It appears I could run a series of photos on the theme – “things are changing” – first bookstores and now the corner video shop. Consider this – you may have been around for the entire history of the rent a video era. First, you could rent tapes, then CDs, and then DVDs. By the time the next thing was blue-ray it was already too late. Was it NetFlix that killed the video store (what was that song anyway)?
I blame cable and buy a video on demand. Little matter – time to move on. Bye Blockbuster.
I am not that good at planning. I tend to like things the way things are and tend to avoid thinking how things might be different. Anyway, you get to a certain age and planning for retirement becomes expected. Cindy is a very good planner. She found a city. She found a house. She found a coffee shop and a book store. The plan sounded great.
Life is full of uncertainties. One moment a bookstore is there and the next it is gone. Maybe the time for bookstores is past. Flexibility will always be necessary – at least as far as bookstores and books go. Plan B can be a good thing.
The curmudgeon has been speaking about political issues so much lately it looks like the ad engines from Google are starting to run ads for insurance plans and the Governor of Wisconsin in the side bar.
It is time to get back to typical curmudgeon fare – coffee shops.
I have read elsewhere that some coffee shop owners have become so frustrated with customers who sit for hours using free wifi that they are considering not providing wifi at all.
Here in North Dakota we have a different problem – people who come to coffee shops expecting to sit around all day and drink coffee. The more creative types have found a solution – charge customers by the hour. It is kind of like a “two drink minimum”, but based on time rather than consumption.
If it were my place, I would charge for trips to the bathroom.
If you came here looking for something amusing, come back next week or look at some past posts. With the possible exception of my tendency to resort to sarcasm, what follows is not intended in any way to be funny.
I have several possible outlets for my posts and I decided to post what follows here as a way not to combine politics with the topics on my other blogs. My other blogs typically focus on educational topics. I do think that educational bloggers should address equity issues from time to time. Most of what we write about most of time really has less impact on educational outcomes that equity problems.
I have been following the tea baggers and pro-union supporters duel in Madison, WI, now for a couple of days. I have been fascinated with Madison for some years. I love the liberal and intellectual energy level of the city. I can kind of imagine the activity on State Street.
I hope my title implies where this post is going. That is supposed to be the purpose of a title. I am not a union member and in general I have not been a backer of unions. I am a state employee and see the focus of political figures in going after public employees as unfair and those who think these folks are the problem as misguided. You can go after public employees because they often have no way to protect themselves. This is pretty much “public employment” by definition. Individuals in comparable professions – say health care workers other than physicians (medics as my mentor used to say) are not as vulnerable. It is essentially a “get them, not us” type of selfishness. I think we simply need to raise taxes. Not a popular Republican perspective I know, but I see no reason to support the present Republican agenda – let the poor folks fight amongst themselves.
I have been influenced by in my thinking by a book I have been trying to wade through – Winner Take All Politics (a review from the Economist). The authors attempt to understand the increasing centralization of wealth in the hands of a few. On the surface, it might seem our government should provide a defense against this trend, but it functions as an enabler. The activities of the government – sometimes directly and sometimes by lack of action – has accelerated this problem. The authors also demonstrate that both parties feed this trend with Republican dominated years contributing more than the years in which the Democrats are in control.
The problems are complex, but much appears to relate to the immediate pressure on elected officials. The “union topic” plays a role. The problem is basically that vast numbers of Americans have no one to represent them. Your opportunity to call or send an email is of little consequence. Unions, by virture of their size and focus, have some opportunity to exercise some direct impact. So, for or against unions, the message is your vote and your impact on what your representatives actually do is irrelevant. Once elected, others influence their behavior.
I was listening to Steve Hargadon’s podcast while I was working out this evening. He was interviewing Gary Stager. I was getting more and more annoyed which probably made my exercise time much more productive.
Stager, like many of those who I think of as “keynoters”, continually used the phrase – “those who get it”. It is not that I disagree with many of Stager’s points, I just find a constructivist or anyone for that matter creating a we and them mentality (those who get it and those who do not) rather than offering me some useful data I might use to evaluate the arguments being advanced as philosophically illogical. I was always taught that constructivists propose we each build our own truths (radical) or at least negotiate truths through interaction (social constructivists). I think the phrase provides a way of relating to an audience that implies some of us REALLY understand and the rest of you must be clueless or motivated by factors other than truth, justice and the American way. As in, if I cannot transfer my mental model to you or your mental model does not match mine, then you do not get it.
So, a more useful and accurate phrase might be “those who agree with me” see the world this way. Some of you may see the world in a different way.
In general I am not offended by casual language. I am not certain I should be offended by any individual using this phrase. Obviously, I enjoy playing with words in a casual way. I do not, however, appreciate subtle ways of being pretentious – intended or not.
