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Whitney Matheson had a witty (albeit not terribly interesting) piece in USA Today about the things she decidedly won’t be doing during her upcoming summer vacation. But since my “summer vacation” (read: 2-week inter-job interruption in employment) is already over, I figured I’d let y’all in on How I will/won’t be spending the rest of my summer…

- Like Whitney, I won’t be reading Rosie O’Donnell’s weblog. While Whitney doesn’t like Rosie’s apparent abandonment of grammar, spelling and punctuation, I just don’t like Rosie. She’s a naive, leftist hypocrite who seems to believe that all the world’s problems can be solved by eliminating guns, putting everyone on welfare and abandoning the concept of personal responsibility. Meanwhile, she cries wolf if anyone points out her armed bodyguards or her failed [attempts at] logic. Aside from this, I think slapping uninspired poetry-like attempts at pseudothought on a weblog in order to appear artsy and sophisticated is actually tacky and tasteless. If you want to read writing from a lefty that’s actually good, go check out Noah Grey.

- In keeping with the spirit of the previous item, I will be firing many guns. Dad and I both felt the time-crunch last fall as hunting season rapidly approached and we scrambled to the range during lunchbreaks to sight in our contenders. This year, we’re set up to practice just about every week between now and opening day – so whitetails of Bolivar beware!

- As I hinted at in a previous entry, I won’t be letting dust settle on my mountain bike. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve re-discovered mountain biking and it’s been a blast. Yesterday, I went out for another fantastic off-road jaunt – this time with both Jason and my brother Andy. My ass is much happier today, since last week’s experience taught me the importance of getting off the bike’s saddle! Either way, though, I still want a Thudbuster.

- I do not plan to remain in my apartment. Yup – we’re house shopping. Still. Fortunately, Kelly and I are patient people. In the months since our informal home search started, I’ve developed a kickass spreadsheet that can calculate every little facet of my finances. Drop in salary, expenses, mortgage parameters, real estate taxes and down payment…and it tells me how much I’ll have left each paycheck to put towards a lawn mower and a new couch! Today will not include a break from the search – I’m headed off to an open-house (my third home visit this week) after I finish this entry, camera in hand.

- Finally, as this summer progresses, I will not settle for ordinary. I will not fall into the trap of accepting the expected. I will innovate, create and dream big. I will be pushing the boundaries of the life I’ve set up, and learning where I need improvement. Some of the things I’ll be doing are visible on the horizon – or closer – and others are still below the shimmering mirage at the boundary between land and sky. But regardless of what I encounter or endeavor, I know this: It’s going to be a fantastic trip.

Five days and no postings, yet there’s so much about which to post!

To wrap up my first week at the new job: “rollercoaster ride” might be the best description! Plot “emotions” on the X-axis, “professional confidence” on the Y axis, and “panic index” on the Z axis, and Darien Lake’s Viper coaster might trace a surprisingly accurate curve of how the week went. Ultimately, though, I think this is how most people respond to being planted squarely outside their comfort zone, in a new place with new people, assigned to do new things, taking the first upward steps along a steep learning curve. Having Kelly rooting for me is more helpful than she knows. And the timing of the company picnic – Friday afternoon – was a perfect reminder to me of the humanity of my new colleages. The sight of them with their families, feeding their toddlers, or throwing frisbees and kicking soccer balls was reassuring: We’re all still real people, who just happen to comprise the most technologically-advanced division of the world’s largest company.

The verdict? I’m still honored to be there, and I plan on staying that way – and giving it my very best.

Yesterday, I came up with a fantastic blog entry dismantling nearby Chautauqua County’s new weapons ban in county buildings. But I’m a little gunshy (no pun intended?) to post on politics after reading about how Joe Huffman was fired from his government laboratory job for writing about his pro-freedom views in his weblog. Fortunately, unlike the people that single-sidedly drummed Joe out of PNNL, my supervisors at GM are straight-talking, upfront guys. My manager and I are a lot alike in that we don’t sugar-coat or beat around the bush when something important needs to be communicated.

