Category: General

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By now you’ve heard…

Phyrewall 2014 Nov 06

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ve heard that the Democratic Party has lost control of the Senate. They lost control of the House a while ago. Now it looks like the people have spoken again.

I for one am glad to see it. 

Personally I’d hoped that The President would take notice and realize that this was the voice of the American people. I’d hoped that he would take it as a sign that We the People aren’t behind his agendas and that he couldn’t bully us or Congress into compliance.

Then I listened to his press conference yesterday. 

WOW!

Sad to say, The President still doesn’t see that deeply unpopular policies lead to loss of votes. Heck, all The President had to do was look at the Bush years. But apparently, he’s not one to pay much attention to history.

President Obama

The President will in all likelihood spend the remaining two years of his term as a lame duck. I doubt that he will be able to reconcile the rift that he helped to create between himself and the Republican party.

I do expect a flurry of activity on the part of the outgoing Congress designed to make the next Congress’s job much more difficult. I suspect that the Democrats will attempt to enact laws, change rules, and put various regulations in place to thwart any speedy changes when Congress resumes session in January.

Once those obstructions are cleared, I expect that we’ll see many new laws and modifications of old laws which will make the Republicans look like they’re very productive. The problem is, a lot of that “work” will probably be stuff the House voted on and sent to Harry Reid which then sat on his desk for who knows how long.

While the transition is going on, I expect The President to sign everything he can get his hot little hands on into law under executive privilege. 

I know, The President supposedly hasn’t used his executive privilege as much as his predecessor, but it’s not the NUMBER of times it’s the character of the use. Bush could have issued executive order that the White House toilet paper must be linen not paper. (That would be extravagant and wasteful but not criminal) The President has used executive privilege in ways that come very close to violating the Constitution.

CNN

So absolute numbers of Executive orders doesn’t really capture the tenor of the orders themselves, and is therefore an invalid measure.

I know, that will come as a surprise and disappointment to the talking heads in the Main Stream Media.

I’ve been enjoying the show the MSM has put on over this rout of the Democratic Party.

Watching Al Sharpton’s inarticulate grunting on MSNBC is worth having to throw my TV out after sullying it with MSNBC’s broadcast.

CNN was hysterically funny and their talking heads were stunned almost into silence as state after state reported Republican victories in Congressional seats and Gubernatorial races.

FrancesSalerno1 2014 Nov 06

I can understand the stunned silence, after all if you really believe that America is such a dark and terrible place it’s pretty much inconceivable that the party representing the right hand of Satan and all the ills besetting the country would be voted into office.

In some ways I almost feel sorry for the democrats.

They really, took a …. Well you know.

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What makes one reality better than another?

Horse

I dream a lot. Sometimes even when I’m supposed to be awake.

When I have recurring dreams I tend to pay attention. Those are usually the kind of dreams where I’m trying to give myself advice. If I listen, that advice is pretty good.

Then there are dreams that are so real that when I wake up it’s as if I was living another life. For want of a better term, visualize a Matrix like reality.

What really gets my attention are dreams that are, both recurring and Matrix-like. Lately I’ve been having one of those dreams.

Ranchland

This dream is either loaded with meaning or I’m living another life someplace else. I suspect it’s the former, but can’t help hoping it’s the latter. If this dream was/is another reality I think I’d like to stay there. It feels like I have a chance to get it right, if I somehow could stay.

It’s winter. There’s a lot of snow on the ground and I’m checking a fenceline. I look almost like I do now, maybe a bit more weathered. I’m wearing a stetson just like the one I have, but it’s beat to hell. It looks like it’s seen more than a few seasons outside.

There’s a noise behind me. It’s a good sized chestnut horse. I know his name instantly, and I notice he’s a bit skittish looking to the east and a line of storm clouds. I calm him with easy familiarity and he settles. This action feels like a dance we do often. Usually, its about him wanting a lump of sugar from my pocket, he knows I’m a soft touch. I know he knows, and he knows I know.

Winter Scene

Today is a bit different, this squall line is heavy, and there’s winter lightening in it. The wind is rising and every once in a while I can hear the rumble of thunder. I nuzzle the horse, “Come on Mac, lets finish up and get back home. I’ll turn the heater on in your stall.” I mount up, the horse continues a slow walk allowing me to inspect the fence from the saddle instead of trudging through the snow.

We walk for a while, then I notice we’re near the abandoned house on the property. The house is steep roofed, built solid and is at least 100 years old. When I bought the property I chose the other house to live in, because this place is so close to a busy road.

