Drama for the sake of drama

I'm currently working a temporary job with the Registrar of Voters. It seems that no matter where I look in this job, I see nothing but drama. We have drama queens we work with, drama queens who are on the periphery of where we work, and then outright drama for the sake of drama. What I mean by this last part is that we have situations that have been created just to be dramatic.

Example: We don't know how much we get paid. Or when. Or by whom. The one place that one would assume we get paid by indicates that we're supposed to be paid by the university. The university says that it's not this department in the university but this other one. That other department says it's not that department but actually the Registrar of Voters. So, we're told to continue working, because obviously we'll be paid. By someone. Sometime. For some amount of money.

In these bureaucratic environments, this guy doesn't like this other guy who doesn't like this other guy. One other person likes this other person, but doesn't like this other person because he or she is friends with yet another person. This person has a certain amount of information about pay, but he or she doesn't want to reveal it because that would mean revealing "important" information. It's like playing Poker with Machiavelli and M.C. Escher in Section 31 of Kafka's castle.

Stumble It!

Windows to the past and other worlds

When I was a little kid, my grandfather used to take me to the local outdoor mall, and he would point at strangers (to me) and say "Look, Duane, that's the mayor. Go say hello to him." And little Duane would wander up to the mayor of the city and say hi. He would do this with all sorts of different people, as I think he believed it was the way to get little Duane to get used to talking to strangers.

Anyway, fast forward a few years. Okay, a lot of years. And I find myself doing the same sort of thing still to this day. Today was a good example. I tend to like to eat my breakfast/lunch (not brunch) at some of the fast food places around town so I tend to go to the same places all the time. Some months back, I wrote of my encounter with a presidential candidate who I ran into at Carls Jr. Okay, he's a perpetual candidate and has run for president since the 1970s, but my understanding is that no one else has ever actually landed an interview with him. Well, two hours later, I found myself unable to end the interview, but I digress....

Today, I was in McDonalds when an older man decided to talk to me and tell me all about the past. Let's call him Frank. Well, Frank was 81 years old, and he had lots of stories to tell. And I found myself fascinated, listening to stories of an era that I knew mainly from books and whatever other medium might have given me some type of stilted insight. We talked for several hours (mainly him talking and me listening), and I found myself filled with lots of data I had never experienced before. When I finally went home, I felt like I actually gained knowledge I probably would never have had before that conversation started.

Well, this is kind of what I wanted to talk about today. People today just don't seem interested in doing that sort of listening. I've had lots of conversations and observations of conversations with people these days and all people want to do is talk. They don't listen. Or they pretend to listen. But what they're really doing when they're listening is trying to figure out what they're going to say next, and then they're looking for an opening where they can interject with whatever it is they have to say. That's not conversing. Yet, way too often, that's all we seem to be doing anymore.

Debate is like this. Sure, you have to listen to the other side, but ONLY so you can counter whatever the other side has to say. But that's debate. It shouldn't be that way in the real world as well. But it is.

Ever watch a news show where people are talking back and forth? How often does both sides of that conversation come away with something new? Or do they end up finishing the conversation with a mediator stating something like: "Well, this is a great debate, but we have to switch to Holly for weather now"? The very foundation of this country was built upon the idea that deliberation is what drives us forward. If we don't deliberate, then how do we actually make decisions? Well, a lot of those decisions these days are political (a bunch of people you agree with overrule a bunch of people you don't agree with...conversation really doesn't take place).

I'd argue that we are moving into a subsequent generation that no longer cares what anyone else has to say. We all know better than everyone else, so why waste our time? Why listen to some 81 year old guy about lots of inspirational things that came from another era when we can chalk it up to yet another story by some guy who doesn't know as much as we know? I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with people who claim to argue along the lines of "well, I can't explain why this is, but it just is."

Is there a way to fix this? Yeah, I think there is, but we're all too busy with our own opinions to take the time to think differently, so what's the use anyway?

Stumble It!

Scientists prove that scientists really need girlfriends

I'm sure everyone remembers the infamous, age old question asked by such philosophers as Socrates and Machiavelli: "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop?" Well, as for the Tootsie roll center question, Purdue did an experiment utilizing a "licking machine" they invented to simulate the human tongue, and they discovered it took an average of 364 licks to get to the center of a tootsie pop. Using human subjects, the study determined it took an average of 252 licks. Not willing to let Purdue be the "decider", Michigan State then conducted its own experiment and determined that their customized licking machine took 411 licks to get to the center. What does all of this evidence tell us? Scientists at Purdue and Michigan State really need to get girlfriends.

So, I'm kind of at a crossroads of what to be more concerned about. That these institutions took a great deal of resources to answer this "age old" question, or that they both invented "licking machines" to do so.

