Aren Cambre – Page 40 – Aren Cambre's Blog

Don’t do something, just sit there!

We were involved in a minor wreck today. Not our fault; an unobservant driver ran into our car, which was stuck in traffic leaving some parade.

The incredible part is the Dallas County Sheriff, Lupe Valdez, was in uniform and sitting in the open bed of a Dallas County Sheriff’s truck, also stuck in traffic, no more than 30 feet line of sight from us. Because of barriers, she would have had to walk about 100 or so feet to get to us.

While my head still feels shaken 2 hours later, the wreck probably was minor. An amateur investigation of the car could only find two dimples in the rear bumper from the other car’s front license plate.

Did the sheriff bother to help? Did she even acknowledge my shouted question of whether she saw the crash?

Nope. She and her non-uniformed cohorts just sat in the truck, gave a blank stare, and did nothing.

I am floored. I guess as an average citizen, I am in her “flyover country.”

I have a picture. I can’t share it yet. But I will as soon as I can.

Ceiling is done (but more work to do!)

The den/living room ceiling is finished! Late week, it was taped, bedded, textured, and painted.

Here’s how it looked after the taping and bedding:

Then it was textured and painted:

Yay!

Did you notice that the plastic sheeting is down? The room still has no attic insulation, so we’re keeping it mostly closed off from the rest of the house. But we can at least go into the garage without going into the front yard.

All that’s left now is to sand and refinish the floors, install the blown in fiberglass attic insulation, and finish out the recessed lights.

Oh, and replace most of our furniture. Argh.

Eliot Spitzer is shows why Democrats will lose in 2008

Oooh, what a delicious moment: a Democrat is doing what Democrats do best: screw up.

The latest case is New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. The supposed reformer, he was adored by my finance professor.

While I respected some of Eliot’s actions, I knew something was up. He didn’t “feel” right.

My suspicion is vindicated: Eliot is John #9 in a major prostitution bust. It’s doubly ironic because, as New York attorney general, he busted prostitution rings.

This is a good example for the record: Democrats are not reformers. Democrats’ fundamental belief in increasing government’s intervention in and control of the economy is an anathema to reform. Economic control is a tool of madmen, tyrants, communists, and socialists, not lovers of freedom, justice, and liberty.

And let’s talk about effectiveness: compare the 1993 Republican Contract with America to the Democrat promises for the current Congress. Many of the Contract With America’s reforms went through, repeatedly forcing Slick Willie’s hand (part of which his wife is disavowing to appease the Democrat radical left wing base). On the other hand, what happened with the latest Democrat salvo? They came in with a whine, they are leaving with a pout. They can’t even hold to promises of no earmarks! (Should the failure by tax and spend Democrats to control spending surprise anyone?)

Speaking of Democrats, look at their presidential choices: a senator with a personal and family legacy of corruption, rotten deals, narcissism, and regal demeanor of entitlement, or a radical leftist senator without substantive national experience, untested by the media.

It’s like having to choose between Satan and the Devil.

Compare to the prohibitive Republican nominee, a war hero who, despite his foibles, represents a mature, experienced alternative.

In one’s final voting booth decision, a mature, experienced alternative might look awfully appealing next to Satan or the Devil.

SLR is Stupid

Old SLR camera SLR is an archaic technology, first patented in 1861 (!). It is of no use for the vast majority of digital camera users. It is still perceived as a premium mainly because of camera manufacturer marketing and uninformed apologists.

SLR just means that a series of mirrors and lenses allows the photographer to to “look” through the main camera lenses.

Guess what? Digital cameras already do this!

When you look at the LCD preview screen, you are already “looking” through the main lenses. These days, SLR is a redundant feature that only increases size, heft, and fragility.

Wikipeida says these features are common to digital SLR cameras:

Parallax-free optical viewfinder
Fast phase-detection autofocus
Interchangeable lenses
Sensor size and quality
Depth-of-field control
Angle of view
Mode dial

If you scratch out the word “optical” (as I did above), none of these features have anything to do with SLR technology. Well, maybe fast phase-detection autofocus has a minor relationship with SLR due to its need to use an additional sensor, but that problem can easily be mitigated with technology similar to DSLRs that have live previews. All of these features could work fine on cameras lacking SLR junk.

A while back, car manufacturers started bundling options, a blatant profit-enhancing move. Now, on many cars, you can’t get certain options without getting all sorts of unrelated options in a bundle. For example, you usually have to order a bundle of several luxury options to get a built in navigation system (a bad idea, by the way).

Digital SLR is the same thing. If you want a “really, really good camera”, manufacturers have strongly marketed that digital SLR is the only way to go. It’s unfortunate and unacceptable that manufacturers won’t give us advanced options like standard interchangeable lenses without also bundling costly, archaic SLR technology.

Open lunches are stupid

When I was in high school, I resented our closed lunch. We were forced to stay on campus for our 25 minute lunch period.

Open lunch means students can leave campus for the lunch period. Open lunches have the allure of longer lunch periods, freedom, and fun.

Now that I have a more mature perspective, I believe any school district selling reasonable lunches on-campus would be patently irresponsible to allow open lunches.
Look at the downsides of open lunches:

Higher insurance. That’s what my school district told me.
Hooks children on garbage foods. Where do children on open lunch go? Mostly fast food restaurants, where they eat garbage: fried, greasy, salty foods packed full of refined carbohydrates and low quality fats.
Costly. A $2 class A lunch is a lot cheaper than gas, vehicle wear and tear, and any restaurant meal.
Denies children a healthful lunch. A traditional cafeteria lunch is far more healthful and balanced than anything children usually select at restaurants.
Exposes children to risk. What’s safer: sitting in the cafeteria or being in an old hand-me-down car piloted by fellow children rushing to get back to campus before the lunch period ends? Where are children most likely to get in trouble: at school, or in an unsupervised, off-campus environment?
Longer school day. You have to allow transportation times in open lunch periods. That had to be made up with a longer school day.

The upsides are? Anything? (Do you really believe many children go home during open lunches? Ha ha!)

Having no useful purpose, open lunches are wasteful, expose children to unnecessary risk, and jump start them on debilitating health problems.

Open lunches are a terrible idea.