Some good, some bad

Last Friday I picked up a new cell phone from the office, the new Blackberry Bold Touch 9930.  Fancy it is; probably the best that RIM has to offer and an impressive stat sheet it has:

• 1.2ghz processor and tons of RAM
• 8 gb built in storage with a slot for my 32gb micro sd card (for holding music and podcasts, you know)
• touchscreen and a very nice feeling blackberry keyboard
• every kind of radio you can imagine- blue tooth, wifi, cell, gps... it even has a compass built in.

So far, it's been intuitive for a Blackberry user to adopt.  It just seems right.  you touch the screen when you think you should; you use the buttons and keyboard when you think you should.

The real good, though, was when I did my corporate enterprise activation.  They sent me an email with simple directions (go to the device, this icon, this menu, enter this and hit go) and golly, it worked.  Down came my contacts, calendar, email, everything else.  My ringtones and apps even carried over.  Impressive!

And then I ported my phone number to the new device (the company had me switch from T-Mobile to Verizon, which I'm not going to complain about here in the woods of Maine.  What does a German company care about the woods of Maine?  They gave me simpler instructions- dial this number, hit 1.  I did it, the kind computer recording on the end asked me to listen to a voicemail setup public service announcement while my number was moved.  When the ad was over, my phone had been switched.

Like that.  Apple couldn't have done any better.

I'm already impressed with the hardware and utility of the phone, let's see how it survives real life where we live off the things.

The bad:

Now my BlackBerry Desktop software  won't recognize or connect with the device.  I've tried a few different things, connecting, disconnecting.  It had worked well before the enterprise activation, but now- no connection.  I'll have to go through the usual PC rituals- rebooting, different cables, uninstalling.  Crap.

Update twenty minutes later:  I re-installed the Blackberry Desktop Software (not to be confused with the Blackberry Device Manager or the Blackberry Desktop Manager or the Blackberry Device Desktop) and it found my phone on start up.  The media sync wonked out when I tried it, but when I when to the applications, it started synching the music to the device.  Sloooooowly.  I don't mind, as long as it gets there.  I've got all night.

A mentor

In the summers somewhere around my freshman and sophomore years of college, I did building maintenance work in the Jefferson mill building in Manchester, NH.  If you've driven through Manchester and past its mile of century-old textile mill buildings along the Amoskeag river, you've seen it.  The Jefferson is the one with the clock.


My father worked for a technology company that occupied the third floor of the Jefferson through the 80s and 90s.  I'd sleep on the ride in with him in the mornings, labor through the day, and sleep on the ride home.
I'd paint, fix plumbing, sweep, repair windows, put down baseboard, sweep, sweep, sweep; you name it.

One week they had me remove the side sashes from all the windows on the fourth floor, cut the pull ropes for the granite window weights, and stack the removed weights on a kart. At the end of the week, I rolled that cart into a dark, damp corner of the basement where I'm sure it still rests.

I developed my skills of "driving" the light-duty internal freight elevator.  'Old Pete' taught me how to operate its rope controls and time its motion to stop even with the floor.  We once had a repair to make and Old Pete took me into the control room at the top with a special tool box.  The six inch leather belt that ran from the General Electric motor (I looked at the manufacturer's plate on the motor: 1928) to the gears and steel cables that drove the elevator had torn, so we had to graft on a fresh section of leather.  The tools were as specialized as the skill, and I'd doubt there are too many left anywhere that could repair such a mechanism without having to research first. 

Old Pete added to my understanding of how to do things.  He was a mentor.  He was probably all of 68 at the time, but to a green 18 year old that's pretty ancient and he had my respect.

Old Pete taught me how to paint.  "Hold the brush close, like a pencil, not way at the end of the handle.  It'll keep your hand from getting tired and give you more control," he said.  "Get some paint on your brush.  You can't paint with a dry brush," he explained.  "When you roll, use a dowel.  And all the way up and down; cover well and smooth, or you'll leave racing stripes."  I've used his advice on every wall I've painted.   "See these windows?" he asked, sweeping his arm, indicating the interior wall that was fully window paned and which marked off the maintenance headquarters in the basement of the mill building, "this week you're going to learn how to cut trim."  It was Mr. Myagi and 'paint the fence.' from The Karate Kid.  I can cut and glaze a window like nobody's business.

During a hot week in August, Old Pete and I headed to the boiler room to clean the boiler tubes.  "You might want to wear shorts tomorrow."  He directed, I labored.  Hose the tubes down.  Ram the steel brushes in. Push and pull to scrub.  Pull them back out.  Sweat.  Next tube.  I don't remember how many tubes there were, but they were a good five inches in diameter and probably fifteen to twenty feet long.

Old Pete was a veteran of WWII; served in the Pacific if I remember correctly.  Told a very occasional story but mostly said "Ah, war is hell, war is hell."  On Fridays, my boss Stan would start the litany:
  - Pickin' up some beer on the way home, Pete?
  - Not beer, Michelob.
  - What are you doing this weekend, Pete?
  - Painting another room for my wife.
  - See you Monday, Pete.

My father said Pete came with the building when his company came in; jested that Pete might have been there from the beginning.  I wouldn't be surprised to come across him today, sitting on that cart of window weights, enjoying not a beer, but a Michelob.

There is a fascinating book, "Amoskeag" made from numerous interviews conducted in the late 1970s, that documents the establishment, rise, and decline of the industry and mills from the memories of employees all along the chain, from dye workers to management.  They didn't talk with Old Pete, but as I read stories from old foremen, from laborers, from those that lived in the row houses up the hill to Elm Street, or those who were on the Franco-Canadien West Side, I couldn't help but think of Old Pete, and what a long portion of those mill buildings's history he was.

Rainy day scramble

It's October in Maine and that brings a dichotomy to the weather.  It's either a beautiful clear day (yesterday) or endless drizzle (today).

This morning, my ears slowly became awake to the gentle patter of rain on the trees and the "shhhhhhhh" of wet streets in as cars rolled slowly passed. 

I've cancelled the soccer games once again.  I'd rather not; it's 45 minutes of emails and phone calls and clarifications.  Oh, and being communications moderator between divorced parents.

The coffee is hot.
The weekend is young.
There are chores to do. 
...
But the writing is done.

Who wants to be a millionaire, anyway?

You know, it generally takes a long time to be a millionaire.

Granted, we all have visions of sugarplums danced before our eyes in the form of rock stars, celebrities, athletes, business tycoons who were in the right place at the right time, even lottery winners.  But in general, it takes a long time to achieve that measure of wealthy we think a millionaire to be.

Is this news to you?  Do you know that you have the opportunity to become, over time, a millionaire? To become wealthy?

If you don't believe its possible, you probably assume that these millionaires are beyond you; that they have something you can't; that they must have somehow oppressed others to achieve this impossible dream.

So here's how to be come a millionaire:

1. Don't spend all of your money.  
1. I'm not being flippant here, just pointing out that if you don't eat all your candy on Halloween night, you'll still have some the next morning.
2. Something to think about:  your current net worth is the sum total of all your adulthood's financial decisions and a fair judgement of their wisdom.  So add up the value of what you have and subtract what you owe and post that number on the fridge as a reminder.  I do hope it's a positive number.
2. Save what you don't spend.  
1. You've heard the phrase "pay yourself first." Savings gain a momentum through a combination of regular investing, return (growth) and time.  You can control the regular investments and the time.  Do it early and do it often.
2. Investment growth is the opposite of debt growth.  Multiply out a mortgage payment by the number of years on the mortgage and you'll see that the price of the house is much more than the mortgage amount. 
3. Have the discipline to say no.  It's not easy to deny yourself something that you can have just by signing up for a payment on it.  As I've detailed elsewhere, a brand new, inexpensive car at age eighteen will end up costing you about a million dollars. Huh.  A million just sitting there in a fancy Honda Civic.
4. Stay the course for thirty or forty years.  You know, throughout your working career.
1. Did you know you're responsible for your own retirement?
2. Did you know that you should retire when you can afford to, not when you decide to?

Ding! You're a millionaire.  Did you oppress someone along the way, you greedy bastard?

Who are these millionaires?  Most millionaires are at the far end of this 30-40 year cycle.  They followed this plan of not spending all they had, of investing (and investing more as their incomes grew- which also tends to happen as you get older), of staying the course for a long time.

