The life and times of me.

Oh crap! I'm nesting...

2006-10-30T14:14:00.000-07:00

It looks like this relationship is going to move forward. A friend of mine noticed the last time I started dating someone seriously. This was around the first quarter of 2005. I cleaned the house, made the bed, did several loads of laundry, washed the dishes, etc... I told him I was trying to get into the habit of making my bed. He suggested I was "nesting". I denied it. I really wanted to be a cleaner person, and this was the only time I really had the energy to do it.

Yeah, well, he was right. I fell back into my old clutter habits. Over the last 6 months though, I have been slowly cleaning up. I've actually been planning where things go, and how they will be organized. I have also started investing in curtains and other decorative items that add no functionality, but give my home the warmth that it has always been lacking.

But since I've met Annette, and we've connected in so many ways, I'm nesting again. But this time, it's different. (I hope.) In the past, it was all about stuffing things somewhere. This usually meant things weren't put in any logical place. If it was a household cleaner, it would get stuffed on a shelf in the computer room. Paper clips might be stowed away in the laundry room.

I had no plan on the initial clean up, and on follow ups. But now that I have been buying totes, and actually throwing stuff out, I think I'm making more long term progress. I tend to be a pack rat. Why? I have this innate feeling that I am throwing away the records of my life. I feel like some time in the future, people will want to explore who I was, like lost civilization. I want people to see all of my pay check stubs, all of my electric bills, all of my auto insurance bills. Document Control as it's called in the industry.

I just went through a stack of papers from my math classes at the community college a couple years ago. I also found insurance papers long since expired some 6 years ago. All in the trash. This is why I think this is becoming more permanent than just "nesting". Now, when I get a new policy in the mail, the old one immediately goes into "bin 13".

I did however find stuff I want to keep that's from my past. I found a folder from my science class from 1990. This stuff is 16 years old! The previously white binder is now beige! Why keep this? Because it's fascinating to see something from so long ago. It would be like keeping all my old school pictures, keeping my diploma, etc...

But this time, I have a plan for storage and organization. Instead of simple piles and piles of "junk".

Women with children?

2006-10-28T17:41:00.000-07:00

All throughout my dating life I have avoided women who already have children. I have questioned this approach for the last couple of years. It just seems that so many women aren't to "my level" of maturity or something. (I'm not quite sure there.) Another thing is, I would like to experience the beginning of the relationship, possibly marriage, without children. Eventually, when "we" have children, I would like both of us to experience her pregnancy together, for the first time. I want to go through to same inexperience together.

Those are all little things really. The biggest thing for me is dealing with the kid's father. Does he show up a lot? Is he violent? How does he feel about someone else raising his kids? Is he one of those guys that, when he has his kids with them, does he raise them to be horrors? I mean, does he lack discipline?

I recently met a woman who has two children from her marriage. (She has now been divorced for a year, and separated for the last two years of her marriage.) She's a few months younger than me. She's very attractive, and she's cool. Conversation is easy with her. The banter between us is smooth and unrehearsed. In all of my past experiences of dating, I've always felt, when trying to converse, like I was trying to light wet paper with a match. But with Annette, conversation was easy.

How did we meet? Well, it *was* over the internet, but I wasn't looking at her from the perspective of a potential date. I work night shift, and I was bored. My sleep schedule is the same over the weekend as it is over the week. I sleep all day, getting up in the evening. This leaves me bored all night. So I started looking up people in my area using myspace. The idea is this: myspace allows you to select interests. This can be sports, photography, art, or anything along those lines, you get the picture. I have photography selected.

So I performed a search for people in my area who have that same interest selected in their profile. Annette came up, amongst others. I emailed a couple of them whom I found interesting. Looking at Annette's profile, I read that she had two kids. I emailed her asking if she preferred film or digital photography.

She responded. She found the email strange at first, but she figured she would reply. I was surprised, as I'm not expecting a response. Most women probably figured I was trying to pick them up for a date, and chose to ignore me. When she responded, I asked her what type of photography interested her. Her favorite medium is film, black & white.

We got to talking over the myspace email about black & white, including the "false" black & white film. It seems she found my topic interesting. She asked to be my myspace "friend". I accepted her offer. One of the benefits of being someone's friend is the birthday announcement. Since my birthday was that day, it showed up on her friend list (which I was now a part of) that my birthday was that day.

She enjoyed out dialog so much, she invited me to lunch that day. I had to decline, as I was on a serious shortage of time. I offered Friday evening, after school. She accepted. We agreed to meet at Chili's. She called later, and suggested we meet there for drinks, go to her place for dinner. She was on a time budget herself, and she had to pick up her kids.

Now, at this point, I could very well have just declined. In fact, I had considered it. She was coming on a bit strong. But I'm 29, single; I'm an adult, I can make my own choices. I felt she was interested in more than friendship. After all, she does have plans to move to California, so what do I have to worry about? I invited a friend to come along. Annette's roommate was going to be there, I didn't want to be out numbered.

The drinks were great, and the dinner was excellent. The conversation was easy. We make jokes, and she complimented me a lot. We talked all night. We talked about relationships, parenthood, her ex-husband, etc... I really felt that she cared for me, and had a genuine interest in me. She was fascinated with my blogs on myspace. She was really interested in my ability to write.

Now I am my own worst critic of my writing ability. But I enjoy telling stories, and getting things out of my mind and onto "paper" or into someone's ear. I find it relaxing, and it provides closure. Will I see Annette again? Yes. Her kids were well behaved the night I meet them. Sure, they could have been on their best behavior, but I have meet kids whose best behavior was terror!

Personals Update (Good News.)

2006-10-25T03:51:00.000-07:00

Alright! I got a positive response. She emailed me directly.

