Apparently I'm Officially Old

[WRStone]

I teach undergrad college IT courses for a living, now. This has been a change from my previous line of work, which was IT systems administration at damned near every level at some point or other. I'm even teaching C, amazingly.

Now, I know I've been in the game a while. My father got his first business computer in 1979, and I've been touching every piece of hardware and running every piece of software imaginable in the last 32 years.

So it comes out in class that not only am I 3/5 of the cast of Big Bang Theory, I'm an old-school Star Trek fan who thought the 2009 movie was cool.

Now, I'll admit that I'd started thinking about this career shift in part because I started to identify with Captain Pike in the 2009 film. I've commanded the starship -- quite a few, in fact. I've been around a lot of blocks and seen a lot of stuff.

I can't go into management, I'm not temperamentally suited to it. And to be honest, I'm old enough that 24x7x365 availability combined with long, unpredictable hours is tiring. If you really care about your work, after a couple of decades you start to dislike the 2am phone calls and working 48 hours straight during Christmas. You never get rewarded financially, and there's 0.00% recognition. In fact, if you do it well, you find yourself suddenly becoming the go-to guy.

For the first time in over twenty years, there is functionally 0.00% chance that I will get a 2am phone call requiring me to instantly bring my mind full alertness because I must immediately work on The Problem. It's rather hard to wrap my head around the idea that I can sleep a full eight hours every night with no fear that it could be instantly interrupted at any time.

So in part, when the opportunity to teach came around, I sort said to myself, "Captain Pike, it's time for you to go to Starfleet Academy and see if you can turn out some James Kirks."

Now I'm working 45 hours a week, teaching six classes -- every weekday evening and one Saturday morning. I lecture for 1:40, then we break and have lab for 2.5 hours. It's a different class every day. It ranges from Intro to PCs to Linux Systems Administration II. In any given quarter, I teach some kind of Intro to Programming, and I could easily be given Cisco courses. I have as few as seven students and as many as 27.

So it's a butt-load of work, don't get me wrong. I like it and I seem to be good at it. It's actually easier work: still extremely intellectually challenging, though in a different way. There's no stress associated with the brain sweat because there's no one breathing down my neck that the people who sign my paycheck are potentially losing hundreds of thousands of dollars the longer I fail to solve The Problem.

Plus, I know that I get to sleep all night.

As I say, I'm still really adjusting to that whole concept. I've been on-call for literally two decades for whomever I worked. No special occasion nor holiday was spared. I didn't work every Christmas in 20 years, but I worked enough to not remember how many times I did it.

I haven't mentioned it in class, but I think I'm actually going to give the "Captain Pike Explanation" the next time students ask why I went into teaching. I'm starting to get that question a lot.

Anyhow, they're talking Star Trek during lab. These are IT geeks -- lots of SF cross-over there. Star Trek and Doctor Who seem to be the natural entertainment choices of IT wonks. And Star Wars -- with the unanimous opinion that the Prequel Trilogy sucks and that George Lucas has clearly become a hack.

One kid mentioned he'd just watched the entire MacGyver series on Netfix. I told my story about being outside the Paramount lot watching a scene from MacGyver being shot. They were shooting some scene where Richard Dean Anderson walked over to his car and got into it. No lines -- he just walked over to his car and got in. They shot it from a couple of angles, then tore it down and went back to the studio lot.

I mentioned that I lucked into seeing it by virtue of being at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood when a Paramount van pulled up. Staffers were shoving tickets for the taping of an episode of Wings into the hands of anyone who would take them. This was early in the show's first season -- as the show went on, they started selling the tickets.

In point of fact (and much to my daughters' chagrin), you can quite clearly recognize my laughter in the episode. What happened was that the taping of a half-hour sit-com actually takes six to eight hours. This one started at 6pm and didn't finish until after midnight. Multiple takes, flubbed lines, just the usual -- but after a while the studio audience got bored. They started to drift out. As they did so, I moved so as to position myself under one of the studio microphones.

By the end of the taping, the only real audience laughter is mine -- occasionally forced, but genuine-sounding. There is a well-done laugh track dubbed in behind it, but if you know my laugh, it's unmistakable. It apparently jarred the hell out of my daughters when they saw the episode.

If you're really interested, there's this. At this point in the episode, mine is the only real laughter.

So I wound up with a ticket to a taping at Paramount. Naturally I showed up at Paramount several hours early. I hoped to identify things like where the Star Trek offices would have been ... and to be honest, I had in mind attempting to sneak onto the lot.

