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| Make SPAMMERS pay! |
| 10.24.04 (4:25 pm) [edit] |
I know that SPAM is sent by evil people. I'm not talking about the occasional message sent to get me to try a product; I'm talking about the same company sending hundreds of messages to ME to try to get me to try a product.A couple weeks ago they turned on the ROLEX spam. I cannot imagine that all of a sudden 20 companies would begin trying to sell me cheap Rolex watches, so I have to assume it is one company. Now why would that company think that by sending me 20 spams a day per mailbox is going to make me want to buy one. Do they think that if I see 20 messages I will think that cheap Rolex knockoffs are the new "IN THING" or "FAD" that is sweeping the nation, and I MUST get onboard now? I dutifully report each message as SPAM but you know, these ISPs are so flooded with reports that little happens. The SPAM continues. I had an idea a while back to fix the spam problem. I don't think it is novel, but don't think people are doing it. Start this up and I'll sign up. Then you will become a millionaire. Spam works because a company or individual can send email free; unlike the post office where the company must buy a stamp for each letter. This is similar to an Escrow account wherby a disinterested third party holds the money until the parties of the transaction either agree or disagree with the conditions. How it would work: Set up a company to process email. Set up a secure connection between yourself and me. That way I know that all my mail comes through you and someone cannot intervene and spoof you. I may have to pay a small fee for this service each month. Now, anyone wanting to send me email must have an email account whereby they bought an electronic stamp or paid a bit of money into an account (like a prepaid phone card). When the email is received by me, I read it. If it is a regular email from someone I want to receive mail from, I do nothing. Their account is not debited. If the message was indeed spam, I click the "this was spam" message and the amount they paid for the stamp goes to my account as a credit. I just got paid to read spam. The company paid me to read their email. After a short while, the spammers will find that it does not pay to spam people who have not agreed to accept their info. If the message was interestinga nd I want to continue receiving offers, then I don't report it as spam and no money leaves their account. I may not have all the details worked out, but I think that any process wherby a spammer has to pay to send email would help. I personally do not mind having to pay a penny an email, because I don't send out many emails. A business sending thousands of emails would consider the penny a cost of doing business. |
| Journeys |
| 10.17.04 (12:06 am) [edit] |
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The casual reader here may not see the irony in some of my posts. Even readers who hang on every word (and if there are such readers, they REALLY need to get a life), but even continuous readers may not know what powers this blog. Years ago (too many to remember) I was a disc jockey. At that time I thought I would be a DJ forever. I was in college at the time, young and impressionable :D I had ideals but no goals. I had talents but no direction. So in the ensuing years I went through a number of jobs, any one of which might have been a career. They included DJ, building satellite TV receivers, testing anti-bue box telephone equipment. I have worked in construction, house wiring, built a television station and kept inventory in a manufacturing facility. I have created software programs and managed servers and mainframes around the country and kept watch over a computer room the size of a football field (a US football field that is, for my foreign readers). Now I am beginning a journey as a coffee farmer. What a wild ride it has been so far, and it continues. Back to the blog. I said that these blogs start out heading one direction and sometimes take a sharp turn. It is a lot like life. We start out headed one way and something comes along and off we go. SO why is this blog called "Journeys"? It just seems to fit. This time I actually came up with the title BEFORE I started. Most times I create the title when I am done. Sometimes I start the blog, wind my way through it, stop when I run out of time or words and then tie the thoughts together with a title. There is little "art or science" to what I do where. Many times my blog just keeps the other blogs from bumping into each other!. When starting this blog I was ready to go make an early dinner. Although I was able to get a great deal on some frozen dinners, I was going to have steak tonight. However, I started getting hungry and finished up some walnut banana bread instead. I'll have the steak, but it will be a late dinner it appears. Many times the blog is created like a sitcom (situation comedy) which if you look closely, is generally a few (maybe 3) separate stories wound together. I often take a few ideas together and find a common theme. The theme "Journeys" will soon become obvious. Already I have talked about my journey of life. On our island last