Blatant Obfuscation

The Kansas City Job

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 22:57:59 -0700

I am sitting here Sunday night with very little to do and what seemed like a good idea several moment previously was to run through the various thoughts and ideas that were on the top of my head. Of these I decided it was about time that I took the effort to update things I do every so often.
I am currently in the Kansas City area waiting for Tuesday to come to start work. Tuesday will be my first real job since obtaining a Master’s of Science in April, but in reality it is my first real job with benefits and 401Ks and the things that should be considered. Previously all my work experiences never really had these things. This is definitely a new chapter in my life, especially since I have spent the last 6 years in Utah attending school.
The past month has seemed like a blur. It has happened really fast. The job search had been brutal over the last 6 months until the offer from the company in Kansas City came along. I started looking for employment in late December early January shortly after realizing that my hopes of pursuing a PhD had been dashed. I think I had gone thru 25 weeks of actively looking for a job before I had an opportunity open up to me. By chance back at the end of May, an alumnus (Nathan) had contacted my advisor (Dr. Scott Grimshaw) with a possible set of jobs. I was forwarded the information and I soon wrote an email inquiring more. In what seemed like a lightning strike, I began a quick succession of events that lead to the job.
In recalling the events, it seemed that I sent Nathan a copy of my resume late one Wednesday afternoon and by early Thursday, the HR recruiter had contacted me to complete a Statistical Assessment over the following weekend. I had finished up whatever else I had been working and began working on the assessment early Friday afternoon. In the course of the assessment, I ran into stumbling blocks of sorts and spent most of the weekend trying to reason out the assessment. I felt somewhat proud of the fact that the assessment not only used what I had been taught in a class but forced me to extend my understanding in a different way.
I turned in the assessment that Monday night (the 21st of May) later than I had planned and went home to sleep. I awoke the next morning and went about my day. In the late morning I got a call from the HR person wanting to setup a phone interview that afternoon. What seemed at the time as a whirlwind, I was done with a phone interview in the early afternoon for about 30 minutes when the HR person called back to set up an in-person interview.
The fly-out was set for the following week and I began to prepare. I flew out late on the Tuesday after Memorial day and traveled to Kansas City to interview. The interview seemed to have lasted all day Wednesday, but in reality was from 10ish until 3ish and I was back on my way to Salt Lake City. The interview was a lot of things that at the time just went over my head and didn’t let me focus on one single thing. By the end I was tired and felt like I had been trying to drink from the fire hose while going thru the entire day.
I arrived back in Salt Lake City close to midnight, but not before having fun with flights that were delayed and the possibility of staying a night in either Kansas City or Houston was raised. Luckily I was able to get a flight to SLC back thru Denver on a different carrier. I came to dislike the Denver airport on this trip just for the sole reason of landing on one end of the United terminal and having to make it to the opposite end of the terminal in a short amount of time was a little too tight.
The next morning I had determined to sleep in a little since I arrived home late and need the rest as I justified it. So as I lay half thinking I would get some more sleep around the 9am mark Thursday morning, I got a fun call from the HR guy again with a job offer. Now I was no where close to being fully awake nor was functioning at anything close to enough to fully comprehend what was being said to me, but I do remember the offer being made and me asking how long I had to respond to verbal offer. I made some mental notes after receiving the offer and then quickly got up and moving.
In due course, I accepted the verbal offer for a written offer to be sent to me. I read over to offer and thought a lot about it. I thought about what my options were and then signed and sent back the offer. I had a job to start the first of July. It was the 8th of June and my mind was racing. I had lots to do.
The first task was to begin using internet tools available to look for a place which in and of itself sort of fell flat on itself given the lack of later success in that arena. But then boxing up things and trying to sell things became a priority. I had lived at the same place for 4 years and so there was a lot of work that went into getting ready to leave.
The last weekend in June, the company flew me out to Kansas City to house hunt. I had gone out with a set list of places to look at and appointments and general areas of town to search in. After 2 long days of searching, I had come up flat. I soon learned that most of the places on my list which said they were available immediately meant that the apartments would become available end of July or beginning of August. I did get a good understanding of how the Kansas City Metro area worked though and could by the end navigate myself around fairly well. I flew back to SLC Sunday afternoon and found myself doing the last of my packing.
The enjoyable part of the weekend was on Friday night. I was asked if I wanted to help out on fireworks for a corporate party. I agreed and was taken out to Kearny, MO in the evening. Once we got to the sight of the show, I helped set things up and then for the show I loaded tubes while my friend Mike lighted the mortars off. It was a lot of running back and forth for the entire of the show with not a lot of chance of getting to sit back and enjoy the fireworks. It was fun.
Sunday night Dad arrived in Provo and after jockeying cars and moving things around we crashed at a brother’s house to wake up early and head into SLC to have windshields replaced. A couple hours later we were back in Provo packing up the things into a truck and car to head to Colorado and the parent’s property there. Once in Colorado, I got to spend Tuesday unpacking things, making determinations on what needed to go with me to Kansas City and what could stay, and then repacking the truck and car. It was simply a long day and for good reasons.
Wednesday morning, things were finalized and every ready to head out. I helped out where I could as Dad had a list of things he needed to do before heading to Kansas City with me. By the time the list was completed it was nearly 4pm and we jumped in the truck and head across southern Colorado and Kansas to Kansas City. We arrived late morning (about 11ish) and found a storage unit for me to put all my stuff in. We unloaded the car and the truck and then I put clothes into the car to use. Dad and I toured around the town for a couple of hours seeing things of interest like where I was going to work and where I had been looking at living. Finally the time came; we ate dinner and then parted ways.
The last four days, I have been in Kansas City and I have been filling up my time. Because I do not have a permanent home yet, my brother in law arranged with his aunt and uncle for me to stay with them temporarily and that has been a fun experience. The two in-door cats here have been fun just for the mixture of mistrust the have in me and how curious they can be. Needless to say I have had to clean up a couple of fur balls that are left for me after I have stepped out of the bedroom. I did spend most of Friday and part of Saturday refining my search area on apartments and looking at other options. This has been a combination of looking at different options and locations.
Saturday night, I was again invited to help out with a fireworks show. This one was put on by the same people but there was food prior to it and plenty of things to do. The show was again a load and fire for 30 minute fest but instead of loading I was lighting the mortars. Still it was a lot of little 10 yard dashes away from the tubes after things were lit.
Sunday I awoke and read part of a couple books I have been reading. I got ready and attended church and then came back to read some more. I was planning on venturing out to find a 4th of July fireworks show but about dusk there was a good rainstorm and I just decided to sit it out and finish the book I was reading.

