The Period of Intense Change has Begun.

Additional Disclaimer: Following are highly speculative predictions based on little more then my personal observations, recent headlines, knowledge of history and my uncanny ability to link together long chains of related events to form an overall situational picture. I don't advocate any particular actions or reactions and make no particular claim that my predictions will come true. You are welcome to consider the following and add your comments, but any other use of this information is strictly at your own risk.

The recent wholesale collapse of major US financial institutions and the "too little, too late" government response will, in the future, be seen as a major turning point in the history of the US, much like the stock market crash of 1929. If the slow motion implosion of Wall Street continues, (and I don't see any reason why it won't,) it will drive investors away from US markets causing the value of the Dollar resume it's long slide. This will lead to $200 a barrel crude and $5/gal gas in the next 12 to 18 months (maybe less). As a result of this persistent and relentless inflation, the US will experience economic upheaval not seen since the great depression.

WWI and the great depression marked the emergence of the US as a true global super power. The "War on Terror" and the impending economic crush (it won't be a fast crash but will slowly continue for decades), will mark the end of the US as a world dominating power.

The future of economic, political and cultural power now lies with China, India and in another decade or two Africa. Latin America will be seen as an example of moderation and stability. The economic fallout of an imploding US economy will re-fracture Europe mostly along socialist lines as some countries will demand that their governments do more to help those suffering economically.

The world as we know it today, will not exist in 20 years. And for a hundred years, none of the generations that follow the American Baby Boomers will be as well off. The economic and political unrest will result in a steady erosion of the freedoms traditionally enjoyed Americans. Following one or maybe two nationally traumatic events, we will see the emergence of the first in a long line of American dictators.

My only advice is to have a plan, but plan flexibly.

My new favorate YouTube video

YouTube - Large Hadron Rap:

Quantum physics geek chick rapping about the cutting edge particle accelerator. 'nuff said.

News & Updates

I haven't posted anything newsy in quite some time. So I guess it's about due.

Pretty much all winter and spring went into getting everything ready for Spring Fest. It went off the first weekend in May. It was in many ways the best one I've run yet. But in many others this year wasn't as good as my previous ones. Afterward I was really burned out on vaulting and especially on fest management and it was really hard to get all the after fest tasks done this year. Fest next year it will be at the same place in Olympia, again on the first weekend in May.

Memorial Day weekend I went to the NW Folklife Festival in Seattle. Much fun. Good food. Big crowds. Parked in Issaquah and took the express bus in and out, which was pretty nice.

I tried to ignore my birthday in June, but my mom clued in the vaulters and they brought me cake.

At the end of June I spent a week on staff at the National Vaulting Summer Training Camp in Nebraska. It was the kind of experience I really needed to get over my burnout. It was sooo... much fun. Vaulting has so many really worthwhile young people and adults too.

Didn't really do much of the Forth.

After getting back from camp, I interviewed for a promotion and this week I was officially offered a new position as a Sr. Engineering Tech. It's mostly making the temporary special assignment that I've been doing for the year or so into a long term thing. It pays quite a bit more then my previous position and more then I made as a Transportation Engineer, but it's still less then I was making as a computer programmer before the dot-com bubble burst.

I'm skipping out on my 20 year HS reunion this coming weekend, as the air fare for the dates I could fly was over $500. I like my HS friends, but not enough to blow most of a grand for the trip by the time you include parking, reunion ticket, vacation time, etc..

Next week a local TV crew is coming out to do a segment on my vaulting club. Then it's off to eastern WA for a weekend vaulting camp. Followed by Nationals in No.Cal. in early August.

Late August will be focused on recruiting vaulters for the fall / winter and competitions in September and October.

States I've been to.

A friend of mine had one of these in her blog. Looked cool, so here's mine.


visited 44 states (88%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or determine the next president

Could be just the thing for my Dad's aspiring 50-States marathon friends.

Help!, My Yahoo alternatives???

Chris --

I've been a very happy user of Yahoo's "My.Yahoo.com" service since
it was in it's initial beta many years ago. The last couple of
revisions have been pushing more dynamic Ajax layouts and requiring more
screen real estate. So after giving each new version an honest try, and
providing thoughtful feedback, I've opting to go back to the "Classic
My Yahoo".

