10.24.05
Posted in Personal Topics, Scion, World at 10:16 pm by Tomas
Google has another neat new beta project going – www.frappr.com
It is a “friends map” to show how you and your friends (people with some sort of common interest) relate geographically.
Right now the only Frappr Map I’m a part of is one started up by David (skybiker) at ScionLife.
It is an interesting project in showing the distribution of ScionLife members (at least, those members who sign up), and therefore Scions.
You can look at the ScionLife “Frap” here: www.frappr.com/scionlife
Tom
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10.21.05
Posted in World at 3:03 am by Tomas
The average NBA player makes $4,000,000 a year, and some now want extra money to buy clothing if there is going to be a ‘dress code’ while they are traveling ‘on company time.’
What?
OK, let’s start a little earlier in the story… (I was once told that the best way to tell a story is to start at the beginning and when I got to the end, to stop…)
For some time now, professional basketball players have stood out while traveling on aircraft in close quarters with others.
Yeah, when you are roughly seven feet tall it is sometimes difficult to ‘blend in.’ Especially in a flying aluminum tube that feels cramped to more normally sized people – that’s why they usually travel first class (well, that’s ONE of the reasons).
The other reason they stand out is their behavior and clothing has been so consistantly over the top.
So, the NBA recently came out with a letter that laid down some dress requirements for when teams are traveling on the team’s dollar. Sport coats, shirts with collars, dress shoes, long pants. Not really onerous requirements, just some very basic guidelines.
What is the response of some of the players?
They don’t like the requirements.
Not only don’t they like being told what sort of clothing they should wear when the team is paying their way, they object that they were not ‘consulted.’ Some even think that if they are going to be asked to wear normal business clothing to fly on team time, the team needs to pay them extra, above the average of four million dollars a year they already get, to buy those clothes – or that they should be supplied to them by the team.
Bullshit, boys.
Many folks in the real world work for companies that have dress codes.
Some companies require SPECIFIC clothing items that are to be worn only while on-the-job or traveling to and from the job. If the required clothing is ONLY for work (a uniform, for example) that cannot be used as ‘normal’ wear items, the company is required to pay for the required clothing (or the personal cost is tax deductible).
If, however, the company dress code only requires things like sport coats, dress shoes, dress shirts and ties, or on the ladies’ side, conservative dresses, skirts and blouses, leg coverings, etc., the company does NOT pay because the clothing is common and can be worn other than at work.
Fairly simple and understandable. Even for people who make considerably less that the four million a year the freaks in short pants make.
And yet these “professionals” object to being told to wear appropriate grown-up business clothing when traveling on company time.
While I was employed by a fortune 100 company, when at work or traveling on company money or in some way representing the company I was expected to dress appropriately – and at my expense.
These overgrown crybabies need to just suck it in and learn to behave like responsible adults on occasion. Appropriate dress while traveling on team time/money is a reasonable requirement. Don’t like it? Look for other employment…
Then again, Jay Leno said about dress requirements for NBA players on the road: He’d be satisfied if they just wore a condom on occasion…
Grow up, guys.
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Posted in Personal Topics, World at 12:41 am by Tomas
Yeah, it is amazing how often people take some tiny little piece of chance observation and blow it up to a complete “understanding” of a complex situation.
This amazing feat is even more astonishing when the people have no involvement in the situation, and are just putting their opinion in with little to no regard for fact (or truth or honesty).
We’ve all seen this throughout our lives. People jumping to conclusions based on misperceptions or only tiny bits of information.
It is common in politics – some politician makes a casual comment about, say, his taxes just seeming to be too high, someone overhears, and the next day the NY Times has headlines that he’s planning on introducing a major tax reform package – complete with a quote “Senator Thrushbottom yesterday said in relation to his new tax proposal that ‘taxes just seem too high.'”
In the entertainment rags, two performers can be getting their mochas at the same Starbucks, at the same time, quite by accident, and the next you know their pic is on the cover and they are having an affair.
Pitiful, right?
Thing is, the same happens to each one of us every day, but we just usually ignore it.
