Posts Tagged ‘United States’

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Happy New Year

Friday, January 1st, 2010

Happy New Year everyone!

I have the feeling this will be a pivotal year. Just lately I’ve had a really hard time with the fact that we had to move away from Massachusetts and back to Illinois, but I am starting to feel better. I felt bad because I felt like I was giving up the first thing I truly loved and (by extension) my job. I worked in Mass at the iRacing.com office, that office contained people like Dave Kaemmer who wrote Indy 500, the game I played at Kieron Ashley-Smith’s house (on his PC) when I was 16 between our end-of-school exams (when I should have been revising). I played those racing games and simulations religiously, for years, and even developed a successful Web site (which I since left, and which has since I left shut down); The same Web site John Henry (the Boston Red Sox owner) discovered me from and hired me to work with iRacing. Simracing in some form has essentially been my life for 20 years, or more.

I still work with iRacing.com, but not being in the office is a pretty big blow. It really means I can never advance in my career and it can be pretty lonely and demoralizing at times working from home (bring on the cabin-fever!) I also risk the fact that it could easily be ‘too difficult’ to work with someone out of the office and I guess my only real solace there is that I really am kind of my own department! There’s things I do that if I wasn’t there would probably stop unless someone could figure out how to automate them and there’s things I do that I don’t really feel any other single person could do all of… There’s probably even a few regular duties (things I have to do every day) which I doubt nobody even knows about, and the amount of Private Messages, emails to my personal addresses and even messages on Facebook that I get which are purely about iRacing means I am fairly well entwined with the company – in the eyes of our customers. Saying that, I can’t help but feel like it’ll end at some point and I’ll have to find something else (hence the bulk of the sadness about the move). On-top of that, I got to know a couple of people in the office that I really, really like as friends and I miss them quite a bit. There were obviously a lot of guys around and it was a typical male atmosphere with the typical laughs and jokes we all enjoy.

Sheila has been talking a lot about having children just lately, too, and while I want to have children with her I am worried about her schooling. I think that with a child, she’ll give up school. I know she doesn’t think that, but I think it’ll be too much for her to look after a child, work and study. She is a straight-A student at the moment with a 4.0 GPA and I don’t want her to lose what she wants, she’ll probably regret it.

A really positive thing just lately is that as of April, 2009 I have been establishing credit! I got a Social Security card when I became a legal resident here in the United States and it took a year for me to be able to get going… I think as an adult it’s incredibly difficult to get that first rung, especially in such a deep economic downturn. Back in 2008 I attempted to get a secured Credit Card – and was denied. I was denied because the idiot at Bank of America put the card for $400 when I asked for a $300 one. I kept $300 in my savings account for them to use and guess what? They couldn’t find the $400 they were looking for… We then moved to Massachusetts and of course that screwed everything up: Everything I tried to get my Credit Rating building failed because they couldn’t establish that I was me! I tried to use Bank of America’s Privacy Assist, only to find that the bumbling idiot on the phone didn’t know how to do his job either and couldn’t let me access my own credit file…

I ended up opening a Eufora Pre-paid Card, which said that it reported to credit. They take a monthly payment of $6.65, so I just loaded the account up with enough money for a year and forgot about it! When we moved back to Illinois at the end of 2009 I contacted Privacy Assist, spoke to a woman with brains who confirmed my identity and found that both Eufora and another credit line I had been attached to had both been reporting – and my credit rating was no longer ZERO! Woohoo!

That is actually pretty big for me… It was nice to see great gains on my rating within a year. This means that going for a house of some sort doesn’t have to be too far in our future…

So, kids, houses and the job thing… I told you it was going to be pivotal.

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A picture speaks a thousand words (or rather, thousands of job losses).

Saturday, February 7th, 2009

Job Losses Comparison for recent recessions.

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Um, is anybody watching the Olympics?

Friday, August 8th, 2008

I’m 29 years old. I have never felt such a lack of interest in the Olympic Games.

I’m guessing there was an opening ceremony today, because I saw still pictures of it on Yahoo.com. I didn’t even think of watching it… Yet I think I’ve probably watched at least part of every single ceremony since I have been old enough to want to, so what’s different now?

Well, I live in the United States. I haven’t seen any of the build-up I am used to because they simply don’t provide the extensive coverage of Athletics that the BBC do back home. But, the thing is, as much as I’d love to say the problem is bad coverage, it isn’t. The other difference? China.

In Chicago today there was a march on the Chinese Consulate asking for the Chinese to end their occupation of Tibet. China has also refused an Athlete’s visa to travel and compete recently also, the reason being that he wants the Darfur regime (that the Chinese support), to end and has been a campaigner. Then, of course, there’s the little issue of human rights.

