Nothing else to report, really.
There were long lines at the four Oracle cafeterias open today (the other four were closed). Had to walk a bit farther to get my breakfast.
I was honestly worried about the janitorial staff: Oracle Plaza is densely packed with people, and the custodial staff visit the bathrooms a couple of times per day. I brought extra Kleenex just in case. But the custodial staff is working today, apparently.
First two observations of today’s rally.
First, far fewer bicycles got on Caltrain at San Mateo than normal. That stop seems to be home to a large number of Latinos, and I’ve seen a fair number with paint-spattered work clothes.
Second, the cafeteria downstairs is closed. Trying to find coffee and breakfast now. One of the cafeterias has to be open… I hope. Or I’m going right home.
Nine years.
Ten chapters.
126 pages.
882 paragraphs.
63,650 words.
301,546 characters.
[photo right: the full manuscript, single-sided, double-spaced. The page count above is single-spaced on 5.5×8.5 paper]
It’s done. It’s written. I started nine years ago, in July of 1997, to write a book about my experiences in the West Bank in 1997. The basis of the book were my blog entries from February, March, April and May of 1997.
I put the book aside within one year, barely two-thirds written. I only picked it up again in 2004, the summer after business school when I was looking for a job.
Now it’s done.
Oh, I have a few weeks of editing and tweaking, and some of the sections are weak. But it’s done. There’s no more to write.
To put it in Oracle marketing terms, I’ve been thinking about my click-through-rate and my cost-per-download. I’ve been using the same online-dating site, personals.salon.com, for three years now, with mixed results. I tried this site because Jonathan and Christine–two friends from the tech crowd at NYU–met their spouses on the site. I also fell in love with their business model: pay-per-use, or, more accurately, pay-per-contact.
Almost a year ago, the original pay-per-use company went bankrupt, and the remaining assets–including the customer base–was purchased by a competitor that adheres to the subscription model. This happened exactly one year after I moved back to San Francisco so I’ve had two years to evaluate the models.
I have noted that my response rate–that is, the ratio of women who reply to the number of initial emails I send–has gone down.
I find myself in an odd place professionally. I have a paycheck, a desk, and a segment to market to. But I don’t really have a job or function. It’s an odd sort of uncertainty.
Today, I received a check for $381.42 from E. Lynn Schoenmann, the Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Trustee for EmployeeService.com, my employer until 11-Jan-2001. You see, EmployeeService.com failed to pay wages to a single employee for the final two weeks of service.
$381.42 is a mere fraction of what I was owed, of course. I was owed $2,700 in wages, plus $2,538 in upaid vacation time.
I padded that even further with the California Labor Code, sections 201 and 203 (I was unemployed–I had lots of free time). Section 203 conveniently requires an employer who willfully fails to pay wages upon discharge to continue paying the employee for thirty days as a penalty. Considering that EmployeeService.com did not file a bankruptcy claim until mid-March and had money in the bank at the time all employees were laid off (11-Jan-2001), I figure that qualifies for "willful." Anyway, that came out to an additional $6,500, meaning I had a claim for $11,538.
So I got 3.3% of my claim.
At least I can finally deduct the remaining $11,156.58 as an unrecoverable debt on my taxes. And I have an extra $381.42!
The New York Times ran an op-ed piece by Tony Judt this morning about a paper (abbreviated and full) co-authored by professors at the University of Chicago and Harvard about the role of the so-called "Israel Lobby" in defining US foreign policy that has already sparked news and debate.
Put aside for the moment the actual discussions of the US’s role in the Middle-East; whether there is a monolithic "Israel Lobby" as opposed to a variety of lobbies in co-opetition with each other; and if that Lobby has, or those lobbies have, undue influence on US policy or, do they exist because US policy is so pro-Israel. This is the subject for another post. Besides, I haven’t had a chance to read the Mearsheimer/Walt paper yet, although my gut tells me the two are vastly overstating the influence of the lobbyist in question.
What struck me was the ad hominem, reductio ad absurdum attacks on the authors. The NYT quoted Prof. Mearsheimer as saying, "We certainly wanted to provoke a debate, and this has happened. But we hoped to provoke a rational debate, not a food fight in which people accuse us of being anti-Semites."
My friend Kevin went on a first date last night with a man he met on The Onion personals (the same service I use). He had thought the fellow was a very well preserved 35 based on his picture. But, the picture was taken eight years and forty pounds ago. Another friend, CK, went on a date with a fellow who claimed he was 5’11" and turned out to be just an inch or two taller than her.
Lying on online personals is pervasive, but it brings up the question of incentives and cultural norms. Kevin, CK and I both tell the truth in our online ads. I’m not the tallest guy, I’m scrawny, and that’s there in the profile. Neither Kevin nor CK can claim to be athletic or slim/toned. But here’s the thing: everyone else does lie.
So what do you do?
Chanel and Trish bought a house in Portland, Oregon earlier this week, or so my mom reports. She just called, very excited, because she has all-but-committed to buy a 2BR condominium in downtown Portland. The building hasn’t been completed yet, and her apartment won’t be finished until May 2007. She’ll be on the 18th floor of what will eventually be a 23-story building. There are only 11 stories now.
My trip to Las Vegas the week of 25-MAR-06 for TheServerSide Java Symposium will be, I hope, my last for several years at least. Not my favorite place.
But I dutifully brought my camera and tripod along with me to capture a few pictures.
My first target was the skyline [click to enlarge]. I actually spotted a picture taken from some hotel or other in a travel guide, and was hoping to repeat it. The foreground had the curve of the hotel with yellow lines pointing into the Strip, which was a really nice guide. But I wasn’t sure what hotel it was. The Mandalay Bay, it turns out, has a restaurant at the top of one of their buildings, and it looked like they had those nice, directing lines.
So I went up at around 4:30 and camped out with a glass of wine, waiting for the sun to set and that beautiful, deep blue to suffuse the sky. Much to my surprise, the haze resulted in more of a deep purple than blue. And, as I looked down the Strip, I realized that the hotel I had been looking for was The Wynn. Not only did it have those directing lines, but it looked south-by-southeast, rather than north-by-northwest, meaning the cool colors would have been more pronounced from the Wynn than the spot I chose. Still, things turned out alright, I think.
My only other shot was completely unplanned. That same night, I lugged all my gear over to Caesar’s–after the pool party sponsored by Adobe, I figured I’d walk the Strip. As I walked over the pedestrian bridge between Caesar’s and the Flamingo, I couldn’t help but notice how strong the Flamingo’s neon sign reflected on the bridge’s glass walls. It was like the Flamingo was on top of the Bellagio.
As I’m setting up my tripod to take the shot, some random guy walks up to me and says "you know the problem with that shot is that you’re going to get the reflection of the neon lights in the picture."
I lifted one eyebrow and said, "yeah."
"Oh, wow, cool, that’s like a double-exposure or something!"