Rampant Random Introspective Thoughtstreams.

Subject:	DayInTheLife - AWS, Marketing, Semantic Webs, Socializing
Time:	12:42 am.

In some ways this was an ideal day, a mix of multiple challenging projects, events, learning, new people, old friends, progress.

10pm yesterday long shower, get surprise peanut butter and jelly cookies from neighbors.

Submit two proposal to flash conference in New York

12-3am work on liquid button script and research top converting buttons for sales pages, in typical mad scientist fashion hybridize them to create UBB "ultimate belcher button" make a blog post on it and send it out too my marketing list, as well as try to get some backlink love.

Discussion some investor stuff, help two people in my marketing class on their projects. Get two contractors back on track -really happy with $10 egypt team, thinking how it is being islamic that projects transcend religious differences. Connect with good friend on skype (this has been the week of reconnections).

In the background continue kick of watching music videos from the 80's some youtube...most seeing videos for the first time for songs I love, many I preferred not seeing the singers..some like Alphaville are kinda creepy.

3-8am work on Semantic Network layout algorithm,amazingly uneven terrain these sorts of features, some issues 10 per hour others are 1 per 10 hours....they all look the same on the JIRA

8-noon sleep (4 hours is not enough for the eyeballs)
noon-1pm get ready, debate on public transit, walk or car to Amazon Web Services Event, wish I could walk procrastinate so car becomes the only viable option.

AWS Cloud for the Enterprise Event at the super fancy Sofitel hotel
1:30-2:00 miss opening statements, then hear CTO of Amazon, on how and why the Amazon Web Services came to be and where they are going (to the degree that's not based on customers feedback),with most excellent english breakfast tea in a "cup" that is about 1/16th the size I normally drink tea out of.
2-5:00pm, see customer stories from reddit (small team lead by a cogsci guy), eharmony (using hadoop for matching) and two others, learn about best practices. 3 pages of dense notes many good insights about how AWS sees itself (useful if I make it in the startup challenge) and how to best use them. In background I continue to problem solve a binary search algorithm applied to looped data instead of lists.
6:00pm meet with Rightscale people and Ubuntu Server people. Figure out Ubunto vers CertOs as OS question. Opt not to network in crowded room as my head is too full and i don't really know who I am in this mixed crowd of mostly enterprise class people.

7:00pm - Pho and Thai Tea at favorite place a few blocks away Reviewing notees realize that I've come to the very end of this journal and this is the last in my pile. This one has lasted a record 3.5 months, and to be honest I haven't reviewed it hardly at all so I've probably forgotten 30% of the stuff I wrote down so I wouldn't forget it :)

7:20 Leaving the at the uber trendy Beverly Center, with parking lot flow as bad as the 404 on rush hour. Appallingly bad parking lot flow (?or is that bad design?) Hundreds of thousands of dollars in high end hardware that can take tickets or credit cards or cash in teh same slot perfectly isolated away form use by people earning probably 8-10/hr. Can't help but notice many yummy fashionistas, driving things like lexus hummers with "lexis <3 lex" with tv screens big enough i could watch the sponge bob episode a car length away. Ponder the metric of success "I want to be successful enough my wife doesn't *have* to work" to it's possibly logical consumerist conclusion.

7:40 min short power nap, the 3 'cups' of tea plus the thai tea, has done it's job in keeping me from going too deep, yet put me on the slightly irratable and quiet side of awake.

MINDSHARE LA
8:00 - strategize with Paul on Masquerade Constumes and transit to MindshareLA, with deep red conjestion on the google maps (which now niftily shows side streets)
8:10 - break out 16th century masquerade costume with rather distrubing mask..that looks especially freaky when I have my glasses on underneath it.
8:44 f- inally make it to mindshare after missing two major turns. Get several compliments and 'pets' from wearing the costume.
9:00 - : some great presentations including some fashion history (some dresses were 4ft wide! and either had to be collapsed or walk sideways to make it through doors), plus some reconnecting with many geeks and freaks.
10:15 - with preoccupation and tiredness, instant autism sets in and I lose interest in socializing at all, or even watching the writing dancing girl in the LCD projector. All seem like screen savers.
Walk to car meet familar and new geeks on the street. When asked what I am looking for, "world tilters, mad scientists, crazy inventors, performance artists"
Drive home, getting rerouted as a major part of Santa Monica Blvd is under construction, saved by GPS again.

