BFTP: Guarding against the arbitrary when traveling

A weekend Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past. Original post June 21, 2007.

Someone once wrote that "you can't guard against the arbitrary." He or she must have been talking about travel. Stuff just happens over which one has no control. 

But knock wood, I’ve been pretty lucky in my travels about getting where I need to go by the time I need to be there. I’ve been doing about 10-20 speaking/workshop/consulting engagements a year for the past ten years, and I’ve always shown up on time*. Did I say, knock wood?

Some of this is dumb luck, but I’d like to think a little of it is good planning as well. As many of you head for ALA and NECC, here are a a few hard earned travel tips to get you where you need to be – on time.

1. Never book the last flight out in the day. If a flight is cancelled, you have a fall back position. I always try to get to overseas destinations a full day before I need to be there. Helps with the jet lag too.

2. Book a direct flight whenever possible. As much as I complain about Northworst Airlines*, I'm awfully glad to be living near Minneapolis, a major airline hub. Every connection is another chance for something to go wrong. Oh, keep your  airline customer support number on speed dial. A call is usually faster than standing in a re-booking line.

3. Know a couple airports within driving distance of your destination. I’ve had a flight cancelled to Syracuse, NY, but was able to get into Rochester and then drive to Syracuse. DC is really nice in this regard with Dulles, Regan, Baltimore and even Philadelphia are all within a reasonable drive. A late night 4-5 hour drive is better than not getting there at all. And I am more fun to watch when I've had no sleep.

4. Don’t check bags. Yeah, if you’re gone for more than a week or are combining business and recreation – hiking boots and dress shoes – you may need to check a bag, but generally a rolly and a computer bag should do it. Even the LWW has figured out how to pack wisely using a carry-on only. And she always looks lovely and stylish. It is just a whole lot easier to re-book if you don't have a bag that needs to found and re-routed. Oh, your luggage always arrives with you this way as well.

5. Get to the airport early. ‘Nuf said.

6. Learn the damn security procedures. Yes, you still have to take off your shoes, remove your computer from its bag and put liquids in quart baggie that also has to be scanned separately. This liquid business I believe is a scam perpetrated by the personal grooming business. Those big bottles of shampoo, hand lotion, and other mysterious substances people seem to need go into the trash by the hundreds each day and of course need to be replaced at the destination. And, never, never, never get in any security queue that has a woman (or man) wearing thigh high, lace up boots ahead of you. Or people traveling with children in strollers. And don't argue with security personnel. You'll not win.

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7. Once you get to the destination airport, your are only 98% there. Know where you will be staying and speaking. Bring printed maps. Bring printed driving directions. Bring your GPS. I'd never rely only one of these navigational tools, but it's hard to miss with all three working for you.

8. Never rely on a hotel wake-up call. I once worked as the 11PM to 7AM desk clerk in a motel. I know how reliable I was. In fact it was where I learned to sleep sitting upright.  I carry a cheap travel alarm. Cheap because I tend to leave them in the hotel room now and then.

*9. Double check and triple check the date of the event. Since I wrote this original post, I completely blew one speaking event. The date for my workshops change from the original date to one day earlier. I forgot to change that information on my calendar. It's a lesson you only need to learn once.

10. Come prepared. I have nifty set of items that I think every speaker should carry with him/her as well.

• One's own computer.
• One's lides on a flash drive or downloadable from Dropbox.
• Cell phone with your sponsor's phone number in it.
• The nifty litte cable that lets you recharge your phone from the computer's USB port. 
• Small powered speakers.
• A small travel powerstrip.
• A good remote for advancing slides. 
• A retractable ethernet cable.
• Computer lock.
• Foreign plug adaptor kit if speaking overseas.
• A small zippered bag of computer accessories like a power supply, video out dongle, and ethernet dongle if you travel with a Mac. Check it twice before you leave the house. 

It's not that I don't trust event organizers, but messages get crossed about equipment needs sometimes.

Consider adding one more item to your emergency speaking equipment kit - a RGB cable. In the last couple of schools I've worked, I needed to use a ceiling mounted LCD projector where the RGB cable was so tightly bound to the teacher computer, I couldn't get it to reach my laptop. A separate cable from wall plate to laptop (male to male usually) looks like it will be a necessity in the future. Hey, it beats lugging your own projector which I did for many years.

Your travel tips for guarding agains the arbitrary?

