Jose Anes Weblog

Day in and day out, I see messages on Twitter and Facebook that wish the Work-Week was over, Thank God It is Friday (TGIF) or show disgust at the start of another Work-Week. It almost feels as if people wanted time to go very fast just so that Friday will be here and they could enjoy their rest and Week-End activities without having to worry about their Week-Day activities.

The Cronus Greek Titan that ate his children is a great representation of what time is. Every second that goes by is gone forever. Every second I do not enjoy is a second I will not enjoy ever again. The Work-Week is a time period to be enjoyed, just as the Week-End is a period to be enjoyed. Work, commuting, sleeping, cooking dinner, all of the daily routine of the Work-Week; we have to find ways to make them be enjoyable situations or not do them at all, if we want to be happy. It may be difficult to win against Cronus, but I will make sure that I enjoy life the most I can while I battle him.

I guess I feel lucky that most of the days I work, even when I end up the day terribly tired, I feel rewarded in so many ways: intellectually, sense of growth, accomplishment, fun and some money to buy myself some luxury items and a few more tools to enjoy my work even more. I do computer programming. I did it when I was a high school kid just for fun, just because it was something I found interesting. I quitted a steady job to do this kind of work again, just for fun. Just don’t tell the people who contract me or they wouldn’t pay me.

I feel pity for those that can’t enjoy the Work-Week, for something must be wrong on their lives. How could someone dislike 71% of their life (5 out of 7 days). Over two thirds of life enduring a pain that requires thanking God that it ended just to endure it again a few days later. I can’t imagine that to be a healthy situation.

In a socialist country like the one we live, I do not know why anyone on their right mind will endure 71% of their living days in such a pain. Pain, be it emotional or physical, is an indication that an activity should be discontinued or that something must be fixed. If a particular kind of work causes pain, then it should be discontinued.

Most of us go to work to get money that will give us everything above the basic necessities. The state will always be there to cover the basic needs, so we can only reason that we work for luxuries and other items that are not needed for survival. Are those luxuries really worth it? Is living on a 3000 square feet house and having a new car worth all of the suffering that makes people Thank God It is Friday? Is that luxury dinner with friends worth so much you have to work a few days to pay it off?

This is one of the situations where the old adage may apply: finding something that you would be willing to do for free, and then making it a career rather than trying to fit in a career.

I am not a fan of Reality TV Shows. When I watch them I get the feeling someone wants me to outsource my life to them. I get the feeling that we can feel like we are getting the emotions or satisfactions of surviving a desert island or dropping 40 pounds without having to endure the mosquitoes or the treadmill. It just doesn’t feel right: part of me feels guilty of being on the couch while I could be doing just the same thing, and the other part feels like ‘anything worth doing is worth doing right’. Watching them makes me feel like I have outsourced all of the effort of planning and preparation, not to mention the activity and the persistence of doing it, without having to go through all that trouble, and in the end I got the ’same’ emotion. Except for one thing: I know I didn’t got the same emotion, just enough emotion to satisfy me for the night.

Nothing wrong with outsourcing either. I get a lot of outsourced work and I do it very well. I also outsource many things that I really like to do, but decide to outsource: like lawn mowing – and my lawn mowing company may do it better than when I do it. Certainly the reality TVs have people who do things right. I almost feel impressed by the producers, who have been able to find a way to captivate so many people in front of the tube without using actors or very detailed scripts: brilliant. They get it even easier than newscasters, and a bigger audience as well.

Then I realize that Facebook creator is even smarter! It is a way of outsourcing life without even incurring in TV broadcasting costs or traveling to a desert island. You get to enjoy emotions that you would otherwise need to enjoy in contact with others from the comfort of your desk (and my workstation chair is more comfortable than my couch, I must say). You can flip through the pages of a friend’s photo album, re-live his/her adventures, indulge in lively conversations in a way that we all know doesn’t even start to resemble flipping through the album while having coffee with your friend, much less having participated of the same activity (with your friend, or a different set of friends). When using Facebook we might get the feeling we have done that friendly sharing — not the same as if it was in person, but just enough to satisfy yourself for a day. I feel like I have just outsourced something that is ought to be done by yourself, in person. Nothing wrong with that, but I start to get the feeling again that ‘anything worth doing is worth doing right’… just that there isn’t enough time to share all of that experiences with 300 Facebook friends.

