Surreptitious Opinionation

I’ve finally caught up to lj from my weekend dc trip. I’ll have to do something to slim it down over the summer at a minimum. Spare time is not as plentiful as once it was.

So, it turns out I have music from 4 subscriptions who are also friends, or at least friendly acquaintances on my iPod: , , and . Anyone else who wishes to provide me with mp3’s of past work, I’d like to listen to it though perhaps no more than once 😉

Last night was my first time doing gymnastics in a little over a month. I got sweaty fast. My form blew, and I screwed up my front handsprings repeatedly. But, I had fun. I will be _very_ happy to go back to umn’s facilities in the fall. Their spring floor and tumble track had all the spring of a peat bog. It’s in a neighborhood where I don’t feel completely safe. It’s a little out of the way on public transportation. On the other hand, it’s a gymnastics facility. I’ll take what I can get. I really ought to check out whether uic has any open floor type thing going on.

And on wednesday, I came home. It was about 7.5 hours from hitting the hotel to reaching the airport. It was another 4.5 hours before we took off (lightning over O’Hare. I hate O’Hare). Then about 2 hours to home (including the cab ride home).

And it seems likely that I will be in dc again in another week or two. This time for something a little more substantive. Hopefully, we’ll get a place in dupont circle. Or at least somewhere on the red line. Work will be taking us out to rockville. It’s not going to be drug expiration dates, but rather, whether and why the rate of uberdrug creation has fallen off. Still much chatting with the fda. Should be interesting.

I now officially hate traveling for work. I hate hotels that provide wireless for an undisclosed fee (no thanks, think I’ll pass, assholes. If you’re going to rape us on the price, at least have the balls to tell us what it is before we check out.) Television is a nuisance, not a necessity. Internet access is a necessity, not a luxury, and one not covered by the agency shipping me.

I hate government agencies with assigned ‘buddies’, and one size ‘fits all’ (except me) planning processes. I hate it when “buddies will take you out to lunch” at places you don’t want to go, where you learn nothing new about the agency you’re working for, and you have to pay for the food you’re being “take[n] out” for (albeit, covered by a generous per diem). I hate flaky won’t-be sublessors who waste my and ‘s time.

I hate having to be the know-it-all loudmouth in order to move the training program along, because someone else’s mental processes are frozen, and I’m the only one with the balls to be a dick, and point out the obvious while the instructor is in a kinder, genter, smily automaton loop, asking the same question with minimal rephrasings.

I hate puritans legislating a friend’s job out of existence. I hate the defunding of transit.

Bleh!

Well, adaptations are being made.

It’s actually turning out really well. It is sucking away my time like nobody’s business. I was given an excel assignment which could be done the easy but tedious way. I took it as a challenge to automate. I used visual basic for the first time. It is now far less tedious. I suspect I’ll also be finished with it faster than they expected. *pat self on back* But my skeptical wariness of the whole situation is fading. No, I don’t like the cube farm aspect, but it’s tolerable. It helps that the cube farm here involves smaller, more separated clusters, rather than the giant open prairie at motorola. It also helps that I’m not working and living in suburban hell. And, as much as I can tell from a day and a half of work distinctly unlike most of the work I’ll be doing, the works not too bad. My coworkers are reasonable and strike me as unlikely to vote for someone “because the other guy sounds boring.”

But it’s definitely not just a different job situation. I’ve changed significantly in the past 4 years. A little older, a little wiser, a little more worn. I’m more patient and less allergic to small talk. *shrug*

My poverty is on its way towards alleviation. Yay for mom mailing a check. Yay for living in a town where the mail gets to quickly. Yay for an atm that takes deposits for my bank within easy walking distance. Also, I have cash. Albeit, the cash is intended to cover my food and transportation monday, tuesday, and wednesday. Well, okay.

Oh yeah. I’m at le chateau d’ in DC for training that starts on monday. I have plans to check out the native american museum with my sister & brother-in-law tomorrow, visit pangea and size myself for vegan dress shoes that I’ll probably have to mail order. I think the training largely relates to writing standards at the gao, and an opportunity to meet my fellow interns as well as some headquarters staff.

ETA: It’s also the first time in a looong time that I’ve shaved for 4 consecutive days.

Well, more like tuesday, but, whatever. It turns out that one of my two fellow interns was my stats partner 1st semester. Neither one of us knew until we got in on Tuesday. =)

When my free month of WoW runs out, I almost certainly won’t have the money to pay for it. Even if I went with a one month renewal. Shit. Well, there’s a cure for mmorpg addiction. Jesus I’m a financial moron.

Would someone please put me up in dc (or the nearby area) on saturday and/or sunday evening? I ask no more than indoor floor space reachable by public transit (though I admit I’d certainly appreciate more ;).

Inspired by comments in an old entry by a new subscription

Not all private organizations are solely profit motivated. Some of the worst modern american for profit corporations fit your bill, but that’s hardly the be all and end all of private organizations. The ACLU, food not bombs, EFF, etc, are all private organizations.

Furthermore, alot of private businesses do not have a corporate motto of ‘damn compassion, profit or death.’ Particularly small businesses, family businesses, whatever. Sometimes people set up businesses to do what they love doing. I suspect a minority of corporations are the poluting, unsafe child labor using, political boundary rearranging bastards we all love to hate.

Government organizations are not inherently less efficient than market organizations. Particularly not when you consider the risks of monopolistic competition, barriers to entry, and externalities and every other market failure. The market being defined and its rules being enforced by the government, the government is a great source of efficiency.

This view of “Private organizations are greedy, evil bastards, but ruthlessly good at what they do, while public organizations are bureaucratic and inefficient, well-intentioned, but ineffective, money hemmoraging behemoths,” is simplification well beyond the point of deception.

Every time you commute to work, every time you log on and read your journal, every time you pay for anything, and every time you walk or drive safely along the city streets without fear of mugging or murder, think of the government, and tell me how useless it is.