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Welcome back to the Salt Mines

Now GET TO WORK!

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I hope you all had a nice labor day.

Just think, only 364 days to go until the next one. No more white shoes… or Serial Mom will come and find you. (Weird Movie)

Most children are back in school. Parents nationwide are breathing a sigh of relief that they’ll not come home to their kids sitting on the curb in front of the smoldering ruins of their homes.

Here in the mountains there is a feeling of the year winding up. Yep, only 4 months till 2014. I noticed a lone time ago that the sunlight changes during the year. It’s not just the length of the days or the subtle shifting of the rising and setting of the sun. It’s the color of the light itself. It’s subtle and beautiful. In the mountains here the light becomes almost golden at the end of summer as we move into autumn.

Not much happening this month unless you count the iPhone release. I’m a little excited about this. I’m looking for a new phone. My decision to stick with Android or become assimilated into the Apple Collective will be decided based on the new iPhone model.  There are advantages and disadvantages to both platforms, the weight of a feather could tip me either way. 

I am leaning more toward the iPhone, but until I see it I’m not committing.

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Next month we start the inevitable downhill spiral into the holiday season. 

Yes, I know, there are already Christmas decorations out in some of the stores. I miss seeing the Halloween decorations give way to the Thanksgiving decorations and then to the Christmas adornments.

It was cool to see the decorations go up 3 to 4 weeks before a holiday and be able to mark time by their change.

Now, it’s all up at once and the last 4 months of the year blur into THE HOLIDAY SEASON. Lets face it its all about the dollars.

Now this time is punctuated by the various lawsuits filed by offended people who don’t celebrate the holidays, and the astounding thefts committed by people claiming to want to provide Christmas for their kids.

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The former group, file lawsuits because they don’t want to see Christmas Trees or Nativities, or any of the trappings of Christendom. I’ve often wondered if I could file a law suit because I’m offended but Rap music and people with their pants halfway down their behinds? I find lyrics like “Fuck the white women, shoot whitey and I be killin da cops” Really offensive! I should have the right to say no to that.

The latter excuse blows my mind every single time I see or hear it. I really wan to slap those folks and point out that a Better Christmas would be had by their kids if the family was together instead of Mom or Dad being in Jail and the kids possible being in the protective custody of a Child Protective Services prison.

I guess it’s just me!

I’m figuring that Obama will give the Syrians Christmas presents in the form of Drone Strikes. I honestly hope not. I hope that Congress tells him NO and strips him of his ability to issue executive orders.

I’m not holding my breath but I can dream.

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I read the news today.. OH BOY!!!!

Looks like The prez is going to lead us into war in the Middle East and he’s going to do it by touting the Syria has WMDs.

Wait! 

We’ve heard this story before. Where was it? WMD’s allegations of a despot gassing his own people with Sarin… Oh yeah! That was how we got into Iraq.

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Wait, wasn’t Candidate Obama in 2008 talking about the failings in the Bush administration one being a quagmire in Iraq over WMDs that didn’t exist?

Didn’t we know at that time that Syria was one of Iraqs allies?

Hadn’t we seen convoys moving materials from Iraq toward Syria? And what exactly do we classify as a WMD?

Obviously Nuclear Weapons, but I’ve always considered Sarin and other nerve agents WMDs in their own right. The only thing worse than a nuke I can think is a weaponized infectious agent.

Ebola crossed with say, a cold or flu. All the hemorrhagic thrills and the spreadability of someone sneezing and coughing. Wheeeee! Now that’s a WMD!

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Now we have ANOTHER president going to congress asking to start another war!

What? Two fronts aren’t enough? 

Some folks are calling this the beginning of World War III. After checking my Nostradamus Quatrains I’m looking for someone in a blue turban…

As long as I don’t see one of those I’m pretty sure that this isn’t the start of World War III. 

What concerns the hell out of me is, The President, who is supposed to be someone well versed enough in Constitutional law that he taught it at The University of Chicago law school for 14 years, is attempting to declare war on a country who has done us no harm.

