I Guess This is Growing Up

If you're worried about having kids because you're not sure if that's what you want in your life right now, that's a bad sign. If you're worried about having kids because you want to make sure you don't fuck up the kids, then you're probably fine.

This is the difference between me then and me now regarding everything. 


perspective and questioning things from a better POV.

I spend too much of my life thinking this

“If I didn’t think, I’d be much happier; if I didn’t have any sex organs, I wouldn’t waver on the brink of nervous emotion and tears all the time.”
—Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

I am still dancing in the coma of the drinks I just had

If/When I own and operate a bar, this will be the last call song:

Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young" by Mary Schmich

you know what, fuck it.

One, Two, Three, Four; Tell Me That You Love Me More

1. There is some sort of drilling operation going on next door to my apartment. About a month ago they started putting up giant ugly walls. They are just giant metal beams and bars with weird foam covers as the panels of the wall. They are hideous and are a terrible fleshy color. This whole thing is on the side of my apartment that has the windows so in the morning all of the once beautiful natural light is kind of a rotten peach color. It is like living next to a huge fleshy padded cell.



2. I think sex with clothes (dry humping - which makes me laugh and feel a little embarrassed to say, so we will go with sex with clothes) is mostly retarded. Lex said it is only good as foreplay and/or for 14 year olds. I agree. He said it is like an appetizer. Basically, it is garlic bread and while yummy it is not a full meal. You want the spaghetti. And honestly, if you are going to have Italian food why only settle for garlic bread not just have a whole meal?



3. Metal ≥ Rap. In the past few weeks I have been trying to broaden my musical horizons. I went through a gangster rap phase and listened to quite a bit of old skool west coast rap - all of which I have a great deal of fondness for and I have my usual collection of rap/hip-hop that appeals to me (some for what it says like Kanye, MosDef, Common, OutKast, MC Lars, and Gnarls Barkley [okay that is mostly sounds cool factor] and some because it is ridic like Lil Mama, Flo Rida, Juelz Santana, E-40 and Shop Boyz). And through all of this I have collected quite a bit of hip-hop/rap but I only have bits and pieces from various metal bands. And of course, Lex is a metal head so I thought I'd get him to drop some knowledge and give me hints on what to listen to. He gave me his list of metal essentials an I am slowly working through it and will soon venture into a bit of metal music discovery of my own (so far I am digging: Dragonforce [but that is at least 2 summers old], 3 Inches of Blood, The Absence, and In Flames) . Maybe it is because a lot of this is fresh and new to my ears and I don't know anything about it, but I am totally digging the riffs and craziness. C'mon anything that can be classified as Viking Metal is a winner in my book. Also, I have found that with rap I pay attention to the words so much more than with metal. Duh, rap is far more about the words than metal will ever be... but I don't know how to describe it... the words in metal songs are often intricate and about crazy shit but I just don't hear them when I listen to it. Anyways. I am finding that I like metal just as much if not more than rap. I will have to listen to a lot more if I am going to give a definitive answer. \m/



I Google image searched metal head and this was by far the best result.


4. I have been considering an East Coast trip sometime in the near future. I'd like to go when Courtney is in New Jersey so I can see her in her natural environment. I want to see her family again but Jersey style. Also, I really want to visit Jordan and see his apartment and where he is working and all that jazz. It would also be nice to include a detour to Connecticut to see Brad at Yale and Liz in her teaching program. And since I keep mentioning Lex - I'd get to see him too and I could get to do some more NYC sightseeing. All that being said, I have a HUGE desire to go on a solo road trip to Oklahoma to see the Survivor Tree. I've mentioned my love affair with this tree before and it is a major life goal of mine to accomplish this. I think doing this right after I graduate would be a good time for me, maybe not of the year (i.e. December- January) for driving or the tree. And going to the East Coast during that time wouldn't necessarily be ideal, though I did go to New York in January of this year and it was awesome. Some of the incentives of the East Coast may be gone though, who knows when Courtney will be there b/c of her comitments and Jordan may be moving his location since his job is rotational. I am really only in a position to do one as far as dollars go. So which would be the best choice? Ugh. I should probably figure out what I am doing with my life as far as employment and all that instead of just daydreaming about vacations.

OR

What Matters To Me And Why

I feel like this is going to be a long one so be prepared.

