Intellectual Poison

Discovered via The (displaced) People's Republic of Seabrook

Labels: abuse, china, human rights, Olympics, sham, shame, Tibet

For some reason or another I've been getting emailed press releases from an agency that decided I needed to find out about their client's BIG, BIG, BIG news.

Being a reformed flack myself, I understand little bit about the pressure put on flacks. The pressure for coverage, the pressure for outreach, the pressure to score big for your clients every day because what you did yesterday doesn't mean jackshit today.

But, having been a flack myself, I also know that there are flacks who take shortcuts where ever they can, they puff up mailing lists with inappropriate contacts (like me), they wardial for meetings caring little for the editor's actual editorial beat and are tenacious once they've gotten a live body on the other end.

War dialing, in case you didn't know, is when a flack or team of flacks divide up a list of contacts that are supposed to be highly targeted, a script is put together and then each flack goes down their list calling each editor and spinning their spiel.

The trouble with war dialing as a fundamental public relations practice is that that vast, vast, vast majority of editors HATE getting phone calls, they absolutely loathe their phones because all they are is sources of distraction. And an editor's phone? NEVER STOPS RINGING. And an editor's email in-box? NEVER STOPS FILLING UP.

Have I mentioned how thrilled I am to have moved away from a career in PR? It is a soul-sucking, pride-swallowing and mind-numbing exercise in near futility. And, at the end of even a fantastic day, I always knew that it meant almost nothing for the next day. I miss some aspects of PR but I do not miss the workload, stress or constant client stroking.

Oh, and if the PR agency in question doesn't remove me from their lists as I've now asked twice then I will happily skewer them by name and will also take to emailing their clients directly from the unwanted and totally off-base press releases they refuse to stop sending me. Because there's one absolutely guaranteed way of getting an agency's attention and that's to get their client pissed off at them for spamming completely inappropriate contacts in order to inflate end-of-month reports.

Bad flacks make the job harder for all the other flacks and it is already pretty damned tough.

Labels: flacks, public relations

It is exceedingly hard to get back up on top of one's game if one is unable to attain a full night's rest. Lather, rinse and repeat the undersleeping and the problem can become chronic and deeply troubling.

And it effects my ability to think as coherently as I normally can. It changes my ability to be rational and objective. Plus it makes my writing suck more than usual.

The thing is, I can't seem to get to bed before midnight. No matter what I do or how hard I try, I always seem to end up going to bed right around midnight. And with early wakeups for work I am consistently getting less than 6 decent hours of sleep a night. Which I know is not especially healthy for my mind, my body or my life.

I know I should be able to just push back from my desk at 11 or earlier and just go to bed but all efforts to do so have failed thus far. And I'm not sure how much longer my sanity will hold on when its so badly frayed. Something's going to have to give because I really shouldn't be waking up more tired than when I went to bed.

Labels: personal, sleep

I wasn't able to get too far afield in the last day and a half but I did get out and get a few new macros with my new Canon.

The Image Stabilization really helps to keep the macros crisp and tight and it helps even when the light isn't ideal. Anyway, here are a couple of new macros to enjoy.

Labels: Canon, macro, photography

Tonight is the stateside start to the Major League Baseball season after the odd and unnecessary kickoff in Japan by the A's and Red Sox last week.

Today is a great day for baseball fans everywhere. Because there are no records, there are no sub-.500 teams, there are no cellar-dwellers. And there haven't been any sparkles and fades. Yet.

But some things seem to never change, like, oh I don't know, Nomar, and Schmidt going on the DL for the Dodgers. I don't wish ill upon any individual player unless they suit up for the Dodgers or the Yankees and then I just hope they get hurt enough to miss the season.

I hold out little hope that my San Francisco Giants will be much of a threat aside from their superior pitching talent. Lincecum and Cain are superb pitchers and both are definitely staff-ace quality. Zito should have a better year than last. Lowry is a very solid 4th and Correia is an understated 5th. The lineup the Giants are putting up isn't especially scary in terms of power but they are pretty fast and might surprise teams by playing small ball.

