Category: grindstone

All about breadwinning.

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frank and the road to nowhere

You know... I don't know how this ties in... sorry.
Missed yesterday because I was in a class all day, being taught how to “Work with China.” I guess because my whole industry is “offshoring” work to China – so I need to get better at working with these folks by better understanding their cultural and political situations. The class was interesting, mostly just because history and culture are interesting to me to begin with. Anyway, at least now I’m prepared for the eventual communist China takeover of the world’s tech industry. Sign me up, me and Mao go way back.

I had this whole entry written Friday to post Monday, so it would appear my writing hadn’t slacked off – but I decided against it, as it was mostly religion-themed. Who wants to read three pages of my rambling about the scientific vs. Biblical age of the earth anyway. So really, by not posting yesterday – I saved you. Your faith, assuming you have any, is safe from further erosion by my misguided “intellectualism.” But for real, 6000 years old and we lived with dinosaurs? I just don’t get it anymore. Oops, sorry.

Talked to Frank yesterday, he’s still in the Army. He’s signed up to go to Alaska and build roads in some remote town for a month in June. When I asked him why they were building roads there, who’s driving there – he responded by calling the place “the Alaskan whore.” Apparently all the branches of the military go there and build stuff. If you believe him, they have no reason for building it other than to round out some defense budget. In the Army they call the project, unofficially, “the road to nowhere.”

Other than building pointless roads in order to spend money and keep busy – he’s doing pretty good. He also said he’s leaving for Iraq in January of 2005, which seemed a little far off to me for him to already be so sure about? but he swears he’s already slated for the tour. When I asked about the fact that Bush said we’re pulling out and giving the country to the Iraqis – he just laughed. Comforting. Good to know we’re paving rainforests and fighting wars for the betterment of our country. Jeez, I think California is turning me into a pinko liberal… umm… “kill the poor and gimme back my guns!” There… that’s better.

This weekend was a busy one. Rented a jackhammer to plant some trees in the backyard. Yeah, a jackhammer. Makes the digging so much easier in a backyard that’s more rock than dirt. Got six holes dug and filled with trees, and it really “greens up” the yard. Soon enough I’ll have something that looks more like a suburban backyard more than it does the surface of Mars. Mowed the lawn, edged, pulled weeds, and did various other yardie stuffs. Still found time to see Kill Bill 2, drink a little bit, and head out for some wakeboarding on Sunday. Didn’t get to ride though, as my crazy-allergy-itchy thing came back with a vengeance on the river. What’s wrong with me?

I had another paragraph here, but it was dumb so I deleted it. Like the last song on Let It Bleed, or falling gold bars, I’m out.

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please don’t add me to the axis

Flotsam?
With a brother in the Army, I think sometimes about those guys. I got curious about how much the government pays its dogs of war, and come to find out that’s all public information. You can find out what any military employee makes as long as you know their rank and years of service. Turns out that the low-man on the totem pole doesn’t make that much. This page says an E3 with less than two years time only grosses about $1500/mo, with a variable housing allowance depending on where you’re stationed. Of course, if you’re fighting overseas or away from family you get a little more for hazard and hardship – but I bet it’s still slim. I figure the majority of the “soldiers” actually stalking around the desert and shooting people would be Ex ranks. Only the brass make the bucks it seems. While it’s not my job of choice, I’m damn glad there are people willing to do it. Just like I’m glad there are people that want to fix cars for a living, or teach mentally handicapped kids or unplug toilets. All things I could not, or would rather not, do – but all necessary. Army – I’m not trying to compare you auto mechanics or the mentally handicapped, just using a bit o’ parallelism to make a point. Please don’t add me to the Axis of Evil.

Sharaun’s been so stressed lately with her class. It’s apparently school-wide knowledge that she’s got the absolute worst bunch of kids. She said she’ll take her kids to another room for Spanish or computers, and when she comes to pick them up the resource teacher just hugs her and whispers, “You’ve only got three more months.” A couple of her bad apples are constantly getting suspended, and not just for cutesy elementary school things. They’ve got fistfights, sexual harassment, public urination, grand theft, and a laundry list of other offenses.