In other words, most of the millionaires are old people.  They saved this money so that they would have something to live on when they stopped earning an income.  They took care of themselves so they wouldn't be a drain on society.  You can do the same.

Two-edged Swords

In business, the investors (be that one person with an idea and some capital, or you and I as stockholders) take the risk towards a reward. 

If the venture fails, it is the investors who lose. This is the risk.  If the venture succeeds, it is the investors who gain. This is the reward.

How to reduce the risk and maximize the reward?  Two-edged swords:

• Succeed.
• Success can and should be achieved through honest, hard, even clever work.  Success can and should be honorable, and is even more so when the odds are against you, i.e., on an uneven playing field.
• Success can and shouldn't be achieved by, well, poor sportsmanship, though the opportunity is there and is often taken.  Let's agree to call this greed, as that's a favorite term for those who succeed.
• Spread the risk to more investors
• It is wise to increase the number of baskets in which you place your eggs.  As long as there is a reward for these risk takers, and as long as this risk taking is voluntary.
• If you've spread the risk to those without a reward, to those without a choice, who loses if the venture fails?  What diluted risk is there to those who have spread the risk.  Has the venture...
• Gained enough mass (traction and momentum) to perpetuate?
• Is it profitable, growing, thinking strategically, spending wisely, re-investing, re-inventing?
• ...or has it become "too big to fail?" Momentum and mass are impressive, but removing the risk removes the incentive to succeed.  It removes the opportunity for that which needs to die to die.  It stifles the market mechanism of...
• Competition, which
• creates new jobs, creates advances, innovates, destroys those ventures which fail to respond.
• or, competition can be met by blocking it through various barriers to entry through regulations, cartels, and monopolist behaviors. It is interesting to note that most cartels and monopolies are formed with the collusion of government.. they are established and defended where a free market cartel and monopoly will not stand.  Ask Kodak, Pan Am, TWA, AT&T, and numerous other monopolies which have tumbled due to fierce competition and sloth.

Each has a virtuous path and each has a temptation to a shortcut. 

The virtuous path is the best of what capitalism has to offer, growth and income, risk (responsibility) in the hands of those who would gain the rewards. 

The tempting path leads to market distortions, such as false investment, a lack of concern for risk in investing, public bailouts of concerns which should fail, resulting in stifled and genuinely unfair competition, a lack of responsibility, slowed emergence of better goods to the market, and a dependency and complacency of the worker rather than an independence of responsibility.

But what about that worker?  What is his risk?  What is her reward?  What are their opportunities?

I hope to think more tomorrow.

A walk in the woods.

A rather gung-ho CEO of a rather aggressive software concern I used to work for had an interesting turn of phrase for things he considered a waste of time.

"A walk in the woods."  As in, "I'm not out here, doing this, for a walk in the woods."

While he was being witty and even charming, with his nebulous English colonial accent,* I have to disagree.  Most times, a walk in the woods is a good thing.  It's a chance to get some thinking done and set your thinking straight as you wander down a trail, stepping over fallen logs, avoiding mud, and just pausing once in a while to admire trees and rock walls.

I'll often step off the trails, forged long ago by earlier land-owners, farmers, even snow-mobile clubs, and wander until I come across something: a rock wall, a road, another trail, some rusted junk.  Today I scared a deer and watched its white tail bound from me.  I'm no woodsman and I couldn't have tracked a deer if I wanted to, so that was just plain luck.

I'll ride the trails a few times a year on my mountain bike.  I intend to return with a chainsaw and clear fallen trunks from the path.  Come winter, the snow-mobile clubs have cleared and even grated the trails for me, and so I do a few runs on my cross country skis.

I wish I would force myself out more.  I do it for a walk in the woods.

This is some of what I saw today:



*Was he Scottish?  South African? A Kiwi?  I can't recall.  I'm developing a theory that presenters, be they sales people, actors, comedians, or the guy escorting you out of the fancy restaurant for being a drunken jerk... all have instantaneous credibility if they happen to have some English derivative accent.  I'm considering adopting one in my professional role as a technical sales engineer.

Do I say hello?

I'm the shy outgoing prominent member of the community who hates to deal with people.

Example:  I run the rec soccer program for my town, which includes the whole registration and marketing process of sending out emails, making a few hundred phone calls, coaching at least one team of kids; all of which I'm pretty happy to do, and parts of which (the coaching) I really enjoy.

But you know what?  I can't stand to go to one of my kids practices when I'm not the coach.  Just can't bring myself to hob-nob with the parents.  In fact, I suffer minor anxiety attacks (which I've learned to recognize, categorize, and ignore) as I pull up.  I'm happy to sit in my car, as I am now, and do anything else, such as type a blog post.

Don't get me wrong.  I know most of the people in town and their kids.  I like watching the kids grow and mature.  I can and do have some genuinely great "great to see you" conversations with the parents.  I'll stop and chat when I bump into someone at the grocery store.  I enjoy waving at neighbors and friends as we pass each other on the road, which happens any time I go out.

But given the opportunity, I'd just as soon not bump into someone.  It takes me out of my comfort zone and often puts me into a mostly-true happy face, smiling conversation mode.  It's easier to avoid than engage.  It's easier to wonder than to find common ground.  I need, I guess I've convinced myself, an excuse to engage.  I'm 'from away,' as they say up here in Maine, and that's an easy excuse to not engage.

So maybe you'll see me around; maybe you won't.  I can't commit either way.

Thrills and dread

Professionally,

I feel the most dread when I'm unprepared.  Like most anxieties, it comes from the overwhelming sense of too many things to do and my very own special brand of productive procrastination.  I've got so many projects and obligations that I can pick one (or two or three) and invest the time and depth to advance my knowledge or completion of them, forsaking the others.

My best solution is to get a pen and make a list.  This gets it more finite and manageable.  I then prioritize and start tackling the items on the list, be it in order of urgency, ease of accomplishment or simply by how much fun each will be.

I find the greatest thrills in making a connection, an insight, closing a mental loop, or opening up new lines of thought. 

Today I saw a new way of using my favorite business tool, StreamWork, and it did all of these things at once.  The roadmap to include enterprise collaboration as a product, a platform, and a strategy throughout enterprise systems crystalized what I've been forming in my head:  collaboration is a strategy and a capability that is fast becoming central to the way organizations work in systems.  StreamWork is a platform for achieving this across systems and among collaborators intra and inter organizationally.  and StreamWork is a product, here today and better tomorrow.

What a thrill!

A new year

Last fall, they asked for volunteers to teach Faith Formation in our parish.  Kindergarten or third grade.

I'm not sure that I wanted to, but I knew that I had to.  And so began a journey with a group of eight year olds who I am sure, twenty years from now, will still be eight year olds to me when I see them and their children. I went from teaching in a classroom style to gathering around a table as a family; from following the study guide to the letter to following it as, well, a guide; from bored kids to a pretty extravagant and vocal group.

Today was the beginning of my second year and we hit the ground running.  I'm sure the kids (including one of my own) were a bit surprised by their new teacher.  One mother came up to me before class asking if she could come in and join her trepidatious boy until he was comfortable.  Absolutely.  He was pretty quickly at ease and she slipped out about five minutes into class.

Here's why I'm proud to serve:  Up here in Maine, our diocese confers first communion and confirmation at the same time to the seven year olds.  Predictably, the second grade class is the largest, and the third grade class, mine, is half the size.  I get the children whose parents care at least enough about their religious training to bring them back.  In getting to know them, I get to find out what they know.

They don't know enough.

And so through the year I'll pull and I'll prod and I'll get them thinking and learning.  And praying. 

Our deacon gave a sermon today, and his message, passed down to him from Bishop Malone at our deacon's ordination and inscribed in his bible, was this:

"Believe what you read, teach what you believe, practice what you teach."

I wrote it down on the back of an envelope in my pew, and shared it with my class this morning. 

We're going to have a fun year.

Two-Fiddy!

I was out running errands last Saturday afternoon while my ten year old was attending a friend's birthday party. I stopped by the local mom and pop guitar shop for a chance to experiment with some American Fenders from the top shelf.

