Karma David Dharma Digest

Skinny Pants

2006-09-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

We went shopping today at the old Marshall Fields/Macy's. All of the men's fashions are starting to trend toward skinny pants: straight legs and tight. I don't like this fashion trend and I am one of the few people who look good in skinny pants. I just think a little flair makes everyone look and feel a little better. After all would you rather be discoing to the Bee-gees or headbanging to Quiet Riot. I think it is an easy choice.

Indiana Visit

2006-09-19T07:20:00.000-07:00

We took Lily to Indiana this weekend. My parents were visiting a friend in Anderson and we invited ourselves there to see them. Their friends were very gracious and they had a big house. They also had a lot of knick-knacks which Lily helped them rearrange without their knowledge. It was a short visit though. We came back Sunday and put Lily to bed early.

One more week of freedom!!

Job Found

2006-09-19T07:17:00.000-07:00

I have finally found a job. I will be working as a product manager at a futures exchange here in Chicago. The nice part is we won't have to move and can continue helping Chicago KTC with its renovation. A big thanks for everyone's support over the last few months. I hope I still have some time to blog once things get crazy.

Getting Going . . . .Finally!

2006-09-06T06:40:00.000-07:00

I talked with a friend last week at DePaul who asked me to help with some projects and a grant. I agreed and got a visiting scholar appointment with the Computer, Technology and Information Systems Center (CTI). They felt I could get some money and maybe even a professorship in due time.

However, I am forgoing the academic life if the next event goes to fruition. An old boss called me and we chatted about the small financial company he is the CEO of. He is looking for people to develop products since both of his product developers left after an aquisition. Mostly he needs someone to see the new products through the IT integration for which I have plenty of skills. They are also going to train me in the business so I can move out of IT forever. The pay is full professor pay at a major research college with stock options and other benefits. Now I just need to get the approval of the management team which should happen later this week or early the next.

The KTC board is still trying to decide whether or not to buy an entire new set of doors for the shrines changed dimensions. It will cost another ~$1500. We shall see what they decide.

The Highly Employable Unemployed

2006-08-30T06:30:00.000-07:00

The graduation was a lot of fun. The dean of each school got up to ask that the president grant us the degree, then the president of the university welcomed us into "the circle of scholars!" You can't make this up. As a fellow PhD. pointed out, it gets a little mean inside of the circle!

So now I am looking for a job. The strange thing is I can't find one! The division of labor has gotten so intense that by getting a PhD in Chemistry most employers don't want you unless they need a Chemistry PhD, which no one does. However, the September hiring season will be fast upon us so things may change. In the meantime I am going to do a little work with people at DePaul to pass the days. Maybe get some income with it???

Going out to play with Lily today while B does some of her final chores at UC.

Grandparents and Graduation

2006-08-25T05:55:00.000-07:00

Having coffee awaiting my graduation this afternoon. Lily is watching TV with her grandpa (who is reading instead of enjoying Arthur.) Yes, Lily has her grandma and grandpa this weekend and loving it. They have already been to the park twice. Needless to say Lily is bossing them around and showing them all of the fun stuff to do in Chicago. Parks, grocery stores, toys, dancing. Its a party here!

Also turns out my brother in Florida had made separate plans to be in Chicago today as well. Luckily a friend didn't need all of his graduation tickets so I get get him and his girlfriend in.

Houston, "We Have Rupas!"

2006-08-14T09:33:00.000-07:00

We opened the boxes with rupas at KTC yesterday. How beautiful! Really breathtaking! We all just sat around in awe of the beauty and joy they brought into the shrineroom. The bad news is the shrine cubbies are too small for them to fit, so the shrinebuilders need to rework the upper part of the shrine. It's too bad, but they took it in stride.

Sent in my resume to a not-for-profit ecological research consortium to project manage the construction of a nationwide network of facilities which will monitor the US ecology. It seems like a fun opportunity and I hope I get a call back.

Early Morning Drive In

2006-08-11T05:48:00.000-07:00

We got back to Chicago about 3am CST with Lily having been the only one to catch a wink of sleep. We are recovering nicely. We did the circuit through KTD and Karme Ling to see Bardor Tulku and wife, as well as Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche and the old Chicago KTC directors crew now living at Karme Ling. We were able to pick up the statues for the new KTC shrine, but we had to take B's mom's truck to haul them. So we are going to be SUV drivers for the next couple of months.

The new KTC website is up and it looks great. There is even a little photo gallery which I hope blossoms into more later. I still need to write more content, but the papers need to come first right now.

I got a call from a headhunter with a job on an energy desk. Sounds exciting. It is with one of the biggest hedge funds in America and I hope it works out. My advisor wants me to go to one of the national labs for more science research. To be honest, I would probably go the national lab route if I were single. New Mexico is a lot of fun and I wouldn't need the money. However, I think trading desk work would be a lot more interesting from a work point of view.

Kayaki in Nick's Lake

2006-08-06T06:52:00.000-07:00

We went to Nick's Lake in the Adirondaks yesterday. They had a small swimming area (very small) for kids and a beach. Ah-ma also rented a kayak (or a kayaki as she calls it) for us to tour the lake it. I spent the whole day touring the rest of the family around the lake. Very beautiful area. Lily spent the day wading and playing with sand, but she did come out in the boat with us for a little while. I think she had fun, but she is so careful it was also a little stressful for her. Of course she was asleep before we even returned the kayaking equiptment.

