Working at home

June 24, 2013 8:00 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I have been working from home a little over 3 years now.  I have lived through the ups and downs of this type of work and I can share a few things that I have learned in that time.

This began out of necessity.  The company that I work at is a small consultancy.  We provide data and data related services primarily for the oil industry.  We are also an internet company which means that the primary way that new clients find us is through the internet.  Due to the structure of the industry this also means we have mainly international clients.

Being in this type of sales environment means that I rarely meet the people that I deal with face to face.  At most I may Skype with someone but mainly it’s emails and phone calls.  The largest deal I negotiated was a six figure deal with an Asian client based on the strength of 4 emails and to this day I have never even spoken to the guy on the phone.

Commuting 25 miles each way to an office and spending 3 hours in traffic every day made no sense for me.  My boss decided it made no sense for the rest of the company either.  Rather than signing another 3 year contract with the building he had everyone work from home and share online space.  Add in a virtual phone service and we had a company based on the internet and spread out between 4 cities.

So I packed up my desktop, a printer, some office supplies and headed home.  I bought a new desk and set myself up in a spare bedroom, had a new phone put in and I had my own home office.

Isolation

Suburbs can be eerily quiet during the day.  They mostly evacuate during the weekdays and in the back bedroom of my house you see nothing and hear nothing.  As I was in sales I had to be there.  The production guys could set their own hours and work after dark if they wanted to but I had to be tied to the phone in case someone called in.

At first I was spending 22 hours a day in my house.  My morale was crashing and I quickly put a stop to that.  I forced myself to go out and do things.  Didn’t matter what but I needed to be around people, any people.

Temptation

Even before I started working from home I knew I had to get away from temptations like the TV, radio, or whatever.  That’s why I got set up in a separate bedroom rather than my own bedroom.  The office is just that.  An office, Nothing to distract, nothing to interfere.

Sedantary

You never realize how much you run around and do things in an office.  You constantly jump from office to office, you walk down to the bathroom, you walk to lunch, you go to meetings, etc.  Not so when it’s all contained in one house.

But worse as you’re alone without someone looking over your shoulder you get lazy.  There’s a kitchen full of food just downstairs, lean back more in your chair, no one is watching.  Why shave?  no one is around to look at you.

That implied social whip that curbs our actions is no longer there.  You have to provide your own discipline.

It’s not for everybody.  I have known folks that have quit after 2 weeks due to a variety of factors.  But once you do get things sorted you find that you are not tied to 9 to 5 business hours, you can put in that extra work without having to drive miles out of your way.  You can address business emergencies on the weekend.  The hassle of commuting is a long distant dream now.

I now consider myself lucky to be able to draw a salary and to do something I like without having to go into an office to do it in.

 

 

Posted in: business, life in general

People watching

June 22, 2013 7:45 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I was at Memorial city mall the other day picking up some new running gear and stopped off at the food court for a smoothie.  I sat in the main lounge and watched people come and go.  I normally avoid malls so I had not done this in some time.

Watched people come and go.  Some shopping, some just browsing, some just taking a break from their everyday routine, but mostly trying to stay away from the Houston heat and humidity.

You could tell from the way they walked and dressed what they were up to.  The mom purposefully striding and shooing her kids along had just arrived and was on her way to Macy’s.  The 5 kids ambling along and giggling were dodging responsibility and enjoying their Summer.  The severely overdressed woman not carrying a purse and walking quickly was a sales girl for one of the boutiques in the mall possibly getting something to eat on her lunch break.  On the other hand the severely overdressed woman carrying a purse and sedately walking along was probably an exec who had come out after work to shop.

Body postures give away so much too.  People that know what they want or where they’re going to seem to have a “closed” body.  Their arms are pulled in, they lean forward a bit, they walk faster.  People out for a stroll have a more open posture, they look around more, their arms spread out, they walk upright and more sedately.

Similarly people thinking about problems sit hunched forward, their heads down, their hands clenched or their arms folded.  People just relaxing sit back, their arms spread out, they take in their environment.

Sometimes I marvel at what some people think is appropriate to wear out in public or in some cases not wear.  What is even more amazing is that many people around them don’t even notice or at least pretend not to.  Such an acceptance would not have been possible just a generation ago.

i started avoiding the mall because it didn’t really offer anything that i wanted to buy but I forgot that it did have something that I liked and that was the chance to observe people.  One day I should really take a laptop with me and describe what I see as it happens.