Come to think of it, what on earth were the Olympic Committee thinking?!

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Remembering Tim Russert…

Sunday, June 15th, 2008

I haven’t been over here long, but one show I have enjoyed watching while in the USA is NBC’s “Meet the Press”. The other day, the presenter of the show, someone I would describe as an American Jeremy Paxman (who is a British presenter of a show called “Newsnight”), passed away while at his desk from an apparent Heart Attack.

This presenter, who presented one of the few media outlets in the United States that I actually respected, will be sorely missed by me.

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Unlimited International Calls, $9.95 per month

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

Well, thank you Skype!

I just signed up for one of the new subscription packages the guys at Skype are offering. It allows me to call any landline in 34 countries for nothing more than the $9.95 per month from Skype…

But that is not all, as a part of that subscription you get access to something else, something very cool. “Skype To Go” is given for free with this subscription…

What is Skype To Go? Well, I live in the USA at a 312 area code. Skype To Go gives me a 312 area code number to call (from any phone, including my cell phone), I enter a pin and then I can call those 34 countries, for free! All I might have to pay for, is a 312 to 312 call – which is free for me.

So, what this means is that I can be anywhere in Chicago, including on a Cell phone, I can call the 312 number (local, or usually free call), enter pin number, select speed-dial #1 and my mum will get the call to her landline in Britain. I don’t even need Skype installed on my PC anymore! That contact capability is just $9.95 per month – Skype rocks!

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Creating a LAN/Network and Playing Games via the Internet

Monday, April 28th, 2008

Ever wanted to play a game against a friend on the other side of the world, but the game only offers multiplayer support for a direct Local Area Connection (LAN) between the computers?

Ever wanted to share files like you would between connected computers in your own home, but do it with computers connected on the internet miles apart?

Well… I have the answer – and to my surprise – it is absolutely free! (The version of Hamachi – the utility you will be using – that is needed, is free).

I have tried and tested this with Command & Conquer 3, playing via ‘Network’ in the game’s menu. I am in Chicago, USA and my brother is in England, UK. The performance was excellent!

1. Go to the LogMeIn Web site and download Hamachi.
2. Install with all the (currently, anyway) default options onto all the machines you want to connect. Select the Free/Basic version, but if you have the money you can buy the higher version to help support the development team.
3. Run Hamachi on the machine that will be most often hosting games. It is best to use the fastest/best machine as the host.
4a. You can do the tutorial where you join their test network if you want to.
4b. Create a network on the machine that will be hosting the game most often. Make a note of the name of the network and it’s password. Make sure the network is active and minimise Hamachi (You should get three green icons in the taskbar when the Network is active).
5. Run Hamachi on all the client machines (all the machines you installed Hamachi on that are not the host machine you just setup).
6. Click Create or Join Networks and enter the name and password of the Network you created on the host machine.
7. Everything ’should’ be automatically setup by Windows. On Vista you will get an option of whether you want the Network to be Public or Private, select Private.
8. Run your game on the host, select LAN/Network game and create a game.
9. Run your game on the clients, select LAN/Network game and you should, I hope, be able to see the game listed – join it.

There, wasn’t that simple?

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How Politics Works in the UK – a Modern-Media Dictatorship

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

1. The population votes. Based on how the press have reported incidents, the population will vote according to which newspaper they read or which news station they watch. The agenda that the newspaper/station has will have warped the mind of the voter and will dictate which way they vote.
2. Someone will win the election and take power.
3a. The press will gradually begin to chip away at the person they brought into power, reporting incidents with obvious bias that goes unnoticed by the general public, who begin to grow disheartened with the person they voted into office.
3b. Other members of the press, seeing that they need to join the negative newsmongers in order to sell a greater number of newspapers, will join the bias reporting seen by those in step 3a.
4. The public begin to react negatively to unimportant but negative news. All of the press within the nation will now be openly attacking whoever the public voted into office and the public will be mirroring what they have been shown. The public will even be seeing positive actions taken by the Politicians as negative, such as if the Politician donates money to Africa (that is bad – apparently), rather than ’sorting out their own country.’ The public, of course, fail to realise that it is they who are responsible for breakdowns in society, not the Politicians.
5. A leadership contest will be raised. The press will begin to report that the leadership of the political party is beginning to come into question, this will eventually bring about a change of leadership (which is what the press want, so they can move onto somebody else and repeat steps 3a, 3b, 4 and 5).
6. A general election will take place. The negative publicity and feeling generated by how the press have reported incidents will now lead to a change in the party that holds office. This may not happen at the first general election to come along, but eventually the entire population will have been twisted enough by a barrage of bias reporting that it will do.
7. Go to step 1.

