The Discourser

2013-08-27T20:24:00.000-07:00

At the CA-GAFE Summit this past summer I learned quite a lot about the functionality of Google Drive. One of the Superfriends works for the Google Empire and enlightened me to something called "Writely" a number of years ago.

Writely turned into Google Docs some time later. Google Docs then added other functional programs to offer an alternative to the Microsoft Office Suite with a massive bonus...it was free! I've used GMail, Google Docs, Google Presentation, and Spreadsheets.

Over the recent years Google Docs has morphed into Google Drive which encompasses all of the applications. I have seen the Forms app many times but never had the opportunity to explore it deeply. While at CA-GAFE, I chose to focus my time on how to apply the Forms app to my daily work.

The presenters extolled the benefits of reducing paper consumption with the use of Forms. I found that I could create forms for the elective requests for next year. I was taught how to include a script in the Spreadsheet that is created along with the Form to auto email the responders confirmation of their submission. The data is then gathered by time stamp for me to use in programming. I could also use the Spreadsheet functions to see how many requests are submitted by course in order to build an appropriate schedule.

Forms will replace any paper based form that has to be submitted at our site for employees as well. Those items are Emergency Contact forms, Leave Requests, Supply Requisitions, etc. It is a powerful tool that is absurdly easy to use and deploy in a business environment.

Enough for now. I encourage you to explore on your own. You can't break it. Later...

Toying with Technology

2013-08-24T17:20:00.001-07:00

It has been far too long and I am almost certain no one is waiting for a new post from The Discourser. I have rediscovered blogging due in part to The Wife wanting help setting up a site for her classroom. One of the other events that have inspired me to resurrect this blog was my attendance at the California Google Apps for Educators conference in July. The Google suite of apps is mind blowing! I am toying with Google Forms and have already made Google Drive a site standard with our teachers. Hopefully I can post something here a few times a week as I try to breath life back into the world of The Discourser.

I Just Had to Put This One On the Internet...

2011-05-09T20:17:00.000-07:00

At the tail end of last week I had one of our District maintenance workers come to our office in the early morning. The guy was on fire about something that happened the afternoon before. The Boss and I were off at a meeting that afternoon and were unaware of what had happened.

Apparently one of our secretaries called maintenance in the afternoon to report an issue in our boy's bathroom. The maintenance worker arrived to find one of the toilets clogged. This is not an unusual issue, however, this one was a special circumstance.

The unknown perpetrator had taken a yogurt cup, opened it, and then proceeded to splash the yogurt over the walls, floor, and toilet. What constitutes the clog you ask? The guilty party then proceeded to "drop a deuce" in the cup and then shove it into the toilet. How did the maintenance worker know they "pinched a loaf" in the plastic container? The worker also found human Lincoln logs laying in piles on the floor and smeared into the tile. Needless to say he was quite upset.

Just another day in public education.

Family Winter Holiday Part 3

2011-01-02T10:46:00.000-08:00

Our return to the Port of Los Angeles was uneventful and smooth. We arrived at 7 am and were scheduled to disembark at 8:30 in the morning. Our troop ventured up to the buffet and had a quick breakfast before heading off to our disembarkation areas.

Senior Dad and I headed off to the Internet Cafe where all wheel chair assisted people were to report while The Wife and the rest of the group headed off to one of the dining rooms on the lower floor of the ship. We were ten minutes early and waited in the area while other wheel chair bound senior citizens arrived.

Our disembarkation time came and went and we were left waiting for an our past our scheduled time. Finally one of the porters came and stood near me and I asked what the problem was. He stated US Immigration was holding up the process much as they did when we were trying to get on board ship at the start of our vacation. The Wife and the rest of the family got off before Senior Dad and I and were in the immigration line as we were escorted to the handicapped line for customs.

Senior Dad and I were left waiting in the cold and wind along with ten other senior citizens while hordes of people were allowed to go in front of us. We waited for 30 minutes with the excuse being only US Immigration personnel could push a wheelchair through the line. Only three people were working the line and there were more than 20 seniors piled up after 30 minutes. At that point I had enough of the delays.

I stepped into the door of the immigration building and began yelling and dropping F-bombs. I yelled the seniors were freezing, etc, etc. The very same bitchy woman who yelled at passengers and workers at the start of our vacation came up to me and told me to go ahead and push Senior Dad into the line. I told her all the others behind me were doing the same not just me. A line of Seniors were queued up behind me inside the building.

By the way, US Immigration is a freaking joke. They scanned our passports and nothing else. If the federal government is so worried about smuggling, terrorists, etc., you would think they would check a bag upon coming back into the country. Nope. The bored agent just shuttled us through the line. We were escorted into an elevator and down to the baggage area where a porter and the family were waiting with our bags. Our troop was walked out into the rain and wind and deposited on a bench to await our hotel shuttle.

Of course the shuttle was late and was only running one van. The hotel had me on hold for over ten minutes and never connected me to the shuttle desk. Apparently the hotel forgot to read their own literature about continuous shuttle service every ten minutes to the cruise terminal. We were finally picked up by a rushed and haggard driver and taken back to the hotel and our cars. We finally made it onto the road at 10:42 am, over an hour later than we were supposed to depart from LA.

The drive home was fine and we completed the 400 miles in seven hours. It was good to be home and we all quickly settled in to unpack and do laundry.

In summary, Princess Cruises Lines was again fantastic. The Port of Los Angeles at San Pedro, the dock workers at San Pedro, and US Immigration at San Pedro were hideous. Their incompetence, disregard, and disrespect of the public was shameful. They made no apologies for their terrible service and, like most protected unionized workers, simply put in the utter minimum and collect a paycheck with no care for the quality of work or service.

I will never embark on a cruise from that port again. From our conversations with many other passengers these issues do NOT exist at Long Beach, San Francisco, Miami, or Seattle. Only at San Pedro.

Overall, our terribly negative experience with the port only serves to reinforce my negative attitude towards Los Angeles as a whole. I thank the gods I do not live there and would never entertain thoughts of visiting again. The only allure to the area is Disneyland. I may make an exception for that but not anytime soon.

I'm off to enjoy the last hours of my vacation and nurse the cold acquired from being left outside in LA before returning to work on Monday. Have a great Sunday!

Family Winter Holiday Part 2

2011-01-01T21:16:00.000-08:00

Our family trip to the Mexican Riviera was comprised of three stops. Our first stop was Puerto Vallarta. The weather at this stop was fantastic. We disembarked and met our tour guide, Raul, who directed us to our tour bus. Soon enough our tour took off on a very long and meandering voyage to a hacienda. After a forty minute ride we finally stopped at the Hacienda Don Engracia Tequila Factory.