week, there was an 87-year-old man with dementia who wandered away from his home. Soon there were neighbors searching for him, an "Amber Alert" of sorts put out by Civil Defense and even yellow search helicopters were on the job. On our island many people know each other and it was hoped that his name and description would bring him home safely in a hurry. That was not to be. The days went by and hopes began to fade. Tears were shed and he was in all of our minds. Oh don't get me wrong, he DID get home safely, I was talking about him not getting home QUICKLY! It appears that Mr. Miyose has left the house following a beautiful woman, he crossed the yard, a rock wall and lost her in in the adjoining property. So he sat under a mango tree. He sat under a mango tree for a week until he was found and brought home. What could have been a horrible journey ended differently. He started out following a woman and ended up sleeping under a mango tree. See what I mean? Today on the Big Island is an event known worldwide. The Kona version of the Ironman Race is in full progress as I write this. I went into town for a while and took some photos. Why take photos of a race when I don't know any of the participants? I don't know. It is a lot like writing a blog. It is my way of documenting things that I see; things that I feel. I can't tell you who won the race because I am not following it that closely. I CAN tell you that there are many people in the race and fall into at least three categories; those who planned and trained every step to get here for this race; those who planned some and "stopped on by" because it seemed like a fun thing to do; and those who are most of the way through the race and have no idea what in the "heck" they are doing here. Wait. Am I talking about the race, or about life in general? :D Take your pick! As I watched the race I saw people cheering on participants, whether they were friends or strangers. Many participants will stay to the very end and cheer on strangers because these racers have no family or friends here. They are just here for the race; for the journey. What do the photos show? Many photos show racers cycling up a hill, down a hill or coming around a corner. Cyclists do that it appears. Those photos (like a blog entry) show what is happening at a spot in time. There is a history to the photo that leads up that moment. It may be interesting, or it might be threads not yet entwined. It is a slice of time. Another photo shows the text on the backs of matching t-shirts. It says "Paul's brother-in-law"; another says "Paul's wife". Paul's whole family appears to be here :D Some photos show the strain of the athletes. Cycling up hill is certainly not an easy task, but these are Iron Men and Women. They have trained hard for the event. They will swim 2.4 miles, cycle 112 miles with the wind in your face and run 26.2 miles. Some are here to win. Some are here to race. All are here for the experience. So there you have it, "Journeys". A look at the journeys and twists and turns life takes. I knew in advance that this blog would be called "Journeys". I had it all in mind. It was the best title for today's blog. The one I thought about before I wrote it. You see, I had the title in mind early this morning. Early this morning before I knew what the day would involve. Before I saw the race or read the the man had been found. "Journeys", a perfect name for a blog written on this, my birthday! My life to has been a journey and although it has taken many twists and turns along the way, like the photo of the athlete caught in a moment, you have now shared a part of my journey and I appreciate it. An the journey continues.... :D |
| The Big Yellow Taxi |
| 10.13.04 (5:30 am) [edit] |
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"Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got Till it's gone..." I have to admit that even though I go on and on about how great it is here in Hawaii, there [b][i]ARE [/i][/b]some drawbacks! The first drawback is there are too many places selling foods that I just don't eat. This includes fish and certain spicy foods. Second, if you are like me, picky about some types of foods, certain parties and dinners cause you to want to peek inside all offered foods and you find yourself asking "Do you know what THIS is?" Also, I grew up on Chung King soy sauce. I have found it is NOT common here, as the locals like the brewed and lesser know on the mainland brands. Also, don't even THINK about looking for canned chop suey. Seems that too is SACRILEGE!!! Then there is my favorite sphagetti sauce "Spatini" which I will now have to import from the mainland. In a recent blog I mentioned the "snack foods" which I have never tried. They are those which contain either plums, seaweed or cuttlefish... FInally (and I'M NOT THE ONE COMPLAINING), there are many people over on Oahu today complaining that it is just TOO DAMN HOT this week. This when many of my friends are cranking up the heat and settling down for a long winters' nap! |
| Tuesday is almost pau |
| 10.13.04 (3:12 am) [edit] |
