Thursday, October 23, 2008

Sharing your information online

This is an opinion article. I would like to say that right up front so that this is not confused with most of the articles that are factual based.

Sharing information about yourself online can be bad and good. If you do a search for me by name or call name, Coffeemann, you will find out a lot about me. The fact of the matter is that you don’t have to put anything online for there to be content on you. The information is there whether you like it or not. A simple search about you can turn up results like where you live, how much you paid for your house, your tax information, where you went to school and where you work. I have heard that complete identities can be bought online for as little as $14. This study had bought the private information to the Speaker of the House in Washington D.C.

One note of caution I would not voluntarily put my Social Security info or your banking info. I would not put my routine down, say like when you are home or at work. I would not say when I was going away on a vacation or be out of town. Once you put information online it will always be online. Even if you take the information down it still is online through sites and services that save that for all infamy. Something else to consider with that in mind is what you say about your employer or other people. This could hurt you later if you apply for another job or if your current boss wants to promote you, only to find out you are talking trash about your boss/employer online.

Wow that is a lot to NOT say, so what can you say then? I don't really care if people know that I don't have any interest in sports. Another good example is I don't mind saying where I went on vacation when I get back. I think it is okay to discuss day to day events like to say that my family went to a birthday party this past weekend. The biggest thing to understand is your information is out there online whether you put anything there or not. By choosing to put content about yourself online you can help control what people see when they do a search for you. You don’t have to so much worry about what they are going to see, you know because you put it there. It is important to search yourself online from time to time to see what others are going to find out about you. I do and because I use the nickname of "coffeemann" on every site for my name there is a plethora of content that I have created.

The only reason not to is fear. I refuse to live in fear in anything that I do. You only fear what you don’t understand so that is the purpose of this site and this article, to help you understand. You can error on the side of caution but you should know that you can truly find out almost anything about a certain individual online if you want to. I hadn't seen my older brother in 17 years and low and behold one day he called me. He found all he needed to find to contact me. So the next time you think it's all bad, remember that it was good to hear him and eventually see him again because of this amazing thing called the internet.

Cooper's Birthday Party

We had a great weekend! We went to Cooper Patterson's birthday party on Saturday. It was awesome. The whole theme of the party was pirates; they had pirate plates, napkins, banners, and an awesome pirate ship cake that looked like a time intensive thing to make. There was a pin the X on the treasure map that was fun as we spun the kids around and around and sent them on a dizzy effort to place it somewhere near the treasure spot on the map. The funniest thing was when my oldest son Logan lifted his eye covering to see where it was and then we spun Chris, the Dad, on his knees and had him try to place his mark. Too bad it he put it on the monitor on the desk next to the map on the wall!

There were a lot of family members there; it was great to see such a good turn out. We know the Patterson's from going through a class, Growing Kids God's Way and they are a member of our Church, CLCC.

I had a good time picking out Coopers present, a LEGO Star Wars Imperial Scout. The hard part was trying to keep the cost down, if you have bought LEGO's you know that they are inherently expensive. But I was good and only spent $11.

The photo's can be seen on Flickr.

GM is making some more changes

The soft economy has affected just about everything we do and have now a days. GM, where I work, is no different. If anything I would say that it has hit GM hardware than most. Last quarter the paper said GM had a loss of 15.5 Billion dollars. Well we have effectively reduced our build rate and personnel down 20%. We use to build 340 cars at the Cadillac plant, a.k.a. LGR, in a 10 hour shift. We are now building about 150 cars now in a 10 hour shift. I know that is more then 20%, but we are looking at building 270 after the re-rate is finished. We simply don’t need the cars right now. All the new-hires from 2008 will be let go in the middle of November from the best guess I have heard. We are also going to have 3 weeks off for Christmas.

The rumor going around right now is that LGR will be going to one shift the first of the year. Nothing official has been said. The other rumor going around is That GM is going to acquire Chrysler. They say that they are going to terminate all but the Jeep and the Caravan. This acquisition is for their money, 12 million in liquid assets and also for the fact that they have 2 electric cars. GM has 1 electric car and that would mean GM would now have 3, a leader in the marketplace in this aspect. One opinion is that if they let go of the other vehicles that it would eliminate some of the competition. This is all hearsay and conjecture at this point, but we will know soon enough.

Some people ask if I am worried about my job getting cut, and as it looks right now, things look pretty good. If I were laid off I have to go time for time. That means I have to be laid off for as long as I have worked for GM, which happens to be 6 years now.

The SRX and STS are rumored to be cut for our line in 2009 or 2010 from what I understand, but we are picking up 2 more cars, the CTS Coupe (2 door) and the CTS Wagon. The only other car that we build is the CTS and the CTS-V (corvette engine).

Time will tell all