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Show Page 8 The Signpost Solutions Solutions con (in tied from page 2 c 0 D A G 1 R E P E S C E N T R E T A E L A T 1 T R 0 E N s 1 BE A S T A T E T 1 U 1 E R E R S M S W 1 A C T H S T 1 1 G s A N T i I I 1 1 1 1 T 1 CO Ui \S L A P Wednesday, September 20, 2006 T 1 N E|A|DBJ S E V A T|E|A[R 1 N G • SIM I E L O[R1C|H L|E|SB M 1 E S|M 0 N E S|E[R]E D|L|Y| 0 I |O|N| L °T 1 S C SWN o R U T pIsjT M a s T E R S R E 1 T E R A T E S A N T 0 N P E L T 1 N G T 0 N A D A L E T continued from page 2 7 1 6 9 2 4 8 3 5 3 9 2; 6 5 ;8 3 i 7 4 2 8! 9 8 ;6 4! 2 1 ;5 7! 8: 7 3 1: 5i 6 : 1 5: 2 1 "9l 9 4 6; 3 1 8 5! 4 4 6 2! 9 5 7 3' 1 3 5 1!7 9 3 4! 6 6 9 8|' 2 7 2 9; 3 Tt 8' 4 5 2 1 1, 8 Train to be a Dental Assistant in 8 monihs! r - NEW PROGRAM!! Enrolling NOW!!! • Career Placement Assistance • Small Class Sizes • Industry Experienced Instructors Financial Assistance for those Qualified constfiocl coroora Inotitcrfca Create a Better LifeSM Call Today! 1 -800-903-6536 Clearfield Campus 775 So, 2000 E. • Clearfield, UT Also offering short-term training for these exciting career fields: Medical Assisting • Medical Bifling & Coding • Massage Therapy Cnli NOW for appointments! Gift CorlHIcetae Available ' But I don't wanna grow up By Jackie Burrell Contra Costa Times - McClatchy-Tribune News Service WALNUT CREEK, Calif. -They play kickball, eat cupcakes and draft annual reports for their Fortune 500 companies on berry-colored computers. They adorn their office cubicles with action figures - or, like Lander International CEO Richard Tuck, mix pinball and circus management with running a high-powered IT recruitment#business. In short, this isn't Peter Pan. These are uber-responsible thirty, forty- and fiftysomethings who haven't let adulthood deprive them of a fun-filled life. "The common mispercepuon is this 40-year-old virgin sad sack in his mom's basement," says Christopher Noxon, who charts the trend in his new book, "Rejuvenile." "But the vast majority have healthy family relationships and high-stress jobs and refuse to give up stuff they loved as kids. One part of your day is doing an annual report, heading down to the bakery for cupcakes, gabbing online about HR Pufnstuf." Noxon calls that playfulness a safe zone - "a place where you can play and bring that same spirit back to your responsible life." Richard Tuck has known that since he was 12. "I learned a long, long time ago," says the 57-year-old CEO, "that if I focus on goals like adults often do, set myself up for deprivation, that doesn't work for me. In my life, every day has to be fun and once I realized that, everything in the universe made sense." In addition to his El Sobrante, Calif., company, Tuck manages Circus Chimera and works on his favorite project, a family fun center that will eventually become Playland-Not-At-The-Beach. Scores of volunteers gather each weekend to build amusement park displays, refurbish toys, and play a little pinball. "My title is Master of Fun," says Tuck. "With Playland, with Chimera, I am a catalyst to help other people discover the child inside and enjoy every moment." It was only a few decades ago when is the last time a movie made you beg for mercy? that any self-respecting grownup limited his leisure hours to golf and bridge. The more daring might tackle canasta or Yahtzee, but a Twister party? Kickball? Puh-leeze. Not anymore. Today there are mini-golf tournaments in Myrtle Beach and hopscotch fundraisers in San Francisco, which boasts about 40 kickball teams with unabashedly playful names like the Baby Bouncies, Los Sexies and Giggidy Giggidy Goo. The latter is a reference not to babytalk, but to Quagmire, the Hefner-wannabe on TV's "Family Guy" - a TV cartoon resurrected from the depths of cancellation by a legion of rabid adult fans. That's rejuvenility at work. And it's not just cities. The suburbs have embraced cartoons, kickball and cupcakes, too. It was kickball that brought Noxon and his wife, a television producer, together in the first place. A writer and stay-athome dad, Noxon was watching cartoons with his kids when he first realized that today's grownups had reinvented themselves somewhere along the way. "I (was) spending big portions of my day watching SpongeBob and eating popsicles and having an incredibly good time," he says. "I realized this is not the kind of parenting my own patents did with me." In fact, the idea of serious, steadfast adulthood dates to the Victorian era. Etiquette books touted self-control and formality, says Noxon, with rules "about as natural and forgiving as the rib cage-crushing corsets of the era." An 1883 book, "Manners, Etiquette and Deportment," cautioned that adults should "keep yourself quiet and composed under all circumstances." A family magazine published in 1889 was even blunter: "The only safety for man or woman