It was here we tasted six different tequilas. Senior Mom, The Wife and The Girl also participated in the tasting event. Of course I got all the tequila they did not like. I left the tasting room a bit buzzed and headed out to the buffet luncheon. There we watched dancing and listened to music. Eventually I was dragged up with two other men to participate in a tequila shooting contest. We were to down a triple shot of tequila and make a Mexican shout. I came in second and received a Cohiba cigar. The Girl won first place in a tortilla making contest and both The Boy and The Girl participated in a traditional dance. We then headed off to some rushed shopping and back to the ship.

The next day we were in Mazatlan and toured on a double decker bus. Mazatlan was filthy. Gang graffiti was on every single available wall and surface. The only thing not tagged were the religious monuments and cathedral. Even the massive statues and exhibits were tagged. It was sad. After a quick visit to the local cathedral we were stopped at an intersection because of a traffic accident. Actually, some woman was hit by a car and lying partially in the one lane road. A local police officer was on scene and then pulled away leaving the woman and some citizens with the woman. Our bus driver pressed forward and squeezed by the woman lying in the road barely missing her head. We saw quite a few local attractions before being shuttled for more rushed shopping at the local downtown. The best shopping was at the shops near the port terminal. Mazatlan was a filthy dirty town and I would not want to return. I can get the same flavor for gangs and filth by visiting my own inner city.

The final stop was in Cabo San Lucas. We were shuttled from the ship on a tender. The marina was far too small for any cruise ships to dock. We embarked on a whale watching expedition and saw many gray and humpback whales with their calves. The whales were awesome as was the free beer and food on the double decker catamaran. After returning to the marina we walked into town and shopped for a few hours, visiting Sammy Hagar's Cabo Wabo and many other local shops. The stop in Cabo was a short one. All of us agreed Cabo San Lucas was the best of the three stops and we enjoyed it immensely. The Wife and I are entertaining the idea of returning to Cabo for a vacation on our own so we can explore and see all the sights.

Back on the ship we continued our hedonistic food orgy, partaking in the nightly dinners and enjoying the morning room service. We also enjoyed the many shows and comedians aboard ship. Our return to Los Angeles was uneventful which belied the issues we were about to encounter upon leaving the ship.

However, more of that later...it is time to watch some America's Most Wanted to see if any of my relatives appear. I could use a decent reward...

The Family's Winter Holiday

2010-12-31T07:56:00.000-08:00

The contents of The Homestead, The Wife, The Boy, The Girl, The Seniors, and myself, chose to forgo the madness of holiday consumption and do something a bit different. We decided to book ourselves a cruise to the Mexican Riviera aboard the Princess Cruise Lines. The Wife and I so loved our last cruise that we wanted to share the experience with the rest of the family.

The date arrived and we made our departure. The cruise left out of the port of Los Angeles which required us to drive from The Homestead to board our ship. Since we were six, we had to take both the Cross Country Cruiser and Senior Mom's little Toyota Carolla. Both vehicles were loaded and with KtMDD boarded at our groomers, we set off on our holiday adventure.

We checked the weather and saw skies were clear until we approached the Los Angeles area. Four hundred miles, three pit stops, and seven hours later our intrepid travelers arrived at the hotel we booked to stay the night before the cruise. The overnight package allowed us to store our cars for the duration of the cruise in their secured lot rather than out at the unsecured port parking lot.

Boarding day was rainy and wet. We were dropped off at the port of LA by our shuttle. There was no protection from the rain for us or our bags. A porter, James, took my bags to the security facility while the family and I made our way to the terminal to check in. The facility was quite large and spacious, a good thing since there were two other cruises departing that day. We were on the Sapphire Princess. The Golden Princess was headed to Hawaii for 14 days and the Crystal Cruise lines' Crystal Symphony was also headed to Mexico.

The US Immigration and Port personnel were nice except for one woman. She yelled at passengers, other work personnel, and admonished many workers when conflicting information was given to passengers in front of everyone. She was quite unpleasant and the immigration worker assigned to Senior Dad and his wheelchair said he was afraid of her and didn't want to get fired since it was his first day.

By eleven, an hour later we were on board and in our staterooms. All that was left to do was wait for our luggage to be delivered. From our last experience it took only half an hour to get our things. We all waited...and waited. From my balcony room I could see loading bins filled with luggage sitting out in the pouring rain not being loaded. The same bins sat there for FOUR hours before any were placed on the ship.

The Seniors received their luggage first. The Boy and Girl had part of their luggage delivered. The Wife and I received our luggage six hours later with some of it wet. The Girl finally got her clothes delivered. Her suit case was utterly soaked, as if it were held underwater for hours. Everything was wet. Other than one dress and the clothes on her back, she had nothing to wear. Everything required drying. Thank goodness for her cabin steward who jumped her things to the front of the line and got it all to her the next day.

Once handed off from the rude, incompetent union dock workers and equally rude US Immigration people, Princess Cruise personnel took great care of us. We later found out some people NEVER got their luggage. The incompetent dock workers loaded some of the luggage on the ship bound for Hawaii while totally destroying or outright losing others.

The trip on the Sapphire Princess was great. The accommodations were outstanding and the food was five star. Our waiter, Rui (pronounced Roo-ee) from Portugal was the best. We all exchanged stories and we learned a lot about his native Portugal and Lisbon. Upon departure he gave us his contact information and invited us to stay with his family in his village near Lisbon if we ever visited Portugal.

I'm going to stop here for now. The next post will contain accounts of Mexico including family tequila shots, whales, and more incompetence from US Immigration.

Time for coffee and breakfast! Later...

Bow Ties and Bezels Redone

2010-09-05T22:29:00.000-07:00

Last week I had the chance to get the front and rear Chevrolet bow ties and chrome tail light bezels wrapped in gloss black vinyl to match my car color. I had been waiting to make this appointment for about three months after meeting a bunch of other local Camaro owners.

I took the recommendation of one of the owners and contacted a local shop about half an hour to the South of The Homestead. The shop owner and operator is a one man show and flies all over the country doing vinyl wraps on a wide variety of cars. I played phone tag with him over the course of two weeks before finding a day and time I could bring my car to his shop.

The day arrived and I took off work an hour or so early to make my appointment. Of course it was the hottest day of the year thus far. His shop office and waiting room was a twelve foot cube luckily positioned to receive every ray of sunlight from noon to sunset. The outside temperature was over 95 degrees with the internal temperature of his waiting room easily surpassing the 100 degree mark. I spent the majority of the two hour wait outside in the parking lot cooling off in the shade of a nearby tree.

Two hours later the shop owner proclaimed he had finished the job of wrapping the tail light bezels and bow ties. He used a vinyl product from 3M to do the job. The vinyl was cut according to a template, wrapped around the parts, and then heated with a heat gun to shrink wrap the parts. The vinyl wrap is good for 8 to 10 years and can be washed without restrictions.

