Getting It Up

Locally renowned entrepreneur (and my old friend) Ernie Epplethorpe is starting another new business, Excellent Ernest’s X-Ray Emporium. He sent me a copy of the message he spammed around, partly so I’d know what he’s up to and partly in case I wanted to bid the job. (I didn’t.)

Website designers: I’d like to create www.excellenternestsXXXemporium.net. I’ve been working on it myself but have started to realize I might be better served getting grants for the business and hiring a designer. If you are interested (and are seriously affordable) please call me. Thanks!

No sooner had I responded to that message than a new client did show up in the dooryard. A local dipswitch manufacturer named Dudley Donato is moving from his garage operation to a shared new building in the county industrial development park in Puffin Center. Mr. Donato needs to install some new packers and to scale up his order fulfillment technology since most orders are either for one or two switches or for one or two pallet loads.

Dudley Donato’s Dependable Dipswitches and Excellent Ernest’s X-Ray Emporium. Really. I couldn’t make this stuff up.

We’ll have new equipment on Mr. Donato’s dock by the end of February.

I told Mr. Epplethorpe that we’re not cheap enough but I did advise that he would be well served by concentrating on his core strengths and hiring (somebody) out to do the jobs he doesn’t want or can’t do.

That’s Business Startup 101.

There’s a caveat, though.

Mr. Epplethorpe, despite the grandeur of his newest corporate name, is a sole proprietor. Here’s what I asked — and told — him:

Are you working the requisite 80 billable hours/week? If not, are you working 80 hours/week on something that will lead to something billable? Are you motivated enough to do it yourself?

If those answers are no and no and no, Are you a good enough HTML jockey and are you also good enough at marketing? If so, your own time might be better spent on webwork than on other activities.

New business owners have a perennial problem. When there is enough time, there is never enough money to do a job. When there is enough money, there is never enough time.

We’ve all seen the new “Coming Soon!” restaurant in town not open and not open and not open while the owners slave with spackling and paintbrushes and oven wiring. Not much money coming in the doors when the doors aren’t open. The best argument to plan for outside help is this: excellenternestsXXXemporium.net has yet to go live and Mr. Donato’s dipswitches are switching on and off already.

The Great Female Vocalist (rock/pop/country singer-songwriter) of last week just finished submitting a new song to the Library of Congress. “It is so easy now that everything is done electronically,” she told me. “Some artists have ‘people’ to do this stuff. I am my people. Hey, I think I’ll have a company party tonight.”

It was a great party.

I Didn’t Know

In “real life,” the place we used to call “meatspace,” I chair a small regional arts council.

Over the years, we’ve hung a lot of art and presented a lot of concerts including the only stop the national Artrain ever made in Vermont; Artrain included works by Henry Casselli, Peter Hurd, Peter Max, Jamie Wyeth, and my friend Deborah Deschner from Vermont. We brought to the stage April Wine and 17 other bands in an all-day benefit we called Floodstock, held in the same site as the Grateful Dead concerts.

I know lots of artists. I know lots of musicians. Hundreds. Maybe thousands, but not as many as Mark Sustic. And I’ve strung cables on stage and lugged gear.

That’s why it surprised me that I didn’t recognize the gear in this Facebook conversation:

Great Female Vocalist (rock/pop/country singer-songwriter):
Last night the guts fell out of my Shure PG58. Dangit. Do any of you vocalists out there want to recommend your favorite mic for live performances? I’m in the market! Thanks!

Band Leader #1
EV N/DYM 767A

Supercharged Drummer:
Shure Beta 58

Supercharged Drummer:
Or a Sennheiser E935

House Rocker Drummer #2:
Well then… Put the guts back in… The little set screw most likely fell out or became loose.

Gypsy Singer-Guitarist:
Shure Beta 58 is what I use.

Great Female Vocalist:
Well, I’d heard from my sound man that he’d appreciate me getting a better mic so that he could make better adjustments. That’s why I’m looking for feedback. I always liked that mic, but I don’t have the sound man’s perspective.

House Rocker Drummer #2:
Shure SM58 Industry work horse. But I am old school …If all is adjusted correctly…there is no feedback.

Band Leader #2:
I like our Beta 87 A’s for live work. Check with [female vocalist]. She has a mic she swears by. I forget what it is though.

August Sound Engineer:
I absolutely love the AUDIX OM-6 and it’s great for female voices. Highly recommended… Same with the Shure Beta 87A of course. There’s lots that’ll work well for you and of course that depends on your budget too. Best idea is testing them with your own voice though ! Good luck

I know that Shure designed the legendary SM58™ vocal mic for professional vocal use in live performance, sound reinforcement, and studio recording. I even know what it looks like. But I have no idea which of these mics is right for our Great Female Vocalist or whether some other one not named would be even better.

