Thursday, January 29, 2009

I'm no economist... but...

I sure would like to take a couple economics courses. There is nothing like a world-wide financial meltdown to really get you interested in a subject like that. I have always enjoyed markets and business, but, recently it is just fascinating. Every time I turn around there is something else that perplexes me. I would really like to learn more to assist in figuring it all out.

Take this "bad bank" idea... So, the US government wants to take $1-2 TRILLION to fund a bank to hold all of the bad assets (mortgage backed securities and such). This will get those assets off of the current banks books and free them up to be clean, money lending institutions again. In a 5 second snippet this sounds great. But, where does this money come from? I know they would want to use the rest of the TARP money, but, that still leaves us looking for well in excess of a TRILLION dollars to fund the rest of it. Where would that come from? The only place I could see it coming from is the issuance of government debt. Thus the government would be called upon to buy this stuff and from that they would be MONETIZING DEBT.

There is only one time when that worked... WWII. (See my previous blog about how that would work in the current world situation "Party Like It's 1929") Unless we started or got engaged in a World War or implemented price controls like some 4th world despot-run country, we would rapidly increase the money supply. This would shove down the value of a dollar to lows we have never seen before. That would HAVE to force interest rates higher and any chance we ever had of a recovery would be out the window.

To make matters even worse... You could say to yourself at this point, "Hey! I will buy gold! That way I would be in a sweet spot when the US Dollar tanks (further than it has)!" Ummm... I don't think that would work out as well as you imagine. What currency would the world turn to instead? The Euro? Which is in the same boat and in for a possibly rockier ride than the dollar? The rubble (oops I mean ruble!) Ha ha ha! I'm not even going to bother explaining how many ways that wouldn't happen. The Yuan? Even with China's progress in their economy, they are far from being able to float a currency on the world market. This means that there is nowhere to go with your gold "investment."

In an effort to not have this be one giant negative posting... I do have to say, "Way to go Ford!" It was very nice to see a company doing what it should. Borrowing when they needed to and spending wisely. It was comforting to hear at least one company who is having a very hard time announce that they do not have any intention to get government bailout money.

Makes me want to go out and buy an F-250 Supercrew with the logn bed to support them! :)

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Kinda... sorta... maybe...

Today was a a snow day in some sense of the concept. I went to work on an hour delay. The drive was awful, but, I took it slow and made it there. The reward for going to work today was that liberal leave was available. So, that meant there were only 5 people in my department today. This meant I was able to get done all of the things I had needed quiet concentration to complete. Then about 11AM I got the best news of the day! The college had canceled all classes for the day AND evening. Which meant I didn't have to teach! woo hoo!

It isn't that I don't want to teach. It just gives me some time to continue to get ahead in developing my presentations. Since I am making the curriculum up as the class goes along I can be flexible with what we need to complete to finish the course. I can move a bit around and cut some material out and still hit my stated course objectives in the syllabus. So, a day off here or there is great. I won't tell my students that I liked the day off. I want them to keep focused and moving forward. ;)

I also finished grading my first quiz and it looks like we are on track. The results were:
9 - A's
7 - B's
2 - C's
2 - D's
1 - F (Didn't show up, so they fail the quiz)

It looks like my distribution is reasonable and the majority are at least sort of on track. We start to get into the real hands-on portion starting next week. So, I think that should really start to separate the group out. We will see how they handle working with the CLI.

I also picked up a Chinese Coach for my DS today. I have been trying to learn some basic Chinese for a while. I have a good book I practice in for writing characters, but, I don't have anything for help with pronunciation. Hopefully this will help on that front.

To close this evening... I would like to give a shout out to all my old co-workers at AOL. I know that the news today wasn't exactly uplifting. But, I still think there are alot of good things going on there and it is a great group of people. 10% isn't as bad as it could be. Besides, most every person I have worked with there is a pretty smart cookie and would do well in just about any position in any company. I wish you all the best of luck and I will keep my fingers crossed that the ones who want to stay, get to. And the ones who want a change in their career will get the opportunity with a nice severance. :)

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Not how I wanted to get here... but...


I mentioned a few days back about how I accidentally scanned a large portion of our network. Well, it has finally played out and strangely enough... in my favor! I gave a presentation today to several muckity-mucks at work on what we did and how the tool works and they are very interested in using it on purpose for good. I now have a nice high-profile assignment at work and it is a very interesting one. So, things are looking good on the job front. Not exactly the route I wanted to take to get there (Last week was pure hell), but, I will take it.