I am thrilled the chrome bezels were finally covered along with the bow ties. It has substantially changed the look of the car and was simple to do. The tail light bezels look like they came from the factory already black and the bow ties look fantastic with the chrome outline.

My next modification will have to wait until next summer. I am planning on installing a Competition Cat-Back exhaust from Magnaflow. The exhaust note is rich and deep without the ping or blat of other exhaust systems. Getting the parts are easy. The hard part is finding a place to do the install.

I'm looking forward to taking a nice drive with The Wife on Labor Day. See you on the road! Later...

...And There Was Joy in the World

2010-08-23T20:52:00.000-07:00

Today I drove my sad little rental car, a 2010 Chevrolet HHR LT, to work. The car looks like a station wagon with a decidedly boxy appearance. The interior was lacking in comfort but was functional for its class. I did not enjoy driving it but I took it to school none the less.

I arrived and carved out some time to make a phone call to General Motors. I received a contact number from a fellow Camaro owner on the Camaro5.com message boards. The member is an employee of GM and instructed me to contact the company, explain the situation, and get a reference number to escalate the issue.

The recorded information on the line stated I had reached the Employee Referred Complaint Department. I spoke to woman named Susan who was extremely apologetic about the issue. I explained I had brought the car in for service after something detonated under the hood. I then told her the dealership swapped out the throttle body but as still getting an error code. They consulted the engineers who recommended swapping out the ECM. Since the ECM was a restricted part there were some hoops to jump through.

I also explained I understood all those things and what really bothered me was the shop representative telling me they had no time line for the part t arrive and said it could be up to two weeks until I got my car back. Susan documented my issue and then asked me what the dealership name was and if I had the phone number. I gave her both and she put me on hold.

A few minutes later Susan returned to the line and said she spoke with the service representative at the dealership. They had received the part this morning and a technician was working on the car as we were speaking. I thanked Susan for her help. She told me that the service rep had contacted GM and raised a little Hell to get my part in ASAP. I was surprised since she was so cavalier and dismissive on Friday.

Susan stated she would call me back on Thursday to see if things were alright with the car and to let her know if there were any other issues that I wanted addressed so she could resolve them immediately. I was so happy after completing my phone call to GM. About an hour and a half later I received a phone call from the rep at the dealership telling me my car was all fixed and that they were "washing" it for me.

I picked the car up and drove it home with no issues. It felt great to get back into my car especially after having to drive the anemic rental for a couple of days. The Wife and I have already planned for a short day trip to our favorite spot on Earth this coming Saturday. I can't wait!

I'm off to surf the web and putter around before heading off to bed. Hasta manana...

Finally Replaced My HP Laptop

2010-08-22T11:49:00.001-07:00

The time had come for me to replace my trusty HP laptop. I had received the dv6000t (see picture) about five years ago from work. At the time it was close to the top of the line in laptops. It was running a 1.83 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 1 GB of DDR2 RAM and an 80 GB HDD. The laptop was screaming fast at the time and was a total departure from my other work issued laptop.

Over the years it had served me well both in the home and on the road. In fact, it was the last Windows based machine in my house since The Wife replaced her aged desktop with an Apple iMac.

Two years ago I upgraded the RAM to 2 GB of DDR2, the maximum it could hold. The performance increased and it was still serving me well. My phone was synchronized to it along with my original iTunes library. I was so happy!

One day last year I noticed a distinct pink hue to the LCD screen upon start up. It would last a few minutes and eventually give way to the normal color. I researched the issue and found that the issue happens when the CCFL bulb begins to reach end of life.

Then the unthinkable happened. Somehow a nasty computer Ebola virus struck. I was able to knock it out but severely killed a number of registry items. The issue was so severe I had to reinstall the XP OS after transferring all my pertinent files to an external drive. After a day or two of futzing with the reinstall the HP was resurrected. Again I was happy, pink colored LCD or not.

This summer two issues struck almost simultaneously. The sound card died on the machine without warning. Nothing I did in terms of drivers, downloads or canned air could solve the problem. Again I researched the issue and found this was another common occurrence as a laptop approaches end of life. Also, the laptop was having issues starting up when I pushed the power button. It would take three attempts, each more forceful than the other, to get the computer to realize I wanted to power on. More research revealed this was close to the last straw.

The Boss and another co-worker had the same laptops, all of which had these same issues and died horrible deaths within two years of ownership. It was time to find a replacement.

I looked and found an HP Pavilion dm4. It is smaller than the dv6000t which had a 15.4 inch screen. However, the dm4 is far superior in a number of ways. It is running Windows 7 which is nearly a direct copy of Apple OSX 10.6. The difference between the two is almost disappearing. It also has a 500 GB HDD, an Intel i5 2.27 GHz processor and 4 GB of DDR3 RAM. It is 4.4 pounds and light as a feather. It even looks like a MacBook from a distance.

It took a while to do a full file transfer over to the new machine from the dv6000t using my external HDD but now all pertinent information is in its new home. It was a sad day when I packed up my dv6000t for storage. It will become my backup laptop in the event something happens to the new one. Like an old horse, the dv6000t has been put out to pasture. I did not have the heart to send it to the glue factory so it will spend the rest of its days in a cyber field grazing on silicon grass.

I'm off to go find myself some lunch and enjoy the brief respite from the gloomy weather. Later...

Six Days and Still No Car

2010-08-19T20:48:00.000-07:00

So nearly a week has passed and I still do not have my Camaro back from the dealership. The car to the left is not my car but it is how I last saw my Camaro.

As you may have already read, my new Camaro broke down last Saturday while driving on city streets. I had it transported to a local Chevrolet dealership near where it broke down for repairs.

The first order of business was to replace the throttle body. The throttle body manages the amount of airflow that is allowed into the engine via a metal plate. The diagnostics led the technicians to believe that was the culprit causing the issues with my car. The service representative contacted me and told me the technician had installed the part, cleared the error codes, and was preparing to take the car out for a shake down to see if everything was working.

The representative called me back a little while later to tell me there was no joy. The car coded again. The dealership contacted the engineers who recommended they change the ECM module. The ECM or Engine Control Module, monitors the air/ fuel mixture. A malfunctioning ECM may lead to some of the troubling idle issues I experienced last Saturday.

The representative told me they had to order the part from somewhere far away and expected it to come in today (Thursday). I waited all morning and afternoon and finally called around 3 p.m. to check on what was going on with my Camaro. The rep on the other end of the line told me they had not received the part. DAMN! I am getting impatient and would like to have my car back.

Hopefully the swap out of the ECM will solve the problems. If not I have the option to get a rental car for my troubles. I will also look up the California Lemon Laws just to make sure I am covered for something in the event this becomes a prolonged issue.

I'm out of here. There are many prayers to say and candles to light to the car gods. Later...

