possessive apostrophe

This possessive apostrophe thing has confused me all my life. It's its' thing.

Onyx multi-touch phone

The link is to a blog website for the Onyx cell phone. It was a proof of concept for the new touch screen interface like that used by the iPhone. This is interesting as the Palm Pre will be using this screen, from the same manufacturer that Apple uses.
Palm is apparently being threatened by Apple over intellectual property. Apple was just granted a very broad patent for touch screen cell phones.

Synaptics has a growing business supplying touch sensors for cell phones. It uses a particular type of touch sensor known as "projected capacitive." Before the iPhone came along, Synaptics was struggling to convince manufacturers that the technology was better than the cheaper "resistive" screens. From an SFgate story about this issue. Interesting battle coming up. I lust after the Palm Pre and bought in to Palm stock again. Too late, but it is making a little.

win on mac with VirtualBox

I've been using Parallels Desktop on my Intel Macs for a while to run Windoze XP. I hardly ever run win, but I check sites with InternetExploder on it. I installed Chrome as well. Since Parallels came out VMWare released a desktop product for the Mac and it has gotten good reviews.

The noise about Win 7 made me want to look at it. Downloads of the beta are free! My Parallels version 3 doesn't install the Win7 properly. An upgrade to version 4 would be $50. So, I looked at VMWare Fusion, which offers a cross grade rebate; prove you own Parallels and they pay you $30. A digital download purchase of VMWare Fusion is $80, same as a new Parallels. A boxed edition from Amazon is $57. Strange days when a boxed version is cheaper than a download.

Then I discovered VirtualBox from Sun. It is free, open source and has gotten some good mentions. Installed Virtual Box and Win7 is one of the choices for automatic installation. How is Sun going to get me to buy a Sparc server by giving away a virtual machine program?

More: The free VirtualBox does not run the graphics card in the MacB Pro. ProBook it should be. Anyway, VB does 'generic vga' but it is a lot more than 'generic vga' used to be; 1280xwhatever, 32 bit graphics. But, it does not do a widescreen Macbook resolution. Runs this Win7 pretty darn good tho, for free.

new presidential limousine

The new Limo looks like a cadillac. Looks like a modified Escalade truck actually. It is all custom built on a heavy duty truck platform tho. The link in the title is the only story I can find that actually says what platform it is based upon. They say GMC Topkick, which is a medium duty truck that has had airport limousine models built on it before.

inauguration

Today is the inauguration. Pretty exciting. 40 years ago MLK Jr was assassinated for stirring up trouble, 20 years ago Jesse Jackson ran a good campaign. I organized Labor for Jackson in Santa Cruz in 1988. Still have a couple T-shirts for that campaign. The Local 23 bus drivers put together a front line. We were all checked by the Secret Service and got clearance and we stood in front of the Santa Cruz Civic Center. Didn't get to hear the speech but we felt important waiting to jump in front of a bullet.

Who else was in that line? Ron White, Wally Parham, who else?

updating

Updating the web pages for the first time in months. Here:
updating this page for the first time in a while. There are pictures that belong in the family doings page, I use twitter a bit and just [14 Jan, 2009] joined Facebook. School is tough with Roxanne in first grade. She is still having trouble with reading and writing. There is a bit of dyslexia kind of stuff; b or d? and I get no help with doing homework. The second Ferret, Zoe II, disappeared. I give up. We got a nice kitty; a mimi. Mimi is kreyol for kitty. Roxy has named her Olivia but I just call her Mimi.

I need a job and it is a lot harder to get a truck driving job than I thought it would be. I just applied to Schneider for a full time over the road job in desperation. I drove a taxi for two weeks but never made more than enough to pay the rent on the cab.

laptop insurance

Safeware offers insurance for laptops which has much better coverage than, Apple Care, for instance. My Treo 755 and Centro can be insured much cheaper than what Sprint charges as well.

Day Watch

Day Watch; the counterpart to the Night Watch. I just watched it on Netflix streaming. Saw Night Watch at the Minor theater in Arcata a few years ago. These are really good films. A particularly interesting item in this film is the sub-titles. They animate and add to the story. Tres Kul.

Oh. Марія Порошина

toasted tos

Cousine Sylvia, when in Swahililand during the Peace Corps service, was fond of the local practice of saying tos when they referred to bread. Untoasted bread. So she would say toasted tos. I do that now, with affection.

I had a similar irritation with language in Haiti. Many of them, but one in particular to comment on. A Haitian, for instance, when asked where is this [thing,person,place], will reply lot bo. (another place). Oh. That is real helpful. What other place? Where? lot bo. Ay ay ay. Mezanmi.

