text:
Uncle Ted....
From my friend Kathy.....a reminder:
A Message on Ted Kennedy to Conservatives Who Hated Him (Mostly Profanity-Free for the Kiddies):
Let's just get this right:
Do you like your state and not the federal government controlling the curriculum of your kids' schools? Thank Ted Kennedy.
Do you like being able to vote starting at age 18? Thank Ted Kennedy.
Do you think low-income people should get help with heating their homes in the winter? Thank the man.
Do you think the federal government should fund cancer research? Yep.
Do you believe that Meals on Wheels is a good thing? Ditto.
Does your daughter (or you, if you're female) like playing soccer or basketball or softball at school? That'd be because of Ted Kennedy.
Do you think that disabled people should be able to go to school? Have access to buildings? Not be discriminated against for housing and loads of other things? Kennedy, big time.
You like your cheap airfares? You know the answer.
You think people on welfare oughta get jobs? So did Kennedy.
You think mental institutions should treat people humanely? Yeah, so did your new friend, Ted Kennedy.
You believe that the Defense Department should provide child care for the kids of soldiers? Kennedy did.
You think a woman shouldn't lose her job if she gets pregnant?
You think 100,000 more cops on the street's a good idea?
You think poor kids should have health care?
You think soldiers in Iraq should have the proper armor?
Just tick those things off the list. Some of them would have been accomplished without him; many would not have been.
And Ted Kennedy did more for real, actual democracy than almost anyone else in our entire history as a nation.
More on that tomorrow in a real tribute.
(By the way, perhaps we now know why Barack Obama was trying to get health care reform done quickly.)
posted by Rude One @ 9:39 AM| DiggIt!| Del.icio.us|
posted by Txacoli at 11:48 PM 1 comments
The Best and Brightest.....
A few years ago....a Forbes Magazine worker assigned to ferret out America's "Best and Brightest" would have probably have been slavering over a fairly recent Harvard grad working in technical parts of a private equity firm....walking point on America's financial patrol of the world markets.
I am a chef guy...with forty years working in hot, sharp and dangerous dungeons where all decisions are instantaneous....and all judgments are permanent. Our loyalties in the kitchens of the world are to each other...and we band together even as we watch the forces of the outside world pick us off one by one and assign us to the void of......
The forces that kill us are familiar to all: drugs, alcohol, stress, money, politics, love, jealousy....each and all combining in lethal combinations....
I spend a lot of time with creative folk, and seriously successful folk...and I find the differences to be mostly accidental and genetic.
Still...in the kitchens and dining rooms there are very rarely entire classes of people actually trying to kill us.
I am continually amazed at America's total support for war as an instrument of public and foreign policy....and a complete and total disregard for the agents who wield that instrument....our soldiers, sailors and airmen.
We see this same attitude in kitchens and dining rooms. Random rich fucks appear constantly and expect their own personal culinary fantasies to appear unbidden....and are willing to punish anyone who fails to produce them...and are clinically unable to reward those who actually fulfill the impossible dream they have conjured up.
But rarely does anyone shoot at cooks......
Charles Schultz was a client. Every waiter of a certain age remembers a comic strip where Lucy is approaching Snoopy's doghouse.
"Snoopy....I love you, and I have for you that which every dog dreams of."
Snoopy snaps to attention, dreaming of Chateaubriand and center-cut pork chops....
"The ultimate expression of love......"
Snoopy is wide awake and all about it as Lucy approaches.....
"A pat on the head......"
Pat. Pat. Pat.
In the real world it doesn't work out like that.
Our bridges and overpasses have been stuffed with Vietnam vets for 40 years who could not deal with the transition from being the center point of American policy to being part of the re-cycle.
Our new millenium warfare has become infinitely more efficient....and has chewed up and generated an order of magnitude more potential bridge and overpass dwellers.
Fair enough. Fuck you. You couldn't get into Harvard? Enjoy your bridge.
What is awful, horrible and revolting is that our modern discarded warriors are no longer opting for the whole bridge and overpass life-style...they are just cutting the crap and just killing themselves after fulfilling their obligations to our nation and our nation's foreign policy.
Suicide rates have ballooned past anything even contemplated in the Vietnam era. 2008 was a banner year....way beyond anything experienced in the American military in its history.
2009 blew past the 2008 mark six weeks ago. In seven months we obliterated the previous 12 month record that dominated anything experienced by our troops in the 225 year history of our Republic.
Official policy has lagged decades behind reality. George Bush was a dumbfuck who was concerned....but lacked the technical and organizational ability to help. And his corrupt friends had already stolen all the money anyway.....
Obama can intellectually feel the pain, and is not a dumbfuck.....but his people somehow know better than those little people out there. They are so much smarter than all of us....that they don't need our input.
So....it all percolates back down to the local level......
Generals and Admirals posture and strut....
Staff Seargents and Captains....and the occasional enlightened Colonel..... run the actual world.
Here are 9 PTSD guys.....lives turned upside down after committed service to their country....who found themselves walked into a corner whose only escape seemed to be a short trip with a heavy bullet or a giant mouthful of pills......
I submit to you that the people running this story......
Climbing Mt. Whitney.......Highest peak in the Lower 48........
With our un-recognized wounded........Getting all nine guys up to the peak and back......
Our folks at Paradox Sports.......
Are our best and brightest......Far and away.
Maybe it is time to get them off the battlefield.......
Check it out.......here.
Yes.....one of our returning disabled officers from Iraq does climb Mt. Whitney in a Chicken Suit.
Where there is Life....there is Hope.....
Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine.....
So....here is a story of probably no interest to anyone.......
I am a famous test-taker. For some weird idiot-savant type reason, I score well on any kind of test. It may be related to my upbringing in the Anaheim School District under the evil Max Rafferty. Max turned me and thirty of my classmates into proto Uber-Youth back in the 50's by fast-tracking 5th graders into calculus, ceramics, publishing...and godforbid.....even learning Spanish and Latin. Of course, I had to test well to get into the class.....
The testing thing is so absurd that I once took a Hebrew Advanced Placement test.....and scored well. At the time I did not know that Hebrew is read upside down and backwards. I did better in Hebrew than my brother Rob did in actual math. Go figure.
In high school in New Jersey I took the National Merit Scholar test....and fell 20 questions short of finishing. So....I just guessed at the remaining answers. And got one of the highest scores in the country. Whatever.
On the test, there was a box to check if you were interested in a Telluride Foundation Scholarship. I checked the box.
I wound up failing miserably at the scholarship competition because you actually had to write things, not just mark boxes. Still, Telluride House was at Cornell University. Cornell got a copy of my test scores and sent me a postcard when I was a junior, accepting me to the University.
It turned out that my lunatic best friend from high school had similar scores.....and was similarly drafted. We were inivited up for a weekend, turned over to fraternity guides, encouraged to drink ourselves into insensibility....and we were hooked. We never looked back.
This whole testing thing was big in the 50's and 60's. Cornell had embraced the trend and placed the best testers all in one dorm in their newly constructed University Halls. The practice was eventually abandoned, probably after our year there. See, no one was testing for maturity....and things got really ugly.
Still, there was some history to the project....however short. The U-Halls had been built in 1953....and Peter and I arrived in 1967. Some of our fellow SuperDorm residents were the character in the Life Magazine story who tried to have sex with a Coke machine under the then completely legal influence of LSD.....and a famous rebel and rabble-rouser named Richard Farina.
In the course of several administrative hearings about our poor conduct it was revealed to Peter and I that we were the direct geographic descendents of this Farina person, who had occupied our room twelve years earlier. It was not a positive reference, so we instantly took on Farina as a patron saint of rebellion and misbehavior.
We were not completely off base. Like us, Farina started as an Engineer. He quickly switched to English, which never occurred to me. Richard was a ladies' man and was part and parcel of one of the first great student uprisings....the Collegetown Riots. He and his buddies were upset at college rules that forbade women and men from gathering together even in off-campus housing without supervision.
Richard was expelled, said "Fuck you" and followed the bohemian road to Greenwich Village, then to Ireland and France. He met and became friends with Bob Dylan and Tommy Makem in the Village. He flirted with the IRA in the early 60's....and soon met Mimi Baez in Paris. Mimi was 16, not even close to legal in the US at the time. They built and played their own dulcimers and recorded sweet ringing folk music. They married in 1963, when Mimi was 17. They had one moderate hit: "Pack Up Your Sorrows"...written by Richard and Mimi's sister Pauline. To me it is one of the top two or three folk songs ever written.
Meanwhile Richard finished his novel about his Cornell years: "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me". It was a breakthrough novel. Richard's friend and fellow Cornell failed Engineer, Thomas Pynchon called it: "like the Hallelujah Chorus done by 200 kazoo players with perfect pitch....hilarious, chilling, sexy, profound, maniacal beautiful and outrageous all at the same time." Pynchon dedicated "Gravity's Rainbow" to Richard....which is all you need to know about his continuing literary influence.
Peter and I discovered "Been Down So Long...." took it as a field manual for Cornell life. We had already experienced a lot of it: Ma Snyder's creepy motel where you could take dates....with the toilet in the middle of the room; Ithaca's gorges...and it's crazy mix of crushing winters and glorious springs that matched the miserable depression and constant brilliance of the lunatics that we found ourself surrounded by.
One of Richard's more amusing and poignant episodes I have adopted a few times: at one point his main character has a brutal, killing hangover. His friends call a priest to administer last rites. The ashes, the annointing with holy oil.......
Been there....done that. Sorry, Lord. But, hey.....it works!
Eventually, I too was tossed from Cornell. I too fell in love with a 17 year old and ran off to Europe with her and lived like bandits in Ireland and France with just our motorcycle to get us around. There were no dulcimers, no Bob Dylan, no magical folksongs.....and no novel.
"Yet knowing how way leads on to way......."
Jane and I found ourselves in Telluride.....running a restaurant that looked up at the world's first AC power line...that had led to the money that led to the founding of Telluride House at Cornell.
And eventually found ourselves in Carmel Valley Village. We lived on Flight Road, just up from the Running Iron, and across the street from a little house where a lawyer friend had his practice. We had our little catering company and a crew locals from Cachagua would drop by and trade this and that for this and that. Gene and Claire. Peyton and Pauline. The kids.....Dianna and Pearl. Tommy Nason. Smoky Joe Ortman. Tom O'Neal.
I still had my motorcycle from Europe....a Dunstall Norton cafe racer. Zero to 60 in 3.9 seconds. Less than 4,000 miles and two major crashes. When by Norton buddies came to town we would race from the Village to Cachagua Road and back....taking great joy in getting air by clearing the center of the S turn by The Bucket in the air at 90 mph.
One day, I felt a whisper of cold on my neck as I landed the Norton on the far side of the S and hit some sand just before The Bucket. Brendan was 18 months.....I parked the bike in the garage so I could live to see him graduate from high school.
Long story short: Richard Farina published his book in April of 1966. He was visiting his sister-in-law Pauline in Carmel Valley and they had the book party at the Thunderbird bookstore.....the little house across from the Running Iron that is now a day spa.
It was Mimi's 21st birthday as well. Mimi was miffed that Richard had not gotten her a present, and they quarreled. Richard wanted some pot, and a friend of Pauline's had a connection...and a motorcycle.
They took off at 90 mph, heading for Los Tulares. They didn't make the S turn. The bike crashed, and Richard went through the fence where the vineyard is now.
The Valley Volunteers responded. Joe Ortman was the EMT. Richard died in his arms.
When Mimi got home days later, she found the wilted flowers that Richard had had delivered for her on her birthday.
Fast forward 35 years.
It is July, 2001. A Thursday. My brother, Rob has just left after a visit and returned to New York City. Rob is dying of lung cancer and not eating....and I am trying to think about how to arrange my schedule so I can go to New York and cook for him, because he will always eat my cooking.
