Shouting Match In Ogden Utah Neighborhood 25 April 2012

25 April 2012 7:30am
Before work this morning my son and I went to go for a jog.  When we went out the front door we heard a woman screaming profanity at someone.  We look across the street down the block and saw a woman yelling at a man, saying she wanted her stuff out of his truck.  It looked like she had pulled up next to him and blocked his driver's side door with her car in the road, so he couldn't get in and drive away.  She also stood in front of the truck.

I'm so sick of people standing outside in front of their houses yelling at each other.  One time I saw a couple specifically walk out side to do the yelling instead of staying inside.  I debated just ignoring it and going for our walk.  I want the police to continue working in this neighborhood to get the bad elements out of here, so I called 911.

I described as best I could from what I could see from down the block.  After he drove off with her on his hood I walked over to her car and tried to get her license plate number and make and model of the car.

At one point he walked up to her and shoved her out of the way of the truck.  He went to get in and she jumped back in front of it.  He then picked her up and moved her to the grass.  Again he tried to get in the truck, but she was back in front of it.

At one point the hood came open.  I think she opened it to try to disable it, but I have no idea how she got it open without getting in the cab.

He finally slid into the driver's seat from the window or from banging the door into her car.  He started the truck and she jumped up on the hood.  She started kicking the windshield.  They sat there a while longer and then he drove a few feet with her on the hood.  He stopped to give her a chance to get off.  Then he drove around the corner a little further.  He then stopped to have her get off.  Finally he drove up the street and turned on a different street out of sight.

I heard from another neighbor that perhaps they had driven over by a school and the police picked them up there.

Shortly after they went around the corner a police office pulled up.  He talked to another lady in a car there.  At first I thought she was a friend of the woman and was waiting for her, but she was just a person going by.  She had also called 911.  After he finished talking to her he came and talked to me.  He told me to hang out for a moment and then drove off to try to find them.  Twenty minutes or so went by and I was about to go take my jog and then come back, but as I was leaving the police officer came back.  I gave him my information and then went on our way.

My son and I took a short jog and then came back.  We then walked my daughter to work.  I got showered and got ready for work.  When I went to leave for work the yelling woman's car was gone.  My wife said they had towed it.

I have several things I question about situations like this.  Why would you want your private argument out on the lawn.  Many times when one is mad they say something they regret and are sometimes wrong in some way.  Why would you want your neighbors to see you like that?  Was the stuff in the purse or whatever worth a hundred dollar ticket?  The cost is probably way higher after she has to pay the tow truck and impound lot.  Additionally disturbing the peace, assault, reckless endangerment or whatever other charges are going to get thrown at her.  It is all worth what is in the truck or attempting to get emotional satisfaction out of him?

The World is Watching

A while ago there was a conversation on Facebook that was started by one of my friends.  Somehow the conversation turned to funny passwords.  As the conversation went on one of her other friends, who is not one of my Facebook "friends" poster the key to her home wifi, since she thought it was a funny password.  I was able to see her wifi key because she commented on my friend's post, even though I am not her "friend".  Every person that was my friends "friend" also could see it, even if they were not the wifi owners "friend".  Once they see it they can do anything with that key they want to.


I assume that she is thinking she trusts her friend and her friend would not have friends that were "that kind of person".  I know many of my friend's "friends" and some of them may be idiots.  Are they dangerous idiots?  I don't know and neither does the person throwing around her wifi key, which is dangerous in and of itself, but the post then could get someone interested enough to seek out more information on her and her family, which was quickly obtainable.


Within a few clicks I was able to get this person's home address.  I did this by looking at her friend list and found her teen aged daughter in the list.  I then did a Google search for her and her daughter sticking in the name of the high school or town or something like that which I gathered from their Facebook pages.  It turned out that the daughter had had several newspaper articles printed about her, due to her high school activities.


As I quickly gathered information from these various sources out popped the address.  I was able to zoom in on it on Google maps and see exactly where the house was, the layout of the yard and neighborhood.  If I am nearby and need internet access I know where to go.


More recently I was contacted by a job recruiter.  For ease of reference let's call her Jane Smith.  She rang my phone and then sent an email.  The email asked for a five minute phone conversation.  The job was in a town near by, but not near enough that I would take the job.  I ignored the email.