Which reminds me, this will be the first season in a very long time without Barry Bonds. His on-field presence will be missed but the circus that follows his every move will not. I do not deny that he almost certainly used steroids and other cheater drugs but he was, by no stretch of the imagination, the only one and my main complaint against the investigation of Bonds is that he is being used as the poster boy for steroids when he's barely even the tip of the iceberg. But at least Roger "Needleass" Clemens has done his part to take away the spotlight with his ridiculous denials and "they must be misremembering"'s.

And yeah, I do kind of hope that Clemens gets some jail time for his blatant and insane perjury and utter misrepresentation of the facts and reality. And for shooting his wife up with HGH too, that was a major league class act.

But enough of the spotted past of the game. Today is the start of a brand new season, a brand new era and a whole bunch of new stars are poised to leap into the imaginations of children and grown up children everywhere.

Today my Giants are in a tie for first place and that's likely about as close as they'll get this season but I don't mind, I'll be enjoying watching the Yankees lose, the Red Sox win, the Dodgers sparkle and then fade away and all the myriad microdramas that make up a baseball season.

Hot damn, its time for baseball again!

Labels: baseball, PEDs, steroids

My little Canon SD450 pocket camera is dying. Which isn't such a terrible thing as I've got a long no-hassle warranty on it and, for the cost of the warranty, I can upgrade my phone for about $50 every couple of years.

I just got off the phone with the Staples up the street and they have a delectable new Canon SD1100 IS on hold with my name on it.

So I'm off, with my two boys, to go trade in the broken for the slick and brand new!

[Update: Well that was a pretty easy exchange and purchase. I traded in the broken SD450, got the reserved SD1100 IS, added a new 2 gig hi-speed SD card and the 2 year no-worries-mon warranty. The only color they had available was a dark, almost reddish, brown. Not too bad but it wouldn't have been my first choice. At least I didn't have to get the pastel pinkish red one. I'll take some image stabilized macros after Grady goes down for a nap to show off how crisp and nice the images it takes are.]

Labels: Canon, digital camera, photography

One might think that there's nothing going on here on this blog. Or that there hasn't been since the burst of posting the other day when my hosting provider got their head up their ass and tossed my site.

But oh let me tell you how many posts I've started, stopped, erased, restarted, re-erased, deleted, pasted from the clipboard to recover them and then set them as draft nonetheless. It could fill novels with awful rants, invectives, explanations and half-dissected personal examinations.

Why? Because there are conversations that are better left unpublished, there are feelings that are best left unshared, there are things that are definitely best left unsaid. Because there are already plenty of things have been said that have done nothing but cause me more misery and grief.

I don't expect much of this to make sense, not much of it makes sense to me. But I've gotten myself to this place, I expect I'll get myself out, I'll just come out with alot more scars and even more cynicism.

I guess I'm just at the bottom of the roller coaster these days. But it does seem like I've been spending a rather inordinate amount of time in Suckland lately and I'm ready for a fucking change for the better.

Labels: life

Some of you may have noticed a rather obvious lack of Intellectual Poison-itude yesterday. In fact, the entire website was gone for most of the day. And no, not because I didn't pay my hosting service or the sharks who pose as my domain registrars.

Nope, instead a rabid bug got loose in my hosting service's network and decided to snack on the logical side of my account. And the service started sending me garbage emails demanding immediate payment of no money. Which was odd enough. But then the account bug decided fifteen nanoseconds was too long to wait for payment it didn't get or need so it shut off my site, twice.

My hosting providers says they've got things sorted out and that they appreciate my patience. They've now overlooked two requests for a credit to make up for the pain in the ass and hassle they inflicted upon me. I'll request one more time and then I'm going to go shopping for a new provider. And I'll happily list their name here so that others can be made aware too.

