So I have to travel to Las Vegas at the end of May for my company’s all-hands meeting. My boss tells me I need to deliver a presentation on content marketing. Well, okay.
I’m not concerned about it because A. I have zero stage fright and B. it’s a topic I can easily handle. But it made me think. A long time ago I had to “audition” for a part-time teaching job, and you had to basically conduct a lesson in about 15 minutes or so. I started to do something on grammar, but at the last second I called an audible and did a judo demonstration (little-known fact — I earned a brown belt in college). It was way more dynamic and fun for the audience and yeah, I got the job. I’ve done a couple teaching demonstrations since then, but stuck to writing rather than martial arts.
So I ask you, Deadsplinters, if you were called upon to demonstrate your knowledge in a particular subject area, what could you talk about for 15-20 minutes? Would it surprise us?
I can wax eloquent on turtles, obviously. When my wife was a library director, Sheldon was a working turtle and we brought him to the city’s Earth Day Festival to lure the kids to our library booth, and I provided running commentary.
I already mentioned writing and judo. In what subject areas are you an expert? If you don’t speak up in the comments, I’ll have to drop some detailed turtle content on you.
Pharmaceutical manufacturing
3G Wireless systems and cellphone networks
WW2 (all fronts)
The Cold War
Triangles (arguing about isosceles triangles in trivia)
PRC military doctrine (research for unpublished novel)
Six Sigma
Leadership
Dachshunds
The toughest crowd I ever faced was a bunch of bored teenagers. If you can survive them then you can survive anyone.
However, I will say that I am not the most dynamic speaker though.
Wait, there’s triangle trivia? Shit, I always get stuck with sports.
I just replaced a toilet for the first time. It’s not a super challenging thing, but I can definitely say that typical Youtube how-to videos miss important things which I can talk about.
Like, those suckers are heavy and you need a plan to get them upstairs.
Preach. I replaced both my toilets a year or two ago and fortunately, my house is one floor. I was able to load them on a hand truck and get them to the right spot. But yeah, porcelain ain’t light.
Team Toilet Replacers!
i discovered if the big brassy nut connecting the plastic tank to the metal pipes is leaking slightly just grabbing a wrench and tightening it some is not in fact how you fix it
does make for a fair decent fountain tho
but yeah….dont over wrench anything plastic
I’m a technical writer and editor, so, yeah, those.
ITF-style Tae Kwon Do
Running/hiking/cycling
Backpacking
“When I was your age…” (God, I hope not.)
When I worked in a company in person, and hadn’t experienced as much age discrimination, I would regale younger staff members with ancient knowledge which they could not grasp:
Yeah, “when I was your age” can go on for a LONG time.
-Adobe Photoshop
-Photography
-Volleyball
-Lakers history
-Brewing beer
-why our healthcare system is broken & will never be fixed
-Hawaiian surf culture then & now
-How to piss of wives & other loved ones
-How to not die in the backcountry
-How to not die in the ocean
You have a variety of places where you choose not to die.
Notice I don’t mention drivingbecause I am definitely going to die driving.
I don’t consider myself an expert at anything. But there are a few things I do really well. I can sew and I made my daughter amazing Halloween costumes up through Middle School. Really elaborate ones like a dark fairy that had four foot wings. She couldn’t wear them in the car so I had to drive her to the school and put them on in the parking lot.
Her birthday parties were legendary. Not expensive but creative. For her pirate party I turned the picnic tables into ships with masts, had a treasure hunt with booby traps. She had photo stations before they were a thing. I’d get refrigerator boxes and paint enormous backdrops. One year for her pool party it was giant waves and I bought a surfboard rug so they could take surf pics.
I did some theme bedrooms for her and a couple of her friends too. She wanted a beach room so I designed a tiki canopy that hung over her bed, found some cool lights that looked like flames, a palm tree floor lamp, stuff like that. Her friends loved it and a couple of parents asked me to do similar rooms for their kids. I did a jungle room for one and a princess room for another. A few people suggested I turn it into a business but there’s a big difference between doing something for fun and having to do it on demand with deadlines and having to satisfy clients.
Now can I get some turtle content?
Don’t sell yourself short. Doing something really well is the literal definition of “expert.” That’s some epic sewing.
Sheldon! ❤️
I give Yang-style taijiquan and taiji sword classes 4 days a week, so I’m used to putting these things together, but if pressed, I could also do:
R&B vocal group music from the end of WWII to the Kennedy assassination (doo-wop)
The Great American Songbook
The RKO films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers
Electronic music production
Strangely, none of those things were my full-time profession during my working life.
I’d be damned impressed if you had been able to weave those into a profession.
I am an expert at procrastinating. Could I give a twenty minute presentation about it? Sure – I’ll get back to you about that.
People who kept the lights on in war zones, aka real heros.
All the ways electric car designers have failed to make them as awesome to drive as they could have. (The counterpoint would have simply been: what happens when your car is too awesome? Paul Walker.)
“Hey who wants to see gnarly industrial accidents and diagnose them?”
Audio
Music
Gardening
Health care a la Loveshaq
SRV
Alcoholism
Cooking
Baking
I can also speak extemporaneously on Fun Facts until you want to shove ice picks in your ears just to make it stop.
OK, so give with a fun fact. I could use one about now.
Fun fact: the correct pronunciation of forte is “fort.” As in, “his forte is playing forte’.”
Very nice.
Random nature facts
PreColumbian cultures (some, not nearly a comprehensive list) and ancient Greece and Egypt
Also I’m good at “here’s some explanation about non-Christian cultural traditions” to confused white midwesterners thanks to my upbringing.
I popped on to get some behind-the -scenes work done but I lucked out because this NOT is awesome.
I have covid, AGAIN, and I promised myself “no politics & no internet” for this shitty week “off” so I have missed everything going on here. Thanks to everyone who pitched in!
Re-the NOT:
Way back when I went through interviews for teaching jobs and “something on grammar” was NOT my go-to. Not that I’d expect that to be a surprise to anyone reading this.
Anywho…
Brown belt is pretty far up in the ranks so the fact that you’re just mentioning this to us now is, imo, unacceptable?
Philosophy
Apparently so?
I am picturing you as the great Fred Willard:
Colour & physics…unworthy of more than 20 mins?
My judo days were a LONG time ago but I did take second place in the Sunshine State Games once. So that was moderately impressive.
On the humiliation side, I played an Olympic competitor once. I barely remember it, simply because it was over in about a second. We walked out, bowed, the ref called start, and I was on my back staring at the ceiling. I do remember getting my grip and realizing this guy was made of something akin to oak. Olympic athletes are … not the same as you and me.
@bryanlsplinter Awesome job on the graphics!!
History. Specifically, British history, from pre-Roman times to the Renaissance. Currently big into Edwardian/Georgian/Regency/early Victorian eras. Also fascinated by the Roman Empire, general prehistory, ancient Greece, France from the Merovingian kings until the Revolution, Italy in the middle ages and Renaissance, and pre-October Revolution Russian history. Oh, and general religious studies, but specifically the pre-Christian era through the Dissolution, including the Crusades.
Food, cooking, nutrition, food history. Gluten free cooking and baking.
Crocheting and other fiber arts.
Linguistics. I know a handful of words in about 2 dozen languages, including High German, Middle and Old English, Latin, Welsh, and Russian, among others. I can read and mostly understand Spanish, Italian, French, and several Germanic languages, and I can understand spoken French, Mexican Spanish, and Italian (if they slow down a bit!). I can pick my way through speaking French and Spanish, but my spoken languages are pretty sad compared to my reading of them. Oh, and I can swear in Greek 😆