This is a civil war in Syria and is an internal matter between the Syrian people and their government. This is absolutely not something that our military (Note, Not Obamas Military… OURS, you know, We The People) should be involved in.

If the legal Syrian government chooses to use Sarin against it’s own people we can, (along with the rest of the world)

Condemn the Syrian government for it’s actions.

We can offer humanitarian aid in the form of medical supplies.

We can work with other countries to provide refugee evacuation.

We cannot arm either side in the conflict.

We should shut off all financial support immediately . As we should have done already in Egypt.

Humanitarian aid can be continued in the form of medical and food supplies, we could also offer negotiators to help settle the conflict.

Nothing else, no money, no weapons, no troops.

We must get out of the Middle East.

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The Foster Dog

20130829-165519.jpgThis is our new foster “child”.

He’s been in a house in LA.

His owners were getting on in years and their health wasn’t up to looking after a dog anymore.

To their credit they decided to place the the dog in a retriever rescue, and we’re his new foster parents.

Thus far the S dog has been very good and patient.

The foster child is freaked out by the sights and sounds of the mountain creatures.

Being a city dog his paws are very tender and the ground having “rocks” seems to puzzle him.

Walks will be of limited duration until his pads toughen up.

20130829-170356.jpgGenerally the Foster child seems well behaved and mostly eager to please.

He knows what a plate looks like and has some nose on the table issues. Nothing too bad thankfully,

Poor thing, it’s been a very stressful day for him. He had to say goodbye to his family then met a bunch of other people the went for a long car ride which let him out in a whole new world.

A yard, another dog, rabbits, and birds, squirrels chittering in the trees and smells of coyotes and bears if only dim smells from these critters last pass through the area.

We took him and the S dog for a short walk. We covered little distance but did it taking a long time. The Foster child stopped every three paces to sniff something new.

Now that he’s napping finally, I can get a better assessment of his coat and skin. In general he’s pretty healthy. His coat is very dry. He likes being brushed and seems bright and eager to please.

Time will tell but I think he’s basically in good shape and well behaved.

Now if I can only get him over his fear of stairs….

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I really shouldn’t get so spun up… BUT DAMN!

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My Nike+ Fuel band is broken and needs repair. I look up the warranty and find the receipt then discover that I only have to take the fuel band down to the local Nike store and they’ll repair or replace it.

Great! I print out the receipt, and the warranty page which clearly states “To obtain in-person warranty support bring the defective product and sales receipt to a Nike retail store…“

Yesterday Morning, I sync the last data out of the fuel band, locking up my computer in the process.

Really?

You choose NOW to lock up? I swear I’ve done exactly this same procedure 100 times in the past 8 months and had no trouble at all.

But this time WHEN I need to get out the door, It’s a hard lockup.

Great! I sit down, disconnect all the cabling from the laptop open it, press and hold the power button then restart the system. I reconnect all the cables and boom I’m out the door.

I saddle up and drive the 45 minutes to the Nike Store.

I’m in the parking lot and heading for a parking space when a crazed bitch pops through the parking lanes does a U-turn in front of me and whips into the parking space I was pulling into then she gives ME Shit for being close to her POS car WHILE she’s talking to her phone in speaker phone mode and I’m the one who’s in the wrong…

Riiiight! I called her a bad name, I actually called her a fat assed one…

I backed up a little and went to the furthest parking spot in the freakin parking lot.

I don’t want no trouble, I just want to get into this shopping center, do my shit and get the hell out of here and home BEFORE it gets completely insane!

I hoof it to the store, wait in line and get to the cash register.

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I hand the clerk the broken fuel band and the receipt plus a printout of the warranty… then ask him “who should I talk to about this?”

He looks at the warranty paper then goes to get someone else. OK Fine…

The new guy looks at the warranty paper and the receipt and says “you bought this in December from Nike”

I’m starting to get a bad feeling but I figure nope, I’ll be nice.

“Yep direct from Nike. The button is broken I just need to exchange it. Under warranty which is 1 year and we’re not there yet.”

He says, “We’re supposed to get them in tomorrow.”

