Update

It's been a while since I wrote anything here. Although I was feeling unemployed, single, bored, and unloved, I didn't want to brag about it to everyone, but now I guess it's time for an update.

And there's a lot of stuff to cover.

Here's what's up with me in the next few weeks:

• Tomorrow I have two nibbles about potential jobs, both seemingly pretty cool ones. I won't jinx it by giving details until I'm offered and take one or other. However, one has the hugely fascinating potential to be 100% remote, meaning I could work from Kenya if I wanted to, where the dollar doesn't yet suck completely.
  
• And speaking of Kenya, forget Norway! Seriously, forget all about it (you'll understand when you click on the link below), because on the 3rd, I'm going to Kenya! My good friend Farah is going there to look in on a school she started for street children while she was working in Machakos as a journalist (because she's frankly superhuman). I'll be there seeing the motherland for the first time and looking out for lions and malaria. In case you want to sing along with me for the next week and a bit, click here: "I'm going to Kenya" (note: there are no tigers in Kenya)
  
• I'm thinking about starting a consultancy up with my friend Eric. I identified an unmet need in the online community world that he and I are particularly suited to work on. If everyone on the Internet would sign an NDA, I'd talk about it more, but some of you have been dragging your feet. You know who you are. Working for myself has become a dream ever since I started working for the investors who last "downsized" me.
• I'm a writer! Look Ma, no talent! What I do have is a close friend at MSNBC who's helping me to get a first article published there. Helen is the genius snark behind their Netiquette column. I've helped her with a few articles there by hashing out ideas with her and now she's returning the favor and editing my writing to suck less. She's well suited to editing me, since she's super kind-hearted and effervescently, scintillatingly, and hilariously mean.
  

Yay for Santa Fe

I'm in Santa Fe this week for an online community conference.

I flew into Albuquerque and got a rental car. I brought my Garmin along, so I wouldn't have to think for myself very much at all. One of the benefits of having a GPS system in this part of the world is that you know, in real-time, and so can exclaim loudly if you're inclined, that you must have just taken a wrong turn in Albuquerque. Simple pleasures.

I thought Reston looked manufactured. Albuquerque doesn't seem to suffer from a great deal of authenticity. I could be wrong. Perhaps all these adobe buildings were manufactured by real live Southwest Amerindians. Apparently though, most of the boutiques selling authentic Southwest art are owned by Iranians (and let's all welcome the SigInt folks from the NSA to the blog for the first time. Welcome!)

In other news, you ever have that nagging feeling that you've forgotten something. I often have it, but now it's like the boy who cried wolf, because usually I'm good. This time however, I have to go to Target tomorrow to buy underwear. Good grief.

Pictures later, if I get to take any. There's a good Georgia O'Keefe museum here, so I can see the original pictures of flowers (genitals) and skulls (also genitals?) tomorrow if I'm lucky. I'm psyched to see the mysterious stairs built by St. Francis (or some such nonsense). As I say, pics to follow - as well as explanation I hope.

Sad phone

I came across this on BoingBoing.net.

If you read the comments, you'll notice a theme.

It is interesting how hearing the voice of a dead loved one can have such an effect. I'll hazard a guess though that it's not just the voice, but the context too. After all, the recording is one half of a conversation that was recorded entirely without reference to the sad facts. It's hopeful and bittersweet.

If you ask me, it's also a little indulgent and self-tormenting.

Beard experiment

Like most guys who get laid off, I took the opportunity to grow a beard. It was a failure. After working out that it was growing in like I had a pre-existing case of chemo-therapy, I decided to try some new looks as I shaved it off. Most were hampered by the mange look - although I really like the biker look. Maybe one day after I finish the whole cremaster cycle.

beard
I cannot grow a beard. I look mangy.

Tidied
Amazing what a tiny bit of shaving will do.
Engage Number One!

Goatee
Like the mullet, you can't wear this ironically any longer, so I just looked like a dick.

Biker /Handlebar
Nickel mustache rides anyone? Wow this is awesome (in my head!).

Stepdad?
Not sure why I think of this as a "stepdad" look, but I do. It conjures earnestness with a twist of dickiness.

Interestingly, my actual stepdad is a lovely fellow, but then he's grown a simply fantastic beard and mustache.

Awesome
Back to normal. Best, I find, not to wear your shortfallings on your face in full display. I can't grow a beard, and now only the Internet knows.

It's hard to believe someone so commandingly attractive can be both single and unemployed! Oh, wait.

A better system of punishment

If you read this article (link), you'll read a story about a judge in Pennsylvania who gave a bunch of drug dealers the choice between a full 2 year stint in prison and 1 year followed by parole if they learned English in the first year.

I read a while back that the number one predictor of recidivism is whether or not the convict learned something while in prison. You're much less likely to show up back in the dock if you pick up your GED or an Associates while in prison.

At the time I was in grad school, and sort of loathing it. I thought then that it would be a good idea to have sentences measured by degrees instead of years. If you get brought up on minor charges, you have to learn a new skill; felonies require an associates, bachelor's, masters or PhD depending on the severity. As long as you're planning to let people out at the end, you could match the current sentencing with how long it takes to get a degree.

You'd just have to find a way to provide education and then stop numskulls who want an education and can't afford it from committing crimes to get into college. I think, though, that if even a good school like UM had a serious risk of bum-rape on campus, I would have declined to go, so perhaps you wouldn't need a lot of discouragement to keep it from seeming as though crime was being rewarded.

I guess the wisdom of this plan hinges primarily on whether the criminal system is primarily designed to rehabilitate or punish. Actually, this does both, so maybe not.

Ow

I just got finished being manhandled by a much smaller dude. Granted, he's my martial arts instructor, but still, wow.

I was the only one who showed up for class today so we did some trapping. It's a very particular range of fighting that you use to bridge the gap between punching and either grappling or more punching. It's elegant and artistic and doesn't work very well if the other guy is throwing boxing punches.

However, it transitions really well to take-downs, so we did some of those. Well, once you take a guy down a few times, as any male friend will tell you, you have to wrestle. Those are the rules made up in the time of Adam or Jesus or someone and there's no way around them unless someone gets hurt. Even then there'd better be some blood.

Anyway, wrestling at a dojo quickly becomes ju-jitsu.

I'm not very good at ju-jitsu.

I'm a fair wrestler because of all the time Dad spent throwing me and my sisters around during our youth, but I have talent rather than skill. I countered a couple of his maneuvers thanks to being about 8 inches taller and 30 pounds heavier, but now my ribs have bruised ribs and portions of my lower back seem to have seceded. Seriously, is it possible to prolapse your spine?

Man I miss being young and made of Nerf.

Fired!

Or more accurately, "let go", though semantics seem a bit thin at present.

I actually wasn't fired, because it wasn't like I was doing a crap job. The funding is just thin and they needed to tighten the belt, so to speak.

Anyway, I'm looking for a new gig and if you're reading this blog, you probably know me and know people who are looking to hire. I'll move as far as England if the opportunity is right, but I'm looking mostly in the NYC area.

I'm not bummed, so don't worry about me. The job was beginning to get on my nerves. I don't regret it, because I learned a lot about how not to run a business as well as a good deal about how to. This turn of events just lights a fire under a job search that was already under way.