Up in the air

I am personally relieved that the TSA has now lifted the interdict on commercial airline passengers carrying pocket knives. They, souvenir baseball bats and golf clubs are now okayed for takeoff.

Not that the agency, following Polonius’ advice to be true to itself, seems to be able to explain exactly why they’re now okay but box cutters still aren’t. Possibly because no one will ever be able to say the words “box cutters” and “airline” and not see planes flying into buildings; but of course they wouldn’t say that even if it were true.

I’m relieved because I carry a Swiss army knife around with me all the time—it’s in the little bag with eye shadow, lipstick and the cheap-ass little nail file I got after my real one got confiscated by some airline in 2002. In addition to the two cutting blades, it has a slot screw-driver blade and a corkscrew. Now that they’re air-legal, so to speak, I don’t have to remember to remove it from my purse and leave it at home, or stick it into a carry-on bag which then has to be checked.

You never want to be without a corkscrew, in my opinion, and that’s why I applaud the TSA’s decision.

Holy smoke

Habemus, as they say, papam. The Papal conclave, on only its second day, has elected a new Pope, the cardinal formerly known as Jorge Maria Bergolio, 76, of Buenos Aires. His nom de Pope is Francis, and his election, on the fifth ballot, pretty well breaks all land speed records for papal elections.

Bergolio is a Jesuit (first ever to be elected pontiff), so people hoping that he took the name Francis and therefore pastoral guidance from the man from Assisi—a humane (if possibly divinely dotty) churchman—are probably in for a disappointment. The more likely inspiration is Francis Xavier, co-founder of the Society of Jesus, and not the kind of guy you’d really want to get into an argument with. He was a soldier; beware of guys with a cross in one hand and a sword in the other, if you catch my drift.

He’s also old. Only two years younger than Benedict XVI was on his election in 2005. Benedict, you’ll recall, opened up the position of head of the Catholic Church by resigning last month, citing age and health reasons, after only eight years in office. These cardinals are not the brightest bulbs on the tree, are they—how do they expect to get value out of a guy this old? Especially after the example of the last one? Did they run the candidates through stress tests? Get MRIs? Ask them how long they reckon they’re good for on the throne?

I expect they calculate they’re doing well to find a cardinal who doesn’t have fraud, child abuse or sexual harassment charges in his past or present.

It’s a bit of a hoo-hah, the fact that the new Pope is not European (not had one of those in 1200 years) and the first ever Latin American. I’d be a lot happier about that latter if there weren’t some questions about Bergolio’s complicity with various Argentine dictatorships. I suppose there’s a certain amount of going-along to get-along in those situations, but still.

(My idea of a Latin American Church leader is Óscar Romero; but of course being assassinated in the course of your pastoral duties is a handicap to getting elected Pope.)

On the other hand—perhaps that qualifies him to lead the Church these days, to keep things on an even keel, wink-wink, nudge-nudge. There’s a whole lot wrong with the institution, and the biggest signs of leadership activity seem to revolve around keeping people from paying any attention to the man behind the curtain.

It’s like expecting Congress to enact campaign reform laws—or the foxes to legislate against hen house raids: it’s hard for the very people who benefit from the institutional corruption to take active steps to clean up the mess. As a Cardinal, Bergoglio has gone on record many times taking stands against bringing the Church into even the 20^th Century—including denying communion to anyone who expresses opinions not strictly the party line on topics like birth control, homosexuality and the like. So perhaps that’s a more heavily weighted qualifier than the fact that the old dog probably doesn’t have a lot more fights left in him.

Just call me Sneezy

Well, this is a bummer. Sunday I felt a sore throat coming on all day. I finally took some Neurofen Cold & Flu, a UK OTC product that’s the best defense against colds I’ve ever found. (I get it from a private supplier. ‘Nuff said.)

Monday I couldn’t decide whether it was working or not; the sore throat seemed to be in stasis but then I became way snottier than usual, if you get my drift. I that whole nose-blowing thing. Even when you use the really good tissues, your nose ends up getting all red & raw & it goes on forever. Ergo the Neurofen C&F.

I think I got a total of about four hours’ sleep Monday night—I kept waking up to sneeze & blow my nose. It was hardly worth it at all. Then, around 0600, I went into such a coughing fit that I actually dredged out my cough syrup with codeine in it. I’m serious—I thought a lung might be on its way up my throat.

(An interesting—to me—sidebar is that, in measuring out the cough syrup I spilled a little on the kitchen sink. When I wandered back out about 11 hours later, it looked to me like the stuff might be eating holes in the porcelain. Hmm.)

However, yesterday I spent the entire day (until 1700) in bed, sneezing, blowing, & eye watering. I can't recall the last time I spent the day in bed, but it would have been because I was unbelievably sick. If it weren’t for the actual sore (as opposed to scratchy) throat & the coughing fit, I might think I’m in a massive allergy attack. Only I haven’t had any allergies since leaving Virginia & I can’t think what could cause something to come on this fast & this overwhelming.

Plus—allergies never interfered with my appetite & I haven’t eaten anything since Monday morning. Heigh-ho…

Men bearing cookies

This came via a FB friend, from the Being Liberal fan page:

I have to say that there is no woman in my acquaintance whose first response to a guy bearing freshly-baked cookies would be, “That’s so gay.” More like:

“Did you bring the milk, too?” Or:

“Butt out, bitch, he’s mine!” Or:

…No—from here on out, I don’t believe I can repeat the likely response in a public forum. There are grandfathers who read this.

Recruiters 32

I had a phone interview last week with the VP of Products at a startup in SF. They’ve got an interesting product—predictive suggestions for sales reps, using big data analytics. But they really wanted someone with deep Agile experience, and I’ve only used the waterfall methodology, although I’ve taken a course and got Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) certification from the Scrum Alliance.

The VP and I got along well; he’s an Aussie, so that was pretty easy. And I made my case for understanding the principles of Scrum, and how impressed I am with their product—which is true, because it’s applying artificial intelligence algorithms to the applications side of Big Data (one of the über-buzz words in software these days, along with Mobile), and they’ve placed heavy emphasis on the user experience (UX), which is one of my major focal points. (Seriously—there’s a lot of software out there with completely crap UX.)

Well, the short version of this story is that the VP sent me a very nice thanks-but-no-thanks email—in a ten-person company, they have to choose their additions carefully, and solid Agile experience is key at this point, etc.

I’ll admit to being ambivalent about this turn-down. A ten-person startup in SaaS effectively means ten men, probably most under the age of 35. Ten also means that the health insurance they offer is going to be crap—high deductible, high-copay, low coverage; this is because they’re limited to Anthem as a provider of small-group insurance. Other benefits will also be sketchy.

This company is a couple of years old, but it’s still seeking angel funding; they have one customer, in Japan. And they’ve outsourced their development…to Bolivia.

Additionally, they’re in downtown SF, a minimum two-hour each way commute from Sunnyvale and more than $300 per month.

Still—it was an interesting solution. I think I’ll submit a CV to their primary competitor.