Who's paying what?

Check out this NBC article on smoking. It talks about the health costs to the state relating to smoking. It shows that smokers pay not only for their own health costs, but also for education and health care of others. Not a fact many media companies and governments like to portrait since it doesn't fit the smokers are evil money eating killers and should rot in hell image.

I agree smoking is bad for health and that people should quit, but the smoker bashing and calling them scum of society needs to end!! Don't we live in a free country in which the people are entitled to make up their mind whether to smoke or not? Can't people choose not to go to a non-smoking bar? If there are enough people willing to go to non-smoking bars there would be a bunch of them all over the place. That's how the market functions. If there is a demand and people take advantage of it because there is money to be made. Northfield has a couple of them and its because people there want it. If one can't find any non smoking bars that means people don't care for them and so maybe that person could open a bar and make a good profit (or maybe nobody cares for them in that specific town). Apparently people in the US are too dumb for that and thus need some authority figure to step in. Needless to say that reminds me of communism in which the State always knows better and regulates everything. Is that were we're headed? The way I see it is that smoker bashing has turned into a trend, and politicians want to capitalise on this trend by implementing bills in which they ban smoking.

Even looking at the global warming issue it seems that the government is years behind the market. Companies all over are moving in the direction of cutting down emissions while the central government is dumb found. Maybe the people in charge need to listen more to people and facilitate things rather than banning everything that isn't trendy. And with facilitating I mean taxes and caps (carbon caps). That way the smoker, polluter, whatever can choose whether to quit or to pay a fine (as smokers have been for years!!).

Here is an except from the aritcle: It is clear that states could see some medical savings from reduced smoking, but it is difficult to say how much, and whether those savings might offset the lost tax revenue. Minnesota’s Department of Human Services estimates it spends $295 million a year to treat smoking-related illnesses for 647,000 people on public assistance....

...In 2005, tobacco taxes contributed $13 billion to state budgets. But cigarette tax collections that year were down in 15 states compared with the year or years before, according to a study backed by the tobacco industry. States such as New York, Massachusetts and Illinois are all forecasting a drop in revenue.

Sure, there may be more cost involved with smokers but 13 billion versus 300 million should give some better perspective on the contributions of smokers to the state budget.

PS: After smoking for 12 years I finally got to the point at which I haven't smoked for 6 days. This should prove that my smoking or not smoking has nothing to do with what I perceive about this bull crap that's going on.

Snow, Wii, and Gyoza

Three very unrelated topics. The thought of placing them all into one post appears daunting and though I may fail I hope this will show whats been going on lately.

Before I start though here one fact that may explain some strange behavior in this post (if there is any). The last cigarette I had was consumed on Wednesday after lunch. That was the last smoke in the pack and I haven't ventured out for the next pack. I think that I'm trying to quit, but ever since Wednesday I've been dreaming of smoking, been hallucinating that I'm sucking in the dense, aromatic and joyous smoke, and I've been fightimg off the temptation to stop by the good ol' PDQ for fresh pack of awesome and sexy coffin nails. Well, so far I've done well and I hope this keeps up. This may be the best chance to quit once and for all so I'm putting extra effort into this try. The down side is that I'm highly irritable and feel like I have x-treme ADD. Oh and I woke up with a headache.

So, what have I been up to? Well, during the week its been basically work, cleaning up the apartment (trying to keep things clean is lots of work!), making dinners, playing lots of Zelda on the Wii and on lucky days spending the time with Katie. I finally gave in on the "no console" streak and bought myself a Wii. Its been really fun and I can't believe what a great game Zelda is. I've put lots of hours in it already and am looking forward to putting in a lot more!
Then on the weekends I usually spend quality time with Katie, quality time at the cycle 90 spinning class (90~110 min of indoors biking), and usually lots of cleaning, cooking, and being lazy.
I spend lots of time with Katie...and yes, she is sporting bunny ears ($1 cost at Target, unlimited amounts of fun)

Last Friday Katie and I make gyozas. These are Japanese dumplings and they happen to be my favorite meal. Since we have the issue of over eating we were smart and make ca. 80 gyozas, this way we can eat and eat and still have lots of the goodness left for later consumption.
These qyoza's are waiting to be fried and steamed!

