Tag: Musings

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We’ve reached the end of the week.

Annnnnnnddd… Nothing is new!

Had a job offer rescinded. Disappointing but in truth I had some reservations about the job. The pay was good, but the Job itself was in Florida.

Florida wouldn’t be bad for me personally, but it would mean leaving Jesse, my home, and probably any reasonable chance of returning to California would be gone too, except to sell the house eventually.

I thought about it and had come to peace about all that I’d be leaving and all that I’d have to clean up eventually.

The reservations about the job in addition to those stated, also had to do with the relationship of the person I’d be working for and my family’s involvement. What happened to the job if things went sour between my boss and the family? Those questions were apparently answered when the offer was rescinded. I know from the family’s perspective that something happened.

I’m trying to convince myself that it was for the best and have mustered at least some strength of will to continue this fruitless search.

I’ve been considering just entering warehouse work. There’s a nice symmetry in that. One of the first jobs I had, involved warehouse work, and I sorta liked it.

No politics, simple labor, In motion all day long, and not trapped behind a desk. Do your job, do it right, and go home at night.

There’s also a pot grower nearby that is looking for help with the growing. The pay isn’t as high as the warehousing positions, but I like making things grow. I’d also be a good candidate because I don’t particularly like pot. The employer wouldn’t have to worry about me taking merchandise or being stoned out of my mind on the job.

The longer this unemployment goes on, the more I’m leaning toward abandoning technology as a career and doing something that’s actually constructive.

I’ve been thinking maybe it’s time to let software continue it’s slide toward horrific inadequacy without my interference.

After all we’ve all seen the debacles across the software industry in recent years. From simple things like, Typos salted through menus and help texts, to data breaches exposing a corporations entire customer database to the world.

Remember… the software “Passed” testing…

I wonder how happy I’d be returning to an office environment where any bug I discovered could be called “Racist” based on the color of a programmer’s skin or their national origin. Software either works correctly or it doesn’t. As a QA person my job is to find the problems and report them. I don’t care who or what the programmer is, a bug is a bug.

The problem is, that if you’re assigned to test a particular part of functionality it’s often a particular programmer’s code. Programmers hate QA finding bugs in their code I could see it devolving into a “He’s just a racist and going through my code with a fine tooth comb because he hates: X, Y, Z colored people.“

No matter how you play that scenario out, as a white man these days you lose. Even if you’re treating all the code you test in exactly the same way.

Then I ask myself do I really want to deal with being afraid of using the wrong word or pronoun.

Years ago I was called on the carpet during a class that I was teaching for using the term “dikes”. It was a common term that described diagonal cutters (as in for wire).

I don’t know how the term came into common usage, as that happened decades before I was an itch in my Daddy’s pants. But there I was, facing a pissed off lesbian who’d taken offense.

First of all, I didn’t know or care that she was a lesbian. Second of all, I used a term that the other 30 people in the class knew, and my use of that term caused them to all pick up the indicated tool to perform the indicated action.

I asked her what term I should use, her reply was, “diagonal cutters”. “Fine,” I said, “I’ll use that term for the rest of the class.”

While she was yelling in my face about how hurtful the term “dikes” was, I could see the other 30 people in the class rolling their eyes in annoyance.

I told her in front of the class that I happened to be gay and that I wasn’t offended by the term “Fag.” In fact I expected to hear that term frequently when I was in London.

I then asked if we could get on with the class. She’d have none of it. She demanded satisfaction in the form of an immediate written apology for using an offensive term.

Her boss spared me wasting time on an endeavor to satisfy 0.03030303 % of the class by removing her from the classroom.

Several other women were present and two of them said they too were lesbians, and didn’t mind my use of the term in this context. One of them quipped, “I hope Sheila NEVER visits Holland!“

The class burst into laughter and we got on with business.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that incident over the past year. I honestly can’t say if I’d be happy in an office full of people just waiting to pounce on the wrong word, action, or pronoun, just to be offended and cause drama.

Perhaps I’ve had enough of the corporate grind.

I know I’ve had enough of the HR bullshit where a corporation states their policy then promptly discards the policy based on skin color.

