Dawn's Scary Thoughts

The New Year

2012-01-16T15:33:00.000-08:00

The whole cancer scare was quite a wake up call for me as you can imagine. As I slowly healed plans formed in my head. Plans of health, self care and fitness. How was I going to do it? Besides sheer will power what motivates me to exercise and eat right? I don't know. I suppose if I knew, I'd be healthy and fit.

This is what I've decided to try this year. I've started back with my trainer, Christie. She's wonderful and will adjust my work out routine based on any issues I have. For example, when I first started with her my shoulder had a couple little tears in the rotator cuff and major inflammation in the AC joint. She researched and got a routine going for me that eventually healed all of that, without surgery. Now, after the hysterectomy I'm weak. I'm trying not to be frustrated by that but it is hard. I have to rebuild my entire core muscle group since they cut them right down the middle and I have to build up my stamina/heart health again.

I've bought myself a "fitbit". This is a cool little gadget that tracks every step you take, calorie you burn and all the shut eye you get. It didn't take long to figure out I wasn't getting enough sleep. I had no idea I was only getting about 6 hours and 30 minutes a night. For some reason I'm awake for 8 minutes in the middle of the night, every night. Not at the same time each night but it's still 8 minutes. I wonder what I do in those 8 minutes? Am I sleep walking? I don't remember going to the bathroom. Maybe I should put a nannie cam in my bedroom so I can figure it out. Because of this little device I've made a concerted effort to get more sleep. I can feel a stronger energy level the last few days.

All of these statistics are logged on a secure website that I can access anywhere, even from my phone with the app. Everything has an app now. I just got my 50 mile badge. I've walked or ran 50 miles since January 3rd. Not bad, eh. I'll expound on other things I'm doing to try to motivate myself in the next blog.

Politeness and Common Courtesy in Today's World

2012-01-15T15:23:00.000-08:00

I know we live in a fast paced world. I live here, you live here and it's hard to keep up most days. But with that said; why is it that common courtesy seems to have just been thrown by the way side? Are we too busy to be polite? I doubt that. Or perhaps we are just too lazy? Or perhaps just so tired of the humanity all around us that we don't care.

I say "thank you" all the time. I was raised to be polite. You would say, please, thank you, pardon me, etc or you'd get a whack up side the head. What bugs me is when I say "Thank you" and some one says "umm hmmm". What is that? Does that mean "piss off, you're lucky I helped you"? Or does it mean you're too lazy to say "you're welcome"? I first noticed this years ago in Los Angeles whenever I said "thank you" to someone black. I know, you're all saying "that's racist", no it's not racist, it's a statement and an opinion and using the term black allows me to identify a segment of the population. I've just started noticing white people doing that "umm hmmm" thing. Clearly this problem is spreading and we need to stop it.

The origin of the whole "Thank you" and "you're welcome" back and forth began in the middle ages with "wilcume" meaning "I'm pleased you came" That morphed into when someone arrived at your home they were "well come", i.e. we're pleased you came. Somewhere in those centuries it morphed as a response to "thank you". They might not have had proper hygiene and plumbing back then but at least they were polite. And just to clarify - "No problem", "think nothing of it", and "it was nothing" are not equivalent nor appropriate responses to "thank you". The sense in you're welcome is one of "it was pleasing to me to do" whatever it was that you were thanked for.

Now is that so hard?
Today - practice your common courtesy. A warm smile, holding the door open and a "thank you" and "you're welcome" goes a long way in making it just a little easier to get through the day.

What a Week

2011-12-01T22:03:00.001-08:00

I don't even know where to start - it's Thursday and I've had a whirlwind of a week. Maybe I'll start with today. The day started after midnight with ferocious Santa Ana winds kicking up throughout our city. The banging and crashing and creaking of the house was nerve wracking culminating with a huge crash at 5am. We discovered a large 10' branch from our neighbors Redwood tree across our back door and spanning the bathroom bay window. Dena and I pushed it off but it was just complete luck that it didn't go through any of the windows. The gazebo is a total loss, I'm sorry to say. It stood no chance against 80 MPH gusts.

Today was also my first day of work in 6 weeks. After about 4 hours I hit a wall - exhausted to such a point that I could barely keep my eyes open. I trundled home on the way calling the next door neighbor asking him to get his six huge tree branches out of my back yard. Thankfully by the time I got home they were gone and during the surveying of the back yard a freaky gust picked up the gazebo canopy and lifted it 6' off the ground. I lunged across the yard grabbing one of the poles and pulling it back down to earth. After surveying the many rips I decided the best thing was to take the canopy off for now. After all this excitement it was time for a nap as we had a special event tonight.

But of course, home maintenance never ends. The solar company called, our solar panels were not reporting production. I checked the panel and it says :ground fault, check fuse". Well, how could I resist fixing that?! They told me they'd send someone out but I just had to tear the unit apart and troubleshoot it. I found the fuse and tested it with my ohm meter and my fuse tester. Both reported it blown and I told the solar company to just mail me one. They said they'd send someone out. Sure, send a man to do a woman's job that is already done....

I bought the National Geographic speaker series probably six months ago and tonight was opening night. I had to be awake so the nap was good. Tonight was Ocean Soul - opening night. It was breathtaking, eye opening, inspiring and touching. I felt alive. I felt fortunate.

What a day....

In the Hospital with Lots of Machines

2011-11-15T11:18:00.001-08:00

The green machine is the most important - that's the pain medication!

Where Are You Shopping This Year?

2011-11-13T14:35:00.001-08:00

For Christmas and/or Chanukah where will you be doing your shopping for your loved ones, co-workers and other gift giving necessities? Gift cards? Something nice from one of the big box stores? This year, consider an alternative - consider shopping at local businesses, buying from local artisans, buying only Made in America products, giving your time on behalf of a charity or giving financially to a charity. What about tickets to a play, concert or other event - this is supporting the local economy. These are all alternatives to the usual gift giving ideas and just a few I dreamed up in the writing of this blog - I'm sure you can all add your ideas to the comments page!

With the US economy stalled at the bottom of a big (OK, humongous) dip, wouldn't it be powerful if the majority of Americans shopped for locally made products? Think of the economic boost that would provide to their community and their country. Below are some ideas.

Shopping
An American product only website - http://www.proudamericantradingpost.com/
New Balance - Many of their running shoes are made in America, they also have lots of other products.
Cool Building blocks for kids
Dog and Cat products
Made in California Products
Online Store - Every item made in New England
If you just put a little effort into it, it's a piece of cake to buy your gifts, American Made.

Charities
Donate your time and volunteer - here is the Los Angeles website for all opportunities
Want to give to the needy - donate a couple chickens with Heifer International
Top 25 rated children's charities
Putting homeless to work in Hollywood -- donate time, money or clothes!
People helping people - in Los Angeles

Yes, charities are always iffy as you never really know how much money is given to their actual programs versus to their administrative costs. Well, wait - you can know - check out the Charity Navigator - this rates all charities - I find any charity with 3 stars and above is great. It's hard to find a charity with over a 70% program rate but they are out there. 3 stars is usually in the 60's.

Day Before Surgery

2011-11-10T10:56:00.001-08:00

This was a busy, busy day. My surgeon, being a Canuck himself, was very sympathetic to my plight that my immigration interview for citizenship at UCSIS in downtown LA was on October 18th, so he kindly scheduled my surgery for the 19th. Apparently, completely escaping his memory and much to my dismay, the pre-op instructions required a clear liquid only fast starting 24 hours before surgery with nothing by mouth after midnight. Also required was a laxative and an enema. My first thought was of how functional was my brain going to be at the 2:00 pm interview? My second thought was regarding my patience. With a lack of food I tend to be on quite a short fuse so I was a little nervous for the health and safety of the interviewing officer.

Dena and my Mom made Jello and made me "eat" every 2 hours or so. I actually felt pretty good going in to the federal building but as my wait time extended past an hour my energy began to wane. Finally, I was called - I was asked five questions, here's a sampling:

How many US Senators are there?
What ocean borders the East coast of the United States?
Name one state bordering Canada.
What year was the US Constitution written in? (1787....that's a trick question)

I cannot remember the 5th question but I got all 5 correct (you would hope so!) and the interview moved on. At the end I received a check box on my application that I was recommended for citizenship. Now, we wait, again - approximately 30 to 60 days for the final verdict and hopefully the swearing in date.

Now, back to the enema. I hate to even comment on this but I'm sure you're all wondering why an enema would be required. When they are working "down there" they want you clean of "debris" so that in case they nick something there will be no contamination. That fact alone makes you stick strictly to your clear liquid diet let me tell you. And have you ever tried giving yourself an enema? I hadn't even ever bought an enema at the drug store! There was no way in hell I was going to have my mother help me as I'm an adult now....it's been a long time since she looked at my behind, especially that personally. And there was no way I was going to ask Dena to give it to me. I mean we are married but let's face it, the romance really goes out of a relationship when you venture into this territory! I don't want any bodily function cleanup coming until we're well into our 80's or 90's.

So, with that said, I studied the instructions and pictures on the box and laid some towels on the floor of the bathroom and twisted and contorted myself to try to make it happen. Finally, I did get it in but I had forgotten to take the cardboard stopper off the bottle so nothing came out, so I had to uncork it and try again. By the end of all this frustrating ridiculousness I was exhausted. I decided that I'd just risk it.....and hopefully the laxative would do the job.

Post Bone Biopsy

2011-11-05T17:09:00.000-07:00

Finding out the pathology results for the bone biopsy took longer than normal due to the Jewish holiday - Rosh Shoshana. It appears that a large percentage of the professional staff at Cedars is Jewish so the lab took longer. It's also apparently a difficult test and requires great skill. When I heard that I was thinking that I would rather wait than have somebody screw it up. We didn't hear the results until the following Monday. This delay caused quite the anxiety ridden weekend I can assure you but again, I counted it as a blessing as in the recent past - all the bad news had been on Fridays.

Monday morning around 7am the doctor called and left a VM stating that all was clear and I was on for the October 19th surgery. You can imagine the gambit of questions and emotions that flooded my mind in those brief nanoseconds. First was Thank God!, the second was "well what the hell is it then?", followed by, "what do you mean we're on now? Does that mean if it was bone cancer you wouldn't have done the surgery?" I never did get to speak to the doctor about the actual results until a couple weeks later at my last pre-op check in. He said, "Oh, it was nothing, probably a thickening of the bone. We both saw it there and the radiologist is the best but we had to check it out." I was a little miffed by his sort of cavalier attitude since it was hell for us but I suppose this is routine for them.

Did I tell you what his secretary told me on two different occasions when I was looking for results on the bone biopsy? She said, You need to not think about it, just drink more.... That was a prescription I could take, so I did.

2 Week Update

2011-11-04T07:12:00.000-07:00

I interrupt this chronological history for an update. It's been two weeks since the surgery and people are continually asking me, "how are you feeling?" I know they are asking because they care and don't know what else to say, I tell people, "A little better every day" because that is true, but when I say a little better, I mean a tiny bit. It's quite amazing really how slow this recovery is. The incision still pains me and I suppose that makes sense since there are multiple sutures involved. There are dissoluble sutures inside and the staple locations for the outside skin. The 29 staples were removed last week and now I have tape there, very sticky tape with everything scabbing up nicely underneath.

I am pleased to report that I am walking fully upright most times. This is important as when you have this large of an incision (mine is ~ 9") and you are in pain you have a tendency to walk a little hunched over. I am afraid this will shorten my abdominal muscles in the healing process so I try to be very cognizant of walking perfectly straight. I made it six blocks yesterday in my walk. I'm very proud of myself. I was able to do a pretty good speed as well. I've been walking everyday making a full block circle (3 actual blocks) after about 7 - 8 days. Of course, those were very slow walks but now I'm walking more normal speed.

I need to go to the drug store and find something to take off the sticky residual glue from all these bandages that were on my stomach. No matter how much I scrub it does not come off. I need some sort of goo off for skin.

So all in all, I'm doing fairly well. I feel I'm healing a little faster than most and I am grateful there are no issues with my incision. I'm also thrilled my urinary tract infection (antibiotic resistant) that I got in the hospital is pretty much gone. I still get tired very quickly and cannot really bend over to pick things up but all this will come. I will be glad when I can stop taking all these drugs. I'm on a stool softener (let me tell you how important that one is!), a very strong antibiotic for the urinary thing, and a Hepren like shot that I have to give myself every day to make sure I don't get blood clots. I hate that shot. It burns like a son of a bitch after I inject it.

Thanks for listening.

The Bone Biopsy

2011-11-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

Finding out about the abnormality in my hip bone on September 23rd, we were unable to get a surgery appointment for the biopsy until September 27th. That's probably pretty fast but when you're stressing and reading the Internet about what an "abnormality" in that area could mean, it's an eternity. Let me just tell you now, bone cancer in the hip is not something you want to have. It's a 50% survival rate even if caught early. There is no radiation or chemotherapy treatment as those treatments are not effective on bone. The treatment is to cut it out. Yes, cut it out. I didn't tell Dena any of this as it would completely freak her out. I also made the decision not to tell anyone about the bone cancer scare. I figured, why does anyone else need to go through this torture of waiting besides us.

The day of the "surgery" and I call it that now as I now know it is surgery, we arrived at Cedar's South Tower at 6:30am. We were checked in and led through the gambit of pit stops until we reached pre-op. There it became quite real. My clothes were taken and put in one of those bags with your name on it. That freaked me out for some reason. It's like you see on shows where someone is dead and they put their clothes in that bag to give to loved ones. After being wheeled into the CT Scan area I met my two anesthesiologists, my surgical nurse and a host of others. This was surgery and don't bother counting backwards from 100 as you're already out.

I woke up and my ass was sore. It appears that while I was sleeping they flipped me over and went in via my butt. The doctor informed me they drilled three core samples across the 4 inch area for testing. Thoughts were racing through my Propofol (marketed as Diprivan) filled mind - drilled? 4 inches? What??

