Manfred got thrown in jail over the weekend. He had started drinking again. Then he started calling 911. They would come pick him up and take him to the emergency room where they would give him an IV which would hydrate him and give him some nourishment. He couldn't eat anything. He did this a couple of times and then the Fire Captain told him not to call 911 anymore. And he called 911. So they threw him in jail. He is out now. Maybe he was released because of overcrowding, maybe someone bailed him out. I don't know.
Addiction is a terrible thing. I remember a story I read about an anesthesiologist who worked in a hospital. He started "playing" around with Fentanyl a hyper-addictive anesthetic. He wasn't worried, after all he was a professional, he knew what he was doing, he had it under control. And then one day he noticed that maybe he was using a bit more than he should. So he took a two week vacation, which removed him from the hospital and put the fentanyl out of reach. The two weeks passed and he went back to work. The first thing he knew he was in the medicine closet shooting up and he had no idea how he got there. An addicted brain cannot be trusted. That is what makes addiction so bad.
Monday, October 9, 2006
Friday, October 6, 2006
Security?
Ross now has an expensive laptop, and I have encouraged him to get a lock, and being as you work for Kensington, and Kensington has lots of great stuff like laptop locks, perhaps you can arrange for one.
But I wonder whether locks are really worthwhile. They get in the way, they are clumsy, in short, they are annoying. And do they stop any thefts? You can lock something up reliably for years and the one time you leave it unlocked is the one time someone will try to steal it, and because you left it unlocked this one time, they will succeed. Murphy's law, you know. So you end up putting up with all this nonsense for naught.
Or maybe if you hadn't kept it locked it would have been stolen the first week you got it. That would be a drag.
What I really don't like is air travel. The security checks, the endless waiting, the cramped seating, but most of all the stupid annoying security announcements in the terminal, the ones where they warn you over and over again that unattended bags will be confiscated. I don't want to hear about it. If you are going to confiscate them, just do it. You don't need to warn anybody.
And people who drive around town with high beams and/or driving lights on. Good lord almighty! Parking lights are good enough for most purposes. There are street lights, you know. But the law says you can't drive with your parking lights on. "Lights on for safety". Does this really work? How about if everybody just turned all their dang lights off and we drove around in the dark. Would we have any more accidents?
Anyway, the whole point is reduce or eliminate as many annoyances as you can from your life.
This rant is now over. Thank you for listening.
But I wonder whether locks are really worthwhile. They get in the way, they are clumsy, in short, they are annoying. And do they stop any thefts? You can lock something up reliably for years and the one time you leave it unlocked is the one time someone will try to steal it, and because you left it unlocked this one time, they will succeed. Murphy's law, you know. So you end up putting up with all this nonsense for naught.
Or maybe if you hadn't kept it locked it would have been stolen the first week you got it. That would be a drag.
What I really don't like is air travel. The security checks, the endless waiting, the cramped seating, but most of all the stupid annoying security announcements in the terminal, the ones where they warn you over and over again that unattended bags will be confiscated. I don't want to hear about it. If you are going to confiscate them, just do it. You don't need to warn anybody.
And people who drive around town with high beams and/or driving lights on. Good lord almighty! Parking lights are good enough for most purposes. There are street lights, you know. But the law says you can't drive with your parking lights on. "Lights on for safety". Does this really work? How about if everybody just turned all their dang lights off and we drove around in the dark. Would we have any more accidents?
Anyway, the whole point is reduce or eliminate as many annoyances as you can from your life.
This rant is now over. Thank you for listening.
Medical Card Idea
I am thinking that my idea for a medical credit card is going to have to remain just an idea for now. It will need some fertile ground before it has any hope of becoming more than just an idea. Finding that fertile ground is going to take some time and some luck. More effort would increase the chances of finding a suitable spot, but I don't have the resources to spend on it, so I am going to fall back on serendipity.
The basic idea is to be an ombudsman for people with medical bills. I know I hate dealing with medical bills, and I suspect many other people have the same view. I have a family and I probably get a dozen bills month. Keeping track of who has been paid, whether insurance has paid their part or not, whether the billing agrees with the insurance statement, and whether the bill has any real basis, is a real pain. I finally hired a bookkeeper to take care of this, among other things.