Much admiration was expressed for my having seen Richard Dean Anderson while wandering the edges of the lot. I didn't realize he was such a big deal to anyone.

Then it starts to hit me: if these kids ever saw MacGyver during its original run, the oldest one would have at best been a pre-teen. Some of them wouldn't even have been born.

My being a fan of original Trek having come up, one kid piped up:

"Oh, that was the one where the ship never moved -- but they'd move the camera to make it seem like it was!"

Now understand: he wasn't dissing the show. He was actually expressing his admiration for the technique of moving a camera around a model to simulate movement.

But this kid had no idea that this was a routine, pre-CGI, pre-motion-control, model-work technique. He'd read somewhere that they did it in Star Trek. He thought it was really cool and innovative of Star Trek.

I had to let that sink in a bit. That's when it really hit me. This kid had not even been alive when non-CGI SF movies were made!

He literally had no idea that this is exactly how all model special effects in every space movie since Forbidden Planet at least had done it.

So I guess I'm officially just that old, now. It's going to take some getting used to ...

 

[malchya]

We should start a club. Geritol served with lunch and free Depends after 5pm.... I, too, have been on call since about 1987 and cannot recall more than a handful of holidays since then that I've had off. I've moved up and down the food chain, sometimes just working but usually supervising, managing or owning. The difference is I put in my teaching bits before going into the private sector. High school history. There's an unappreciated field to be in!

So now I'm running a hotel in Florida. I've run them in Arkansas, Kansas and Alaska. Owned my own passenger service in Alaska for a couple of years, too. One of my employees at the current hotel notices the little "line of shame" on my desk. What's that, you ask? It's a line up of starships; small models of the 1701, 1701-A, 1701-B, 1701-C and 1701-E (never did like the D all that much) and an old FASA Loknar. "Line of Shame" because it proclaims to one and all that at this desk sits a geek. Anyway, this employee asks if I've seen the new movie. The conversation goes from there, as you may imagine, but one thing he said really stood out to me: "I couldn't really get into the old TV series, you know. I just didn't think the ships moved or looked real. And I can't buy the costumes as uniforms. Looks like a bunch of guys in pajamas. They bothered me even when I was watching reruns as a kid."

He was talking about TNG. Not even TOS! Oh, my lord.... Maybe I should start shopping for a walker (and I don't mean the Star Wars variant).

 

[Jeri]

Those walk-in bathtubs look pretty good, too. For 25 years I've been with my husband who is 13 years younger than I. Imagine the double whammy of (1) getting old yourself and (2) your trophy spouse now getting old. It's a revelation. I start noticing I'm only nine years younger than my dad when he went on to the big slide-rule in the sky.

 

[Greg Cox]

I knew I was getting old when I noticed that the interns at Tor stopped socializing and started looked busy when I approached them . . ..

"Oh shit, I'm an authority figure!"

 

[bbailey861]

In my 34th year in the military, I am getting long in the tooth as well. The back and knees are a little more worn down and I find it a lot harder to keep up on runs where most of the people around you are younger than my own children. Tossing around a few ST quotes as I go about my business really gets the looks. I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing, though.

 

[T'Bonz]

I'm a grandmother now. 'nuff said.

 

[scotpens]

You guys think you're old?

I remember when seatbelts in cars were a novelty -- but every car came with at least four ashtrays. Because everybody smoked.

I remember when the idea of giving hurricanes male names was a joke.

I remember Negroes.

As for Star Trek, I watched TOS in its original network run, 1966-1969, on KNBC Channel 4. In living color.

All hail the mighty peacock!

 

[Valin]

I knew I was getting old when I noticed that the interns at Tor stopped socializing and started looked busy when I approached them . . ..

"Oh shit, I'm an authority figure!"

Not necessarily a bad thing. Remember, "It's good to be the king!"

 

[Navigator_NCC2120]

I teach undergrad college IT courses for a living, now. This has been a change from my previous line of work, which was IT systems administration at damned near every level at some point or other. I'm even teaching C, amazingly.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <conio.h>
#include <dos.h>
 
#define SMILE_FACE 0x01
 
int i;
char c1;
 
void main(void)
{
   c1 = SMILE_FACE;
   clrscr();
   for (i = 1; i < 11; i++)
   {
      printf("%2d.  Good Luck!\n", i);
      if (i % 3 == 0)
      {
         printf("\a");
         delay(3000);
      }
   }
   printf("\a%c%c\n", c1, (c1 + 1));
}

So it comes out in class that not only am I 3/5 of the cast of Big Bang Theory, I'm an old-school Star Trek fan who thought the 2009 movie was cool.

