Cell Phones

A couple of weeks ago Sweetie told me that our state was banning the use of hand held cell phones while driving, and that this ban would take affect in November. I, of course, being the "know-it-all" that I am told her that "I find that hard to believe." I wanted to say "You're wrong", but in order to save face in case I wasn't right, and to be polite to the woman I love, I edited myself. The following day in our local newspaper ran the article: "Cell phone users warned of bogus e-mails." The article mentions that the state legislature is considering a ban, but that's all so far, just considering. Apparently the proposed ban hasn't even gotten out of committee yet and hasn't been discussed on the house floor, and at the time of the article (10/10/2007) , it hadn't even had it's first hearing in the committee yet. Well I had to do a short "I told you so" comment to Sweetie, and she politely told me (thankfully) that she was surprised, rather than kicking me in the 'nads for doing a verbal "touch down celebration dance". Apparently she had fell victim to an Email scam that was going around telling people that the cell phone ban was taking place on November 11th. The fraudulent Email didn't just snag Sweetie in it's trap, it apparently also caught a lot of other people, who got upset and started to call their state representatives who were completely taken by surprise because most of them didn't even know about the proposed ban yet. There have now been at least 2 newspaper articles in our local paper, a blurb on the hourly radio newscasts, and a short story on the evening TV newscast. In all of these stories they described this massive response to the government representatives. They talk a lot about how people were duped, and how people should check their facts before forwarding on Emails. Not one of theses commentators dared to mention the fact that there were a lot of people who apparently do NOT want a ban. So to me, it sounds as if this proposed ban, should be shot down before it even gets started. Now before I go any further, let me say, that no one is banning cell phone use completely, only that they are wanting to restrict it so that if you want to use the cell phone, you have to use it 'hands free'. Hands free means using an Earphone, speaker phone, or one of those BlueTooth ear buds. This of course means that you have both hands free to drive, or at least one hand free to drive, and the other free to gesture with as you talk. I personally believe that the ban is wrong, but by saying that I don't mean that it's a good thing for people to use hand held cell phones while driving. I have been on many conversations with people who have had "near misses" while talking to me on the phone (yeah, Sweetie, that would be you). Once I was on the phone having an innocuous conversation with my youngest sister when all of a sudden I heard an usual noise and then silence. I later found out she had been in an small accident, and fortunately she wasn't hurt. I don't know if the innocuous conversation contributed to her accident, but I have to believe it didn't help her avoid it. I believe the ban is wrong only because I don't think the government should restricting our freedom to do stupid things. If we start banning stupid things, how long before they ban me for talking? Later Lou

100th post...

Woo Hoo!

Today I am having a celebration of sorts...

I am celebrating a monumental occasion: This post is my 100th entry to this Blog!

Who would have thunk I had that much to write about? Well I don't, actually which is why I just ramble along... and it's taken me almost three years to get here!

Thinking to myself:

Wow. I am good, I just worked the the title of the blog into the post... just like those screen writers work the title of the movie into the script. Maybe I should become a screen writer? Nah, I like my mediocre income and complete lack of fame. Of course if I did write a movie, I would probably be even less wealthy than I am now, and I would be famous only in as much as I was known as the worst movie writer ever... oh wait... I believe that title has already been taken... by _______ (you fill in the blank).

OK back to the post...

I use StatCounter to provide the little "ticker" that shows the number of people who have visited my blog, and another one that counts the visitors to my family's website, that I manage. Even though I have posted 100 times on this blog, I only have a little over 6 times that many visitors, and most of those visitors are me. So if you take away two for each post for my own visits, that leaves on average 4 people visiting per post. Not much of an audience, huh? Oh well, I write for myself anyway. :-) The visitor counter, is not all that StatCounter does for me. It has other less obvious features as well. One of these less obvious features of StatCounter is the additional reports it provides about the Internet visits to the website. Of course some people think this is invasion of privacy, and maybe they are correct, but whether or not it is, I think it's fun information. It's not like the reports provide very much detail anyway, but it does provide a little fun data like:

• The general area the visitor is from (city, state, country). Of course this is only the location of their ISP, not the location of the individual's home or office, but it gives a general idea of where the person is that is reading the page.
• It lists the various pages the person viewed while visiting the site
• And of course it shows the time and day they visited, and if possible how long they may have visited the site.
• The only other information it provides is and what search engine, or link referred them to your site.

This last bit of info is the one that I always find the most interesting.

