Really?

WASHINGTON (AP)--The line between lobbying the federal government and running it just got blurrier.

A new high-ranking adviser to President George W. Bush will enter the White House with recent lobbying ties to dozens of companies seeking the federal government's help on everything from proposed acquisitions to patent disputes.

Ed Gillespie, named Wednesday as the next White House counselor, is a partner in Quinn Gillespie & Associates LLC, a lobbying firm whose clients include: Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI), which needs antitrust approval to acquire a rival; Qualcomm (QCOM), which wants Bush to veto a federal agency's ban on imported cell phones made with its chips; and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a trade group trying to limit drug industry regulation.

Consumer advocates lamented Bush's decision to put Gillespie in his inner circle, fearing that the interests of average citizens would be trumped by those of corporate America.

Gee, what's the odds of that happening?

Home

Its a little before midnight. I'm still a little wound from the trip, and I wanted to get some thoughts down before I slept.

I'm glad that I went. I didn't want to go (I know, thats awfully damned odd given that I'd sent them a resume, and spoke with them several times before going out), but I did, and I went through the two interviews. It may not seem that it takes all that much moral courage to do that, but it does for me, as I don't have much self-confidence. I've spoken of that before.

I don't think they will offer me a job, because in the first interview, they were looking for specific strengths that I would bring if I came -- an indepth knowledge of a subsystem, or of a product. I don't have that. I do have the ability to put pieces together, and to understand how they fit together at a high level -- I called it being a generalist -- but I could see that they were looking for something stronger. The second interview was quite pleasant, and the questions were, by and large, softballs. Overall, I'd say I got a 6 out of 10 -- nice, but not overwhelming.

If they offer me a job, though, I'll take it, because money is the driving force in doing this. I know that sounds like I'm greedy, and tightfisted, but thats not the case. I would just like to have more of a buffer for the many, many years that we'd be retired (for me, that means about twenty five years, and for my wife, about the same, mostly overlapping), or, if sooner than that, to sustain us should she lose her job. We're not up against it, not to we expect to be. Its just the classic financial paranoia -- if you use up your money, you find out when you're way too old to do much about it. I desperately want to be as sure as I can be that that doesn't happen to us.

I found that travel, per se, doesn't bother me, and being away from my family, though I don't like it, isn't that big a deal. Oh, I get annoyed when things don't go smoothly -- the TSA folks at Saint Louis airport seemed to be a chaotic, surly bunch, and I had to clamp my mouth shut (why, for example, do they insist on seeing an ID before they let you in line, and then, once in line, ask to see it again?) -- and much fast food or restaurant food is execrable (my tastes are quite simple, really, but when the damn hotel doesn't even have an English muffin, and they bring toast of some kind of whole grain with a frozen slab of butter -- well, I get a mite testy) -- but the travel itself isn't a problem. What I hate, I find, is the thought that I am somehow adding to my wifes burdens. Its not that she can't handle it. Its that I hate that she has to. I feel like I'm letting her down. She says I'm not; I believe her -- intellectually. Not emotionally, though.

Saint Louis itself -- well, the downtown is quite pretty (hey, btw, why doesn't Pizza Hut or Dominos or any nationally known chain deliver down there?), but the exurbs look dilapidated, a lot. I get the impression that urban renewal has been tried multiple times there, without success. But the Arch is quite nice, particularly at dawn, even if the Park Service guys seem a bit on the paranoid side (one asked to examine my bag going in, and then they immediately scanned it on an xray device. Why both?) and the clerks in the store are weird (eight dollar credit purchase, and they asked to see id? Why?)

One girl on the flight back was going to Germany for six weeks as an exchange student. I envy that. Then I find she's three years older than my daughter, and I think: What if this were my daughter, going all the way to Germany, by herself, at sixteen?That gives me the shivers.

People got on the plane at Detroit carrying McDonalds and pizzas. Damn, I wish I'd done that. Something about having only fifteen minutes between planes... Guess I should be pleased that they actually got my bag transferred between flights.

Okay, time for sleep, I think.

Update

Coming home tonight. Good deal.

If they offer me a job, I'll take it. My guess is, they won't -- and that will be okay.

