We’re now having yo-yo weather. That is, daytime temperatures getting up around 60° but nighttime temps below freezing. There’s even snow in the forecast for tonight.

Spring seems to be fairly late coming but, in looking at blog entries from past years, I seem to be saying that every year. Patience is a virtue … enjoyed by few.

I met with my contracting company this morning and got three more assignments. They all have to do with the same website I revised last Monday. So, I’ve spent much of the afternoon working on getting a full working copy of the website on my computer so I can do the work without breaking the production website.

The other thing that has been going on is issues with my ham radio equipment. In late March I saw a very good deal on a new (actually a refurb) transceiver and jumped on it. When I finally got an antenna up and the radio connected, I could find ham radio traffic, but when I pushed the transmit button, nothing happened. I exchanged some emails with the store where I bought the radio and worked through their suggestions. Still no ability to transmit. So, today the unit went back to the manufacturer to get fixed as it’s still under warranty. Maybe by the end of the month it’ll be on it’s way back here.

That isn’t the only issue, though. My handheld radio suddenly stopped working. A week ago Sunday it was working great. A couple of days later it was completely dead. I bought this radio used and it’s well out of warranty. However, the service depot will look at it for $35 and tell me what it’ll take to get it fixed. If the cost is less than a hundred dollars, I’ll get it fixed. If it’s more than that, I’ll look around to buy another unit. I’ve seen the same unit selling recently on eBay for about $120.

So two radios are now on their way in to (hopefully) get fixed. I’m sure hoping the problem with the transceiver isn’t something I’m doing wrong!

TTFN!

Tuesday was definitely a catch up and catch all day. I had two items on my schedule: An Airport Commission meeting out at the Pocatello Airport at noon and the Portneuf Rotary Club meeting at 5:15 p.m. in the afternoon.

Both were very interesting. All of the tenants out at the Airport go through a rate review on a regular basis. Most of those are annual rate reviews and the Airport Commission meeting agenda was mostly reviewing what the Airport is charging several tenants. The airport terminal is going through a significant upgrade and we walked through the areas nearing completion. Much of this is being paid for out of stimulus money from the Federal Government.

The picture with this post is from the Rotary Club meeting. Our program was presented by some folks from Brazil. Click on the picture for more information.

TTFN!

Today I began working on the new contract I negotiated last Friday. It’s fun to be mired up to my neck in diagrams, surrounded by pieces of paper with important pieces of information, and waist deep in someone else’s program code. The first assignment was fairly straight forward, except that it had several interesting aspects associated with it.

• There is no development or test website. Any changes I make are immediately visible to the world. I broke the site several times during the day, so if anyone was trying to use the area of the website where I was working, they had an interesting experience.
• The method for connecting to the website has a very short timeout … around 90 seconds. I spent a lot of time logging in over and over again.
• All of the logs are locked down and aren’t visible to me. Consequently I have no access to any error messages.

In spite of all that, though, the work got done, it looks good, and does what the client wants to have done. I think I’ll be doing some more work on that website, so maybe I need to build a place to do some testing. I had a lot of fun being back in the programming mode once again.

TTFN!

Mothers Day always seems to draw strong opinions from women. Many think that the day is too over-the-top, which is probably true as events for Mothers Day are always planned by men. Nina gave me an ultimatum: Don’t . Buy . Me . Anything . For . Mothers . Day! So I didn’t. A package came in the mail the next day. She looked at it and said, “Here’s my Mothers Day present!” It was a two-dvd movie she’d ordered online. I guess that’s the way you get the present you want on Mothers Day!

She was also quite happy that the gift given at Church to the mothers was popcorn (bagged, popped popcorn) from the local popcorn store. All the popcorn came home … in Nina’s stomach. So that part of the day was very good.

After Church we went over to Soda Springs to spend the evening with my mother. Click on the picture for further details. Actually, we started down the road. Nina remembered something we had forgotten. Oh well, that could wait for another time. Then she remembered something else. Should we go back? “Nah. We’ll use it ourselves or give it to someone else.” Then she remembered we’d forgotten a really important something. We were about 15 minutes from the house, but we turned around and retrieved all the forgotten items. That made us about forty-five minutes later than expected … causing a bit of worry on my mother’s part. She is a world-class worrier. We had a great visit, got her checkbook balanced, had a nice meal, and came back home.

It was a delightful Mothers Day.

TTFN!

May 7-8 was a huge Scout Jamborall held in Blackfoot at the Idaho State Fair Grounds. The local amateur radio club set up a booth at the event to show the scouts what ham radio can do. They needed volunteers to help man the booth, so I went up on Saturday morning and stayed until early afternoon. I had a lot of fun with the scouts and the other folks from the club.

On the way home my phone rang. It was Nina. She’d been in Idaho Falls doing some not-so-successful clothes shopping. I answered the phone.

“You’re speeding!” she said.

“Huh? According to the GPS I’m going 77 mph,” I replied.

“You just went flying past me on the freeway and you’ve got to be going faster than 77. I’m going 75 and you blew right past me.”

Well, the Avalon’s speedometer isn’t all that accurate. It reads faster than you’re actually going. Even though it says 75, she was probably going about 71 or 72. Still, I don’t think I “flew” past her! Interesting coincidence that we met up like that.

TTFN!

