Civic responsibility

So, armed with photo ID & a utility bill proving I do indeed reside here (haven’t got around to getting a Washington driver’s license—probably subconsciously unwilling to make that ultimate commitment) I showed up 45 minutes ago at the Pilgrim Lutheran Church in Bellevue to perform my civic duty.

I also had a book to read in case of long lines.

Now, considering that Metro Seattle is supposed to be the Silicon Sound, as it were, a hotbed of high tech, imagine my surprise at discovering how…manual the process was.

I had to check in with a young woman at a table, who found me on a list & then directed me across the room to another set of people behind tables, specifically to “Bob”. I’m guessing Bob was about 103 & very methodical about looking you up on his rolls. I showed him my company badge because my name is in BIG LETTERS. He still had trouble finding me.

As he flipped through the pages, I pointed out my name. He instructed me to write my name in another book & then handed me a very long paper ballot, printed on both sides.

I completely freaked out when I realized that the voting “booths” were entirely open & cheek-by-jowl next to one another. I could have cribbed off the ballots of the man & woman to either side of me if I’d wanted.

Then I obsessed over making sure I filled the little ovals correctly—all fully covered, nothing extending outside the line.

I’ve NEVER had a ballot that had to be marked like that. & I’ve been voting for a while.

Also interesting was the way the ballot was “organized”: instructions, state measures, county measures, federal offices, state offices, county measures, judges, city measures. I think this is the first time voting in three states that the office of President of the United States hasn’t taken precedence.

In fact I pretty much had to HUNT out the candidates for Leader of the Free World.

Well, I made my way through the maze (skipping over the county measures about which I know nothing; ditto the judges), rolled up my paper & walked back to the entrance to the hall, where there was this shredder-looking machine that sucks up your ballot. Not sure what happens to it after that, except that it’s going to be a tedious process going thru them to record all those black oval blobs.

(At least no prissy Republican women in their Republican suits sitting there as “poll watchers” checking for any Dem-looking voters they can intimidate out of casting their ballot. [& I know they were ’Pubs because they had little badges SAYING so.] As they were in Virginia the last time I voted on the day instead of absent. That was enough to make me cast my ballot as an absentee ever since.)

I got an “I voted” sticker, & noticed that it’s also stamped “farewell to polls”. & now I understand why most of Washington votes by mail. If there’d been more than the ten or so voters there when I was, all this to-ing & fro-ing would have been utterly chaotic. As would getting one of those “privacy booths” (as they’re referred to in a Seattle Post-Intelligencer report); there was no traffic direction, it was every voter for him/herself.

I have to say I’m not even whelmed by this. As with the state-run liquor stores, Washington is managing to make Virginia look positively progressive in the process of electing our leaders.

Still, as gobsmackingly early 20th-century as this experience was, I am fully aware of how precious & hard-won this right is. & I’m grateful for the opportunity to be counted, even by the black oval blob.

First Tuesday after the first Monday

It's election eve--way scarier than All Hallows in my book. This time tomorrow, God willing, the political commercials & soundbites will be over, Sarah Palin's Neiman-Marcus wardrobe will be up on eBay (yeah, like THAT'S gonna happen) & the political signs littering the landscape will be pulled up, probably by teen vandals on community service.

Whatever happens at the polls--& in the ensuing court battles--I'm worried that we're just not going to get over the polarity this campaign engendered. More so than any election I can remember, there's been a level of incivility & unwillingness to even listen to anyone supporting "those" candidates ("those" being whichever side isn't yours).

Throughout the past couple of months, friends have been sending me NY Times articles, YouTube links, analyses, diatribes, exposés, cartoons--all anti McCain-Palin. I'm not saying they don't make pretty easy targets, but as I've told more than one of my friends: this stuff is being circulated amongst Obama supporters; of course we're going to eat it up.

But, while infuriating or amusing (or sometimes just lame), I didn't need these materials to influence my choice. & I suspect that neither did the other people on the distribution list.

