Watch the pump prices climb…
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — In a sudden blow to the nation’s oil supply, half the production on Alaska’s North Slope was being shut down Sunday after BP Exploration Alaska, Inc. discovered severe corrosion in a Prudhoe Bay oil transit line.
BP officials said they didn’t know how long the Prudhoe Bay field would be off line. “I don’t even know how long it’s going to take to shut it down,” said Tom Williams, BP’s senior tax and royalty counsel.
We were out camping all weekend at New John’s Lake and had a pretty good time. The weather cooperated most of the weekend although it was a little windy on Saturday. After being out all weekend unplugged it almost takes a complete day to catch up on email and other things I missed while away so that is what I’ll be doing the rest of the day. That and cleaning out the camper tonight because I have to take it over to the dealer for warranty work before it expires this month…
This is going to raise some eyebrows and get me all kinds of comments, but it needs to be said.
I was reading the paper this morning (yeah I don’t know how we starting getting it but we do occasionally, but that is another story) and I found an article talking about a memorial for a young lady (18, I believe) that had been struck by a person that fell asleep on the way home after a night shift at work.
It happened. What struck me odd was the fact that the prosecutor does not expect the driver to see any harsh sentencing because it was an accident.
Hold the phone. An accident? Spilling your coffee on your shirt is an accident. Dropping your keys is an accident. Falling asleep while driving home and killing someone alongside the road is NOT an accident.
Now that we have established that fact. Here is some food for thought: What if the driver had been under the influence of drugs or alcohol? I bet it woudln’t be an accident then. There would be every group known to man that’s against drugs and alcohol all over this one. You didn’t hear about the MAOD all over this one (Mothers Against Overworked Drivers, yes I made it up).
Why?
I’ll tell you why. Because this country is obsessed with putting people behind bars for drugs and alcohol but could give a shit about crimes committed without the use or influence of these two items.
Tests have already shown that driving while talking on the phone is as dangerous as driving under the influence of alcohol. Why don’t we ban that? Why isn’t there Mothers pissed off about phone drivers? I know I am. I have been counting the number of drivers I see on my commute to and from work that are talking on the phone. My 14 day average is somewhere around 92.0389494%. I’m not making this up. I’m convinced traffic jams during rush hour traffic is caused by cell phones. And people eating, shaving, tuning their radio, messing with their GPS unit, changing the channel on their XM radio, trying to reach the CD they just dropped, scolding their kids in the back seat, etc.
Why can’t people just focus on driving when they are behind the wheel? Should we band together and sue the auto makers for creating so many distractions and allowing ourselves to add to the chaos by giving us at least 17 power plugs in new vehicles to fill with everything from hair dryers to cell phone chargers?
I think not. It takes common sense. Something this country is seriously lacking lately. I think the driver mentioned above should be tried with the same fury as if he/she were if they were driving under the influence. Why is sleeping at the wheel any better than drinking behind one?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to say that drinking and driving is a good thing. In fact quite the opposite. I just think that an “accident” should be tried equally, no matter the circumstances.
If somebody runs into me when I’m driving cause they were talking on the phone or scolding the kids and not paying attention to what they are doing (ie: DRIVING!), I want the assurance that I will get the same compensation whether they are drunk or gabbing on the phone, or even just a lousy driver. If not I’m gonna start driving with a 5th of scotch just to pour down the throat of anybody that runs into me so I can get the full extent and fury of the law.
The comment lines are now open!
I’ve been seeing an alarming trend in the last few weeks/months. Websites are trying to push out there so fast that they show all their features but they don’t work yet. What I mean is they have links that go to a page for you to enter in information, thinking you will get the expected result and then once you fill everything in and hit submit, BOOM! you get some type of error saying this isn’t implemented yet.
Knock it off! If I wanted to waste my time I could find a lot better things to do than screwing around with your crappy un-friendly user interface for twenty minutes complete with anal validation only to find a big “Sorry you cannot do that yet”.
This was sent to me this morning and I thought it was worthy to post…
The Borrower: Always takes things from your desk, and you never see them again.
The Groper: Always finds a way to put a hand on your shoulder or brush against you in meetings.
The Close-talker: If she gets any closer you’d be making out.
The Fridge Foe: Better put a lock on that sandwich or else he’ll steal it.
The Loud Speaker: Hasn’t mastered the “inside voice” and talks so loud on the phone that you, too, have to live through all his personal and professional drama.
The Slow Joe: Takes an hour to explain something that should take a minute.
The Nervous Nelly: Twists her hair into dreadlocks, incessantly clicks her pen or constantly cracks her knuckles.
The Pontificator: Nothing’s a simple “yes” or “no.”
The Noisemaker: Whistling, tapping, sneezing, humming or performing some awful impression at all times.
The Copier: Don’t worry about missing the latest hip catchphrase, you’ll hear it every time you run into him, usually accompanied by the ol’ finger pistols.
The Fish: Gives you the hated Limp Handshake and has the personality to match.
The Know It All: Puts in his 2 cents in all conversations, even if he’s not involved. And he’s always right, or else he’ll keep talking. So, just agree with him.
The Whiner: Spends the entire shift complaining—about co-workers, workload, management, corporate policies. Yet he’s worked there for years and probably will never, ever leave.
The Gossip: Always fanning the flames of office politics. Usually knows the latest scoop—but if not, makes it up
The Breather: Has perpetual bad breath and needs a mint especially after 2 p.m.
The Pre-Divorcee: Has daily fights on phone, for all to hear, about the messy divorce he or she is going through.
The Smacker: Eats lunch at desk, very loudly.
Mr. TMI: Has no filter. I’m sorry you and your boyfriend had a fight, but I don’t need to hear you tell your best friend on the phone about it in detail.
