Crikey
What else can you say upon hearing that Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, is dead? I guess he was always going to go out this way, killed by a wild creature he got too close to, although stabbed through the heart sounds more like street crime than something that would happen swimming with stingrays. (Growing up on the south shore of Long Island, we always heard about stingrays and were told to be careful about where we stepped to avoid getting a painful slash on our foot or leg, but clearly these are stingrays of a different order.) He did a lot of good work in conservation and for the protection of endangered species and may have been a somewhat cringe-inducing face of Australia to the rest of the world, but endearing just the same, for his enthusiasm and sincerity.
05 September 2006
04 September 2006
The Long, Hot Summer
There’ve been indications that this past winter may have been colder than last year’s, and, meanwhile, back in the northern hemisphere, the same period had extended periods of excessive heat. So when I hear warnings of a fresh El Niño and a subsequent extension of the current drought, which has been persisting for a few years now, already, and which has led to Sydney tapping deep reserves and other regions’ water systems, I have to start thinking about what I can do to decrease my own utilisation. This is a puzzler. We live in an apartment block, and our water rates won’t decrease just because I use grey water on the plants (not to mention that even during the height of summer, with two of us, there’ll be more than enough to keep the few plants well irrigated for the duration). It’s more of a moral imperative, than practical application. I’d like to have a rainwater tank, perhaps especially because we live in the city, so all our runoff heads pretty much straight into the harbour, rather than being caught in the catchments or otherwise feeding into and replenishing the ground water. Of course, it doesn’t do much good even in the Western Suburbs, where there’s at least as much storm water management wastefulness as not, but here there’s more room for single family dwellings and thus a greater possibility for recycling. Mostly I don’t like the idea because last summer was hot enough, and while I may have acclimated (negatively) to winter, I haven’t yet to summer. The idea of spending my summer commuting to Parramatta has no appeal, given the higher temperatures, and even if they’re only a degree or two or five. Those centigrade degrees can cover a lot more ground than Fahrenheit.
There’ve been indications that this past winter may have been colder than last year’s, and, meanwhile, back in the northern hemisphere, the same period had extended periods of excessive heat. So when I hear warnings of a fresh El Niño and a subsequent extension of the current drought, which has been persisting for a few years now, already, and which has led to Sydney tapping deep reserves and other regions’ water systems, I have to start thinking about what I can do to decrease my own utilisation. This is a puzzler. We live in an apartment block, and our water rates won’t decrease just because I use grey water on the plants (not to mention that even during the height of summer, with two of us, there’ll be more than enough to keep the few plants well irrigated for the duration). It’s more of a moral imperative, than practical application. I’d like to have a rainwater tank, perhaps especially because we live in the city, so all our runoff heads pretty much straight into the harbour, rather than being caught in the catchments or otherwise feeding into and replenishing the ground water. Of course, it doesn’t do much good even in the Western Suburbs, where there’s at least as much storm water management wastefulness as not, but here there’s more room for single family dwellings and thus a greater possibility for recycling. Mostly I don’t like the idea because last summer was hot enough, and while I may have acclimated (negatively) to winter, I haven’t yet to summer. The idea of spending my summer commuting to Parramatta has no appeal, given the higher temperatures, and even if they’re only a degree or two or five. Those centigrade degrees can cover a lot more ground than Fahrenheit.
29 August 2006
No Job
I mean, the one I was after, which didn’t pan out – four interviews and three hours of psychometric testing, and I didn’t get the job because I wasn’t “passionate” about consulting (whatever that’s supposed to mean). I’m left thinking it was a personality problem with the boss, whom I didn’t meet until the final interview, and that I ought to send them a bill for the time spent with them. Since I’d get $60 per hour in consulting fees, approximately, and I could charge travel, it’d be worth about $450. Since I spent preparation time, too, let’s just round that up to a mortgage payment and call it even. I mean, if Qantas can charge its applicants for testing fees, why can’t I charge prospective employers for the time they force me to spend with them to no purpose. Bah. Passion. I’ll show you passion: I’m passionate about getting paid.
I mean, the one I was after, which didn’t pan out – four interviews and three hours of psychometric testing, and I didn’t get the job because I wasn’t “passionate” about consulting (whatever that’s supposed to mean). I’m left thinking it was a personality problem with the boss, whom I didn’t meet until the final interview, and that I ought to send them a bill for the time spent with them. Since I’d get $60 per hour in consulting fees, approximately, and I could charge travel, it’d be worth about $450. Since I spent preparation time, too, let’s just round that up to a mortgage payment and call it even. I mean, if Qantas can charge its applicants for testing fees, why can’t I charge prospective employers for the time they force me to spend with them to no purpose. Bah. Passion. I’ll show you passion: I’m passionate about getting paid.
