This Dangerous Year – A Jaunty Little Blog

January 7, 2025January 7, 2025

Settle Down 2025, It’s Only Tuesday

Friends,

These are the things that are making my teeth ache today, on this seventh day of the new year. It’s by no means an exhaustive list, but it’s full of things that if taken individually, would make you at least want to close the drapes and stay in bed.

With that fun lead-in, let’s get to it…

Jimmy Carter’s body has arrived in the District of Columbia today to lie in state. I happened to turn on the teevee when a half dozen burly men transferred his casket from the hearse to the caisson in front of the U.S. Navy Memorial. I didn’t anticipate how hard it would hit that the funeral procession for such a decent man would begin the countdown to the inauguration of such a corrupt man as the incoming 47th president.
The incoming administration keeps making noises about buying or in some way taking, maybe by force, Greenland and the Panama Canal. The news outlets assume that these plans will be carried out in some way, so I’m not sure who’s more unhinged here.
Meta, the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp has decided to run without fact checkers. This is more pre-obedience to the upcoming regime that’s going to get all of us in a lot of trouble by amplifying the dumb (see above) and burying the truth (see below).
The former and future president’s favorite judge, Aileen Cannon of Florida, has ruled against the release of Special Council Jack Smith’s report on the crimes he was investigating. She managed to get the order in 45 minutes before the report was to be turned over to the most ineffective U.S. Attorney General in the modern era, Merrick Garland. The release of the report relies on a ruling by the 11th Circuit and then a Supreme Court appeal. I’m sure we’re all on pins and needles wondering how that’ll go.
Intense winds are blowing through Southern California over the next few days, and Tommy’s Real Good Electric Utility (aka, Southern California Edison) has already warned us that they may have to shut off power to prevent wildfires. Too late to keep Pacific Palisades safe from fire this afternoon, but maybe that’ll be the extent of the destruction.
I just learned that the Apple Newton OS has a Y2026 bug. I’d let my Newton eMate 300 know, but it’s enjoying a spa day of deep battery cycles and a light vacuuming between the keys.
Justin Trudeau’s resignation as Canada’s Prime Minister is remarkably bad news, I think. He seemed to have a chance to deescalate the incoming administration’s tariff nonsense, but if he’s replaced with some hard line nationalist goon, who knows. A tit-for-tat trade war with Canada could be very bad for all of us.
Speaking of trade wars, can somebody rein in the once and future president’s pet billionaire? Elon Musk appears to be picking fights with European democracies and nobody can be sure if he’s acting alone or if he has the blessing of Time’s kleptocrat of the year.

Did I miss anything that’s keeping you up at night? Drop it in the comments and we’ll add it to the list of horrors!

Your best pal,

– bob

January 1, 2025January 1, 2025

There’s Never A Better Time Than Now

Friends,

I was excited. I’ll freely admit that I found the prospect of a female president exhilarating. Dudes have had their shot, so it seemed that a fresh perspective would electrify an electorate in deep malaise and a large minority of the country agreed with me.

But it was still a minority.

That means that it’s time for a psychological reset. It’s also time to acknowledge that a majority of the electorate has a short memory and couldn’t be bothered to read or think or look out for their fellows. That’s the product of a half-century long Republican project working as planned, but also the subject of a later post.

My plan for this first post of the new year is to think about how to proceed and what I can do to contribute (you’re probably going to share something about taking better care of yourself, too. – ed Don’t be silly. I’m a paragon of good health and virtuous living.). Here’s a first draft of a list of thoughts that I’m considering to firm up at some point to create something of a plan…

Things to do to make 2025 better

Stop giving artificial intelligence your thoughts for free

The suits consider me a “content creator”, which is as far as I can tell, anybody who fills blank spots on empty pages with words or pictures. Those words or pictures don’t have to be pretty or insightful or memorable or meaningful. They just have to fill the space.

What we need to do first, is stop being “content creators” and return to being writers and authors and artists and photographers and philosophers and scientists. And yes, pundits and cranks and rabble-rousers too. It’s not “content,” it’s perspective and we need more of it. That said, there are better places to do that than social media sites. They have more traffic, but I’m not comfortable with Meta and Bluesky and Google owning what I share on the Internet. That’s why there’ll be more here and that’s why it’s behind a robots.txt file that seeks to block their crawlers.

