Politics!?

So I have been away for awhile - it's just been busy - 85 million has a way of doing that to you - the project has been going like gang busters (must be a term coined in the 20's when the Fed's were cracking down - Elliot Ness style)

We have been testing things - the speeds are amazing, I regularly disconnect from my enterprise network and utilize the raw FTTH speed for updating systems, and downloading content (television shows I missed during the week) Bittorrent is the video Napster of the moment. Sure beats my Tivo which is currently residing in Denver with my wife and family.

So what's new? The nation is trying to figure out who should be the next president - we have debates tomorrow between the candidates - we have the typical fire storm brewing about the fact that it is no longer an independent function, there are biases being created, yadda yadda yadda.

Guess what folks it doesn't matter - in a bit of clarity it finally smacked me in the face the other night -the democrats are going to choke because somewhere along the way we as a party chose to play nicely with the other children on the playground - we have a bully or two (Michael Moore & Al Franken) and I stretch the definition of bully to include these gentlemen.

However, when we flip to other side and please don't use liberal and conservative - those definitions were lost long ago and should never be applied when talking about politics today. They have O'Reilly (the man who never tells anyone to "shut up") Hannity and Combs, Rush (everyone’s favorite pill popping conservative watch dog) Limbaugh, and most of the cast of Fox News (oxymoron Fox News - hmm like military intelligence) - notice a trend here - the media is your most powerful ally when you become a politician - and the boys running things right now have the media drinking daily from their special kool aid mix.

You will hear the arguement, "the media is controlled by those freaking liberals" I tend to disagree with that assessment - a recent Time article noted "3092 Bush campaign ads that aired from January through June on cable channels that mostly attract affluent white male voters - same period 265 Kerry campaign ads" Wish I could find the New Yorker article (yes even living in Utah I can find the occasional dissident publication) that was attempting to make the same point.

Somewhere someone dropped the ball - why aren't there rude democrats? Who said things had to be nice and polite? The occasional shock jock, some musicians banding together are not going to swing the vote. College Humor (NSFW) has been running a political contest of sorts, actually think they might be on to something and then we have Votergasm (NSFW) - talk about setting the republicans off - Rush has been foaming at the mouth for two days now. MTV has Rock The Vote with VH1 throwing in their support too - that's the key - the youth - need to spin them up - give them a reason to want to jump on board, let them realize that no matter how screwed up things are the adults know that they are leaving the mess for the next generation to clean up.

Michael Moore is coming to town – here in Utah – the radio jocks hammer it daily – yet when you check the web site for tickets the event is completely sold out – the same can not be said for Sean Hannity. Kerry and crew better figure this out real soon and look back at their roots – Kerry needs to nut up (great southern expression), be the general pain in the @ss that helped him get to where he is today. Edwards needs to grab a bat and start swinging for the stands – the gunslinger and crew are not going to go away without a fight and we should all be a little worried if the upstarts manage to lose it.

Have I rambled enough - what am I trying to say - get out there do the research and add your vote to those in November. As a republican friend of mine noted the other day, "it disappoints me to know that my vote is being cancelled out by your vote." Happy to make that difference.

How to interview? Observations I have made.

I just finished interviewing several candidates for a position I have open. In this day and age - people expect to know why they didn't get hired - most especially college graduates. So here's some advice I have going into the interview.

1st and foremost always exhibit confidence. Approach an interview as if you are selling something - Yourself! I bring examples of my previous work along. Whether it's the book I helped write or some documentation from my last project. The whole idea here is convincing the interviewer that by choosing you they will get the best ROI! (Return On Investment)

If you don't know the answer to a question have a strong supporting backup answer. How would you go about finding the answer? What resources would you utilize to determine the correct answer? 90% of the time the interviewer is looking to understand how you think and how you act on your feet.

Don't be afraid of failure - without failure you simply don't learn things in life. The questions I ask are standard interview questions all picked up from Google - learn a solid answer for these types of questions and again stick to that answer - personal answers are not the best answers. Interviewers are more interested in how you handled something on the job - be it college, senior project or an after school job.

Listen to the interviewer - they often give hints in their questions as to how they want you to answer them back. It could be within the question they are asking or it could have come in the discussion of a previous question.

Don't put it on your resume if you can't answer the question. It amazes me that people still do this. If the technical grilling doesn't catch it in the interview you will fall down on the job and then everyone knows it.

And finally read the job description closely - notice the hints as to what they will be interviewing you on. Create an outline of the necessary knowledge before the interview - I often make a multiple page review sheet before I go to an interview that refreshes me on the different questions that could arise from my resume and the job description.

Done gone and got funded

As of 9:00 am MST the project I am happily working my life away on was funded.

This is a wonderful thing - it means there are people out there that believe in what we are going to deliver - FTTH - and it also has some sadness behind it - my life is about to go to hell in a handbasket. I have been enjoying working in the lab, testing code, writing software, learning the insides of the network and come Monday this all changes - all the real work begins and we deliver on the promise. (Any old WINfirst crew will remember this as our catch phrase.)

I am sure there is more to say but at this very moment I am supposed to be in a meeting.