This article in yesterday’s Chronicle talks about how bad it is in one of the high schools I tried to teach at back in 1997. Looks like it hasn’t improved at all. It also looks like they don’t really know what the answer is to improve a place like that. Sure, many of the parents can move to better schools, but many of the families that might need it most (i.e. little or no income, substance abuse, domestic violence, etc.) don’t have the means or the desire to do so. So it’s very sad.

That said, it kind of makes me feel better that a lot of people see what a bad situation that was. The fact that I had to leave there then doesn’t mean that I can’t be a good teacher. It didn’t kill me, so it must have made me stronger, right?

One of the things I need to do before leaving is, of course, get rid of the stuff I don’t need to take with me or save. I’ve just started to take an inventory of what I need to get rid of, and I’m still kind of amazed at all of the stuff that I’ve accumulated over the last few years. I have a little tiny apartment that, at first glance, doesn’t appear to be that full. But just starting to sell my unneeded but still useful - to others - things on ebay is very telling. I like to think of myself as someone who tries to limit his purchases only to essentials, but I’ve already found a lot of valuable extras. For example, the wireless headphones I couldn’t live without a couple of years ago are just gathering dust in a drawer, fully functional and desirable on ebay, probably in a couple of weeks. This feels pretty good, actually. Even though I’m unemployed and enjoying a life of leisure, I can have a net positive income for another month or so.

I am quite aware of the irony, by the way, of the fact that I’m trying to be like a Mr. Anti-Consumerism, and yet I’m moving to the most hyper-consumerist society in the world. Call me a hypocrite, if you like. I can take it.

This weekend, a few friends and I took a camping trip to the back country in a fantastic state park here in Northern California. The weather was perfect, as was the company and scenery. All in all, we hiked about 24 miles over three days.

It’s probably the most physically demanding thing I’ve done in a long time. Although during the steep hot uphills I was hating life and wondering why I would bother to inflict such a punishment on myself, it was certainly well worth it. For one thing, I actually woke up at 7am this morning! The positive effects of this trip will be lasting.

Yesterday I saw the last part of the UEFA cup final and I was reminded what I like and don’t like about the various sports entertainment industries. Here was one of the most important final games in the season (I’m guessing, from the reaction to the victory in Liverpool) that was tied up at the end of regulation. Now this should make it exciting, right? Here are two teams that have been putting forth all their effort in ball control and offense and defense and headers or whatever the hell it is they do in soccer. So, now that they’re at the end of regulation (and I guess, some number of periods of overtime), how do they decide the outcome of the best team in Europe, or whatever it’s supposed to be? A shootout. As you know, each team alternates in trying a free kick - one person against the goalie, up to five chances. Winning a shootout, though, has almost nothing to do with football skills, as it is pure chance. Basically, the goalie guesses right or left, and if he’s right he’ll stop it, if not, it goes in. They might as well just flip a coin five times. It would really bother me if I was on a team that played its heart out all year, excelling at all the skills of my game and getting to the penultimate game, only to have the championship decided by some completely different (and in this case, random) skillset.

Relatedly, I don’t like the way college football does overtime - you don’t play the rest of the game starting out at the opponent’s 25 yard line, why change the rules in overtime? Also, basketball games that get somewhat close at the end also change the way the games, although it’s not so formal - it becomes a game of fouling and free throws instead of basketball skills. (I think basketball should change so that in the last minute of play, on any foul the team who gets fouled should keep the ball. Enough of this foul to stop the clock nonsense).

So the sports that do it right: baseball, NFL football, and IMHO the sport that does it best: playoff NHL hockey. So why should anybody care about this? They don’t, I just felt like writing this. That’s what these weblog things are for.

The torture issue bothers me more than anything else (and there are many worthy issues) about the Rove, er, Bush administration. And you know what, I knew this kind of thing was going to happen soon after September 11, because I certainly saw seeds of it when I was in the Navy:

• Portraying the enemy as less than human, or at least less worthy than ‘us’, was pretty commonplace. Only occasionally did you hear overt epithets like ‘raghead’ or ‘sand n****r’. But the sentiment that the other side deserved to be killed because they’re already inherently evil was, I felt, very evident almost every day.
• During our officer training, one of the things that we were taught was that when you were in charge of a group of people, you were responsible for everything that your subordinates did, whether or not you were watching over them or were cognizant of what you were doing at the time. In short, the captain is supposed to be responsible for the actions of everyone on the ship. Once I got to the fleet, however, I realized that politics plays a much bigger role in the military than any code of honor. For example, the same Commander held the position of navigator on our ship during both a collision and a very public accidental disruption of the America’s Cup sailboat race. According to what we were taught, it should have been a no-brainer to can the navigator when that kind of stuff happens. Of course, he kept his job with an almost meaningless letter of reprimand. (I admit, he was a very popular guy that a lot of people liked, but that was certainly no reason to excuse him). No, the important thing in the military is that someone has to be blamed. And it’s much easier to blame the little guys because they have no power or influence. Thus the push to punish these enlisted “bad apples” like Lynndie England et al. How can anyone believe that personnel much higher up in the system weren’t also responsible for that, especially when we’ve finally seen the scope that this has taken? It really boggles my mind and angers me.

It’s symptomatic of what has been bothering me about the direction this country has been going. Basically, we’re turning into a nation of frat boys. A bunch of bullies who can’t go beyond “We Rule” and “You Suck”. They won’t acknowledge that every person deserves a minimum level of respect.

Why did I quit my job? Here are some reasons:

• I was no longer enjoying coming to work. It used to be a place where I couldn’t wait to go every morning, because I knew I would see a lot of friends and do some interesting work at the same time. The work was no longer interesting, because instead of coding, I was on conference calls all of the time. When I wasn’t doing that, I was filling out forms. I must say, I did get pretty good at filling out forms, though. Also, by the end, hardly any of my good friends were left there.
• More than anything else in the world, I hate being called after hours or on the weekend for a work problem. And being on call meant exactly that. Basically, that was exactly like being in the Navy. And it’s also something I promised myself I would never have to do again
• I believe it’s unfair to both myself and the company to continue in a position that I just don’t care about anymore
• In this day and age, five years is too long to spend at one company.

Yes, in the process of finding a place to host my stuff after I leave here, I decided to upgrade to a new weblog engine, b2evolution. This thing seems to have a lot of nice features and was easy to install and use.

A long time ago I had a webpage called kingofusa.com. Later, after I moved to San Francisco, I started greasepig.com, mostly for hosting a bunch of photos, but also for doing a review page about a restaurant. Then, when I quit my job at Travelocity and decided to move to Japan, I started this one. If you have any comments or questions, I can be reached at greasepig@gmail.com