http://xkcd.com/59/
And a friend posted this excerpt on his xanga blog as part of the latest meme:
5th sentence of p. 123 of the closest book at hand, plus the next three sentences…
When counselors assume that one value system (their own) is superior and preferable to another; they engage in ethnocentric behavior that is insensitive the their clients’ worldviews. Ethnocentrism can easily occur in career development interventions when counselors assume that individualistic and self-sufficient actions are preferable to collectivistic actions reflecting interdependence and group loyalty. Individualists use individual attitudes, private interests, and personal goals to guide their behavior, whereas collectivists rely on shared interests, group norms, and common goals to inform their decision making (Hartung, Speight, & Lewis, 1996). For many people the emphasis on individualism found within numerous theories of career development generated in the United States does not mesh with worldviews in which the family or group is the principal arbiter of appropriate occupational choices.
From Career Development Interventions in the 21st Century by Spencer G. Niles and Jo Ann Harris-Bowlsbey.
Or to put it more succinctly and confrontationally:
This is not yo’ life!
You are not the boss of me!
Seriously, though, I’m usually guilty of projecting my own values and preferences onto others’ decisions. In any of the three forms above, I ought to take this advice to heart. As should we all.
A caveat: Variety and perspectives are important, though, and I often (reluctantly) find value in hearing POVs that contrast with or contradict mine. So the trick is to share (or receive) my and others’ POVs without subsuming one in the other.
/soapbox
Even the security guard’s giving me crap about it.
Whatever.
And I won’t be making New Year’s in Austin this year. :/ It’s been an anchor, a tradition since Dawn and Mel started throwing New Year’s parties in … 2001 or thereabouts. Happy New Year’s, Gumbies. I’ll probably see at least some of you in the intervening year between New Years’.
Sitting here, doing work, I heard some cool instrumentals with a fairly complicated chord progression. Then this seductive voice whispered, “Share your dreams with someone you love.”
Quick check revealed that Beautiful Voices (episode 006) was playing. Usually frustrating, b/c these mixes can go on for an hour or so. But I said, “Google don’t fails me now!” Found the mix track listing for once. This one has 16 songs in it, and the one I wanted was Jason Tyrello, “Share Your Dreams” (Dreamzone Mix). I would have sworn it was Blank & Jones, but they’re playing now — 3 songs later in the mix.
Check out the “server virtualization” and “fight standby” items on wecandothis.com.
This is a year old now, but I stumbled across it on another search on costing: Total costs of the war in Iraq may be between $1 to $2 trillion. We want smaller government programs, but I don’t think we’ll get it long-term from the current government or its supporters. I was going to link http://www.cbpp.org/1-4-05socsec.htm as supporting evidence, but a Google check indicates that they have a spotty track record (an $13m annual budget being nonindicative of reputability). The link seems to read sensibly and knowledgeably, but I’m a n00b at this kind of numbers-juggling. I include it here unlinked FYI, but you’re forewarned.
For perspective, note that the presidential hopefuls are all bagging on Hillary Clinton’s health care plan with a proposed cost of $110 billion (per year?). Considering costs of the war incurred to date (something like $500 billion), her plan is on par with Bush’s annual war spending, and I suspect that more people would benefit from her health plan than from the war.
Note that I’m not blaming Republicans or Democrats. Chuck Hagel is against the war, for sensible reasons of monetary and human cost. Note that I’m linking a fun but fair assessment of him; the reader can check more official sources for a complete picture of the guy.
Zooming in from that orbital view, here’s something interesting regarding quality of soldiers and their costs. Not to mention the increased danger that comes with working alongside incompetent people.
Other random weblinks of interest:
Combat lasers + battlefield robots = Terminators! Global Security’s director, John Pike, makes a provocative comment at the bottom on just the robot aspect — “This opens up great vistas, some quite pleasant, others quite nightmarish. On the one hand, this could make our flesh-and-blood soldiers so hard to get to that traditional war — a match of relatively evenly matched peers — could become a thing of the past,” he said. “But this might also rob us of our humanity. We could be the ones that wind up looking like Terminators, in the world’s eyes.”
On a different note, we were talking in the commencement line about costs of living and business. One guy next to me said that Indonesian labor costs his company $1500 / mo, but you fly a few hours to Bangladesh, and it’s $60 / mo.