She’s got good kids, but I can see how it would only take a few kids to make the whole situation a complete nightmare. What’s worse is the parents who actually complain when their kids are sent to the principal. It’s never the child’s fault. It’s either racism, singling out or harassing a child for no reason, or not giving them enough focused instruction. Anyone’s fault but the kids, or God forbid – the parents. In the same day, parents will come to the school to bitch at the administrators for “depriving” their child of classroom time by sending them to the principal for peeing on the playground, and won’t show up for meeting scheduled months in advance to discuss that child’s possible learning disability and behavioral problems.

Being a teacher must be extremely hard. I would imagine that in some ways it might be like being a nurse or doctor, where you have to learn to not take things personally. In those kind of jobs, you’re the catalyst that defines another person’s outcome. Nurses and doctors are in the driver’s seat with peoples’ health and lives, and teachers are responsible for the academic development of young minds. I realize that neither the nurse, doctor, nor teacher is really 100% accountable for the outcomes of others – but that must be a hard thing to keep in mind when you’re actually working those jobs. At least, I know Sharaun has a hard time with it. No matter how much you try, it must be hard to not question yourself when your class performs poorly on something.

These last few weeks for her have been hard, with open house, report cards, and her formal evaluation – all in the same week. A formal evaluation is when the principal comes in and watches you do a lesson plan with the kids. They take notes on all sorts of criteria and schedule a review meeting a few days later to discuss the results. I’m writing this, these past three paragraphs, and I’m realizing I really only wanted to say one thing: Sharaun’s review meeting for her evaluation went great. For the third quarter in a row, the administration had nothing in the way of negative feedback for her. Her review lasted a mere 10min compared to others which lasted over an hour. She gets nothing but positive feedback, which is like a shot in the arm to her. I love to see it when she’s been reinforced like that, her whole perspective changes a little and you can tell that some of that “burden of accountability” for her dumbass kids is lifted.

I’m glad I’m not a teacher. I’d have a hard time not simply discounting (or throttling) the flotsam and jetsam kids of the educational ocean. Props to teachers. And car mechanics and soldiers and plumbers. Thanks.

I dunno guys, I think that’s enough for today. Dave out.

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so i write them down

Weather.
Yeah. I didn’t write yesterday. What you gonna do about it?

Woke up this morning at 4:30am to hop a flight to Seattle. Tonight we hit Gameworks, some kind of fancy virtual-reality arcade which is somehow related to Steven Spielberg. It’s a business trip, but the weather here makes me want to do anything but business. I’ve caught the camping bug pretty bad lately, with the awesome weather we’ve been having this past week. Makes me want to get outside and get away. I’ll be needing that release soon. Right now I’m so busted-tired that I can’t focus.

I was gonna write about writing, but I read my old journal and found a nice summary from April of 2001:

Yo. Listening to CSN&Y’s “Deja Vu,” and totally reminiscing about the good old days when this music was brand spankin’ new to me and how amazing it all was. Seems like times gone by can always be remembered as “simpler times.” I think that’s what has crystallized those special years in my memory as the best of all things. I have had many great times in my life, and am in fact living some of the best right now – but I’ll still remember those middle school years (7th, 8th & 9th) as some of the absolute best.

Even with all the pressure and junior high social politics – the things we did and saw have just been permanently etched into my memory. I think it has something to do with the glory of discovery: doing, seeing, and living things for the first time. Experiencing things for the first time can only be done once. Just really becoming a person, and having so much fun along the way.

I wouldn’t trade those years for anything. They are the epitome of what I yearn for now. So much less responsibility, so care free, not knowing what to do but making a go at it anyway and laughing at the “seriousness” of others. I know, it’s all about being a kid – and I pity kids who don’t get to have that revelatory period, it takes a pretty balanced combo of curiosity, stupidity, courage, perceived invincibility, and somewhat lax or liberal parenting. But if all those planets line up at the right time, it can be a most wonderful thing – and I speak from experience.

