Too busy

Today was a 12 hour workday, give or take. I took a few breaks in between 7 am when I started and 10 pm when I finished. But I can honestly say that I'm now at a  point where I feel somewhat comfortable with the status of the project I've been working on - and that has a June 1 due date for completion. It certainly wasn't looking promising a couple of weeks ago and goodness knows that I and the rest of my team have put in enough hours over the past couple of weeks not only doing our regular jobs but also the extra work entailed in this particular project. Suffice to say that I've learned some valuable lessons through this project that will hopefully help to ensure that I don't suffer similar situations in the future. Not the least of which is better planning up front and utilizing automation where we can. This project was far more manual than it should have been and the automation that was added as the project wore on was more ad-hoc than anything else. It helped but it could have been done better. So, in the long run, it will be a lesson learned. Let's just hope it's not a lesson ignored.

The worst part is that this is the first time I've picked up my new laptop in the last two weeks - ergo the reason for my not submitting any entries here even though that was a large part of my getting the laptop. So, now, let me go play some more with the new things on this machine. It's time for a tech lesson today. Woohoo!

Friday Night

I was very happy when my new laptop arrived. Indeed, that is what I am using to write this post on a Friday night - clearly I have nothing better to do. But one of the key points of having a new laptop was to have something that I could drag out real fast when I wanted to take an hour or two to write down some things. It's  probably a sad commentary that I need to have something like a laptop in order to write but I guess I've gotten terribly lazy in my old age. That's as much an indictment of my laziness as it is my skills at this point. Oh well.

On the bright side, though, I've written up two blog posts this week as a result, so maybe it's not all bad. Between that and the two books (both of the Eragon series), I'm feeling pretty good and revived with the things that I enjoy doing - reading and writing. I think I should also be writing more short stories since that is more of my forte along with poetry. But I tend to write my prose better on the computer while my poetry must always be done with pen and paper. So I've been trying very hard to keep pen and paper always available. I think that I am more of a troglodyte than may be immediately apparent based on my knowledge and experience. As my better half has put it previously, for a techie, I seem to be very technophobic. Must be an old people thing...

I think tomorrow I will be working to move all of my current in-situ writings onto this machine so that I can continue working on them as I find the time. After all, having a laptop is intended to allow me to do what I want where I want when I want. And I want to be more productive in this manner.

Maybe I'll write this weekend on some of the interesting things going on in China recently. See, that would be productive, right?

Random Thoughts

Is $750 million enough to win the presidency? Or could it be put to better use? President Obama spent about $750 million to win the presidency in 2008 and his staff has indicated that he'll raise about the same amount for this year's election from all of his sources. Romney will likely do the same between his own campaign and the PAC's who support him. So it does beg the question of what is the difference between them and are we reduced to the point in our democracy where only the rich (or the super-rich who support them) are able to have a serious opportunity to "serve" the people? From my limited vantage point, I'm not seeing much of a difference. All I see is a new class of elite leadership that enriches itself and perpetuates its own hold on power through that enrichment. I wonder if we could find a better way to invest that combined $1.5 billion for the nation as a whole instead of on a couple of power-hungry rich guys...

Two lawmakers say that the Secret Service needs more women? So goes the line from senators Susan Collins and Carolyn Maloney. Temporarily bypassing the idea of bipartisanship (in Washington DC?!) that these two are temporarily displaying, I have to admit that my first thought upon hearing this was "why?". I am not opposed to diversity in any workforce or group and think that it is a fine idea. However, in the aftermath of the Secret Service sex scandal (should I capital Sex Scandal?), the underlying point becomes "if there were more women there, then there wouldn't have been a sex scandal." Riiiiiight. Because women are never involved in anything dirty like a sex scandal.

http://www.zimbio.com/The+50+Most+Infamous+Female+Teacher+Sex+Scandals
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2009/12/11/why-women-dont-have-sex-scandals.html

Sorry, if we want to push for diversity in the Secret Service (or anywhere else, for that matter), let's not use stupid excuses to do so. Let's push for it but let's do so for the right reasons - not as a political sop based on the actions of a few stupid people.

