Writing Wrongs

Am having a running battle with lemmozine on FB and here about the chronologically challenged people flooding into the US without parents or papers.

He is all about being good to the children, and I believe he has a greatly exaggerated concept of the dangers they are escaping. I have a greatly exaggerated concept of how these things should be done legally.

We share a heritage of grand and/or great-grandparents being kicked out of their homes by fascist governments who really were killing them what did not scoot fast enough. All of these folks found ways to enter the United States legally, despite racist government quotas, anti-semitic bosses, poverty, and questionable hygiene.

I have no problem with the color of their skin, their religion, their place of birth or their questionable hygiene. I have a problem with their parents not having the guts to come with them. I have a bigger problem with their parents not finding a legal way into the country. It costs far less to apply for a visa than it does to hire smugglers. About 10% of the cost per person. If they are truly refugees, there is a pathway to claim that status and bring the whole family.

But bigger than that, I have a problem with their own countries not fixing the problems they are trying to run away from.

lemmozine is thinking of the children, and I admire that. I am also thinking of the children, but in the long term.

I am not patriotic. I will cheer when my country does the right thing, and jeer when my country does wrong.

On Memorial Day I am not posting any memes or graphics or sayings praising all veterans for "keeping me safe" or for their "sacrifice". 

In my heart I have three memorial days:

1. I praise anyone who fought and died actually protecting America's freedom:
The American Revolution
The War of 1812
The Civil War union side. Confederates can suck it.
Philippine-American War
WWI
WWII

2. There is a spot in my heart for those who were conscripted, then forced to fight and die for bad foreign policy decisions:
Mexican-American War
Indian Wars
Spanish-American War
Korean Police Action
Vietnam War

3.After 1973, we have had an all-volunteer military. And  none of the actions the government has committed troops to have safeguarded my freedom. In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, just the opposite. I don't mourn the soldiers who volunteered to blindly follow orders and were killed in the process.

Emotionally, though, I am an American. Let me tell you a short story.

In 1977, I had been working in southern Thailand for about a year, at a Thai agricultural research center in the middle of a forest of rubber trees. For the first couple of months there was a group of scientists and administrators from the UN, but no Americans other than myself. I lived on campus, ate and partied with my co-workers, and had almost no contact with anything Officially American. I had some business at the US consulate in Songkhla, a few miles from the research center, and the bus only went as far as the center of town. There was a hill between me and the consulate. As I walked up the road and started to crest the hill, I saw the huge American flag flying above the consulate. In that moment, it felt like I was home.

LJArchive, which has been downloading and storing locally all my LJ posts & your comments, has suddenly stopped downloading. The server doesn't respond. When I punch the server's IP address into the browser it gives me an LJ goat logo and what is basically a 404 message. I have since tried two other archive apps, with the same results. LJ has not posted anything about this, and comments on the archive sites are a year old, from when LJ changed the way it linked comments and the archive apps could only download main postings.

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Took my time getting to work this morning because there was little work to do, or so I thought. Domino's litterbox was definitely wanting to be changed, so I did that, and was pleasantly surprised that the used cartridge fit completely into the new, larger garbage can, on top of more than twice as much garbage as was able to fit into the old one.

As I walked to my car, the caregiver for the woman next door was waiting for me. She had just bought a 2014 Corolla yesterday, and she claimed to hear the alarm going off. I could not hear a thing, so it wasn't the alarm. But I'm sure she can hear way higher frequencies than I can, and a 15kHz tone would sound like an alarm to someone who can hear it. When I unlocked the car with the key's buttons, it gave 4 beeps instead of the usual 2, so someone must have set off the alarm. I have an after-market alarm system, so I told her to bring it in to the dealer. They're open till 9. I'm sure she'll tell me what happened next time she's on duty.

