My interests

I've been trying to write this more eloquently, but end up getting nowhere, so I'm just going to force it out.

I want to apply to grad school by the end of 2007, to start a full time PhD program in fall of 2008. I've settled on Psychology as my subject, after seriously considering Economics, Anthropology, and Philosophy (and less seriously considering Biology and History). Clearly my interests don't fit into a neat container, but I think Psychology is the best match for me.

The broadest way to describe my interests is that I want to understand what the hell is wrong with everyone. That's really what is comes down to. Is that a bad way to approach this? It doesn't mean I don't think there are lots of things right with everyone, and I see that there is good in the world, but I look around and see a lot of weird shit going on and I want to make sense of it. The last few years I've been trying to figure it out on my own, but now I want to make it more formal.

I think there are two areas that I most want to pursue, both of which I think I can find in the right Psychology program. Before I get to that let's highlight some of the things I think are so fucked up. We'll go to bullet format, and I won't elaborate on them all, I'll just list items.

• Political system
  
• Religion
• Mass Media
• Environmental destruction
• Tribalism
• Addiction
• Corporations
• Unhealthy lifestyles
• Education system
  

Most of those are America-centric, and it certainly isn't meant to be a comprehensive list. That's just off the top of my head and not fully explained. I've written about many of those topics to some extent already and will surely continue to do so.

But getting back to the two main areas of study that I want to pursue, I think that all of those topic above are related by a theme: the human mind operating in a foreign environment. And the two areas of study are the human mind and the environment. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone but me. None of this is especially profound. My categories are poorly formed and everything is interrelated. But I just wanted to get my thoughts out there in a raw form.

I imagine that if I have a long academic career, it will involve digging into the way that evolved features of our mind manifest themselves in strange ways in a modern first-world environment, especially in regards to some of the bullet points mentioned. What I mean by evolved features is that humans are biological entities, evolved from earlier entities just like every other living thing on this planet. So some understanding of human behavior has to come from a biological perspective, and what is crucial is that life evolved to survive and reproduce in its environment.

If you take life out of its native environment, strange things can happen. Humans didn't evolve to live the way I live - in a suburb with cars and supermarkets and television and air conditioning and handguns and Internet pornography. And so strange things happen, like those bullet points above. To understand those strange things requires understanding how the mind works, and how the environment effects it.

I've touched on this before, but two examples of specific realms of study that interest me are personality psychology and evolutionary psychology. I think understanding personality types and how they respond to group settings is hugely helpful to understanding lots of those bullet points, which is why I've mentioned that Robert Altemeyer's work on authoritarianism has been of such interest to me. That's the part about how the mind works. And then evolutionary psychology is about understanding how we evolved, the challenges we faced, the psychological mechanisms we developed to survive and reproduce. Understanding the differences between where we've come from and where we are now is another crucial piece of making sense of those bullet points.

Pulling it back to what I want in grad school, I think it is more realistic for me to initially focus on the social/personality psychology, given my academic and career background. I've studied economics and done a lot of marketing research, and so I have a bit of experience with some of the research methodology used in that area. I maintain a keen interest in the evolutionary side, but my biology background isn't strong, and I'm not sure if I want to do anthropological type field work. So I'd like to be in a program with a few professors who are doing social/personality psychology research that I can get involved with, and also with a few professors doing evolutionary psychology work that I can watch closely.

Questions for anyone who can answer them:

• Do the ideas I've described above make sense as a decent way to approach going back to school?
• Can I, with a lot of refinement, use these ideas in essays and interviews to explain my research/career interests?
• What is the best way to identify schools that would be a good fit? I've just been looking at some program rankings, starting in kind of the 2nd tier because I don't think I have a top tier resume, and reading about the faculty at each school, with some geography considerations thrown in.

Dolly Parton

I haven't really written much about my life lately, so here's a brief adspar update.

I'm working full time now in a job that doesn't really interest me and for significantly less money than I could make in other jobs that are equally uninteresting. It is a decent job and I like the people, but I think that there are other career options that are better for a long-term fit. My commute takes me about an hour each way, but I at least can read on the train for half of that time.

I'm hoping the simmering frustration of that situation is enough to push me over the edge and actually make some real changes, meaning that I follow through on all my big talk and apply to schools by the end of 2007. In the meantime I need to figure out what I want to do and where I want to do it, and I'm making a bit of progress in that.

This is a picture of Dolly Parton:

progress?

