Will good triumph, or will John Kerry be elected?

I hate to say it, but it would be a disaster for John Kerry to be elected. I'm sure that his supporters, on the left and center-left, think just the opposite. It only points out just how polarized we are. I am center-right, and I have never liked the guy, even when I was center-left, back in the early 1970's. My dislike of John Kerry transcends politics, apparently.

What happened subsequently, is that John Kerry just became even more firmly entrenched on the left. I started moving to the right, as I became increasingly disenchanted with where the left was taking us. Jimmy Carter really finished me off, so that I became more center-right than center-left, by the early 1980's. It took the results that I saw from Ronald Reagan's policies that completed the conversion. Jimmy Carter's policies had brought us the disaster we found ourselves in by the end of 1980. It took a few years to fix the country, but by 1984, I was also "fixed". I am more pragmatic than I would like to admit, as my views are more based on results and negative reaction to the behavior of the left, over the last 25 years. While I am not a "right", I am now "center-right".

Texas is not a free-market state

This issue came to mind, as I will likely be moving back to Texas, and the obvious thing to do would be to transfer my prescriptions to a pharmacy there. You would think that could happen, but not in Texas. At least, in 1998, when I was able to move back home from Memphis, I attempted to transfer my prescriptions. I was told that in Texas, that was not possible. I had to get new prescriptions from a Texas doctor.

Texas is heavy on regulation, and there are many obstacles to entering business that are artificially created by legislation. Big government lives on in Austin. Having had two Republican governors in a row has not changed that, because the courts and senate have been mostly under Democratic control, at least until recently. When I wanted to enter the home security business ten years ago, I found that the barriers to entry were insurmountable. To be in the business, you had to have been in the business for at least 5 years! In recent years, they even were going to regulate Reiki people.

The Kindergarten system of organizing

I highly recommend the work of Julie Morgenstern on getting and staying organized. My wife had originally seen her on "Oprah", and took notes. She had given me the 5 minute summary, and that has been useful to me. Shortly after that, I had bought Julie's book Organizing from the Inside Out.

What I found out is that what my wife had told me about was just Julie's system for attacking a disorganized space. It was not actually the organizational system. What I took away from what I have read is the "Kindergarten" system for organizing. Namely, you organize by activity, and there is a specific place set aside for performing that activity. When you are going to paint a picture, you go to the place where that is to be done. You have all the things needed stored there. You take them out and paint on your picture. When you stop, you take everything and put it back into their storage places.

You may not be familiar with this, but good kindergarten classrooms are organized this way. The classic kindergarten that I attended, back in the early 1950's followed this system. I have partially adopted the system (which means that I am not really with the program enough to really solve my problem). I have got Julie's book out and have started rereading it. I would highly recommend it, as even the small part that I have adopted and used has been of great benefit (primarily, her system for attacking a cluttered space).

More minor irritations with Mozilla

On another blog, I have two pictures in separate posts. With IE6, both pictures are shown. With Mozilla, only the first picture shows. There is nothing obviously wrong with the HTML IMG tag. They are identical, except for the image file name (a JPG).

Another peculiarity is with pages that use nested tables (I believe). For example, I never know if the WFAA Large Radar will paint correctly, or if it will be bizarrely distorted (WFAA.com - Large Radar - Dallas-Fort Worth Weather Dallas County). MSNBC is another problematic web site, as is SlashDot.

I get to see how robust the job market is, this week

I just finished my first week unemployed. I was hampered in my job hunting, because I needed to go to Michigan, since my mother was in the hospital. This week, I will be concentrating on the job search, and organizing my things. I will either find an IT consulting job in Minneapolis this week or gear up to head back to Dallas. The only reason not to just head back to Dallas is that it would be most convenient to roll into something right here in Minneapolis.

I might well have gotten something here, last week, if I could have been here. There was a job opportunity that was going to involve face-to-face interviews last week, for immediate hiring. Since I was not here, I didn't have a chance. I am hoping that there will continue to be good news and that the "right thing" will be there.

