The Long Way to the Top

As I make my way through the world of corporate America, I feel very little like I am climbing any sort of a ladder. More appropriately I think, would be a sort of horizontal movement, kind of like crawling through a minefield on my stomach, with bloodied elbows. In this journey so far, it seems that the mines are unavoidable, as the only way to cross this great span towards personal and financial satisfaction seems to be through some pain and misery. I should say that I understand I have it much better than a large percentage of the world's population, but one is not usually compared to all $6 billion+ of the earth's inhabitants, usually just our peers. My battle scars are for the most part my own fault, in some ways the result of decisions that I have made and in others, the consequences of some decisions that were made poorly.

I am content though with my situation at the moment, as I feel that I have a goal in mind and have accepted there may not be a shortcut in my situation. Instead of staying in the sales game, in which the rewards seem to be immediate but the monotony endless, I have decided to make a stand and go after what I believe will make me happy in the long run: doing something that involves creating instead of just convincing someone to buy something. I don't mean any disrespect to salespeople- no business can exist without sales. They are vitally important, but sales is not for everyone.

In my opinion there are two main reasons to want money. The first is the obvious one, which is because most things in life that are necessary to survive (at least as we are accustomed) cost a certain amount of money. There are however certain degrees of this first situation.

Everyone knows the phrase "money can't buy happiness" or the variations of it. For the most part I believe this to be true- having an infinite amount of possessions means nothing if you do not find the beauty in the things in your life that cannot be quantified. On the opposite end of the spectrum though, you can have a lot of positive things going for you in your life, but without freedom from fear of the dollar, this can be overshadowed.

The second reason some people seem to want money is to show other people how much of it they have. I am not in the position of being able to do much of that, but I hope when I am it wont interest me. I want enough money to have enough freedom to enjoy life, the thing that takes place when you are not at work.

I only wish to reach a happy medium, or maybe what I want isn't reasonable. I want to enjoy what I do. I want to leave work feeling good about myself and satisfied that I am using some of my best abilities to complete a task that doesn't feel like work. Typing this brings something to my attention however: I don't think as humans that we are meant to sit at a desk for hours, weeks, months, years and decades of our lives. Maybe some of us can handle it better than others, but I can never quite shake the feeling that while I am at work, there are much more exciting things going on in the world that I can contribute to and be a part of.

Why Do We Accept Mediocracy from Apple?

Better yet, why do we pay for it? I myself am guilty of paying good money for a product that is far less than satisfactory in performance. I have had two different IPods now and I have had two different problems with each of them.

My first was a Mini. I marveled at its unbelievably tiny size and how so much music I loved could finally be all in one place. I feel that a burned CD should stick to some kind of a theme when you create one but the IPod lets me put everything in one place but yet categorized at the same time so that I don't have to feel disgraceful by having Guns N Roses so near to Men Without Hats. My hot love for my Mini died out along with the battery about a 1 1/2 years into our affair; along with my girlfriend's, my sister's, several other people I know, and from what a minimal amount of research on the web turned up, a few hundred other people, and I'm guessing there are many more. Wow, what a coincidence that we all seem to have the same problem with the same device from the same company!

Yeah the thing worked if you plugged it in, but I'm pretty sure that defeats the purpose of a portable music device. I could have gotten it fixed (so graciously might I add) from Apple for something like $60 for a new battery, but what do I do? I get another IPod. This time it is an 8 gig Nano generation 2.

For the past 9 months the two of us have been getting along great. It was half the size of the Mini but it could hold twice as much. I Rediscovered the joy of actually being able to jog or ride a bike while listening to music. I took my music with me up north on a couple camping trips, and fell asleep under the stars listening to a Harry Potter audio book. Everything was great until this past Saturday. Apparently the Nano couldn't handle the song I wanted to put on: it completely locked up and since then it has been dying an electronic death. It started with none of the buttons working at all but the screen would still light up when I plugged it in. I even thought I was back in business when I plugged it into my PC and ITunes registered it. This excitement died when I realized it meant nothing, as the buttons still didn't work at all.

Believe me, I have tried the reset many times (which I have done successfully in the past) and I even went as far as the restore option to wipe everything off and return to factory settings- nothing. I have not spilled anything on my Nano or microwaved it or anything else; it just seems that the inevitable has happened and it has crapped out. Why does Apple get away with this? Probably because people like me keep paying to be disappointed.