Harmful to minors

But take away context and psychology for a moment and just consider the notion of risk. Based on EU Kids Online’s surveys of families in 25 countries, Sonia Livingstone offers two insights that I think would be helpful to parents as well as debaters in any public discussion about youth risk online:

• “‘Risk’ is not the same as ‘harm’: Seeing pornography online may be harmful to children but it may not. It depends on the nature of the images and on the personal circumstances of the child. The minority of vulnerable children may be more at risk of harm from online pornography. Rather more may be more at risk of harm from pornography when it is abusive or degrading to women (or men). But conclusive evidence will always be lacking since we cannot ethically expose a random selection of children to pornography and monitor the outcomes for scientific purposes.
• “Risk may have positive as well as negative outcomes. For many children, some exposure to some risk is necessary to build resilience. We cannot wrap our children in cotton wool and protect them from the world forever, and we must allow our teenagers to explore their sexuality away from our often-disapproving gaze. But for some children, the same exposure may be harmful – depending on lots of factors, and this contingency – where much depends on the child, the online content, and the circumstances – cannot be avoided.” from NetFamilyNews "Thoughts on the UK's debate about online porn."

Always level headed, Anne Collier's post on online pornography is worth a read. That children's exposure to pornography is harmful has so long been a given, most of us have simply stopped thinking about it. And coming to a permanent conclusion is always dangerous.

Again, CIPA reads: "The protection measures must block or filter Internet access to pictures that are: (a) obscene, (b) child pornography, or (c) harmful to minors." Make no mistake, one of the filtering categories our school has selected to block is "sexual acts." And I am glad this barrier is in place. I would want my grandson's school to take the same precautions.

However, I was struck by Livingston's comment "For many children, some exposure to some risk is necessary to build resilience." I would put accidental or brief exposure to pornography in the category of a "safe mistake." In my own adolescence, accessing the hidden stash of Playboy magazines or reading Miller's steamy novels seem in retrospect a normal part of one's informal education. Did Hef or Henry teach us curious kids great values and respect for women? Of course not. But I really wonder if any of us were permanently damaged either? 

I'm not advocating that kids have access to adult sexual materials here, just that if it happens, it may wind up being a teachable moment, not the end of civilization.

Were I to define what makes a site "harmful to minors," i would say that it displays information that is both important and wrong. Bad health advice, misleading science, biased reporting, and, yes, unrealistic sexual views that go unchallenged and unquestioned are what are really harmful to minors - and to the rest of us as well.

Image source

Dangerous things school teaches

From Nine Dangerous Things You Were Taught in School (Forbes) by Jessica Hagey

1. The people in charge have all the answers
2. Learning ends when you leave the classroom
3. The best and brightest follow the rules
4. What the books say is always true
5. There is a very clear, single path to success
6. Behaving yourself is as important as getting good marks
7. Standardized tests measure your value
8. Days off are always more fun than sitting in the classroom

Hmmmm. I'd agree with all of these based on my experiences. Go Jessica!

But I'd also add a few...

1. There is one right answer to every question. At least to every important question. In fact those who can come up with the most right answers will do well in this economy. 
2. The purpose of your education is make sure you can get a good job. The real value of education is to help make sense of the world, to open your eyes to new points of view, and to help you hone skills that will allow you accomplish tasks you feel are personally important.
3. The more money you make, the happier you will be. Once you make enough money for the basices, making a difference, not making money, will make you happy.
4. Heredity is fate. There will always be "the first person in the family to ____________" scenarios. Not enough, but enough to know it's possible. And your school experience does not have to be the same as that of your big brother or sister.
5. Popularity = success. Listen to Springsteen's "Glory Days". At least three times.
6. You have to be smart at everything. Good at math and science, but poor at English and social studies. Don't sweat it. Really smart people tend to be smart in the intersection of two fields, say technology and health. Focus on your passions.
7. Classwork is more valuable than extracurricular activities or a parttime job. There is still too much learning for the sake of doing better at the next high level of education. You'll learn life's best lessons on the basketball court or your first paying job.
8. You should like every teacher you have. This is impossible. You should learn how to work with every teacher, however, since one day you'll need to learn to work lots of people.
9. Objectivity trumps passion. It's the Captain Kirks, not the Mr. Spocks, that discover new worlds.

What dangerous things were you taught in school?