So many memories that I don’t want to ever forget. So I write them down, however small and fragmented, just to get them archived somewhere – mainly for my own benefit. I’ve also thought about one day letting my kids read through these things. I wonder would I like to read something like this that my dad wrote? I think I would , once I was old enough to appreciate it. Even if it did make blatant references to drugs, sex, and other things I would of course forbid my children from getting into.

But, I guess that goes with the idea of not letting them in on it until they are old enough to understand or appreciate it.

Back to the 2k4. Dave out.

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grooming our replacements

Lazy is good.
This week went by really fast. Guess it could have something to do with the holiday, but it was also a really busy week at work for me. I’m glad it’s over. My pre-planned weekend activities amount to nothing save mowing the lawn and doing some housecleaning, which is good – I like unplanned time better than planned. I like to be able to choose nothing as something to do, and not be tied to anything. If I’m not committed to anything, the prospect of spending a Saturday working around the house or tinkering with a web page is almost too great a temptation to resist. Also, I kinda think it’s more fun to plan things at the last minute. I like when people call up and spur-of-the-moment plans are made to meet and do something. When you look back on things, spontaneous fun events always seem to be remembered as “funner” than planned ones. I think because there’s that extra bit of “good luck” in the fact that something last-minute worked out so well. Also, I’m lazy and always like to have the “do nothing” option.

I’ve been spending a lot of time working on webpages lately. If I’m not working on the t-shirt site, I’m working on the Pac Man Project pages. I’ve been concentrating on both really. I really need to update the Pac Man pages and get them on “auto pilot” so I don’t have to mess with them anymore. I guess now it’s down to a minimal amount of content that I still need to write, but the major work is in re-arrangement and making it look pretty. So, I’ve been fixing the layout and flow and making the whole site easier to navigate and read. I don’t really know why, since there’s no reason really… I guess I just like the project. For the t-shirt site, my motivation is profit. I think Shaine and I (partners in this enterprise) stand a really good chance at making some dough from that project.

I read a really interesting article in Wired magazine on the plane over to Taiwan. It was about the current state of “outsourcing” software jobs to India. While I’m not a software person, being in the high tech industry I am well aware of the outsourcing craze. While the software jobs are going to India, hardware jobs are going to China. Right now we’re on an “accelerated hiring ramp” in Shanghai, and we have yearly percentages of headcount we need to acquire there. The company line is that they’re not actually moving jobs from here to there, but “growing the workforce” to help with some global economy or something. My direct boss-man says he doesn’t buy it, and thinks they are grooming our replacements. I’m not sure how I feel, but I definitely got a whole new perspective on the issue from the Wired article.

I mean, I suppose the whole outsourcing cycle has been going on, on a more basic level, for a long time. In human history, strong people move in and exploit weak people. Eventually, the weaker people learn to be stronger, and at that point the original strong people move on to yet another weaker people and exploit them. I’m no economist, but it seems like: move in to a place, exploit a weaker economy and workforce, drop that place as soon as the weaker economy and workforce strengthen as a result of being exploited, find a new place and repeat. My job seems safe for the time being, but I can foresee a time when I may have to alter the way I think and do things to make myself more valuable than some alien dude who can do exactly what I do at a 6th of the cost. For now, I’ll just keep getting fat and living my American dream-life while they starve. What?

Well, I guess that’s it for me. Dave out.

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enough to pay taxes

Declare the pennies on your eyes.
Well, yesterday was a fine example of Dave’s First Axiom of Finance: There’s no such thing as extra money. Ever since we moved into the house, I’ve been getting property tax bills from the county. When I set up my mortgage, I had them open an escrow account that I pay into each month to cover my taxes and homeowners insurance, I assumed everything was OK. After getting and immediately filing several bills, I got a little paranoid once and contacted my mortgage company to make sure the escrow account would pay the taxes as promised – they confirmed that all was OK. So, I went on happily filing the now-familiar tax bills in my unread “property tax” pile. Around December-time, I even got a statement from my escrow company which showed that they’d paid my taxes and all was well. I was happy.

