MCC Relief Sale: We had a good time

Rachel  & I went to the annual MCC Relief Sale in Rocky Ford, Colorado this past weekend (Friday and Saturday).  It’s for a good cause.  Our sister-in-law Deanna was running the Ten Thousand Villages booth (actually a small building within the Rocky Ford fairgrounds),  and so we decided to be there to help out.  It was our second time in two years.  They needed help unpacking and setting up various home décor and crafts items to be sold.  These are items handcrafted by people in various countries around the world.  The money pays these folks a living wage, and in return, we make a little bit of money to be added to the relief effort.

I can’t claim credit for a lot of work, but we helped out for a day.  Deanna and her husband Calvin did a lot even before this weekend.  A lot of people did more than we did, but we contributed and it all helps.  I think Deanna appreciated having the help.  Last year was particularly difficult.  This time, we had more help and the work went faster.

The main part of the sale is the auction, which raises the bulk of the money from the event.  Various items are donated and then auctioned off.  The sale stated off with a brief prayer and then the first item auctioned was a loaf of handmade bread.  It went for  $1850 and then we immediately donated back to be auctioned off by the slide.

The next two buyers bought a slice of bread and a jar of apple butter.  The price was $525 each buyer.  I lost track of what the other slices went for, but the loaf of bread raised over $3200 in total.  It was a great start to the auction.

Various items were sold in the auction, but the higher ticket items are typically the quilts.  That’s what everyone waits to see.  My father-in-law bought three of them, and I believe one of my brothers-in-law also bought three.

Calvin donated beef and pork for the sale.  He had it processed and then loaded freezers (which he also had to round up and haul to the sale) packed full to be sold off.  This stuff luckily goes pretty fast.  Rachel & I bought $100 worth went the sale started Friday evening at 17:00.

Among items sold besides things at the auction or at Ten Thousand Villages, were hamburger meat, sausage, pies, apple butter, apple cider, cakes, cookies, various potted plants, handmade craft items, nuts, fruit, ice cream, soda pop, sausage sandwiches, you-name-it; all proceeds going towards the total relief fund.

I took lots of photographs during the weekend.  Some were on the way to Rocky Ford and some were on the way home.  Some were on Calvin and Deanna’s farm, most were at the sale.  Some were family and/or friends.  Some were of total strangers.  I hopefully got some good ones out of the weekend.

Rachel & I took a different route home so that we could avoid some construction on the road between Lamar, Colorado and Boise City, Oklahoma.  In retrospect, it still would’ve been faster if we’d stuck to that route, but we drove east through Kansas instead.  It was a fun drive, but it took longer and it wore us out.  I’m still recovering.

We drove through Greensburg, Kansas, that was virtually wiped out by an EF5 tornado May 4, 2007.  http://www.kansas.com/static/slides/050507tornadoaerials/

We remembered driving through Greensburg many times in the past, and what we saw was devastation not unlike that of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.  We had heard of a lot of “green” rebuilding, but we didn’t see it.  I guess if we’d driven around town more we might’ve seen it, but we stayed on the main road through town and never saw anything we recognized except for a tire storage building that seemed to have weathered the storm due to its rounded shape and low profile.

Most of my photos of Greensburg didn’t come out well as I was shooting from a moving vehicle and had a slow shutter speed.  It was a bit of a disappointment, but most disappointing is not seeing any signs of the “green building” efforts.  We saw lots of prefab temporary buildings, including those used as the town hospital.  About the only thing we recognized was the high school, that somehow managed to remain after the storm.

I could go on about Greensburg, but there’s no point.  We do hope to return when there’ll be more signs of progress in the rebuilding efforts.

We drove through Dodge City, which is where my brother-in-law Bob and his family live.  I photographed some earth homes just west of Dodge, and a bit disappointed that the photographs weren’t better.  Somehow, the camera was set on that slow shutter speed and it really impacted my photo efforts.  If we hadn’t been in the car, I would’ve probably spent more efforts in making sure my camera settings were better.

