Doubling down on bigotry

Posted on by
Reply

I have this friend Mike, who aligns himself with conservatives.  Good guy, just has different ideas than I do about what will work in politics.  A while back I made a sarcastic post on Facebook – something to do with the GOP and he replied “Don’t be a hater!”

You see that a lot of comments like this on web from both sides.  “Haters suck.”  Well, he’s right, they do.

I got him back today when he posted a comment about how entertaining it will be to watch Hillary get prosecuted.  Touché.  I only mention this because this post isn’t intended to be about hating on Republicans.  Nah, haters suck.  I agree.

This is more of a general observation about logic that escapes me.

I must admit one of my favorite television viewing experiences was right after the 2012 election when the pundits who predicted a GOP landslide were caught with their pants down on live TV.  As a result, some aren’t even welcome to opine on Fox anymore.  Dick Morris for example, has moved on to history documentaries and is nowhere to be seen.  Karl Rove’s “…but, but, but, it’s not over yet in Ohio” while Megyn Kelly held the microphone in his face was well, just too much entertainment to ask for.  I believe the word for this is schadenfreude.  Not one of my better traits, but at least I’m honest about it.

After a week or so came the GOP post-mortem.  I remember it clearly.  The failure to attract a higher percentage of the Latino vote was key to Romney’s loss.  Obama won the Latino vote 71% to 27% and worse for the GOP, this is a growing demographic they have to deal with in future elections.

We heard a lot of talk about “making a wider tent” and having policies that will attract Latinos to the Republican party as the strategy that will be addressed for 2016.

Well, that didn’t last long.

Enter the increasing influence of talk radio on the electorate.  Hosts like Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are inside the Tea Partiers’ heads.  The post-mortem strategy lasted about 5 minutes before the rally cries for deporting 14 million illegals back to Mexico!  That should play well with Latinos.

Now the top 2 delegate winners in Iowa are non-establishment candidates who signed on to this philosophy.  The establishment is cringing because Rove and Priebus both know that this is a disaster waiting to happen and there’s nothing they can do about it.  The religious right and tea partiers have hijacked the Republican party.

Perhaps the best part is, it doesn’t stop there.  Donald Trump throws insults at women and Muslims as if he can win the general election with the white-male vote.  How does someone who is so poor at math become a billionaire?  Curious minds want to know.

As far as I can tell, the adjusted strategy, instead of luring the Latino vote, the GOP is now focused on placing tighter restrictions on voter registration and gerrymandering.  We’ll see how this turns out.

I became an Independent right after we entered the first Gulf War and I witnessed the US and Iraqi governments rounding up Baath party members for a visit to the slammer ( or worse ).  After that I decided, who needs a party?   I don’t want my name on that card.  What if the guy ( or gal ) does something really stupid?  Like drop an atomic bomb on a foreign county?  Guilty by association?  Maybe.

I say this because I, like a lot of people have grown weary from the political dynasties of Clinton and Bush.  Apart from their legal troubles which I opined on here, I like Hillary as a candidate.  She’s a very smart woman.  And I think she’d fight for the middle class far more than anyone on the GOP side would.  But she’s too cozy with the super pac donors and I think that taints any candidate.  That’s why I’m rooting for Bernie Sanders in this election.  The biggest selling point for me is the average donation of $27, and not taking money from super pacs.

Bernie is seen as about as far left as you can get, but just because I support his candidacy doesn’t mean that I endorse massive government spending.  On the contrary.  I’d like to see all departments reviewed annually for places to tighten up.  There’s a ton of wasteful spending, there’s no doubt about that.  There’s plenty of blame to go around for this on both sides of the aisle.  Democrats for allowing too many handouts unchecked, and Republicans for not closing loop-holes that ensure the rich get richer while the rest of us battle for the crumbs.

I’m not hating on Republicans here, just pointing out the irony of the post-mortem analysis from 2012 and wondering where it went.

 

 

 

 

Donald Trump

Posted on by
Reply

There really isn’t much point spending a lot of energy debating whether Donald Trump is qualified or deserving of the GOP nomination.  Of course he won’t be the nominee.  Any sane person can see this.

What I know about the media tells me that they love to build people up and then watch them come crashing down.  Let’s face it, the media has never seen a candidate with an ego this big.  Never.  It’s a once in a lifetime event.

So far this primary has been about giving Trump ample opportunity to put his enormous ego on display so that when he gets beaten in the primaries, the networks will win the ratings game again by being able to air Trump pounding sand at his loss.  Looking forward to an entertaining show.

 

The Slow Boat to Authentic Self for a Product of the 70’s

Posted on by
Reply

For someone who wasn’t there, it’s hard to describe what it meant to grow up in the 1970’s.  There was definitely a feeling of being a part of an anti-establishment, anti Vietnam war era movement.  I think half the time we didn’t really know what we were against but if it felt like it was coming from the establishment, we were against it.  If Laugh-In or the Smothers Brothers made fun of it, then it must be bad.  Watergate and bringing down the Nixon machine was a huge victory for the little guy.

