It's Sunday Morning

A long labor day weekend, and I am getting used to the idea that there is nothing pressing. Mass is in a couple of hours and I am drinking coffee and trying to restart a diary. In other words, SSDD.

The war between faith and reason is ongoing in my head. Faith seems to tell me that there is a greater scheme to the whole shebang than just the crap that goes on in the world. Reason tells me that this may well be the whole shebang. Pascal's Wager is a great place to start. In a nutshell it says that if there is a God, believing in him will provide infinite gain upon your death. If you do not believe in him, then it will provide pain upon your death. If there is no god, who cares? With those premises, it makes no sense whatsoever to not believe in God.

What is the hardest thing about the faith is the ritual that attaches itself to faith. At what point does the appearance of morality intersect with the content of morality. Does showing up in church on Sunday really have an effect upon your mortal soul, or is it merely a way to keep people focused. Does the wager on god allow the key to heaven, or does a holy life led without thoughts of God lead to hell?

What the hell do you say?

I am always amazed at the attitudes of some people. I caught TC and the gang in 3 or 4 major screw ups today. The end point is that is it our fault because no one knows if their job will be there, so why should they expend a great deal of effort doing things correctly.

I tried to point out the very obvious fallacy of their argument, that if they don't bust their ass and do things correctly, they will most certainly be out of a job. But when things are on a power slide, people really don't want to hear it.

So the mailaise has reached its grubby little self across the Pacific Ocean and made a beach head here in the PRC. SO WHAT ELSE IS NEWS. It seems to me that these folks have been waiting for so long for any elite to get squashed that they cannot raise any enthusiasm for the possibility that you might be able to pull it off.

In a world where the winners are vastly outnumbered by the losers (read: the PRC) the losers don't want to give shit when they don't have to. To be honest, it would appear that they kinda hope we can fail because misery loves company.

I still say that this place will cause us to fail. Not that we had all that great a chance in the first place, but by popping on our "stupid-greedy" hats the way we did, it is just a matter of time. I do hope that it takes a while though, the money is good and the savings need to grow.

Walked to work today, 5.5km of a pretty nice walk. I think that I have to make an effort to walk to work in the USA too. An hour isn't that big of a deal.


Crops on the way to work

Pathos in the Traders Lounge

The saddest thing about staying in the Shangri-La chain is the businessmen that constitute the bulk of their clientele.


The view from my watering hole in Sodom

I usually just hang out in my corner and read the paper. These guys come in in their starched, buttoned down grandeur and glare at me for not really being in uniform. They talk of sales and marketing, never realizing that they don't really make anything, they just hawk someone else's wares.

I am beginning to feel the deep-seated loathing of the Bourgeoisie. I am comfortable with the workers, I like the technocrats, I can even live with academics, but the grasping, self-important, greed driven marketing trash need to go up against the wall.

Gettin' into B-town

My god, things can be seen here in Beijing. Wind came through today and blew the crap out of the air for a little while.

Went into work today and polished off the submission to the SFDA. I sure isn't as good as I like it, but it is better than the piece of crap example that was handed to us (and that was approved).

I still say that we are going to get shaken down for bribes. It will be done subtly, but luckily we have a partner who is not answerable to Sarbanes-Oxley.

Today is up to Huairou and get that started back up. Should be interesting

Just Don't Want to Go.

I am sitting downstairs and writing while the boys are in Saturday morning rapture in front of the television.

But the other side of the issue is that I have to pack today to leave tomorrow and the idea of getting on a piece of crap airbus and go to the God-forsaken PRC just about makes me sick. But you have to make hay while the sun shines. The bank account gets bigger and the cushion will last longer the longer I keep working at the shit job I currently hold.

I always find is surprising that the money doesn't mean that much to me. I guess that I have always seen "success" as a thing not really of worth. What constitutes success in this life does not translate in overall success. The best analogy I can think of is that if you strive for success in this life and achieve it, it usually means that you are very far advanced down a wrong path. It is just going to take you longer to get back to the true.

But the world exists. Boys have to be fed and bills have to be paid. That being said, I think that there has to be a better way of doing it.

I just haven't figured out where that way is.

