4.3 - Who is John Galt? Is he a gamer?

I enjoy video games. I enjoy them quite a bit, actually. Unfortunately, life is short, and the choices many, so I don't get to partake as often as I'd like. I'm sure my playing time will be even more limited as the job hunt continues and the semester progresses.

Since the kids were so great on our cross-country excursion, I bought me, er, them a Wii. What an amazingly fun piece of equipment that is. I know it has to be good exercise, too; the day after we hooked it up I was sore (my arms and back -- not my thumbs!).

I think Nintendo has been paying attention. Perhaps they've been learning from Apple's commitment to giving the customer what they want. The Wii does just enough, but not too much. It's simple to use and so much fun. I think I can even say that having played both Wii Golf and real-life mini-golf in the last week, I'd rather play on the Wii.

This wasn't supposed to be about the Wii. It's just so darned fun...

My favorite computer games have always been the ones most often labelled "First-Person Shooters." Whether you're actually shooting or not, I like putting myself into the game. Doom, Half-life, Myst, Unreal, Grand Theft Auto--all great (I can't wait to play a FPS on the Wii... sweet!... again I digress).

Anyway, I recently began hearing about BioShock, a new FPS which is set in Rapture, an underwater version of Ayn Rand's capitalist utopia gone awry. I think Ayn Rand got a lot of things right--most things perhaps--so that interests me. A friend of mine says the game is creepy. I'm not a huge fan of creepy, though I suppose half-life could be called creepy (FWIW, the Half-Life 2 soundtrack is perfect for halloween).

One review calls the world of BioShock "beautiful, brutal, and disquieting." It uses such great phrases as "moral conundrum" and "dystopian fantasy." I am intensely curious. There are few things as interesting as a post-apocalyptic world--especially one originally envisioned as a utopia. One of these nights I'll have to download the demo...

3.3 - Skills

I have about 5 months to find a new job. So far my efforts have been weak. I have discovered that most people who are looking for "software development managers" think my management skills are exactly what they need, but they are looking for someone who will still be doing technical work as well. The range seems to be somewhere between 20% and 50% technical, which means I really need to upgrade my skills to be competitive.

Somehow, after 15 years in IT, I managed to miss out on Visual everything. I can talk intelligently about object oriented programming and design. I've written quite a bit in ASP.NET (C#!) without using Visual Studio (long story). I've taken several online courses in Visual Studio, and ventured in on my own a few times, but I'm really still not comfortable in that environment

For example, in the online courses, they have you clicking all over the place in the development tool for five minutes or so, then the instructions say something like "click here to see the code you developed." So I click there and see a line of code I could have typed in about seven seconds. As a guy who prides himself on concise, efficient code, it just doesn't feel quite right.

Microsoft has this long and glorious history of making really difficult things easy and really easy things difficult, and it seems to me they've taken my simple text editor and replaced it with a screen full of menus and buttons. I'm frustrated... and off topic.

Anyway, I signed up for a Visual Basic.NET class at the local community college, and went to my first class last night. I figure I'm probably the oldest guy in the class and as educated as the teacher, but I think it's the only way I can force myself to learn Visual Studio. I've already learned a couple things that could have kept me from looking like a complete idiot in my last interview.

With all four of us going to school, it's going to be an interesting and educational fall.

2.3 - Choose your Bandwagon

Ron Paul 2008

1.3 - Holier than Me

I am a product of my values.

I have a lot of values. I value my relationship with God. I value life, respect, competence, common sense, and my time. I value family, friends, education, and (usually) my job. It may also be obvious that I also value my place on the couch, movies, ice cream, and those little powdered mini-donuts. Diet Coke and the BK Stacker are also on the list, but I digress...

I have a low tolerance for those who do not share my values--especially those values that are most important to me. To some, this appears to manifest itself as arrogance, or the idea that I think I'm better than they are. The truth is that I don't think I'm better, I know I'm better.

Any thoughts I have of being better than someone else are inextricably tied to my values. I work hard at being competent, logical, respectful, and educated. I have a very difficult time dealing with those who are incompetent, illogical, disrespectful, and uneducated--especially those who are making no effort to correct these tremendous deficiencies.

We all live our lives in some attempt to maximize our adhesion to our values, whether we know what they are or not. This is a constant balancing act. It is impossible to put all of your time and effort into all of the different things that are important to you. There are always tradeoffs.

There are those who value humility, mercy, forgiveness, and compassion. Perhaps these values are better than mine...

7.2 - Powering the Future

I have spent quite a bit of time lately pondering alternative power. Along the way I've learned a lot.

My current interest was re-peaked upon reading an article about the Think Citi. (It actually started some time ago with the Tesla--wow, what a car--but I digress...)

My main curiosity is about the Stirling Engine. I didn't realize that there was so much I didn't know about engines. My brain has been in overdrive ever since. It's the next best thing to perpetual motion. So many ideas, so little practical/marketable implementation. There must be a way...

Even if all my ruminations go nowhere, next time my son needs a science project, I've got one for him that's fun, interesting, and somewhat unusual.