Now we wait.

Uterine Cancer - The Work Up

2011-10-30T13:33:00.000-07:00

We were scared - I'll admit it. My first appointment with Dr. Ron Leuchter was in the Samuel Oschin Cancer Center at Cedar's Sinai in Los Angeles. Just walking through the door was like getting slapped in the face. Don't get me wrong, it's a gorgeous facility, beautiful marble floors, fish tanks, huge easy chairs with DVD players for treatments and snacks for patients and their care givers. Regardless of how nice it is, it's still a cancer treatment center and seeing all those people there was unnerving.

After meeting with Dr. Leuchter and his team it was re-affirmed that a laparascopic hysterectomy would be done and the date would be tentatively set at October 19th, barring any issues with the pre-operative workups. The first of those workups was a CT Scan but with contrast. I didn't go with Dena to this appointment, I didn't think I needed the support. I'm Dawn, I need no one. To drink the lovely liquid I had to sit in the chemotherapy area with the big easy chairs and fish tanks. I thought I was going to break down right there. This could be me in a couple months.

Despite the awful tasting drink before the scan, the scan was fairly easy except the emotional part of waiting. The waiting for the results now begins. We wait and see if there is cancer elsewhere in my torso - aka that the uterine cancer has spread. The scan was from my shoulders to my thighs - quite thorough.

Seven days later - the results are in - all good except an abnormality in the iliac crest, I'd have to have a CT Scan guided bone biopsy. I found this news out while in Anaheim. Trying to hold it in I drove home to tell Dena. I didn't want to tell her that I could have bone cancer over the phone.

I've Decided to Blog About It

2011-10-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

On August 5^th, 2011 our world changed. I struggled with the question of whether toblog about it or not. On one hand I feltit would be cathartic to write it all down but on the other hand, writing itall down would make it real and I didn’t want it to be real.

Blogging about it or not; it is and was real. I was diagnosed with uterine cancer. Only by the thoroughness of my gynecologist andthe fact that I actually listened to what my body was telling me was thediagnosis made so early. The statisticsare clear – most uterine cancer appears in post menopausal women – 95%. It is often diagnosed with Stage 1 as theytend to catch it early. 5% of premenopausal women contract uterine cancer and it is often not found very earlyas the first symptom is spotting. Pre menopausal women tend to ignorethat. I’m not particularly happy aboutbeing relatively unique and in the small percentile. The good news is that Stage 1 uterine cancerhas a 95% survival rate.

Did you know that 1 in 3 women will have a hysterectomy intheir lives? Those are high odds.

The cure for Uterine Cancer is a complete hysterectomy. Quite drastic but true. I was referred to Dr. Leuchter, a transplanted Canadian who is one of the top gynecological cancer surgeons in California. He's also top in his field in robotic surgery - a laparoscopic hysterectomy - my goal - as it is a shorter recovery time.

So the next few blogs may be mixed up in their timeline but bear with me.

Dog on the Run

2011-10-10T11:57:00.000-07:00

I decided that since Geppetto issuch high energy, he wants to play or walk all the time, I'd take him for abike ride and give him a good run. Got the bike fixed up and away we went. Atfirst, it was really hard. He's not a good walker, he's like a zig zag walker,likes to walk all over the place and smell everything, that's not a bad thingwhen you're on foot, it's not very good on a bike.

He'smostly looking for squirrels. And sometimes he just stops mid stride anddoes a full body shake. About 1/2 block into our ride he did that shakething. I almost ran him over. Disaster averted, we triedagain. Then we kind of got in a groove, he was getting used to staying onone side of the sidewalk, me on the other, then a goddamn squirrel ran acrossthe sidewalk right in front of us. Geppetto went after it, the leashjerked the handlebars and flew out of my hand and the bike and I went flyingthe other way. As I was falling I was freaking out about Geppetto running across theroad. Fortunately, the squirrel went up the parkway tree and Geppetto wasonly interested in that. I picked myselfup and snagged the leash. Geppetto was none the worse for wear but Iwas a little flummoxed. I walked the bike home from there!

Even though we only made it about 4 blocks we were both exhausted after our ordeal. I suppose I accomplished what I set out to do - wear him out.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

2011-09-24T12:39:00.000-07:00

I've written before about the JVS WoMentoring program and that I'm in the middle of a six month mentoring stint with my mentee. She has been through quite a bit in the last 10 years and I think we've made incredible progress in getting her where she needs to be to employable.

Just over a month ago she lost her 14 month old cat due to illness/old age or something like that. Last Sunday I took her to a kitty adoption event and this gorgeous tiger stripes little kitten picked her. They say the animal picks you, not visa versa. She fell in love with the kitty and an hour and $ 50 later they were family. The organization that we adopted from is called the Kitty Bungalow and they called her Val, a snowshoed tabby. We/I was promised that even though Val was too young to be spayed, she would be taken back in a couple weeks to have the procedure done, no cost.

Since then it's been all down hill. The kitten has a cold and is violently sneezing with green stuff coming out of her eyes. The Kitty Bungalow first admitted she had a cold prior to adoption and said they would drop off her meds but now are stating she never had a cold and there are no refunds/no returns.

My mentee is not in a financial position to take the kitten to the vet and apparently I'm just a big soft marshmallow and told her to take her today and I'd meet her there. I mean, seriously, what I am supposed to do? Let the kitten go back to a trailer full of other kittens and maybe not get better? If they had medication and didn't drop it off, what kind of people are they?

So, just remember - No good deed goes unpunished.

Priceless?

2011-09-14T11:07:00.000-07:00

Craigs list price from ad - $ 75
Crate, 2 beds, food, flea stuff, toys, bowls, etc - $ 300
Grooming @ the doggie Spa - $ 55
Prescriptions for allergies, scratch testing - $ 0 - but very painful
First vet visit for full check up and de-worming - $300
Coming home to a dog completely excited to see me - Priceless

The Pecking Order

2011-09-13T10:58:00.000-07:00

The hierarchical order in our house as we each see it:

How Dawn sees things:

Dawn & Dena
Dog & Bird

How Dena sees things:

Dena
Dawn
Dog
the bird - but only because I have to feed it

How the bird sees things:

Dawn is the love of my life
Who is this damn four legged thing?
And last - the bitch that feeds me.

How the dog sees things:

Dena is a god
Dawn is almost a god but takes me for lots of walkies
What is this damn green thing that makes too much noise?

Another Day, Another Break In

2011-09-09T14:54:00.000-07:00

Woke up Sunday morning, another beautiful day in Los Angeles. Went and walked the dog and when I came back to the house the Auto Club had called saying the police had my AAA card and could I call them. Immediately I went out the my truck and found the drivers side front and rear doors unlocked and softly closed and the thing ransacked. How frustrating.

Fortunately, I had learned my lesson from the February break in and no longer keep anything of any real value in there. I do however have building access cards, building keys, a stack of frequent shopper cards, about 30 actually, but nothing too exciting. I called the police and Officer Rivera informed me that they had the suspect in custody and could I come down at 11am and meet with the detectives.

Wow, a suspect in custody? Amazing.....Officer Rivera proceeded to tell me that he had caught three BEMV (Breaking, Entering Moving vehicle) last week himself. He says they are not too bright.....that's obvious. The last guy he got was syphoning gas from a vehicle because he ran out of gas 2 blocks from his last break in.

After filing the police report and learning that detectives don't work on holidays we went home. A little while later an Officer Armstrong (yes, strange but true, same last name, no relation) called and stated that he had my property and could I describe it. After describing the stolen items he stated that him and his partner would have to go back down to the central jail and get the rest of the items. Slow day? What service this was. Around 3 that afternoon Office Armstrong and his partner showed up at the house with all my stuff.

Simply amazing. And what service. Damn shame this didn't happen in February but I am grateful nonetheless to the LAPD for their service.

More on Goal Setting

2011-08-19T11:07:00.000-07:00

I need to remind myself that goals need to be set in all areas of our lives. Family, Cultural, Health, Financial, Professional, Educational - these are just a few examples of goal areas. If we only set goals in the Financial and Professional areas of our lives then we will move toward an imbalanced life, focused on money and work. That makes us unhappy in the long run.

It is also important to state our goals in the positive rather than negative when we write them down. As I stated in the previous blog - our subconscious chews on our written goals and it always like to do as it is asked so if you write a goal in the negative you will probably get negative results. Examples of negative goals - stop eating foods containing sugar. I will lose weight. Try to quit smoking. I will not eat chocolate this week. The words "stop", "lose", "not" and "quit" are all negative words. These must be changed into positive words - e.g. I will be a size 10 by October. This goal is positive and sets a target date.

The goal - "try to quit smoking" has many issues with it. First it is negative, it is also too vague and lastly, it lacks commitment - try is not a committed word. I will have healthy lungs would be a better statement. Remember to break the major goal down into achievable steps.

Not only do goals move you forward and motivate you but they build self confidence. As you achieve each step your self confidence climbs making the next step that much easier.

"A goal properly set is halfway reached." - Abraham Lincoln

Doers versus Dreamers

2011-08-18T11:44:00.000-07:00

I am a goal oriented person. Those that know me can attest to that. I admit that I am not as good at writing down the map of my goals as I should but I do have short term, mid term and long term goals. I also am quite terrible at setting personal health and self care goals but am very good at setting goals to move my professional life forward.

I try to practice the age old goal mantra of S - M - A - R - T
S = Specific
M = Measurable
A = Attainable
R = Realistic
T = Timely

I have a to do list - I have a bunch of them actually. One at home, one at work, even one in the garage. I LOVE crossing things off my lists. But - what's on the list? Are any of the items on the list moving your goals forward or are they just fillers? Yes, of course, it's important to pay that bill, make that doctor's appointment, get that report out, etc., but you must also add to your list(s) items that move your goals forward. Each day you should make a step forward - it can be a baby step, but a step nonetheless.

All your goals should have a due date - the M in SMART. After all - a goal without a due date is just a dream. I'm not about dreams - I'm about results and the only way to get results is to set goals and break them down into steps. Some steps may require multiple baby steps to complete, but that's the purpose of writing them down. When you write a goal down not only do you make it real but you activate an area of your subconscious that will now "chew" on that goal and break it down. You need to help your subconscious by acting on those steps and again, writing those steps down.

Mentoring

2011-08-17T09:16:00.000-07:00

This summer I signed up for a mentoring program called WoMentoring. This program is sponsored and run by JVS Los Angeles. The goal is to match women to help women who are transitioning in their lives from one career to the next. A very poignant goal in this economy where many jobs and industries have disappeared and many middle aged workers are faced with long term unemployment and the scary thought of leaving behind one career and starting over again.

The program is funded by the WoMentoring Leadership Network (WLN), a group of inspiring women focused on helping other women through their philanthropy. Not only do they provide the means necessary to fund the program but they also sponsor several events throughout the year that feature powerful motivational speakers. Our last speaker was Victoria Halsey who re-energized me into reexamining and re-stating my goals. Every once in a while we lose focus and stray from our intended path. It's never a bad idea to get a kick in the ass to straighten you out.

Your first steps in joining the program remind a long term employed person such as myself the importance of keeping an up to date resume. It was an excellent exercise for me to update it as it made me reflect on past successes and skill set holes that I feel need filling. Once you've passed your background check the program matches mentors with mentees in the same job field. This summer I'm mentoring a woman who has been out of the work force for over five years and it is rewarding to see the progress she is making towards re-igniting her career.

I hope this blog reminds you that giving back to your community is important and rewarding. Rewarding in many facets as not only is it cool to see the progress in my mentee but I have met many, many successful women in quite the range of fields. I feel my personal network is stronger for it.

I've Fallen For A Mutt....

2011-08-04T18:06:00.000-07:00

Here are two pictures - one is the day after we got him. You can see he's shaggy and looks quite big. The second is today's picture after a doggie spa day of pampering and grooming. I'm not sure who this dog is we brought home from Eco Wash on Pico but apparently he is ours. Meet Geppetto.

I Want.....

2011-07-31T04:55:00.000-07:00

This is a list of things I want to buy but won't because my personal consumer confidence is not there. Perhaps if the Republicans would stop spending so much time and money trying to make President Obama look bad things would be different, but they are not. Between the Tea Party and the Republican hard liners the market will probably take a huge nose dive and panic will set in driving the American economy further into the toilet. So....why would I buy any of these things or spend any money on anything that I don't deem necessary?

Stuff I want....and not in any priority order

40" LCD for the back house so I don't get bored while on the elliptical

DVD player for above

50" LCD for the guest room so I can set up a game room

Sonos music system - allowing wireless music of different genre's/playlists in different rooms

Cricut Impressions machine with a gypsy for scrapbooking

Another pair of New Balance 965's - Made in the USA and the best runner ever

Microsoft's Kinect gaming system
An Ipad 2 because, well, it's an Ipad and it's the latest....but in all truth, I would probably just wait until September for the new iPad HD.
Hawaiian vacation....

Changed my Mind

2011-07-27T20:41:00.000-07:00

Dena had a brilliant idea - look in the scrapbooks for dates for entries/exits into the USA, after all, pictures were taken - scrapbooks made.... So we did. Between that and my passports (past and present) and I compiled quite a comprehensive list. This required a seperate piece of paper attached to the N400 form. So off my form went with my $795 check ($180 for biometrics) on June 13th.

On June 15th I received notification of receipt of the form via email. If you send your N400 with your email address to one of the three "lockbox" receiving centers in the US then you will receive update notifications via email for the duration of your application for citizenship. Seven days later I received my official snail mail letter stating that they are in receipt of the application. Then I received a notice of my fingerprint appointment for July 14th. I'm so excited. Ironically on the 13th I was pulled in to the Customs & Border Patrol office in International Falls, MN for a document check. Where is International Falls you ask? Just see the next blog post with the picture, its on the Canadian/US border to the East of the purple line. They took my picture and my fingerprints....then on the 14th, again. You just have to shrug and laugh.

