aubreyturner.org

I have to admit that like almost everyone else I thought that Elizabeth Smart would never be found alive.  We’ve seen so many child abductions of late that almost always seem to end in the discovery of a body (if they are ever found at all) that pessimism has become S.O.P.

At least she can go home now.  I hope that she manages to get back to her normal life.

If there is one thing that drives me nuts it’s people who can’t manage to keep conference calls in their allotted time.  I had someone schedule a call for 12:00-12:30 today.  The call ended at 12:59 only after I told the host that I had another call scheduled for 1:00 (and one of the people there still wanted to keep going).  The group that called the meeting had no agenda, and no plan.  Further, the majority of what they wanted could have been handled via email.  If they’d sent us their questions ahead of time, we could have answered most of it and spent our time ironing out the important stuff.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to have a good agenda for a conference call and to alot enough time to get the work done.  It’s disrespectful of everyone involved to do otherwise and to just keep going after the alotted time has elapsed.

It also pissed me off because it meant that I didn’t get lunch until 2:15 (which is the most important part of the problem). 

My Tivo decided to record Animal Precinct and Animal Cops in the off hours, so I decided to give them a chance while cleaning my guns (yes, I’ve been a bad boy and just now got around to cleaning them from Friday’s range session).  I hate to see any animal suffer needlessly, but I’ve always had a soft spot for dogs.  Anyone who hurts a dog deserves to be hung by their toes and bled slowly.

I don’t see how the people in New York and Detroit can keep doing that job.  Seeing that much abuse, neglect, and depravity on a daily basis would drive me over the edge.  Nevertheless, I’m glad that they’re doing it.

Remind me not to get Rachel Lucas pissed off at me.  I don’t know the facts behind the situation she’s describing, but I know how she feels.  If she had comments going, I’d commiserate with her there, but I also understand how difficult the last semester of college can be (in my case I took 19 hours, 3 of which were for a project class that took every spare minute, and worked part time in the computer center).

I have a friend who is in a domestic abuse situation and I worry about her.  I’d like to grind the little bastard she’s seeing into the ground, but I keep it to myself most of the time because I don’t see anything I can do about it (at least without landing myself in jail).  It’s horribly frustrating to sit by and watch someone stay in that kind of situation (it’s even more frustrating to know that you can’t help until she is ready for it).  So far it appears to be mostly mental (which is bad enough), but I worry that it will escalate to serious injury.

I’ve always been a bit suspicious of unions.  As a strong proponent of free association, they got off on the wrong foot with me when I learned that you have to pay union dues at many workplaces even if you don’t join.  I certainly understand the conditions that spawned unions in America, and there are times when collective bargaining would be helpful.  But I am troubled by the “us versus them” mentality that many unions bring to any dispute.  There also seems to me to be an odor of socialism wafting from many involved in union organizing (which is the kiss of death as far as I’m concerned).

My profession has been pretty resistant to unions so far, and I am not a member of any union nor is one available in my workplace, so I don’t normally give much thought to them.  Two recent incidents have brought them back to the foreground for me, though.

Our local news media pays a good deal of attention to the situation with American Airlines, which is owned by AMR Corporation (based in Fort Worth).  American is losing money at an alarming rate and needs to make serious changes to stay in business.  They are trying to negotiate deals with the unions of the flight attendants and the pilots, and the last news reports were indicating that American could be in bankruptcy by May if something doesn’t change.  Instead of working to save the airline, though, the flight attendants’ union is trying to convince people to support more government assistance for American.  That really bugs me because the rest of us have to live with the economic viability of the businesses in which we work.  The rest of us would have to accept pay cuts or be out of a job.  Instead, they want to steal my money to prop up a private company.

The other thing that caught my attention was the strike by musicians on Broadway.  They are striking over the issue of mandatory minimum hiring.  The union currently requires each musical to hire 28 musicians, whether they are needed or not.  Mandatory hiring practices make everything less efficient.  There is no such thing as a free job.  Ultimately, the costs of those do-nothing employees are passed on to the ticket holders, driving up prices across the board.  Personally, I would be ashamed if the only reason I had a job was because of a mandatory minimum in the contract.

Perhaps unions made sense in the past, but the majority of what I’ve seen with modern unions has convinced me that I want nothing to do with them.

Update: (03/11/2003) This morning I heard that the flight attendants union is going to work with American now that they have realized how serious the situation is.

