Phelps Phever

A few years ago I went to the grand opening of Meijers to meet Michael Phelps. He was doing a signing there to attract people to the store. The line to see him was quite short and consisted mostly of young girls wearing their high school swim team’s apparel. He signed my shirt from my swim teams league meet, took a picture with us and then we left. Back then you would have never guessed his true potential. When I came across him he was nothing more than a very good looking swimmer off of the USA Olympic team. Little did I know that he was actually going to become the next great American icon.
Phelps’ amazing performance in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics hit every Americans heart in a special way. His outstanding achievements in the water brought our nation closer together than many of us could have ever imagined. It is no secret that we Americans love our sports but if you were to ask someone to name a sport I am sure that pre-Beijing swimming would not be one of the first to come mind.
Michael Phelps and his 16 Olympic medals changed all of that. If you were to type his name into a search engine the results are endless. The media has also given him more than just a good name. On top of his aquatics career he found him self on GQ’s men of the year list, as well as the list of most fascinating people and also was named the sexiest male jock by People magazine. His name swarmed headlines for what seemed like endless weeks before, during, and after the Olympics and people we’re eating it all up.
I am sure your thinking that anyone can make headlines for countless of reasons but how many people do you know that have made it on Cornflake and Rice Krispie Treat boxes. Phelps also appears in many commercials on TV including one for the ever popular game Guitar Hero. Tony Hawk, Kobe Bryant, and Alex Rodriguez all came together with Phelps in the ad to make a complete band. To include Phelps in such company as these three men was most likely unthinkable a year ago. There is no escaping the Phelps mania, it is like an extremely contagious disease and I am proud to said that I do have the Phelps fever.
Four time World Swimmer of the Year, six time American Swimmer of the Year, seven time Golden Goggle award winner, 2005’s ESPY Best Olympic Performer, 2004’s USOC Athlete of the Year, 2003’s USSA Athlete of the Year, World Championships swimmer of the meet, and James E. Sullivan award winner is all the same person: Michael Phelps. If you are not a “Phelps Phan” by now then I really could not even imagine what it would take to impress you. All of these awards don’t even express his greatest accomplishment of all which I believe is becoming a role model to every single American in the country.
His message is a powerful one that I don’t believe he even ever imagined that was possible. Especially here in his home state of Michigan he restored our faith in this country and constantly reminds us what we were really put on this earth to do. To work together, and to never give up. Even during the hardest times people all over the nation have came to realize that we can still make a difference, and that its never to late to change the world.

Giraffe Boyfriend Ha.

Mobile Computers
Even as I am just sitting here typing on my computer my cell phone is less than feet away from me. I bet that even as you are reading this no matter whom you are you could most likely say the same thing about the location of your mobile phone. That is if you own one. What you might not realize is that this phone has a certain control over you. This really applies to everyone in the nation who is apart of a contract with a cell phone company. These contracts or plans seem to be the heart of this epidemic.
Just because we can go into a store and buy a little device with a bunch of cool buttons and all sorts cool features does not make it a phone. We have to sign a contract stating that we will pay so much money to have our phone activated within the network to call anyone we may possibly want. Or at least the people that we are aloud to without having to pay extra than what we have originally agreed to in our plan.
That’s the funny thing about contracts. They put so many limitations on who we can and can not talk to. Promotions such as free nights and weekends, and free calling to only the people in your network, circle, or favorites, are just a few restrictions that people usually fall for because they put the word free in front of it. Say you have free nights and weekends but your friend works on nights and weekends, when are you going to call your friend? It is quite possible that you may have to give up valuable minutes during the day time, or maybe you’ll text that person while they are at work. If this isn’t possible then you better hope your friend is in your top five or at least in your network or else you are going to pay.
Either way it seems like it is going be a very short conversation. Text messaging is another very funny thing. Text messaging has almost taken over the entire purpose of cell phones in the first place. It makes every conversation so much less personal and as a society I feel like this is the answer to our prayers. Why should any of use ever have to call one another and hear each others voices and pretend that we care more than what we really do. Also why should we have a longer conversation than what we have actually intended when we can send each other short typed out messages within seconds. Here in America it has always been about efficiency and speed. As far as I am concerned the text message has gone beyond our wildest dreams. However this makes all of our relationships with each other become less important. Is this really what we really wanted our outcome to look like?
But wait, now we have to pay for minutes and text messages? Sound like our bill just doubled. You just got to have it though and it doesn’t just stop at talking and text messaging. Saying that this thing that we continually call a cell phone is a phone is almost an insult, good thing for us that mobile phones don’t have feelings(at least not yet anyways. Most of these so called phones come standard with a built in camera, navigation system, Wi-Fi, Mp3 player, live television, calculators, calendars, clocks, stop watch, and so much more depending on what model you buy. Once you get all of this going then you can purchase even more ring tones, games, music, and so much more. Eventually when it all comes together that’s when you start to realize that you have got one of the worlds smallest computers right there in you pocket.
By now these little computers are sounding really cool. However, don’t forget that somebody has to pay for all that which leads us back to our contract. Cell phones have made us all a mess. The connections we make control us in almost every aspect of our everyday life and if it is a cell phone that is connecting us then we are stuck. If its not who and when we talk to people, its where and why. If it is not what and where we do things its when and why they occur. We are forever trapped in our digital world. Then again you know what they say, you’ve made your bed and now you have to sleep in it.

