Rants

Being Prepared

YemasseeLast weekend I mapped out a bunch (20) of Post Offices in the northeast part of the state because that is where we would be. I covered all the POs we hadn’t already gotten from I-77 on the west to I-95 on the east, and between North Carolina on the north to I-20 on the south. The first thing Donna did when we got in the car to leave was open the South Carolina map and say, “If we go this way we can get these Post Offices.” Well, she was pointing to a section of the state that I didn’t have close up maps for the PO locations inside the actual towns. This is the second time something like that has happened, so my new project is to go ahead and make maps up for the remaining 277 Post Offices.

I’ve got 40 done so far…

Tonight I washed off the filth that had settled on the Emperor when he spent the night Wray’s place. Which reminds me, when we got to the shop to pick up the car the Service Hostess told me that the car would be out in just a few minutes as it was in Clean Up. Twenty minutes later they pulled the car up in front and gave me the keys. As we loaded the trunk and climbed inside I noticed that the car was dirtier than when I dropped it off (no doubt because it did spend the night outside.) So what did they clean up?

Started up, went down, back up, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 286

Target Shopping

Comstock Covered BridgeWe’ve got an old Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner that is starting to show it’s age. All the tools are cracked and it isn’t picking up stuff well even after a bag change. Plus that sucker is loud, so we went out today to get Donna a nice new fangled bag-less picker upper. Target had a couple in this week’s ad that looked promising.

After the blue law mandated 1:30 PM opening we headed out to Target. Allow me to interject an observation from my cubicle neighbor Jim:

Here in the Bible Belt don’t you find it odd that the blue laws will allow you to go into a grocery store on Sunday morning and buy a 6-pack of beer, but you cannot enter a book store and buy a Bible?

There were three to choose at the $129 price point, a Bissell, a Hoover and a Eureka. I pulled them off the shelf one by one and Donna pushed them around a bit, lifted them and generally got a feel for which one she liked the best. She liked the Hover the best, for a couple reasons, but the auto retractable cord thingie sent it over the top. As a bonus the price tag on the shelf said you got a $20 gift card with it’s purchase.

We had one final request, what did this puppy sound like? We looked all over for an outlet, but couldn’t find one. We corralled a sales team member and asked where we could plug it in. His reply was that he didn’t think they were allowed to do that. We insisted and he called on his walkie talkie to a higher up team member and got the same answer, can’t do it. What’s up with that? I’m sure a legal department team member had something to do with that rule. I was briefly temped to roll the display vacuum over to the TV section and plug it in, but decided to just buy it. If it turned out to be louder than our current unit (highly unlikely) we’d just bring it back.

When we got to the check out it rang up as 129 + tax. No gift card mention. We pointed it out to the cashier team member and she proceeded to thumb through the flyer. In that ad the $20 gift card was shown with a $169 vacuum. We told her that the card on the shelf said this one got a card as well. So she called over a higher up team member, whose response was the gift card automatically shows up, if it doesn’t, no gift card. We asked her to come with us to the shelf and we would show her and her response was, “I can’t leave the front.” Our response was, “Fine, we don’t want this vacuum.” I hit cancel on the credit card thing and we walked away.

Donna said, “Come on, let’s go back and look.” We did and sure enough we hadn’t imagined the $20 Gift Card sign. Trouble was that offer expired 7/7 (yesterday.) Some one had obviously forgotten to remove the promo shelf tag. Fifteen, twenty years ago the retailer would have apologized for the confusion, sold us the vacuum and given us the Gift Card. Now they’d rather just do without the sale and jeopardize future purchases. Sigh.

We came home and I bought the same item from Amazon for $95, no tax and free shipping. Hoover U5507-900

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 264

Asheville

Pearson's Falls, Saluda, NCAiken, SC to Asheville, NC. We stopped and mopped up a half dozen PO’s that we didn’t get to when we were in the Greenville area two weekends ago. Boy did we ever take the circular route to them too. We got turned around at the start in the search for the Furman Post Office and I’m not sure we knew where we were most of the time, but we still managed to get all of them.

We chose Asheville as a destination partially because we like the town and we also planned on attending a Tourists baseball game. When we got here we decided we didn’t want to go to the game after all. After the no attendance at Greenville we have come to the conclusion that we don’t know that we like attending minor league games anymore.

We ended up downtown to get dinner. There were two restaurants that we remembered from previous visits that we wanted to eat at. The choice would depend on the availability of parking near them. First up was Tupelo Honey. It is near a small park that seems to have been taken over by Asheville’s homeless population since our last visit. Fortunately there was no parking close to the restaurant, I wouldn’t have felt comfortable leaving the top down there for fear people would rifle through the interior like any other street side trash can. We had better luck at Doc Chey’s, a truck was just leaving from across the street and it freed up two primo parking spots.