And nothing wrong with Facebook. It is a great social networking tool. It helps keep in touch with friends you seldom keep in touch, and find the ones you have lost contact with. It also helps keep yourself aware of their life changes and activities. It is great. It is just that for a moment, it can feel like you are outsourcing your life.

It seems Washington D.C. is on its way to democratic representation on the House of Representatives. Representation with voting rights, not just with a “voice and no vote” Delegate like Puerto Rico, Guam, Virgin Islands and American Samoa. This is D.C. Vote’s dreams come true.  Also the Democratic party’s dream come true, as many people know Washington D.C. residents lean left.

In the spirit of Democracy it makes a lot of sense.  Law abiding, tax-paying people should be represented (No Taxation Without Representation), especially if they are Citizens of the country.  There have been many reasons not to give Washington D.C., one of them to make it a neutral place.  However, when an ammendment to the constitution was proposed in 1978, it wasn’t ratified by the states.

Once D.C. gains voting rights, the question of why Puerto Rico (or other territories/commonwhealths) doesn’t have voting rights?  The No Taxation Without Representation precedent could be called again: but in principle only.  Lets accept the fact that many residents of both Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico are below the threshold when people actually pay Federal Taxes.  I would bet that if Puerto Rico residents got Federal Income Tax imposed upon them, many would celebrate, as they will then receive earned income credit, child credit, and other welfare schemes masked as welfare.  This kind of reasoning would cancel the Taxation reasoning an leave the Citizenship issue alone.

I am sure the D.C. precendent will be used by some hot-shot laywer back in the island to demand voting rights.  At a minimum they will be heard on Congress again and provide a fun spectacle.  But what if the argument stands?  In the land of What-If, everything is possible, so bear with me for a moment and think about it.   The issue stalemate on the issue of Statehood vs. Independence vs. Territory/Commonwhealth would gain an extra variable:  voting representation without Statehood.  Something in-between and non-comittal.  Just an interesting thought.

For the record: Accepting D.C. as a voting member of the House will not benefit me in the very least.  Out of convenience I must oppose it – but on the current monopoly of power we have on Government,there is little I can do about it but ponder about the implications.

Boston is a unique city. Full of charm. It is not that big, with less than a million residents within its city borders, and no more than a handful million of residents within commuting distance. It has everything you may want to find, without the big city feeling of New York. You get the arts, entertainment, dining and wining, shopping, business, jobs, and everything in between. Some of the most famous colleges and universities are here, and most of those highly educated, elevated IQ people stay in the area. All in all is one of the smartest, highest-earning, best dressed, and most importantly most polite cities in America.
Yet, there is one thing that I can’t comprehend: why Bostonians are so aggressive on the road, especially at parking their cars: or Paak the caaah like they call it in their Boston accent.
Today I was about to Paak my Caaah in one of Boston’s streets, just in front of the establishment I was about to patronize. A young, white, well dressed lady (as in expensive) just got out of the establishment, entered her brand new Audi. I saw an opportunity to grab this coveted parking spot. Then, without any respect for her parking-mate she backs up into the car parked right behind her and BAM!! She pushed the car behind her just enough to make some space, turn her wheels and get out of there. There was even plenty of space to make an elegant exit had she tried to move back and forth a few times, which can suggest that maybe she did it out of laziness or lack of respect of other’s property.
If this was the first time I noticed this behavior, I would have thought it was a mistake – maybe she didn’t noticed – I would have thought. But the truth is I have seen this animal-like behavior very often in Boston; way too often. People show no respect for other’s cars. They do bump into each other to make space to Paak their own Caaahs. You would not expect such behavior from an otherwise highly civilized elite group of Bostonia dwellers the same way you would not expect civilized people to sit on other people’s cars hoods or trunks. You would expect people to avoid these kinds of “intentional accidents” that in my opinion are intentional acts of vandalism. I once asked a Boston living friend what she thought about this city phenomena and she told me that was the reason they put bumpers into cars, so that they can bump each other (completely ignoring the fact that my car doesn’t have any visible bumpers and that scratching front or rear could set me back $400 USD).
Needless to say, I just abandoned that prime parking spot and drove around the city (adding about half an hour) to find a safe parking spot in an almost empty residential street that will surely suffer the same obscene behavior from its residents when they return from work tonight. I hope to be out of here by then. Of course, that also required interpreting and decoding the multiple parking and no parking signs that created a set of rules that almost no-one could comprehend – hopefully they do not tow it from there.
I am not sure why these people behave like this. On the road, and especially at the parking spot they are just the opposite of what they appear to be when you talk to them. Behind the wheel, they become savages. I wish I could understand them some day. Until then, I guess I will have to keep being very careful with my parking spots.

