Random Thoughts

Be forewarned: This is likely to turn into a rant. I should have probably blogged about this sooner so I wouldn’t be so aggravated about the constant media barrage telling us we’re all one (slippery) step from living in a cardboard box down by the river. I’ve been thinking a lot about this over the last few weeks, and there are a jumble of thoughts in my head. Hopefully by the time I’m done, this will make sense.

First, a reality check. While it’s impossible to pick up a paper, read an internet news site, watch TV or talk to another human without being told that unemployment is soaring through the roof and we’re approaching another depression, the fact is, we’re not. At least not yet. Let’s look at the facts. The last time I checked (about 3 days ago), unemployment was at 6.7%. Of course, the media (almost gleefully) predicted that it’s rapidly heading toward 6.8%. Yet here’s another statistic they never, ever mention; 4-5% “unemployment” is considered full employment. That’s because there are a lot of people who don’t want to be employed, are taking a break or whatever. It’s pretty darn near impossible to get to 100% employment. So when we factor the statistical full employment figure into the unemployment figure that’s causing widespread panic, we see that true unemployment is about 2.7-3.7%. Now, I don’t want to make light of those who have lost their jobs, because that does suck, seriously, we’re running off the cliff because fewer than 4% of us are out of work?

And let’s not forget that under the media’s darling, former President Clinton, unemployment peaked at 6.7%. They never mention that for some reason. Under Reagan, it was even worse, getting close to 10%. Still, that means that 90% of the people in this country had a job. 

And it’s not like being out of work for a little bit puts you out onto the street in this country. Despite what the media keeps telling us, we have a pretty great safety net here, especially compared to the rest of the world. It should also be noted that unemployment rates of 30-50% are pretty common in other parts of the world, so let’s keep it in perspective.

The next thing we see causing panic is that retailers are in a tizzy because Christmas spending is down this year. Again, I hate to sound calloused, but maybe that’s not a bad thing. Again, compared to much of the rest of the world, we Americans live lives of wretched excess. We have almost as many TVs as we do people; 3/4 of us have cell phones; we need to keep buying bigger and bigger houses just to store all of our crap, and when even that is not enough, we rent storage units to store even more crap. So yeah, maybe it’s time we backed off the excessive, wasteful spending that’s put us in the hole for so many years. They say that the savings rate for most American’s is near 0%, which means that we spend every last dollar that comes into our hands (and then some, because few of us can go for long without breaking out the credit card…). 

Maybe it’s not a bad thing that instead of continually filling our too-big homes with more stuff, we keep a little of it in the bank for a bit. Which brings me to my next point. We received a prayer request at church today about a woman who is worried about losing her job (and she’s worried about her boyfriend, who works at the same company). So I have some hard news for you. And I say this with compassion, as someone who has spent some time out of work, and had 2 companies collapse around him; your employer is not responsible for keeping you employed–you are. For some crazy reason, many, if not most, people cling to the antiquated notion that just because an employer hires you, they owe you that job for as long as you want it. If you find something better, of course, you’re free to leave (with 2 weeks notice–or less). However, we expect our employers to see to it that our jobs are safe forever. Rubbish. 

If you’re worried about losing your job, polish up your resume, get your ducks in a row and start networking with people. Go find another job before you lose the one you have now. Even in a down economy, employers are always looking for good people. But there’s the rub, you have to be good. And that’s the problem. Most employees are lazy. They show up at work, give a half-hearted effort to their job, then leave. Should they be let go, they act all incredulous about their downsizing. Look, rarely are entire companies shut down. When layoffs come, the really good people are retained. This is not always true, but most of the time it is. So you need to be good. You should be so valuable to your employer that they will figure out a way to keep you around even if your entire department is shut down. And if they can’t, you should have no problem finding another job somewhere else. But that takes work, and most people aren’t willing to that. So deal.

Oh, and one more parting shot about staying employed. If you’re in an industry that’s on the decline, say the US auto industry, it might be a good idea for you to consider looking into a new line of work. And I don’t say that flippantly. I say that as someone who’s done that; 4 times. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, just because you’ve worked for GM for the last 10 years, doesn’t mean they owe you 20 more. A company can only turn out substandard products that don’t compete with the rest of the marketplace for so long before things need to change. Get over it. 

