The Oracle of Apollo Snippets from the life of Apollo Lee

Harassment Training Day

Today, at work, it was sexual harassment training day. No, that means they teach us company, state, and federal policy on avoiding workplace sexual harassment. Surprisingly, despite the fact that I’ve worked in the HR department of two major Silicon Valley companies, there were a few things I learned.

1. An offending act can be reported by a third party, even if they merely overheard something that the original people did not consider offensive. If you make a suggestive comment at me, even if we’re dating, and someone overhears it, you can get in trouble.
2. In addition to whatever action the organization takes, the perpetrator of the offending act is independently civilly liable — regardless of the liability of the organization. So, the offender can be fired, but can also still be sued by the victim.
3. The organization is responsible for safeguarding and enforcing its policy among its employees, officers, contractors, consultants, and guests at the company’s offices, functions, or events. So, the organization can be held responsible if an employee’s drunk guest embarrasses everyone at the holiday party.
4. Asking someone out does not usually constitute harassment, provided it’s respectful. Asking someone out after they’ve made it clear that they’re not interested does. It’s all about tone, severity, and frequency.
5. Depending on the context of the gathering, a non-work-related gathering of employees off-site can be considered a “de facto” work event.
6. Jokes count, even overheard. “I always enjoy being your bitch,” while funny, is probably a stupid thing to say at work.

Like the rest of us, I already knew that it’s not okay to stare at a woman’s chest, make “mmm mmm MMM” subvocalizations as someone walks by, or make blatant and ridiculous passes or creepy compliments about someone. The fact that it’s permissible to ask someone out that you work with was news to me. I always considered even looking in that special way at someone else to be ridiculously taboo.

Sometimes I slip and tell offensive jokes at work, make offhanded comments accidentally that nobody took offense to, or rant and rave using four letter words. I’m trying to clean that up because it undermines what measly authority and credibility I have.

Still, I didn’t expect to learn anything at the training today. I expected it to be more of the same, like the “don’t steal the office supplies” talk or the controlled substances talk.

I guess we learn something new every day.

Oh, no! Occult! Horror! Fear!

Apparently, some web filtering software has this website blocked. BrightKite user PhoneTrips sent me a message this afternoon to alert me to the fact that the filter at Panera Bread, who operates the largest free wireless network in the United States, blocks this site. Apparently, it’s categorized as OCCULT (<gasp />).

In 8½ years as a blogger here, I haven’t posted anything that could even loosely be categorized in that pigeonhole, other than my name. For the record, I’m an atheist and generally have a fairly low opinion of pseudoscience, paranormal claims, and other nonsense. I’m a huge fan of James Randi and used to listen to Skepticality on a regular basis. It baffles and annoys me that my website is blocked for having anything to do with the occult.

I don’t generally have anything to say about topics that anyone would consider remotely controversial, although I have used language that could charitably be rated PG-13 here. How do I appeal the web filter rating?

Notice: Apparently, it’s not a rare occurrence. Tinotopia even has a list.

Car Shopping Short List

Today, I went around to a few dealerships, some of which I’ve been to already. Since I was not feeling that motivated to drive all over the place in a car that lacks working turn signals after my trip to Palo Alto, I visited a few places in Sunnyvale, where I live.

After test driving a few cars, I thought it would behoove me to put together a short list of cars I’m considering to replace my purple hooptie. Today, I test drove a brand new Scion, got an annoying hard sell from a Pontiac monger that personally drives a late 80s Honda Prelude that might even be worth less than my Z24, and wandered around a Dodge dealership gawking at their used inventory.