is to do exactly right. The least deviation from the path of rectitude may lead to the direst disaster." That path of rectitude echoed down through the decades - until the baby boomers came of age. "In the flower children," says Noxon, "there was a lot of romantic innocence and wonder of the child wrapped up in the anti-establishment fighting against this Ozzie and Harriet ideal of what adulthood was." The Boomers transformed the notion of adulthood, adding first a wistful nostalgia for their childhood selves and then a full-blown embrace of those childhood pursuits. Today, it's all cross-genera- tional.Teens love SpongeBob and Strawberry Shortcake, the treacly cartoon character marketed to the toddler set. And more than a quarter of Disney World's clientele are people in their 50s and 60s - with no kids, ; And the enthusiasm for playful children's pursuits holds true for generations that have come since, says Noxon, even though many members of the X and Y generations didn't have those "wondrous childhood memories to start with. A lot of the Xers I talk with lived through the divorce spike. They were latchkey kids." Kickball and cupcakes bring levity to a stresscd-out exec's day; says Noxon, but it shouldn't be taken as carte blanche for other childlike behaviors, like brattir ness or poor impulse control: And, Noxon adds sorrowfully, today's super-charged, ultra competitive environment can taint even the most innocent, goofball pursuits. Kickball has formal leagues, by-laws and, in the newest development, "kicking strategists" who will teach you how to run up to home plate, pigtails flying, and launch that big red rubber ball on a properly competitive trajectory. What fun is that? Three cheers for WSU athletes not getting killed or fatally wounded University athletescertainly know how to get into trouble. Thankfully, Weber State University hasn't had to deal with some of the escapades that have left players and their programs throughout the country wounded. Ohio State University running back Maurice Clarett has gone through numerous issues that eventually tarnished his career indefinitely. That was a major, nationally recognized story. But recently, in Weber State's very own Big Sky Conference, controversy has sparked over a bizarre incident. I am sure everyone by now has heard about the punter situation at fellow Big Sky school University of Northern Colorado. While most teams' punter situations involve the coach having to decide whether to put in the backup or not after his starting punter got pulverized by a blocker and could have a possible concussion, Northern Colorado's situation is quite unique. The backup punter had allegedly stabbed the starting punter in the leg in a "stab and run" sort of ordeal outside of the starter's apartment late at no stabbings to report from WSU athletics - parking Standing Out pass forgeries, yes, but no stabbings. By Jon McBride "Standing Out" this week sports editor | The Signpost are WSU's quality athletes involved in charitable night. Although police are still investigating the matter, the behavior on and off campus. But only motive initially spotted by such athletes have been written anyone was simply the issue of about before in this column. I the backup punter being second guess the ones really "Standing best and wanting more playing Out" are WSU's not-so-quality athletes that just manage to stay time. Stabbing someone in the leg out of trouble. Off-the-field issues can do so because you want to kick a ball much to damage a player, team a couple of times on a Saturday and/or program. As long as while wearing tight pants? Come Weber State athletes can focus on. Talk about the ultimate what's happening on the field nightmare of having your image and stay away from stuff off of tarnished. This is Northern it, things at least have a chance Colorado's first year in the Big to get better. With the volleyball team Sky, trying to make a name of struggling, the football team themselves, and now, for most looking a lot better after a rough likely a very long time, when start and the women's soccer people mention the two words team on a bit of a run, if teams Northern Colorado, someone is going to say, "isn't that the are going to keep getting better school where the backup punter (or at least get better) they can't on the football team stabbed afford to have the outside issues the starter?" Can they possibly to worry about.Thankfully, they have a decent initial season in don't have to. the Big Sky with the controversy You can reach reporter Jon swarming the team? McBride by calling 626-7983. Wow, so at least there are Bank On our Tuition Plan! CONVERGYS OFFERS TUITION REIMBURSEMENT Join Convorgys today! Named one of America's Mo»t Admired Companies for six years in a row. Tired of jobs that leave you stranded? 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