In which we study the irons in today's fire.

I’m trying to be productive. Really. I’m not just bloviating on my pipedream of an active virtual coaches league. In fact, I’m putting that aside for a while (or more to the point, working up some concrete examples offline). So, meanwhile, what else is going on?

First of all, CatNats is this weekend. My chief interest is learning some more about Pffft, which I’ll be judging. As I’ve said before, what eludes me is a paradigm for winning rounds. What, exactly, is a team supposed to do? In the rounds I’ve seen, admittedly of a pick-up nature (at Districts), everybody knew how to put it together but nobody knew how to close. But in debate, closing = winning. So, how do (presumably) good Pfffters close? With luck, I’ll find out. Or maybe everybody just flounders around, hoping that looking sharp will do the job. I certainly hope not, but what is, is. We’ll find out soon enough.

I’ll also be testing Twitter as a team-roundup tool, with a small experimental team to round up (the Panivore and the People’s Champion). Relatives at home will follow our progress. This should keep everybody connected and provide the sort of information that families like to have (such as, is my child still on the planet?). Additionally, I’ll be microblogging on Twitter at @jimmenick, if anyone is interested. That information will not be echoed over to Facebook, needless to say. My feeling is, get the right tool for the job. Facebook is not a good tool for microblogging (despite Zuckerberg’s feelings to the contrary); Twitter is. Of course, I’m aware how Twitter is quite definitely not an adolescent’s app. The numbers on this are rather clear that it is a tool for the fogie contingent. Still, that’s no reason for students not to embrace it, or at least debate students, who are hardly representative of the breed of adolescent in the wild. (More of a subspecies, if you ask me. Or a mutation.)

I’ve put together a tentative (and I mean tentative!) curriculum for the MHL institute/workshop in September, and passed it along to the usual suspects. As I said to them, I’m probably the last person who should be doing this, having had no experience of debate institutes a’tall, but I did take notes at our initial discussion, and I do know how to construct a spreadsheet…

Another issue that’s hanging fire is developing some content for the Modest Novice. I’d like to get some structured material posted so that coaches can work from, at the very least, a decent brief. In a way, that will dovetail with the MHLi/w, which will cover ModNov for the newbies. Again, it’s something that’s got to be done, so, I guess I’ve gotta do it. I did post an interesting article on legal postivism, which is hardly novice grist, but is quite interesting for the rest of us.

And lastly, I’m looking forward later tonight to hooking up my 1T hard drive. I think it makes sense to network it, which would untether Little Elvis, which if nothing else is my iTunes machine, but which also could use a little fresh air and exercise as I cogitate over what and how to upgrade this Fall. So many options: netbooks (with Windows 7, about which I’ve heard nothing but praise), MacBooks with Snow Leopard (about which I’ll assume nothing but praise, but having a non-Intel Mac is starting to get a little lonely), iMacs (think desktop), etc., etc. Oh, yeah, I should point out, as well, so little money. Last I heard there was a recession going on around here.

So, that’s where we are on most fronts of interest. Excelsior, you fathead! (As Jean Shepherd would explain it.)