Ode to Unemployment

I was on the bus yesterday coming home from Austin. And I started thinking, how would I write a poem about being unemployed. This was the result.

William Tell watched the stars
and in them he found peace.

"My life is in shambles,"
he told me one bright morning.
He had recently lost his wife
to divorce and his job
to India.

We sat on a park bench
sipping coffee from paper cups
with paper sleeves
with plastic lids.

"I feel disposable," he said.
He was unshaven, unkempt.

"I laid here last night," he told me.
"I laid here on this bench
and watched the stars
and went to sleep."

Busy, Busy, Busy

I've never been as busy as when I don't have a job. More specifically, I'm busier this time around because I've been trying to do more networking and make sure that I know the right people to help me get a job in this economy.

I do want to write more to my blog, and I'll try to but you'll probably want to check in with Mia's blog to get more updates on our family for the time being.

Not Again

As Mia and I have already discussed, twice only makes a coincidence. (Three times makes a pattern and we're really hoping not to find that out.)

What am I talking about? Why, moving to a new place and losing my job.

When we moved to Boston, I got a job at a PR agency and was laid off after 9 months.

When we moved to Austin, I got a job at a Marketing agency and was laid off after 6 months.

We've also very clearly decided that I'm never going to work in an agency-style setting again. Too many differences between agency culture and how I work. It's not a good fit and when I try... well, like I said, we're not going to find out if it's a pattern.

Thanks to everyone who's already been so supportive. We really appreciate everything that people have done for us so far. It's been very uplifting for us to know that we have a support network of friends and family even in this stressful and discouraging time.

Mia's been talking about movies we like. 

So, I thought I'd comment on a TV show that we're also enjoying.

Legend of the Seeker

It's based on a series of Fantasy books by Terry Goodkind, The Sword of Truth series. 

For a television series it's got good sets, great landscape shots, and decent actors.

We like the four main chacters.

Richard -- The seeker

Zedd -- The old man wizard

Kahlan -- The confessor (and love interest)

Kahlan's Bee-Ohh-Ohh-Bee-S -- A big part of every scene she's in

(I didn't want to get indexed for weird search terms)

Slumdog Millionaire Review

I have trouble when I review things that I give too much away.  I don't want to do that with Slumdog Millionaire but I do want to give my thoughts on it.

First, if you watch this movie and don't find it to be emotionally moving then you are dead inside.

It's a love story, a coming-of-age story, and a commentary on the poverty in the countries like India. The movie unfolds in a mostly linear fashion (regarding the flashbacks) but weaves in many non-linear elements that very much enhance the technique. 

The main character, Jamal, was a boy is one of the best precocious children I've seen in a movie.

I'm really struggling not to give too much away. So I'll have to keep this short and tell you to go watch this movie. Seriously, go now. Right now. I'll wait.

Slumdog Millionaire - Thoughts

Mia and I finally got the chance to see Slumdog Millionaire. (Thanks to Mom and Monica for letting us get a night out.)

The scenes of the extreme poverty in India was very sobering. Especially in America that kind of poverty is practically unimaginable. While they use real shots of Mumbai and India, it's seems more like a movie set. Like some scenery they built for the backstory they were creating. 

It's practically unimaginable that people could live in those conditions and still find any happiness. 

I served my mission in the Philippines. I witnessed first-hand this kind of extreme poverty. I was invited into homes bamboo walls and corregated aluminum rooves. I watched children, wearing ragged t-shirts and shorts, playing games with their flip-flops (tsinillas). I served people who would sometimes have only rice and salt to eat.

And yet, I can't even really understand what that life must be like. But I can understand how, even under the worst conditions, they manage to find happiness. 

I wish that I could explain it to you.

Customized

Inspired by Mia's changes at the bottom of her posts, I've just updated what my posts say in the footer. Enjoy.

Make-Believe Math

I'm reading a book that I got for Christmas called "An Imaginary Tale: The Story of the (SQRT)-1".

Let's just say that it's not exactly light reading.  But, it is fascinating and it's exercising parts of my brain that have too long lain dormant. My last calculus class was the one that I enrolled in after returning from my mission (10 years ago). My schedule had the wrong classroom on it, so for the first 3 days I showed up to an empty classroom.

Finally someone wrote on the board in that room where the class was actually being held. I walked in late on the 4th day to a full classroom. The professor was mid-lecture talking about "rotating this curve around the axis and determining the volume" and it was at that point that I knew it was a lost cause. (Amazingly, I still remember that moment and what he was talking about.) I asked him after class what he would recommend for a returned missionary who needed to catch-up on Calculus before actually taking his class (which was the second-half of the pair of basic Calc classes).

His recommendation was to basically re-do all the problems from the textbook from the first-half semester of Calculus. As I am now in marketing, you can guess that did not happen.

But that is not to say that I am Math-averse like so many of my colleagues. I simply realized where a wall would be for me and moved in a different direction.

Part of what makes this book a difficult read for someone who doesn't use this kind of math on a daily basis is that he includes lots of equations but jumps past significant chunks of calculations as he progresses through them towards the solution that fits with the point he's making in the text. I'm finding myself struggling through figuring out what happened in-between two steps. Most engineers or mathematicians can probably take those steps for granted, as he does.  I'm hopeful that as I continue reading, I'll at least be able to see how the calculations are being done a little more quickly.

As a final note, to anyone else that picks this up, I would encourage you to skip the Prologue. It's entirely technical but without context. So unless you are intimately familiar with complex and imaginary numbers, it's not going to make much sense. (I nearly gave up on the book, then decided to just give up on the Prologue).

An example of this is on the second page, where he asserts that "every good high-school math student knows how to prove (SQRT)2 is irrational, but that doesn't mean it's now just a ho-hum demonstration." Um... I don't know how to prove that's irrational. I didn't even remember what an irrational number was when I read that bit. So, like I said, start with Chapter 1 if you pick this book up.

Oh, also, you'll want to keep a calculator handy. (How often do you hear that? At least for the books I read, not very often at all.)

Saints and Soldiers

I was just browsing the Hulu.com movie selection and found that they have Saints and Soldiers. If you haven't seen this movie, it's well worth watching. 

A very interesting story about a group of soldiers in WWII that gets caught behind German lines. One of the soldiers is a Mormon who served his mission in Germany before the war started. 

I can't recommend this movie highly enough. If you are still reading this post, go watch it now.

2009

Well, another year closer to death.

Happy New Year everyone!