Some Joy

We had a visit from an AT&T dude today out doing still-more of the the dirty work for Starnet. I've still not quite figured out why I'm paying these guys. So far, all they've done is mail a DSL modem to the house and made two service calls to AT&T, who, as far as I can tell, are the ones actually doing all the work. After telling Debbie's mom that it was impossible to run DSL this far from the switch, which is why I'm a Starnet customer instead of an AT&T customer. Anyway, I guess I should start a DSL service. I could run the whole thing right here from Debbie's mom's basement with nothing more than internet access and a phone. The end of the story is that a loose wire was shorting out against another person's phone line about a half mile from here. Once that was fixed and filters were installed on every phone, DSL fired right up and we can now talk on the phone without both parties having to scream at each other. This has probably been going on for a long time and the DSL just made it painfully obvious. There have always been gremlins in the phones here and even dial-up was problematic.

So it only took a week, but we're finally up and running at a decent speed. The last step was to get all the computers to share the internet connection. Debbie's laptop wasn't any problem; wifi is built in. It took about two minutes to get it connected to the wireless router built into the DSL modem and sharing her mom's printer. However, my PC is a tower and doesn't have wireless. Originally, I had planned to run Cat5 from the basement to the upstairs room where the modem is located and jack into one of its four ports. I always prefer a wire to wireless; just one less thing to worry about. But with us moving so much and the probability that we will be renters for the foreseeable future, I decided to go wireless. While we were out running errands this morning, I picked up a Linksys Wireless-G USB Adapter. Like all good electronics, there is absolutely nothing to report: Pop in the CD, click, click, click, plug the wireless adapter into a USB port when the install routine tells you to, click, click, enter password, click, done. Five more clicks and I was sharing Debbie's mom's printer as well. Total time: less than five minutes. So now I can sit on my comfy couch and surf on my 42" monitor and not be in anyone's way. Of course, that means that I had to go through the whole download/install/reboot/rinse-and-repeat routine on a second PC (we've been using Debbie's laptop in hotels and other wifi hotspots since we left Arizona, so it's stayed more-or-less up to date). That seems to have run its course as of about an hour ago.

On a completely different subject, I'm seeing more and more crap on Facebook about the flu vaccine causing everything from complete paralysis to chronic halitosis. The H1N1 was rushed into production without being tested, all vaccines are a plot by the government to give your kids autism, all you have to do is trust God and the immune system He gave you, blah, blah, blah. All sorts of cranks and jackasses claiming to be doctors stating how they're not letting their kids get their flu shot this year. I've avoided saying anything because there are others who can say it much better than I can. But as you may have already caught on, I'm saying something now.

First, the world is full of attention whores who will do or say anything to get other people to pay attention to them. There are any number of "war heroes" out there with very entertaining stories of battles that the Army has no record of, fought in places that US troops have never been deployed to, in units no one in the military have ever heard of. Some of these people have written books, been on TV and have friends in the highest offices of the land. Some have even told the stories so often that they can pass polygraphs. They are still liars. Anyone with ten bucks (the cost of a domain from GoDaddy) and an internet connection can become anyone they want to be; doctor, nurse, world-famous virologist, cripple, widow, parent who has recently lost a son or daughter. Some have pretended to be teen-age girls dying of cancer. Some have concocted wild stories about diseases they have which in reality don't exist. Why? Because they are attention whores. People who are not attention whores are easy prey to those who are because we can see no logical reason why someone would do such a thing, especially if they are not making money off it in some way. As recently as ten years ago, attention whores had to be really good to reach an audience of any size. Now any blow-hard with an internet connection and a free YouTube account can reach millions of people in a matter of hours. Conclusion: just in case anyone missed the memo, when someone says "I saw it on the internet, so it must be true," they are being sarcastic.

Second, just to get this one out of the way: back when trusting in God and our immune system was the only option, people lived on average to about 30. If you have a flush toilet in your house and wash your hands with soap after you use it, you are not trusting in God and your immune system. You are depending on the ingenuity of men. End of discussion.

Third, I spent twelve years working in two different hospitals and heard all sorts of complete rubbish from various members of the medical staff. Being a nurse does not necessarily make someone any more knowledgeable about vaccine safety than you or me or the guy that delivers my pizza. In fact, if the guy delivering my pizza is a post-grad working on a degree in virology, he likely knows a great deal more on the subject than any nurse. And most doctors; see next point.

Fourth, even if someone is an actual practicing physician (see point number one), that still doesn't mean a great deal. Like many fields, the domain of knowledge that we call "medicine" has become so large that no one person can be an expert in "medicine." Like everyone else, they specialize. Asking a GP or OB for an opinion about flu vaccines is like asking an aerospace engineer his opinion of a new design for deep-sea submersibles. Sure, the common language used across disciplines may give our hapless aerospace engineer a bit of an advantage over the average lay person when it comes to understanding the basic issues, but that hardly qualifies him to go on Fox News spouting off about the "dangerously inadequate" work of the deep-sea submersible guys.

Finally, just look around and use your head for five seconds. Is the rate of infant mortality higher, lower, or about the same as it was 500 years ago? Do people have longer, shorter, or about the same life-spans as they did 500 years ago? Are living conditions better, worse, or about the same as they were 500 years ago? Which of the following do you think is most responsible for these benefits to society: medical science, homeopathy, or prayer circles? When I was in high school, someone living 100 years was unique enough to warrant at least a sizable article in the newspaper, and on a slow news day, maybe even be a human interest story on the eleven-o'clock news. (These were the days when the eleven-o'clock news was more than commercials for erectile dysfunction pills briefly interrupted by inaccurate weather forecasts and a high school football highlight reel.) Now such an event is barely noticed by the person's family. To repeat: Use your head! We didn't get from half-starved goat-herder with a 30-year life expectancy to where we are now by magic.

And I've probably pissed off enough people for one day, so I'll shut up and go to bed.

The Joy is Somewhat Tempered

We have high-ish speed internet (1.5Mbps), but it seems to go out a lot. Plus, the line filters basically change the high-frequency interference on the phones to a low-frequency hum that does a pretty good job of masking whatever it is the person on the other end of the line is saying. So if you call Debbie's mom's house, expect to yell and repeat yourself a lot. Given the for-crap customer service I've had so far, I expect our shiny new DSL provider to be no help whatsoever. I haven't tested the through-put so far (every minute we've had connectivity has been spent downloading endless updates to the two computers we currently have attached to the internet), but I won't be surprised to find that to be somewhat less than the advertised rate. I suspect the problem is the filters are likely the cheapest crap Starnet could find. Or there are issues with the interior wiring in the house. Or there is a problem with the DSL modem. Or there is a problem with the equipment installed at the switch. Or AT&T is sabotaging competing DSL companies using their wires in the hopes of driving us to them (something the tech that came to the house all but confessed was standard AT&T policy).

(shrug)

I'm sure tomorrow will be another day of wasted time on the phone trying to sort this out.

"Another one bites the dust..."

With sincerest apologies to Queen:



It's Friday (ok, ok; we were out of town on Friday and I'm still catching up; sue me), so it must mean another bank failure. That brings the total to 99 for the year. Best part of the article is, as always, near the bottom:

The number of banks on the FDIC's confidential "problem list" jumped to 416 at the end of June from 305 in the first quarter. That's the most since June 1994. About 13 percent of banks on the list generally end up failing, according to the FDIC.

So if no other banks are put on the FDIC's "problem list", we can expect somewhere around 150 bank failures for the year.

I see green shoots....

Sabbatical

Winter Comes Early

Tell us something we didn't already know:

While early autumn snowstorms aren’t uncommon in US weather history, they tend to be quick affairs that melt off quickly in a day or two. This however is a bit different in that we have a significant portion of the northern Midwest plains and northern Rockies are snow covered and it is not quickly dissipating, in fact it is increasing.

Hope everybody has some really tall boots.

More Green Shoots

The last three months were the worst in history for foreclosures. Best part?

The foreclosure crisis may not diminish anytime soon. "The fastest growing area is in the 180 days late-plus category, the most seriously delinquent borrowers," Sharga said. "It's going to be a lingering problem"....

"It's hard to envision [the banks] putting millions on properties up for sale and cratering prices," he said. "Recovery will be slow and gradual. I don't see home prices getting much better until 2013."

"Lingering" is a nice way to put it.