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The folks who are renovating the outside of our building had the usual entrance to the parking lot blocked off, so I used the driveway of the building next door which some time in Summer will be ours too. There used to be a chain across the connecting road, but it has been down for about a month. There was a bucket lift in front of the building, it looks like they are re-tiling the roof. As usual, our not having an ops manager means we get no real info on what is actually being done, just a vague email message about how long it might take.

When I told Automation Guy that I was running out of things to do, he gave me a follow-on to the project I did yesterday. This one required logging into one of his lab machines, which I don't like to do, I'd rather keep my under-destruction work on my own machine.

Lunch was Togos, followed by an educational trip to Fry's. I was looking for two things:
1. A network-attached storage device at least 8TB and capable of 100Gb/s
2. A Linksys router to replace the Netgear one which has been acting flaky. And to match the recently purchased Linksys cable modem. Dual band wireless and 4-port 10/100 Gb/s wired.

What I found was a trend in external storage to use USB 3.0 instead of Ethernet. Just Plain Stupid for anything more than 1TB. And none of the Ethernet ones could do more than 1GB/s. Seagate makes an 8 for $600, Netgear for $700. Hitachi has bet the farm on Mac users and Thunderbolt cable. A pity because they make the best high-capacity HDDs.

And there were so many different routers on the shelves with so little real information on the boxes that I relegated that search to online.

Back to work, I set up a couple of tests for Automation Guy, allowed him to volunteer me to demo them at Monday's meeting. To really show off these tests I need to play video from the lab's high speed network, but I won't have access to that in the conference room. :-(

After 6, I went online and looked for their latest protocol, called AC, and found refurbished 1/10/100, dual band ones on Linksys' site for $80 off. Bought one.

Home, forgot to stop off for bird seed, but also forgot my Lowe's discount coupon. It was 6:45 when I pulled into the little shopping/big condo center hoping to curl up with the Kindle app at Peet's, but they were closing. Very poor planning, to close at 7 when you have "expensive condo owner late-evening magnet" written all over you.

Domino was on top of the new recliner again. I had checked a few times today on the webcams, and she mostly stayed curled up in the bed in the office, but she also spent some time on the cat thing which I had relocated to the kitchen in front of a window with a view of the street.

There was a lot of Facebooking to do, and somehow I got trapped into watching a particularly ballistic episode of Millionaire Matchmaker. The matchmaker is incredibly sexist, ageist and loud. Want a second opinion? Fine. She's also ugly.

There are two former Peace Corps volunteers in the Bay Area Science Fiction Assn. The other guy served in Ukraine. Both our countries are in the early throes of a civil war. In both cases the official government is passing laws to restrict free assembly, and they are both failing, Thailand more emphatically than Ukraine. But Ukraine's protesters are showing much more skill setting things on fire.

Plans for tomorrow:
Tweak the new automation demo
Finish reading the marketing doc
Glance at the release doc Boss sent around today
Write my weekly report
Maybe go to opening night of the all-female version of 1776 being done by friends in downtown SJ. It might be better to wait till they have a few performances under their belt and need audience members. I don't think this show will be all that popular.

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So much ado about the death at 95 of Nelson Mandela. He was a great man, and deserved the praise.

But I cannot think of him without thinking of his ex-wife Winnie.

And of the chaos he left behind when he retired from active politics. Thabo Mbeki, Jacob Zuma. Winnie. That sign language "interpreter".

 

and I get  rash on my feet. A while ago I bought a pair of New Balance shoes to replace the ones I'd been using for 18 months, but they changed the design and they bruised my toes. Once worn outside they can't be returned, so they were set aside and replaced with a similar style from Brooks. Those seemed to work fine, until a couple of months ago rashes which looked a lot like shingles dotted the side of my feet, with one in the center of my left sole. Two doctors independently said these were from wearing a shoe which did not have enough ventilation. It was summer, so I switched to my Teva sandals. But they are a size too large, had to buy the right size. And that's what I wore until 3 days ago. Back to the Brooks shoes. Rashes cropped up within 2 days. Today I wore the beat-up old NBs, and after much research, found these on Zappos:

 New Balance MC656

I had really wanted velcro instead of laces, but every shoe which has that from every company I looked at are like Brooks, no ventilation. So I traded velcro for laces and solid black or white for Kinetic Blue trim. We'll see how that goes.

