Measure twice, cut once

And other life lessons I should have learned by now. I hear that the web link I put in my last post, well lets just say it didn't work so well! Along the same lines on Monday I went to the Luxor Casino and repaired the wrong truck! Note to self: Always match serial numbers!!! Aside from that work is going well. I still like it a great deal.

Roger and Deanna left on Tuesday. Nancy is here until Thursday or Friday. We had a great time with them. I'll soon have some more pics up from their visit.

I have to also discuss the primaries. The Democrats are in a bit of a dilemma at this point in my opinion. Obama cannot beat McCain. Clinton cannot beat Obama, unless she is handed the nomination by the super delegates. If she is indeed handed the nomination I suspect that she will lose to McCain because of the outrage from Obama Democrats. It will be very interesting to see how this all plays out.

In other news, as back in Michigan where there has been sightings of the ever elusive "Panther" in south east Michigan, in Las Vegas there have been sightings of a lioness on the prowl. I was lucky enough to capture two photographs of the lioness as you can see below:

Memsistor

According to Hewlitt Packard they have created what they term a "memsistor" or a "memory resistor". First theorized in 1971 it now appears to be real. If what they say is true it may well revolutionize computing and electronics in general over the next 5 or so years. A memsistor is defined as a non volatile, non linear electronic component that defies Ohm's Laws. A memsistor is defined as a non volatile, non linear electronic component that defies Ohm's Laws.
It was created in the HP Quantum Physics Research Lab. As voltage is applied in one direction, resistance increases, and if applied in the opposite direction, reistance decreases. In adidtion, being non volitile, it remembers it's last state. To carry this further, one could imagine a computer that only needs to be booted 1 time because it will always remember what its state is. It could also be used to drastically reduce power usage by elctronic devices. Other uses can be left to the imagination. At this point the memsistor is just switiching from research to developement and may bear fruits in the next 5 years.

P.S. I heard about this on NPR so it has to be ture!!!

Sunset Park

Sunset park is a place that you can often find us at. It has two very nice dog runs, several ball diamonds, and a large lake. The last video I posted here shows Sunset Park and many, if not all of the "doggie park" pictures come from Sunset Park. Drivers called police after they saw the man laying in Sunset Road at Eastern, right next to Sunset Park. Witnesses say they saw two men running after the victim. They say he was stabbed several times and the killers ran away.
There have also been two murders there in the last few months. Sunset Park may have only been the dumping ground for the first murder victim, a young lady. Her boyfriend, who is believed to have fled to Mexico after an initial interview with police, is still being sought. She had disappeared New Years Eve and was found several weeks later at the park.

The second murder appears to have happened late last Tuesday although details are sketchy at this point.

Gas tax holiday?

It is nothing but a gimmick. As if we, as consumers, would even see any of the price reduction. This is pandering at its worst. There are no short term fixes for the price of gas with maybe the exception of changing our driving behaviour, which in all honesty is not very likely to happen anytime soon. Sure the sales of larger truck and SUVs are down and the sale of gas sipping cars are up, but this would take years to to actually change the price of gas. Our only solutions are long term. They include:

1. Drilling at home
2. Conservation
3. Nuclear energy
4. Alternative Energy

There is no silver bullet. Small contributions in each of the areas above can, eventually, lead to lower prices....maybe..... But to hear all of the candidates talking about how they are going to end our dependence on foreign oil is laughable at best. It will take decads to do it, if its even possible.

Fight or Flight

Most accident scenes I have stop at are routine. As routine as an accident scene can be anyways. Hysterical people....been there done that. I've had knives pulled on me at what I thought were accidents scenes that turned out to also be sexual assaults. Deceased people.... been there done that too. Its not pleasant, but if you stop at enough accidents you will come across about anything.

Driving down I-15 today I saw a motorcycle and a silver pick up, both sharing the same lane. The two drivers were talking back and forth having a good old time. The motorcycle driver then dropped back behind the truck(all of about 3 feet behind it) and they sped off down the interstate. I thought to myself, that guy(on the motorcycle) is asking to get in an accident.

As we drove another few miles down the road, my attention was elsewhere until Karen began to brake hard and I looked up and there it was. The motorcycle laying in the middle of the road. The truck smashed up, and another sedan smashed up!

As I have for many years I grab my latex gloves and go to see what is left of the motorcycle driver. As I approached the first smashed car I could hear someone screaming, not in pain but it anger. The family in the sedan were trying to fend off the driver of the pick up who, as best as I could tell, was trying to get at the young male driver of the sedan. I'm not sure if he was driving the sedan or if his mother was, but the ire of the pick up truck was squarely aimed at the young kid.

