Office stuff for April 28, 2008

I worked all morning trying to coordinate staff activities at the worksite, planning to move the entire new production to a new facility down the road. What a pain in the ...I have meetings with the phone company about getting the right kind of data lines (2 DS3 and 2 t-1) and ensure that one of the DS3 lines is dedicated and a vpn, and the other has a guarantee on bandwidth minimums since it is shared. At the new annex we will install more equipment, and (Please) end this project

My primary vendor is coming in tomorrow to install(finally) Uninterupted Power Supplies that will keep the system running for an hour, as the contract called for. The one they installed before i came failed after 10 minutes.

My client is getting fed up with the nickel and dime contract amendments I discoverd in the course of reviewing the project accounting, and now the vendors are all coming for a meeting...but i am confident because the contrat revisions I have put forward are in the standard agreements for IT projects according to our legal staff, who have fought many a vendor in court over these things"... if the vendor(see glossary) proposes any change to the waranty or maintenance agreements which is not inclusive of all component equipment and software, as defined in the project procurement and known collectively as the project equipment system, the [client] may reject said agreement either at time of award or at any point during the contract period if without cause, and upon 7 business day notice with cause, either in refusal to provide services or by omission." HUH? I read that part several times and then read the other parts below it, and it dawned on me i am really in the driver seat with these vendors...which likely accounts for how come today their project manager called and wants to meet with me this week, he has to fly here from Florida...I hope these guys get frequent flier miles because i have had the guy from PA fly out 2x, and now the Florida guy and some of their other people from Chicago are coming. Any way, he out of the blue says"Ms. MacThomas, if anyone has said anything offense to you personally, please let me know" I had no idea what he was saying, but afterwards I guessed that someone in the meeting I got so pissed at must have reported something to him...I know something was up because he usually calls and says "Hey candice, er sorry, Can-ess, hows it goin"

I had my weekly meeting w my boss and I think i could meet and leave in about 20 minutes, but she likes to discuss things, so i am game. After our discussion, she smiles and says"your background is really having quite a benefit with this project" I was puzzled a lttle, and she elaborated that my experience as a project manager elsewhere, and as a system auditor was helping. I personally think the auditor part was more an extension of what I practivced as a project leader, ensuring that whatever was agreed to is what is delivered, on time and at least on budget...cost overruns are something i really hate unless there is a valid reason...like this project has had to spend an additional million on equipment because the work they bid was under projected by their client.

I sometimes think people I work with think maybe I should dress better, which i certainly have the wardrobe for. I remeber my first day I wore heels and a suit...and haven't since. The first time i went to the client site and saw where they were assigning me an office, i was aghast. Then I checked out their server room, and was mortified. This place is close to 60 years old, and was state of the art in 1950, but in 2008, its scarey. Our office is a bunch of walls and a false ceiling constructed in 1972. Next door is a stairway to the next level up, where there used to be a cafeteria. Its been closed down for awhile, and all our cables come thru there, over the beams and drop down to the false ceiling, where they wind their way like so many snakes to conduit, which dumps them into the space under the raised floor and they resume their chaotic spread to the servers. Interspersed are broken ac vents, so some servers get adeqaute cooling and other s dont. Its a administrator nightmare. Hence my urgency to get us moved to the new facility. Now I have a meeting to discuss the server room with the contractors and building owner(we're leasing it until a new faciltiy can be built)...our engineer has spec'ed it out and now they want to go cheap and we are saying why, we're paying for it, so whats the deal?

so if tomorrow is Tuesday, maybe I should wear .....

It took 3 minutes to post this entry for April 25, 2008

"Refiners are now curbing production of gasoline even more than consumers have cut back on driving, so gasoline prices are now rising faster than oil prices," says Judy Dugan, research director of the nonprofit Consumer Watchdog (formerly the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights) of Santa Monica. "What drivers and the economy as a whole can't afford is an industry bent on having it both ways," says Ms. Dugan. Pointing to diesel prices, which have increased at a pace even faster than gasoline, one industry watcher says $4 gasoline will soon be commonplace. "It's a given that we will see $4 at the pump. The question is, will we see $5? If we have so much as a big burp at any refinery in the West this summer, $5 per gallon is likely, at least in California," says independent oil analyst Tim Hamilton.

