Opening Doors

Have you ever wondered how many times you walk through a door each day? I can't seem to visualize a number. Should I count all the doors I pass through, or only the ones that I have to open? What if someone else opens the door for me; does that still count? How about walking through the same door - like your bedroom - twenty times in one morning. And there are oddities too: like car doors (which you kind of sit through), and revolving doors (how many is that?), and double doors (what if you push them both open at the same time), and what about virtual doors (you know, like passwords).

Yes, there are a lot of doors to pass through every day. Mostly they go unnoticed; which is why I can't seem to get a handle on how many there are. But there are a few doors one can't ignore; those are the ones which are locked. Some doors are designed to keep something in, but most are designed to keep someone out. Mostly it's the latter kind of doors I find distressing; I'm an open door policy kind of guy by nature. Sometimes finding the right person or tool is the key to unlocking that door, sometimes the key is more education or experience. However, there are some doors in life which you will never be able to open. That's just the way it is.

I finished uploading my first web page to my new site. You can find it here:

http://sites.google.com/site/chickenmilitia/cars/1990-oldsmobile-delta-88-royale/door-stuck-shut

I don't know when I'll have time to repost the stuff from my old yahoo site. I'm not even sure it's worth the time.

Banking on the Future?

Chevy Chase Bank ceases to exist at the end of this month. On August 1st it will become Capital One Bank ... Ugh! The Chevy Chase name will live on for another year to give customers a chance to get acquainted with the new owners; but next year the name will go too. Bank architecture is designed to instill confidence in its customers: brick walls symbolizing soundness, the columns - longevity, the high ceilings - sanctuary. The whole building gives one the sense that leaving one's money here is a safe and wise decision. It's funny how short lived banks actually are. I've banked at: Citizen's Bank, Suburban Trust, Sovran Bank, Nation's Bank, Friendship Savings and Loan, Metropolitan Federal Savings and Loan, Bank of Baltimore, and a couple more whose names escape me. They all seemed so solid at the time - with their brick and stone. How can they all keep disappearing?

Bank failures have surged this year, already doubling last year's total; unemployment is close to ten percent; home foreclosures are setting new record highs. The dollar is falling as the Federal Reserve prints more and more money; and the Fed's zero percent interest rate policy has made our life savings worthless. The U. S. Government is spending money like there's no tomorrow . Do they know something the rest of us don't? (Using the "like a drunken sailor" simile here would be an insult to drunken sailors everywhere) Auto sales have collapsed and new home construction has come to a standstill. Now the commercial real estate market is in a nosedive. It seems the storm clouds are gathering all around us. Are you prepared to ride out the storm?

Banks are turning in healthy profits led by Goldman Sachs. Unemployment improved again last month; and the housing market has stabilized, with existing home sales posting their third consecutive month of gains. Fast action by the Federal Reserve has strengthened the capital markets, and confidence has returned to the banking sector. The Federal deficit - while high this year - is on a path to sustainability by 2015. A new stronger GM will lead the auto industry back to profitability, and the cash for clunkers program is providing the needed jump start. New home construction is expected to pick up by the end of the year; and investors are pouring money into REITs as they snatch up prime commercial properties at discount prices. It seems the worst of the crisis has passed us by. Are you positioned to profit from this new age of prosperity?

Funny isn't it. The two pictures above were taken from the same location and less than one minute apart. If you look closely you will see the same car at the drive-up window in both images. And the accompanying paragraphs are just compilations of the current headlines available for the day. Two almost identical pictures predicting two vastly different futures. How is it possible in this day of supercomputers, PhD'd economists and just in time inventory, that there is no ability to predict or control our economic future?

Pot of Gold

I've decided to move my website to Google. Their blogging tools seem to work OK; and I tried the web tools yesterday, and they seem to work as well. Now I guess I can give up my old clunky HTML editor and just use the online tools. The Internet has really gotten better over the last 15 years. Everything has become so much more accessible; and the online tools are better than the pricey stand-alone software I'm used to using.

It's dark outside and pouring rain. Thunder and lightning are all around. I really should turn off my computer, but ...

It's been raining since this afternoon; and if I don't make an entry now, I won't have a chance until tomorrow. It did stop raining for a little while earlier this evening. I caught this rainbow on my way home. It was so big, I couldn't get the whole thing in my viewfinder - even set all the way to the widest of angles. Sometimes we forget that the rain will eventually stop - especially in the middle of the storm. A rainbow symbolizes so many different things: a promise to never flood the world again; a coalition of the races; gay pride; and for the Irish, the location of that pot of gold. If you look closely in the second image you will see the pot of gold ... right underneath the blue pyramid. I wish I had the time to go and pick it up, but who has that kind of time. Maybe it will still be there tomorrow.