Hard Part's Done

I had the two interviews. I may get to see some more people tonight, but the interviews are done. First one, I'd give a 6 out of 10 -- they didn't like some things I said. Second one, about an 8. I'm guessing they won't offer, but I don't know that for sure. But either way, I tried, and thats whats important. At the moment, anyway.

Sunday

Okay, we're going to do it again, today.

Only....there's a small complication.

One of the considerations has been: do I want to leave my wife with the sole responsibility of the house, daughter, et al. Of course I know she can handle it, but still...

Well... last night, my daughter twisted her ankle badly, to the point where she still can't really walk on it. So today, after being up all night for disaster recovery drill, my wife gets to sleep for about two hours, then go to a local emergency room and hang around for hours there till someone can look at my daughter's ankle. Odds are, its just a bad sprain -- not much swelling, no sign of a break.

But still, the timing....

Back on Tuesday.

Wiped

I'm fortunate not to have gone to Saint Louis today, because, for some reason, I am totally wiped. As in, I came back from the airport and slept for 90 minutes, then, around noon, I slept for an hour more. I think its a combination of not having slept too well last night (your basic is-this-the-right-thing-to-do jitters) and getting up way too early this morning, plus, oh joy, that sinus problem that I thought was gone has flared up. Is there anything more delightful than being on an airplane, sneezing and such? Had they seen me today, those folks would have said What a dullard! Ship this boy home, pronto.

So I'm taking it very slow today. Took some Tylenol with Sinus stuff. Going to bed early tonight. And tamarra, gonna go do it again. More successfully this time, I should hope. Oh, and I thought some more about The Question. And at the moment -- at the moment -- I'm thinking this might not be such a bad idea at all.

Architecture

I don't know much about architecture -- heck, I don't even know how to build an ark -- but this, I like.

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From T.J. Adel & Son Photographics, of Vancouver, Canada.

Abort

I'm not supposed to be here. I'm supposed to be crammed into a minimally comfortable seat on a Northwest Airlines DC9 on my way to Detroit, and then St. Louis. But the bad weather that blew through the midwest yesterday -- yesterday -- is still affecting air travel today. The first three flights of the day were flat out cancelled for Northwest, and from what I gather, for the other carriers as well. There was another flight to Detroit at noon, but it's full. In fact, they're all full, for the remainder of the day. So, I get to go out tomorrow.

In a way, its a good thing. I had forgotten to leave time for the jiggery pokery at check in, and of course to submit myself to the tender mercies of the Transportation Safety Administration. I got to the airport at a quarter to six, and was in line by ten to six, for a six-forty flight. I might have made it if things were running smoothly -- but that, they most certainly were not. There were many vocally unhappy people, including some who were apparently trying to go to Bogota by way of Australia and the moon, with all of their bags, relatives, carryons, and parakeets. One fellow loudly proclaimed that this was of course the fault of the airline CEOs, cutting staff and services so that they could earn their obscene bonuses. Actually, I'm not at all sure he was wrong about that, but I didn't chime in. I was too busy looking at my watch.

I did get to see Harrisburg International Airport's new parking terminal. The good news is, its pretty big. Huge, in fact. The bad news is, its designed for owls, eagles, and others who need little in the way of directions or illumination. There's almost no interior lighting, period --- more mood lighting than anything --- and the signs are few and far between. Signage at HIA needs serious work. (Here's a hint, guys: grey and black signs in the gloom aren't particularly readable. Stylish as all hell, oh, yes, but readable? No.) I parked next to a set of doors that seemed to head toward the terminal, walked through, and to my left and right were slideways. Neither was marked as to where it went. I took a guess, and guessed right. Turned out that the actual doors into the terminal were another fifth of a mile down, but still, not bad. Coming out, though: good god. No exit directing signs at the ends of the aisles -- pull out and peer left and right, trying to guess. At the end of the main aisle, a gihugic DO NOT ENTER and a tiny exit sign pointing to the right. Go down that aisle and there's another exit sign pointing to the down-spiral to get out, only on the ground in front of it there's an arrow coming off the spiral. Do I get on, go around, what? And, to cap it off, when you get down to the very end, and pay to get out, you get to drive down this narrow aisle that leads out -- and there actually is a sign pointing to the exit. Course, its right AT the exit, so it doesn't do a whole lot of good...and at that time in the morning, the sun is glaring in your eyes, so you can't actually read it all that well -- but hey, they tried. Once.