Also, I thought it’d be fun, even though I don’t know how long it’ll be fun, to just post photos taken on a Handspring Visor with a first generation eyemodule. They’re really awful and it’s a pain to get them from the device to here, but I love how they’re turning out. Lo-Fi pixel slurry that’s sort of a cross between Super 8 and a Fisher-Price PXL2000.

Stop obeying in advance

Yes, the good guys lost the election, but that doesn’t mean we need to kneel in front of a deranged kakistocracy even before it has been installed. They can’t tell you what to do or how to act or how to spend your money or when and how to enforce your laws. Even when their clown car has disgorged its passengers in the District of Columbia, there is every indication that there will be a wide gulf between the evils they want to do and the evils they’ll actually be able to implement.

You can’t build concentration camps and run a mass deportation regime if Congress can’t agree on how to fund it.

Of course, they probably can’t fund the government either, so that’s a different hardship. One thing at a time.

Make somebody’s life easier

Here’s my plan. I know a few things about a lot of things. In the past, I didn’t think too much about this. Everybody has the capacity to learn about stuff and figure things out. Intellectual curiosity is baked in, isn’t it?

Nope!

As the election taught me, sometimes people need more help. That’s a good reason to share more of what I’ve been working on and maybe drop some tips that may have been missing for somebody else. The people who contribute to archive.org are famous for this, scanning old documentation for obscure things or uploading drivers for ancient tech. Speaking of that…

Cut down on buying new stuff

The oligarchs have plenty of dough and don’t need any more of mine. I’m trying to be mindful of where my dollars go since the California insurance market is crushing my finances. I’m patronizing local businesses first, then far-flung small business. Only when neither of them carry what I’m looking for will I resort to Amazon or, well, Amazon.

By the way, now that Fry’s Electronics is gone, where are you sourcing your electronic parts?

Back up your stuff

This sounds paranoid, but I’m seeing a lot of people I trust online recommend full, offline, or air-gapped backups. The US Treasury just got hacked by China, so my Javelin pictures may seem like small potatoes, but they’re my potatoes and I’d like to keep them safe.

Does that mean journaling on a typewriter to keep my memories of this time safe? No, but that seems like fun. I might have to get back to that.

So there it is. The first day of 2025 in the books. I think we’re going to okay, but we’ll need to look out for each other. It’s going to be a rocky few years.

Your pal,

– bob

February 5, 2024

Crystalizing Block Theory

Friends,

I’ve been poking around lately, reading different theories of the nature of time and our place in various models. Everyone does in one way or another during their Birthday Holiday Season. I just chose the theoretical physics route because that just seems to make more sense (even when it starts making less sense? -ed Spoilers!).

I started thinking about how far away the nebulas and galaxies captured by the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes actually are. Considering the time it takes for those images to get from there to here, what we’re looking at must’ve happened eons ago. Naturally, you start wondering what’s happening in those places now. Do those things even exist anymore?

So one thing leads to another and it’s easy to start thinking about the definition of now, which starts getting into definitions of time. What I didn’t think I’d have to consider is exactly who gets to decide when or even what is now. What we perceive as now has already happened, because like the telescopes, there’s a lag between the sensory inputs and our receipt of them.

And by the way, there’s a lot of screwy speculation about whether we’re all simply living in a simulation. I think this is easily dismissed if you’ve ever watched an episode of Silicon Valley or Halt and Catch Fire. Moving on…

So one theory of how time works is the Block Universe Theory, which is as straightforward as it is unsatisfying. Essentially, according to the theory, everything that has happened or will happen has already happened and our linear perception of time leads us to move through all of the moments<—>in order. Sad for fans of self-determination though. Why should you even make a choice if everything is already set?

Fine. What if you had a Growing Block? Sure, everything that has happened is fixed and agreed upon, but that only happens as our “now” progresses. Things in the future aren’t set, which pleases the folks who dig stuff like relativity, but the past is the past and now no longer exists. The only thing that matters is now, but events taking place now determine how the future will be shaped. Pretty good, right?