There was an incredibly common theme to the music of the day, which had a strong message of a younger generation taking over.  Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Allman Brothers, Aerosmith, Elton John, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Fleetwood Mac, The Bee Gees, Billy Joel, and Steely Dan were all sending strong anti-establishment messages with their lyrics and incredible song writing.  With only a few stations to listen to, these bands had the monopoly on the message and it was powerful.

The kids I knew aspired to get out of the house at 18 and be independent no matter what. The hip ‘thing to do’ after turning 18 was to get in a van, travel the country for a year or so and work odd jobs along the way.  Let’s get this independence thing started with a bang.   Very few of my peers were able to actually do this, but at the time it was talked about as a legitimate plan.

One of the worst fates it seemed, was to be stuck living at home with your parents under their oppression.  Since about age 12, I had already decided there was no way I was ever going to let that happen to me. Ever. I had resolved to grow up fast and get out. It was understood that this probably meant living poor for a time. So be it. Not a deterrent in the slightest. I’ll eat peanut butter and jelly every day if I have to.

One of my older sisters got engaged at age 16 and was on the fast track to independence. I looked up to her in this regard and while it wasn’t a competition to see who could get married the youngest, I was definitely envious of her approach to getting out of the house early with the ability to make her own decisions.

I was a somewhat rebellious teen. Not horrible, but definitely not on board with my parents’ ideals which included ( for a time ) private school, mandatory church attendance ( and I mean mandatory ), and somewhat higher expectations around behavior and appearance, some of which could be traced back to the teachings of Catholicism.

Looking back, the expectations weren’t really that high. I did okay in school, I guess.  I’m a lifetime 3.2 student at all levels.  Trying for an A was usually more effort than I was willing to put out but sometimes I’d surprise myself and go for it.

I’m actually very thankful for certain aspects of my upbringing.  For one thing, being a part of the private school culture instilled a stronger sense of conscience than I might have had.  There’s a little bit of a work ethic message that came with it that has served me well in my adult years, though I didn’t value it much at the time.

With regard to rebellion, the two biggest rules that ranked on me the most were the control over my haircut and ( a crew-cut for about the first 10 years ), and the mandatory church attendance. As a parent, I get where they were coming from now, but at the time I was livid — and both were non-negotiable.

I make it sound like my parents were demanding task-masters.  They were not.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  They actually had a strong vision of what they considered the family framework and that included a lot of fun and laughter.  Dad was a hilarious entertainer and my golfing buddy.  Mom was always there for me when I needed it most.  Once I got to know them better as an adult, I came to find out they were actually quite liberal-minded when it came to social justice issues.

Punishment was pretty rare and I can’t think of a single time I got some when I didn’t fully deserve it.  It’s just that the vision had to fit inside this particular framework and that was a challenge for me.  As it turned out, a really big challenge.

Tied in with this was the culture of the 60’s and 70’s where long hair was a big deal. And I mean BIG DEAL. Walking to school with a crew-cut immediately excluded you from any kind of cool kid group. You weren’t hip. Your parents obviously had control over you and you came from one of those ‘strict’ families. Bummer for you. Yes, bummer indeed. And you’re reminded of it every single day.

So sophomore year of high school I meet this really nice girl from more of a blue-collar family. Her dad was a mechanic. They camped a lot, liked to hunt, fish, and all of that. I genuinely liked those things too but I think in the back of my mind dating her and joining this family culture was another piece of the rebellion pie. We got along well, but at the same time it was a statement to the rest of the family that I am my own man. Back off. I’m going in this direction and it’s not what you may have had in mind for me, but too bad. And indeed there was nothing they could do about it. I liked that aspect of it. It wasn’t all about rebellion, I genuinely loved her and enjoyed being with her family.  But with the benefit of hindsight, part of it was.

We got married during Spring break of my freshman year of college.  I was 19, a student and part-time janitor. She was 18 and worked full-time to support my education. It wasn’t a snap decision.  We didn’t ‘have to’ get married. We chose to. We were a pretty unusual case, even for 1979. We had been dating for 4 years.

The early years of the marriage were a little challenging financially, but I don’t recall feeling like we didn’t have enough.  We started a family right away and moved to the Everett Washington area. I remember being pretty happy. It was an exciting time. New job at Boeing. Out on my own. Life was good.

Somewhere along the way though, I started to realize I had gone down this particular path for the wrong reasons. It was clear we were two very different people who were raised in two very different family situations. When you have kids ( we had 3 ), you automatically have something in common and often times that alone can be enough to keep a marriage together. In our case, it was — for 27 years. But about 12 years into the marriage I realized I am not being honest with myself here. I am not able to be my authentic self – and neither was she.  That’s very frustrating for both people.

What does it mean to ‘be your authentic self’?  I like the definition which states “Living a life that is in tune with who you were created to be.”  Contrast that with fictional self:  “When you live a life in which you are not faithful to your authentic self, you find yourself feeling incomplete, as if there is a hole in your soul.”

Part of this is simply feeling like you fit in.  In Oregon we have this vast culture divide between people who live East of the Cascade Mountain range, and people who live in the valley.  West of the mountains we defined by liberal politics, especially in Multnomah County.  East of the Mountains, where her family was from, it’s far more conservative.

I remember visiting family east of the mountains and struggling to fit in at times.  I’ve spent the vast majority of my career in various roles of the software industry — from Software Engineer to Manager to Software Engineer again.  By trade I can’t help but be an Irish software geek.

