The Stars Are Ours
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Rev. 12/07/04
About this site and me
The site
This site exists mainly due to two factors:
- I tried to send pictures to people via e-mail. I found that their e-mail boxes were too small, or that their ISPs somehow limited file sizes, or their Internet connections were too slow to download the pictures. A Web site seemed to be a good place to let people view the pictures. Little did I know what I was getting myself into...
- Until January 21, 2004, a large ISP (1and1 Internet Inc.) had a promotion through which one could get a Web site free for three years. The offer was too good to pass up.
What's with the weird site name?
You may have noticed that when you install software, there's a point at which it asks you for your name and the name of your company. After a while, I started filling in the company name with the most outrageously pompous name I could think of. Thus "Megalomania Intergalactic" was born.
In case you're not familiar with the term, megalomania is defined as:
- A psychopathological condition characterized by delusional fantasies of wealth, power, or omnipotence.
- An obsession with grandiose or extravagant things or actions.
Now you know.
And the logo?
There's a site that has a collection of optical illusions (which of course I cannot find, now that I'd like to give you a link to it). I liked the look of one of them, and decided that Megalomania Intergalactic should have a logo. Every company has a logo—in this case, even a nonexistent one.
However, you may have noticed that on this page, the logo has been replaced by an animation of a plasma sphere (okay, a flattened sphere). I found it on a site selling the product as a Luminglass, and thought it was cool. If you want one, see the ThinkGeek site, or under "Cube Goodies" > "Lights & Clocks" on the ThinkGeeks site. It was $99.99 at the time this was written. The animation on the ThinkGeeks site is 3.5 inches square. Very impressive!
About me
First, I'm not a megalomaniac. I am over 65 and retired from a series of jobs in what could broadly be called the computing business. I've worked as a computer operator, programmer, analyst, and technical writer. I've worked for a civil engineering firm, a Navy contractor, a computer maker, an oil company, a commercial real estate firm, and a small technical writing and design firm. I'm married and have one son and two grandchildren.
The "official" bio
My previous employer made the mistake of requesting a bio for the company Web page. Here's what he got:
Waldo Wangelwurzel was born in Mesopotamia in 1322 BC.
He was the son of the court astrologer and began earning
his living by doing card tricks and picking pockets.
After graduating with a degree in Entrails Analysis, he
began assisting his father in predicting the fate of the
empire and its military campaigns. Unfortunately, he
lost that position, due to a shortage of chicken
entrails.
Waldo currently resides in an alternate time warp. His
interests are vowels and months ending in the letter Q.
Needless to say, he wasn't satisfied.
The "straight" bio
It's gone. I thought you might want to know something about my life and history. But in today's world, with identity theft a real threat, I couldn't give you too many specifics. So the result was a vague and boring chronology that one of my reviewers suggested I toss.
However, that reviewer also suggested that you might find some value in one incident—my returning to school to get some credentials for a new career after being "downsized" after 20-plus years with the same company.
What follows is adapted from a background article requested by Illinois Institute of Technology's Office of Public Relations. I was the first graduate of IIT's then-new MS in Technical Communication and Information Design (TCID) program, and IIT was considering publishing an article about it.
What's here
My "returning to school" adventure is divided into four parts:
- How I happened to return to school (and found the federal program that paid the bills)
- What it was like being back in school
- How I got my internship
- Some details about the internship
and a postscript.
How I happened to return to school
I swore I'd never go back. However...
I was making some tentative steps toward changing careers even before Amoco's downsizing event. I'd decided that my new career would be in technical writing, and that I'd try it initially as a free-lancer.
Once Amoco's downsizing plans were definite, I decided that this was my chance to get out and try the career change. My 23 years with Amoco gave me a reasonable severance package, my wife was working, and I'd be getting unemployment benefits for a while. I left Amoco in September 1992.
Since part of the Amoco severance benefits included education reimbursement, I decided to update my technical skills, and took C and C++ courses at Northwestern's University College in late 1992 and early 1993. My expectation was that I'd be doing documentation in a programming shop, where I'd need to communicate with people using those languages.
