Chemists have developed a new, natural supplement that is getting guys across the county ripped like never before.
Okay there was a picture of a man with a well-toned body underneath that statement, so I am assuming "ripped" refers to a well-defined muscles as opposed to intoxicated. I also am not talking about the fact the ad seems to promise that by taking some sort of substance you can forgo excercise and a correct diet and still look like a professional body builder. I think the fact this is a "natural supplement" yet it was developed by "chemists" is the part that strikes me as odd.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
Fourth Annual Christmas Illness
Four the fourth year in a row I have managed to be sick on Christmas. The first two years it was a stomach virus. Last year it was bronchitus. This year it is a sinus infection although it seems to be trying to work it's evilness on my chest also, because I have a cough and it isn't a dry one. I was feeling off on Christmas, but not really bad, until after lunch. I ate lunch with my parents and being Christmas ate heavier than normal. After that I started feeling worse. I put it down to overindulgence, went home and napped for a couple of hours. I woke up feeling like 30 tiny little men were using sledgehammers on the inside of my skull, not just the head, but the face too. I took way too many ibuprophen, and tried to watch television, actually computer monitor as my television got turned into the world's largest paperweight by lightning last August. I also found I had a slight cough. I went to bed later than normal, probably because of the nap, and woke the next morning with the same headache and cough. By lunch though I was having problems breathing. I treated the cough with a year old bag of vitamin c drops and some throat louzenges that were a bit fresher and alternated asparin and ibuprophen for the head. I ate hot food and drank hot tea and was even lazier than normal, if that's possible. I actually used a thermometer and found I was running a fever or about 2 degrees. I took generic night time cold medicine in liquid form before I went to bed. Sunday, I was even worse. Breathing through my nose was a memory only. The cough was about the same. The headache was better, but I was a bit dizzy if I stood too quickly. I made frequent trips to the bathroom, mostly to spit and blow, though. The fever though was about half what it was Saturday. I repeated the treatment, complete with homemade beef stew. This morning I was feeling much better, still a little stopped up, annoying cough still here, but head seems close to my version of normal, although I am a bit sleepy. I skipped breakfast due to being slow getting started this morning but ate a sandwich for lunch, afterwhich I felt a bit worse. I thought that was odd.
Anyway with the second night of cold medication in my strange thoughts filtered in as I went to sleep last night. For instance, is it odd that a dose of liquid cold medication is the same size roughly as a shot of whiskey? Also, I had a friend who claimed to make his own Nyquil. He said take 2 Tylenol, 2 psuedophed, and a shot of Rumplemintz. I guess any brand peppermint snapps would do though. He said if he was short on Rumplemintz he would take a shot of vodka and an altoid. I don't have peppermint snappz or altoids, wonder if cinnamon snapps or Yagermeister would do?
Also I remember my mother's private cold remedy. I remember this from way back. Put an ounce or so of brown whiskey, usually Tennessee whiskey although burbon or Kentucky whiskey would work personally I am more a rum and vodka man, in a sauce pan and heat it, when it starts smelling, add a tablespoon of honey stirring until it mealts followed by a chunk of peppermint. This was back in the day when you could by peppermint candy canes by the pound and it took a hammer to break them apart. Melt the peppermint, pour into a cup and add a teaspoon of lemon juice. Carry to you bed, drink as fast as possible and collapse. You would usually break into a sweat, sleep like a log and feel better in the morning. Modern version of this involves a microwave rather than a stove and saucepan. For children substitute half the whiskey with water. I have tried this using blended scotch, but the results were not as remembered. Perhaps the Tennessee and Kentucky whiskeys have curative properties not found in blended scotch. Haven't tried it with tequila although there is some cheap crap in the house, so perhaps next illness if I can find the peppermint before then.
Anyway with the second night of cold medication in my strange thoughts filtered in as I went to sleep last night. For instance, is it odd that a dose of liquid cold medication is the same size roughly as a shot of whiskey? Also, I had a friend who claimed to make his own Nyquil. He said take 2 Tylenol, 2 psuedophed, and a shot of Rumplemintz. I guess any brand peppermint snapps would do though. He said if he was short on Rumplemintz he would take a shot of vodka and an altoid. I don't have peppermint snappz or altoids, wonder if cinnamon snapps or Yagermeister would do?
Also I remember my mother's private cold remedy. I remember this from way back. Put an ounce or so of brown whiskey, usually Tennessee whiskey although burbon or Kentucky whiskey would work personally I am more a rum and vodka man, in a sauce pan and heat it, when it starts smelling, add a tablespoon of honey stirring until it mealts followed by a chunk of peppermint. This was back in the day when you could by peppermint candy canes by the pound and it took a hammer to break them apart. Melt the peppermint, pour into a cup and add a teaspoon of lemon juice. Carry to you bed, drink as fast as possible and collapse. You would usually break into a sweat, sleep like a log and feel better in the morning. Modern version of this involves a microwave rather than a stove and saucepan. For children substitute half the whiskey with water. I have tried this using blended scotch, but the results were not as remembered. Perhaps the Tennessee and Kentucky whiskeys have curative properties not found in blended scotch. Haven't tried it with tequila although there is some cheap crap in the house, so perhaps next illness if I can find the peppermint before then.
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Sexual Intellectuals
I had a friend in high school and college who like to refer to those individuals with the intellectual capacity of a half-melted ice cube and the tendency to do things without consulting anyone with more brainpower than the average rock as sexual intellectuals. That was just his way of saying fucking idiots. I feel that I have either been in the presence of, or basked in the glow of, several sexual intellectuals lately and in an attempt to purge my soul, I shall blog about em.
First let's discuss work. I have a client who is a parolee from another state. She transfered here to live with a family member. She came into the office last month and was griping because she says Tennessee, and in particular our poor rural area of said state, doesn't have programs to help parolees get jobs. She said the state she came from had training programs and interview training and even gave you a full set of clothes. Apparently she wandered around begging and Goodwill gave her a skirt and jacket and a church bought her a pair of shoes, but no one gave her underware. Three things came to my mind, but through a superhuman effort of will I supressed them. I probably shouldn't as I think the effort elevated my bloodpressure. First thing I thought was "What the hell kind of job are you applying for where they see your underwear?" Second thing I thought was "If the state you came from is so damn nice to parolees, why didn't you stay?" Third thing I thought, was a 2 parter. First I thought "Why should the state give you anything, the state didn't tell you to get your butt locked up." Then I thought, "but if Tennessee did have a program, it would be for our home-grown thugs, not our imported ones."
Now I do think the state could improve how we deal with recently released parolees. I think all of them serving more than 3 years, and the ones serving 3 years who aren't releasing to live with direct family, should have to release into a state run halfway house. Currently the state doesn't run any half-way houses. While we do have some standards to be state approved, they are too lax. There are no mandatory rules for drug testing, program requirements, curfews, ect. Most of the ones I have dealt with require a month's rent up front, have no programs to help them find jobs or get to interviews, and tend to kick them out when the second month's rent is late. We even had one that was letting them drug test each other. There are actually only 2 in this area that seem geared toward helping the offenders succeed and stay out of jail, the rest seem to want that first month's rent and forget anything else. I think if they state set up regional half-way houses, staffed them with a PO 24/7 and a social worker for 2 shift, and included a first-shift job counceller, a and d treatment, anger management classes, and required everyone paroling out to spend at least a year in the program before being evaluated it would really reduce reoffending. It would give them a chance to get on there feet, readjust to the world, find jobs, reestablish connections with family while giving them a grounded, guaranteed place to live, and transportation to and training for interviews, keep them drug free. It would cost money, but the state might be able to cut back a little on PO's in current offices by moving some in to these houses. Our current offices are over run and over worked as it is.
Anyway, the thing that brought the above genius to mind was that she came to see me yesterday and set me off again. Again I eleveated my blood pressure by restraining myself. You see she found a job at a local factory. The first thing she did was move out, as she and her sister were arguing. I told her she needed to hold off and save a little money first, but she didn't listen, so of course she ran into money problems and started looking for handouts, a local program told her they would TRY to help her with her rent, but when she went back they told her they didn't have any funds. The economic crunch of the last couple of years has pretty much wiped out most of the local charities. So this woman tells me the program sucked and almost caused her to lose her apartment. It's freaking charity lady!!!!!!!! You aren't ENTITLED to IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You shouldn't DEPEND on it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You had a FREE place to stay as long as you helped keep it clean, YOU left despite being told to be patient and save up enough money so if you lost your job you could survive a couple of months. Then she told me we have some funny looking people going and coming in our office. I started to say, "YEAH and you are one of them." I didn't. Considerring she was in prison for shooting a man, probably a wise move.
