Let’s take it on the road

Well, folks, it’s time to pack it up and head over to the new place. And that place is:

http://www.hoodathunkblog.com

HoodaThunk? will continue to cover what I’ve been covering up to this point, it’s just going to do it over there. Barring some issue, I don’t intend to update this WordPress.com site any further. While there are a few items that still need to be straightened out (the blogroll, for example) the basic functions are all there and are all working.

So, I look forward to seeing you all over there and let’s get back to blogging!

OK, so what’s going on at HoodaThunk?

OK, so the combination of being out of town for a few days and a decision about the blogging here have made for very light posting for the past week or so. Time for an explanation.

The part about being out of town is self-explanatory, but there was an additional twist to this one. I was doing some serious electrical work at my Mom’s house which involved me crawling around in the attic for a couple of days and cutting holes in the bedroom ceilings. Given that I also want to put in an attic fan in her house this year and the high degree of confidence that it’ll be me doing the electrical work on that project as well, I made certain additions to my design to make it easy on me the next time i show up. That takes time. And, when you’re crawling from joist to joist in the attic, you’re not banging keys for a blog post.

The other issue is this: I’ve been doing some research into moving this blog to a hosted server. The reason for this is simple: I’ve been wanting to add functionality to this blog for a long time that I’ve been unable to add due to it being hosted at wordpress.com. Please don’t get me wrong – this is a great service and it’s handled my needs for at least 3 years. But there are tools and widgets I’ve wanted to use that I can’t unless I move. So… I’m moving.

I am in the process of setting the new place up. At first, I was working to make the new blog location look as much like this one as I could. I’m still working on some of the basic functions (which I do like and do want) but I’m taking the opportunity to rework the page a bit and see what I can come up with to reflect the new status.

Lastly, I’m going to be playing around a bit with some of the monetizing features to see if I can get this hobby to actually generate some capital. We’ll see how that part goes but I can assure you I’ll not sacrifice the readability here. So again, stay tuned and see what comes.

Changes coming

I’m working on the blog right now and that’s taking up all of my bandwidth. Stay tuned for changes coming.

RTB Complete

Well, we’re back at the home base after a week out. The visit to family members out that way was fun and I accomplished the goals I’d set in handling some of the larger tasks my mother had on her household “to do” list. A good visit in all respects.

As usual, the return trip was draining and we’re all sitting around in that “don’t wanna do nuthin’” droop. Give me a few hours and I’ll get back up to speed.

Delta Airlines no longer sending reservation calls to India

Like some other businesses (Dell, for example) Delta Airlines has had enough complaints from people who can’t understand the reservations agents Delta hired overseas. They have made the decision to halt outsourcing their reservations centers to India.

Chief Executive Richard Anderson told employees in a recorded message late Thursday night that the world’s biggest airline operator is in the process of bringing all customer calls back in-house in the U.S.

Customer calls were no longer forwarded to India as of the first quarter of this year, Anderson said. Foreign call centers remain in Jamaica and South Africa, though Anderson indicated that staffing at those locations likely will be reduced in the future as the global financial crisis cuts call volume.

“The customer acceptance of call centers in foreign countries is low, and our customers are not shy about letting us have that feedback,” Anderson said.

I’m sure the pressure about outsourcing jobs that could quit easily be handled by people in the hinterlands of North Dakota, Oklahoma, or northern Ohio didn’t hurt in making that decision easier, either. I must say, I approve. When the idea is to offer customer service over the phone, having people answering those phone who speak the same language as the majority of your customers is a good business decision.

When hope and change were the real goals and were achieved

On April 18, 1942 a daring mission led by Army Air Corp Lt. Colonel Jimmy Doolittle was launched from the pitching deck of the carrier USS Hornet 650 miles off the coast of Japan. The raid which would bear Doolittle’s name was to launch 16 B-25 Mitchell bombers to bomb Tokyo, the heart of Imperial Japan. Doolittle’s raid was undertaken for 2 reasons, both of them psychological. First, the Japanese felt their homeland was untouchable and the US wanted to cast doubt on that confidence. Second, the US people badly needed to see a “win” from their troops.

