3984 Head Banging

Thursday, October 9, 2014

"I have no problem with God. It's his fan club I can't stand."

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The World Health Organization (funded by members nations of the UN) has issued a bulletin saying that ebola can in fact be spread by aerosolized droplets produced from coughing or sneezing, if you inhale or touch those droplets.  It can also be spread by touching contaminated surfaces, and those surfaces can be contaminated by sneezes.  So people who visit the home of a patient after the patient has left the home, can acquire the infection from surfaces (sneezed or coughed on - and you'd be surprised how far a sneeze travels) in the home.

[NOTE - spread by aerosolized droplets does not fit the medical definition of "airborne".  Airborne spread involves dried stuff floating around in the air.  Technical difference.  Flu is airborne, ebola is not (so far).]

That's how that latest patient in Texas got it (I haven't heard the results of his test yet)(Update - he tested negative.).  He went into the other guy's home with the cleaners without protective gear.  It's interesting that he bragged that he didn't need the gear.  Oh dear.

So asking if folks have been in contact with an infected person is not a good question.  You have to ask if they had touched anything a symptomatic person had touched - or sneezed or coughed on, or near, or in the same room as, or in the next room, at any time in the past.  And how can you know that?  What do you know about the last dollar bill you handled?

Something that really bothers me is that in the involved areas of Africa, space in the treatment clinics is severely limited.  They just don't have the beds, space, or workers to handle the load.  So people show up at the door with symptoms, and they are turned away!.  The treatment centers and quarantine centers can't take anyone in until someone else dies.

Where do those people go?  Back home.  Back to their neighborhoods.

How the hell can you slow down, let alone stop, an epidemic with a response like that?  Nope, no room at the inn.  Go spread it some more.

This whole thing is a mess.

I made an online contribution this evening to Doctors Without Borders for $1,000.   I don't know how much they are involved in the ebola thing - mostly World Health Org. is mentioned, but I don't think WHO takes contributions - but I guess it couldn't hurt.

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Another thing - I had mostly read that victims were being cremated.  Now I find out from several sources that they are being buried.

Hey, this is a virus!  Are we infecting the ground water?  If you want to know how nasty stuff does in the ground, ask any farmer about anthrax.  Anthrax is a bacteria.  Viruses encapsulate, which gives them an advantage over bacteria.

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Workers for a company that cleans airliners went on strike earlier today at LaGuardia.  I don't blame them.
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3983 Dread, confusion

Monday, October 6, 2014

I have long been of the opinion that if work were such a splendid thing

the rich would have kept more of it for themselves.

 --Bruce Grocott

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Lately I've been coming across photos, pictures, videos with snow in them, and every time I see them I literally feel sick to my stomach.  Nausea.

I've never before had such a strong reaction to the coming of winter.

I hate cold.  I hate snow.  I've always hated cold and snow.  I especially hate snow when it's falling, or blowing.  The only good snow is melting snow.

I guess I have a bad feeling about this winter.

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I've already said I don't understand how the moon moves in relation to the Earth and sun.  (Why do we capitalize "Earth", but not moon or sun?) This Wednesday morning at 6:25 am we are supposed to be able to see a full lunar eclipse (although I have little hope of seeing anything here - the sky is always either cloudy or full of pollution, can't ever see more than a few stars at night even on the clearest and darkest of nights).

Anyway, that got me wondering where the sun would be in relation to the moon and Earth at that time.  So I looked up sunrise and sunset times.  Sunrise here today was 06:59:00 and sunset was 18:30:08.  Tomorrow it's at 07:00:02 and 18:28:32.  On Tuesday into Wednesday the moon will be full full, and I assume sunrise will be at something like 07:01:04..  

So 35 minutes before Wednesday sunrise here, the moon will be in full sunshine.  Then as the Earth and my house turn toward sunrise, the moon will move toward the west and into the Earth's shadow, that's the eclipse, and then the moon sets here as the sun is "coming up", and the moon will remain in the Earth's shadow for about half of its next circuit.

I guess.

But, but, but, 

the moon "sets" at some point every night/morning/day, so howcome it isn't in the Earth's shadow more often?  Like almost once per circuit (per month-ish)?  Somewhere on the globe, anyway.

I don't understand.

I think my problem is that I don't understand the moon's path.  And I suspect it isn't a regular path, like man-made satellites are designed to follow, same path, over the same points on the Earth every circuit.   I suspect it "progresses".

But, but, but

does that imply that there are places on the Earth that don't see the moon AT ALL during some period of that progression?  Or is it large enough and far enough away that it is always visible to the entire half of the world it's "on the side of" at all times?  I suspect that's true.  Daytime moons aren't unusual.

But, but, but

when I look at the moon from my porch, it seems to "rise" from about the same spot every time.  Which, uh, doesn't support a path progression.

I give up.  Again.

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A FEW HOURS LATER!  

