Personal

I just got back from vacation on the Gulf Coast

Dave Farquhar Personal ,

Nine days away from pagers, e-mail, Internet, and even, to a large degree, telephones. It was nice, let me tell you.

Actually Emily and I tried to bring Internet access along, but my closest Southwestern Bell dialup number was long distance.It wasn’t exactly a honeymoon, as it was designed as a family vacation. Yes, I just went on vacation with all of my in-laws and enjoyed it. I knew Emily was something special when I met all of her family for the first time and liked them.

So, here’s a rundown of what I learned about the Alabama Gulf Coast (which pretty much looks like the Florida Gulf Coast, but is less expensive and a bit shorter drive for us).

Lulu’s has to be the most overrated restaurant in the whole state, if not the entire Southeast. I’ll be blunt: If it weren’t owned by Jimmy Buffet’s sister, it would be out of business. Five items on the menu: a couple of burgers (of course) and a few seafood dishes, the quality of which is comparable to Red Lobster. The live music was two dirty old men being crude in front of children. And the staff was incredibly rude.

You can get hamburgers and Red Lobster-quality seafood anywhere. There’s no point in wasting your time with that place.

The next night, Em and I went to Original Oyster House, which was every bit as good as last year. Their stuffed shrimp is amazing. Well, everything there is amazing, but the stuffed shrimp is another level of amazing. One hint: If you need to add salt to anything, use the sea salt in the special container on the table, rather than the plain old table salt in the traditional shaker. It’s healthier and tastes better.

Another hint: Get there early. We got there at a little after 4:30. There were four parking spots left. They seated us pretty quickly, and we were eating by 5. By about 5:15 you can’t get a seat without a long wait at that place. It’s worth the wait–last year we waited two hours for a seat and we weren’t disappointed–but it’s nicer to avoid it.

There are two grocery store chains down there: Bruno’s and Winn-Dixie. Bruno’s is the less expensive of the two.

I bought a big bag of Clementines for 99 cents. Clementines are a sort of mini orange. In Missouri you can’t get them very often, and they cost a lot more than that. If you’re a Yankee like me, they’re an indulgence, but they’re a cheap indulgence down there.

If you get a place with cooking facilities, bring along some recipes and stop off at one of the many roadside seafood markets. It’s nice to get fresh seafood for what you’re probably used to paying for beef.

Lillian’s in Perdido Key, Florida (just across the border) is a good pizza/Italian place. Em and I skipped it this year since there are half a dozen places just as good within a 10-minute drive of home, but if you’re not from St. Louis or Chicago, you’ll enjoy it.

The Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida is always a worthwhile visit. It’s free. If you have any interest at all in space, the Navy, aviation, either of the World Wars, or American History, it’s got something for you. The tour of the facilities where they restore airplanes is great.

We didn’t make it to the USS Alabama, which is in Mobile. That’s on my list.

It’s easy to find country/western and classic rock stations down there. If your tastes lean more towards a AAA format (Adult Album Alternative), 92.1 FM is one of the better commercial AAA stations I’ve heard. They play plenty of unexpected stuff without being totally obscure.

Coming back

Dave Farquhar Personal , , ,

The phone rang this morning, around 9 AM. I’ve gotten used to that; my recruiter’s been calling me around 9 for the last few days. But this time there was a different tone to his voice. He was nervous.

Great, I instantly thought. Another rejection. What is this, high school?But I let him finish, because he said he had some good news. "Dave, they’re excited about you. But there’s a problem. Do you think there’s any way you can start tomorrow?"

Tomorrow. He’d told me yesterday he thought they’d probably be interested in me, and that we’d be preparing for a start day of July 5. Being able to start tomorrow was about the last thing I expected.

I wasn’t the least bit prepared, but in reality, what did I have planned for tomorrow? A trip to the post office, certainly. A trip to a thrift store or two, most likely. Maybe I’d get ambitious and change the oil in my wife’s car, and maybe I wouldn’t. So I’d make $7, maybe $15, and I’d save another $20.

I figure that every day I didn’t work cost me between $150 and $200 (pre-tax). So you do the math. I told him I’ll start tomorrow.

