Getting Rocketed

Mildly bummed.  After looking at several sources for an Italian course, I finally settled on Rocket Languages Italian, as it has numerous high recommendations from people who've tried other places.  Of course, they always compare it to Rosetta Stone, which has apparently not improved its interface or its style for years, and to DuoLingo, which is good but incomplete.  I also tried people's personal efforts, being impressed with 30 Minute Italian -- only to find that while the content was good, the author had the tendency to say OMG during my last trip to the south of Italy it was just so gorgeous, you have to go. So, I took the plunge with RLI.

Well.  It's possible that I don't understand how to use their site.  But here's what I sent off to them after four hours, off and on, there --

I just started today, and I have a number of questions.  Most relate to Rocket Italian, very first lessons. Overall, this is a very rocky start!

1) The Rocket Italian first lesson seems to have a typo -- it asks for AND YOU in the informal tense (e tu), but E LEI and CIAO are also shown as acceptable.  Surely not!  (note: E LEI does mean 'and you', but in the formal tense, while CIAO means 'hello' or 'goodbye')

2) Trying to left click or double click an icon (see it, hear it, write it, etc) does not work -- I have to right click OPEN LINK AS NEW WINDOW to get the options to work. Is that normal?

3) The Playback (to hear my own recording) button disappeared halfway through the second lesson -- (still there but grayed out and nonselectable) Is that intentional?

4) How many words do you have to do on each section?  I keep doing them until I get tired, but there is no indication of when a section is 'done'.

5) How does the score counter work?  Mine went past 900, then I scrolled backwards to see what the scroll did, realized it was showing me yesterday (I bought the package today), scrolled back, and suddenly it was about 347.  What?

6) how can you tell what your current lesson is? I would expect that there's a 'latest lesson you've done' indicator, but I don't see one. Does one exist?

I'm hoping they have reasonable and quick responses. Otherwise, I'll be seeing how well their guaranteed refund if not satisfied works.

Books

Reading The heart and the fist : the education of a humanitarian, the making of a Navy SEAL.  Recommended by my daughter.   Intense.  Not at all what I expected. (The book, not my daughter.)

Printers

Skydiving without having personally checked your chute first is nothing.  You want to demonstrate fearlessness, go ahead and delete your printer drivers as the HP software suggests, and then see whether the new drivers can even be installed, let alone actually work.

Traveling

It appears that if you tell your daughter, who's driving 5 hours to get home, if you get tired, call us, and we will come and get you, she will take you up on it when a combination of a long day, construction, and heavy traffic means she is starting to get sleepy half way home.  When we arrived at her stopping point in a semi-isolated gas station, she hugged me, and she said -- three times -- on the drive home with her mother that she really appreciated our arrival.

It also appears that if her location is two hours away, that means you have to travel two hours to get there -- well, duh, of course -- as well as two more hours to get home.  Oh, yeah.

Which means that if you've left the house at 930 PM, you won't get home until about 130AM. 

Which is on the seriously late side for the one of you that still has to get up in the morning in order to get to work.

Ooops.

Sarah

I just found this in my repository of saved images.  I wonder what happened to her?  Stupidity shouldn't destroy your life....

Republicans, Techology, and My Daughter

You almost have to feel sorry for the Republicans.  But then you have to feel sorry for the rest of us, too.  Their lead guy said that he's quitting, and now their guaranteed shoo-in replacement says he has gotten so much pressure already from their radical don't care we we burn the building down wing, he doesn't want the job any more. He needs their votes to get the position, and felt that the position just was not worth the grief. Of course, the radicals don't care -- they are perfectly willing to shut down the goverment, just to get their way.  In fact, that would probably be desirable, to them.  The Wall Street Journal today said it's a battle between ideological purity and proving that you can govern.  They offered Newt Gingrich's Congress as proof that you can't have both - you need to be able to compromise. Otherwise, you fail. Of course, when the House (or Senate) fails, so does Congress.  The problem is that the radical conservatives absolutely despise the success that the liberals have had - eg, Obamacare, the Iran deal - and would give anything to undo it.  Well, except a plausible plan for governing.

I like the looks of the Microsoft Surface book.  Was fascinating to read a tech guru saying well of course you want an improved laptop, all that talk about Everyone will want a tablet was CLEARLY bushwah.  Um, yeah.  Clearly.  We're contemplating replacing our desktop -- which is still happily, if slowly, running Windows XP - and the idea of getting something with laptop ease of use and the ability to occasionally use it as a tablet is quite nice.  The initial comments have been uniformly positive.  Can't wait to see what people say about it after they have played with it for a while.  And you know that it will come loaded with Junkware.  I mean, tools to enhance your computing experience. 

This afternoon my daughter meets with the review board for the Corps of Cadets.  It turns out now that the Honor Court will also get involved, though it's vague exactly how -- on the one hand, a Corps staff officer will 'adjudicate all charges', which sounds like he will say Guilty or Not for each of them; on the other, if (their word) the Honor Court is involved, they will do a review and issue recommendations  So what I think will happen, and what actually will happen, are probably congruent but not identical.  We drove down to see my daughter yesterday, and had breakfast with her today.  She's cheerful but tense.  Four more hours....

Uptick

Things with my daughter are guardedly better.

First off, she requested and got an immediate transfer to a new room.  Things were getting toxic with her roommate -- not hate-and-vitriol toxic, but 'getting snarky texts' toxic.  She actually wasn't sure she wanted to move, but when the roommate sent a text asking, snarkily, why didn't you tell me that you are moving to a different room - which hadn't been yet decided (though it was mentioned), she decided I have to get out of here.  Which happened that very night.  She is now in a room with the fourth roommate -- the one who informed on them.  They are both happy.  The change in my daughter's voice was amazing.