The moon stuff gets weird.  It's no damn wonder I'm confused.  Want to blow your mind?  Read this: Wednesday's Lunar Eclipse Is Technically Impossible

To quote a line from the article, "And indeed, during a lunar eclipse, the sun and moon are exactly 180 degrees apart in the sky."  

Duh?  That's what I thought, and one reason (of several) why I couldn't figure it out.
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3982 Bits

Saturday, October 4, 2014

"To be willing to die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture."
 --Anatole France

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A travel hint:
Many times I've found that there are plenty of nice inexpensive places for lunch near the hotel, like even a cafe in the hotel, but in the evening, dinner time, they're all closed, and the only places to eat are horribly expensive and seem to expect you to "dress" for dinner.  

I call BS. 

I try to get a refrigerator in my room.  (A microwave is a nice bonus.)  If I have to, I lie and tell the desk I have medications that have to be refrigerated.  A little unmarked travel bottle of water in the fridge will play the part if necessary.  Then I have a nice lunchtime "dinner" at a lunch place, and I doggy bag a dinner from there and eat my nice cheap evening meal in my room or on the balcony.

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A question:
If I have a pulley set up to lift some weight, you know, a single pulley on the top and one on the bottom as in #2 below, I can cut the apparent weight in half.  Like if there's 100 lbs, and I pull the rope, it's as if I am lifting only 50 lbs because the rope I'm pulling moves twice as far as the weight.



Here's the question:  I figure the rafter that I have the top pulley attached to has to support 100 lbs, the weight on the end of the pulleys.  A friend says no, the rafter has to support 150 lbs - the weight on the bottom PLUS the 50 lbs of pull I'm putting on the rope.

Anyone know for sure?

The way I figure it, if I am using the pulley as in figure 1, the rafter just has to support 100 lbs, not 200.  But then the next minute I can convince myself the other way.  I don't even know where to look to get the answer.

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Newest grammar complaint:
The word for unbroken is "intact", not "in tact".  I'm seeing even pros use "in tact" and it's driving me batty.

Also maddening, the new "go to" word seems to be "massive".  It seems that anything that is larger, longer, or bigger than normal is "massive".

In my opinion, "massive" is used only to refer to great mass.  An Egyptian pyramid is massive.  When we're taking about a "massive heart attack", even then we mean that the attack involved the mass of the heart.  I'll even accept a "massive head cold" (under small protest) because it feels like a rock in your head.  But there's no way I can accept some of the ways I've seen it used lately:
- a massive house cleaning job
- a long flight route, as in "The Airbus A380 super-jumbo will fly six times a week on the massive 13,800 km journey between Sydney, Australia and Dallas / Fort Worth, U.S."
- a massive TED speech 
- his massive snoring kept me awake
- a massive groan from the audience

Grinding my teeth....

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I rarely have nightmares.  So rarely I can't remember the last.  The closest thing to a nightmare I can think of usually involves a building with many corridors and many closed doors, and I feel panic because I can't figure out where whatever it is I'm looking for is.  I keep opening doors, but that's not the right room, and there are so many doors and so little time.  (In the special way of dreams, space is distorted.  The doors are right next to each other, cheek by jowl, but when I'd open a door the room was a normal size, and that was frustrating, too.)  These dreams aren't scary, though.  Just frustrating.

Maybe I have scary nightmares, but I don't awaken, so I don't remember them.

When I was in college living in the dorm, I always had my own room, no roommate, because (they say) I screamed words and cried in my sleep all the time, and it disturbed anyone else in the room.  Not just because I was loud, but because my obvious distress worried them.  But I don't remember any nightmares.

Ex#1 did say I sometimes cried or shouted in my sleep.  He'd wake me and it would stop, but again, even after being awakened, I don't remember any dream.

That was a very long time ago, and no one else has complained about it since then, so I don't know. 

I have been dreaming more lately, but the ones I'm working on as I wake in the morning are mostly pleasant,  usually involving some people, mostly older women, who are being hospitable, pleasant, we're working on something together, that kind of thing.   I read as I'm falling asleep at night, fall asleep with my nose in a book, the light is on a timer, and I think what I'd been reading influences my dreams.
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3981 Shall we become hermits?

Saturday, October 4, 2014

"The ability we value most is plausible deniability."

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Airports are checking passengers for fevers before they can board a flight.   Great.  I guess this can help to assure that no one on the flight is exposed to someone with ebola in the contagious stage.  But it does nothing to prevent someone with ebola in the not-yet contagious stage from traveling anywhere they want.  So it does nothing to stop ebola from spreading around the world.

I don't understand.  It doesn't make any sense.

And then there was the guy who thew up on a plane arriving at Newark from Brussels.  He was taken off the plane by people in full protective gear, the other passengers were held on the plane for a while, and then given handouts of what to do if they start showing ebola symptoms and they were let go, BEFORE the sick guy tested negative for ebola.  [http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2014/10/04/port-authority-cdc-investigating-sick-passenger-for-possible-ebola-at-newark-airport/] 

I don't understand.  It doesn't make any sense.

