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?

Breast Cancer Awareness

I have been very concerned over the years on the focus on Breast Cancer "Awareness".  I think the amount of talking about it and the way it is being talked about is making people aware, but it is making them aware that they are annoyed, offended, or wearied by the conversation.

I'm not sure what raising awareness means.  I think most people we very aware of breast cancer and that it kills people or make it necessary to remove a breast surgically.  This is likely because it is widespread and they likely know or have heard of someone who has had it.

Because of the over publicizing of it and the vulgar way that breast cancer awareness is being promoted, I am less likely to contribute to the cause or participate in events the cause is organizing.

Perhaps everyone passionate about curing brain cancer, prostate cancer, skin cancer, or cancer anywhere in the body should unite their resources, rather than having their own private battles.

Our Bodies and Sexuality are Sacred

Even if a good cause is being promoted, doing it by speaking irreverently about our body and sexuality is inappropriate.  

Focusing on Our Bodies Diminishes Our Self Worth

This is likely why many are so devastated after a mastectomy.  They have tied a too much of who they are to their breasts.  It is also likely why many girls and women or so self conscious about their breasts being "too big" or "too small".  When our "sex appeal" is what defines or is our biggest too to stay ahead in life then we are devaluing ourselves.

Hey Joe. What Do You Mean Joe? I Don't Even Know You.

When did it become acceptable for service people to call you by your first name rather than by Mr. Lastname?  It appears that this is even part of the training by the business owners or managers.  I seem to recall, years ago, when I worked as a cashier at Wal-Mart that they instructed up that if the customer used a check or credit card we were to address them by first name.

I admit, I have allowed my children to be much more informal with adults in their life than I think is healthy.

How have we come to this point.  I think that kids are much more well behaved when adults are treated as not just another one of the kids in there class at school or whatever.  I have noticed neighborhood kids that don't even know me being very surly with me.  I have also noticed kids that I teach using phrases like, "You're not my dad.  You can't tell me what to do."

I recognize that there are adults that have done horrible things to kids and kids should be educated and protected on how to deal with those situations.  Kids can be cautious and yet still be respectful.

Service workers can show me respect without being familiar.

Utahans and Crosswalks

I have commented on the obliviousness I have noticed with regard to traffic since I have moved to Utah.  Both from drivers and pedestrians.

Quite often pedestrians will just walk out into a crosswalk, without looking.  Today there was a mother with a new born in a stroller with kids following behind her.  A car is approaching and she steps out and the children follow her out.  When the driver notices that they have stepped out he slams on his brakes, almost hitting them.  He begins yelling at her.  She begins yelling back that she is in the crosswalk.

It should be noted that this was not a crosswalk at a stop light or even a stop sign.  It was just a crosswalk in the middle of a road where driver's would not normally stop and where they likely will be traveling at non-neighborhood speeds.

I couldn't help but wonder if the fact that you had the right of way is a consolation when you are holding your dead baby in you arms because a car, that was unable to stop, smashed into you stroller.

I have seen billboard frequently that put the responsibility on the drivers and guilt them into not running over pedestrians.  Where's the billboard for, "Stop, look, and listen before you cross the street"?

She's Not in the Refrigerator

I was watching the movie What Women Want with my wife the other day.  The character being played by Mel Gibson is fretting over his behavior and trying to make it right, but he can't get in contact with the woman he is enamored with to continue to try to do so.

At one point he is pacing around his apartment trying to figure out what to do.  He then opens the refrigerator door and does the refrigerator gaze, not knowing what he he wants to eat.  He comes to the conclusion that he isn't looking for something to eat at all.  He closes the door and says, "What am I doing? She's not in the refrigerator."


I have seen the movie a time or two before, but this time this line struck me as profound.  How often have we done the refrigerator stare not knowing what we wanted to eat, but in reality we didn't want anything.  We were either bored, stressed, or antsy.


How many other things in life do we do that are little more that the refrigerator stare?  What are we doing?  What we are looking for is not in the refrigerator.

VS

I keep seeing this idea of pitting two things against each other that are not mutually exclusive as if they are.

Republicans vs Democrats
As far as I can see, we do not have a two party system.  We are to believe the two parties are in disagreement and that there is a big difference between the two.  I believe that the differences are concocted to distract from the acts of greed both parties perpetrate together.

This is not to say that we shouldn't be involved in our government and that we shouldn't vote.  We should be aware that there are bipartisan things happening, but they are generally not seen by the public and they have to do with greed.

When bills are produced and one party opposes it and they debate pieces of it, I wonder about the pieces that are in it that are no good that they are not talking about.  Are the debates on certain issues just a distraction so we don't notice the rest of the garbage that is in it?

Church vs State
Our government was founded on religion by Christians.  "In God We Trust"  "One Nation Under God"  This nation thrives when both work together.

Religion vs Science
This infers that there is not thought in religion.  Yes there are those that seem to just move through their religion with no thought, but I would argue that religion is a branch of science.  It is something you study to understand how the world works.  You don't do this without science.  You use the two to understand each of them.

Government vs Business
There is this theater that goes on trying to pit business and government against each other.  All the while the two are working together to get rich by draining the people.  When I hear a debate that pits business against government I have to look for what else is going on.  There is generally something they are trying to cover up or push through and make it look like there is a choice in the matter cause you can choose business or government. The people lose either way.

How to Get It Done

I heard something while watching The Amazing Race the other day that I thought was one of those catching sayings about how to live life that people like so much.


They had a task to perform where they had to put together a huge puzzle with great big pieces.  A member of the team with two models on it and a member of the brothers/cowboys team had a good bit of their puzzles done.  The wind picked up and tossed the pieces all over.  The model guy started stomping around and pitching a fit and behaving like he might quit, as he did several times during the race when things went badly for them.  The cowboy used his clothing and some folding chairs that were in the lower spectator level of the stadium and kept working.  In one of the shots where they ask the player to comment on the tasks they were doing after the fact, Cord McCoy, the cowboy, said, “throwing a fit and kicking and screaming wudn’t goin’ to help get my puzzle done.”


As we run into things where life hands us a trial, perhaps it might be useful to consider that throwing a fit and kicking and screaming likely won't help us get our puzzle done.

Temporarily Blinded by Smoking

Early in the pre-dawn hours I'm cruising down I-15 at 70 or so and see the flash of sparks and ash bounce off my windshield. Startling me and momentarily blinding me, which are both great at highway speeds.

I have often seen sparks bounce under my gas tank from a careless cigarette, smoke fill my car from someone smoking next to me at a stop light, and the piles of littered cigarette butts in the median, but a flaming cig bouncing off my windshield is a new one for me.

The world is your ash tray.