Two times in one day is two times too many!
A couple of days ago a friend asked if he could borrow $20 from me until payday. I said sure knowing that I had the money and he was good for it. I reached into my pocket to find ... NOTHING. My mind starting thinking in all directions at once: Did it fall out as I was getting out of the car? When did I last have it? "If it's really missing, who do I start calling? But I was calmly saying, "My wallet's in my car. Let me go get it".
It was in my car, on the passenger seat. I had filled my tank with gas and just hadn't put the wallet back in my pocket. Giving my friend a $20 bill, I noticed that I was getting low on cash so I decided to stop at my bank on the way home.
I pulled up to the drive-up ATM, pulled out my wallet, and ... no ATM card! Now what? Again I begin thinking of all the horrible things that might have happened or was happening now. When did I last use the card? When did I last use any of my credit cards? Should I call and cancel the missing ATM card?
Then I wondered if the last time I used the card was in this same drive-up ATM to make a deposit. With no cast to put in my wallet, I might have left the card on the seat. But I would have seen it, wouldn't I? Not if it slid down between the seat and back cushions. There's a little pocket there in my car; things don't automatically fall to the floor in back. Sure enough, after reaching through the crack and retrieving oneo penny, two pretzels, and a half dozen sales receipts, I also found the missing ATM card. Whew! another close call.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
We the People...
We'll be hearing a lot about "We the People...." in the next 20 months leading up to the November 2012 elections. It is a catchy phrase designed to imply that all the people are behind the words that follow. And why shouldn't we be since the words that follow in the discussions we will hear about constitute the Constitution of the most powerful country in the history of the world. It is a constitution that has weathered almost 225 years of attacks from the inside and the outside, both brutal and subtle. One of the greatest features of the Constitution is that it provided for its own modification and was passed with 10 modifications, the Bill of Rights, as immediate examples. It also left a lot unsaid. Like the Ten Commandments, shorter is sometimes better.
But we have among us today people who want to "take back the country", "take back the government" according to their speeches. But they really mean they want to "take the country back", "take the government back", back, that is, to an earlier time, a simpler time, when the country was smaller, the government was smaller, and the budget was smaller. It reminds me of people who still think of the 50's as the "golden years".
Yes, the government and the budget were smaller in 1787 but a lot of other things were different as well. Slavery was alive and well and even many of the Founding Fathers owned slaves. Slaves didn't vote, nor did women. In fact voting was mainly by white, property-owning males. And the Constitution was all right with that. Some states had religious tests for public office-holders or discriminated against people who did not worship according to the state religion. And the Constitution was all right with that. There were no "economic safety nets", national educational standards, environmental protection statutes or agencies, federal transportation support, national safety standards, minimum wages, child labor laws. I could go and on, of course. The list is long and the Constitution was all right with all of it. And so are the people who would take our country back!
America is great because America is good. When we stop being good, we will stop being great. In the past 225 years we have found areas where people on their own don't act for the common good. They lie, cheat, steal, monopolize, oppress, persecute, kill, etc. And if they don't do these things they ignore or encourage those that do. We have learned through sad experience a host of evils that men do and we have empowered the government to minimize those evils and their effects. It hasn't always worked but for the most part it has.
Now, do we want to forget what we've learned, forget what we've had to do to correct problems? The government is too big, they say, but how big is too big? Should we go back to 1970? 1950? 1929? 1787? What standard of living are we prepared to accept? And remember, we don't get to choose where on the ladder of success we will stand when it all comes down. Natural or man-made disasters can wipe out the worldly assets of the richest and there is nothing in the Constitution to prevent it. How would you like to be transported back to 1930 with nothing in your pockets or bank account except "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"?
We the People... better watch out who is pretending to speak for us during the next 20 months.