It’s fine for most of us, but how do you account for uncertainty, and when does all future get around to, ahem, crystalizing into the present and form the past? And again, whose “now” is creating this narrow and ever-changing band of existence? Should it be yours? Must it be mine for what I’m seeing to be true at any given time?

Anyway, I had a nice little birthday get-together with my sweet wife, my sister, her significant other, and my niece at the beach. The storms in Southern California let up for the day and revealed the lovely view pictured above<—>in the past.

Your pal,

– bob

December 31, 2023February 5, 2024

The Fates

Friends,

The end of 2023 is fast approaching. Even though the calendar year is an artificial construct, I’ll be glad to see the last hateful, hurtful, and mournful 365 days go away. Just to give you a taste, my father in-law died on the day before Christmas Eve and his widow fell and hit her head later that evening. We spent Christmas Eve morning in the Emergency Room, which led to her admission for a brain bleed. We made our way home and got a few hours of sleep before she was discharged (“I’m not sure why she’s here,” said the attending physician.) so we picked her up and took her to her apartment. Did she fall again that night?

Of course she did.

This time, we asked if she was in pain or bleeding, then asked the attending staff not to send her back to the hospital. This bought us a day to see Mom in the desert.

2023 has been an expensive year, a sad year, a dumb year, a hate-filled year, a violence-choked year, and a year that we must not forget. Remember 2022? It was pretty terrible and sad and dumb. 2021? Not great! Previously, I filled these pages with scratchy-eyed moping about how awful things had become and maybe we should simply stay in bed ¹. Not this year.

This year I’ve had it with the defeatism and dour predictions.

I’m just not having it from me or from you. This is our year to punch real-life nazis. The bad guys, who mostly identify as Republicans here in the United States, but not always, are trying to take away our rights so that their masters make more money and accrue more power. in 2024, we’ve got a job to do, vote them out and reinforce structures originally designed to keep thugs and autocrats away from power. Using the plain language of the Constitution’s Article 3 is a good start if we hope to keep insurrectionist off of the ballot.

It’s taken us 150 years to finish Reconstruction, but it looks like the time for half-measures and appeasement is over. Whatever we do is going to have to happen this year.

Yes, I’d rather lick my wounds and feel sorry and mourn and regroup, and I honestly hope that we have time for that soon, but this is going to be messy. The bad guys won’t respond to reason. Maybe they’ll respond to a solid pasting at the polls. That’s going to require all of us getting out there again.

Your pal,

– bob

¹ My Mom’s mother had suggested that if things got too rough or scary, the best solution was probably to stay in bed with the covers pulled up. That might not be the best advice these days (or even in those days, to be fair).

April 4, 2023

Are You Not Entertained?

Friends,

The workload over the past several days has been sparse, so I have offered my time to assist my colleagues in the UK with their projects. Knowing that they probably don’t have anything ready to go, I’ve been adding some other service in Microsoft Teams, like picking paint colors or offering dinner suggestions. Today, I offered a bedtime story, which they enthusiastically requested.

I’d like to present it to you as it was presented to them, so I’m going to supply screen shots with the story in ALT text. That way, if you have a screen reader, you can follow along.

I flavor the story early in the chat with the post image you see at the top. Okay, here we go…

(Since I was also in a video call, it took a little while to finish up. My colleagues were not amused.)

And that, dear friends, is a fun way to entertain a group of jaded copywriters in the middle of a meeting.

Your pal,

– bob

September 29, 2022September 29, 2022

What’s All Dat?

Friends,

It’s been a little while, hasn’t it? Since we last convened, I have injured my back rather severely, gone on a three-day work trip to New Orleans, Louisiana, adopted and brought back to life a very slow and very charming old computer, and I’m getting ready to put a roof on The Secret Alpine Laboratory. I also have very bad news about the Idyllwild Weather Clam that I can no longer suppress. Sufficiently teased? Great!

Remember to stretch

I thought that storm waters were flowing under the stem wall into the crawlspace under the cabin. Add some dirt, and the resulting mud flow had swamped some stacked drywall and lumber. Their stinky and moldy corpses were immediately punted to the landfill. However, it wasn’t local flooding at all. The problem was a perforated iron drain pipe from the kitchen sink. I cut it out, removed the mud, and jammed everything back into the garage.