Just another day of Corporate Malaise

When you get a call from the CFO of your company for being wasteful and spending $5,000 on the critical components of a test you are manufacturing you start to question things. When the CFO whines about "not being made of money" makes the issue even more worrisome. When you try to brighten up his day by saying that the CEO is out drumming up money and his grumpy response is "I'll believe it when I see the money in the bank". It is time to work on the old resume.

Endgame is interesting. You can recover from perilous positions by brilliant play, but usually perilous positions leave you on the wrong side of the endgame. If you haven't yet established a reputation for brilliant play, things look even stranger.

I just spoke with the CFO again, and when he says that making sure the liability insurance is paid is a higher priority than payroll, you realize that things are truly strange indeed.

The Lord of the Rings

Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings is a hell of a valiant try at making into a movie one of the great works of
fantasy literature (some would argue, the only great work of fantasy literature). But the sad part about the effort
is how, no matter the effort and quality thaqt go into the job, it still must fall desperately short of the scope and
power of its parent.

Movies are entertainment. They make the movement into disbelief easy and streamlined, but they can never
lend the power of literature to an issue. By cheapening the entrez to the world that is being described, they force
the viewer out of the loop of imagination, thus weakening the strength of the experience. The movie is the
director’s sole vision. The book is cooperation between the reader and the author.

But the movie is good. But it will always stand in the shadows of what the book can offer. For all of the skill
and talent that went into it’s creation, it will never be anything other than a stunted parody of the book that it
was wrenched from.

Coup de Main

Most interesting is the way that I handle impossible tasks. I guess that if I were a great employee, sucking up for the extra corporate spread, I would be freaked out, on edge, and frantic because I won't be able to fill the needs of my corporate masters.

Instead, I am actually kind of relieved. Since the task I am given is stupidly planned and impossible, that means that I can do a nine-to-five. If I am going to fail anyway, why get too worked up about it.

So I am hanging out with the boys. I'm going to watch football and have some fun. I'm going to read and relax and plan my life after the coup de main that will terminate my employment and begin the next pahase of my life.

It's all how you look at it. Life is good.

Jeremiad

I cannot shake the thought that the cold times are coming. The feeling of malaise now doesn’t seem to want to
leave. I cannot say that I am depressed as I am about as happy as I have ever been, but the sense of foreboding
around me just seems to deepen.
More and more I am thinking that there is a reckoning coming. Not just for my pathetic excuse of a job or my
less than excessive lifestyle, but for the society that I swim in. There does not seem to be any sense of
accountability, spin rules all. But the reckoning will be a spasm, and the really hard part will be to weather the
storm and wait until things settle down.
The real issue is that there is no concept of restraint. The zeitgeist is that there can be no constraints on the
individual. But this allows too much room for the flawed vessels that make up our race to move in. We consume
and consume, unwilling to take less or to save because there is no future, only the infinite now. We rationalize
the things we buy as necessities, somehow different from the self-serving opulence of the past. But it is all the
same, subtle differentiations of class and power designed to make those around you aware of your status.
When we come to the reckoning, we will be in a crisis, because all that we have built is a reaction to the past.
We are the new puritans, creating a set of oh-so-carefully crafted mores and enforcing them with a puritan’s
zeal. But there are no roots to what we have created. We threw out the baby with the bathwater. So the past can
provide us no guide to find our way out of the morass, and the sad set of rules we have created will not be up to
the task.
So we use up our finite resources because we don’t know what else to do. We spend energy extravagantly to
fuel our mobility and freedom and our drive for the cult of the self, and by doing so shackle the future to less.

New Orleans

The hurricane that hit New Orleans is threatening to expose again the sad inability of this country to do anything particularly well.

We argue incessantly about who is “responsible” for destruction in New Orleans. The Republicans seethe about the requirement that government help out, because then they have to admit a role for government that cannot be better subsumed by the forces of the market.

Democrats whine about the misery, taking time out from their shopping trips and spa visits to sanctimoniously mouth “there but for the ……” except that they are incapable of mouthing the G word. They fret about the inability of the government to relieve the misery, not thinking for a moment that the task will be Herculean and will not lend itself well to quick fixes. The main goal of the Democrats is to make political hay, pointing out the flaws of the Administration’s response, but never actually offering any concrete suggestions on how to improve.

