Going out to my car the other day, I noticed this coffee mug hanging out on the garage floor. It had fallen off the shelf where I put empty Coke Zero cans and travel mugs when I have fresh beverages to take with me somewhere.
Yep, there it is. One of the more practical bits of corporate schwag I received from Google during the three years I worked with them as the search guy for EarthLink - lying there collecting dust. And I gotta say, that’s how I’ve been feeling about my “career” of late.
I was happy to get laid off last fall - as strange as it sounds, having it happen about a month after my first child was born was great timing. Severance came in handy and things are shaky enough at my former company that I would have been nervous having the wife quit her job to stay at home with the baby.
After the layoff, our plan became for me to stay home with the kid until my wife was done with some major projects at work. Then we would switch roles and I would go back to work. My window to go back opened about June 1, so I’ve been actively looking around for not quite two months now. I don’t like what I’m finding.
As my buddy Dave and I were discussing the other day, it’s not that there aren’t jobs available in Atlanta - just not interesting ones. Actually, I imagine there are some interesting jobs out there, but I’m not in a position to find them right now. I can manage to do interviews during the day, but networking and the like is really difficult to do with a 10-month-old tagging along.
In the best of times, Atlanta isn’t a bad market for interesting new media things. In not-so-great times, it’s not so great. The best leads and casual but serious offers from former colleagues have all come from the west coast. But as much as I enjoyed spending time in L.A. and the Valley at my old job, moving there just isn’t going to happen now. It was highly unlikely before I had a child - and just isn’t going to happen now. As I told one recruiter from the Valley; I like being married, and my wife and kid wouldn’t come with me to California even if I wanted to move.
Something will come along, I’m sure. But it’s different now that I’m actively looking - I’ve started to feel like that coffee mug collecting dust. I thrive on the challenge of new things. I get that with my little sideline bits like EAV Buzz, but in the best weeks I might get 20 hours to devote to the “professional” projects I do for fun and to stay sharp. And I ramble on about Yahoo and things to just keep my product brain healthy.
Keeping perspective is the hardest thing - what I’ve done is best for my daughter and it shows in her development. She is the “product” I’m “managing” right now, and we’ve had a successful launch. Maybe if I put together a PowerPoint showing her progress I’ve feel more “in the game”.
You have to love The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Dying a slow death as the market it serves grows rapidly, the AJC editors can’t help but deride the people in metro Atlanta who should be their target audience.
Case in point is a story in today’s paper about a pilot program at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport that may bring fast-track airport security lines to the country’s biggest airport. Aimed at frequent travelers (most likely business travelers), the concept is that for a fee a traveler can be “cleared” as a non-threat through background checks, and thus be allowed to go through security in a special line for travelers who have all been “cleared” as unlikely security threats.
And despite the fact that today’s story is merely about the airport manager issuing a contract that could bring the pilot closer to reality, this is the headline AJC went with:
Ah, yes, don’t miss the opportunity to drum up a little wealth and class envy in a mundane story about a government contract. And never mind that the likely users of this program are the people who have been flooding in to metro Atlanta for the past 20 years … who you need as customers … and who already despise your product because of exactly this kind of crap. Any chance to throw out “Lexus lanes” and rile up that shrinking part of the metro area’s population who still view you as relevant - go for it. Feels good, doesn’t it?
And I was intrigued by the actual reference (in the 9th paragraph) in the story to “Lexus lanes”:
Proponents of the so-called Lexus lanes say they guarantee a trip through airport security in about five minutes. Opponents say they discriminate against travelers who can’t afford the annual fee and raise civil liberties concerns.
So if they’re “so-called Lexus lanes”, somebody’s got to be calling them that, right? Well, if you do a Google search for airport security Lexus lanes and take out references to HOT lanes on freeways, you get a grand total of 44 results. Several are still referring to freeways when “Lexus lanes” comes up, and a bunch more are tied to the AJC referring to them as such. There’s nothing at all to suggest that “Lexus lanes” is some common way to refer to these things.
