Who are these people? Twins or relatives?

Glenn Close
Sigourney Weaver
Meryl Streep
Harvey Keitel
Robert DeNiro
Al Pacino
Kevin Bacon
Kurt Russell
Patrick Swayze
David Keith
Denzel Washington
Cuba Gooding jr.
Blair Underwood
Roddy McDowall
Malcom McDowell
Andie MacDowell

Colorado Rockies: Not too bad!

Rocktober stats added.

Columbus Day Genocide

Every year on Columbus Day we hear of the protests and the parades marking Christopher Columbus. I grew up with Columbus as a hero. But then again George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and others have lost their heroism as well. When I googled Columbus Genocide to find out just what the controversy was all about, beleive me: there were very few postings that were even readable. They were rants and raves without any direct facts at all, there were pieces that tried to sound scholarly but made no sense. Even Wikipedia seemed to have trouble when it came to talking about the "controversy." One main source, it seems, for the genocide accusations, came from none other than Ward Churchill, who has been permanently fired from the University of Colorado for plagarism and lack of scholarly ways. In other words, he is not a credible source.

There is indeed sufficient evidence against Columbus that he treated the natives of Hispaniola like cattle, and indeed that population was nearly wiped out. The only reasonable posting I found was from cartoonist Mikhaela B. Reid in his Boiling Point blog. That is from 2002, but it holds up well. In other words, nothing has changed.

Okay, I guess all our holidays for heroes are outmoded (except perhaps Easter and Christmas, both for the same Palestinian Savior). Should we do away with Martin Luther King day, Caesar Chavez day, and the like? Isn't Labor Day celebrated for Unions? Columbus Day is celebrated on October 12 because it is the day he arrived in the New World, October 12, 1492. It has nothing to do with his birthday or etc. The celebration of the day has brought out the anti-Columbus point of view as well, so maybe we should celebrate the holiday, as others have suggested, as a point of change for all of us. It comes at a time of year when harvest festivals occur, when we are preparing for the Winter that will lead to Spring. What should we name our new holiday?

This visitor to our front window is a white-lined sphinx moth, one of the largest flying insects in some deserts. It is also known as a hummingbird moth because it hovers and feeds on nectar like a hummingbird.

Traffic Laws Have Changed

The first traffic law I was aware of that had changed over the years was U-TURNS. It used to be that you couldn't make a U-Turn unless it was posted that you could or you were in the middle of nowhere and no traffic was around. Now you just have to be careful.

I have talked earlier about the Speed Limit: the de facto speed limit is 10 miles above the posted limit.

If you were to follow at 1 car length per 10 miles of speed like you used to, or even at the 3-second rule, you will probably get honked out of existence. (I don't care, I still do.)

Apparently, the blind spot that used to exist is gone. This law of human anatomy has been repealed. That is what it seems like when you watch people in the lanes around you.

How Bad are the COLORADO ROCKIES ?

When I was growing up, I followed the Denver Bears avidly. They were the AAA Baseball team. I remember listening to their games on my transistor radio as I collected payments for my paper route. My dad was a pharmacist, so he got free tickets from the Liquor Salesmen and I got to go quite often. They were succeeded by the Colorado Zephyrs (the ZZZs). When we finally got a Big League Ball club I really looked forward to it. I went to several games in the first seasons, first at Mile Hi Stadium (originally Bears Stadium), then at the really cool ballpark Coors Field. We nearly named our dog after Andres Gallaraga.

You can't afford tickets to the other Denver Sports Teams, the Rockies need to be geared more to the common folk.

The only records the Rockies have are concerning sold-out games, they did really great at first. Then they got their new stadium and even (barely) made it into the playoffs in 1995. In 1996 and 1997 they had winning seasons, but only 1 winning season (2000) since then, and probably now 2007. They really do draw good crowds when they have something to watch. When the Yankees were in town earlier this season, the city went crazy. You couldn't even get on a train to get to the stadium on time.

The only problem I see keeping the Rockies from being a big league franchise is the ownership. The original owners Monus and Antonucci were caught up in the Par-Mor embezzlement scandal. It went to Jerry McMorris, who was a prince of a fellow who got the money to invest in the Rockies by declaring bankruptcy at his trucking company and leaving all his drivers unpaid for long periods of service. Currently the controlling partners are the Monfort Brothers, who have had labor problems in their meat companies for many years (ConAgra), and tend to underpay all their (mostly legal) workers. These are the guys who reportedly require their version of Christian Ethics on the players, including no Playboy Magazines in the locker room.

