Steaming Turd

Having been asked by Katie Couric four times concerning his stance on the success or failure of the troop surge in Iraq, Obama explained thusly:

Katie, I have no idea what would have happened had we applied my approach, which was to put more pressure on the Iraqis to arrive at a political reconciliation.

Really? No idea?

Maybe that’s oddly appropriate, coming from someone who’s asking Americans to embrace “change” by choosing the devil they don’t know.

Due to an increasing number of spambots trying to register for my weblog, I am closing registrations. You can still register to post comments here, but you will need to send me an e-mail first. Folks who have already registered can continue logging in to post comments here as they have in the past.

Don’t know my e-mail address? Then you’re not invited. Sorry.

Today went well. Not a lot of exciting stuff to report, though - it was mostly orientation/HR stuff.

I’m not going to go through all the stuff we were told today during orientation. Most of it was pretty boring. What I found somewhat interesting, though, is the rules of ethics that are placed upon federal employees generally and USPTO employees (and patent examiners) specifically.

Here are some examples of things we can’t do. Many of them violate regulations, but many others are actually illegal.

• Give gifts to our bosses worth more than $10 (with some sundry exceptions)
• Petition/lobby a federal employee on behalf of a third party, meaning, for example, that I couldn’t assist a friend with an audit if they got audited by the IRS
• Solicit donations for political candidates, though I can stump for the political candidates themselves as long as I’m not at work and I can personally donate to political campaigns
• Use my official job title in a capacity other than that of my job
• Own an interest or be the assignee of any patent or trademark

The last one is probably the biggest caveat for people I know who might be thinking of working for the USPTO. I know at least a few people who hold an interest in a patent or three, and they would be required to assign their interest in the patent to someone else before starting work at the USPTO.

Also, today we were told that we wouldn’t be handling “live” patent applications at all for the next two months. It’s pure training for that length of time, and after that, we start actually examining patents.

Oh, one other thing: We took the oath of office today. The exact same oath is taken by every federal employee*, from Senators, Representatives, the Vice President, Cabinet members, and Supreme Court Justices, down to the lowliest patent examiner. It may sound familiar to some of you:

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

* The only federal employee taking a different oath is the President, whose oath is specified explicitly in the Constitution.

Tomorrow’s my first day of work at the USPTO. Currently, I don’t expect a whole lot to happen - mainly just filling out forms, which was what happened to this guy on his first day. Actually, we’re supposed to have these forms already filled out, which, for the most part, I do, but apparently, lots of people are doin’ it wrong, so they save the whole day for that and some other sleep-assistive orientation stuff.

I’ve seen the USPTO from about a block away, since that’s where the VRE and Metro stops are. It’s a new facility, constructed recently enough that Google Maps still shows a big dirt field. The headquarters used to be in the Arlington/Crystal City area, but they moved it in 2006.

This week and next are normal eight-hour days (plus a half hour lunch), five days a week. After that, it’s six weeks of the “5/4/9″ schedule, which means a five day week and a four day week every fortnight (they call them “biweeks”… pffft) working nine hours a day. And after that, most of the lectures will be done, and it’ll be more sporadic stuff from then until the end of the eight-month training academy, which means that as long as I work my 80 hours a fortnight, my schedule is somewhat flexible (actually, the VRE schedule is what will demand my early rise every day, rather than the USPTO).

Speaking of which, I’ve been in intensive training over the past few weeks to ensure that I can actually wake up repeatably at 5:30 or 6am. Left to my own devices, my sleep schedule will make itself later and later, until I’m going to bed sometime between 4am and 8am, so I have been especially diligent the past few weeks in going to bed at my “bedtime” of 9:30-10:30pm. It’s been mostly successful, although I have to try extra hard not to take naps in the afternoon (especially since there will be no napping on the job). I think not having a TV available has helped a lot.

Anyway, I’ll keep folks posted on how it goes.

Now that I live in the Greater DC area, I figured it was appropriate necessary for me to visit the touristy parts of our nation’s capital during my spare time before I start work next week. So, I hopped a train, and then hopped the metro, into DC. Here’s what I learned (well, at least some of it):

• One day is only enough time to see a mere fraction of what the National Mall has to offer.
• Corollary 1: Since you’re going to have to go there more than once to see everything, you might as well not do all the outdoor stuff all on the same day.
• Corollary 2: Don’t forget the sunscreen, especially if you decide to do all the outdoor stuff on the same day.
• The Capitol, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and the World War II Memorial all totally rock. (And they’re mostly made of rock, for that matter.)
• The sign for the IRS building has the word “Visitors” with an arrow pointing toward one entrance. Irony, perhaps?
• Yes, there really are snipers on top of buildings when Marine One lands at the White House.
• As Terence mentioned previously*, the Spy Museum is way cool, even though it’s not free.

* There would be a link to Terence’s post about that, but I couldn’t find it.

I’ll probably head back in on Friday to see the fireworks. I can only imagine what fireworks with the full force of the United States budget behind it would look like. (Okay, that’s not actually true, as I’m pretty sure I have seen them on TV.)

Edit: Looked like rain on Friday evening, so I stayed home and watched the celebration on TV. While it certainly did rain, they had the fireworks anyway. Pretty impressive, though a lot of the celebration goes toward other things throughout the day (including getting the venerable Jerry Lee Lewis to play “Great Balls of Fire” to kick off the fireworks). Maybe next year

The Wall Street Journal reports that people in the United States have given over $300 billion in charitable donations in 2007.

A quick look at the Oracle of All Knowledge indicates that this makes Americans’ charitable giving equivalent to the 29th highest national GDP in the world. (It’s also roughly $1000 in charitable donations per capita, which makes our charitable giving equivalent to the 120th or 130th highest GDP per capita in the world, depending on whom you ask.)

As part of my employment at the USPTO, I have to go through a background check. The form (SF-85P, Questionnaire for Public Trust Positions, not to be confused with SF-86 for National Security positions) is now filled out online (apparently, it was already a hugely cumbersome form before, so now that it’s online it should be a lot easier).

One of the first things you have to do is set up “golden questions”. These are three questions about yourself that you would know the answers to, but that someone who doesn’t know you really well wouldn’t. You can choose any three questions and appropriate answers that you want.

I’m at that screen right now, and you wouldn’t believe how difficult it is not to put these in:

• What is your name?
• What is your quest?
• What is your favorite color?

Ground beef in Cleveland, Ohio: $2.19 per pound

Ground beef in Burke, Virginia: $3.69 per pound

Ground beef in Burke with one of those stupid “track everything you buy for marketing purposes” cards: $1.99 per pound

Somehow I feel ripped off.

Several days ago, I posted a contest to guess how many Arizona iced tea bottles I had hoarded in my old apartment. Well, I’m sure you’re all anxiously awaiting the answer:

736.

Yes, that was a lot of bottles, but I managed to get them all carried to the recycling bin in only two trips in the car. I had initially feared that it would be a tremendous hassle taking care of them, and since I got rid of them fairly early on in the moving process, it did seem like a big hassle at the time. But after carrying the stuff I kept up two flights of stairs (as opposed to, and in addition to, down one flight), taking care of the bottles was a cinch.

Not that I plan on doing that again anytime soon, mind you.

Anyway, there were four people who entered the “contest”, and there are two ways of determining a winner. One is “Price is Right” rules, in which case Marcus! wins with his guess in the 400s. The other way is “whoever’s closest” rules, in which case Jill was extremely close - perhaps even psychic - with her guess of 748. Congrats to both! Don Pardo, tell them what they’ve won!

My mind to your mind… my thoughts to your thoughts…

(AP photo, seen and deep-linked from here).