Entropy Central

Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

Labor Day always reminds me of a time nearly two decades ago when I worked for a small company that manufactured ferrites–think the shield beads on your laptop’s power cord.  It was a privately-owned company and I worked there for about 9 months.

On the Tuesday after Labor Day, I went in to the office and the owner/boss asked me “where was everybody yesterday?”  I told him yesterday was Labor Day.  He replied, “I don’t remember giving everyone Labor Day off.”

What a slap in the face.  but then, this was a guy who, while sitting in a potential customer’s office in Tokyo misplaced his glasses.  “Goddam Nips stole  my glasses.” Really?  Harvard Business School must teach that in the customer relations class.

Yeah.  I couldn’t get out of that place fast enough.

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Coppercon yesterday was fun.  I had a reading at 5:00 and read an unpublished story called Radio Waves.  Attending the reading were Dani Kollin, Eytan Kollin, and Rachel Ann Dryden.   It was pretty well received.

Following the reading, I sat on a panel with Guest of Honor Stephen R Donaldson with the topic of multi-cultural writing.  The topic strayed, driven by questions from the audience, but we did cover the topic for maybe half the hour.

It was fun because Steve and I were the only two on the panel.  He writes mostly fantasy, and I write mostly SF.  He grew up in India, and through marriage, I live in two cultures all the time.  We both had some interesting things to say about the subject, and we use other cultures in different ways when we write.

One thing that surprised me–during my introduction, I said that I had around 40 published short stories.  Donaldson said that he was in awe of anyone with that many short stories because he has written maybe fifteen of them in his life.  Of course, I responded that his total word count dwarfs mine by a couple orders of magnitude.

Sorry for the long delay between posts. Yesterday, I returned from a week at Camp Geronimo with my son’s boy scout troop.

I’m still a bit sore and fatigued. We had a LOT of rain, with a good 30-45 minute hail storm. Mud, mud, mud, but everyone managed to finish their merit badges. The boy completed 5! Mammal Studies, Fish and Wildlife Management, Swimming, Lifesaving, and the historical merit badge Carpentry, which was resurrected for this year only in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts in the United States.

When we got back from California this past Monday, there was a surprise on my answering machine. My ISP, with whom I have had good success with for the eleven years I used their services, decided to dump me. On short notice, they decided to no longer service this area. They called on saturday, but I did not get the message until Monday evening.

Qwest got a request into MSN, who supports their DSL service, on tuesday when I called. As of this morning, I still hadn’t heard from them. My old ISP managed to hold on to me for an extra day, so I had internet through yesterday. This morning, I had nothing.

A quick support call to Qwest and they got me set up within 30 minutes. While I haven’t always had the best of luck dealing with Qwest, particularly their DirecTV partner (a story for another time) today everything went very smooth. I thank them for it.

I am here.

Just got back from a trip to LA. The main reason for the trip was to celebrate the 21st birthday of my wife’s cousin’s son. Mission accomplished there.

We stayed at a place overlooking Disneyland, though we did not partake in any of Mickey’s festivities.

On Saturday morning I drove from Anaheim (it’s part of LA, right? Ask the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim) to Northridge to visit my friend David Gerrold. In the process, I managed to cross a minor item off my bucket list–listening to America’s “Ventura Highway” while driving on the Venture Highway.

We had lunch at a local deli near his home. It’s a little hole-in-the-wall and doesn’t look like much, but the staff is friendly and the food is terrific. I’ve been there four or fine times now and never had a bad selection.

We talked shop over lunch (writing and film-making) then we went next door to a new store selling used CDs. Inside, the owner has 16,000 gallons of cichlid tanks, including a pond that I’m guessing is around 600 gallons. I chatted with the owner for probably 15 minutes on the topic of fish. I also picked up a copy of “Aura” by Miles Davis while I was there.

On Sunday we hit Newport Beach, finding meter parking on the street after about 20 minutes of searching. The only place to get change for the meters is near the pier. It only gives out dollar coins. I ended up with several of the new dollar coins that I hadn’t seen before. (Like Americans ever use a dollar coin.) I kept the nice ones and fed the old Sacagawea coins into the meter.

