Why Are All The Good Scams Taken?

As part of my daily entertainment, I faithfully peruse the online edition of the San Francisco Comical... err Chronicle in hopes of finding some absurdity that makes me glad I'm no longer in California. And almost without fail something will pop up with the ease of oh say breathing. Usually this will involve the latest foibles of the envirowacko movement. The wide eyed members of this group being led by cynical manipulators who exploit them for publicity and above all, money.

But are these manipulators dangerous con artists or simply brilliant business people? I think a combination is more accurate. In this case, just pepper your speech with the latest buzz words, "climate change", "green", (I'm really starting to hate that color), and "carbon footprint", and the envirosheeple will not only bleat along with you, but will be more than willing to part with their hard earned cash to keep you in the lifestyle they claim to disdain.

Anyway, the latest is a plan by a company in San Francisco to set up kiosks in the SF Airport that first allows you to calculate the dollar amount of the carbon dioxide that will be emitted during your upcoming flight. You can then use a credit card to purchase a carbon offset that this company in theory uses to invest in various projects such as renewable energy ventures, (which means that oil well I was digging in back yard may as well be converted into a swimming pool), and methane capture, (though how you fit a catalytic converter to a cow is beyond me). And of course every cent earned by these kiosks will be used for noble causes like this, except for those earnings that will mysteriously vanish into Cayman Islands banks.

If all of this isn't an obvious scam then nothing is. So why is the San Francisco Airport going along? With air travel down they need to get revenue by any means, and the folks running these kiosks are of course going to give the airport a piece of the action in leasing costs.

My only real problem with all this is that I didn't think of it. And somehow trying to set up a franchise at the Houston Airport doesn't seem like the best idea. Texans have more common sense than that.

Still Among The Living

After almost two months in Texas, I think I've settled down and adjusted pretty well for the most part. As expected, my consulting business has been slow getting off the ground. I have some good contacts from my previous job and from those some leads that are promising. But this being the holiday season people are going to have other priorities than water quality data management. I'll get serious about drumming up business after New Years.

Speaking of which, a slight digression to software. As a reward for using Earthlink, (sometimes referred to as Missing Link or Weakest Link, though overall as an ISP I can't complain), I was able to get Net Objects Fusion 8 for a pittance. It may be a version behind the newest and shiniest, but for features and ease of use it's light years ahead of any HTML generator I've used in the past.

Ok, back to miscellaneous ramblings. My wife is really into Christmas, and she's getting me more into the spirit this year. I imagine finally having my own home again, and a very nice one, plus living in a warm and cosy atmosphere does purge one of Grinch like qualities. We put some lights up outside, and at the risk of mass feline induced destruction, decorated inside.

For her present this year, I got her a complement to the house she got for Valentine's Day. My budget for the rest of my life is shot anyway because of that, so I did the logical thing and got her a better car. Her Ford Focus was becoming like an ice sculpture, nice to look at but fragile. We did some checking, and went to Carmax, (where ironically she had bought the Focus), and found a 2002 Toyota RAV4. It's a handy size with room for her saddle and other horse riding gear, decent on gas, rides and handles well, and best of all, isn't likely to have annoying and expensive mechanical issues for some time. At least that's the plan. My hope is it won't have anything go wrong for at least the five year loan.

As for me, I've put a little over 300 miles on my still trusty Corolla since getting here, so that isn't exactly wracking up the miles. And that's 300 miles of local driving. This is Texas after all, and even in this small town things are a little spread out. I still need to get the registration changed over, though I rather enjoy the perplexed looks of locals seeing my California license plates and then the Texas State Troopers stickers for supporting their charities.

Go Bears!!!!

Thanks to the wonders of technology, I was able to watch a live streaming broadcast of The Big Game. And if you have to ask what The Big Game is, may you be forever banished to the hinterlands of downtown Berkeley, to spend the rest of your life panhandling with the now former Treesitters. In their wisdom, ABC decided that the broadcast radius for the game would be a block or so surrounding Cal's stadium, since of course the rest of the country wanted to snooze through Penn State's beat down of Michigan State. However, our decision to go with AT&T as our Internet provider is turning out to be a better one all the time.