Moreover, if any McCainite did receive any of these emails, I'm betting that if s/he read through the first graf the offending email got deleted right sharpish.

Here's the thing--at no point in this final campaign did I receive anything from an acquaintance that attempted to show the 'Pubs in a positive light, or Dems in a negative one. (I know it's out there because I've sought out some of the latter myself just to see what was out there, although I can't bring myself to go to a Murdoch-owned site--I do have some limits.)

My point (&, unlike Peggy Noonan, I can actually come to one) is this: we don't seem to be able to talk with one another, unless "we" have already passed some sort of litmus test. & I'm not seeing any kind of willingness to cross this divide, at least not so far.

(I'm also frankly scared by the Klan-like outbursts at McCain's & Palin's rallies & appalled that the candidates haven't told these louts that this kind of thing is unacceptable in the society that the Founding Fathers envisioned. These people have guns--what happens when their candidate doesn't make it to the White House?)

& I'm wondering whether, after tomorrow, we can find a way to put all this vitriol behind us & get on with the business of dragging our sorry economy's arse out of the tank, bring an honorable end to the wars we've been fighting for more than five years & restore our prestige in the eyes of the nations.

Speaking as someone who ALWAYS claps for Tinkerbell I have to say that I wish I thought we could, but I'm having a hard time envisioning it.

Meanwhile, get out there & vote, because decisions are made by those who show up.

Hard times from the New Yorker

Okay, there's something about this week's New Yorker's cartoons that just seems to drill right to the root canal. See if you agree with me.

I'll start you out with this, & then you can move on to their collection.

You'll thank me for it. Really.

Count de monaie

Dunno about youall, but Election Day cannot come a moment too soon for me. From President down to municipal offices the ads, the news, the shrill invective masking a dearth of substance… I’m starting to feel like Mercutio: a plague o’ both your houses.

& the one thing “good” (relatively speaking) about the economic meltdown is its timing: this close to the polls, not even our Congress-slime can avoid some of the consequences of a totally pissed-off electorate. (God bless the jury that convicted Ted Stevens!)

Speaking of buckets o’moolah, we all know that money makes the political world go around, so the occasion arose today for me to do a bit of investigating into major contributors to the two main presidential campaigns.

Well, blow me if the numbers don’t tell quite the story:

Contributors to John McCain, 2008:
Merrill Lynch $349,920
Citigroup Inc $290,101
Morgan Stanley $249,377
Goldman Sachs $220,045
JPMorgan Chase & Co $210,992
AT&T Inc $181,813
Credit Suisse Group $175,503
PricewaterhouseCoopers $163,670
Blank Rome LLP $161,576
US Army $150,470
Wachovia Corp $150,006
US Government $149,818
Bank of America $142,776
UBS AG $141,365
Greenberg Traurig LLP $141,137
US Dept of Defense $127,325
FedEx Corp $123,654
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher $122,546
Lehman Brothers $115,707
Bear Stearns $108,000
Total: $3,475,801

Contributors to Barack Obama, 2008:
University of California $777,593
Goldman Sachs $743,371
Harvard University $505,989
Citigroup Inc $499,598
Google Inc $493,705
JPMorgan Chase & Co $478,462
National Amusements Inc $437,669
Microsoft Corp $434,156
UBS AG $419,350
Lehman Brothers $391,624
Time Warner $388,063
Wilmerhale Llp $383,024
Sidley Austin LLP $371,166
Skadden, Arps et al $361,409
Morgan Stanley $344,130
Stanford University $342,749
Latham & Watkins $328,879
Jones Day $314,760
General Electric $299,434
University of Chicago $294,237
Total: $8,609,368

Now, I haven’t balanced my checkbook in 20 years, but even a numeracy-challenged twit can notice the names on these lists. Can you say “Goldman Sachs”, “Bear Stearns” & “Lehman Brothers”? I knew you could.