11:pm - Sauteed Portabella + Zuchinni for "dinner" ...still wearing outfit, might make a good youtube vid series. Decompress all the geekery with roommate, and journal.

12:am back on Semantic visualization layout issues.
On marketing front get several new requests and good traffic on the button...just proof that information is increasingly not enough, the bar is getting higher widgets are good traffic getters.

1am break for chocolate chip ice cream run.

Tomorrow, more force directed network layout tweaks and Das Bunker 13th annual anniversary with fav Covenant.

Comments: Read 5 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	Ode to pet Spidey
Time:	2:38 pm.

I've had cats or dogs or hamsters, most the entire I was a kid, dare say I get along and understand pets more than I do the owners. Being an entreprenuer means certain sacrifices have to be made. One of mine has been having pets.

For a awhile I didn't even want plants..too much responsibility. Partly also for fear of killing them, as the room and kitchen don't get much light. Ironically right now the dining room table is COMPLETELY filled with plants since the great roommate shuffle of July. I kinda like it, it looks like a green water fountain. So far it has been doing okay in the somewhat shady corner where my building is.

One exception to the pet rule is spiders. Not like the big exhibitioinist tarantulas, but rather the common crack in the wall, windowsill type. If I wasn't so enamored with innovation I might be an insectologist, as I find insects fascinating, so much variety, specializations. Spiders in particular as they are one of the few insects that are easy to study, they make a home, and tend to be rather introverted slender homebody but busy at nighttime creatures. So an affinity. Of course if they get ambitious and decide to invade the office or the shower, they typically are relocated or killed. Thou shalt not interrupt showertime.

Common spiders make ideal pets in some ways, they are almost zero maintenance, they are natural to the environment, 100% biodegradable, most don't bother you, sit on the keyboard, wake you up, demonstrate the ability to pierce multiple layers of fabric during needing, require daily walks, or stinky poop scoops (though they do require cleanup of the victims). They don't terrorize the neighborhood (at least at human scale), bring back trophy kills, or respond to every alarm and siren and airplane and walker that goes by. They don't need to be told to sit or comeback...especially in flamboyantly gay overly dramatic air-raid siren voices. Ahem *looks out window*.

I've been fortunate to have two cool spiders in the kitchen of very different temperments. One is a funnel web spider, he's the extrovert: commonly going out drinking, partying, hunting, bringing back people to his web and devouring them. Apparently funnel spiders eat other funnel spiders as some traveling salesman spider came by and now has been converted into a semi-translucent a lawn ornament. This appeals to my gothic tendencies like putting enemies on old school pig poles.

The other I don't know the name of, but was crystaline looking, a bead like body, tiny klingon like spikes. Typically he'd sit absolutely motionless, in a zen yoga like stance all legs held straight out pressed together, forming a single needle like form, possibly praying to some arachnid gods. Remarkably disciplined. In my frequent visits to the kitchen for water/food. He'd stay that way for almost the entire day motionless. At night he would spread his arms and reveal what a bad ass he really was. Each segment in the legs became barbed and ready like a fishing lure to catch prey. Occassionally I'd see him dancing (like vibrating his web).

Sadly this morning he was gone,makes me a little sad, we've been together for months, and there was no note. I think he gave me notice last night as he was in an odd position pointing straight up and down like a clock pointed at midnight. Since the pickings have been slim lately in the web I wondered if he too had been hit with the recession/depression, or if the two spiders had found each other (they are only a few feet away). I checked and couldn't find a body, so I hope he's found juicier pastures.

*spider pig, spider pig* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=714-Ioa4XQw

Comments: Read 5 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	LifeUpdate: 35 and still alive.
Time:	12:37 am.

Figured since I hit a major milestone, should give a brief snapshot.