My Wounded Camaro

2010-08-14T19:19:00.000-07:00

The car to the left of these words is my 2010 2SS/ RS Camaro. It is the sweetest car I have ever owned. The 376 cubic inch, 6.2 liter V-8 engine pumps out 400+ horse power to some sweet Pirelli P-Zero tires. Since getting the car in March I have babied it to the max. It is garaged and has never sat outside over night. The car is a weekend driver and has under 2700 miles on the odometer.

The Wife and I have taken it on only one overnight trip, a couple of hundred total miles. Heck, I even park the car in the most inconvenient spots to avoid getting any door dings or dents from inconsiderate drivers.

I refuse to have any food or drink in the car. The exception is bottled water as long as the bottle can be sealed. This car is babied way more than I was as a child.

Today The Wife and I took Senior Mom to some old folks gathering called the Red Hats. We dropped her off and headed off to a local car show not far away from her event. The car show was great and we spent close to an hour walking through the rows of classic vehicles. Then it was off to the local Trader Joe's and back to pick up Senior Mom. That is when something hideous happened to the babied Camaro.

The Wife and I rolled up to a stop light in the center of three lanes. The car started to shake violently. The Driver Information Center (DIC), a display in the center of the instrument cluster, showed an exclamation point (!) with the phrase "Running on Reduced Power." The check engine light was on along with a symbol for the TCS. I thought it meant Traction Control System.

I pressed on the gas pedal and the once powerful engine failed to roar. The car limped along and took almost 100 yards to build up to 20 m.p.h. I struggled to get into the curbside lane in the event I needed to pull over. The highest speed I attained was 25 m.p.h. as I headed to pick up Senior Mom. The Wife and I picked her up and took the quaking, limping car to the nearest parking lot. The Wife contacted AAA while I attempted to contact the service department where I bought the now wounded Camaro. I couldn't reach the service department as they are closed on Saturday so I contacted the next closest dealership. They were open.

Triple-A arrived but without a flatbed tow truck. The tow operator contacted his dispatcher and worked out a deal so I could get a flatbed. The other truck arrived twenty minutes later and the driver was great. He hooked up my car and got it on the truck in no time. A few minutes later we arrived at the dealership and dropped off my wounded car. This dealership was great in comparison to the one I bought the car from. The salespeople were great and the service technician was helpful.

According to the On-Star diagnostic there is some issue with the throttle control system. Hopefully the fix will be quick. I know I will have to wait until Monday to see exactly what the issues are with my car. I am also looking forward to picking up the car from the service technicians and getting it back into my garage. I would hate to see the service take more than a day. Thank goodness my Camaro is not my daily driver or I would be screwed as I go back to work this coming Monday.

I'll let you all know how things go when I get the car back. Off to vegetate in my Vacation Station. Later...

Comcast Conundrum Continues

2010-08-01T22:57:00.000-07:00

The Wife and I had recently gone "all-in" and made Comcast our sole providers for digital communication and entertainment. The Internet is uber-speedy when compared with our old DSL line; lag is almost non-existent. The phone switch was super easy too. However, it was not easy to find the directions on how to setup voice mail on the Comcast support website.

In fact, all of our issues have come from dealing with the Comcast support people. On the initial setup day The Wife made no less than three calls to the support line to address issues with the programming guide, the DVR setup, and a host of other crap-tastic issues. One douche bag phone monkey stated he would call The Wife back in 15 minutes and never did. The Wife's next call back to phone support revealed that technicians cannot call out from their call centers. Freaking liar...

The next day I had to call and got another phone monkey who stated he would call me back in 20 minutes with information on getting a technician out to The Homestead. I told the phone fool I didn't believe a word out of his mouth and that I would believe he would call me when Hell froze over. Guess what? Tech douche NEVER called back. Big surprise.

The Wife and I stopped by to see NTT's Brain's art show and ran into The Supergoober and The Warden. We left the art show and stopped by their new digs and saw they had three new DCX3400 cable boxes. The Warden found out his Comcast office was open on a Saturday and gave me the address.

The next day The Wife and I took a short road trip to the open office and waited to speak to an actual douche bag in person. I explained the situation and got the same BS lines trying to shut me up. Then I asked for a new DCX3400 box only to be told there was a month long waiting list. I said I was surprised and that The Supergoober and The Warden, who moved to their new place in the last two weeks, had THREE of them installed and that they walked in to the same office I was standing in to pick them up. I got the Cold Stare of Stupidity from Mr. Douche Bag...no response. I then told him I thought their customer service blew. and that I was going to flip out. The Wife intervened and we got a technician routed to The Homestead the next morning.

Tony the Technician arrived at 10 a.m. Sunday morning. This guy was awesome. He explained everything to us that three days of support douche bags could not do. He told us the reason we were having so many issues with the guide and the DVR was the Xfinity upgrades being done over their network. He also told us he had been on multiple calls for the same reason as ours all due to Comcast upgrades. He also stated Comcast never informed the technicians. Due to his assistance we are keeping our current DVR until the newer DCX3400 becomes available.

Thus far I have been totally STOKED with the HD from Comcast. I REFUSE to watch anything non-HD because it is so freaking awesome! Sports in HD is like being at the game without the nasty bathrooms and lines for food! Thanks to the new super fast Internet I loaded up the Netflix disc for the Wii and love streaming stuff over the WiFi network. The Girl and I watched five of the X-Files from Season 1. I am such a couch potato!

Off to watch more HD TV! Later...

Switched to Comcast Today

2010-07-29T20:22:00.000-07:00

Well, The Wife and I bit the bullet and stopped by the local Comcast office to inquire about switching service. We spoke to the enthusiastic guy behind the counter who was kind enough to spell out the wondrous virtues of the all inclusive Comcast plan.

The Wife and I were in the market for a new ISP. Our current one, Earthlink, has been our ISP for 12 years with nine of those years being DSL. The DSL has been so hideously slow that when The Boy, The Wife, and I are tooling about the Internet Super Highway, we were relegated to the shoulder of the road.

We took the Optimus Maximus Plan giving us 20 Mbps high-speed Internet, comprehensive voice (that is telephone for all you out there), and upgraded cable with an HD dual channel DVR.

The cable guy showed up in the last few minutes of his maintenance window and began working on installing the upgrades. A couple of hours later the cable guy split. The Internet was working but only on The Wife's computer. I tried to troubleshoot the Apple Airport Extreme but to no avail. I finally had to do a hard reboot and wipe out EVERYTHING and restore the factory defaults. A few minutes later we had Internet joy throughout The Homestead.

Next was the voice mail setup. It took me a little while to find some actual information on the Comcast website. I finally had to use the online chat to get the information necessary. The Wife recorded a message and we now have voice mail! Woo Hoo!

Now on to the cable box. The cable guy said it would take a non-specific "little while" for the cable box to boot up and download all the necessary information. The Wife returns home and begins to transfer all the old TiVo shows to the new DVR. One problem...the DVR would not peer into the future and record shows not scheduled for today. Multiple frustrating calls and conflicting information from Camcast found us standing in line at our local office turning in our newly installed box for another box.

