Hello, Salem? Hello?

I needed to fax some tax-credit documents to the Oregon Dept. of Energy in Salem.  Easy, right?

I started dialing early this morning - busy.  I waited until after 8:30 (maybe they don't turn on the fax until someone is in the office) - busy.

I tried after 9:00 am - busy.

Although Salem is within my Area Code, it is necessary to dial 1 first - no question about that.

Oddly, though, when I called the fax number from my cell phone, their fax machine answered.

What the heck?  Why can't my land-line call Salem (I tried the ODOE's regular voice phone number - 503-378-4040, too - consistently busy).

Time to call phone companies. 

I got frustrated quickly with the Qwest phone-tree, so thought I'd go directly to my Long-Distance provider (Credo).  I got someone on the phone quickly, but, after researching the path that my call would take, concluded that the call was not technically Long Distance, but was under the control of Qwest (i.e. CenturyLink).

Called Qwest and finally got a human who transferred me to another person, who described in great detail the technical path that my call would take, thru various phone networks.  She concluded that it was Credo's fault, and I mentioned that I had already spoken with them, and they denied involvement.  She then looked further and said it appears that the call had been routed to some other network - she had a Support phone number but didn't know exactly who would answer the call.

I called - Verizon answered, and, after hearing the problem, said that it was Qwest's issue, and that they couldn't help me because they needed technical information that comes from Qwest, not me.

I drove up to Karen's office and sent the damn fax from there - no problem.

Good thing I don't have to frequently call anyone in Salem.  Now, the question is, do I get back on the line with Qwest, or get back to my normal life?

spring at last!

Karen left town last night, for a few days of work and family in LA.  Just in time.

I woke up this morning around 5 and it was clear the power was out.  No way of knowing what time that happened, of course, since we no longer have any electric clocks, with hands.

I got up around 7, just as the power came back on, which is nice.  Then I looked outside, cell-phone camera in hand.  Here's the back yard:

Then I walked around to the front of the house.  Hmmm - this isn't right!

Yes, the beautifully-shaped tree by the driveway is split and all the careful pruning over the years has evaporated.

At least there is now internet access and hot water for coffee.  Happy Spring, everybody.

progress IS possible, in small things

World Peace and rational Public Policy is as distant as always, but at least my broadband has improved.

Here are the metrics from my original Qwest DSL connection (that I had for several years, and never complained about):

A couple of months ago, Comcast made me a TV/Internet deal that I couldn't refuse. I bought a used cable modem from a craigslist guy, and the connection improved enough to be noticeable.  Plus we were now able to waste infinitely more hours watching stupid TV that we did not receive before.  The initial Comcast metric was:

The other day, I got a letter from Comcast saying that, if I upgraded my modem to a DOCSIS 3.0 model, I'd get even better connectivity.  I bought one from another craigslist guy yesterday ($65), and (with ZoneAlarm turned off), it now looks like this:

Response time is noticeably faster.  Before yesterday I had never heard of DOCSIS.  Ya learn something new every day.

Now, I guess I better get to work...

I am troubled

Received a political phone call this morning.  It was in support of the Obama re-election, and the script that the person read hit all the points on which I am totally sympathetic.

Here's the problem.  At the outset, the caller identified herself as calling from some kind telemarketing company, for the Obama re-election campaign.  When she finished the spiel, I asked again 'what did you say was your organization?' and she (a little more slowly) said the name of what sounded like a for-profit marketing service.

I am just not comfortable about this.  I have done phone solicitations for organizations in which I believe, and that is fundamentally different from hiring a company to make the calls, and paying them a cut of the take.  I wanted to ask the caller if she also made calls for GOP candidates, too, but figured the best I could do for her would be to get off the line quickly, which I did.

Am I naive, or is it too much to ask that the Democrats use motivated supporters to make these calls (where 100% of the contribution goes to the cause), rather than a private (theoretically non-political) company, who could be selling pet-insurance as well as Barack Obama?

A Little Thought Experiment

I woke up this morning, and as on every morning, began to reconstruct the world. 

Unless yesterday or the day before included an event of significant disruption (i.e. any one of the Ten Plagues, or some other 'Act of God'), it's a good bet ($10,000?) that today will be (looking at the basic conditions of Life), pretty much like yesterday.