So tomorrow, I get to do it again. This time, at least, I'm forewarned. Oh, and I know not to eat before the flight. There's no public bathrooms near the ticketing area at HIA. Cute.

Medical Miracle

Dick Cheney needs to have the battery in his heart defibrillator replaced.

This is a medical miracle, as most defibrillators require a heart to be effective.

Somehow, he used up this battery without having one.

Vitriol must be more corrosive than previously thought.

Another County...

... heard from.

I took my daughter to the bookstore to celebrate the end of school. Along the way, she offered the opinion -- stated quite positively, I might add -- that I should take this job. Bemused, I asked why, and she said that it would make me happy.

Nice to be so sure about things....

Graphic Material

I admire well-done graphics. Like my screed about writing, the other day, I can't always do it (okay: never) but I recognize and admire when it's well done.

This video, which I found on this blog post at Pruned, is a great example.

Garden, This Morning

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LDOS

Last Day of School. Throughout the area, parents are figuratively -- and perhaps not so figuratively -- battening down the hatches, preparing for the onslaught of summer, with its great rallying cry. "I'm boooorred!"

Our daughter got up forty minutes early, in recognition of the great day. It's her habit to get up early when she has no reason to get up at all... and late when she does. We can once again look forward to a summer of hearing the television downstairs come on at 5AM, and casual comments about the quality of early morning television. She has a full summer scheduled, with color guard and various activity camps -- and as I remind her, bleakly, we'll be routinely spending time preparing for the Scholastic Aptitude Test. I recall when I was her age, and my mother would haul this HUGE book of SAT questions whenever we'd go out to the park. This thing was about an inch thick and the shape of a small city's phone book. We're not going that far. But it's going to happen, though at least one of us will protest that it's interfering with her ability to have fun.

Last night, I added more RAM to our desktop PC. I screwed up in the order -- I thought that I was getting two 256meg RIMMs, and I was actually getting two 128M RIMMS. Still, more RAM is a good thing. It took me about twenty minutes to figure out how to pop the case -- each time they build one of these, Dell changes how the case opens. This one, you push an inconspicuous black button, which releases the catches on half the shell so that it can be lifted off. The other half doesn't come off. And to get to the RIMM slots, you have to pivot the power suppy, by unlatching something that in no way looks like a latch. If I keep pressing on this thing, its gonna snap right off! But its done, and now we tell ourselves that it really is faster.

More discussion about our favorite topic, last night. On the do-it side: the extra money would pay nicely for a) ten years or so of my mother's companion service, and b) the flight to Australia in four years (not the full amount, but the additional that we're grimly realizing it's going to take). On the don't-do-it side: we're painting my daughter's bedroom this summer; she's got lots of activities that my wife could take her to, but it'd be somewhat of a hassle for her. Logically, its on the do-it side; emotionally, on the other. I told my wife that I don't feel the need to go back to work; she surprised me by saying that she was thinking about that sign we have about doing things that scare you, and wondering if the job itself scared me. I told her no, it does not -- its the idea of being frequently away. Though that thought did give me pause: why does that scare me? Do I subconciously think they can't make it without me here all the time? Or is that my excuse? One thought thats occurred to me more than once: I'm not emotionally ready to retire, because I don't like spending money without earning it (gotta do it sometime) and because work does equal identity in our society. I kid my wife that at the moment I'm an unemployed vagrant, but you know what? Maybe, just a bit, I do feel that way.

Once again, I need an adult to tell me what to do.

LDOS!

Monologue

This is going to be a dull post. You have been warned.

The pivotal point in discussions with my prospective employee is going to revolve around how much time I'm at home. I have been casting around to find some way of saying this, without saying it: I want to be at home either a) two or more days per week, or b) two or more weeks per month. Which is to say, I'm willing to travel three days per week, on average, or up to two solid weeks per month. More than that takes me away from home too much, and I don't want that. I'm willing to take employment with them as a part time job, where I travel more per month but am employed less per year, just so I can be at home and available more often.

