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I just watched Mayor Bass’s press conference

Frankly I’m confused.

On the one hand she kept stressing that if people do something illegal, they’ll be arrested. Okay…

In the same breath she’s telling ICE to stop arresting people. Which is it lady?

ICE is arresting people who supposedly are here illegally. So I really don’t understand. 

Today, there are scattered reports of Marines from 29 Palms being sent to Los Angeles. I have questions about this too.

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prevents the use of military personnel in domestic law enforcement unless authorized by law. I don’t know who makes that authorization, I presume Congress. So I’m concerned on two fronts:

1) Has Trump violated his boundaries as defined by Congressional oversight? 2) If the Marines are being deployed I’m concerned that Marines will be standing around with big assed targets on their backs.

Mayor Bass was trying to pull heart strings taking about how fearful the immigrants are in Los Angeles. Duh! If you’re here illegally, whether it’s a day or a decade you have broken the law.

You should be afraid, if you’re smart, you should be planning to pack up your shit, and go home. If you’re self deporting heading for Tijuana I doubt seriously ICE is going to stop you.

Mayor Bass said, “Stop the raids, they’re causing fear and chaos in our city.”

So what the fuck does she propose? Obviously the raids will be ongoing. She’s asking for the US to continue to accept illegal immigrants. They’re blaming Trump. In my opinion they should be blaming Biden.

If you think about it, had Biden not thrown the borders wide open, then everything would have continued on status quo. But Biden’s actions pissed off a rather large swath of the American populace and this is the inevitable backlash.

As my mother used to say, “All it takes is a few bad apples and everyone loses the ability to do something.”

In this case, there were too many illegal crossings, most of them barely vetted, and then they disappeared into the interior of the country with the help of federally funded relocation via buses, planes, trains, and automobiles.

Hell, the illegals were allowed to get onto planes with virtually zero documentation while American Citizens were almost being strip searched to get on a plane.

While our elders, were squeaking by on an average of $1500 a month, the illegals were having housing provided, getting stipends of 3 or 4 thousand dollars per month, getting free medical care, and getting free phone service.

Surely someone in the Biden administration, at some point had to think, “Maybe this isn’t a good idea.”

Granted, It had probably been going on for years, but with so many people surging the border the fact that illegals were being treated better than Americans who’d worked their whole lives paying into a system that congress has raided innumerable times and who effectively betrayed them, couldn’t be hidden anymore.

Of course there was going to be a backlash, well this is it.

As I watched Mayor Bass’s conference, I couldn’t help thinking that this was a Mayor who was clueless and flailing. Newsom is no better.

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Here we go again, Summer of Love 2.0?

Los angeles protests 2386959498.Interesting.

The National guard is being deployed in LA.

None of this is surprising. We all knew the riots and looting would happen and all of us have just been waiting for a spark. Looks like the spark for LA is ~200 illegals being arrested by ICE.

There have been several posts on X where the protestors are showing their bruises from rubber bullets. Oh, the poor babies! At this point with all the protests I’m for the police using live rounds. All it would take is once.

LA protests Arrests made as clashes continue into 3rd night 750x529 2899062660.I see this morning that, in a surprising turn (to no-one), stores have been looted. Who would have seen that coming? Book stores are as usual immune. But the Tmobile stores, and any store that carries tennis shoes have been hit.

I saw one unconfirmed report that The Muslim brotherhood had joined in the LA protests too. 

Yawn!

Daddy & Elon are having a spat, Jamie Raskin is calling for Trump to be impeached, big surprise! Kathy Lee Griffin is claiming that there was election tampering, (not that her opinion matters in the least.)

It’s only interesting because when it was her guy, elections were “fair and honest”. She is a low rent comedian fighting to maintain relevance, it’s just interesting how her opinions change with the wind. 

That could be said of all the politicians and at least 90% of Hollywood too.

I saw a report that protestors were lighting brushfires in LA. That’s a brilliant move! They’ll burn down the rest of the city then all the illegals will have to relocate. Dumbasses!

