Championable | Love, parenting, politics.

I am sitting across from my least favorite person that I see on a regular basis.

I am not kidding: I think this person is near- or actually evil. I think he hates the world because he hates himself. I think he’s closeted, sef-loathing, angry and, in the end, slowly turning to crumbled carbon from the inside out.

I have seen him knock over girl scouts in order to get to his car in the train parking lot.

When he sits near me on the train, I sometimes pretend to get up to leave just to make him leap to his feet to get there first. He does it every time.

I’ve seen him yell at an old man who politely said “excuse me” to get to the next seat.

Sometimes he is on the train with his wife, he always yells at her.

His skin is too taught. His voice is grating.

He bothers me because he represents everything I hate about where I live, and the kind of seething, slow-burn anger that I never want to experience.

I know I’m supposed to pray for him, and I guess I will try.

And look! God just intervened. A family of French tourists just got on this very, very crowded train, and I gave my seat up for the Mom and her daughter (forcing a different guy who piled his stuff on the seat next to him to move it - ha!)

I’m now sitting on the floor in the vestibule, about to change the title of this post before I hit “publish.”

Love to all. Even you, shiny cheeks.

If I was gay, I hope to God I’d be out. Like, super out. Like, married-in-Massachusetts-with-three-adopted-kids out.

For me, super out = living like everyone else, as moment-to-moment unaware that some people define my life as abnormal as can be.

The New York Times Magazine had a big article on the life of gay couples in Massachusetts. I didn’t get to read the whole thing - life in the suburban fast lane, you know - but the upshot was that married life for gay couples is pretty much the same as life for other couples.

To which I say: duh.

This is why this issues bugs me so much. As my 11-year-old says: “love is love.”

But this isn’t the point of this post at all.

The point of this post is that I’m no longer certain I care about the whole pseudoanonymity thing.  Anyone who wants to figure out who I am can have a pretty easy time of it, and it’s not like I’m hiding anything here. And it’s getting harder and harder to separate these worlds, with the number of Face

So… what of it?  Do you folks have any opinions on blog anonymity?  Is it worth it?  Possible?  Stupid?

Love to all. Even you, the umbrella-as-rocket salesman.

I’m writing this post, and I’m publishing it when my train is about to pull in. Come hell or high water, this fucker is going online.

First: I just want to say for the record that it’s the married women that are dangerous. But when it comes to HOW dangerous, I’m going to say “not very.” Lust is a big, bad motherfucker, but you really have to engage it in order for it to be threatening in any way. This is different than being a wee bit flirty. Now, if I was to play “force field” with someone, well, THAT would lead to some serious danger.

Second: PostFix kicked the shit out of me tonight. What email server rejects INCOMING email with a “relaying denied” error? What the FUCK?

Third: My business, after getting on its feet, is about to go through some serious changes. For once, it’s not really my fault. My beloved recruiter is going through a variety of personal issues, and she’s decided to move to… move to… Buffalo.

Now, everyone I know who has BEEN to Buffalo keeps saying, “What the FUCK?” I don’t get it either. Somehow, the fact that it’s 2.5 hours from her family in Toronto is one of the deciding factors.

My recruiter rocks. She’s a great person, fabulous at her job, smart, driven, etc. So, well, we’re going to try acting like we live in 2008, and let her telecommute. Broadband + VOIP = full-time job placement from home. She’s something of a writer/recluse (in a good way), so this appeals to her a lot. It worries me, but she says it’s ideal.

We’re giving it 60 days.

Personally, I think she’s doing things way too quickly and without enough forethought, but it’s not my place to say at this point… I know this because I asked if she wanted my personal or professional opinion… and she said “professional only.” Things were too intense, she said, for her to get any more opinions.

I’m afraid her family isn’t doing right by her, but I respect her request.

