Why.

A recent reorganization at work has resulted in my belonging to a bigger team. Once the lone guy in Upstate New York, I now have colleagues in the Rochester area, which is a little over two hours from the house. I made the drive today to meet these folks; it was a productive day today and I’m very happy to be part of this larger group. Face-to-face time is always a good thing.

Since the majority of my work travel has been by air of late, I hadn’t done much in the way of commuting in the Jeep. The drive along the New York State Thruway west of the Mohawk Valley can sometimes be described as mind-numbing, especially when one has political commentary droning on and on from the radio. I decided to wise up, turn off the radio and take notice of my surroundings.

The pace of traffic along Interstate 90 in these parts slows down considerably west of us. I don’t like cranking the Jeep up over 70 for too long as the tires aren’t really designed for interstate driving and more importantly, the “ECO ON” indicator turns off and my gas mileage plummets. The speed limit is 65 so I set the cruise at 69 because it’s a number that a lot of people enjoy. West of here traffic during the day seemed to be moving around 70-72 MPH today. I enjoyed looking at the other people driving on the road. There were quite a few people driving much faster and most of them had either out-of-state plates (namely Massachusetts or New Jersey) or their license plate frame/bracket indicated that they were from the downstate area. Traffic on the Thruway downstate moves much faster down there because those folks are always in a hurry.

The one thing that I really took notice of was the fact that hardly anyone was using their cell phone illegally. I didn’t see any illegal texting, talking or watching of video, that is, until I was on my way home and east of Syracuse. Once I was east of Syracuse the average speed picked up a bit and I spotted several more people talking on or using their phone in some way, even though the amount of traffic on the roadway itself seemed to be the same. Tell-tale signs of erratic weaving, unnecessary brake lights and misuse of the passing lane made it easy to spot those that decided that their phone was more important than the task at hand, that being driving the car. I couldn’t pin an average age to the activity, folks seemed to be all over the birthday spectrum but my completely unscientific observations did show that women were more apt to be using the phone than men.

I try really hard to not use my phone when I’m driving. I’ve been known to talk to my phone to launch music or dictate a text message to Earl or Jamie or to send a Tweet, but if Siri goes brain dead during one of these activities I will just give up on the endeavor and stay focused on driving. Most of the time. I wish it was 100% of the time but it would be a lie if I said I was picture perfect in this department.

I’m always striving for improvement. I wish others would follow that lead.

We live in a gadget laden world. Smartphones, tablets, laptops, thermostats, televisions, toasters, dishwashers, the list of devices with displays and status indicators goes on and on.

By the way, who’s idea was it to put countdown timers on a toaster? Are we really in that much of a hurry that we need to know how many seconds are left before our toasted English muffin pops out of the toaster? Ridiculous.

I digress.

A good share of our personal electronics need to be charged on a nightly basis. Like many others, I’m sure, I charge my iPhone and my Apple Watch on my nightstand. The iPad joins in the fun as well. Since most bedrooms come with two plugs in the general vicinity of a nightstand, some sort of power strip or other multi-plug adapter is required for the task. This is especially true when traveling.

I recently purchased a USB charging adapter that can charge four devices at once. It is a compact unit that uses a single plug. It works great; the varying amperages available are perfect for the myriad of devices I have scattered on the nightstand. The problem is the status light on the unit. It is quite bright.

Now, keep in mind that I am sitting in complete darkness snapping that photo and my iPhone is able to capture the light reflected against the wall without an issue.

I would love to see who is conducting these research and development meetings where they are discussing how to illuminate a bedroom with a small, pin-sized LED lightbulb. I am convinced that this LED is also used for taxiway lighting at O’Hare or Kennedy because honestly, the entire hotel room is illuminated by this thing.

I have a similar charger setup at home except the light is red. After one night of that bright merriment I covered the LED status light with electrical tape. The unit will get the same treatment as soon as I’m back home.

Are these bright LEDs suppose to be a reminder? An subliminal advertisement of some sort?

Perhaps people are getting crankier in today’s society because they can’t sleep due to all the needless light.

A fight broke out on Spirit Airlines flight 141 from Baltimore to Los Angeles yesterday morning. Two women, reported to be intoxicated, brought a “boom box” onto the flight and were playing their music loudly. When a group of other women complained, they turned up the tunes and waved their boombox in the air. Apparently this went on for nearly the duration of the flight and a fight broke out between the two women. Screaming, punching, hair pulling, the works. One of the flight attendants was punched in the face. Several onlookers recorded the fight on their iPhones so that they could share on the Internet and get likes and ad dollars and whatnot.