Watching the Waymo taxis burning in the streets, all I could think was; “Who’s going to pay the carbon tax for that? Surely the AQMD is looking to fine someone for the pollution.”

It’s got to be quite a conundrum for the leftist liberal transgendered crowd. How ever will they resolve the conflict over protesting against ICE enforcement and protesting for “trans rights” & “gender affirming” care for 3 year olds? Then there’s the horror of them not having time to attend PRIDE events.

I don’t think the protestors or their benefactors have any clue just how over it “Normal” America is.

Poland is looking better all the damn time. Safe, clean streets, pastoral land, nice people…

It’s not that I’m anti-Trump, I’m just sick to freakin death of the chaos. Essentially sixteen years, or more, of this shit is quite enough.

Well, I better make sure the “Go-Bag” is ready. If the protests and inevitable fires they start, spread beyond the LA Basin, I should be ready to bail. 

This is certainly not how I expected my last years on this Earth to be.

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What is this? Ice and water from the sky?

The sky opened up yesterday.

Pea sized hail, thunder rumbling, and suddenly heavy rain.

It was great.

The pup wasn’t thrilled, but also didn’t act afraid of the thunder. At one point he was lying next to the slider with his nose against the screen sniffing the air.

When the hail first started, he poked his head out, investigated a couple of hailstones then came back in to lay down in his favorite spot.

I’ve had dogs that were totally freaked out by thunder. This guy was completely nonplused by the strange noises from the sky.

After the rain stopped, we both went outside to try & figure out why there was a helicopter circling around our local area. I thought perhaps there’d been a lightening strike that started a fire. 

But after a few minutes of circling, the helicopter flew off and there was nothing else. Brief light rain and fresh air saw us into the evening.

The pup was a little bummed that we didn’t get to play ball as we usually do. 

Thunder was one of the concerns I had about moving back to the East coast with Jesse. Perhaps it won’t be a problem if I choose to make that move.

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Found another treasure trove.

I’ve been sorting and tossing stuff, (Not nearly enough as I should have been,) my progress has been, umm… Uneven.

I’m putting that politely.

Part of the issue is that a lot of the stuff is Jerry’s, some of it is mine, and some of it is Pre-Fire. The latter is stuff that I had no idea still existed, and that I’d written off in the weeks following the fire because… it was easier to erase everything from my memory rather than be frustrated by looking for something I thought I had, only to remember it was one of a thousand things I’d lost.

Nonetheless, every once in a while amidst all the papers, statements, and partially melted items, stuffed in dusty boxes some of which had been inhabited by mice while everything was stored in a storage unit, I’ll find something of interest.

Yes, I’m wearing gloves, and a mask, and trying very hard not to create a dust cloud of ash and soot.

Items of recent interest happened to be a large spindle of CDs and DVD that contained data.

In the fire, all of my computers were destroyed. With them, all of my data, photos and music. My CD collection was slagged, as were most of the DVDs when the living room burned.

After the fire, I was able to pull a bunch of my music collection off an iPod. It too had been damaged, but the drive spun up long enough to recover the music that had been stored on it.

However almost anything pre 2008 was lost. The spindle is of particular interest because it looked like some of the CD’s contained photos. Several of the photo CDs were damaged beyond recovery. But those that did mount properly, allowed me to fill in missing years of memories from our life together.

Some of the photos are bittersweet and more than once I’ve been misty eyed. We were so young, so hopeful and looking back despite everything we went through, we had a good life together.

Further into the spindle, I found 5 DVDs. On those, I found my music library. It appears that I’d made a backup in 2004. In those days you had to purchase the physical CD then plug it into the CD on your computer and let iTunes rip the files processing them into MP3 or the later M4a formats.

Since money was always tight, I didn’t spend a ton of our budget on music, but generally speaking, the music I had was stuff I really enjoyed.

The loss of my CD & DVD collection was one of the things that hurt the most. 