Happy until, on Monday, Anthony mentioned just got stung on some kind of “supplemental property taxes.” Apparently, he had been blindly filing his tax bills in some drawer as well – thinking his escrow account would take care of them. I guess he’s a tad more observant than I am – because he noticed the word “DELINQUENT” on one of his bills. He opened it to find that, whatever these “supplemental taxes” are, they were marked “unpaid” and had a $100 penalty attached. He told me to take a look through my pile and make sure I wasn’t getting hit with the same thing. It was funny, because I had just gotten another one of the bills upon getting back from Taiwan this past week. Which, Anthony said, was right about when he got his.

Upon getting home, I found that I was indeed in the same boat as Anthony. My supplemental taxes are marked “unpaid” and there’s a $100 fine attached. So, I now owe the county some $2000… not a nice unexpected bill. Ugh. After a thorough review of my escrow account and property taxes due, I arrived at the conclusion that taxes suck ass. And not only that, the people that put together these statements are sadistic idiots of a breed unknown to me, who can read gibberish legalese and use a numbering system which is foreign to this planet. On top of that, they use old dot matrix printers and some Fortran script to print what’s possibly the most illegible and cryptic missives known to man, sprinkled with words like “anticipated disbursements” and “targeted cushion amount.”

Anyway, the whole point of this story was to demonstrate Dave’s First Axiom of Finance. Rewind a couple weeks to find me sitting in my comfy computer chair, doing my taxes with TaxCut. After an hour so, I happily announce to Sharaun that we’ll be getting $2000 back this year! Wow, having a house really paid off – writing off that interest put us in the “itemizing” range, and we’re finally getting some cash back. Oh, but wait… I now owe exactly $2000 in “supplemental property taxes.” Funny how having a house enables me to get just enough back from my taxes that I can now afford to pay… my taxes. I shoulda never thought of that money as “extra,” that’s the kiss of death. If you get unexpected money, try your hardest to think of it as a curse… maybe then the God of Breaking Even won’t smite you as he smote me. Good luck.

Enough about dough. Last night we watched the movie Thirteen. I had been anticipating it, since it got such rave reviews. Turns it out is based on a true story of one thirteen year old girl’s desire to be popular – and the self-destruction that comes from pursuing it. I was expecting something shocking and interesting. I guess it was a little of both, but I kinda felt like it wasn’t as well done as it could have been. At first, the whole thing was a little too over-the-top for me. Kind of like a souped up after-school-special, and just a little too Go Ask Alice-ish. But as the movie developed, I ended up accepting it for what it is: a decent statement on what some girls go through during those initial teenage years. Yeah, so they chose to profile an atypically extreme example, but I wonder how atypical? I guess that’s the point. So yeah, it made me think – but it was nowhere near as riveting as Spellbound.

Loving the Modest Mouse album more and more… the song “Float On” is genius, a real foot-tapper. Dave out.

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the hunter-gatherer part of my brain

...or you'll freeze to death!
Not much to report today, first day back at work after a week abroad. They recarpeted the entire floor I work on, so before I left for Taiwan I had to box up everything in my cube. Had to empty all drawers and shelves, take down all wall-hangings, pack and box and label everything in site. It was a pain. And then this morning it took me an hour to setup the thing before I could get any work done. Not exactly what I wanted to do on my first day back, but whatever. The boss man said we need new carpet, and I do what the boss man says. It is nice and springy though, but my chair doesn’t roll around as well as it used to. Owell.

I’ve been working on the website I’m doing with my old friend Shaine. We’re gonna try our hand at hawking t-shirts and other assorted gizmos online. We registered a domain and I’ve been working on the inventory database and shopping cart system. Right now I’m cautiously optimistic about the whole thing, not really sure that we’ll make money. But to put it together costs nothing, and we’ve got the merchandise, plus I love making webpages – so for me it’s a win-win. And hey, if we start to turn a profit – all the better! I think there are some good margins in t-shirts, so we’ll see what happens. I plan to have the site live by next weekend. It’d be great if I could finally turn my web-tinkering into a profit-generating enterprise. Only time will tell.

