Month: March 2015

I want a good deal! #Rapidprint #Widmer

I want a good deal! #Rapidprint #Widmer

WWW.TimeDok.Com

How many time have you yourself searched and searched online to find the best deal?

We are all guilty of looking for the best deal and if we can save a few dollars, we are all for it. How could you not be?

The truth of the matter is, the best deal is not always the best deal.

I submit to you “Radio Shack.”

Why has Radio Shack become the latest victim to go by the wayside?

What is its competition?

As far as small components are involved they have little competition, most probably a small percentage of folks order direct from China however there are very few specialty electronic stores who specialize in small electronic components.

Fry’s electronics being one of the largest.

Small hand held or other consumer grade electronics would also be Fry’s, Best Buy, and to some extent Wall-mart to name a few.

Cell Phones have way too much competition including the carriers themselves.

Radio Shack indeed has survived past its time with all of the competition and one has to wonder how much of it actually comes from China direct.

On-line sources such as Amazon and eBay are probably responsible for more than just a few dollars going away from the retail giants here in the states and I would imagine that we will soon see legislation introduced by someone in the pocket of the large retail chains to levy heavy taxes on imports from China by way of eBay and other online partners.

While the “Walmart Effect” took out the mom and pop shops all across America other big box stores will put the nail in the coffin of the smaller stores who try and sell consumer electronics.

As a business Owner; I sell and service a device that is made lock stock and barrel here in the USA. Because these two companies that I represent have not farmed their stuff out overseas the prices are higher than what you would expect. The interesting thing though is that these devices last for over 10 years and even with abuse can usually be resurrected and sent back into to the office for another 10 years.

productline1ad — Full Rapidprint line of file mark machines.

t3led-127x153 — Widmer T-LED 3 Time Stamp File Mark machine

Widmer Check Signing Machine 300 checks in about a minute.

One interesting aspect of this is there are Internet companies that sell a plethora of equipment including my two lines and they depend upon volume to make ends meet. Doing so, they sell with little markup and make it tough on the little guys to compete as we don’t do volume. Basically what WalMart does.

While my prices are competitive, I am not the cheapest. I provide something that most internet companies do not however, I provide service. That is service after the sale!

http://www.timedok.com/gallery.html

Many companies find me after they have had an unpleasant experience with one of my competitors and I earn their business as well. While I may not have made the original sale I get their subsequent business because I stepped up and actually lost money doing a warrantee repair for their customer!

bad_wiring-405x294 — Electrical tape has no place in these machines.

My point to all of this is simply don’t look for the cheapest, look for the best.

I build relationships with all of my clients and work hard to keep them. I must however turn a profit to stay in business.

There are times I feel like one of the last American business hold outs as I have managed to stay in business while many of my competitors are going or have gone by the wayside.

The technology involved is over 30 years old. Very few know how to repair these things as there are so many variables that must be taken into account when they are disassembled and re-assembled after the cleaning process that one missed step will cause the machine to not perform accurately.

There are no shortcuts. They might use a Band-Aid of sorts, but it is a shortcut and will not last.

There is an air-conditioning advertisement on the radio here in North Texas. They de-bunk the outrageous prices the other guys offer and then tell you to call the other guy first, check out their prices and then call them. Honesty above reproach.

I don’t know if that commercial is gaining traction, but it caught my attention as that is the way I do business.

Do business with the mom and pop companies, if you want them to stick around. Small towns all across America have vacant store fronts because of retail giants and I would submit, online direct from China.

www.TimeDok.com

Dok at TimeDok.com

On the hunt for Xanadu, Brigadoon or Wonderland

There is a dichotomy that exist in most folks that I know. That is where to live and why?

Most young folks want to live in some loft downtown somewhere with access to food, entertainment and the arts. I am guessing that being around others in their age group doing the “in thing” or whatever is in vogue, is the cool thing to do.

Even us folks with a little “experience” behind us want to have access to some sort of night life.

The trick is to juxtapose the nightlife with the serenity that one needs to have a healthy mind and lifestyle.

The perfect example of this is the movie Doc Hollywood. In this movie he finds himself going from the city life to the small country life of some small town that if you found; you might think that you had fallen down the rabbit hole or perhaps ended up in Brigadoon!

Often we take refuse in such places through the literary efforts of a few authors who too long for such a place and create them. We also find them in some movies. Turner Classic Movies has the draw that they do because they are from a simpler time.

Xanadu was such a movie that brought the dreamer together with dream.