KPIG is on the radio......the reception gets better as I pass The Bucket.
Pack Up Your Sorrows is playing:
No use crying, talkin to a stranger
Naming the sorrow you've seen
Too many sad times, too many bad times
Nobody knows what you mean
But if somehow you could pack up your sorrows
And give them all to me
You would lose them, I know how to use them
Give them all to me.....
Yeah, no shit.....
If somehow.....
The hairs rise on my neck as I pass the vineyard.....
As I pass the old Thunderbird, Arden on KPIG says....
"We just got word that Mimi Farina has died of cancer at her home........."
You would lose them......
Fast forward another eight years.
Thomas Pynchon has a new novel. I order three copies: one to wrap and save; one to read in the bath tub; one for Peyton.
Peyton (and Pauline) and I are members of the Upper Carmel Valley Light Reading and General Soporific Society. We read good trashy novels. Luckily we have enough favorite authors that theree is usually a bright light in any given month. We all agree that real literature is often too much of a load. We are Robert Crais, James Lee Burke, Michael Connelly, Lee Child, John Sanford folk. Annie Proulx is our step above.
Each of us is almost ashamed to deny that a beautiful afternoon spent alone on the couch with a great book.....or alone and unbothered in a restaurant with a great book....is all we really want from life anymore.
Did I mention that Peyton and Pauline attended Thomas Pynchon's wedding? Or that Pynchon was best man at Richard and Mimi's wedding?
It is Monday Night, and I know Peyton and Pauline will be in, so I have the book all wrapped up waiting on their table.
Monday Nights at 6pm are the most stressful moment of the week. Still, when Peyton and Pauline come in, we are taken a step down....reality check. We do this for our friends. This is our one chance in a week to use our skills to make our friends happy.
Deep breath. It will all be fine.
Peyton waylays me in the office with a paperback.
"I was looking through the old stuff for something to read and thought I would try this one again."
Lord Jim. Joseph Conrad.
Jesus. Real literature. God, Peyton.
"Then I thought you might like it......"
I open the cover of the very old but very good shape paperback.
In small script on the first page inside the cover:
"R. Farina, Cookstown, N. Ireland, 1962"
Some town people at 6pm, waiting for their menus as I walk past heading for the garden.....
"Isn't that the chef? Why is he crying? Is everything OK?"
It looks like Up to me........
Ummm.....I have been slayed by allergies for three days, flat on my back whenever possible.
And, since there is a God....and she has this awful sense of humor....it was on the day of our great Deep Carmel Valley Hike at Hastings.
Mark was awesome....as always. I went home and slept for 14 hours.
Barely made it through today.
Almost walked from the job tonight. Busiest week of the year.
Poor me.
Then, I come home and talk to my friend....who has to drive to Camp Pendleton tomorrow at 5am for two suicide interventions, asked for by name.
Out in the ozone, when folks are grasping for straws...and actually want to stay here, my friend's name comes up.
His success rate is 50%.
I tried to tell him to think of baseball, not golf.
.500 in baseball puts you in the Hall of Fame.
"Yeah, but.....half of the guys.....
"Die......"
Trying to be the Tiger Woods of suicide.......
Catering looks easy...
And insignificant.
No....Catering IS easy.....
Hanging with the Danes......
My brain is exploding.....
I spent the afternoon and evening absorbing aspects of our Afghan policy direct from various horses' mouths.
My friend Col. Dan just returned from Afghanistan. His assignment was to use his "cultural acuity" to assess the situation, and the viability of any hope of success in our mission there.
The powers that be gave him 60 days to do this.
As a very smart guy....a Hoover Institute Fellow.....he first did a deep self-analysis of the term "cultural acuity".
Upon arrival in Kabul, he immediately ran into a shitstorm of whatever the opposite of "cultural acuity" is.
Afghanistan is a monumental vortex of clashing bureaucracies: NATO, the UN, the US State Department, the US military......plus the Italians, the Brits, the Germans, the Danes, etc.
Oh, yeah. There are apparently pesky Afghans as well. And, of course.....Afghans come in all stripes and flavors....many of which compete and clash in the same person from day to day.
In fact....Col. Dan's first message was this: Afghans are geographically, religiously, genetically, socially, and economically all tossed in a blender.
And Col. Dan is supposed to make sense of 4,000 years of hatred, violence and religious frenzy....and give a report in 60 days?
Wow....catering is not so hard, after all. I thought working 20 hour days, six days a week at age 60 qualified me for some kind of hall of fame.
I am a geography and politics geek....I read the NY Times, and the Economist, and the Guardian, and some Spanish newspapers....because I am a compulsive reader. I was fascinated by some of the things I learned today....which are probably completely boring to anyone else.
The DLI does not just train dumbass incoming E-9's to speak various languages in preparation for years of flying around in big jets listening to Pakistani radio. DLI is part of our intelligence and diplomatic operations and many of the students there are colonels and majors and captains. DLI trains one species of operative called an FAO....foreign area officer or operative, pronounced Fay-O. These linguistic, cultural and military liasons who wind up placed in strategic spots in the military and diplomatic bureaucracy.
The commander of the DLI is a woman.....a foreign service expert who spent 14 years living in all parts of Africa and was tapped by the Clinton's to go to West Point as an instructor. The was abracadbra'd as a Captain for her West Point posting....and is now a highly respected Colonel. She is the kind of modern military person who would rather understand, convince and coopt our various foreign friends and foes....rather than bomb them back to the Stone Age.
At least at first.
There are also something called "48's"....which are straight up military diplomats. These are divided into six groups based on the geography of their specialty. Charlie48's are Middle East guys. Delta48's are South American guys. Foxtrot48's are Chinese experts.
We have lots of super-smart Charlie-48's deployed in Afghanistan. And the odd Baker-48. And one Delta-48.
This all sounds good, until you think about the geography. Afghanistan is not actually IN the Middle East. Afghans are in Central Asia. The languages, culture, climate, geography, economics, politics and religions are not even close to what goes on in the actual Middle East....so it is some kind of conceit on our part to stock Afghanistan with Charlie-48's just because there is Allah and sand involved.
And the Delta-48 guy they brought in from Colombia to advise about the drug trade? Not quite the same thing with the coca guys in jungle as with the poppy guys in the desert mountains of Central Asia.
Col. Dan's take on the situation in Afghanistan was held pretty close to the vest. It is "pre-decisional", meaning that the decisions based on his study have not yet been made....so if he told us what he concluded he would have to kill us.
Still, he did share various observations.
Hardcore, solid government guys are tied to tribal weirdos who run heroin, but are great on security. Whack-job heroin guys have awesome armies and political control of large areas and are religiously stable. Fucked up, whack-job Muslim extremist heroin smugglers can be dealt with rationally. Other religious extremists hate the poppy thing, hate the Taliban thing, have control of large parts of the country.....but hate the corrupt fuckers we put in power in Kabul. Then, there are still actual communists.....who hate the poppy, hate Islam, hate the US.....but not so much that they are not willing to make a deal, for a while.
The government in Kabul is very weak, and virtually useless outside Kabul itself. We run the risk of losing our credibility by supporting such obvious losers...but we still have to support them somewhat because they are all we have.
The people of Afghanistan are exhausted by 30 plus years of war and destruction....and, in principle, welcome our aid and help. What they really want is some sense of security and stability....They would much rather live under the guarantee of horrible, draconian religious tyrants who are at least always horrible, always draconian, and always tyranical....rather than bounce around in the economic, political and military void our bumbling policies bring them, however well-intentioned and well-meaning.
If you think this is weird.....just drive down I-5 and listen to AM radio. All you get is Rush, Jesus, hell-fire, and screaming fear of Jews, niggers, socialists, Clintons and Kennedys. The Taliban should get into the Jesus franchise. Redneck Republicans would love to be able to beat their wives, wrap them in burlap from head to toe, and let the local preacher tell them how to act and how to vote. Like they aren't already.
Plus....who do you think is doing all the heroin the Taliban is producing? From where I sit, it is all the out of work plumbers, electricians and carpenters who voted for George Bush, along with their children and relatives. The Talib's are missing a great marketing opportunity. What they need is a Muslim Harvard grad to get into politics and help steer their marketing program.
Anyway, our guy did a good job. He is very smart and intuitive. The fact that the new commanding general in Afghanistan had the insight to send in an auditor of the systemic cultural acuity is a good thing.
Until you reflect a moment about the time-line.
We have been in Afghanistan for eight years, billions of dollars and a thousand dead soldiers, sailors and Marines.
Someone just thought of this?
Wait....it gets worse.
One of the questions asked of Col. Dan was from a Marine who was at DLI to learn Pashtu, one of the many tribal languages of Afghanistan. His question involved the politics and bureaucracy of the different language groups. Turns out that Pashto is not the national language of Afghanistan, so our policy is that speakers and students of Pashto cannot rise to the same level (Charlie-48, FAO) as speakers of Dari.
In the room of a hundred or so FAO's and future FAO's listening to Col. Dan were a bunch of folks in different digital camos....more blues and greens. I could not help but notice that some of the different camo folks were very female, and very hot. Then I noticed the little Danish flag on the sleeve of their uniforms.
Duh. Someone point me to an ugly Danish woman. There must be one or two....but the small local sampling of even their military trends against.
At the beer blast after the briefing I somehow found myself chatting with the supermodel Danish camo lieutenant. Imagine your surprise.
Lt. Alexandra turns out to be a Pashto speaker who has been training in Pashto for a year at DLI and was about to ship out back to Denmark.
As a non-military, moderately well-informed citizen and fan of Jeopardy I knew that Pashto speakers in Afghanistan come from Helmand province, in the south west on the Pakistan border. Helmand province is where all the poppies are grown.....or most of them. It is also where the Taliban has the most influence and control. The Brits and the Danes have been fighting a brutal war there. The Brits are under-supplied by their anti-military Labor government and have been losing scores of soldiers to roadside bombs because they lack helicopters. When their commander moves around Helmand, he has to borrow a US chopper. Embarrassing.
The agriculture and therefore much of the money in Helmand is controlled by a big central canal. For years, the NATO strategy was to liberate a town or village from the Taliban and move on. Of course, the Talibs would move right back in on Day Two. New policy is to fight, hold and keep territory. The Brits have been fighting for a year on one section of the canal, and advanced less than two kilometers. The Danes have one battalion (700-800 men) and have been involved in some of the heaviest fighting.
I was chatting with Lt. Alexandra about her next job....commanding all the Pashto speakers and translators in the Danish Army when Mr. Marine butted in. The guy that asked the question about Pashto speakers to Col Dan.
"So, you are studying Pashto, huh. I am about to start."
"Great. Good luck with your studies."
"When do you deploy to Afghanistan?"
"Wednesday."
"To where are you deploying?"
"Uh....Helmand Province."
"Really? Where is that?"
Jesus wept. One of our incoming Marine officer trainee's learning Pashto does not know that: 1) Pashto is spoken in Helmand; 2) our actual Marines are deployed to and fighting and dying in droves in Helmand; 3) the Danes have been there for years; 4) the different camo and the little red flag with the white cross on her shoulder means that Lt. Alexandra is a Dane.
I know this.....and I am the cook at a shitty restaurant in the middle of nowhere in the Santa Lucia Mountains.....and no one has handed be a rifle in many years.
DJ and I instantly kidnapped Lt. Alexandra and took her to Stoke's for champagne and Monterey's best pizza....and some gentle interrogation.
Alex joined the Danish Army out of high school because they had a much better language program than the Danish universities. After basic studies and ten month's training she became a Sargent....and applied to the Danish DLI.
These guys receive 3,000 applicants....and take 30 students in. Alex studied Arabic for two years.....so that she now had Danish, English, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish....and enough Spanish and French to get by. Typical Danish high school grad.
After a tour in Iraq, Alex was assigned to DLI. Her year spent with Pashto, she was deploying to Afghanistan to run the Danish Army's Pashto interpreters: Danish speakers of Pashto, Afghan immigrants to Denmark who were ex-pat native speakers, plus the local volunteers in Helmand. The Danes have at least one Danish officer speaker of Pashto per platoon, plus the Dane/Afghans, plus the natives.
