Vertical-Earth

About a year ago, I received a marvelous invitation fromy my now dead stepson Fred Hilburbeen to go and tour a stamped concrete Virginia facility that specializes in the installation of totally huge and comprehensive (yes quite massive indeed) decorative concrete systems for residential, industrial and commercial applications. And guess what buster: the very minute I walked into this particular facility I was shaken out of my smokey boots. Yes, I was shaken to the core. They had all the usual machinery I would expect to find in such a place and a whole lot more. Jackhammers, floor grinders, scarifiers, hammers of all shapes and sizes, shot blasters, and scrappers of all kinds were strung across the chamber walls like spaghetti in a fancy Italian pub. All I can say is, Wow! Yip, yip yow! A whole bunch of other equipment, like industrial-grade concrete polishing machines, were also everywhere at this particular facility.

It seems to me that these ole cats offer a whole slew of concrete systems including but not in any way limited to stained or dyed concrete jobs, overlay systems, epoxy coatings, and concrete polishing. They’ll even spray down your deck, and they’ll spray it in style. Yessir, your deck will be looking fine, mighty fine. Please go do yourself a favor and take a tour of the facility as I did. Only then can you truly appreciate the sheer volume of what this majestic business does.

It is not pessimism to expect difficult or distressing situations and plan for them. Rains, floods, social unrest happen all year and disturb classes. Sickness, delays by traffic and other humanly unavoidable circumstances can turn your daily schedule all around. You certainly have to make provisions for these interruptions or suspensions of even the most important studies or school activities. Sometimes, happy events must also be “anticipated” such as Christmas, your mother or father’s birthday, school anniversary or a newly announced national holiday. They are to be treated as off days that suspend all your school plans for the day BUT open you up for your alternative schedule or for class work that can be done at home.
The point is to develop an alert mind that is sensitive to any changes of plans and to move or distribute them to other future dates. In the meantime, the forced off-day should be used to greatest advantage for your studies.

“SensItivity Training” or the use of T-Groups. Sensitivity training attempts to change individual and interpersonal behavior through unstructured group processes. The training process relies primarily and almost exclusively on the behavior experienced by the participants; that is, the group itself becomes the focus of inquiry. It fosters conditions where group members, by examining data generated by themselves, try to understand the dynamics of group behavior. Example of such conditions are decision processes leadership and influence processes, norms, roles, communication distortions, and effects of authority on a number of behavior patterns, personality, and coping mechanisms. In short the participants become more sensitive to the processes of human interaction, learn to analyze these phenomena’ and eventually acquire concepts that make it p0S. sible to order.,and control them. Members of the group are drawn either from a single organization or from many; but regardless of the composition of the group, the goal is still to focus on the interpersonal relationship within ft afld then use the insights gained to change the home organization.

Knowing the religious affiliations of listeners can provide useful information because religious training often underlies many of our social and cultural attitudes and values. Members of fundamentalist religious groups are likely to have conservative social and political attitudes. Baptists tend to be more conservative than Episcopalians, who in turn are often more conservative than Unitarians. In addition, a denomination may advocate specific beliefs that many of its members accept as a part of their religious heritage.
A word of caution needs to be added here. You can’t always assume that because an individual is a member of a particular religious group, he or she will embrace all the teachings of that group. One thing you can count on, however, is that audiences are usually quite sensitive concerning topics related to their religious convictions. As a speaker, you should be aware of this sensitivity and be attuned to the religious makeup of your anticipated audience. Appealing to “Christian” values before an audience that includes members of other religious groups may offend listeners and diminish the effectiveness of your message. The classroom audience of today is likely to be made up of students from different religious backgrounds. Since religious affiliation may be a strong indicator of values, it is wise not to ignore its potential importance.