We hear often that the grass is always greener, but is it?

Technology to a large extent has made “generic” those things that set some things apart in the past such as the small town from the large town.

I remember hearing live gunshots from Vietnam over the radio. While the war or whatever we called that was a world away through technology, it was now coming from my radio making it very real.

Today “this very blog” may be read by anyone, anywhere in the world, who has access to unfettered internet. Today you and I can share ideas that not too long ago were controlled by governments wishing to use their media for purposes of propaganda. Many governments around the world still do.

During WW2 the different governments used such things to get people to get squarely behind them much like different football or baseball teams from the days of high school or college. Kill or Crush or what have you was often the slogan before the “big game.”

Today with technology, people around the world can actually talk with others and learn that we are more alike, than different, that what we think we know and believe, may not be true.

Religion among other things are often the tools used to divide people and get them to get on-board and thus relegate people to slavery. If I can control your input; I can affect the output.

There are days however when I just want to un-plug. I don’t know about you, but television has just about been something that I do not watch. If I watch an hour a week that is probably too much.

Why you ask?

Let’s look at why. Firstly you must know that most of what is on the tube or now the flat screen comes from the uber-liberal left. Hollywood is the propaganda machine of the millennium. From sitcoms to movies some writer who has an ax to grind and writes his or her “beliefs” into the script. Now some sentence condemning the GOP coming from a well-known respected actor even though it is a show will carry a lot of weight with many viewers who don’t happen to know who the VP is but, they will remember that sentence and they might even think it is fact.

Unplugging from TV is a good start however; being totally unplugged means that I don’t know what is going on unless I happen to read news from many different sources. Even from Russia Today there is some modicum of truth. The trick is to read enough news from enough sources to actually be able to read between the lines. If you are too unplugged you run the risk of becoming xenophobic and thus will believe most anything that you can be convinced is true through hook or crook.

If you read the news as I have suggested and are dogmatic about it all of the stories will make sense, the why’s and the how’s will come together in that ah-ha moment. I am not saying that you should not have a religion but I would be suspect if that religion calls on you to give too much of anything including your time. Think for yourself. If you let others think for you…. “Hello Stepford wife…. Is dinner ready and my feet need rubbing, don’t talk just bring me a beverage and wait patiently for my next command… “

Does the small town with the gourd festival really exist?

Does such a place where man values his fellow man exist today, here in this country?

Does it exist in any country, anywhere? Are we all so self-absorbed that we really don’t give a damned about our neighbors or family?

I read a story recently where a man was visited by CPS because he allowed his children to play in a park and then walk the mile from the park to their house. The man was from Germany and recently came to this country. His children were 9 and 12 and they were in DC.

When I was young I could wander the neighborhoods all I wanted, without fear of being abducted. What happened?

I like technology but I must admit that I still like the feel and touch of a book and newspaper. I enjoy that tactile experience of flipping a page and I even like the smell of some magazines.

I like the smell of fresh cut hay and even though it might make me sneeze, that is okay! There is something to be said for sipping ice tea on the front porch waving at the neighbors or listening to the birds. Life goes by and we miss it!

We have so many screens from so many different devices! From the laptop to the desktop to the tablet and even the smartphone not to mention some hand held game, we have ample distractions.

On a recent cruise I was rather delighted when none of the signals to my smart devices were active! At the dinner table we actually talked, without the distraction of odd noises emanating from purses or pockets. For 90 minutes it was simply us talking about the day, and what was going to happen tomorrow.

Maybe that is the ticket, live on board a cruise ship and only catch up with the world when you come into port.

The people of this world are predictable and are going to do what they are going to do with or without you.

The rich will continue to get richer by taken advantage of the privileges and relationships that their status affords them. Whether it is by breaking or bending laws, or creating new ones just for them, that is the way of the world not only in this country but I suspect every country.

The poor will continue to do what they do because that is what they know. The rest of us well, we will continue to pay for the rich, and the poor, because that is all we know. While we detest being taken advantage of by those that should not we know that some really need assistance and we don’t mind a hand up offered to them on our behalf.

Animal Farm should be required reading before we ourselves end up being considered parasites by those in power.

http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/10/24/mark-twain-on-slavery-empathy-compassion/

-Best

Yesterday is gone

Yesterday is gone

As I ponder retirement and what that will look like, I realized that I have decades upon decades of accumulated stuff; and staying here in this house is not the plan.

People waiting to bid on someone's forgotten stuff. — People waiting to bid on someone’s forgotten stuff.

