Tyler Blogs

There is a blog on ITToolbox that regularly covers an individual's Pet Peeves. When I hear the phrase pet peeve I think of, out of the many things that a person dislikes there are a few that are his pet peeves. The blog in question, however, features a pet peeve most every day. At least in this case, the term has developed a meaning all its own.

In any case, using the term as he does, one of my pet peeves is the use of the term Geek to imply expertise in computers or electronics.

If you look the term up in a dictionary, you will in fact find that one of the definitions may be "A knowledgeable and obsessive computer enthusiast".
As it is used in advertising such as The Geek Squad, Geeks R Us, etc., the term is almost used as a qualification for the job. "He's good at computers because he's a geek." The way in which it is most used, it might best fit the words primary definition, "a carnival performer". It's an advertising term suggesting that eccentricity is akin to expertise.

Then there's the pet peeve that implies that your 12 year is a computer expert since he knows so much more than you about computers. It's a common joke that the family needs to get his 12 year to figure something out. He may know more than you, but he's very likely not an expert.

In my early days with computers, I was involved with a BBS network and related computer interests that attracted a lot of teenagers. Over several years I got to know several of them. They were always doing new things, trying things, showing off the things they made their computer do. Sometimes malicious things. But, only one in dozens was tracking a course that would eventually lead to expertise in the field.

My irritance, however, is not with your offspring. Your 12-year old knows more than you because you didn't learn stuff that you could have been teaching him yourself.

In both cases, this points out our own state of human intelligence in the United States. People don't learn. They would rather spend their time watching TV, following sports, golf or other recreational activities. In the US, entertainment is king. Our judgment of products and services is based on cliquey phrases and general kookiness, and not on an intelligent review of their reliability, quality, and value. It's no wonder that we are being taken over by business monopolies and other forces that dwarf political entities like China.

Something that is really fun for me is to experiment and create new recipes. An element of artistic expression is the combining of colors and textures on a canvas. Cooking goes beyond that to add the flavors and aromas of a dish. The following recipe, however, is not an original, though it has been an inspiration in the 25 years since. You can also search and find it on several websites. I got it from a Bell's Best cookbook before there was an open internet.

Banana Breeze

1 (8oz) pkg cream cheese, softened
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 t vanilla
3 medium ripe bananas
graham cracker crust

Beat cream cheese until smooth. Add milk and blend. Add lemon juice and vanilla. Stir. Line crust with banana slices. Turn filling crust. Refrigerate 2-3 hours or until firm. Do not freeze. Cut banana slices & dip in lemon juice to garnish top of pie. (optional)

Note: If made too far in advance, the bananas on the bottom begin to darken. Putting a little of the filling down first, or dipping the banana slices in lemon juice may help.

I may be going back to college in the fall. I have the draft of a degree plan, and registration is in process for UT Tyler. Considering my field, my attendance may become a terror to the university. I'm not talking about violence, or even about my opinionated comments here or elsewhere. Rather, by attending classes I may be a terror to the faculty and staff, depending on the individuals in question.

My attendance in the past, in computer science, mathematics and accounting, has intimidated a number of people. In my first course, one of the student was frustrated with the subject matter, and the instructor tried to reassure her indicating that I had taken a number of classes prior to that, when in fact I hadn't. In other classes, the professor and I were in a race to see who could learn the subject first. In one, the instructor made the mistake of assuming that Lotus 1-2-3 and Visicalc were essentially the same. Big mistake. He would say you couldn't do that; I would show them HOW to do it.

I've upset a number of instructors by demonstrating their ignorance with my comments and questions, and by being the person other students came to with their questions. It wasn't really intentional, but I was unapologetic. If they are going to assign a teacher to a class based solely on the fact that he/she has a BS or MS, and that person doesn't know the subject, they should be prepared to learn it, and fast. If I don't already know the subject then I'm going to do my best to master it while I'm there. Either way, he better be prepared. I'll go to him first.

There was one case where the instructor later consulted me about something I taught him and that he wanted to share with the class, but most professors (and I'm sure UTT's PhDs will be that way) have a complex. (Identity crisis with delusions of grandeur?)

Now if I could, I would test out of the courses that I knew, but if they want to play school, I'm up for it. And I don't intend to show any mercy. Any opinionated comments on the matter will just be bonuses.

I've received this document on several occasions and each time I have the same emotional impulse to tear the thing up, and an opposing emotional impulse to make some notes on it and send it back to them. They pay the postage.
This has been commented on elsewhere on the web. Much of the response has been to the presumptive questions on the survey, so I won't rehash that. The highpoint/lowpoint of the letter was the final question and request for support. The options given include

Yes, I support the RNC and am enclosing ...
Yes, I support the RNC, but I am unable to participate ... have enclosed $11 to cover the cost of tabulating my survey.
No, I favor electing liberal Democrats over the next ten years.

Aside from the fact that $11 to tabulate a survey sounds phony at worst, wasteful at best, the RNC is saying that if I don't return at least $11, I'm supporting liberal Democrats. I'm pretty much 95% conservative, but I may never give to the Republican party.

