Reinke Faces Life

http://glcavalier.wordpress.com/

“Connecting the World One Beverage at a Time”
by Cavalier, G. Lane [EUN] [LKDN] [PLX] [TRKY]

Note: You’ll notice that I have him “tagged” with certain badges. I use that to remind myself of key facts. He’s an Execunet-ite, a LinkedIn-ite, a Plaxo-ite, and is a member in good stand of the Loyal Order of Turkeys. The prime (only) qualification of that group is having been in “transition” at least once.

I think he’ll have many good things to say and I’ll be reading his blog. What higher recommendation can I give you?

Disclaimer: Lane is the Head Cheerleader of my Chicago Fan Club. (Yeah, I know. How did I acquire so many networking contacts in Chicago? Beats me. Just seems like every time a newly minted turkey wanders in for my help, there’s a Chicago connection. They’re from Chicago. They’d like to be from Chicago. They want to move to Chicago. They can spell Chicago. I have no idea. But I have so many, I actually have an Outlook email Distribution List called “My Chicago Turkeys”. It makes it easy to communicate with them as a group.)

http://www.thomsinger.blogspot.com/

Sunday, April 01, 2007
One Of The Smartest Things I Ever Did

***Begin Quote***

One of my favorite bloggers is Mike Sigers of The Simplenomics Blog. I discovered a link to a nice post on The Self Help Blog that I think is a great idea. The author encourages bloggers everywhere to write a post titled “One Of The Smartest Things I Ever Did” (you must leave out getting married or having kids, as that is a given for many).

***End Quote***

http://selfhelpdaily.com/one-of-the-smartest-things-i-ever-did-was/

One of the Smartest Things I Ever Did Was…
March 28th, 2007 · 2 Comments

***Begin Quote***

But I’m even a firmer believer in sharing with others. Whether it’s clothing, money, food, or advice – we should never hold onto anything that could help another person. That’s why I thought of an idea that might be kind of cool. If you have a blog, I propose that you do this: In an upcoming post, write about One of the Smartest Things You Ever Did. Then, encourage your readers to do the same.

***and***

One of the smartest things I ever did was instill a love of reading in my daughters. They have been very, very successful in their studies and they score way above average on any test set in front of them. I think a lot of this comes from the fact that they’ve always been voracious readers.

***End Quote***

This challenge was relatively easy.

In High School, I was open to take a chance. Took it, did well, and it set me in a “rut” / “groove” for the rest of my life.

When I was in Manhattan Prep High School, one of the Christian Brothers from Manhattan College came in towards the end of my junior year and said he was interested in hiring some of us to work in the Manhattan College data center. To qualify, we had to learn something called a “computer language”. He’d teach us for an hour in the morning before class, we’d have to give up our lunch, and a few Saturdays. After 6 weeks of torture, we’d have an exam. He’d hire the top people for his datacenter at the stunning sum of $4 an hour. (It was a long time ago!). We could then have up to forty hours a week assuming we got working papers. (I already had my for my various summer jobs. My Mom thought “idle hands”! And I got to keep HALF of what I earned. I called her share GRAFT! The split was AFTER tax. Any wonder I HATE taxes!) Despite all my peers telling me I was nuts to “give up” all that time, I signed up. (Surprising since I was very subject to peer pressure.) I was motivated by the money! I jumped thru his hoops, and surprise surprise, despite being a smart but mediocre student, I was the top scorer in his test with a 98. I later learned that this was CDC’s Systems Programmming Test, CDC used to decide if they would allow customers to touch their operating system. The Brother had only gotten a 96 on it. (I still think the question I missed was ambiguous. And, told everyone why! NO good.) From there it was like I was in a groove. I made lots of money, met the Engineering Faculty of the College, decided to go Electrical Engineering, and was the Number #2 guru of the computer center. Sophomore Year of College, I met the fellow running the AT&T Treasury datacenter and found out that they were paying $14/hour. So I started to do both. I graduated (surprisingly) with the lowest index 2.0106 [It was the 6 that won!], won the anchor pool (~$400), and had the highest starting salary (AT&T made my a Senior Systems Programmer making 65k PLUS OVERTIME!?!) I was happy. The best time in my life! It set me on a path that I have been following ever since. I wonder how things would have been otherwise?

But clearly, it was one of MY first conscious decisions (i.e., sacrifice time for training that translated to earning power). And, it turned out well? So I’d call it the best decision I ever made.

Thanks for letting me play in your “challenge”.

###

—–Original Message—–
From: Luddite
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 10:38 AM
Subject: You Gotta Believe!

How about those Rutgers dames! You gotta believe they can take it all, youngsters or not.

Carolina-Barrelina, Tennessee-Wannasee…who cares about them, they got nothing but a name. Bring ’em on. It’s the Scarlett Knights of Rutgers that they should fear. GO RUTGERS!

P.S. I am out in LV on business, watched them play from the Hard Rock Hotel bar….but I should have put my money where my mouth is! I was telling everyone around me that I knew two avid fans and season ticket holders! :-)

—–Response Message—–

To: Luddite
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Subject: You Gotta Believe!

>How about those Rutgers dames!

The game was ugly. They’ll have to do better to get by LSU.

>Carolina-Barrelina, Tennessee-Wannasee…who cares about them, they got nothing but a name.