So try being out with the guys in Central Oregon and Bob over there is talking about how he just replaced the tranny in his truck  but it still has a little slippage.  And the compression wasn’t quite right so he had to take the head off and adjust the pistons.

What have you been up to, Bill?  “Well, I fixed a really tricky timing problem between hardware and software on a Flight Controls box between the air speed signal and the new ASIC.  And it took 3 days in the debugger to figure it out.”  [ Stares ].  “Cool.”

Top that off with the fact that as a mechanic, I am a klutz.  The stories are legendary.  I packed the wheel bearings in my truck one time and the front wheel came off going over Mt. Hood.  And I had my wife and 3 month old daughter in the truck.  No one was hurt, thankfully.  Her Dad came to the rescue and bailed us out big-time.

Another challenge for me was that as I had decided to just “be” my authentic self and let the chips fall where they may, I got more vocal about politics.  I have never, nor will I ever, understand how conservatives buy into trickle-down economic theory.  I couldn’t keep my mouth shut at the irony of voting against one’s self interests and this led to quite a bit of additional friction.  It starts off as friendly banter, but if you’re not careful ( and I was not ), it can escalate.  At the end of the day it simply exposes family differences that are nearly impossible to reconcile while keeping some semblance of your authentic self.

If there’s any fault to be assigned here, it clearly goes to me because I’m the one who changed. She stayed true to who she is. I am the one who bait and switched and I’m sure that was very hard for her. It’s my fault if fault needs to be assigned. In my defense, I was a naive teenager.

As hard as divorce is, this one has a happy ending because we both met and married a partner who is far more accepting of our authentic selves. I couldn’t be happier for her and her new husband and I’m sure she feels the same way about Donna and I.

What a great thing it is, to be able to get up every morning and be your authentic self.

To be able to think out loud unfiltered and still be accepted and understood.  To be hanging with your peeps who get you.  To be able to pursue what floats your boat without fear of judgment.  To not have to feel like you’re walking on egg-shells around family.

And for every benefit I just listed for myself, the exact same thing is true for her.  It’s freedom.  It’s the difference between waking up everyday wondering why you’re trying to fit a square peg into a round hole vs. being excited about what lies ahead.

Joining the dating pool in 2007, after being out of it for 30 years was an interesting experience.  I get a kick out of the profiles on match.com where people put forth the impression that they offer a thrill a minute.  We’ll be rock climbing, jet skiing, para-sailing and running marathons when we aren’t traveling to Istanbul.  I knew better than that.

My main requirement was that this time around: I get to be my authentic self.  As it turns out, on the very first date with Donna we had sort of an a-ha moment where we both declared we are not going to settle.  For me, that was #1.  Neither one of us needed to be married.  We were doing fine single, thank-you very much.  I knew this was a very good starting point.  And it was.  But that’s a blog post for another day.

Authentic Self.  Yep.  I’m in favor of being who you are and not trying to be someone you’re not.

Focus

Posted on by
1

One of our jobs as parents is to expose our kids to a wide variety of experiences so that hopefully they find something that floats their boat and can run with it later on in life.  My parents did a good job in this area.  Maybe too good.  With the notion of having a well-rounded child, I was exposed to football, basketball, baseball, golf, music, cross-country, ping-pong, woodworking, writing, computing, ham radio, and of course, being a Ducks fan.

I enjoyed them all immensely — which can be a problem.

What happens when you enjoy too many things?  You can find yourself in the situation where you desperately want to become expert level at something and then realize you’re not and probably never will be.

I’m mediocre at best at a lot of things.  Simply not enough hours in the day. I find that even truer in my 6th decade as I try to keep up with technology.  The list of languages and technologies I need to keep up with is long.  I would love to an expert at all of the scripting languages like Python, Ruby, PHP, and Perl6 now that it’s been released, but I basically have to work 2 jobs to get there.  My day job affords very little time to study and play without interruptions.  Oh, and I need to learn Java, Javascript, Groovy, HTML5, Ansible, Docker, and Gradle.  Some of these I need in my tool-bag as of last week.  I left off Objective C, Scala, and becoming more seasoned at vimscript because I just don’t see how there’s any way I’ll ever get to these things, much as I’d like to.

One of the a-ha moments came as I looked over my bookshelf and realized I have about 40 books where I haven’t read past the first chapter.  It’s nice to have the reference, but sadly, just owning the book doesn’t mean you know the subject.  Similar story with music that I’ve purchased.  Tons of books where I’ve had good intentions of expanding my playing in either guitar or piano,  but it’s all been a mirage that there’s free time available to do these things.

Looking back, there have been a few times when I’ve really — I mean really focused in on a goal and done myself proud.  I can think of a few things I’ve built that turned out pretty good.  The summer of 1990 I had a singular goal in mind — run the Portland Marathon and I stuck to it and finished in 3:44.  Not bad for a guy who has never been mentioned in the same sentence with the word fast.  It took some pretty good focus to get some songs written and produced.

I think the thing is, if you have my personality type, then you have to really want it or else you’re easily distracted from your goals.   I recall a humorous bit of satire from my childhood – ( I used to be regular reader of M.A.D. magazine ) where they were having fun with the evolution of New Years resolutions.

