Month: August 2007

It arrived in my inbox today.

Hi Matt,

[My company] has an opening for a tier 3 Unix System Administrator. Not sure if you’re looking for a move to the Southern California area, but I think you’d be a great fit. I’ve included the job description below. I look forward to hearing from you!

Simple. To the point. I’m not really looking for a move to Southern California. But the name of the company stuck out to me. I won’t disclose it publicly, but I will say that it is a major player in an industry in which I have a great interest. It’s one of only a handful of companies about which I’ve said, “Yeah. If they approached me, I’d be really interested in leaving this really comfortable, stable, good-paying job with Ultra-Mega-Corp as long as the salary was compelling and the benefits were reasonable.”

The job is doing what I do well: UNIX system administration. They went so far as to ask for code samples by tomorrow night at 6:00 PM, which is a big clue-in that someone in their recruiting chain knows what they are doing. That’s exciting, because few things about a job suck more than having a boss who doesn’t appreciate what you do.

I also hear it’s a fantastic place to work.

The HUGE downside? Southern California. Yeah, I know a handful of people who live there. I used to live there myself, once upon a time about thirteen years ago. I have a bit of a phobia about earthquakes as a result, since I was there during the 1991 Northridge earthquake. This experience, and the lack of power, clean water, food, and laundry facilities for an extended period of time afterward gave me a deep and abiding dislike of living in urban areas subject to routine natural disasters.

Additionally, my wife and I listed a few places we didn’t want to live when we were married. Tops on the list? Utah. Yep, the place we live now and have lived for over a decade. Well, if we’re going to be given a hand-crafted definition of “irony” by the Almighty, why not cover #2? Yep, that’s right, California. After visiting Northern California, I revised my earlier personal promise that I wasn’t interested in living in CA because, really, Northern CA is almost nothing like Southern CA. People live there. There is an ocean relatively nearby. There the similarity ends.

Also on our list were the backwaters of Alabama, New York City (a fellow at work misses living in New York so much, he says, that he urinates in his swamp cooler to remind himself of home), and several war-torn Third World countries. I now fully expect to, at some point, entertain the notions of living in Beulah AL, the Bronx, and Baghdad before I die.

I did the math, too. Wow. My mortgage costs me $940 a month. Including everything. If I wanted to live in a similar home with a similar commute near the major city in which these offices are located, my mortgage would be more like $3500 a month. Yeah, that means I would have to net more than a $30,000 raise just to pay for my home! Of course, there are other options I could entertain, like telecommuting part-time, working alternative schedules, and other options which would be cheaper for them and cheaper for me, but involve some modest inconvenience to both my family and the company.

So, although it’s a fantastic opportunity, I’m not optimistic about their desire to pay me what I’d need to make in order to maintain my standard of living. Also the lack of a real support system — people I know in the area — would make things difficult for a while until we became established. But on the other hand, it’s for a company with a great name, apparently great benefits, doing very well financially, and doing what I love to do.

Ahh, decisions, decisions. Regardless, I look forward to the opportunity to interview, discuss, and haggle over benefits. Who knows? Even if it doesn’t turn out, the worst I’ve lost is a day or two in sunny California talking about extraordinarily interesting things with people doing what they love.

I plopped down in my usual chair in the bedroom and fired up the computer right after work, ready to do some blogging and catch up on some email. Christy walked in.

“I just got off the phone with your mother,” she said.

“Oh, how are things? I think she likes you more than me, you know,” I replied with a wide smile.

“She does,” Christy replied candidly. “But she and your stepfather saw the doctor today. The news is not good.”

My smile faded a little.

I had been expecting this for quite a while. The fact is, my stepfather’s cancer was of a type and severity which results in around a 75% to 85% mortality rate in short order. Expecting it, however, is not the same thing as talking about it.

“What did the doc say?” I asked.

“That the chemotherapy is having no effect. Without a substantial reduction in size, the cancer is inoperable. And that perhaps they should start traveling and doing the things they always wanted to do together.”

“Oh. That sucks.”

Points for originality and safety in a prom dress:

So this past Sunday, August 26, 2007, I sat down after my wife and children headed off to their church and decided to watch what had been on television on some random cable channel that morning when the family was watching. It looked like a nature program, talking about life in the oceans. I was watching half-heartedly, computer in my lap while I was typing up another entry, when I heard a word that made my ears perk up and my heart sink:

“Darwinism.”

