Five Things This Week: week 16

Hakai magazine
I love watching the giant building-on-its-side cargo ships move in and out of the bay. Other than the occasional giant “MERSK” on the side, I have no idea what the markings on the ships mean. Now I do. Gorgeous pictures, too!
Podcast
While we’re talking about shipping on the Bay, let’s talk about those giant AT-AT looking shipping cranes (I don’t care what they say, there’s no way Lucas didn’t get inspired by the shipping cranes!!). This podcast is an 8-part series that covers the history, present, and future of container shipping. I promise you, it’s way more interesting than you might think. The link above takes you to all eight episodes on SoundCloud. This is a link to episode Notes. And this is a link to the iTunes podcast link
3Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
The season finale of the third season aired a couple weeks ago. You know what that means, right? BINGE TIME! Before the second season started, Fern and I asked each other, “Where can they go with this?” That’s become a thing now, because we asked the same thing Saturday. Wow. Between Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and The Good Place you have two of the smartest, funniest shows on television. If you’ve hesitated, take the plunge. It’s so worth it. 
YouTube
This 10-part series (they’re about 8-10 minutes each episode) chronicles the Branch family as they turn a derelict former auto repair shop in Palm Beach, Florida into their dream home. Really, it all functions like a long commercial for Lowe’s, the presenting sponsor. But I’m a sucker for home improvement shows and habitable warehouses, so they had me at the first episode. 
BoredPanda
Had a bad day? Need a pick-me-up? I got ya. Click on the above link. You’re welcome.

Selfie Week 16: Thirteen Years

OMG That desk!Barring a very bad, terrible, no-good Tuesday, Wednesday will mark thirteen years at LEMO USA. I don’t generally write about my dayjob because, well, that’s my day job. But thirteen years at anything is a long time and it’s worth reflecting on.

Over the course of my time there I’ve had five different job titles in three different departments. I’ve worked on the second floor, then the first floor, then the second floor again. I’ve had three different phone extensions. I’ve been lucky enough to have been sent to Santa Barbara for database training (where I got a free upgrade to a Mustang convertible!), and Montreal for web dev training (where I first had poutine!). I’ve been to the company headquarters in Switzerland twice. Both visits were marked by long work days (and evenings, and some weekend days) strung together – it certainly wasn’t a tourist visit – but on an August evening in 2008 when my coworker David and I were sitting on the patio of a restaurant overlooking Lake Geneva I remarked how lucky we were our headquarters wasn’t some place like New Jersey. And during the times I was able to escape to the nearby city of Lausanne I absolutely fell in love with its lake-side cafes, narrow steep streets… I hope some day I will be able to get back there on my own just to enjoy the city.

Over the last few years I’ve stayed much closer to home, but that’s been fine. I had a lot in my life I needed to work through. And, really, that’s kind of the theme of my thirteen years at LEMO: it has been an unbelievably stable place to work and to grow. While I’ve been at LEMO I finished my MA degree at Utah State, earned my electronic technician certificate from Santa Rosa Junior College, worked through a divorce, as well as my mom’s death. Work has been a blessed constant, and I’m unbelievably grateful for the foundation on which I have been able to maneuver to deal with Life (capital “L” intended).

That touches on one of the things that makes going in to work fun: I still learn something new every single day. I like to think I have a deep knowledge of our catalog and technology, but there’s always something new to learn – a tweak of an existing design, a unique customer application (like the guy last week trying to spec a connector to use INSIDE A LIVING COW). My current position involves a lot of written communication through email and manning the Live Chat line, and while that doesn’t directly contribute to my writing aspirations, it helps. At the very least I often take a couple moments to think about how to most effectively craft a sentence. It’s likely no one notices, but much like my writing here, it’s for me to appreciate it and learn from, and better myself.

And the people I’ve met… Oh wow. My life is unquestionably better for the people I’ve had the privilege of working with over the years. One of my biggest flaws is I’m terrible at keeping in touch with people who aren’t immediately in my life, so anyone reading this who I’ve worked with but, you know, maybe haven’t reached out to? I’m sorry. You absolutely have impacted my life and I am a better person for it. Thank you.