Just got back home from spending a week housesitting a 3 story, swiss chateau with 2 harps, 2 cats, 1 hen, and thousands of magic books and dozens of lithographs. It was a great state break from the normal routine. I figured out that the criticals that make home feel like home, fit into 2 trips by foot: portable heat, inflatable bed, laptop, extra monitor, tea, and clothes. It feels good to be back home though, already miss the pets.

DANCING WITH TRAFFIC
last week while running across the street, to avoid blocking traffic (pedestrian auto tango). My favorite pen..dropped out of my trusty black hardback art binder, ringlike embrace. An hour later reaching to jot down an revelation I had the additional revelation I was missing the pen. Walked the path back, and in it was shattered into a thousand brilliant shards from the cars, quite pretty like shimmering diamonds in the bright summer sunlight, a fitting end. Thankfully I buy my favorite pens by the case, and had a spare in the car ;)

What's amusing, is how much of a space cadet I was when it happened. Shortly after reaching the pavement, 3 coworkers heading at 90 degrees of called out. They were only 15 ft away and I never saw them... so distracted of late.

ODE to GEEK GLASSES
Lots of things seem to be breaking hopefully with equally happy, replaceable endings. Just today after the week house sitting for friends, my geek glasses seen in the icon picture also decided to come apart. This time in a manner that can't really be rectified with superglue (which has happened 2x), and despite my love of MacGuyver, I really am not so hard up I have to resort to ducktape. Sigh I DO have other pairs of glasses but I feel like I'm looking at the screen through binoculars, and I do miss my old glasses a little. I've had them since 2000, a shift from being ubernerd to trying to be more hip geek. They've seen a lot. Many jobs, many relationships, many miles, many smiles, family deaths, graduations, and at least 20 trips up and down the I5.

They were so scratched up, the 'clear' plastic had gotten yellow. Since I wear them all the time I am rarely aware of what the world looks like without them on. It was on a trip up the I5 I was thinking "wow the sky really is polluted out here!..I thought it was just LA" took off my glasses and realized, they double as BlueBlockers. The sky really is still blue.

I got flak for wearing them all the time. "How can you see out of those". Truthfully, I didn't fully. It was memory-echolocation, as I'm so focused/monotonous don't go down that many new streets so really rarely need to read details at at distance. They had a nice blur quality, creating halos out of any point source. That made it impossible to spend so much time analyzing everything visually and just accepting. It was like life was my own private 70's TV show.

Putting the pieces in the case that protects my 'newish' glasses, and hearing the lid snap shut. It never occurred to me how cases meant to protect but have coffin like attributes as well. What is the afterlife for glasses? to come back as disposable contacts? telescopes?

WORK:

I have given verbal notice at the company I'm and will be switching back to consulting. It's been 3 years, and frequently difficult ones at that, and though not a good time for the company for me to make this decision, it's the only one for me to make...else I really will be dancing with traffic.

( JOB = Just Others Bitch )

SOCIAL
what's that?

There have been many changes here at the Ogdorm. L,B,and soon another will have left a few blocks away. We still have 3 of the 8 units. If you are looking we make great company :)

I've been dating off an on, mostly off, but when on having fun.

oh, I'm on twitter more out of curiosity than commitment. It will be low frequency pithy or snarky if anything at all. Not "I just wiped my nose!" etc. You're welcome to follow along.

Personal: @troy_gardner
Flash related: @troyworks http://www.troyworks.com/blog/
Marketing related: @troynotes http://www.troynotes.com

HEALTH
Aging sucks.

Recently self-diagnosed with Rosacea.> Sometimes known as 'adult acne' A common red flushing of the face, that plagues many millions of humans. ( Read more... )

Anyway hope yall are well and thriving.

Comments: Read 13 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	Party at the Ogdorm ....and Taxes are done ..yay!
Time:	6:41 pm.

Party Lite at the Ogdorm on Thursday

First up,It's April, if you've been around the last few years around the Ogdorm, you should know what that means...

Meta and I are having a 'shindig'. Though much smaller in scale from the last party which literally shook the roof...