A few posts ago in this very blog there was an example of folks at ScionJunky jumping to conclusions with too little data – and about a subject they were not even involved with.
Police officers sometimes see a vehicle that looks similar to others driven by troublemakers, and will assume whoever is driving THIS one is a troublemaker. I seem to own one of those vehicles…
Another example I run into quite often, and just ignore because not only is it too difficult to explain, the explanation is NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS.
Allow me explain.
Many people assume Tomas hates cats.
They jump to this (incorrect) conclusion by hearing me say that I won’t go to someone’s house because they have cats, or because I might shoo a cat away or ask someone not to stuff their cat in my face. I even react strongly if they keep trying to get me to love their cat.
What they are seeing is not Tomas hating cats, but Tomas protecting himself. I’m allergic to the damned things.
It’s not their fur or their dander, but apparently a component of their saliva – and since they lick themselves incessantly, it is on all the hair and dander they leave lying around (and in what they leave in their litter boxes, too).
This ‘toxin’ is on essentially everything the cat touches, and it makes no difference if someone locks the cat in another room while the “cat hater” is there, it still has an effect. Please, people, if you have a cat let the anti-cat person know – don’t try to hide the fact (or the cat) from them.
Big deal, many will say. So Tom has a cat allergy. A lot of people do. They sneeze, or get the sniffles or something. So what? Live with it!
Well, some people have more extreme allergic reactions than that. Some get all itchy, some even get hives. That’s a bit more than a sneeze or a few Kleenex.
What about Tom?
Let me tell all you cat owners a very short story, and you will maybe see why I don’t want ANYTHING to do with your house or your cat. OK?
When I was a little tyke, six years old, my parents got me two of the absolutely cutest little kittens. I wanted a pet and these were perfect. Cute, cuddly, lovable, and good training in responsibility for little Tommy. I was supposed to choose only one of them to keep, the other would be passed on to my cousin Becky.
That afternoon I played with my little kittens, and even napped with them close by.
By that evening I was in the hospital, floating in and out of consciousness.
Seems little Tommy and the kittens didn’t get along. While my parents got rid of the kittens and everything they had touched, I spent a considerable time in that hospital.
So, while Tomas doesn’t hate cats, I figure it’s them or me. If they stay away and if people don’t try to trick me into being exposed to their toxic emanations, I really don’t have that much of an opinion. Some cats are beautiful, all kittens are cute.
However, if it comes down to survival of either the cat or myself, the cat will be viewed no differently than any deadly virus is viewed.
If you are a cat lover, sorry. I don’t hate your cat but I will not let you or it negatively affect my health.
I may not hate cats (and I really don’t), but I will protect myself from them.
(By the way, I have NO problems with dogs, birds, or mice…)
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10.20.05
Posted in Personal Topics, SprintPCS, World at 8:13 pm by Tomas
This afternoon I drove over to the Sprint Store in nearby Lakewood, WA to pick up a new cellphone for my mother. She has one of the phones on my Sprint account, and the little folding Samsung she’s been using suddenly decided to quit for no apparent reason – while it was sitting in it’s desk charger, relaxing and sucking juice, no less.
On my way to the Sprint store, I passed one of the skateboard parks in the area, and was rather startled to see one of the local police officers, who regularly patrol the skateboard parks, riding a ‘board (rather well!) while in uniform. Appears he was showing one of the kids there how to do something.
I found his doing something like that pleasant change from the usual attitudes shown between police officers and skateboarders. Kudos to the unknown officer!
At the Sprint store I explained the problem and what I wanted to happen – replace the dead ‘phone with one that worked, using the $150 rebate I had coming and had already confirmed. I’d even picked out the ‘phone I wanted to get my mum – a metallic pink Sanyo SCP-200.
As usual, when dealing with ANY cellphone operation, the entire procedure was overly complex, and waaaay too time consuming. From “in the door and talking to a rep” to “out the door with a pretty pink ‘phone in a box” was nearly two and a half hours.
