Category: Personal

I was thinking after my last post that I rarely give any publicity when I receive satisfactory customer service from the large monopolistic companies that control my every waking moment. While I don’t feel that they need it, really, I think from a personal standpoint we should give those public kudos when possible, if only to be able to stand atop our moral high ground and waggle our fingers at the haters out there.

So, good job, Comcast! The billing issue I called about earlier was handled as efficiently as could be expected. I’ll also say that the technician who has come to my house on a few occasions has always been knowledgeable and friendly, and willing to put up with my annoying questions. Those are good things and I appreciate them.

Last week I tweeted these messages:

You know what’s a good way to ruin my day but yours more? Jaywalk across Holcomb Bridge Road at night in the rain during rush hour. January 17, 2013

No, I did not strike the elderly man, but I nearly did. January 17, 2013

I am all about giving pedestrians the right of way, but if I do not see you, that will be a wonderful epitaph on your tombstone. January 17, 2013

It’s hard to express emotions such as terror, horror, dread, or anxiety in tweets. Hashtags don’t quite carry it. Also, that series of messages was intended more as a public service message than a shout out about my mental state of being. Nevertheless, I was freaked out by this incident because the man walking across the road ((Holcomb Bridge Road is a six-lane divided roadway in Roswell, GA)) was wearing dark colors and I absolutely didn’t see him until it was almost too late. Without braking hard, my night would have been a bit more exciting than just driving home and his would have been a lot more hospitalized. ((I estimate I would have hit him at about 30 MPH. You can read the study for the statistics.))

While I don’t lay blame on the guy entirely, I still question his decision making. It’s one thing to have a legal expectation that traffic will stop, it’s an entirely different thing for that traffic to actually stop. As my father used to tell me before we crossed the road, “You can be right, and you can be dead right.” I never trust that drivers will stop when I’m running or biking and in America’s driving culture, this is just being smart. The fact that this pedestrian didn’t even look at me—didn’t seem to care that he came mere seconds from an extended hospital stay, or death—boggles my feet.

Unfortunately this caused some trauma on my end because of a situation that has just been resolved, but I haven’t blogged about due to pending legal settlements: Last May, on the way home from work, I struck a child with my car. It wasn’t my fault, but I still see his body being flung 100 fee down the road and flopping around. Thankfully, he was not killed, although he was seriously injured and spent several weeks in the hospital (I’m told). ((For an illustration of what immediate injury and shock can do to a person, I present the case of the nine-year-old boy who after having his left femur cleanly snapped by a speeding car, stood up and tried to walk away.)) It took weeks before I stopped flinching whenever it even looked like a person would step into traffic.

So the lessons to be learned from these situations are several: Look before you cross the street; Don’t hit kids with your car; Don’t be a kid and get hit by cars.

Update: After rereading the post, I realized I was a bit unclear. The legal stuff is settled, as of last week. That’s why I’m comfortable posting about this now. It was a long time question about whether this incident would go to trial over a really stupid amount of money.

Today I’m in Tulsa for my nephews’ Eagle Scout Court of Honor. The troop here makes a large event of their Eagle ceremonies and will have several scouts receive their ranks at the same time, so both nephews here, and one other scout, are being feted today.

I’m not dead. I’ve just been focused on other things. Here’s what I’m doing this morning.

Today is a banner day! We celebrate the first picture of the newest addition to the Jenn-Bill collective!

I am reliably informed that this image is of a developing human being; I will trust the experts.

Jenn is due on July 26th. So congratulations to us, and keep your thoughts for the poor, benighted human being who will soon be molded by our tender machinations.

So wish her happy birthday. She’s another year better.

The wonderful cake was created by Jacob Hollis. He’s studying to be a chef. We hate taste-testing his stuff.  We hatesses it so bad.

I seem to be coming out of the 1.5 month marathon ((Only to enter into an actual marathon, har har)) that was my work schedule. I spent a lot of time working nights and weekends and I think I’m back to having a handle on it. It’s nice to be able to look at a work week and the list of things to do and not wonder what I’m going have to put off because there simply are not the resources to accomplish it. This is both a bad and a good thing: Bad because I subscribe to the notion that you just cannot expect your employees (including yourself) to work non-stop and keep being productive; after a while, the amount of re-work that occurs entirely defeats the momentary increase in productivity that a 60 or 70 hour work week entails. Good because it’s nice to have the work and we’re not trying to fill time by dragging out projects.

There’s a happy median in there that seems to have some sort of wave function around it—a constantly changing distance from the center that affects everyone’s morale and productivity. Get too far on one side and you have burnout; get too far on the other and you lose your job.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Non-Farm productivity of America has been growing at an average of a little over 2% since 1990. You might also have heard the recent news stories about corporate profits on the uptick yet real wages staying flat. I’m not economist enough to make any bold statements about what this means or how it is the result of glaring corporate greed, however anecdotally, I can tell you that not many people I know are getting cost of living raises this year, nor is the job market exactly swimming with opportunity. We’re doing more, but making the same. Go us!

I’m not one who can really shout to the rafters about paying employees before paying the company—hell, I’ve been making noise about investing more in the company, and that money has to come from somewhere, but that’s another discussion—but it seems like things are still a bit unsettled. People are afraid to make moves despite being in “bad situations” because of the uncertainty in finding stable work ((Last in, first out is a staple of the layoff industry)). I think that’s short sighted, but it’s perfectly rational.

But back to my initial paragraph. Things will be calmer this month, which is nice. The objective is to stay as much on top of things as possible to keep things calm. That’s always the challenge.