Three days later she rings and then emails again.  This time the email opens with "I wanted to reach out once again regarding..."  This time I responded.  I thought it was the professional thing to do and I thought I should take a swing, just in case they were open to telecommuting.


On the brief pass I gave it the company looked like it was an interesting opportunity.  I thanked her for contacting me and expressed my interest in the company.  I told her that at this time I was not considering opportunities in that town for jobs, unless there was an option for telecommuting.  She responded, "At this time telecommuting is not an option but we will keep your information on file for future roles that would be of more interest to you."  She then proceeded to ask me about friends I had that would be available for the job and again stated she just needed a quick five minute conversation with them.


The next day I get another email from her.  "I'm being persistent about this opportunity because I think you would be a valuable asset to the [company name] team.   As you know, recruiting is a lot like sales. You have to get through the 'no's' and 'not right now's' to get a yes. I'm willing to do that."  My "Not right now" was just yesterday.  I responded and asked if they had changed their mind and the telecommute option was now on the table.  She replied with, "I followed up with my Project Lead and at this time [company name] is not offering the option of telecommuting. We will keep your information on file in case anything changes."


This all prompted me to find out who I was dealing with.  I found her on LinkedIn.  It said that she has worked at the company for 10 months.  LinkedIn also had a page on the company she works for and I found the state and city it was in.  I then found two people with her name on Facebook.  One in England and one in a town just outside of the city the company she works for is located.


I Googled her name and that town.  I found an article from years ago when she was in high school.  It gave the name of the high school.  The article was about two girls that had been killed in a car accident after drinking at a party.  There was a quote by someone named [Jane Smith] that went to the high school in the town where I am deducing the recruiter lives.  The article said, "classmate [Jane Smith] says matter-of-factly, ''I don't know anyone who doesn't lie to their parents [about drinking],' "  While one of her classmates stood next to her nodding vehemently.  One could mistake this as painting her as a drunk and a liar.


As a point of information, the recruiter's names appears to be fairly unique, unlike Jane and Smith, so I am pretty confident I found the right person.


I found another fairly recent news article from the same town Jane Smith lives in about a Jane Smith that had a run in with the law.  It gave her age and her home address, which I would assume is her address still based on the date of the article.


The headline was "OUI Liquor, Drug Distribution Charges Filed", even though her offense had nothing to do with that.  The article was just a list of people who had been arrested or summonsed on a wide variety of charges.  With regard to her incident the article stated, "[Jane Smith], [age], [address], [town], was summonsed to [another town] District Court after  [another town]  police filled out a complaint on Nov. 7, charging [Smith] with unregistered operation of a motor vehicle and uninsured motor vehicle. Judge [name] dismissed the case."


I did the math subtracting the year of the article from the year of the article that stated she was a senior in high school.  I then subtracted that number of years from the age they gave in the recent article.  I ended up with the age of a senior in high school, so I am figure it is the same person.


Additionally, the Facebook page that I think is hers has a profile picture of a women in a bar with bottles of alcohol behind her and a couple of drinks on the table in front of her.


If an employer, or in my case someone considering whether to do business with her, looks at this and makes the wrong conclusions it could look very bad.  It could appear that she was a drunk and a liar, who very recently couldn't register and insure her car, possibly because her license has been revoked for drunk driving and she is uninsurable for the same reason.


The true answer to why she couldn't register and get insurance could be that she was unemployed.  Having been employed at the place she is working now for only 10 months might support that.  Someone looking at this may not have seen the length of employment and may not make the effort to look at the possible logical, non negative reason.  Although one looking for possible negatives might say that she was unemployed because of a drinking problem.


The point I am trying to make is that we have to be careful what information we post online and that youth should less often give the excuse that they are young for their actions and simply make better choices.  Those choices can follow us for a long time and some are documented and not difficult for people we are trying to forge relationships with to find.


Of course young people are young and maybe haven't been taught to make good choices.  The additional lesson, then is to parents.  Give you kids boundaries.  Teach them standards.  Have standards yourself.  Know their friends.  Check up on where they are going and who they are with.  Yeah it is time consuming and difficult.  It is called being a parent.


Privacy is an important issue and it is taking people a while to get their heads around what things compromise their privacy that were not an issue years ago.  Unfortunately people are more and acting in irresponsible ways.  A decrease in privacy combined with an increase in irresponsible behavior is a recipe for disaster.


