The sun blocks the moon
Or is Sauron searching hard
For his ring again?
Category: Personal Reflections
Lessons learned about life; pearls of wisdom I’ve gleaned through pain, failure and honest reflection
That time I tried to get a job in Antarctica
Back in the mid-80s I came across a job opportunity in Antarctica. An expedition was looking for database managers. I’d just finished up a technical program for Information Processing. I’d built dBase databases, and pushed the information through Lotus, then used Word Perfect and (I think) Pagemaker to build presentations. I note some additional skills, like I’d converted an electronic typewriter so that it was a printer. I could print letter quality docs straight from my PC. In 1986 that was a unique thing.
I had a vision of the whole journey. Very wrong, of course. Laden with naivete. If I’d pulled that off, though…so much would’ve been different.
I was certain I was a great fit for the job, and that I would get it.
I didn’t get the job.
Back then, I was lucky to received a typed postcard (perhaps a simple 3 x 5 card) acknowledging receipt. Though I received the “No Thanks” letter a few weeks later, it was still pretty cool. The disappointment strong, yet without bitterness.
Looking back, it’s striking how much job hunting has changed. Starting with research. Now, with Google, I could’ve learned about the lead scientists, the focus of their research; I didn’t even know their names!
The typed responses tell me they probably processed a handful of applications. I read about this in an article somewhere. There were no online job boards. A job board was, literally, a bulletin board with job postings on it. They evolved to binders in college placement offices, (and other spots, too). Nowadays, with the online job-search eco-system they’d have hundreds, if not thousands of applicants. An upside: the acknowledgement and decline processes should be fully automated. And the larger recruit pool gives them a better chance at finding a more specific skill set. But, still, thousands of applicants…
It’s striking how different life is now. But it doesn’t FEEL that different. Well, not until I look back. Not that much simpler, though, as opposed to the adage air “simpler times”. The complexities were different. I’m happy, for the most part, with the path of our evolution.
Revisiting My Mediation On Intolerance
How much intolerance
Must I tolerate
To prove to the
Intolerant
That I am tolerant?
I created this some time ago, but find it still relevant. Maybe even more relevant. Actually, more so each passing day.
All Your Spam Are Belong To Us
Oh My Lord! This is the best bit of spam I’ve had in a bit:
Immediately made me think of good ol’ Zero Wing.
Interdependence
Independence fails
There’s so much more, please look to
Interdependence
Watching the Flash with my son
My son and I have been watching the Flash on Netflix. It’s been a fun little bonding thing.
I love the show. Watching Barry Allen, and the people surrounding him evolve really delights me. And the ensemble of cast and crew gel very well.
We’ve made a pledge to not watch without the other, so that were in the same place in the continuum. Now I need to add that I grew up reading Flash comics. So there are times I see what’s coming since I now the new characters. But they’re done a good enough job tweaking their TV universe that you can’t assume a character’s comicbook identity will track. It’s a clever way to give homage to the DC legacy but not be terribly predictable.
Now, at times they flirt with the edge of cheesy. Every one of their Christmas episodes makes me worry. Though I have a bias about the weird games screenwriters play with any sort of holiday, but they’ve done well so far. Yet, I still wonder about the need for holiday specials, but that’s just me.
Now we’re about halfway through the second season. Netflix has through season three. It’ll be fun, especially if we get more seasons. If not, we’ll then move over to Arrow and keep the DC stream going.
Keyboxes, Wild Goose Chases, and This Afternoon
In the Seattle area, we real estate agents use electronic keyboxes to access houses. Which means, when we list a home, someone needs to zip to the property and put one on. My team put a house on the market yesterday, and we really wanted to get the keybox on today. So, after getting copies of our keys, I head out. This home isn’t too far from my office, but with afternoon traffic, it took me over 1/2 hour to head out to Snohomish. Oh, a key (see what I did there?) element of this house: it’s new construction…and under construction. Now, per our schedule, the doors are on. And per reality, they’re not.
It was a true Laugh Out Loud moment to walk to the house, past the construction team with a keybox and look at the non-existent front door. So, I’ll be heading back…at some point in the near future.
Live and learn…live and learn.
Cakes and Heads
French aristocrats
Their talk of “let them eat cake”
Then losing their heads
This is just a bit of an experiment to see how Instagram’s embed feature works. Looks like it’s too good, actually. Oh well.
Poor Microsoft Publisher
A few days ago I disparaged poor Microsoft Publisher. Now, I really meant nothing by it. Publisher is a fine desktop publishing software package…for what it is. Far lower prices than InDesign for one. Also, if you’re familiar with Microsoft Office’s structures and navigation, the user interface will be rather intuitive. I’ve created posters, flyers, newsletters and postcards with it. Again, it’s fine for what it is.
My history with desktop publishing goes back into the 80s and Pagemaker. For DOS. Iterated through a few programs to Quark. It was fantastic to do paste up work digitally. Everything in one file, delivered directly to a printer. Back then, it was mostly on Zip drives.
I’m remembering the launch of InDesign. It was nice to have photo editing in the same ecosystem, essentially the same program. And very quickly, or so it seems, InDesign took Quarks’ lunch. (Ok, you can still order Quark) so that’s the atate of the, as the cool kids call it, industry.
So, Publisher is great, I’ve used it a lot. But I’m glad I have access to InDesign. And that’s all I got.
Steel Magic Northwest is close to meeting their Kickstarter Goal
Steel Magic Northwest is a great local group (located in Edmonds) that provides access to music for a number of youth and adults. I know a number of kids, and adults, who benefit greatly. And they have a great time! The music is brilliant and the audience is having a grand time, too.
They’re using Kickstarter to fund their summer program, so I highly encourage you to head over to their site and give them a few dollars. They’re doing a all or nothing campaign for $3,000, and are at $2,910. Just $90 more dollars! Now, the campaign ends Friday (June 30th), so I (again) encourage…nay, implore you to head over right now and help this program do amazing for our community this Summer.