Much to my disappointment the new version rolled out today (or maybe
it was yesterday) doesn't offer any "Classic My Yahoo" option. I've
filled out their feedback for telling just how much I dislike the new
version and why and asking them to contact me.

In the event I don't get them to restore access to the classic
interface, what are some other news readers that present in a
"newspaper" metaphor rather then a "e-mail" or "tree" metaphor?
Preferably ones that support some degree of rich content not just
headlines.

Thanks
Tom Sayles

http://Soot-n-Smoke.com/tsayles

Feedback Message Regarding Susan K. Kichline at EEG Recruiting

I starting to get really annoyed by recruiters, like Susan K. Kichline and the Kody More I wrote about back in July, that can't keep track of who they have contacted and who they have received resumes from.

Susan initially contacted me on March 7, 2008 and I replied with a resume and an expression of interest in Seattle area positions.

On March 20 I received another, almost identical, "Dear Candidate:" e-mail message to the same e-mail address. After that near duplicate message it was obvious that Susan wasn't keeping track of who she contacted and/or not reviewing her cold contact e-mail list for duplicates. So I e-mailed her and warned her that this was a problem that made her look bad and that she and her company, EEG Recruiting, needed to fix this.

Her reply on March 26 was:

Tom:

Unfortunately, because the search is done on criteria, and not on specific names, if you do not want to receive any emails, please delete your information off of the internet job sites.

Thanks for your understanding,

Susan

On April 11 I received a third almost identical, "Dear Candidate:" e-mail message to the same e-mail address. So, on April 18 I finially got around to responding by posting the following to EEG Recruiting's "contact us" webpage, then wrote this blog entry.

"Despite a previous polite reply with the requested information and a warning about again being contacted, your agent "Susan K. Kichline" sent an identical "Dear Candidate:" e-mail message. I take this as a real sign of cluelessness on the part of your employee, and incompetence on the part of your company in not properly managing prospective candidate data. And I do not wish to work with your company now or in the future.

Please remove my resume from your records and add my e-mail address to your do not contact list. If I receive another "Dear Candidate:" e-mail message form Susan K. Kichline or from any of your agents I will report this as e-mail abuse to your ISP and to the local authorities."

It looks like there's a real business opportunity for anyone that's wiling to bring real CRM technology to recruiting companies like EEG Recruiting who employ recruiters, like Susan K. Kichline.

Follow-up:

Within 12 hours of the initial posting, my blog post was listed as the number 2 site when searching Google on "Susan K. Kichline", and in the top 20 when searching on "EEG Recruiting".

Additional Follow-up:

I got and then sent the following replies to the website contact form posting I mentioned above.

Administrator wrote:
>
> Tom, did you use the remove link at the bottom of her email?
>

I did follow the remove link yesterday, when I decided to cut off working with your company. Before that I was willing to be contacted by Susan K. Kichline or by your company about specific jobs that might be of interest and that's why I sent a resume and information about location preferences when I was first contacted in early March.

The point is that her / your candidate tracking system is very broken! Your company and employees need to be keeping track of who they have gotten positive responses and resumes from and not be cold e-mailing the those same addresses every two to three weeks. Your failure to do so is, IMHO, a sign of real incompetence and could be considered harassment. And I do not wish to work with a company that fails to do such basic forms of due diligence.

Again please remove my resume from your records and do not contact me about available positions or opportunities.

For more information please review my "TomS Words or Wisdom" blog post on the subject and/or search Google for "Susan K. Kichline".

Is it just me, or are these folks at EEG Recruiting really just completely clueless?

Business Process Reengineering: AVA Recognized Vaulting Competitions

The following is my Commentary giving a vision of what the process could be.

