Here are a couple of videos of the house we’re renting. We’ll take more once we have our stuff in there.

Exterior

Interior 1

Interior 2

The day started out slow enough. I was able to sleep in a bit, which I needed to do. (Haven’t slept too well over the last couple of days, due to thoughts about our home situation.)

As I went to the bathroom this morning I was surprised to find I was sharing it with a bird. Somehow a bird had gotten into the house and my parents hadn’t see it. My entering the bathroom spooked it (and me too) and it flew downstairs.

Thus began Operation Bird Brain. First it was downstairs, then it got scared back up to the bathroom, then it seemed to have gone. I pulled at a cabinet and it flew around again. After some furious banging with a broom I was able to get it out of the bathroom and downstairs. (This time I closed the door!)

Once downstairs it was flying around, then decided to, of course, fly behind the entertainment center. So I dragged that away from the corner, TV and all, and swatted at it to get it flying about. It flew to the kitchen and back. Then over to the stairs, trying to go up again.

Finally it went toward the front window and I was able to throw a blanket over it so that I could release it outside. Quite a way to start the morning. We found that it must have gotten in through my parents bedroom, where the air conditioner was still in the window (with gaps in the foam). Needless to say, the A/C got taken out of the window.

After this we headed over to Mike’s house to help with a broken garage door opener. Fortunately it was an easy job, as it looked like a bolt had come loose and been lost. We replaced the remaining bolt, added another, tested, oiled, and it seems to be working again. Thank goodness it was an easy thing; buying a new opener isn’t cheap. It fell like the “good old days” of being a mechanic; working on stuff in the freezing cold, having your fingers freeze up. I love Chicago winters! Get me back to Austin, quick!

Things wound down with a short trip to Target and then lunch at White Castle. After my 5th Slider I was feeling queezy, so cut it off there. Then back home for a bag of microwave popcorn. Healthy eating!

Later on Mike and Erika and Arianna stopped by, visited for a while, and we all went over to their place again for dinner. There is a good taco place nearby (Don Lupe’s) that serves some really good food. Their portion size is amazing. One taco has the meat of 2-3 tacos from normal places, and they are only $1.75 each! A great deal.

Let me put it this way: I was starting to feel full after only two tacos, and almost died after four. They are that full of meat. During all this I had two beers, then some leftover candy, then another beer. Maybe I should have a bacon sandwich before going to bed?

I’m working on an updated theme and layout, so the blog might be a little screwed up for a while.

Since I’m in the Big City of Chicago, I like to keep up on current events. That’s why I’ve been reading a 1958 issue of Popular Science.

One of the more surreal articles was about how man would get to the moon. This is 1958, right after Sputnik 1 (remember: it’s properly pronounced spoot-nick, like the oo in tooth; that’s your Russian lesson for today). Anyhow, here we were in the middle of a cold war and we’re talkin about the future. Kinda like today.

The first thing I noticed was how conservative the numbers were. They said that maybe, just maybe, we’d be on the moon in The Year 2000. Here is the timetable:

1958-1960 : Marking The Moon : The plan was to put some sort of “marker” on the moon. Why? I’m not really sure, though they talked about the mass and gravitional forces. Not too crazy, I guess.

1962 : A-Bomb The Moon : This has to be my favorite, by far. Let me quote the scientists of the time: “The exciting next step will come a short time later when an atomic bomb is exploded on the moon.” Exciting times, indeed! Let’s vaporize a big chunk of our natural satellite! Why do this? Well, I guess the idea was to blow enough crap into space so that scientists could determine what makes up the lunar surface. Instead of, you know, sending a rover. Isn’t there anything that an A-Bomb can’t fix?

1968 : Instruments On The Moon : After blowing the shit out of things we next try putting a payload on the surface. Hopefully it includes a bomb.

1975 : Lunar Dust Brought Back To Earth : More recon work. This time something more interesting: Landing, picking up some moon dust, and bringing it back to Earth. But wait, don’t forget the A-Bomb: “The first rocket, programmed to crash on the moon, is armed with an atomic bomb. When the bomb goes off, a tremendous amount of surface material will be blasted high into the lunar sky…the second lunar rocket will sweep in from the sky [picking up the dust].” Didn’t these guys realize that blowing something up might alter its chemical structure? Hmm.

2000 : Man On The Moon : Well, we’ve finally gotten there. Why did it take so long? Because we had to build a space station first, and that didn’t go up until 1978. Then years more “to plan, build and assemble equipment for the landing on the moon [from the space station].” Because, you know, it’s a lot easier putting together a rocket in orbit than on the ground. LOL.

With hindsight the whole A-Bomb the moon seems pretty silly, and the space station was (and still is) a giant farce, and the timeframes are way long, but it illustrates a really important point. When people are scared shitless (as they were during the Cold War) they think small. They think, yea, it’s possible, but that it will take a long, long time. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll be on the moon 50 years from the writing of the article. But we need to bomb it first.