Neither side really wishes to talk about the truth to the populace. The truth of the matter is the world is changing. We have a spoiled and needy populace that demands every assurance that nothing will ever happen to them. People go and build cities below sea level and are surprised by a capricious nature that slams into them.

The Republicans are biting their lips desperately wishing to say that rewards follow decisions, but the political outcry from truth would be too great. Democrats wish to convince people that, if only they were in charge, the pain and suffering would be lessened or even prevented.

In the wings, waiting patiently, is the cruel and heartless nature. A living planet that rips and tears, bloody of tooth and claw, that does not see us as the owners of the planet, but as squatters in its realm. When nature acts, mankind had best get out of the way, and pray, pray, pray.

We will probably repair the harm to New Orleans. We have an incredibly stupid habit of rebuilding in flood plains (usually with Federal money). But when we do this, I think that it would behoove us to remember the walls of Ninevah.

Things fall, and sometimes they just aren’t worth rebuilding.

Katrina

There seems to be more natural disaster lately. Either there is a surplus of reporting, of people living in harms way, or there is actually an increase.

I don’t have a problem with too many people living in stupid places. Mr. Darwin will solve this for us. The trick here is to keep federal money from going down the rebuilding hole. But this has been such a time-honored tradition in the past that I kinda doubt that anything will stop the federal funding of stupidity anytime soon.

The reporting of whiny bad news is also no real problem. This is just a way for the media to stir up advertising dollars. People love to wallow in other people’s misery. I think that it makes them feel better. The media is fully employed, the liberals reporting on the human misery and the inability of the government to make things better “NOW”. The conservatives will complain of the rampart lawlessness and shout how the unjust are being smitten for the stupidity and general unworthiness.

The real problem would be if the actual rate of natural disasters is actually on the increase. Despite the morons in the administration, there is a phenomenon occurring and it may not be good.

Been a While

It's not that I really have a life, some sometimes I appear to approach having one. The weather is fall fabulous, so staying outside is preferred. But working at a desk job does seem to preclude this. So for the last week or so I have been taking Isaac to football practice and exercising while he goes through the drills.

Overall I have been sleeping better, and I think that I feel better, though I am fuzzy when I wake up. But this might just be an aftermath of jetlag.

So tomorrow is Isaac's first game. This should be interesting.

Today I decided to help out a team up in Canada try to test monkey poop for SIV. Apparently they are trying to discover the range of infection of SIV in the wild and in bushmeat. Sounds like science and I want to try doing something more fun than doing spreadsheets.

The Return of Fall

It looks as though summer is over. The first brown leaves are out and school begins in two weeks. Lisa is takingthe boys to Oaks Park for a night out and I actually get to stay home and relax for a second. Of course I am now thinking that I have to accomplish something, but..naw, I guess that I don't.

Blue skies and sunshine are pretty easy to get used to. The temp right now is about 68 and it is gorgeous....time to go out for a walk as soon as the boys get here.

Another work day of sad understaffed goals. I don't kow how to tell the chief moron that his plan is doomed for dismal failure. You don't hire a couple of good engineers and say that you have a production line for 747's. This guy seem to believe that if he demands something that he will get it...doesn't matter if it is not possible.

I begin to wonder if he is a psychopath,

"We're worshipful of top executives who seem charismatic, visionary, and tough. So long as they're lifting profits and stock prices, we're willing to overlook that they can also be callous, conning, manipulative, deceitful, verbally and psychologically abusive, remorseless, exploitative, self-delusional, irresponsible, and megalomaniacal. So we collude in the elevation of leaders who are sadly insensitive to hurting others and society at large."
By: Alan Deutschman
Is Your Boss a Psychopath?
From: Fast Company: Issue 96 | July 2005

So right now I am going to hang on to see how the show ends. We are nearly out of money, and like everything else, he is incapable of believing that there might not be someone out there who will hand us more money to throw down the garbage chute.

But, maybe he is right...the "greater fool" has showed up for the lazy C time and time again.

Lets watch