Second, I asked for opinions from the mother of one of the other cadets -- but not just any mother of any cadet;  this one had been the administrator of the Facebook page for parents of kids in the cadet group, and her son had been the highest-ranking cadet in the corps before he graduated.  I figured if anyone would understand, yet hold up the corps of cadets viewpoint, she would.  She told me that yes, it was serious, but she doubted any lasting damage would be done to my daughter -- which means, nothing that will keep her from graduating with the corps. (She told me that she knew of one cadet, last year, who decided to bring alcohol into the dorm, and was informed two days before graduation that he would not be graduating with the corps of cadets - with his class, yes, but with the corps, no - which meant he would not be getting a commission, which meant he would not be going into the military.  Enjoy your life, kid.  My daughter did not bring in or use alcohol, but the others involved in this fandango did.)

Third, another cadet was talking to a member of the corps staff who happens to know my daughter fairly well.  The staff member made an offhand remark that there would be repercussions for my daughter, but he doubted that they would be serious.  The cadet happens to be friends with my daughter's boyfriend, so the word was passed pretty quickly.

Of course, it ain't over till it's over.... but things aren't quite as gloomy as they were two days ago.

Or Not

Just learned we're not getting the kid.  Probably because of her grades.

And that there is another kid in the area who needs to find a new host family, quickly.

15, like the other.  Female, like the other.

And from Thailand.

Huh!

Francis

I still like him, really. And I know he's not out for a popularity contest.

But did he have to meet with that wacko Kentucky clerk?

Difficulties

We're going through a period of difficulties.  Not world-ending ones, but still.

First, there is now a question about whether the French girl can actually come to our local school.  Apparently, her last French report card had three Cs on it, and the local school doesn't (usually) accept kids with Cs or below.  The organization which is trying to move her is trying to find out what her current grades (all of three weeks worth) are at the American school she's attending.  How they will find out without telling the kid that she might be moving is, fortunately, not my problem.  I have to admit, I don't really care.  I would like to have the kid here, because I think I'd like the experience, but if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen.

Second, however, is more serious.

My daughter is a member of the Cadet Corps at a major college.  The Corps is mostly composed of kids who are going into the military after college, but there is a component of kids who are not, and she's in that.  Regardless, she has to adhere to the same rules as everyone else, and she's okay with that.

Last week, she and her boyfriend were in her room, along with her roommates, when some other members of the Corps showed up.  This was pretty crowded for a room that's normally crowded with just four people in it.  The roommates and the new people were talking about going 'downtown' (a small town next to the college), but when it became apparent that they were not going, my daughter's boyfriend suggested that they go back to his room and watch movies, which they did.

While they were gone, the people in the room started drinking.  Strictly forbidden.  Don't know if it was one person, several, roommates, not. Doesn't matter. In the Corps dorm, regardless of your age, drinking's forbidden.

When she returned, it was obvious that the visitors were impaired.  Rather than trying to get these guys back to their own rooms (one in that same building, two in a building a quarter mile away), she elected to give them blankets and pillows and let them sleep on the floor.  Which they did.

She didn't turn them in for drinking.  She should have.
She slept in the same room as males.  She should not have.

Nothing actually happened, but this was against the rules.  They got caught -- as it turns out, turned in by one of her roommates.

The two roommates who were drinking are in serious trouble.  Possibly as much as kick them out of the Corps trouble.  That would scotch their plans to go into the military. Horrible. I know one of them, and she's a good kid.

My daughter was told that she could be charged with failing to report them, and for 'visitation violation'.  She wouldn't (probably) get kicked out, but she could well get busted in cadet rank, have to stop doing Corps activities she enjoys, etc.

She's been talking to people who've been disciplined. (This fascinates me in a horrible way.  She can't ask the 'adult leadership' for advice, because its that adult leadership who will be ruling on the punishment for drinking, and might be advising on the punishment for my daughter.  So she has to rely on people she knows, getting their opinions.  Might be more honest, but more informed?  Maybe, maybe not.  Nice going, Corps leadership.)  They gave her advice about her rights (something else the Corps didn't spend a lot of time on), and what she could and could not, should and should not, do.  The one thing she was told repeatedly was Don't Lie. (Another ringing endorsement for an organization where not lying is supposed to be how they live their life.)  To which I added But don't volunteer answers, either.  Be honest, but be succinct. Don't suggest questions to them. These inquisitors are your friends and mentors, but today, they're none of that. Don't lie, but answer only what's asked.

I reminded her of that great political quote - It isn't the crime that gets you, it's the cover-up. If asked, don't lie.  If not asked, don't volunteer.

I have never been a big fan of the Corps, which strikes me as a silly organization (I told my daughter repeatedly, when she first started, and was having problems, that the Corps was totally NOT the real military; it was rather people playing at being military).  Today I reminded her of a slogan I'd heard years ago - Military Justice is to Justice as Military Music is to Music.  I want her to survive the music, and I want her to be prepared for organizational stupidity and rigidity.

So I showed her this video clip.

One other thing.  The two drinking roommates, aware that it was the third who turned them in, want to 'make her life hell', as my daughter put it.  She told me that she's going to do whatever she can to keep that from happening.  When I told her I was pleased by that, she shrugged and said it was no big deal.  I think it is. 

Incoming....Maybe

Four days ago I received a mass-mailing -- an appeal from a woman who runs the organization that brought in the two French girls who stayed with us.  It was a forwarded request from a different, but similar, organization, trying to find a place for another French teen.  The catch:  the teen is already here and living in Virginia -- but not getting along with the host family.  They would like to get her out of their house.

I asked the sender why they were not getting along, and the response was After she had her introductory photographs taken,  the girl dyed her hair blond, and the family doesn't like it. Seemed like a lame reason to want the kid gone.  Then I learned and she got one of those gauge piercings in her earlobe, which didn't square with the host family. They're fairly conservative.

Hmmm.  Tell me about her.

