Stupid CareerBuilder

So having finally figured out a correct password to create an account with CareerBuilder, my resume is now featured predominately on yet another job board. This, of course, means that I'm now bombarded with even more emails about fake jobs. Sadly, due to certain circumstances, I always have to read through each and everyone of them to make sure they are scams, because, well, you never know and I have to make money somehow.

Just a note-- if you are pulling off some scam by saying you're from a large-ish corporation or company, sending it from a gmail or msn account is probably a give-away that you're not legit.

There is Unrest in the Forest, there is Trouble With the Trees

In an effort to close the huge budget deficit facing the state of California, Governor Schwarzenegger has announced a plan to sell off 220 state parks. This raises the question of how the hell do you sell a state park, who the hell would buy it, and what the hell would they do with it? Since the giant fear is that they'll sell the land to some real estate developer who'll then cut down the trees to build more strip malls, here are some ideas of who to sell it to so they can remain parks:

-Corporations. The easy and obvious answer as they can buy the naming rights for the various parks and use the parks for advertising, like Oracle Presents Humboldt State Park or Bank of America Mountain.

-Disneyland. They'll cut down all the parks, of course, but then they'll go ahead and build amazing replicas of the parks with animatronic animals that sing and forest-themed rides, like the John Muir Forest Adventure or the Sierra SUV Rollercoaster.

-Donald Trump. He has just enough of an ego to buy a park or two just so he could name it after himself. Yeah, it'll probably involve some development but how could he not jump at a chance to have his name associated with some of the most beautiful places in the world, like Lake Tahoe's Donald Trump Bay or Trump Redwoods State Park? It’s not easy having a park named after yourself, after all, as it usually involves being some sort of environmentalist and who wants to be that?

-Google: They have the money and I'm sure the genius’s there will be able to figure out something nifty to do with it. Besides, it'll make them that much closer to world domination.

-China: They’ll just eventually own it anyways

-Local Native Tribe: Who wouldn’t want to go to a casino located in a beautiful state park?

-Offer the trees shares in the national park so they could be gain ownership of the parks and be the very first tree-owned forest.

(reposted from here)

Summer Time Blues

I just sat and watched an entire hour travel special about the best Waterslide parks in the country which made me think of one thing which led me to this:



I'm trying to do the same thing with Harlan but so far it's not working

I'm a Wondering

I keep on seeing the same editorial job posted on Monster.com and it makes me wonder about it. I've actually even written about the job because I could only apply to it through Monster.com but Monster.com made it impossible for me to apply to it.

Anyways, since they keep on posting the job I wonder if I should just keep on sending in my resume, or at least different versions of it. Since obviously the resume I sent earlier didn't work, if I spruce it up or maybe send another version (like a chronological resume as opposed to skill set based resume) would anybody notice? My guess is HR goes through so many resumes they probably don't remember one from the other so why not? Since they're being so particular about whom they want to hire (seriously, how hard is it to find somebody to do an editing job considering the Chronicle laid off half their staff and there's probably several people out there looking for work who at one point of their lives was editing foreign reports from Pakistan) if I keep on sending out slightly different versions of resumes, maybe I can finally send one that will work?

Brangelinaston

Not that I read a lot of celebrity tabloids (really, I don't) but since I am the House Husband and do all the shopping, I can't but not see all the covers for the tabloids. Also, for whatever reason, US Weekly has decided to up their circulation numbers by sending copies of the magazine to people who didn't want to subscribe to them and so we now get US Weekly. And for those saying "a-ha," he does read them! the truth is that I've been ordered by a Higher Powers to throw them instantly away.

The interesting thing to me about the tabloids is that it seems like every week their is at least one story involving Brad/Angelina and/or Jennifer Aniston. Either Brand & Angelina are breaking up or she's sick or he's still pining over Jen or Jen is pining over Brad or she killed their pet rabbit. It actually makes me feel a tad sorry for them in that every week there's some story detailing something going on in their life. How would you feel if every time you go to the store, you see some tabloid with you on their cover with either some sort of made up tale or real tale? Like "Hooray For Anything Wears Pajamas All Day" or "Girl Who Bailed on Going to the Prom with Hooray for Anything Regrets Decision" or "Hooray for Anything's secret Affair with Jennifer Aniston." Okay, like there's any chance Brad, Jen, or Angelina actually go to a super market, but work with me here.

The amazing thing about it is that they have, for all intents and purposes, become sort of iconic romantic triangle for the ages and will forever be talked about and discussed. Like Arthur, Guenivere and Lancelot. Or Henry VIII, Catherine of Aragorn, Anne Bolyen, or Buffy Spike/Angel. They're intertwined now and will be forever to the point that when one of the three dies, the other two will be mentioned within the first couple of sentences in their obituary. Angelina Jolie could personally adopt every African orphan but she'll probably be known more for being the one who stole Brad from Jen.