OK, enough gushing for now – I’ve got to work on my upcoming “How I won’t be spending the rest of the summer” entry! Stay tuned…

Day two in my new job at General Motors “Alternative Propulsion Systems” has come to a close. Starting any new job is a tough process – you’re thrown into a soup of names to remember, forms to fill out, passwords to memorize and mazes of corridors and cubicles to navigate. On the plus side, my new manager has put together a fantastic training plan so that the soup ends when my “official” training begins.

After finishing the work day yesterday, I headed straight for the ambulance base. After waking up this morning and going for a run, I realized that – despite making sure I had a full change of clothes – I had neglected to make provisions for shaving or (more importantly) breakfast. No one seemed to mind Stubble-Dave today, and I enjoyed a nice breakfast at a patio table at Ti Amo, the only of the village’s four coffee-houses with outside seating [that I'm aware of].

After arriving home from work today, I found two pleasant surprises and one decidedly unpleasant one as well: a $225 bill from Verizon Wireless. Evidently, they forgot to apply last month’s payment (which was huge because of a lot of daytime work-related calls) automatically. I ironed that out with my friendly neighborhood CSR a few minutes later.

But despite the big bill, I was in a great mood: Kelly left me a sweet card congratulating me on my new position, and telling me how proud she is… Something that meant a huge amount to me!

After reading her card about 23 times over, I moved on to the rest of the mail – most interestingly, a bulky padded mailer from General Motors HR in Michigan. At first, I suspected business cards – the rectangular box inside seemed to be about the right size. But on opening the mailer, I discovered a handsome blue case with the GM logo embossed in gold on the front. Inside, I found an inscribed Waterman ball pen and a welcome letter!

I’ve posted two new photo albums in the daverea.com gallery:

Andy’s high school graduation photos
Mountain biking @ Dryer Rd. Park, 7/23/05

As usual, the color correction, sharpening and other work done on the photos is minimal – consistent with a shortage of available time on my part, and my lack of a color-calibrated (or half-decent, for that matter) monitor. Yes, I know, “excuses excuses”…

Regarding the mountain biking excursion – my ass hurts. A lot. We rode about 6 miles over terrain that included grassy fields, dirt trails, roots and small logs. My bike is a “hardtail” style – it has no rear suspension. In fact, it has no suspension of any kind! So my elbows and hindquarters got to provide the suspension for this ride. Needless to say, I want one of these. Badly.

Fortunately, tomorrow I start my new job!

Dad, Barb, Kelly and I spent today at the famous Watkins Glen race track, which (by our good fortune) is about a 90-minute drive from Dad’s house in Mendon. Today was “Kids Day”, an event sponsored by Trackmasters (a performance driving school) where kids from Camp Good Days and Special Times (a local camp for kids undergoing cancer treatment) get to take brisk rides around the track in sportscars (and some exotics – yes, Dinah and her Ferrari were there). I got plenty of photos of the cars, the drivers and the kids – all having a blast – and will post them in the gallery section once I have time to review them.

The morning started out with registration and a few parade laps, where the car owners got to cruise leisurely around the track. Shortly thereafter, the kids arrived in three chartered school buses. The car owners lined up in the paddock, and took each camper (and most of the counselors!) out for a lap or two around the course. The kids loved the event, gawking at the Corvettes, Ferraris, Acura NSXs and BMWs. They smiled and waved excitedly as they asked the drivers questions about the cars and what it’s like to drive them. A few campers even got a special ride – three-at-a-time, a New York State Police officer took them out for track rides in one of their pursuit Camaros, lights and siren included!

After lunch, the normal Trackmasters schedule resumed. And that meant Dad made good on his promise to get me out for a ride with an instructor. After a brief walk around the paddock, we introduced ourselves to Mark – one of the Trackmasters instructors – and soon Dad was securing the 5-point restraints around me in the passenger seat of Mark’s Z-06 Vette.

