Category Archives: Paul

September 2, 2021 · 23:34

Adrift On The Calendar

I’m so glad that my watch and phone tell me what day and date it is. I realize that I’m now totally dependent on them to keep track of such things since my brain and body and schedule are so overbooked that I can’t spend the energy or the brain cycles to track such things myself.

In some ways I feel like the crew of that ship in “WALL-E” where they’ve forgotten how to walk or move independently. And like in that film where there’s a malicious, evil entity that has manipulated them to go down that road, we have the GQP and the Death Cult right-wingers and conspiracy nut jobs who are pushing us to spend so much time stressing over their bullshit that we’re losing our ability to keep track of little things like the date. We have so many bigger fish to fry.

Do you remember a “M*A*S*H” episode where BJ Honeycutt was messing with Winchester’s clothes, subtly a little at a time having them taken in or let out, convincing him that he was gaining or losing weight? That’s what our electronic devices could do, adding a few minutes to the work day here, taking a few days off the holidays there, putting an eighth work day into the week (“Wait, wasn’t it Tuesday a couple days ago? Why is it Tuesday again? Whatever…”) Forget about “watching the watchers,” is anyone watching the watches?

The only reference I seem to have is, “How many days until that next deadline? And the one after that? And the two next week? Wait, they’re THIS week?! Shit!!!”

The good news I guess is that I’m more or less keeping up with the deadlines, at least the ones that are critical and for which I’m getting paid. The volunteer gig? Might be letting a few slip there.

I think the French have a phrase for that.

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Filed under Deep Thoughts, Paul

August 28, 2021 · 23:30

Random Season Changes

It seems that with the pandemic and work-from-home thing for 18 months and feeling busier than God 24/7/365, the “seasons” have cut loose from their traditional moorings. As a result it’s feeling more and more like daily life in the Twilight Zone.

One thing here in California is that it seems to now be open season for the GOP television ads on the gubernatorial recall to be shown on every channel all day. (I’m assuming – there are a LOT of channels I don’t watch, and never will, but they seem to be on every channel I’m watching. I must be their target audience.) I’ve seen them for four different candidates already today. It invokes absolutely no surprise to see that each one is a bigger douche canoe than the previous one.

That’s going to get really annoying really fast. I might turn into a crotchety, cranky old man over this one. I might have to limit my television between now and September 14th to “Ted Lasso” next Friday and the Chiefs’ game on the 12th. However, given that the Chiefs’ game is right before the election, the ads might make it unwatchable. Perhaps I’ll listen to that one on the internet radio instead, even if it is on TV.

And Halloween candy went on sale at the grocery store three weeks ago. My first display sighting was on the weekly grocery run on the 8th. I know they get earlier and earlier, but really? A full month before Labor Day and we’re already getting Halloween candy?

Any bets on when the first Christmas stuff will hit the grocery stores? This week?

When my faith in the future of humanity is taking heavy fire from all quarters on a minute by minute basis, this isn’t helping. If you see something on the news about someone going berserk in a SoCal grocery store over Christmas candy in August…

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Filed under Death Of Common Sense, Paul, Politics

August 26, 2021 · 23:43

Rabbit Hole

Wow, what an internet rabbit hole that was!

To start, something came in to my personal email account that I needed to send to a couple folks at the company I work for. I decided to be lazy, and rather than send the email from my personal email account to my company email account and then forward it internally, I just sent it from my personal account. Now, I’m aware that my personal email account is really old and has a weird domain name, so there was a possibility of it being sent to Spam or blocked, or the folks I was sending to wouldn’t recognize that it was from me. On the other hand, my usual “first initial last name” user name was right there… What could go wrong?

But that got me wondering again about the age of that email account and domain name. I’ve looked a couple of times before but haven’t been quite able to ask the right questions. I vaguely remember some things, but it was a long time ago…

This was well before Gmail came along. This was before Google existed! This was before Windows XP. In fact, it was probably right around the time that Windows 95 came out, maybe just before. Now it’s administered by EarthLink, but before that it was Mindscape, and before that it was Netcom.

