07.24.07

Disgruntle

Posted in Personal at 7:05 pm by Joe Blubaugh

Tonight was the intern end-of-term banquet.  As happy as I am about it being the end of my term, I backed out of the banquet at the last minute.  I know I’ve been a terrible sport this whole summer, sailing instead of hanging out with interns, avoiding intern lunches, and skipping the ’roundtables’ with the bigwigs, but my overall attitude toward the company has infected my interactions with the interns.

My work this summer inspires less interest than my first summer job making hamburgers.  It’s just dull, repetitive, administrative junk that doesn’t fulfill any of my career goals.  I haven’t received any of the help learning about the technology and how to use it that I was promised.  Consequently, I’m singularly uninterested in actually completing the work assigned me.

To top it off, the interns are interested in basically two things: drinking and work.  Now, I like drinking as much as the next guy and more than some of them, but it’s too often an end in and of itself, especially with this crowd.  Outside of work, I don’t want to talk about work; our strategy for blah blah couldn’t interest me less.

I feel bad, to a degree, for turning my back on the intern community, because I’m sure some of them are in the same boat as me and are actually fun people to be around.  The S/N ratio just isn’t high enough to make it productive to find them.

Sailing Atmosphere

Posted in Photo at 6:55 pm by Joe Blubaugh

The setting sun a few weeks ago was brilliant, and I managed to get two good shots of it:

Wave of Clouds

Sundown.

Milwaukee Zoo

Posted in Photo at 6:54 pm by Joe Blubaugh

I went to the zoo this weekend with my family, and the place was just great.

Lion

Peacock.

Bear

Weird Blue Bird

Elephant

Leopard

Spider Monkeys

Moose

Humboldt Penguin

Weird crane-like bird.

07.19.07

Summer of Discontent

Posted in Personal at 6:56 pm by Joe Blubaugh

When I’m at work I frequently find myself indulging a rich fantasy life, because every day makes me wish I was there less and less. I start imagining opening a bar in the New Mexico desert, catering to hard-bitten bikers who couldn’t give a shit about me, so long as I supply beer. There’s another good one I’ve been thinking of recently: walk through the GE MR bays and push all the emergency evacuation buttons, for a total damage of around $2 million. Oh, it’s tempting.

I don’t know what kind of engineers GE wants in their organization, but I’m not it. I had already decided that I should look strongly into grad school, but this summer’s clinched the ‘no corporate job’ sentiment I was already cultivating.

I don’t know what I’m going to do in my end-of-term presentation, but I don’t think it’s going to be very kind to the company.

07.16.07

Big news I missed

Posted in News, Science! at 9:13 am by Joe Blubaugh

The first royal mummy found since Tutankhamun/Tutankhaten has been identified as Hatshepsut.  Hatshepsut was the most powerful female in Egyptian history, the only Egyptian queen to take the title of Pharaoh.  As such, she wore the ceremonial garb of pharaohs, including the fake beard and the combined crown.  I find it incredibly disingenuous that every article I’ve seen on the subject has contained some variation on this theme:

The mummy was identified as Queen Hatshepsut, who ruled for 20 years in the 15th century B.C., dressing like a man and wearing a fake beard.

I doubt the Egyptian people thought that Hatshepsut was male. Why our news reporters feel compelled to reach back through history and pick on the appearance of the queen of Egypt instead of discussing her reign is beyond me.

This is the HEADLINE of the Yahoo! article:

Mummy Reveals Egyptian Queen Was Fat, Balding and Bearded

Wow.

07.13.07

Friday Random Ten: Shoot Me in the Head Edition

Posted in Personal, Music at 8:00 am by Joe Blubaugh

Last week was one of the laziest of my life, due to the General’s fairly generous 4th of July policy.  This week has been one of the busiest as a form of compensation, I think.

From the iPod:

  1. Royksopp - 40 Year BackCome
  2. Aimee Mann - It’s Not Safe
  3. Gustav Mahler - Symphony No 5, Movement V (SF Symphony)
  4. Hank Williams - Lost Highway
  5. Metric - Handshakes
  6. Radiohead - There There. (The Boney King of Nowhere.)
  7. Stephane Grapelli - The Folks Who Live on the Hill
  8. Lester Young w/ the Oscar Peterson Trio - Just You, Just Me
  9. Jens Lekman - A Man Walks Into a Bar
  10. The Cure - Plainsong

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06.27.07

Posted in Personal at 2:13 pm by Joe Blubaugh

There is a man at work whose name is “Hari Krishna *Lastname*.”

06.22.07

Friday Random Ten: Damn the Man Edition

Posted in Personal, Music at 1:49 pm by Joe Blubaugh

My landlord didn’t even call me today like he promised.  Jeez.

  1. Aimee Mann - “Humpty Dumpty”
  2. We Are Scientists - “Can’t Lose”
  3. Hendrix - “Foxy Lady”
  4. Elliott Smith - “Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands”
  5. Billie Holiday - “You Let Me Down”
  6. Mirah - “Jerusalem”
  7. Devo - “Peekaboo”
  8. The Clash - “Complete Control”
  9. Randy Pease - “Ishmael”
  10. Detholz! - “Rock the Casbah”

06.21.07

Aaagh

Posted in Personal at 10:47 pm by Joe Blubaugh

Because the city of Milwaukee has decided that extension cords are too much of a fire hazard to trust an adult with them in an apartment building, and because my landlord has grievously failed to install more than a single outlet in my entire room, I have to take everything down - refrigerator, microwave, computer, lamp.  I’m thinking that the alarm clock and the fan are the two most currently necessary appliances.  Someone get me an electrician!

06.18.07

My working life:

Posted in Personal, Internet at 5:42 am by Joe Blubaugh

This is it:

TPFD

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