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musings of mark since 2001

   Well, lots to blog about now as life takes another turn and it’s job hunting time for me once more. Found out yesterday the pharmacy was sold back to the previous owner and then today that the he would be replacing some staff, mainly me by himself. Not sure how many or if any others are losing their jobs, suspect I’m the only one though. I thought it was rather odd, or even rude that the new/old owner wouldn’t sack me in person but chose to do it over the phone. Never really got any feeling of respect from him at the start from the first time I met him almost a year ago when he originally sold the place, so just as well I’m not working there anyways.
   The rest of the staff should be thrilled though, because in their eyes “things will go back to the way it was before” it was sold a year ago. Too bad people never learn that you can never go home again but they keep on trying, oh well. The sale doesn’t finalize until the end of February so there’s a few weeks to go there for me, should be interesting to say the least
   Silver cloud to this one maybe is that I can drum up enough web business to meet the rent for April and then on to May. A good impetus to get some more clients on the go when it’s the difference between sleeping in the rough or not, but it may well be naught as my entrepreneurial drive has always been practically zero. It’s always about the work for me and not the money, but they say that should be a good thing so keeping my chin up and eyes open.

   Although I don’t care to live there and abhor its’ politics and policies, the U.S. economy greatly affects not only our country but the whole world. Following the IMF’s dire warning about the direction the deficit is heading in that country, comes this graph from Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation who insures the pension plans of corporations. They’ve been playing the stock market, and with all the record numbers of the past two years of corporate failures it’s put them deeply in the red, almost triple from the record low they had last year ($3.6 Billion, yes that’s a big “B”), since the inception of the agency to $11.2 Billion. That’s just one years growth in deficits, the nations’ deficits as a whole is rising even faster while consumer bankruptcies are also at record highs. Something has to break eventually, and it’s going to be the backs of all the middle class when they find out there isn’t any pension for them and the budget surplus and treasury was looted when the present administration played dirty to come to power and the world expects them to pay for their excesses. Only they won’t be able to do anything about it because the Constitution for the masses started to get ripped to shreds back in 1910 by the bankers of the day and the job is pretty much finished with the Patriot Act I and II. People are starting to wake up though thanks to the Internet and blogging, but the majority are still numbed by the drivel that passes for news on FOX and CNN et al.

   The rain has finally stopped for an hour or two, and except for a couple cold nights possible in February the cold part of winter is over in these parts and the hummingbirds will have survived. Been having fun installing a new tape back-up drive for an island company, one of those custom installations where when you phone tech support they tell you that their Unix box has problems with assigning I/O to the suggested IBM default that you have chosen, and that’s why it’s not working. A second trip to move the jumpers to another I/O and everything works hunky dory so happy campers all around. Now if I could just get my own CD burner on this box here at home to start working again….

   The snow just keeps on coming, weather people say that another dump is due sometime during the night so it’s a walk to work for me tomorrow, I need the exercise anyways
   Turns out there is not one, but a pair of hummingbirds trying to make it through the winter and they are still hanging in there. Broke my feeder yesterday bringing it inside to thaw out, the frozen plastic was brittle as candy glass and shattered when I picked it up. Lucky there’s another one on the other side of the house that I put some fresh nectar in and it’s now where mine was. Amazing those two little guys are making it, there can’t be many insects around for them to eat so not sure what they are surviving on besides my sugar water and all the web sites I’ve looked at don’t recommend any other type of feed for them. Hmm, maybe a Google on hummingbirds+winter+feed… off I go surfing!
   Bingo! Dr. Reed Hainsworth and Dr. Larry Wolf are Professors of Biology at Syracuse University in New York. They have been studying hummingbird physiology and ecology for 25 years in the United States and tropical America. And they have some of their findings online at: http://www.hummingbirds.net/hainsworth.html, from the sounds of it giving them a healthy dose of nectar each day just might get them through it, stay tuned!

   Seems we’ve lost a second somewhere along the way: NIST Tech Beat – December 19, 2003