Score as of the 23rd:

Messages Sent:        12     100.00%
Positive Response:     1     8.33%
Negative Response:   3     25.00%
No Response:             8     66.67%

Want to know what's geeky? I've actually set up a spreadsheet. That's either cool, or sad. I started using a new technique when it comes to responding to ads. I read about it from some site that offers tips for on line personals. Usually, I would say something like:

"I like to go camping up north."

But I now say:

"I like camping up north. There's nothing like the fresh crisp mountain air, the smell of pine, the sound of the wind as is whispers through the pine trees, it's all so rejuvinating."

Did I lie? Did I sell myself as something I'm not? No, not at all. These are usually the exact things I tell my coworkers when they ask about how my camping trip went! This particular girl is a nanny, she's really into kids. My mom ran a child care from the home when I was growing up. So it was very important that the man she's looking for be good with kids. Well, I've learned that kids are naturally attracted to me. So I made a comment about being a jungle gym for kids. For some reason, they love to climb all over me, I don't get it.

I was really hoping I would get a response from her too. She's very different than most of the others. Every other girl is into sports, and boating, and offroading. No wonder they can't find a boyfriend, they might as well be a guy! I don't think guys want to be with guys in the end. But this girl is into crafts, taking care of kids, camping, outdoor activites. Oh, and hiking. Those are the things I like. Oh, well, I don't do crafts. But I want kids. I've wanted kids for years, but I haven't found a wife yet. Camping I love and do when I can, I love being outdoors, and hiking is something I need to get back into.

Last note: The follow up is important. I've gotten this far before never to get a response again, or worse, stood up! So I'm NOT in the clear yet. I *don't* have a scoring system for follow ups just yet.

More personals

2006-10-24T14:46:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I've just posted 3 responses. One of them I totally goofed, and I hope deleting it deleted the message from her inbox. I'm an idiot. I read her profile a couple times. She was from Missouri. And what did I do? I asked her why she moved from Illinois. Ok, from now on, I will never specify a location! I'll ask why they moved "here". That's it.

So I then found that I had already contacted her, and she ignored me. I have a policy. Once I respond once, if they ignore me, I never respond again. The only problem is, you have to start a response to see that you've already responded before, and then you have to scroll down to see it. I was just trying to knock out a bunch of responses and see what happens. (I'm now using "bulk responding.")

Score

3 sent.
1 retracted?

eHarmony

2006-10-24T12:55:00.000-07:00

My last girlfriend and I met on eHarmony. We met around the early part of 2005. We were together until she broke up with me in February 2006. I re-subscribed to eHarmony a few months later. I'm tired of eHarmony, and I think for the service they don't provide they are way overpriced. Either that, or I'm wholly incompatible with the majority of the female population. For those that don't know, eHarmony finds matches based on an intense personality profile. When you sign up, you go through an intense survey that can take up to an hour to complete.

Unlike other personals site, you don't see anyone unless their systems sees that you "match". At that point, your "matches" show up on a page of matches. When you first register, there are quite a bit of matches that show up. For me, I was using the 7 day free trial. Of course, you pay by credit card, and if you change your mind in 7 days, they give you your money back. Problem?

Imagine this: How do you know how old these matches are? What if they registered 6 months ago, and never logged back on? Are they a paying member? (They can't contact you/reply if they are not!) So there could be 10 matches, and only one of them is recent. So at first, you may think this system is really connecting you. So you respond to all of these matches. What happens? Most ignore you, some put you "on hold" meaning they are not interested "at this time" and some "close" you meaning they are totally not interested.

But you stay past the 7 days. Because you know some women may take days to respond, you are forced to stay past the 7 days "just in case". So, a month has passed, and you get one new match. Ooo. So you send her the "list of questions". She either doesn't respond, or she responds with that round of answers, and round two of questions. So you respond, and you send your next round of questions and... No response. So you wait another month. (I paid for something like 9 months because it's more cost effective.) No new matches. Two months, ah, a new match.

You send the round of questions, oops, you get put "on hold". Damn. Considering I live in a valley that has some 4.7million people, you'd think I would get more than 8 matches a year!! It makes me wonder how long those initial matches have been collecting dust in their server room!

So either eHarmony really sucks, or I am really such a unique individual that I am incompatible with the majority of the population. What do I think? I am unique, and I think that eHarmony has too rigid of a matching system. I would like to be able to "tone it down" as far as the matching goes. I have certain "must haves" such as "she must not have children". I wonder if I changed that, what would happen. Not that I would go out with them, but I am really getting that frustrated.

Personals Update

2006-10-24T03:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, so here's the tally. Monday morning I responded to a bunch of personals. I think I sent 9 out. Here's the tally:

Negative: 3
Positive: 0
Non-response: 6

All a Negative means is they responded, but they were not interested. All three used a pre-selected response of "Sorry, we're not a good match" or "You live too far away". The sad thing about that last one is she lives only a couple cities away. (I live in a major city in Arizona, it's really about a 20 minute drive!)

Score?

33.33% Negative Response rate
66.67% Non-response rate
0% Positive

Ramblings, Yahoo! Personals

2006-10-23T12:47:00.000-07:00

Another reject letter. At least she had the decency. Although, it was one of the pre-written responses. Maybe I should start using those. There are two types of people on the personals. Those that subscribe, and those that don't. I do. I can message them, but those that don't pay can't. So I sneak my email in there so they can message me without paying. The problem is, Yahoo! "hides" your email in your message to protect your privacy. (Um, I WANT to share my email.) In reality though, they just want money from both ends.