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Well, Tuesday is about pau (finished, done, complete) for me. Tomorrow is another day, and will include the first of what is supposed to be two (count them) TWO partial eclipses of the sun THIS MONTH! Tomorrow's will happen in late afternoon the the partial eclipse near the end of the month is probably better seen on the other side of the island from me. Recently I have been shipping out packages to people via the website, but now that the "cat is out of the bag", it's time to stop. A week or so ago a few of us were chatting online. Someone left the islands and carried handfuls of fliers with them to send to friends. If you have ever visited Hawaii you know the fliers I am talking about. You find them at the airport baggage claim areas or in holders around town. There are books like "101 Things to Do" and ones with discount coupons, etc. All of these are free and tell you all the things you can do on the islands. Unfortunately, people tend to pick them up when they land here, then spend the rest of their vacation trying to plan what they want to do. This guy decided that he would let his friends plan BEFORE they came. The kicker was that someone then decided to go on Ebay and charge a lot for the same thing. Granted, he very carefully explained that the cost was for his time to go get the things. He charged something like $8.00 for the package and then charged $5 shipping onb top of it. Nowhere did he misrepresent what the customers got, just that they were really getting ripped off! :-) I decided to offer a better package for just the cost of shipping (which is $3.85). What I did was create the packages and stuffed as much as I could in a "Flat Rate" USPS envelope. There were maps and fliers and coupons and all sorts of stuff. I then posted a link to the package on Flyer Talk the frequent flier discussion area. People would click on the link and it took them to my http://ItsKona.Com site where they could add the item to their cart and check out. In a way, I was devious because I would now have them as a customer and can send them specials on my coffee, etc. Speaking of coffee, I also slipped in a surprise gift of a 2 oz bag of coffee. Hopefully I will get a few customers out of this project, but if not, at least I was able to give a bit back to the flier community as they have given me lots of help and links to deals. The reason I'm pau with the packages is that traffic into Kona will be horrible for the next week until Ironman (IronmanLive.Com) is pau. Also, now that people know that they can get free samples of coffee for next to nothing, I'm afraid they will order the pachage of fliers just to get the coffee and then throw the fliers away. The fliers cost the companies quite a bit of money and I am blindly shipping out handfuls of fliers that may or may not pertain to customers tastes. Here on the island they would be able to only take the ones they think they may want to do, rather than take one of each. On another topic, I have been noticing that Hawaii has been getting quite a few famous bands lately. Let's see, we had the Who over on Oahu and Maui recently and here on the Big Island we have had or will have Los Bravos and also the Doobie Brothers. I have not kept up with the groups, but at least one has a member who is pau... :wink: On the mainland, I still have 2 cars for sale and will need to renew the registrations and insurance this month. I can't wait until I'm pau with them, although I will FOREVER miss the 1990 IROC Camaro! I'm still missing the 1995 IROC which a friend bought from me. That one had t-tops too! I actually owned BOTH the IROCS at the same time!!! :D :D :D Anyway that is all for this blog as I am pau! |
| Aloha and the lack of it |
| 10.10.04 (2:03 pm) [edit] |
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I have been here on the Big Island for about a year and wanted to pass along some observations. I was so worn out by the time I got here that I wasn't sure I wanted to even THINK, let alone do work. I had been spending months getting my old house in shape to sell and was going through the stress of selling personal belongings. Yes, it would have helped if I had watched that TV show "Sell This House" where they spend a couple hundred dollars and remove some wallpaper and the house sells. In any event, I finally moved, made a few trips back and forth and then settled in to life here. My Georgia house finally sold but I still fought to own this farm here. Even thought I was living in a hotel for a month, I still began to become involved in the community (something I never seemed to have had time for back east). I have experience Aloha in all sorts of ways. Whether it is greeting people at the airport or working with neighbors to pick up trash, we have fun. I have been treated like family and stop t ochat with complete strangers. Some of those strangers are visitors and they are surprised that we residents are so friendly :D I stood outside at Wal-Mart with hundreds of other neighbors for the Day After Thanksgiving Sale and cannot tell you how much fun it was. Unlike other places, here everyone knows everyone else and/or is related. It seems in other places it is easier to ignore people or cut them off in traffic, if you will never see them again. Here we actually slow down and wave