22 August 2006
Here Comes the Sun
Once upon a time the sun came up and it was morning and the sun went down and it was night. Then, supposedly to get more daylight working hours in a day for the farmers, we changed how time works, so that now, every Spring we move our clocks ahead an hour and every Fall we move them back. Except in Indiana, where they rely on more primitive reckonings of time, I guess, and in the Australian states, where one state’s Daylight Savings Time is another one’s not-just-yet. Unless Victoria Premier Steve Bracks can convince the rest of eastern Australia to adopt a uniform change-over. I’d prefer we just stick with one and let the earth rotate as it pleases without reference to whether or not farmers can manage to work out what time it is. It’s pretty easy, really: in summer the days are longer; in winter the nights are. Sun’s up, plants grow; go thou and do likewise. Or something. Look at England: they used to shut the pubs so the Germans wouldn’t have all those lights on to guide their bombers. Now everybody gets to stay out really late and don’t have to drink eight pints of lager as soon as the barman calls, “Time, gentlemen.” Although that does mean there’re lots of bombed people bombing around between the pubs and home in the dark.
Once upon a time the sun came up and it was morning and the sun went down and it was night. Then, supposedly to get more daylight working hours in a day for the farmers, we changed how time works, so that now, every Spring we move our clocks ahead an hour and every Fall we move them back. Except in Indiana, where they rely on more primitive reckonings of time, I guess, and in the Australian states, where one state’s Daylight Savings Time is another one’s not-just-yet. Unless Victoria Premier Steve Bracks can convince the rest of eastern Australia to adopt a uniform change-over. I’d prefer we just stick with one and let the earth rotate as it pleases without reference to whether or not farmers can manage to work out what time it is. It’s pretty easy, really: in summer the days are longer; in winter the nights are. Sun’s up, plants grow; go thou and do likewise. Or something. Look at England: they used to shut the pubs so the Germans wouldn’t have all those lights on to guide their bombers. Now everybody gets to stay out really late and don’t have to drink eight pints of lager as soon as the barman calls, “Time, gentlemen.” Although that does mean there’re lots of bombed people bombing around between the pubs and home in the dark.
It was Mom & Dad’s 50th, back in NC, and I had a nice bouquet lined up to arrive as a commemorative from M. and I in our absence, necessitated by 12,000 miles between us and them, when the first email arrived and announced a devastating death in the family, Dad’s cousin Eileen. I called as soon as the sun was aligned properly for all of us to be up, but missed them. Then I went in to check email, as I do each morning, only to discover that on the same day, Dad’s brother had also died.
Eileen was definitional to me of my father’s generation. Dad himself, you’d say, would be, but he’s too close to see with that kind of perspective. Eileen, on the other hand, was an imposing, iconic figure, even while she was also immensely fun: witty, urbane, dismissive and sharply deflating of pomposity, I developed an association with her of cocktails and elegance and style. Her presence was always an occasion and made any occasion an event. Younger Brother, T., credits the food she served at her holiday parties with an early interest in cooking and why he became a chef. The Counsellor was always close to Eileen’s daughter, R., and that would be in no small part due to the fact that her character was so deeply reflective of her mother’s. Most of all, I recognize that Dad’s lost a person who was for him a foil, much as he was for her, the two of them brightening the other whenever they were together.
Hardest of all for Dad, of course, is losing his little brother, Roy. I suppose my memories of Roy are always going to be colored by those early encounters. I’ve never forgotten how he’d play with us, engaging us on a level that most adults wouldn’t have been bothered stooping to, but always interested, always a figure of humor and kindness. He was an entertainer, someone to be relied upon for music, even if his greatest accomplishment in that regard was the ukulele. In later years we didn’t see as much of him or our cousins, even though they lived not very far, but separate families grow their own ways and often grow apart, regardless of proximity. It was a source of frustration for Dad and for us all that Roy so limited contact between them, but none of us ever doubted they loved each other.
Strange they should go on the same day, and hard to bear. It alters the family landscape more than I can express, although it’s changed so much in the last five years or so I’d hardly managed even to take in those alterations. When Mom’s brother, John, died, that was a blow, but one we’d been prepared for, as he’d kept us involved with his terminal illness throughout the course of treatment. When Roy’s middle daughter, Jane, died, we only learned of it afterwards, and to be honest I still haven’t fully learned to exclude her from my familial reckonings. I suppose it’ll be much the same now with Eileen and Roy, so much a part of so much of my life that I cannot do anything but to have them with me always.
Eileen was definitional to me of my father’s generation. Dad himself, you’d say, would be, but he’s too close to see with that kind of perspective. Eileen, on the other hand, was an imposing, iconic figure, even while she was also immensely fun: witty, urbane, dismissive and sharply deflating of pomposity, I developed an association with her of cocktails and elegance and style. Her presence was always an occasion and made any occasion an event. Younger Brother, T., credits the food she served at her holiday parties with an early interest in cooking and why he became a chef. The Counsellor was always close to Eileen’s daughter, R., and that would be in no small part due to the fact that her character was so deeply reflective of her mother’s. Most of all, I recognize that Dad’s lost a person who was for him a foil, much as he was for her, the two of them brightening the other whenever they were together.
Hardest of all for Dad, of course, is losing his little brother, Roy. I suppose my memories of Roy are always going to be colored by those early encounters. I’ve never forgotten how he’d play with us, engaging us on a level that most adults wouldn’t have been bothered stooping to, but always interested, always a figure of humor and kindness. He was an entertainer, someone to be relied upon for music, even if his greatest accomplishment in that regard was the ukulele. In later years we didn’t see as much of him or our cousins, even though they lived not very far, but separate families grow their own ways and often grow apart, regardless of proximity. It was a source of frustration for Dad and for us all that Roy so limited contact between them, but none of us ever doubted they loved each other.
