My brother Edward circulated some links to pages regarding the use Earth Tubes to heat/cool. After checking out the concept I was enthusiastic about trying it on a campground building we are sprucing up this winter season. I did a bit more research and found out about the concept of "Thermal Tubes" and incorporated them into my idea of how we could install a system. Using the "Thermal Tubes" no electricity or fans would be required to move the air through the system. The hotter the weather, the more air would be drawn through the tubes and into the earth for cooling. I made measurements, and some rough calculations, and some drawings. The idea, however, was shot down due to the lack of a good option for "tubing." We would need to find a durable, waterproof, inexpensive tube that could be buried up to 10 feet. A system like the one I outlined would require in excess of 250 feet of tubing. I believe that my design would pay off over the long run, however, since everything is experimental and since most of the choices were educated guesses, and the cost of any type of available tubing was prohibitive, it was a bit too risky for me to be able to convince my three brother/partners to go on board with. I am posting my ideas so that perhaps someone else will have an opportunity to acquire the materials and location to try it out. I have also made a .pdf of the drawing available.
Dear Governor Schwarzenegger:
Due to a clerical error, that a California government office has delayed correcting, I may be forced to file for disability.
I know you would not want anything you are associated with to be run in a way that has caused this situation.
I have been told by the California DMV that due to a clerical error (no fault of mine), I may not be able to receive a corrected vehicle title, and thus be unable to sell my car, for up to a year.
I have recently been diagnosed with a disabling illness, and I'm struggling to stay productive and stay off disability. However, if I am unable to sell my car, I may have no choice.
Approximately 1 year ago I purchased a 2006 Honda Civic from a student who needed to return to China and who could not afford to keep up payments.
Apparently, a typographical error was made by someone at either the DMV or the DMV operations at AAA (where I registered as the new owner), and the new title that was generated showed the mileage to be 130,000 miles (rather than 13,000 miles).
I started the correction process in August, and have been told that it could take over 90 days. This process included taking the vehicle to a DMV office for inspection to verify that it had not been tampered with. Today, now that it is over 90 days, I was told at the DMV in Fullerton California, that the correction to my title could take over a year!
I understand the reason for this delay is to assure that nothing was done to alter the mileage. However, since:
· the car was purchased from a dealer by the student (I bought it from) only a few months earlier, with only a few thousand miles on it.
· I have no criminal record.
· The previous owner has no criminal record.
· The vehicle has been inspected by the DMV
When I talk to relatives in other states, they have never heard of something like this taking 90 days (let alone a year) to correct.
My family lives in Michigan. In August my widower father had a stroke that partially disabled him, I had been staying with him on and off over the past year since my mother passed away, to give his caregiver a break (dad has Alzheimer’s). The year before that I traveled back at every opportunity to visit with my mother who was dying of terminal cancer. Over these two years I have become nearly bedridden with an illness (that was just diagnosed in October).
My time with my parents, and my illness sapped my income and even though at the time I purchased the car I was able to afford it, I am no longer able to keep it.
However, due to this typographical error, I am unable to sell the car and this virtually new car has been parked in my driveway under a cover depreciating several thousand dollars while I wait for this title correction.
I would appreciate anything you could do to help.
Regards,
Frank Rogala
I understand that he lives has become an expensive nightmare for EarthLink. I guess they must have decided to share the pain.
I promised myself I would not let EarthLink get away with what they put me through, however it's taken me a while to get to posting this.
Nearly 1 year ago I received a flyer in the mail Re: EarthLink's Anaheim, California Muni Wifi.
Trying to find a way to stop having to pay a phone bill in order to receive Internet (for DSL), and having heard bad things about customer service and the cable companies, I decided to give it a try.
Anaheim is one of the few cities that have been wired for municipal WiFi. From what I hear this was a strategy that EarthLink was trying in order to expand its Internet access services.
It all sounded great, and it might have been.
However, when I received a modem, nothing seemed to work. No one would help me unless I went through the identical steps for setting things up each time I moved up the customer service tiers. As I moved up the system, the accents became less severe but no one was able to help me receive a signal.
