My second grade class was like Lord of the Flies, but not quite so compassionate.

I loved my initial second grade class, but we had to move when the place we were renting was turned into a condominium. In the school where I ended up, I was first introduced to indimidation and bullying. I had never played soccer before and didn't understand the game, and this was not acceptable to my new classmates. This, along with separation from all my old friends made me upset most of the time, prone to cry at the drop of a hat. This was just fuel for additional derision. That cycle fed itself very quickly. Second grade turned into third grade and then into fourth.

It took a long time and I eventually found my place, but I've never forgotten people's surprising capacity for cruelty. I swore to myself long ago that I would never allow my son to endure what I went through, that I would homeschool him myself before allowing his days to filled with the kinds of nonsense that took up so much of my cognitive and emotional space.

As excited as I was to come to South Carolina to work, let's face it—the public school system here has some problems, quite a few more than public school in general. Instead, we have been fortunate enough to find a brilliant school for my son. The faculty are tremendous. His teacher is without peer. I know every child, and they know me. All the kids in all the classes know and work with each other. They all love each other and do great work.

This isn't a screed about crises in public schools, or to dwell on injustice or inequity that has led to the current state of affairs in education in the U.S.. This is not where I wring my hands and feel guilty about sending my son to a private school while others may not be able to.

I just want to say that I am personally so grateful for the experience my son is having in school, and for every single person along the way who has allowed it to be this way. My boy doesn't want the summer to start, because he loves going to school so much. Rabbi Meir, Ms. Kelly, Morah Sheindal, Morah Vered, Ms. Kim, Ms. Jenny, Ms. Kristen, Alon, and especially Ms. Val… it's all because of you.

That thing where teenagers borrow the car and bring it back with an empty tank? Which, I can assure you that I NEVER did, don't listen to anyone especially my father.

I guess this is the new version of that.

I've got a lot of jokes about it, many thank you notes to write, and a bit of reflecting to do. Thanks for reading. It's good to be doing this.

Google Inc. (GOOG) is negotiating with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over how big a fine it will have to pay for its breach of Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s Safari Internet browser, a person familiar with the matter said.

Negotiating. A fine. Negotiating a fine. Negotiating. A. Fine.

It still surprises me how much admiration I had for Google, and how highly I regarded almost everything they did. And how quickly that has turned to simple and complete contempt.

(Just watch: if FTC brings the ever-vigilant DoJ into it, somehow this would get turned into an antitrust investigation of Apple.)

I haven’t written nearly enough articles recently that I’ll be proud to show off more than a few months from now.

Today I finished my grading for the semester, and I had a meeting with three students about strategies for them to license their films that have inadvertantly become sucessful and in demand.

I see student projects that are finished to get the grade to eventually receive a degree, and I see work that is made to a higher standard—the standard of yourself, ten years down the road. Will what I am spending time on now end up being truly worth it?

As I write this entry, this lovely article is on the front page of the University website. My wife finds it amusing that they would use the term "laid back" to describe me. I insist that it is because I've got my mind on my money and my money on my mind.

Anyway, this is a great way to watch a movie. With a full orchestra. Big. Loud. The music is so good. There will be three other films as well, including one by a luminary former student of mine, Patrick Nugent. And another of the musical pieces is by new Guggenheim fellow Fang Man.

It's going to be a beautiful night. I hope to see you there, come find me and let me know what you think.

Get Tickets for Cinemovements

The Indie Grits Film Festival is going on. I particularly want to point out great work by my friends Charlotte Taylor (The Edge of Summer), and Jason Robinson and Nathan Halverson (Summertime Flies). Festival darling General Orders No.9 is really good. And you can never go wrong with the quirky fun from MIRC.

Last summer, as I was preparing my final dossier for tenure and promotion, my son asked me: "why is it called 'ten years'?" My response? "I wish."

I've been on the tenure track since 1998. My first assistant professor job was at Penn State. I was the first of my friends to land a tenure track gig, at what seemed to be an impossibly young age. It was a good job with good people. I had wanderlust and was tempted away by a glitzy gig at Ithaca College after three years. It was a good choice, I met so many people who were critical to my development as an artist and person. Like many jobs, the fit changed, and after five years I decided to come to the University of South Carolina to try some new things with colleagues I'd known for a while. Again, an important choice and the right one. So many wonderful connections and relationships I've made here. However, each time I changed jobs, I started the tenure process over from zero.

An explanation for laypeople. Assistant professors on the tenure track have five years to prove that they are sufficiently awesome to stay employed. How is that awesomeness measured? My school is ranked Carnegie 1 Research (the highest level given) so the most important criterion is research and creative accomplishment. For folks in my discipline, that means that a.) I have to make a lot of work, b.) it has to be excellent, and c.) it has to be proven to be excellent by peers in significant national and international arenas.

Then in the sixth year, a bunch of ranking people at other comparable institutions (I don't choose them and will never know who they are) look at everything I've accomplished and write letters (which I will never see) about me, indicating whether they think I'm sufficiently awesome. Then, all the tenured faculty in my department read those letters and look over my entire body of work, my teaching (am I effective, do students get what they need?), service (do I carry my load and help the place run well, do I ease the burden on my colleagues?), etc, and discuss whether or not I am sufficiently awesome to keep working. They vote on whether to keep me around or not. I know how the vote turned out (positive!) but I'll never know what the count was, or what was discussed.