LSU’s Fowles (a true 5), Carolina’s Latta (a true 2), and Tennesee’s Redding (a true 4) are the imho the keys to the game. RU matches up pretty well.

Luckily, RU only has to face two of the three.

LSU Fowles beat UCONN single-handedly. But UConn doesn’t have 5. Gino goes small and fast. RU can’t afford to double her and Kia Vaughn will have her hands full. She has to stay out of foul trouble and contain Fowles.

It’s possible. That’s why they play the games. But, it’s no lock.

>P.S. I am out in

BTW did you see Corzine with his RU shirt as the #1 fan. Arghhh. Trust a politician to find a parade to get in front of!

>I was telling everyone around me that I knew two avid fans and season ticket holders! :-)

Nahh, it’s only one rabid fan. I just go to be social able. It’s Frau who is living her fantasy of what could have been. Damn she was good in her prime. I only got to see her play once before the quad separation and she was a deadly shooter. Her brother told me she was “better” in high school. Hard to believe. Forty years before her time. It’s sad. She might have been Nancy Lieberman. Like Rocky, “I coulda been a contender”. At least, she has a fantasy. All I have is my blog. ;-) (Although I am getting 200 readers per day.)

###

http://www.technorati.com/blogs/
http%3A%2F%2Freinkefj.wordpress.com

*** begin quote ***

Rank: 625,183 (16 links from 7 blogs) What do these numbers mean?

*** end quote ***

There’s an estimated “55 MILLION blogs … some of them have to be good”.

I’m surprised I score at all.

FEEDBLITZ (I guess in a desire to atone for sending out nothing on Sunday) felt it was a good idea to send out two copies of yesterday’s posts. (One can see that getting up at 4AM produced twice the recommended daily allotment of drivel!)

When you wake up out of sound sleep, wide awake, like a “disturbance in the Force”, like some one has walk over your grave, or when something bad has happened and your intuition is telling you to go on high alert.

What do you do?

Blog.

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/dawkins.htm

*** begin quote ***

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.

— Richard Dawkins, excerpt from Chapter I, “The Anaesthetic of Familiarity,” of Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder (1998)

*** end quote ***

We, as a society, may well have abort the soul that would cure cancer, bring us peace, or make us laugh. It’s a sad possibility to consider.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;
jsessionid=UXQ40JSPCWITXQFIQMFCFGGAVCB
QYIV0?xml=/news/2007/03/08/wmafia08.xml

http://tinyurl.com/399emv

Mafia boss had messages delivered by bus
By Malcolm Moore in Rome
Last Updated: 1:57am GMT 08/03/2007

*** begin quote ***

Investigators, including a team from the FBI, have spent the last eleven months deciphering his code. The investigation has led to dozens more arrests, as his crime syndicate was dismantled. Earlier this week, Vincenzo Piraneo, who drove a bus down the 189 road between Palermo and Agrigento, was arrested for allegedly helping Provenzano distribute his pizzini. A further 21 arrests were also made.

*** end quote ***

Interesting that if one does cryptology right, then no arrests would have been possible.

One time pads, RSA, and cyclic substitution ciphers are virtually unbreakable. The British had to capture the Enigma to break it. The Americans broke the Japanese codes because of a breakdown in transmission security. The FBI broke the mad bomber’s rants because he left a worksheet around.

The amateur should look for the crystal box. How does it work and how do I know it’s secure. It doesn’t matter what the claim for a black box, you can NOT trust it.

How many of us have encrypted stuff and forgotten the key? I have.

Interesting problems.

>Subject: Win the Lottery?
>I see a NewJerseyite has one of the lottery winning
>tickets….hmmm….3 Tyne Court?

Drat, darn, heck … … no!

I even stayed up to watch the live drawing hopin’ it would help.

Interesting story. At least, I think it was interesting.

I spent an extra two buck yesterday on it.

Went to the local quick check (which was neither quick, nor did they give me a check), and paid my “tax” for lottery tixs.

(It really doesn’t qualify as a tax under my strict definition. It is avoidable. But, if you win, you’ll pay an obscene amount of “tax” so maybe it is. It is popularly described as a “tax on stupidity”. So I paid it willingly. But, in my own defense, I only pay when the jackpot is at “life changing” amounts.)

So when the disinterested person was playing on the machine’s keys, she spit out a two line ticket by accident in the midst of my tickets. She put it off to the side and gave me mine.

I quickly told her I wanted it.

I had visions of the tv news interviewing her as the sole winner of the grazillion dollar jackpot, saying “i made a mistake and this rude guy made me buy my mistake”.

:-(

So, I very politely but firmly “bought” the mistake.

When Frau checked the tix last night, I told her the only one she needed to check was that one. I was sure that the Comos was going to play a joke on me or teach me a very “interesting” lesson. It was a $2 ticket and it “won” $2.

How weird is that?

I know that if I hadn’t bought that mistake. It would have won.

Arghh!

http://www.language-learning-advisor.com/
language-learning-advisor-news.html

*** begin quote ***

Free FSI Language Courses is a site that is making available all of the old FSI language courses created by the US government. These courses are free for download (in pdf and mp3 formats) for anyone who wants them. A number of courses are currently up and in due time many others will be there as well.

*** end quote ***

Could be a cheap way to learn a language.