She's a 15 year old from Provence, she's friendly and energetic, she likes school, and she wants to speak American (not English).  She's fluent in French, pretty close in English, and knows a little Spanish and a little German.  Oh, and she doesn't know that we're looking to move her.


Well.

The best thing for her would be something where she gets to stay in her current school but moves to a different host family in that area -- but none have popped up, hence the friend of a friend mailing. Our local school isn't thrilled about bringing in a foreign student three weeks into the school session, but after mulling it over, said Well, get her records sent to us, we'll let you know next week. 

My daughter likes the idea but at the same time thinks Wait, you mean when I am at home for Break, she'll BE there?  Yeah, maybe..... And my wife says Sure, we can do that....we don't have to bring her to tourist places, like we did during the summer with the others, do we? Um, I don't think so. And I myself have thought what the heck am I getting into here? A new person, for almost a year?

So I'm half hoping it works, because I've wanted to do this  - a foreign student living long-term with us - for a while.   And I'm half hoping the local school says Nope, sorry, no can do.

Listening

Listening to the Pope, I wonder:  Could THIS be the adult that I've been thinking the world's leaders have needed, all these years? Someone who can be kind yet stern, mild yet forceful?

Jeez, that would be nice.....

Win10

Daughter just called, in tears.  Apparently - for reasons that are not clear -- she had told her PC to upgrade to Windows 10 a while ago, and it was working.  Last night, it abruptly returned itself to Windows 7 -- and threw away all of her documents, including a paper she was working on. Which is due to day.

Books

Every so often one comes across a book that is so well written, you have to read it slowly.  Eifelheim, by Michael F. Flynn, appears to be such a book.  I am not certain, since I'm only on page ten -- but his grasp of imagery and characterization thus far is an absolute delight.

Fixing

I have a friend whose family is, to put it mildly, dysfunctional.  She wants to move out but she's a full-time doctoral student and part-time museum guide -- which doesn't nearly generate enough money to be even someone's roommate. Except that now her father has told her that she's 'just like her mother' - whom she despises - and that HE wants her out of the house.

I have a daughter who had a close friend at college last year, but that friend hyper-bonded with her roommate, freezing out my daughter -- and this year she is in the same room as them, getting frozen out all over again. Oh, and its four girls in a room sized for two -- the college wasn't able to get a new dorm on-line in time for this semeter -- so, no privacy, either.

I have to remind myself that I really can't fix these things.

Airborne

I have almost no interest in zeppelins or in the Graf Hindenburg, but I found this description of the Hindenburg's interior to be fascinating.  Before this, all I knew of the interior of a zepplin was this scene from that Indiana Jones movie!

Ted

I really hope that Ted Cruz does not come out in favor of ice cream.  Because right now I can pretty safely say that anything he likes, I'd despise....and I really don't want to give up Turkey Hill Orange Swirl ice cream!

PillowFight

Sounds good, doesn't it?  Charming, even quaint.   Except, perhaps, at West Point.This year, the pillows were weaponized.

Everyone had helmets, but some of them were hidden inside the pillowcases.  Some of the cadets were wearing body armor.  Blood flowed freely. Medevacs were done, and wide-ranging checks for concussions occurred afterwards.

From the New York Times:

"West Point cadets had mixed reactions to the injuries this year. Some saw them as a rite of passage in a school known for being tough; others saw a lack of judgment and restraint.

“At first the body count, people were joking about it,” a female first-year cadet said. “My friends were really excited. And right after, when we learned how many people had gotten hurt, everyone felt totally hard-core. I know it looks weird from the outside, but it really bonds us.”

But when she saw a male cadet being loaded into an ambulance outside her dorm room, she began to have second thoughts.

“If you are an officer, you are supposed to make good decisions and follow the rules. You are supposed to mediate when everyone wants to go out and kill everyone,” she said. “The goal was to have fun, and it ended up some guys just chose to hurt people.”"

Hear That?

I like good burger places.  I'm fairly picky about what good burger place means -- it most emphatically does not mean places where you need to jack your mouth open like the Coneheads to get the burger in there, nor does it mean great slabs o'meat, or a thousand other things between the meat and the bun. 

One place that makes a decent -- not outstanding, but decent -- burger is Five Guys.  A lot of people say that.  In fact, what they say is that it's wonderful, magnificent, awesome....all of which suggests to me that they've been eating in McDonalds way too much.  Still, its not bad, except for one thing.

The noise.

They have a hard floor, hard tables, hard ceiling.  Noises echo and linger.  If you've got something to distract you -- say, you think that guy teetering on the high chair by the window is going to fall? -- it's not too bad.  But if not....it can be painful.

I admit, part of this is my age.  I've never liked particularly noisy venues, and now I actively dislike them.  They ruin the experience, and they make me not want to come back.

Fortunately, I'm not the only one who's thinking about this, and unlike me, other people can actually do something about it, as this New York Times article lists. Most of the solutions are traditional, including softer surfaces and angled ceiling tiles.  Some are obvious but usually overlooked, like teaching the busboys to lock down the utensils so they don't drop onto a hard surface.  Some are high tech, like 'sonic foam' and the ability to 'dial in' the sound level that's acceptable. 

Music to my ears.

Hidden

I was thinking about that woman who refuses to issue marriage licences because her view of religion says that she cannot do it.  Apparently, she is an elected official, and cannot be removed from office unless she is impeached or resigns.  Of course, we know how easy it is to impeach someone!  It made me wonder -- how many other people of similar views are hidden in our infrastructure?  It would be absurd to say that we have to ferret such people out -- though the witchhunt would be fun to watch -- but I wonder if we will see laws that say if you are working for the governmenet, and  refuse to do your job, you'll be fired?  Of course, I doubt such a law would be passed, for the simple reason that legislators, tied up in partisan gridlock, refuse to do their job all the time.