So, what happens after Wednesday? Well, year 14 starts, of course. What will come is anyone’s guess. When I applied back in 2005 I never would have predicted the course of the following 13 years. Who knows what adventures will come! Who knows whether I’ll clean my desk (don’t hold your breath)! What will be will be. I can say two things for certain, though: come Wednesday I will learn something new, and I’ll arrive and leave with a smile on my face.

 

PS: True story: when I applied to the Craigslist ad I thought it was a fake job listing. I had two weeks left at the Telcom tech support job I was working and furiously applied to anything and everything that remotely fit my skill set. Working one Saturday (because working Saturdays was a thing at that job), I came across two posts, one from a company that sounded like “Whacko” (the actual name eludes me, but people have verified since then it is an actual company) and LEMO, which after the whacko-like name I parsed as “lame-o”. Leaving work that Saturday I felt pretty despondent that I’d sunk low enough to apply to two “obviously” fake companies, Whacko and Lame-O. Little did I know…

 

PPS: When LEMO offered me the job, another company also offered me a very different job. It was a combination tech writing and tech support job – arguably my dream job. The company had also recently been acquired by Amazon, so getting a foot in the door there, too… The only  caveat: the company was located in the Presidio in SF. Now, granted, I’m deeply in love with the Presidio, but commuting there on a daily basis? And there were other issues on the home front that made staying closer to Guerneville more attractive and was ultimately the reason I chose LEMO. There are those moments in your life, though, when you look back and say, “I wonder what would have happened if…” That’s one for me. I’m not saying I’d trade the last 13 years, but sometimes you just wonder…

Five Things This Week: week 15

SeattleMet
The emergency beacon of a fishing boat loaded with crab traps in the storm-tossed, icy Bering Sea goes off. Other ships in the immediate vicinity find little debris, no bodies. What happened? Stories like this absolutely fascinate me. This long read pushes the prose into the purple a few times, but ultimately it’s a riveting read about the inquiry into what might have happened to the Destination and its crew.
ScaryMommy
There’s certainly a little bit of “Well, in my day” to this article, but it’s funny and does touch on a larger point that kids not riding bikes is as much their parents’ fault as it is the kids. Look, I’m not a parent, but rather than disqualifying me from this conversation, I’d argue it gives me something of a objective perspective. When crime in this country is at an all-time low why are we so terrified about the bogeyman who is is – statistically speaking – a figment of our over-active imaginations?
To twist Martin Niemöller’s famous quote about the Holocaust, “First they came for the tanbark, and I did not speak out — because I hated tanbark. Then they came for the lawn darts, and I did not speak out — because I so wasn’t into family games by that point. Then they came for kids on bikes…” 
The New Yorker
I don’t live in a place with capital-W “Winter,” though it does dip low enough around here for black ice to be a frightening possibility. This is seriously sweaty-palm inducing but so well-written that you won’t want to stop reading. 
4Tremé
Facebook has been reminding me that three years ago this week was the last time I was in New Orleans. If any of you remember seeing those pictures back in 2005 and thinking, “Man, he’s mean putting all those pictures of food and having fun,” no worries — I think it’s mean now. *Ugh* I’m missing it terribly so I’ve started watching the wonderful David Simon (he of “The Wire”) HBO series, Tremé. It’s available on Amazon Prime currently (or, of course, HBO) — I don’t have a link I’m afraid. I’ll leave you with one last testimony to Tremé from a review for Paste Magazine: “[…]it managed to capture the place, and its peculiar position in the American imagination, with unmatched precision and unconditional love, attuned to the grief and joy of an epochal moment in the city’s history. If I ever leave, I will watch Tremé to remind me what it was like to live here at a time of profound transformation, and to feel anew the series’ clarion call: ‘Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?’ I’m not sure there’s higher praise for a work of art than that.”
Podcast
One of the podcasts I’ve been listening to the longest. It’s may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it scratches an itch for me, which is why it’s an immediate listen as soon as it drops on Wednesdays and Fridays. There’s a certain amount of this list that is drawn from the Friday show’s “What’s Making Us Happy This Week.” Check it out!