While planning for one’s retirement financially is important; planning on what one will do to keep busy and setting goals to make that happen are equally essential.

Many when they retire simply plan for the financial aspect and let life take care of itself. This often times causes one to fall into depression, shortening their golden years to just a few. Planning on actual events much like you were working will actually extend your life, and make it much happier.

Having said all that to say this; I was talked into spring cleaning by way of eBay and unfortunately a garage sale.

The process of a garage sale mandates evaluating “your stuff” and figuring out what you can live without and then, placing some sort of value on it.

Garage sales are not a money making business “for most.” Garage sales are in fact a venue for shedding your garage or house of extra stuff or clutter that has accumulated over the years and getting some sort of remuneration by way of cash to make your efforts seem worthwhile.

This garage sale went something like this. Up until 1:34 am getting everything ready. Back up at 5:30 to finish getting everything ready and then be surprised to learn that the sun does actually come up in the east!

Before morning light however there are people driving around neighborhoods with trucks and trailers looking for garage sales to acquire things like cheap furniture, lawn mowers and other yard equipment and bulkier things that require trailers.

Several times during the morning people came buy with phone in hand searching Amazon and other sites looking for the item’s that you were selling to determine if they were worth anything. I felt like I was in some sort of digital age of pickers because these folks were professional with it.

Then there were the thieves. Yep, people who would get their kids to distract you while they pocketed things, watched them do it. Now keep in mind the item if it were worth a $100.00 is already marked down to $5 but, $5 is too much so they just pocket it knowing that you have no inventory control and will never miss it.

Old people who too should be paring down, were picking up things and bargaining with you for a long time over .25 cents or less.

During the garage sale experience, the neighbor’s sprinklers went off twice, both times flooding the sidewalk. Other neighbors came out and mowed, weed whacked and then used the obligatory leaf blower to blow the debris either into the street or their neighbor’s lawn.

This is what mowed the grass... — This is what mowed the grass…

Noon time found the traffic down to a scant few, and found me ready to take the rest of it to some donation place as I was done with it. Many of the dust-ables are now in someone else’s house and the rest will find its way into some thrift store for others to pick over and figure out what to do with it.

eBay will end up with some of it because; eBay attracts a larger base than a garage sale and your chances of getting something more than a few cents is much higher than haggling with the deal seekers.

Garage sale attenders for the most part are serious deal hunters and I suspect take your dust-ables back to some place where they make a business out of it.

Unless you are filthy rich, when you decide to clean out your house take the time to look your items up on eBay or Amazon and see what they are worth. If they are worth a few dollars do the garage sale bit and prepare to give them away for a few cents on the dollar.

I would not consider and antique mall as those places make all the money for renting you a small place. While they bring in customers the ends rarely justify the means. You must necessarily have turnover in an antique mall so unless you are buying cheap at garage sales and stocking a small space continually at such a place don’t do it.

You might consider buying such a place and leasing out small chunks of it to people who think they are going to get rich by selling clutter but; that is the only financial entanglement I would have with such a place.

Now, if you are filthy rich and don’t have anyone to ruin their lives with tax issues having too much money, consider making me one of those people who would love to have too much money to deal with.

-Best to you and those that you care about!

Blowing in the wind

California will soon be a re-creation of the dust bowl of 1930 and it is their own damned fault! Liberal tax and spend policies over the years have bankrupt the state.

Their debt to GDP ratio is 18.5 %

They have a total population of 38,409,959 with an unemployment at 1,256,658 and a food stamp recipient population of 4,575,589!

Their liberal progressive economic policies are and have been unsustainable and yet the same liberal thinking that has them in this mess is trying to convert Texas and other red states to the same kind of thinking!

How are they doing this you ask? By attacking voter id laws. There was a lawyer on a talk show the other day who specializes in going after voter id laws in states that have them.

His argument is that the right to vote is guaranteed by the constitution so having a picture id to vote should not be necessary as it is for everything else that you do in this country including purchasing over the counter decongestants! His argument defies common sense and logic and yet because he is a lawyer he knows how to twist the intent of the law to create a loophole so those that wish to steal an election can. Like the counties that had over a 100% turnout and all of the votes were for the democratic candidate. Statistically that is not possible!

Marxism does not work! The uber rich sit up in their ivory towers while the rest of us suffer, and while they smoke their cigars and drink their Champagne we fight to keep alive.

Socialism, Marxism and communism only benefit the very rich the people at the top, those in control!

