(Ft. Worth, TX, USA)

aubreyturner.org

Friday, January 30, 2009

Area of Concern

A couple of days ago Rachel Lucas posted about some concerns with a trapped raccoon.  Specifically, raccoons are some nasty, mean, little buggers.  Obviously, someone forgot to clue this guy into that fact:

A FEISTY raccoon has bitten off a pervert’s PENIS as he was trying to rape the animal.

Alexander Kirilov, 44, was on a drunken weekend with pals when he leapt on the terrified – but toothy – fur ball.

“When I saw the raccoon I thought I’d have some fun,” he told stunned casualty surgeons in Moscow.

Now Russian plastic surgeons are trying to restore his mangled manhood.

“He’s been told they can get things working again but they can’t sew back on what the raccoon bit off,” said a pal.

“That’s gone forever so there isn’t going to be much for them to work with.”

Painful, but poetic, justice.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Spared The Axe… For Now…

There are layoffs going on in all the divisions of my company right now, but I got some good news this morning that none of them will be in my department.  So, for now at least, I can set aside one concern.

My spider-senses have been tingling lately, and while this was a relief, it didn’t completely silence the warnings.  I don’t know what is coming, but I can’t help but feel that there’s still another big shoe hanging out there somewhere, waiting to drop.

Good News, Bad News

The good news?  I just scheduled the last payment on my 2004 Avalanche.

The bad news?  The extended warranty has now expired.

Over the past year I’d been considering whether to trade in the Avalanche on something else, but I dithered too long and the market for used SUVs (or SUV-like vehicles in the case of the Avalanche) collapsed, meaning that I wouldn’t get enough in trade to make it really worthwhile to go through the hassle (at the low point, the difference between what I owed and what I expected to get would have only been $2-$3K). 

While it’ll be nice to have the money to apply to other stuff, I worry about not having a warranty, especially given how expensive it is to repair even the simplest thing on these vehicles.  But regardless of that, in the current uncertain economic climate having a paid-off vehicle is not something to take for granted.  As for my desire to get a vehicle that would be more dog-friendly, I’ll probably take another look in the late spring or early summer to see what’s out there.  And rather than trade the Avalanche, if I get anything new, I’ll just lease or buy it separately.

On the upside of this, though, is that having the Avalanche means that anything new that I get could be smaller and/or less expensive, since the Av could handle any towing or hauling needs.  What I really want is something sort of van-like with an upright seating position and a rear loading floor that is as low to the ground as possible to allow for easy dog entry and egress (something of a cross between a Scion xB, a Honda Element, and the latest Chrysler minivans).  I’ve looked at the Ford Flex as well as the Chevy Traverse, and both have high rear bumpers with a drop down to the floor.  Why is it that everything these days has such a high rear entry (as well as that annoying “lip”)? 

Monday, January 26, 2009

No Favors

Jeff, at Alphecca, had a post over the weekend in which he commented about people who abandon puppies and kittens.  Perhaps some people suffer under the delusion that pets can somehow be “returned to nature,” but that’s not the case for domesticated animals.  It’s a cowardly, evil practice, and it does the animals no favors to do so.

I wrote about this topic a few years ago and this occasion seems like a good reason to recycle that old post (it’s environmentally friendly!):

Donor Animals

A recent case of evil animal cruelty got me to thinking a little about a somewhat related topic: unwanted animals.

Growing up in a rural area of East Texas, we frequently would have dogs or cats show up at our house after their owners had dumped them nearby.  Some people have the mistaken idea that releasing an animal in the country is somehow better for them than taking them to a shelter or otherwise taking responsibility for them.  In case anyone is still operating under this delusion, I’d like to give a few details of the reality of life for an abandoned animal in the country.  They don’t end up living a life of luxury with Farmer Brown or Rancher Joe.  On rare occasions, an animal may make its way into someone’s home (like the old lady that used to live across the road who named her dog “Donor,” hence the title of this post, or my own dog, Boots.).  But this is the exception, since none of us have room for all the animals that show up.  Generally, it’s a nasty, brutish, and all too often, short, life.