Which brings me to my next point (I told you this would be a rant). This aforementioned person is also worried that her boyfriend, who just bought a house, might lose that house if he’s let go. Though my head is about to explode as I write this, I’m trying to say it with love. If you bought a house and can’t survive a few months of unemployment without risking losing the house, you should not have bought it in the first place. This circles back to an earlier point. We’re so heavily leveraged as a country, we can’t survive even temporary and short income losses. That is crazy. Really smart financial people will tell you that you should have at least 3-6 months of income in the bank at all times. The reason is simple; if you lose your job, you need some runway to find another one. Unemployment compensation should slow your burn rate enough that you have time to get another job before you run out of cash.

If these concepts don’t make any sense to you, it’s likely that you need to move back into your parents house and live with them for a while until you figure out how to live with financial responsibility on your own. It’s a sad reality that this isn’t taught in schools, and most parents shirk the duty to teach their kids to be responsible with their money. And we wonder how we got here…

If you don’t have that safety net set up, you need to work towards that, fast. And that might mean not buying two new flat screens this year just because they’re on sale at Best Buy. Everyone knows I’m a pretty big fan of Apple products. They’re well designed, work well and are just a pleasure to use. I’ve also become a big fan of the way the company has handled it’s finances. In a recent call, analysts were asking Steve Jobs if he was worried about the economic downturn. He said that Apple is currently debt-free and has $26 Billion in the bank. So no, he’s not to worried. 

Now, it’s easy to say, “Sure, he’s Steve Jobs, multi-billionaire, why would he be worried.” But think about it. If we were debt-free and had even $26 Thousand in the bank, would we be worried about an economic downturn? I think not. One of our goals here in Minneapolis is to buy a house. We’re waiting a while, however, As much as it kills me to pay rent, and even though we have enough income to qualify for a mortgage, we’re waiting until we have some money (at least $20-30K) socked away. And to get there, it means we’re living pretty lean for the time being. Instead of raising our standard of living to our current income level, I’m trying to find ways to lower our expenses and increase our savings rate. 

That way, when we do buy a house, it won’t be 99% financed from the get-go, and we’ll have some savings in case we need it. I could go on for another 1,200 words about the housing “crisis,” but I’ll save that for another time. Same goes for the Wall Street “collapse.” All I’ll say here is that you can only sustain artificially inflated values for so long before they have to come back down. I mean, seriously, a 60-year old, 1,200 sq. ft. ranch (or “rambler”) here in the Twin Cities selling for $250K? Right. Call me when you get to $150.

All of this sounds rather harsh when I look back on it, but I wanted to inject a dose of reality here. First, we need to keep in mind that even though things are slowing down here, we still have it pretty darn good compared to much of the world. So chill. Second, we need to turn off the negative voices. If it bleeds it leads, and that’s what we get from the media. So ignore it. And don’t listen to the politicos, either. And pray they don’t try to “fix” it. Every time the government gets involved with “fixing” the economy we get the shaft. Sure, some AIG execs get to go on a nice vacation in the Caribbean, but we’re stuck with the tab. 

Stop asking for handouts and do something for yourself. One of the reasons our family as never ended up on the street is that I’m always “worried” about losing my job. Even though my job is somewhat secure for the time being, I’ve already updated my resume, I’ve been doing some networking and I have a new website ready to launch (and I continually update it off-line) the day I hear my job is being cut. Will it be cut? I don’t know. But if it does, I won’t be caught off guard. We have enough cash in the bank right now to survive for several months with minimal pain. So am I worried that when Upper Room moves I won’t be working there? No. I’m prepared, and I’m being realistic about it. If the budget gets cut, and my job goes with it, I’ll be ready.

And that’s why I’m focusing on doing the best job I can possibly do right now instead of worrying that I’ll be unemployed in 3 months.

That’s it. End of rant. Please excuse me while I update my resume with my most recent accomplishments and prepare my new website…just in case.