But we have among us today people who want to "take back the country", "take back the government" according to their speeches. But they really mean they want to "take the country back", "take the government back", back, that is, to an earlier time, a simpler time, when the country was smaller, the government was smaller, and the budget was smaller. It reminds me of people who still think of the 50's as the "golden years".
Yes, the government and the budget were smaller in 1787 but a lot of other things were different as well. Slavery was alive and well and even many of the Founding Fathers owned slaves. Slaves didn't vote, nor did women. In fact voting was mainly by white, property-owning males. And the Constitution was all right with that. Some states had religious tests for public office-holders or discriminated against people who did not worship according to the state religion. And the Constitution was all right with that. There were no "economic safety nets", national educational standards, environmental protection statutes or agencies, federal transportation support, national safety standards, minimum wages, child labor laws. I could go and on, of course. The list is long and the Constitution was all right with all of it. And so are the people who would take our country back!
America is great because America is good. When we stop being good, we will stop being great. In the past 225 years we have found areas where people on their own don't act for the common good. They lie, cheat, steal, monopolize, oppress, persecute, kill, etc. And if they don't do these things they ignore or encourage those that do. We have learned through sad experience a host of evils that men do and we have empowered the government to minimize those evils and their effects. It hasn't always worked but for the most part it has.
Now, do we want to forget what we've learned, forget what we've had to do to correct problems? The government is too big, they say, but how big is too big? Should we go back to 1970? 1950? 1929? 1787? What standard of living are we prepared to accept? And remember, we don't get to choose where on the ladder of success we will stand when it all comes down. Natural or man-made disasters can wipe out the worldly assets of the richest and there is nothing in the Constitution to prevent it. How would you like to be transported back to 1930 with nothing in your pockets or bank account except "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"?
We the People... better watch out who is pretending to speak for us during the next 20 months.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Hard drives in copiers
Carolyn recently got one of those "The sky's falling; the sly's falling" sort of email claiming that copiers now have hard drives in them and those hard dries are j ust full of images of all that has been copied on that machine. Since peple don't know about the hard drive, sensitive and private information is being unnecessarily spread and left open to misuse. The plea, as usual, was to forward the message to everyone you know and love.
Like every good rumor there was a grain of truth in the message. Yes, many copiers have hard drives in them, a warning that was made on a major TV network almost a year ago. (so much for a timely warning). But almost 8 years ago Xerox put out a pamphlet entitled "Hard Disk Security for Printers, MFPs, and Copiers that Resellers need to know to advise their customers."
I don't know how widely the pamphlet was distributed or how much resellers used it to warn customers but it's all in there. Using the normal machine controls there isi no way to access hard drive information. And the better machine effectively wipe out each hard drive after each job and when the power is shut off.
Should you worry about your copier's haard drive and security being compromised? Yes. Should you panic? No. Call your copier supplier and request the particular status of your copier's hard drive. Then remind him that his company is also responsible for security.
Like every good rumor there was a grain of truth in the message. Yes, many copiers have hard drives in them, a warning that was made on a major TV network almost a year ago. (so much for a timely warning). But almost 8 years ago Xerox put out a pamphlet entitled "Hard Disk Security for Printers, MFPs, and Copiers that Resellers need to know to advise their customers."
I don't know how widely the pamphlet was distributed or how much resellers used it to warn customers but it's all in there. Using the normal machine controls there isi no way to access hard drive information. And the better machine effectively wipe out each hard drive after each job and when the power is shut off.
Should you worry about your copier's haard drive and security being compromised? Yes. Should you panic? No. Call your copier supplier and request the particular status of your copier's hard drive. Then remind him that his company is also responsible for security.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Magic Mushroom popcorm
If you look carefully at the popcorn in this picture you'll notice that it looks more like little popcorn colored marbles. There are no "ears" or flaps to be knocked off when the popcorn is stirred or shaken. What could you do with popcorn that tastes exactly like your favorite popcorn but is less prone to break into pieces? Right! Kettle corn, candied corn, caramel corn, etc.!!