Yeah, the last place I worked had a few incidents like that. I’m rule based. Give me a rule & I’ll follow it until you aren’t following the rules. At that point, don’t try making me selectively follow your rules, especially not based on the color of my skin versus someone else’s.

The last place I worked, was just starting to see the perpetually aggrieved. I have to wonder how much worse that’s gotten over the past year.

I just want to go to work, do my job, be paid for my effort, and go home. I don’t want to be terrorized all day into silence or be expected to show up at some event to show corporate support for a cause that I don’t believe in.

Sadly, that too seems to be required by some companies.

Time will tell…

I wonder if it’s too late in my life to move to Norway. A nice simple one room cottage perched on green hills overlooking a fjord. Maybe some sheep, a cow, and a windmill or solar panels to charge the electronics, (At least much of the year…)

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Wow! Just Wow.

Obviously I must have misunderstood the Democratic reconciliation message.

Governor Abbott of Texas has decided to lift all the COVID restrictions… Pundits, politicians, and Hollywood Elites are losing their minds. (Uh, last I checked neither Pundits or Hollywood’s elite had access to the same information that Governor Abbott has access to from his state health services.)

For those that may have missed the subtext… that means “Shut the hell up!”

The President described lifting the lockdowns as Neanderthal thinking.

Well Mr. President, you would know all about that, given that it appears your thought processes have devolved to a sub-neanderthal level. At least it appears Neanderthals could string two sentences together.

They were tool users, had command of fire, structurally their bodies may have supported more muscle making them stronger, and their bones were built a tad stronger than ours. Their brain size was also not too different.

It may simply have been a fluke that we survived and they didn’t. Although evidence does suggest that there was interbreeding between the species. So you might want to speak kindly of Neanderthals, after all, you never know who’s lineage you might be insulting.

They, unlike you and your staff appear to have disregarded things that didn’t definitively work. While you and Dr. Doom & Gloom Fauci on the other hand, continue to cast the bones, chant, and wave your arms around, about masks.

Next, one of your staff will be saying that we should use Oni masks to scare away the evil spirits released upon the world by China.

The next day though your administration would be scolding us for cultural appropriation and calling us all racists.

Who knows? The Oni mask might actually work, the Japanese have been dealing with China a lot longer than we have.

One of the best of the many screaming about Abbott’s decision, was Keith Olbermann. Let’s see, a washed up sportscaster who blindly Hated Trump and now has to content himself with just hating Republicans came out with this:

Why are we wasting vaccinations on Texas if Texas has decided to join the side of the virus? https://t.co/Yn2i7zT8KL

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) March 3, 2021

Say what?

Let me get this straight Mr. Olbermann, are you saying that because the Governor of the state of Texas does something that you disagree with, you’re in favor of denying the vaccine to ALL THE PEOPLE OF TEXAS?

NICE! Very forgiving, how very enlightened!

Last time I checked it didn’t take much more than a big mouth, and the ability to watch sports to be a sportscaster. Keith, do you have a medical degree you’ve not mentioned?

How about this? Just floating the idea here, maybe we should deny the entire state of New York access to birth control, since Governor Cuomo obviously can’t be trusted not to sexually harass women?

That would make about as much sense as what you’ve suggested.

(And don’t even get me started about Como’s nipple rings… Yeah, that’s a thing, look it up.)

Then we have the perennial favorite AOC, declaring that re-opening Texas endangers The whole country.

This endangers the entire country and beyond. We are in a pandemic. We know that COVID spread isn’t neatly contained by state borders, and explosions in COVID cases can increase the likelihood of new COVID variants to develop or spread to new places. It’s dangerous.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 2, 2021

This hyperbole is what we’ve come to expect from AOC. At this point, I think she’s being kept around for nothing but comic relief, or perhaps she’s just serving as an example of how not to be a village idiot.

“Now Johnny, if you don’t work hard and study, you’ll be just like AOC. You don’t want to be that stupid do you? Don’t you want to be at least a ditch digger and not a politician?“

AOC also demonstrated her profound stupidity this weekend by saying that NYPD sending in a robotic “dog” to assess a possible hostage situation was racist.

I tried to wrap my head around that one and found that I couldn’t.