There is something that both Democrats and Catholics need: poorness. The former need people economically poor and the later needs them to be poor of soul: sinners.

I used to be a diehard Catholic. I still defend Catholic faith, even when I do not profess it. But I got tired of being a sinner. No matter how hard I tried, I was always a sinner. I had to go to Church every weekend and it all started with Confession: I had to make a recollection of sins during the last week and confess to the priest. In retrospective, I never did anything worthy of telling anyone, but nonetheless I had to try to find sins so that I could be a sinner worthy of Confession, penitence, and reconciliation. (I think it got to the point where I was feeling ashamed of not being sinner enough to be worthy of Confession – and of every other sacrament). Not a great day to start a Sunday. Yourself respect doesn’t go very high that way – at least not mine. The Catholic Church has done great things for humanity, and I still respect it and defend it: but I can’t play by the rules.

One day I asked myself: what would happen if there were no ‘sinners’ in the world: Poof!! The Catholic Church loses its existence. Maybe that is why they teach us that we are sinners.

Same thing happened with Democrats (or the ‘Left’/’Socialists’ as called in other countries). I did vote for Bill Clinton (a man I still respect, and I still respect many Democrats) I did noticed that in order to feel part of the ‘Democrat’ club I had to be poor, or had to ‘struggle to make ends meet’, or be part of a ‘working class America’. Fortunately there was another way of feeling part of the club: the filthy rich that need to purge their worldly sins by giving forced charity to the poor. Then I told to myself: I do not want to feel poor; I do not want to feel like I am struggling to ‘make the ends meet’. And although I am an American Citizen and I work very hard, there was a point nobody believed me when I told them I was ‘working class’. I am not filthy rich either, so I can’t really afford paying for my sins with extreme forced taxation. I noticed that if I feel in this empty void, I can’t really feel Democrat.

Furthermore, I asked myself: what would happen if there were no more ‘poor’ people in America? Poof!!! The Democrats, defender of the poor would disappear, I figured.

Could it be that there could be no sin in the world and no poorness? Can we eliminate either? Can we reduce either one? I would like to eliminate both: ‘sin’ and ‘poorness’. Maybe one way to eliminate them is to stop believing you are either one – just as I stopped believing I was a sinner and stopped believing I was poor. However, I do not know if that makes me stop being either one or just masks it enough until I try to jump to a higher level.

Many of us have done actions that feed both things. Some people have committed extreme Greed, a capital sin as defined by Catholics. Greed has caused poorness feeling in some. I am no Catholic and I am no Democrat. And today I feel that the only way to avoid both is to prevent sin and poorness in order to reduce the need for either one. Problem is: I do not believe the way to reduce sin is with Confession, just as I do not believe that the way to reduce poorness is with Welfare. But then again, I haven’t found an effective way: it is not as easy as just talking people out of ‘sin’ and ‘poorness’. Maybe we are addicted to both.

