GM Bankrupt -- thoughts/questions

1. GM, Hummer, Saab, Saturn....go bankrupt.  PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE CHEVY STAY ALIVE!!!!!  I really want my vette.  =)

2. It was a sad day to not see GM on the ticker today. But they now have their own tab on wsj.com

3. What the heck are the Chinese going to do with Hummer?  Seriously? 

3.1 I hope they do not redesign them to look like the controversial Chery....how ugly! 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chery_Automobile

4. How is it that when a business goes bankrupt the government owns them? Like they know how to run a successful company, they cant even balance a budget.

5. I'm really glad I did not have GM stock. I feel really bad for those that did...

Vacation

So apparently I took a vacation from my blog...but I also have taken 2 trips recently. I learned very quickly how important vacation is to refuel the mind. The first trip was to Santa Rosa for a beautiful wedding and a lot of fun with KC and her family. Then we went to San Fransisco since I had never been to that city and we had a blast. We took the subway, the train, the cable car, and a taxi during that trip. Public transit is amazing, I wish Houston were that cool.

The next weekend I took a road trip with my friend Katherine. We were gone a total of 72 hours and we went to Chicago, Valpo, Indianapolis, Bloomington, and back to Houston. I got to wander around Chicago (kath had never been) and see Lauren, then watch my best friend graduate from college in valpo. Then I caught up with some high school friends on the way back. 

It was sure tiring to drive that much, but well worth it. Although it took a few days to catch up on sleep, I feel refreshed from having a change in pace. Those two trips were followed by a 3 day weekend, which was just a fantastic way to end the month of May. 

If you have not taken a vacation recently, you should.

Money, Time, and Energy

Three things that need to join a conservation program: money, time, and energy

Although the energy corporations are working against all odds to find a sustainable/renewable energy substitute for oil, I have not seen a positive solution for the economy or a way to buy time.

So how to I fair with these three commodities?

As far as money, I've identified a few ways to increase my proportion. First, I applied for grad school, sure that costs money up front, but I look as it as an investment. For all of the weeks I spend in class I will not be spending any money. Also when I take finance and accounting class I tend to control my consumer tendencies much more. The other way I've decided to increase my typical share is to revisit my budget and apply a tighter grip.

Time, now this is tricky. I've tried to simplify my life...but that still does not seem to create anymore time. Therefore, I've decided that every activity or repeating commitment I add to my schedule, I have to review my current schedule and try substitute it for something else. This way I will not over commit. I added going to the gym to my schedule, and took off time I spend watching tv. If I make myself think through what I'm trading off for the activity I am doing I tend to waste less time. 

Personally I'm ok when it comes to energy, I know over the next 20 years there will be many changes to the sources from which energy is delivered over the long run. I'm slightly afraid of more resource wars, but hopefully the US will get smart and become friends with the oil exporting companies.  Also I'm not as worried about energy because I have a lot of confidence in the company I work for. I let the smart ones worry about it, I'll just keep doing my best at giving them the best solutions for storing and accessing their necessary data.

Rain X

Without fail every time I wash my car it rains, and I've been pretty forgetful to put rain x on my windshields. I never remember until it rains....which is after I wash the car.

So the last car wash I did, I remembered to use Rain X.  And of course it rained, but this time I was not as annoyed, because I didn't have to use my wipers. 

Moral: It's all about the small things in life.

Intelligent Quote

"At the moment it is far better to be a financial cripple with a government guarantee than a Gibraltar without one." -- Warren Buffett

AIG is really drilling this thought down to the core, with their decision to use $165 million of bailout money for bonuses and compensation. The successful businesses are not even pushing out $165 million in bonuses. The thought is just absurd.

I suppose that now that AIG is calling the money "retention payments" it makes it all better.

If I had a chance I'd ask Edward Liddy, CEO and Chairman of AIG if we called the Civil War the War of Northern Aggression, would that change the outcome?

Netflix

I really love Netflix. So many choices, quick delivery. The largest online movie rental company definitely deserves the title. 

If you've never tried it, I think you should.

Pimp this Bum

Just as many of you, I've been approached a time or two in various places for money. I justify not giving them anything for a few reasons:

1. I rarely carry any cash
2. I pay a ridiculous amount of taxes and a lot of that money goes to social programs.
3. I offer volunteer work/monetary donations to various organizations throughout the year.
4. Unfortunate experiences the few times I did try to offer food

Nonetheless, I still kinda feel sorry for the people living on the street, and mostly I wonder how they ended up there. I've always wanted to interview them, and find out what they did differently in their life and make a "Lessons Learned" book for how to not become a bum.

I guy in Houston has done something really interesting and I wanted to share: www.pimpthisbum.com It's a website to donate to and support a bum, you can buy him things from his wish list. I think this is such a neat idea. Enjoy meeting Tim.

Cute Nephew

I have the cutest Nephew.

Best Gag

This is really hilarious. Not sure it is the most professional way to advertise that their competition has been put out of business, but entertaining nonetheless.

Also, I wanted to share some links I've been captivated by lately:

http://www.thinkgeek.com

or more specifically: http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/warfare

http://dilbert.com/blog

http://www.usatf.org/routes/map

THE cold WINDY CITY

Last weekend I went to Chicago primarily for Training, but I was able to  stay an extra day and "enjoy" the city. I use the word enjoy loosly...well because it was FRIKKIN cold! I'm glad there was a warm front for Saturday (it got above freezing) so that I could see SOME of the city. I went to the Sears tower to really enjoy the view. 

Chicago is a really awesome city, too bad I've only visited in February.  I'm going to plan a trip in July or August and go to a Cubs game.  Hopefully Lauren and Chris will let me stay with them again  =)

What is my Job?

Well I've been asked a few times what I do. Which in itself is a strange way to learn about someone, because I do not feel my job defines me. But none the less, it is interesting to learn what others do. (Which I'm not sure why, but it is)

So my first year with ExxonMobil, I worked on a migration project for the Intranet. We moved off NT4 Servers to 2003 servers. (Yes I started in 2007). I also worked as the Admin for WebTrends which is a web analytics application.

Now that the migration is complete, I have a whole new set of task. The easiest way to sum it up is: I'm learning SharePoint.

I'm in a consulting role, but currently I'm learning what will in the future be consulted on. We are going to deploy SharePoint across our environment and rid ourselves of LotusNotes and Global Shares. So now that the majority of people are confused, here is a little bit of information on what SharePoint is.

From the Mircosoft website:
"Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is a new server program that is part of the 2007 Microsoft Office system. Your organization can use Office SharePoint Server 2007 to facilitate collaboration, provide content management features, implement business processes, and supply access to information that is essential to organizational goals and processes."

We currently are using Office 2003, so a lot of the time I'm learning work arounds to fix discrepancies in the installation and so forth. I'm also on sub committees where I learn about features that will be enabled in the future, such as MySites.

Since I was the primary on our Internet/Intranet Statistics software for a while, I'm also working to find a solution for SharePoint sites and see what is best fit for our environment.

That is my half time job, (supposedly) =) the rest of my time I'm a contact for a project that requires us to upgrade our analytic software and make some governance changes.

It's thrilling and new everyday at work, which honestly no matter what I'm doing that is what is most important.

So hopefully you can better understand what I do at work.