This is why I don't use the pre-written messages, I can't put my email in them. Of course, how serious is she, if she doesn't want to pay for their service? Answer: It's expensive, I can barely afford it! I wish I had been keeping stats on how many people respond to my messages. I've deleted all the messages I've sent to those whose profiles have been deleted, so there is no way I can even tell. I would say I get a positive response about 2% of the time. In all honesty, I figured I would get a 10% response rate.

Something isn't going right. I think it's my picture. I used to write a paragraph when I would respond. I am long winded, and I knew this was turning them off. So I've started with the basic "Hi, I'm Mike, I'd like to get to know you more, wanna have coffee?" I've taken a few "self portraits" with my cheapy digital camera, and the results were less than steller. But here's what gets me, almost NONE of their pictures are really that good! I mean, where do they come off with a crappy picture, yet, I still message them!

Ok, short intro profile: Check. Short but sweet response: Check. Responses: Um, we need to work on that. I would at least expect: "Hey Mike, thanks for the response, here's more about me, I'd like to get to know you more too! Coffee sounds great, email me!" It must be my pic. I need that new digital SLR I can't afford!

Of being stood up!

2006-10-23T00:20:00.000-07:00

Wow. Here's goes a rambling unstructured post, off the top of my head, ready?:

I got stood up last night. Pisses me off, because it was an absolute waste of time. I could have stayed home and done nothing. Okay, I'm a little behind on chores, but come on! I pay to be on Yahoo! personals. Having a pay account allows me to contact people, that's it. So I contacted Lisa who used to live in California. Great, we have something in common already, so I focus on that. That's the easy part. The hard part is when they don't give me anything about themselves to go on. It's really just: "Hi, I'm Mike, would you like to have coffee?"

She emailed me not through email, but through the personals, so she pays for the service, nice. We chat a bit about Cali, and she's also from San Diego, although her family (and herself) moved to Arizona 10 years ago when she was 14. So I invite her out for coffee. She agrees and gives me her phone number.

I call her a couple days later on Friday. She's driving home from work. Being the safe guy that I am, I offer to call her back when she gets home. She insists that she's fine driving and talking. Um, ok. So we set up a "casual meet date" for Sunday 4pm. Starbucks is my place of choice, because they are everywhere. Walgreens and CVS are everywhere too, but I just don't think that would be appropriate.

Lisa lives in Peoria, which puts her on the other end of the valley than me. So I go by my
"3/4th rule". That means I will drive 3/4th of the way to their location to meet up with them. She went for 2/3rd of the way to my location when she selected the Arizona Mills mall in Tempe. I wasn't sure if I wanted to meet at a mall, but, I agreed. So I get up around noon Sunday (remember, I work nights). I iron my shirt, hit the shower, put on my favorite cologne, I'm ready to go! It's a half hour drive.

After getting lost in the mall (I couldn't find a map anywhere in the damn place!) and after getting stuck in a few herds of slow moving people, I made it to the Starbucks. There was a vendor outside the Starbucks. Her cash register showed 3:58pm. Right on time. I wait.

4:15pm comes up. Something occured to me back at home, and I remembered it at that moment: "Did we schedule for 4pm or 5pm?" So I decided to walk down to the JC Penny and see what they have. I come back around 4:30pm. I wait until 10 minutes to five. I go back to my car, grab some change, and I call her from a payphone. Ah, voice mail. If she was running late, she would have answered. I decide against leaving a message. I'm on a pay phone for crying out loud.

The vendor looks at me again. She had been watching me for some time. I told her what I was doing, and she reminded me of the time, suggesting to me Lisa's late. I knew. I thought of inviting the vendor to dinner after her shift. But some guy in the same vendor shirt brought her a sandwich, and they shared it. No, they didn't tear it in half, he took a few bites, then she would, um, she followed suit.

5:30pm I left. Now, if Lisa was lost, tired, or something really came up, I'd expect a message on my machine at home, an email, or something. NOTHING. I might call her up Monday and act stupid. "Hey, looks like we missed each other Sunday, I wonder what happened..." If I get her voicemail...

Actually, I shouldn't call her at all. I was stood up. What pisses me off is why not call to cancel? Why even set up a date with me if you have no plans to show up? I mean, why give me your number? Hell, why even respond to my initial response? Most (98%) don't. What better thing came up? A cuter guy? How about this?: Why not show up anyway and humor me? I've meet women who looked nothing like their picture. They really let themselves go, and they thought it would be okay to use a 5+ year old picture of themselves. But I still went, I still showed them my best. Sure, I didn't call them after that, but I didn't stand them up! I have never stood anyone up!

The last woman I was supposed to meet stood me up too. I waited an hour. I didn't have her number, so I couldn't call her. Time to switch back to Subway. That seems to get more (although not much more) results.

One thing I hate about working nights is the fact I'm up all night when I look at the personals. I can't respond because who wants to go out with a guy that's responding to online personals at 1am? From the start it looks like I'm lonely. Am I? I sure am, but that's NOT what keeps me up all night! So for now, I'm saving those profiles that catch my eye. The problem is during the day I'm either too busy to respond to them, or I'm not motivated (because I'm not that creative during the day).

Did I get the job?

2006-10-21T08:10:00.000-07:00

I should be in bed. I work nights, so I tend to sleep in the morning. I'm tired, but I have a feeling that if I lie down, I don't get to sleep. Maybe I should just try? Something has been puzzling me all week. I applied for a position at work a couple weeks ago. I went through the interview thinking I did well. I found out I didn't get the position. I tried not to get my hopes up before I was informed. It was a challenge because so many people thought I would get it.

My boss was even worried I would get the job and leave his department. I have developed a lot of valuable skills for our department over the last few months that I haven't been able to really train anyone on. Most of the skills I have developed relate to problem solving. That is, if someone screws something up, I've learned how to fix it. This isn't something that's easy to teach. Usually, if I want to teach it on my own time, I have to purposefully break it first, and then put it back together. Our computer system records everything to traceability. So doing this would cause red flags.