Snow is starting to fall. I see what looks like movement through one of the windows of the house. “Great! Squatters,” I think.

“Mac, we’re going to have to make a slight detour then I’ll get you back to your nice warm stall.”

Winterbarn

I tug the reins slightly toward the house. Mac’s not happy about it but he does as I ask. We get to the house and I put Mac under the roof of the back porch. When I walk through the door to the place I’m met by an astounding sight.

The squatters have a full-on business going in here. They’ve knocked out all the walls they could and turned the lower level of the house into a wide open space with sellers stalls in it.

Out front toward the road is a wide parking area. There are cars and trucks and all kinds of people selling all kinds of things. A lady offers me a cup of coffee for only 7.99!

I tell her and the rest of these people that this is my property and they all need to leave. I feel a little guilty about it. But come on! Shouldn’t I at least be getting a little rent? Then I notice there’s power here. I didn’t connect the electricity to this house.

Snowdog1

I stomp through the front door and out to the road. There, at the edge of the property is a brand new power relay. Nice shiny new transformer, a new fence surrounding the unit and bright coppery connections at the top of the insulators. Obviously someone is paying for this, I wonder if it’s me, and I just haven’t gotten the first bill. Everything I’ve seen looks like this is all new and these people have recently arrived.

I go back inside the house and ask to see whoever is in charge. I’m directed to some punk who smells of weed and who tells me they thought the house was abandoned.  Since the house needed people and they needed a place to live it was like a match made in heaven so they moved in. He’s telling me I shouldn’t be upset. The power company was really nice connecting the house to the grid, they said they’d send a bill later.

I asked him about the fence that they cut to gain access to the property, meanwhile I’m thanking my lucky stars that I didn’t just turn the heard loose into this pasture and decided to check the fence first. If I hadn’t, I’d have lost the whole damn herd.

Summer Field

What I get from weed boy is more bullshit about no fences and that the house needed people. I realize I’m getting nowhere with this dumbass. I’m pissed off because this is exactly the kind of shit I moved out here to avoid.

I pull my cell phone out of my pocket, I have just enough signal to call the sheriff.  I’m going to make this his problem. Then I’m going to get on Mac and go home, we’re probably going to get caught in the storm at this point and his nose will be out of joint for days.

I press the call button…

Suddenly back in my bed. The sun is shining warmly through the bedroom windows, I can see the bright green of the vegetable garden and beyond it the barn. I’m freaked out, I jump out of bed throw on a pair of flipflops and walk out to the barn. Mac is half asleep in his stall. I can hear Lucy barking at the cows in the pasture, she’s probably making them do cardio, the cows must be just thrilled with her this morning.

I think Lucy’s the bossiest dog I’ve ever had, she’ll be up here soon demanding her breakfast. I open the barn door to the corral. Mac meanders out into the sun, and starts his morning routine. I smile, it’s like he stretches and warms up before the start of the day. I put his breakfast in the trough and make sure his water is fresh.

Cows1

The morning sun is comfortable on my skin and if it wasn’t for the work that I need to do around the place, I’d stay naked all day up near the pond in the north pasture. The thought brings a smile to my face.

Lucy comes padding up to the porch, all tail wags that I’m up already. She goes into the house through her doggie door. I grab the door handle…

I wake up here, in this bed, I’m sweating in a panic. I feel like I’ve travelled, and that I’ve lost something. I call for Lucy, I don’t know at first where I am. Sunny, my golden retriever, jumps up on the bed. He’s looking at me with the concerned look all retrievers get when their “people” are upset. I get a nose lick from him, then look at the clock.

It’s after 12PM. I’ve slept for 13 hours.

I pull some sweats on and hustle it to the slider, both dogs run down the stairs gratefully. I feel bad that they waited so long. Usually one or the other will wake me up but for some reason today they didn’t or couldn’t.

field1

There’s no mess to clean up. They come back inside bouncing and wanting their treats. I give them more than the usual allotment to thank them for being patient with me.

I flip the coffee maker on and over the first cup of coffee wonder at the reality of the dream. Or the reality of this place. Scent, sight, taste, sensation all were equally vivid and “real” in the dream. Even the weirdness of the dream within the dream felt “real”.

The strange part is that I’ve dreamt about the house the squatters were in before. I’ve seen the fence, the property, Mac the horse and Lucy. I have memories of being at that place and having a completely different life there.

Creek

I have equally “real” memories of being here.

Is this what some of the Native American tribes were describing when they said their dream life was just as real as their normal life?

I notice a couple of things between the realities.

Here, now, I’m a technocrat. There, I have technology, but my life is more physical.

