Rick's Journal

10:41pm: Alive
*sheesh* I'm just recovering from the weekend. I officially feel *old*.

10:31pm: Rick's Goals
This post is self-indulgent. I'd skip it if I were you.

I've been putting this off for a year, ever since I completed the last of my "by 2006" goals. I was two years late, but I'm surprised that I met all of those goals.

( What a ride )


Rick's long term planning: I think these goals represent a similar level of reaching for the stars as the last set.

( Shoot for the Moon, if you miss you'll still be in space. )

8:51pm: WAR! -good god ya'll - What is it good for?
Um, not the economy. Today, NPR is talking about the war in Iraq being good for the economy. Some thoughts:

Also, for war to be good for the economy, you need to not just that you produce massively, but make sure that production is funded by someone else. The reason historically that war is good for an economy is plunder. Producing bombs, paying for them with taxes, and dropping them in the desert is bad for the economy, because the economy doesn't benefit from utilizing the bomb. Also, paying soldiers salary's overseas, spending taxes building roads and schools that won't help our economy, and rebuilding another country's oil producing capacity all suck resources from our economy, and place them in someone else's.

On the other hand, spending that $500 billion in the US could have built a highway from L.A. to NYC 5 lanes wide on each side. Imagine the long term impact of that.

Or, how about a $17000 dollar raise for every teacher in the country, ($100 billion/year). Or, how about a $50,000 stipend for every student graduating with a bachelors degree (although the number of graduates might go up). Or, how about $10,000,000 for every Ph. D. graduate, which probably means we could make Masters and Ph. D. education free for anyone in the country that wanted it.

One more, how about we pay every GM employee $400,000/yr.

In a nutshell, $100,000,000,000 every year has enormous economic impact, but not to us.

10:39pm: I know I haven't updated in a while. Things have been...interesting. We're moving, so there's a lot going on right now. Also I've developed a bit of a FaceBook addiction. Some of those apps are highly entertaining.

Just figured maybe I should actually post here once a quarter or so. How are you doing?

10:41pm: I got this from my sister's boyfriend. It's more hilarious than you think it would be.


Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

9:11pm: I'm immaturing.
Musically at least. For a long time I've had a huge disdain for top 40 music, but a couple of years ago, I really started hearing songs I love on the top 40. Recently, Coldplay's "Viva la vida," which is utter nonsense, gets completely stuck in my head. Normally, I can't stand nonsense songs, and if you need a PhD in history to know if the song is about Tiberius, or Pilate, I'll still call it nonsense. Also, Jason Mraz's "I'm yours" which has a lovely reggae feel to it, and I love the really simple lyrics about love. But, the two that really worry me are, Lilly Allen's "Smile" which is wonderfully vindictive, and also, I love that she seems to use Fuck in every song. (On a side note, she has a little heard version of "Everyone's changing" that I like.) And Katy Perry's "Thinking of You." which commits the cardinal sin of using a drum machine. Oh well, maybe I'll just give up and by Britney Spears' new album.

10:50am: 20 months a (mostly) vegetarian
A little over a year and a half ago, Kat and I stopped eating meat. We had both become concerned about the poor treatment of animals, and the ecological damage caused by the factory farming system. When we did so we acknowledged a few principles to guide that path. As I saw it, in order of importance they were:
1) The system is driven by economic benefit, so the best way to fix it is to remove the benefit. (Don't buy it, and people won't make it.)
2) Something is better than nothing (it isn't necessary to be perfect in order to drive change.)
3) The next best way to fix the system is to reward those ranchers/farmers that understand the responsibilities brought on by raising animals for consumption. (Sustainable, humane raising and slaughter)
4) One person can't make a difference, but it is each persons responsibility to try. (If everyone who agreed with us changed their purchasing habits, the problem would not exist.)

Over the last year and a half I've learned these things:
1) Most ranchers are glib, and think that people like us are unreasonable, and thus can be ignored.
2) Most people don't understand the concept of improving, they impose a strict interpretation of what we should be eating, and view any deviation as hypocrisy. Which is especially unusual as it pertains to number four.
3) It is extremely difficult to find meat that you can be certain is raised responsibly. "Humanely Raised" standards are sometimes still inhumane and driven by the rancher, not the consumer. Some ranchers use deceptive practices to sell non-humanely raised meat at the higher prices humanely raised meat sells for. But on the plus side, humanely raised meat sells quickly, and for a substantial premium. These ranchers can sell meat straight from their farm at twice the cost of non-humane meat, and they sell out. Compare humane pork baby back ribs at $10/lb, to the $.08/lb farmers sell pork to the slaughter house. Over 10,000% higher yields.
4) I cannot believe how many people take an attitude of "please don't tell me about it, I don't want to know how bad the system is." I don't think I go around evangelizing, but many people seem to know something is wrong, and they just don't want to hear any facts. These people can be the worst about holding others to a standard they don't even aspire to. It is as if they think that we can go fight the good fight, so they can stay home on the couch (eating chicken wings.)