The “Dog” costs 75K it was not armed, and couldn’t really escalate a situation in the same way that sending a human into harm’s way could have.

I found that I wasn’t willing to undergo a lobotomy to understand how she came up with racism from that one. Especially since the perpetrators had been holding two men hostage, while torturing them, and demanding money.

AOC can expect a lot more of this kind of racism going forward. Just wait, it will probably get more interesting when robots are armed, and bring a situation under control by shooting first and asking questions later.

Can you really accuse a robot of being racist? Of course, killer robots as police would save the state a ton of money in trials, juries, and prison expenses. I’m fairly sure that we’d see a lot more homeless lawyers too.

The body cam footage from a robot would be priceless. Robot orders perp to stop or be fired upon. The perpetrator takes a shot at the robot, the robot blows the perps brains all over the place. Simple, dispassionate, efficient, and brings a whole new meaning to “Death by cop”.

I can imagine hostage negotiations; “Okay, let the hostages go or we’ll send the ‘bot in… ” The hostages come running out and the perps handcuff themselves. Just like RoboCop, I just hope we don’t get to the Gort version. What would happen to a city like Chicago with 100 Gorts running around? I’d imagine there would be one really bad weekend, and then Chicago might be a super nice place to live.

The courts would be hard pressed to say the robots are racist. Robots could simply hate all humans equally.

I’ve digressed.

I keep looking for this reconciliation the Democrats keep talking about, all I see is vengeance.

Democrats … You won! How about you stop beating dead horses and get to work making good on all the promises you made about how much better things will be under your benevolent, loving rule?

Orange man bad… Democrats good. Remember????

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Deleted Parler Today…

Update: 3/5/2021

While Parler is indeed back. Apparently they’re Hotel California. I checked the site today to answer the question, “Why haven’t I gotten an email saying your account is canceled.” The answer to that question is that my account hasn’t been cancelled.

Turns out that going through the “Delete your account” isn’t working for me. I click on the button, enter the password and … nothing. The site just loops back to the page you were on. This isn’t unusual because lots of pages on the site do that right now but even though you’re on the same page with apparently no changes having been made if you exit the page and come back in, you’ll see the changes.

Evidently, the same is not true for the “Delete my account page”

So, for the time being, I’m still on Parler. I still have the same number of followers I had but all of my messages have been deleted. Sigh…

What I really want is for the entire account to be gone. I’m trying to be completely done with social media and all that encompasses. For now, I can check out of Parler, but I can’t leave.

Looks like they’re finally back.

Good for them.

Since Parler was the last of my social media accounts, when Amazon, and the Democratic Party (make no mistake, they too were complicit) took Parler away I was suddenly without any Social media.

After the initial shock and withdrawal, I found I was fine. After a week I didn’t care anymore, Whether by hook or crook, the Democratic Party won the day. Bitching about it, or reading others bitching about it, serves no purpose.

I don’t fear being labeled a conservative anymore. If the government wants to harm you, they’ll find a way. The people in power have demonstrated the lengths to which they’ll go to remove anything or anyone they find disagreeable. They’ve amply demonstrated that no abuse of power is too much.

At this point I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if the DOJ assaulted Trump’s home in Florida in full on Waco or Ruby Ridge style. That is the legacy of the 2020 election for me. While I’ve always harbored a certain mistrust of the government. Now, I don’t trust our government or electoral processes at all.

The line, “Follow the money,” is more true today than ever before.

Couple corruption with the almost unbelievable stupidity of so many Americans and well… what you get, is plainly evident.

I’m not just speaking of the stupidity of America when it comes to questioning voting results, but the stupidity of well educated Americans in basic things like knowing how or why things work, (or don’t as the case may be).

Elements of our technology might as well be magic and fairy dust for far too many people. Apparently even the use of fire is beyond some people, as is evidenced by so many people suffocating in their homes across the South during this very cold series of storms.

Fire is not new, it’s been around since we lived in caves. We decry second hand smoke, but don’t think open a window? Uhh yeah, right! There’s gonna be a ton of “Darwin Awards” come springtime. Perhaps that will ultimately be for the best.

