July 1st, 2009 | 
Author: -
In typical nanny-state fashion, the FDA-empaneled experts were voting on whether the fact that .0000015 percent of the consuming public suffered fatal liver failure possibly related to acetaminophen overdoses, should justify inconveniencing the entire population of Americans that use popular and effective cold medicines.
-
Earlier this week, the White House officially abandoned President Obama's "Sunlight before Signing" pledge … The Administration also appears to be backing off its promises for greater access to government documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
-
The world's largest brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev is considering divesting its central European operations involving 11 breweries in seven countries
-
As part of the healthcare reform deliberations, the U.S. Senate Finance committee is currently considering a proposal to increase and equalize the excise tax for alcohol beverages, an action that could cause some significant problems for small breweries
-
The excise tax on a case of beer would rise 145 percent, to nearly $3 per case. It's worse for a case of wine, which would go up 233 percent, or about $7 per case. And hard liquor taxes would jump 20 percent.
-
The IRS defended its proposals to enforce a law that taxes personal use of employer-provided cellphones, saying the changes are aimed at helping businesses comply, not taxing individuals.
-
The boos erupted when Obama told the doctors in Chicago he wouldn't try to help them win their top legislative priority — limits on jury damages in medical malpractice cases.
-
On May 21, U.S. Customs & Border Protection (CBP) proposed the revocation of four previous Ruling Letters; the effect would be a drastic expansion of the definition of non-importable knives.
-
With federal spending in 2009 at 28% of the economy and deficits heading north, Democrats are eyeing tax increases on everything from soft drinks to electricity to health benefits to charitable contributions. But the palm for creativity goes to the Internal Revenue Service, which is contemplating a new tax on the use of business cellphones.
-
Knife Rights is dedicated to providing knife and edged tool owners an effective voice to influence public policy and to oppose efforts to restrict the right to own, use and carry knives and edged tools
-
What's behind Obama's sudden attempt to fire the AmeriCorps inspector general? | Washington ExaminerBottom line: The AmeriCorps IG accuses prominent Obama supporter of misusing AmeriCorps grant money. Prominent Obama supporter has to pay back more than $400,000 of that grant money. Obama fires AmeriCorps IG.
-
Silicon Valley played a crucial role in the success of President Obama . . .and Silicon Valley naturally assumed that the new President would do the same in return. It hasn’t quite turned out that way. . .
-
One of the most glaring are the holes in their implementation of Microsoft Exchange Active Sync.
So a couple of months ago I hinted at some kind of clandestine Blockbuster conspiracy designed to keep me from watching the film ‘Expelled‘ since I was shipped three copies that where somehow damaged.
Then I received my copy of Religulous in the mail today and it was, naturally, cracked. So much for the conspiracy. Of course, there could still be a conspiracy… just not a very good one.
The primary phone in my home is still attached to an ‘old fashioned’ copper pair line. I don’t see this changing anytime soon. The main reason being that the copper pair line works. It works every time. I can’t remember the last time I EVER picked up my phone and wasn’t greeted with a dial tone. This includes back in 2003 when the remnants of Hurricane Isabel rolled through southern PA and knocked out our power for two days and cable service for nearly a week. Many people went without power for much longer. I distinctly remember picking up the phone several times during and after the storm to check on my parents. I had a dial tone and the call went through every time.
Cell phones as a primary aren’t really an option for us. Mainly because we seem to live in a kind of dead zone. Verizon gives us one or no bars. Incoming calls will ring but rarely have any strength and are dropped as soon as we answer. Sprint works slightly better but once you connect, do not move. As soon as you move, the call drops.
That leaves us with the IP phone type services. Again, not a great choice since they are completely dependent on two other things working. Electricity and Internet service. We would have been completely SoL during/after Isabel if we relied on a service like Vonage. Not to mention any of the other times Comcast has gone offline for whatever random reason or a electrical transformer has blown 20 miles away.
My low opinion of the Vonage type services has certainly been cemented after the past months experience trying to keep the service running at my friends house. Of all the problems I’ve been dealing with there, Vonage has been the biggest and most consistent pain. Mainly because now, with a bedridden child in the house, it has been an absolutely critical service.
The first problem started the day of the accident. A person in the house had placed a call to 911 when they realized something was wrong and were desperately trying to find information. Ever since that call was placed, every phone in the house started ringing and the Vonage caller ID would announce ‘incoming call from 911′. Constantly. All day and all night long. You would pick up the phone and there would be nothing. Not even a dial tone. You also could not make an outgoing call. Hang up the phone and the ringing and 911 announcement would start again within 30 seconds. They ended up just turning off every phone in the house.
The Vonage website suggested I CALL Vonage support. Just a slight bit of a logic problem there (Phone not working? Call us!). Finally, after many reboots of the Vonage base unit (and cable modem just to be sure), the 911 problem magically stopped.
Then the cable service went out for a day.
Then the cable service went out again.
Then there was a power problem in the basement that not only took the Vonage base unit offline, but also took the freezer (and everything inside) with it.
I should also point out that while they have a security system, it is dependent on the phone line for it to work properly. If the cable was out or the Vonage system was screwed up again, the panic button would be about as helpful as a rock.
