- That usually doesn’t work out too well in my experience.
- And it’s even more spooky to see it happening all over again.
- If the ant-in-front loops and intersects with its old trail, the whole crowd then turns in on itself and everybody gets caught in the endless circle.
Graffito spotted at Rainbow last night (yes, I know, I’m intentionally overlooking that second crossbar):
Today’s Grill brought to you by the Screaming Blue Messiahs:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=2-hDN-WHVu8%3Frel%3D0” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen>
2: H/t NM
Along the lines of your link that preceded it: House Cafeteria switches back to styrofoam containers.
Here’s an idea: everyone across the country should mail all of their used nonbiodegradeable petroleum-byproduct containers to Americans for Prosperity (link of course dead thanks to Anonymous. Thanks, Anonymous!).
How very Erick Erickson of you.
I always wondered why he didn’t insist that people use private mail carriers.
I don’t endorse the decision to switch back to styrofoam, but I really wish people would stop using scare quotes (TEH “styrene oligomer” ZOMG !!!111one) around chemical names.
Geithner needs to be fired
(Trouble is, he’d have to be fired by a different POTUS. I suspect that Obama is 99% with him. You go to recession with the administration you have, etc etc.)
Talk to me when the FREE KUSH graffiti starts proliferating.
nm hangs out at ACT waiting for FREE KUSHNER
Speaking of, what did you think batgirl?
Oh, yeah–I forgot to follow up. I really liked the play and I thought the acting was great. The only thing that seemed off to me was the suicide element of the plot. Suicide is such a loaded topic that it could be an entire play unto itself. It seemed so separate from the main theme that it struck me as being rather out of place. Particularly how they ended the play with the final scene of the son and mother. It probably jumped out because a friend that went with me is very sensitive to topics relating to suicide, so while I was watching it I was concerned that I had invited her to attend something that would upset her.
All in all, however, I quite liked it, so thank you for the recommendation. Actually, this weekend I was visiting some neighbors and we got to talking about when they purchased their home. They mentioned that they had copies of the sale documents over time and one of the documents from long ago had very specific racial language about who could and couldn’t buy the home.
Cool. I’m glad you liked it.
It’s a fair point about the suicide, but what I thought was interesting is how it kept the sellers from being seen as brave/progressive/etc. for selling to blacks. They just hated the neighborhood.
How long ago was the document? I know the big court cases were civil-rights-era, but maybe people had moved past that particular form of racism around here earlier.
I think they said it was from the 40’s, maybe?
That’s a neat thing to have access to.
It would have been an interesting development had the sellers actually been trying to break down barriers by selling to a black family. There was one moment where the mom was almost going there, but then she pulled back. I think something like that could have been more powerful than the suicide angle.
It would certainly be a different play, but this way felt uncommon because there wasn’t a crusading white person (which seems like something of a staple in integration plays)
After 2 innings in today’s game, Chris Carter is already a -5 fielder.
KUST RETURNS!
-10 now after letting that line drive go over his head. That he charged.
Thanks, and go As.
The author explains it at the very end of her article, but still, this headline seems wrong to me:
Vegan-Friendly Cheese Shop Opens in Oakland.
Right in my neighborhood, but those offerings are not too enticing…
That’s why I do it.
Also explains how, even in retirement, Moises Alou is still (um) #1 with the ladies.
And why MB played the organ pipe for the Proponents of Urine Therapy
RIP, Suze Rotolo
trololololo?
One of our customers just sent us a King Cake for Mardi Gras. It has the most awesome warning sticker on the plastic wrap: “CAUTION! plastic baby in cake!”
I ordered a Carole King cake but it was too late, baby.
I ordered a Donna Summer cake, but someone left it out in the rain.
I ordered a Rodney King cake … what a mess.
Can’t we all just get a … pie?
I ordered a Felix pie, and it was a wonderful, wonderful pie
I think I remember you talking about that cake-does it take a long time to cook? Do you have the recipe?
I want a Cake that stays up late.
I want a Cake that admits where they’re from, without holding back
I want a Cake that admits they’re from Sac.
Stockton, you mean?
huh?
Pavement was originally from Stockton. Cake was from Sacramento.
I was just making a Braden reference.
I want a Cake
with uninterrupted prosperitythat actually plays an encore even if they are playing to a half-empty gymnasium of college kids in the northeast.Nice.
I mean, science and engineering students aren’t the most *vocal* audience, but we weren’t actively rude or anything…
Ben Folds, on the other hand, knows how to have fun with an awkward situation:
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Ben Folds, from what I’ve heard from friends who have been backstage at a couple of his concerts, is a decent, down to earth cat.
John McCrea, on the other hand, from a large sample of personal experience from the Sacramento music scene in the 90’s, is a self-absorbed neurotic dickhead.
