BigCat’s Blog of DOOM

I have two full sized single board computers, at least one of which I’m going to give away. If you don’t know what that is, but it peaks your interests go to my companies website and check out our “full sized” “single board computer” section. Look at our P3 ones to get an idea of what I got. THe exact board I have is not on there, but you can get an idea if you look at some of those.

Other than that, Lauren’s ordeal with her family has reminded me of a pet peeve of mine. I can’t stand people who answer everything with “Yeah, but…” followed by some excuse.

I much prefer, and often practice the blow of technique of “oh” or “mmmmm” in response to someone disagreeing with me or telling me I need to change something I don’t want to.

The problem with the “Yeah, but” response is two fold. First, your agreeing that the person is right about their analysis of the situation / event / debate / criticism that you are engaged in with them. This is a huge debate no-no. And even more to the point you are lying if you are going to follow this with a “but”, because you are then disagreeing. For example if I say “You smell like the gym shorts off a fat guy running laps at the YMCA.” And then someone follows with “Yeah, but I don’t smell that bad.” You just said you agree that you smell, but you then follow with, but not that bad. And a given the extreme of the gym short, you should have just said “I don’t smell that bad” or “No, I stink, but not that bad.” Or something to that effect. That conveys more respect for the person directly and says you listened to what they said.

Second is the excuse factor. The vast majority of people say “Yeah, but” followed by an excuse for their actions. This is especially true if you are calling for a change in their behavior like Lauren is. If you do something, and that needs to be changed, then there is no good excuse for your past actions. There is only corrective future action to be taken. So the appropriate response is “Yes you are right,” followed closely by “what can I do to improve this,” then the person goes and does it. Otherwise you should just disagree.

It is frustrating for me to talk to Lauren about this stuff, cuz that drives me so crazy when people do that.

Lunch over, back to work.

Sometimes I like pants, others not so much. Sometimes the drafty wafting of loose fitting shorts is my preference.

Today I like pants because the pockets hold the winnings of the only time I’ve ever won at poker. But on the flip-side my pants also feel somewhat constrictive. I think the poker winnings make the pants net a positive opinion this afternoon.

My wife is gone to California, that sucks a lot. I’m kinda lonely. It was awesome to get out and hang out w/ Josh, Alec and Glynn last night, but I got to thinking about what loneliness is for me.

I’ve lived alone for a while, I didn’t wear pants very often then, and it didn’t suck (both living alone, and being pantsless). I didn’t enjoy being alone as much as I was alone, so I got out to anywhere I could, and subsequently ended up at Saddleback Church and the rest is history. But then I wasn’t feeling as lonely as I was this morning and last night when I was home alone. I think it is based around the expectation of having someone around.

If I expect my wife to be home, or to have a companion / roommate living in the house of some type if your not married, then when they aren’t there I sense that, and am more lonely than I would be if I lived alone. I think maybe this is an odd situation, but I noticed that this morning before I put on my pants. It is amazing how our expectations can change our opinions of feelings on a situation.

Well that is enough lunch-time rambling. I will see many of you tonight.

Minnesotans, it is completely beautiful outside, make sure you get out at least once today and enjoy the warm weather and the sun.

My wife is going to fly to California this weekend and stay there for a week. This generally seems crappy to me on all sorts of fronts. Like the front that she will be gone for a long damn time, and I won’t have anything to do…more on that part later. And on the front that she is going there because her brother-in-law is pretty sick and she needs to go help take care of her severely bipolar sister, and on the front that my mother-in-law has no idea how to deal with anyone who is needy in an emotional way besides herself….and even then she is sketchy on how to handle her how emotional desires.

So, my wife is gone, this means extrovert Ben is going to be lonely, and has a Nintendo and TV all to himself. Anyone up for some video game action….or a week long guys night where we mostly watch guy movies and play poker and video games. Or if someone just wanted to come by to hang out that would be cool too.

Seriously, I am going to need to get out of the house for more than work. And I don’t trust myself alone for this long w/ just the internet to keep me company.