In the office this week we were discussing the differences between a Geek and a Nerd. I am not a Nerd, I’m a Geek. My Mac’s dictionary defines Geek (with an adjective) as a “person with an eccentric devotion to a particular interest.” I will refine that definition. To me a Geek is one who does not look at something from a surface level, but instead delves down to the inner workings, finds weaknesses and corrects them. That’s what I do.

People can be all kinds of Geeks. The aforementioned computer geek is a popular choice, but one could also be a building geek, a sound geek, a video geek or even a cooking geek. That’s right, cooks can be geeks too. Some of my favorite are on America’s Test Kitchen, where they will take a common recipe, figure out what doesn’t work, break it down, test variations and prefect it until it works. True geek-ness.

So how does this play out in real life? Allow me to give a few poignant examples from my own Geeky life.

A Balanced System
A few weeks ago, our house felt cool. It could have been because it was 5 below, but I suspected there was more to the story. In fact, only some rooms felt cool, while others were quite comfortable. Most people would have adjusted the thermostat up. As a Geek, I knew the heating system was not balanced properly. So I started lifting ceiling tiles in the basement and uncovering the duct runs.  First, I learned that no one ever installed insulation at the rim boards wherever there was a heating boot going to the main floor (apparently because it’s a little hard–idiots!). So I fixed that.

Then I proceeded to trace down every duct run and determine where it went. I found the dampers and made some adjustments. I also found one run that apparently went to the living room, and into a wall that no longer exists. Instead of removing the duct from the trunk and sealing the trunk, they merely shoved fiberglass into the floor boot, creating pressure and turbulence problems for the whole trunk (idiots!). I removed the run and sealed the trunk, along with another unused vent.

After a few hours of adjusting dampers and monitoring  airflow levels, I was satisfied. The house is now pretty comfortable and evenly heated. And I didn’t raise the temperature 1 degree.
Geek Factor: High

The Blog
After I moved my Church Tech Arts blog to my own server (and off the free Wordpress site–a geeky task in itself), I noticed my traffic was down. I also noticed that I wasn’t getting as many search engine referrals as I used to. Believing that what I write there benefits all mankind, I set about to remedy this malady.

After spending most of the morning writing a Media Shout 3.5 review, I started to educate myself on search engine optimization. I ran a scoring tool on my blog, which told me my current score: 52–not good. I learned all about metadata, keywords, crawlers and other techniques one can play around with to up the score. I spent most of the afternoon and much of the evening on this. By the end of the night, my score had improved to 57.

After spending some free time over the last 2 weeks (and the residual work done that first Monday), my score is now 67. My traffic is up, and I’m getting more search engine referrals. Also, several of my articles have been submitted to Digg (I learned how to code that option in).
Geek Factor: Very High

The Shoveler
We don’t get a ton of snow here in Minneapolis, but when we do it’s important to get it cleaned off quickly. If you don’t, it packs down really hard and can turn to ice if the temps get into the high 20’s (which they do sometimes). So I’ve become rather obsessive about keeping the walks and driveway clear. To that end, I’ve tried no less than 6 different ways to shovel the driveway. Shoveling the drive is a lot of work, but it’s also good exercise. It can be murder on your back however, so I try to minimize the time spent bent over, as well as the overall time of the task.

My current method–which I’m quite pleased with–is to divide the drive in half lengthwise with a simple plow-like push of the snow (it’s a 2-car wide drive). This gives me a path to walk on. Next, I start at the top on one side and using the length of the shovel and my arm, push the snow toward the edge of the drive. This will usually leave some spillover but I don’t worry about that for now. I keep taking shovel-width passes, working my way down the driveway, standing straight and using as much reach as my arm and shovel give me.

Next, I’ll work my way back up the drive cleaning up the spillover. Sometimes it takes a third pass if we’ve had more than a few inches. Now all the snow is piled up within a foot of the edge of the drive. I’ll start at the top, bend over and assume a comfortable stance and begin a smooth rhythm of scoop, throw, step back and reset. This is repeated all the way down the edge and when I get to the end, one side of the drive is clear. Repeat on the other side.

