Shall Not Be Questioned » Personal

Kids These Days

Sebastian — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:42:35 +0000

Tam highlights a post from someone who visited Europe, tried to rent a car, only to be told they didn’t have any “American transmissions.” It’s hard to find anyone born after 1980 that knows how to drive a manual. Kids these days. I suppose I don’t mind if they don’t know how to drive cars with manual gearboxes, as long as they stay the hell off my lawn.

I learned to drive on an old 1982 Datsun 720 pickup truck, because that’s what my dad drove. When I was rear ended in an accident right outside my high school, he replaced that car with a 1990 Nissan Sentra two door. It was literally four wheels and a steering wheel. I didn’t even have a tape deck. Both were manuals. I have actually never owned a car with an automatic transmission. I had to learn to drive these because that’s what my dad bought. Dad took the train to work, and didn’t have a need for a fancy car. That worked for me because I generally had use of it during the day. I don’t know at what point parents stopped teaching their kids to drive manuals, but it had to have been around 1980 or so.

If you want to be truly horrified at kids today, apparently one problem the auto industry is having is millennials just aren’t learning to drive. Now, if we had flying cars, I could accept this. We’d all be lamenting these damned kids, with their flying cars, zooming over the house all hours of the night. I could live with that. But no, they just aren’t interested. I couldn’t wait to get my license, so I could go places without having to beg mom, and more importantly, without having mom tagging along wherever I went. Cars represent independence from your parents, even if you’re driving around mom and dad’s old beater. It was this way for generations of Americans, except this one, apparently. Maybe this is the consequence of helicopter parenting.

UPDATE: I should note, just in case dad is reading, I smashed up the 1990 Sentra too. Not my fault. Hit and run driver on the onramp to the Schuylkill Expressway from 30th street in Philly. Car was un-drivable. I got the plates from the car that ran, and we had a cop we know run it… they were stolen tags. The risks of driving in Philly. But my dad would have been sure to remind me of this fact if I didn’t bring it up.

I’m Beat

Sebastian — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 03:42:44 +0000

I am just plum out of energy from the weekend. This was one of those events, much like NRA Annual Meeting, where you’d rather stay up and talk to people than go to bed. An early start to the events meant only a few hours of sleep a night. I had to start a new work engagement today, so that added up to not much energy for posting, despite having a lot to say. Let me relay some further impressions.

I hadn’t seen Clayton Cramer in person since Heller. To say he’s a font of knowledge about American History is a serious understatement. The depth of research he’s done on behalf of the issue is remarkable, and he can recall obscure facts on command at a detail rarely achieved.

The other fun fact from the weekend is that Professor Nick Johnson, who is co-author on the new Second Amendment law textbook–the first of its kind–along with Professors Michael O’Shea, Dave Kopel, and George Moscary, is a member of the local shooting club I am an officer for, and lives relatively close to me in Bucks County. Apparently he’s had Professor Moscary as a guest at the club, who commented to me how nice the facilities are.

It’s a small world, folks. My club has its roots in the working class neighborhoods of Levittown, and yet you never know when you might find yourself shooting next to a distinguished professor of law. I’ll be speaking more about Professor Johnson’s law review article later, which attacks some common misconceptions about the civil rights movement’s view of non-violence, which is a challenge to the now prevailing view. It’s really quite fascinating.

Successful Interview

Sebastian — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:19:44 +0000

Just got back from what I think was a very successful interview for the dream job. Now headed down to DC for the weekend to spend some time among friends. We’ll see how well I can blog on the road with the iPad.

Sometimes Mistakes are Made

Sebastian — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:29:39 +0000

Many of you know that I took a new job about a month ago, after a few months of unemployment after my previous company shut down. Today, I went in, handed in my resignation, and walked out. I feel an awful burden lifted from my shoulders. When I got the offer, I wavered a bit on whether to accept it. The company did not come off well to me in the interviews, and the job was a step down from my previous position. But I ultimately decided to accept, thinking that any job is better than unemployment. I’ve spent the past month regretting that decision. The job turned out to be worse than I had feared. There was very little about the company that functioned, and many people put in long and difficult hours to make up for a complete lack of planning, poor product and project management, and having insufficient resources to accomplish goals. It’s one thing to work hard because sometimes it’s just necessary to make a deadline. It’s quite another to work hard because you don’t have a better strategy.