High (-ish) Speed Internet

We have a sort-of high-speed internet connection; 1.5Mbps through Star Net Wireless. Not the sharpest tools in the shed, nor do humans ever answer their phones, nor will you get the equipment when promised, nor will the instructions that come with it be correct, nor will the first person that tries to answer your questions be aware of, well, of anything. But eventually, you will get a high (-ish) speed connection. Now if we could find filters that work instead of the ones that were sent with the DSL modem, all would be well. Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know which ones are actually made dog crap until you bite into them. Or something like that. It's been a while since I watched that movie.

Anyway, the next step is updating the anti-virus on Debbie's mom's PC and setting all the software on it to start automatically checking for updates. That will likely involve many hours of downloads, installs, reboots, rinse and repeat, given that this PC has been frozen in time for years. Then I have to decide if I'm going to drill holes in the floor and run network cable to the basement, or if I will be buying some sort of wireless adapter/router/whatever. Maybe I'll research that while all the downloads and updates are happening. Any suggestions are welcome. I also need to get the wireless print server out and see if I can get that running so we can stop burning up all Debbie's mom's ink in her printer. Probably not tonight; as I recall from the last time I set that thing up, it is a royal pain in the butt to get it working.

So expect to see more here. Well, not right away; we're going up to see the fam for a few days and look into some possible paying work for moi. But when we get back Monday or Tuesday, I'll start being more consistent about posting here.

And only 14 minutes left on the first of many mega-downloads....

Update and Some Random

Debbie is back in Michigan; still nothing solid other than a solid "No" from Mickey. We've shifted everything out of the last room in the basement to be redone and I got a solid start on peeling the loose paper today before my fingers gave out. We should have that done tomorrow and the drywall repair work done. It will take two days to do the plastering, then several days for that to dry completely. We plan to be out of town for the weekend, so the timing should be just about right. When we get back, we should be able to prime and paint in the same day. Then we can finally shift everything into its final place and stop moving the same stuff over and over.

Over the weekend, we were able to clear the rest of the stuff out of the garage and into the basement. For the first time since we arrived, Debbie's mom can park in her garage again. That was starting to bug me a little, so I'm glad we could get that done while she's off visiting family in Connecticut. It's looking more and more likely that we'll be here for a bit, so we are trying to get out of the way as much as possible.

We seem to have some movement on the DSL front. We are supposed to receive a DSL modem tomorrow with instructions and the service should be turned on Wednesday or Thursday. I'll believe it when I'm surfing at something other than 40Kbps. I'm sure there will be a snag somewhere. And HP called to say they are sending a replacement video card for our PC. The new one should be here Thursday and none too soon. The cooling fan on our current video card is starting to sound more like a garbage disposal every day.

I bumped into a few things today while doing the usual back-and-forth with HP support. Harvard students are whining that they will no longer have free hot breakfast in their dorms. These are the future Masters of the Universe that will no doubt figure out a way to screw up even more badly than the current crop who nearly destroyed the world's economy: "Students generally feel that if you come to Harvard, for what you’re paying, you should probably have the right to a hot breakfast." I'll accept that as long as I have the "right" to pimp-slap whiny Harvard bastards.

And the BBC asks, "What happened to global warming?" Good question. Maybe we should invest all those 10's of millions spent on global conferences on actually understanding how the freaking climate works before we destroy the western economy trying to "fix" it. Every climate model predicted ever-higher temperatures. Not a single one even hinted at a decade-plus cooling period (which looks to continue; our temps have been 10-20 degrees F below average for a couple weeks now). Personally, I feel that's because politics and greed determined the results, the models were built to only spit out those results, and anyone who dared create a model that disagreed would find their funding suddenly disappearing. But I'm a suspicious sort. A less suspicious person would conclude that at this stage, spending money on reducing the uncertainties is a better way to go rather than spending money on "cures" that have about as much chance of making things worse as making things better. Geeks can read this to get an idea of how things ought to be proceeding. Won't happen, of course. Instead, the West will self-destruct and China will become dominant for the next couple centuries.

And a very insightful article on why it is nearly impossible for a legislator to actually know what they are voting for. Of course, that wasn't the intention of the author, but it is the only intelligent reading possible. It is also a good explanation of how congressional staffers on the payroll of major corporations and non-profits are able to sneak all sorts of crap into bills without any member of Congress being aware that it is in there. Then the lawyers and judges "interpret" the law in ways that defy all rational thought (ADA being a recent example). Whatever sort of health care "reform" happens, understand that large insurance carriers will benefit, large health care providers will benefit, large pharmaceutical companies will benefit. You will get screwed, hard and fast, all the while being told how it's all for your own good. There isn't much that is sure in this life, but that is a sure thing.

And on that pleasant note, I shall go to bed and fall into a deep, blissful sleep in the full and certain knowledge that my over-lords in Washington DC are looking out for my best interests.

St Pete's

While I was here I decided to per sue another lead with AAA. I looked up the phone number and called the St Petersburg FL office to see if they had a travel agent opening. I had seen it listed on Monster.com, but Robi (manager of Carrollwood office) did not know if St Pete was hiring or not. She gave me the manager's email and told me she was out of the office for 7-10 days.

Whomever answered the St Pete's main line told me that they were indeed looking for a travel agent since they had one leaving and her last day is tomorrow. I verified the address I found in google and thanked God that it was late working day for them. I got directions (via google maps again) and headed over. Found the place okay (well .... after a slight detour on the wrong road!), filled the application and such and turned in with my current resume. The receptionist said she would give it to the manager tomorrow afternoon when she was back in. Hmmmm....is she just back or leaving soon or did Robi give me wrong info? Oh well. Another attempt at a job!

No free Disney passes :-(

Sorry all that were pulling for me to get the job at Disney World res center ----
I did not get the job.

Disney World job?!

I'm back in Florida again. I have an interview tomorrow for a position at the Walt Disney Reservation Center in Tampa. I applied online on 9/30, got a call Tues (10/6) -- passed that and got set up for an in person interview process for Thurs (10/8). Wow --- good thing I can come and go at a drop of a pin.

I also found online tonight another position with Disney --- at the cruise line reservation center --- I may ask about that tomorrow if I can. Any job with Disney would be great --- I'm sure. I think Ric and I were both excited to hear about this interview. We are ready to work for the "happiest place on earth!"

Numbers

Total visits for September were slightly better than last month (199), but still off from our long-term average. Again, with only a few updates a week instead of several a day, that's understandable. Until we have an always-on connection on our own computer, posting will remain somewhat sparse. This month is also somewhat distorted by the whole accessing-the-web-via-a-borrowed-PC thing: our machines are set up to not be recorded in our site stats, while the borrowed machine obviously is not. So the numbers for XP and Firefox 3.5 will be slightly elevated over what they would otherwise be.

Anyway, without further ado:

XP - 80.4%
Vista - 12.1%
Other - 3.0%
Mac - 1.5%
NT - 1.5%
Linux - 1.5%

That gives Microsoft 94% on the OS front. And while my site may just not attract the "right" kind of people or something, it's gotta sting when your OS ties with NT and gets beat out by Other. Just sayin'.

Firefox 3.5 - 42.7%
IE 7 - 28.1%
IE8 - 11.1%
Firefox 3.0 - 5.5%
Chrome - 3.0%
IE6 - 3.0%
Other - 5.5%

Microsoft looks a lot less dominant on the browser front than it does in OS's, and continues a slow-but-steady decline. Personally, IE8 isn't a half-bad browser other than taking twice as long to load a page, but I still use Firefox even with its dated look-and-feel because it's fast and I know about vulnerabilities with hours of their discovery with patches not taking much longer.

All done playing with numbers.

Still Waiting

When the Florida thing fell through, I immediately contacted the broker dude about getting Megapath on the stick with this DSL thing they claim they can do. Of course, not a peep from Megapath. Which most likely means that some sales dude promised something that the hardware dudes can't deliver. Wednesday morning will have been one week; if I don't hear anything by then, we'll be going with Hughsnet. The speed is actually better than what Megapath was offering for the same money and installation is cheaper. The only problem with satellite is the latency issue (everything has to travel up to geo-stationary and back; about 45,000 miles round trip) and weather interruptions (which, contrary to the cable TV ads, are rare). Even then, still better than dial-up.

Speaking of waiting, we're pretty much at a stand-still in the basement until the plumber dudes show up again. They had to come back out anyway because we had to take Debbie's mom over to Menards to pick out a new toilet to replace a very old one that basically fell apart when the plumber dude touched it. It was turquoise (which tells you how old it is), so no great loss to the world of bathroom fixtures. But now one of the toilets they thought they had fixed is still leaking, or maybe started leaking from somewhere else. Anyway, we can't shift stuff from the last room that needs to be peeled/patched/plastered/primed/painted until they get back here because where we were planning on shifting it to is exactly where the plumber dudes need to get to fix the leak. But we are mostly done with everything else and have started setting up a little living area for ourselves in one room, and actually got the water bed frame put together in the room we plan to use as a bedroom. A "California king" mattress is due to be delivered Monday or Tuesday (more waiting) which will pretty much make that room into a usable bedroom.