Freedom of Information Act

2011-07-26T15:15:00.000-07:00

I've been dragging my feet in filing my American citizenship for the sole reason that one question is incredibly difficult to answer on the form. The question is - "since you received your permanent residence card, itemize your travel outside the Unitied States". This section of the form included exit and re-entry dates, where and duration. I would think with the exit and re-entry dates you could figure out the duration without me having to fill it in, but hey, it's the government so ours not to question why.

I received my permanent resident alien card (you didn't know I was an alien did you) in December of 2001. I was thrilled. Little did I know that I should have been keeping track of every time I left the country? Throughout the past 10 years I've gone in and out countless times sometimes more than once a day. This was simply a matter of geography as most of my relatives live just over the border from the US (see map insert).

As you can see by the picture the shortest path from Winnipeg (Canada) to my Gramma's house in the little rural hamlet of Morson, NW Ontario is through an area close to the NorthWest Angle - the US. Don't get me started on this geographic abomination....

So how was I to determine the ins and outs to/from the US? After contacting United Airlines whom I was a high status frequent flyer for many years and fruitlessly asking for my statistics an epiphany hit me - The Freedom of Information Act would save me! Herein called the FOIA. I wrote away and filed a request - 2 months later I received a note back that it was filed incorrectly. Now since the form was simple and my request straightforward I couldn't figure out how I screwed it up. I called them. That was a waste of time. You get a different group that basically tells you that your only contact with the FOIA people is by mail or email. Naturally I had emailed them first. After about a week of frustration I received an email from someone stating that they had re-submitted my request and here was the new tracking number. Two months later I received an envelope in the mail. I was so excited - finally! The envelope contained one completely illegible copy of my passport (I think). Useless. This all was somewhere around October 2010.

Last week I received a CD in the mail from the FOIA. Shocked I ripped it open and popped it in to the drive only to discover 2 documents on it. One from the FOIA people telling me that they forwarded my request to Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and the other from CBP stating that they felt the request was answered with the original response from FOIA. Confused and hopeless I surrendered. Fine, I'll just renew my green card.

How Does Your Garden Grow - Part 2

2011-07-02T13:47:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of one my watermelon radishes. Quite pretty inside but incredibly spicy on the finish. I had no idea a radish could hold such a wallop.

So I am a complete idiot - I am growing them in the beginning of the heat of summer here. I've been wondering why my second batch went "woody" very quickly. "woody" is a term I just learned from my mom that means the radish is hard inside and tastes like wood. I've just discovered in researching for this blog that these are a winter radish that is normally planted in the fall. So....I guess out they come. I suppose I should research what grows well in hot summer besides tomatoes!

How Does Your Garden Grow - Part 1

2011-07-01T11:39:00.000-07:00

I have a number of cucumber plants growing in my garden - three lemon cucumbers, a couple bush cucumbers and a couple english cucumbers. Each variety is having its success stories and its failures. I have one particular english cucumber plant that has been just taking over one of my entire plot areas. I've had to put 3 tomatoe cages up for it to climb on. It's quite bushy and since there are a bunch of flowers on it I hadn't really done any peaking. I did just the other day and Oh my - those are monstrous english cucumbers! Who knew these were hiding under here! They are about 14" long now. I'm not sure when they are supposed to be ready.

Century Plant - Update

2011-06-06T07:27:00.000-07:00

As you can see it's quite tall. I went out and measured it this morning - just over 10' tall, straight as an arrow. The jacaranda tree is in total bloom now as well.

The Anatomy of Post Tech Bubble Stock Options

2011-06-04T12:37:00.000-07:00

Live and learn people. My experience with stock options and employee stock purchase programs within tech companies has not been good. Let me recount to you the tale of my most recent experience. I won't mention the companies name as web crawlers will bring it to their attention that I wrote about them but those of you who know me know which company I'm speaking of.

Over the years of working for said company I had been granted countless stock options, 10's of 1000's actually. Throughout the course of said employment those stock options took on many strange forms with a 6 to 1 trade in, a revaluation program and several others - all which I can assure you were of no benefit to the actual employee. As a few examples I had about 10,000 options which were about to vest @ $1.00 per share and they were re-valued down to 1,500 valued at $3.50 per share. I know I'm not a math genius but it's pretty easy to see that I was screwed. The vesting date was also changed - extended outward. The reasoning is that the company was going to go public soon and in order to keep the company value the number of outstanding shares had to be decreased. (4 years later the company still had not gone public) Shortly thereafter I was granted another large set of options @ $3.50 per share with a new four year vesting program. Bend over baby.....they are driving.

In order to raise money for G-D knows what as I cannot remember they announced an employee stock purchase program. These were for "common" stocks at you could purchase through payroll contributions @ $2.58 per share. For those of you not comfortable with stock terms, common stock is the lowliest; aka for the little guys, not the C level execs, or the board of director level people.

Shortly before the company went public in 2010 they sent a letter to all common stock shareholders that they were doing a reverse stock split of 1 to 18. Yes, I said reverse....and 1 to 18, not 18 to 1. I had 656 shares from the employee purchase, thank goodness I didn't buy anymore, and I magically ended up with 44 shares. The company went public at an IPO price of $14 per share. The stock fell in the first second to $12.75 - an indicator that it IPO'd at too high of a price. That was in April 2010 - today the stock is worth $5.01. A sad showing.

The reason for this blog post? My broker decided to sell my whopping 44 shares on May 31st at $5.01. I suppose he figured it was a losing proposition. To tell you the truth - in May of 2010 when I walked in the SMB offices with my actual stock certificates I was proud to deposit them. I was still hopeful that it was a great company with a great product and management would pull their heads out of their ass and make some money. That's embarrassing to write frankly.... So for that $1,693.00 I paid for 656 shares I ended up with 44 shares sold at a value of $195.95. The only up side of this is that I can take a loss on my 2011 taxes....and thank goodness I never actually purchased any of the stock options!

Ear Stretching

2011-06-03T13:39:00.000-07:00

What is with those ridiculous looking ear plug things that make the lobes of your ears get bigger? The technique is called "stretching" or "gauging". I think it's ridiculous in the modern Western world. How in the world is this guy going to get a job?

Ear stretching has been practiced by people all over the world from ancient times. Bone , Horn , Wood and Stone were generally carved for ear stretching, but other organic materials that had the right shape naturally, from shells to teeth and claws, were also used.

Mummified bodies with stretched earlobes have been discovered, including the oldest mummified body discovered to date, that of

Ötzi the Iceman, (3300BC) which was found in an Italian glacier. This mummy had a stretch of somewhere between 7 - 11mm (1 to 000 gauge) in diameter. He also had tattoos. Notice the picture to the right - see how practical this is. The guy has a cup wherever he goes....very convenient. Does this mean that because people did it 1000's of years ago that we still need to do it? Uh, no....

In case you were curious as to how it's done = Stretching is usually done in small increments to minimize the potential for damaging the healed fistula or creating scar tissue. Normally you start with your typical 20 AWG piercing and go up (which is gauge or AWG sizes is actually reverse), so 18AWG is the next size up. If you stretch like this apparently you can go back when you realize how stupid you look and you can't get a job. The elasticity of your skin will allow it to spring back, not in a day though. It is also said that the 0 AWG (0.4 inches) is the point of no return. So if you get your hole big enough for a 0 gauge ring then you're stuck with that forever. Nice.

Our Birdie.....Picasso

2011-06-01T07:55:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of Picasso just hanging out with Dena in the front yard on the gate. He's pretty proud of himself as you can see. Typical male.... He is a white fronted Amazon (also known as spectacled amazon for obvious reasons) - the smallest of the Amazon parrots.

Century Plant Update

2011-05-30T07:53:00.001-07:00

It's starting to bloom up top now. As you can see it's quite tall. Taller than our cactus that is beside it to be sure. Remember, Just click on the image to make it bigger. This picture was taken in the early morning as you can see by the light - about 6:30am

Century Plant Update

2011-05-15T10:33:00.000-07:00

So much for my promise of photographing it every day.....but I suppose this is a little more dramatic. We went out last night and we both swore when we came home a few hours later that it had grown 6" since. In the wee hours it also rained so G-D only knows what it's going to do now. As you can see it is quite a bit taller in the 7 days since the last shot. I tried to take the picture from the exact same spot.

The Century Plant is at it Again!

2011-05-08T07:37:00.000-07:00

Our black tipped agave is at it again. Another one of the plants is flowering. This is quite an amazing process as it grows by leaps every day. I usually measure it in feet, not inches. So I'm going to catalog this one as well and take a picture of it every day or two from the exact same spot and see how big it gets. I think I tried this last time but had to move back after it got too high. We shall see.

Ballona Wetlands and Earth Day 2011

2011-04-25T10:06:00.000-07:00

I've never particpated in Earth Day before but this year I came up with a challenge idea for our wellness program at work that was to do clean up at the Ballona Wetlands. For those of you who don't know the Ballona Wetlands are the last 100 acres of wetlands in the greater Los Angeles area. They are located here. Click on any picture to make it larger.

They are currently in a legal battle to save it from the Playa Vista 2 development project which includes a shopping center and 2,600 homes. More concrete, less greenspace, more traffic, just what Los Angeles needs.

We started with a brief talk on conservation, recycling, history of the wetlands and the importance of it continuing to exist. It was quite interesting and we were reminded of the Katrina disaster and how preserving the wetlands in Louisiana could have saved them. Wetlands absorbs incoming sea water from tides and out going flood waters. They act like a sponge and clean the water passing through them. Wetlands are also an important bird and animal habitat.

After our chat we continued to our work site, for us this involved removing Acacia trees, an invasive non-native plant species from Africa. Very hard work pushing a wheelbarrow through sand and lopping off and hand sawing branches. But well worth it.

A few Grand Canyon Pictures

2011-04-14T09:05:00.000-07:00

The elk were so close I had to use a wide angle lens and they just walked down the path like we weren't there, so we moved or else. These are all mom's pictures. Yes, we are literally sitting on the edge. It took a lot to get mom out there. It was a big rock...lots of room. Click each picture to make them bigger.

Road Trip Day 3 - Eastern side of the park

2011-04-13T09:10:00.001-07:00

Today we drove east on desert view road with our first stop at the Watchtower - a 70' tower built out of stone under the watchful eye of Mary Colter. The tower is pretty cool and mimics towers found throughout the southwest thought to be used for defense and food storage. This one was just a convenient stop for Grand Canyon visitors in 1932. After our climb to the top (7,522 feet above sea level) and some serious gift shop shopping we drove back west.

As we made our way the 25 miles back to the village center we stopped along the way visiting an Indian museum, some ruins, and numerous viewpoints. You certainly would never get tired of looking at the Grand Canyon in my opinion whatever the view.

We hurried up, ate lunch and ran off to our 2:00 pm ranger nature hike. We walked with the ranger for about 3/4 of a mile and then went off for another mile or two with the canyon in view all the time. What a way to hike.

Dinner? Off to the El Tovar lodge for a swanky meal. Mom and were fortunate enough by luck I suppose to get a table overlooking the rim. WOW!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The canyon

2011-04-12T17:22:00.001-07:00

View from the restaurant

2011-04-12T17:20:00.001-07:00

Note the canyon in the background

Road Trip Day 2 - continued

2011-04-12T09:45:00.001-07:00

After checking in to our room we had 15 minutes of downtime before it was off to catch the shuttle bus for Hopi Point. This is the most popular place to view the sunset. I figured, why not go to the most popular spot even though I hate crowds. on the way west we were compelled to jump off before our stop to view a herd of elk. They were just off the road, about nine of them, all females. As we moved toward this viewpoint we discovered two right in the trees beside us, so close that I had to use a wide angle to get one in. Beautiful animals.

Back on the shuttle and on to Hopi point. Mom and I supped on a rock 2' from the rim with the expanse of the canyon and the cathedrals of the mountains as a view. After supper we staked out our camera spots and waited for an hour and a half. Those of you that know me know that I am not a patient person but with scenery like this the time flew.

We were not disappointed, ten minutes before sunset the colors changed all through the canyon to pinks, oranges and shadows. It was awesome and frankly words cannot describe it. Shortly it became too dark to shoot the canyon without a tripod so we turned to the actual sunset. With the poofy clouds in front of the sun and the rays shining through it was magnificent.

Sunset over we took our frozen bodies (it was sooooo cold!) and headed into the village for a ranger talk on ravens. There are a lot of ravens here and the ranger told stories of how intelligent they are and how well they adapt, unlike the condor which is having trouble adapting and will probably always need protection.

Another incredible day!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Sunset

Road Trip - Day 2 - THE Grand Canyon

2011-04-11T15:23:00.000-07:00

Mom and I left Kingman this morning and drove a short three hours to the south rim grand canyon national park. We promptly got a little lost in the park and ended up at Mather Point at the rim. WOW! It makes the west canyon look puny. The vastness of it is mind boggling. We still haven't seen the Colorado river from here yet because we haven't gone to the right view point.

We are currently in the Yavapai cafeteria waiting for our room to be ready. 20 minutes. We have an ambitious evening planned with grabbing a to go sandwich and taking a shuttle then hiking to the furthest vista point for the sunset. We're both a little tired already of the hoards of asian tourists, so a little solitude would be welcome.

Someone told me last week that one day in the park is plenty. I cannot fathom that. There is so much to do and so many things to see. I suppose if you are of the mind that if you've seen one canyon you've seen it all....I am not. More later.

Location:South rim

Day 1 on our road trip

2011-04-11T08:42:00.001-07:00

Today was an amazing day. Starting early we drove across the great state of California through the high desert and the lava fields crossing into Arizona. Then we headed north to the western rim of the grand canyon. The skywalk is not an easy place to get to - one lane highways and then 21 miles of dirt, washboard roads. As we hit the dirt the landscape really changed with forests of Joshua trees and free range cattle accompanying us through the dust.