The Contenders

1. 2006 – 2008 Pontiac Vibe
   • Pro: Very fuel efficient (26 c/32 h), back seats and front passenger seat fold down flat, based on the highly lauded Toyota Corolla platform, attractive. Comes with an exceptional warranty.
   • Con: Car dealers in the Silicon Valley consistently overprice the Vibe. The hard sell in Sunnyvale has the 2008 stickered higher than the 2009 sitting right next to it. It also has no built-in aux jack for my iPod, and everyone seems also only to carry it in silver.
2. 2005 – 2009 Toyota Matrix
   • Pro: Same car as the Pontiac Vibe, although I like the Pontiac’s look a little better. Attractive vehicle, highly rated, by a company that has done nothing so well as show American car companies what success looks like. The 2009 is much more sexy than its Pontiac counterpart.
   • Con: It’s also overpriced nearly everywhere I’ve looked. Until 2009, iPod aux jack didn’t come standard. It also seems to be ubiquitously in silver or grey.
3. 2008 – 2009 Scion xD
   • Pro: The price is really low. Fuel efficient (26 c/32 h). Back seats fold flat. There are stereo controls on the steering wheel. The fully loaded model NEW is a few thousand cheaper than all of the used Vibes I’ve looked at recently. The redesign is much more attractive than the xA was. The iPod connector displays current track information on the console. The vehicle is zippy off the line and accelerates aggressively on the freeway.
   • Con: There’s no arm rest in the center. The warranty is less impressive than other manufacturers. The ride felt a little stiff, although I didn’t drive it very far. The cargo space is limited compared with the previous two.
4. 2007 – 2008 Pontiac G5
   • Pro: This car is really sexy. The mileage is better than the Vibe/Matrix (25 c / 35 h) in a 5 speed, but about the same in the automatic. It looks roomy and I’d love to test drive one next weekend when I get out of Sunnyvale to go look around at some places where they want to earn my business. The warranty on the Pontiacs is really impressive.
   • Con: I’m more interested in a four-door hatchback than a coupe (my current ride is a coupe). The cargo area is fairly small. I can’t say much more about this since the local Pontiac dealer always keeps all their cars locked, even during business hours.
5. 2007 – 2008 Honda Fit
   • Pro: The automatic is very fuel efficient (27 c/34 h). It’s highly sought after, enough that most dealerships won’t even let you say its name without trying for the hard sell. It comes in some interesting colors, include purple (whose color is named “Blackberry Pearl”).
   • Con: Dealers cannot keep this vehicle in stock for very long, since all the tuner kids want one desperately. The warranty isn’t that impressive. The car feels confined, although I haven’t driven it. The cargo area is smaller than the Vibe/Matrix. Due to its popularity, I have heard that the incidence of theft, both of the car itself and of its logos and other visual treatments, is high.

Vehicles I’ve eliminated from my list include the Nissan Versa (which looks goofy to me and the back seats don’t fold flat) and the Dodge Caliber (which looks tough as a drill sergeant, but doesn’t even get 30 mpg on the highway).

I’m still compiling a list and narrowing, so this list will change, especially when I rent a car on Friday and drive out to somewhere where the fucking salesmen aren’t lazy as shit. The very first thing you should do when I step on the lot is GET ME BEHIND THE WHEEL.

Also, if your dealership is open and any of the cars on the lot are locked (at least any of the cars without a Ferrari or Lamborghini logo on the hood), I am not buying my car at your dealership. You don’t want me to poke my nose in and get to know your vehicles? Then, I’ll hand my money to someone else.

If you are trying to sell me a car, you don’t have to have a brand new top-of-the-line roadster from your company. But, if I see you climb into a car worth less than $1,000, I’m never going to take you seriously, especially if it’s not a classic and it’s not from the marque you sell.

Finally, if you follow up “I’m not ready to buy today, I’m just looking” with a whiny “Oh, man, why? Come on, man. I can only give you a special price today!”, you have permanently lost my business. Respect my timeline.

How Do You Twitter?

A while back, I noticed a crapload of followers that were obvious spammers following my tweets on Twitter. So, in a weird moment of decision, I locked my profile down and started the slow process (back when it was still broken) of trying to block everyone I don’t know from following me.

I’m sure twitter is an effective tool for promoting your blog posts, but I haven’t seen that much of a bump. Since mid-August, 30 visits were referred from the service. Perhaps that’s because I’ve had it locked down for a good percentage of that time.

