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For the past month or so, it seems that as soon as I get a free moment, I find myself watching yet another fascinating talk at TED. Soon I'll run through all the archives and will have to do with just a couple a week. Delirium tremens looms.
My New Year's resolution: to give up my car. I will donate it to a charity, and bike, walk, or bus to wherever I need to go. The advantages: helping the environment, saving money, improving my health by exercising more, and perhaps most importantly, find out if I have enough self-discipline to do it. Disadvantages: increased travel-time and reduced mobility. No late-night social events. Innability to give my friends rides, no large-bulk cargo hauling ability. My last attempt lasted two weeks. I am determined to make this second try last longer. P.S.: This isn't entirely an intellectual decision. I have never liked this car, even though I've owned less appealing vehicles in the past, I just could never entirely befriend this one. Sorry, car. I guess that makes it in part an emotional decision.
Way back when, at the turn of the millenium, I was part of a big family called Genuity. As in all families, there were disagreements, triumphs, bitter fights, great friendships, and the bond of common goals and struggles. It was in a way, a coming of age, a rite of passage at a critical time. Though for me it only lasted three years, it seemed like much longer -they were after all, not regular years, but internet years, and events that would normally develop over months, took only weeks. We were all still riding the internet boom, and things happened fast. Not surprisingly, they also ended fast. The much anticipated crash was finally beginning to happen. Then came the coup de grace on 9/11. Three rounds of lay-offs later, there was no longer a "u" in Genuity, as the joke went -and a pink slip was my inspiration to migrate westward. A few months after that, Genuity was little more than a billion-dollar garage sale. It is amazing how quickly time erodes the past. Today, while ...
After working as contractor for different IT companies, I have discovered some interesting patterns. When you want to take time off, contract offers will come to you, unsolicited. When you want to work, all opportunities will elude you. If you only have one contract offer, it never meets your requirements. The lower the number of requirements met, the less likely it is to have alternative offers. When there is more than one offer, the best contract offers are never confirmed until the least appealing deadlines to accept it, expire. If you turn down the least appealing contract in favor of the more appealing ones, the latter will always fall through. However, if you do take the least appealing contract -and as soon as it is too late to back out- you will receive a phone call with a definitive confirmation for one of the contracts that did meet all your requirements. This seems like another manifestation of Murphy's Law: "if something can go wrong, it will". The truth is, t...
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