On Tuesday, March 20, 2007 President Bush made a visit to the Ford and GM Plants in Kansas City. While there, he talked about his energy policy with special emphasis on reducing our dependence on foreign oil.
Now this isn’t news that hasn’t been covered all over. What is news, especially to my friends and family, is that one of us got to shake hands with President Bush. Our family friend, Wayne Henricks, had this snapshot taken while President Bush walked the assembly line.
When I saw this picture I couldn’t believe my eyes. First, it is always hard to believe when someone I know meets, or becomes, famous. But mostly because when I heard about the Presidents visit to GM-Fairfax I asked Kari if she thought Wayne would get to meet the President. Turns out, it wasn’t off the wall.
I read this blog entry by Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) and it got me to thinking about what type of politician I am looking for. While doing so, I started to question why I don’t like politicians that “flip-flop”. I also had to consider why I think politicians should not make decisions based upon polling data.
One of the reasons that flip-flopping is a problem is that it shows a level of indecision. Now, that is not normally a problem but becomes one in my mind when that indecision is not stated. What I mean is that every policitian is utterly certain about everything they say and leave no room for other opinions or ideas. And, in most cases, they attempt to demonize the “other side” as much as possible. So, why then should it bother me when they decide to change their mind and become the other side?
Polling data, what good is it really? I tend to think that a perfect democracy could only exist in a perfect world. And in this perfect world, that polling data might mean something. But we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in a world where it is hard to write good survey questions, it is easy to write vague, meaningless questions, and it is easy to jump to inaccurate conclusions based upon those vague questions. So politicians that make decisions based upon that information are relying on faulty information. And instead of pointing out this fact, our leaders continue to use this information to make decisions.
On the other hand, if I thought that politicians behaved as Scott suggests, I would welcome that. But I don’t. I see flip-floppers as those that make up their mind on an issue without understanding it, sticking by that decision until such time as it can become a politican advantage, and without any more understanding, completely changing their stand. What’s more, since they don’t understand the issue or have any rationale behind their decision, they have a tough time convincing the public that they are right. So instead of leadership we are left with meaningless politics that only serve to garner politicians more power.
Forgive the rant that I am about to bestow upon the world. I just can’t help myself.
So Thursday started out like any other. Relaxing morning of catching up on emails, reading through blogs, and preparing for my weekly status meeting with the sensor network folks (KSUSNS). While I was working, Windows informed me that there were updates available that I needed to install. Being the conscientious guy, I decided that wouldn’t be a bad thing to do before I got started for the day. So I told Windows to start the updates and let it install what it felt it needed to. No big deal right? Wrong!
This is where my frustration started. After installing the updates Windows informed me that I needed to reboot so that the updates could complete their journey. It was gracious and asked if I wanted to restart now or later, I chose later (I was in the middle of reading some things and wanted to finish before rebooting). Perfect, this is exactly what I would like it to do. But as I read, a window kept popping up to ask me if I wanted to reboot now or later. Great, no way to get it to stop other than reboot. Save my place in reading and restart. Thanks Microsoft, this really adds to my productivity.
Now this is annoying but par for the course when it comes to Windows. So I accept this and was planning on moving on for the day. Unfortunately, the computer gods (or should I call them demon-spawn) decided that wasn’t going to happen. When Windows came back up Adobe Acrobat decided it was time to install new updates. And since I had not updated it in quite some time I had 4 to update. No big deal right? Wrong!
It turns out that each update must be installed in order and a reboot must happen to complete the process. Great work Adobe, just what every user wants, a constant stream of updates and reboots. Perfect!
So, I have now updated and rebooted 5 times and think I can get back to work. Wrong again! This time when Windows boots up Adobe Acrobat decides that it needs to start up. I suppose this is some great feature of Adobe Acrobat that it knows that after an update I obviously want it to open up. Well, guess what Adobe developers, that is not what I wanted.
So, all in all, I spent the better part of 3 hours updating my machine today. Hopefully my boss doesn’t read this and fire me for wasting half a day. Maybe I should have taken a half-day of vacation just to update my machine.
Ok, ranting over. I know that people at both Microsoft and Adobe are under great pressure to ship software as quickly as possible and as cost-effective as possible. So I know that you probably don’t have the time or resources to make software perfect. But just because I understand your pain doesn’t mean I have to like the pain you cause me.
Another season of elections is upon us. And the only election that I am paying attention to is the Board of Education for USD 383 (Manhattan/Ogden) school district. The reason that I care is that a great friend of mine is running. I hope I can do him justice here and it helps him get elected. While we have been friends for many years, I think I can still provide some unbiased opinion of him and his qualifications.
First, he has the right type of personality to do well in a position like this. Specifically, he usually takes a very considered approach to decisions and makes every effort to understand all sides of an issue before making any decisions.
Second, he is running for the right reason. That is to say that he truly wants to help make the community better. And he has been doing this for many years, just in a different capacity. Since completing his degree at K-State, he has been working for the City of Manhattan in the Parks and Recreation Department. He has done a great job of managing and expanding the soccer programs in Manhattan as well as the other programs that he supervises (including the ice rink, youth softball, and the high school intramural programs).
Third, he has a good background to help make decisions on the BoE. He earned his Bachelors degree in Education at K-State and has a great deal of experience with the youth in this community. He also grew up in a household where education was a topic at dinner because his mother has been a teacher in Manhattan for as long as I can remember. So he knows of a lot of issues from the educators side as well as issues from the students side. He grew up in Manhattan and attended several of the schools in the district (Theodore Roosevelt, Amanda Arnold, Manhattan Middle School, and Manhattan High School).
All this is to say that I hope everyone in the USD 383 school district gets out to vote for the best candidates. And I beileve that Adam Dolezal is the best candidate.
I saw this today on YouTube and couldn’t stop laughing (thanks to Jamieson Cobleigh for pointing me to it). I am sure anyone who has ever done technical support of any kind, even just for family, will enjoy it.
Well, I had to destroy my streak of 414 days. I suppose I shouldn’t take credit for the streak, it really is more about the software than about me. But I am proud of the streak anyway.
The streak is the number of days of uptime I have been able to have on my home network’s firewall. Despite power outages and network issues, that machine has been up for 414 days. Well, until the streak ended. Now, a new streak begins.
The streak ended last week when my internet provider (freaking Cox Communications) started having issues. Of course they thought it was a problem on my end despite no changes occuring to my equipment or setup for over 6 months. So I jumped through their hoops and answered all their questions. And what did they conclude … that they needed to send a technician out to work through the issue.
But in all that “troubleshooting”, I managed to get my firewall into an inconsistent state. And, if I were a better system admin, I would have been able to get it out of that state without rebooting. Alas, I am not a better system admin, so I destroyed the streak and rebooted the machine.
Well, I suppose I am starting a new streak. Maybe I can beat the 414 days this time.
Note: As it turns out, it was something on their end (surprise, surprise). And what’s worse is that I scheduled a time for them to come out and they didn’t show. They didn’t even call! But the day after they were supposed to be there the connection started working (I would have called and yelled at the time but I was having a fun week dealing with a stomach flu).
