jayshaffer.com » Family and friends

The Good/Bad Theory

Jay Shaffer — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 22:43:38 +0000

I have a good friend and colleague by the name of George Sanger, AKA The Fatman. That’s him over on the left. Besides being talented and charismatic, George is one of the wisest people I’ve ever met. He has this theory that he calls Good/Bad, this isn’t a really new theory, in fact it’s basically Taoism , or at least the Yin/Yang part of Taoism.
Simply stated, no event or thing is wholly bad or good. In fact most things are an almost equal mixture of both. I’m not a verbose writer, so I’m not going to bore you with lots of examples, suffice it to say that from any “bad” event , like getting laid-off, may grow a “good” event like a better job, or personal growth.
Don’t confuse this with fatalism, fatalism would say that every bad thing happens for a reason, and I can’t accept that premise. Good/Bad is more about causality. The reign of a tyrant fosters the revolution.
This blog post came about because as I looked back over the last few post in this blog, I realized that they may seem dark and sad to some. But in fact that’s not the case at all. Life flows past us in it’s own Good/Bad way and I go through making my Good/Bad choices that lead to my own Good/Bad results. It’s all Good/Bad.
If you want to find out more about George Sanger, go to http://fatman.com/ be sure to check out the FAQ page for some of his great stories.

No Clever Way to Say Laid-off

Jay Shaffer — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 19:22:40 +0000

The company I work for CleverMedia Inc. is reorganizing and I’ll be jobless as of Thursday, March 13, 2008. “Beware of the Ides of March” to quote Shakespeare. Gary Rosensweig is the owner and principle of CleverMedia, which he founded in 1997. I worked for CleverMedia from 1999-2002 as Technical Director, and did sound design and some web design for CleverMedia’s game sites. I was laid-off during the first Bush recession, as web advertising revenues dried up. CleverMedia struggled on with only Gary programming games and William the artist/illustrator supplying the artwork.
With the advent Of Web 2.0 and a resurgence of Web advertising CleverMedia’s popular free online games site GameScene.com was generating revenue. As a result, Gary was able to rehire me in 2005.
I was rehired as Video Producer, Gary had started Clevermedia.TV to try to exploit video podcasting and other video for Web opportunities. Over the last three years we produced hundreds of Podcast episodes, and became well known in the Podcasting community for our show “Podcast Salad” with Katie Bevard as host. We also produced a Podcast about books and publishing called “BookStories,” a conspiracy theory spoof podcast called “Secrets of Y” and finally we started producing a podcast called “MacMost” about all things related to Apple computers with Molly Stanberry as the host. Over the three year period, While I worked hard writing, directing and editing video, we we’re unable to find any way of monetizing (making money) from video podcasting. However, we were able to generate some traffic and Ad revenue from the MacMost.com website.
With the softening economy, Gary has decided to cut all full time staff, and continue CleverMedia by managing Gamescene.com and MacMost.com by himself, and hire labor on a contract basis.
I don’t blame him, and I feel bad that we were unable to turn podcasting into a viable business. It was a great ride while it lasted.
I will continue on seeking opportunities in video editing and producing, as a freelancer while looking for a full time employment. Any leads or contacts that you may be able to send my way are greatly appreciated.

The Dog That Loved Me.

Jay Shaffer — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 22:42:13 +0000

Greta Garbone has left this world. She was a 90 pound (big Boned)Weimaraner , which is to say she was the most beautiful of all dogs. A German Bombshell. The story begins when we adopted her. I think it was 2003, Whe had lost our Shar Pei named Truffle to Mast cell cancer. And My wife was looking for a dog to adopt at the Shelters. I went with her a couple times, but for me, it’s difficult to see all the unwanted dogs, usually Pit Bull Terriers. Then one day she called me me and said come meet her at the shelter. I grumbled a bit and went to meet her. when I went into the lobby of the shelter my wife, Annie, was there with the Weim. The dog imeddiately game to me and started licking my hand. A passerby asked if she was my dog? I replied she probably will be.

