Category: Fail

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All I want is some quiet…

earthmovers

Between the month and a half of earth movers, dumptrucks, grinding and chirping and beep beep beep noises and the people next door constantly building, sawing, hammering, and whatever coupled with their little Chihuahua who barks every single time I or one of my usually quiet dogs step out onto the deck.

I’m well beyond a point where I want to move, I’m into the planning and wondering how to make a move.

stripmine

At this point I think living next to a gravel pit, or a strip mine might actually be quieter. Perhaps a home in the inner city ghetto of Chicago, LA or New York, the gunshots would be intermittent and I wouldn’t have to worry about neighborhood improvement projects involving heavy equipment. I’d just have to worry about the occasional renovation by riot and fire. Other than that It would probably be pretty quiet.

Okay, I exaggerate. 

chihuahua

I suppose I’m a little grumpy because today is one of those really NICE breezy days. It’s not so breezy that it’s destructive or kicking up a ton of dust but just nice enough that it’s not too cool, not too warm and we’ve got intermittent clouds making it a perfect day to be out on my rear deck, writing blogs, or stories or looking for a job, or just enjoying the breeze

Problem is, if i set foot outside the rear door Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap!

Then my dog decides he needs to have the last word because that little Yappy dog is barking at me, and he charges the fence line barking and the little Chihuahua who has to answer, stirs up the bigger dog in their house so that now we have three dogs barking at each other for no good reason.

Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap!  BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! BARK! 

uglyfence

My dog has accidentally destroyed the raspberries that I had planted along that side of the yard, and more than once has injured himself because of that nasty ill behaved little POS.

I don’t even try to go out on the deck now. In fact I don’t even LIKE going out there to tend the plants or anything else. I’m to the point that between the awful looking fence, and the nasty little dog, I don’t go out there if I can help it at all.

It’s just way too annoying.

goodpup

I’ve been taking my dogs ON LEASH out to the front yard just so I don’t have to hear the little bitch yapping.

I’ll admit I don’t like Chihuahuas in general. When I was a young boy, the old woman next door had two or three of the things and they made any attempt to play in my back yard absolutely miserable.

That’s part of why I stayed in my room and read books so much. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the outdoors, and it wasn’t that I was a nerd, it was that I couldn’t stand incessant barking and noise even as a child.

To this day, among the first lessons my dog is taught, is barking is not a good thing and when I tell them to shut up I mean it.

dreams for the dog next door

My old dog just can’t let it go he’s 13, and a grand old man for his breed. The Chihuahua is right there barking at him, at me, and sticking her nose through the fence to do it. I honestly can’t blame him for barking back. But the cycle is never ending and I end up yelling at him to be heard, and then he’s in trouble for nothing he’s done wrong.

Of course it’s not the Chihuahua’s fault either, it’s the OWNERS! If they exercised the least bit of control and assertiveness over the animal, things would be better. But that household is two women and they don’t correct the dog, they try talking to it. I swear at this point, it’s shock collar time!

I might be inclined to step out on the deck every 10 minutes just to hear the Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap!  YIPE!  

I love animals, I detest badly behaved animals.

I miss the quiet of the wind in the trees not having neighbors.

Guess I’m going to have to get a “GO AWAY! Home of Grumpy old man” doormat.

Oh I’ll have to make a recording that says “You kids get off my lawn,” too. I say recording because I’m a modern kind of guy, I won’t actually be out on the porch yelling, I’ll use a proximity sensor and MP3 player.

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This is such a major WTF I can’t believe it.

NewImage

I was reading about the Manhunt for Christopher Dorner.

This is the former LAPD officer that is supposedly is running around on some kind of vendetta. I personally think that there’s a lot more to the story than we will ever know.

What we do “know” right now is that in 2009 Dorner was fired from LAPD for making false statements.

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Say What? LAPD makes false statements all the time usually when answering brutality charges made against them!

Yes Dorner has clearly lost it, but you have to ask did he lose his mind because he was pushed beyond a breaking point and saw no future or hope?

