Tuesday, February 28, 2006

 

A lame blog, or, My wife is an addict

It's official, my wife is addicted to blogging. That's part of the reason that I haven't posted in several days. I want to show that I'm not addicted. I could quit anytime. But not her. She'd have a heartattack if our internet service went out for a day.

I'm thinking of organizing an intervention. But the only people that she respects are blog people (can I coin the term 'blog people'?). And these blog people probably wouldn't participate in the intervention anyway.
But I have to admit, there is a certain satisfaction that one gets from receiving comments. And they don't even have to be good comments. I think receiving comments on a blog has replaced having messages on the answering machine as a booster to self-worth.

BTW, I had a mid-term exam today, another reason I haven't posted in a while. Will school ever be over???

# posted by Ray @ 7:39 PM 7 comments

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

 

Thursday Thirteen


Thirteen Things I've Never Said


1. Pass the asparagus.
2. I guess I've run out of things to say.
3. I'm not in the mood to sing karaoke right now.
4. Let's work through lunch.
5. Thanks for the invitation, but I'd rather stay home.
6. Stop by tomorrow morning around eight, I'll be up by then.
7. Excuse me, ma'am, you're showing too much cleavage.
8. That's OK honey, I'm sure it was more important than doing the laundry.
9. I just need some alone time.
10. Amanda, would you take charge for once?
11. I was going to watch football, but The English Patient is on tonight.
12. I find troubleshooting computers very relaxing.
13. Let's just cuddle tonight.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
1. Sweet Domesticity (my beautiful wife)
2. Like So Totally (my sister-in-law)
3. Maremagnum
(leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)



Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!




# posted by Ray @ 10:01 PM 3 comments

Monday, February 20, 2006

 

Self Portrait Tuesday

Ray's Eye

That eye has been through a lot. Dozens of sets of contact lenses (soft and hard), glasses, a few serious corneal abrasions, blood vessels growing into the cornea, and most recently - LASIK. Considering all that, it doesn't look too bad. It's a shame about that one unruly eyebrow hair - but that's a discussion for a different post...

# posted by Ray @ 10:01 PM 4 comments
 

Personality Changes

I thought certain personality traits were supposed to be ingrained in people, as in that's the way you are and it can't be changed. The trait that I find the most interesting in my life is introversion/extroversion. Through childhood, high school, and college(the first time around) I was a textbook introvert. I took the Myers Briggs personality type indicator in college and scored very high as an introvert. And the description fit me perfectly. I would rather be alone most of the time, than with other people. Being around a lot of new people made me very anxious. At the end of a tough day or week, I wanted to go home, close my door, and play video games or read to help me relax. The idea of doing any kind of job that required me to meet people totally turned me off. And I was a real analytical thinker, into mathematics and computer science, so being an introvert was OK with me. Most of the great inventors and scientists were introverts, so I was very comfortable with who I was.

Then something happened. It may or may not be related to a job that I had to take doing commission-only sales. It was the only job that I could get, and I really needed the money. The job required me to pitch products to complete strangers day after day. Well, I lasted for about three months before finding a different job.

A few years down the road, I realized that I enjoy meeting new people and look forward to going out, and to parties, etc. Before long, I start actually needing interaction with people. Then one day, I come to the realization that I am now one of the people that has to being talking to think. It's awful. If I have a difficult technical problem to solve, I just can't sit down and think really hard about it. My brain doesn't work that way anymore. Now, I have to seek out some other person who will listen to me talk about the problem, then usually something will connect in my head and I'll come up with a solution.

And when it comes to meeting new people, just drop me in a room full of total strangers and I'm happy. I'm so extroverted now that it drives my wife nuts. Once after starting a conversation with a guy in Wal-mart my wife asked me, "Did you know that guy?" I explained that, no, I didn't know him, but his sweatshirt had the name of a college that is in a state I used to live in, so I felt like we had a connection. In a New York City restaurant once, my wife was horrified when I tried to strike up a conversation with a guy at another table because he was wearing a jacket that had the logo of a team that I like on it (turns out he wasn't a fan of the team, just had the jacket).

So, my questions are: (1) Do I want to be an extrovert?, and (2) Could I change back if I wanted to?

Oh, and I did take the Myers Briggs two years ago. Sure enough, this time I scored extremely high as an extrovert.

# posted by Ray @ 6:48 PM 4 comments

Thursday, February 16, 2006

 

Thursday Thirteen

The Last Thirteen Jobs I've Had



1. Computer Science Professor. This is one of the most fun jobs that I've had. It has lots of freedom and allows me to use my creativity. I'm still not sure what to say when students ask a question that I don't know - do I admit it, or just make something up?

2. Research Assistant, Graduate School. This job has a lot of potential, but has very little structure which can be a downside for me. I beginning to think that this whole business about publishing scholarly articles is just a racquet perpetuated by the academic journals. Does anyone really read these anyway?

3. Software Developer, Industrial Robotics. This company had no management structure, no supervisors, and provided a great kitchen with all the food you could eat. Unfortunately, everybody worked long hours and there were some difficult employees who were coddled.

4. Software Developer, Elumens Corp. Great stock options and pay until the company went bust. The masseuse was a great perk though.

5. Software Developer, NASA. Upside - the International Space Station project that I was on was high visibility and interesting. Downside - it was managed and financed like a big government program.