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Work was so boring I took another video class. This one was pretty good, #2 in the 6-class series on why & how cable companies need to migrate to Internet Protocol for streaming video. It included enough technical information on MPEG-2 transport to make it interesting for me.

But for the most part I watched TV monitored the streams on 239.0.1.7:5724 and 239.0.1.8:5724 multicast multiple program transport streams. The local stations are a day behind CNN.com on almost every news item except what might be called Page 1 news. And even some of that.

Lunch was with Automation Guy, we went to the Round Table pizza buffet.

1-on-1 with the boss, pretty boring, nothing much to talk about. I told him of my impending home purchase.



Home by way of UPS (Young Frankenstein The musical CD, sandstone coasters) and 7-11 Amazon locker (2 cases of kitty crack).
Also in the mail was my receipt/verification of enrollment in an evening uke class Fridays 11/15-12/20 with no class on 11/29. BYOU. And bring the insurance waiver. If I am impaled by a classmate's splintering instrument as she lightning-strums The Tiger Rag, I cannot sue the City of Sunnyvale.
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One news item I am getting tired of is the government shutdown/credit limit. By most readings of the 14th Amendment, Boehner refusing to put the issues to a vote is a violation of that Amendment, and Obama would be well within his powers to declare martial law and authorize the two bills himself. While he's at it, he could arrest Boehner and the teabaggers in the House for treason.

In other bad news, the check from my broker did not arrive as expected today. :-(
But balancing that out, when I checked my brokerage account, the mutual fund which is the rest of my downpayment settled, and is available whenever I need to cash it out.

Netflix DVD arrived. I'm doing the 1-disk plan.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
manicure
Library, return two DVDs

does not mean getting more sleep. Before falling asleep, I:
Read some more of Just One Damned Thing After Another (The Chronicles of St Mary's) but put it down in disgust when, with only a couple of chapters to go, she gets the whole expedition captured by the heavily armed Bad Guys.

Hooked up my Nexus to the Internet radio and played some tunes through its speakers, starting with Rose Sirinthip's bilingual (Thai/Spanish) A Tu Corazon. Aka สู่กลางใจเธอ (To The Center Of Your Heart).  Then looked for Antje Duvekot's Dandelion but found the same title (different song) by Kacey Musgraves which I didn't want to hear right then, but played her Follow Your Arrow instead. Ditched the music player and launched YouTube and played Antje Duvekot's Dandelion but couldn't make out half the words. Internet radio's speakers are not that great. Then back to the music player and Uncle Bonzai's Just One Angel about three and a half times.

Went to the kitchen and poured a glass of lactose-free milk, into which I squeezed about 1/4" of chocolate syrup, which I did not mix in because I only wanted about half a glass of milk, but needed the chocolate in case I woke up at 4 am again with low blood sugar.

Back to the bedroom, pointed the internet radio to a Brahms station, but it was playing something decidedly not lulabye-ish. Switched to the Portland classical station, which was even worse. Some raucous symphony. WNEW, the DC news station usually puts me to sleep, but they had actual news about Obama's obscene fascination with Sarin gas, which he apparently smoked in high school, "but I didn't inhale".

Went back to the kitchen, drank half of the half remaining milk in the glass.

That sounds awkward. I drank half of what was left of the milk in the glass.

Not much better.

Back in bed, finished the book. The Nexus Kindle app does not have the "share/rate the book" feature. I would have given it "worth half price, slightly more if you are British and have a tea habit".