I live in a different county than I work. The county seat of the county I live in is a small town where the rate for solving murders is not inspirational, unless you are a murderer anyway. A local business man from a well respected family was found shot in his house about a year ago. It looked like he opened his door for someone and was shot by whoever was at the door. It was in the middle of a prominent subdivision. If the case is going anywhere, the police aren't saying anything. A local oriented forum has a lot of posts dealing with this. The forum seems more a home for flame wars than offering any real information. I check the forums occasionally if I am really bored, but it's more for entertainment than anything. A certain person or group of people on there seem to have decided that the man's wife had him killed because apparently she is sleeping with every married man in the county and even a few unmarried ones. Perhaps sleeping isn't the right word, as according to them her crotch has its own frequent visiter program. If she does even half what they claim, I don't see how she can walk, or have time to be seen in all the places she is, as she would need to have her food delivered to her bed room and never sleep to service all her man toys. And some how I missed out again, as I haven't sampled her wares.
I actually knew her at one time. She is 2 or 3 years younger than I and I was aquainted with her slighly in high school. We were in science club together I believe. She was nice enough, and cute, but a little pudgy, although mostly pudgy in the interesting places. When she started college, I ran into her again, and remember she wasn't pudgy anymore, just curvy and attractive, but she was in a relationship. I saw her occasionally on campus, then not again for several years. I ran into her about 12 years or so ago, we talked a little and I haven't seen her since. I might have seen her and not recognized her for all I know. I don't spend much time in the town, just to pay utility bills once monthly. Anyway, that's a long way to say that one of the men she is rumored to be banging is a police officer. Apparently he was told to stay away from the case, so as to head off any issues, should anyone be arrested and tried for the murder. Well the officer involved served subpeona's on the local newspaper and the forums requesting ip addresses for some of the posters on both sites. He was fired for misconduct. This is where it gets confusing, and perhaps my lack of a law degree causes some of this confusion on my part.
Officially he was fired because he was told to have nothing to do with the case, but he then requested the information to track down these posters. He was fired, but he appealed this and the Police Department upheld the decision, so he appealed to the city commission and got legal representation, asking for his job back and some monetary compensation. He was shot out of the water, so now he is suing in chancery court for his job back claiming he was inproperly terminated without due process. The lawyer claimed in the last appeal, that termination was too harsh a punishment for his behavior.
There is so much I don't get here. The man disobeyed a direct order, he possibly damaged a murder investigation, possibly endangered a future court case, publicly embarrased both himself and the department, and may have done some things that are illegal. So firing is to harsh, to me I think he might have been prosecutable for misconduct and illegal use of authority.
You see he issued improper subpeonas. A subpeona is a document commanding some to be in court for a hearing. It is issued by the court clerk's office with the authority of the judge. It has to contain a date to appear or to produce the evidence requested in court and a court docket number. Since no one is arrested, there is neither a docket number nor a court date, so these subpeonas could not have either. The court clerk's office claimed the subpeonas were not improper at the last hearing, and that he filed copies with them, although I really think that was more to cover someone's rear than anything. First, I would think in an investigation, a search warrant would be issued to retrieve the information first. If a judge wouldn't grant a warrant then a subpeona might be issued and the argument made in court, but subpeonaing unknown evidence into a court case seems risky. Also, I would think it would be the DA's office issuing subpeonas, not a police officer, although I issue subpeonas in violation cases, so perhaps the local DA's office has the officers subpeona the witnesses. Anyway it seems fishy.
But here is the thing. This officer diobeyed an order from his superior. He endangered an ongoing investigation and potential capital crime trial He got caught and it was aired in public. He was fired. He has appealed and had 2 hearings both of which he lost. Now he is sueing and asking for his job back and reparations including backpay, benefits and lawyer fees. The claim is that he had no legal representation, no one was sworn, and there was no official record. There is also a claim that the two appeals were capricious and arbitrary and violate due process. First, are you supposed to have an opportunity to have a lawyer present when you get fired? I didn't know that. Second, why in the hell would he want to work there now. He was caught doing something naughty he was told not to. If they are forced to give him his job back, they are going to hate his guts and not trust him at all. They may not be able to fire him for a period of time, but you can bet everthing he does will be watched like a hawk. The will record ever single thing he does, every mistake, ever misstep and when they fill safe, they will fire him so hard and so far. You can also bet he will get the crap jobs and crap shift noone wants. If I was so convinced I was right, I would ask for the backpay, severance pay, a formal public apology and a written note of explaination and recommendation, then I would be gone fast. I sure wouldn't want to go back to work there.
First let's discuss work. I have a client who is a parolee from another state. She transfered here to live with a family member. She came into the office last month and was griping because she says Tennessee, and in particular our poor rural area of said state, doesn't have programs to help parolees get jobs. She said the state she came from had training programs and interview training and even gave you a full set of clothes. Apparently she wandered around begging and Goodwill gave her a skirt and jacket and a church bought her a pair of shoes, but no one gave her underware. Three things came to my mind, but through a superhuman effort of will I supressed them. I probably shouldn't as I think the effort elevated my bloodpressure. First thing I thought was "What the hell kind of job are you applying for where they see your underwear?" Second thing I thought was "If the state you came from is so damn nice to parolees, why didn't you stay?" Third thing I thought, was a 2 parter. First I thought "Why should the state give you anything, the state didn't tell you to get your butt locked up." Then I thought, "but if Tennessee did have a program, it would be for our home-grown thugs, not our imported ones."
Now I do think the state could improve how we deal with recently released parolees. I think all of them serving more than 3 years, and the ones serving 3 years who aren't releasing to live with direct family, should have to release into a state run halfway house. Currently the state doesn't run any half-way houses. While we do have some standards to be state approved, they are too lax. There are no mandatory rules for drug testing, program requirements, curfews, ect. Most of the ones I have dealt with require a month's rent up front, have no programs to help them find jobs or get to interviews, and tend to kick them out when the second month's rent is late. We even had one that was letting them drug test each other. There are actually only 2 in this area that seem geared toward helping the offenders succeed and stay out of jail, the rest seem to want that first month's rent and forget anything else. I think if they state set up regional half-way houses, staffed them with a PO 24/7 and a social worker for 2 shift, and included a first-shift job counceller, a and d treatment, anger management classes, and required everyone paroling out to spend at least a year in the program before being evaluated it would really reduce reoffending. It would give them a chance to get on there feet, readjust to the world, find jobs, reestablish connections with family while giving them a grounded, guaranteed place to live, and transportation to and training for interviews, keep them drug free. It would cost money, but the state might be able to cut back a little on PO's in current offices by moving some in to these houses. Our current offices are over run and over worked as it is.
Anyway, the thing that brought the above genius to mind was that she came to see me yesterday and set me off again. Again I eleveated my blood pressure by restraining myself. You see she found a job at a local factory. The first thing she did was move out, as she and her sister were arguing. I told her she needed to hold off and save a little money first, but she didn't listen, so of course she ran into money problems and started looking for handouts, a local program told her they would TRY to help her with her rent, but when she went back they told her they didn't have any funds. The economic crunch of the last couple of years has pretty much wiped out most of the local charities. So this woman tells me the program sucked and almost caused her to lose her apartment. It's freaking charity lady!!!!!!!! You aren't ENTITLED to IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You shouldn't DEPEND on it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You had a FREE place to stay as long as you helped keep it clean, YOU left despite being told to be patient and save up enough money so if you lost your job you could survive a couple of months. Then she told me we have some funny looking people going and coming in our office. I started to say, "YEAH and you are one of them." I didn't. Considerring she was in prison for shooting a man, probably a wise move.
I live in a different county than I work. The county seat of the county I live in is a small town where the rate for solving murders is not inspirational, unless you are a murderer anyway. A local business man from a well respected family was found shot in his house about a year ago. It looked like he opened his door for someone and was shot by whoever was at the door. It was in the middle of a prominent subdivision. If the case is going anywhere, the police aren't saying anything. A local oriented forum has a lot of posts dealing with this. The forum seems more a home for flame wars than offering any real information. I check the forums occasionally if I am really bored, but it's more for entertainment than anything. A certain person or group of people on there seem to have decided that the man's wife had him killed because apparently she is sleeping with every married man in the county and even a few unmarried ones. Perhaps sleeping isn't the right word, as according to them her crotch has its own frequent visiter program. If she does even half what they claim, I don't see how she can walk, or have time to be seen in all the places she is, as she would need to have her food delivered to her bed room and never sleep to service all her man toys. And some how I missed out again, as I haven't sampled her wares.