So the Wall Street giants that you & I, dear taxpayer, are propping up because they shot their (& their investors) wad on some sort of high-finance craps game—they’re generously giving hundreds of thousands of our money to McCain & Obama.

Yes, this largesse isn’t coming from these entities, it’s coming thru them, but even so, doesn’t it get up your nose just the teensiest bit?

Moreover, what the devil are the US Army, the “US Government” & the Department of Defense doing funneling roughly $427K into McCain’s coffers? I understand that this is allegedly from the plebs in these organizations, but these organizations are extremely big on chain of command, & it gives me the willies that this kind of coin is coming out of agencies where a request from your commander is not a request.

But one final comment (because even I’m running out of steam this close to 4 November): isn’t it interesting that these captains of capitalism, for whom any kind of government oversight is nothing short of satanic, have in every instance donated more to Obama than McCain? To the tune of three to four times the dough?

I mean, Wachovia’s donation to McCain barely covers Sarah Palin’s September wardrobe purchases.

What do you suppose that indicates? That they haven’t lost all their ability to mitigate risk? That they’ve read the chicken entrails & have seen a Democrat in the White House? &, that being the case, they want to be on the list of “supporters” when 20 January rolls around?

Well, a girl can hope.

Election 2008!

As follow-up to my post of 22 August I note that those wizards of wit, The Engineers, have come up with an alternative ticket to the two majors.I especially appreciate the fact that the vice-presidential candidate can see across the street (& pond).

I do hope this late entry to the race doesn’t dilute the Obama vote. But that’s what makes this country so great.

I’m also thinking of Ginger’s economic manifesto (“Scratch the economy’s butt”), in bulk, for Xmas prezzies…

Brilliant, just brilliant

Politics makes strange bedfellows, they say; and this Presidential election is certainly an example of that.

But corporations make for even stranger (or more strained) office-fellows;and my current situation is, alas, quite the exemplar.

Ordinarily every employee has his/her own office; but the division's been hiring at such a clip that they’re having to double up.

Three weeks ago a guy who was hired to be ad manager in my department came in and was assigned to share my office. He turned out to be the World’s Greatest Expert (all topics), which he lost no time in explaining to me. And everyone else within earshot.

I’m afraid I didn’t show proper awe—when he announced the last company he graced with his brilliance, I looked blank, as I’d never heard of it. Not surprisingly, he was supremely disinterested in my background (except as a possible backdrop for his brilliance).

Within a couple of days he was already horning in on my project—giving me the benefit of his brilliance—while coming up to speed on what was in front of him. You may imagine how that went down. I don’t take it personally—he spreads his brilliance like the flu virus around the organization. But it pisses me off nonetheless.

But also within a couple of days he’d started bringing in his desk décor… No, not pix of the wife and kid, or the cherry 67 Mustang lovingly restored. No, nothing so…pedestrian. One after another, he schlepped the beloved artifacts of his life: a cheap copper-painted porcelain bust of Pericles, a framed Net-download picture of Lycurgus, and another bust—I’m guessing Leonidas.

(I know the pix are lousy; but they're just here to show I'm not making this stuff up.)

Yes, WGE’s great love is ancient Sparta. (Well, leaving aside the anomaly of Pericles.) He fancies himself quite the authority, and can prove it by cutting and pasting passages from Herodotus into one of his blogs. (No formatting, no commentary or analysis; just one long run-on paragraph.)

One day as he was leaving (typically before 1600, since he has this 90-minute commute to Tacoma) he announced he’d continue bringing in the Greeks. I commented, “Well, I guess we’ll have a phalanx, then, won’t we?”

“Phalanx? You know what a PHALANX is?”

(Well, yeah—doesn’t everyone?)

That rather took some of the wind out of his trireme, but he decided he could recover from not being the only expert on ancient Greek warfare in the room by assuring me (in the manner of a dealer telling a junkie he’s got access to some REALLY good shit…) he’d bring in these fake ancient Spartan coins he minted!