The Teles were good; the Strats were so-so.  Plucked them through a used solid state Princeton 112 plus and got some good tone from it.

Moving down to the used rack, I looked up and saw a Hamer logo.  Looking down, I saw a Strat body.  Closing my eyes, I said a little prayer, and looked up at the logo on the headstock again.  Hamer USA.


Amen!

It has been loved to death- but I'm going to love it more.  It's precisely what I've been hoping to find: a worn, loved, don't-have-to-worry-about-dinging-it-cause-it-ain't-gonna-get-much-prettier Hamer Daytona to play and play and play. That and it was the nicest Strat in the joint.

Sperzel-locking tuners.  String it through the eye, clamp it down, cut the string, tune to pitch.
Yeah, this is the sign of a hand-made American guitar at its best. 


It looks better in these pictures than in does in real life, but that's the beauty of it.


You can't get a neck like this without putting in hours and hours of love.



Young blue-eyes approves

Learn by doing

My experiment is paying off. 

Levi trapped the ball on defense, waited, carried around an oncoming player, passed it up-field and then dropped off the play, settling into the precise position a defender should be in for the next ball to come his way.

This spring I watched my 7th grade daughter's softball team play a forty-five minute first inning.  Neither team had a put-out on defense, a hit, or a strike out.  Each team walked the entire batting order around.  Some pitches landed three feet in front of the pitcher; most went three feet over the up or short of the plate.

I watched her team at practice.  They started off with the coach hitting grounders to the team, one player at a time.  Grounder, catch (or miss), throw it back in, next player.  All fourteen.  Each player handled the ball for about two seconds every five minutes.  Batting practice was (of necessity?) pitched by the coach.


It dawned on me that these kids never actually spend any time playing sports and consequently they have no skills at sports.  Practices are short and made up of skills drills.  The coach tries to get their attention for five minutes to explain the drill, then runs them through it for another ten.  Each kid maybe gets one minute of experience in a ten minute drill.  The rest of their lives fully scheduled, they never play sand-lot baseball.  I'd doubt they know what "ghost runner on third" means.

There's no play in the sports.

So I decided that this fall, when I coached the boy's soccer team, I wouldn't do any drills.  I'd go full scrimmage from the first player to show up.  And so my experiment.  I have a whistle.  When it blows, everyone freezes where they are and I ask what's going on, make them think and answer, and then blow the play back on with another whistle.  If the play is at the other end of the field, I'm guiding my players, explaining and showing where to be and why.  In this way I am, single-handed, keeping fourteen nine to eleven year old boys fully engaged and playing soccer for an hour, giving them a full season's worth of drill and experience every week. 

And so Levi, one of my favorite human beings, went from a defensive mindset of boot-the-ball to trapping it, carrying it around an oncoming player, passing it up the field to his wing, and falling back into position.  In a span of ten minutes.  And he kept doing it.

Stupid debt deals

This has been a week of depression for me. I saw our elected representatives bicker and argue and finally decide on the side of… not even what is right or wrong… but rather to further the status quo on the road to doom, kicking a large can a small way down the road. This, as a nation, we shall soon revisit.


Personal finance talk show host Dave Ramsey best articulated our national challenge (and our national solution) in a monologue when he described an American couple that earned 58k a year yet spent 75k a year, and was 370k in debt.

This couple resolved to fix things and were proud to announce they were cutting their spending down to 72k a year while extending their line of credit to 500k. All on the same 58k a year income.

The American couple was us, America, and our national budget. Check the ratios to our annual spending and national debt. It’s laughable to call it a budget, as a budget is best defined as “here’s how much money there is, here’s how we will (wisely?) spend it.” That simple premise has been ignored by Congress for decades.

Our country is spending itself into slavery. The Socialists in charge are doing so to create a dependent constituency of voters at the risk of liberty (for which they care little as these Socialists are the aristocracy); the Opposition (our Tea Party cum Republican congressmen) House claims victory for slowing the rate of spending down... and that it was all they could do in a political world still controlled by a liberal Senate and an evil (okay, I'll be nice... a misguided... no, wait, he is sinister after all) Executive branch.

Consider those to whom we and our grandchildren owe the money and their ideas of liberty and social justice. What happens to the second born in China? They’ve already informed Obama he has no right to criticize their definition of human rights (not that he has any conception himself... but it can be worse.) Why? Because we owe them money. Vast, huge, compounding, astronomical, nay, economical mounds of money. They won’t fire a single shot, will they?

Regardless, “debt deals” of no consequence, done in a rush towards a false deadline, have averted no financial catastrophes. They have merely established strong party lines for both parties come the foolishness and pointlessness of November the next. The winner then will be either a loser with a losing hand or the sneering Czar over our demise unless...

Unless...

Unless as individuals we can realize our own opportunity (while the window of liberty remains open) to shirk dependency on the state and on debt in order to carry our own weight. Simple questions: Can you feed your family? Can you love them, care for them, educate them? Can you carry your own weight? If necessary, can you rid yourself of the baubles of our consumer society to establish, first, a debt free existence and then, second, a prosperous, capital-based existence for yourself?

I’m advocating individual achievement of financial independence. If you and all others are independent of the state, then its costly programs of charity (now called entitlements. What are you entitled to? Life, Liberty, and the PURSUIT of happiness. That’s all) become redundant, superfluous, unnecessary.

Our country was founded upon the risk and faith in individual success (prosperity), and I believe nothing but rare circumstances and outbreaks of bigotry can hold you back. What is preventing you from success? Are you oppressed? No. You may be uninformed, lazy, or misguided, but held back by “the man?”

No. So achieve.

There is no financial situation that three years of hard work, sacrifice, even bankruptcy can’t resolve. Hard work is hard work; hard work is good for you. Employers love it, from pizza delivery to the boardroom. Sacrifice can be defined as selling the upside-down car, going without cable or iPhone, eating Ramsey’s s beans-and-rice. Bankruptcy is the last resort of pride, but even that is not forever.

So. So achieve.

Declare your independence once again. Be independent and capable of taking care of yourself and your own. Catholic social justice is based on a principle of subsidiarity, (the American Bishops have stated this, though they seem to forget it from time to time) simply defined as “do not do for a man what he can do for himself.”

What are you capable of? Achieve!

Sacrifice is going to happen. It will happen at the government entitlement level when the money really does run out, which means it will happen at the household and individual level. Are you willing to sacrifice now to succeed in the not too distant future?



Funny; the answer isn’t in Washington. The answer is in you and your possibilities.

God made you and He made you special. America is still the best place on earth to realize your possibilities. Achieve them. Take care of yourself and of those who depend on you. When you’re finished there, take care of other who can’t take care of themselves.



Hint: There are a lot of people who can’t take care of themselves right now, but if you wake them up to their potential, a sea change can happen, and it can happen in a short time. And we can believe once again in Life, Liberty, and Happiness.

Achieve.

Thanks for the help.

I needed a software tool from our IT department to view some demo documents that our IT department had created.  I went to download it and, after following the white rabbit through a number of internal web-sites and links, I discovered I needed to download a downloading tool in order to download the tool I wanted.

Sigh.

So I downloaded the downloading tool.  It next needed to be configured with servers, proxies, and some form of login.  I gave up and put in a general ticket for help, along the lines of: What do I put in the fields for servers, proxies, and logins?

-----------------

Here's the answer I got back, with the ticket pretty optimistically marked by him (her?) as comlete:
Reply - 21.03.2011 11:27:15 -

Support Guy

Hi.



Please first request profile B_SWDC_DL_NO for OW1 via the CUP

tool -> https://uap.MyCompany.corp/AE/index.jsp. For more information

please refer to the note no. 1037575 -> https://service.Mycompany.com/MyCompany/support/notes/1037575



Detailed information how to configure SDM for MyCompany internal can be

found at the attached note no. 600659 or via the following URL:

https://service.MyCompany.com/MyCompany/support/notes/600659



For more information about the software download approval process

for MyCompany Internal, please refer to the attached note no. 1090288

or open the note via the following URL:

https://service.MyCompany.com/MyCompany/support/notes/1090288



Other helpful SDM notes are:



574885 Download Manager: Tracefile für Analyse

401195 Download Manager: Unable to read basket



Best Regards,

Support Guy.


