another useful site

My colleagues in the Social History department have informed me about a research site called yearbookyourself.com, where you can see what you would have looked like if you had graduated from a U.S. high school in various periods through history.

The first one is Cap'n Kev in 1966, followed by Albert in several eras. I'll be doing other people in future posts, or you can yearbook yourself.

career success avoidance 1

Following the success of my post on career success, certain commenters jumped to conclusions. They were assuming that it's an advantage in life to come from the ranks of the management classes. If anything one deserves sympathy, after having to grow up alongside these future captains of industry, at knob school.

The few career opportunities that ever came my way (so far) were of my own making, and I was able to mess them up all by myself.

The only respectable job I ever consented to was when someone talked me into taking a university research post.




I used to keep the blackboard in my office covered in meaningless scribbles, just in case the professor dropped in. It was a cover for what I was really doing with the grant money - writing software to print index labels for all my jazz radio tapes. I was able to maintain the pretence for several years, just long enough to last until I got the black spot, the perfect excuse for shelving the jazz research.

If I remember my sunday school lessons correctly, to him who hath shall be given. And so it came to pass that I received other offers, on the strength of the research job ...

way too cool

After the cold winter, I was just getting into the swing of spring. I took the woollen blankets off the bed, washed them and packed them away, along with the woolly jumpers.

That night, a cold front came through and it's been Siberian since, with a biting wind. I came to NSC to get away from all that. Walking to work along the jocko bridges in January used to nearly kill what remained of my spirit, though at the same time it must have been character building. Everything balances up.

So one minute we were enjoying spring, the season when an old man's fancy turns to thoughts of whatever. Then suddenly it's all chapped lips and split finger-ends again. And freezing in bed, but too cold to get up and find a blanket. My organs don't know if they're coming or going.

Meanwhile, Albert is keeping warm by training for the annual 17 mile walk, only three weeks away. He'll probably manage the full distance, but his dog won't.

It used to be that his dog could walk all day without flagging. It's an Aussie Collie, same as mine, bred to chase sheep all day in the outback. A few years back, Cap'n Kev took the dog for an overnight expedition into the bush, walking all day through waist-high grass and scrub. While Kev could step over the undergrowth, the dog had to leap each time. It kept going for a magnificent 6 hours, before it finally lay down and refused to move. But nowadays it's an old dame, and Albert says he's going to have to drop it off half-way through the big walk.