Chad Johnson legally changed his name to Chad Javon Ocho Cinco. I don’t care what anyone says, that’s just awesome. Still, I hope that he gets back to focusing on the Bengals a bit this year, after some of the stuff that went on this offseason.
I’m having trouble formulating this thought into words and sentences in my head, so the following could be a mess.
What’s so wrong about voting for someone who appears to be smarter than you? Better yet, should that not be our collective mission? When electing someone to public office, especially that of the executive branch, I’m quite certain that it is in my best interest to mark the box next to the name of the person who is least likely to be at the same aptitude level as my friends and neighbors. I want someone who is overly intelligent, whose education far exceeds my own, who, when faced with a decision that affects the lives of millions, would be better equipped than me to lead in the right direction.
Nevertheless, popular opinion seems to reflect that this is not something to be desired in running for office. That “aw shux,” “just one of the guys” act was probably one of the biggest reasons that our current president was elected over either of his opponents. How has that worked out? Again, what is the appeal? When one candidate attacks another for being “elitist,” that should be almost a backhanded compliment. “Thank you very much, yes, I do consider myself to be well-educated, and knowledgeable about many things in which you are not.”
That is my thought for the day. If presidential decisions were easy enough to be made by the guy whose locker was next to mine in high school, then the framers of the constitution probably wouldn’t have been so concerned about it. But things are not that way. One of our candidates has graduated from Columbia and Harvard Law, was the editor of the Harvard Law Review, has over a decade of experience in Chicago politics and the U.S. Senate, and picked a VP mate who has been in the Senate for over 35 years, heading up multiple committees. Those two men are WAY more equipped than me to do almost anything. But that makes them the lesser candidates, according to some… I just don’t get it.
Over the weekend, Obama announced that he had chosen Joe Biden as his running mate. Biden is an experienced, six term senator from Delaware, currently serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. You’d think that’d be a good thing, right?
No, apparently in politics it underscores the fact that Obama isn’t ready to be president. Why else would he have chosen somebody who had so much more experience than him? Oh, it also shows that Obama can’t deal with other countries. That’s why he needed somebody with Biden’s experience in foreign relations. Mmmhmm. That’s how it works.
Obama’s selection couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that he believed Biden might be the right person for the job. No, of course not. Realistically, he probably could have picked somebody who would deliver more votes (ala Edwards). Instead, it looks like he focused on choosing somebody that deserved to be vice-president (that should not be taken as a shot against Edwards).
This is why politics is stupid. Rather than focusing on who Biden is and what he brings to the table, everybody’s analyzing the choice and coming to dumbass conclusions. What a waste.
I got a sweet bonus last week (I suppose all bonuses likely fall into that category), and like any good American consumer, I decided to spend a portion of it on stuff I don’t really need. And, like any good American man, I decided to upgrade my home theater system (i.e. TV speakers just don’t cut it).
First on the short list was a decent receiver. I went with an Onkyo TX-SR606. It’s nothing super fancy, but it does a few things that were very important for me:
Next up were the speakers. I got the Definitive ProCinema 800 set, which is (only) a 5.1 set. Originally I was looking for 7.1, but then I heard these at Magnolia and was thoroughly impressed. According to CNET, they “redefined [their] expectations of what a small surround speaker system can do.” I figure I can always buy two more later on, but I’d rather start with quality.
Unfortunately they’re not due here until Friday, but considering I got 0% interest until 2012, I’m willing to live with that. I don’t seem to buy anything these days unless I get some 0% interest financing. If they want to give me free money, I’ll take it. Seriously, how can they afford that?
Oh, and of course I bought my speaker wire from Monoprice.com. Nobody can beat them. For real. Nobody.
Anyway, it’s going to be awesome when I set this shit up and get some gaming in. Nobody’ll be able to sneak up on me anymore when I’m playing CoD4. Or, perhaps more importantly, I won’t be able to blame my deaths on that anymore… 
There’s something about the Olympics that I just love. I don’t know what it is, but I really can’t get enough of the stuff. Swimming, Volleyball, Track & Field, Basketball, whatever. I love it all (with the obvious exception of speed walking and ribbon dancing :)).