But to me, the most interesting thing about all this is how the tabloids manage to churn out one story after another about the three of them. I can only imagine the editorial meetings in which all the editors and writers sit around trying to come up with yet another fresh angle on something for which no new angle exists. I'd imagine that at this point, working for US Weekly about the three of them is pretty much like how you'd imagine the writers at the Weekly World News try and come up with latest stories about Bat Boy.

Gackk!!!!!!!!!

I appreciate the fact that web sites are cracking down on security by making it so people have to come up with increasingly complicated passwords to sign up for a site, but is it really necessary for JobBuilder.com to constantly forbid me to sign up for the site because my assortment of passwords is deemed not secure enough for the site? It is, after all, merely a site that one posts resumes on, not one that people use to move slush funds through Cayman Island banks.

When Amazing Doesn't Happen

I'm kind of enjoying the fact that the NBA finals is looking more and more like it won't be a Kobe/LeBron matchup but a Magic/Nuggets final. The NBA's great strength and it's great weakness is that it's star driven. We don't really root for teams as much as we root for players, most of whom we refer to in first person and treat as one would any celebrity. This is good for the NBA because the stars become mega-stars and because it adds a sort of soap-opera quality to it as people examine and analyze each stars every move and every game as if they're characters in a book. Does Kobe still hate his teammates? Is this start of the LeBron ascendancy and if he loses, will this mean that he's not as good as Jordan and will it mean that he'll move to New York or anywhere that isn't Cleveland? Is Dwight Howard too nice and is his bruising style in the playoffs a reaction to all the criticism? All of this is great fun and it's why the NBA often has the best storylines, but it leaves out the main fact that sports essentially isn't about one player but a team as it's not the player that wins but the team that does.

Case in point, what we're seeing now. Kobe and LeBron get all the attention because they're the best players in the league but it's become apparent that they're not on the best teams in the league. Oops. Now you would hope that at the end, you'd get a finals between the two best teams (that's what everyone says they want) but what everyone really wants is to see the two best stars. Which is fine. But if it's really what the NBA wants, then maybe they should just forgo the whole basketball part of the season and just have LeBron and Kobe play H-O-R-S-E for the finals. If nobody watches a Magic/Nuggets series, then the NBA has nobody to blame but themselves.

And just for the heck of it, it's the same problem that baseball has in that everyone has decided that the Yankees and the Red Sox are the only two teams that matter so when the playoffs come and neither team is that involved, nobody cares.

You know what they say about cities with small airports....

One more story about 'Tana...

If anyone's done a lot flying, they'd know that it's the small airports out of small cities that have the worst security. Not worst as in totally lapse but worst as in ridiculously absurd. So far, I've never had anything happen to me while going through security in SFO, Oakland, Dulles, Washington, Philly, Baltimore or Newark but have had trouble going through Reno, Billings, and now, Great Falls.

Great Falls is a tiny airport, so tiny that there's no concession stands after security and since you can't actually bring any sort of liquid with you past security, the only way to get something to drink before the flight is to buy something from a vending machine.

The day Harlan and I flew home, there was one flight departing at that time, a flight consisting of 14 people, two of which were yours truly and yours truly's SO. This, of course, meant getting the full force of the Department of Homeland Security Law.

Like most airports, you have to show your ID and boarding pass the moment you get in line. You then have to show it again as you are about to make your way through security. In Great Falls, they still do that despite the fact the two people checking security stand not more than ten feet away from each other. Or that with nobody else in line, there'd be no way I could possibly not be who made it through line unless I somehow managed to change into a cleverly disguised member of Al Queda in the few seconds the security guy yawned.


Then, my backpack was suddenly deemed worthy of extra investigating through the x-ray machine despite the fact there was nothing in there that had pretty much changed since I took off from SFO. Not that they didn't really know that, but I'm not sure what sort of possibly evil contraptions they'd discover in a backup consisting of several books, magazines, and an iPod. But I really have nothing to complain about considering Harlan was brought over to the Security table and had her purse taken apart several times by some gruff fat lady with a bad haircut. She apparently had some issues with the few items Harlan put in her purse but was nice not to berate her for not putting them in a plastic baggie but just put them in a plastic bag. Then to make sure there was nothing else of danger in there, she went through her purse again, something I think might have been caused by the growing look of anger and annoyance emanating from Harlan's face. She looked so pissed off by the whole episode I was pretty sure she would be dragged away and given a full cavity search just to show her who the boss was.

Luckily, the nice angry security lady let Harlan through and then quickly joined the other security folks in what was probably a highly enlightening discussion of the upcoming hunting season.

