Coding leads to distractions

Sometimes when I write code I just need to step away and let what I am doing simmer for a bit. When I come back to it I am fresh and ready to keep plugging along. That is where I am right now. I am writing a bunch of scripts to automate hardening of systems at work. It is coming along, but, it is tedious and I just need to stop for a bit. The good thing is, I finally have an excuse to take a break for a few minutes and update my blog. You would think that I was shipped off to Pakistan after the meeting based on how I have been updating my blog lately.

I went to my new contractor's orientation on Monday and it was actually fairly interesting. They are a huge company with alot of opportunities. I even have some interest in staying on with them even if my current job moves to another contract. I have only been officially working for them for 2 weeks, but, I have interacted with them frequently ever since I got up here. They treat everyone very well and to boot... when I put in my salary requirements, they came back with a number above what I asked! That is a good way to make a happy employee. So, we will see. I am sure I will have to make a decision by the summer. But, I like my options at this point.

The weight loss is chugging along. When we started the contest I was at 267. My latest weighing at home has me at 241. So, I think it is working out so far. I am happy with the results, but, I still struggle with it at times. But, the longer I do it, the easier it is to keep up. Tomorrow we have a double date for Valentine's Day. That should be fun and a change. I just need to watch my food intake. Since we are doing Japanese Steakhouse, I plan to avoid the grill and just have Sashimi. It should be filling and delicious, so that should do the trick.

Class is plugging along. I gave them their second quiz on Wednesday. Just glancing at it, they seemed to do alright. Nobody aced it, but, I think I am being fair in my questions. I will see how it is once I have all of them graded. At that point I may need to change the scale a little bit. But, we will see. It is one of the advantages of doing a class for the first time. I can adjust as I go because I have nothing to base it on outside of what I am doing.

On the should be happy, but, is just plain frustrating front.... My wife and I have some major purchases that we need to make in the near future. I am trying to budget it all out, but, of course we just won't have enough money when it is all said and done. That is just the way it is. There are three items we need, I will list them in increasingly expensive order:
- New Washer and Dryer
- Decent personal laptop for me
- Pickup Truck

Needless-to-say, the washer and dryer are important because it makes our lives ALOT easier. We are just going to have to decide on whether to go with the front loading washer to cut down on water consumption, but, pay more.

The laptop isn't an absolute necessity, but, it is a pain borrowing my wife's Mac whenever I need to be on the road or something. I can't use my work laptop for really anything due to the nature of my job and the security on it. So, I need to break down and actually buy myself one. I have not done this in years, so I am not sure. I would be happy to get a MacBook Pro, but, they are waaaay to expensive to buy for myself. I think I am going to end up buying an HP or Similar with the 17" screen. I guess I will have to get Windows on it. But, I plan to blow that away as soon as I get it. After that it comes down to what flavor of Linux I want to put on it. We will see....

The truck is (of course) the big one. Sometimes I think, "eh, I will just get a small truck and save money." But, if I do that I fear that I will tire of it after a couple years and want to sell it and buy something else. I might as well buy what I really want. I started out wanting the F-250 so I could really haul stuff, but, after a while I have settled on the F-150. I want a SuperCrew and I want the longest bed I can get with it. After that, there is a long list of items I want, but, I would be flexible if it meant getting the price down. The deals right now are awesome, so I may be buying it sooner than I planned. The other thing that is pushing up my decision is that it looks like the interest off of the purchase would be deductible. This means I would WANT to finance it instead of saving up and paying with cash. I am going to keep looking and doing my homework, but, I plan to be ready to make the purchase as soon as the time is right and the situation makes sense. I was hesitant to make the purchase with an uncertain job outlook, but, now I feel that I am looking at steady employment here for the next few years I am more inclined to make the purchase.

Ok. Back to coding. They want me to do some work with an Avaya system. Ugh... friggin phones. :)

Should be a fun day

Today is shaping up to be a pretty enjoyable day. It is going to be in the upper 50s, we have an interesting lyceum this morning and I have a bunch of friends coming over to shoot, skate and hang out this afternoon.

I am especially looking forward to the lyceum. It is a lecture series we hold here in the valley and it always has excellent speakers. Well, except for that one guy who talked about oil last year, he (me) was a little suspect. Today's speaker is Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin who was the former ambassador to Pakistan and is now President of the Middle East Institute. She was ambassador to Pakistan during 2001-2003, so, I'm sure she will have some very interesting stories and insight on what happened there during that time and what is going on right now.

Pakistan is such an interesting country. It is not even twice the size of California, but, it has over 5 times the population. It sits at the crossroads of just about every ancient civilization on earth. The people there can trace their ancestry back to Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, Greek, Scythian, Hun, Arab, Mongol, Persian, Baluchi, and Afghan roots. It is such a diverse country, yet it is heavily Muslim (95%) and a majority Sunni (75%). It is a fairly undeveloped country, but, a nuclear power. It has been in a constant war for the last 2000 years and will probably be in one for the future due to its geographic location. So many countries would like to own and influence this section of the world due to its access to so many other places. The only way I see Pakistan being able to break the cycle of violence around it and thrust upon it is to make major gains economically. With the size of workforce available, the location of the country and the natural resources available to it, it should be able to climb up to first world status with the right goals, direction and leadership.

