Enjablog

Other finds:
- 2 boxes of unopened mail; ~5 years of Marine Technology and Maritime Reporter
- 2 calendars from 2005
- 12 pads of paper, 20+ new postcards
- 2 AP review books for classes that I never took; 1 LSAT review book, which I also never took
- Sonny’s dimebag

Happy Halloween!

I started my morning off with a nice little treat for myself:

It turns out absentee-in-person voting is just like early voting, but with more paperwork. I thought it would be like absentee voting, but with less postage. Got to use the voting machines like usual and still get a sticker!

LOTD: Implicit Association Test

Linked this a while back, but they have a new test just for the election! Plus, I retook the male/female science test and am now neutral. I definitely have my coworkers to thank for that, as well as the many competent female engineers I have befriended over the past few years.

Note to self: Do not delete blog.

Thanks to Ian for saving my last 5 years of memories. And it only took him a couple hours! :)

I know this video has made the rounds and I’m like a day behind on this. But I think it’s awesome that Virginia is getting so much attention this year!

I went in to the Alexandria Obama office last week to help out with a postcard writing event. It was listed as a Women for Obama event, intended to reach undecided women in swing states. They were very specific about getting Virginia postcards to make it clear where we were writing from. I sent Ian out the day before (on his day off) to find some pretty postcards in Old Town for me.

I <3 postcards, so this was very exciting for me. I showed up with extra postcards and stamps to share and plenty of enthusiasm. The two rooms in the office designated for this activity were at capacity. There were people sitting on the floors and taking turns sitting in chairs.

So, after the 2 dozen or so women show up to write to undecided voters in swing states, we received our lists of addresses. All of which were in the swing state of Virginia. Most of whom live in Alexandria. Specifically, Old Town.

I wouldn’t complain about getting postcards from someone though, even if they were local. So, if nothing else, I hope the recipients at least appreciated the prettiness of the postcards we sent. :)

Today is National Depression Screening Day. So if you’ve been thinking about getting screened or know someone who should, consider doing it today.

Wow, I finally got around to using Bluehost’s one-click upgrade feature for Wordpress. I don’t know what took me so long. I was probably about 3 versions behind.

This new stuff is so nice! I can upgrade all my plugins with one click now, there are so many more options in the settings, and everything is just a little prettier.

So very pleased so far. Need to click around some more.

P.S. Let me know if anything looks funny so I can fix it. Thanks!

I know most (all?) of you are registered already. But I wouldn’t be doing my bloggy duties if I didn’t make sure. So, if you haven’t already, do it. Do it now. We’ll wait…

Last night’s debate, in my opinion, had an obvious winner: CNN.

Their technology is far superior to what the other networks demonstrated. Their HD broadcast had 6 analysts who were scoring the debate real-time, as well as independents in Ohio with dials who could react throughout the debate.

I love watching independents react. Last week’s debate, they reacted positively every time someone spoke. Last night, they were divided on the graph as men and women. At one point, the men went back in time and reacted very negatively. The women reacted positively as stereotypically expected — personal stories, things that would cause empathy or other strong emotions, etc.

And then the analysts! Last week, Begala was asleep for the first half hour, but totally came back and had a score close to the rest of the analysts.

Rosen and Rollins were the token extremists. Their scoring was clearly partisan, sometimes giving their candidate more points than the other analysts combined. Last night, Rosen was keeping up and was pretty even with Rollins… until about 10 o’clock. At which point, Rollins fell asleep on the plus button for Palin and gave her 10 points all at once, even though she had stopped talking. This was obviously a mistake, because soon after that, he reduced that to only a 9-point increase.

By the end of the night, Rollins definitely had the win for the most total points on his scorecard, awarding Palin 4 times as many points as other analysts and twice what he awarded Biden.

QOTD: “Did Rollins just have a thumbgasm?”

I love the look on Katie’s face 35 seconds into this clip. That’s the look I offer my coworkers way more than I mean to.

I’m not quite sure how to address this without sounding ungrateful and greedy. And maybe it’s because I am being ungrateful and greedy. But.

I requested a mid-year review with Boss to see about getting a raise after earning my PE, working absurdly long hours because no one else was able to do this specific work, and basically having my job responsibilities change without being told.

It was a lengthy, awkward meeting. There was an airing of grievances — I don’t work enough hours; I didn’t catch a mistake that one of my coworkers made which never came to me for review. And it became clear to me that Boss didn’t actually know about 25% of the things I do (including automating 3 of my coworkers’ duties so they could be freed to do other work. What? Did he think they got really efficient all of a sudden? And didn’t he tell me to work with them..?).

So in the end, he said that he would go to upper management for me and recommend that I get a raise.

Now, I know the economy is bad. And I know I didn’t go to them with a specific numerical demand or offer in hand.