One time I was in Saint Marc and went next door to talk to the Madam about the little shack in her front yard. I asked the young man ki kote li? "where is she?". li pa la "she isn't here". Ok, I see that. Where is she? li sorti "she left". Ok, where is she? Finally I did get an answer. I can only roll my eyes.

Chicago Bridge and Iron

Chicago Bridge and Iron, of which I sold 100 shares at $20 (a loss) some months ago, does not build bridges and is a Netherlands company. The Hague. How about that?

Last friday they traded at 8, today above 12. Good thing I sold at 20 after buying at 25. Too bad I didn't buy again below 10. Probably a short squeeze tho.

Louisiana elections

Dollar Bill Jefferson has been defeated. By Ang Cao, whom no one had heard of a few months ago. The only person to bother to file for the republican party spot in the election, he picked up most of the disaffected democrats around here.

I didn't vote. It was on Saturday, Dec 6. Frankly, I forgot. Low turnout. The November general election was the democratic primary runoff. Runoffs in primaries? yup. California has no such thing. I thought the southern penchant for actually requiring a majority to be elected was for general elections, but this time it applied to primaries while saturday's general election was won by Cao with slightly less than 50% Malik got 3% for the green party, some nut case got 1% for the white peoples party and Jefferson came in with 47% for the old demo machine. Black dog democrats.

I wasn't gonna vote for the republican, how could I? I would have voted for Malik as the Rasta green anti-Bill Jefferson guy. Or maybe voted corrupt party line. Voting for a universally acknowledged thief would be a good southern comfort.

But this Cao looks fun. The first Vietnamese in the congress. Good idea. That scumbag Steve Scalise was on stage rooting on the victory. Scalise had Dick Cheney come to Metarie to campaign for him. Incredible.

The traditional democratic party machine has fallen apart here. There were 5 young african-american guys running against Jefferson and one cute young texan woman. Moreno was her name; she came in behind Jefferson but ahead of all the experience political challengers. Some elders were required to anoint a designated assassin of Jefferson. The elders have evaporated. The result? A seat falls to the party of the resurrected confederacy.

my first taxi job

I've been driving a taxi for a week now. For A Service Cab of Metarie. I've submitted applications for a number of driving jobs but nothing has come thru. A Service Cab actually gave me an intent to hire letter. So I got my Jefferson Parish taxi drivers permit and got a cab. It is one of those operations where you pay rent to the company and keep their cab full time. Drive whenever you want, as many hours as you want.

It does appear that 12 hours a day is required to make any money beyond paying for the cab and fuel. I have an old CrownVicPoliceInterceptor. Pretty old cause the certified speedometer is way off. The GPS tells me actual speed.

With Lucienne working at a hotel in the French Quarter and doing private house cleaning many days that she is not working (at the cash only, no Social Security Card required job at a major hotel) it is hard to put in enough hours. I haven't made anything in a week. But, I do have a third vehicle outside the house!

If I got rid of two pickup trucks (at whatever loss is necessary) and bought a van to do taxi conversion It might be a little better.

Big Mac work shirts

So I went to Penny's yesterday. J.C Penny's is required for google earth or the GPS to find it. At the Causeway mall; some other name, but it is off of Causeway. I was looking for the work clothes catalog. The women working there had never heard of a work clothes catalog and I sure did not see one. Looked in the main catalog; not there.

I wore Big Mac cotton work shirts, with two breast pockets and button flaps, for years as a hippy. Sometimes I wore Big Mac overalls with no other clothes but huaraches. The cotton chambray shirts have a nice slot in the left pocket flap to keep your toothbrush in. For when you don't know where you will be sleeping that night. They call it a pencil slot.

The women working the catalog department had never heard of Big Mac except as a product of McDonalds.

I found it on the JCP website. Just search for big mac. It'll be in the list, but big mac work shirt will not reveal it. Strange.

Ah. Link won't work. Illegal characters. Here it is:
http://www5.jcpenney.com/jcp/X6.aspx?ItemID=14745df&ItemTyp=G&GrpTyp=SIZ&ShowMenu=T&ShopBy=0&SearchString=big+mac&RefPage=SearchDepartment.aspx&s4PageSize=15&CmCatId=searchresults&Search1Prod=True&S4Filter=N|0|Ntt|big+mac|Ntk|search_all|Nao|0|Nty|1|sid|11DDDA311080|Ntx|mode%2bmatchallpartial|Ntpr|1|Ntpc|1

Taxi Driver

So I finally gave up on finding a truck driving job here. Surprisingly almost everyone requires previous experience already. Driving school graduates only get to go to the big over the road companies. And Schneider doesn't accept a graduation more than 3 months old. I was going to work with my brother Kevin driving his new old truck; Team work. Delays, etc, all the jobs he is finally getting are Kentucky centered, blah blah.

