.: bistan.net :.

Sometime Saturday evening, I was bitten by a stomach flu bug, along with Kimberlie and Tristan.  All day Saturday night and Sunday we were pretty much worthless.  I can’t even begin to tell you how hard it is for the two year old to be the well one.  She doesn’t know what slow-down means!  Tristan was well enough this morning to go to day care, which allowed us to get the rest we needed to feel a little better.  I’ll take being at work over being sick any day.

While I was home sick today, I did manage to watch CNBC pretty much all day.  I couldn’t miss the historic gains on Wall Street!  Eleven percent gains across the board!

Youtube put up 15 full length episodes of my all-time favorite TV show: MacGyver.  Not exactly the best way to make workers more productive in a declining economy, but I’ll take it!  Fred constantly reminds me that YouTube will be the demise of our society.

Link to the episodes

Here are a few quick observations about my blogging . . .

• I’ve picked up a few new readers: I think I’m up to five now.  I’m considering linking to my homepage, or having the homepage redirect to the blog.  (It certainly wouldn’t hurt my Adsense revenue)
• My posts lately seem to be long winded rants, with less pictures.  I’ll try to limit those.
• I should probably watch what I say about my job.  I don’t want to be that guy.

Lately, I’ve realized that my job just isn’t as fulfilling to me as I imagined it once was.  Then again, maybe it’s because this is the second longest job I have ever had and I am starting to get bored with it.  Three and a half years is a long time.  In my field, information technology, it is a common belief that if you stay in the same position for more than five years, you become stale.  That being said, unless something VERY lucrative pops up, I don’t plan to step into unemployment in this economy.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love working for Mercer University.  The benefits are excellent.  Insurance is decent, although expensive.  My leave benefits are the best I’ve ever had.  I, along with my spouse and dependents, can go to (a very expensive) college for free.  I have lots of friend here and I was even recently elected to staff council a few months ago to represent fellow staff members’ concerns to senior university administrators. 

But in my particular job, there are no real challenges anymore.  It’s just the same old crap — budget limitations, putting out fires, and figuring out how stupid end users can be.  You would think that as long as technology has been around, our population would have developed some basic computer skills.  You would also think that hiring managers would expect that from employees.  You would think that the powers that be would realize that Information Technology is an investment and that you’re just not going become more productive and cost efficient without it.

Along with all of that, there are no advancement opportunities in my current job.  Here at the law school I work at, there seems to be a notion that you aren’t qualified to do anything unless you have a law degree (J.D.).  Apparently, there are these magical fairies that sprinkle analytical and problem solving skills on you like pixie dust during the three years that you are a law student and that some how makes you better than everyone else.  What they don’t realize is that I, along with many other IT Professionals (non-lawyers), have the ability to analyze situations and develop solutions.  And on top of that, I could walk through the law school and point out many, many students and alumni who lack those skills, even though they have taken on six figures worth of debt trying to acquire them.

As far as fulfillment is concerned, I’ve been thinking a lot about the role I play in the overall scheme of things.  On a simplistic level, I support people as they become lawyers or while they teach people to become lawyers.  I don’t even like lawyers.  Because of my job, I do have quite a few friends who are lawyers, but I like them because they are people, not because they are lawyers.

Let’s take a look at how the public perceives lawyers.  If you asked the average person about lawyers, they would tell you that they make tons of money and they are all ambulance chasing crooks.  Now, I know better than that, but when the average person finds out that I am contributing to the creation of what they consider overcharging crooks, then I’m judged just as harshly.  Although I have never been one to care about what people think about me, I do wonder if this is where I am supposed to be.  Is this my mission in life?  My destiny?  Is this God’s plan for me? 

I guess until I sort things out and find my true calling, I’ll continue to help lawyers who help themselves.

I usually don’t spend a lot of money when we go to the fair, because I hate throwing money away.  Last night, however, I decided it was time to splurge a little and enjoy the evening.  Here are photos of us enjoying the rides . . .

Those smiling little faces were worth $12 a person.

Finally, for the two of you who read this blog, here are the photos I entered into the Georgia National Fair’s photography contest.  I entered photos in the contest once before, about 4 years ago, but my lack of experience combined with the size of the competition didn’t produce very favorable results.

First the color prints:

Amarillo (Beginner – Color – Animals) – Kimberlie has family with a couple of hundred acres near Quitman in south Georgia.  After a day of horseback riding last fall, I snapped this photo near a dried up pond.

Salad Again? (Beginner – Color – Animals) – I got this cool shot at the National Zoo this past summer in Washington, D.C.

 
Bashful (Beginner – Color – Plant Life) – I took this photo in my backyard.  We plant sunflower seeds every year and this is one of the results.

Baltimore Harbor (Beginner – Color – Plant Life) – I took this photo of Tristan in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor this year.

As for the results, I guess the judges didn’t like my color work.  Or maybe they were tired of the three million other pictures of sunflowers and butterlies by the time they reached mine.