Actually this was a longshot if there ever was one. The job position involves Unix administration. I’m not a stranger to Unix, but it’s been a year since I’ve done any Unix on a regular basis. I pulled out all the stops on the job interview, showing up in a suit and tie on a 90-plus degree day on just a couple of hours’ notice. It was all downhill from there. The entire department of five interviewed me, plus one guy who’d been recently promoted out of it. They peppered me with Unix and e-mail questions. One of them asked me why to never type "rm -rf /" and I asked him whether the "r" was uppercase or lowercase. Apparently in Solaris it doesn’t matter. It does in every Linux distribution I know. But I got the rest of the question right. I struck out on the others, sometimes badly.

I left the building with a little more than a thank-you for my time from the supervisor. I made a note to myself to make sure my recruiter briefed me better on what the responsibilities would be, and to get me enough time to actually brush up so I’d look like I know something, and not some idiot off the street who can barely spell "Unix."

Then they started interviewing other people. And with each passing interview, my recruiter felt more hopeful. I started to feel hopeful too. I didn’t count on anything–my wife and I all but started a business last week, and we’re profitable. It won’t pay the mortgage, let alone make us rich, but we made more than enough to pay the electric bill, and we did it on our terms.

And then the phone call came. A few hours later I drove 10 miles, signed some papers, and it was official. I’m a professional Unix administrator.

Light at the end of the tunnel?

Dave Farquhar Personal

If, as expected, I get a job offer on Monday, the advice in What Color is Your Parachute? will ring very true for me.

My best job prospect is a place that wasn’t even hiring.I’m going to continue my practice of not mentioning my employers, past or present, by name–savvy people have probably guessed my last one, but I don’t know that I’ve ever even mentioned the restaurant I worked in high school by name–but this one is a very long and winding road.

I spent last July 4 with a good friend of mine from church. He was casually making conversation when he said, "I don’t suppose you’re looking to change jobs, are you?" Well, I don’t remember anymore if that week had been a bad week or not, but it was the start of a new fiscal year and some people had been let go, so it wasn’t like I was feeling terribly secure at the time. So I guess I surprised him when I said, "Talk to me."

He said his engineering firm had been kicking around the idea of hiring a full-time IT guy, because one of his engineers wasn’t getting his projects done because people kept dragging him away to fix computers. I asked him some more about company, and frankly, the only thing I didn’t like was its location. Location was the only thing my current job had going for it; so that seemed like a good trade.

I went home and worked on my resume. And then I heard nothing.

Every once in a while the fire would get flamed again and Jon would mention they hadn’t forgotten me, but each time it turned out to be false hope.

Well, when the now-annual layoffs happened again this year, I was one of the people hit. Jon was the third person I called. I told him if they were still interested, I could start as soon as Monday and we could really get creative. One idea I floated was to work on a contract basis, paid hourly, so they could see if I was worth my asking price.

And a few days later, I got a call from the owner of the company. He wanted me to come in for an interview. I liked him instantly. For one thing, he’s 72 going on 30. While he’s got all the wisdom one would expect from someone who’s run his own business for 42 years, he has the energy and enthusiasm of a 30-year-old. He’s generous with praise when it’s appropriate. When he asked what I knew about the company, I said, "Basically what I know is what Jon told me, and what’s on your web site. I know Jon designs presses."

"No," the owner said, "Jon designs very good presses."

He took me out to lunch. At the restaurant where we went, everyone knew him by name. We were seated at a table and had soup and water in front of us within 30 seconds. I’ve read stories about this kind of thing, but never actually seen it.

My former boss called me a day or two later to ask me how it went. I didn’t elaborate a lot. I think about all I said was that I met the owner, and I like the guy, I respect the guy, but not only that, I really want to be like him. He answered with a question: "Do you know how big that is?"

As a matter of fact, I don’t know that I do. What I do know is I’ve worked for a handful of people who were two of the three. I’ve worked for people who were none of the three. While I’ve worked with people who were all three, I’ve never worked for anyone who was all three. And I figure this may be the only chance I get.

We talked again on Thursday, briefly. There were 47 other things going on that day and I probably only talked to him for about 10 minutes total. He said he still wasn’t convinced that the company needs an IT guy, but that he thinks I’m a tremendous talent, that I’m a good fit for the company, and frankly, if he didn’t move fast, he’d lose me. He said we’d talk again on Monday, and he’d have an offer for me then.