I’m a pretty knowledgeable guy with a broad expertise. Want to devise an AI controlled pick-and-pack warehouse or just a pick-and-place machine? I’m your guy. Need a suspension consult for your hot rod? I’m your guy. Want to design a website to sell your artwork? I’m your guy. Need a landscape photo or an opinion printed in portrait? I’m your guy. I didn’t know that I didn’t know an answer to this. And unlike most 3rd or 4th graders and most politicians, I couldn’t simply make one up.

There are undoubtedly lots of other questions I had no idea that I know nothing about. Maybe as many as the number of musicians I’ve never met. Using that data point of one, I shall now generalize that there are issues in this wide world that our self-proclaimed pundits also have no idea they know nothing about. But soooooo many of these authorities will analyze, and philosophize, and sound off anyway.

Gotta be a lesson in there somewhere.

Bloody Hell, Part 1

It’s the media’s fault.

It’s the Tea Party’s fault.

It’s the Demorat’s fault.


I have spent the last week or so watching the news coverage and Innertoob noodlings that blamed pretty much everyone but the Man in the Moon for the Arizona shootings.

I’m tired of the Blame Game.

Paul “Buster” Door, a now-retired North Puffin car dealer and Democratic party official, has spent the entire time railing at me about the “climate of hate and blame” that set Jared Loughner off on his path of disintegration. “Dupnik proved his case without lifting a finger,” he said about Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. “And now the Party of Hate and Violence has turned its lie machine loose on him.”

Hello?

Buster doesn’t think the lie machine will get much traction there in southern Arizona where the 75-year old “anti-Sheriff Joe” has been re-elected seven times since 1980.

“The lunatic right-wing conspiracy theorists created the atmosphere that drove Loughner to act,” he said. “Their Dupnik spin comes through loud and clear about how hard they’re working to ‘prove’ their conspiracy theory about Mr. Loughner’s actions.”

Right wing conspiracy theories? Hello?

The NY Times reported that Mr. Loughner’s comments were “strikingly similar in language and tone” to the voices of the Internet’s more paranoid, extremist, right-wing militia writers. The NY Times.

I did have to correct Buster a few other times on the facts in a conversation he started about the wonderfulness of the sheriff.

Arizona seems to be the national capitol for wack jobs. Sheriff Dupnik comes through loud and clear, alright. Last year he said out loud that he would refuse to enforce his state’s immigration law. This year, when he should have been investigating the shootings, he spent his time building the defense’s “debbil made me do it” case by telling everyone who would listen that it was all the fault of the right wing media.

I can understand why Buster want this guy for his sheriff. I don’t understand why anyone else would.

To set the record straight, over the past week even the MSM news admitted that if Mr. Loughner is political at all, he leans left. Funny thing about jumping to conclusions.

“Since we’re engaging in sophistry,” Buster said “Dupnik’s comment was simply that, should the bill become law, he wouldn’t enforce it.”

No sophistry. Dupnik said he wouldn’t enforce the law.

Period. Paragraph.

“Nice job trying to steer the discussion from the real point,” Buster said “and off into a total non issue.”

We do agree on that. It’s what leftwingnuts do.

See, every single MSM outlet including the NY Times jumped all over Mr. Loughner as driven by “that hateful national political rhetoric” that drove his murderous fantasies. And, in spite of what the ongoing investigation shows, Buster still want to blame “that hateful national [conservative] political rhetoric” for the murders instead of blaming Mr. Loughner.

A. Man. Killed. Six. People.

But Buster keeps pushing “that hateful national [conservative] political rhetoric.”

A. Man. Killed. Six. People.

But Bernie Sanders is fund raising to combat “that hateful national [conservative] political rhetoric.”

A. Man. Killed. Six. People. He killed 9-year-old Christina Green and Federal Judge John Roll and wounded 14 others, including U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, his apparent target.

But all Buster can talk about is us hateful conservatives and our rhetoric.

It’s what leftwingnuts do when they can’t dispute the facts.

So Buster changed the subject.

“You saw that Sarah Palin got into it, right?” he asked. “She deliberately riled up her gun nuts with that reprehensible comment about the mainstream ‘journalists and pundits [who] manufactured a blood libel to incite hatred and violence against them.”

I know the stories that Jews used human blood and the particularly blood of innocent Christian children to bake the matzos of Passover. I didn’t remember the term “blood libel” nor did I associate it with the Jews when I did.

