Journal nizo's Journal: Journal! Entry! Extravaganzalicious! 1
My first thought on writing a journal entry was, "who the hell would read my journal entries??", but then again I have to wonder that about many of my posts. But what the hell, now that I have headed back to school after a 10+ year hiatus to get a technical writing degree after selling my soul in the computer industry only to have my butt canned by a clueless boss, I now have a boatload of time on my hands. Ok not a boatload, I still have the occasional job interview, and of course I have two daughters (god help me when they start dating), but I pretty much have this huge abyss in my life that is no longer filled by a 70+ hour a week (plus pager time) job from hell. While school and a part-time job and changing poopy diapers go part way to filling this void, there is still a huge creative void in my life. The interesting thing is, I think this void was there even while I was working full time in a job I hated. Granted the money was awesome (god I miss being able to just go blow $100 at the bookstore), but something my fiance' said really struck a chord with me. She works as a teacher, and she said, "I would do it even if they didn't pay me". Granted she practically does work for free, but I can see that she actually enjoys the majority of her time spent on the job. If I am lucky, someday I will be in a job where I actually enjoy going in to work... I only wish I had taken steps towards that goal before getting canned, to make the whole financial transition go much more smoothly.
Anyway, enough mindless rambling, on a totally unrelated subject here is a link to a great article about evolution other folks might enjoy: pdf article
Basically, this is the guy who invented the idea of "meme" and has quite a few interesting ideas about genes in evolution. Now comment away so I will know that this isn't just languishing unread on a disk somewhere.....
My Reading List (Score:1)
Apparently, at least one person. 8)
Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene" was the first book I read on evolution, followed by Matt Ridley's brilliant and disturbing "The Red Queen". Those two books changed my views on life, society, the human race etc. in many ways, and I've since read dozens of books on the subject and related fields of study.
You mention that you have more time on your hands now (I'm in the situat