Category: General

I'm tired of the instability in software engineering.  I'm tired of worrying about my job on a regular basis.  I'm tired of layoffs and budget cuts and mergers and acquisitions.

I love what I do.  I enjoy software engineering.  I like taking a problem, breaking it down into its constituent parts, and then making the computer do what I want it to do.  I (generally) work with intelligent people.  I really enjoy the type of people I work with.

But I'm weary of the instability and I'm ready to make a career change.

I'm not going to make a change today.  It's going to take a lot longer than that.  But I've already started putting my career change plans in motion.

I bought a Calculus book a couple of weeks ago and I'm reviewing Calculus I and II.  I'm enrolled in Calculus III at Utah Valley State College this fall.  I have somewhere around 5 classes and a GRE exam to take to prepare for a masters degree in math.

And what am I going to do with this masters degree?  I'm going to teach!  I'm going for a tenure track position at UVSC.  Then, once I have tenure, I'll have the stability that has thus far eluded me in my career.

I also contacted the developmental math department at UVSC.  They're hiring adjunct faculty for this fall and want to know more about my qualifications.  I can't think of anything better to prepare me to "retire" to teaching math than teaching math!  I'm extremely interested in developmental math because I believe I have a knack for being able to explain things well.  If one approach at an explanation doesn't work, I can try different approaches until something works.

I'll probably end up taking quite a big cut in pay, but by the time I get my masters degree, we'll be closer to having our house paid off.  I'll also continue doing what I love (programming) as a consultant.  That way, I'll be able to do it on MY terms, which will also give me more of the stability that I crave.

Wish me luck.  I'm jumping in!

Back at the end of march as you may recall, we had to buy a new range. It was at the insistence of the friendly folks at Pleasant Grove City who wouldn't issue an occupancy permit for my basement until the range and dishwasher were installed.

I bought the new range from Sears, mostly because this particular model was so highly rated by Consumer Reports. As an added bonus, I bought it online (not having to go to a retail store at all) AND I happened to hit a "free shipping" special. Of course, it's never really free. I had to submit my purchase to the Sears Rebate Center and they would reimburse the $60 shipping charge.

This week, we received a rejection notice from Sears. They said that the "purchase was made outside of the qualifying date range." WHAT??

I looked at everything. I purchased the range on 31 March. The particular rebate was good for items purchased between the 25th and the 31st of March. So I called the Sears rebate center to ask what the problem was.

They pointed out something that I hadn't seen. The "Order Placed" date on my receipt (I bought it online, so the receipt was via email) was 3/31/07. The "Purchase Date" was 3/31/07. But the "Sale Date" was 4/1/07. WHAT??

I tried to reason with the woman at the rebate center. She was immovable. I stayed calm and rational. She got more and more upset at me. She all but swore at me when I asked to speak with her supervisor.

Dave, the supervisor, listened to my story, but then reassured me that they could re-submit the rebate again and again, but it would be rejected again and again. Again, I remained calm and rational. He got flustered with me. I asked how else I could escalate this. He gave me the toll-free number of Sears National Customer Relations.

I called and talked with a very nice and (finally) patient woman, Andrea (pronounced Ahn-DRAY-uh) who went into the sales order and changed the purchase date. FINALLY someone who could help me! The process took almost 40 minutes, but my rebate request has been re-submitted and if they want to reject it, they have to speak with Andrea first. This is good.

Maybe I'm a cheapskate, but sixty bucks is sixty bucks!

I could have gotten angry. I could have ranted a bit. I might have yelled. But the truth is that the person on the other end of the phone (especially in the rebate center) is probably someone that is getting paid $10/hour or less to answer phone calls. They honestly don't care about my problem. They care about getting me off the phone and off their back. But by staying calm and rational, I ended up finding the person who could actually take care of my problem. The fact that Sears actually employs such a person is the reason I will keep doing business with them in the future...

...provided that I get the rebate.

No Time For Sergeants is over.

The last bows have been taken, the set pieces have been put away and the costumes are all haning on racks, waiting to be cleaned and put away in the archives.