Some folks are saying that anyone coming from a country with ebola cases should be quarantined for three weeks after arrival somewhere else.  Well, we, the US, have at least one and possibly more ebola cases here.  So should Americans be quarantined for three weeks if they travel?  Should Arizona close their borders to Texans?

This is scary.  There's an attitude like "No big deal.  Even if a few cases show up, we can simply isolate those people and stop it in its tracks."  Duh.  The big problem in west Africa is that people are uneducated, not trusting the government and medical folks, and hiding sick relatives away.

Lack of education, distrust of government, distrust of doctors ("death panels", anyone?), distrust of "the system" --- yeah, sure, we don't have any of that here....

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The other thing that bothers me is that in the cases of Americans and other westerners who have been diagnosed, nobody ever talks about HOW they got it.  Ok, the doctors and nurses, I can see that they had a higher chance of exposure, but they know how to protect themselves.  They know what to do and what not to do.  They are completely suited up and have decontamination procedures and know the punishment for screwing up.  So what went wrong?  And the reporters and that cameraman, how?

Why aren't they looking into that?  Maybe it's not as easy to avoid as they want us to believe?
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3980 Sniffle update 2

Friday, September 26, 2014

Along about Wednesday, I was pretty much over everything, except that as usual my sinuses are still complaining.  A LOT of thick phlegm coming down from the sinuses, down to sit on top of the soft palate, and choke me.  I'm snorking and glurking to get it down and out, and if and when it escapes and goes on down the back of my throat and hits the epiglottis, I cough.  And choke some more.

But I don't think there's any active infection any more.

I've learned by experience that when it's just the sinuses, I can't use a decongestant.  If the sinuses get too dry before they've finished complaining, I'm inviting a bacterial infection.  So I just have to wait until they calm down on their own.  This is all a result of a massive sinus infection in the early '80s, that scarred stuff up in there so they don't drain right.  Hot drinks can help, but not much else.  A neti pot would make things worse, since I don't drain right.

I finally caught up with Daughter on Tuesday (they had been out almost every day since the Friday before), and she said they'd all been sick all weekend.  (Not as sick as I had been, I guess, because it didn't seem to have slowed them down any.  No, I don't know where they went or what they'd been doing - I'm not allowed to ask.)

I cracked Hercules up by mentioning that on Sunday I was sneezing so hard I gave up on underpants.
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3979 Sniffle Update

Monday, September 22, 2014

Time sneaks up on you like a windshield on a bug.

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Friday was hot soft palate.
Saturday was stuffy nose.
Sunday the nose was a gusher with tremendous sneezes.
Today nose is dry, a little bit of burning in the back of the throat.  Some sneezing and a few coughs.

I'm not sure how to tell when or if it goes into my chest.  If it doesn't I'll be fine.  If it does I could be in trouble.
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3978 I don't get it

Sunday, September 21, 2014

GUILT is about what you have done or not done. You did something wrong.
SHAME is about you as a person. You are something wrong.

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I am reading Harriette Simpson Arnow's Hunter's Horn.  It's about a hardscrabble mountain farm family in the early 1940s Kentucky.  There's lots of small things I don't understand, but one is driving me crazy.  The family is going into their second winter without meat.  This winter, at least, they do have plenty of corn, beans, and so on after having nearly starved the winter before, but due to various problems they will likely still have no meat until the next autumn.  The mother and horde of children miss it terribly.

They define meat as pork, mutton, beef, and chicken.  And that's pretty much it.

What's driving me nuts is why do they never think about rabbit, possum, or squirrel?  Plenty of them around, and they can trap them, they don't need to use up bullets.  What about fish?  And if they can afford a few bullets, how about deer?

They train hounds to chase fox, and sneer at dogs who go after rabbits.  I dunno - if I were starving for meat I'd pure-D appreciate a dog who brought home a rabbit every few days.

When I was in high school in the mountains, many of my classmates ran trap lines every morning before school, and I have eaten rabbit, squirrel, possum, and raccoon (raccoon was not very good) when I visited classmates' homes.

I don't get it.  Every time some character in the book complains about no meat, I want to yell at them.
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3977 The good, the bad, and the sniffles.

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Silence is golden, unless you have a puppy. Then silence is suspicious. Very, very suspicious.

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Two visits to the BMW dealership last week.  It should be fixed now.  It was the same code as last time, so they charged nothing to fix it.  They gave me a 300-series loaner while they reprogrammed the computer and tested it.  The300 ride is very smooth, amazing, but I still prefer my little sportster.  I like to feel the road and hear the motor.  It feels safer.