It reminds me of how real estate in Hanoi (capital city of Vietnam) is on par with New York City and Tokyo, despite GDP per capita of … <searching CIA World Factbook>
!!!
‘Scuse me whilst I go peel my eyebrows off the ceiling…
<minutes later>
OK, so Vietnam’s GDP / capita in 2002 when I went was $325 (2000 data). But as of 2006, it was $3100!
Still makes Hanoi’s real estate flippin’ expensive, but .. wow. Well, there you go. Go, little SE Asian Tigers.
And on another unrelated note, Nicole told me yesterday how she went out on a Habitat for Humanity thing, and how that gave her a new appreciation for my metalworking. They were putting nails in pressure-treated wood, and a lot of the hammering had to be done parallel to the ground rather than down into the ground. The old hands could drive the big, 6″ nails in with 5-6 hammer strokes, but she took something like 20 strokes per. Plus the usual initial wiffs and bent nails. But she figured it out fairly quickly, and the veterans were praising the accuracy of her work by the end of the day. The lesson: hammerwork is hard work!
<shrugs>
Eh, a little, maybe. But I said I figure she’s more able than I at calculating fluid dynamics and thrust output from rocket engines, so we’re more than square. She’s more marketable, after all. :) (pun intended)
Didn’t want to say anything until I’d proven to myself I could do it. So given what my car is (’96 Chevy Blazer), I’m not exactly high up on the green list. I try to switch off with my parents’ old ‘94 Toyota Previa as much as I can (4-cyl, gets 23 mpg vs. my 19 mpg). My latest microvictory has been to retrain my driving style. Being impatient and high-strung, I tend to carry it over into my driving. Only when I’m agitated, though. My car redlines at 5500 rpm, matches 18-wheelers at 1500 rpm, and seems to be most efficient between 1700-2100 rpm. It’s really easy to go to 2500 rpm, though.
So in an effort to moderate my excesses, all throughout this past finals period, I managed to keep it to 2100 rpm or under, except for a couple times one day when I was looking to beat some lights and make it to a meeting on time. I used to play the coasting game all the time when I first started driving, and I’ve started it up again.
Late at night, I can often coast for an entire block or two and time several of the lights on Richmond or Westpark. They have a couple intersections (notably Briarpark) that are completely retarded and out of sync, but everything else lets me get through at +/- 10 mph of the speed limit. Voss isn’t so kind — there’s a light where I have to either aggressively reach 45 mph (10 mph over), or more sedately hit 50 mph. And on the downside, I have to go about 22 mph to time it on the green light (which causes a different kind of driving hazard given other Houston drivers).
But who cares about all that shite? Those who know probably want to hear about commencement. Back when I finished undergrad, I promised myself I’d work for several years, figure out what I wanted to do, then get an MBA. My uncles and some other people all warned me that it’s easy to get distracted in those working years with a significant other, a house, marriage, kids, and etc. I told them and my parents at the time that I do what I say I’ll do. The universal response I got was, “Yeah, sure. (We’ll believe it when we see it.)”
Well, sometimes we experience project setbacks, the timetable gets pushed back, etc. I started getting a clue only this past year and a half, but I’m done now. Took 3.5 yrs and some time off, but it got done — and done right. I learned things during the course of things that changed what I had initially planned. But market research and sustainable / green business practices are both things that I want to remain involved with and learn more about, going forward in life.
The next big step, of course, is to spend 5-7 years building that career track.
[speaking of things I will do, I still have plans to run a playing of the prize, but where / when / how remain TBD.]
Graduation itself was fairly painless — barely an hour from start to finish. Knew a few people, but I’ve never really stuck with anyone other than Brockmeier and Jen, and they graduated a couple years ago.
Welcome Wilson, Sr., the chairman of the board of regents, was pretty fun. He was a much older man — related a story about how he stayed in some Army housing dorms on the site of the current business school, back in ‘47, and it was a good place, except for the latrines being a block away. He acknowledged we’d all be successful, but emphasized that we need to regularly take stock of what’s important, and always remember to pay attention to our families.