Started down, went up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 229

Bad Glen Campbell Song

Norm & Queen CharlotteWell we did get the 30% off the room making it almost worth staying the night. We woke up earlier than the alarm and just got moving. We checked out at 6:00 a full half hour before breakfast started, but when Donna went back into the lobby to get a Charlotte area map we had seen, she coaxed the front desk guy to let her snag an apple and an almost warmed up Cinnamon Bun. The drive to the airport took us right by the same shopping center that we got ice cream at last night and it had a Panera Bread place, so we stopped in for a bagel and a banana.

We pulled into a long term lot but it seemed like every spot was taken. We wound our way further and further back where we parked against a back fence or as Captain Barbossa would say, “You’re off the edge of the map Jack.” Our shuttle bus driver was a hoot and made whatever we pay for parking out there worth it. She stopped the bus to pick up one group of five, three women and two men. The guys were in the back and the women were up front and started stacking the luggage inside the door of the bus and the driver yelled out at the guys to come forward and put the bags on the rack as they were big strapping fellows and she was just a bitty older women. Once loaded up all was forgotten and she gave them the same spiel as she did us. “To get back here you have to get on a bus for Long Term One, but a short bus and tell them you are in the north west corner. Remember a short bus, like this one, not a long bus as it couldn’t make the tight turns.” We stopped and picked up one lone woman and when she asked what airline of her, she just sighed when the woman answered Jet Blue. Everyone so far had answered US Air. She told the new woman that she would have to get off at the US Air stop as the one she wanted was always backed way up with rubes. She could just walk back to it, it wasn’t far.

Trouble started when I tried to check in using the self service kiosk, it didn’t know me. Not by name or flight or swipe of the credit card. I flagged a clerk and he couldn’t find us in the system either. Off he went to find someone with a clue. She arrived and fingers flew. Seems that US Air stopped flying the morning non-stop to Seattle months ago. They were nice enough to offer us seats on the 5:55PM non-stop, a mere 11 hours later. When we expressed displeasure at that, her fingers flew around the keyboard in a blur (obviously she done this a few million times before.) She could get us on a flight to Phoenix

By the time I get to Phoenix she’ll be rising
She’ll find the note I left hangin’ on her door
She’ll laugh when she reads the part that says I’m leavin’
‘Cause I’ve left that girl so many times before

where we could change planes and hop one to Seattle. One 4-1/2 hour flight just became a 3 hour flight with a 2-1/2 hour layover followed by a 2-1/2 hour flight. “Oh, you want to sit next to each other? Impossible,” she says.

For the first flight we were placed 3 rows apart and the second we were 6 rows apart. But for both flights we managed to find a nice person to swap places, so that we sat right across an aisle on one flight and next to each other on the other. With the amount of other seat hopping that was going on, this seems to be standard flight operations on US Air. Judging by the long lines at the service counters, everyone last one of them, canceled, delayed and changed flights I guess I shouldn’t expect anything less.

Our next surprise was at the car rental desk. Seems that if you rent through Travelocity or Orbitz or some other intermediary company and miss your selected pick up time the quoted price doesn’t need to be honored. Our ridiculously low price for the car jumped by about 100%. After what we had dealt with so far yesterday and today we didn’t put up a fight. Plus it was still lower than the price quote we got directly off the rental car site.

Now everything is just fine. The weather was great for driving with the top down, the Seattle traffic was not nearly as bad as expected, the B & B in Snohomish is nice and new nephew James is as cute as a button. Although he took to me right away about 5 minutes into the visit he decided he didn’t like me at all (no problem, because now I won’t have to change any diapers.)

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 177

Started up, went down, back up, back down, up again, still up.
PT Cruiser Top Transitions since 05/25/07: 4

Stay Smart?

Stay Smart?The adventure begins. After work today we went home and had a quick dinner of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese (as Rachel would say, “Yum-O”) and hit the road. I-20 to I-77 to Charlotte in about 3 hours with one pit stop for gas.

Gnorm says he sure hopes he wakes up a lot smarter for staying in this Holiday Inn Express (805 West Arrowood Rd., Charlotte, NC 28217) because right now it isn’t looking like a smart stay. First there was only a half used bottle of shampoo in the bathroom. A walk to the front desk brought a new shampoo and a new conditioner. Wireless connectivity was nearly flat lined, I hooked up, but could only surf at dial up speed. That explained the three people in the lobby area with laptops open as I passed through on my way to the ice machine. After Donna had showered and she peeled back the sheets hop in bed a little black bug hopped out, a flea. A call to the front desk brought the desk clerk to us with a couple of room keys for something on the third floor and a promise of 30% off the charge. It looked OK, so we moved our stuff. Second room has shampoo and conditioner and three out of four bars of wireless signal strength. When Donna got into bed here she only found three black specks in the sheets. They weren’t moving so we figured they were tiny meteorites, so she just brushed them to the floor.

Tomorrow morning it is up and a short drive to the airport. The guy at the front desk said it is about a ten minute drive and then asked what time were we leaving. When we told him 7:00 AM he went uh-oh. Seems traffic is stop and go around here in the mornings because we are close to both I-77 and I-485, he said better leave earlier, about 6. When asked when breakfast starts, his answer was, “6:30 AM.” Whatever the consequences, I’m getting a cinnamon bun for breakfast, so I guess we leave at seven and take an hour to drive what should take 10 minutes.