The weather today was awful. I left on very icy/snowy roads and it took about 2 hours to get to work. On the way home the road off the mountain was fine and all of the roads to the top of my valley were fine. But, as soon as I started into the national forest it started to sleet hard and the road was completely untreated all the way home. So, it was slow going getting back to the house. Now I am just waiting to see if my work is delayed or canceled tomorrow. The college is already on a delay till noon. So, there is hope that my class tomorrow will be canceled and I can use the extra time to work on getting further ahead of my class as far as presentations go.

We also started a bet at work. (We gamble on anything and everything at work) We all put $20 a piece in this morning and then weighed in on a scale in the warehouse. We are competing for one month to see who can lose the most percentage of weight. This came about because we decided we should bet on something healthy for once. The pool is somewhere between $200-300, so this should be interesting! I had a piece of baked chicken and steamed veggies for lunch. I had a salad with some pork on top of it tonight with 0 calorie dressing. So, day one is complete!

Well, sled riding and hiking in the snow this evening sorta wiped me out. So, I think I am off to bed.

Oh! And the wife finished my "Jayne Hat" today! I am soooo stoked!

Monday, January 26, 2009

I'm not jealous... I am in awe....

I had a pretty nice weekend. The wife and I spent it in the big city. We checked the dog in at the kennel and headed into Arlington. We stopped in Fair Oaks and bought a bunch of tea supplies. (Which reminds me... I should go make some tea!) Ah... ok. where was I? Oh yeah! So, we went down to Arlington and checked into the Courtyard for the weekend. Walked up the street for some really good Thai food and then back to the hotel for a couple hour nap. Then it was off to the party. It was a really nice party in a really nice house in Arlington and we had a really good time. Although, while I was there I had a very interesting conversation.

I was standing around talking to the host for a bit and ended up asking him what he did for a living. He responded that he worked for AOL up to 2000. (mind you he is about the same age as me) I asked him what he has done work wise since then. To make a long story short... not much. He retired in 2000 at approximately 28 years old! Now that is the way you do it! He realizes he may have to go back to work someday when he is older. But, he is enjoying the retired life while he still has his youth. What a great way to do it. I wasn't jealous of his situation. I was just in awe. That is such a great way to do it!

Unfortunately, the party wasn't all fun and happiness. There was good food (the buffalo chicken dip was out of this world) and great people, but, we were there for a sorta sad situation. Adam and Jenny, two really great people have to leave the US and move back to Ireland. We will all miss them very dearly and I hope they are happy and enjoy being back with their families in their home country. I think we will be visiting them this summer or the next. I plan to make it a two-fer trip and visit them and my good friend Jason over in Brussels in one trip. We will see...

After the party we walked the two blocks back to the hotel, ordered room service and crashed. I was so lazy the next morning. I got up at 10:00AM and wandered downstairs for some breakfast in the lobby. Then I went back upstairs and took a nap. Finally I got a shower, checked out around noon. We then met the gang for brunch at Witlows. We had a really good brunch and we will really enjoyed everybody's stories and company. The highlight of brunch was Jenny laughing at Mandi's story about her pig dying from a ruptured bladder. The look on Jenny's face after she realized she really really shouldn't be laughing at this was really priceless and we all got a good chuckle out of it. I am very sorry for Mandi's loss, but, I hope she can find some comfort in the fact that her pig's death can bring so much amusement to Jenny. :)

We left brunch and I was a total girl, spending over $300 on a couple pair of shoes. But, they are nice and I really needed some casual dress shoes. I got a brown pair and a black pair and they feel great. We hit Trader Joes on the way out of the city for our last hurrah and then headed to pick up the dog. Overall, it was a pretty good weekend.

Now I will hit the sack and see what old man winter brews up overnight....

Friday, January 23, 2009

Sometimes it just all goes right

Today is turning out to be a very good day. Work went really well (the crisis of yesterday is actually turning out to be good in my favor). I left work at 2:30PM and went to the golf course to help a friend fix up his golf game. I waited for him by sitting on the porch of the clubhouse in a rocking chair with the sun beating down on me, drinking a beer. And then the big moment came....