We drove through Harper, Kansas, which Rachel has some family history there.  Her family lived there for a while, and her brother Bob built and lived in a geodesic dome (in a tree row on the farm)(with a dirt floor) which still stands today.  Most photos taken in Harper didn’t come out well because of car movement and slow shutter speed.  I did get a photo of a pretty church just east of town.  Somehow, that came out better, although not pristine.

Despite my photography mistakes on the way home, I had great photographic success in Rocky Ford, and so from a photography perspective, I considered it a success.  I hope to return to Greensburg and Harper in the future.  I hope it won’t be a distant future. (See http://www.flickr.com/photos/les_stockton/sets/)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/les_stockton/sets/72157608187289572/


http://www.flickr.com/photos/les_stockton/sets/72157608195740787/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/les_stockton/sets/72157608189035696/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/les_stockton/sets/72157608189035706/

On the way to Rocky Ford, we passed a wind farm west of Ft. Supply, and then we found another north of Springfield, Colorado (if I remember right).  We briefly stopped to change drivers and I noticed a truck that had a couple of blades on its trailer that it was obviously hauling to the wind farm.  I managed to get a couple of good photographs (just for fun).  Seeing these on the ground, before they’re lifted into the air, you see how truly large these wind turbines can be.  On the ground, these blades seem huge. 


Oh, a side-note: if you’re ever in Boise City, Oklahoma, try to get some of No Man’s Land Beef Jerky.  I normally got the hottest stuff I can, but in this case, the mild has such a fantastic flavor.  I recommend this jerky.  It is the best that I have found, other than what we occasionally make at home.  They have a website and it can be ordered on-line if you can’t find it in a local store.  I do know it’s available in Boise City because we bought some and thoroughly enjoyed it.  (http://www.nmlbeefjerky.com/)

There is another MCC Sale scheduled in early November.  This one will be in Enid, Oklahoma and we are actually considering attending this one.  We have so many things going on, that I’m not sure if we can work it in, but we’d like to go.

500mm mirror lens

IMG_0864_1600x1067
Originally uploaded by Les_Stockton

This is a shot of my 500mm mirror lens sitting next to a 75-300mm zoom lens. The zoom, oddly enough, is the longer lens. The mirror lens is much more compact and less conspicuous. The thing is, 500mm is harder to steady and to take good photographs with, unless you have a monopod or tripod, or else a really high shutter speed.

I bought the mirror lens because I was hoping to get around a restriction at some of the concert halls, where they see the longer lens and decide that it's "professional" equipment and wont let me in with it. They seem fine with the standard 55mm lens, and since this mirror lens is just a tiny bit longer than a standard prime lens, my hope is that I'll be able to get into concerts with it.

The lens has great power, obviously. I have an extension tube to double it's power to a 1000mm, but to-date, I have not tried that.

From what I can tell so far, the lens isn't quite as sharp as a standard lens, but this is because of the distortion due to the mirrors.

I have been spoiled to using the newer lenses that have automatic focus and automatic aperture features. This lens is a fixed aperture lens, and it's manual focus. So to use it, I'll need to manually focus and use manual settings for aperture and shutter speed. In a concert hall, I don't have much issue with this. In the old days of 35mm film, I worked manual all the time.

Click here to view a set I took with the 500mm lens.  The first portion of this set (up until and including the electric meter) was taken with the 500mm mirror lens.

So Far, I Like My New Job

I started a new job on October 1st.  It's a little early to tell how the job will be, but I'm optimistic.  The company is considered to be one of the top 100 best places to work in the US.  So I feel privileged.  I thought I'd start keeping a few notes on my initial observations this week, and I'm listing these in order of how I observed them.

The office I have is a nice big office.  It's not a walled office, but a cubicle type, but it's large.  It's about 4 to 6 times the amount of space that I've had on any of my previous jobs clear back to when I was a supervisor at the Williams Companies.

I don't have windows, but there are plenty of windows within eye of my office if I step out into the hall.  There is a skylight directly above my desk, so I"m getting natural light.  They draped fabric over the skylight to tone down the amount of light (and presumably heat) that comes through.