Stumble It!

A new batch of query letters sent out

After finishing my thesis proposal, I decided to devote today to sending out my next batch of query letters to agents for The Ameriad and Absent Without Leave, two of my novels. It's always so much work getting these things together, but after a few hours of mundane work, it's all done and ready to send off in the mail.

Figure I'm going to have to start focusing on writing the thesis now. Fortunately, I already have a pretty good idea of what I need to do in order to complete that.

Stumble It!

Both dem candidates are going out of their way to lose my vote...religion this time

One of the things I've generally liked about the Democrats is that they don't make a huge focus on religion, like the conservative party does non stop. It's one of the reasons the Republicans finally pissed me off. I don't want to hear about Jesus anymore during an election. I really don't. I'll hear about him if I decide to go to Church, but I want him out of my politics.

Now, it appears that both Democrats aren't satisfied with the fact that Americans have distanced themselves away from Republicans. They want to erase the lines between Democrats and Republicans by focusing on religion. See here. Well, I'll make you a deal, Democrats. If you want to bring religion back to the party, I'll vote Republican because honestly, they do it a lot better than you ever can.

Stumble It!

General Petraeus and his many medals

I guess as a veteran I was kind of put off by the number of medals awarded to a general who only saw "combat" for the first time five years ago. He has nine rows of medals on his uniform. I saw quite a bit of combat during my time in the service, and my uniform only had four rows, and most of them were combat-connected.

This is one of the problems with our service these days. They give out medals for showing up, brushing your teeth, organizing a file drawer, building a campfire and whatever. I notice he has a bronze star; I've received that one, too. I'm curious what action he conducted in a war where he was a general that constituted that particular medal. The rest of those medals are essentially "thank you for showing up" awards.

Stumble It!

A few pics

The AFA national tournament is over, and I'm home now. Here are few pictures that I took recently, including a new one of me.

The picture of the statue is one I orchestrated with Emily and Anne to "protest" one of the founders of Texas for his patriarchal ways.

Stumble It!

It's been said that in divorce a husband can often give up half of all that he owns

Well, it appears a farmer in Serbia did just that.

BELGRADE, Serbia - A Serb farmer used a grinding machine to cut in half his farm tools and machines to comply with a court ruling that he must share all his property with his ex-wife, local media reported on Thursday. For more, go here.

Some people take things WAY too seriously.

Stumble It!

Ever have one of those weeks you just wish you would have stayed in bed

Not only stay in bed, but blockade the doorway, turn off all electricity and disappear from the rest of the world? Yeah, that's kind of how my week has been.

As I already pointed out, I spent a few days in Wyoming and put on a teaching demonstration that I really felt went really well. And yesterday, I found out I didn't get the job. It was between me and one other person. And I lost to that other person.

But I was given a bit of a branch to hold onto because I was told through a friend who spoke to the person who makes such decisions that I was going to be granted an interview with Sacramento City. I was kind of expecting that because they actually approached me and asked me to fill out an application. Received a notice today from them stating: "Thanks for applying but you pretty much didn't make the cut." I can't even get an interview from a school that asked me to apply. How's that for self-confidence?

Another school I've been told to apply to by that school hasn't contacted me at all. I'm starting to suspect it's going to be the same as Sacramento. Another school that I'm being told to apply to is making it really difficult to apply to because nowhere on their site can I actually find their application that has to be part of the "application packet". All of their links are internal links, meaning you have to already be a part of that administration before you can actually apply for a job within that administration. I'm sure there's some simple way to do it, but I, for the life of me, can't figure it out.

I'm starting to run out of money, and I don't have anything lined up for work. It's already starting to feel like this is going to be a repeat of last summer (one of my worst ever), except this time I don't actually have a goal to look forward to in the fall (like school). I've been applying for numerous jobs, and much like last year, I can't even seem to get a response.

No, I'm not really happy about my prospects right now, and I'm slowly moving back to my "plan" I had before summer ended last year. I really don't intend to go through another summer like that again.

Stumble It!

I didn't get Wyoming

They gave the position to the other person in the running for it. So, it didn't go to me.

Stumble It!

Awarded 2nd place from Stockton Arts Commission for Fiction

My short story, "Simple Girl" won the second place prize from the Stockton Arts Commission. Last year, I won the first place prize for "Buried Memories". "Simple Girl" is the story of a young woman who is constantly referred to as "simple" by the rest of the town where she lives, whereas in the end it is realized that it is her simplicity that manages to set her apart from everyone else. "Buried Memories" was about a man reliving the events of why his wife has finally forgiven him for what appears to have been an affair, told backwards in time, until you discover she has forgiven her memory of him, having watched him die twenty years ago.

Stumble It!