Recently in rants Category

I was stopped at a stop light - 2nd in line. The car in front of me put their car into reverse - I didn't do anything. A second later, they were still in reverse - so I got ready to honk the horn in case they started to move backwards. Then they did start to reverse - so I laid into the horn. The woman driving started to look around - left, right - but still kept coming. The results are above.

She got out and apologized, explaining that she's lost and trying to get to the hospital to get her mother or something. Not really my concern, but whatever. I told her to turn the corner and pull over, since we were blocking the lane we were in. I got her info, and she was very emphatic about going to get her mother and dealing with this later. I told her we would talk later, and as she drove off, I called the police. A few minutes later, they were there, listened to my tale of woe, and took my and her info.

Since we had exchanged phone numbers, she called me twice - once to make sure she hadn't erased it, and the second time to find out why I had "lied" to her - by calling the police, I apparently broke some sort of promise between us. I don't remember that - I remember telling her that we would talk later. She was very upset and doing lots of yelling, so I didn't really understand what she was saying - except that she was apparently coming back to the scene.

When she did arrive, she came from down the road, and I didn't recall seeing her pull up. She glared at me as she walked by, and then went to the police officers. After a minute or two, the responding officer brought my paperwork and notes back, gave me my case number, and told me that she hadn't wanted to hang around because she was..... driving with a suspended license. At this point, I drove off - cranky, but able to move still, so happy for that - the last accident I had resulted in a car that I didn't really feel safe driving in.

Fast forward to today - four days later. After making a few calls, getting the insurance company's estimate, getting my own estimate, and making more calls, I got a voicemail this afternoon from my insurance agent. Their auto-accident person was calling me back - I had asked for help figuring out which of the many companies with the same name she was actually using for her insurance. It turns out she doesn't have insurance. Of course.

Now, look, I'm not saying that she didn't have to go get her mother or whatever. But if you're license is suspended, and you don't have insurance, DON'T DRIVE YOUR CAR. Simple, straightforward, and easy. With my last incident, I'm waiting for the insurance company to "subrogate" the claim - meaning that if they ever manage to get money from him, and we all know it will take more than a couple of weeks - then I'll eventually get my deductible back. Maybe.

AWESOME.

Daylight savings sucks. First of all, why start it on Saturday night/Sunday morning? It takes a week or so to get used to it - just start it on Friday night/Saturday morning so we have a fighting chance come Monday. Seriously.

I realize that the concept of DST is quite useful - we get up earlier, so there is a bigger "useful" part of the day. Really - it's pretty clear to me. (The US Navy has a write up of some of the details here) But we are no longer an agrarian society. Well, we still farm, but it's a smaller percentage of the population that does it. Not that I mind getting up at "0 dark thirty" to get ready for my day - I'm used to that from the fall and winter months. And while having the daylight on the front end of the day is useful, I was just getting used to the idea of the sun still being up on my ride home.

There is some argument among scholars, economists, and who knows who else that the change to and from DST costs the economy money (Google search on "daylight savings time money"). I would argue that it does, but only in lost productivity - and that's mostly because of the fact that the change happens on Sunday, not Saturday. It may not seem like much, but I think that the extra day would be very useful.

My experience is always the same: I wake up one hour late on Monday morning. This year the problem was compounded by not feeling well (chest cold that makes me sound like I should be looking out for the Grim Reaper) and being up late the night before. If Jen hadn't come home early today, there's a good chance I would have been asleep until about 9:00 - possibly later. Since I was supposed to have the kids at school at 8:00, that would have been a bit of a problem. In the end, they got where they needed to be and I did what I needed to, but it seems to me that there's a solution to this problem:

Don't use Daylight Savings Time.

This might be boring, tedious, or both. If you don't have Cablevision for your internet/tv, or if you don't live in an area where they are located, or you just don't care, then move along. The rest of you can read more by clicking the link....

The Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act (COPE) Act is supposed to be a good thing. Turns out that it's been hacked quite a bit by various people (aka special interest groups) to allow them to disregard the network neutrality agreements. What is network neutrality? Check out the wikipedia link (new window) for more info.

Basically, the way things are worded now, if the bill becomes a law, then your ISP will be able to "tax" websites for access to their customers. If, say, Google doesn't pay the fee, then an ISP could slow customer access to the website, or block it entirely. They could even, theoretically, make it so that when you go to Google, you end up at their own search engine. And blogs that are critical of the ISP? Oh darn, you no longer have access to that site - it's now on the black list.