At that point Kaan hopped onto the bed. No, launched himself onto the bed. He curled up at the foot, well out of reach. :-(

It's now about 2 am, lights out, then back on again because I forgot to put on a breathe-right strip. Bathroom, did that, bed, eventual sleep.

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Woke up with a slight headache. Almost felt like a cold coming on. Shower fixed that.

Morning Hgl was 187, a bit higher than I expected. At least I didn't go low overnight.

Somewhere in there I did laundry. Heavy stuff from yesterday went into the dryer and shirts went into the washing machine.

Work was a continuation of yesterday's adventure, still no clues what will duplicate the customer's issue. My vote is customer network equipment snafu.

Lunch at Togo's. Roast beef on sourdough with dijon mustard.

Straight home because it was a beautiful day but they are getting shorter. Patio, phone my Baltimore sister, who punctuated the conversation with Red Sox home run announcements. They were playing that French team. Sounds like Detritus. (I don't get that with Seattle area sister, because the Mariners are not even on her radar). Final score was 20-4, Boston.

Dinner was a few slices of ham from the freezer, the two ribs from yesterday's lunch, a croissant and mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Watched Who Do You Think You Are? this one was Trisha Yearwood, who discovers that the ancestor on her father's side who immigrated to the New World in the mid-1700s was a poacher who was sentenced to hang, but got transported to Georgia colony instead, and by lots of con artistry managed to become one of the wealthiest land owners in the county. Putnam County. Except he was illiterate, so no relationship to the spelling bee.

Played on FB some.

I am incensed at this spear-shaking being done by our Peace Prize winning President and Peacenik anti-war demonstrator Vietnam Vet secretary of state. There is nothing we can do to Syria which will not kill innocent people, and make El Quaida stronger. Nothing.

Wanted to post something on Facebook. I was looking for George Washington's farewell address quote warming against foreign entanglements, but it is about Europe, very specifically. Instead I found this:

"We will show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully –- not because we are naïve about the dangers we face, but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear. "
- Barak Obama, Inaugural Address
January 21, 2013

Lying asshat.

Paula Deen was under oath in a courtroom and lawyer asks if she has ever said "nigger". She said 'yes, but not recently'. The media hears the first part but not the second and brands her a racist. The reason she is in a courtroom is she is being sued by an employee whom she had fired, the employee making IMHO hard to believe claims of systematic racial discrimination against said employee.

The knee-jerk reaction from her various employers will bite them eventually.

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Snowden. Espionage? Srsly? Espionage is when you give classified information to enemies, not when you give it to We, The People™.

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The Voting Rights Act was not thrown out by the Supreme Court. What was thrown out was what I have always thought of as an unconstitutional section which singled out particular counties to be required to submit any proposed changes to their voting laws to a Federal court to be evaluated for discriminatory activity. IMHO all counties ought to be subjected to this level of scrutiny, or none of them. I hate to agree with Roberts, but in this case he's right that the 40-year-old list is no longer based on current data. His decision didn't throw out the special section, it only told Congress to update it based on current data. And again the media is screaming as if all voting rights are now in the toilet. Sheesh.

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Sad to see former Texas Gov. Ann Richards' daughter's filibuster against the proposed medieval abortion law was halted on a technicality.

That's what it feels like, all the recent announcements by conservatives that they have had a change of heart, and now see the rightness of legalizing gay marriage.

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It took Obama way too long to see the light. He was not raised a Bible bigot, he chose to become one, and those born-for-the-first-timers can really plant their feet. But he has come around most of the way.

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Many of the minds were changed by their children coming out to them. A few managed to on their own finally separate their church from their state. Whatever the catalyst, it feels to me like a big rock being rolled away from the cave entrance, and the hostages coming out. The dawn of a new era. Maybe the dawn of a new ERA as well?

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TMI behind the cut
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Anyway, all of that to say I have always taken people at face value. The only time I care at all what a person's sexual orientation is is when it's a woman I'm interested in dating. But then, there have been far more women who were not interested in me who were not interested in women, either.