OK, so if I buy fuel for my car (16.5 gallons usually), and the price goes up to $5 per gallon from the current outrageous $3.97 I paid today, how long will the $600 from GW Bush last, if only covering the difference? Lets see, increase fuel at $4 per gallon, and now add another $1, thats 16.5 dollars per fillup, and i buy a minimum of 4 x a month, thats 66 dollars, wow I can cover the increase for almost 9.1 months...

Yahoo 360, meet the future - MyBlogLog

http://www.mybloglog.com/

I have been talking in my blog here about the motivation of yahoo to dump 360 to build a clone for Facebook/MySpace, to the deteriment of their customer base....but the propeller heads at Yahoo think we, the users, are a bunch of twits, so here is where they are going- Open Yahoo, a melting pot of all the junk on the web...I actually think now Microsoft taking over is a GOOD idea...http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1361

Thoughts for April 24, 2008

Tonight when i got home, i started looking through the bills, which have been piling up on the dresser in my home office (hey, I have three dressers and three chests and two closets full of just my stuff), and noticed our satellite bill was kind of high, so I went online to our account, and immediately was asked to update. i had a pretty reasonable plan, and then subscribed to two premium channel packages, HBO and Starz!. To my surprise, the ultimate package, which includes about 65 more channels is only $11 more than what we are paying now. But going down to the next lower package and then adding my current premium channels was only $5 less than now!

Ok friends, here is another tale of life - with me...

I was busily typing away at my report...I need to explain a bit I think. My client wanted to take on some new business; they needed to have some money to do that. They are already short on money, so they they solicit funds from a consortium of commercial credit and the state . The state requests (requires) quarterly reports on how the money was spent, and that it was spent according to the plan submitted when they loaned the money. When the expenditure of money exceed the original budget by 10%, they require a report on the project, to determine if they need to bail out the project with more money or bail out the project with some money and then report back to the legislature the project is moving along or stop all funding, demand payment immediately, and report to the legislature that the project is a total waste of money, and people should get fired. Option 3 is least desired outcome. My report is probably going to be in the first option, because the demand on money for more equipment is driven by a lot of political stuff and legal stuff - This mess of a project's prior manager decided to retire early, and six months later I come along, and they say "have we got a project for YOU" ....I told my boss today its like each day getting a new pandorian box to deal with. You know about pandoras box right? "The story of Pandora's Box can be interpreted in more than one way, but one obvious moral is that of "curiosity killed the cat".
And so it is that each day on this project is a new surprise, usually a bad one.

So I am writing the report to get the oversight board to understand why the project is late, why the project is over budget, and why they need more money. Sounds bad huh?

Its not...I hope that once i layout the whole story of the background, the idea, the planning, how the vendors did things , where everything went, and why they need more money for even more equipment, we will move on. I need to get this darn thing done! Rumor has it that I am being eyed for promotion...I have a meeting w the CIO tomorrow, hope that turns out OK.

Remember: love, laugh and LIVE

Soon we are taking our daughter and her husband to a baseball game..not my Giants, but thats OK- Going to watch Oakland beat Bush's former team, the Texas Rangers

While the Giants a sucking up the bottom of the standings at 9 and 13, Oakland is 14 and 9 and the hapless Rangers are 7 and 16, worst in all of major league baseball..

Thoughts for April 23, 2008

Ok so here we are again you and i , me being the orator and you the reader/listener. If you are a man, you will have a different view of what I am going to say than a woman.

I have written numerous times here about events in my life, mostly a lot of work things, because while we don't like to admit it, a whole lot of our identity is tied to that, even though it is transitory. I mean I used to drive a school bus for a living, because its was all i could find and so I did it. It certainly was not in line with my education or aspirations, but when you have to feed yourself and a family, well earning an income becomes real critical unless you are self sufficient.

