BigCat’s Blog of DOOM

We arrived safely from southern California yesterday, BigSexy, aka Brett came to pick us up. It was good to talk to him since I see him all of once every month or so since he became a resident at the hospital.

I will breifly recount a few of the highlights of our California trip.

Tuesday we woke up late since we arrived late Monday night. We mostly hung around, went out to eat for lunch, and introduced the inlaws to Firefly.

Wednesday we went to Sea-World. This was a blast. I’ll have some pictures up later this week that I took with my phone. That took most of the day. We also killed a bottle of white wine sometime in the first couple of days…I can’t remember when.

Thursday, visited with Grandma (Lauren’s Mom’s Mom). I started to get sick about this time, so I was of little use to anyone. I enjoyed watching some football, and eating good food.

Friday I attempted to go to fry’s to pick up a bluetooth headset. This was a mistake. I got there at 9am, they had opened at 5am. I could not look at anything useful because it was so crowded, the line would have taken at leat an hour and a half to get through, so we just left. It was still a nice time to spend with Lauren’s Dad, I like that guy. Then when I got home, I got ready for dinner, and we went to a moracan (sp?) restruant for Lauren’s birthday. That was very cool. There was a lot of good food to be eaten with the hands, and a belly dancer. I also drank some decent wine here. Lauren pulled down quite a good haul of stuff, and we had a blast at the restruant.

Saturday, went to the doctor to get checked out because my ears hurt pretty bad, and I didn’t want to get on the plane with my ears being screwed up. When I got home we opened some Christmas presents since we won’t be there for Christmas. I got the hardback version of the entire Rising Stars series. Then I went back to Fry’s again with Lauren’s Dad. I picked up a 300 GB hard drive, and Lauren’s Dad got a $950 Dennon Surround sound reciever, and then a bunch of cables to go with it. When we got home, I got to assemble this mult-room (aka multiple zone) system to output sound into the speakers built into the ceilings of their house. I’m going to put up pictures of their house as well, just to show you how cool it is. I got that all done, and started programming the remote, and then was drug off to bed.

Sunday, got up early, got on the plane, finished reading the parts of Rising Stars I hadn’t read…loved the end. I got Lauren started reading it, she almost finished the first third on the plane, she says it is pretty good, which is saying something. Then my ears almost exploded when we were coming in for a landing despite the stupid trip to the doctor, and that catches me up to now.

Current Mood:  refreshed

Well, as the Lord has a sense of humor, I got called into the boss’s office at about 4. He starts with the asking me why I’ve been looking less enthusiastic lately, and segues into mumbling something about my raise, and concern for how I feel about our company.

So, there was a moment when I had the opportunity to lie and run away (knowing full well I submitted my resume and cover letter to Guidant earlier that morning), and no one would be the wiser. But I weighed it out, realized someone told him I’ve been unhappy and bitching a lot lately (which I’ve been bitching a little too much) and realized it was sink or swim time. I swam, with the classic Ben style. It ain’t always pretty, but it got the job done.

Two hours later, we’ve discussed his shortcomings as a manager, the reasons he wants to hire a lab manager instead of a general manager, and I’ve told him at least 10 practical tips on how to improve his overall management abilities. Along with that I’ve weighed in on the status of how the inside sales people feel about work, as well as the guys in the lab. And, before I walk out the door we were starting to blend our conversation of management style with being expressive in our personal lives.

I don’t think I’ve felt that good about my job, even after I got the raise.

I’ve never heard myself say something like “I feel like I’ve improved, and am still working to improve in the last month in the areas you asked me too, but you have actually gotten worse as a manager in the areas I asked you to improve in.” That was a little scary.

By the end of that conversation I wasn’t talking to my manager, owner and founder of a company now trying to break the 5 million dollar mark in sales, I was talking to a real human being, who knows he needs some help to improve this area of his company.

It is funny, almost every time I pray that God will help me stop bitching, and start doing, I get slapped in the face and feel bad about bitching. But the one good side, is usually by that time I’ve over analyzed why I’m bitching, and have started to think of positive ways to respond. Eliminating the feeling of hopelessness in a situation makes a huge difference.

The funniest part is that before I left my boss said he was thinking about having a meeting and laying out where the company is, and asking for feedback earlier in the week. I asked him why he didn’t have that meeting, and told him that I though it was a good idea. He said he didn’t think anyone would talk. I told him if he has that meeting next week I’ll start talking, and others will follow.

I’ve been asking for opportunities to advance the Kingdom at work, and I’ve been asking for a clear sense of being released to leave this job without feeling like I left Kingdom opportunties hanging, or a clear sense of calling to stay at this job. I at least feel like I’ve been getting a piece of the first part, now I wait and see how things play out the next couple of weeks.

Current Mood:  contemplative

Walking in the morning is great. I get a chance to pray. I see lots of cool sunrises coming up over the city (which is most visible when I walk on the bridge over the railroad tracks).

Sometimes beauty is so ingrained in nature it takes a strong will to not see it I think. Sometimes I feel that way about stuff humans make as well.

I’ve been thinking some lately about the duality of the beauty in God (and more importantly his glory), the beauty of nature, and the beauty of science / technology / architectures. It is so odd how the same God who loves us and wants us to be happy can be completely beautiful in all of his attributes, but also be so terrible and frightening when we come to grips with how he sees our sin. The same is in nature. Beautiful plants and animals can invoke some of the strong emotions, and be some of the most breathtaking things to behold (such as the Grand Canyon). But, nature also produces things that are repulsive, and dangerous, and that can kill us. The same goes for man, we can build amazing things that heal the sick, prevent disease, allow us to talk to people on the other side of the planet, and to reach out and touch the stars. But those same techologies and sciences give us the greatest weapons which can kill entire nations of people in one swift motion.

God, you are wise to the point of confusion sometimes. But, if you weren’t, you’d be boring. I’m glad there is always more to discover, more to be revealed, and more to love.

If you don’t already know this, Sony is putting copy protection on some of their new CD’s that actually cripples windows ability to rip CD’s to MP3. It gets inside the core of windows, changes some stuff, and masks itself like a virus. The state of California is already bringing a lawsuit against them for trying to decieve or mask the prescence of their software, which is against the anti-spyware law in CA.

Anyway, I thought this would be a good public service announcement to give you a link of CD’s that are infected. It is not an exhuastive list, but it is a list of some of the big ones. This link is to a list a guy made.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004144.php

Notice the new switchfoot CD on there. Yeah, I own that CD. It kicks ass. But fortunately, since I always disable the “Autoplay” or “Autorun” feature on my CD’s I didn’t get their stupid infectious DRM thing when I ripped the CD.

So the moral of the story is, my nerd senses protected me, because they made me not like the “AutoPlay” feature built into windows. You should disable it as well if you plan on buying any BMG / Sony CD’s.

‘Nuff said.

If you know me, you know what this means.

That is all.

P.S. This game is awesome!

Check out this article on software and economics.

The conclusion the guy arrives at is that it would be good for the government to fund open source software development because it would decrease the price of all software, and increase the adoption rate of computers and software across the globe. And the increase of the sales of computer and cheaper software would offset the decrease in price of software.

Interesting article if you have a few minutes.