Observations Along the Road

Roadkill Along the Information Superhighway

Category Archive: 'announcements'

Curses, Foiled Again

Written By: cahwyguy - Tue Apr 02, 2013 @ 4:53 am PDT

userpic=political-signsOK, I’ll fess up. I’m not running for state senator. I didn’t get a lot of “yeah, go for it”, nor do I think I could do the “press the flesh” and raise all the money. Although Kickstarter is a great idea given the success of Veronica Mars, I don’t think you can use it for political purposes. Certainly, you couldn’t give patronage positions via Kickstarter.  P.S.: Another clue was the music on the original post.

Still, I wasn’t joking about the issues of concern, and I intend to keep talking about those. I’m also extremely bothered by the response to the Google Doodle. I do believe our government has gotten dysfunctional, but I think I have too much common sense to ever be elected to Congress, let alone the state legislature. However, if anyone ever wants to appoint me to the California Transportation Commission, I’d give it serious consideration.

But then again, I would still love to see “Cats Don’t Dance” on the stage.

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I’m Mad as Hell, and I’m Not Going To Take It Anymore

Written By: cahwyguy - Mon Apr 01, 2013 @ 4:44 am PDT

userpic=political-signsOK, I’ve had it.

I’ve had it with the partisanship of politics — people unable to compromise for the good of the country… people thinking only of their party first, and the country second.

I’ve had it with people putting down solutions without proposing something better. Fine, so you don’t like Obamacare. Before you do a blanket repeal, how about proposing something that achieves the same goals in a better way. For example, if we are to get truly affordable health care, how about we standardize and control the costs of health care. If users of health care were charged the actual cost plus a reasonable profit — across all users, instead of the inflated and arbitrary costs that are done today, we would probably see a net lowering of costs. We should limit insurance companies to reasonable profit, and insist that executives thereof make no money than the doctors.

I’ve had it with how we treat the defense industry. I’ve been working in the defense industry for over 25 years. We’ve gotten so dysfunctional with our budgeting processes that it actually costs more money to make things. Companies cannot plan effectively without a long term funding plan.

I’ve had it with a government that is not serious about cybersecurity. This is true not only at the Federal level, but at the state and city level. We need to ensure there are state procedures to protect all the information collected by the state. The approaches currently taken by the state legislature are a joke; we need people knowledgeable about cybersecurity in charge.

The state needs to do something to repair its crumbling infrastructure. Our road system, which is the backbone of commerce in the state, is crumbling. Bridges and other structures are in disrepair, and it takes far too long to get anything fixed. Further, if we’re going to be spending money on transit, it needs to be on modalities that will be used, are cost effective, and that cover movement of people where they need to move.

I’ve long believed that complaining about a problem is not the way to solve a problem. Given the effects of the sequester, now is as good of a time to do something about it as any. There are cutbacks going on, and everyone is running scared. Further, my state senator just won election to the LA City Council. So, starting today, I’m going to explore running for public office for my state senate district. Anyone want to help? What’s the first step? According to the website, I either need to pay a filing fee of around $960 or collect 3,000 signatures. I also need to file some statements of intent and open a campaign account. I’ll need money. I’m horrible at rubber chicken dinners and fundraising. I wonder if I could use Kickstarter? I could offer some wonderful patronage positions as incentives.

Music: Sammy Davis, Jr. Greatest Hits (Sammy Davis Jr.): “What Kind Of Fool Am I”

 

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The Tipping Point

Written By: cahwyguy - Wed Dec 26, 2012 @ 4:55 pm PDT

userpic=ipodWell, I’ve hit another tipping point on the iPod Classic. I have 30169 music tracks on the iPod; 30363 total tracks. As of right now, my playlist of tracks played less than 8 times is at 15083. This means I’ve reached the point where over half the tracks on my iPod have been played over 8 times, and most of the rest (all but 300) have been played over 5 times.

We return you now to your regularly scheduled internets…

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Somewhat Annual New Years Eve Gaming Party

Written By: cahwyguy - Sat Dec 15, 2012 @ 3:14 pm PDT

userpic=gamingWhen I graduated high school (back in the 1970s), I wasn’t the type to go to New Years Eve parties. Even today, I’m not the drinking and dancing type, partying until the wee hours. No, instead, back then, I would gather together with a bunch of friends and we would play Diplomacy (or Machiavelli) until the wee hours. During my college years, this morphed into an annual gaming event — sometimes on New Years, sometimes on New Years-and-a-half — when we would play not only Diplomacy but other games popular in the UCLA Computer Club at the time. The activity has continued off and on during the years, and in recent years has been more focused on modern German games (Ticket to Ride, On The Underground, Tramfabrik, etc.), lighter games such as Fluxx, Cat 5, or Coloretto, and even word games such as Scrabble. There has also sometimes just been more conversation than anything else.

You can probably guess where I’m going with this, as New Years Eve is a few weeks away.

To my real-life (that is, we’ve met in person) friends reading this who will be in Southern California over New Years… we’re doing the somewhat annual New Years Eve gaming party again. This will again be a potluck (remembering that we do have Gluten-Free folks in the household). It will start around 3pm, but we understand folks arriving later as it is a workday. If you are interested, please drop me a note (commenting with your email address will work) and I’ll get you the particulars, if we still have space. I’m also doing this as an announcement on Facebook for those FB friends who are interested (if you are a friend on FB and didn’t get and invite and are interested, let me know and I’ll add you — I tried to guess at who might be interested and who was local, but I can easily miss some).