The whole process takes less than 20 minutes, yet only 2 minutes of that is spent bent over. The technique works well here because the snow is cold and light. If we get even the slightest amount of sun, the remaining snow evaporates (it doesn’t melt here, it evaporates!) by the end of the day and I’m left with a perfectly clear drive.
Geek Factor: Disturbing

So there you go. In case you were wondering (which you probably weren’t), I’m a Geek. And I’m proud of it. The Geeks are the ones who solve the problems that make ordinary life annoying. And I’m glad to play my role (and I just know some of you are going to try my snow shoveling technique!).

Katie had to watch the State of the Union address a few weeks back, so I thought I’d watch it with her. It was one the best speeches I’ve seen W give, looks like he’s finally learned how to speak in public after 7 years. That was the delivery anyway. As far as the content, it was more of the same. I’m pretty cynical when it comes to politicos, and follow the old adage, “How can you tell when a politician is lying? His (or her) lips are moving.” Generally my theory goes that they will say whatever they need to given the audience. Few actually stand for anything, other than re-election. So as much fun as it is to talk about re-energizing the economy, helping working families, encouraging companies to keep production here, tightening up our borders, blah, blah, blah, it seems the economy keeps slowing down, working families have less to live on, companies keep moving to China and our borders are as secure as an old screen porch.

Contrast that with when God speaks. After the speech, I went to bed and spent a few minutes reading the first chapter of Luke. I was struck by this. The angel told Zachariah that his wife would bear him a son; yet he did not believe. So God struck him mute. And his wife bore a son. So there you go. God speaks and it happens. Politicians speak, and…well nothing. That or they reach deeper into our pockets (though I would prefer nothing).

So what does this mean? If we really take this seriously, it has life-altering implications. When God says He will provide for us, it should keep us from feeling overly attached to our stuff to give to others and to God. When God says He will carry our burdens, it should keep us from carrying them on our own. These are just two examples off the top of my head.

On the other hand, there are those who hang on every word of their favorite politician. They genuinely (yet wrongly) believe that if their man (or woman–shudder!) is elected, all will be right with the world. However, it will only be when the Kingdom of God is fully realized that all will actually be right. Until then, we get along as best as we can. That’s my observation for today.
In other news, it’s getting cold. I went for a walk this morning and it was 24. Five hours later it’s 16, on the way to minus single digits. The high tomorrow is forecast to be -1, with a -45 wind chill. I climbed up into the attic and wired our turbine vents so they won’t spin. One of them emits this incredibly annoying high-pitched whine when it really gets windy. Well, not anymore. This a good thing as it is supposed to get windy tonight.

Katie and I have started watching Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It’s pretty amusing. My friend Josiah described it as “Robots, shotguns, explosions, hot girls, shotguns, blood, shotguns and robots.” Hard to go wrong with that formula! Still, it’s not bad. They break the time-space continuum like it was a toothpick, but still.

Well, it’s past lunch-time and I want to head up to my friend Kurt’s new place to help them paint. I hope my brush doesn’t freeze on the way!

I’ll start off with the disclaimer that I really don’t watch football. I don’t watch much of any professional sporting endeavor and really don’t follow sports. I wasn’t that invested in who won, at least until our Tots coordinator Betty, taunted everyone all day today with her chosen team, the Patriots. We have an office football contest, and she picked them way back in September. Lucky pick, methinks. Nonetheless, all day long it was, “Hi guys, Go Patriots!” So for that reason alone I wanted them to loose.

Uncharacteristically, I decided to watch the 2nd half of the game. Here are my observations.

I picked up with about a minute to go in the first half. I was honestly surprised to see how close it was.

The halftime show was lame. I’m pretty sure Tom & the Old Guys were tracked. Twenty years ago, those guys could rock. Their set included some of the great rock songs. However, the live show was uninspired and dull. I mean, if you’re going to track it, at least put some life into it. When you get to the point that you can’t get it done live, it’s time to do something else. Who picks these acts anyway?

