I Can't Eat The Tomatos That I Grow?!?

My company is global so we have major offices in Denver, Florida, Japan, and South Africa just to name a few.  I spend a lot time on the phone in meetings with these various company locations.  I have to say that this diversity has provided me with the opportunity to learn how different cultures operate and how to work efficiently with my fellow employees in this cultures.  I like my job.  There are great people in my company.  Some are funny.  They make work fun.

So I was doing some research on hypervisors for a cloud system (if I wrote this blog about that subject matter, I bet none of you would read it) when I came across a news item about a Judge in Wisconsin.  Hmmm Wisconsin.  I took a cross-country trip with a good friend a few years back to see an Elton John concert.  I remember stopping to have my picture taken by one huge cow!

By the way, the Elton John concert was great!  I was able to get an autograph on my original vinyl double album of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road!

In fact, I have a framed picture my friend took of the concert in my Den along with the signed album, framed.  But I am getting off subject here.  Yes Elton is great, but back to the Wisconsin Judge.

So this Judge, made a very bizarre ruling, that is, that American citizens do not have a "fundamental right to produce or consume foods of their choice."  Wow!  I don't have the right to go to the store and buy the food that I like and then eat it? 

This case involved people who owned cows and sought to board them at a farm.  The following was noted in the case, "Although the commercial relationship between the owner of the cow and owner of the land gives cause for the state to intervene, Fiedler (the Judge) took his ruling into a more personal and troubling direction."

Apparently the plaintiffs in the case argued that their right to privacy allowed them to decline medical treatment, allow abortion, view pornography, and engage in consensual sex should translate into their right to consume food of his or her own choice.

Judge Fiedler remained unconvinced claiming that the constitutionality of food rights is wholly without merit.  He also added that bringing Roe vs Wade into the picture does not explain why a woman's right to have an abortion  translates to a right to consume unpasteurized milk.

The judge went on to clarify his ruling further:

• "no. Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to own and use a diary cow or a dairy herd;
• "no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to consume the milk from their own cow;
• "no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to board their cow at the farm of a farmer;
• "no, the Plaintiffs' private contract does not fall outside the scope of the State's police power;
• "no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to consume the foods of their choice."

A quote from the website Foolocracy goes as follows: "A person growing a tomato plant in his or her home and choosing to eat that tomato would seem to have that right as clearly as a person choosing a partner for sex in a private home."

Prison Planet has the following to say about this, "You have to wonder if maybe even the regulators are getting a tad uncomfortable with the rulings coming from the nation’s judiciary on food rights. Many of these individuals, biased as they are against raw milk, dabble in farming to some extent, or grew up on farms. This judge has gone way beyond what many of them have come to assume — that everyone has the right to own a cow and consume its milk. Even in places that ban raw milk sales, there’s nearly always a provision in state law that anyone who owns a cow has the right to consume its milk."

So are we to assume that the Judge believes that food consumption is one of those rights that are not God-given but rather granted by the state?  Granted, every year the government gets more involved in the production and distribution of food.  A lot of this, in my humble opinion, is needed for our safety.

Now we have Judge Fiedler's ruling which opens the door for the need for "police" to enforce restrictions on the personal use and growing of vegetables.  (Now I know why I didn't plant a personal vegetable garden this year, it wasn't because of the short growing season...)

I believe there is a place for government in our lives, but too much or too big government causes more pain than benefit.  When what the government is doing infringes on our guarantees as outlined in the constitution, then the line has been stepped over and something needs to be done.  With the Presidential and other  elections coming up, make wise choices so that we will have a solid government that will make wise choices.

And btw, if you get a chance to see Elton in concert, you'll love it!


Till next time,
Bill
P.S. The link to the article I read is here.

When Your Daughter Thinks You Are Dumber Than A .... pile of rotten peaches?

I've been thinking a lot lately -- lots of thinking, about how to deal with my daughter that thinks that I am dumber than a pile of rotten peaches.  Why do I say a pile of rotten peaches?  Mostly because we have a small orchard and just finished picking all of our peaches.  We have them in our basement in several boxes.  Since we have lot of them, some start to rot before we can use them.  I do damage control periodically and take the rotten peaches out back to a compost pile.  Hence the rotten peaches.