As usual, I'm having mixed feelings. It's so much fun to be on stage night after night, but it's so hard to be away from my family night after night.

I took a couple of pictures in the green room last night. Chances are, this is the last show I'll be doing at the current Hale Center Theater in Orem, because they're currently in the process of building a new, much nicer theater. So I wanted to capture my handprint.

Each actor that does a show there gets to put their handprint on the wall in the green room. It's a fun tradition that has been going on for many years now. By the time I did a show there, the green room was mostly full. The handprints now spill into the dressing rooms. It's fun to look at the many handprints and see how many of the actors I've been in shows with. It's fun to walk back through the memories of years and years of shows there.

I'm going to miss that place.   Sure, I'll be back once every couple of months or so to see a show, but it's not the same.  And chances are, by the time I'm cast again, it'll be at the new theater.

I've gotten several emails in recent days telling me not to buy gas next Tuesday. Here's an example:

NO GAS...On May 15th 2007

Don't pump gas on may 15th

In April 1997, there was a "gas out" conducted nationwide in protest of gas prices. Gasoline prices dropped 30 cents a gallon overnight.

On May 15th 2007, all internet users are to not go to a gas station in protest of high gas prices. Gas is now over $3.00 a gallon in most places.

There are 73,000,000+ American members currently on the internet network, and the average car takes about 30 to 50 dollars to fill up.

If all users did not go to the pump on the 15th, it would take $2,292,000,000.00 (that's almost 3 BILLION) out of the oil companies pockets for just one day, so please do not go to the gas station on May 15th and let's try to put a dent in the Middle Eastern oil industry for at least one day.

If you agree (which I can't see why you wouldn't) resend this to all your contact list. With it saying, "Don't pump gas on May 15th"

Let's pick apart the statistics first:

There was no "Gas Out" in April, 1997. I researched and found a similar email campaign telling people to buy no gasoline on April 30, 1999. According to the United States Department of Energy, the average price of gasoline (Regular unleaded gasoline, retail price) in the Rocky Mountain Region on 26 April, 1999 was $1.192/gallon. The average price of the same gasoline in the same region on May 3, 1999 was $1.196/gallon. If there WAS an overnight drop of 30 cents per gallon, there was a quick spike of 30 cents per gallon soon thereafter. So much for the big boycott of 1999.

The letter says that there are 73,000,000+ Internet users in the United States. This is apparently another statistic that was pulled out of... um... nowhere. The "+" is really really big, because according to nielsen-netratings.com, 69.6% of the population of the United States uses the Internet, meaning that there are more than 210,000,000 Internet users in the United States.

I couldn't find statistics on how much gasoline is sold each day in the United States, but I'm betting that it's less than the $2.292 billion (closer to two billion than three billion) that would supposedly come out of the gas companies' pockets. Such trustworthy statistics here!

But the real issue is the idea of a one-day boycott. In the outside chance that 200 million people decided not to fill their tanks on May 15, they would still be driving their gas guzzling SUV's to work, dropping their kids off at school, and going to baseball games and other activities. If their tanks were low on the 14th they would fill up then. If their tanks were low on the 15th, they'd wait until the 16th to fill up. The net result is ABSOLUTELY NO CHANGE IN THE AMOUNT OF GASOLINE PUMPED.

In order to make a REAL difference, these 210 million Americans would need to find ways to drive less, and not just for one day. They would need to park the big urban assault vehicles and drive smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, and not just for one day. The thing that would make a real difference would be to consistently use less gasoline over a long period of time. Judging from the number of large vehicles filling up when I paid more than $30 for a tank of gas for my Saturn this week, these prices over $3/gallon aren't yet painful enough for Americans to change their driving habits.

I'm going to fill up my gas tank on 15 May whether it's empty or not.

Finally, my basement is done.  Yesterday, they installed the mirror and fixed the ugly plate/hole in the wall.

So now I'll finally pay the last $1000 and be done with it.  Hooray!