Mentoring

I am considering being a mentor again -- probably won't, but I might. So I am looking at their many, many requirements, all of which would not have stopped or guaranteed what they want to stop or guarantee. The requirements are in two places, they apparently having never learned the thing about 'you state information once; all other places refer to it'.

I was particularly taken by this gem of organizational thinking:

If you discover a person who is not breathing, has no pulse, or is choking, call the office. Say that it is a “Code Blue,” name the medical emergency, and give your exact location. Remain with the victim.

'Code Blue' seems a little redundant to me. 

I also found this, in a section talking about getting the kids to a safe place in case of a storm:

Students and staff should avoid doors, and windows while relocating.

How are they going to get to the safe area -- teleport?

Reading and Writing

I just finished a three-volume series of science fiction that I really enjoyed -- except that I didn't like the way the last book ended.  It didn't live up to what I wanted the characters to do, where I wanted them to go.

So, I wrote a paragraph to end the book as I wanted it to end, and I tucked it in, next to the last page. Never did that before, but it felt right!

Ashley

By now, a lot of people have heard about the Ashley Madison hack, and have expressed satisfaction, outrage, unbridled glee, or some combination thereof.  So here's my take.  I think that cheating on your spouse is wrong -- but it doesn't deserve getting publicly outed.  I think that its not the business of anyone but the people involved.  Even if the hackers did it with pure intentions -- which I strongly doubt -- its none of their business.

Observation

I learned the other day that the son of my cousin had died.  He was in a horrific car accident, survived on life support for about a week, and then died.

I was his godfather, a relationship that had little meaning to me.  I saw him on the day of his christening, and perhaps two or three more times over the course of twenty years.  One time, I asked someone who that Asian-looking kid was, and they said Why, that's your godson!  Oh.

Feels weird.

Authors

I was about to send a note to Eloisa James, author of a remaindered book that I liked (Paris in Love; but, its not actually about that), when I found that a) Eloise James is the pen name of Mary Bly, who teaches at Fordham University, and who has degrees from Oxford, Harvard, and Yale, and b) Mary Bly is a very well known author, both under her pen name for her exceedingly popular historical romances, as well as under her own name for historical research.  Which led me to the conclusion that she certainly does not need my "hey, I liked your book" note.  Might not even notice it.

And for some reason, that irritates me.

Say What?

I have no idea if any of this is real == I am guessing not == but I like it.

Google Translate

Using Google Translate reminds me of the old saw about democracy: it's the worst form of government except for all of the others.  GT is an awful translation tool, and its better than all of the others. It can be really useful, until it blips and suddenly you find a word in your sentence that flat-out does not work.  When I first used it to write letters in French, I didn't realize that when I would 'sign' the letter with my name, Bill, it would insert the French word for a bill such as a law -- loi.  Ton ami, Loi. LOI????  LOL!!!!!

Observation

It is much easier to say at 10PM that I am going to spend two hours studying French than it is to actually sit down and do it the next day.  Particularly when the studying consists of listening, ten or twenty times, to the same three minute audio, trying to understand, for example, that vohtrahrzhant is in fact votre argent.  And that L'IMF is pronounced lye em eff, not luh eye em eff.  I've emptied the dishwasher.  I've printed a recipe.  And now I've written a blog entry.  But that audio is still waiting....

Complaining

I was bitching to my wife this morning about how incredibly difficult I'm finding it to improve my ability to understand rapidly spoken French, and how I wish I could stop, when she replied Well, you can, you know.  It's just you, making you do it. 

Oh.  Yeah.  Dammit. 

Why not....

ISIS is raping and keeping women as sexual slaves.  Koran, you know.  At least, their Koran.

Meanwhile:

STARKVILLE, Miss. — She was a cheerleader, an honor student, the daughter of a police officer and a member of the high school homecoming court who wanted to be a doctor.

He was a quiet but easygoing psychology student. His father is a well-known Muslim patriarch here, whose personable air and habit of sharing food with friends and strangers made him seem like a walking advertisement for Islam as a religion of tolerance and peace.

Today, the young woman, Jaelyn Young, 19, and the young man, her fiancé, Muhammad Dakhlalla, 22, are in federal custody, arrested on suspicion of trying to travel from Mississippi to Syria to join the Islamic State.

So what if we just let all these people who want to go to ISIS just - go? Just put them on a plane, let them take their chances. Get raped, get killed?  And keep the aid workers here. Let the whole damn place implode.

It's a delightful image.

But then we wouldn't be the country we say we are, would we?  

Fluenz

Thinking about getting the Fluenz language learning material, but I noticed that a whole bunch of the questions on their blog aren't answered.  This does not give me a warm and cozy feeling!

Kingsmen

We rented Kingsmen from Redbox last night.  We expected a frothy comedic spy novel, which we got.  We did not expect a movie that kept us glued to our chairs, the whole time -- but we got that, too.

It's really good.

Tech

Last week, for one week, I wore a Continuous Glucose Monitor to track what my blood sugars were.  Its a little awkward - the sensor is about the size of three stacked nickels, and is stuck to your skin, while the receiver is about the size of an iPod, and sits in your pocket.  I thought How good can this possibly be?

The answer is Very good.  With, I would swear, almost no changes to how I normally eat and move around, I got a virtually normal week of readings.  The nurse said she wished they all looked like that - she had almost no recommendations.  She suggested that I see if my insurance would cover getting one of those monitors, and I said that even if they didn't, I'd pay the roughly $1700 for one myself.  She pointed out that this is just the basic cost.  After the initial sensors wear out, you have to buy replacements.  You need a new sensor, every week.


This morning, I found that a box of four sensors costs $350.  No quantity discounts.

Well, crap.

Reactions

I wonder if we ever get 'outraged' any more.  We say we do, but its gone by the next day.  Perhaps a week, but not usually.