My phone is a Cisco 7961 IP Phone.  It's tied into the network and any voice mail messages are automatically routed to my e-mail so that I can get them there.  This could be an advantage, I would think, if I were not at the office and were remotely connected to the network and able to check e-mail, but not right there to access the phone.

There is a fingerprint scanner on my laptop pc.  This is cool because it is used to log into the computer.  There's no need to type in a username and password.  That's very cool.

One thing that I don't like on this job is that it is the first employer that I have had that strictly filter what websites I have access to from my workstation (the laptop).  I can't check my private e-mail (because they don't allow access to gmail).  They do allow access to google, but there are a lot of sites they don't allow access to.  It's frustrating because some of these are forum sites that I often use to get answers to technical questions dealing with software development.

I understand them filtering twitter, identi.ca, and other social networking sites; but I wish I at least to access my e-mail.  Their reasoning isn't to restrict the workstation to work-related things only; but to protect the workstation from virus infection.  Their theory is that these viruses often appear on computers due to external e-mail sights, forum sites and sometimes social networking sites.  So they are blocked.

Supposedly, there are pcs located in "public areas" in the building, but so far, I haven't found these pcs.

This employer is the headquarters of a convenience store chain.  They provide free soda to the employees.  When I heard this, I wasn't too excited, because I figured they didn't provide the kind of soda that I drink.  I try to have Diet Mountain Dew, because it's a diet drink, but it's a diet drink that tastes good to me.  Diet Pepsi, Diet Dr. Pepper, Diet Code, etc do not taste good to me.
To my surprise, they have Diet Mountain Dew available in the soda machine on the first floor.  So a couple of times during the day, I take a walk downstairs and avail myself to this privilege.

Currently, I am on a 90-day contract to hire arrangement.  That means that if things work out, they will hire me as a full-time employee in early January.  This will be a good thing, as their benefits are very good.  One bad thing is that they hold a dress code standard with what the store employees adhere to.  This means no beards and no ponytail.  I'll have to shave my beard and remove my ponytail.

I'm allowed to have a moustache, but I'm not sure I see a point to that.  My whole reason for having the beard is so I wouldn't have to shave it, because that part of my chin seems to be cut every time I shave.  Shaving above my mouth really isn't a problem for me.

Shaving is one of those things that I looked forward to as a kid, but as an adult consider to be a curse.  Losing the pony tail isn't really that big of an issue.  I knew the day would come sooner or later, that I'd take a job where they'd want me to cut my hair.  It's a small price to pay in order to work for such a good company.  It will be a bit of culture shock for me, I think, as I have had my hair long for the last 20 years or so.

I figured out that although I can't hit ping.fm, twitter or identi.ca, that I can make status updates periodically during the day (for benefit of friends that follow me on those sites) by sending to ping.fm either by my smartphone (which I hate typing on), or via the ping.fm e-mail interface (which is sometimes a bit delayed from when I send the e-mail).

The office is roomy and so is the entire floor that my office is on.  It's quiet compared to other offices I've been in that are this big.  I think they have room to grow, because a lot of the offices seem to be empty.

In a week or so, the group I work in will be spending two days out of town (Joplin) for an annual group outing.  They will have a few meetings, but there'll be golf, paintball, wine tasting, shopping and other activities to participate in.

Yesterday afternoon around 15:30, I heard people talking in the testing lab, which is just around the corner from my office.  The doors were open and I saw most of the team in there standing around talking.  It was casual.  They were having a few beers and talking.  This was for someone's birthday.  They limited the beers and stopped at 16:00, to give people time before 17:00 when they'd be driving home.

I think that's nice that they do this for the employees.  A lot of companies would be too uptight to allow beer, much less to allow them to goof off for a birthday celebration.

Oh, somehow I forgot to write this earlier, but as far as dress code, I've seen jeans, tennis shoes, flowery shirts, t-shirts and shorts in the office.  It seems to be a fairly casual and comfortable atmosphere to work in.

