Category: News

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Keep Your Post Its

Today’s newspaper has a post it note ad on the front page, which is becoming an almost daily nuisance. The post it note covers up part of the headline and tears the paper when I try to pull it off to throw it away. I suppose someone in the sales department of the newspaper thinks they are hot stuff and is busy selling post it note ads to their newspaper advertisers as a novelty item, “sure to get attention!”

In my opinion it backfires, as the post it note irritates me and makes me think badly of the sucker who is paying money to put those sticky annoyances on my paper. There are other ways to get my attention with your advertisement, and annoying me with post it notes that tear up my newspaper’s front page is not a good way.

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Layoffs at Harley Davidson

Every day there’s more bad news about a company going bankrupt or having layoffs. Today the bad news was about Harley Davidson. The best motorcycles are made by Harley Davidson in Wisconsin, but people aren’t buying high dollar items likes cars and motorcycles, so the entire automotive industry is scaling back.

The Milwaukee-based motorcycle company reported its 4th-quarter profits fell almost 60 percent, so they are laying off 1,100 workers with 70 percent of the job cuts this year and the rest will be in 2010. That’s not good news for anyone – especially for serious bikers.

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Inauguration Day

This morning started early for everyone in Washington, DC. This is Inauguration Day for President Obama.

There were already huge crowds of people on the Washington Mall and scattered along the transport route from the Blair House to the Capitol steps. Officials are estimating that there will be up to two million people in Washington to witness this historic event.

It is sunny but bitter cold, as is typical in the Washington D area in January, They expect temperatures to stay in the teens, and just south of the D area they are predicting snow showers for Southern Virginia. I think it is symbolic that Obama is facing very cold weather but that the sun is shining, with warmer weather ahead. I hope that sets the tone for his first few months in office.

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Voice to Text

Looking at most of the PDAs that have evolved into iPhone’s and clones, the focus has been to include some method of typing the alphabet and numbers into the equipment to send outgoing messages. Some have slide out keyboards with itsy bitsy QWERTY keys, some have teeny weenie buttons to be pressed in a different order, with lots of shift key and control key pressing to make all the characters workable. Some have touch screens that click when pressed. But most of them require the user to hunt and peck to send out their text message or twitter.

Now a company in England is releasing their new program that converts voice to text and works with the cell phones, called VoxLinks. I read about it online in a UK publication.

How cool is that? No more stylus, no more fat finger typos, no more squinting in the dark to find the right buttons. Just talk and turn your outgoing message or incoming voicemail into a text message. And if you subscribe to the Vodaphone service for your cell provider, you’ll get the software free. Awesome.

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Snow or No

Tomorrow the weather forecasters have declared that we will have snow. Somewhere. Maybe here, maybe north of us, maybe east – up on the plateau. But we shall have snow in the area.

Since Monday is a legal holiday, the snow will not mean that schools have to close. They are already closed. So if it does snow, I hope the homebound kids have enough on the ground to play with. Maybe some sledding downhill and a few snowmen.

And I certainly hopes it all melts by Tuesday morning so that traffic is not snarled.

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Flying Car’s Maiden Voyage Underway

A link from Yahoo’s front page shows the world’s first road worthy flying car.

I’ve watched it three times and I’m still not sure how the car takes off and gets the clearance height it needs, as in liftoff. Still, it’s a cool idea for remote locations and maybe a tourist toy. Urban and congested areas would be a traffic control nightmare, but that’s been shown in some science fiction movies as a futuristic daily reality. Three cheers for the guy who came up with a working model!

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Car of the Year

Does anyone else think that the annual North American International Auto Show is a little tainted this year with the boo-hoo of the Detroit 3 automakers saying they are broke? So when you are broke its supposed to be OK to party all week in Detroit and brag about how great everything is?

OK – I know that they made these plans – and probably already paid for most of it – months ago. It’s an annual thing. Maybe its the perfect confidence booster. Maybe they’ll be announcing some fantastic new cars that everyone will rush out to buy as soon as they hit the street. Let’s hope.

The interesting news in the Chicago Tribune from the Auto Show this morning is that they announced the “2009 Car of the Year” is the Hyundai Genesis. This is the first time Hyundai has won an award in the 15 years it has been producing automobiles. The Genesis is Hyundai’s top of the line sedan and maybe it’s worth considering if you are in the market for a new traditional car this year. Personally, I want to hold out for a new hybrid or total electric car. I’m hearing good things about plug in the car at night and go about 40 miles each day without having to buy gas. Now that’s what I’m talking about.

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Layoffs Announced

Every day this week we have been hearing reports that big companies are having layoffs. There are retail stores going bankrupt, manufacturing companies shutting down, and even the government is laying off people. The state is expecting a huge shortfall in revenue, so even the schools are being told to cut back 15% somehow. That would be a terrible blow to our county schools, who have been struggling to overcome the NCLB regulations.

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Is it the Flu?

There seems to be a lot of people getting sick this week. Several people are coughing, sneexing and moaning through their day at work. This drives me nuts. If you are sick, sty home and don’t spread your germs to everyone else. I’m glad I’m you and strong and stay healthy most of the year. I sure don’t want to end up with the flu right before Christmas if people are sick with the flu and not staying home to take care of themselves.

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Gas A-Plenty

Great day for us – gasoline is everywhere, plentiful, no lines and it is dropping in price.

Would you believe I actually paid only $3.29 per gallon today? Holy cow, Batman! It’s been almost a year since gas prices were that low.

That station is not in a part of town that I normally drive, but it is not really out of the way to go there. I have them high on my radar for the next fill up unless the stations closer to my house come down from today’s price of $3.43.