I actually knew her at one time. She is 2 or 3 years younger than I and I was aquainted with her slighly in high school. We were in science club together I believe. She was nice enough, and cute, but a little pudgy, although mostly pudgy in the interesting places. When she started college, I ran into her again, and remember she wasn't pudgy anymore, just curvy and attractive, but she was in a relationship. I saw her occasionally on campus, then not again for several years. I ran into her about 12 years or so ago, we talked a little and I haven't seen her since. I might have seen her and not recognized her for all I know. I don't spend much time in the town, just to pay utility bills once monthly. Anyway, that's a long way to say that one of the men she is rumored to be banging is a police officer. Apparently he was told to stay away from the case, so as to head off any issues, should anyone be arrested and tried for the murder. Well the officer involved served subpeona's on the local newspaper and the forums requesting ip addresses for some of the posters on both sites. He was fired for misconduct. This is where it gets confusing, and perhaps my lack of a law degree causes some of this confusion on my part.
Officially he was fired because he was told to have nothing to do with the case, but he then requested the information to track down these posters. He was fired, but he appealed this and the Police Department upheld the decision, so he appealed to the city commission and got legal representation, asking for his job back and some monetary compensation. He was shot out of the water, so now he is suing in chancery court for his job back claiming he was inproperly terminated without due process. The lawyer claimed in the last appeal, that termination was too harsh a punishment for his behavior.
There is so much I don't get here. The man disobeyed a direct order, he possibly damaged a murder investigation, possibly endangered a future court case, publicly embarrased both himself and the department, and may have done some things that are illegal. So firing is to harsh, to me I think he might have been prosecutable for misconduct and illegal use of authority.
You see he issued improper subpeonas. A subpeona is a document commanding some to be in court for a hearing. It is issued by the court clerk's office with the authority of the judge. It has to contain a date to appear or to produce the evidence requested in court and a court docket number. Since no one is arrested, there is neither a docket number nor a court date, so these subpeonas could not have either. The court clerk's office claimed the subpeonas were not improper at the last hearing, and that he filed copies with them, although I really think that was more to cover someone's rear than anything. First, I would think in an investigation, a search warrant would be issued to retrieve the information first. If a judge wouldn't grant a warrant then a subpeona might be issued and the argument made in court, but subpeonaing unknown evidence into a court case seems risky. Also, I would think it would be the DA's office issuing subpeonas, not a police officer, although I issue subpeonas in violation cases, so perhaps the local DA's office has the officers subpeona the witnesses. Anyway it seems fishy.
But here is the thing. This officer diobeyed an order from his superior. He endangered an ongoing investigation and potential capital crime trial He got caught and it was aired in public. He was fired. He has appealed and had 2 hearings both of which he lost. Now he is sueing and asking for his job back and reparations including backpay, benefits and lawyer fees. The claim is that he had no legal representation, no one was sworn, and there was no official record. There is also a claim that the two appeals were capricious and arbitrary and violate due process. First, are you supposed to have an opportunity to have a lawyer present when you get fired? I didn't know that. Second, why in the hell would he want to work there now. He was caught doing something naughty he was told not to. If they are forced to give him his job back, they are going to hate his guts and not trust him at all. They may not be able to fire him for a period of time, but you can bet everthing he does will be watched like a hawk. The will record ever single thing he does, every mistake, ever misstep and when they fill safe, they will fire him so hard and so far. You can also bet he will get the crap jobs and crap shift noone wants. If I was so convinced I was right, I would ask for the backpay, severance pay, a formal public apology and a written note of explaination and recommendation, then I would be gone fast. I sure wouldn't want to go back to work there.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Craziness, It Just Keeps Coming
Alright, in an attempt to save money, our department is instituting a new tool. It is basically a tool that is supposed to measure the likelihood of our offenders reoffending and to uncover hidden needs they might have. The theory being that once we know these needs we can direct them to resources for them to meet the needs, thereby reducing the chances that they will reoffend. I have nothing against this in theory, it sounds good. The problems I have with it are as follows.
1. It takes about an hour of intensive interviewing to administer the tool, plus time to enter it into the computer and get the results, then a follow up interview with the offender to explain the results. I currently have 110 people on my caseload, all but 2 of them under active supervision. I have to see about 75% of them once a month and another 10% twice monthly. The remainder report in quarterly. I don't know how I will make the time to do this, especially when you consider I also have to do field work, court appearances, write warrants, write reports, investigate new transfers, ect. and currently we aren't allowed ANY overtime.
2. The training takes 4 full days. Half our office did it last month, the rest do it this month. You have to complete training, pass a test, pass an interview, and complete a computer test to get ceriftified to use the tool. Then you have to do some other things afterward to gain access to the actual internet site to enter the data. The people who completed the training last month are just now beginning to get their certificates. So it took almost 30 days to get certified. They implemented the new standards this month. We are supposed to be using the tool now. Half of us haven't even had the training and the ones that have are only now being certified, yet it is in effect now?
3. We are a rural area, we have almost no resources to refer clients too, so I am worried that by identifying these needs, we may be setting up the agency to be responsible legally for meeting them. How long before someone ends up in court on a violation and blames these unmet needs on his violating? Sooner or later someone will mention this to their lawyer and it will become an excuse.
1. It takes about an hour of intensive interviewing to administer the tool, plus time to enter it into the computer and get the results, then a follow up interview with the offender to explain the results. I currently have 110 people on my caseload, all but 2 of them under active supervision. I have to see about 75% of them once a month and another 10% twice monthly. The remainder report in quarterly. I don't know how I will make the time to do this, especially when you consider I also have to do field work, court appearances, write warrants, write reports, investigate new transfers, ect. and currently we aren't allowed ANY overtime.
2. The training takes 4 full days. Half our office did it last month, the rest do it this month. You have to complete training, pass a test, pass an interview, and complete a computer test to get ceriftified to use the tool. Then you have to do some other things afterward to gain access to the actual internet site to enter the data. The people who completed the training last month are just now beginning to get their certificates. So it took almost 30 days to get certified. They implemented the new standards this month. We are supposed to be using the tool now. Half of us haven't even had the training and the ones that have are only now being certified, yet it is in effect now?
3. We are a rural area, we have almost no resources to refer clients too, so I am worried that by identifying these needs, we may be setting up the agency to be responsible legally for meeting them. How long before someone ends up in court on a violation and blames these unmet needs on his violating? Sooner or later someone will mention this to their lawyer and it will become an excuse.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Gripe, Moan, Gripe, Moan
It's the end of the month and I have stuff I need to do. I want to take off early today because next month is guarantendamntied to be extra nightmarishly stressful. Why? Well, glad you asked. You see we get 3, count 'em, 3 days off for the holidays. The problem? Well that would be that we have to shovel the work for those 3 days into the remaining days. Still that isn't that big of a deal as it happens every year. The problem is the 4 mandatory training days that are also on there. Why they set up 4 full training days in a row on a month where we are already 3 full days short I will never know, but there you go. I am losing 7 full working days. Now I guess I could come in and work on those holidays, but I won't be compensated for it. Although if I have to, I might come in and work on some warrants or paperwork. But I would really rather not do that. Well, lets get to work. Put it off long enough.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Vacuums and Emails
I love my sister. Love her dearly and we used to talk a lot, but then for a while we didn't. Early on we spoke both on the phone and via email. Recently we started back with the email. I forgot one thing about her though and that is that she is a chain forwarder. I mean that she forwards chain emails like crazy. I get the inspirational emails, the bring religion back into the school emails, the forward this email to 10 different people and microsoft, appleby's, apple, red lobster, aol, gm, ibm, ect will send you free cash, $50 gift certificate, ipod, 1 month free service, labtop computer, 40 foot yacht, private jet, hooter's girl, ect. Okay, I couple of things you should know about me I guess. First, I check all those strange email rumors. Most have been around several thousand times before and a false. Second, I know tracking email is very difficult. You can only really do it through IP address and getting each individual address can require a court order. The chances are that no company is going to go through the expense and hassel of doing that just to give millions of people something free just to advertise some new service. The thing I don't get is who the hell starts these things and do they really think it's that funny of a joke?
There is no piece of code that can be inserted into an email to determine how many different people you forward an email to so that you can see the Taco Bell Dog do the macarana across your screen. If there was your anti virus and anti spyware software would throw a major temper tantrum.
Well, you don't want to know my views on religion, or on politics, but hopefully you do want to know my views on the timely and important subject of home carpet cleaning, aka vacuums. I currently own 2. The older and by far more expensive is a Kirby G6. I have had it about 7 years. It is a very good vacuum. It is also a very expensive vacuum. It is the Transformer of the vacuum world. It is a vacuum, blower, shampooer, handheld vacuum for car or stairs, lawn mower, motorcycle, nail gun and jack hammer. If you can figure how to rearrange the parts and have a plug in within reach it can do it. Now mind you the major manufacturing component in making the kirby was steel, so it isn't light, the handheld configuration can double as dumbells for your workout. There are really only a few downsides other than the intial expense to the kirby. First, by being so versital it kind of makes it complicated and a bit of a pain to clean. Two the impeller design seems a bit too open and easy to jam or break for what is otherwise a near indestrutable machine, although I have yet to damage the thing. Three, all components for the vacuum that need to be replaced are expensive. The darn bags are about $6 apiece. Fortunately they are rather large, but still.....