Different people try to address the middle class crunch.  Some try to convert middle class into poor people by giving them government help.  Others, just try to help them get more value for their dollars: like the Angel Food Ministries.  A friend of ours referred us to them, and now I reffer them to you.

The concept is simple:  these guys buy brand-name, quality food in bulk and distributes them to families for a very low fee.  No advertising fees, little or no employees, no real estate, and no profit to any investors:  just straight to your table.  To make it simpler, they prepare boxes of food that you buy for $30.  The food probably feeds a family of four for a week, and costs $30.  For an additional fee you can add other boxes to your order, like 3.75 lbs. of T-Bone for $21.  You can buy as many boxes as you like:  you just have to bring your own box to pick the food, since they do not want to spend money on packaging either.

No catch.  No minimum or maximum income level.  You can go in a Mercedes to order and pick your food.  There is the inconvenience of having to order it in person, and of picking it up a month later (in person as well, there is no delivery).  Just that simple.

The price beats supermarkets, and so far the food quality is the same.  Most of the food comes in the same brand packaging that you get at your local MegaMart.

Why we are using the program?  Sure, we do not need any help from anyone:  we can probably buy food from Whole Foods or eat in fancy restaurants every day if we wanted to.  But there are reasons to participate, even if you do not have financial need:

• Broader perspective: It helps you understand what struggling families go through in this middle class crunch.  It is easy to talk about social policy from a mansion, but it is even better to do so from the middle of the action.
• A sense of community: People like to help and to be helped.  Far beyond the pure nutritional need, there is the need of feeling connected building something together.  You can volunteer to be one of the food distributors as well – but although we have time to pick up the food, we have not made the time to help right now.
• The more the merrier / Economies of Scale: The more people participating, the lower the food costs.  By purchasing these boxes you are lowering the cost of food for low income people.
• Prove the Point: Poverty is a state of mind for most of the ‘poor people’.  There are ways to make the ends meet without struggling.  Some people just make it easier.  Check them out.

Often, in social conversations, I listen to people saying that the solution to our Energy Crisis lies in discovering or creating new Technology that will enable us to be more efficient, greener, or produce safe/clean energy cheaper. More often than not these people are nor scientists or engineers. More often than not I get the feeling people think technology grows in trees.

On behalf of all of us Technical People (euphemism for Geek) I must say:

Scientists and engineers are doing what we can do to advance science. Some of us do it in green energy initiatives (yes, I am a software engineer and I am working on green energy initiatives also).

Unfortunately, We The Geeks can’t do it alone. Why?

• There aren’t enough of us. People aren’t studying the Geek careers. Maybe it is because they are difficult. Maybe is because they are out of fashion. But people don’t study them.
  • Import More. Import more Geeks from other countries. Make the immigration policy flexible for those with Geek-ish careers.
  • Produce More Geeks. Tell your kid that being a Geek is not too bad. We are not perceived as the sexiest, but our decent salaries make family oriented females chase and hunt us down until they get us married.
  • Provide Grants / Scholarships. If a kid is going to college, he/she may be more interested in an easier career. The government / student loans will pay the same regardless of the career they choose. So why waste beer drinking time studying if you can avoid it. That’s why we need help from people in motivating kids to study science and engineering degrees. Let’s make more scholarships that motivate them to study these careers.
• We work for food. Yes, the non geeks have to pay out of their pocket so that the geeks can get pizza and caffeine. We can’t work without either. And we need to be paid if we are to buy them.
• We are proud of what we do. Try to say good things about the green products we build. Please, hug your closest Geek and tell him how much you appreciate the technology he/she builds for you. Even better: buy them – - so that they increase our salaries by 5% next year instead of the usual 4%. Sometimes the first generation of our technological inventions are a bit crude and a lot more expensive. But if they do not sell, they fire us – and we end up in less green, but safer jobs.

The moral of the story is: If you want more, green technology, you will need to help us find more geeks to create this technology!

