August 24, 2005 :: Gas price rises and fallout

Yes, I'm going to take the half-ass route and talk about a popular blogging topic. As we all know, gas prices are at record highs. Ridiculous highs. How ridiculous? You can buy a t-shirt or mug with the following image on it:



And on a more serious note, this AP story about a fool who killed a gas station attendant trying to drive off after stealing $52 worth of fuel to fill his gas-thirsty SUV. This is so ridiculous and sad at the same time, I can't laugh, I can't cry, all I can do is shake my head. Pretty soon, SUVs will be flooding the resale market, just like condos are about to.

posted by Rainmayun at 3:08 PM -

August 18, 2005 :: Confessions

WARNING:
The following is a confessional of a lot of random thoughts from the dark corners of my brain, a good deal of which involve prurient interest. If you are squeamish, or don't wish to know bad or creepy things about me, don't read any further. Don't say you weren't warned.

• My job isn't that bad. I get paid well, I get to come in pretty much whenever I want, and they think I'm brilliant. Lately I get in around 11am. Of course, if they really think I am brilliant, why do they give me such menial labor?


• I once wondered whether sleeping with my boss would get me ahead. Yes, my actual boss at the time. No, I didn't do it.


• In hindsight, it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference. Apparently a lot of that sort of fraternization goes on around here.


• I sometimes turn up the volume on a porno just to see if the neighbor's kids are listening on the other side of the wall. So far, they haven't responded.


• I have a fondness for alcohol. So far, I'm not an alcoholic, although a glance at my dad encourages me to be careful.


• Like many men, I sometimes wonder how women would react differently if my *ahem* member was significantly larger than it currently is. I don't think I could have been a porn star, though, because what else could you do with your life after that?


• When driving, and the weather is hot, I glance at any scantily clad female figure walking down the street. More often than not, in my neighborhood, they are underage, and I mentally slap myself for looking.


• Occasionally, they are grannies, and then I still feel bad, but not as bad.


• Panty lines, on the right woman, are sometimes sexy.


• Not granny panties, though.


• I once had regular sex with a woman who had a false tooth. She wore this plate in her mouth with the fake tooth on it. For the longest time, I just thought she didn't like kissing.


• Yes, (usually) she took it out when we had sex. Don't ask me how I didn't notice.


• I walk around my house naked fairly often. Usually, though, I at least have on underwear. If I ever move in with someone, or someone moves in with me, this will be a hard habit to break.


• I keep a shoebox full of jetsam and detritus from every woman I've ever interacted with on a romantic level. When I get married, I'll burn it.


• Some of the stuff in there probably won't burn too well. I'll need an industrial strength incinerator to get it to ashes.


• One of the things that's not in the box is a Mardi Gras doll named Kokeeta (don't ask). I like to think she brings me good luck. Upon reflection of the relationship that was involved, she probably does the opposite.


• Some people's blogs make me dizzy. I mean, what the hell are they talking about? I never know.


• No, I'm not going to name names. I'm not that mean.


• I envy people who get to work downtown on K street, L street, or anywhere that a lot of other black people work. By virtue of my profession, I'm never around very many black people.


• Consequently, I've never had an office romance. Although there are a couple of Indians and a Pakistani girl here who are cute. And the Haitian girl quit before we really started talking, so it doesn't count.


• I first discovered internet porn while I was a summer intern at NASA. Suddenly, the reason for the internet became obvious.


• I discovered that the range of kink goes WAAAY off the chart when one of my college classmates who interned at another NASA site that same summer came back to campus with porn that made me cringe.


• I sometimes envy people who are blissfully ignorant. A little knowledge can be a terrifying thing.


• I also pity them.


• I wish I was rich primarily so I would never have to think about money again. Somehow, a small part of me suspects even that wouldn't help.


• In which case I wish I had just enough to get the things I want, which really isn't much, because I don't really care about money for its own sake.

posted by Rainmayun at 5:37 PM -

The classic career dilemma

The other day I was out to dinner with a friend, and I ran into an old coworker. He was once a software architect at the medium-to-large firm where I have worked for the past 2 1/2 years, and he left rather quickly. Very exuberant, very smart German guy. A lot of fun to work with, and very much into cutting edge technology. Some of the other developers here and I used to do lunch with him now and then, but I hadn't seen him in a while.

He hit me with a pitch: he's starting his own company. Nothing big, a small consulting firm. Familiar territory to me. He tried to sell me on joining his firm, as a consultant. I told him to email me and we'd go to lunch or something.

