The President’s speech to school kids was fantastic… though probably boring to the older kids.

The hatriots did their best to demonize President Obama.  I hope sane people remember the ludicrous charges flung by the right, and recognize how little anything the racist/right says is based in any truth. Meanwhile, the President was asked about growing up without a father, from a kid whose parents divorced.

He’s not a demon, he’s a man doing the best he can despite the interference from the illiterates who (predictably) kept their kids out of school.

The beach – at last. Ahhhhh!

I saw two movies yesterday. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince & a wonderful film titled Moon.

Potter was much better than I expected! In fact I really enjoyed it. By now people should know that the movies don’t follow the books exactly but they do follow them faithfully. I’d recommend that you see it!

Moon, is a film that you won’t find often at the multiplex but is definitely worth tracking down. Watch the preview… You’ll see what I mean.

This post is also a test of publishing from the iPhone. It could make it easier to post on the run.

New Jersey!

There was a car show too!

I have not mentioned here, that for Christmas, I received an iPhone 3G from my wife.  Now, I have never lusted for an iPhone 3G nor even mentioned it to her.  It just seemed to me to be another electronic gadget, but I’ve had it almost two months now, and you’d have to forcibly prior it from my hands.

front screen of iPhone

What makes the iPhone so good, is not only the tight integration of the programs that come

Some of my iPhone apps

installed but apps you can get that add to its usefulness. Many are free or 99 cents. Now I won’t go anywhere without it.  Right now, one of my favorites is Flixster, for finding movies.  But, my favorite is something called Koi Pond.

The purpose of Koi Pond is, well,… it doesn’t have a purpose.  Perhaps that’s why I like it.  The stereo sound of the thunder is fantastic.

access-a-ride van

Access-A-Ride (AAR), is a service available in New York City for people who have disabilities. My lack of possession of even one kidney qualifies me for the service,… not to mention my cardiac problems. If you were to see me on the street, you would probably not perceive anything as wrong, but a little over a year ago, I passed out after getting off the bus after dialysis. The result of passing out was getting a couple of front broken teeth and a number of stitches to my chin. It was after that incident that I decided to try and get AAR.

Since I qualified, it has become a blessing and a nightmare. AAR is not like waiting for a friend to pick you up to take you to doctors’ appointments, but it’s less expensive than a cab ride. At present I have a standard subscription for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to be picked up at 4:29pm (yep, you read it right) to deliver me to my dialysis treatment facility for my 5:30pm appointment. The dialysis center is approximately a half hour away, if traffic is good. The client (that’s me) is to be outside and waiting for the bus (or if you’re lucky the car). Most of the time it is a bus. You are supposed to wait for at least thirty minutes. If the driver doesn’t show, you can call AAR and they will investigate where the driver is, and how long before he/she will arrive. Now you can see, if I wait one half hour to call AAR, and then they tell me (after being on hold for usually 15 minutes) that the driver will be there in another 10 minutes, I am going to be late. Even if the bus were to arrive at the precise moment I’m making the call.

Tapping my foot, I wait, trying to be patient.

I listen to my iPod.

I’ve designed a strategy of calling with AAR before half an hour. By time I actually get through to a person, ten to fifteen minutes have passed and my total wait time has been over half an hour. You see, if the driver is over half an hour late, I can request authorization for car service and get reimbursed. Whereas, AAR costs $2.00, car service is about $15.00. So, they will get me there within the allotted time, but if I get there much later than my scheduled time, the dialysis center will have to cut my time on the machine short, because the center closes at 10:30 pm.
This last wait, however, they gave me a hard time.

me: May I have an authorization code please, since the driver is over a half hour late, and I’m going to be late for my scheduled appointment?

AAR: Just a moment.
3 minutes pass

AAR: My supervisor says that since the driver will be there in 7 minutes, she will not give you an authorization code.

me: Are you kidding? May I have your name, and your supervisor’s name?

AAR: Just a moment.
5 minutes pass

AAR: Do you want to call back for the authorization or do you want it now?

me: I want it now!

Meanwhile. Thanks mayor Mike for looking out for all the citizens.

You have to understand. This is not a mainstream blog. I get one or two visitors a day, and on good days, I get maybe five. So, I was baffled when I went to StatCounter and discovered that over 120 people visited my blog and they all went to the same page. By time the surge ended (it ran from the 18th to 19th), I had 198 page views which boiled down to 152 unique visitors.

I have no idea why that page is so popular. Also of interest is that so many visits came from Europe and especially the U.K.. A number were multiple visits. My first thought was that possibly my sight was being used as some type of portal but considering how aware I am of setting up security protections, that seems far off. No, it seems that I chose a picture of dogs that is pretty popular, because most of the searches came from Google images.

Well, today is my birthday. It is one of those decade markers. I don’t really feel that old, but when I look back, I sure have had a lot of experiences.

Anyway, I don’t really feel like celebrating it. I’m not depressed or anything, it just feels like just another day to me. I’m really happy I”ve made it this far, especially considering all the medical stuff I’ve been through the last couple of years.

Thanks to ramblintadpole for the image. I’m not that old though.

I thought I was just being cranky when I seemed to notice more dog elimination on sidewalks and in the parks in my neighborhood. But it wasn’t all in my head according to the New York Daily News:

The number of dog owners getting nipped with summonses for not scooping their pooch’s poop more than doubled this year as part of a citywide crackdown on the nasty behavior.

“Clean up after your dog or we are going to get you,” warned Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty.

From another article written in April in the Daily News about being environmentally friendly with out pets, this scary information is revealed:

…pet waste left on the ground is a significant contributing factor to the spread of a host of diseases, including parvo virus, giardia, salmonella and E. coli bacteria. It can also flow untreated into the water supply. Not to mention that it’s gross and pollutes the parks and sidewalks.

It’s always a drag to discover the dogs’ calling cards just as your foot encounters it. I don’t just want to complain, so if you follow the link to that second article, there are lots of solutions. There, I feel better.

I’ve been considering the possibility of migrating this blog to a different service. Typepad has been really good to me, but I think I’ve outgrown it. I’d like to have more control over the blog’s innards. I’ve been on TypePad for years, but a couple of years ago I decided to play with WordPress.

If you check my archives, you’ll see this is not a quick decision. I’ve been considering it since 2005. It seems I always think about this topic at this time of year. Do a search for WordPress over on the right to see how long I’ve been thinking about it.

There are two (actually three) types of WordPress. The WordPress I talk about, is WordPress.org. It’s a free download, but requires that you have a host for the files, and you must install it. The other is WordPress.com. This is also free, but it’s like Typepad in that you have a lot less control over things. No download necessary,… takes less than five minutes to get a blog. The third WordPress is a multiple users version and is generally used by big companies like the New York Times (blogs).

All of this is to say, that I will definitely be moving the blog over to WordPress, but before I quit Typepad, I’ll need to find out how to move my Typepad Photos blog.

I don’t think I mentioned my hosting service, which has been really fantastic. They have been so good, that I have one of their tags at the bottom of my whispers blog. They’re called HostM.

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