Gotta Love Homeowners Associations

This last Friday some guys came to my door telling me the HOA (Home Owners Association) sent them to cut down two trees behind my house that were “high risk” for falling after our recent onslaught of wind storms.  Thinking it would be nice to NOT have a tree through the roof as a house feature, I had no issue with it.

I came home Friday night to find a cord of wood neatly stacked on my lawn, but all the branches were gone. Hm, nice… I got me some firewood!

Just to make sure it wasn’t going to be picked up later, I emailed my HOA:

<HOA> sent some guys to cut trees down in my yard and the community yard right next to me yesterday and they left all the wood here.  Is someone going to pick up the wood, or is it up for grabs for firewood?

Tonight I got this reply:

The County requires us to leave the trees in the native areas to become part of the natural habitat.  If you have any questions please call me.

Uh, really?  So why is it all neatly cut up just like firewood and stacked on my lawn?  Either the “experts” who cut the tree down didn’t get the memo, or the HOA is completely unaware that the tree they cut down was on my property AND left the remnants on my side of the property line.

That’s my wood now bitches.

 

 

THE END IS NIGH… or, not

You’ve all heard it.  The end of the world is coming on December 21st, 2012.  The Mayan Calendar ends, the planets align, the Earth will flip it’s axis, Nibiru is going to crash into Earth, a solar storm so strong it’s going to burn us all alive, and the plus side of it all, no more mortgage.

Of course, this is all true if you believe non-factual, no-evidence, apocalyptic theories.  Here’s an article debunking these theories straight from NASA:

2012 – A Scientific Reality Check

11.10.09

On December 16, 1992, 8 days after its encounter with Earth, the Galileo spacecraft looked back from a distance of about 6.2 million kilometers (3.9 million miles) to capture this remarkable view of the Moon in orbit about Earth. Image credit: NASA/JPL There apparently is a great deal of interest in celestial bodies, and their locations and trajectories at the end of the calendar year 2012. Now, I for one love a good book or movie as much as the next guy. But the stuff flying around through cyberspace, TV and the movies is not based on science. There is even a fake NASA news release out there… So here is the scientific reality on the celestial happenings in the year 2012.

Nibiru, a purported large object headed toward Earth, simply put – does not exist. There is no credible evidence – telescopic or otherwise – for this object’s existence. There is also no evidence of any kind for its gravitational affects upon bodies in our solar system.

I do however like the name Nibiru. If I ever get a pet goldflish (and I just may do that sometime in early 2013), Nibiru will be at the top of my list.

The Mayan calendar does not end in December 2012. Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period, but then – just as your calendar begins again on January 1 – another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar.

There are no credible predictions for worrisome astronomical events in 2012. The activity of the sun is cyclical with a period of roughly 11 years and the time of the next solar maximum is predicted to occur in the period 2010 – 2012. However, the Earth routinely experiences these periods of increased solar activity – for eons – without worrisome effects. The Earth’s magnetic field, which deflects charged particles from the sun, does reverse polarity on time scales of about 400,000 years but there is no evidence that a reversal, which takes thousands of years to occur, will begin in 2012. Even if this several thousand year-long magnetic field reversal were to begin, that would not affect the Earth’s rotation nor would it affect the direction of the Earth’s rotation axis… only Superman can do that.

The only important gravitational tugs experienced by the Earth are due to the moon and sun. There are no planetary alignments in the next few decades, Earth will not cross the galactic plane in 2012, and even if these alignments were to occur, their effects on the Earth would be negligible. Each December the Earth and Sun align with the approximate center of the Milky Way Galaxy but that is an annual event of no consequence.

The predictions of doomsday or dramatic changes on December 21, 2012 are all false. Incorrect doomsday predictions have taken place several times in each of the past several centuries. Readers should bear in mind what Carl Sagan noted several years ago; “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

For any claims of disaster or dramatic changes in 2012, the burden of proof is on the people making these claims. Where is the science? Where is the evidence? There is none, and all the passionate, persistent and profitable assertions, whether they are made in books, movies, documentaries or over the Internet, cannot change that simple fact. There is no credible evidence for any of the assertions made in support of unusual events taking place in December 2012.

For more information on the silliness surrounding December 2012, see:

• http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planetx/nutshell.html
• Wikipedia: look under “Nibiru collision.”
• http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html

Written by Don Yeomans, NASA senior research scientist

So, there you have it.  It’s all garbage.  Go see the movie if you will, but know that it’s “for entertainment purposes only” and if you take it for prophecy, you’re a fool.

Suspect

As most of you know, I am a consultant for Microsoft. As such, I get looped in on some emails that I find very entertaining. This is one I just received (with internal information edited of course):

Security Alert
Possible cougar sighting – employees should exercise caution

Investigators with Security have investigated the reported sighting of a suspected cougar in the vicinity of Building XX. An inspection of the area did not provide any evidence that a cougar or other large animal had been there, such as tracks or scratches on trees, but we are taking this report seriously nevertheless.

Microsoft Security will conduct frequent patrols of all wooded areas of the campus, and will work with the State Department of Fish & Wildlife and other experts to assess the situation and provide further updates if appropriate. In the meantime, we ask that all employees exercise appropriate caution, particularly in remote or wooded areas of campus.

If you see anything suspicious, please contact the Jenny at 867-5309.

For any threat to personal safety Dial 911 (or local emergency provider) and immediately contact on-site Security.

