related links: Journal Archive last month: October 2001 2001-10-10 General update

HOME > JOURNAL > NOVEMBER 2001

Journal (The Ember Update)

Friday, November 30

George and Gavin

Rash called me this morning, declaring, "George died!" I said, "George Bush?"

Oh well...

Interestingly, when George Harrison died yesterday, he was with his wife Olivia, his son Dhani, and Gavin de Becker (see below). I just finished reading de Becker's book last night.

Job not found

I finally heard back from that job contact today (and was actually thanked for my persistence). It turns out someone else in the company took the open position, which was for a "User Experience Administrative Engineer." Too bad for me, 'cause the job description sounded like exactly what I've been hoping to find, and the company appears to be very solid. Oh well, it happens. The upside of the experience is that I spoke with the fellow for a few minutes and found out that out of 70+ applicants, I was one of three they actually wanted to talk with (they'll be holding on to my info). I also solicited advice on my resume/cover letter. As a result of the much-appreciated candid suggestions from him and my friend Erik (who's been reading a lot of résumés lately), my overly-long cover letter will be getting a major overhaul. My resume, apparently, is just dandy as is.

War Phase II

Because I found it quite possible (and worth referring back to sometime in the future, for comparison's sake), I've gotten republishing permission from a friend who wrote the following to a list I'm on.

Subject: war phase 2

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/11/26/ret.bush.terrorism/index.html
anyone want to take bets on when the US plans to attack Iraq?

I mean with a full-on war. January?

It will depend in part on how quickly we are able to "finish off" Afghanistan, & move toward getting a nice pro-US regime in place. We need that pipeline for our Caspian oil. (I'll take a double shot of blood with mine, thank you.)

Then there has to be a set up.

First there's going to have to be a bunch of saber rattling... Iraq will have to be properly demonized... maybe we can use the adjective "evil" for a change.

Then Bush will give the ultimatum. The ultimatum will have to be constructed in such a way that Iraq either looses face, or gets its ass kicked in a war. It will have to be an impossible choice, of course.

After defeating them, we will portray ourselves as "liberators" of the Iraqi people. We will then rebuild with a pro-US government. The manufacture of war and the resulting US-friendly regimes will help US businesses. So everybody wins.

And then we move on to the next country, the next manufactured situation.

blitzkrieg is so intoxicating... why stop when you're on a roll?

More blood? Why yes, thank you.
One more shot for the road before I go home to hug my child.

Thursday, November 29

Gallery

Contrary to the photo [above], I'm no longer blonde. It was fun to try a new look for a few months (and it's true, blondes do get more attention), but I had to get back to the real me. That, and keeping it platinum would have set me back around $100/mo., not a good thing when one is just trying to make ends meet.

Speaking of which, I've taken a job working at a local art gallery, selling art and designing framing. When I got out of college I did just that for 6 years (including being a picture framer). This time I'm not actually making frames, which I think may be a mistake for me. That was what I enjoyed the most, the hands-on work of cutting and building frame components.

After two days on the new job I'm already bored out of my mind. It's too much like regular retail work, standing around waiting for customers to come in. The artwork represented is largely contemporary abstract, which I have a problem getting behind as well, so it's all the more difficult to be enthusiastic about what I'm selling (though they do carry Miro, whom I appreciate). I like the manager, but it remains to be seen if I can stand the tedium inherent in the job. That, and it's 40 hours a week, including every Saturday and two nights a week ... which wouldn't be so bad except for the pay only covers 2/3 of my absolute minimum monthly expenses (which affords no luxuries)! So even at working full time, my mom's *still* going to have to help support a third of my most frugal living costs, something I'm really not happy about (as much as she doesn't mind).

I'm still applying for web jobs left and right. So far I've submitted about 60 résumés, and two evenings ago I *finally* got a phone message response from someone. When I returned the call yesterday, the person was heading into a meeting and said he'd call afterwards, but I haven't yet heard back. Do I call him back again today? I think so, and soon. My, my, how times have changed. A year and a half ago I got laid off when the company I worked for went bankrupt, and within a day of posting my resume I had 12 messages, and within 4 days of interviewing I'd been offered three jobs.

All griping aside, I'm really enjoying my California Adventure. The winter rains have begun, but everything is so lovely here I can't be unhappy. I even spotted a hummingbird hovering among the flowering trees above my small back deck (which doubles as my entrance). Consequently I brought my mom's unused hummingbird feeder back with me from my Thanksgiving visit.