Which begs the questions I think to myself “You’ve never had them in the first place?” or “Is this just a way to get me out of the store”

He continues, “To do the exchange we need to have all the parts that came with it.”

Now I’m sure this is a delay tactic. But I think to myself I’ve still got the original box, and the parts and accessories I can pack ’em all up and come back tomorrow.

I point out that the band is the failure point and that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to just have a big box of the bands without their clasps in the back room and simply do a replacement from that stock. Just swap the customers clasp right there in the store it would take 2 minutes tops and would prevent the bands in the back from being pilfered since they’d fall off without the clasp mechanism.

But THAT would of course be too freakin intelligent. 

Ok, I’m annoyed… but not ticked off. 

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I head out to my car and sure as shit, there’s a rusted out POS parked crooked and so close that I can’t open my drivers door.

Fine! I crawl into the passengers side and squirm my way into the drivers seat. It’s 97F outside. Inside the car it’s well beyond that.

I fire the beast up and hit MAX on the A/C then pull out of the parking lot.

I have one more stop to make. I need to deposit a couple of checks at the credit union. I head toward them, make a right, make another right, then make a left into a shady parking spot. SCORE!!!

Go inside, stand in line… and stand…. and stand… and stand. WTH?

Only Two tellers and both of them occupied with two crazy women. One demanding that the money be recounted (6th time) “‘cause she be knoin she gave dat teller another $40” at one teller window and at the other window the woman is explaining her boyfriends access to the various accounts and that she thinks he’s cheating on her and she needs to get herself some money that aint his money… 

At which point my eyes and ears are starting to bleed.

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I’m wondering if the ATM would be a better option when miracle of miracles a third teller appears at the counter and waves the guy in front of me over. Progress! My eyes and ears are still bleeding. But I might make it out of the credit union before 9PM this evening.

Finally my turn, I hand the teller my endorsed checks, I swipe my ATM card and enter my PIN (Might as well have done the ATM thing) and tell him I want to deposit these checks and get $100 in cash. And that’s when it all fell down…

He looks at the checks, and then logs out of his computer. “Please wait, I’ll be right back…” 

ZIP he’s over conversing with a woman that looks like she put the whole lemon forest in her mouth. After 5 minutes the young guy comes back.

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I ask him what the problem was… He couldn’t read the first word of the spelled out amount… Sigh…

I remind him about wanting the hundred back. Then I’m done… Out the door and across the parking lot I see… a POS parked too close to my passenger door and an orange cone near my drivers door. WTF?

Oh the orange cone is from the mobile car wash guy who’s working on a Mercedes and has gotten my car with the water as he rinsed the Mercedes. He’s looking at me with fear in his eyes.

I guess by rights I could demand a free car wash but the poor guy looks so sorry, hot, & tired, I don’t have the heart. Besides my car is filthy the most he did was add to the water spots already in the dust on my hood. Big Deal!

It’s 99F when I get in the car. I’m on the road again heading North. 18 Wheelers are taking up 3 of the 3 lanes and not giving anyone a break as we inch along toward the freeway.

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Eventually the 18 wheelers manage to take up only 2/3 of the available lanes, me along with everyone else squirts through the opening and ahead into open lanes. Shortly though several cars are playing Indy 500 pace cars and we’re all crawling along catching every light.

Grrrr….

Finally the Freeway! Zip… I’m on cruising and all is well. I come up on Day Creek there’s enough room for 2 cars between me and the guy in front of me. The two cars merge perfectly and get on the freeway without problem. I’m watching the traffic as we approach the I-15 Northbound it bunches up in this area and it’s not uncommon for someone to realize they need to get on the i-15 and they’re not in the correct lane. This results in someone sailing across 6 lanes of traffic and further increase in the backup around the transition.

Out of the corner of my eye I see a white infinity SUV ON MY RIGHT! There’s either no lane or they’re about to run out of lane but they’re accelerating! There’s no room ahead of me, what the hell are they doing?

I’ve been moving at the same speed neither faster or slower there’s 1/4 mile of open road behind me and this dumbass has accelerated and is trying to force herself in to a space that is too small for her bloated ass and why is she doing this anyway?