Now, when I need to move equipment out, I’m navigating over a couple welders, around dead batteries, and through a narrow passage before I get them through the door. It’s tight and the obstacles are stabby. I grabbed the miter saw to chop the new custom threshold that was the wrong size. The first injury must’ve made a cartoon “sproing!” noise inside my back somewhere in the neighborhood of T10 or T11. The second part, where I turned the wrong way while still carrying the saw surely sounded like a Spanish galleon running aground on the rocky shores of L5-S1. I wouldn’t know because all I could see was white and all I could smell was pain.

That was on Labor Day.

Economy class

Three days later, I was on a plane headed for New Orleans to meet my coworkers in person for the first time. It’s hard to fault United Airlines for wanting to crowd as many people in each plane as possible. After all, the industry has received billions of dollars in loans and relief from American taxpayers over the last decade. They’re hurting for cash!

I haven’t been on a plane since our honeymoon before the pandemic. Since then, the seats have been moved even closer together, the cushions replaced with ones that are much thinner. Would the pain meds kick in soon? Maybe they already had and the pain from the back injury, plus the seats, plus the knees belonging to the woman seated behind me, was actually much greater than this.

This was the theme for the entire trip, unfortunately.

I had to plan ahead for every walking adventure. Is it too far? Can I make it back to the hotel on foot or will I have to call for a ride? After checking in at the hotel, I left to meet everyone who had arrived first and it was like old friends picking up where we’d left off. Except we’d never met in person. It’s a good group and we had a lot of laughs.

Even the next day, when we ventured out to hit a particular tourist spot, everybody had a great time.

Team building exercises, cajun bánh mì for lunch (You didn’t know that was a thing, did you?), then dinner at The Roosevelt. A packed schedule, for sure. The next day was just as packed. Vegetarian eggs benedict (Cajun style, ‘natch), quality time in an escape room, then off to the return trip home.

A funny thing happened on the way back. Same planes, but they were only half full. It took two planes to get home and both flights had a lot of empty seats, including the middle seat. I could spread out, stretch, and stop whimpering about the persistent back pain which had not relented.

It wasn’t until 10:30 or so that evening that I finally got home and was greeted by the welcoming committee.

Is this the party to which I am speaking?

Before I left on my trip, I won an auction for this little nugget…

Yes, that’s right. It’s an Apple Newton eMate 300 portable computer, from your childhood. This one seems to be in remarkably good shape, even though the battery was as flat as can be. It ran for about five minutes after a full charge, complaining about imminent automatic shutdown after two. Back to ebay for a five dollar nickel-metal hydride battery pack intended for a baby monitor. It’s the right shape, I just transferred the temp sensor so the charging circuit can detect if it’s overheating.

It’s that thing under the tape in the center of the batteries. Peel it off, cut the power leads and solder on the new ones. Stick the sensor down on the new pack and tape everything back together. Not only easy, but also peasy.

Now there’s the small problem of getting the thing to talk to any of the modern computers around here. Modern like the Clamshell iBook, or the 12-inch G4 Stuntbook. I installed the software and adapted the adapters, but still get a “can’t communicate with this computer” message. I’m stumped.

Cement pond

You know the old chestnut about how the cobbler’s children go barefoot? I never truly believed it, myself. Who’s going to raise a family with a fruit crumble? Absurd. (unless it’s peach. i love a peach cobbler. -ed)

Even though my Dad built pools for a living, he did next to nothing to repair the swimming pool at the family home. The tile was falling off, plaster cracked, diverter valves frozen in place, wiring strapped to piece of plywood held up by a single rusty nail. It was a real mess, but he was unwilling and later unable to do anything about it.

Since his passing, Mom has taken on the big projects, like rehabbing the pool. I have to say that it looks great.

An added bonus is that I’m the first person to actually go for a swim since its rehabilitation. I’m happy to report that it’s great. Wouldn’t change a thing.