On the other end of the scale we have the Wind Tunnel. I am not an idiot, the wind tunnel is an economy vacuum while the Kirby is high end. I know I can't fairly compare a vacuum I bought for $75 with one that cost $1700.
The Wind Tunnel is bagless, that is it uses a filter and canister to hold what it picks up rather than a bag. since filters can be cleaned and last longer than a bag, these have become rather popular. Now both vacuums are self propelled, which is important with the super heavy Kirby, but not so much with the WT, whose construction is pretty much plastic. The thing is, the Kirby lets you turn the self propel option off, while the light weight vacuum doesn't. Both have power brushes.
Now I don't expect the little vac to perform like the Kirby. The Kirby due to complication and weight is a bit of a pain to get into action. This vacuum is light and no bag, so I was planning on it doing the regular work and the Kirby coming out for deep cleaning and shampooing. Unfortunately, the Windtunnel uses 2 belts and one is a pain. After around 2 to three vacuums, the belt starts coming off frequently. If you take 4 long screws out of the bottom, you find the two belts. One is long and skinny and looks fragile. Not had any issues with it. The thick, short rubber one is the brat. It loops over a metal shaft then around a rubber tire. You have to hook it over the metal shaft then stretch and roll it onto the tire. The shaft is long, you have to turn the belt sideways and wiggle it on. You don't have much room to work. Then you have to stretch and hold the belt with your thumb while rotating the tire with any remaining fingers you can get into the tiny spot. The you put the plate back on, vacuum 2 to 5 minutes and repeat. You have to put the screws back in, otherwise the cover falls off. Other than this it's a decent, cheap vacuum. I am contemplating putting a cover on the metal shaft. It gets really hot and that seems to be where the belt slips off rather than from the tire. Perhaps if I can work a piece of aquarium air tubing over the shaft, the belt won't slip as often. If I can't get the tubing, maybe some duct or electrical tape. As it is the vacuum is useless. I bought the vacuum new but at an auction, so I can't return it.
There is no piece of code that can be inserted into an email to determine how many different people you forward an email to so that you can see the Taco Bell Dog do the macarana across your screen. If there was your anti virus and anti spyware software would throw a major temper tantrum.
Well, you don't want to know my views on religion, or on politics, but hopefully you do want to know my views on the timely and important subject of home carpet cleaning, aka vacuums. I currently own 2. The older and by far more expensive is a Kirby G6. I have had it about 7 years. It is a very good vacuum. It is also a very expensive vacuum. It is the Transformer of the vacuum world. It is a vacuum, blower, shampooer, handheld vacuum for car or stairs, lawn mower, motorcycle, nail gun and jack hammer. If you can figure how to rearrange the parts and have a plug in within reach it can do it. Now mind you the major manufacturing component in making the kirby was steel, so it isn't light, the handheld configuration can double as dumbells for your workout. There are really only a few downsides other than the intial expense to the kirby. First, by being so versital it kind of makes it complicated and a bit of a pain to clean. Two the impeller design seems a bit too open and easy to jam or break for what is otherwise a near indestrutable machine, although I have yet to damage the thing. Three, all components for the vacuum that need to be replaced are expensive. The darn bags are about $6 apiece. Fortunately they are rather large, but still.....
On the other end of the scale we have the Wind Tunnel. I am not an idiot, the wind tunnel is an economy vacuum while the Kirby is high end. I know I can't fairly compare a vacuum I bought for $75 with one that cost $1700.
The Wind Tunnel is bagless, that is it uses a filter and canister to hold what it picks up rather than a bag. since filters can be cleaned and last longer than a bag, these have become rather popular. Now both vacuums are self propelled, which is important with the super heavy Kirby, but not so much with the WT, whose construction is pretty much plastic. The thing is, the Kirby lets you turn the self propel option off, while the light weight vacuum doesn't. Both have power brushes.
Now I don't expect the little vac to perform like the Kirby. The Kirby due to complication and weight is a bit of a pain to get into action. This vacuum is light and no bag, so I was planning on it doing the regular work and the Kirby coming out for deep cleaning and shampooing. Unfortunately, the Windtunnel uses 2 belts and one is a pain. After around 2 to three vacuums, the belt starts coming off frequently. If you take 4 long screws out of the bottom, you find the two belts. One is long and skinny and looks fragile. Not had any issues with it. The thick, short rubber one is the brat. It loops over a metal shaft then around a rubber tire. You have to hook it over the metal shaft then stretch and roll it onto the tire. The shaft is long, you have to turn the belt sideways and wiggle it on. You don't have much room to work. Then you have to stretch and hold the belt with your thumb while rotating the tire with any remaining fingers you can get into the tiny spot. The you put the plate back on, vacuum 2 to 5 minutes and repeat. You have to put the screws back in, otherwise the cover falls off. Other than this it's a decent, cheap vacuum. I am contemplating putting a cover on the metal shaft. It gets really hot and that seems to be where the belt slips off rather than from the tire. Perhaps if I can work a piece of aquarium air tubing over the shaft, the belt won't slip as often. If I can't get the tubing, maybe some duct or electrical tape. As it is the vacuum is useless. I bought the vacuum new but at an auction, so I can't return it.
Monday, September 28, 2009
More Thoughts on a New TV Season
Well, Saturday it decided to put about 6 million inches of rain down, so I went to sidereel and caught a few season premieres and normal episodes of a few shows. I watched the season opener for Medium, I always liked this show, it centered more around the very real seeming family relationships and what Alison's abilities and job did to there family life. The season opener from last season's cliff hanger was okay, not really anything special, but then they had to resolve the cliff hanger. I did like the ending, though.
I caught another episode of Monk. That show has gotten a bit old, but this is the last season. I liked wings, and his taxi driver character was great there. I liked his neurotic detective bit, but really, how long can they go on with it? And I didn't catch the series until Trayler Howard had joined, and I like her, so when I see an old episode with Sharona I find it inferior to the Natalie episodes.
The opener for the Mentalist was on. I almost missed this, unusual job/skill set makes a guy a super detective, cop show last season. It is okay, sort of falls into the Medium, Monk, Psych, Castle, Numbers catagory of show. Last season they spent most of it setting up the main character. He was a fake psychic who upset a serial killer enough the guy off the mentalist's wife and kid. Now he hunts the killer acting as a consultant for the CBI, a fake state investigative agency. The killer taunts him whenever the series needs a boost. The first season gave this backstory and established that this guy basically can really read and manipulate people because he was a big time con man. The only problem I have is with this episode. For someone so smart and good with people, he did a really bad job dealing with the law enforcement officers. I guess they needed it to create tension and conflict and plot points for this season's overriding story arc, but really, if your main character works because of certain things, don't have him behaving like a sulky third grader and making mistakes a low grade moron would make trying to get his way.
The Simpsons is a show I quit watching on a regular basis. I can't believe it is still on. It is well past it's prime and is pretty much repeating itself, but still manages to pull a few laughs and have more fun than about half the shows on the air. I also watched Family Guy, despite the fact that it is now more embarrassing than it is funny.
I caught another episode of Monk. That show has gotten a bit old, but this is the last season. I liked wings, and his taxi driver character was great there. I liked his neurotic detective bit, but really, how long can they go on with it? And I didn't catch the series until Trayler Howard had joined, and I like her, so when I see an old episode with Sharona I find it inferior to the Natalie episodes.
The opener for the Mentalist was on. I almost missed this, unusual job/skill set makes a guy a super detective, cop show last season. It is okay, sort of falls into the Medium, Monk, Psych, Castle, Numbers catagory of show. Last season they spent most of it setting up the main character. He was a fake psychic who upset a serial killer enough the guy off the mentalist's wife and kid. Now he hunts the killer acting as a consultant for the CBI, a fake state investigative agency. The killer taunts him whenever the series needs a boost. The first season gave this backstory and established that this guy basically can really read and manipulate people because he was a big time con man. The only problem I have is with this episode. For someone so smart and good with people, he did a really bad job dealing with the law enforcement officers. I guess they needed it to create tension and conflict and plot points for this season's overriding story arc, but really, if your main character works because of certain things, don't have him behaving like a sulky third grader and making mistakes a low grade moron would make trying to get his way.
The Simpsons is a show I quit watching on a regular basis. I can't believe it is still on. It is well past it's prime and is pretty much repeating itself, but still manages to pull a few laughs and have more fun than about half the shows on the air. I also watched Family Guy, despite the fact that it is now more embarrassing than it is funny.