When I walked up to ask the family in the sedan if they were ok they said "yes" but you need to protect us from her! I looked up and saw, for lack of a better, more politically correct phrase, one pissed off bull dyke coming right at me! The family in the sedan were all now positioned behind me. In a nano second this girl, and it took me a minute to figure out that she was indeed a girl, was about 1/2 inch from my face yelling, screaming and threatening the family. She looked to be 20 years old....maybe. Ball cap on sideways, wearing a wife beater t shirt and blue jeans. Oh and an ear ring in each ear. I asked her to "calm down". To that she just stepped in closer to me and was like "You want me to calm down fucker?"

I was not the only one who stopped at the scene, but the rest were women who seemed to have little interest in getting involved with the lunatic lesbian. I swear our noses were 1/2" apart, but I did not move back not one step. Fight or Flight...I didn't want to fight(I'm too old for that anymore). I was a bit scared though because, although I new I weighed a good 100 lbs more than her, she also had several male friends with her.

Fight or flight......well I'm not about to flee from a 100lbs 20 year old girl (bull dyke or not)so I stood my ground. After asking her to calm down again and her trying to stare me down for what seemed like an eternity, she simply said "Somebody better get this big motherfucker out of my face!", turned and walked down the freeway picking up the motorcycle and the debris left in the road.

In the end, amazingly, the motorcycle driver appeared to fare well in the accident. Most of the other one I've come across have not been so lucky. He had some road rash on one arm, possible a broken foot/ankle/leg. His right shoe was knocked off of him, but it appeared that he is one of those people that don't really tie their shoes so it was not a very telling clue. I don't know if he had any other injuries because I never really got to examine him too much.

Who is weaker?

Obama or Clinton....Clinton or Obama. Perception is reality....or so the saying goes.....

Clinton is hounding Obama about holding debates. Now in the few years I have payed attention to national elections(about 27 years), asking for a debate, demanding to have a debate has always been the province of those who perceive themselves as on the way to losing the election. As such they have little to lose and much to gain by a debate. Another opportunity to take their adversary down another notch or two.

A the leader in an election, as expected, has a lot to lose and little to gain in a debate. The risk of saying something stupid, not having a good answer, or sometimes, just being on the debate stage with the weaker candidate which can be seen as "elevating" them to your level, is not worth what little a candidate can get out of a debate.

I would say that, if nothing else, the Clinton campaign perceives itself to be in a weaker position than Obama.

Clinton has a built a high wall to climb to win the primary. As I see her campaign, her problems are:
1. Her baggage. She has more baggage than pack rat on her way to a pack rat convention. Fair or not, it is still there.

2. She and Bill could have starred in the movie "Liar, Liar!" I do realize that all politicians lie, but she is PERCEIVED as a liar whereas the other two are not perceived that way to any great degree.

Obama also has some problems that will hurt him, albeit more in the general than the primary. Those are:

1. He is an eletist. His remarks in San Francisco leave little to the imagination on that issue. It may have played well in the primary, but it WILL be used to clobber him in the general election.

2. I think his lack of experience will also hurt him in the general election.

McCain also has issues. Mainly that he is seen as, instead of a "compasionate conservative", he is seen as a "part-time conservative".

The big one

is coming. Or so they say. Nevada is #3 for earthquakes behind California and Alaska. You may or may not remember that on Feb 21st, 2008 there was a fairly large earthquake(a magnitude 6) in the small town of Wells, in north east Nevada. Much of the town was severly damaged.

A week later it began in and around Reno which is located in north western Nevada.

Before I finish this I need to explain something about earthquakes. Typically earthquakes start a a large quake followed by several, sometimes hundreds, of aftershocks of decreasing magnitude. That is the typical pattern for earthquakes.

In Reno we have something quit different happening.....the earthquakes have started out small and are increasing in magnitude. There were over 100 earthquakes and aftershocks on Thursday alone! Friday Reno was hit by a 4.7 magnitude quake. The largest in the 2 month long period since the tremors began. Reno's last major quake measured 6.1 on April 24, 1914, and was felt as far away as Berkeley, Calif. That same earthquake in Reno today would be disastrous to say the least. Scientists are warning residents of the Reno/Sparks area to be prepared. Learn to shut off your gas/water/electricity. Stock up on food and water. Though they cannot say for sure, they fear the big one is not far off.

In other news about Reno, did you know there is also a serial killer there praying on young women in and around The University of Nevada-Reno? He has already taken the lives of 5(I think) young ladies in the Reno area that they are aware of. Although the police have a sample of the killer's DNA, there was no match in any police database. Thier only description is that of a 30ish year old white male. This killer is very brazzen in that at least one of his victems was abducted in the middle of the night from a house full of college students. I hope he is caught soon!