So for now, I just wait until people break things before I teach them how to fix things. I was really worried that if I left the department, I wouldn't really get to use, and share the skills I have developed. Looks like that has become a non-issue. But I do wonder, who did get the job? Could it be someone from a totally different department? Where I work, gossip is king! Or should I say queen? It's 90% women who spread the gossip. If anyone got the job, the word would be dispatched in an instant, yet, a week after I get my "sorry" letter, no news.

The person who had the position previously got the position under special circumstances. In actuality, his position didn't exist before he got it. It was created for him because of the nature of our product, and he was moved out of production because of this. Now that he has moved on to another department, what is left of his position? Could it be they want to "kill" the position? It was created for a person, that person has moved on to another part of the company, and now will it be deleted? If they did that out right, it would be admitting the position was created for him. What if they posted a job and ran interviews just to tell everyone "sorry" and no one gets it? They could argue that no one really met the qualifications.

We had an education fair the other day. Since I work nights, I stopped by the fair before my shift start. CindyT from HR was there. He was on my interview. She appoligized for not selecting me for the position. I didn't know how to react. I mean, I wanted to be civil. I wanted to show that it didn't matter. I mean, it didn't really matter to me. I have applied for positions that were over my head. When I didn't get those positions, I understood. But this one, so many people were behind me. Sure, a couple of them were probably full of crap, but they all can't be that bad!

My response to Cindy was an unemotional "oh well, I still have a lot to do as a trainer anyway..." I suggested to Cindy that I was limited on time, and that I should visit a couple booths before heading in to start my shift. She snapped a couple pictures of me for the company newsletter as I spoke with the representitive from ASU.

It is entirely possible someone from the front office got the job, someone with more Powerpoint and Access experience than myself. Someone who is not part of the production "gossip ring". But the curious thing is the "sorry" letter didn't really say that someone with greater qualifications was selected. This is usually the case. The mystery continues. I kind of hope someone got it, but I also kind of hope no one got it, and it was just a big scam. Why?

If someone else got it, I will wonder if they truly have more experience and skills than me. If no one else got it, then it makes me, and everyone else who applied for it a victim. I can then bitch and moan about me pissed, which is my "normal state" in life. I want it to be a conspiracy, I want this to have meaning. I want people to feel bad for me, not because someone else got it, but because the position was a fraud, a way to keep an otherwise good employee working at the company.

Maybe, I want it all to be a fraud, because it'll make my otherwise dull life interesting...

Karma, is it real?

2006-10-19T14:11:00.000-07:00

Karma, is it real? I'm the type of person who believed in what can be proven scientifically. Of course, there are many things that scientists theorize, but have yet to prove. That's another blog entry altogether. Today's subject is karma. Karma is the idea of "what goes around comes around". I've always believed in karma from a purely logical sense.

For example, if someone drives like a maniac, swerving in and out of traffic, racing through red lights, eventually they will hit something. This is the law of statistics. The more a robber robs, the greater the chance he will be caught because the police have more and more information to solve the case.

This is all logical, but there may be a component that I will never be able to analyze. On my way to me 10 year high school reunion I had a blow out. Luckily I had left my parent's house in Murrieta hours before the event. I had planned on a surprise visit to an old friend and invite him to lunch. The problem with my blow out was it WAS my spare. My old bug hadn't run in 3+ years, and because of my accident, I no longer had my truck, and I was forced to bring the bug back from the dead.

I only had three good wheels and a spare. Yeah, that worked out well. So, I had to call my brothers and Murrieta to come get me and my dead tire about 15 minutes south of Escondido on the 15. Good times. When I was on the phone with my brother, a girl, about my age, named Seeny got a flat right next to me. She was on the phone with her husband. I helped her change her flat. We discovered she hit something, something so bad that it actually broke her rim in two! I had never seen that before!

Her husband arrived just as we finished and I began the work on the bug. If I were to believe in karma, I would suggest she did something right to someone else. Because of that, she got a flat right where I did. Of course, it was an area of heavy contruction. Anyway, I didn't have to help her. She suggested that, as her husband was on his way. But like I told her, I wasn't going anywhere anytime soon!

The whole incident consumed three hours. I only got to the hotel 70 minutes before the start of the reunion. I never got anything to eat until the dinner. :-( At the reunion, I won the prize for "Most unusual job". I hardly ever win anything, so I was stoked, because I got to take a piece of my reunion home with me to remember it by. I have been in a good mood ever since. Karma wasn't only winning a prize, but to meet old friends whom I feared had long forgotten me. Wow...

My high school reunion.

2006-10-15T22:57:00.000-07:00

(I originally was going to post this to my very public blog on myspace, but as I typed it up, I realized it was becoming to personal for that.)

Wow, simply wonderful, the experience. It was worth every penny! My high school reunion was held at The Bristol hotel in downtown San Diego. First off, I have to say the reunion commitee picked a great place. For some time I had felt bad about this get together. I hadn't seen any of these people in years, and for all I knew they could be total strangers to me now. Did they look the same? Did they look different? What if I recognized them as someone else? Yeah, that was my worst fear!

I remember faces real well, but not names, and not places. I could see a face, recognize it, and know that I knew that person, but that's it. There were many people that remembered me from elementry school. I felt bad, because they remembered me so much more. These were people I looked up to in high school, they were highly successful while I struggled.

I don't remember them from middle school though. It seems some of us went to O'Farrell while others went to Bell. When I saw them again in high school, I was sure they didn't remember me, and I didn't approach them. I guess I was worred the dialog would go something like this:

Me: Hi Marianne, remember me from Bethune?

