joyliveshere

Well, my goal of writing about each principle at least 3 times a month is not going really well, considering that this is the last day of the month and I’m writing my second entry. Oh, well.

I’ve decided to buy a more efficient composting bin, and also one of those filtered compost containers that you put on the kitchen counter. I’m also going to find at least two more places in the house that I can use compact fluorescents. I’ll do these things sometime in the next month. That’s enough for now.

I hate the way the whole U.S. - and increasingly, the rest of the world - is turning into one big shopping center, filled with identical stores. You can be in Peoria or Pawtucket or Pittsburg and buy the exact same crap at the exact same places. Some people find comfort in this (my Grandpa Charlie liked to eat at Denny’s because he always knew where the bathroom was), but I find the homogenization of American culture to be mind-numbingly boring and alarmingly alienating.

And a lot of these big chain stores exist only because they sell stuff incredibly cheaply, which they can do because they pay their workers minimum wage, provide them with no benefits, and force their suppliers to do the same. So I will not step foot in Walmart, which is the worst of the worst.

I prefer to shop in small, independent stores, or local chain stores such as Lunardi’s and Piazza’s, Bay Area supermarkets with just a few stores, although they are often more expensive than, say, Safeway. But if I have to shop at a chain store - and sometimes there’s just no other choice - I at least want to shop at places like Safeway, which is unionized and provides its workers with health insurance and a decent salary, or places like Trader Joe’s and CostCo, which while not fully unionized provide decent enough working conditions that many labor unions advocate shopping there.

I would, eventually, love to have a job that I could do from home. I’ve tried consulting, but I just don’t have the self-discipline run a business. You have to be constantly looking for work—making phone calls, networking, and all that stuff I hate. So, I need to either find a job that allows FT telecommuting, or else learn enough about my field that I can be the kind of consultant who never has to actually look for work.

I’m not sure how to achieve either of the above, but I think the strategy is to learn as much as I possibly about as many different aspects of this field as I can in my current job, and hope that I’m learning enough so that someday I’ll get to the point where I can do one of the above.