Do you have your account visible to friends only? Do you post your tweets via a widget onto your website? How many extra visitors does your blog get because of your tweets?

I also notice a couple of my friends use twitter as a substitute for instant messaging. I’ve noticed that the ones who use iPhones are the most likely to do this and the most likely to want to just use twitter to send messages. One of my friends has a handle that ends in an underscore, which makes me more inclined to send him an SMS text in reply than try to type in d username_ on my Blackberry Pearl keyboard in TwitterBerry. (Uh, yeah, if you have a weird character in your name and it seems like I’m ignoring your direct messages, it’s just that I’m driving or marching or something. I’ll get back to you, though.)

How much has twitter replaced your instant messaging? How about your SMS texting?

I’m just curious about how all of you use twitter and whether it’s part of your blog pimpage program. My friend, Eric, insists that you always have to be pimping your projects fairly constantly in order to gain an audience. I’ve had huge traffic over these last eight years from spammers (81 comment and trackback spams in moderation since May 1 — Akismet caught 8543), but not so many from actual people. Should I open my tweets back up to the world and just manually block the spammers I find?

Related Post: Declining Your Friend Request, 08 Aug 2007.

Commute Fail

08:04 — Look at watch. Oh, shit. I have 9 minutes to get to the train station. Get in the car and go!

08:06 — Toyota Sienna Minivan pulls out in front of me. Speed now: 12 mph. Okay, please turn right at Washington. Please, get out of my way, please, I beg you.

08:09 — Toyota Sienna Minivan waits for Toyota Camry. Speed now: 10 mph. I AM TRYING TO CATCH THE TRAIN!

08:12 — Left turn lane into Sunnyvale Caltrain parking lot. Clog of software engineering wives dropping hubbies off, while BLOCKING MY PARKING STRUCTURE.

08:13 — Caltrain arrives, boards, and leaves. I’m still not in the parking structure. Fuck.

08:14 — Depart Sunnyvale Caltrain, westbound on Evelyn Avenue. Attempt to catch northbound 08:23 Caltrain at Mountain View.

08:23 — Caltrain arrives, while I’m trying to find a place to park at Mountain View Caltrain lot. Well, so much for getting to work before 10:00. Better head back to Sunnyvale where at least there’s always parking on the roof of the parking structure.

08:31 — Drive to roof of Caltrain parking structure. Parking spots available: 0. Times this has happened before in the history of humanity: 0. Shit.

08:37 — Find parking spot at Sunnyvale Town Center Mall, careful to park in the spots not delineated by “FOUR HOUR PARKING LIMIT STRICTLY ENFORCED BETWEEN THE ARROWS“

08:54 — Caltrain arrives. I embark, while sending tardy email to coworkers. Looking up Caltrain schedule, I discover that had I continued to attempt to park at 08:14, I’d have made it aboard the 08:18 train.

10:10 — Arrive San Francisco office, late by an hour.

10:15 — Filling paper coffee cup under push handle dispenser. Attention diverted, half a cup of coffee bounces off metal table onto my crotch. Perfection achieved. Temptation to destroy Earth resisted.

That’s how you start a Tuesday.

Fourteen Years

On this day in 1994, my youngest sister, Jody, was killed by a drunk driver. I can hardly believe more than 14 years have passed since her light shined upon the world. In her memory, my tradition is to fast on May 4. The last time I ate a meal on this day, she was alive.

Her loss was a devastating tragedy for the whole world. She was a shining star—a bright amazing person who personified optimism and friendliness. I wonder what she’d have become, who she’d be now, where her fortunes would have taken her. I guess it’s something I’ll always wonder about.

Whatever you do on the weekends, please don’t drink and drive. You might make it home tonight, but you might not. And when you get in a crash, the chances are significant that someone like me will talk about someone they lost on a dark night. Don’t take the risk. Call someone and get a ride home.

