29 June 2010 – Impatience Yields A New Blog!

Yesterday I posted a question to this blog’s readers:  Should I have a separate blog for sports, a separate one for tech/performance computing, and a separate blog for everything else (this one)?  I was hoping to get some responses, but I haven’t (yet).

In my impatience, I have gone ahead and set up discrete blogs for those categories of interest.  In fact, I’ve already posted twice on my all-new, all-sports blog, Joe-Pinions:  Sports.  If you’ve previously enjoyed my musings on all things sports-related in this blog, I hope to see you at my new all-sports blog.

In the coming days I’ll likely be setting up my all-tech/performance computing blog as well, depending on how much free time I’ve got.

That’s all for now!

28 June 2010 – In Brief (well, not as brief as I thought…)

It’s been FOREVER since I last checked in.  Fact is, life has been super-busy, and I haven’t had a lot of quality time to spend on my blog.

Here are just a few of the significant things that have happened between the most recent blog entry and this one:

• The Los Angeles Lakers beat the hated Boston Celtics in a 7-game Finals series and secured their sixteenth NBA Championship.  This puts the Lakers just one title shy of Boston’s championship tally.
• Lakers head coach Phil Jackson’s future with the team is presently in limbo.  He is due to make an announcement regarding his future intentions sometime this week (June 27 thru July 4, let’s say).  He has been sending mixed signals, in my opinion, at times indicating that he will be retiring (permanently) primarily due to health reasons, and at other times signaling that he may want to return if only to complete a fourth championship three-peat.
• I changed apartments.  I left my old dump of an apartment and moved into a much better place in late May, spending the Memorial Day long weekend breaking my back moving furniture and possessions to the new place.
• “Echoes,” my fanfiction novella, is now up to chapter 10.  Presently the chapter is undergoing revisions and polishing, including removing what had hitherto been its first scene and adding a couple of scenes towards the end.  Additionally, I’ve also been working on revising what had originally been the final scene in the chapter (in the first draft of the chapter, prior to the edits my chief editor and I are presently performing).  I think this reworked erstwhile final scene will instead be moved to chapter 11.

I’m considering revamping my blog.  As regular readers (are there regular readers of this thing?) might have noticed, I tend to write about lots of topics.  Sports, performance driving, computers/performance computing, literature, and random minutae are all just some of the topics I touch in this blog.  It’s a bit of an unfocused approach, perhaps, but it’s also a fairly good representation of what’s happening in my head.  In other words, I’m enthusiastic about a great many things, and I tend to think about and write about all those things for which I nurture a strong level of enthusiasm.

Lately I’ve been thinking that, instead of having a blog that’s a mishmash of topics, I might have a dedicated blog for each category of my interests.  I’d have a separate blog specifically about sports, a blog just for tech and performance computing, and I’d have this current blog for everything else.

I’d appreciate it if you, dear reader, would care to comment on this particular question:  Should I create dedicated blogs for separate categories of interest (as described in the preceding paragraph), or should I continue to have just this “all-in-one” blog?

As always, thanks for reading.  I hope to have more regular time dedicated to writing in this space (or other spaces, as the case may very well be).

10 May 2010 – Quick updates

Some scribbles for today:

• Mother’s Day with my mom and family was simply awesome.  Time spent with family is much more precious now that I go without five days a week.
• Just the last week (most of it, anyway), I went to maybe thirty different apartments on a quest to find my next dwelling.  I’m presently in a 2-bedroom apartment in an ugly part of town being charged far too much.  By contrast, my final two contenders are on the same beautiful tree-lined street, a couple of blocks away from each other.
• Some people were flabbergasted when I told them I looked at thirty different apartments spread out across seven different cities/towns (Glendale, Los Angeles, Burbank, Pasadena, Tujunga, Alhambra, Temple City).  Maybe the sheer number of prospects seems high, but I wanted to assure myself at least that I did as thorough a job as possible in finding the best possible combination of comfort, safety, aesthetics, and value for money.  
• I’m ecstatic about my final contenders.  Either one will be suitable, even if I do admit I like one a bit more than the other.