I found my long-lost putter while at the golf course!!!!! I lost it a while back while trying to play golf with an Irishman. (I am guessing 2-24 too many beers was the problem) I have had the putter since I was about 14 years old and I am kind of attached to it. It was like finding your lost dog.

From there we went and had a few beers and now I am off to play cards for the rest of the night.

Not a bad day at all.....

P.S. I am so friggin' happy that XM65 is playing old skool hip-hop again. It is just the icing on the cake!!!!

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Work and sleep

I thought things would quiet down after Tuesday, but, things are still busy at work. I have been working on a special project which has me in the office in the 4 o'clock hour this week. It makes me pretty groggy by 8PM at night. On top of that, I was doing some IT work today and we put in the wrong IP address range into our very invasive asset discovery tool. Long story short... instead of sniffing up my internal network for our lab and such, I poked my nose into a bunch of systems I should not be seeing. It made for a stressful day at work. The only thing that was good, was my boss thought the whole thing was hilarious and he took care of any fires it started. I still feel bad for having it happen. Oh well, you live and you learn. And it is really hard to break things if you aren't doing anything. As my boss put it, the only thing I did wrong today was I was over-productive.

It will be all better tomorrow. I have to be at work at 4AM again. But, I am going golfing in the afternoon and it will be in the mid 50s. So, life will be good starting out the weekend. Saturday the wife and I will be staying at a nice hotel in Arlington. It will be nice to get away for a couple days and order room service and such.

Well, it is well past 8PM. I am off to bed. Keep on shorting that stock market and have a wonderful evening!

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Let's Party Like it's 1929!!!!

I have a very funny friend who's Facebook status said it all on New Year's Eve. It simply said "(The Person) is partying like it is 1929!!" While it is funny on the surface, it is actually very sad. The guy is one smart cookie, so I think he saw the humor and the sadness in his posting. I included the little graphic to the right to explain what 1930 should feel like.

We are on a perfect course to repeat history once again.

We have a populist president coming into office who plans to put infrastructure projects in place to stem the downward spiral of the economy. (I don't think anyone has the illusion that anything is going to spur major growth anymore.) Besides, if we had major growth we would be slaughtered by inflation from all the spending we have done in the last 3 months. (Remember that the Federal Reserve was spending $177,500 per SECOND for the entire month of November.) The problem I see with spending on work projects is that they are not long term. They do not build the foundations for a growing economy, they just stave off its free-fall. The only way to create stability to grow out of is with long term projects. Just like in the last populist president's time... the long term growth strategy will come from the war machine.

I know the country is war weary right now, but, they will quickly get over it. Remember, this is the same country that thinks that just by changing the head of the executive branch everything will get better. While all the time ignoring the fact that we still have the same people enacting laws in place that have been there for a very long time. World War I was was a very costly and very gruesome war. Iraq and Afghanistan come nowhere close in terms of the barbaric nature and the casualty numbers. So, it will take even less time for this 15 second attention span populous to forget all about any of that. And besides, we have the WPA and the CCC to distract us till Russia and company bang the drum long enough. Russia needs a war very badly, their stock market was closed for long periods in the second half of '08 and dropped 80% between June and December.

So, enjoy the speech today. Because we are in for a long dark period in this country and most likely all of the free world. (With the exception fo China, I think they can weather this pretty well.) I hate war. I hate it so much. But, as we watch the country nationalize the banks and now turn their eyes to the manfuacturing sector... all I see are plowshares being banged into swords.

Until then, lets all think. And think real hard. There has to be some ground breaking idea we can go for that will stimulate truly sustainable growth for the US and just as importantly, for its allies AND enemies. We need something and we need it in the next couple years!

Monday, January 19, 2009

Back up and "running"

I am now back and part of the living again. I slept in this morning, but, then I got up and had my requisite 2 pieces of toast and headed off for another pee test.

I am really tired of taking drug test. It is getting to the point that if I actually start peeing in a regular toilet I almost panic and look for the cup I should be peeing in. It is a sad commentary on where we are as a society. I am starting to think that I may actually be DOING drugs. At least I can proudly say that I fill the cup all the way to the brim every time. :)

I felt a bit dizzy and tired mid afternoon, but, I got some pork fried rice in me (Big boy food!) and I felt better. I made it all the way through teaching my class, but, I skipped out on my office hours after class. Everybody was cutting out to deal with the weather anyway. Oh well, off to get some more rest to prepare for the VERY LONG day tomorrow.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

So sick...