We were hoping to get outside and do some yard stuff and get things ready for winter, but after not raining for the first month we were here, it looks like Michigan is making up for lost time. So more waiting. Of course, just as I typed that, the sun poked through a hole in the clouds, so we may still get some time in the sun. Which is good; we've been in the basement so much, we're starting to look like those lizards cavers find with no eyes and transparent skin.

So the bottom line is that we're still waiting. Just waiting....

Bummer news

I got a call late this morning from Florida. I did not get the AAA job in the Carrollwood office. They ended up having two more internal people apply after I interviewed for the position. She hired one of them and that office already had too many travel agents in their office, so it did not open up another position. Robi also told me one of the area offices was closing so that is why so many internal people were applying all of a sudden. She also told me she believed the Brandon, Leesburg and Winterhaven offices already hired or offered the job to internal applicants.

Back at it again ......................................

Another Short Update

Still in wait-mode; no word on anything. We keep plugging along with the basement project, getting the two largest areas all painted up, cleaned, swept, mopped and the floor touched up from various injuries it suffered during all the work on the walls. That will be dry enough by morning for us to start setting up furniture. The first challenge will be a king-sized water bed that is in a bajillion pieces and no one entirely sure how they all go together or even if all the pieces in the pile are actually part of the water bed. This could be fun. The plan is to set it up and see about getting a regular replacement mattress for it. There is a bladder and heater in the parts pile, but the heater looks... um... dubious is probably the kindest way to say it, and the bladder has duct tape on it which I take as a sign of a less-than-perfect record for the bladder holding its water (so to speak). Besides, I've tried sleeping on water beds and basically hate them. But in any case, that is the main challenge for tomorrow.

I also need to get our main computer system set up. It's been in a box since leaving Arizona and I've fallen very far behind in keeping track of our spending and where we are with our various bank accounts. As you can imagine, that kind of stuff is a little important when your income is zero. It will also give us a place to watch movies without annoying Debbie's mom too much, access to music, movies, etc. We still don't have high-speed internet access, so I won't be able to do several other things that I really need to do, but it will be a first step.

That's about it for now.

And So On and So Forth

Same ol' routine over the weekend. But there is light at the end of the tunnel; we should be able to call at least one room completely done by the time we stop working tomorrow evening. If we really move fast and can stick with it, we may even have two.

Still on hold on the job front; should know something by the end of the week, but we've heard all that before. Blah, blah. Like I posted on Facebook; it has now taken AAA Florida six times longer to fill a travel agent position that it took the Catholic Church to elect a new pope. There is something seriously wrong down there.

Well, lightening is moving in, so I need to shut down.

Sons of Martha

This came up in a discussion on another site. I've posted it before, but it's been a while:

The Sons of Martha

Rudyard Kipling 1907

The sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited
 that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the
careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she
was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary's Sons, world without
end, reprieve, or rest.
It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and
cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages; it is their care that
the switches lock.
It is their care that the wheels run truly; it is their care
to embark and entrain,
Tally, transport, and deliver duly the Sons of Mary by
land and main.

They say to mountains, "Be ye removed." They say to
the lesser floods, "Be dry."
Under their rods are the rocks reproved-they are not
afraid of that which is high.
Then do the hill-tops shake to the summit-then is the
bed of the deep laid bare,
That the Sons of Mary may overcome it, pleasantly
sleeping and unaware.
They finger death at their gloves' end where they piece
and repiece the living wires.
He rears against the gates they tend: they feed him hungry
behind their fires.
Early at dawn, ere men see clear, they stumble into
his terrible stall,
And hale him forth a haltered steer, and goad and turn
him till evenfall.
To these from birth is Belief forbidden; from these till
death is Relief afar.
They are concerned with matters hidden - under the
earthline their altars are-
The secret fountains to follow up, waters withdrawn to
restore to the mouth,
And gather the floods as in a cup, and pour them again
at a city's drouth.

They do not preach that their God will rouse them a
little before the nuts work loose.
They do not teach that His Pity allows them to drop
their job when they dam'-well choose.
As in the thronged and the lighted ways, so in the dark
and the desert they stand,
Wary and watchful all their days that their brethren's
day may be long in the land.

Raise ye the stone or cleave the wood to make a path
more fair or flat -
Lo, it is black already with blood some Son of Martha
spilled for that!
Not as a ladder from earth to Heaven, not as a witness
to any creed,
But simple service simply given to his own kind in their
common need.

And the Sons of Mary smile and are blessed - they
know the Angels are on their side.
They know in them is the Grace confessed, and for
them are the Mercies multiplied.
They sit at the Feet - they hear the Word - they see
how truly the Promise runs.
They have cast their burden upon the Lord, and - the
Lord He lays it on Martha's Sons!

We didn't get any answers, but there is still hope for later in October. Blah, blah, blah.

Back in Florida

We are just outside of Tampa lounging in a Best Western and enjoying the benefits of high speed internet. Ahhhh, the luxury.

More job stuff and hunting around looking at housing just in case a miracle occurs and someone puts actual money on the table.

More later; right now the pizza place in the hotel is calling to us gently and lovingly....

Shell Game

Here is a good example of how to contradict yourself. It is also a good example of why no one should take financial advice from cable news shows. As if you needed another one after the last 18 months. Anyway:

Can I count on Social Security to be there?

You can. Despite what you may hear about the system going broke, the funds from workers' payroll taxes will cover all retirees' payments until 2016 even if no changes are made to the current program. After that the Social Security Administration can cover full benefits until 2037 by cashing in its Treasury bonds from the Social Security trust fund. And when the bonds run out, income from payroll taxes would be enough to cover about 75% of payments for decades.

Let's translate this. I have a $1,000 "surplus" in my wallet because the rent isn't due until the end of the month. I take that $1,000 out of my wallet, put it in my left front pocket, and place a piece of paper in my wallet with "I owe me $1,000" written on it. Then I head down to the local Best Buy, take the $1,000 "surplus" out of my pocket and buy one of those cool new LED flatscreen TV's. When Debbie demands to know how I plan to pay the rent in two weeks, I proudly pull the piece of paper out of my wallet and declare that she has no need to worry; we'll pay the rent by cashing in the bonds in our trust fund!!

We all know how you can tell a politician is lying. That includes their puppets at CNN as well.

Living Off-Line

Having limited internet time combined with dial-up has curtailed on-line living for now. Other than checking e-mail and skimming through Facebook posts a couple times a day, I just haven't been doing much on the internet. Which, as you have probably noticed, includes posting here. We have a fairly predictable routine going: get up in the morning, head down to the basement, come up around 1 or 2pm for lunch, head back down until 6 or 7pm, dinner, veg in front of the idiot box, bed. Rinse and repeat. Progress in the basement is slow but steady. One of the large areas is ready for primer and paint, and I expect the second large area to be the same by this weekend. We'll likely finish those two areas completely before starting on the final two small rooms.

Attempts to get DSL have hit a snag. Namely, Megapath simply refuses to send a contract. I love companies that waste my time. As it turns out, it may be a good thing. Nothing definite yet, but it looks like my updated prediction was almost spot on. We just finished hauling everything into the basement and... well... lets just say that fingers are crossed. Toes are crossed. Legs are crossed. Of course that last one probably has more to do with the 2-litre of Diet Coke I just polished off.

Anyway, that's it for now. Maybe after this week, I can get back to a sort-of normal internet routine. But for now, bed time.

Night Symphony

I love the sounds here at night. Tonight I woke up around 3am and after getting a drink and using the facilities, I tried to go back to bed. The bedroom was warm so I opened our window. The coolness came in along with the cricket symphony. It is so neat to listen to after not hearing it for awhile. (Of course, my mind starting wandering and I couldn't go back to sleep -- so hear I am online still at 4am!)

Ric has been steadily plugging away at the basement work. I have been helping on and off. When he is stripping the drywall, I usually have not been helping. I'm afraid I would somehow dig the scraper into the drywall and make a bigger disaster. He finished up the "bedroom" Sunday night and should be able to start taping and mudding now. We did carry all the big plastic bins from the garage to the basement Sunday also. This week we plan on getting the garage emptied out enough that Mom can put her car back in it. When it comes time to move the big furniture, Ric plans on calling on a couple of his cousins that are in the area to help us. (Thank goodness!)

