We don’t need you anymore.

First off, I am no economist.  I am not even capable enough to balance my checkbook.  There are things in life I can do pretty well (if I do say so myself), but finances just isn’t my forte. 

That being said, I noticed something today looking at the 6 month DJIA chart.  Starting in March of 2009, there is a fairly gradual gain being seen there.  It isn’t the best rally Wall Street has had in its long history, but at least it appears from the outside looking in that there is some good stuff going on there and we might be heading out of a recession as a few financial prognosticators are saying.

Now, here is another chart that I saw earlier in the week.  It is the US Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment survey.  For the month of June, it shows a figure of 9.5% meaning that 9.5% of the population that CAN work isn’t working.  Yes, yes, there are all kinds of caveats about “seasonal adjustments” and the fact that a lot of people aren’t being counted if they stop looking for work for longer than four weeks and a lot of other crazy numbers that make my head spin.  For the sake of the argument, lets just say a lot of people are out of work right now in the US who should be working.  Other countries are being hit pretty hard too, but I was lazy and didn’t look up the numbers.  Global recession?  Ok, I wouldn’t doubt it.

Now, when I look at the above two charts, doesn’t something just leap out at you?  It sure did to me.  Here we have a stock market showing several months of gains and the unemployment numbers showing the highest percentage of out of work people in over a decade. 

Here is where my silly wild ass bug eyed thinking machine most people call a brain goes into a temporary lock up mode (don’t worry folks, it is only temporary…hopefully).  How could this be?  How can the stock market be doing fairly well and yet vast numbers of people aren’t employed?  Then my brain slams into gear and a thought crosses my mind.  Could the reason why this is happening is because we don’t need these people to have a functioning society?  Huh?  What?  How can that be?  I dunno, but it seems to me that this is what the numbers are saying.  Now true we are in debt up to our kids standing on our shoulders and our grandkids standing on their shoulders eyeballs and all that, but seriously, this is the only way anything makes sense here.  It is like someone somewhere is saying, “why create new jobs?  We have a fairly healthy economy as is?”  Why do I need to deal with these unemployed people?  Just leave them to fend for themselves.  I have a job right?  AM I RIGHT???  Wrong! 

Something is seriously messed up here.  I have no idea what is really going on or what is happening.  I am just trying to call things as I see them and it doesn’t make any sense to me.  

Here is hoping that those of you out there looking for work can find it soon.

GTD: Where I am at

A long time ago I wrote a blog post about how I was progressing with my GTD (Getting Things Done) system.  I thought I would circle back to see how things have progressed.

I still don’t follow the GTD method that is laid out by David Allen.  I just couldn’t get it to work right.  I also found I was just making more time for me to do more work.  Not what I want to do really.

For one thing, I gave up on OneNote.  For me it is just to unwieldy.  I also now have an iphone and there is no OneNote client for the iphone.  Also, I could never get the OneNote mobile client to work the way I wanted it to when I had a windows based smartphone.  I do like the Evernote application.  It is a really nice desktop and iphone application that can do many things and does them well.  I use evernote to type up my notes and take pictures of things I want to remember like business cards and things like that.  It is easy to search for my information which is a key requisite in my system.

I also use the “Remember The Milk” (RTM) application.  It is a web based application.  It also has a really nice iphone application (paid version only).  I started to use the RTM application because I started to work somewhere where I didn’t have full control of my Outlook tasks and couldn’t sync to my iphone.  I use RTM to set up reminders and to remember things I might have to do for work or need to be done around the house.  I can be alerted via several methods whether it is an SMS text, email, or even by twitter.

I have started using a moleskine cahier as my catch all “to do list”. I take a cahier with me everywhere.  I don’t always carry my iphone with me wherever I go (I know blasphemy!).  I still haven’t gotten used to typing on the iphone and can write faster in the cahier.  I protect it with a leather cover from Renaissance Art.  The cahier has a very flimsy cover and while that makes it easier to carry in your pocket, it will tend to fall apart without this protection. 

I have a large moleskine notebook that I use to take notes in.  I keep the notebook in a Rickshaw folio.  I like this folio a lot.  It holds a few of my pens and pencils and some other odds and ends and isn’t too big.

I also keep a journal.  It is an Oberon Design Lotus Icon journal.  This is starting to go with me everywhere.  I might do a post later about this journal in more length.