The idea is that the ombudsman would take care of people's medical bills. It would collect all the bills from all of their doctors, file with all of their insurance companies, and send out one bill a month to the concerned party. The big problem with this is how do you make any money AND represent the concerned party? I do not think it likely that you would be able to sell this service to people for what it would cost to run it. The only other way to generate any income would be to do it the way medical billing services do it now, and I suspect that is done on a percentage basis.
The solution may be to form a non-profit, or not-for-profit, organization, and have a charter that lays out the purpose of the organization. I think Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield may be set up like this.
Another model that might work is Costco. They sell memberships and ostensibly represent their members interests, but they make their money from sales.
The basic idea is to be an ombudsman for people with medical bills. I know I hate dealing with medical bills, and I suspect many other people have the same view. I have a family and I probably get a dozen bills month. Keeping track of who has been paid, whether insurance has paid their part or not, whether the billing agrees with the insurance statement, and whether the bill has any real basis, is a real pain. I finally hired a bookkeeper to take care of this, among other things.
The idea is that the ombudsman would take care of people's medical bills. It would collect all the bills from all of their doctors, file with all of their insurance companies, and send out one bill a month to the concerned party. The big problem with this is how do you make any money AND represent the concerned party? I do not think it likely that you would be able to sell this service to people for what it would cost to run it. The only other way to generate any income would be to do it the way medical billing services do it now, and I suspect that is done on a percentage basis.
The solution may be to form a non-profit, or not-for-profit, organization, and have a charter that lays out the purpose of the organization. I think Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield may be set up like this.
Another model that might work is Costco. They sell memberships and ostensibly represent their members interests, but they make their money from sales.
Thursday, October 5, 2006
Star Status
From:
http://www.codinghorror.com
Dare Obasanjo that the talent meritocracy at Google sounds disturbingly similar to the one outlined in Malcolm Gladwell's The Talent Myth
This "talent mind-set" is the new orthodoxy of American management. It is the intellectual justification for why such a high premium is placed on degrees from first-tier business schools, and why the compensation packages for top executives have become so lavish. In the modern corporation, the system is considered only as strong as its stars, and, in the past few years, this message has been preached by consultants and management gurus all over the world. None, however, have spread the word quite so ardently as McKinsey, and, of all its clients, one firm took the talent mind-set closest to heart. It was a company where McKinsey conducted twenty separate projects, where McKinsey's billings topped ten million dollars a year, where a McKinsey director regularly attended board meetings, and where the C.E.O. himself was a former McKinsey partner. The company, of course, was Enron.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
What's doing at the Pergiel household
Not much doing up here. Ross has moved into a dorm at U of O (Eugene). I bought him a Mac Book Pro. It was supposed to be a high school graduation present, but someone told him Intel was coming out with a new processor that Apple was going to use in a laptop and he should just wait. So he waited and waited and waited until he couldn't stand it anymore and decided to go with what was available. Still waiting for Apple to announce.
Diligent daughter is working about 15 hours a week at the Spaghetti Factory as a hostess. Not very happy, doesn't like the people she has to work with, but we told her she should stick it out for a while, maybe it will get better. We shall see. She makes better money babysitting for the occasional rich client, but that is the problem, it is occasional.
Johnny is in geek heaven (or is it nerd heaven?). He just bought a new motherboard and a 600 watt power supply for his computer. He wasn't satisfied with his last motherboard. It was supposed to support IDE and SATA hard disks, but we could never get it to talk to the SATA drive. So he deemed it junk and refused to use it at all. He spent last night and this morning lapping heat sinks. For better heat transfer you know. Not enough to use Artic silver heat transfer paste ($8 for 5 gram tube), you have to spend hours sanding the surface of the heat sink to make it as flat as possible. All this is so the processor can run faster, and that means more heat. To run it faster, you sometimes need to increase the voltage, and that means even more heat. The BIOS these days lets you adjust the voltage to the CPU in one-tenth volt increments. And you can adjust about four different memory timing parameters. Reminds me of hot rodders from back in the sixties.
We went to Home Depot and bought a piece of aluminum stock, brought it home and cut four pieces to make a short duct for the cpu fan. With the fan sitting right on top of the CPU, there is a dead spot under the central hub (where the motor is). By moving the fan away from the heat sink, he hopes to eliminate this dead (aka hot) spot.
