Monthly Archives: August 2008

Politically, a very interesting week

Let’s see:

  • The Democratic National Convention was this past week. I thought it was a good event and clearly laid out the direction the Democratic Party would like the nation to go towards.
  • Sen. Obama made history by accepting the nomination as the Presidential Candidate of the Democratic party.
  • Sen. McCain made history by nominating a woman, Gov. Sarah Palin, as his Vice Presidential running mate. NOTE: this is only history since this is the first time the GOP did it. Geraldine Ferraro was the first female Vice Presidential candidate representing a major American political party in 1984 (The Democratic Party that is). Maybe in 24 years, the GOP will have an African American Presidential candidate.

That last one has a lot of people in both parties going “Huh?“.

In her statement, Gov. Palin said:

“It was rightly noted … that Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest hardest class ceiling in America. But it turns out that the women of America aren’t finished yet!”

Naturally, the McCain campaign is attempting to link Gov. Palin to Sen. Clinton’s historic attempt at becoming the next president. Ignoring the simple fact that Gov. Palin is Sen. Clinton’s opposite in nearly every way politically…

Apparently the GOP thinks experience is no longer an issue. After all, she has no experience on the National Stage and was only the Governor of Alaska for less than 2 years. Go Figure.

Prediction: Sen. McCain plays the “POW” card Every chance he gets, so I bet Gov. Palin  plays the “Glass Ceilling/Sexism” card every chance she gets. After the VP debate, the GOPwill declare victory by setting the Bar low and claiming, “She held her own!”…

Another point of Interest: Sadly (for the residents!), Hurricane Gustav might hit New Orleans during the Republican National Convention. So, instead of having the News concentrate on the GOP this week, the News will concentrate on New Orleans. This will undoubtedly bring focus on one of the greatest failures of the GW Bush administration (the handling of Hurricane Katrina) and bring comparison to that administration and Sen. McCain. Considering that Sen. McCain has voted with the GW Administration over 90% of the time, I think it’s a fair comparison. Does the United States really need 4 more years of Politics First instead of Country First?

To beat the point home (Politics First, that is), Sen. McCain is considering going to the affected area’s and deliver a speech there. “Country First”?? By dragging needed resources to guard the GOP Candidate? Can he attempt to leverage a potential disaster for political gain anymore than that???

Music I’m listening to now:
Nothing at the moment.

“Clintons4McCain” founder is nuts on National TV

Chris Matthews talking to some PUMAs and Cristi Adkins of “Clintons for McCain” (Again, ignoring that they apparently don’t agree with Sen. Clinton’s Politics…) stole the show with her craziness. (I am So NOT linking to those people!).

I don’t know where to begin with this one. Her allegations have been rebuffed so many times, it’s sad.
As Sen. Obama has said:

It’s Like These Guys Take Pride In Being Ignorant

“Clintons for McCain”??? These people are not at all representative of Sen. Clinton supporters. If anything, they act like spoiled children who did not get their way.

Loved the “Court Injunction” nonsense…

IMO: The “PUMA/Clintons for McCain” people have serious issues and I don’t mean Political issues. I think John Oliver’s piece on The Daily Show nailed it.

Music I’m listening to now:
Nothing at the moment.

Sen. Joe Biden is Sen. Barack Obama’s running mate

Sen. Obama has selected Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate.

I think he’s a good choice but I suspect the Sen. Clinton supporters are crying in their beer right about now. Me, I like Sen. Biden and I’m curious as to how he handles the many attacks from the GOP. I’m betting we see the Swift Boaters rise up and make up some more lies. I mean, why stop now?

How Sen. McCain’s campaign will react? Will they start painting Sen. Biden as the “2nd most Liberal” in the Senate? Will they go after his Son?

I’m betting they go for the BS “Elitest” label.  Sen. McCain can’t remember key facts about world affairs (Remember when Sen. Lieberman corrected him at a press conference?), has more houses than he can count, fought against the new G.I. Bill (And tried to claim credit), etc. and Sen. Obama is “Elitest”?

Riiiiiiiiight…

I know! A Tell all “Book” that tells the “truth” about Sen. Biden! Hopefully, America is tired of such BS nonsense.

