Fourscore and Seven Blogs Ago

O! Glorious Airline!

2009-07-29T13:04:00.000-07:00

I’m standing in a tiny bathroom, smoking a cigarette and listening to the vicious tattoo of rain assaulting the skylight above my head. It wasn’t my first location choice for imbibing in a forbidden pleasure. I had retreated from my initial perch moments earlier after haphazard deliberation in regard to my proximity to the metal siding, metal chair, metal table and metal awning.

Perhaps imbibing isn’t the correct word, although my lungs were merrily absorbing the nefarious carcinogens coming from the cigarette handing out of my mouth. I quit the smoking habit in October of 2007 but in some cases needs must; it was the choice of a cigarette or three fingers of scotch.

Airline: a simple word that misguides. An airline is a company that flies airplanes to transport people, goods and viruses. What they don’t tell you is that airlines also enjoy volleying you from place to place when one attempts to put in a claim for lost or damaged goods.

I love to travel. I love the smell of jet fuel in the morning. I loathe taking off and landing in any sort of craft. This sometimes makes me a rather useless CAP scanner: “Wheels up! Oh shit, I forgot to denote the time!”

I do not love airlines that muck with my baggage, destroying it in the process. Observe:
I had very short notice in regard to this trip, thus I stuffed a few shirts and shorts into a small bag and ran out the door. Proper luggage would be a chore to herd through the terminals. I did not have travel insurance, This is the first time that I have commercially traveled without it, but this ticket was a gift from my aunt, and she is an absolute blessing. All these years of flying, why bother with insurance?

Socks are essential to life. Mine are somewhere in Dallas/Fort Worth. They might be entertaining my sunglasses as we speak. They could be in the belly of the beast or, more than likely, they are strewn about the terminal’s bowels, articles orphaned by poor planning and someone with a very bad temper.

Our flight was delayed by an hour due to poor planning – the need to remove the baggage and reload it properly. We heard the luggage being thrown about. The deep thrumming and banging rumbled through our seats, an eerie sound that no one should hear coming from a fuselage. The wings bobbed from the effort, the nacelles making the movement seem more drastic than it truly was. We seemed to roll ever so slightly with each bang. It would be fitting to add that, as we taxied from the terminal, a passenger pointed out a lone green bag forlornly waving to us as the wind played with its luggage tag.

This brings me back to the storm and smoking: needs must.

I had little difficulty sorting the damaged luggage issue: the company has confirmed that my bag should be set on fire and then shot. My problem is that I had to follow up on that claim by contacting the damn airlines. We played “guess the extension” for nearly an hour, followed by a light lunch and drinks before being punted back to “you guessed the correct extension, here is a recorded message, goodbye CLICK”.

My sunglasses are a lost cause. I will replace the socks.

O! Glorious Airline! My Bag!

2009-07-29T12:18:00.000-07:00

Parts of the internal hard shell.

More hard shell.

A rather large hole in one portion of the bag. The wheel was torn free of the internal assembly.

They told me that this could be repaired by putting in a new wheel.

Finagle’s Universal Laws for Naïve Engineers

2009-07-24T20:53:00.000-07:00

A Compilation of Finagle’s Universal Laws for Naïve Engineers
H. Curtis

The Recommended Practices Committee of the International Society of Philosophical Engineers Presents:

Axiom #1: In any calculation, any error which can creep in will do so.

Axiom #2: Any error in any calculation will be in the direction of most harm.

Axiom #3: In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from engineering handbooks) are to be treated as variables.

Axiom #4: The best approximation of service conditions in the laboratory will not begin to meet those conditions encountered in actual service.

Axiom #5: The most vital dimension of any plan or drawing stand the best change of being omitted.

Axiom #6: If only one bid can be secured on any project, the price will be unreasonable.

Axiom #7: If a test installation functions perfectly, all subsequent production units will malfunction.

Axiom #8: All delivery promises must be multiplied by a factor of 2.0.

Axiom #9: Major changes in construction will always be requested after fabrication is nearly completed.

Axiom #10: Parts that positively cannot be assembled in improper order will be.

Axiom #11: Interchangeable parts won’t.

Axiom #12: Manufacturer’s specifications of performance should be multiplied by a factor of 0.5.

Axiom #13: Salesmen’s claims for performance should be multiplied by a factor of 0.25.

Axiom #14: Installation and operation instructions shipped with any device will be promptly discarded by the Receiving Department.

Axiom #15: Any6 device requiring service or adjustments will be least accessible.

Axiom #16: Service conditions as given on specifications will be exceeded.

Axiom #17: If more than one person is responsible for a miscalculation, no one will be at fault.

Axiom #18: Identical units which test in an identical fashion will not behave in an identical fashion in the field.