Both objectives were achieved. The US public saw that they faced a foe that could be bloodied and beat. They also saw that their armed forces were not outmatched at every turn and had the fight in them to win the war, if supported at home.

Jimmy Doolittle passed away in September of 1993. Godspeed, sir, to you and all of your men. We remember you this day.

Of birthdays, twin questions, and network security…

Now what could birthdays, questions asked of twins, and network security have in common? Funny you should ask and even funnier what brought this up.

Some of you know, but most don’t, that I’m an identical twin. We live a long way off from each other, now, and we’re even further apart in terms of political thought. The fact that I’m a twin doesn’t come up in casual conversation much so it’s not something I tend to bring up. So, why now? Well, years ago when we were boys we’d find ourselves in situations all the time where some adult friend or acquaintance of our parents would be doing the “oh, aren’t they so cute, looking exactly alike?” thing and they’d ask how old we were followed up by when our birthday was. One or the other of us would reply with the actual date (in the summer months somewhere). This person would then look to the other one of us and ask the question, “Oh, and when’s yours?”

Now, it’s certainly possible for twins to be born on different days but it’s a very rare occurrence in the already rare situation of identical twins. We’d stammer a bit, trying to get the info across to this adult that they were asking a dumb question without actually saying they were doing so. This person would suddenly get it and then laugh at their mistake expecting us to find it hilarious as well. Well, after 2 x 10^{some-Godawful-number} times we’d heard this, it began to get unfunny. So the day came when the selected dope asked the 2nd one of us what our birthday was and – I’m not sure which one of us started it – the 2nd twin answered “April 12th.” I have no idea why we picked April 12th. It was just some random date sufficiently different from our birthday that the math would have shown Mom in labor for over a fiscal quarter. Some of the people we’d say that to would get it almost immediately and, usually, laugh. Others walked away never having gotten the joke.

Years later, we’d trade off years, each of us calling the other on April 12th and wish them a happy birthday. The next year, the other one would do it. It’s just one of those things that goes from joke to inside joke to inside custom over the years.

When the day came that I was signing up for Facebook, it demanded to know my birthday. Well, this is where network security comes in. Folks, you don’t put your social security number up on a public bulletin board. You don’t put your mother’s maiden name up there. Why? Because that’s data that financial companies and various other organizations use to positively identify you and it’s data that ID thieves go to great lengths to get. Another item of that data set is your birthday. Working the industry I do, I know all too well what can be done with that info in the wrong hands. And that’s why, when I was presented with the “gimmee-your-birthday-or-you-don’t-get-a-Facebook-account” question, I gave it the fake date I and my brother had used for years. I never gave it a second thought.

Until this week, that is, when a number of friends and well-wishers started sending me happy birthdays. Messages that, for reasons of travel, I didn’t see until last night. So, to those of you who reached out to me and sent best wishes, I thank you and I’m truly honored and humbled you thought of me. That it’s not the real date does not make the wishes or my thanks any less real. I just wanted everyone to know.

Thanks!

Light blogging alert

I’m in the middle of some rather long-range travel at the moment, blogging this morning from a hotel. We’re visiting some family this week so I might be a little lighter in the blogging department. There are some interesting goings-on lately, however, so I won’t be completely silent. Hope all of you had a Happy Easter!

Happy Easter: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

A very Happy Easter to you all! By the time this fires, I’ll be at Mass celebrating the Risen Lord. Here’s hoping your celebrations are happy, too.

The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.

Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”

Cases that could bring the incorporation of the 2nd Amendment to the SCOTUS

Via Instapundit we have this story from the Volokh Conspiracy:

In this week’s Second Amendment podcast on iVoices.org, Jon Caldara and I discuss three different cases which could give the Supreme Court an opportunity to decide whether the Second Amendment is incorporated in the Fourteenth: the Chicago handgun ban; the Alameda County, California, gun show ban on county property; and the New York nunchaku ban. The MP3 is ll minutes.

Interesting. Especially the “New York nunchaku ban.” I’ll see what I can find about that.