Social Entropy

I still think about them and wonder if they think about me? Do they still remember me, have they found someone to replace me, and if so do they like who they have now better then me? I wonder why I left the relationship in the first place, what was wrong that made me desire to leave; I can’t seem to remember now. What would my life be like if I had stayed in the relationship, would I be happy or still miserable? Was I even miserable? Questions like these, sometimes, enter my mind when I think about former employers.

I was browsing the internet, and for some reason I can’t recall, I started searching the job postings at Eddie Bauer, my first corporate HR gig after college, and noticed that my old job is posted. It made me think of my old co-workers. I wondered if they were still there working on our old eternal projects, or if they had left and how life was like without me. Conceited, I know, to wonder what my impact on their life was, but all too human I suppose.

I also saw that Eddie Bauer has moved to a new location after selling their corporate campus to Microsoft. The new headquarters is in a skyscraper in Bellevue and I got the urge to drop by the new digs. I stopped myself before going though. Would they remember me, could I get someone vogue for me to get past security, would they want to talk to me, would they be angry at me for leaving them, for allowing myself to be lured away by a former director to a new employer. Would I be perceived as the lame former employee who just couldn't move on?

The new Eddie Bauer HQ in downtown Bellevue.

Are old employers like old girlfriends? Each of whom, after breaking apart the relationship, it is impossible to remain friends with? Is it just too hard, is it unnatural, our we just supposed to move on?

It isn’t surprising, at least to me, that I would have similar emotions regarding former employers as to former girlfriends. If you think about work most Americans spend more waking hours with their coworkers than with their spouse/sig. others, they work through problems together, they revel in business victories and march through defeats, and throughout all of this, people can become very close through work.

My last job was with the Medial System division of Philips Electronics and while there I made some good friend with a couple guys. We would go out and have a beers, bitch about our projects and inept management, and talk about our families. We tried to do this a few time after I left, but the periods between outings grew from every couple months to once every six months and now it has been more than six months since I’ve even talked with them. Have we lost touch because we no longer share the common experience of work, is it because I’ve completely left the field of HR and moved into law, or was our relationship simply based on our shared work that it couldn’t survive without the common connection?

Life is supposed to be a continual forward progression, and I suppose, if you let it, it is easy for the currents of time pull you away from former employer, former loves, and people who once, at that moment in life, were essential to who you were. So, I guess I am left with the question of how hard should you try to fight the essential tide of life, how hard do you press to keep in touch with those to whom your common thread has been cut? I suppose, the answer is how much is it worth to you, how valuable are those friends gained through work and will you spend the energy required to fight the basic entropy that seems to be the underlying ingredient of modern social relationships.

Anyway, ramble off.

Another Meth Lab in Paradise

I've had to drive down to Mason County Courthouse twice this week for work. I've never been to Mason county before but it is a gorgeous little piece of Washington. The county has the more miles of coastline than any other county in Washington, the geography is rolling hills covered in forests and dotted by grassy clearings. But, this ideal little county is crime ridden; Meth, poverty, car jacking, you name it. Sad that someplace so beautiful can be such mess.

Anyway, here is the beautiful county courthouse in Shelton.


On the drive back to Seattle, I got stuck in traffic, of course, and I wonder why I rarely leave the city on a weekday!

As you can tell I was a little bored staring at the steering wheel


Thank goodness for Ipod.

Flipping on the lights ...

The blog been quite as of late, I’m kind of in a transition mode and haven’t been in the blogging mood as of late. A lot has been going on though…

• I’ve started work as clerk at a union law firm that represent fire and police guilds. I read CBAs (contracts) all day and turn them into numbers so that the attorneys can prepare for negotiations and such. I’m not sure how much “law” I’m learning, but I’m now current on my knowledge of Washington’s counties.

• Brother number 2 has found a job in Madison, Wisconsin and is moving. I guess this means that the entire family has left N. Idaho now.