I think there is value in having open availability to information.  I think there is more value in people knowing how to behave and not being proud that they are still young and can still make bad choices in the name of having fun.

Leaving Memorials When a Tragedy Happens.

After the shootings of the police officers across from my church on Jackson Avenue in Ogden there was a bunch of stuff left by people  as a memorial or something.  It was left on the steps on the church property that lead down the hill to the road.  It was candles and plants and so forth.  The candles burned down to a bunch of wax.  Some of the glass containers broke and broken glass was all over.  The plants died and they were just pots of ugly dead plants left behind.  The stuffed animals got wet and dirty and frozen.  They didn't belong to anyone, so no one took them home.

It is winter time.  The stuff got frozen to the ground and made a hazard for those who use those stairs.

I am not sure who left this stuff, but I am guessing it was people that are not from our neighborhood.  I know they wanted to do something because they felt bad, but they came into our neighborhood and left stuff for us to clean up.

The candles and plants did not make me feel better, but the trash that was left that our neighborhood had to clean up made me feel worse.

The stuff was left on private property and the owners of the stuff took no responsibility for them.

I can appreciate that people wanted to do something nice, but I don't understand littering as a gift.  If you want to leave something nice, then come back in a few days and clean up the mess.

Police Shot on Jackson Avenue, Ogden, Utah January 4, 2012

We are almost into the fifth week of CSI being up at the house at the top of the hill from us where a police officer was shot and killed and several other injured Wednesday January 4, 2012.

My entire family had been downstairs in our basement hanging out.  Our two youngest children decided to go upstairs to play.  They immediately came back down and said there were police cars in front of the house.  We slowly went up to see what the deal was.  People get traffic tickets every so often in front of the neighbors house and people fly down the hill to the stop sign near our house, so we figure it was something related to that.  Although, there have been several break ins in the neighborhood over the last three years we have lived here.

We even had a guy run through our back yard after stealing a car stereo one year.  A police detective came by after that to talk to us about what we had seen.  We were in bed at the time.  I think my eight year old son had said that he had seen someone moving in the back yard.  We have cats and dogs roaming all over the place, so I told him to go back to bed, since he said they were gone.  I installed security lights shortly after that.

On the night of the shootings when we got upstairs we could see the police cars and it appeared there were more at the top of the hill to the south of us.  A moment later we heard what I thought could've been firecrackers.  I don't deal with firearms much, so the sounds are foreign to me and fireworks are the only frame of reference I have.  We have people in our neighborhood being loud with fireworks on occasion, but it is generally localize to around Pioneer Day and the 4th of July, since if it starts a little early and goes a little long.  With as many police cars as there were I figured it was probably gun fire, but I couldn't get my head around it, since I have never been around something like this.

A few minutes later what sounded like more firecrackers, but with a steady pattern.  I was pretty sure that was definitely gun fire.

I texted people in my church congregation who live on nearby streets to let them know what I was seeing and hearing.  They said they were seeing stuff being reported on TV.  One of the people in my congregation gave me the address.  It appeared that it was the house right next to another member of our congregation.  I called the father in the family to see if they were ok.

He said they were hunkered down in the basement, staying away from windows, but wasn't sure what was happening.  I asked him if he had ever had trouble with the neighbor, whose house the action seemed to be coming from.  He said that they had not.  I figured they would be being flooded with calls, so I quickly got off the phone with him.

A guy from church stopped by after work to check on us and watch the excitement.

The police had blocked off Jackson Avenue just south of Chatelain.  But they did not block off Goddard, which is the next street to the south and right at the crime scene.  Cars were coming into the area and the police had to turn their back on the crime scene where gun fire was happening to get the cars safely out of there.  It seems like they should've blocked all of the streets around our church, which was right next to the action.  The police were using the church's parking lot as a base of operations, so not sure why they didn't block the streets.  We had tons of police spectating from in front of our house.  It seems like they could've been mobilized to block those streets.

A friend from church a day or so later said that he worked for KSL and his colegues were looking for neighbors to interview.  I told him to have them give a call as to when they wanted to do it and I would be willing.  They called while we were hiking in the mountain and said they were at my door.  I told them I would be home in a couple of hours, but wasn't sure that would make their deadline.  She said that it would not meet their deadline and they had talked to several people.  She asked me a few quick questions on the phone to assess if there was anything different that I witnessed.

