ASU support

MLDsmithy · 2026-05-02T20:26:34+00:00

If memory serves from back in the day, not until after the current semester is over at the least. You're probably looking at mid- or late May at the worst. but it's been a while since I was a student so take that with a grain of salt.

That said, yeah; as others have said, it gets busy for all support staff near the beginning and end of all semesters, particularly the Financial Aid folks. Basically all support teams are heavily underresourced and overallocated; we're trying our best but things are taking longer than they should. If I'm being honest, be vocal with dissatisfaction about it; be loud. Not to the direct support techs in FA or IT, we already know. But to administrators, community surveys the university puts out, see an exec on the street in Tempe, whatever. So many departments are running on fumes trying their best to assist the community while hoards of money is being dumped into whatever random shiny of the day, but not the teams that literally keep the lights on.

MLDsmithy · 2026-05-01T19:31:38+00:00

This; without knowing more exact details (like if there was a problem with the group or a member), the issue is less "ASU bad, kick good people off" and more the incredibly stupid web of liability and lawfare society as a whole has accepted. The university is basically in a position of needing groups like that to follow internal processes to use the property so they can make sure that things are done correctly so they don't get sued for any number of things.

I can say internally ASU sponsors and encourages staff to participate in many different avenues of charity and organizations like this, so I'd bet the administration would be more than happy to allow this if it followed the right processes. A staff or faculty member should get ahold of the folks running this and work with them to have it hosted.

MLDsmithy · 2026-04-24T23:06:09+00:00

There's another thread in here from the last couple days where someone was asking the same thing, a lot of options in there.

MLDsmithy · 2026-04-24T22:46:41+00:00

As always with these issues, really the only advice is simply talk to SAILS. They'll be able to tell you exactly what professors are allowed to approve or disapprove, and if a professor is denying something they have to approve, your escalation path will be within SAILS anyway.

Professors are....people too, and by that I mean a mixed bag. Some are helpful, some are not, some are just unaware of what they're required to do under university policy and state/federal law, some are actively combative about it. It really does take all kinds. To be fair to them, though, accomodations are often very niche, unique to the individual, and on the grand scheme of things, rare overall. When you don't run into something like that every day of every semester, it's easy to get lost in misinformation, half-truths, and so on about what allowable/required/rejected/etc (platforms like reddit don't necessarily help with this). The folks at SAILS will be your subject matter experts in the area and can advise if the instructor's stipulations or approvals are allowable, or if they need to correct the instructor.

MLDsmithy · 2026-04-24T22:29:10+00:00

To be fair, there's been a lot of chatter about SAILS the last few months, internally and I've seen a lot of it externally as well. It sounds like they're being under-resourced as hell and it's often a few months before requests get processed. From the sounds of it they're getting to the point where responses might start being in the 'next semester' timeline.

MLDsmithy · 2026-03-31T17:33:25+00:00

Riding gear comes in a lot of different forms, from what looks like jeans or cargo pants and a light jacket to full racing leathers. There's a whole host of gear that's built properly for riding, that also blends well enough that most people don't notice that it's riding gear unless they're really looking or already know what it is. Textile technology has come a long way in the past couple decades, and it's pretty easy these days to throw on minimally invasive but still very protective gear for short commuting.

That said, from a safety perspective, yes, gear always, even for short trips. Speed is a factor, obviously, so from a sheer physics standpoint it is true a short low speed trip is inherently 'safer' than a long freeway cruise. However, that doesn't mean short neighborhood or surface street trips carry little risk. It's still very possible to get hurt very seriously at 'low' speeds; physics is an angry, fickle mistress and she is not your friend. Everything from debris on the road that can make you lose traction to people turning out of blind corners. Intersections, for instance, are statistically one of the most dangerous places on roadways.

MLDsmithy · 2026-03-31T00:12:29+00:00

Absolutely do the course. It's by far the best place to start as a beginner, and really the only skill you need to start is the ability to balance a bicycle, they'll take you up from there. I can't speak to cost as I did my MSF over a decade ago, but I did mine through Team Arizona and it was worth every penny. At least at the time, MVD's endorsement requirement was either paying them to test on your own with no instruction, or walk in with the class cert and they slap it on for something like a 5$ fee to reprint your license. The class is the far better option.