Each week I have a meeting with my manager, who is Chief of Operations. I am one of several Project Managers she has under her, and our meetings have become more cordial than when I started working for her 3 months ago.. .I remember one meeting I had she talked about all these things, and so I asked her to just tell me how I am doing. She had a shocked look, and then said I was doing what she expected. Now it’s more familiar, and she has a smile on her face when we start, at least most of the time. I have learned that she is pretty non-expressive a lot of the time, and so I have started taking notes of what I need to talk with her about before our meeting. She informed me that I should consider seeking promotion to the next level up, in Executive Management. I have considered that, but really where I am now is as a specialist with managerial responsibility for a project, but not the supervision of staff that I have come to loath. I can direct them on tasks to do for the project, but don’t have to deal with the day to day approve vacation, timecards that eats up so much of my peers time. I have considered it though, because surplus money can go straight into my retirement account. I have found a position that may work for me, so I have applied. I will definitely say here if something comes of it…

Meanwhile my project continues to drag my spirits down. I have been reviewing the contracts approved in the past six months when the plant manager thought he could do it all, and so he didn’t ask for an immediate replacement to the previous project manager. While he understands his line of work extremely well, it is becoming clear the vendors readily saw he was out of his expertise, and have been “sticking it” to him, and the organization. Case in point: Recently I sat in on a meeting between him and the vendor regarding a new maintenance agreement on the hardware and software. One provision is that after 24 hours of being down, we get credit on the next bill for loss of productivity. They came back with the idea that 24 hours is 3 regular work shifts, ergo 3 workdays, so if something breaks on Monday they have until Thursday to fix it. I burst into laughter, and said that was crazy. After about a hour of this, I got my things, and left, saying I had serious work to do, and this was pointless.

Afterwards I had a talk with him, and mind you he still believes a woman shouldn’t be in charge, “just because” he has slowly come to the conclusion I might be right. Yesterday I reviewed a new contract for a piece of equipment that runs at the end of production, and verifies information applied by a previous set of machines in what is called 2d barcode, and then applies a shipping label. It does this extremely fast, and can either generate a label and apply it, or divert to another line and spray on the information with high speed inkjet; once it does this it sends the shipping details to the main production system to say XYZ widget was shipped to Destination, City, State, on Date and Time. It does a bunch of other stuff too, the point being it is seriously complex equipment that runs via computer and software, and hence it falls under the purchasing rules for IT equipment, my area of expertise. I assessed the order as being weak in the Statement of Work, and extremely weak in the contractual provisions regarding…you guessed it, warranty and maintenance. I added some our standard organization contracts for IT equipment and systems, and approved it transmittal to the vendor. This morning was an emergency meeting with the vendor area manager, who was “outraged at these draconian terms and conditions” Luckily, I had been warned by the system administrator, and had my binder full of contract language to review with them.

Here is where this tale deviates from all work, and delves into the emasculation of men by women, or the perception by some men that is what happened, and their response.

Our meeting ended, and the system administrators, myself, the line supervisor and Assistant Plant Superintendent left the room, and Teresa had to go back for a notebook she forgot. When she came back, she had this weird look, and sat in the chair in my office and leaned towards me and whispered to me something- apparent when she got to the meeting room, the door was ajar and she could hear the vendor team talking- The area maintenance guy was saying to his manager something about “she not only acts like a man, she sort of looks like one, she is so tall….yeah, kinda like Janet Reno.” There were other references to who had bigger balls, and so forth, when she knocked on the door and entered to get her book. She was upset, and I simply told her it was no big deal, they were just pissed because we finally were standing up for ourselves and making them do what is right. Besides, I don’t think I look like Janet Reno.

I told her she was doing a good job, and she looked at me and said “NO, YOU are doing a good job, we were getting treated like nobody until you came.” Then the other admin, a cheerful fellow, poked his head in and agreed.

As much as I really don’t like this project, I understand the need they have for a strong manager, and I guess that’s me.

I get really upset at being taken advantage of, and these guys have by my estimate really overcharged for stuff.

The other thing that is starting to freak me out a little is when I return to HQ, as I did Monday and Tuesday, there is almost this reverential attitude towards me, and so in conversation on the phone last night with a colleague who works for the CIO, she just blurted out “Canice, don’t you understand that since you came onto the project, you have stopped the hemorrhage of money into that project? He (her boss) reported to the board that you have thus far suspended payment on $185,000 vendor charges and charged back to them an estimated $86,000 in overcharges- girl you are saving us money!!!” I had not really thought about it. But I guess that’s about right. I know the vendors got mad when I said we weren’t accepting anymore subcontractor bills, all billings had to be coordinated through the primary contractor, and bill line items had to be more clear than “Maintenance- $45,000”, but had to say maintenance on what why and reference the Service Agreement Section…I did what the darn contract says, why cant they..OK, enough about my boring life, remember to live , love and laugh.

