On a Lighter note...

I just love this song by Gwen Stefani with 'The Lonely Goatherd' samples. In fact, I think it will be in my spin mix this weekend...

Seung's Parents spoke to the Panel

From the Washington Post: Killer's Parents Describe Attempts Over the Years to Help Isolated Son

Well, that is news to me. Apparently his parents did actually get him some psychological help (and he improved for awhile) but then he stopped treatment and eventually descended into madness. His story is heartbreaking...

In art therapy, Cho made houses out of clay that had no windows or doors. Sometimes, when the therapist explained that his artwork showed how inadequate he must feel, Cho's eyes would fill with tears.

More importantly, if he had been convinced (if there wasn't such a stigma attached to mental illness) or even coerced (this is a question we have to face) to continue treatment, maybe thirty-three more people would be alive today.

Liberation

Since starting the new job and going back to a regular day schedule (which I have mixed feelings about) I listen to Morning Edition on WAMU on my way in. Today after this story about the guy who caught Barry Bonds' baseball, they played the Pet Shop Boys' Liberation. Usually NPR is very clever in their course of interlude music (I used to know one of the producer/directors of ATC) but I haven't figured this one out. Except that the guy is liberating the ball... in return for a hefty payment.

Cho had an emotional disability

So it turns out that Seung Hui Cho had a disorder called selective mutism, part of an anxiety disorder so severe that Fairfax schools put him in special education and provided him with personal counseling.

None of this was communicated to Va Tech because of privacy issues. Cho did not tell them; his illness probably prevented him from asking for help.

This doesn't excuse what he did of course, but it explains a lot of his behavior before that day.

A Bio in Business Cards

I freely admit to being a packrat. My attic (thank god I have an attic) is packed with crap, from old electronics to clothes, to old bills and cancelled checks, to models I will probably never get around to building.

One little thing I have saved is my business cards from just about every job I've had. I didn't get a card when I was a Library Asst. at U.Va. (come to think of it, I don't think anyone had cards) but I sure had some interesting jobs. For several months I was the acting bibliographer at the Science & Technology library, because they couldn't fill the position, and someone had to order new books. Frankly I thought I did a better job than the real bibliographer they got, who kept ordering cookbooks because his wife (who wore the pants in that relationship) liked to look at them. Cookbooks in a Sci-Tech library? I ordered a lot of astronomy, physics, and technology books. I was also assistant to the bibliographer at the Art and Architecture library... ah good times. Anyway, here's a list of the cards I do have:

• Art Director/Production Manager (ICE, where I was also an editor/designer/network guy [anyone remember LocalTalk? I set up the one at ICE with those phone wires], though no cards for those)
  
• Senior Designer (my first job in DC)
  
• Technical Manager (Service Bureau)
  
• IT Manager (Printer)
  
• Digital Manager (Repro firm who bought the printer)
  
• Rocket Scientist (The Mac consulting place; the owner had a sense of humor on paper at least)
  
• Technical Manager (another repro firm)
  
• ??? (the new place)
  

Anyway, back to my clutter. I was thinking it was time to finally get rid of the cancelled checks and credit card statements from, oh, 11+ years ago, and thinking that it would take forever to shred them all (and probably burn out my shredder), then I though.... Hmmm... I have a fireplace...

First cold day of the fall and it's a purging party!

I'm an Apple Dork

Yes I worship at the altar of Jobs a little too unquestioningly (though I vividly remember the day I heard he was coming back to Apple and I said to a co-worker "I wish I had some money, cause I'd buy Apple stock right now!")

But anyway, reading stuff like this makes me feel warm and tingly. Apple realized they weren't getting the right kind of retail exposure (The Apple section at BestBuy always looked so pathetic; even the little room in the back of my local CompUSA was kind of sad) and boldly launched these retail stores mainly as showcases. I used to buy my Macs from catalogs, but my last two were bought at the always-bustling Clarendon Apple Store.

Mercury Building

I made a little Quicktime slideshow of the next stage of the demolition of the Mercury Building here in DC. They are tearing off those big stainless steel coffers, and by the way they have them piled up, it looks like they might be recycling them. I would think so; all that stainless steel would be enough to make a whole airplane or two.

Cheap Chinese

I've been on a 'cheap Chinese' kick lately (and no, I am not
referring to R.; that would be 'easy Chinese.'). There is a place
around the corner from work called China Cafe, with authentic menu in
bad English, and all-Chinese staff, who all speak only Chinese to
each other.