Both of those make sense given their public personas.
Rivers Cuomo is a nice guy but neurotic as all get-out. I met him a few times when he was going to Harvard.
Just bought tickets to see them in Santa Clara!
For anyone interested, the missus will be performing this Saturday at 10am on West Coast Live, and the following Thursday at 8pm at the Freight & Salvage.
You gonna be in attendance at the Saturday? We always hit the farmers market right around then.
Probably not since I’ll have Lily. Also it’s in Berkeley and not at the Ferry Building this week.
So, should I be discouraged that I’ve ricocheted back to the idea of grad school? I’ve already missed most deadlines, which means I’ve still got to search for a job in the meantime.
Something about teaching language at the college/university level is just too difficult for me to resist. I know I can’t make the buckets of money that I could make as an international banker, but I can’t kick the feeling that it’s what I need to do.
Huzzah!
I’d pursue the job you enjoy most because if you’re good at it, eventually you’ll make enough money. True, international bankers drive Ferraris and have mistresses all over the world…hmmm. I’m coming at it from the point of view of someone who fell into a career I didn’t like very much, but I stayed with it long enough that I couldn’t go back and start on the ground floor somewhere else. The last 6-8 years I said to myself every day, good grief I cannot wait until I’m financially able to put this in the rearview mirror, and when I felt I’d reached that point I was outta there and never looked back.
Friend of mine from college just retired. As in, retired-retired. He made his money being an evil corporate lawyer, set his goal, hit it, left.
That was certainly my philosophy about it in my last few working years. I’m not what you’d call super-wealthy but I have enough. The first part of my formula is unacceptable to most people: don’t get married and (especially) don’t have kids. Those factors will keep you working many extra years. The other part is not needing a lot of toys and other material possessions; find ways to be happy without spending much money. Outdoor activity around Tahoe as a featured activity is pretty much free except for some basics from REI (unless you’re a skier, which I’m not). As far as the spring training trip I’ll pack for tonight with departure tomorrow morning, I’m loading up the 15-year-old Toyota and heading for a Motel 6, because I get no utility out of anything more fancy than basic reliable transportation and a room with a bed, shower, sink and toilet.
Sink and toilet … well la-di-fking-da.
Hell, you’re RIGHT! The sink has a drain and Phoenix Muni has toilets for the other. Great money-saving idea! (Heads to Expedia, unchecks “Toilet” box.)
ASVD
Something about teaching language at the college/university level is just too difficult for me to resist.
Wait’ll you get a load of what a bunch of dumbFKs college kids are. I bet Gershman ends up in your class.
While there’s a (large) grain of truth that one should do what one loves for a living, making money is very good, too. Like all things, balance is important. I enjoyed doing fundamental research in the wild west of an academic lab, but the money was, frankly, horrible; it led to a lot of anxiety and uncertainty and doing the budget every year was a terribly depressing thing.
My new job is great, too, but I had to make a bit of a sacrifice in terms of how fundamental my research is – what I do now is somewhat constrained in that it needs to support programmatic efforts of the DOE and the lab on the whole. But the raise has made my home and day-to-day life considerably less stressful, too.
I’ve typed out and deleted about seven different responses. I want a job that places me around the language(s) I love and gives me the chance to serve other people. I know that leaves a lot of possibilities open, but I currently feel the best about this one. As capable a banker as I could be, I want something that will aid in my lifelong quest for knowledge and understanding of people and world cultures.
If you can teach Gershman any language at all your resulting book might win the Nobel.
Serious response:
You could also have both. The Bay Area always has a need for people who can translate between Japanese and English, and if you are a professor who can do that you’d probably be able to get pretty lucrative side jobs every now and again.
What sal said, plus more. Be very very careful that you don’t get yourself into a position that limits your opportunities (both for making more money and for doing other fun things). As in, don’t put all your chips on academic black. Talk to lots of people who are actually in the day-to-day grind of academia.
I myself realized that I was going to be just as miserable and frustrated in academia as in corporatia.
Just be sure that whatever path you choose opens up new opportunities. The most successful and happy academics I know actually bring a spirit of entrepreneurialism to their work — basically, through the shared joy and interest in their subject matter, they find people willing to pay them modest-to-obscene amounts of money for consulting. Which I think you’d be able to do very well.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that about myself.
I think the main thing is, you need to really love either teaching or your research (or both) – and not just the idea of teaching or research, but the actual day-to-day doing of it.
Conversely, for all the misery and frustration in academia (primarily the kafka-esque bureaucracies) there are the times of a kind of intellectual euphoria – being the first person in the world to see the Big Bang, for instance – that I cannot imagine existing in comparable ways in corporatia.
