"These kids today"

Every generation seems to have its time to complain about the younger generation. They have too many things. They don't have to deal with the problems the older generation had to deal with. They don't respect the older generation. They don't work as hard as the older generation. And on and on. I guess this is only natural. But it can also be unsettling to the younger generation and allows the older generation to miss things they aren't paying attention to. The latest one I've been hearing is that the kids starting to work now don't take correction well. They get too upset when they are told they are wrong. If they are reprimanded, they just shut down or quit. Or worse, they go to their parents to get them to "make it all right."

Let me tell you - this has been going on forever. No one likes to be told they are wrong. No one likes to be humiliated in front of other people. No one likes to be made a fool of. It is always (and has always been) a matter of how the correction is communicated.

If I walk up to someone and yell in their face that they are doing it wrong, they react negatively. If I walk up to someone and explain the problem and how the way they are doing it could be changed for the better, I get a better reaction. Even better, if I listen to their explanation of why they are doing it the way they are doing it, I may learn something. Maybe they are seeing a circumstance I hadn't considered. Maybe I am looking at the "result" in the wrong way and it isn't the result I thought. If you are a supervisor and you think your job is to toughen up your workers, then you are wrong. Your job is to make the company more productive and to help your workers do a better job. Leave the toughening up to the Marines.

If we really are seeing more young people shut down or quit, maybe it's because the older generation has forgotten how to give guidance. Perhaps the older generation has forgotten the good training they received when they were first starting out. I had both good and bad supervision as I was growing up and learning to work. I chose to emulate the good supervisors and not behave like the bad supervisors. You are doing wrong when you say, "I had to deal with bad bosses when I started out and these kids need to learn to deal with that, too." No they don't. They need to be shown the right way to do things. Period.

A bribe in Paris

I read the blog of Earl Pomerantz just about every day. Well, he only publishes on week-days so I read his blog, Just Thinking..., every week-day. Over the last three days, he has written a story about trying to set up an arrangement at a resort in Hawaii to get the folks who set out the chairs and towels for the guests to set his family's chairs and towel out every morning without his needing to wait in line. It involved an arrangement where he "took care of" the attendants at the beginning of his stay. The "taking care of" was a kind of bribe, I guess. Reading his story reminded me of something that happened to me back in 1987 when I was working for the US Geological Survey. We had been working on a research vessel off the coast of Africa. To get back home, we had to fly from Abidjan, Ivory Coast to Paris and spend the night (no one complained) to get the connecting flight the next morning. The whole group of us, about six or seven people, were traveling together.

We all went to a restaurant that was packed. We waited and waited for a table and there was no place to sit. I was trying to get one of the women of our group to notice me and thought I'd be a big shot and get us a table. I was shaking and nervous because I'd never done it before but my desire for this woman to notice me was greater than my fear. My French was horrible and the Maitre D' didn't speak English very well. I handed him a large Franc note and tried to explain why I was giving him money. I thought he'd been through this before but the look on his face made me even more afraid. It was a mixture of shock and anger. Maybe I insulted him or maybe I had been too obvious and he was afraid the owner had seen it. He looked like he was going to pass out. I didn't know what to do and tried to explain some more but I think I was just making it worse. And I wasn't sure that maybe, in my broken French, I was asking him to give my dog a bath or something.

He kept holding the money in his hand so I just grabbed it back and slunk back to my friends. I remember that the woman I was trying to impress had seen the whole thing and thought it was funny. So, in the end end, she did notice me and we talked a good bit that evening but mostly about how inept I was. Nothing much ever came of our conversation that evening and I never tried to bribe anyone again.

I suggest reading Earl Pomerantz's posts. They can be found in three parts, Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. They are better written, more insightful and funnier (he is a comedy writer after all). They are just better, OK?

A little thing that happened that didn't get bigger

I was out shopping by myself this week-end and heading home. There is a place on the road where you have to get in the left lane to make a left-hand turn and I was in the right lane. Of course, on a four-lane highway, you are supposed to travel in the right lane and only use the left lane to pass or, in this case, make a left-hand turn. So, I checked the other traffic. There were people traveling in the left lane but that's expected anymore. Fewer and fewer people follow the rules but we are all used to that. The important thing is to watch the traffic and drive safely in the circumstances whether the other people are driving correctly or not.