Things I was told

Sat, 03 Jul 2010 23:06:50 -0700

I have been told a couple things this past couple of weeks that I find at the least bit noteworthy.
First off, I was told since I was leaving Provo I should at the very least confess my undying love to someone. This exchange came as I chatted with a friend about my frantic search for apartments in KC and the struggles of moving. He thought it would be fun to do just to change the stress levels in my life. He had suggestions as to who I could make such declarations to and why they would be prudent to do. I ignored this bit of advice.
Secondly, I have been told many many many things about benefits and new jobs and financial changes that will be occurring over the next little while in my life. The best line from people unnamed was “Don’t be a cheap ass bastard, splurge on yourself every now and then” It makes me laugh only when I think of the thick Texan accent it was said in.
Lastly, I was encouraged my father to not delay in my educational pursuits. This has actually been told to me a couple of different time but altogether it was the same. It was something about once being out of school over time parts of the brain shut down due to inactivity that you don’t otherwise use.
It is not like I have had time to really process these things, but it was one of those things on the back of my mind this afternoon.

I passed the Project Defense

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:00:00 -0700

The slow realization that I am almost done with a Master's degree has finally landed. After one failed project (there are bitter feelings there) and 8 of some of the longest weeks so far in my higher education, I defended my project. With the single class I am taking this semester to finish, I am rather close to finishing the degree. All looks as though I am on track to have an April graduation date, which was the goal from the start of this experience.