Nothing justifies Droners current course of action and god knows killing those young people in Irvine was wrong. I’m reminded of the old biblical injunction about the sins of the fathers…

Whatever you think about Dorner the “CURE” is perhaps worse than the disease.

NewImage

Thus far we’ve had two women in Torrance shot by Police because the police saw them driving a pickup truck that looked like Dorners.

Later and again in Torrance we’ve had police open fire on a man who was driving a pickup truck that looked like Dorners. I’m avoiding Torrance for the time being and that would be doubly true if I was driving a pick-up truck of any kind.

There has been one LAPD officer wounded in Corona, and two Riverside officers shot, one of them died, the other is in critical condition.

Thus far the tally is 5-3 shootings 3-0 deaths. Dorner leads. It’s only a matter of time before the police shoot and kill an innocent civilian.

My tally doesn’t include the emotional trauma caused an elderly man in San Diego who was tied up when Dorner allegedly tried to steal his boat. The theft was aborted because Droner got the prop fouled with an errant rope. Remember that Dorner is an Ex-Navy reservist.

imagesReally? The guy couldn’t launch a small boat without screwing it up?

Now this guy is supposedly in the Southern California mountains. I have to ask how many more people are going to be shot or injured by mistake before this guy is caught?

Maybe we need some real police not the Keystone cops from LA looking for this man. Clearly, he’s well beyond the LAPDs skills.

It’s only a matter of time before gun control gets tied into this, I cringe at the prospect but know it’s going to happen.

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Ok, I’ve got nothing!

Nothing to say.

Still looking for insurance that I can afford.

THuhhe search isn’t going well.

On the one hand I’d like to be covered, on the other hand I have a fundamental problem paying another mortgage payment to have medical coverage.

The primary problem I have is this, with a mortgage I have something that’s tangible. With health insurance I’m pissing money away to provide for coverage that I may or may not use.

At the rate I’m paying right now for COBRA, if I paid that same rate for 10 years it would come to $72,000 not including interest.

NewImage

When the  men in my family break at end of life we don’t typically last very long.

I’m actually fortunate in that as long as we stay active we live a long fairly trouble free life. Our sinuses are for shit but nothing is perfect.

When our time comes we tend to go out like Don Corleone in The Godfather. We’re playing with the grandkids or great grandkids in the garden then we drop dead.

If I’m going to pay the equivalent of another mortgage, I might as well take advantage of the lower mortgage rates and buy another piece of property. At least I could rent it out and have an income, with a potentially higher rate of return.

I was thinking about it and realized that were I to go to a bank to apply for a mortgage for another piece of property they’d tell me I can’t afford to make the payment. Yet our government says that not only must I afford the payment but that they will enforce it under the law.

It’s a lose, lose proposition. If I were still in my 20s I’d be applying for citizenship in other countries. Not because I hate America, I love this country, but because I wouldn’t be able to afford the cost of American citizenship as I got older.

Today if I could communicate with my younger self… I’d say go find a decent country with good people and a system that works. Move there, become a citizen and plan for a decent retirement.

I look at my parents and their retirement isn’t at all what they’d planned for because they trusted in a system that didn’t really protect them. Remember Enron? There were a lot of 401K investments that got wiped out due to them. Then just a few years later you have the housing implosion and the devaluation of their retirement savings has really cut into what they can do. I know they’re on Medicare and Social Security I know they’re paying for health care supplementary insurance I just don’t know how long they’re going to be able to afford it.

I’ve spoken to younger insurance agents who don’t have health insurance because they don’t have an extra 600 – 800 dollars a month in their budgets.

NewImageYet in 2014 we’re all supposed to be carrying insurance and we’ll be penalized for not having a policy in force.

I’m still OK,  yeah I’m using my savings to pay the bills but I can go for a while longer with careful spending. I keep wondering how the hell can people less fortunate than myself come close to affording health insurance?

It really messes with your head. You want to do the right thing, but you can’t afford to do the right thing.