Marianne: Um, no, sorry, I don't. What class were we in together?

Me: Uh, I don't remember, but I remember you, um, your face, er something...

At this point, she's probably thinking I'm some creep or something. So I wouldn't bother. So imagine the surprize when she, and others like her, approached me and told me they remembered me from elementry. They remembered so much about me, I wonder why they never approached me in high school?

I have an idea though. I kept to myself in high school. I was suffering from long term depression because of events in my life, and I kept my head down to avoid eye contact, closing myself off. I can imagine how this would have repelled most anyone who might want to approach me and strike up a conversation.

Last night however, I made sure I would be the talk of the town. Since I got over my depression over four years ago, I have become more extroverted, more open, more lively. At the reunion, I brought my camera, and I was taking candid shots the best I could. I would strike up conversations with long lost friends, I would pose for pictures with them. I won a prize for having in the judges' opinion "the most unusual job". When I got back from my hotel room after dropping off my prize, they were taking the group photo.

A large group of girls were calling and waving me to join in. There was no place, so I plopped myself down on the floor near the bottom. I hope most of my face got in the shots. :-) When it came time to dance, which I don't know how to do, I did it. I did it with people I knew, and with total strangers. I think this made me very approachable. I'm glad I did this, and I hope to keep in touch with these old friends, and with the new friends I made last night.

WIC, Woman Infant Child

2006-10-09T14:42:00.000-07:00

I've learned overt he yearst o trust my gut. So far, my gut has never been proven wrong. Today, I was in the check out aisle at the local Basha's supermarket. The woman ahead of me was trying to buy three boxes of cereal, three small bottles of juice, and three gallons of milk. She had a WIC check and was trying to use that check to make the purchase. The box of Cheerios she was trying to buy wouldn't ring up as a WIC item. It was, but for some reason Basha's system didn't recognize it as such, and the cashier had to ring it up manually. The whole time, the woman was insistant that she had figured all the "ounces" rights. Of course, this was not the problem, as the Cheerios was the first item rung up.

This got me thinking about welfare in a general sense, and WIC more specifically. I have only known two people to be on WIC, this woman would be the third experience, but I don't know her. (She did mention she was doing this for her daughter.) The two people I knew was the girlfriend of an ex-friend. The other person was my own cousin. In either case, the baby wasn't planned. In fact, the couples involved weren't even married. Since then, my ex-friend had broken up with this girlfriend, remarried, had a couple more kids, and is now divorced.

My cousin was living at home with "daddy" along with her boyfriend. They since had a second child. This was a few years ago, and I haven't bothered to pay another visit, as my own life keeps me quite busy. They too were not married, in fact, the father was still married to a woman some place in the south. I'm not sure, but I think he also had children with her.

Back when my ex-friend's girlfriend was on WIC, I wasn't very political, so I didn't observe the program too a large extent. All I remember is the large amount of milk she got. Fast forward to after I moved to Arizona, my cousin registered for WIC and was accepted. She, as well as my ex-friend's girlfriend, had no job. Her boyfriend went from job to job, and they were largely supported by daddy. WIC provides for a lot of milk. This I see as a big waste of resources.

Milk is expensive a perishable. It goes bad in a short amount of time. This is why I rarely buy milk. I don't drink the stuff often enough to buy it by the gallon. My mom ran a child care in the home I grew up in. Often times she had more than 12 kids 8 - 10 hours a day. We went through milk quite a bit. I don't remember exactly the rate we had to buy milk, but I do remember two gallons lasted over a week. This is with me, my brother, and later, my youngest brother using the milk in our cereal.

So fast forward to these WIC moms, I have to look at three gallons of milk, and wonder where it's going? I doubt a new born is going to drink all that milk. In fact, I don't even know if new borns should drink milk at all. In fact, my cousin would give the milk away! I wish I monitored how often she bought milk for this blog.

So? Where does my gut feeling come in? Here's what I know: Women can apply for WIC when they are going to have, or have a baby. WIC comes in the form of a WIC check, for which they can use to buy things for her, her baby, or her child. There are different "levels" based on the needs of the mom, baby, or child, thus: "Woman, Infant, Child." In my observations, too much food is provided. Of course, more research will be needed on my part, as I don't know how much time that check is for. Is it once a week? Bi-weekly? Once a month? It's very rare milk can last more than a month without spoiling, unless you keep the refrigerator colder than its recommended setting.

What else do I know? Keep in mind, these are all based on anecdotal experience. I have no statistics to base any of my findings on. In two cases, and possibly a third, the moms in these programs are single. They are unmarried, and usually have no income of their own. In the case of my ex-friend's girlfriend, my cousin, and possibly this woman's dauther, all the mom's lived at home, with family.

This rolls into another blog when I have time... Family planning. In two of these cases, where I was able to gather enough information, the moms were unmarried, living at home, had no income, thus, was the child planned? If they wanted a child, it wasn't planned out very well!

When skin color becomes a factor.

2006-10-05T14:46:00.000-07:00

I have been accused to being racist. Strangely, these are usually the very people that fit the stereotype of the racist than myself. Sure, I'm white, so that's one point against me in our society. This is something I cannot change, all I can do is be my best. One particular person, who called me a racist, is of Hispanic origin, yes, her actions put her closer to being a racist.

I work the nigh shift in a manufacturing environment. I am a trainer. In between training assignments, which is usually directed by myself and another associate, I perform production line support for the various team members. This usually includes solving problems that arise out of the manufacturing process. Improper paper work, mixed lots, incorrect final quantities are all part of the production line support I may provide. The nice thing about being a trainer is I can teach people how to solve their own problems.