This year will be much simpler. Low key, laid back, Drinks, snacks, talk with excellent people such as yourselves we don't see often enough. In fact it's been so long, I think I'm starting to forget what any of you look like. Please come to remind me.

April shindigs are a tradition, for us, yet another year has passed in the awesome Ogdorm, taxes are done, various birthdays are happening.

This year is special, because B+E go back to SF Bay area on Sunday where E's new place/job is, so it may be quite awhile before they are seen down this way.

I will make a special guest appearance at home, driving from out far east (at least in traffic hour), where I am house sitting for 2 cats, 1 hen, 1 harp and an entire library full of magic books...

Taxes done...yay!"
With a whole day to spare. Damn it feels clean.

I was REALLY dreading taxes this year, being a standard employee plus maintaining side business, thought I'd have to manage essentially two worlds of tax frustration. Increasingly complex itemizations: trips, equipment, development, ads, utility costs, let alone all the hours in cabinets and accounts getting everything lined up.

Partly I'm still reeling from last year, my first year as a contractor and missing some quarterly estimated payments I got hammered. Plus I screwed up e-filing my last years state taxes and JUST got a note saying hey "we missed you.., plus here's a late fee, interest, and a default report we've filed for you" - I didn't realize they filed a basic return for you !. So this year I expected to owe and at this particular moment I'm generally cash strapped taking some marketing classes.

Anyway, except for a few moments, I was pleasantly surprised...

Let's start with this years taxes. Overall one of the awesome things about going paperless and doing business mostly online is pretty much everything is searchable and has relevant reporting. At times this is a lot of work so I sometimes wonder why I do it. While it still takes work to group things together...it's not soul crushing work like trying to mine data out of piles of misordered paper cabinets.

Since almost everything is searchable, and receipts are mostly in email, I had very little footwork to do to find things...ironically the more obscure the easier they were to find, like I had a transaction for 'igoodz' about a year ago I had no memory of. Searched yahoo mail, and *pop* there it was for some dry erase whiteboard magnets, $100 that was deductible as office equipment. There were several of these, that add up in my case to about $500 of deductions.

For contractors, I've been using several outsourcing companies but favor Odesk and Elance. Odesk is not without it's quirks but they have really nailed the time management aspect, and delving into getting reports for taxes I was quite happy. Elance was good, just took a bit more time to find out how to generate a custom report, as the default ones only go back 90 days. Both odesk and elance appear to keep history for several years, at least 2007 in my case when I started using them.

For financial accounts, bank accounts and credit cards, things were less easy.

Let's start with the mediocre.

I use Bank Of America for checking and credit cards (rather they've absorbed the other companies I was using). I'm generally happy, but they are inconsistent on reporting. With the checking account you can do powerful searches, for credit cards you get almost nothing. Given I normally use credit cards as a 'financial firewall' and the checking to pay those off, I'd rather have more reporting on the credit and less on the checking. Also unlike elance/odesk, they end reporting 1 year back which is frustrating trying to get a whole tax years. I really should use quicken/etc up to speed. Just I really find quicken kinda hard to use relative to spreadhsheets...and zoom the year goes by so fast, and the ability to get that data is gone.

Over a year ago, following Tim Ferris's advice, I bit the bullet and got the AMEX platinum business card, which carries a $500 introduction fee (gulp!). With it's domestic companion feature it paid for itself within a few months by flying two to Chicago... which was nice, though probably not that much of a savings compared to bargain shopping airfare.....however a few months ago I got a letter in the mail saying they were discontinuing that. I now have 3 AMEX cards, I didn't start out that way most being converted from Visa cards from different companies. The platinum AMEX is unusual as most everything has to be paid of in 30 days. Given the other AMEX cards do allow carrying a balance on all purchases and have similar rates I began to wonder why I was still used it. Today I'm very glad I still have it. Since I do some AdwordsPPC traffic, one of the advantages is that unlike my other Amex cards, there isn't a spending limit, so due to the lag between paying for ads and getting paid by merchants, that can come in handy. It can be very hard to scale businesses, if cashflow is limited to typical personal credit card levels...businesses can grow faster than one's personal credit rating.