Random chaotic thoughts for April 20, 2008

People love to hold on to certain things or activities, based on a lot of different factors

• familiar things hold great value
• new things need to meet some internal to the observer standard, be mulled in the mind, filtered through the life experience filter (the how does this compare to other things factor)
• somethings are never really let go, even when they are discarded or gone

I was thinking in these terms over the last several days about a lot of subjects, to include:

1. My dog that got cancer and died in October- when I say died she was euthanized with my consent, a decision I have second guessed ever since even though several veterinarians have told me it was the decent thing to do since her cancer was terminal, and in a manner of days if not hours. i miss this dog incredibly, she was my constant companion, and I cry frequently when I dwell on looking at pictures of her. I think its the shock of losing her so suddenly, of having to make a dreaded decision and being confronted with the facts of life, that all living things end life, her in 12 short years.
   
2. I love our new dog, another Scottie, and as she matures I see that she is VERY different from PeeWee, and is quite rowdy, pushy, loves to play and is afraid of new things PeeWee challenged with abandon - I think I prefer the way puppy is, although we still have to work on getting out of the car. She is absolutely terrified of getting out, but eager to climb in. Like i said, different.
3. Yahoo 360- I am really frustrated by Yahoo's total lack of communication regarding 360. Posting something for the community every 4 or 5 months is not a good way to keep customers. What really ticks me off is that I have almost written 360 off, and I personally found that it was and is the one place I really enjoyed putting blogs like this, sharing comments, friends, pictures. As I stated yesterday, i have trail balloons on at least a half dozen other sites, and I still like 360 best. Some people commented that Blogger would be good, but after going back and reestablishing my blog there, i realized I moved to 360 because I wanted more, and found that at 360. So i really would have been happy to put up with 360 for a long time, if Yahoo had put the effort into it, I thing we all would. But I know a lot of people here have gotten too fed up and left, going to the other side called Multiply...
4. gasoline and fuels- in a survey at work about the biggest challenge to IT in the next decade i said energy, and got some curious looks, as others thought it was bandwidth, or processor power, or whatever...I said that because as oil and fossil fuels go up, and the ability to harness available energy, like wind power, solar, tidal generation, has a lag time(due to construction time, infrastructure improvement,etc) big IT users will need to consider conversion of equipment to more efficient operations. Not only because of the energy used by the equipment, but the resources required to mitigate the BTU's released by the hardware in the form of heat, and the need to cool that equipment. A recent day where the temperature hit 90 at my work resulted in the high speed digital print server equipment shutting down, because the ambient temperature in the production room was 80. The AC system has still in winter heat mode, so cooling never came on. After discussion with the plant engineers, they became aware that not only the IT server room needs to be cool year round, all the server areas need to be...my life as IT project consultant is never dull.

Coffee can be good and bad- its nice to have a cup, but the place I go isn't called the Jitter Bean for nothing
http://www.jitterbeancoffee.com/contact.html

Have a great day, and remember Love Laugh and Live!

Entry for April 19, 2008

Yahoo 360

My favorite subject of late is bashing yahoo for their pigheaded stupid idea of dumping 360, neglecting the users, and IMHO trying to create a blog/social network/whatever based on what I have no idea. I don't wish to squash creativity, but with close to 100 different sites out there, why in the hell would Yahoo want to blow their standing as the number 4 site on the world to the likes of Windows Spaces, Spacebook, My Face, Divide/multiply add subtract or whatever.

I want to provide you the reader a chance to see I am not alone in this critical commentary, so here are some of the multitue of comments people have posted on the Yahoo 360 Communty page:
Well I have a Facebook account and it sucks with all those stupid, childish pokes, gifts, causes and even porno pics posted on your wall which I know you can delete but Facebook to me is childish and no features like 360 to style your backgrounds..Facebook appears so far to be set up for the young kids to 30ish age bracket that like to party and so on. 360 I find is for mature adults that want friendships and blog their experiences of daily life. If your intention is to set us up to be like Facebook I'll be outta here. Why is it you start something that flourishes into a fine blogging site and start messing around creating so many bugs you never get around to fixing to tell us you are going to move us all over to something else? Why don't you fix 360 first. Seems to me all the bugs 360 has will just follow over. Why is it when you have something good you feel you have to change things? 360 page load drags, profile avatars are down to two yet showing you can upload to 4, quick comments disappear, comments on blogs are either blank with only avatar, non existent or one has to refresh the page a couple times to find out if they need to re-comment, you write in concerns and you get a stupid generic letter with no explanation or you get no response, you write a blog only to discover it doesn't take OR you can't even delete, Blasts go all nuts and repeat itself when the words aren't even written???? So you think after all said and done a new place is going to be any better? I really don't think so.

