I finally got a job offer in Richmond! It's a software engineering position at a great firm that has offered to train me in the latest technologies (Java/.Net). I'll give more details as I get them. Not sure if I should advertise the place - I try to keep a separation between this blog and my career. Suffice to say, it's mostly a good deal (big raise, just lose some leave time - going from 20 days / year to 17).
UPDATE: I'm 95% sure I'm going to accept the position. The only thing I need to get clear on is the training issue. They are giving me a raise over what I'm making now, but they said that if I get certified in MS .NET or Sun Java they'll give me an additional $3k. I'm almost certain they will pay for the certification, but I need to make sure since it's not cheap. So probably what I'll do is give my future boss an answer next week sometime, then give my notice. I've even considered taking a week off between jobs and maybe going somewhere with Tasha - we'll see. I also need to make sure that I can get time off around the wedding - Matt has offered us a place at his family's beach house in Nags Head if we want to stay there the week after the wedding and before the Austin City Limits Music Festival (which will be our interim honeymoon).
I'm kind of curious how my current boss will react to my departure. On the one hand, he's given me pretty shitty raises and I'm dissatisfied with my work or the way the department is going. I used to have a friend here who got offered $10k to not leave - pretty much because she had nice boobs (open secret around the office: my boss has exerted questionable pressure on the fair ladies of the office). On the other hand, I'm the only person who vaguely knows what I'm doing with our main project/budget management software, and they really can't afford to lose me. But I'm surprised they haven't tried harder to keep me. Part of me says he won't care I'm leaving because I'm not a sexy female, but the other part says he'll offer me a huge raise. It would have to be pretty damn big, though - and it's not even about the money; it's about the training and new skills with which the position in Richmond would provide me. This doesn't even count the level of respect that they've extended me both in their offer (I get a cut of intellectual property profits I develop while I work there), extensive focus on growing smart not fast, and basically giving me a chance to prove myself based on my abilities and not on having the "latest skills". I'm grateful that my current job hired me without even having a degree yet, but I think I outgrew the position probably 1.5 - 2 years into it and it's high time I left. I'm just sick of the bureaucracy and complacency, and my career needs a kick in the ass.
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But your flag decal won't get you
Into heaven anymore
They're already overcrowded
From your dirty little war
Now Jesus don't like killin'
No matter what the reasons for
And your flag decal won't get you
Into heaven anymore.
From John Prine's self titled album. We saw him last year - great show. I can't believe the flag decal glut was going on during Vietnam - if anything, the song is more relevant nowadays.
Now he needs to write a song about those goddamn yellow ribbons... we GET IT. You SUPPORT THE TROOPS. Have another cookie.
Ladies and gentlemen, for your edification: check this out and let me know what your think.
Friday: Alison Krauss and Union Station. Alison is the biggest geek in the world - especially for a bluegrass singer. Corny jokes + greatest female voice I've ever heard live = good show. Just wish they hadn't packed us like sardines on the floor.
Saturday: going away cookout at Nicole's parents' house for John and Nicole, as they left Sunday to move to Fort Lewis.
Sunday: Party at our friend Lauren's place, which was fun and netted us a first stab at getting a decent engagement picture (which Matt documented here).
Monday: Tasha worked, I stayed home and chilled at a cookout with my neighbors. Had a blast. Matt came over and visited, too, and showed me a photo album he's putting together.
All in all, pretty decent Memorial Day weekend.
...like my friends at Right Thinking Girl who advocate positions with which I disagree, but they are at least rational and honest. We get into some back and forth and it sometimes gets a little immature, but we respect the positions of one another and more than that we respect intelligence.
Then there are conservatives like this, this, and this. And it takes every mature bone in my body to not mentally project their stupidity onto my opinion of all conservatives. I just can believe that there are people who are this dumb out there. That's why we have the internet, I suppose.
JDM's essay is as good and simple an explanation as I've found:
What is the Dark Side, exactly? Well, technically speaking, it's an underlying energy that guides people-for better or worse-in the Star Wars universe. But in the big picture, the Dark Side is a form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Not a clinically diagnosed form, mind you. (And before I get emails from OCD readers: Please, I'm just trying to make a point here.) But rather, it represents "order." It represents the undying allegiance some leaders have to their vision of how things "should be." Politicians consolidate power for plenty of reasons-like money and job security-but it's the belief that they're somehow performing a vital service that clears their conscience to do this. It's not that they haven't got values; it's just that their values are totally messed up. They truly believe in their vision for society. This is what justifies everything they do.