Update 25 Apr 2012
This morning the CSI was up there again this morning.  At least two vehicles for twenty minutes or so.

I have heard that the family of Matthew Stewart, the shooter, have tried to go maintain the house and have gotten hassle, since it is still a crime scene.  How long are they allowed to lock down a property as a crime scene?


Update 15 Jun 2012
I went for a bike ride with my son tonight and we say several police cars and a couple of CSI vehicles in front of the house where the shooting took place again.

It appears that someone broke into the house.  It seems less than bright to break into a high profile house like that.

Someone commented to me recently that there has been people walking the streets around that way that appear to be part of gangs at five in the morning.  I'm not sure what to think of that.

The Law at DC Auto in Clearfield Utah Noon 11-14-2011

November 14, 2011 12:10pm

I just saw four law enforcement vehicles at D C Auto in Clearfield, Utah.  I think they were David County Sheriffs.  At least one of the vehicles had their emergency lights on.  They were behind the building and appeared to be doing something with a black pickup truck and a man and a woman.  I saw something on the ground behind they truck.  It could have been a car seat, but it appeared to be bigger with blankets or something on or around it.

There was a tow truck next to the black pickup truck, but I could not determine if it was part of the situation or if it was just one that was at D C Auto, because they do towing.

I do not have any information on if there was an arrest being made or something else.  It just caught my eye that there were four law enforcement vehicles there with emergency lights on.

I would be interested if anyone knows what was happening.

Below are some pictures of the scene.

Amish Shunning

My wife mentioned some movie on Amish and their practice of shunning, that she wanted to watch.  It made me remember back to when I was a kid and my parents rented a house on this farm property surrounded by other farm properties.

There was a couple of sisters that lived up at the top of the hill from us.  They had chosen to have electricity installed in their house, due to the fact that one of the sisters had a medical condition that required some sort of electric machinery in order to survive.  I had been told that the Amish community had shunned them.  From what I was told that meant that they weren’t supposed to talk to them or give them support of any kind.

I don't know if all the facts are accurate, but that is how I remember it from when I was very young.

I also remember being told about an Amish guy that would go borrow his neighbor's telephone. We were on a party line, which meant that everyone shared on line, even though we had different numbers. If someone was on the phone no one else could use the phone.

This Amish guy would pick up the phone and someone would be on it. He would bang the phone and make a bunch of noise until you got off.

Glass on the Ipod/Iphone

I am listening to the commentary on Steve Jobs and Apple after his death.  One point they keep beating on is that Steve Job could not live with plastic on the IPod/IPhone.  Steve Job wanted glass.  They are saying they would not want an IPhone at this point without the glass.

I, on the other hand, find this to be a failing of my IPod.  I see a big market for companies that replace the glass as it gets smashed as it gets bumped or dropped.  I recently got a replacement for a broken IPod.  The problem was with the power or the battery or something, not the glass, but it had little fractures in and scratch on the glass.

I also have seen many people walking around with smashed screen glass.  I don't know if plastic is what I want, but there needs to be something more durable for the screens on these devices.  They are carried in our pockets.  They are used in our hands.  They are carried in our hands, while we are holding other things.

Cutting in Line

In American society, it is unacceptable to cut in front of people who got there before you and have been waiting in line for things like the grocery store or the theater.  How is it that we find it acceptable to cut in front of people waiting in line at a traffic light?

The Gambling Lane
There are many places where there are two lanes at a light and one is clearly ending within a few car lengths past the light.  In these situations I often find cars lined up in the lane that is not ending and a car or two with slide ahead of that line into the lane that is ending.  Then at the light cut in front of those in line.  Many times just to go slowly in front of them due to traffic, thus making those who have waited in line wait even longer.

If there is someone in the lane that is ending and they can't get out in front of everyone they try to slide to the second or third spot.  When the person in the second or third spot refuses to let them in, the person trying to cut will often get angry with them, as if they have the right of way.  Let me repeat this, the person who is trying to cut in line; a behavior, if done in a store, would likely result in an altercation; is upset because someone is saying no they will not tolerate their rude behavior.  This sounds very much like when a smoker gets mad at a no smoking sign.  The person that wants to be rude is mad that the people around them have said no to the rude behavior.

