Archive for 2004

I’ve decided on the new name of the eJournal.. The new name:

Path to Enlightened Insanity via Defacted Musings

After reviewing all the names and looking at which ones people liked, (Thank you Lisa and Dianna) I decided the best way around it was to combine two names. Its like me and this writing because, well its long, not quite to the point and a bit vague.

As for what defacted means, I’m not sure what exactly it means. I tend to think of it as “abstracted from fact” and given that its not in the dictionary I’m coining it now. Boy this is so much fun!

As for getting the name on it its going to take me a few days. I was planning on using Friday and Saturday to do a rework of the website in general, but I’m in Atlanta taking care of a friend. So the whole thing is going “naked” tonight until I put new CSS on it..

I feel empty. Not in a teenagery angst way. Its more like I’m a blank slat, waiting to be painted after dusting off lots of junk.

I want to be filled but with what I’m not sure. I want to have something enjoyable something lovely in my life to occupy my time and mind.

Its partially I’m in limbo. CSD is done come Sunday morning and Citi hasn’t come in yet and filled that space. Not that its a job that makes me feel filled, I’m just so used to holding everything at arm’s length and keeping all my projects behind the dam so I can deal with the now, my job and those really important things. I’ve got a damn for no reason and little desire to breach the dam.

I’ve been screaming to have me time and now that I have it I’m at a loss on how to use it. I need an entertainment director.

I feel that I should aim for something bit, but I don’t have the motivations at the moment. I have like four “semi-major” projects that need work. But I’m not sure any of them will fill me.

Ack, time to get another coffee that’ll fill me.

I’ve been frustrated with ability of some of the people around me to actively live their lives, instead of letting the circumstances around them live their life for them.

Let be be clear, there is merit in knowing things aren’t great that the current situation will get better or it will pay off in the future. There is no merit in knowing the world is crappy and just plodding long.

Its really simple, pretend the circumstances are a raging bull at you. Now you can do that wussie stuff of waving a red sheet in front of its face and playing with it but still letting the bull get its way somewhat, or you can stand in front of the bull grab its horns and heave it up and throw it down on to its side and do what you want to do with it. Maybe that is just move the bull past you so it can still run, but you’ve still taken control of the situation.

Two cases of flag waving.

Case one. I know of an adult in my life who “owns” a house with a mortgage. As a result of circumstances beyond her control there is no equity and there will likely never be any equity in the house. The mortgage payment is almost three times what she could get a luxury apartment in the same city. (It is actually a better deal because your rent payment includes upkeep, whereas the mortgage payment does not.) A majority of the house is not actively used and is there for “viewing purposes.” The bull is running by her and shes waving the flag at it. Instead if she wrested the bull by the horns she’d say “well forget this” and move into the luxury apartment and let the banks have the house. (Mind you her credit is screwed already, a repo on a house won’t make it much worse.)

Case two. I have a friend about my age, who lives in a nice large city. Again pays too much for his living quarters (Having a nice house does not make you happy, period. period. Period. PERIOD.) Is in a miserable living situation and he complains about being lonely. But. on his off days he stays at home. You either do something about it, grab the bull and go after it. Yeah its a bitch but living isn’t always fun nor easy.

Don’t get me wrong, I love both of these people, but I’m frustrated to see them unhappy. If I showed them any more compassion and understanding for their situation I’d have to be threatening them with a 2×4 to make changes. I’ve not yet reached this level of concern, but I’m almost there.

Change is a bitch people; uncertainty is one of the worst things in the world for us sometimes. (I know I’ve only got eight more hours of work then I’m unemployed, without a job to follow.) But, uncertainty also has the possibility that something really great will meet us in the future, we just have to see it out find it and go throwing the situational bull around.

So if you’re in a quandary, unhappy or unsure, get yourself out in front of the bull and change it. Don’t wait for someone else to do it, nor let yourself get gored in the stomach. Take it by the horns and throw it so its better for you. Who knows where you’ll end up? I hear they’re hiring bull fighters in Mexico.

I don’t believe in fate.