Strange they should go on the same day, and hard to bear. It alters the family landscape more than I can express, although it’s changed so much in the last five years or so I’d hardly managed even to take in those alterations. When Mom’s brother, John, died, that was a blow, but one we’d been prepared for, as he’d kept us involved with his terminal illness throughout the course of treatment. When Roy’s middle daughter, Jane, died, we only learned of it afterwards, and to be honest I still haven’t fully learned to exclude her from my familial reckonings. I suppose it’ll be much the same now with Eileen and Roy, so much a part of so much of my life that I cannot do anything but to have them with me always.
21 August 2006
Signs
Since moving to Australia, I’ve heard a lot about the wonderful economic results of the Howard years, mostly, of course, from the PM himself and his front-benchers. As is usually the case, this government inherited an economy that was on the upswing and benefited and was able to claim the results as its own. But the real estate market and various other indictors – bananas and fuel prices, if you were listening to Peter Costello and Mr. Howard these past few weeks – show we’re headed for a downturn. How bad it will ultimately be is impossible to know, and the Reserve Bank is doing what it can with inflation by raising interest rates. (All well and good for the economy, but for actual people, it’s a killer: mortgages jump, credit cards jump; only people who managed to have investments outside property are going to see anything out of this, oh, and the banks, of course.) But we still get the jobless rate and so forth trumpeted as signs of how well the Prime Minister and his Treasurer are managing the economy.
Like the President, there’s no real power inherent to the PM, or, for that matter in government overall to manage the economy. Governments manage the spending of tax money, and their spending can impart some measure of health into the economy, whether or not it’s at any given time more or less artificial, such as was the case in the wartime economy of the Vietnam era or now that we’re in the perpetual War on Terror years. Business, as a monolithic entity in and of itself, is irrational, reactive to perceived trends and world events as managed by government, but that’s because capitalism, as administered by individual businesses, is competitive, and everyone takes their advantage where they can and bunkers where and when they feel they must.
But if you believe the economy is doing so well, then why is it that both the companies I’ve worked for since my arrival have undertaken massive layoffs? That can’t just be chance. Sure, I’m glad I’m relatively safe this time: fixed-term appointment due to expire before the next school year begins, job search already underway and two good prospects in hand; that doesn’t mean I got lucky. No, the economy is tanking and companies that are heavily reliant on the spending power of ordinary people are immediately affected and will take immediate cost reductions in response. Ordinary people can’t afford private schools when they can barely afford their mortgages, let alone a tank of petrol, and they can’t afford pricey security systems. Bread-and-butter land is being hit in the pocketbook, and that’s bringing down profits elsewhere. It’s only just begun. We’ve been living in a false economy for some years now, and its hollow nature and the hollow claims of the Howard government are being tolled like a funeral bell.
Since moving to Australia, I’ve heard a lot about the wonderful economic results of the Howard years, mostly, of course, from the PM himself and his front-benchers. As is usually the case, this government inherited an economy that was on the upswing and benefited and was able to claim the results as its own. But the real estate market and various other indictors – bananas and fuel prices, if you were listening to Peter Costello and Mr. Howard these past few weeks – show we’re headed for a downturn. How bad it will ultimately be is impossible to know, and the Reserve Bank is doing what it can with inflation by raising interest rates. (All well and good for the economy, but for actual people, it’s a killer: mortgages jump, credit cards jump; only people who managed to have investments outside property are going to see anything out of this, oh, and the banks, of course.) But we still get the jobless rate and so forth trumpeted as signs of how well the Prime Minister and his Treasurer are managing the economy.
Like the President, there’s no real power inherent to the PM, or, for that matter in government overall to manage the economy. Governments manage the spending of tax money, and their spending can impart some measure of health into the economy, whether or not it’s at any given time more or less artificial, such as was the case in the wartime economy of the Vietnam era or now that we’re in the perpetual War on Terror years. Business, as a monolithic entity in and of itself, is irrational, reactive to perceived trends and world events as managed by government, but that’s because capitalism, as administered by individual businesses, is competitive, and everyone takes their advantage where they can and bunkers where and when they feel they must.
But if you believe the economy is doing so well, then why is it that both the companies I’ve worked for since my arrival have undertaken massive layoffs? That can’t just be chance. Sure, I’m glad I’m relatively safe this time: fixed-term appointment due to expire before the next school year begins, job search already underway and two good prospects in hand; that doesn’t mean I got lucky. No, the economy is tanking and companies that are heavily reliant on the spending power of ordinary people are immediately affected and will take immediate cost reductions in response. Ordinary people can’t afford private schools when they can barely afford their mortgages, let alone a tank of petrol, and they can’t afford pricey security systems. Bread-and-butter land is being hit in the pocketbook, and that’s bringing down profits elsewhere. It’s only just begun. We’ve been living in a false economy for some years now, and its hollow nature and the hollow claims of the Howard government are being tolled like a funeral bell.
