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| The renovated building across the street seems to have all the new plumbing (converting from office space to hotel, which needs more bathrooms and plumbing) and now they are installing the new exterior as shown above and here. |
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| Here is Muhammad visiting our Portland office. I had first met Muhammad a couple of years ago in San Carlos, but he had left the company during the second wave of people leaving after the merger of @Once.com with Yesmail.com. At first there were large scale lay offs within @Once.com, but then the @Once.com executives were able to call attention problems with Yesmail.com and then all the executives from Yesmail.com were let go with Tal being the last. After that a lot of other people (including Muhammad) left the company from the San Carlos office. However, Muhammad came back as what seems to be the fourth director in the area that Tal once led. By IBMs old standard in the development labs, Tal would have been a manager (not executive or director) and the current four directors would be team leads, but Yesmail.com is a much smaller company. |
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| There has been a third wave of departures, this time within the old CSEs in Portland. First it was Richard, then Candi, Eugene, Guy (a new addition to our production support group from Chicago, I never met him in person), and Doug (from the old web development group), and myself as of Oct 1, 2008. All were fired except Ricahrd and Doug who left for better opportunities as they wouldn't let him move to mainstream java development. Only Jim has been able to hang on and has transferred so that he now works for Muhammad. Here is the Washington WorkSource where I went to file for unemployment. It turns out that as I worked in Portland, I have to apply in Oregon (at least for now). I expect to contest whether my separation was voluntary or involuntary. While the formal disagreement was the elimination of the ability to work from home which I stated I could not abide by as I am a single guy and have no alternative in case I need to meet the cable guy or whatever. For the entire time I worked for Yesmail.com, one day of work from home every two weeks was the documented (email) policy for the department. Further, I have been able to work from home on occasion since 1980. There is also the fact that all the departures coincided with the shut down of the old @Once.com Jaguar system (formally turned off on July 1, 2008, but wound down over the year before that) and the addition of now eight or so 'off-shore' CSEs in India. Sounds more like they are laying people off as they are no longer needed / too expensive, which is fine. However, they ought to be honest about it and let people get unemployment as appropriate under the circumstances. |
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| At the Restore, Darin (the previous store manager) had gone back to doing construction and Eben is replacing him and Molly is headed off to Colorado (we will miss her) and they are opening a new store in Vancouver. Here are the current staff, Tess, Jane, Eben, Joe, and Molly. |
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| On October 11, 2008, Joellen, Rick, and myself ran a yoga meditation program at Snake River Correctional Institute shown here and below. It is the largest prison in Oregon with over 100 acres under roof (wow) and 3,000 in-mates. OSP is the only maximum security prison (with 20 foot concrete walls), and so Snake River only has fences (with lots of concertina wire), but I imagine that in its current location (surrounded by farms) it is just as secure. There are a lot of students on the meditation course sent through the mail at Snake River, but they are on the far side of Oregon, about a seven hour drive from Portland. So, it is hard to put on frequent programs, but there are two Hatha Yoga instructors, John and Susan, in the area who do a regular program there. We were able to visit their program Friday evening and then they helped with our program on Saturday, doing a Hatha Yoga stretching section as a break in the two three hours sessions we had. We were able to stay with Susan Friday and Saturday night. Her house is also shown below. It is a lovely house just across the border in Fruitland, Idaho. |
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| At Snake River, they have a new chaplain, Trime. She is from the Shambala Buddhist tradition and is quite supportive of Eastern traditions. Here is a picture of her with Susan. Trime arranged to have a picture made of the group at a break in the afternoon. The pictures are shown below. We held the program in the gym, but they brought in cushions and chairs (we did an inner circle of cushions) in a semi-circle around the puja and video projector. Below are pictures of the whole gang (me too, I am in the red jacket) taken during the afternoon break by a prisoner not in the program. |
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| Saturday was also Susan's birthday. Above is a picture of Rick and Susan as they were cutting her birthday cake. John's wife, Jane, had made the cake and we visited with them on Saturday evening. Jane and John are also shown above. Along with teaching Hatha Yoga classes, John does a kind of therapy to help people relax their tensions. Here he is helping Susan with a sore shoulder she has had for years. Wouldn't it be cool if it cleared up. |
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This page was last updated on March 18, 2009.