Posted in: life in general

Libertarians: Reckless nuts or utopian idiots?

June 20, 2013 6:54 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Are all democrats, Birkenstock wearing tree huggers that drive hybrids and carry around Apple products?

Are all republicans, Mercedes driving three-piece suit wearing bankers that would sell their grandma for a nickel?

So why are we libertarians those far out loons that tote guns everywhere, smoke pot, believe in no government and pay for everything in gold?

I don’t like politics.  I never cared for it too much, but after the 1992 elections I dropped out for a long time.  The self-serving deceit, the pettiness, and the focus on special interests to the exclusion of all other things made me want to never touch politics again.  That is until I took the unthinkable step of dropping out of the two-party system and tried an alternative.  The Libertarian party.

Yes, those losers that never win anything.  The ones with the home-made campaign signs, the rumpled suits that never seem to fit, the cheesy public access TV show that nobody watches, and the never compromise attitude.

But what exactly do they stand for?  Well lots of things.  Just like both of the big parties have wings (the democrats for example range from the southern democrat that might as well be a republican to the hard left democrat that might as well be a communist) so too do the libertarians encompass a whole range of issues and ideas.  The core idea however is to extend and promote the liberty of the individual as much as possible.

Keep in mind I said as much as possible.  Libertarians are not anarchists and don’t propose to do away with government but they do see that like any other institution that government will grow at any opportunity and it is not always to the benefit of the individual.

Some things have to be done by government.  We have no choice in the matter because these things are too large to do by individuals and corporations would not do these things without a profit motive.

But when these things are done they have to be done in such a way that the rights of the individual are held sacrosanct as much as possible.  Government loves to seize property and tell people what they can do on their property and I don’t hold to such things.

What about pollution or food and safety standards you say?  I say these are resolved the way they ought to be.  In the courts.  Some company pollutes a river or air then they are damaging a property held in the common trust.  Sue them for damages and clean up.  Not just a slap on the wrist amount but something damaging, something commensurate with the crime.

Someone putting out toxic food.  Again lawsuit.  Not just at the corporate entity but the officers in charge and not just punitive but criminal charges if necessary.  Something big.  Something that tells others in that industry that there would be dire consequences for turning out products that harm the public.

Another thing libertarians don’t hold with is crony capitalism.  Altering the rules to favor the few.  This again limits the rights of the individual to favor another party.

Why do libertarians go on and on about gold?  Because our money is backed by nothing and represents nothing.  We can print and print money to fund projects and devalue the currency.  That in turn makes things cost more and means people living at the bottom face rising prices.  Is gold the answer?  I doubt it but continuing with fiat money the way we have certainly isn’t.

Drugs?  Don’t use’em.  But if you’re an adult and you’re not hurting anyone and you’re not becoming a burden to anyone else then do what you want.  But if you get fired from your job for showing up stoned or if your spouse leaves you because of your drug use then be prepared to face the consequences.

Libertarianism is as much about responsibilities as it is about rights.

Will libertarians see any of this implemented?  I don’t know.  Maybe when people start getting sick and tired of the status quo and maybe if they can get away from the fears of leaving the old comfortable system behind then maybe they will give it a try.

Posted in: politics

Nothing you ever wanted to know about alcohol

June 18, 2013 6:34 AM , Leave a Comment ,

This is a modified reprint of one of my more successful Myspace blog posts.  Mainly modified to make it more current.

Alcohol is a serious subject, worthy of a blog at least.  I have decided to distill (pun intended) my personal wisdom on the subject drawing from my vast personal history with the subject.

My first experience with liquor was as a child.  Coming from a wine growing country it was naturally of course wine I first came to know.  Although I don’t want to give the impression that my parents condoned it.   Indeed they’re both somewhat teetotalers, specially my father.  But during childhood they would allow me to taste.

My personal experimentation didn’t begin till I was 17.  My friends and I would cruise the city looking for cheap convenience stores and buy something called “Canadian black label beer”.  It was an awful little beer but cheap enough for a bunch of teens to buy, and the clerk never carded.

