Jim’s Blog

It’s been 4 months since I’ve posted, making this the longest I’ve gone without blogging since I started over 5 years ago. I stopped posting because I was pursuing a new job opportunity. Too many companies have a difficult time understanding that employees can have personal lives separate from professional, that the opinions they express most likely have no effect on their work, and that their feelings do not represent the company in any way. I didn’t want any of my thoughts to have a negative effect on being hired.

I’ve come to realize that I don’t want to work for a company that judges me by my blog, and doesn’t trust me to keep my personal and professional lives separate. I’m convinced that I’m not working for such a company.

That being said, there are people who can blog about work well. There are people who can’t. Some companies rock, and some suck. It’s a wide world, and I’ve made a decision for myself. I’m not here to judge.

I did get that job, and will not be saying much about the company or what I’m working on. I will be posting about my general thoughts and accomplishments as a developer. (I’m doing some TDD! I mostly hit my estimates!) I am a mac developer now, fulfilling a dream I’ve had for about as long as I knew what a mac was, and things are going well.

Some reasons I haven’t been posting:

• I have a lot less free time. I’ve picked up an hour commute each way with my new job hottness.
• I honestly don’t have a whole lot to say these days. I’ve been pretty focused on improving myself, and my adventures have been few in number.
• Wordpress kinda sucks.
• I don’t get a lot of web traffic.

Thankfully, I thought of a ton of stuff to say on the way home today. Here’s what’s been going on in my life:

• Began and completed the 8th annual change of address. Still in Ann Arbor.
• Ian talked me into joining Twitter. I think it’s cool, but ONLY because a lot of people I know are doing it. Expect a sidebar item when I get time.
• I’m developing an iPhone app. Look for it to be done sometime in 2015 at the rate I’m cobbling together hours to work on it.
• Going to Spain in February. That’s Febrero to you, bitches.
• I’m going to give brewing beer a try… You know, when I get spare time. (Noticing a theme yet?)

I can’t think of anything else right now. I’ve got a few ideas for posts, luckily. Here are some tentative titles: “Why Joe Biden is a fuckface”, “140 Character Haikus: My Thoughts on the Twitter Revolution”, and “Mainstream American Beer Sucks and So Do You”. So, keep a look out on what is sure to be a touching series of posts.

I spilled the last of my coffee grounds today, and was thusly p0wn’d by gravity once again.

I’ve gone from trying to learn Cocoa to writing Cocoa. I think I’m finally over the hump.

It’s a paradigm shift, to be sure, but it’s all starting to click, and I couldn’t be happier.

I’ve let Paul’s flickr stream take over my AppleTV. The photos that come across fill me with confusion, fond memories, and the desire to high-five Paul.

“In an artificial world, only extremists live naturally”~Paul Graham 

Tomorrow is the Vernal Equinox.

Growing up is an interesting experience. The real tricky thing about it is that things that seem completely normal at the time end up striking you years later as strange.

Today, I was sitting in my office, and I heard a series of electronic beeps. Something flashed through my head. I wondered who was walking into the bathroom. To you, the reader, these two things are completely unrelated, and might have caught you by surprise. That thought, as it drifted across my brain, certainly surprised me. But, as I thought about it, it made total sense.

I lived in the dorms for two years. The bathrooms in our dorms had a key access code that was loud enough to hear in my room. For two years, whenever I was in my room, I heard a series of electronic beeps every time someone walked into the bathroom.

It’s been 3 3/4 years since I moved out of the dorms, and that association is still inside of my head.

It’s a strange life.

Dear Members of the Senate:

I have a suggestion. Please focus on your job instead of sports drama. I don’t care about “performance enhancing drugs” in baseball. I don’t care about video taping in football. That’s the job of the MLB and the NFL. That’s their job. You should do yours. Now is not the time to be dipping on in to sporting controversy, so you can get your name in the papers and pal around with commissioners, owners, and players.

Your job is to lead this country. Go do it.

Thanks.

Dear President Reagan:

How does it feel to be the Republican Jesus? Does it warm your heart to know that you are the one who died for all republican sins, and they can now be as evil as they’ve always wanted to be? What exactly did you do to be so hearalded by them? Was it that whole Iran-Contra thing, where your staff, supposedly without your knowledge blatantly broke the laws of this country? That sounds pretty evil. Wikipedia says that that blunder was one of the top 10 in presidential history. Whoops.

Maybe Republicans are in love with you because you granted amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants. Don’t you know that they cause crime constantly and that they’re stealing those jobs from hard working Americans? I can’t see you getting away with that crap today. Remember that time you were all like, “TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!” but then some years later republicans can’t stop talking about a different wall, here in the U.S.? Maybe that’s a flawed comparison.

It could be because your opponent sucked so bad when you were re-elected that every state but one turned into a red state. Who cares about Minnesota anyway. Yeah, don’t listen to people who say you only got 60% of the popular vote. At least it wasn’t 49%… Nice landslide, bro.

Maybe it’s because you were named “the Teflon President” for all the shit you got away with. You might have a contender for that title, though.

Do you ever think it’s weird that the very thing republicans rally against now, stem cell research, could have made the final years of your life less of a living hell? I think that’s weird. I’d call you a martyr, but martyrs generally have more success on that front. Maybe time will tell. Good luck.

  Could it have been that whole trickle-down economics crap? Where people argue that by giving  tax breaks to the wealthy, we’ll all benefit. To be frank, I despise the rich. And you gave a HUGE tax cut. Maybe that’s why rich people love you.

  Maybe it was that time you went to that Nazi cemetery, and called members of the SS victims, even those all kinds of people protested, including your wife. Republicans like Nazis, right? I can’t remember. Remember that other time when you told those jewish guys, “I was there” and helped in the liberation of death camps, but you weren’t in Europe during World War 2? Hilarious.

Maybe it was how you ignored the AIDs epidemic until after 6,000 of your people had died from it.

Remember that time Bill Clinton made the economy great? All the republicans said that it was the natural rhythm of the economy, but when it happened to you, you got all the credit? Awesome.

How about that time you supported the little guy by firing more than 11 thousand striking air traffic controllers. That was a red letter day for worker’s rights. 

Hey, how’s that war on drugs going? Not so well? Again, time’s going to tell.

Do you ever get all self-conscious and think that Lincoln was a way better President than you? And that maybe today’s Republicans should be trying to emulate him, and not you? Talk about a great communicator. Just reading his speeches give me chills. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to be there. Isn’t it weird that all the democrats were crazy racists back then and it took a republican to slow down slavery? Oh, how the tables have turned. I guess a lot can happen in 150 years. 

Well, I’d love to go on, but I’ve answered my own question, and figured out why Republicans can’t stop talking about you. Hint: It’s the hair. 

Seriously, if you say I’m part of the face book generation again, I’m going to punch you in the mouth.

  In others news that’s what I’m talking about!