Here’s a report from the Los Angeles Times (link).

Being a somewhat opinionated individual, I have several thoughts on this story.

Spirit Airlines flight 141 from Baltimore to Los Angeles left BWI at 0824 ET, arriving at LAX at 1034 PT. That’s might early to be intoxicated.

I’ve never flown on Spirit Airlines because, well, they don’t have a reputation for being a classy outfit and I tend to steer away from those types of experiences, especially when it involves being sealed up in an aluminum tube at 35,000 feet for several hours with a bunch of strangers. I have the impression that Spirit Airlines is basically a Wal*mart checkout line with wings.

While I don’t think this was a 1980s boombox, complete with cassette deck and the like, it’s rude to play your music without headphones in a public space, period, end of story, full stop. Earl and I had to endure a woman in a diner over the holidays that kept playing Christmas music off her iPhone and dancing around her booth as she waited for her double portion of Pork Roll. To this day I still can’t wipe out the horrible fidelity of the music nor the ugly Christmas sweater from my memory.

Who gets into a fist fight on an airplane? Who has the energy to get into a fist fight at 10:30 in the morning? Why did the TSA allow a boombox on the airplane in the first place? (Quick side note – the bomb that brought down Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland was concealed in a boombox). Why did the flight attendants address the issue before the situation escalated into a fight between passengers? Why didn’t the passengers recording the fight on their mobile devices step in and try to stop it?

If I had been the pilot I would have introduced the passengers to a maneuver called a “steep turn”. That would have shut them up. There’s a reason I don’t fly for the airlines.

Back to the intoxication. Why were they allowed on the flight? In my years of airline travel I’ve seen a few passengers pulled from a flight for being too drunk. The airline put them up in a hotel so they could sober up and fly safely the next day. Why were these intoxicated women allowed on the flight?

This is yet another example of the dwindling of any sort of manners, dignity or socially acceptable behavior in public. As trash continues to be glorified by the media people think they can do whatever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want.

It’s just another example of The New Spirit of America.

Here’s a helpful guide to avoid some of the popular spelling mistakes seen in today’s modern world:
 
 They’re going over there to see their new sofa.
 
 He will lose weight so his pants will be loose. This doesn’t make him a loser but his pants could be looser.
 
 They were at the salon lightening her hair with highlights during the thunder and lightning storm.
 
 He deserted his friends to eat an ice cream cone for dessert while sitting in the Arizona Desert.
 
 The animated French Fry’s plan was to group together with the other French Fries.
 
 If you’re one ass out of a thousand, there are many asses. Assess how many asses there are.
 
 You’re going to your graduation.
 
 Apostrophes do not appreciate when you use the apostrophe’s claim to fame inappropriately.
 
 
 
 

I’m in a bit of a ranty mood this afternoon. I’ve been watching my Twitter feed fly by with bogus winter storm names, graphics depicting nearly Armageddon-like events and general idiocy regarding the Nor’easter winter storm slated to hit the East Coast metropolitan corridor starting today. I keep reading how this is “the storm of the century”. By my count, this is the 20th or so storm of the century to hit this century. It even has a name to make it easier to discuss online. Because everyone loves an online discussion about the latest catastrophe. It’s what drives the American public.
When I gripe about the hysteria that strangles Washington, D.C. and related cities during this type of event, many are quick to tell me that the affected areas are not used to this kind of storm and therefore they don’t know how to prepare for it. Apparently, preparations include raiding every grocery shelf of every morsel of bread and milk possible, lactose intolerance and gluten allergies be damned. The fact of the matter is, I must be smarter than the average of American because if I went through “the winter storm of the century” one or two times, I would certainly be well prepared by the time the 20th storm of the century blew through. It’s not that difficult to figure out, storms are allegedly growing more intense, therefore, I must be more vigilant in making sure that my family is prepared for the next big storm. That’s just a small portion of what we call Common Sense®. When I point this out to people, they say they’re prepared but the municipalities are not keeping up with the changing times. It’s someone else’s fault that they can’t get their precious rats named Mabel and Finster to their baton lessons. Well, if the municipalities can’t keep up with the changing weather, then logic would dictate that folks are electing the wrong people into the wrong positions for the wrong reasons.
My biggest question is, why are you so dependent on someone rescuing you from catastrophe? Why is their responsibility to make sure they can plow you out, provide you water, etc? Ma and Pa Ingalls did just fine in the middle of a Minnesota winter without electricity. Build a fire, light a gas stove, fire up the barbecue. Do you need water? Melt the snow.
The truth of the matter is that I don’t really dislike winter. I actually like winter better than the mud season we call spring, with water and melting slop all over the place. I can do without the bitter cold we get up here in Central New York (bitter cold being below zero Fahrenheit for days on end, not the balmy 30 degrees that folks in New York City are always bitching about), but snow doesn’t really bother me. Snow doesn’t cripple me. It slows me down to a sensible speed, but life does not grind to halt when we get a foot of snow, or even two feet of snow. I might get bummed out about not being able to fly, but I can always go out in the Jeep and play in the snow. It’s called Independent Thought® and that’s something that I wish would become contagious throughout the entire country. I feel that I could easily ride a winter storm out on my own until the sun peeked through the clouds again.
It’s the mindset of the general populace that I really dislike about winter. This is fueled by a media building an empire built on hysterics. Ever since 9/11, people love drama, they love catastrophe and they love chaos. It’s the new normal. The media successfully gets everyone so whipped up about things that wouldn’t be a big deal even 30 years ago that it needlessly cripples vast portions of the population. Gone are the true meanings of “epic” and “massive”. Open your front door to a wall of snow or climb out your second story bedroom window onto the snow in the lawn sometime, then let’s talk about the full wrath of Mother Nature.
In the meanwhile, please, by the universe of all that is sane, please calm down. 