A little side benefit is free access to ESPN's 360 package, and one of the offerings was ... The Big Game. So my lovely wife barricaded me in my room for the duration. The game was exciting, and since Cal won, most satisfying. But it was kind of a bittersweet experience, since I had a ticket to the game but had to sell it since of course I would be long gone from California before game day. This is part of the adjustment to my new life, knowing there is much I had to give up.

I was also spoiled on being able to buy any computer components whenever I wished. Tomball has an Office Depot, but their offerings are pretty basic. Fortunately, my favorite place to shop, Central Computers, does mail order so all isn't lost. Still, I do miss browsing through their stores, and then talking myself out of building yet another computer just because I can.

But overall I'm quite content in Texas. I do need to get out more, explore more of the area, and then look into opportunities to meet and interact more with people, such as take a class or two at the community college, or start training at one of the martial arts schools in town. If a day comes when I find myself talking exclusively to the cats, and even worse, understand what they're saying in return, that will be the sign I really should get out of the house a bit more often.

Settling In

This is my first entry from my new home in Texas. While that may not be as significant as say The Second Coming or even more important, Cal Is In The Rose Bowl!!!, it does mean I survived the long drive from California. Actually the drive was pretty relaxing, though tiring. Starbuck's Frappuccino (with the resulting need to navigate by distance between rest stops), kept me reasonably alert. Except for the area around Flagstaff, the scenery didn't exactly inspire the creative muse. But I encountered little traffic, which was the main rationale behind my route. Speaking of which, I really should take a cruise down old Route 66 sometime.

My car was pretty well loaded down, but it breezed through with only a few additional rattles and squeaks. Today UPS arrived with the last of my worldly posessions. Note for the future, if I ever need to ship anything, do NOT buy boxes from Office Depot. The ones I got barely made it intact, despite my using enough tape to prevent a respectably sized nuke from exploding.

It's still an odd feeling being in my new house. I keep thinking I'll need to start packing to head back to California soon, and if I start any household projects, that I need to rush them to completion. I guess that's normal after spending 50 years in the same area. Texas is my home now, my real home, and my house is my own, I'm no longer borrowing space in someone elses.

Speaking of which, as I expected my envirowacko ex landlady is trying to cheat me out of my security deposit. She's extremely vindictive, but I'm confident her nastiness will be her undoing. But she's insignificant. Right now I have the house of my dreams, (and SO much nicer in every possible way than the ex landlady's dump), and I'm living with the woman of my dreams. My annuity will easily cover my expenses, though I'm hopeful I'll soon be able to get my consulting business going.

I think I'm going to love this place.

Winding Down

The day is fast approaching when I'll be doing my final packing then starting the long drive to Texas. Since being a worrywart keeps me going, my latest paranoia is whether my car will make it without adventure, mostly of the mechanical kind. Long drives and plane flights are two areas where my sense of adventure takes a holiday. The duller the better.

In the meantime I'm finally realizing there are many places and activities I've seen the last of. Yesterday I went to the Cal - UCLA game, and between cheering my Bears on, I kept getting flashbacks of the moments I've witnessed in Memorial Stadium since my first game back in 1974. The great names, Steve Bartkowski, Chuck Muncie, the very courageous and talented Joe Roth, Wesley Walker, Russell White, Marshawn Lynch, Desean Jackson, and giving credit where it's due, great players of Cal's opponents, like Marcus Allen and Warren Moon. Then there's bands, Cal's is usually ... well, at the risk of sounding disloyal, ok. USC's is wonderfully pretentious and incredibly dull, UCLA's is honestly quite good, and Stanford's is consistently awful and a major embarrassment.