As we turned each corner huge mesas and large snow covered mountains greeted us. Finally that final turn and mom and I both gasped. There it was - words cannot describe the vastness of the expanse of canyons before us. We were still too far away to see the edge and bottom but our excitement was palpable.

After the formalities we boarded our bus for the skywalk. There are no rails or ropes at the edge so you can get as close as you dare. Mom kept freaking out that I was too close. We took lots of pictures and oohed and awed at the vastness and the 4000' sheer drop. I could sit on the edge and gaze forever.

Our time came for the skywalk - we donned our protective booties and ventured out onto the glass. We loved it. We just couldn't look down and walk at the same time, it made both of us queezy but we could stand still and look down. At one point we walked from the end back out as the cliff dropped away and you feel a whoosh as your subconscious freaks out that you are falling. What a great time.

Then it was off to Eagle point for a little hike, some rock climbing and more pictures. What a day!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Western Arizona

Day 8

2011-03-16T09:40:00.000-07:00

I open the door and there you are, gazing back at me with the same longing I have. Slowly I wrap my hand around you and feel your icy cold body. It shocks me but invigorates me just the same. I nestle my thumb under your tab and firmly yet gently pop your top. The snap, rip, pop is such a distinct sound I smile. Then I feel it, those little bubbles tickling my wrist. As I lift you to my mouth I feel such a rush of anticipation. You hit my tongue and I close my eyes in Ecstasy.
I gulp you in, your bubbles almost burning my mouth. Ahhhh, sweet heaven.

I quit caffeinated soda pop on Monday March 7th - today is day 8

Pacioretty and Chara - March 8th, 2011 Hit

2011-03-11T23:42:00.000-08:00

It's not often that I write to an organization and complain about something someone said, did or what have you. It has to be pretty heinous for it raise that kind of ire in me especially in today's violence numbed society but this one really pissed me off. So much so that I wrote Sportsnet about it. On March 8th in Montreal there was a violent hit on one of the players (Pacioretty) by a Boston defenseman (Chara). Chara basically rammed Pacioretty into the glass partition otherwise known as the turnbuckle. His neck is broken.

I am appalled at Spector's comments regarding the March 8th hit on the Hab's player, see below. I bet Mark believes that a woman asks to be raped too. This is just the kind of Neanderthal behavior that turns women off to Sportsnet.

Below is the excerpt from Spector's commentary:

Mark Spector of Sportsnet wrote about the hazards of that part of the rink … but felt it was Pacioretty that shared the personal responsibility for being there:

In Pacioretty's case, the smaller Canadiens forward had a running grudge going with Chara. He knew it was there, after opening the feud with an ill-advised shove after his overtime winner by Montreal on Jan. 8. Pacioretty never backed down from Chara, yapping and sparring with the giant Bruins d-man over the course of the next two games.

Now Pacioretty is coming down the wing. The score is 4-0 Montreal, with seconds left in Period 2. He knows Chara wants to crank him. He can see the partition coming.

Pacioretty had every reason to believe he was entering a very dangerous spot, yet he went in there like a defenceman turning his back to the ice, counting on the rulebook to protect him.

Give me a fucking break. You cannot tell me that this 22 year old young gun of Montreal's thought that by squeezing by Chara on the boards when the puck was no where near him that he was taking his livelihood and possibly his life in his own hands. He'll be lucky if he ever gets on skates again. Spector, you are the biggest arse in Canada, bar none.

Where I originally read Spector's comments --> here

If you feel that you are offended, here is Sportnet's phone # --> 888-451-6363

Here is where you can email them --> here

Here's Chara's apology....if you can call it that.

10 Reasons for Not Being in Information Technology

2011-03-05T07:12:00.000-08:00

Some of this was shamelessly stolen from a TechRepublic Blog with my own twist but it is nonetheless poignant.

1: Stress

It is very stressful job. No one calls you to tell you everything is wonderful, they only call you when something doesn't work and usually it's an emergency (perceived or real). The farther up the food chain in IT you go the more critical and huge the emergency is. Also adding to the stress is solving your friends/relatives/neighbors computer issues. If you recommend, fix, or even touch any of their computer/audio/video items then you are forever 100% responsible for them.

2: Hours

If you want a Monday through Friday, 9-to-5 job, look elsewhere — IT is a job you carry around with you 24/7. Again, the farther up the food chain you go the more this becomes a reality. One doesn't do major upgrades during the day, forget that, they are only done at night when no one else needs the network. And the people who aren’t your clients or users (friends and family, for example) will want to take advantage of your knowledge and keep their computers running smoothly for free, when you get home at night. Also, you must keep abreast of all the latest technology so you can keep your job and your friends happy - read and study at night, in your spare time.

3: Getting paid

If you are an independent contractor, one of the most stressful issues you face is getting paid. I can’t tell you how many consultants I know who have had to make threats or use an attorney to get paid. And when you’re freelancing, if they don’t pay you, you don’t eat. If you're not independant you always feel you're underpaid because of item 2.

4: People
(in general)This one I hate to mention. That is not to say that people, in general, are bad. It’s just that when you have your IT hat on, people seem to look at you in a different light. You are both savior and sinner in one stressed-out package.

5: The chain of command
Let’s face it. Not many higher-ups understand your job. They think you should be able to get everything done on a shoestring budget, with no help, and you should treat end users as if they were better humans than yourself. And to make matters worse, the higher-ups want you to magically make those PCs last for more than a decade. This misunderstanding of both duty and technology does one thing: It makes your job impossible. Not all companies are created equal of course, my current one actually is not like this at all. The one before that was the epitome of it.

6: Technology
Have you ever had those days when it seems like the the technology GODs hate you? I have those days more often than not. There are the occasional days when you are the winner but especially in the Windows and Microsoft world the losers far outweigh the the winning days. There are days when even an entire bottle of wine cannot erase the pain of having a piece of silicon, sodder and plastic beat you.

7: Competition
One thing you can count on — there will always be someone better than you, especially in the IT industry and especially if you are one of the few women. The longer you remain in IT the more it becomes apparent that it's a young person's game. Being mentally and physically agile to work long hours, keep sharp, take classes on weekends, read technical manuals, keep abreast of everything new, renew your certifications is exhausting. Not that us older people can't hang as frankly, experience accounts for a lot, but we tend to have a different take on life, like family, downtime, relaxing..... You know, having a life. Another thing is the constant oneupmanship. IT people, especially men, just need to be right. After awhile I just get tired of putting them in their place and showing them they aren't - I am..... Yes - competition, it is as fierce in IT as it is in basketball and the egos are about as big.

8: The cloud
Every time I get an email about some cloud seminar or read an article about how putting software, hardware, data and everything else into the cloud is the way to go and the demise of the American IT worker I just want to scream. Part of me is wondering what I'm missing and what I don't know, part of me is wondering if I should be in the cloud and if the cloud is safe and the other part of me is laughing as it's all in the bloody cloud already. I'd like to pound the marketing idiot who dreamed up the catch phrase "the cloud". From techrepublic, "Clients and end users want the cloud to be some magical experience that will make all their work easier, better, and faster. If only they knew the truth."

9: Lack of standards
There are none, let's face it. We have the IETF, the IEEE, the RFC's, the OSI model, the ISO standards and on and on it goes. But still - their are mountains of proprietary hardware/software vendors that want to keep their product closed up and non-compliant, otherwise, how would they differentiate themselves and make money? This means that I need to know way too much information.....and run in to compatibility issues at every turn.

10: Respect
The general public has a bad taste in its mouth for IT professionals. Why? Many reasons, consumers have been burned by the Geek Squad, home users cannot figure out why they have to pay for Microsoft Office every couple years, call centers in India, you name it, IT companies who don't deliver on promises or companies that think they were promised one thing and got something different.... Oh sure, when you walk in the door you are their best friend but the moment their issues is resolved and they get the bill they wonder why it costs so much. Jeesh, I don't know - it if was easy then why didn't you do it? And why is it my fault that you should buy a new computer every couple years? And why is it my fault that your five year old computer is running slow?

Farmville on the Bleeding Edge?

2011-03-01T10:06:00.000-08:00

Have you ever played Farmville on Facebook? Or Frontierville? Or Mafia Wars? These type of games require the game hoster to capture and relate everyone's actions in the game to each others.

This produces a database approaching a petabyte in size. How much is a petabyte? One petabyte is equal to 13.3 years of Hi Def video or 20 million 4 drawer file cabinets filled with single spaced pieces of paper. One petabyte = 1000 terabytes. Basically, more than you can imagine.

Some background on Zynga, the creator of Farmville, Mafia Wars and a few other very successful facebook games. Zynga hosts 250 million active visitors a month to it's games. How in the world does Zynga make money you ask? Well, let's take Farmville for example. There are about 31 million players a day on Farmville. Zynga sells in game coins - these coins allow players to differentiate their farms from the masses with special items, flamingo-shaped topiaries are especially popular. These coins are sold either direcly online through the game (just give me your visa card or Paypal account), or via game cards (available all over including even grocery stores). 7-11 even had a promotion for awhile on their slurpee cups. Redeem the sticker on the cup for special items. You can imagine how much revenue Zynga made just from the royalties on the cup!

I know - you're asking yourself, seriously, do people really pay for in game virtual items? Yes, they do. This has been going on for years now. I remember paying about $20 on ebay for a set of very cool virtual armor for a good friends birthday for her to use in the online role playing game, Asheron's Call. Back to Farmville - let's say that Zynga manages to get a penny a day from those 31 million people. 3.65 x 31 million people = $113 million a year. That's a lot of revenue. Multiply that by the number of games they have and they are making some cash.

These games are using some very state of the art technology for managing all that data. Farmville uses a new data management system based on open source called CouchOne. Stupid name..... So yes, Zynga and other game makers have overhead. Servers, datacenter costs, maintenance, large Internet pipe charges, and a team of designers to keep their cash cows (pun intended) interested in the game by constantly updating the game with new challenges, items, and what have you.

Solar Update

2011-03-01T09:03:00.000-08:00

It's weird I know, but I like going into my backyard and watching my electric meter run backwards. I get such satisfaction out of it. We have yet to figure out if our electric bill has gone down because the DWP (Los Angeles Department of Water and Power) didn't officially put the meter on the grid until early January and they bill in 2 month increments so my satisfaction could be misplaced. You'll note that I was feeding electricity back in to DWP's grid and they were getting it for free.... Here is a picture of our energy production for the month of February. Keep in mind, February is a short month and it rained quite a bit during that time. Interesting to note that even while cloudy we are generating electricity.

Anatomy of Today's Job Market

2011-02-25T15:27:00.000-08:00

Dena started work this past Tuesday for the first time in 18 months. Thankfully, due to the Obama and democratic moves to extend COBRA supplemental coverage (health care for the unemployed) and extend unemployment benefits for 99 weeks we managed to survive this relatively unscathed. Don't get me wrong. It wasn't without hardship, adjustments and anxiety but we didn't lose our house, or our car and the only thing we gained was a stronger relationship.

How did she get this new job? Dena applied for jobs every day. She would sit on the computer and search, sometimes even applying for jobs that pop up Friday nights and Saturday mornings. Not sure who posts jobs then but ? At one point she even applied for a Starbucks store manager. She was over qualified and probably too old, but of course, they cannot say that.

Finally in January of 2011 something happened. Not sure if the economy is really starting to turn the corner or if all the planets started to align but really good, interesting jobs in her field started to pop up on a daily basis. She applied and actually got calls back. In the previous 17 months she had a total of 3 interviews. In the first two weeks of January she had had ten. At the beginning of February she was past the first interview stage of three good looking jobs. For those of you who haven't had to hunt lately, the first stage is a phone interview. I suppose you could say the first stage is actually getting an email or phone call acknowledging that you exist, but I digress.

She then proceeded over the next three weeks to move through interviews two, three and four. These were all face to face. Only the final contestant went to interview four. The first two ended at interview three and haven't been heard from since. Both of those interviews had great vibes and no reason not to get an offer or some kind of courtesy call. I think it's unprofessional but it's not uncommon.

On January 22nd she started with contestant number three. We couldn't be happier.

The Beauty of Living in Los Angeles

2011-02-24T15:23:00.000-08:00

5am - KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK POUND POUND POUND
more knocking, more pounding on our front door.
We run to the front door, Dena is looking out the curtain screaming, what is it? What is it?
She thought our house was on fire, again.
Our neighbor Joe is standing outside saying that someone has broken into my truck. He's spotted the guy and spews out a license plate number. I dash into the kitchen for a piece of paper while Joe continues to spew the license plate #
5:10 am - call 911, give dispatcher plate #
5:11 am - dispatcher calls back, that plate # is a neighbor
5:12 am - another moment of panic.....
5:20 am - one cop car arrives As I proceed to be interviewed, a report taken, Joe is interviewed, another report taken
5:35 am - 3 more cop cars arrive
5:45 am - 6 cops walk across the street and bang on another neighbors door. The owner of the reported plate. Sleepy, frightened neighbor walks out of house to 4 cop cars with flashing lights.
Here's the full story - Joe hears breaking glass. Peers out his window and sees a 6' black guy grabbing stuff out of my truck and then using a flashlight to look into other vehicles on the street. Joe comes out of house and yells. Guy drives away in silver Honda Accord with the lights off.
Why did the cops bang on the other neighbor's door? It turns out that the bad guy switched plates from his stolen Honda to this neighbors Honda.He actually had the time to take the plates off the stolen car, unscrew the neighbors plates, screw on the stolen plates and then rob me.
Then the pounding started....and you're up to date. The guy got my tool bag, about $2,000 worth of tools.

6:30 am - Another neighbor comes out of her house to drive her kid to school and is met by a cop car in her driveway.
6:35 am - finally the cops drive away, after I've given my solar panel spiel, lent them a screwdriver and got my report #.

