Month: October 2013

Posted on

Warning… This is techno-drivel…

Sorry to my non geek friends…Stop reading before your eyes start bleeding.

I noticed that Blackberry is releasing a version of the BBM (Blackberry messenger) for iPhone,  in 2008 it was a pretty neat application.

NewImage

I used it a lot but it was only really useful if your friends also had Blackberrys.

The practical upshot is that I had a grand total of about 10 people that I chatted with using the BBM service.

I’ll admit that there was a momentary “OH Cool” when I read that BBM was out on the iPhone.

Then I thought about it.

I can’t think of a single person in my circle of acquaintances that still uses any blackberry device. 

Wow! 

I really hadn’t thought about how long it had been since I’d even seen a Blackberry, other than the one sitting at the bottom of my sock drawer.

So at this late stage in the game, why the hell is Blackberry even bothering? The single advantage to BBM was that you didn’t use your carrier text messages. BBM used Blackberrys servers and your data plan instead of .20 text messages. 

Who doesn’t have unlimited texting these days?

BBM used to be top of the line.

A big disadvantage was that you couldn’t just reach out to anyone. They had to have a blackberry and you had to exchange a PIN number. On the one hand, this completely eliminated SPAM on the other hand the initial sync procedure was a pain in the ass.

NewImage

How is BBM any better than Apples messenger or simply normal text messages?

There are far more of my friends today that have iPhones. Apples Messenger works across iPad, iPhone, and the latest Mac OS X versions.

It’s simple, efficient, and just works. Messenger sends via your data plan if it knows the other device is something Apple. Your iPhone will select text messaging if the receiving device isn’t Apple. 

Had Blackberry continued to dominate the smartphone market and serve their business market, BBM on iPhone and Android today would be a welcome application.

However with the minuscule presence of Blackberry in smartphone market and the growing BYOD (Bring your own device) paradigm. I think the BBM application will suffer a fate similar to Blackberry’s formerly ubiquitous phones, obscurity and eventual irrelevance.

Sad really, when a great company slips and falls like Blackberry has.

NewImage

Have you heard about Widows 8.1???

Apple will be releasing OS X Mavericks shortly.

As I think about Windows and how poorly the latest versions have been received by the general public.

It occurred to me, if Apple wanted to drive a stake through windows heart (too much TrueBlood), they’d release their latest OS for $19.99 on any Intel platform.

Compared to the outrageous cost of Windows, I wonder how many people would simply say, “yeah I’m done with Windows” and pony up the $.

Perhaps that would be a more merciful death for Windows than “The Death of a thousand fuckups” it’s experiencing now. 

Nah… Apple won’t be that merciful to Microsoft. 

Posted on

We read your beads without ever talking to you…

 

NewImageWe know you don’t belong here.

We don’t have to ask, all we have to see or hear is the way you race your little wanna be drifter car with it’s flatulent exhaust into our neighborhood.

We know you’re out of your element precisely because of your dark windows.

We smile seeing you lock up your brakes when the pavement runs out.

We know you’re lost, led astray by your GPS.

We see your confusion at being lost because you don’t understand the failure of your technology.

NewImage

I’ll give you a little hint… Mountainous terrain and the mineral composition of the mountains can, and often does introduce errors in the GPS signal.

If you’re depending on your phone to give you guidance you better hope that you’ve got a cell signal too.

Not that I care… I personally wait for the day when one of your morons goes flying up my street, and straight into the wash.

I don’t necessarily hope that you die but I’m a big believer in Darwin awards.

Not that any of you would understand what the above sentences mean, you’re dumbfucks and you deserve what you get.

To you, technology is magic, never wrong, and using your mind, or eyes, or the barest shred of common sense is a totally foreign concept.

NewImage

You’re lemmings, sheep, Prey… People like you are why Americans in most parts of the world are thought of as morons and easy marks.