My daughter lives by her mobile phone, as I am sure all of your daughters do.  She texts day and night.  She occasionally makes a voice call or gets one.  When this obsession with the mobile phone started to invade her homework time, I realized that something had to be done.  So I made some rules with which my daughter needed to obey in order to keep her mobile phone privileges.  We agreed on these rules and she signed a printed copy.

Some of these rules were like the following:

• Allow me to look at her phone anytime without putting up a fuss.
• Stop texting when eating dinner and other family activities.
• Stop using her phone at 8pm on school nights.
• etc.

I recall when I was younger, my parents would take my car driving privileges away from me when I disobeyed them.  (That happened a lot and hurt.)  Over time the pain became so great that I became a textbook example of obedience!  So, the consequence of my daughter disobeying the contract she signed was to lose her phone for a week.

The next evening, I was up in my sons room feeding the fish at 9pm when I hear my daughter talking on her cell phone in her room.  I casually walk over and knock on the door.  I hear a hurried, "I've got to go, bye."  Then nothing.  I open the door and she has pulled her covers over he head and ignores my asking her if she is awake.

The next morning I present her will the information of the last night and she denies it.  I tell her to stop lying and to let me have her phone.  So a week without her phone starts.  Now you see where the title to this blog comes from.

My daughter and I have since had several situations like the one mentioned above.  She still seems to think that I am as stupid as a pile of rotten peaches, but maybe one day (sooner than later) she will get it.  She has lost her phone several times for breaking rules of the contract, but she is getting better.  Maybe she will eventually believe that I am kinda smart in what I am teaching and telling her.

Till Next Time,

Bill

Send $1 to...

I can't believe what has happened to summer.  Especially since we really didn't have a spring this year.  It basically went from snow to 100-degree summer heat!  However, fall is probably my favorite time of the year.  I spent a significant part of my life in San Diego California, where I had 72-degree perfect weather year around!  So, having that kind of weather in the fall is quite nice!

When I graduated from college, I took my first job at General Dynamics in San Diego.  I lived in a very nice suburb called Poway.  I can remember playing tennis in December, spending a lot of time on the beach, and even trying my hand at wind surfing.

However, when the hi-tech boom hit, I left General Dynamics to join a promising start-up that had a lot going for it.  I had kept in touch with a lot of my Electrical Engineering friends after graduating from college.  One of them hired on with a company called WordPerfect in Utah.  He basically rode the wave at WordPerfect.  I remember him telling me that after about a year with them, his bonus on each paycheck was equal to his base salary! 

I have another friend who went to work for Adobe and yet another to Lotus.  The friend who went to Adobe is doing very, very well.  The friend that went to Lotus is at another company doing OK.  He has had to sell his big beautiful mansion, now living in a respectable family-sized home.

I also have another friend that used to live a few houses down from me.  He helped found an Internet hosting company that was very successful.  I remember him driving fancy cars and having outdoor movie parties in his back yard.  When his company faulted, he moved to Washington to work for Microsoft for a while.  Now his is back close to where I live.  He works for a struggling Internet company and lives in a decent home.

After leaving General Dynamics, the technology company I went to treated me very well for quite a few years until they had some serious competition.  Eventually they outsourced my products to India and I was laid off.  I went to a progressive start-up company that had a vision for a world-changing product.  However they ran out of investment money and were unable to market their products successfully.  I do not live in a mansion, but the company I work for has some great technology and we are make the world a better place.

So this brings me back to the title of my blog, "Send $1 to..."  I have always wondered what I could do on the Internet that would make me tons of money.  I had a friend tell me a while back, all you need to do is setup a website and ask for each person that visits it to send you one dollar.  Now I have never done this, but I'm guessing that if you solicited the money for charity and stated that you would send a certain portion of it to charity, then you would be able to keep a portion for "administrative costs."

But what if you just asked for everyone who visited your website to send in one dollar for no reason at all?  What would happen?

Till next time,
Bill

A Funny or Joke By Any Other Name

I haven't put too many jokes or funny things in my blog, but today I ran across this story and loved it!  Kudos to the person who created it, since there is no author listed.

