I just finished with my last final of the semester. And the news is good, although I won't know for certain HOW good until next week. In Business Management, Business Communications, and Network Security, I received "A" grades. In the first two courses, that's an accomplishment, because the instructor does not liberally hand out high grades. In Marketing and Accounting, I received a "B". In Marketing, I was points away from an "A", but the "B" should still keep my average in good shape. In...
Well, as of today, there is exactly one month left until the last day of finals. And immediately afterwards, I will start on a *new* job ("new" in the responsibilities of the position, not in the people I will be working with). It will be a management position, so I get to torture my underlings with all of my newly acquired information from Business Management. Hey, I had to suffer in my day...it's THEIR TURN now! (LOL!) I'm doing better than I had hoped in Accounting. I'm sitting two percent...
We spent the last several days out of town, and I received two SMS messgaes from a firm that hires me for contract jobs. Since I was nowhere near a Wifi hotspot, though, I couldn't answer them. I let them go, figuring they would be re-routed before I could look at them anyway. So I was surprised this morning to see that neither of the two jobs had been re-routed. I checked them out and took the first. I went onto the second to note that the fee for the job, which was initially $100, had been ...
For a long time I have regarded a degree as "just a piece of paper". In fact, coming into this semester, I still carried that belief. Although I saw the practical reasons for it, to me, it was nothing more than a piece of paper. Just halfway through this semester, I have to say I see it quite differently. My semester has been crammed with courses on management, marketing, programming, business communication, and the oh so dreaded accounting (in which, after seeing my midterm grades, I found I...
My on again, off again dieting is on again. Now, it's not total yoyo dieting, as I didn't revert back to my biggest weight (at my worst, I neared the 400 pound mark; I got down to about 280 and plateaued; for the last four years I've been about 320), but still, I've gotten sidetracked on getting to my goal weight of 250 (I should probably be lower, but I figure I'll aim for 250, see how I feel, then go from there. Baby steps.) So it was with some delight that I stepped on the scales last nigh...
I got really pissed off in a conversation yesterday. Seriously, genuinely and truly pissed. And the conversation is such a perfect illustration of why I do not like the welfare mentality that pervades so much of the American left. I was talking with a couple in town who are chronically out of work. Not chronically out of work because of the job market, mind you, but chronically out of work because, frankly, they don't want to work. In the three years I have been here, it has been a continu...
As I've finished up part of my schooling in IT and am moving to the next chapter, I've found a fascinating trend. The number of parents who, inspired by their child's endless games of Guitar Hero or Halo, have decided that their child has unlimited potential in the IT field. It's a ludicrous assumption absent evidence of other skilld, and I'd like to put a stop to it. To most Americans, computers remain in that mysterious ether, not quite magical, not quite scientific. They don't know how ...
One of these years I'm going to get around to burning a CD of my favorite Christmas songs (which are almost anti-Christmas songs). In the meantime, though, I'm going to hand it over to the Kinks. The following are the lyrics to one of my all time favorite Christmas songs ever. Merry Christmas, everyone!: When I was small I believed in santa claus Though I knew it was my dad And I would hang up my stocking at christmas Open my presents and Id be glad But the last time I played father ch...
This is a song I've been working to put together right for awhile. It still needs work, but I thought I'd present it as is. Merry Christmas, JU! It was Christmas Eve in nineteen seventy something, The trees hung heavy with the winter snow. We sledded down the hills in cardboard boxes We huddled up and shivered from the cold. We lived in a small two bedroom apartment My mom, two brothers, a sister and me, We'd come home every day and make our dinner While mom finished her shift at the...
This last week has given me an interesting change of perspective. For those who don't know, I spent the better part of last Saturday and early Sunday literally crippled with gout. Over the week, as I've been evaluating things and learning more about my condition, I have been intrigued with how readily we embrace foods that literally poison us with no afterthought. Being crippled, even if for less than 24 hours, makes you think about those things. I'm hoping this is the beginning of some ve...
Locamama wrote an article about political correctness recently. The idea was that it was a good thing, and, of course, opinions of all stripes were offered. As a larger than average person, I have my own perspective, as obesity is one trait against which it is still politically correct to discriminate. I don't want someone to come up with a "quaint" term to describe what I am. I am what I am, and that is FAT. A cutesy term doesn't change that fact, it doesn't change what I see when I look in ...
As the debate on Vista grows from the angry to the comical, I am beginning to notice an interesting trend. More people that I speak with about computing have expressed an interest in trying alternative operating systems and hardware. In fact, I am of the opinion that in 5-6 years' time, you'll be able to walk into your local electronics store and choose between a variety of operating systems, all with approximately equal levels of functionality. Games, again in my perfect little world, will be w...
Over the years, I have made friends with various people, both in real life and online, that one would not expect. And there's a reason for that. I don't give my friendship easily. Now, that doesn't mean I won't be friendly, it just means that if I consider you a "friend", you're family. I'd take a bullet for you, and I will defend you unfailingly in front of others. But that doesn't mean I'll agree with you. In fact, in the circle of people I consider friends, I prefer to include the ones ...
This has been an article I've long had floating around in my head, in response to one JU regular's quite ignorant accusation that I have the run of "bad luck" with jobs that they have with theirs. I haven't updated people on my personal life lately, because, frankly, I have been more than a little tired of some of the games for some time, but here goes: When I started on JoeUser, I had just left the mine. The mine had never been my idea of a permanent job. I was working at the time in plumbin...
It was not that long ago that rape trials would center on the sexual life of the accuser. Basically, one had to be practically a nun in order to get any justice in many of those trials. The mentality was named the "blame the victim" mentality, and was rightly shunned for the stinking thinking that it was. A look at today's headlines shows just how far we've gone back to the "blame the victim" mentality. Only it's not rape this time, it's mass murder. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071108/ap...