Thanks for that by the way…

When you drive off the road into the wash and your little POS car is broken, there is no doubt in my mind that you’ll try to sue the GPS maker or the county or the local residents for your stupidity. Because after all you’re not responsible for your actions are you?

Believe me, you hit one of the local kids because you were going too fast, on single lane residential roads & your bleached bones might be found in the mountains… eventually… if your family is really, really lucky.

Word of advice…

Slow down, remember that in your haste to get somewhere you often miss the beauty of where you are…

BTW, your phones navigation system will most likely work better too.

Posted on

Ode to the wash

DSC 0387

I for one miss the little meandering wash of 20 years ago.
 
I miss walking the in it. I miss the little thread of water that was in the bottom of the wash almost year round and the way my dogs would find pools to lay in and cool off during our walks.
 
I miss the treasures of semi polished stones that could be sometimes be found in the wash bed.
 
We used to have coyotes come to the wash, morning and evening for water.
 
Geology students from local high schools and colleges would come here for samples and classes. The instructor teaching the class about the mountains, their relative youth and the minerals found here.
 
Then some kind of flood event happened or the wash became perceived as a threat.
 
Mitigation efforts began, and the wash became wider, deeper, filled with more loose soil eroding ever more rapidly and our little wash was suddenly, one Spring afternoon… gone.
 
It was replaced by a large grey dusty, dry, gaping wound most of the time. At other times is was turned into a raging angry torrent of muddy water and boulders that shook the ground. 
 
In the final mitigation project…  Stone, concrete, roads, barriers, and control demonstrate that sometimes it’s better to have left well enough alone. 

DSC 0553

The project goes forward 6 days a week. Rumbling machines, digging equipment, cement trucks, rock carriers, and all manner of big Tonka toys. (The rock trucks are a touch of irony they’re bringing rocks UP from the desert to reinforce the sides of the wound they’ve created.) Our little wash is being remade, reformed, conquered, dominated, dare I say raped?
 
I think all of us luxuriate in Sundays because we can sleep a little later and have a whole day where there’s nothing but the sound of wind and birdsong in the trees.
 
On Sunday, people come to the rim of what used to be a gentle little wash with water in it most of the time.
 
They gape at the canyon that now separates one side from the other, some shake their heads and go back inside their homes then draw the blinds on the windows facing the wash.
 
Others are angry and others still, are just sad.
 
I hope that as the work finishes and the trees are replanted the “revised” wash won’t be such a glaring permanent reminder of mans desire to dominate nature. 
 
 I have a feeling that the wound will be a very long time healing.
 
Time will tell if this flood project will prevent the roads from being washed out. I suspect that it will create pools of standing, stagnant water. That will no doubt require more “maintenance” from the county to keep the mosquitoes down. 
 
Our little wash was in reality gone the minute bulldozers rolled in 10 or 15 years ago.
 
They cut and gouged their way toward the mountain, each year going further and deeper.  Some years when the bulldozers didn’t come, the wildlife came back, coyotes, and bears, raccoons, deer and the occasional cougar or bobcat, and other critters.

DSC 0556

The balance would be disrupted again by the growl of heavy diesel engines and the wash got deeper, & wider. Eventually water didn’t flow and collect anymore so neither did the wildlife.
 
Through the years, we had hope that the bulldozers wouldn’t come again and the wash would recover.
 
It’s certain now that our little babbling wash is gone forever. 
 
With it, one of the reasons I chose to live here.
 
It’s not your fault, Mr Flood Control. You’re doing your job and your goal is to protect property, homes, and prevent roads from being washed out.
 
I get it, but I’ll mourn the loss of the shallow little wash behind my house; 
 
The wash with a few errant Mt. Mahogany’s growing in the middle of it. 
 
The wash where I took my Geologist father, who spent hours looking at the tailings. 
 
Finally he loaded up a fair sized backpack with actinolite, then handed it to me to hump out of the wash. Those samples he sent to his geologist buddies all over the world, because thats how geologists give gifts to each other.
 