While attending outplacement sessions provided by Amoco, a fellow ex-coworker learned of a federal program for people who'd been laid off due to foreign competition. The Trade Adjustment Act (TAA) provided, among other benefits, up to $10,000 a year for up to two years for retraining. We (four people from my department) applied for certification, and argued that our jobs as technical trainers had been eliminated because the people we trained had lost their jobs. The Commerce Department certified us in March of 1993. My next task was to find a program in technical communication that was local, affordable, and could be completed in two years.
When I started looking in the spring of 1993, there were no established graduate level programs in technical communication in the Chicago area. Through the Chicago chapter of the Society for Technical Communication, I got Susan Feinberg's name and phone number. After talking to Susan, and looking at the entrance requirements, we determined that my undergraduate GPA was below the minimum required for admission to IIT. So I took two courses as a special student during the summer 1993 semester. Those courses were later applied to my graduate course of study. One of the courses, in database organization, was to have a large impact in a future hiring decision.
[Back to the beginning of this adventure]
What was it like to be back in school?
In a word, different. My undergraduate (BA Math '60) and abbreviated graduate (Experimental Psych., '61?) careers had been unsatisfying, frustrating or both. At IIT, I was taking two or three courses a semester. I wasn't employed, although I was a househusband. I had the luxury of time to think about the content of my courses, and to rewrite a paper two or three times if necessary. My situation was much easier than people who are working full time and going to school. It's one reason that I was the first "MS-TCID" out of the chute. The other reason is that I was committed to either finish the program in two years, or pay for the remaining courses out of my own pocket.
I believe my age (or perhaps my experience in the "real world") was an advantage in the classroom. My instructors clearly assumed that I had valuable contributions to make in class. This was especially true in 400-level courses, where most students were undergraduate seniors.
I also believe being in a graduate program influenced how I was treated. I overheard a comment from one faculty member to another that may explain the difference: "I view undergraduates simply as students. I view graduate students as future colleagues." Whatever the reason, I sensed much more of a peer relationship in 500-level (graduate) courses than in undergraduate courses.
[Back to the beginning of this adventure]
How I got my internship
As one of its requirements, IIT's MS in Technical Communication program requires that a student serve as an intern.
Finding my internship was a classic example of the value of networking. In Susan Feinberg's Research in Technical Communication course (English 525, Fall '93), we often shared information on leads, who was looking for a job, etc. As a result, everyone got some sense of each others' background and experience. Ruth Hovick, a classmate in that course, interviewed for a position earlier that year. She called me to say that the job would be a perfect fit for me. It was also Ruth's idea to submit a paper I'd written along with my resume. The paper, for a CS course on database organization, really opened the door for me. If Ruth and I hadn't known each other in class (and if Susan hadn't encouraged us to share job-related information), I would never have known about the position.
[Back to the beginning of this adventure]
Some details about the internship
Mine was an internship in name only. I was hired in September 1993, and worked as a part-time employee at my request, to have time to work on my MS project (which substitutes for a thesis in more traditional MS programs). I started working full time in January 1994.
I worked in the Information Services (IS) group of JMB Realty Corporation's subsidiary JMB Service Bureau, Inc. JMB and affiliates was one of North America's largest and most diversified real estate organizations. The JMB group acquired, managed, leased, and redeveloped premier properties nationwide including Chicago's Water Tower Place, 900 North Michigan, Old Orchard and Oakbrook Centers, and Boston's Copley Plaza.
From what I've heard, most interns are more closely supervised than I was. On the other hand, I wasn't a typical intern. I was given a project, filled in on its background, requirements, audience, etc., and turned loose. That project was to produce an internal marketing document, telling corporate department heads what we did for them "behind the scenes," and letting them know where IS was headed. It wasn't exactly a typical technical writing assignment. More accurately, it was "technical PR." But it was an ideal first assignment. I got to know the people I would be working with by interviewing them to gather information. They also got to know me. And I learned how IS was organized, who its clients were, what its services were, and how it worked.
[Back to the beginning of this adventure]
Postscript
JMB Realty Corporation and its IS department no longer exist. Both political and economic factors contributed to the shrinkage of the company and the department. As the department shrank, I documented internal processes (maintenance, operations, etc.). I ended my career at JMB as the rat documenting the sinking ship. But as my first job as a technical writer, it was ideal, and while it lasted, it was a heck of a ride.