Trolls Live Under the Bridges

This is our bridge, the Richland Ave bridge over San Jose Ave (which becomes Guerrero St a few hundred yards up). It is a nice bridge and I think it looks cool. However, there is more here than the eye can see. Notice the area between the hillside and the bridge abutment? Trolls live there. I'm serious. Real-life honest-to-goodness, trolls.

Here is a slightly better shot of the space to which I am referring. They don't exactly extract a toll from crossers, but there is an unusually high rate of car vandalisation and break-ins on the bridge. I had both of my locks messed with, the driver's side no longer works ($200 to fix), you often see broken windows and glass in the parking areas, and even Liz's old school 1984 Accord was broken into (they didn't get anything but left the door open and the battery went dead).

One hole in the fence means a troll infestation on the order of dozens. Liz has counted between 10 and 20 people going in and out of this space under the bridge during a typical day. During the nights you can hear them yell and shout and scream, sometimes they will throw glass bottles down into the abutment for 5 or 10 minutes creating quite a racket. The sounds that echo up from these spaces makes me think of how it will sound when civilization comes apart at the seams. But who knows...

What do they do under here? Drugs? Sex? A little of both? You can see in this picture that they have made a bit of a nest under there for themselves. The other day we saw a perfectly normal looking red head skulking around our Troll hole. What did she need? She kept darting up and down from below. Was she waiting for her dealer, her hookup, a hookup, to hookup, or what?

Are they just poor sad homeless people who need some shelter from the wind and fog? I have spoken to a couple of them, typical immigrants from Mexico or Central America, down on their luck. I truly feel for these poor folks, but that doesn't change the facts, they are our very own, modern day- Trolls.

Ray's First Show

Great job Ray!

The Desolation Crew

Brian in true form.

Liz soaking up the last rays.

Anne reading on a split rock.

Desolation Wilderness

This weekend I went away with Liz, Brian and Anne to do some backpacking in Desolation Wilderness. This was my second time going, but it was just as beautiful as I remember. Here's what the hike looked/felt like. I will be posting some pictures later.

Another Photo Published

Today I got a nice little treat, one of my pictures made it on the SFist blog seen here. Always nice to be appreciated by others. Sorry I haven't been posting as often here, but I've been busy with life!

New Job!

I have managed to secure a new job at a new company with new pay and new skills to learn. I am sad to leave my co-workers, as I've always enjoyed their company. I've enjoyed working with all of them and will miss the laughs. However, I am very excited about this new prospect as my previous job didn't seem to have much in the way of a future if I stuck with it for too long, especially as I have said before, at the pay scale they were offering. The problem can be explained by the following:

When I was interviewing with one of the higher ups he said something very interesting to me, there are two teirs in any industry; Technician and Technologist. You want to be the Technologist. I was worried that I would get stuck at Technician. The problem is that there is a barrier between the Technicians and the Technologist. For starters, there must always be more Technicians than Technologists. This means that the Technicans must be paid much less than the Technologists or else the business model won't work. Also, you can only move up through when a Technologist leaves their position. Now, I don't know if you noticed, but the stock market crashed, which means that people's retirement investments crashed, which means they are going to be working for longer than ever before as they need to make up the difference. This coupled with the fact that people are living longer and healthier lives means upward mobility for the rest of us is squashed, not to mention that older people tend to say, "Well that's how we've always done it." I would say I am now at the upper reaches of the Technican status, but I am that much closer to breaking through the veil.

The great thing is that I accomplished my two goals with this company. I wanted to get into the high tech world and get a feel for the industry and key players, and I wanted to develop my network of people to help me find a new job. I can honestly say that these goals were accomplished. This allows me to walk away with my head held high.

Penelope Trunk - Brazen Careerist Blog

Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist Blog is one of the best to which I am currently subscribing. She is insightful and willing to take on the uncomfortable issues like how much oral sex different demographics receive, and today she's pointing her finger at overpaid doctors. 

I also found these two articles (End of the Glass Ceiling, Forget a Wage Gap) discussing gender equality to be very enlightening. These in conjunction with this article about the Gender Gaps that still exist. She has a very interesting take on how to view the problem, rather than starting with the assumption that there even is a problem. I don't know that I 100% agree with her, but I am happy that someone (especially an intelligent lady) is discussing our assumptions about the issue, and questioning what the true definition of equality really means. Do you really want to have the same life as men have had? As I posted before, it doesn't mean happiness. 

Finally, I wanted to link to her discussion of how to politely wiggle around the interview question, "How much do you want to be paid?" I made two (among many) rookie mistakes when getting my current job, I answered this question, and I didn't come back with a counter offer. When you are out there looking for you next employment, always make sure that they give you the number first, and that you always come back with a counter. The first is important because you can only undercut your value by giving them a number (because if you are high, then you might not get the job, and if you are low then you are selling yourself short). The second is important because what's the worst they can say to a counter offer? No. I just know that some of you are/will be looking for jobs, and I HIGHLY recommend that you read this post before you go into the interview.