On Thursday, Daughter said there's some kind of virus going around, starts out like a head cold, and can go into pneumonia.  She wanted me to be sure to tell her if I got sick so she could "doctor me".  I guess she's worried that I might do like right after Sandy, when I got sicker and sicker and didn't say anything until I was on the verge of death (according to the ER doctor).

Friday my soft palate got hot.

Saturday my nose stuffed up.

Today it's not stuffed, it's running like mad.  I took a nasal decongestant, but it doesn't seem to have done anything.  I'm sneezing hard, a lot.  I don't seem to have a fever - but I'm not positive because all my digital thermometers are weirded out.  They are starting to lie.  I really really prefer the old mercury column (or alcohol) stick thermometers, those things stay accurate forever, but they're next to impossible to find any more.  Anyway, I rarely run a fever anyway, no matter what's going on.

Of course, I haven't seen Daughter since Thursday.  She's always out.  And I'm not going to call her for just sniffles.
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3976 The past isn't there any more

Sunday, September 14, 2014

It takes a long time to gain trust, five seconds to lose it.

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For some reason this past summer I thought a lot about Gettyburg, Pa.  I had a strong urge to visit.  Nope, not as a tourist.  From summer of 1965 to summer 1967, a mere two years, I lived there.  I taught high school math.

Even though it was only two years, a lot happened.  They were the densest two years of my life, and they had a powerful influence on the next twenty or so years.  More happened in a month there than happened in whole years of the rest of my life.  Maybe it was my age.  Maybe it was the sudden freedom, being on my own.  I don't know.

I originally wanted to stay at a particular B&B in the middle of town.  [See http://www.brafferton.com/.  Check out the beautiful rooms!]  I selected a suite with a Jacuzzi and private entrance, and in July I made a reservation for the nights of September 9 and 10.  I figured that the tourist season would be winding down, so traffic would be less, especially on weekdays, but it would still be warm.

And then, on impulse, I mentioned to Daughter that I planned to go, and asked if she and the Nugget would like to join me.  I was thinking simply nice little vacation.  Daughter jumped to the utterly baseless conclusion that I was facing an emotional upheaval and was begging for her support, so she had to go.  Of course she didn't check that with me.  That's one of the things we fight about --- that she makes assumptions and then operates on them without checking with the other person, ALL THE FREAKIN' TIME!, and then she holds those assumptions against you.

I attempted to get Daughter and Nugget a room in the same B&B and discovered that they don't allow children under 10-years-old (or so, I forget), so I cancelled that reservation and booked two adjoining rooms at a Marriott outside town.  I was disappointed that the particular Marriott didn't have an in-room Jacuzzi and mentioned that to Daughter, so she did her own research and found another hotel that had something they called "family suites", that did have Jacuzzis.  Now from the photos on their website, the suite looked like two completely separate rooms with a shared bathroom between them.  So I called them, verified the Jacuzzi, made the reservation for a family suite WITH Jacuzzi (it was an unbelievable $160/night), and then cancelled the Marriott.

Sigh.

It was a 3.5 hour drive, which meant that Nugget would require a run-around break at some point.  Also, Daughter and I could not spend that much time in quarters that close without one of us (her!) having a meltdown bigger than the Nugget could throw, so we took separate cars.  Besides, that would allow us to do different explorations once there.

She left an hour before me, but we arrived within minutes of each other. 

I was very annoyed to find that the suite looked nothing like the photos implied.  It was a room with two queens with the bathroom by the entrance door, like any other cookie-cutter room, and then another room with a king bed opening off to the side of the queen room.  Yes, it had a door that could be closed, but one would have to go through the queen room to get to the bathroom.  Yuck.  AND, there was NO Jacuzzi.  I called the desk and asked if we could move to a family suite with a Jacuzzi, and was told no, there were no other rooms available.  I pointed out that I had specifically asked for the Jacuzzi, had moved from the Marriott on the assurance that I'd have one, and I was very unhappy.  They compensated me by reducing the room rate to $100/night.  Daughter was hyperventilating.  That was a warning I missed.


A few minutes later, as we passed the desk on the way out to find dinner, Daughter stopped at the desk and .... I don't know how to describe it ... she had an emotional  breakdown and said she couldn't stay in that room because there was no place she could be alone, there was no retreat, could she have another room for herself.  I was very embarrassed, and nodded to the clerk and told her to put it on my tab.  They gave Daughter another room, FREE.

After Daughter walked away, I told the clerk that this is NOT your problem to fix, it's our problem, my Daughter is nuts, so please put her room on my credit card, but they said no, it's ok.   I just wish Daughter had said something to me earlier.  We could have moved entirely to two adjoining rooms.  (I especially felt bad the next day, when I overheard one of their regular customers being turned away, because they were full, no rooms available.)  So I ended up with the family suite all by myself.  

[Embarrassed much?  Look like one of those city folks who walk in and start demanding all kinds of free stuff?]

That pretty much set the tone.  I should have gone alone.