I’m pretty confident that I’ve done my due diligence with my apartment hunt.  Some might even suggest that I’ve overdone things.  I guess everything has been motivated by the notion that if I’m going to be paying for something, I may as well be as happy as possible with what I’ll be paying for.  This particular concept is THE major failure of my soon-to-be-ex-apartment.  I was never happy with it, and I somewhat resented the fact that I was paying the rent to stay there.  

There are reasons why my parents and I shared that apartment (which I will not disclose here) until their retirements, but now that the ball is firmly in my court, I have total control over the decision-making.  That’s probably why I went to the extent that I did in finding the best possible fit for me.

You have to be happy with your decisions, right?

Quick Slants – 12 Feb 2010 Edition

Today’s quick slants:

• The guts continue to spill at work.  In addition to the City Hall-mandated removal of staff from the Zoo (a couple of whom serve in key positions, including my boss), a few other people have decided to transfer out of the department.  Just in Accounting, two people in management-level spots are transferring immediately, with today being their last day.  
• In our division (Adminstrative Services), staffing is down to this:  1 Division head, and seven clerical staff members.  Not only that, but the clerical staff is distributed among three different units, plus the Division head’s assistant.  
• I don’t know how the place is supposed to function, to be honest.  One thing I do know, though, is that the transition between how things used to be to how things are going to have to be will be a difficult process.
• I told a good friend here at work that I cannot think of any other time in my life where I’ve felt such an overwhelming emotional burden at my job.  It’s not a good feeling.

UPDATE:  I’ve just come from a meeting with the Division head along with all of the remaining staff under her.  Because of the severely depleted staffing level, the remaining staff will have to assume even greater responsibilities just to keep things afloat.  Additionally, the various units will eventually coalesce into a less specialized structure, where each staff member will know a little about everybody else’s job.  

What this means, ultimately, is that we’ll have a lot less specialization along with a significantly increased workload.  While I think cross-training can be a good opportunity for increasing your own job skills and experience, the increase in workload might prove ultimately harmful to the workers.  

I wear lots of hats here; I’m not sure if  I can keep adding to my collection.  On the other hand, this IS an opportunity to learn to do more, a chance to grow.  That is a good thing.

The trouble is, I feel absolutely no enthusiasm for the prospect, if only because I question the wisdom of the policy makers not just here at my workplace, but even more so in City Hall.

Such is life for a municipal employee…

Quick Slants – 18 Jan 2010

More quick slants:

• I’m not fond of celebrities, for sure, but two notable exceptions are Mia Hamm and Nomar Garciaparra.  Unlike too many celebrities, they actually are talented and accomplished (both are great athletes who have achieved much in their careers); more impressively, though, they seem to be devoid of any pretentiousness or arrogance.  They seem very down-to-earth and “real;” at least that is the impression I get when I hear them.
• I’m currently reading a few books simultaneously.  My reading list:  Bill Simmons‘ The Book of Basketball:  The NBA According to the Sports Guy, Alfred W. McCoy‘s A Question of Torture:  CIA Interrogation, From The Cold War To The War On Terror, and Sun Tzu‘s The Art of War (adapted by Ralph D. Sawyer).
• Yeah, I’m crazy for having such a diverse reading list (which doesn’t include all the other stuff I read, including tech reviews/guides, sports reports, short stories, literary criticism, football coaching theory, etc.).  But that’s how I roll…
• I like to think that I’ve got a relatively high threshold for pain, but sometimes the willpower to ignore the pain and pretend it’s not as bad as it really is is not as potent as the pain itself.  Such is the story with my backache, which isn’t subsiding with time.  (It was injured by an accident at home…)
• One of my obsessions lately has been boxing.  I saw the Thrilla in Manila (Ali-Frazier III, October 1975) on ESPN Classic on Sunday night at my parents’ house; I still say that it’s one of the greatest boxing matches I’ve ever seen.
• I just bought a Samsung a897 (Mythic), to replace my aging and failing Nokia 6010.  I hope the Samsung is as reliable as the Nokia turned out to be (it was an ultra-reliable workhorse, rugged and tough, for almost five years, I think).