I still don't have a job, but now I'm officially a part-time graduate student. I'm registered to take this course at the University of Maryland College Park starting Thursday.

My schedule now looks like this,

TuTh......11:00am-12:15pm
F.........12:00pm- 1:45pm

which is going to make getting a "real" job impossible. I interviewed for an internship at a marketing company in Chevy Chase that looks interesting and would provide some desperately needed income and allow me flexibility to work 20~35 hours/week on my own schedule and often from home. I hope that works out, otherwise I might have to deliver pizzas or something.

Poker: now what?

The job search is progressing more slowly than I imagined it would, but it has been ramping up a bit lately, and I have an interview coming up soon.

Its been about a month since I decided that its time to figure out some way other than poker to make a living. Since then I've barely played at all (just 2.5 hours in June at low limits, winning $100). I've been living off my savings and some advertising revenue from my blogs. Having taken some time away from poker, I'm starting to think that maybe getting back in the game would be good for me.

Specifically, playing with my original poker goals when I quit my last job - to make a little bit of money playing a limited schedule to help pay the bills until I figure out something else. Last time I lost sight of that plan, but that won't happen now. I've spent a lot of this last month trying to figure out my priorities, and I'm making progress. Reclaiming some poker income would give me some freedom to be selective about job opportunities, which would be a good thing as long as I can keep the negatives of poker income away.

All of that assumes that I'm capable of playing winning poker, which isn't necessarily a fair assumption. I was really freefalling. If I do come back, I'm going to start slow and small. Fewer tables, lower limits until I'm very very comfortable. Almost like I'm rebuilding my game. I'd want to turn off the auto-pilot and start thinking about poker again. Maybe turn off my real-time stats for a bit. Close the office door, turn off the music and focus for short bursts of intense concentration.

huge self-indulgent poker/life post coming soon?

I feel it coming, but I just don't have the focus to write it quite yet. I've been playing very little poker the last few days, and doing lots of thinking about my life: where I've been, where I am, where I'm going.

It is time for a change.

I've been looking through some of the things I've written, and I thought these 6 old entries weave an interesting story line through this mish-mash that I call my blog.

2/28/05 Why I quit my job

3/7/05 What I said I wanted to do with myself

6/17/05 What I actually did, what I thought I wanted to do

10/12/05 Wasting time, then and now

10/15/05 Making lemonade

1/5/06 I turn down a prospective employer

Roughly speaking, I think those partially tell the story of how misguided ideals and strong inertia tricked me into thinking of myself as a professional poker player. This is the story that I'll delve into if the huge self-indulgent poker/life post does happen.

By the way, the spell check blogger.com provides doesn't recognize the word "blog."

blah phase

I go through phases.

I had been in a fairly productive phase where I was trying to make good use of my time, figure out my future, and pursue ideas that interested me. But the last few days I've been in an extremely unmotivated phase where everything is just "blah."

1.) I just came across this article. Basically some guy in Afghanistan converted to Christianity, so his community is demanding that he be executed. "Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die," said cleric Abdul Raoulf.

The article also notes that Mr. Raoulf is considered a moderate.

2.) I also came across this blurb, which notes that according to a recent study, 30% of African women think a woman deserves to be beaten for burning dinner.

When I'm not in a "blah" phase, I often think that I'd like to pursue some career where I help improve the human condition. Lately I've concluded that my greatest strength is rational thinking, and I've thought that the best way for me to feel good about my career is to somehow professionally encourage rational thought and behavior.

But when I'm in a "blah" phase, and I encounter stories like 1 and 2, I have a pretty hard time concluding that people aren't far beyond any help I could offer.

People aren't interested in rational thinking. Even if there was a nice way to tell someone that their irrational behavior is doing them more harm than good, and there generally isn't, they wouldn't care anyway. They'd spit in your face. Or if you were in Kabul, they'd hang you. And then they'd carry on with their idiocy.

Humans aren't built to live in a global society where we're often exposed to people who look, speak, and act a lot differently than themselves. We aren't built to have access to advanced scientific understanding of the world around us. And again and again and again our behavior reflects those basic facts.

I'm reminded of a Steven Pinker quote:

Many tragedies come from our physical and cognitive makeup... Our minds are adapted to a world that no longer exists, prone to misunderstandings correctable only by arduous education...

It is my belief that the only way to avoid irrational insanity is through Pinker's "arduous education." But it is hard enough for a responsible person to educate one's self - how do we make sure everyone is so educated?