Everyone here just calls it 'cheap Chinese' though, and I have been
getting dinner there 2-3x a week for the last month. I try to vary my
choices somewhat, but my favorite is the Sechuan Beef (oh and this of
course relates to my earlier anecdote about chopsticks--I have my own
pair that I use so I don't have to use the crappy disposable ones). I
just had the Hunan beef and egg-drop soup, and now I'm stuffed.

iPhone News

Here's some Weird, scary and bizarre iPhone tales!

Ow ow ow

My knees and my quads hurt (I did quad weight exercises for the
first time in months yesterday; you'd think my quads would be in
shape from all the spinning but I guess not), I have a headache (why,
I do not know), and my front teeth hurt (long story). And of course
I'm tired.

Just thought I'd share my pain.

Mars Rovers

Lest ye forget, both of the Mars Rovers are still going! Though right now they are weathering a planet-wide dust storm which has required that they be put in at least partial hybernation to conserve power. I'd like to be in hibernation right now; I stayed up too late last night watching Voyager (an episode I had never seen!) and then of course up at 5 this morning for class. I'm drinking a lot of coffee.

In other Mars news, the Phoenix lander had a successful launch the other day and is on its way to the Red Planet.

Out at Work

One of the reasons I'm changing jobs is that I'm not at all
comfortable being 'out' here. Not that I've felt completely
comfortable out at any of the jobs I've ever had. Usually I gradually
come out to a few people after awhile (and usually they are
surprised, which never ceases to amaze me), but my current place is
one where I don't feel comfortable at all. My manager knows because
he has known me for over 10 years, and I'm pretty sure my one friend
here (the young red-headed night guy who talks about asians with me)
knows but we don't come right out and talk about it. This is a very
diverse workplace, including quite a few blue-collar types (including
one sales guy my manager specifically warned me was a 'homophobic
good old boy') and a lot of Islamic people, whoa re all nice enough,
but from what I hear about most Islamic countries, are not taught
anything good about gays. So I always feel like I am 'butching it up'
at work, and that gets old.

And as far as being out I don't mean suddenly going all flame-y or
flaunting it. But as an example, I have my own chopsticks I bought
years ago in SF that I keep at my desk for when I get takeout
Chinese. I was eating just the other day and the night manager said
"Oh you know how to use chopsticks! How did you learn?" Well the
truth was of course that a certain Thai ex-boyfriend taught me how to
use them properly (with a lot of teasing and "No, no you're holding
them wrong again!") but I couldn't say that. I kind of hemmed and
hawed and said an Asian friend taught me. And there are always the
'what did you do over the weekend?' questions. Sure, "Nothing
special" or "I hung out with friends" usually suffices, but after
awhile people begin to think you are unfriendly or uncommunicative,
while everyone else is talking about what they did with their family/
boyfriend/girlfriend/etc.

So now I'm going to work at a design firm owned by a lesbian. I think
I can be a little more out there.

A meme (I guess)

It's a slow time at work, so I'm a little bored. I can't motivate
myself to do anything really constructive at the moment, so I thought
I'd list some of the stuff on my iPod besides all the 80's pop music
and videos, boyband fluff, dance stuff and the tons of classical
music. Oh, and I have the radio tuner attachment so I can listen to
WETA.

Lately, I've been getting more into podcasts (all available free
through iTunes), that I listen to while walking to and from work,
including...

Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing
X-Play video podcasts (I pick and choose these, usually only the
humorous skits featuring Shirtless Eric)
Attack of the Show! Daily video podcast
Car Talk's Call of the Week
60-second Science from Scientific American
Brini Maxwell's podcast from alt-NPR (who else saw her show on Style
Channel? It was... entertaining.)

I also have the last several episodes of From the Top recorded
through my Radioshark.

So, what's on your iPod?

I know...

...quoting song lyrics is tired and unimaginitive, but I've been on another Go-Go's kick (had 'You can't walk in your sleep' on my weekend spin mix) and I love the lyrics to this song.

This Town

We all know the chosen toys
Of catty girls and pretty boys
Make up that face
Jump in the race
Life's a kick in this town
Life's a kick in this town

CHORUS
This town is our town
It is so glamorous
Bet you'd live here if you could
And be one of us

Change the lines that were said before
We're all dreamers - we're all whores
Discarded stars
Like worn out cars
Litter the streets of this town
Litter the streets of this town

Weekend Weather

I so think NBC 4's Weekend weather guy is cute. He has a kind of goofy disarming charm, with his high voice and big smile. He also has that great shock of black hair that it looks like it takes a half bottle of gel to control, and looks like he works out a lot. He also looks pretty short, though that never bothered me. He also kind of jokes around on set sometimes which is always a plus.