We (meaning my wife) has put some time into moving and organizing all of the stuff we had temporarily installed upstairs and the storage room is looking great!  I have a mess of cables and speaker wire to organize, but then that will look good as well.

Now if I can just find the ground loop problem that is causing that low hum in the subwoofer...

I've been absent for a couple of weeks.  It's been a VERY busy couple of weeks.

Tech week for the play I'm in started on the 16th.  Every night, we were at the theater late - until 11:00 or later.  The show opened on Friday and my cast had our opening on Saturday.  It's a fun show and we've had good audience reaction so far.

Last week:

I relaxed on Monday.  I was worn out after tech week.  Tuesday, I turned on the sprinkler system and, of course, had a problem that needed to be fixed.  I ended up digging up a sprinkler head and replacing a part of it.  Wednesday, I was in charge at the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby.  My son took 2nd place, and I didn't even cheat!  Thursday night I had a show.  Friday, I cooked Dutch Oven food for the entire 4th grade at my son's grade school and then went camping with my other son's scout troop.  On Saturday, we hiked 7 or 8 miles of the Pony Express Trail.  I had another show on Saturday night.

Fortunately, Sunday was a rather lazy day, but the yard work season is upon me, so every night that I'm home, I'll be working in the yard.  But I'm not going to complain about that.  It could be like last year when I was trying to get a yard put in.  That wasn't fun at all.

I put the word complete in quotation marks on purpose.

On Friday, we signed off on the punchlist, even though there were a couple of items not yet complete.  The mirror they brought in was too wide, so they're gong to bring in one that's the right size in a couple of days.  There's a bit of a hole around the dryer vent still, but there are plans in place to fix that.  And while we were signing off upstairs, the guy that put stain and clear coat on the handrails dinged a couple of places on the ceiling.  Of course, he didn't SAY anything.  Instead, he quickly cleaned up the paint chips that landed on the floor.

As we've used the basement, we found a leak under the bathroom sink.  We also found that a couple of switches on one particular lighting circuit trip the breaker if you flip the switch.  Hopefully, that's not a major problem.

But the good news is that we don't have to leave our basement window open so that workers can show up.  We are starting to feel like our home is OURS again.

In the meantime, I hung the projector from the ceiling and I hooked up the receiver and DVD player.  Pulling the cables for the projector was difficult.  Next time, I'm going to buy some lubricant that they make, just for that purpose.

We also scrubbed the vinyl and tile floors and I put up all of the miniblinds.  Then we got the table tennis table out and started to play!

It's going to be a REALLY fun space.  I'll be glad when it's complete, and not "complete."

How do you get to the point where you can walk into a room full of strangers, look at them, and start killing them?  How do you get to the point where your life and the lives of other people mean so little to you?  How do you get to the point where you even start planning ahead--acquiring weapons, ammunition, and other tools--for the sole purpose of destroying life?  How do you get to that point?

The massacre (as the media is calling it, and I happen to agree) at Virginia Tech today is shocking and unbelievable.  The February killing spree at Trolley Square in Salt Lake hit closer to home with me because I've walked those halls.  Columbine always comes to mind when considering mindless violence against innocent people.  These events and so many similar events are simply senseless.

If you hate yourself to the point that you want to end your life, what makes you decide to take as many people with you as you can?  How does causing others so much physical pain and emotional heartache make any difference to you?  In the end, you're still just as dead.

I'm glad I don't get it.

Laylabean posted this on her site, so I thought I'd give it a shot too.

1. What is your first name? It's Mr., of course! Ok, so it's not hard to figure out that my name is DeShawn if you just do a lookup on the details of my domain.

2. Were you named after anyone? My mom taught a boy in Sunday School named "Dishon." That's right out of one of the genealogies of the old testament. According to Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary, it either means "ashes" or "fatness." No wonder I'm fat. My parents changed the spelling to DeShawn so I could go by "Shawn" if I wanted to and I did while working in McDonald's in High School. "Shawn" on a nametag gets many fewer stares and fewer questions than "DeShawn." According to the book Freakanomics, my name is the "blackest" first name there is for a man, so I'm the only white DeShawn you'll ever meet. One more thing: My parent's spelled my name with an apostrophe after the e: De'Shawn. I dropped it after grade school and since it's not on my birth certificate, it's not official. So there.

