Gator Sweep... Almost

The UF elections are over... sort of. The greek/fbk-backed party, Gator, won 49% against 30% for the incumbent Impact party and 21% for the upstart Progress party. This translated into a runoff between Gator and Impact next week, which Gator should win easily. It also meant 38 senators for Gator, just 6 for Impact, and 1 each for the Progress and Voice parties.

For a competitive race, this is a strong showing, especially given how much bad press the Gator party received. I think the biggest problem was the anti-Gator-party vote was split 2-3 ways. If this was a straight up and down vote, Gator probably would have lost on a 52-48 or something like that margin.

There's a runoff, so anything is possibly. But my guess is Gator wins with at least 57% of the vote next week.

Skull and Bones

Recently, against my initial and better judgment, I rented the DVD for "Skulls 3", an ill-fated sequel to the 2000 film "The Skulls".

The original film was about a Skulls initiate who discovers a murder and cover-up involving a student journalist (his best friend) breaking into the lair of the infamous campus secret society known as Skull and Bones. I liked the film because of its use of a real secret society and its publically known rituals, but it failed to hold upon repeat viewing because I noticed how little the story actually depends on the villains being part of a secret society.

What I mean is that the story could have gone on just as well about any organization protecting itself against an unlawful breaking and entering and one individual's such for truth about his roommate's death. The fact that this was involving the Skulls is only secondary and incidental at best, providing a fascinating but ultimately unnecessary background.

Skulls 3 starts promising - how can the infamous society handle its first female recruit? Unfortunately, that plot is largely resolved and abandoned for a near carbon copy of the original Skulls murder plotline, with a military contract thrown in as the motive. But once the film makes that switch, do we really, truly, care that this involves the Skulls as opposed to any old defense industry CEO manipulating a Congressman's daughter to get a bill passed?

A decent element of the film making is its distinct lighting for dreams and flashbacks, quite similar to how the Nightmare series does it. The acting isn't bad either, although the cast is distinctly B-list. Don't get me wrong here - this and its precedessor(s) were perfectly good films as murder stories go, it's just the secret society wasn't a compelling part of the story, just a backdrop to get you to watch the movie.

My take is you can watch one or the other of the 3 Skulls movies, but you'd be wasting your time if you watched more than one.

Actually, the first Skulls movie and its imperfections helped inspire me to write the Adams trilogy - to try to improve on the conspiracy genre involving secret societies. More on this genre will follow as I give more literary and film reviews.

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

Green is my favorite color (if you couldn't tell), so I love St. Patrick's Day even though I'm not Irish. The closest I get is my brother's name, Sean, is Gaelic for John. Woohoo!

Did you pinch anyone today for not wearing green?

March Madness

Alright, here are some more personal updates for you, in case you cared to know:

1) Not heard yet on the management position I applied for. They said they were interviewing at least one person from outside the company for each job, but I could only confirm 1 of the 3 interviews happened last week. So I am still in limbo.

2) I have placed an advertisement in the UF campus daily, the Independent Alligator, for "Reunion at University Avenue". It'll run the 2 voting days of the SG election, Tuesday and Wednesday, hopefully taking advantage of that news event to spark interest in my book. If it is modestly successful as an ad buy, I may do a repeat this fall.

3) I have designed the cover art for "The Proxy Senator". Like "Reunion" it'll have the background as an actual photo I took, although this time it will be looking over the Potomac River and the photo will also bleed onto the back cover. I'm using a different graphic software, so hopefully the text on the back will turn out better.

4) I successfully located my archival information about UF student government election results, as well as a previous portfolio I put together that has a partial clipping of my early columns. This find will help me put together President Forever scenarios based loosely on SG, as well as help me put together a non-fiction book I have planned.

Go Florida!

Hey gang, back with a few updates on what I'm doing and other happenings in my field of vision.

1) Florida's Basketball team won the SEC championship for the first time... ever! They beat Kentucky easily, 70-53. The best part is I only started watching when it was tied at 40-40. I'm not saying I had an influence, but it was definitely a good thing to watch.