Nobody likes the mirrors on my truck, not even me. I've almost run down pedestrians twice because they block my view. I called the dealer, they have smaller power mirrors available. $350 installed. If it would save me from buying a new car, it would be worth it. It wouldn't, of course, but I could use that argument to justify buying them. Then I thought I would check on E-bay. $9 for a pair. Of course I have to install them myself. And I have to figure out how to seal them. And I have to make a trip to the store for electrical connectors. And they have fake carbon fiber texturing painted on. I am about half way through the installation.
Hired a bookkeeper to keep track of our household expenses. I would spend all weekend avoiding doing it. It was getting ridiculous. She came in this morning and did in two hours what I have been stalling on for weeks.
Anne is getting ready to buy new furniture. Got new carpet and had the inside of the house painted this summer.
Work goes on. I have finally figured out that the powers that be do not have any idea what I do. So I don't worry much about getting anything done there anymore.
Diligent daughter is working about 15 hours a week at the Spaghetti Factory as a hostess. Not very happy, doesn't like the people she has to work with, but we told her she should stick it out for a while, maybe it will get better. We shall see. She makes better money babysitting for the occasional rich client, but that is the problem, it is occasional.
Johnny is in geek heaven (or is it nerd heaven?). He just bought a new motherboard and a 600 watt power supply for his computer. He wasn't satisfied with his last motherboard. It was supposed to support IDE and SATA hard disks, but we could never get it to talk to the SATA drive. So he deemed it junk and refused to use it at all. He spent last night and this morning lapping heat sinks. For better heat transfer you know. Not enough to use Artic silver heat transfer paste ($8 for 5 gram tube), you have to spend hours sanding the surface of the heat sink to make it as flat as possible. All this is so the processor can run faster, and that means more heat. To run it faster, you sometimes need to increase the voltage, and that means even more heat. The BIOS these days lets you adjust the voltage to the CPU in one-tenth volt increments. And you can adjust about four different memory timing parameters. Reminds me of hot rodders from back in the sixties.
We went to Home Depot and bought a piece of aluminum stock, brought it home and cut four pieces to make a short duct for the cpu fan. With the fan sitting right on top of the CPU, there is a dead spot under the central hub (where the motor is). By moving the fan away from the heat sink, he hopes to eliminate this dead (aka hot) spot.
Nobody likes the mirrors on my truck, not even me. I've almost run down pedestrians twice because they block my view. I called the dealer, they have smaller power mirrors available. $350 installed. If it would save me from buying a new car, it would be worth it. It wouldn't, of course, but I could use that argument to justify buying them. Then I thought I would check on E-bay. $9 for a pair. Of course I have to install them myself. And I have to figure out how to seal them. And I have to make a trip to the store for electrical connectors. And they have fake carbon fiber texturing painted on. I am about half way through the installation.
Hired a bookkeeper to keep track of our household expenses. I would spend all weekend avoiding doing it. It was getting ridiculous. She came in this morning and did in two hours what I have been stalling on for weeks.
Anne is getting ready to buy new furniture. Got new carpet and had the inside of the house painted this summer.
Work goes on. I have finally figured out that the powers that be do not have any idea what I do. So I don't worry much about getting anything done there anymore.
Wednesday, August 9, 2006
Wednesday
Took the family out to dinner at Bugattis last night. They were pretty well behaved. Johnny had a little trouble maintaining, but all in all it went pretty well. $120 all told. Brought a lot of food home. I ordered Pescatore, spaghetti with shrimp in marinara sauce. It was too hot (spicy). Matter of fact that was the only flavor. I only ate a small portion of it. Did not matter, other than I had to pay for it. There was plenty of other food. Anne, Daughter and I ordered one slice of chocolate cake to split between us for dessert. I think I ended up eating most of it. Ross ordered one for himself, and I think he only ate the ice cream.
The laptop computer was a big hit. We tried watching Miami Vice on it for a bit, but the sound was a bit weak for the whole crowd. Anne and I took Miami Vice downstairs and finished watching the pilot.