Unbelievable.

Duct Tape Man

2011-02-06T07:37:00.000-08:00

At least I think it's a guy....not too sure. This guy was walking back and forth down the street while I was pumping gas. As you can see he's taped all of his pant rips with duct tape and he's made himself shoe soles out of duct tape as well. It is a phenomenally versatile tape isn't it. He made a dragging kind of sound not unlike a zombie. I've been watching a lot of undead shows lately. Of course, this is quite sad, I'm sure the guy is not quite all there but it was quite a sight none the less.

Our First Sushi Class

2011-02-05T08:02:00.000-08:00

Castle

2011-02-03T09:50:00.000-08:00

Do you watch that ABC show Castle? I really like it as it's witty and there is good chemistry between Castle (Nathan Fillion) and Beckett (Stana Katic). Kind of funny that both these actors are Canadians....We are taking over North America, one TV show at a time. They do a tremendous amount of filming on our little dead end section of Hope Street in downtown Los Angeles. So much so that there are probably fewer days of no filming than there are the opposite. Sometimes it's very irritating and sometimes it's fascinating. This was one of those fascinating days. Here are pictures of Beckett consulting with the director on a scene and of Castle shooting the breeze with some crew as obviously he is not in the scene.

Remember to click on any picture to enlarge it.

A Wasted Conversation

2011-01-25T07:29:00.000-08:00

I was at a banquet last night regarding some new treatments for alzheimer's. I thought you would find this conversation interesting. It was between a couple seated beside me that I did not know.

Wife: Where do you work?
Me: I work for a construction company
wife: How's business?
Me: Not very good in the private sector as you can imagine, but the federal government and schools have lots of money
Wife: schools?
Me: yes, there is a big push to upgrade, renovate and rebuild aging schools @ LAUSD and colleges
Wife: Oh the poor children they always get short changed, the money should be spent teaching them.
Me: Why do you say that? They are replacing these portable classrooms that have been there from the 1940's and 50's, they need asbestos remediation and are actually sinking into the ground.
Wife: oh yes, I was a teacher and taught for years in a portable.
Husband: I almost bought her a portable air conditioner for her classroom.
Wife: It was so hot in there for months on end, in the low 100's. The kids were just limp. I'd take them outside under a tree to teach.
Me: I would imagine that it would be difficult to learn if you were just trying to stop yourself from passing out from heat.

At this point we were thankfully interrupted. A good thing as since we just went in a big circle I would have had to whack her on the side of the head. Did I convince her that her initial opinion was wrong or was I just wasting my breath?

Southwest Airlines

2011-01-18T14:19:00.000-08:00

In the beginning of Southwest's early expansion days in the 1990's and early 2000's I heard of this upstart airline with odd and what I felt were Neanderthal practices. I was a seasoned business traveller and never would I submit to the cattle call that was Southwest. I loved my assigned seating, my always reserved aisle seat, my first class upgrades, my frequent flier mile Hawaii trips and my beautiful Gold airline status card. I was a veteran and only families, cheapie corporate travellers and Vegas gamblers flew Southwest.

Fast forward to the last 5 years or so and my eyes have been opened. I now prefer Southwest on short hops. I'm not sure I would fly them across country as they often stop once or twice but I now always look. I love it when they sing or joke when we land and the flight attendants always make things a little better. I can handle the cattle call seating as now you get a number, line up in numerical order and there is no front stage like rush through the gate. You can have 10 bags of peanuts if you want and the flight attendants aren't surly like several other airlines that will remain nameless.

I suppose this last Southwest event has just solidified their corporate philosophy and how it works. I'm sure you've all heard of this as it's now a viral blog. The story is where a man was trying to get from one place to another to see his grandson before he was pulled off of life support. He was delayed by baggage, the TSA and every other manner of airport stresses that we all incur every time. Somehow, Southwest became aware of his plight, whether it was from the sobbing phone agent he booked through or from his previous flight or some other means, his connecting flight was held at the gate by the pilot and probably the gate agent as well for 12 minutes while he ran the gauntlet of airport security. I can tell you right now, no other airline in the US would have the forethought, balls and communication it must have required between their staff for that kind of information to move from one plane, to somewhere else to ticket agent to gate to pilot to affect this miracle.

The full story is here

The Dentist.....

2011-01-10T16:34:00.000-08:00

I am thrilled to report that I'm done at the dentist! Am I done because my "treatment plan" is fully done? No way, I'm done because I cannot take anymore! This last tooth was the last straw. Just after Christmas I went in to get one last tooth finalized to take advantage of insurance - tooth #30 - back right molar.

The problem was the pain. I don't know if the dentist just couldn't get the area numb or if the root/nerve is super sensitive or if it's a paper thickness away from seeing my tongue. Regardless, every step of the way was a new experience in pain. Today was the last piece which is supposed to be easy, they test fit it, apply cement, then stick it in there. When she started the cement application I almost hit her. The cement was cold! Thank goodness I stopped myself - there I was, fist raised just above my chest, my eyes wide with terror and her eyes wide with surprise. As you can imagine the rest of the cement application came with her assistant guarding my left side and me gripping the armrests in a white knuckled death hold.

The picture to the right is the prep work (and is really my tooth, they were nice enough to email me the pic) - the metal filling is removed and is waiting for it's new inlay. It's like a puzzle piece and fits in nicely. I think it is much better than a crown because more of the tooth structure is left. I could never have lived through a crown prep. I barely made it through the inlay prep.

Perhaps we humans were not meant to outlive our teeth? Our perhaps we should just stop eating sugar.

2011 Begins

2011-01-06T11:56:00.001-08:00

As I drove to work my first day back of 2011 (Monday) this thought hit me like a ton of bricks. If I could survive the last 30 days then I can do anything. I felt strong, uplifted and positive. Perhaps this is a new leaf for me in 2011. Perhaps.

The first week of 2011 has brought me around to a different way of thinking. I feel like there is so much I want to do in my life and that I have the strength to do it. I've started researching college courses on some new technologies that I want/need to learn and I've also signed up to be a LifeWorks mentor at the Gay/Lesbian center. It is time to start living my life the way I want to live it. So get out of my way because here I come!

Repeat after me:
I am strong
I am invincible
I am woman! oh, wait, that's a song...

2010 Is Over...

2010-12-31T19:24:00.000-08:00

**** Beware ****
**** This is not a fun blog ****

As 2010 nears to a close one cannot help but reflect on the year and take its measure. I for one will be glad to see this year end. I honestly feel that it has been one of the toughest years in recent memory. With Dena being out of work for the entire year and the construction business in the dumps uncertainty was behind every door and around every corner.

This was my most expensive medical year in dollars, time, productivity and mental toughness. Between my foot ailments, tension headaches, migraines and getting cold after cold after cold, I just never seemed to be myself. I struggled with the impotency of all that illness and spent a lot of time convincing myself to just keep marching step after step. It's the stress that's been weighing me down all year and slowly eating away at my health.

On top of all of that half of November and all of December was consumed with the logistics and stress of getting Dena's parents moved down from Cambria to Los Angeles. This prevented us from going home to Edmonton for Christmas and this hit me harder than I could have imagined. I struggled with it almost every day in December. Apparently I've become a big softy and family gal in my middle age.... As with all things, it eventually has worked itself out, almost, but not without some much loss of sleep and a trip to the emergency room to boot.

With that said I just kept keeping on with the hope that there would be a light at the end of the tunnel but the tunnel just kept getting longer. As I've said before, we humans have the unique ability to hope and hope has been what's keeping me alive. As the year drew to a close something happened just before Christmas. And this is going to sound corny but it's true. I got a feeling that good things were going to happen to me in 2011 and funny thing, my mom said the same thing to me. Low and behold something good happened the next day. I'm actually looking forward to 2011!

Finished Solar Panels on Roof

2010-12-28T09:25:00.000-08:00

I hadn't gotten around to posting these but so many people are asking, here they are.

Happy Birthday to Me

2010-12-26T18:37:00.000-08:00

Thanks to my wonderful family who all chipped in for a BIG Apple gift card for my birthday that allowed me to get my iPad today. In the true spirit of "if it's easy, it's not worth having" the iPad purchased turned into a one hour ordeal. There gift card system was down and popped up just as I was making my purchase and the salesman swiped the gift card and a visa gift card I had but couldn't swipe my Visa for the rest, so he cancelled the transaction but before he could do that the gift card system went down again. So now I had two gift cards with nothing on them. I kept my cool but inside I was freaking out. They were very nice at the El Paseo Valley Apple store and after it was all said and done they gave me a free iPad case (a $40 value).

Thanks to my exceptional girlfriend who continues to make every single one of my birthday's special and a special hug and kiss to my desert friends who are the best hosts on this planet.

Christmas Memories

2010-12-24T10:49:00.000-08:00

I remember when I was a kid I would prepare diligently for Christmas. I suppose that should have been indicative of how I am as an adult.... I would take the big Sears Christmas Wish Book catalog and pour over the toy section for days marking the five things I wanted the most. I think I figured five was a reasonable number given things being out of stock and all that. Did you know that you can still get a Sears Wish Book in the mail? I had no idea until I started writing this blog. I just assumed it went the way of everything else - online. See the link above to order yours!

Always in the top five were a couple of large Lego sets. I was a Lego fiend. I distinctly remember circling the big castle. I dreamed of opening it on Christmas day and taking my time to build the castle and then play with it. Back in the day the little Lego menu were like gold. Very hard to come by and rarely in the smaller sets. I believe the castle came with 8 figures and a horse too! Alas, Santa never brought the castle but I built cities with the Lego I had, I had police cars, ambulance, and even a garbage truck with a pick up schedule. Yes, I was so organized (or I suppose you could call me anal) that my Lego trash truck had a schedule.

This Christmas it was my extreme pleasure to buy Sienna and Grace their first Lego sets. This is the set I bought each of the girls. We didn't have pink bricks in my day. My only regret is that this was all we could afford and the biggest killer of all is that I will not be there to see the look on their faces when they open them.

What A Day

2010-12-18T14:24:00.000-08:00

Actually what a week. What a month. Oh my!

Tuesday I awoke with a crick in my neck. Apparently this is a common malady caused by sleeping on your stomach with your head turned. It was quite painful but I worked through it and made my way to the chiropractor on Wednesday. By Friday between the stress of the week and the dentist I was feeling pretty miserable. Saturday early morn @ about 2 am I awoke in such excruciating pain I cannot even describe it to you. It took about 20 minutes to get out of bed amid much yelping and some crying.

At about 3am I decided that enough was enough and took myself to the emergency room. I went to Olympia emergency just up the street. I was worried that being Friday night and all that the wait would be atrocious but it was only about 20 minutes. Interestingly enough my blood pressure and pulse were quite elevated. This is what pain does to you. I was diagnosed with a severe locked neck joint aka vertebrae and I received a lidocaine shot in my neck and after a few minutes I asked for another near the top of my shoulder blades.

These shots serve to numb the area so that the muscles will relax. You cannot heal if you are in pain which is why pain medication is given after surgery and for many ailments (and of course suffering and comfort). Pain causes muscle contractions and spasms which prevent the joint from loosening in my case. After about 5 minutes my pain level of an 8 dropped to a 4. I was so relieved. Now I just need to get myself to a bed and take the muscle relaxers he gave me to ensure that this joint loosens up. Wish me well....

Brief Post

2010-12-06T21:16:00.001-08:00

Just wanted to drop a line on the blog. I've been absent for awhile....it seems I have a lot to say but it's only in my mind or in the shower or in the car. I've investigated mobile blogging but since I have enough trouble texting and driving, emailing and driving, and dialing and driving on my touch screen phone I thought that mobile blogging would probably really be pushing it.

It seems that my life is so busy lately. Sunday I had a few free hours and I was able to spend it in my garden doing fall cleanup. Pulling tomato plants, heading the herbs and a myriad of other cleanup duties. I completely filled the green bin with clippings. It felt so good to work in the yard. The one plant I didn't have the heart to pull up was a hearty broccoli I started late in the season, I started a whole 6 pack but this is the only one that flourished. It actually has a broccoli head on it now, albeit small. It's kind of exciting to this Canadian transplant to be growing such things. I marvel at the length of the growing season here in Los Angeles.

While gardening is very relaxing to me, as I was weeding I discovered all my tuna can tins. These were placed strategically throughout the garden filled with beer to catch those rotten slugs that were eating all my veggie leaves. Then there were the horn worms on the tomatoes and the aphids on the roses....jeesh, maybe gardening wasn't that relaxing. It seems that wherever I turn there are problems to solve even in my garden.

I suppose this 'eve I'm feeling a tad morose.....I have to catch a flight up to our corporate office early in the morning. While glad I'm going up to the mother ship, ever since my 13 year stint of travelling for business it just no longer interests me and often brings about a deep funk the night before. Alas dear readers, perhaps tomorrow will be a better day.

Expectations

2010-11-29T14:44:00.000-08:00

Life is full of lessons, some big, some small. This past long weekend we managed to scoot away for a couple days for ourselves and on the agenda was a trip to the Rancho Sisquoc Winery. I have wanted to go here for years as I am in love with their Chardonnay ($15.99 @ Whole Foods and $20 @ the winery). My first introduction to Rancho Sisquoc was actually their Pinot Noir of some year that eludes me now.

After investigating it turns out that Rancho Sisquoc is quite a bit east of the 101 in an area called the Foxen Valley Wine Trail. We left the 101 in the rain and meandered down the small one lane roads past fields of broccoli and cauliflower until it gave way to vineyards. Miles and miles of vineyards. The first winery we stumbled upon was the Cambria Winery. Cambria winery is quite a distance from Cambria the town but the two have much in common. Friendly people, good music and good wine. It turns out they had a fellow (Ray, local boy) their playing acoustic guitar who was great, it was a real party atmosphere with huge 3 oz pours. I highly recommend stopping here if you get a chance as the staff is very friendly, knowledgeable and with a nice depth in their tasting menu. We walked away with some of their Chardonnay (always a favorite of mine) and an incredible bottle of their Clone 23 Pinot Noir.