What exactly is wrong with 360 that it needs to be changed to something else...I personally Dont want the change, Im happy with that we have, cant you just leave it like it is ??

don't ruin 360! Just fix it, and add to it to make it better!!! Please don't say this id going to be a tranformation to Mash, PLEASE NO!

There are 2108 comments at last count on the subject of dumping 360, including the link to a petition to save 360 http://www.petitiononline.com/keep360/petition.html

I doubt yahoo is listening or cares...sadly.

Middle aged romance

When i got married at 28, after years of being independent and basically not having any responsibility, I became an instant parent via my stepdaughter, and suddenly started to acquire the ability to be a irrational dimwit while still holding a job and cleaning house, cooking, etc. Life wasn't hard, but management of the household was. Part of that was a diminished intimacy between honey and me, because there was the kid, the dog, and often times her friends staying over. Over the years it became a less frequent occurrence that we shared the sort of intense physical intimacy I had treasured, but there was never a loss of affection or love for each other, especially when we reflected on the difficult life experiences we had shared and consoled each other through, emotional and sometimes financially stressful events.
Then diseases common to middle aged and older adults came along- for me adult onset (Type II) diabetes partly because of predisposition and mostly because of being overweight, then hypertension(high blood pressure). I got medical care and take medications and live a pretty much regular life.
But then honey started getting that "I don't want" attitude, and I started freaking out. Then i finally found out the problem wasn't me, it was "a man problem". We discussed various treatments, and honey insisted nothing was wrong with the "putter", it was just age. I know that's baloney, but you can't force feed someone something that would help them. Honeys doctor even suggested a specific medication ( not Viagra) to help...Nope, ain't taking no pills. AHHHH!!
Which leads me to this blog.
The other day while getting ready for work, I was applying makeup, and started crying. Honey said whats wrong baby, and I said I hate getting old and ugly. A pair of arms slipped around my waist and I heard the voice cooing in my ears," you ain't ugly baby, we all age, and you are ageing beautiful"...and the next thing you know we are on the bed and things are like 10 years ago. I don't know and don't really care how, all i know is i had a smile on my face all day, and didn't tell anyone why...even though i was late to work...it was worth it.
This year will be our 27th year together...

Middle aged romance

When i got married at 28, after years of being independent and basically not having any responsibility, I became an instant parent via my stepdaughter, and suddenly started to acquire the ability to be a irrational dimwit while still holding a job and cleaning house, cooking, etc. Life wasn't hard, but management of the household was. Part of that was a diminished intimacy between honey and me, because there was the kid, the dog, and often times her friends staying over. Over the years it became a less frequent occurrence that we shared the sort of intense physical intimacy I had treasured, but there was never a loss of affection or love for each other, especially when we reflected on the difficult life experiences we had shared and consoled each other through, emotional and sometimes financially stressful events.
Then diseases common to middle aged and older adults came along- for me adult onset (Type II) diabetes partly because of predisposition and mostly because of being overweight, then hypertension(high blood pressure). I got medical care and take medications and live a pretty much regular life.
But then honey started getting that "I don't want" attitude, and I started freaking out. Then i finally found out the problem wasn't me, it was "a man problem". We discussed various treatments, and honey insisted nothing was wrong with the "putter", it was just age. I know that's baloney, but you can't force feed someone something that would help them. Honeys doctor even suggested a specific medication ( not Viagra) to help...Nope, ain't taking no pills. AHHHH!!
Which leads me to this blog.
The other day while getting ready for work, I was applying makeup, and started crying. Honey said whats wrong baby, and I said I hate getting old and ugly. A pair of arms slipped around my waist and I heard the voice cooing in my ears," you ain't ugly baby, we all age, and you are ageing beautiful"...and the next thing you know we are on the bed and things are like 10 years ago. I don't know and don't really care how, all i know is i had a smile on my face all day, and didn't tell anyone why...even though i was late to work...it was worth it.
This year will be our 27th year together...

end of 360 is near will you be ready?