This may be contrary to what first seems logical. On the surface, it would seem logical for me to solve all of the problems completely on my own. If Rita H. brings be two lots that are coming out wrong, it would seem logical for me to solve it completely on my own, thus releasing her back to production to meet the quota. This is not the approach I take. I will train anyone who brings me an error how to correct it. There are many reasons for this. The obvious one is so they can learn what error they may have either made, or contributed to. But I don't do this as a punishment, I do this in a way that one learns, like an instructor would help a student.

This is also logical, because what happens if I miss a day of work, or I decide to take a vacation? That is always when something bad happens, and usually more than one thing will go wrong. I don't want the operation to stop because I'm not there. My job security isn't tied to the possibility of the production line going down if I am laid off. Lastly, when someone who makes an error, is made to go through the problem solving process, they are less likely to repeat the same error. Keep in mind, when a problem is brought to me, I don't know the immediate solution.

I have often made problems worse by going completely off what someone has told me was wrong. In the interest of saving time, I jumped right in to solving the problem. This usually ended up not solving the problem at all, and instead, I've created another problem. This usually ends up the next day with me at "the desk" explaining what I intended to do, and being told myself what I did wrong. Yes, I make mistakes. This is why I don't mind helping others that do. My only criteria is that they are willing to admit they may have made an error, and care enough to want to solve it, learn how to solve it, and do steps to prevent the error in the future. I cannot tolerate people to believe solving their problems is my function. That has never been my job title. Now I will make exceptions at my own discretion. For example, if someone is entirely new to a process, I won't immediately teach them how to solve the problem, because too much information may be too much. Another case may be if a certain product MUST meet a quickly approaching deadline and I need that operator running the product.

On the day shift, we had a black woman who coordinates one of our biggest product lines. When I say "biggest" I don't mean they make us the most money, or we make that product the most, I mean, it take a lot of floor space, and requires the most team members. The problem with this coordinator is she is completely unorganized, emotional in the worse sense, constantly makes errors that she has no interest in learning where she went wrong to cause. This has often caused distress for my fellow nigh shifters and myself.

Often times, we have to finish up a lot that was left "in process" when we come in. Often times, the lot has the improper quantity, or sub assemblies are located in a completely different part of the production floor. Just the other week, we ran out of parts we needed to complete a lot. Seeing as our parts are counted out (on a scale) and places into totes; it was strange they were missing, even if the paperwork said they should be there. This day shift coordinator, Donna S. has set up the next lot, which I avoid, because I ended up having to take these sub assemblies from the next lot to use in the lot we were finishing. I had to "modify" the paperwork to reflect the change. Several hours later, I found the missing parts in a tote lit perhaps 20 yards away in a completely different location than they belong.

Luckily I was able to read the lot number on them and recover them for the next lot. Now, I've made this mistake in the past, and I would probably make it again. But the difference between her and I, is that she doesn't care that she made this error. In fact, if I were to mention this to her, she would get emotional, walk off, yelling a bunch of muttering that I can't understand. She'll often times make up things that we did wrong the night before. When I investigated these allegations, I've found them to be false every time. Yes, she makes up things we do wrong.

So where does race come into play? No, I have nothing against her color of skin. I believe that Donna S. is held to a lower standard by the production manager, who is also of the same skin color. "Lower standard?" you may be asking. Yes, a lower standard. Here are some examples:

When Donna S. leaves a lot of paperwork unfinished, the product cannot be shipped. When the shipping department tries to prepare a lot to go out the door, they are stopped by this incomplete work. I was asked by one of the shipping department workers if I could finish up firsts paperwork. I agreed. So that night I went through and verified the quantities and the associated paperwork. What I found was appalling The paperwork was missing important documentation. This is documentation that records the scrap produces during the lot's journey through the process. This tracking is critical so we can track problems down the line.

Because of this missing paperwork, I had to "fudge" it and take blank sheets and tally up the missing quantity as "lost" product. This works out in this case, because "lost" wouldn't be lying. I wouldn't make up a defect code if I didn't know that it existed. Some of the paperwork was missing so much information, I couldn't close it out at all, and I left a couple notes for her to consider. One of the notes read:

"I tried to close this out for you, but some of the paperwork is missing."
"I was unable to gain access to the fax room, so I didn't fax this packed, it needs to be faxed."

The next day, we (night shift trainers and boss) were told in a meeting that we are no longer to leave notes. I guess Donna S. was offended at my notes. Instead of actually reading the notes, the manager just told me not to leave them. Recently, something happened that prompted me to write this article in this journal.

For the past couple of months, the engineering department has had a notice posted in the area requesting that we save, bag, and tag rejects from this process. They wanted to justify the removal of a testing process to reduce the turnaround time of the product. This is logical only if we never, or rarely encounter defects in the product. The customer does their own quality testing of our product when they receive it. So our testing is redundant, and more for internal quality control. If we start getting defects before we ship the product, we can make corrections in real time.

About two weeks ago, this notice was removed. Once a notice is removed, it is as good as being rescinded. During this trial, our process went out of control big time, and we were creating a lot of defective product, which was sifted out turning the testing phase. Donna S. had been saving all those rejects, and evidence showed she was still saving them. They were all in various sized baggies all over this particular work station, making a mess. If the customer came in for an audit, they would not be impressed.

A member of day shift came to nights to work in the lab. She revealed to me the location of Donna's stash of paperwork. Donna S. started hiding her paperwork from us after I wrote those notes. My boss suggested I leave them alone, allowing her to have her "pie". (He's black himself.) I agreed, perhaps she would leave us alone. The only problem is the product has been piling up in the shipping area with no paperwork. Last nigh, I got so upset with her mess, I took all the saved product to the tear down area, emptied all the bags, and started over. I took all the empty paperwork sleeves (a plastic envelope) and returned them to the department that begins the paperwork, I took all the finished paperwork to the shipping department so they can be routed to document control, and I took all the paperwork that was stashed in a drawer and plopped them on their respective lots. Tonight, I plan on closing most of them out, and getting them out the door! They are taking up too much space.