The commercials in the 2nd half were really lame, with two exceptions. The ad for Quit Plans (or something like that, it was a quit smoking deal) was one of the best I’ve ever seen. Sadly it’s not on the MySpace ad page, I guess because it ran during halftime. It starts off looking like a movie for a father having a hard time with his daughter getting married a la Meet the Parents or Father of the Bride. Near the end of the “trailer,” it pulls back to reveal a TV in a hospital room being watched by a father presumably dying of lung cancer and his teenage daughter. Wow.

The e-Trade ads with the baby were also very clever. Good mix of humor and effects. The writing was actually good. For the most part, the rest of the ads in the second half were totally lame.

The first half fared better, there were quite a few ads that were actually funny, clever or told a good story. A ton were just the same old same old. Not much knew under the sun.

The game itself was actually a good one. I gave up watching SuperBowls because they are typically blowouts and are about as much fun to watch as a train wreck. This one was a good match up. And how about that last NY drive with 2:45 to go. Some pretty sweet plays.

I also decided to watch House for the first time after the game. My friend Ron has been talking about this show for a while. I have to say I like it. The writing is really clever and the dialog is pretty snappy. I love dry humor and House has it in spades. Time to tell TiVo…

OK, that’s it. My SuperBowl Sunday observations. Tomorrow is my day off. I’m looking forward to relaxing and decompressing. More later…

Oh yeah, and how about the MacBook Air. Niche market product to be sure, the technologically extremely cool.

This week was nuts, a perfect storm, really. First, I had more media than normal to put together for the weekend. And some of it involved other people’s schedules. We had our staff meeting on Wednesday, followed by our bi-monthly lunch. Finally, one of our projectors in the sanctuary started turning itself off at random intervals during the service.

Rather than being able to spend Thursday producing media, I spent it on the phone and in emergency meetings trying to get rental projectors delivered and pushing the property committee to free up $20,000 to purchase new ones. Oh, and there was 3 hour meeting Friday to go over the details of Good Friday. All of this leads to why I spent 4 hours today working on a video for tomorrow.

It’s not all bad news, though. We made some significant progress in key areas this week and I feel like I have a good set of marching orders for the next few months. Now I need to figure out how to manage the workload effectively. More than anything, I need to protect my days off.

Otherwise, things have been good. We went from -12 on Wednesday to nearly 30 today. It’s forecast to be 44 on Monday, 6 on Tuesday. I’m still fighting a cough that just won’t go away, which is something I seem to fight every winter now.

We spent some time tonight watching the US Figure Skating Championships, which are being held just across the river in St. Paul. That’s kind of cool, though I’m not sure why.

Denise and I finally got our new Minneapolis phone numbers this week. I sent out an e-mail to that effect, only I managed to mix up all three numbers (including home…) so I had to send out another one.  That was funny. If you haven’t gotten an e-mail with the new numbers, I either haven’t gotten to that list yet, I forgot or you’re just not that important. If you really want the numbers, though, shoot me an e-mail and if you can answer the secret question, you’ll get it. Oh, and there may be request for payment.

Have you noticed that most of the top US women (it’s hard to call them women, they’re all under 18) figure skaters are Asian? Just an observation…

Robyn was asked by her string teacher to form a trio with two of the top violinists from the orchestra. Way to go, Robyn! She’s becoming quite a musical prodigy. It just seems to come very natural to her. She reminds me of my friend, Zach, who in addition to having great musical talent is also a gifted thinker and techie.

That’s about all I’ve got. Nothing too profound this week. Peace.

Warning: Rant Coming. Additional Warning: Geek Content Follows

I remember it like it was yesterday. It was sometime in the summer of 1999. I was sitting in my office reading through the latest issue of TV Technology. I came across an article discussing the FCC’s decision to shut down analog TV and switch the country over to digital. While I thought this was an answer to a question no one was asking, my heart sank when I turned the page to the newly christened “Acceptable ATSC Broadcast Formats” chart. It was bureaucrats in their finest hour (if you can define “finest hour” as completely fouling up a simple process). There before me in black and white were not one; not two; heck, not even six acceptable formats; instead there were a possible 36 formats broadcasters could broadcast in and meet the new guidelines. 36! Are you kidding me?