Visiting the In-laws

2006-08-04T06:52:00.000-07:00

We are in Utica visiting B's family. Lily couldn't be more excited. There are so many toys around this house which her grandparents likely think of as their possessions. To B's parents great credit they are happy to see Lily play with any of it. Their neighbors have put in an above ground pool which Lily doesn't allow anyone to even walk past because she finds it so scary. So instead of using their pool we bought her a little inflatable pool with plastic fish and a plastic fishing pole. The only trouble is Lily thinks swimming is best done when naked. This doesn't bother us so much as she always spends most of her day without clothes. B's parents on the other hand worry their neighbors will see a naked three year old and be embarrassed.

I came across a post-doc job at IBM which looks interesting. I have little hope of getting it however and it doesn't pay as well as quant jobs but I applied anyway. Hopefully I will have some income in the fall no matter.

Raising the Shrine

2006-07-31T16:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we raised the top shrine cabinet on to its completed base. It was a community effort involving over 15 members and guests at KTC. It was almost perfect except the top didn't quite line up with the base because we accidentally moved a board which aligned the two during the move. Don, in his woodworking genuis, decided to add a bit of trim to hide the misalignment. Now you can't even tell we intended something different. A big thanks to everyone for their help!

Very hot in Chicago today. We went to Devon street to pick up Kusha grass brooms to offer Karme Ling when we visit them next week. Too hot to hang out so we took Lily to a water park. We didn't have a bathing suit and she found running around in her wet underwear uncomfortable so we didn't stay long. Now we are getting ready for the drive to B's parents place in Utica, NY. Driving all night. Kind of tiring, but cooler than a daytime ride.

My Confession

2006-07-27T15:19:00.000-07:00

Lily came down with a little flu today. She is sleeping a lot more than usual. I have to confess I rather enjoy it when she is sick. She is more willing to crawl in my arms and fall asleep while I hold her. It is one of those grown-up pleasures you never learn about when you are young. I think alcoholics would give up their addiction if they knew the pleasure of their sick child sleeping in their arms. So for now, my life has a little more bliss.

Also, my thesis was signed by the department chairman and submitted to the dissertation office today. A minor bureaucratic step, but in means the degree is over, which also makes me happy.

Thanks goodness for little pleasures. The big ones are too rare and often not as good as you hope.

Working (way too much)

2006-07-26T07:08:00.000-07:00

I have been redoing graphics and formatting during the day while I do consulting work at night. Sadly, I haven't had much time to spend with Lily and when I do I can't help thinking about all of the work ahead of me. She went to the water park yesterday and after some initial resistence finally took off her clothes and jumped in. She didn't want to come home.

Also, I need to work on the KTC website some more. I need to add an Introduction to Buddhism section. Just need more time.

Gardening

2006-07-24T06:43:00.000-07:00

We got a chance to garden yesterday at KTC. Mary and Barbara were both busy in the yard by the time we stuck our heads outside. Barb wanted to build a raised flower plot against the wall, so we took the cement pieces which made up the "mound" in the middle of the yard to build it. Thank goodness! That pile of cement was such an eye sore. It will take a few weeks before we can plant flowers and make the well-ordered pile of cement look nice, but it is a start.

Lily is naked today. (B points out, "as she is everyday!") She had fun at a friends house yesterday. They had a lot of toys, but sadly the little boy her age wasn't feeling well and he only wanted to watch Dora. They did manage to have an argument over whether a particular cartoon animal was a horse or a pony. Her friend made the sutble note that Dora was riding a pony. Lily corrected her politely that it was, in fact, a horse. He friend looked at her and responsed "It's a pony." Lily: "No it's a horse." "It's a pony." It's a horse." You get the idea. No being able to resist adding chaos to the situation I offered, "Hey, look it's a mule." They looked at me crossly and resumed, "It's a pony." . . . .

One piece of the bikini at a time . . .

2006-07-22T05:34:00.000-07:00

I had some fun working on the new Chicago KTC web site with an anonymous web designer. Mostly sending him text about the practices we do every week. We are trying to create a more content rich site and thus up our "PR" number. It is good we have time over the summer to invest in this.

Still no idea if we are moving away yet. I got a call from a headhunter yesterday but she was clearly a newbie. We chatted about school a little. She sounded a little uninterested and got off the phone. She did say July and August were terrible months to look for a job. Good excuse to party a little longer!

Lily is finally out of the bikini, but we had to do it in stages. We never made it to the beach, but B took her to a local water park in which the water had been turned off. (It is a public park so it will probably take a year to get it back on again!) So Lily was a little cranky about not being able to get wet in her suit. We offered her a watermelon dress and she gave up the top for it. The bottom was loss to a nightly constitutional. Now we are back to having a mostly naked three year-old around the house!

First Blog and Mantras

2006-07-21T09:37:00.000-07:00

Chicago KTC posted over 814,000 karmapa khyenno mantras to the BMI through khandro.net. Very appreciative of everyone who participated. B, Lily and I are still planning a trip east in a few weeks. Hope we can stop by Karma Ling and KTD while we are there. See Bardor Tulku and visit friends.

B got Lily a new two-piece swim swin suit yesterday and she hasn't taken it off since. She slept in it last night and this morning she laid out a beach towel (hello kitty) on the floor and is playing with a sand bucket. I think we need to take her to the beach today!

For work I still have to correct the thesis formatting, write some publications and get a job. The job market is a little soft in the summer, so we might need to wait till fall. Good news is B thinks she will remain employed through September. Gives us to extra time to search, make up our minds and generally goof-off!