Wow...

I am stunned and amazed by the outpouring of support and sadness for the passing of TFRL. Seriously, I had no idea that so many people followed it or cared about it. I'm humbled and grateful. And your comments and tweets of support have gone a long way to ease the pain of deciding to shut TFRL down. I appreciate every person who has read my posts or voiced their support. You guys are why I wrote this blog.

But that doesn't change my decision to shut TFRL down. And that's a point I want to clarify. No one 'forced' me to shut down TFRL. It was my decision and mine alone. Our CIO never even implied that I should shut it down; his concern was only that posting things that were identifiable might create problems with our redesign process. He was clear that he didn't want that, but I also got the impression that he enjoyed some of the posts. After all, I'm sure he sits in a lot worse meetings than I do.

So please, if you want to be mad at someone, be mad at me for not obfuscating my posts better, not anyone else at my campus.

Also, I think that as much as we all loved TFRL, it needs to be put to rest. I don't want the web community to take it over. Someone else will come up with something else that is uniquely theirs, and that's the way it should be. TFRL was what it was; now it's time to move on.

Thanks again for the incredible outpouring of support. I'm really moved by it, and as I said, it's made shutting down TFRL much easier.

Maybe I'll start something else down the road, and get in trouble once again. Trust me, this wasn't the first time - and it probably won't be the last.

I love you guys!

RIP TFRL

So, the CIO called me into his office to talk about TFRL today. He was cool about it, and didn't personally have any problems with it, but he's also a very smart guy, and communicated that he didn't want TFRL to be a problem in our redesign process. "Put this behind you and move on," he said, meaning apologize, don't write anything that directly relates to the people and meetings you deal with, but by all means have a cartoon.

Well, I understand and appreciate that, but I can't write a cartoon about things I haven't experienced. The whole reason TFRL resonates with people is because it is real. The only reason it is funny is because it's real. I can't write something that is a total fiction - I don't have that skill.

So, this is the end of TFRL. The only two people in the whole world that I know of who have a problem with it win. I sincerely hope they are happy because I am stopping this specificially for them.

Nickeled and Dimed to Death

Well, the California budget propositions all failed yesterday, and suddenly there is talk of layoffs, campus closings, swine flu, and transvestite aliens from outer space.

People (who just yesterday didn't blink at suggesting multimedia productions that might cost tens of thousands of dollars) are now supporting cutting big chunks of content out of our redesign project.

It doesn't take a genius to see where this will all end up. The irony is that we've spent 10 months coming up with all these great ideas, but we won't be able to afford to implement a single one of them. I think maybe I know where all the state money has disappeared to.

We Appreciate Your Support

There have been rumors lately of threats to TFRL, and the Twittersphere has been atwitter with support - as appreciated as it may be misdirected.



Seriously, I really appreciate the support, even though TFRL has its detractors on campus.

And yes, I love Humboldt State - though if it burned down, you'd get seriously high off the smoke. Just sayin'.

And don't forget - it's not too late to vote for us for Higher Ed Blog of the Year at eduStyle.net. Vote here!

If Star Trek was Like Us

Of course this isn't realistic. If the Enterprise was run like a university, they'd still be building the damn thing.

4chan's got nuthin' on us!

Vote for us! Vote for us! We're shameless! We lack morals! We're no better than /b/tards! Vote for us!

Honestly, the selection of blogs to vote for is so awesome this year that we might forgive you for voting for someone else. The main thing is to vote!

Go here to vote.