Ugh. I have a nasty stomach flu and am spenind most of my time laying on the floor. So, no updates for the last couple of days and probably not for a few more.

*sigh*

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Will he ever shut up?

It turns out that it may be a bad idea to teach a class on a subject you are passionate about. The class is 1.5 hours. I started talking 5 minutes into it. The only thing that stopped me was, I accidentally closed the presentation on my computer when I was closing Mozilla after showing them a website listing all of the different open source licenses. I realized at this point it was 2 minutes from the end of class. I decided that 1 hour and 23 minutes of non-stop talking about FSF and GNU and GPL... etc. was probably enough for the day and let them go 1 minute early. :) At least they know I am passionate about what I am teaching now.

None of them seemed mad, but, I am not sure how to gauge the "audience" yet. I am still too new at all this. I do have to say that it was nice to get to tell people about all the great things Linux does. On top of that, I still have yet to get to the great slides with the pictures of Richard Stallman, Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson! Should be a good class on Monday to. Which translates into I will have way too much to talk about again.

It is nice to finally feel like I will have a course and I have a good idea of how I want it to go. I have a metric ton of work ahead of me to keep on top of this and to make it all work. But, at least right now, I feel like I will get through it and it will work out.

Well, off to answer students emails. They are so cute... wanting to load Fedora 10 on VMWare on their laptops to follow along in class. *blush* I am so proud of them! :-)

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

What a week

I had my first class on Monday and today I spent some time getting ready for tomorrow's class. I have 38 slides about the history of Linux and explaining its licensing structure and such. It really is amazing how much has happened in the Open Source Community since 1991. Going through and making the slides has been kind of neat because it has forced me to go back over some history that I was a part of. I am actually looking forward to giving the presentation and my only concern is that it will take two nights to get through it all. That, and I hope the students are at least mildly interested. I did add some pictures of the old systems and some great pics of the original guys. Richard Stallman and company should be good for some chuckles from the kids.

All this in the middle of preparing for the inauguration. Which all I can say is.... what a pain in the ass.

All of this chaos will be worth it when I am playing pond hockey on Saturday though. :-D

Monday, January 12, 2009

One down... 33 to go....

I completed my first college class from the teacher side tonight. It went 'ok.' I still feel pretty frazzled about how this is all going to turn out. I think I will feel better once we load up Linux and get rolling in the operating system. I have a good mix of students; from the kids who are taking it for their degrees to some industry folk who are trying to expand their careers and knowledge. Overall, it seems to be a good group. I guess I will start to see their true colors over the next week or so.

In the ongoing drama that is my job... I got my offer letter from the main contractor today. It is for more than even I asked for. But, it does say that the contract is good only through March 4, 2009. So, I am not resting on this issue yet. I think I will still have to go through all the steps I laid out earlier. It will just help to be making more money while I do it. :)

I missed hockey last night, but, I am glad because today turned out to be a very long day, between installing a garage door opener, running errands and preparing and teaching my first class... I am wiped.

Oh, I also made a joke about "Organic" Food with a girl taking Organic Chemistry today at school and she didn't get it. *sigh*

Saturday, January 10, 2009

How can it be "100% Organic" if it has salt?


Organic [awr-gan-ik] adj. - noting or pertaining to a class of chemical compounds that formerly comprised only those existing in or derived from plants or animals, but that now includes all other compounds of carbon.

As it does more and more often, the topic of "organic" food came up again today. This is a subject that really irritates me. I keep seeing food products in stores that are labeled "organic" when they clearly are NOT. Take a look at the picture. How in the world can salt be organic? Its chemical compound is NaCl which is strictly sodium chloride. There is no way that salt contains ANY carbon in it unless they added it during the process which would seem to detract from their intended goal.

Why must people make chemistry and the basic naming conventions that go with it any more confusing than they already are to people? Somebody needs to put a stop to this stupidity and force these food companies to change their naming convention. I'm sure that if they were bastardizing some commercial product's definition and product they would get their asses sued right off them. But, the American Chemistry Society doesn't appear to have the balls to take on the food lobby.

Their stupidity is not going to stop me from eating healthy. But, I will continue to boycott any food that is labeled "organic" that doesn't at least contain a vast majority of ingredients that are carbon based.