The email address is pwillett@ix.netcom.com. So how long have I had it, more or less, and what does the “ix” stand for?

I finally figured it out, more or less.

Yes, I remembered the Earthlink –> Mindscape –> Netcom evolution correctly. Netcom started in 1988, running as a local service in San Jose for college students who lived off campus. As they expanded and this thing called the World Wide Web started to be a thing, Netcom released a  program called NetCruiser. NetCruiser was originally released for Windows 3.1 in 1995, and I found a very old Cnet article from Jan 10, 1996 announcing that NetCruiser for the Mac would be available Q1 1996.

WOW! NetCruiser included the ability to display both GIF and JPEG files! It also included email, Usenet, IRC, Gopher, ftp, and Telnet! The Netcom/NetCruiser combo was $19.95 per month for 40 hours of peak time use and unlimited use off-peak (midnight to 09:00) and on weekends! And it worked up to 28.8 kbps, almost blinding speed!!

“Wow” indeed.

And that matches what I remember! I had a Netcom account for at least a while, a year or two maybe, before NetCruiser came out. I remember how much easier NetCruiser was than manually setting up programs for different parts of the Internet, like email, web browsers, usenet, and so on. I remember getting those CD’s with the NetCruiser distribution on them – probably have them buried off in the garage someplace.

So that places my ix.netcom.com usage back to at least 1994, possibly a year or two earlier. But where does the “ix” come from?

I finally found another article about Netcom that talks about that. The original Netcom email accounts were in the “user@netcom.com” format. But during the development of what became NetCruiser, the original name was “Internet Xpress.” They ended up making the name change to “NetCruiser” due to legal issues with the “Internet Xpress” name. But the “ix” prefix stuck.

So the account and address are at least 26 years old, possibly 27 or 28 years.

To come up with a more precise answer, I’ll bet that somewhere on an old enough set of back up disks I have backup copies of my Netscape or NetCruiser emails. But that rabbit hole will have to remain unexplored for tonight.

Today I also have a couple of different Gmail accounts, plus my work accounts, plus my CAF work accounts, plus… But the primary is always the “ix.netcom.com” account. Occasionally I’ll meet a fellow geek who recognizes it and knows that it means that I’ve been doing this for a long time.

Geek cred – gotta love it!

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Filed under Computers, Paul

August 23, 2021 · 23:47

Money, Money, Money, Money

Being Finance Officer of the CAF SoCal Wing I spent a good part of this weekend counting cash. This led to a most curious observation.

Here’s the situation. We have a number of sales sources around our ramp. Some of them (PX with T-shirts, toys, hats, patches, and so on – and the beer/margarita stands) generate a decent amount of sales but it’s mostly electronic, or $10s, $20s, $50s, and $100s if it’s cash. But most of the others (tips, candy, chips, snacks, sodas, water, and especially the aircraft tours) are simple and charge $1. Simple, just drop a dollar bill in the bin and off you go!

Except…

Someone has to count all of that. And to count it you have to unfold and stack and put it all in a format where you can go through it. It’s tedious, it’s time consuming, and it’s a pain in the ass when you can hear the planes flying and the “bombing” explosions and action going on outside.

But here’s the thing.

Having my desk covered with a mangled, messed up, mish-mash of $1 bills (with the occasional $5 or $10), almost everyone coming through the office wants to ooooh and aaaaah and just drool over “ALL THAT MONEY!!!” It’s like Scrooge McDuck frolicking in his hidden lair full of gold coins.

Only these aren’t gold coins. While everyone else is looking at it and obsessing over “CASH!!!” I’m seeing $100, maybe $125. Max.

And the majority of those with that attitude were pilots. Pilots who work for the airlines are are making $200K/year or more, sometimes a LOT more. This money lust that’s taken away their common sense is about what they would pay for dinner with their wives, OR LESS, yet they act like they could use it to go buy a new Ferrari.

It struck me as odd and a bit amusing, so I’m sharing. It’s what I do. Well, that and spend hours unfolding and stacking dollar bills until my hands cramp.