From a business process engineering point of view tasks like e-mailing the Official AVA membership list to the competition [fest] organizers should be almost automatic. Basically the fest manager / show secretary should fill out a form with all the "AVA Recognized Competition Application" information either in the Competition Management section of the members area on AmericanVaulting.org and/or in CompWeb. The website should then send the National Office Manager an e-mail and/or a "pending" list item asking him to confirm payment and approve or deny the "AVA Recognized Fest" status.
Next the website / membership database should automatically publish the event in the Calendar section of AmericanVaulting.org and send an e-mail to the AVA Competition Secretary, Vaulting World Editor, listed Judge(s) [per the application] and the Organizers confirming the approval. The e-mail to the Organizers should also include the requirements reminder / guide that the AVA Competition Secretary now sends, as well as links to fest management, publicity and sponsorship resources.
Then a few days after the close of entries the website should send the National Office Manager an e-mail and/or a "pending" list item asking you to approve the official membership list. Once he does, the website / membership database should e-mail the approved list. And CompWeb's Registration List should include a member/non-member column populated using a join with the approved list on AVA#. Based on a boolean compare with the US Citizen column CompWeb should also be able to highlight any registered participants who need pay a non-member fee.
A few days before fest, the website should send a reminder to the Organizers [and optionally to the listed Judge(s)] highlighting the "During Fest" requirements.
A few days after the fest the website(s) should: move the Calender item to a past events archive; e-mail AVA Competition Secretary the official membership list (and if in CompWeb the list / total number of non-members as computed); and e-mail a reminder to the Organizers of the "After Fest" requirements. CompWeb could also send a notice to National and any Regional Highpoint Secretaries if scoring was done in CompWeb.
This is of course the ideal, but it can serve as a vision of how this process could eventually work, and something that we can incrementally work toward.

Words of Wisdom: Do the Incredible

To do the incredible,
set lofty goals,
and work in small steps,
to achieve them.

-- Tom Sayles

The Geek Jeep has passed on.

After 360k miles, may she rest in peace ... or more likely ... in pieces.

Idea: Reusable Automated Space Transport and Return System

I read a recent article on the Rendezvous and Escape tests of ESA's ATV, Jules Verne. This got me thinking again about how I would design a shuttle replacement system. So I opened up a vector graphics program, Scribus (which I think is actually trying to be a desktop publishing program) and started jotting down my ideas. While the tools left something to be desired, the results turned our reasonably well. The biggest problem were that the text editing in Scribus seems very broken and there wasn't any for me to spell check.

Anyway I've uploaded the resulting PDF with my ideas for the Reusable Automated Space Transport and Return System [RASTRS].

Taxes are Done!

Time: Start to finish (minus stamp and dropping in mailbox) , 40 minutes.
Results: Refund of $74.37.

Once again my simple filing status means that my withholdings are close to, and just slightly more then my actual tax liability. Which is just about the way that I want it. Since I moved last year and never received my form packet from the IRS, I just downloaded the 1040ez form and instructions off the web, used Adobe Reader to fill it in and an OpenOffice.org spreadsheet to do the computations. The most time consuming single task was printing out the envelope, as the 1040ez instructions kept giving me garbage when I tried to copy the IRS address.

If I could e-file online at the IRS.gov website, or by clicking a button on the 1040ez PDF, I would have done so. But finding a provider, setting up an account, and entering the information would have taken too much effort for what it would have been worth. If the IRS really wants to get away from the manual data entry they really need to eliminate the middlemen and directly accept e-filings through their website.

AVA Annual Meeting

I had a good and productive time at the American Vaulting Association's Annual Meeting, held this past weekend in Cupertino, CA.  I attended many committee meetings, both the board meeting and the general membership meeting, as well as a couple of training sessions (Tom Oakes' on using the AVA's CompWeb and Nancy Stevens-Brown's on using digital photography as a coaching tool).  I volunteered to serve on the AVA's competitions committee (because I manage a competition that is very different from most) and to serve as the leader of the Membership Sub-committee on Contests for Vaulting World and the AVA Website(s).

I also attended the AVA's annual awards and recognition banquet. A few Region III vaulters were recognized for their outstanding performance during the 2007 competition year. 

Per a request from the AVA's VP of membership, I delayed my flight plans home so that I could attend a meeting Monday morning with the AVA's website developers.  The AVA is very impressed with what we have been doing with the CascadeVaulters.org, VoNW.org and Region3Vaulting.com websites and would like to use them as prototypes for future development (two or three years out) of the AVA's websites.