In other words, we are conditioned to generally not see long-term change, in the absence of obvious short-term change.  The frogs-slowly-boiled-alive thing.

Supposing that, instead of waking up every day, you wake up once a year.  Let's take a short walk thru the history of the past 10 calendar years (again, assuming 1 year per day - a 30-day month corresponding to 30 actual years):

10 Years Ago (~1550 BC):  Mycenaean civilization starts in Ancient Greece.

9 Years Ago  (~1200 BC):  Start of Iron Age in Middle East

8 Years Ago  (~800 BC):   Pre-Etruscan period in Italy. 

7 Years Ago  (~500 BC):   Beginning of Roman Republic

6 Years Ago  (~120 BC):   Maccabees victorious over the Syrians (and they've hardly troubled us since)

~5 1/2 years ago:    Jesus
 
5 Years Ago  (~250 AD):   Roman Emperor institutes persecution of Christians in attempt to restore the religion of Rome.

4 Years Ago  (~600 AD):   Human population of the Earth: about 200 million.

3 Years Ago  (~900 AD):   Human population of the Earth: about 240 million (not much change). 

2 Years Ago  (~1300 AD):  Population of Imperial China: 60 million

1 Year Ago  (~1680 AD):   La Salle explores the length of the Mississippi River. Finds no barge traffic.

Got it?  Now here's where it gets really interesting:

8 Months ago (~1770):   Human population - 750 million 

6 Months ago (~1830):   Human population - 1 billion (1000 million).  Not much of a change.

5 Months ago (~1860):    Edwin Drake drills first oil well (you knew I'd be getting around to this, right?)

4 Months ago (~1892):    Gottlieb Daimler uses internal combustion engine to build a four-wheel vehicle, considered the first modern automobile.

3 1/2 Months ago (~1900): 4,200 passenger cars built in the US

3 Months ago (~1922):   First year where Ford builds over 1 million cars

Catch your breath.  Here we go...

2 Months ago (~1952):    Human population - 2.5 billion   World oil consumption: 8 million barrels/day

1 Month ago (~1982):    Human population - 4.5 billion.  World oil consumption: 60 million barrels/day.  375 million cars in the world.

2 Weeks ago (1998):    Human population - 6 billion; 600 million cars in the world.

1 Week ago (2005):    World oil consumption: 85 million barrels/day.

yesterday (2011):       Human population - 7 billion; World oil consumption: 89 million barrels/day.

The point of all this is to visualize how recently, in human history, we've been living with a *massive* burning of fossil fuel, and an  explosive growth in the number of people and cars. The world was a VERY different place in 1950 (not to mention 1980 when we elected the first Republican President after US Peak Oil was reached).

Aside from the energy required to run our cars, don't forget the energy required to make them: mining/refining/transporting/shaping the metals, making plastics (from oil), making tires (7 gallons of oil per tire), etc.

We have made a deal with the fossil-fuel companies, that has brought us astonishing comforts and conveniences (within the past 2 months, accordingly to the above vision). In exchange for enabling our modern life, we allow them to make exorbitant annual profits, feed the system that burns that oil/gas/coal (releasing ever-increasing amounts of CO2), and even continue to pay them extra subsidies (bribes?) from the public Treasury (although Obama is beginning to force the issue about that).

What am I getting at?

Picture yourself as Faust, happily enjoying your selection of TV channels, the abundance of groceries in your local supermarket, lots of roads and bridges, and the endless 'entertainment' of the current US political process. If you're REALLY hungry, it's probably just a short drive to your local fast-food place, where you can get a double cheeseburger off the 'value' menu.

Now imagine Mephistopheles walking up to your front door, about to ring the bell.

Just sayin'.

Sedona - Airport Mesa sunset

I googled 'best sunset view in sedona' and several people said 'Airport Mesa'.  It's a shamefully easy drive to a little parking area half-way up (room for 10-15 cars) and then a short uphill scramble to an incredible viewpoint.  We got there in time for the show.

Looking south, towards VOC (Village of Oak Creek):

Eric and Lola, looking across the Sedona sprawl.

Red Rocks lived up to their reputation.

Ah yes.

Here's a video, panning 280 degrees, a little before the above intensity, but you get the idea.

Sedona - Doe Mountain hike

On our 2nd day, we hiked Doe Mountain. This is a detached mesa quite adjacent to Fay Canyon (yesterday's hike).