The wonderful people at ConAgra, the huge agricultural company that does so much research on improving crops has come up with a popcorn you can work with. Our piano tuner, of all people, had seen from the popper on our stove that we were popcorn loving people and had suggested we look into "Mushroom" popcorn - so called because the popped kernel looks a lot like a mushroom head. Others call it "brain" or "cerebral" popcorn for the same reason - similarity in looks.
A search of the Internet indicated that you can buy smaller packages of popcorn than the 50 pound bag we bought but the mark-up was significant. So I braved the rainstorm to buy the large bag and split it into smaller containers. Fortunately, we had several 8 pound plastic bottles that were just what I needed. |
| Click to enlarge |
Sunday, February 20, 2011
A weekend project
After laying the tools out, opening and sorting
some of the parts, and going through most of the directions I could certainly understand why a person wouldn't want to tackle this alone. I was also glad that I would be the one reading the instructions while everyone else would be helping put the pieces together.
With the exception of two missteps and having to undo a couple of steps to follow the directions properly, we put it all together correctly.Last we saw, Tiffany was showing the older boys how to dribble and shoot.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Judy Small - a real (great) person
Background 1: Judy Small, folk singer from Australia had a brief period of popularity in America during the mid to late 80's. As folk singing was losing popularity a about that time she never "made it big" in America.
Background 2: I'm involved for my 6th year in the Sac State based Renaissance Society, a mini-school on campus where seniors and retired people conduct seminars and teach each other everything from ancient Roman history to current trends in knitting. One of the seminars I'm taking is about Protest Singers and the Songs They Sing.
It appeared to me that my Protest Singers class was likely going to focus on the more well-known singers of protest songs such as Woodie Guthrie and Pete Seeger. There are enough people in he class that I could just sit tight and listen to others present but for once in my life I thought I had something unique to share. I began to develop a 1 hour presentation about Judy Small and I volunteered to make that presentation.
In the course of my research I found that Judy had at one time sold a 54-apge book of her songs and I even found that book on eBay listed at $40. It was a poor listing, however, with no description of which songs, how many songs, or whether it was accompaniment or with words.
Thinking outside the box, my wife Carolyn emailed Judy Small asking if she had a music book she could share with us. Well, darned if she didn't geet a very nice response from Judy and a computer readable copy of that music book. Judy admitted that she didn't read nor write music so the book has the lyrics, the melody, and the appropriate guitar chords. It will make a perfect piano fake book. I can't wait to introduce some of the songs to our grandkids.
Thank you Judy Small.
p.s. My presentation is set for March 4. I"ll let you know how it goes.
Background 2: I'm involved for my 6th year in the Sac State based Renaissance Society, a mini-school on campus where seniors and retired people conduct seminars and teach each other everything from ancient Roman history to current trends in knitting. One of the seminars I'm taking is about Protest Singers and the Songs They Sing.
It appeared to me that my Protest Singers class was likely going to focus on the more well-known singers of protest songs such as Woodie Guthrie and Pete Seeger. There are enough people in he class that I could just sit tight and listen to others present but for once in my life I thought I had something unique to share. I began to develop a 1 hour presentation about Judy Small and I volunteered to make that presentation.
In the course of my research I found that Judy had at one time sold a 54-apge book of her songs and I even found that book on eBay listed at $40. It was a poor listing, however, with no description of which songs, how many songs, or whether it was accompaniment or with words.
Thinking outside the box, my wife Carolyn emailed Judy Small asking if she had a music book she could share with us. Well, darned if she didn't geet a very nice response from Judy and a computer readable copy of that music book. Judy admitted that she didn't read nor write music so the book has the lyrics, the melody, and the appropriate guitar chords. It will make a perfect piano fake book. I can't wait to introduce some of the songs to our grandkids.
Thank you Judy Small.
p.s. My presentation is set for March 4. I"ll let you know how it goes.