Most of that time was spent with the Sprint CS rep flailing away at her keyboard and mouse or talking with her senior tech, office manager, or someone at the national service center to figure out how to get their elaborate system to simply swap phones and grant the rebate.
When she was finally finished she told me to take the new ‘phone home and call Sprint Customer Service from another phone so the they could talk me through programming the new ‘phone properly for use…
I ‘suggested’ that providing me with an actual working telephone rather than a DIY project should be part of Sprint’s job – HER job. She then took another 15 minutes programming the new cellphone so that it knew it was a cellphone, and what number it was supposed to be.
Is it just me, or has “Customer Service” these days turned into “customer servicing” in the same way a bull services a cow?
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10.15.05
Posted in Personal Topics at 7:00 pm by Tomas
I’ve had a few questions asked by a couple of people about the ‘disagreement’ that apparently got my membership at ScionJunky.com frozen.
One of the other members started carrying on about getting un-justly banned from ScionLife once, and accidentally banned a second time. He continues to rant on about his ‘mistreatment’…
I commented that in truth the user had been banned for cause four times, not the once wrongly and once accidentally he claimed, to which he responded that I was mistaken and should get my facts straight.
Right about then my ability to respond at ScionJunky was blocked by the0ckid82@gmail.com who refused to answer my e-mail asking why.
Anyway, since there were questions, and since it does bother me to be accused of not having my facts straight, I present the “facts” here for others to judge. It is much better in the open.
The “facts” as presented are all from publicly available information, made public by the user himself. Gathering this information did not require any moderator access – it was all from public posts and public profiles made by Rob.
*The “image” referred to in the above listings:
And a page capture of further images from one of Robert Saverio Viscardi’s pages.
(The above image files are also available by searching “viscardi” in my gallery here.)
Now that I have the public information connected and published in this one spot, I’ll let others decide what happened, I’m through with it.
One of the things I strive for is a reputation of honest, straightforward, un-biased actions as a moderator at all the sites where I’ve moderated.
Anyone calling my honesty and accuracy into question should expect a strong response. In this instance it was easy because I didn’t have to delve into any further information I might have access to as a moderator: All the information is readily available to anyone with internet access.
One of these days, I might even get a response from the0ckid82@gmail.com.
UPDATE
I attempted to contact the top dog at ScionJunky on 02DEC2005 to find out what the problem was, and to see if he knew why I had had zero contact from the0ckid82@gmail.com in nearly two months of waiting. I knew my original e-mail went out since the site owner was CC’d on the e-mail and responded with the following back in October:
hi tom,
perhaps you should talk to theockid82 about it.. he’s the mod that blocked you. i haven’t been following anything lately and so i dont know what this is all about.
however you seem cordial enough in your emails i cant imagine you doing anything that would warrant a ban.
contact theockid and see what he says
chris
My e-mail to Chris on 02DEC2005 was simple and straightforward:
Well, Chris, it appears that ‘theockid82’ doesn’t want to respond to
the same e-mail I sent to you (you both got it), so I guess I’m still
at a loss as to any explanation or understanding. (In fact I wrote
this up on my blog, too, but you don’t want to see that, I’m sure. :o)
If there is some way to get ANY sort of response from whoever
‘theockid82’ is? I’m open to suggestions…
The ban notice is the ONLY communication I’ve ever received from
‘theockid82.’
Take care,
Tom
The first response I got back from this new e-mail was a delivery failure notice telling me that the e-mail address for Chris was no longer good. *sigh*
I re-sent the e-mail using the webmaster address from the ScionJunky Site (complete with failure notice so they could sort it out) and got the following reply from Chris:
ur unbanned
enjoy
So, I still have no idea why my posting at ScionJunky was blocked for two months – the person who blocked me refused to respond – but I am now back and posting sporadically on ScionJunky.com
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
–Robert Heinlein
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Posted in Personal Topics at 2:12 pm by Tomas
There’s a thread going over at another site (scionlife.com) that started with a member getting a new puppy.