I don’t believe in predestination

I hold firm to the concept of free will, although I have a diminishing level of belief that its a absolute solid state and that we actually have complete control over ourselves all the time.

I’ve probably confused all my readers at this point, and they’re all wondering what I’m smoking. Don’t worry I’m getting a drug test for a new job in a week.

One would like to explain tonight away as a series of coincidences. It seems too perfectly planned to chalk it all up to coincidences.

I don’t want to go into details, but I ended up staying up later than I planned and helping a friend in the only way I knew how who did and didn’t want help. I spent about half an hour on two separate phones helping in the only way I knew how. When I got off the phone I was alone an confused. I didn’t know of anyone who I could reach out to to help understand my confusion. Then an online friend came on. After telling her my situation she said “Perhaps that is it. I woke up with the sensation that something is terribly not right.”

I cannot explain this with the current scientific knowledge that we have. I do not and cannot honestly believe in a god figure. I agree with George Carlin’s Rant:

But, I gotta tell you the longer you live, the more you look around, the more you realize something is fucked up. Something is wrong here, war, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the ice capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If, this is the best god can do I am not impressed. Results like these do not belong on the resume of a supreme being. This is the kind of shit you’d expect from an office temp with a bad attitude. And just between you and me in any decently run universe this guy would have been out on his all powerful ass a long time ago… (CD: You are diseased Track: There is no God)

Yeah. There is no god. But there must, there has to be something else that connects us, one to one, individually in a vast network that we cannot see or detect with scientific equipment but none the less it exists.

I posit this hypothesis not on one incident but upon many of observing both myself and others.

And yes I am completely sober (except for a small dose of caffeine, but everyone does that.)

Oh boy.. Its been a week.

Just a list:

1. Called the police to get help for a friend in another state
2. Accepted two job offers
3. Had one job interview
4. Moved to Cincinnati
5. Entered into a refinancing agreement on a significant portion of my debt
6. Reskinned my website (okay thats been in the works for a little while)
7. Terminated my employment at my previous job
8. Oooh.. Oil change and tire rotation
9. Eric and I decided to move from just being friends to dating..
10. Officially renamed the eJournal to “Path to Enlightened Insanity via Defacted Musings”
11. Opened one bank account (again for the money)

Okay its more than what it initially seems like. To top it off I’ve been kicking around ideas for a book or two…

Yes I have slept…

A greater level of sanity should reveal itself soon.

I’m exhausted, but I feel that I should be writing in this more. I’m going to see about being more productive on my lunch hour. I should be able to do more than just eat during an hour.

Work is going good. I really enjoy working on the 25th floor, and eating in the cafeteria (which has excellent food) on the 28th floor.

I don’t like driving in Cincinnati traffic. But I think that Cincinnati traffic is a bit like Wright State’s parking problem, everyone bitches about it, but it really isn’t that bad. But it has given me space to look into emergent behaviors and characteristics of large systems and how they organize out of many individual decisions by individuals. This has led me to want to re-read Emergence, perhaps after I get to Steven Johnson‘s newest book Mind Wide Open.

In a way, I’m working on the same thing at work. We’re setting up rules and following through on them on which we judge companies that we contract work to. I’m in a bit of disagreement with my boss. He’s of the opinion to keep it simple, I’m of the opinion that the system gives us a whole bunch of power lets use it to make our lives and our contractor’s lives simpler, when we can get the same thing out of it. Ehh… Things could be worse, I mean at least I feel that I’m treated a lot better at Chiquita than I was at CSD. Now that I’m happy about.

I’ve almost completed my first full week in an “office environment.”

It’s definitely a different type of work environment. I really really really like working on the 25th floor and eating in our gourmet cafeteria on the 28th floor.

Boredom is a different issue. I think I just need to learn to deal with it. CSD was boring a whole bunch of the time. (Come on, after about two months of eavesdropping on people’s conversations there is only so much of mundane conversations you can take, and I did that for two and a half years.)

Oh another thing I forgot, I have a Starbucks within walking distance without going outside. I have to take special care that I don’t blow a hole in my budget. (yes Starbucks coffee can do that.)