Thank you Penelope for an excellent blog, I will be reading avidly. 

Mom is a Graduate

A couple of weekends ago, my Mom at age 55, became a college graduate, the first in her family. I am very proud of her achievement, and know how hard it was for her on many levels. She graduated valedictorian with a 3.96 GPA from Marygrove College in Detroit with a BSW (Bachelors in Social Work). I would like to take a minute to reflect on some of the hurdles that my Mom had to overcome to arrive a such a wonderful achievement this spring. 

She grew up in Auburn Hills Michigan in the farm country which was in the process of developing into the suburbs of Detroit. Fairly classic white flight region, she was the daughter of a WWII vet who came home to work for a construction firm doing bids and various other tasks. The family had its problems with the typically rambunctious kids getting the attention while my Mom just tried to keep her head down and stay out of trouble. She was the classic "good one" and manged to keep her nose out of drugs, sex, and all the other things that can so easily de-rail the teenager life. 

The problem was with society. You have this obviously intelligent girl who has a bright future, but no one to tell her that she could and should achieve the stars. In fact my Mom has told me a story about her high school guidance councillor, whom we all know can be rather hit or miss. My Mom wanted to become a teacher when she was in high school, and said as much to her councillor. The councillor (among others) basically told her, why? All you need to do is marry a rich man and you will be all set. Look out for that diamond ring, pop out a baby and go from there. It is so sad to think about how different my Mom's (and my own) life would be if that person had said something encouraging. I probably wouldn't even be alive...

My Mom has always harped on getting a proper education. I can't tell you how many young girls my Mom grilled about getting into college and getting some kind of a degree. I think that she always felt partially powerless about her employment situation, and didn't want other girls to go through the same trials and tribulations. I can remember time and again when girl-friends would come over to my place, they would always get an ear full from my Mom about graduating from high school and going on to college. She always painted it as a non-option, rather, something that you JUST DO!

Now, after a marriage, having two kids, losing one of them tragically to a drowning, a divorce, raising her niece through the trials of puberty, a re-marriage, getting her son through college, some financial distress, and the pressure of being an older student- she has done it! She has put her money where her mouth is and snagged that degree from the sky. 

I am so proud of her, I can hardly stand it. Here is to you Mom, I hope this boosts you to a profession that you have always wanted- to be a teacher. 

PS

She has been accepted at the University of Michigan School of Social Work for the 2010 Class. UofM has a great program (ranked 2nd according to this site). She's been pretty snarky about it being "HER" school, but I'd just like to point out who went first!  =P take that mom!

The Traps Are Set - We Told You So!

I was listening to Tom Ashbrook's Week in the News from last week and the guests were talking about the recent face-off between President Obama and former Vice President Dick "Dark Side" Cheney. One commenter pointed out that the Republicans, specifically Dick, have set up a very interesting trap for President Obama. They are claiming that by ending the torture of the detainees at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, Obama and the Dems are risking the lives of American citizens by increasing the probability of another terrorist attack. This way, in the event that we get attacked, they can point their fingers and say, "HAHAHAAaa we told you so!" 

The other interesting part of the Republicans defense of their tactics and methods for "Making America Safe" is that we were never attacked again after 911. I have never found this to be a compelling argument because they are using a non-event as proof, which is simply ridiculous child logic. Let's see what else I can come up with using this same logic. How about, I've smoked every day, and I haven't died yet, so clearly cigarettes aren't lethal. Or what about, I've had unprotected sex my whole life and I haven't gotten an STD, clearly STDs are something made up by the media. Try on this one, we've been burning fossil fuels for hundreds of years with no consequences, clearly this does nothing to the environm-oh wait.

Finally, I'd like to point out that Dick is putting himself on the same side of the fence as the terrorists by making this argument. He is setting Obama up for a fall in hopes that something horrible like another attack will occur so that he can point his finger and say, Told ya so!

PS

I'd like to point to Ann Coulter's book Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism and ask her, who are the treasonous ones now? Personally, all I see is a bunch of hardcore right wingers rooting for the bad guys to come and blow us all up so that they can dance around the flames singing, We told you, we told you, we told you, hahahaa! (The image is from the Ghostbusters movie.)

The Rise of Women and Fall of Their Happiness

Many of you have heard me talk about this, here is an article describing an interesting statistic. According to some polls women's reported happiness has fallen over the last 30 years despite rising rates of salary, education, graduation, employment out of the home, etc. On the flip side, over the same period, men have grown happier. What gives? Any theories?