I recently found out they have even 'better' Amex cards..made out of imposing black metal. They have rather extreme entry. 250K year in spending and payoff of a platinum, 5K initial fee, 2500 annual fee...didn't realize credit cards were such status symbols! Though I do get compliments all the time on the mini-keychain credit card I have.

The biggest advantage was using separate cards for separate cateogries of purchases, which results in very clean reporting, the Platinum AMEX's reporting rocks compared to the minimal reporting of BofA's Amex. Slice and dice pretty much anyway you want, group by merchant, month by month, very powerful. While previously I've never really paid attention to miles/points across the cards I've racked up 70K points which is able to buy an ipod if I so wanted.

It's an eye opening experience sitting down looking at year with eagle eyes seeing what goes where. I really wish I had more time to do this more often...being a bit OCD I got into the deep analysis. As true with probably most new businesses, so much in startup costs, sooo much money on promising or dead ends, guessing 80% unavoidable, unprofitable 'waste' as I lost money this year on all the bad development and unprofitable advertising, the good news is that it's actually helping me get a refund.

Turbotax online keeps getting easier to use, and unlike the standard Tax forms it at least feels like it knows who I am, and what sort of my business deductions might appl. It still has a few bugs, and I hit two of them. It's a bit of a rude shock being on the blissfully ignorant clouds of convenience when errors hit to see the raw crude tax forms and the obscure language asking to correct things. They have an automated agent named "Tina" which was only half useful, and on some questions so far in left field to be worthless. ...thankfully the community of people off to the side has already hit the issues and posted work around... I guess there is a reward for procrastinating a little.

AUDIT-O-METER
A nice touch, the Turbotax also gives you a thermometer indicating how likely you are to get an audit, based on the risk of information you entered. Sadly I was in the red. I've never been audited so I'm not of course looking to get audited, but on the bright side with all the electronic records and scanned receipts (trusty digital camera...nothing every hits the pocket) and/or hanging out in the email boxes, it's not terribly difficult to find things by amount, and justify what I claimed, which I think is the entire point.

To celebrate Meta+E, and I went out to a new BBQ restaurant, to catch up. it was a great way to end the evening. Hope your tax day treats you well.

Comments: Add Your Own.

Subject:	Good Credit Bad Credit Billpay Paradise, Hell, Limbo, then back to Mortal
Time:	1:08 pm.

THE GOOD

I have almost all my bills paid electronically, using the good Bank Of America billpay service. It accepts ebills and responds to them in intelligent ways, like pay precise amounts a few days in advance, pay the entire balance, pay on a schedule (good if your trying to pay things down) and if amounts exceed a certain value (e.g. as a warning if people are spending on the card without authorization, or to keep from overdrafts).

Last few years, with the goal of firewalling my purchases and building a stellar credit reputation, I've been using the credit card for *everything* I can and paying it off in a reasonble time frame. About the only thing that doesn't go through this is rent (damn) and miscellaneous cash only purchases. This strategy has worked well racked up 42,000 points (MEMO to self see what I can do with that). Another strategy is every half year or so, calling into the banks to increasing the credit limits, lowering the rates, this is actually a partly defensive measure, in identity theft one of the things they do is apply for new credit cards, and start using them. With this approach there is no room for that form of exploitation.

The combo of these two approaches has given me a great credit score, which will make it easier to buy houses etc, should the need arise. While sometimes I will end up paying for a month of interest, it can repay itself by helping get lower morgage rates etc. (if buying a house by cash isn't an option.)

I live pretty frugally, so what's not immediately visible is most of the money being spent is actually product development and adsense advertising. The reason for this for me is a gamble that spending more upfront will generate results quicker. Products take some time, and marketing with adsense can take months of playing. If a product/company can be bootstrapped in 9-12 months, this can actually be 3%, far better terms than going the VC, Loan, Angel Route, with less reporting and setup overhead, and you build better credit. To the degree that credit is necessary, this is credit paradise! low costs, high utility.