Ok, so where does race come in? Donna S. has a few things going against her. For one, she's controlling. The whole process depends on her. This is unfortunate because I believe in a different philosophy. Remember my "error correcting training" above? Donna S. does all of the paperwork, and SPC testing for the team. This, like I said, may save time for the team, allowing them to keep running their particular process, but if they make a mistake, how are they ever to learn how to fix, and prevent the mistake, if they are never taken through the problem solving process?

The training team on days don't touch this process. Donna S. is the queen, and they let her have the process. Donna S. is not a trainer, and the trainers I believe fear the process. There are many variables, and far too many operations, and I believe they don't embrace challenge. Also, with Donna S. taking care of every little thing, no one takes ownership. If someone makes a mistake, it gets put on "Donna was supposed to do that". On our shift, it's more like "I'm supposed to do that."

Race comes into play, because the manager's expectations for Donna, and the team, are low. If a mistake is made by them and her, nothing is done about it. They might tell her she made a mistake, but no follow up is ever made to see if she *understands* the mistake. No training is done with Donna or her team to correct these errors. However, if I were to make 1/10th the errors, or our night shift team makes 1/10th the errors they do, we receive immediate feedback, and in a not so nice tone.

I am left to conclude, the only reason she had free reign of this process is because she's black. All I have to say is this: "If I were to hire someone to represent my skin color, I would pick the best damn person I can! Because I want to show the world "we" can do this!" And I believe that the color of her skin HAS ABSOLUTELY **NO** BEARING ON HER LACK OF ABILITY AT ALL!!!!

Donna's lack of ability is *completely* a result of the manager's, and the trainers' low expectations of her, and the team they work with. This hinders their ability to do an effective job. Thank You for surviving through this. Now it's time to go to work, and get reamed for cleaning up Donna's mess.

Of Dogs and Cats

2006-10-04T12:25:00.000-07:00

You know? If I keep revealing too much about myself, what will I write about when I become bored with this blog? I'm sure I'll find something to whine about. On line personals. I'm almost 29, and I am still single. I don't mean in the "I'm not married" sense, I mean "I don't even have a date!"

So I've been frequenting the on line personals. It's very hard to find someone who meets my standards, and I meet their's. One of the biggest things that bother me, is, I could be attracted to their photo(s), they have a great profile, they are conservative, love to cook, all the things a guy could want. Then they go and say: "He must love dogs".

Ouch, I loathe dogs! I mean, I could never cause harm to a dog, as I don't hate living creatures, but I don't like their bark, their aggressive nature, their destructive nature, and their inate urge to sniff people's (especially mine) crotch. Sure, they can be non-aggressive, they can been a non-barker, but those have to be trained into them, you have to do work to get them to function properly. And even then, there's no guarantee they'll take to any of their training.

Then you are left with a destructive annoying pet that you end up wanting to get rid of, but if you're like me, you don't want to take them to the pound, their fate being unspeakable. If you have kids, they are worse off with the dog! They want the dog, and you tell them "no". They claim they will feed it, clean up after it, and love it. After it grows out of the "puppy" phase of its development, the dog becomes his (the daddy's) responsibility.

So far, all the "perfect" (at least as far as one can tell from personals) women are dog lovers. In fact, all of the girlfriends that I have had were all dog lovers, and either had a dog, or previously had one that had since gone to doggy heaven, and they were itching to replace it. Luckily, none of them were marriage material. (At least, not for me.)

Over explanation?

2006-10-03T03:30:00.000-07:00

I've learned that it's important to present myself in a pleasing manner in social situations if I wish to be successful in life. This can be in my career, love life, or with family and friends. I try my best to be pleasing to those around me, without losing myself, my identity.

A couple weeks ago, a close co-worker of mine made the observation that I tend to over explain myself all too often. I know what he means, and I had to resist the urge to immediately defend myself without first looking in the mirror and seeing for myself if he was right in his assessment. I thought about it, and I considered that he may be right, so I decided to cut back on explaining every detail about why I did this, or how I did that.

Sunday, A piece of metal came through my windshield while I was going down the road about 50 MPH. I got glass all over my face, in my lap, and on my arms. It scared the crap out of me. I had just picked up a burger and large soda from Wendy's. The soda had glass on the lid, so I decided I didn't want it anymore.

When I got home, I called the police just in case someone threw it at me, so I wanted to report it. I was told I would have to drive into their jurisdiction to file the report. (They didn't want to send the officer outside the city this incident occured.) As I left the house I realized I left this object at the house. So I stopped, and only being 30 feet away, I put the car in reverse. When I began to back up, my soda fell to the floor and the lid popped off and the contents were emptied all over my folder and school book.

I was so mad, I threw everything that got soaked into the living room and left it there. At work, Chuck B. was expecting me to bring in the list of assignments for our homework. See, Chuck B. and I are in the same class, and he decided Friday that sleep was more important than his education, so he didn't show up. So when he and I had to work the following Saturday, he asked me to bring in the assignments on Monday so he could do (copy?) them. Since my folder got soaked, and it was sitting in the living room, I didn't bring it to work, so imagine the following conversation:

Chuck B.: "Did you bring me the assignments?"

Me: "No, they got left at home, they got soaked when my soda spilled all over them."

Chuck B.: "Do you know what they assignments were?"

Me: "No, I wrote them down, but I don't remember them, they got soaked."

Chuck B.: "So you don't know what the assignments are?"

