Death of a blog?

April 8th is coming.
APRIL EIGHTH IS COMING!

Well, Windows XP will cease to have support from Microsoft in THREE WEEKS, which means that my PC, HAL II, will either need to be tossed, upgraded, converted, or taken offline.

I'm leaning towards the last option. I am an internet junky and could use the break from the distractions of being online 24/7 due to broadband.

Since I have other options to get my online fix via my son's laptop and the family tablet, I am not about to conform to what ever is the MS CEO's expectations with regard to my XP PC.

HAL Sr. was Windows 98 and died sometime after HAL II's arrival. In the end, I only loved HAL for his Rat Poker that I never found elsewhere. I just realized that my pinky healed!

HAL II is getting to be rather slow. I get plugin fails all the time I have multiple tabs open. I moved everything file-wise off of the hard drive on to an external drive just in case HAL II decided to die like he almost did when I was doing the Search Engine Evaluating for Leapforce. He hasn't been the same since January 2012.

I'd been thinking about building a a new PC back when I came across a book at Half Price Books, but the process wasn't free, so I put the matter on hold.

I don't want a new 'puter, for I really only use it for Internet and budget analysis. So I shall probably just take out my wi-fi adapter and use HAL II as a wordprocessor that can do spreadsheets. I have a few programs on HAL II that could be utilized since I'll have all the free time.

One day I imagine J and I will get smart phones, so I'll be able to Tweet and such then, but until then I'll probably go cold turkey.

Meanwhile, I won't be following sports or hunting for non-existent jobs as much.

I may become a better father in the process.

I definitely will be less confused by how asinine one of my senator's endeavors are. Dude tweets stuff he's supporting in the senate, and I find he must think he's pandering to idiots when I read the details. First he was about raising minimum wage while ignoring his own state's minimum wage is higher than that he was slamming, thus making a dubious argument that doesn't represent his actual constitutes. Now he wants to expand EITC to include more adults without children, saying it helps children.

Being trained to be a librarian is a mixed bag. Jobs are few and far between (and don't pay great considering the master's degree needed), while I have research and critical thinking skills that allow me to pursue details of stories beyond the candy coating fluff and get to the poison core to avoid the pitfall of utter surprise when the excrement hits the air conditioning.

Parallels

There are things beyond my control that will frustrate me until I am able to accept such circumstances and worry about things I can control.
I believe that the Serenity Prayer is a re-occurring theme in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. It's been years since I read the book, but I remember the prayer being written on a locket dangling in the cleavage of the B-movie star. Pictures/drawings makes such images easier to recall, and KV had a way with crude drawings. I didn't know there was such thing as such a prayer until an alcoholic told me that the prayer was said during AA meetings. This makes sense since K's uncle supposedly founded an AA chapter, and K was always intrigued by the artificial extended family element that AA created.
Anyways, given the nature of the Serenity Prayer, one must wonder how much free will is one allowed to fret.
I can pick my friends, but I cannot pick my family.
I can pick my degree of education, but I can't force someone to hire me.
I am frustrated that I cannot get work, so I pursue things outside my typical field in addition to expanding my geographic search. I still meet the same result of going no where, which suggests that I'm still doing the same thing and expecting different results. I'm doing a number of things differently, so I'm thinking I need to scrap everything I've worked towards and start over.
The reality is that I'm not comfortable starting over. I've a skill set and degree that already makes me overqualified for most entry level positions, and I've been passed over because employers don't want to hire someone that will up and leave for greener pastures at first opportunity.
When I was an infant, my mom quit her teaching job. I am not sure of the reasons, but I take it that she wasn't comfortable with childcare arrangements. She never got another full time teaching position until I was in college. She always tried to get another job even while I was a toddler, but the best she could do was be a long term sub. Not sure why, especially considering she was a special ed teacher, but we lived on a single income for the most part when you consider my father is a teacher as well.We could have moved to another job market, but my dad didn't want to lose his seniority.
I don't want to be like my parents and willfully inflicting harm upon my children out of selfishness of being determined to work within my field without moving.

What's the point of college football?

The whole Paterno matter at Penn State begs the question, why is college football so sacred?

Covering up CHILD RAPE is accessory to CHILD RAPE, as far as I'm concerned.

Jerry Sandusky is a monster, just based on the accounts that we know occurred, but I would be shocked if there weren't more victims we will never hear mentioned now that the scum is set to rot in prison.

Joe Paterno surely knew something about Jerry Sandusky being a creap back in 1998, as was indicated earlier today. An argument could be made that JoePa didn't think that those relationships were "rape-rape," but only a Penn Stater would make such claim, right?

"Penn State" sounded like a prison moniker to me when I was a kid. Sounded fake. I didn't know what a "nittany lion" was until I googled it moments ago. Sounds fake.

Anyways, the point of all of the covering up of Jerry Sandusky by the legendary College Football Coach was to protect the good name of the program?

It is a state school. What did the cover-up teach us?

It taught us that football is more important than children to some very sick individuals.