What if You Literally Worked 11 Years For Nothing?

I don't necessarily have a problem with illegal immigrants, most of them seem to work really hard and from what I have heard from "experts" they actually play kind of a vital part in our economy. The only part of the illegal immigrant situation I have issues with is the whole our borders being unprotected and we have no idea who is coming and going, thing. This, however important, isn't what I wanted to write about.

Imagine if you worked for 11 years and and saved every possible penny you could, all the while making about $5.50 an hour. At $5.50 an hour, most of us would not only be eating a lot of ramen noodles and mac n' cheese, but we probably would not be putting enough away to afford to buy more than a few value meals after everything was over. Somehow, Pedro Zepeta managed to put away $59,000 under those circumstances.

Pedro has done the unenviable task of cleaning plates for the past 11 years and had $59,000 to show for it, until now. On his way home to Guatemala, customs officials seized the money at the airport and it now looks like Pedro will not get any of it. Granted, Pedro has not paid taxes on any of the money. I guess there is a rule that you can't just bring a dufflebag stuffed with almost 60k onto an airplane. (If it's over 10k you have to declare it, which makes sense)

I really feel for this guy. I don't think he should get a free ride by any means - I say take out the taxes, have him pay penalties or whatever for not paying them, but give him something to show for all of this. I don't see how this is a triumph for law enforcement when we know that there are white-collar crooks all over this country making money by stealing from the unsuspecting or just making their fortune by taking advantage of people. I don't know what this guy is feeling right now, but I would imagine it is similar to being kicked in the stomach by a rhino. And what was Pedro going to do with the money? He was going to buy land in his mountain village to build a home for his mother and sisters. Put yourself in Pedro's shoes.

Reality Television

I have some serious mixed feelings about "Reality TV." The quotation marks are because of the ever increasing notion that much of what is portrayed as real is actually pretty scripted. I guess the best way to describe my reaction to this idea is it was unexpected but unsurprising.

Most people tend to agree that RT is similar to junk food: It isn't good for you at all but still very satisfying and it takes a lot to get sick of it. I find myself indulging in RT probably a little more than I should. On a weekend I have been known to watch a marathon of a show that I have never even watched a single episode of; one of them about renovating houses comes to mind but I can't even remember the name.

I won't say that there are RT shows about every subject now because clearly there are still some more nuggets waiting to be mined. I guess this fall CBS is debuting a show called "Kid Nation" which is, to my understanding, a show featuring a bunch of kids living on their own in a town without adults to see if they can form a civilized society. This sounds so wrong in so many ways but I am still going to check it out. I think you have to. There has to be some kind of lesson that can be gleaned from watching people create a society whose dreams are unspoiled by the reality of adulthood.

I do feel though that some of these shows have merit. Even though shows like "The Biggest Loser" tend to make a spectacle of overweight people sometimes, I have to believe that it is motivating others to get healthier. I like to watch that show not to see how a large person does on an obstacle course but to see what kind of a transformation they make and how much better they feel about their self. "Extreme Home Makeover" is also a tear-jerker. These people are always so incredibly grateful and deserving of their new homes that it choked me up a little. Unfortunately I had to stop watching that because a friend told me that 80% of them lost their houses after the show because they couldn't afford the hike in property taxes from the added value.

What the Heck is Going on Here?

I am worried that we are approaching a dangerous point. Back in the 60's and 70's it seemed like police didn't hesitate to crack some heads whenever they lost control of a situation or couldn't get the violators to cease and desist. I am referencing for the most part the non-violent protests of the Vietnam war in which a lot of heads were tee'd off on with police batons.

You don't really see a lot of this anymore except for in other countries, but in this country is seems like the taser is the new police baton. The image of someone's head being split open or someone swatting at their back like they are a lumberjack chopping wood is pretty unsettling. By it's nature, the taser is not nearly as dramatic and doesn't really have the same visual impact.