The keynote speaker was from Spectra Energy. He was all over the map, hitting business ethics, building the community, constantly improving, helping make the world a better place through socially responsible capitalism, etc. Basically, a capitalist spin on the Wiccan notion of “do what ye will, an’ it harm none.” Which, when you think about it, is a *very* challenging rule to live by. Me, I like that wording better than the Golden Rule — “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” — though the two are definitely related.
Anyway, it’s done, and I think I’m even going to get away with Dean’s List by the skin of my teeth. I had a couple rough weeks in one of my classes, but one of my profs seemed to be hinting tonight that one of the other guys and I (who thought that we two would be feeling the B or C stick on our hides) had done a fine job. He usually shoots pretty straight, so I don’t think it was just to spare our feelings on this particular night.
Speaking of which, my parents and sisters got their shot at pictures, then we left. I skipped out on the reception in favor of working out at Rice. I had been pretty morose going into commencement, but a couple hours of light working out cleared things up. Didn’t want to push too hard, b/c I’ll be meeting the PK crew at Tranquility Park tomorrow after I do an observation for Kaplan.
Otherwise, late dinner from the fridge, a little reading, and the usual evening at home. Just the way it should be. :)
Saturday night, I went to Chris’s house to celebrate his 30th birthday. Chris and Lisa and their get-togethers are always pretty fun. Kind of comforting, never threateningly social. I enjoy hanging out with him a lot. Still, I was surprised by how much fun I unexpectedly had this time.
Chris gave me the dime tour of his house, since I’d missed the housewarming two years back. The dining room is fantabulous — the whole house looked a little like pages out of Southern Living. Lisa and her friends and family had been busy for two days prepping food. It was mostly Italian-themed, with some great chicken alfredo and awesome homemade meatballs. I was a little disappointed Chris hadn’t made one of his trademark cheesecakes with the chocolate-dipped mint leaves (you refrigerate them, then peel off the leaf to leave an imprinted mint chocolate leaf), but that’s not a complaint at all.
It was pointed out that Chris has been working at the Rice cashier’s office since he was a freshman (part-time, at the time). Now, he’s VP or something of the department. Finish school, maybe think about an MBA. I’m not clear on the details, but it’s a grand thing to know he’s doing well.
I talked to one of his coworkers, Patricia. Talked about old SF / fantasy, like Orson Scott Card, Niven, Poul Anderson, etc. I tipped her off to The King of Ys — doing my part to pass on Anderson’s increasingly-forgotten legacy. I know someday he’ll be regarded like Sturgeon: a significant contributor to the field, but little-known by current audiences.
Following some usual small-talk topics, she said she’d pray for me to find someone special. Not the conversational trade-off Anderson would have chosen — the remembrance of his work for a supplication to a being in Whom he may or may not have believed.
On which note, I felt a little like Bobby from Company. I won’t be disingenous — I know I’m well into the stage where even complete strangers will feel obliged to ask, “Oh, such a nice young man! Are you seeing anyone? Oh, why not?”
I just wish they’d leave it at, “No. It just hasn’t worked out that way.” Either that, or that I could comfortably lie about it: “Oh, sure. She’s in Bangladesh right now, building housing for impoverished families.”And since Chris and some of the others knew where things stood a few months ago, they asked the inevitable, awkward follow-ups. No, it was wonderful, but it didn’t work out. Thank you for asking. Sigh.
O to suffer anguish writ small that night
Is a draught of bitter dregs to tipple.
Multiplied a hundredfold, by my lights
I would yet partake again, an’ able.
(It’s too early for trochaic pentameter – I couldn’t figure out how to tie “partake” back to the root cause of the bitter drink, which is what I wanted. As it stands, the verse inaccurately describes my willingness to go back to Chris’s party — true though that may be.)
I found it reaffirming that Patricia and her husband had long ago reconciled their own preferences for routine versus change. She blocks out a time slot, around which she can plan. He takes the lead on planning the activity — usually trying out new things. If he were an intelligent fencer, he would propose and discuss choices with her first. And since she enjoys them, he probably does. An’ were I an intelligent fencer, so would I do as well.
Where there are two wills as one, there can be a compromise.
The remainder of the evening resumed its merry pace. We had karaoke, with a near-lethal dose of country tunes. Going through the list in a desperate holding action against the tides of lost pickup trucks, dogs, and women, I only found Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” and Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York”. I picked the safer one and plunged into the breach. Not a Grammy-winning performance, but fun.