Professionalism

In my 25 years in the IT field, and in fact, in my adult working life, I have come to expect professionalism on the part of my management and peers. It is a shock to encounter someone who is not professional in their relations with other people. I ran into someone who during 2002-2003, who was unprofessional, when she felt like being that way. To be charitable, perhaps she only lacked "people skills". Still, it came across as unprofessional.

Beryl's law (Beryl is a businessman friend of mine) says that professional work is that which is good enough that someone would be willing to pay for it. That applies to behavior as well as products produced.

In any case, one thing I learned through my encounter with the unprofessional behavior was that I need to be careful when choosing a position. I do best when it is a position that allows for creative thinking and work. I would be better off avoiding work that is "ditch digging". Someone points to a spot and tells me to dig. I need to avoid that sort of work like the plague. I am not too good to do such things. It is just that I am not likely to be very successful at digging those holes. I do much better with less direction and more room for creative solutions.

A phishing expedition

I actually have received this phishing attack at least three times. You can tell it is bogus by the underscore use and misspellings. I can't believe that anyone would respond to this, but maybe someone who is not knowledgable might just possibly fall for it. I had reported the attack, when I first received it.

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 09:25:37 -0500
To: "xxxxxxxx" \
From: "_CITICARD_" \ Add to Address Book
Subject: CitibankOnline e-mail Veerification - xxxxxxx@yahoo.com


Dear_ _citibank_ Users_,

_This LETTER was ssent by_the citi_bank _server_ to veerify your E-MAIL adrress. You must complete this process by clicking on the_link beelow and enntering in the smal window_ your Citibank Debbit full Card number and pin that you use_ in_the local_Atm_Machine. That_is done - for_your protection -i- becourse some of our _members_ no_longer have access to their e_mail adresses and we must verify it.
http://citigroup.org/?K24J1pyFnm6eNo6vPETy2LQuexF8c0jY3nI4OtJdFPqugxZ
To verify your _email _address_ and acccess your_ Citicards account, clic on the_ link beloww.
7cRGeFxIT5o2tpmg

The first time that I had seen the new Chrysler 300, I had not liked it. Today, coming up to a light, there was a new black Chrysler 300 in the left lane. I really liked it from that angle and with that color. After I passed it, while the Chrysler 300 was waiting for a left turn, I saw what I had not previously liked: the grill and front end.

If they would fix the front end to be sharper, it would really enhance the car. As it is, seeing it the way I did changed my opinion to a more positive view. Here are several pictures. They only seem to have silver Chrysler 300's in ads.

As I look at the pictures, I am starting to even be able to like the front end.

Our Southern Baptist Friends and Harry Potter

I keep being dismayed by our Southern Baptist friends' reaction to things like Harry Potter. They look at the Harry Potter books and movies as promoting witchcraft and Satanism. I have seen the same pattern applied to anything that smacks of "New Age": it is labeled "Devil Worship". My reaction is to lose patience. Michael Medved, on his movie review segment, towards the end of his show, talked about this phenomenon. Basically, this one conservative Christian reviewer gave better marks to "Soul Plane", a thoroughly abominal movie, than he did to the new Harry Potter movie. The reason was simple: "witchcraft".

How many children (or adults) have been converted to witchcraft and Satanism by the Harry Potter phenomenon? I would hazard a guess that the number is somewhere around zero. On the other hand, the Harry Potter books have been a positive force behind promoting reading to children.

"Elder Care"

We are having "great fun" dealing with "Elder Care" (NOT). The options seem to be pretty uniformly unpleasant. The best you can do is something that is not too bad. The best, for those who are in good enough health are the "Assisted Living" places. The worst are the corporate-run nursing homes that are tailored for the "masses". It is hard to see how anyone can survive for very long in that sort of environment.

Everyone has to deal with their aging parents, and the end of life issues. The system that we have in place seems to make that harder than it should be. Part of the reason is that all the mechanisms that we put in place to keep costs down also make for a system that is nastier to deal with, for real people. In the old, fat days, things had to be better. The cost was just unacceptably high.