Time flies...

I guess it's true what they say. I almost didn't believe them until I looked at how long it has been since I blogged.

$700B financial bailout

Just watched the President's speech. I have some thoughts:

• I predict this bill will become a factor similar to "I didn't vote for war" (which may be one of the reasons Hillary isn't the dem's presidential candidate) for future political campaigns
• This may encourage other businesses and industries to continue on a downward spiral of poor decisions with the hope of a bailout.
• We may end up only delaying and worsening the fallout.
• I like the idea that our government could make money on this, but FICA makes me think otherwise. I wonder if we should force the profit to goto stabilizing FICA and ending it at the same time.
• I don't know if I can get past the fact that capitalism allows businesses to flourish at the risk of losing everything

The most positive point I can pull from this is to say "thank you" to Wall St, et al., for reminding me so harshly to be fiscally responsible. I have always had the luxury of having enough. I have not had a hardship with this economy, but it has really opened my eyes.

Jury Duty

That was the longest Jury Duty I have ever had. I was there from just before 8AM thru 10:15AM.

I spent 1/2 hour of that time trying to get a Sprint Wireless card working. I must be getting old b/c I could have sworn I used this device on the same notebook a couple of weeks ago.

Jury duty is also very expensive. Unpaid time off, no parking lot provided, opportunity cost... They did pay me. $6 for the day plus $2.52 for the 36 mile drive (as calculated from the center of my zip code). I netted $3.27 after paying $5.25 for parking.

It sounds like I'm complaining, but I don't mean to. I'm happy to serve & I hope karma will repay me for that if I'm ever falsely accused. I was almost disappointed that I wasn't selected as a juror.

Jury Duty

I have jury duty tomorrow. Maybe I'll come up with a blog entry...

Internet privacy

I have to say that I don't trust Google. I'm afraid that they are going to turn out to be Skynet. Yes, I know they own Blogger and that I'm a hypocrite here!

They have so much data.

A friend sent me this warning.

Congratulations Kimberly!

I just received news that Kimberly is receiving a promotion. She will be the new Unit Manager over a group of folks that have the same role she currently holds.

She starts tomorrow!

1 late email cost $16,000

I participate in some online groups that focus on topics related to my business (managed services, smb IT service, etc.) and a recent post was on the topic of monitoring outbound email after it has passed thru the local (to a small business) mail server.

The fellow who posted the topic had a client that did not know his email was delayed by 3 hours. The client was claiming that this cost him $16,000. Wow! He was pissed (I would be too).

My first question was, why did the guy rely on email for this communication? What made him think that it was a "guaranteed" communication method? There are an unlimited number of factors that could have interrupted that communication. Here are a few that come straight to my mind:

• Spam filters - as everyone knows, these are a necessity for the current email system. You probably have also had to deal with a false positive (when a legit message is caught in the filter)
• Internet - it's not perfect... sometimes routes are delayed or down completely
• Power was off at the recipient
• The recipient just didn't read it - this one is big for me! What's to say the sender's message was ever going to be read?

If I was sending a message that I knew was worth a lot of money and was also time sensitive I would take steps to ensure that the recipient saw my message. Some folks use read receipts. These can work but some people ignore them or their mail client doesn't support them (I am actually annoyed by them b/c many people over use them).

Another method is to add some type of enticement that causes a reply message. Ask a simple yes/no question. You can also take this as far as spelling it out: "Please respond to let me know that you have received this message". I have some accounting clients that have to do this!

Call the recipient! If you haven't heard back, then call them to touch base and see if they received the message.

Above all, remember that when you hit send your communication is not guaranteed to arrive!

Tommy Bahama Golden Sun Rum and Sushi

Kim is in Florida visiting her mommy so I decided to treat myself to some Sushi from Siki on 291 HWY in Lee's Summit.

I like that place. The last time I was there, the fellow who cuts the fish (he's the owner, too) had been drinking since 9 or 10 AM. Sounds like a fun job. ;-)

So, I had a Spicy Crab salad, Red Mackerel, Salmon, Fresh Sea Eel, and Spicy Tuna Rolls. That's a lot of food; I wanted some for lunch tomorrow.

Before going to the restaurant I stopped by CVS and grabbed some beer. They had a new rum on the shelf, Tommy Bahama Golden Sun. It was about $30 and thought that my Dad might like to try it. I took it home and let the dogs out before eating.

On my way home I stopped and picked up my Dad so that we could enjoy the rum tasting. He hadn't eaten so I gave him the sushi. He doesn't eat sushi very often (this is important). After a couple of bites, he remarked that it was good.

I pointed out that the ginger was white (usually it's pink wherever I eat sushi) and said that it was really good. The wasabi (a blob about the size of a quarter) was right next to that and I think he thought I was remarking about that instead of the ginger. He ate the entire ball of wasabi with a tuna roll!

If you have never eaten wasabi, it is very important that you know about this strange substance. It is "hot" but not like chili peppers. You could put a dob on your tongue and it wouldn't particularly burn, but it would definitely clear your sinuses! Whenever I eat too much, my nose immediately clears out and my eyes water.

Dad was going nuts! "Water!"

"Pugh!" - he spit his food out.

I asked what was wrong (but I already knew). I felt pretty bad about laughing at him. He was coughing on and off for 20 minutes.

You can easily sum this up: "Stop laughing and get me some water!"

First post!

Thought I would explore the features of Blogger.

I want to keep a log of my life's progress; personal and work-related.

I'll look around and see about adding on! Meanwhile, check out www.ProComputerSolutions.com