My changed plans had me arriving back into Sea-Tac about 7:30 PM.  My Alaska flight from San Jose arrived into Portland early, and I could have caught the 6:00 PM Horizon shuttle to Seattle. However I opted to wait for my scheduled (6:30PM) shuttle flight because I had checked a bag that probably wouldn't have mad the earlier flight and I preferred to wait air-side in Portland and grab some dinner then at baggage claim in Seattle where there are few services. 

The 6:30 PM shuttle flight (Horizon Air 2496) actually left five minutes early and arrived at Sea-Tac a few minutes after seven.  I was impressed with the speed, efficiency and level of service provided on what is essentially a shuttle service between Seattle and Portland.  It was one of the best air travel experiences I've had in years.

Also my favorite airport parking service, ExtraCar, again did a nice and convenient job at a good price.

Report from the AVA Annual Meeting

This is my frist time attending the AVA's annual meeting, and it has been interesting and productive.  The only news items to really report are from the competitions committes and the technical committee.

 

From the competitions committee, it sounds like the USEF/AVA National Championships in 2009 will be rather early (second weekend of July?) to be part of a larger multi-dicipline event that will test the facilities for the World Equestrian Games in 2010.  From the Technical committee it looks like the rest of the country will be following our lead and will make all individual barrel classes 60 seconds.  Also Individual Trot will promoted from the Appendix A of the Guidelines into the "Rules for Vaulting" and become an AVA Recognized Event.  All of the above still needs to be approved by the Board of Directors and/or the general membership meetings (today and tomorrow) before they are actually approved.

 

Other news out of our regional meeting, it looks like we might have a regional championships either the second or third weekend of July at Trails End Arena in Olympia (same place as Spring Fest.)

 

So far I've managed to avoid taking on any additional responsibilities, except for chairing the "Membership Subcommittee on Vaulting World & Website Contests".  I also got asked to attend a meeting on Monday morning with our VP of membership and the company that manages the AVA website.

 

I hope to see all the Cascade Vaulters on Wednesday and others next weekend at the NW Spirit of Vaulting Conference.

TTFN

     Tom Sayles

     Head Coach, Cascade Vaulters

Has music DRM run it's course?

Back in early 2005, in a blog post headlined "Microsoft in decline", I mentioned that DRM, digital rights management, is a myth and was likely to be a big flop.

It looks like the music industry is finally figuring out what the PC software industry realized back in the mid-'80s. That is if your product is encumbered with copy protection that gets in your legitimate customer's way, then your product won't get purchased and the copy protection will get removed, routinely.

DRM Officially Dead: Last Major Label Sony BMG Plans to Finally Drop DRM:

Prediction: The next major wave will be the movie studios dropping DRM, but I think that will take another two to five years. The detrimental effects can be seen in problems like this one where an HD Monitor Causes DRM Issues with Netflix, which I recently read about on Slashdot.

One of the big outstanding questions in my mind is what will happen with poor old Microsoft, as they have committed heavily to DRM by making it a fundamental "feature" of Vista called Trusted Computing. If Windows Vista gets in the way, will consumers install the free Ubuntu to get around the annoying DRM?

Cleaning up the subtropical gyres

A recent item on Digg.com (with an inaccurate headline) linked to a Sydney Morning Herald article reporting on the build up of plastic in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. After reading the article I recalled hearing about using solar powered Autonomous Surface Vessels for harbor security and ocean research, either on the internet or more likely on TV (as I can't seem to find much information about ASVs by searching the internet). The idea then occurred to me that a small fleet of solar powered autonomous plastic skimmers, might be able to play a role in cleaning up the world's subtropical gyres.

Essentially the idea is this:

1. One or more Collection Vessels, probably solar powered, are fitted with equipment to collect sea surface plastic (and other inorganic garbage) and separate it from sea water and, to the best extent possible, from sea life.
   
2. The collected plastic would then be either ground into pellets and stored on board or compacted, bailed, and stored overboard for retrieval and recycling.

Expanding on the basic idea:

1. One or more additional Transfer Vessels, likely solar and/or wind powered, would rendezvous with the Collection Vessels.
2. The vessels would then transfer the collected plastic (and other inorganic garbage) to the Transfer Vessel(s).
3. The Transfer Vessels would then sail to a designated port facility where the plastic could be properly recycled and the and other inorganic garbage properly disposed.
   