Today my plans are to spin for 110 min and then afterwards head down to Farmington to visit Jeff and Beth with Katie. I'll be taking my Wii and DS (we're going to have a total of 4 DSs between the four of us!!) and hoping to have dinner at some diner. The only problem is that it has been snowing quite a bit. I'm not all that used to driving in the snow any more so I hope everything goes well on the road.

Well, thats about it. And tomorrow its back to work!

And another weekend is there...

Last week was quite the week. I can't really say whether it was good or bad but it was full of events.

The week started out really cool with a trip to the science museum with Katie, Christian, Tom, and Bridget. We watched the movie "Hurricane on the Bayou" and then visited the Race exhibition. The movie was very intriguing and the exhibition eye opening on how many people struggle with personal identity. It reminded of the issues I had during my time in Japan and Germany...

Then on Monday I happened to visit Penn Cycle. This is where the downfall started. Looking at those nice race bikes and knowing that I want to do a 50mile team bike race I ventured further than usual and asked about prices and performance of various bikes. Well, now all I can say is that I have the bike I've been dreaming of, but I also spent too much money on it. Its a sweet bike, but then with the snow I doubt that I'll be able to take it out on a spin for another couple of months :(. Here is a pic of the bike:


While I'm happy about the purchase of this awesome bike, this puts me in a financial crunch...I'm going to have to count every penny I spend this year.

I also signed up for the Lifetime Triathlon Olympic distance. This again is quite a step that will pave the path on how I'll be spending a lot of my time in the future. No more spending money and lots more workout. At least this will work as a motivator to get my butt in gear.

Then to the worst part of the week. I took up a position as the safety coordinator at work starting this year. There are no real benefits in doing this except for that I get to change things in the labs that pertain to making things more safe and the like. I had to do something I really wasn't hoping to do...I don't think that it hurt my coworkers reputation, but it wasn't a decision that was received with much joy, but rather anger and suspicion. I can't go much into details but I hope they understand the overall importance and follow up on it so that I don't have to do it again.

Well, that sums it up I guess. No workouts this week, but starting next week I'll have to build up a workout routine and stick with it...ugh...the fun starts now!

Now I have three bikes...here they are:
The new member of the family: Trek Madone 5.2







Motobecane Nemesis: my good ol' tri buddy







Trek 4900 alpha: haven't used it for a while, but the Chippewa triathlon will push it to its limits.

kids today...or should i say parents today?

Seriously, parents today need to teach kids to respect them. I've seen too many parents be too nice to their little precious ones and this is what those kids turn out to be:



I think some slappage would do that bitch good!

Lifeless in Detroit

This last week was full of many events. Some were nice and others were just insane...right now I'm experiencing one the really insane events, but I'll get to that in a bit. Lets start with the past week before I go into detail on the title topic.

In talking to friends and others I see that they all have different perspectives on the work load they're facing. While some people do no work (1h a day at the max.) and complain of never having time because of all the things they have to do others seem to take on insane work hours (10hrs a day 6 times a week). I don't know where my last week falls in this spectra, but I felt it was a pretty darn long week. Thanks to an experiment coming to an end and myself getting ready for a trip to Germany I hardly had any time this week. I had to put a crap ton of time into data aqquisition and evaluation and had to stay at work till 6:30pm pretty much every day. Friday I even got into work at 6am. Oh and how could I forget, I had to wake up at 3:30am on Tuesday to get to the airport at 5am - flight to our customer's location and back in the evening. The good part is that the late hours were out of self initiative and not somebody forcing me. The bad side is that I didn't get all the shopping, cleaning, and mental preparation needed for the trip done. And now to the jucy part of this story...

I had to get up at 3am again to get to the airport this morning. Caught my flight to Detroit at 6am and....get this....I have a layover of 8~9hours here. UGH! I killed most of the time but I still have a large amount of time left till I can get on the flight and sleep! Thank god for all the gadgets I have to keep me entertained!