Hmm…other than that, I’m going to say I think all-night prayer meetings are only good in 6 month to one year doses for my sleep schedule right now. We’re having our second one in 3 and a half months, and I think I’m going to have to pass. I’m a little upset because I would go if it were all day Saturday (i.e. when all the people who are going Friday night are going to be sleeping), only because I’ve been falling asleep at for work ever since I got back from Illinois, and the last thing I need is more wierdness introduced into my sleep schedule. I would love to pray with people for 8 hours, I just don’t think my body can handle this change in sleep patterns right now. For those of you who don’t have this problem, you are tougher than I, and I salute you.

Hmm, my job has been pretty good lately. Lots of busy work, no time to cold call. I met with a recruiter Wednesday, he seemed to like me, and bought me lunch. He is going to toss my resume into a job at Boston Scientific. It focused on the programing side of manufacturing EE work, and they wanted you to know Visual Basic, which I don’t. But seriously, after you know three or four different languages you can pick them up on the fly. I have for projects in the past, and I have to say with the right manual for that programming language, it is nothing to pick up new ones. So I’m hopeful. That would mean more money, possibly closer to home by 10 minutes (depending on which site it is at), and more angled at my engineering stuff.

I will be sending out an email at some point to the MN people who would be interested in doing fun stuff this week….perhaps this weekend I will see what interest there is for different activities, perhaps not.

I was reading Mike’s blog on some Catholic tradition thing, which as usual I found mostly uninteresting (the article not your thoughts on it Mike, I like what you say about that stuff) because it failed to actually address any of my actual concerns in a quality way. I could elaborate one why I find this style of debate mostly worthless, but none of that is the point right now.

Anyway, Mike said some stuff that was interesting and well thought out as usual, and I decided to take a quick look at a link. (I’m out of productive personal lunch-time things to do, plus my bracket is tanking, and I can’t change it anymore which makes me lose interest) While reading it I had one of those thoughts go through my head to the effect of “man, this kind of ‘Catholics got it right from the beginning’ crap just makes them sound so arrogant and closed-minded.” And then I had a thought jump through my head to the effect of “Well, you are just like that so shut the hell up.”

I’m pretty sure that was a Holy Spirit moment, because I generally don’t think about myself in a highly negative way (it goes bad places as those who are prone to depression can tell you). Plus I’m getting a little better at filtering me from the HS talking in my head lately, and I’m thinking this is a HS moment.

Well, then a bunch of the times I’ve defended Catholicism to more extreme protestants popped into my head, and then a bunch of the times I’ve criticized the Methodist or Catholic church along with many of the older denominations popped in there as well. And it kinda made me sad all at once in an odd way.

So, now for my soap-box moment.

Why can’t we just see that God moves in more than one place at a time. Why can’t we see that sometimes we got things wrong in history….All of us, Catholic, Protestant, Charisimatic, Thrid-Wave, whatever. We all screwed it up at some point, and it got ingrained in our doctorine. Accept that, move on, and realize that your new denomination will do it just the same as the old ones. God is soooo big. To think that the Pope is more important than a local pastor is only a good thing if it focuses you more on God and his awesomeness. To think that God can’t be working through tradition and history in people is small-minded, even if he doesn’t work in you that way. Ribbons and flags can be a very expressive form of worship for some, and for others it is a total distraction. Some think fasting and silent meditation is the best form of worship, and they thrive on it. But different strokes for different folks I suppose. God loves you even if you don’t love him, he just loves you a little more if you are actively seeking and worshiping him. So why bother wasting time arguing, or being annoyed w/ people who are just trying to love God as much as they can? I suppose gross doctorinal errors like the crusades or not speaking against the Nazi’s we can criticize (that’s a bad german church…bad!), but besides those kind of things I think your wasting your breath.

Sorry, that was preachy, but I just started to break the thought that “I know better” than some people, as well as break the thought that “I’m not like those closed-minded Christians.” And then my hippy-dippy side popped out and wanted to write a little pro-eccumenical deal. So, take it for what it’s worth.

I had a bunch of thoughts lately, and rememeber thinking I should blog about…like they were profound or something, but now I can’t remember any of them. All in all, that is probably good for you, cuz I’m guessing they weren’t that profound if I fogot them.

I formatted my computer last night…it was pissing me off. It will run faster now, which is nice. I also discovered that my computer hates my second video card…which means blue screen of death if it is in, and subsequently I don’t get to use my dual monitor setup. Anyone know where I can get a good priced GeForce 6600GT AGP version w/ dual monitor outputs. I might just be saving a couple hundred bucks for that, cuz I was getting pretty darned used to using two monitors.