In the mean time, I had a dream job fall on my lap, and I have spend the past several weeks developing it. Rather than being an environment where careers go to die, it’s an opportunity to take what I’ve been doing for the past ten years, and take it to the next level. The pay is also comparable to what I was making. I’ve also been talking to a friend who runs an IT services company that is looking to start a new division that could use my services. We had dinner last night to talk about it a bit, and I think it’s got potential. He’s aware of the dream job opportunity, and is willing to hire me on contract basis until that job offer firms up, and then continue on a part time basis if I decide to accept. If that job falls through he’s willing to hire me full-time.

So that was basically all I needed to get the hell out of that other place. I’m employed one way or another, and both are interesting positions. They say it’s easier to find a job when you have a job, but in this case I got neither offer because I was currently employed. The dream job wasn’t aware of the current job until I told them when they started to do the background check (I didn’t want them to be surprised if they found that), and it actually complicated things a bit more than if I had just been unemployed.

So I would say I learned a lesson, not to take the first job that comes along if you have a bad feeling about it, but it was one learned could only have learned in hindsight. I couldn’t have predicted I’d have two very good opportunities fall on my lap a few weeks after accepting a job. The big lesson I’ve learned in this is never to allow yourself to become unemployed if you can help it, and I could have. I knew the company was in trouble a year ago, and decided to risk riding the bomb down. I didn’t really get the job hunt started in earnest in the two months I had while I was helping wind the previous company down, because I thought there was hope of starting over again with the same idea. I took a huge gamble on the CEO’s plan in that two months, and lost the bet. That forced me to do some things I wouldn’t, under ordinary circumstances consider doing. I always figured the reason that employers were wary of the unemployed was because of the belief that if someone didn’t want them, and doesn’t want them, they must not be very good. That might be part of it, but I also think part of why the unemployed have it harder is because they aren’t thinking carefully about whether a job is really a good fit — they need a paycheck, first and foremost. That’s going to make it much more likely they aren’t staying, especially if the job is a step down for them.

Old Family Photos

Sebastian — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 13:43:08 +0000

I have recently come into possession of some old family photos. When I say old, I mean late 19th century and 20th century old. So much time has passed, while there are names written on the back in my grandmother’s hand, I don’t know how any of these individuals are related to me. Some of them aren’t family, but are postcards that were sent to family from other family still in Germany. I am proud to introduce the only online version of this particular photograph of what I’m fairly certain is Kaiser Wilhelm II:

The back of the postcard is written in traditional German script, which I have a difficult time deciphering. You can see the date on this is 1910, before we went to war with the Kaiser, and before the Nazi’s banned Sütterlinschrift. As a result, I never learned how to read this in high school, though my German teacher could write and read it, since she was educated in pre-war Europe. If anyone can read this, I’d sure be grateful:

There are some pictures of family in here from, I think, around the turn of the century, taken in Hamburg, during a time when it was still fashionable to be photographed smoking, in front of your children.

One thing I’ve noticed is that photographers, at the time, made their prints on thick cardboard, with very detailed advertisements on the back. I’ve found this on both the photos taken in Germany, and here in Philadelphia and New York.

My favorite from the collection is this, from a business card:

Since I’m fairly certain I am not related to any polar bear trainers, I decided to look this up, and it turns out this is documented online here, and also here. So I’m guessing someone in my family must have come into contact with this advertisement or calling card, and kept it. It makes you wonder how many of these survived. Maybe I have the only copy of these particular things? The pictures of my family, for sure, but I was unable to find a duplicate of the picture I’m fairly sure is Wilhelm II using Google image search.

Rumors of My Demise Are Greatly Exaggerated

Sebastian — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 03:07:58 +0000

I haven’t done much posting for a few days, I know. I have a few very important things in the works, currently. But if all this plays out, a lot of positive life changes are in the works. At least I hope. This has left very little energy for blogging, but I am sincerely hoping my energy will come back in short order if they do.

