The Mediocre Multitasker

I KNEW IT! The New York Times Sunday August 30, 2009 edition confirmed what many educators have been, for years, trying to tell people ~ especially their students. In an article entitled "The Mediocre Multitasker" the results of a recent Standford University Study are reported. The first paragraph states,

Read it and gloat. Last week, researchers at Standford University published a study showing that the most persistent multitaskers perform badly in a variety of tasks. They don't focus as well as non-multitaskers. They're more distractible. They'er weaker at shifting from one task to another and at organizing information. They are, as a matter of fact, worse at multitasking than people who don't normally multitask.

Later in the article a professor is quoted,

Multitaskers were just lousy at everything, said Clifford I. Nass, a professor of communication at Stanford and one of the the study's investigators. It was a complete and total shock to me.

Nass is later quoted as saying,

"The core of the problem", Professor Nass said, is that the multitaskers "think they're great at what they do: and they've convinced everybody else, they're good at it, too."

The study's lead investigator is quoted as saying,

We kept looking for multitaskers' advantages in this study. But we kept finding only disadvantages. We thought multitaskers were very much in control of information. It turns out, they were just getting it all confused.

I have only two thoughts to add:

• Why was Nass shocked to find lousy performance by the multitaskers? Seems to me that "focus" is a necessity to comprehension. The choice the multitasker is making is obvious to me. Do one task well or do poorly two or more simultaneously. Common sense.
  
• As a follow-up study some academic should investigate the ethical considerations from both the individual and societal point of view. In my view carrying on a conversation while "multitasking" (texting, answering cell phones, playing video games, etc.) is disrespectful and impolite to the other member of the supposed conversation.
  

Mike Wagoner and Sadie at Priest Lake illustrate a parent's view on this topic.

We used to listen to Mike Wagoner and his then wife Tammy sing and play at Priest Lake's Elkins' Resort on New Year's Eve. Mike and Sadie have been at the lake this year singing at various Lake venues. Sadie, who is now older, I believe, than she was in this video, has the talent possessed by her parents.



My rant for the day. Thanks for listening.

Gordon, et.al

Peach Pie

I just finished a book entitled "Labor Day" by Joyce Maynard. It is a quick and delightful read but with a lot of lessons and insights about life and "growing up". A particular quote turned out to have great meaning for me. It high lighted the truly important things in a man's life. The main character in the novel is a young boy growing up in a single parent environment, i.e. his mother who it so happens is weird at many levels ~ but lovable. She doesn't appear to really like men at this particular point in her life. But, when she does fall "back" in love she does so hard and with the most unlikely of men. He turns out to be a "gem". At one point in the story he takes an over abundance of peaches and makes a peach pie. After the man has finished making the pie and placing it in the oven he says to the young boy,

Forty-five minutes from now, we'll have ourselves a pie ... . My grandma had a saying: even the richest man in America isn't eating tastier pie than we are tonight. That will be so for us.

Last weekend I went to the upper St. Joe River for a bit of fly fishing. On the way to the river I stopped at my daughter Jennie's home in Plummer. We made arrangements for her to drive up in two days to where I would be camped. She would bring my grandchildren Kimmie and Brandon with her, fish with me for a couple of hours, then leave the kids with grandpa, and return to Plummer which happens to be about 85 miles from where I camp while fishing. The kids would then spend the night with me and we would return the following day to Plummer.

All went according to plan with the additional joy that she and Les, my son-in-law, were able to bring the kids up. They left at about mid-afternoon for Plummer and the kids and I continued fishing for a couple of hours and returned to camp for dinner and a fire side chat ~ unfortunately, as I had commented earlier to Jennie, I had forgotten to pick up marshmallows. Even without the marshmallows for somemores we had a great time building the campfire and poking at it every fifteen seconds to, as Brandon explained, "keep it going". At about 9:00 we (I) decided it was time to put out the fire and head for bed. After about forty-five minutes, a little "rassling" and talking the kids were finally settled down. As they drifted off to sleep and as I lay in bed finishing the above mentioned novel, I heard this knock on the camper door. My first thought was "there must be some sort of trouble in camp!" We opened the door and there in the moonlight were Jennie and Les ~ Jennie holding a package of marshmallows. Jennie says "we got the marshmallows. You got the fire?" I said, "what are you guys doing?!" Les says, "making memories." They had driven all the way back to Plummer to an empty house and had decided that they would rather be with us. They feed their animals, secured the house, and drove all the way back to be with us. As Les said, for the day, it wasn't any more miles than driving to Seattle. What a surprise! They had brought their tent with them and were ready to spend the night with us ~ which they did.