And now, I'm tired and off to bed... I may have to review this later to be sure it's coherent since I don't feel particularly so at the moment.  :-)

Random Thoughts

A couple of things that I've overheard recently that I found interesting:

Spike Lee posting the address of someone who he thought was George Zimmerman (responsible for the shooting of Trayvon Martin) - and it ends up being the address of an elderly couple completely unrelated to Zimmerman or Martin. Sure, he apologized for it and settled with the couple, to whom he called and apologized personally, but the problem was that he felt it was ok to post anyone's address on Twitter - particularly when you have 240,000+ followers who may think it is ok to do whatever they want with the address. And, considering the inflamed passions that have resulted from the Zimmerman-Martin case, surely he didn't think that people were going to be sending polite letters to Mr. Zimmerman. No matter where an individual stands on the case, publicly posting someone's address is bound to create another situation that will, in most cases, only worsen it. And the problem with the immediacy of Twitter is that such a mistake is very difficult to take back or rectify once it has been committed.

The same goes for baseball players who post the personal phone numbers of their former teammates. What made CJ Wilson think that such a prank (as he described it) was acceptable is up for debate but it was clearly - and understandably - not well-received by Mike Napoli. In this case, Napoli can simply get a new phone number and he can get on with his life (without being harassed by the numerous idiots, er, people who think its acceptable to compound the tweeting "mistake" by actually calling the number). But as people continue to seek the fame that is so readily accessible by the online world where fame is counted in the number of followers/friends/viral videos a person has, there must be a point where common sense will kick in and they will realize that there are very real consequences for their actions. I used to think that the Human Flesh Search Engine was only a Chinese concern but I worry it is not so limiting and fear that the consequences will become all too real all too soon.

Along the same lines of technology concerns (aside: is it good or bad that a techie such as myself is worried about these technical advances?), this article on flash trading was both interesting and worrying. These systems that are being developed are making calculations and decisions that have very real impact on the real world in terms of financial transactions faster than the human mind can do, let alone be able to stop in time before they become reality. When I first read this, I kept thinking this must be the first version of Skynet where the machines begin to operate outside the immediate control of human hands and minds. The understanding that these machines are making these decisions (as it relates to trading) with little apparent understanding on the part of their human "masters" is just slightly frightening. I always enjoy when the inner workings of an application and the logic behind them are black boxes to the people who allegedly operate them. Yep, nothing to see here, please move along...

Finally, something to consider. Without doing a Google search, what were the headlines three days ago? Even one headline? What was the related story? I would be willing to bet that most people can't come up with a single headline. Which leads me to wonder about this 24 hour news cycle that we go through and whether it is sensory overload and results in a situation where people actually learn nothing. Life today, in the 24 hour news cycle, is a constant barrage of information that people remember so long as it's being blasted at them continuously and only stays in residual memory for so long as it's a headline. Immediately thereafter, it is discarded and nothing is truly learned until the next time it makes a headline. And forget about context - that only comes if people care to dig deeper into the stories and learn more - and that doesn't often happen. So, quick, let's go see CNN Headline News (which is only a very small selection of actual news stories and typically very little that has anything to do with the average person - "OMG, a kid fell down a well!" or "OMG, someone contracted this really weird disease that affects one in 2 billion people - everyone PANIC NOW!") and see how much we retain until tomorrow.

Are we what we thought we would be?

What did you want to be when you grew up? And now that you have grown up, are you that which you had dreamed about in your youth?

I suspect the answer is "no" in a great many cases.

Does it make you sad or happy? Are you content with who you are and what you have accomplished? Do you desire to change? And are you willing to do the things needed to effect that change if you so desire it? Or is it simply easier to stay where you are in life for fear that you may lose what you have with no guarantee of achieving that which may otherwise grant you that which you sought in your youth?

For me, I am not spending my life in the way that I envisioned when I was younger. This does not mean that I am necessarily unhappy or discontented - anymore than I am totally happy or content with life. Perhaps it would be more accurate to state that I am comfortable with my position in life today. But comfort can have both a positive and a negative connotation. On the positive side, I do not lack for the things I need and want (most of the time, anyway). On the negative side, there is little challenge to those things that I do and my sense of purpose is sometimes lacking as it seems I simply ride the waves rather than steering my way to a specific destination.

I suspect I am not the only one who simply rides with the waves in whichever direction they flow. But I am starting to work toward a specific destination as I would like to have a little more control over the direction I seek to go. It is a slow process and filled with many detours - much as it seems my life prior to now has gone. However, I regret no experiences that have brought me to today and will try to be accepting of those detours in the future as I remember that life is not the destination but the journey.