I had to go home to get our other dog to make sure they got along, and then we had to go through the pet adoption paperwork with a very harassed and overworked volunteer. But eventually we got to bring her home.

Weims are notorious for seperation axiety, So it was good that I was working at home at that time. SHe was always right by my side, if not underfoot.
She was a lovely dog that tended to over eat ,(because we spoiled her. She had a hound dog bark that kept any potential burglars at bay. She a had a short but good life with us and the end came quickly after she was diagnosed with Lymphoma.
Hope her soul is chasing bad guys and rabbits.

Really Bad Day

Jay Shaffer — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 04:27:24 +0000

When the phone rings at 2 AM it’s never good news. Our phone rang and my wife’s sister was calling from the hospital, my wife’s mother was having an emergency appendectomy. At five we heard that she had had successful surgery and that she was in recovery. We all got some sleep finally and then went to the hospital. My mother-in-law was in a room. and also in the same hospital My aunt was in a room with serious health problems. I went up a couple of floors and visited with my aunt who was undergoing dialysis at at the time. She is not well. after a short visit, I went back down to my mother-in-laws room. she had been taken for an upper G.I.
soon the results came back that she also had a perforated ulcer and needed immediate surgery. So she went into surgery at 4PM. My wife and and I had to go home because we had a very sick dog at home and we we had an appointment for a vet to make a house call to euthanize our dog.
We have just gone through the emotional trauma of putting our dog down. My mother -in-law just got out of surgery and is in recovery. the doctors found the ulcer and biopsied it, but didn’t find the perforation. and put in a shunt. In a word today has sucked.

Skylane 71178 Cleared Direct to Wray

Jay Shaffer — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:51:20 +0000

I haven’t flown in a small aircraft since riding around in helecopters in the Army the 70′s. So i was excited when my uncle Dave who is a pilot and flight instructor suggested that we fly out to eastern Colorado from Denver to meet-up with my parents, who are out there (Wray Colorado) visiting. So after a couple coversations we decided to fly out on December 29th. We met-up and went out to Metro (formally Jeffco) airport where my uncle has several planes. The plane we were going to fly is a Cessna 182 Skylane tail number N71178. I was quite surprised When I heard that the planes was manufactured in 1968 and that it was still worth over a hundred thousand dollars. Guess I wont be buying a plane anytime soon.
We too off on a clear cold day. the temperature on the ground was in the teens and it was zero degrees aloft. With Ice and snow still on the Taxi ways. As soon as we got airborne , it occurred to me that maybe the snowplows had yet to clear Wray’s single runway. Not to worry, Dave assured me. One thing that struck me was amount of communication between Denver Control and our small aircraft, it gave me a renewed respect for air traffic control. We had a nice tail wind and made the 170 Mile rip in just over and hour.
But Dave assured me that the trip back would be a bit slower with a 30 knot head wind. My parents picked us up at the Wray airport and we had a late lunch at the only restaurant in town that was open , The venerable and decrepit Sandhiller Motel and Restaurant. I only had time for a quick visit with my 97 year old Grandmother and then it was time to fly back. We were trying to make it back by dark, but by the time had said our good byes and Got the plane ready, it was almost sundown, being one of those short mid-winter days. We took off and flew at low altitude ( 400 ft. AGL) to avoid the high winds. and then popped up into radar range when we got close to Denver. As it was dark when we got back to Metro airport Dave did a simulated instrument approach. I was all eyes and ears as I had never done a night landing in a small plane. Needless to say Dave performed a perfect landing. After putting the plane away for the night, which was complicated slightly by the icy tarmac, we stopped and had dinner and Caught up on family news.
I had a wonderful time and of course it got me thinking. Maybe I should get that pilot’s license.

Protected: Family Post Test

Jay Shaffer — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 20:35:40 +0000