1993-2006: 14 seasons
winning seasons: 4
playoffs: 1, 1995: lost 3-1 games to the other wildcard team.
Attendance seems to have a direct relationship to the number of games won.
The Rockies of the mid-90s looked great. Where did they go from there?

See some statistics here

See more about the Rockies at the.wikipedia article on the Colorado Rockies

Horse Chestnut Tree

I didn't know what those pods were until someone told me: My neighbor's tree is a horse chestnut tree. The pods are all around the neighborhood, distributed by the squirrels. The horse chestnut is poisonous, in fact all parts of the tree are poisonous. It won't kill you, it will just make you stumbling around sick.

THE TRAFFIC PATTERNS CHANGE when school opens even more than when Labor Day comes. The change is most noticeable when school begins, but you can see the changes when school ends as well. More or Less traffic at Different times of day.

WARD CHURCHILL

You have to feel sorry for the guy. He thought he was a noted scholar, he thought he had a line on Native American history, he thought he was part Indian himself. He has found out that all of that was wrong. He even lost his ancestors.

But really: If he had come out and admitted that he really made up stories and did what he could to show the bad side, stole and plagiarized apparently most of what he did, there might have been a way to save him. The ultra liberal would-be intellectuals that still support him say that they never would have found his problems if they had not investigated his stupid 911 statement. True. Does that mean he should be able to plagiarize so long as no one notices? He was never dissed for that statement. He was dissed for being a cheat and a thief.

The RTD subcontractors have turned over a new leaf.

We had a meeting with the customer service people from Veiola and First Transit, and they have both started programs to ensure that customer concerns are really addressed. They have access to playbacks and other information to confirm the concerns of citizens. Let's hope that they can really get somewhere with this. Laidlaw was not at the meeting.

Thank you for the quieter motorcycles. If some motorcycle riders are "taking their money elsewhere" then maybe they need an ordinance there too.

What Ever Happened to the old Tramway Lines?

In the Rocky Mountain News lately they have been talking about the tracks of the old tramway cars still visible some places in Denver. Mention was made that they were actually the same gauge as the current light rail trains, but those old tracks would not support the modern cars. Those old lines were first replaced with tramway cars that hooked to an overhead line but did not run on tracks. As I had posted previously, I recall riding those vehicles in the 1950s, I specifically remember the Tramway North-Bound on Broadway at Colfax, in front of the State Capitol Building. Broadway was a 2-way street at that time.

The rest of the story: Henry Ford, and a group of other businessmen representing the Oil Companies, made trips to Denver and other cities around the country in the period after World War 2, 1940s and 1950s, to discourage cities from using rail cars. He felt that he could sell a lot more cars, and we would use a lot more gas by promoting this vision. He was right. We have become so dependant on oil that we go to war to protect the Oil Companies.

ERGONOMICS IN AN OFFICE JOB
Ergonomics is the science of survival in a repetitive-motion job. Most jobs nowadays involve using a computer, but the problem really goes back to the time of Henry Ford, when workers first started doing the same thing over and over. By doing the same thing multiple times, your body builds up problems that come out after a while. The best-known is carpal tunnel syndrome, where the tendons (and ultimately the muscles and bones) break down, usually first in the wrist, but also affecting the fingers, forearms, elbows, and upper arms. For some people, the injury is a permanent disability. Likewise, sitting in the same position for long periods of time will affect the feet, legs, back, all through the spine. Not to mention the mental breakdown, blurry eyes being the first symptom. After 10 minutes of sitting at your computer, your posture falls apart, you slouch and then you wonder why your back hurts.

A good company will take note of ergonomics in all aspects of their worker's jobs. It was reported a few years ago that someone had isolated a string in DNA that would predict a person's predilection for Carpal-Tunnel Syndrome. Whether that was true or not, it prompted many governments to pass laws disallowing DNA profiling in hiring or even in issuing insurance.
Many Ergonomic studies have concluded that, when your job involves typing in a computer, you need to take a "tiny break" every 10 minutes or so: do something as simple as close your eyes and stretch your arms. Further, you need to take a "small break" every 30 minutes to an hour: get up and walk around for 3 to 5 minutes. The ability to get up and walk while talking might help, if you are not typing into a computer. In fact there are numerous computer programs that virtually force you to take those little breaks. Without those breaks, accidents during the last 15 minutes of a 2-hour period are twice as frequent as during the first 15 minutes. Avoiding tunnel-carpal and similar problems is common among all modern companies. When I worked for the Union at Qwest (then U.S. West), I remember seeing a book published for the Union, nearly 100 pages long, just regarding the selection of chairs for the workers to use.

