- I will stop complaining about my job here. Le boring. Also fruitless. There are better uses for that energy.
- I think tumblr needs a lot of features, all of them more desperately than better Facebook stalking/integration. Maybe most of all, right now: there are people whose content I never, ever want to see, including (especially?) when reblogged.
- Lots of milestones this week: Danny finished 2nd grade, Leah finished preschool, and, most of all, Sharon’s last day of work. After a lot of conversation, planning, and preparation, she decided to put her career on hold to stay at home for the kids, and this new phase starts today. I am, of course, 100% behind this decision and I am absolutely sure it’s the right thing for the family. Yet I have all kinds of feeling all kinds of ways about all kinds of things, which may be contributing just a teensy bit to my general agita.
- Other stuff is bothering me and I kind of want to write it down, but I have nowhere safe to put it and no motivation just to write it for my own sake. Hmmm.
- All that aside, I’m going to be OK, because I can handle stress better than pretty much everyone I’ve ever met, goddammit. To let it get to me like it has this week is unusual and unlikely to recur.
June 1, 2012
OK, five things
May 12, 2012
Graduation Day
With my nose at about the level of his Adam’s apple and at a horizontal distance of less than six inches, I think I made it pretty clear: “Now, shut the FUCK up, go over there and sit the FUCK down, and when I’m done with this production problem that’s costing us REAL FUCKING MONEY, I might come and talk to you about your STUPID. FUCKING. DATABASE.”
Markets moved. As soon as they saw the two of us go nose-to-neck, they started making markets in the chat rooms. I found out later I was bid. I had a bit of a home court advantage with those traders, having worked with them and run their systems for two years. I opened strong as a 1:5 hometown favorite and rallied hard as our exchange on the trading floor had escalated. I had their emotional support, sure, but I also had a decided physical advantage. Because while I may have been shouting into this man’s neck, giving up at least half a foot vertically, we were about the same weight. I’m no brawler, nobody’s tough guy, but I was about to go with a guy having the approximate proportions of a daddy longlegs.
At the same time, another market was crashing. After my verbal takedown, the secondary market on whether we were going to fight at all cratered. I’d destroyed him so completely by pointing out how lame his silly little research problem was compared to the actual production firefight that was underway, it became obvious to all participants that it just wasn’t going to happen. Disappointment filled the room like smoke. These guys had seen fellow traders go at each other on the floor fairly regularly, but to see potential nerd-on-nerd violence like this was irresistibly good entertainment and, more importantly, an interesting trading opportunity.
In any case, if my crisp assessment of our problems’ relative priorities hadn’t done him in, the sudden appearance of the local heads of trading spelled the end before the beginning. We were separated and sent to neutral conference rooms to cool down while the traders settled and reluctantly got back to their day jobs trading less volatile properties.
January 27, 2012
On anger management and social media
My name is John Scholvin and I have an anger problem.
Along with rugged good looks and luxurious, silvery hair, I inherited a vicious temper from my dad. I wish it could have been his jump shot or golf swing, but instead, it’s the ability to go from idle to redline in a couple of milliseconds.
I’ve been working on managing it for twenty years. My anger has damaged me personally and professionally. It’s something I have to be continually aware of to subdue. I’ve become pretty good at keeping it under control over the years. Part of it is probably just age and a natural change in my endocrine chemistry. Beyond that, I have techniques for quelling the rage when it rises, techniques which work well if I apply them early enough. That’s tricky: when it happens, it happens fast, and when it gets to a certain point, there’s no dialing back.
January 9, 2012
Connections, today
A late start this morning brought me the moonset through the bare maple across the street. The lingering, thin clouds made it look like something from a horror movie, and I thought it’d make a good picture. No way the iPhone could handle it, so I went back in and got the big boy camera with the new lens and the tripod. I had a little time to futz with it while the car warmed up and defrosted. Ultimately, the results were unsatisfying. Even at f/1.4, the computer decided it needed a sixth of second to get enough light, which was long enough for the moon to get lost in the wash of the clouds. Fooling with the ISO and the aperture and whatever else I could move with my rapidly numbing fingers got me no closer.
June 28, 2011
You can barely make it out at the top of that tape measure because the Sharpie has worn mostly away. It said “BASE 2.” You can see the remnants of the B, and the A, and the top two tines of the E if you squint.
Base-2 Capital was the company I founded along with my partners in 2004. That tape measure and a bunch of other cool stuff sat in the computer room of our Evanston office. When we sold the firm, all of the assets were acquired by the buyer, my current employer. Some stuff was sold, some made its way downtown to their office, some small things that they didn’t care about like this tape measure went home with us.
This Friday is the two year anniversary of the deal closing.
May 12, 2011
Hug your people today. And every day.
Just found out that the father of one of Danny’s classmates passed away suddenly. I wrote about him recently when I was whining here about my job. He leaves behind a wife and two very young children. I absolutely cannot imagine what they are going through.
Work doesn’t matter. Most shit we complain about doesn’t matter.
Love matters. Find someone you love and tell them so. Now would be a good time.
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