But I digress. This week has given me some hope. I hope the Supes continue that feeling.

Thing One: Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15. The Federal holiday, one would think, ought to have been on the Monday nearest the actual date, but somehow it shifted to the Monday after. Today.
Thing Two: The Constitution says the President is inaugurated on January 20. Somehow this got shifted to today, also.
This last item is called playing the race card. 
( You can skip this rant )
I didn't pay any attention to the inauguration because I don't see it as significant. I think the wrong person was nominated in 2008, and the right person made a deal not to run in 2012 in return for the most glamorous job in the cabinet.
And when someone who is inept but on my side is running against someone who is ruthlessly capable but against me, and nothing I can do will change that, I'll settle for Obama and hope for the best.

I listened to the snippets of his speech they showed on the news, and have this to say:
- Gay marriage: It's about time you changed your opinion. Now let's see you introduce a Constitutional amendment, and an act to repeal DOMA.
- The War: In 2004 you promised to bring our troops home in 18 months. Today you said the war is coming to an end, but named no dates. Your last official pronouncement on this would put it at 18 months from now. This is why I could not vote for you.
- The economy: Yes, it's better. But it still sucks.

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Today was the day to do the things I didn't do because Friday night I had a special show to attend, Saturday there was serious sleep deprivation and a crab feed, Sunday two important football games, cookie baking and a potluck/rehearsal.

I was feeling slothful all day. Got a lot done, anyhow:
- Took the latest 506 slides from the scanning service and put them back into two binders
- Plucked the last 300 slides from the final binder and put them into boxes of 50 for the scanning service.
- Moved the recliner and vacuumed and steam cleaned the area by my feet. This confused the heck out of the cats
- Spent a couple of hours online trying not to make too much fun of so many of my friends who worship the air Obama breathes.
- Ran a load of laundry
- Dishwashered the second set of cookie baking gear and cleaned powdered sugar off too many surfaces, including my blood sugar monitor.
- Plugged in the rehearsal dates for Brigadoon into my Google calendar. The calendar they provided was not in a PDF, and not arranged in anything approaching readable.

When I opened the door to go to BASFA, there was a Fedex package there. WTF? I was home all day, they couldn't ring the bell?

Anyhow, BASFA was sparsely attended, but I like it that way. Too many people = too many cross-conversations. My rumor of the week was voted in. It really shouldn't have been because it was the last one on the list, but otherness prevailed.

I mentioned at the meeting that I thought Michelle Obama had told her overcoat maker to "make me something Kardashian" but they thought she said "Cardassian". Here are the photos, you be the judge:



Plans for tomorrow:
Work
???

Long day at work. Lunchtime I went to Costco to pick up the 3rd set of scanned slides. There were 508, not 500. I thought I had counted everything twice. Six of the extras were in box #9, so chalk it up to starting to go blind. Many many crappy photos, a lot of them due to having been developed in 100° temps in rural Thailand. I had to tape a lot of them back into their paper holders - the adhesive had dissolved. Still, there were some good ones. I'll put a few behind a cut.

I wanted to do some shopping, but the lines were too long. All I was really after was celery hearts. And maybe chocolates.

Back at work, I was trying to write a script to test a new I/O card, based one one which was already working for an old I/O card. But with more efficient code. I couldn't get past the first step. Turns out the card which was in the test machine I'd borrowed was faulty. While one of the other testers was trying to figure it out with me, we both got a lesson on something entirely different (new piece of monitoring equipment) from the seniorest tester.

Home, the only thing in the mailbox worth the 1-block walk through the bitter cold was Boskone's progress report, which has the schedule and my name's even in it as an artist. Had the slides not arrived today, this evening would have included making labels for the photos I'll be mailing them. Tomorrow, then.
Okay, you have waited long enough. Some ancient Thailand photos from batch #3:
( here )
Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Starbucks or McDonalds