ATTENTION GROUP 1 here are our questions for your essay!

Essay Questions for: Is the Cell Phone Undermining the Social Order?: Understanding Mobile Technology from a Sociological Perspective

All around us we here about how bad our economy is doing in the U.S. Do you think that the crisis is having an effect on people’s cell phone uses? Do you and your friends only call on nights & weekends, the people in your network, or do you have the unlimited plan with your cell phone company? How does this affect you in your daily life? - Baker

Has text messaging become the new standard of communication? Instead of calling friends and family do you believe that people are resorting to text because it is a less personal way of communicating? Or do you believe that it is just a form of convenience and leisure? - Klaus

Have cell phones made each of us in our society less independent? Do phones render us completely incapable of functioning autonomously or are they simple a means of convenient communication between individuals? - Montemayor

Do you think that the ever expanding capabilities of the cell phone are creating an environment in which young children are being socialized to be anti-social isolationists? Will the children of today be able to function when forced to interact with other people in face to face interactions as adults. – Foxworth

Are cell phones destroying our professionalism? Many phones today can serve as email devices, cameras, portable music players, and have internet. Potentially, with a good phone you can dispose of your laptop, your digital camera, or your iPod. Is this trend of multi-purposing moving society away from the single purpose tools of the past? - Turner

Alaina Baker
COMP 106-007
Anne-Marie Yerks
October 7, 2008

Let me start off by saying that I do not believe in generations. There is no true definition that will make me believe that we all can be categorized by the progress made in our society purely because we may have been alive when it happened. Just because certain events and inventions have come to be during my life span doesn’t mean that I wish to associate with it. People give birth and people die everyday. With these two event being non-stop it is impossible to group people and call them a generation. Even if you did, then you would have to consider people to be apart of numerous generations or define generations by an exact amount of time.
In an article written by Siva Vaidhyanathan it is mentioned that people of my age group are referred to as digital natives by the author of Print Is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age. When talking about “digital natives” I also do not believe there is such a thing. Unless you were born in cyber space (which can not happen) there is no way you can consider yourself a native. Being native implies belonging to a person by birth or to a thing by nature, and I am pretty sure that on the day you were born you could not type one-hundred words a minute nor did the doctors pull you out of your computers mother board.
Technology is a funny thing that is constantly changing. You learn and understand all of the ways it can be used over time. Computers, phones, cameras, and Mp3 players are so widely available today that almost everyone in America has access to these devices. Knowing this should make it even harder for one to put only you people into a digitally adept category. In Vaidhyanathans article he not only argues that digitally adept people are young but that they also tend to be in descending order of importance: socio-economically privileged, English-speaking, white, and male.
This order of importance is completely out of line in my eyes. If I had read this article years ago when computers first hit the scene I may had believed it, but now the tables have greatly turned. Being privileged so to speak implies only that you have the money to buy your own computer. There is free access to computers all over any community. You could walk into any library, any college campus, or even your place of employment and have access to a computer. I am sure that there are a multitude of people who do not own a computer but know just as well how to use one as the next person.
Even putting English-speaking in this order is completely outrageous. People all across the world use computers. Japan, Australia, and many parts of Europe are all on the same level of the numbers of computers used as the U.S. Also on that note, not everyone who lives in the U.S. speaks English. Vaidhyanathan may have a good argument else wise but saying that the ability to speak English is a factor in being digitally adept is too far fetched.
This also ties into Vaidhyanathan including being white. The U.S. is such a melting pot of different cultures that is continually expanding. People from all over the world are constantly coming to the states making new lives in our society. Not a single one of my courses here at The University of Michigan Dearborn consist of all white people.
Finally we come to the last topic in Vaidhyanathans roughly printed order of importance of being male. I could not think of anymore of a perfect example than myself. Yes I am young, but I am also a female. I use a computer everyday, my cell phone is always close, I am savvy with a digital camera and my iPod is always in my bag. Many of my other female friends older and younger also demonstrate these digitally adept behaviors. Being a male does not imply that you are technologically advanced as a human.
I agree with Vaidhyanathan in many topics about generations and many of the authors he quotes. However placing this order of importance on people who are so called “digital natives” in my opinion does not make sense. I do not wish to be seen as a digital native because there many other people in the world who are so much more knowledgeable and experienced to me. I will agree that I was raised in a world that is constantly growing and expanding but that is all.

