25 reasons why 25 Things Lists on Facebook annoy me

1. If you aren’t on Facebook, you wouldn’t understand that there’s this new craze called “25 Things”.

2. Its purpose is to get you to reveal 25 things people don’t know about you to the world. In other words, so long privacy!

3. A lot of the things people post are things that people know or assume. I have a sense that if the Pope wrote a 25 Things list, right up there would be, “I’m Catholic.”

4. It’s a chain-lettery thing. You get tagged with the idea that you’ll post your own list.

5. I’ve been tagged 5 times and read twenty other lists.

6. I didn’t learn anything particularly new or earth-shattering.

7. I wonder if it’s just another in the blog -> facebook -> myspace -> twitter technology enhanced ability to narcissize on a personal level.

8. I understand that putting that sentence on a blog is somewhat self-defeating. I’m OK with that.

9. Lists seem so less personal than a journal entry. For instance, have you really learned anything about me in 1-8? Nope.

10-25. Eh. I’m tired of it already.

I am claiming original rights to the concept of micronarcissism (the constant use of social networks to promote one’s place, ideas, status, identity, etc.). I’m somewhat against it, but that’s because I’m struggling with the idea of individual opinions mattering. Group opinions matter, but rarely does a single person get a chance to make a difference on the basis of what they write or say. You won’t find me on twitter. I don’t have a text plan. The wife has the location-aware phone. This blog is one of my few outlets of myself into the larger world, and even then, I don’t really discuss a lot of the things that are going on. If something big happens, yeah. However, the everyday stress of life seems kinda silly to talk about. Everyone has it, and my perspective on it won’t matter to statistically 100% of the world’s population (rounding up).

Another somewhat scary issue is revealed in this article about geotagging and how nothing’s private anymore. I guess the good news is that our lack of privacy, brought to you by Google, can really help verify people’s physical claims. You say you were in jail? Let’s go to the criminal court docket and see when you were arraigned. It’s out there.

Politics

Yeah, I voted for the winner. However….

There are a lot of people that see Obama’s election as a magical event, something that will change the world. I’m of a slightly different opinion. I think the event that changed the world was the willingness of people to vote for him. As far as I’ve seen and what he’s showed us, there are some areas where he’s still going to be just another politician trying to make the country work. At least he’s surrounded himself with smart people instead of motivated ones. And he’s got to work through the mess he was left.

As far as the recession goes, I blame Phil Gramm and his huge amendment that curtailed regulation of the banking industry back in 1992. If he hadn’t done that, there would have at least been a measure of government oversight in place instead of the artificially created wealth that happened. I also blame the discovery channel and their TV shows that basically encouraged people to believe that anyone could flip property at-will. The cycle had to end at some point; you’d run out of people or properties.

Anyway, time for sleep, I think.

Updates

Sorry it’s been a while since I posted last.The world has spun on its axis; time has passed; I had to renew the domain names before someone took them, etc.

Update: the big decisions in our life now are where to send the kids to school next year. Jacob’s technically going to be out of kindergarten. Laureen wants to homeschool him. I’m somewhat uncomfortable with it, but I can deal with that.

The bigger issues are financial. Nothing new there. I still am employed, and for that, I’m thankful. I know there are other jobs out there, but this downturn in the economy has made everything that much more difficult.

I’m mostly just trying to stay focused, even though the depression meds aren’t doing as much as they could. I’m in the process of switching to a different psychiatrist, one on our insurance plan. There’s a little known fact about mental health professionals: the really good ones stop taking insurance after a while, simply because the paperwork’s not worth it.

I’ve been doing some more writing and I’m coming up against the hard questions about how to effectively tell a story. Every time I’ve written up until now, it’s been more of a seat-of-the-pants type of thing. I can write a lot extemporaneously on things, but if you told me to craft a tale, I’d struggle. I *am* struggling.

The kids are great. Laureen’s great. Part of the decision for next year involves whether she’ll teach Spanish again at Zion. If she teaches there, then the kids will have to go there, and we got a break on tuition this year that won’t happen next year, and…. it’s a mess.

But I still feel hopeful, in spite of my internal organs wanting to squash it out of me.

Worries

It’s the day before (well, considering the time, actually of) Thanksgiving, and while I want to be more thankful for what I have, I can’t stop worrying about money.

Simply put, we’re outspending what we earn. Even though I’m making more money than the last job, our former renter is no longer with us, and Laureen’s going through a rough patch with Mary Kay. So, while we’re not hurting, yet, several things are affecting us.

If you’re reading this, please don’t take it as a sign that we need help or money right now. We’re okay, but the future looks iffy.

We went through a debt restructuring through Consumer Credit. While this was a good thing to do, considering we’d racked up $60,000 in debt, it still causes us to have to pay $1500 a month to them. Mortgage payments are another $1500. It starts to add up, bit by bit.