Why is it that it's always the weather guys who are cute (and often seem just a little bit... ummm.)

Another one down...

Karl Rove resigned! One of the things that creeped me out the most about him (and there were many things) was the fact that he used a Mac. People like him should not be allowed to use Macs.

'Escalumps'

The Washington Post has an article about new announcements on Metro (none of which I have heard). Ridiculous that Metro can or will not come right out and say 'Stand to the right so that others may pass' because they don't want to condone walking on the escalators, maybe because of some strange law, like the one mentioned in the article. Or they are afraid of lawsuits.

Oh and for those not familiar with Metro, ''Escalumps' is just one of these cutesy made-up words on posters with definitions around the system, the others referring to people who take up seats, or eat on the trains. Metro seems to think that they should take this gentle, clumsily humorous approach on one level (which I find insulting) yet on another level they have a police force with a 'zero tolerance' policy toward arresting people who eat or drink on the trains. I'm all for enforcement, but apppareantly they can get, um, over-zealous. I'd prefer to see more signage in prominent areas that clearly says 'NO eating,' etc.

The best line for me in the whole article was of course:

Even as riders welcomed the new announcements, many said they're skeptical that they'll be heard. The messages are being broadcast, after all, on Metro's infamously poor public address system.

I'm Back

It's been a tough week but it's almost over. My current employer really wanted to keep me (which was very flattering) but I decided to move to the design place, Hope I made the right decision. I made a few friends at the current place, and I'll miss some of the eye candy, but the alternatives they were offering just didn't sound appealing enough even though I was going to get out of the most stressful part of the job.

Yeesh, 3 job changes in barely over a year. Is this a life crisis?

Oh and I had super-bizarre dreams last night.

Sigh

Well, I finally had my meeting with the Big Boss (BB) yesterday (he travels a lot so he is hard to track down). The purpose of the meeting? To tell him that I appreciated my time there but the stress was too much and I'd been offered a job at a nice quiet little graphic design firm (and to make sure he didn't consider it a violation of my rather restrictive non-compete agreement).

It didn't go as planned... of course. Things started to get weird while I was waiting outside his office and the IT director came up to me and said "So, how much of my salary would I have to give you to get you to stay?"

I was literally speechless. First of all, how did he know, and second, gee was I that valuable to the IT department?

I finally managed to say "I guess word got around." He actually sat and we talked for a few minutes. I've actually enjoyed working with him, as well as most of the other IT guys. He was very complimentary and said that since I had started up in Graphics, their lives were so much easier because I handled all the day-to-day crises that come up with the equipment there; then he was worried that they were putting too much on me. I said no, I liked that work; it was the insane architects' deadlines in production that stressed me out.

Then he left and I heard raised voices from the BB's office and thought, 'oh great, he's going to be in a bad mood.' But then he comes out all smiles and takes me in to the conference room. I think he knew what I was going to say. So I made my little speech and I'm barely done when he starts in with 'I appreciate you comng to me, you did the right thing,' followed by telling me that everyone loves me and he desn't want me to leave and he can tell who are good people instantly, etc., etc. and says he wants to start a marketing department and I could work there, or he wants to restart their graphics department, or I could be the regional technology expert "and you could travel around to all the branches..." at that point I must have made a face because he said "Or not." LOL! That was two of the things I hated about the consulting job: driving around all over town, and meeting people. I want my nice little Metro ride and a desk where it's quiet and I don't have to interact with a whole lot of people, especially clients. Argh. Oh and about the stress he said "Maybe you are being too conscientious." Too conscientious?! That's a new one.

Anyway, he practically told me I could write my own job description, and said "of course we'll want to review your salary as well." I said I would give it more thought. Talk is easy; none of these new things would appear instantly, and there would be negotiations and getting it all in writing...

Still, I find myself in a position that most people would find enviable: I have an offer at what seems to be a great little design place, and my current employer is apparently willing to throw money at me and let me completely change my job just to keep me.

Yet I'm miserable.

Remember Robert Wone?

The young lawyer who was murdered in a gay couple's house here in DC almost a year ago? here's a rather troubling update. Seems like some contradictions... and the FBI is taking this long to analyze the evidence? WTF?