I encourage anyone else who cares about the sanctity of science to do the same. Together we shall overcome the idiocy of the general consumer!

Friday, January 9, 2009

Make sure to ask your surgeon if they got there on a 504!

I went to my faculty orientation last night for the Linux class I am teaching. (Starting next week! *GASP*) It was helpful in that I got to meet alot of the resources available for the semester and I gained a better understanding of what the college expects and even a little bit about what I should expect from this semester. Unfortunately, most of it is too boring for even this blog. So, I will skip to the interesting parts of the meeting. (at least for me)

First off, to entertain myself, when instructors spoke I tried to imagine sitting listening to one of their lectures. Most of them sounded fine, there was just one lady who had a nasal voice and paused frequently while talking. I fear I would not survive in her class. There was another professor who taught English who I know I would not survive in her class either. She informed us that she does NOT allow laptops in her class. I cannot imagine how I could take an English class where I had to write out all of my notes. I have disastrous penmanship and I am left handed and drag my hand through everything I write. This results in most of my handwritten notes looking horrible when I am done. So, what was her reason for not allowing laptops in class??? ..."You can't listen and type." What?? How is that any different than writing with a pen on a piece of paper? Freaking Luddite!

Speaking of writing disabilities... that brings me to the next interesting part of the meeting. They talked alot about the American Disabilities Act (ADA). Apparently it has expanded MASSIVELY since I was in school. There are many provisions in the act now to allow students to take ALL test open book and with all their notes. Some provisions allow students to be given as much time as necessary to complete a test and some go as far as to require the instructor to read them the test. As you can imagine, this has created a massive amount of work and adjustments for faculty to take in all these accommodations. There were real issues with being fair to the rest of the students while still giving the accommodations required by law to the other student. Oh, did I mention that you are not allowed to explain to the other students why this student is getting all these aids and special attention. You are supposed to act like everything is normal.

The main issue was that this degrades the concept of higher education. It sort of came down to the issue of whether getting a college degree is an inalienable right handed down from god. I thought that one of the professors summed it up best, “What we can all take away from this is… If you are going in for surgery you want to make sure you ask your surgeon if they got there on a 504(ADA Learning Disability Accommodation)!”

The other issue that saddened me to see was a major change from when I was a student. This pervasive climate of fear that is in our culture now, really manifests itself on the academic level. My gut tells me that it stems from the pacifistic leanings of academia. Since they have never taught themselves how to protect themselves, they live in fear of the world around them. It is a lot like the fear of a handgun. If you have never been taught how to properly handle one, then it is probably very scary. But, once you know how to check if it is loaded or not, handle safely at all times and identify when the gun is not operating safely, it becomes much less frightening. It doesn’t mean you lose your healthy does of respect of the power in your hands. It just isn’t such a mystery anymore. Unfortunately, I think this is the way that the academic world is handling its discipline issues. You mix this in with a small town rural-ish community college and you get a good dose of paranoia. I cannot count the number of times last night we were told to call the emergency help line if anything gets out of control in our classroom. They said it so many times that even I was getting worried about all the horrible things that could happen in my Linux class. But, I just had to listen to their “examples” to feel much better. I don’t want to go into details in the blog, but, I promise you… they were nothing that couldn’t be handled by the instructor and resolved quickly.

Overall I found it to be a good evening and I am even sorta looking forward to starting my class. I also got all of my equipment working the way I wanted in my classroom last night which helps me feel better about the start of the semester. Well, back to work…. I am sooooo glad it is Friday. This first long week of the year has been challenging.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

What an ice storm


I had a very interesting commute to work today. My valley and the drive all the way to about 1/4 of the way up the mountain was just rain and wet roads. Then about 1/4 the way up the mountain all of the trees started to get coated in ice. By the time I turned off onto my road along the ridgeline, everything was heavily coated in ice. I had to stop an remove two large trees from the road at one point because they were bigger than what I wanted to drive over. (even in the Jeep) I did get to see a snowplow going down the road just plowing ice chunks and downed limbs from trees. It was pretty entertaining.

I also have my first picture in my blog. woo hoo! It is a close up of the ice on the grass outside my office I took with my camera phone. It is the most I felt I could do without getting in trouble at work. It is a shame they have such strict policies about photographing things on site or I could've snapped some really really neat pictures today.