I’ve lost interest in Washington. For that matter I’ve lost interest in COVID, politics, social justice, cancel culture, sports, entertainment, and anything else that is not directly putting cash in my pocket, gas in my car, or food on my table.

I suppose, this is the new reality of many people. We’re all just tired of the bullshit. I know, I’ve got better and more important things to do.

Social Media doesn’t rank in the top 100 for me anymore.

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The Storm

So the storm was everything the National Weather Service claimed it would be.

Wind, rain/sleet, and snow. Lots of snow. About 16 inches at my elevation.

The front deck 1/29/2021

It’s not all that unusual to get snows like this here. What is unusual is that we’ve had essentially 3 back to back over the course of a few days.

The street. which was clear down to the pavement on 1/28/2021 and is buried again on 1/29/2021

The problem with our street is that it’s not county maintained. Meaning the residents have to clear it ourselves.

So we all pull out shovels, snow blowers, and one of the neighbors has an ATV with a snow blade on the front. Unfortunately, in the last snow he broke a shear pin and is waiting for the replacement which is on it’s way from MN via the USPS. He’s thinking that he won’t get it until spring.

The snow mound that is my front yard.

So after a full day of working, resting, & working again I can see most of the driveway again. One of the neighbors is at the far end of the street running his snow blower. What usually happens is all the neighbors fire up their snow blowers at the same time and the begin a carefully choreographed series of passes on the street.

That doesn’t begin until driveways are cleared otherwise we end up losing track of the driveways and have to do more work to find ’em and clear ’em. Something you don’t find out until you’ve regularly used a snow blower is, after you’ve blown the snow with a snow blower, it tends to compress into ice. So if you bury someones driveway sometimes the only solution is a pick and standard shovel instead of the traditional snow shovel.

One other really nice thing is that if one of the neighbors is away, and there’s a snow storm those of us who are home clear their driveway so they have a place to park when they get back. It’s not something any of us have talked about or agreed upon. It’s just a nice unwritten rule of kindness.

The other rule is that if the storm was really bad and your driveway isn’t cleared yet, you park in one of the neighbors drives until we get to yours. That rule is also unwritten and one of the nice things about our street.

We also have a common bag of various sized snowblower shear pins, unfortunately, none of us had anything big enough for the neighbors ATV snow blade. Dang IT!!!!

A shot of the house after clearing the road

In the picture above, the dark streaks are where the new guy on the block ingested some of the dirt from my yard. Ooops! No matter, the yard will be fine, but his snow blower was very unhappy for a couple of minutes. This picture isn’t super pretty but it gives a good reference of ground level and the relative depth of the snow.

Fortunately, we haven’t had to contend with snowplayers today. They have a bad habit of turning onto our road then freaking out when the realize 2 important things. 1) It’s a dead end. 2) It’s very narrow and there isn’t anyplace to turn around unless there happens to be an open driveway.

Usually they end up having to back down out onto the wider county maintained road. Which is also full of snowplayers trying to get up that road to its dead end, or it’s full of those who have found out that there is no way through and turned around.

This is why we don’t like snowplayers up in the neighborhoods. There are lots of little roads that dead end. Lots of these people come up here thinking the whole town is a snow/ski area, and they refuse to read signs that are clearly posted saying that a road is a dead end, or following the larger and equally clear signs that point to the designated play areas, and ski resorts.

They get tired of crawling along on the main, and well maintained road and tend to turn onto the first side road they see. Then the police get involved and start running them out of the neighborhoods, writing tickets, and towing vehicles.

Us locals, stop with a smile and present our drivers licenses (to prove our address and get waved on through police checkpoints). Sometimes we’ll provide thermos refills for the officer on duty. Especially if we notice an officer who hasn’t had a break in many hours working in the cold.

I’m afraid that tomorrow (Saturday) will bring a ton of rude, giddy, idiots, which will make all of the neighbors weekends a pain in the ass. We tend to take turns shooing the idiots off our lawns, out of the streets, and out of the reforestation project(s).

Then we spend Monday and Tuesday picking up all the trash. Broken plastic sleds, paper, dirty diapers, gloves, shoes, face masks, and the amazing detritus of human beings.

I am amused by the irony as well. These are the same people who would scream at the top of their lungs against pulling out of the Paris climate accords, but think nothing of trashing a pristine mountain town.