Then, the chair of the department writes a letter summarizing the vote and highlighting important points in agreement or not in agreement. Then it is all passed to the Dean's office, and the Dean does the same thing. Then, it all goes to a committee of people at the whole University where twenty-four professors from all disciplines look at it all again, read all the summaries, and then give their vote and opinions. Then the Provost of the University, then the President, then the Board of Trustees. Anyone at any level can say "no." I will never know what individual people said. I still do not know the final result. All I know is that I will find out between now and May 15, 2012 whether I will gain the title of associate professor, or if I will spend the next year looking for another job.

There is a popular misconception that having tenure means that you are employed for life. Alas, this is not true. But to earn tenure is to earn a certain amount of freedom. It means above all that I could not be fired for political or specious reasons. I could take even greater risks with the work I make, since my career would not be imperiled by every whim of film festival and art world tastemakers.

As I write these things, they seem silly. It's not like I keep my mouth shut, like some shrinking violet of academia. I probably think I hold my tongue more than I actually do. And my work isn't exactly conservative or conventional. But for my entire career thus far, I have labored under this vulnerability, and I realize how much it affects everything I do. Constantly checking myself. Is this my place to express my thoughts? Am I going to be considered an uppity junior prof? If I vote this way, how might that affect me years down the line should this person seek revenge? And I admit, there have been art ideas I have loved but not pursued for fear of the result being too far afield of what the market will lavish with the right kind of attention.

To be clear, I am confident. The criteria are spelled out, and I have well beyond fulfilled them. I have been fortunate, prolific, and well-received. I feel fine about that. But I have been working since September knowing that people all the way up the ladder have been discussing my future, considering my life, passing ultimate judgement. That's a lot of people behind a lot of closed doors. How many of those people might be out to get me, without me even knowing it? How many of them don't even think that mine is a legitimate discipline worthy of academic pursuit? Such people exist.

Seven months in limbo. How will I find out? Will they mail a letter to my home or my office? Should I wait to read mail until I am alone? Should I wait until my wife is around before I open any official looking envelopes? How will I feel? How am I going to react? What will it be like on the other side?

The most difficult part has been looking back and second-guessing every decision I've made since I started, wondering which mistakes might come back to haunt me. Maybe I shouldn't have left that first job. Maybe I shouldn't have left the second one. Maybe I was too young and impatient, too hot-headed to be trusted with the decision to move on. If I'd just stayed put in the first place, I'd probably be a full professor by now, like some of my friends from when I started. But I wouldn't know all the people I know now, I wouldn't have done the things I've done. But what else might I have accomplished in the time not spent starting over? It's marvelous to be able to decide on my own terms to move on to the next great thing. But there's a limit to how long you can do that. At some point you have to prove that you can close the deal, or else all other paths are blocked. 

I think that I may have made my peace with the fact that it is out of my hands. I'm grateful for this line of work. It has sacrifices, and I believe they have been worth it. I would like to continue, and to go farther. But more than anything, I need to resolve this bit of business that's been unfinished for so long.

You haven't backed up your work. I know you haven't. So, this is the weekend to do it. The semester's about to get real, and ugly. You're thinking that you'll back up after your projects are done, maybe after finals.

It's too late then. When a failure happens, it's going to happen in the next couple weeks, i.e. the worst possible time. If you back up now, you'll be able to recover in case of disaster. If you don't, you're going to be screwed.

Get another hard drive or USB stick, and make a copy of all your documents, and ideally your media as well. If you can't get one, use a lot of DVD-r's. Then, get a free Dropbox account, and put your most critical documents there (get friends to sign up and get yourself some extra space. I'd do this myself, but I'm maxed out already). Encrypt your backups if you're twitchy.

Go do it. Now. I'm advising you based on personal experience, and also based on patterns I've seen with students. There's nothing sadder than a semester long film completely lost right before it is completed.

At the time of this writing, there is zero analysis out there on the new DRM structure. It seems you'll have to have an Adobe ID and that your activations will be tied to that. Right now, my own Adobe ID has all my order history, all my registered products, my personal profile, and order and payment information. I have never used it unless I needed to post a question on the forums.

It's clear that Adobe is pushing it's "Creative Cloud" concept as a way to get some more cash. I mean provide more solutions for creatives. Seems to me that Adobe is looking to get on the Big Data bandwagon... if they have reliable information about every single human who uses their product, they can better figure out how to sell them more stuff.

No big surprises here, it's important for businesses to know who their customers are. The problem I have is that I don't like being compelled to share information. If the Creative Cloud turns out to be something useful that I want to participate in, that's one thing. Dropbox? I'm in. iTunes Match/iCloud? Very very in. But to say "OK, starting now, you have to be a part of our data infrastructure to even use our tool," that I'm not so interested in.

Cue the armchair software libertarians. Well If you don't like it just don't use it. Shut up. I work in a world completely different from your mom's basement where no one cares if you use GIMP to make NOBAMA banners.

Though I don't believe in fetishizing software for instruction, I do feel like I have a responsibility to at least acknowledge professional common practice workflows when I'm teaching students. Right now that means Photoshop. This particular DRM strategy reads as a boardroom decision of "we're not growing our user base, so we have to extract everything we can from the users that we think that we know we have."

And that reeks of desperation.