Goals for this week include finishing up chapter nine of my ever-growing fan fiction novella, “Echoes.”  I hope I can knock this one out as intended.

Break A Leg, Brett

First things first:  I’m a San Francisco 49ers fan.  Ever since I first learned how to watch and appreciate football, the 49ers and their players captured my imagination like no other.

Having said that, I have absolutely no problem admiring the greatness of others.  Whether it’s the greatness of other individual players (Peyton Manning, LaDainian Tomlinson, Rich Gannon, and others, to name just a very few) or the greatness of other teams (the New England Patriots, despite the allegations of surreptitious sideline signal filming as exposed by the NY Jets a couple of years ago, deserve much admiration, for one), if they’re demonstrably the best at what they do, then they will have earned my respect and admiration.

The reverse, of course, is also true.  If players or teams do bonehead things, they earn my disgust.  Norv Turner, for example, is reputed to be one of the sharper offensive minds in football.  I’d say that’s probably true.  On the other hand, as a head coach he’s utterly useless.  I think that it’s safe to say that the San Diego Chargers have had one of the most talented rosters man-for-man for the last three years at least; two of those years, I think they were good enough to go to the Super Bowl (and probably actually even win it).  Norv (and predecessor Marty Schottenheimer) haven’t even made it as far as the AFC Championship game.  What boneheads.

Michael Vick (overrated piece of trash for a QB), Terrell Owens, “The Boz”… boneheads, all.  

But I think the new king of the utterly ridiculous, the NFL figure who most deserves my most poisonous spleen venting, is Brett Favre.  With his girlish fickleness, his egomania reaching Oprah-like levels, his crass dishonesty, and his blatant disregard for the good of his team (I’m pretty sure he wanted to play this year all along, but went through this ridiculous “I won’t play; I’m retired (again)” charade), I have no hesitation in wishing nothing but the absolute worst for Favre.

I hope he gets hurt in the remainder of the pre-season.

I hope he gets severely injured sometime during the season.

I hope he breaks his leg, just like Joe Theismann did when Lawrence Taylor broke through the protection.

I hope he gets hurt so severely, he’ll have absolutely NO CHOICE but to END HIS CAREER.

Hateful words, for sure.  But I AM SICK OF BRETT FAVRE.

He’s an overrated piece of trash as a quarterback anyway.  Two Super Bowl appearances, one win.  Sure, he has the record for most starts, most touchdowns, etc. for QBs.  Big effing deal.  He’s also got a horrendous number of interceptions.  Not cool for QBs at any level.  His “positive” statistics are not so much the result of superlative talent (he had the arm, he had some instincts, but not the mental acumen of true greats like Peyton Manning, Johnny Unitas, or Joe Montana, for example) as they are a consequence of his longevity.

Longevity may be an indicator of one’s value or worth in a particular sport.  But I don’t see it as a particularly significant metric of greatness.

Unlike Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who contributed significantly up until the end of his long career with the Lakers (helping lead them to the NBA championship a few times in his last five years, and losing in the Finals despite playing well and leading the team in his final season), Favre seems to play only to extend his iron man streak and to put butts in the seats.  Oh, and to provide fodder for the informal pundits and radio talk show people.  And let’s not forget to mention to salve a very sick ego so desperate to stay in the limelight and get attention.

Yes, I’ve said that Brett Favre is overrated as a quarterback.  I don’t care how many touchdowns you’ve thrown; how many games did you lose because you threw into triple coverage that even I can see?  I’ll say it now that Favre is also massively overrated as a man, too.

Let me slightly amend what I wrote above:  Most girls are not as fickle as Favre.

And I stand firm on that.

Seriously, Brett:  Break a leg.

Dominoes

The first domino has fallen.

Now that the mayor of Los Angeles has signed the budget for the upcoming fiscal year (which starts on July 1st of every year and runs through to the end of June of the following year), the long-rumored layoffs and mandatory unpaid furlough days for Los Angeles City employees pass from possibility to likelihood.  If there is no opposition to the acceptance of this budget (none is expected), the first round of layoffs will commence, starting with 1,200 City employees.  Additionally, all City employees will be required to take twenty six furlough days throughout the fiscal year.