I’m a pretty fair country wordsmith and I use metaphor and allegory in most teaching and most of my editorial writing. “Blood libel” is not a word pairing I would have dreamt up so I have to believe Ms. Palin’s speech writers knew exactly what it meant.

Blood libel is, frankly, no worse than Mr. Obama calling Congressional Repuglicans “hostage takers” then offering to negotiate with them. Sends terrorists a great message that does. Blood libel is, frankly, no worse than calling a budget bill a “rape of the American people.” There wasn’t a woman in America untouched by that statement. Blood libel is, frankly, no worse than Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) saying “Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him” about then candidate and now Governor Rick Scott (R-FL).

Mr. Kanjorski issued a pretty explicit call to violence. And yet. And yet Buster and Jon Stewart ignored it. If Rep. Joe “you lie” Wilson had called for Nancy Pelosi to be put against a wall and shot, the Demorats and the MSM would have eaten his shorts.

This is a bad trend. Next thing you know, we’ll start equating our politicians to Catholic priests.

It’s what leftwingnuts do when they can’t dispute the facts.


This column started out spinning the giant Blame Game wheel. Let’s see where the ball landed.

It’s the media’s fault. Yeppers.

It’s the Tea Party’s fault. Sho ’nuff.

It’s the Demorat’s fault. Exactly.

That’s all true but the real truth is simple. It’s your fault.

You, dear reader, buy the newspapers. You, dear reader, tune to those television stations. You, dear reader, spread these exaggerations and untruths. And the media, the political parties, and your neighbors echo you.

Ya Just Can’t Count On…

In real life my business provides I.T. and web support. HarperCo is the “offsite” I.T. administrator for a number of businesses and is the site developer and host for a growing list of clients. (As an aside, we got here by accident. I’m a mechanical engineer, for heaven’s sake — I spend the rest of my time designing widgets and telling companies how to run their businesses. But you teach just one computer course, see …)

So.

This weekend proved the old adage that when things can go wrong, they will. I probably should have titled this You Can Always Count On…

Subtitled, A Cautionary Tale.

I hope Bad Things really come in Threes.

First up, my new UPS. That’s Uninterruptible Power Supply, not the nice guy in the brown shorts (I still want to race the truck, but that’s another story). We had a little power outage Friday. Then we had another. And another. The battery symbol my new UPS went from fully charged to empty and the Battery Charge indicator bar flashed about a minute after the power went out the first time. It happened faster after that. I took it back to the store for an exchange.

Nice store clerk: “We have a 14 day return policy.”

Moi: “No, the receipt says returns can be brought in through today.”

NCC: “Oh. Well, we can’t take it back without a box.”

Moi: [Uh oh. That means it’ll go back on the shelf] “But we have a box. You exchange this one for one that works, I put this one in the new box and give you that box.”

A five minute task took twenty-five minutes, partly because it took a few for me to find the one remaining replacement in the store. The new UPS box looked like it had been opened but the packaging inside seemed mostly untouched so I’m cautiously optimistic. (And I took as much of the wrapping as I could so the returned item doesn’t look “new” on the shelf.) The charge indicator indicated a full charge almost immediately and reports about 36 minutes uptime with the current load which should be about right. I’ll test it when I’m not on deadline pressure.

Next comes Windows Vista™. My friend Missy arrived next door for the winter. Brought her Vista™ equipped laptop and her wireless router (“WiFi”). I had worked some magic last year and it worked with no problem. This year Windows connects to the router but in local mode only, meaning Missy gets no Internet access on her couch. She can connect fine on her network up north. And the problem persists whether wired or wireless through the router. We tied a string directly to the cable modem and the Internoodle snapped right in.

Sounds like a router problem, doesn’t it?

Well, no.

She has the same problem connecting to my router next door even as other computers run through it.

Hacking the Registry™ didn’t work. Apparently it’s a fairly well known issue in Vista™.

I love computers.

Meanwhile, number 3, out on the Innert00b. One of my clients gave me the go-ahead to change web hosts. This is not a huge site — it has about 3,000 files and requires around 25MB of storage — but it is mission critical for the agency that owns it.

Changing registrars and hosts is pretty automated. Get an AUTH-CODE from the losing registrar. (All registrars have a bot to deliver that. Happens all the time.) Click a button at the gaining registrar to pull the domain name. (All registrars have a bot to do that. Happens all the time.) Wait for the losing registrar to approve the transfer. (All registrars have a way to do that. Happens all the time.) The whole process generally takes 5-7 days.

We’re now in day 11.