Don't mess with

blind people. When an intruder broke into this 49 year old blind man's house he grabbed the intruder and pummled him continuosly, all the while dragging him into the kitchen where he put a knife to the intruder's throat He then dialed 911. I bet that scum bag won't make that mistake again!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080424/ap_on_fe_st/odd_blind_defense

Cutting through the fog

This is one of the blogs that I read on a fairly regular basis:
http://cuttingthroughthefog.blogspot.com/

If true

this is a sad, sad story.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080412/ap_on_re_us/the26_year_silence;_ylt=Ah2kZ0NBtylaWNEgpsEXXRGs0NUE

Its a pretty long read but the long and short of it is that a man spent 26 years in jail for a crime that two lawyers knew he didn't commit. They felt they couldn't reveal the truth because of attorney/client privilege. While I understand that attorney/client privilege is an impoortant concept, not imprisoning innocent people is an important concept also!

A street protest

While driving all over Las Vegas I in search of a "nifty fifty" I encountered this street protest on Sahara across from the Church of Scientology.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rob702/tags/protestscientology/
With, for the most part, their faces covered it was reminiscent of some of the "anarchists" photos you see of protesters at WTO meetings and such. I must say though that they were very well behaved and just protested peaceably on the side of the road.

Wow

Not that I would have EVER voted for him, but I can not beleive he would be so stupid as to let these words pass from his lips:

“So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or antitrade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,”

Considering that he is entering Indiana and Pennsylvania for his next primaries I think he has dug himself quite a hole. In addition, his "explinations" of what he "meant" seem to me to be worse than what he said to begin with!

Goodbye Mr. Heston

As I'm sure your awareby now Mr. Charlton Heston passed away. Although I'm not a big movie buff, he was certainly an American Icon.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080406/ap_on_en_mo/obit_heston

For happpier news a, now former Ford Motor Company employee, won $136 million in the lottery at the Ford Plant I used to work at. I was mildy suprised to learn that I didn't know him, but then again we had close to 1,000 employees who worked there. He apparently was in a lottery club with 4 other workers, and although the winning ticket was not part of the lottery club, he elected to give each of the other 4 members $1 million anyways. Thats a class act for sure.
http://www.thestate.com/nation/story/367057.html

In other news, Karen passed her Post Office exam. The exam consisted of seeing how late you could finish the test, and then you were given envelopes to put in mail slots. You were given 1 point for every envelope in the wrong slot! hahahahaha. Typical of the Post Office she was told to expect her results in 3 weeks and it took them nearly 8 weeks to deliver them.

We also had a bit of excitement here the other day. I was, for a change, sitting in my computer room being "on the computer", which everyone knows I never do, and I heard the LVMP helicopter circling our neighborhood. That in itself is not that unusual because you can often hear them flying by here and there. But after about 10 mins of this I realized that it sounded like he was circling my house. Looking outside I discovered he was indeed circling our neighborhood and our house. Then the sirens began. I then went and looked out the front of the house and there were cops at both ends of our steet and I could see them on the next street over also. They had K-9 units searching all of the back yards. I stepped out onto the front porch to see what was going on and was met by a K-9 team and told to go back in the house and lock my doors. You could hear them on the P.A. system trying to encourage someone to "come out with their hands up". Since it was close to the time for Karen to get off work I called her at work and told her not to come home just yet. Then I found out the whole thing started in the parking lot at her work where a car chase ended. There were three suspects in the car, 2 of which were arrested on the spot, and the third apparently ran on foot and ended up in our subdivision. Time to buy a gun!

The bail outs

so far John McCain is the only one, im my opinion, that has got it right on the housing/financial mess we find ourselves in now. The govenment cannot and should not be the borrower of last resort. People(home owners) and companies(Bear Sterns) should not be bailed out by the government. If you purchased a house with one of these questionable loans, that is your fault, not mine. What about the people who got into "good" loans and have made the payments and now will have to bail out people who bought houses that they could not afford? What do they get? Where is their bail out? Many of the people who are suffering in the housing mess bought houses they could not afford unless done with one of these questionable types of loans, or they were merely speculating that housing prices would continue to raise and they would be able to refi over and over again and pocket the equity. When you speculate in a market and are wrong, you lose. Thats the way it is supposed to work. The same with Bear Sterns. The government should not have bailed them out for one penny. They speculated and lost and they(shareholders)should have paid the price for it. The government shouold not be interfering with that.