people into traffic in front of us. It REALLY is quite common. Along Ali'i Drive (a waterfront area frequented by cruise ship visitors walking) pedestrians get to cross the street with ease. The 3-way stop works almost flawlessly for walkers and drivers. Life is ALMOST perfect. On the other hand, I experienced two acts of a lack of Aloha... Last weekend it appears two people with too much time on their hands, decided t odrive down 3 long streets here and bash mailboxes with a pipe or baseball bat. This wa snot just a one time event but rather happened over at least two nights and maybe three. As I stood in line at the post office I heard someone else mention their mailbox was smashed. A postal worker behind the counter asked what our street addresswere. AS we told her, she immediately knew which boxes were ours. The other act showing a lack of Aloha was yesterday. I was up at Wal-Mart in town and traffic had started to build. We are getting lots of runners along the streets practicing for the Ironman Competition. Traffic slows a bit as we weave around these runners. Also, more visitors have arrived on island and hotels are all about full! As I came down towards the red light there, it appears that someone traveling northward was blocking the rightmost lane heading towards the ocean. The guy in the right-most lane was blocked from going straight ahead by this visitor in the intersection. He had gotten there perhaps by jumping a yellow light, but had nowhere he could escape to, non-the-less. This guy who could not go when the light favored him, pressed his hand on the horn and just left it there. BEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPP for something like 2 minutes until the traffic moved. I also am sorry to say that it was obvious that the beeper was a local. The condition of the car gave that away in this case. I was embarassed. The local was frustated and acting like an idiot. For those 2 minutes, everyone nearby KNEW he was acting like an idiot. Other than these two events, it has been quite an enjoyable year. My house on the mainland sold, I was finally able to buy this farm, my coffee won a tasting award the first time out, the weather has been fantastic and I have made many new friends. It realy IS Paradise! :D |
| Shoveling it |
| 10.05.04 (2:14 pm) [edit] |
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It is that time of year when amny of us start dreaming (or having nightmares) of shoveling snow. Here in the tropics (or sub tropics, I can't remember) our only snow is up on the mountain peaks of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. If there is snow at Mauna Kea, you can see it here http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/JA... however, note that they have had some problems with their equipment. Currently, the thermometer reads -65.55 degrees C when it is probably about +3 degrees C. Know that the temp usually hovers near freezing most of the time. A favorite pasttime I had on the mainland was to watch the camera for snow and then show others. It really blows their mind to see snow in Hawaii. I don't know why; perhaps because they don't think of tall mountains (or volcanos) when they think of Hawaii, yet, as I have mentioned here before, Hawaii actually has the tallest mountains in the world. Mauna Kea on the Big Island — measured from the seafloor — tops out at 33,476 feet. From sea level it measures 13,796 feet high). I've saved a few photos from the site which shows 6 foot drifts and one day I'll post them on my websites. Also, speaking of shoveling, I need to cleanout many of my email addresses. Some of them get full with messages which I THINK I need to save, but probably don't. Of couse, Mindspring would be happy to increase my limits in return for a few extra dollars a month. For those who find they are always bumping up on their limit, can I offer a suggestion on a great way to make headway. Note that this also works for many other projects you may perform besides cleaning out email accounts... Sort your email based upon size. Then find the largest email and see if you can delete it. Then pick the second largest email and repeat. You may find that the largest email has some photos in it and takes up 1/3 of your space allotment. By deleting it you free up a big section of space. As you go down the list in size order, it is harder and harder to make lots of space by deleting just one message and you will find that you need to do more work to make more headway. Have a house that leaks air and gets too cold? Patch the biggest leak first. Makes sense, but some people go for the easiest fix than the one which does the most good. I used to have a porch which needed to be "winterized". A neighbor once told me how to cheaply create storm windows. The porch was mostly glass with those jalousie windows (the ones with moveable horizontal slats of glass) that you can crank open. Well, they never seem to close tightly enough and this particular porch would have cost a fortune to have had storm windows. What the neighbor taught me was to take the thick rolls of plastic from the hardware store and stretch it across the inside of the windows, then to tack it there with small pieces of molding