The B.S.er: Is master of the universe, loudly announces huge plans—but gets nothing done.
The Looker: Male who rarely looks female colleagues in the eye, preferring instead the region south of the chin.
The Pseudo-Boss: You’re not the boss, and you have no power, so don’t tell me what to do.
The Cat Lady: The old woman with the terrible smoker’s cough whose desk is littered with tacky, plastic crap from area casinos. She spends her day telling stories about her magical cats and her gifted grandchildren.
The Y’ Know Girl: She talks incessantly about nothing but yet is very opinionated, punctuating every aggravating phrase with “Y’Know?”
The Echo: Thinks your idea sounds better coming out of her mouth. Known for stretching out brainstorming sessions to ridiculous lengths.
The Snitch: Loves to creep into your boss’ office to point out who is not changing the toner, isn’t pulling his weight on projects, or taking one too many personal calls.
The Yakker: Takes a seat in your cubicle and tells you about family vacations, new pets, latest diets and the details of his past six dentist appointments.
The Sniffer: The girl (or guy) with too much perfume/cologne.
The Forwarder: No matter how funny the e-mail joke from your brother-in-law is, no one in the office really cares.
Looks like Jason is heading to Napoleon to teach and hang up programming. I was kinda surprised about the announcement but after a day or two to think about it I think I can understand it.
Maybe.
Well not completely sure I’ll ever understand it. I think the small town life is great but I’m not sure I could go back to it, although it is relaxing. Hey it’s his decision and if it makes him and Kristy happy. Well dog gonnit, go for it!
Best of luck Jason with the career move!
Somehow I managed to get sick this week. Got a throat-ache and my ears just ring.
Hopefully I’ll be back on track tomorrow…
I’ve noticed over the years that I have become less believing of forwarded email. Don’t get me wrong I still like getting the jokes but any type of news or legend forwarded through email is probably crap. Remember the one about Bill Gates tracking email and if you forwarded it to 600 people you would make like forty thousand dollars? Or how about the ones where if you send to 10 people right now, the name of the person you love will come across your screen, ‘try it, it worked for me’.
I’m guessing most of you hold the same views. If not please remove me from your address email book right now. There are however exceptions. I find that the older generation, those that never had computers all their lives, (namely my mother) are still gullible to these kinds of things. Not in the stupid social pranks like the send to 10 people and you will live a long and happy life kind but the legend and lore kind.
Today my mother sent me a story supposedly from Paul Harvey about the Black Panthers back in the 60’s. Apparently one of the people that demonstrated for them during the trial of a killing they committed was none other than Hillary Clinton. Yeah pretty far fetched. So I fired up Snopes which is the Internet myth buster of choice and it proved that this story is false . Sorry mom, I hope you still read my site after this…
Anyway the point of the matter is this: the email was created in hopes that you do not vote for Hillary Clinton when she runs for president. I can think of many reasons not to vote for her (no not sexist ones, cause I think I would vote for someone deserving like Oprah or Angelina Jolie) but real reasons like the fact that her husband was already president for 2 terms and based off of the actions he performed while in office, apparently he had no time to run a country and fool around with the office interns so clearly Hillary was already running the show. That means that she has already served her 2 terms as president and is clearly not legally afforded the opportunity to run again. I’m sure there are those of you that will argue that Bill didn’t start his extra hour activities until his second term, indicating that given the above, Hillary still has one term left. OK fair enough. But think back to when Bill Clinton was running for president of this fine country. Remember what Bill’s answer to economic slowness was? Something about creating all these jobs with chicken and turkey farms. Yeah, let’s create all these chicken plants to keep Colonol Sanders happy or something like that. Trust me I don’t remember the exact plan for recovery but it was something along those lines. This told, it indicates that Bill was completely off his rocker from day one and thus leaving Hillary in control from the day he took office so his time could be freed up for more important things like carousing with interns and cabinet members.
Now forward this on to six hundred people and you will cause world peace to break out indefinitely. Try it, it worked for me!
Yesterday one of my co-workers sent out a link to hamachi, which is a great VPN solution for connecting computers especially if they are behind NAT or on different platforms (ie: Linux to Windows). I told him that I had used hamachi quite a bit and was very happy with the product. Being that I am kind of the oddball at work and am one of the few people to use Linux, this was the answer to my prayers as it allowed me to work from home on my Linux box and “dial” into my Linux box at work. VPN at my company is catered to the Windows side and a lot of Linux features such as SSH and SFTP are blocked, even with VPN.
Then it all changed. Last night I needed a couple of files I had been working on at work to continue on with (I was bored and thought I could get some extra work done as I want to finish this report I’m working on). No dice. When I tried to SFTP my machine at work via hamachi the connection just hung. So I rebooted and tried again. Same thing. Started looking around and noticed that in the list of connected computers to my Hamachi network, my work one had a big X next to it. They blocked it at the firewall at work.
Coincidence or Big Brother watching? It just seems to much of a coincidence to call it just that. Oh well, I guess I don’t have to feel guilty about not doing extra work at home anymore!
Chris over on Performancing said that bloggers may be getting undue respect just because they are published. (I paraphrased that so don’t get all anal on me…) Anyway I agree. Lots of times I will see a blogger trying to push content for whatever reason. I have tried not to do this as I want to remain credible, but I really don’t offer any credibility other than my name and picture. This brings me to my next question. Should I post my resume or work experience on my blog? I’ve always refrained away from this as I don’t want to come off as being arrogant but maybe it will make me more credible to those that don’t know me personally. Scoble recently talked about how a resume is no longer needed , and a blog should be your resume. That’s all fine and dandy if you are recognizable, but what if most people don’t know you from the guy/girl next door?
Jon Barnhardt