I can see the flow in the AJC newsroom:
Reporter: Hey editor, the airport put out a contract for the fast-track security lines. No big deal, really. They have to do that, but it doesn’t mean it’ll happen. Editor: You mean the rich people are closer to being able to get special treatment? Awesome! Reporter: Well, I didn’t say that. And this is really just a procedural step. Editor: OK, let’s headline this thing “Airport ‘Lexus Lanes’ closer to a test run” Reporter: “Lexus lanes”? Editor: Hell yeah. Rich people drive Lexuses, you know. So it’s like those rich people lanes on the freeways. Reporter: We have those? Editor: Well, no. But other places do. And editors of newspapers in those places call them “Lexus lanes”. Reporter: This really isn’t the same thing. Editor: Sure it is. Slap that headline on your story and file it. Reporter: But the story doesn’t say anything about “Lexus lanes”. Editor: Lemme see that … OK, change “Proponents of the program say …” to “Proponents of the so-called Lexus lanes say …” down here in the 9th paragraph. Reporter: Who calls them “Lexus lanes”? Editor: I do. Thus, they are “so-called”. Reporter: {sigh} Whatever you say, chief.
I was reading an AJC piece tonight about the post-tornado recovery efforts in Grant Park’s historic Oakland Cemetery. And I was struck by this sentence:
FEMA, which will fund the majority of the cemetery’s renovation and cleanup, has dispatched archaeologists to Oakland for legal, as well as scholarly, reasons.
FEMA - The Federal Emergency Management Agency - is paying for most of the renovation costs of a cemetery and sending archaeologists out to survey the potential artifacts uprooted by the storm. That’s right - FEMA has archaeologists, or at least has contract diggers in its Rolodex.
How is this what happens? The federal agency entrusted to get you food and water after a hurricane, flood, earthquake or whatever is also charged with conducting archaeological surveys and pay for the restoration of non-federal cemeteries? That’s way out of line.
Even if you’d like to make the case that restoring a City of Atlanta cemetery because of tornado damage is a federal responsibility, why in the name of Michael Brown is this a task to fall to FEMA? As I wrote many moons ago, this is not the Federal Problem Management Agency. And I fail to see what is either Federal or Emergency in Oakland Cemetery right now that needs the Management of this Agency.
We’ve given up, I suppose, our responsibility to take care of ourselves and handed it over to FEMA. My sense is that originally, FEMA was called in just for disasters that were truly beyond the scope of local management. But now, any time a stiff wind blows - in rides FEMA. And nobody seems to complain. At Oakland Cemetery, FEMA kept Atlanta officials out until their crews could get by to check things out.
I guess you’ll give up a lot of freedom and independence for those federal checks.
It’s been quite some time since I’ve written much of anything not related to college football. For longtime Wisdom readers, the outward appearance is probably that not much is happening with old Cap’n Ken.
In reality, though, the past eight months have been a whirlwind of change. And I find myself immersed in a new world pondering how to reconnect to the old world.
All of this change has been driven by two primary events; the birth of my daughter August 1 and being laid off by EarthLink on August 28. I made a passing reference to having a child, but haven’t really mentioned the layoff here. I can’t say I’m not somewhat bitter at the trajectory of my career with the former employer, but I welcomed the severance package when it came.
It’s not how I planned things, but the layoff meant I got paid for a good while to be home with Daphne, the wife was able to go back to work without burning all of her vacation time and we weren’t pushed to daycare like a lot of people when the baby was two or three months old.
And eight months in, I’m still a stay-at-home dad. Only now I’m not being paid for it. The long-term plan is for me to return to work and for the wife to be home and work her freelance web design skills to generate income. The timetable for that is unclear, though.
So my days are spent chasing a baby and my nights and weekends are spent piddling around with web projects hoping to hit upon something that might bring in some money. But more than the potential to generate income, I’m trying to keep my product and strategy skills sharp.
Part of what The Wisdom will be focusing on (at least until football season) will be my night/weekend work, and that may well bore the crap out of those of you not in the industry or coming over searching for “fire Les Miles”. But The Wisdom is not just a platform for my personal rants, it’s also a link out to potential employers, partners, etc. Nobody will know my brilliance if I’m not sharing it, you know.
I may also find time to write some about Adventures With Daphne, but I don’t think I’m looking to be a Daddy Blogger. Unless the AdSense targeting is good for that …
As most of you know, a big wind blew through Atlanta a week ago Friday. The tornado that left F2-level damage Downtown and F0-F1 damage here in East Atlanta thankfully passed about a quarter-mile north of me, so we suffered no damage.
