Trip to University of Iowa

I don't know how to describe the trip to the University of Iowa in a concise manner. I'll do my best, but there are so many different parts to the trip, and bizarre things that happened that... [sigh]... just bear with me.

Rise and Shine!

I'm kind of a morning person, but only because I have to be. I like to be on time, it's who I am and part of my personality. So I 'threatened' to leave my students in the library parking lot if they weren't there at 6:00 a.m.

As you may or may not know, my nickname of Mission is an honest one. I'm leaving the parking lot Monday morning at 6:01 a.m. If you are not there, we'll just make fun of you until we see you on Tuesday.

I'm a fairly flexible person, but when you go places, I like to have a plan of attack so people (especially myself) aren't stressed out.

So I know that I have to arrive early and get the van from the motor pool at the University. I arrive at the motor pool and get the van to find out that it has no rear seats. [sigh] Not a good way to start the morning. I find the seats along a wall in the garage, and install them myself. I fill out the paperwork and reflect that things aren't going as smoothly as I hoped, but perhaps this is the 'bump' and that's all we'll encounter.

My staff all arrives, and I must say they were all on time. They may have not been awake, but they were there. The drive there was quiet since most were still dreary. Time flew and we chatted a bit.

Takes Your Breath Away

So I'm driving along at a good clip with little traffic in Iowa. I suddenly realize that a Police SUV just popped on his cherries and turned around to follow in my lane.

NO! No, no, no, no, no. [giggling in the back of the van] No.

I started to pull over, and the vehicle behind me starts to pull over. The police officer pulls behind the vehicle behind me. I wait for a moment, and don't know what to do.

He didn't pull behind me, so that's a good sign.

I decide to pull away slowly, while looking in the rear view mirror.

No reaction from the officer.

Confidence is building back up, then I hear a collective sigh of relief, followed by lots of laughter. I should have been paying more attention, but I wasn't the target of the officer, so I must not have been too naughty.

OK. That must have been the 'bump' in the trip. Now we can focus on getting to the University of Iowa.

Music2Go

I think the thing that I like the most about being around college students is their culture. They listen to some really good (and sometimes really bad) music. Seb brought along his iPod, and had a FM transmitter. So we played lots of tunes on the trip. I must say that it sure beats having CD's along, or trying to play "BINGO radio station" in an area that you don't know.

An interesting discussion started about, "Do you know this artist?" There were some amazing artists on that iPod, and a few of the students didn't know some of them [Zepplin, Janice Joplin, etc.] despite my years of piano, I've never really counted myself a musical 'expert', but I surly at least know the artists names, if not at least one song they wrote. Oh well, I don't think I could name too many artists that the students listen to today either.

Web Camp 2004

Eric Meyer was the keynote presentation, and he gave a workshop at the end of the day. Eric's material was great, though if you were a novice in the crowd, you may have been lost. For most of my staff, the topic was re-hashing what we've spent the last two years doing: Web Standards. The workshop at the end of the day was great. Eric took apart a web page and showed his process for re-building a site with standards. It was fun to see the methods of another person.

My presentation on Web Accessibility was fine, though littered initially with technical glitches. "Yes Eric, if I had a Mac I wouldn't have had those problems." I could not get my computer to function with the projector. It was wild and embarrassing, but I blame it on Murphy and his darn Laws. Once I got everything working, the presentation had to be quick, so I was a little rushed, but felt confident that I presented the material well.

I'll sum up by saying that the Web Camp was good. I'll post more specifically on that later.

The Return of the Posse

The Web Posse had a hard time deciding if they wanted to eat or not on the way back home. We stopped at the mall for a moment, and wandered around there. Then decided to start the drive back home.

We chatted all the way back and got to Monticello, IA.

We had to stop at the gas station (see the picture for the giggles), grab a quick snack and hit the road. We made it to Dubuque, IA quickly, but as we were stopped at one of the lights the van stalled a bit, and then caught; it was like the transmission slipped or something.

The Legend of Brando

We kept driving and finally arrived at the detour for the 151 road construction work that is going on. So I exited at Keiler, WI and started to tell the tale of Brandon (former web student) running to Dubuqe, IA on his lunch hour with Jason to get some new video game that was released. On the way back, their car broke down. We were laughing about that as the van started to act funny.

NO! No, no, no, no, no. [giggling in the back of the van] No.

The van transmission slips; then catches; slips again. [ugh] Then starts to stop. I work the van over to the side of the road as it halts on its own.

"Strike Three. Three bumps in a trip and you're out."

The van doesn't go forward or reverse. The guy who's driveway we partially blocked came down to check on us. I put it in neutral, and the gang got out to try to push... No Luck. The wheels were totally locked. STRANDED.

The Rescue

After a few phone calls to my wife to find drivers to come get us, and to the campus police to get the vehicle towed back to campus. Our attention turned to important things... Recording the moment.

So our new neighbor agreed to take our picture with the broken van. Officially we're stranded until our new rides arrive. We enjoyed the hospitality of our new neighbor and within a half hour we were getting a ride back to the University.

Special thanks to my bud Tim and my wife Nekole for driving us back. Eight people in a mini van that's stranded takes more than one vehicle for the rescue mission!

I also want to thank the Posse for riding along and enjoying the day with me.