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I’ve got nowhere to go, I can’t change lanes, and I figure the minute I touch my brakes so will she and we’ll still have a deadlock.

I keep moving at the same speed and hope she figures out that her best choice is to drop behind me like a good little BITCH and stop trying to cause an accident.

I momentarily think of the relative values of our vehicles and her probable impact point on my car, Yep! It would be her fault and I’d sue the fucking hell out of her. But nah… I just want to go home.

So I accelerate a bit to get out of her way because I still have nowhere to go… and the dumb bitch accelerates too!

Now it’s insane! She finally drops behind me as she should have done in the fucking first place and gets on the freeway.

As she takes the faster lane next to me another little bitch…

(I’m thnking a much worse word that is prefaced with Rancid, Diseased, Dried up, and ends with the bad word)

…in the passenger seat flips me off with her $90 manicured nails and enough diamonds on her fingers to make Xerxes I of Persia jealous.

I can’t stop myself, I safely signal and change lanes, I pull my phone out of it’s holster and snap a picture of them from behind.

NOW is when they get concerned that maybe, just maybe, they’ve pulled the wrong fucking guys chain. They speed off and I change lanes back to the slow lane to make the transition home.

You know, I just want to go about my life, It shouldn’t be an ordeal every fucking time I leave my driveway.

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This is one of the reasons that I’ve wanted to leave California for the last 5 years. I’ve actually wanted to leave this state for about the last 20 years but you make sacrifices for your significant other. The last 5 years however have made me want to be somewhere else I’m almost to the point of ANYWHERE else.

When do I get to go someplace that’s civilized?

I couldn’t help but think as I was finally heading home about that old saying “an armed society is a polite society” and that California is mostly disarmed now days.

Then there was the usual bullshit going up the I-15.

I’m going to get a sign to post in the back window of my vehicles, it’s going to read;

HEY DUMBASS!

It’s a simple rule…

SLOWER TRAFFIC TO THE RIGHT!

I finally get home. I’m hungry, spun-up and what should have been an hour errand at most, turned into a 3 hour tour. I think that’s going to be a new saying for me. “example, Then I was on a Gilligan – Something that should have been over far sooner than it actually was.“

I’m pissed off and storming so I sit down at my computer.

Logic, rationality, and calmness are what I’m craving.

I click on my browser, I want to look at some settings on the blog and maybe read the news.

The computer locks up… again… I have absolutely no control…

REALLY??????

AAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!

I need a drink!

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Main Stream Media sucks!

Most of the people I talk with agree that the Main Stream Media has become universally bad. Alright, most describe it as useless.

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During the Sharp fire, for example. The media reported streets that were being evacuated, but never once bothered to look at a map while writing the text or reporting on the fire.

Instead of saying something simple like “The Mandatory evacuation area is all streets along East Canyon extending South of Orchard. These streets include Mt Mahogany, Slippery Elm, Buckthorn, and Mojave Scenic. Voluntary Evacuations extend North of Orchard to Lausanne Drive, The Portion of Chaumont East to Basel Dr and West to Orchard, and the portion of Summit Dr North to Easter Dr.”

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This would have made it very clear to the people of town what area was involved and the extent of the area. All It would have taken was a journalist looking at Google Maps. OR actually asking an information officer at the command post to point out the area. 

I suppose that the ability to construct a cogent sentence might have helped…

Instead what we got was a confused mess of street names and directions that mislead people far North of the Evacuation zones (Mandatory and Voluntary) to believe that fire was sweeping toward them and they were going to die! 

In other words… PANIC People PANIC NOW! 

The really sad part is that not only was the Medias’ coverage virtually useless to the local residents who were trying to comply with the orders, the coverage panicked people who have vacation or retirement homes throughout the town but who don’t live in the town. 

So in the midst of packing, and seeing to the elders who needed help evacuating, and securing the homes of neighbors on vacation and weekend residents, the full time residents were also answering the phones giving people the real un-panicked rational version that we got when we asked a hotshot crew or sheriff as they passed by.

A story, that was in fact far more calm and coherent.