“We are selling weapons to Syria for its national defense, national security,” Lavrov told lawmakers in the lower house of Russian parliament. “We aren’t providing Syria with any weapons that could be used against protesters, against peaceful citizens, helping fuel the conflict. We aren't doing that, we are only helping Syria to protect its security against external threats.” 

The above quote is from the Russian Foreign Minister as it relates to the Russian government selling weapons to the Syrian government. So, in addition to the fact that the Russians (along with the Chinese government) have blocked any serious action from the UN taking place (ok, yeah, it's funny to think that the UN can do anything even if the Russians and Chinese aren't deliberately blocking them), they're also selling them weapons and then thinking the rest of the world is stupid enough to believe that they're selling them weapons that can only be used against "external" enemies. Or perhaps their definition of "external enemies" refers to anyone who opposes the government? Frankly, I'm curious to know exactly what kind of weapons can only be used against external enemies but can't be used against protesters and peaceful citizens? Tanks? Fighter jets? Oh, wait, no, those have been used against protesters and peaceful citizens.

Now, to be fair, do I think that Western or other Arab nations haven't been selling weapons to those opposition forces in Syria? Heck no, I'm certain they have - though probably not to the same degree or dollars as the Russians. But at least they're not trying to use logic (or the obvious lack thereof) to justify that it's ok to do so and watch the tragedy currently unfolding in Syria. Or maybe the rest of the world really is just that stupid or uncaring. I probably shouldn't be surprised...

Losing focus

I don't know about others but staying focused on any one subject for any period of time, significant or otherwise, is a challenge. Perhaps this is why I have tended to fare well in jobs that allowed me to venture into several different areas or aspects and had a more difficult time with positions that required me to work on only one thing all the time. Indeed, that was one of the larger reasons why I left my last role - I simply did not want to be writing code for eight hours a day with no other responsibilities. That is not to say that I did not enjoy writing code and learning how to make things work better - but I wanted to do much more than just being a code monkey. Needless to say, my current role is far more expansive in terms of responsibilities and I find myself both happier and more productive because my distractions can be set to focus on other things that need to be done.

The same holds true for things that I do on my own time. One only has to see my collection of music currently starred in Spotify to get a feel for my ADD tendencies - it runs the gamut from classical to death metal and everything in between with the exception of country (hey, I do have some standards!) More specifically, in my case, I enjoy writing and have recently been working on several ideas that have been floating around in my head when time allowed. At this moment, I am in the middle of two stories and have another that I'm hesitant to start until I can complete one of the other two. I also tend to jot down poetry as inspiration (and time) hits me and that does not include the book I am working on when I'm not otherwise distracted. And I do all of that as I currently skip through four different books that I'm reading (two history books, a Calvin & Hobbes anthology and some FoxTrot books). And I seem to be able to function rather well whenever I make the switch. I know others who can only do one thing at a time and cannot be distracted from it lest they screw up. For me, if I can't distract myself with something else, I'm likely to screw it up.

I'd sure like to know how that works but, for now, I guess I'll just have to accept that losing focus is the only way for me to stay focused enough to get it completed. To my credit, though, I did finish this blog entry in about 15 minutes. That's probably the outer limits of my focus for today.  :-)

Killing the messenger not so softly

Every so often you are criticized for being “radical.” So triumphant is the critic that it is as though once the word “radical” is laid on you, nothing you have said is of any worth, the foundation of your argument collapses on contact, and you are defeated and dispatched.  On the other hand, your critics never say a thing about the atrocities of the government perpetrated over decades, they hold no principles against it and have unlimited tolerance for it. They suffer from severe Stockholm syndrome without knowing it; they even feel complacent about this mental deformation.

Before I get into the source of that quote, I think it's important to consider context here, particularly for the first part of this statement. Frankly, when I first read it, I considered politics in the US and the carelessness with which terms like "liberal" or "commie" or "radical right" or "religious fundamentalist" are bandied about by political opponents. Quick, if you want to discredit someone, assign some label to them which will be readily interpreted by your followers as a symbol of denigration and therefore not worthy of consideration! It is a sad and unfortunate commentary that when people are unable to argue the merits of a particular point of view that they then reduce themselves to demonizing the ideological view of their opponents. I am not so naive as to argue that we should all agree but no justice is served by attacking the messenger when the message itself cannot be refuted.