Back at The Homestead we plugged in the new box as instructed by Behind the Counter guy but no joy. The Wife called the Robo-Re-programmer number but still no joy. We finally got Svetlana the Russian cable person on the line and she walked her through the reboot phase. This technician debunked a day's worth of conflicting information stating it could take up to 24 hours to download the entire cable menu to the new box. That ordeal ended at close to five p.m. Finally!

It gave me GREAT pleasure to contact the extorting thugs at AT&T to cancel my phone service. I was paying close to $70 a month for the most minimal of features. That cost was a supposed reduction after The Wife called to complain about the pricing a few months ago. The service person on the phone was all bummed that I didn't go with their UVerse package. Too bad losers!

I also called our old ISP and reduced our service to maintain our old email addresses. The cost dropped from $50 per month to $4 for just the email service. Awesome.

I'm happy because we now have Internet that works, the SPEED channel, and a butt-load of other channels including Showtime so we can watch Dexter and Weeds! Suh-weet!

Now I am off to surf the web and watch some cable TV. Later...

Our Most Incredible Vacation

2010-07-22T21:50:00.000-07:00

The Wife and I took our first vacation as a couple in 16 years. The Boy and The Girl, being 22 and 18 are able to take care of themselves and the Seniors are capable of managing themselves without us being at The Homestead. The Wife planned a cruise to the great state of Alaska sans children and Seniors. We have had many years with great vacations but none where it was just the two of us.

We left on July 11, a day after The In-laws from the Red State completed their ten day visit to our home. More on that visit later...I want to focus on our vacation.

We arranged for a driver to pick us up at The Homestead to whisk us to the cruise terminal in The City. We arrived somewhere around noon, handed our bags over to a waiting porter, and stepped into the terminal. The process could not have been quicker. The next thing we know we have our cruise cards in our hands and are walking up the gangway to the ship. The two of us were in our room before 12:30!

Our room was wonderful. We had a balcony cabin on the starboard side of the ship (that is the right side) and just to the rear of mid-ship. The aft elevator bank was probably ten rooms away from our door. We met our cabin steward, Reyno upon entering the room. Rey took great care of us the entire time. Our bags were delivered shortly after our arrival and we were free to roam the ship before casting off for Alaska.

The Wife and I found ourselves on the observation deck filled with excitement as the ship cast off from the pier and started it's slow progression through the bay and out the "Gate". It was purely majestic passing beneath "The Gate" and into the mighty Pacific ocean.

There is so much to say about the trip, far too much for me to put into one posting. However, I must address a few highlights that need to be covered. First, our wait staff in the main dining room was amazing. It was the absolute BEST service I have EVER encountered in my life. Sonal, our waiter, and Goran, our waiter assistant, took care of us like we were royalty. They knew our drinks, what we liked on the table, and our tastes in food. Sonal would make his top recommendations for dinner of which we would pick one. That, however, was not good enough. Sonal would bring us every entree he had recommended for us to try. Many nights I had two dinners! Duck in an Asian inspired sauce along with sea scallops. NY strip steak and perch. Lobster and grilled prawns with melt in your mouth lamb chops. Dessert was no different. We had souffles, home made ice cream, torts, and sorbets. Sonal's service and personality was mind blowing.

Then there was Glacier Bay National Park. Glaciers thousands of years old calving in front of us, harbor seals darting in and out of our ship's wake, and humpback whales breaching before our very eyes, waving at us with their flukes, and flapping their tails into the air as they dove for food. We watched as the whales played in front of and on the side of our ship for well over an hour. The natural beauty of the mountains, glaciers, forest, and icy beaches were breath taking. It was a near religious experience.

The Wife and I also took many tours in our ports of call. The best was the Deadliest Catch tour on a fishing vessel from the second season of Deadliest Catch called the Aleutian Ballad. We sailed out into the strait and around an Indian owned island and water way outside of US jurisdiction. This is important in the fact that you cannot feed American Bald Eagles in the United States. The water around the island is NOT part of the US. It was part of Indian land. The fishermen tossed fish into the water and a countless amount of bald eagles flew within five feet of The Wife and I to pluck the fish out of the water. I video taped for close to 20 minutes watching the majestic birds fly right in front of me. We also saw jelly fish in the wild, more seals, and watched in wonder as the crew members pulled a variety of sea life out of the water. We saw dog shark, star fish, prawns, King crab, Box crab, Spider crab, octopus, and an eel. I personally held a Box crab while The Wife held a starfish. It was all quite mind blowing.

Those are just a few highlights. If you want more of the story talk to me off line and I will tell you more wondrous stories of our trip. The Wife and I met tremendous people on our ten day vacation and are looking forward to making cruising a part of our lives. Where do we go next? The Mediterranean? Hawaii? The South Pacific? Alaska (there is so much to see and do that one trip is not enough!)? We will let you know when we figure it out.

Enough for now! See you all on the flip side. Later...

Incredible Video from the TED Conference

2010-04-16T20:56:00.000-07:00

It's Been Too Long...

2010-03-21T08:26:00.000-07:00

It's been too long since The Discourser has posted anything. My online presence has been non-existent since the beginning of February. Life has conspired against my best intentions and kept me from doing many things including posting here. Here is an update...

The state of affairs in our country have been working against many, if not all of us as we toil away in our chosen professions. Mine has been nothing but doom and gloom since October when our esteemed state leaders began working on their budget proposal for the next fiscal year. The gist of the budget would see massive funding cuts to education. These funding cuts have led to devastating cuts to the heart of our industry. The state had funded something called Class Size Reduction which limited the students in kindergarten through third grade to a 20:1 ratio. Our brainiac leaders decided to not fund that program anymore leaving a district like mine with a $1.3 million dollar funding gap. Throw in a bunch of other state cuts and we are looking at a whopping $2.1 million dollar loss of revenue.

What does this all mean? It means our district sent layoff intent notices to 26 certificated (teacher and administrators) staff. That layoff included two assistant superintendents. Because of the state law, they all were noticed on or before the 15th of March. The Discourser and his fellow colleagues were all on the chopping block. The date passed and The Discourser was spared for another year.

Now this situation was not isolated to The Discourser's little professional island. This has been going on all across our state. The layoff of staff in my part of the world constituted 16.45% of our certificated work force.

Replicate this activity across the state and you have over 22,000 people being laid off. Where are they going to go. All have a minimum of a Bachelor's degree. All are the youngest and most vibrant of the profession. Thanks to the unions and the state's education code, these layoffs were accomplished by using the seniority scale.

That hip new teacher that does all those cool things in class and whom your student just loves is gone. Replace them with a tired, crotchety teacher who has long forgotten why they entered the profession and who may not even like children anymore. I almost forgot, that nasty teacher is probably making double what that cool new teacher was making. That is what the loss of 22,000 teachers means to you.

