The Joys of Moving

Well, now that we know that I have a job and we know where we're moving, Journey and I are having the fun of preparing to move. The best part? We're moving to New York in the middle of winter! Yea! So we've been weighing our options: Should we do this ourselves? Do we want to pay someone else to do it for us? If we do it ourselves, what size truck do we need and how (or are) we going to get the truck and both of our cars out there? If we pay someone else, who do we go with? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Since my new job doesn't have the money to pay for relocation costs, I'm thinking we'll end up just doing it ourselves. We know roughly what it will cost, and while I'm not trilled at the idea of driving a large moving truck with my truck on a trailer behind it, it's certainly a lot cheaper than paying someone else. So far, the only moving company whose estimate came even close to what it'll cost to do it ourselves is a company which gets absolutely horrible reviews online. As in, I found about 10 reviews and only one was positive. The rest were either 1 or no stars out of five. Yeah, we own some junk - but it's our junk and we like it. We don't want to trust it to a company who's unreliable.

There's also the matter of finding someplace to live. We've looked at home prices and we're pretty sure we could afford to go ahead and buy a home once we're out there - I'm talking 2-3 bedroom, 1.5-2 bath homes with unfinished basements and attics in the $50,000 to $70,000 range. And yeah a lot of these need some work; but a lot of that work is cosmetic: new paint, pulling up the old carpet and refinishing the hardwood floors, insulating the attic. That kind of thing we can go ourselves and can do it over time.

This does not, however, address the question of where we're going to live when we first get there. We certainly don't want to buy someplace sight unseen, or to live in a hotel for a month while we find someplace. No, we're thinking we'll find a rental we can stand and live there for 6 months. That gives us time to find a realtor, find the house we want, and go from there. So, I'm actually taking a trip out this weekend and the first part of next week to do some rental hunting and take care of some stuff for my new job (paper work, drug test, etc.). We have a few leads already, I just need to follow up with them and get a look at these places. The problem, really, is the cats. A vast majority of the places we've seen don't allow pets. That's kind of a problem. But, we'll see. I'm sure I'll be able to find someplace which will work!

Joining the Election Band-Wagon

No, I'm not talking about voting for Obama, which I did a couple weeks ago with my mail-in ballot. I'm actually referring to blogging about the election results band-wagon.

Overall, I'm fairly happy at how this election turned out. Obama won; it looks like the US House of Representatives candidate I wanted has won; and most of the local propositions went the way I wanted. Unfortunately, not all of them. Specifically, the so-called 'gay marriage ban' bill passed.

Admittedly, there was already such a law on the books, but the proposition in question defined 'marriage' in Arizona as "one man and one woman."

SEPARATE IS NOT EQUAL!

At least the 'majority rule' bill which I ranted on a few weeks ago appears to have gone down in flames. Given the way the county counts their votes, however, numbers may shift some over-night so I'm going to have wait until then to see for certain.

I Have A Job!

Finally, after a long time of looking and applying for jobs around the country, I was offered a position today! After Christmas (as in starting the next day), Journey and I will be heading off for Binghamton, New York. I got a job with the City and they want me to start around the beginning of the year.

And here's one of the best things - they actually going to pay me MORE than what the job originally posted!

It's going to be quite a change from Arizona, but we're looking forward to it anyway. Given the state of the economy, a job is a job. And as my field is quite a bit more limited than Journey's (she's an IT Tech), we kind of have to go wherever I'm offered a job.

Needless to say, I've spent a good portion of the day grinning like and idiot - but, I figure it's justified.

I Can Relate

It is a well established fact that I tend to somehow give off this vibe that invited random people to talk to me. Usually the odder someone is, the more they pick up on this vide. Journey has commented that I am "fly-paper for freaks."

I came across this particular comic by Stefano Collavini. It seemed to fit.

Hmmmm.......Carnitas!

Both Journey and I are big fans of carnitas - a Southwest/Mexican style shredded pork. I've finally found a carnitas recipe which we really like! The result is nice, tender, crispy pork. And the best thing about this particular recipe is that it's really easy.

4-5 lbs deboned pork shoulder, trimmed of as much fat as possible
1 qt beef broth
2 cups chunky salsa (I use Herdez brand, medium heat; chunky Pace works too)
water
salt
your choice of spices (I use chili powder, cayenne, garlic, onion, cumin, and chipotle if I have it)

1. Combine pork, broth, and salsa in a large sauce pan or stock pot. Add enough water to completely cover the pork. Add your spices (as with a lot of my cooking, I don't often measure my spices - I just kind of add whatever amount looks/smells right) and a couple pinches of salt. Bring to a boil over high heat; cover, reduce to low and let simmer for 3-4 hours or until it pulls apart easily.