I admit, I have fallen tot he temptation to use that lane to get ahead of traffic I assessed that would be slow to get moving, but it is a gamble.  When I use that lane and I get cut off by the people I am cutting ahead of that is the price I have to pay.  I gambled and lost.

Two Single Opposite Lanes to Two Lane Running Together
Another situation I have noticed with cutting in line is where you have a single lane on one side of an intersection that has a left turn arrow and a single right hand turn lane with a red light on the other.  This is in a state where you may turn right on red after coming to a stop.  These two single lanes converge into two lanes going in the same direction.  If I understand traffic law correctly, when you make a turn you are to stay in the lane closest to you and then if you need the other lane, signal and change lanes, once you have completed the turn.

What I have noticed at one particular intersection is that the left turn arrow people mostly swing to the right hand lane, thus cutting off the right turners from the other direction.  They do this because they want to get on the interstate which entrance is on the right.  The right turners just sit there and wait for the light to change, as if the left turners have the right of way in the right hand lane.  Some of this is fear of collision and some of it is because most of them want to get on the interstate via the entrance on the left.  Neither of them seem interested in getting out there and negotiating a lane change after they turn.  They both want to change lanes while they are turning, which I am almost certain is illegal.  I don't believe you are allowed to change lanes in an intersection.

When I have been the right hand turner I have nudged my nose out there showing my intent to go and the left turners stay over and I proceed.  So long as they see the behavior that everyone is going to yield to them, they are going to keep cutting in front of the right turners.

There is much behavior that comes about when driving that would never be tolerated and no one would ever consider doing if they were secluded inside a vehicle.

The Royal Wedding

The wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton was today.  In America it was the wee hours of the morning and still I saw several people got up to watch it on their televisions here.  To what end?  What is the allure?  We don't know these people.  We probably even know them less well than we know our own leaders or celebrities.


Are people so unhappy with their own lives that they have to live through a royal family.


There is a movement to continually give to the American Indians because of the wrongs done to them by certain people in this country many many years ago.  The entire nation is called to pay for those things.  The British Empire also did vile things to the American people many many years ago.  They sent troops over here to kill our nation in its infancy.  Yet, we hold the family of the man that did it to us up to such high respect and esteem?


I do not feel the British Empire or the royal family owes us anything, but I am using this as an illustration to give some perspective.


Now let's set that soapbox behind us and look at the people involved.  Put the pomp and circumstance aside.  This is two people trying to start their life together.  They want to celebrate their love.  This goes beyond a celebration and is well into a spectacle.  Do we not remember what this young man's mother went through with being in the spot light.


When you get married you should be able to invite YOUR friends and YOUR family and not have to invite whoever is needed to to make a statement.  Nor should your guest list make anyone think that you are making a statement by not inviting them.


Let's leave the fairy tales and carriages and big dresses in the story books.  Let's let Prince William and Kate Middleton have their own life and let us have ours.


Be happy with who you are.  Live your own life to the fullest possibly can and set the distractions and unimportant things aside.

Facebook Shared Accounts

I was involved in a discussion with some friends on Facebook.  One friend posted that they wanted to add their spouse's name to their Facebook account.  I had seen one or two doing this previously and I didn't like it.  I now see the trend of people changing their name to something like Myrtle AndOscar Jenkins.  This is slightly better than a husband opening a Facebook account with his name and then the wife taking over the account and doing most, if not all the posting.

Reasons they do it

• My friend was expressing that their spouse wasn't on Facebook and had no desire to have anything to do with computers, so they wanted to have their friends have a way to see stuff about them.
• My friend also said that their high school reunion was coming up and they thought it would be easier to contact them both that way.
• Another friend expressed that if someone says something to one of them that they can say it to both.