We haven't even begun to look at classified personnel. Those folks include secretaries, custodian, aides, and librarians. I can almost guarantee we will have no school librarians next year. Without a school librarian kids can essentially look at the books but not check them out. Thanks to the current education code, unions can refuse to have volunteers act as librarians. This is like having a kitchen where you can walk into but, because of state law and unions, you cannot cook anything. What's the point...

Welcome to the state's brand of education. Our overcrowded classrooms will now mirror our overcrowded prisons. At least prisoners library access.

These cuts are just the latest in a series of cuts public education has been making for the past 10 years. We have been told to trim the fat in our programs. Over the past decade we have reduced or eliminated counselors, food programs, sports programs, electives have been cut including world languages and music, non-classroom staff have been eliminated including maintenance workers, grounds keepers, and custodial staff. Districts have eliminated many essential non-classroom based programs to spare the core. Now we are cutting the core of our classroom personnel.

Public education had been on life support for many years. Now state leadership is working hard to pull the plug. In 1965 the state was ranked fifth in the nation for education. By 1972 it slipped to 16th. By 2005 the rank was 46th in the nation. I suspect by next year it will be 50th. I could go on but it only gets worse. This crescendo of educational doom began in the late 1970's and we are just now reaping the benefits of that activity.

Welcome to the future my friends...

Happy Birthday to The Super Goober!

2010-02-01T22:18:00.000-08:00

The Discourser wants to wish The Super Goober a Happy Birthday! I have known The Super Goober since 1976, which is longer than I have known most family members.

When I think back to some of the past birthdays we shared, the most memorable and psychologically traumatizing one was in fourth grade when The Super Goober, his dad, myself (The Discourser), and some other school mates were taken to the movies. Here is where the traumatizing part comes into play. The movie was "Dawn of the Dead". At the time it was not rated, which in today's terms is somewhere between NC-17 and Rated X for ultra violence.

I remember being unable to close my eyes for many nights due to horrific nightmares. I guess "Dawn of the Dead" was not appropriate for 9 year-olds!

Anyway, Happy Birthday Super Goober! Later...

Steve Jobs Does It Again

2010-01-27T21:00:00.001-08:00

Yes folks, the main man at The Mothership has done it again. Apple released their newest creation, the iPad, today in The City. Steve Jobs waited to get into the tablet game as well as the Netbook craze. Today he unveiled a device that again trumps the competition. The sleek device is powered by an Apple processor and utilizes flash based memory like the ones found in the iPod Touch. The interface is all multi-touch and the craziest thing about the whole UI is that the touch surface is made of some weird polymer that does not leave fingerprints to mar the viewing surface!

A colleague and I were following MacRumors' twitter feed from the release event this morning. As educators we instantly saw the implications for students in a 21st Century learning model. Just think of all those poor kids lugging around tens of pounds of text books in their backpacks. Now their textbooks can be placed on the iPad for nearly the same price. Now, I'm talking about k-12 students. Just think of the implications of college level students and their textbooks. The cost of a single semester of textbooks is far less than the purchase of the high end iPad.

Students will be able to access the Internet via Wifi, use Google Docs or Zoho to create documents, work spreadsheets, or create slide show presentations. Oh, wait...Jobs had his team create a hybrid model of iWorks, Apple's far sleeker cousin of the Microsoft Office suite, so users can do all the same things they would normally do on their laptops. A virtual keyboard makes data input easy.

Hardcore projects like podcasts, enhanced podcasts, and movies will still be created on the iPads big brother laptops and desktops. However, once loaded to a students iTunes, the digital content will be available on their iPad.

Apple has made 21st Century access for students cheaper by their introduction of the iPad. $699 is a bargain for a digital gateway.

Apple has thrust the killing blow through the heart of the current ebook readers with their GUI book reader in the iPad. Let us take off our hats and bow our heads as we say a prayer for the passing of the Kindle, Kindle 2, Kindle DX, Sony Reader, iRex Digital Reader, COOL-er, Astak EZ Reader, Cybook, and the Iliad. May you rest in peace.

I'm thirsty from all this drooling. Someone pass me another cup of Kool-Aid! Later...

Check Out My New Video

2010-01-15T21:26:00.001-08:00

Made this video using Animoto.com, a Web 2.0 application along with Keynote from the Apple iLife Suite and images from Google images. Pretty darned sweet. Enjoy.

Welcome to 2010

2010-01-01T08:38:00.000-08:00

The Discourser would like to welcome everyone to 2010! Last year The Discourser set out to make some simple resolutions that he would actually be able to keep. Everyone makes resolutions yet most fail to meet them because the goals they set are too lofty or require inhuman amounts of will power and self control. Armed with that knowledge The Discourser chose to avoid failure by making resolutions that were fun and within his scope of accomplishment. There were two for 2009:

Read one book a month.
Count every single time The Discourser broke wind.

Reading is a favorite past time yet had been neglected in recent years. The Discourser found he had a stack of books that were gathering dust and set out to reduce the piles. He started out by taking the pages of the book and dividing it by the days in the month. The number of pages to be read per day was so pathetically small The Discourser imposed a minimum of 20 pages. The results were great and The Discourser rediscovered the joy of reading.

All total, The Discourser read 20 books in 2009 with a total of 7265 pages of printed text. Eleven of the books were fiction with the remainder being historical non-fiction and autobiographies. The books ranged from short (Ellie Wiesel's "Night" - 120 pages) to long (Neal Stephenson's "Anathem" - 890 pages). The hardest book to read was the historical book documenting the legend of the Nights Templar by Piers Paul Read. At 323 pages "The Templars" was the most labor intensive and boring book I read. For fun reads I highly recommend anything from Christopher Moore.

As for The Discourser's second resolution, he downloaded an App for his iPhone called Tally Counter. It is a simple application with a four digit analog style number screen. There are two buttons, a plus and a minus, for adding or subtracting tallies. The task was simple. The Discourser would hit the plus button every time he polluted the atmosphere. Silly.

The Discourser was true to the task and kept the best tally possible. It was a little hard to count those Fanny Bubbles emitted during sleep yet not totally impossible. The Discourser does not sleep very well anymore and tends to be woken up by everything. He was able to tally those Nocturnal Scented Screams pretty well. The tally stream was never broken for the year. That was a true test because maintaining the tally became a task similar to flossing one's teeth. It was no longer a funny novelty but a habit that needed to be maintained until midnight on December 31. Here is the overall tally for 2009:

Overall Total: 4675 Fanny Flamethrowers
Daily Average over 365 Days: 12.8 Sphincter Whistles

Hideous. I agree...

In the end, The Discourser was a little sad to have his first Roar from the Rear of 2010 go undocumented.