--------

I tried.  Honest I did.  I tried for 45 minutes.  The I decided to write support back:
-------------

Hi.

This is more than ridiculous.



I have bludgeoned my way through the CUP/GRC/WTF site and, after trying to understand it for a while, I simply gave up and started clicking on things so I could get past the roadblocks its ABSOLUTELEY INCOMPREHENSIBLE USER INTERFACE* was throwing at me and, voila, I lucked into getting the data to be input and approved. What that whole thing was I think I'm beginning to understand.



Anyway, I have popped open the five or ten tangential browser tabs and windows necessary to get to the other notes that tell me things like "I'll need to enter my password" to find out what my password is. With that mission perhaps accomplished, I'm of course pointed to more OSS notes and web pages which pop up even more windows and tabs that ask me what my password is and tell me to do very-unclear-to-the-un-initiated things such as to turn off that which is un-turn-offable, the almighty PSE Single Sign On (hey, that's what SSO stands for! How about that? Acronym reverse-engineering provided at no charge) solution, which works so well that you CAN'T turn it off as advised, yet works so POORLY that every time I access an SSO enabled application within our corporate IT stack I arrive there, well, NOT SIGNED IN, causing me to click on the "Logon" button on, for example, the corporate portal, or to type my login into StreamWork, which is rumored to be SSO enabled. But will PSE die? Will it let me turn it off? No! It is apparently immortal and impervious to all known technology weapons, including the ultimate death-machine, ctrl-alt-delete, kill-process. Wow, the cockroaches could learn a thing or two from PSE.



What is it's password, this mysterious "MyCompanyNet" password? I'm sure you're as curious as I am. Well, I'm sorry to say that I haven't a clue. More links and more windows take me full circle into suggesting that I put in yet another ticket to find out what the heck my own password is. Apparently it's neither my MyCompany_ALL password nor is it my MyCompanySuportPortal login's password. I've tried those. Where? I can't even remember, there were so many tools and web sites and download managers and logins.



This is a cry for help in the wilderness.



Won't you please cost the company some money and efficiency and help someone (me) who costs the company, oh, let's see, roughly $110 an hour based on last year's W2 (this is pay only. Please don't factor in administrative, tax, travel and expenses, and other costs for a fully loaded employee, or it will make you cry), and pick up the phone and call me? I'm at My Phone Number. That's in the United States. Where are you?



I'm thinking maybe a five minute long distance phone call, costing roughly $0.25 would be more cost effective than having me run around for two hours in my vain effort to download a simple internal demo-viewing product (which should have been on the standard image, by the way). This same demo-viewing tool will, I know, can absolutely rely on, have faith in, bet-yer-bottom-dollar, not work for my Windows 7 image, as one of the many OSS notes that flew past my eyes before I fell into IE's trance and decided to see what's up on Twitter for a while and gripe about environmentalists with their cheesy "please don't print this email unless you have too," as if all I do all day long is print out emails unnecessarily, indicated I'd have to follow a few more notes. Notes are the devil to find and follow. Did you know that? See my rant about usability below. It applies here too.



I keep getting asked for passwords that PSE fails to, in its immortality, provide, as it's so concerned and focused on just the act of living that it fails to live. It's kind of like Sharon Stone's movie career, you know? Basic Instinct 2? Are you kidding me? She's like fifty years old! Anyway, I'm still willing to take my chances and bow to the four corners of the earth a few times in order to make it run because, well, underneath it all I'm ever an optimist that maybe, just maybe, the stars will align with the super-moon we had over the weekend and it will work, it will Toto! And you can all visit me in Kansas.



I've received two or three emails letting me know that my wise overlords are reviewing my request to download this simple tool and will let me know when they deem me worthy (oops, there's the confirmation, I'm worthy! Praise be!) to download.



I've done what I can. I've entered most of the information I asked for (thanks for all the links, they've been great, but they still left the problem-solving to me and though I love a good mystery novel, I'm just NOT IN THE MOOD for it today.) and my 8gb of ram is running out and the TTGTT (that's Tool-To-Get-The-Tool for you acronym happy people out there) is still gives me an error. So please, as Harry said to Sally (you have seen When Harry Met Sally, haven't you? Great flick for couples. My wife and I watch it every two to three years and just laugh and giggle and blush and tease each other because so much of it is SOOO true!), "Call me!"



* Seriously, if the data it needs is a simple tree, as in "My role, the component I'm asking for, some portion within that component, and a text-field for justification", I don't think we at MyCompany could have done a WORSE job of making it completely unclear as to how to enter these ostensibly drop-down choices. I mean, come on! It took me fifteen minutes, and I'm an pre-sales engineer. I demonstrate this stuff to customers. I'm an expert. I couldn't figure it out. Please, yell at the developers first for me, then scream at the idiots who allow regulations to this extent to be foisted on business, slowing it down and adding to its costs, hence causing economic slowdowns and poverty. Sheesh. Yes, I'm having a bad day.

Progress Report Hamy. Beginning Finishing

Over the last week, Henry and I have been experimenting with brush-on/rag-on oil-based polyurethane finishes.  We've glues some of his final veneer to a sample wood block and experimented with that block and a chunk of Mahogany left over from project Junior.

We've sanded, cabinet scraped, sealed, applied layers of poly, and sanded some more.  Thge results are okay... but I think two or three lessons have been loearned here:

• if you're not spraying the finish on, then you need to apply poly with an apprpriate brush, and apply slowly, gently , and in one direction only so as to flow the poly on more than paint it on.  Very different from painting, say, the wall of a house.
• Tack cloth really should be used to get the surface really clean before applying.  I'd been wiping with varying leather gloves and ragged t-shirts, but that doesn't really get the small dust out like a tack-cloth will.
• I've learned a lot about sanding.  While 220 and 400 do provide a smooth finish, you need to tart with something rougher to get to a flat surface, and use 220 and 400 (and probably higher) to make that flat surface smooth. Yes, I've been using sanding blocks. 

Here's a picture of Henry's Sapele veneer finished with two coats of sealer and three coats of poly, sanding between each coat.  It maintains its depth, but the surface is craggy- not flowed.  I think that's a result of the rag-on, back and forth technique.  I'll be doing more of these experimental finishes over the next few weeks to see what works best, and then we go for the gusto on the real deal.

Photo courtesy of my new blackberry bold.  Not bad for a phone!

Obama's budget

This year's budget:


$ 3,700,000,000,000

divided by the current US population

310,000,000

equals:

$11,935.48 from every man, woman, and child in the country.

Of which...

$ 1,700,000,000,000

(or $5,322.58 from each man, woman and child) is, um, unfunded.

That's a $47,741.52 tax burden for a family of four. 

I can't wait until next year!

Hamy V Update

Henry and I have been making progress on the "Hamy V" project guitar.

When faced with a roadblock, I'll ponder for a while, be that days, weeks, or months.  I'll come up with a few solutions and then get up the guts to try it.  Doing the work usually takes all of fifteen minutes, but I'm so afraid of screwing it up permanently that I put it off.

At first, we were going to put mother of pearl (okay, 1/4 inch ounch outs from a celuloid guitar pick) into the fretboard as markers, but getting the drill press depth consistent was impossible.  The I found a suggestion for instant epoxy mixed with pigment.  Cheryl's craft cabinet had metallic powder in silver, with copper marking the 12th fret.  We used toothpics to put the misture in the middle of the hole and pushed outward until it clung to the sides.  Some rose just a bit above the fretboard level, but they won't interfere with playability.

Here I am sanding the body down smooth.

Don't the fret markers look pretty good?

 Vs just have an awesome shape.  They're so agressive.  This is something I would have made out of Legos if I could have.

Here's last night's commitment.  We needed a channel for the pickup lead to the control box.  Since we're going to put a Sapele veneer top on this, this simplest route was to rout a channel back.  It looks ugly now, but it will serve the purpose.

And here's what I ordered for veneer:  A Sapele, which will cover the top and probably the peghead.  I got a lot of it, so I can experiment with finishing it  separately.  The sides and back of teh guitar will be done in a color.  Henry's thinking a deep sapphire blue and/or silver sparkle.  Maybe a blue back with silver sparkle neck and blue again on the back of the headstock, faded between?

