Concepts in the Paradox

When I was working at the software store in the mall during the mid-90’s struggle through college, I remember my first impression of what corruption was.

Being a freshman, I hadn’t seen much in my life. I’d dealt with customers in retail, and became confused when they tried to rip the store off, “That’s not very honest”, I’d think.

What really got to me one day was when the store was running a drawing for a lithograph from a Disney cartoon. A bunch of kids would come into the store and put in their entries into the drawing about their favorite Disney cartoon, excited at the chance to get an original piece of art from some cartoon show.

After store close on the day of the drawing, my boss turned to a co-worker of mine and asked, “What did you get you and your girlfriend for her birthday?”

“Nothing yet,” my slightly older counter part replied.

“Well congratulations, you won the drawing.” and proceeded to give him the lithograph, they were buddy buddy, and I was the frosh to kick around.

And with that, I was told to toss the entries into the trash when I took out the garbage.

My oldest sister, Christa Ballew-Matthews, passed away September 18th due to complications from breast cancer. Christa, I love you, I miss you.

See the Sept. 21st Nevada Appeal obituaries. The print edition also has a photo. Also published in various Columbia, MO and Bartlesville, OK papers.

I joined City Car Share to see if is a feasible replacement for my dear Subaru, which I have to park all the way across town in Western Addition and pay $230/mo in insurance for[0]. The nearest CCS car is across the street from me, a Civic Hybrid. Pending my application approval, I’m going to check out a Tacoma next weekend and do an Ikea run. If anyone is interested, I’d like to split rental/milage fees.

Also, Sam, I put you as a reference. Expect driving credits!

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[0]Geico is $172/mo, so I may at least switch from RapeStateFarm.

Well, I was over at “Burger Gourmet” in downtown Oakland, enjoying a mushroom burger when super genious me bit a chunk out of his own lip on the inside.

Ouch! Mmmm… blood.

Also, ever notice that everyone is very patient as they wait in line for coffee at Starbucks? It doesn’t matter what time of day, or how long the line is, everyone waits in a friendly manner for their cup of crackjoe. Maybe they should offer Starbucks coffee at the DMV?

I’ve resumed reading The Death and Life of Great American Cities. I don’t remember why I stopped reading it, because I feel it is a pretty good book, and perhaps written ahead of it’s time.

Lately I’ve been thinking about what is important. What are the ideas that drive me to the next day, what is it that makes waking up and facing the day even worth it? For a few moments, nothing came to mind. It was a little frightening to think that I’ve been going day to day with no particular destination in mind. I really thought I had some master plan I was following, but at that moment I found that I had reached nowhere.
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Every morning, I wake up to the sound of th 31 line making it’s first run. I’m not sure how I can hear it, it is all the way down the block, but my alarm goes off and shortly after I hear, “Thirty-one Bal-boa, to Main and Mission”. It is sort of a surreal sound to hear in those first 30 seconds when my brain is slowly coming back to reality.

I’m working my away from bagels and frozen waffles in the morning. I picked up a few cook books in the dollar bin at Borders and have been flipping through them. Tomorrow morning I’m going to try for scrambled eggs. The last time I tried, I ended up with eggs fused to the pan. This time I’m prepared, with (soy) milk this time. That’s what was missing!

On the morning ride to work, I’m reading Tipping Point. Quite a few people at work have been reading it, along with some of the morning commuters. It’s sort of weird to turn around and see two other people reading the same exact book.

The book is basically about memes and humans create and respond to them. One of the interesting points I’ve came across is that there are three different types of people involved in creating memes, and when I say memes I mean things like the latest fashion trend, crime waves, the spread of stds, or even the number of car wrecks in a week. Author Malcolm Gladwell calls them “Tipping Points”, but really they are memes.

The three types of people are the Salesman, the Connector, and the Mavin. The salesman is what he sounds like, he talks people into things. He let’s people know it is okay to do something, like purchase a car. Then there is the Connector, he knows everyone, though few very well. This is the guy that throws out peoples’ names left and right, and knows about this great restaurant down the street. Finally there is the character I identify with most, the Maven. This is the guy that has been down to the great restaurant down the street, knows which are the least expensive menu items for the maximum food, and is always listening for new random tidbits, and buys into the details.

It’s a fairly good book, Gladwell is a good writer and keeps a repetitive and back-referencing style so a slow Bart-and-lunchbreak-reader like myself can keep up with the topics presented.

I sure did feel that one. I’m on the 9th floor, and boy did this building sway.

The room is reserved, the Wiki is updated and tshirts and hats have been printed for Hacker Jeopardy thanks to BigEdog.

I haven’t even selected what talks I’m going to yet, I suppose I’ll update that tomorrow. Even though some people have flaked, it is still going to be the biggest turn out of my friends doing anything, ever, plus meeting new people I’ve never met before in person. I even printed up business cards for the occasion.

So let’s say you are going to the con, and you want to track me down? Well, look for me in the official llama-tipping shirt, you can’t miss it. These are printed coutesy of Finnie.org, of Finnix fame. He’ll be handing out CDs of his Linux distro — ask him for a signed copy. Beware, I will be representing the pro-zombie platform this year, so if you run Windows, I might just try to eat your brain.

If there is any point in the day I look forward to the most, it is sitting in Snow Park beside Lake Merritt. After being cooped up in my noisy and stuffy cube-city of an office, picking up a book and sitting out there for an hour gives me a chance to find a different head space.

My latest set of books are both by Dan Brown, which my older sister graciously sent me. The first is the famed Da Vinci Code, which I felt was at best luke warm. The character development is so so, and the plot is somewhat predictable. It is junk literature, but easy to pick up where I left off.

The next is Deception Point, which is much more to my liking. It has action, intrigue, mystery, and politics! It is still junk in my mind, but some times I run over my lunch break doing the whole “one more chapter!” scheme.

On the San Francisco side of the pond, I’ve found this great up and coming grocery delivery service called Planet Organics. The way it works if you go to their website and pick a weekly packet for delivery. I’m doing half veggies and half fruit, but I can have all fruit, all veggies, or some other sort of combo. In addition, I can have regular items added to my cart. They carry the same or similar product as Trader Joes, and have outstanding customer service.

Every Tuesday, I come home from work and shortly there after I get a phone call from my front door buzzer. I let the delivery person in, they come up to the 9th floor and drop off a reusable plastic and/or polystyrene bin, and my shopping for the week is done. As far as pricing, they require a minimum $32 order. They have sales, but everything is pretty much full retail. No delivery charge, but that is really just built into the price.

The quality of the fresh food is outstanding. I used to eat out most weeks, and with the exception of going over to the cable car turnaround for some of Blondie’s pizza now and then, I can make food at home and eat like a king. The veggies and fruit must be picked only a day before being dropped off, because they are more fresh than anything I’ve gotten at any store, including TJ’s. It all also goes bad come Tuesday, but then I just get restocked!