THE BAD

After about 2 years of things working smoothly on autopilot, I stopped paying close attention. Since I was doing sweat equity at the startup, somethings began to build up. I took advantage of a 0% credit balance transfer offer to offload some of my advertising and product development costs from another card, caused a cascade failure.

The balance transfer, caused the monthly rate to exceed the autopay threshold...so no payments got made, which I didn't catch immediately, this is my fault for not paying attention.

This caused the bills to get paid 2 months in a row a few days past the due date, by only a few days...this is of course my fault.

This caused my low rate to jump to the default rate of 27.99%, on the entire balance, negating all the 0-3% offers...OUCH.

This is a shitty interest rate, especially if you have a relatively high balance.

THE UGLY

This limbo/hell is normally stuck in place for 6 months.. at 30%/yr x 6 months is an relatively obscene amount of money. Meaning that essentially even if paying a high amount per month trying to pay it off, the interest monster gobbles it all up.. none of that ever pays down the balance.

One strategy would be to balance transfer to other banks. Ironically I have plenty of credit for this, but ironically, the bank mergers over the last few years, have gobbled up all the other high balance cards I have! and balance transfer offers don't work inside the same bank. I was able to get a new card the standard 3% transfer, and 0% interest for like 1 year. But trick can only been done 1-2 times, before setting off alarm bells.

The other strategy are P2P Loans, like Prosper. But Prosper is currently shut down for new requests, and most the other similar sites want to get long loans, or have some up front fees, which ends up costing a bunch when my goal at that point was to pay it off as quickly as possible.

This put me at a dead end.

Normal people blow this kind of money all the time on frivolities, gadgets, houses and cars they probably can't afford etc. For an obssesive optimizer like me, It eats into the mind like acid. The cognitive loading is HUGE, like trying to solave rubicks cube with one part glued together.

This really hard to swallow if already tight for money with a pile of things on hold, similarly on a business level as to opportunity costs, e.g. put towards advertising, or product development.

THE GOOD.

Thankfully there are some options I didn't think of. First being a stubbornly self-sufficient, individual, it doesn't occur to me is asking friends and family. I'm lucky to have friends in a position to help, even if I don't take them up on it.

Secondly, the other option is calling up and negotiating with the credit card company. This also I didn't realize was an option, it was very easy about 10 minutes. Called the credit department (you need a senior representative), converse in the most pleasant manner, mentioning how long I'd been there, how I got into trouble, why I was spending what I was spending (for business). Funny enough she was also doing some affiliate marketing and this built up a bit of rapport. But thanks to having some negotiating room, I was able to knock the 6 months purgatory in 28% interest, down to 2, and the rate down past from 28% down to 12%. Not as good as 0-3% but much better than 28% and less interest+hassle than going the P2P loan route.

CONCLUSION

Have good friends.
Get good at negotiating.
Credit Cards can be an extremely viable strategy to bootstrapping a business, if your're careful.
Being in debt sucks (brainpower), but there are many far worse tiers of hell.

Update: Crazy with all the points that have accumulated I could get an Apple Touch

Comments: Add Your Own.

Subject:	Bailouts, Bailouts, Bailouts...
Time:	4:30 pm.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081108/ap_on_bi_ge/autos_what_happened

"Whatever the reasons, the Detroit Three are closer to collapse than ever, and likely won't make it without billions in government loans." [Auto Dealers ->looks to government->looks to you the taxpayer]

To me: We built too many houses, we built too many cars, we spent more than we had, and costs are going up pretty much at every level, consumer, state, federal. We ended up following the herd of money and ended up in a state of non-competitiveness. Some of this is just the bubble but some of it I do think reflects an irrevocable change. Another bailout, strikes me as as equally sane as getting a new credit card, as the other cards are tapped out, so that we can continue to spend without creating any value. Collective insanity is gleefully imagining that things can go back to the way they were, if *everybody* can just get one more credit card and join in the fun...until those cards are tapped out too.

