Greg Mankiw tipped me off on this one and I about fell out of my chair when I read it. It’s seems completely paradoxical to hire non-union workers to protest for union rights. Read more at To Protest Hiring of Nonunion Help, Union Hires Nonunion Pickets.

Some classic lines:

• Reason for using nonunion folks: “For a lot of our members, it’s really difficult to have them come out, either because of parking or something else”
• Indifferent protestor: “Mr. Raye says he’s grateful for the work, even though he’s not sure why he’s doing it.”
• Reaction to protestors: ”I don’t blame them—they need the money, but they look like they are drunk or something.”
• Union response for hiring nonunion workers: “By hiring the unemployed, ‘we are also giving back to the community a bit.’”

Frankly, I loathe most unions. No surprise since I see little benefit in what they provide people. However, I think it’s completely ridiculous that some unions can’t even find members to protest.

A few of you know that I have recently become involved with a new business venture called FamilyIQ. It has been in existence for nearly a decade and has been highly successful. Mark Hobbins, CEO and Founder of FamilyIQ–also a good, personal friend of 18 years, has decided that he wants his business to grow even larger than it already is. Therefore, he is changing his business model to a highly scalable network marketing program.

Currently, the program is in pre-launch stage and is looking for individuals to become part of its exclusive Founder’s Pool. You’ll be provided with an amazing opportunity to be one of the first people in this network marketing company with the potential to reap large rewards. In addition, you’ll be able to help people improve their family relationships.

To learn more, please visit our exciting business at http://about.myfamilyiq.com/.

A co-worker of mine sent this to me:

If you are at least 30, or older (like most of us), you might think this is hilarious!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning…. Uphill…Barefoot… BOTH ways. yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they’ve got it!

But now that I’m over the ripe old age of at least thirty, I can’t help but look around and notice the youth of today.  You’ve got it so easy!  I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!

And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don’t know how good you’ve got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn’t have the Internet.  If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

There was no email!!  We had to actually write somebody a letter – with a pen!   Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there!  Stamps were 10 cents!

Child Protective Services didn’t care if our parents beat us.  As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our butt! Nowhere was safe!

There were no MP3’s or Napsters or iTunes!  If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!  There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car..  We’d play our favorite tape and “eject” it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that’s how we rolled, Baby!  Dig?

We didn’t have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that’s it!

There weren’t any freakin’ cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn’t make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your “friends”. OH MY GOSH!!!  Think of the horror… not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there’s TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

And we didn’t have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was!  It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent… you just didn’t know!!!  You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn’t have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics!  We had the Atari 2600!  With games like ‘Space Invaders’ and ‘Asteroids’.  Your screen guy was a little square!  You actually had to use your imagination!!!  And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen… Forever!  And you could never win.  The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing!  You had to get off your butt and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no,
what’s the world coming to?!?!

There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I’m saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-finks!

And we didn’t have microwaves.

If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove!

Imagine that!

And our parents told us to stay outside and play… all day long.  Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort.  And if you came back inside… you were doing chores! And car seats – oh, please!  Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on.  If you were luckily, you got the “safety arm” across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling “shot gun” in the first place!

See!  That’s exactly what I’m talking about! You kids today have got it too easy.

You’re spoiled rotten!  You guys wouldn’t have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or any time before!

Regards,
The Over 30 Crowd

I recently logged into a hosting company’s control panel and received a message similar to this…

It’s not that I disagree with their policy, but what about those of us who already had a *strong* password? Don’t we all know that long, complex passwords are difficult to come up with? Sigh… On the flip side, it’s probably best that everybody changes their passwords on a regular basis. It’s pretty annoying to do this at work every month, but I understand the importance of it.

A friend of mine posted this on his blog and I thought I would pass it along.

I must say that while I get frustrated at times with Comcast and their prices, I can’t complain about their Internet service. Just look at these download speeds. Sure, upload speeds could use some improving, but I’m not much into uploading.

I was reviewing these pics posted on MercuryNews.com. It’s amazing to see the devastation that these mudslides cause. This poor lady seems totally terrified too…

I’d be afraid at the age of 91

Glad this isn’t my house

Time for more change…

Work has been busy recently. I have been on the road for a few weeks and have a couple more weeks to go. I am currently staying offshore on a platform and things have been interesting so far. Two years ago, if you asked me if I’d ever visit an oil platform, I would have responded, “Yeah, right…”

The idea of building structures several miles offshore is kinda exciting. 

Platforms are fairly tall; my office sits a couple of hundred feet above sea level. If you tried jumping off the side, you probably wouldn’t survive the fall–if you did, you’d be pretty beat up. I have a great view of the Santa Barbara coastline. I didn’t realize that seals love oil platforms. Due to the fluctuations in the tides, seals will make their way onto the bottom-level pipes and landings. They just hang out there for hours. Tonight, I probably saw a couple dozen or so.

Recently, I have been on the road and started thinking about toilet paper. I noticed that Alaska Airlines uses two-ply toilet paper in their lavatories while other airlines use single-ply tp. Anyway, will somebody please explain to me why single-ply even exists? Seriously. It’s not like causes people to use less toilet paper. I’d argue that people end up using at least twice as much to protect themselves.

Now, some might argue that you need single-ply tp for airplanes, boats, porta potties, etc. so it decomposes quickly and easily. If this is the case, somebody needs to come up with an easily dissolvable toilet paper.