In a post I made a few days ago, I assumed that it was common knowledge that you need to get up, take small breaks several times during your workday. Apparently, many of the new middle managers have never heard of ergonomics, and they really do think it is okay to tie workers to their desks for hours at a time. I guess that is another job of the Union: to train managers.

Did the UAW break the American Auto Companies?

One of the biggest problems of Unions is their reluctance to change and keep up with the times. Some say that the reason Ford, GM, and Chrysler have fallen on such hard times is that the Unions would not give in to change. The change they refer to is the fact that Union people were making too much money, and would not accept lower wages. They say that the American Companies were forced to pay those high Union wages while Foreign companies got by with paying much less.

The truth is that European companies have Unions which are much stronger than American Unions. The Asian companies may pay less in wages, but even they don't have to shoulder the tremendous expense of health care. 30% of the cost of workers at General Motors is for health care (and growing); it's about half that much in other countries. If you subtract the health care expense that American companies have to pay, and especially if you compare the cost of living for Asian countries, then auto workers are paid similarly in most of the industry. When the manufacturers moved to places without a Union, or a much downsized Union, they were just trying to save money on the back of the workers. Here is another reason we need Universal Health care.

The American Car Manufacturers problem has been Engineering. Somewhere they decided that they would make cheap cars instead of cars that work well. The car makers actually shared many aspects of manufacturing and personnel matters with the UAW, but they never let Engineering decisions be shared.

DO YOU FAVOR A UNION?

The truth is that you will never become wealthy working at a job that might offer Union Membership. But in the United States the wages for those Union jobs (called the Union Premium)average 15 to 20 percent higher with a Union than without one. That amount is ALWAYS more than enough to pay your Union dues.

Some people say that the Union should not be involved in making decisions for the company. Think about it: you are saying that you do not have the intelligence that your Supervisor has. YOU are the Union. In fact, when it comes to a company approaching insolvency, it is MUCH LESS likely that a Unionized company will become insolvent.

If you think it is not right to require everyone to join the Union then you are making the argument for the "Right-to-Work" States. We call those the right to work for less states, and ALL their wages are much less than in other states. If you are in a Right-to-Work state then you may, in fact, be better off without a Union since you can save those costly Union Dues.

click here to see a good resource.

OFFICE WORK

Let's say you work in an office, or a call center. People in your office occasionally get up to go to the bathroom, or get a cup of coffee. People read their newspaper or do knitting when there is time between calls. Sounds like a normal office, right?

Enter the Union. The Union contract says that you should have one unpaid 1-hour lunch break and two paid 15-minute "rest breaks" during your 8-hour work day. Enter Middle Management. Manager Joe Blow says all the other time during the day is "my time," so no more bathroom breaks, coffee breaks, newspaper breaks, or knitting breaks other than the prescribed 15 minutes. "I'm sorry," he says, "the Union has tied my hands."

As it turns out, state law prescribes "one unpaid 1-hour lunch break and two paid 15-minute "rest breaks" during an 8-hour work day." Manager Joe Blow is using the Union as his excuse to force the unnatural flow of the workday into his vision, tying the employees to their chairs for 7.5 hours a day. (See a later post on ergonomics for why "extra breaktime" is necessary.)

The result:
... Without a Union, people quit the dead-end job and move on. Since they are probably not paid much, it is for their own good. Manager Joe Blow is promoted and goes on to destroy other parts of the company.
... With a Union, a grievance is filed. The company denies the grievance, steps 2 and 3 are taken and finally, after about a year and a half, an Arbitrator says that Joe Blow is an idiot and perhaps he awards a small amount of back pay for all employees. Because the employees are paid fairly well, some people have moved on and some have stayed.
... So the customers have made out better with the Union since they had some experienced people to help them for longer. The company has lost some money with the Union, but hopefully better customer service has actually helped the company.

Geneology: I have been scanning old family pictures, and it has gotten me into a bit about my family history. Both my grandmothers' families seem well documented, but the grandfathers not so good. James A. Bryden goes back to Bolton, England, but really Scotland, I even have his birth certificate, but who were his brothers and sisters and grandparents? Not so sure. George Washington Haldaman was from Missouri, Oklahoma, and the like, but not much past there. My family album is here.

Here is Margret F. Haldaman, born in 1866. Her mother died young and she worked her way through school, attending college at Illinois Normal. She taught at the Indian Schools, she considered herself a missionary and never married:

ROMPEX, The Rocky Mountain Stamp Show is Denver's big yearly stamp show. It was held May 18-20 at Holiday Inn at DIA.