Meanwhile, I’d been filling out applications everywhere I could find on the usual job sites. I’d sent my resume to recruiters and basically done everything I did back in 2000 when I was looking for a job and I was getting so many phone calls that I was turning down an interview a day. What worked in 2000 wasn’t working at all in 2005: I didn’t so much as get an acknowledgement of existance from most of these people.

But the firm that wasn’t even hiring? It looks like it turned out to be my best option. Maybe even my only option, despite me having an inside track at one or possibly even two other places.

We’ll see what Monday brings.

But if it doesn’t work out, I don’t think I’m going to waste any more time with the job sites. I’ll do what the book recommends and rely solely on word of mouth and in-person visits. I’m a whole lot happier with what that’s turned up for me.

My family threw me a wedding shower this weekend

Dave Farquhar Personal , ,

I spent a nice weekend in Kansas City, where my family threw us a couples wedding shower. It was nice. The theme was BBQ.

I was happy.Among the gifts were at least 8 bottles of BBQ sauce, and I think they represented six or seven different brands, most of which aren’t available in St. Louis.

I rattled off a few of the kinds of BBQ sauce you can get in St. Louis: Kraft, Heinz, KC Masterpiece, and–I had to think for a while to come up with the name of the local brand–Maulls.

Most of them snickered when I said "Kraft." I think that stuff is illegal in Kansas City.

Actually, you can get Gates here in St. Louis also. A couple of relatives got me bottles of Gates and KC Masterpiece, but that’s OK. I’m never one to turn away good BBQ sauce, even when I can get them locally. The last time Gates was on sale here in St. Louis I bought about half a dozen bottles.

I also got a bottle of Arthur Bryant’s. It’s very famous too, and not available in eastern Missouri, as far as I know.

One relative sent me a bottle called Famous Dave’s BBQ Sauce. I posed for a picture with it. I hope my aunt sends me a copy.

So I think I might have enough BBQ sauce to get me through my final month of bachelorhood. We’ll just have to see.

Tonight I did something I’ve never done before

Dave Farquhar Personal

Tonight I did something I’d never done. I went out with a group from my church that gives blankets, coats, candles and batteries, and hot food to the homeless.

It was eye-opening.I’ve written before about how my standard of living is much closer to that of a billionaire than it is to the people who live in some parts of this country. But this was scarcely 10 miles from where I live, and probably fewer than four miles from where I work.

I heard stories. Lots of stories. There were the expected can’t find work, family kicked ’em out types of stories. One came here from Washington, spent all her money to get here, found out the person she came to see wasn’t here, and ended up on the street. One guy admitted he had drug problems. I think he told me he’d been clean for a few days. One guy told me he was out there because he felt sorry for others who were homeless.

It was 18 degrees tonight. The last group of people discussed amongst themselves which of them would be able to get into Larry Rice’s shelter.

I was cold too. I wasn’t as smart about the way I dressed as they were. But when the night was through, I had my three-year-old Honda Civic with a moonroof and power windows and power locks and cruise control and, most importantly tonight, a good heater, and it transported me back to my house in the suburbs where I can turn my heat as high as I want. The temperature in my house may drop to 56 degrees tonight, but only because I’m a cheapskate. If I wanted to put the thermostat on 90, I could put it on 90, and when that bill came, I could pay it.

Some of the people I met tonight won’t have much more than the blankets we had on hand to give them to keep them warm.

I found myself wanting to understand the problem and solve it. The first part is possible; the second, less so. Familiarity is a difficult hurdle to overcome. When you’re homeless, those problems are familiar. The problems of living somewhere, although much more minor to you and me, could be scary, I suppose.

Those of you who pray, please do me a favor and pray for Ernest. Ernest has an appointment in the morning to get assisted housing. If all goes well, tonight was his last night on the streets. It’s going to cost him $1 a month. He told me he makes $250 a month. I should have asked him what he was going to do with the $249 a month he had left over. I didn’t think of that.