For 2010 The Discourser has chosen to make reading one book a month a habit rather than a resolution. He has six titles already stacked and ready to consume starting today. He has chosen as a resolution to drink the recommended 64 ounces of water per day. That would result in an annual consumption of 182.5 gallons of water. The Discourser's second resolution is to eat a minimum one piece of fruit per day.

Best of luck to all of you in 2010!

Happy Christmas to You

2009-12-25T22:20:00.000-08:00

Here at The Homestead the family instituted a new Christmas tradition. First things first, the Girl and I have committed to speak in horrible English accents for the entire day. While taxing because it is not our native accent it does make everything sound better. We sound smarter even if we are not. That is new Christmas tradition number one.

New Christmas tradition number two comes in the form of not preparing our normal sit down dinner. Rather, The Discourser made no less than eleven phone calls to regional restaurants only to find that Asian (Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Malay, and Japanese restaurants were the only ones open). My last ditch attempt at something other than Asian cuisine was Chevy's. Yes, Chevy's Fresh Mex. So very Xmas-y. The Taste of Chevy's was too much that it induced a near instant food coma. Next year, if this tradition continues, I will have to find an actual restaurant.

The third New Christmas Tradition was to go to the movies. We chose to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downey Jr. Originally we had wanted to go to an earlier movie (4:00 pm) but got stuck with the 7:30 show. We Fandango-ed the tickets, loaded the Cross Country Cruiser with all the family, and headed off to the theater. I dropped off the family and went in search of parking in one of two garages.

The first garage was totally closed with security guards turning all cars away. I navigated away from that garage and drove through near ghetto streets to get to the second garage on the other side of the theater. Normally I find a spot on the first two floors. I was able to find a spot on the fourth floor of the garage...uncharted territory.

I met up with The Wife outside the doors and we both entered the madness. It was truly madness. Between the lines for Avatar and Sherlock Holmes, there were TONS of people in the hallways, walkways, stair wells, and escalators. It took me a good five minutes to get to the bathroom and another five minutes to get back to my theater. Personally I enjoyed the film. The Wife and The Girl could not handle the movie and left early to get the Cross Country Chariot.

We arrived home a few minutes after 10 pm. The Wife and I are seriously going to re-evaluate our new Christmas traditions. While we are home and happy now we will have to advance plan to avoid late start movie times and the lack of restaurant choices.

Christmas on the whole was great. We ate our traditional over night caramel french toast and bacon breakfast, opened our presents one at a time, and enjoyed one an-others company. Even KtMDD had presents to open! Tomorrow The Wife and I are running up to Apple to exchange a broken item for one that is not broken. Other than that, the day after Christmas will be a day of recuperation and rest.

Happy Christmas to all of you. Later...

Update, Update, Update

2009-12-01T21:10:00.000-08:00

It has been a busy time since I last updated this blog. I have actually spoken with a few of the loyal followers and explained why I have not provided any updates. To be honest, The Discourser's life has not been so exciting. However, I have a couple of things to update folks on today.

First off, it is the end of the month/ beginning of the month. That means a gaseous emissions update. This past month of November was a particularly gassy month seeing it was the beginning of the holiday season. The tally by the end of the month was 375. The high number was in part to my having the Monkey Flu for a week and all the cold medicine, cough drops, and elixirs. That stuff plays havoc on the digestive system. Anyway, the average for the month was 12.5 poots per day. The Girl and I did a little calculation and thus far I have been averaging 12.96 air biscuits per day for the entire year. I am looking forward to finishing off this endeavor in December. The Discourser is kind of disgusted with himself.

Second, over this weekend the GoG came over to hang out and shoot the breeze. While we were hanging out a couple of us were surfing the Net on the trusty HP laptop. The trusty HP acquired an Internet STD. A virus attacked the computer in the disguise of a virus protection software called Antivirus System Pro. The hackers have this worm infect your computer signaling that your computer is infected. It then creates a phony scan of your computer and prompts you to disinfect after paying $40 on your credit card. The best part is that it does nothing except for installing a key tracker on a phony toolbar for IE.

I researched the virus and found a solution. Download something called rkill and another Spybot/ Malware killer. The trick is not in the downloading but in the deployment of the solution. You have to restart your computer and launch the rkill application before the virus kicks in. Rkill worked well and halted the malware from launching. The Spybot/ Malware killer identified the infected registry entries and proceeded to annihilate them. All was good until I restarted. The trusty HP blue screened. I attempted to restart more than 10 times before it actually was able to launch Windows.

The next day was Monday and I talked to my IT support tech at work. He looked at the trusty HP and determined the solution had truncated some of the OS files. In other words a clean install using the original recovery discs was in order. Luckily I was able to pull off the most pertinent data to my external drive. Everything else was fluff. I took the infected laptop back to my office and started the reformat. That was at 12:30. By five that evening the reinstall was not yet finished. I left it running over night.

Today I returned to the office to find that the reinstall was complete. It was like having a brand new computer. The downside was it loaded all the bloatware from the original install. I took the time between appointments, phone conversations, report review and writing, and talking with students to remove the bloatware and reinstall Firefox, MS Office, iTunes, and replace the saved data pulled off before the reinstall.

Side Note: I am glad I have adopted a Web 2.0 stance for most of my things. Truly nothing of consequence was lost and made the revival of the trusty HP relatively easy. iTunes re-synced with the iPhone with no problems. MobileMe restored all my calendar and contacts to Outlook. Google Calendar Sync restored the connection to my work computer.

I downloaded an antivirus program called Avast! on the recommendation of The Boy. It too is free and works like a charm. Google Earth and Google Talk were an easy install and all I have left to install is Picasa, my old Spybot and defrag programs (all free). Yeah, I lost some stupid Mahjong game but who cares. Everything else is fine. Bookmarks in Firefox? No problem with Google Bookmarks.

The intermittent work on the computer was finished by the time I walked out the door to come home this evening. I am very happy that the trusty HP is back. I do like this computer.

Off to read my current book, "20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" by Jules Verne. Hasta.

Tools Used in My Repair Job

2009-11-14T17:42:00.000-08:00

The Discourser's last post covered the frustrating trouble shooting of the Internet/ modem/ Airport Extreme issue. I wanted to show you a couple of tools I used to make adjustments in the CAT5 network cable placement and what I used to reset the failed Airport Extreme Base Station.

The first is the device I used to feed the network cable back and forth between the modem, The Wife's desktop, and the base station. This is an official CAT5 Cable Retrieval Device.

Yes, it is an untwisted wire hanger with a bent loop at one end.

The next is the Official Device Resetting Tool. I have used this tool for many years on a number of devices.

The device is a size small safety pin. I have had to use this a multitude of times to reset my old iRiver H10 mp3 player. I used it to reset the back up Airport Extreme Base Station and reconfigure it as a mirror of the one that failed.