My motivation for this post comes from a number of recent articles I have seen on the Sky News Web site.

Firstly, there was an article that mentioned how Gordon Brown had been on ‘Idol Gives Back’ to say to the American people how the British Government were going to give Mosquito nets to Africa. Judging from both the article and the comments made by the British public, you’d think this was a bad thing! People were outraged at how Brown has been on a gameshow to say this, they were saying how he should be sorting out the UK before he goes and tells the world how he’s helping Africa. I’ll just say that ‘Idol Gives Back’ isn’t a gameshow, it’s a charity TV show, similar to ‘Children in Need’ in the UK. It is designed to help American and African children, with most of the funds raised going to Save the Children. Second, how DARE you be so shallow as to deny people the right to a mosquito net!? I am so ashamed to be British because of you.

Secondly, there was an article that mentioned how the Pope’s visit to the USA was overshadowing Gordon Brown’s and how nobody in the United States even knew he was here. Well, the funny thing here is, Sky (or ‘News Corporation’) owns FOX, FOX32 here in Chicago said in their news that Gordon Brown was here – so actually, any American who watches the news – news from the same people who bring us Sky News, no less – would actually know. Idiots. This is just Sky News trying to get the UK a new Prime Minister, don’t be brain-washed by it, for your own sake.

Thirdly, the British population has completely lost it’s sense of right and wrong. All you have to do to be thoroughly ashamed to be British is read the comments to this article about the extraordinarily-evil Robert Mugabe and his pseudo-dictatorship in Zimbabwe, and how Gordon Brown is threatening “decisive action” – apparently yet again Gordon Brown should be sorting out the UK first!

Again, I’ll say it: Britain – Do some parenting. Work yourselves out of the social slump you have fallen into where youths think it is OK to beat a man to death, where under-age drinking is rampant and where society resembles some of the more brutal scenes from Clockwork Orange. The Politicians did not put society where it is, they gave you all a free ride, they gave you all free healthcare and they gave you all one of the most supportive social security benefit systems in the world – and what did you do with it? You sat at home, didn’t work, had too many kids and brought them all up badly, turning them into the monsters they are today.

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It’s my 1st Wedding Anniversary Today!

Friday, April 11th, 2008

The last year has been both good and bad. The great thing is that none of the bad has come from being Married or from anything to do with my relationship with my wife. I Love Sheila and she makes me very happy! It’s good in a way that the bad parts of the last year have, annoyingly, all come from going through the U.S. Immigration process.

The great thing for Sheila and I is that we told each other everything – we haven’t had a single ‘uncomfortable’ conversation about each other’s past or any of that stuff. We’re very open on everything and this allows us to never really have any arguments (which always seem to spring from someone not telling someone else something they should have). We’re also very good at compromising and as far as I can remember, have never argued over a choice we had to make. I don’t actually think we’ve ever had a fight yet – sure, we have been upset with each other 4 or 5 times in the last year, but that’s it – and the good thing about those times was that we ended up just feeling bad about upsetting the other person!

One of the most difficult things for me personally has been U.S. Immigration forcing me to stay in the United States while I am being processed (if I leave, I won’t be able to be with my wife probably for a couple of years). This means I haven’t seen my family (in the UK) face-to-face for fifteen months and this has been the hardest thing I have had to cope with.

Just recently we decided that we will never have a Wedding. We had planned to be through Immigration last year and be on with our lives soon enough to have a Wedding ceremony on our 1st Anniversary (last year we got Married in a Courthouse with just Sheila’s parents present – the entire ceremony took just over 1 minute – we taped it). U.S. Immigration ruined our opportunity for this as we now feel that the moment has passed and it now just would not feel right to have a Wedding ceremony.

Any money we would have spent on a Wedding, we’re going to put into either a house, or travelling around a bit once I’m ‘released’. Of course this means we’re losing out in a lot of things that come with the whole ‘Wedding experience’. No money to start our life in the form of gifts, no honeymoon (we didn’t go anywhere in the last year – we’ve had absolutely no celebration of Marriage except going out for a meal with a few friends the day after our Marriage last year), no big gathering of family and friends, nothing. My family in the UK haven’t even met my wife or her family…

I would like to thank anyone who gave a gift for the Wedding Shower we hastily arranged prior to the Marriage last year – you should have all gotten thank you cards I hope!

Immigration is a necessary evil and I totally accept it however much it might mess up our early life together. The hardship and poor lifestyle we’ve had to live for the last year has really given us a lesson we’ll never forget. We appreciate the value of money more than probably anyone else I know.

While I am on the money issue, I have to say thank you to our Landlord. He has accepted over the last year what our position has been and has accepted late payment of rent quite a few times when we had to push-back payments for a month (usually every three months).

