I would say Darwin award...

... but she already procreated.

US woman killed by two-year-old son http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-30636326

I didn't know that North Korea got Fox news

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0K502920141227?irpc=932

Preparing for hell

Coffee at 10pm!

No one cared who I was

Until I put on the mask.....

RIP ESM

And good riddance!

Good hit good hit

Keep those coordinates comin' ......

A good week for music

First discovered an old Carbon Leaf album, "Constellation Prize."

 

Now, AVA has a new album.  From the song "Wolfpack:"

 

"Finding a light in a world of ruin
Starting to dance when the earth is caving in
Set in the sun and our hearts are burn in'
Leaving the nest to the back of a thousand winds
We're ready to begin

Its alright
A bit scathed
A bit lost
I've been played
I ain't that clever
a city boy that can never say never
I got the life but that girl bites like (a wolf)

Its on me
Its only
A small heart
On one sleeve
Academy killer
Off with his head
In the make believe game of fools
That girl bites like a wolf

Are you ready?
I'm waiting to begin ...."

 

starting to catch on

Ryan's sleep is very fitful tonight.  Therefore, I am downstairs, watching him sleep in a pillow, which is serving as sort of a half-swaddle.  Just enough to keep him from punching himself in the face.  

Tomorrow we will be getting the Halo Swaddle sleepsack to lock down his arms for good when he is sleeping.   This will probably significantly improve quality of life, as traditional swaddling managed to stop the incessant crying twice today.  We will be careful not to overuse it though, as the sacks have been described online as "heroin for babies."

One of the good sides of being stuck up all night watching a fitfully sleeping baby is random browsing on Amazon and the app store.  I am going to have to try out this game that I found, "Never Have I Ever," whose tagline is "A game for people who make poor life decisions."  Sounds accurate.  Also entertaining was the coffee mug that reads "Good morning.  I see the assassins have failed."

Starting with that, we delved deeper into the morass in the App Store. I downloaded several apps from the Learning Series, including Optics, Mechanics, Probability, Electromagnetism, etc.  Along with several other math and physics references. Looking through some of the material, I am amazed at all the stuff we learn but never use. 

I used to enjoy finding solutions to problems.  My favorite ones were associated with data and image processing. Machine vision.  Programming my own algorithms to find patterns that were not discernable to the eye.  Figuring out new ways to process data.  Making my own GUIs, and delighting in figuring out how to interface my crude MATLAB programs to manipulate files stored in more palatable formats to other engineers (e.g., EXCEL).

Then I went into project management.  Big mistake.  It's true, as a project manager you get exposure to a lot of things, some of them technical.  Most of them personal (personnel?).  But you don''t get your hands dirty. You don't get to solve the technical problems yourself. You can find a solution and suggest it to someone, but you don't get to carry it out.

I guess that's why I went in with Dave to start the tree business a while back.  It was a chance to do some work. Get my hands dirty again.  See some rather simple physics in practise.  But now that's gone too, it got to be too much like real work.

Back to the "career."  Each job has been shorter and shorter, so to keep on my current trend I would have to change jobs within a year.  And to do that, I need to be applying now. Which I am.  I figure I have about 20 years left in my "career."  Therefore, at an average of a new job each year I have 20 tries left to find something that doesn't make me want to put two pens on the desk and make them disappear, Joker style.

It doesn't help that I get bored so easily.  If I do the same task three times, I think I've had enough.  Maybe it's a curse of the near-photographic memory.  My brain says "been there, done that, move on . . . . " way too quickly.

But I know its more than that.  I know that it's because I made the wrong decision.  I left technical work.  I should be in a lab somewhere, figuring things out.  Not in a cubicle, pushing endless stacks of paper around in some macabre symphony of stress.  

And then comes the rub.  The pay.  The fact is, bullshit pays.  And the more ludicrous it gets, the higher the pay.  I can never get paid the same wage to do technical work as I do to do whatever it is that I do now.  Technical work has been relegated, while politically maneuvering and chicanery have been elevated.  

Can you imagine what could be accomplished if performing actual work payed as well as bullshit?

I feel like I am starting to wake up from the drunken stupor of the past 10 years, both literally and figuratively.  I bought into the ladder climbing crap. I believed the lie.  Bought it hook, line, and sinker.

Now all I have to do is find a way to cut the line and swim free . . . . .  

Wow - "Circus" by Carbon leaf

How amazingly relevant......... bolder some particularly deep-cutting lyrics.

Full lyrics at 

http://songmeanings.com/m/songs/view/3530822107859472403/

----------------------------------

We all have our window and vision
Yet sometimes I feel so blind
Can you explain to me what I see?
Can you help me decipher and decide?

Is this where, where I belong?
Is this where, where I belong?
The sun blinks its brilliant eyes
On confusion and purpose, it's time
To find the place you're broken in
And stare into the never-ending sunlight

I'm so done with this circus
Yet I love this escape
How do you free yourself and leave the rest
To the beasts in the gilded cage?

If every end is a new beginning
Is there cause to celebrate?
If any pause for reflection's been lost
In your need to fill all that empty space

Is this where I belong?
Is this where, where I belong?
The sun blinks its brilliant eyes
On confusion and purpose, it's time

Kids suck

Yup.  7 hrs of screaming straight.  I had the last few hours.  Katy is on shift until 2am, unless he decides to sleep for a change.  He may be settling down judging from the lack of sound coming through the floorboards.

No reason for it.  Just screaming.  And screaming.  And screaming.  At one point I considered putting him in the utility room and just closing the door for a couple hours.  At least that room is somewhat sonically isolated from the other parts of the house.  Maybe we should move his crib down there.

After this week, pretty sure we will be one and done.  Also, absolutely sure that i will have no problem dropping him off for his first day at daycare.  Picking him up will suck.

Wish they had night care.  I'd pay.....

Should have listened to Dave Grant.

Awesome

Discovered on Pandora. Love it....

Civic duty

Read this, then the constitution

http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/study2014/sscistudy1.pdf

And then tell me with a straight face that you still believe you're living in a representative democracy 

instead of a police state.