Reasons I don't like it

• I don't want to see all of the junk from people my wife wants to have as friends.
• You can not search for Oscar Jenkins, because Facebook sees AndOscar, not Oscar.  So if I am searching for old friends I have to search for them and parse through all of the Oscar Jenkins and then all of the AndOscar Jenkins.  It is hard enough to determine if it is your old friend since people put profile pictures of everything except themselves, but when you have to search crazy names it is even harder.  This means that the point of making it easier for high school friends to find them for a high school reunion actually makes it harder.
• A better use of the name field is to use maiden and married names.  So if I search for Myrtle Jenkins or Myrtle Yoder, which was her maiden name and the name I knew her by, I will still find her.
• When I see someone online in chat I don't know if I am getting Myrtle or Oscar?
• If I want to plan a surprise for Myrtle with Oscar, then that makes it hard since Myrtle can see everything.
• Update 7-28-2011 - Today I had a friend pop up as having a birthday.  They have a shared account.  Whose birthday is it?  How will I know when it is the other persons birthday?

Zeppelins

I have seen several TV shows that revolve around time travel or alternate Earths or alternate realities where they show Zeppelins being widely used.  If it were not for the Hindenburg and the evils the Germans did with the Zeppelins, would they have ever been a viable form of transportation?

To me Zeppelins seem unstable, bulky, and costly.  The majority of the space in them is filled with gas and appears to be unusable for anything else.

Thoughts?

Buy American

This is a difficult subject for me to address, because I want American to be strong.  Unfortunately I seem to be arriving at the opinion that buying American because a product says "Made in America" on it is not the way.  I will detail some of the reason I feel that way below and I welcome respectful and thoughtfully worded discussion in the comments.

Just because a product says "Made in America" does not mean that all of the money paid for that product stays in America.  It could have been made by a foreign company, which has a manufacturing plant in America..  It could have been made by an American company that outsources much of it work to foreign countries, but manufactured the item in America.

Just because a product says "Made in China" or whatever other non-American country it might be does not mean there aren't American jobs that rely on that product.  I think we often just look at the manufacturing jobs that are gained or lost and forget that a company has other jobs that they pay for.  Those jobs might be being performed by Americans.

Sometimes I hear people complain about how little people in other countries make to produce our cheap clothing.  If we take the position that we don't buy those products to show that we don't want them paying low wages to people then those people make the equivalent to $0 instead of just what ever they were making before that was more than $0.  Saying to only buy things made in America has the same effect.  I do believe that we have to take care of those closest to us first, but still something to think about.

What about vacations?  Should we only vacation in The United States.  Tourism is a big industry and if we vacation outside The United States we are giving tourism jobs to other countries and taking work away from Americans.

As said at the beginning of this post, I want a strong America.  I think that taking the position that people must buy "American" just because it is American or says "Made in America" on it does not make us stronger.  American is stronger when we compete.  If we do it better then we will be strong.  If American companies only can make sales by virtue of being an American company and not from innovating, then America is weaker.  The Declaration of Independence tells us that we have the right to the pursuit of happiness.  It does not say we have the right to happiness.  We have to pursue and catch it ourselves.

One area where I do think we need to "Buy American" is in private charitable contributions.  I think we as individuals spend too much money on causes overseas rather than establishing private programs to educate our own people.  We spend a ton on building schools in far off places.  How about privatize the school system and then the American people donate money to support it?

If our population is well educated, then we will be competitive in the market place.

Stop Moving My Keys

Anybody else irritated that every keyboard is configured slightly and sometimes considerably different. Delete, ins, home, end, pg up, pg down, and such just thrown on willy nilly where ever they can fit them.


Some of them have even removed the Pause/Break key entirely.  When doing software development every so often I have to use Pause/Break to more precisely break into the code than just pausing the IDE.

If I Can't See Your Face I Can't Tell It Is You

People are locking down their profiles on Facebook, which I think is mostly a good thing, it helps against identity theft and deters creeps from finding them.  Unfortunately it also keeps long lost friends from finding them.  If I search for Steve Jones (names has been changed to protect the innocent) I am going to get a long list of Facebook users, likely.  If the Steve Jones I am looking for has hidden all of his information, I can't tell he is the one I am looking for.  Many times this isn't an issue, since there is a profile picture and even though it has been years I can still see that it is good ol' Steve Jones.  So long as old Steve hasn't had major plastic surgery or something.

Unfortunately people seem to be using their profile picture for anything bu their face.  We get cute pictures of their kids or pets or even their spouse.  Many times they are in the photo, but because it is a thumbnail on Facebook, it is hard to make out their face since they are not the focus of the picture, but the couple or group is.

Please Steve, change your profile picture to your face.  We miss you so much and we can't find you.

