Posts from — May 2014

What’s Important

When’s dinner?

[Editor: Mini-Sox soaks up some heat from the cat pad while waiting.]

Friday Ark

When I checked the weather this morning [it was cold here] I noticed a story about an oil pipeline rupture in Los Angeles. It was a local news video from an LA station. Given the fire weather in California I checked the US media sites for more information, but nothing. OTOH the BBC had the story.

The US media wants to fixate on foreign disasters, but you have to go to other countries to find out what’s going on here. This was an above ground crude oil pipeline, which makes inspection rather easy, and it blew out in a metropolitan area. The Keystone XL is going to be buried, but we should just trust them that there will be no problems and it won’t pollute the ground and the aquifer.

The firefighters in Southern California are hoping to keep things under control until the weather conditions moderate over the weekend. Thousands of people have had to evacuate, and some homes and other structures have been lost, but it could get worse, a lot worse.

It started with the Bernardo fire, but today 5 more wildfires started in the county. They are having Santa Ana winds which translates to gusty winds, extremely low humidity, and very high temperatures.

I know the area where the Bernardo fire is burning very well as I had clients out there and did some minor work involving the Black Mountain Ranch. Like the rest of the county is has built up over the years.

This is the wrong time for Santa Ana winds. The normal weather forecast for this time of year used to be ‘night and morning low clouds, and a high of 72°. Triple digit temperatures, even in the desert areas just didn’t happen in May.

Santa Barbara county is also dealing with an early wildfire, the Miguelito fire, so Cookie Jill has another one to add to her list.

The Internet Defense League is making a major push on the proposed changes to the Net Neutrality rules by the FCC. They feel certain that the telecoms are going to start spending major money for lobbyists and advertising to push back against the opposition to what they want to do.

In addition to the encampment at the FCC headquarters in Washington, the IDL has developed code for people to use that will slow down sites to simulate what the ‘Net will act like if the FCC allows the telecoms to establish a two tier system – one for those able and willing to pay, and a second for the rest of us.

If the telecoms would spend the money to increase the available bandwidth, everyone would benefit, but they want to milk their current systems.

My younger brother wanted to have the ability to establish video conferencing with me, so he bought me an iPad [a 4th generation Retina if you are an Apple person]. It includes a program [app] called ‘Face Time’ that accomplishes this task.

This has to be the most frustrating computer I have ever dealt with because of the huge barrier of assumed knowledge that they impose on the user. They don’t give you anything in the box but a card identifying the four switches and a reference to a website in small print on the other side of the card.

They don’t tell you that you need to have another computer up and running its e-mail software before you turn the device on, nor do they provide a glossary of the common terms that they identify with Apple specific names.

I found a book and will eventually figure this thing out, but it is totally annoying at the moment. With the money they charge for their equipment, they should at least include a DVD to provide the information to get the damn thing up and running to the point you can get all of the information you need to reach a web site to find out what’s going on.

The BBC notes that Pressure mounts on FCC over net-neutrality changes. The article is about a group of venture capitalists coming out against the proposed changes to allow ISPs to charge content providers for privileged access to their users for a price.

The big telecoms want to increase their profits, but don’t want to spend any money to do it by improving their individual networks. This isn’t about getting more money for a better service, but reducing their overall bandwidth by reserving a segment of their current bandwidth for people with the money to lease it from them.

The US already has some of the worst broadband in the developed world based on speed and costs, and this will further lower our standing. The majority of users oppose it, the largest ‘Net companies oppose it; the user groups oppose it; and now the venture capitalists have stated their opposition. The only group that supports the changes are the ISPs.

If there were any real competition in the broadband market, the large ISPs would all be shedding customers even faster. The stagnant economy is forcing people to cancel their cable and Internet connections, and any additional cost increases will accelerate the process.

Nap Time

I’m watching you…

[Editor: The kit still doesn’t trust me.]

Friday Ark

People need to know that it would have been impossible for me to take care of my Mother alone. Frankly, I didn’t have the knowledge to do it when this began and I was only able to do with the help of some really great women.

These women had individual strengths that made the overall system work.