You may interpret the following as political commentary.
I would like to think of it as an exercise in logic and critical thinking.
The general Republican position is that the government should stay out of health care.
The North Dakota legislature is a political body.
The North Dakota legislature is heavily dominated by Republicans.
Purchasing prescription drugs is part of health care.
North Dakota law requires that prescription drugs be purchased from a pharmacy.
Pharmacies sell prescription drugs at a higher cost than Walmart.
Dictating that citizens purchase something from store A rather than store B is government control.
Possible conclusions:
We are in Florida. A tech conference begins tomorrow and we made the trip early to avoid the cold and snow for the weekend.
It turns out that exploring southern Florida is hard on my feet. Really bad. Maybe it is the boots I wear for the snowy conditions back home that did not fit in. Maybe it was the pressurized plane cabin. Cindy decided I needed relieve or perhaps she needed relief from my complaining. I ended up in a Reebok strip mall store searching for shoes.
I wear a size 13 so this can limit the choices, but I did find a couple of pair. I did not pay attention to the differences, but Cindy thought I would like the ones with the swoosh or whatever on the side so the shoes were not so white. I get it – old guy, white shoes, Florida. I fit right in.
I did purchase one additional item. My fair skin burns easily and January is far too early in the season for me to be out in the sun. A hat was in order. I purchased an inexpensive golf hat, not a baseball hat mind you. This was really getting disgusting. I tried in on at the counter. The cashier suggested that most customers removed the cardboard to make the hat fit better. Like I never wore a hat before.
We were heading to a coffee shop. They sold expensive Kona coffee. We told him we had been to Kona. He said a beetle of some type was destroying the coffee plants and coffee prices were going up. I had a second cup, no freebies, anyway. One benefit of being older. Then I saw the answer. This was the “Bad Ass Coffee” shop and they had “Bad Ass” tee shirts. That should even things up some. I bought one. I should have bought two. Now, if I only had the nerve to wear my tee shirt and my white shoes at the same time. Bad ass indeed.
Now freshman Congressman Rick Berg labeled his campaign with a phrase that annoyed me then and now. He urged citizens to vote in favor of North Dakota Values. It is really difficult to know just what that means or how the values of one state would be different from the values of another. I think it is one of those phrases intended to generate a sense of we vs. them – as in we are special and they are not. We have good values and they don’t.
The video accompanying the ads tended to portray the opponent, democrat Earl Pomeroy, as having lost his North Dakota values. While Pomeroy has obviously done tremendous things for the state of North Dakota, he supposedly had fallen in with the politicians in Washington and lost touch with his North Dakota roots.
I have opinions about many political issues. I am what most would consider a liberal democrat. I understand what I am. There is one particular issue and one component of this issue that will get me upset enough to spent my time doing things like writing this post or contacting the politicians who represent me. I support a better approach to health care. I have particular concerns about the number of individuals with no health care and a personal concern with the way the health care industry treats those with pre-existing conditions. My wife has suffered through two bouts with breast cancer and has the genetic condition that is evaluated using bracanalysis. This is what might be called a pre-existing condition.When you propose it is fine for the health care industry to ignore pre-existing conditions I react to your position in a personal way. Succinctly, I think you are selfish and lucky enough not to have had to deal with some of the realities of life.
So, when Representative Berg voted to repeal the existing health care plan, I sent him an email explaining my wife’s situation and expressing my concern that he was not willing to address the problem of pre-existing conditions. BTW – my wife has health coverage, but this is because she cannot be denied as part of my plan. On her own, or when seeking coverage unique to her (e.g., long-term care insurance) she is out of what some would describe as LUCK. Representative Berg evidently is concerned that there is come relationship between the present health care approach and jobs which he explained on the house floor. I am not exactly sure I understand the connection between ignoring the uninsured, the problem of those who cannot acquire insurance, and jobs, but you are free to listen to his comments yourself.
I did not really expect him to reply directly to my concern – what would he say? I did expect one of his minions would send a response probably indicating that while the representative was sensitive to problems of those unable to purchase coverage, health care is a complex issue and he has to make decisions on what is best for the country. I could have generated the same blather, but I have yet to receive a response so I am not certain what his position is.
Back to the issue of North Dakota values.
What am I to think at this point? I noticed that Berg voted with the rest of Republicans on this issue. This looks pretty much like politics as usual to me. Politics is politics no matter how long you have been in Washington. Anyone surprised?
So, just what is the North Dakota position on health care. What values is Representative Berg now promoting? Really hard to say, but it looks from here like the Representative assumes North Dakotans support some kind of “I got mine, too bad for you” value system. We certainly are special.