Bailouts Are Bad

I could be wrong, but I think these latest bailouts (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG) are a bad thing. We're told that it would be super bad for the economy if we didn't bail them out, but it seems to me that the economy is suffering pretty badly by bailing them out and that the only people that seem to gain out of this is the people running those failed companies.

Obama is buying votes, by suggesting that we should also bail out those 5 million home owners that are being foreclosed on, and suggesting that its the fault of corporate greed. I agree that it's greed, but not just that of big business, but also of the jerks that took out loans for homes they knew they couldn't afford in the first place.

Why should we bail them out? We aren't doing anything for the poor guys still living in apartments; the ones that were responsible and knew they couldn't afford to buy homes. What are we doing for them? We're going to hurt the economy that they struggle in already, to bail out people that don't deserve to be bailed out.

I could be wrong, but it just seems to me that we shouldn't be bailing out the big guys or the little guys. Not only that, but I have trouble with the notion that executives at these failed companies are walking away with multi-million dollar compensation packages; while the company fails. This is wrong. If they have the money to pay these guys that, then they don't need my bailout.

I repeat; we're told that it would be catastrophic if we let those companies fail. It seems to me that it's pretty catastrophic by bailing them out. We just further devalue the dollar, running up the cost of oil (because we buy that on the international market that now wants more dollars for the same oil). That seems pretty catastrophic to me.

Are the Voters Really That Uninformed?

Like many Americans, I am seeing the recent announcements of failures in the financial markets of this country, and the subsequent bailouts; and having a general disgust about it.

Furthermore, I'm frustrated that the CEOs of these failing organizations have been allowed to keep their multi-million dollar retirement packages and compensation in the millions of dollars, while the American public suffer the consequences.

Government plays a part too.  Chris Dodd and others in the Senate have been taking money from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, as well as other failed institutions; and have been taking this money for years.  Dodd has been taking money from the organizations he's supposed to be overseeing.  In fact, Dodd has received more money from them than anyone else in the Senate.

The second place goes to Barak Obama, who has barely been in the Senate his first term.

There goes the mudslinging.  Obama has the nerve to point at McCain and associate him with Bush, and suggest to the American people that voting for McCain would be voting to further the "same old failed policies".  The reality is that voting for Obama would be voting for the same old policies.

Obama's resume is inflated.  People are finding this out, but what gets me is that they seem to be ignoring it and falling for what he says.  Dodd, you'd think, would have people after him with a noose and a long rope, but instead, they're listening to him as he blames Bush for everything (even though he's been the head of that same committee in the Senate for nearly two decades), while Bush has only been in office for 8 years.

Don't get me wrong.  Bush deserves a heavy slap on this one too.  He appointed that guy that oversees the SEC.  That guy knew that AIG was buying up bad loans.  Did he tell the American people or sound any alarms?  No.  And millions of Americans, who have 401(k) plans invested in AIG, were affected by it's failure.  And Bush's appointee knew it was happening and did nothing to stop it.

Consider with all the fingerpointing, that in 2006, there was a bill proposed to pull in the reins a little bit on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  The alarm was being sounded that a failure could occur.  The measure was voted down though.

Who proposed this measure?  It was Senator John McCain.

There are a host of people to blame about this.  Greenspan got it wrong.  Dodd should resign.  Barney Frank should resign.  Obama should resign.  Others should as well.  Bush is rightfully to blame as well.  McCain had it right over 2 years ago; I just wish he'd been more persistent in letting the American people know.

The truth is, the American people didn't want to know.  That might've required people to not take ridiculous home loans that they knew they couldn't afford.  It might've required people to deal with an economy that was drastically inflated in its true value.  No one wanted to do that, and to be fair, politicians can't be elected, or re-elected, trying to get the notice out.

Are the voters really that uninformed?  Possibly.  Probably.