Ernest impressed me. He had a lot of book knowledge, including knowledge of scripture. Obviously he had some education. He had plenty of drive, too. But drive can be fleeting. And as I watched Ernest’s behavior, while I saw loads of promise, I also saw the potential to relapse. He asked me for a quarter. I didn’t have any money with me at all. For all I know, he may have wanted money to make a phone call, or he may have wanted money to buy something he shouldn’t be buying. I hope it’s the former.

I’d be surprised if Ernest turned out to be someone who could change the world, but if his potential could be fulfilled and his energy focussed, he could certainly make big changes in the community where he lives. I’m certain that people are going to follow him. The question is whether he’ll lead them someplace desirable, or someplace they don’t need to be going.

The people with the biggest potential also face the biggest challenges. So that’s why I’m asking for prayers for Ernest tonight. I think these next few days could prove to be pivotal. He needs for what I saw tonight to be real and lasting. He needs fire and he needs drive. The things that he said tonight need to be not only in his head, but also in his heart.

If those things happen, chances are the next time I see Ernest, he’ll be handing out hot food on the same streetcorner where he used to receive it. That’s what I want for him.

Gatermann captured me demonstrating how to run a steam locomotive

Dave Farquhar Personal ,

Tom Gatermann caught me hard at work this past weekend at the National Museum of Transport in St. Louis, inside the cab of a UP Big Boy.

I know the real reason why railroads made the transition to diesel locomotives in the 1950s and scrapped those huge, magnificent-looking steamers. The chairs in the diesel locomotives are much, much more comfortable.

Umm, no, as a matter of fact everything isn\’t OK…

Dave Farquhar Personal , ,

The site’s been down again. As far as I can tell it didn’t stay up for very long on Saturday, but by 8 PM last Saturday, my DSL connection was the least of my concerns.

I got the phone call nobody ever wants to get. My girlfriend’s father was in the hospital and wasn’t expected to live.

They patched him together long enough for his closest relatives to get there, but Jerry died at 12:45 Sunday morning.I’ve been there, done that before. Today just so happens to mark 10 years since my own father’s sudden death.

The rest of what I write may not make a lot of sense, but I hope it will be helpful.

If there is anything worse than losing the closest of your relatives, I don’t know what it is. By “closest of your relatives” I mean your mother, your father, a child, or a brother or sister, or your spouse.

As my girlfriend and I drove to the nearest polling place last night to cast provisional ballots, she observed that it was like the aftermath of a breakup: Everywhere she looked, she saw things that reminded her of her dad.

That’s true. In fact, when describing dealing with a death to others who’ve never lost someone that close, I’ve compared it to a breakup. But, as I compare a death with the last breakup I had–which messed me up pretty badly, and I’ve got the therapy bills to prove it–I see two differences. Maybe three.

Difference one: It’s a lot easier for something good to come of a breakup than from a death, from your selfish perspective. It takes some time and effort, but it is possible to convince yourself that with a world population of 12 billion, your chances of finding something better than that b-word who dumped you (or who you just dumped) are pretty good.

But with death, those things that annoy you about that person start to matter a lot less to you. There was only one Jerry. Just like there was only one Ralph (my dad). To her, Jerry will always be the best dad there ever was, faults and all. Just like to me, my dad will always be the best dad there ever was. The best doctor there ever was, too. I will go to my grave believing that my dad could have saved Jerry. The fact that my dad actually was very highly qualified to treat Jerry is a technicality. I would probably still believe Dad could have saved Jerry even if Dad had been a dermatologist.

Difference two: Usually there is some choice involved with breakups. A couple of days, or maybe a week before my last messy breakup, I told a number of people that I needed to break up with her. When the time for the breakup conversation came, I had a list of conditions I wanted to present in order for the relationship to continue. As it turned out, I didn’t present that list because she broke up with me first.

Death is different. When that person’s time comes, there is no room for bargaining. Jerry was a classic example of that. When Jerry died, he had nothing left. There were at least three things that were racing to kill him. What had worked against the North Vietnamese and what had worked against his wounds and physical handicap and what had worked against his cancer didn’t matter anymore. Jerry was fighting to the end though. As he died, I looked down at his hands. They were clenched into a fist.

Difference 3: Death is permanent. With a breakup, there’s always hope, however remote, that it can be worked out and things can be every bit as good as they ever were, or maybe better. Or, to again overuse the example of my last relationship, if it can’t be worked out, you can go find someone a whole lot better who’ll make you forget about that old b-word.

