Randy Pausch: A Lecture You Must See ...

I am presently attending the webcast lecture by Randy Pausch of CMU. The lecture is entitled, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," and will cover many, many things I am sure (it's just starting now) -- Randy is starting by describing the "elephant in the room" -- Cancer -- Randy has been battling for some time now (see his cancer update page) -- so far he has challenged the audience to not talk about cancer, and to not offer pity (esp. during his push-ups :-) -- wow, he just bought a Macintosh too! I suppose anything is possible.

Randy is a long-time SIGCSE attendee and contributor, often indirectly -- his work with the Alice virtual world environment for learning programming is a SIGCSE standard, and the Alice Tea Party becoming another.

Randy has been going through his dreams, including being like, er, meeting, Captain Kirk and his cool toys from Star Trek -- he demonstrated what looked like (and sounded like) a communicator from the original series.

Apparently, Randy also has a large and interesting collection of stuffed animals -- to convince the cynics, Randy brought out a collection of stuffed bears, very large and colorful -- he then gave them away to the audience.

Imagineering is also on Randy's list, and from a long time ago -- he showed photos of him and his family on the "Alice Ride" at Disney (foreshadowing much?) -- so many stories that Randy is sharing, and in his very engaging, unique style, please just visit the webcast yourself, I am stopping to enjoy the lecture.

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I learned some interesting approaches of hardships and obstacles, including "the brick wall" -- the brick wall is there for (at least) three reasons:

• to see how much you want it
• to keep the others out
• let us show our determination
  

... OK, I did not see the birthday cake coming, or the singing for Randy's wife Jai -- and what a cake, looks like enough to feed all 500 attendees.

It was nice seeing a few familiar faces in the "audience of physical proximity," including Don Slater, Wanda Dann, Andy van Dam and Tom Cortina (SIGCSE 2008 Birds of a Feather).

There is a nice post-lecture recognition service, stay tuned, it's worth it.

I was able to access the webcast from the CMU homepage, perhaps it will be archived there. And remember, Randy is a big believer in "head fakes," so keep you eyes and ears open as you watch.

Oh, and I was not crying -- I just got something in both eyes at the same time.

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Postscript: Check the story from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette.