seanwillson.com

when i am assigned something to work on i perform to the best of my given abilities. when my employer asks me to attend training on a topic i do everything within my power to get them their moneys worth. this includes all parts of training, from listening in class to performing exercises. i figure i owe them at least that. so why am i writing this vent? i had the mispleasure of speaking with a colleague today about a course we were attending and he spoke of how bored he was and how he did not feel like doing the exercises. he felt that he was learning enough from listening so he had no need to do the exercises, oh yea, and they were too “trivial” to him.


before you say, well that is his perogative let me ask you a few questions. you are about to be operated on in a hospital. right before you go under the knife you learn that the dr that is performing the surgery has never performed one in his life, but he went to college, listened to lectures, and even watched a few. does this put you at ease? do you feel he has the skills to operate on you? ok, now say you are a local electronics store and you use your credit card to purchase a product. a week later you learn that someone stole you credit card number because the company that made the credit card machine had a security breach. it later comes out in the news that this security hole was the result of sloppy testing by the manufacturer. does this make you happy?


no, i am not being drastic, i am sharing my feelings on the topic. but lets give this person the benefit of the doubt, lets say he learned something in this course without applying these things to an exercise. so now he starts a project, gets 2 months into it only to learn that he left a few huge holes in his design because he did not take into account some of the stuff he “supposedly” learned at training. no big deal right, just fix the design and move on. so they are a month late, no biggie right. who pays for that? the company? the employee? no, the consumer pays. you pay, i pay, and every person that purchases from that company pays.


is this hitting a little closer to home now? i am not asking for a cure for cancer here. i am merely asking that people in this day in age get some backbone and when they are given an assignment give it everything they have. no half ass attempts at doing it, no falling asleep in class or at your desk, no “i am to bored” to do this right now. use all you skills to their fullest potential. you owe that to your employer and you owe that to the consumers that are purchasing your products that took a month longer to write then it should have.


but that’s just my opinion, for what its worth …

so i was checking out my web site today to see what people had said in my guest book and there was a new comment. seems someone took offence by something that i said on my web site. they then took to thrashing me about it and then left. i guess they didn’t see the warning sign on the main page or even the comment on the journal page about being offended easily. to top it off, the person didn’t even have the self respect to back up their comment by giving a name or an email. when someone signs my guest book without entering a name for themselves it automagically gives them a name of anonymous coward. this person purposely did not enter a name or an email address, just a shallow message.


so why do i care? well like all things that come from anonymous people, i don’t. in one ear out the other. yet something settles in and makes me uncomfortable. when other people visit my site they could get the wrong impression after reading this message. so i feel that i need to say something.


first the vent, you ready for this …. breath .. and … go. little does this person know that i am an engineer, either that or they neglected to think that mattered. well i have a few resources up my sleeve. so lets begin shall we. i went to my site, looked and the logs, and saw that only one person accessed my web site at that time that night and low and behold, they visited the guest book and made an entry. so what right? well no, a little bit of detective work showed me a few things.


first the person entered my site from directly typing in my address in their web browser, not from a link. i also know that they entered from the ip addresses 24.4.252.128 and 24.4.252.129. doing a simple tracert at a dos command line told me that they actually were accessing me from proxy1-external.rdc1.mi.home.com and proxy2-external.rdc1.mi.home.com which are @home network proxy servers in michigan. if it wasn’t 2 people surfing the site on 2 different machines then it was one person being redirected from one proxy server to another mid query. i know this because the query goes from one server to the other within 1 second while constructing the main page. since these servers are regional i know that this person(s) has to be from michigan and they are accessing the web through the default @home network web browser, version 4.5 on windows 95. i know this because those browsers are set to go through the proxy server by default. i also know a few more things, they first accessed my site from typing my url directly into the @home networks location bar. this is not the netscape address bar, but a custom form that redirects via a script to the url that was entered. i know this because of the first line in the log file i am attaching below.


so do i know anything else? of course i do. i know that very few people outside of friends and family know the url to my web site. i have posted it on message boards but almost always as a link, not spelling the url out. i also know what pages the person visited, here is a list:


/index.shtml

/main.shtml

/mind/index.shtml

/mind/2000.02.28.shtml

/mind/2000.03.03.shtml

/mind/2000.03.05.shtml

/etc/index.shtml

/etc/allguests.shtml

/etc/guestbook.shtml **

/body/index.shtml

/body/thank.shtml

/venting/index.shtml

/soul/index.shtml

/whoami/index.shtml

/resume/index.shtml

/resume/standard-resume.shtml


that is also the order they viewed those pages in as well. you can see that they judged my entire site, the people i thank, my life change, and the people i love after viewing 8 pages and 3 journals. they spent 10 minutes before they judged me. in all they spent 24 minutes surfing my site.


so does that sound fair? to judge someone without getting the whole picture? before you know that my loved ones use this site to know what i am up to in life. for my friends to see what i am doing and what i am thinking. for others trying to make life changes to get inspiration or guidance. no, they didn’t care about these things, all they cared about was their view on my 3 journal entries. doesn’t exactly sounds like the person even thought about anything, they just react like most people do. i can hear them now “who cares about the others, its all about me me me”. not exactly a person i want to call a friend.


so i bet your asking now if i know who it is? well i only have 2 friends from michigan on the @home network, they do live together, and their computers are in the same room. but, i know it was not them though because they are both running windows 98 and the browser that these requests are coming from are windows 95. i also know it is not them because they would confront me on the phone or in real life and not anonymously over a web site, thats why they are my friends, we respect each other enough to do that. what i really want is for the true “anonymous coward” to respond with some dignity and give me the respect of a reply.


so did i accomplish anything going through all this crap? maybe yes maybe no. i was trying to show you how we are all really an open book if you look into it. through simple computer tools i was able to find out information about a person surfing my site. their life was as open a book as my web site is an opening into my life. except of course i voice my opinion with honor and in my name, not the name of an “anonymous coward”.


but that’s just my opinion, for what its worth …


note to others - i have never actually done this “cyber sleuthing” before on my web site nor do i plan on doing it in the future. there is no point taking this any further unless the person decides to respond.

sitting and watching the nightly news has become a painful event. watching the republican battle between bush and mccain has become a battle between cash and honor. on one side of the battle you have old money, namely bush. he used his mother and father’s name to get him into office in texas instead of using his platform, morals, and his honor. now he is using the same tactics to try and attain the highest office in the land, president. on the other side of the battle you have the military veteran, namely mccain. he is an honorable person but is approaching his campaign wrong. instead of identifying with his constituents he instead tries standing above them and preaching to them.


was politics ever an honorable event? why can we not elect leaders who are honorable. why can we not elect someone that we can look up to, that we would want our children to use as a role model. i find it hard to believe that a country as great as ours sees progress is electing imbeciles. we are embarrassing ourselves as a country.


so what would make an ideal leader? someone who stands up for their beliefs, yet is susceptible to others viewpoints. someone who is in touch with the people, knows the hardships and the joys of his constituents. someone who will support and maybe even who has defended the constitution. what we need is someone who honors the family, sees the importance of helping the poor, and above all respects and exudes honor instead greed.


so is this a reality? i don’t doubt that many of todays politicians may have started with these traits in mind, or at least they were striving toward them. so what happened? well thats a simple question to answer if your willing to open your eyes. its a simple word “greed”. the stranglehold that special interest groups have on elections is phenomenal. todays multi million dollar elections need backing and what better way to get it then sell out to a few select special interest groups. tobacco, meat & poultry, guns, banking … the list can go on and on.


so what can we do? how can this be fixed? well besides more people voting with more people doing research outside of tv, the only thing left is a free form of publicity. free if done right or cheap if done wrong. what i am talking about is the “internet”. news groups, message boards, chat areas, banners, public forums. we need a candidate who will embarrass this forum and run with it. if you look at the statistics most of the voting class in american is wired. what media is least used in politics when it offers the most benefits.


regardless of how the internet can affect an election the fact of the matter is that the united states of america is being bought. few will deny it, but even fewer will do anything about it. lets stand up as a nation and let the candidates know that our vote cannot be bought. lets choose our candidate based on their platform and their stance on the issues, or in some cases the lack of stance. i think we owe this if not to ourselves then to our children.


but that’s just my opinion, for what its worth …

here i am reading my favorite forum online, yahoo bfl of course, and i read a message that someone went to the dr and were told that they should “accept that they are large, go out and buy new large clothes.” where does a dr get off destroying hope like that. dr’s are supposed to help the healing process and better ones health, not destroy ones goals and dreams. if i were there with that person i would have given that dr a piece of my mind.


everyone in this world has control over their body. they can control how much body fat and muscle their body has. through regular exercise and weight training they can reshape their bodies. too many of today’s dr’s have gotten used to treating an obese america. they are so used to it that they assume it is the norm and develop programs and diets that support it. hell, they themselves are overweight so what kind of advice can they give when they are part of that obesity statistic.


i think our medical profession, and the fda for that matter, needs to seriously reevaluate how we present, treat, and plan nutrition. for the fda to make recommendations for sedimentary individuals sets the dr’s up to support an obese society. why not raise the mark, try and promote and champion good health. we take the time to attack smoking and drugs, but dr’s ignore and support for that matter obesity. obesity kills more people each year then smoking and drugs combined.


how many people do you know that have had strokes? heart attacks? have diabetes? can’t walk up a flight of stairs without resting? hell i am/was one of those people. but i made the decision to make a change in my life. i decided to transform, hell to transcend from my old dead, overweight, ugly body to a new me. to a trimmer, fit, and healthy sean. if i can do it, anyone can, regardless of what a “dr” says. If you want, slap a “d” and an “r” in from of my name and listen to me. i will tell you to “listen to your heart”, “set goals”, and “realize your dreams”. don’t be a typical American, but instead, raise the bar and dream a new you. When you decide to do this, something miraculous will happen. your confidence will shoot up, your entire life will come into focus, and you will be happy. let this happiness propel and guide you to achieving your dream.


any dr that tells someone they cannot change their body is not only doing a disservice to that person, but to themselves. they are saying “i support obesity and embrace an unfit nation of sedimentary people.” is this the kind of dr you want. if your answer is no, then do like i would do, find another dr who is supportive of your lifestyle and the changes you want to make. find out how that Dr supports the FDA and how they go about treating obese people. is it with a shrug or with a hug? is it with a no or rejuvenating yes that they support you.


but that’s just my opinion, for what its worth …