I went on Saturday and didn't buy a thing. It saddens me, I would really like to get back into stamps, but everything seemed too expensive, too organized. I began selling off my stamps simply because I needed the money. I still have a bunch of stamps, and I will start big collecting again, but for now my spare time is spent in working overtime. If I could spend time selling stamps, that would be much more pleasurable, and maybe I could then add to my own collection as well.

Maybe after the death of Everett Maddock has passed further into history I will be able to get back into stamps on my own. I am building a page of old pictures of Everett.

Everett R. Maddock

Everett R. Maddock was my best friend. Everett died May 4 from Cancer effecting his esophagus. He had not smoked in many years. He was 1 month younger than me.

We collected stamps together. Stamp collecting has become an old man's pastime, and Everett always liked to encourage young people to collect. He encouraged everyone he knew to collect, he felt that sharing his hobby would enrich our lives. He was right. We had very different collecting interests, but in the end we collected the same things: just about everything.

When I first knew Everett, he was a Dispatcher at Yellow Cab. He knew every nook and cranny in Denver, he encouraged me to do the same, and since we first met in 1988 I have lived and experienced Denver from its lowest to its highest. He went on to work with computers, and I consulted him whenever I had problems. He had worked earlier in the Medical field, and I consulted him whenever I had health problems.

Everett was a mountain. He was very tall, very large, he was more ethical than anyone else I have ever known. I will always miss him.

It is true that ATU is trying to change the law.

We would like to make it so that the RTD Board of Directors can decide for themselves how many of our routes are given out to subcontractors and how many routes we run. Sounds simple, doesn't it? Unfortunately, there are knee-jerk Republicans out there who are horrified at the thought of a Union actually doing something that would help the public.

I have written about the subcontractors before (see my old blog), and the truth is that a subcontracted route saves money only because the drivers are paid about 1/3 less than a unionised driver, and they receive no benefits like health insurance. On the other hand, their company makes a profit, which RTD does not, and their managers are probably paid more. Any actual savings that RTD makes depends on your accounting and who you talk to.

We have said for years that if the subcontractors and the divisions of RTD were on an equal footing, we could compete very well. If they really want to privatize us, why not convert the entire RTD fleet to private business. They could even sell off the divisions, that would leave the Dispatching and Customer Service and actual administration of RTD in the hands of the Board of Directors.

I do not know if it would be necessary to require all the subcontractors to pay decent wages and give health benefits. That is being done for many subcontracted entities in Denver, including the "prevailing wage" clause that Denver has always required of its subcontractors, and RTD has applied this to some of its subcontractors as well. Most of the subcontractors cannot come even close to hiring enough drivers, and any mechanics they hire soon leave for better jobs. This is the main reason they have always done so poorly in serving the public. They have more complaints, more lates, more missed runs.

Info Ride Bus

HOW TO COMPLETELY ELIMINATE UNIONS

Give people decent pay, decent benefits, don't fight your employees, treat them like humans.

Who is Simon Bolivar?

I was talking to a fellow the other day who said he was Simon Bolivar. Okay, maybe he wasn't, but I was shocked at how many people had never heard of him, or just vaguely had heard his name. This guy was the biggest National Hero in Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, much of South America. Bolivia was named after him. He was the South American George Washington. And how about Joachin Murieta in Mexico? These guys should be known to everybody if we really have a global society. Maybe we are still more isolated than we ever realized.

HANDICAPPED PARKING FINE IS $100.00

Yes, they got me! I did not know that you have to have an actual VAN when the sign says "Vans Only" (even if it is very tiny). If it says "Van Accessable" then you can park there with your handicapped sign. You can't park on the striped area no matter what or who you are. So what do you do if there are no parking spaces (look at the Broncos Stadium)? You drive around and around until you run out of gas. Any violation is one hundred dollars. You have to park and walk a long ways to go to the Parking Ticket Judge.

HANDICAPPED PARKING IRRITATES SOME PEOPLE.

I don't like parking in the handicapped spaces because it makes me feel... well... handicapped. I have a charcot foot, which is the result of Diabetic Neuropathy. I have been very lucky that it has healed very well, but that is because I baby the foot. I do not wear a special boot, but I have to wear expensive shoes that accomodate my deformed right foot. The charcot foot came about because I broke my foot, and because I had no feeling in the foot, I broke it over and over again. Blood rushes to the foot, it heals very rapidly, but it breaks again. You walk on a tiny rock, your foot twists, and because you don't compensate for the twisting like normal people do, your foot will break again. X-Rays showed that the bones in the middle part of the foot where chipped, shattered and collapsed. By then, yes, I did have pain, but not nearly as much pain as the "phantom" shooting pains that I'd had when the neuropathy began years before. The arch of the foot is gone, it looks like I have two left feet.