And yet, by July 20, 1969, two men stepped on the surface of the moon. A mere 10 years instead of 50. What does that tell you about what we can do as a society if we put our minds to something?

It’s been a pretty hectic week. I’m up in Chicago again (until 12/2) working and generally hating the early Chicago winter. It always reminds me why I live about 1000 miles to the south. Give me the 100’s any day. Gloom and cold and biting wind ain’t my cup of tea.

As some of you know, we’ve been on a short-term apartment lease. The original intention was to purchase a home, but with the imploding job market, and the disaster that is our financial system, we’ve decided to hold off and wait for the dust to settle.

However, the apartment we are in is just way too small and annoying, and we know we have to get out of there soon. This week Evelyn has been working hard looking for a house to rent. (If we are going to rent, it will be a house. I’m sick of apartments.) She drove around a lot last weekend and earlier this week found a place about 1.5 miles north of us.

After much back and forth and whatnot, we got the place. It’s a small (~1000 square foot) three bedroom house in a residential area. It gives us enough room for Evelyn’s workshop / guest bedroom and a dedicated office for my telecommute job. Has a decent back yard with a covered patio area and some extra storage. 

I think I’m most looking forward to not hearing my neighbors on the other side of a wall. And I’m sure Evelyn will like the fact that we can grill again. (You can’t have a grill in Texas apartments. There was a community one, but people are pigs.) It’s also a good opportunity for us to figure out how much it costs to run a house in Austin (electricity, gas, garbage, water, sewage, etc). A trial run, as it were.

We sign the lease on 12/02 when I get back. There is an overlap between the two places since (a) I need to have the workspace step up for a quick switchover and (b) I don’t want to play weekend warrior trying to move too quickly. This gives us a couple of weeks to get things moved over and in order. (Much easier to do since we’ve so close.)

Looks like December is shaping up to be a very busy month.

Citigroup 35,000 jobs … budgets for employee compensation cut by at least 25 percent

Sun Microsystems plans to cut up to 6,000 jobs, or 18 percent of its global work force

BT Group will cut 10,000 jobs

Applied Materials is slashing 1,800 jobs

Circuit City is laying off about 17 percent of its domestic work force, which could affect up to 7,300 people.

Deutsche Post will cut 9,500 jobs at its DHL unit in the U.S. … on top of another 5,400 job cuts it already announced.

Nortel Networks plans to lay off 1,300 workers, nearly 5 percent of its workforce.

Motorola the telecom equipment maker will slash 3,000 jobs in a cost-cutting effort.

Ford said it would cut 2,260 white-collar workers in North America.

General Motors will also cut another 1,900 salaried jobs on top of the 5,100 announced last summer.

Fidelity Investments will start laying off about 2.9 percent of its global workforce later this month—affecting 1,288 workers in the first round.

Toy maker Mattel Inc. says it is cutting some 1,000 positions worldwide.

Goldman Sachs notified roughly 3,200 employees this week that they have been laid off.

Merrill Lynch 10,000 employees could be jettisoned as a result of the merger with Bank of America.

Bank of America expected to eliminate about 7,500 jobs.

Barclay’s plans to cut about 3,000 jobs as it brings Lehman Brothers into its fold. 

Morgan Stanley could lay off 15 percent of its work force.

JPMorgan Chase is looking at cutting at least 10 percent and maybe 15 percent of its workforce. It has over 180,000 employees globally.

Wachovia said in August it would cut 6,950 jobs, 600 more than it had previously disclosed.

UBS said at the beginning of October it would cut another 2,000 jobs…come on top of 7,000 jobs already cut.

Credit Suisse has axed more than 1,500 jobs.

HSBC cutting 1,100 jobs.

First American cut 1,250 jobs in the third quarter, bringing the total for the year to about 2,950.

National City Corp to reduce 4,000 jobs, or 14 percent of its workforce.

Dell nearly 9,000 job cuts.

Chrysler said it was cutting about 5,000 salaried employees.

Xerox announced job cuts of 5 percent, or 3,000 positions.

Hewlett-Packard is laying off more than 24,000 employees.

Merck announced plans on Wednesday to cut 12 percent of its workforce.

Popular Inc. is cutting 600 positions and more than a quarter of its branches in the United States.

That’s nearly 200,000 jobs just in this list!

That seems to be the standard operating procedure these days. Call me a bank! Why? Because it’s your ticket to the Tax Payer Gravy Train, baby!

Now the credit card companies are getting in on some free taxpayer money. If we’re lucky, so will the car companies. Heck, all the freepers worried about Obama being a socialist. Instead, their dear GOP is acting like a raving Marxist! Government owned banks. Government owned manufacturers. Government owned credit cards. Got a loan you can’t handle? No problem! We’ll make the badness go away with this magic pixie dust!