It would also allow companies to do whatever they wanted on their own networks - in the mid-90's, Cox Cable blocked the common ports used for VPN access - "forcing the state of Washington, for example, to contract with telecommunications providers to be sure its employees had access to unimpeded broadband for telecommuting applications." (Wikipedia).

If you enjoy the internet the way it is now - where you can access a wide variety of information in a timely manner (based on the level of your internet access, of course), then you need to take action.

You can:
Contact your Congressperson (via the House website, or MoveOn.org)

Sign the Save the Internet Petition

Spread the word.

Brianwho?, of Miles, etc sort of sums up part of the problem:
Miles, etc.: To The GTWD:


SAHM's get a good amount of attention these days, and sympathy. It is much deserved, as they've earned it - and from time to time I've been right there with the rest of the left-leaning tree-huggers patting my wife on the back. And, lately, SAHD's are even getting their 15 minutes, and they deserve it, too. But this here, this is my little shout out to the guy who loves the shit out of his family, and who works his ass off for them. In other words, this one goes out to all the Go To Work Dads.

I never really considered the plight of the GTWD (Go To Work Dad) - which is odd, considering that I'm one of them (us?).

First, some useful links, in case you don't already have them:
Katrina.org
Katrina.com
Red Cross

Ok, while I have misgivings about what happened - poor planning on many peoples parts - it's not time to gripe about things just now. I watch tv or listen to news on the radio and am just amazed. Not just at the level of destruction, but at people's reactions. On the one hand, you have all the humanitarian relief efforts getting started in other parts of the country and the world - all positive things, just as you'd expect.

On the other hand, you have the looting, pillaging, beatings, and rapes occuring inside the affected area. Look, I realize things are bad in there, but WHY MAKE THEM WORSE? I realize none of the affected people can get online to read this, and why do they even care about my opinion, but I don't recall reading about anything like this in Asia after the tsunami hit last December. New York city didn't have the same kind of reaction after 9/11. It's just wrong.

I realize that there are many many factors contributing to the behaviors we're seeing, and I don't want to get into it now - matters of class, race and government are best not speculated on right now - but it bears looking at in the future.

Speaking of the future, I don't know if anyone else saw it, but FX had a fictional documentary called "Oil Storm" a few months back. It traced fictional events similar to what just happened in New Orleans - and what they predicted could happen just might.

I'm predicting martial law in and around the affected areas, I'm prediciting civil unrest, and I'm predicting gas at $5+ a gallon. Things are going to get much worse before they get better.

More to come - have to get to work...

Deroy Murdock on Patriot Act on National Review Online:
These dangerously naïve or clandestinely seditious librarians are beyond foolish. They potentially jeopardize the lives of American citizens.

Who are these dangerous people? Yes, that's right, he said librarians.

I really don't understand the conservative Republican's way of thinking. Wasn't this country founded in part on the idea of having personal freedoms? Doesn't that include the right to go to the library and do research without fear of being questioned by the police about it?

If you think about it, the 9/11 terrorists could have just as easily taken books out on the various topics. Or just read the books while at the library and never actually checked them out.

When I worked in the local library in high school, there were people who would show up in the morning, read all day, and the just go home - how would I have known if they were a terrorist? It's not like reading a specific type of book defines who you are, right?

Oh, wait - Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski's September 1995 manifesto, published in U.S. newspapers in exchange for his stopping his attacks, referred to L. Sprague De Camp's "The Ancient Engineer".

When NYPD detectives suspected Scottish occult poet Aleister Crowley may have inspired "Zodiac Killer" Heriberto Seda, a Queens grand jury granted them a subpoena on July 3, 1990, to see who requested Crowley's books from NYPL's Bryant Park headquarters

So apparently reading Scottish poetry and non-fiction about the history of engineering are now seditious acts?

Look, I'm not saying that I'm a fan of the people who like to make buildings blow up - quite the opposite - but how are we doing anything but making our lives miserable - one of the terrorists goals - if we restrict personal freedoms? Aren't these same freedoms one of the reasons that we are so hated? Our women walk the streets without burqa's. They get educated - hell, we treat them (for the most part - some men never learn) like equals. People are allowed to practice just about any religion they want. People can say almost anything they want to without fear of reprisal from the government - note I said almost anything. If we start taking away these rights, these freedoms, then we start to make our society start to be more like theirs - and then that means that they're starting to win. We can't let them - so stop being an idiot, get your head out of your ass, and realize that making the librarian keep track of who used which computer when isn't going to stop anyone from doing anything.

Ok, time for a little venting. I don't normally get into this type of stuff, but I have to, because it's been driving me nuts. Keep in mind that I am neither a lawyer nor a doctor, and that the ramblings below are informed only by what I've read in the various media reports and by my own learnings and dealings with the medical professionals that have entered my life via various means.