Monday, February 07, 2011
Memeo backup software
Backing up the files you can't replace just seems to be common sense. But many of us don't do it because of the inconvenience or cost or we just don't remember to do it. Besides, we've never lost anything really important so we've been all right so far. I've discovered a program that makes it almost too easy to backup. You forget it's there for you.
Let's say you're only willing to back up your files daily. Most backup software gives you 3 choices: full backup, incremental backup; and differential backup. The full backup is obvious - a complete copy of all your important files is made to a separate, usually external drive. So every day you copy all your important file. Lots of time and storage required. But to find and restore a file requires looking at only one file.
The differential backup copies those files that have changed since the last full backup. You back up all your files on Sunday then on Monday just those saved or changed on Monday. On Tuesday all those changed on Monday and Tuesday. And so on. To find and restore a file takes at most looking at the original complete backup plus the most recent differential backup.
Finally, the incremental backup copies those files changed since the last backup of any kind. Thus, on Sunday you do a complete backup. On Monday copy all those files changed on Monday. On Tuesday all those files changed on Tuesday, etc. To find and restore a file takes looking through as many backup files as seven.
The product I settled on is called Premium Backup from Memeo.com. Memeo thinks outside the box. It produces what might be termed a "mirror" backup. Every time a file is saved to disk, another copy of that file is saved to a back-up disk drive. The system administrator can select how many copies are saved, something that is not easy to do with the other backup plans . Memeo does this in the background so the user is seldom bothered. Only if your program needs exclusive access to a file being backed-up will there be a conflict but even then Memeo usually just queues the request for later filing.
A good program.
Let's say you're only willing to back up your files daily. Most backup software gives you 3 choices: full backup, incremental backup; and differential backup. The full backup is obvious - a complete copy of all your important files is made to a separate, usually external drive. So every day you copy all your important file. Lots of time and storage required. But to find and restore a file requires looking at only one file.
The differential backup copies those files that have changed since the last full backup. You back up all your files on Sunday then on Monday just those saved or changed on Monday. On Tuesday all those changed on Monday and Tuesday. And so on. To find and restore a file takes at most looking at the original complete backup plus the most recent differential backup.
Finally, the incremental backup copies those files changed since the last backup of any kind. Thus, on Sunday you do a complete backup. On Monday copy all those files changed on Monday. On Tuesday all those files changed on Tuesday, etc. To find and restore a file takes looking through as many backup files as seven.
The product I settled on is called Premium Backup from Memeo.com. Memeo thinks outside the box. It produces what might be termed a "mirror" backup. Every time a file is saved to disk, another copy of that file is saved to a back-up disk drive. The system administrator can select how many copies are saved, something that is not easy to do with the other backup plans . Memeo does this in the background so the user is seldom bothered. Only if your program needs exclusive access to a file being backed-up will there be a conflict but even then Memeo usually just queues the request for later filing.
A good program.
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Fences
Every once in a while a program comes along that is simple, well written, and does exactly what it purports to do. The software I am reviewing today has the added virtue of being free. The software is Fences from Stardock.
Ever since Windows 95 came out, I have been a Desktop junkie. Dropping things on the desktop just makes them so much more accessible to other programs. That's one reason my computer screen is as cluttered as my real desktop. But I also like to be able to see what is on my desktop and where it is. So I'm forever cleaning up and straightening out my desktop icons. I find myself longing for the orderliness of the Windows 3.1 desktop and its separate program groups.
Well, I found the answer - Fences. This program allows you to draw several "fenced" rectangles on your wallpaper or it will draw several for you. Then, inside these fences you can drag and drop programs, files, shortcuts, basically anything that can go on the desktop. If you put too many icons in the box it automatically sprouts a scroll bar. The fenced rectangles can be moved and resized and even, once you get them how you like them, locked.
Files or shortcuts sent to the desktop after installing fences are placed in unfenced areas and are thus much easier to see and work with. There is even a provision for making all the screen icons disappear although I can't think why that would be helpful.
