Back...

So, I've been out of the blogosphere for a while. After looking for work for many months, I found a contract position at Microsoft. It is a very nice place to work, even as a contractor, which I've heard horror stories about. Then again, I haven't got many choices, so I better make the most of what I've got. And I think I'm doing that. I'm learning a lot about working at a big company. I'm a small fish in a big pond. I'm learning a lot about process and the intricacies and necessity for learning an esoteric language in order to streamline work. I'm learning a lot about the problems that come up in big companies with culture - since most people are working hard and spend a lot of time in meetings there doesn't seem to be a lot of time to really get to know people unless you are constantly in meetings with them. This leads to falling back on oddities of etiquette to make sure people are respected. Individual quirks are easily misunderstood... it can be very hard. For the most part, however, it has been great. People are nice, smart, and laid back.

But, I'm also glad to be working on my own business, www.cafecosa.com. We'll see how much appetite there is for premium Costa Rican coffee sold direct to the consumer in a time when fuel prices are high and there is less market for "luxury" items. I think we sell great products at a tremendous value. Great tasting Tarrazu Coffee, rich Chocolate Covered Espresso Beans and delicious Coffee Flower Honey. All of it is fantastic. Hopefully, I'll be back down to Costa Rica soon to visit my wife, daughter and son. They are down there living on the cheap and overseeing the business while I'm working off our debt.

So, wish us luck, and I'll be back blogging a lot more.

Democratic Campaign - This is Getting Tedious

Hillary Clinton... she's a piece of work. She looked great tonight - very fresh even so far into a historically long campaign... too bad she opened her mouth. Gibson and Stephanapolous did a great job of using the first 50 minutes to make politics look like Entertainment Tonight. It was Rev. Wright, Lapel Pins, Manufactured Elitism... Clinton sounded vicious and mean but, boy, she was pretty smooth though. Love that canned smile and laugh. What a phony. She only stumbled when she was actually trying to be nice. Someone who can be that mean so coolly while she stumbles through saying nice things like, yeah, he's electable... ugh.

She's worked really hard this campaign - she's worked really hard to lose almost every bit of respect that I have had for her lifetime of public service. She's been chipping away at it for months.

See a Hooker - Humiliate your Wife

So, I'm looking at Eliot Spitzer this morning on NYTimes.com and he's on the front page talking about his escapade with hookers... and I'm thinking - why do these guys always bring their wives out with them? I guess somehow it is supposed to show that he's really a family man or something. But, to me, it just seems cruel.

I mean, come on - if the wife is going to be out there it should be because she wants to tell him off in front of the press. All they really get is humiliation being out there in front of the camera standing silently to the side feeling betrayed and exposed as a sucker.

The next time a guy in a position of power sees a hooker, please, let your wife stay home.

Close your eyes and taste the (sickly) sweet nothing...

On the way back from Victoria, B.C. where Darcie has relatives, we stopped at a gas station to fill up, get some really bad coffee and a snack. It was 10pm and we were just rolling out of the gas station outside of Bellingham when she said "You want the cookies I got you?" After a sip or really nasty coffee I took a bite of cookie. It was dark and I didn't see the bag... I noticed that I didn't know what kind of cookie it was... I tried another bite. It was sweet. It tasted like... oils and sugar and... peanut butter? molasses? gingerbread? maybe chocolate? I took one more bite, noting that, whatever the flavor, it was nasty. Then I asked.

Double Chocolate Chip.

Foul foul stuff.

The Cry for Votes - Hillary's Oldest Constituents Remember Their Advocate

Hillary won the New Hampshire primary last night and I think the bounces in the polls are due in large part to the what may be termed for a long time to come as "the tears." Did the tears come naturally or was it some plot hatched in the Clinton war-room? I don't think it matters much. I think what it says is far more telling of the people that were swayed by the show of emotion.

The stresses of the campaign trail are incredible and if there is someone out there who can take it without ever breaking down, I would bet on Hillary. In a lifetime of being torched by the media and the opposition, Hillary has been Thatcheresque in her steely (or iron) disposition. But this is not the United Kingdom and we do not endear ourselves to women who lack emotion.

Apparently, it was female voters, older ones, who were moved in the last two days to vote en masse for Hillary. The tears, real or not, were a signal to her oldest allies and confidantes that their advocate was in trouble. It was a cry of distress that reminded them of the woman that had done so much for women's rights, providing a strong figure who may have been polarizing, but who was incredibly necessary to the time, indeed.

The show of emotion may be argued for a long time to come (or at least until the next election story) as coldly tactical or a genuine moment that allowed her to finally escape from the shadow of her husband, a naturally gifted orator, and "find her own voice." But, more importantly, it showed that the people who mattered most to Hillary were not going to abandon her in what appeared to be her dark hour. My hat is off to them.

Why Obama?

I've been waffling on my support of a presidential candidate. Ususally it's been Edwards or Obama, but I'll have moments where I hope Biden could rise into double digits and then snowball. Last weekend C-SPAN covered Bill Clinton stumping for Hillary in Iowa and after the speech I felt inclined to vote for Hillary.

I have decided to throw in with Obama. I recognize that the man speaks in platitudes and/or says little that is different from the other candidates. I realize that the man has less experience in DC than all of the other candidates. However, I don't discount his experience leading grass-roots organizations from the bottom up. I don't believe that we should neglect his way of looking at the world, unique among the field, based on his own international experience which is almost entirely in a personal rather than professional capacity.

At the end of the day I don't believe there is that much difference among the candidates for the Democratic nomination. If you looked at the content, made a checklist of the issues and ran down the list you will find some differences. But the differences are few and fairly small. The one thing that Obama has that the others do not is the ability to transcend the polarized environment of US politics. You can hear it in the way that he talks. You can feel it in the tone of his rhetoric. He alone among the field has the ability to make people feel less like Democrats, Republicans and Independents, and more like Americans. This is the key to leading us in a new direction past nearly 40 years of bitter partisan fighting with a foundation of division. It is only through understanding who we are as a whole and what our responsibilities are to one another that we will begin to face the major challenges of our time.

Hipster Statesmen: Al Gore and the new life of Political Retirees

According to Daniel Drezner, becoming a Statesman is akin to retiring to the history books for former politicians. This article about the emergence of Al Gore as a Statesmen who is actually accomplishing something, is a little flip, and his two final paragraphs conflict with one another (he says that policy entrepreneurs, like his Hipster Statesmen, choose issues, but politicians may not pay attention as "issues choose them" - then he says that a groundswell of attention to an issue doesn't necessarily do any good... On the contrary, I believe it is the groundswell of attention by the public that forces politicians to assume leadership on an issue, which is part of his first point). Regardless, the following quote makes it all worth while.

"Money, fame, buzz—it would seem that hipster statesmen have it all. One could almost imagine Jimmy Carter standing in the West Bank, holding a boombox over his head, playing the song "In Your Eyes" over and over again until the Israelis and Palestinians relent. But I'm not holding my breath on it working."

Read more about Hipster Statesmen.