MikesThoughts

Why does it seem to me that I am the only one who sees the storm on the horizon? Technology seems to be failing all around me and out of control. Pressure is on for programmers to produce deliverables faster than ever before and with more complex tools. Add the fact that there is no budget for travel or training. Put this with the fact that businesses and government wants to do more with less and out source what ever they can. Then everyone seems to want instant communications that is built on 50 year old wires in this country. Now add in the virus problems, data warehousing, and more and more users who do not have a clue as to what they have there hands on. The result is fast becoming a exercise in crisis management. With our increasing dependence on technology, we never seem to take into account that at times things just do not work. Over the past few years I have been telling my employer, at high levels, that I see a problem with designing applications that have a

Who is protecting the American People from Big Business? I never get overdrafts so I had no idea what they charge until today. My bank mistakenly did not post my deposit and I ended up with three overdrafts. They were very nice about it and agreed to remove them. However, I was shocked to see that they charged $29.50 for each one of them. That’s almost $90.00 bucks for three overdrafts that the amount of the payments on each totaled about $25.00. Overdrafts are a way for banks to feed on the poor and at the same time make tones of money. What I want to know is who decides what amount to charge for an overdraft. Why not make each overdraft $1,000.00 bucks. Is it because that would be ridiculous? Well, some ware between 0 and $1,000.00 buck some smuck decided that the customers would bare the charge of $29.50. I mean why not make it $29,51, that’s only a penny more. Is there no one who is protecting the American people? What ever happened to the consumer protection a

Hatred over rules reason. Well the vote is in and the union workers said to hell with there jobs they were not going to let the company go on and not support the retirees as well as ask the workers to take cuts while management gets rich. So now, it is up to the bankruptcy judge to rule next week. Everyone now believes that they will lock out the plant and scrap it. 900 good paying jobs leave Wonderland and a long time icon of a business is no more. This country is loosing 75,000 manufacturing jobs per day and have lost more manufacturing jobs since the Democrats of been in office than in any other time in American History. Its time for a change. On the personal side, I am trying to muster enough courage to ask someone out on a date this weekend. This would be the first time that I have asked anyone for a date in 32 years. Well, more to come on this.

The Big Day - Keep it or kill it. Today’s the day we find out if one of the oldest and largest employers in Wonderland will keep its doors open. Its funny how emotions rule judgment. The union employees vote today to see if they are willing to take the pay cuts and concessions that the company is requesting. The company is in bankruptcy and the court awarded management huge bonuses while they ask the workers to take it in the rear. But what are you going to do, close the plant and work at Wal-mart for 5 buck an hour or put emotions aside and take the hit on the pay and hope things will get better in the future. I am betting that these employees feel so hurt that they will vote no on the contact. More to come in Wonderland. Now for some personal stuff. I am realizing how lonely life can be without a mate. I find that I am missing my soon to be X even though I know that she abused me and took advantage of me. I still had someone to talk to and go to dinner with. I now ha

It's Hot - Hot - Hot. Today will prove to be another interesting day in Wonderland. Today I have an appointment with my lawyer “The Keeper of the Forms!” I do not know why but I always feel worse after I visit with him and he is my attorney. He just wants me to blood let for my wife and let her have what is left of my dignity. When I say that I was a devoted monogamous husband for 32 years, everyone says “right!!”. Well it is true. I feel pathetic and have like a zero social life. But it’s over now. I just cannot accept a wife who likes to sleep around on me time after time. Its bad enough that Im not getting any but she seems to be giving it to every male in Wonderland. Well enough about my pitiful excuse for a life, what about my observations of Wonderland today. Well it is hot and humid with no relief in sight. It is interesting how everyone leaves for work at the same time only to set in traffic. If you leave 15 minutes early no one is on the road and you ge

Changes going on in Wonderland. I am starting to discover how to make programming changes in my BLOG. I just found out how other bloggers were able to set there blogs so that visitors and readers could leave comments. More to come. Back to ASP programming today. Many Arrays to work on. Just could not leave without leaving a new observation of the world of Wonderland. I have been watching the demise of another American great steel producing company. Names are left out for obvious reasons. But locally there is a steel plant that has been part of Wonderland for my entire life. Most of the people who live in Wonderland have worked or known someone who has worked for this plant. A few years ago, the plant sold to a company who had hopes to turn it around but did not have the experience to make it happen. The company went bankrupt. Here is the rub. The company management goes to the court and convinces them to pay them multiple millions of dollars in bonuses to stay on

Just another day in Wonderland. Its been a very busy time in wonderland and I have been very negligent from my blog. Time to catch up on things. Today I am going to start looking at new home for my blog or a way that I can have friends leave public and private messages on the blog. More amazing observations of the degradation of America. It seems that employers are finding out new ways of circumventing the laws. Let me try to explain. My daughter had one of those thankless minimum wage jobs at the mall. You know the ones were they want you to camp out in the parking lot with a cell phone and be ready to come in to work an hour within minutes of a call. You see these poor people every time you go to just about any store at a mall. No one works full time and employees move from job to job or company to company like nomads in the desert. Forget benefits, the only benefits are that the employer has a pool of hundreds of unskilled workers to select from and it only take ab