One of the farthest away White Mountains 4000 feet.  14.6mi, 3600 elevation change via the Rocky Branch Trail, Isolation Trail, and Davis Path.  Some people do it as a long day-hike.  We did it as a short backpack.  The things I liked the most about this hike:

• Weather was great, the views at the top where even greater.  There was a lot of wind at the top, as expected, but otherwise a clear day.  No rain, snow or hail (like other times — we guess it is because Lina was not with us).
• Our first 4k this year.  We haven’t been hiking too much.
• Adriana’s feet has healed — at least enough to hike one of these.
• We found an official campsite that was not documented in our maps.  And was conveniently located at the time we got tired, with an unexpected water source.

Photos on the usual place.

Map:

Profile:

Other Links on Mt Isolation:

• Hike The Whites
• 4000 footers home
• AMC
• Wikipedia

I had the custom of keeping track of my hikes.  Recently I have not been hiking as much as I would have liked, and I have had much less time to keep track of what I hike.  I was browsing through my New England 4000 scorecard and I noticed that I had not entered 2007 hikes.  Fortunately, I was able to keep record of some of this by keeping photos and maps.  (Great thing photos record the date and time now).  4k Scorecard updated to reflect changes.

White Mountain Hikes:

Mt. Madison(photos) – September 9th, 2007

We climbed through the Air Line trail. This is marginally more difficult than the Valley Way, but has dramatically better views. It is a bit more exposed, however, and not the easiest one on inclement weather. It brings you to the Madison Spring Hut first, half a mile before the summit, but a great place to catch your breath, buy some snacks or warm up with the soup they make at noon.

The day was very cloudy, and by the time we reached the summit it had already started raining. Visibility was around 50 feet at best, and from there until the time we where able to get below the tree line (about two hours and a half later) it was a slippery, cold, wet way down through Watson Path (RMC). Once under tree cover it was a good day. On a sunny day, it is probably a great view of the northern part of the forest from the mostly exposed Watson Path.  Few more than 7mi.

Photos / Maps.

Hale and Zealand Falls – September 16, 2007

Great loop that ends in a very short road walk (less than a mile and very worth).  We did Mt. Hale, which does not have any views at all and the fire tower is long gone.  To reward ourselves in some other way than the traditional view, we went to the Zealand Falls Hut where we got the bottomless $2 soup (I love it), and enjoyed the Falls — which are a lot prettier than the view less Hale.

Photos / Maps.

Hancock – Sept 02, 2007

Fairly easy, in/out hike with a nice loop at the end where most of the elevation and interest remains.  A campsite close to the start of the road that could be great for people starting to hike but who want to get away from the car-camping campsites.

Photos / Maps.

The Wildcats – Sept 23. 2007

Out of the Pinkham Notch area, and walking almost all the way to Carter Notch… but we turned back to our car the same way we went in – about 7 hours of a very, very steep climb, and ten a steady ride.  Could have been combined into a great backpacking trip, but we where short on time that weekend.  Interesting Ski area on the top – we have never tried it for downhill skiing.  Photos/Maps.

Mt. Jackson – Sept 29, 2007

End of season hike (for us).  Terrain is interesting but nothing out of the ordinary – strong hikers don’t have any issue.  A little over 6 miles day hike.  Mt. Webster views tend to be a lot prettier than Jackson’s, and we did it even if Webster was not on my peak bagging list.  Very windy day.  We couldn’t stay too long at Jackson’s summit.  The hike is close enough to Pinkham notch that if you stay in that area you may want to combine the trip with other day hikes.  Photos / Maps.

Other Hikes of Interest:

Catskills:

• Sugarloaf – May 27, 2007
• Windham – May 28, 2007

Nancy Pond – October 21, 2007

End of season hike to see the fall foliage.

Photos / Maps.

It seems that with our sister in law living in the Albany, NY region we may stop by the Adirondack region a lot more often.  That is why I have created my Adirondack 46′er scorecard.  It seems I have 44 more to fill out.  Somewhat related to the New England 4K’s.