Rather than bogging down that thread with this story, I decided to put it here…
____________
Dogs are wonderful, trusting, loyal, friends. I don’t think most of us give dogs enough credit for their understanding of the world around them. They understand more than we are willing to admit they do, and sometimes they can just break your heart when you realize that it is just our failure to understand them that is the problem.
Years ago my wife had a Blue Heeler with a lot of Dingo in the mix. That dog was not really a domesticated dog, but was hardwired as a wild one.
Once we realized Tazman was essentially a Dingo, and was ruled by canine pack behavior, we all got along fine. I was recognized as Alpha male and pack leader. Taz and the wife constantly battled for Alpha bitch.
After we had Taz for about a year, we were at an ‘Adopt-a-Pet’ activity put on by the local humane societies and I found “my” dog.
She was still just a pup, but had a hard life – even including beatings and a broken leg. She was a terrified pup, but she and I understood and trusted each other right off. That’s how I ended up with a fluffy mutt – a large but very gentle creature.
Taz and Sneeker got along fine, and even though Taz was only about 37 pounds, Taz was senior to Sneek in our pack. We never had to train Sneek in anything – not even housebreaking – Taz took care of ALL her training. How? I have no idea, but Sneek imitated Taz in learning to come on command, walking by our sides, and everything else that made living with those two so easy. (Yes, we had a “dog door” so they could let themselves in and out when they wanted, and a large fenced back yard to run in.)
==|==
Flash ahead eight years, and Sneek is not feeling well – the vet determines that her kidneys have failed and she has very little time left. She is suffering, so I make the impossibly hard decision that she will be sedated and never wake up…
When I return from the vet without Sneek, Taz wants to know what is going on. I try to explain, but how CAN one explain something like that to a dog?
For over a week, Taz would look for Sneek in all of Sneek’s usual haunts.
Every night at bedtime, Taz would try to find her and then wait, wide awake, for Sneek to come in and lay down at her usual spot. Eventually she would make one last search, return and finally sleep.
After about a week and a half, the pattern changed, I think Taz finally realized that Sneek was not coming back.
Taz was restless all day, and early in the evening, she made a ‘sweep’ of the yard and house, thoroughly searching every corner. When she was through, she went to her corner of the house, got one of her Milkbone dog biscuits and brought it into the livingroom.
While I watched, she sadly walked over to where Sneek used to always curl up when we were all in the livingroom, gently laid the Milkbone there, and never again looked for Sneek.
She understood.
Connie, Tom, Taz and Sneek
____________
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10.11.05
Posted in Site Comments at 4:14 pm by Tomas
Anyone looking at this page probably noticed the B52 at the top. Why a B52?
The original pic that came with this sample “Theme” was a very oddly colored pic of a vehicle of some sort coming through a tunnel – just not quite me.
“So,” I said to myself, “what sort of pictures do you have in your HD that might be interesting across the top of a blog?”
I took a look and came up with that B52.
It’s not the model (B52F) that I worked with for two years in the Stratecic Air Command (SAC), it’s either a B52G or H model (short tail), but it gives a nice feel to the otherwise uninteresting top of the page.
Every now and then I plan to change images, for no apparent reason other than it will please me to do so.
Take care!
Tom
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10.10.05
Posted in Site Comments at 9:40 pm by Tomas
Well, I’m busily putting in some new toys in the website rec room – things like this blog and the snappy new “gallery” at Random Gallery.
If any of you folks want to take a look at the gallery, you’re welcome to – there are some failed images in there that I haven’t weeded out yet, and the whole thing is amazingly, uh, “random.”
Oh! Comments on this blog-like-thing are welcome, too, but I’m still figuring out how to turn on commenting for others, and until I do, the only choice is to drop me an e-mail.
Until next time, take care,
Tom
I came into this world cold, naked, and hungry, things really aren’t bad now I guess …
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Posted in Uncategorized at 5:50 pm by Tomas
Hi!
I just installed this WordPress Blog software, and I’m still going through it to see what I got myself into…
When I get things figured out, I’ll write more, but for right now… Nope!
Take care,
Tom
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