After two warm-up laps, Mark introduced me to the concept of “open track driving”. Hitting 130MPH in the straights, he gracefully piloted us around the course for at least 6 or 7 laps. I lost count, choosing instead to watch Mark’s execution of the turns, and to observe how he shifted and interacted with other drivers as we passed (many, many cars) and allowed others by us (specifically, a single Porsche 911 GT3).

The word “fast” does not do this experience justice!

When and if Kelly and I ever have kids, you can bet money I’ll be behind home-schooling for them. Why? Because of people like Susan Black.

Ms. Black holds the prestigious-sounding title of “education research consultant”, but in reading her essay, it’s pretty clear that her true goal is dumbing down our kids. Unfortunately, the bulk of the lefty-infested public education institution is behind her. Susan is pushing for the outright elimination of competition – of any sort or fashion – in the bubble-world of education.

When I went through grade school, which wasn’t all that many years ago, most of the teachers stressed that it was important for us to succeed for the sake of our preparation for entry into The Real World. We heard it from fifth grade all the way through the end of high school, and then most of us went off to college – a place that’s about as “real” as Disney Land, but put new demands on us nonetheless.

Now that I’ve been out in the real “real world” for a few years, there are a few things that strike me. First, competition is everywhere. You have to compete to be successful at college, you have to compete to land an enjoyable, good-paying job, you have to compete to succeed in the world of dating, and you have to compete to succeed just about everywhere else, too.

Second, though drastically more important (and difficult) for our schoolkids to realize, is that if you fail to compete, then you fail to live. At the end of the month, the bills and the rent have to be paid. At the end of the week, that staff meeting is coming whether you like it or not, so you’d better be ready to show off some competitive results. When that project bid gets mailed in, or when that quotation gets sent out, or when that paper is up for review, you’d better be playing to win – or you’ll end up not making it to the men’s room.

So why, despite the fact that she lives in the same competition-driven world where the rest of us live, is Susan Black pushing for the abolition of merit-based recognition in the schools that the rest of us pay for? If she had her way, there would be no “star student” bulletin board, no gold stars on returned homework assignments, and no words of praise to students who actually complete assignments properly!

Wait – bzzz bzzz ker-clunk – I think my knuckle-dragging conservative mind is figuring it out! Susan doesn’t want to recognize successful students because she doesn’t want students to be successful! If the kids all feel good about going to school, and if the parents think the kids are learning when they’re not, then eventually they’ll get out into the real world and they’ll crash and burn. Think it’s not already happening? Look at the freshman-year attrition rates at “higher education” institutions everywhere. Look at the number of people out there flipping burgers and sweeping floors for a living. Look at the teachers that put them there because they figured it was more important for the kids to have high self-esteem than to actually learn something in school.

Then look at the welfare system. And finally – ding! – look at the people behind it. Amazingly enough, they’re the same people who want little Johnny to feel good, even when he won’t do his math homework and can barely write a sentence in English class. When I was in school, we didn’t have to walk uphill ten miles each way to get there and back, but we did have to complete our assignments and earn good grades.

Thanks in part to Susan Black, tomorrow’s generations might not have to. I hope, for their sake, the real world starts getting simpler to keep up!

A few weeks ago, Kelly bought a new iPod Mini – bringing our family total to three sexy, California-designed portable music players. My brother Andy was the first to take the plunge. I followed shortly thereafter with the purchase of a Rio Karma, which I subsequently eBayed (wow – we’re using that as a verb now) due to hard drive problems. Kelly bought me my own iPod Mini this past Christmas, and now she’s joined the fray.

After she started buying songs from iTunes, she was [understandably] curious how she could give the files to me, so that I could enjoy them too. After all, if she’d bought the CD, then all she’d need to do is hand it to me. I suppose it was as good a time as any to sit her down and explain the harsh reality of digital rights management.