Finally I was told that the services must not be available in my area yet and that I could return the unit for a full refund. I had done everything, even taking the receiver on the roof, and had wasted better part of the day -- but was happy that they were not going to charge me for the privilege of struggling to find a signal that had been advertised in my mailbox as available at my address.
The next day, before I had boxed up and shipped out the
modem, an EarthLink truck pulled up in front of my house and installed a WiFi
unit.
The entire city's installation was supposed to have been completed a year prior, so on some level I
was impressed that someone at EarthLink appeared to be responsive.
I was toying with the idea of giving it another try. I started reading the materials with a modem and it was at this point I found out that if I used the connection on more than one computer - that I could be charged more... substantially more. Since the Internet access charge, as it was, was about the same as I was paying for DSL, and I had several computers in the house that need Internet access, it would have been ridiculous for me to go forward with EarthLink.
Nothing in any of the promotional materials that I had received in my mailbox before ordering said anything
about the restricting the use of the WiFi to just one computer. I know, I had saved a flyer and I double checked it.
I returned the unit, kept track of all the numbers and addresses and made sure it was received at the company.
Within a couple weeks I started receiving bills from EarthLink for $120.00.
This became a monthly ritual. Every time I would call EarthLink, and go through the story. The rep would apologize and tell me that the problem had been taking care of. The next month, I would receive another bill. This went on until they turned collection over to a collection agency.
Due to an illness in my family I had been spending a lot of
time in northern Michigan and due to the time zone difference the automated phone calls from the collection
agency would wake me up at all hours. the messages were maddeningly short, "this is Shawn Lee call me at 1800 XXX-xxxx
When I called the called the 800 number and found out it was a collection agency, my blood boiled. not only was EarthLink torturing me, they were messing with my credit rating now.
I again called EarthLink customer service, and even though I was told everything was taking care of, I demanded to speak with "a supervisor." This involved a 30 minute hold (on my cell phone, while out-of state). The supervisor assured me that the matter was now taking care of.
Within a month or two the bills started again, when I called to inquire this time, I was told that someone, somewhere had restarted the billing!
This time I tried a different strategy. I still made phone calls, but I started sending letters with the invoice, listin the dozen or so "incident numbers" that I had been givien each time I was told that the matter had been taken care of.
Finally, as of a couple of weeks ago, after dealing with yet another collection agency, the bills stopped coming.
Just to give you a feel for my experience, I have posted a recording of the on hold message that
repeats (over and over and over again) while you hold to speak to the customer
service rep. Just imagine that shrill sounding message playing over and over for 20 to 30 minutes as you hold on the phone.
I have recently heard that Federal Airport Security has started to prevent passengers from boarding a plane with toy remote control devices. Understandable! Whose to say what that remote could trigger in the luggage department or wherever. I don't want to take that chance – tell Junior to stow it in a suitcase - he can play when he get's to grandma's.
However, I believe that overzealous security officers have removed remote devices from my stowed luggage! Twice!
I travel a lot and I always take my Sirius S-50 with me. Last month when I got home I could not find the Sirius S-50 remote when I unpacked. Now it is a small device, however, I pack everything very carefully. I put small electronic items in small boxes, wrapped in paper or plastic bags and label them. I travel so much that I have a definite system. I even separate the S-50 from its base and wrap it separately.
Thinking the only explanation was that I had left the device at my cabin, I bought another. This month I had to travel again. I packed the replacement S-50 remote as I had before and when I arrived and unpacked ...it was missing again! On top of that, when I reached my cabin, after searching it from top to bottom I concluded that I actually had, as I remembered, packed the first S-50 remote.
I have no problem with complying with policies that are in place to protect my safety, however, I know of no policy that prohibits packing remote control's in luggage. I would think if this was some kind of an issue a reasonable alternative would be to ask passengers to separate the batteries from the device. But hey, I am not one to argue if I am asked not to travel without any remote at all. Just let me know – don't just take my property.
Perhaps there are officers who misunderstood the new “remote” directive? If so, could someone PLEASE explain to our fine officers that a stowed remote can't be touched, and thus cannot trigger anything.