18 August 2006
Maxima Culpa
So, Gunter Grass was an SS Nazi. And this comes out just after I bought a remaindered copy of Crabwalk, his most recently celebrated novel, so I am faced with finally getting around to reading this celebrated, Nobel Prize-winning, anti-Nazi author’s work just when his reputation blows up. I suppose if I’d read The Tin Drum or something back when I first encountered it (or even had seen the movie), I’d have something to work with in coming to terms with what it all means, but instead have to contend with Mr. Grass’s past’s effect at the same time as I come to assess his work. Looking at his time in the service of the monsters of Europe, he doesn’t present a history entirely different from that of another former SS soldier, one more recently elevated to a position of even higher moral authority than a literature prize: Pope Benedict XVI. Well, except for the fact that Grass actually volunteered and believed in the war up until the Nuremburg trials showed him the reality. And both men kept their past pretty well covered up, though one by silence, the other by, well, not lies exactly, but not the full truth. Is Grass discredited then? Or can we say, in making this revelation, he finally has come to admit his sins and repent them even while he has long been attempting to atone for them?
So, Gunter Grass was an SS Nazi. And this comes out just after I bought a remaindered copy of Crabwalk, his most recently celebrated novel, so I am faced with finally getting around to reading this celebrated, Nobel Prize-winning, anti-Nazi author’s work just when his reputation blows up. I suppose if I’d read The Tin Drum or something back when I first encountered it (or even had seen the movie), I’d have something to work with in coming to terms with what it all means, but instead have to contend with Mr. Grass’s past’s effect at the same time as I come to assess his work. Looking at his time in the service of the monsters of Europe, he doesn’t present a history entirely different from that of another former SS soldier, one more recently elevated to a position of even higher moral authority than a literature prize: Pope Benedict XVI. Well, except for the fact that Grass actually volunteered and believed in the war up until the Nuremburg trials showed him the reality. And both men kept their past pretty well covered up, though one by silence, the other by, well, not lies exactly, but not the full truth. Is Grass discredited then? Or can we say, in making this revelation, he finally has come to admit his sins and repent them even while he has long been attempting to atone for them?
17 August 2006
Travel Plans
As things progress with this whole consulting opportunity, I have to think about whether this job really is right for me. I’m about to undergo psychometric testing, a common pre-offer assessment here in Australia, and, assuming I pass (and I have pretty much always tested well, except for that time back in the 80’s when I was evaluating an on-line psychometric test and it told me I needed professional help), an offer would indeed be forthcoming. They know I can’t travel right now, but the Sydney office is the resource for the Asia-Pac region, and they’ve got a big project going on in the Philippines, so it wouldn’t be long before I was getting on a plane.
There are people for whom that’s a daunting prospect, but I’m not one of them, except for the inconveniences presented these days. No liquids. No books or magazines (in England, anyway, and that won’t last). No mp3 or CD or tape players. No nail clippers (but who clips their nails on a flight?), etc. Take off your shoes, and all that. Such nonsense. I just don’t want the hassle.
More importantly, however, I’m not 25 years old and single. I have responsibilities at home, and this job would send me out of town for weeks at a time. Sure, it’s just an independent adult person and a couple of cats and an enormous apartment, but saying “it’s just” glosses over a lot of detail that needs due consideration.
That’s balanced, to the degree that compensation is balancing, by the money, which promises to be plenty, although they are inevitably going to low-ball me. Even so, I can expect a substantial increase over what I can expect to earn staying put, and can hope for performance bonuses now and then, an added incentive I wouldn’t see elsewhere. And we really need a reliably substantial income.
Which is another factor: reliability. How reliable is consulting work? Granted, this is an international practice of long-standing and high reputation, but these kinds of outfits aren’t above the old last-in, first-out staffing methodology, and any diminution of the practice or failure of it to grow according to “strategic” plans would see me on the street sooner rather than later. That’s not true where I am now, although anywhere else I may go is going to see me less safe rather than more, regardless of the nature of the business. Meanwhile, I’ve always been an “in-house” employee, never a “hired gun.” I don’t know what the demands really are or how they’d affect me beyond the obvious issues of travel vs. home. I’ve never even looked at being a consultant, never been head-hunted by one of the big consulting practices, never had to make a choice that wasn’t obvious.
Maybe I won’t pass the psych profile. I’m a little more eccentric than not. Look, I still write poetry. I keep a ‘blog. I’ve got cats instead of children. But I probably will pass, and then I’ll have to choose.
As things progress with this whole consulting opportunity, I have to think about whether this job really is right for me. I’m about to undergo psychometric testing, a common pre-offer assessment here in Australia, and, assuming I pass (and I have pretty much always tested well, except for that time back in the 80’s when I was evaluating an on-line psychometric test and it told me I needed professional help), an offer would indeed be forthcoming. They know I can’t travel right now, but the Sydney office is the resource for the Asia-Pac region, and they’ve got a big project going on in the Philippines, so it wouldn’t be long before I was getting on a plane.
There are people for whom that’s a daunting prospect, but I’m not one of them, except for the inconveniences presented these days. No liquids. No books or magazines (in England, anyway, and that won’t last). No mp3 or CD or tape players. No nail clippers (but who clips their nails on a flight?), etc. Take off your shoes, and all that. Such nonsense. I just don’t want the hassle.
