Bush: Let the Overwatch Begin
Yesterday on NPR I heard a story about how we are now going into the "overwatch" phase of the Iraq occupation and it just brought back memories of playing Halflife 2 and the Combine soldiers that Dr. Breen called "Overwatch" as well. It amazes me that we would call this operation a name like this as it is not something that evokes positive feelings by a country, its people or by people who disagree with the whole situation.
In fact the similarities are startlingly similar between the way Overwatch in Halflife 2 operated and the way we are in Iraq now. The US is trying to assert their dominance over a population that does not want to be conquered or converted into something they aren't. Democracy is fine, but they may not want US democracy or even our form of republican government. So instead we try and ram this ideology down their throats and expect them to like it? Force rarely achieve any success in these situations which is something it appears we have yet to learn. I would suggest all of you go play a couple of maps in Halflife 2 and look at the similarities, we may not be aliens taking over a planet, but we are still the outsiders asserting military rule on another state which is essentially the same deal.
Is Hagerstown Improving?
"I have a question for our city fathers. If downtown Hagerstown is being improved so much, why are people moving from that area to the outer edges of Hagerstown, where I live? And people that moved into my area all tell me the same thing: They have to get away from the traffic congestion, no parking and the extremely loud stereos up and down the streets all the time. Now we have a couple (of people ) with loud stereos occasionally driving by, and some speeders, of course, but the times I've driven through downtown Hagerstown, I see no improvements." - Hagerstown
This is an interesting question to ask yourself as you drive through the town center and around 40 East and West. I think the simplest answer to this question is yes, the town is improving slowly but surely. The point I would emphasize though is that the progress is slow due to the state that Hagerstown deteriorated into after the 1970's when the rail yard went away. The economy in Washington County has been so bad for so long that there is no such thing as a quick fix to the situation that we find ourselves in currently.
If you look at the renovation occurring at some of the major buildings around North Potmac street, you will see the face of the Hagerstown to come in the next 10 - 15 years. The transformation will not be overnight, but it will come.
Are their loud stereos in the city? Almost all the time.
Are the streets overly congested? Every weekday rush hour.
Is there a high poverty rate? Absolutely.
For all of these reasons I don't live in the city center. Actually I live very close to Smithsburg because I like the space and the people that live around me. But then again, as more money gets pumped into downtown, it will become cleaner, more affluent and appealing to young professionals like myself who want to be in a more urban setting. Small, well maintained cities are great places to live and there are plenty of people who want to be in that environment. Hagerstown is moving in this direction and will get there in the next several years.
It seems that all too often people forget that improvement on this type of scale is not fast moving, nor does it always benefit the people living in the town currently. To revitalize a city of Hagestown's size takes years and lots of capital from outside sources which means the first companies and people to invest in the area are taking a substantial risk. The investors willing to take this step are not easy to find and like almost any business decision there must be a cost-benefit analysis done before any actions are taken. There is enough new money moving into the area now that this analysis is beginning to look favorable to more investors who are slowly trickling into the area.
Keep watching over the next 10 years and I bet you will see an increasing number of projects cleaning up downtown and making it into a much more trendy and cosmopolitant place to live.
Woman Avoids Squirrel, Rodent Still Gets it in the End
Three injured in squirrel-related crash
SOUTH MOUNTAIN -- Three people were injured in a two vehicle crash about 1:45 p.m. Saturday after a woman swerved to avoid a squirrel in the road on U.S. 40A near Moser Road, according to Maryland State Police in Hagerstown.
Amy Deosaran, 32, of Middletown, was driving a 2002 Acura MDX east on U.S. 40A when she saw the squirrel, police said. The Acura struck a westbound 1995 Toyota Tacoma driven by Philip N. Kisner, 50, of Martinsburg, W.Va., head on.
Toyota passenger Karen Lynn Kisner, 50, Deosaran, and her 9-year-old son were taken to Washington County Hospital in Hagerstown with nonlife-threatening injuries, police said. Philip Kisner refused treatment. Everyone was wearing seat belts and the child was in a child safety restraint.
Deosaran was charged with failure to drive right of center, police said.
After the crash, the squirrel again attempted to cross U.S. 40A but did not make it, police said. The squirrel was struck and killed by an unknown vehicle.
-- Gina Gallucci
OK folks... This is a life lesson to all of the PETA people out there to remember that a squirrel is not worth possibly killing three people. Seriously, she swerved into oncoming traffic to avoid a squirrel and sent three people to the hospital, putting her own son in harms way. The ironic part is that the damn squirrel was then hit by another car with a driver smart enough not to swerve into traffic to avoid the rodent.
Please people, if for no reason then getting yourselves mentioned in the Darwin awards, don't swerve into oncoming traffic to avoid a rodent that there are millions of around. It just is not worth killing someone over.
Managing Through Good Times and Bad
Sometimes it sucks to be in middle management, other times it seems great because things are going your way and your staff are in the groove. Today was an in the groove kind of day for me on most fronts but on the people front I see myself getting frustrated with a member of my staff and I'm not sure what to do about it.
How do you motivate someone to work harder when they only want to do the minimum to get by? How do you motivate someone in a very technical computer field when they don't have any curiosity or drive to solve a problem? How do you get someone to believe that making the client happy is the goal of our business?
These are the questions I find myself asking about this person over and over again, yet I am still stuck on the fact that I have never had to deal with a programmer that did not have a natural curiosity and drive to solve tough problems. I find that in general, programmers like to be presented with a challenge that they have not seen before, but not this person. Unless you spoon feed them the logic and the information about where they can find information in a database (which they are supposed to be an expert with to begin with) then they sit in their chair waiting for someone to give them the answers. This really bugs me, I am someone who thrives on the challenge of someone saying "prove me wrong" or "how can I make this work?" and I will never understand why people would rather whine about how they don't have enough training to solve a problem when they have all of the learning materials they need sitting on their desk.
I can tell you already that this programmer does not want me to pick up a book and teach myself how to do what they swear is impossible without attending training for weeks. They don't want me to do this because then I will really not put up with the whining and the "no" answers any longer which will lead to one of three things: They will leave the company on their own, they will wise up to reality and begin making the effort or they will leave the company involuntarily. Obviously I would like the middle option to be selected here but I have a feeling it would not be so. The other reason why I don't want to pick this book up and teach myself what they swear is impossible is because if I do then I become the baby sitter for this programmer, checking up on them, making sure they are doing their work and actually not telling people no at the same time. If I stay away from the programming then I also don't get sucked into the trap of me being the only one in the company that can perform a task efficiently and then get stuck always doing it. I have enough going on currently managing the business of the department and not actually doing the technical work for everyone. I've ben there and done that for a long time it feels like so I do not want to let myself go down that road.
I guess when it comes down to it, the problem I face is all about how you get a person who doesn't want to do anything and turn them into someone who will make it happen. So the question I leave for you is, how do you execute this maneuver without causing the staff member to call it quits rather than turning themselves around.
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