The Sad and Tragic Demise of Big Fine Salty Mountain Tide Pool

As you know, we’ve been dealing with a longstanding drought here in California brought about by climate change. I’ve been doing my part to solve the problem, but not enough, apparently. Our gal, the Idyllwild Weather Clam was nowhere to be found when I arrived at my Secret Alpine Laboratory to have the roof replaced. Her tidepool was a dry and desolate place, since we’ve had next to no rain this summer and she has apparently packed up and left. Yet another climate refugee, I fear.

If you hear from her, please ask her to call and let her know that I put more minutes on her prepaid phone.

If only she had waited

Why am I still here at the Lab, you ask? The gigantic and very expensive roofing job had to be postponed for most of this week due to torrential downpours. A inch and a half of rain on Sunday and another inch yesterday. It’s enough to spook a roofer, so we start tomorrow, and by “we” I mean “they” start tomorrow. My involvement is to keep a fire extinguisher nearby and to see if my noise-cancelling headphones are good for anything beyond plane travel.

Whew! That was a lot. I’ve been having trouble with my web host, so this may not post correctly. Cross your things for good luck.

Your pal,

– bob

July 29, 2022August 18, 2022

How Much Is Too Little? Edition

Friends,

As you know, I’m currently working for the 8th largest B2B marketing communications firm (by billings) in the UK and I’m dead chuffed about it. (a bit gratuitous, innit? – ed See? You’re doing it now. It’s infectious.) However, problems pop up in any new job and in this job, because it’s completely remote, it’s hard to get a read on people. What I tend to do in these situations, and stop me if this seems very familiar, is overcompensate. “Oh no!” I hear you exclaim, beating your chest and tearing at your garments. “How can this possibly be so! Haven’t you learned your lessons?” To which I reply, “Was that supposed to be plural?” And you answer in chorus, “Yes, plural.”

so be it.

I’ve learned some lessons, like when to sit down and write about it before I dig myself the deepest hole. And that brings us to now, and the current problem is this: Is it my job to jam mildly-spiced words into a casing to be boiled, sliced, and served to a mildly interested public in order to tick a box on a marketing communications manager’s spreadsheet of monthly deliverables? Or is it my job to bring the training and knowledge I’ve gained over several decades to develop engaging narrative to compel the reader and bend them to my will?

Well? Is it that one?

After being told recently that my work was too esoteric, too cerebral, and also that my work was too formulaic, stodgy, like a datasheet, I went a little overboard. I thought I’d see if I could get more love from colleagues if I started being more “wacky.” This did not go well.

Then I buttoned things down and asked colleagues for reports on target demographics and the results from previous campaigns. This continued my streak of not winning any friends.

So here I sit, at a loss as usual. I’m also grateful for the opportunity to report that this is the worst of my problems.

Not so bad, eh wot?

Your best pal,

– bob

April 5, 2022June 8, 2022

Get A Long, Little Doggie

Friends,

I’ve been struggling lately. This pandemic has been wearing heavily on everybody, so much so that some individuals have decided on their very own that it’s over. Of course, the pandemic isn’t over, but a more liberated fiction is appealing. It’s dumb and dangerous, but appealing.

I thought that it’d be nice to travel this summer and get away for a little while from the sadness of losing parents and pets over a short few months. My sweet bride’s suggestion to go see Giant Sequoias and Redwoods was very appealing and easier to envision without having to mind a fleet of furry ding-a-lings.

But Phoebe happened.

We’re her fourth home (perhaps, maybe more) and she’s had a bunch of puppies. She’s now enjoying a new comfortable home, a couple squares a day, and all the attention she can stand. In return, she’s ready to offer her belly in case you’d missed the opportunity to give her a rub only minutes before. Free of charge, she will chase away neighborhood cats with a serious, but understated growl.

Now let’s see how she travels.

Your pal,

– bob

UPDATE: Here’s the right song to listen to while you enjoy this post.

January 13, 2022January 13, 2022

What Will You Be Doing?

Friends,

If you go back to the very beginning of this rumbling, bumbling, stumbling mess of a memoir, you’ll see that I veered away from a joke of the day format to longer posts not long after 9-11-2001. Not long after that, a bunch of us were relieved from our employment at The 23rd Largest Marketing Communications Agency (by billings) in the country. I spilled a lot of pixels howling about that loss two decades ago.