Our yard, however, was littered with all sorts of mysterious debris. Inspecting for damage right after the storm, I found yellow insulation in my backyard and on my roof and big chunks of dense foam in the yard. Most intriguing, though, were four sheets of paper scattered around the front yard. I knew these were not the papers of my neighbors, as no houses close to me were hit. So I picked them up and laid them out on a towel to dry.
Today I set out to see if any of the papers could be traced back to places damaged by the storm. Three of the sheets - a project plan, a memo and a document titled “Daily Posting Register” seemed potentially traceable. The fourth was half a memo dealing with some apparent debt plans for a general partnership and didn’t have enough information to work with.
But the Daily Posting Register was promising. The name of the document’s creator was at the top, and the document itself listed several dozen names. Here is the document with names blurred out:
And as it turns out, this one was easy. The name of the document creator was somewhat unique, and I knew when Firefox auto-filled the last name when I went to Google her I might be on to something. The Daily Posting Register (page 15 of 23) was created by somebody involved with the bankruptcy court here in Atlanta.
She has a website, and her website gives directions to her office at 100 Peachtree Street - The Equitable Building:
I sent her an email this morning telling her of my find and to confirm the document came from her office at Equitable, but I don’t expect a reply soon.
Google Maps tells me The Equitable Building is 3.04 miles from my house.
Here’s the official path of the storm and intensity from the National Weather Service:
The Equitable Building is right on the eastern edge of the first red area (downtown), and I’m just south of the last yellow area in East Atlanta.
I’ve heard stories and seen pictures of Atlanta Hawks and CNN banners that found their way to yards not too far from here, so my little sheet of paper is hardly unique. But it’s pretty amazing to think how far a tornado can carry things - and I wonder what made the little rips in the sheet without tearing it to shreds.
Now that Fox 5 has run its “clarification” about the Atlanta homicide story during the newscasts that ran the reports I”ve seen, I can confirm that they are lying about what they originally reported, which is pathetic, but not entirely surprising.
In the clarification (this one is from 10 p.m. last night - the script was the same in both newscasts this morning, but read without the smooth skill of Russ Spencer), Fox 5 states:
“We want to clarify a report we aired yesterday. We reported that FBI statistics showed a dramatic increase in homicides in 2006 in Atlanta”s Zone 6 precinct, which includes much of the eastern part of the city. Now during that report, we showed video of locations in East Atlanta Village, and in fact there were no homicides in East Atlanta Village in 2006. We regret the false impression caused by that videotape.”
That is an absolute lie. Fox 5 did not report a dramatic increase in homicides in Zone 6. Fox 5 reported a dramatic increase in homicides in “east Atlanta.”
Specifically, they reported:
“The increase has been seen citywide, but nowhere has the jump been as dramatic as in east Atlanta, where in 2005 they had 6 murders; last year 15, a 150% spike.” - this was in their report that aired at about 5:30 a.m. yesterday. The “as dramatic as east Atlanta” line was accompanied by a shot of the “Welcome to East Atlanta” sign.
And:
“The murder rate is up all over the city, but especially in east Atlanta, which had 6 murders in 2005 and 15 last year, a 150% increase.” - this was in their report that aired at about 6:30 a.m. yesterday, and the report generally was toned down to focus less on East Atlanta.
“Zone 6″ was never mentioned.
Fox 5 reported that homicides were up dramatically in East Atlanta. They want to dance around what they reported and pretend this was simply a matter of poorly-placed video. But they clearly associated these murders with the East Atlanta neighborhood (not some vague notion of “the east part of Atlanta”) by never mentioning any area other than “east Atlanta” and showing our “Welcome to East Atlanta” as they said murders were up in “east Atlanta”.
Yet they are unwilling to admit their mistake and fully own up to the damage they inflicted on the neighborhood”s reputation. Instead we get sugar-coated revisionist history intended to make Fox 5 look less at fault than they actually were.
Apparently Fox 5 is more interested in protecting its own reputation than they are in damage they inflict on East Atlanta”s reputation.
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