Neanderpundit

Velociman talks about the array of jobs he’s held; yeah, I’ve held a lot of jobs too. Some not so pretty. I’ve been at the current gig for 13 years, but before that I did such things as:
(in no particular order)

(counting only jobs I held for more than a continuous month)

Scheise slinger, covering horse, mule, chicken, and cow.

Lawnmower

Bicycle repairman (Look! It’s Bicycle repairman!)

Lumberjack (and yes, I’m OK)

Building supplies sales

building supply delivery, truck driver.

Bulldozer operator

Crane operator, both stationary and mobile

Heavy equipment field service

Priting sales

Carpenter

Carpetlayer

Joiner

apprentice cabinetmaker, apprenticeship never finished

Apprentice machinist, journeyman machinist
Apprentice electrician, journeyman electrician

Auto mechanic- stayed just long enough to get my ASE certifications

Engineer

Cad designer

Machine tool programmer

Robot programmer

Robotics technician

applications engineer

Manager for advertising agency

DJ at local alternative radio station

stringer for local newspaper

freelance writer for local sporting magazines.

I’ve done a LOT of other things, and many of them for longer than a month, but not contiguously.

Some of these jobs are subsets of other jobs; when i was doing my apprenticeships at Inland, for instance, I did everything from small engine repair to machining special refractory blocks for blast furnaces.

There’s not anbything I can’t fix, or at least get going well enough to be useful, the folks I envy are the Robs and the Kims, the folks who have made a living(of sorts) playing/singing music. I wish I had that in my resume.

At the end of the first week of 2005, I can only say with any amount of conviction, Thank God that’s over! It’s all a lot like being introduced to the guy who had the most cigarettes on your first day in stir.

During the second world war, the Japanese were horrible enemies to be greatly feared. Frankly, the fact that such a small country stood a chance against the USA was amazing, in and of itself.

Concerned that Germany was working on the bomb, we had driven full-tilt towards the nuclear age, and by the time we had bent those U235 atoms to our will, we had more or less defeated Hitler.

Japan, on the other hand, was another thing altogether. The Japanese still believed in the near-divinity of their emperor, and were willing, for the most part, to fight until the bitter end. Thousands and thousands of US soldiers would die, and thousands more in POW camps would suffer needlessly.

So we dropped the bomb. In three days we caused devastation of a type never seen before on earth, and the people of Japan surrendered, uttlerly broken.

Then, we sent them the Marshall plan and W. Edwards Deming, and made them a world manufacturing power for nearly 50 years.

In the meantime, there was some animosity, and deservedly so. A lot of Americans are alive today who marched across Bataan. A lot of Japanese remember the radiation sickness of Hiroshima.

Those things are still there, and there are other cultural issues that form a perhaps unbridgeable gulf. For the most part, though. Japan and America are, if not friendly, at least cordial.

Eventually, though, we learned a lot about the Japanese. Yeah, some parts of their culture are really alien to us, but some parts are not.
The strongest evidence of this is the film industry- lots of Japanese films have been remade into excellent American films, even a spaghetti western or two.

More recently, Japanese game shows and even subtitled Japanese films have made it into American theaters, and I love them. I’m a particular fan of the Zatoichi movies, and I’m not the only one.

If, fifty or sixty years after we anihilated the Japanese, we can find common ground with them, even exist as separate and individual cultures, what will my grandchildren be learning about the Islamic world? what parts of their culture will endear us to them?
Continue Reading »