research and found out that I can get a yearly subscription to Skype for $30. That subscription will allow me to have unlimited calls in the United States and Canada (unlike my buddies on Facebook, I don’t make international calls because, well, I don’t know anybody outside of the United States!). I also found out that I can get an “online” telephone number for about $30 per year (after discounts). This would allow people to call my Skype account from their land line or cell phones.

On top of that, in order to get the maximum use out of Skype I’d have to get a webcam (though I really don’t foresee a need for me to make video calls, but who knows). I have a microphone and stereo headset already, so I don’t really need those items (but I’d probably buy new stuff anyway). On the low end of the hardware necessity, I could potentially spend nothing and just use my existing microphone and stereo headset. If I wanted to just get a mid level webcam, I could spend $20. Or I could go for the total package and get top of the line stuff for over $100.

Hardware costs aside, moving from my land line to Skype would reduce my annual telephone expenses from $468.36 with Comcast’s land line to about $60 with Skype. That’s a pretty significant drop for a very small business.

With all of that said – can anyone reading this blog entry out there on the interwebs offer some advice on whether or not I should move to Skype or a different VoIP service? I’m interested in reading your thoughts!

Dear Governer Christie, Thank you for being the biggest dick new jersey has ever known. Because of you, and your school “cuts” I will most likely not have a job next year. I honestly hope someone punches you in one of your chins. Good day. Oh and FUCK YOU!

For those of you who know some of the fraternity guys that I used to advise, this message is from Turkey Sub’s Facebook. And while I actually do like Turkey Sub, he has provided a great example of the complete idiocy that Christie’s decisions have brought out of some people. I will address the rest of this entry as though I was yelling at Turkey Sub.

First of all, look at how inherently stupid that comment above is (you don’t capitalize New Jersey and yet you teach children?!) – no one writing such one-sided rubbish should be teaching our school children in the first place. Second, think about how dumb you must be to not understand how school funding works. The Governor didn’t single-handedly create life-ending cuts to the education budget. In fact, in his own words he said, “We have worked to ensure that no school district in New Jersey will face a reduction in aid that is greater than 5% of their school budget.” Do you know how school funding works in this state? Did you know that local property taxes are set by people at the… LOCAL level of government?! In other words, if you think that taxes should be raised in this state to continue to pay for waste and excess, then go to your local town council and tell them to raise property taxes. But be forewarned, because people who are sick of being taxed out of this state are forcing the 2.5% cap in spending increases at the local level.

Did you get that, stupid?

The end result of the Governor’s budget is a state government structure that spends less money and thus needs to take in less money and there you have a reduction in taxes. This is what everyday people do in tough times – they tighten their belt and they stop wasting money on bullshit. They don’t go out for dinner every night, they don’t go buy clothes that they don’t need, they don’t waste their money on material items that won’t mean a damn thing in a few days or weeks. Instead, they move back in with their parents, they use an old car instead of buying a new one, they spend less money, they save more money, and they prepare for tough times ahead. Get with the fucking program you dummy.

Anyone who can’t made due in this economy by trimming 5% off of their annual revenue doesn’t know how to budget money and is likely wasting money all over the place. How many six-figure earning Vice-Principals and Assistant Superintendents does your district have, Sub? More than one? More than two? More than five? What about excessive administrative aides? Before your idiot ass wrote, “Because of you, and your school ‘cuts’ I will most likely not have a job next year,” did you consider that the reason why you most likely won’t have a job next year is because your district wastes tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars on salaries for unnecessary positions? Or did your union give you some type of propaganda bullshit that suggested otherwise and you immediately believed it without doing any research so you can make an informed decision?

Look, Sub. It sucks that you’re going to lose your job. I don’t want anyone to lose their job! But where is the outrage at the years upon years of both Democratic and Republican governors and legislatures who opted for quick fixes to budget gaps instead of actually cutting spending? Don’t get mad at Christie because he made the right decision! People are getting mad because we live in a state that doesn’t expect the right decisions to be made in Trenton, and thus we expect more spending and higher taxes. This is the beginning of a change for New Jersey and it’s the type of change that every forward-thinking family and individual made two years ago when the economy started to tank.

If you want to get mad at someone, get mad at the Republican and Democratic legislators who created the disastrous, unsustainable system that we currently live in. But for God’s Sake, don’t get mad at the guy who is calling a spade a spade and saying enough is enough. And don’t get mad because the guy is doing exactly what he said he would do during the campaign!

And dude, if you want to be a teacher, be more fucking articulate in your criticisms of the government and stop being a bitch drama queen. Otherwise, you’re a bigger part of the problem than your ignorant Facebook post even shows.

I took my blog off of a bunch of the networks for a bunch of reasons and I happened to keep a log of those reasons for those of you who are involved with blogs or who might have similar decisions to make.

BlogExplosion – Gone. The interface was not user friendly and I couldn’t figure out what benefit I was getting for being listed.

TopBlogArea – Updated the code. Since I updated the code, however, I rarely get ranked in the Top 100 sites in my category. I think they moved my site to somewhere new in their system. If I can’t fix this, I’ll probably just get rid of this link, too.

BlogCatalog – Updated the code.

BlogTopSites – Updated the code.

BlogHub – Gone. The user interface for this site was too simple and didn’t provide enough information about how I could integrate my blog with their services.

SpamPoison – Updated the code. I love this little button because it takes the spam bots and hurls them into a cycle where they, essentially, spam themselves. Serves them right!

Blogged – Updated the code. By far the best user interface, but extremely slow. These guys are linked up with Facebook, so that’s a benefit, too.

LoadedWeb – Updated the code. This is the easiest network to join and manage. I recommend it.

Truth Laid Bear – Gone. The user interface is excruciatingly slow. I initially updated the code, but ultimately removed it because of the slowness of the site.

BlogAnnounce – Gone. They wanted to try to get payments from the blog publishers or something like that…ha! Yeah right.

Anyway, I hope that some of the webmasters that float by JerseySmarts.com find this information useful.