The first hazard to Fluffy, after being dropped, terrified, on the road, is the road itself, especially the nearby highway.  We would often see dead cats and dogs along the road that were unfamiliar to us.  When you consider an animal that has lived inside or in someone’s yard all its life, it’s easy to see why it wouldn’t understand the dangers of roads.

Provided that Fluffy manages to avoid being pancaked on the highway, he will likely show up at someone’s nearby house.  However, people need to know that there is no organized animal control that people in the country can call to remove stray animals.  To get an idea of the problem, take a look at this post from Petville.com (in fact, this is only a couple of miles up the road from where I grew up).  Generally, there will be a county humane society, but the animal has to be caught and taken to them.  People out in the country often have to take care of things themselves, and given the lack of availability of animal control, this is no exception.  We were the nice ones in the area, in that we’d generally just try to run stray animals off the property.  My mother’s dog was good at this, as she was genially territorial (i.e. she could be persuaded, on occasion, to put up with another dog).  Any animals that tried to stick around despite my mother’s dog were subject to being shot at with a BB-gun (only one or two pumps, though, as the intent was to scare them away, rather than to cause injuries). 

However, our neighbors were not so kind.  Any stray dogs found on their property were subject to being shot.  This was mostly defensive, since dogs (especially hungry, desperate ones) will often kill chickens and ducks.  In the country, any time livestock is subject to predation, you can expect the landowner to take decisive action against the predator.  They don’t have time to fuss around with traps or drive 30 miles to take the animal to the humane society (or for that matter to take the risk that the animal they’re trying to catch is rabid).

So, if Fluffy survived the highway, and learned to stay away from livestock, and avoided getting shot (and buried behind a barn somewhere), he’s home free, right?

Not exactly.  Out there in East Texas we have wolves, coyotes, bobcats, rattle snakes, copperheads, and water moccasins (cottonmouth).  I’ve personally seen rattlers (nearly stepped on one) and have had to shoot water moccasins.  I’ve heard the wolves at night.  Sometimes they would come right up to our front porch.  Other times we’d hear them and discover they’d been into the watermelons the next morning.  There is also rumored to be an occasional cougar (or some other similar big cat).  I haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard something screaming at night that’s hard to describe, but that I’ve been told is their call.  Oh, yeah, don’t forget the occasional rabid skunk or raccoon.  If Fluffy is lucky enough to avoid being attacked and/or eaten, there’s always rabies…  And if I see a rabid animal, it’s getting shot.  Period.  End of discussion. 

It seems to me that someone who truly cared about little Fluffy wouldn’t have abandoned him in the country.  It’s a fairly simple matter to just go ahead and take him to the shelter or find someone else to take him.  There’s no shame in admitting that you can’t care for him, or that you can’t stand him chewing on the furniture anymore.  In fact, that’s the adult way:  you admit your responsibility and take action to see that the animal is properly cared for.  Dumping an animal in the country is for pathetic cowards.

Cry For Help…

Someone hit my site over the weekend using the following search phrase:
   i have emails which repeatedly continue arriving in my inbox the same “ones over” and over and over again why

Aside from the weird use of quotes, can’t you just feel the desperation in that search?  I think it’s the pathos of the “over and over again why” part that puts it over the top (kind of reminds me of “When will the hurting stop?” [*]).

Anyhow, to answer the question, either you have been targeted by a particularly annoying spammer, or there is a problem with your email program.  I have seen this problem at times with Thunderbird using POP3 when you leave the email on the server and your system is experiencing intermittent network problems as well as insufficient memory.  This was with an old laptop that had insufficient memory and was getting bogged down by a nightly virus scan.  Adding more memory fixed the nightly network problems and I haven’t seen the issue since.

Genetic Fiddling

I noticed recently that a little girl was born in England who had been genetically engineered to lack the gene for breast cancer.  I can’t help but wonder what else that gene does in the human genome.  I certainly hope that the scientists who did this fully understood the implications of their actions.  Let’s hope that this gene doesn’t also control some subtle aspect of humanity that can’t be seen until the child is nearly grown.