Fourth: Nobody really stands up to Maggie’s Dad. God bless the man, but he just doesn’t listen to ANYONE. Don’t get me wrong… he’s a decent guy and I love him, but he just doesn’t take other people into account on an emotional level. In fact, Maggie was reduced to tears at one point simply because he ignores her. I lost it with him once, when he refused not to cut up my youngest’s dinner WHILE I WAS TELLING HIM NOT TO, causing my youngest to cry, causing my Father-in-Law to say “I can’t keep up with your rules,” which, in turn, cause me to say: “NO. There were no rules. You just didn’t LISTEN.”

I said this three times, until I was sure he heard me.

Fifth: I feel like every time I call home, people are too busy to talk to me.

Sixth: I feel like I’m being ignored, when it comes to certain parental decisions about supervising the kids. I vaguely understand this, but I strongly, strongly disagree.

Seventh: My to-do list didn’t get shorter from beginning of the day to the end.

Eighth: My train is about to arrive.

Love to all. Even you, the lady who is clearly redirecting her embarrassment about a financial situation into self-righteousness about a company policy violation.

(Which sounds, I realize, like a post about stomach issues.  It’s not.)

Love to all.  Even you, the passenger with 17 grandkids who yelled at other people’s kids.

After sending my final responses to the Fakey-Fakey-Fakey guy at a potential new client, the assistant to the CEO wrote to ask if I could call at my earliest convenience after my return on the 28th.

Fascinating.  Maybe they realized that their new hire was something of a Fakey-Fakey-Fakey guy.

Love to all. Even you, tonight’s pitcher for the Port St. Lucie Mets.

This is a note I had to send from Florida. It’s an amazing example of someone talking VaporSpeak because they’re afraid of being exposed as average.

* * *

Dear [Soon-to-be-ex-Client],

My office just told me you called… I mentioned in my last email that I’m 1000 miles away from NYC, and you got the autoresponder when you wrote me, so I’m not sure why you called the office looking for me…

Anyway, I’m taking the time to respond because of how much effort my staff put into this.

At this point, if you choose to hire any of our people, you are welcome to do so via my company on a paid, unguaranteed, trial basis. I think you’ll see the reasoning in the responses below. Frankly, when I believe my people are being set up to fail, there’s nothing else to do. I tried to find examples of your work (since you did not give us any), and the only thing I came up with was your other company and your somewhat pornographic (and archived) MySpace page.

So honestly, I’m not sure what’s going on here. For the record, responses follow your answers.

Our Question: What was the “digital signature” you wrote in on the first form? It didn’t appear to be a digital signature of a kind Acrobat could recognize or we could certify, so I wanted to make sure we didn’t miss anything.
Your answer: It allowed me to E-mail the form without printing and scanning. I however filed a new one with Palmer that is ink signed.
Our response: Since you claim to be an expert in the digital realm, you should clearly know that the “digital signature” you sent was not legal, and if we accidentally accepted it, we would be operating under terms that weren’t clearly enforceable (although they do show intent).

Our question: Was the list of links you sent Palmer a list of sites completely designed and executed by [Your Company], or was it more of a “mood board” list?
Your answer: It is a list of progressive site I’ve come across, and best examples of who we are looking for in a interactive freelance designer.
Our response: Understood. Some examples of [your company’s] work might have been helpful. And you repeatedly referred to them as “my links” and “our links.”

Our Question: Why doesn’t [your company] have a website? (I ask this because you were very concerned about [one of my candidate’s] reel being old – happily, she’s been working at [three rocking shops] and elsewhere over the last few years – and the only online info on [your company’s] work I can find is the splash page at [your domain].
Your Answer: Yes [your company] is only currently splash page, we have had bad experiences with people directly stealing our creative verbatim so we opted to take down our work. We also do not pitch clients though websites so we have no need to show our work there.
Our response: [Your company] has never had a website, at either this domain or the one listed in the Redbooks directory… at least according to archive.org. Perhaps archive.org is mistaken. Regardless, not publishing the work as [YOUR COMPANY’S] does not make it unstealable, it just makes it unstealable from [YOUR COMPANY’S] WEBSITE… unless you never show your work to the public, which I’m assuming you do.

