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Showing posts from 2011

Job searching, ego blows and the possible loss of my beard

So, I'm looking for a job. It's hard to do that with the way the economy is and the fact that Tyson made another round of layoffs recently. I know, the economy is supposed to be getting better. That's what TV said and what the politicians said, and we all know that neither of them have ever lied to us. Among the many places in which I have applied is Wal-Mart. The great megalopolis of the retail world. Growing up I've always heard bad things about Wal-mart. Bad products, bad employees, really bad employers, etc. But I recently started talking to people who work there, or have someone they love that works there, and the consensus is that Wal-Mart may actually not be all that bad. So I applied. The Wal-Mart application process is...not right. They are much like anyone else: you can apply in the store or online. The actual application is the standard thing about personal data, employment history, education, etc. What they screw up on is the assessment test at the end. ...

The Problem with History

As many of you may know, I am a history major. I have dedicated most of my adult life to the pursuit and study of the past. As some of you know, I have recently changed my academic pursuit to an MBA. Starting in the fall I will begin my life as a businessman. My reasoning is thus: I cannot rationalize spending my life justifying a discipline that I'm not entirely sure can be justified. Now I know some of you may be thinking "It's history. It's important." For those of you thinking that know that History, as an academic pursuit and viable career, is relatively recent. While there are histories, texts and such that were created and cared for throughout time those who did so did not identify themselves as historians. That started much more recently. Historians have been around for only a few hundred years. Since their creation Historians have been constantly defending and justifying their existence and necessity. Now, after a couple hundred years of effort, most peop...

My Eye Experience

For those of you who do not know, I have allergies. Sometimes severe, sometimes minor, but ever present. But despite my years of experience with them I learned something new the other day. You can get cysts on your eye if your allergies get bad enough. Last Saturday morning I woke up with what felt like an eyelash in my eye. After trying the pull-your-upper-lid-over-your-lower-lid trick it didn't go away, so I looked in a mirror to see what I could see. I had a small bump on my cornea. Weird , I thought That's new. I didn't give it too much thought throughout the day, but the scratchy something-in-my-eye feeling worsened. Saturday night I looked at it again. The bump was still there, but now there were three little blisters on it. I calmly walked to the computer and searched my symptoms. After a little reading I hoped that what I had was a simple scratch. The other options were having something lodged in my eye or Syphilis. How would I explain Syphilis to my mother? "...