The Road to Physical Fitness is a Carts Ride Away

If this is one of the many promised improvements they are making to the gym, it may be time to really explore that new Golds Gym that is opening soon. That’s right; the road to physical fitness is a golf carts ride away to the front door. The second I saw this I thought to myself, you have got to be kidding – a golf cart to give people a ride to their car?

I can only imagine the staff riding around saying, “no no ma’am save that energy for the treadmill, don’t walk out here.” Seriously, what is the golf cart doing at a gym where people go to specifically do physical activity? I was fortunate enough to be asked if I wanted a ride to the front door, a mere parking rows away from the front door. I replied the only way I knew how:

“I thought this was a gym…”

Which it is, and my attempt to strike up conversation with a chica there seemed to go well at first. It even went well the second time I saw her, being the next day, but I have seen nothing of her since. I would like to think I didn’t run her off, I kept the conversation strictly casual, no phone number requesting, yet. That was going to come if the conversation went well on other occasions, which I was hoping to lead to me asking her if she would like to see Jerry Seinfeld with me.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed, and my eyes open.

Destination India...? China? Russia?

If there is one topic no group of experts can seem to agree on, it has to be the future of the IT field, especially those with degrees in computer science. I have read articles upon articles arguing both sides, IT will never go away, to the most recent one I read on CNN stating that the market will shrink by 30%.

Gartner researchers say most people affiliated with corporate information technology departments will assume "business-facing" roles, focused not so much on gadgets and algorithms but corporate strategy, personnel and financial analysis.

However, this projection along with what “Joel on Software” goes on to talk about puts me as a prime candidate to land a good job with management tracking, that is until I can get Alan Greenspan’s job as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. I am going to have to work on my government contacts, and maybe even get a friend elected as president before that happens though, but why not?

So back to the argument – IT jobs growing or shrinking? Are they all going to India, Russia, and China? Will I have to become fluent in Cantonese or Russian to get a job as a translator to these people so the company I may or may not ever work for can speak to their hired guns? That is what Stanford seems to think – learn that foreign language, and not Spanish, French or Italian – no.

Companies are increasing their reliability on software, computers and gadgets. These IT Geeks are going to have to be around to fix other peoples problems, or prepare programs for these CEOs who don’t know how to open an excel spreadsheet or complete a simple attachment to an email. Furthermore there are going to be government contracts which the US is not going to want to outsource, can you imagine the disaster that would be – the country that developed the technology we are going to use to attack them actually succeed at doing so? I don’t think so – especially with all the anti-terrorism talk going about.

The current situation is getting back to the '70s and '80s, where IT workers were the basement cubicle geeks and they weren't very well off," said Matthew Moran, author of the six-month-old book "Information Technology Career Builder's Toolkit: A Complete Guide to Building Your Information Technology Career in Any Economy

The bottom line really could be, that, compared with the availability of jobs during the dot com boom there is a steady systematic decline of jobs. The off shoring is also contributing to part of the job loss, but that can really be said for just about anything. So for those people that want to live in a dark office, wired on mountain dew, with little to no human contact, and do nothing but pound out line after line of C, C++, C#, or Java code may be very few and far between.

Truth be told I have no idea what I am talking about. I am unhappy where I am right now, and I will be testing the job market very soon – yes looking for a programmer position with more responsibility than just pounding out algorithms and god forbid report generation from some damn database. So here here to the underappreciated people who make computers go.

It's all About Timing

There may just be a light at the end of the tunnel after all, although it could be all gibberish – some sort of cruel hoax to be pulled on the unsuspecting individual who has been dealing with the same problem I have.

Yes, ye ol’ wingman may have landed himself a little philly to call his own. So that leaves me swimming in the vast ocean again, but with words of wisdom: “be shameless.”

Be shameless? Why not, nothing else seemed to have worked thus far, and one can only take so much failure before the cynical beast gets unleashed. Unfortunately I already let one opportunity slip by while I was poolside this week end. She had a “bartenders” body, big boobs, no arse, and a slight belly working from beer. I was asked why I didn’t say anything after, and I couldn’t give a reason, and I am all for learning from mistakes.

So of course I will try and update any sort of progress I have in that department; although haven’t I been doing this all along…?

Sports Update: NBA Finals 2005
The Spurs are now up 2-0, and have won handily both games. The real test is going to be game three and how they react to being on the road. I don’t really envision Detroit winning four of the remaining five games (if necessary) though.

So who is the MVP this year thus far? Seems if you ask casual fans they are going to answer Manu Ginobili, but for others who pay attention it is still Timmeh Duncan. Unless Manu puts together another “all around” game like he did in game one, Timmeh will get it based on the fact that he puts up more consistent numbers in multiple categories, rather than just points. This is also with Wallace boys guarding him, Ben being the defensive player of the year this year too.

I haven’t seen Rip blow up Bowen yet, so it seems like Bruce is doing a better job with his assignment.