  • 1973: I’m going to read 10 good books this year
  • 1974: I’m going to read 5 good books this year
  • 1975: I’m going to finish ‘Airport’

Which brings me to thinking about a bucket list.  Great concept this bucket list.  Write down some things you’d like to do before the one’s expiration date comes into play.

Do I have time to write and record an album, invent a music practice app for the iPhone, become a runner again, save enough money for retirement, write a book and travel all the places I want to go?  Seems unlikely.

But hopefully I’ll develop some mojo to attack a few of these items in earnest so that my legacy won’t be that I sat around and watched a bunch of Duck games.

The current thinking is to just go with whatever moves me in the moment and don’t over think it.  Just go with it.  But do SOMETHING!  Okay, I’m over-thinking it now…

Uncovering the Pillars of the Fox Strategy

Posted on by
Reply

This may surprise some people, but I actually DVR the O’Reilly Factor and watch as much as I can stomach.  I am fascinated to see the overall strategy of Roger Ailes play out in the segments of Fox’s #1 ‘News’ program.   It’s no secret that Fox has a conservative agenda that serves as an arm of the Republican party, but you have to watch a considerable number of shows to figure out the exact strategy; to fully understand what the Sr. Execs must be talking about behind closed doors.

The most obvious piece of the strategy is to smear Hillary and marginalize Sanders. Hence the steady diet of Benghazi and private e-mail server segments as well as making sure they mischaracterize democratic socialism by associating it with failed socialist governments in history.  They intentionally make this false association, knowing 90% of their viewers are either extremely gullable or too lazy to look it up.  I’d say about 50% of the show is devoted to smearing the Democratic party.  If it’s election season, they target specific candidates.  It’s clear they especially hate Hillary.  When the general election comes around, expect massive amounts of air time to be devoted to Hillary and ‘trust’. 

The second pillar of the strategy is to employ fear tactics.  We see a fair number of segments making the case that all the chaos in the world is President Obama’s fault and that this is Jimmy Carter all over again.  When Democrats hold the White House, we are weak on defense.  We require a strong leader or else more chaos will ensue.  Recall from the 1980 election, fear mongering played a big part in Reagan’s victory.  The Iranians were bossing us around making us look bad with those hostages and that just wasn’t acceptable to old Ronnie-boy.  So a key piece of his platform was a stronger defense.  No SDI program was too far fetched or too expensive for these guys and on the credit card it went. Never mind the facts or how we got here, a bunch of scary stuff has happened on Obama’s watch, so it must be his fault.  Reagan would have never let this happen.

Recently O’Reilly allocated a few segments to analyze the Democratic debates held in Las Vegas.  His chief complaint has been about the lack of questions about ISIS by Anderson Cooper.  In order for the Republicans to have a shot at the White House in 2016, Ailes and Fox understand that Americans must fear that ISIS is only minutes from our doorstep.  They must paint Clinton and/or Sanders as pacifists, unwilling to send troops to confront this threat directly.   This plus the idea that Democrats are muslim sympathizers, plotting to take away your guns represents the basic tenants of the fear package they have worked up. To their credit it works pretty well in certain parts of the country.

In order to be somewhat objective here, I will say that the private e-mail scandal rises to an unprecedented level of stupidity for a Secretary of State.  Anyone who has ever applied for a security clearance or worked in a secure area can tell you that Federal agencies have zero sense of humor about the slightest violation of classified information and the threat of jail time is always hanging over your head.  It’s a rather uneasy feeling actually because of the consequences that could play out over an honest mistake,  And that’s just for your average Joe Blow worker with a ‘secret’ clearance.  Serious investigations are routine for any worker who accidentally leaves a thumb drive in the wrong place.   They don’t just treat it like an oops.  This isn’t grade school, it’s about National Security.

So now we have the former Secretary of State thinking that a private e-mail server is an acceptable idea in the first place?   Really?  I’m going to multi-task a little using a server installed by the boys down at Geek Squad? 

These leaders are supposed to be setting the standard and leading by example with classified information.  It can’t work to have Sr. Execs thumbing their noses at the rules and expecting average Joe to risk going to jail if they make an honest mistake.  I’m afraid this was a pretty big boner on Hillary’s part and that she may well pay a big price for it if the investigation shows she was playing fast and loose with the highest classified information in the country.  Not okay in this writer’s opinion.   Sorry Hillary but that could cost you the nomination.  Dumb.

With that said, one of the reasons Fox has to go into attack mode is that the Republicans don’t have an issues candidate that has anything new to offer.  Nobody is selling anything except the same old retread ideas from Reagan’s trickle down theory that brought on at least 1/2 of the 19 trillion in debt they like to complain about.  So there’s no ‘there’ there to talk about.  Vote for me because I will cut your taxes and am tougher on defense.  I will kick ass on any country that messes with the idea of American exceptionalism.