Basement update

The floor is completely painted and the cement block walls are primed. Yeah! Ric is getting the walls ready for drywall taping/mudding and more in the room we will use as a bedroom. We bought the drywall mud and tape and some primer to get started.

Saturday we are taking part of the day to go to the Frost family reunion in Harrison (MI). Then if we fill like it, we can start hauling our stuff from the garage to the basement since the floor paint will be "cured." (Probably won't get to that until Sunday and next week!) We have to leave some areas cleared out for the plumber dude to have access to and then when he is all done, we can get the rest of the basement organized better.

Job update

Nothing!
No news yet on the job front. I called around today to the Florida and Alabama travel agent possibilities and things are back on hold for hiring right now (or as one person said -- internal things). I left messages for two people that have not called me back yet. One of these is the person that emailed me yesterday to ask if I had heard from anyone. Hmmmm... wonder what that means? Guess I have to wait to find out from her. She didn't return my call today or email back. More updates later.

Short Update

Not much going on here because we've been busy working on the basement over in the real world.

And because doing anything over dial-up sucks.

Anyway. The basement floor is completely painted and looks pretty good if we do say so ourselves. We expect a huge improvement in the air quality of the house now that several decades of dirt, firewood debris, ashes and soot have either been cleaned up or permanently sealed under a coat of paint. We started sealing the block walls today and should finish that up tomorrow. Then we move on to drywall repair while we give the floor its seven-day curing time. Then we try to make a living space for ourselves.

No news on the job front. Prospective employers continue to be idiots, asking when we plan to move. Our answer is always the same: as soon as you put a job offer on the table. Do that, and we can be available in a matter of days to start work. But if you think we are moving across the country purely on spec, you're even dumber than I already think you are.

Tuesday, I should be able to start in earnest on getting some sort of high-speed connectivity out here. It's pretty much down to DSL as a first choice, if someone can get it to work this far from the switch (the last time AT&T tried, they couldn't, but another company claims they can); cellular second, if we can get decent signal (definitely will need an external antenna with a signal amplifier inside the house); and satellite bringing up the rear as a last resort. With some luck, I'll accomplish all that in a week and we'll have a "real" internet connection. To paraphrase a popular saying from the 1970's: once you've had high speed, you never go back.

That is pretty much it. We've been taking photos of our work, but I think I'll wait on uploading them until we have a faster way of doing it, even if that means grabbing the laptop and heading out war-driving. Until then, expect only sporadic updates.

August Stats

This month, visits were down (184) mostly because our posting was sporadic (only 29 posts for the entire month). Nothing really surprising on the OS front: Windows XP continues to dominate (66.8%), Vista is in a distant second place (19.6%) and Mac in an even-more-distant third (5.4%). The remainder (8.2%) were various oddballs including some Windows 2000 and Windows NT.

On the browser front, Firefox and MSIE continue to duke it out. Combining the various versions gives a dead heat of 43.4% for Firefox vs. 44% for MSIE. It's been a while since I took Stats, but given that a single visit this months counts for over a half percent, I think the difference is well below the level of significance. Chrome edged out Safari 4.3% to 3.3% and the remaining 5% was the usual odd assortment.

Interesting to note that MSIE 6 took a header off a cliff, and only Firefox 3.0 and 3.5 made an appearance this month. MSIE 8 still lags badly behind MSIE 7, and Firefox 3.5 just barely edged past 3.0. Not sure why people are so reluctant to change; I've used IE 8 and FF 3.5 and both are significant improvements over their predecessors.

OK; enough of boring the audience. I need to do some internet stuff for Debbie.

2,053 Miles

Total mileage on the moving van when we turned it in was 2,053, which makes the daily average 513.25 miles over the four days of driving. It was mostly easy driving; traffic was light even in the larger cities we hit, weather was perfect, and no mechanical problems. Not that either of us is looking forward to doing it again real soon, but it could have been a lot worse. Like driving all our stuff out to Arizona through ice storms so bad, entire states were declared disaster areas.

Obviously, if the truck has been turned in, we got all our stuff out of it. For now, it's heaped up in Debbie's mom's garage. We were going to try to lure some strong backs and weak minds out here with promises of food, but we decided to wait on that until we are actually moving everything into the basement. We decided that it didn't make sense to move a bunch of stuff down there in our own way, so we are holding off until the floor and walls are painted and cured before we haul everything down there. That will also give a bit of time for some of the job leads to maybe call us before all our stuff is too inaccessible.

Speaking of which, I've been saying for weeks that the phone would ring with a job offer exactly twenty minutes after we unloaded the last bin off the truck. That didn't happen. I am now officially changing my prediction (hey, if the dork "financial analysts" on all the news networks can do it, so can I...): Twenty minutes after we carry the last bin into the basement, the phone will ring with a job offer.

That's it for now.

We're Here

We made it to my Mom's house okay. Safe, sound (well, maybe not sound of mind), sore, tired and happy the drive is over for now. We unloaded the Durango and parked the Penske truck in the driveway all set to unload tomorrow. Hopefully we can get some help tomorrow and make things alot easier on us.

Home stretch

We made yesterday a short day --- we were both just tired of sitting in the vehicles and driving. We crashed for the night in Effingham, IL; ordered in Pizza Hut and watched Big Brothers and a couple Criminal Minds shows. (Watch out Kevin, if Jeff gets off the block, he will be after your butt!)

We should be pulling into my Mom's place later this evening. If we feel halfway decent, we can start to organize the garage and get a few things off the Penske truck. Tuesday we have all day to get it unloaded since the truck is not due back until Wed in Mt Morris. (Anybody free on Tuesday, can come over to help!)

Check, Please

Outside of the building looks like the gas station Will Smith used in I Am Legend?
Check.
Pump malfunctions when you try to restart it after it shuts off at $75 dollars?
Check.
Pump receipt looks like it's written in the native language of the beings on Queezag?
Check.
All the employees have that slack-jawed, vacant-eyed expression that just screams, "Please put money in my tip jar so I can participate in this year's Special Olympics?
Check.
Most of the rest of the customers stocking up on Twinkies and Miller Lite look the same as the employees?
Check.
Men's restroom looks like the aftermath of gay biker gang's all-night sex party?
Check.
Toilet in men's restroom sprays your back with the water you just took a dump in when you flush?
Check.
Accosted by a filthy spic using his (probably rented) "family" as props in his panhandling scam?
Check.

Well, then you must be at Loves #215 in Gallup, New Mexico!!
Check and mate.

Actually, the trip has been relatively smooth. The only major glitch so far is that the moving van only has about a 250-mile range on $80 worth of diesel fuel and has a real hard time pulling itself up hills. We are in Joplin, MO and will hopefully be somewhere in Indiana tonight.

Well, free breakfast waits for no one.

Or from Debbie ...

He, he, he! The last post before we turn in the box if from me!

We did get almost everything done today that we wanted to. The last of the kitchen, bathroom, cleaning supplies and a few odds and ends are left. We plan on being up early tomorrow to be at the Penske rental place by 8am when they open. Sometime after 9am, we have to turn in our box to Cable One; but other than that we will be finishing packing and then loading everything up we can ourselves until help comes in the afternoon/evening.

Prayers out to Kim and the rest of the family. I am sorry I can't be there right now to give you all hugs. Next week I hope.

Last Post from Prescott

This will definitely be the last post from Prescott. As soon as I'm done with this, I'm tearing the system down and boxing it up for the drive to Michigan. We've gotten most of the stuff out of the apartment and down in our storage area. That will make loading it on the truck fast and easy. Even better, we have help coming tomorrow afternoon for the really heavy stuff. We may be able to update from the road, depending on what sort of hotel we can find when we get tired of driving. We are still looking at Monday afternoon/evening for our arrival in Burt, Michigan. That gives us a couple days to unload before we have to have the truck back, so we won't have to kill ourselves as soon as the wheels hit Debbie's mom's driveway.

Got word that Ted Kennedy died today. I hate to speak ill of the dead, but hanging on to his Senate seat long after he was physically able to even make a perfunctory effort at the job was a disgrace. Doing it so there could be a "plan of succession" is on par with drowning someone in your car then not bothering to call the cops until the next day. We have this thing called a Constitution which lays out exactly what is to happen when a Senator is incapacitated or dies while in office. Senate Dems may have heard of it. Or not; by their actions I would suspect they've never seen it.

If you think Political Correctness is just a recent irritant in political discourse, do yourself a favor and go watch this video. This is why I don't bother with any of the networks' news programs; a film clip or image can be manipulated to tell 100 different stories, none of which are even a passing acquaintance of the truth.