Labels: blogging

One of the headaches that I deal with is the splitting of my work between three different and distinct schools, each with their own budgetary constraints and requirements and procedures. Oh, and staff, students, campuses, principals and levels of technology penetration but that's to be expected.

What I didn't really expect is how much of a pain in the butt it is to get some things paid. My cell phone bill is split three ways, unevenly. My mileage reimbursement is still under negotiation and I don't have any guarantees of a job next year yet. Because of the budget crisis. I think I'll have a job but there aren't any guarantees right now and it is entirely possible that a more senior office worker could step down instead of quitting and boot me out.

I've learned there's nothing more important than having been there longest. Not having been the most useful or efficient, just the one who's stuck it out the longest. Seniority rules the roost regardless. Which seems kind of stupid to me but that's at least partly because I'm one of the lowest ones on the totem pole.

But my principals love me, I've got projects in the works and, until I know different, I'll behave as if I'm going to keep working for the district. Besides, it would totally suck to get laid off again.

Labels: budget, education, layoff, underfunded

I got a note from my mom this morning alerting me to the fact that my site is not reachable at present. Which is great, its about the last thing you want to hear just before you have to leave for work. When I won't be able to do anything about the site for a whole bunch of hours.

But the upside is that today is this week's Friday! I get a little mini-Spring Break action, nothing too crazy but a four day weekend shouldn't hurt too much.

And today I'm back to the schools I've been hitting the last two days. Today we're mounting the new Xserves which'll be fun because we'll have powertools!

I have been having a more and more difficult time writing and publishing posts lately, not sure whether its just the time of the year, the combination of work duties ramping up or other things impinging on my blogging but I'm just nowhere near as interested in it as I have been for the last six years. Maybe it'll pass, maybe it won't, I can't say, I'm just noting the feeling.

Other good stuff, baseball has started up again although the Japan start with the Red Sox and A's is stupid and unnecessary as the Japanese are loony for baseball already. And who watched the first game live anyway? Not me. But that's alright, I'm going up to Opening Day Monday after next and expect to have a pretty darned good time even if I end up rolling up on my own due to pal-complications.

Labels: baseball, random, work

I've been making more time and more of an effort to get my workouts in when I can. This can mean a workout before 7 in the morning when the house is silent or it can mean a workout after 10:30 at night when the house is quiet again.

And I've been getting in after work rides with alot more regularity. If the boys are around then I'll usually take one of them with me now although Sully is tall enough to make riding with the Wee Ride a little more trouble than I'm happy with. I'll need to either put on a riser stem or figure something else out because riding with a helmet banging into my chest is less than joyous.

But the point is that I'm making time to get my workouts in and also getting time together with one or both of my boys. And let me tell you, pumping up the big final hill back to the house with an extra 100 pounds of kids and gear makes for a good little extra burn!

Labels: exercise, workout

I read Web site at UC Berkeley bares all, true or not about a site called Juicycampus.com that allows/enables/encourages anyone to post anything about anyone or anything at their college.

From mostly innocent questions about who's the cutest girl in biology at Berkeley (apparently some girl named Kendall who's also a lesbian) to not so innocent posts about what rampant sluts and players people are.

Its kind of like watching two drunk chicks catfight. Its not really entertaining but there's nothing else to do so you watch. But in the end you're left a little more empty and a little sadder about the pathetic state of humanity.

Labels: anonymous, libel, web

Another Olympic problem — squat toilets

What is a squat toilet you ask? Its basically a hole in the ground that you aim your crap into.

Gosh, I don't see why third world toilets would be a problem at the Olympic Games. I'm sure the Chinese government is doing everything they can to reprogram the universe that squatting over a dirty hole is every bit as culturally advanced as indoor plumbing and, you know, seats.

Let's face it, giving the Olympics to China makes about as much sense as saying the next games will be held on the moon. China has a long and despicable history of human rights violations, animal rights violations, environmental violations and they (to steal a line from Ryan) are working overtime to ensure that all children in America have more than their required levels of lead contamination from crappy toys.