After all, they don’t have to actually clean up the mess. They don’t have to call the forestry service to help sick wildlife. They don’t have to worry about anything do they? It’s someone else’s problem when they drive back down the mountain.

Following are some pictures that illustrate the point really well.

A local creek about 10 miles from home. This picture was taken 15 year ago before the road to the creek was paved.
The same area about 4 years ago.
There is a creek under these uprooted trees. People were climbing the trees and then using their weight to pull them over. Seems the people wanted a bridge so they could cross a creek that has at best 10 inches of water in it during the Summer.
Filthy Humans!

If I sound harsh about people. It’s because I see the kind of wanton destruction and disregard all too many people have for the “Natural” surroundings that I live in and appreciate.

Ironically, lots of these people come to these wilder places to, “Get away from the city,” Unfortunately, they bring all their bad habits with them and just expect it to be magically cleaned up every night.

Before anyone talks to me about Climate change, the Green New Deal, Carbon taxes, or my gas powered car. They better have a simple appreciation of what’s happening every day in their local wilderness.

Cause if they don’t… I’m going to eat them for lunch!

Sorry, I digressed…

I’m not a traditional tree hugging Eco-Warrior. I’m just a guy who likes nature and gets really mad about the hypocrisy of people who are willing to pay stupid taxes and force everyone else to do the same, terrorizing us with dire warnings about Climate Change.

Too many of these people have never in their lives spent a day carrying a big trash bag through a forest picking up other people’s trash. Or tending a trampled sapling, or scrubbing graffiti off of rocks, or looking after an animal that ingested something left behind by a thoughtless person.

I do all of these things, and for the record, I’m not part of any organization. There’s no-one taking pictures. The big garbage bag ends up in my trash or recycling bin which ever is appropriate. I do this because I believe it’s the right thing to do, and should be done for no other reason. I’m the human walking in the forest seeing all the mess. Rather than tut-tut about it, I’ve got two hands, and a backpack with at least one trash bag inside.

Leave no trace. Leave a place better than you found it. That way the next person on the trail can appreciate the beauty and hopefully they’re operating on the same philosophy.

I’m a big believer that until you tend to the local issues you can’t really address the global ones. I also believe that if everyone simply tended to their own local issues, the world would be a lot prettier and healthier.

After all anyone can write a check, or click “Like” and feel smug about it. Put some skin in the game if you’re really serious.

Just my two cents. What I’ve said may not be right. It may not be right for you in particular. But It’s right for me and given that I do have skin in the game I’m not going to apologize if what I’ve said offends anyone.

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It’s been 10 days or so since Parler was taken down…

I’m sad to see it go, but I was able to go cold turkey from social media.

I know the good folks at Parler are working hard to get the site back up, but I’m questioning if I’ll return to any social media.

I maintain Linkedin only for job stuff and don’t interact on the site too much. I’ve never been comfortable with HR departments searching for social history, and Linkedin just makes it easy for them to judge you based on an arbitrary set of nebulous criteria.

I’ve been enjoying my HAM radio much more than social media anyway. There was a gentleman the other day who described HAM as the original social media and I think he’s right. The focus is much more local (although with radio sometimes you can get astounding distances, depending on conditions in the upper atmosphere.)

I’ve been catching up on local events in my immediate area. Figure about 100 miles or so. There are ways to get much farther reliably due to a network of specialized radio systems placed on mountains throughout the country or countries across the planet.

These systems are not funded by government, they’re generally free to use, and are funded by the good will of HAM operators and HAM clubs. Sure, using them is a little more difficult than clicking “Tweet” on your phone, but it does provide a bit of a barrier to the riff raff.

Since Parler was taken down, I switched on my radio and discovered there’s a mountain lion wandering through the town I live in.

Social media on a global scale wouldn’t have necessarily warned me about that. The lion has been seen in multiple locations and appears to be looking for food. The general warning is to make sure that you keep an eye on dogs, cats, and children, even in a fenced yard.

That’s good to know! Especially since Jesse and I sometimes take early morning walks and we’re generally on trails in the forest.