There are of course the normal expected referring links from my family's website, from one of my kid's blogs, or from my various profiles on sites like Blogger, Yahoo or Flickr. These expected links are the ones I often intentionally plant in hopes of leading people to my ramblings in hopes they would comment, laugh, or otherwise be amused. The unexpected referrers come from the search engines. Now I am not surprised that people can find me through the search engines, but I am surprised at what they are searching on that leads them to me. Now it's extremely possible that they weren't really looking for me, but rather something much more exciting like porn or something... but they stumble across my site and read a little and then skitter away without leaving so much as a whisper that they were here. BTW: There isn't anything on my site that could remotely be considered porn, but then again, what else do people really search for on the Internet now a days? I mean, here it is Thursday, and I am not even doing the HNT ("Half-Nekkid Thursday"). The funny thing is, I actually get thank you notes for not doing HNT. :-) Well let me share with you some interesting search phrases that have brought people here:

1. "hit a rock mower stopped working" (from Missouri)
2. "dream interpretation 1 half slipper" (from Hawaii)
3. "my property is very sloped" (from Florida)
4. My favorite: "old person's rambling" (from Western Australia)

Yes, I have written something about all of those topics, except the "1 half slipper" part, and yes, I am an old person rambling... (well old enough to know I am not quite young any longer...) But what type of person searches for these kind of topics? I don't believe I know or have met any of these people. If you are one of those people that actually searched on those topics I listed, please don't be offended... I am glad you found me, and hopefully you added my blog to your favorites and you visit often... But I have to believe you weren't looking for me when you searched for those things, or were you? If not me, then what were you actually searching for? I think today is a banner day, no matter how people get here... The only thing on my mind now is whether or not I can create 100 more posts before the end of 2008? Later Lou

Traffic violations...

Back at the beginning of September I mentioned I got pulled over on on my way home for speeding, but the trooper ticketed me for an expired inspection instead.

Last week, "Sweetie" did a favor for her cousin and drove her to Pittsburgh to Heinz Field for the Steeler's game. She didn't go to the game because she was expecting guests at her home. On her way back from Pittsburgh she got pulled over for speeding (4o in a 25 mph zone) through a small town a few miles from her home.

The police officer was not the most "pleasant" person she had met. Her apprehension at being stopped and his immediate gruff demeanor, got her so nervious she couldn't extract her driver's license from her wallet. The "understanding" officer told her he couldn't touch her wallet and she had to take it out for him. She started to panic and couldn't get it out.

While she was struggling, the officer decided to push her nerves to the edge. He started asking her questions like: "Where did you come from?" and "Where were you going?" Even though Sweetie was struggling to keep herself together she still had enough wits to ask why those particular questions were relavant to him pulling her over. He promptly informed her that as a police officer he could ask her anything he wanted. His questioning made her feel like she was living in a 3rd world country, or that she was a criminal. I thought in this country we have the freedom to not answer?

Well I decided to do a little research and found an interesting article about why a police officer may ask questions, and what to do. Click here to check it out.

Eventually the officer let her go, but not after giving her a citation for speeding that will cost her over $100.00. Although no one wants to pay $100, that bothered her far less than how this officer treated her.

A few days later I took her out to dinner and at the restaurant was a table of four police officers eating. She almost had a panic attack thinking that the officer that just pulled her over was there. The host that sat us reassured her that they were from the sherrif's office and didn't do traffic stops, and she relaxed a little. The host then preceeded to share with us a story about him getting pulled over on the same road that I got ticketed on in September, and like me he got pulled over for speeding, but got ticketed for the expired inspection instead. I wonder if it was the same police officer?

I have talked to a few friends, and most people feel that police officers are generally gruff, but that the one that pulled over Sweetie was a little more rough than most. I suppose being a police officer is a stressful job, but putting people on the defensive immediately doesn't seem to be an effective way of dealing with the public... Is it?

I know Sweetie's experience with the police hasn't made her feel any more secure, in fact it has done the exact opposite. She is now going out of her way to and from work to avoid the small town she got pulled over in. If the officer's intent was to keep people from visiting his town, he is doing a good job!