As we continued down the trail my excitement grew - at last, Rancho Sisquoc. The place was crowded with people 3 rows deep at the tasting area. $8 for tasting with no free tasting if you buy anything. I was highly disappointed in the entire experience. The staff was cranky and just poured with wine with no explanation or help. You picked 11 from their tasting menu and you could do it however you wanted. I suppose choice is not a bad thing but a little kindness goes a long way. Of the 11 wines I only liked two, one was my stand by - the Chardonnay and the other was a Meritage. Frankly, I probably only really bought the Meritage because I wanted to love it..... Did I set myself up for disappointment by expecting too much? Isn't that what "looking forward" to something is all about?

We shrugged off this disappointment and followed our new friends (Francis and Rick) to their favorite winery - Foxen Vineyards. Foxen vineyards blew me away. Perhaps a pleasant surprise is better than having your expectations met? Their wine is not cheap, frankly none of the vineyards we visited were even close to reasonable in price - but generally speaking Foxen was great. We walked away with a four pack and that's only because we were being frugal. Don't miss this area for tasting next time you're in Santa Barbara or Santa Maria - you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Solar Installation - Day One

2010-11-15T18:33:00.000-08:00

Today was Day 1 of our solar installation. Yes, we're going green. Sungevity is our solar provider and they've contracted the install out to a local electrical company. The fellows from the installation company are awesome. Friendly bunch of guys and they don't have any problem with Dena popping up on the roof every hour or so to take pictures and check on them and of course, the quality of the installation. Perhaps Dena can get a new career out of this as a solar project manager or something.... The guys were telling Dena that homeowners normally never pop up on the roof to check the work out which amazes me because it's your roof, your property and you should know everything that is going on and being installed in/on your house.

So far I am happy except for one thing, the inverter and the cut off switch and all the boxes on the back of my house stick out like a sore thumb. I'm not sure why they couldn't put them all on one side but I guess it's too late to bitch about now. There are 3 boxes and a conduit running under our windows connecting them all. An eyesore to be sure. We'll have to get some little trees or something in pots to hide it. Interesting that you would think the solar panels would be the eye sore but they are almost completely hidden and part of me was all proud driving up to my house with just a little corner of a solar panel peeking out from my pitched roof.

The Conversations At Scrapbooking

2010-11-13T09:47:00.000-08:00

At a scrapbooking weekend normally the conversations center around family, the latest scrapbooking tools, where in your home is your scrapbooking room and which store has the latest embellishments. My how times have changed.

During the first day while walking around saying hello to fellow scrapbookers and catching up, the conversations all took a surprising turn. Instead of "how are your kids?" the question is "how long have you been unemployed?" Are you on your first Federal extension yet? At one point a woman jumped up and yelled, "I just got a job!" Everyone in the room applauded. She'd been unemployed for two years. People are exchanging tips on where to find part time work and how this is great for your unemployment benefits as it actually extends them. We clarified that part time work is very different from full time (short contract) contract work. If you get one of those jobs, forget it, your unemployment is gone forever.

I started to ask some of them if they'd ever thought they'd be experts on unemployment insurance and the unanimous response was that they never thought they'd ever have to collect it let alone be an expert at the mind boggling maze that it is.

Of course, as is becoming readily apparent in the American Society in general, there has become a great divide in the scrapbooking room between the rich and the middle class. The middle class has less and the rich scrapbookers couldn't care less. It's a brave new world we live in.

Social Media Revolution - Facts

2010-11-08T09:31:00.000-08:00

Social Media isn't a fad, it's a fundamental shift in the way we communicate.

96% of all Gen Y have a social networking page.
social media has overtaken porn as the number one Internet activity.
one out of 8 recently married couples met on social networking sites.
It took 13 years for TV to hit 50 million households, 4 years for the Internet and only 9 months for Facebook to hit 100 million users and 12 months for 200 million users.
If Facebook were a country it would be the 3rd largest in the world.
80% of companies are using LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees.
The fastest growing segment on facebook is the 55-65 year old female
80% of twitter usage is on mobile devices, people update anytime, anywhere, imagine what that means for bad customer experiences
in 2009 Boston College stopped issues email addresses to new students, Gen Y feels email is passe
YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world.
Studies show that wikipedia is more accurate than the encyclopedia Britannica.
78% of consumers trust peer recommendations.
Only 33% of 18 - 34 year olds have ever viewed a show on a DVR - they hulu it

Thanks to the youtube video on social revolution for reminding me of the fundamental shift in communication that we are currently living in. If you're looking for a job and you're not on LinkedIn then shame on you. Do you know what wikipedia is? Do you Yelp? Even my hairdresser asked me to review him on Yelp the other day. Where are you in the social revolution? Have you been trying to play catch up, are you right in the thick of it all or have you been left in the dust?

The "Hell No" Party

2010-11-06T20:20:00.000-07:00

I just have to throw some more comments out there about the Republicans last two years strategically speaking, how it's hurting this country and it's people, and driving the United States further into economic oblivion globally. We don't have the time to sit around and watch Washington get nothing done for another two years. China is done nipping at our heels, now they are pulling limbs off. India is done being our call center dumping grounds and is now becoming a major force in the global economy. Their economic engines are stoked and running at high rpm's while the US is an engine overhaul.

Here are my excerpts:

The Huffington Post:
Republicans in the Senate, with dimmer prospects of gaining control, are plotting a much simpler course. Their platform, to the degree they have one, is to offer themselves as an even bigger roadblock to the Democrats than they are now.

Another from Huffington:
Democrats, including Reid, have said several times in recent weeks that jeopardizing the recovery seems to be exactly what the GOP is trying to do. "It wouldn't do their electoral prospects any harm for there to be more economic misery in America before the election, let's put it that way," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).

newser.com
John Boehner and Eric Cantor asked. “The purpose of the minority, is to become the majority.” Boenher and Cantor laid out a bold plan, the New York Times reports. Boehner told his troops to be not just the party of no, but the party of “Hell, no.”

Frankly it's all just depressing....
Here's more depressing articles
GOP vote count and commentary
Some video excerpts:

Now You're Mad?

2010-11-05T08:11:00.000-07:00

After 8 Years Of The Bush/Cheney Disaster, Now You Get Mad?

You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.

You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed energy company officials to dictate energy policy and push us to invade Iraq.

You didn't get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.You didn't get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.

You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.

You didn't get mad when we spent over $800 billion (and counting) on said illegal war.

You didn't get mad when Bush borrowed more money from foreign sources than the previous 42 Presidents combined.

You didn't get mad when over $10 billion in cash just disappeared in Iraq.You didn't get mad when you found out we were torturing people.

You didn't get mad when Bush embraced trade and outsourcing policies that shipped 6 million American jobs out of the country.

You didn't get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.

You didn't get mad when we didn't catch Bin Laden.

You didn't get mad when Bush rang up $10 trillion in combined budget and current account deficits.

You didn't get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.

You didn't get mad when we let a major U.S. city, New Orleans, drown.

You didn't get mad when we gave people who had more money than they could spend, the filthy rich, over a trillion dollars in tax breaks.

You didn't get mad with the worst 8 years of job creations in several decades.

You didn't get mad when over 200,000 US Citizens lost their lives because they had no health insurance.

You didn't get mad when lack of oversight and regulations from the Bush Administration caused US Citizens to lose 12 trillion dollars in investments, retirement, and home values.

You finally got mad when a Black man was elected President, and decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick.

Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, job losses by the millions, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, and the worst economic disaster since 1929 are all okay with you, but helping fellow Americans who are sick...Oh, Heck No!!

And let me add - You're thrilled that the Republicans just spent the last two years with a political strategy that is basically, just say NO. They have spent two years building and maintaining roadblocks in congress and the senate when what this country really needs is representatives spending time fighting for the people and way less time worrying about getting a republican back in the white house.

*** shamelessly stolen from this article in the comments section ******

I'm Tired.....

2010-11-01T14:57:00.000-07:00

***** Warning ****
This is a depressing blog entry.

I'm tired of having nothing to celebrate. I want to have some awesome events to celebrate, an event that warrants a bottle of champagne. Like Dena getting a job or me getting a raise or my company winning a bunch of bids. It's hard to keep a positive attitude and just keep plugging along when you're not winning but just keeping your head above water. I don't want to think when I hand out Halloween candy how much it's costing me. I don't want to see adults lining up with their kids mooching candy off of me. I don't want to covet an iPad from afar anymore, I want my own. I'm tired of watching benefits slip away that you know you'll never recover. I'm tired of wondering who will be laid off next.

Who is fighting for the American middle class? I can tell you right now before you vote tomorrow, no one. Not the Democrats (they have been castrated), not the Republicans (all they can do is trash people's ideas, they have none of their own) and it certainly isn't going to be the Tea Party. Will it take a revolution of some sort or will we just quietly slip into oblivion wondering who was supposed to save us?

I remember the good old days less than three years ago when the United States was foot loose and fancy free. Without a care in the world we lived in our consumer based capitalistic society and just waited for our next raise, the next new gadget and our higher 401k statements. I loved those days. When can we have them back? I want them back now. I'm tired of waiting.

Who wants to start a revolution? Is John Stewart on to something?

The Family @ Disneyland

2010-10-17T10:10:00.000-07:00

Trip Highlights Thus Far

2010-10-15T22:26:00.000-07:00

Captain Dave's Dolphin Safari

2010-10-13T23:21:00.000-07:00

This is a little video that Grace and I made of the Brockie, Dawn & Dena adventure on the high seas. Keep the sound up for a few seconds and then you can turn it down to cut out the wind noise. We went down to Dana Point and took a 3 hour tour with Captain Dave's Dolphin Safari.

No whales were seen but that was AOK because we saw the white faced pod of about 200 long nose common dolphins. They stayed with the boat for quite some time even following if we turned away or sped up. They didn't seem to want to leave us. About five of them had babies that looked like little footballs with awkward jumps and landings. A priceless trip to be sure. I don't think Grace left the front of the boat for the entire trip.

City of Los Angeles Budget Cuts

2010-10-09T07:51:00.000-07:00

Why in the world can they afford to sweep the streets every single week but not cut the grass on our large boulevards? Perhaps because street sweeping generates revenue from parking tickets and mowing the grass doesn't? I took this picture about 4 weeks ago. The grass still hasn't been cut. It's about 2 feet higher now. It makes our city look trashy and impoverished. It's depressing. You can read about it here. Fort Worth, TX is apparently having the same issues of tall grass along streets due to budget cuts.

In doing my research it turns out that the actual problem is that they accidently laid off all the street maintenance median people. What a bunch of incompetent morons.

Facebook Tagging & Other Features

2010-10-08T11:55:00.000-07:00

Wanted to key you in to a feature that has been out for awhile but some of you may not be aware of on Facebook. We're all familiar with tagging people in our pictures but you have been able to tag people on your status posts for about a year now. The way you do this is to type your status - "out scrapbooking with @ir ....." after typing the @ symbol and a couple letter a drop down box appears with matching names. You choose the person you are tagging in your status and it's done. Why is this important? Well, frankly it's not important at all but it does alert your friend that you've posted something with/about them. This also works for any entity on facebook, like starbucks or minabea. Here is a detailed description of the feature with screen shots.

Today Facebook launched a revamped old feature that I'm really digging which is groups. I've always felt that Groups in Facebook was useless essentially but now they have made it easy for you to build a space for important groups of people in your life—your family, your soccer team, your book club. All you have to do to get started is to create a group, add friends and start sharing.

When a group member posts to the group, everyone in the group will receive a notification about that post. Now I won't have to guess anymore about whether my parents saw the pictures I posted of their grandkids; when I post in my family group, I'll know that they've been notified about it and that only they will see it. Since information posted in my new groups is only visible to group members by default, I can feel confident about who sees what I post. Other features in the new revamped groups is group chat and group email.

The last item that I wanted to talk about was another revamped feature released on September 30th, 2010 in Photos. Facebook is now allowing higher resolution (photo quality) pictures, easier picture viewing (it was quite a pain before), easier tagging (multiple photos if you're uploading like a wedding or something with all the same people) and a simpler uploading plug in.

Movie Shots in Downtwon Los Angeles

2010-10-07T09:44:00.000-07:00

One of the benefits (well that's debateable) of working in downtown Los Angeles is seeing movies, commercials and TV shows being shot. I've seen them do a helicopter scene for the TV Show 24, they've spent 3 weeks building out the 6th floor of my building for some movie that Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck are in and now they are decorating 6th street @ Olive with snow and christmas lights. Here are a couple of recent pictures.

Solar Update

2010-10-06T12:14:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd let you all in on our solar situation. Sungevity has sent out a technician to prefield the installation. They've drawn up the plans for our installation and submitted them to the city of Los Angeles and Department of Water & Power. Now we wait.....we are waiting for approval and permits. It's nice that Sungevity takes care of all this so that we don't have to. All I have to worry about is how the sun is not making me any money yet.

And I know this is stupid but they sent us a present. They sent us a solar charging iGo for our electronic accessories. It's pretty cool and I love presents. If you don't know iGo is the charging device widely available at Radio Shack that allows you to just buy ends to charge different things, like an ipod end, a blackberry end, a micro USB end, and the list goes on....

Troubleshooting my Body

2010-10-06T11:42:00.000-07:00

The shotgun approach I am taking with my body to rescue it from all I've done to it in the last couple years is almost overwhelming me. Is it possible I've stressed myself out even further with this self care thing? Perhaps.