I no longer care to blog here, and get so aggravated trying to post things that i lose concentration doing it. i think yahoo is just going to let the servers crash and tell us that OOPS, sow-reee, server go BOOM...

here is one of several new blogs i have

http://squirrelvalley.blogspot.com/

I also have a trail blogs on Vox, Eons, Multiply, AOL, Windows Spaces, MySpace and Facebook.

I might stick w blogger for awhile, Love, laugh, live and be well my friends

Canice

Meanwhile...if you start a adult blog on Blogger, which i didnt but Ms Betty did...you might find Google search looking for key words like :

Blogger: Content Warning

Submit for testing

Blogger. Push-Button Publishing ... For more information about our content policies, please visit the Blogger Terms of Service ... msbettysworld.blogspot.com/ - 4k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

Best View of the World in the United States

Best View of the World in the United States
Mount Diablo State Park. The summit - 3,849' - offers a sweeping panorama--more of the earth's surface can be seen from the mountain than any other peak in the world, except Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa.

Love Laugh Life

Here is a love story, at least thats my take

First day, the Blogger

Today marks another attempt at the resumption of using blogger after a 5 year absence. It is a real pain in the butt to start over, but since my 360 page is weirding out, and the other sites I started I am still iffy about, what the hell, why not try blogger again..

Entry for April 12, 2008- Ethanol Farce

http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080410.wfood0411/GIStory/

I believe we can make a difference in our enviroment, but the use of ethanol as a fuel has had consequences seemingly no one wants to discuss. Exactly how does converting food to fuel help? It makes a miniscule dent in climate change, and a huge impact in feeding people. Well these aren't just my thoughts, here is some excerpts from the hyperlinked story.

We are right now creating a food shortage that will first impact less developed poor countries, but also is impacting what you and i pay for food at the market. The ultimate impact maybe actual shortages of food not only in the less developed world but here also. A shocking quote to consider "Economist Dr. Hazell has said that filling an SUV tank once with ethanol consumes more maize than the typical African eats in a year."

Fill your tank and starve someone? How could so many smart people push such a policy that it now is law in many countries, especially in the EU, where their demand for biofuel will worsen this situation? (Right about now my inner voice is screaming What The F!!!!)

The other "unforseen" impact of this rush to biofuels has been an accelration of land clearing in the Amazon basin, to create farm land from rain forest, which is good news if you like Brazilian hardwood furniture, but generally bad news if you like to breath. "The tremendous number of trees and plants that characterize the Amazon region are responsible for providing the world with as much as 20% of its oxygen." http://www.mrnussbaum.com/amazonia.htm

The rain forest is also part of the global climate weather pattern, since this green island is roughly the size of Australia. Once deforested, the thermal image changs, contributing to ...global warming. So oddly enough, as we urge the use of biofuels to reduce global warming, we hasten it. Typical human intervention; I wonder if Al Gore has thought about these consequences?

How could so many smart people push such a policy that it now is law in many countries, especially in the EU, where their demand for biofuel will worsen this situation?

Fatal food riots in Haiti. Violent food-price protests in Egypt and Ivory Coast. Rice so valuable it is transported in armoured convoys. Soldiers guarding fields and warehouses. Export bans to keep local populations from starving.

For the first time in decades, the spectre of widespread hunger for millions looms as food prices explode. Two words not in common currency in recent years — famine and starvation — are now being raised as distinct possibilities in the poorest, food-importing countries.

How did it come to this? Surging food prices, now at 30-year highs, are actually a relatively new phenomenon. In the mid-1970s, prices began to fall as the green revolution around the world made farms dramatically more productive, thanks to improvements in irrigation and the widespread use of fertilizers, mechanized farm equipment and genetically engineered crops. If there was a crisis, it was food surpluses — too much food chasing too few stomachs — and dropping produce prices had often disastrous effects on farm incomes.

They include turning food into fuel, climate change, high oil and natural gas prices (which boost trucking and fertilizer costs), greater consumption of meat and dairy products as incomes rise (which raises the demand for animal feedstuffs), and investment funds, whose billions of dollars of firepower can magnify price increases.

Driven by fears of global warming, biofuel has become big business in the U.S., Canada and the European Union. The incentive to produce the fuels is overwhelming because they are subsidized by taxpayers and, depending on the country or the region, come with content mandates.