This jives with my argument - the Dark Side is not a different type of force, but an imbalance in the force's whole nature. The Dark Side is a component of the complete force the Jedi's employ - the difference is that they can see things in broader terms than simply "what I want and how to achieve it." Overemphasis on the power to change that which one cannot accept is a road to suffering, since absolute control is never achievable - it is simply not an option, even for one so seemingly powerful as the Emperor. Darth Sidious is correct: "All those who have power fear to lose it" - and their fear is well founded because often that power represents an imbalance in the natural order. Perhaps even the power of the Jedis was too great and needed balance (hence, Anakin).
There are things you can control and things you can't; there are some events you should accept and some you shouldn't. Knowing which is exactly what true wisdom is. Fixating on how to change what you cannot accept is the Dark Side - intent plays a very small part.
This is precisely why we should hold those whom we charge with power accountable: not for their good intentions, but for the outcomes of their actions and policies. Principles are important, clear positions are vital - but even more important is knowing the limits of principles and positions. They can guide us, but they cannot fully model the complexities of life. The utilization of power is not the path to realizing every good that can be achieved in life. It takes wisdom, compassion, and humility to determine when to employ one's authority to alter outcomes and when to accept that a seemingly unfortunate situation is, in the final analysis, a sorrow one cannot avoid.
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Being a recent air passenger, I found this flight attendant's story pretty entertaining for some reason. Probably because it kind of reminded me of long bus trips in high school. Great example of why I'm glad I'm not in the customer service industry...
This is kinda old but blogworthy. A choice quote:
Ninjas can kill anyone they want! Ninjas cut off heads ALL the time and don't even think twice about it. These guys are so crazy and awesome that they flip out ALL the time. I heard that there was this ninja who was eating at a diner. And when some dude dropped a spoon the ninja killed the whole town. My friend Mark said that he saw a ninja totally uppercut some kid just because the kid opened a window.
And that's what I call REAL Ultimate Power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you don't believe that ninjas have REAL Ultimate Power you better get a life right now or they will chop your head off!!! It's an easy choice, if you ask me.
Yet more demands for censorship by the War Party:
"I don't want (Maher) prosecuted," Bachus said. "I want him off the air."
Too bad - you don't get to tell people what they can and cannot say. And besides, Bill Maher was right: recruiting goals are tanking because your policies are bad.
Bitch, recognize my hipsterness. Today at lunch I was chowing down on a steak sandwich, organic beer, and surfing the internet in a suit and tie. I am the new millenium!!!
Heh, actually I have a good excuse. I had two job interviews today in Richmond - one at a manufacturing plant and one at a hip, crazy cool consulting firm. Both are programming oriented, and both went well and sounded like great opportunities. But... I'm loathe to trust my appraisal of interviews since I've had so little success with past interviews. Anyway, now I'm sipping a frappacino and blogging. All I need is some horn-rimmed glasses and I will be teh hip.
There's something to piss off everybody in Right Thinking Girl's latest report on America. I'll probably critique her opinions at some point - but foreseeing the massive nature of my rebuttal, I'm gonna try to post it here instead of blowing my load on her blog's comment list like I usually do.
TO BE CONTINUED...
...for God's sake, don't download Opera!!! A CEO's life - and body fat - is at stake.
...as Jane Galt of Asymmetrical Information explains:
Can Democrats and Republicans stop pretending that there is some exquisitely fine distinction between judicial filibusters and legislative filibusters that makes flip-flopping on whatever they said five years ago something other than a gossamer-thin wrapping for the otherwise naked use of power? Or that they really, deep down, care about the deepest arcana of Senate procedure?
The fact is that Republicans are going to shove conservative judges down liberal throats because they can, not because there is some cosmic principle of justice involved. And Democrats should tone down the histrionics about the fundamental illegitimacy of Republican court-packing, when the reason the Republicans are so determined to pack the court is that it is the only way Democrats have left them to undo the quasi-legislation that liberal judges wrote after Democrats packed the court decades ago. Having remade the rules about how legislation gets made, you can't just tell the Republicans that it's some sort of metaphysical abuse if they try to touch the ball.
Sorry, I know that lifting whole posts from blogs is bad form, but it's an especially eloquent plea that deserves copying.