What I've done is started seeing a Podiatrist for the plantar fasciitis who subsequently prescribed physical therapy. That's twice a week. I'm seeing a nutritionist to get me on track in the food and diet department. I'm working out twice a week and doing some of the wellness challenges we have at work including 50 situps every day. And I'm seeing a psychologist to help me deal with the stress and mental strain. Between all of these things I'm busy 5 nights a week. Frankly, it's ridiculous. When is a person supposed to relax? I fall into bed every night sometimes as early as 9:30, then wake up in the morning and do it all over again.

I'm totally pissed off at the podiatrist now. They made my orthodics wrong, which required two more visits to fix. I'm reviewing the EOB (explanation of benefits) provided by my insurance company and I am appalled at the over charging that they are doing to me and the insurance people. $50 for this, $50 for that, if the doctor touches my feet it's another $50, if I walk down the hallway with him watching it's another $75 per foot for "gait training". What a load of crap that is. One visit was $617. I mean seriously!?

What I do feel is helping the most is the physical therapy. With the stretches, pool therapy and other treatment they give me the pain is definitely getting better. Everyone says that plantar fasciitis takes a very long time to heal (or heel hahaha) and I can see why. I'm trying to be patient but that is not one of my strongest virtues. I'm also trying to be vigilant and keep up with my stretches and ice but it's exhausting.

Thank goodness I have good health insurance. What do people do without health insurance? I suppose they would have to be good to themselves and stay healthy or go bankrupt.

Long Absence

2010-10-03T14:12:00.001-07:00

Let me apologize to all my faithful readers for my long absence. I've been very busy with work, sleeping and trying to practice "self care". I've worked pretty much every weekend for most of the summer and I have to say, burn out is imminent. Thank goodness a vacation is near. It is amazing how important it is to have something big like that to look forward to. I cannot wait.

You might have wondered what this "self care" thing is all about. Perhaps its all come about because I'm working so much, very stressed out about money or a combination of all that has happened in life over the past year or so. I feel that my body has reached its limit and has been whining for years about my lack of attention to it. Over the past 18 months that whining has gotten increasingly louder and moved into a scream over the past few months. That's a scream for attention. Well, it has worked. The back pain, the plantar fasciitis and pain associated with that, the eye strain headaches, the migraines, it just cannot go on.

I troubleshoot things for a living. Yes, those things are electronic, both hardware and software in nature, but let's face it, troubleshooting is a skill that can be applied to every problem in life. There are two approaches to troubleshooting; one being a methodical and linear step by step approach, eliminating each piece as you go until the problem is isolated; the second is the "shotgun" approach. This is the method I am taking to troubleshoot my body.

Tomorrow I'll discuss the details I've been taking.

Watermelon Tap - Yummy

2010-09-06T22:08:00.000-07:00

As is our tradition we have a little BBQ in the backyard. This year we decided to "tap" a keg - aka tap a watermelon. My sister and her husband gave me the idea as they did it camping this year. Hollow out the watermelon, strain the meat - we cheated and used our juicer. Took no time at all. Mix liberally with your poison of choice - in our case Vodka, then stick a hose bib (aka spigot) into it and voila - a keg of watermelon. Dena decided to add a creative touch and carve a face into it.

We were wondering what to do with the left over meat after you strain or juice the meat. It's basically waterless meat. We decided to freeze it and make watermelon ice cubes.....

Cheers everyone and Happy Labor Day!

More Routine - Except Really Old....

2010-09-05T07:59:00.000-07:00

Back a very long time ago - Junior High I think we called it in Thunder Bay I went to a school that was just for Grade 7 & 8. This was a big deal for me because I moved out of "grade" school to the big times. We were required to purchase a lock for our locker. I'd never had a locker and we didn't really have much money so it seemed a big deal to get the money for the lock. The lock I received was a Dudley lock. These are Made in Canada.

I use this lock still today and even though I'll go years without using it the combination never leaves me. 54 - 34 - 6 Amazing what sticks in your head for over 30 years isn't it? I dug it out of the garage this morning, dialed in my combo and viola - open sesame. A little stiff but still completely functioning.

In my research to link to Dudley I was pleasantly surprised to see them still around (I mean it was 30 years ago) and they are going strong. We didn't have a bunch of cool colors to choose from! My how things have changed.

Routine....

2010-09-03T07:09:00.000-07:00

There is something to be said for routine. I admit it, I'm very attached to my morning routine. I realize that I need to break out of it because some parts of it are not healthy, aka the diet red bull and zone bar for breakfast..... But on the bright side, I'm starting to implement a new part to my routine - making my lunch. We'll see how that goes.

Part of my morning routine just appeared one morning about a year ago. That was the addition of Leonardo the Standard Parking night shift guy. I get to work just before 7 am and each day there is Leonardo to greet me with a big smile and a buenos dios seniorita. He tries (and doesn't always succeed) to teach me a couple Spanish words but always with a smile. I used to bring him the paper every morning way back when we actually received one.

Back in July I was surprised one morning to see that he was gone. There was another fellow there and I didn't even receive a look let alone a smile. I was sad. A couple days later I finally asked the surly fellow where Leonardo was. He was on vacation. I was happy that he was coming back. Two weeks later he is back and all is right with my routine again. He brings a smile to my face and will often wash away any crankiness that LA morning traffic may have brought on.

When I came back from my vacation he welcomed me and said he missed me. We chatted as there was no one behind me on the ramp and it turns out that we both had taken our vacations in Edmonton. What a small world we live in. Try to remember today that random acts of kindness to strangers can develop into an important part of their day. A smile can change the world for someone. Smile.....come on, you know you want to.

Dawn and the Girls....

2010-08-26T18:44:00.000-07:00

Off to Canada - Packing Hell

2010-08-26T09:46:00.000-07:00

So I'm trying to get out of the house and off to the airport. Dena is staying home to mind the farm whilst I head up for a family visit. This is what our world has come to. In my "packing" world this morning it has involved:

Charging the laptop
Fixing the Ipod Touch which is stuck on the Apple Logo
Clearing out videos off the HDD movie camera so there's room for more
Finding and cleaning out the USB HD sticks for transferring pix while up there
Finding my headphones
Getting all the cables packed for transferring the camera, HDD Movies, ipod, etc, etc
Finding the Ipod charger
Cleaning out my laptop bag and making it a travel "purse" and not a work bag.
Packing allergy medication
Inhalers

Oh and then there are things like clothes...

Sungevity Solar - The Deal is Done

2010-08-25T17:42:00.000-07:00

We've signed the contracts, solar here we come. You'll all be amused to learn that our solar panels are, you guessed it, Canadian.

Here is what we get...

10 - Canadian CS5A-185M, 185W Monocrystalline Module

1 - Kaco 1502xi (240V), 1.5 kW, 240 Vac, 125-500Vdc Utility Interactive Inverter

Seems minuscule but apparently it does the job.

I've figured out how they do it. My main question was "how do you sell all this solar for $ 1,500?" They do it because they are "leasing" it to us. They own it therefore they claim all the tax benefits, rebates, utility incentives, etc. They also own the electricity it generates. While I get to hopefully have a zero dollar Department of Water and Power bill (minus the water of course) any money earned by my meter spinning backwards is Sungevity's. A smart idea on their part. Kind of a win win situation I suppose. One must ask oneself if going solar is good enough or do you want to own it too?

Solar Panels on our Roof?

2010-08-23T14:17:00.000-07:00

In our never ending quest to save money Dena discovered solar power. I had always thought that it was too expensive to have any kind of good ROI (return on investment). When I say good ROI, to me that means that I'll make my investment back in less than 2 years

So Dena got a quote for adding solar panels to our house. Apparently there are a tremendous amount of tax incentives both federally, through the state and through the power companies that we essentially would pay $1,500 and would have a 1.85Kw system. The company name is http://www.sungevity.com/ and I have done some research on why it's so cheap and read a lot of reviews. It's really all about the government subsidies so the time is now....

This is a grainy photo of our house with solar panels on the roof. I'm looking forward to some $0 bills....

Suze Orman and Bugsy - Update

2010-08-12T10:42:00.001-07:00

If you're not familiar with the story, scroll down to last weeks posts for the whole story.

Monday Dena was practicing her script for the Suze Orman show, making changes and generally getting completely excited. Tuesday rolled around and the phone interview with Suze herfself began. Dena got about one sentence into her spiel when Suze rudely cut her off and peppered her with a few questions. None of them good. Suze Orman has a typical deny scenario for people - if you don't have 8 months in an emergency fund (aka liquid assets, either cash or easily liquidated stocks) you are automatically denied. Despite our emergency fund Dena (aka we) were quickly denied because she is unemployed. Dena was upset all day because Suze didn't let her speak, was rude and abrupt and hung up on her at the end.

Suze Orman said that we shouldn't be spending any money, period. Are we going to get Bugsy and rescue him from certain death at the bird sanctuary? I don't know. We are generally avoiding the question around our house. Why? I don't know. Maybe we're both hoping she gets a job soon and won't have time to deal with another bird, especially a special needs bird. Maybe we don't want to go against the Orman curse. Maybe we're just not committed enough?

So as of today, we have one bird and Dena is pissed at Suze Orman for being so rude and she'll never watch the show again.

IRS (Internal Revenue Service) Adopts Rules for Domestic Partners

2010-08-11T07:56:00.001-07:00

Well praise the Lord and pass the ammunition! Yesterday I spoke with our CPA about tax planning for 2010 and she said a cryptic phrase of "well the IRS has recently adopted new Domestic Partner rules so this could be interesting." Not wanting to appear stupid and out of touch with the news and especially our community news, I kept my mouth shut and resolved to investigate it on the Internet this morning. Apparently, this new ruling (June 12, 2010) reverses a position the IRS took in 2006, when it said California's registered domestic partners should each report on their own federal tax return only the income they personally earned, not one-half of their community income.

For those of you unaware of my previous blog posts this is it in a nutshell quoted from Box Turtle Bulletin:

For several years, California law has treated couples in domestic partnerships exactly the same as marriages, including in how income tax returns were filed. But the federal government’s DOMA has banned any recognition of same-sex couples as married and the Internal Revenue Service has treated them as though they were two unrelated individuals. This has resulted in the peculiar situation in which a couple files as married for state tax purposes, and then files separate federal returns in which each reports their own individual incomes and deductions.
While it is not true in all cases, quite often this results in same-sex couples paying much higher rates of federal income taxes than they would if they could file jointly, especially when one spouse earns significantly more than the other. It has also resulted in increased time and expense in complying with income tax return preparation.

I'll let you know if we actually get a financial benefit from it, however, it cannot be any worse than the financial hit we took being RDP's last year. I was appalled that as a RDP we would have the benefit of paying more than you average couple federally. I am all about fairness and equality and this didn't sit well with me. Now if we could just get rid of the imputed income bullshit for the health insurance benefit I'd really be happy. Maybe for once in my life I'll look forward to the April 15th filing deadline.

Bugsy and Suze Orman -- Part 2

2010-08-05T13:17:00.000-07:00

If you haven't read Part 1 - please scroll down and read part 1 of this blog post.

So Dena's bright idea was to have Suze Orman tell us if we could afford buying Bugsy. Suze Orman does this segment on her money show called Can I Afford It? I figured, what the heck, so we filled in the form Sunday night. Monday morning they had already called Dena and emailed her. They were very interested. They never had a request like this before about a pet rescue and the financial ramifications of such a thing. Forms were emailed back and forth and a Dena and I did a deep dive into our finances. After all, the show is a money show and it is called "Can I Afford it?" so some true financial soul searching was required to fill all these forms in. At one point in the process Dena was sure we'd be denied. They have since called Dena every day and she has an official interview on August 10th. This could be interesting.....

Today Dena went to the bird store (For Birds Only ) to take a picture of Bugsy for the show. What happened though was that Dena was feeling bad for Frieda.... Frieda's cage is right beside Bugsy and they are buddies. As you can see, Frieda is a lilac crowned amazon and is beautiful. She is also a 2nd chance bird and is quite the flirt. She's about twice the size of Picasso. Frieda, Picasso and Bugsy get along quite well.

Whatever shall we do if we are denied? What shall we do if we're approved?

Bugsy and Suze Orman -- Part 1

2010-08-04T19:09:00.000-07:00

Sunday we took Picasso (our white fronted amazon parrot for those of you that don't know us) to the bird place for a manny/pedi (talon & wing clipping). We go every 4-5 months or so. For the past 18 months there's been a bird there by the name of Bugsy (see picture). Bugsy is a 2nd chance bird. He was rescued from a fire where the house was burned down by the boyfriend of the owner and the birds were left to fend for themselves. Bugsy was and is, needless to say, traumatized. The store staff have been working with Bugsy ever since to calm him down and re-train him.

Each time we're at the store Dena talks calmly to Bugsy and they seem to bond a little and Picasso and Bugsy love to chat. They are quite closely related with Picasso being a white fronted amazon and Bugsy being an orange cheeked Amazon. This visit we received disturbing news. Due to the economy Bugsy was slated to be shipped of to a bird sanctuary by the end of the year. All the staff at the store think Bugsy is a sweetheart underneath that scared exterior and that he wouldn't do well at a sanctuary.

We left the store quite sad and then Dena got a bright idea. See Part 2 of this blog tomorrow for the rest of the story.

Android vs. Apple....

2010-07-29T13:37:00.000-07:00

Everyone loves a winner until the winner gets a little too big. You can take your pick between Apple's fluctuating stock price, antenna gate on the new Apple iPhone 4G or the bitching and moaning about iTunes being too restrictive and totalitarian but the result is the same; let's pick on Apple.

People whine that they "have" to download their apps from iTunes and developers whine that all the apps are subjected to a rigorous certification test from Apple. The blogosphere is whining because Apple's new iPhone 4G can get poor antenna reception if you death grip the phone. Bag on Apple because they have become the new Microsoft of the 80's. They are the innovators where Microsoft once was, they are becoming the behemoth that everyone hates just like Microsoft has become. I suppose there is one difference, Apple customers are rabid. So rabid in fact that they can be referred to as fanboys.