Friday, September 25, 2009
New Television
I am an old-timer. I can remember when summer tv was nothing but reruns of the previous fall and winter shows. Then came reality tv and the relatively cheap to produce shows and soon that dominated summer tv, spilling over into the new tv land. That actually made me watch less as I hate 99.9995 of reality tv as it 1) bears no resemblence to any form or reality, and 2) seems to focus on and cater to the worst qualities of humanity. I also find it boring. Anyway, eventually cable channels sort of came to our rescue although a and e, bravo, tlc, and discovery all seem to be going to the all reality crap programming, slowly. Hopefully the history channel and biography won't follow suit. Anyway, I have become addicted to some of the alternative programming out there. Eureka is a show I have come to love. The acting is good, full of goofy characters, it is primarily a comedy but with a bit of sci-fi and some action. The special effects are generally cheesy, but that never stopped Dr. Who. There is about 4 seasons of reruns you can find on the net if you are willing to prowl, check it out. Warehouse 13 is also worth hunting down, although only 1 season so far. It's a sort of modern steam-punk, scifi show with a good cast. Merlin is a britsh made program. I watched the first season when I had little else to watch, I did watch the first episode of this season, but the reimagining of the Arthur legend as teen drama is quickly reminding me why I stopped watching Smallville. Sanctuary wasn't really summer programming and it was often cheese in the extra sharp variety, but since it started as a net show, I watched it through and rather liked it. I am hoping it will have a season 2.
Now so far this season I watched House's premiere. Pretty good, but could you expect less from House. Bones was okay for the first 2 episodes. Bones character is getting to be a bit old to not have evolved a bit more. How could such a smart person not learn over time. Angela is still super sexy and the most appealing of the ladies. I still like Booth and Hodges and their interactions. Sweets and came are just there. The lady DA is only a recurring role, but she by far steals any scene they let her in, even if she is only a turbo-charged sassy black lady.
Criminal Minds season premiere was meh. It ended, as usual, on a cliff hanger that was sort of resolved, although to my mind not in a satisfactory way. It also started what, I would guess, is to be a season (or half season) long subplot.
NCIS had a pretty decent season opener. I like this series, it's a procedural that doesn't take itself too seriously, has predictible, but likable characters, and makes for good forget the world for an hour, television. It doesn't pretend to be anything it isn't. NCIS LA, the new spin off was on and it was watchable enough that I will get it a few more viewings to see if the characters come out. It looks like the team leader, former seal (LL Cool J), and Chris O'Donnell are going to be the show focus with everyone else filling the support roles. Instead of Ducky, we have a crabby, short accountant, unfortunately although she is made in the quirky stock character factory, so far she is the only one on the show with a personality.
I currently watch only 2 half hour non-animated sitcoms. Better off Ted and the new Modern Family.
Better off Ted was a summer filler that will probably come in mid-season. It has a good cast, is a very excellent parody of a big, completely evil business filled with quirky clueless characters. It's hilarious and well worth the time.
Modern Family is a new show, but based on the pilot, I plan to make it a regular show. It is done in fake documentary format. It follows 3 groups of people around. The first seems like a normal family, father (who thinks who is "cool"), mother, and 3 kids (stock teenage girl growing up fast, younger smarty, nerdy little sis, and bratty brother). Incidently the 15 year old girl is played by a 19 year old actress according to imdb, so those nasty fantasy's you may be having are legal. Second group is an older guy (Al Bundy or Popeye Doyle) who marries a much younger, hotter and more latin woman who has a pudgy 11 year old boy child from a previous marriage. Group three is a gay couple both of whom can be stereo typed, but neither is so over-the-top as to put you off, and there newly adopted vietnamese baby girl. At first I thought these people would all turn out to be neighbors which would tie them together, then I though maybe it was just that they were all part of a the same documentary. Then when the show tied them together in another way beyond the documentary it was a nice little twist. I love that Ed O'Neil is back on tv and the pilot was very funny and very well-made. It mixed all the elements up so I could identify will most of the characters and like them even while laughing at them. If the show holds up to the pilot, the sitcom may be coming back. Ed's hot latino wife is another reason to watch the show guys.
Supernatural has so far had 2 episodes this season and both have been strong if you watch the show, and both have been somewhat tied to the overall arc rather than a monster or the week episode. It's actually the only WB show I currently watch.
The Guild webshow is running again, so I plan to catch up on that when I get home. I am 2 epidoses behing, that's about 14 minutes.
Now so far this season I watched House's premiere. Pretty good, but could you expect less from House. Bones was okay for the first 2 episodes. Bones character is getting to be a bit old to not have evolved a bit more. How could such a smart person not learn over time. Angela is still super sexy and the most appealing of the ladies. I still like Booth and Hodges and their interactions. Sweets and came are just there. The lady DA is only a recurring role, but she by far steals any scene they let her in, even if she is only a turbo-charged sassy black lady.
Criminal Minds season premiere was meh. It ended, as usual, on a cliff hanger that was sort of resolved, although to my mind not in a satisfactory way. It also started what, I would guess, is to be a season (or half season) long subplot.
NCIS had a pretty decent season opener. I like this series, it's a procedural that doesn't take itself too seriously, has predictible, but likable characters, and makes for good forget the world for an hour, television. It doesn't pretend to be anything it isn't. NCIS LA, the new spin off was on and it was watchable enough that I will get it a few more viewings to see if the characters come out. It looks like the team leader, former seal (LL Cool J), and Chris O'Donnell are going to be the show focus with everyone else filling the support roles. Instead of Ducky, we have a crabby, short accountant, unfortunately although she is made in the quirky stock character factory, so far she is the only one on the show with a personality.
I currently watch only 2 half hour non-animated sitcoms. Better off Ted and the new Modern Family.
Better off Ted was a summer filler that will probably come in mid-season. It has a good cast, is a very excellent parody of a big, completely evil business filled with quirky clueless characters. It's hilarious and well worth the time.
Modern Family is a new show, but based on the pilot, I plan to make it a regular show. It is done in fake documentary format. It follows 3 groups of people around. The first seems like a normal family, father (who thinks who is "cool"), mother, and 3 kids (stock teenage girl growing up fast, younger smarty, nerdy little sis, and bratty brother). Incidently the 15 year old girl is played by a 19 year old actress according to imdb, so those nasty fantasy's you may be having are legal. Second group is an older guy (Al Bundy or Popeye Doyle) who marries a much younger, hotter and more latin woman who has a pudgy 11 year old boy child from a previous marriage. Group three is a gay couple both of whom can be stereo typed, but neither is so over-the-top as to put you off, and there newly adopted vietnamese baby girl. At first I thought these people would all turn out to be neighbors which would tie them together, then I though maybe it was just that they were all part of a the same documentary. Then when the show tied them together in another way beyond the documentary it was a nice little twist. I love that Ed O'Neil is back on tv and the pilot was very funny and very well-made. It mixed all the elements up so I could identify will most of the characters and like them even while laughing at them. If the show holds up to the pilot, the sitcom may be coming back. Ed's hot latino wife is another reason to watch the show guys.
Supernatural has so far had 2 episodes this season and both have been strong if you watch the show, and both have been somewhat tied to the overall arc rather than a monster or the week episode. It's actually the only WB show I currently watch.
The Guild webshow is running again, so I plan to catch up on that when I get home. I am 2 epidoses behing, that's about 14 minutes.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
WTH Is Going On With Toolbars
Wtf is it with tool bars for web browsers. At first it seemed like everyone and their grandmother had one and wanted you to install it but it was easy to say no. Now you can't install any kind of software without it wanting to install somebody's freaking toolbar and most of the time it comes right in the middle of installing the software when you are basically hitting the next button continuously, so it can sneak right by you. Everybody has a toolbar: Mapquest, Yahoo, Ask, Google, Big Dick McGee's BBQ Mud Wrestling and Sex Toy Emporium; and they all want on your browser. I don't get it either, if the toolbar offers a special service, I had one that verified the ip address and domain name of all sites for awhile when the phishing and redirecting first became a mini internet scam industry and I had a near fatality when I answered an email supposedly from ebay while a little too sleepy, I can understand, but when mostly what it does is internet search....WTF?
I use mapquest's toolbar at work. I have to do a lot of driving, mostly local. Realistically all it does is save me from going to the mapquest website. I hit the direction button and put in my start and first destination and it opens the webpage with that information all ready loaded and I just plug in the rest of my stops. I also use a specialized toolbar at home that has 2 or 3 features I like. Originally I made the mistake of installing the new Windows search, which didn't work anywhere near as well as the older more traditional search, at least for me, and which also caused the my documents folder the crash explorer pretty much everytime I opened it. While trying to figure out the issue, at first I thought it was a problem with a codec, I installed a third party file explorer, xplorer lite 2, I believe, a very nice little program, and it installed a toolbar on two of my three browsers. It got internet explorer and firefox but missed safari. It had a neat internet radio function so I left it on until I finally figured out it was slowing my browsers down. I then hunted up another toolbar just for the radio feature though.