Some of Lisa’s friends had brought their kids, and the two kids were looking pretty bored midway through the night. We were all out on the back patio, so I took them over to the grass and we did cartwheels etc. I learned how to do a round-off, and they learned shoulder rolls.
Our consulting project client canceled the meeting (set a month in advance!) due to last-minute commitments. For obvious immediate business reasons, we’re not #1 on their priority list. Knowing doesn’t make it any less awkward, though.
Rescheduling is hell, the team’s going ape. Everyone’s saying, “I can’t make it on XYZ date.” Which rules out all of next week. So I’m focusing just on the presenters’ availability (b/c I caught some hell for alternatives, like repeating Farheen’s request that I sub in for her). Which still nearly rules out all of next week.
Steve *still* hasn’t gotten back to us for several days (understandable, b/c he’s hosting some client from Beijing), so we can only continue to assume that we can’t go past the 14th (that being graduation at 7 p.m.)
For that matter, my !@#$ advisor still hasn’t informed me of whether I am on track to do so or not. I can never reach her. I’ve filled out all the apps and forms I’ve known about. This is why I’ve avoided that woman for 3.5 years, and gone to the other, much more diligent, but alas overloaded, advisor. Unfortunately, she’s officially assigned to me, so … it is what it is. So long as I get that piece of paper and transcript record in the next 6 months, I’ll be fine.
In other news…
First run-through of the fight choreography went really well. Took about an hour, everyone was happy with it. Seems feasible within time / ability constraints. Good room for comedic elements. Director and producer were majorly psyched (bouncing up and down in chairs) for the two climaxes of the fight. So nothing major to change. Just fixing the blocking such that the singing actor (it’s a duet / fight scene) ends up facing audience for his lines.
Cool new link for my job hunting:
http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/jobs/
The Force is strong with this one…
Got a bunch of online training to do for Kaplan today. At least I could do them nude if I so chose, and no one would ever know.
But I shan’t — I’m going to be boring, and intersperse 15-minute workouts between each session. :P
One more edit to the paper / presentation for Thursday. 4 days until I can say to 4/7 of the team, “Sayonara, suckers!”
And we’re doing our Hello, Hamlet fight scene walkthrough tonight. It could blow some socks into orbit, or it might be an unmitigated disaster. Either way, it’ll be a first try and therefore rough. Details at 11.
Actually, no. Details at 1 a.m. since we’re starting at 10.
The triangle’s still a little leaden, but I can’t complain, considering we were fo’c’sle and bowsprit below water just two weeks ago.
I admit I haven’t been great with my group, but it’s gone both ways. Even back when I was on top of things earlier in the semester, I’d be putting out ideas that kept getting shot down. Obviously, I was biased in thinking that they were straightforward and the correct course of action… But dammit, if you’re gonna put holes in my suggestions, then let’s see you put some of your own up in the shooting gallery.
Oh, whatever. I had this long diatribe about people who tell you to do one thing, then ream you out for not doing another.
I don’t know if any of my work in the past two weeks hasn’t been totally redone.
So I stopped by Rice and worked my way around campus pretty thoroughly for about 2.5 hrs. My grips are so sore I can barely hold a glass to drink right now. And my quads and whatever’s on the insides of the thighs are all wobbly. Mmm. :)
And I still can’t imagine myself jumping any railings. I’ve tested the approaches to a couple tables and walls and such, and … whoo-ee. :) I don’t need to try it to know I won’t clear it. Gonna be a couple more months’ crazy workouts before I’ll try killing myself by concrete faceplant.
And by midnight, most things were right with the world again. It was a damp, cool night. Gorgeous for working out. Also a bit ripe for melancholy as well, but one manages.
Visibility was down to about 300 feet on the way home, due to fog. All the world was rubbed out, swallowed up by the haze. The powerful, amber glow of Houston’s excessive streetlights seemed muted for once, and quickly faded to black overhead.
Very tranquil. Good for introspection.
You have to figure that someone whose first business e-mail to you refers to you as “cowboy” and himself as “snake” is a little flamboyant and laid back.
Sure enough, my client interview for the Project That Won’t End was pretty cool. Basically, the CIO and I should have gotten together and hammered things out 3 weeks ago. That’d have been nice. Then again, 3 weeks ago, we didn’t have what we have now. He and our team had already independently worked out almost all of the same conclusions. In fact, he took us further than we’ve gone, on a few points.
