Well, You Already Know Oprah's Favorite Things
No, I haven't bought "a brand new car". It probably doesn't surprise anyone that I, a professional DBA, have 5 functional PC's and 4 multi-terabyte hard drives (most recently Best Buy had a 4 TB external USB drive, plus a bonus flash drive, on sale for under $90, including shipping, before tax) . I also have a number of flash drives with a cluster of portable applications installed, not to mention a couple of cloud backup services. I also have an Amazon Fire stick and Chromecast, a Fire tablet, and Echo Dot. In the case of the latter products, they were more impulse purchases without my having a specific need in mind. In practice, I use Chromecast for displaying content, like my movies licensed/purchased from Google (available for viewing through HP), on my flat screen DV. Amazon's devices are integrated with bundled content from my Prime membership, which includes music and video content. I can also check for all my Kindle library and latest stories from my WashPo subscription. (Keep in mind I can do related stuff on my PC and/or Android phone, but it's fairly easy to carrying my Fire tablet in my jeans pocket to the laundromat.)But while I carried multiple USB power banks, cellphone cables and USB power outlets during my recent holiday trip to Texas, I forgot to bring one essential--earbuds. So my flight from Atlanta was the first one where there is a video screen embedded in the seat ahead of you, which means you could actually select preferred content, which might be anything from watching Fox News to watching popular sitcom episodes. Now I can recall, at least as early as 1979, airline supplied headphones which could plug into an audio jack; I'm not sure when airlines stopped supplying headphones, but I couldn't find one, and it looked like other passengers had brought their own earbuds. I just never had gotten the message. So I watched episodes of "Big Bang Theory" without audio...
No, of course, I don't need 5 PC's, but around the end of 2013 I had a notebook on its last legs with its hard drive in failing status. I bought a cheap desktop as a backup; for some reason when I moved to WV, my mover helpers buried it in my storage unit. I bought a new notebook PC when my old notebook didn't survive the move. When I moved to South Carolina, I specifically had them deliver the desktop to the apartment--but apparently the cold weather had taken its toll, and I couldn't get it to start up. So this time I bought an inexpensive ASUS laptop. At some point, just before junking the desktop, I managed to coax it back to life.
When I moved to Arizona, I brought the two laptops on my drive (my household goods were being shipped via my employer's contracted vendor--and ran into an unbelievable streak of bad luck. I had my primary notebook in its bag on the floor of the passenger side. I had a tall soft drink cup in the cup holder, and I swear it toppled over my very first turn, before I ever got to the Interstate. Now I've had a streak of bizarre coffee and other fatal spill mishaps over the years. I thought the laptop bag would protect it. Nope. When I checked into an Alabama hotel that night, it was dead. The following evening just west of Ft. Worth, I had booted up the ASUS and was attaching my external hard drive, when the screen went black. At first I thought it was a screensaver, but no: I couldn't boot up the PC. That may be a world record: losing two laptops in 24 hours.
The desktop was still in transit (and would be for 2 weeks), so the first thing I did after checking into temporary housing in Arizona was buy a new laptop at Walmart. That has remained my workhorse PC for 2.5 years. Months later, once again on the edge of junking my two laptops (it turned out my ASUS had just gone out of warranty, and they wanted to charge me more than the original cost of the laptop to repair it--no way, Jose. I made a mental note to never buy ASUS again), I saw a flicker of life in my HP (the battery remains dead) and managed to nurse it to usable status. More out of curiosity, I checked the ASUS and eventually got flash of light out of it, to my astonishment. It took another 15-20 minutes of nursing that flicker into getting the PC to boot up.
My most recent purchase, one of those fusion notebook/tablets (a third HP), will likely transition to my new workhouse (with more hard drive storage, faster processors, USB 3.0 ports, etc). Of course, it takes some effort to maintain updated applications and security and Windows software on 5 PC's.
Then there was the Garmin missing after my uncle's funeral this past summer (yes, I'm aware of Google Maps available via my smartphone, and I've used that multiple times). There are a number features I like, such as the ability to locate nearby gas stations and restaurants in less familiar areas. But I didn't put it in the usual places when I got home. Did I drop it on the way from my car? So I ended up buying a newer model. I was doing a little housecleaning recently and found it, oddly enough, in an old prescription bag.
My Amazon Echo Dot, with its Alexa voice recognition interface, is a favorite. I'm routinely asking Alexa for the weather forecast, to time the meat I'm grilling on my Foreman grill, or check on the news headlines. My Prime membership gets me access to thousands of pop hits and other music; however , one irritant is that I've already uncovered is there are dozens of songs I like that are only included with the unlimited (extra cost) service, and Alexa will only play a sample for those. Not to mention I'll often see integration of Alexa actions display on my Fire tablet.