For reference, the above quote comes from Ran Yunfei ( 冉云飞), a Chinese intellectual and blogger, in relation to the government of his own nation. It's sad, however, how applicable it is elsewhere throughout the world... *sigh*

Peace of mind

Yesterday, in the middle of our first snow of the year (well, ok, beyond the 30 minutes of snow showers we had a few weeks ago which I won't count), I took a 30 minute walk outside. Of course, if I had woken up on time and felt more motivated, I would have gone to the gym and worked out there before the snow started but clearly I was not functioning properly. I would say that I will learn from that for the next time but, knowing myself, I doubt it. :-)

Nonetheless, I did this walk in order to get exercise as that is something that I am trying to focus more upon - exercise, that is. Spending most of my days in front of a computer or at meetings and such is not terribly conducive way of feeling good so I have to find another way of doing it. I would run but I have an arthritic knee that screams at me in 6 different languages when I try; I have instead tried to walk very quickly and hope that my knee does not become too upset.

Now, normally when I find myself alone (often in my car as I traverse the 25 minutes each way to work and back), I tend to have long, prolific conversations with myself in my head. It is a method that I used for many years to come up with stories that I would then write down. Of course, the fact that it also made me look a wee bit on the loony side was an unfortunate side-effect was that it would ensure no one would want to approach me (or fortunate, if you consider that it would keep people away that, in many cases, I did not want to interact with in the first place). It also helps me to sometimes rationalize things in my head that may have been bouncing around inside for a while. In short, such time alone has been like speed for the neural synapses and, after many years, have been very reassuring to me.

However, yesterday, I was approaching the end of my walk when I realized that my mind was completely blank. Not necessarily blank as in the vacuous statements issued by politicians to encourage people to vote for them but blank as in nothing was distracting me from what I was doing and I could focus, such as it was, on the current here and now. And for those who know me, being able to focus in such a manner is a rare event, indeed. It was a blankness that was a peaceful feeling that permitted me to find the balance that I often seem to lack in my occasionally frenetic daily pace. To essentially blank myself from everything for that short time is reassuring and grants me the ability to reacquire the sense of peace that is the legend written about in prose and poetry. It does not happen, and indeed has not happened, very often but that makes it so much better when it does occur. It is almost like recharging the mental and emotional senses and a restoration of equilibrium that it so often needed in my own chaotic world so I am grateful.

I'd be even more grateful if I could find that same sense of blankness when I want to go to sleep - but perhaps that is asking a bit much?

Nothing ever really changes

I'm currently slogging (and believe me, "slogging" seems negative but it's the right word considering how long it is taking me) through The Great War for Civilization by Robert Fisk. It is a long book and covers much Mr. Fisk's journeys and research on the Middle East. And while he has a certain leftist bent that does not diminish the work that he has compiled. I have found it to be fascinating reading, though not everyone would necessarily agree. I only wish I had read it when I first purchased the book more than a year ago - then promptly misplaced it until recently. *sigh*

But before my ADD tendencies cause me to diverge too far from my intended subject, I am currently reading through one of his sections on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. He brings up the demonization that takes place by the Israelis when they discuss the Palestinians and how they are vermin, cockroaches and insects to be stomped upon in order to teach them lessons. This is, of course, when they're not being referred to as terrorists or homicide bombers. <sarcasm> Really, I suppose the world owes Fox News a debt of gratitude for that. </sarcasm> And one only need go through MEMRI to see how many Arabs and Muslims talk about Jews. And these are things that have been occurring for years, not something that is just recent. If anything, the only thing recent about these characterizations is that they're now much more easily translated into English and therefore available to the English-only crowd who previously may have been unaware of them. And it is this demonization issue that I discussed less than a year ago on this blog and it seems to have come around again.

Indeed, how it easy it is to learn that the best way to make it easy to hurt or kill someone is to strip away their humanity and see them only as a negative caricature or as nothing more than a beast. It is not hard to understand how the situation in the Middle East between Israelis and Palestinians continues to fester when they see each other as beasts needing to be slaughtered in order to obtain what they want. Someone needs to really bring both sides to the table and enable them to start talking to each other - as people. This doesn't mean that it would be as easy as that but there can be no real beginning to a solution unless and until each side recognizes the other as someone more than just a generic "enemy" - or vermin or terrorist or Zionist or pig.

Would that it were so easy...