I’ve often argued that if the Republicans could offer up a moderate with a pulse, they would have all three branches of government.  The party has veered so far right however, this seems unlikely.  The inmates have taken over the asylum and are dominating the airwaves.  Trump, Carson and Fiorina lead the polls.  More moderate choices like Kasich can barely muster 10 minutes of debate time to get his message across while they let Trump offend women and minorities with the limited time available.  Yet Kasich is exactly the type of candidate who might appeal to more moderate, undecided Democrats and certainly Independents.  If he were to win the nomination, it would be a real race against Hillary or Bernie.  But you can put money on the fact that the Tea Party will likely snatch defeat from the jaws of victory once again by being obtuse.

As far as I can tell, the strategy is time sliced this way:

  • 50% Pick on Hillary.  These usually include a selected conservative babe of the week.  They rotate through a few of them but whoever it is is usually debating Kirstin Powers.  Kirstin represents the left about as effectively as Allan Combs did on Hannity and Combs.
  • 30% Fear mongering if a Democrat is elected, ISIS will take over your city tomorrow! ( usually Charles Krauthammer weighs in on these matters, but it also is Karl Rove ).
  • 10% Poor attempts at humor Dennis Miller is the most unfunny comedian on the planet.  Gutfeld and McGirk and slightly better but that’s not saying much.
  • 10% O’Reilly patting himself on the back, bragging about his books, his show rating, and offering us a Tip of the Day

There you have it.  I’ve reverse engineered the formula for the time-slicing of The O’Reilly factor.

I’ll leave you with a bit of humor from this evening’s show.  Ed Henry, the White House correspondent for Fox, tried to use the logic that Democrats are offering a weak field versus the Republicans because “we have all these choices.”

That’s the same logic that might conclude that the buffet line at The Golden Corral is better than dinner at The Heathman Hotel.

The Empty Room

Posted on by
1

September 20th we moved our daughter Kelli down to Monmouth, OR. where she is a freshman at Western Oregon University. I was not prepared for this. I got out of bed looking forward to a fairly relaxing day ahead of me. After all, she doesn’t have that much stuff to move, so the grunt work part of it wouldn’t be that bad. Besides, we had lots of hands to pack her things. Mostly we’d be scoping out the campus and enjoying ourselves, checking out her new digs. Later that morning I walked by her room. It was empty.

Her stuff was no longer in there. The bed was made, a few books and cd’s were in the bookcase, but there could be no mistake that this was a room that had been cleaned out. There’s something terribly wrong with this picture because for 18+ years my little girl had a room with us, and now she’s going off to live with other people.

Then the memories started rushing by me faster than I could keep up with them. Something was wrong with my eyes, they were welling up and a lump was developing in my throat. I was consumed by memories of my little girl growing up. I could think of nothing else.

Ages 3-5, Kelli the reader and puzzle whiz kid, putting together those United States puzzles and knowing the name of every state. Age 8, the sweetest little girl alive, walking herself to school with Danny, and falling into an uncovered storm drain on the way. Age 10-12, Kelli the soccer player, playing her heart out on defense. Kelli the piano player, nailing a perfect rendition on “Tender Moments” in a public appearance. Age 14, earning enough money to make a trip to France. Kelli the basketball player, believing in herself enough to tryout for the freshman team, making it, and actually scoring some points. Age 16, Kelli the working kid, landing a job and working nights and weekends, and burning the midnight oil to keep her grades up. Age 18, handling the disappointment of getting her car paid off and totaled in the same week. Lap swimming with me and Sue and giggling every time she passed me.

And now, taping up the boxes of all her things, standing next to those empty drawers, next to her empty desk, next to her empty closet, in that empty room.

My heart sank and my mind raced as I gazed into that room. I knew I couldn’t stand there anymore. It was just too painful. I made my way downstairs to the garage for that was my space. I’d be ok in a minute. But in my mind, the image of that empty room was overwhelming. I knew that just as the room was not as it used to be, my life wouldn’t be either. A transition was being made and I could do nothing to stop it. I leaned my head up against the wall and was completely powerless to stop the tears. I wondered if I’d forgotten to tell her anything she’ll need to know. I wondered if I’d done everything I could to prepare her for this phase of her life. I wondered if she understands that I tried my best. I wondered if she knows how much I love her.

I have no idea how long I stood there wondering these things. The next thing I felt was her arms around me. I held that moment as long as I could and neither one of us said a word. The car was packed and it was time to go. I was ready now. I got my questions answered. And I was not going back up to that empty room.

Job Security?

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been at this high-tech gig for over 30 years now in various industries; aerospace, printers, compilers, and now health care insurance. You would think that after this long a guy could kick back a little bit and feel secure. Such is not the case.

Something changed right about when I started working in 1980, or perhaps just a bit before in the late 1970’s. Job security went the way of the hoola-hoop.

I remember growing up in the 60’s and early 70’s when people had jobs and kept them for long periods of time, and didn’t feel like they needed to be looking over their shoulders every week. Company loyalty actually existed in both directions. Pensions came with the territory instead of self-directed savings plans. That must have been nice. Work for a goodly spell, then retire comfortably.

Every single job I’ve had felt like there was a layoff just around the corner, and there usually was. Even in management. At one company I was managing a small team and we saw the outsourcing movement coming our way and I prepared myself for the eventuality that I may have to RIF a team member or two. But we never got word of the upcoming RIF. Why? Because managers were targets too! That was a humbling realization.