I checked ahead and behind. There was a gap in the left lane with the car in front and the car behind leaving a gap of at least four or five car lengths. So, I put on my left turn signal (or as it's called in Massachusetts, my blinkah) before I started moving left and then, after a few seconds, started to move left. As I watched my mirrors, I saw that the car in front was keeping steady but the car behind (a big Cadillac) was moving up. It was closing up the gap a little but it looked like there was still enough room to make it. When I was half-way into the left lane, I could see the Cadillac was accelerating! This guy was trying to keep me out of the left lane for some reason. He had been going along at a steady pace for a long time but my needing to get into the lane ahead of him had caused him to act. His Cadillac didn't have the acceleration to close the gap enough to make it dangerous for me to continue and I ended up in the left lane. But as I kept my eye on the rear-view mirror, I saw him continue to close the gap until he was right on my tail. I saw him gesture at me (guess which finger he showed me) and his mouth was moving a lot and I assume he wasn't complimenting me.

If I hadn't checked that he was going at a steady pace before I started moving or if there hadn't been enough room, I could see his anger. If the guy in front in that lane had been moving along so that the rest of the people in the left lane could be passing I would understand his anger. But no. It seemed he wanted to get upset. It seemed he thought I was wrong for pulling into his lane. I don't know why he was so ready to cause a problem that wasn't there but I'm glad I kept my head and didn't do anything to make it worse. You never know what kind of a day someone else has had. I won't lie and say I wasn't mad at him for being mad at me - for no reason (I think). It's just a reminder to me to try to keep things from escalating. Maybe he had a gun. Maybe he had just stolen the car and didn't care about whether he got in a wreck. Maybe he had a mental problem and it looked like I had done something I didn't. I'm just glad it didn't go farther.

A minute later, I turned to the left to get off the road. He zoomed past me but had to slow down again when he got closer to the guy who had been in front of me in the left lane. Now, that guy shouldn't have been staying in the left lane if he wasn't passing or turning left. I'm so mad!

20,000 miles

On August 7, 2015, the odometer of my scooter turned over 20,000 miles. That's a pretty reliable vehicle. Even with the harsh winter we had this year, I've averaged a little under 4,000 miles a year just going back and forth to work. I do ride it around town for small errands but that's only if I'm going alone and don't need to carry much. The picture on the top-right was taken just as the odometer started to turn over from 19,999.9. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to pull off the road to get a picture at exactly 20,000. But, less than a tenth of a mile later, I found myself at the entrance of the new town water supply filtering plant and was safely able to pull over again and snap the picture of exactly 20,000.0 miles you see below.

So, after 20,000 miles, I've saved a lot of money on gas. The scooter gets between 85 and 90 miles to the gallon. Our van (which I'd probably have to use otherwise) gets about 17 miles to the gallon. Now, the price of gas has fluctuated greatly over the last five years but I figure it averaged out to about $3.00 a gallon. With those numbers, it means I've saved about $2826.54. That's more than the scooter cost originally. Even if you use the current price of gasoline, $2.65 in our area, it comes to about $2496.78 in savings. That almost exactly the price we paid for the scooter ( it was on sale, it was marked as $3,000 but we got there when they were only charging $2,500). So, besides all the fun I've had with it and besides all the wear and tear it has saved on our van (where some repairs cost as much as the scooter cost to buy), I'd say it was a very good purchase. When I get to 50,000 miles, I'll post another picture.

I'm post dating this to show up on August 7 so I'll remember this event better. I'm really posting this on August 15. Yes, I'm still having trouble finding the time to write in my blog.

Where do the poor, the needy and the powerless turn for help?

I've got to start just writing quick posts to my blog. I sit around and agonize over what I'm going to say, how I'm going to say it and which pictures to use to illustrate my point. That takes too long.

Today, I was reading the Humans of New York site that I've mentioned before. The Facebook page is here and includes comments. The photographer, writer and owner of the site (Brandon) is traveling in Pakistan this month. It is not a place I am interested in at all but when the ordinary people get a chance to talk, I find myself being very interested. One of the people interviewed is a young woman who is a member of the local worker's party. I don't like Communism but in this case the young woman and the other members of her party are working to help the poor people in their area to resist evictions. I know you also see terrorist groups helping the poor to get a foothold and even drug cartels and mobsters will make a big show of being helpful to their neighbors. Is this benevolence given freely or is there an ulterior motive? Only time can tell but in most of these cases, it is meant to get popular support and to mask other activities they would rather not be known. This has gone on for ages. But when no one else will help desperate people, who do they turn to? If the government has turned its back on you and the people with power are taking advantage of you, what choices do you have? If no one else will listen to you, where do you turn for help?

