2007 June – Jayzilla

My New Career Move

June 22, 2007 By jason Leave a Comment

Maybe I’m crazy, but maybe I’ve never been more sane in my life. Today I quit my job at Royall to begin pursuing my career in…wait for it…psychology!

Wouldn’t that be so irresponsible of me?! Just kidding…I didn’t really quit my job. But I have been thinking about a move to psychology. I have actually thought of it off and on for several years. Just before I started working at ESP is around the first time the thought seriously crossed my mind. Don’t ask me why; I don’t know. Here are some things I do know:

Several people have told me I should be a psychologist. Several. I guess that’s good. It probably means I’m a decent listener. If I could only do that within my family…
I will never get a PhD in computer science. Not that I couldn’t, I just don’t have enough interest in it to want to do a doctoral thesis.
I could, however, see myself extremely interested in doing research for a thesis somehow related to psychology. The human mind absolutely fascinates me.

I don’t know if I have what it takes to become a family counselor or not, but it’s worth looking into. Coding for the rest of my life makes me sad to think about. Helping people sort through their problems makes me happy. Maybe I’ll take an intro class at VCU or something. It should be fun. At least I’ll know if I want to go in that direction.

-j

Fundraising Effort for Paraguay

June 17, 2007 By jason Leave a Comment

I added a page to my site for my trip to Paraguay. Soon I’ll put information about exactly where we’re going, what we’re going to do, and other stuff related to our trip. Currently, there’s a button to assist JC and I on our way. We appreciate your consideration to help us pay for our trip. Any funds we get will be divided between the two of us, and extra monies will be donated to the mission.

Thanks for thinking about us. We also appreciate any prayers on our behalf.

-j

It’s About Daggone Time

June 13, 2007 By jason Leave a Comment

We put a man on the moon in 1969. That’s almost 40 years ago. But for some reason, until just a year or two ago, we’ve been driving the same, tired, expensive-to-maintain and even-more-expensive-than-ever-to-fuel car paradigm for, oh, 80 years. I was reading a comment on Scott Adams’ blog in which the commenter referred to a company called Tesla Motors. I believe I will be paying attention to what comes out of that company.

I was excited when the hybrid vehicles started coming out, and I was all set to save up for a hybrid Honda Accord, until I found out that they were only making a hybrid V6 with all the bells and whistles. Hardly makes it worth the gas savings. My other problem with hybrids was that they looked ugly (see: Toyota Prius), but auto manufacturers seem to be doing better at that (Ford Escape, Toyota Camry, Honda Civic, to name a few).

Enter Tesla Motors. Based out of Silicon Valley, they’re producing entirely electric vehicles, and the first one, the Tesla Roadster, looks HOTTT (*drool*). Reading on Wikipedia further, I found out they are developing a competitor for the BMW 5 series, which will cost somewhere in the 50-70K range. With the profits from that, they plan on developing a more affordable car. That’s where I start paying attention intently.

If they can develop a completely electric car that will get me to, say, Ft. Lauderdale in the same time I can get using a gas-fueled car, and if that car costs around 30K, I’ll think about buying it for a little while. But what makes me happier is once this company does it, another company will do it, costs will come down, and eventually the big dogs will start doing it. Of course we’ll never get rid of gas vehicles because petroleum is too important to the world’s economy, but at least I’ll be able to find an electric car that I like.

-j