Got started around 10 am - the parking lot was totally filled, but, aside from one large group, had the trail (and the top) mostly to ourselves. It's uphill all the way!

As we climed, the views improved.

Looking across the valley - you can see the entrance to Fay Canyon.

Almost to the top!

The top is flat with a zillion paths, all leading to viewpoints along the steep rim.  This is looking pretty much north.

More of the view, to the north/north-east.

Looking back along the east rim.

Looking south-east, towards Sedona.  Lovely day - great hike.

Sedona - Fay Canyon hike

On our first full day in Sedona, we hiked into Fay Canyon. Here's the entrance.

A short side-trail led to this arch.

Looking up into the canyon.

Hoo-doos.

Largely flat trail, easy to get to - great introduction to the area.

it might as well be Spring

Half-way thru February, and the rhubarb is starting to come back!

Here are the garlics that I planted last fall.  Also, see the chard that wintered over?

But here is the big news:  today I planted 10 new Golden Everbearing raspberries surrounding some volunteers that spread from our main raspberry patch.



The asparagus bed is still sleeping - stay tuned!


Also this morning, I completed a new Access report of Species Richness data, that used some (ahem) clever code to programmatically sort a specific number of columns left-to-right based on the values in Row 1.  Actually, I used the Macro Recorder to write the basic code - I just had to adapt it for Access VBA.

To make that macro code work, I also needed a way to convert an Excel column NUMBER into the ALPHA Excel column heading (that is, I need to convert column #34, for example, into the string "AH".  Thanks to geniuses on the Internet, the formula for doing this is simply (the variable 'maxSpecies' contains the column number):

Left(xlSheet.Cells(1, maxSpecies).Address(1, 0), InStr(1, xlSheet.Cells(1, maxSpecies).Address(1, 0), "$") - 1)

I have no idea why this works, but I pasted it in and it does.  Cool, huh?

translated by bing?

One of my Facebook friends is Baris, who was our (wonderful) guide in Turkey a couple of years ago.  Alas, most of his Facebook posts are in Turkish, which leaves me out.  Today, however, I noticed that Comments are accompanied by a 'Translate' link.

When I click the link, I get a translation, proudly advertised as from Bing.  I (like just about everybody else) never use Bing, but now that I see its translation ability, I can't wait:

it drives me nuts (non-political edition)

So, fretting about the upcoming expiration (2030) of their lucrative 'Porgy and Bess' copyright, the Gershwin heirs are prepping a new edition of the classic 'opera' (don't get me started), where they've 'trimmed' it by nearly half (I suppose because today's potential customers have a limited attention span) and (here's what drives me nuts) added a 'reconciliation scene' at the end.

Why stop there, I ask?  Why not:

1. Casablanca:  Rick shoots Victor and heads to America with Ilsa and Captain Renault, licking his lips.
2. Gone with the Wind:  Rhett and Scarlett are off to Atlanta, planning to open a lucrative urban-renewal business.
3. The Ten Commandments:  Moses enters the Promised Land and has his thugs 'take care of' that upstart Joshua.
4. Citizen Kane:  'Rosebud' turns out to be Kane's favorite beer, which restores him to a happy life (product placements having been cleverly inserted throughout the film).
5. Old Yeller:  Fully recovers and learns new tricks.

Other suggestions?

Iowa results by County

The pink 'frothy' color is Santorum.  Look at all the counties (hint: outside of the urban centers) that he won.

I hate to generalize about rural, white Christians (not really), but it's hard to ignore the fact that these folks were energized, committed, and unswayed by the overwhelming evidence that Ricky is shockingly ill-equipped to lead even a Scout troop.

I believe it's simply Santorum's lucky timing to have been the annointed (word-choice intentional) not-Mitt at exactly the right moment.  Be that as it may, I have to think this represents a pretty big problem for Mitt, despite the obvious intent of the Corporate Masters that he be the nominee.

If the Mormon-haters won't accept Mitt, and the black/Muslim haters won't accept Obama, that leaves two big groups largely unrepresented.  Will the Christian Soldiers move onward with Ricky (3rd party?) and the wacko Libertarians (who have little in common with the Evangelicals, outside of 'zeal') decide that Dr. Paul should be our new Dear Leader in a glorious Randian world (4th party?)?