So now, as we come upon a new year, I find for the first time that I'm really starting to miss meat. But I also have found that the system is changing. Centro, one of Des Moines' best restaurants, serves humane meat. A new fast food restaurant called Chipoltle has opened that serves only humane meat (although I'd like their standard to be a bit higher.) But, both of them do it without calling attention to it. I'd like a sign in Chipoltle that said, none of the animals used in our food were tortured. Maybe then people might start to question what humanely raised meat meant. Also, several local farmers have formed co-ops that sell humanely raised meat, and do so withing 150 miles (to minimize ecological damage from transport) which, frankly, is a higher standard than I was looking for. So, maybe in the new year, there will be more meat, because I sure miss chicken wings.

</soapbox>

12:34am: The end.
I'm calling this post the last in December, since I haven't gone to bed yet. So, Happy new year, everyone! I hope 2009 is the year you all find whatever it is you're looking for.

9:44pm: Just do the dishes.
One of the guys I work with has a wife (only one I think) that stays at home with their kids. They have one kid that is too young for school and two that are in school. This guy has a pretty high powered, high stress job. Although he is amazingly relaxed considering what he does, he doesn't work just 40 hours a week, and he isn't fucking around all the time. So, anyway, in addition to working a fairly significant job, when he gets home, he is responsible for all the stereotypical guy crap (trash, house upkeep, lawn, etc) and also, cleaning the bathrooms, doing the dishes, and he cooks most nights. (Although I think she does the laundry, which is the other big chore) Now, I'm not sure women got the long side of the stick when they went to work, and I've known a few women that had a pretty lopsided view of what constitutes fair division of labor in the house, but I always find this staggering. Her response (through him) is that she stayed home to take care of the kids, not to be a maid. That sounds reasonable, but I don't think it actually is. (He says what I would say, "Fine, hire a maid.") Next year, when their kid is old enough to go to school, she plans to return to the work force. I think she may be in for a nasty shock. I doubt her boss will count pilates as "work time."

So, since I'm trying not to bitch about my own life, I'll bitch about someone else's.

11:30pm: End of year = end of year paperwork
I have a mountain of EOY Jaycees paperwork to do before January 4th, which is when I swear in the new board, and give them a "state of the chapter." All in all, my budget for the year is off by $1000 on the good side. I think that is particularly amazing since I principal fund raiser lost $60 instead of making the $12000 it was supposed to make. It appears I will end the year narrowly missing being one of the top 10 chapters in the country, which says bad things about how much paperwork other presidents are doing. In the new year, I hope I have a secretary or a treasure, because doing all three of those jobs is not pleasant. Iowa Department of Revenue, I hope I never speak to you again.

10:47pm: How white is it?
Fun fact from Wikipedia re: Dallas County, Iowa.
"The racial makeup of the county was 94.75% White, 0.74% Black or African American, 0.15% Native American, 0.69% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 2.79% from other races, and 0.84% from two or more races."

So, "other" out numbers all the other non-white boxes by 1.7:1.

Natchitoches Parish, La?
"57.85% White, 38.43% Black or African American, 1.08% Native American, 0.44% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 0.92% from other races, and 1.27% from two or more races."

It really is odd how you never see any black people up here, but I didn't realize it was quite that skewed. Hey, black people in Louisiana, you really should consider moving up here.

10:18pm: SO not ready to go back to work.
Eh, it has been a lazy month. It seems really easy to fall out of the habit of working, and very hard to get back in the habit. Still, I realized while on break that I had failed to provide some reports to other people before I left, so I have paperwork to do. That ought to help ease me back in to the swing of things before I actually have to work. Also, I'm looking forward to an egg and cheese croissant from BK in the morning. That habit will be easy to get back in to.

Have a happy work week , everybody!

11:14pm: Some new years traditions.
In Bethlehem, Pa, they drop a peep, as in the marshmellow candy thing, at midnight akin to "the ball drop" in New York. They call it "the peep show." I shit you not. Also, they call it a family friendly event. In Elmore, Ohio (which isn't the state I live in) they celebrate with a "sausage fest." And if you'll forgive me stretching a little, in Mount Olive, N.C, a 13-foot pickle plunges down a flagpole into a tank. Just some things to think about as you grab hold of your loved one 4 days from now.