2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. While oven is heating, move meat to a roasting pan with a large slotted spoon. Break the meat in to small pieces - it should shred apart real easily at this point. Drizzle a very little bit of the liquid over the meat (this will enhance the flavor and keep the pork from drying out too much). Roast in the oven for 15-20 minutes until the meat is brown and crispy.

From here, you can do any number of things with the carnitas. Many people like to eat them in tortillas or use them to make chimichangas. You often see them served with chopped onion, cilantro, guacamole, sour cream, etc. Journey and I, we eat them just as is.

Any left overs keep really well just in the fridge. If you want to freeze them, add a little more of the left over liquid. Thaw over night in the fridge.

One of the things I like most about this recipe is the fact that you can tweak it as you like simply by changing the salsa and spices used. You can go from very mild to quite spicy if you want.

And if you haven't already figured it out, guess what we're having for dinner tonight?

A Quick Note

I have added a side bar graphic from Electoral-Vote.com, showing the current projects for the election. Check it out!

Also be sure to check out their Animated Electoral Map. It takes all the daily predictions from June 4, 2008, to today's and animates them so you can see the shifts in the electoral map over time!

Yes yes, I know. I'm a geek. Fuck off.

Things I Do Not Understand

Okay, here's something a little lighter in nature. I've been keeping track of things I've noticed and thought about recently which make absolutely NO fuckin' sense to me. I'm sure that there are more, but these have come up recently.

• Guys who carry around stuff in their socks - they invented pockets for a reason.



• Adding so much stuff to your coffee that it no longer resembles coffee in any way, shape, form, smell, or taste - if you're that desperate for caffeine and don't like the taste of coffee, find a way to add caffeine to chocolate milk; leave my coffee alone!



• Libertarians - period. Hey, dumbasses! Taxes pay for things like education, infrastructure, and roads. Do you really want those to do away simply because you don't want to have to pay taxes?



• The appeal of Flavor Flav - if I want to watch a complete nut-case wearing horns on his head, I'll turn on a Vikings football game, at least that's entertaining.



• Al Davis (owner of the Oakland Raiders) - the man has not simply gone around the bend; he's gone around the bend, down the street, gotten on the highway, driven to Crazytown, staged a coup to take over the town government, and has declared the world to be star fruit-shaped, only black and silver instead of yellow in color.



• Popped collars - especially on guys wearing pink golf shirts. And very more especially guys who do this wearing multiple golf shirts.



• iReporters - seriously, most of these people seem to be suffering from the worst case of delusions of grandeur since that 'American Idol' crap came on television. You really think sending in one poorly captured web-cam video of you babbling incoherently about something makes you a 'real' reporter?

Promised Political Rant

Here's what struck the most over the last few days - the absolute rabid and insane attitude which surrounds and typifies recent McCain/Palin rallies.

I know that getting crowd wound up, loud, and excited are all purposely intended results of these rallies. That's why they're called 'rallies.' What worries me is the fact that recent McCain/Palin rallies are going too far. Not in terms of what is being said by McCain (I'll deal with Palin in a minute), but rather in terms of the audience. The constant booing and people shouting "Off with his head!" in reference to Sen. Obama is just scary.

And I suspect, without anything in the way of proof beyond my own observations, that part of the reason Palin was picked as McCain's running mate was because she has a knack for getting people wound up and excited. It's a definite bonus that she can whip a crowd into a frenzy and then almost shrug it off with a quick smile and wink, almost as if she's saying "Just kidding, folks!" But the crowd reacts by getting even more wild and seems to take that wink as permission to do so. This allows the GOP officials to generate a wildly negative response to Sen. Obama that they want without doing it themselves. It plays up on the whole idea that it's what the 'public' thinks and, therefore, these officials can claim they are simply "listening to public opinion."

This is not to say that the McCain campaign is giving carte blanche at rallies. They have officially denounced the use of Sen. Obama's middle name, Hussein, saying that it is inappropriate. I have noticed, however, that this has not stopped high level McCain supporters and rally speakers from doing it anyway. The cynical side of me (that's pretty much every part of me except maybe my left elbow, by the way) wonders if there is a little bit of "Okay, don't do this anymore" *wink wink nudge nudge* going on, but again I can't prove anything.

