Walt Schmidt

To the outside world, Joe Paterno is Penn State.

But that’s not reality.

Penn State is 95,000 students and hundreds of thousands of alumni. 

Penn State is home to the largest student-run philanthropy in the world, raising $9,563,016.09 in 2011 to fight pediatric cancer, and more than $70 million since 1977.

Penn State is Fulbright scholars, renowned researchers, and student-athletes who are students and athletes.

Loud and opinionated pundits will continue to try to out-rage each other. Our current leaders will, deservedly, be shown the door.

But what makes Penn State, Penn State, will remain.

We are still Penn State

What is it with HootSuite and reminder emails? I stopped using the site months ago, but now I’m suddenly getting emails that I have to act NOW to protect my account.

What if I don’t?

The e-mail warns they will “disable HootSuite access to (my) social network profiles on March 15th.”

Initially, I was terrified. I felt the urgency in the e-mail. I scrambled and went into panic mode. Certainly, the tone of the email would scare any seasoned social media pro, let alone a hack like myself.

And it didn’t appear to be a form letter. No, it was much closer to a personal plea.

They detailed how they announced their changes in August, had grandfathered my account until November, then provided an additional 7-day grace period. The e-mail explained that their business sales team unsuccessfully attempted to contact me. There may have even been special dispensation from the pope at some point. But now there’s no denying it.

March 15 is coming.

Eventually my fear subsided and I managed to regain control over my emotions.

I realized that I had stopped using the service before their announced changes in August. I determined there were two possible explanations.

1. Of their users who had not selected a plan, they could not determine who were still active users and who simply had inactive or abandoned accounts.
2. Perhaps they did know I had long ago stopped using the account and this was an attempt at a clever marketing stunt.

I stopped caring which answer was correct after a few seconds and simply deleted the email.

But HootSuite was worried about my organization’s well-being. So when I didn’t reply, they contacted my wife, who had also been connected on HootSuite to the Twitter account in question. They explained how they were concerned that I had not taken action. They thought, perhaps, that I was no longer a part of the organization.

Once again, I had to ask myself some tough questions. Is HootSuite just one of a thousand web and OS applications used to access social networks? Or do I have some sort of deeper connection with HootSuite that I’m forgetting?

I checked my will. Nope. No mention there.

After another several seconds, I deleted the email without coming to any conclusion. And that’s where things are at now.

I wonder, though. Does everyone do this? I haven’t used TweetDeck in some time, but it’s still installed. If I uninstall it, will they send me dire e-mails? Maybe they would send the Priceline negotiator to help me reconsider.

But I strive to push forward, convinced this is nothing more than marketing.

I’m fairly certain that a service that I haven’t used in months will continue unused.

My confidence is strong.

My Twitter account is tweeting away.

Still …

I can’t help but wonder what will happen on March 15.

Editor’s Note: HootSuite, please don’t take offense to this rambling blog post. I’m just having some fun with you. No worries!

Yesterday, a narrow lake effect snow band targeted the downtown area of Cleveland for several hours. This is the beauty of lake effect snow. One spot gets a foot of snow. Literally three miles away, just a few flakes.

In Cleveland, though, lake effect snow is routine. We go through this every year. This is not Seattle, where a minor snow event becomes breaking news. Even the worst of storms here, while causing obvious traffic issues, are handled with relative ease.

Not on Wednesday.

Wednesday was different. Wednesday saw a storm drop 2 inches of snow an hour for the entire afternoon. When the storm peaked shortly before the evening rush hour, I knew it was going to be a long ride home.

My brother was with me. He has been working with us downtown for a few weeks. I’m sure it was a treat for him to experience the joy of a freak storm. In my 13 winters working downtown, this is the only the second time a lake effect event has had such perfect timing.

I peaked out my window at 4:15 to see how things were looking.

ST. CLAIR, NEAR ONTARIO, LOOKING AT THE JUSTICE CENTER

We left at 4:30 and walked through several inches of snow to the parking garage. Of course, today was the day that I was forced to park on the roof.

PARKING GARAGE, W. 3RD & ST. CLAIR

We cleaned the car off fairly quickly and started down from the garage’s 7th level.

Then, we got to Level 3. At 4:40.

I knew right away what the problem was. There was a line of probably 25 cars waiting to get out of the garage, but could not exit into the gridlock.

After several minutes, I got out and peaked over the side of the garage to see how bad it was.

PARKING GARAGE, W. 3RD LOOKING NORTH TO ST. CLAIR

Yeah, that’s going to be a problem. And it wasn’t any better in the other direction.

PARKING GARAGE, W. 3RD LOOKING SOUTH TO PUBLIC SQUARE

Finally after nearly an hour, we made it onto the street. The traffic was moving a little better than I expected.

ST. CLAIR NEAR W. 6TH

ST. CLAIR AT W. 6TH

We turned onto W. 6th to work our way south to Superior.

W. 6TH

W. 6TH

W. 6TH AND FRANKFORT

Once on Superior, it was obvious that any attempt to cross the Detroit-Superior Bridge would result in more delays. Fortunatly, my normal route happens to be through the Flats, then along Scranton. I worried about the hill, but I managed to successfully slide down to Old River Rd. From there, it quickly turned from nightmare to normal.

W. 25TH

W. 25th near Metro wasn’t bad at all. Only a couple of miles out out and the snowfall was less than half of what it was downtown.

W. 25TH NEAR I-71

From there, it was a fairly normal commute. Total time, right about two hours. Normal would be around 40 minutes with traffic.

I’m convinced if I had taken a more traditional route out of downtown — the Innerbelt or one of the bridges, I would have added another hour.

But this is Cleveland. We’ll deal with it as long as there isn’t an earthquake thrown in.

October 26, 2010

Anyone who knows me will tell you there’s no ambiguity in how I feel about LeBron James. He’s right up there with the NFL’s #1 diva, Brett Favre. In a basketball world full of egos, he stands alone. Plenty of people excuse him because of how super-awesome he is. But that’s a weak excuse. Kevin Durant doesn’t need that excuse.

LeBron’s grin hasn’t charmed everyone, though.

Kevin Hench:

It’s like LeBron is a rock god, auditioning groupies to see which will debase herself most thoroughly for his gratification and ego satisfaction.

Gregg Doyel:

He hasn’t killed any man, any woman, any dog. He hasn’t been arrested on charges of domestic violence. He hasn’t brought a loaded pistol to the arena. So why am I starting to loathe LeBron James?

Bleacher Report:

There are “kryptonites” that every human beings share. Is LeBron James’ “kryptonite” his ego?

Adrian Wojnarowski:

All those teams that marched into the presentations and listened to some of the foolish and naive questions asked of them believed these kids had no idea what they were doing, or what they had gotten themselves into.

Marla Ridenour:

If there’s a happy ending to the 2010 free-agency frenzy, it will still leave the impression that the King’s head has gotten too big for his crown.

Bob Berghaus:

LeBron James, a free agent after playing seven years with the Cleveland Cavaliers, is just 25, but he’s taking this diva stuff to a new level.

So, goodbye LeBron. Or, welcome back. Doesn’t matter to me. Either way, I’ll always remember you for treating others with respect and your good sportsmanship.

Be sure to check out the Twitter account of LeBronJamesEgo.

Arizona's Un-American Immigration Law

Why aren’t anti-ObamaCare conservatives outraged by this intrusive move?

topherchris:

(Re: Police Seize Jason Chen’s Computers)

If the Huffington Post was honest.