There are college kids today who have no idea who the VP is much less what Marxism is.

How can they expect to vote intelligently when they don’t know any history?

If this drought continues the GDP of California will be worse than what it currently is and something will have to give. When there is no more to give what then? Will the people who caused this mess just disappear in to the woodwork from which they came?

Bernie Madoff is a girl scout compared to these idiots running the state, and the people who voted for them!

Had they had a surplus like Texas currently has, they could spend a couple Billion and build some desalinization plants and guess what, the fields could be watered, the farmers could continue to grow their crops and there would not be the struggle for water that they have.

There is no rainy day fund. There is only debt and IOU’s!

I think that California suffering a drought serves a larger purpose for this liberal ideology of this country. If this continues, the narrative from the media will carry around the world the terrible conditions which exists and they can take their junk science that Al Gore is spreading like a cancer, and push carbon credits!

California’s drought is clearly because if climate change (we can’t call it global warming anymore because their science does not support it, so now it is climate change.) There is no way that the drought could simply be “weather!”

California should be investing in solar powered desalinization plants as should most states that have access to the ocean.

The dust bowl of the 1930’s would be called Global warming or climate change if it had happened now, so they are not letting a crises go to waste. They push their junk science to further their case to sell carbon credits so Al Gore can make more billions by scaring the hell out of people with utter BS!

I suspect that other billionaire’s are behind the carbon credit scam because how much money is enough? How many billions of dollars does one person need?

When you take your last breath what will your legacy be? “I screwed over an entire country!?” Is it he who dies with the most toys wins?

I don’t understand a politician spending millions of his own money to try and get elected to a job that pays $150K. I don’t understand people with Millions nay billions of dollars actively seeking more.

How much is enough?

What does someone with unlimited amounts of resources do for fun?

How about creating a company that specializes in building solar powered desalination plants?

Wouldn’t that be fun to create a company that has a product that helps people?

I think it would be a hoot!

-Best

http://www.usdebtclock.org/state-debt-clocks/state-of-california-debt-clock.html

House Bill 1748

And the Adult enters the room…

It seems that common sense is coming into play by one Debbie Riddle (R) of Tomball Texas. She has sponsored a bill that will make it illegal for persons of a different sex than that of the facility it was designated for i.e. men’s room women’s room to enter the room.

Where the mayor of Houston has publicly made a spectacle out of herself, and Houston; with crazy legislation making bathrooms and locker facilities less safe; the adults are taking measures to stop her and others like Plano Texas and Planet Fitness.

Mayor of Houston who thinks that anyone of any sex should be able to use any bathroom or locker room.

Men where they don't belong. — Men where they don’t belong.

House Bill 1748 is an adult way to define what gender is and stop non-sense from those who feel that gender is really not an issue and folks should be allowed to just do what they want.

Admittedly this is oversimplifying the problem.

I still like the idea of facilities designated for “other.”

One has to wonder what other bills will be forthcoming in the future, defining what we accept as common sense today.

http://genderidentitywatch.com/2015/02/23/texas-house-bill-1748-debbieriddle-usa/

-Best

http://www.guard-protect.com

http://www.timedok.com

Open letter to #OU

Open letter to OU

Does Racism exists?
Is it more rampant today than it was in 1968?
Should the folks at the OU fraternity be brought up on charges for their chant?
Should their fraternity have been demolished?
How do we battle Racism?

One would have to have been in a coma for the last 50 years, or brain dead, to believe that racism is not alive and well in this country; as well as around the world.

The racist song or chant repeated by the members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity that has sparked such a furor, “and debate” across the country is the following:

Song to the tune of: “If You Are Happy and You Know It”

There will never be a N***** in SAE

There will never be a N***** in SAE

You can hang them from a tree, but he can never sign with me

There will never be a N***** in SAE

McCarthyism lives on.

Not too many years ago I would venture a guess that this song or others like it had been chanted or sung by many others before them. What makes this time different? Why do I say that?

This is a very old tune, a very very old tune that I would guess has been sung by many many people in this fraternity, and possibly others. If this were a recent creation it most likely would have been done in rap music style which of course the oxymoron would have been priceless!

Today we have people looking for their 15 minutes of fame. Today each and every person that carries a cell phone can be a photo journalist or video journalist with a waiting a ready audience to give them their reward, “views!”

When a fight breaks out and some person is getting pummeled by more than one person, do we step in and stop it? No, we record it and post it, to see how many hits we can get with it!