Started up, went down, back up, down again, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 175

Part Two – CO2 & Global Warming

Here is the second excerpt from an article by Jack Frampton called Science, Religion, Passion, Cohorts, and the Much-Heralded Doom of Planet Earth from the current (#21 June) issue of Winding Road and online auto mag. If you would like to read the whole thing all you have to do is “subscribe” by giving them your email address and downloading the 17Meg PDF file.

It has been observed that there is a direct correlation between higher levels of CO2 in the air beginning with the Industrial Revolution some 300 years ago and certain acceleration in Global Warming.

This ?discovery? begat the ?greenhouse effect? theory, which begat the whole Global Warming controversy.

Without asking just how reliable the Earth?s temperature gathering was 300 years ago, if one simply accepts that the one happened due to the other, again there is no scientific way to prove the theory.

It is clear that the Earth has gone through a series of warming and cooling cycles, from the heat and humidity of the dinosaur age to the Ice Age in a geological blink of an eye.

And though there are many theories about why one or the other happened, from volcanoes to smashing asteroids, nobody really knows.

In a court of law, the coincidence of warming and the Industrial Revolution?s CO2 would be termed circumstantial and perhaps inadmissible.

We read that there has been much concern in the Alps recently because they have had the warmest winter ?in 1300 years.? This is presented to us as more proof that the world is warming. It could prove instead that we?ve had a 1300-year cold snap. And if the Alps were really warmer 1300 years ago, a whole millennium before the Industrial Revolution and its CO2, what was the culprit then? Goat farts?

Another perfectly logical explanation for the Earth?s temperature fluctuations is solar activity, fluctuations in the energy radiated to Earth, which have warmed and cooled the planet.

Of course, CO2 aficionados poohpooh this suggestion as a theory with no scientific evidence. But, guys and gals, as we have demonstrated, you have no scientific evidence on your side either. Its either declare a draw, or its pistols at dawn.

So, class, let?s review. There are scientists and there is science. They are different.

Scientists are free to use any technology they want, but unless they can reproduce an outcome using the scientific method, it?s not science.

The Earth may or may not be warming long-term, but the Earth has seen this movie before.

And the sun, not CO2, may or may not be the largest influence on Earth?s climate, but nobody really knows.

Part One – Scientists & Global Warming

This is an excerpt from an article by Jack Frampton called Science, Religion, Passion, Cohorts, and the Much-Heralded Doom of Planet Earth from the current (#21 June) issue of Winding Road and online auto mag. Tomorrow I’ll publish Part Two. If you would like to read the whole thing all you have to do is “subscribe” by giving them your email address and downloading the 17Meg PDF file.

Science is a process by which people seek to discover and describe a truth in the physical realm. It?s called the scientific method.

Scientists are a bunch of people specializing in various kinds of exploration using the scientific method to search for physical truths.

The problem here is that when it comes to the environment, the scientific method cannot be used.

The scientific method says that to declare something ?true,? one must create an experiment that replicates theoretical results, like proving E=mc2 by blowing up two perfectly good Japanese cities. Usually there is a control part of the experiment, which does not include a key ingredient of the theory. In the pharmaceutical business, when a drug is tested on one group of people, a similar group of people (the control group) is given a placebo (a sugar pill) to test the difference between getting the drug and not getting the drug. Or in the previous example, dropping a giant goose down pillow on two other perfectly good Japanese cities.

So to ?prove? the notion that A) the world is warming and B) CO2 is the culprit, one would have to take the Earth with its CO2 levels, create an Earth II with capped CO2 levels, let the two Earths spin in space together for a couple hundred years, and then compare the results.

If Earth II showed no temperature increase, and Earth I did, voil??CO2 would be the culprit. If Earth II showed the same temperature increase as Earth I, it would be back to the drawing board.

To date, we know of no Earth II being built. So the scientific method is off the table.

What is being used in our quest for the truth about Global Warming and CO2? Well, for the most part, computer models. And let us state here as clearly as possible that it may be scientists using computer models, but computer models are not science. They are a technological tool.

And while computer models are important technological tools, they are far from infallible. They require a whole list of assumptions that make them unreliable, especially when applied to something as complex as weather. All you have to do is watch the weather report on TV, and you will witness forecasters using three or four different computer models, each showing a different prediction, and then splitting the difference in their forecast. And this is for what?s going to happen tomorrow.

These same sorts of computer models promised us a disastrous 2006 hurricane season. Didn?t happen.

So for these scientists to use their computer models to tell us what will happen in thirty-five or fifty years is, if not mendacious, highly suspect. Remember, thirty years ago Time Magazine reported that scientists (probably the fathers of the current batch) were predicting a new Ice Age, and we were all going to die.

Once a scientist steps away from the cover of the scientific method and its demonstrable physical facts, he is just as liable to be as full of baloney as the guy who bends pipe down at Muffler King.