All that is now left to do is to get edits back from the department editor and then go thru the steps to submit the write-up to the University. There are two major deadlines left one this week and one next. I think I can make both of them which will be nice. At some point I will have to come up with a simple explanation of what the project was. It just wont be today.

As I study

Mon, 04 May 2009 15:43:23 -0700

I spent all of last week studying. I am spending today thru Wednesday studying a lot of material, so that come Thursday at 8, I can take the first of two parts of the Statistic Department's comprehensive exam. Of the 5 core courses required, there is a lot of material to cover for the two day exam. I am looking at all of the topics covered, the theorems discussed and the homework done, I am surprised at the volume of material and the amount of paper it all takes up.
Come Friday at 2 it will be over, which is probably a good thing to have this hurdle almost out of the way. After that, assuming I pass, the project awaits to be finished. Wahoo...wahoo...

Notes in Passing

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:25:34 -0700

Even though it is Spring...it just doesn't feel like spring.

For the past four years I have been plugging away at getting a higher education. Last year, I fulfilled the requirements for a Bachelors degree, in that I came to realize I wanted more than that, applied to Grad Schools, and waited. About this time a year ago, I decided where I was going and what that would mean to me.

Since September and in contradiction to people around me, I have been spending my time preparing and studying. In about five weeks I get to take a comprehensive test covering the materials from classes over the last five years and there is a part of me that seems a little apprehensive about that. I don't think I am ready for that test despite the hours of time I have put in weekly preparing, learning, studying.

I dont really think it is spring because I havent spent anytime outside playing.

***

I can recall a time while in Germany, using the idiom "Water off a duck's back", and then getting to explain what I meant.

The past few days, I have felt somewhat like that goofy boy trying to explain an english idiom to a german speaker in german...

It's not like I have said something out of the ordinary, it just seems that way...

A random aside into sports

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:11:34 -0700

If given the time and opportunity, I tend to have on ESPN or Fox Sports turned on the TV when working. Over the last several days, which I would think has become common knowledge, A-Rod admitted to steroid usage. This has caused that for the better part of the week, sports reporters and commentators to be obsessed with steroids and baseball again. It was recently I heard [don't remember who or when] a suggestion that the drug testing needs to be in a different form, which is what I think is needed.
The commentator used it the form of RIP. Random. Independent. Public. I think all three of those things need to exist in order to assure the best case of avoid the "scandal" that now is brewing in baseball. I don't follow baseball, unless it is in the form of box scores printed in a paper, but I do think that the visible side of the sport is tainted with accusations of steroids and other banned performance enhancing substances.
I think it needs to be RANDOM. My current understanding is that the current system is far from the random, more deterministic than anything else. Random wouldn't allow for people to cheat the system. In the fact that you would never know if you were or were not going to be tested at any given point, would allow the test to better reflect the average daily usage versus the current system.
I think it needs to be INDEPENDENT. I think there is too much in the current system that is tied to Unions and agreements, that for the results to be trustworthy, that an outside entity is payed to come in and perform the tests and test them, independent of any conflicting arrangement that could otherwise exist.
I think the results need to be PUBLIC. This is a good way of showing a good faith move on part of the fans and the general public. It is the only way to have the testing mean something. A test that is never made public is as if it never existed.

Now for the current situation, I think that there is a need to black box the past, because there is not a lot that can be done about it now, but I think at the same time that there is a level of the past needs to be undone. There are too many awards and achievements that have been tainted by the use of this substances, that make it hard to believe that it was the person alone doing it. I think of them for those implicated currently should be vacated and the previous record holder should be reinstated as the only accurate record we have. If not that, a huge asterisk place by the record to fully account for the uncertainty of the record.

Now I just wish that we could end all of the commentary on it and focus on something else.