LeeAnn had the morning [6-10AM] and she took care of the personal grooming things that were important to my Mother and were part of her routine.

Lynne was the evenings and centered on maintaining strength. She was also my principal instructor in the skills of care-giving because things like changing a bed with someone in it require knowledge. Lynne also did the cleaning, as she had done for my Mother for years, and organizing everything that was needed to take care of Mom.

When I got in trouble outside of normal hours there were two great on-call nurses who rode to the rescue: Susan on weekends, and Linda during the week. They saved me multiple times.

For a dose of sunshine there was Wendy. Wendy just radiated good feelings whenever she was around. Her ‘job’ was giving Mother a bath and changing the bed, but if Mom was refusing to do something, I knew that Wendy could make it happen.

There were others, but these are main group that kept me functioning for the long haul, and made it possible for my Mother to stay in her house among familiar things.

This is a rant! You have been warned —

Last Fall my Mother had increasing problems doing the simple, normal things that everyone does in the morning. She was losing confidence in her abilities and was very annoyed as a result. She was entitled to the assistance of a home health aide paid for by the Veterans Administration. She didn’t really want to do it, but I finally convinced her to file the paperwork.

When the forms were filed we knew that it would be months before the VA responded, so we didn’t attempt to check on the status of the claim during the Winter. In the Spring we started to make inquiries, and things went downhill from there.

She got so frustrated that I got the paperwork and had her file the form to permit my brother to look into it, but they can’t find that form either. They have a website that is supposed to make all of this easier and more convenient, but with over three-quarters of a century of experience in the computer industry, my brother and I still don’t have the access we were assured was available at the site. How WWII and Korean War Veterans are supposed to use the site is a complete mystery.

Now, the system was held up long enough that Mother has passed without receiving the benefits that my Father paid for with over two decades of service that included two wars.
[Read more →]

This Saturday, May 10^th, is the annual Stamp Out Hunger food drive of the Postal Workers. I participate every year by filling a bag with non-perishable food items and putting it on the mail box Friday night. The food pantries need the help, because they are serving an ever-increasing number of people.

If you don’t have a mail box, most post offices have a collection bin.

Wikipedia usually has to “lock” its Cinco de Mayo page. I suspect it may be related to the sudden appearance of sites opposing the celebration of this semi-holiday and others who have a hissy fit about any Mexican holiday being celebrated in the US.

In Mexico Cinco de Mayo or Batalla de Puebla, is only a really big celebration in the state of Puebla, where the battle took place.

The Mexican army won the Batalla de Puebla on May the 5^th, 1862, but the French went on to Mexico City in 1863 after receiving reinforcements and installed Emperor Maximilian.

It has the status of St. Patrick’s Day in the US, an excuse to eat different food, and drink different booze, and be obnoxious show an interest in other cultures.

Margaritas, tacos, and the destruction of piñatas, that’s what it is really about.

The task that has absorbed almost all of my time for the last two months has ended and now I must do battle with various government agencies to finalize the process.

This is trying for everyone involved, as the people you deal with didn’t create the process, but have to comply with it, just as you do. When you enter the offices there is no specialist who has experience and can make it as easy as possible, so you end up talking to people who are falling apart when they find out what they must ask you to do.

Everything is expensive because it is laden with ‘fees’ [in Republican controlled states they are called fees, rather than the taxes they are]. The same people who complain about ‘death taxes’ on large estates, don’t seem to mind charging everyone ‘fees’. This is just going to drag on, and I know it.

Jeff Masters covers the entire weather system that produced our ‘200 to 400 year event’ on the Gulf Coast.

At one point I looked out and it was like a heavy fog caused by the rain hitting the saturated ground and throwing up mist. It was similar to what you see at the bottom of a waterfall.

Among the things flooded out was the warehouse for the Manna Food Bank in Pensacola, the largest food bank in the area. A lot of people are going to go hungry because of this storm, and the timing.

In my area a number of schools were flooded because they were built on ground-level slabs and the installation of lawns actually made them lower than the land around them.

Circle of Life

He could be an axe murderer…

[Editor: The newest addition to the clan and mother, Ms Underhouse.]

Friday Ark