Music I’m listening to now:
Nothing at the moment.

Sadly, Another Potential Darwin Award winner

Saw this on the news. Apparently, some guys tried to Kite Surf as Hurricane Fay was coming ashore. For one of them, the results were pretty bad. From the Post Chronicle:

Fay Kite Surfer Kevin Kevin Kearney nearly killed. After deciding that it would be a good idea to test Mother Nature’s patience, Kevin Kearney was whipped into a building by ‘Hurricane’ Fay’s winds.

Emergency workers rushed to the scene where Kevin laid on the ground after slamming into the side of a building – and he is now listed in critical condition.

So how was he lifted into the air before being swung into the building? He was ‘kite surfing’ – which is, for obvious reasons, extremely dangerous in Tropical Storm weather.

Kevin was on Fort Lauderdale beach when Fay’s winds took the 26-year-old for a ride. Kearney, who was harnessed into his kite sail, couldn’t break free when he was lifted into the air.

I Hope he makes it.

Music I’m listening to now:
Nothing at the moment.

Time Warner Cable

Been way too busy at work, so I took a couple of days off. I figured I’d sit back, relax, and watch a movie or see the Olympics.

Naturally, Time Warner Cable had other ideas.

There I am, having my coffee, watching the News, when the cable starts blinking in and out. Again. For close to 15 minutes.

Naturally, I call Time Warner Cable and the best they can do is send someone next Saturday.

I am so ditching Time Warner Cable ASAP.

Music I’m listening to now:
Nothing at the moment.

Just installed Wordbook Plugin

Lately I’ve been using Facebook a lot, so I installed the Wordbook WordPress plugin to update Facebook when I update my blog. Hope it works.

What a busy week

What a busy week this has been. As Inigo Montoya once said “Let me explain, no, there is no time, let me sum up“:

  • Finished the Oil to Gas conversion. Our OLD oil burner was installed in 1952 and designed in the 1920’s. Needless to say, it was expensive to run, especially in winter. I’ll write up a post on that exclusively later on. We used John Sideris Plumbing to do the work and we’re very happy with the work and the results.
  • Attempted 3 times to have Time Warner Cable come and fix our Cable issues. After blowing off TWO appointments and arriving nearly an hour LATE to the THIRD appointment, they “diagnosed” the issue and left within 10 minutes. My wife called me after they left and I called TWC and got them to go back. The Technician insists there is no problem and that the screen going blank is “normal” and happens “occasionally”. The problem is, the issue is intermittent and unpredictable. Explaining that to the technician was an complete waste of time and he frankly did not care or want to hear it. As soon as humanly possible, we are switching our Cable TV service to Verizon. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had issues with Verizon too, but after all the issues I’ve had the last few months with TWC, I’m willing to give it a chance.
  • Work is fun. We had an outage on Friday night that took quite a while to resolve. I was not able to leave work till 9:00pm. That in itself was bad, but I had to be in Princeton New Jersey by 7:30am the next day. Since I was late last time I had to go to Princeton, I left my house at 5:00am and got to work at 6:30am (Better early than late). That actually worked well, as I was able to get a good breakfast, relax and just jump right into the work that needed to be done. Thanks to my co-workers, everything went great (I mostly had a support role), but I was not able to leave till 7:00pm for a 2 hour drive to get home. Now on Sunday, I’m very tired. I’m glad days like this are few and far between.
  • We recorded the Olympic Opening ceremony on our DVR (Only one Blip in the Recording! “Normal” right???) for viewing later. After seeing it, my wife and I could not help but think: The Next City to host the Olympics can’t possibly top that. You can see some fantastic photos here at Boston.com and here at the Official web sight, en.beijing2008.cn.

Other than that, life is pretty good. Mostly, we are taking it easy, watching the Olympics. I was able to record “Shoot ’em up” on the DVR this week. I’m looking forward to seeing it as both Clive Owen and Paul Giamatti are great.

Music I’m listening to now:
Nothing at the moment. I’m watching “Shoot ’em Up“, With Clive Owen, Paul Giamatti and Monica Bellucci. It’s a great Action film and Lots of fun.

It’s all about the timing…

The last few days, I’ve been working at home while my heating system is being converted from an old Oil Burner (from 1952!) to a Natural Gas solution.