I'm going to be honest with them, but I don't want to be too honest, if you know what I mean. And lurking always in my mind, to the point where I may tell them, is that I once took employment with a company that I really liked, which had asked the same question "Bill, are you okay with travel?",and I said yes, thinking that hey, I've traveled for work, no problem. I completely didn't realize that they meant travel every week, most of the week. I just couldn't do that. Its why I quit, though I really liked them.

I don't want to fall into that trap again. I'll pass on the job if I have to. My advantage is that they want me (I think). My disadvantage is, they're not salivating to get me.

Good thing I don't have to take the job, eh?

CNN Poll

I like the CNN Quick Polls. I know, they're unscientific as all hell, but when they're about something I care about, I use them as a way of seeing whether my gut feeling matches what most people think on the subject.

This one is a jewel. The question: Are our national leaders dividing or uniting us as a nation? Well, hell, I think, that's pretty obvious. But let's look anyway.

86,803 responses thus far.

2,300 say UNITING.

84,503 say DIVIDING.

Oh, yeah. Oh, YEAH!!!!! Abbasolootly!

Articulate, Cont'd

I was just watching some videos on You Tube of Dave Chapelle doing a comedy routine. He's a pretty funny guy. In the middle of one bit, he says that white people didn't realize that there was a problem with police brutality until they read about it in Newsweek. He changes from his normal voice to what I'll call a 'whitebread' voice to deliver the line "Honey, did you see this? Apparently, the police have been beating up Negroes like hotcakes! It's in the May issue!"

At first, I thought it was just another funny bit. Then I thought a bit about how he can casually say 'Niggers know this kind of thing all the time, but white folks don't'. The classic 'N-word', reserved to black people -- though now there's apparently a minor groundswell advocating non-use by them, either. I've seen both sides of that argument: one side saying 'If we use it, we're demeaning ourselves, and just perpetuating the Stephin Fetchit stereotype', and the other side saying 'its a uniquely black humor; to abandon it is to abandon part of our culture'. I can't speak to either side. .

But what got me after a moment was that 'white' voice. It was obviously intended to be a parody, and was obviously artificial (no one's sounded like that since, perhaps, the HAL 9000), but it still sounded 'more right ' to me than his normal voice. I wondered: why is this? After all, I'm white, and I don't sound like that. So why did it sound right? And I realized that it was because he was speaking very clearly, very articulately. No slurring. It wasn't the classic 'black' voice; ie, no drawl, y'all. It didn't sound like me, but it did sound more like me than his usual voice. But I didn't notice anything odd about his usual voice until he changed it. What's going on here?

You may recall that a number of people were irritated when Barack Obama was described as 'articulate', because that was seen as being condescending, implying superiority on the part of the person making the observation. I got an interesting response to a post I wrote about that, saying that I didn't think Joe Biden, who'd made the comment, intended to disparage Obama by saying it. Here's the response:

Saying a person is articulate because you (not you but a general "you") had already formed an image, preconceived and full of assumptions mostly of negative expectations of that person (or people that look like them) is not a compliment.

If I leave my car at the dealer for a tune-up, should I say when picking up my car thanks for not stealing any items from the car? Am I praising their honesty and integrity? No, rather I'm saying you look like a thief, I expected you to steal, and the fact that you didn't surprises me because I am so self-assured of my own preconceived opinions and prejudices that I had low expectations of you.

To which I responded:

I think you're right about the source of the unhappiness about the idea, but its sad when you have to judge what someone's assumptions are before you can know whether to accept their words.

This routine made me think about the question of accent and elocution again. When Chappelle wanted to sound 'white', he spoke in a staccato, hyper-precise style. What does that say about the perception of accent in this country? Would it be okay for me to tell a joke with a black person in it, and deliberately exaggerate the drawl for their part? My guess would be, no, it'd be offensive. If thats true, then why is his 'white voice' okay? Is it somehow mixed in with the idea that its okay for him to say nigger, but not for me?

Man, I bet you could do a whole sociology paper -- heck, a book -- on that question, and still not have an answer.

Smitten When Written

I commented on a person's blog, after a particularly well-written post, that she had written nothing that would lead me to believe that she'd not written great papers in college (a claim she made). In response, she said that she wished I had been on her college English staff.