Without these two devices my ability to solve the connectivity problem would have been much more difficult and time consuming. Sometimes the low-tech approach, old school methods are the best.

Later...

Technology Is Great...When It Works

2009-11-14T12:19:00.000-08:00

As you all know The Discourser loves technology. He loves the endless possibilities technology gives you in your daily life. He also loves the cool way technology enhances his profession. What The Discourser despises more than anything is when technology decides to show its ugly side and fail to work properly. The Discourser had such a day yesterday and this morning.

The Wife, Ding, and I were off to do some grocery shopping after work yesterday. We left The Homestead and returned a couple of hours later to find our modem had decided to shut itself off. To give you a better idea of what I have hooked up here is a list of the devices.

AresCom NetDSL 800 modem (original modem issued by our ISP in 1998)
Apple Airport Extreme Wireless Base Station
Western Digital 250 GB MyBook External HDD
Apple iMac Desktop
HP Pavillion dv6000t
Apple MacBook
Ding's desktop
The Boy's desktop

We walked in the door and I saw the Airport Extreme's activity light blinking amber. The ancient modem's lights were dark. I flipped the power switch on the ancient yet uber-reliable modem and the power and LAN lights fired up. The WAN light just winked at me. The amber trouble light on the Airport Extreme switched from irritating blinking amber to all is good green. The winking WAN light signaled issues after five minutes of patient waiting for it to connect out to the Internet.

The Discourser wondered if the 11 year-old modem had finally bit the dust. We had a near modem death scare three years ago and our ISP shipped us a new one. It was living in dormancy on a shelf ever since. Apparently the first near death modem experience was the result of the ISP providers network issues. I dug out the newish modem and installed it and called the ISP provider to help with the new install.

Kirk with a decidedly Indian accent helped me through the install. My previous experiences with the tech support line were hideous and resulted in being on hold for literally hours with no solutions. Kirk was very good and efficient with the set up. We determined the issue was not the modem or the Internet connection at all. It was the Airport Extreme. I jacked The Wife's computer directly into the DSL modem and we had Internet joy. Kirk signed off and I thanked him for his help.

I then tackled the Apple Airport Extreme. However, because it was late I decided to leave it for this morning. I awoke and headed off to my office to pick up another Airport Extreme I had on hand in the event the one I already had at home was toast. I configured the new AAE to be a mirror of the original one and had it ready to go.

Apple allowed me to download the manual for the device and I read it from cover to cover twice. I still had The Wife's computer plugged directly into the DSL modem. Hooking up the new AAE resulted in no Internet joy. The AAE was not handing out an IP address. The AAE was configured to to access the ISP through the PPoE connection as it has been for the past three years. I hooked the new AAE to the DSL modem and plugged in all computers as it was set up in the past.

Just as I was about to resort to physical violence on the AAE a thought occurred to me. I would switch the connection type from PPoE to straight Internet. Voila...The Wife's computer had Internet. This led me to return to the Apple support site for further details about this new connection type. A two line document on the support site said to switch the AAE to act as a Bridge.

I scanned the manual again and found nothing on how to switch the AAE to act as a Bridge. I hit up the in-program Help on the AAE's software. Three simple clicks on the setup pages transformed the blinking light on the AAE from amber to good to go green after the device restarted. I fired up The Wife's browser and Internet joy was to be had. I moved over to the HP dv6000t and there was Internet joy again. I then fired up the MacBook laptop and again Internet joy.

Still have no clue as to why this happened and I'm still a bit irritated about the time consumed on the issue. However, the problem is fixed and I am happily blogging. Later...

Tell Me What You Think...

2009-11-02T17:55:00.000-08:00

The Wife, Seniors Upstairs, and I attended a Halloween party at one of the Family I Do Not Hate's house last Saturday. This is annual affair with the house transformed into a terrifying Haunted House complete with coffins, grave stones, ghouls, goblins, and plenty of spooky lighting and theater fog. In all honesty, the place is awesome.

This year I went out onto the newly transformed back deck to grab an adult beverage and chat with some fellow party goers. I noticed directly next door that there was a pretty lively party going on with a lot of loud voices. One of the guys out on the deck informed me it was his daughter's Halloween party. She was 15. The neighbor, whom I have known for a really long time, retreated back into the house. One of my cousins informed me the neighbor had caught some of the party goers sneaking in booze.

I looked out across the yard and into the neighbors yard and observed a group of young men drinking beer as well as a depleted bottle of Captain Morgan's rum. Another one of the guys had a full bottle of Jagermiester in his hands. I just shook my head in wonder. How does a parent let that go on being that he was right next door?

Later in the evening some of us went outside to get the full view of the Halloween decorations on the front of the house. My cousin, the same one I was talking to before, smelled a huge cloud of pot smoke waft through the air from the neighbor's house. My cousin told the neighbor who, slurred heavily due to the multiple tequila shots he had imbibed, and said that was not cool. He then walked off towards his house.

My cousin and I looked at each other and agreed we couldn't let the neighbor go over there by himself. Plus we wanted to view the train wreck of a situation for ourselves. We followed the neighbor up the path to his house. The smell of beer was heavy on the front porch due to a large puddle. I crossed the threshold of the front door and saw 10 to 15 kids sitting in the living room to the left. To my right sitting at the dining room table were five people, mostly males. A beer pong game was set up and ready to be played.

In the kitchen were two large piles of Costco pizzas. On the floor of the kitchen were seven or eight empty 15 packs of Bud Light. I turned from the kitchen and back to the kids at the table who were getting up and starting to run outside. One of the kids stashed something in the cabinet door of the serving bureau behind the dining room table before fleeing the house.

In the back yard were four Pacific Islander males, all over six feet. Most of the male party goers were way older than 15, some even adults. One was busy stuffing his stash of dope into his pocket as we approached the sliding glass door. On the lawn there were at least 15 to 20 people all drinking and carrying on. Three females dressed similarly to strippers half way through their routines squeezed by my cousin and I and fled the area.

The neighbor mumbled something about smoking pot not being cool and to stop. He then turned around to leave. I told him about something being stashed in his bureau and he blew it off. I shrugged, shook my head, and left the house with my cousin.

Upon arriving back at my cousin's house I told the neighbor's wife what was going on. I also strongly suggested they tell their daughter to clear the house. Over the next half hour the mom exchanged texts but never set foot in her own house to see what was going on. Other responsible adults at the party told the neighbors they could lose their house if anything happened to the under age drinkers since they were in full knowledge of the situation. Even that did not motivate them to act quickly.

The Wife and I left the party and returned an hour later to pick up the Seniors Upstairs. Apparently the daughter called 911 herself and another one of my aunt's guests went next door to clear the house.

Am I wrong in thinking the neighbor and his wife are witless turds and complicit in the delinquency of a minor? Tell me what you think...

Later.