Geocities Shutting Down

Geocities is closing in October. I went online to upload a new page to my website and saw the notice online. I kind of knew, because yahoo sent me an e-mail about it; but now I can't ignore it any more. I'd finally gotten a handle on posting to the web, and now I'll have to find a new place to do it. Yeah, I could pay to host a site through Yahoo; but don't you think the web was meant to be free? I just spent an hour downloading stuff from my site so I won't lose anything when Yahoo throws the switch. I guess Yahoo just couldn't afford to give away server space anymore.

I remember way back when Geocities was a virtual city - well suburb really - and you drove your "car" from one website to another. It was all so new; all so random. The web was a great way to publish data, but interconnectedness was so next millennium. I used to think my problem finding information on the net was my own fault; I just hadn't mastered the search engines. I tried honing my skills; the search engines came and went (remember Lycos ... Alta Vista?); but I never really mastered the art of the search. I suppose it's not all my fault, most of what I'm searching for is fairly obscure. Sometimes it seems like the web is little more than one big commercial. That's not much help unless you're trying to buy something; I'm just looking for free information.

I'm surprised how hard it is to find good collector's sites. I was looking for information on antique Girard-Perregaux watches, but never found a good photo-catalog. Even the Girard-Perregaux website's "collection" page was not much help. They claim they've been in the custom watch making business since 1791. I would expect hundreds of photographs on display celebrating the endless variety and craftsmanship of their product line. BAA, wrong answer! Now if you're looking to buy a new watch, there are hundreds of sites available - all selling Girard-Perregaux watches ... and all with the lowest price! There are even hundreds of sites advertising fake Girard-Perregaux watches for sale at a tenth the cost of the real thing (I used to think trademark and patent enfringements were crimes that would be prosecuted ... how twentieth century).

I guess there's no money in the kind of information I'm usually looking for, so no one bothers to post it. That's why I started posting information myself. I'm not good at it - and I can't do much because of time constraints - but it seems like each of us should do what we can. Who knows, maybe some day I'll be able to run a search for "air brake cylinder repairs for New York 3rd Avenue streetcars from the 1930's" and actually get a result that's of some use. Just for grins I opened another window and ran a search on that exact phrase and the #1 returned result was:

http://members.trainweb.com/bedt/bedt/BEDTRosters.html

(Yea, yea, I know, "What's he doing multitasking, is he feeling OK?") Don't get me wrong, this is a cool site for train enthusiasts. Lot's of great stuff - even though navigating the page is pretty bad - but none of it is useful for overhauling those air brake controls I need to fix. I've been told that "It's all out there, you just need to know how to search"; and maybe it is ... but I'm not convinced it's all online yet. Maybe the web just needs more time to mature.

A Sense of Proportion

There are some things in life that are better in analog: watches and speedometers are two things that come to mind. The topic for today however is bathroom scales. With an analog scale, you get a sense of proportion - right on the dial - that seems to be missing from a digital scale. It may be a little less than this or a little more than that, but you can see your target weight and your actual weight both on the dial at the same time. It gives you a meaningful gauge of how far you are from your goal. Are you getting closer, or has your goal moved to the left ... almost out of view? On an analog scale, you can design the viewing window to display a twenty pound range; then when you see your target disappear from view, you know you are in trouble.

With a digital scale you don't get the same effect. People have started quoting their weight in half pound increments:

"So, how much do you weigh now?"


"So many and a half" is often the reply.

I'd like to say, "Really? Would you like to have a cup of water or use the bathroom so you can round that off?" Of course that would be rude, but you get the picture. Since digital scales have processors in them, they could be designed to display the information in a number of ways: rounded to the nearest whole number might be a good place to start ... or maybe the nearest 5. Maybe an analog sense of proportion would be useful like -2 or +7 or even "Within Range". Heck, maybe it should just say +, -, or OK.

Maybe your kitchen designer should place a strain gauge in the floor in front of the fridge linked to a biometric scanner and voice synthesizer. Then when you open the door it could say, "Good morning, there are some nice apples in the produce bin, but you may want to avoid the apple pie on the top shelf; you are way outside your specified range." Wouldn't that be a great way to start your day?

How Dry I Am

It was supposed to rain today. We haven't had any rain for two weeks and the rain barrel is empty. The tomatoes just couldn't wait any longer, so we watered them by hand. We've got a good crop of tomatoes coming along. It's the middle of July and already some of the plants are six feet tall. There are lots of green tomatoes and even more blossoms. The first ripe tomatoes will be ready before the end of the month. I can hardly wait to eat that first tomato sandwich! Every year we increase the number of tomatoes we plant ... and every year we find more people willing to take a few home with them. Supply and demand seem to stay in balance.