Meanwhile, if you’re tired of being obsessed with the mountainous stack of $1 bills, pull up a chair and start unfolding, stacking, and sorting. I give it fifteen minutes, tops, before you never want to see a $1 bill again.

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Filed under ALSA Golden West, CAF, Paul

August 6, 2021 · 23:45

No Context For You – August 06th

With all of the huge machinery lumbering up and down the street during repaving this week (and it’s not over by any means, they’ll be back on Monday morning) I’ve learned things.

One is an almost childlike joy in looking at and watching REALLY BIG FREAKIN’ MACHINES!

So many buttons, valves, gauges, and monstrously large sections of metal designed to shred rock and pavement and concrete and…

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Filed under Paul, Photography

August 3, 2021 · 23:37

Complex Textures

High level perspective – a bit of worn and extremely weathered log from the Mount San Jacinto State Park.

Closer perspective – an almost infinitely complex, fractal-like surface formed by strictly random, natural forces.

Alternate perspective – part of the biological cycles of an infinitesimally small speck of a planet, third rock from the primary star in a semi-deserted, backwater part of a completely average galaxy, one of a few million billion trillion completely average galaxies, returning nutrients assembled together over a century or more back to the soil and the next generation of plants and critters.

Private perspective – stunning beauty “hidden” in the world around us, “hidden” only by the fact that 99.99% of my fellow hikers walking by don’t even bother to look, let alone see.

Personal perspective – getting this wrapped up in grokking a rotting log, using all five senses, and then feeling the imperative to share with everyone probably indicates to most that there was (or is) “mood enhancing” medicinal self-medication involved. Nope, just a natural high, that John Denver school of zen, getting in touch with the Universe on a very personal and intimate level.

Or it was oxygen deprivation from being at 8,500 feet.

Either way, it was the finest kind.

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July 28, 2021 · 23:47

Staying Ahead

Staying ahead of the aircraft – it’s a mantra when learning to fly. Flying with just one pilot, no copilot, something’s always happening or about to happen and to be safe you always want to be anticipating what’s next and being ready for it. Don’t react to what the plane’s doing, or the weather, or upcoming radio calls or course changes. Stay ahead of the aircraft.

Same thing in daily living is a good plan of attack. Whether it’s at the office, going hiking, going on a trip, or anything else. Stay ahead of the…whatever. Be proactive, not reactive.

That transition from “vacation” back to “normal” has had its challenges these last three days. My main feeling, particularly at work, is that I’m reactive, discombobulated. I need to get back to being proactive and recombobulated.

So, tomorrow. Work smarter, not harder.

Kick ass, take names.

Don’t sweat the petty things and don’t pet the sweaty things.

Use your clichés, they’re your friends.

And don’t jump unless you’ve got a parachute or a honkin’ big cable attached to your back. It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end.

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July 27, 2021 · 23:29

Long Valley Flowers

Last Saturday we were in Palm Springs. One of the things that I love to do but don’t do nearly often enough is hiking out in the woods and getting out into the wild a bit.

Outside of Palm Springs is the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, which goes from the desert floor (at about 2,600′ elevation and 110ºF+) to the top of San Jacinto Peak (at about 8,500′ elevation and 65ºF). At the station on the top there’s a fairly steep ramp that goes down about 100′ to the floor of Long Valley where there are a couple of short (0.75 miles and 1.50 miles) day hike trails. I took the longer, “Desert View Loop” trail.

Along the way I saw these flowers.

They really stand out!

No clue what they are. A Google image search found a lot of African flowers that are bright red and growing out of pine needle ground cover, but the closest I found for a southwest US setting was captioned “scarlet gilia, also called skyrocket.” That ‘s probably not quite correct, but it might be close.

Anyway, when I eventually go out on what I thought was going to be a 30 minute day hike over flat ground and instead spend two hours going 2.5 miles at 8,415 feet including two fairly steep trails going up a couple hundred feet and thin air with (STUPIDLY!! 🤨 Yes, I do know better 😫 ) no water at my age thinking in my poor, pathetic brain that I’m still 25 instead of 65, when that day comes and it finally kills me (I hope that day will be far in the future, but…), plant some of these on my grave. 😁

 

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Filed under Death Of Common Sense, Flowers, Freakin' Idiots!, Health, Paul, Photography, Travel

July 26, 2021 · 23:09

Gator Bite

The first day back from a vacation can be it’s own special Hell. Today was survivable, but there were definitely some curve balls being thrown.