Me (more insistant): "No, I do NOT, the paper I had them written on were in the folder, and it got soaked with Dr. Pepper."

Chuck B.: "Was the assignment on chapter 6?"

Me: "I think so, but I'm not 100% sure." (Liability here! I don't want to say "yes!" and be wrong).

Chuck B.: "What do you mean you're not sure?"

Me: "I told you already, everything I had written down is soaked and sitting at home, I spilled Dr. Pepper on everything!!!"

Chuck B.: "God, you don't have to get all pissy."

Me: "Dammit Chuck, if you would listen to me and stop asking the same damn questions!"

At the end of the shift, he commented that I need to take my Midol. Idiot.

Saturday, while working during the day, Donna B. Comes up to me with a problem. See, if we forget to "clock in" we have to go to the boss and tell him. Of course, he'll find out on his own when he logs in and sees your time screwed up, and he will call you to the desk, and demand an explanation.

Donna B.: "Mike, I need you to leave a note for Ray." (Ray, the boss, doesn't work Saturday, I was acting Supervisor this day.)

Me: "Why?"

Donna B.: "I need you to tell him, in the note, that I forgot to clock in."

Me: "Donna, I'm sure you'll remember Monday."

Donna B.: "Just leave him a note."

Me: "Just tell him when you get in Monday."

Donna B.: "You think he'll notice?"

Me: "Yeah, I'm sure he'll notice something isn't right."

Donna B.: "So, do you think I should go up to him and tell him?"

Me: "Or, you could wait until he calls you to his desk. I recommend you tell him before that happens."

Donna B.: "Are you sure you can't just leave him a note?"

Me: "I'm not the one who forgot to clock in, it's your responsibility, not mine. I'm sure you'll be able to handle it on your own."

Donna B.: "Well, that's the last time I come and ask you for anything!"

Later, Nuyet, aka jen... (She's Chinese).

Jen: "Uh, um, Mike...

Me: "Yeah?"

Jen: "I, uh, um, forgot to, um, clock, uh, in..."

Me: "Ok, it happens..."

Jen: "Um, can you fix... it?"

Me: "Jen, have I ever been able to fix it?"

Jen: (giggles) "Uh, um, no." (giggles)

Me: "Who can fix it?"

Jen: "Um, Ray?"

Me: "Ok, so I'm sure you'll remember to tell him Monday."

See?!? See what I am left to deal with? This is why I always go into morbid detail. I bet you're saying: "But Mike! I listen to you, and I don't argue with you, so why do you put me through your torture?" Simple, because it has become a habit of mine. I can't turn it off. I either have to do it all the time, or never. I err on the side of giving people more information than I need. Wouldn't we better understand Global Warming if we had actual data to see instead of a bunch of politicians making it overly simple? Don't you get better service when you know what price you have to pay up front?

San Diego Chargers look for new home.

2006-10-01T15:48:00.000-07:00

http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/chargers/20060927-9999-7m27chargers.html

"Chargers executives say Qualcomm Stadium, where the team has played since 1967, is outmoded and does not provide the revenue sources found in new stadiums. The team says it needs more money to compete with the teams in larger markets for top players and coaches."

Um, more money? How much is it going to cost to build a new stadium? Think about this for a moment, I'll use the Cardinals stadium in Arizona as an example. The Cardinals played at ASU for years before a stadium was built. Most people were against it because the Cadinals have always been a lousy team. Eventually, it was built being funded by "tourist tax" which is taxing rental cars and hotels. (Tourist never get to vote for or against this tax, since they generally don't live in the state.) The first season in the new statium is completely sold out.

But looking deeper into this, it seems that businesses are the ones who bought out a good portion of the tickets to give off as prizes. "Buy this car, and get a season's worth of Cardinals tickets at the new Cardinals stadium!" Or: "Caller number 9 gets a season pass to the Cardinals at the new Cardinals stadium!" Everyone is giving away tickets. So I doubt all those sold out seats were really sold out by people interested in going. I believe they were given away to car dealerships, to radio stations, to windshild repair companies, to offer as a gift for buying their cars, listening to their radio station, or for having them repair your windshield.

So, back to the Chargers' stadium. Why do they want a new one? According to the executives, to make more money. But who is going to shoulder the cost of the new statium? If I ran a business out of a trailer, and I wanted an actual building, who should pay for my upgrade?

"Under the Chargers' lease with the city, they can begin relocation talks with any U.S. city beginning Jan. 1, and can leave town after the 2008 season by paying the balance on $60 million in bonds the city issued in 1997 to expand Qualcomm."

Ok, so right off the bat, the Chargers will have to pay $60 million in bonds. How many tickets, over how many seasons will it take to pay that off? Or will the tax payers front this cost? So far, I don't see the savings, and I never will. Why? Because these execs won't disclose their figures on ticket sales. I wonder how many tickets they would give away anyway?

Here is my final thought: I am not a sports fan, but I like to discuss public use of money. Whether I like it or not, sports does affect me. It affects me when I have to get somewhere as a game is letting out. I have to deal with the taxes, the increased hotel and car rental costs. I am also a believer in paying for what you want. The Cardinals and the Chargers should pay for what they want. The cities love the stadiums because they bring in tax revenue, but I don't see our taxes go any lower as a result? The streets don't get better. No more cops are put on the street. Drug manufacturing and use doesn't decline.

When I lived in San Diego, I remember the San Diego Trolly expension to the stadium. I liked the idea of the trolly working its way to the stadium. I believed it would relieve traffic and reduce accidents as a result of the congestion that plagues the area and from people driving after having way too much to drink. Now, they want to move. Do they plan to move next to the trolly lines somewhere? I think they owe the city of San Diego that much considering how they purposefully planned the trolly route to meet the now Qualcomm stadium.