Now on to my dilemma. This particular episode highlighted a dissonance I've had my entire career, if it can be called that. On the one hand, it would be a lot of fun to work with him. I'd get to work on interesting stuff, things that would get me out of bed in the morning. On the other hand, there's a lot of risk working in small companies (which I know from experience), and a lot of disadvantages. He can just about match my salary here, but probably not the benefits. Career growth? Where is there to be promoted when you work for the owner and there's 5 other people in the office? And forget about networking, unless you do it through some other organization. Nobody will know the brilliance that is you... er, me. I spent the first four years of my career working at a succession of small firms (the biggest has 110 employees at its peak), working on interesting stuff, but not doing much else. When the last small firm capsized in rough waters, I was cut adrift, looking for yet another job not four months after I'd gotten that one. I decided enough was enough, and I went hunting for a big firm position.

You see, I had been avoiding big firms like the bubonic plague since my co-op at Coca-Cola the summer after I graduated from college. Yes, that was a long nine years ago. My experiences there (and interning as an undergrad for a government agency) convinced me that I'd wither away and die inside a big firm, and I would never be happy there. And so that drove my choices for a long time.

But then, real life intervened. Having remarkably unstable employers and absolutely no career advancement to show for four years of interesting work, I had bigger fish to fry. Stability is important, and trying to explain in interviews why I had four jobs in four years and that I wasn't a flight risk was becoming increasingly difficult. I decided to bite the bullet and go for the big firm.

And so far, it's been good to me in some ways and stiflingly banal in others. Although I still feel behind the curve in my career, I finally got a promotion. I get to do things that are more "business" oriented, which is good for my ultimate career development, especially since I'm about to begin an MBA program in a couple of weeks, trying to shift my career from techie drone to greedy boss/entrepreneur.

And yet, this job is so boring at times. My close friends joke about my incredibly lax attendance habits, because I can (and do actually) work from home, and when I come into the office, no one cares what time I get here. Simply put, it doesn't get me out of the bed in the morning. The offer from the architect in the restaurant, while ultimately not a move I would make, sure sounded tempting. I just have to remember that I have a long range plan that doesn't involve working on anything, interesting or otherwise, for other people until I am 75 (which is probably how old I'll have to be to collect Social Security, if there is anything left by then).

posted by Rainmayun at 12:22 PM -

August 16, 2005 :: Five things

OK, yall should know by now I hate these "meme" things. But in the interest of playing nicely, and since proactiff called me out, I'm participating.

Ten Years ago: Hmm, junior year in college. A seminal year for learning how the real world works, to a certain degree. I got my first off-campus spot, which was owned by a couple of family friends. Husband is an architect, wife is an interior decorator. I agreed to move in sight-unseen, at the beginning of the summer, thinking they'd hook it up. I'd seen their work. In short, a total disaster. I moved out a month later, citing the drug use in the building, the lack of telephone lines, the roaches and ants, the lack of a doorbell, and other mishaps. Moved into a place on Camp Creek Parkway in Atlanta that was totally covered with roaches. Roommates refused to spend the first night there. Eff that, this is MY apt, not the roaches. I went and bought 72 bait stations and a huge basket of roach killer. It took two weeks, but by the end of the two weeks, those roaches had experienced a massive extermination of biblical proportions. And to think, the property manager had the nerve to say it wasn't their roaches that caused the problem, the roaches were coming from the property next door. Hmph. The Goodie MOB's first hit song had a verse about my apartment complex... I'll let yall crate diggers find that one. Oh yeah, this is when I bought my first car on my own... a $1200 1981 Buick Regal. Never did quite figure out if it was really a lemon, or if the mechanics pulled some fast ones on me, or if I was really just dumb, but it lasted all of 6 weeks, and then threw a rod. And then it sat in front of my apartment for the rest of the school year, where I had to pass it every day on the way to the bus stop, on the way to the MARTA train, on the way to campus, on my hour-plus commute. I vowed to learn cars inside and out, and never to have to ride the bus again, after that. Also the year of the first time I ever dated a girl solely based on looks. Yeesh, she was a complete bubblehead.

Five Years Ago: This would be right after the lowest point in my life. I had just finished dealing with a relationship-oriented saga about which I shall not go into detail, and dropping out of the Ph.D. program, and coming off a good two years of depression. It sucked. On the plus side, I was coming into a job market that was clamoring for software developers, due to the dot-com boom in San Francisco. A few months too late, as it turns out... my thoroughly clueless employer didn't even get to issue public stock before going bust. It was a fun ride though, I'll be able to tell my grandkids about the days when, as they squirm in their seats and wish they were playing their PS9s instead.

One Year Ago: Hmm, 2004. Not a lot memorable about that year. I turned 30, went to the Dominican Republic on a week-long sabbatical and had a blast, then came back here and threw a rather large (for me, anyway) birthday party, thus marking my entrance into "real" adulthood.