Hmm… I’m not sure what else to write about. That is all that is on my mind at the moment.

I hate writing about politics, which is probably why I do it so much, because I’m a masochist at heart..

I was reading an entry at Lawrence Lessig’s blog. The entry itself is unimportant, the important part is the comments.

I’m amazed that people are so divided on the issue of Terrorism. I guess I shouldn’t be but I am. Why can’t everyone just think like me?

Back to being serious. I’m happy that there is diversity on the issue, but I am dismayed that people can’t get on the same definitions, and instead spend hordes of time arguing over them.

Heres a way to think about the issue. In most states in the United States you’re required to carry automobile insurance. Why? Because if you’re at fault in an accident you’ll have to pay, and the states have a vested interest to ensure that everyone is protected from everyone else. For example, I currently insure myself against my own mistakes for $25,000 per person of bodily injuries that I cause, $50,000 per accident of bodily injury that I cause, and $25,000 per accident of property damage that I cause. These limits are fine for me because I have about a negative $20,000 net worth. Which means if someone sues me for an accident they’re going to have a hard time collecting more than my insurance limits because I have no assets with which to pay someone. I am protecting my fiscal interests (however meager they may be) by purchasing insurance.

Now if I were a multi-millionaire I would purchase significantly more insurance. Why? Because I would then have a lot to lose and I would want to protect my assets. But I don’t have to purchase an insurance policy, all I have to do for the government is provide proof of my ability to pay a liability claim. But I could do this in many different ways. I could like my poor self choose to purchase an insurance policy or provide proof of my ability to pay a liability claim. There are six ways to do this in the State of Ohio. I can choose to purchase an insurance policy and transfer the risk to the insurance company, or I can place monetary instruments on deposit with the state.

The important part is the transferring of risk. I can choose to keep that risk, and just show that I’m fiscally responsible, or I can pay the insurance company to transfer the risk to them. But there is only so much risk I can transfer, no insurance company would write a policy for say $1 Trillion in losses. (okay, I’m not sure about that number, but just pick a large enough number, eventually they won’t write it.)

Getting back to the point. If I’m a millionaire I can either keep or transfer the risk, but I can only transfer so much, and the more I transfer the more it costs me. The long and short of it is we’re having a big disagreement about what our risks are, and if we can transfer them in the form of heightened security and reduced liberty.

My take: We’re a rich country and we should just assume the risk. Yes there will be incidents that will have a significant cost, but nothing that we cannot absorb the risk.

There was my long ramble to get to that point. So never accuse me of taking a shortcut.

I have several conclusions I’ve come upon today.

1. Time Warner is incompetent.
2. Designers of web applications need to realize its still an application, this means it has a user interface design. Therefore you should design a usable web interface.
3. Programmers of web applications should ensure the data on the site is accurate. Even though it is on the web is not an excuse for it to be pure lies .
4. Eric is a very good cook, despite what his mother says about him.
5. Not having Internet access when you expect to have it sucks.
6. The Internet is more important to me than my cell phone. I can place a phone call on the Internet. I cannot access the Internet on MY cell phone.
7. Living in an apartment complex with a washer and dryer room is awesome, because you can get three loads of laundry done in two hours.
8. Vice-Presidents suck.
9. I don’t like conforming.
10. Lists with ten items in them are over rated.

Confusion is the root of understanding.

I just saw Convenience for the second time and I’ve listened to it several hundred more times.

Its It is so complex but so simple at the same time. Convenience is an excellent piece of art which you can enter from any point, explore and find a philosophy or suggestion for living.

I keep trying to extract a concrete nugget from it to apply to myself. I never get a concrete substance only a fleeting essence. But, I think it has already worked its way through me, without being self-evident.

Three hundred and sixty three days ago, I choose not to crawl, not to go forward. These words make it self-evident that I have crawled and I am almost standing at a point where I can start walking again.

It is nowhere near any of the pictures I’ve painted but the canvas is the same, and you can see parts of the previous pictures still poking through.

I am standing, here.