URL

At what point will Firefox, or any of its colleagues,  allow the URL font to be increased, so that some of me can actually read the damn thing without cutting/pasting it into a Word document and then expanding the hell out of it?

Second Amendment

Because who cares how many people die, right?   
  

I-93 Musings

Random thoughts while trudging through the traffic on I93 near Boston --

There are 'executive limo services' that take a normal delivery van (the model that I know of its Sprinter, but there could be others), gut it, and put in interior accouterments like those found in an executive jet -- hyper-comfortable chairs, refrigerator, internet access, flat screen TV, all of that.  The idea is for people to be able to be cosseted and coddled without alerting the plebs that a grossly overpaid corporate bigwig is transiting the area.  Well, of course, I am as offended by this lavishness as any other plebe (though the older I get, the less I consider it to be lavish and the more I think of it as 'well, that’s nice').  So when I am trying to get somewhere -- almost *anywhere* --  in Boston, and it’s too damn hot to walk, and too damn crowded to drive, I think *executive tour shuttle'.  I'd pay handsomely for one to come whispering up (electric, of course!) and coddle/cosset me from here to there. 

Sirius XM radio is very nice, but a) it really should have the option to invoke overseas feeds (for example, Le Monde, from France), and b) since it’s hard to read the ‘channel’ indicator, particularly when you are driving, it should have the ability to ‘speak’ the channel when you change it. Surely this is possible?

GPS should have the ability to change how much lead time you want when it announces an upcoming change – and if there are two changes in quick succession, it should just alert you that its doing a reroute because it can’t say the directions fast enough. Other than by going to blipspeak  mode, of course.

Mike's Pastry in Boston is nice, but it would be even better if the clerks didn't have a Yeah, we know, best cannoli in Boston, got it, whaddya want? attitude.

Comment

[snark]

Any video that starts with someone saying Hey guys...or So anyway... has to be really good for me to continue watching it.

[/snark]

Musings

I've been away from home for less than a week, and already I'm thinking I'm ready to be home now.

When we left, I thought well, this will be better, because I know the language and I know the currency.  But having been in Boston, where I used to live (well, Quincy), I find myself wondering if that's true in any but the most precise definitions.  Driving around the area, I am as astounded as any country yokel by the number and density of the buildings.  It's just so incredibly crowded!  (And going to get more so; apparently local builders are taking a leaf from New York City and planning a 'pencil skyscraper'; it will be as tall, or taller, than the surrounding buildings, but only 60 feet wide, so as to be squeezed into an available parcel of land).

We're at the Marriott Copley Place hotel.  It's nice enough, with lots of faux marble and chandeliers made, I think, of plastic, but its nothing truly amazing.  Except the elevators - to summon one, you hit a touch pad on the wall of the elevator bank to indicate the desired floor, and it lights to tell you which of several elevators to take. I guess that limits the amount of stop-and-go for each elevator. I was not happy to learn that the parking is not free - at this rate? I suppose, for Boston, its not considered expensive - and the wifi, particularly at night, is very slow.  But they do offer to sell you the opportunity to go faster. Yuck. Do a search for Marriott and WiFi and be reminded that Marriott is the company that said No, we aren't limiting your access to personal hot-spot wifi, and we'll never do it again.

The weather is -- well, I would say unseasonably warm, but I wonder if thats the case any more.  Certainly it's as warm as I remember it being in August - sultry, and a little sticky.  I think fondly of when I used to live here, and would take the T up into the city, spending the cool morning and part of the afternoon, just walking around.  Now, that seems to be beyond me -- a combination of being 40 years older, fatter, and more susceptible to fatigue -- and I miss it.

I wonder how close I am to saying thats it, I'm just staying home.  Or taking a chartered bus trip. 

PIR, Conclusion

The top of the line sedan for Toyota is their Avalon, which looks and feels a lot like the bottom of the line Lexus.

We found one that was built in October of last year, so it's last year's model.  It was purchased this year and driven for two months, accumulating just over four thousand miles, before being sold to a car auction.  Where it sat for four months before being purchased by the dealership where our Prius and Venza came from.

We were naturally suspicious.  Four thousand miles, two months, and they sell it?  What's wrong with this car?

According to Carfax, nothing. They promise that if there is anything wrong, and they didn't cover it, they'll buy the car back.

According to Toyota,  it is a certified used car, meaning they ran through a multiple step inspection, and found nothing wrong with it.  It's still got two years of it's original new-car warranty, and then it has their used-car warranty to kick in after that.

It hasn't got every single gizmo Toyota puts on cars.  It hasn't got automatic wipers that come on when it rains.  It hasn't got adaptive cruise control (which slows you if you get dangerously close to another car).  And the original owner's manuals are missing, though the main one is available online as a PDF. I think that's about it.

It does have auto headlights, fog lights,  autodim heated mirrors with integral turn signals, heated seats, backup sonar, backup camera, side view cross traffic warning, blind spot warning, AM/FM/XM radio with USB and MP3 jacks, three 12V sockets, leather wrapped steering wheel, a drive mode called Sport which should really be called Very Fast, and a few other things.

So we bought it. 

At a price of five thousand dollars less than its new car price.

Vacation

Three nice things about taking a vacation in the US --

- we're pretty fluent in the language
- we're pretty comfortable with the local money
- anything we don't want to lug, we can just toss in the back of the van.

Jade Helm

I think that the people who suspect that Jade Helm is an exercise intended to capture guns from people in the southwest are all loonies.

Then again, I was at least a little suspicious that Cheney was planning to overthrow the government and have himself and his puppet remain in power for several more years.  Seems silly now, but at the time.... I really didn't trust him.  Still don't, in fact.

So after Jade Helm is over, I am sure that the wingnuts of Texas will say See?  Because we was on alert, they couldn't do it!  Couldn't take our guns, our wimmen, our precious bodily fluids! We won!