Yes, there are several things we don’t need: the piles of stuff sitting in the garage. Some of that can be sold. Some can’t. Do we get rid of cable and easy access to kids shows? Do we get rid of our home phones and go all cellular? How much more will we have to pay AT&T if we do that? Cut our giving to the church? That’s typically regarded as a non-negotiable. They say desperate times calls for desperate measures. I just don’t know if the desperation is all in my head or not.
I can’t tell you how sore a subject this is for me. It feels like my biggest failure as an adult has been managing money. Every system I’ve started I haven’t completed. Computers haven’t helped; there’s something inside of me that is reluctant to face pain or at least do something about it, and it becomes a vicious, vicious circle. Do nothing, it gets worse, so you feel worse, and you do nothing because it feels worse….

Positives: Mary Kay will kick back up. Laureen will sell her way to making the budget easier to balance. I’ve got reimbursement checks to file. The money will get there, somehow. I just don’t know how.

Ohio

Well, I’ve returned from my vacation for the year. Friday, I left Dallas and flew to Columbus, Ohio for a gathering put on by people from Kingdom of Loathing. It wasn’t sponsored by the official powers that be, but it was put on by several people in positions of trust and authority, including one staff member. There were about 150 people there, and my little subgroup had about 10% of them.

My subgroup, or clan as we’re known in-game, is the Garden of Earthly Delights. Our mascot is a flaming goat cock. This requires a visual, so people don’t exactly get confused.


Anyway, our group is made up of a bunch of people who are quite simply awesome individuals. In some ways, this group knows more about our idiosyncracies and issues than other people do, because it’s one place where it’s just okay to be human and to fail. The group has several interesting members in different situations in life: gay, straight, polyamorous, married with children, divorced, unattached, etc. There is nothing like open confrontation of your predispositions with a group like this. The barriers will be met and probably stormed over. About the only thing we don’t tolerate are things that are illegal and things that are destructive.

Frankly, these people are a second family to me, and getting to meet them, including my doppelganger from Wisconsin, was amazing. We talked, we played games, we ate. It was all good.

I even got the chance to do a good deed. One of the members brought her 2 year old daughter, and I (by choice) designated myself as meal helper and even babysitter such that mom could get some down time. Yeah, I missed a game. But I helped someone, and that’s more important.

Some Events

It’s apparently that time of the year when the normal course of things goes completely haywire. Witness the following:

I was summoned to Seattle for a week of training. This isn’t particularly bad. What was bad was the notice on Friday night at 6 p.m. to get up there. Sometimes our company doesn’t plan too far ahead. I’m anticipating that will get better.

I’ll be in Columbus, Ohio this upcoming weekend. I hesitate to say why because it’s something somewhat frivolous. Suffice to say it’ll be meeting people in person for the first time.

The biggest events have centered around our house guest of nearly a year. She has decided that Laureen has been spying on her and going through her things, and this merits giving Laureen the silent treatment. Not acceptable. She will be leaving on Friday. I could go into more detail, but they make me somewhat angry. I know blogs are supposed to be places to vent, rant, and talk, but it’s mostly a sad situation that reinforces the fact that you cannot help anyone against their will. You cannot convince someone that they have an issue.

It’s a sad situation, but in the end, we’ll have our house back to just us. We’ll have the shelves back in the closet and pantry. She’s made her choice. We’re making ours.

Greetings from Seattle

I got sent to the mothership in Bellevue, WA this week for training. There are only a few things that are bad about this:

  1. Not much notice. Laureen’s really been left holding the bag this week.
  2. I was in bed most of the weekend with a massive, massive cold.

The cold (along with its fever, chills, strange gunk coming out of my head, and goodness knows what coloring my urine a healthy shade of ruby-red-grapefruit) has made travel to a much colder place like Seattle hard.

The plane trip was pretty bad. Completely full flight, and a 6-month old girl with her family across the aisle. With my cold, I couldn’t touch her, but she made me miss my kids.

The area hotels are nearly fully booked for a DECA conference. What this means in practice is that they’re all full of teenagers who are up at all hours. Mine is no exception, but thankfully, because I’m asleep most of the time I’m in my room, I don’t hear them. I fear for our future generation, though. Listening to a conversation is painful. If you removed the word “like”, they’d be reduced to grunts.

God I miss Laureen and the kids. I’ve not been away from them before, and as such, it’s new to me.

Seattle has these things called “hills”. They are a surprise to me. Walking from the hotel to the office is a quarter-mile uphill. It’s not bad, but when you combine it with the above-mentioned cold, it becomes murderous. Note to self: before I come back, get back to walking.

That’s the update for now. I’ve got to get back to the training class.

A few things

Well, I’ve been at work at BSquare for a little bit over two weeks now. I’ve been on loan to Texas Instruments working on a project that I can’t talk about. Such is life.

The good news is that it’s work. It’s somewhat interesting and challenging. However, it’s also harder than anything I’ve done previously, requiring a certain amount of mental flexibility to stay ahead of the curve.

Jacob and Jessie keep growing up.