Archive for November, 2005

So far so good.
This week I was fortunate enough to not have any problems.  That’s because the one tech I really trust was here every shift I was.  Interesting, the one guy I trust here is the one who has never screwed up my arm.  Hmmmm  I wonder if there’s a correlation between the two.  
Someone recently on the support_dialysis list seemed to think that they had no choice in who put them on.  I replied that it most certainly was their right, and responsibility to do so.  
YOUR ARM IS YOUR LIFE.  
Repeat, remember, implement.
There is no reason to let someone jab large needles into you who you do not trust to do so.

As I’m sure you remember two weeks ago I wasn’t having such a great time.  Thankfully though, things are going well now and I’ve developing a new area of the fistula, to hopefully avoid such episodes in the future.
Fortunately for you all I don’t really have anything to say today.  No mindless ramblings, no political diatribe, nothing.
I’ll tell you something that did happen though:
Sony finally got smart and decided not to promote their embedded anti-piracy technology any further.  They’re going to "hold off" for awhile.
I’ll tell you something else of note; the Spitzer Space Telescope is capturing some sweet images.  Do yourself a favor and check them out.  Of particular note today are the Cosmic Clouds of Creation, where astronomers are checking out some galactic dust hanky-panky producing baby stars.

Anyway, that’s about it for me.  Have a great weekend.

I’ve found a new service, and as I do from time to time I am compelled to share it with all of you.

Blog Explosion

I know at least two of you have blogs of your own, and so you might find this free service useful.
Basically what blog explosion does, is create an environment wherein you surf other people’s blogs. The more blogs you check out, the more “credits” you get. These credits are then distributed among your own selected blogs, and directly equal the number of times they will direct someone else to your blog when they are surfing. Sound confusing? It isn’t…
So I’m there, and I click “surf member blogs”. It then randomly selects a blog for me to read, and plants me there for 30 seconds (the timer is to prevent people from just surfing from one to the other without reading to gain credits). You then click a number to be taken to the next blog, and so on. In the course of an hour or so you read some really interesting (or not) “stuff” … but at the end of this time, you have amassed credits which will be converted directly into traffic to your blog.

Obviously this isn’t targeted traffic. You’re not guaranteed that the people reading your blog are doing so because they want to, rather most of them are just gaining credits like you are doing. Fine. The way I figure, more traffic is better than less traffic if my goal is to grow my blog. If .1% of my visitors come back that’s better than 0. For every 1000 lame hits, I might find someone who is interested in my life, or my experiences, and might choose to be a part of this community. Already I’ve seen rapid growth in the traffic coming to this site, and several of them have been coming back.
Perhaps this is all stupid, and perhaps I am just easily entertained. I’ll give you that … But if you have a blog, and would like more people to see what you’re saying, give blogexplosion.com a try.

Against all logic and political understanding, Coloradoans voted YES on Referendum C yesterday. Thankfully they voted NO on D.
For those of you not familiar, Referenda C and D have been the hottest issue around here for a few months. Both sides have been guilty of totally spinning their positions, so finding the truth has been difficult.
Thanks to TABOR (TAxpayers Bill Of Rights) the Colorado Government is forced to be somewhat responsible fiscally, and isn’t able to raise our taxes every time they want more money. They actually have to address other issues in their budget and make responsible decisions. This is a good thing.
Referenda C&D proponents claim that because of TABOR, Colorado is unable to create a surplus of money when the economy is good, yet loses money like everyone else when the economy is bad. As a result we as a State are in financial crisis.
This legislation was not to increase our taxes, but decrease our refunds, in an effort to give the government “much needed” funds for public education, road maintenance and retirement funds.
Such simple logic thrown in with a few “facts” like: “Colorado is 49th in funding for Public Education”, and “CU’s tuition is the fastest rising tuition in the country” made it seem like a no-brainer.
YES… PLEASE take my tax refund and use it for these things, it’s so OBVIOUS that we need this! How have we survived this long without such provisions?!
This just isn’t the case though.
The truth is tricky to find, but it’s there if you dig for it.
Myth: Colorado is 49th in funding.
Truth: Colorado is only 49th in funding if you’re measuring what we spend on public education as a percentage of household income (which is precisely what this particular statistic is based on). In other words, this statistic really only shows that Coloradoans make more money than other people, and that therefore we spend less on education as a percentage of the whole.
So what’s the truth?
Well, looking at per-capita spending (money spent per student in Colorado), we are ranked 25th. We’re smack dab in the middle.
Hmm… looks like we’re not in such a crisis afterall.
Myth: K-12 Education desperately needs these funds … regardless of our actual rank in spending.
Truth: Ammendment 23 provides for K-12 education. Remember we passed this last time folks? How many times are you going to give the government money for public education without asking for something in return? Amendment 23 provides increased spending for public education regardless of what the state budget is. In other words, the K-12 system is already pretty well protected from economic downturns. So why all the hype with C&D? Where’s this money REALLY going?
Higher education?
Myth: CU’s tuition is the fastest rising tuition.
Truth: Let’s put that in perspective. CU is still below the national average in terms of tuition … so what’s the problem again?
At The Art of the Blog there’s a great summary of this. Please read it if you get a chance. He touches on something not many have, the illogical move of raising taxes to suppliment problems with an irresponsibly run school. CU first needs to run themselves like any other successful business: responsibly.
You want me to give you my tax refund when you tenure professors like Ward Churchill, and spend $500,000.00 a year on booze for the football team? Why don’t you “lower your overhead” first.

It seems pretty obvious to most of us that getting less money back is the same in our wallets as giving more. Still though, the proponents of C&D claim that this is not a tax increase.
I’m sorry, isn’t Referendum D a loan of over two billion dollars? Where are you borrowing it from if not the tax payers? Won’t it be paid for at least in part by Referendum C?
I just don’t see how this is not a tax increase. To be fair, the opponents of C&D have done an equally poor job putting forth their position, with lies like: “This will cost each tax payer ~$3200.00.” That just isn’t likely to be true. Yes it is possible, but will hardly be the case for every tax payer.
In the end, Coloradoans have foolishly agreed to throw more money at their problems rather than fixing them.
We’ve told our Universities that it’s OK to be irresponsible, we’ll still fund you. We’ve told our highway crews that we’re happy to give them more money so we can have a longer commute to work, and we’ve decided that we’d like to support a retirement plan that’s currently 11 billion dollars in the hole rather than provide a retirement plan for state employees comparable to what the rest of us have (something contribution based).
Awesome.

And to top it all off, Mayor Hickenlooper’s Sky-Dive Ad was a fake!
Yes he really jumped out of the plane … twice in fact (he is a pretty cool mayor). But it was a tandem jump .. and they airbrushed out the instructor!
CHEESE
I feel so cheated…