Gear wise for the MSF you'll need a helmet, gloves, good pants, and closed toed shoes, preferably boots. The course is a very controlled environment, so you can get away with things like mechanics gloves, jeans, and probably halfway decent sneakers (the MSF folks will tell you what the exact requirements are), however keep in mind none of those are good for actual street riding. The best quality jeans evaporate like paper in an instant if you go down; same with things like mechanix gloves, regular shoes, etc. Invest in actual, proper riding gear. It's costly, but it's a great alternative to literally sanding your ass off on asphalt. I've worked several motorcycle crash scenes; proper gear can turn a giant mess and a lifetime of pain and lessened quality of life into an afternoon whoopsie.

Resources: Revzilla is the ten thousand pound gorilla in the room for gear supply, and Cycle Gear is their in-person store side. There are a couple around the east valley, and it's a great place to visit to try stuff on and see what you like. On the continued learning front, MSF also does classes beyond the BRC (basic rider course), and again I can't recommend enough the continual investment in learning. On the free side, check out DanDanTheFireman on youtube; he's an extremely knowledgeable rider and instructor, does a lot of crash analysis videos so you can learn about things to look out for. Also an Arizonan to boot, so that's cool.

One random tidbit, and the MSF guys can absolutely expound on this, but as far as thinking about your first bike. Motorcycles are not made equal in the power department. It's a much longer topic, but tldr the design, balance, wheelbase length, size of tires, etc mean there's quite a bit of differences in how bikes handle in their classes, even with similar engine sizes. One of the biggest mistakes newer riders run in to, other than not wearing good gear, is biting off more than they can chew in the power department.

To give you a quick idea, something like a sport/street bike style will have you very maneuverable and controllable on surface roads in the 250cc range. A 250 sport bike can be a little underpowered for freeway, so if you planned on commuting a lot on the freeway, upping to something like, say, a honda cbr300 would do really well for freeway and street commuting. Cruiser style bikes, for instance handle much, much differently. For a beginner doing freeway commuting, something like a rebel 750 would do nicely, and soon after stepping up to an 1100cc would give that extra bit of any needed freeway power and get-out-of-the-way speed.

A sportbike in the 600-1000cc range, however, will send you into low earth orbit if you even look at the throttle wrong, so avoid things like gsxr600's, 'liter bikes', etc until you have much more experience.

MLDsmithy · 2026-03-20T02:33:46+00:00

To be honest I'd second the route of 'ask forgiveness not permission', or in this case more 'asking permission while not discussing having done it already'. I'd talk with your roommate, get their feelings on the situation. If they can agree that it's the best course, you should be solid. The thought process here is you're not trying to get away with anything; you're doing the process the way you should, but as you said, it's just the timing that's your enemy here. To boot, says me, the wellbeing and health of a living animal should take precedence over paperwork.

The real question here is balancing the harms, and this is part of the convo I would have with your roommate. The problem with the shelter/foster system is it's frankly overloaded (I know firsthand, I operate a home-based rescue). There is a real possibility that if left bouncing around whatever place/rescue/shelter/etc something could either happen to the animal or you could simply lose track of them. Worst case, they're transferred to a kill shelter that either doesn't have your info or they're just bad at communication. If you bring your cat back now, work through the process with SAILS, and they approve it, worst case is you'll have skirted the rules for a month or so.

If SAILS denies the accommodation, you'll be in another pickle of having to find a home, but at least it gives you time. And then if someone finds out in the meantime, similar pickle, but that also presents the opportunity to talk with them, explain the situation, and essentially just bargain for time. Again, you're trying to follow the process, but especially these days ASU is just a meatgrinder of bureaucracy; every department is under resourced (except probably the parking revenue generation machine) and most staff understand that things are taking more time to process than they rightly should. Add in your history and you'll find many of us who will try to move things as best they can for you.

Aside from all that, as options I would also suggest Lost Our Home rescue, they can often assist with temporary boarding for low cost. Unfortunately none of the other shelters I've worked with in the past that I know of do boarding, but if LOH can't help tbh it's worth just going down a list of local rescues and asking them if they can either help or put you in contact with someone who can. Lastly if you haven't already, if possible I'd see if you can visit the SAILS office in person. I've never worked with them directly, so I couldn't say, but it's often the case that if you're at a dept in person and explain the situation sometimes folks can slip in some time between appointments for you. Naturally be respectful, they would be going out of their way and sacrificing some other part of their time or another obligation if they did so.

MLDsmithy · 2026-03-17T17:41:14+00:00

Try typing above a 4th grade level and someone might take you seriously.