We lucked out in that we never were busted or crashed our car but we knew plenty of people that did.

I didn’t do much underage drinking in college although College Station is notorious for alcoholism.  One of the favorite pass times of drunks in that town is to get wasted and go out onto Texas Avenue and direct traffic at night.  Really the only time I drank was during bonfire and mostly we just stayed in and got hammered on cheap beer.

Once I did turn 21 I started hanging out at the Dry Bean Saloon.  A western saloon style bar with lots of cowboy stuff up on the walls.  So began my real alcoholic education.  I was introduced to liquid cocaine (a nasty concoction of goldschlager, 151, and jagermeister), to the flaming Dr Pepper (a flaming glass of jagermeister dunked in a beer and slammed back), three wise men (3 different types of whisky), Texas Tea (vodka, brandy, tequila and rum) as well as all sorts of beers from lagers to stouts.

Now I didn’t always want to go out and get totally drunk which is why a lot of the time I just went to Dudley’s draw, a sort of hippy type hangout, where you could get a cheap pitcher of beer to hangout with you all evening long.  Keep in mind I was a college student and I did have a limited budget.

After college I began at the bottom of the work ladder and my main hangout was Bennigan’s.  Now yes, Bennigan’s is a lame place but is a Budweiser really going to taste that much better at a hot night club than at a family eating place?  The one other thing I can say about Bennigan’s is that they had a beer contest.  Who could try 100 different beers in the shortest amount of time.  You had to try 100 different beers from around the world.

They limited you to 3 beers per visit.  After about 70 beers it all begins to taste the same.  Sapporo is somewhat like Tsing Tao which tastes like Heineken, which is sort of like Michelob which leads to Millers which blends over to Bud.

Ugh.

I was sick of the taste but I was going every day, and I just missed being the first one by like 2 days.

I got sick of beer after that.  I still will take a beer from time to time but mostly on special occasions.  And usually I will stick to something like Guinness which is the only beer that I consider to have a distinct flavor.

I did try some high end places like the Mercury room, which at the time was one of those places to see and be seen, but it was too frenetic and packed.  I like to do my drinking in nice quiet dark bars.

I did delve one last time into exotic drink concoctions.  A fictional drink found in the novel “The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy, The Pan galactic gargle blaster, is described thusly:

“Like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick.”

Some fans decided to recreate an earth recipe with vodka, triple sec, schnapps, whiskey and a lime.  And I foolishly supplied this to a bartender to make.

Never, ever, ever try the pan galactic gargle blaster.

After the first sip I had a heavy buzz going .. the 2nd the room started spinning, after the 3rd I was sick to my stomach.  It took over an hour for my head to clear and I never finished the drink.

After all that I settled on a simple Johnny walker black and coca cola as my signature drink.  The sweetness of the coke takes away the harsh edge of the whiskey and really brings out the flavors.  I am also learning about wines and the subtle differences.  Odd that someone from a wine growing country knows so little about wine.

Some thoughts on popular liquors:

Gin – awful taste, I don’t know why its so popular
Kahlua – who thought that bringing coffee and alcohol together was a good idea?
Bacardi Rum – way overrated
Zima/Smirnoff ice/ Bacardi breezers/hard lemonade – all of these bottled beverages are all the same damn thing.  In the end and they’re all just new versions of bartles and james wine coolers really

Exotics

Chicha – this is maize beer.  Its made in rural parts of south America mainly in Bolivia or Peru.  Basically people chew up the corn and spit it out and let it ferment.  Its milky white yellow color and its basically a weak beer.  Keep in mind if you’re ever in rural South America its considered an insult to refuse Chicha

Pisco – Chilean wine brandy. Made from particularly sweet grapes, its clear and very strong.  Its used to make Pisco Sours (like whiskey sours) or something called Cola del mono (monkey’s tail)

Aguardiente – which means burning water.  This is basically sugar cane alcohol, not much different than moonshine

Absinth – or abinsthe.  Tried something similar in New Orleans once called refined absinthe.  Pale yellow green color sometimes served with a sugar cube.  Supposed to be addictive or an aphrodisiac.  All it was to me was bad tasting like gin

I don’t really drink anymore and have not for the last 4 or so years.  Not for any religious reason or health concerns but mainly because I just don’t draw any particular pleasure from it anymore.  I will occasionally take wine with dinner or if a client or business partner asks me out I will go and drink but I don’t go bar hopping like I once did.  I just find that there are better ways to spend my time.