More recently the wash was a place where a precocious little girl all of 5 years old pronounced with the absolute certainty only a 5 year old can have, that we couldn’t be in a creekbed, riverbed or wash. 

DSC 0557

When I inquired why, she pointed out that stones in creeks and rivers were rounded, therefore since these rocks were jagged this wasn’t a creek, river, or wash. 
 
She modified her conclusion when I pointed out how close the mountain peaks were and asked how far she thought the rock had to tumble to get smooth. To this day I don’t know if she believed me, but she took it under advisement.
 
See it’s not just a wash that sometimes flooded. To us, it’s a place of memories, wildlife, discovery, and laughter. 
 
Well… It was all of these things, when it was the shallow little wash behind the house.
 
To the people on the town council, the wash was simply an inconvenience when they had to take the long way out of town. 
 
To the county and flood control,  it was a potential hazard. 

DSC 0560

To the people who live along the wash, it was a neighbor who sometimes had a bad day or two, but a neighbor whose good days and benefits greatly outweighed the bad.
 
You see, Flood Control.
 
We were angry and are sad because we’re mourning the loss of a friend & the natural wildness we moved 90 miles away from Los Angeles to enjoy.
 
Posted on

The past couple of nights have been “Interesting”…

…The Insomniac theater of the absurd.

I wrote a blog sitting naked at my desk. It was long rambling, random, and well… Nuts!

I started taking an antibiotic that cautions it may cause dizziness. They should also caution about insomnia and insanity.

Probably not a good sales pitch though. “This antibiotic is effective against sinusitis and may also cause extended episodes of intense crazy. Use with caution when operating heavy equipment.“

I’d take an erection lasting four hours, but that’s not what this antibiotic promises or what it’s delivering…

NewImage

I chose not to publish the “crazy blog”… Probably for the best.

Last night I dreamt I was with Arlene in a psychotic TrueBlood nightmare.

I was offering her soothing words about her husband Terry having been ripped apart by a flatulent vampire. Arlene said, “I can deal with Terry being ripped apart… but what is that horrific stink?“

Just then Terry pulled himself back together and became a flatulent vampire who kept chasing us round and round Merlotte’s but was easy to avoid because we smelled him coming.

Lafayette put an end to Vampire Terry with a pot of chili and a can of lysol. “Bitch! I jus done cleaned this kitchen and you come up in here smelling like dat? Awww HELL NO!” 

I ask you… is this the kind of behavior you want from your antibiotic? I didn’t think so.

Then this morning, I was outside doing poo patrol in the back yard.

OK did someone put extra stinkiness in the poo, or have my sinuses started to clear?

Then it hit me one of the dogs must have been particularly gaseous last night which got incorporated into the TrueBlood dream / nightmare.

I guess you could say the past night or two has been shitty or at least gassy.

I do hope only the mind altering drugs you expect to cause delusions are deluding you, and that your antibiotics are just killing infections.

Have a good one

Posted on

Opps! I let the whole week get by me

IMG 0045

Well, not entirely. I went to the Dentist, Doctor, and had dinner with friends, on Wednesday.  

It was a long day but not a bad one. 

We had snow on Wednesday too, Winter seems to be trying to arrive early.

I’m still loving my new phone. Unlike previous iPhones this one has amazing battery life. Seriously I’m getting 2 days on a charge, the best I ever got out of my android was less than a day.

The rest of the week has flown by and I don’t really know what if anything I’ve managed to accomplish.

The government shutdown has fueled a fire that I’m not entirely sure that our politicians will be able to quell. The next elections should be interesting!

I know that I plan not to cast any votes for incumbents.

Like many people I’ve become increasingly disgusted with our government. In particular the pettiness that appears to be coming directly from the White House.

NewImage

Closing open air monuments, and National Parks is beyond petty and vindictive, it’s just plain WRONG.

Even more astounding to me was the incident where the Capital police told a man who was volunteering to mow the lawn around the Lincoln memorial that he had to leave. Imprisoning a group of elderly tourists in their hotel near old faithful was shocking. 