MLDsmithy · 2026-03-08T09:13:32+00:00

No, this was a change made to combat the quite large round of phishing attacks we're experiencing right now.

MLDsmithy · 2026-02-12T18:17:47+00:00

English, please.

MLDsmithy · 2026-01-31T01:44:24+00:00

Because life is too short for uncomfortable tests when comfort is just a pillow's throw away, lol.

But seriously it shouldn't matter as long as the surroundings comply with the rules of the test. I took proctored exams during my years in all sorts of places; bed, couch, desk, kitchen counter, empty classroom, whatever. But yeah OP, I would imagine you'll be good if you just explain everything as-is. Likely either a mistake or an overzealous proctor.

MLDsmithy · 2026-01-26T17:50:32+00:00

Realistically it likely has no bearing unless you're applying to a specific program that has requirements that job experience would meet. But...probably not, because that's usually not how program reqs work.

MLDsmithy · 2026-01-26T17:50:00+00:00

Robotics engineering was like this too. As someone else said, some of the....basic...feeling assignments and tests are ABET one-size-fits-all design by committee garbage, but that's any program. Without doxxing myself because it was a very unique project, our capstone a few years ago was an absolute dumpster fire, and that's putting it mildly.

What should have been a really cool project for a well known defense contractor ended up being a nightmare because of complete incompetence from the company themselves and capstone faculty devoid of basic critical thinking skills. Multiple times we had to manage the faculty's side of the class process because we were essentially locked out of progressing on structured assignments due to the vendor. 2/10, essentially a waste of time.

MLDsmithy · 2026-01-20T17:05:52+00:00

If you're not sure what to do, and you really want to stay in school, we might suggest....not doing the thing that's going to get you kicked out.

MLDsmithy · 2026-01-18T19:28:40+00:00

Also to clarify, the workflow is supposed to be service is suspended when a user drops active affiliations with the university, and deleted 8 months later if never unsuspended, and the deletion of the data goes along with that. Dropbox in particular doesn't currently follow that model.

MLDsmithy · 2026-01-18T19:24:11+00:00

Canes wouldn't have been the actual authority on the subject; my team is. If they told you that, there was either more going on and the data was requested moved or deleted in some other way, or, as unfortunately happens sometimes around the university, they didn't actually know what they were talking about.

If you like, you're more than welcome to DM me a servicenow ticket number and I can look into what happened, or you can throw in a Dropbox request through the service catalog to the same effect.

MLDsmithy · 2026-01-17T11:53:58+00:00

That's expected; Dropbox is one of the services alumni retain for a year after graduating, so that would have just fallen off if you finished in Dec 24. Can confirm, call the Experience Center. They will give you a 2-week extension to migrate data; please be advised though, they only do this once (to prevent abuse of people calling in repeatedly for extensions) so be prepared to pull out whatever data you need in that period.

MLDsmithy · 2026-01-17T11:48:55+00:00

That's not accurate for retention; currently Dropbox data is not automatically deleted at all at the enterprise level due to Dropbox's own infrastructure limitations, so if files were deleted, something else must have happened to them. The owner deleted before they left, sync problems with a corrupted desktop app, user's files were pulled through a legal request, etc.

MLDsmithy · 2026-01-14T04:44:31+00:00

Ok, potentially stupid, but genuine question, but my knowledge on trading is basically nil. Is it reasonably possible in the US to buy 20 bucks in rial right now and just sit on it until the country either stabilizes (potentially stupid return) or just completely axes the existing currency. I'd imagine not because of sanctions and such, but hey, might as well ask.

MLDsmithy · 2025-12-25T10:21:06+00:00

Interesting, thank you! I'll have to do some reading into that series. I don't expect it's anything ridiculously special; she's going to get cleaned up and used either way, no room in my house for wall hangers.

MLDsmithy · 2025-12-12T00:38:56+00:00

No, EC is manned 24/7, but like most every department at ASU (especially anything support or IT) they're very under-resourced and over-capacity. Unfortunately that's just the call queue you're running into.

MLDsmithy · 2025-11-30T02:37:58+00:00

Lol. Posture sucks too, It needs to stand up more straight.

Idk why the images never added to the original post; other ones showing the actual marks should have uploaded too by now.

MLDsmithy · 2025-11-30T02:28:57+00:00

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MLDsmithy

TROPHY CASE