November 26, 2008
Watch your iPhones, kids!
Walking out of work today, a guy stopped me on the sidewalk and asked if he could pay me a dollar to make a call. I told him that he could make one for free (how nice of me) and asked him the number (it is a lot faster for me to dial a number since many people don’t know how to access the dial-pad unless they already own an iPhone).
The guy called a number (720-621-7655) and said something along the lines of “I’m stranded at 21st and Larimer” to the answering party. He then proceeded to steal my phone.
I chased him around the corner with Amber in the car (who had pulled up right as the guy started running away) following on the street. About two blocks or so later, I caught up to him and he proceeded to change direction and cross right in front of a line of cars on a one-way street running into a small alleyway. At that moment, another car (going the wrong way on the street) pulled into the same alleyway and I thought that my phone was gone. I figured the guy had called a friend to come pick him up and my mind went right to figuring out strategies to either locate my phone (unlikely) or simply make sure all my personal / work data was properly disposed.
After saying a few curse-words, Amber noticed a group of people congregating about half a block from the alleyway the thief disappeared into, and I recognized the vehicle as the same car that pulled in after him. As it turns out, the driver of the car had noticed me chasing the guy down the street and had taken it upon himself to retrieve my phone. In just a few minutes, I had my phone back in perfect condition.
I learned a few things from this:
- Don’t let strangers make calls. It’s 2008 … get your own damn phone.
- I enabled the password on my phone. If it’s entered incorrectly 10 times, all data will be wiped clean. It’s not too cumbersome to type in the code every now and again, and it will definitely come in handy if this ever happens again.
The phone itself is valuable but it’s the data that I was most concerned with. I can always cancel the phone’s IMEI and suspend the account, but the jerk-off would have had access to all my emails, Twitter account, and whatever else I have loaded. Granted, the guy didn’t seem very technically minded (probably just saw a shiny object he thought he could sell for crack or something), but the fact that my personal information was just “out there” really sent me for a loop.
Learn from my mistakes and lock up your phones!
No Comments » | 
Apple, Life, Running | 
Permalink
Posted by johnnywey
November 21, 2008
Great post on Finding Rhythm here: http://www.findingrhythm.com/blog/?p=1428. Got me thinking about “traditional marriage” as defined by Dr. Dobson and other fundamentalist leaders.
It’s pretty easy to see that:
- Marriage has not been defined as “one man and one woman” since the beginning of human history
- The definition of marriage has always been based on culture
The Bible has some historical elements and, while the actual authenticity might be in question, you can glean a lot about ancient values from some of the narratives. People often got married during that time for political and economic reasons more than anything. It makes a lot of sense to have as many wives as possible so you can get as many children (hopefully males) as possible in order to gain an economic and strategic advantage over other tribes.
It was cultural.
If we can admit that this sort of definition is not objective but based on current cultural conditions, why would it be so hard to simply extend that definition to include homosexual couples?
My marriage is not based on some fundamental definition of what it’s supposed to look like. It is fluid; looking a little different every day. There was a period of time in our society where a marriage looked like a man as the bread-winner and the woman as a home maker. That definition has changed fairly dramatically over the last fifty years. Despite that shift, I don’t hear people trying to push a constitutional amendment that defines marriage as “a male earning the family’s money while a female takes care of the home.” If this did actually make it up for a vote, there would be a public outcry eerily similar to that of many homosexual couples.
Again, I encourage those on the social right to try and be intellectually honest about this issue. There are far more important problems to be dealing with right now than what relationship is more legitimate based on something that is, by nature, subjective.
No Comments » | 
General, Life, Spirituality | 
Permalink
Posted by johnnywey
November 10, 2008
A few weeks ago, I listened to this podcast from NPR regarding the credit crisis and all the craziness that took place right before the bubble began to burst.
One gentleman by the name of Glen practically leaped out of the report. He was a young guy, fresh out of college, making $75,000-$100,000 per month. His job was to package mortgages and sell them to Wall Street as investment products.
Can you imagine how much hell you’d raise with all that money at 22-23 years old?
I’d imagine any of us would take that opportunity if it came up given the circumstances at the time. Unfortunately, that’s not usually how life works.
Cultivating a career is hard work. It rarely falls into your lap and you rarely make a lot of money when you start. It takes a lot of sacrifice on your own time reading, studying, making connections, etc.
You should expect to spend a good chunk of your early life deciding what you want to do and how you can leverage that in order to feed your family in the future. Once that decision is made, you should expect that it is going to take several years before the fruit of your labor is going to kick in. Often, as in my field, it takes a college degree plus a few years of experience before you start making some decent money.
I’m extremely lucky in that I found a career I love that also happens to offer a pretty decent salary (albeit sub-Glen) all things considered. However, it hasn’t been extraordinarily easy to become good at what I do. I’ve been working at it since I created my first “for-profit” program at the age of 13!
I’d advise anyone to be cautiously skeptical of any position that promises the kind of money Glen was making (or even a fraction of that) without putting in a fairly substantial amount of time and energy. If you’re lucky (and perhaps more importantly, talented) you might be able to cut a few corners here and there. But don’t count on it. Trying to make a quick dollar instead of a career is like a crap shoot and your chances of a sustainable lifestyle decrease substantially the more you believe that you can avoid the ramp up period and jump right into dropping your Hamiltons. Even beyond that, it’s much easier to live a modest life doing something you enjoy than to hate what you do and make lots of money.
If anything, this credit crisis has demonstrated just how fleeting the promise of quick wealth can be. If it sounds too good to be true …
1 Comment | 
General, Life, Programming | 
Permalink
Posted by johnnywey