3. Do you wish on stars? No. I never have and I never will. Well, except for when I'm in Disneyland.

4. When did you last cry? I don't remember. But I came close when writing my bio for No Time For Sergeants. In my little bio blurb, I thanked Grandma Hale and Syd Riggs for sharing their love of theatre with me. I miss them both... especially Syd. When she unexpectedly passed away, I lost a friend. As I sat and thought about them both, I started getting weepy.

5. Do you like your handwriting? It's not too bad. I prefer to type, but when I have to write something, it's pretty legible.

6. What is your favorite lunch meat? Do I have to pick jsut one? My favorite sandwich is a club sandwich with roast beef, ham, and turkey. Specifically, I like the "Club Met" at Gandolfo's.

7. What is your most embarrassing CD? The Saltaires Barbershop Chorus created a CD when I was singing with them. I thought we were SO good. I listened to it a couple of years after I quit singing with them. We sucked. Big time. It's embarrassing because I'm part of the crappy group that's singing on the CD.

8. If you were another person, would you be friends with you? I think so, though if I'm like all other people, I'd be the kind of friend that doesn't get annoyed when I call, but doesn't go out of his way to actually initiate contact--not even something simple like spending two minutes a couple of times a year to send an email. I'm a very forgettable "out of sight, out of mind" type of person, even for members of my own family.

9. Do you have a journal? You're reading it.

10. Do you use sarcasm a lot? Not a lot, and usually only exaggeratedly for comic effect.

11. What are your nicknames? Growing up, I had a friend named Shawn, and since I was named DeShawn, my friends started calling me Dee to minimize confusion. It caught on for a while, but mostly died out during Junior High, when I had no friends and therefore nobody to call me by a nickname. I have one aunt and one brother that still call me Dee.

12. Would you bungee jump? Nope. I'm terrified of heights. I had to go up on the roof of my old house to take down the satellite dish (to take with me to the new place) and I was terrified. Actually, now that I think about it, THAT was the last time I cried. I was up there on the roof, clinging to the stupid dish, crying like a baby.

13. Do you untie your shoes before you take them off? Not usually. We don't wear shoes in the house, so being able to slip shoes on and off saves a lot of time.

14. Do you think that you are strong? My lower body is quite strong. My upper body has always been weak and probably will be. I blame genetics. And fatness.

15. What is your favorite ice cream flavor? Ben & Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk.

16. Shoe size? 10.

17. Red or pink? Sure. Why not?

18. What is your least favorite thing about yourself? Right now, it's my level of physical fitness, or lack thereof. But I have no motivation to get back on my road bike and start shedding pounds. Hopefully, as the weather gets better and the basement is done, I'll be able to spend my lunch hours riding.

19. What do you miss most? I miss having my house feel like my house. Right now, we have workers that can come and go at will. It'll be nice to not wonder who is going to show up today.

20. Do you want everyone you send this to, to send it back? Sure. Why not? Though, I won't send this to anyone.

21. What color pants/shoes are you wearing? I'm wearing semi-faded blue jeans and brown shoes.

22. What are you listening to right now? I'm listening to other keyboards around me going clickety-click.

23. Last thing you ate? A cheap frozen burrito.

24. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Let's see... (going to crayola.com) I'll say Prussian Blue, which, in 1958, was renamed Midnight Blue in response to teachers' requests.

25. What is the weather like right now? The weather's always the same in my cubicle. Outside, the sun is shining, the wind is blowing, and it's in the 50's I think.

26. Last person you talked to on the phone? Mrs. Mr. Me.

27. The first thing you notice about the opposite sex? Eyes. I love the wide variety of eye colors that isn't covered by blue, brown, and green.

28. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Yep. I most certainly do.