It's easy to complain about the in-roads made by groups that ultimately want to destroy. But if a young person is rejected by their friends and family and someone on the street offers to listen and help, you have to acknowledge that it is the fault of the people they first knew. We can prevent these groups from getting new recruits and we can keep the drug pushers and pimps from taking away our young but it's not easy. It means loving your neighbor. It means not worrying so much about our own situation and how we can get even more than we already have. It means sharing what we have and what we know with people who may not deserve it. Out neighbor may not be a very nice person and may not appreciate what we're doing. But if we don't do it, there are despicable groups waiting for the chance to pick up the pieces.

If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person? Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. 1 John 3:17-18 NLT

There is nothing new here. You and I know all this stuff. It's just that today, I was reminded of it and, I hope, I have also reminded you, too.

Ben Franklin charges a capacitor

First off, I can't believe it's been over two months since I last posted something in my blog. It's not that nothing has been happening and it's not that there aren't a lot of things to write about. I hope to get started in earnest soon. But until then, a short post about what happened today back in 1752.

Ben Franklin was standing out in a thunderstorm. He was flying a kite and the string holding it was wet (allowing it to conduct electricity) with a metal key at the bottom of the string to accumulate electrical change. There was a wire (or more wet string?) connecting the key to a Leyden Jar (an early form of capacitor which can store electrical charge). While some people say the experiment never really happened (or, they say, Franklin would have been electrocuted), the kite was almost certainly NOT struck by lightning or Mr. Franklin would have died. As it was, other people who tried the experiment did die. So, don't try this yourself. Lightning and static electricity is notoriously unpredictable.

But lightning didn't have to strike the kite to prove Franklin's conjecture. His idea (built up from the ideas of others) was that lightning is a form of electricity and it is. That electric charge builds up in the atmosphere as clouds move through the atmosphere "rubbing" against the atmosphere kind of like your feet rub on a carpet and build up a static charge. So, just the fact that the clouds were moving fast and building up charge in the atmosphere (in preparation for a lightning discharge), Franklin's Leyden Jar did accumulate a charge from what was in the atnosphere, transferring to the kite, running down the wet string, into the key and on into the jar and he was able to prove his point. He went on to do a lot more experiments with electricity even setting the precedent that electrical current flows from positive to negative which is still used in most electrical engineering texts. In reality, the flow of electrons (the current) is from negative to positive but that's OK. We know what's really going on. And the preponderance of texts and writing with current flowing from positive to negative is too great to change now. Just keep it in the back of your mind when you're tracing electrons.

The picture I showed above is from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and can be found at this link. That's Franklin's son William helping him. It reminds me of the time my own son helped me put up some fence in our backyard and it began to rain. He stayed out with me to help because we were rushing to get it done for a deadline. He got wet and muddy and didn't complain. He stayed to the end and seemed very happy when we finished.

Finally rode my scooter to work

It was a long, cold winter but I put all that behind today. This morning, I got up a little early and got my scooter ready for spring. I had not started it all winter so the battery was drained (yes, I should have removed it and brought it in the house - but I didn't). Then I checked the oil. There was enough but it looked awfully dirty. I should have changed the oil before riding the scooter but I haven't yet. That's what week-ends are for. Then I checked the tires. They were a little low so I pumped in some air. So, the last thing was to push the scooter over to the car and jump it from the car's battery. I was ready for a long session of cranking the engine but it started right up. Honda makes a wonderful scooter.

It was cold - in the mid-twenties. Under normal circumstances, I wouldnt have ridden to work. But it was going to get warmer during the day and I didn't want to miss the chance. Who knows what the weather will be like the over the next week? I dressed in warm clothes and it turned out to not be so bad. My legs were cold but that's all. And I think I had a smile on my face the whole way to work. I do miss listening to the radio on the way to and from work but that's the only think I miss when riding the scooter. It makes me feel so much better when I get to work (even with cold legs). I think the fresh air helps but it's also the fact that you've got to keep yourself more alert when commuting like this. You have to watch everything and stay focused. And you see so much more. There is nothing in your way (like dirty windshields and roof supports) and everything seems more vibrant. You notice a lot more when you have such a wide view of the road and surrounding area.

I had to stop to get gas on the way home and, as I always do, I entered it in a notebook I keep. The last time I got gas was on December, 4 last year. Since I usually need to buy gas every three days I use the scooter, that means I only used it twice between that date and today. I've never gone that long between rides. That just shows what a rought winter it was. Another interesting fact was the price of gas when I got it last - $3.04.

One final fun fact - I had gone 86 miles since that last fill up and needed to buy 0.956 gallons of gas. Thats about 90 miles to the gallon. You have to average out the readings over many fill-ups to average out the difference of high high you fill the tank. But, that's pretty good for a bike that sat around (presumably evaporating gas) for four months.