A successful rancher died and left everything to his devoted wife. She was determined to keep the ranch, but knew very little about ranching, so she placed an ad in the newspaper for a ranch hand.

 Two cowboys applied for the job. One was gay and the other a drunk.

She thought long and hard about it, and when no one else applied she decided to hire the gay guy, figuring it would be safer to have him around the house than the drunk.

He proved to be a hard worker who put in long hours every day and knew a lot about ranching. For weeks the two of them worked hard and the ranch was doing very well.

Then one day, the rancher’s widow said "You have done a really good job, and the ranch looks great. You should go into town and kick up your heels."  The hired hand readily agreed and went into town on Saturday night.

He returned around 2:30 am, and upon entering the room, he found the rancher’s widow sitting by the fireplace with a glass of wine, waiting for him.  She quietly called him over to her.

"Unbutton my blouse and take it off," she said.

Trembling, he did as she directed.

"Now take off my boots."  He did as she asked, ever so slowly.

"Now take off my socks."  He removed each gently and placed them neatly by her boots.

"Now take off my skirt."  He slowly unbuttoned it, constantly watching her eyes in the fire light.

"Now take off my bra."  Again, with trembling hands, did as he was told and dropped it to the floor.

Then she looked at him and said: ‘If you ever wear my clothes into town again, you’re fired!’

Now that’s funny … I don’t care who you are!!!!

Till Next Time,

Bill

List Men vs Free Flow Men

At my current job, we have an Information Technology (IT) person who is tasked with setting up computers when we need an updated computer, or when a new hire starts to work.  He is also charged with tearing down computers of people who leave the company.

Our IT person does a good job until somebody interacts with him and messes up his list.  You see, his manager puts together a daily list for this IT guy and the IT guy takes the list, starts at the top and works his way down the list.  1. Setup computer system for Bill in Accounting.  2. Remove computer from Sally in Sales who left the company, etc.

Recently we had a programmer leave, who spent some time with us going over what he had been working on, what he had checked in, and what he had not.  We realized that we needed to keep his computers until we were able to get all the information we needed off of them.

A few days later, our faithful IT guru came by and started to remove these computers.  Concerned, we let him know that he could not take these computers until we were done with them.  He grumbled, called us some non-repeatable names and left.  I called up my Director and got his approval to keep the machines as is until we were done.

In the ensuing weeks, our IT guru came by and attempted to take these computers.  Each and every time we told him that our Director had said we could keep the machines as long as we needed them.  And since we were very busy, that was going to be a very long time.  Our IT guy grumbled and disappeared.

Just last week our legendary IT guy came by and started to disassemble the computers yet again.  (I am sure that not being able to check this item off of his list had been tormenting him for ages.)  We reminded him to keep his hands off of those machines or we would call up the Director.  However, this time my co-worker asked if maybe we should get the information off of the computers and allow the IT guy to come and take them away.  We did that and let the IT guy know we would be done with them that evening.  The next morning when we came into work, those two computers and three monitors were gone!  Needless to say, it didn't surprise me!

So, were my co-worker and I nice to let the IT guy take the computers?  Of course.  Was the IT guy in line to not want us to keep the computers?  Of course not!  It would not have hurt anyone to let us keep and use those two computers, especially since they will sit in a closet until a new hire comes on board.

OK, let's compare this with the IT guy at the first company I worked for out of college.  He liked to come around and chat with us on a regular basis.  He basically would do anything for us that we needed.  We had a similar situation where a programmer left the company.  We asked our IT guy if we could keep the programmer's computers.  He said sure.  We setup a location where we could use the computers until we were absolutely sure that the information we needed was on our computers.  When were done, we contacted the IT guy and let him know he could come and get the computers back.  He responded by asking us if we were sure we were done with them and wouldn't want to keep them a little bit longer.  When we told our IT guy that we were definitely done, he came and took them away.

To wrap things up for today, obliviously, if an employee of a company has their blinders on so tight that what they are doing is hurting the company, they better remove their blinders and see the bigger picture.  Lists can be good.  They can make sure that you get the items done that you need to get done.  However, don't run you complete corporate life with a list, never wavering.  Be cooperative.  Make friends with your fellow employees.  You will find yourself enjoying your job and those people you work with.

Til Next Time,
Bill