Axiom #19: If, in engineering practice, a safety factor is set through service experience at an ultimate value, an ingenious idiot will promptly calculate a method to exceed said safety factor.

Axiom #20: Warranty and guarantee clauses are voided by payment of the invoice.

Note: While the accuracy of the above Axioms is vouched for, the Committee does not feel that this compilation is by any means complete. The Committee will welcome to the list any additions conforming to good philosophical engineering practice.

Axioms #2 and #5 stem from Finagle’s more fundamental observations that “the most important leg of any three-legged stool is the one that’s missing.”

I’ll add to that:
Axiom #22: The logarithm of failure rate increases linearly with the logarithm of age. (aka Weibull’s Power Law.)

~ for my Father

"Anything that can go wrong will go wrong."

Adam's Salt Lick

2009-07-19T18:02:00.000-07:00

“Did you know this water was sodium free?” Donna asked, brandishing the plastic bottle in front of my face.

“That’s lovely,” I replied, internally cringing. Donna the Evangelical “fundie”, otherwise known as The Bible Vampire, had cornered me.

“Most bottled water has sodium,” Donna continued. “God didn’t create water to have sodium in it.”

Oh boy. “He didn’t?”

“Noooooo! Man puts it there.” She said this even as she crinkled up her nose, a toddler’s vowel sounds drawn out and quartered. I noticed that the makeup had caked into the new lines around her nose, giving her permanent whiskers.

No indeed. NOOOOOOOOO. Please God, anything but this. God, if you’re listening, please send angels to rip my ears off.

She smiles, having assumed that I am an eager pupil. “Uh huh. Haven’t you noticed how unhealthy sodium is? It’s in the news. God didn’t want us to have sodium. That’s why he created water for us to drink, and he wouldn’t put that stuff in there.”

“The ocean has salt in it. It’s salt water. Sodium is salt.”

She pauses and snorts. “Haha, you almost had me. Sodium isn’t salt. Salt comes from the earth. The bible talks about the salt of the earth. Not salt of the water.”

Hello God? It’s me again. Forget the angels. Send a plague.

“Salt is part of our diet,” I reply. "Too much or too low consumption of salt on a regular basis is found to lead to muscle cramps and fatigue. If not taken seriously, fatal irregularities such as neurological imbalances are also likely.

"Drinking too much of water, without sufficient salt intake, might lead to water intoxication termed as hyponatremia." Foolish me, always wanting to volunteer information in the form of big words that Donna cannot process.

“No, you’re wrong,” she said, tossing her bushy and overly sprayed hair with a hearty shake of her head. It isn’t fair to say that the individual hairs actually moved. The entire teased rat’s nest knocked about her cranium like a bleached-blond football helmet.

“Actually,” I continue, “our ancestors received their salt through animal blood. Later, when agriculture was essential to survival, they would supplement their paltry dietary salt intake by consuming clay or other substances known to contain salt. Many animals do.”

“Humans are NOT ANIMALS.”

“Actually, we are. Primates, to be exact.”

“God created people, male and female he created them. People aren’t primates and they don’t eat rocks.”

“I didn’t say rocks. The human body will die without salt. It’s an essential mineral. We require five to ten grams of salt per day. God must have created us that way. Anyway, what did Adam and Eve do to supplement their salt intake? You told me last week that they didn't eat meat until after they had left the Garden. They didn’t have a way to, um, make table salt yet, obviously. Where did the salt come from?”

Very long pause.

Long indeed.

More nose crinkling.

She stares at me as if I were something spawned in the pits of hell. She purses her lips. She speaks.

“God gave them a salt lick.”

Mmmm’kay.

“I would imagine that it was in the form of the clay found in Africa,” I said.

“Oh jeepers no!”

“What? You don’t think it was a 'formed salt lick', do you?”

“It would have to be, wouldn’t it? God wouldn’t want us licking the ground. It isn’t good.”

So is this because the ground isn’t kosher, or is it because God would see it as a form of mud-man cannibalism? I was afraid to ask.

Vicious Chickens

2009-07-14T15:45:00.000-07:00

Connecticut. A state known for seafood, the Coast Guard, submarines and vicious chickens.

You read that correctly. There are submarines in Connecticut. And angry birds.

Apparently a henpecked neighbor must have tipped off the local constabulary in regard to Vicious Chickens and a possible safety issue. (These are not related to the Ravenous Lawyers that we once kept. You can read about that here.)

357 of these birds, both hens and roosters, were removed from a home in Harwinton, CT on Friday. There was also evidence of illegal cockfighting, to include spurs and a referee. The referee is believed to be “not vicious” and will be adopted out once he is no longer needed for evidence.

Meanwhile, Animal Control has been overwhelmed to the tune of $3000 in overtime for its employees. The sum grows daily.