Oh, be still my heart.

Damn me if the little pisher (yes, he’s no taller than I) didn’t haul his little plastic coins out of his overcompensatingly-large backpack a couple of mornings later with a flourish. He started ‘splaining to me in great detail what each element was, but when he got to the, “Here’s the epitaph…” And I cut in, “Go tell the Spartans that we lie here obeying their laws,”  his poor trireme stalled again.

In another attempt at recovering the sole-authority position, WGE smarmed, “You must have studied Greece, then?” Well, no, not studied (outside of my ancient Greece humanities class in college); but I have indeed read Herodotus, and dipped into some of the others.
“Oh, have you read [some name I’ve never heard of]?”

No; but rather a lot of Michael Grant.

“I don’t know Michael Grant.”

Really? I don’t know that much about ancient Greece, but even I know Grant’s one of the big guns on the topic. Out of Cambridge. Written trireme-loads worth of books. Evidently WGE’s breadth of expertise is…somewhat circumscribed.

But something that he’s not short of (besides self-regard) is scarfing up freebies. Turns out the WGE is also the WBF (World’s Biggest Freeloader). Within a couple of days in situ he’d already glommed onto a division jacket (which I think he wears 24x7), a pedometer (which he doesn’t use—it’s enough to HAVE it), & some other departmental goodies.

He also discovered the company store—bought some highly-discounted software, which I know about because he left it in the company bag on the floor of the office (along with other bags he’s strewn about the place). At the end of the day he took the software and left the bag. On the floor. It’s still there, days later.

“Free” is one of his favorite words. Within days of arriving he’d taken the light rail into Seattle from Tacoma, and then two company shuttles to get to work. The rides (all with wi-fi) took him 30 minutes longer than his 90-minute commute from Tacoma; “but it’s FREEEEEEE”. Clearly if he’d had to pay for any part of this, he’d stay in his car.

Today I overheard (hey—not like I was trying; he dials all calls on speakerand only picks up when the call connects) a call, presumably to his wife, announcing that next Friday he’ll bring in his four-year-old to partake of the company-sponsored Trick or Treat event. Because it’s FREEEEE. And “he can go around & collect snacks.”

I wonder if he’s thought about what it’ll cost him to drive Redmond-Tacoma-Redmond to give his kid this FREEEE jolly?

(And, no, he can’t take the “little guy” (I suppose “little” is relative) on the public transport/shuttle because he’d have to pay the kid’s fare on the former and only company employees are allowed on the shuttles.)

Aside from the Greek citadel and the rubbish heap surrounding it, he’s a lousy office mate because he views every conversation I have is an opportunity to join in and share his brilliance. This extends to conference calls. He turns around with this helpfully smarmy used-car-salesman look on his face and just jumps in.

When the admins were setting up WGE’s desk, they assured me that the arrangement would be temporary, although they couldn’t give me a definition of “temporary” in the circumstances. So I arranged for him to be swapped with another new hire, who seems to have somewhat better developed social skills.

This move takes place tomorrow, not a moment too soon for me. (Today I discovered he’d erased a diagram I had on the whiteboard, mapping out conditional logic on a survey I’ve designed. He replaced it with squares representing his project. (Originally code-named “Athens”, but rechristened “Rome” because apparently Athens was already working.) When I pointed out what he’d done I got a deeply insincere, “Sorry.”)

So he’ll be packing up the Greeks and the freebies and moving down the hall. I’m sure I’ll still be subjected to his brilliance, both directly and through intermediaries. But at least I won’t have to live with his compensation maneuvers in my personal space. Or his lunch leftovers.

And he might make it through the month without a brilliant, sharp, modern Swiss Army knife jammed between his third and fourth ribs.