At the same time, I need to walk on my feet fairly often to keep the blood circulating. I can walk a couple hundred feet, and in fact walking is easier than standing on the bad foot. Climbing stairs or even a step is fairly difficult. The main potential for trouble other than breaking the foot again is that I can develop ulcers on the foot if too much pressure is put on it in any one place. I drive with my left foot, I can no longer drive with a clutch.

And so, I try to park in a normal parking space, as long as it isn't too far from the door. Of course, bad weather, when I can't see what I'm walking on, means I need a handicapped space. If you see me walking from my car and you cannot tell that I am handicapped, then thank you! That is what I have tried to achieve. It just looks like a slight limp, and the foot goes off at a slight angle. But, yes, I really do appreciate a handicapped space at times.

Electric Trolley from 1940. I recall riding one of these in the 1950s, going south on Broadway from Colfax: in front of the State Capitol Building.

Denver Tramway Corporation Bus, 1958. This one is still around today.

This Electric was converted to a horse-drawn trolley. About 1900.

DON'T USE YOUR BRAKES ON THE HIGHWAY.
When you have to use your brakes on the highway, you have done something wrong. If you follow at a safe distance, don't drive a lot faster (or slower) than the other traffic, and pay attention to what you are doing, then you should be able to safely slow down to turn or exit without ever using your brakes. Of course, sometimes it is some other idiot who does something wrong, and sometimes you need to use your brakes just to let the other traffic see that you are slowing down. I have driven the highway without brakes for years.

Spring!

DON'T DRIVE FASTER THAN THE CAR IN FRONT OF YOU.

Sounds strange, but think about it: when you are in heavy traffic and trying to change lanes, isn't it irritating to have that idiot zooming up at +20mph to fill the gap? And while we're at it, isn't it irritating to have the traffic on your right going +20mph when your lane is only going +5mph? Speed a little over the other guys, just not a lot.

DON'T DRIVE FASTER THAN THE CAR TO YOUR RIGHT.

"Some Supervisors are just mean."
That quote did not come from an RTD employee, but it is surprising how many people from companies large and small share the sentiment. Let me tell you: if your Supervisors are mean then your company won't last very long. If they are there to feed their egos, to discipline and not help, to thrill in other's mistakes and never praise, then the company, even the society, will never thrive.

I PITY THOSE POOR CAB DRIVERS.

Cab driving was the only job I ever REALLY had fun at. I did it for some 12 years, and then I worked in the phone room at Yellow for 6 years. (I was fired for Union Duties, but that is another story.)

The taxi drivers need to realize that they have to pay for insurance, dispatching services, gas, car upkeep, even accounting. With the new bill proposed they still will need all that, and even if they omit dispatching (and thus serve no public at all), add the $10,000 plus per year their company needs to pledge for serving the handicapped, they will still make no money to speak of. You need to take in about $30 per hour when driving. Hauling people (handicapped or not) and getting $8.10 for 15 minutes of work will not do it unless you can do 4 trips like that in an hour. It doesn't work! It takes you another 15 minutes to get another call, go and pick them up, etc. Maybe a Car Service like you see in New York City would work: pay a subscription fee and/or $20 minimum for a short trip.

Sitting around the Rock Pile at work, the smokers believe we are being discriminated against.

The Rock Pile is what we called the smoking place in High School. It was at the end of the North Wing at Thomas Jefferson High School, by the Industrial Arts classes. In my Senior Year, we had Senior Hall where you could smoke inside. In college, we would make an ash tray out of the silver lining of the cigarette pack, smoke in class. When I started working, most of the problems were solved over a cigarette. My father died at an early age, probably because of smoking (Camels).

Habits are hard to break. I have tried to quit many times, I was fairly successful several times. Most recently I started again because I missed that socializing, but also because I rebelled at the anti-smoking campaigns. It makes me want to wear neither my seat-belt nor my motorcycle helmet. It seems that we are rejecting our history. Smoking in bars, and especially in Casinos, seems like it should be the last bastion of the evil curse of smoking. Let us die with dignity! Let smoking die with dignity!

Rocky Mountain News Rocky Talk Live recently had a contributor who said, "I have said many times that the 80 percent of us who don't smoke will triumph over the 20 percent of you who do. That's the way it works in a democracy. If you don't like it, you know where the door is." Wow, isn't that the same argument they used for Segregation not too long ago? Why do we need to control the lives of others?