Dealership People

One of the side effects of looking for a car is that I've met a couple of car dealership people lately.  For years, I felt that all of them were the classic 'used car dealer', not to be trusted.  I've learned that while its possible some of them are still like that, most of them seem decent and honest. (Which perhaps is like the old joke: Sincerity is the most important thing.  If you can fake that, you've got it made.)  But even with that, one of them really impressed me.

The dealer at Ford had a trainee, a woman who was in her late twenties, just learning the ropes. She seemed bright, and we got to talking while my wife talked to the guy who was her boss.  I found out that she spoke French, badly, and it turned out that this was because she had lived in New Orleans for several years.  She had told me that she had a twelve year old daughter, so I said something about how perhaps her daughter had learned to speak French a bit, too.  Oh no, she said.  My daughter speaks French fluently.  I had her in a French immersion school for several years.  She'll be able to travel easily in France, I said.  Now all she needs is a knowledge of cheese and wine to fit right in.  She then rattled off four or five cheeses, saying that she missed being able to eat them, but they weren't imported to the US.  Is it one of those things where the US thinks they aren't aged/pasteurized enough?  I asked.  No, its just that the French like them so much, they export very little.  Unlike their wine, I suggested, and she said True, they export a lot -- we're probably their biggest market.  At least, we were when I was getting my wine importers licence.  You import wines?  Used to, she replied, for about two years.  But then I moved to Pennsylvania, with its archaic liquor laws, so I had to find something else to do. Why did you move here, I asked.  She smiled.  My daughter was accepted to the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet.  I know them.  Despite their yokel-sounding name, they're very, very good.

Amazing who you can find at a dealership....

PIR

We have a phrase in our family for problems that others would be delighted to have: Problems of the Idle Rich.  We have one of them right now.

We would like to give our daughter our 7 year old Prius, for use at college during her final year, and with luck for time after that.  However, we need two cars, because my wife takes a car to her job at school. Now we could just say Suck it up, either live without a car when she is at work, or bring her over/bring her back, if you need a car that day.  That's a possibility.  Not delightful, but possible.

But since life is just easier with two cars, we're looking.

We've said for years The next car is going to have some luxury in it. What's funny about that is that my second car did have luxury in it, though we didn't think of it that way -- it was a Buick Skylark with velour seats.  Very comfortable.  And afterwards we got a Buick Regal, also with very comfortable seats, and nice amenities.  But then we went to being socially responsible, which meant getting the Prius, which as a second car is not bad at all.  But for long distance drives, not desirable.  And most def not a comfortable car.   And now, since we might be about to lose it, we've poked around, and mulled things over, and came up with two possibilities --

1 - a new Ford Fusion.  I have to say, when my wife suggested it, I thought Are you kidding me?  Where in the Ford brochure of cars is their definition of luxury, because their idea of luxury isn't MY idea.  But we looked at it, and I was pleasantly surprised.  For a mid-sized four door sedan, it handled well, with decent looks, and lots of gadgets, including some that the more expensive cars didn't have, especially in the safety arena.  So - hmmm....     I was thinking Yeah, maybe this will be the one...until this morning, when -

2- a 2013 Lexus 350 became known to us.  This car was gorgeous.  It looked great, it handled great -- on the test drive, my wife had to punch it around a guy exiting his driveway, and the car just went --  and it had about 90% of the gadgets that the Fusion had.  Most of that 10%, I didn't really care about, like collision sensors and backup sensors and lane-change warnings -- nice to have, certainly, but I've lived without them so far, and I don't feel the need.  A couple, like their customizable seat/steering wheel /outside mirrors positioning, as well as the dealers optional (and free) loan of a relatively new car any time yours is being serviced -- and if you want, they will bring the loaner to you, and return your car at end of day -- those are nice.  But most of all, the Lexus has that plush feeling.  I sat in it and thought Oh man, this is nice.

So we're trying to decide.  The Fusion, which has useful gadgets like a voice command GPS, and a tire inflator tool, and a backup obstruction sensor,  all of that?    Or the Lexus, with most of the gadgets of the Fusion, plus that delightful feel?

Or should we just replace it with a newer Prius? Which, oh by the way, costs about 90% of what either of the others would, has excellent mileage, and is not nearly as comfortable as either?

PIR, baby.  PIR.

Reading

You know that I am really enjoying a book when I can't bring myself to read it while eating, because the eating is taking too much attention away from the reading.

Thank you for Book Two, Walter Jon Williams.....

Montreal

Montreal (ahem: mon rayahl) is nice, but you really need to speak French to talk to most people.  Not all, but most of them.  (Though I did wonder sometimes if they just did it to giggle at my French!)  Having a good map of the Metro helps, too.   And don't assume (like we did) that oh, we won't need Canadian cash,  we'll just pay for everything with our non-chipped US credit cards.  Yeah, about that....

Observations

Montreal is a really pretty city with horrendous traffic.  Construction everywhere, and jammed highways.  Yesterday (and I think it was exceptional), we took 90 minutes to go about 5 kilometers, due to an accident.

It absolutely sucks when you find the need to hit the bathroom three times before you go out, then once again while you're waiting downstairs for your car, then again when you're walking casually through the city.  Holy hell, I just had a tiny bowl of cereal, some strawberries, and a glass of orange juice!  My wife says we need (she's nice and says we even though its clear that its me) to always get up and walk around aimlessly for at least twenty minutes, orbitting the bathroom location,  before we want to go out for real, because apparently the body only processes a bit of waste at a time, and takes its time, at that.  You okay?  Yeah, I'm....wait a minute, I need to hit the john again.

You can confuse people by answering in French if you don't actually understand their quick French response.

So Now....

I need something else to read.