29. Favorite drink? Root beer, preferrably home-brewed. If not, then something sold in glass bottles like Henry Weinhards or IBC Root Beer. In a pinch, A&W from a 2-liter bottle will do, though it's not as good as the stuff you can get from the A&W restaurants.

30. Favorite sport? Cycling. I need to get back on my road bike.

31. Do you wear contacts? I used to, but I had LASIK surgery a couple of years ago. (I'm still seeing 20/15. WOOHOO!)

32. Favorite food? I LOVE a good steak. I has to be a good cut of meat and it has to be prepared properly. DO NOT overcook it! When I say MEDIUM, I mean MEDIUM, not medium-well. Usually, in Utah, I order my steak medium-rare and it comes back medium. Outside the state, they seem to know how to properly cook a steak.

33. Last movie you watched? I watched Flushed Away the other night. It was pretty funny. I especially loved the slugs.

34. Favorite day of the year? The day in the spring when the most trees are in full blossom. I could drive around all day just looking. Better yet, I could ride around with someone else. THEY could drive and I could look.

35. Scary movies or happy endings? Scary movies. I enjoy a movie that messes with your mind--freaking you out from the inside--not the kind that tries to gross you out or startle you with tons of jump scenes.

36. Winter or summer? Summer. I hate driving in ice and snow.

37. Hugs or kisses? Both, together.

38. What is your favorite dessert? I'm not picky. I don't really like brownies, and please don't befoul my chocolate with peanut butter. Other than that, bring it on! I'll eat it! I'm getting fatter just THINKING about all the different desserts I love.

39. What books are you reading? I'm reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with my younger son, but other than that, I've been buried in scripts for a while. Now that I'm "off book" in my current production, I'm looking for something new to read.

40. What’s on your mouse pad? I don't use a mouse pad. Or a mouse, for that matter. Using a mouse causes pain for me--carpal tunnel-type pain. I use a Logitech TrackMan Marble. It's stationary and the cursor is controlled with the thumb. Since it just sits there, no mouse pad is necessary. It drives my boss batty when he comes over to use my computer, so I have a mouse hooked up too. It sits on the Dell mousepad that shipped with my work computer.

41. What did you watch on TV last night? A Food Network Challenge.

42. Favorite smells? Steaks on the grill, roses, REAL vanilla (not that imitation crap).

43. Favorite sound? GOOD harmony, especially a capella voices.

44. Rolling Stones or Beatles? Beatles

45. What’s the furthest you’ve been from your home? A couple of years ago, I traveled to the Munich area on business.

46. Do you have a special talent? I have a way of making people feel at ease around me.

47. What is your ring tone? The theme from The Odd Couple. I put it on when I in rehearsals for The Odd Couple and haven't changed it yet.

There. Is that long enough for you?

Sometimes, the solution to a difficult problem is to throw your hands up in the air and walk away.

I know that what I'm saying seems to go against everything about success that you've ever heard.

• Never give in! Never give in! Never, never, never! ~Winston Churchill
• Fall seven times, stand up eight. ~Japanese Proverb
• He conquers who endures. ~Persius
• When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

I'm not saying that one should ALWAYS be a quitter, but once in a while, giving up is the right thing to do.

This morning, for example, I was working on a problem at work. There were two ways of doing what I needed to do, and both should have been working identically. SHOULD HAVE BEEN. When I tried it one way, it worked perfectly. When I tried it the other way (the way that I was TRYING to get to work right), it would fail for no apparent reason.

As of this morning, I had exhausted every possible way of figuring out the problem. I had tried everything I could think of, everything everyone on my team could think of, and everything everyone on a couple of other teams could think of. We're talking serious dead end here.

So I gave up.

I conceded defeat and explained the less-than-ideal method to the person I was working with and walked him through the process I had created. The process that worked perfectly for me FAILED for him. But this was good news! Because of the failure he was seeing, the reason for the failure I was having on the "preferred" method became crystal clear to me, and an hour later, everything was working exactly as I had hoped it would.

Sometimes, you just have to give up. This time, surrender led to a solution that would have taken a lot longer if I had continued to figure out what was wrong.