This is a pretty good soundtrack for this post. Enjoy!

Since that time, I’ve been trying to find a new copywriting gig. I sent out hundreds of applications, fashioned a marketing department at an old job, and I even started my own short-lived business. To say that these efforts failed to hit my career out of the park would ignore that I’ve been swinging at a lot of wild pitches for a very long time. It’s been exhausting.

Well, dear reader, the drought has ended. I’ve been hired by U.K. firm Twogether as their first U.S.-based copywriter and I couldn’t be more excited about it. I’ll be working from my remote office here in northern San Diego County putting words in a specific order that will compel people to do things! For money!

I know what you’re thinking. “Hey Bob, I’m happy for you and I wish you all the best in your new job, but does this mean that you’re going to stop posting to A Jaunty Little Blog altogether?” Heavens no, imaginary reader! In fact, I’m getting ready to start new features that will waste even more of your time. I understand that you’re busy and I haven’t been giving you the high-quality words and phrases on a reliable schedule that you had come to expect. However, I can now make this promise to you: if we’re not completely debilitated in our rampaging pandemic, imprisoned following the next civil war, or we don’t have to become refugees from our nascent religious fundamentalist minority white rule ethno-kakistocracy, I’ll have hours of entertaining content here for you!

Tell a friend!

Your pal,

– bob

September 27, 2021September 27, 2021

Sometimes Life Is Like Owning A Pink AMX

Friends,

It’s been a very long time since I’ve posted up an update here and a lot has happened since the last post. Some very grim things and some lightly happy things that don’t seem to balance out the very grim things. I want to think that this is just a function of getting older, but we’re still (!!!) in a pandemic and there are studies that prove that politics is still to blame for a lot of deaths. Americans should be furious. I know I am.

When I was a tot, my best friend Jim and I were inseperable. We ran around and played and got into trouble and ate wheat paste and made each other laugh during catechism classes. We grew apart as we got older, but kept in touch infrequently. The last time I saw him was during his last month on this earth as he succumbed to the cancer that destroyed his burly frame, but never diminished his kindness and sweet demeanor. The party was for his parents’ wedding anniversary, but it really was for him. We hugged and he winced as I hugged his pain medication packs into his aching back. He was tired. He knew why we were there and seemed happy to see us.

I would like to take this moment to mention: Fuck cancer.

Jim’s sister is not a medical doctor, but she’s “done her research” on Facebook and convinced her parents that they shouldn’t be vaccinated against COVID-19. She told my Mom that she’s “very happy” that her parents hadn’t fallen for the constant barrage of media insisting they get the vaccine. They’re in their 80s, but worried about the vaccine’s long term effects. Jim’s father, one of the kindest men I’ve ever met, just died of COVID. I wonder if Jim’s sister is still so happy. At least we know he won’t have to deal with the long term effects of the vaccine.

I know a fellow who has a medical condition that prevented him from getting vaccinated. Too risky. He’s a sherrif’s deputy, one of our first responders who has risked his life saving others. He’s now a COVID long-hauler. Part of the reason we were supposed to get vaccinated early was to protect people like him. Folks whose immune systems put them most in harm’s way, like they weren’t already in harm’s way from the other stuff like bullets and blood and explosions.

If you’re like me (and may your omnipotent invisible friend help you if you are), you have a certain affinity for Roy Chapin Jr.’s AMC. It was scrappy, brash, and in big trouble. They were punching above their weight and taking shots at GM and Ford, who could do no wrong in the late 1960s. This was the era of the Matador coupe, Javelin, and the mighty AMX.

Now let’s pretend that it’s a half century later and you own a pink AMX. Maybe not that pink AMX, but it still garners the same attention and you still have to explain it. Why are you driving a pink AMX? Where did you get that pink AMX? Is it that pink AMX? And more recently, what’s an AMX?

Sometimes life is like that. Frustrating. Not simple. Not obvious.

The Boss Says, Swapping Aerosolized Body Fluids Promotes Productivity!