All in all this system works for me.  Yes, there are a lot of “inboxes”, but it allows me to be flexible.  I have successfully dealt with the “What should I use, digital or analog for my GTD system?” by using both .  I might have a few minor tweaks like using the new extra small moleskine volant’s instead of the larger cahiers for my catch all notes.

New job

I start a new job tomorrow.  I had only worked at my previous job for two months.  I believe that is a record for me.  I am not one to job hop from job to job.  I like to become part of “the gang” that has been there for a while and has a lot of knowledge of the position.  It is a double edged sword staying at one place for too long as you can get stuck in a rut and the routine can start wearing you down. 

I am excited about this new position as it has a lot of possibilities ahead of it.  My previous position was a contractor position which was technically a long time contract at times it didn’t feel like it.  This helped make the decision to go with this new position.

I do feel blessed that in this economy I was able to have a choice on where I work.  Many others are not so fortunate and I realize that.  Along with many others I am looking forward to when the economy picks up and the unemployment rate can go back down again.

Onwards and upwards!

Comfort zone

I started a new job recently.  The new job requires me to drive to downtown Portland.  Even though my new job is only 15 miles away, it often takes a little over an hour to get there.  It is pretty much stop and go the whole way.  I also have to pay $5.25 to park at a parking garage. 

This past week, I decided to take “the Max” (trimet.org).  I drive about a quarter of the way there and then park at a park and ride and catch the Max from there.  The cost is about $4.25 a day if I pay for a month in advance, so it is a little cheaper taking Max than paying for parking and I don’t have to fight the traffic.

I have never really liked big cities.  I can’t describe it, but I get an almost suffocating feeling being downtown in any large city for any length of time.   I like quiet open spaces.  The hustle and bustle just isn’t my thing.

So, I am now driving to a park and ride then taking one train and then transferring to another one.  I now am dealing with “the public” in very close quarters.  The people who ride the Max come from every walk of life and run the social gamut from gang bangers wearing their gangs colors all the way up to well to do financial types with their expensive suits.  You are approached by people trying to work a scam on you and panhandlers asking for money*.  You see it all. 

I am definitely out of my comfort zone for lots of reasons.  I began to wonder why this is.  Why was I uncomfortable?  Then it hit me.  I have been avoiding the human condition.  I don’t want to see these people and their lives.  I didn’t want to smell them (trust me, you do riding in a cramped environment like that).  I didn’t want to hear them talking about this, that, and the other.  I wanted to be left alone and in my car insulated from all of this. 

You notice a theme here?  I, I, I, I…….

It is time I expanded my thinking and really started if not enjoying the whole experience at the very least saw the reality of it all.  For whatever reason, I am supposed to learn some lessons from this experience.  I am out of my comfort zone and that might not be such a bad thing.  I was more worried about my comfort and insulating myself from life than living life and experiencing it as it arises.

*A pandhandler guy in his early twenties came up and was asking in soft voice “do you have any extra pennies?” It was obvious he wasn’t in a good place.  He looked very unhealthy, he probably was a meth head as he had the sores of habitual meth user.  He smelled strongly of mold and mildew and BO.  I ignored him.  He moved on to the next person.  As I watched him go down the train asking for money, only one person gave him some money and then he got off the train.  I started feeling guilt.  I felt ashamed.  Was this the type of person I was?  I hope not.  I decided from that point on, I would keep some spare change in my pocket.  The first person who asked for it that day, got it.

Tin can living

This appears to me to be a modern day version of the “Lord of the Flies” just waiting to happen.

I wouldn’t want to be that little guy in the middle. I bet he becomes the first guy to mysteriously “disappear” under “unusual circumstances” when the rations start running low.  Just saying…..

http://www.universetoday.com/2009/03/31/crew-of-six-begins-105-day-mars-mission-simulation/

The little computer that could

Cassandra’s computer has been starting to show its age.  It is about 6+ years old.  It has started locking up recently, so time to get something new. 

Since there was no money budgeted for this project, it would have to be done fairly cheap.  I set the original target at $300.  We already have a working monitor, so we didn’t need to buy that.  I also had confidence that the current hard drive (IDE Western Digital 160GB) wasn’t the cause of the system issues, so I could probably save some money and use that.

