RyanHarne.com

My bagel knife took a shot at my good-hearted morning handling and decided to attack Tuesday. Less than twelve hours later, I punctured my first tire, luckily just one mile out of town. But, I wasn’t watching my bagel-cutting that morning as carefully as I usually would and my tire was already as thin as would hold a pressure.

Following a quick tune-up of my bike last night with Chase, we decided to take some laps around the drillfield. We weaved through throngs of orientation freshmen who were sitting in 20-person circles with their upperclassmen leaders, likely providing a decent distraction from the unnecessarily serious and forced conversation.

Typing with my left index finger wrapped in a band-aid is more difficult done than said. Riding on some newer, slicker, racier tires is wonderful. Standing for 10 hours of the day, shifting postures and positions, and awkwardly propping myself like a flamingo to alleviate discomfort in my legs, is all a moderately painful and less-than-exhilarating dance.

At least I remembered to grab my cinnamon sugar container before leaving home this morning. When could I ever turn down a toasted bagel with cinnamon sugar?

After Day 1 of Virginia Tech’s orientation for those incoming freshmen, I am positive that I will live a different life for the next three weeks. Though I couldn’t work the night at the lab today because of a planned dinner con friend, it surely will be my resting place while others dine at home and relax after a hard day’s work. I have worked two jobs in the past, but nothing like this. It took me five hours of talking to people about Macs for my throat to go sore. I had no idea you could cause that from simply talking - I imagined that effect was reserved for people who actually attend the football games here.

On a brighter note, my Apple-boss dropped me off at East Coasters so that I may pick up my bike following its weekend tune-up. I was finally able to take the new Madone out for a test ride, actually the exact model Trek has pictured on the linked website. It is smooth and must certainly promote a feeling of weightlessness. I appreciate that Trek has a representative on hand at the Tour de France who is uploading his photos to Flickr. Not the best quality, but the shots at least highlight the bikes, when they’re in focus. Excuse me a moment to drool. I need it after today.

In my recovery stage here at home, I had a handful - or more - of a new favorite: dark chocolate M&Ms. One fell to the floor and disappeared. I craned my body around cautiously from my desk chair in order to not crush it, wherever it was hiding. It was a brown M&M, matching my carpet to an extent, and it was a near disaster. Three minutes passed before the candy piece found its proper home. Considering the stress of the day, this recovery effort carried significant weight in the overall picture of this orientation Monday. Seriously.

Having a few tech support calls under my belt, so far all faculty-related, I am beginning to pool my patience resources. While I was in Tampa, I was surrounded by the most knowledgeable Mac geeks I have ever met, save two or three friends who have an exceptional geek status. In my conversations with a few of those Apple campus reps from the east coast region, we would probe the other’s comprehension of technologic understanding and ability to follow Mac rumors. A favorite friend-find of mine was Nathan. We would try and talk about something Mac-related and new but before one of us got ten words into a phrase the other would shake his head vigorously to signal that it was pointless to reiterate long-memorized rumors or facts. I perhaps have never met anyone else who so aggressively updates the MacRumors RSS as I do - the only thing keeping me from setting it as a homepage is my embarassment that such a shameful lust would find its way to the public internet. For all to see. Or read about. ..

Anyways. That type of interaction is something I need to forget about, and quickly. My tech support experience thus far suggests I should prepare to be as calm and encouraging and as patient as I can. And then maintain that for two hours. Luckily, though, I haven’t come across the angry people. They’re out there. Somewhere. Waiting for my bad day.

The good news is that my Apple stuff is beginning to trickle through the postal service systems. I really want those business cards. Hard. I think the bookstore wants them more, so they can send me all of the questions they loathe answering.

I have wondered if the reason I equate my campus rep predecessor, Nik, with patience is the tech support interaction support itself. It probably won’t take long to find out.

Tonight was my last stand for ResLife, a grande, RA-community-wide ceremony and banquet. On paper, I am employed until sometime next week, but with the residents and paperwork both hours into my past, I am already distanced from the job. In the Windows-powered presentation at the end of our feast tonight, I sympathized greatly with my boss, who when - on video - was asked, “What does ResLife mean to you, in three words?” She answered succinctly with, “It’s my job.”