Shame on you! They were children, and football is just a game.*

*Games don't matter, for they are merely to pass time without having to deal with the mundane of daily life.

I like football, but I don't say "we" with reference to the teams I follow. My college roommate used to say "we" all the time with regards to John Cooper's Buckeyes. I know about football being sacred for said roommate was the "Crazy Bearded Guy" that added an extra quarter before graduating to be able to get another season of student tickets.

I haven't talked to that roommate since 12/27/03 when we were at the reception of another roommate's wedding here in Dayton. He could be dead, I've not seen him on Facebook or Twitter, hence I mention him here, for the person he knew me as is no more.

An actual Jobs Bill

So I have a blog, I technically produce content to share with whomever stumbles upon my random commentary on simplicity of life and the happiness found within it.

I live in Ohio, so I am a target of unsolicited political calls, mail, email, radio ads, television ads, and web ads. I cannot avoid a national election, let alone a statewide election.

This election is being framed as a popularity contest as they normally are, but I've never been much about hype. I look at the issues that concern me and think of the long term goals of the candidates.

I always pick the lesser of two evils.

What are the issues that effect me most?

Only one is on my mind, for I'm unemployed. I've had a hard time keeping a job after being laid-off a couple times. My industry was never outsourced to a third world country, but the funding essentially was hijacked by the same sort of  circumstances that made sending jobs overseas practical from business standpoint.

"Loopholes" are blamed for outsourcing.

Is it a "loophole" that Amazon does not have to charge local taxes when it ships merchandise across state lines?  Yes, they deliberately look for tax loopholes and monitor threats to them. Supposedly, the sales tax loophole will end this year, but I haven't seen much about congress fixing the problem of late.

I haven't heard anyone bash Jeff Bezos in a while, but I hear about nameless Wall Street types or anything related to Wal-Mart. 

Amazon is worse than Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart supposedly destroyed small businesses, but Amazon went further and took revenue away which paid for Police Officers, Fire Fighters, and School Teachers.

If Commerce Law was implemented to make the market place fair for bricks and mortar storefronts vs virtual entities, then a lot of the tax funding problems we see will be addressed.

More funding for local governments directly related to consumption would been seamless since the price differences aren't going to jump for local merchants, while online retailers can find other ways to squeeze their profits to offset shipping costs. People will still buy stuff if it saves them time.

Seems too simple, but more local sales, means more salespeople needed locally. More people working locally along with more local sales means more tax revenue. More tax revenue means more funding for public entities, which allows for more employees which can buy more things beyond sustenance levels. Another benefit is that there is less need for the generation of tax revenue from other avenues.

Destroying Amazon's loophole will benefit all. Amazon will survive because people like Amazon for reasons beyond the sales tax aspect..

News coverage from major networks chooses to ignore these facts because they are sponsored by CORPORATIONS that exploit these tax laws and their viewers in kind purchase online to avoid taxes.

FACEBOOK FREEFALL CONTINUES...

What exactly made anyone think that Facebook stock would be a good buy?

• Was it the free games?
• Was it the free means to keep in touch with old flames just in case your marriage got irreconcilable?
• Was it the success of Myspace?

Seriously, it makes money on advertising and selling its users' information for market research. What else does it sell?

I only saw Obama For America ads blanket the site of late, and people aren't fond of their info being used for marketing. Maybe I'm missing something since I only see Facebook as a fad, but something must be wrong in Menlo Park, right?

What's driving people to use it? 

• Cyberstalking? 
• Farmville?
• Chat features that AOL used LAST CENTURY?

 I don't know, since there are plenty of sites out there that do things better than Facebook does, which makes Facebook seem to be a fad. Myspace was better for blogging and sharing music, if I remember correctly, but it turned ghetto once everyone caught on to its existence. Now it's a punchline: Facebook is for people you know. Twitter is for people you wish you knew. Myspace is for people you wish you didn't know.

Facebook simply peaked prior to its IPO, so it had no where to go, but down unless it bought up/merged with Yahoo and Microsoft to compete against Google.

Mergers don't exactly work all the time as AOL/Timer-Warner clearly indicated.

The IPO made sense for Facebook, because it needed capital to grow/develop beyond its current rut.

• It costs a lot to run servers to allow up to 900 million users access to their online Facebook content.
• Facebook has a number of issues with hackers, so they have to prevent outside parties from invading their servers. 

Off course, I'm just saying what is on my mind regarding the subject, so who am I to say it was a bad buy or not? All I remember about first learning about stock is from looking at the daily paper as a kid. I liked Coke and McDonalds, but the stocks never did a whole lot from my vantage point since they were big and established companies that stayed about the same + or - a few cents. They mostly went down day to day when I looked, so I figured just because I liked their products that I didn't need to own a piece of the company.

Stock Market needs to be taught in basic high school education. People need to understand how corporations are developed and structured. Some people assume things about the market since they see how successful people get rich quick and young, so they relate the markets to playing the lotto or outright thievery. They get involved for the wrong reasons, and nothing good comes of their endeavor..