Network Neutrality
I've had several conversations over the past week or so about the issue of network neutrality. I find the wikipedia article to be a fairly good overview of the issue. You can read it here. I feel quite passionately about the issue. I think it is very important for the FTC to take a stance on the issue. In a June 2007 report they said that the "broadband industry is a relatively young and evolving one," and given no "significant market failure or demonstrated consumer harm from conduct by broadband providers," such regulations "may well have adverse effects on consumer welfare, despite the good intentions of their proponents." I honestly don't get wtf they are talking about other than they do not want to create any legislation that will limit large telecom companies. Pansies.
There are a lot of arguments out there for and against a neutral network, but it really boils down to the following for me: someone/some company/ some corporation shouldn't get to decide what information I see at what speed. They shouldn't put up roadblocks so that competitors information is shown at a slower rate (which will be clicked off by users). Freedom, guys. FREEDOM.




Presidential Candidates' Technology Policies (or lack thereof)
In my last post I linked to the candidates' technology policies and you can clearly see that Obama has one on his site and McCain lacks one. As someone who is currently seeking a master's degree that is focused on online communities, it really gives me great cause for concern when one of the candidates doesn't list an opinion on the industry that I and many of my friends are involved in/seek to be involved in.



My takeaways from Barak Obama's technology policy :
1. open internet (though his site spells internet as Internet and that bothers me. You don't spell television as Television - it is the same shit. Catch up grammar police).
2. Encouragement of diversity of media ownership - Yes. Standing up to The MAN!
3. open government up to citizens (he kind of wants to make the government a blog - "Giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days before signing any non-emergency legislation" - I like the idea of gov't as a forum, but this is just asking for crazies and censorship debates)
4. Government into the 21st century - a CTO [chief technology officer for the knowledge impaired] for the country. (p.s. I love this idea and want to be CTO of America someday).
5. Communication infrastructure investment - widespread next-gen broadband deployment! We are so behind on this compared to a lot of the rest of the world - especially compared to Asia (okay, Japan and South Korea).
6. Education - technology literacy! He talks about preparing youth, which I totally believe in - math, science, technology to stay competitive in 21st century economy. But I'd venture to say that we need to educate a whole lot of people that are currently in the workforce about technology. Productivity suffers because of technology illiteracy.
7. Investment in the sciences - since 1970 our investment has dropped in half in the physical sciences and engineering research. fix this - get competitive, start leading again.
8. Protect American IP abroad and IP at home [IP = intellectual property for the knowledge impaired again]. I don't know that he will be the man to take on the challenge of reforming copyright law, but I like that his is starting this discussion. His section on IP was very short, but I think it is something, as an electorate, we can push to have the candidates talk about. (Lawrence Lessig endorsed Obama, fyi).
For more on Obama's position on the issues go here.




My takeaways from John McCain's technology policy:
1. He wants to go to space. "Let us now embark upon this great journey into the stars to find whatever may await us." NASA!
I don't mean to be a dick about this, but really, he just doesn't have a technology policy.
Why this sucks and I want more from him as a candidate:
Does he have an opinion about any of the following and how will he help America to reach goals in these areas: open internet, broadband deployment, intellectual property rights, technology literacy, education in technology for workers (young and old), funding for the sciences - research level (on this planet), communications technology investment, media ownership.
I'd like some straight talk on that.
For more on McCain's position on the issues go here.

Don't Get Old!

Before
After

Corporate Ladder?

Something funny.
Another funny thing.


Other news: I have been having a lot of anxiety about the future. I think I have figured out more of what I want to do with my life as far as work and the kind of atmosphere that I want. Though I worry that I made my decision in part based on what I want to wear to work - but also, I think that makes a lot of sense because what you wear says a lot about who you are.

What do you guys think about this opportunity and this one? These are just two programs that I researched because of talking to Jordan about his job search and I am sure there are others outside of the engineering field that would be in this same track. I think this is more what I am leaning toward as a career.

What is Next?

Some things about my new job:

I sit in a lawn chair and work at a really fancy computer. This makes me lol. 

The hours are strange - 1-8pm: mostly because those are more active hours for people to be online and searching for things to do in the space and still within semi-normal hours for work. 

These hours sort of throw me off... I am more productive in the evenings but at the same time I want to be off work when the rest of everyone is. This is why I am considering not keeping on with this kind of work in the future. 

I am also more motivated to go to the gym after work, but the lyon center hours during the summer preclude that. I guess I will just get fat. But at the same time I end up not eating much more than a snack before I leave (and no breakfast [who eats breakfast anymore?]) and then a soda and snack at work and then a dessert-esque snack after I get home. This is so unhealthy - maybe it will make me thin... lol. 