Things to note

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 17:17:32 -0700

Someone walked up to me, and for the fourth or fifth time in 24 hours asked me how to do the same task. It wasn't that hard to do and were someone to google the question it shows up as the first result. I will go further and say that were you to have to ask more than once how to do it, it would have been a good idea to write down the response. So when the response from me was "you're an idiot" slipped out of my mouth, I was shocked when the offended party asked me to clarify why I said that.

I think there are simple rules of education, and it is really broken down on a person's willingness to find out things on their own. This also forms the basis of my generalization of underclassmen around me and therefore is used to apply when people begin to talk to me.
First when given a problem you look at it and begin to see what you know and try to solve the problem, you probably are an intelligent human being. I expect these types of people not to bother me because if they ask a question it has some thought behind it.

Second when given a problem, you first ask for a hint on how to do it. Yeah these are the people I begin to question why they are near me. I have a good chance of referencing you on some level of an idiot. I think the world is filled with this type of people and they wonder why things never seem to work for them, it maybe because they expect someone else to do them.

Lastly when given a problem, you must be walked thru every step. This is also known as the high school mentality. I have no problem calling you an idiot. There are some lines that shouldnt be crossed and asking to have the problem worked out for you causes me to think that maybe the college life is beyond your level to think and reason. I am pretty sure these people are where they are in life because of the efforts of people around them and not of their own volition.

In reference to all that, I have been told I should be nicer. It was just something of note.

Two weeks later...

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 12:46:53 -0700

So I was introduced to FLINGSHOT FLYING ANIMALS and then bought everyone minus the monkey [only because the monkeys screams]. Now I bought them brought them to my office and have used them to startle or scare people at random [but not the statistical random there].

September 16th
James is enjoying flying farm animals that make sounds as they soar down the hall....

It has been fun, it is probably the only excitement I get, speaking that I spend a lot of time reading and doing homework and studying.

So beyond the flying farm animals, I dont think I have had much to report. I dont think I really ever have much to report.

New Facebook statuses....

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:10:00 -0700

September 10 - James is laughing as he creates quizzes for his students...
September 4 - James is finding it interesting the shear amount of time he has spent on campus since Tuesday...
August 30 - James is a newly minted "Armchair Political Pundit".

Those were my last set up updates...

The August 30th corresponds to the start of my new endeavor, which I am working out some of the kinks on. But despite the wrong beliefs of others was something I have been thinking about for a while, and has nothing to do with them, but they can think they are that important.

The 4th of September is something of a joke for me. In the first 3 days of school I had spent 40 hours on campus either in class, working or doing homework some where in the Talmage Building. For those who have a clue about acronyms on BYU's campus know that the Talmage is designated as TMCB, which is meant for Talmage Mathematics and Computer Building. This became a joke of a project because realizing the building is more than a math and computer building, it isnt not appropriately named, which seems to be an important thing here at BYU. So I have been looking into since the 4th, the right place to have the building's acronym updated to either all thing there located or to reflect the person for whom it was named. So those acronyms would be TMSCB (by year of inclusion) or the JETB.

The 10th, I was working on one of my assignments in the department, which is instruction for Stat124, which means helping people 'learn' SAS but in reality it is to prepare people for the Base SAS certification exam. As it is a grades class, there must be things like quizzes and assignments...which make me laugh as I make them up. I get humor out of these things and it is just great.

A New Endeavor

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 16:01:11 -0700

Announcing for those of you interested, I have with help from Jordan set up a new site to discuss my status as an "Armchair Political Pundit".

http://www.armchairpolitics.net

I am doing this for two reasons really. Mainly I wanted to share my political views and knowledge, but I didn't feel it fell under a Blatant Obfuscation topic. Also I felt I wanted to give others I know a place where they could also share their political thoughts with the understanding we have no real clue the inner workings of the minds of politicians nor the any clue of the back room deals made within the political machines also known as political parties.

Well, enjoy those who venture there...

Start of the NCAA Football Season

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:43:50 -0700

To the surprise of a a lot of people, I tend to be knowledgeable in the realm of sports. Now mind you I don't know a lot of the particulars or the records that are set, but I do know enough of about each of the sports to hold my own. Problems arise that I have a hard time following most team sports because the number of games played in a single season exceeds my artificial limit of interest.