Since I’m stuck at home and I’ve also been having spotty performance on our Cable TV for at least 2 weeks, I scheduled an appointment with Time Warner Cable of NYC. They were supposed to come around between 12:00pm and 4:00pm and if they need to call me, call my home or my work number.

After they missed the appointment, I called TWC and asked what was going on. Basically, the Cable Repair technician called and apparently No one picked up at my home number, my work number or My cell.

All of these phone work fine, with voice mail on all of them and yet I didn’t get a call on a single one. No voice mail either. How Odd…

When I call a company for a problem, I try to be polite and professional. Getting mad does not help and the guy on the other end of the phone did NOT miss that appointment. He rescheduled for today (Hope they don’t miss that one too!) between the hours of 12:00pm and 4:00pmand with any luck, my cable will be fine.

Which leads me to the “Timing” part. My Door bell rings and it’s NOT TWC, but rather Verizon. They want to go to the backyard and wire FIOS to the telephone cable. Apparently, my neighborhood is the next one to get Fiber Optic FIOS.

In other words: If Time Warner Cable screws this up, I now have more options.

UPDATE 1: It’s 4:20pm do you know where your Time Warner Technician is?
Called Time Warner, they said the appointment is still open and to wait another half hour.

UPDATE 2: Now 5:10pm and no call. I called TWC again, got a fast Busy and redialed until I got thru. After listening to classical piano (Chopin?) music for a few minutes, my call was picked up by Yolanda and she offered to call the Technician and see what the delay was. Put on hold for over 5 minute with very good piano music.

UPDATE 3: Yolanda called the dispatcher who will be calling me back. Not thrilled at the occasional video issues, but everyone I’ve spoken to at TWC has been very friendly and professional. I await the dispatcher’s call.

Update 4: 6:30pm, No Call from the TWC dispatcher. Calling the number got a busy signal, but after 6 redials I got in and heard the nice piano music again. End Result: Dispatcher will call back.

Update 5: 7:00pm (sigh) Dispatcher called back: Today is canceled. TWC gets to try again on Wednesday.

Verizon is looking GREAT and I have NO idea what they offer.

Music I’m listening to now:
Pocketful Of Sunshine“, by Natasha Bedingfield from the Pocketful of Sunshine album. You can see the video here.

AP: Obama: tap nation’s oil reserve to help gas prices

Just Marvelous. In what I assume is just an attempt to garner more favor with the people who buy into this Nonsense, The AP reports:

CHICAGO (AP) — Barack Obama is proposing that the nation tap its strategic oil reserves to help drive down gasoline prices.

Campaign spokeswoman Heather Zichal said Monday the arrangement would involve swaps by oil companies with the government of light crude oil or heavy crude oil in oil stockpiles in Texas and Louisiana.

In the past, Obama has not advocated tapping the oil reserve, but Zichal said he has reconsidered because he recognizes that high gas prices have caused many Americans to suffer. Obama is making a speech on energy later in the day.

The last time I can remember a candidate doing this was (*shudder*) GW Bush in the 2000 Campaign. Not a comparison anyone would want! Tapping the strategic oil reserves is like giving the Oil Companies more “leased” land for drilling: It won’t help and when it does have a chance to help, it will be years down the road.

I know Sen. Obama needs to appeal to a wide base in order to get elected, but IMO, this is not the way to do it.

Music I’m listening to now:
Nothing at the moment.

HONG KONG DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL IN NEW YORK – 2008

Dragon Boat in TorontoI wanted to check out the 2008 Dragon Boat Festival today, but it’s raining *AND* there is lightning, so I bailed. I know people on at least three different teams, specifically, Team Xtreme, DCH, and Women in Canoe. Knowing some of the team members, I was hoping to get them while they were racing or just on the boat.

Hope tomorrow is better, I’m hoping to get some good photos.

UPDATE: Went on Sunday, saw several friends and took over 500 photos. Unfortunately, we got there late and the light was not too good, but it was fun and I think I got some good photos. I’ll post to flickr later.

Music I’m listening to now:
Hero/Heroine“, by Boys Like Girls from the Boys Like Girls album. You can see the video here.