Worse than that, in this 24 hour news cycle we have the cable media finding these “nuggets” and broadcasting them to further promote the “human condition.” While building their ratings!

Yes, Racism exists and it should be no secret that we find anyone that is different from us a candidate for some sort of bias. If there was an all-white or all-black school, those in the school would find someone that acted differently from them, and mock them or bully them, because that is what we do. Our human nature is to build ourselves up, at the expense of others.

The extreme racism that exist within the Black Panthers; Americans and others only are aware of it because it makes for ratings to put someone spewing hate like that in the national spot light!

Racism is really hate. It is easy to hate, much easier to hate than to like or heaven forbid Love; as we are instructed to do by our creator. Since we are taking God out of everything, and everywhere, it is no surprise that the human condition it deteriorating.

Had there been no easy way for that person who took that video in the fraternity to take the video and then gain the national spot light, we never would have heard of this. It would have come and gone, as it probably has for years, and nothing ever would have been said.

Here is the rub, even though what they did and said was abhorrent; I would argue that they have a right to say and do it.

Just like the advocate for the Black Panthers can stand on a street corner and proclaim to the world that “he hates white people, he hates crackers! He wishes every Cracker was dead! The old, the young, the men and women and even their babies! He wishes their cracker babies were dead!” Spittle and foam spew out of this person’s mouth as he screams to the eager cameras recording his every utterance, like he was some sort of messenger from some place important!

He too has a right to say what he says. We can flip the channel or turn off the damned idiot box, but he has that right!

If we dissolve Sigma Alpha Epsilon for what they did and or said or we kick them all off campus, we are not teaching anyone anything other than you really don’t have freedom of speech, if you are white!

What if I wanted to rent that building to put a place of worship and study for Christians, or Jews, or pick a religion? What if that too was considered hate speech because now we can obviously pick and choose what is ok to say, and what is not.

You could argue that what those members said was horrible but, what if others find Christianity distasteful?

I for one think that the University missed the mark. That should have, and could have been used as a teaching moment, instead they invoked the Zero Tolerance policy which means zero thinking! They took the path to cover their ass, instead of using it as a way to teach future generations around the globe how to deal with racism; at its roots!

They picked the ostrich approach which people have picked for generations. How is that working for you? You would think that we are capable of learning. One would think that college folk would be smarter than the rest of us poor peons, and be able to think outside the box!

Had I been asked, I would have immediately reversed that decision and put their letters back on that building. I would then use this as a way to teach, and I would apply the opposite of hate while I did it. The color of skin is an easy way to delineate between us, and make some an easy target for hate. Some make it easy to make stereotypical snap decisions about a group of people, by the actions of a few.

I read in the news recently that in the middle of a basketball game, the home team stopped the game in the middle of play, walked off the court and came to the aid of one of their cheerleaders! You see, some people were bullying this cheerleader and they “the team” were having none of it! This Cheerleader has Down syndrome and she is one of their own! Someone is teaching something good there. Someone is doing right by these kids!

Those people in that fraternity are “one of their own,” and even though their condition cannot be cured or controlled by medicines, their condition could be changed and needs addressing. If my hunch is correct, that chant is as old as the school; and most probably represents a bigotry of a time gone by but, like many traditions has hung on because no one had the integrity to challenge it.

Those people are part of a culture and that culture needs help, just like the folks in Ferguson need to wise up and read the tea leaves.

The guy was guilty of charging a cop, while trying to take his gun! You don’t do that and expect a good outcome! Even the overly biased DOJ had to admit that Darren Wilson was correct in his actions!

The hate in Ferguson needs to be dismantled, and if external agitators are found to be there, they need to be encouraged to leave. Racism is a cancer that grows in the heart and hate is it accomplice. Unlike cancer however; you cannot simply cut it out. Education and a lot less of the people who foment racism for a living will be needed to heal these wounds. Add to this some time, and lack of the public spotlight on those craving attention will go a long way towards healing this nation after these last few years of torment.

As for any gathering anywhere, know that you could be recorded. There is in fact no safe haven for your privacy in this world today. Orwell had it right, it just took a little longer.

Technology has made privacy just about a thing of the past.

Each and every street corner has some sort of camera. While I don’t want to sound like an alarmist or conspiracy nut, your own phone, tablet or computer could be capturing your activities and sending them to some huge data facility used to store terabytes of terabytes of data!

Full disclosure: I am a writer of Sci-Fi so… Orwell is my kind or person.