My mom called me yesterday morning to let me know that my aunt and godmother had passed over to the other side after falling asleep on Sunday evening. This was not unexpected as she had been living with cancer for the last couple of years. A breast cancer survivor of several years ago, cancer had returned to other parts of her body. An expectation doesn’t make the news any easier to process. I’ve been musing over some pleasant memories and smiling. It’s funny in that it’s odd for me and my usually rock-solid memory for these things, but I don’t know how old she was. I know she was older than my mom by at least four years but I don’t know the specifics. You would think that a godson would know that about his godmother. The services are this coming weekend.

Hence the reason for my tweet yesterday morning, “Fuck Cancer”.

Over the past six months or so it seems like a lot of people in my life are affected by cancer. Radiation, chemotherapy, it all seems like such a shitty way to live but that’s part of surviving cancer, I guess. In a similar situation I don’t know if I would make the decision to go through all that, I don’t know if I’m strong enough. I know that people that live with cancer don’t deserve to do go through all those treatments but they’re very strong people to do so. That takes a lot of courage. The tin foil hat guy in me briefly wonders if there is a better solution out there but it wouldn’t benefit the pharmaceutical et. al. companies as much as the treatments for cancer, so that’s what’s available in Western medicine. I leave those thoughts for fleeting moments because they shouldn’t be focused on. Celebrating the lives of those that live with and pass on from cancer should be the focus, so that’s where I focus my energy.

I just know that my godmother was a pretty nifty lady. She was fairly soft spoken, had a wonderful smile and such a positive energy about her. A heart of gold. She was a strong woman, even before the cancer. I’m going to miss her.

Fuck Cancer.

I had my annual physical today. My family physician of over 20 years abruptly decided that he no longer enjoyed the weather of Central New York and gave little notice when he departed at the beginning of the summer, so today I had my physical with a new doctor at the same location. We reviewed my medical history, the dosages of my blood pressure and cholesterol medication. He was surprised that I survived Spinal Meningitis when I was just shy of my second birthday. I guess I just kind of take that for granted. We talked about flying and my FAA Medical Requirements. I like the new doctor. After the first visit I am comfortable with seeing him again.

The nurse that readied me for the entrance of the doctor weighed me, took my temperature and blood pressure and the like. She thought my temperature was low (97ºF) but I wasn’t surprised, normal human temperature is approaching a fever for me. I usually hover around 96.8 or so, so the 97 wasn’t unexpected. My blood pressure was up at 144/98. She weighed me in kilograms. I enjoyed seeing the Metric system in use. I weighed what I thought I should weigh with clothes on so I was comfortable but not happy with her assessment.

The doctor commented that my blood pressure was high; I asked him to retake it and it was much lower. He asked if that happened often and I replied to affirmative; I have high blood pressure because they’re checking my blood pressure. I hate the cuff on my arm. The second time it was much better (but not great) at 130/88.

I think a lot of what elevates my blood pressure is the way I see the world. I choose to look at Facebook and I come to the realization that there have been a lot of ignorant people in my life. I watch all sorts of ridiculous outbursts take place on Twitter and I can’t help but get angry; people are having incredible hissy fits and screaming things about a “War on Christmas” because Starbucks didn’t make their holiday cup festive enough. Hell, they even talked about the Starbucks Red Cup on the latest round of the Republican Debates, which, by the way, is depressing, infuriating and maddening enough to make my blood pressure go up. And we have a whole year to go before we decide who gets the big chair in the White House.