Utahans and Turn Signals

Almost everywhere I have lived, there is a small, frustrating percentage of people that don't use their turn signals to indicate what they are doing, so as to keep traffic flowing well and prevent accidents.


Here is Weber County, Utah there is an epidemic of folks that don't use their turn signals. No signal for lane change, merging, or turning.


This morning was the ultimate example. Two cars were at a stop light in the straight/left turn lane. Neither of them were signaling. The light turns green and they both sit there for twenty seconds looking at each other. Then both of their left turn signals come on and they proceed with their left turns.


It would've been a little humorous, if I was not stuck behind one of them, waiting to make a left turn myself.  I shook my head in disbelief of what I had just witnessed.


Usually the people I see not using their signal are people whose lane is ending and they are merging into traffic.  They appear to either be oblivious to the fact that it is their lane that is ending and not the lane they are merging into or they assume that people are so courteous here that they will just back away and let them in.


There may be some validity to their assumption, if they are indeed counting on the courtesy of others, but it is a dangerous assumption to make.  Many around here do extend "courtesy" to those that are in front of them, regardless of how rude they are being to those behind them or what the law is.  One should still signal and look before merging, in spite of this.


I saw a similar phenomenon is Indiana.  People generally wanted to be courteous and would stop and let people into the flow of traffic.  That is great except for in the case where one stops where they have no stop sign to let a person with a stop sign go, because the one at the stop sign is not getting a break to come out.  This confuses everyone.  The person stopped know they have a stop sign and yet are being motioned to move out into traffic.  The people behind the "courteous" person are confused because they may not see what charitable act they are trying to perform, thus they might trying to go around them and then crash into the person that was let out when it was not their right of way.


It also isn't great when a "courteous" person let's multiple people merge out in front of them, while the line of cars that has been patiently waiting for a very long time get delayed longer and longer.  If everyone let's in one car, traffic in both lanes with flow.


Another traffic thing I see here, which is either courtesy or the fear of being hit is letting a left turner with a green arrow turn into the far right lane, while a line of right turners coming from the other way sits and waits on them.  The person at the front of the line generally just sits there and waits for the green arrow from the other way to go away, even though there are two lanes and the left turners should stay in the left and the right turner in the right.  If they need the other lane once they turn, they should signal and keep the traffic flowing.


Instead what happens is that a line of right turners back up and it takes forever to clear them out, because there are too many of them to make it through the next light after they turn.  In the meantime all of the left turners that drifted in to the right lane have cleared out because they are making a subsequent right turn.


If both would stay in their own lane, then the left turners want to make a subsequent right would still move out and the right turners making a subsequent left turn would be able to trickle through the next light and not back up.


Even though folks around here generally don't use their turn signals, they do make turns.  Left turners often cut their turn short, drifting into the left lane of on coming traffic after the turn.  If there are two turn lanes the right most lane will drift into the left lane and further encourage the left lane to head into oncoming traffic.

Gas Leak?

A few weeks ago I smelled a strong gas smell on the back porch.  The only I could figure was the grill.  I checked and it was off.  I turned off the tank in case it was leaking.  The next time I went out the smell was gone.  A few days ago I was at the fridge and smelled a little bit again.  Since all of our kitchen appliances are electric I blew it off after a little bit of investigating.

After doing all the stuff with the kids on Christmas I showered around 1 or 2.  When I walked out of the bathroom, I smelled the gas smell again.  The bathroom is across the hall from the furnace room. I sniffed around the furnace room and it was a little here and there, but I could find nothing and it went away quickly.

I crowd sourced the problem a little by posting the problem on Twitter and Facebook.  I also texted a couple of friends.  I didn’t know if you called the fire department or the gas company or what.  One friend said to try soapy water on the joints of the gas pipes, but I didn’t know what I was doing and it all just looked like soapy water.  Others said crack two windows for cross ventilation.  Others said call the gas company, but had no idea of charges or if they could do anything about it.

I finally called the gas company to find out what to do.  They sent a guy out.  Neither the lady on the phone or the guy that came out mentioned a charge, so we will see.  Why does this stuff seem to generally happen on weekends and holidays?

The guy came out and was very nice.  He found no leaks.  He said the water heater vent was loose and he tightened that.  It looks like that is an open hole with a dome over it that leads to the outside pipe.  I wonder how that isn’t always leaking exhaust into the house.

