Harry's Ruminations

Few things in this world make me fighting mad.  But then, there's this. http://www.kentucky.com/2012/12/07/2435663/rare-state-takeover-of-school.html This is my hometown.  This where my formative years were spent.   And, because of idiotic graft, nepotism, and malfeasance, this is where my blood relations remain trapped in a cycle of hopelessness compounded by cronyism, intent on keeping power (what pathetic excuse for power it is!) for themselves. Were I Dante, there'd be some Terza Rima regarding Arch Turner and his ilk's future in Hell, but words fail me. WHY ARE THERE NOT RIOTS IN THE STREETS OF JACKSON?! What sort of combination of (Apocryphal, yet apt) "Boiled Frog" syndrome and Stockholm Syndrome exists on the Middle Fork of the Kentucky River that tolerates this?   Yes, I understand a large percentage of people find primary or secondary employment from the school system or the (almost as nepotistic!) District 11 of the Ky DOT.  Everything is political,...

I'm afraid quite a bit.  It's getting on my nerves. I understand I shouldn't  be afraid, both from a Biblical and a rational perspective.  I have been redeemed, and life's never been better.  Nevertheless, that's not really helping me at the moment. I'm going to try and apply something I learned about grief:  You have to grieve.  You can't avoid or deny it, or you will grieve at the most inconvenient time possible.  Likewise, fear seems something you must face and give name to, then you can move past it.  So, here goes. I'm afraid of being alone.  Years of no peers and only cattle to talk to will do that. I'm not afraid of dying, but I am afraid of outliving my wife. I'm afraid of my own carnal nature--my selfishness, laziness, apathy. I'm afraid my ADD will ruin my life, despite my best efforts. I'm afraid of my temper, and what I'm capable of when I'm mad. I'm afraid being abandoned by those I love--wife, kids, f...

http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/ Engineers are hired to create business value, not to program things :  Businesses do things for irrational and political reasons all the time (see below), but in the main they converge on doing things which increase revenue or reduce costs.  Status in well-run businesses generally is awarded to people who successfully take credit for doing one of these things.  (That can, but does not necessarily, entail actually doing them.)  The person who has decided to bring on one more engineer is not doing it because they love having a geek around the room, they are doing it because adding the geek allows them to complete a project (or projects) which will add revenue or decrease costs.  Producing beautiful software is not a goal.  Solving complex technical problems is not a goal.  Writing bug-free code is not a goal.  Using sexy programming languages is not a goal.  Add revenue. ...

"For seven years...." "For SEVEN years...." "FOR SEVEN years, Harold...." Just as a child knows when his full given name comes from his flustered parent's mouth, a husband knows when his wife starts naming the time they've been married, he's in trouble. Well, honey, for SEVEN YEARS tomorrow... ...you've stood by me. ...you've watched me break, and grow, and break again. ...you've watched me struggle, and doubt, and blame, and generally resist any form of responsibility or accountability. ...you've watched addictions and off-kilter brain chemistry steal me away from you. And for SEVEN YEARS, you've remained.  And you've loved me, even when that 'love' is telling me no and getting me help and screaming right back at me louder until I'll listen.   You've born me two beautiful girls, both in the most difficult way possible, sacrificing your body's long-term well-bein...

My last 36 hours. In 4-5pm daily meeting on Monday (that's a #win by itself), the manager in charge ejaculates a "well, shit!" in the middle of the meeting.  Turns out a 7am all-managers meeting was scheduled the next day by the CEO.  "That's never good," he noted.  #obviouslynot Tuesday, 6am, I saw this tweet .  It was real, and it was not spectactular; seventeen hundred worldwide jobs evaporated, including 350 in Lexington.  Gory details here . I came into work to a morgue.  First and second line managers were going around talking to individuals and my "talking to" seemed ambiguously in the future.  I checked on a couple guys from church and both seemed  safe, and my small group was praying for my job.  There was the appropriate level of gallows humor, but it just felt different than times we've done this in the past. By ~11am we had an "all building" meeting scheduled in our main conference room downstairs, lead by my boss. ...

I sat in this very seat a month ago a broken man, a failure. I intended  to send my pastor a quick note asking him to pray for me.  What actually happened was time disappeared, and what'd been pent up for months spewed out of my heart, down my touch-typing to an email that Scott said was too long to even attempt reading on his smartphone. The subject line:  "I'm broken..." And I was.  Uncertainty and doubt clouded me, truth and lies were my constant companions.  I put so much crap on myself that I was paralyzed to do anything about it.  I was angry and entitled, all the time.  That very week, I'd exploded at one of my colleagues in a meeting (mom taught me a great phrase for this: "Tearing your ass"), then done the same things to my kids multiple times.   I just couldn't stand...anybody. Within, I just felt shame, shame that I'd let my past transgressions leak back into my life, that I wasn't strong enough to shy away from them, that ...

"This is definitely the kind of seizure you want your kid to have." What?! She was an ER resident with an icy, direct gaze and a no-frills haircut.  At that moment, I couldn't remember her name because I was busy trying to get my wife to drink something as she held our daughter, who, an hour before, had just had a grand mal  seizure in our downstairs bathtub.  An hour or so later, our other two kids were at a friend's house, my car had a Check Engine Light because I flogged it so hard getting to UK Hospital, and we were both trying to process what happened. * * * Scalett Fever .  Those two words hit me like a ton of bricks the previous day when Whitney came home from Georgetown Pediatrics.  Immediately my mind sprang to two movie scenes:  One from Oh God! You Devil  with George Burns where the mom pleads with God to not let her baby die because its fever was so high.  Another was some dead-people movie where a kid gets thrown into an icy b...