While being mindful of the fact that your privacy has limits, doing the right thing is doing it with the knowledge that nobody is seeing you do it.

-Best to you and those that you care about!

Www.guard-protect.com

Www.Timedok.com

You want me to give you how much for what?!

A well known televangelist is launching a $65 million dollar campaign for a new jet so he can spread the gospel.

In all honesty this gives “religion” a bad name.

Most people don’t have enough money to make ends meet, much less give up their hard earned cash so a bunch of “holy rollers” (high-rollers) can tour the world spreading the word.

I can reach more people with just a few keystrokes without increasing global warming.

The Sad facts are that some just don’t get it. Al Gore comes to mind “preaching about global warming” while flying around in his personal jet, and living in a multi-million dollar mansion!

Some are simply out of touch with the world as we know it.

You can reach more people by living your beliefs than by talking about them from lofty places, living like a king off the backs of the “little people.”

Mother Teresa reached more in her life without owning a luxury Jet! She lived her calling.

If you are really called to spread the words, try living it. Oh and by the way, twitter works great and you can probably hold their attention in the time it takes to read 140 characters.

Another preacher came to mind when I read this. He did not mince words about giving and what it was for. “If you cannot afford to give at least $5 thousand, than don’t bother!”

-Best

A good Spanking!

“If you don’t behave I am going to give you a “good spanking”!”

Is there such a thing as a good spanking?

“Experts” are all over the map on this one so, allow me to pontificate on the subject for a moment.

First and foremost there must be consequences to ones actions.

As adults when we break a law the consequences usually come very close to the bottom; as in the back pocket where we carry our wallet. If we break major laws we end up paying out the nose and maybe end up incarcerated or even on death row!

Teaching children at an early age that there are consequences to their actions are the best way to keep them out of jail, and of course off of death Row!

Recently a teacher had several students hold some child down while she spanked them.

This type of actions bespeaks of gang or mob mentality, the likes that we are seeing in Ferguson.

Involving other children in the actions of reprimanding a child in such a fashion is close to criminal and at the very least that teacher should be fired for showing such poor judgment!

Swats or CP in schools should not be carried out by the teacher but, rather a disinterested third party whose job it is to carry out such actions.

The argument could be made that when it comes to swats they are one step away from needing a more serious form of “guidance.” A case could be made that some part of the system for be created to deal with Juveniles who have yet to break any serious law but are headed that way. Very possibly these wayward kids are introduced to the system where any form of “course correction” that a judge might see fit to order be employed.

The goal is to save the kids from incarceration or avert them from going down the wrong path. Some intermediary form of “the system” could be created to give these kids the attention that they need whether it be in parenting, guidance or just a good old fashioned spanking!. We need smart people dealing with this now, vs guards keeping them in line later.

There is no harm in getting creative with the punishment either.

For instance, some schools give swats for chewing gum in class. Not that anyone cares what you eat but gum chewers in a quite environment can be distracting so we prohibit gum chewing in class!

Should such an offence get swats?

To my way of thinking; I would have the child stay behind in detention with some sort of tool to remove all of the gum found under the desk where these same inconsiderate few, place it after they are finished with it.

Spanking for such an offence might happen after two or three attempts to break the habit in less drastic measures.

The “bottom line,” spanking within reason in a calm rational environment along with a note sent home for the parent to sign should be available to the teachers. School is a place to learn and all should have that equal opportunity to learn and not be interfered with by those that are there “because they have to be.”

I stress here calm and rational environment because we are not interested in beating anyone. While CP should not be the first line of punishment. it should certainly not be done away with.

Since the family unit is in disarray, the school must often pick up the mantle of responsibility for teaching Reading Writing Arithmetic and Reverence for the laws of this country as well as Respect for the Rights of others.

If we had more of this,

we would most certainly have less of this!

Now, which is worse?

In retrospect if we created some form of intermediary adjunct to the local police force to deal with “kids on the way to being problem kids” the money spent might very well save money from incarcerating them later as well as getting them to be productive citizens rather than something else. When a few swats don’t turn them around, you need something a little stronger that makes more of an impression.

This is not a one size fits all however; as the kids in the inner city would need a program different from the ones in the burbs.

-Best

The Third Sex or No Sex?

Recently a lady was asked to leave a Planet Fitness facility because she complained that there was a man dressed as a women in the dressing room with her.