In both of these cases, I am using a toolbar I found a need for and hunted down. Most of the functions of all of the toolbars though seem to be searching. The radio toolbar looks for music, mostly on torrent sites. Other that directions and maps, mapquest is mostly specialized search engines for gas priced, yellow pages, ect, with one basic websearch. This is what I don't get.
First off, when I first started surfing the net back in the stone ages, we had 2 ways to do an internet search. First you just go to your favorite search engine or web portal and search. Second, you just type the thing you were looking for into your browser address bar and it would automatically look it up for you. Neither of those things were really that difficult. Now things are even simpler, every browser I can think of in it's last couple of incarnations has had a separate little space where you could type in what you were looking for and it would search for it. If you don't find what you like, you can change the search engine you use right there. So why do we need all these extra toolbars? I see some convienence, but mostly unless they offer something that works better or offers a new feature, like the radio, or the it guys at work swear the google toolbars pop up blocker works better than firefox or ie's, why bother with them. And why are these companies so anxious to stick them on our browser that they bundle them with every piece of software they can.
I am sure it has to do with advertising, the more people use ask or yahoo or google, the more they can charge the advertisers on those sites, and the more they can charge to get top placement. And I would guess they gamble that most people aren't going to change the default search, for instance making ask the default on google's search bar. But still it seems awfully silly to me. The more junk on the top of the browser, the less room to see the actual material.
I use mapquest's toolbar at work. I have to do a lot of driving, mostly local. Realistically all it does is save me from going to the mapquest website. I hit the direction button and put in my start and first destination and it opens the webpage with that information all ready loaded and I just plug in the rest of my stops. I also use a specialized toolbar at home that has 2 or 3 features I like. Originally I made the mistake of installing the new Windows search, which didn't work anywhere near as well as the older more traditional search, at least for me, and which also caused the my documents folder the crash explorer pretty much everytime I opened it. While trying to figure out the issue, at first I thought it was a problem with a codec, I installed a third party file explorer, xplorer lite 2, I believe, a very nice little program, and it installed a toolbar on two of my three browsers. It got internet explorer and firefox but missed safari. It had a neat internet radio function so I left it on until I finally figured out it was slowing my browsers down. I then hunted up another toolbar just for the radio feature though.
In both of these cases, I am using a toolbar I found a need for and hunted down. Most of the functions of all of the toolbars though seem to be searching. The radio toolbar looks for music, mostly on torrent sites. Other that directions and maps, mapquest is mostly specialized search engines for gas priced, yellow pages, ect, with one basic websearch. This is what I don't get.
First off, when I first started surfing the net back in the stone ages, we had 2 ways to do an internet search. First you just go to your favorite search engine or web portal and search. Second, you just type the thing you were looking for into your browser address bar and it would automatically look it up for you. Neither of those things were really that difficult. Now things are even simpler, every browser I can think of in it's last couple of incarnations has had a separate little space where you could type in what you were looking for and it would search for it. If you don't find what you like, you can change the search engine you use right there. So why do we need all these extra toolbars? I see some convienence, but mostly unless they offer something that works better or offers a new feature, like the radio, or the it guys at work swear the google toolbars pop up blocker works better than firefox or ie's, why bother with them. And why are these companies so anxious to stick them on our browser that they bundle them with every piece of software they can.
I am sure it has to do with advertising, the more people use ask or yahoo or google, the more they can charge the advertisers on those sites, and the more they can charge to get top placement. And I would guess they gamble that most people aren't going to change the default search, for instance making ask the default on google's search bar. But still it seems awfully silly to me. The more junk on the top of the browser, the less room to see the actual material.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Side Issues With the Economy
Well, bad news all around. With the slow economy, the state is cutting expenses. Apparently it is not cheap to keep people locked up, so they are letting some out early and not locking others up at all. I guess it is job security, but we have been quietly told to try to find alternatives before filing violation reports and taking our offenders to court. We aren't told what alternatives, I guess if they fail a drug screen, try to send them to teatment first. I already did this with people who were positive for pot, but not for anything else, and meth was already an automatic warrant.
Everybody wants to jump on the bandwagon and get their 15 minutes of fame. An article a month or so back in a Tennessee newspaper had a sheriff claiming that his jail was full of people locked up because they couldn't pay their fees. The newspaper went on to state that most parole and probation violators were in jail simply for technical violations. The paper never explained what technical violations were and it left the reader with the impression that a technical violation was simple the inability to pay. It made the state come off like a greedy, thoughtless entity locking up poor people.
So, for anyone who actually bothers to cruise by, here is the truth:
A TECHNICAL VIOLATION is, in the state of Tennessee, any violation of the rules of parole or probation other than an arrest or conviction for a new crime. Therefore, failing to pay supervision fees or court costs ect, is a technical violation. Failing a drug screen, not reporting to your officer, leaving the state without permission, absconding (running away), being in a bar or nightclub, being intoxicated, are all technical violations, so someone locked up for a technical violation could have been locked up for repeated illegal drug use, running away from their parole or probation, not reporting, failing to obey lawful instructions, or many other things.
RANT...The rules are explained to them before they are place under supervision. If they don't want to obey them they are welcome to remain incarcerated. The rules they are under aren't that bad, 90% of them are just the same things any law-abiding citizen does anyway. The few that aren't, visiting your probation officer, having your probation officer visit your home, providing proof of employment, staying out of bars and nightclubs, are still a lot better than being locked up. ...END OF RANT
However, back on topic. You cannot lock up a probationer for failing to pay supervision fees, according to our judges. Parole you can lock them up, but I doubt the board would revoke parole only for failing to pay fees. However in a parole hearing you only have to prove one violation to get a revocation. So it is possible you could have someone up for 6 new offenses as well as failing to report, failing to pay fees when he has the means (in parole you have to prove the parolee has the ability to pay), and moving without notifying his officer. If the officer proved the failing to report and failing to pay fees, then the officer decides to stop without addressing the other alleged violations to save time. Now you have a parolee revoked and incarcerated on technical charges even though he might have new charges pending. The other charges were dismissed as far as official statistics are concerned. Now judges can revoke probationers for failing to pay court costs and restitution. Usually they will simple extend the probation period if the violator seems to be trying to pay, but if no effort is made they might revoke them and lock them up although rarely for the full sentence, usually just for a short period of time, otherwise the money would never be paid. However, the state does not get this money, court costs go to the county court clerk's office. Restitution is money paid to reinburse a victim of a crime. It could be for damage caused by vandalism, items lost to theft, medical bills, loss of income, ect. If the offender does not pay the restitution, and does not seem likely too, or if the probation has been extended to the legally allowed maximum sentence, then the judge might revoke the offender to serve the full sentence, or if the victim wants to pursue a civil case, he might dismiss the warrant. However in these situations we are required by policy to take a warrant and let the court address the situation.
Now why the sheriff I mentioned was griping, other than to get in the paper, I don't know. If a person serving a felony sentence is in his jail, he is given a monthly fee for housing the inmate. This is the main source of income for most jails. He doesn't have to keep the inmate, unless there are pending court cases in his county, he can place him on the next state bus going to a state penetenary. Inmates awaiting trial are county prisoners (unless serving a state sentence on another case) these people, as well as inmates serving a misdemeanor sentence, are charged a daily fee for being incarcerated. This is part of the court costs mentioned. Since the likelihood of this being paid varies, most jails get most of their money from state housing fees and the comissary (inmate store).
Everybody wants to jump on the bandwagon and get their 15 minutes of fame. An article a month or so back in a Tennessee newspaper had a sheriff claiming that his jail was full of people locked up because they couldn't pay their fees. The newspaper went on to state that most parole and probation violators were in jail simply for technical violations. The paper never explained what technical violations were and it left the reader with the impression that a technical violation was simple the inability to pay. It made the state come off like a greedy, thoughtless entity locking up poor people.
So, for anyone who actually bothers to cruise by, here is the truth:
A TECHNICAL VIOLATION is, in the state of Tennessee, any violation of the rules of parole or probation other than an arrest or conviction for a new crime. Therefore, failing to pay supervision fees or court costs ect, is a technical violation. Failing a drug screen, not reporting to your officer, leaving the state without permission, absconding (running away), being in a bar or nightclub, being intoxicated, are all technical violations, so someone locked up for a technical violation could have been locked up for repeated illegal drug use, running away from their parole or probation, not reporting, failing to obey lawful instructions, or many other things.