like quarter round or whatever was on sale. This made a plastic storm window on the INSIDE of the porch which kept the wind and cold out. The cost was maybe $10 for a roll of plastic and some brads or tacks long enough to go into the woodwork around the window. You may have to be careful with this around children as toddlers might be able to pull down the plastic. Still, for a few dollars, it could lower your heating bill, even if it doesn't look perfect. You might consider a clear plastic rather than an opaque one. The TV show "Sell This House" also follows my line of thought. They try to help home sellers fix their house to sell when previous efforts have not worked. Often times it is spending a few dollars to make a big difference. The most often and obvious change is to just get rid of all of the clutter. Just bring in a backhoe and start shoveling :-) People fill their house with knick-knacks and really need to pack all that stuff away when selling their house. Also the show will paint a wall to draw the buyers eye away from an "imperfection". A few dollars for paint and magically the eye is distracted from that horrible hole in the other wall... still, it works. So no matter what kind of "shoveling" you are doing (snow, trash or just BS), I hope you enjoy it! |
| Full of it? |
| 10.02.04 (3:56 pm) [edit] |
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I attended the KonaWeb picnic last night and met and revisited with many friends. My contributions were some blueberry loaf (flat muffins :D ) and about a gallon of iced Kona Coffee, the makings of which came from my Coffee website at http://ItsKona.Com (shameless plug)! We didn't actually drink all of the coffee, but it was well received none the less. I had my new camera and took a few photos of the group. Because I was not familiar with the delay timer, I took some group photos, then had someone else take the rest. For the final photo, the second photographer was cut and pasted into the photo (unless you blew it up, you might not be able to see the paste :-) Someone sent me a link to sign up for a free sample of detergent with fabric softener. One of the questions asked me to evaluate the following statements and choose the one that best describes by feelings. Over the years I have heard that we Americans spend way too much time thinking about odors and health, etc. We have tongue scrapers and oral water jets and rivers of mouthwashes. We have more styles of deoderants than imaginable. We have pens and crayons with odors. Scented gum and cans of air that make our car smell like newly formed plastic. I think we are way too far out on a limb on the reality tree. Here are the choices the company (who shall rename nameless) gave me: [b]For me, scent in my laundry products is important because it brings back memories - memories from the past and memories that I can pass on to others. I often am reminded of different experiences because I recognize a familiar scent. Cleaning and caring for my laundry is important, but smells are an intrusion or unnecessary. Simpler is always better. I shy away from unfamiliar scents for a variety of reasons - or may even use unscented products. I feel I've got to put a lot of extra effort into the laundry process because I want to get great end results. Scent is little more than a signal that tells me my laundry is clean and a finishing touch to a job well done. I love scent and I use it as a way to make life and laundry more enjoyable. I look for laundry products that offer scent variety since different scents appeal to me. I will try different scents, but if I find one that I really like then I tend to stay with it until I decide it is time for a change. [/b] They missed the most important choice... "Scent in my clothes, makes life worth living. I honestly believe that without scent, the world as we know it, will cease to exist. I believe that every extra dollar our government collects, should be sent to third world countries so that those poor people can experience the reliving of their childhood, that life for them will be a better place, that..." well, you get the idea :D Actually, could it be that scent is added to detergents because it masks the smell of the odors that the detergent failed to remove? Could it be that the detergent is made from crushed rocks and hars chemicals and the scent covers up the wet concrete smell? Have you ever driven by a chemical plant and said to yourself "Gee, that plant smells like a "country garden" with touches of "tropical bloom"! In reality, I would have prefered a choice that said "I buy the cheapest stuff and put up with whatever smell they put in it (if at all). Laundry is a necessary intrusion in my life, but I put up with it because otherwise my socks stand up by themselves..." :-) It's not just me, is it? Readers Digest has a humorous item a while back. A wife and husband have just taken their first outside excursion after a harsh winter. As the reach the side of the house the husband says "Honey, I just LOVE the smell of the spring flowers. His wife replies, "Honey, there are no flowers yet, that is the fabric softener you smell from the drier vent we just passed!" As the TV show was named.. "Life Goes On". |