6. Software Developer, Mei Tech. I was able to work with my best friend and didn't have to fear for my family's physical safety (see number 7).

7. Software Developer, Full Immersion Virtual Environments. By far, the most bizarre and memorable job I've ever had. One day I was both praised as the favorite employee and cussed out by my boss all within an afternoon. The boss would occasionally show up drunk, or with a goat, or maybe a llama. Honestly. And the boss would call up my wife and harass her till she was in tears. moving on ...

8. Airman, U.S. Air Force. Enjoyed wearing camouflage and writing software for expensive equipment. Never had to shoot anyone. Would highly recommend it.

9. Desk Clerk, Hotel. All kinds of cool stories from this job about what people do on business trips.

10. Breakfast cook. Trying to get to work at 5am was really difficult, but I sincerely needed the money. Upside - all the bacon I could eat.

11. Opryland Hotel. About 6,000 guest rooms and one of the largest convention centers in the country. Every day there would be at least one employee who would get lost in the hotel (there were about 4,000 employees).

12. Draftsman, O'Sullivan Plastics. I did construction drawings for a new factory and got to see it built. I enjoyed this job quite a bit. I also got to see how construction workers act when they accidentally wreck $300,000 cranes.

13. Heating and Air Conditioning Installation. There's nothing like crawling in to a 140 degree attic and getting fiberglass insulation all over your body. Then there was the time my coworker fell down through the ceiling into a lady's living room.


Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
1. (leave your link in comments, I'll add you here!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!




# posted by Ray @ 5:30 AM 1 comments

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

 

following schedules

As a graduate student, procrastination is really killing me this semester. I have a vague idea of how long a given assignment is going to take, and I won't start on it until there is no open time left before the deadline. I always make a schedule that sets reasonable hours to work on it, distributed nicely over the course of the assignment, but I never end up following my schedule. I know that no one is perfect and I probably shouldn't expect to meet my goals, but I think that my performance is so bad that it's just off the charts. This semester I've done good work, when I've worked, but it's the getting to work that's the hard part. I've come up with some good schedules to keep me from the undue stress (and sheer panic) that comes from procrastination. But I've finally realized that schedules just don't work for me. Not at all. Not even a little bit. And I have years of data to support this. Maybe this is some psychological defect. If I have a long term deadline and I'm not particularly interested in the material, there's basically no way that I'm going to start on it early. Rewards, punishments, nagging, bribes, threats; nothing works.

So I live my life constantly being upset and disappointed with myself. I unnecessarily maintain a high level of stress knowing that I'm behind my schedule. And when I finally do catch up with my schedule (often at the end of a semester) I am annoyed by how easy things could have been if I would have even an ounce of discipline.

I'm kind of like that annoying hero that we have so often in sci-fi/fantasy stories. He discovers some special ability/magic power that he could use, but is afraid to use. There are all these situations where you hope he'll use his powers to make things right, but he doesn't unless he's forced into doing so (usually because someone's life is at stake). That kind of hero annoys me. I always think, "Gosh, if I had that super power, I'd use it all the time to make things better for everyone." So now I wonder if I am like these guys that I despise so much. All this potential, but they just waste it (or at least use it inefficiently).

I know you're probably thinking that my expectations for myself are too high. I really don't think that they are high at all. I think I've lowered them down to what I would consider "average person" level.

I suspect that there are many people in the world that can follow a schedule, not perfectly, but approximately. Is there something different about those people. Can we do DNA tests to find out what it is? Or am I just lazy?

# posted by Ray @ 12:56 PM 2 comments

Monday, February 13, 2006

 

Self Portrait Tuesday



I've got a few things I'd really like to post, but I've been really down recently. This picture sums up how I feel.

My wife has a matching photo on her blog.


# posted by Ray @ 9:21 PM 2 comments

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

 

Christians Living in Elite Neighborhoods

This has really been bothering me lately - Do Christians have any business living in expensive gated communities, and luxury homes with the rich and elite of society. I've had disagreements with other Christians about this subject. My gut feeling is that Christians living with the elite have somewhat missed the boat on what Christianity is about. Maybe they've just been caught up in the American Christianity ideals of God financially rewarding his servants. "Hey, if we've earned the money, we have the right to spend it how we see fit. God has blessed us." Some would say that we need to minister to everyone, and that means the affluent as well as the poor. Maybe that's true, but I have a hard time seeing Jesus fitting in so peacefully with the rich and powerful of his day. He just seemed so counter-cultural. Like it or not, our culture is big into wealth and status and we are all effected by it. We must continually fight against these cultural ideals, or we get swept along in the tide and end up being a hero of our secular culture.

OK, so many of you will probably think that I am judging others and in that I am wrong. Point taken, maybe I am.

Also, even a modest lifestyle anywhere in the U.S. is luxurious for many countries. Is that relevent? Maybe. So the standard that I generally use is where someone is at in relation to their community - the people that they live with and interact with. Living near the top rung of the societal ladder that you happen to be in would mean different things in a big city, a small town, a rich country, a poor country, and at different times, etc. Are there guidlines about where we should be on that ladder?

One last thought; I think the story of the rich young ruler comes down to this - You should be living your life in such a way that you could throw all of that material stuff away at any point, and it just wouldn't be that big of a deal to you. The more stuff you have, the harder it becomes to not have it matter to you anymore.

# posted by Ray @ 3:07 PM 2 comments

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