In the mean time, I’ll do what I can, and Bitter will keep filling in. Shouldn’t be too much longer. I appreciate everyone’s patience through what has certain been upheaval in my personal life since my company shut down a few months ago.

Defining a School “Gun Threat”

Bitter — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 17:02:19 +0000

One reason I react so strongly to the lack of common sense in school administrators is because I had a personal experience with an expulsion threat over the issue when I was in high school. Yes, the “Goody Two-Shoes” honor student was called in to the principal’s office and threatened with expulsion over an issue regarding guns. It didn’t happen because I knew enough to know that I wasn’t breaking any rules; the situation that sparked the “report” to the administrator was a clear case of protected speech. The fear of a lawsuit and enough bad PR to cost the new principal his job was enough to convince him that he really didn’t want to go down that path.

What was my crime? It was having a discussion about a fairly new (only a couple of years old at the time) concealed carry law enacted in Oklahoma after I was asked to give a speech in class on the topic of gun control. In other words, I was having a reasonable, non-threatening discussion with peers in the library (our “class” for those of us in the academic competition programs) on a timely political topic relevant to assigned school work. (For the record, I read my first Dave Kopel article in preparation for that speech.) Yeah, try throwing me out of school for that.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad he came to his senses. Regardless, I still get pissy over the incident because shouldn’t he have come to his senses when the “report” was made? Common sense would tell a person to ask some probing questions about the incident, especially since the report was coming from a student with some issues getting along with others against one of the top students who had literally never been punished in her entire time at the school.

It bothers me because if the principal had threatened any of the other people at the table in my discussion group, some of them may not have known to fight back. They would not have known that such speech did not give them the right to kick you out of a public school. I don’t believe he would have expelled them, but I do think he would have tried to hold the threat over their heads and left them believing that he was doing them a favor. That bothers me, especially in a public school we were required to attend. It shouldn’t be up to students to stand up to administrative bullying.

A Days Blogging

Sebastian — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:19:04 +0000

The real difficulty with working at a job that doesn’t have as much flexibility is that I can’t just blog when I’m inspired and make up the time. So when I come home, if I’m just not feeling it, the next day’s posts will suffer. Such was the case last night, so today I got up early to post. I appreciate everyone’s patience. If you don’t notice any difference, then success, but I have about 20 minutes to get a whole day’s worth of posts up.

What a Day

Sebastian — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 03:41:44 +0000

I am now back in the realm of the employed. You don’t know how relieving it is to get up and go to work. While my stress levels are still pretty high because of having to adapt to a new job and new environment, there is a strange comfort in routine. Once I got up and started to head out the door, I had to remind myself to go straight instead of take a left, where I would have gone to my previous employer. It won’t be long now before the new job feels more routine.

I’m working in New Jersey now, so you can all have sympathy for me. While New Jersey may be lacking in reciprocity for some things, it does have tax reciprocity with Pennsylvania, so I continue to pay taxes as if I was working in Pennsylvania. The only difference for me is I’m under New Jersey employment law, which is actually more employee friendly than Pennsylvania.

There are some things that will take some getting used to. I was high enough in the other job to have an office. Now I’m in a half-height cubicle in a high traffic area. I used to be the king of my domain, and now I’m back to being a cog in the machine. It’ll take some adjustment. I’m hoping to keep a reasonable blogging schedule up, but sometimes it may get difficult. Part of no longer being king of my own domain means having a lot less time flexibility than I used to. At my previous job, I worked at home most nights. This is more of a hard-wired day job. In some ways that’s good, but in some ways not. Time will tell.

Family History

Bitter — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 17:42:20 +0000

Sebastian received some information about his grandfather’s WWII service that sent him into research mode last night. While he was at it, he looked up what he could based on what he knew of my grandfather whose grave we visited out in Hawaii last year. Several similar names popped up, but few results on my actual grandfather.

As he told me about it this morning, I whipped out my computer and googled on my grandfather’s full name which just happens to also be my dad’s full name. Guess what I learned?

My dad was part of a state supreme court case before I was born. He won, by the way.

I have texted my mother to find out exactly how I did not know this before now.