11:38pm: Elves
Best Buy is running ads on Hulu during Chuck where Best Buy employees tell stories about Christmas. I'm sure they're running them elsewhere also. In one of them, a geek squad employee is telling a story about how 2 days after Christmas, he was called to do a computer setup, and the guy asked him to put on an elf costume to do the setup. So, it's kind of cute, and the story is well told, but are you trying to make recruiting geek squad members hard?

10:35pm: Hope everyone had a merry Christmas.
Kat and I opened presents, of which there were many. Watched several of the movies I got for Christmas, including Stranger than Fiction, which I loved even more the second time. Went to see Doubt in the Theater. If you've only seen the play, you should see the movie. There is some interesting new information related to the fact that you actually see kids in the movie. I made Christmas dinner, which has actually something I make for Kat whenever I'm in too much of hurry to cook, which is odd that she wanted that for Christmas. And I played a lot of Rock Band 1, because playing Rock Band 2 alone sucks ass. Also, I've decided I hate the music in Rock Band 2 (at least the stuff in the simple category).

I've been writing some code for two passion projects. 1) One of Kat's friends had an idea for a website, and the code behind it caught my interest. So I've been writing that, despite the fact that since this is someone else's idea, it will never see the light of day. Still, I was intrigued by what on the surface seemed a simple problem, but at depth might be way hard. Also, I'm utterly unqualified to write it, so sucking would be acceptable. 2)I've been writing network drivers for Vista in an attempt to solve a supposedly intractable problem in NAC. That has been way satisfying on very many levels. Since it is fucking HARD, it has been making up some for the brainless nature of my job. If it successful, I'll get to rub it in someone at McAfee's face, 'cause it's there job to do it, and they say it can't be done. (can't + computers = you're wrong, unless P=NP) I can use it in the talk I hope to give in Aug. at DefCon. And, I can use it in an entirely different talk if the one I was planning fails. Also, it is intimidating, and I like challenges in which I can fail miserably, and no one will know.

Three days off of work has really brightened my outlook. Or, maybe it was all the cool swag. 'Cause, you know, pirates love booty.

10:33pm: Muah-ah-ah-ah-ah
Despite apparently being in a massive hurry tonight, kelbellene dropped off a bunch of sweet stuff, which was sweet of her. Also, very tasty, and so I ate way more cookies than I should have. They were nom-y. Kat and I watched "Die Hard" while I was eating all of those cookies, and it is surprisingly festive. Certainly way better than that crappy "It's a Wonderful Life" movie. Now, I'm off to bed early without having to turn on the alarm. And, no working for three days. Also, there is a surprising number of presents under the tree, especially for people that don't really celebrate christmas. I even have a new Jim Butcher book about my favorite character in the Dresden series (it isn't Harry).
What more could one ask for?

11:23pm: Down with the DMCA (and your little dog too)
Today, Kat told me I had missed a news story about Joe Satriani suing Cold Play. (Good luck Joe, no one ever wins music infringement lawsuits.) Anyway, I went looking around to compare the two songs in question, and I can find multiple copies of both of them. However, someone did a mash-up of the two songs, and a bunch of people did clips back to back. It took me a ton of looking to find one of those that hadn't been taken off due to a copyright claim by EMI, Cold Play's label. First of all, if you didn't notice it EMI, your copyright claim is suspect, but that isn't the point. The point is this; nearly a decade ago, when a bunch of us were "screaming hysterically" about the long term ramifications of this crappy law, this is exactly what we were talking about. You are intentionally squelching free speech and fair use for the express purpose of preventing dissemination of embarrassing information. This is the free speech we were talking about. When we said people were going to use the law like this, people used to mock us, and call us hysterical.
RIAA, when the revolution comes...

8:52pm: I don't want to grow up...
Really, I'm so tired, and I can't get motivated to do my job tomorrow. But alas, I will go and make context diagrams in a vain attempt to prove I'm smart. I don't know what other purpose they serve. Also, I will use the Zachman framework to answer such complicated questions as: Who, What, When, Where, and Why, with answers as vague as the questions. This will prove that in addition to being smart, I know that business users are stupid., since they won't be able to understand my very complex project from my 5 word answers. My superiority now confirmed, I will develop step plans, so that inferior minds (those would be the actual experts) can execute my plans without thinking, which might lead them to question why the fuck I'm telling them how to do their jobs. Soon we will begin execution. If anyone should question the plan, I will tell them that the paperwork has been on file with the local planning commission and available for public review. In the event I've designed something entirely unworkable, I'll just ask the experts why they didn't tell me it was going to fail in the first place. Or maybe, question their competence, since a competent person in their field surely would have succeeded. Then, I will wonder why these people resent me, and don't want to cooperate with me. This is a process I will gleefully call "consensus building." Meanwhile, I'll get to work with people on many other projects attempting to "build consensus" with me in my other role as, you know, a "subject matter expert."