I’ve been laid off one time, but have had no gaps in employment due to being given 6 months notice of the pending shut-down, so I was able to line up a new employer as the job ended. It seems as though I should get some credit for the equivalent of navigating a 40′ sailboat through Deception Pass or something else really hard.

I’ve tried to explain this to people that are not in high-tech and often get blank stares. Huh? I just go to work every day and don’t worry about it too much. Oh, to be you.

If memory serves, it started with the hyperinflation economy circa the Carter Administration, but got even worse afterwards. Reagan laid the hammer down on the air-traffic controllers and showed ’em who’s boss. That was really bad news for unions which also coincides with the initial demise of the middle class.  The experiment with trickle down economics laid on more pressure to the working class and furthered the divid between the rich vs. the poor.

Then came NAFTA. Ross Perot nailed it with his “Giant sucking sound” comment. I don’t know that something like NAFTA wasn’t inevitable. I sort of doubt the United States could have gotten away with being too isolationist for very long. But man, the effects of all of this has really sucked the energy out of me. For 35 years!

Suddenly layoffs aren’t just commonplace, but expected. Constantly. Look out because the Vice Presidents are under tremendous pressure to show cost savings and productivity improvements. If your job is classified as ‘overhead’, all the worse for you. It was always best to be tied directly to some project work. Unless of course, your project were to be canceled. If you switch jobs, be prepared to start all over and prove yourself no matter how senior your job title says you are. You are replaceable, don’t kid yourself.

How many hours have I wasted worrying about being considered redundant and all the comes with it. Having to break the news to the family. Possibly losing a house and getting in a bad credit situation. Having to take a lesser job to keep putting food in the mouths of 5 people.  Having to go back to school and learn a completely new skill.  A LOT of sleepless nights.

In the 1990’s, outsourcing became the buzzword that showed up on a lot of VP’s powerpoint slides. They couldn’t just come in and propose 5% cost cutting. They were under pressure to come up with a ‘game changing’ idea. Outsourcing tech labor to India or the Far East was the trendy thing to do. Initially the numbers were hard to deny. Labor in India was about 20% of the U.S. rate. It’s since risen to closer to 50% as the global playing field levels a bit, but that’s still a big number. To make matters worse, you could expect to be asked to start looking for a new job while training your replacement. I did for a while. Then one day I just let them know that I was no longer interested in training my replacement. That turned some heads but I got away with it. Not sure how I did, but I just couldn’t train that guy for one more minute.

Meanwhile, in the good old U.S. we have extremists promoting ‘pure capitalism’ as if the human race would be best governed by the laws of Natural Selection. Every man for himself. Dog eat dog. Whatever it takes just so long as nobody’s gonna be mooching off me. The odd thing is, even during the halcyon days of the 1950’s that the pundits like to harken back on as the peak of our exceptionalism, we’ve never been a pure capitalist nation. Taxes were more than double what they are now for the top earners. Our economic policies have always been a combination of capitalism and socialism, just a matter of degree.

I wonder what it would be like to work at a job where the pace was normal and the expectations weren’t unrealistic? Every company I’ve worked for feels like someone’s hair is on fire and the schedule pressures you feel are very real. It’s hard to maintain a healthy lifestyle when you feel the need to work 60 hours a week, often through lunch, and forego your exercise routine in order to help the team meet a specific deadline. God knows you don’t want to be the one called out for holding things up in a status meeting. Anything but that.

There may be hope for future generations. The playing field has leveled quite a bit. Many companies have gone to the school of hard knocks with the outsourcing plans and many have reverted back for a variety of reasons. Some underestimated how difficult it would be to deal with the timezone differences. Others forgot to pencil in additional capital for the bandwidth required to do distributed development. In some cases it’s been the language barrier was too much to bear. 50% is a big number, but there’s a well documented downside now and more outsourcing proposals are getting met with “not-so-fast”.

I’d like to come in at 8:30 every day, always take an hour long lunch and visit with people in mostly non-work conversation, do some interesting work and then go home around 5-ish and leave my troubles behind. And not have to worry about scenarios that might wind a guy up on someone’s RIF list. Sadly, I don’t think I’ll get to experience this in my lifetime.

If you have an everyday job and don’t lay awake at night worrying about job loss frequently, then give some thanks. Well played, I envy you.

Mutual Friends

Posted on by
Reply

Both of my parents had really strong social networks back in their day.  There were family friends from college days, friends from work, the neighborhood we lived in and from the local Catholic Parish that we belonged to.  A Teacher and a Nurse, we were middle class most years, but I know the finances fell behind a few years due to some ongoing medical issues.  It was all pretty transparent to me.  My needs were taken care of.

Being of someone limited means they learned to maximize their entertainment dollar.  Both card players ( duplicate bridge became their go-to game ), they learned that all you really needed for a good time was to have a few friends over, pull out a deck of cards and make a pot of spaghetti.  Pretty simple, but always filled with a lot of laughs and good cheer.  They created a lot of memories with that strategy and seemed fulfilled.