About Time

No political rant today - I'm working on one for tomorrow, but it's not ready just yet.

No, today's post is really a bit more mundane - weather. We in Arizona, or at least those of us in Southern Arizona, are finally starting to enjoy the onset of fall. Granted, it will probably only last 3 or 4 weeks, but that's okay. You have to understand, 'fall' in Arizona is characterized by warm tempatures during the day (high 80's or low 90's) and cooler tempatures at night (high 50's to mid 60's).

Basically, it means that you don't spend the whole night sweating and when you wake up in the morning, it's still very pleasant out. It's back to the point that we can sit out on the deck in the evening and watch the sunset. And believe, sunsets around here are often worth watching!

Don't Insult Us Because We're Young

John McCain just told a young man that he probably never even heard of Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac before this economic collapse.

And fuck you very much, Mr. McCain.

Believe me, just because we're young that does not mean we're stupid. I would bet that at least a small majority of people my age, in fact, HAVE heard of both of these institutions and have at least some idea of what they do.

A New Game To Play

Today's trip to the store was an exercise in aggravation. First, there was the typical idiots on the road, including the little girl in some trendy looking little car who was busy talking on her phone, running her hand through her hair, and tail-gating me.

Then there were the unhelpful people at the store. I was looking for something specific and couldn't. I had to go find someone to ask, and when I did locate a couple a ladies, they were annoyed at me for interrupting their conversation to ask my question. "I'm sorry, I know it's an imposition, but considering it's my money which helps keep you employed, I think you can take 20 second to listen to my question and give me an answer. And if you want to be really nice, you can hold you eye rolls until after I've walked away.

The next challenge was the other customers. Apparently, today was "walk around slowly and completely ignore the fact that there are other shoppers" day. I can understand that you're looking for something, but you really don't need to be weaving down the middle of the aisle at a pace that a snail in molasses in winter could beat.

And then there was the woman at checkout. She was in such a hurry, despite the fact there was no one in line behind me, that she managed to shred three different bags throwing stuff in them, and then was annoyed when I asked for bags without tears. Yes, I know it's a pain to rebag things, but it's an even bigger pain for me when the torn bags finish tearing and spill my groceries down the steps of our apartment.

To all of you who contributed to all of this 'fun,' I have a new game to play. It's called "Stab You in the Face."

I'll go first.

New Link

I have added a new link to the right. As we get close to Election Day, it's important that we make sure we're educated on what's going on, and to that end, I have added a link to Electoral-Vote.com. This site keeps track of a bunch of polls across the country, both on the Presidential race and Congressional races. I tend to trust it as it usually pretty even-handed in their analysis and (relatively) up-to-date on their numbers.

My New Favorite Book

I noticed this title in the list of "Other Works By" page in a Conn Iggulden book I read recently. The title alone was enough to get me interested and I looked it up online. I read off the description to Journey and it was decided that we needed to own this book.

Made to look like an old 1950s text book (it was actually published in 2007), this is a great book - I haven't done more than flip through it so far and I already know this for a fact! It includes everything from how to tie knots, to the Navajo code-talkers dictionary; coin tricks to famous battles; star maps to interacting with girls. Before you get too 'excited' about this last, it's things like "When you are older, flowers really do work - women love them. When you are young, however, there is a ghastly sense of being awkward rather than romantic - and she will guess that your mother bought them."

And with the economy the way it is, some of the things in here may be of more immediate use than simply a good laugh.

Although, I do have to agree with a question Journey had about the book. After reading the description, she asked "Why is just for boys? Those are the kind of things I wanted to know too!" Well, now we'll both know!

It's a New Record

It took McCain 10 whole minutes before he started telling war stories!

Arizona Proposition 105 - A Really Bad Idea

Okay, so here's the first of those political rants I mentioned in my post earlier today. It's specific to Arizona, but I think everyone needs to know that this kind of thing is out there.

One of the Propositions on the ballot this election is Prop 105, the 'Majority Rule' proposition (you can get both the text of the bill and the public pamphlet at the AZ Secretary of State ballot measures page). Essentially, this bill says that any initiative which will increase taxes has to be approved by a majority of registered voters.