All in all, I cannot say too much about the position of RA. I think a single year on the job is insufficient to judge the various facets and features the role could offer to me professionally and personally. But, from this one year, my personal skills were where my challenges came from. It all boiled down to people-handling skills, once again. The turmoil of “writing up” a resident I was friends with, having to deal with unspeakably poor resident-relations issues, etc. - in most instances of me being on-the-job, my people skills took over and were tested for their full potential. I can safely imagine that more years in the position would result in greater responsibility and appreciation for the job, thereby elaborating on professional-level skills as well.

As with most other jobs, it was the people that provided the make-or-break deal sealer. Most of the ResLife crew are bright, personable individuals, often more so socially aware than the average university student. Being a student first and RA second is not possible without an understanding boss and reliable staff. The undergraduate programs here at VT are sometimes lackadaisical - as a Spain-born resident told me today, and as I’ve witnessed for four years now - so some people happen to have way too much time on their hands. Often, those people seem make the best RAs, those who can immerse themselves into the job with a serious passion (no intention of generalizing that those also have mediocre academic pursuits).

Anyways, it has been an enjoyable experience. And that is how I will think of it. The experience. So, I rode a rollercoast and I will mark that off the list; I went to the Grand Canyon, check; was an RA at a mega-university, check. Quite possibly, my favorite part of the ceremonies tonight was a line from our mighty leader’s closing remarks, “we’re ok with changing things around a bit; as you can see, our parting gifts with you are pint glasses.”

And, I must admit: these are quality pints glasses. Check.

While sitting in on one of the regular FDI gatherings today, I discovered that IT people are a different breed than I first expected. Macs are progressively being adopted everywhere in the university, at an accelerated pace thanks to Boot Camp and Parallels, so this FDI meeting was targeted at IT people having to deal with Mac support for the first time, or their own first Mac.

Maybe it is only the case here at Virginia Tech, but the IT people are remarkably patient and intuitive. And they sometimes speak a language I cannot understand. Any technologic English beyond HTML and I am lost in a matrix of variables and indecipherable characters. Yet, despite this new tongue, most of the IT people are very kind and sincere. For years, I envisioned the IT guy to be something like Dwight Schrute, a person who actually does have spare pairs of Birkenstocks on hand and who takes martial arts classes weekday nights. In fact, IT is a challenging profession highlighted by amazing people-handling skills, similar to a telemarketer or an airline steward[ess]. Plus, you usually get the top-of-the-line computer technology before everyone else in the office (again, at least here at VT).

Now that I consider it, my favorite jobs, or my favorite employed moments, have been ones where my people-handling skills are the most challenged and stretched. Dealing with rude students at the Math Emporium was a joy because I aimed for changing their mindset towards math before I left their desk. That entire job was a test of patience and physiological caffeine limits, a year-long bench press of sanity.

I salute you, IT.

While I was about to leave Bollo’s tonight, I paused my iPod to unplug it but went ahead and switched the receiver back over to Tuner before turning it off (because I’m thoughtful like that). As I hit the Tuner button, I heard a similar musical beat and I checked to make sure my iPod was paused. It was. I turned the volume on the receiver up (still in Tuner) and noticed the song sounded strangely similar to what was playing on my iPod. I unpaused my iPod and switched the receiver over to that input and the song picked up at the exact moment and phrase the Tuner left off.

I thought it was a clever and positive note to depart from my last training session with an occurrence of absolute serendipity. The song wasn’t exactly common or popular - Head Automatica’s “Head Automatica Soundsystem”. I thought it was neat, at least. Neat enough to tell The Whole Internet™ about.

Also, I am elated to see Apple back on the big screen. Well, the ubiquitous screen, if I were to be more precise - the ones that make up most of the screens in America today. I’m talking about television ads. And their new line of ads are spectacular, funny, and considerably memorable. I know my best friend was in one of the Apple Switch ads, but the Get A Mac ads are stellar. It’s about time to see Macs get the saturated advertisement justice they have deserved for years. This really isn’t my Apple-loving side talking, but more so my simply-love-effective-product-advertising-and-promotion side. Watch them, really.