You can't just storm into Kabul and teach Abdul Raoulf that killing someone for what they say isn't something we should be doing. After all, his position is very reasonable and moderate in his world.

Or you could establish widespread public education throughout your country, and then still have a nation full of anti-science fundamentalists who believe that the world is 6,000 years old and that evolution is a conspiracy.

Blah.

In this phase, it seems like holing up in my house and hustling chumps for their kid's college fund seems like an appropriate way to make a living. Why bother trying to improve the world? I just should look out for myself. Self-interest.

Self-interest is the one reason people have to overcome their irrationality. They might be built to hate their neighbors with the different skin color and the funny accents, but it is in everyone's best interests to just trade with them instead of squandering their resources trying to kill each other. If everyone could just somehow realize this, so many problems would be solved.

But naturally, most religions teach people that self-interest is bad. Religion gives wonderful advice like "die for this cause, and you will be rewarded in the afterlife (trust me, there's an afterlife)" and "if someone hits you, offer to let them hit you again... that is what Jesus did!"

Fortunately the "turn the other cheek" people don't seem jumping to offer more suicide bombing targets to the "virgins in paradise" people.

So even if you could somehow educate all these people that certain aspects of their beliefs are actually self-destructive bullshit, and even if you could show that rational thinking has improved their lives with centuries of technological advances (except for the ones who believe that medicine is evil, of course), they'd still fuck it all up, and they'd be ready with plenty of pseudo-logical excuses.

I think it's missing part of the Pinker quote that really screws us over:

We are certain to die, and smart enough to know it... and condemned to perplexity about the deepest questions we can entertain.

We're built to be so cause-and-effect oriented, and we know that death is at the end of every chain of choices we make. So all that fancy book-learnin' and logic don't make no difference cause we all end up in a grave. So why bother with it in the meantime? It is way too arduous. Fuck that, I'll just make up happy stories to believe in.

Blah.

Maybe the anti-science fundamentalists are right. Maybe technology is terrible, because without it we wouldn't have the global industrial society that we aren't built for. Maybe humankind would be better off if 99% of the world's population killed each other, and we'd go back to living in primitive hunter-gatherer tribes. On the brink of starvation, dirty, freezing, and ignorant. But hey, ignorance is bliss.

Of course I recognize that this whole depressing rant is part of the problem that it identifies. It is just a "pseudo-logical excuse" to justify my own irrational behavarior: the blah phase, the worthlessness of my daily pursuits, and frustration with being too lazy to change what I don't like about my life and the world.

How do I fight this? Or do I just keep playing poker and complaining about it.

time to wake up

I've lost $2600 so far this week. I've spewed away over 250 big bets in about 5,000 hands. And I decided to play some $10/20 this week, so some of that is at double my normal stakes.

So, let's put things in perspective. This is my 2006:



Yeah, after this week I've won $1,000 so far this year. Pretty awe-inspiring.

This week is once again forcing me to stop and do some serious self-evaluation. I can't hide any more from the following observations:

• I'm not making a very good living from poker.
  
• I don't seem to be improving.
  
• I'm not enjoying the game, or this lifestyle, nearly as much at I used to.
  

This is leading me to form these theories:

• I'm not good enough at poker to make a living from it.
• I'm never going to get any better. I'm maxed out.
• I hate poker, and I hated my old job. So I need to figure something else out.

Of course, I've known myself to overreact to downswings before, so I'm not jumping to conclusions right now. But I need to get serious about this in a hurry.

Commence serious rant.

From time to time I've observed that I tend to live my life as if I'm waiting for something to happen to me, instead of making something happen for myself. That's how I've been with poker too. I read stories about guys who were just grinding along at low limits and then one day something just clicks and they start crushing their game and soon they're playing $100/200 and winning 6 figures in a month. Its like I've been just sitting around waiting for that to happen to me. What the fuck? What a terrible approach.

How am I going to get make myself get better? Yeah I've read a couple books once or twice. Yeah I spend a lot of time reading poker forums. But I don't REALLY think about that stuff. I don't REALLY try to learn. I just kind of put it in front of my eyes and go through the motions without any heart behind it. I don't go back through my hand histories after a session and look for mistakes I made. I don't bust out a calculator and figure out if I had the odds to make that call.

At some point I stopped thinking about poker. I stopped working at it. I rarely put my opponents on hands. I mostly just play my own cards and hope I'm playing profitably. Sometimes I'll notice that a players stats look really bad, and so then I assume I'm better than them. Mostly I just isolate and then call down. I'm not playing poker, its like I'm playing Marco Polo and just treading water in the corner of the pool hoping the blind idiot doesn't bump into me. God forbid I actually swim around.