It wasn’t until I started raising a family of my own that I came to appreciate their wisdom in this area.  My first wife and I struggled to find mutual friends.  There are basically 3 things that can screw up a potential choice.  Either I liked the guy okay but couldn’t stand to be around the women, or else she liked the woman okay but couldn’t stand the guy.  On a few occasions we got with the other couple pretty well but then couldn’t take being around their kids.  It’s a tricky equation where we learned from the school of hard knocks, mostly.

We hit it close a few times and found a family we liked to vacation with and seemed a really good match.  The kids were all about the same age and got along great.  One year we did a 4 day / 3 night vacation at Black Butte Ranch and had a great time.  Everyone had so much fun that we decided to do it again the following year at Sun River, only this time for a full week.  A week turned out to be a bit too long for all of us I think because by the end of the week I think both families were pretty glad to get out of each other’s hair.

In the absence of finding a great couple to hang with during many of those years, we fell back to vacations with family because well, they have to put up with us.  Not that it was a big challenge to be around family, it wasn’t.  It’s just that we didn’t seem to ever be able to get to that level that my parents got to, and that caused a bit of self-reflection.

I’m an engineer so that all by itself may be a part of the problem.  Have you ever been to a party with a bunch of engineers?  Boring.  No wonder she was dying to get out of there.  Work parties were the worst.  Houses, neighborhoods, kids’ school, and work talk.  Zzzzzzzzzzz.  I once went to a work Christmas party of hers and it was a huge eye-opener.  After about an hour the band started up and all these really cute girls got out on the dance floor and let their hair down.  Say what?  Girls that were her co-workers.  That just doesn’t happen in Engineering.  The female engineers I worked with weren’t shaking their booty for nobody, no-how, no-siree-bob.  I just didn’t happen.  Pretty much categorically, one could use the word ‘uptight’.  And the guys weren’t much better in this regard.  Nerds and dancing don’t mix too well.  I often wondered how scandalous it would have been if we had ever had a band at a work party and people actually got out there and shook a leg for a bit.  The water cooler area would have been packed on Monday.

My current wife worked for a Big 4 Accounting firm for a number of years and the social scene described was, let’s just say, quite a bit more lively and spirited that the (yawn) high-tech companies where I had toiled for 30 years.

My first wife and I split after 27 years together and both got a chance to start over.  Having not been together now for about 8 years now, it’s clear the fresh start was welcome for both of us.  We’ve both remarried, the kids are grown and our lives are completely different.  It feels more natural on both sides.  It’s not work.

I am so thankful that my new situation has a full calendar of people we both genuinely love to be around.  I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but the struggle appears to be over, and that’s a very good thing.  We get out often, socialize with a really nice variety of friends that we both value a great deal, and everything just flows so easily now.

That is all.

Downward Spiral

Posted on by
1

A recent trip on public transportation around Portland was an eye-opener.  We’re a 2 car household so I normally drive myself around on the weekend but I have this medical issue where I get extreme anxiety driving on freeways.  I had planned to go visit my father’s crypt on his birthday, but I wasn’t feeling up to freeway driving that morning so I decided to take public transportation.  Rose City Cemetery is on the other side of town and public transportation would be a challenge for sure, but I was in no hurry — it was the weekend.

I’m not a total stranger to public transportation.  I’m a monthly bus pass owner since taking a job downtown about 7 months ago.  Donna and I usually drive in together but our schedules don’t always match up for the return trip, so I’m ready to ( what we joking call ) “Do the Portland” on any given day.

It hit me on the bus ride that there’s a huge difference between weekday riders and weekend riders.  During the week you share the bus with mostly other people on their way to work downtown.  Some are dressed up pretty well.  Most are engaged with an electronic device of some kind.  Almost everyone appears either gainfully employed or on their way to school.

On the weekends, it’s a completely different demographic.  When it was all said and done, I think the best way to describe it might be to liken it to a moving homeless shelter.  After thinking about it some, it made more sense.  Unlike the week-days, very few are going to work.  Many are taking Tri-Met because they either don’t have a car, can’t afford one, or are not permitted to drive because of a DUI or perhaps too elderly.  Many of the elderly were accompanied by shopping carts and in some cases, wheelchairs.  The poverty level is extremely high and the level of dysfunction was extreme.

The effect this had on my was two-fold.  First, I came to a new level of appreciation for Tri-Met drivers.  They have to deal with the general public at its worst every day, and the risk/reward ratio must be pretty high.  I was also saddened by the extreme levels of poverty that exist in Portland, right under our noses, and my mind was racing about things like root cause, short-term and long-term fixes.  There was some really bad behavior on the buses and trains, but I wasn’t so much annoyed about that as I was feeling empathy for the unfortunate souls at the bottom of the social rung, and wondering what it must be like to be one of them.

I’ve written about this before, about how lucky we are in the ‘burbs to be mostly isolated from the ills of society.  It’s nice out here and comfortable, and easy to forget that we’re all just a couple of bad breaks away from being that guy on the bus with a few teeth missing, bad hi-gene, living hand to mouth.  Lose a job, lose a spouse, get behind on your mortgage…. it wouldn’t take long at all.

Since I was on a trip to visit my deceased father at the cemetery, perhaps I was a bit more “in my head” as my wife likes to say, but it occurred to me more than once that while I may not have been born on 3rd base, it was at least 1st or 2nd compared to these poor souls.  Thank-you, Mom and Dad for your personal sacrifices.