I can assure you the most trouble my stowed S-50 Remote could cause would be to flip on a stored Howard Stern episode, but then a little lesbian dial a date never hurt anyone!
I don' t like to admit it but if it wasn't for Microsoft I wouldn't know which end was up. I tried other organizers and "Outlook type" programs but nothing could handle the sheer scale of my 5,000 + addresses and my in-box that gets hit with over 1200 emails a day (not to mention, syncing with a pocket PC that I can carry around like a the missing part of my brain).
If it wasn't for Outlook 2003 I'd be running Ubuntu and my Power book and never look back at Windows.
Outlook 2003 was a HUGE improvement from Outlook 2000. It handled my ungainly, messy database without bogging down. It rarely hung up and has consistently been there for me for a couple of years now. So, after waiting a few seconds longer than I thought it should take for my contacts to open a few days ago I thought, "hey, my time is too valuable to be wasted like this! If 2003 was so great, just think of the improvements in 2007!"
Now, I am not a fool, I know better than to just run after new/better/shiny product releases. Like a smart geekI checked the blogosphere and ... we the results weren't very encouraging. A lot of people said that it wasn't worth the upgrade and that most of the big improvements had been made by 2003. Then... I started seeing the raves about how 'the patch." "The patch" (KB 933493) sounded like it universally completely cleaned up tons of messy Outlook 2007 issues. Amazed downloaders of "the patch" claimed that the entire program was not only smoother and faster it had also cleaned up all of their other issues.
Confident that the intial Microsoft release mess had been cleaned up and wanting to benefit from everything $124.95 (or whatever it was I paid), could do for me I took the plunge.
Here I am on day 3. I immediatley had downloaded all the patches and subsequently left my computer on for the past three days so that the ballyhooed desktop search function could have a chance to index, The verdict...I was such an idiot to upgrade.
I have never seen so many wierd error messages, and scary things like " an operation failed object could not be found," and something like "there was an error in your reminder list, all items may not appear," then there is the freezing and lockups which are followed by length "reports" to Microsoft of the nature of the problem. The amount of time (7 to 10 minutes!!! ) it takes to upload whatever the hell it is that is being transmitted (we are talking at DSL broadband speed) is mind boggling. For all I know the error reports could be uploading the contents of my entire hard drive. What could take that long? Its an error log - isn't that a plain text?
So far all I get from the "desktop search" feature is an error message saying that the indexing has not yet finished (its been 3 days !!!). I thought that it must be something great so I downloaded and installed it separately as I was prompted to do. However, after my experience so far I can tell you that I have an old version of Yahoo desktop search (Free Download!) that kicks ass and finds EVERYTHING in or out of Outlook as fast as I can type keywords.
I am not sure what "reminders" I am missing so I am keeping my fingers crossed that I don't miss anything important.
The continuing error messages and lockups make me very nervous about the condition of my Outlook database.
SUMMARY
If you are going to be an ass like me and upgrade from Outlook 2003 to 2007 - back up your .pst files before you do anything. I am not sure what would happen if I tried to wipe out 2007 and go back to 2003 as Outlook seems to print itself all over the place and is a like worm the way it pollutes the registry. If you ask my advice and you are thinking of upgrading from Outlook 2003, DON'T DO IT! If you need desktop search - get the yahoo desktop (do a custom install so Yahoo doesn't assimilate your entire computer), if you need to speed up Outlook's performance, it might be time better spent if you put some effort into rooting out some old contacts, tasks, emails, etc.
