^H

I’m sampling from NoJoMos in the past. It’s lazy, but these are things that i think still migh be interesting or different. From 2013:

What Job would you never take?

1. Another job with the four-letter.
2. Any job that’ll hire me without showing me the work environment, first.

So, I’ve had learning experiences in my last two positions.

It happens.

I needed a job after I got laid off in the beginning of 2013. It busted my compensation level back to what I’d been earning in 2006/7.

I could second-guess a lot of things, but I’ve always tried to do proper engineering work, even if I’m getting paid as a point-and-drool seatwarmer.

That I was in the middle of trying to get my health under control didn’t help.

The main thing that comes through for me is that The Formula doesn’t work. My late father used to joke about needing that dog-chasing-his-tail graphic in every PowerPoint presentation.

You don’t.
You don’t need to exactly hit the page limit on a proposal; you need to answer the question. If your answer is five pages, so be it. If your answer is two and a half, but it hits everything, even better.

Being verbose and flowery doesn’t help you get your point across!

I could now go on a tirade about engineering in a clean environment, but I don’t feel like doing that. But nothing should be mystical when you’re truly engineering. You should know why something works or doesn’t.

Is that so difficult to understand?

But, hey, I haven’t “been doing this a long time;” what do I know?

I had a prompt prepared, but I really don’t feel like writing about it.
It’s Thursday. I’m tired. Supposedly it was raining earlier, but how the fuck would I know working in a windowless eighth of a cubicle?

So that prompt probably gets stored until November. It happens.

But I’m beyond ready for the week to be finished.

An event to which I really look forward is tomorrow. Considering one of the weather nerd sites I frequent says ~70% chance of rain when it’s supposed to happen, I’m guessing it gets rained out again.

The last one was supposed to be in May. It, too, got cancelled for rain.

But what can you do?

Today’s been rahter uneventful, pushing myself physically on something, using work time to converse with my “friend in the digital age,” who’d sent my TV/Intertubes bill to nearly $200/mo. for barely any service.

Is there anything I really wanna see I can’t find on Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or an ATSC antenna?

Hmmm….

I spoke to those “friends” on the phone. Almost 40 minutes later, they’d managed to bring my bill down 40 bucks a month.

But i’m still not happy. I’d like to do something different.

Write about your relationship status. How long has it been? Is it still good? If so, why?

I’ve been together with my wife for over nine years now.

We just work. And it really never feels like work. She’s the only person I’ve ever been with, where the experience is essentially effortless.

It’s a big freaky that I’ve been wiht her almost a third of her life, now, but…

At the same time, part of me asks, “why analyze this?” We love each other, are each other’s best friends, etc.. What’s to explain?

I do miss her every day I’m away for this shitty job, though.

That’s been as, if not more difficult than my medical maladies.

I feel better when I sleep in my own bed, next to her.

There’s really not a lot more to say about it than that.

write about something that annoys you-that really shouldn’t.

You know, I used to be a lot more annoyed by what others did. Nowadays, I have trouble finding the fuck I’m not giving. (partial credit to Ke$ha on that one…..and I’m comfortable enough to admit that…..)

I guess what really irks me lately is what I’ve previously called Captain Queeg Syndrome.

For those of you unfamiliar with Captain queeg, he was one of the main characters in Herman Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny. While the book is certainly not Wouk’s best-known, it did get made into a movie with Humphrey Bogart.

“Don’t Bogart, bro.”

One of Queeg’s exploits was also cited in a Supreme Court decision (By Anthony Kennedy, who, IMO, is the best justice on the court….)

(Aside #2: I just Googled “Herman Wouk” to make sure I was spelling his name correctly. He’s still alive?! And a hundred years old. Crazy.)

One of the key things Queeg tried to do is recreate his single moment of adequacy, even when it didn’t fit. So much lately I see is people just trying to recreate past “successes,” ignorant of the fact that the environments are completely different.

So, reinflate the real estate market. (That $400K/unit condo complex in Fort Norfolk is a swell idea!!1!)
There can’t be a second dotcom bubble. (And if you disagree, please bitch about me on Yelp….)

I get frustrated hearing older people, Boomers, especially, just ignore the fact that the old tricks really didn’t work in the first place. But they totes will if you try them again.

Hashtag ReadyForHillary.

Stop it. Do somehting new. It might be something you’re completely unaccustomed to. It might not work.

But it also might work.

There is no neat package of shit you buy and do that’ll make your life turn out perfect. Sorry, HGTV. Sorry, Bill O’Reilly. Sorry, Mark “Nextel” Warner.

Do the analysis.

Yes, it might be tedious.
Yes, it might tell you what you already “know.”

But it also might tell you some things you don’t know, and show you some things you didn’t expect.

Once you have that knowledge, react to it. You might make a mistake. You probably won’t end up dead because of it. Broke, maybe, but probably not.

No, it’s not as fast as just trying to replicate what somebody else once did.

Oh well.

Speaking of HGTV, another thing that really annoys me is this authoritative sense of style some people in design seem to have.

My mother had this renovation show she was watching; an island in the kitchen fixed everything

Why? Why does a kitchen need an island? There’s things about my flat’s galley that I don’t like. An island would fix none of them.