Death doesn’t offer that.

So, since one’s previous experience with the end of a romantic relationship only inadequately prepares one to deal with death, how does one deal with it?

I have some ideas.

Grieve. I can’t tell you how to grieve. I asked a lot of people once how. They said, “Grieve.” Thanks a bunch. I once paid $1,400 for that answer. Hopefully you’re paying a lot less than that for the ability to read this. I’ll see if I can do better than that answer. Don’t stuff your emotions. Let them out. If they don’t come out in tears and screams and other stuff like that, they’re going to come out in other harmful and self-defeating ways that will poison your relationships and the rest of your life. So whatever it is that your body wants to do when you think about that person, let it, and the sooner the better. If a week has passed and you haven’t cried once, or maybe only once, you’ve got a world of hurt ahead of you. I know because I’ve been there. This is no time to be macho.

Take care of unfinished business. One of the things the Methodist minister who performed Jerry’s ceremony stressed the most was to bury the things about him that weren’t all they could be with him. Carry the good with you everywhere, but bury that bad stuff. I know for me, one of the things that finally helped was to role-play, so I could finally say those things I wanted to say to my dad but never got the chance.

Remember. Talking about the person helps. Tell those stories, and you might even want to go so far as to write them down. One of the reasons I got into genealogy was to preserve the memory of my dad and what made him the way he was. I only know the basics about his grandparents, but it’s something.

Find the things you both enjoyed and continue to enjoy them. Probably my best childhood memory of my dad and me was setting up and playing with his Lionel electric trains. My dad wasn’t a railroad buff in the traditional sense and I’m not either, but those trains were something we enjoyed together in 1986, and that’s the main reason they’re something I enjoy now. You’ll find things like that too. You’ll find some of them right away. Others will take years. That’s OK.

Honor. This is the one place where I’ll get Biblical. In Genesis, God said (I’m paraphrasing), “Honor your father and mother, so that it may go well with you and you will live a long time on the earth.” We all have our own ways of honoring our loved ones, but one of the best ways is to take that person’s qualities and not only emulate them–that is, make them our qualities as well–but to pass them on.

Take care of yourself. In some cases, it will be clear that some of the person’s personal habits contributed to an early death. I don’t think I need to say that smoking provides zero benefit and does a lot of harm to your body. The same goes for drinking excessively. And it’s very clear that some aspects of diet cause things like heart attacks and cancer. Some families are very prone to these things anyway, but while we can’t control our genetics, we can control our diet. So eat healthier than your departed loved one did, and the next time you see your doctor, mention what you know of your family’s medical history so that your doctor has some clue what to be watching for.

Learn from your loved one’s mistakes. I’ve already mentioned things like diet, drinking and smoking, but most people made other mistakes in life too. If you think about it, you’ll see what that person’s other mistakes were. Don’t copy those mistakes. Make your own. (You’ll have to work at that first part. You won’t have to work at the second.)

I helped my girlfriend move this weekend

Dave Farquhar Personal , , , , ,

It’s been a long weekend and I’m exhausted, but I like the situation my girlfriend finds herself in now. She has an apartment in the Holly Hills neighborhood in south St. Louis.Holly Hills is a pretty swanky place to live, if you have a house. The apartment situation is a bit different. A comparable one-bedroom apartment in the working-class suburb where I live would cost about $200 a month more than what she’s paying, and some of her utilities are included. You won’t find that in Mehlville. What you’re more likely to find is an apartment like the one where I lived for nearly five years, which was in a fairly safe neighborhood, but the building was about 20 years old and was falling apart, in spite of them wanting $550-$575 a month for a one-bedroom apartment with a kitchen so small you couldn’t have both the fridge and the oven doors open at the same time.

And I noticed, as I looked down Gravois Ave. towards Holly Hills Ave. from Loughborough, that this neighborhood still has class. A block up the street is an old sign that reads 4 Sports & More. Twenty years ago, that was called The Baseball Card Store. The name of the guy who owned it escapes me, but I remember going there frequently to buy baseball cards. He retired about 10 years ago. Under the new ownership, the shop didn’t last long. It’s a shame, really.