I lost interest in the Olympics years ago, primarily because of the incredibly lame Dream Team basketball stupidity (i.e. by what stretch can a team of multi-millionaire professional basketball players be considered amateur?). And holding them in China will make them that much easier to ignore.

At this point, I avoid China and anything Made in China as much as possible. And the Made in China Olympics will be just one more thing to add to the list. I'm sure a large percentage of athletes are seriously considering boycotting on ethical grounds as well as the air quality issues the Chinese swear they'll have resolved by then (funny how they couldn't give a damn about air quality before the Olympics were coming).

Squat toilets will not sit well with foreigners and I will not be the least bit surprised when this Olympics gets horrible marks, bad ad revenue and among the lowest viewership in modern Games history. I know I won't be paying any attention whatsoever.

My schedule is pretty decent overall. I get to work at 8, I leave at 4:30. I do it from Monday to Friday with the rare after-hours event/job. And I like what I do.

On Saturdays I take care of our two boys so my wife can work at her salon or work on her online store. These days are usually a little longer but I have alot more freedom to choose what we do, where we go and such.

But this leaves just one single day out of each week where I do not have pre-scheduled commitments. It is the one potential day a week that I can go out for a long and needed bike ride in the woods. It is the one of the week that I should definitely be able to sleep in as late as I can.

So what happens when that one potential free day of the week has other activities scheduled on it? I get annoyed and feel like I'm stuck without any free time at all. Like this coming Sunday. Its Easter Sunday which means absolutely nothing to me since I don't buy into the Christian mythos about resurrections and crucifications. Sure, the egg hunt is fun and ham dinners are nice but the underlying reasons for Easter are founded in a belief system that I refuse to subscribe to. But it is a family day with my wife's side of the family and there's an expectation that I will attend, regardless.

And I am faced with either sucking it up and doing the family thing which involves driving up to the East Bay and making happy faces all day with my wife's family. Or bowing out and getting guilt trips about not leaping at the opportunity to spend a fun-filled day with her family. And then Monday comes and I go back to work without ever getting a break and my stress levels continue to rise.

I need the downtime. I need to be able to unplug and not have to be working all the time. I can feel the burnout trying to get me. I can fend it off with my pre-work workouts, my post-work bike rides and the occasional get togethers with my pals. But the patent reality is that I absolutely need to get my downtime to recharge myself to better cope with the next week's frustrations.

Labels: play, religion, work

Parents out there know this one. When your little bundle of joy cuts loose with what can best be described as toxic swampgas and you are absolutely positive they have made an enormous deposit at the bank of poo. Only when you open their diaper there's nothing there. That's horrendass, a fart so bad you are certain there's a dump to get changed.

Horrendass - a fart so toxic and nauseating that the parent is absolutely certain of a sizable poop when there's nothing at all.

Labels: nwotd

I was just checking to see how expensive an Opening Day ticket will be to go see the Giants start the new baseball season against the Padres on the 7th of April.

The first annoyance was finding out that the Giants aren't selling individual tickets to Opening Day, I would need to buy a season pass to all 82 home games just to go to the one I want. First stupidity.

I turned to StubHub to see what kind of a deal they might have. The short answer is that they have tickets but the prices are loaded up with fees. A 10% fee commission to run the ticket transaction. Shipping and handling charges between $12 and $25 and, if you happen to be able to pick up the tickets directly, $15 for pick-up.

Um yeah, how about no?

View reserve seats for premium games (which is entirely arguable that there are NO premium games for the Giants this year as they are almost certainly going to suck) are $32 each. StubHub has them at $58 each. That's $26 above the listed price. And I can't figure out if that includes all of the bullshit fees. I'm assuming it does but it probably does not. Oh yeah, those two tickets at $58 each? They were sold in the time it took me to write this.