I’ve suggested they call the phone company and go back to a landline. It’s more expensive, but it works. Plain and simple.
Tags: cable, cell, electricty, landline, outage, phone, power, vonage | 1 Comment »
-
Gee… I wonder why California is backrupt? Exactly what is a 'Special Nurse' anyway and why does it pay $350,000 a year?
-
Doug noted that every single dealer he checked out except one were either GOP donors or donated to Obama's rivals in the democratic primary.
-
Maryland couldn't balance its budget last year, so the state tried to close the shortfall by fleecing the wealthy. Politicians in Annapolis created a millionaire tax bracket … One year later, nobody's grinning. One-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls.
-
Yay Goverment!
-
110KB Floppy image/CD ISO that can remove your Administrator pwd of Windows XP, Svr2003, Svr2008 & 7 and root pwd of Gentoo, Ubuntu, Debian & Fedora
-
Vice President Joe Biden, well-known for his verbal gaffes, may have finally outdone himself, divulging potentially classified information meant to save the life of a sitting vice president.
-
Well thats odd… i thought 95% of Americans would not be seeing tax increases 'of any kind'.
-
The flies "dive-bomb" the fire ants and lay eggs. The maggot that hatches inside the ant eats away at the brain, and the ant starts exhibiting what some might say is zombie-like behavior.
This past week has probably been one of the worst weeks I can ever remember. A week ago Saturday a very good friend of mine was killed in a horrible automobile accident. His son was also in the car and suffered serious lower body injuries and was airlifted out to the hospital where he remains. I don’t think I will ever forget listening to my wife scream ‘Oh my God!’ over and over when I broke the news to her that Sunday morning.
This accident has hit so close to home it’s scared the hell out of me. My friend was my age. I’ve known him for 20 years. Our wives have been close friends for that same amount of time. Our kids (he has a son and daughter) are all the same age and play together at home, in school and on various sports teams. I look at a picture of him and his family and I see my family. It could just have easily been me.
That’s probably one of the worst parts for me. I’ve seen how badly this has scared my family. My wife has been texting me almost constantly asking random questions. I know she doesn’t really need the answers, she just wants to get a reply from me. My oldest daughter has been having trouble sleeping since the funeral. I can hear her wandering around the house and can see her peering around the doorway to my office late at night just to check and make sure I’m still around. I was 45 minutes late from a scout council meeting last night and my son started to panic asking where I was, why I wasn’t home and why I was so late. My youngest daughter just sort of becomes my shadow when I’m home quietly following me from room to room.
I will be spending some time over the next couple of weeks working on my friends house for him. His wife and daughter are staying at a Ronald McDonald house while the son is in the hospital. He was in the middle of several projects at home which I will finish while they are away. His wife has also asked me to see if I can get into his computer systems. We were both pretty avid video gamers and computer geeks and like me, he has several systems set up all through the house. His wife has no idea how to get into them or even operate them. Even their phone system, which is vonage, is currently down and she can’t get it working. The worst part is all their family photos from the past few years are digital which means they are locked away on the computer where she can’t get to them.
I also have the task of trying to track down email addresses & passwords, online bank accounts… basically anything internet related of his that I can get into so she can start finalizing everything. Part of what I’ve been doing the past few nights is cataloging all of my internet accounts/passwords and locking them in the safe so if something does happen to me, my family won’t have to go through all this to get into our records.
Side note: the rainy gloomy weather last week was pretty appropriate. I was worried this past Saturday since the forcast called for heavy rain and thunderstorms the day of the funeral…. but the storms never materialized. I guess the weather decided to give us a bit of a break.
Side note #2: It seems that a lot of people need a refresher on funeral processions. Specifically on 695 and the Parkville area.
RIGHT-OF-WAY OF FUNERAL PROCESSIONS
Maryland. The law allows anyone in a procession to pass through a red light as long as the first vehicle in the procession went through it while it was still green. This privilege is accorded only if a vehicle’s headlights are on. While the procession goes through the red signal, any other vehicle with a green light can enter the intersection only if it will not cross the procession’s path (Md. Code Ann. § 21-207).
Would it really have been THAT much of a hasel to wait 3-4 minutes for the procession to clear the intersections? It is really THAT difficult to show the slightest amount of respect for anyone else?
That being said, I was struck by the site of complete strangers on the side of the road stopping and removing their hats as we drove by. They were, of course, much older than the morons who were cutting off the procession.
The rec council that my kids play softball and baseball in have quite a few ballfields they use that are scattered through the area. However, only one of this fields has lights. This means that a night game playing ‘under the lights’ is a big event for the teams involved and the kids really look forward to it.
Unfortunately, because of the number of teams, the fact that baseball and softball run at the same time and the limited number of days during the school year where a night game is feasible the schedule works out so that each time gets one ‘under the lights’ game per season…. which brings us to the title of this post.
In the five years that my kids have been playing in this council, every single night game they have sceduled, every… single… one…, has been rained out. For FIVE years. Last night was my daughters night softball game. Rained out. Tonight is my sons night baseball game. Forcast calls for rain and thunderstorms.
Lets hope this post does something do break the curse.
-
Threatened Federal Sanctions Against NYPD, Secret Service, FBI & Mayor's Office If Secret Ever Got Out