Unfortunately, the beach turned out to be overcast and cold, but the kids played in the Pacific for a good hour anyway. Like many pools, the water wasn’t so bad once you get in. We left as the tide started coming in and the waves got big enough to be just a little scary for Dad watching the kids from knee-deep.

I finally found a home for a dozen of my black molly frys. A local pet store with clean tanks and staff that care about the animals was willing to take a dozen off my hands. I miss all the little guys, but my tank just can’t support as much fish as would have been in there when those guys grow up.

I still have about seven or eight of the black ones, six or seven dalmatian (or marbled, not sure), and two orange ones in the tank, so I haven’t given away the entire litter. Plus, I’m sure they’ll make more.

Parents, please pay attention to what your kids are doing online. Yesterday, my daughter received an instant message from a friend asking for video chat. When the chat began, there was “something wrong” on the friend’s side. My daughter could only transmit, not receive video or sound. The person on the other end proceeded to ask her to go up to her bedroom and get undressed.

My daughter didn’t fall for it, she questioned it. It turns out that the friend’s accounts were hacked, possibly even by someone physically on her computer while the family was out.

Parents, please use this as an opportunity to educate your kids. If something doesn’t seem right, just get out. And keep that personal information out of your facebook and other accounts.

Here’s an update about various items that have been going on.

The black molly fry that was partially eaten seems to be adapting to its new life whithout a full tail. That difficult for a fish, because the tail provides most of the thrust while swimming. This little guy has to use it’s pectoral fins, just like humans use their arms. Fortunately, his right pectoral fin is partially grown back, so he is no longer constantly swimming in circles. He’s getting around fairly well, though he will never again be called graceful. I moved another (younger and smaller) fry into the tank so he isn’t lonely.

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The employment scene still looks fairly bleak. There aren’t many jobs that would be plug-and-play for me (in other words, doing what I was doing) and those that do appear want entry-level. It’s frustrating, but hopefully things will pick up soon. I’m hoping to get some training through the city in the next couple of months. They’ll let me know soon whether I qualify. I may have too many transferable skills.

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On Wednesday, I will be speaking at a teenage writers conference in Glendale, AZ. It should be fun to talk to motivated young writers about craft. I’m still chewing on topics to cover, but I think I may settle on world building and hopefully have the students drive the discussion with questions.

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After a recent discussion with a fellow writer, I will no longer be mentioning any of my kids by name here. They will go by code names that should be obvious to whoever knows them.

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The desktop computer is on the fritz again. This time, the power supply is overheating and switches off when it goes over-temperature. That doesn’t take too long in the summer in the desert when it’s 110 degrees outside.

As I read this morning about the continuing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, it occurred to me that I know what the problem is. Not with the oil spill, but with life in general, especially in the United States. Everyone is myopically egocentric.

Maybe this is already obvious to some people, and maybe some people are even saying “well, I’m not.” True to both statements. When I say myopically egocentric, I’m not talking about everyone, but it still runs pervasive in the U.S., and it’s a very sad and sorry situation. There are a lot of people, especially among those in power, who simply don’t care about anyone but themselves.

Take BP CEO Tony Hayward, for instance. According to this article, he wants his life back. His personal life doesn’t exist because of the massive inconvenience of this oil catastrophe. You can get it from his own lips.

Isn’t that a tragedy for Hayward? Look, when you are the CEO of a major corporation, you opted for a lifestyle that is synonymous with The Company. It’s the very definition of being a company man, and geez how much more should we customers pay for gasoline to make the inconvenience worth your time?

Look at other examples around the country, from the big banks to politicians. Even I could see this fiscal disaster from half a decade away. All the way back in 2005, I kept hoping for an early end to the housing bubble. It didn’t burst until it became big enough to throw shrapnel around the world and into orbit. Look farther back and you see similar shenanigans in tech companies before the tech wreck. Cooking the books, making blatantly moronic decisions for a quick buck, damn who it hurts.

