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JerseySmarts.com

Delays in Entries on the Journal

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Hey everyone. I had to delay adding some entries to the Journal since I just completed a major switch from a third party hosting service for this website to my in-house, Usable Web Solutions hosting service. This will afford us a much cheaper annual rate (nearly slicing it in half or making it free, depending on your view) and it gives me more control of how TBL is organized and operated.

I’m looking forward to being on the Usable Web Solutions hosting service and if you’re reading this, then the switch that I planned for over the last 72 hours went off without a hitch!

Lost, The Biggest Loser, Smallville, Etc

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The current season of Lost is turning out to be pretty decent. This is definitely not the same show that started in September 2004 and I think that is rather obvious to anyone who has watched every episode. As one of my roommates said the other day, the first season of Lost has to be considered one of the best seasons of any television series ever – it was that good. Since then we’ve had the survivors from the tail end of the plane each come to the other side of the island and each die (except Bernard), a half-look into the history of the island that left more questions than anything else, and a freighter somewhere out in the ocean that is sending people onto the island. Anyway, Lost is still a decent show to watch and it has quickly become “must see TV” on Thursday nights.

I’ve also started watching The Biggest Loser on NBC. Sometimes I wonder what the deal is with the people on this show. You have folks who are literally given a golden opportunity to change their lives and some of them complain and DARE to go off of the diet? See, this is the problem with putting major weight loss on a national television network – they have to bring in a few people who may have inherently weak character to create drama for the viewers. I would rather just watch the entire starting cast stay with the workout program and lose as much weight as possible. This whole being voted off thing is weird.

One of the bad results from this setup is what we saw last week. I forget the name of the guy, but he and his ex-wife are/were part of a team with three younger people. Well, it’s obvious to anyone watching that the younger folks have made a conscious decision to vote off the two older people whenever the opportunity comes up. And for the one guy who is in that younger group, I’m sure he knows that he’s going to be cut off when it comes down to just the two girls and him.

This added dramatic element is something that, as a viewer, I’m really not interested in watching. In fact, I’ve taken to DVRing the show so I can fast forward through the overly dramatic parts.

Smallville was back for a while and now it’s gone again. What’s the deal? I hope that we just had a one week hiatus and not a long-term vacation. For what it’s worth, the story between Clark and Lex has to pick up and begin to be something more than a teenage-level bitch fight every few weeks. I mean, how long can Clark be Superboy and continue giving up opportunities to put Lex in his place? We need something more from this show and I have a feeling that it’s on the way.

That’s been the extent of my television viewing over the last few weeks. I’ve been avoiding the political coverage on the news channels because it is completely boring at this point. All of the wrestling shows are a bore (with the exception of Jeff Hardy wrestling once in a while on RAW). There’s not been much good to watch on the regular channels these days. Maybe the end of the writer’s strike will bring some fresh shows to the boob tube!

Top Executives Move On To New Opportunities

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About a week ago I celebrated my 18 month anniversary being employed by my company. If you read the post on Joe’s Journal, then you know that I wound up celebrating in rare form. And while that journal entry is more a display of a minor annoyance, there are other things going on that warrant an employee’s attention.

Sometime in January our Chief Operating Officer decided to move on to another job. She found a good job that is closer to home and – more importantly – closer to her family. As a working Mom, she needs to be close to home base. While we were all sad to see her go, it was a logical decision and she will be missed. Her last day was two weeks ago.

During her last week at the office, our Executive Director/President also announced his resignation citing that he was extremely proud of the organization and that it was time for him to move on to a new endeavor. No one is sure if he has a concrete job locked down somewhere else (he’s been at the company for the better part of the last decade). I know that he’s smart enough to make a ton of money with a financial consulting firm, if he decides to open one. We’re not entirely sure when he’s going to move on, but we know that each day that goes by we are closer to having no leadership in the office.

It is times like these that make employees reevaluate where they are in life and where they are in terms of their occupational situation. For me, the truth is that I began this reevaluation process in earnest sometime last spring. Then for family reasons, I stopped evaluating my employment for the summer and most of the fall. When I had to close a very big deal for our company in November, that pulled me back into the grind and ever since then, I’ve been thinking about this job and my future. The loss of the top leadership at my organization has sort of put this whole thing into hyper-drive.