Despite maybe not looking near as violent though, I hear that being "tased" is extremely painful and I believe it. I can't imagine being electrocuted is at all fun. I have noticed over the past year that tasers seem to be being used all over the place.
People of all ages have been getting a healthy dose of volts; There doesn't seem to be much discretion in the application of them as far as age or situation either.
Yesterday a University of Florida student was tasered after he asked some questions at a talk being given by ex next president John Kerry. It wasn't Kerry that asked for the guy to be removed; it really isn't clear who made that call except it looks like it may have been the cops themselves. The subject of them and the way he asked his questions was clearly meant to provoke Kerry, but he wasn't doing anything illegal. Kerry responded by saying he would like to answer but he didn't really have the opportunity.

The officers seized Andrew Meyer and dragged him away from the podium. Meyer did resist and was a little hysterical but the officers got him on the ground without any excessive force. It is while he is lying there saying that he will walk out on his own if they let him stand that one of them lights him up. You can hear Meyer plead "Don't tase me bro!" but the cop wasn't having any of that. If you watch the video it doesn't really seem necessary at all.

I should say that I respect police officers. I wont ever pretend I know what their job is like and that I could do it better. However, I think there should be some responsibility when it comes to this type of thing. There is some serious controversy over whether tasers are safe or not and some people have died from them. I think that maybe tasers should be reserved for a little more serious situations. People should be able to ask shocking questions without actually being shocked.
The article and video are here.

Remembering is Important

I did one of those quick polls on CNN earlier today that posed the question, "Should we stop having large scale remembrances for 911?" I clicked no. I was quite surprised when I saw the current results were that 51% of people disagreed with me. That is, they think it is time to move on a little. They must not have heard the woman I just heard on the radio describing talking to her husband who was on the 105th floor of Tower 2.

Listening to this woman telling the story of hearing her husband's breathing beginning to get worse and worse, and how he passed out at one moment almost put you in her shoes, at least it did enough to hope Bin 'Ladin is dead.

They stayed on the phone with each other as the smoke started pouring up from the floors below. She watched on her TV as things began to fall off of the burning building. Both of them knowing what had already happened with the first tower, and that there was no way for him to get out, she told him "I think its time for us to say goodbye." She said that he seemed peaceful as he repeated over and over to her ,"I love you, I love you." And then there was a loud crack, and he was gone.

This woman's story moved me to tears. I cannot begin to imagine what it would be like to be in that building and have Anne on the other end of that phone, and to say goodbye for the last time. I cannot bear the thought of having to make the decision to say goodbye for the last time. Most of us can't and hopefully will not ever be able to.

There are almost 3,000 other stories like the one above. Almost 3,000 reminders as to why it isn't too early to give this day the amount of respect it still deserves. Most importantly, it should remind us all that some of the people that did this are still out there, and that for every one of them that we have killed there are many willing to take their place. We don't need to live in fear and change our lives, or succumb to the will of these soulless sacks of skin. But maybe we should keep being reminded until we don't need to be anymore, until all of the questions can be answered. Most importantly, in my opinion: Killing people who want to kill us is the obvious solution, but seems a temporary fix as there isn't a shortage of these people. The tougher question, and I think the one that provides the more permanent solution, is how do we get these people to never want to kill us in the first place. If we can answer that, then we "win" the war against terror.

This Isn't Quite Sparta

While I was back at State this past Saturday, I got a taste of something that I figured might happen. All football teams have a chant that the fans know and can yell in unison when something good happens in the game. It shows solidarity and just kind of sounds cool. I don't have any problem with that.

I don't have a problem either with what I heard on Saturday. Most have at least heard of the movie "300." The movie is about arguably the toughest civilization that ever lived, known for their godlike warrior abilities: The Spartans. Not the Green and White ones but the tough as nails bred from birth to fight and die Spartans the movie was based on. In a point in the movie King Leonidas asks his warriors ,"SPARTANS, WHAT IS YOUR PROFESSION?" To which they reply with an awesomely disciplined war chant. This sounded pretty cool and put a smile on my face when it echoed through Spartan Stadium.

What I am worried about here is this being taken too far. A little bit of referencing a very cool movie will go a long way. I don't want to see the band doing the half-time show in leather underwear and red capes. Finally, maybe my biggest problem with this is I don't know if we have earned it yet. State has been an extremely mediocre football team especially the past few years.

We have maybe the coolest mascot in all of sports period, but I think we should earn the title a little more before we exploit "300" more than we deserve to. Toughness is something I have seen us seriously lack so I don't think we should imply that we are ready to take on the Persian empire just yet, lets start with the rest of the Big 10.