So I am going to do the Taxi gig in Metairie; Jefferson Parish, just up river. Spent a few weeks getting fingerprinted yet again, and drug tested again and paying about a hunnerd bux to various departments and agencies but I now have a Jefferson Parish taxi permit. Spent two days training with two different drivers at A Service Cab. Louis bought his own Suburban, Jiggs drives a company Crown Vic.

The plethora of Suburbans in the Taxi biz here has really surprized me. They seem like they would use a lot more fuel than a Crown Victoria. I still want to call the big Ford a Galaxie or LTD. They should bring back the Galaxie 500 name.

Louis says it doesn't use much more fuel than the Vic and many loads require a bigger car. Lots of the biz here is hauling Tow boat crews to and from the River. The Mississippi is one huge industrial canal.

I do not recall another town with so many Suburbans in the Taxi biz. Toronto had mostly Taurii in the trade instead of Crown Victorias. Perhaps the front wheel drive of the Taurus is better in the snow. But why doesn't Chicago use Table/Saurus then? Ah. Perhaps Taurus/Sable are built in Ontario and Crown Vic/Marquis are not?

Mumbai/Bombay television

Streaming online, you have your Deccan terrorists taking over the Wall Street of South Asia. NDTV seems to be a Mumbai/Bombay television station with live streaming.

office of President Elect?

Change dot Gov? The President in waiting is an office? Has this been so before? There is an official website for the President in Waiting.

Now, I am very happy that Barack Hussein Obama won the election. I was a little worried when McCain started running the ad with all the Berliners chanting Obama, Obama. It did seem a little cultish. And one of Obama's campaign appearances had him behind a faux president to be seal. Now there is a President Elect seal. This is a little over the top.

armistice day

Yesterday was what the USA calls Veterans Day. We used to call it Armistice Day, for the day the Armistice was signed in Europe in 1918. Apparently at Verdun the French shot 600 soldiers for desertion. Must have been a tough battle.

election 2008

Wrote this on election nite:

Last night I saw my first presidential campaign advertisement in
Louisiana. An anti-Obama one; attacking the reverend Wright, saying he
is dangerous. The night before the election, first ad. Strange.

There are a lot more positions subject to election here. Some parish
down river has a 'constable' for each of seven districts up for
election. There used to be elected district assessors here; they were
eliminated after the post-Katrina re-organization.

there are lots of judges being elected; the State Supreme court has
someone endorsed by the Family Research Council (according to his ads)
I'll vote against him; Guidry.

US Senator is the only race that may be a contest here. The only one I

know enough to vote on. Landrieu the conservative Dem. Kennedy the
imaginary Conservative Republican; last year he was a liberal Democrat.
I'll have to vote in that race.

Oh, my Congressional seat is held by William Jefferson, famous for
keeping his savings in cash in the freezer. He came in first in the
'first' primary without campaigning. There were five black guys and one

young white woman running against him. Today is the runoff between Wm
Jefferson and Roberta Moreno. She is cute, a former television weather
reader or something. Then later we will have the actual general election
between the socialist and fascist and vegetarian parties.

We have a hot District Attorney race between two Italian guys. Last time
a black guy was elected who immediately fired most of the white lawyers
in the office; the ensuing civil rights suit is costing the city many
millions of dollars. He dismissed
tons of cases, or declined to
prosecute, and was at his girlfriends house over the river in Algiers
when a friend of hers came over to ask the D.A. what to do after the
shooting he had just committed. Eddie Jordan was his name. He was a
stylish dresser; he resigned last year and we've had fill in temps since
then. A murder a day.

No black DA candidates came close in the primary this time. So now it is
Cannizzaro or Capitelli. Vote for the Italian guy!

first grade

Today's homework; first grade, Oct 30.

Next week, we will be electing a new President for our country. What do you think makes a good President? What kind of person should the President be? What kinds of things should he or she believe? What should he or she do in the White House? Think about these questions and write at least five sentences telling what you think a good President would be like.

Roxanne doesn't know what a president of the country is. She cannot form any notion of what would make a good president. Write five sentences? Was first grade this hard when I was six? I sure don't recall that.

Calpers a sign of collapse?

California Public Employees Retirement System, CalPERS is selling stock to meet obligations. Like any hedge fund driving down the market by selling at the lowest price seen in years. This news comes today on Marketwatch and is a really, really bad sign. CalPERS is one of the most important institutional investors in the USA. They pay my retirement benefits.