The Jewels of Paradise, by Donna Leon, was about 99% good.  Not exactly sure that I'd say it was superior to the Brunetti novels, but it was a nice change of pace, and I liked that. The characters were believable, and I felt a little sad when I found out that one of the characters was not as he appeared to be -- and also a little irritated, when the why was he not as he appeared to be was never explained.

The Get Real comedy, by Donald Westlake, was surprisingly satisfying, because I kept expecting things to go wrong, but they usually did not, and when they did, Westlake handled it deftly - the sort of thing where you think well of course he can write it  so that whatever he wants to happen DOES happen  -- but somehow its okay, it doesn't feel like you're being manipulated.

I think I'm going to need to look for more of both authors' books.

Don't Lase Me, Bro!

Ever since my wife brought it home, I get an unholy amount of pleasure from tormeting the cat with the laser pointer.  I award myself bonus points when the cat essentially tries to pull itself forward using just its forepaws as it seeks to swat the annoying crimson dot.  Cheap thrills....

Books

It's always a pleasure to find that a book from which you expected little is instead a delight.  That happened with The Informationist (not great, but not at all bad; I liked the lead character a lot), and now it is happening again with The Jewels of Paradise, by Donna Leon, the author of the Guido Brunetti series (though this isn't one of them).  Both were on the discount table at Barnes and Noble, and both are a pleasure.  Well, the Informationist was, but the way Jewels is going, I think it will be, too.  The delight of Leon's writing style, very little of the frequent comments about political corruption that litter the landscape in the Brunetti novels.

Reading

Just read an adventure novel by Talor Stevens, and liked it enough to look for others that she had written.  Found her web site, and read the descriptions of her books.  Ugh, these sound stupid.  So I read the description of the book I liked . It sounds stupid.

There must be an art to writing these descriptions....

Watching Porn

...with the people who are actually in the porn.  It's..... interesting.   (And, yeah, NSFW!)

Reading

It's an unexpected delight to find that the cheap book being sold for a reduced price at a bargain store is in fact well written, and was created by an author, previously unknown to me, who has been nominated multiple times for awards.

 Walter Jon Williams, it's nice to meet you.

Drone

I'm sure that there are smart, experienced people thinking about this:  how hard would it be for someone to put a bunch of explosives onto a drone and fly it into the engine of a plane that's just rotated from takeoff, or is lining up for touchdown?   I don't imagine it would be easy, but can it be done at all?I have to believe yes. Drones with video downlink exist now; drones that can carry payloads, ditto.

So I find myself wondering: If I had to defend against something like that, what would I propose?  A sturdier airplane?  Bang goes fuel economy, up go air fares.  An active defense system?  I don't think even military aircraft have the ability to detect something that small, closing that fast, so I doubt commercial aircraft will, any time soon.  Some kind of jammer to interrupt targeting signals?  That might work -- at least, until drones with autonomous guidance, flying based on pattern recognition,  come into play.

So, what can be done?  And who's doing it?

Restrictions

I knew that protesters at political conventions, and events like the G20 meetings, tend to be limited to a certain area.  But today I learned that it is very common to do such limiting, not just as such functions, and to call the area something innocuous like 'Free Speech Area'.

I don't know. 

On the one hand, I don't think events should be disrupted by protesters, particularly when its the case that the protesters will never be satisfied until the other side is burned to the ground, and salt strewn.  On the other, free speech shouldn't mean 'in this limited area where no one can hear you'. To me, that's censorship.

I guess it comes down to whether I agree with the protesters?

Legal Inequality

If I'm an idiot (I know, hard to believe) and I sue you for some clearly frivolous reason,  one would like to think that you will win.  Let's say that you do. In some states, I would have to pay not only my own legal fees, but yours, too.  That's a punitive measure to keep frivolous suits down, and at first glance it looks - well, not good, but not terribly bad, either.

Now suppose that my child is raped at a school,, and I sue the school for failing to take adequate precautions to keep my child safe.  I get Harry from the local law firm, and the school gets a team of lawyers from the local branch of MegaLaw.   Say the school wins.  Now I have to pay my legal fees, and those of the massive team from MegaLaw.

Is that fair?  Does the response to that depend on your political orientation?

Body Language

According to this article on body language, I'm basically French.

Doing Drugs

After reading this, and articles like it, I sometimes wonder if the War on Drugs is worth it.  Leaving aside the question about whether it's winnable -- it certainly doesn't seem to be, in the decades that we've pursued it  -- I wonder if its worth the time and money we put into it.  

In one of the Tom Clancy novels, his president says that the drug problem in, I believe, Colombia is actually the fault of the Americans who buy the drugs, and that his solution is to intensify the results of being caught with drugs -- making users of recreational drugs have to do public service,  such as cleaning the streets.  I remember thinking, at the time that i read that, he's assuming that punitive measures work.  And sometimes they do work.  I don't know that, but I'm willing to think that its possible.  But as a general response, they seem to work as well as Prohibition did. 

I don't like the idea of saying so, just decriminalize drug use?  make it acccepted and legal?   Control it as we do alcohol?  I don't like it because somehow it feels like we're giving up, letting the bad guys win.  But there are times when I wonder if that would not be better.

Apologies

This page is several years old, but still, it's a little intriguiging.   I forgot how much people disliked Bush. 

Lorina

A little while ago, I put a note here to the effect that I wished I could get Lorina Limonade locally.   Lorina Limonade is French-made; I found it when I was in France, and I like it a lot.  It's not as tart as lemonade, and it comes in these huge glass bottles with a massive stopper to keep the carbonation alive.  I like it so much, I even kept one of the empty bottles, because it reminds me of France, and that makes me smile.

Yesterday, I received a note from a person in the marketing department of Lorina, and we talked about how I'd tried to get it locally, did (with some effort), and eventually concluded that much as I liked it, the effort and cost were too great.  Not the cost of the actual product; that's reasonable.  The $250 that the local supplier would charged me to deliver it from their warehouse, about three hours from here.  I know it's three hours (a little less) because that's how long it took me to drive there and personally pick it up.  If I'd known it would be that far,  and take that long, I'd have bought more.