TV is weird

One of my new friends here, Kerin, was kind enough to lend me some furniture (it was looking for a home), so my studio is now complete with just about everything I need. I finally broke out my little TV and VCR last night (everything else got upacked some time ago, when I moved into my Palo Alto place), so Rash and I could watch part of the first episode of Ken Burn's JAZZ (I taped the entire series off PBS, but because I've been a non-TV watcher for over a year now I never actually saw the thing). JAZZ looks very promising, which is a good thing since it's my favorite music genre.

Since I've gone so long without regular TV viewing, I now perceive television as this really warped medium. I'm discouraged to see how violence on TV has become even more glorified in the last decade. It's gone from shows like COPS and live courtrooms where people air their litigation for the almighty dollar, to the increasingly prevalent fictional lawyer/crime fighter programs. How many crime-related series are on TV these days? My mom was telling me about a newspaper article (wish I could find it!) which indicated the changing enrollment in college majors over three decades, and it wasn't too surprising to see crime studies are now in the top-ten of chosen fields.

The Gift of Fear

In a related note, I've been reading a really excellent book that Jakob lent me, called The Gift of Fear : Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence by Gavin de Becker, an expert on violent crime. I think everyone should read it (especially women), and at $6.99 there's no excuse not to. It's the most usefully informative non-fiction book I've read in years. Among many, many other points, Mr. de Becker explains how the media makes criminals look glamorous (to the criminal mind), thus promoting the cycle of violent crime. That is exactly the reason we have copycat crimes after some criminal act gets wide publicity.

The author also had a very interesting summary of one of the crucial differences between how men and women live their every day lives, (paraphrased 'cause I can't find the quote) "Men fear being laughed at by women. Women fear being killed by men." Yes, that's how most women live their everyday lives in the public world: on guard. According to de Becker, men rarely think about such things.

The real value of _The Gift of Fear_ lies in its practical approach to informing our intuitive sense of *real* fear, while separating it from our more common practice of needless worry (which in effect clouds our perceptive powers, leaving us more vulnerable). In addition to the obvious benefit to women, the book also provides men some rare insights into the women they love, as well as informs both genders of important ways to safeguard their children.

I'm also finishing up The Measure of a Man : A Spiritual Autobiography by Sidney Poitier, which I must also highly recommend. What an interesting and introspective man! In my less-rational moments I want to walk up to Lorenzo, place the book in front of him and declare, "Too bad you'll never be a man."

Italy sneak preview

If anyone wants a sneak-preview, I've posted a rough collection of my Italy pictures. Keep in mind they're not annotated in any way, so in a lot of cases you'll not know where they are or what they're of. Before the end of the year I'll get them organized and described so they're viewed more usefully.

Peace to you and yours.

Sunday, November 18

The Leonids

Last night Kerin and I went out to the mountains west of Palo Alto to watch the Leonid meteor shower, and what a sight it was. Jupiter was nice and bright. I had the Planetarium application on my Palm open when I first arrived, using local lattitude and longitude coordinates to orient myself ... but it was hardly necessary as the meteors were burning all over the place (increasingly scattered and multi-directional as the night wore on).

The most meteors I saw simultaneously were four, but I bet people in an even darker region saw more. We had *some* light pollution (and just a peek at the beautiful Silicon Valley city lights in the distance below), and the view was slightly obstructed by the hills and a small stand of shrubbery/trees to one side, but I think we did well with the location. I never did count the meteor frequency in a given period of time, but at the high-point (which was pretty extended) the average maybe evened out at about one every 4 seconds. I stayed out from 1:30 - 4:00 AM (the peak was supposed to happen around 2:00-ish).

Some of the meteors were especially gorgeous, with long, wide, colorful tails (greens, blues, oranges) that faded slowly (even many of the non-colorful ones had long, slowly fading yellow/white tails).

Some meteors seemed to burn in two bursts. The meteor would enter the atmosphere and glow with a large, colorful tail, then start to fade, then glow brightly again (perhaps as another type of matter burned off?) before fizzling out.

At one point, three meteors simultaneously burned, rather far apart but pretty evenly spaced, moving away from an imaginary center-point as if racing towards the outer edge of a large circle. If the tails were to be extended to meet in the middle (which they didn't), it would have made up the center of a Mercedes symbol.

Some of the meteors had rather long tails, but nothing from horizon to horizon (which can happen). When the larger meteors began burning, there were lots of ooh's and ahh's, but after an hour of them we'd become somewhat jaded, they were so commonplace!

The Leonids next year should be good too, though it'll be a full moon then. But still, after that we're SOL for the rest of our and our kids' lifetimes (the next good show will supposedly come around for our grandkids).

PREVIOUS MONTH | CURRENT MONTH | JOURNAL ARCHIVE