A letter from Bill.

My old college roommate Bill and I have recently re-opened email lines of communication, and in the re-connecting process, he let me know that he was inbetween jobs at the moment. After I made the statement that “even a financial analyst can find jobs in this market”, I got back this reply:

What’s this about “even analysts can get a job in this market”? I am a highly skilled high tech financial professional (well, the professional might be going a bit far). Actually, I’m more like a spreadsheet jockey who can come up with the answer you like and the defend it using misleading data and formulas, but it all comes down to the same thing in the end. The only problem with my employment picture right now is that I live in the core of the high-tech meltdown, and despite that, I have yet to offer myself up to a defense contractor. Actually, I turned down a job last week (they wanted me to help them lay off a third of their work force, about 400 people), just spoke to KLA Tencor yesterday, and have a second round with Apple later this week. Not bad for a “mere” financial analyst.

My other career option is to become a professional layoff target. I figure I can work half the year, get laid off, get a nice severence payment, and then collect unemployment and still get the equivalent of a full time salary. You should look into that, Kevin. It’s the wave of the future.

—-

So if you’re in San Jose looking for a spreadsheet jockey, Bill’s your man, as long as you don’t ask him to sell his soul. It’s already doubly-mortgaged.

Breaking points and fuel

NOTE: The below was written in a moment of inspiration fueled by caffeine, and while I’d love to talk about it more, I need to devote the time to other issues. The book, like all of my ideas, will probably be delayed.
-Kevin

While walking through Barnes and Noble the other day, I observed several titles for sale: Mr. Hannity of Hannity and Colmes authoring a book on how liberals have been defeated, John Savage talking about almost the same thing, the O’Reilly factor (from the former host of Inside Edition), and Rush Limbaugh’s books. It struck me that there were a ton of books espousing “victory” over liberalism. First of all, I didn’t realize that it was a war between liberal vs. conservative. Unfortunately, a lot of other people feel that way.

Now, the issue that I have is that I believe the majority of Americans are not polemicists for either conservative or liberal views. I believe that, by and large, Americans are moderates in most of our views on things. There are hot button differentiators — abortion, homosexuality, etc., but by and large, moderate voices don’t have a place in the media. (Note: there is no such thing as “liberal media bias”. I’ll provide a link later on that.)

So, I think that my dream of writing a book is going to be realized in trying to set forth the moderate view of America, one that isn’t all Republican or all Democratic, and one that tries not to get involved in a war with either side. This may be impossible, but I don’t think that many other people are willing to try.

I’m interested in what people think about things. Let me know in the comments.

A moment on Columbia

Well, it’s about 4:15 or so on February 1, 2003. My wife and I woke up extremely late today (after noon), and as such, we lived in the luddite world for a bit (no TV, radio, or internet on). Then a friend called and left the message that “the sky is falling”.

This exact same thing happened to me when the WTC disaster happened. I was asleep. I wake up, and then, as the guy from NASA said, “that’s when we knew it was going to be a bad day.” I live in North Texas. My parents and brother reported hearing the loud boom. Frankly, I’m still trying to absorb it.

The only thing I’m sure of is that everything we do on earth has some inherent risk in it. We go anywhere, we do anything, we even sometimes just breathe the air….No one is safe all the time. As for government funding, like I just said: the government helps build roads. They regulate airspace. They fund exploration into all sorts of areas. They also organize armies and navies. There’s inherent risk in anything a government endeavors to do.

A friend of mine explained life and death as the following: since the beginning of time, God has the tapestry that gets created and changed all the time. We only see our little piece of the picture, but the higher power above us sees the entire scope of it. Death is just a transfer from a limited view to a sense of knowing where we fit in to that tapestry. I also believe that God, in some sense, is limited by his previous work on the tapestry. He gave us the gift of knowledge and science so that we could fly on earth and then fly to outer space. But just like the gift of nuclear fission, there are consequences that come with it. Nuclear fission led to nuclear weapons, and space flight leads to disasters like the one that happened today. Could God intervene? yes, I’m sure He could, but we can’t possibly begin to know His plans and His purposes. Just as I may perceive God to be limited (as I stated above), so must I recognize that my own viewpoint is limited.

I pray for the families of the astronauts that lost their lives today. I pray for peace for not just them, but all of us.

RANT: Workplace bathrooms

I’d like to write about a topic that every so often drives me absolutely nuts. In my workplace, we have the automatic door openers that are required because of the Americans with Disabilities Act. In particular, beside the door for the men’s and ladies’ rooms, there are big, shiny, metallic buttons with the familiar “outline of a wheelchair” logo. Now, call me a purist when it comes to things meant specifically for the handicapped, but I don’t use these buttons. I don’t park in handicapped spaces, nor do I take advantage of automatic door openers (unless, of course, that’s the only way into a place).

What drives me nuts is when perfectly healthy people use these buttons to open the door. My instinct is to scream “When did YOU become too good to open a door?”, but because I’m a quiet, reserved guy by nature, I only think-scream it. It drives me crazy to see people walk up to the button, press the button, then stand there in the doorway, waiting for the door to open. Thought-scream: “GO ON THROUGH ALREADY! IT’S NOT LIKE YOU’RE THE BRIDE AT A WEDDING!”