Going through the motions doesn't cut it in the real real world like it does in the fake real world (corporate world). Hell, going through the motions puts you on the fast track to success in the corporate world. People pretend to be busy all day, then they even stay in the office late to make it look like they're working reallllllly hard. Questioning the way things are done is more likely to get you scolded than rewarded. So you just sit at your desk and find ways to make your boss think that you're better than the guy sitting next to you. But your boss doesn't care because he's thinking of ways to make his boss think he's better than the guy in the office next to his.
When I lose, I assume bad luck is to blame. I'm playing well so it must be bad variance! So I'll make it up in volume! I'll play more tables and more hours! Who am I trying to convince? I've got hundreds of thousands of hands now, and they say that I'm winning at most 1BB/100 hands, and showing no sign of improvement from a year ago. I probably play even worse when I play more tables, and I certainly don't learn anything.

All of this makes perfect sense. I didn't quit my job to play poker, I quit my job because I didn't like it. When I quit, my idea was that I could pay the bills playing 20 hours per week and use the extra time to figure out what the hell to do with my life. And I've done the first part - I've won barely enough to pay my bills this whole time - but I haven't done the 2nd part. I don't know what I want to do with my life.

At some point I just started saying "I'm a poker player" and that was what I was doing with my life. Except I never actually have approached it that way. From time to time I've made token efforts to fix some problem but I've never truly approached poker like I'm running my own business and I have only myself to answer to.

Hopefully this latest loss has shocked me into coherence. I need to do 2 things really quickly. First I have to start devoting some time to figuring out what I plan to do with my life, both for the next few years and beyond. And second, I need to figure out a better way to approach poker as long as it is going to be my primary income source.

It has been almost a year since I quit that job. In some ways I've been living the dream. But I think it is time to wake up.

Leaving my job

Gotta get out - 2/1/05 - Realizing that I needed a change

The fine line between genius and stupidity - 2/28/05 - Q&A about my decision to quit my job

Response from coworkers - 3/1/05 - How people at work responded to the entry above

To do: - 3/7/05 - Unorganized plans for unemployment

The Exit Interview - 3/25/05 - Interview with the HR leader on my last day

Reading, Thinking, Writing... Being a Lazy Jackass - 6/17/05 - Is poker enough?

Opportunity cost - 6/24/05 - financial comparison of poker v job

Observations - 10/12/05 - wasting time

I tell you what - 10/15/05 - losing money and enjoying it

1/5/06 - not interested, thanks

Opportunity cost

In 13 weeks, I've made about $4,200 less playing poker than I would have earned from the job I quit. That extrapolates to a $17,000 annual paycut. The benefits aren't as good either, but what can you expect from flexible part-time work?

If you add back the 2 weeks vacation I got paid out, and consider the expenses I'm saving on commuting and lunches out in Bethesda, the financial difference looks much better. Plus I got a nice tax refund this year, so with that buffer I haven't really felt any pains in the wallet at all.

As a return on that $4,200 investment, I honestly expect my earn rate over the next 13 weeks can completely dwarf what I've done so far. My understanding of the game is growing every day, I feel like I'm playing the best poker I've ever played, and my results are starting to show it. Or maybe I'm just catching a good run of cards and in the long run I'll struggle to break even. It has been fun either way.

Its 11:20am, I guess I should go to bed.

Response from coworkers

I sent the text from my Genius/Stupidity entry to a bunch of people I work with, or used to work with. I told them I put together an FAQ for them. Here are some of their replies:

• You're crazy...LOL :)
  
• You're awesome
  sao tao and principe?
  
• The move makes sense. That everyone here is shocked by it should just reinforce that this isn't the place for you. Noone thinks anyone would leave here for any other reason than "the grass is greener." Its hard to explain that grass tastes like crap.
  
• Wow...that's pretty deep. I think you should just tell people that you're quitting to become a professional poker player. That sounds pretty cool.
  
• That's a good idea. It definitely answers all of my questions. You should send it to [the HR leader] in lieu of an exit interview.
  
• I heard the news. I thought you were going to Capital Source.
  Most people who left in the recent years move to the various companies listed below for a pay increase, but not for a career change. I admire you for taking the leap of faith in trying to find what you want to do. People who take that leap will usually find the greatest reward, their own personal sanity and perhaps a handsome $ or two.
  Good luck to you and keep in touch.
  Remember when in doubt.......double down.
  