Now, for those not in the know, this is a special word. It’s special because only one group of people tend to use it: Creationist Christians*, and generally only in one sense. It is a pejorative, carrying with it implications of ignorance, idolatry, and cultism. In this case, they placed the blame for the massacres of the modern age — including the Holocaust — squarely at the feet of these “Darwinists”.

So I paid a bit closer attention. I mean, apparently I’m part of an elite league of mass-murderers. I should probably take notes for the day when I finally grow up and carry out my own personal genocide.

Hot on the heels of the D-word, a few moments later I heard another interviewee use the “E-word”: “Evolutionists”. Yep, like “Darwinists”, this word carries negative connotations, and implies blind devotion to an ideal without regard for consequences. It is also a word almost exclusively used as a pejorative by Creationists. These evil evolutionists are defined by what they believe rather than the color of their skin, I guess.

The film did a good job of making people think those Evolutionists and Darwinists are really, really bad people. I mean, I couldn’t be one of those awful people. I hadn’t shot down a child’s hopes for an education that day. Nor had I shoved a Molotov cocktail down the windpipe of a resident Creationist and lit it on fire. In fact, I didn’t even get my ritual textbook-censoring finished that morning. I hadn’t forced Jesus out of my child’s elementary school with my own Cat-o-nine-tails, or beaten mention of the word “God” out of the vocabulary of a public school teacher.

I guess that makes me remiss in fulfilling my duties as a faithful member of the “Darwinism” church. I didn’t park a twenty-ton rock inscribed with Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit in the main hall of my local courthouse. I haven’t fulfilled my quota of burned Bibles today, nor have I paid my bribes to my local police officers to pull people over for having fish with IXOYE on their bumpers.

There is another word used for people who think Darwin’s ground-breaking work was good science, but, of course, flawed. These people may have their own personal beliefs about God, but they think that these beliefs have no place in a public school science class. They acknowledge when they are proven wrong, but generally aren’t swayed on their opinion about facts by PR campaigns and evangelical television specials.

The word for these people?

“Scientists.”

What does it take for someone to be a scientist? Rigorous dedication to thorough research and supportable conclusions in published papers comes to mind. Every child learns the Scientific Method in school. According to Wikipedia, the “Scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena and acquiring new knowledge.” This is key: it’s a method of investigation and acquiring new knowledge.

If it can’t be used as a method of investigation for acquiring new empirical knowledge, it’s not science. End of line. If you aren’t willing to — or can’t — be proven wrong, what you are promoting isn’t science.

But not to the people I saw on television. They seemed convinced there was a radical conspiracy to outlaw Intelligent Design (ID) from public schools. They pushed the view that the “secularists,” “Darwinists,” and “Evolutionists” are in positions of power, forcing evolution on unsuspecting children and denying ID proponents their rights.

The video tried to cast Creationism as the victim of a massive government ploy to rob children of their Christian heritage. They kept insisting that schools need to teach “both sides” of the issue. This phrase was repeated over and over again, like a mantra of righteous indignation. “Both sides,” with the word “sides” emphasized sometimes, and the word “both” emphasized in others.

Big clue for the makers of this video: there is no “both sides”. There is good science. There is disputed science. And there is bad science. There is a range of gray across the whole spectrum. “Both sides” sounds as if these Creationsts want fact taught together with fiction, melded into a whimsical whole fraught with pseudo-science, superstition, and a small dose of truth to keep the naysayers in line.

If you wanted to cover all sides of the issue — since there are far more creation myths than just the Christian one — then do so. Somewhere other than Science class, because at that point it’s not science anymore. If Intelligent Design is “science”, it is very bad science. The hypotheses are untestable and unprovable from the evidence. It’s not a method of investigation or acquiring new knowledge. It is an intellectual dead-end, a giving-up on hope for answers in favor of farcical well-wishing.

Now, I’m absolutely in favor of educating children on the issues. Let’s hear about the intelligent design vs. evolution “debate” — decidedly one-sided, since there is little debate in the scientific community about whether evolution happened, just how it happened — in classrooms. Let’s teach that there are two opposing positions in the US political arena, and a far different situation abroad. Let’s get children involved in debating one another about some of these questions, with a focus on having them learn to support their arguments regardless of whether they personally agree with the position or not.

Let’s talk about that in debate class. Or politics class. Or perhaps American History. Science class is for instruction in facts, not an unsupportable hypothesis like “my god did it.”

Evolution is no mere hypothesis. It’s a theory, tested and repeatedly proven for over a hundred years. What form exact changes take is hotly contested, and there are worlds of research available in the field to understand how these changes happen. Debate about specifics in the scientific community is a sign of a healthy community. You’ll see these in abundance. It does not indicate that there is any dispute about the basic fact of evolution underlying so many useful, life-saving science advances.