Convenience fees are like getting slapped in the face on a really cold day and I, for one, refuse to use services that charge outrageous fees for basic services. StubHub just joined TicketMaster as yet another opportunistic capitalizer.

But I'm still planning on going up to the game. Even if I don't get in to watch the game, I'm going to enjoy the spectacle of the start of the season regardless.

Labels: baseball, convenience fee

Having gone through the delightful process that is putting on a wedding and having to put together a list of people to invite to the wedding I'm already well aware that there are concessions that must be made to keep from having a reception with 2000 people. Which would be fine if you've got an endless supply of money and could rent AT&T Park to house them all.

But reality dictates that some people will get invited over others. It is the nature of the process.

And sometimes the first tier invites aren't as able to come as you might have thought they were. So, sometimes, the couple will drop down a tier to try and fill out the wedding.

I know all of this, I understand it all and I accept it as part of the nature of the process.

But that still doesn't mean, in any way, shape or fashion, that I have any interest in being your wedding filler. I have no interest in being invited solely because others weren't able to make it.

Especially when the family member in question has either ignored or otherwise just decided to not respond to previous attempts to make contact and interact as two members of the family on the west coast. Not for a period of weeks or months but for a period of years.

Ignore me for several years, invite other members of my family in the first wave of invitations and then drop down to invite me and my family and you have some expectation of my family actually attending? To what point? Why would I have the slightest interest in the event? You've made it pretty clear you have zero interest in my life and my family. Why would you possibly think I would take an interest in yours?

And yes, I'm well aware of the potential hornet's nest I'm stirring up by posting this as I know family members read this and it is likely to get back to the party in question. But the honest truth is that I'm done trying to gladhand the long-strained relations with my extended family. I'm done putting on a smiling face to people who are strangers in everything but family tree. And I'm also well aware that the stock-in-trade response of email not having been received would be trotted out like some excuse horse. But it rings false, emails with misspelt addresses bounce and it isn't like there's no way to get, you know, MY email and contact me. Besides, I'm not stupid, I'm pretty capable of typing an email address correctly, verifying and trying it more than once. With no response.

Do I sound bitter? Maybe I am. Maybe I'm extending my personal life dissatisfactions onto interpersonal relations amongst my family that makes no sense and does nothing but increase the chasm between us. This could be truth, I could attempt to overcome and move beyond and forgive and forget.

I could also sprout wings out of my ass and horns on my shoulders but I'm not holding my breath for that to happen either. And believe me, if this sounds bitter and harsh then you should read the first couple of attempts. It would be a very bad day indeed if my draft posts somehow made it out into the wilds.

Labels: family, politics, relations, wedding

Because I cannot spend my life finding new music to enjoy, I have to rely on the magical internets to provide me with new tracks to get my groove on to. But sometimes that new music takes too damned long to find.

So I thought of a way to jumpstart the process. It has no name yet but the concept is pretty simple. I'm going to start a playlist here with a song and then I'll invite readers to post a comment and repost the meme on their site to gather in more music. At some point the music will have to get uploaded or made available for download because the end concept is to deliver an excellent new playlist to all of the participants.

Did any of that make any sense? If not then let's just pretend it did and move forward. I'll update this post as new songs are joined to the list.

And hey, random idea, I just thought about posting two songs and allowing the other participants to vote on which of the two makes the cut but that'll complicate the endeavor some. I am, as always, open to ideas of how to make it better. Also, this reminds me that I need to finish up my last Cheddar X before it becomes a distant memory.

The theme of the first collaborative playlist is: Up Music
1. Ok Go - Get Over It

Labels: meme, music

I think I've already written about Ok Go's Get Over It before. But I don't really care, I'm going to write about it again because it is that freaking good and it perfectly fits my mood.

If I could have this song playing at annoying-shake-pictures-on-walls-at-300-feet volume all day long then I'd be a happy camper. Maybe mix it up with a little Mighty Mighty Bosstones but I could probably do several hours of Get Over It before I needed a break.