So where does that leave us? It left an opening for Google to come in and introduce the open source free for all called the Android platform. In the Android's case applications are distributed either through the Android Marketplace (an icon on the phone's home page) or through the developer's website (scary). This link is from Phone scoop and it talks about a Chinese owned domain stealing personal information from people downloading their wallpaper Android app. Imagine that....No controls on the apps at all, unlike iTunes, so thieves go about unchecked. Give me Apple and it's controls anytime!

Here is a poignant snapshot of the Android Marketplace article:

In June 2010, a study performed on 48,000 Android market applications by SMobile Systems Inc., revealed that 20 percent of applications asked users permission for access to private or sensitive information that an attacker could use for malicious purposes, such as identity theft or mobile banking fraud. 5 percent of applications have the ability to place a call to any number, without requiring user intervention.[15][16][17]
However, while installing applications, Android displays all required permissions, so the user can decide whether to install an application whose permission requirements seem excessive or unnecessary (e.g. a game is likely to enable vibration, but unlikely to read messages or phonebook). This effectively makes the process more secure than other systems that do not ask for any permissions and instead receive full complete access.

Which phone will you buy? Who do you trust? Only you can decide but you shouldn't decide based on the phone's good looks. You should decide on many factors and being well informed is vital!

Hornworm

2010-07-26T17:25:00.000-07:00

Oh how I hate these. Look at this huge bugger I found gobbling down one of my baby tomatoes. I put it on the garden clippers for size context. I suppose sacrifices of some must be made for the good of the whole but my goodness he's a fatty. I hope there aren't little hornworms running around that I haven't caught yet. These buggers are the ones that put the little and sometimes BIG holes in your tomatoes. If you listen closely in the quiet of the night you can actually hear them crunching. Then take your flashlight and go a picking....

These caterpillars are so big (three inches long or more) that it would seem to be easy to control them just by picking them off. And so it is, sometimes. The problem is that their pale green color provides excellent camouflage, and the nymph and larval stages are far smaller and less obvious. If there are only a few, picking them off works well. If there are more than a few, other measures may be called for. One of these is Bt, Bacillus thuringiensis, an organic treatment that can control numerous other problems as well.

Tomato Harvest #1

2010-07-25T14:14:00.000-07:00

The first tomato harvest happened so suddenly I almost missed it. We had weeks during June and early July of marine layer cloudiness and cool temperatures. I enjoyed it but the plants weren't all that fond of it. A couple of my tomatoes even developed a case of "cat facing" which is an appropriate name for what they look like. See picture. I only have a couple like that fortunately. Catfacing is an abnormality that develops on the blossom end of susceptible tomato varieties. It results from cool weather at blossom time and causes the fruit to pucker and have deep crevices.

Here I am all proud with the days harvest. As you can see it was bountiful and there are plenty more where that came from. Dena is in the kitchen right now making some sort of tomato soup.

cite Colorado Extension

Anonymity

2010-07-23T07:48:00.000-07:00

There's something to be said for Anonymity. Only last year if you googled my name you got millions of hits with none of them pointing to me. You see Dawn Armstrong is a fairly common name. There are literally 1000's of us out there. Today after reading an article regarding Social networking personal brand suicide I figured I'd better google myself again. I was shocked that this blog is the #2 hit. I didn't realize how much I missed that anonymity....

For awhile I was thrilled that when you googled "direct buy scam" my blog was the first hit. I was proud that I had become searchable. I've had this blog for about 6 or 7 years now and it had never been searchable until that fateful blog post in late 2008. It took about 4 months for it to climb to the top of the page rankings but it did. Today using that search term gets me at 3rd place. I'm happy now to have dropped. I don't want to be first and I don't want to be so out there on the internet.

Over the past two years I've become very cognizant of the fact that what I post will be read by too many people and some day it may be used against me. It enters my mind each time I write a blog. I have to temper feelings, delete blog posts and be careful what I write so as not to offend anyone too much or damage any career opportunities.

Have you googled yourself lately?

Today's Harvest

2010-07-20T17:02:00.000-07:00

Spaghetti squash, red cabbage, and a few tomatoes. Soon I will be up to my ears in tomatoes just like today I'm up to my ears in squash. Spaghetti squash is different from other squashes when it grows in that once the vine bears fruit it dies, other squashes will continue to produce. I've planted peas and cucumbers in the spaghetti squash's place to see if I can get another crop of veggies. I'm sure I will as it is only July.

Red Neck Trellis

2010-07-19T17:46:00.000-07:00

This Better Best Boy tomato plant, yes there's only one there, is so out of control I had to use a 6' ladder to prop up this side. There's another trellis on the back side to the left of the main plant because there are some 8' off shoots there bearing fruit and they are sagging from the weight. The same thing was happening on this side so what's a girl to do? Why spend money on another trellis when you have a ladder around?

Unemployment and the Federal Extension Bill

2010-07-18T14:22:00.000-07:00

There seems to be a tremendous amount of confusion out there of what this bill in the Senate and Congress actually accomplishes. It is called the Federal Unemployment Extension Bill. To me that means that they are considering extending unemployment benefits past what is already allowed or been voted on previously. That's what I always assumed because they use the word "extension". That is not the case.

In all actuality it is really an unemployment funding bill. The unemployed people currently collecting or moving toward any form of federal extension of benefits can no longer collect anything until they pass this. If someone has remained unemployed for more than six months, typically they have moved into one of four tiers of federal extension benefits that have been available since July 2008. Without further Congressional action, unless these unemployed workers are currently collecting on the separate FED-ED extension, they can continue to collect the balance of benefits available on their current extension tier but nothing further after that.

Some of the "tiers" of extensions are only 6 weeks long. So if you happened to be in that tier while they dick around and argue about funding what they already granted then you already ran out and you haven't gotten any checks for a few weeks. People and the media often talk about the 99 weekers. These people are supposedly eligible to collect unemployment for 99 weeks. Often right wingers and people frustrated about the deficit are against unemployed people because they figure they can collect for almost 2 years so why would they go back to work? What they don't realize is that there are about 6 different applications to apply for each extension that you have to deal with and that every time congress delays on funding the extensions these people get no checks. And when/if any of the unemployed do get a job they are more than likely getting it for 25 - 50% less of a salary than they were making before.

What would you rather have? Millions of people without benefits moving to welfare, food stamps and without health insurance or fund the federal unemployment package? Which do you think would cost more in the long run? Definitely welfare.

The middle class are disappearing, write your congress person and your senator!

Information on the tiers of unemployment click me

Senator addresses click here

Congress person addresses click here

Tips on what to write and how to write a letter to a government official

Old Age - The Eyesight

2010-07-12T08:19:00.000-07:00

I am constantly reminded of my age lately. It's getting quite annoying. Over the past 18 months or so my close eyesight has been failing me. It started with the directions on the back of pill bottles, progressed to menus in dark restaurants and has recently hit a new low with any form of reading in almost any light. I'm thinking of having Dena make me a cool chain to hang my glasses around my neck. Can glasses chains even be cool?

I've been in restaurants with my mom and she'll ask me what looks good and then says that she'll have that. I eventually figured out that she had forgotten her glasses and couldn't read the menu but now I have a new understanding and empathy. It's depressing and debilitating. Am I going to have to start carrying a purse or something? Maybe I could get away with a small messenger bag? I seem to have lots to carry the older I get. Reading glasses, Carmex, eye drops, cell phone, keys..... I only have so many pockets and the older I get the less I can do without any of these things.

Mom, I love you but bilberry isn't going to bring my eyesight back. I know you think it does but it doesn't. Maybe it helps eye fatigue, I'll give you that. Oh and mom, I appreciate all you've given me, my young looking skin, my small bladder, my thin esophagus, but you could have left off the poor eyesight gene.

First Harvest of the Summer of 2010

2010-07-01T07:30:00.001-07:00

New Notebook Feature - SplashTop

2010-06-30T09:41:00.000-07:00

SplashTop is a new "feature" or program that is starting to appear on some laptops and noteboooks. It appears as a Web button on the computer that you would press instead of the power button. Pushing this Web button tells the computer to boot this new special program or OS instead of going to Windows.

The benefits according to the SplashTop website are as follows:

Fast - Be online seconds after you turn on your PC. Why wait for Windows to load when you could be surfing the web right away! (True, pretty fast boot)
Safe - Surf the Web safely, immune from the malware that targets Windows. (True)
Eco-Friendly - Give your PC a rest when you do not use it. Splashtop boots quickly so there is no reason to leave your PC on all the time. (This is a load of hooey)

What are the problems? Some people have complained about YouTube issues and it seems easily corruptible. The major issue is if your computer is no longer bootable it is not supported directly from the SplashTop website but only from the OEM vendor. In the example I'm referring to, Sony Vaio uses it under the OEM name of Quick Web Access. There is little to any help available from Sony if you are having issues and SplashTop itself won't help you because they are selling the program to Sony, so you are not the customer, Sony is.

Do the benefits outweigh the pains? I believe so. If it stops working and it's beyond you or your poor computer geek friend who you rely on and abuse and don't pay, then you can just not use that button/feature anymore.

HP TechForum 2010

2010-06-22T20:22:00.000-07:00

Well it's actually Day 2, I'm exhausted already. Last night I didn't get back to the room until 9pm, and no, it wasn't because I was gambling or at a strip club. I have to admit that HP really knows how to do it up and I know from other attendees that this is scaled back affair. Yesterday evening was the opening of the Expo and the reception. I learned so much in just that short period of time and I did it all with a glass of wine in my hand and prime rib in my belly, all courtesy of HP.

What I've learned thus far:

There are waaaaayyyy more geeky people than me.
The $20 "sandwich" is a valuable tool in Vegas where money talks.
4G is not fully in Las Vegas, that's just bull$hit
The Luxor really does suck, just like people have told me.

For those of you not in the know, a 20 dollar sandwich is where when you have some cheap a$$ hotel in Vegas and you are checking in, you slip a $20 in between your credit card and your ID. Then you innocently ask if you could possibly get an upgraded room. Sadly, I found this trick out after I checked in. The fellow I met has a beautiful suite in a tower including dining and living rooms, me - a crappy room on the 3rd floor of the pyramid with a view of the Starbucks on the first floor and all the noise that goes with being in a major traffic area, all night long.

Tonight, I finally got dinner during this blog post. It's been a long day. I had to eat my lunch in 15 minutes between sessions. Perhaps I've just overbooked myself. Me? Do too much? Never....

The Irony of it All

2010-06-18T08:46:00.000-07:00

The other day one of my many bosses walks into my office with his wife's new Costco laptop and a bag full of software. He says, "Dawn, can you load this up and make sure it all works". "Sure" I said, I mean, what else was I to say?

Normally any computer geek is happy as a clam to fiddle with something shiny and new. I fired up the Sony Vaio and went through the typical Windows 7 setup screen. I typed in the password that his wife wanted, very simple, Password123. I let Micro$shaft load its millions of megabytes of critical updates and then the computer was ready to reboot. Yes, please reboot yourself. Back at the log in screen I type Password123. Invalid password. What? Password123. Invalid password. I typed if very carefully - P a s s w o r d 1 2 3 ---- Invalid password. OH MY GOD! As I stared open mouthed at the laptop I felt my heart drop into my stomach and the bile rising into my mouth.

How did this happen? Wait, maybe because the keyboard is strangely skewed to the left on this model and I didn't have my fingers on the home row? I would have had to type the password in wrong twice though, as a confirmation. How could that be? One long sheet of paper and about 100 iterations of Password123 later, still no go. He's been in my office now about 10 times looking at his laptop and seeing how it is coming. I feign casual indifference but inside I'm freaking out.

Four hours later thanks to the hacker community, bit torrent and my helpdesk guy we've procured a hack to wipe the password from the laptop. I'm back in! Whew. Then I start with an older Adobe CS3 package which is not Windows 7 compatible. 8 hours later and with the help of the Experts Exchange (which I contribute to and have achieved Master status on ) I've finally beat that program into submission.

Total cost = 12 hours of labor,
25 new grey hairs,
1 sleepless night
and happy Senior VP
- Priceless.

Afghanistan Is Rich!

2010-06-14T07:30:00.000-07:00

In report released just last week mineral reserves of copper, gold, oil and most importantly lithium have been discovered under the ground in various regions of Afghanistan. China has already won a major contract for mining copper in one of the regions. That just pisses me off. The United States goes over there and fights for over a decade trying to bring peace and democracy to the region costing untold billions of dollars and 1000's of US soldiers lives and China gets a contract. That's just horseshit. By default, a US company should get that contract and the lion's share of the others.

I'm sorry if you don't agree with my opinion but there should be no bidding it should be awarded to the US. We will share but we should be making some of the billions back we pissed away in the bloody sand in Afghanistan. It's only fair. If you're going to be the world's policeman and the world's target all at the same time I would think that you should get at least some quid pro quo. And who exactly discovered all these riches? Well, it was a Pentagon geological team. Frankly, I'm so ticked off right now that I think the USA should just kick the government out of Kabul and take over. Make Afghanistan a US territory and take over. Why pussy foot around anymore. It's obvious that it's a corrupt terrorist country that will never be able to manage this kind of wealth except to use it against the US who has saved their ass.

Two excerpts from the article:

At the same time, American officials fear resource-hungry China will try to dominate the development of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth, which could upset the United States, given its heavy investment in the region. After winning the bid for its Aynak copper mine in Logar Province, China clearly wants more, American officials said.

The corruption that is already rampant in the Karzai government could also be amplified by the new wealth, particularly if a handful of well-connected oligarchs, some with personal ties to the president, gain control of the resources. Just last year, Afghanistan’s minister of mines was accused by American officials of accepting a $30 million bribe to award China the rights to develop its copper mine. The minister has since been replaced.