I see the same sort of thing when my wife is watching her girly fashion TV things. What makes that good, other than your own personal taste? Can you even cite one authoritative thing that’d point to its adequacy?

Even the worst cook can probably find a technique that reinforces whatever slop he/she is producing. Can the same be said of the woman who says that the wagon wheel really sets off the yard?

Well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.

So, maybe I can still complain.

I also want to know what the fuck I did to my CV. I used to get no attention at all, but the past few weeks, it’s been nonstop. Some of those pings are from places I never could have thought of.

I’d include an image of Tommy From Quinzee here, but that might reveal too much about the latest query.

(I also saw something yesterday that was looking for someone to write SQL/Access Quires.)

8-2. What do you remember from 1982?

Not much. I remember my mother being pregnant with my brother. For the Millenials in the audience, here’s the Wikipedia rundown:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982

I think I hit on this one after riding back to my MIL’s house over a bridge I remember a trip over as a young kid. I was riding in the backseat of one of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_LTD_II

My great aunts in the front seat taking me home after my brother had been in surgery nearby.

I remember a couple of things from 1983. When my ada was still alive, one of the ships we were working on was one he’d dealt with when he was on active duty.

He said something to the effect that he’d loaded ammunition on that ship in Egypt in `983. With a convoy of Russian trucks….

My memory really starts to kicks in about 1984 or 1985. I think that memory of the ride with my great aunts would have been probably early 1985.

I’m curious about the research on memory retention.

1. It’s always kind of odd when a month starts on the last day of the week. That aside, what are you doing this weekend? What would you rather be doing?

Well, relaxing after the infusion yesterday

Purportedly, things get better after I’ve had a few. Th only thing I’m noticing is that I’m hungry. After years of nausea, that’s a fun change.

My wife is making bangers and mash for dinner.

So, what would I rather be doing? Gluttony.

Yes, it’s one of the seven deadly sins, but there’s always penance.

.30. What has you on edge?

This one is really one where I wrote the prompt while I was thinking about what I’m going to do tomorrow. It could kill me.

But, then, so could crossing the street.
I have to be better about thinking about probabilities.

Yes, I know this makes me a lousy Dateline viewer; sorry, NBC. It also makes me a really bad sekurity mastar. And why did Apple foist the pox that is autocorrect system-wide on OS X? sigh

But, back to what’s worrying me; what can I say? This is scary stuff. Not that I haven’t done dangerous things in my life, but, I am a bit unnerved (again, no pun intended).

So, what else is up? I’m still very unhappy with my professional situation. There’s not a lot that can be done to remedy that, unfortunately.

I’m excited to see my wife this evening.

twenty-seven. Write about a really expensive restaurant bill you’ve had. Where was it? How many people were in the party? What was really good? What was not-so-good? Do you at all regret it?

I’m trying to think of why, exactly, I came up with this prompt, but…

I’m not going to say, exactly, what my most expensive ever was.

I still haven’t hit the month’s rent in my college apartment yet, so…. Though I was in a party here (lediplomatedc.com), where the entire bill four four people exceeded….but we were all eating, and at least three of us were drinking, so….

There have been some other expensive romps. Normally in DC. Normally with big parties. Normally with plenty of alcohol.

I’m okay with this.

It’s not like we do it often – maybe once a year.

Even so, I feel like restauranteurs are a fuckton more honest than a lot of HR types. seethe

twenty-seven. Write about a really expensive restaurant bill you’ve had. Where was it? How many people were in the party? What was really good? What was not-so-good? Do you at all regret it?

I’m trying to think of why, exactly, I came up with this prompt, but…

I’m not going to say, exactly, what my most expensive ever was.

I still haven’t hit the month’s rent in my college apartment yet, so…. Though I was in a party here (lediplomatedc.com), where the entire bill four four people exceeded….but we were all eating, and at least three of us were drinking, so….

There have been some other expensive romps. Normally in DC. Normally with big parties. Normally with plenty of alcohol.

I’m okay with this.

It’s not like we do it often – maybe once a year.

Even so, I feel like restauranteurs are a fuckton more honest than a lot of HR types. seethe

.26. Describe your work situation. Are you happy with it? Will it change soon?

So, my current work situation is happenstance, and it’s probably not going to happen much longer. Either because I quit, or because it comes to an end.

I’m really hoping for the former, rather than the latter. I’ll spare the particulars of government contracting, but, let’s just say, that despite ressurance from the low-level customer, there hasn’t been anything official published.

Without that official publication, I’m out of a job sometime late next month.

I’m okay that it’s almost done, one way or the other, because I’m incredibly unhappy.

Physically, the job has taken a toll on me. I work in an eighth of a cubicle, and have no way in or out of the facility without someone giving me a ride. As a “reasonable accommodation,” I’m now given a lockbox where I can store my phone, but it really doesn’t do me any good, because I can’t even get a taxi to the work site.

You know, I could write extensively about how bad this has all been, but I’m not going to. It won’t change anything.

So, so much for writing volumnously about this; I don’t want to talk about it.

On to other thing…..