And finally, it looks grim for the Spirit rover. It has been stuck in soft sand for months, and just when NASA thinks they have a plan to get it unstuck, a dust storm hits, cutting the available power from the solar panels (also a good argument for an RTG power source like those used on the first Mars landers). Still, not a bad run for what was supposed to be a 90-day mission.

OK; that's it. The next post will either be from a hotel somewhere between here and Michigan, or will be from Debbie's mom's house.

Countdown

As Debbie mentioned last night/early this morning, we are getting very close to D-day. This morning we pretty much packed up everything in the bedroom. When Debbie gets back from her lunch, she will start on the stamping stuff in the office while I clear everything out of the bedroom except the bed and start doing the final cleaning of that room. Then we get everything out of the kitchen other than what we need today and tomorrow for our last couple dinners in the apartment. Tomorrow we do the bathroom and clearing out as much of the apartment as we can fit in our storage area and our garage. Thursday morning we go pick up the truck and start loading. We have a couple from Arcosanti that will be coming over later in the afternoon to help carry the heaviest stuff out of here. The goal is that when we stop Thursday, there will be nothing left except the air mattress for us to sleep on and the clothes we will be wearing Friday as we drive out of Arizona. We expect to be in Burt, Michigan by Monday afternoon. So far, the flying monkey wrenches has stayed at bay. Lets hope that continues.

Couple quick notes on the economy: the government continues to demonstrate its inability to forecast, well, anything. Not revenue, not expenditures, not borrowing, not Cash for Clunkers. Any CFO in a publicly-traded company that had as miserable of a record would be in prison for fraud. And in a sign that there is at least something left of the Republic, a judge has told the Fed that just because it pretends to not be part of the government doesn't mean it can ignore Freedom of Information requests. Soon we will know just which banks have been doing the most sucking at the Fed's massive teat.

This month's cover story at Wired is Why Craigslist Is Such a Mess. It's a bit longer than most of the articles I usually link to, but read the whole thing. Mamas, don't let your children grow up to be marketers. (If you read the whole thing, that will make at least some sort of sense.) With apologies to Ed, Patsy, Waylon and Willie of course:



I know I keep saying this and then end up doing a bunch of posting here, but other than a quick post tomorrow before I tear down our main system and pack it up, don't be surprised if things are quiet around these parts for a while.

two more days

Still no phone calls regarding a job in Florida or Alabama yet. If they call in the next couple days before we pick up our Penske truck, then we can change our destination for the truck. We would have more to do that way -- find a place to live number one -- but at least only one move with the big truck. After we moved in and I started my new job, then we could fly Ric back to Michigan and he would finish up the basics at my Mom's house with the basement and other things on his list.

I applied for a few other AAA travel agent positions in the last few days. I"m sure the most popular with the family and friends is the one in Honolulu Hawaii. :-)

We had a nice dinner out with a past coworker and her fiance tonight. It was great to sit around talking to someone besides ourselves. Yeah, yeah, I know ... we need to get out more and make some friends where ever we move. Tomorrow I am going out to lunch with another past coworker and then hopefully can see everyone I want to at the workplace to say my last goodbyes.

Quick Note before We Leave

We are getting ready to head out to Arcosanti, so I thought I'd just do a quick post. I just got off the phone after talking to a guy about getting broadband out to Debbie's mom's place. Our options are fairly limited; no cable, cell service is poor, DSL is likely not available. But he did find us some options that we will be looking into shortly after we get there. We even talked about pulling a T1 to the house and seeing if the neighbors would be willing to chip in to pay for it. There are six houses we could easily reach with wifi, but it would still be expensive. Once we are there, we'll get more serious about making something happen. At least we now have a sort-of plan in the sense of knowing what is absolutely off the table.

Couple quick things from the news sites this morning. Super-bearish (I like to call him realistic, but I'm a pessimist) economist Nouriel Roubini is expecting at best a couple years of bouncing along the bottom before there is any significant recovery, and sees a significant risk of a double-dip recession. The great thing about being a pessimist is that there really isn't a downside: if you plan for the worse, you will always be pleasantly surprised. Everyone might want to keep that in mind over the next six months or so.

Like Obama, hate Obama, indifferent about Obama, why hassle his kids? I was disgusted by the 24/7 coverage of his girls shortly after the inauguration with breathless coverage what brand of backpack they were carrying etc. I doubt any of those "reporters" would allow some creep to follow around their pre-pubescent daughters with a camera offering up a running critique of what brand of sneakers they wear or what cartoon character is on their backpack. Enough already: if you can't find anything more important to report, find another line of work.

Well, gotta go if we are going to get everything done today. Might have some pictures later.

So You Wanna be an IT Guy?

Walking Around in the Sun

We spent the day visiting a couple places that we've been meaning to get to the entire time we've lived in Arizona. Our first stop of the day was Watson Lake, a man-made reservoir in the Granite Dells. Like most reservoirs in the western US, it has a definite "bathtub ring" due to lower-than-normal water levels. The formations around the lake tend to form recognizable shapes when viewed from certain angles. Today we found a frog:



an elephant:



a monkey wearing goggles (Debbie couldn't see that one; it's probably just me):



an Easter Island head taking a nap (and looking like he's been spending too much time at the all-you-can-eat buffet):



someone mooning us:



And... well... um.... yea:



Anyway, it wasn't just us having fun with pareidolia; our camera tried to get into the act. I had to disable facial recognition because all the little green squares around rocks the camera thought were faces were driving me nuts. In any case, we had fun, got a little toasted in the sun, and got to spend some time in a really interesting place.

The second stop was Lynx Lake. We basically ate lunch at a small diner that is also a boat rental place and gift shop. We only had enough time after lunch to walk down to the docks and snap a few pics before the place was closing, but we had good company for lunch:



The restaurant has several large humming bird feeders hanging just outside the windows. These guys were only a couple feet from our table while we were eating:



All the climbing and walking pretty much did us in; we spent the rest of the day napping, reading and watching movies.

Tomorrow we plan to head out to Arcosanti for one last visit, then we are having dinner with one of the Debbie's former coworkers. Tuesday and Wednesday will probably be hectic with all the last-minute packing and cleaning, Thursday we load the truck, and Friday we hit the road for Michigan. We probably won't have a chance to post much until we get to Michigan, so it will likely be quiet here for a while.

And I'm off to bed before I fall asleep on the couch.

Biofuel, Native American Style

Leave it up to a Native American tribe to come up with a sensible approach to biofuels:

• They plan to make bio-diesel, which is more efficient to produce than ethanol.
• They are using algae instead of a food crop.
• They are not converting cropland away from growing food crops.
• The algae will be grown next to a natural gas power plant, a source of algae fertilizer (otherwise known as CO2).
• A focus on long-term yet profit-driven planning. The two are not incompatible.

It will be interesting to see where this goes.

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's a Frog!

OK, so the title doesn't have much to do with what I'm going to write about (other than identity confusion). But whenever I could get away with having the TV on early enough on Saturday, that was how my weekend started. And yes, I was sad little dork from a very early age.

Anyway, it seems that gender identification involves a bit more than a peek inside someone's undies. Of course, this raises a bigger question in this day of feminazis loudly proclaiming that anything a guy can do a woman can do better: Why do we still have athletics divided by gender? Especially in a sport like running that does not involve brute strength or physical contact between the participants? A woman can be a soldier in the Army and, we are repeatedly assured in the face of all the evidence and simple common sense, performs equally with her male counterparts in every possible way, yet we have an international stink about this? Why? Wouldn't it be simpler to just have one 800-meter and no one caring what your chromosomes or genitals look like?

Feel free to enlighten me.

Bank Failure Friday

It's Saturday morning, so that must mean it's time for an article about all the banks the feds seized yesterday. That makes 81 failures this year.

Perspective: from 1982 to 1992, which includes the S&L blow-up, banks were closing by the hundreds, so 81 failures seems like a return to normal failure rates after a decade and a half of deregulation and extremely lax enforcement. But what is different this time around is that part of that deregulation has resulted in a smaller number of much larger banks. The assets of the 1,000+ banks in the S&L clean-up totaled $519 billion. Not a shabby amount by anyone's accounting. But with just over 100 bank failures in 2008 and so far in 2009, the FDIC has already forked over $300 billion, and that doesn't include any of the bail-out money, which adds another trillion (conservatively) or two (more likely).

So where are we? Uncharted waters, mostly, which historically favors the fast and the small.