I got my resume just about ready. After I reinstall a few more programs I should be able to finish it up and send it to a couple of recruiters who have already called and asked me for it after they saw I updated my resume on monster.com. This week has been good…almost no cold calling, pretty busy with web-leads and old customers. Also, I’ve started quietly avoiding cold-calling by tying up loose ends on some of my older projects. I’m hoping my boss doesn’t notice I’m trying to avoid cold-calling. Next week we are going to install some CRM software that will keep track of which calls I make, and leads and stuff….that will be the end of me avoiding cold calls w/o arousing suspicion or my bosses wrath (one or the other).

Hmm…other than that, Dirk, can you try to give my coat to Caleb and Jenny when they are down for Steph and Isreals wedding this weekend (at church, or the wedding if you are going or something). Trying to avoid the hassel of shipping the thing if possible.

I think I’m going to copy these over to my normal blog after I get a new job…does that seem like a bad idea? I doubt anyone will care once I move on…but I’m wondering if there is a reason that would be bad.

So I know I said I never have anything that I want to friends lock, but this is the exception I guess. Hence the LJ post instead of my regular blog.

Well, my work doesn’t suck, but lately I have definitely not been into it. I had to start making cold calls, and while I’ve made a whopping 1, I think I really really hate it. A lot. It makes me feel worse than about anything else I’ve ever done. I was asking for advice from a few guys yesterday. One of them said that they didn’t have any idea how to cold call people so he started calling and just lied or made stuff up until he got through to an important person. My stomach did a back-flip when I heard that.

Anyway, nothing else is wrong w/ my job other than I just don’t like it really well. And this creeping thought has been in the back of my mind that the half-life of an engineering degree is 2 years….and I’m wasting mine. I doubt I could pass many technical skills tests right now, I haven’t “engineered” anything in months.

I kinda have this other idea going on, and I’m not sure if is productive, revalatory, or anything else but it goes like this: “I’m an engineer, God made me to do engineering. I’m pretty good at some kinds of engineering. I’m not a salesman. Does being a salesman honor God if he made me to be an engineer? Am I advancing the Kingdom as a Salesman?”

I like my co-workers, my boss, and I like parts of my job. I kinda like being at a smaller company…but I would perfer a bigger one. Nothing at my job makes me hate my job…just this one thing makes me not want to do the rest of my job. Too bad cold calling is a pretty major part of any sales job.

On top of all that there are a few jobs popping up w/in my radar that look like I’m qualified or almost qualified in manufacturing around the area.

I’ve been thinking about an interesting idea. I go to my boss, say I’m not happy doing what I’m doing. Tell him I really like the people here, and that I think he is a pretty good boss. Offer to stay around continuing w/ some basic things I’ve been taking care of until they can replace me and meanwhile I’ll look for a new job. And offer up the idea that I can do some “improvement” kind of things around the shop. Like I’ve already got this windows PE thing set up, now I just need to tweak it for different situations w/ different customers, but I haven’t had time since I’ve been building a vertical market of people to cold call. Also there is a pretty major revision of our quoting / manufacturing software coming out within the next few months. I could stay around and be the lead in charge of installing that since no one else has time to mess with stuff like that. Plus if I tell them soon they can strike at the recruiting from the university as May gets close.

Ultimately I’m going to update my resume, and post it a few places before I say anything. And today I’m setting a goal of making at least two cold calls. I figure I should force myself to do this for a little while before I say anything to anyone at work.

Man, I feel like such a wuss complaining about this. But this job isn’t fulfilling me, and I’m a degreed engineer from the U of I…I didn’t work my ass off to take some job that makes me feel weird, and that I have no desire to be doing. I thought part of going to school was to have some options on this kind of thing.

Also, my eye has been twitching at work. Today is better cuz I got more sleep last night. But this stress of thinking about cold-calling, and the bad lighting here makes it act up at work, and then get better when I get home. Odd.

Pray for me…for guidance, for an opening at another place, for understanding w/ my boss. Pray for strength for me to stick with it as long as God wants me to. Pray for my work to find a quick replacement if I do decide to quit.

I’m open for advice, questions, suggestions whatever. In fact, I’m starving for those things here.