Fuck it, if they want to pay me to keep shit from getting done correctly (if at all), I'm up to the challenge.

11:39am: John Mayer = Counting Crows?
No, I don't think so. Some time ago, I posted about a rendition of "Big Yellow Taxi" as performed by John Mayer. Since then several people have told me that is the Counting Crows. i.e. This version. I find it hard to imagine that I would confuse the two, and I actually like that version. But I searched The Whole Internet(tm) and can find no reference. Was I smoking crack a year ago?

11:18pm: FAIL
I forgot to post last night. I guess the alcohol, and the long work week combined to sap me of my ability to keep up with these things. I back dated this bad boy, so it will appear like I didn't fail, but we'll all know. We'll all know.

8:46pm: It's a piratey day
So, the 8 happy things meme Kat tagged me for really kind of made me think about what made me happy. I couldn't help but notice that there weren't really any incidents, or things that made me happy. I kind of had to think hard to come up with a "thing" that made me happy. Mostly, I'm just happy walking around. The exception, apparently, is food, which may explain some other things. I don't really have a point to this. I guess maybe Maslow had it right, and this has nothing to do with my outlook.

On a completely unrelated note, I've been watching a ton of Mythbusters lately. Here are some observations:
(In Mythbusters fashion, all scientific rigor has been removed from these observations)

1) The Mythbusters crew (especially the build team) are way more careful than they used to be.
2) The frequency of myths requiring an explosions is increasing, and I believe the derivative of that increase is increasing also. (relating to number one, they no longer ever handle explosives themselves)
3) Partially related to number 2, many episodes seem to be various mythbusters finding myths that will let them live out adventures.
4) Are/were Grant and Kari in a relationship?

That's all.

7:34pm: Run for the hills...
This economy thing is way past scary. I really find it hard to imagine a bottom to it. I don't think we really have anything of value any more. We built our country on our natural resources, then as an agrarian power house, then our industrial complex made the best you could find in the world, and then we began selling the product of the worlds best education system. All through that, the American work ethic drove the world economy. I'm not saying we're all going to starve, but we may have to start living like Europeans do. I, for one, was hoping for another decade or so to prepare for this.


1) Open favorite drawing program.
2) Close eyes.
3) Draw cat.
4) Post results.
( My terrible drawing )

10:37pm: Last Happiness...
Hoooray! It's the first real snow. I know it's snowed before, but this time it's good and cold and should be around a few days. Also, it's light, fluffy, and about 4 inches deep.

Today I opened a package from the realtor that sold us our house which contained information about the number of houses on the market, and the number that sold. That is some sad news. Kat and I were discussing on Saturday whether it is better to buy things that people are selling cheap out of desperation (and thus profit from their desperation) or not to buy it, and perhaps depress the market even more. I think it's an interesting moral problem. Are you helping someone when you buy their Xbox360 for $100, or hurting them. What about when you buy their SUV for $6500 instead of $10,000. Or, how about when you buy their $200000 piece of land for $120000 ('cause that's what they owe the bank.) It's not just theoretical. I was actually thinking of buying a second xbox, since they were so cheap on ebay. I'm almost certainly going to buy an AWD car (before I die in mine.)

Here's to a moral quandary. Word to our mother.

11:22pm: Is it time for a vacation yet?
I took off Dec 24th, so I'll be off work Wed-Sun. and it's a good thing. I need a serious vacation. I'm worn out past the point of really being useful at work. Today I cleaned my desk, and read the strategic plan for the next three years. I needed to do both of those things, but I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow, 'cause I'm out of time killers. And then, I have five more days to kill. I guess maybe I'll work one of those days, or maybe not.

Happy Crap. The world is a bleak dark place lacking all happiness. I've been wanting to post something like that since I started this messed up thing. Okay, really,
Happy Stuff: I went to the usual place I go to for lunch kind of late, and the guy working there made me a special burrito. I think he put about a cup of cheese on that sucker, it was gooey. Also, he couldn't wrap it because it was too big. Not that I need an uber burrito, but it was pretty awesome.

Much of my happiness seems to revolve around food. That may explain some things. :)

10:55pm: Wasted Weekend
I did nothing this weekend, which is bad, because, as I said previously, I was already way the fuck behind. I mostly stared at my computer screen thinking about projects I've been contemplating all year. And seriously, like I need new projects. Also, more lack of planning is catching up with me this weekend. So, suck.

Happy things. Happiness is new and interesting random data. Today I learned a great deal about various random things, like, water filters, inline water heaters, the laws regarding tax sales in Iowa (very different from Texas), installing drains in set concrete, and various and sundry things on the path between those things.