Curiouser & curiouser

Well, it's been a while since my last post, and I'd intended to find something either profound or ludicrous to write about this weekend. (Like making a pilgrimage to the Nordstrom Mother Church in downtown Seattle.)

But that got buggered when at 1530 yesterday (that would be Friday) I got an email from my manager informing me that she has to run through a "draft" business plan (for a product I'm assigned to) review next Friday, two weeks before the "official" deadline I've been working towards. (This "review", BTW, is essentially a go/no-go decision for building the application. Something about commitments in December requiring an earlier decision than the end of the month.) That being the case, I was instructed to have a "preliminary" draft for her review Monday afternoon.

Since I'm in back-to-back meetings Monday (because I'm trying to work out how we're going to build an application without committing development resources to it), that means I'm pulling a biz plan out of the peanut butter today and tomorrow.

Now, I thought this particular project was passing strange because normally the product manager (that would be me) does some market research, determines the market need, projects what kind of revenue the product could draw, analyzes the competitive landscape, posits what features would meet that need, creates a business plan based on that research, gets the product approved by management based on that business analysis, builds a functional requirements plan and then works with dev to determine the feature set and timeframe for the initial product release...

Only in this case, it seems senior management brokered some deals months ago with data providers and instructed my unit to build an application that would use the data.

So I parachuted on to a train that had left the station without benefit of rails, and I was given the mission of steering it safely to some nebulous successful destination.

This sudden turnaround on the approval gateway timeline is another bad sign. I don't know exactly what it signifies, but it's not going to be anything good.

(Another thing that gives me pause is that evidently "business plans" in this organization are done in PowerPoint. I feel like I'm in Romper Room. What's next--sock puppets?)

So this is why my next real post is delayed. I'm pulling out my smoke and; mirrors and hoping that I find the right ones for the occasion.

Or is this one instance where one size really does fit all?

A small diversion

Two sites that may tickle your fancy in these tough times; both allow you to contribute, so you can feel you’re doing something about the situation.

Failblog is a collection of, well, things that fail the “huh?” test. If you’re stuck in a meeting you might just surf on over here to amuse yourself. Probably not a good idea to watch the videos at the meeting; but a lot of the pix are quite uplifting.

The one I really get a kick out of is graphjam. Finally—a legitimate use for Excel graphs. The one on who benefits most from the bailout is, alas, way more accurate than anything you’ll get out of the government.

But the graphs cover all manner of subjects. This one resonated with me immediately.

Look—we’re not talking high art, here. But see above about tough times. Take ‘em as you can.

'Tis the season...apparently

So, I was in my local Home Depot Saturday--that would be 27 September--when what to my wondering eyes should appear but...

Christmas decorations.

Yes, children, light strings, light ropes, light nets, light deer, light Christmas packages, lighted hot-air Santas--the whole megillah. Mostly exterior stuff, although there was some indoor decor. It was only about 300 square feet of display, but I'm sure that'll soon seek lebensraum & roll over the garden display like Panzers through Poland.

I'm not sure if this is the earliest I've ever seen holiday merchandise out, but it's creeping up there. Of course, it's not officially the season until you've seen your first Salad Shooter commercial...

Wine & politics

Just in time for the debate, which was a near-run thing anyhow, the wine columnists for the WSJ had a taste-off: the wines of Illinois facing off those of Arizona. I found it interesting—and probably more substantial than the actual debate will be. I have no idea where you can buy the subject matter, but I just put this stuff out here to brighten your life.

While we’re on the subject of current events, you may be at a loss as to how to express your reactions to the latest out of Wall Street-Washington to your representatives in the government that got us into this economic pickle. Where to find your Congressman; where to find your Senator.

But here’s a tool where you can compose your thoughts on whatever subject is eating your lunch & quickly & easily bung it over to anyone in the legislative or executive branches. They’re all there in this single place.

BTW, the tool’s on the Web site of the Association of University Centers on Disabilities, which you might also find of interest.