Cassandra uses the computer for surfing the web, email, and chat, and we have a few educational games for the kids on the system.  The system isn’t taxed very much with her normal usage.  I tried to load Vista on her old machine and it would run, but not very well.  I didn’t expect it to with it being such an old system.

After a lot of research, I came across a few articles about the Intel atom processor.  This dinky little chip is

VERY small as you can see with the picture at left (I believe this is the 230 single core chip). 

I purchased the Intel 945GC Mini ITX motherboard for about $80.  The motherboard comes with the CPU already attached.  It is using the Intel 330 atom processor which is a dual core 1.6GHz processor with hyper threading and is 64bit capable.  I also purchased a single stick of 667Mhz  DDR2 2GB Kingston memory for $20.  I had a couple of old ATX cases around the house, but this motherboard uses the ITX form factor cases.  I purchased the Rosewill, RS-MI-01 BK for $55.  The case comes with a 250 Watt power supply which is more than adequate for this size of a system.  I also already had a DVD ROM from the old system to use with the system, so I didn’t need one even though I could have just used my system’s USB DVD to build up the system and then removed it. 

It took me about 30 minutes to put the motherboard/case/hard drive combo together.  For testing, I first loaded Ubuntu 8.10 64bit.  The system was very responsive with full Compiz desktop effects.  Since I had a copy of Vista 64bit to use, I installed that next.  Again the system is very responsive with full Aero glass effects.  Some forums state that Apple OSX runs on this setup as well.

All in all, I am absolutely amazed how much grunt this little computer has.  It is light on the power requirements using 55W when fully cranking along and 8W idle.  It does all of the things Cassandra needs and does them very well.  The case is small and unobtrusive too being only 8.7”x5.1”x13”.  It is fairly quiet as well.  This setup would make a great home server.

I am quite pleased with the results of this project.  I only spent about $170 total for the project and came in way under budget.  Cassandra is pleased with the system’s responsiveness even though after building it up and asking her what she thought, she said, “It is just a computer”.  Yin and Yang we truly are.

I named the computer “pea-brain”, but that isn’t quite fair as it actually is more of a “mighty mouse”.

Flashback

It is a lazy rainy Saturday afternoon today.  A while back my parents sent a box of things that contained some memorabilia from my two trips to Japan. 

These pictures were taken in August of 1985.  I was 17 years old.  I am standing on top of Mt Fuji (12,388Ft) in my bleached out levi’s, way too thin wind breaker (temperature was hovering around freezing), and my Purple Converse Chuck E. Taylor’s. 

I had just arrived in Japan a few days beforehand.  I was seriously jet lagged.  It takes roughly two days to climb to the top, so we stayed in one of the many huts that my host family had arranged for us to stay in.  We had an early evening meal with what I can best remember to be a chicken curry.  I got very sick from the food and was up all night from the jet lag and the rumbling in my guts.  Just about the time I was falling back asleep, they woke us up at 2AM to finish the ascent to the top so we could see the sunrise from the top.  All I wanted to do was go back to sleep, but I thought this is my only chance at doing this, I might as well push on.  

As I was hiking to the top in a dazed and confused stupor, I slowly began to gain an energy that I hadn’t had previously.  I became calmer and even though I was freezing, cold, and half awake, I felt great. 

When we got to the top, the sun was just starting to peak over the horizon.  What happened next will be seared into my brain forever.  Standing about a dozen feet to my left was a Buddhist monk in a saffron colored robe.  He was standing next to the main hut at the top.  It was the first time I had ever seen a Buddhist monk.  I tried not to stare, but he fascinated me to no end.  He was obviously deep in contemplation and was reciting some sort of prayer in almost a whisper.  Just then the sun crested the horizon and it was like it pierced something in me.  I looked over at the monk and he stared at me and with some of the most determined eyes I think I have ever seen said to me, “Wakari masu ka?” (Do you understand?).  BAM!  Yes….Yes I did. For a few moments I did understand completely.  I replied back “Wakari masu” (I do understand).  It was incredible.  I was there on top of Mt Fuji, and yet I wasn’t. 

As my host brothers and I hiked back down the hill, I felt like I was floating.  We got to the train station and I had two big blisters on my heels where my Chuck E Taylor’s had done their damage.  I smiled.