I've actually occasionally thought about doing that. I never would, because I'm not a liberal arts kind of guy, and because my idea of great writing doesn't involve most of what's considered to be great. But I do put great emphasis on writing (something you may find hard to believe given the brief and ad-hoc nature of these posts), and on writing well. I can get almost weak when I read something that's written lucidly and with a clear thrust, with no side trips or excursions along the way. I like good writing. And like pornography, I find it difficult to describe, but easy to recognize.

It can't be pretentious, I know that. In other words, if it sounds as if William F. Buckley wrote it, then forget it. When you're reading something, and you're struck with how precious the writing is, then the writing itself is getting in the way of the message. An example: most people don't use the word eleemosynary, which is one that he likes to toss around. There are audiences who are comfortable with that word, and if you're writing for them, then fine. But in most cases, that word will stick out like a gold bar in a pile of thread, and it'll stop the reader dead. The writer isn't there to impress the reader with his knowledge of Obscure Words of the English Language, but to entrance him with ideas, with imagery, with eloquence.

Eloquence. Writing can be plain, and be perfectly acceptable, but it can also be eloquent, elegant and charming.Sentences aren't dump trucks, to be filled with meaning and trundled down the road, spilling gravel along the way. Choice of the right word can change the impact from the glimmering glow of a lightning bug to the brilliant blast of a lightning bolt. (No, that's not my analogy. But I like it.) I'm not advocating searching endlessly for le mot juste (like that? A little pretentiousness of my own). I'd like the perfect word, but not if it means forgetting what point I was trying to make. Choose a good word and keep going. Once you're done, you can go back and rewrite, if you want (a message my daughter steadfastly ignores in her school writing). But stopping the whole creative train until the most excellent word possible pops into your mind -- ah, no. Make your point, and move on. Keep the train moving.

However it's written, the writing has to be worthwhile. It has to acknowledge that the reader has many things to do, and this reading thing eliminates most of them, so it has to be worthy of their time. I think that a lot of folks feel that once they've started something -- an article, a book -- they've got to finish it (I know I did, for the longest time). That's okay, but if the reader gets to the end of what you wrote and thinks I wasted my time on THAT? -- they're going to be angry. Last time I read anything by THAT idiot. Better keep them happy. Don't talk down, I'm not saying that --but readers are doing you a favor. Make it worth their while. Keep the content focused, keep it on target. Remember what you want to say, get it down, make sure its right.

All by themselves, that's a pretty stern list to meet. I know that good writing is more than that. I just can't explain it. I know I don't always do it, myself. In fact, usually not.

But I know it when I see it.

Bad Idea # 642

Taking time off between when you leave one job and start another.

You get used to having lots of free time very quickly. You find that its really nice to be able to do errands and house tasks when it's convenient for you, rather than having to squeeze them into lunchtime, night, and weekend.

And your desire to work again, which is based in reality and logic, fights a constant battle against the forces of sloth. Thinking "Going back to work so that I can earn more money for savings would be a good thing' doesn't have quite the emotional impact as 'Do I have to? Well...no, actually not. Well, then !' Hey, time to read, time to take walks, time to do the things you want to do, pretty much when you want to do them.... whats not to like about that?

Prudence and care pay off in the future, but sloth and indolence -- ah, those pay off right now.

Talking to the Cutter

I met with the plastic surgeon who's going to do the bone graft. Very serious, almost dour person, but he said the right things, made this sound like, if not trivial, at least something that he's comfortable doing.

They'll take the bone from the top of the iliac crest, which he was careful to tell me was not a weight-bearing portion of bone, though apparently it is where some tendons are attached. He essentially peels the attachments off, cuts away a slide of bone, and hands it over the sterile screen to the oral surgeon, who will have been prepping my jaw to receive it, then the plastic surgeon reattachs the tendon connections to the bone, and thats it. He said I'd have some soreness there for a while, possibly a bit of a limp for about a week, but nothing that regular pain medication can't handle. And then we get to wait for about four months to see if the graft takes.

If the limp is bad enough, wonder if I can get a walking stick? Not one of those lame ones you see in the drugstore, but one with a silver head and a sword inside? That'd be cool, I think....

Philosophy

Found here.