If Kelly buys a song from Apple’s iTunes music store, Apple allows her to listen to it using the iTunes player on her laptop, or using her trusty iPod. But what if we decide we want to listen to it on my PC? Or on my iPod? Or that we want to burn it to a mix CD to enjoy on a car trip – using the CD burner in my computer? Nope.

Thanks to the magic of digital rights management, that file will only play where it’s authorized. Never mind the fact that Kelly bought the song, and owns the use of it just as legally as she would if she had picked up a CD at The Record Archive or (even better) bought the vinyl version at The Bop Shop.

So what if one of us drops our iPod in a puddle the next time we’re out jogging, and doesn’t want to shell out the bucks for a replacement? If the music came from iTunes, then congrats – the only place that song will play from now on is through tinny laptop speakers.

If I go out and buy a CD, the fair use doctrine of the US copyright law says I can do whatever I want with the content of that CD, as long as that content stays within my household. If I want to burn a mix CD with a track or two from my recently-purchased disc, the government says that’s okay. If I want to burn a second copy of that mix CD for the car – or Kelly’s car – that’s fine too. If I want to rip it into a digital file and keep a back-up copy on my hard drive… yup, no problem! Or drop that digital file onto my iPod? No trouble there either.

So, three questions flow from this discussion: First, why can’t I do the same things with a song that’s purchased, using real money, from iTunes? Second – and more importantly – why are hundreds of thousands of people dumping their hard-earned money into iTunes music? Third – and most importantly – why will we be fined or put in prison for removing the DRM from the music files that we’ve bought and paid for?

To everyone out there who’s buying songs from Apple – and from the handful of other DRM-tainted music services out there – cut that out. If you can’t see the slippery slope that this is leading us down, then you deserve to be subjected to the Brittney Spears songs you’re downloading. But if you care at all for your right to do what you want with the things you buy – whether they be music files, DVDs, books or SUVs – then stop buying music from Apple and go visit your local record store.

For as long as I can remember, the Tschiderers have been friends of our family. They were one of many families with whom we shared camping trips and super-bowl parties. I remember fishing and riding bikes with their son, Steve, during dusty summer trips to Holiday Hills campground.

On June 2nd, Steve was shot by an Iraqi sniper. He was on a routine patrol in Baghdad as a medic with the 256th Brigade Combat Team. Thanks to the body armor protecting his chest, he survived the attack and stayed with his unit as they captured the sniper (and his cohorts). Steve then proceeded to provide medical care for the sniper that (just a few minutes earlier) had tried to kill him.

Why was this sniper trying to kill my friend? Was it some sort of strategic exercise? Some attempt to disable the unit, to somehow gain some tactical advantage? No. The coward who shot my friend was producing a training video. A tape to be used to show other Iraqi insurgents how to pick off American troops.

My dad told me about Steve’s experience this past weekend, to which I understandably expressed shock and a bit of awe. But not until I saw the video myself – not until I watched the bullet knock Steve over – did it really hit home. Not until I saw that bullet hit the man who I rode ambulance calls with just a few months ago did I understand the significance of the event.

Watching that video made me glad and grateful that I can wake up every morning, leave my home and go about my business without worrying about finding myself in a pool of blood on the business end of a sniper rifle – payment solely for the crime of being an American. It left me confused, wondering how so many people – both here in America, and around the world – can so callously ridicule America and her troops for standing up against a group of sub-people who dedicate their lives to our deaths. And it left me grateful that men like Steve are courageously fighting that enemy thousands of miles away, and at the same time working to achieve a better life for those Iraqi citizens who aren’t out to blow themselves up in a subway tunnel or a cafe or an elementary school on Main Street, USA.

Thank you, Steve. Thank you for risking your life so that I can enjoy mine. And thank you to all the brave men and women who are fighting for our safety and survival, abroad and here at home.