And I'll lament the non-anonymity of this blog. But I have other blogs for raw venting and explorations of different realities because, sad to say, this current one ain't much fun these days.

Aside from the wrestling match I had with my boys last night before bed. They get all amped up and jumpy and playful and we roll around on the bed for a half hour or so until we get too tired and then we curl up together and read a book to "come down" a bit.

Rather than focusing on the unhappy, I'm going to hit replay and just Get Over It (again). It never fails to amaze me how music can alter or invert a bad mood. What's your go-to song when you need a pick-me-up?

Labels: music

This has, perhaps, already been coined but I've never heard of it before.

Belovard - the street where your beloved lives.

Labels: nwotd

Even the drool patrol should have groked onto the fact that I've been dealing/coping with some issues around the house these days. And I've tried to leave it at a shadowy that.

But, in trying to alleviate my gravitas, I did a simple search for Make Me Laugh and found This Makes Me Laugh and the need-some-humor-to-lighten-up-a-foul-mood need was pretty quickly satisfied. Some of the posts are kind of stupid, some are typos and some are just unintentional humor (which is sometimes the best kind).

More than anything, its a distraction from the weight I've had on my shoulders the last few days.

Labels: distraction, humor, laughter

Or maybe it should be filed under Thanks Mom and Dad for not being Hairy, Hairy People. With that in mind, I pass along to you, the Razorba War Hammer which is alot less like a war hammer and alot more like a device to shave your back with a cool name. And that's pretty much exactly what it is.

The Nasty is very strong with this product.

St. Patty's makes me think of one person from my past. A cute though deeply alcoholic friend of mine whom I dated for a short period of time. How deeply alcoholic was she? She was bad enough that she needed (note needed not wanted) to stop at the dive bar near our houses so she could get a couple of shots in on her way to breakfast.

There was a doomed relationship if there ever was one. She didn't even have to sleep with the guy who was moving into our house though she did.

Anyway, she's what I think of when I think of Saint Patrick's Day. And I think about the bullet I dodged which makes me think about the bullet I did not dodge.

Whee, are we having fun yet?

Labels: holiday

Rather than expose all of my disgusting and streaky dirty laundry I will take the (somewhat) higher road, as I can.

The top level point is that appearances can be deceptive. What can appear to be a happy house can, in fact, be a depressing hellhole of resentment, anger, violence and lots and lots of shouting.

Which pretty well sucks but there it is.

I could explain, I could dissect, I could dig into it and expose the problems here on this blog but it wouldn't solve anything and would almost certainly result in ever greater aggravation which I have a rather vested interest in trying to cut down on. My reality is nothing like you would expect it to be. No wait, that's not entirely true, there are aspects of my days that are exactly like you'd expect.

I have deeply joyful times playing with my two boys. They are a never ending source of fun, energy, laughter and entertainment. They really are fantastic little guys.

My dog is a teeter-totter of fun and aggravation. She can be loads of fun to play with in the backyard or out biking on the trails but she can also be an extreme annoyance when she won't stop whining or barking or both. To the point where I come close to becoming unglued. It isn't pretty nor do I have anything but shame about not being able to maintain my composure.

And then there's my wife. I was once told that, in the absence of anything good to say, don't say anything at all. I'll just say that we're struggling to get on the same page these days and leave it at that.

I wish I could be a happier camper on this Monday morning but I'm just not there yet.

Labels: life, reality

We took advantage of a sunny Sunday and packed up the crew to head out to the beach. Yes, including Nande who can't seem to grasp that her high-pitched yelping doesn't make everything more fun for everyone. But anyway.

If ever there were a day to have a skim board, this was it. The beach seemed to go on for miles and miles. But the water was outrageously cold and not fun to be in at all. Even Grady wasn't into spending much time in it.

A good time was had by all, I think. I got to play with Nande and Graydon in the surf, Paula walked with Sully and they're all asleep now so I think I did my job reasonably well.