As a parent, I can certainly understand the point of view of the Schindlers, Terry Schiavo's parents - that they don't want to give up on their little girl. But that is all I have - an understanding of their point of view as a fellow parent. I cannot, however, understand their thought processes beyond that.

* The server this site is on was hacked. Bad. It was down for a day and a half, everyone on the server lost at least that much email, and one of my sites still isn't working. Oh, wait, it doesn't matter - that client just took their business elsewhere.

* I just got a notice from my ISP that I'm violating the TOS (terms of service) by participating in file sharing. The reason they said something? A "copyright owner" has a record indicating that my IP was sharing a file that had the name of one of their shows in it. I really don't want to go into any more detail, but don't they have better things to do with their time?

* It's snowing again. I don't mind that so much, but it usually means that work is going to send me somewhere that's not close to home. True to form, I'm headed out to Watertown tomorrow. For those who don't know - that would be most of you readers - it's up by Waterbury, CT, or about 50 minutes from home on a good day. In snowy weather, that's more like 90 minutes. The last time I went, was there two days, and one of them was during the last snowfall. During the trip up during the snow, someone was kind enough to change lanes into my lane, but without warning and almost into me. They didn't think it was a problem, and were perplexed by my honking at them. Idiots.

* I tried to buy a camera for a client last Thursday, right about the same time that the server was crapping out. They sent me an email asking me to call them to "confirm the order", and also allegedly called my cell phone for the same reason. I didn't get any email - the server was hosed - and I know for a fact that they didn't call me. Whatever - I just want the camera. So I tried to call on Friday, but didn't call before they closed. Then they were closed Saturday - but, oddly, open on Sunday. I called again, and was told that there was an "issue" with my order - they would gladly transfer my call to someone to help with that. Problem was, I didn't have the 45 minutes they were hoping I'd stay on hold to finalize the order. Anyway, I finally got the order resolved on Monday - but only after finding out about the alleged phone calls, and then dealing with the guy trying to upsell me stuff - accessories, extended warranties, you name it, he was trying to sell it to me. When I finally got off the phone, I felt dirty.

As I write this, it's 11:33 am. I'm still (!) on the 9:08 to Grand Central Station. The last 3 hours of my life have been spent on this train, with the last chance to get off being in Stamford. I had my chance to get off, and I didn't take it - partially because it was still pretty early in the day, and partially because I want to see how this little trip will end up.

I'm going to the big city to setup a scanner and some software for a client. They're paying the company I work for to have me come out, which in this case includes "travel time" - something they may regret by the time this is over. It just occured to me, of course, that I'm not sure how - or when - I will get back home...

The problem is in New Rochelle, NY - it would seem that a train, while passing along the tracks, managed to hook itself up in the wiring that runs this whole system and rip one down. When we finally slowly trudged past the scene of the accident, the train in question was very clear to those looking - the wiring device that touches the live wires above was ripped from the top of the train - not an every day occurrence, but also not a pleasant one. And because of the whole problem, there is only one track that's clear - meaning that one train can pass at a time, and that they're probably letting a train go North/East and then another go South/West. Fun. Of course, they've been working on it since about 8:00 when it happened, so that means that it might - might be fixed before I have to leave to go home.

Writing now at 20:10 - many many hours later. When I left Grand Central, the trains going north were only going in that direction every hour. I went and did my work for the client, then hustled back to Grand Central - only to realize, before I left the client, that I'd missed the 14:10 train.

After stopping to pick up some food and a drink, I bought my ticket and hopped aboard - and then got right off again. Apparently they're being forced to use whatever is on hand in NYC, and that includes some trains with no working Air Conditioning - or air circulation for that matter - units. When I found a slightly cooler car, I settled in for my 35 minute wait until 15:10 so I could return home at long long long last.

The problem with having reduced train service is that you end up with everyone and their mother cramming onto the train to get home - much like myself. Being a "big" person, I'm not comfortable on the train to begin with, but add in that every seat is being used and that I had to share with three Filapino's who seemed irriatated that I was so big.... well, it makes for an interesting trip to South Norwalk.

It also makes for an interesting fact: it takes 90 minutes or so (on a good day) to get from Milford to NYC with the "express" service - local stops from New Haven to Stamford, then straight through to NYC. When you're going "local", it's a 3 hour trip. Factor in not being able to move for fear of crushing your neighbor, and you have a fun time on hand.

Anyway, I made it back home safe and relatively sound - a little worse for the wear, and much more inclined to just say no to any other trips to NYC.....