Politicians are no better. Check this out. Here is Buz Mills, candidate for Arizona Governor. Nevermind that he plans to cut spending across the board on budgets already slashed to the bone. Listen to his words at the end of the ad. “I’m not a politician, but that’s what I’d do.”

Now watch this video.

That sure looks a lot like mud-slinging to me. Congratulations, Buz, you are now officially a politician! For the record, Jan Brewer uses what’s known in Arizona as “Clean Elections.” It’s a fund set up for campaign finance matching, and the intention is to allow people who aren’t rich from Arizona’s #1 industry, over-expansive and unnecessary development, to run for public office. Then there’s the claims about Mills bilking business partners out of money. It takes a special kind of person to run for public office–the kind with a turnip inside their skull. Don’t confuse this with an endorsement for Brewer. She’s daft, too.

Even every day Joes. Just take a look at the pet listings in Craigslist. There are a lot of “ads” decrying puppy mills, high “rehoming” fees (a term I detest, by the way), and people who just want to get rid of inconvenient animals. It’s all about me, me, me, me, me.

Or maybe it’s my problem. Somehow, I never believed the 80s mantra that greed is good. I always believed that you take responsibility for your own actions.

Will somebody in the public eye please give me some hope? Do something that I won’t disdain. Do something actually useful or productive that doesn’t have the motive of lining your pocket. Somebody, please? Anyone? Any takers? Prove me wrong?

Maybe it’s nothing but a pipedream.

Yes, I’m aware that can be a double entendre.  I always have busy weekends.  This past week was busy because I spent much of it at the Department of Economic Security taking classes required before they’ll consider giving me money to retrain.  The assessment tests were the best.  I could have finished in 45 minutes what took about 4 hours to complete.

I expect I did fairly well on the tests.  After all, I’m a writer and I’ve taught math.  They were testing on reading and simple mathematics.  Although, I should point out to DES that when you say “applied mathematics” I tend to think of using Bessel functions to model a vibrating drum head, not of how many postage stamps I can buy with six dollars.  But whatever.

Yesterday, I finished up my work with the census.  That was a good experience for a writer, but not one that I wanted prolonged much longer.

Overall, not it was not only a busy week, but a painful one (as in painfully slow).

If it seems like I’ve been quiet on the net lately, it’s because I’ve been quite busy. After LepreCon last week, I started some classes at the unemployment office.

I went into the week with the pre-conceived idea that the classes were going to be a complete waste of time. I’ve never been big on self-assessment tests, and that’s how the week started. I’ve never been able to make any use of the results of that sort of thing. I’ve known for a long time that I’m either an INTP or an INTJ depending on which time I took the Myers-Briggs you look at. I’m pleased to say we did not take the Myers-Briggs this go around.

Still, I’ve never found those sorts of tests particularly insightful or anything more than a conversation starter in the same way you might talk about the ballgame last night.

Then Monday afternoon we had a change and the instructor started some small group exercises that were actually not too bad. Tuesday and Wednesday we had another class that dealt a lot with communication and workplace behavior. While the material wasn’t particularly enlightening, there were a lot of small group activities and the instructor was an entrepreneur who was quite good at keeping the mundane material interesting. I even got a certificate suitable for framing. It will go into a manila folder.

Today I am scheduled to take some more assessment tests. Apparently the fact I’m teaching math at the community college is not sufficient evidence that I know basic math skills, so I must be tested. Wish me luck.

The interesting thing about these classes has been not only the breadth of skills but also the depth. It really underscores the severity of this recession. Every single person in that room of thirty people had amazing experience and skills ranging from sales to engineering. This is ample evidence that when companies lay off in this recession, it’s not just pruning dead wood. These companies have been cutting off pieces that bleed, sometimes heavily.

In the classes, I discovered a woman with a a desire to write SF/Fantasy. I’m way farther down that road than she is, but I’ve been doing my best to uphold our genre’s tradition of the more established writers helping the less experienced writers. That has been a fun diversion over break and lunch.

Today is the last full day I must spend down there. I have two half-days next week. Then I go full steam trying to get back to work full time, and hopefully finish that novelette that’s been sitting idle since LepreCon started.