Oh, I also decided to go ahead and hire on with the main contracting company for the couple weeks until I switch over to the other contracting company. So, I finished filling out the 24 page application today! ugh.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Karma has its way of really biting you in the ass.

I finally have a job that I do truly enjoy.

  • My boss is great

  • The hours are good

  • The commute is short (for where I live) and scenic

  • The view from my office is probably the best anywhere in the 10 closest states

  • The work is very interesting

  • The people I work with are great

  • And it pays pretty good.

So....... This is how it is going.......

I currently subcontract into my position to a company that has the main contract. (I am leaving the names of companies and locations off for many reasons) The main contract isn't for what I do with the agency. The role that I perform is outside of the contract, but, my role was instituted by taking money from another project (which is my main role) and putting that money into this contract to bring me on board. The deal was that I would be sub contracted in for 3 months and then switched over to the company that has the main contract. This should occur next week. There have been a few hiccups along the way though...

The first came on New Year's Eve. For the three weeks or so leading up to New Year's Eve, the main contract was hitting some roadblocks and there was a MAJOR funding discrepancy. The contract expired on 12/31 and after that I could come to work, but, I would be working "at-risk" which means I wouldn't get paid for the time I worked unless the new contract was signed. We had a letter of intent from the agency for the contract extension, but, that means nothing without the contract. It came down to about 5PM on New Year's Eve before the contract was signed. That resulted in a very stressed out me for the final 3 weeks or so of the year. My apologies to anybody who I was a little short or despondent to during that time.

The next comes in the extension of the contract. The extension goes till March 4th. At that time we are to switch over to a new contract. But... there is a catch.... Word on the street is that the main company on the contract is NOT getting the new contract. So, they are hoping to latch onto the company that is currently the front runner to win the bid and to sub into the contract that way. So, once again I would be subcontracting on a project as a semi-outsider. The nice thing from that would be that the new big contract would be for several years, so if it all went right I would have job security for a long time.

But, there is a catch....

My current boss and the group I am working are making their own contract vehicle which would just handle our group. I would still have a position that was separate from the rest of my group (It is kind of unavoidable due to the nature of my position), but, I would be on the main level of the contract and it would be for several years also. It would also help semi-guarantee I would continue to work for my current boss and in the group that I currently work for.

This would require me to at some point leave my current contractor who I am going to be hiring on with next week about 2 weeks after I hire on with them. I feel kind of crappy about that, but, it is just contract work after all. It isn't like I have a big debt to them or anything. I would then work for another contracting agency from Feb 1st till the new contract vehicle was in place.

The main catch there is, I have been informed from my boss that the second route is the only way he can guarantee me funding for my position in his group.

That realization kind of makes my mind up for me. I will have to hire on with the main contracting company next week and then 2 weeks after that quit and hire on with the other temporary contracting company and then when the new contract vehicle is in place I will hire on with the company that administers that. (Which could be the company I am hiring on with next week, which would result in a nice big circle.)

As you can see... things are never as simple as they should be. This is what I get for having a job I really enjoy. *sigh*

Monday, January 5, 2009

Is it too late?

I know it is ALREADY January 5th, but, I think I can still squeeze in some New Years Resolutions. I was feeling frustrated today and I have decided that it is because I have no long term goals right now. So, here goes... My New Years Resolutions:

  • Get to 205 pounds (I think 200 is just pushing it)
  • Successfully complete the Linux class I am teaching this spring
  • Fix this stupid stomach problem once and for all
  • Become competent in my Xingyi Qigong training and move into the fundamental moving patterns of Xingyiquan
  • Figure out what to do for the next step in my organized education
Ok. That should do it. I think that is plenty to work on for this year. It also made for good filler today since I really don't feel like writing about anything.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Who am I?

I am reading an enjoyable book right now, "Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal." It is a humorous and enjoyable read, but, it has caused me to spend too much time thinking about life, who we are and what my purpose on the planet is. (Not that it is hard to get me to start thinking about those things.)