He said that the chimney looked in bad shape and I should maybe have it inspected and cleaned.  I didn’t figure with gas heat their would be anything to clean, but he said dirt and stuff get in there.  He opened a little door at the bottom of the chimney and it was packed with dirt.  He put a mirror in the door and could not see up the chimney.  Does that mean it is clogged or that they sealed around the gas exhaust pipe when they put it in?

Free Shipping

Will we ever get to a point where there will just be a cost for a product and shipping charges will go away?

I remember a time where folks would either charge you extra to use a credit card or not take credit cards at all because of the fees credit card companies charge the vendor.  I also seem to recall certain vendors only allowing credit cards if you purchased a minimum amount.

This rings very similar to the model we have now where vendors charge the shipping charges back to their customer.  When I go to a brick and mortar store there is obviously a cost to them to move the product between the manufacturer and the warehouse and the store, but I never see a separate charge on my receipt for those shipping charges.

We are to the point with credit cards where I can spend a few cents on my credit card at a store and have no penalty.  Certainly it is possible to have shipping be a cost of business, spread across everything a vendor sells.

On the subject of reducing those costs, some of it might could be done by shipping to the customer directly from the manufacturer.  Another thing could be to have a shipping co-op where multiple vendors can leverage lower shipping charges.  If I order something from Amazon and Tiger Direct and some other place and somehow the shipping co-op can group things going to the same address together.

Even if none of these cost reductions are possible, I don't believe a vendor should hide the total cost of the product by splitting it into separate charges.  Then again the phone companies do it all the time with all the various fees and taxes.  Even stores do this with a separate line for sales tax.  It seems like that should be a cost of business too.  Tax is going to be charged, so account for it in the cost of the product without hiding it from the customer at the bottom line.

Who Says Facebook Can't Make a Difference

I saw this post on Facebook come through, apparently commenting on the ridiculousness of copy other people's statuses into your own to cure the world's problems, while not doing anything more.


"Copy this text and put it in your status if you know someone or have heard of someone who knows someone. If you don't know anyone or even if you've just heard of someone who doesn't know anyone then do still copy this. It's important to spread the message. And the hearts! ♥♥♥♥♥ For goodness sake, don't forget the hearts! ♥♥♥♥♥"


I am actually considering posting this, even though I don't generally do the copy status thing.  Additionally I am considering adding my own commentary, included below.


"You may think this is absolutely worthless, since I did nothing more than copy this from someone else's status and not a thing more.  What you don't realize is that if I get a bunch of others to post this, it makes me feel like I am a good person and that people like me.  It is all about me anyway."

Facebook Eliminates Violence Against Children.

I have started to see the following being posted to "friends" statuses on Facebook.


"Change your facebook profile picture to a cartoon from your childhood and invite your friends to do the same. Until Monday, there should be no human faces on facebook, but a stash of memories. This is for eliminating violence against children."


Well if it will eliminate violence again children, of course I will change my Facebook profile picture to a cartoon character.

Why Can't the Most Influential Woman Wear Pant to the Office?

I was watching This Week in Tech episode 274 today.  They were talking about some list of the most influential people.  Leo Laporte threw it over to Xeni Jardin to give her opinion of the list.  At first she just blew the list off as unimportant and then she started commenting about the female representation on the list.  She was disputing why the female representation on the list were Sarah Palin and Lady Gaga.  I agree with her to that point.  There are tons of women that are better influences than them, but just as the panel talked about earlier in the episode it isn't about being a good or positive influence, just most influential.

The thing that struck me was that Xeni made this comment, "Why can't we have one woman that wears pants to the office and does something interesting with science and technology."

Why does a woman have to wear pants, as opposed to a dress, to be influential.  I agree that there needs to be more to a woman than her body, but wearing a dress does not make a woman less competent, nor does wearing a dress have to be flaunting.  There are plenty of women wearing pants who try to use their femininity rather than their talent to advance themselves.

Why does a woman have to go to the office to be influential?  I think Mother Teresa wore a dress and did not go to the office and is often referred to as one of the more important women ever.  Women do more influential and important thing when they don't have to go to the office and chase power and money all day long and work for the interests of some corporation.

Why does working in science and technology make a woman more influential than other pursuits?