Had an amazing drive to work this morning. Last stop before I got to work was the light on the corner of Jackson School Road and Evergreen Parkway. Had to gas it to make the light at the next corner, and slid through the ramp meter (there was no other traffic). Had to slow down for the corner at 217. Moved over a half lane when getting off the freeway to avoid running into a taxi. Barely made the light at the top of the off ramp. Might have been red by the time I got to the stop line. All the other lights were green. Next stop was the parking lot.
The laptop computer was a big hit. We tried watching Miami Vice on it for a bit, but the sound was a bit weak for the whole crowd. Anne and I took Miami Vice downstairs and finished watching the pilot.
Had an amazing drive to work this morning. Last stop before I got to work was the light on the corner of Jackson School Road and Evergreen Parkway. Had to gas it to make the light at the next corner, and slid through the ramp meter (there was no other traffic). Had to slow down for the corner at 217. Moved over a half lane when getting off the freeway to avoid running into a taxi. Barely made the light at the top of the off ramp. Might have been red by the time I got to the stop line. All the other lights were green. Next stop was the parking lot.
Monday, August 7, 2006
Monday
Woke up around 6:30am. Tried to sleep till 7, but ended up getting up about 15 minutes till. Had a bowl of cereal with blueberries, small glass of orange juice and a cup of decaffeinated tea for breakfast. Had a couple of chores to do: move the presents from the car, set out cash for Mohan (Johnny's guitar teacher), payed the credit card bills. Hope I am not too late. Left the house about 8:15.
Jack and I went to Buster's for lunch today. I had a brisket poorboy, a dish of potato salad and a glass of water. Penny is still a happy puppy, though Jack did get a notice in the mail from Multnomah county. One of his neighbors was complaining about Penny barking, so now she has to stay in the house when he is gone. So he put his wind chimes back up.
Roger stopped by this afternoon to troubleshoot the broken GHT's. Turns out there was a via that was not plated all the way through. I am not sure if this is fault of the board house (the company that made the bare circuit boards) or the assembly house (CB Ram, the company that placed and soldered all the components). It is surely Christopher's fault that we had to call Roger, but do we really care? No, not really. But it would have been simple enough to check to see if we were getting power to the power amp, and he didn't do that. I checked it on one of those that was sort of working, and I didn't see any trouble. I put test leads on the I and Q lines coming out of the filters, and with the voltage scale turned way down on the scope, I was able to get a small constellation. But then while I was looking for another micro clip, Roger showed up and took over. He brought a co-worker with him, a hydrologist by the name of Rod. Evidently they work together. Roger is the hands on kind of guy, I get the impression Rod is more theoretical. I introduced him to Keith, they seem to be two of a kind.
Picked Anne up at the transit center, drove to Sue's and picked up her gang and took them all to the Blue Hour bar downtown so they could celebrate Anne's 50th birthday, which is tomorrow. Stopped to gas up on the way to Sue's. Round trip took one hour and ten minutes.
Jack and I went to Buster's for lunch today. I had a brisket poorboy, a dish of potato salad and a glass of water. Penny is still a happy puppy, though Jack did get a notice in the mail from Multnomah county. One of his neighbors was complaining about Penny barking, so now she has to stay in the house when he is gone. So he put his wind chimes back up.
Roger stopped by this afternoon to troubleshoot the broken GHT's. Turns out there was a via that was not plated all the way through. I am not sure if this is fault of the board house (the company that made the bare circuit boards) or the assembly house (CB Ram, the company that placed and soldered all the components). It is surely Christopher's fault that we had to call Roger, but do we really care? No, not really. But it would have been simple enough to check to see if we were getting power to the power amp, and he didn't do that. I checked it on one of those that was sort of working, and I didn't see any trouble. I put test leads on the I and Q lines coming out of the filters, and with the voltage scale turned way down on the scope, I was able to get a small constellation. But then while I was looking for another micro clip, Roger showed up and took over. He brought a co-worker with him, a hydrologist by the name of Rod. Evidently they work together. Roger is the hands on kind of guy, I get the impression Rod is more theoretical. I introduced him to Keith, they seem to be two of a kind.
Picked Anne up at the transit center, drove to Sue's and picked up her gang and took them all to the Blue Hour bar downtown so they could celebrate Anne's 50th birthday, which is tomorrow. Stopped to gas up on the way to Sue's. Round trip took one hour and ten minutes.
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