For those of you who have not read it, it is based around the experiences of Jesus Christ in the time that is not covered in the gospels. Mainly after his birth till about age 30. During this time he and his childhood friend (Biff) travel to visit the three wise men who came to his birth. This results in him learning about many of the ancient religions. This of course is going to lead to me doing my usual read. Which translates into... I hope can finish the book before I read a bunch of other books related to it. It is a quick read, so I think I will get through it before I head off to read a bunch of other texts. So far, the other books I want to read are:
Not exactly a simple or short reading list. But, I think they would be good to help me try to figure out what I am supposed to be doing on this planet and who I really am. I mean I have a general idea of who I am. I like to eat and breathe. I like to be doing instead of watching. I like to interact and be around other people. I like to be in control. I am an egotistical perfectionist (so I generally feel like a failure at all times.) I generally distrust authority. And many many other things. But, I don't really have a clear picture of who I am. I think I need to figure that out before I can figure out what my purpose is. If anything, this should keep me busy for a while.

At least for now I can enjoy this humorous and enlightening read.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Teachers Block

So... I have this Linux class I will be teaching starting in two weeks. I am not really sure why I signed up for this in the first place. I guess since both of my parents are teachers I thought I might as well take a crack at it. I can tell you right now, I don't think I could make a career out of it. No matter how much I might enjoy it. I just cannot imagine getting paid so little to do something. I am not saying I am wealthy or making money hand over fist at my full-time job, but, one week's pay at my full-time job out paces a semesters worth of pay teaching the class. Its just crazy. I have no idea how my parents do it.

I am really unsure how to prepare for the class. There are several reasons for this:

  1. I have never taught in an educational environment before.

  2. There is no preset curriculum for the class. I have to make my own.

  3. I don't really have any demographics or background on the students I will be teaching. (Knowledge level, life experience(age), IT experience, Philosophy around open source, etc.)

  4. I was always a pretty bad student in structured classes, so I have no idea how to make a decent one for somebody who needs structure

Issue #1
I have taught IT and Petroleum Engineering topics in the corporate world, but, I imagine that this will be very different. In the corporate world the classes are, at most, a week long. The people in the class are most likely there because they have a very specific reason to learn what I am going to teach. They also come from a similar background from me and have similar life experiences.

The students in the night class may be there for work or they may be there just to gain general knowledge or they may just be taking the class because it is required to graduate.

This should make for a very interesting experience to say the least.

Issue #2
This class was taught previously, but, the guy who taught it is in semi-retirement. He has an old syllabus and he has the book that he used in the class. He really has no quizzes, test or lessons from the class. He also taught the class using a very strange distro of Linux that looked like a cross between Mandrake and Caldera.

I am going to teach the class using Fedora 10 since this will help them be ready to use Red Hat in the corporate world and will give the a decent stable desktop to try out at home.

Issue #3
I have the class roster and I have done as good of a snoop as I can on the names on the list. A few of them have their own websites, so that makes me hopeful that they are at least generally computer literate. One is the main contact for the college's conceal carry on campus group. So, I know he will be a student I can relate to. :-) Two are from the operations group at my place of work. I have never met them, but, some co-workers say they are bright folk that they enjoy working with.

The rest... I have no idea and it should be interesting. It is a night class, so I think it will be an interesting mix.

Issue #4
The best way to sum up how I like to learn is 'Wikipedia.' I like to read about something and then I will find something in the reading that piques my interest and then I am off reading about that, which leads to me finding something else and digging down on that. Eventually, I finish learning about what I came into learn about in the first place, but, it is a very circuitous route. This is why the hyperlinks in Wikipedia are so great for me.

I think the best way to describe how I learn is like a computer program that uses subroutines. I start with the main program (what I came to learn) and then I make these little function calls that may have little function calls in them. I always go back to the original origin, but, I run alot of these subroutines before I am finished.

I am worried that this will not be the way my students will want to learn. I am going to have to focus heavily on giving the class structure. And frankly, I have no idea how I am going to do it without going crazy or making the class horribly stuffy and unimaginative.

Well, I guess that is about it for right now. I am going to go back to making a presentation on the history of Linux. I don't know if writing this out has helped me at all. But, maybe somebody will read this and have some insight or experience to share with me. I know I will have a much clearer picture after the first class. Or maybe I won't....

Is it really a work day?

It is so quiet here at work. The building I work in usually has about 50 people in it. Today I have found 5. I spent part of the morning putting stickers and labels on some stuff and attaching lanyards to USB keys. It will actually be nice when people show up again on Monday so all the things I am waiting on will get done and I can get back to actual work. I will be happy to discontinue toiling in the doldrums of blue collar pain.