Now, I’m not a huge fan of NTSC, our current system. It’s low on resolution, and the color space is a bit screwy, but at least it was a standard and everyone knew what the targets were. Now we have 36 formats that will “work,” which means we have chaos.

I’ve not paid much attention to it until recently. Originally, analog TV was supposed to be shut of several years ago. But with no financial incentive to spend $10-12 million refitting their stations, broadcasters were slow to adopt the new “standards.” Thus the deadline has been pushed back twice. In roughly a year, however, analog TV will be shut down and digital will take over. The reason that I now care is that I just bought a nice, big screen hi-def TV. And I now find myself frustrated with the incredible lack of standardization. To wit:

Each of 5 major networks in the Twin Cities (PBS, ABC, NBC, CBS & Fox) broadcasts a dizzying array of formats. PBS has 2 “channels” (2.1 and 2.2). One is wide screen hi-def all the time and the other is a mashup. The other four broadcast some stuff in 16×9 (wide screen) hi-def, others in 4:3 (standard) hi-def, still others in 4:3 standard-def and some in 4:3 letterboxed standard def. The last one is the most aggravating. By sending a 4:3 signal to my 16:9 TV, I get black bars on the sides. By sending a letterboxed 4:3 image, I get black bars on the sides and top, which gives me a small little 16:9 image in the middle of my 16:9 big screen!

I was really stoked to watch some of my favorite shows in hi-def. CSI: Miami is known for it’s slick cinematography, so that should look great in hi-def right? Sure, except it’s not wide screen! Some of the major network shows are not even in hi-def yet.

Then there are the various hi-def formats. Some networks are in 1080i. Others are 720p. And don’t even get me started on the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray debate (though that’s technically not the FCC’s fault). It’s all a big, jumbled up mess.

Now, normally I’m in favor of the consumer having a choice. I have decried my lack of choice in cable providers since I got here. I like being able to pick my components. However, there are still a lot of VCRs with 12:00 still flashing out there. How is the average consumer to sort all this out? I’ve been in the professional video production biz for 15 years and it’s confusing to me!

Because the broadcasters were given a choice, they generally chose the cheapest route to compliance. Production companies don’t know how their hard work will be shown, so they often don’t know how to format it. Programming is scaled up and and down, letter boxed and pillar boxed and processed within an inch of it’s digital life. And don’t even get me started on audio-video sync!

So what’s the end result? The government makes a ton of cash selling off the old analog broadcast space. Consumer (and pro) electronics makers make a ton of cash selling new equipment. Politicians get re-elected (thanks to generous donations from said manufacturers), and the consumer gets screwed. Bureaucracy at it’s finest!

Here’s what the FCC should do: Shut off analog TV in 2009 like they said they would. Then mandate a common broadcast format to go into effect by 2012. Pick a good one, say 1080i 16:9 5.1 surround (or if you want to save bandwidth, go 720p—it really doesn’t matter to most viewers). If it’s going to be broadcast on your main channel, it needs to fit those specs. If you want to use other channel allocations for other stuff, it can be whatever you want. But the main channel better be that.

If the government is going to make us go out and buy all new TVs, ostensibly for an “upgrade,” then we darn well better get an upgrade. Not some up-converted NTSC stretcho-crap on our nice new hi-def screens.

Instead, we have the classic “Hi, I’m from the government and I’m here to help!” They could have actually improved TV quality (well, from a technical standpoint anyway—there’s still Survivor to contend with…). Instead, we get the Titanic.

On the other hand, complaining about TV seems trivial when you consider that millions of people don’t have access to clean water.

End of rant. More happy news coming with my next post.

Today I will spend most of my day training my boss on how to do my job. I’ve been working on the Adobe project for about 6 months now, dealing with their software and learning the intricacies of it. On the surface, it looks easy to use. But when you dig down into it, there are a thousand little tricks and games I play with the software to make it do what I want. Now I have to try to convey in 7 hours what it’s taken me a few months of trial (and mostly error) to learn. I just hope he has good recall!