More importantly, however, I’m not 25 years old and single. I have responsibilities at home, and this job would send me out of town for weeks at a time. Sure, it’s just an independent adult person and a couple of cats and an enormous apartment, but saying “it’s just” glosses over a lot of detail that needs due consideration.
That’s balanced, to the degree that compensation is balancing, by the money, which promises to be plenty, although they are inevitably going to low-ball me. Even so, I can expect a substantial increase over what I can expect to earn staying put, and can hope for performance bonuses now and then, an added incentive I wouldn’t see elsewhere. And we really need a reliably substantial income.
Which is another factor: reliability. How reliable is consulting work? Granted, this is an international practice of long-standing and high reputation, but these kinds of outfits aren’t above the old last-in, first-out staffing methodology, and any diminution of the practice or failure of it to grow according to “strategic” plans would see me on the street sooner rather than later. That’s not true where I am now, although anywhere else I may go is going to see me less safe rather than more, regardless of the nature of the business. Meanwhile, I’ve always been an “in-house” employee, never a “hired gun.” I don’t know what the demands really are or how they’d affect me beyond the obvious issues of travel vs. home. I’ve never even looked at being a consultant, never been head-hunted by one of the big consulting practices, never had to make a choice that wasn’t obvious.
Maybe I won’t pass the psych profile. I’m a little more eccentric than not. Look, I still write poetry. I keep a ‘blog. I’ve got cats instead of children. But I probably will pass, and then I’ll have to choose.
16 August 2006
Norse Mythology Needs an Upgrade
There will be twelve planets to learn about in schools, following a bonanza decision for textbook publishers by the International Astronomical Union. I only read about “Xena” a week or two ago, but I didn’t recall anything about Charon and Ceres. (And Ceres, o.k., she was a Roman deity, but wasn’t Charon just some other variety of supernatural being? There’s still Janus, Vesta, Juno, Minerva, and Vulcan, after all – although, yes, o.k., we’ve got to leave the Vulcan’s for later, don’t we? Given that we’ve already broken the pattern by going with Uranus, the Greek sky god, couldn’t we break out some other Hellenic names?)
There will be twelve planets to learn about in schools, following a bonanza decision for textbook publishers by the International Astronomical Union. I only read about “Xena” a week or two ago, but I didn’t recall anything about Charon and Ceres. (And Ceres, o.k., she was a Roman deity, but wasn’t Charon just some other variety of supernatural being? There’s still Janus, Vesta, Juno, Minerva, and Vulcan, after all – although, yes, o.k., we’ve got to leave the Vulcan’s for later, don’t we? Given that we’ve already broken the pattern by going with Uranus, the Greek sky god, couldn’t we break out some other Hellenic names?)
15 August 2006
77:07
That's the offical result, adjusted for the gun delay, and a little less than a minute more than what I did last year. I'm going with my watch on this one, because that means I was faster. But their time is the one to use for the video clip tomorrow.
That's the offical result, adjusted for the gun delay, and a little less than a minute more than what I did last year. I'm going with my watch on this one, because that means I was faster. But their time is the one to use for the video clip tomorrow.
14 August 2006
Leave Your Shoes Home
The increased level of passenger inspection requirements and restrictions to carry-on luggage are George Bush’s fault. Yes, that’s right, and the Republican Congress. If, instead of blasting their way into Iraq, they had spent some of the billions and billions of dollars (no small part of which, by the way, has actually been stolen or is otherwise unaccountable) on actual homeland security – you know, that whole new cabinet post responsibility post-September 11 – we might not have to take our shoes off or leave our shaving cream and portable CD players at home (or at the mercy of the luggage handlers, and you can imagine what’s happening to hundreds of laptops right now, as they’re thrown across a room and otherwise banged around a lot more than those vaguely padded briefcases are designed to manage). We could have proper and effective baggage screening, both for carry-on and checked, but instead, we’re making the world safe for oil companies and putting the burden of preventing terrorism on the many millions who actually aren’t terrorists instead of on the law enforcement personnel and processes that really work. The London plot wasn’t uncovered because somebody discovered an airline passenger with some suspicious Gatorade™, but because of surveillance work by the police. George doesn’t want the travel business to have to install new equipment at the airports, so you’ll have to do the work for him.
The increased level of passenger inspection requirements and restrictions to carry-on luggage are George Bush’s fault. Yes, that’s right, and the Republican Congress. If, instead of blasting their way into Iraq, they had spent some of the billions and billions of dollars (no small part of which, by the way, has actually been stolen or is otherwise unaccountable) on actual homeland security – you know, that whole new cabinet post responsibility post-September 11 – we might not have to take our shoes off or leave our shaving cream and portable CD players at home (or at the mercy of the luggage handlers, and you can imagine what’s happening to hundreds of laptops right now, as they’re thrown across a room and otherwise banged around a lot more than those vaguely padded briefcases are designed to manage). We could have proper and effective baggage screening, both for carry-on and checked, but instead, we’re making the world safe for oil companies and putting the burden of preventing terrorism on the many millions who actually aren’t terrorists instead of on the law enforcement personnel and processes that really work. The London plot wasn’t uncovered because somebody discovered an airline passenger with some suspicious Gatorade™, but because of surveillance work by the police. George doesn’t want the travel business to have to install new equipment at the airports, so you’ll have to do the work for him.