The truth is that I really hate my commute. I drive an hour to work and an hour back each day (unless I’m working from home). The 100-mile daily commute is really a pain in the ass and for those of you that make this commute or longer, I’m not at a point where I can continue to blow $400 per month on gas so it’s a double whammy. I can’t take mass transit without adding another two hours onto the daily commute (ain’t happening). A few months ago I was really thinking about moving closer to my job, but I don’t really like Trenton area and there isn’t anything exciting going on anywhere between where I live and the office. In terms of getting to and from work, I hate it.

As for the physical place where I work, I really don’t like the building at all. We’re in a building that has got to be over 100 years old. One of our former COO’s tasks was to have the building upgraded. Well, now that she’s gone I’m confident that the building is not changing. Personally, I hate the all-white walls and the almost unmanageable parking situation in our extremely small lot. The crappy carpet and painted-over-panel walls in the offices don’t help either. Let’s just say it’s not a place that I’m comfortable bringing my clients. In terms of the physical space, it’s not a nice looking place to work.

Then there is the staff. The truth is that even though my post about the secretary showed how completely outlandish one member of the staff can be, I really like everyone (including the secretary). The staff at this place is among the best out there, period. They are good people with good hearts and that is important in the grand scheme of things. In terms of the staff, I couldn’t be in a better place!

Of course, one must consider advancement opportunities. Here is where it gets interesting. Is there a great deal of “upward mobility” in my job? No. In an organization with about 10 people, no one is more than one step removed from the top of the heap. It’s weird. The advancement opportunities at my job are more industry-wide advancement opportunities. In other words, an employee is likely never going to be “the boss” at this office, but he may find a new way to finance a particularly complex project that is duplicated by the competitors (which, in this industry, is a good thing). In terms of advancement I have to rate this position as 50/50.

One of the final things I’ve been considering is my remuneration. I get paid a decent salary, but it’s high time that it increased. I’ve only had one automatic “standard of living” raise over the last 18 months and believe me, the cost of living has gone up more than my raise! The problem is that with the top brass at the office leaving, I do not know who to ask for a raise. I was just getting ready to talk to the COO about this, but now she’s gone. Considering that it will take the new Executive Director a few months to really get the feel of the office, I may be out of a raise for a long-time to come and I’m not happy about that at all. In terms of remuneration…18 months ago I would have said that I’m very happy. Today? I’m not and it appears that there is no person to talk to about it. Not good.

All in all, my assessment tells me that I am not in the right employment situation right now. However – after all of the criticism above – I’m awkwardly content at my job. I will probably begin to look for a new place to work in the next few months, but not rigorously. If my company does actually move out of Trenton and into New Brunswick like the rumor has been for months, then I would probably move to that area of the state (or further north) and stick with it. However, I feel like something is missing at my current job and unless I can figure out what it is, then it might be time to move on.

SPAM 102,000+

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While I was busy the last few weeks, Joe’s Journal eclipsed 100,000 spam comments captured by Askimet. Talk about pathetic, right? Not only are there losers in this world that are sitting by a computer hitting the “send” button as spam, but there are uber-losers who create software robots to do this automatically!

Talk about people who need a life. As I write this we’re at 102,000+ spam comments. And that’s my sad commentary on sad people.

Movie Review: American Pie – Beta House

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Believe it or not, I didn’t totally hate this movie. I should qualify that statement, though. I went into watching this thing knowing that it was going to be smut, have crappy acting, and be about as deep as a raindrop puddle. Well, I was completely right!

There are no major performances worth talking about, but there are a lot of boobs for the testosterone-driven guys out there. In fact, there are so many boobs and so much sexual innuendo in the movie that it becomes numbing by the time it’s all over. Eugene Levy makes a guest appearance and plays a bit of a role towards the end – he’s funny as always.

The commentary in this movie of a new-age, geeky fraternity versus the traditional party animal crew isn’t totally based in reality. From what I’ve seen by advising my fraternity’s chapters around New Jersey, most college fraternities and sororities are somewhere in between the “new school” and the “old school” mentalities. When done right, it’s almost the perfect mix. When done wrong, it’s a complete disaster.

This is the type of movie where if you have some free time and the movie is available to you, then you’ll get a laugh or two by sitting down and watching this thing. Would I advise going out of your way to see it? No way. But hey, it’s enjoyable for what it is.