Later Lou

New Dollar Coins

Yesterday as I was heading out to lunch a fellow coworker stopped me to say "Hello". He noticed I had a small handful of the new Presidential Golden Dollars in my hand, which I was going to use to pay for lunch. He hadn't seen them yet, so I showed him the coins. If you haven't gotten one of these new dollar coins, you should stop to your local evil bank and ask for them. The government is going to mint four different $1 coins each year for the next 11+ years. Each coin will have a different president on the front, called the "obverse", of the coin, and all of them will have the Statue of Liberty on the back, or the "reverse". They are a golden color, and even though they aren't real gold, they are cool to look at. This year they have already released coins with George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. Anyway, back to the story... We started to talk about the minting errors he had heard about the new $1 coins. As with all coins there are tons of errors (remember it's the government who makes them) to discuss, but he focused on the new edge lettering. On the edge of these new coins the mint inscribed the words: "In God We Trust", "E Plurbis Unum", and the year of the coin's mintage ("2007"), and the mint mark (usually a "P" or a "D"). They did this to give more room for the presidential portrait, and to make the coin more unique.

One of the most well known errors on the coins is the missing wording on the edge of the coin. At first some people who got the coins thought this was intentional to remove the "In God We Trust" from the coins with all of the political "hay" about religion and government, but this isn't the case. Instead it was a minting error that created some coins without the writing, and they are now being called "Godless coins". Some of the Washington "Godless" coins have sold on eBay for $600, but most sell for around $40-50. The Adams "Godless" coins are rarer and are commanding an higher price. Of course there are a few people trying to cash in on this error by filing off the edge writing and trying to sell the fake "Godless" coins as authentic errors. My friend said that he heard of another error related to the edge writing. He said that the mint intended for the writing to be read correctly when the coin was face up, but some of the coins have the writing face down. I hadn't heard that, and I thought he was pulling my leg, so I kinda dismissed him with a wave, and went off to lunch. Well today, pulled out a handful of my $1 presidential coins and I looked at the edge writing. Of the 20 coins I examined, 8 of them had the writing face up, and 12 had the writing face down. If it's an error, I have a whole bunch of them! Which of course makes it unlikely that the error is worth anything. I did a quick Internet search and found that it is in fact not an error! The mint never intended to control the direction of the edge text. The machine they use to inscribe the edge does not check the direction of the coin before it inscribes, so there is roughly a 50/50 chance of the text being face up or face down.

So if someone stops you on the way to lunch and tries to tell you that $1 coin with the text the "opposite" way is worth money, don't be fooled and wave him (or her) off and continue on to lunch. Later Lou

Cats...

I don't believe I have ever mentioned it here or not, but I am a cat owner. Actually I own two cats, because just like kids, sometimes you get one you didn't expect.

The black cat is "Squeaky Z". He got his name because he used to meow incessantly, and because his tail is crooked, and has a little "z" shape in it. I got him as a kitten and he used to follow me around the house like a puppy dog. No matter where I went, he had to go as well. He would follow me into the bathroom when I took a shower and would poke his head into the shower to make sure I was OK. He stopped doing that when he realized that there was water in there that would get him wet... Now he just stands guard outside the shower. He still follows me around the house, but not as much as he used to.

The grey cat is "Scrappers". Scrappers moved in when my mom was in the hospital, before she passed away, and he was supposed to be a short-term guest. Unfortunately when my mom passed he didn't have anywhere else to go, so he became a permanent resident. He has learned from Z to follow me around the house, so now they both follow me around. Scrappers doesn't stand guard at the shower, but he does jump into the tub after I get out to get a drink from the dripping facet. Scrappers has taken over the sink in my bathroom, and I believe he thinks it's his bed. He is there seemingly all the time.

Scrappers is kind of a "brute". He is much bigger than Z so, he has taken over as "head of the household" between the two cats. Z has taken quite a few months to get back to his original disposition. For the first 4-5 months Z became the proverbial "scare-dee-cat", and would go into hiding and wouldn't socialize with people. In the last month or so, he has started to warm up again.

Z is very, very picky about the cleanliness of his liter box, and lets me know when he is unhappy about it. He first starts to whine, a very specific meow, to let me know to take care of things. If I don't do it soon enough, he poops on the floor, right outside of the litter box. Even though I have two litter boxes, they prefer only one. And with the two cats, keeping the litter box clean is a seemingly hourly chore!

Today I decided to move the one litter box, their favorite, to a new location, because I am just tired of the smell. Z was not happy with my decision and let me know by pooping on the floor again, where the old litter box used to be. I had showed him the new location, but I think he was trying to tell me he liked it where it was. Hopefully I win this "debate" and he starts using the box in the new location.

Sweetie told me a story about a lady who had nine cats all living inside her home. I do enjoy my cats, but I can't imagine having nine of them. I am struggling with the two I have now!

Later Lou