I am not a Star Wars geek, however, I know and love a few. Recently I was keeping an eye on the "Vader Project" exhibited last week as a part of Celebration IV in Los Angeles, was sponsored in part by one such geek/friend/person (Dov Kelemer). Dov's fledgling company specializing in distributing what I can only assume is a new category of art objects of all types that are mostly manufactured and packaged with exquisite attention to detail. "Hip," "trendy", "pop," hell the stuff is not only cool but great art and it is great to see his company positively blowing up. I was out of state but kept an eye on the "Celebration" event via the Internet. One "Darth Vader" in particular stopped me in my tracks - the Statue of Liberty Darth Vader. It gave me a bit of a chill and hit me on so many levels. Then I was thrilled to find out that it had been created by another acquaintance, Wade Lageose. I mention this as I have seen that most of the coverage was merely photos unaccompanied by credits. Credit is due here and kudos to Wade! He is an amazing artist. See it at: http://starwarsblog.wordpress.com/2007/05/24/taking-a-tour-of-the-vader-project/
I am not a Star Wars geek, however, I know and love a few. Recently I was keeping an eye on the "Vader Project" exhibited last week as a part of Celebration IV in Los Angeles, was sponsored in part by one such geek/friend/person (Dov Kelemer). Dov's fledgling company specializing in distributing what I can only assume is a new category of art objects of all types that are mostly manufactured and packaged with exquisite attention to detail. "Hip," "trendy", "pop," hell the stuff is not only cool but great art and it is great to see his company positively blowing up. I was out of state but kept an eye on the "Celebration" event via the Internet. One "Darth Vader" in particular stopped me in my tracks - the Statue of Liberty Darth Vader. It gave me a bit of a chill and hit me on so many levels. Then I was thrilled to find out that it had been created by another acquaintance, Wade Lageose. I mention this as I have seen that most of the coverage was merely photos unaccompanied by credits. Credit is due here and kudos to Wade! He is an amazing artist. See it at: http://starwarsblog.wordpress.com/2007/05/24/taking-a-tour-of-the-vader-project/
I am not a Star Wars geek, however, I know and love a few. Recently I was keeping an eye on the "Vader Project" exhibited last week as a part of Celebration IV in Los Angeles, was sponsored in part by one such geek/friend/person (Dov Kelemer). Dov's fledgling company specializing in distributing what I can only assume is a new category of art objects of all types that are mostly manufactured and packaged with exquisite attention to detail. "Hip," "trendy", "pop," hell the stuff is not only cool but great art and it is great to see his company positively blowing up. I was out of state but kept an eye on the "Celebration" event via the Internet. One "Darth Vader" in particular stopped me in my tracks - the Statue of Liberty Darth Vader. It gave me a bit of a chill and hit me on so many levels. Then I was thrilled to find out that it had been created by another acquaintance, Wade Lageose. I mention this as I have seen that most of the coverage was merely photos unaccompanied by credits. Credit is due here and kudos to Wade! He is an amazing artist. See it at: http://starwarsblog.wordpress.com/2007/05/24/taking-a-tour-of-the-vader-project/
About a week ago I got an email from a parent who's child was suffering from severe depression and who was also ADD. I had posted a photo of myself doing Neuro-Feedback training of my brainwaves at The Drake Institute on nakama.ca and I assume she followed the breadcrumbs to my blog here and sent me the following email (personal details omitted as it was sent as a "personal message":
PARENT'S EMAIL
I have a 17 year old son, who has been diagnoised as ADD (with a math learning disability also) and he is severely depressed. I have just been to the orientation for the Drake Institute and I'm trying to decide if I should send him through the program. I'm looking for unbiased information from actual clients. What was your experience?
I'll be honest, I do not understand how VOX or any of these sites work. If you can send me a response at (email address here), I would be grateful.
Good luck with your musical journey and your healing.
After I send a reply, I thought I'd post it here and maybe at some point contribute more to what I had to say.
MY REPLY
It seems like a couple times a month I hear from different sources how scientists have discovered proof that the brain can rewire and correct itself. I read explanations on how the brain is overbuilt and ready and able to heal if we know how. The Drake Institute has been working on this premise for 20 years and is truly on the cutting edge of this type of brain "healing" today.
Eating fresh, low on the food chain meals that consist of five colors of vegetables a day.
Daily exercise, which might be bicycle riding, swimming, or just out walking in the sunlight.
I had heard that Rosie O'Donnell inverts her head, or as some kind of head stand for something to make the blood rush to the brain. I have heard that there are several impportant psychoactive chemicals that can only reach the brain if the heart rate reaches a certain level. It may be that some people need to have more blood moving to their brain than others. In any event, I have started doing this in my own way by hanging my head over the side of the bed, and by practicing certain yoga positions that invert the head.