Starting next week, Britain will require gasoline and diesel sold at the pumps be mixed with 2.5-per-cent biofuel, rising to 5.75 per cent by 2010 and 10 per cent by 2020, in line with European Union directives. Ontario's ethanol-content mandate is 5 per cent. As the content requirements rise, more and more land is devoted to growing crops for fuel, such as corn-based ethanol. In the EU alone, 15 per cent of the arable land is expected to be devoured by biofuel production by 2020.

That's raising alarm bells, especially given lingering doubts about the effectiveness of ethanol in combatting climate change. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said this week he's worried that ethanol production is pushing up food prices everywhere, and he called for an urgent review of the issue. Economist Dr. Hazell has said that filling an SUV tank once with ethanol consumes more maize than the typical African eats in a year.

Rising ethanol demand is one of the main reasons why Wall Street securities firm Goldman Sachs predicts high food prices for a long time. "We believe the recent rise in agriculture prices is not a transient spike, but rather represents the beginning of a structural increase in prices, much as has occurred in the energy and metals markets," Jeffrey Currie, Goldman's chief commodities analyst, said in a research note last month.

Entry for April 11, 2008

A few days ago I predicted (apparently overly optimisticaly) that gas would be $4.13 a gallon by June.

Well, was i wrong...the photo is of a gas station in Los Angeles where Regular is $4.19

Today, not June

This morning as I started out to work, I reminded myself i need gas, so i drove to the station across the way from our house that we usually go to. As I approached, I could feel that knot in the stomach and faintness of breath that happens when you are shocked...mind you last Saturday i bought gas there for $3.69 a gallon, which was too high. Today was another story. 3.949 per gallon= 0ver $70 for my car. Luckily i have no car payment. But what about the people that do? Huge car payment, huge gas bill, etc. I easily imagine this getting into house payment range...

As the character bulldog from frazier says "This stinks, this is total BS!"

Entry for April 08, 2008

Anyone who has read a lot of my blogs will know this, but I have been a Giants fan since I was about 11...so when i was working on my computer, I switched on my TV, and by chance it was on the local Ginats station ..about half way thru the first inning with the Padres.

As I was looking up now and then from my work, I noticed the pitch speed was being displayed on the top of the screen...an 88 mph changeup? A 98 mph curve? a 101 fast ball? who is this guy? Closeup of the mound shows the guy Giants old timers call their kid brother, 23 year old Tim Lincecum. Tim pitched (so far in this contest) 6 innings, and never slowed down. It shows in the score , Giants up by 1 in a total of 3 run game. I dont know why, but watching this kid extend off the mound and send that lump of leather hurling towards the plate in excess of 90 mph, and hearing the announcer intone " Lincecum lets loose a slider , count 3-2, 2 outs, 1 on 3rd...Ohhh, and he's out and the Giants move on to inning...."

Although so far this season, the Giants are 1-6, but its a long way to October...

Predictions April 07, 2008

"Predictions"

Here's some tough ones -

1. Regular gas will be $4.13 a gallon by June 1, 2008
2. Microsoft will buy Yahoo, and Yahoo will fade into oblivion as its absorbed into the giant from Redmond
3. 360 content will be moved to Windows Spaces, drastically improving both
4. Yahoo's witch hunt for adult content will continue to drag innocent content into the delete file, while truly horrific images will remain, which will end when #2 happens, and all adult content is banned
5. These perdictions will be proven wrong or correct in time///

Squirrel valley News for April 07, 2008

Squirrel Valley News- April 7, 2008

Chip Munk, standing in for Bufford T Squirrel, editor

In an effort to curb the recent disastrous effects of the badger invasion from Colorado, the Commission on Squirrel Valley Security Tranquility and Quiet has voted to appropriate a new fee of 15 acorns per new residential dwelling; additionally, families that occupy more than one tree, den or portions thereof are expected to pay a prorate (what ever that means) share to the CSVTQ. Acorns and nuts collected will be sold and the proceed used to hire new patrol canines, such as those in our still photo of the day.

These young recruits are under the tutoring of Oopie Doopie, pride of the Terrier Patrol. She is one tough trainer, known to snap and nip young recruits into shape before their stealth postings to various community locations. The new patrol will work together to locate and defend Squirrel Valley from intruders, especially those interloper badgers