80:40
Official clock time. My watch put me in at under 5:30 per K, just, which is about what I expected, and about a minute faster than last year. We’ll see what the official discount is on the start (just 2:55 on Group A last year) and adjust accordingly. Meanwhile, keep an eye out for the video on Wednesday.
Official clock time. My watch put me in at under 5:30 per K, just, which is about what I expected, and about a minute faster than last year. We’ll see what the official discount is on the start (just 2:55 on Group A last year) and adjust accordingly. Meanwhile, keep an eye out for the video on Wednesday.
08 August 2006
Grabby
The practice of colonial and imperialist dispossession of indigenous people never ended, at least not in Australia, where the Prime Minister is moving the nation away from every progressive action towards Land Rights and Native Title and furthering the nation’s distance from any possibility of reconciliation. The present land grab instance is legislation designed to covertly include acts of dispossession within a cloak of more positive actions and is being pushed through the House and Senate with an absolute minimum of debate. The government relies on the public being uninformed or distracted by phantom terror squads paddling across from Indonesia or retrograde labor laws or interest rate increases, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Join the Get Up! Phone campaign, and let’s have a real debate and positive legislation for a change. It doesn’t always have to go Howard’s way.
The practice of colonial and imperialist dispossession of indigenous people never ended, at least not in Australia, where the Prime Minister is moving the nation away from every progressive action towards Land Rights and Native Title and furthering the nation’s distance from any possibility of reconciliation. The present land grab instance is legislation designed to covertly include acts of dispossession within a cloak of more positive actions and is being pushed through the House and Senate with an absolute minimum of debate. The government relies on the public being uninformed or distracted by phantom terror squads paddling across from Indonesia or retrograde labor laws or interest rate increases, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Join the Get Up! Phone campaign, and let’s have a real debate and positive legislation for a change. It doesn’t always have to go Howard’s way.
03 August 2006
Bound for [Anywhere but] Botany Bay
Isn’t this how Australian settlement started: criminals held in prison barges and eventually shipped to the antipodes? What “fatal shore” do we plan to send these illegal immigrants and fishermen to? England?
Isn’t this how Australian settlement started: criminals held in prison barges and eventually shipped to the antipodes? What “fatal shore” do we plan to send these illegal immigrants and fishermen to? England?
I’m still not prepared even now when images from that September morning run on t.v. (or, as happened over the weekend, when M. and I went to see Jindabyne, as a preview for United 93, and the Vanity Fair article isn’t nearly as inspirational as that moment when I saw the fighters overhead as I made my way uptown, perhaps because now I know that they were pretty nearly as confused by the events unfolding as I was. The books and movies and songs have been increasing lately, and I’d like to find some way of engaging with it myself, but haven’t reached that point of Wordsworthian “recollection in tranquillity” to allow it, if that isn’t too old fashioned or even possible. Art may indeed have power to transform and even to help heal trauma, so maybe I’m holding on too tightly to that day and the what it changed in me. Maybe delving into these materials is the right thing to do. Certainly the on-line article is an opportunity, with every posted snippet of communication posted as an audio link, but not one I can bring myself to take advantage of. When we saw those two minutes of dramatization, neither of us could entirely contain ourselves, even though, having seen the lobby posters, we were, in part, prepared for the fact that there would be a preview. I guess, like in that Gothamist report, where someone in the audience calls out hopefully in the opening moments of the coming attractions, we might have still hoped for it to be a different trailer, but that was just wishful thinking. Needless to say, I suppose, is that we won’t go see United 93 or the Oliver Stone movie.
02 August 2006
16 Miles
When I took this job I never gave a thought to future job searches. If I had, being sited (approx.) 25 kilometres from the city center might have occasioned second thoughts. Well, not really, since when I took this job I was getting pretty desperate. (Not that I regret it or there’s been anything wrong with the job or the employer, just that I needed a job very badly.) Now that I’ve re-initiated contact with my “network” – i.e., the recruiting agencies who hadn’t gotten me a job last time I was looking – I find myself having to schedule trips into Sydney far more frequently than is reasonable for getting my work done here. It’s about a forty- to fifty-minute trip, so that plus the time spent chatting means I spend a quarter or more of any day out of the office. If I was actually in Sydney, it’d just be a matter of popping out at lunch, more or less, but unless lunch starts at 11:00 and runs ‘til 2:00, that’s not really working for me here in Parramatta – and I don’t even get the traditional martinis such a lunch period would normally entail. It would be handy to find someone here to interview with, but that’s not going to happen unless I want to get a job clerking at the local supermarket. Even though Parramatta is often spoken of as one of the “other” city centers (along with Chatswood, for example), there aren’t a lot of major businesses located here. Now Chatswood, to continue to use that example, does have some large IT companies located in the vicinity, and others big enough for my purposes, but Parramatta is another city center, I think, mainly because of two other factors: population and retail. There are a lot of ethnic minorities in the area and a lot of giant shopping complexes, making it a kind of outlying hub. A bit closer in to the city than halfway to the mountains, it serves as a kind of frontier post, although one to be supplanted by Penrith and Blacktown, probably sooner rather than later, or even Richmond, none of which are places I’ve spent much time in, but where my impression is of much more traditionally suburban conditions, by and large.