I thought about my posting yesterday and decided I should post an example of the poor editing I see on major websites these days. This ran on the front page of CNBC for several hours back on December 10th, 2008:

"Stocks Pushed Hire By Auto Bailout"

What!?!? I know it would pass a freaking spell checker, but, did anybody even take a second to read the headline? It was on the front page as the link for the story and was the lead story. It was also the title of story when you clicked on the link. Just unbelievable....

Enough about that though, but, while I am on a mini-rant about news organizations... Why are we such sick human beings? I was driving home yesterday and CNBC was on commercial, so I flipped the XM to CNN. For one, I see that CNN is trying to be all hip now and is using Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. I love the way they try to pimp it. I hope the anchors are sick of it. But, the main thing that got my goat was just how callous news coverage is anymore.

The main example I am thinking of is as follows. The anchor was talking to two bloggers (ha ha ha) one in Isreal and the other in Gaza. They were each giving their accounts of what was happening on the ground. So, the Gaza dude is talking and the anchor kinda cuts in and says (I may not have the quote exact, but, you will get the gist), "Ok. So, we get a picture of your day to day, but, can you give us more insight on the women? And what about the children? How are the children? Are they scared?" I mean come on. That the heck do you think? I'm going to guess that the children don't want to get blown up and think the F-16s are pretty freaking loud! When you step away from the whole thing and think about it though, it is pretty sick. What the anchor is saying in different words is: "Your story is getting boring and it just isn't dramatic enough to keep our viewers. Can you knock it up a level and tell us more about the people our viewers would be more interested in? Can you focus on the little kids? Like, are there any dead laying around you or anything?"

How is any of this garbage healthy for the average person, and more importantly, how can it serve any useful or noble purpose? The sickest part of this was when he tries to wrap it up with a little commentary at the end. The anchor talks to another person in the studio and says that hearing from these bloggers really shows you the human side of this conflict. It shows that there are really people hurting and the war is just about politics and those politicians never see the human side of this conflict. BULLSHIT. That anchor is no different than any politician. He just got done exploiting two people to further his agenda (ratings). He doesn't give a crap about their struggle outside of how it will excite the people who listen/watch the program.

I'm not going to try to break it down and say there is a simple solution to this or that it can be easily explained. It is freaking war. There is no simple answer and there really never is any decent solution. That is why people bomb the crap out of each other.

I just wish people would say what they mean instead of trying to cover their real agenda all the time. It is so useless.

On a happier note… The pond is frozen over again. So, pond hockey season is a possibility in the next few weeks if the weather cooperates. Ice thickness is about ¼-1/2”. So, it is far from ready. But, it is at least going in the right direction!

Thursday, January 1, 2009

DISCLAIMER

For the last few years I have criticized the blogging community over and over again. This mainly stems from one general issue with most blogs I come across.

While I am no grammarian and generally a failure when it comes to using the English language properly, I find the rampant misspellings and horribly neglectful sentence structure of blogs to be mind-numbing. I just cannot take a person seriously when they continuously have common words misspelled and sentences that make no sense in their postings.

I guess I was expecting some form of hierarchy in the grammatical world. Of course at the top of that would be books that are printed and published. Hardbacks receive preference over paperbacks. Here is a bulleted list of the "grammar hierarchy" as I think it should be, starting with least leeway for mistakes down to most forgiving:

  • Hardback Books
  • Paperback Books
  • Periodicals
  • Major online internet sites that produce semi-static content
  • Newspapers
  • Major online internet sites that produce semi-fluid content
  • AP/Reuters/etc.
  • Blogs, Online Journals, Personal Webpages, etc.
  • Listserve Postings/Online Forums
  • General Email
  • Social Networking sites
  • IM/IRC
  • Text messages received via cellphone
  • Graffiti
The beauty of this list is that it has finally made me accept blogging. Over the last year or so I have noticed a spike in horribly misprinted headlines and sentences in stories on many major websites and in several papers that I read. Yet, I still continue to accept what they have to say and believe that there was thought and consternation put into the postings, regardless of what the final product may look like. So, with that in mind, I have decided to not concern myself with all of that old world concern for grammar and spelling and will delve into the blog world to post my generally cynical musings for the delectation of others.

So, there you go... I cannot write. I do not have any grammarian skills. (as you see I have sentences that are way to long and my punctuation is downright untamed) But, I have alot of thoughts in my head and it is probably healthy to purge them in some format.

So... expect to hear alot more from me, because man.... do I love to complain.