Tonight I think we’re gonna watch movie “Thirteen,” which is kind of a documentary I think. A documentary about rebellion in teenage girls, and I’m pretty sure it’s based on a true story. I wanted to see it when it was at the Crest downtown, but missed it. I’m kind of bracing for a depressing reality-type look at modern teen depravity – but hoping it’s not quite as bad as Kids. I figured it’d fit well with the growing-pains-of-American-youth documentary streak I’ve been on. Speaking of visual entertainment, I was ecstatic to learn that PBS is doing another period-type “reality” series. This one’s called Pioneer Quest, and it sounds similar to their previous efforts on Frontier House. I happened upon the original season of Frontier House one day and was hooked right off. It’s speaks right to the hunter-gatherer primal fantasy part of my brain. After that I got engrossed in their England-based 1940 House series, and I apparently missed two whole other installments. I’ve got big hopes for the new series, and my TiVo is on the ready.

The Notwist show was great last night. It was my first time going to Slims, which turned out to be a rather large place – with really good acoustics. The opening band was some crazy group called Themselves that combined some very beatsy alt-rap with a kind of performance art. The rapping/vocals were completely annoying to me, mainly because they were too fast and too shrill and too nasally to comprehend, but the beats and musical accompaniment was superb. In other concert news, we recently added to our upcoming show stable with an indie thoroughbred and a scrappy up-and-comer in the likes of Death Cab for Cutie and the Stars/Dears combo. I’m really excited about both. It’ll be the third or fourth time I’ve seen Death Cab, a second for the Stars, and a highly-anticipated first for the Dears. Good times. Oh, and in further music news – Modest Mouse’s new album leaked this morning… and it is superb… just superb.

OK, I’m outta here. Gotta work on some inventory databases and ASP pages. Until tomorrow then.

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how can that stuff not be interesting?

GIS for jetlag.
Back from Texas and all is well. Funny how two days flying can make you feel like you’ve been gone for a week. I was totally wiped out when I got home tonight (yes I’m writing this last night). A hot shower helped relax me, as I think a lot of my tiredness comes from just the tension associated with flying and wanting to be back home.

As for the presentation, it far exceeded my expectations. It was a large audience, and while they were inquisitive they weren’t aggressive – I think due in part to my being able to answer most questions easily. So my preparation paid off and my presenting-confidence has risen a notch with a very successful effort now under my belt. It’s good, because I’ll be in Taiwan for a week soon giving the same presentation multiple times a day. I feel much better now with today’s run having gone so well. I wasn’t really looking forward to spending another week in Taipei – but I found out that Ben will be there the same week, so at least we can have some crazy adventures in our spare time.

When I was in Houston overnight I did something I haven’t done since college. I used to put an album on each night while falling asleep. I’d usually put it on low and just listen as I fell asleep. I remember looking forward to choosing what I’d listen to each night, and then I’d put it on repeat and just let it go. Sometimes the words in the songs would influence my dreams, or the songs would work their way in somehow. Anyway, I haven’t done it in forever – mostly because I no longer have a stereo in the bedroom, and because Sharaun never really did like it. So Monday night I plugged in the laptop, set to a “I can sleep over this” volume, and queued up Not Exotic by Dolorean. A sleepy little album from an Oregon band, it’s folky hush-music is perfect to drift off to. It was still going when I woke up the next morning. Was kinda nice.

Ben made me kinda jealous the other day, he showed me the new book his reading. Something like “A peoples history of the United States.” It’s basically an account of US history from the peoples’ point of view. It’s all very “college” and highbrow, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t want to run out and get the same book so I could discuss it with him.

Anyway, it did look interesting – if huge. I love learning about history, I always have. Too bad most history classes in school manage to take all the fun out of studying history and reduce it to the ultimately boring task of memorizing dates and facts. To me history is about sentiment and feeling, atmosphere and climate of the times, and human development. How can that stuff not be interesting? That’s just the way it is. The past is interesting, the future is kinda scary but also exciting. What you know is often a source of comfort while what you don’t is often a source of discomfort. At least for me.

OK, I’ve rambled quite enough I think. Dave out.