working, not blogging

i apologize the frequency of my blogging has dropped off of late. the heart is willing but the body is subject to time, which has been in demand by my new employer.

seven months to the day after being laid off, i was offered a job. i am not so much ecstatic as content. but content feels great. money has been tight. stress levels have been up. all was not lost as i stayed home with my son mark for several months but it was still a trying time.

my new job is nearly perfect. the commute is reasonable. i like my boss. i like the culture of the organization. it is a small company and things happen there at light speed. i have a great amount of autonomy and already my boss, (the owner of the company,) has shown so much trust in me i have been taken aback. surely it is his way and he trusts his own judgment in hiring me but i once toiled in a place where i had a unique and distinct role in the operation but still was shown far less trust. i have a great team. i have a great feeling about my peers and their objectives and motives. (this last trait is not to be undervalued. it's huge.)

i am so thankful for the social compact we americans participate in and agree to. i appreciate the unemployment insurance that paid my car payment monthly and my daughter's pre-school while my wife's income supported the family otherwise. surely of all the things our taxes go to pay, unemployment insurance is among the most virtuous.

for now i will blog less. i am working long hours and i am thoroughly invested in my new job. my little project for which i had bought a couple of domain names is on hold. one day i will revisit the idea. my wife and kids will get as much as time as ever and it will be of a greater quality but most everything else will probably suffer and after seven long months without gainful employment, my perspective is one of appreciation for what i have and knowing how difficult things can be and are for many of neighbors, family, friends and countrymen.

laptop down

my laptop broke, which is why i have not been posting to my blog much lately, (or filling out my nfl pool picks or a number of other activities i often use my laptop for.)

i had just watched an interesting film by streaming it on netflix; the fall of fuijimori. when the movie ended, i clicked on the 'back to browsing,' button below the screen as the credits rolled and my computer seemed to hesitate. still, it went back to my previous netflix page then i clicked on the minimize button. the computer stalled, seemed to lock up a bit, then minimized but left the screen i had been looking at visible in a transparent state.

i knew something was wrong. i tried to maximize but now the computer was certainly not responding to anything. so, i hard-booted it down. upon restarting it, i got a hard disk read error message. i tried everything imagineable to troubleshoot the thing but all was for naught. i even disconnected the battery and took out the hard drive for a moment.

the computer is now with my brother who knows a guy... i am hopeful the charges will be minimal.

what really irks me about this though is that the computer is a mere two years old. shouldn't a laptop work for longer than two years without completely melting down? i mean, i guess my motherboard is fried or something similar to that and i cannot help but think about my days as a mac user. in fact, i have an old mac se up in my closet that i guess if i busted it out today it would jump up and run like it was 1990.

(i just imagined myself surfing around e-world, chatting with some strangers and perhaps playing a rouund or two of wheel of fortune. ahh, those were the days.)

fun aside, it certainly seems to me pc's are meant to have some associated after market costs. this is a bad thing. it seems to me poor and shoddy workmanship and design are encouraged in this model of having a product generate a certain amount of value after the initial sell, like our automobiles. i had a great car once, a honda civic del sol. a friend of mine who worked for honda told me they stopped mking them because they did not have enough problems after initial sell. wtf is that?!

i am lost without my computer. it along with my blogging had killed my reading recently and so i am back into some books but i miss the ability to put the computer in front of me along with the tv and make decision over time as to whether i would focus on something such as writing a piece for my blog, or relax into the mindless but restful state of watching the tube. such is modern life.

blogging book

arianna huffington has a new book out about blogging. again, i have not read it yet, but it sounds like an insightful read. it is called, 'the huffington post complete guide to blogging.'

the huffington post is the most linked-to blog on the web. both barack obama and hillary clinton have guest-blogged there and perhaps more importantly, my friend lucio links to it on his blog.

blogs are about community, no matter the size. huffington, in a radio interview this morning suggested bloggers should: write as they speak, avoid the impulse to be perfect, write on their passions, and build their community through linking and encouraging family and friends to join in by reading or blogging, too. her advice confirmed some of what i have been doing and spurred some new thought as well.

this morning i linked my favorite blogs to my blog in the sidebar. i encourage anyone who happens upon my blog to also read these blogs, especially convictions of a writer and i love lucio.