Good riddance

Gupta withdraws name for surgeon general job

Obama administration says doctor wants to spend time on career, family

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29536212/

I don’t know about this guy.  I am sorry, but if the president taps you on the shoulder and asks you to help him with whatever you say, “yes sir I will do my best”.  It is as simple as that unless you have some serious issues why you can’t do it like health issues or something like that.  But, when this guy says “sorry Mr. President, I gotta think about my bank account”, you have to wonder what kind of person he is. 

Give me a freakin’ break.  Good riddance dude.  Don’t let the door hit you in the arse on the way out.

Why do I do the things that I do?

I have always found deep space probes very fascinating.  The fact that we can send a pile of machinery into deep space and that it not only makes it into space on a controlled bomb and then survive in space where the temperature is about 3K (-454F) and then stay in that type of environment for years all the while taking pictures of planets and analyzing and measuring stuff is just amazing to me.

So, lacking any real funds (and brain power) to put my own probe into space, I started to think about what I could do that would be kind of similar but stay within the budget allowed by my CFO (zero $ or maybe a Hamilton if I am on good behavior.  NASA thinks they have it rough.).  I then remembered a few projects like this one:  http://vpizza.org/~jmeehan/balloon/ .  That is a bit ambitious of a project.  I need to take baby steps here.

I started scrounging around my computer parts or what my loving wife calls a Super Fund cleanup site in the making and found an old HP Brio PC that was missing a hard drive.  Everything else was still there.  The stamp on the side of the internal PC frame says it was made in July 1999.  Perfect!  This will be the beginnings of my zombie computer.

I installed Puppy Linux on a 128MB drive to boot off of (well, I am cheating a bit and booting off of a floppy that bootstraps over to the USB because this PC is so old, you can’t boot off of a USB device).  I configured a web server, wireless network,  and its own blog (http://www.bitflipper.com:8000/) among other things.  I also have some ambient music clips playing on it through a small computer speaker that is attached via a soldered connection to the motherboard as the inline port was toast for some reason.  The system is living in the family room at the moment, but I plan on moving it out to the garage soon as a test to see how it fairs on its own.  I installed a SSH daemon along with VNC server so that I can remote in to the system to control it if need be.  If all goes well, I am going to put it in the crawl space underneath the house near the front door.  There is plenty of room there and there is power nearby and a large vent to let sunshine in.  I can play Halloween sounds during Halloween, Christmas carols during that season, etc. that will filter out the vent.   You are now starting to sense the level of my insanity.

I think it would be funny to put a web cam on it for some reason.  I might connect an old 20GB to the system to backup things from my other systems.  Who knows where this project is going. 

What Super Bowl?

I know what I am about to say is somewhat sacrilegious especially being an American male in his forties. 

I don’t watch the Super Bowl.

There, I said it.  I haven’t watched any of the three major US sports (football, basketball, and baseball) in probably four years.  One of the reasons I gave up on it all was the amount of commercialization that has taken over the professional and even college sport scene.  I remember when I lived in Tampa Florida, they had a measure on the ballot to use public money to help build a new stadium.  The theory was if you help the owners of the franchise build a newer, bigger sports arena, more jobs would come to the area, so it was a win-win situation.  However, their facts were wrong.  It was definitely skewed in the favor of the owners of the teams and a select group of individuals who were going to make a ton of money.  Of course the voters agreed to it as there were a bunch of very well done ads to support the measure.  Meanwhile you drive around town on some REALLY crappy roads, the schools were having major issues with overcrowding, unemployment funding for training people was cut etc. For some reason there was no money for those projects.  It was at that point I saw how things worked.  Keep the sports fanatics happy with putting on the show every few weeks all the while the fans buy their $7.50 a glass beer and $6 a bag of peanuts and paying $20 to park and buying their season tickets to “root for THEIR team”.  Whatever. 

I know I am not able to keep up with the conversations at work or wherever when someone is rooting for their teams and talk about the latest trades or player stats.  I didn’t even know who was in the Super Bowl until I was on a news website this morning.  Yeah, I am out of this loop completely.

As a kid I liked watching Monday Night football and catching some hoops on TV every now and then. I guess over the years I just lost interest in the whole affair.  The only sport I watch now is the rugby world championships.  It only takes up a few weeks a year and it is a fun sport to watch in my book. 

Time to go watch some of the Super Bowl ads on the internet.  They are best thing about the Super Bowl anyways.