The primaries

A couple of things I want to blog about, well maybe only one thing anyway. Clinton has been trying to make it look like Obama does not want a re vote in Michigan and Florida. I'm not qualified to comment on Florida, but having lived in Michigna for over 30 years before moving to Vegas, I feel somewhat qualified to comment on it.
Clinton has tried to get the vote in Michigan to count, yet Obama was not even on the ticket. That hardly seems fair or democratic. She has also held the position that there should be a re-vote in Michigan. Obama has, in theory, agreed to this, if it could be done in a manner that was agreeable to both of them. Ofcourse Clinton's idea of a fair vote would be to prohibit anyone who voted in the Republican primary, namely Democrats or Indepenants who refused to vote for Clinton and instead voted for McCain from participating. This ofcourse would stack the vote for Clinton. Again this seems neither fair nor democratic. The only fair way to do it, as I see it, is to not seat the delegates. Michigan knew well the price for moving its primary dates. They should now be willing to take their lumps. As it looks now, no re vote will take place and the delegates will not be seated. That is as it should be.

We got out

of Michigan just in time. Michigan must be very proud. Hizzonor, the so called "Hip Hop Mayor" has been charged with several felonies including perjury and obstruction of justice. Ricardo Solomon must be proud!

Ricardo, among other things was the longest serving Wayne County Commision Chairman and also one of my college proffesors. He is seen in this picture below:


He is, or at least when I was in his classes, a strong supporter of Mr. Kilpatrick. I wonder if he still is?




The icing on the cake is that "Dr. Death" is running for congress! Go Michigan!!!

Vegas Right Now!

Remember you heard it here first when you see the first comercial with the new Vegas slogan in it. Apparently tourism in Vegas is DOWN! Way DOWN. Luckily in Vegas, unlike say Detroit, our economy is diversified. In addition to the tourism industry, we also have the construction industry....lol. I probably don't have to remind anyone wha the home construction market is like. Lets just say that the "Forclosure Capital of the USA" is a phrase we are familiar with out here, as in Detroit. Luckily for us though, we also have a large Comercial Construction industry in Vegas. And they are indeed in overdrive right now. Many of the customers I deal with are involved in the construction business in one way or another so of cousre, sooner or later, the conversation often involves the state of thier business. Everyone has said that home construction is dead and that they can't keep up with the "big" comercial construction work out here. Right now the strip is almost one big construction yard. I think there are like 11 major projects going on right now just on the strip.

If you think of, say Detroits economy, three legged stool, the three legs would be:
1 Automobils
2. Cars
3. Vehicles

Along the same lines, in Vegas we have:
1. Tourism
2. Comercial Construction
3. Residential Construction

Now days if you need a carpenter for your house you can easily locate him at the un employment office. The first leg of our economy is coming up short and our stool is leaning heavily to one side.
If another leg goes out, we will fall......

I found this

article to be an interesting story. While I can't speak for everyone, I think most Americans strongly identify themselves as American. I was supprised to read that Britain does not have this same type of identification with thier nationality. I suppose I never really gave it much thought until reading the article though. A few people in the article thought that it was an attempt to either become more like America, or to speed the integration of immigrants into British society.

As to the first point I would say, if its true, that it is very misguided because Britain is not America and never will be. I have nothing against Britain, they are one of our best friends and allies in the world. There is a special bond between our countries that will likely never be torn apart. Although we have a intricately shared history, there are also many, many subtle and not so subtle differences between our two countries.

As pointed out in the story, the Pledge of Allegiance is recited in the USA daily by millions of school children, yet in Britain that idea seems far reached.

I can't really speculate about the issue of quicker integration of immigrants into British society, but I think it is true to say the the speed and depth of immigrant integration into American society is much faster and deeper.

Spring has sprung

here in Las Vegas. Our lowes are quickly raising and its nice. Today we will likely hit 70F as my friends and family back in Michigan are, well lets just say its COLD there. Thier low last night was about -1F and I think it is about 3F there right now.

My My how the primaries have changed since I last wrote about them. Romney is out but I didn't like him anyways, Huckabee and Paul are going no where. That leaves McCain. I guess out of all of them I dislike him the least. Thats something I guess.

Obama and Clinton are fighting on. I saw parts of Obama and Clintons speaches the other night. I must say that Obama is or has turned into quite the good speaker. Very powerful. I don't agree with 95% of what says, but compared to Clinton he is much, much better.

Really?

They needed a study to figure this out? Toddlers throw tantrums. Thats thier job! or part of it at least. Anyone who's had a toddler could tell you that. I would submit that it is part of them learning thier boundries in life as they have learned to walk and talk by then. This process has gone on for thousands of years and has worked just fine. If it isn't broken, don't FIX it!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080201/ts_afp/healthchildrenpsychologyparenting