Though initially only 1,200 people are going to lose their jobs imminently, City Hall has clearly indicated that this is a “work in progress.”  Such is the scope of the City’s financial troubles that City leaders are forced to try to hit a moving target.  More layoffs are possible, and the number of mandatory furlough days (which ultimately mean that there is less income for each individual City employee who keeps his/her job) is likely to increase as well.  

If the current economic climate persists, and especially if it worsens, more of these ominous dominos are sure to fall.  Moreover, if and when things get bad, the rank and file amongst the City’s workforce, ordinary people who depend on their salaries and income to live, eat, and pay for the essentials of living, will be the ones who get crushed by these toppling dominos.  (I personally have not seen any evidence of the City’s bigwigs voluntarily taking cuts in their pay, or taking mandatory unpaid furlough days themselves.)

I am likely to be one of those who may eventually find himself under one of these dominos.

Seniority is one of those factors which will determine who gets laid off.  I’ve been a City employee for three years and five months.  This is not a long time, for sure.  But I am fairly confident (not to mention very hopeful) that I will not be amongst the first 1,200 cuts.

I’ve been on the lookout for a new job for the last two months, just in case the worst happens.  The problem with this part of the strategy, though, is that the job market is presently quite dry.  There is a real shortage of opportunities at the moment, at least here in Southern California.  My personal reality is that I require a certain minimum in income, as I literally depend on my paycheck to live.  

I have no real luxuries at this point in my life.

As I look at life, at this array of dominos arranged to fall in sequence, I can only hope that the one that has my name on it isn’t slated to crush me at any time soon.  It’s hard to not be pessimistic during these times, but I do get a crumb of comfort knowing that, despite everything that might happen, the future is not set in stone.

I’m still here, and I can still change and affect things for the better.

Something new to try

I’m a guy with too many hobbies.  

Please allow a small preamble as a way to set the background:  It used to be that I spent so much  money collecting and building plastic model cars.  I’ve spent a frightening sum not just in amassing a big collection (I suspect I have more than three hundred UNBUILT model cars and trucks at present), but also in buying specialized tools and research materials on the modeling subjects (i.e., videos and books and magazines dedicated to the subjects).

In 2006 I started a new personal adventure:  I got into custom PC construction.  I built my first machine as a birthday present to myself that year.  At that time I hoped that the PC would last me a few years before it needed a total upgrade and replacement.

This machine still serves my needs quite capably.  Other than using different CPUs (which I’ve overclocked, after learning about the “dark art”), upgrading the power supply, RAM, and video cards, this first build still sees very heavy daily usage.  It is both a favorite toy and a favorite tool.

Just about the only thing I’ve never tried on my first build is to run some flavor of RAID array.

I’m about to pop this particular cherry.  I’m presently constructing a new machine.  It’s not a PC based on either of Intel’s or AMD’s latest and greatest.  Rather, it’s based on AMD’s classic Socket 939 platform (upon which my first build was also based).  

The plan is to pair up a pair of Western Digital 150GB VelociRaptors in a RAID0 configuration.  The RAID0 array will serve as the OS + Games + Programs drive; a separate WD Caviar Green 500GB will be devoted to storage duties.  If the storage drive seems smallish (given the monstrous capacities for storage drives available these days), it is purely intentional.  Local storage is not this system’s priority, especially given the fact that I already have a dedicated file server.

I’m very excited about this new experience.  I’ve long read about stories of how a RAID0 array improves a PC’s perceptible performance at what I call “the keyboard level.”  Benchmarks and performance stats are one thing; I’d always choose performance improvements that I can feel and perceive.  As one of my great friends says, in a modern PC, the biggest performance bottleneck which affects the end user’s perceptions is the storage subsystem.  RAID0 promises to alleviate this bottleneck by increasing data throughput and decreasing access times.

Putting two 10,000RPM hard drives in RAID0 is just about the best way to reduce that perceptible performance bottleneck short of using a massive array of RAM disks or SSDs (Solid State Drives, which are flash memory-based) for storage.

For sure I will update this blog with a description of my impressions of the new RAID0 array.  

Do stay tuned…