Though all this fun stuff I'm going through I still look forward to getting back home in Germany and spending time with my parents and friends. So to those who like to whine about work hours...there are crazy people like my friend Matt who did a week of bending over for this one company with only eating, sleeping and working being the activities conducted. All your whining does is make you look like a pansy, so think first before you start with your selfpitty -> Not directed to anyone or anybody that reads this blog ;-)

I hope you all have a happy holiday / a Marry Christmas! and a happy New Year!

Routine days

Thats me playing around with my SLR on the frozen lake!!
Its past bedtime and I'm, as usual, wandering the endless cyber landscape we call internet. I have things piled up to the wazoo and all I can do is waste my precious time on my computer. The good thing about that though is that today I'm being a little more productive - I've got a blog update for you!

So how am I doing? I'm doing well and pretty much everything else is going well, too. Work is keeping me busy. I've been spending a lot of time on the IR doing transmittance and ATR scans of various materials. Its fun but for those that have used an IR spec: the time it takes to purge out the system is really annoying. Besides that it looks like I'll be flying off to Chicago next week to visit some peeps. Its just a fly off in the morning and return in the evening type event but I'm looking forward to meeting some new people. It'll be fun! So thats work. Next to my...hmm as much as I hate to put it this way: my love life:

Quite a while ago I was fortunate to be introduced to a wonderful woman named Katie. We've been dating now for about 4 months and it feels like we've been together forever (in a very good way). She's not only beautiful and smart but also is quite athletic and recently I even found a geek side in her - she bought a DS!! We go swimming, biking, and running when we're not out on a date or hanging out at my or her place. It feels right when I'm with her and I couldn't be happier. I'm looking forward to next year which will be full of adventures (biking trips, triathlons, camping trips and much more!).

Speaking of triathlons though I got a little behind with my workout and am currently trying to get back to speed. Seems like a big struggle and its a pain, but I'm optimistic that things will go well and that I'll be in decent shape once the tri season starts.

So thats about it I guess. I'll be flying back home to Germany this Christmas and I'm looking forward to seeing some of my old German friends! I know its going to be a hell of a fun time though too bad its just a week vacation...it sure isn't something you get in large quantities when you're a new worker. I'll have to make the best of it. Oh and another update would be that I'm looking around for a townhouse. I guess its about that time to start looking around for some sound investments. That will be the big thing that will happen next year. I'm excited for this change but at the same time I feel like I'm getting real old. Better start saving up for my retirement! lol

Anyway, I hope all you are doing well and please leave me a comment if you can (I know I need to do that on some of your blog sites!). And to those I owe an email...I'll try to get to it this week/weekend. I haven't forgotten about you but I've been pretty busy...I'll get to it as soon as I can!

Spreading democracy

I work 40~50hrs a week and make money so that I can eat, pay back my debt, and do whatever else I deem important. Our government takes a huge chunk of it away so they can spend it on what they consider important - roads, schools, helping people with problems, etc. I understand the need for taxes and I support it since we all benefit from it. But when this money is spend to build tanks for such stupid use (as in the video below) I feel they're crossing the line. If this is our way of spreading democracy and making our country safer I'm at a loss - how does this help stabilize Iraq and lower the number of terrorists and insurgents?

I doubt that this is what our government wants happening, but since these are our own country men doing this I think our government needs to crack down on mal-doings that may jeopardize all the efforts that have been put into Iraq. Further more the uncultured and arrogant soldiers (the many few of them) need some serious learning on how to behave in certain countries before they enter. They represent the entire country and their actions will help make other respect the US or help breed more hatred. Seriously, this stuff concerns me. And if anybody thinks that this is just one happening then lets think again. I can think of many of such inadequate punishments that have surfaces in the press...please think of whom your voting for and their position toward foreign policy. We live in a global socio economical society in which the lone cowboy attitude will only lead to negative consequences.