Which brings me to my latest toy: a Google Home Hub. I'm not focusing on smart home device integration and related functionality (for one thing I'm not a homeowner). I likely have just scratched the functionality, but it's similar to Echo Dot integrated with video/image capability. Google supposedly allows you to integrate a slideshow from your Google Photo account, but I find the de facto digital photo viewer integrated with the local/time embedded in the lower left corner a pleasant distraction. Like Amazon, Google is pushing an extra-cost music subscription. To a limited extent, you can ask Google Assistant (Google's voice recognition interface) to locate Youtube videos for an artist, but to give you a sample, when I checked on videos for Billy Joel, it didn't include among its option a video for his hit version of Dylan's "To Make You Feel My Love", which you can easily find online. The integration of Google accounts (other than Photos, which I really haven't used that much) is somewhat disappointing to date; for example, I can't display events on my Google Calendar. And while the interpretation of my English is flawless, throwing in some French words like "tourtiere" confused Google Assistant badly. I asked it to find a recipe for tourtiere. However, rephrasing the query as "French-Canadian pork pie" was a good workaround. Similarly I was dismayed I couldn't play my Google Music licensed content (e.g., Neil Diamond and Kelly Clarkson albums), but I was able to cast my playlist playing in a browser window to my Home Hub.
Contractors and Shutdowns
First of all, you shouldn't generalize from my experience as a government contractor (which I've been doing in probably most of my gigs over the past 20 years, maybe the first 5 or so for local, county or state, the remainder in the federal space or subcontracting for contractors (e.g., for General Dynamics or Booz Allen), not necessarily billable to the government. (For instance, Booz Allen had a data warehouse related to its government work, but that was not a government database.) The conditions for working on a government contractor (maybe even government civilians) vary widelyWhereas the current shutdown doesn't effect my schedule, a delay in getting an interim background investigation delayed my contingent offer/start by 2 months (lost income) and I ended up paying thousands of dollars due to a lease that expired and was renewed in the interim. The next 2 gigs were on expiring contracts. The first one involved a manpower cut to win renewal, The second contract was canceled instead of renewed (despite verbal assurances that meant nothing in the real world.) While I was in WV, I had a contingent offer that depended getting a Q clearance from the Department for Energy for a subcontractor position in PA; the clearance agency was undermanned (like 2 vs 14) and civilian personnel got expedited review. After waiting 5 months, I finally got an offer from South Carolina.
Given the fact that many people would view me as within years of retirement, I don't think the government is going to recruit me. (Of course, some libertarians might raise an eyebrow that I would work indirectly for the government. I have worked for a number of private companies, including Oracle, IBM and Equifax, not to mention my work in Houston, while starting graduate studies there. I think my work history and Sec+ credentials really appealed to government contractors; when I accepted the position in MD, I was also being courted by employers in San Antonio, Virginia Beach, and New Orleans.
It isn't even the lure of a government pension system per se (it's all but certain I'll retire to little more than social security and my retirement savings). But civilians generally don't have to worry about whether they're one contract renewal away from unemployment or, say, taking a 15% pay cut, they have better benefits than almost anyone in comparable work in the private sector. The holidays are attractive, never mind annual vacation. (Now generally IT professionals like myself don't risk getting shot at, but on at least one recent assignment I had to agree to the possibility of wearing protective gear and being flown to isolated sites on short notice.
I remember in 2005, I didn't realize it was MLK Day; usually holidays were discussed at the client site. My bad as I drove the 90 miles down to Lexington Park to find the Navy base gates locked. My employer did not observe MLK Day which meant I had to show up at our headquarters in Laurel (between DC and Baltimore). I never got reimbursed for burning over half a tank of gas.
Many of us work a flex schedule called RDO (9-hour M-Th, with every other Friday off). My employer's policy is 8-hour holidays, which means we have to bill or eat (out of vacation or sick leave hours) the difference. We often have to eat hours caused by weather-related delays or events like government shutdowns. Civilians almost never have to eat hours; even when furloughed during a shutdown, they invariably are promised back pay (as Trump has already done). I am not aware of contractors ever being given the same. I've seen civilians given early release in bad weather and on a number of occasions awarded "59 minutes" the last workday before holidays, i.e., you get credit for working the full hour after working one minute into your final hour.
So when I heard the forecast of snow today, I dreaded a possible delayed opening; so far, so good. Every morning I have to clear my vehicle of snow and chip off the ice, of course, I wish I still lived in my home state of Texas, but I haven't gotten an offer from a Texas employer since 1992.
I'm really not ranting here. My current job is easily better than the last three; the civilians I'm working with and for are among the best, most competent I've ever met in government. I don't know what the other government contractors are going through; maybe they are having to go on unpaid leave. But I understand economic uncertainty.
I have ideological concerns over an unsustainable government, but let's not pretend this fight over spending for a border fence even touches rapidly approaching $1T interest payments crowding out social and defense spending. Everybody is going to have to share in the pain of getting our fiscal house in order.