Are you excluding Howard Wolowitz because he is an engineer and does not have a PhD unlike his friends Dr. Leonard Hofstadter, Dr. Sheldon Cooper, and Dr. Rajesh Koothrappali who do?



Navigator NCC-2120 USS Entente
/\

 

[dmcco01]

I think I'm officially old because I've STOPPED dyeing my hair. I didn't feel old when I started coloring my grays; but giving in to them completely is a whole 'nother era!

 

[Vanyel]

I think the official start of becoming old is when you tell your children things your father/mother told you or using their mannerisms to discipline a child. I remember the first time I told my nephew he was going to clean up the mess I made by pointing my finger right at him and saying, "I'm not your servant, so clean up your mess or I'll be eating that cereal you just made." And the dreaded, "Because I said so, that's why."

 

[Gil T.Azell]

Meh,
I turned 50 on Tuesday of this week if 50 is the new 40 I haven't even reached the crest of the hill.
The only reason I have no hair is I shaved it off for a fund raiser against cancer.
Be warned My profile picture is scary, apparently self portraits are not my thing.,

 

[cblmc1296]

I know I'm old because, after initially thinking I should add a post to this thread, I realized I didn't really want to post here because it means I'm acknowledging my old age!

And, yes, I too remember Star Trek in living color on WNBC channel 4 (although I was a little tyke at the time - I can recall being very disappointed that the season 3 episodes aired after my bedtime and I wasn't allowed to stay up to watch them).

 

[Warped9]

I'm 52. You know you're starting to feel your age when so many of the young's around don't seem to know shit.

You also feel your age when many of them same young's give you a blank stare because of some reference you've so casually just made goes right over their head.

Who the hell is Nixon???

 

[scotpens]

Who the hell is Nixon???

Cynthia Nixon? Wasn’t she one of the actresses on Sex and the City?

Come to think of it, she’s getting old too.

 

[spooky spice]

I started feeling my age when I fell off a horse and just lay there. Once upon a time I'd have leaped back up and gone running after the horse to catch it and get back on!

Very sad moment.

 

[barnaclelapse]

I'm twenty-six, and I already feel old.

That's even amongst my age peers.

It kind of sucks. I've always felt like this, but it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I finally realized it wasn't just an idea in my head. It's just kind of the reality of my life and perspective. That certainly holds true for the movies, books, music and television I enjoy.

Ah well.

Great story though.

 

[Greg Cox]

I actually got "What's DARK SHADOWS?" from a college-age neighbor last week.

"Peyton Place" and "Fu Manchu" have also drawn blank stares from the younger generation.

Oh, and a young, twentysomething editor once explained to me that I couldn't describe a robot as a "walking erector set" because nobody knew what an "erector set" was anymore. (She'd had to look it up.)

 

[Warped9]

I'm twenty-six, and I already feel old.

That's even amongst my age peers.

No offence intended, but at twenty-six I don't think you can really grasp what feeling old is, even though I've often heard younger folks say this. I think I understand what you're saying because I've experienced something much like it myself when you feel you've acquired a different perspective than your peers. For me it was because I started working when I was nineteen and in my early twenties some of my friends and acquaintances were still in school or college or university. The working world changes your perspective, something that doesn't happen yet to those still in school. At least that's what I experienced.

I didn't really start noticing the age thing until I hit into my forties. Then the realization hit that no matter how I felt inside about myself what the younger guys saw was something else. No matter how much I could still relate to them they saw an older guy in front of them.

It's also amusing that you might not always accept certain behaviours from younger people that you wouldn't have given a second thought to when you were their age.

Candidly age needn't be a bad or depressing thing. You get a lot more comfortable in your own skin. You don't fret as much over other people's opinion of you. And greater clarity can come with age. I'm also a lot more confident in myself than when I was in my twenties. Younger ones can have basically false nerve and bravado, but it isn't always as sturdy as someone who has developed genuine confidence in themselves.

 

[RoJoHen]

I actually got "What's DARK SHADOWS?" from a college-age neighbor last week.

"Peyton Place" and "Fu Manchu" have also drawn blank stares from the younger generation.

Oh, and a young, twentysomething editor once explained to me that I couldn't describe a robot as a "walking erector set" because nobody knew what an "erector set" was anymore. (She'd had to look it up.)

I still don't know what Dark Shadows is. I just know my mom used to love it.

I have no idea what Peyton Place is, and as far as I know a "fu manchu" is a style of goatee.

Erector sets were on their way out when I was little. I knew what they were, but I never had one or played with one.

Now I feel way too young!