Mudslinging and the Political High Ground

Barak Obama has been virtually given a pass from the news media since he began running for president.  Hillary Clinton found this out when they turned against her during the election.  Pro-Obama folks (not directly linked with his campaign) would sling dirt about Hillary and this allowed Obama to maintain the high ground.

In some cases, Obama even stooped to telling people what his opponents would say, even before they said it.  And then when Hillary (and later McCain) would engage in the debate on the topic, they were immediately attacked for racist remarks or otherwise not being sensitive to Obama's heritage.  Even Bill Clinton was accused of "going too far" when he tried to challenge a ridiculous claim that Obama had made against Hillary.

Now that it's between Obama and McCain, the pro-Obama forces, those in the media as well as ultra-left bloggers, have slung mud on McCain and now Palin daily.  Any time that McCain or Palin try to defend themselves or fight back, they are accused of mudslinging, while Obama gets to sit on political high ground, not having done any of the dirty work himself.

Consider that during the democratic primaries, Obama, as well as other democratic candidates, met with the leftwing bloggers' group (on the left coast).  Even Hillary Clinton had reservations about this meeting, as it would legitimize these people.  Obama had no qualms about meeting with them.

And they were the first to attack Palin's family, and although Obama came out the next day with a statement that family is "off limits", the fact is that he never denounced these supporters who have continued on their mudslinging campaign against Palin and McCain.  And Obama continues to maintain the political high ground.

The New York Times are printing half truths, lies and intentionally misleading the public, actually quoting bloggers are "sources", knowing that these bloggers have no journalistic integrity and that you can write anything on the web; and it only has to be copied a few times elsewhere on the web to be picked up on google and it becomes defacto truth, when it isn't at all.

I am frustrated to see that truth isn't being allowed to prevail, and that they have been working hard to dig up any dirt they can on Palin, while they didn't spend a day looking into the past of Barak Obama.  They still haven't made him face issues of lying to get votes when he said he'd renegotiate NAFTA and didn't even try.  They haven't faced him with his own links to lobbyists, but they allow him to make accusations about Republicans and lobbyists.
And they've given a complete pass to Joe Biden who has strong links to the biggest credit card company in the United States, and has voted this way to prove it.

They've given a pass to Obama and to Biden when it comes to lobbyists and their recent votes to let telecommunication companies be immune from prosecution if they cooperated with the government in wiretapping (illegal or otherwise).
At first, Obama was against immunity for them, but someone must've pointed out that AT&T were contributing heavily to the DNC, because the next thing you know he had no problem voting for it.  He didn't vote against it like he said.  He didn't vote "Present".  He voted for it.

Several websites have sprung up supposedly for the purpose of setting the records straight and getting at the truth; but what they really are is just another means of distorting the truth and continuing just enough of the half truths against McCain and/or Palin, to essentially promote the illusion of truth coming from Obama.  It's intellectually dishonest.

I saw 7 or 8 instances of this today and it gets to the point where you just can't set the record straight on every one of them.  There are more of them out there, spreading more and more lies or half-truths, to get to all of it.
And plus, in some instances, McCain and/or Palin actually have distorted the truth to suit their own needs.  For instance, there was a lot of discussion for a couple of days over something so trivial as to whether or not Sarah Palin actually sold the Alaskan governor's jet on ebay.  Well, the point of it is that she sold it and helped get rid of some of the waste, unneeded perks and ridiculous spending and abuse going on in the governor's office.

The truth is, as she stated this, is that it was "put up for sale on ebay the next day".  This is true.  The fact that after a period of time, they weren't getting the bids they had hoped for and so they regretfully allowed a broker to handle the final sale of the plane.  The plane did get sold.  The money to the taxpaper was saved.  The abuse was cleaned up.

But the left went on and on about it not being sold on ebay, failing to mention that it was "put on sale on ebay", but was ultimately sold by a broker.  They only mention that it wasn't sold on ebay, giving the reader the feeling that Palin lied.

This is just one example, but it is a ridiculous example.  The whole point isn't whether or not she sold the thing on ebay or craigslist or anywhere else.  The point is that she sold the plane, she got rid of the governor's personal chef, as well as getting rid of the limo and driver that the governor had.