It's hard to figure out how Wall Street and The Banks are going to finesse this, but we can be certain (thank you, Roberts Court) they they'll give it a go.

This could get interesting, while the Arctic begins to erupt methane, weather catastrophes continue, and the new season of 'The Biggest Loser' attracts a record audience. At least we're not French, right?

my first Senior Citizen luncheon

My 100+ year-old mother-in-law is visiting, and along with one of our friends who is helping out while Karen and I are otherwise occupied, has gone out to lunch at our local Senior center a couple of times, and the lunches have gotten rave review from Sylvia, who is *somewhat* picky about these matters.

In other words, the soup must be HOT and the food not 'tasteless' (her usual complaint).

Since I am now officially over-60 (as of last month), I believe I will join the two of them today.  This should give me an interesting premonition of my future life, I should live so long.

it drives me nuts (what, again?)

I watch the NBC Nightly News regularly, to play the game I call "are the reporters lazy or merely dispicable?".

Reporting on the poison-pill bill passed by the (cravenly corrupt and evil) House majority yesterday, the serious reporter mentioned that the White House has promised to veto the continue-the-Payroll-tax reductions bill (which, as Peter DeFazio reminds us is a bad idea anyway, since focused spending creates far more jobs than piddling tax-cuts, but I digress) because, in her words, it included support for 'a big oil pipeline project'.

Anyone who falls into the 'largely misinformed' category might interpret that to mean that that (America-hating) Obama just won't do anything that might help people and create those badly-needed construction jobs.

Too bad she didn't take 8 seconds to mention that the Keystone XL project is generally recognized as an environmental folly of possibly catastrophic proportions (i.e. 'Game Over for the global climate').  Nah, it's much simpler to keep folks riled about 'both sides engaging in Washington gridlock'.

Network news: You're fired.

asking for trouble?

My current phone (Samsung Captivate) is running Android 2.2 and there is now a 2.3 upgrade available.

I am utterly happy with this phone - its only issue is that the battery seems to drain quickly, and one of the touted benefits of the upgrade is 'improved battery performance', so that, in itself may be a sufficient reason to upgrade.

Except for one thing: fear of disruption.  Yes, I can back up the few critical data files, and am already syncing my personal data (especially that all-important Calendar) with Google, so why delay?

It's just 40 years of computer experience (wrote first program in 1970) that has shown again and again the profound wisdom of the "if it ain't broke..." mantra.

Anybody convinced that taking a phone from 2.2 to 2.3 is both relatively painless and absolutely worthwhile?

has it really come to this?

Rick Perry accuses Obama of conducting a 'War on Religion'?  I know that Evangelicals are major factors in Primary voting, but Perry's "I am a proud Christian" ad shows a new level of creative political writing.

In one short spot, he manages a blatant nod to both the 'Obama is a Muslim' lunatics, as well as the 'Beware of those heathen Mormons' lunatics.

Wait a minute - maybe those two groups of lunatics are really the same!

Regardless, you have to admire the flagrant desperation of an ad like this.  Thank you, Rick, for letting the rest of us know that you really are as dumb and/or craven as you appear to be.  Oh, and by the way, give that writing staff a raise - they deserve it!

too much technology?

So, my son Ben presented me, at my birthday a couple of weeks ago, with a certificate informing me that he had purchased a Kindle Touch for me.  Thank you, Ben.

It arrived yesterday, and I am still forming impressions.  However, the following sequence of events just took place:

1)  I was on Karen's laptop in the kitchen, using the home wifi.  Earlier this morning, I sent an email to a friend (you know who you are) discussing the Touch and asking about his new Kindle Fire.

2) Leaving the laptop on, I went into the living room with the Kindle, and was busy browsing and downloading free eBooks.  Using the funky browser on the Kindle, I was able to get into my Gmail account, and tapped out a reply to my friend, as an experiment (cc: to myself).  It seemed to work.

3)  very soon after, I heard a 'ding' from the kitchen, announcing the arrival of an email.

4)  using my cellphone (Android Galaxy S), I quickly got into my regular email and saw the item I had just sent from the Kindle and heard announced on the laptop.

5)  I am writing this on our Acer netbook, which is normally signed onto my Gmail account, rather than Karen's laptop (which is normally signed into hers)..