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Livejournal Update

Written By: cahwyguy - Sun Nov 04, 2012 @ 9:04 am PDT

Note: As of this morning, I’ve updated the Livejournal Crossposter plugin on WordPress to crosspost to Dreamwidth instead of Livejournal. Dreamwidth will then crosspost to Livejournal. Yes, this means a longer footer on Livejournal. That’s life.

I’ve also enabled commenting on Dreamwidth. This is solely due to problems with OpenID comments on the WordPress blog on Dreamwidth’s end of things: it doesn’t seem to be able to handle the OpenID interaction with the Social Login plugin. I do encourage readers to comment on the WordPress blog. I’ve provided a lovely themed button at the bottom of each post to make that easy for you.

Note: At the present time, I’ve opted not to import my posts and comments from LJ. I’ve got the posts already imported into the WordPress blog, so I don’t need to do the import for backup reasons. As for the comments, I’ve been alerted to some concerns regarding ownership and accessibility of comments when they move from LJ to DW, so I’ll leave them at LJ for the time being. Note, however, that if LJ decides to change the meaning of “permanent” when they do their account change, then I may change this decision.

There will be some side effects of the WP-DW-LJ side of things. Primarily, I”m limited on icons at DW being a free account. Given that I’m embedding my icons in each post for WordPress, I’m just going to use the default icon and let the post itself provide the icon.

I’m still looking for plugins to improve the commenting form on WordPress, and to help me move those images hosted on Livejournal Scrapbook into my WordPress media gallery. Suggestions are welcome.

Now, to go and adjust all the clocks around the house…

 

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Van Nuys HS Comes In 12th in California Academic Decathalon

Written By: cahwyguy - Mon Mar 19, 2012 @ 11:45 am PDT

I’m pleased to report that Van Nuys HS came in 12th in the statewide academic decathalon (my daughter, Erin, was on the team). You can find the full results posted at the California Academic Decathalon Site. Here are the top scores overall:

1 52327.4 Granada Hills Charter HS LAUSD
2 51279.7 El Camino Real Charter HS LAUSD
3 49203.0 Marshall HS LAUSD
4 48122.5 Olympian HS San Diego
5 47943.6 Franklin HS LAUSD
6 47105.2 University HS Fresno
7 46440.2 Edison HS Fresno
8 46252.7 West HS Los Angeles
9 45813.9 Oakdale HS Stanislaus
10 45555.4 Taft HS LAUSD
11 44865.3 Redondo Union HS Los Angeles
12 44525.5 Van Nuys HS LAUSD
13 44328.4 Valencia HS Orange
14 43848.4 Beverly Hills HS Los Angeles
15 43593.7 Westminster HS Orange

Erin won a silver in Art, and VNHS won individual gold in Essay and Speech!

 

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Congratulations to Van Nuys High School

Written By: cahwyguy - Thu Feb 09, 2012 @ 9:55 pm PDT

This evening, I rushed from work to the LA Convention Center for the awards ceremony for the LA Unified portion of the Academic Decathalon. I’m pleased to report that Van Nuys High School came in 6th! Erin received a bronze and a silver (I forgot the categories) and two honorable mentions… and the Van Nuys team will be going to the state championships!

Oh, you want to know the full scores? Here’s the info from the LA Times:

Granada Hills Charter HS took the top place out of the 63 teams that competed in the school district’s regional competition. Scoring 51,913 points out of 60,000, the school had one of the highest scores among the nation’s regional-level competitions. Also high scoring–and invited to the state finals from LAUSD–were: Marshall High School (49,648 points), El Camino Real Charter High (48,649), Franklin (47,812) and Taft (43,074). Also heading to Sacramento will be Van Nuys (41,771), Palisades Charter (40,837), Hamilton (40,760), Garfield (40,382), Bell (39,821), Los Angeles (39,690) and San Pedro (37,626).

For Los Angeles county schools not in LA Unified, West High School in Torrance — for the fourth time — claimed the highest score (45,132 points). Finishing second was Redondo Union High, which edged out Beverly Hills. Also placing well were Palos Verdes Peninsula (sixth), South High in Torrance (eighth) and Torrance High (ninth).

I hope all our friends in Sacramento and Davis will send good thoughts to the Van Nuys team when they compete in March!

 

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The 8th Annual Birthday Poll

Written By: cahwyguy - Wed Feb 01, 2012 @ 5:00 am PDT

[Facebook Users: Read This Post. This is how you pick your birthday song!]

OK, Folks, it’s February 1. That means its time for the Birthday Poll. But things are changing. Fewer folks are reading and participating on Livejournal, and I’ve moved the blog to WordPress (and birthday posts don’t go as well there). Plus, there are all the folks on Facebook.

So here’s what I’m going to do: If you are active on Livejournal, you’ll get a song on Livejournal. If you are active on Facebook, you’ll get a song on Facebook. You’ll only get a song if Facebook or Livejournal remind me of your birthday, so at least have the month and day visible in the profile. I don’t care about the year. Further… you’re going to get the “Birthday Cake Polka” unless you respond to this post or the Birthday Song Page with your song preference. This blog is set up so you can sign in with your Livejournal or Facebook IDs. Note: For this post, I would really prefer if you comment on the WordPress original, although I’ll accept comments posted elsewhere.

Here’s the song list. Feel free to suggest additional songs; they will be added to the Birthday Song page. One song got deleted this year because the page with the lyrics disappeared; there is a new song in “Happy Birthday, Erwin”:

Music: Infidels (Bob Dylan): Jokerman

Remember: Please comment on the WordPress post or the Birthday Song page .

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