Next door is what used to be a Rexall drugstore. I don’t know if the Rexall was still there 20 years ago. It’s a payday loans place now, a sign of the times. It wasn’t as easy to get a credit line 20 years ago, so it wasn’t as easy to overextend yourself.

On the end of the strip is an old-fashioned hardware store. The couple who own it are getting up in years so I don’t know how long it’ll still be there. It’ll be a shame if it closes. It’s not like those big box stores. Those two know exactly where everything is in their store, and they can tell you exactly what to do with it. No, I’m not being impolite. The two of them really are handy. And from what I can tell, she’s the handier of the two.

Across the street, there’s Elicia’s Pizza. It’s a local chain that serves up St. Louis-style pizza. It’s ultra-thin and sliced square. As far as famous St. Louis chains, it probably ranks fourth, and it may be a distant fourth, in numbers and fame. Quality-wise, I’d rank it second behind Fortel’s. We ordered pizza from there on Saturday. I kid you not, they had it ready in less than 10 minutes flat.

I have no idea what the proper name for these things are, but there’s a big clock on a pole on the street, too. It looks like the ones you see in a movie, or on a train layout or one of those ceramic villages. And it works.

It’s obviously not the bustling commercial district it once was, with about half the storefronts closed up, but it has charm and character. Who’s going to get nostalgic at the sight of a strip mall in Mehlville or Oakville?

Closer to her apartment, it’s a residential district. On the way there, you can see $200,000 homes and you can see a handful of $500,000+ homes. It’s near a big city park. The homes are old, so the trees are mature. One of the streets is even split to allow more trees to grow in the middle. It’s a gorgeous sight in the fall.

I’m happy for her. She has a nice apartment. She’s free from a very overbearing roommate. Her utility bills are about to take a dive. She has three grocery stores within two miles. And the neighborhood looks like a postcard.

I wish I’d known about the place when I moved back to St. Louis six years ago.

Dave Farquhar\’s rules, Part 1

Dave Farquhar Personal ,

Unlike Colin Powell, I haven’t canonized my rules for living, but there is one of my rules that I think is worth wasting electrons to publish.

Don’t go to movies based on video games.What prompted this? I saw a link referring to a movie based on the game Doom. How you make a movie based on a game where you run around shooting monsters, I don’t know.

Probably the way you make a movie based on a game where a scantily clad woman with impossible proportions runs around in tombs gathering treasures and shooting baddies.

As I recall, Tomb Raider got about as much critical acclaim as Rambo. People went and saw it anyway, but I know it wasn’t for the plot. It was for the chance to see Angelina Jolie in tight clothes. But Doom won’t have that benefit.

But is either of them worse than making a movie based on two Italian plumbers who run around knocking down killer turtles and eating mushrooms? Discuss.

Sick.. AGAIN.

Dave Farquhar Personal

I’m sick again, so I’m back on the Numotizine Cataplasm, which is Dr. Farquhar’s secret weapon against a cough. No, I’m not playing doctor. My dad and his dad were, and it was what they used.

Use at the first sign of a cough. You won’t regret it.I’m also using Zicam-branded zinc spray and cheapy generic zinc lozenges. And I’m taking my sister’s anti-cold vitamin *censored*tail three times a day: 3 grams of vitamin C, 1,200 IU of vitamin E, 150 mg of zinc (but only 50 mg in the morning–bad things happen if you take too much zinc early in the morning), three echinacea tablets, and some vitamin A. Vitamin A is lethal in large doses, so I’m not comfortable saying how much I take. Lawsuits and all.

That’s a lot to remember, so I like to buy bottles of 400 IU caplets of vitamin E, 50 mg tablets of Zinc, and 1,000 mg tablets of vitamin C to make it easy on myself. Three of each, three times a day, for three days.

After three days, back off to three of each once a day for another seven days.

There are people who claim that certain brands of vitamins are better than others, and while it’s true that some brands give better absorption than the rest, the cheapie vitamins from Kmart have done just fine for me.

None of these things will cure a cold, although those vitamins seem to be able to knock one out if you manage to catch it early enough. Any one of them has the potential to severely cut down on the symptoms, and together, they’re even better.

Your mileage will vary. I’m not a doctor. Talk to your doctor first. I’m not responsible for what happens. And all other standard disclaimers apply.