For what though? I realize that oil prices have gone down, but do we really need an economy based on trucks and SUVs that most people really can't afford else they wouldn't depend on extensive credit to buy? if it's truly business critical, there are alternate ways to finance. I'm surrounded by small entrepreneurs who figure out ways to scale business though it takes time to do so. Fast forward, in 1 yr are Ford, GM, etc suddenly going to be globally or domestically competitive? or just going more of the same. In 5 years will something have changed? If I were a bank loaning billions I'd like to see a business plan that reflects current and projected markets instead of looking backwards.

It's fascinating to see the Auto Union, take some responsibility, taking over the pension, and agreed to match worldwide labor rates, some $30/hr lower. To me, Pensions and iconic institutions that last forever seem almost like utopian fiction. A mirror is also happening in the Airline industries, picking between consolidation or failure due to similar stresses. Many Airline's unions are also similarly bossy and parasitic IMO. I wonder how long before both industries are largely automated out of most the current labor. We already have UAV's and acrobatic helicopters that learn new tricks by watching videos, is flying a jet that much harder? We already have unmanned refineries, and many industrial robots, are the limitations to wider use in sensory, or manipulative, or IQ or just cost/benefit?

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Subject:	Night of the Election and Cookies.
Time:	11:16 pm.

Funny. I walked out for dinner a bit before 9pm. Streets were a ghost town, it's cold and windy, things creaking..it felt very much like Harry Potter 3 shortly after he inflated his Aunt and runs away. Restaurants were empty, the one I was looking forward too open late, shortly after I sat down was approached by the apologetic manager saying they were closing an hour early due to zero clientelle...I think I was the only customer in the 50-100 person place.

While I could have pressed my advantage and gotten a Tiramisu, I without batting an eyelash "said no problem!" got up and walked out, realizing I had no idea where I was going to go. Noticing the the Fast Food Mexican place (strange how these places rarely close early was still open walked in... uncharacteristically, the mexican Muzac was turned down and the TV was turned up, all the staff, chairs and customers oriented like sunflowers to the TV on the wall , oddly reminding me of most people's living rooms. On it was CNN with the election results, a cute dial showing percentage of blue vrs red, and a set so Red White and Blue to make you nauseous. Obama wins, lots of glowing faces reporting back and forth.

While munching on the veggie burrito. I wasn't really surprised, as I had predicted Obama would win. This is not to say that he was who I wanted to vote for. Part is living in Los Angeles, at least in the circles I (literally) walk in, it's very rare you see McCain support. Obama on the other hand has posters, T-shirts, businesses with window paintings(!!). My other intuitions were, between wars and the economy, and years of republicans, the tide was shifting to something else, for the sake of something else. I suspect that this is true for many of the younger votes which voted largely pro-democrat, they just want to make a difference. The other motivation was superficial, in the 30 second 'taste test'. Obama was a more compelling relaxed emotional speaker and had the better smile/face, if voters were women and he a playboy, it's clear who would be getting the 10's vrs the cougars.. To the degree that both parties had non-traditional elements to pull from less active voters..minorities vs. housewifes. Palin while an interesting gender counterpart to the Obama race card, was less credible as a world leading politician...The mayor of many cities in California have more people+problems than the governor of Alaska.

Walking home, was a different world, like somebody had turned on the switch 'cue people stage left'. A cacophony of cars driving around honking, people walking in crowds near bars in numbers normally reserved for Saturday night, enticing the cars. All festive expressions which doesn't even happen on most weekends.

Supposedly the network at UCLA is somewhat jammed with people sending election stuff around.

That said, while I enjoyed the sensation of hope... I didn't really feel jubilant. I largely view the two major political party as two sock puppets with the same masters, though a different spin. The president is just one man. The weak economy, the weakening dollar, the bankrupt social security and welfare programs, the ongoing expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the 10 trillion dollar and rising national debt, to solve each take very uncomfortable decisions that hurts somebody: raise taxes, cut spending, take the money on the war and spend it on more productive things. The severity of these are beyond a single term presidency, and hard to sell with major interests. In addition, I'm still disgusted with how blatant the omission or distortion of Ron Paul in the presidential race was, and how we got into this mess into the first place.