Take baseball, the season starts in April and ends in October. Baseball isn't interesting until September because you start 'weeding' out historically the best teams. I will admit I will watch the All Star game in July just because it has merit for the World Series, but otherwise all of the information that can be provided by playing so many games is not very interesting. I guess the same can be true for basketball.

I am partially biased due to hearing announcers come up with random facts, pass them off as a statistic and talk about nothing really. I am not really interested in hearing about batting percentage of a left handed hitter against a right handed pitcher during a night game on Tuesdays. It seems useless.

Now I will follow football. I follow football religiously. It may have something to do with the place I was raised. [Football is a religion in Texas...it just is...] But it is one of those things that you start in September by December the season is over. You know things. Football over the last 10 years has extended the bowl games for college into the second week of January and the NFL goes until the first of February. 19 games is the most I have to follow.

Interesting things come into play. Looking at a stochastic decision model, it is important to look at what you have available to you, where you are on the field and what down it is. A decision becomes interesting if you know that going into the wind your quarterback can make a 15 yard pass, your opponent is gonna blitz on the down because you are on the 30 yard line, so the question is the best play to call. [If anyone is wondering stochastic models are interesting to me...stochastic is a form of random...]

So this week marks the beginning of a 17 week enjoyable time, with college games on every Saturday, and an opportunity to be armchair coaches come Monday to discuss what teams should have done, and what the outcome of the upcoming week will be...

Facebook status

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:00:00 -0700

August 25
James is overjoyed by how much work the bootcamp produces allowing him to be rather antisocial...

So the hectic life of bootcamp came to a close this week. I am grateful for the time spent getting a glimpse into the next year, but it is still a lot to process. So with the getting to campus by 8 to the being on campus until 8 to the eventual laundry list of things that were really important for the next day, I chugged along.

On Wednesday, the first year students, who stuck it around, got what would be their TAing assignments. I had a good clue to what I was to be doing, because I have been around and was kind of told what I was to be doing...

So when there was a change of that assignment, I asked a question. I didnt realize that I was causing 'tension' to occur as I was latter told. Some basic thoughts there is that even though there are ten first year students, not everyone is on the same boat. 5 of the 10 are part of an integrated program where they are finishing a undergrad degree in addition to being a master's program over the next 2 years. The goal is that they are going to complete in 5 years what it takes other people to do in 6. Of the remaining 5 new students, 3 come from universities other than BYU and have no former relationship with the faculty, and besides myself the other person graduated a couple years back with a minor in stats and so not really sure what that means.

So, having Dr. Scott tell me after the fact that I had caused 'tension' when I asked Dr. Grimshaw if I was going to continue doing the research I had started months ago or if I really was going to be TAing 20 hours a week. The feeling was that all the first years should be treated equally [which is odd given historical data] and that it would be unfair for me to be assigned 10 hours TAing and 10 hours research.

But there is an inherent difference between all the groups. Take the integrated people, they are given less of an assignment because they are working on finishing up other requirements, and they aren't expected to be as far along as someone with a degree. The people walking in with degrees sort of just showed up at the beginning of bootcamp, and therefore there is no knowledge of what they can and cant do, but someone who was walked in already working on something should have it recognized.

Now I am not trying to be treated as a 'favored child' as people have put it, but as it was pointed out, might as well allow someone to work on a Master's Project early instead of delaying it an entire year.

History has shown that last year they were more than willing to show favoritism to parties, either because they were well liked or that they had something going for them, it should be no different now, especially as not a lot has changed, if anything, to how you approach the situation.

oh well...

From Facebook

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 22:05:02 -0700

From August 18 -- James is working on surviving the stat department's grad student boot camp...

What does this mean you might be asking? Let me explain the past week of my life.