Real work will start happening next week. I have an orientation session on Monday about the more specific things that I am going to be doing on a day to day basis to get traffic to the site. Hopefully I can achieve the goals they want. 

I don't know if I want to do this with my life in the future. When I am here I think it is okay, when I leave I don't really want to... everything is hard.

I want to do nothing and just go on road trips and blog about them. 

Super Serial

I went in to the USC laboratory to have some blood drawn in order to check something about my thyroid. Today's blood drawing experience was one of the worst ever. The phlebotomist seriously stabbed the crap out of my arm. As I've documented, I have terrible veins and HATE having my blood drawn. My arm has a giant, swollen bruise at the draw site. I had the procedure done at about 10:15 am and it is now 11:45 pm and it is super painful to bend my arm. A seriously bad experience. I've been putting warm compresses on my arm but not much is helping. sorrow. My first time at the USC lab was far better and I just had regular soreness and a tiny bruise. This time: no such luck.

I am watching Trauma: Life in the ER. It certainly puts my minor discomfort and complaining in perspective. So far a man died, a woman has a traumatic brain injury and steel plates to hold her leg together, a baby was abused and has a skull fracture, a man needs to have his leg cut off because it was caught in a logging machine. Real life, son.

Today was also my first day of summer session school. This is the first summer class I've taken since my freshman year in high school. I am taking "Uses of Communication Research" which is a research methodologies class. I worry that this is a very broad survey class that may not get to depth that would be more than what I learned in my similar undergrad class. Hopefully I will learn more about SPSS and get some training on how to utilize new tools like Google Analytics better and more efficiently.

I am a call in juror this week. It is kind of lame to not really know when you may or may not have to go in. I have to call in for a third time tomorrow at noon to see if I have to report by 1pm. It puts me in a pinch because a) one hour to get to the courthouse in Westminster isn't a lot of time when you are in LA hoping you can go to work in Santa Monica and b) I would have to miss work and miss pay. This whole process is just kind of shitty because of the whole nature of jury selection. Not really anything of us can do, oh well.

I have been having a lot of anxiety about what I am going to do after school is up. Graduating in December doesn't seem that far away. I've been seriously considering leaving California. There are a couple leadership development programs that seem really cool and up my alley. I think I will go where the wind takes me. I am leaning away from working with start-ups and in the online world. The hours are often weird and there isn't much security and I don't feel like a grown up playing on the internet getting people to play on a website I work for. It just isn't what I imagined to be doing as an adult. I think online communities are more of a hobby/interest for me than a career. There are several things I am looking into and I am going to put that I will relocate and travel all the time. That is exactly what I want right now and in the near future.

And I’m calling all you angels

I had the great opportunity to sit in on an angel investor presentation meeting. The Tech Coast Angels were hearing presentations from 4 start-up companies that they might invest in. The presentations were generally pretty good and I like a few of the company ideas. I signed a non-disclosure agreement so I cannot really say much about what happened, but it was really interesting and an exciting opportunity.

They had delicious Organic-To-Go catered sack lunches. I had the Caesar salad with apple and a cookie. They also had a blue cheese and walnut salad, various sandwiches and wraps. All looked yummy! The TCA investment group funded them, now that I have don't a little googling.

The group is mostly made up of really friggen rich older white men. The women that were there seemed like a feisty bunch. I aspire to be one of them. They are a tough crowd, but we spoke with David Pollock (who spoke in one of my classes last Spring) and he explained that you get way more critical when you are risking your money and after you've heard lots of presentations.

It must be a famously wonderful life to listen to to start ups tell you about their genius, next-big-thing ideas and then lock them out and cut them to shreds and then invite them back in and say hrm... let's talk more and maybe I'll give you a million dollars or to piss off because your life dream is stupid.

I want that kind of power and clout.

feel like crying and...

I am having a rough day.

Hearing about another job offer that Jordan got makes me feel like I picked the wrong path in life... I am pretty sure after one year of service I will not be given a company car and shit like that. I don't really understand why engineers get all of these perks. I often think that the liberal arts skill set is undervalued and the science/math skill set is overvalued. I am going to be 22 with a master's degree soon and still not get the kind of offers that Jordan gets now with his incomplete degree. I am jealous and upset. Mostly I just feel like crying and not doing anything with my life.

Courtney has pretty much decided to live as a hermit in the Highlands of Scotland and study in some foreign country for graduate school. She is a brilliant girl and I am absolutely confident that she will get into whatever school she wants and that will take her away from me again... this time for years. It mucks up my post college plans. Mostly it makes me feel like crying and hiding from everyone.