'Cause I'm my own Grand-pa

While reading through next year's health plan coverage from my employer, I came across this simple explanation of a dependent:

"In general, an eligible dependent is any individual who received over half of his or her support from you and is your:


􀂃 Spouse


􀂃 Son or daughter, or descendent of either


􀂃 Stepson or stepdaughter


􀂃 Brother, sister, stepbrother or stepsister


􀂃 Father or mother, or ancestor of either


􀂃 Stepfather or stepmother


􀂃 Brother’s or sister’s son or daughter


􀂃 Father’s or mother’s brother or sister


􀂃 Son-in-law, daughter-in-law, father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-inlaw


􀂃 An individual who resides in your home as his/her principal residence and is a


member of your household


􀂃 Same-sex domestic partner and his or her children (considered eligible dependents


for the Health Care FSA only if they are your legal tax dependents)


If you are divorced or separated, either parent can claim a child as a dependent under the special income tax rules for divorced or separated parents. Medical expenses paid by either parent are expenses incurred on behalf of an eligible dependent for purposes of the Health Care FSA, even if the parent does not claim the child as a dependent for income tax purposes"

Does this read like a country music song or what? 

Wouldn't it be easier to list who isn't a dependent?  Or just stay married, raise your kids, and kick them out of the house when it's time?

Refrets, no regrets

You're looking at my Christmas present, a Nelsonic Starliner Les Paul clone.

Years ago, at the local guitar shop, I picked up one of these, used, in absolutely mint condition, for a whopping $150.

Other than having a bolt-on neck, which is, admittedly, against the grain when it comes to Les Paul style guitars, the thing was extremely well executed:  it weighs a ton, has a great sound, and the fit and finish are, frankly, much better than the Epiphone Les Pauls I find in shops for $400-$700.

It turns out that Nelsonic made a number of clones at great prices (contract manufactured in Korea and sold for $150-$300 or so), but lost a lawsuit with big G., and that was pretty much that. Nelsonics are pretty rare. In the last 3-4 years, there have been only 3-4 that have come up for sale on eBay. I've never seen one anywhere else. When this one showed up on eBay last November, I pointed it out to Mrs. Toadroller, who took my hint.




I was excited to open it up on Christmas day, but was shocked at its condition. Rusty strings, a few nicks in the paint, and, what's this, a belly curve? Doesn't seem right. Worst of all, the fist three frets, the ones in the "cowboy chords" position, were dented beyond repair.
 
I never even plugged it in.  It wasn't playable.

Being the brave and curious soul that I am, I wondered if I could do a refret on it.  You're looking at the results.  I used a soldering gun to heat up the frets and a set of fret pliers (nippers) to pull the old ones out.  The fret-board is bound, so the replacement frets' tangs had to be nipped off before pounding them in.  I had full length fret-wire from my other projects (Remember those?  Still in progress.), but would need to build a wire bending machine and, well, I came across pre-cut and pre-snipped frets delivered from eBay for $10.  I took the easy way out.  Hammered them in; filed the edges down; hand sanded them.  I strung it up and it played well, but was definitely in need of a leveling.  You just can't skip a step, can you?  I did the leveling yesterday and set the intonation today.

Boom.  I've done a fret leveling. No longer a virgin there.  I'm not ready to do such work on, say, my Taylor...  But a broken down $100 guitar?  You bet.  Now it plays well; the action is right.  Only the slightest buzz on the 6th string (the 12th fret is pesky).  It photographs well and yes, I do have the pick-guard components, which I'll be putting back on.

It just isn't the same as my other Nelsonic; the tone isn't the same; this one doesn't weigh as much and therefore doesn't feel as solid; some of the hardware is cheaper.  They're the same model, but probably from from very different batches.  Nelsonic was short lived.  I'll keep my eye open for more of them and, doubtless, will snag another some day.  In the meantime, I'll be putting this fish back in the water for someone else to enjoy.  

Ah, Craisins

I love raisins, "nature's candy."

But over the last few years, and partly due to the volume based discounts available at Sam's Club, I've become partial to Craisins.  Cranberries are from my region of the country; Maine/NH/Mass(holes).  Craisins are the cranberry equivalent to raisins.  Dried cranberries?  Dried grapes?  Not much competition, honestly.

If you've never been to Fresno, California, go.  My first (and only, now that I think about it) trip to Fresno was on business.  My flight took me from Denver (where I used to live, and might someday live again.   Oh, Denver pulls at me every few months) into Fresno.  I turned to the person next to me on my flight (gosh, this must have been 2003/2004) and remarked at the incredible sights as we were getting close to landing.  "Oh, you mean Yosemite?"  ..pregnant pause...dope-slap... "oh.  of course."*     I had dinner in a local restaurant that had once been a Chili's.  (How do Chilis franchises go out of business?  Well, in 2004 I can't comprehend it.  Of late, though, I wonder how they stay in business).  A mother in the booth next to me was loudly on her cell phone, talking to her divorce lawyer, with her teenage daughter and friend in-booth with her.

It's funny what you hold on to from business travel.

The next morning I traveled south for an hour through raisin country.  Sun-maid signs here and there along the highway.  If it had been corn, I would have thought I was in Ohio.But the smell of drying grapes was raisins.

But I was in northern California for, of all things, a sales call.

If you don't know me, I am and am not a sales-person.  I'm a pre-sales engineer.  I'm the techie guy in the technology sales process.  I know what the product does; the sales-guy sells it.  The customer asks, "Can it do it?"; the sales-guy says, "Sure!  Dennis (that's me), show him, and I say, (to myself) "What?" and then to the customer, "Yes, of course, watch this," and proceed to demonstrate my product.

Anyway, the customer made prescription cattle-feed.  I had a product configuration tool.  For a whopping $20k transaction, my product helped them cost-effectively and time effectively (instantaneously, as opposed to 3 days) quote, manufacture, and deliver prescription cattle-feed for individual dairy cows.  Yes, that's right, I helped cost-optimize the construction of dairy cattle feed.  What of it?  From happy cows comes happy milk, or cheese, or whatever California dairy-product you desire.  If there weren't so many regulations, the industry wouldn't have hand to find a new way to compete.  Economics, my friends, economics.  Anyway, that was my meeting, and that was my trip to Fresno.  I'm guessing.  I hope to return some day.

Oh yeah.  Craisins.

I challenge you.  Have a box of raisins.  Then have a handful of craisins. You won't be able to go back.  Craisins are to raisins what Audi is to VW, what photography is to a cartoon, what a gin martini is to vodka.  Another class.

Try some.

Especially with your RiceChex breakfast cereal. When you're celiac, this is q quick breakfast.



*I remind myself of a woman who sat next to me flying into Boston. See this post: travel

Some recent travel observations

Every once in a while I'm forced to resign my hermit lifestyle to venture and stroll among the rest of America in all its secular glory.  Last week I spent time in Washington DC and San Francisco, CA, with a couple of layovers in Denver International Airport en route.  Here are some of my observations of spending many hours dealing with airlines not named Southwest:

JetBlue was able to notify me of my impending flight and upsell me a few offers via email, but they weren't able to tell me that my flight was delayed until I saw it on the departure monitors at the airport. 

I'll skip the long story about attempting to determine my options by calling them (let's just say that their phone number is not on their tickets, and really only is set up to sell new tickets).  The lady at the counter was happy to sell me a ticket direct to Baltimore (not my orignal destination but, ironically, closer to my next day's meeting location) for a $40 change-fee and a full appraisal of what she would do if she were in my shoes.  Not that I asked.

Call me negative, but here I was getting emergency travel advice from someone who should have had the empowerment and serving attitude to help me, but was limited to policies and her best guess at what she would do.  She told the customer at the station next to me what she would do if she were him.  It turns out that he couldn't change his ticket from tomorrow to today without a $100 change fee and the difference in fees until 12:01 am when it would no longer be the next day and since the flight he wanted to change to was the same flight I wanted to get off of and it was delayed until 11:30 but the inbound flight hadn't left Ft Lauderdale yet, I mean really!, it probably wouldn't get in until at least 12:01AM anyway and what she would do was maybe wait until it came in but then he'd have to stay in the airport for a while and if it did come in early he'd still have... I stopped paying attention after she handed my my boarding pass and receipt for the change fee.  She was mid-thirties; nice teeth.  I had assumed she was pro-actively helpful and empowered to serve customers as she saw fit to the benefit of the customer and the organization and its reputation... but I assumed wrong.