Labels: beach, raising children, sunshine

You know the strangest thing about life, it never stops going. Not for an instant, not for me, not for you and not for anyone else.

And its easy to forget that everyone else has a life that's following its trajectory, peaking, subsiding and peaking again.

In the midst of living my life with my wife, kids, dog, cat and various projects, issues, problems, resolutions and all the other whatnot, I lose track of what is happening in other arms of my family, amongst my friends and it gets worse the farther away from me it goes.

But sometimes someone else does the legwork to put together a really useful and illuminating summary of a life that is close to yours. In the most recent example, my uncle's life work was profiled by a local website to his company and home in Georgetown. I knew a little bit of what he did and had done but I had absolutely no idea he was such a major league asskicker and that his goals are very, very closely in alignment with my own.

Of course, he's had the same goals for the last 40 years or more. Mine have really come into focus since I had children of my own and I realized just how important education and positive role models are for them. And I want the absolute best that they can get. My wife and I take an active role in trying to educate and help our boys learn and expand their world's. Sadly, many parents don't seem to see the value or enjoyment in doing so.

And then I heard an update about friends that moved out of state a few years ago. Apparently, the woman was running and collided with a cement basketball hoop foundation. She ended up fracturing her femur (yeah!) and mangling both elbows so she was wheelchair bound without the ability to even scratch her nose for a few months. Oh yeah, the couple also has a fairly new baby to be caring for as well. That's a reality that I don't want to experience firsthand at all.

Labels: life, living, oblivious

Its no surprise that I'm not a big fan of Arnold Schwarzenegger playing the role of governor of California. I think he's a meat headed jackass who recycles movie lines because he can't think for himself.

And he proved it in his recent budget proposal to slice 10% across the board off of the state's budget for education. Ten percent less than not enough means our children in California are getting shortchanged by the government we pay for. In fact, education in California should get a 10% increase in budgets and pay, maybe alot more than that but it would be a good place to start.

One of the best teachers I know is facing a layoff because she doesn't have tenure and will get booted to make room for teachers that been teachers but moved into other roles in the district. Well, they'll be moved back into classrooms because seniority. And I can't really fault the mentality behind it but I would be bummed to see her go, she's an excellent teacher, gets the technology side and engages her students in a really positive and encouraging way. We NEED more teachers like her, not less.

And, if she has to go work in the business world during the layoff there's a pretty good chance she'll never come back because it is awfully hard to take a huge pay cut to put up with all the bullshit in education. Truly it is.

The cuts are going to adversely effect other schools even more deeply with some schools talking about a straight 10% reduction in staff which translates to larger classrooms, less support personnel, complete loss of "non-educational" programs like music, art and PE.

And the thing is, the cuts are short-sighted. An under-educated populance is more expensive to care for, just like an under-nourished populance has more healthcare issues and short lifespans. There is no way to cut education now and not pay for it for years and years down the line.

Plus, its a cheap and cowardly tactic to go after money for education rather than actually working to find ways to cut all budgets to make up for the shortfall. Burdening education will just drive more teachers out of the profession and we'll be left with more and more under-qualified and under-motivated people teaching our children. The cycle is the epitome of vicious.

Labels: education

I've been diligently saving my pennies (in $20 bill form) so I can replace my aging and not especially cool or useful Razr with a slick, sexy, awesome iPhone. But I got a good look at an iPod Touch yesterday and its every bit as cool as the iPhone without the phone. I'm not sure if that's the dealbreaker for me but the upside is that I could buy the Touch today and will have to wait another few weeks to order my iPhone.

I'm sorely tempted, really, really sorely tempted but I think I'm going to stick to my guns and hold off for the iPhone (but I'm won't be holding off until the not-even-announced 3g iPhone comes out because that'll be like next year).