But at least there are chocolate chip cookies, fresh out of the oven. The world can't be all bad if there are still warm cookies is it?

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Subject:	If your not disgusted+scared+angry you're not paying attention...
Time:	1:24 pm.

Went to go see I.O.U.S.A. yesterday. I highly recommend seeing it. It's at the Fairfax Regency this week, among other locations. Great insights, Great presentation. All point to scary times ahead for America.

Some bullets
- "I would argue that the most serious threat to the United States is not someone hiding in a cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan but our own fiscal irresponsibility," David Walker
- $178,000 per American is owed to pay off the national debt today.
- by Jan 09, the national debt will be over 10 Trillion. $500 billion a year will be spent on interest payments alone.
- Here's a graph of current spending, even stopping the war in Iraq wouldn't put a dent in it.
- this is a doubling of what it was 10 years ago.
- great clip of Ron Paul berating Alan Greenspan, on what exactly he was (at the time) still at the Fed.
- a cute animation of Warren Buffet's Thriftville vrs Squanderville.
- American's generally don't save. Live from paycheck to paycheck.
- the baby boomers are retiring in droves and will do so for the next 20 years. Meaning a tidal shift from tax+social security contributor to benefit consumer. Since the government borrowed from Social Security to pay other things, that too is has to be paid as it goes...and it's a huge number.
- every body is generally living longer, and due to many factors the total cost of medical care in a lifetime is going up. People used to die once, now people will survive multiple major health incidences (cancer + heart attack). The end of life is exponentially more expensive. E.g. my grandmother was recently put into an assisted nursing care. $5K a week, contrast this with living in a nice double wide in a quiet farming town of wheatland, likely 5 months or more of living expenses.

Gas costs are increasing, trickling out to costs of food, supplies, alternative fuel sources are still IMO 1-2 decades away from being competitive. This is a worldwide issue.

Academic inflation, and the number of college graduates (india, and china) is causing academic inflation, what used to require a BA now requires a MA, the MA a PHD.

We still have roughly slightly better than medieval water consumption, and waste processing/recycling.

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Subject:	Geek: Houston we have touchdown!
Time:	11:27 pm.

Mmm Mars...
Sweet! Congrats to Nasa for keeping the dreams of space alive. Slowing a craft searing across the martian heavens at 12,000 mph ...down to 5mph only armed with an airhook, some tinfoil from a used jiffy pop, and some compressed farts..ignited.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080526/ap_on_sc/phoenix_mars

If you really want to get some depth, try staring at the stereo cam pics on this page crosseyed...but not to too long, else I will make fun of you.
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=437&cID=8

The Microsoft Tax
I just got through reinstalling Windows XP on my laptop... a task somewhat of equal herculean proportions when I am screaming through work at. I typically dread as it always costs several days, when I'd rather be developing.    But like traffic tickets, I consider this one of those mostly unavoidable semi-yearly technology tax, where a properly aged system, has acquired so many neuroticisms caught between the past system checkpoints and neverending updates, even a patient computer therapist like myself can't make it past all the convolutions.

Despite the CD saying it takes only an hour to install, it's taken 1 day to backup things safely, 1 day to reinstall windows, service packs, and get (latest) drivers working, and probably another week to get all the applications setup and configured (provided that another reinstall isn't necessary)    A perfect way to spend a Memorial Day weekend, given there aren't an pressing deliverables due tomorrow, and another multi-month haul is coming up as the company finally polishes up the rough spots and releases the product.

I keep forgetting the crispy freshness of a clean install, it's like it's been blessed and all it's sins absolved, and I no longer feel like BDSM Gumby trying to bend to conform to it's quirky demands.   Heh, gives a whole new spin to lap-top.

Since I'm 'upgrading', I've ordered 4GB of RAM (only $89 delivered!) so this pristine OS state can be run as a Virtual Machine via VMWare's nifty converter, which will make migrating off the windows platform easier.. or at least give me disposable OS images to use and abuse.   Makes me wonder though, how deep the virtualization/emulation rabbit hole will go.   Running MAME on windows, in an VMWare on yet another OS that in 15 years won't likely exist.

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