2) As it happened, George Washington also won its regional championship. That means both of my alma maters are in the NCAA championship. And as a side note, a likely second round fight between Florida and Villanova, as is likely to happen, would have been weird for me two years ago as my ex-roomate is a Villanova alum. ;-)

3) The GW student elections happened and it was a near sweep for the reformists. A runoff between the reformer and a popular african american remains.

4) The UF elections are this week, and the campus daily has endorsed the clean idealistic Progress party, while all eyes are on whether the greek-backed Gator Party can weather the storm of scandals and cross the finish line. Most people suspect Gator will come out in front, but no one is sure how far in front they'll be of Impact, the incumbent but nongreek party. Voice party, like its namesake from 2001, is a nonfactor.

My next post will be more personally relevant updates.

2 New Banner Ads

With the help of Addesigner.com, I've put together 2 banner ads. Depending on the cost, I hope to use at least one of them in an effort to draw more attention to kenkerns.com and, of course, my book. Here they are:

http://www.kenkerns.com/graphics/banner1.gif
http://www.kenkerns.com/graphics/banner2.gif

The Hammer Gets Slammed

Apparently, Tom "The Hammer" Delay's redistricting effort in Texas in 2003 may result in his political demise by exposing him to fewer Republicans and fewer Texans who like him.

He got 55% against a relatively unknown, underfinanced challenger in 2004. What would happen in a mid-term with a lame duck president and a fully-financed challenger?

Maybe the ex-exterminator will finally get squished.

Via the Washington Post.

Weird

The half-hour interview for the management position was... weird. I wasn't as nervous as I thought I'd be, and the interviewers were not as hostile as I'm, frankly, used to getting in job interviews. Refereshingly comfortable, I'd say.

Anyway, we talked a bit about my website skills, my interest in tinkering with a program/html to figure it out myself, and some other things. We also talked about the need for a procedural manual for pension processing and working to digitize our aging records. The best part came when Katharine, our director, suggested I had a firm grasp of the long-term place for this manager within the department.

And they popped the obvious hypothetical question: how should they handle explaining to the other employees why I was hired over them despite my youth? I said, in effect, since this manager wouldn't supervise any employee directly and involves technical skills that it'd be easy to make the case I'm the best despite my age. Some will grumble, but I'm not leapfrogging older employees to become their boss, so it shouldn't be a problem any more than bringing an outsider into the department.

I liked the experience. The question remains whether they are willing to try me out in this role or give it to someone older (or someone with a bachelor's degree in computer science instead of a master's in issues management).

Infrastructure Enhancement

In the first phase of my company's reorganization of the Eligibility Services department (which I am a part of), they are hiring 3 new managers. 1 manager will be a clone of my current manager, to divide her load (Jane Ann manages some 15 employees when the ideal average is 6). Another is a training manager, which is an exempt version of my current "coordinator".

The last is an Infrastructure Enhancement job. Basically, a psuedo-technical job responsible for working out ways we can improve various parts of the department and working with Systems department to make it happen. This is especially important for the website and for helping the Training Manager complies resources. I love the concept, and the qualifications were pretty minimal, so I applied.

I've got an interview tomorrow for this management position. Wish me luck.

Annoyances

Here are some things that annoy me:

1) People that use a fax machine to send mail and then demand a call from me to confirm receipt even though the machine tells them whether the task was successful or not.

2) People that call, get my voicemail, hang up without leaving a message; call again an hour later and repeat; call again 5 minutes later and repeat; and then accuse me of not returning their repeated calls.

3) Financial companies that tack on outrageous interest rates, charges, and fees when you fail to pay your bill - usually a sign that you can't afford the increased charges, fees, etc. in the first place.

4) My cat pawing at my face half an hour before my alarm goes off.

5) People that curse routinely at work and then report me to a manager when I used a bad word once.

6) D.C. commuters freak out unless it is clear skies; pedestrians run right in front of traffic to save a minute but would at the same time drag their feet or stand right in front of an escalator as those behind them are trying to get off.

Do you have anything that annoys you?