Were I in most any state but California, it would be appropriate for me to be armed while out on a walk in rough areas. Most of those other states would look at being armed as a prudent precaution. But California is so damn twitchy about guns, they’ve made it so that you can’t defend yourself against apex predators, (Human or Animal).

In my local area, there are bears, bobcats, coyotes, rattlesnakes, and as stated, mountain lions. Any one of which could attack if it perceived you and your dog as a threat. This is particularly so if you were to come around a boulder or through a stand of trees and surprise them.

California would prefer to clean up the bloody mess and airlift your body out, rather than allow you to have a fighting chance. Many Californias would shake their heads and tut, tut, your foolishness in being out of the oh so safe, city.

Many of them would say you got what you deserved for being in the wilderness in the first place. That’s one of the weirdest things about living here. Lots of Californias ask, “why would someone have been out in the forest?” I ask, “Wasn’t the person armed and prepared?”

Californians live under the constant threat of sudden destruction from an Earthquake, or a fire, but they are astounded that anyone would want to live where hurricanes or tornados may occur. I actually prefer hurricanes or tornados because you can see them coming and get the hell out of the way. Earthquakes provide no such warning. Fires, you can avoid if you know where they are.

I guess it’s just preference.

Oddly, social media rarely provides any real time useful data about disasters. It’s almost always after the fact. I’ve always assumed that was because of internet outages.

That is why I took the time to get the HAM license, and with recent events, I’m considering taking my license to the next level. This would open my ability to communicate on a wider range of frequencies legally.

Note I said legally. I could talk on those frequencies now, but I’m a law abiding citizen and believe in obeying rules which have a logical purpose and provide a clear benefit. Radio rules typically fall into that category.

There are a lot of other rules that I disagree with because they don’t seem to have a basis in common sense, logic, or science, and simultaneously don’t provide a clear benefit.

Parler was uncensored. Twitter and Facebook are very censored and not in a consistent way. Parler was/is about protecting the First Amendment. Twitter and Facebook say they are proponents of the First Amendment but demonstrably are not.

Parler was taken away from all of us by people that don’t believe in free speech and had the will and capacity to effectively silence a large percentage of Americans. If some people choosing to use Parler were offended by what they read or saw, they had the option to never go back to the Parler site.

But these people, who choose to be perpetually offended couldn’t abide differing opinions. They demand conformity of thought. I suspect that in time they’ll demand conformity of race too, since everything in their world revolves around racial identity politics.

On the radio there is no race. Only the content of your words. If you’re not good at putting your thoughts into words there’s no-one that will stop you from saying something but you might find yourself talking to dead air. Other people listening may simply find another channel, you know, old school… Don’t like what you’re hearing turn it off…

More people need to learn that.

Our house has been remarkably quiet over the past 3 weeks. We both tired of the news, we got tired of Hollywood celebrities shooting their mouths off in hateful tirades about Trump and frankly it’s made it so that watching their movies aren’t that enjoyable. Even music is only turned on when we want to listen to something particular. It’s tougher to relax or suspend disbelief so you can just enjoy the music or movie.

We’re hoping that in time as we distance from this season of chaos we’ll be able to enjoy these things once again.

In the mean time, from the radio chatter I’m hearing, we’re not alone. It appears that streaming movies and music over the fiber network here has dropped off significantly in our local area. But the Library is seeing a slight uptick in usage.

Something else I’d never have known from just social media. But it was on my HAM Radio this morning.

I’ve been listening to a bunch of local HAMS who get together every morning over their first or second cup of coffee.

They just get on the radio, and chat about local stuff. The weather, someone older who needs a little help with a project, the community center asking for books to lend, issues with snowplayers, and when the next community meeting is. The day after a community meeting, someone will summarize what was covered for those that couldn’t attend. It’s nice and somehow comforting.

Perhaps it’s time for us all to act more locally, and stop paying attention to the collective idiots who have found voice in social media. Maybe we should be more concerned about the people in our local area who are trying to do the right thing, and could use actual hands to do work that makes our community better?

It costs you nothing to comment on troubles in another state. But when you comment about something locally, there’s a certain expectation that you’re willing to put your money, or sweat equity, where your mouth is.

I suppose that too is old school…