Anyhow, once they get all the kinks worked out and cover all the big items, I have a few smaller items that could use their attention.  To start with they can get to work fixing the gene that causes hair to start growing out of our ears as we get older. 

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Good Customer Service

One of my usual peeves is dealing with customer service.  So when I come across good customer service experiences, I suppose I should give credit where credit is due and write about them as well.  I had two good customer service experiences this week.

The first involves AT&T’s CallVantage VoIP service.  I’ve used them for my business line for a little over two years now and it was mostly trouble free.  The only problem I had was that I’d get bad call quality if I didn’t reboot the Telephone Adapter (TA) every month or two.  On Tuesday morning, though, I started getting crackling and hissing on the line when I tried to use it.  I did some basic troubleshooting and resolved that it appeared to be a physical problem with the TA.  So on Tuesday afternoon I called the CallVantage support number.  I was pleasantly surprised that it only took me about two minutes to reach a real person after navigating the VRU.  The second pleasant surprise was that the AT&T representative listened to me describe the problem and was able to diagnose that the port was bad on the TA (it also helped that I was able to let the rep listen to the noise on the CallVantage line by holding my phone’s microphone up to the speakerphone attached to the TA).  The rep put in a request to have a new adapter sent to me overnight via FedEx and explained what I would need to do upon receipt of the new unit.  Sure enough, FedEx came yesterday afternoon with the new adapter.  I installed it and called CallVantage support again.  I again got a representative within a couple of minutes and he was able to active the new TA within about 10 minutes (most of it was waiting on the TA to download its configuration data).  So, overall, I give AT&T CallVantage high marks for solving the problem quickly and efficiently.

The second incident involves my Surefire L4 LumaMax.  On Monday evening I tried to use it but the beam was very weak.  I thought it odd, because the batteries had been just fine earlier in the day, but I decided to change them anyway.  When I put the new batteries in, the light came on as soon as I screwed down the head and the switch wouldn’t turn it off.  I opened the light and pulled the batteries and when I looked inside I noticed that the tailcap spring was bent sideways, causing it to come in contact with the body and create a short that was causing the light to stay on.  So I unscrewed the tailcap to see what was wrong with the spring and when I did little bits of plastic and metal fell out.  The switch assembly had disintegrated.  I had read on some of the flashlight forums that people had experienced failures with the Z57 tailcap but I had thought mine would not have the problem since it had been working for a year (most of the people with problems seemed to have them within days of purchase).  I went to the Surefire website to get their contact info.  I started to call their tech support line, but it was after hours for them (they close at 5:00pm Pacific, which is 7:00pm here), so I tried their email support.  By Wednesday morning I hadn’t heard from them so I went ahead and called them.  I got in touch with one of their techs within about a minute and as soon as I described the problem he said they’d send me a new tailcap assembly.  Even after confirming my address, the whole call was probably only about five minutes.  So, I give Surefire’s phone support high marks, but I will have to deduct a demerit for the email support experience.  Frankly, I was kind of expecting this to happen, since a lot of people on the forums had complained about their email support, but enough people had managed to get a response that I decided to risk it.  Still, if Surefire isn’t going to consistently answer their emails, they ought to just remove the email option from their website.  Anyhow, once you get in touch with them, Surefire is known for having good warranty and technical support.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Back To The Grind

My department was given a bonus week of time off last week, so I’m just now getting back into work after being gone for 2 1/2 weeks.  It hasn’t been made any easier by the fact that I somehow managed to turn my schedule around during the break so that I was going to bed at 12:00 or 1:00am and getting up at 8:00 or 9:00.  Today’s 6:00am alarm was physically painful and it doesn’t help that I feel like I’m coming down with something (hopefully not the flu, although I completely spazzed and forgot to get a shot so it’s possible). 

Anyhow, once I wrestle the email monster into submission, I might just be able to get something done (it’s not as bad as it could be—only about 175 emails—since most of my partners in crime were also away on vacation).  Regular programming should resume sometime late today or early tomorrow (I’ve got a couple of issues I’m fired up about, given that the Texas legislative session is starting, but haven’t got time for nanny slamming at the moment).