RANT...The rules are explained to them before they are place under supervision. If they don't want to obey them they are welcome to remain incarcerated. The rules they are under aren't that bad, 90% of them are just the same things any law-abiding citizen does anyway. The few that aren't, visiting your probation officer, having your probation officer visit your home, providing proof of employment, staying out of bars and nightclubs, are still a lot better than being locked up. ...END OF RANT
However, back on topic. You cannot lock up a probationer for failing to pay supervision fees, according to our judges. Parole you can lock them up, but I doubt the board would revoke parole only for failing to pay fees. However in a parole hearing you only have to prove one violation to get a revocation. So it is possible you could have someone up for 6 new offenses as well as failing to report, failing to pay fees when he has the means (in parole you have to prove the parolee has the ability to pay), and moving without notifying his officer. If the officer proved the failing to report and failing to pay fees, then the officer decides to stop without addressing the other alleged violations to save time. Now you have a parolee revoked and incarcerated on technical charges even though he might have new charges pending. The other charges were dismissed as far as official statistics are concerned. Now judges can revoke probationers for failing to pay court costs and restitution. Usually they will simple extend the probation period if the violator seems to be trying to pay, but if no effort is made they might revoke them and lock them up although rarely for the full sentence, usually just for a short period of time, otherwise the money would never be paid. However, the state does not get this money, court costs go to the county court clerk's office. Restitution is money paid to reinburse a victim of a crime. It could be for damage caused by vandalism, items lost to theft, medical bills, loss of income, ect. If the offender does not pay the restitution, and does not seem likely too, or if the probation has been extended to the legally allowed maximum sentence, then the judge might revoke the offender to serve the full sentence, or if the victim wants to pursue a civil case, he might dismiss the warrant. However in these situations we are required by policy to take a warrant and let the court address the situation.
Now why the sheriff I mentioned was griping, other than to get in the paper, I don't know. If a person serving a felony sentence is in his jail, he is given a monthly fee for housing the inmate. This is the main source of income for most jails. He doesn't have to keep the inmate, unless there are pending court cases in his county, he can place him on the next state bus going to a state penetenary. Inmates awaiting trial are county prisoners (unless serving a state sentence on another case) these people, as well as inmates serving a misdemeanor sentence, are charged a daily fee for being incarcerated. This is part of the court costs mentioned. Since the likelihood of this being paid varies, most jails get most of their money from state housing fees and the comissary (inmate store).
Friday, June 12, 2009
The Latest in Stupidity
Well work is getting bad. The horrible economy is hitting us now also. By state policy our caseloads are set at 75 max people. I have had 2 caseloads since starting to work here 5 years ago. My second one was below 70 for about a week. Last month it closed at 97. Now one way they have always tried to lower the numbers is to say that inactive cases don't count. That means absconders (people who have disappeared) and out-of-state transfers, don't count. That takes care of about 3 on my caseload. That's not completely fair on the absconders though as every month we have to do an arrest check on them and once a year run an ncic check. Once a year we also have to request a report on the out of state transfers too, but that isn't that much work.
However, almost every officer in the state that carries a caseload is well over the 75 number. This means that the state needs to hire, however a recent report sent to the governor stated that only a handful of empty slots needed to be hired for. When the numbers became public our managers were outraged. Apparently in submitting th caseload numbers, our higher ups completely ignored the absconders, out-of-state transfers, incarcerated and detainer offends. Detainer offenders are offenders that are active on our caseloads and have to be accounted for, but who are incarcerated on other offenses or for other reasons, say failure to pay child support. Incarcerated offenders are locked up on our warrants and we are generally in the process of violation hearings. Both these catagories require us to do things monthly with them.
Also in the Very Stupid Catagory is the recent news article that came out. The trend in our department is to try to avoid locking people up now. This article was claiming that there were people being locked up because they were not paying there supervision fees. It stated that many offenders were being locked up not for committing new crimes but for technical violations. The way it was written it made it sound like they were just being locked up for being poor.
Well, first, they never explained what a technical violation is. Basically a technical violation is any violation other that a new criminal offense. Absconding, running away, is a technical violation. Not reporting to your parole/probation officer is a technical violation. Using drugs is a technical violation. These are all serious violations, but they are classified as technical, but the only technical violation they ever mentioned was failing to pay fees. Now as far as probation is concerned, I don't know of a single judge in my area that would revoke an offender for not paying his supervision fees. They will for not paying court costs and restitution, but that goes to the county court clerk and the victim of the crime, not us. And usually, all they do is extend their probation and scold them. Now the lower court (county) judges will lock people up for 10 days for failing to pay court costs, but still not for failing to pay probation fees. As far as parole goes, a parole office has to both show an offender has not paid supervision fees and that he had the means to pay them, before he could get a violation sustained, and even then I doubt the parole board would vote to revoke even if the hearing officer recommended it. I doubt if there is a single person in this state locked up for failing to pay a supervision fee only. Now those charges mare on the warrant, because a recent policy change pretty much requires us to address fee arrearage in court, and since we can't ask a judge directly to waive past fees, at least adding it to the warrant brings it up so maybe the defense attorney will address it.
However, almost every officer in the state that carries a caseload is well over the 75 number. This means that the state needs to hire, however a recent report sent to the governor stated that only a handful of empty slots needed to be hired for. When the numbers became public our managers were outraged. Apparently in submitting th caseload numbers, our higher ups completely ignored the absconders, out-of-state transfers, incarcerated and detainer offends. Detainer offenders are offenders that are active on our caseloads and have to be accounted for, but who are incarcerated on other offenses or for other reasons, say failure to pay child support. Incarcerated offenders are locked up on our warrants and we are generally in the process of violation hearings. Both these catagories require us to do things monthly with them.
Also in the Very Stupid Catagory is the recent news article that came out. The trend in our department is to try to avoid locking people up now. This article was claiming that there were people being locked up because they were not paying there supervision fees. It stated that many offenders were being locked up not for committing new crimes but for technical violations. The way it was written it made it sound like they were just being locked up for being poor.
Well, first, they never explained what a technical violation is. Basically a technical violation is any violation other that a new criminal offense. Absconding, running away, is a technical violation. Not reporting to your parole/probation officer is a technical violation. Using drugs is a technical violation. These are all serious violations, but they are classified as technical, but the only technical violation they ever mentioned was failing to pay fees. Now as far as probation is concerned, I don't know of a single judge in my area that would revoke an offender for not paying his supervision fees. They will for not paying court costs and restitution, but that goes to the county court clerk and the victim of the crime, not us. And usually, all they do is extend their probation and scold them. Now the lower court (county) judges will lock people up for 10 days for failing to pay court costs, but still not for failing to pay probation fees. As far as parole goes, a parole office has to both show an offender has not paid supervision fees and that he had the means to pay them, before he could get a violation sustained, and even then I doubt the parole board would vote to revoke even if the hearing officer recommended it. I doubt if there is a single person in this state locked up for failing to pay a supervision fee only. Now those charges mare on the warrant, because a recent policy change pretty much requires us to address fee arrearage in court, and since we can't ask a judge directly to waive past fees, at least adding it to the warrant brings it up so maybe the defense attorney will address it.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Part Two
Started rant yesterday and got distracted. Anyway, now ecomonically we are producing were little in the way of actual things. So we replace the jobs making actual things with jobs doing things for other people, cooking, cleaning, selling them things. Okay I see three problems here. One, the job making things paid (local estimate) 12-16 US dollars per hour. The other jobs pay 7-10 dollars per hours. Two, as more factories close, who are we supposed to cook, clean and sell stuff too. And three, who is going to buy this stuff we are now making in China, India, Mexico and other places. The US is it's own best customer, but if we put all the people out of work they won't be able to afford to buy the stuff we make in other countries and then more business will close. Also, a lot of the service jobs are now going out of country. Any service that is offered that doesn't have to be done local and in person is going out of country. Anything that can be do via telephone or computer, data processing, data entry, telephone sales, telephone help services, order processing is all leaving the US. This all seems really stupid and short sighted to me. With fewer people working, the ones working making less money, who is going to be able to afford these goods and services. The companies say it is cheaper to subcontract it outside the country, but eventually it will be even cheaper to not offer the service at all, cause without work here, we won't be able to pay for it anyway.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Modern Times
You know it is really kind of odd to me. This recent economic downturn is scary. I remember way back in college they told us our economy was shifting from a manufacturing economy to a service economy and most of the jobs would be in service industries. That's didn't make sense then and it makes way too much now. When I was in high school all the kids that weren't planning on a university or tech school figured on getting on at one of the local factories. There were 5 major ones in our city and maybe another 6 smaller ones. The thing about the big factories were they paid well, you had a long term job with insurance and retirement benefits. Now, only one of those plants is still in the town. Most relocated to Mexico. Only 2 or 3 of the little plants, which don't offer the benefits or pay near as well still exist. The manufacturing businesses that came in to replace them are mostly automated and only work a few basic people or employ only specially trained people.
A client recently told me he was hoping his son could get a job at Walmart as he thought that would be a good place to work and would offer long term job security. With as much information as is out there about Walmart, it still surprises me the number of people who have misconceptions about the company.
I have experienced the glories of Walmart from 4 different perspectives.
