get out of Dodge mentality setting in...

A friend of mine who has been sharing in my disatisfaction with work and the workplace just rigged it so that she's getting laid off. I must admit, I am very jealous and not just because she has the fabled "golden parachute" - i.e. some sort of severance package that will likely include a few months pay. I guess I'm mostly jealous because of the time and freedom she will gain. I'm speaking more of mental and emotional freedom than physical (though not being tied to a cube all day is a huge plus - even if it has a view of central park). While for me this is only a dream (my company is potentially cutting salaries to stop losing money starting next month), I am imagining what I would do with the extra time and hoping they bite on my offer to work less days but stay at the same pay rate...

stuck at work on a sunny sunday afternoon working on a flakey mail server and dreaming of being free of such cares...

Being stuck at the office on a sunny Sunday really makes me wonder about what I want to be doing. Do I really want to be working jobs that have me working on the weekends because I'm the only one who can fix things? Do I really care if some executive schmoe can't get his email for a few hours?

No, absolutely not, and I never have. I can motivate myself from a problem solving point of view for a while, but when the big projects run dry and I'm left with small stuff or general maintenance, I lose interest and get antsy in my job. So, I switch jobs into a more technically challenging environment, till I clean that up and get bored with it, and the beat goes on. This is what drove me from the tech world to teaching last time. The truth is that I think that my job is just stupid and relatively meaningless. In a world of beauty, horror, and confusion, I work on websites, firewalls, load balancers, and mail servers. If I do a good job it means someone gets to send their email or our website stays up. So what? Are these things I care about? Does these things mean anything in the large scheme of things? No. So why spend the years of my youth doing this when I could be on the beach in Hawaii windsurfing everyday??? Finding my own nirvana in the sunshine and waves...

A friend of mine is taking a 6 month leave of absence from the company he co-owns to start a kite-surfing company in Brazil. That is like a dream to me - leave behind all these things that hinder my mind, body, and spirit, and go be in nature for 6 months doing something you love.

I've had this dilemma for a long time. I know that I can do a good job of running a network and at times make a fair amount of money for doing so, but do I really want to? It usually comes down to no. Which leaves me searching, seeking, questioning where I go from here... So again I wonder, why am I spending my youth in largely unforfilling jobs that shackle me? One thing is clear, I either need to make a break from the capitalist system for a while or become fully assimilated because this in between stuff doesn't work well for me. Who knows? I sure don't...

Chasing the Sun

Wrote this a while back, just posting it now...Currently on an airplane flying across country. As I blow through timezones decreasing the speed with which the sun gets farther away, I marvel at the expanse of the US. I know, and likely will only know, such a small piece of it. I'm actually quite fine with that. It seems like everyone I know and meet describes themselves as "someone who likes to travel". At least out on SF, it's almost a clique so many people describe themselves in that way. Well, I don't like to travel. Sure there are place I want to go to; I'm dying to make it to Hawaii or the tropics, to hit Paris, Italy; but in general, traveling just isn't something I enjoy. Going to see friends in other places is great, but in general I find traveling distracting. I get back and suddenly have a million things to do because I've been away. I like to settle into a spot and make it what I will. I think that's my approach to many things. I'd rather get comfortable with something and stay with that. I suppose my career path is the exception to that, but oh well...

At any rate, I know I will travel to different places and enjoy them, and I still may go live someplace exotic in my life, but the truth is, in general, I don't like to travel around. I'm going down on record as the first person to say so...

It's Showdown Time!!

VS

It might be more appropriate for me to say smackdown time. The issue at hand is of course the photo on the left, versus the photo on the right. The creature on the left is known as the Atlantic, or sometimes New England, Lobster. The creature on the right is known as the Pacific or Spiny Lobster. Does anyone notice any particular differences between the two? If you said color, yes you are correct, but what else? Okay, I'll just tell you. The Spiny Lobster has no claws. Can you believe it? A lobster with no claws. Yes, in this bizarre part of the country people actually eat lobsters with no claws. I feel so sorry for them (I mean the lobsters but probably the people too). I almost want to get an Atlantic and Spiny lobster in a tank together (if they could negotiate a suitable salinity level and temperature) and see who the last lobster standing is. My money would be on the Atlantic. I think Spiny really has no idea how strong (and delicious) those claws are.

Is this why "lobster tail" is popular out here but you never see a full lobster on the menu? My guess is yes, but who knows... What's the point? There is no point, other than I'm craving a good old fashion, delicious, I'll break your finger with my claws, East Coast lobster. All I can find are these phonies out here - the, "we know we are wimpy so why not have two of us at double the cost" lobsters. It's really a tragedy. Fortunately though, those who aren't east coast transplants don't even know what they are missing, and I for one don't care to enlighten them...

I'm begging, or even DARING someone to post a claim on here that Pacific lobster is better... I can't imagine there would be any takers...

The Quest for Wisdom

I know the more intraspective I become here the less interesting my blog will be, at least from my perspective. Perhaps anyone reading (if anyone is reading) has noticed already that my brain runs 3/4 down many different paths but only finishes up a few when I have sufficient reason to. I am keenly aware of this. Yet, the next months may send my blog more in that direction. What am I talking about? Today's calendar revealed me a mere 3 months away from 30.

In my opinion, age is never a thing to mourn. It's going to keep climbing and there is no stopping it. So from the perspective of a 29 year old, bring it on... To me it's just a change in digits. The fact that it's a change of both digits isn't really important to me. I've always accepted my age without much fanfare. 12, 18, 21, 15, 30, they are just numbers of the age of the body. The number I watch is the age of the mind. Therefore, I've never really cared how old I am. I'm glad I (have almost) made it to 30, other than that it's not a big deal.

What I think 30 does is force societally pushed need to evaluate and take stock of things so far. So it's something I will certainly do, though away from Hotel Cali (sorry to those of you hoping my blog would give you a piece of my twisted psyche).

Almost 30 though, I'm not really sure how this happened. I think I'm mentally trapped back in 2001 or so where I was like a 5k runner just hitting my stride. In a lot of ways I've faltered since then but the victory is in that I've started to see this as a longer race. This race we run is more marathon than 5K. Only now do I begin to realize that. 10 years ago I needed to come in at least second, 5 years ago I needed to win the race. Looking ahead, I just want to be in the race...

As usual, once I get going on something about me I get sidetracked. I entitled this "The Quest for Wisdom", because that's the race I'm interested in running now. 5 years ago - no way; 10 years ago - you gotta be kidding me. What I seek as the digits mount is a better understanding of the world and my place in it, and better judgement on life and its circumstances from the view of someone who has been at this for 30 years.

I'm most interested to see how my friends handle thirty. Will it lead to any better judgement, clearer understanding, sloppier thinking, etc... than they've exhibited in the past, or will things stay the way they were, time will tell. I guess the interesting thing about age is that there is no way back. Many things in life can be taken back or redone better. Not age. This step up is permanent and interesting in that regard...