$9.1 Trillion

That's how much will be added to the federal debt over the next ten years. And we all know that deficit estimates are always, always, on the high side.... Does this even matter any more? At what point does the whole thing become some perverted game of Monopoly with the players grabbing any scrap of paper they can put their hands on, scribbling exponentially-larger numbers on them and claiming they have they most money?

Every government that has gone down this path has, without exception, crashed and burned. But I'm sure we won't because we're smarter than everyone else/God won't allow it if we just pray real hard/we have more guns than everyone else/insert whack-job response of your choice.

Cash for Clunkers, RIP

That didn't last long. I wonder if The One realizes that it will be far more difficult to cut-and-run when it's healthcare? I love this line from The One himself:

President Barack Obama said in an interview Thursday that the program has been "successful beyond anybody's imagination" but dealers were overwhelmed by the response of consumers. He pledged that dealers "will get their money."

Um, not quite. Car dealerships are for-profit entities whose continued existence depends on them being able to quickly and accurately complete large amounts of paperwork. It's the federal bureaucracy that has, once again, demonstrated its inability to do even the most simple task with anything that could be mistaken for competence. Dealerships fronted this money on behalf of the federal government in good faith and are now being screwed. Promises that they will be reimbursed sometime, maybe, doesn't cut it in an industry as cut-throat as new car sales.

Any doctors out there may want to take heed; you're next if The One gets his way.

Counting Down

One week left in Arizona. We have spent most of today changing addresses. Every time we move, we clean up the list; dropping off old companies and organizations that we no longer do business with, dumping magazine subscriptions we no long bother to read, etc. Then by the time we move, we've added more back onto the list than we got rid of. (sigh) Who are these people? Where do they come from? Ah well; we should have it more or less done by the end of the day. I had hoped to spend more time messing with Ruby and FOX, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards.

Had a weird one today: someone from another apartment whom we have never met came knocking on our door to ask to use our phone. We don't have a land line, so I just gave her my cell phone. She was trying to get something fixed on her cell phone, but her provider didn't want her calling on her own phone to report the problem. Huh? Do all cell phone companies assume that everyone with a cell phone also has a land line? That hasn't been true for us for years, and is likely not true for a growing number of people. I think someone needs to reconsider their procedures and move them a little closer to reality. It's one thing to have to use a neighbor's phone to report that your phone is dead-dead, but having to borrow a phone to report that some non-phone feature on your smart phone isn't working? That doesn't really make a lot of sense; I guess I'm not smart enough.

Packing is pretty much at a stand-still. There isn't much left that we won't need in the next week for doing the final cleaning on the apartment. Which means next Wednesday will be a busy day full of last-minute packing and cleaning. We are trying to get a couple people here Thursday afternoon to throw the last of the big stuff on the truck, then we roll out early Friday morning for Michigan. Obviously, we won't have much in the way of connectivity while on the road other than hotels along the way. Once in Michigan, we will start really getting serious on the high-speed connectivity problem at Debbie's mom's house. We may start with the cellular option, because that will be useful in a number of other contexts, and use the satellite as a last-ditch backup.

Well, need to get back at the address change thing. Woo. Hoo.

More on Health Care

In what will come as a surprise to no one, The One, the Obamessiah, Mr. Hope for Change (or something like that), is just another moral defective politician using Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt to enrich his buddies. And I'm sure there is a very lucrative "consulting" gig waiting for him when he is done playing POTUS.

Meanwhile, the same mental giants running the government that cannot handle a simple auto rebate want to run the entire health care industry. Yea. That's gonna work.

Best Car Ads of All Time

The full list is over at Wired, but my two favs are:



for the pure un-PC-ness of the thing and:



just because every geek loves a Rube Goldberg setup. Try reading computer code if you doubt me.

Photos are Loaded

It took all night, but the photos from the latest foray into Michigan are up on Flickr. Most of them were from Courtney and Joe's wedding. Many of the photos were shot at 3200 ISO so I wouldn't need the flash. I expected some graininess, but they are a bit more grainy than I would have thought. I'm sure if I would invest in some real photo editing software, I could do something about that, but for now, they is what they is.

I also started a new set to document what we are doing in Debbie's mom's basement. The "before" shots are actually after we had hauled about 20 yards of stuff out of the basement, removed all the warped paneling from the walls, removed all the water damaged drywall, repaired the boarded up basement windows, and re-stacked all the stuff stored down there at one end so we could get to at least part of the floor. In any case, this is what we started with:



And this is what things looked like at the end of Phase 1:



Phase 2 is to shift everything from the north end of the basement to the south end where the floor is already painted, finish painting the floor, then seal the block walls. That gets the stuff done that we have to kick Debbie's mom out of the house for (paint fumes do a number on her). Phase three is mud and tape the drywall, then skim-coat the whole mess to cover up the damage from peeling off the paneling. Given that neither of us knows what we are doing, we will probably go for some sort of textured "effect" rather than try to shoot for a smooth finish. Better to be able to tell people you meant for it to look like crap....

While we were there, Debbie got shots of her mom's flowers including some where the butterfly bush lives up to its name:





And that pretty much covers what we did while we were in Michigan.

Strange Day

I had no energy today, and eating dinner seems to have made it worse. I did manage to sort through the pile of photos on the camera, getting them organized, properly orientated, de-red-eyed and straightened. As I type this, they are uploading to Flickr. I'll probably post something here when they are done, which won't be until very late tonight. I ended up tossing about 90% of the pic's (gotta love digital), which still leaves around 200 11+ mega-pixel images over a crappy asymmetrical connection. Of course, I could be trying to do this on dial-up....

Debbie, on the other hand, was in full manic, Energizer-bunny bin-filling mode all day. Now there is a stack of full bins next to the door for me to take down to our storage room (if there is still space; there is a lot already down there). I had just enough energy to feel slightly guilty for sitting on the couch while she worked, but not enough to actually wedge my wide behind off the couch and help. There's always tomorrow.

It looks like we will be picking up a 26-foot Penske on Thursday, the 27th and will be rolling on out of Prescott on the 28th. The drive may take us longer going back to Michigan than the drive coming out here in December 2007 because we can't tow the Durango. Seems it is too heavy, which means instead of two drivers that can switch off, we will both be driving all day. We still expect to be in Burt by the 1st of September, which still gives us a full day to unload everything and get the truck dropped off. I expect someone will call with a job offer about 20 minutes after the truck is unloaded.

Anyway, that's the plan. Cue the monkey wrenches in 3... 2... 1....

Cost of Global Warming Hysteria

Take 40 minutes for a reality check.

The Mistakes of Others

There are two kinds of people; those who learn from the mistakes of others and those who make the mistakes. Which group will the United States be in?

Monthly Geek Post

The monthly stats post is about a half-month late this month. We just didn't have time to mess with such things until we got back to AZ. Anyway.

Total visitors for the month: 290. This is about average for the last year or so. Based on the days and times that people visit, most of those 290 visitors were supposed to be working instead of reading blogs, but I'm sure the minor ding in GDP caused by people at working reading this site is insignificant compared to the huge dent caused by Facebook.

XP is still kicking Vista to the curb (69.7% vs. 19.7%). Now that the PC manufacturers have Win 7, I expect the Vista and XP numbers to both fall off a cliff over the next few months. Mac was at 5.2%, and Linux bringing up the rear at 2.4%. There were also three visits from the virus-breeders; 2 NT visits and one Win98. People have to be spoofing; no one still has a Win98 box connected to the internet, do they?

Firefox edged out MSIE (45.5% vs. 40.1%) when you combine the various versions in use. Firefox 2 disappeared, but there was a single hit from Firefox 1.0, probably from Joe Win98. Firefox 3.5 is now ahead of 3.0, which is sensible. MSIE 7.0 is still the most popular version of IE, but 8.0 is now well in front of 6.0. If you browse with IE, do yourself and the world a favor and upgrade to 8.0. It's good enough to even tempt me to quit using Firefox. Chrome 2.0 (7.9%), Netscape (2.8%) and Safari(1.7%) rounds out the major browsers.

(And yes, if you're anal and add up the percentages, they don't equal 100%. I left out several minor OS's and browsers.)

OK, enough of the pocket protector stuff. I need to get ready to take a drive. We will be making a library run today, then heading out to Arcosanti with stops at the Penske and Budget rental places on the way to get firm pricing, dates, etc. Then we start back on filling up bins. Woohoo!

Last Lazy Day

Today was our last day to just sit around not doing much of anything. Tomorrow, we arrange for a moving van and a trailer for the Durango, then throw what's left in the apartment into bins. We need to go to Arcosanti to visit with people there and maybe recruit a couple pairs of hands to help load the heavy stuff into the truck. Or maybe just grab someone from here in town, depending on what days are the cheapest for us to get a truck. In any case, the move is on and will likely be accelerating over the next few days. I'm done with Arizona; we know we are leaving and I just want to get back to Michigan so we can finish the work we left half-done there, then start trying to figure out what comes next.