Alex gets promoted to Captain for the job....and well she should be.
Alex talks about the importance of not just learning the words, but the local culture: "Pashto has 100 words for mud.....and 100 words for sheep. If you memorize 99 words for each, and you are talking to a villager who is talking about a sheep stuck in the mud...and it is the one word you don't know....your mission is a failure."
Alex is defensive about the Danish role in the confict: "Everyone makes fun of the Danes....but we are holding our territory and making a difference. We are not a mighty military with big guns and tanks and aircraft. We have to work with other skills. After all the ultimate object of war is peace. It doesn't matter in the end how you achieve it....right?"
No offense.....but our Army cannot compete with the Danes. Many, many of the soldiers...and even many of the command officers have the vision....but the institutional inertia is immense. I wonder what Col Dan's recommendations will be.
Oh, yeah.
Alex will be 23 in November.
Gay Scientists Isolate Christian Gene
posted by Txacoli at 11:59 AM 1 comments
Corruption...
I am amazed to watch the destruction of health care reform take place before my eyes. I watched the Chicago cops brutalize actual democratic demonstrators forty years ago and was equally amazed. I was so staggered by the serial assassinations of our best and brightest politicians and religious leaders forty years ago that I left the country......
Luckily, out of country.....I learned a new trade.
Now, watching big industry destroy any hope of my company, my family and my workers ever having any kind of reasonable chance at any acess whatsoever to any kind of health care....even that available to tribal Africans in the middle of war zones in the middle of the most desolate and backwards part of the planet.....I am lining up my options.
Luckily, my grandmother had the good sense to be born in a backward, third world country....not to mention my grandfather.
Grandma was a scholar. Her college poetry teacher was shot against a wall in a prison in south Dublin....400 meters from her classroom....for advocating the kind of freedoms we all take for granted and willing cede away. Grandma voted with her feet, married a writer/gambler/horses guy and emigrated to Redondo Beach to live the new life in the New World.
Grandpa Jack meanwhile got kicked out of his upscale Irish family for his penchant for gambling...and probably his penchant for speaking truth to power. He started a labor newspaper in Terminal Island amongst the Irish sailors and workers.....and got a beating for his trouble. The ruptured intestine, and the drunken doctor who was all Grandma could afford were not enough to keep Jack alive.
Grandma took the Red Trolley from Torrance up to USC every night to finish her degree. She left Uncle Jim to fend for himself in Redondo....and farmed out my mom to the Sacred Heart nuns up in Menlo. Mom rarely saw her family.....she is still kooky about holidays and family.
Grandma finished her degree....and her determination led her to become the first woman principal of a school in LA County.....White Point School in San Pedro, overlooking Terminal Island.
Grandma married a ship's carpenter who worked in the canneries. Grandpa Tom had grown up in the same small town in Ireland as Grandma.....Tom was a carpenter...an union man. The process of progress from apprentice to journeyman to master carpenter actually carried with it physical changes and deformities that eliminated the need for any kind of written union card: hand held wood planes required that the apprentice bent in his little finger to hold the plane steady as he smoothed the giant beams used in shipbuilding. After only a few years, the pinky finger became permanently twisted and bent under and into the palm of the apprentice.
Hence....when Grandpa Tom found himself in America looking for work....all he had to do was hold out his hands, in lieu of CV. The crippling effects of his work were enough to guarantee him entree into the higher levels of his profession: union carpenter.
Chefs and bakers have similar deformities. The skin on your forearms....the ones that moms use to test baby bottles...are especially sensitive, and prone to scarring. My arms look like those of one of those scary tribal Nigerian bus conductors in London.....and I got two new "stripes" on Monday: one under my right arm, one behind my right elbow. No wonder that Vicodin is the State Bird of Caterland.....
Anyway.....how ironic is it that now.....as I watch my health care insurance costs spiral out up beyond my rent....that I realize that it is perhaps time to cash in my genetic and social heritage.
I am a dual citizen. My grandmother's and grandfather's birthplace in Dungarvin guarantee me a passport to the country that millions of my relatives left 150 years ago as being the most brutal, murderous, deadly place on Earth.
Ireland was Darfur in 1846.....probably worse.
Ireland was Chechnya in 1921.....probably worse.
Ireland was Lebanon in 1969.....probably worse.
And now...this destitute, benighted speck of exhausted land and exhausted people has a health care system that makes that of the "Greatest Country on Earth" look like Darfur's.
Slow....hopefully boring fire....
As you can see the fire is moving southeast......into Indian, and Army country......
Knock wood.
Plaskett is in the upper right hand corner of the map. Think Jade Cove.....
posted by Txacoli at 2:28 AM 0 comments
New Big Sur Fire...
Big Sur Kate has the real dope....as always.
Thank God this summer has been so merciful....but we are walking on thin ice. It is so dry that for me smoking salmon is a huge task.....the oak leaves and twigs ignite and burn in the presence of any heat, even in the absence of oxygen. I have a teenager with a mister sitting by the smoker, spraying away.
Rancho Rico is the source of one of the fires.
Rancho Rico is just before the Big Sur Bakery on the right and up the mountain....approximately where Mark Hudson ran over that poor girl last year.
We are hearing reports about a campfire started fire on Naciamento-Ferguson Road at the same time...but there is so far nothing on the thermal imaging satellite.
Naciamento-Ferguson Road is within arrow shot of Big Sur Kate....so if there was some action there we would know.
Love Big Sur Kate....and deferring all lawyer jokes....
And, by the way......Sheriff Kanalakis crashed the Barbara Boxer fundraiser we did in Monterey on Friday. He was super nice and sweet and complimentary to me. Weird and creepy given that whole "Sheriff C......." thing from last summer.
Duh......Election year.
I mentioned our interaction to a couple of his deputies that were hauling off some of the few remaining Cachagua knuckleheads this weekend.
They said: "Duh....Election year." They did not seem stoked with old Sheriff Mike. Morale seems to be not actually high.
I am trying to be as kind as possible....since all these guys monitor this site.
Best take and hilarious ironic joke of the law enforcement year so far in our world:
The official Thomas Brothers Map Book that the Sheriff's Department uses.....lists Jamesberg as "Jonesberg".
Hey...we have only been there six years......Not long enough to have a town named for us.
Not to mention the whole "Jamesberg Ain't Cachagua" thing......
Probably they meant Buddy Jones......the awesome, much mourned and revered bass player and keeper of the World's Best Cheesecake Recipe.
The deputies, when Amanda pointed the hilarity of James vs. Jones out to them....
"No wonder dispatch has no clue what we are talking about when we call in from out here....."
This is the same outfit that dispatched units every day during the fire last year to Nason Road instead of Nason Ranch....where the Incident Command Post actually was.
One of the main knuckleheads hauled off today must remain nameless.....Or let us just call him "Roy". I got in huge trouble with the locals last summer for writing about how a Sheriff SUV bumped down the road past a place where Roy and some other knuckleheads were drinking beer and smoking a fatty. Roy was on probation...so the idea that he would be near beer or marijuana meant instant incarceration.
Meanwhile....no one in Roy's family has been more that two meters from both beer and marijuana for three or four generations......and that is not a bad thing.
The boys.....the modern incarnation of the Boys from Steinbeck and "Cannery Row" and "Tortilla Flats" tried to stop the Deputy from bouncing down an impassable road into certain doom. The Deputy assumed that their warning meant a huge meth lab or vast sensimilla field just around the turn.
He got stuck. And hiked back for help from The Boys.
I have a photo of Roy...behind the wheel of a Monterey County Sheriff SUV....prominently displayed next to the beer taps at The Store.
Sort of like a photo of Osama BL at the helm of a 747......
When our friend Sheyne....the best tree guy in Monterey County....had all the gasoline, oil, and hydraulic fluid syphoned from his rigs left at The Store.....suspicion immediately turned to "Ray".
"No. No. I just steal all the oil, gas and hydraulic fluid from all the County rigs left by the roadside. I would never steal Sheyne's....
The second knucklhead the Sheriffs picked up was "Ort"....
"Ort" is a former complete idiot. A sweet kid who was one of my soccer kids....and subject of one of my favorite soccer stories. No time for that now. Awful family....fell into the meth trap. Was justifiably arrested and jailed when the cops found him passed out on his couch with a two-year old playing with a 9mm or some such. I was the guy that called the cops.....And I still feel good about it.
While in jail...."Ort's wife had sex once with the Guinness World Record Biggest Idiot In The Universe. She thought that you couldn't get pregnant until you had had sex a few times with the same guy. Or something.
"Ort" meanwhile did his time...got out......reconciled with his wife, and fully accepted his new "son". Meanwhile, the kid is awesome somehow. And the couples' real son is beyond awesome. Must be the grandmother's genes. "Ort" is a highly skilled auto mechanic.....and he graduated from the Toyota school, worked at a local Valero successfully and graduated to become head mechanic at a big-time dealership in Salinas.
Auto mechanics are nothing to sneeze at. They get paid by the book.....what you are charged, less the dealer overhead. If the book says changing your carburetor takes three hours...you get charged three hours, and the mechanic gets paid for three hours work at $70 or $80 an hour.
If the mechanic can do the job in fifteen minutes.....he still gets paid for three hours....and you get charged. This is why in the worst job market in recent memory....a Toyota mechanic, or a wheel alignment guy, or a brake guy who knows ABS.....will be making $125k, easy. Sullivan Tires will be fucking Rossi Tires to steal their alignment guy.....
This is where "Ort" landed.
His mother-in-law landed him a sweet deal in a trailer near The Store and life was good.
He was eight days away from finishing his parole and probation.
Someone in the Sheriff's office noticed that he had not completed his Community Service part of his original sentence for being a knucklehead back in the day......so long ago none of us can even remember that guy that he was for that brief period of time.
The Community Service part of his sentence....in hours....turned out to be more the remaining eight days on his sentence.
Never mind that the guy had fixed an infinite number of cars and trucks for free for people in Cachagua so they could get to work, day-care, the doctor, the hospital, the vet......to Safeway, for chrissakes. "Ort" worked for free on cars so folks could get them running so that Officer Cocksucker could not have them hauled away for Abatement.
Nevermind that I am one of the folks who can assign people Community Service to satisfy their obligations.....and I have known this kid since he was 6.....and would gladly vouch for him if anyone had asked.
The second that "Ort's" Community Service hours were more than his remaining time on probation.......
THE FUCKING SHERIFF DROVE ALL THE WAY TO CACHAGUA ARRESTED HIM IN FRONT OF HIS CHILDREN ......AND HAULED HIM AWAY IN CHAINS.
If I had known this Friday when I poured a drink for Sheriff Kanalakis.....I would have pissed in his hat. More likely I would have pissed in his drink. The dumbfuck never would have known.
So, here in print.
Fuck Mike Kanalakis.....Sheriff Cunnilingus.
At the Boxer event Old Mike was all Peace-Love-Tie-Dye....but Mrs. K was bitter and gave me the look of death. Maybe there is something about my nickname for Old Mike that hits too close to home.
What a wretched excuse for a public servant. No control, no understanding, no concept of any of the basic goals of modern law enforcement. We had a huge hint last summer with his Dipshit Junior Dick Cheney Junior G-Man fake evacuation of people with no need of evacuation.....
Taking away a fully reformed, clean, sober, hardworking family man.....destroying his job and profession and family......
This is why the Republicans brought California to its financial knees.....
I can't disagree. Whichever bureaucrat followed "Ort's" case and caused this to happen, and is being paid by tax dollars to do this kind of work as a profession.....Jesus.
And.....Sheriff Kanalakis might be a nice guy.....but he is clearly clueless and an actual danger to each and all of us in his position as head of Monterey County law enforcement.....
But that is just me talking......
Zevi Blum
Gruet Champagne
David Kinch and Manresa
Bradley Ogden and Root 246
The Boyz Bar (La Cuchara de San Telmo)
Andoni Aduriz and Mugaritz
Juan Mari Arzak and Arzak
In Praise of Sardines
I Heart Small Farms
Salmon Nation
Conall's Blog
Harold McGee's Blog
Ghost of Turkeys Past
Take out Menu.....Interesting Times
Bang bang.
Life in the Fun Zone
What is fun.
That Day Again, Redux
That Day Again
Recent menu.....
Menu for 5-6 June