Finding these discs was kind of a whooping & hollering moment. I’ve never fully replaced my collection, because I didn’t remember all the CDs in the collection, and had nothing to work from except seeing a title in a store I recognized. As streaming came into its own, I’ve replaced some albums by searching for a bit of music in iTunes that I suddenly recalled. The problem with that is, if I ever choose to stop paying for iTunes, I’ll loose access to those albums because I’ve never bought the albums, instead I’m essentially renting access to them.

All the DVDs mounted. I now have 19GB of recovered music.

Now the job is to reintegrate my original collection into my current music library avoiding duplications, and preserving the higher quality versions. From what I’ve seen, at least part of the collection I’d updated to m4a from mp3.

Given hard disk constraints (and expense) in the early 2000’s there are few really high quality aiff format files. That being said, since I’m not an audiophile the m4a format plays just fine on wireless speakers. If I was after a totally “Lossless” experience for a particular album, the only way to go is with vinyl or some form of original master. 

Apple offers a “lossless” experience via headphones or hardline speaker connection via either their internal DAC or one that is externally connected.

Honestly, that’s overkill for a heathen like me.

The discs that didn’t mount all go into the trash. Those from which I’ve managed to recover data will be stored on a new spindle and put away in the event that I need them again. 

The box they’re stored in will be properly labeled this time.

When I find things like this, I can’t wait to find out what’s stored, or if it’s recoverable. 

In other words, it’s a distraction. I delude myself into believing that I need to review the materials, instead of continuing the sorting and tossing. After all if discs don’t mount or work properly then I can in clear conscience throw them away…

Same reasoning I used as a kid when I didn’t want to clean my room…

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Good News? Maybe? I’m not sure.

Perhaps I’m just really jaded. Maybe super suspicious. It could be that I have no faith in my fellow man. Or that I have too much faith in how shitty my fellow man can be. I don’t know.

I have a “Job Offer”. You’d think I’d be whooping and hollering about it. The pay is good, the list of benefits is generous after a 90-day probationary period. They pay weekly! Nobody does that anymore.

And yet…

Something “feels” off.

Granted, I spent a lot of time on their interview test and, according to the AI I ran it by, scored very highly from an AI’s perspective. But I have yet to speak directly with someone, nor have I had any form of interview aside from their interview test.

They offer a stipend to set up my home office. They sent a list of equipment that they call their setup.

Trouble is, they’re saying once I get their stipend I should buy these items locally. That’s weird and their list is incomplete and specifies two items that are no longer available. 

But they do list a Wi-Fi router. 

Obviously, I have internet since we’ve been communicating. What they don’t specify is a required internet speed to connect to this router they think I don’t have. In fact, I’ve got no less than 3 routers, 2 of which are not in use. They specify a backup device but don’t provide any specifications for that either.

Their “List” specifies a $1600 Apple monitor, but does not specify a keyboard or mouse, and the computer they list doesn’t come with either. Even the model printer they list is discontinued. The computer is a top-of-the-line Apple Studio or was two years ago. It’s been superseded by two or three M-Series chipsets. And why that particular model? An Apple mini, or for that matter, a recent MacBook Air would be just as capable. Hell, my MacBook Pro is one chip generation beyond what they’re listing.

The thing is, most corporations are going to go as cheap as possible, and they’re going to be Windows-based. M-Series chips are fantastic, they’re fast, run generally cool, and are insanely powerful. But like it or not, the world runs on Windows. So why call for a very powerful Mac machine?

A Mac Studio machine is, in every way, overkill for a simple QA job. Unless they expect compiling of software and perhaps load testing of a product in multiple instances of the application to be done locally.

Even so, my MacBook can do what the M1 Studio could do, and I’ve got maximum memory and hard drive in this unit.

They wouldn’t know that, and they’ve never asked what my setup here is.  For all they know, I’m running a dial-up modem at 1200 baud. Even my 4-year-old Epson ink tank printer is superior to the printer they listed. I can overlook that because a lot of people don’t have printers these days.

The list is woefully incomplete. It demonstrates a lack of understanding of what’s needed or why.

I could accept all of this as just another HR screwup dealing with technology people. 

But there are other things that seem “off”.