So, where are we now? We’re in the same position we were a full year ago. We’re poor as hell, we can’t do anything about it and we’re trapped until Immigration decide. They refused us once because of a very silly error (we mailed forms in the ‘wrong order’) and I’m pretty sure that they can refuse us again if they feel like it. With no end in sight, it’s very hard to stay motivated, but with a supportive wife I find that when I feel down – she’s there for me, when she feels down – I’m there for her. Hopefully with an Immigration Interview scheduled for April 22nd (something we didn’t even get offered last time), we’ll be able to see an end to the madness after that! Our attorney was very positive about it!

Also in the last year, Sheila lost her grandmother. I got to meet a huge amount of the extended family and was made to feel oh-so-welcome at the funeral. I am very pleased that I was able to be here for Sheila when she needed me and I’m so happy that her grandmother got to meet me and approved of me. The night she passed I had given her a hug and got a kiss on the cheek from her as we left Sheila’s parents, Sheila was sick and didn’t hug her… The next day when Sheila realized this, I told her to kiss my cheek as I hadn’t washed it yet… That is a really emotional memory.

Sheila’s sister also went in for surgery on her brain in the last couple of weeks and that was really scary, she seems to be doing OK for the moment, but the worrying continues…

Anyway, it’s been an interesting year full of trials of one sort or another. The great thing that I hold onto every day is that one thing that seems rock-solid is the quality of our relationship… Everything else doesn’t ruin that.

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Is a fear of God a requirement for good society?

Saturday, March 22nd, 2008

Throughout history there has always been a fear of someone, something. The Romans were smart enough to assimilate local Gods into their society as they conquered foreign lands… The ancient Egyptians had 2000 years of unchallenged rule because the Kings were considered to be Gods on earth… Throughout history one of the major reasons for being good was for the returns you would receive in your life, and afterlife, from God.

As someone who isn’t religious, I can recognize the requirement for religion in uncivilized society. There can be no greater deterrent than a possible punishment from a power you, as a human, could not comprehend or avoid. I also recognize that in this day and age there are not many truly religious individuals in the western world, and the western world suffers from a youth culture that seems to think nothing about bullying, drug taking and even killings. Recent news in the UK is littered with young adults or children that seem to have a total lack of control and while I consider that with lack of religion these people lack fear of God, they also lack fear of their parents in most cases.

I know right from wrong, and I’m not religious. So what went right with me? Good parenting perhaps?

In the United States, where religion still holds strong – much stronger than the UK – I don’t see the type of youth problems I see in the UK. You can drive through any town there and see it, here – I am yet to see the ‘Yobbish Youth’.

Of course, America has it’s own issues such as Gangs, but I believe the causes here are poverty, where badly educated individuals feel that joining a gang is the way to become richer than those who do not, where they think they’ll be able to get what they want out of life or have power over those who are around them.

So, what do you think? Fear of Prison doesn’t seem to deter bad behavior anymore – are we missing God, or are we missing good parenting?

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Gun Laws

Tuesday, March 18th, 2008

For the first time in nearly 70 years, the U.S. Supreme Court is trying to decide whether this text from the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is true, or – like I believe – just words of a different age:

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

I feel the need to point out that I am from the UK, where gun laws are very different – yet strangely I feel we’re more free there (being free also from the fear of being shot at by a gun-wielding maniac).

We have the same people in the UK with the same problems. We have kids who leave notes saying they wanted to ‘go out in style’ – but without a gun they do not manage to take as many – or usually any – others with them.

We have an illegal gun problem, yes, but this pales into almost insignificance in comparison to the seemingly ‘open to all’ laws in the United States. In the UK, you can walk almost anywhere – anywhere – without fear of a gun. Our maniacs carry knives usually and while this may appear bad – they at least have to get within a range of a few feet to kill somebody. The best defense is distance and that is one that a gun provides you with.

I sincerely hope that the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington will modify the law in that state, because when they do this will eventually filter out to other states and the U.S. will finally advance from the words laid down a couple of hundred years ago, by men of a different age. You cannot live by guidelines set down so long ago and expect people’s lives to remain civilized.

I should add, perhaps, that I am not against people owning guns in the way that you might think. But nobody – nobody – needs to own a handgun or an automatic weapon (basically any weapon that is purely designed in this day and age for person to person shooting). In my opinion, if you want a gun, you buy one – you then register at a local gun club and they hold your gun, the bullets and the paper targets (the only thing you should be shooting at).

There are exceptions, of course. I have no issues with the Police being armed (though in the UK, they are not) and I have no problems with Farmers (for example, who have a large amount of land or animals they might need to defend from other animals) from having something similar to a Shotgun – which is all they’d need.

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