So as we’ve privately speculated, and he has now confirmed, we are effectively playing at pros from Dovers. He wants us to make our boldest pie-in-the-sky recommendations, and sell the client’s upper management on the deal. Then when they look at him and ask, “Can we do this?”, he’ll just sit there wearing a big, shit-eating grin. He admitted he wants to use us to prod upper management into making some bold moves. His IT boys have been just waiting for the word “go.”
If all self-professed redneck nerds are as easy to get along with as him, then the world is indeed a wonderful place.
And to further sweeten the deal today, both my Rice guys really came through for me, based on a mere week’s acquaintance.
Will arranged for some excellent shop time — he cut out 11 aluminum sword blanks on a heavy-duty bandsaw in Ryon Lab, in 25 minutes. That’s, I don’t know, probably 20% the time it would have taken me with what I have. And with cuts straight as an arrow, too.
Charles has taken to the longsword material like a Russian to vodka. He brought two new people, who both seemed to really dig it. Obviously, the 3-month milestone still looms far ahead, but for now, things are looking up.
Job training at Kaplan is proceeding apace. One more session, some paperwork and etc. to handle, one class observation, and then I should be starting forthwith. Saturday classes are not in short supply, so I think I’m set even if I get hired for a for-real position sooner than I expect.
After the final client presentation on 12/6, resources currently allocated to the Hell Project will be retasked to career planning / real job hunting.
And after Kaplan training ends, I’ll be able to go back to Tuesday UH practices. Woot.
When the hell will I find the 66 hours to finish up the 11 aluminum wasters? Uh.. Yeah. I don’t know. With higher priority issues on the table, it’ll probably be 3-4 months before I get through them all. Got some gauntlets and a helm to wrap up, first, anyway.
Oh, an interesting sidenote: The shop supervisor observed that 7075 is government-grade aircraft aluminum. He figured that 6061 would have been plenty good, and for easily half the price. But hey, the 7075 will rock out for a long time to come — if it’s good enough for the F-23, it’s good enough for us. :) So Shea and soon-to-be Conner have high-end aluminum waster blades, even if the hilts are despicably rough.
Ξ November 19th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ School |
OK, neither looking like Yoda nor being the hottest hotty in class is sufficient excuse to take 50 minutes to present.
And that’s after the prof requested they speed up.
To add insult to injury, a snafu on the profs’ end led to their approval of another team and ours randomly picking the same industry sector, and to present on the same night to boot.
So the rustling of papers and seats grows louder as we prepare to deliver 70% rehash material.
Thankfully, the remainder of our show is a fairly unique perspective on govt contract acquisition compared to the cardboard cut-out discussions of EBITDA, peg ratios, and P/Es. I offer hosannas for having Nathan, the uber-analyst in our group.
Plus he and I are both pretty dynamic and snappy presenters. We’re going to adjust a little on the fly, to account for mood and material.
If the punks in group 6 don’t square their nonsense away in another few minutes, I’m going to stage an intervention or a faked medical emergency. Or maybe it won’t be fake, and it won’t be mine.
—
Update after class:
We killed ‘em. Between Nathan and me, we provided a more executive-level overview of the numbers, talked about what caused them, and what they meant / implied for our portfolio’s prospects. We did *not* flog screenful after screenful of numbers, causing people’s eyes to glaze over. But we still hit the numbers hard and fast, for the profs’ benefit.
And as a side benefit, our off-the-cuff and somewhat unrehearsed delivery was apparently amusing. I counted 7 times the class burst out laughing — I even spotted our profs chuckling twice. We were probably the top non-zombiefied presentation — Nathan admitted where he had had to speculate or cook up some sort of formula to account for the defense contractors’ ridiculous $20 billion to $40 billion contract backlogs (equal to 2-4 years’ worth of annual revenue). He got the last laugh of the evening when someone asked about factoring those backlogs in, and Nathan concluded his response with, “…But I could be full of crap.”
Under 20 minutes, BTW.
And an A- on the paper. We’ve never scored below that on presentations, and this one went well. So that’s almost assuredly 3 credit hours in the bag with an A or A-.
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