I haven’t talked openly about my job search to my employer yet. I don’t think they’d fire me or anything, and there’s a hiring freeze on, so they can’t replace me until next year anyway, but I don’t want to be in the position of not having a new job while being known to be spending my time looking. It puts me in a dishonest position, because I’m taking advantage of the company’s very liberal, family-friendly policy of pastoral care to its employees. I’ll have to own up before too long, but I’d like some more solid sense that there is a new job ready before I do.
When I took this job I never gave a thought to future job searches. If I had, being sited (approx.) 25 kilometres from the city center might have occasioned second thoughts. Well, not really, since when I took this job I was getting pretty desperate. (Not that I regret it or there’s been anything wrong with the job or the employer, just that I needed a job very badly.) Now that I’ve re-initiated contact with my “network” – i.e., the recruiting agencies who hadn’t gotten me a job last time I was looking – I find myself having to schedule trips into Sydney far more frequently than is reasonable for getting my work done here. It’s about a forty- to fifty-minute trip, so that plus the time spent chatting means I spend a quarter or more of any day out of the office. If I was actually in Sydney, it’d just be a matter of popping out at lunch, more or less, but unless lunch starts at 11:00 and runs ‘til 2:00, that’s not really working for me here in Parramatta – and I don’t even get the traditional martinis such a lunch period would normally entail. It would be handy to find someone here to interview with, but that’s not going to happen unless I want to get a job clerking at the local supermarket. Even though Parramatta is often spoken of as one of the “other” city centers (along with Chatswood, for example), there aren’t a lot of major businesses located here. Now Chatswood, to continue to use that example, does have some large IT companies located in the vicinity, and others big enough for my purposes, but Parramatta is another city center, I think, mainly because of two other factors: population and retail. There are a lot of ethnic minorities in the area and a lot of giant shopping complexes, making it a kind of outlying hub. A bit closer in to the city than halfway to the mountains, it serves as a kind of frontier post, although one to be supplanted by Penrith and Blacktown, probably sooner rather than later, or even Richmond, none of which are places I’ve spent much time in, but where my impression is of much more traditionally suburban conditions, by and large.
I haven’t talked openly about my job search to my employer yet. I don’t think they’d fire me or anything, and there’s a hiring freeze on, so they can’t replace me until next year anyway, but I don’t want to be in the position of not having a new job while being known to be spending my time looking. It puts me in a dishonest position, because I’m taking advantage of the company’s very liberal, family-friendly policy of pastoral care to its employees. I’ll have to own up before too long, but I’d like some more solid sense that there is a new job ready before I do.
27 July 2006
Plastic Fantastic
I’ve got a couple of hundred LP’s and EP’s and a fair few “select” 45’s, but this database of vinyl auction results isn’t likely to do me much good, if a cursory survey of artists comprising the bulk of my collection is any indication. With (only) 250,000 listings, it probably isn’t terribly comprehensive, especially given that it encompasses every recording classification: Classical, pop, jazz, etc. Still, someday I might find out there’s something in my collection that would put the cats through college.
I’ve got a couple of hundred LP’s and EP’s and a fair few “select” 45’s, but this database of vinyl auction results isn’t likely to do me much good, if a cursory survey of artists comprising the bulk of my collection is any indication. With (only) 250,000 listings, it probably isn’t terribly comprehensive, especially given that it encompasses every recording classification: Classical, pop, jazz, etc. Still, someday I might find out there’s something in my collection that would put the cats through college.
Don’t Be a Moon-Calf
This professor’s essay on being an English major rings true, although I’m too old to have experienced Dead Poets Society while still deciding on my educational path. I guess the part that resounds most dolorously is that of why undergraduate literature majors fail to complete a Ph.D., as it represents, superficially, my own experience. I didn’t fall to politics, but to a dissatisfaction with the purpose of a post-graduate degree.
(Mom, no, listen, it wasn’t wasted; I still credit what I learned at grad school – or, anyway, how I learned – with much of my success in the world beyond the academy, just as I can credit earlier stages in my education with my success within it.)
And I don’t have to practice what I love so much in secret or as singing along to Barry Manilow.
This professor’s essay on being an English major rings true, although I’m too old to have experienced Dead Poets Society while still deciding on my educational path. I guess the part that resounds most dolorously is that of why undergraduate literature majors fail to complete a Ph.D., as it represents, superficially, my own experience. I didn’t fall to politics, but to a dissatisfaction with the purpose of a post-graduate degree.
(Mom, no, listen, it wasn’t wasted; I still credit what I learned at grad school – or, anyway, how I learned – with much of my success in the world beyond the academy, just as I can credit earlier stages in my education with my success within it.)
And I don’t have to practice what I love so much in secret or as singing along to Barry Manilow.