• A recent blog I wrote has been getting a lot of attention from youth right groups (I didn’t even know there were groups fighting for those poor, oppressed teens out there who struggle under the oppressive yolk that is American society.) I’m about as progressive as they come, but of all the “groups” that actually are oppressed in this world, teens are about the last group I would fight for. But, if it gets people involved, than more power to ‘em, fight on teens of American, fight on!

• The application for both the law review and the journal for social justice are rapidly approaching, June 1. Both applications are really interesting topics so I’m having fun doing them; even if my progress on them is somewhat glacial. They just aren’t going as fast as I would have hoped. (Guess what I’ll be doing my 3-day weekend?).

• My summer classes start next week. So soon!

• I turn 30 next week. So soon!

• According to my Ipod+Nike thing, I recently past the 100 mile milestone. I have run over a hundred miles since I started tracking in February. (7.38 miles in Feb, 12.21 miles in March, 41.39 miles in April, and 46.56 miles in May, so far).

• There was a tragic shooting in Moscow, Idaho. It’s been on the news a lot and is pretty depressing for those of us who went to school in Moscow and love that little town. Guns and crazies, what are you going to do?

Well, sorry for this post. I think the simple status posting is possibly the lowest blog form there is, but between work, law review applications, and life; my mind just is not working right to write a decent post.

Boston

I had to go to Andover, MA for a work meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday. Given that I had never been to Boston before, I decided to leave a day early and spend Monday looking around one of our nation's oldest cities.

It was a pretty good day for sightseeing. The sky was clear and the sun was out. A strong breeze was blowing off the ocean, which made for cooler day. I woke up early, around six or so, and drove the rental car from Andover to Boston. I found a parking lot in the theater district a block from Boston Commons and started my tour from there.

I made my way to a Starbucks on campus of Emerson College (where Jay Leno went) for breakfast (as long as Starbucks in around I'm never far from home) and then onto the Boston Common, a city park that was orginally set aside for cattle grazing in the 1600's (it used to be part of the shoreline!). It was here where the British troops camped the night of April 18, in the morning they set sail across the river and onto Lexington where the shot that was heard around the world occurred.




After looking through the commons and the public garden I started out on the freedom trail, a red line of paint and sometimes bricks, that moves through downtown to key locations in our nation's history. The most profound stops on the tour are the cemeteries where many of the men and women that were instrumental in our nation's foundation are buried. It was a powerful feeling to be standing over the graves of men of honor and valor, who risked their lives to establish our government and ensure our say in how our lives would be governed...It made me feel sad for our current leadership and the caliber of men who lead us now.



I left the freedom trail and went back toward the commons and the area around the Prudential tower and into the BackBay neighborhood (formerly a marsh/bay but filled in with tons and tons of gravel to make most of the city (the first and largest public works project in the United states whose tradition continues in the big dig).

I made my way to Massachusetts Ave and crossed over the Harvard bridge counting the smoots along the way towards the campus of MIT. I was surprised by MIT, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't what I found. All the kids looked smart, I could not imagine their SAT scores, but the campus was only on par with our local Jr Colleges (albeit a super nice jr college with kids that are way smarter than yours...)




After MIT, I made my way up the Charles river to the Harvard Campus. Although I am somewhat successful, I have been a decent corporate drone who has managed to come up through the pay ranks and will soon be a lawyer, but within the hallowed walls of our nations oldest and most prestigious school I felt unworthy. Yet, the kids looked just as I had looked, fairly normal I suppose. What took my breath away was that there were so many kids who actually had thought they could go to Harvard, had applied, and were now studying there. I'm not faulting my parents, but they were not college educated and did little to promote higher education or encourage us to stretch ourselves beyond what the teachers asked for, therefore I had not inkling that I could have ever gone to place such as this. I guess there's always enough time to pressure my kids and live vicariously through them, sure they'll live in their own personal hell but one day they'll thank me!!!