Friends,

Since we last grabbed each other in this little do-si-do, I have obtained employment, enjoyed some weird boosterism, put a family member in the hospital, stared into the maw of despair, and have come across a remarkable discovery. That’s right, it’s a housekeeping post.

Let’s box this gnat!

I’ve been applying for copywriting jobs for over a year with no success. I’m a tough sell on paper: out of the agency business for decades, and in-house samples from non-profit don’t obviously transfer to sales jobs. The other problem is I don’t know the jargon. This shuts a lot of doors for recruiters and HR people who are ticking boxes. As you’ve learned after any time browsing posts here, I hate jargon. I’ve spent an awful lot of time removing jargon. I’m good at it. I’ve always felt that if you hide behind industry buzzwords, you either don’t know what you’re talking about or you’re gatekeeping. I’ll keep applying until I find a kindred spirit, but in the meanwhile, it’s tech support.

Tech support is cleaning up other people’s messes. Usually, those messes are created by software engineers on a deadline who ship product before it’s complete, completely vetted, tested, and reworked. I understand why they do it, but that makes you, dearest reader, an unofficial software tester. You get to figure out why Outlook can’t handle that many deleted items and Excel can’t open your friend’s spreadsheet because it’s Tuesday. I get to fix it.

My current gig isn’t awful. The half-hour commute takes me to a biotech shop on the coast. Good start! The place is staffed with a lot of adults, which is a refreshing change. They just want to do a good job and go home. No real politics that I can discern. The downside is that it’s a temporary position on a contract. They may hire me, which is an idea it seems like they’re thinking about, but as far as I know now, it’s a no-benefits/onsite position all summer.

Speaking of onsite, the bosses have decided that all employees will return to the office this Tuesday after working from home since March of last year. There’s a lot of grumbling and management haven’t handled it well. Like businesses across the country, they started with the first rationale: that in-person work leads to greater collaboration and productivity. This is an assertion that really hasn’t been proven. There are no workplace studies. Nothing to back it up except hearsay and absurd commercial property values. This was quickly followed up by, “Because I say so.” Playing this card is so very popular with the rank and file workers who know that zero work has been done on ventilation systems, vaccination validation, and that very little effort has been put into revising sanitation protocols. Folks love it.

The boosterism comes from the bosses and human resources folks sending out bulk emails about how are super excited to see everyone! All you precious little knowledge workers with the tops of your adorable noggins poking over the tops of low cubicle walls fill our hearts with glee.

The knowledge workers I’ve spoken with aren’t feeling it. They’ve built home offices, rearranged schedules, taken on childcare and eldercare commitments, and now they’re being asked to chuck it in the bin. Folks feel like they’re doing the work and building premium products without needing to warm a company-issued chair.

The nature of work has changed. People aren’t just working for a paycheck anymore. Okay, I am actually working for a paycheck at the moment, and there are millions out there like me. My goal, and suspect the goal of the rest is a simple one: Work to live, don’t live to work. Enjoy what you do. Make a difference. Make it count.

Keep a kind thought for my father-in-law who was admitted to the hospital a week ago with pneumonia. He’s as weak as a very puny and out of shape kitten, so he’s going to need a lot of rehab to get back to full strength.

Also, Stinko brought some daughters to the desert and I fed them enchiladas at my parents’ house. He was subdued, but seemed to enjoy the visit and the attention. Please do what you can to cheer him up by spending outrageous amounts of money at his shop, won’t you?

We’re keeping gluten-free at my house for reasons (Celiac Disease can be pretty rough. I don’t have it, but I’m an ally in the struggle. Also, did you know that Celiac Disease is considered a disability when you’re applying for jobs? Let’s have a chat about why that’s case sometime later. Not now.) and we’ve been able to find gluten-free puff pastry dough. We made spanikopita with the stuff and it’s amazing. Light, flaky, and very tasty. If you find it in the freezer section, stock up. You never know when it’ll be back.

Thanks for passing through. Now it’s time to separate and go home.

Your best pal,

– bob

UPDATE: The original version of this post was a grammatical mess. I fixed a bunch of stuff, but if you see some glaring error, please let me know. Thanks!