• That right there my friend is awesome, answered any question I might have had for you.
  That's genius
  
• I love that!!
  i think you should put it on a t-shirt though and wear it around the office. maybe something a little more concise, like "I'm not going to CapitalSource or CIT"
  
• You are an exceptionally smart young man. I am serious. I truly believe you know what you are doing. Wishing you all the best!!!
  
• You might be my hero. I wish I had the balls (or at least some mad bow staff skills).
• Damn, you just up and quit, eh? How utterly glorious that is! I respect your cojones for that, Adam; it's a bold step. Moreover, you will get to play poker and earn money, now who can beat that! I wish I could help you find something here, because you were a great worker and a cool cat - but this job sucks and is so boring, so you will be in better shape than I soon. :) Don't lose my e-mail address, so that you can keep me posted when you want to hire my lazy a$$.
• You are the wind beneath my wings . . .
  I wish you nothing but the best and if you ever need anything let me know!
• Adam, good for you. I wish you much luck. You have already made the tough decision. The rest, while not easy, will depend totally on you which I agree is a lot better than working for GE.
  

I should also mention that my boss was very cool about this. He told me I had been kicking ass for him and he is sorry to see me go, but he respects my decision and offered to write me a recommendation if I ever need one.

I've worked with a lot of cool people, and although I'm not the most sentimental person, I'll miss a lot of them. Maybe I should send the same email to a bunch of the people I won't miss to see what kind of response I get from them....

• You are an idiot...LOL :) Seriously, you are retarded.
  
• WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? Only a complete fucking moron would quit a job before they have another one. I hope you have to move back in with your parents and work at Taco Bell, you dumb piece of shit.
  
• You seem to be "chasing a dream" or something like that. Didn't you go to the lunch-and-learn about forgetting your dreams? GE employees should have dreams about making the numbers and knowing every obscure acronym on every pitch, so maybe it is best that you are leaving. I think you need a refresher course on how to write your G&Os. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go stomp on my buddy's head while kissing up to my boss, since that might get me a raise and/or promotion (but not both, and not within 2 years of my last one) much quicker than if I just worked hard and looked out for my team.
  
• You're going to Capital Source aren't you...
  

The fine line between genius and stupidity

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

- Theodore Roosevelt*

Today I notified my boss that I intend to resign. I started with GE in August of 2002, and March 25, 2005 will be my last day.

Here is every conversation I had today:

So where are you going?

I don't know.

Oh I see, you're playing it cool? Come on is it Capital Source? Merrill? CIT?

No, seriously, I don't know.

You are quitting and you don't know what you are going to do?

Yup.

You don't have another job?

Nope.

Then why are you quitting?

I know that this job isn't right for me. I can't really look around and see anything here I'd like to be doing in 5 years. I figure I should get out now while I'm young and can afford to take some risks.

Why don't you look for a new job while you work here?

I've tried that the last few months, and its just too hard for me to work all day and then drive an hour home and spend more time looking for jobs. I think as long as I have this, I'd be lazy about my job search. This way I force myself to make something happen.

Wow. Are you my hero or do I hate you?

Some of both probably.

You really are just quitting?

Yes.

Are you insane?

Pretty much.

So what do you think you want to do?

I'm not sure, but this should give me some time to figure it out. I know I'd like to find something where I can use some creativity. I know that if I want to be in the business world, ideally I'd want to run my own business, but I'd at least want to work for a much smaller company so I can really jump in and make a big difference. I have a business idea that I'd like to tinker with, and I think a lot of what I've learned at GE could really help me have an impact at a smaller company. I'll also give serious consideration to going back to school.

Oh, so which business schools are you considering?

No, not business school.

Oh, law school?

No, probably not law school either.

Umm....?

I'd think about going to get a Ph.D. An academic career has always intrigued me - teaching, research, writing. In fact I was accepted to an economics Ph.D. program at Johns Hopkins and almost went there after college. If I did that now, I know I wouldn't want to study economics. There is a newly developing field of study called Evolutionary Psychology that interests me a great deal. I've been reading a lot about it lately, and plan to investigate options for further study.

This is all a joke right?

No, sorry.

Seriously?

Yes.

You're going to CIT aren't you?

No.

What about money? How can you afford this?