And it’s the dear citizen that gets the shaft, as always. Heck, I just got an e-mail from my credit card … I mean, bank card company … saying that “due to tough economic times we are raising all your APRs”. Nice. In perhaps more interesting news, they will no longer offer either balance transfers nor those stupid pre-printed credit checks. Methinks consumer credit is going to be locked down tighter than a drum over the next couple of years. How will we save our economy is people can’t spend beyond their means? LOL.

I am near constantly shocked by how little our Dear Leaders understand human psychology. Here’s a hint to the fed: If people think they can get something for nothing, they’ll beat down your door to get it. You opened Pandora’s Box with the AIG bailout and now you can’t get the Genie Back in the Bottle and you don’t have time to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Was that a simple enough explanation for you morons?

This is what happens when you reward ineptitude.

You look around these days and you see so many problems. Unemployment up. Housing crashing. The usual assortment of wars. Environment in meltdown. Unsustainable use of fossil fuels. Disease. Greed. Death.

Pretty fucking horrible, right?

And yet, I’m happy.

Not sociopath happy, but glad to have a big-fat-next-to-impossible problem ahead of us. Frankly, I think humans act best (and worst) when their back is against the wall. It’s time to either shine, or melt down.

There are only two ways of looking at the problems ahead of us. One, dispair. Admit that there’s not much we can do. Let things happen. Gods will. Two, roll up your sleeves. Find a part of the problem you can fix — and fix it. Any problem seems insurmontable, until you break it into to manageble pieces. Solve those pieces and you solve the bigger problem.

It’s option two for me. So, are you part of the problem, or part of the solution?

Here are a couple of things I believe will make our nation less dumb:

Real Travel

Everyone needs to travel. And I’m not talking about going from a plane to a bus to a beach resort. I mean real travel. Being on the ground, out of your usual element, experiencing things you’d never see or do in your normal daily life. Enough has been written on this already, but it doesn’t negate the simple truth that travel expands the mind.

Do Old Things In New Ways

Your brain needs exercise. There are plenty of challenges out there, but here’s a simple one you can do at home: Do something old in a new way. What does this mean? Well, try chopping an onion with your eyes closed. Read a magazine upside down (easier than it sounds). Heck, wipe your ass with the other hand.

Do Something New Every Week

This one is almost impossible for a hermit like me to do, but it’s worth a try. Go somewhere or do something that’s new, every single week. This could be visiting a new museum. Going to a new restaurant (be careful out there). Maybe just walking along a street you’ve never walked. The key is to break up the monotony.

TV=OFF

This will be one of the hardest things for people, but turn the TV off. Don’t follow the dancing – with – the – america’s best – old house – busters – model – real life – whatever show. Just shut it off. You don’t need it. Do something else. I don’t disagree that there is some good stuff out there, but it’s a HUGE time sink. I watch Mythbusters while sitting in a hotel room, but never at home. I haven’t watched much TV for the last two years, and I don’t miss it. I do watch movies, it’s broadcast TV that I hate.

Get Nervous

The idea here is to put yourself into situations that you feel uncomfortable about. Doing something you’d not normally do. This is similar to my “Do Something New Every Week” idea, but a little more intense. This is putting yourself in a situation that makes you downright worried. Maybe this is driving down a rutted dirt road in a Corolla (I was shitting bricks). Maybe it’s making a speech in front of an angry crowd. Maybe its speaking out on something you are afraid to discuss. The point is to do something that makes you worried. How do you know you’ve crossed the line? When you start regretting the decision. But, you know what? You learn a lot more from these kinds of intense experiences. You learn what you are truely capable of.

Let’s not beat around the bush. In general, humans are stupid animals. We like to think that we’re some elevated creature, but we still eat and poop and procreate just like every other dumb thing out there.

I always get amused, and often perturbed, when people start feeling proud about what I like to call the “defaults” (which includes eating and pooping and procreating). Respect me for this amazing thing I’ve done! Except, of course, that what you’ve done is default hard-wired behavior. Like walking. At the time it seems like a huge accomplishment, but in reality not walking is what would make you different. 

Now I’m not saying that watching a child take their first steps isn’t a cool experience. What I’m saying is that you have to be careful. You can to figure out what’s an accomplishment based on millions of years of evolution and what’s an accomplishment based on free will.

We see this all the time in our daily lives, don’t we? The guy who’s so proud that he got to work on time. Great, you’ve done the minimum, now what? I’ve been an aggresive driver and got somewhere faster! Whoopie. That’s your adrenal gland, not you, in control.

Perhaps even more frightening to me are those people who actually take pride in their stupidity, don’t-cha-know? By golly, I’ve never even opened a book! Reminds me of a great quote from Blazing Saddles: ”You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know … morons.”

It’s those who take pride in their ignorance who are the greatest risk to society. Their minds are so sealed shut that they are incapable of rational thought. When exactly did they decide to stop learning? I don’t know. Maybe kindergarden.

It takes real work to have an open mind and to allow yourself to experience new things. It’s not the default. And that’s the topic of my next post.