[Bill,
July 9, 2007]
Weekend
1. Saw my 3 1/2 year old God-daughter this weekend. She's officially the cutest kid in the world.
2. Got severely sunburned knees after watching minor-league baseball, the Camden Riversharks. They didn't play well, but the other team's manager was Sparky Lyle and we had tix right behind home plate. Camden's looking better, you know, now that they're demolishing it. And I learned another lesson about sunscreen.
3. I have concluded that while Islam has its downsides, the Islamic terrorists are infected with someone like a spiritual and mental virus that owes its intellectual heritage more to Europe than Islam. That is, Islam is a problem, but Islamic terrorists have picked up vibes along the way that are more reminiscent of some of the radical politics of European intellectuals in the 19th century as well as national socialism than Islam. I haven't worked out all the intellectual details enough to make the argument; it's more of an intuition.
4. Very very very weird dreams early this morning — enough to truly disturb me on the way in to work. It contained dreamlike environs, but als some real people and real places from different parts of my life-- some of whom I don't really know — interacting in ways that were truly strange. Can't say anything more ... makes me wonder about the state of my soul sometimes. Plus, the alarm bell went off at the exact wrong second — and in circumstances that have happened exactly before in my dreams, with the same real alarm going off.
5. I got a CD, Garbage's Version 2.0. It sounds like a particularly tepid release from the Pretenders. I kept waiting for a "Mystery Achievement," but alas, it never came. Sounded like filler. Pathetic effort, really.
6. Bought a new stove and refrigerator. I got a ceramnic, radiant top stove for easy cleaning, and I'm hopeful it can boil water better than my current, old stove. Can't wait until they come in.
7. My room got a swarm of bugs and gnats last night as I was reading, and I was driven from my bedroom and had to sleep on the couch. My roommate has thoughtfully agreed to seal up the space around the air-conditioner today while I'm at work to prevent a recurrence tonight.
8. If you can help Harry find a job or offer useful suggestions, his blog is
here. The only ones I could think of were far from ideal and would be only temporary solutions — logistics in the trucking industry, and as one of those high-level customer service agents in the financial or insurance industries.
For example, insurance companies need someone to talk to doctors about sophisticated coding and billing matters; financial companies such as Vanguard need someone to talk to customers about sophisticated financial products such as variable annuities — you can't have just anyone do it, the companies must have highly intelligent people who can answer these questions, and they usually pay a decent rate.
9. Have a good one.
2. Got severely sunburned knees after watching minor-league baseball, the Camden Riversharks. They didn't play well, but the other team's manager was Sparky Lyle and we had tix right behind home plate. Camden's looking better, you know, now that they're demolishing it. And I learned another lesson about sunscreen.
3. I have concluded that while Islam has its downsides, the Islamic terrorists are infected with someone like a spiritual and mental virus that owes its intellectual heritage more to Europe than Islam. That is, Islam is a problem, but Islamic terrorists have picked up vibes along the way that are more reminiscent of some of the radical politics of European intellectuals in the 19th century as well as national socialism than Islam. I haven't worked out all the intellectual details enough to make the argument; it's more of an intuition.
4. Very very very weird dreams early this morning — enough to truly disturb me on the way in to work. It contained dreamlike environs, but als some real people and real places from different parts of my life-- some of whom I don't really know — interacting in ways that were truly strange. Can't say anything more ... makes me wonder about the state of my soul sometimes. Plus, the alarm bell went off at the exact wrong second — and in circumstances that have happened exactly before in my dreams, with the same real alarm going off.
5. I got a CD, Garbage's Version 2.0. It sounds like a particularly tepid release from the Pretenders. I kept waiting for a "Mystery Achievement," but alas, it never came. Sounded like filler. Pathetic effort, really.
6. Bought a new stove and refrigerator. I got a ceramnic, radiant top stove for easy cleaning, and I'm hopeful it can boil water better than my current, old stove. Can't wait until they come in.
7. My room got a swarm of bugs and gnats last night as I was reading, and I was driven from my bedroom and had to sleep on the couch. My roommate has thoughtfully agreed to seal up the space around the air-conditioner today while I'm at work to prevent a recurrence tonight.
8. If you can help Harry find a job or offer useful suggestions, his blog is
here. The only ones I could think of were far from ideal and would be only temporary solutions — logistics in the trucking industry, and as one of those high-level customer service agents in the financial or insurance industries.
For example, insurance companies need someone to talk to doctors about sophisticated coding and billing matters; financial companies such as Vanguard need someone to talk to customers about sophisticated financial products such as variable annuities — you can't have just anyone do it, the companies must have highly intelligent people who can answer these questions, and they usually pay a decent rate.
9. Have a good one.
You'd think I'd learn. And for the next umpteen times I'm out in the sun, I do. Then comes time number umpteen-plus-one...
3. Yeah, I think you're onto something there. Related phenomenon, I've long noticed how so many Western Leftists just take it for granted that of course Third Worlders by virtue of their traditional non-Western cultures will all fall in line and agree with the ideological tenets of Western Leftism.
Of course there's no shortage of individuals from the Third World who will breathlessly parrot Western Leftist notions; but these seem to me to be usually individuals who have already been, uh, well catechized in the outlook of the Western Left. I mean, many of the assumptions of Western Leftism make sense only in the context of modern Western culture, and would never have occurred, much less seemed obvious, in almost any traditional culture around the world, including ours, up until the modern era.
I'm very glad you got a chance to see Stasia this past Sunday. She's been talking about it non stop sincethen and I'd very much hope that she does so regularly. Rose and I miss you very much as well.
John
Thanks for #8. I've actually been taken under the wing of a fellow commentor at The Comics Curmudgeon, who happens to be a business consultant. He's pointed me to resources of which I was previously unaware (like the Harris Infosource directory of businesses in PA, which, when it is inaccurate, is at least definitively inaccurate, to steal a phrase from Douglas Adams) and has given me very useful resume-polishing tips (as of this morning I'm a member of APICS, the Association for Operations Management), and has punched-up whole sections of my resume. I'm continuing to search for something similar to what I was doing, and I've got some good leads. In the meantime I may take a pick-up job somewhere. Damn college kids, taking all the good bookstore jobs!