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The town has changed a lot.  It's surrounded by battlefield where nothing can be built, so the town has expanded by getting a lot more dense.  There was very little that I recognized.  Fifty years ago it was a sleepy little rural town that sort of woke up a little every summer when the tourists came, but there was little in the town itself that primarily catered to tourists.  Mostly, they just tolerated them.  In fact, there was just one chain hotel, a few small family-owned motels, and people who took in guests in the summer for some extra cash.  Now there are huge hotels all over the place.  Shops that primarily catered to the needs of townfolk and farmers now seem to be geared toward tourists, all antiques or artsy-fartsy.  

Actually, the middle of town is beautiful.  And then I remembered that last year was the 150th anniversary of the battle, so I'll bet all the sandblasting, restored and refurbished storefronts, fancy lampposts, and the huge planters everywhere were federally funded.

I found my old apartment building, the diner where I ate dinner almost every evening with six to eight students crammed into my booth with me, the location of the trailer I moved into after the fire at the apartment (that location, which used to be on the alley behind an apartment building, is now an extension of the hospital), and some other things.  But mostly I recognized very little.  

The past mostly isn't there any more, it's been papered over.

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Before anyone yells at me about the filth of hotel Jacuzzis, I have a way to handle that.   I pack a small bottle of Clorox.  Fill the tub up to the intakes, pour in half the bleach, run it for a few seconds, and then let it sit for about 15-20 minutes, run it again for a few seconds, then drain it.  If there was anything floating after after the second running (which I have seen only once in 30 Jacuzzis, The Man loves a Jacuzzi), just do the process again.  It is now safe.  Go out for dinner and by the time you return the bleach odor is gone.

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Another odd thing happened.  I had a memory of a section of road heading out of New Jersey into an unknown state, where the road crosses a bridge over a steep-sided river gorge, into a wonderland of small heavily wooded mountains piled one on another.  Beautiful.  It's been driving me crazy for the past few years because I didn't know where it was, couldn't remember where I might have been driving from or to, or even when.  I just wanted to find that piece of road again.

It got to be an obsession.  Several times over the past year I went to Google maps street view and followed almost every major road out of New Jersey in every direction, especially those that crossed a river near the state line.  No luck.

Going to Gettysburg, I let the GPS guide me.  And there it was!  It's Interstate 78 west, over the Delaware River.  I still have no idea when I might have taken that route in the past.  Maybe I dreamed of it. 

Returning, the GPS took me a different route, via the Pa turnpike, and the NJ turnpike.

Odd.  Like I was meant to find it.  Odder still, my memory was of heading west over the gorge. Had I returned by that route heading east, I might not have recognized it.
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3975 Old Feminists Never Forget, and Never Forgive

Saturday, September 6, 2014

It's next to impossible for a woman to convince men in the workplace that they treat female coworkers differently from their male colleagues.  They vehemently deny it.  Given examples, they always have reasons.  She doesn't have the experience.  She's not as technically astute.  She doesn't see the big picture.  She doesn't have the necessary leadership qualities.  Blah blah blah.

Men don't listen to women the same way they listen to men.  If a man objects to some statement, they will listen and consider what's said.  If a woman makes the same objection, they immediately assume that she just doesn't understand.

Men rarely interrupt a man speaking in a meeting.  Women are regularly interrupted, and no one notices or objects.  If she objects and finishes her thought, no one listens and she's described as loud and pushy.

Stuff like that.

Personally, I got tired of men talking to my chest.

Well, finally we have observations from people who have been on both sides.  Transsexuals!  They know exactly what it's like to be a man or woman in the workplace, and then to experience the treatment as the other sex.  And they are the same person with the same skills in both roles.  They pretty much say exactly what women have been saying for eons.

They say that as a woman, no matter which way their change went, they got/get no respect.

The New Republic article is at http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119239/transgender-people-can-explain-why-women-dont-advance-work.   I urge you to read it, and pass it around, especially to MEN!

(And then wait and see - those men will opine that it's the addition or subtraction of testosterone.  Apparently, testosterone makes one logical.)

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I am reminded of a conversation I had with an IBM manager once.  He asked if  I wanted to go into management.  I said "No, I'd rather stay technical."

 He asked what my goals would be (he was thinking stuff like fellowship and so on).  I replied, "I want to be listened to in meetings.  I want that when I say something, people stop and listen and actually think about what I just said.  I want people to want to hear what I have to say."

 He said, "Oh, so you want to be seen as a technical expert?"

I blinked twice and said, "I! AM! a! technical! expert!!  I want them to stop staring at my breasts and listen when I speak.  Apparently they ARE subliminally hearing me, because after my observation is ignored, passed off as trivial, not even worth discussion, the next week some other guy says EXACTLY the same thing I said, using the EXACT same words, and everyone thinks he's a genius.  Nobody remembers my having said exactly the same thing with exactly the same arguments the week before.  I'm getting tired of that.  I don't know how to get past it."