Here I live in a town and while it’s not LA, there are people around me. There, I live alone except for the animals.

Here, my view of the world is defined by what others have built or let me see. There my view is defined by nature, I see sky, sun, trees, mountains, and fields, I don’t see humans. Obviously they exist, but as a rule, in that life I know solitude.

My first cup of coffee is done, I’m awake and the dream life is fading.  As I wake up more and this “reality” settles in, I wonder if I’m just wanting to return to the places where I was truly happiest. Secret places from my childhood that were green, and alive, and where my future spread before me. Back to the places where turning left, or right on a particular day could’ve changed the entire outcome.

I can’t get over the feeling that I’ve lost something.

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And then there’s this…

Ouroboros

I sometimes find myself in the most interesting discussions.

This one came about when a Friend asked how a couple of interview / tests had gone in the past week. 

Group

Friend:
Any news?
 
wwducat:
Nope.
 
Friend:
Sorry, does that necessarily mean anything?

wwducat:
I don’t think so. There were a LOT of people taking the tests, the last test had six essay questions. I think it’s simply about them grading the tests and as you know essay questions are highly subjective.  My guess is that there were at least 50 – 60 people total competing for the positions.

ISP Server Racks

Friend:
None more qualified than you

wwducat:
Based on the conversations I heard prior to the testing, these folks were Seriously qualified!  Fierce competition.

Friend:
Were they all for the same position or were there other positions being tested then as well?
 
wwducat:
All for the same two positions.  These guys knew their stuff every bit as well as I do and much better in some cases, because like me they’d been in the trenches.  Some of them knew stuff about fibre optics that I never thought to ask.
 
Friend:
That surprises me.
wwducat:
Others in the group knew configuration of really high end routers, the kinds of routers that your ISP uses for entire cities.
 
Friend:
But you have the user relations experience.

Get Out

wwducat:
Yes I do have user stuff.  Surprised I don’t know things? Believe me that shouldn’t surprise you, it’s normal.  In technology, you tend to get specialized. You bring some things to the table and others bring different abilities. Successful teams hand off tasks to the person or persons within the group that is best suited to perform those tasks. 
 
It’s an almost organic thing, which is why it hurts so much to be layed off or transferred.  You lose contact with those parts of you that you are as reliant upon as your left and right hands. Then you have to find another team where you can be an integral contributing member.  That’s the problem with a lot of “outsiders” including management, they don’t look at a team as an entity, they see only the parts.
 
Friend:
So alien to me since I work so much alone.
 
wwducat:
My specialization / Talent is user interfaces. Either in communicating for the team or in testing software that the users access. I’m usually the coordinator of resources, and the “go to guy” to obtain resources so the team can move forward.

Buss & Tag Terminators

I understand the technology, and leverage that knowledge to help the team. I also am usually the team historian and the guy that members of the team brainstorm with when they’re stuck. 
 
Because I’ve been around forever and Can relate everything I’ve ever encountered to the new stuff I help by providing new perspectives or a different view of a particular problem.  That function requires building trust between myself and the team members.

Friend:
And trust is critical.

wwducat:
Very! I have to be willing to tell them that I don’t know something, and ask that they explain it to me. And they have to be trusting enough to lower their guard and admit they don’t know something or that a problem has them stumped.
 
Then we put our heads together and call upon other resources from the team directing our energies toward a resolution. No one is criticized or derided about it. The focus is about all of us doing our job and learning in the process.
 

Cabling Evolution

Friend:
That’s a team.
 
wwducat:
These abilities are not shown by tests, or speaking with HR representatives. The only people that get it, are people that have been there, themselves.
 
Unfortunately over the past 10 or 15 years teams aren’t often perceived as entities, they’re seen as individuals and any person that appears flawed is replaced instantly, often without telling the team. This results in critical data being lost. I’ve referred to it as Tribal Data, because sometimes things are done in a particular way that is not immediately obvious to an outsider.  Those “special” things are done because they work not because they’re part of a policy or procedure.
 
When you have a lot of churn in corporations or a stressed group of individuals who never become a team, fewer people have ever had the experience of team work.  
 
Instead they’ve only dealt with Machiavellian machinations that lead to promotions and raises by eliminating people in your way.  These kinds of office politics have become commonplace and the sense of teamwork is becoming more rarified.
 
Wait!?!!? Isn’t that kind of like the academic world?

Friend:
Too much so.
 

Bad Boss

wwducat:
It would be a cruel irony if american businesses were falling behind, not due to degradation of skills but instead due to the most negative lessons learned in institutions of higher learning.  Especially when so many college graduates can’t seem to write a cogent sentence.
 