The next morning as we sat around the"conversation circle of camp chairs" drinking our morning coffee, I thought, even the richest man in America isn't enjoying a better cup of coffee than I am right now.

The Red Rooster

When my father decided to lease the pitchfork dude ranch in the Spring of 1945 he had many immediate concerns not the least of which was to find and purchase at least 35 head of "gentle" horses for the guests to ride on the horseback rides that he intended to feature at the ranch. This had to be a daunting task in light of the tradition of horse trading and the added constraint of time. Horse traders were not, nor are they now, considered to be the most honorable of characters. "This horse will never stumble with a guest on board" may really mean "this horse is so stoved-up it can't walk." Even as a seven year old I could recognize that the 45 plus horses that dad had eventually purchased was a rag-tag lot. Of course as a seven year old, I also thought them to be the most beautiful bunch of horses on planet earth. One group that he purchased off of the wind river reservation had what was to be my best buddy a blue roan that I named blue. I wasn't into original names - just descriptive names. Fortunately for me, blue even as a three year old, was as I look back, one of the most gentle horses that Dad bought . Blue and I grew up together.

One of the horses from the wind river bunch turned out to be a real "head case". From the word "go" he was an outlaw, a real ding-bat ~ but one of the most beautiful horses that I have ever seen. He was a deep sorrel red with perfect white markings. I remember telling dad that he was as beautiful as a "red rooster". So from that day forward he was known as "the red rooster". We soon learned that the red rooster really didn't like people. In the tradition of Michael Vick, he was a fight'n rooster. Not only did he not like people on his back, he didn't like them to be around him. To shoe this horse, he had to be thrown and trussed up like a Christmas goose. He'd lie there snorting, screaming, and kicking as the horse shoe-er, who usually was my dad, attempted to put shoes on his hooves. It was at least a three hour episode ~ tempers high accompanied by a lot of swearing. I learned a lot of my best swear words during those encounters. But remember he was a beautiful animal.

Riders on this horse were out of the question. Hell you couldn't even get close to him. After time and much thought it was determined by dad and the wranglers that it would be best that they use him as a pack horse. This too, as it turned out, was not an easy task. The guests would "gush" about how beautiful this horse was as dad would attempt to "unpack" him on our trips to the beaver ponds for our weekly cook outs. Little did they know that in order to pack this animal he had to be blindfolded, have a hind leg tied up, and hobbled - immobilized. Unpacking him was a leap of faith. Reloading him after the cook out was done after the guests, on their horses, were departed on their way back to the ranch. This horse was a royal pain in the ass. But remember, he was beautiful.

As I look back, the only thing that saved his ass was the possibly that he would gentle down enough during the regular dude season that he would be a good pack horse during hunting season. The general rule was each pack horse carried two quarters of an elk carcass ~ an easy task for the horse and a easy load for the outfitter. During the lull between "dude season" and 'hunting season" that first year, practice sessions were held for this horse's impending hunting pack-horse season. Things were not really going that great but the decision was made to give him a "try". A week before hunting season off they went. I remember him being blindfolded, hobbled, and packed with camp gear. He was loaded with soft camp gear such as tents, bed rolls, and tarps in case he "blew up" and spread packed gear up and down the trail.

As I attended school during the early fall.I remember stories from returning hunters and guides about how the red rooster was doing ~ none of the stories were favorable. The red rooster never appeared with the first returning hunters carrying early elk, antelope and an occasional bear kills. He remained in camp apparently used as a pack animal carrying the animals back to the main hunting camp during the hunting season. As the end of hunting season approached I was anxious to see the return of the "pack string". Finally, the day arrived. It was a glorious sight just as I had anticipated.The sight of 35 head of horses coming down the trail was glorious. Some of the horses carried camp gear such as tents and stoves some, of course, carried the guides and remaining hunters, and lastly the remaining horses carried the last of the elk killed during the last hunt.