Part has to do with this wasteful campaign to raise money for this type of underhand tactics. I don't like being insulted. It may be SOP for politics, but its not for me. An equal or better part has to do with the leadership of the party, and its behind the scenes support for liberal philosophies, in an effort to get a good word from homosexuals, environmentalists, and the like. They are not listening to their party, and this letter is just another proof of that fact.

The reason so many people have idolized Ronald Reagan is that we haven't had anything like it since. Every republican president since then has pandered to the left. We now have a candidate that is so far to the left that more than half of the republican party doesn't think he is conservative enough. To make things worse, the Democrat candidates are pushing liberal to a new limit.

McCain has the support of some conservatives of select issues, but I don't think that will get it.

My work search continues to take up much of my time and attention as recent posts have suggested. During the next week I may spend some time with Emuser. Emuser is an Access resume database that I developed several years ago. I developed Emuser as an aid to applying for jobs in multiple fields. It's time now to expand what it can do.

Decades ago I established a standard form for my resume that included the standard application information about my work history, plus a separate section of Skills, or as my resume lists it, a Summary of Qualifications. The resultant resume for a job as graphic designer, though styled the same, will be drastically different from a resume for a job as an administrative assistant, or a computer programmer.

I can't say how well this summary works in getting a job or an interview, though I have been told it has been helpful by some of the people that have interviewed me. The separate summary takes at least a page and with plenty of white space, my resume is usually at least 3 pages, taboo for the 1-page resume purists.

The magic of Emuser is that for any job I can select which employment to include (depending on relevancy), education, certifications, select items to include in my Summary, and add other items, such as Projects and Activities. I also have a way to record the applications I've made with details about the job and the company. If you know about Boyce-Codd normalization you probably know how it has to be setup.

I'm now adding a Kudos section, and a cover letter composer that accompanies application information. My next major step, other than some cleanup and forms creation, is to make it multi-user, so John Jones can record his own information in it. Once that is working, I can convert it to an on-line database. Who knows, I may be able to create a system that meets the needs of companies and individual seeking employees; one that bridges the gaps of the current systems that I've criticized here. Of course, it won't fix HR deficiencies.

If you are a programmer, you know how simple that is to do, and of course, how much time that will take to implement and debug. Programming is easy today, but it takes a lot of work to do it right.

Today Dana & I were looking at the sunflowers. We have a squirrel feeder in the back yard and they love to eat the sunflower seeds and the corn kernels. Well the story is they sometimes toss off the sunflower seeds off the feeder. We used to get large sunflower heads that were dried out and it was interesting to see how much they've eaten and where it ended up in the yard.I think they are going to have a feast this year. We have several of sunflowers at the tree. I'm interested to see them eat the seeds. We keep feeding them. Squirrels are so neat to watch with their little hands eating their food. We had chopped down and trimmed up some of our trees in the backyard. They weren't coming around after that for awhile. So we are really glad that they are coming back to the tree.
We used to have two baby squirrels and it was kind of neat to see them get big over a little while. The two little squirrels were so small that they managed to get into the feeder. I was worried at first and thought it was stuck but realized that it was the way they were getting to the food. I never was so aware of squirrels until we had started to feed them. I like to see the black ones when they wag their tails. We hope sometime in the future to add a larger squirrel feeder.

In the past few weeks I've found job searching to be quite interesting. The most interesting thing is how everyone wants you to apply on-line, although very few companies have an adequate on-line system.

UT Tyler uses the UT System based system at UT Austin. The most interesting thing is that UTT posts the openings on their website, and each has a link to a UTA page with a list of UTT openings. Here's the trick. The UTT page isn't kept up to date, so it has a long list of openings, but the UTA page only shows a few of them, the ones that are really open, I presume.

I've mentioned Trinity Mother Frances before, and won't rehash those comments. They use the healthcaresource.com site. A couple weeks ago, I applied for a job through the site, and got a message that I had already applied for the job. I used a different email address and applied "again". Earlier this week I got an automated message that there was a new opening, that job that I had applied for. The problem was the requisition number was used on two different jobs.

Then there's the ETMC site. On there some of the job information is entered incorrectly and the opening becomes hidden. Instead of the job being in TYLER, there is one in TYELR. In addition, most of the jobs I've reviewed don't have a job description. For details they have No further details availiable [sic].

With some companies, there are jobs that are advertised, but when you get to the site, it's not there. This has happened on a number or occasions with Brookshire's. And you can't apply for a job if there isn't an opening. That may be one of the problems with much of big business, trying to find staff to fit a mold. It just might be easier to find a good employee and assign responsibilities based on their skill set. After all, the one thing a company depends on for survival is good employee(s).

On-line applications are great, for company and applicant, but they have a problem with coordinating HR and the on-line system. One issue is developing an adequate system. An equally deficient problem is presenting are getting complete and accurate information about the job and the applicant. They don't present the information for you to complete a intelligent application, and they don't have a system that collects information for them to make an intelligent decision. With the emphasis on cost-saving, companies are sacrificing quality and efficiency. Without accurate information, it becomes a slow and costly process.