We had our normal Friday morning shift at the Idaho Falls Temple on Friday morning. Getting up was made a bit more difficult because we didn’t get home from Stephanie’s graduation until about 10:30 p.m. That made for very few hours until the 3:30 a.m. wake up. The trip to Salt Lake, which included driving over to Soda Springs to pick up my mother and then taking her back home before coming home, was definitely worth it. Again, congratulations Stephanie!

I had an appointment on Friday afternoon to meet with the company in Pocatello that wants to outsource some programming work to me. I signed a pretty detailed non-disclosure agreement, so I won’t be talking about them very much on the blog, and definitely won’t be talking about any of the clients of theirs for whom I’ll be doing some work. The rate of pay is excellent and the amount of work … 20 to 25 hours a week … fits very nicely into my schedule. The first assignment will come on Monday and should be able to be finished on Monday afternoon.

A member of the Pocatello City Council has been appointed by President Obama to be the new U.S. Marshall for the State of Idaho. Brian Underwood has been the warden at the local womens correctional center as well as serving on the City Council. He’s a great guy and will be missed here when he leaves in a week or so to take up his new position.

However, that leaves an opening on City Council. I filled out my paperwork and dropped it off at City Hall to put my hat in the ring for the appointment. There’s little chance of being appointed, but not getting into the race would be a for-sure-non-appointment! The Mayor will be reviewing the applications next week, making a short list, and then interviewing candidates. I’d be really pleased just to get an interview, actually.

TTFN!

Our oldest grandchild Stephanie graduated with her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Utah on May 6th. Of course, we were there for the ceremony!

Stephanie graduated just a few weeks after her 21st birthday. She’s wizard smart, witty, brilliant, pretty, and just plain delightful … and I’m not just being biased! She took all the Advanced Placement classes in High School that she could and entered the University of Utah as a Sophomore. She worked at a five-star hotel in Salt Lake City through her school years and got some very valuable experience as well as tuition assistance from the hotel. We had lunch in one of the restaurants where she works and it was clear that she’s well liked and respected at the hotel.

I’m not going to name the hotel for a simple reason. They aren’t going to take advantage of the asset that is our granddaughter. Hopefully what I’m writing in this post won’t come to haunt her … but there’s no plan at the hotel to do something with her beyond the job she currently has. Very Dumb.

That’s one of the major flaws in our corporations today. Advancement only comes by quitting your current job and going somewhere else, taking your experience and qualifications with you. It’s all part of the Quarterly Report Syndrome that all public corporations seem to have. They have to report detailed financial information every quarter to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Investors prognosticate the future of the company based on those reports and the stock price goes up or, heaven help the company’s officers, goes down. Since labor is a significant component of the corporation’s costs, they focus heavily on controlling that cost. It is far more profitable in the near term for the company’s officers, who have a significant part of the compensation tied up in the stock price, to cast off experienced, higher-paid employees and replace them with lower cost, less experienced employees. Even though the future of the company walks out the door and benefits some other corporation, that’s not their concern right now.

It hasn’t always been that way. It shouldn’t be that way now. Until it changes, the loyalty of employees to companies and companies to employees extends only until the next paycheck. And a five-star hotel in Salt Lake City seems to be willing to sacrifice a future asset. Very Dumb.

But, congratulations, Stephanie. You’re degree in hospitality management will serve you very well … and you’ll find that employer who understands that. Good luck and God Speed!

TTFN!

Each month during the school year, Pocatello-Chubbuck School District 25 holds a “key communicator” meeting on the first Wednesday of the month. To accommodate folks in the community they hold two meetings, one at 7:00 a.m. and one at noon. I usually go to the 7 a.m. meeting and occasionally, like today, I go to the noon meeting. There are more people at the noon meeting, sometimes meaning a better conversation.

The topic for May (the last meeting of this school year) was about a change the school system implemented this year to meet the State of Idaho requirement to add a Freshman Studies class, another math credit, another science credit, and a Senior Project. To do that, the system switched from semesters 18 weeks long to trimesters 12 weeks long. Further, the system went from 7 50-minute class periods per day to 5 70-minute periods per day. Several Junior-year students came to the meeting to tell us their likes and dislikes about the new system. All of them were honor students deeply involved with Advanced Placement and Dual Enrollment classes and they were unanimous in their opinion that the change limited their ability to take interesting elective classes.

The “culprit” is that the AP classes take all three trimesters. The reasons are that the AP tests are given in May and by going all three trimesters, the students can get more in-depth and be better prepared for the test. They all felt that the extra time to learn the material and prepare for the test was very beneficial. Further, all of them were taking at least two AP classes (and two were taking 3 AP classes), meaning that they actually had two or three fewer periods in the year to take other classes, and that some of the classes they wanted to take were only available during time periods when they were in an AP class.

There is probably no good solution to their problem. But, I did learn one interesting / strange thing. In order to be in the drama plays, the student has to take a drama class during the trimester when the play will be presented. Also, in order to be in Student Government (a class officer or being elected to the school senate), they had to be enrolled in a government class. In one case, one of the presenters had to give up her class officer position because she simply couldn’t work in the required government class. The Superintendent assured us that they would be reviewing these requirements and that changes would be made.

So, instead of financial woes, we learned about student woes. It was interesting, the kids were very well prepared, very articulate, and Very Smart. The financial woes continue … and the State of Idaho needs to be held accountable for what they’ve done to our schools. But, I did meet a group of very motivated students who will make the best of their high school time, regardless of what happens to the school district financially. I liked what I saw and heard.

TTFN!