Posted in: alcohol

I was just thinking that

June 16, 2013 7:58 PM , Leave a Comment ,

The movie “Repo man” is generally seen as a mindless story about repo men and car towing but it has some deep moments in it.

One of the characters describes an event that many (in fact almost all) people have gone through.  One person will be thinking about a subject and for some reason someone else is thinking about the same subject or that subject manifests in some other way.

Coincidence?  Carl Jung didn’t think so.  He described a link in the greater collective unconscious.  Students of Jung have expanded upon this and have spoken about the ability to “tune” into the universe and getting what you need without thinking about it.

Others just say it’s just a series of events that just happen around the same time.

Do we live in a universe full of random unconnected events?  Is our mind just trying to make sense and order out of senselessness and disorder?  Or is there “something” out there that we still don’t understand?

Posted in: life in general

Exploring spaces

June 14, 2013 7:22 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I think I would have liked being an explorer or pioneer.

I always enjoy travel.  Not necessarily for the destination but for the act itself.  When I go off on a business trip, or a vacation, or just exploring some part of the city that I’ve never been before I get this rush of excitement.

I am leaving behind all that I know.  Taking few if any supplies with me.  For the next hour, or day, or week I am “off the clock”.  All my conventional life, my schedules, my comfort zone.  It’s all back home and I don’t have any of it to lean on.

I am living wild and rough.  Relying on my wits to get me through.  Seeing new sights, hearing new things, thinking new thoughts.

Have you noticed that when you first go to some strange new place it all seems so stark, barren, even dangerous in some ways.  But once you’ve been there and return it’s not so bad the second time and in time it becomes part of your mental map of the world.  I like that feeling of opening up new spaces and bringing it all into my “known world”

Then when you return back home and you see everything you left behind is running as it was when you left.  The comfort zone is there waiting to accept you back.  But yet, you get this feeling that you’ve suddenly just grown a bit for going on this journey.  You have found something that is not back here at home and added it to yourself and you have become (maybe just a little) better than before you left.

Posted in: life in general, travel

Arrested Development Season 4 review

June 13, 2013 12:56 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Again, this is a review of Season 4 of Arrested Development and will feature several spoilers.  If you don’t want to know what happens, stay out.

 

 

You have been warned.

 

 

 

I just finished watching all 15 episodes of Season 4.  I paced myself and took it one show per night determined to enjoy it slowly and take in every double and triple entendre and catch every reference that they offered up.  The first run of Arrested Development was such a delight to watch.  A carefully crafted comedy gem.

How disappointed was I with this new season.

Maybe it’s because the first iteration of the show was so good that nothing that comes later will ever be able to match it.  Maybe it’s because after such a long hiatus it’s difficult to pick up the reins and start off where you left before.  Maybe I have to admit it’s just not as good.

Season 4 basically takes on a series of events happening in the present and views them from the perspective of a different family member each episode.

After the end of the last show of Season 3, Lucille, the mother, is arrested.  The three fugitives headed to Mexico (Michael, his son, and his dad) decide to return to save the family.  Michael falls apart and makes a series of business mistakes which eventually force him to try to sell the movie rights to his family’s story to Ron Howard.  He spends the episodes running into family members trying to get them to sign away their rights.  He also falls in love with Ron Howard’s illegitimate daughter called Rebel, who he thinks is Ron Howard’s girlfriend.

Lindsey splits from Tobias and goes to India where she is told to become more giving.  She returns and falls in love with an environmentalist and through a series of mishaps becomes the mistress to a right-wing politician and eventually succeeds him as the candidate for his office.

Tobias takes up with a drug addict and is mistakenly arrested as a sex offender.  He winds up at Lucille Austero’s rehab clinic as a therapist and tries to get the inmates to put on a play at a local event where the entire family is gathered.

Gob has continued to fail at everything.  He resumes his relationship with George Micheal’s ex girlfriend, Ann.  After embarrassing her on TV, they break off their engagement.  He sees a chance to embarrass his nemesis, tony wonder, but instead starts falling in love with him.  Unable to handle this he takes his forget me now pills.