Initially these vessels would likely have to be staffed, but as the techniques are refined and equipment developed, more and more of the work could be automated and remotely monitored.

Free Speach & Self Censorship

Having had a first hand experience with my employer visiting my website, I know that such a future possibility does effect what I post here. 

This NY Times article illustrates a real problem facing free speech in our society.  As I see it there are three solutions that in some combination will hopefully mitigate this over the long term, but we must be vigilant.

First legal protections, such as those in Colorado and Minnesota and/or judicial protections under the First Amendment will help.  Second, many companies and union contacts also have policies or provisions against religious or political discrimination when activities are off of company hours and property.  Third, as public disclosure of personal information becomes more common, then individuals will hopefully become more accepting of the diverse opinions and activities of others. 

Until these happen and are universally accepted, many people (perhaps including myself) will find it necessary to blog anonymously, which in light of recent and well minded efforts by some groups to protect children and/or security, could itself becoming a suspicious activity. 

As I recently stated in a reply to a comment, advances in communication, transportation and the hard sciences [physics, chemistry and biology] have brought not only awareness of differences in cultures and  peoples often profound differences in closely held beliefs, but also outright confrontations, especially where two groups both have strong but opposing views of what is right and what is wrong. 

In the early years of the internet (before the world wide web), this most often took the form of simple "flame wars".  But as the Internet has gotten easier to use and the population using the Internet has expanded, so to have the off line consequences expanded for expressing decenting or unpopular opinions.

I don't know for sure, but I suspect that a former boss may have substantially changed his opinion of my abilities and work performance because he didn't agree with political / religious views expressed or implied in this blog.

Mom & MySpace

With a degree in sociology and strong interest in geeks, nerds and kids, it shouldn't be surprising that my mom has discovered MySpace. But I was a little taken aback when I received an e-mail linked to her MySpace page, urging me to join MySpace too.

When I first set up a profile on myspace (a couple of years ago), I mostly just copied sections of my various dating site profiles. Later on I added a survey module, that found somewhere. Until now I hadn't shared that page with my family or with certain groups of friends.

So after I made a pass to ensure that there wasn't anything there I wouldn't mind my niece and nephews seeing, clicked the link to add my mom as a friend. [I also did the same for my brother and niece, who were already on my mom's friend list.]

In our daily lives most of us display a certain persona to our co-workers, a different persona to our family and yet another to our friends. Thus it can be a bit awkward when these groups intersect, particularly if the groups may not have the same political and/or religious views. It makes sense that our online identities, profiles, etc. parallel these real world projections, but the growing the interconnectedness and search-ability of these profiles is making these intersections more common and sometimes less obvious.

As social networking sites get more sophisticated, most people will want the ability to group their associations and share different information with different groups. I don't think that most people necessarily want to hide who they really are. However they don't necessarily want to advertise everything about themselves to everyone.

Fifteen Hour Drive.

It took just about 15 hours to drive from Santa Rosa, CA to Maple Valley, WA, via my originally planned US-101->US-199->I-5 route, which is about an hour more then I really like to do in a single day. If I had made it to Eureka as planned Thursday night, it would have been only about ten to twelve hours today.

But I made it home safe and sound and in time for practice Saturday morning.

Stuck in No.Cal., due to snow

I got as far as Ukiah, CA before the CHP was turning everyone around because US-101 was closed due to snow.  Went back to Santa Rosa, so I could get a warm motel room with good Internet access, where I will spend the night.  Plans for the Friday will depend on road conditions in the morning and the evolving weather forecast. 

At this point I'm not sure when I'll get back to the Seattle area, but will call Jennie & Holly, if I can't make it to practice on Saturday.


TTFN
    Tom

Christmas in SoCal with family

The drive down from Washington was very much as planned, though I didn't get to check e-mail along the way. As expected there was snow in the Siskiyou Mountains, so I followed my regular alternate route from Grants Pass, OR out to Crescent City, CA and down US-101.

Stopped off and had a nice visit wit my Aunt, Uncle and Grandmother near/in San Jose on Friday evening / Saturday morning. Went straight from my parents place out to dinner with my brother and his family.