The Luddites who produced this video are no better than flat-earthers, trying to carry humanity back to a more primitive, violent age by blaming the Holocaust on evolution. They are doing a disservice to their country, their God, and their fellow citizens by advocating hate for science, and I will oppose this type of anti-facts disinformation campaign whenever I see it.

(Side note: I’d like to buy a copy of their video so that I can write a fuller critique, since I only saw part of it. However, on their page they say to make a donation of “any amount” to get the video. While I’m not opposed to exchanging money for goods, I am opposed to making a “donation” to a cause which I vehemently oppose. Should I just donate a dollar and cost them money to send me the video?)

( *Creationists don’t like to be called Dominionists or Christianists for similar reasons.)

About a year ago, I got an invitation to join a little site called LinkedIn. The somewhat laughable purpose for this site was to let everybody link to everybody else they know, make recommendations, and publish profiles about themselves.

You know. A MySpace for the un-hip crowd who is far more interested in job contacts than posting videos of their latest tattoo.

Well, anyway, it turns out it’s far larger than I ever thought. In the past year, it’s actually gotten downright huge. So far, the only person from this site on there other than me is Tim Clarke.

(EDIT by matthew: I should have said, “So far, the only person from this site who has linked to me is Tim Clarke.” That’s a situation which, as of the time of this edit, had changed, too!)

My thought is, this site is likely to be a godsend for people looking for work. I’m gainfully employed, and have been for over three years, but still, when the day comes that I leave (voluntarily or involuntarily), my first stop is probably going to be with former classmates and co-workers via LinkedIn.

Yeah, yeah, so it’s an endorsement. Still a nifty tool.

My link is: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/3/683/8aa

I’ve left off at least one embarassing job 🙂 How about you?

Short one today.. I’m sitting here at work – I work a job with 24 hour staffing.

Why can I blog? Because the person supposed to relieve me is taking their sweet time.

The shift replacing me is supposed to be here at 6:45. I then give a report to the oncoming person, and I’m done by 7:15.

My replacement comes in every day at 6:55. Gets a cup of coffee.. and doesn’t begin report until 7.

Now.. I only have to deal with her a couple times a month.. (A staff of 10 comes in to replace a staff of 8) – but I cringe when I see its going to be her.

You ever deal with this?

Simply put, if you’re reading this.. Click HERE and it will open up a new window that will play “Presidentialized”, the second cut off my album, “THREE”.

Please, please, with fluffy bunnies just click away HERE! (do it lots!), because my number of plays determines my ranking on the chart, which could get me noticed by The Powers That Be (With respects to Cordelia Chase).

CLCIK HERE!

I don’t often troll for help – but this one is easy! There’s more really cool news.. click “READ MORE”!

Hey.. its shameless whoring.. but we gotta do what we gotta do. CLCIK HERE!

OKAY! I’ll stop.

So.. in OTHER news.. Track 5 “Gethsemane” is now #1 on Songvault’s Hip-Hop/ Rap radio showcase.. check Author TimpanePosted on August 24, 2007February 1, 20264 Comments on Help me get BACK on the Radio!

What?!!

See, it occurred to me that over the years, we’ve debated a lot of points regarding religion and faith.. but I’m still really not sure what everyone really thinks. We debate the finer points but never really say where we stand.. so I found myself wondering.

Here’s my track… Episcopal -> Catholic -> Right Wing Protestant Evangelical -> Centrist Protestant Christian

Which is to say that I started episcopal, became a catholic when I learned the history of the episcopal church (and cuz my Dad was one), rejected that based on theological problems (and un-christian priests), jumped the fence to being a young Jerry Falwell and have settled down into a centrist Christian faith.

Right now I believe in the teachings and deity of jesus Christ as defined by the Bible, but subscribe to no particular denomination (I’m kind of anti-religion).

This came up as I was talking to an ex-baptist atheist tonight and brought up this site, our discussions, and some of the journeys we’ve been on. I’m curious as to where YOU are.

OK, I realize I’ll get some argument from other people with wilder jobs, but this wins my personal award for the craziest job ever.

(Safe for work, soundtrack which is entirely skip-able.)

I know we have a few Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans out there, so I bring you: The Many Names of David Ryder.

“Big McLargeHuge”, “Crunch ButtSteak”, and “Smoke Manmuscle” made me laugh out loud…