6.4 - I'm back... mostly

I'm back from vacation. Time to post regularly again. Well, after the bills are paid, the fridge restocked, the bags unpacked, a new job found, the pictures sorted, a few promises kept, emails read, phone messages handled, books shipped, accounting done, cars maintained, yardwork done, computer errors fixed, and house put back in order. Essentially all the stuff I didn't do during the last month. Oh, yeah, I also need to get busy replacing a bathtub... <sigh>

6.3 - Away. Very away.

For those who wonder about my lack of posting, I am on vacation. I am vacationing from just about everything for most of July, including blogging (but everything in moderation, including moderation, so here you go...)

To keep up, just follow runningwithletters.

6.2 - Seven-Thousand Six-Hundred Miles

I have finally finished planning the route for our once-in-a-lifetime, three-week-long, cross-country family excursion. I'm still not sure where we're going, but we are leaving July third.

I have essentially mapped out the places we want to go, the roads that lead from one place to the next, and a tentative timetable for getting it all done, but there is lots of flexibility built into the schedule as far as where exactly we go and where we end up on any particular day.

It is shaping up to be a great trip. There are really only three things that concern me:

1. Sleep. We aren't making any sleeping arrangements. We're taking the camping gear, and will stay in hotels sometimes, but we can't make reservations when we don't know where we're going to be. I expect to spend at least one night sleeping in the van because there's no room at the inn.

2. Distance. Averaging about 320 miles—5.5 hours—every day.

3. Time. Add the driving time to the finding-sleeping-arrangements time and I hope we still have time to see the sights and do some fun things. Another time concern is that the family won't want to leave some places, which we must do if we're ever going to make it home again.

Here's a partial list of planned destinations: Chicago, Badlands/Mt. Rushmore, Yellowstone, Hell's Canyon, Crater Lake, Redwood Forest, San Francisco, Yosimite, Area 51, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Crater-of-Diamonds State Park, and Atlanta.

Have any other suggestions for places we should visit? Save them for the next trip—this one's full.

5.2 - Like a deer in the headlights

There is so much to do that I don't know what to do, so I do nothing. It is imperative that I do something. There is only so much time before it all has to be done. I don't know what to do next.

The important-but-not-urgent is losing to the urgent-but-not-important. The urgent-and-important is sitting on the sidelines while not-urgent-and-not-important is already celebrating victory.

This is not good.

4.2 - When I drink alone, I prefer to be by myself

For most activities, companionship is appreciated—especially when those activities include any kind of work. Construction projects just go better with help.

Games like Apples-to-Apples or volleyball generally work better with more people than just me. Even tic-tac-toe isn't much fun by myself.

Assuming your friends aren't the talking-through-the-show-and-asking-dumb-questions-because-they-are-talking-instead-of-listenting type, watching a movie or television is generally much better as a shared experience. Sitting down to a meal with family and friends is almost always better than dining alone.

It should be clear that I'm not anti-social. (I'm not necessarily pro-social, either—I'm pretty much neutral on the topic.) Shared experiences are often wonderful, but when I'm involved in an activity that is not one of those shared experiences, I want to be left alone.

The reason for this is that it has become very obvious to me that others do not value the same things that I value. The difference between "He's busy" and "He's not doing anything" is who you ask and what they value more highly than whatever it is you are doing.

The common misconception that "he's not doing anything" is why in order to do things I want to do, I have to do them when there's no one around.

I completely understand that there are situations (e.g. friend in crisis) where just about everything you could possibly be doing is "not doing anything." Likewise there are situations where just trying to come up with something to do would be considered "busy."

Here's a quiz. Imagine a person performing each activity listed below. For each activity decide whether the person is "Busy" or "Not doing anything."

• Adding a room on to the house
  
• Installing a new bathroom sink
  
• Mowing the lawn
  
• Doing dishes
  
• Organizing a bookshelf
  
  
• Reading the Bible
  
• Reading a novel
  
• Reading a magazine
  
• Reading the newspaper
  
• Reading the mail
  
  
• Playing organized sports
  
• Playing disorganized sports
  
• Playing board games
  
• Playing cards
  
• Playing video games
  
  
• Watching a movie on TV
  
• Watching a sitcom or drama on TV
  
• Watching a ballgame on TV
  
• Watching gameshows on TV
  
• Watching poker on TV
  
  
• Updating an organizational website
  
• Shopping online
  
• Blogging
  
• Checking email
  
• Surfing the 'net
  
  
• Sleeping in bed (3AM)
  
• Sleeping in bed (8AM)
  
• Sleeping on the couch (3PM)
  
• Sitting on the couch - deep in thought
  
• Standing by the couch proclaiming boredom

Ok, well, I had this really nifty scoring system worked out, but it got lost in an untimely switch between compose mode and html mode and I'm not going to redo it. Basically, the number of "busy" answers puts you on a scale from "slave driver" (<12) to "highly respectful of the time and values of others" (29). 25 doesn't seem to be an unreasonable score. You could probably get down to about 18 without being a complete tyrant.

