I had an interesting text exchange with Geilfuss recently, as last January he noted on his awesome blog that his goal for 2009 was to read 100 books. Now, as all of you are aware, I personally have never read 1 book, so I'm not at all criticizing Geilfuss' level of literacy. But I remembered the goal that Geilfuss set back at the beginning of 2009 and asked him if he'd reached the 100 book plateau. His response, when texting me back after I queried of him exactly how many books he'd managed to read was: 17. Now, that may seem like a failed goal to many folks; but for Geilfuss, it's a raging success. When he even completes 17% of what he hopes to accomplish, you gotta consider it a success. Congratulations Geilfuss!!!
I was out last week one night and happened to be sitting next to a guy who I've seen around town from time to time over the years. His name escapes me, if I ever knew it in the first place. Anyway, this guy is a bit of a philosopher of some sort (I think he has a degree in Woodworking or something from Chapel Hill). We got to talking about life a little bit. And even though this quasi-philosopher guy doesn't know me super well, he said something that I think merits serious consideration. He told me that I seemed brilliant to him in many ways (not sure how, but...), but that in many other ways I was very much a child stuck in some narcissistic fantasy world of my own making. He was basically questioning my whole existence and the priorities I have in life. And I'm not sure I can really dispute anything this quasi-philosopher was saying about me. Because admittedly, I have narcissistic tendencies. And admittedly, what seems so important to normal adults in our society, is pretty irrelevant to me. I mean I've never given any super serious thought to customs like marriage, parenthood, being a good citizen - you know the bedrocks of western civilization for the most part. I finally ended the conversation with this quasi-philosopher by saying "Well, I'm not sure you're wrong about all this. But at least I was paying attention to you. Anytime the talk is about me, I'm interested. When it drifts to others, I start to lose all interest." This quasi-philosopher dude said "That's the problem right there." And he might be right about that.
I got some pretty immediate feedback to the post yesterday concerning State Employees. In fact, last evening I got a text from a sometimes reader of this blog who has also experienced that milieu firsthand. This sometimes reader said that I should tell a few more stories about The Alleged Science Guru. And I never spent too much time working with The Alleged Science Guru (probably because I know nothing about science...), but one particular story did leap to mind. A few years ago, there was some very important work that needed to be done. Without totally boring everyone with the minutiae, basically it involved setting standards for a new Science Project that was taking hold. Now, this is key because once the standards are set for a project, they are supposed to remain constant over the life of the project so the State can accurately see how much progress is being made in various student poplulations on science knowledge/understanding of concepts, etc. Remember that the State employs folks who are supposed experts in the scoring of these projects. They are there to be sure that whatever baselines are set are strictly adhered to over time. This is where The Alleged Science Guru stepped way out of line. The Alleged Science Guru's job is not to set the baselines for a project. Her job is to merely (I don't mean merely in a pejorative way) develop the questions that are on the test, being certain the questions adhere to State Standards. Anyway, the folks who set the baselines for the scoring of these projects are educators from around the State who work in tandem with Scoring Specialists to accomplish this important undertaking. It's a pretty important step in the process. The Alleged Science Guru did not like some of the decisions that the educators from around the State made. She disagreed with many of them from what I understand. And that happens, it's a messy process. You're never gonna agree with all the decisions the local educators make. There are ways to make everything go very smoothly, even if some mistakes are made when the baselines are set (I won't bore anyone with those tactics either). The thing that you can NEVER do is change a decision that the committees of local educators make. It's the most unethical thing I can think of in that whole line of work. Well, our friend, The Alleged Science Guru did just that. She went back after the local educators had gone back to their localities and arbitrarily changed a number of their decisions. A number of folks were aware of this, yet nothing was done. No one was reprimanded. The Alleged Science Guru stayed on and was never called on this egregious breach of ethics. One of the folks who was keenly aware of The Alleged Science Guru's horrendous professional conduct was none other than our great friend Fran. And Fran is not unethical, not at all. She does her best to operate within guidelines of proper professional conduct. I'll say that for her. But, while not unethical, Fran is incompetent and deathly afraid of The Alleged Science Guru's wrath for some reason (that I never did understand). So, what happens as a result of The Alleged Science Guru's unethical shenanigans? Well, no consequence for The Alleged Science Guru - nada. But what about the kids around the State? Screwed. Screwed because of one woman's vanity and complete lack of professional ethics. And while no one will remotely care about this revelation on this ridiculous, pointless, and yes, narcissistic blog, it's still a shame. I'm a terrible, terrible person. I'm fully aware of that. But I never, ever acted in any way that was not completely above board and in line with accepted professional ethics with regards to the projects I worked on. Never. It's also a shame because in my experience, a vast, super vast majority of folks at that workplace tried their best to act within the accepted code of professional conduct. And behavior like The Alleged Science Guru pulled puts a bad light on everyone. At least it might if anyone who reads this cares.
I'm glad I wrote that last paragraph. It's something I've been wanting to get off my chest for a long time.
There doesn't seem to be much news on the political front. But I did see where Harry Reid is in quite a bit of hot water over some comments he made about Barack Hussein Obama. Evidently, Reid said that Barry would have success as a candidate because he was "light skinned" and "doesn't speak with a Negro dialect, unless he wants to...," and that is really something. I'll just say this, if someone like old W or a Republican Senator had made such a comment, that person would be driven out of Washington on a rail. The hypocrisy is breathtaking as always. The only other thing I've taken note of is that Barry's job approval just seems to get worse and worse. As I lamented last month, it's not as much fun to mock old Barry anymore. His disastrous plans are just depressing. I'm trying to pay as little attention to all of it as possible.
Yesterday, I quickly mentioned how in Sunday's Wild Card game in Foxboro that Brady looked more like Joey Harrington than himself. And I stand by that assessment. But I do think some of the credit should go to #52 and the rest of the Ravens D. They got up on the Pats and waited for Brady to try and force things. So, kudos there. I still wonder though if something is going on with Gisele. If not Flacco, maybe she's sneaking around with Mark Sanchez, because Sanchez looked incredibly poised out there on Saturday in the Queen City.
Sometimes you kick
Sometimes you get kicked
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