For the entire history of the US, home ownership has been seen as a worthy thing; that renters are somehow not really citizens. We hear all the time that renting is just throwing away your money, while home ownership is some sort of investment. Our federal government has done a great deal since WWII to encourage home ownership; efforts that greatly accelerated over the last couple decades to the point that banks were giving half-million-dollar loans to people making less than $20,000 a year. It seems people are starting to wise up. A house is only an investment if you rent it out rather than live in it, or the government is creating real estate bubbles (which always end catastrophically, as everyone is now finding out). My favorite statistic in the article: "...42% of those who once purchased a home, but don't own one now, believe that they'll never own one again." After two houses that both nearly destroyed us financially and nearly cost us our marriage, I don't see us owning real estate of any kind for a very long time. Renting is so much more flexible (that whole "get fast, get small" thing I've been preaching for over a decade) and far less stressful, I can't imagine a circumstance that would have us owning a home.

While catching up on everything, I came across a couple good essays by Jerry Pournelle on the health care "reform" proposals floating around Congress and all the drama that surrounds them. As usual, he covers the issues more coherently than I probably could manage, but there are a couple points that I think need to be emphasized. First, there is no single Health Care Reform Bill; there are several proposals, all changing on a daily basis, and none that are actual bills before Congress. So any talk about what is or is not part of health care reform is mostly nonsense at this point. Second, even if there were a single bill being considered by Congress, that means very little, as we already saw with all the cloak-and-dagger BS with the stimulus package. And even if by some miracle, Congress manages to pass a concise, well-crafted piece of legislation, the bureaucrats will still make a hash of it. Third, I still don't see how a group that is incapable of running a simple, straight-forward rebate scam.. er... plan like Cash for Clunkers is going to somehow manage what is arguably the most-complex 15% of the US economy. I guess I just lack faith. Obama is The One; the Oracle's prophecy tells us.

I found catching up on Factor E Farm weblog to be interesting: consultations with the local Sheriff, false (and very public) accusations of sabotage, kicking people off the project, talk of outside mediators, people on the site becoming seriously ill from drinking water that runs off the roof and shitting in plastic buckets. As one commenter said, looks more like Arcosanti every day.

And it is now after 1am, and we have a full day tomorrow.

74 and Counting

Maybe I should set up a betting pool (if there isn't one already) for people to guess how many banks will close in 2009 and on what day in 2009 that the FDIC becomes insolvent and requires a bailout from Congress.

Is this a green shoot?

Poor Neglected Blog

It is amazing how unmotivating it is to be stuck on a slow dial-up connection. It will take me several days to get caught up with everything that I have ignored over the last couple weeks. The good news is that with most of our internet time freed up, we got a fair amount of work done at Debbie's mom's place. It would have been nice to get even more done, but I'm happy with where things are at. As far as our current status, we are back "home" in Arizona, but not for long. Today and tomorrow are recovery days, then Monday morning we start the process of getting a truck and doing all the final packing. I'd love to be out of here in a week, but that may not be realistic. Ten days is probably more likely. In any case, we will be out of here sooner rather than later, and heading for Michigan with all our junk in a really big truck. Love that drive. At least this time, having to repeat the previous drive through an ice storm is less likely given that we will be moving in the middle of August.

I don't know if I will have the time to get to them, but we have over 1,800 photos on the camera that need to be sorted. Nearly all of them are from Courtney's wedding, but we also have some pictures of the work we are doing at Debbie's mom's house. We were too focused on getting started on the job, so the "before" pictures are actually what the basement looked like after a week of work. Even then, the difference that a little paint and drywall can make is pretty amazing. I think everyone will be rather pleased when it is completely done. It will certainly make the space more usable as living space rather than just a hole to pile stuff in. We hope. It will really suck if we go through all the work and money only to have a slightly nicer-looking hole to pile stuff in. I don't think that will be the result, but the possibility is there. When we get back to Michigan, we need to work pretty fast on a couple big things that will really make a visible difference, then we will have a list of smaller things that will make small improvements to the space. With just what I know needs to be done right now, we shouldn't have any problem keeping busy for a couple months if we keep working full-time on it.

Not much else at this point. I need to spend some serious time getting caught up in the next 36 hours so I can get way behind again. We still have no idea what we will be doing for high-speed internet. Cell phone coverage is weak on a good day, the house is too far from the phone switch for DSL, and the cable company won't run a wire for the last 1,000 feet unless about ten more people move in and build houses. We can go with satellite, but the price is a killer ($190/month for 3Mpbs vs. $51/month we pay now). Plus there are pretty serious bandwidth restrictions (only 500MB/day) with a 24-hour "recovery period" if you exceed them. That may or may not be a problem, but at that price, any restriction is unacceptable. Add in the latency of the 100,000 kilometer round trip and interruptions due to precipitation, and it is a very expensive solution that is inferior to what we have now. Far better than dial-up, to be sure, but much less than what we are used to. The problem is that I would like to try out a cellular solution, but the up-front cost and commitment is prohibitive given that it most likely won't work given current cell coverage. Ah well; we have about a week to figure something out.

Well, I'm not getting caught up sitting here typing on the blog, so I guess this is it for now.

News

We flew down to Birmingham Alabama Wednesday so I could interview with AAA for a travel agent position. I think it went well. One of the ladies I talked to on the phone said the people that had interviewed so far in the area were all corporate travel agents. She seemed excited that I was a leisure travel agent and also from another AAA. They won't be making a decision until the end of the month.

We are still plugging away at Mom's basement. We made pretty good headway in the time we have been here. Today we should finish up with the drywall we had to replace and Ric will work on the other downspout that is dumping water way too close to the basement walls. The dumpster got picked up yesterday and we did a great job filling it.

We fly out early morning tomorrow back to Phoenix. We talked last night and are kinda decided not to wait til the end of the month to finish packing and moving. We will call up Penske and see if they have a truck available shortly after we get there and just start finishing things up. We will plan on moving here to Michigan unless we get a phone call before we leave Arizona. Most of our stuff will stay packed up until the basement gets done, so if we have to move again soon it shouldn't be too much of a hardship (except money-wise). (Reminds me ... have to go buy a mega millions lottery ticket -- I think it is way up there --- hey, can't have a chance to win unless you buy one! LOL)

Happy Sweet 16

Happy Birthday Tevra!

Sorry we won't be seeing you this weekend. Hope you had a great birthday yesterday and have a good time this weekend.

Stiff and Sore in Burt, Michigan

Been a busy few days, and by the time we quit and eat dinner, blogging is that last thing on our minds. Not to mention the joys of a "56K" dial-up (more like 36K on a good day; talk about the biggest false advertising scam of the last 20 years...). Anyway, the 30 yard dumpster was delivered on Friday. At first glance, we decided that everything we needed to get rid of would fit without any problem. Now the dumpster is nearly 1/3 full and we've just managed to dig down to the floors and walls so we can start the actual work (taking down old paneling/drywall/insulation that has gotten wet from leaks) that we got the dumpster for. We should still be OK, but there will definitely be a lot less margin that we originally thought.

At least the scavengers are doing their part. Every day, we line the side of the road with stuff, and by morning, most of it is gone. I'd forgotten about the "garbage picking" phenomenon. Although, I just peeked out the window and it doesn't look like anything was taken last night. Maybe we've saturated the local market for "used" household items.

Today is the last of the "killer" days for hauling stuff out of the basement. We have both pieces of the old water softener (one of which is full to the top with salt that has hardened into a solid chunk), and the old hot water heater. That's it for big/bulky/heavy stuff for a day or two. Once we have those out of the basement, we will start tearing down the old paneling so we can start assessing water damage from the broken windows and water leaks. And we are going to get all that done by Thursday night. Woohoo!

We should find out today about another job lead in Birmingham, Alabama. We may be doing a one-day down-and-back depending on what Debbie finds out today. If we get really, really lucky, the timing will be perfect that we will be doing that during the 24-hour drying time for the basement floor so we won't be losing a work day. This one sounds promising, but so have several of the others. I'm just assuming that it will fall through like all the rest and we will just be $1,000 poorer after air fare and car rental. (Aside: in a day when I can literally do anything online from watch movies to pay bills to sell a used car, what is the deal with companies that insist on a face-to-face interview so early in the process?)

Well, that's pretty much it for us. Not much else to report on our end. We'll try to post updates when we can.