Additionally, you can do a comparison of your answers to the answers of someone whose activities you want to thwart. This will facilitate discussion, understanding, and arguments.

I generally have no interest in thwarting anything, so long as it doesn't affect me. I am just not very comfortable making value judgements regarding the activities of others. I always get it wrong. I really think that most of the time it's just none of my business.

Let them do what they want. I'm busy, the World Poker Tour is on.

2.2 - The Philosophy of Liberty

From Wikipedia...

"Libertarianism is a philosophy based on the principle that individuals should be allowed complete freedom of action as long as they do not infringe on the same freedom of others. This is usually taken by libertarians to mean that no one may initiate coercion, which they define as the use of physical force, the potential use (threat) of such, or the use of fraud to prevent individuals from having willful use of their person or property. For libertarians, a voluntary action is one not influenced by interpersonal coercion.

Libertarians believe that governments should be held to the same moral standards as other individuals. Thus, they oppose governmental initiation of force, even if it is supported by a democratic majority. Libertarians believe that if individuals are not initiating coercion against others, then government should leave them in peace. As a result, they oppose prohibition of "victimless crimes." This opposition to coercion extends into the economic realm, as they generally oppose taxation and government interference in business activities (other than to forbid coercion). Libertarians wish to reduce the size and scope of government. To the extent that libertarians advocate any government at all, its functions tend to be limited to protecting civil liberties and economic liberties (by protecting private property and a free market) through a police force, a military (with no conscription), and courts."

A short animated primer: The Philosophy of Liberty

6.1 - Living for Little League

There are a bunch of crazy people that live around here. These people have children and grandchildren that play baseball. These kids are on my son's baseball team.

With apologies to the few sane ones, most of this parents-of-little-leaguers crowd is just plain nuts.

Now, I'll clap, cheer, and yell some at a ball game—like any good parent, but when some grandma starts yelling at the pitcher to "throw the pepperoni into the pizza mitt," I start to worry.

I've been to quite a few baseball games at all levels: New York Yankees, Norfolk Tides, Peninsula Pilots, LeTourneau Yellowjackets, church softball games, and many of my cousins little league games when I was a kid. I never before heard anyone tell a pitcher to "throw the pepperoni into the pizza mitt."

I even watched the NCAA women's fastpitch softball championships. Those girls are yelling stuff constantly—they never shut up—and I'm pretty sure I didn't hear any one of them say anything about pepperoni or pizza.

So I'm thinking this is really odd, when I then realize that the other parents appear to be nodding to each other and have that "ooo, that's a good one—I wish I'd thought of it" look on their faces.

Then some of them join in with some random banter about pretzels—and something about salt.

So I look over at my family to see if I'm the only one that thinks this is strange, and find my wife and daughter trying not to fall off the bleachers from laughing at these people. Their attempts to stifle their laughter are so horrendously unsuccessful that they have resorted to burying their faces in their blankets and cannot even look at these people without cracking up.

It seems the only one unaffected by the yelling of absurdities at the pitcher is the pitcher, who has just thrown ball four for the third time this inning.

Grandma seems to think this has happened because he didn't listen about the pepperoni.

2.1 - Freedom Quiz

Here are a few lesser-known quotes from one of the greatest speeches in history. It's not long, but I suspect few have read the whole thing...

• "Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy."
  
• "In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred."
  
• "We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence."
  
• "With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood."

Recognize it?

3.2 - The Package

Yesterday, we received the package.

The long-awaited Package was billed as the detailing of the incentives that my company is going to provide to those willing to move across the country due to the aforementioned merger.

The package was broken up into three presentations. Presentation 1 was the company move incentive plan. Presentation 2 was information about the company that is going to help make the transition. Part 3 was a marketing package created by a realtor.

Nobody cared about 2 and 3.

Presentation 1 was made up of 10 slides. 1-3: overview and background; 4: options; 5-10: process, execution, and summary.

Only slide 4 matters.

To be fair, there was some potentially nice stuff on slide 4 about moving expenses, storage, temporary housing, and things of that nature. Slide 4 was also quite a bit of a disappointment.

Slide 4 uses the phrases "select incumbents," "key skills," "minimize member cost," "options," and "negotiate." In other words, if I want to move, they have to want me to move, and it would still cost me, and any of the things offered on the list are only possibilities that are open for negotiation.

One of the "options" is a house hunting trip for one. One? As my wife so aptly put it: "are they going to provide marriage counseling as well?"

To me, nailing all these "options" down was the entire point of the package. Is my skill a "key skill?" Am I one of the "select incumbents?" Without knowing which options are my options and knowing what the "one-time move incentive bonus" is, I can't make a decision to move.

Additionally they want a guarantee that we will stay with the company for 12 months following the move. They won't guarantee us that we will have any job at all.

They won't talk to any individuals about their bonus or options until everyone says whether they are in or out.

As one of my co-workers put it, "if anyone was on the fence before, they aren't on it anymore."

They want my answer tomorrow.

They can have it now.