Obviously if you didn’t bother to pay for your housing, and didn’t eat you could afford to pay for health insurance. Then you’d only have to worry about paying for health insurance for a few weeks.

This is seriously wrong. And yet the government is in a position to make us all face this choice.

I’ve said it before. Contrary to what President Obama would have us believe. The problem isn’t that American Citizens are irresponsible about medical coverage. The problem is that health insurance companies and to some extent the medical providers are raping the American People.

If our government was truly interested in taking action on health care they’d address the source of the problem not penalize the victims.

Humm, I guess I did have something to say after all.

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Time for journalistic responsibility.

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I couldn’t resist the Reagan poster. But you have to admit if anyone aside from James Brady could speak to the subject it’s Reagan. 

CBSNews Is reporting the New York paper responsible for publishing a map showing the addresses of registered gun owners in two NY counties has added to their grandstanding by hiring armed security guards to protect one of their offices.

The so called “journalists” are kinda missing the point.

I love the irony in that they’ve turned to armed security to protect them.

Registered gun owners are law abiding citizens which by default means that these people aren’t likely to go to the newspaper to exact revenge.

Law abiding citizens are going to choose weapons of mass destruction…. LAWYERS!

The Lawyers will be far more devastating to the newspaper than anyone with a gun.

If I were one of the people affected I’d be seriously pissed off. Not because now the world knows I have guns, but because of the invasion of privacy for no good purpose other than headlines.

Essentially this newspaper has stigmatized the gun owners of these counties. What they’ve done is tried to equate gun owners to sex offenders. “Who are the gun owners in your neighborhood?”, Who are the sex offenders in your neighborhood?”

I’m sure that the editors of the newspaper have gotten some really negative mail and deservedly so.

The gun owners affected have committed no crime, they’ve done absolutely nothing that should have resulted in the forfeiture of their privacy and yet… They’ve lost their privacy. Their homes may be targeted for potential break-ins by criminals who would like to steal guns and resell them to other criminals.

Now the newspaper is trying to look like the victim, and spin the story that they’re scared of the gun owners. 

I have a few things to say to that;

1 Buck up. You published the piece, you must have thought about the invasion of privacy you were enabling and if you didn’t well you’re not very good journalists. You need to accept the consequences and responsibility for your actions.

2 You have nothing to fear from the registered gun owners. You need to fear their attorneys.

3 In the years to come you need to fear the criminal element that breaks into these houses and manages to steal the weapons. They’re the people that are going to mug you, rape you, and shoot you. The blood of innocent victims, and the blood of the home owners occupying these houses will be on your hands.

In my opinion, a single injury or god forbid a death caused because a criminal targeted these homes should result in prosecution of the journalists involved in the story.

I’m for freedom of the press, but with that freedom also comes responsibility. 

There’s a quote from one of the Star Trek movies. “Just because we can do a thing, it doesn’t necessarily follow that we should do a thing.”

Yes, it wasn’t said by a statesman, or a scientist, or a politician. But it’s nonetheless a wonderful cautionary statement.

I suspect that the movie quote is based on something Robert Oppenheimer said;

“When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb. – J. Robert Oppenheimer”

The point is, sometimes it’s important to take a step back to look beyond your ability to act and decide if the ends are really justified. 

How many wars, how much harm would have been avoided if people had simply considered the ramifications of their actions?

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Just when did I sign on at an Indian Job placement firm?

IWorklogo just got a call out of the blue from a job placement company.

The guy calling was obviously Indian. His accent was so thick that I could barely understand him.

He sent me an email while we were speaking on the phone. That gave me and Identification of the company, this guy worked for. As I explored their website I found that in addition to a supposed office in IL their main office were actually in Bhusari Colony,
Kothrud, Pune 411038 India.

So that’s all fine except that this guy tells me he wants me to respond to his email in the next 15 minutes. Say what?? Hello, I’m actually filling out another application right at the moment.  I told this guy that, then he starts pressuring me to apply for a job in San Jose, for 80k max and he has no idea what the hell the job is. All he can tell me is that it’s something to do with embedded systems That could be anything from a Jet Engine control module to an implantable medical device.