Happy Anniversary

to us! 21 years ago today we had the best wedding reception yet -- Ric's family still talks about it and uses it to compare others to!

Ric -- I love ya!

Bye, Bye Arizona (Sort of)

This may be the last post for a while. We'll be leaving around 5:30am to catch a shuttle to the airport, then off to Michigan. We'll probably try to post something while we are there, but unless I have time to sort out the connectivity problem, we will be on limited dial-up. In any case, we'll be way too busy to be messing around on the internet much.

And it looks like we are getting out of Arizona just in time. Not that Michigan is in any better shape, but at least (at this point) it's just a temporary stopping off point.

As I mentioned previously, we won't likely have time for socializing, so if you want to talk to us, come on down to Burt and bring gloves and work clothes.

At Least He's Still Alive

The brave boys in blue taser a deaf, retarded guy holed up in a public john taking a dump. Because "he had an umbrella." You can't make this stuff up. I wasn't aware there was a legal precedent defining an hour on the pot as "disorderly conduct" or an umbrella as a lethal weapon. One doesn't expect a clerk at Dollar General to be a legal scholar, but you would think someone allowed to carry a firearm, pepper spray and a taser would have at least a passing familiarity with the law. And a bit of common sense (I know, I know; radical concept).

On the other side, the mommy-dearest of said retard may want to be careful; where was she when all this ruckus involving her perpetual 10-year-old son was going on? If it's negligent to allow a child to wander around unsupervised, then is it not also negligent to allow an adult with the mental capacity of a ten-year-old (and judging by the article, mommy-dearest is being generous in her assessment of her son's abilities) to wander around unsupervised?

But never fear: "The officers really worked within the limits of our level-of-force policy...." Good to know the level-of-force policy says it's OK to taser retards with the shits if they have an umbrella.

God help us.

"We're from the government..."

Question: Why does anyone think that a government agency won't screw up something as complex as health care, when they screw up something relatively simple, like delivering the mail? And please spare me the sad tales of congressional interference, obstructionist unions or political shenanigans, as you will just be making my point.

Success and Failure

A timely video for us:

Wedding coming up

Courtney (Ric's youngest niece) is getting married August 8th in Traverse City, MI. I can't wait!!!!

We will head up to TC the Friday before her wedding, hopefully go to the rehearsal dinner that night and then have a great afternoon/evening for her and Joe's wedding and reception. It sounds like it will be a great reception. Sunday I hope they will have a get together to open presents and cards. Ric can't wait to see the expressions when they open the special "groom card" he made especially for Joe. It took me about 4 tries to come up with a hand-made card I liked for them. Ric knew exactly what he wanted to do for the "groom card."

Still Up

It is almost 1am and I am still up. I couldn't sleep, so instead of tossing and turning and disturbing Ric I got up. So far I've done all the dishes and gathered up all the garbage into one bag and put it by the door. I would vacuum, but not this time of the night! So instead, here I am blogging.

Earlier today I was checking out somebody's blog in Canada that had a lot of cards posted. I got some great ideas to work on more; of course after I buy some more "tools" from Stampin' Up. (another plug for me --- I am a Stampin' Up demonstrator and can sell to anyone in the USA -- contact me!)

Thursday we fly out to Michigan. I am getting so nervous that neither of us will land a good job soon. Tonight while I was doing dishes a thought jumped in my mind. It is all in God's hands. I have to let it go completely and trust Him. I'm sure all the work we want to accomplish at my Mom's will be much appreciated -- maybe that is what we are suppose to be doing for the next few months. Another great thing about being back in Michigan (besides being with my Mom) is being nearer to my friends and family. I'm sure I will spend more in gas money than I should to run up to see Kim.

I don't know ... I'm scared. Pray for me and give me a big hug when you see me ... I need it ... and don't worry when the tears come also.

What We're Up To

We have something that could be called a plan at this point. We have heard nothing from any job leads in nearly two weeks, and the savings is getting lower than we would like it to be. So on Thursday, we will be flying back to Michigan for two reasons: the primary one is my niece's wedding the first Saturday of August. The secondary reason is to clear out a livable space in Debbie's mom's basement while we continue looking for work. We'll be spending most of the two weeks filling up a 30-yard dumpster we are having delivered to her mom's front yard on Friday, then painting/sealing the basement floors, walls and ceiling. We may also need to replace all the drywall, depending on how much damage we do taking down the paneling that wasn't supposed to be installed below-grade. We'll be very busy, and will likely not be doing any socializing other than two or three days for the wedding.

This isn't a permanent move back to snow country; we'll be back in the truck heading south as soon as we have a job to head to. But it seems likely with how things are going that we will be there until late in 2009 or even early 2010.

Anyone that wants to get tired and dirty is welcome to stop by.

History Repeating

Once again, the Democratic machine is cutting the legs off from under one of their own sitting presidents. It seems we won't only be rerunning the economic conditions of the last-1970's/early-1980's, we're rerunning the politics as well, getting ringside seats as congressional democrats once-again destroy a democratic president. Jimmy Carter once referred to the congressional committee chairs as "ravening wolves." Doesn't appear that much has changed in three decades.

When Does Weather Become Climate?

The global cooling deniers (hey; if anyone in the least bit skeptical of anthropogenic global warming can be lumped in with Holocaust and moon landing deniers, then, well, two can play that game) are constantly yapping about how "weather isn't climate" whenever someone points out the decade-long drop in global average temperature. I'd really like to know just how much weather it takes before it becomes climate?

And isn't it odd that one hot day in Chicago or New York is reported endlessly and breathlessly as a "taste of things to come." but 3,000 record lows is a complete media non-event?

Nature's AC

Shot this video out the door of our apartment a few days ago. During the ten-minute downpour, the temperature dropped from 89 to 65. Of course it bounced right back up to near-80 when it stopped, but it sure felt good while it lasted.

The Truth of Islam

Economic Insanity

Yet another article about how we are doing exactly what the Japanese did 20 years ago (even as everyone insists that we are not), so we too can have 0% interest rates, 0% real growth, and in two decades we will still be waiting for stock and real estate prices to recover. Woohoo!!

With apologies to The Vapors:



Bottom line:

For those who said "we won't make the mistakes Japan did" let me point out that we have indeed made all of the same mistakes and now we're getting the same results.

Why is it that Einstein's exhortation continues to echo in my head?

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result.

It will be interesting (in the Chinese curse sense) to see how this experiment in group insanity plays out.

The Log in their Own Eye

A very wise man asked 2,000 years ago, "Why do you fuss about the speck of dust in your brother's eye while ignoring the log sticking out of your own?" Maybe we should carve that above the doors leading into the House and Senate chambers.

For about the bajillionth time: Washington DC has no moral authority to tell the rest of the country how to attend to its affairs until the District is considered by the world to be a model city.

Cops vs. Blacks

I was going to write up something about the Harvard professor who was arrested for breaking into his own home (other side of the story here), but Jerry Pournelle beat me to it. Dr. Pournelle pretty much covers it far better than I would have, but here are some brief points that stood out to me:

The President of the United States publicly admits he doesn't know what he is talking about, yet still feels compelled to insert himself on the side of his race. Somehow, this isn't racist, even though everyone knows that is exactly what this is.

For whatever reason, the professor's neighbor did not know him and was not aware that he would be returning from his trip at that time. I'm not sure if that is a commentary on race relations or a commentary on America in general. I grew up in a neighborhood where everyone looked out for each other and knew each others comings and goings, but that seems to have been in a different country than the one we live in now.

After 20 hours of travel, part of which involves dealing with people with badges whose only function is to make travelers' lives miserable, anyone would be grumpy and "uncooperative" (meaning he didn't scrape and bow before the authority of The Badge) when a cop demands to see his ID while standing in his own home.

Blacks, especially in academia, see racism everywhere (except among other blacks, of course) even when everyone is being perfectly reasonable. If a cop drives by my home and sees someone attacking the door with a tire iron, I hope to God he demands to see some evidence that the attackee has a legitimate reason for being there regardless of his race.

Since when did cops become so pathetically thin-skinned that verbal insults result in handcuffs and mug shots? If the guy took a swing at the cop, that's one thing, but arresting someone because they insult you? For God's sake, grow some skin.

The cop's involvement in attempts to resuscitate a black basketball player over a decade ago is irrelevant to the present discussion. As are the opinions of his mother or people he grew up with or the racial composition of the neighborhood he grew up in. I grew up in Flint, Michigan which is hardly some lily-white suburb and I can tell you that I grew up with true racists, both black and white, some of whom spent time behind bars for their racist acts.

And enough on that topic.