Life has been a bit of a whirlwind lately, and that's a good thing. I've been busy at work not only with normal duties but also studying up on data warehousing concepts, the reason for which will be forthcoming. In my sparetime I've moved the blog from Blogger over to Wordpress, hosted by Dreamhost, and have been happily learning all the new capabilities for audio, photos, posts, etc., to try to make it look more professional. I've also started a photoblog, still in its infancy, and am building a web site for my brother's business, which is still a work in progress but should be ready soon. I'm enjoying these endeavors immensely - it's fun. One of my upcoming projects, I've decided, is to become expert at javascript and php so I can develop my own websites from scratch. I'm fairly well-versed in HTML - I built a bunch of websites for our group back at my old job but the layout and formatting of them was pedestrian at best. I want my stuff to look professional and the only way to ensure that really is to dig in. Which is no problem. That's when I have the most fun at work, when I'm learning something new, testing it, learning it, becoming expert at it. It's something I look forward to.
We also visited Mom and Dad down in Florida this past weekend, a quick trip but very enjoyable. I've always loved my mother's company. We started talking about her childhood just before we had to leave for our flight back and I pretty much decided then that I need to get her talking about these things on tape. I don't want to lose those stories before it's too late. Not that there is any rush. My mom is in about as good a shape as someone her age can be. She still has lots of energy and is as sharp in in mind as always - and that's pretty sharp. Plus she has her interests - she's a world-class, award-winning quilter, and she teaches quilting classes down there.
I've had almost no time for reading or other sorts of entertainment. The book I'm reading currently is wonderful and normally I would gobble up something so good in a couple of sittings over a couple of days. Alas, a month later and it is still unfinished, though I am determined so sit and relax with it today and finish it up.
I did watch the fourth season opening episode ("Public Relations") of Mad Men. And I loved it. Things have certainly changed and the show had a different feel to it than the previous seasons, and I think that's a good thing. The times are changing (it's almost 1965), the workplace is new, Don is divorced and Betty is now married to Henry - it's right that the show has a new feel because life has a new feel. The opening question, "Who is Don Draper?" is something that may never be answered, though by the end of the episode it's clear Don has decided the future of the new agency, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, will be shaped by him. He throws out potential clients who don't want to do things his way and he sets up an interview (a previous one having failed due to his reluctance to talk about himself) with a Wall Street Journal reporter in which he brags about himself and his new agency. Not that anyone minds Don taking charge. It's expected of him. Roger, Bert, and Peggy all indicate their reliance on him at different points in the episode (Peggy: "We're all here because of you, you know. All we want to do is please you.")
While Don takes charge at the new agency, his personal life is less settled, to say the least. The publication of the initial failed interview characterizes him as a 'cipher' and this may be close to the truth. He has reinvented himself, taking on a new name and leaving the past behind, but there's no there there once he steps outside the professional side of Don Draper. He knows how to sell products and he knows how to sell the character he's created named Don Draper, but once he's alone and on his own, when there's nothing to sell, there's nothing left to the man. So he indulges himself with prostitutes, whom he pays to play out his sexual impulses ("Hit me. Harder.") As Mad Men reinvents itself for season four, as Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce introduces itself as a new, hip, agency with Don Draper the master at the helm, perhaps we should also keep a watch out for what becomes of Don Draper the cipher. Can he find value and fulfillment in his private life? Or is it too late? There are hints that he may be able to remake himself in his relationship with his children (will Sally and Bobby be his salvation? He's clearly a better parent than Betty.) But watching it play out, with no idea what's ahead, is a lot of the fun.
So what else is new? It's still to be determined if we are seeing a sea-change in attitude towards the government or if this is a passing thing. By "this" I mean the tea-party movement, the idea that America is being buried under a mountain of debt that we'll never dig out of if something doesn't change soon. It does seem that it's part of the zeitgeist, the feeling that we're in trouble and something needs to be done. I expect the mid-terms will be a disaster for the Democrats - don't rule out the Republicans will take over the Senate along with the House - but whether this will be the necessary spur to change is still a question. Things will change, yes, but will they change enough? We need drastic transformation, a remaking of government from the top down, large cuts in expenditures, a rollback of the Obamacare and other atrocities, a commitment to balanced budgets and pay down of the debt, and none of these things will be easy. Obama can veto any proposed change he doesn't like for the next two years and by then will the passion we're seeing now among the rank-and-file have died down? Add that to the near inevitability the newly elected will go native once they arrive in D.C. and count me skeptical that a change is gonna come. Still, I hold out the hope that if ever there was a chance for transformation, the time has never been riper.
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