After all of the hunters and guides had disembarked and the animals had all been unpacked, feed, and turned out to pasture, I asked my dad, "where is the red rooster"? He replied simply, "bear bait". I immediately knew what that meant. And, I remember I also knew that that was the way it was. Beauty will carry you only so far. There has to be more.

Come backs

In the early eighties I was a member of the athletic policy board at Eastern Washington University. It was a particularly "contentious" committee on campus because we were investigating the possibility of joining the Big Sky Athletic conference. The student body was probably close to eighty percent in favor of joining the conference. The faculty and campus community, however, was divided pretty much fifty-fifty ~ for and against. I remember one particularly heated public meeting during which we were discussing the average attendance at each of the member schools home football games. For some reason the members of the committee and audience were "focused in" on the average attendance at Montana State University football games. In particular, no one believed the attendance figures for MSU ~ they thought them to be way overstated. Everyone knew I was a true Montanan and attended many MSU games as a youngster. Every face turned towards me as one of the faculty members in attendance said, "So, Chapman how do 'you guys' in Montana count attendance at football games, anyway??" ~ contempt dripping from his mouth. I replied, "Easy. After the game we count all the empty beer cans and divide by six. You 'guys' seriously over-estimate the average Montanan's ability to drink beer!" It broke the tension a little bit.

I also remember a great comeback comment made by my good friend Gordon Pirrong. It was during one of those contentious all campus faculty meetings . The Liberal Arts folks were hammering us and the college of education pretty hard about the intellectual content and rigor of our programs. One fellow went for what he thought was the knock out punch when he finally said, "So, do you know what the general public calls your graduates?" Gordon's one word response, "employed".

I'll add other come backs as I recall them.

Health care reform

The attacks and approaches to disrupting the health care debates are crazy ~ and in my view, border on criminal.



For more information go to

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/settingtherecord

Or better yet Google Health Care Reform and read the bill for yourself. Or start here

http://stabenow.senate.gov/healthcare/index.html

To see how sick and organized this movement is go to

http://teapartypatriots.ning.com/

Gordon, et al

p.s. As a blue dog democrat I have real concerns with the financing of the Bill. However, my gut reaction to the opposition is so basic that I find myself defending the bill simply on general principle ~ which I guess is what the opposition wants, i.e. we are not discussing real issues.

Clint & Mad visit

We had a great time! As usual, we learned a lot. Found a deer fern and sub alpine fir that I hadn't known before. Found out that the tree I always called a vine maple wasn't a vine maple. (now I can't remember what it is!) Followed the road from end of oil above Nordman to upper beaver creek camp ground on Priest lake. Lots of huckleberries, plants, and trees to identify and pick!. Beautiful drive.

Clint and Skip trying to figure out where we had been!
















Rose and Madalene after a bottle of the fizzy stuff!

Annual Hall Cabin Visit

We picked four gallons of huckleberries! Even Les a confirmed hunter became, for a brief moment in time, a gatherer in the great hunter/gatherer order of things.





This would be Jennie.

















These are apprentice huckleberry pickers.


















This is the hunter/gatherer Les Hall himself!
















The motley crew after two days of adventures, swimming and picking. Note how much the kids have grown. Jennie will shortly be the shortest, once again.


Some things never change! Jennie has always been a rock hunter/lover. As we swam in the lake below the cabin, she and the kids were gathering "rocks" and placing them on the beach to be picked up later. Just before they left for home she walked down to the beach to retrieve her rocks. I could tell when she came up from the lake that she was pissed. "Those people threw my rocks back into the lake", she said, "who do they think they are ~ the beach patrol?" I had to laugh. This is the same lady who as a child had wrapped her rock collection in an old tackle box for our move to Cheney Washington. On the box in bold black letters she had written, "Fragile ~ Jennie's Rocks". Don't mess with Jennie's rocks!!!

Dad, et al