Life is a guessing game

One thing about having freewill is that nothing is completely predictable.
Supposedly we are born as the result of someone's choosing to have a child. We don't get to pick our birth arrangements, so the upbringing is up to chance. No two childhoods are the same it seems since there are so many variables from family size, education, income, social class, and geographic location to name a few.
We grow up learning what we like and don't like. We try to obtain the things we desire, and we pursue the things that interest us. Variables dictate a lot of things but for the most part the true factors are individualized.

No one made me go to college. I had nothing better to do that was reasonable. My parents both had degrees, and my brother went to school.
I wanted to be something in the mold of a wanderer, like a daydream out of Salinger's most famous work. I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do for a living. I just wanted to write nonsense and watch people. A buddy of mine was in South America when I was finishing high school, so I had an opportunity to do the Butch Cassidy thing and run away from almost everyone that knew me.
Starting fresh with a new life was so appealing, but I chickened out. Being newly out of high school is when you go to college. Sure you can flunk out but if you don't go when you are young and dumb, then the odds are that you won't make the effort down the road when you have adult obligations.

Going to college is expressway to adulthood for sheltered people. No one made me wake up in the morning or to go to bed at night. No one forced me to eat. No one forced me to go to church.
I had to open a checking account since carrying cash was stupid and debit cards didn't exist. I remember having temp checks that no one wanted to accept like no one wanted to accept my American Express Travelers Cheques when I was photo ID-less in Merida, Mexico.
I remember being offered credit cards every time I walked to class. My first credit card was to Sears and I had never shopped at Sears. My phone rang while I was trying to sleep(it was finals week), and I said, "Sure, I live at 1978 Cannon Drive..." to get them to stop interrupting my sleep. Never used the card, so I closed it five years later when I realized I had 20 credit cards that I never used.

No one made me choose a major. I chose what seemed to be best suited for my skills but changed my mind when I decided that I didn't want to kill people as a result of my indifferent about my work. I changed my path until I saw a major that made sense, so I punted for grad school. Any degree was needed for grad school, so I pursued the easiest thing I could, English literature. Being able to write and read is something anyone with a pulse can due well enough to pass. Seriously, if you can't BS, the you have no business living.

Long story short, I made a lot of decisions that seem trivial, but in the grand scheme of things, they paved the way for my current state of happiness. Nothing is perfect for there's so much to do still, but having a wonderful family and home is something I don't take for granted. Jobs come and go. I have faith that what will be, will be. In the meantime, I work on the things I can control like tiling my kitchen floor.

Critical thinking

When I declared my major, the first official class was Critical Writing.
In hindsight, I don't recall being critical, but I remember writing on novels, plays, poetry, and essays. I wrote a few papers, and I was glad to turn them in and to be done with them until I could resubmit for an improved grade.
English was my weakest subject in high school. It wasn't a competitive subject, so I didn't really try as hard.
I never felt the need to read a book outside of school until I was 15. I liked various comic books, but I was never into them like the fan boys you see on  Big Bang Theory. It was mostly in response to collecting the Marvel Universe cards or to the Tim Burton Batman movies. I liked Frank Castle and The Caped Crusader the most for they didn't have superpowers and had a cool costumes. Dolph Lundgren and George Clooney ruined the characters as far as I was concerned.
I ceased following such things until X-Men and Spider-Man came out when I was an adult, but I never bought the books. Collecting was over-rated and over-priced. Like all good things, Marvel movies ruined  themselves with over-hyped titles.
Comic book heroes are different than when i was a kid. Story lines mean nothing. Watching Batman: The Brave and the Bold has introduced me to characters from DC I never knew existed. Seriously, I didn't know there were three different Flashes. Doesn't matter, I guess with them being fantasy, but there's something inherently wrong with George Lucas re-inventing the Star Wars Trilogy by digitally enhancing thus destroying my childhood memories.
I learned in English 273 that Star Wars was technically a Western. As a child, it was simply a story that was cool, but as an adult, I could think of it critically. Over thinking a movie based on nothing is another way to kill one's childhood memories.
When is too young to develop critical thinking?
Regardless of thinking critically or not, I have no interest in seeing The Avengers. I never got into Iron Man, the Hulk, Cap'n America, or Thor, but I wouldn't mind seeing the Marvel Zombies made into a movie.

Education needs to change

Not sure how it happened, but I read while back Brian Crosby's book: Smart Kids, Bad Schools. Being the son of elementary teachers, I have prejudices about the profession. Interesting read, particularly when you consider that teaching used to be one of the few acceptable professions for women to enter without being harassed as being in the workplace. An argument can be made that we don't value teachers' work because their pay is so low, for their work should be rewarded with $100K salaries. If the profession in America was originally dominated by men, wouldn't you think that the positions would pay more? Instead, the low wages have forced a lot of the best and brightest away from the profession, while enticing those attracted by the prospect of summers and weekends off along with a state pension upon early retirement.