Now, I’ve tried to consider the arguments for using the buttons.
(1) The door is covered with germs. Reply: so is the button.
(2) I’m a wuss. Reply: You indeed must be if you can’t push the door open, even with your arm/elbow/shoulder/back.
(3, which happens for the button on the inside of the restroom) I just washed my hands. Reply: So you’re going to take your clean hands back to your cube, put them on those nasty chair-arms, sit at a dusty, germ-infested desk, and type on a keyboard that was last cleaned WHEN?

In other words, if you’re able, show some dignity and belief in the good-old quasi-American attitude of not needing help for things you can do well on your own. This intended convenience is just a small part of the larger growing issue of doing only enough to get by.

And frankly, I’m part of that issue myself.

Things I have collected, now and in the past

As a borderline obsessive-compulsive collector of, well, things, I feel it is time to admit some of the things I have collected, now and in the past. Shame is only in hindsight.

National Lampoon magazines.
Ren and Stimpy episodes.
Animaniacs cartoon episodes.
Gilmore Girls episodes (current)
7th Heaven episodes (current)
Nigella Bites episodes (if the blasted EEEEE! network would just run the show instead of the occasional episode)
Cirque du Soleil: The Fire Within episodes (current)
Peanuts pocket-sized paperback books.
Bloom County anthologies.
Doonesbury anthologies.
Foxtrot anthologies.
Rose is Rose anthologies.
The Neighborhood anthologies.
Adam anthologies.
(gee, is there a, oh, I don’t know, PATTERN here?)
Shoe anthologies.
Get Fuzzy anthologies.
Garfield anthologies (although I believe every single action that garfield could do has been repeated 20 times over).
Far Side anthologies.
David Foster Wallace novels.
David Sedaris novels.
Neal Stephenson novels.
Games magazines.
John Shelby Spong essays and books.
State quarters.
Computer games involving sports not commonly played in America (rugby, cricket, Aussie Rules Football, etc.)
Gaelic sporting event (hurling in particular) videos.
Trivia about this world.
Flying Karamazov Brothers performances.

Albertson’s writes back, sort of

Dear Kevin,

Thank you for contacting us. We do apologize for the experience you have
encountered at your local Albertsons store. We have recorded this
information and forwarded it to our store manager for review. Again please
except our apology. Thank you for choosing Albertsons.

Sincerely,

ABS Web Administrator

Norah

—
A note: apparently, Albertsons uses EDS to do all their data management, including the web site. So this mail never went to an Albertsons computer directly from me.
Another note: I just love unintentional spelling mistakes.

Unexpected experiences at a supermarket

Dear Albertsons,

My name is Kevin Jones, and I am writing today to inform you of how disappointed I was with your store located at the corner of Belt Line and Plano Road in Richardson, TX. I arrived at the store at 10:51 p.m. on Wednesday, January 22, 2003, to purchase perhaps a magazine and some 12-packs of soda, but when I turned to the right and went to the magazine alcove, there was a gentleman in a stocking cap, coat, T-shirt, and blue jeans lying on the floor of the store with magazines from the racks strewn around him. As I approached, he looked up briefly and then, his curiosity apparently satisfied, he returned to reading. As I attempted to look at the magazines around the alcove, I couldn’t help but notice the amount of gluteal cleavage this man was displaying while in the store.

At this point, I know it sounds like the entire thing was a joke, but I only wish it were. I immediately turned and left the store. The skeleton evening crew was busy serving customers, so I didn’t get a chance to speak with the night manager about the situation, but the impression that was left on me was this:
This wasn’t really a customer, because even the most rational customer has more dignity than this. Usually, children and sometimes teens will sit and read, but not most adults. Therefore, the assumption I made based on the time was that this man was a stocker for your store. While he may be a good worker and a good human being at heart, he certainly wasn’t in the break room, and as a result, I feel less inclined to go to your stores. Overall, up until the introduction of the special card savings program, my wife and I shopped frequently at Albertsons, but that was already growing less and less frequent as it became less convenient for us. However, occasional quick needs would still merit a visit, but now, I don’t feel inclined to visit that particular store anymore.

Sincerely,
Kevin Jones
lopey@alearningexperience.com

Muddy Waters and media hype.

On this, the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I wanted to take a bit of time to examine the points of view and my feelings about abortion. However, I just don’t have that much time to spend. There’s a perspective that I like, although I’m skeptical of any news agency that runs its own polls. The sample sizes are just too small to be accurate reflectors; they’re more like pixels in the “digital snapshot” of America that a better survey would provide.

Two notes today

Thing 1:
A simple error by Officemax caused the very nice people at
http://www.alearningexperience.net to not get some mail. Visit
http://www.alearningexperience.net. We like them.

Thing 2:
The site will be undergoing a bit of the redesign here soon. I’m attempting to learn HTML and CSS all over again. Fortunately, the motto of HTML design is “If it looks good, view the source.” The worst part about that is that most .css files are not readily available, unless, of course, you are a sneaky person.

Welcome to ALE

You know, I haven’t worked on this site for over two years, and since that’s too long to be relevant, I’m just going to convert it into a blog and deal with everything later. This is a first entry to see if it works. I’m having “issues” with my domains in the sense that they were transferred over to a different registrar but never continued in the DNS server…. Thus, for a while, I’m a webspace without a name.

We’ll fix that leetle red wagon, won’t we? 🙂