26 July 2006
Work-Life
Once upon a time I thought I’d be a writer and support myself working in publishing. What a cliché. The publisher I worked for taught me to use PC’s, back when PC’s were only just entering the business market and were just past the stage where floppy disks were seven inches in diameter. This translated into a much different career, one I’ve enjoyed a lot over the years, even though I’ve ever been as technically skilled as many people assume I am. I’ve always known just enough to get by, but always learned just a little more as the jobs or job requirements have changed over the years. But one thing I’ve sort of been (perhaps unduly) proud of is that I’ve never worked on a failed project. Now I’ve worked on two. Do I feel a little like a Jonah? Yeah, but I shouldn’t.
The job before this one, the project failed on a number of counts: we ran through a five-year budget in less than two years; we weren’t allowed to have the kind of client contact necessary to understand their specific needs or to persuade them that the project would succeed let alone be of any benefit to them; the company got taken over and the new upper management team were sceptical of the benefits and aghast at the waste. The entire project team got canned, and we flooded the market, leaving me and others of us unemployed for some months thereafter, a personal financial debacle we’ve yet to fully recover from.
Now it’s happened again. At least this time I stand to keep my job for a while yet, because the project was actually successful, and we’ve been paying employees on the new database for two years now. Only because some of the payroll staff are dissatisfied with having to do business differently than they used to – well, and because there are some real functional problems with the software that aren’t going to be resolved anytime soon – we’ve decided to revert to the previous software. I’m not particularly technical, even now, after over fifteen years working on this stuff, but the old product – even with the upgrade it’s undergone and the development being undertaken by the vendor – is so old-fashioned that I’m appalled at the decision. I don’t get to do anything more than that about it, though, just sort of gape in awe at the decision and then get on with the work of helping put things back the way they were. Nevertheless, the project can now only be said to have been a failure, so that’s two.
And hence the job-search. The old database is, essentially, non-commercial. As such, working on it puts me into a bad position. I can only continue to present a valid hiring profile to any prospective employer if my c.v. reflects a background in commercially viable product implementation and development. In-house stuff can’t ever do that, even if I’m using MS-Access, because the business world has moved beyond that kind of data handling solution. Even Microsoft is moving away from supporting the use of Access as anything more than a way for home PC users to catalog their CD collections. And IBM? Well, they haven’t been much of a player in the software market from a very long time ago now, and that’s were we’re heading, so it’s even further off the mainstream.
I’ll do what I can to help, because I’m a good boy, a committed employee in a organization that fosters positive relationships with its staff, but the first good prospect that comes along is going to get a hard sell from me. Meanwhile, I’ll work on my disgruntlement.
Once upon a time I thought I’d be a writer and support myself working in publishing. What a cliché. The publisher I worked for taught me to use PC’s, back when PC’s were only just entering the business market and were just past the stage where floppy disks were seven inches in diameter. This translated into a much different career, one I’ve enjoyed a lot over the years, even though I’ve ever been as technically skilled as many people assume I am. I’ve always known just enough to get by, but always learned just a little more as the jobs or job requirements have changed over the years. But one thing I’ve sort of been (perhaps unduly) proud of is that I’ve never worked on a failed project. Now I’ve worked on two. Do I feel a little like a Jonah? Yeah, but I shouldn’t.
The job before this one, the project failed on a number of counts: we ran through a five-year budget in less than two years; we weren’t allowed to have the kind of client contact necessary to understand their specific needs or to persuade them that the project would succeed let alone be of any benefit to them; the company got taken over and the new upper management team were sceptical of the benefits and aghast at the waste. The entire project team got canned, and we flooded the market, leaving me and others of us unemployed for some months thereafter, a personal financial debacle we’ve yet to fully recover from.
Now it’s happened again. At least this time I stand to keep my job for a while yet, because the project was actually successful, and we’ve been paying employees on the new database for two years now. Only because some of the payroll staff are dissatisfied with having to do business differently than they used to – well, and because there are some real functional problems with the software that aren’t going to be resolved anytime soon – we’ve decided to revert to the previous software. I’m not particularly technical, even now, after over fifteen years working on this stuff, but the old product – even with the upgrade it’s undergone and the development being undertaken by the vendor – is so old-fashioned that I’m appalled at the decision. I don’t get to do anything more than that about it, though, just sort of gape in awe at the decision and then get on with the work of helping put things back the way they were. Nevertheless, the project can now only be said to have been a failure, so that’s two.
And hence the job-search. The old database is, essentially, non-commercial. As such, working on it puts me into a bad position. I can only continue to present a valid hiring profile to any prospective employer if my c.v. reflects a background in commercially viable product implementation and development. In-house stuff can’t ever do that, even if I’m using MS-Access, because the business world has moved beyond that kind of data handling solution. Even Microsoft is moving away from supporting the use of Access as anything more than a way for home PC users to catalog their CD collections. And IBM? Well, they haven’t been much of a player in the software market from a very long time ago now, and that’s were we’re heading, so it’s even further off the mainstream.
I’ll do what I can to help, because I’m a good boy, a committed employee in a organization that fosters positive relationships with its staff, but the first good prospect that comes along is going to get a hard sell from me. Meanwhile, I’ll work on my disgruntlement.
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