Now Here's Something You Don't See Every Day

Had two, count them two! phone interviews today. When it rains, it drizzles I guess. Does this mean things are getting better, that dawn is slowly rising, or is it some weird sort of astral anamoly that the Mayans listed somewhere on their calendar?

I Can't Quit Cable

In an effort to cut costs to ride out the Great whatever it is we're going through, I keep on focusing on our cable bill as a way to save money. After all, we have two dvrs, all the movie channels, HiDef channels, and a LAN line as part of our package and there's gotta be some way there to cut costs. Plus, I feel guilty for not sacrificing more because as I'm unemployed and as there's suffering everywhere, I feel like I should be suffering much more than I already am and getting rid of HBO is one way of suffering. The thing is, though, Comcast won't let me quit.

First I called to see what would happen if I got rid of our LAN line as we don't use it at all- I don't even know what the number is. But to do that, we'd have to give up our special "Bundle Package" and getting rid of it would somehow increase our bill. Then they upped our bill because our original Comcast deal expired and our bill got raised about $50 but when I called to inquire as to how to cut costs, they put me in touch with some sales guy who magically "discovered" another package deal and offered us that and by "discover" I mean pull a package out of his ass to make me happy. Somehow this package deal also saved us money.

Today I called to cancel all of our movie channels because we don't actually watch any movies on cable and any show on the channels we like watching, like "True Blood" or "Weeds", we can either download our watch online. Except that didn't work either as it would save us only about $30 and that comes out to about $15 each and what's $15 in the grand scheme of things? Even getting rid of the 2nd DVR (we have another one for our second bedroom) would only save us $15 and if we got rid of both, we'd save only about $25 each at the most. Again, what's $25 in the grand scheme of things?

In other words, as of this moment, we still have two dvrs, every movie channel, the hi-def channels, and a LAN line. We could get rid of cable or go with the bare bones, 80 channels only package but, Jesus, do we have to suffer that much?

Big Sky II

There's a Starbucks in a strip mall near where Harlan's family lives which includes a drive-thru window. We went one afternoon and got in line behind some gi-normous pickup truck and quickly noticed that while the truck was parked at the entrance, it was just sitting there, not moving, and there was a huge gap in the line between the truck and the person picking up their order. After a minute or so, we looked around and noticed that the dude who owned the truck was standing outside, yakking away to one of his friends who was sitting outside at some tables outside. This despite the fact he was blocking the way into the drive thru. Or could have easily just parked right next to the guy and gotten out to talk to him that way.

Seeing this, we maneuvered around the pickup truck, something that wasn't easy owing to it's size, and made our order, giving the guy a little stink eye as we passed him. He of course, saw our stankeye and gave us the look that he could care less. When we drove away, we saw about three cars in line, all behind the truck and all trying to figure out what exactly was going on.

So I'm reading a story in last week's New Yorker about how Rwanda is doing after last decade's civil war and genocidal rampage. In the story, the writer mentions that Rwanda is improving quickly considering how dire and awful things were years ago. In a laundry list of things Rwanda has now that they didn't have back then, the author mentions that Rwanda has nationalized health care.

I repeat: RWANDA HAS NATIONALIZED HEALTH CARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unlike, say, us.

Got to Know When to Fold Them

In another thing right out of the Red State playbook, Montana has no sales tax and takes pride in their ability to keep taxes low. So faced with budget shortfalls and an inability to pay for a lot of services, the state did what any anti-tax, freedom loving state would do-- legalize gambling. There's Keno tables and video poker machines everywhere-- in restaurants, in bars, in coffee shops, in gas stations. Even worse, there's big signs saying "Casino" everywhere. You can't go more than a block on one of the main drags without at least four or five signs for a casino.

Now, part of me, the libertarian side, says if people want to go to casinos and gamble, go nuts. I don't care. Like most libertarian ideas, though, the idea is better in concept. I don't, for instance, begrudge Native American's rights to build casinos on their tribal lands, Lord knows they need any money they can get, but there's something sad and desperate about it. Which, pretty much sums up their existence anyways.

But here in Great Falls, it's different. The city is more working class/poor than middle class and except for a few nice neighborhoods and the old portion of the town, just one long series of chain stores and malls all off of main drags when it's not a series of dirt roads into RV parks. Here, the casinos are not some exciting, thrilling place to be, but just one more thing that makes the area ugly, not just ugly in aesthetics, but ugly to the soul. Not, "soul" in a religious sense, but "soul" as in the part of your mind/body that soars when listening to good music or good food or what have you. The casinos blend in with all of the pawn shops, quick loan stores, and Check N' Go stores into one stew of desperation. It's as if society and the government long since stopped caring about the people here, the people here did too.