All that for no cost. What a deal!
Ever since Windows 95 came out, I have been a Desktop junkie. Dropping things on the desktop just makes them so much more accessible to other programs. That's one reason my computer screen is as cluttered as my real desktop. But I also like to be able to see what is on my desktop and where it is. So I'm forever cleaning up and straightening out my desktop icons. I find myself longing for the orderliness of the Windows 3.1 desktop and its separate program groups.
Files or shortcuts sent to the desktop after installing fences are placed in unfenced areas and are thus much easier to see and work with. There is even a provision for making all the screen icons disappear although I can't think why that would be helpful.
All that for no cost. What a deal!
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
Takeover
When I was on the board of directors for a credit union it was common to have only a small fraction of the credit union's membership attend the annual meeting. It was rather amazing that 5 or 10% or less of the membership would vote on and approve (or not) important things such as bylaws, board members, board officers, and annual budgets. I wondered (but not worried) what would happen if a large number of members with their own agenda showed up.
Well, I saw just that happen this past Sunday. It wasn't a credit union but the Friends of the Sacramento Public Library (FSPL). There are about 2,300 members of the Friends in a library system with 630,000 library card holders. But those 2,300 account for between $200,000 and $300,000 in annual gifts to the library system. Not too shabby! It's a little more complicated because under the umbrella organization of FSPL (System Friends) there are 28 branches - one for each branch library. There is also a Library Foundation which raises considerably more than that through major fundraisers and capital campaigns. Because of the potential and actual overlap of activities, a committee has been working for the past two years to assign duties and responsibilities to the various entities. It has not been an easy task and there has been some differences of opinion. We just had no idea how strong those differences were.
Sunday afternoon, at our usual annual meeting where attendance is usually 40 or 50, we were surprised that it was more like 100 to 120. We were also surprised that when nominations from the floor were called for instead of a moment of silence, people rose to nominate 4 board members and an alternate candidate for President. It was all perfectly legal but totally unexpected by at least half the crowd. Printed ballots appeared on cue followed by the main speaker while the votes were counted. Following the meeting, three of us board members resigned because either (1) we felt we could not work with the new president, (2) we could not work with a coalition which seized power by stealth, or (3) were committed to the slate proposed by the nominating committee.
It was over with almost before it began. I had planned to serve another year but now find myself with several free hours each month that I hadn't planned on.
Moral of the story: read your bylaws carefully.
Well, I saw just that happen this past Sunday. It wasn't a credit union but the Friends of the Sacramento Public Library (FSPL). There are about 2,300 members of the Friends in a library system with 630,000 library card holders. But those 2,300 account for between $200,000 and $300,000 in annual gifts to the library system. Not too shabby! It's a little more complicated because under the umbrella organization of FSPL (System Friends) there are 28 branches - one for each branch library. There is also a Library Foundation which raises considerably more than that through major fundraisers and capital campaigns. Because of the potential and actual overlap of activities, a committee has been working for the past two years to assign duties and responsibilities to the various entities. It has not been an easy task and there has been some differences of opinion. We just had no idea how strong those differences were.
Sunday afternoon, at our usual annual meeting where attendance is usually 40 or 50, we were surprised that it was more like 100 to 120. We were also surprised that when nominations from the floor were called for instead of a moment of silence, people rose to nominate 4 board members and an alternate candidate for President. It was all perfectly legal but totally unexpected by at least half the crowd. Printed ballots appeared on cue followed by the main speaker while the votes were counted. Following the meeting, three of us board members resigned because either (1) we felt we could not work with the new president, (2) we could not work with a coalition which seized power by stealth, or (3) were committed to the slate proposed by the nominating committee.
It was over with almost before it began. I had planned to serve another year but now find myself with several free hours each month that I hadn't planned on.
Moral of the story: read your bylaws carefully.
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