George Bluth has started a men’s retreat in the desert with his brother Oscar.  They charge obscene amounts of money to wealthy executives to feel good about themselves.  After they both ingest massive amounts of maca root they undergo personality reversals and Oscar becomes aggressive and George becomes meek and passive.  George hatches a plot with Lucille to exploit the government and build a wall on the border with Mexico thinking that the retreat is on the border.  It is not, it is actually in Mexico.   They go from wanting the wall to trying to stop it but still getting paid.  Oscar learns of this and tries to thwart their plans.

Lucille is in a country club prison.  She is filmed for a reality show about country club prisons but makes enemies of a gang of oriental ladies.  She gets out on a work release program by agreeing to help Tobias out a Lucille Austero’s clinic to make a play.

Maeby got fired from her job and without income decided to stay in high school by pretending to be 17 for the next 5 years.  She tries several money-making ventures including accidentally prostituting her mother but she settles on exploiting George Michael for an internet app as the best idea.

Left without his mother Buster degenerates to making a life-size doll of his mother to relate to.  After his mother returns he tries to break free of her by taking up with Lucille Austero but again he seeks a mother figure.  He tries to re-enlist in the army but is kicked out.  He moves in with a right-wing politician trying to help veterans and has a short affair with his wife before being kicked out.  He is last seen being arrested for Lucille Austero’s alleged murder.

In many ways the season is about Michael and his relationship with George Michael.  After season 3 he goes to college.  In school he tries to be cool and just when he almost has it his father comes to live with him in his dorm room.  Maeby shows up and in an effort to look smart and rekindle his romance with his cousin he claims to have come up with an internet app to make people anonymous online called “Fake Block”.  It is actually an app for playing wood blocks.

Maeby hypes this up and lines up investors.  By coincidence, George Michael runs into Rebel and they start falling in love.  In the last episode both Bluth men realize what has happened and George Michael punches Michael.

Other side characters make appearances.  Lucille Austero is now the CEO of the bluth company and a candidate for congress.  Kitty Sanchez is ron howard’s assistant and gets Maeby fired.  Steve Holt reappears as a bug exterminator.

The new format is confusing.  Maybe if I watch it enough times I will get it.  But honestly the writing isn’t there.  In the first run, the storyline flowed.  The story went from one scene to another without pause.  In this season the story jerks and twitches.  It spasms from one scene to another.  The continuity is there but you really have to look to find it.

Moreover I get this sense of tiredness from some of the actors.  Michael Cera just does not seem like he wants to be there.  He was very hesitant to do another season and it shows in his acting.  Will Arnett resumes the role of Gob with less gusto than expected.  Alia Shawkat, who plays Maeby is also less than effective.

Like I said maybe it’s the fact that the first 3 seasons were so good and my expectations are just too high.  Something I fear will happen to Aggie football fans this year with last year’s success.  Then again maybe this season was just not that good.

Posted in: pop culture, television

Original ideas

June 11, 2013 8:19 PM , Leave a Comment ,

Some spoilers about the latest Star Trek movie.  You have been warned.

 

 

A few weeks ago I was at the latest Star Trek movie.  This new movie takes an alternate Universe view of the original Star Trek series and creates its own timeline.  Captain Kirk’s main nemesis, Khan, returns and almost destroys him.  In what seems to me to be the ultimate lazy movie writing move, they take a classic scene from “Star Trek 2: The wrath of khan” and reverse it.  Making Captain Kirk to be the one sacrificing his life while Spock looks on helplessly.

Hollywood and the entertainment industry is rife with “re-imaginings”, “re-launches”, and homages.  Battlestar Galactica came back a few years ago in some ways improved but mostly it was not as good as the original.  Doctor Who was relaunched and although it has held up well, I don’t like the fact that they seem to be focusing less on the writing and more on the likeability of the actors.  In music a few years ago, Kid Rock took the classic Lynyrd Skynyrd ballad “sweet home Alabama” and incorporated it into his own song.  This year the rapper Pitbull and Christina Aguilera did the same with elements from the 80’s hit “Take on me” by A Ha

Are there no original ideas left?

