Why Blog?

For me, blogging has become this strange mid-life crisis of wanting to write (semi)daily book reports.  There's probably a "me me me" vanity aspect to blogging, but there's a bit of that to be alleged to any social media concept.  I think there's also a value in the exercise of writing your thoughts down if no one but the ether ever sees them.  I think it can be said that the value of journals has been known for at least centuries, blogging can make it a very similar concept, while adding the value of "look at me!"

I'm still trying to get a handle on blogging, can't say I'm completely happy with the look of my content.  How much makes it a wall of words?  In email I try to avoid paragraphs more than a couple lines at all costs, how far does blogging hold that same rule?  And as much as I sincerely value my vast readership of 10 or so, but I can only commit so much time in the day to it.

In tech/business we had an old adage of focusing/being able to deliver:

     Fast, Good, Cheap, pick two

To berate what part of what I've already said, I think this comes out in blogging as:

     Quick, Good Ideas, Well Presented, pick two

I groan in meetings where I here statements to the effect that picking too is an old paradigm, we need to meet all three.  I get what they're saying, but it's hard to deny that the inter-relation of the three don't conflict.  My prioritization I'm expecting try to deliver is Quick with Good Ideas, though I'd love to throw in Well Presented if at all possible.

In order to diversify/help divide the appropriate content, I'm expanding my posts into an additional blog I'm opening up today with:

Whiny Liberal

(The 0.0000003209325869643788%)

The inaugural post is up, so give it a read if you can find the time. 

Revolution! (the tv series)

Not sure how many folks got a chance to watch the premiere/pilot of NBC's new series Revolution Monday night, but I thought I'd toss out my take on it.

Revolution comes off to me as an allegory for the Peak Oil concept.  All electric, and seemingly combustion and steam powered devices suddenly stop working.  The big difference I see between a Peak Oil discussion and how they've shown Revolution so far is that with Peak Oil it's more of a frog in water brought to a boil vs a sudden cataclysm (well, maybe not the right word, but you get the idea.)

One character makes a statement about the laws of physics being suspended to help explain the plot device.  I guess this statement sorta explains what's going on, but it's a pretty awkward far reaching premise.

Some good actors in the cast so far, some that spawned a lot of my initial interest in the show:

Elizabeth Mitchell - played one of Jack's on again off again romantic interests in Lost 

Billy Burk - I guess will have the draw of playing Bella's dad in the Twilight series.  

Giancarlo Esposito - I'm a huge fan of from his work in Breaking Bad

Delivery so far has been kinda iffy.  I'd most certainly like to nominate the costume designers for Razzies off of setting in a dystopian future event with the collapse of society, that all actors would have clean un-frayed clothing.  I've got several other gripes, but I won't keep bemoaning the production.  

Take away is I'll probably keep watching it, but I won't be preaching the message that people need to watch this show.

Voter Drive Pt 2

**Yes, I'm posting more than twice in a single year, but it is 2012, so just chalk it up as another sign of the pending apocalypse.**

Went to my voter registration shift today, and had a fair sampling of people coming up to me with Romney affirmations, but overall, a lot of thumbs ups and spontaneous thank yous for participating.  I was able to get 6 people to register in a three hour period.  I was very happy with the cumulative results of my efforts, but it may take a while for my feet to forgive me.

I struck up a conversation with one gentleman of the Romney persuasion.  I wasn't wearing any indicator of my party affiliation, or of which organization had provided the funding engine behind the clipboard I had been  given, but he seemed to pick up that I was a Democrat.  Trust me, I am very much aware of the premise that if everyone would vote, there would be a land slide behind the Democratic affiliation, resulting in the painful reality that no political polling is ever done of public opinion, but on samplings of statistically likely voters, and that voter registration is in all likely hood most probably a Democratic effort.   Sorry, that last sentence was a dangling run-off of something or another, but you get the idea.

As I was trying to say before I rudely derailed myself, we had a civil conversation about how much he liked Romney and how great Rush is.  I did tell him that I felt in the end, neither of the two of us would have our way of life significantly changed by the difference between a Romney election, or a continued Obama presidency.  In saying that, I meant that our respective tax rates probably wouldn't change by much between either administration, our kids would probably continue at their same schools, and general civil services would probably stay about the same.

What I didn't get a chance to continue on with in the conversation was what those differences might be.  For me those differences are about the future.  Moving past a complacency that a resource will be fine for another 40 years.  That educating all of our population is important.  And that nasty taxation issue.  I can't agree with ensuring that those that have it easy, should have it easier.  I can't agree that those with vast wealth, need to be able to pass the power of their accumulated power infinitely onto their offspring.  The game is stacked in favor of those born into wealth, we can't guarantee it to be permanently rigged as well.

Voter Drive Pt 1

Back to our irregular scheduled programming, I decided to do some voter registration this year.  Haven't done any yet, but heading off to the glorious task of sitting in front of a supermarket and pestering people shortly.

I tried to do some volunteer work for the 2004 campaign, but it didn't go well.  Phone bank was the primary need, so I showed up and the task was to call a registered Democrat in some adjacent county:  "No sorry, I'm voting for Bush"  Rinse, wash, repeat, and after about 10 calls going down this way, I was emotionally spent.  (waah waah waah, whiny Liberal, I know)

For those brave souls heading off to do door to door canvassing the following Saturday, I picked up a couple dozen donuts and delivered to aide them in their effort.  Having completed my contrition to the effort, I retreated from the office with tucked tail, and washed my hands of the idea.

Kerry lost, and I'm sure the absence of my continued effort had very little to do with his loss, but the act of giving up on the campaign never fully left the recesses of my mind.  Enter 2012, and the re-election effort for Barrack Obama.  I have some guarded optimism about how the campaign seems to be going surprisingly well at this point, so I've fallen into the trap of signing up for what seems to be a winning effort.

I doubt my resolve is strong enough to survive the door slamming of a canvassing effort, and I'm still not fully recovered from the trauma of my phone bank experience, so the relatively neutral ground of registering voters, seems like a very plausible idea.  But wait, how could this play out?  Sure, a lot of people could probably be receptive of our presence.  Some will hopefully need to register, and will follow through *imagines mental smiles at this glorious accomplishment*.  Some will ignore us, and some will politely nod and walk by.

What about the leering smile saying "I'm voting for the other guy.", the "vote the bum out" cat call, or the "I can't wait for the Muslim to lose"?  I'd like to say I'd come up with something witty like "I hope you enjoy the  national Dressage competitions held for President Mittens" or  "Is electing Bush Jr, Jr, Esquire really gonna help things here?".  But verbal fisticuffs don't generally end up more helpful than physical ones, plus, my retort delivery is usually padded with too many "umm, uhh, *pause*" to ever pack much of a punch.

I can't even get around to posting to this thing yearly  *shrug*

Since this is an election year I'll toss out a good read that hit the news recently.

Not sure if I have anyone reading this that isn't already an Obama fanboi, but if you haven't read the Vanity Fair piece on him by Michael Lewis (author of Moneyball), it's a very good read. From listening to the Michael Lewis NPR interview about this story, he basically sent a long shot request to Obama's communication adviser (I might have the adviser wrong, but you get the idea) to do an embedded interview over and extended period with the President to give people an idea of what it means to be the President.

Obama's team was against it, but by chance, this adviser and the President both liked the idea.  Great insight into "44" if you can find the time.