metro pcs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzEJbHcDS3w metro PCS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgQZl8mMOOk Sprint
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nIUcRJX9-o Cingular
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWUPMe9I_gQ&NR=1 Verison Wireless
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUHT-p8svkc T-Mobile

Puppy Mills...BAD!

Alaina Baker
October 1, 2008
COMP – 106 - 007
Anne-Marie Yerks

Breeding Misery
There are an estimated four hundred million dogs in the world. Many of these dogs are strays roaming the streets. To me these dogs are much luckier than those breed in puppy mills. Just a few weeks ago I visited many shelters, the humane society, and searched the Internet for my perfect pet. Before, I had looked up all sorts of breeders and even checked out my local pet store and in doing so I found out a lot more than I wanted to know.
A puppy mill is defined by most as breeding facilities that usually breed full-bred dogs in mass numbers. The mills either sell these dogs directly to the public or pet stores. Most people don’t know the origin of these dogs and often don’t understand why their new pet may be having problems. The mills advertise their dogs as any other breeder might, in newspapers and on the Internet. They often go unnoticed which makes it easy for them to make a profit.
The puppies are usually kept together in very small cages and are mistreated. Food and water is hard to come by for these dogs causing many of them to die and the “unwanted” ones are killed. Most of them never visit a vet while in the mill and are often inbreed which can lead to genetic diseases that will rise years later. Dogs that are rescued from these horrible farms typically express bad behaviors and are not socialized.
In my pictures I demonstrate a proper way of sheltering animals without a permanent home. The Michigan Humane Society is a very well kept organization whose only goal is to help animals find good homes with people who will take care of them. The dogs are kept in their own rooms so that potential families can view them. If there are two dogs from the same litter they will often be paired together in the same room for comfort. During the many times that I have been there volunteers routinely rotate the dogs in and out of their rooms for walks.
The people that work at the Humane Society are extremely nice and very passionate about these animals. Another component of the adoption process that I agree with greatly is that they will not let people who are seen as unfit to raise an animal to take one home. People sit everyday at these desks and sign contracts saying that the people from the Humane Society are welcome to come see the animal in your home at any time they please.
In some of my pictures of this facility you may have noticed that they are of different animals. That’s because these problems of over breeding is not just true in dogs. Cats, rabbits, hamsters, and small animals of all sorts need good homes. The cats that are eligible for adoption are kept all together in a big room full of fun things for them to play with. If some one wants to see any of these animals they are taken out of their room and put in one of many other empty rooms so you may get to know them better.
Finally on a recent visit to the Michigan Humane Society I found my perfect pet. She was only a twelve week year old Jack Russell puppy lying in her kennel with her brother. Her name is officially Abigail and she has been happily living in our home for about 3 weeks now. It was heartbreaking seeing all of these animals with no yard to run free in. I hope that this inspires people to adopt first before feeding their money to pet stores running their puppy mill scam on you.