One thing I don't really like is the very limited memory on-board and the utter lack of an SD expansion card slot. Eight gigs of music and video isn't very much really and it would be smart and helpful to allow me to use the ever-growing size of removable memory to bolster the on-board memory. But I know that Apple would sell none of the larger versions of the iPhone if everyone could just buy an extra memory card. This is one of those instances where up-sell sales are more important to Apple than delivering the absolute best product they can. They don't want to strangle their bigger ticket sales.

I can understand that but I don't particularly have to like it. I hope they incorporate expansion slots in the future though, that just seems like a smart move. Maybe in the 3G version.

Labels: Apple, iphone, ipod

Someone said it takes a big man to admit his mistakes and I'm not sure whether that's true or not if the truth is going to come out anyway. Either way, I'm admitting my own mistake.

Not a monster-career-ending-$80,000-worth-of-young-hookers-over-ten-years mistake but still a pretty good mistake nonetheless. That's how much Elliot Spitzer spent on call girls over the last decade. That's quite alot of paid for ass.

And I've got a post that I'm working on in regards to Mr. Spitzer and his tumble from respect, dignity and public office but let's get back to me and my mistake.

You see, I messed up when I presumed that Ebay had erased my records. No, they have not, in fact, done so. They did however figure out a way to make signing up so easy that I just created a new account without even noticing. And that's the one I'd apparently been using. Ebay isn't completely without responsibility here but the vast majority of the error is my own.

Labels: ebay, mistake

Mark Morford's latest column, Damn, there goes my meth supply, does an excellent job of highlighting how worthless the "War on Drugs" has been in stopping the flow and usage of illegal drugs.

Go read it. He's a little over the top sometimes but his underlying points are spot-on!

GoDaddy Silences Police-Watchdog Site RateMyCop.com without warning, without real cause and then they lied about why they did it, changing their story and reasoning.

I've hated GoDaddy for years, ever since they saw fit to post personal (and reprehensible) blog posts by the company CEO on the homepage of the site suggesting that maybe the US should torture POW's MORE and not less. Which is deeply repugnant to this American.

Plus, the company name sounds like its a nod and a wink to pedophiles everywhere and that's just creepy.

I had my first instance of teachers starting to cannibalize those about to be laid off in the wake of our Governator's lame and incredibly harmful 10% across the board budget cuts for education. These cuts are going to make already strapped schools have to make really hard choices on how to do them when there's no more to be trimmed away and the schools are already running as absolutely lean as possible.

And the education budget cuts are short term savings with really serious long term effects. A less educated populance is less able to compete on the global market, a less educated populance is more prone to drug abuse, violence, crime and depression. A less educated populance is less of an asset and more of a liability.

But I digress, there's nobody that actually thinks the budget cuts are a good idea and I think Schwarzenegger is a big meat-headed coward for attacking education.

But it isn't anything I can do anything about so I'm trying not to let it get to me although I will miss a few teachers and support staff next year when they are unable to get a new contract.

And it is these portending layoffs that have sparked this post. I had a teacher, one I spent two or three day upgrading and improving their classroom computer not more than a month ago, ask me if she could get a new computer. When I asked what she meant, she elaborated by saying that, if some of the teachers and support staff being laid off have a better and newer computer than hers, then she'd like first crack at getting one.

It isn't hard to understand and accept really. Its the nature of business and education. Layoffs spark a feeding frenzy for cube goodies, computers, chairs and more. But any layoffs are months away and it kind of felt like the buzzards have started circling before the explorer lost in the desert has even run out of water or tumbled to the ground.

Also, I had to gently bring the smackdown on someone in our district offices that was emailing the entire technology department with her computer problems. The first time she did it I expected someone more senior to give her a little education but they apparently did not. The second time, I emailed her and asked her to not email the entire department and also gave her instructions on how to log a Help ticket to get a tech automatically assigned to her problem. There is a pretty shocking lack of understanding of how to put technology to good use in the school system and the number of people who are aware of the resources they have available.

Labels: budget, educ