It took five days just to get the AUTH-CODE from the losing registrar. (our-old-host-dot-com has a bot to deliver that.) Got it. I clicked the button at the gaining registrar to pull the domain name and waited for the losing registrar to approve the transfer. (our-old-host-dot-com should have a way to do that. Happens all the time.) So we waited. And waited. And waited.

By about the fourth time we asked our-old-host-dot-com to comply, my blood was pumping well. Good that my Blowout Preventer was operational.

Turns out that the contact address for the domain name was not set to one of our addresses but to sales@our-old-host-dot-com. They also listed their own phone number, a number that is no longer in service. I wonder how that happened, since our-old-host-dot-com registered the domain for the site owner.

“Not our fault,” they said.

Really good that my Blowout Preventer was operational.

I kept waiting.

I was finally able to sneak in the back door and change the contact address to one monitored by a human. OK, monitored by me, but I was watching it. Got the gaining registrar to resend the approval form. I approved it and Bob’s your uncle, right?

Well, Bob’s not my uncle.

The site was dark this morning. Actually, the site had a big Your website has been suspended banner this morning.

The our-old-host-dot-com customer service manager and I have gone back and forth most of this morning. The good news is that I’ve cancelled the transfer with the gaining registrar and the customer service manager has added time to the current plan “to ensure it does not go offline during this transition period.” The bad news is that this simple, automated process was fouled by a simple bad call more than five years ago. Our-old-host-dot-com used bad contact info in a legal record.

There must be a moral in this morality play.

And there is: Don’t step on the sand burs. They hurt.


Rats. The moral is simple. My mom was right. Your plan never survives first contact with the enemy but human intervention usually fixes the problem. You can count on that.

What a Disaster!

Policemen police. Runners run. Writers write. And we all look over our own shoulders now and then.

This week I write about what I missed. And what I didn’t.

I cherish a few beliefs about myownself. This blog isn’t about me. These columns are what Faux News calls fair and balanced. And I AM™ never w-r-r-rong.

OK. Two out of three ain’t bad.

Last month, in writing about millionaires, I admitted that I’d rather be a millionaire than not. I’m not going to increase my personal wealth much by putting a Paypal button on this site. The week before that, I confessed that I now understand why liberals don’t geddit. And just two weeks before, I told the story of my mom at the corner of High and Gay.

This is my 333 entry since I started blogging in 2008. 220 of them have been in the op-ed category I call Random Access. Many of those (151) fell in the Politics and News category. I imagine you can figure out what topics I covered.

“Politics is like the weather,” I wrote in 2008. “Everybody talks about it. People think they can predict the weather. Or change it.”

The pieces that had more impact were more personal. 2010 was a busy year. Liz Arden sent me a family picture of herself with her parents and I riffed that into a story about my mom as an elderly woman who could have been slain by a taxi. We learned that “full” in a small town parking lot is different than “full” in Miami or New York. gekko and I wrote an ongoing series together.

My family didn’t have a lot of stuff when I was growing up. We had a boat but not a lot of cash. My dad’s job was the typical junior exec and we shared the homestead with my grandfather; we all had to work for what we did have. I came out of that feeling depraved but not deprived.

Rufus missed [bleep]ing Asbestos Dust back in May. He was amazed. The rest of us about died. A week earlier, I had written that “Kids aren’t allowed to eat dirt.” Number One daughter had been banned from classes because she wore a t-shirt to school.

I did spend some time wondering why my friend Swampy Swamtek, with all his brainpower, with all his education, with all his belief in conservation, can’t remember to turn out the lights when he leaves a room. I remembered that, since the heady days of Apollo 13 forty years ago, no man has had to walk twenty-five miles to school every morning, uphill, barefoot. Both ways. According to this president’s plan no American man ever will again.

And I took some time off from worrying about the claim that women’s hot flashes are responsible for Global Warming to reminisce about my sports car races in the 70s.


I somehow missed the fact that the Mets did not make the World Series. I didn’t once write about the United/Continental airline’s merger that brought together 700 planes, dropped employment from 88,000 to 77,000, and shared 7 bags of 2003 peanuts among us. Airlines put fares up $20 across the board. I never once mentioned Christine O’Donnell’s Rhodes Scholarship in comedy which is at least as credible as her candidacy turned out to be.

I’ll keep hammering the small town politicians who want you to believe that paying twice as much for half as many police officers in your town is a way to save you (tax) money. And when Congress acts on H.R.6907, a measure to ban further activity at Eyjafjallajökull, you’ll hear about it here first. Most important, in the spirit of WikiLeaks, pretty much everything personal rattling around between my ears will sooner or later fall out on these pages.

Politics is like the climate. Everybody talks about it. People think they can predict the climate. Or change it.