Few things about Montana

-Over the weekend, the Governor announced that the American flag was to be lowered all day in honor of a serviceman from Montana was killed. Not in Iraq but at some training facility in North Carolina where he died of a heart attack while in training. Sad, I know, but is that worth a memorial service? Will his name be put on the War Memorial List? It's kind of like that episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" where one of Larry's friend kept on getting sympathy from people because he had a friend who died on 9/11 only for it to turn out to be that he died while in New York on 9/11 but for reasons totally not having to do with 9/11.

-I've been to two bars that have one tv on sports, the other on Fox News. Okay, welcome to a "Red State" although Montana is currently purple and has a Democratic Governor and two Democratic Senators. The thing is, though, is how much can you get out of watching Fox News in a bar if the sound is turned off?

Taco, Taco, Taco

In a hunt for quick and cheap dinner last night, we went to a chain called "Taco John's," a place that bills itself as "Authentic West Mex." It's about as authentic as a Mexican place can be that makes a burrito that features what is essentially tater tots. I, of course, got myself the Taco Bravo which was a hard-shell taco wrapped in a soft-shell taco. Because, hell yeah I'm going to eat a hard-shell taco wrapped in a soft shell taco. It wasn't half-bad if you consider Taco Bell not half-bad.

We were served by some tattooed dude named Odell. Odell spoke very slowly, wore his cap sideways, and was covered in tattoos. Harlan noticed that Odell had tattoos on his knuckles too-- on one hand was the word "Less" and the other one "More." When our order was finished, Odell asked for our names so he could call us when the order was ready, this despite the fact we were the only people in the place. Later on, we had to change our order and was served by one of Odell's coworkers, a pimply-faced, cheerful 18 year old or so girl who was very visibly pregnant.

I'm in Great Falls Montana now and to get here, we had a stop-over in Salt Lake City. I was kind of excited being there because between watching "Big Love" and rereading "Under the Banner of Heaven" recently, I've been kinda into Mormonism lately. Mainly because it's a pretty weird little religion made up of some really weird people. Being in Salt Lake City, well, the airport at least, had a feel of being in some unique, foreign land-- "oh, look! Mormons!"

This made me really curious to check things out and see what kinds of things I could find in the airport that would reflect it's presence in Mormonville. This, of course, meant airport bar hopping to see if one could even find a bar, but I couldn't necessarily determine it due to the fact it was 8 in the morning and whatever bar type thingys there were weren't open. I don't know what I was expecting to see, actually, in that an airport is an airport is an airport, no matter where you are, but it wasn't until we hit the bookstore that we saw some things that weren't typical of your typical airport.

There were no nudie magazines, to be found, which isn't that unusual, but the magazines that featured partially clad women (Cosmo, GQ) all had some sort of black paper put over it lest any wholesome Mormon boy see cleavage. There was also-- and this part was pretty cool-- an entire Mormon section of books. There we found the actual Book of Mormon (a quick scan through determined that it was not the highest quality of literature, but what would you expect from something supposedly written by some dude looking into a hat) as well as testaments written by lesser Mormon lights. There was also a whole series of inspirational Mormon novels, usually featuring stalwart Mormon frontiersmen and frontiersmen trying to make their way through America while holding onto their faith. I'm pretty sure none of those brave Mormon lads in the books had more than one Mormon lass to which he was passionately devout with ("As Jedediah made his way through the plains of a great nation, will he reunite with his true love Mary, and will his Second Wife Lizbeth be able to fight off attacks by noble Indians and keep her and his 13 year old child-bride survive?") And speaking of which, another book that was there contained the love letters that Joseph Smith wrote to his wife. I'm also pretty sure none of those letters mentioned his marriage to another wife. Or another one after that. Or another one after that. In fact, I'm pretty sure it will probably skip over any mention of a "divine revelation" that allows him to marry wives #2, 3, 4, 15, 16, or even 23. There was also a devotional book to Mormon women written by the 120 year old Prophet of the Church. Watch out Oprah!

The last book we found, the one I found most interesting, was a coffee table book of photos of ancient Mayan temples throughout Mexico and Central America. The pictures were indeed beautiful and of high-quality, but what were they doing in the Mormon section, you might ask? Because each temple shown was scenes of where the Nephites hung out with Meso-American tribes and you can get a glimpse of what life was like back then. Kind of like how the Roman Coliseum ruins gives us a glimpse into life in the Roman Empire except completely and totally not true. Or at least according to anthropology and what does anthropology know?

Oh, and yes, you could buy "Under the Banner of Heaven" in the airport which surprised me. Somehow, I don't think they sell "the Davinci Code" at the Vatican.