Now on to the black & white:

Lonely (Beginner – Monochrome- “I Spy”) – I snapped this photo in Downtown Macon while toying with a zoom lens I picked up on eBay.  This photo would have NEVER made the cut for the contest, until I saw that the rotating category for this year was called “I Spy”.  The color version didn’t have nearly as much impact as the black & white version.  I thought it had all of the qualities of a good monochrome print and it clearly fit the category.  The result: SECOND PLACE!

Atrium (Beginner – Monochrome - Scenic) – We scored a great package deal in Atlanta earlier this year which included some attraction tickets as well as a night at the Marriott Marquis.  I had been to the Marriott Marquis before, on Valentine’s Day in 2005 to try out for Jeopardy, and was amazed by the atrium.  It actually makes you dizzy to look straight up.  On this visit, I made sure to quickly snap a photo.  The color version was cool, but not nearly as striking at the black & white version.  The result: FIRST PLACE!

I think my total prize purse totals a whopping $35 – almost enough to cover the matting supplies.  But it was tons of fun.  Either my strengths are in monochrome photography, or they didn’t get very many entries in that area.

I set a new running record for myself tonight: 6.25 miles.  My pace wasn’t a record for me, but it was under an hour.  One of my goals is to run a 10K in under an hour.  If this had been a real race, it would be crossed off of my list.  I continue to improve and I look forward to the Jay’s Hope 10K on November 1.

I also continue to increase the number of miles each month as I get closer to the marathon.  Here is my progress:

Tomorrow night, we are heading to the Georgia National Fair, not only to enjoy ourselves but also to see the photography contest results.  It doesn’t look like I’ll be able to get in another run until Saturday evening.

Today marks Day One of Breast Cancer Awareness month and everyone seems to think I should be the poster child here at the law school because my mother died of breast cancer less than 4 months ago.  Guess what?  I’m not going to be.

For the occasion, everyone is supposed to wear pink today.  As for me, I don’t get how wearing a color will raise awareness.  And for the gentlemen out there, it might be cool to wear pink here and show solidarity and all, but when you walk outside into downtown Macon wearing pink, the ignorant citizens of this town are going to assume that you are homosexual. The whole concept is like the Lance Armstrong Live Strong bracelets.  Buying one of those is really and truly the absolute least thing you can do.

I don’t believe that anyone at this law school is “unaware” of breast cancer.  I would guess, however, that not even the strongest breast cancer advocates here are aware of the effects of the treatments, the suffering and the horrible end stages of life that breast cancer causes.  Have they ever seen a cancer victim in their last moments of life?  Have they ever sat with someone as they vomited up half of their body weight because of these wonderful treatments that these research dollars are going for?  Have they spoon fed someone crushed ice who could barely swallow, only to have it come right back?  Have they paced around the house at 3:00 in the morning with someone because they were in too much pain or too anxious to rest?  I have.

These folks are pretty bold asking me for a donation when gas is $4.00 a gallon, the stock market is falling and wages aren’t rising nearly as fast as inflation.  They tell you its all for research and that one day we will have a cure.  I’ve heard this crap for almost 30 years.  There is no cure for cancer and probably never will be.  Just think, if researchers woke up one day and found a cure for cancer, do you know what would happen?  They would be out of a job, along with thousands of doctors, nurses, social workers, dieticians and many others.  And if the cure made billions, none of that would be returned to the people who contributed towards the research.

Anyway, it seems like everyone around me has their causes and they all want to shove it down my throat.  Here at the law school, it’s a million times worse.  Today alone (in less than 4 hours) I’ve been hit up for contributions for the following causes: childhood brain cancer, anti-death penalty groups, pro-military groups, and of course, breast cancer.

Now I have my causes too. I’m passionate about several things, including my children, my wife, technology, current events, finance, education and more.  The difference is that I don’t try to force my causes down other people’s throats.  A friend of Tristan and son of one of my coworkers was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor.  It doesn’t look good and it upset me quite a bit to hear about it (for those of you reading this who are thinking I’m some apathetic jerk).  The survivability rate is as close to zero as you can get.  If there was anything I could do, or any amount I could give to help this 4 year old child, I would do it.  But nothing I do is going to help.  I could sell everything I own and send it to them but it wouldn’t help.  I could walk a million miles to “raise awareness” but it wouldn’t help either.

Are people even passionate about the right causes?  Let’s take breast cancer, for instance.  Worldwide, less than 1% of all deaths can be attributed to breast cancer.  Furthermore, only 7% of cancer-related deaths are attributed to breast cancer.  Is this really a cause I should rally behind?  The disease can’t even inflict itself on half of the population because males (and some females) don’t have the anatomical features needed as a prerequisite to breast cancer.  Why don’t we all get behind heart disease?  It’s the number one cause of death, causing about 30% of all deaths worldwide.  That’s 30 times as many people dying of heart disease!  And better yet, the majority of cases could have been easily prevented though diet, exercise and other means.