Below are some of the most common questions we receive from our customers regarding pumps. The answers are provided by our knowledgeable pump specialists, and they may help you solve some of the challenges you're experiencing. Need more answers? Simply contact one of our technical experts today.
Q: My pump sounds like it is pumping gravel. What is causing that noise?
A: It is likely cavitation. Cavitation means that cavities or bubbles are forming in the liquid being pumped. Symptoms of cavitation include excessive noise and vibration and loss of capacity, pressure and efficiency. Cavitation can cause damage to the pump. Solutions include changing the operational parameters or even replacing your pump with a pump better suited to the application.
Q: If I put a bigger motor on my pump, will it pump more?
A: No. The amount of water and the pressure (head) that a centrifugal pump produces is related to the rotational speed, impeller diameter and size of the impeller vanes.
Q: If I put a higher speed motor on my centrifugal pump, will it pump more?
A: It will pump more, but it will likely overload the motor. If you double the rotational speed of the motor from 1800 RPM to 3600 RPM, the horsepower required by a centrifugal pump actually increases by a factor of eight. Increasing the pump speed may also pressurize the pump beyond a safe working pressure and overload the shaft and bearings. Increasing the impeller is another option. Your OTP pump expert can review your application and make appropriate recommendations.
Q: My pump starts and stops a lot. Will this hurt the motor?
A: It might. Every time the motor starts, the windings see a high inrush current of up to about 10 times the nameplate amps (locked rotor code M). The motor dissipates the inrush of energy as heat. If you start the motor too many times, a build up of heat can cause damage to the motor.
Q: My pipeline shakes and sounds like a sledgehammer striking the pipe when the pump starts and stops. What's that noise?
A: What you're describing is likely what is referred to as "water hammer" and it has to do with the changing velocity of the water inside the pipeline.
Picture a game of baseball. The pitcher has thrown the ball. There is no sound until the ball hits the bat or the catcher's mitt. Fast moving water in your pipeline is like the baseball—it makes little noise until it accelerates quickly or stops quickly (water hammer).
When the moving water accelerates or stops, it applies a force to whatever it happens to hit. In your pipeline, if the high velocity water hammer hits a pipe fitting hard enough, it can actually burst the pipe.
Q: Can I put a mechanical seal on my packed centrifugal pump?
A: Probably. There must be enough physical room to install one. Sometimes you may need to have some machine work done to "true up" surfaces that have corroded over time or that were never machined originally because the pump was designed to be packed.
Q: Why won't my pump prime?
A: The pump is likely not being fed properly or there could also be Net Positive Suction Head (NPSH) issue related to the temperature or type of fluid. Unless the pump you have is a "self priming" pump, it will not prime unless the pump is full of water and there is no air trapped inside locking the pump.
Q: Why do I keep "burning" up my mechanical seal?
A: If the mechanical seal is being used in a hot water application, the water may be turning to steam and evaporating (flashing off), which leaves the seal faces with no lubricant. Either change to a special mechanical seal designed for hot water applications or install a cooling water plan to prevent flashing.
The problem could also relate to materials incompatibility, improper installation, running dry due to lack of water or the systems application. I suggest you contact an OTP mechanical seal expert to discuss the details.
A: Somewhat. If the motor and pump are running backwards, the pump can often still move water, and the water will flow the normal direction through the pump.
A centrifugal pump accelerates water off of the tips of the impeller vanes. When an impeller is running backward, the centrifugal forces will still accelerate the water—although far less efficiently. A backward running pump will deliver less water, at a lower pressure, and will typically consume less electricity. If the impeller is threaded to the shaft, it may unscrew when running backwards.