Let emphasize this last point: "a majority of registered voters." NOT just a majority of those who voted, but of those who are registered to vote. This means that people who are registered but do not vote on an issue are effectively marked down as a "no." Given that registered voter turn out in the 2004 election was 88.4% (and that was the highest level since 1996), the "no's" already have a 12% advantage over the "yes" votes. The numbers get even worse when you look at non-presidential election years. In 2006, that number drops to 70%. Remember, these are the percent of registered voters who voted, not the percentage of eligible voters (those number are even worse). [See the Census Bureau numbers]

You can see the problem here. This measure would make it nearly impossible to get any initiative which raises taxes in any form (even if it's just to pay for something in the bill) passed.

Now, I'm all for fiscal responsibility in government. And, as should be fairly clear by now, I am a very strong believer in citizen participation in politics and government. This bill, however, is just fuckin' insane! I've people who support dismiss the concerns of low voter-turn out by saying that it will actually encourage people to educate themselves on the initiative and then vote. This is a bull-shit argument. Let's fact it - "people" are lazy idiots. They are NOT going to read up on a issue in depth and then vote on it. Some will, but many will not.

This entire bill is predicated on the Libertarian idea that government needs to be reduced as far as possible, mainly be doing away with as many taxes as possible. Get a clue people! We NEED taxes! Yes, April 15th sucks every single goddamn year. But it IS necessary. Know what taxes are used for? Roads, fire and police, schools, basic infrastructure. Taxes go away, so do all of these things!

And that is exactly what Prop 105 would result in.

But, given my previous statement about people being idiots, I have a real free that this will pass anyway.

Some Respect for Chris Rock

I was just scanning some of the transcript from Chris Rock's appearance on Larry King yesterday. I don't watch Larry King (mostly because our TV is on rabbit-ears), but I do occasionally hear or read something from his show which interests me. This is one of those times. Here's the particular exchange:

KING: You must be ... proud that at this stage in our history a black man is running for president on a major ticket.

ROCK: Um, you know what? I'm proud Barack Obama's running for president. You know? If it was Flavor Flav, would I be proud? No. I don't support Barack Obama because he's black.

This emphasizes the point that it's not a person's race which should be considered, but rather their character.

---

Oh, and by way of fair warning, I will posting some political rants over the next few weeks as we get closer to the election. And I'm sure I will probably end up offending someone at some point.

And if you aren't registered to vote, REGISTER! As long as you've thought out your reasoning, I really couldn't give a damn who/what you vote for. I may disagree with you, but I will respect your choice to have done so. But you can be the smartest person in the world and if you can't be bothered to take a few minutes to register, educate yourself on the people and issues, and then actually vote . . . well, then, I'll just have to remind you that I have a cricket bat and then I'll remind you just how easily the human kneecap can be shattered!

Still Alive

Well, we all still seem to be alive this morning.

And no, this is not going to be some 9/11 anniversary post. There will be plenty of others writing those if you want to go find them.

No, this is post is actually about the fact that we all woke up yesterday. Yesterday, the giant particle accelerator at CERN in Geneva was powered up and run for its first experiment. Yes, I am a geek, and yes, I find this cool!

Without making any claims at being fully knowledgeable about CERN and particle accelerators, in basic terms, as I understand it, they use a bunch of very strong magnets to send atoms flying around a giant underground circular tube, 27 kilometers long. And then they smash these atoms together to see what happens. They measure the results with uber-powerful lasers. They're hoping to find out more about the way gravity works, what the universe looked like one-trillionth of a second after the Big Bang (the cosmic one, not the Annabel Cong one - no, I'm not going to tell you more about that, you're going to have go look it up yourself!), how time works, and other physicsy type things.

While all of this is certainly very interesting and worthy of pursuit, what I find fascinating is the CERN project itself. For example, did you know the lasers they're using have enough energy to punch though a ton of concrete? True. The most interesting, however, is what they expect to happen - they have NO idea! That's right, when they fired this thing up, they didn't have any idea of what was actually going to happen! Hence, my statement about us still being alive.

If you want to check out more, here are some links:
The CERN website
The CERN Wikipedia page
A recent TimesOnline article

And for a more humorous take, PhD Comics is running series on CERN, based on artist's tour of the facility. Start here. This is a five part series, which started on Tuesday.

Today's Quote

"There are countless religions in the world that are happy to judge you. Why do you need one on your computer?"

"Simple . . . this god actually gets periodic updates."

From this Something Positive by R.K. Milholland

Ouch!