Friend:
But the academy is becoming more of a business- money driven and sales defined
Some of my colleagues argue grammar is a vestige of colonial patriarchal oppression. And they’re teaching writing.
 
wwducat:
So we could be looking at a college, business, college, self perpetuating model. Oh crap whats that snake thing eating it’s tale?? Ouroboros! that’s it.  A never ending  cycle of education & business eating and creating itself at the  same time.
 

Plato

Friend:
Education now is the process of technical training.
 
wwducat:
Sadly from what I’ve seen, in general the technical training isn’t all that good.
 
Teach me how to find things, teach me how to teach myself, teach me philosophy, and ethics, teach me that learning is a lifelong pursuit not an end state,  teach me that independent thought is equally important to equations and sums.
 
Friend:
To think critically, to express yourself effectively, to know where to go to find information.
 
wwducat:
Teach me the value of duty, and honor, and how bad choices lead to bad things and that there may be shades of grey but that the best choice is the choice that is mostly white. (Meaning good, not the great white way.)  
 
I’m such a dinosaur,  I’ve held many of these philosophies to be true the majority of my life.
 
Friend:
And that life is more grays than black and white.
 
What does that make me?
 

Gravitional Quantum Physics

wwducat:
You’re T-REX!
 
I’m probably more like one of the smaller Raptors.
 
Friend:
I’ve had to learn about life being shades of gray. I was taught it is all b/w.
 
wwducat:
Oh respective histories are similar, I too had those lessons. While I think there is  value in a B/W philosophy and it should really be the “Ideal”. 
 
Practically speaking, humans are not computers, and not all situations lend themselves to a binary outcome.  There is always fuzz in the stuff to the right of a decimal point.  AKA Chaos theory.
 
The best I can do it navigate toward the white and get as close as I can before the time element collapses on a particular choice / outcome scenario. 
 
So That’s how some of my day gets spent. Nonetheless it makes for an interesting blog post.
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I’ve been feeling Compressed

PADI 2014 Oct 12

No, not as in diving compressed, (although I could use some underwater time). Any Divers out there wanna get wet? [Thanks to PADI for the nifty photo]

My compression stems from issues in my life.

As I’ve mentioned before, I share internet with the next door neighbor. Generally this isn’t a problem,  they’re using an old Windows based machine that I suspect is rife with malware. This doesn’t really affect me, except that when that machine logs onto the network it sucks up pretty much all the available DSL bandwidth.

For the non techies… The internet gets really slow.

Most of the time, even that doesn’t bother me unless I’m streaming a movie or something. But it reminds me that I’m not alone, and someone else has the ability to affect my life through my own niceness.

Then there’s the ugly assed fence which focuses my vision on their back yard, making me to be completely unable to ignore all the kids stuff, trampoline, monkey bars, various toys scattered about, and the pile ‘o junk stuffed in the corner.

IMG 0309

This fence also makes me feel that I have no privacy because it’s a constant reminder that there are kids there, even when they’re not out screaming, squabbling, or using the trampoline to jump up above the fence to ask me what I’m doing out on my deck. I can’t look past it, god knows I’ve tried. The 7ft tall monstrosity is THERE  protecting the children from… what? The occasional wayward hiker?

Then there’s the ceiling fan in my office. You see, the neighbors apparently put up a new ceiling fan in their house, and they left the unit’s code set to default. (Lots of new ceiling fans have these nifty remotes that allow you to change the speed of the fan and / or control the light in the fan.)

The problem is that when you put one of these fans in, you really should choose a new code other than the default one. Guess how I found out the electrician that built this house hadn’t bothered to change the code?

You guessed it. The great fan war started this summer. There are three neighbors that could possibly be close enough to control my office ceiling fan. One house is under going major remodeling. Since that place is gutted, I scratched them off the list. The other neighbor isn’t likely to have made any real changes, since she’s cold all the time. Which leaves the next door neighbors!

IMG 0362

Dammit! They’re jacking my internet up, have destroyed the view, have left me feeling like I’m having to accommodate their kids, “Asked” that we hose down our back yard every day during a drought while letting our plants die because she was pregnant and her nose was too sensitive, and finally…

Because they don’t want to figure out why their new fan isn’t working quite right, I’m the one that has to get up on a ladder with a screwdriver and a spring hook, (a spring hook looks a lot like a dental tool its sharp and pointy with a slight hook at one end. Great for flipping tiny little switches.) to manhandle 70lbs of ceiling fan to change the code to something they’re not using. 