Yes, we are probably going to order an evacuation. No we don’t think the homes are in all that much danger. We’re concerned that with the narrow streets, plus our moving heavy equipment up here that if the winds kick up & the fire spreads, we wouldn’t be able to get the residents and ourselves out without people getting hurt. There are simply too many variables for us to feel comfortable having the fire this close to occupied homes.

As always there were 1 or 2 people that stayed regardless of the mandatory nature of the evacuation request. 

Not once did the media say anything useful like “The evacuation is for your safety.” or ask the question of one of the people not evacuating “What is your plan if the fire should get below you, cutting off your only route of escape?”

The media failed to look at the human interest stories like the neighbors checking on the elderly and making sure that they weren’t forgotten or the residents of the town opening their homes to many of the evacuees.

Another angle of the story would have been to ask the fire and police what they thought of the residents orderly evacuation. This would have provided an opportunity for the Firefighters to speak about the importance of having an emergency plan. It would have allowed the police an opportunity to explain what their role is after an evacuation. For example that they stay and protect the empty neighborhoods.

I’m not a journalist but these are all useful points that could have been made instead of “FIRE OMG FIRE OMG FIRE PANIC!” 

It’s not just the fire, I use this as an example because it’s fresh in my mind and I have direct knowledge of it.

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You can see evidence of “Spin” and bad reporting or fact checking all the time. Compare the reporting of an event in Germany from a US news source and then read about the same event in a German news source. (Many German news sources have well written English versions.) 

Sometime the difference is startling. 

US Media: “Merkel SLAMS Greece over finances”

German Media: “Merkel spoke firmly with Greek officials about their financial plan”

I read those two sentences as very different. In reading the full article Merkel was annoyed with the vagueness of parts of a report the Greek banking officials presented, but she wasn’t pounding her shoe on the conference table.

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Not that Germans commonly do that, it’s more of a communist Russian thing. (If you don’t get it, look up Nikita Khruschev and the quote “We will bury you”.) 

Recently, we’ve seen too many examples to count of what my high school English and History teachers called “Yellow Journalism” around the issues of guns and gun control in America.

To the Wikipedia definition I would add a specific paragraph about media affecting national politics by “Spinning” reports which are full of confabulations then later conflating those same reports to control or influence public opinion.

Many people have become so fed up with the media in general that they’re not watching the news.

Some people have gone so far as to turn off their cable and satellite. Many more people no longer read the newspapers. These groups rely instead on the information that they obtain from Google News, and other online media sources.

This lack of readership, or viewership appears to cycle back upon itself causing ever more sensational headlines and a “News” media that is skewed far more toward entertainment than toward providing facts.

Which leads to more people turning away from the Main Stream Media in all it’s forms, leading to more sensational, salacious headlines in 72 point type.

I’ve often thought about the humorous aspects of a newspaper that kept increasing the headline type size until eventually they only had one letter per page and all meaning was lost. Oddly, it didn’t have to go that far for all meaning to be lost. All it took was a texting generation. (I hart u y u no hart me)

Reading about the LAUSD deployment of iPads in the schools, I cringe in anticipation of the reporting and writing style in a decade or so. I’ll be writing a blog about that soon.

Turning to the internet isn’t the best choice either… As I’ve written previously, any idiot can post something to a blog. Case in point… the blog you’re reading right now.

This blog is a purely entertainment, opinion driven, bit of writing. It’s not in any way a proper news source, thankfully it’s not widely read given some of the typos I’ve failed to notice.

Were I to write news articles I’d probably never see them published because they’d be pretty dry. The details of a water project only rarely become salacious, it usually takes a body being uncovered by a work crew. Even then, how you describe such a  discovery can be titillating or simply factual.

The same pressure to garner attention is present in internet news sources. It’s all driven by the same thing… Money.

Look at the side columns of a web page or the annoying floaters you see on almost any article you click on and it’s about advertising. And therefore about enticing the reader to remain on a web page long enough to see the ads.

This driving force hasn’t changed since the beginning of newspapers.

What has changed is the quality of the writing and reporting.

The change has not been for the better.