Random tweeters

So now random tweeters are supposed to have some credibility?  Today's iPhone 5 launch as reported on Yahoo had a couple tweets reported as if they were actual reviewers.  So I am supposed to believe these people?  Anonymous texts from who?

These are just a bunch of losers that can make up stuff and get it quoted by another loser company, Yahoo.  I hate to see the internet go down the tubes like this, helped by ad driven companies like Yahoo etc. but I guess that's the way it is.  There's very little left on the internet that is actually free and open anymore.  Too sad.  Everything is out there to make some money for somebody.  Very sad.

Categorize: USA going third world

Going down 680 yesterday about noon, I observed a pickup off the side of the road with a guy standing off to the side and urinating (with great ambition) off to the west.  Since the sun was reflecting through there and the man had stepped away from his truck, it was very obvious what was going on.  In fact, like a small boy, he seemed to be enjoying the arc that he was able to make.

I honked a couple times and he held up his arm with a fist and pumped it a couple times.

Huh?  He couldn't have been in a more obvious location despite there being a few trees around but I guess that held no interest for this man.

Is peeing along the road now acceptable?  In my previous African home it was completely normal, but here in Contra Costa county?  Huh?  I guess it's part of the slide towards the third world that I'm not really ready for. 

It kind of boils down to the fact that I had run out of Clipper cards.  They had changed the rules so that my current system of getting them free, loading $10.10 and using it for a day was not viable anymore.  Now they would cost $3 for an empty card so throwing them away was just not going to work.  It might seem kind of silly, but this situation caused me to focus my thinking on why was I going to work anyway?

So I quit.  I told the boss that I quit, took my last card and used it to get home.

I know that my employer pays Google to get an immediate update if I post anything.  It's a little known service that Google ("Don't be evil") offers.  I'm not using this post to communicate with them but it's a side effect that I can't avoid.

The situation that I found myself in was that I was required to train some offshore (India) staff to take over my job.  And when that was complete I would be fired.  This was the way I saw it anyway, it was never actually stated that way but I think it was pretty obvious.  Too bad American corporate managers can't be honest with their employees.  (but that's maybe another topic for later)

So I quit. 

New life ahead, no looking back, good luck to all of us.

Neil Armstrong at 82.

I remember very well the moon landing. We kids and the parents were stuck in a traffic jam in Sacramento in the back of the Chevy wagon on the way back from a several day backpacking trip. A week or so on our own in the high Sierra and getting rained on this trip several times.  Down in the valley, it was at least  100 degrees plus. Was that Walter Cronkite doing the radio call? Probably. Good times though. Got orange slushes along the way and us 4 brothers sitting in the back and feeling like real mountain men. And maybe we could go to the moon too. Sorry all the ambition fell out of America while we all fought about Right vs. Left and who should steal the most money.

Massacre at Lonmin

On a hillside north of J'berg the South African police gunned down 30+ striking mineworkers.  Check out the smoke from the guns and the distance between the police and the dead and dying.  This is just like the old days of Apartheid, except the police are now the same color as the demonstrators.  Black.

Sickens me.  I guess color is just a code for lowest class versus the class above and easy to spot.  Looks kind of like a US Civil War reproduction battle, except this is real and weapons in use are assault rifles in semi or full automatic mode.

We need our metals, that's for sure but I call foul.  Lonmin can apologize all they want but the time has past for these kind of tactics .  Or, putting on my cynic hat, are we looking for more of this in the future?

Going camping

The younger generation are getting packed to go for camping at Huntington Lake.  A pretty high altitude reservoir in the Southern Sierra.  As the designated man, I am assigned to make sure the stove is in working order.  It really wasn't that great, being 50 years old or so but Coleman has been making the same model for longer than that and I was able to find out how to get it going.  Soaking the leather in the pump with oil and exercising it for a while and it's good to go.

When I opened the cover to check things out, I found my father had left a note on the handle that said "Take Fuel".  My daughter and I got a laugh out of that.  We can only guess at some trip where upon arriving at the campground there was no fuel.  She'll take the fuel this time.  Thanks, Dad.

Paul Ryan

So Romney has chosen a VP running mate.  Paul Ryan.  Too bad, you lose.  He may have good ideas and everything else but he's got a problem that will never be over come.   His voice is high and whiny.  This can never work with the electorate that needs John Wayne/Ronald Regan.  It's like listening to the rich kid give his project presentation and just cringing all the time.  Sorry dude, you just don't have the presence.