text:
class SchedulingVote < ActiveRecord::Base
  unloadable

  belongs_to :user
  belongs_to :scheduling_poll_item

  delegate :project, :to => :scheduling_poll_item
  delegate :scheduling_poll, :to => :scheduling_poll_item

  acts_as_event :title => Proc.new { |o| "#{l(:label_scheduling_poll)}: #{o.scheduling_poll_item.scheduling_poll.issue}" },
                :description => Proc.new { |o| "#{l(:label_vote_on_scheduling_poll)}: #{o.scheduling_poll_item.text}: #{SchedulingPollsController.helpers.scheduling_vote_value(o.value)}" },
                :datetime => Proc.new { |o| o.updated_at || o.created_at },
                :author => Proc.new { |o| o.user },
                :group => :scheduling_poll,
                :url => Proc.new { |o| {:controller => 'scheduling_polls', :action => 'show', :id => o.scheduling_poll_item.scheduling_poll.id } }

  acts_as_activity_provider :type => "scheduling_vote",
                            :timestamp => "COALESCE(#{table_name}.updated_at, #{table_name}.created_at)",
                            :permission => :view_schduling_polls,
                            :author_key => :user_id,
                            :scope =>joins(:scheduling_poll_item => {:scheduling_poll => {:issue => :project}})

  validates :user, :presence => true
  validates :scheduling_poll_item, :presence => true
  validates :value, :numericality => { :greater_than => 0 }, :presence => true
end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Add a dash of bohemian style to your winter wardrobe with this floaty double layer top. It has a woven outer and a soft and slightly stretchy inner layer, so it is both comfortable and eye-catching. Gentle gathers at the neck give this piece a flattering fit. It comes with a necklace, which can also be paired with other pieces.
Material: 95% Viscose, 5% Elastane under, 100% Polyester over layer.


text:
Weekly film reviews.	by Howard Feinstein
Separation Anxiety: Men Go to Battle
in Columns
brett jutkiewicz, David Maloney, Jacob Heustis, Kate Lyn Sheil, Men Go to Battle, Rachel Korine, Steven Schardt, Tim Morton, Zachary Treitz
The lives of the young, illiterate Mellon brothers, Henry (Tim Morton) and Francis (David Maloney), whose world barely extends beyond their small, unproductive farm in Small's Corner, Kentucky, might seem historically insignificant compared to the monumental events transpiring in their own backyard in 1861. The magic — I use the word loosely because the film is cloaked in such an original isomorph of naturalism — of director Zachary Treitz's Men Go to Battle lies in its equal treatment of the two strands. The filmmaker tailors the aesthetic to his purposes, noting with a hint of sarcasm to The L Magazine, "There is nothing natural about the Arri M40 HMI."
Tim Morton, David Maloney
Decisions about the shape of the movie were not made lightly. They are consistent with the sense of scale and the era's dominant worldview Treitz and co-screenwriter Kate Lyn Sheil uncovered while researching in his native Kentucky unpublished letters and documents from the period, which chronicle what could appear to us as simply commonplace — the weather, for example (one hilarious run-on flirtation scene riffs on it) — or hugely important, like a major Civil War face-off. These topics were to the people of that time of almost identical relevance — the opposite of the way news is presented today on TV or in the print media as an inverted pyramid, a top-down hierarchy aimed at a subjective idea about collective perception of scope. Men Go to Battle is a model of structural democracy.
That the basic plot judges neither characters nor events reinforces the underlying ideology while infusing each and every component of the narrative with an egalitarian charge. All this with no frills, and for all practical purposes, no budget. The couple does have compensatory knowledge of their subject, and in the case of Treitz, a lineage familiar with its patterns and nuances. From this perspective, Treitz and Sheil comfortably share with us the worth they find in the lives of these superficially slight brothers and, over a single year, the personal histories they own.
Tim Morton
Their personalities are dissimilar but their paths alike, until a fancy ball they crash changes the expected scenario. The party slices the narrative in half, marking the moment when they begin to shift gears. There is a parallel here: The modestly elegant home where it is held, with fiddlers playing regional tunes for dressed-up women and their spruced-up dance partners, breaks from the even more downplayed architecture of the peasant class we see. Restraint is the order of the day, the better to make it all compatible. For philosophical and economic reasons, furnishings are often suggested rather than depicted.
The brothers are naturally amiable and polite, in the southern manner. Francis is the joker and trickster — he intentionally burns Henry's hand to manipulate entry into the ball. Unfortunately, he is also a reckless, impetuous manager. Henry is the more introverted of the two, and the more mature. His low-key calm has always kept him in the boisterous Francis's shadow. But having reached his threshold of patience, as well as a result of an advance he made, after misreading what he thought were encouraging cues toward the ball host's daughter, Betsy (a fine Rachel Korine), Henry decides to deviate from the brothers' unspoken shared life plan. Francis stays the course.
Joining the Union army exposes Henry to conflicts much greater than his own fraternal issues. He maintains contact with Francis through letters, written for him by more learned fellow soldiers. Francis, too, becomes peripherally involved with what was quickly becoming a huge war; unfriendly Union soldiers stationed in the town nearest the family farm mock him, become violent. Once Henry figures he'll pay his brother a visit, the games begin — and ensure that the film does not run out of steam.
I'm reminded of Primo Levi's The Truce, in which he recounts his nine-month journey on foot from Auschwitz back home to Turin, Italy. Except that, with most signs destroyed by the end of World War Two, Levi walked the wrong way. Adventures, however, took place no matter which direction he would have taken. Having had almost no experience of being alone, he instinctively opened up to all kinds of situations, both those thought of as life as usual and those considered strange by any standard. His flaunting in print his visit to a wildly colorful whorehouse typifies one of Levi's strategies of representation.
Even though it takes place in the early days of the Civil War, Men Go to Battle, however, sets its sights on intimacy; DP Brett Jutkiewicz and production designer Jacob Heustis are both essential players in bringing the sensibility to life, and Morton and Maloney perfection in enacting the brothers put so closely under the microscope. The sequence in which Henry stays overnight at the home of a woman whose husband is off at war is shot not as something sensational but, with ellipses and merely furtive glances, as a personal encounter that honors the couple's privacy. Treitz contrasts the broad strokes, the more epic norm of the era, with more intimate ones. A poignant chance meeting in which Henry and a Confederate soldier slowly and carefully exchange coffee and tobacco across a rivulet smacks of sincerity, of a quasi-close connection even between members of enemy camps. The scene in which Henry, in full uniform, poses for a static daguerrotype, is not spectacular in the least (although the few, discreetly underpopulated battle scenes are). Close-ups function best; establishing shots, which widen the canvas to a large degree, are a no-no.
David Maloney
Once again, Treitz levels the playing field, giving equal weight and importance to everything Henry comes across–as if the filmmaker has put himself in the position of an innocent thrust for the first time into terra incognita, a virgin freely submitting to sensations he's never known firsthand. For his part, Francis may be sedentary, never having left the farm, but, after enduring a tough bout of loneliness, he starts to transform himself. To be precise, actions outside him force his hand to behave in a more grown-up fashion. He does retain into adulthood his knack for hustling up survival money. Now his living arrangements are such that he can not act reflexively, without thinking things through. Gone are the irresponsible days of leaving the chicken coop wide open and wasting fowl by refusing to heed advice (Henry's, of course) on proper barbecuing.
The relationship between the siblings, so close it borders on homoeroticism, or maybe pathology, becomes different once each has a year without the other. Will Francis still push easygoing Henry around? Will the latter emerge from his brother's domination? Is the ex-soldier still beloved, or does he become thought of as an intruder? Nothing ends up as it might in Hollywood's inconsistent hands. But then, little in this seductive jewel would ever come out of the studios.
Five Questions with Medora Directors Andrew Cohn and Davy Rothbart By Nick Dawson on Mar 9, 2013
What's In My Instapaper: Game of Thrones, Bitcoin, Video Game Death, Chloe Sevigny and More By Scott Macaulay on Mar 31, 2013
Five Questions with Excuse Me for Living Director Ric Klass By Sarah Salovaara on Oct 11, 2012
Immersive Storytelling for The Lost Children Pt. 2 By Mark Harris on Jan 2, 2013