He didn't know what to say to that.  Especially since he had been in some of the same meetings, and had seen it happen.
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3974 Perspective

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Ebola is the big health news right now.  But it's not the biggest killer.  Malaria killed 627,000 people in 2012 alone (World Health Organization, http://www.who.int/malaria/media/world_malaria_report_2013/en/), and that's after intense efforts to control it, it's supposedly down by 45%, and the fact that malaria is treatable.  But still, 627,000 people died of malaria in one year.  I find that number shocking.  Ebola has killed less than 1/600th the number in the 6 months of this outbreak.

So, I'm not sure why ebola gets all the press.  Maybe because ebola can travel to the US easier than malaria?  So that scares us more?

But ebola is a lot easier to avoid than malaria:
1. Don't eat bats or monkeys
2. Don't touch body fluids from strangers.
3. Don't touch body fluids from family members who have done 1. or 2.

You want to be scared for a more logical reason?  How easy would it be to dump some ebola virus into your local reservoir?
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3973 Highly annoyed

Friday, September 5, 2014

NOTE to everyone who has a blog I occasionally comment on, AND uses a Yahoo email id for comment notifications:  For some unknown reason when I comment on your blog I am getting "undelivered" messages from Yahoo, saying that the notification was not delivered.  As far as I can tell, Blogger sends you an email about the comment and changes the path to indicate that it came from me (or something like that) and Yahoo has decided not to honor "third party" emails.

This is complicated by the fact that I often comment on old posts, like a few days old, when maybe you no longer have any reason to revisit the post --- so you are unaware I have commented.  Sorry.  I'm really not ignoring people.  I can't do much about it except complain to Yahoo, and I'm not sure how to do that exactly. 

Oh well.

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Toward the end of July, Hal started throwing codes.  You know, the check engine light stuff.  Randomly. 

I took him to the dealership, and two weeks, a new sensor, and $450 later, he behaved again.

Exactly three weeks after that fix, last Friday, he started doing weird stuff again.  I had pulled into a WaWa, set the brake, turned him off, pulled the key, unfastened the seat belt, opened the door, and the siren went off.  For no reason whatsoever. 

When I came out of the WaWa and started him, he popped up the check engine light.  This is 6 pm on a Friday of a three-day holiday weekend.  Of course.  Can't do anything until Tuesday.

The Check engine light was yellow, not red, and the book says I can still drive, unless it turns red, then I have to stop immediately, so I drove (a little bit) during the weekend --- during which time the "service engine soon" light (which means that Hal thinks it's time for regular maintenance) came on as well as the check engine light.  By Tuesday the check engine light was off.  I called the dealership on Wednesday, and I have an appointment tomorrow.

I am completely and utterly pissed.  Especially since his warranty expired in early summer.  Funny how that happens.

Long time visitors to this blog may remember when Fred, the van, started doing much the same kinds of things, and one year, $9,000 in service, sensor replacements, and rental cars later, I gave up, bought Suzie the Suzuki, and Fred spent the next three years or so parked in the driveway, until an independent mechanic found a split in the rubber cover over the computer.  Fixing that fixed Fred.  It wasn't the sensors at all; it was the computer.  Everytime it was damp out, the computer threw random codes, made bad decisions, and stalled in the middle of intersections.

I HATE those sensor things.  Seems like they are supposed to warn you when things are wrong in the unit they're supposed to be sensing, but the fix IN EVERY CASE I have ever experienced is to simply replace the sensor.  There's something very stupid about that.

What makes all this worse is that I'm planning to go to Gettysburg next Tuesday.  This has  been in the works for two months.  And now I have an undependable car.  I am completely and utterly pissed.
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3972 A consideration

Saturday, August 30, 2014

I guess I need to be very careful here, very clear that I'm  not attacking or defending anyone in particular.  It's just that I had a thought, and in all I've read and heard I've not heard that thought expressed by anyone else, and that surprised me.

Re:  Ferguson, Missouri.  Michael Brown.

Very soon after the shooting, TV stations in the area and online news outlets were showing a video from a store surveillance camera, from that day, where a large man identified as Michael Brown (supposedly) stole about $50 in merchandise from a shop, and then definitely physically roughed up a much smaller man, presumably the shop owner or clerk, who was objecting to the (possible) shoplifting. 

Many people vociferously objected to the showing of the video, claiming it was an obvious attempt to demonize Brown, because the cop had no idea that Brown was wanted for the shoplifting, therefore it had nothing whatsoever to do with the shooting.

My immediate thought was, no, it had everything to do with the shooting.  Ok, the cop didn't know Brown was wanted, but Brown did!  He lifted $50 worth of cigars, was seen doing it, had an altercation with the shopkeeper, and mere minutes later is stopped by the police.  Bam!