We need a better system for staking. We started with three foot tall cages, then four; then we went to four foot cages with eight foot tall stakes. What we really need are seven foot tall cages about three feet in diameter. I saw a plan in Mother Earth News or Countryside for a cage - made out of rolled wire for concrete work - that should fit the bill. Maybe I can make some cages over the winter when things slow down. If someone told me ten years ago that I'd be growing tomato plants seven feet tall, I would have laughed.

If you're ever at Disney's Epcot Center in Florida, be sure to take the ride through the greenhouse of the future. Buried deep inside you'll come across the "tomato tree"; this plant has been growing for years and has produced thousands of tomatoes ... all from one plant. I wish I could keep my tomatoes growing all year 'round. Then again, maybe a tomato sandwich wouldn't be so special if I could have one any time I wanted.

Back to Basics

I like to write ... and I have as long as I can remember. Yeah, there was a period during my later school years when I found writing unbearable; but for most of my life I've loved to write. I've kept a journal for years, and now I'm blogging - sort of - and that seems like fun too. Maybe the blog won't last, but it's always good to try something new. For the record, I consider journaling and blogging two different endeavours; two means to different ends.

The company I work for has offered to pay my tuition if I'd like to go back to school. There are limits to the program, but I could take one or two classes a year at their expense. I went to the college and checked on course availability, but I received a bit of bad news: It seems I never finished English 101. How odd ... I just went right by it. I'd forgotten all about that. Hmmm ... Now I'm having nightmares of my inability to tell a dangling participle from a hole in the ground. And I have an even bigger fear than failure ... what if taking English makes me hate writing again? Is it really worth the risk this late in life?

My Two Cents Worth

I had a couple of pennies cross my desk on Monday. Normally I wouldn't have paid much attention, but these two deserved a closer inspection. Both were minted in 1968 and - 41 years later - arrived on my desk side by side. They traveled widely different paths to get here: the penny on the right was coined in Philadelphia - just around the corner so to speak - and shows the wear and tarnish expected of a coin that's given four decades of service; the penny on the left traveled across the continent to get here. If you look below the date, you can see the "S" mint mark indicating this one was struck in San Francisco. This coin has lived a charmed life! It shows almost no wear, few scratches; in fact the original finish is still intact. This coin has traveled over 3,000 miles in 41 years, and still looks like new. Collectors appreciate that kind of thing, but somehow it seems like this slacker from San Francisco is expecting the other pennies to do all the work. What kind of work ethic is that?



Work ethic is a hard thing to quantify, but I have a story that goes like this: The dish washer was waiting at the bus stop on his way to work when someone drove by and shot him in the back. He didn't know what to do. So he got on the bus, made his two transfers, and arrived for work an hour later. When he came into the lobby, someone told him there was blood all over the back of his shirt. He replied, "That's where I got shot." When his manager saw the blood, he rushed the dish washer to the clinic ... and when the doctor at the clinic saw the blood, he rushed the dish washer to the hospital. X-rays revealed the bullet was still in his back. He is presently recovering from surgery. In the future if I ever start to think, "I don't feel like going to work today", I'll just think of the dish washer and then my own troubles won't seem so bad.

An Old Picture

I cleaned out one of my memory sticks today. Here's a picture of the Drum Corps of the MacMillan Pipe Band marching into the circle at Montreal in 2007. That's me all the way on the right. I want to include photos in my blog, but all of my memory sticks have been filled. It's like trying to cook with a sink full of dirty dishes. It's so much easier to take pictures than it is to sort, edit, and annotate them; and since digital pictures are free, it's easy to keep shooting until your memory or batteries give out. I wish my camera had a meter that reminded me how long it was going to take to process all the images I've already captured, then I'd be less likely to "take just one more."

Making Light

As I sat in my car pondering why it is a woman keeps a man waiting, I had the time to watch the lightning bugs come up. At dusk, they begin their accent. Gradually they blink their way higher and higher ... and then they disappear until tomorrow. My uncle always called them "Mother Nature's Fireworks". When I was young, I believed that those bugs rubbed their antennae together to make the light come on, but repeated experiments on captured specimens showed this wasn't true. Now I like to think that lightning bugs blink because they are happy. If I could fly - and I was happy - I think I would turn my blinking light on while I flew around. I wish women were like that. I wish they had a blinking light when they were happy; it would make life so much easier for men. It would seem a little strange at first - especially if the lights were on their tails - but then men wouldn't have to guess all the time. Wouldn't that be nice?

In the Beginning

What is Blogspot anyway?
Ask Wikipedia
Son can you play me a melody ... I'm not really sure how it goes; but it's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete ... when I wore a younger man's clothes.