Asif, the cab-driver who took me to the Holiday Inn Express downtown Baltimore (highly recommended!), asked after my travels and offered a card and a discount if I wanted him to carry me to Dulles the next day.  I had schemes of catching a ride to Baltimore, taking the train to DC's central station, then another train and a bus to Dulles...  My customers recommended I not do that, so I gave Asif a call. 

He arrived five minutes early, took me to Dulles, gave me a discount and I more than happily made up for it with the tip.  Best part of my trip.

United's check in terminals will attempt to upsell you multiple offers before you can get to the simple task of (hoplessly) attempting to change your seat* or printing your boarding pass.  Be careful, as they're not ashamed to default you into accepting the offer, which you might only realize when they ask you for a credit card number.  Back!  Back!

United's seats are uncomfortable.  From the distant past came the memory of a habit I had developed when contantly flying United from Denver to points east and west.  I'd grab a pillow from an overhead compartment and slip it under my thighs.  That served the dual purpose of improving the seat's (lack of) comfort and kept me from slipping forward off of it during the flight. 

They no longer provide pillows in the overhead compartments of United flights.

At Dulles Airport, they've replaced some of the moon-buggie routes to the concourses with a high speed train (like in Denver and Atlanta and other airports) from the main terminal.  At what I'm sure was exhorbitant taxpayer expense, you now have the pleasure of going through security with all passengers of all airlines, then walking a not-insignificant distance to an escalator to the train platform.  A run on the train leaves you with an escalator up and then a much more significant non-insignificant hike and people-mover stroll to get to the concourse. 

The moon-buggies took you door-to-door, terminal-to-concourse.  Sure they were dorky and weird; sure they were a huge vehicle designed solely for Dulles; but that capital has been sunk.  Why build a train?  You drive by a lot of fifty or so of those things.  Surely there's enough material there to have them last for another twenty years or so.  If this were Cuba, it would be good forever.

Shure's SE115 headphones, the in-ear type with foam padding to seal the ears, absolutely rock for shutting out the engine noise of airplanes.  I've used variations on ear-plugs through the years, but these take the cake and can usually be found for $70 on Amazon.

The best restaurant in the Denver International Airport's B (United) concourse is Pour la France.  Their Martinis are filled to the brim; they did not card me as they could probably tell just by looking at me that I'm over the age of twenty-one; they brought the check quickly so I could move on to my next flight.  The food is very good.

I caught up on last season's sit-coms and a few movies in flight.  Let's just say that they made Two and a Half Men look like a family show.** 

San Jose Airport has sort of improved its rental car process with a fancy new building and a shuttle bus to it.  I did, however, have to walk an even more significant non-insignificant distance from my gate to the point at which I could pick up the rental car shuttle, which drove me a distance shorter than the one I hiked to catch the bus.

Rental car:  Toyota Corolla.  It works.  Nice stereo- great bass response- tight and detailed.  It was parked in the middle of a row of Mazda 5's, which I really (really!) want to drive.  I didn't get one.

Seeing the half-moon floating above Half-moon Bay is pretty.  Well named. 

I was really zoned out when I checked into the Hilton San Francisco Airport.  I noticed the wall behind the counter was orange.  No, blue.  No, green. 
     "Is that thing changing color?" 
     "Yes, it is."
     "Okay then.    ...Does that drive you nuts?"
     "Yes, it does."

Speaking of which, I wonder if they've charged me for the on-site parking, which was a non-optional $18/day.  It wasn't on my checkout receipt.

United (no, I'm not finished with them yet), after attempting cross, up, and side selling me a few times, pulled me out of line to measure my suitcase.    It fit in their little template, though it stuck up about an eigth of an inch over the top.
     "We'll have to check that sir"
     "Seriously?  It fits.  I've only been carrying it on flights for a year now."
     ""  (which represents her silent non-answer to my question).
This gate agent reached for the bag as I was pulling it out of their template.  It pinched her finger but good.***  So that sealed the deal.  My bag could, she said as she slapped my claim check into my hand, be picked up at the caroussel in Dulles when I got there.  Looking back, it was about as close as she could get to saying go to hell; go to Dulles! I'm glad I wasn't headed to Newark.

Normally I'd have been glad to let them take my bag (since they charge $20 or more for a checked bag), but this meant that I now had to go out through security to baggage claim, and then take the security and train route back into my concourse.

At Denver International Airport, I got to Pour la France just after the kitchen closed.  No dinner for me.  The martini was still superb.  No pressure.  Finish your martini as they cash out the till and stack chairs on the bar next to you.  It was still 10:20.  I had ten minutes.

I actually fell asleep on my red-eye from Denver to Dulles.  That is until Mr. Flight Attendant bumped me with his $7.00 each box-meal cart an hour and a half into the flight.  I was awake from then on.  More crappy sit-coms.  Okay, 30 Rock was funny.

You know what?  Airport wi-fi thoughput is pretty good at 5:30 in the morning, when there's no competition for the bandwidth.  I watched The Big Lebowski though Netflix streaming.  I gotta say, "meh."  Goodman's character freaked me out.  But there was a scene in a diner where I did a double-take.  Was that Aimee Mann?  Googled it.  Yep.  Who knew?  Sorry about the toe.

Getting closer to Boston, the lady in 33C (which is my way of complaining about being in seat 33B.  There was a row 34, so it could have been worse) tapped my shoulder.  I pulled the Shure SE115s from my ears and she repeated... 
     "What time do you have?  Is there a time zone change from DC?"
     "It' s 9:30.  No, there isn't a time zone change"

A few minutes later another tap, another removal of the SE115s, and she repeated...
     "Is that the ocean?"
     "...Have you ever landed in Boston?"
     "No...  Oh, there's the land over there.  I was getting worried."
     "Well, I'll warn you now.  When we land, we'll be over water until the last second.  I mean, we'll be just a couple hundred feet above the water and it will look like we're landing in the water.  Just so you know."
     "Okay.  ...Thanks."

Back on solid ground in Topsfield, MA, at the Friendlys, where I hoped to get some breakfast, my high-schooler waiter apprised me that the breakfast kitchen was closed and the lunch menu was active, but if I knew of such and such a local eatery, they serve breakfast all day- just the other side of the highway. 

Lesson learned: when the waiter advises you to go elsewhere for food, pack your bags.

Of course, packing my bags is what got me in all this trouble in the first place.


* Exit row seats are now a $15 surcharge!  I shit you not!
** Seriously, is this what people tune in to watch?  I remember being embarassed by Brady' Bunch during my childhood.  I couldn't help wondering what Russian spies would report back to the Kremlin about American culture.  Something like "Nothing to worry about Comrades, their minds are mush.  That Marcia's cute though.  It's a good thing she works for us."
*** I did apologize right as it happened.  But she was now determined.

I don't understand people.

Mr. Thomas Sowell, editorialist and clear thinker, wrote a simple to understand piece about the dangers of government re-distribution of wealth and determining how much money was "enough" for someone to earn.

http://patriotpost.us/opinion/thomas-sowell/2010/05/18/enough-money/


As expected, there were comments to the piece and I, fool that I am, decided to respond to some of the insanity.  We'll see what happens.  Here is my response to the ignorance, comments in-line with the other poster's drivel:
----------------------------------------------
@Loren: After reading your post, I took some time to explain a few things. You will find your full text below, with my comments marked as "toadroller."







Thank you for being such a concerned comrade. I mean citizen.


Sowell’s erroneous argument comes from the wealthy who have in this economy avoid taxation as compared with ordinary working people. That’s you and I Paul, but you surely know this. Money buys special tax avoidance schemes used by the wealthy to avoid taxation.


toadroller: Why yes, the "wealthy" do pay the taxes. At a rising percentage rate, the more you make. Those who are not wealthy, receive unearned income from the government.



There is presently the greatest shifting of wealth from the “middle class” to the wealthy under the cheney/goofy tax code.