Does anyone believe that sequence of events had NO influence on Michael Brown's attitude toward and dealings with the not-in-on-the-story cop who stopped him? 
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3971 Thoughts

Saturday, August 30, 2014

You can live the entire rest of your life without breathing.  It's true.

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A woman's skirt should never be shorter than it is wide.

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Too many folks in this neighborhood have pit bulls, and too few know a damn thing about training.  Regardless, after thinking it over, I've decided that I just plain don't trust pit bulls, trained or not.  Never had to think about it before, but yeah, when it comes to pit bulls I do have a negative prejudice.  And I can explain it.

When any other breed of dog bites or attacks, he's saying that he is annoyed or afraid, and wants you to stop what you're doing or go away.  If you stop touching his painful hip, or if you indicate that you are conceding to his request to get off his property (or out of his life), or as soon as he's no longer afraid, he stops and backs off.  The dog wants to make a point, and once the point is made, he quits.

Not so with pit bulls.

Yeah, they can be wonderful loving family dogs, just like any other breed, and just like any other breed if he never feels a need to bite, he won't.  The difference is that when he does get riled up for whatever reason, he, unlike other dogs, is not trying to make a point after which he will stop, not going to administer a warning nip or a punishing bite --- no, when a pit bull starts, the only thought in his mind is KILL!  KILL!  KILL!  They don't stop until they do.

And that's why they scare me.  They have only two modes, on and off.

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I finally bought a bluetooth keyboard for my tablet.  Yeah, there's the onscreen keyboard, but it's a pain to use.  I finally know now why so many people ignore capitalization and punctuation in online comments.  The cost and frustration of doing it right when you don't have a keyboard with all the trimmings just isn't worth doing it right.  Now I know why so many have the attitude "Who cares?"
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3970 Spider crabs

Saturday, August 30, 2014

I've been sitting on this for a while.

It's spider crabs, a video from BBC Life - Creatures of the deep.  The crabs molt when they've grown too large for their shells, and since they are extremely vulnerable until the new shells harden, they gather and molt en masse. I mention that because some people who have viewed this video thought they were eating each other, and that at the end, it's dead bodies.  It's not.  It's discarded shells.

Anyway, I loved the music ("Comfy in Nautica") so much I bought the album: Person Pitch, from Panda Bear.  Don't try to watch this with the volume down.  It's just not the same.




  [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evd6NTD1wf4 ]

3969 Bits

Sunday, July 27, 2014

I drove upriver Friday evening and returned today.  The Hairless Hunk had said I'd lost four trees in a recent windstorm.  You know, when he said "lost", I was thinking like previous tree losses, when the trees broke someway up the trunk.  Most of the trees at the country house are black locust, and they tend to be brittle.  I was not expecting major uprooting!  The kind with the roots in the air and a huge hole in the lawn.  Sigh.  I wish I had taken my camera (no, my phone isn't that smart, or maybe it is but I'm not).

The Hunk has a watchmacallit, you know, with a front loader scoop on one end, and a steam shovel-looking thingy on the other.  That, a chain saw, and a few hundred dollars will take care of it I guess.

I'm getting tired of losing trees up there.  In 18 years we've lost more than 35 trees to wind.  I guess that's a disadvantage of living on a ridge with a wonderful view.  The hunk has been transplanting young maples and oaks he finds hither and yon, and most of them have been doing well, so there's that.

Heh heh, another topic, the Hunk likes to trim tree branches high enough that people can walk under them without meeting branches. (I had a husband that used to do that, too.  Him, I divorced.)  I noticed yesterday that he'd trimmed my huge old mulberry tree so high that I'll never be able to pick berries. 

The Hunk also trims tree branches near the house that drop too low, too close to the house roof.  I laughed at him one time for that, pointing out that the branches above the ones he cut would simply drop down as they grow, because now without competition from lower branches they can go lower to get more sun.  It's a no-win situation.  You either have to remove almost all the branches on that side of the tree, or remove the tree.  He looked confused.  "They drop down?"

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I was listening to Sirius Classic radio on the drive up.  One show was The Great Gildersleeve.  Gildersleeve and a neighbor were shoveling coal into a basement when another neighbor came along and told Gildersleeve his face was dirty and he needed to wash it, adding, "I didn't know you could get that dirty on radio!"

I cracked up.

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It's usually a 2.5 hour drive between the two houses, about 135 miles, plus any potty breaks.  I left at about 11:30 this morning, figuring I'd avoid most of the "returning to the city" traffic and be home about 2-ish.  I got home at a little after 4.  Multiple multi-mile sections of 0-20 mph, with no apparent explanation.  So I guess I have reaffirmed that Sunday travel at any time of day is no good.

I don't understand.

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Coming home today, I got the "something horribly wrong" check engine light on Hal, the BMW.   Poor old Fred, the van, is having battery troubles.  And I'm supposed to meet the furnace man at the country house next Thursday, and I was going to call some A/C people for quotes Thursday and Friday.  Another sigh.  I hope BMW can take Hal tomorrow, I hope it's a quick fix, I hope I don't have to put 275 miles on a rental car.