While it’s all pretty impressive to watch, I think the single most impressive event for me is the still rings in men’s gymnastics. The sheer amount of strength that takes is absolutely amazing. I mean, I can do it, but I’m just surprised there’s so many other people who can, too.
Seriously, though, how weird would it be to win a gold medal, confirming that you’re the best in the world at what you do…only to have to return to work the next week? I’ve read that a fair number of olympians suffer from depression after returning home, and I can definitely believe it. One week you’re on top of the world, and the next you’re back at Home Depot.
I had some company up in Michigan last week. My sister was visiting during her vacation between finishing school and starting work. It was certainly nice to have someone to hang out with every night after work. I could probably get used to that.
We didn’t do too much exciting stuff except for eat out a lot. The highlight of that was probably The Melting Pot, which is a fondue restaurant. I had been wanting to go, and it’s not exactly the type of place you can go with the guys from work. We ended up going the night she got her test results as a celebration dinner. The cheese and the chocolate course were fairly new to me, but the main course seemed like a combination of a Korean BBQ and a hot pot. All of the food was delicious though.
On Saturday, we hit up the Woodward Dream Cruise, which is kind of a big classic car show. People cruise down this main road in Detroit, and there are little fairs all along the way. I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of classic cars there. It was very cool.
We also went over to Canada for a bit because it’s always nice to visit other countries. Windsor, the city just on the other side of the border, is a pretty boring place, unfortunately. They have a nice park down by the river though, and we just hung out there for a while.
The customs guard on the way back was the rudest I have ever encountered in my life, which I feel is saying a lot. This man was incensed by the very thought that we would want to visit Canada for the afternoon just to see it. He just couldn’t understand why we would want to go there just to hang out. Maybe he was trying to scare us into admitting we had crossed the border to pick up a stash of illegal prescription drugs. Maybe his wife decided she didn’t want to take his crap any more, and she left him that morning. Maybe he had to pee, and his break wasn’t for another hour. Maybe he was just a monster douche bag. All I know is, I never want to go across that border again.
I check up on Shouzer several times a day, and there has been no activity for almost 2 weeks. That makes me bored, and I suspect that the same holds true for whatever readers we do have. For me personally, I’ve been trying to come up with stories to write about, but I’m drawing a blank. Not much has happened over the last 2 weeks either. Life is settling into a groove, which is nice, but it is not conducive to story-telling.
There are some news articles that have come out recently that I feel are worth mentioning. The first is GM’s quarterly earning release, which is important to me. They lost $15.5 billion last quarter. Ouch. From what I’ve heard, my department won’t be going through any forced layoffs, despite a 20% company-wide reduction in salaried “expenses”. There will be a few people leaving my area through early retirement. I could go for some of that. I’d probably take it if I got the offer. 
In much, much better news, the death toll in Iraq in July was at its lowest since 2003. It’s nice to hear some good news coming from that region after years of bad news. Honestly, I have become a bit numb to it. I am at the point where the news of a suicide bombing in Baghdad does little to pull my heartstrings. That is honestly a sad reflection on both me and the situation as a whole, I think.
The other big question I hear a lot is, What exactly do you do at GM? (I think it’s mostly my parents that ask me this.) Well, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure yet, but I am starting to get a grasp of it. I am a controls integration engineer on the 6 speed transmission platform. My group manages the releases of software for these transmissions, and troubleshoots any problems that come up. We are the go-between for the core software people, those who write the code, and the calibrators, those who test and tweak the code in the vehicles. I am mostly on the troubleshooting end of that spectrum.
For example, I am at a plant right now helping with a problem with the transmission output speed. We are getting some noise on the signal related to the sensor that is used to measure said speed. Lots of people from many different groups are involved in the troubleshooting process, but my group is spearheading the effort. It’s what we do. I have a few other responsibilities, including tracking CPU utilization on all of the software releases and handling serial data communication mismatches. Often, a test car will be put together with a hodgepodge of components. Sometimes, the controllers for these components are using different versions of the serial data protocol, and I have to sort that out. I haven’t done too much of this yet as I am not fully trained in this area, but it will become a big part of my job.
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