Our question: It would be exceptionally helpful to know why you were concerned with the font choices of the samples on one of the sample’s of someone being submitted as a developer… the developer has literally no say in these issues, so I’m confused about this. A developer who insists on making font choices would be terminated (and properly so).
Your answer: I agree font is always the design choice of the creative and not the developer, but when it comes to the font choice and development of they personal work we look for a specific aesthetic, which will translate into complete understanding and not simple execution.
Our response: Your answer translates into a core misunderstanding of the roles people play in agencies. If you’re looking for us to judge the aesthetic of people who are specifically not being asked to play any aesthetic role whatsoever, then you are setting us up to fail particularly when we do an excellent job. If you were asking us to judge their code, that’s another kettle of fish.

Our question: Could you give us some details on the type of IA you are looking for? Some IA gigs are more User Experience oriented, some are data structure and management, others are simply for clarifying the flow of things as a user moves from place to place.
Your answer: We look to build metecognative Information Architecture and intuitive design to result in an effective positive UE. The navigation should be dynamic fast and seamless.
Our response: This is just a non-answer, AND it’s misspelled. Obviously, any user experience design requires metacognition. I mean, that’s the whole point behind usability and experience work. However, you didn’t really answer the question anyway.

Our question (modified by you): ActionScript Devs: AS3? AS2?
Your answer: Yes knowledge of both.
Our reponse: Without detail, this is totally unhelpful.

Our question (modified by you): Any data integration/external sources?
Your answer: Yes would be great addition do you have software developers for mobile iPhone and BB, also if we can build more flexible e-commerce engine. ALso OPen GL and C++, Paper vision, and the mergence between Maya + CODE.
Our response: Adding C++ to a Flash job, along with directly writing against an Open GL API, indicates that your simply casting a very, very, very wide net, as opposed to looking for specific people.

Our question (modified by you): Tween-class animation?
Your answer: Sure, more interested in full screen HD flash containers, that also work for onscreen presentations through local servers and online.
Our response: Your answer has nothing to do with whether or not elements are animated in the timeline or in code.

Our question: In what part of Flash development do you need them to be utterly fantastic? (Toughness bonus: the answer can’t be “all.”)
Your answer: Let me preface by saying we are looking of the top one percent of flash developers, the kids that studied with John Meada and Joakim Sauter. We are looking for the next generation of programing.
Our response: If you’re going to drop names, you should spell them correctly (both were wrong). Regardless, this is another non-answer, providing no helpful data whatsoever, except that you are rejecting all candidates except those who took certain UCLA courses. The “next generation of programming” is another common buzzword for non-defined goals.

Our question: You still want to interview candidates with whom you had issues, as a “capabilities interview.” What questions are you intending to ask them? If you tell us, instead of waiting to ask them, we can make sure that the candidates we submit to you have what you need. Please be as specific as you’d like with your answer to this. The more detail, the better.
Your answer: Yes we can, I would never want to pass judgement based on a website alone, but we are very clear when we say we are looking for a very specific type, if you feel this will be a waste of their time then that’s your call.

Our response: Clearly it’s a waste of time for our candidates, because you haven’t remotely defined your needs.
Your comment: We are looking to create the new experience in interactive, If you are trying to place people who just want to do what their told and collect their check then maybe this is not the place for you to place people.
Our response: Okay, if we come across people who won’t listen to what they are told, we’ll be sure to send them your way. Until then, I think we’ll stick to people who can operate within parameters. For some reason, you think that clarity equals a “lack of ingenuity.” And you want to operate “outside the paradigm,” except as defined by Mr. Sauter and Mr. Maeda. Also: ”A new experience in interactive” is something we hear almost daily.

Your comment: Again this is your choice, we want to fill the positions as fast as possible, but we will not compromise when it comes to the quality of our work or the quality of the people who work with us.
Our response: Agreed in full. Exposing our people to a set of completely undefined goals is unfair to them.