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Have you applied for jobs & never heard back?
Has this happened to you? Check out this no cost tool to help get you automatic updates on your applications from thousands of employers.
This was featured on CNN, in the Wall Street Journal, and US News & World Report.
Click here and enter the appropriate job descriptive information in the keywords box, location box and search radius box.
If you wish you can search by job title only by clicking search job title only.
You may also search by company, exact phrase or by category.
Once you have registered register here you can set a job alert so the system will notify you when an appropriate job is posted. You can do this as part of a search just by running any job search and then click the "Save Search" button at the top of the search results.
Doing this will result in a pop up box display which allows you to name your saved search (for example, "Sales jobs in Chicago") and set the frequency you would like to receive the email alerts of any jobs that match your criteria. You can choose to have the alerts emailed to you on a daily or weekly basis. If you would rather log back into your account to check on the results than receive an email, you can select never from the drop down menu.
Must read MarketWatch article 14 Tips and Resources for Finding Work in Retirement.
Very much appropriate for workers of all ages.
These pages provide content for people looking for employment and include a link to our job search engine and information to help you in your job search. Whether you are seeking a temporary, part-time, seasonal job or project assignment, or would like to post your resume or set a job alert to notify you should a job be posted that matches your experience and interests, this area is the place to look. All these services are free and although we would like you to register, it is not necessary that you do so.
According to a CareerBuilder survey forty-five percent said they will look for work post-retirement. Among those who do plan on working after retiring, consulting, retail and customer service work are the most popular disciplines.
The survey also provided good news for workers looking for employment at the end of their careers. Fifty-three percent of employers plan to hire mature workers (age 50+) in 2014.
By Kerry Hannon as seen in Forbes.
They're not stepping up to the plate. If you genuinely want to land a job, you need to get in the game. The would-be job hunters AARP surveyed used the words "may" and "try." That's a tad tenuous and wishy-washy. To me, it doesn't sound like a crew who is in it to win it. My advice: Don't just noodle the idea. If you want a new job, get serious. Yes, it takes time — 10 months, on average, for someone over 55, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But, like anything else, if you want to be successful, you've got to put your heart into it.
They're setting their money expectations too high. A whopping 74% of job hunters in AARP's survey said they want a new position to make more money. But the sad truth is that pay is one of the biggest roadblocks for job hunters over 50.My advice: Rather than accept a position where you will resent the pay or walk away from an offer that is not up to snuff, consider ways to negotiate.
See if you can bump up your benefits — more flextime or telecommuting, more vacation days, new workplace development and education opportunities and other perks. A flexible workday might be more vital to you now, giving you more time to do the things you value, such as travel or learning. Health insurance, retirement savings plans and paid time off can play a critical role in defining your ideal job more than base pay, too. Don't get so caught up in prestige, salaries and titles that you become blind to prospects and great opportunities to move in new directions.
They're not keeping their skills up to date. More than one in five of the job seekers AARP surveyed (21%) said their "need to update technology skills" may hinder them from getting a new job. I know: It's hard to pull your head up from your current projects to find time, and, often, the money for skills training. But if you want to get hired elsewhere, you must prove to an employer that you can improve its business and bottom line, and that means having the necessary skills. Look at the precise requirements of the jobs you're applying for. If you don't have them, get them. A hiring manager who sees that you're taking classes or working toward a professional certification knows that you're not trapped in your ways and are willing to learn new things.
They're not using the best job-search tool. The job seekers AARP surveyed said the tools they most commonly used in their search were: online listings (62%), personal contacts (40%) and company career listings (33%). It's not that online and company listings aren't a good place to start looking for a job. But most positions are filled either internally or through referrals. That's why I urge job hunters to network, network and network. Those personal contacts can be gold. Make it a point to tap your friends, relatives, former coworkers, social media connections and anyone else who springs to mind.
If there's a specific industry you're interested in, join an association associated with it. Attend industry and professional meetings and conferences. College and university career centers help alumni, too, through networking events and workshops. Join a job seekers meet-up group in your town or launch your own. Get together with these people on a regular schedule to share contacts and leads and help each other stay confident, active and responsible for your job hunts.
Read the entire article as it appeared in Forbes "The 4 Things Older Job Seekers Are Doing Wrong"
How do you go from full-time employment to a phased retirement? Read these nine tips to keep both you and your employer happy.
Talk to coworkers. See if you can find someone at your workplace who is phasing into retirement, or someone who did so recently, Rix advises. "Ask them how they negotiated, what their experiences have been and what advice they can offer you."
Be clear about your vision. Do you want part-time rather than full-time work for a fixed period, say, scaling back to a four-day week, then maybe to a three-day week? What's your time frame? "Having an idea of when your phased retirement will likely end helps your employer to plan for your replacement and might make him or her more receptive to considering phased retirement for you," Rix points out.
Outline your exact duties in the new arrangement. Which of your job responsibilities would you continue to meet? Who would handle the other tasks? Think it through, from your employer's perspective, so you can identify advantages for the firm, says Rix: "Is there a promising subordinate or junior staffer who [with training from you] could fill your shoes eventually? This is another reason to have a departure date in mind — your successor needs to plan, too."
Set a salary expectation. What would you be comfortable with in terms of salary and benefits? Knowing what you're aiming for helps frame the discussion. But you can be pretty sure you'll have to take a haircut on pay.
Expand your definition of "phased retirement." Decide what matters to you. Do you want to work from home or come into the office? Do you want firm hours or a looser structure of just getting the job done?
Solve special problems. Cali Williams Yost, founder of Flex+Strategy Group, suggests that you ask yourself: "What's something my employer struggles with consistently, and how could retaining my talents through a phased retirement solve that issue?" You might, for instance, be assigned only to special projects that no one else has the time for.
Use mentoring as a bargaining chip. "We live in an era where managers are increasingly concerned about mentoring younger employees [or new employees] in the business," says Farrell. "Training budgets have typically been cut back in recent years. Every organization — nonprofit and for-profit — is running pretty hard, trying to do more with less." That makes mentoring an incredibly prized commodity. You're an experienced employee. You know the industry and how to get the job done. That can be a powerful tool to an employer to train replacements or welcome millennial employees into the department.
Start the conversation. Once you have your blueprint, schedule a meeting with your boss. Do this a year or more ahead of time, particularly if this is new territory at your workplace. But you don't want to raise any alarms. You don't want to give off the vibe that you're not fully engaged in your work and are pondering an exit. You need to assure your boss that you're not looking to abruptly jump ship, but rather trying to develop a smooth transition that will benefit the company in the long run.
Create regular checkpoints. Pitch your proposal on a trial basis with built-in periodic reviews to see whether it's working for the manager and working for you. "A regular conversation can help minimize any doubts and head off potential conflicts while maximizing the odds that you'll enjoy your phased retirement," Farrell says. "The phased retirement needs to work for you not just financially, but also keep you engaged with the work you're doing and around colleagues you like." After all, as the Bachman-Turner rockers sang, you don't want "to work at nothing all day."
Do some sleuthing to see which skills will boost your job prospects.
A few hard skills (specific, teachable abilities that may be required) likely to make the list: Social media, data analysis and sales. To find out which skills are required for the type of work you want, hit the job boards, pull up job descriptions you're interested in and make a list.
Do an inventory of your soft skills.
These are personal attributes that help you work better with others. Employers want to be sure that you'll work easily and efficiently with your coworkers, your supervisor and perhaps the organization's customers or clients. They also want to see that you can think on your feet and are equipped to make smart decisions.
Focus on your transferable skills and how they can help you land work.
Although you may need additional training to pick up a new job or navigate a career change, many skills you already have are transferable to a new field. You just need to apply your current skills in a new way.
Seek out gratis retraining opportunities.
Stop into your local American Job Center, commonly referred to as Career OneStops, advises Magnus. There are nearly 2,500 nationwide. "The staff can help older workers navigate the process of upgrading their skills," he says.


text:
Q: Integration with payFort react-native-expo I tried to use payFort with react native expo but it's didn't work so if anyone used it and can help me?