On Monday morning I arose at 6ish...the exact time is vague to me...the days have begun running together it seems. I got ready for the day and out the door, because of certain people keeping me up late, I was tired and so I planned to head to campus early get my mug and fill it before the boot camp started. By the time everything was settled and I sat down in a chair for the boot camp orientation meeting at 8, I was already wishing I hadn't gotten up and out of bed. Now this is where it begins to become interesting. For 2 hours, Dr. Whiting (the faculty member assigned to direct the efforts of the next two weeks) talked about stat theory and miscellaneous things. He assigned some easy homework and we broke for lunch about 10:30ish [who has lunch that early is beyond me...] around noon-ish we got together again and began reviewing statistical methods.

I think I need to explain something here...the purpose of boot camp is to review the concepts of the core 4 classes the department has. These are 2 course sequence in theory [Stat 441 & 442] and a 2 course sequence in methods [Stat 336 & 337]. Mind you at best this is 2 semesters of 14 weeks of instruction. Doing the 'university-minded' math applied to the courses and the number of credit hours and the like you end up with 630 hours you would put into the 4 courses.

For those that need it, you take the number of credit hours a course is, multiply by 14 and get the number of instructional hours in the course. Multiply the instructional time by 3 to get the total time needed for that course over the length of a semester. With Stat 441, 442 and 337 being 3 credit hours and Stat 336 being a beast of a 6 credit hour course you have a lot of time there.

Again that 630 hours of work and instruction is spread out over minimum of 2 semesters with a potential of doing it over more. Now, in 2 weeks we are reviewing what some of us (I count 4 or 5 that have complete both sequences) did over time and that most of everyone else has never really had presented in this manner. So for the 2 weeks they are playing catch up, and others are playing remember, and I am feeling in over my head.

So the result is a lot of time spent on campus. In reality Monday was not so bad because we were barely getting started, and Tuesday we had minimal homework. Now this is where the fun fact of what was going on blows up. Wednesday and Thursday the homework was piled on. Now I dont mind it, nor do I think it bad, it just is that being to campus by 8 and then spending most of the day either 'reviewing' material or doing the assigned homework, and not leaving campus until after 6 starts to get at you.

So when I say I am working on surviving I am really working on trying to make it thru the day and to bed at a reasonable time to get to the next day.

For those without Facebook...

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:27:18 -0700

My status updates for the last month or so...

August 12
James is tired of wishing on someone else's star...
August 4
James has been reminded of a ill-spent youth and one of many bad ideas that happened to have been acted on...
August 1
James has been wondering if any thing he does seems to have any impact on his life...
July 21
James was hoping that his ulterior motives would have had more amicable results...
July 17
James is in need of a friend...
July 14
James is thinking that he wastes a lot of time doing absolutely nothing...
July 10
James needs a person to talk to that he isn't related to because there are no private conversations in his family.
July 5
James is probably a fool, but that is to be expected...
June 30
James feels like a fool...
James just wishes that the day would hurry up already...
James woke up early with nothing to do...
June 28
James is hiding on campus in his office...which isnt technically hiding...
June 27
James is not really here...
June 26
James is working on looking busy...
June 25
James is wondering what to do with his evening...
James is looking to waste sometime...beyond playing Mario Kart in his office...
June 23
James feels like a goofball...

Told I dont update enough...

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:15:45 -0700

Yeah I have been told be various sources that I dont update enough...some have questioned why even have a blog if I am unwilling to update the blog in the first place. I have comments to make...

Why not have a blog that you choose to publish and unpublish and delay publish entries on whims? Ever thought about that...

Now over the last month and a half I have written 6 or so entries...but none of them came to the published column because they didnt need to be. I do mean that...look at the name of the blog...I not providing updates is one of many ways to obfuscate....

Also its a blog...I dont care who reads it...but having run into a few blogs that are now password protected for various reasons...I refuse to sign up for them nor manage another password in my lists.

Now I do keep up to date on various websites for the simple being kept apprise of the situation...but Facebook statuses [ which according to webster is proper plural of status, it just looks wrong] are the most fun and probably the most honest look...that is what I update...one sentence changes that track better than this place...