Competition. Walmart seems like heaven on earth when it first comes into a town. It has really cheap prices on everything and seems to have everything you could ever want. Those low prices are there to kill off all the competition. When the local stores close the doors and the nearest large competitors start faltering, those prices go up. The local super Walmart here is actually more expensive than most of the grocery stores on food. Honestly if you have the time to look, you can usually find everything you want somewhere else for the same or less money, the only real advantage is everything is in one really huge place.
Employee. I haven't worked there but have many friends and family that have. The pay is crap, the local version treats the employees poorly. They pay no overtime and tell the employees they won't get any. Then they keep them late two or three days, then notice on Friday that they have a couple of hours over, so they tell them to come in late on Friday, but then schedule a mandatory meeting at the start of the shift and won't let them clock in. Then there is no sense in driving home so they stay in the store after the meeting and the bosses keep telling them to do things, even though they aren't on the clock. My wife came home several times crying because she ended up doing 2 or 3 hours work off the clock. Then insurance they off is so expense the employees can't afford it unless they work a second job.
Security. Until recently Walmart had the sorriest anti-theft program I had ever heard of. Recently they have beefed it up some, but basically the place is a bug light for shop lifters. Due solely to the number of shoplifting charges from Walmart, the local police no longer arrest and take in shoplifters unless the merchandise is $500 or more, instead they just write a citation, like a speeding ticket. This is much harder for probation officers to track.
On that note, an aquantance of mine was recently accosted in a Walmart by one of the loss-prevention thugs. Now these guys have no authority. They can call the cops, but they have no right to detain or to arrest beyond that of any other citizen. Apparently they thought my friend had not scanned some of the merchandise on the self checkout. They actually attempted to detain him and his wife, going to far as to rip her shirt off and knock her down in the struggle. Then he was arrested for assault even though he hadn't taken anything out to the store he had not paid for, nor had he hit anyone, he had just pulled out of there grip when they knocked his wife down. That was in the state, although not local. For that I am glad, as a local judge told one of the local walmart security people that they had no authority to handcuff anyone or take anyone to there office.
A client recently told me he was hoping his son could get a job at Walmart as he thought that would be a good place to work and would offer long term job security. With as much information as is out there about Walmart, it still surprises me the number of people who have misconceptions about the company.
I have experienced the glories of Walmart from 4 different perspectives.
Competition. Walmart seems like heaven on earth when it first comes into a town. It has really cheap prices on everything and seems to have everything you could ever want. Those low prices are there to kill off all the competition. When the local stores close the doors and the nearest large competitors start faltering, those prices go up. The local super Walmart here is actually more expensive than most of the grocery stores on food. Honestly if you have the time to look, you can usually find everything you want somewhere else for the same or less money, the only real advantage is everything is in one really huge place.
Employee. I haven't worked there but have many friends and family that have. The pay is crap, the local version treats the employees poorly. They pay no overtime and tell the employees they won't get any. Then they keep them late two or three days, then notice on Friday that they have a couple of hours over, so they tell them to come in late on Friday, but then schedule a mandatory meeting at the start of the shift and won't let them clock in. Then there is no sense in driving home so they stay in the store after the meeting and the bosses keep telling them to do things, even though they aren't on the clock. My wife came home several times crying because she ended up doing 2 or 3 hours work off the clock. Then insurance they off is so expense the employees can't afford it unless they work a second job.
Security. Until recently Walmart had the sorriest anti-theft program I had ever heard of. Recently they have beefed it up some, but basically the place is a bug light for shop lifters. Due solely to the number of shoplifting charges from Walmart, the local police no longer arrest and take in shoplifters unless the merchandise is $500 or more, instead they just write a citation, like a speeding ticket. This is much harder for probation officers to track.
On that note, an aquantance of mine was recently accosted in a Walmart by one of the loss-prevention thugs. Now these guys have no authority. They can call the cops, but they have no right to detain or to arrest beyond that of any other citizen. Apparently they thought my friend had not scanned some of the merchandise on the self checkout. They actually attempted to detain him and his wife, going to far as to rip her shirt off and knock her down in the struggle. Then he was arrested for assault even though he hadn't taken anything out to the store he had not paid for, nor had he hit anyone, he had just pulled out of there grip when they knocked his wife down. That was in the state, although not local. For that I am glad, as a local judge told one of the local walmart security people that they had no authority to handcuff anyone or take anyone to there office.
Monday, March 02, 2009
Whoops Sorry
If anyone is actually reading this, sorry I took such a long vacation. Just got caught up in a bunch of nothing. This will mostly be a rant onlong the lines of I hate my job.
Actually I don't hate my job, but some of the job related things are stupid.
Training for instance. It's boring and we don't really get trained on anything, its sole purpose seems to be if one of us screws up, the government can point to the training and say, we told him, it's his fault. None of it is designed to actually give us any useful tools to do our jobs, just to cover the state's hiny.
Well due to the horrible economy, the state did a buy out to encourage people to quit. It hit late last year, and in January, we found that despite hitting their quota or 2200 people, they still might need to lay off up to 2000 more. To help in figuring out who to lay off, the governor hired a specialist. Let that sink in. He hired an expert to help him figure out which people to get rid of because we can't afford to pay them. I wonder how much the specialist makes, and how many more $10 an hour state employees will have to lose their jobs to cover his salary?
Meanwhile, my department is not part of the hiring freeze. Since we deal with public security, we have permission to ask permission to fill vacancies. We currently have a few and one locat and another in the capital would be promotions for me and I am eligible and meet all requirements. There is only one problem. There is no mechanism for new applications or update to existing application. So there is no way to apply, period.
You see the state decided to improve its IT. Our department uses a very outdated and ancient piece of crap program to track our offenders and such. It has to be 20 years old if it's a day and that;s old for anything but ancient for software. They recently about 5 years ago, cobbled together a windows based un-user-friendly gui for it, but it's crap too. Now they pulled the fee payment system off that and went with a new internet accessible system that seems to be poorly designed and a major pain in the posterior. Then they bought a new system to track payroll, leave, worktime and business expenses. It mostly spends about as much time down or updating than it spends available for use. It also isn't very user friendly and seems to often mess up. This is the system that is supposed to let us update applications. There seems to have been a major issue getting it to speak to the internet based application system that a non-state employ would use to apply for a job. The new system being behind our firewall and not available outside the network. We also have a new internet based system to deal with offenders coming here from other states. So in addition to the 3 signons and passwords I originally had, one for assessing the network, one for internet assess to my work email and calendar, and one for the offender tracking system, now I have 3 entirely new sign ons and passwords. And none of these systems talk to one another. Yay fun. Weeeeeee. In the defense of the systems though, many of the employees here are so technologically challenged they are lucky to turn on the lights in there work area without help.
Actually I don't hate my job, but some of the job related things are stupid.
Training for instance. It's boring and we don't really get trained on anything, its sole purpose seems to be if one of us screws up, the government can point to the training and say, we told him, it's his fault. None of it is designed to actually give us any useful tools to do our jobs, just to cover the state's hiny.
Well due to the horrible economy, the state did a buy out to encourage people to quit. It hit late last year, and in January, we found that despite hitting their quota or 2200 people, they still might need to lay off up to 2000 more. To help in figuring out who to lay off, the governor hired a specialist. Let that sink in. He hired an expert to help him figure out which people to get rid of because we can't afford to pay them. I wonder how much the specialist makes, and how many more $10 an hour state employees will have to lose their jobs to cover his salary?
Meanwhile, my department is not part of the hiring freeze. Since we deal with public security, we have permission to ask permission to fill vacancies. We currently have a few and one locat and another in the capital would be promotions for me and I am eligible and meet all requirements. There is only one problem. There is no mechanism for new applications or update to existing application. So there is no way to apply, period.
You see the state decided to improve its IT. Our department uses a very outdated and ancient piece of crap program to track our offenders and such. It has to be 20 years old if it's a day and that;s old for anything but ancient for software. They recently about 5 years ago, cobbled together a windows based un-user-friendly gui for it, but it's crap too. Now they pulled the fee payment system off that and went with a new internet accessible system that seems to be poorly designed and a major pain in the posterior. Then they bought a new system to track payroll, leave, worktime and business expenses. It mostly spends about as much time down or updating than it spends available for use. It also isn't very user friendly and seems to often mess up. This is the system that is supposed to let us update applications. There seems to have been a major issue getting it to speak to the internet based application system that a non-state employ would use to apply for a job. The new system being behind our firewall and not available outside the network. We also have a new internet based system to deal with offenders coming here from other states. So in addition to the 3 signons and passwords I originally had, one for assessing the network, one for internet assess to my work email and calendar, and one for the offender tracking system, now I have 3 entirely new sign ons and passwords. And none of these systems talk to one another. Yay fun. Weeeeeee. In the defense of the systems though, many of the employees here are so technologically challenged they are lucky to turn on the lights in there work area without help.
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