This is the time of year unlikely to be discussed by the tourist bureau. The temp reached –27 last night and rose to -12 today, but it snowed. It might be called “the dark times”. You do have to find a way to manage to live here.
I like to think of myself as a manly man, but not necessarily in the classic sense. My wife describes me as “not particularly handy”. I do take care of some of the mechanical issues. Someone has to. So, I wash clothes and blow snow.
I have been struggling with moving the snow lately. It has taken all of my strength to push the blower into the snow so that the machine can blow it off the driveway and walks. I was starting to worry that the aging process was really starting to kick in. Then I noticed something. When I pulled the snow blower backwards I saw that the snow on one side was being pushed forward rather than being blown aside. Part of the mechanism that fed the snow into the blower had stopped turning. I was basically pushing the snow ahead of me unless some of it slid sideways into the part of the pickup mechanism that was working. Several hours of great exercise and I finally achieved this insight.
I actually knew what was wrong. Instinctively. I had sheared a pin. This I actually understood. I spent many summer days in my youth baling hay. A very manly man thing to do. My girl friend’s father ran a custom baling service and I stacked bales on the rack. It was honest work and I got a great tan. This is where I learned about shear pins. When the baler inhaled too much hay or the hay was too wet and tough, we would constantly shear pins. The shear pin would give way and I suppose prevent damage to the baler.
Anyway, I did not have a shear pin so I sent Cindy to the hardware store. I was tired and grumpy. Not in a curmudgeonly way. More like I am cold and tired and I am grumpy way. So Cindy came back with the shear pin. I could not find the hole it was supposed to be put through. At this point Cindy and I have our first “discussion”. I was politely asking that she hold the handle of the snow blower down so the front end would raise up and I could see better. I think she then tried to drop the front end on my hand. She suggested she get a flash light. Dumb idea, but it did identify the problem. The shear pin had sheared off in the hole – there was no hole.
Now the part about the tools. Someone took my tools, few as they were, down to Minneapolis and made the decision the tools would be more useful there than here. I guess the issue with the snow blower was not anticipated. How to pop a shear pin fragment out of the snow blower shaft? I have a screw driver, but no hammer. It turns out that the ball from a car hitch is heavy and kind of works like a hammer. The shear pin is removed, the healthy pin in inserted in the hole. No way to tighten the nut.
So, I need a wrench of some kind I can turn within the blades of the snow blower to tighten the nut on the shear pin. Again, we have a short discussion regarding my missing tools. Cindy goes back to the store to purchase a wrench.
She comes back with a complete tool kit – several hundred dollars worth of stuff. Fancy stuff I cannot name and I am not certain how to use – just in case I need to change the transmission on my truck I suppose. She goes in the house because she is tired of having discussions with me.
I do have a pretty impressive box of tools.
Legacy is a nice way of saying “old and dated”. Hence, the discussion of the challenges posed by legacy systems is a perfect topic for the curmudgeon.
I write multiple blogs. I am easily bored so it seemed like a good idea to use different software for each blog. The blogs would look different and the administrative experience would be different. When I switched from running my own servers to renting space on a commercial server, I was able to take advantage of special install scripts. Companies write scripts that install server programs and the companies that sell server space purchase these scripts to making program installation easy for customers.
As time goes by, the effort that gets invested in a blog accumulates. My original blog, created in 2003, has more than 1000 posts. The other two blogs have been around for far less time and have far fewer posts, but still the accumulated time is substantial. So, here is the issue. The script written to upgrade these more recently created two blogs corrupted the blogs. Bluehost, the company providing server space was able to help me revert to the earlier version, but damage was done to the database. Not the fault of Bluehost. I am not identifying the script company.
So, what does this have to do with legacy systems. I am a captive of the old software. I cannot upgrade and to move the posts to new software, I must manually copy and paste the posts and resubmit any images. So, if I have 500 or posts, this would take considerable time. The question is do I put in the effort and manually upgrade or do I stay with a system that frustrates me at present and is likely to present future problems. I have decided to invest the time to switch – a half hour or so each day.
I have also decided to take the opportunity to rename what I have decided is my microblog. It will be called “blurts” to indicate a series of short statements. I have a long form post blog and a short microblog focused mostly on resources I want to save and share. The new system allows import and export functions which will offer me an alternative to dealing with the database backend.
I have already experienced one benefit. I disagreed with what someone wrote two years ago. For whatever reason, he noticed the reposting of the comment and wanted to know if I was trying to pick a fight. I will have to think about that. It is nice he finally read what I had to say about some of his claims.
This being limited by our past commitments is a problem in many areas. Sometimes, I it is worth the extra effort of starting over. Now, back to the process of copying and pasting.