Car Shopping Saturday

I’m in the market for a new car. Well, not necessarily a brand new car, but a good late-model used car to replace my current purple car. I drive a 1994 Chevy Cavalier Z-24, which I bought in 1996. I’ve put 145,000 miles on it in the 12 years I’ve had it and it’s been a decent enough car, although I’ve had to spend more and more on repairs as it got older. When I came back from spring break a month ago, the turn signal flasher stopped working for the fourth time (I replaced it a year ago three times in the space of two months). Combine that with the fact that I accidentally broke the mirror off the passenger side and the driver’s side door latch failing from the inside (which requires me to open the driver’s door from the inside), I have probably put off getting another car for a few too many years.

I’ve been looking around for a new vehicle for a little while. Not having a car puts me at a serious disadvantage when it comes to going out on weekends. I take the train to work, so I wouldn’t need a car to commute to work. But, after a while, Netflix weekends start to get old. I could move to San Francisco, I suppose, and I may at some point in the future, but the climate in the city is quite cold, the apartments are tiny and expensive, and I enjoy having plenty of room. So, it’s off to the car dealers for the really pleasant task of finding another car.

My short list includes the Pontiac Vibe, Toyota Matrix, and (remotely) Honda Fit. I drove a Dodge Caliber last month on spring break and a Chevy Cobalt last year. I’d consider one of those if the deal was extraordinary.

I’ve been to a few of the car dealers around Sunnyvale and none of them seem ready to take their customers on test drives. They’re happy to answer questions, ask for the sale, and discuss financing options, but few of them default to “Why don’t we go for a drive and you can see if you like it?” They, to a person, wanted to give me brochures and a business card, dismissing me with a curt “When you’re ready to buy, let me know.” Uh, dude, I don’t hang out on car lots recreationally.

When I bought my Cavalier in 1996, the dealer came out, greeted me on the lot, led me around, and asked “What catches your eye?” I pointed out the purple car and he hollered, “Well, hell, kid, let’s take it fer a drive!” “Okay!” And on the test drive, “Well, you got more gas pedal. This thing’s got a V6 under the hood. Open her up and see what she’ll do!” He threw in a bunch of stuff with the car and really made me want it.

So, today, I headed down the street in my admittedly broken car, this time heading up the Peninsula to see what was in stock in Redwood City, San Mateo, and Burlingame. Hopefully, I could actually test drive one of my target automobiles. In Redwood City, the salesmen ignored me because I parked in the movie theater and walked over (the theater is between four car dealerships). In Burlingame, I skittered away from the Toyota dealer to find a soda machine and headed back because he tried to catch me.

I test drove a 2007 Toyota Matrix. This guy really tried to get me to buy today, but understood when I told him that tax day wasn’t nice to me. We took the low mileage matrix out on the freeway, I stepped into it, passed a couple of Priuses (I’d get one of those if they didn’t cost $150 million and top out at 45 mph), swung it around a freeway offramp, and basically just noodled around in it. It’s nice, but a little more expensive than I thought it would be. He offered to throw in an iPod connection to the stereo (seriously, why is the Cobalt the only car in that class to offer this as a standard feature?) and a retouch of the cosmetic scratches. I may consider this car, but I’d need to reduce the price significantly. Paying $350/month for a Toyota seems a little ridiculous.

Next, I headed a block down to the GMC Pontiac dealer. That salesman was solid as well, making an effort to find the 2008 Pontiac Vibe that had just come in a couple days before. We took it out on the freeway as well with a “Why don’t we take it for a drive?” and it was as nice as the Matrix. The sticker’s pretty high, but depending on my negotiating mojo, I could probably talk a few thousand off the price. Nice car, certainly on the list.

Third, I went next door to the Honda dealer, who pounced on me immediately and tried to sell me a brand new purple (bonus points for the color) Fit, but didn’t seem to want to take me on a test drive or have any used cars. “This is going to be gone tomorrow. Come on, man. You don’t want to drive home in that Chevy. We’ll make you a deal right now, come on.” Dude, I don’t buy any car I haven’t driven at least twice and I don’t have a 20% down payment today. I’ll consider the Fit, but it’s a distant third and I won’t be buying one here.