Um, a “suspected cougar”? “I don’t know for sure though. It could have been a cougar. Maybe a duck or platypus. Maybe even Man-Bear-Pig. I can’t say. But, since we like to blame local animals for wandering neighborhoods and business parks from which we stole from them in the first place, we’ll claim it’s a cougar.

Awkward Coffee

It’s been a long day at work. We had a big release that didn’t go quite as well as planned, but we finally got our site up and running. Once that was done, it was time to start testing the site in production. Needless to say, it’s been a crazy day which has worn me out. About 2:45 in the afternoon, I’m getting tired.

It’s time for coffee. Oh yes, coffee time. Luckily, there is a barista onsite at work. I walk on over.

So far, so good.

As I walk up to the barista, I see her staring at me. I get to the counter, and you know, since she was staring at me, I figured she was waiting to take my order.

“Can I get a 16oz iced caramel macchiato please?” I ask.

She slowly raises her phone to her ear and holds up her other hand and says to me “hang on a second”. She then starts talking on her phone for about a minute.

The barista then hangs up and has me repeat the order. I hand her the money and then go stand by the wall to wait for my coffee.

When I got to the wall, I noticed a guy standing about 6 feet away from me. He was singing, yes – SINGING, about Spiderman and Aquaman capes. Nevermind the fact that neither of these comic book characters wear caps. The fact is, this guy was literally singing about Spiderman and Aquaman capes. Not cool.

As if that wasn’t weird enough, another guy who ordered his coffee after me came and stood by me at the wall. Now, when I say “he came and stood by me”, I mean he really stood by me. Straight up invaded my personal bubble and was leaning against me.

I lean forward and looking over to the right giving him a completely blatant visual queue that he had at least 5 feet between him and Mr. I-sing-about-Spiderman-and-Aquaman-capes where he could stand without violating my personal space and setting off my gaydar. He notices me giving this “hint” and looks back at me and says “Sup”. I then nonchalantly step over to my left, to the extent that he was no longer jumping my border, and returned the greeting.

Needless to say, as soon as I got my coffee, I was out of there like Speedy Gonzales.

You’d think that this was some creepy coffee stand in some metropolitan area, but no, this was the in-house Starbucks in the Microsoft cafeteria.

Very awkward.

Losin’ it

This is an actual email chain between me and coworkers today.  Read it from the bottom up.  Losin’ it?  You decide.

Jackassery Award of the Day, Vol. 3

Today’s Jackassery Award of the Day goes to an entire group.  This group happens to be a crap load of Microsoft employees and vendors.

All the beta/RC testers for Windows 7 received an internal newsletter on feature highlights for the new operating system.  Cool, I appreciate that.  What I don’t appreciate is the fact that people started replying all to this massive distribution with thousands of people on it.

First suggestion: Don’t reply all.  This is really email etiquette rule number 1.  The “Reply All” button in Outlook, or any other email client, should be renamed “Annoy the holy hell out of people by clicking this stupid, worthless button”.

Second suggestion: Don’t reply all about the whole not-replying-all thing.  This action makes you look like a bigger jackass then those guilty of violating the first suggestion.  When you and all your colleagues send more “stop replying all” and “please take me off this distro” emails than those who originally replied all, you are way more annoying than the first jackass who was simply asking a question.

Third suggestion: Take this Jackassery Award of the Day and shove it up your own ass.  Maybe it will make you cringe enough to disable you from typing any more replies.  Everyone else can thank me later.

Jackassery!

Jackassery Award of the Day, vol. 2

I love my iPhone.  I have many apps that I find very useful.  Some entertaining.  Not because of the games, rather the potential of jackassery.

For example, I have the USA Today app.  USA Today pulled a classic “I fubarred the headline” move today:

Notice the headline says “Underdog Kris Allen emerges as new ‘American Idol’ champ”, and then right below it, you get the spoiler alert “Don’t read until you’ve watched”.

Um, you already spoiled it.  Good thing I am not an American Idol fan.  I’d be pissed if I was.  However, I am not a fan, so I just get a chuckle out it.

USA Today, you get the Jackassery Award of the Day.  Congratulations.

A new kind of floss…

Only in America will we try to encourage a healthy habit by associating it to a fat-filled, grease-dripping, heart attack enducing goodness that is… you guess it… bacon.

Without further ado, I present to you (a very crappy picture) “BACON FLOSS”:

Genius of Website Diagrams

Note: If you are not a Business Analyst or Developer, you will not appreciate this post.  If you are not one of these, just close the window or read another post.

Today I’m sitting at work, updating a functional requirements document, when I notice I need to update a site diagram.

Knowing this, I right-click and validate my assumption the diagram is an embedded Visio document.  I choose Visio Object –> Edit.

The diagram opens in Visio and I locate the section I need to update.

Wait, what’s this?  This wasn’t built in Visio at all!  The original author of this damn thing took a screenshot of someone else’s site diagram and pasted it into Visio!

WTF!  Why in the hell would you do this?!  Freakin’ jackassery!  Now I have to rebuild this whole site diagram because you, whoever you are, were a lazy bum.

Was this information helpful?

It really is a wonder how Microsoft stays in business sometimes.  Especially when  ”intuitive” error messages  such as this one appear in one of the most popular and widely used programs worldwide:

 

 

 

 

 

Did you really just ask me “was this information helpful?

Situations like this remind me of one of the best Futurama quotes, of which I believe Microsoft lives by:

“Our policy is that if you are unhappy for any reason, I hate you”.

Jackasses.