Well I think I can last 3 months, maybe 6 if I live light, with no more income. I have some savings and a roommate, so I should be alright. Additionally, I've been fairly successful with online poker, and I think there's a good chance I could cover my mortgage and bills playing for maybe 20 hours per week.

So you are leaving a job at GE to go play poker professionally?

I don't look at it that way. I'm leaving my job at GE because I don't like it. In my free time I plan to play some poker, and hopefully it will help me pay the bills until I figure out something else.

Bullshit! You are quitting your job to play poker!

Maybe a little.

Is that quote at the beginning for real? Are you actually trying to glorify the fact that you are about to be an unemployed hobo?

Yeah, its pathetic.


Thats all for now. Much more to come I'm sure.

* I slightly misquoted Teddy originally. I believe this version is correct now. Source.

Gotta get out!

"So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life. "

-Peter Gibbons

Here was what I actually did last Thursday afternoon. I was sitting in a meeting where I had no responsibility whatsoever, growing more and more bored, when I decided it would be fun to sketch a portrait of the guy sitting across from me. 5 minutes later I had a drawing that to my amazement actually looked like the guy. I was so proud of it that I scanned it and spent the rest of the afternoon emailing it to people and accepting their praise and laughter.

So in an apparent effort to top that, today I rolled in to the office 30 minutes late, took a 2 hour lunch at a nice French restaurant and charged it to the company, and then left 90 minutes early, making sure to leave my computer and desk lights on so that anyone walking by would think I was still there but just away from my desk. I'd say in a given week, I do about 15 minutes of real, actual work. I wonder how many bored 20-something cubicle clowns compare their life to Office Space every day?

I'm in desperate need of a change, since I clearly don't give a shit about this job any more. Its been 2 or 3 weeks since I got the non-negotiable offer letter from HR and learned that I'd be making less money in 2005 than I did in 2004 and would once again have the job title that I had when I started working here 2.5 years ago and had been twice "promoted" beyond. Ever since then I've pretty much given up on this gig. I just have to smile until my yearly bonus payout in 3 weeks.

My career options at that point:

1. Try to get a job with our competitors. I'd probably make more money and have more responsibility, but its just another 9-5 in a world that ultimately doesn't interest me.
2. Try to find some other job in something totally different. Ideally I'd find a small company where I can make a huge impact really quickly and use more of what I have to offer. The problem with this is finding the right situation is damn hard, and then convincing them that I'm right for them might be pretty hard also. I have a few years with a highly respected company, so that will perhaps count for something.
3. Go back to school. School is great, but I would have to be damn sure its what I want to commit 5 years of opportunity cost to getting a PhD.
4. Play poker professionally. I'm fairly confident, but far from certain that I could make a decent living from poker at least for a few years. This is obviously extremely high risk, not to mention socially challenging, but there isn't a better time in my life to try to "scratch that itch." I could always try it for a few months and if it doesn't work out just retreat to one of the other options.
5. Keep limping along where I am until I figure out something better.

Or various combinations of these. Melanie (who deserves an entire post sometime soon) had a quote on her desk that was something to the effect of: "If everyone waited to act until they knew their actions could be perfect, nothing would ever get done." If I subscribe to that way of thinking, I should probably scratch #5 off the list.

This isn't something I'm going to figure out tonight, but here is what I can do:

• Search through job listings and other sources to see what opportunities are out there
• Put together my resume
• Start to more seriously investigate school options
• Do some details financial planning for the poker option (which I've done to some extent, and might address in a post on my other blog)
• Talk to my friends at the local companies and see what my options are
• Keep writing about things and organizing my thoughts
• Two chicks at the same time!**
  

That's all for now. Its 5:30 and I'd just now be leaving the office, so I consider this already a victory for my personal productivity.

Oh, and I think I might forget my plans to keep this just to myself. I got nothing to hide, especially not from the people who would actually take any time to sit there and read what I write. So I probably will put a link to this one in my IM profile too. Maybe I'll write more later about that decision.

** CLARIFICATION: "Two chicks at the same time" is a quote from Office Space, a movie that I had already referenced several times as a running theme to this entry. As the final paragraph hints, when I started this blog it was only seen by a few close friends, most of whom would have recognized this memorable punchline. Like 90% of what I write, it wasn't meant to be taken seriously, which I now feel the need to make clear since my readership has expanded to people who might be on the far side of the sarchasm. Believe it or not, even I have limits to my tastelessness, and I doubt I'd ever be so boorish as to write about something as private as my sex life in a public forum.