This article is way funny...don't read if you're a mac fanboy

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35620

Long email

As many of you may know I***c is currently doing a great job teaching the helpless Japanese to speak and write English....I used to live there and I know that they need all the help they can get so I'm glad that he is doing what he's doing! Anyways, I owed him an email on finding a job with a chemistry degree. I hadn't gotten to that email for the longest time cause I knew that he was going to be in Japan for another year and also cause I knew that it was going to be a long email. Anyhow he asked me again so I finally sat down and got to it. Since it was a long email and it has some good ideas to it I posted it here for everyone to see. I hope you enjoy it...

So here is that email I was planning on writing like two months ago. You want to know more on what sort of job opportunities you have, right? I don't want to say that I'm the expert in it but I think that I should be able to give you some hints.

First off, what options do you have? From my perspective I see you as a good science oriented guy that not only has great interpersonal skills but also knows about the different ways of living depending on culture. And you were in Japan for a long ass time...can you speak Japanese? That language skill may help land you a job before some other person if you ever get into that situation. In anycase, I think that you were in a pretty similar situation as I was a year ago.

So here are the options as I see them:

1) You could go find a full-time job at some larger or whatever size company. If you're looking for a job the full time job is going to be your ultimate goal for the next couple of years. Most likely you won't be able to land a job right away, since the competition is real big (many experienced people need to look for entry jobs cause they can't get the higher jobs). Most places require you to have some experience and other places want to see degrees (PhD and Masters). But what it comes down to is that you need to be lucky in order to get a full-time job and you have to send out a lot of applications. Your best bet is to do this as soon as possible, as often as possible, to as many places as possible, and most likely you'll also have to do this while you're working at some shit job.

Job options I would say would be in research, quality, and technical services...and if you want to push it you can maybe get a sales, marketing, or business job with the science background, but I think your chances without real work experience is close to 0. So if I were you I would go to many different company websites and start applying to every research, quality control, and tech services job you can find. Quality is, I guess, a job where you make sure that the quality of the product is according to what the customer wants - i.e. you talk to customers and do stuff with the product development group. Quality could also be on the production line in which you'd be preforming certain tests on the product to make sure the product and intermediate products are ok. Tech services is what I'm doing. Its similar to quality but is more oriented towards helping the customer use the product the company produces. This stuff is really fun cause you get to travel (depending on what type of customers you have), eat well while traveling, and have fun trying to fix stuff or help make things work better. Then research and product development is where you do exactly what the title says. Try looking at www.mmm.com, www.medronic.com. www.ecolabs.com and other big companies for jobs...donno in what field you want to go though...

2) Since it takes a hell of a long time to find a full time job you'll have to go look for something temporary. This really isn't the stellar awesome job that everybody wants, but trust me...getting a temp job ain't gonna hurt you. Instead of fooling around doing nothing all day you get to work, make money, get to know people, and the best - during all that time look for a better job! Temp jobs can come in different types so I'd just go talk to some temp agencies. I worked for Pace Analytical and Aerotek Scientific. They make money off of your pay check for finding you a job so getting a job will be a lot easier than finding a full time position...but they also take 50% or so of the money away. So as the name says its a temp job. Other agencies would be Kelly Scientific (sp?) and Vault. Now I'm sure there are many others around the twin cities and elsewhere in the US, but thats all I know of.

3) Go to school, get a PhD and be a hero. This route will take a long time, be a lot of work without much money ....true, you'll end up with good money, but not good as some managers will make...and they're always going to be above you (in therms of job position...if you want to rise up high the best is to get some scientific background and then a MBA...oh, and be a good diligent worker...that one is always the best). If you really want a PhD or a masters title though I would suggest trying to get a job at a big company like 3M, Medtronics, Boston Scientific, Eli Lily....many of those companies will support your interest in further education by helping you out with tuition. So basically you work full time, be a part-time student - you get the money and 401k of a full-time worker, health insurance, dental and vision, get the education (which obviously will take a lot longer), the vacation time increases faster (because that stuff is based on how long you work for the company), and you have a job during and after that education. Pretty good deal if you ask me.

4) Go get a law degree

5) Do some volunteering work

6) Many other options that I can't think of....

Awesome CS video