Of course there was the “back to work” thing. Remember, I really like my job and the folks that I work with, and they’re all really good at what they do and our corporate culture includes an expectation that folks who are off the clock are to be left alone unless it’s really, REALLY an emergency. We didn’t have any emergencies, so there weren’t any big surprises, just dealing with the upcoming end-of-the-month deadlines that were there before I left. And a couple of “out of left field” issues, but that can be true most any day.

The first more ominous issues came when Hissy wouldn’t start. At all. Six days of driving, somewhere between 800 and 900 miles through desert temps up to 115ºF, and she had performed like a champ. Now, with no warning, she was dead as a doornail. My first guess was that it was the battery, but I was a bit tied up with work tasks at the moment, so troubleshooting got put off until later in the day.

But I did see that she had taken a “gator bite” right on the hood.

We had a couple of things in those 900 miles that jumped up and tried to bite us. I remember suspecting that we had been hit by a “gator,” a long strip of truck tire that was lying in the middle of the freeway. It had gotten hit by a car in front of us, thrown up into the air, and bashed into us. I actually thought that it had hit at the top of the windshield (so maybe I should look for a second mark on the roof?) but right there across the hood is a nice, clear print of tire tread. Given that it could have hit the grill and busted out the radiator, or hit the windshield and shattered it (which in turn could have been problematic if I lost control of the car at 75 or 80 mph), I guess needing only a little cleanup on the hood is an acceptable outcome.

As for why she wouldn’t start? I had pulled out my jumper cables and went to attach them, only to find that the negative battery cable was completely loose. The clamp was still on the post, but barely, and the nut on the tightening clamp was ready to fall completely off. All I had to do was tighten it with my fingers and Hissy fired right back up. The navigation system was “lost” and needed to reboot and some of the radio pre-sets were erased due to the power outage, but all of that was quickly repaired. No muss, no fuss!

Some days “good enough” is simply good enough. Especially for a Monday, the first day back at work after vacation.

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July 25, 2021 · 23:35

Home Again, Home Again

It was an interesting foray back out into the “real world” and travel for six days in a time of COVID.

We were masked whenever we were indoors, and a lot of the time when we were outdoors. Other people? Not so much. In Las Vegas it might have been 25% to 33% or so masked in the casinos, about 2% or so outside, even in crowds. About the same in Palm Springs for the general public. In Las Vegas there’s a new mask order for employees, and about 99% of them were masked. I don’t know if there’s a new masking order for the Palm Springs area or San Bernardino County (Los Angeles County does have one) but it seemed that most employees were masked up.

My biggest concern is that the times when we were indoors and had to get unmasked were when we were eating. Of necessity, most everyone else (except the employees) were eating and thus unmasked as well. We’ll see if that bites us in the ass over the next week or two.

Finally, a potential sign of impending doom comes from my fondness for this, which was in the window of a very hoity-toity, upscale boutique in Caesar’s Palace, where I would walk by it a couple times of day:

They probably had someone putting in overtime to get my nose prints, finger prints, and drool marks off the glass.

It should be noted CLEARLY for the record that I do not know how to ride a motorcycle, I have not (to the best of my memory) EVER even been ON a motorcycle, and that even if I were to start to learn how to ride a motorcycle (which could happen, I guess) it would be extremely wise to start with a much, MUCH smaller motorcycle and work my way up with experience. A good analogy would be my flying – I have been trained to fly a small, single engine aircraft such as a Cessna 150 or 172 and no matter how much I might want to fly a P-51 Mustang or an F-14 Tomcat, there’s a serious experience and learning curve between here and there.

And yet… Drool marks.

No doubt signs of a long delayed and well earned midlife crisis, perhaps. Or serious, major league dementia.

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Filed under CoronaVirus, Paul, Photography, Travel