And the news media seems eager to do a 'fact check' when it's a statement by McCain and/or Palin, but they are frequently giving a pass to anything Barak Obama or one of his supporters writes or says.  The coverage of this election is clearly meant to influence.  There is little journalistic integrity.  And MSNBC has given up on journalism entirely, and have gone for propaganda and comic relief (same with Comedy Central).  They don't even hide it.

Charlie Gibson interviewed Sarah Palin.  During his interview, he was trying to trip her up; something he never did with Barak Obama.  He asked about the Bush Doctrine.  The fact is, the Bush Doctrine hasn't been defined.  It'll be defined either by Bush or by the historians.  It wasn't a legitimate question, but it was enough to trip her up.

Gibson also made a big deal about earmarks.  On the surface, it sounds like an inconsistency, but then again, you have to go back to the definition of earmarks.  Her, being a governor, would have no control over how money is appropriated in Congress.  It is her responsiblity to ask for federal dollars and to seek them for her state.  There's nothing wrong with that as long as it's not wasteful spending.  And the fact is the bridge to nowhere was ultimately rejected by Palin, a fact that her detractors easily ignore.

The definition of an earmark is funds that are snuck into an unrelated bill by a legislator.  Someone in Congress would put an earmark, funding for something in their home state, in a bill that probably has nothing to do with that spending.  It's a way to sneak pork by and get it passed along with something legitimate.  It's something that Palin fought within legislation in her state, and that McCain has fought in the Senate, and in fact, in all of his years in the Senate, never pursued any earmarks.

So if Palin asked for federal dollars for infrastructure within her state, she had no way of knowing how the Senator or Congressman in DC would come up with those dollars.  Believe it or not, but governors seek federal dollars from time to time and get it through legitimate avenues.  It happens.

This is a fact this is carefully overlooked in all of the discussion by the media; because they have an agenda to make her and McCain look badly, while giving a free pass to Obama and Biden; who have both pursued earmarks.

And the whole earmark discussion is with regards to the fact that the money is being appropriated in secret, hidden from the public so that no one in Congress is voting for it directly.  If these sorts of practices were out in the open, it would be different, but to secret these "earmarks" within other bills, it is essentially commiting fraud against the American people.  That is the discussion, not whether or not a state or municipality asks for federal dollars.

I don't have a problem allowing the truth to be known and let the chips fall where they may, but it seems to me that this is not what is being allowed to happen.

Taxes and How To Fix Things

The politicians are talking, but either they really don't understand, or they really don't care.  I'm not sure which, but I heard Sen. Dodd say that he was frustrated and wanted to "know more" about the Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae bailouts, and yet he's the head of the banking committee and helped write the law that allowed those bailouts.  He's the one that wrote things up so they were allowed to make those irresponsible banking practices and the CEOs get to keep their millions.

On taxes, almost half of the people you see on the street every day, actually don't even pay taxes (they are refunded everything they pay in); and they don't care that the system is screwed up.  Obama wants to actually give these people a tax refund, which is actually taking money out of hard-working Americans' pockets to give to these folks; essentially buying votes for himself with our money.

Now if they really want to solve the tax problem, they don't need to increase capital gains taxes.  If anything, they need to reduce them.

I'll explain.

Literally, a million jobs (over that) have been off-shored.  Can we not bring these jobs back?

Literally billions of dollars have been off-shored to avoid taxes.  Can we not bring these back by lowering the taxes that motivate this off-shoring, as well as removing the loopholes that allow it?

There are  over 66,000 pages in the tax code.  Why is this?  It's too much for the IRS, itself, to keep track of, but I guarantee you that the big money guys have accountants and tax attorneys that can keep track of it; and they're using it in their favor.

If you want to fix the economy and if you want to fix taxes, don't raise taxes the 50% that are paying taxes already, but close the loopholes (and maybe ease taxes for some of us)  and they'll get more tax revenues in the process.