The saddest example of my little journey was on the ride home.  I hopped on the #12 bus from 57th and Sandy and began what I knew would be a pretty lengthy trip through downtown.  A few stops later, a family of 5 got on with 2 strollers and 2 extra rolling carts with toys like skate-boards in them.  The children were approximately 10, 3, and 3 months.  The infant was asleep in the stroller ( I can’t imagine what the ride would have been like had the infant also been needy ).

The first indication of dysfunction came when the 3 year old boy went running down the aisle to the back of the bus with his mother calling out to him to “come back here!”, which he ignored for a minute or two before showing up.  From that point on, the parents took turns wrestling him to a sitting position to keep him from escaping again.  In between squirms, he’d let out some awful yells.

The next clue was the 10 year old, complete with rolling basket with skateboard in it, came and sat right next to me.  I could tell something was wrong right away because he was pumping his arms by his side constantly and looking at the floor.  Every minute or so he’d let out a yell, sometimes a profanity sometimes not, and he was good at ignoring his mother’s instructions to behave.  He seemed pretty wound up.  After a few minutes I reckoned he might have Tourette’s syndrome, but it seemed even more complex than that.  I considered moving, but decided to avoid causing a scene as it was already an uncomfortable side-show and I didn’t want to make it worse.  I gave it as little attention as I could but I was mentally taking notes.

The father seemed ( not surprisingly ) aloof.  He had no clue how to improve his family’s situation on the bus and was mostly numb to his surroundings.  The mother however, was at her wit’s end.  I felt so sorry for her to be trapped like this.  She’d had 3 children with this guy, and from what I could tell, the oldest has an extreme disability, the middle child is likely ADHD, and she has a partner who is no help at all + a new infant to take care of.

I do not know how people get themselves into this situation and it doesn’t really matter at this point.  Could be as simple as bad choices, but I also think that people are just victims of the environment they were brought up in to a certain extent.  Yes, in the ‘Land of Opportunity’ you can always bootstrap yourself up and many do.  But there are those that simply do not posses the IQ or have resources to get themselves out of the hole they are in.

As I got closer to my destination, the bus driver had made a couple of polite pleas to the family to keep the noise level down, The mother, embarrassed beyond words and frustrated that the father was no help, finally reached the end of her patience and yelled at him to do something about the 10 year old who was acting out.  His final shrug led her to make a pre-mature exit from the bus with the infant and stroller, and left him there with the 3 and 10 year olds.  After more yelling from outside the bus, the father and remaining children collected their belongings and got off the bus as well.  We pressed on down the road and the dysfunction continued in the rear view mirror.

I do not see any scenario that has a happy ending for this poor mother or her family.  She is trapped in a downward spiral that will get worse before it gets better.  I see zero chance at a happy life and worse, I don’t see a solution for her.

This is the kind of experience that puts me even more in my head and determined to not get too comfortable in the ‘burbs.  Help is needed out there.  I don’t know what form it will take yet, but for sure help is needed.

Presidential Politics

Posted on by
Reply

I purposely avoid posting my obvious progressive liberal stance on Facebook these days, out of courtesy to friends who just want to keep it light do not wish to be lectured to on that particular choice of social media.  So despite the title, this is entirely non-partisan.

As I watch the news cycle in April of 2015, 3 candidates have announced their intentions to make a run at the presidency so far, and we are 21 months away from Inauguration day in January of 2017.  Twenty-One months.  It just struck me as ridiculous to watch the news pundits proffer strategies for gaining the White House this early in the race — an accomplishment some appear to be obsessed with.

To attach so much importance on the outcome of one election is to completely misunderstand how the government works, or better stated “doesn’t work”, intentionally designed this way by the founding fathers.

The executive branch holds 1/3 of the power, so no matter how many promises they make regarding changing the tax structure, getting rid of this entitlement or starting that new program — it usually amounts to nothing because they can’t get it done with the wave of a magic wand.  All that blather we’re about to hear from both sides for close to 2 years will amount to mostly hot air.  Count on it.

For better or worse, the Constitution and its Amendments are by design a painfully slow change management system.  It’s nearly impossible to get anything agreed upon, especially these days in such a hostile environment.  That’s the way the founders wanted it and that’s the way it is.

Huckabee may be a proponent of a flat tax, but it’ll never happen.  Hillary may want to level the playing field but that won’t happen either.  Ted Cruz may want to abolish the IRS but he’s delusional about that idea. There just aren’t enough votes in both chambers to support these ideas, period.  It’s all show business at this point.

The biggest reason to care about the choice of executive branch is often overlooked, I think.  The nomination of Supreme Court Justices is the thing that will have the most lasting effect on a president’s legacy.  Not many people agree with the notion of Corporations are People Too, yet we have Citizen’s United, thanks to the nominations of Alito and Roberts,

I just find it hard to care right now about who is in the lead, who can win, or who needs to change their strategy to appeal to their base and then shift to the center to win the general election.  Mostly what is going through my mind right now is, we have some real issues to solve right now, why are we focusing on an election that won’t happen for 19 months?  And even when it does, the poor soul won’t be able to deliver on his/her promises anyway.  What else is on?