March 22, 2021March 22, 2021

Opportunities

Friends,

As you know, I’m still looking for a full time gig after the contract information technology “engagements” fell flat. I had a nice interview this afternoon with the copy manager at a software house in New York, so that looks promising. In the meanwhile, I thought it would be nice to get some work published elsewhere that I can add to the portfolio.

I threw my hat into the ring at a nascent auto industry analysis site and they asked for a writing sample. The brief was in “500 or fewer words about something you don’t see getting any coverage, but you think the auto enthusiast press should be reporting on.” Oh boy, I can write that all day. So I did!

Media Should Talk About The U.S. Auto Industry

I’m old enough to remember Chrysler’s bankruptcy in 1979. The evening news led with breathless coverage about the ensuing loss of jobs, the political ramifications, the victims and who to blame. Foreign manufacturers were demonized. It was a very important American crisis.
I’m also old enough to remember the triumphant stories heralding Lee Iacocca’s repayment of emergency government loans ahead of schedule to save Chrysler. This made him a very important American business leader.
Renault’s takeover of AMC? I remember the gasps of horror. How can the French own American Motors? Then somebody said, “Jeep” and everybody nodded. Chrysler’s takeover of AMC? “There’s Lee, flexing his muscles,” the media shrugged and moved on.
It wasn’t until the Daimler take over of Chrysler and the media’s stenographic coverage of the “Merger of Equals” that the auto industry merited some sort of analysis again. Not the right sort, of course. Not the kind that would have identified the OE’s exposure to collapse at the hands of the credit markets.
Now, post-Carpocalypse, post-UAW bashing, post-bailout coverage is mostly a Tesla blooper reel.
I think I’m old enough to handle the truth about each car maker’s plans for American mobility. Are they planning on continuing to make cars at all? What’s driving their decision making?
Nobody has said a peep about why the Stellantis merger happened in the first place except that the late Sergio Marchionne though any merger would be a good idea. It can’t just be to sell Challengers in Brazil, can it?
I’d like to find out about these things. Wouldn’t you?

I hope that little rant lands me a sweet, low-paying gig. Maybe it’ll even lead to something else that’s could be a lot of fun.

Fingers crossed.

Your pal,

– bob

February 3, 2021

The Second Third

Friends,

My Birthday Holiday Season has begun! Clap hands!

Actually, it started over the weekend when my kind in-laws, who are living in a nearby Dutch-reformed-themed retirement community (complete with working windmill!) brought a lavish gift of photography gear. This was followed by a check from my folks who are holed up in their home in the desert.

Is there cake? Yes, there’s cake. Phone calls poured in from well-wishers, which is always welcome.

Will there be more? Yes! Big plans for the weekend (Or so I’ve heard. Very exciting.)

What we’ve learned is that having a birthday on a Tuesday kinda blows. It’s too far away from the leading weekend and too far from the following weekend. Annoying. That said, I am going to make it my business to see that other people who are having birthdays in the middle of the week during a pandemic will still get the maximum fun treatment. This is because your birthday is your own personal holiday and deserves a suitable celebration.

Sometimes I think that I’m the only person who believes this. There are times when I hear, “Ugh, I’m getting so old,” when I share my Dad’s retort: “It sure beats the alternative.”

Your pal,

– bob

P.S. Bonus sunset photo!

January 11, 2021

Insurrection.

Friends,

I’ve had a little time to think about the insurrection attempt promoted by the sitting president of the United States that ended in a bloody skirmish in this nation’s capitol. Giving this a little bit of space has been helpful, even though the act and the implications rising from these acts have left me as shaken as I was after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake (we see what you did there. shaken. cute. -ed That wasn’t my intention, even though it’s all about “intention” nowadays. I’ll get to that later.)

Considering that nobody is really in charge in the Executive branch of government right now, and that the folks who should be protecting the inauguration of Joe Biden are under the Executive in the org chart, I think it’s safe to worry about the future of the American Experiment. I think we can also be clearheaded about the problem that a lot of Republicans are okay with a constant state of seige, including an uncomfortably large number of elected representatives. I can only assume that these are largely intelligent people who are cynically going along with the mob for political gain.

What I don’t know, is what to do with this dread I’m feeling right now.

Your pal,

– bob