I was going to continue with this blog entry but I felt my face starting to warm, a sign that my blood pressure was going up. I’m going to sit back, wind this down and go watch a video about kittens or something.

This morning I received word from our bank’s Fraudulent Activity Department that my debit card had been used for purchases at Office Max/Office Depot for $413 (where the purchase was approved) and another business for $250 (where it was denied). One minute before the Office Max purchase, I had used ApplePay here at home. They turned my card off immediately but I still had to go down to the bank to dispute the $413 charge.

After bouncing text messages back and forth with Earl, we both came to the realization that the Office Max in question is near the mall we were at Saturday night, where I used my debit card to purchase movie tickets, the aforementioned concession items and then a quick bite to eat at TGIFridays. The staff at the TGIFriday’s in question seemed a little shady and the server took an unusually long time to process my credit card transaction to pay the bill. I’m willing to bet that’s where the theft took place, but I have no way of proving it.

Of course I engaged some brief hysteria where I made declarations such as, “I’m never using my debit card for a purchase again”, “I’m moving all of our money into the mattress and paying only with cash” and “I need another American Express account to act as a buffer”, but Earl kept me off the ledge and I simply ordered a new debit card. It should be here in 10 days and it will not be based on mid 20th Century technology (with the stripe) but will have a 21st Century still chip embedded in the card, much like Europe has used for a decade or so.

I have also pledged to try to not use my card where I need to relinquish the card to a third party or where I can’t use ApplePay to pay.

When speaking with the folks at the bank to file my fraud claim, they remarked that they highly recommend the use of ApplePay because it’s nearly impossible to steal. The numbers are changing, everything is encrypted and there’s no physical card. No one at the bank branch has an Apple Watch but they use ApplePay on their iPhones and they recommend that customers do the same with either ApplePay or the Google payment mechanism on Android phones.

It’s hard to believe that the “greatest country on Earth” is still reliant on 1950s technology (which was perfected in 1969) to process computerized information when it comes to payments. I really don’t know why U.S. citizens put up with it. The woman that I filed my fraud claim with remarked that she has to do it several times a year because she uses her card everywhere.

This has got to be costing somebody lots of money somewhere.

I’ve doubled down on my ApplePay usage and I’m getting smarter about where and how I use my debit card. Until American retailers stop arguing on how contactless payments should work (and trying to sabotage the efforts of companies like Apple and Google), maybe we need to move to Europe where everything is chip based.

Reference material:
ApplePay
Android Pay
Credit Card Magnetic Stripe Technology

I’ve been deleting many blogs from my blog roll over the past week. It is becoming very common for “bloggers” to simply link to another person’s blog entry or to simply cut and paste the article with maybe some effort to identify the originating source. The copied blog entry is then framed in ads, click through requirements and other money grabbing experiences, all so that the “blogger” can make ad revenue with little effort.  

This irks me.

What happened to the time not so long ago when people generated original content and shared it through a blog or other sort of medium? Do people no longer have the will to think? Do they rather to be fed the same drivel repeatedly until it becomes the truth?

I’ve mentioned many times before that I am not a fan of advertisements. I don’t mind a static ad in a magazine or a newspaper. I’ll even tolerate ads in the margin of a web page, but when the entire page is blocked by an ad or I’m forced to answer a survey or I have to search for a “close” button to get an auto playing video to stop blaring at me, I lose* all interest in consuming whatever I was intending to consume by falling for the click bait.

I think one of the reasons that we have such stupidity front and center in media these days is because people keep regurgitating the stupidity in an effort to grab more ad dollars. Every time I read a headline that says, “you won’t believe it when…” or “your jaw will hit the floor when you see this…” or “what happens next will astound you…” I want to slap the three closest people to me across the face and/or throw a lamp across the room and scream “please stop the insanity!”

The fact that my Facebook stream has become a constant source of this idiocy, despite my best efforts to hide, delete, muffle, silence or stomp out this sort of thing adds fuel to the fire that makes me want to throw a lamp. One of my recent revelations about my childhood is that there were a fair number of idiots that were part of my past. The regurgitation of the idiotic has amplified this. I miss my ignorance.

There is no solution to all of this because it’s just going to continue and no one has the gumption to stand up to this sort of content presentation on the Internet. 

Get rich quick by doing nothing. Welcome to the 21st Century. 

*please note the way I spelled that word.