Sometimes I hate the world.

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You know something?  No matter how many pieces of track you have for a train set, unless all you want to make is a plain circle or oval, you won't have enough of the right shapes and sizes to do what you want.  There will always be one critical piece missing.

Must be some kind of natural law.

Thomas and Friends' wooden track pieces are even reversible, track on both sides so the curved pieces can go either way, and it still doesn't help.

Sigh.

I'll probably go to bed early tonight.
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3968 Wind

Thursday, July 24, 2014

I was so happy about the condition of the country house when I visited two weeks ago.  The microwave still had the correct time, so it hadn't even lost power all winter.

I couldn't go last week because Daughter, Hercules, and the Nugget had gone camping, and I was charged with taking care of the cats and watering the tomatoes.  I wouldn't have gone anyway, because the temperatures up there were in the high 80s low 90s, and it would have been simply too hot to do anything in the house.  Today and tomorrow are supposed to be low 80s, so I plan to drive up this afternoon, returning Saturday.

Next week I want to schedule visits from a few a/c companies.  I need to get that moving.

This morning I got an email from the Hairless Hunk.  There was a windstorm yesterday.  I lost four trees.  He said none hit the house, they all fell to the east, but ... damn!  Over the past 10 years I've lost at least a dozen mature trees to wind.   Price of living on a ridge, I guess.  (While Jay was alive, we had only one severe tree incident, but that time we lost 20 trees in one fell swoop.)

I hope none are crossing the driveway.  I can no longer walk up that drive.
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3967 I think it was made in China....

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Want a fun job, in a foreign country, a different culture?  There should be lots of jobs available writing for toy companies in China.

I bought the Nugget a train set (Thomas and Friends).  The following is from the online description.  Points 5 and 6 were particularly amusing.

5.suitable for: age 3-69 years old

6. children should be warning in adult care use. do not put toys, thrown each other. small parts do not eat, lest produce risk events.toys like found damaged, please be careful save or recycled. avoid fell into, exposure to the sun, damp.
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3966 They're after me?

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

I am not one of those people who stick a little finger out to catch the turn signal as I turn the steering wheel.  I mean, why bother, if you don't signal a turn until you are actually IN the turn?  I signal just before I slow down to make the turn, you know, like to let anyone behind me know what's coming up next.

Three times in the past two weeks I signaled a left turn, slowed down, started the turn, AND SOME IDIOT SCREAMED PAST ME ON THE LEFT!

This afternoon it was as I was turning into my own driveway.  This is a narrow residential dead-end.  I had signaled about four houses up. I pressed the button to open the garage door about that same time.  The speed limit is 25.  I had slowed down to make the tight turn into the driveway, had started the turn, and wham!  There was a car passing me.

Third time similar situation in just two weeks.  And every single time it was a huge SUV.  White one today.  End of last week it was a red one.

I left the car running after I pulled into the garage and checked the turn signals.  They're working.

I don't understand.
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3965 Three examples of "Duh!"

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Overheard a conversation across the street.  Apparently the neighbor has a "boa constructor".  I had an immediate mental image of an elf stringing feathers.

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I had mentioned that the fuel service for the country house reported that they were unable to make the spring oil delivery because the tank was still full of December's oil, which means the country house had NO HEAT all winter!  What with medical problems and a bad winter, I hadn't been to the house since last summer.

I freaked a little.  Only a little because the well pump had been turned off, so it's not like the house would have filled with water if a pipe had burst, and I had left several faucets open so the danger of bursting was low, but still I had no idea what damage could have occurred.  There were containers of liquids, you know, who knows what might have happened.  I didn't know what might be wrong with the furnace.  And I shuddered to think about the spiders and mice having taken over completely, and the yellow jackets.....

So I made an exploratory trip.  I worried all the way up the highways.

Nothing is wrong. The place looked great.  It even smelled good.  The lawn looks wonderful. The porch is not full of wasp nests.  There's no mouse poop in the kitchen and they didn't move into my bed or furniture.  Everything is exactly as I left it.  I didn't try turning the water on, so there's still a possibility of  leaking pipes somewhere, but I can check that later and handle it as needed.

There's not even anything wrong with the furnace.  I don't know why I did it, but apparently last summer I had turned the furnace off at the thermostat.  Duh.

I'm so happy.

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You need to see this video.  It's so cute!  It's kind of blah at the beginning, but the end is perfect. You need to watch from the beginning to fully understand the effort the gray cat had put in.  Kitty treats are stored in the top drawer, and the kitties are determined to get them.  The sound doesn't need to be high, but you DO need to be able to hear the music.  (I swear the gray cat called the other an idiot.)


[http://youtu.be/H5SPc1Gn6N8]
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