The Lorina person told me that she would talk to the American branch of their company, to see if anything could be done.  Seriously, I don't expect that anything will come of it -- as much as I like the product, I'm still just one person.  But their willingness to contact me, and to at least try to do something about the situation -- that fascinated me.  That kind of personal touch seems to have vanished in our world where, if Amazon doesn't ship it, it doesn't exist. But not with Lorina.  They've still got it.

Thanks, Lorina.  You guys made my day.

Legalisms

There's a saying among lawyers that hard cases make bad law.  What they mean by that is that when laws are enacted in response to specific problems, the remedy may be worse than the original problem, or have nothing to do with the original problem, or consist of actions and processes that would not have prevented the original problem.

Several years ago, a coach named Jerry Sandusky, of Penn State, was found to be molesting small boys in the showers of the Penn State athletics complex.  It came to be known that others were aware of it, and most had done nothing; one person told the head coach,  Joe Paterno,  who convinced himself that no major action needed to be taken.  Sandusky was eventually convicted of child abuse, and as for Paterno, they took down his huge Rocky-like statue.

And then the politicians got involved, passing laws, setting requirements, and getting people excited and agitated. Which is where my family comes in.

My wife works in a local school as a personal care aide for a handicapped girl.  I volunteer at the same school as a mentor for kids who aren't doing too well in school.  My wife is very good at her job (not just opinion; she has both the comments of involved teachers and actual evaluations to buttress this).  Me -- well, I try, but I think I could be a lot better.

As part of the response to the Sandusky event, the lawmakers said that anyone who works with kids must have a federal crime records check done, a background check done, and other fun things.  These cost money (not a lot, but enough), and the person getting the checks gets to, as you might put it, write the checks. Without recompense.  This is true even if you're only a volunteer.  If you actually work for the school, you're required to tell people if you suspect that something shady is going on between educators and kids.  You don't need proof.  And its not limited to the school;  if you think that the grocery store's produce manager is messing around with the cute kid who works there, then as a member of the educational establishment, you're required by law to tell people.

Yeah.  No intellectual rigor there.

I'd already been contemplating making this my last year being a mentor, because I feel that I don't make much of a difference; this legal abyss adds significant weight to that thought process.  And my wife feels that while she would tell people if she thought something was going on, she would do it because of her morals, not because of a law -- and if she did not think so, she wouldn't, regardless of what the law says.

So much for the response to the hard case.

Now the politicians can go back to counting this weeks bribes, I guess.

Skype Ads

Microsoft, which (boo hiss) owns Skype,  has started putting ads on the Skype conversation screen.

Fortunately, there is a way to block them (at least, for the moment).

This is from the Skype community web site:


1. Open-up the Internet Explorer control panel (even if you don't normally use IE).
2. Open-up "Network & Internet" then "Internet Options".
3. Go to the "Security" tab.
4. Click on the "Restricted Sites" icon, then the "Sites" button below it.
5. Type "https://apps.skype.com/" (without the quotes) into the text box and click "Add"
6. Close and apply the changes.
7. Restart Skype.

I'm sure they will be back, but its nice not to have them for a bit....

Limonade

As it gets warmer, I miss limonade.

I can't get Lorina Limonade locally. (Something about those heavy glass bottles makes them very expensive to ship.)

 I can't MAKE it - do a Google search for 'limonade recipe', and you get 'Showing results for lemonade recipe' .

And I can't get it at a restaurant here. I remember sitting in one not far from Notre Dame, watching the tourists, and drinking limonade. Slowly, to make the taste linger.

Un autre verre, s'il vous plait?

Abuse

My wife works with a disabled girl as her personal aide.  Part of doing that is helping them do a special meal every so often, where the kids have to ask you what you want, give it to you, and make change.  I admit that when I would hear of this, I would think Well, that's nice, but its not a big deal.  Today, for the first time, I went to one of these meals, and I saw the kids in action.  I realized that for some of these kids, it is a big deal.  Some can't look you in the eye.  Some can only communicate with grunts and a form of sign language.  A couple of the kids have Downs, and a couple more have problems with impulse control.  At least one of the latter was big enough, though young, that he could give me a run for my money.  The size kid who makes high school football coaches salivate.

One of the kids was a quiet, shy girl.  I noticed that she didn't respond easily to questions, and, indeed, my wife says that this is a characteristic of hers - she responds very slowly, if at all, unless she has recently had an epileptic seizure, when for a little while she responds normally.  Yet to look at her, all you see is a cute 13 year old girl with a ponytail.

I found myself wondering what the boys in her class see. 

Czeched

A friend in Paris tells me that she and her husband are going to Prague for the weekend.

Prague.

I don't even get to Philadelphia for the weekend!

And yet I think of a trip to France for two weeks as oh, it's only for a couple of weeks.

I think I have some seriously skewed travel sensibilities. 

Tech Blech

Virginia Tech's computer system is so user-hostile, so badly designed, it arouses feelings of nausea when I try to get into it. Misleading, badly laid out, pages with almost identical layout that are actually different (for example, one is QuikPay, and one is QuikPayr). Even the damn MENUS are not in alphabetical order.  It feels like a pile of crud first designed in 1972, and accreted ever since.   I'm always amazed when it works.  And not surprised when it doesn't.

Latest thrill:
ENTER ID
no idea
ID NOT FOUND.  DO YOU WANT US TO SEND YOU YOUR ID?
yes
SENT
(received ID)

ENTER ID
entered
ENTER PASSWORD
entered
PASSWORD NOT FOUND.  DO YOU WANT US TO SEND YOU YOUR PASSWORD?
yes
ID NOT FOUND.

 How shall I put it?  Their computer system blows chunks.