It has done the first most important step. It is no longer a militarily ruled country. Musharraf stepped down they now have an elected Prime Minister. This wasn't till after the main candidate was assassinated and yet another constitutional crisis. This trimming of the military's power will help redirect the goals of the country and bring many aspects of the country back under private control. While it will be a slow and sometimes unstable process, it will have some really good results in the end.

The second step is to get their economy back under control. It had a good run from 2001-2007. This was spurred by large amounts of aid in the beginning and a steady flow of foreign investment after that. They saw a GDP growth of 6-8% and even more importantly for the war on terror, a drop of 10% in the poverty levels. Unfortunately, the commodity boom of 2007-08 hurt Pakistan's economy and devalued their currency significantly. They are now seeing a spike in inflation from all of the spending over the last few years too. (America could learn alot from the right now) Inflation jumped from 7.7% in 2007 to 20.8% in 2008! Not a good sign for spurring growth and foreign investment. I am going to guess they are going to have to go to the IMF for more conditional loans if they haven't already. From this aspect, Pakistan stands at a tenuous juncture with the US. They really need the aid and support we offer, but, they are also afraid that one day we will back out, or they will be forced to give up the aid. (i.e. our continuously increasing raids into their sovereign soil) Hopefully, this issue will be addressed and a solution will be hammered out by the new administration. This is one glimmer of hope I see in the message of "change." I really hope that the US's policies with Pakistan "change." We need to cease the raids into their country, we need to help them financially wherever possible and we need help them where we can without them becoming dependent on us, nor having to answer to our directives.

I really think that with a strong economy, most of their other problems will stand down. They would become a viable trading partner with India which would do more to ease tensions than any peace talks. They would become a positive and guiding role for some of the other undeveloped countries in their region. It would help squash the rebellions in the NorthWest territories and bring that part of the country back into rule of Islamabad. It would also decrease the number of unemployed youth in the country and cut off some major feeding grounds for the less than desirable elements in the world.

Ok. I think I have rambled enough today. It was good to type out my thoughts so I could be more informed today during the talk. I really look forward to it and I will share any interesting insights when I get back.

Working on my resume

Since they are going to cap the pay of executives who work for companies taking TARP money, I imagine that alot of them will be hitting the exits shortly. While they may not find a $500,000/year salary acceptable...

I do.

So, I would like to use this moment to announce my intention to sign on as the CEO of one of the TARP banks. I think I am going to start with a resume and cover-letter to Citigroup. I was a heavy shareholder for quite some time and have a decent understanding of the structure and organization of the company.

I want to write more... but, I need to go work on my cover-letter. If anybody has any good ideas of what to put in it, I am all ears. :)

My name is Chubby

Sorry for the long hiatus. It was a fairly busy weekend and I am finally back to a decent level of rest and have most of my pressing stuff done at the farm, so I can actually blog tonight. Besides, I sorta blogged on Facebook this weekend by writing 25 things about me. It probably wasn't the most uplifting or inspiring list. But, that's what you get when you write it at 5AM.

On a humorous note, I went bowling this weekend. I hadn't done that in years. I started out with a pretty poor showing but, I rolled a 167 in the second game. So, not too embarrassing in the end. It was 10 pin, so it wasn't as much fun as duck pin. But, I made do and the company we bowled with were fun. I also got to wear one of my bowling shirts and insist that I be called "The Dude." So it was all good.

We also did a Super Bowl party at a couple friend's house. We had a really good time and I even got a little jumping on the trampoline time. The game was actually interesting AGAIN this year. I am starting to imagining myself getting excited to watch the actual Superbowl game one year. Nah...

I also made an announcement at lunch on Saturday. I have decided to go back on the Atkins diet. I have done it before and it got me down from 298 to around 210. I slowly gained the weight back on right up to the 300 mark around the middle of last year. I then brought it back down to around 260 by last October. But, I have been hovering around there ever since. This contest at work gave me the spark to get things going again. I cut my calories and shed some weight fairly well. But, I just don't think I can maintain it with the calorie method. It is too hard to decide what to eat and to not cheat. So, I have switched to Atkins and I have stuck with it since Saturday with little difficulty. I have finally pushed through the 250 barrier I had been trying to get through for a while. I really hope to continue to push this month and get through the 240 barrier by the end of it. Then I can continue to work at a good pace towards my main goal of 210.

I think Atkins isn't too bad for me due to my diet habits in the first place. I think most people picture a steak when they think of Atkins. But, I am not a real steak fan. I prefer meat in this order:
- Fish
- Fish
- Vegetables made to resemble meat
- Chicken
- Pork
- Other fowl (except for Turkey)
- Beef
- Turkey

So, with that preference tree. I actually eat a decent amount of healthy food on Atkins. My diet ends up mostly consisting of: Fish, Vegetables, Salads and Chicken. Which I would say isn't too bad. So, I will give this a run and work it with lots of exercise and see where I can get to. Maybe I can stay in this and stay focused and eventually get down to my dream weight of 185. But, that is a loooong ways off.

And to close, I will add an update on my current employment status:

I am now with a new contracting company doing the same job. I started on Monday. This contract is good through 3/4/09. We will see what happens then... or before then...