A: There is no support available until today for Payfort in react-native in the expo, you have to use webview and make API calls manually to authenticate the user and verify the signature and all, I worked on this a few years back and it was a mess.
So now the solution is to collect the user information in some form and use pay fort rest APIs and make that payment process happen.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Focus of China Cross-Border M&A Turns to Government-Favored Sectors and Away From West
Peter X. Huang Haiping Li Layton Z. Niu Emma Xu
Buyers are fine-tuning their strategies to focus on sectors perceived to be favored by Chinese government policy, such as industrials, technology and health care.
Chinese buyers have begun to turn their attention away from Western companies toward those in Asia and the Middle East, partly due to an increasingly unfriendly regulatory environment in the West.
Chinese competition law and new data privacy protections are complicating deals and might deter some.
As in Europe and North America, financial buyers are sitting on large sums of dry powder, which may find its way into transactions.
China's cross-border M&A market continued to face strong headwinds in 2022, with a slowing economy and new COVID-19 restrictions weighing on the market. There have been fewer outbound and inbound transactions, with total deal value at a multiyear low, and financial buyers accounting for a sizable portion of that value. And volatile public equity prices and increasing regulatory scrutiny of sectors such as technology, internet, critical resources, gaming and education have led to fewer megadeals.
Buyers have also become more selective, gravitating toward acquisitions in the energy, technology, health care, industrial and consumer sectors. Notable megadeals, such as the $15.5 billion acquisition of Aramco Gas Pipelines Company by an investor group that included China Merchants Capital and the Silk Road Fund, demonstrate the state-owned enterprises' emphasis on strategically important sectors.
Furthermore, while the U.S. and other Western countries generally remain attractive destinations for certain outbound investments, Chinese buyers have been pivoting more resources and attention toward Asia and the Middle East, especially ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries, partly due to an increasingly unfriendly regulatory environment in the West. For example, Canadian and British governments recently ordered several Chinese firms to exit their investments in lithium mining and microchip companies, citing national security concerns.
Investing in Favored Sectors
A prominent theme for market participants is investment decisions informed by the Chinese government's policy initiatives. With an economic downcycle looming, buyers are fine-tuning their acquisition strategies toward sectors such as industrials, technology and health care. Financial buyers under pressure to deploy capital may capture buying opportunities within these favored sectors and take advantage of beneficial government policies as well as softening valuation.
Buyers have become more selective, gravitating toward acquisitions in the energy, technology, health care, industrial and consumer sectors.
U.S.-listed SPACs have been active in acquiring China-based targets in the technology, clean energy vehicle and digital health care sectors. The large number of SPACs still searching for acquisition targets suggests that this source of M&A deal activity could continue, at least until existing SPACs reach the end of their life cycles.
Regulatory Trends Affecting China M&A
Myriad merger-related regulations, including those on data privacy, competition and national security, bring both challenges and opportunities to M&A in China.
Data privacy. Critical legal frameworks on cross-border data protection, such as the recently implemented Cybersecurity Law, Data Security Law and Personal Information Protection Law, regulate how companies collect and transfer data across borders. As a result, data compliance by target enterprises is becoming a prominent factor affecting a transaction's valuation, deal structure and certainty.
Competition. China's Anti-Monopoly Law, meanwhile, has forestalled large companies from pursuing acquisition opportunities and dampened strategic M&A in the technology sector. This has opened the door for private equity firms and venture capital funds to approach technology targets. Strategic buyers are also seeking alternative ways to enter sectors heavily scrutinized by the anti-monopoly regime, such as through early stage investments in targets. (See "Demystifying China's Merger Review Process.")
National security reviews. In addition, opaque and unpredictable national security review processes under both Chinese and U.S. law have made cross-border M&A transactions in strategically critical sectors difficult.
In light of pre-closing regulatory filings and reviews, parties in inbound and outbound M&A transactions need to plan for longer deal timelines.
External Factors and Outlook
China's forceful measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and the country's economic slowdown due in part to those measures will continue to affect market sentiment for cross-border M&A. As future COVID-19 quarantine policies and travel restrictions have not been clearly declared, market uncertainty will remain high, hindering M&A deal activity. Nonetheless, pressure to deploy the record level of dry powder held by financial sponsors will likely support M&A dealmaking, especially if asset valuations continue to soften.
New opportunities may also arise as the Chinese government continues to institute market-stimulating policies in certain sectors. In addition, some multinational companies reassessing their existing presence in China may pursue divestment, spin-off or joint venture opportunities.
A contentious global geopolitical landscape characterized by competition between the U.S. and China will continue to influence M&A deal flow. For example, the latest U.S. export controls on semiconductors to China cast further doubt on the political and economic viability of private sector collaboration between the two countries. This does not, however, necessarily imply depressed cross-border M&A activity overall.
Buyers and targets from China shunning U.S.-connected deals will prioritize M&A opportunities in Asia, and alternatives to change-of-control transactions — such as minority investments and joint ventures that attract less regulatory scrutiny — may provide strategic alternatives.
(For perspective on the U.S. and U.K. markets, see "US M&A Levels Remain Healthy, but Due Diligence and Deal Protections Will Become Even More Critical" and "The Widely Forecast Recession in the UK Will Likely Reshape M&A," respectively.)


Our Salesforce development team is responsible for building, maintaining, and supporting the Salesforce environment which facilitates our daily interconnected workflow between multiple companies and teams. As a tight-knit team we are looking for members who value simplicity, agility, and elegance in development philosophy. Quality of work, attention to detail, and craftsmanship would be a constant requirement.
We are looking for the candidate who desires a stable position and to develop and grow over the long-term with our team and our company.
You will have the opportunity to contribute to and solve current and future problems centered around new functionality and feature development, scaling, streamlining / refactoring legacy methods, developing quality assurance processes, and streamlining DevOps for our development pipeline.
As a Salesforce Developer, you would be required to become deeply acquainted with our Salesforce dependencies, unique integrations, team workflows, code base, and any special considerations specific to our environment.
Our Salesforce team is part of and works with a larger group of development, technology, and creative related teams.
Comprehensive knowledge of the complete pipeline- sandboxes, development, testing, collaborative review, quality assurance, production deployment, etc.
Must be able to provide code samples and communication which display proven proficiencies in the above listed required proficiencies and traits.
Must have experience contributing to a collaborative code base via a Git Repository or similar environment.
Experience collaborating in an environment with multiple developers tracking and following existing and newly established precedents.
We are an integrated part of a group of fast-growing and highly-profitable real estate and investment companies. Our leaders share the perspective that successful businesses can empower effective and impactful non-profits, through providing funding, skills, and access to resources.
Our group of companies include JRW Investments, ExchangeRight, JRW Realty, Telos Capital Funds, DKL Creations, and more!


text:
Josiane Castiau (born 19 October 1954) is a French former swimmer. She competed in the women's 4 × 100 metre medley relay at the 1972 Summer Olympics held in Munich, West Germany.

References

External links

1954 births
Living people
French female swimmers
Olympic swimmers of France
Swimmers at the 1972 Summer Olympics
Place of birth missing (living people)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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What's the least you've ever wanted to go to training? A rainy night down on the astroturf after a long day's work, perhaps?
Imagine, if you will, walking an hour and a half in 35-degree heat to a helicopter landing zone, one of the most targeted sites for terror attacks in the world, with the constant threat of being abused or assaulted along the way. This is dedication on another level. This is the Afghanistan women's national football team.
Khalida Popal returned to her homeland from Pakistan in 2004, a bored schoolgirl with dreams of finding something to do in a nation where women's roles remain limited even after the removal of the Taliban from government.
"When I went to school it was very boring because we didn't have any after-school activities – it was just go to school, study, go home and nothing else," the 30-year-old founder, programme director and former captain of the Afghanistan women's team tells The Set Pieces.
Khalida's initial clandestine kick-arounds took place in a walled courtyard behind her school, where she and her classmates, kitted out in long dresses and headscarves, would play for hours using rocks for goalposts. As the popularity of Khalida's games grew, the rocks moved further apart to accommodate more players. This square of Kabul had become the unlikely birthplace of something important in the modern history of women's rights in Afghanistan. However, resistance to even this simple version of the beautiful game was immediate.
"Men would tease us, saying we cannot play football. Sometimes they would stand in our way, calling us names, or grab our scarves and clothes," Khalida recalls. "Sometimes they threw stones. I remember one time there was a guy who was screaming bad words at us from his bicycle. He tried to push me to the ground. We had conflict. Sometimes we were really physically fighting.
Some of the girls stopped coming to play behind the school when their brothers and fathers found out. Khalida went to speak to families of those who were banned from playing, urging them to let their daughters and sisters come back. Sometimes they would relent, but others were less progressive. Khalida was frequently kicked out of homes and called a 'prostitute'.
Such was the glacial change of pace in post-Taliban Afghanistan that Khalida and her team-mates soon understood their greatest victory would be earning acceptance and the right to play.
But Khalida didn't give up. She and her team-mates kept playing, and by 2006 the then-18-year-old had persuaded the FA to officially register Afghanistan's women's national team with FIFA.
A year later came Afghanistan's first ever fixture in a 10-day tournament in Islamabad, Pakistan.
After impressing in the tournament, Khalida – the nascent team's first ever captain – and her fellow players returned home to meet with President Hamid Karzai in the hope of securing a place to train. And so it was that the newest women's national team on the planet came to practice at NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) compound on an area otherwise designated for helicopter landings and take-offs.
Others might have baulked at such unorthodox surroundings, but Khalida and her team – who had yet to be put off by sticks, stones and death threats – didn't think twice.
They wanted to play so much, Khalida recalls with pride, that some of the team would walk up to 20 kilometres to train three times a week, only to be coated by a constant swirl of dust created by the comings and goings of aircraft around them.
One positive memory from the team's time at the ISAF compound was the chance to meet (and beat) the soldiers whose grounds they trained on in a match organised with the help of kit sponsors Hummel. Afghanistan defeated an ISAF XI 1-0, but Khalida believes the off-field victory was more important.
Soon after the match in 2011, Khalida left Afghanistan for Denmark – where she still lives and studies – with the help of Hummel. As an increasingly public advocate for women's rights and a whistleblower on government corruption, her life had come under threat back home.
Although no longer playing she is still the team's beating heart, co-ordinating, consulting and providing support to the team's unlikely new head coach, former United States international Kelly Lindsey.
A natural-born leader, Lindsey took up her first coaching role at 13 and always dreamed of managing the US women's national team, with whom she won four caps as a player. After a knee injury cut short her career, she coached at college and professional level before moving into the corporate world.
Lindsey came into contact with several members of the Afghan team through her work with football academies, and she quickly became interested in the team's journey – so much so that she soon found herself helping out informally with training and fundraising. Khalida took note and eventually persuaded the former defender to take charge of the team in 2016, with fellow American Hayley Carter joining as her assistant.
As you might expect, it's a coaching gig unlike any other Lindsey has held before. Much of her work is done online due to the obvious difficulties of travelling to and from Afghanistan, so much so that she has yet to step foot in the country.
The national team has expanded its recruitment network to bring in immigrants and refugees living around the world; the side now features players from Sweden, Germany, Canada and the US. They meet every few months for training camps in locations as varied as Jordan, India and California, with their next gathering scheduled to take place in Japan this summer.
Lindsey keeps a notebook with key football phrases in each of the players' languages (including Dari and Pashto), which she uses to help with instructions during camps. However, regardless of the Omaha-born former defender's ability to bark out tactical instructions in Dari from the touchline, she insists the international language usually prevails.
"Football is football and at the end of the day, we will get to the point where we are speaking each other's languages," Lindsey says, noting that the training camps and friendlies help improve the infrastructure and change attitudes back home.
Currently occupying 106 place in FIFA's world rankings, Lindsey is aiming to lift Afghanistan into the top 75. She is also keen to see more games added to the international calendar for those smaller nations who don't qualify for tournaments such as the Women's World Cup.
"There are a lot of teams like us – we need more tournaments, fixtures and events, and no one is creating that. One of my goals is to help create more by getting in touch with these countries and trying to build these tournaments, these events.
On 27 January 2018, nearly a decade on from the ISAF compound days, Shabnam Mobarez looks nervously towards the entrance of the pitch at the Afghan Football Federation, which she and her team-mates fought so hard to earn the right to play on. Goosebumps crawl across her skin.
Mobarez soon finds out that there has been another bombing, the third of that week. An ambulance packed with explosives passed through one checkpoint on the bustling Chicken Street before detonating on the next, killing over 100 and injuring twice as many.
Chicken Street. Mobarez knows it – just a few kilometres from the federation, many of the team will have had to go that way to get to training. Her fear dissipates as more and more of the players arrive safely, but sadness still lingers. The local girls are hardened to this reality, but Mobarez – the new captain of the national team – won't accept it. Afghan-born but living in Denmark, she's in Kabul for training sessions with the team before they head off for a training camp and game against Jordan.
"It was weird for me to see how these girls reacted to the bombing," she says. "It's normalised for them. It's normal that these things are happening, and it shouldn't be. It should never be normal.
A tall, versatile midfielder who first fell in love with football while playing with boys as a refugee on the streets of Copenhagen, Mobarez admits she thought it was a joke when a friend first invited her to play for Afghanistan. But ever since pulling on the jersey for the first time, she's become aware of the importance of her position.
Mobarez waxes lyrical about the 'amazing' talent of the young players she met in the youth teams in Kabul, before insisting World Cup qualification is her ultimate goal. The captain has already noticed an impact off the field as results have continued to improve.
Fighting the long battle is something which has become normalised in Afghan society in recent decades, and the women's national team are putting that reality to positive use.
"There's an inner grit and mindset [here]," Lindsey explains. "Living in a war-torn country has to harden you a little bit and teach you to fight for what you want.
"They want to play this sport to make the nation proud. They live in a war-torn country that struggles daily just to have hope and joy, and they are hoping that they can bring pride to their country.