Finally, just to see if the Honda dealer in Sunnyvale was any different at all, I stepped in half an hour before closing and the sales guy did the old “here’s a brochure and my card” laziness. I like that the Fit is economical and available in purple, but if you are going to make a commission off me, you’re going to work for it. Maybe it’s a cultural thing in the Silicon Valley to talk in abstractions, but “when you’re ready to buy” means you’re not serious about making the sale or establishing a relationship with me.

My housemate is a hard bargain kind of girl, so she advised me to go to Gilroy, where she bought her new Corolla. That seems like a good idea for next weekend. Don’t worry, I’ll rent a car before I drive 70 miles to look at more vehicles. Incidentally, she’s right. When I was buying my current car, I lived in Moscow, Idaho, a college town, where the salesmen wouldn’t let me drive anything. They weren’t serious about making the sale, figuring me for a dumb college student without any money. In Lewiston, Idaho, I bought the car in cash. I’d have liked to have kept the commission local, but if you flunk at salesmanship, someone else gets the money.

Where did you buy your car? What do you drive? Would you buy it again? What would you buy if you were shopping today?

Getting Back to the Music

This morning on the train, I wrote my 24th track of the year on the way to work. It’s my 21st ambient improvisation. I don’t know how I started doing those, but they seem to flow well and help me fall asleep. Many people I know are unaware of my decades-long fascination with deep ambient music, particularly that of Harold Budd, Brian Eno, and Steve Roach.

I don’t know whether or not I’ll ever release these on an actual album, but I play them quite often when I’m trying to calm down. Even if they’re just throw-away tracks, I’m learning something about constructive self-criticism every time I make one of these tracks. What’s more, building music on the train (instead of playing video games on my PSP makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something even before I’ve set foot in my office.

I’d listen to them more at work, but at 40 beat a minute, they induce calmness and, often, sleepiness. Are they good enough to release on a CD? Not all of them are, certainly, but I definitely feel like the ambient tracks are superior to the house tracks I’ve written this year.

How I Blew April

April was an incredibly unproductive month in my projects. I wrote just one track all month–one ambient track that took me almost half an hour. All the reasons I come up with for not writing music on the train are all lame. I’m just lazy.

Of the 30 days in April, I completed my CrossFit workouts on only nine occasions. I skipped 13 official workout days. The idea behind the program is to do what you can, even if you have to substitute something. The idea is to work out for three days and take a day of rest—not work out for a day and take three days of rest. Fortunately, I am not totally pigging out anymore, so I didn’t gain any weight, although I do feel awfully soft.

It is really easy for me to slide back and fall into old habits, so I’d better nip this one in the bud, pull back from the PlayStation Portable in my satchel, and get some work done. Thankfully for my inactivity, it should be relatively quick to catch the Oracle back up. Musically, despite my low output in April, I’m still ahead for the year and on track to finish 52 tracks by the end of December.

I’m not going to beat myself up too much more over this. It’s more constructive just to pick myself up, dust myself off, and march on. Maybe I’ll write another ambient track on the train in the morning to take the edge off what will certainly be another incredibly taxing day.

Trying Out New Looks

After most of two years, I’ve decided to change the theme of this site, particularly after K2 stopped allowing people to post comments:

Sorry, you can only post a new comment once every 15 seconds. Slow down cowboy.

In the next few days, I may try out several different themes. I particularly like the ones that get posted in Smashing Magazine. There seem to be 1130 posts about WordPress over there, many of which are themes galleries. Looks like I might be able to find a really cool one and breathe a little life into this old girl.

If you have suggestions for themes you think might work here, I’m interested. Many of you subscribe to my RSS feed, so you wouldn’t notice any difference in the UI. I guess I could serve an unstyled grey-and-black 1995 theme, but that’d be like driving a Bondo-colored Corvette to the prom. Since you have a souped up hot rod, you might as well paint it, right?