I can’t find the original Application record. Based on what this company does, I could see myself applying, but I can’t find the confirmation email saying that I did.

Trying to figure out if they were legit, I went to the corporate website. It’s real and belongs to a 100-year-old company. The company has offices worldwide. Okay, so that’s legit.

One “RED Flag” is that the domain names don’t match. That’s not surprising if they wanted to use a subdomain to partition their HR issues away from the corporate domain. I’ve seen companies do that. But the domain name that I’ve been sending email over doesn’t appear to be tied to the company. It also appears to simply be parked, meaning it’s got no web page or redirection to the main corporate domain or even the existing career subdomain.

Even the AI I asked to analyze the email header suggested inconclusive results and caution. That was actually kind of funny. The AI’s analysis matched mine exactly. Nice to know I haven’t lost a step when it comes to technology.

From the email header, it looks like the email originates in Germany. Even that isn’t strange since the company has 3 or 4 facilities in Germany.

The domain though was only registered/activated 7 days ago. Another potential “RED Flag” there, but it could be legitimate if they just did the HR split or are in the process of contracting their hiring practices out to another firm.

They want the offer letter signed, scanned, and sent back to them with a copy (front and back) of my driver’s license. “RED Flag”! Germany and many EU countries don’t or didn’t accept scanned signatures. Does an American company hiring an American citizen in America have to follow EU rules at their facilities in the EU?

The rest of the email header suggests that the actual email services are being provided by Google, and that the email likely originated on Google workspace. That would be legitimate, but there are some email security features that are not in use, suggesting that something isn’t configured correctly. “YELLOW Flag”.

This morning, I tried calling the actual corporate offices in Ohio. I started with their employee verification line. I figured the fastest way to check was to ask if the individual named as a contact was actually a current employee. The verification people were contracted. They were another company entirely and wouldn’t answer the question because I wasn’t a subscriber.

What flashed through my mind was, “Then what purpose do you serve?” I didn’t ask it. I thought verification services were to say John Doe, works for Company X. Or Joe Doe worked for company X from date 1 to date 2. No other information should, or needs to be shared.

The lady was nice and gave me a phone number to the HR department of the Company in Ohio. I called that number and well, it was strange. It would ring several times, then pause, then ring several times again. Not like English phones, but like the phone system was trying different extensions. Eventually, the system disconnected and I got a message from my carrier that the call couldn’t be completed at this time.

Weird. So I called the main corporate number, and a nice operator connected me to the HR director. She was out. I left a voice mail but have not heard back and honestly don’t expect to. Her outgoing voicemail was “Garbled” in a specific and identifiable way. (Think, a non-synthetic Jasmine Crockett.) She’s HR and isn’t going to return a call because she’ll perceive that as a liability. (And God forbid she might break a nail dialing the phone.)

Maybe she’ll surprise me on Monday, but I’m not holding my breath. Fridays in HR departments are often very busy.

I really want this to be legitimate. A job, especially a remote-only position, would be a dream come true and couldn’t come at a better time.

But, and this is the real concern. Suppose this is some kind of phishing email. Even the shitbox company I worked for last sent the offer letter and onboarding instructions via FedEx.

I know they’re going to want my ID and Social Security number for right-to-work verification. Plus, they’re going to need W4 documents and all the other hiring bullshit. Most importantly, they’ll want to direct deposit, which means giving them access to my bank account. I could open another account and provide them with that account number. Transferring on the back end wouldn’t be an issue and might not be a bad idea in any case.

I’m going to let it stew over the weekend. I’ll try to reach someone at the actual company on Monday.

On the one hand, it might be legitimate, and maybe they’ll respect me for being cautious. On the other hand, maybe they don’t know someone is working a scam using them as cover. Either way, I’ll have an answer.

If it’s all bogus, I’ll console myself with the knowledge that I’ve got a good boilerplate interview answer sheet. And perhaps some scumbag scammer will be wearing a nice set of nickel-plated bracelets. 

I just wonder if I’m too cautious, too mistrustful, and too suspicious for my own good.