What a week - moved into my new role at the company while still working part time on the old, and the whole place is going crazy getting ready for a huge conference in a couple of weeks. I think I'm going to like the new job a lot - it's definitely more relationship and communications focused than what I've been doing lately, and I'm just wired to thrive in that kind of environment. I'm working with great people. And I like having the words "senior" and "global" in my job title. For now though, no sleep or time to think. Must catch up in April, after Orlando & London.
When I got free on Friday nite I took Cecilie out to see Michael Clayton (I heard a good review on the Slate Podcast, and really needed to get out of the house and clear my head). Thing was, the movie was eerily similar to what my job has looked like for the past 5 years. Not the "evil, greedy corporation" part - I've never been asked to do anything particularly illegal or immoral, at least according to mainstream values. But Clayton's job as a fixer was pretty close. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. It is what it is.
I slept nine hours straight last night, which is a fucking miracle these days. And when I woke I couldn't remember if I'd been dreaming about the movie or my life because the feel was the same.
Must admit I'm pretty bugged. I was in meetings all day, came home to get some work done, have been working all night, and just realized that I missed the lunar eclipse tonight. It's a beautiful night out there and the view would have been great.
Liking the new job but there's such a backlog of stuff to get done before the Orlando & London conferences in March that I hardly have time to breathe these days.
In other space news I got a news flash on Reuters that the Navy was able to knock down that dead spysat with an ASAT missile launched from one of their cruisers out in the Pacific. I'm mildly surprised they succeeded. The track record of the missile defense program has been dreadful.
I know there's a lot of angst about the militarization of space (and that Chinese ASAT exercise last year was just stupid). But this Navy test might not be all bad. Iran launched an suborbital research rocket a couple of weeks ago and may launch a satellite any day now, which means they're on track to have a rocket that can hit New York by the end of the decade.
Happy Chinese New Year everyone, and welcome to the Year of the Rat. Wish I was in San Francisco right now - they always have an off-the-hook New Year's parade down Columbus & Market.
According to tradition we should all put up some lanterns, clean the house, pay off our debts (ha ha), and go buy some new clothes (that's a tradition I can dig).
So I'm a rat-boy myself, and since the Chinese zodiac follows a 12-year cycle, it was 1996 since the last coming of the rat. It was the year I'd finally given up on the East Coast and first moved to San Francisco. I'd planned to hook up with the Mondo 2000 crowd and take up the noötropic, post-human lifestyle. Which happened, more or less.
It's hard to believe. I can't really picture myself back then any more. But I'm looking forward to another turning of the great Wheel - I'll try to be smarter this time.
Errgh... killin' me to be sitting at work and not able to follow the polls closely.
Following on the theme of the last post, I've been doing everything I can to avoid getting emotionally involved at this point. I'd thought that by this stage of my life, experience had kicked the shit out of me enough that I'd be more or less immune to campaign language. But driving across the 520 bridge this morning, listening to NPR, I heard Obama say this:
The world as it is, is not as it must be...
Well, bozhd, that's it isn't it? Like a line from a song, that's what a lot of us have been begging to hear our whole lives. We want change, we want to feel inspired, to feel like we're in love with something.
Even though I'm trying to stop myself, I can't help wanting to believe.
It's great to be back in the States with Super Tuesday landing tomorrow - this kind of political madness is more fun than the Super Bowl or the World Cup (for me at least, though I'm not normal). Cecilie and I are going to a Dem party rally and vote counting party tomorrow night after work. We're going to the caucus on Saturday too -turns out the Washington state Dem party allocates all its delegates through the caucus system even though there's a pro-forma primary next week. I've never attended a caucus before, and Cec will be writing about it for the Danish media. So it's going to be fun I hope.
These days feel a little bit like the 92 race, when I could hardly believe the Democrats had a chance until the results started coming in the night of the election. Bill Clinton's theme song was "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow." And after 12 years of Reagan/Bush and the end of the Cold War, it seemed as if that "tomorrow" was finally about to happen. I think I was optimistic about the future for the first time in my life then.
And the Clinton years were pretty good. No big wars, decent economy, and if a little oral sex in the Oval Office is the worst thing we had to worry about, well, that's a damn sight better than where we've ended up now.
So now I've really been struggling with the choice between Hillary and Obama, but no matter which of them I like more personally, I think the most important factor is which one is most likely to get elected.
I think Hillary is an incredibly strong candidate. She's tough, she's smart and would make a great president. But I'm seriously worried that she's the most powerful weapon the Republicans will ever get. I believe she's one of the few things that can motivate and unify a fragmented and demoralized Republican party.
Obama is a much more difficult target - and he can pull centrist moderates in a way that I just don't think Hillary can do. It breaks my heart to say this because Hillary has been playing all her cards right and really does "deserve" to get a chance at the White House. But just think about which candidate has a better chance of beating a McCain - Huckabee ticket.
I just wish I didn't have to work tomorrow so I could watch the early results come in!