"We're struggling because there are so many birds. Many of them are vicious," said Wayne Kasacek, assistant director of the state Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Regulation and Inspection.

(We lamented the same thing when we raised those Lawyers.)

Harwinton’s resident state trooper, Ian Nicholson, will continue his investigation. The property owners, Angel and Norma Nazario, are claiming that they do not own all of the birds.

There are three words in the English language that form a phrase that seems to transcend all racial, economic, gender, and education delineations: “It’s not mine!” Trooper Nicholson will have his work cut out for him (and they had better pay him overtime.)

The birds will, of course, be destroyed. You can’t adopt out vicious chickens. They are not safe around other birds and they have the potential to turn on their owners one day, savaging trouser legs and infants with abandon.

Kentucky Fried Chicken has placed a bid on the birds, and plans to start yet another senseless product line to compliment the already saturated market.

News source: Republican American, Waterbury, CT
Regarding Animal Cruelty: my stance

Cockfighting

2009-07-14T15:32:00.001-07:00

You can judge a society by how it treats its animals ~ Mahatma Gandhi.)

The earliest record of cockfighting dates to the Indus Valley Civilization 2000 BC. Roman social commentators carped about the “sport” as late as the first century AD.

Birds are, by evolutionary extension, an offshoot of dinosaurs (don’t argue with The Paleontologist.) Chickens are believed to be descended from red jungle fowl (Gallus gallus) and the “sport” of cockfighting might have originated from the Indus Valley Civilization close to 2000 BC.

Birds, like their ancestors, can be rather vicious. Chickens will cannibalize other chickens if they experience deficiencies in phosphorus, sodium and, above all, protein. They do fight in the chicken yards. (They are also messy, smelly and spook at strange noises.)

Nature gave rooster spurs with which they defend their flock and dominance. The dominant rooster will have a redder comb and longer spurs. Should he die, a subordinate rooster will take his place and his comb and spurs will fill out thanks to an increase in his testosterone.

Two dominant roosters will fight when introduced. This is instinctual in domineering males. Man came along and began to capitalize on this cheap and senseless form of entertainment by breeding the most dominant birds in a flock, creating gamecocks with bad attitudes.

You might ask why it isn’t cruel to allow the rooster to behave in a natural way. After all, cockfighting is an extension of what they would do in the wild.

Many cockfight participants and gamecock owners do not believe that chickens feel. I do not mean emotions. They see an injured bird and can not grasp the fact that the animal has sensory features that match our own, to include nerve endings and adrenalin. All fighting birds die. Precious few die humanely.

An animal does know when it is about to die. This sense is necessary in order for the animal to either stand its ground and fight or to take flight and escape the predicament.

If you can stomach it, watch a virgin bait animal before it is used. It will respond to the trainee in a polite animalistic way, exhibiting whatever instinctual greeting is called for. A bait dog might play bow or bark a greeting. A rooster might puff himself up a little and crow.

These instinctual actions vanish immediately after the animal finds itself being excruciatingly shredded by a superior opponent that is trained for battle. Your lost and trusting Labrador is now in the jaws of Damian the pit bull and is being eviscerated as men and boys hoot and encourage the carnage, unsympathetically throwing your terrified dog back into the ring each time that it manages to escape the battle. Your bleeding Lab will then be discarded into a vacant lot, and will watch the flies lay eggs in his exposed and bloated intestines. He will gradually die, surrounded by the smell of his own infected flesh, and without you there to comfort him.

If you can cringe at the thought of a dog suffering, surely you can understand that the chicken, although not keen in intelligence, has the ability to feel pain and to grasp the concept that it is suffering and about to expire. It is not a swift death. The bait birds are callously treated and often die slowly on the ground or in a box.

Commercial poultry butchering is, by the way, vile.

While I’m on this precarious pedestal:

I am anything but a PETA advocate. I believe that nature gave me an omnivore’s mouth so that I might enjoy the taste of a rare steak fresh from the BBQ.

Nature also gave me fingers and I use them to hold onto succulent spare ribs as well as to peel shrimp and crack crab legs. I have leather coats. I wear leather shoes. My SUV would have a leather interior if I had opted to pay extra for that package.

I firmly believe that the government needs to crack down on commercial livestock kill houses and clean up some of the unsafe practices. I do know what goes on in those facilities and, yes, I can still enjoy my prime rib. It is a conflict of interest but it is one that I see as necessary as I refuse to be vegan.

As for animal butchery: modern methods are a tad more civilized. Our ancestors would stop an animal from escaping by hitting it with something (rock, arrow, car) and then dropping something on its head to kill it (rock, boulder, house.)

I am vehemently against greyhound racing, pit bull fighting, cock fighting, and bull fighting. If man wants to get his kicks watching beasts suffer or kill each other, he can turn on Jerry Springer.