But I’m incredibly disappointed by the raise that I received and, honestly, a little insulted by it. I’m pretty sure my facial expression revealed my opinion of it because Boss did ask me if that was ok. And I hesitated, being unprepared to hear right then, and even more unprepared for something that wasn’t even on the radar in my expectation range.

This is the lowest raise I’ve received in 4 years.

I sound greedy now, don’t I?

I discussed with Boss at my review at the beginning of this year whether mid-year reviews/raises are an option. Specifically, with regard to getting my PE and Masters. He said yes. It’s not typical, but in exceptional cases like that, I should be compensated for my increased value to the company.

I don’t feel like they are compensating me a proportional amount to the increase in my value to them.

Now, I’m trying to see how, monetarily this is actually better than waiting until next spring and getting a larger raise. Because if I didn’t ask for anything now, it seems like my advances should make it worth more than a typical raise then. And this was, at best, typical.

And now my annual review cycle has been moved to this new date and I am not to expect a raise in the spring. This doesn’t add up for me.

I should also mention that when I walked into that meeting, his first issue was that I not have an expectation of doing this often. He doesn’t want me coming in every 6 months asking for another raise.

Trust me. I won’t.

LOTD: How much are you worth?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve slept with a comforter at night. Always.

Even in the summer, I get very cold at night, so I have to have some kind of insulation in order to regulate my body temperature.

I was told that this isn’t normal. So, I decided to do some research to see if I had some kind of disorder… (Can you tell I have been procrastinating recently?)

As it turns out, I’m narcoleptic. Yeah, no kidding, right? We already knew that.

But this is a relatively recent finding that demonstrates a relationship between skin temperature and sleepiness: Altered skin-temperature regulation in narcolepsy relates to sleep propensity.

There is an inverse relationship with core body temperature and the temperature of extremities. When your core temperature drops, the heat is dispersed through your skin, causing your extremities to get warmer. Narcoleptics have more extreme variations and slower changes in temperature, which is why I get so cold (core temperature) while radiating so much heat (distal temp) when I sleep and have so much trouble waking up.

… narcoleptics were reported to show an attenuated circadian amplitude and slower morning rise of the core body temperature, as well as an earlier temperature minimum, which both fit the present finding of a continuation into sleep of the increased distal skin blood flow and consequently heat loss.

As a follow-up to this study, there have been experiments with thermosuits and hot/cold foods and drinks to see the effect on excessive daytime sleepiness. Clearly, the solution is here: Electric Coat.

Which, of course, reminds me of Squidgey’s recommendation to me a few years back: The No-Contact Jacket.

I came across an article on the Psychology of voting that cited a study that was done a few years ago:
“Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.” (PDF of original paper)

I think I’ve seen references to this in passing before, but I decided to look it up today and read the actual paper. It was marginally reassuring to me that the concluding remarks in their paper expressed similar apprehensions as I experienced when reading their results:

In sum, we present this article as an exploration into why people tend to hold overly optimistic and miscalibrated views about themselves. We propose that those with limited knowledge in a domain suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach mistaken conclusions and make regrettable errors, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Although we feel we have done a competent job in making a strong case for this analysis, studying it empirically, and drawing out relevant implications, our thesis leaves us with one haunting worry that we cannot vanquish. That worry is that this article may contain faulty logic, methodological errors, or poor communication. Let us assure our readers that to the extent this article is imperfect, it is not a sin we have committed knowingly.

This also brings to mind the confidence that many people have in job hiring processes and their personal judgment when it comes to interviews. I have witnessed the failures in this process enough times to recognize that I certainly don’t trust my own judgment, much less that of others. While I recognize that it is a necessary part of the process to meet and interact with a potential hire in order to finalize the decision, I find it rare that interviewers put in the effort to learn anything new about a candidate aside from what they might have learned from a sheet of paper or a brief phone or email interview. And yet, most interviewers believe that they are a good judge of character and that meeting this person will make all the difference.

Right.

Try telling them otherwise.

But really… After an interview, ask yourself:
- What have you learned about this person that you didn’t already know before?
- How does this person stand out from the average population?
- Do you ask standard questions when you interview? What information are you gaining by asking these aside from what the person explicitly wants you to believe?
- Do you have a better idea of how this person thinks, works, etc?
- How does this person’s opinion of him/herself compare to their actual abilities?
- Do you ask for references? Do you contact those references?

I was discussing in passing with Ian the other day how people should have references from ex-bf/gfs when starting new relationships. But isn’t it the responsibility of the person doing the hiring to ask for those references? So, if you’re dating someone and don’t know their friends, history, etc. it’s your responsibility to do your research. It many cases, it’s not in a person’s interest to offer that information up front. So why wouldn’t you ask?

Dear Enjanerd:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transaction is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully,
Minister of Treasury Paulson