But then it continues…

Once I’ve got the fan issue fixed, I think, “hey its time for me to rearrange the office” and so I begin that process only to find that my other half has systematically occupied every single open space in both closets, the filing cabinet, and a substantial portion of the basement with… for want of a better term CRAP! 

There’s no way for me to put my stuff out of the way or reorganize my stuff because his stuff is literally everywhere.

SO after grumbling about living with the equivalent of a 13 year old packrat, LOUDLY.  I start whipping through my shit and tossing anything that isn’t nailed down and functional. 

But the whole time I’m thinking, why am I the one that’s adapting to the situation AGAIN. 

I find myself thinking, “Maybe I should just pack whatever shit from this house that I want, and that will fit in my damn car and that will be MY space. Perhaps my life will be easier if I just allow the forces in my life that are conspiring to compress me into a tight little space, win. Then everyone will be happier and I’ll finally have some peace. Maybe I should sell every vehicle I own, buy a pickup truck with a tonneau cover (I don’t like camper shells) and be a true nomad, wandering towns and highways randomly. I’ll stop in interesting places do piece work for cash then move on. Maybe I should become ’That Guy’, the stranger, the scary dude in the corner of your local bar. ”

Then again maybe all this is just another way for the universe to tell me “Its time to move on.”

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Watched the Apple Reveal yesterday

TimCook

Well, I tired to watch it.

I’d just gotten comfortable on the couch, the big screen was on and the Apple TV was streaming the event. I could see the crowd and hear the din created when 2000 people or more are all talking at once.

Then Tim Cook took the stage and began talking.

I thought something was wrong with my TV, or the surround system. Mr Cook would speak and then there’d be the annoying whisper. I thought it was someone sitting too close to an open microphone. As I listened closer I recognized that the whisper was Chinese and it was getting louder.

I checked all my connections, rebooted the AppleTV and then couldn’t get back in to the live stream. The Apple TV kept saying “Content Unavailable”

Apple Logo

Fine, I tried from my computer; “Access Denied”

I grabbed my iPad and tried it. My iPad picked up the stream with the annoying Chinese loud enough that I could barely hear Mr. Cook. 

That’s when I realized that it was some interpreter who was supposed to be there yacking a translation to all the Chinese people. Once again, I felt like i as an English speaker in America was a second rate citizen.

Then the stream failed on the iPad, with the spinning wheel of death.

But the computer was suddenly able to log in again. I put the iPad down. I managed to rejoin the presentation as they were talking about the iPhone, and the Chinese was gone. Fine! iPhone its great, iPhone is wonderful, lets talk about the new innovations and technology…

Cool! thats what I was curious about, I lean in toward my computer screen and the stream fails!

Apple TV

GRRRRR!

I click rejoin, Access Denied, you don’t have permission to use this server. WTF?

I open the iPad while the computer is rebooting. It rejoins the stream, now they’re talking about Apple Pay. Excellent, I wanted to know about that too. Credit cards obsolete… blah blah, lets look at this video… blah blah… Here’s how it works and what devices will…

Pinwheel of death…

OH COME ON!

IPhone6

I gave up, it was one of those days when I couldn’t catch a break.

I watched the stream later as a rerun on the AppleTV from my couch. It was a better experience. 

Based on what I’ve seen the iPhone is nice, but somewhat incremental to my iPhone 5s. Having NFC, is in my opinion something Apple should have been doing all along. But given that NFC payments are slowly rolling into the marketplace I don’t see an imperative to run out and buy a new phone.

Apple WatchBesides, I like the size of my existing phone. I can shove it in my pants or coat pocket and it’s fine. My phone does pretty much everything that the iPhone 6 does already.I figure I’ll be ready for an iPhone 7s just about the time that NFC is fully deployed in all shopping venues, then it will be worth the investment. (Have I ever mentioned I was an early adopter of the original iPhone? I don’t know if I ever spent that refund…)

The Apple Watch is very pretty, I’m not sure that I’m ready to go back to a digital watch. Honestly I like my nice self winding automatic. I don’t have to recharge it, all I have to do is move. Isn’t that what the Apple Watch is trying to remind the user to do as well?  It does look like the Apple Watch may contain an NFC chip too. If so, and if the watch would bridge the gap between my iPhone 5s and my purchase of an iPhone 7s for transactions I might consider it. But the payments thing would have to just explode and begin inconveniencing me before I’d feel any pressure.

Colossus

Who knows, perhaps by the time I’m ready for a new iPad & iPhone they’ll be sentient!