And the games! Despite Cal's sad record of long stretches of mediocrity interrupted by teasing moments of glory, there were many memorable ones. I must admit I missed "The Play" because of being bedridden with the flu, though I did listen live to Joe Starkey's immortal broadcast. There were the sadly rare but immensely satisfying wins over USC, including the triple overtime thriller from 2003, and the comeback against Oregon from 30 points down in 1993.

I'm definitely going to miss the atmosphere, raw emotion, and excitement of going to Cal games. Fortunately I ordered a sports package with my TV service in Texas that carries Cal whenever they're televised. Otherwise on Saturday I'd be calling AT&T and whining, "What is this nonsense? I want to watch Cal and all I can get are these teams from Texas?"

None Of The Above For President

I just got my absentee ballot in the mail and dutifully filled it out. For the state propositions, (first please explain why a state 17 Billion in debt wants to issue over 40 billion worth of bonds), I voted No on the majority. The exception is those I feel would help California continue to sink into its well deserved abyss of financial ruin.

Since I'm thankfully leaving this area, I left the local candidates blank. For Congress, my political leanings are more Libertarian, so I decided that candidate couldn't do any worse than the others.

This brought a dilemma for President. I can't stand the Libertarian candidate, Bob Barr, who in his previous political life as a Republican was a ringleader for the contrived impeachment of Bill Clinton. As for Barack Obama and John McCain, I can't vote for either of them. The two major parties are incompetent, self serving, and corrupt to the core. They need to be shaken up by a viable third party that will draw enough votes to make sure there will never again be a majority party in the Senate or Congress.

Only then will you see real compromise and negotiations instead of partisan bickering. As for Obama and McCain, I am not impressed with either one. Obama seems like a decent guy who speaks well, but he does not inspire me as someone with the will and decisiveness to lead the country out of the unbelievable disaster George Bush leaves behind. As for McCain, of course he is someone to respect and admire for persevering through the horrors of being a prisoner of war in Vietnam. But in the Senate he has unfortunately shown he is just a prone to being influenced by rich lobbyists as anyone, and Sarah Palin as Vice President? Please!!! Not that Joe Biden is much better.

Whoever gets in will still be hamstrung by the economic, political and moral destruction of Bush and Cheney. Who in their right mind would want this job? Someone will get elected, and then wonder why they ran for office in the first place.

As for the remaining choices, the remaining third party candidates are absolute jokes. Ralph Nader? He ranks with Al Gore on the top of my list of people I wish would just go away. American Independent Party? Way too right wing. Green Party? My idiot very soon to be former landlady is an ec0 freak. Enough said.

So what will I do? Something I've never done before in a presidential election. I will write in a candidate, None Of The Above.

Hanging On Update

I just got back from Houston, having decided to make an impromptu trip after my business dealings in Hawaii were over. Jayne was able to phone a couple of times from her cell to say the house and tree were intact. Several other trees in the neighborhood weren't so lucky, but fortunately none of them decided to become one with anyone's house. Still, it was pretty traumatic for her, especially being without power for six days. Fortunately we have gas for the stove and water heater, plus the water stayed running, so she was able to shower and cook.

Since Houston was still having issues with flooding and power outages of its own, I flew into Austin and rented a car. Conveniently, the power came back on at the house before my arrival. I may never hear the end of how I was in California when Jayne moved into the new house, Hawaii when the hurricane hit, and still elsewhere when the power came back on. So I have good timing...

Anyway, the week in my real home, and not at the hated temporary lodgings in California, was an excellent preview of life after I move down for good next month. Jayne got up to go to work in the morning while I lazed in bed, then got to be domestic while she was at work. I put together some furniture for my den, or Man Cave, and unpacked the boxes I had shipped earlier. That was good for my psyche as it made the house feel like it really is my home since it now has my own little touches.

The cats enjoyed having someone to follow around all day. We really bonded when I fed them and scooped their litter boxes before Jayne got home. Actually that further strengthened my bond with Jayne since she feels any man who will scoop her cats litter boxes is definitely a keeper.