Use of taxation has always been used to “redistribute wealth” in this and most countries of the world.



toadroller: That is untrue. Taxes were used, in this country, to fund the limited and enumerated purposes of goverment as defined in the Constitution ( see section 8: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States").



Taxes began to be used for the re-distribution of wealth in this nation.. a) when the income tax was instantiated, 1916, and b) truly when Social Security was created, 1935.





Its fairness has always been the issue from the perspective of the rich. A society which allows unlimited accumulation of wealth fails.



toadroller: please explain and provide examples of this. Sowell's example of Rockefeller explains the fundamental concept of economics (especially in a price driven economy in a free market) that wealth results from providing an improved service, to the benefit of society.



World history is replete with failed nation states because of this issue.



toadroller: Again, please give some examples? While it is true that nation-states have failed throughout history, I wonder in which nation-states (most all of which have been, historically, states governed by fiat rather than deferrence to a higher power (that above man's government)) the citizens were "permitted" to accumulate wealth without "control?" And please, do not cite cartels as examples.


Sowell argues that we dare not allow politicians to control the issues of allowable wealth accumulation. Think about what he has just argued. First he in fact recognizes that somehow wealth accumulation should be controlled,


toadroller: that is projection on your part. You fundamentally believe that wealth accumulation should be controlled (or am I wrong here?), and since Sowell pointed out the dangers of governments controlling wealth (with specific examples), you assume that he believes someone should be in control of wealth accumulation. That's a bold assumption. And a very dangerous one.


the issue in his view is who should do this task fairly.


toadroller: again, projection. And what is this assumption that it is good to control wealth, be it fairly or un-fairly? How about a fair Opportunity. Opportunity in this country is as close as any government (nation-state) (limited and consented by those governed) is and, sadly, will likely ever be, to fairness. I would recommend equal opportunity, not equality in results. It's what has led to American success for which President Obama insists on apologizing to the world of nations.


He asserts that we must not allow “politicians” to do so. Mr. Sowell would you please enlighten we mere morals as to how exactly wealth accumulation/concentration is to be dealt with?



toadroller: via free markets, which raise the standard of living for all involved. Including governments who collect revenue from the resulting wealthy. It is ironic that you should have the typo of morals for mortals; it is human morals in free markets (see below) that is the solution.



Since Mr. Sowell you have excluded politicians/government from this function how will this important issue be resolved fairly?



toadroller: It was resolved fairly in 1776, when leaders from these collective states and commonwealths risked everything and declared their independence from tyrrany, pointing out: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." This is fairness- equal opportunity, not redistribution of wealth and property. Our country was founded and thrived on the belief that you have a right to pursue (not necessarily achieve) happiness, and that right cannot/should not be infringed upon by the laws of men. Oh, and it works, too.


Mr. Sowell I don’t believe you want any control at all of accumulation/concentration of wealth.


toadroller: ding ding ding, you win the prize! “Our economy rests on a three-legged stool—political freedom, economic freedom, and moral restraint.” —Michael Novak. This is a lesson you should contemplate on long walks. If you will, this is a satement of optimism- that humans are essentially good. And, of course, that liberty is a good thing. You might not understand that if you wish to redistribute wealth for the "benefit" of others. Are you so cynical as to believe that people have no moral restraint?


You recognize the issue but offer no solution other than the status quo.



toadroller: Keep in mind, Loren, that the status quo currenlty is redistribution of wealth. The status quo is: Half of households in the US pay no taxes (they don't earn much money). The other half does, at a rising rate (10% - 35%), plus state taxes (5-10% depending on state, unless, of course, you live in NH, TN or another income tax free state), plus social security at 6.1%, plus taxes on all you consume (with a few exceptions). So, the status quo is roughly a 40% burden if you're a breathing wage earner. Is that enough wealth distribution for you, to take 40% of others for the purposes of running the state? Keep in mind that the top 1% of taxpayers pay 32% of the income taxes. Expand that to the top 5%, and we're at 51% of income taxes. Expand again to the top 10%, and it's 63%; top 20% is 78%. In other words, the status quo is that the tax burden is upon the rich. If you'd like fairness, how about spreading the tax burden around to the 80% of taxpayers who pay the other 20% of income taxes? Wouldn't that be more fair? More logical?



I don’t think Mr. Sowell you are a qualified arbiter of this issue.



toadroller: I think, Loren, you should read Mr. Sowell's book "Basic Economics," and then consider weather he is qualified to comment on economic concepts, which include taxation and wealth re-distribution. Oh, and you'll learn something, too.



I think Mr. Sowell your argument is disingenuous and meant for simple minded people who have imposed upon themselves the security of ignorance.



toadroller: the ignorant, who are not paying attention, have the right to vote. And they do. That has been to the detriment of America, especially so with President Obama, who was voted in by the ignorant for something as vague as "hope and change."



Let us recognize a plain undisputed fact Mr. Sowell, our tax code created by politicians/government has long been used to “redistribute wealth”.



toadroller: again, 60-80 years (federal income tax through social security through welfare) is not a long time, especially in a country that is young- 234 years.



The system works in a straight forward fashion, politicians are bribed by their benefactors (corporations and the rich) to draft tax codes which are beneficial to their financial interests. The present tax code is the result of such forces and private interests.



toadroller- The rich wanted to be taxed at 35%?? Boy, the rich are dumb. Of course, it's better than the 50% tax rate Reagan repealed.



We did not hear or see your argument during the lower tax rates for the very rich during the bush adm.. Only now when “politicians” are removing some of those substantial tax breaks for the rich do we hear your voice.



toadroller: Should anyone complain when their tax burden is lowered? Let's implement tax rates (which is, mathematically, the same thing as removing tax breaks) on those not currently paying taxes and see if they complain. I'm willing to bet they would.



I think you, Mr. Sowell are an “expert” who’s opinion may be for sale to the highest bidder and therefore your ethics are suspect. I question your ‘expert” status in this issue and recognize you may be little more than a common street “hooker”, with no insult meant to that ethical profession



toadroller: Loren, thank you for ending with name-calling. That's mature.


Now, go to the library my taxes have paid for, borrow Mr. Sowell's "Basic Economics" book, and read. You have some thinking to do.

dippity doo

So, the stock market took a nosedive yesterday afternoon, dropping almost 10% in the course of an hour or so. It was co-incidental (and mayyyybe cause and effect related) with riots in Greece over the passing of "austerity" laws.

Greece is over-burdened with debt and entitlements obligations. So they came to the EU asking for help. Help was offered under the conditions that they cut back their budget, which means entitlements freezes, cuts in union/public services pay, etc. Hence those dependent on such things got scared as.. what they were taking won't be there any more.

There were related riots in Germany; basically German citizens telling their government not to send their money to the Greeks. Well, of all peoples, fiscal concern from the Germans? Good for them! But it shouldn't be surprising. Who wants another person pulling from your buffet line?

Which brings us to the crux of the point. Are you going to be a piglet who fights to get to the sow, or are you going to be the sow?  Granted, the sow will have to take on more piglets than her own...

Are you going to be dependent on something (that probably won't be there) in the future, or are you going to make yourself independent? Will you take or will you have? Will you be a slave or will you be defending your property?  Will you pull the cart or are you going to be a burden?

What will you do when the sow goes dry?

Start saving now.

Shiny

I washed and waxed the car today.

It was the first time in over a year. It thanked me by being shockingly shiny.

I'm going to vacuum the interior tomorrow.  If I feel fancy, I might find some Armour-All for the tires and dashboard.

  The sky was clear and blue.

Our house is orange.

What to say?

The House passed on Sunday night,  and Obama signed on Tuesday morning, government control of healthcare into law. 

As if on queue, the sunny, gorgeous, pre-spring weather hitting the sixties and seventies turned into cold heavy rain, and finally let up here on Thursday.  Dark, gray, windy, and cold. 

I've wondered for more than a week (as the impending gloom circled and became reality) how I might write about it all.  Should I write an educational piece?  An impassioned explanation of what is so fundamentally wrong with it?  A short story with a duck and cat to explain the issues at hand in a way that even a four year old can understand?  Clever jokes and pokes?