Rotala 'H'ra' has rather narrow leaves and an overhanging or creeping growth. It is probably a variation of Rotala rotundifolia and has much resemblance to Rotala sp. 'Green'.
High light levels, good fertilization and added CO2 will induce almost exclusively creeping growth and a warm, rich orange coloration. This makes it possible to create a dense, orange mid-ground cushion or even an unusual, orange foreground carpet.


text:
Plant a Tree for Thomas
Thomas E LaMachia
August 9, 1966 ~ December 9, 2020 (age 54)
Thomas Edward LaMachia, 54, of Provincetown, Massachusetts passed away peacefully on December 9, 2020. He died in his home by the sea in the town where his grandmother's family lived as part of a vibrant fishing community and where his grandparents were married. Thomas was a devoted partner, son, brother, cousin, uncle and friend who lived his life caring for and connecting with others.
Thomas grew up in Marlborough, MA. He graduated from Marlborough High School at the top of his class and was a member of the tennis team. Following High School, he attended the University of Massachusetts and earned two Bachelor's of Science degrees in Environmental Economics and Wildlife Fisheries Biology. He went on to attain a Master's of Science degree in Marine Fisheries Biology. He worked in the IT field for many years and was Director of IT at Sapient and through several reorganizations, Resources for a total of 20 years.
Thomas was smart, quick-witted and exceptionally kind hearted. He was a bright light of the family, who remembered every one's birthday, anniversary and made sure you got a call, text, or card on that special day. He loved to travel, visiting and living in many places throughout the world and could speak several languages. He derived joy from connecting with people and went out of his way to make sure you felt welcome. He could tell a great story and land a perfect joke with the right timing and twist of phrase. That special twinkle in his eye and his beautiful smile drew people in. His kindness, wit, and love of life left them smiling and feeling included. Building community is what Thomas was about. He created and maintained a 'cousins' contact list of over 50 so we could stay in close touch. Every few years, Thomas organized family reunions where we could catch up with one another. At work, Thomas always put the welfare of his employees first and became close friends with his colleagues, maintaining deep friendships long after the professional relationship ended. No doubt he will continue connecting and watching over us.
Although Thomas left us too soon, he experienced in this life one of the biggest and most important gifts - to love and to be loved. He was a devoted son who, after his father passed away, left his home of many years in NYC to stay with his mom on Cape Cod. They enjoyed many good times including driving about in 'Betty', his VW convertible named after his mother's best friend and sister. He was dearly loved by so many family and friends and in 2017, he had the great fortune to meet the love of his life, Duncan. The two enjoyed travel, get-togethers with cherished friends, and taking good care of their respective mothers. Never a day passed without saying "I love you" because Thomas understood how important that is.
If ever there was a phrase that summed up Thomas's approach to life and his love of classic pop culture, it would be, "C'mon, get happy!", from the Partridge Family.
He is preceded in death by his father David L. LaMachia (2009) and by his godmother, Helen 'Honey' McLaughlin (2006). Thomas is survived by his partner Duncan Hsu of Salem, his mother Joan LaMachia of Marlborough, Brothers David LaMachia of Boxborough, Peter LaMachia of Grafton, Stephen LaMachia of Marlborough, Sister Joan LaMachia and Brother- in- law Alex Bingham of Arlington, nephew Jeremy Bingham and nieces Lucy Bingham, Dennison LaMachia, Devon LaMachia, Madison LaMachia and Hailey LaMachia.
Funeral services were privately held at the Short & Rowe Funeral Home in Marlborough followed by a procession to the family burial plot at St. Joseph's Cemetery in West Roxbury.
Celebration of life services will follow in time and place to be announced.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to The Church of St. Francis Xavier, 46 West 16th Street, New York, New York 10011, https://sfxavier.org/donate-now/
To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Thomas E LaMachia, please visit our floral store.
You can still show your support by sending flowers directly to the family, or by planting a memorial tree in the memory of Thomas E LaMachia
Image: Arvind Balaraman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net


My mom gave me this watch, it belonged to my grandfather! It ticks to fast, so i try to catch up the future 🙂 I love it anyway! The ring on my hand was my birthday present from my sisiter. We found it in a vintage jewelry store and it belonged to a very viewed woman, who sold everything she had after her husband died! The earrings that i'm wearing are a present from my dad for mom, he made them himself!!! And this lovely colorful scarf is a present from my brother-in-low, he brought it to me from Mexico!
I love vintage pieces: they have always a history!


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Discussion in '2nd Gen. Tacomas (2005-2015)' started by 007Tacoma, Apr 29, 2007.
What kind of issues/defects are you having with your Tacoma?
I have been reading that there are a number of people that are having issues with their BRAND NEW Tacomas! I am not one of them (aside from my complaints about MPG on a 4 cyl), but I think we need to get some accurate numbers to go to Toyota with.
6) Discribe your issue/defect as best you can if you have any.
May this bring us some good numbers!
6) I don't have any.
Only when the engine is cold and the high idle kicks in. Once the engine is warm no problems. I don't really consider this a problem, just adding my opinions on it.
I will let you all know what issues are present in the 2007 trucks that I see coming into the dealership here and possible fixes.
Toyota has no known fix, but is well aware of it. Part of this noise is coming from the plastic fender wells in the rear.
6. when i took my "Diva" home and went back to the dealer 3 times re-aligning my wheels. now it only vibrates when i drive over 100mph.
...now it only vibrates when i drive over 100mph.
Nice! We should nominate you as our Baja driver if we ever enter into a race!
6) The only thing i see thats wrong w/ the Taco's is the hard dash and door panels, etc. You can run a toothbrush across them and scratch them up. I think that was a very bad design from Toyota. Something somewhat spongy would have been nice so you dont knick it all the time. Just my $.02.
6. Zero issues. But I DO have that noise from the bed. I thought it was just the metal parts of the tie downs I keep in the bed storage boxes banging around. Planning on cutting up some rubber pads to fit in there to minimize clanking.
6) I've been looking for something to complain about but can't really find anything. My only problem is finding the money to upgrade and the time to take her out just for fun. In short, the best truck I've ever owned.
6) If, and only if I was real nit picky I would complain about the slight buzz I hear when going through the 30-45mph range. It's the overhead sun glass bin. If I take a small piece of weather stripping, it will go away. I don't hear anything else....I have the tunes cranking.
6) I have the vibration when slowing down other then that I love my truck.
I had a interesting issue with the Check Engine light coming on when there was a big temperature increase during the day. I would go out after work and the light would stay on for a week or so. Talked to the dealer and they said to remove the gas cap and put it back on, I guess to release presser built up during the day. When it happened for the third time I took it in and the error code pointed to the filter on the gas tank overflow, they changed it and it has not happened since.
Well that is definitely a new one, but I can completely see how that happens.
6: I've noticed a Vibration problem when slowing down and the automatic transmission is down shifting @ 20 - 25 MPH. It's either third or second gear I feel the Vibration / Shuddering. I only have three thousand miles on my truck.. When I go in for it's first service I will mention the problem.
2007 Tacoma, V6 ,4X4, Dbl-Cab, TRD, Tow, 6spd - 700 miles - I have the windshield noise issue. Also some weirdness when shifting (lurchy from 1/2 and 2/3 and delay in accelerator response when i take my foot off the pedal) - but not sure if it is normal or not. No vibration issues or other problems.
6) Delicate Windshield and it turned off on me twice on different occasions while I was driving. Luckily, I was driving in a Mall Parking lot.