Well yes, plenty actually.  But you won’t find them in the mainstream conventional media or big websites.  You have to go out along the edges to find them.  Eventually if enough people listen then the media bigwigs will try to exploit and market these ideas but it takes a lot to make them move.

Comics, once the purview of nerds, made a huge splash back the 1990’s.  This opened up a wealth of new materials to share with the general public.  But even here we see a dearth of originality.  Both Superman and Spiderman have each been “relaunched” at least 3 times in the last thirty years.  The special effects of course are better each time but does that alone justify these relaunches?

In some ways these relaunches make things worse.  Negotiations allow the studios to alter the intellectual property to suit their needs.  Director Michael Bay has been widely criticized for his Transformers series.  Some say all he added were more explosions.  Last year he was named Director for a relaunch of the “Teenage mutant ninja turtles” (TMNT) movie.  A small insurrection broke out among fans when it was learned that he planned to change the origins of TMNT and make them into space aliens.  Production on the movie shut down almost immediately.  A contrite Bay spoke out and assured everyone that this was not going to happen.

My belief is that we constantly need to hear new ideas, concepts, stories, and songs.  New ideas make the mind stretch, grow, and evolve in ways that we can’t predict.  This should be something shared by all people.  I don’t dispute that some things are classics and are worth revisiting.  But we need to go out and find new things for our minds to ponder.

Posted in: ideas, pop culture

The federal budget and weight loss

June 9, 2013 8:20 PM , Leave a Comment ,

A few silly similes, muddled metaphors, and addled analogies concerning weight loss and how the US government spends money.

If you think about it, the way the federal government taxes and spends is a perfect method for losing weight.

Taxation:

At the beginning of a health and fitness regimen you need to be thinking about running a deficit.  This of course will mean running at a loss, which is what you want to do.  The last thing you want is to collect more income (in the form of weight).

We have to be republican about things and lower our taxes (intake of food) but in an obverse fashion.  We have to drastically lower our intake of taxes from the poor (fatty and carb rich foods) and increase taxation of job providers (protein and vitamin rich foods).  These will create the jobs (more muscle) that will burn more fat in the future.

Spending:

Here you need to be democratic and be lavish on the spending of revenue (exercise).  Make sure all the constituencies get some (exercise the entire body) but also fund some special programs to fund those job creators.  Those muscles will later on scream for more revenue to spend (burn fat)

Each day will be your fiscal year.  Tote up the losses happily as you recklessly spend your way down to nothing.

Striking a balance

Once you do get to your ideal weight you need to put the brakes on the spending and increase the tax revenue.

More importantly once you do get to that ideal weight you will want to become a libertarian and pass a balanced budget amendment to maintain your weight.

Posted in: health, politics, Uncategorized

must like cats

June 7, 2013 1:52 PM , Leave a Comment ,

Have you ever used online dating?  I haven’t been on a dating website in awhile.

My profile is still on a couple of sites but I never check on them and over the years even the automated emails from the sites have stopped coming.

None of the sites were ever satisfactory.  What I found was that these sites mainly tended to boil down the matching experience to what people looked like on their profiles and that most people there were on the site to score some quick dates.

People come on the sites and have the most extremely rigid requirements for a partner.  Must be so tall, weigh no more than this, like nutella but not peanut butter, like cats and hate dogs, and so on.

I suppose that people have a faith in technology that tells them that if it’s being handled by computer then there must be a match for them somewhere because in its own way technology can do anything.

But it really can’t.  These sites use slightly different versions of the same matching programs and the only difference might be in the database pool that they have to draw upon.

Worst of all are the matching functions that tend to match better looking people together.  Facial recognition software does this in the background and is based on some standards that only the programmers know and suggests people to talk to based on looks.

The last site I tried was about four years ago.  I gave it about six month till I realized it was the same experience as the others.  However this site had a blogging function and a forum function where people could meet and chat away on any subject.

I quit actively looking for dates but couldn’t get enough of the forums and the blogs which were much more interesting to read.  As a dating site it was unsatisfactory, as a source of friends and online companions it was great.  Like all good things though people drifted off the site.  I still maintain contact with several of them through Facebook though.

Have you ever tried these sites?  What was your experience?

Posted in: internet, relationships