* * *

Love to all. Even you, the above mentioned fakey-fakey-fakey guy.

Curving through a 12-foot bowl.

Real skaters know how to fall.

Love to all. Even you, the early morning golfer who nearly hit our window.

Is Flock as cool as it seems?  The social integration is just unreal, feature-set-wise.

Just asking.

Love to all.  Even you, the Dad who should pay attention to his daughter.

Welcome to Florida. It’s sunny, 80 degrees, and I’m on vacation.

I had no idea how much I needed to chill until I arrived last night. It’s like my whole body just started to just… melt. Until I got a note from my recruiter saying that my salesperson left the office in tears after getting a letter about some medical results. (Note: this turned out to probably be nothing bad.) That set me back a few, but I made some calls and found out all was likely to be just fine. Resume the deconstruction.

I’ve made it my mission to not drive any of the activity planning. I’ll drive TO the activities, but other than that, I’m just going to facilitate. Because everyone has things they want to do.  Now.  RIGHT. NOW.

This morning, I did a quick 4.66 mile/7.5 minute run, took my two youngest to the pool, got back, helped with lunch, and took my oldest to the skate park in Jupiter.  That’s where I am now.  Later, Maggie and I are going to the driving range.  Tomorrow, I have a tee time with my Father-in-Law.

Right now, my oldest is giving skating tips to a couple of other kids.  I love the fact that he’s really into the all-for-one skater culture.  He’s a really good egg.

Love to all. Even you, the spitting kid who really ISN’T into the all-for-one skater culture.

Sometimes the consecutive, random snippets of disparate NYC cell phone conversations can seem really profound.

Do you mind a little bloggus-catch-u-uppus?  Ready?  Go.

To those of you speedy enough to see my post-unpost of my Lyme Disease freakout, it’s no longer certain that I have Lyme disease, and I feel like a complete idiot for completely misinterpreting the situation.

Um.  Okay.  So, like, I had a huge band-aid on the first day (and only the first day) that I got that tick bite, and three days later the very very edges of where the band-aid were  were red, and I forgot that I had even HAD the band-aid on, so between the infected tick bit and .  For those of you who didn’t see it… um… LOOK!  A UNICORN!

Anyway.

I spent from 5 to 10pm last night laying down “Flor” carpet, which is pretty easy except for the 45 tiles I had to measure and trim.  That part sucked.  But I took my time and did it right. I thought I’d get the whole office done tonight, but I only got halfway there.  Properly, it’s the public-facing half of the office.   Today, I finished the rest.  Measured twice, cut once, all the way to the finish line. It looks really good.

I’ve cut the Vyvanse down from 70mg to 50mg.  Seems like a better fit.  Less dickhead, with all of the positives.  Maggie approves so far, after nixing the 70mg.  Also, this is the first time my EMPLOYEES nixed a medicine based on dickheadishness.  I’m happy that they trust me enough to tell me.  I’m also happy that one of my employees (the one who told me), also told someone I was the best boss she ever had.  THAT makes me happy, for sure.  Then again, acting on immediate feedback from employees about things is apparently not super-common, based on limited sampling.

On a personal note, I’ve been struggling a bit with the limitations of my ability to effect change in my personal life.  This is a post in itself, and definitely for another time. The summary would be “Nobody gives you a biscuit for doing a little bit better.  Get used to it or get out.”

I’m leaving tomorrow for Florida.  Six business days “off.”  I can’t tell you how lucky I am that I have a team in place that I can trust.  I’m still in insane Pre-Vacation mode… it can’t be avoided.

I’m hoping to relax a little bit, regain my center, test some database features I’ve been dying to try out, and catch up on my blog reading.  Sometimes I fall behind, and it’s difficult to do anything but start anew.

Talk to you from West Palm Beach.

Love to all.  Even you, the fucktard who’s been giving my son shit at baseball.