Carlotta Sklodowska, the transgender woman at the heart of the Planet Fitness story. Photo credit: Facebook

http://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw/index.ssf/2015/03/planet_fitness_transgender-fri.html

http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/dear-planet-fitness-why-dont-you-care-about-the-safety-and-privacy-of-women/

Planet Fitness seemed more concerned with the rights of the man dressed as a women, than the majority of their clientele which identifies as man or woman. That was reported by a third party.

Houston has also set precedence allowing those that identify as a sex other than what they were genetically born with (plumbing,) to pick the bathroom that best suits their needs. This bill would allow anyone to use any bathroom that they wish, of either gender. This bill also allows for those same folks to go into other private places, which are gender specific.

http://thedailycougar.com/2014/10/22/bathroom-bill-hero-draws-national-attention-to-houston-mayor-parker/

This progressive thinking is not without collateral damage.

Imagine a 13 year old girl in the women’s dressing room when a transgender-ed person comes in to change next to her, and a penis is exposed to her. Is this transgender-ed person going to pay for that girl’s therapy? While I would hope that anyone with such anatomy would do their best to be discrete, there is still the issue of the privacy of the child, and protection from those that are truly ill and wish to expose themselves for self-gratification or the fulfillment of some dark fantasy.

Imagine some deviant individual deliberately dressing in such a manner as to gain access to the facility for the opposite sex for clandestine purposes. Several cases have made the news where locker rooms have been bugged with cameras and other recording devices, which are commercially available to anyone with a few dollars to spend.

One option is that you have a men’s and a women’s facility, and then you have “other.” As I cannot relate to “other,” I have no idea how palatable that would be. As a man I have no desire to enter into a ladies bathroom, and I am certain that women would say the same. As these folks seem to want to relate to some sex, I would think some might find it offensive; and others might prefer it.

You could have co-ed, where “anything goes” which not only would attract a whole new clientele but, most probably, several visits from undercover agents. We are talking co-ed nude wet areas, open showers and pools and just whatever. Many of the Korean spas have nude wet areas for the different sexes, why not just have one nude wet area for everyone! I think they did this in early Rome, and that really didn’t work out too well.

The only agreeable option that should satisfy everyone’s needs is unfortunately the added expense of providing an environment that allows for privacy, no matter what sex the person is.

Setting aside the obvious gender differences, there are those that go to such facilities and hang out in the “wet area” to ogle others of their same genetic sex. Imagine these sheep in wolves clothing going to the opposite sex’s side for entertainment.

It would seem that with this in mind that the best answer is to provide privacy for any and all concerned. The wet area with saunas and so forth should be co-ed where proper attire is required. This would hopefully offset the added cost of providing private areas for all to change shower etc.

Bathrooms for either gender should also provide appropriate privacy, as you never know who is in the bathroom with you. As children use these facilities they must be protected from the possibility of deviant behavior by those that are truly not there because they identify one way other another, they are just genuinely mentally disturbed.

Mayor Parker and other progressive individuals should put their personal agenda’s aside to look after the “entire population” and not just those of the LGBT community. I would think that the LGBT community would also support this as instead of a women’s and men’s bathroom, there would simply be “The bathroom.”

The simple facts are that we as a people must rise up to meet this challenge. Ignoring it will not make it go away. Law abiding citizens regardless of gender must be heard and accommodated for and protected from those that wish to take advantage of a situation for devious purposes.

Before we change the rules, we must make changes to protect those who are most vulnerable in our society from those that are of ill repute. Video surveillance of the bathroom “common area” could actually be accomplished without violating anyone’s privacy, thus allowing for some modicum of security.

There is an answer; working together instead of the truculent attitude which pervades this entire conversation every time that it is mentioned, will provide a solution.

-Best

Let’s Get Physical

Let’s Get Physical

While a huge fan of Olivia Newton John am I; that is not what this is about.

Today I want to visit with you about networking stuff, in short the physical layer of the OSI model.

Network cable is not wire!

Well technically it is wire, you cannot simply have “Jake the handyman install it!”

More than a few of my many network installations that I have troubleshot for people involved such installations.

Example one:

Company A calls me out because they have many computers simply dropping off the internet, dropping off the file servers, losing files, e-mails not downloading and the list goes on and on.

The OSI model (open system interconnect) is a hierarchical model representing the sum of how data gets from one point to another.

Layer one or the lowest layer is what I am addressing today because let’s face it, without this, ain’t nothing happening!

Bringing up a protocol analyzer it is obvious that there is trouble in river city!

Not only were there many dropped packets, tons of broadcast packets using the most basic of routing protocols looking for this or that but, there also appeared to be 5250 traffic getting into the data stream! No 5250 emulators in the day, there were separate terminals.