Yesterday: Spent a good three hours scouting for good outdoor shooting locales for my burgeoning photography habit. I found a good one too... Lake Artemicia, which is harder to get into than the freakin' Pentagon.

Today: I was supposed to have a photo shoot today, but it's raining. Guess we'll have to postpone. I'm not too sure about these models, anyway... two sisters, both young. Kinda flaky. I have a feeling if I ever pin them down, the pictures will come out nicely though, so I'm trying to be patient.

Tomorrow: Hmm... nothing noteworthy about tomorrow. But on Thursday, I am going to have a meeting with some people at work because they are insisting on nominating me for this Black Engineer of the Year award. I think I'm going to blog more about this later.

Five Snacks I Enjoy: Snacks are the bane of my existence. But if I had to pick some... these whole fruit pops from Edy's are the bomb, especially lemonade and limeade. I can kill a whole can of cashews if I am not careful. I like natural applesauce, and I am a sucker for hazelnut Piroulines.

Five Bands: My tastes are all over the place, but lately I've been listening to some lounge, some jungle, some house. Bands & artists of the moment: Amon Tobin, Seek, Dzihan & Kamien, Nicola Conte, De Lata. Look em up, or click the link over there on the left where it says "groovy music" and you might catch some.

Five Things I would do with $100,000,000.00: Open a sports bar. Buy a condo in every city I like to visit. Buy every gadget I ever wanted, and every stitch of clothing I couldn't afford before. Set mom up for a comfortable retirement. And (pursuant to the next question) disappear...

Five Locations I would like to run away to: Salvador da Bahia, Puerto Plata, Tokyo, Paris, and an unnamed private island in the South Pacific.

Five Bad Habits: Aggressive driving, obsessive fingernail trimming, condescension, wandering willpower, not finishing things I start.

Five things I like doing: Aggressive driving, shooting pictures, solving problems, eating, listening to music.

Five things I would never wear: Sweatervests, overlong t-shirts that look like H-line dresses, sports goggles, gadget belt holsters, pajamas.

Five TV Shows I like: I assume this does not need to be current, as I don't watch that much TV these days. Sportscenter, Star Trek (TNG & DS9), Girlfriends (don't laugh, I know a lot of women who are JUST LIKE those girls on tv), Law & Order reruns on TNT (I'll often watch these instead of the new episode on Wednesday nights), and I still have a soft spot in my heart for the incredibly poorly produced and animated childhood classic, Transformers.

Five movies I like: See if you can spot a trend here... The Usual Suspects, The Matrix, The Shawshank Redemption, Love Jones, Black Street Hookers #61. OK, I'm joking about that last one. But those are just about all the DVDs I own.

Five Famous People I would Like to meet: Hmmm... I don't really trip off of celebrities. I see them, recognize them, and move on. Just last week I ran into Baron Davis over by Pepperdine U in LA. And I said to myself, he's looking me eye to eye, they lie about his listed height (I know, big surprise). It just reinforces the entirely fallacious notion that if I had just worked a little harder (ok, a lot harder), I could have made the NBA.

Five Biggest Joys At this moment: Shooting pictures with my NEW FAVORITE TOY (see below), working from home whenever I feel like it, arctic-strength air conditioning, those Edy's lemonade bars (see above), and my new (to me) Amon Tobin album (also see above).

Five Favorite Toys: My brand new Nikon D70 digital SLR. I finally bit the bullet, and I had good timing since this model is discontinued (in favor of the D70s, which is barely an improvement with a 2mm bigger screen, an extra remote mode, and some other BS) and is therefore marked down everywhere. Plus I get to sell my old Canon Powershot G5 to my friend, who's willing to give me fair market value for the camera and flash. My other toys: my work-issued laptop, my regular home computer (which doubles as my stereo), my new diamond-cut paper shredder (sometimes we are all little kids at heart) and my 2000 Honda Prelude, which just crossed 90,000 miles and is in need of a whole bunch of stuff now... new tires, new belts, oil change, yadda yadda. It better be glad I love driving it!

There, I've done it. Now don't put me on any more of these things ever again!

posted by Rainmayun at 4:08 PM -

August 13, 2005 :: For the single among us

Eight reasons sleeping alone is great:

1. Hog all the covers to yourself.


2. You can fart freely.


3. Snoring doesn't bother anyone, unless you wake yourself up.


4. No struggle to remember someone's name.


5. No awkward bed-sharing positions.


6. Knowing where your underwear is.


7. No morning walk of shame. Everything is done under cover of darkness.


8. No one has to sleep in the wet spot!

posted by Rainmayun at 10:25 AM -