This is not who we as Americans are.

We’re supposed to be charitable, kind, good natured, and respectful, especially of places that are, for want of a better word “Sacred” to our nation.

That we have citizens willing to volunteer their time to maintain monuments, or man parks for the benefit of their countrymen says that as a people our core beliefs are still intact.

It also highlights that the ethics, and morals of those in power are suspect.

Another concern is that we apparently have Police officers in New York, Washington DC and National Park Rangers who, when given a choice about basic right and wrong, choose wrong.

These LEO officials were given a choice between following orders and choosing the ethical , moral path. Like some of the Nazi officers in Hitler’s Germany they chose to follow orders and effectively squelched what their conscience must have been screaming for them to do.

How long then until we have citizens appearing in court saying “I was only following orders…” Really? Roughing up old people? Terrorizing tourists? Mistreating veterans… This passes for correct behavior in my country today? 

In funnier news it’s been a big week for the “R” dog.

IMG 0039

In addition to him encountering snow for the first time he’s also started noticing electronics in the house.

He decided that the DVD player needed to be barked at when it stuck out the disc tray one night.

Today, while I was printing something out on the printer the paper sounded like hissing and that caught his attention.

We didn’t get to the level of barking at the printer but he’s decided that the “Evil Printer” must be watched.

He looks at the machine every time he walks by and any little sound it makes is immediately investigated.

His end of week antics were certainly more benign than his antics earlier in the week.

This week he’s demonstrated that he can reach onto the kitchen counter and has no qualms about snagging a complete sandwich from a plate and trotting off with it. He has a grasp of physics and does the math to determine if he can snag the sandwich before you can traverse the distance to interdict.

He also has decided that items on my desk are worthy of his drooling attention. Pens, pencils, and other items have been retrieved, from the retriever throughout the week.

This seems to be our lot in life. The dogs we raise, or even just take in, develop very distinctive personalities. 

People are amazed when I tell the “S” dog to go potty… and he trots out the slider down the stairs and does exactly that. They’re equally amazed that he will come get me if he’s not feeling well or lead me to either the sliding door or the treat cupboard depending on his need or whim.

The “R” dog is developing in the same way. He’s willful, and beginning to understand that a certain amount of that will be tolerated instead of punished(I still suspect there was a lot of punishment where he came from). As the weeks have sped by he’s coming to his own conclusions about what works and what doesn’t.

For example The “R” dog may wish to go into the underbrush, the “S” dog and I would prefer not to.

The “R” dog keeps 90lbs of tension on the retracto leash but doesn’t get his way. While we’re waiting for him to decide that he needs to stay with the pack, the “S” dog and I chat and the “S” dog gets ear scratches and attention.

On one particularly “willful” day “S” and I simply sat on the side of the road enjoying each others company until the “R” dog decided that he’d met an immovable object regardless of the limitless force he applied.

IMG 0048

Truth to tell I think he was just plain tired. After 45 minutes he decided to take what dignity he had left and lead us home. “S” laughed all the way back to the house in the way that retrievers do.

He stayed by my side occasionally looking up at me as we walked, as if to say “He’s really stubborn isn’t he?”

I reminded the “S” dog that he tried the same things, as did Butch and Etta. He nuzzled me at the mention of their names. 

We miss them to be sure.

Before we had the opportunity to get too maudlin the “R” dog came across a rabbit and in his excitement tangled himself up and then tripped, falling squarely on his stubborn pride.

After untangling him, he seems to have concluded that there was just no way he could be anything but embarrassed. 

The “S” dog led us the remainder of the way home. While the “R” dog simply looked at the dirt road we were walking along. He was obviously upset albeit unhurt. The rabbit in the front yard erased the black cloud over his head and this time he didn’t do a spin he just tried to catch the wrascally wabbit.

They’re funny companions. 

I know they only keep me around because of my opposable thumb. After all who’s going to run the can opener?