As the company grew the “cheap information officer” did not want to spend money on silly things like “hiring someone that did this for a living so…” he got one or two of his employees to improvise.

They did indeed. In the computer room the cable went up into the ceiling as cat5. At the wall socket to the desktop it was cat 5. Somewhere in the ceiling during the time of expansion someone spliced cat 5 onto cat 3 “electrical tape glob” and then back to cat 5 going to the wall.

I forgot to mention that they also shared a pair for the phone, even after they went to a digital phone system.

It is important to also keep in mind that unless you are using STP or “Shielded Twisted Pair” the cable has to be elevated away from sources of RF, EMI or other types of noise hence, the signal will be effected. It is a good idea to use J hooks anyway, just to keep the cable from getting in the way of future work.

The CIO was still not convinced that he should spend thousands of dollars to replace the mess so he allowed a one off repair for the most affected users. His reasoning was that in the next few years they were going to expand and at this point they would “do it right.” Never mind that screwed up packets from other workstations effected the network as a whole.

Soft dollars meant nothing to him as he was not the one experiencing the pain and if the President of the company complained he just simply blamed the people under him.

To be fair, some of the fault was theirs as they, did make the mess in order to gain favor with this idiotic boss and secondly they did stupid things like used silver satin cables as patch cables right next to each other. Yep the terminal for the AS400 and the computer.

Layer one is the bedrock. Everything must be solid or you are wasting your time.

Company B:

“I have this huge internet pipe and it is slow to the desktop, look at this!”

Indeed surfing the web was a nightmare.

Another Jake the handyman installed cable along the same paths as the electrical lines, zip tied to fluorescent lights and put switches everywhere at the end points as they got tired of running cable as the company grew.

If that were not bad enough the switches in the computer room were all daisy chained together in the back with fiber and then, someone had patched the switches together up front as well.

A quick look with the protocol analyzer showed routing loops, lost packets and the list of networking nightmares went on and on.

This was an RF technology company so there were live RF transmissions in the building around the UTP or unshielded cable. When expansions were needed the cables were tied together in the wall in much the same fashion as the previously mentioned company.

This company would have been better served to simply go all Wi-Fi with one of the many solution provided by different providers. If you don’t know what you are doing, humble yourself enough to seek help! Mistakes are costly; one of the largest dangers to company’s data today is arrogant, uninformed IT people who think that they know it all and refuse to seek help from a VAR.

In my business of disaster recovery, most of the disasters are self-imposed by “No Toes MgGrew.” Ready-Fire-Aim!

Company C is pretty much indicative of a company that does not want to pay to hire it done so they hire “Jake.” Good ole Jake has a ladder and truck and some tools to fish cables down the wall.

Jake simply bundles the cable up and pulls it from point A to B and wherever it lies it lies. Again using the cheaper UTP he simply pulls it to the final destination and then leaves it where he is told so someone else can come in and terminate it.

The owner “has a friend” who has done this before, somewhere.

Cable plants are the bedrock of your data center and the highway with which all of your data will traverse. Do you want multi-lane highways or alleys?

A word about soft dollars.

In the business world there is such a thing as soft dollars. If your employees are not able to function because of impediments of any kind it cost you money. If there are time deadlines and they are not met because of impediments of any kind, it could cost you customers.

Business today in order to stay competitive must do as much as they can with as little as they can and that means staff, product, and infrastructure and so on.

That means that everything must perform like a Swiss watch.

Not only do policies and procedure need to be in place and proper management of your IT assets but for the rest of the business as well.

The company that waste the least in time and material will be the one that survives over the competition and if publicly traded, the one that has the highest earnings for their stock holders.

Inefficiencies in organizations like, let’s say our government cannot exist in business. Unlike the government who simply prints more money to pay their bills; business cannot.

Whoever your CIO is should not only possess a high degree of technical savvy but, also a high degree of business acumen.

I will spare you the conversation about the differences between cat5 and cat 6 and cat6a and so forth, I am certain that a google search will give you more than you could ever want.

The bottom line is use STP or shielded and use the higher speed rated cable as we have no idea what the future will hold as far as data. This cable must be terminated properly, and that is an art all of its own.

Doing it right the first time may be a little more costly than hiring Jake and ordering cable off of Amazon and switches from New Egg but, the results will be far more satisfactory.

VARS do this every day so they know what to get, and why?

-Best

http://www.guard-protect.com