The rich idiot who tried to buy California's race has backed down. He cried at the announcement.

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The weekend before last, my wife was taking her shower and noticed that the water wasnt getting hot. Judging by the temperature of the water, I estimated that the hot water heater must've gone out some time the day before.

Continued...

I'm searching furiously for a job, contract or otherwise. I bit the bullet and opened my monster.com search to include the whole country. Guess what? There are actually jobs out there!

Of course, I'm realistic. In the 1.5 years that I've been using monster.com, I have never gotten a callback on a job I applied to online. From what I've read, that's to be expected. However, recruiters do use it to search for candidates before posting a job then call me. To date, I think I've gotten perhaps half a dozen calls that I can pinpoint directly to monster.com

So, anyway, thank you for all your prayers. I do feel better, even with an absence of firm leads.

Hot dog! Finally! Imagine a bill that finally will protect citizen's rights from aggregated government databases. You'd think that would be common sense, but it's not.

From boingboing.net:

EFF, EPIC, CDT, ACLU and Free Congress have drafted a bill that's been introduced by Senator Wyden today, for a new law called "The Citizens' Protection in Federal Databases Act." This is a hell of a law. It finds that various species of spooks are making avid use of commercial and governmental databases, merging them and aggregating them, without transparency, accountability, or any real understanding of the danger to civil liberties involved in this practice. Accordingly, it requires any Fed agency using non-Fed databases to cut it out and make a full report to Congress on who they're buying database and database-services from, what they're doing to preserve privacy, why they're doing what they're doing, and whether they actually have a realistic chance of catching any bad guys. And it calls into account Feds who abuse their authority and limits the kind of doomsday hypotheticals that can be used to justify such abuse.

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Sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit: The Pentagon starts a scheme whereby investors can bet on who will get killed and what terrorist actions will happen.

Well, not actually. It's true! Read the whole story on Yahoo

Now that I'm unemployed, I get to do so few things that make me feel like I'm fulfilling my manly duty. Ya, is not like I'm a he-man or anything, but at least I used to be able to say "Here's the paycheck, dear." Now, I look for more subtle rewards.

Continued...

I got the email from my last best hope at finding a job. They decided they don?t want to hire me. The email reads, in part, ?Unfortunately, they are looking for more of a technical guru to fill the slot. Your project management skills are excellent, but they are looking for a little more technical expertise.?

I started blankly at the screen for what must have been three minutes. To better understand this, one must realize that their company mostly consists of non-technical people. Even the ex-manager of the group I was to hire into told me that.

So, I think something else is going on there. I called the recruiter and left a voicemail explaining how I must have left the wrong impression. After all, I said, I have years of experience designing, configuring, installing, and troubleshooting the very equipment they?re buying!

Anyway, if my sources are correct, this is a political game at that company, and my name is not on the ticket. But, hell, they didn?t have to insult me when they turned me down.

I had a business meeting yesterday. It felt good to get out of the house and talk business. I realized that when you?re talking business you have to put a few extra steps in your delivery. For instance, when at home, I think of something then I pretty much say it. However, in a business meeting, I think of something, ponder the ramifications of saying it, figure out how to say it, then say it. Some ramifications may be: is legal to say it? Will they understand what I?m saying technically? Etc.

Anyway, that got me thinking about Josh, my son. He?s almost a year now, and he?s starting to mimic us. This is the critical stage when you realize something like, ?holy crap! I?m responsible for how this kid views the world!? Luckily, the kid has my wife for a good influence. Heh.

So, now, I guess I?ll have to stop or tune down all the disgusting things I do around the house when we don?t have guests lest the little tyke start doing it. Geez. This is going to be harder than changing poopy diapers!

Thought for today: Romans 14:7 For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.

I always wanted to be cool.

It hasn't really happened yet (although I think I had a chance about 20 years ago).

I "got into computers" about [deleted for security reasons] when a couple of the guys in the chess club at my high school started bringing boxes of punched cards with them.

Now, I wasn't athletic enough to compete with the football guys, academic enough to compete with the scholarship crowd, musical enough to be in the pep band, or even in the top 50% of the chess club. I was pretty much a regular guy. A little better than average.

Well, I'm still a little better than average. I don't like Star Trek TNG all that much. I only saw The Two Towers once. I'm married to a pretty girl. And my mother-in-law really likes me.

However, I must admit that my ideal job would be fixing other people's PCs for a living, hence the website.

If you know anyone who wants to help me launch a new career, send 'em my way...

I'm no fan of the ultra-right, but it's good to hear a politician accepting responsibility for his actions.