So, yesterday after I finished my oral boards, I made a quick stop by one of the libraries on campus to drop off some books. I opened the big metal door - and in the process somehow managed to crush my hand between the door handle and something on the wall - I think it might have been one of the those handicap buttons, but I'm not sure, didn't really look.

Hurt like hell!

Now, I'm hoping that I didn't do something stupid like break anything in my hand. Even almost a full day later there's still some significant swelling and pain, especially when I curl my fingers. At least if I did break something, it's not stopping me from using that hand. And at least it's my left hand and not my right. I would be really fucked if it were my right.

The moral of the story? Slamming your hand with a big metal door really fuckin' hurts - try not to do it!

And Now Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Program

And Now Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Program

Well, after a hiatus of about 3 1/2 months, I'm back. Sorry for the long absence, but there were other things which required nearly all of my attention. And as much as I enjoy blogging, and I do (I mean, where else can I go off on random, anger-inspired rants about shit no one else really cares about but want to listen to any way . . . besides the Republican National Convention), there are times when you simply have to make priorities and stick to them.

In my case, the biggest and most immediate priority since my last post was that whole getting married 'thing.' Yes, Journey and I have finally married! And we couldn't be happier. There were a few little glitches during the ceremony, but nothing we couldn't deal with and nothing BIG went wrong. That's about the best one can ask for, really. So, a few little snags aside, everything was great. Even the weather worked with us, which was good because we got married and had the reception outside. Tucson is normally in the mid- to high-80s by mid-May (we got married on May 17), which is livable, was still warm. The day of the ceremony it actually topped out in low-80s, and since we had the ceremony early evening, things were absolutely perfect. Not too warm, not too cool, and only a slight breeze. Everyone had a good time, and there weren't any wedding crashers or anything like that (given that this was same weekend as the University of Arizona's graduation, this was actually a bit of a concern).

After the wedding, Journey and I were off on out honeymoon for two weeks. We started with a couple of days in Vancouver, BC (yes, yes, that is in Canada) before getting on a cruise ship and heading up the Inside Passage of Alaska. Journey and her family had done this a couple of years earlier for a family reunion. I wanted to go, but couldn't secure the time off until after the cruise was already all booked. This did NOT make either of us real happy. So, when it came time to plan out honeymoon, she really wanted to go on the cruise again so we could both do it. And that's what we did. We had a great time and saw a ton of cool shit and even had some time to relax, which after the previous few months, we really needed. The cruise ended in Anchorage, where we hand another couple days to just kind of relax and check out the town.

Since we got back, I've been spending most of my time either looking for jobs or preparing for qualifying exams. On the job front, I've had several interviews, even a couple where they've flown me out for a face-to-face. But I haven't been offered anything yet, and it's starting to piss me off. I know times are tough - I did decide to try to enter the job market right as the economy went to to shit, after all - but that still doesn't help much. I know I'll land something eventually, but in the meantime, it sucks.

And then there were my qualifying exams - "quals". These are the final exams of the PhD program before they let start working on your dissertation, taken after you've finished all of your course-work. For my program, the way they work is you are emailed a list of 6 questions. You then have exactly one week to write your responses to 4 of the questions and email them back. Each response is to be 10-12 pages in length, for a total of 40-50 pages. Basically, this is intended to test your ability to speak knowledgeably about your field based on the reading which you've done over the last few years. This is your opportunity to prove that you can pull everything you've learned together and show that you have a broader understanding of everything that going on in the field. This actually harder than you might think. It's entirely doable - you just have to carefully plan it all out and be able to access the information quickly and accurately. After you've finished the writing and emailed it back, you have to wait a couple days to see if you've passed. If you haven't passed one or more of the questions, you have a chance to retake the question, but if you fail again . . . well, let's just say you've effectively wasted a couple years of your life and money. Thankfully, I passed all four questions on the first try. This didn't mean I was done, however. Oh no, not quite. There is also an oral component to quals. You have to sit down in front of your evaluating committee and and talk about what you wrote. Basically, it's intended to make sure you can also present your knowledge when you're put on the spot. The questioning takes about 30-45 minutes, and then you have wait out in the hall while they discuss you.

The waiting sucks far beyond the questioning. Believe me.

I made it, though! So, now I get to start working on my dissertation (more or less - there are still a few hoops jump through, but they're not as bad as the quals).

You can see why I haven't exactly been around to blog in past few months. Like I said, little busy. But now that thing's are going to settle down a little, I hope be able to get back to writing on a more regular basis. And on that note - let the insanity resume!