I went to the gun show in Fort Worth yesterday.  As usual, I was unable to resist making a couple of purchases, which I will photograph and write up in due course.  However, I noticed something interesting that I thought I should comment on.  There was a white guy who had on a FUBU shirt.  I guess he never got the memo about the meaning of FUBU.  It means For Us By Us, where the “Us” specifically refers to black people.  I don’t know what black people may think of such things, but I wouldn’t do it.  It somehow seems disrespectful, although on the grand scale it’s a minor thing (e.x. compared to white guys who use the N-word amongst themselves, which always makes me cringe, and which is truly disrespectful).

The bridge is up and running and the Audiotron is getting its data via the wireless bridge.  Next I will remove the wire, which I had strung along the edge of the ceiling using an adhesive wire track.  After that I will look into hooking up the Tivo so I can get rid of the phone wire as well.

I think that I’m going to have to acquire a new cordless phone, though.  My 2.4GHz Panasonic absolutely stomps my wireless connection when the talk button is pressed.  Some research that I’ve done on Google this morning suggests that the Panasonic phone happens to be the worst offender at this.  I’ll either get a 5.8GHz phone or go back down to 900MHz (and whatever it is, it won’t be a VTech 5.8, which is a dual-frequency phone that uses 2.4GHz for the handset).

I have almost completed my quest for wireless.  The router/access point is up and running, my primary Linux system is communicating with the outside world (including incoming SSH), and I’m writing this from my laptop over the wireless network. 

All that’s left now is to set up the Wireless Ethernet Bridge so I can hook up the Audiotron and get rid of that unsightly wire running down the hall.  I think I’ll save that for tomorrow, since working with the rat’s nest of wires behind the entertainment center is a real pain in the nether regions. 

Ok, so I’m a geek.  I enjoy playing with technology (and my job these days doesn’t let me “get my hands dirty” anymore). 

* Brownie points to whomever gets the reference in the title.

Brent at The Ville doesn’t like PETA very much.  I can’t say that I blame him.  In early celebration of International Eat an Animal for PETA Day I ate at Boi Na Braza for lunch today.  I don’t go out for lunch often, but today we celebrated a friend’s 25th anniversary with the company for which we both work (and which I will not name here; I may have to start borrowing Denny Wilson’s acronym “TCIDNN”). 

Since the 15th is a Saturday, I will have ample opportunity to go anywhere I want.  Perhaps I will make a return visit to Boi Na Braza (or I could go to Fogo de Chão).  Decisions, decisions.  They cook great big cuts of meat on skewers and bring them around to your table until you can’t stand it anymore.  Nothing says, “Go to hell, PETA” like a good Brazilian churrascaria.

Link via Emperor Misha.

It appears that a few students at Denton’s two universities came out to protest the liberation of Iraq (registration required).

About 250 students and faculty members gathered outside the University Union at noon to express their feelings about the possibility of the United States going to war against Iraq. Another 60 came together outside the Texas Woman’s University Student Center as part of a national student protest, “Books, Not Bombs.”

However, there were some who came out to protest the protesters.

In answer to the protest, another student group showed support for President Bush and possible actions in Iraq.

“I support the sovereignty of our country to protect us against terrorist attacks,” said student Michael Wright. “I support us taking care of business so we make sure we don’t get killed when we walk down the street.”

Just to put things in perspective, let’s take a look at some information for both of these schools.  While they don’t give an exact number, this page tells us that The University of North Texas is ” the fourth-largest university in Texas (more than 30,000 students)”.  And according to the last published factsheet from Texas Woman’s University they had an enrollment for Fall 2002 of 8694 students (and they aren’t exclusively a woman’s university with 782 male students).

Let’s do a little math, shall we?  For UNT, assuming a student body of 30,000 and a protest count of 250 (which includes faculty and counter-protesters, by the way), that would indicate that at most 0.83 percent of the student body was involved.  At TWU, that percentage is a similarly impressive 0.69 percent (using the protester count of 60 and the fall enrollment of 8694*).  What was that about “the majority” of the people being against war in Iraq?

On the way back from lunch today one of my coworkers made the observation that people who are against something are far more likely to protest that those who support it.  Those who are protesting against war would best remember that.

* TWU also has facilities (albeit small ones)  in Dallas (at Parkland and Presbyterian hospitals) and Houston.  They did not give the breakdown for enrollment at each facility, although Denton is their primary campus.