I still don't know. But I will say that it has frustrated and depressed me because of the idea, the lies, the selling, and the process.  I do know that the next generation, my grandchildren, will take it as a given that healthcare is something that comes from the government (by then it will in its entirety- who can compete with someone whose captial is limited to the wealth of the entire population), like social security and medicaid are viewed today.  It takes an education and a thought process to understand that social security is a bad thing.  It takes a change in paradigm from what you've been taught, what you've lived with, the way everyone else does things, to understand this.  Sorry, most people aren't educated.  They don't pay attention.  They are happy to live the way everyone else does.

The unexamined life.  Ignorance is bliss.  Did you see what happened on "Lost" last night?  Sound bites and press relations and getting your agenda across.

Is there a silver lining?  I don't know.  No.  Yes.  Slopes are slippery.  Pendulums swing.  Of course there is.  The worst it's ever been; we've seen it all before.  A downard spiral; a renaissance of conservative thought and action.  Freedom aint free; give me libery or give me death; when in the course of human events; these enumerated powers; checks and balances; the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried;

Consent of the governed.

But. 

We are people, we are humans, we are children of God, we are free in spirit even if we, as a people, seem hell bent on surrendering the liberties we have to for freedom from worry.  We have brains.  We can choose not to participate in the insanity. 

I used to think this as withdrawing from society, escaping, going alone, hiding, becomming a hermit.  Funny thing though- I'm discovering more freedom of what God meant for life as we go down these paths of homeschooling, having too many kids, living without debt, living without birth control pills (never had it, never will), living without the crap television and news.  And I'm finding a bunch of people are taking this walk.  So now I'm thinking it isn't withdrawing, but re-forming.  re-defining.  Pursuing happiness.  Which is one of the fundamental freedoms (along with life and liberty) for which we took the risk of giving George the finger, and for which we can continue to fight and choose to live.  And which, for now, we're still permitted by this government which we permitted into being.

Cogito ergo conservativus

That is all.  You may carry on now.

Bumper stickers will be made available soon.

It's been a bit busy over the last week or two...

I can't believe it's been ten days since I wrote. We have been so full time busy with work or travel or moving that I haven't had time.

Gosh, where to begin catching up? I can't remember that far back! Let's see, on the 17th I flew into Philly for a demo.

Up late, up early, all morning the 18th in the demo and a strange sence of confidence came over me- which I had bee working towards. What a great feeling to know you're truly doing what you should be doing. Customer said, candidly, "I've sat through a bunch of these and this is the first one I've liked."

Back to the corporate office for an afternoon rush of learning some new call center features for the next week's demo; to the airport; landed Manchester 8:30; drove to Loudon and had dinner with dad at the Longhorn. He was all relaxed and talking fun (motorcycles, tractors, not politics and doom.). On through the night to home at 12:45 AM.

Friday up early and all day working and preparing. Friday night to Millinocket. Saturday packing Millinocket and back home. Sunday... kids to CCD, Stella needy and in arms. Made a good dinner, to bed.

Monday, up at 6:00 and to the airport. Early call before my flight. Got to Philly and the second leg of my flight was cancelled, mechanical. Changed car rental from Harrisburg to Philly and did a one way- that made it expensive! Got there in the same time it would have taken to fly. Worked 2:00 to midnight with a short break for dinner.

Tuesday, got up at 5:30, got the one thing I was hoping to make work... fixed at 6:02. More powerpoint clean up. Showered, got dressed, printed driving directions and demo script. At the customer 7:32. All friggin' day in front of the audience- scenario 1 and the questions came flying in from the forty people in the audience. Exhausting. Hour lunch, no, "could we make it 45 and keep on driving through?" "Sure, mister customer, you're used to standing up in front of a crowd for hours on end." By the way- very low stress levels through all of this; a confidence in what I could handle, and the fact that I couldn't handle all of it, so why worry, and the fact that, well, I know what I'm doing and had prepared a ton. Limped back to the hotel exhausted at 5:30. Half-hour nap, worked for an hour, went for dinner. Best and biggest martini ever, bangers and mash for the meal, back to hotel. Tried to work but fell asleep on bed around 8:00.

Wednesday, 2:30 AM, woke up. "Shit!" worked until 4:00, getting my key plan for the day ready. Back to bed, back up at 6:00, ignored 6:03 email from customer asking if I could come in early (give me a break! talk about not recognizing boundaries!) In front of customer at 8:00, delivering the goods until 2:30, then my partner got a chance to talk while I scrambled the travel logistics due to weather. Kudos and thanks from the customer, they're pleased and going forward. Flight delayed 1:45, so I went for another of Harrisburg's best martinis (Lancaster brewing company, if you're counting), then onto the airport. Hour long turbo-prop to Newark with 15 minutes to catch my flight on a different concourse. Nope, delayed an hour. Hour and a half. Two. Left at 11:45 and landed Portland 1:00 AM. I was, well, dragging at this point. 30 mph winds, absolutely sheets of rain. I drove 50 mph on the highway- me! Home at 2:20 AM.

Thursday, up at 6:00 to let a dog out or something, crawled back to bed. Up at 9:30 for coffee. In and out of too much work, calls, catch-ups, etc. It's 3:00, 4:00, that's it, I give! Torrential rain and strong winds all day. No leaks in the basement or the garage. Hooray, hooray.

Friday, up at 8:00, hammered email for an hour on my day off, many with the customer, and then up to Waterville at 11:30 for Cheryl to close on the house in Millinocket. Kept everyone but Bridget in the van and drove in counter-clockwise direction around waterville for 45 minutes. Back home. Lunch and packed and back north and east around 3:00. 4:30 in Bangor and picked up the mega u-haul 26 footer. Bridget and Henry in the cab with me, trucking. We had walkie talkies with us, but the kids wore the batteries out with silly talk. Wouldn't have minded but, we ended up needing them. Getting dark, Cheryl's headlights weren't on. Ten miles north of Bangor it turned into serious snow and out of nowhere the road is packed solid snow and sleet. Slowed down to fourty. Come on, we're within 40 miles of Milinocket. Stop in Howland so Cheryl can nurse Stella and I can get a coffee. Check out the van's headlights and only the high-beams work. High-beams it is then, as it's blowing and gusting and I'm not about to fix that on the way. Back on the highway, another 20 miles, walkie-talkie battery is dead. Pulled off in Lincoln for a quick off and on to make sure Cheryl's allright. I parked on the on-ramp, careful to leave enough room for people to get by yet not so far to the side that I'm off the pavement. Walked back to Cheryl and Stella was crying again, "could we go through Lincoln to get to Millinocket?" "Sure, let's back out." Started to back out and wasn't going anywhere. Cautiously tried to go forward, but slid to the right. Shit. Left a note with my cell phone number in the window, date, time, that we're all safe. Back to the minivan and I drove the rest of the way to Millinocket at 35 mph- too much snow, the moving truck abandoned. Unpacked in Millinocket and my cell phone rang, state patrol. I have to move it tonight or they'll move it for me, will be a couple hundred no doubt; to pull it is a big, big truck. How in blazes am I going to do that? I can't drive there myself, I'd need Cheryl, which means I'd need to pack all the kids up again. Called U-Haul's roadside assistance which amounted to twenty minutes on hold until a roadside assistance specialist told me he could help by looking up towing companies for me. Gee, thanks. "Is West Gardiner near to Lincoln?" "Only in the sense that New York is near Boston." Crap, I was online and said I could do a google search as well anyone. "Have a nice day, sir." Found John & Son's on Katahdin Avenue here in Millinocket, he picked up on the first ring. Yes, he could tug me out but couldn't tow, how bad was it. Yes, he'd meet me there. "Could you give me a lift? I can't take my whole family out in this." "Yeah, I'll squeeze you in next to my grandson in the cab. Meet me at the bottom of School Street in 10 minutes and call the state patrol, let them know you're fishing it out or they'll tow it before we get there." His name was John Doyle, no relation to Bert, but asked if Cheryl might have gone to high-school in the 80s or so. Yep. Knew the fella buying the house. That's Maine. The roads were now simply wet, rainy and clear- safe as can be. One hour later. Got there and tugged me out in five minutes, $100 cash only, a firm handshake, thank yous and off he went. Drove north to Millinocket and found my way up the hill to park in front of the house. A game of Clue with the kids and it was 11:15, off to bed.

And now we're all caught up. We need coffee. Time to move the Truck.