I need to get this posted, so I can load some MP3s and other audio onto my teeny MP3 player (that also has an FM radio), that I will be taking to LA next week for Thanksgiving.

This is getting out of hand.

cable installed!!

Well, it took them a few hours, but Internet speed is noticeably faster, the new router is already configured for WiFi, and there are a heck of a lot of channels now on the TV.

Here are the Qwest numbers:

 And here are Comcast's:

Yes, there appears to be a difference.  I've been with Qwest DSL for MANY years, but Xfinity finally made me an offer I couldn't refuse, so off we go 'To Xfinity and Beyond'...

the cable saga (yes, it continues...)

To bring you up to date, I signed an agreement with Xfinity/Comcast to install broadband and TV service back on September 14th. 

There have been many delays, due to the unique situation of our old house (set back from the street) and my demands (I want the modem and router in the cellar).  It's taken over a month until the crew buried conduit from a nearby power-pole to the house and, this morning, the technician arrived to complete everything.

Within the first 5 minutes, he was definitely giving off 'oh shit' vibes, and has called for reinforcements.  Seems that connecting the buried cable to the top of the power-pole is 'problematic' (he thinks it can be done, but 'will take a while') since he may have to jigger the connection from the street to the power-pole.

Then, of course, a hole has to be drilled to get the cable from outside the house to the TV, and he said I have to drill that hole myself, since it goes thru 'furniture' (a wall-unit that's been in place for decades).

Reinforcements are arriving, but the guy says that he has to go get lunch now, and will be back later.  Time marches on.

cemeteries and taxes

I had an odd dream in the early hours this morning.  I was in a cemetery, and I was distressed that my parents were, for some reason, buried there in separate graves, some definite distance from each other.  I pictured their spirits looking for each other, but sadly not being able to find each other.  It was quite disturbing.

I woke up to remind myself that, indeed, they are buried side-by-side, in a little cemetery on the other side of the country.  My father joined the crowd there a long time ago, my mother arriving a couple of years ago, having survived without him for over 25 years.

They are surrounded by their own parents and contemporaries - the folks that comprised my little Upstate New York home town. The people who paid their taxes to educate and protect me, back in the 50's and 60's, before I, like so many of my schoolmates, moved away.

They paid for the public library where I spent countless hours exploring, discovering everything from H.G. Wells to the Tao Teh Ching.  The library where I was so well-known that the librarian gave me free-range in the stacks, and let me poke around in boxes of unfiled books in the back, since there was not enough shelf-space for them.

In my public school, there was an abundance of music classes - singing, band, music theory, choir. I gravitated to all of them. Most remarkable of all, my town paid the salary (how much could it have been?) for a wonderful, curious woman named Miss Ewing (this is long before 'Ms.'), who arrived in our classrooms regularly, wheeling in her record-player, for a class called 'Music Appreciation'.

She made sure we knew our 'Nutcracker', 'Hall of the Mountain King', 'William Tell Overture', and other obvious classical kid-pleasers, but she also made sure we could identify each statement of the main figure in the Bach 'Fugue in G Minor'. Can you imagine, in today's world, a school deeming this to be an important, essential part of 'education'?

I'm not going to assert that the folks of my parent's generation happily paid their taxes, fervently believing that our little town would be a better place if all the kids knew how to spell Tchaikovsky (I didn't have to look that up) or that the Lone Ranger theme was actually written by an Italian guy named Rossini.

And that's the point of taxes.  It's a simple notion, to pool our resources for the Common Good without knowing exactly what the long-term benefits will be, but trusting that investing in the future is better than starving it.

And, make no mistake, we are starving the future by continuing a system where obscene amounts of money are devoted to shallow politics, coming from shallow Military, Petroleum, and Financial interests whose only concern is to buy shallow people to promote their narrow, short-sighted, highly profitable goals, while the bridges and roads are crumbling, the public-school education of my generation is passe, and the media fog is determined that serious questions about who we are as a society are pepper-sprayed into silence.

If today's Republicans had been active in Elmira, New York in 1955, perhaps the title of this blog would be 'just an aging slob'.

Instead, I am humming Bach as I remember public-school heroes like Miss Ewing, Mrs. Ripley, Mr. Holmes, Mrs. Chatfield, Mr. Bentley, and Mr. Thayer (who, I see, is still at it, 43 years after I tried to understand why so many of his choral choices mentioned Jesus).