It happens – it just depends on what floats your boat. I remember when my friend in private industry called me to say that he had just created the largest thin film of a particular variety (it was all kinds of pretty colors). He sounded like he had just won the lottery. For most people, that would do nothing. For others…y’know, it depends.
I think that you’re right about boat floating.
There are lots of parts of my job that I find exciting (winning, essentially, but in decisions, negotiations, client seeking, etc.) whereas lots of others hate big firms and flee as quickly as they can find a different job.
I meant to say, largest in the world.
A few random thoughts:
1 – It’s a very important decision – so by all means ponder on it with ruthless internal candor. Also, recognize that you are nearly certain to change career directions several times during your working life. So approach it humbly, too, and recognize that the economy is evolving faster than our abilities to predict where it’s going. It’s all fixable – hell, I got a chance to completely switch gears at 59 (that it didn’t- work-out is beside the point. I now have another chance at 60).
2 – Do listen to your values. That said, try to test-out your impressions of careers that have a service component, to make sure they are as they seem. The traditional Academia example is instructively not about teaching — brutal politics and shrinking opportunities. But if you can somehow get involved in the transformation of hide-bound Academia, I’m guessing you could be kept busy forever.
3 — Recognize that material success is rarely free. There’s a reason The Faustian Bargain resonates with every generation — and it’s not just because MB played devil’s advocate with them in college. I used to think I wanted to be a VP of DuPont, until I saw a few of them tested.
4 – Sometime in the last 50 years, I think the scale tipped away from being an employee toward being an independent operator/entrepreneur. There’s no security greater than the strength of an independently valuable, constantly updated skill set.
5 — Involving yourself in a “young†field is important – I went to work for a petrochemical company in the 1970s – past its prime as an industry.
6 – if I understand your situation a little, you’re in a position to act in ways that bridge the gaps betw “west†and “east.†I am guessing that there will be a huge number of opportunities to “add value†all over that gap. That said, 30 years ago it was ALL “Japan Inc.â€, and China was only a-borning as a market power. Next thirty years will be radically different.
7 – I think what you will want to have achieved by the end of your working career is satisfaction and contentment. Emerson was right about (most things, including) the purpose of living.
Thanks, everybody, for your input. There’s a lot for me to think about, and obviously money is not the least of my concerns. Like I said, I’m going to be searching for a job anyway, because I wouldn’t be able to get into most graduate programs for a year. It’s entirely possible that I’ll find a job that fits my needs and pays well enough to support my family, causing me to reevaluate the decision to go back to school.
I feel good about going back to school, regardless of the fact that I’m 30 years old and have a family that needs to be fed. It’s not that I feel good about economic uncertainty, or even that I’m against working in corporatia–I mainly want a career that can take advantage of my skill set. I know it sounds strange, but I just get a good feeling about applying for grad school.
Oh, one more thing to consider: if your job is good/important enough (and you’re a skilled enough salesman), you might be able to convince your employer to pay for your degree.
I’ve considered that option as well–though it’s likely it’d be a bit more business oriented (MBA, etc.) in that case (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing).
I wonder what Matsui’s translator pulls down?
… from the Internet?
Never underestimate the power of “getting a good feeling” about something. In my experience, those have been the only times I was right — when I felt right, never when I thought I was right.
I’m reading Plastic Fantastic right now, which a great read and should be mandatory for all young scientists. What’s wild is that I am second-order connected to many of the concerned and/or duped scientists who are featured in the book (ie I don’t know them but I have friends who subsequently worked for them, colleagues who collaborated with them, etc). All these scientists that I admire and respect were duped by a pathological people-pleaser. Incredible.
It was a four-eyed, now-scorned, pathologic people-pleaser …
A real SF DFH would reference this song.
Data control and IBM
Science is mankind’s brother
It’s like they’re singing salb’s thoughts.
also: BoCro
Stiglich: Geren has taken the bunting green light away from Barton. Also, Josh Outman’s wearing # 88.
Hunh. I wonder if they steal FSU’s water/cistern gag.
Nimble A’s Manager
NimblyNumbly Responds To ProblemsI fixed your typo.
Did St. Louis hire the A’s medical team? I mean seriously…
The public is even more liberal than me…
(I would favor #3, in the everything-on-the-table/temporary-crisis sense)
Atta-boy Huston.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=BZ85vH-VGEM” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen>
Cute. Though “when the game is on the line” is a hair that doesn’t need splitting when it comes to the wave. I liked the Lucky Couple one too.
They could have blown number one on the list, but they didn’t (andeux bait).
Have I mentioned that I was there? Yes, several times? Well, I was there.
All Buffalonians Are The Same, Chapter XXVII
That is so awesome. My dad bought me the commemorative sweatshirt, which I wore with pride.