His email has a ONE LINE job description and the only information is a requirement for HP Quality Center which is a test tool HP purchased from Mercury Interactive.

What the fuck?

So this moron wants me to apply, in the blind for a position that I have no data on, and he wants me to do this in the next 15 minutes…

I told him that the application I was working on would be finished first, then I’d send him the information he wanted. He asked how long that would be… I told him he’d have it by tomorrow morning. 

You know I want a job, but I can’t waste time with people that don’t do their jobs. Especially when I’ve got a real job application that I’m working on.

——– UPDATE ——–

Ok maybe I’m a bit too sensitive.

I get another email this morning from this Manoj guy. This time he’s wanting me to sign a document that says, and I’m paraphrasing here;

“I promise under threat of litigation, that I will not apply for or allow anyone else to submit me for a position with GE or any of their subsidiaries or partners for the next 45 days.”

I have some problems with this.

1) GE has it’s fingers in companies all over the world. Technically that makes all of those companies subsidiaries or partners, completely off limits. How would I keep track?

2) The document also specifically mentions a Wisconsin job opportunity NOT a San Jose position that we discussed yesterday.

3) Until yesterday I never heard of the agency this guy works for.

4) Based on his comportment, his inability to speak English clearly, and the way he represented his company… I DON’T want him representing ME.

I was polite, I sent an email saying that I couldn’t in good conscience sign this exclusivity agreement because I had no capacity to control what other headhunters may or may not do and bade him farewell.

I hop in the shower, when I’m put together for the day, I check my email again. There’s another email from him. This one is the same email as yesterday with ONE difference. It’s for a position in WI.

Yesterday:

I have a fulltime position at San Jose CA which is an HP QC and embedded requirement.

In case you are interested please call me back asap.

Today:

I have a fulltime position at Milwaukee WI  which is an HP QC and embedded requirement.

In case you are interested please call me back asap.

The rest of the email is a list of questions… all of which are answered in my resume, and oh… They’re also answered on the job search board that he got my contact information from. Mind you he’s asking for all this information but nowhere does he ask for a resume, or salary history

Name: 
Availability:      
Current Location:

 Please let me know if you wish to consider him!

Contact No.:       

Email ID:   

Work Status:        
 

Employer Details
Full Name: 
Company Name:

Phone No: 
Email ID:

 

Reference 1
 
Name: 
Designation:
Company:
Phone No:
Email ID:
 
Reference 2
 
Name:
Designation:
Company:
 Phone No:
Email ID:

I preserved the formatting of his email. If you look carefully, you’ll see that after this information has been filled out… It looks like he just cuts and pastes it, including the line ” Please let me know if you wish to consider him!” into an outbound email to his supposed client. I wonder if Manoj remembers to change the pronoun… I doubt it.

I’ve come to the conclusion that this guy in fact doesn’t have a client. He’s just spamming corporations with names and resumes hoping that someone will be interesting enough that he can get his 10% to 20% cut of their salary.

I’ve no sooner looked at the email than my phone is ringing. Yep it’s this idiot… I decline to answer.

I thought about writing a nice email to him explaining that I wasn’t interested in he or his company representing me. But I thought the effort would be a wasted one.

One of the advantages of owning your own domain names is that you have the ability to really control what’s going on through those domains.

Believing that Manoj wouldn’t get the hint, (I may be one of the few people he’s spoken to for more than 5 minutes) I created a filter on my domain that will reject all messages from his corporate domain, returning an error message “YOU HAVE BEEN BLOCKED BY THIS USER”

Maybe he’ll get the message then.

If you’re looking for a job, be careful in your search.

There are people like Manoj who through their puerile efforts simply blow your chances of even being considered, and then there are others who actually use the information that you provide about your work history and other personal information to construct false identities or steal yours. 

Remember, there are always predators. This is  especially true in tough economic times.