Archive for the ‘Nonclassified Nonsense’ Category

I dare anyone to understand this:

8-70-117. Employment – base of operations. “Employment” means that the entire service of an individual is performed within this state or both within and without this state if the service is localized in this state; or that the service is not localized in any state but some of the service is performed in this state and that the base of operations or, if there is no base of operations, the place from which the service is directed or controlled is in this state; or that the base of operations or place from which the service is directed or controlled is not in any state in which some part of the service is performed but that the individual’s residence is in this state. For purposes of this section, service shall be deemed to be localized within a state if the service is performed entirely within the state or if the service is performed both within and without the state but the service performed without the state is incidental to the individual’s service within the state or, for example, is temporary or transitory in nature or consists of isolated transactions.

This is the law that the friendly fellow from the unemployment office read to me over the phone today. It seems that, according to Mesa airlines, I can apply for unemployment in Arizona, Illinois or New York, but not in Colorado because they have no “base of operations” in Colorado. Now, as best as I can tell, Mesa has incorrectly applied this law, and I am, in fact, eligible to apply for unemployment in Colorado, but there’s a long drawn out legal process that I’d have to go through in order to make that happen. I’m tempted to do that, because I suspect it would wind up with Mesa owing the state of Colorado a substantial amount of money. On the other hand, I’m now eligible to apply for unemployment in the state of New York which should, apparently, be worth more money anyway.

My interpretation: Mesa is claiming that the base of operations for their United Express operation is in Chicago. This means that “the base of operations or place from which the service is directed or controlled is not in any state in which some part of the service is performed but that the individual’s residence is in this state,” (this being Colorado), which would make me eligible in Colorado. Since I haven’t flown to Illinois since I’ve been based in Denver, that means my state of residence is good enough, at least since April. That said, I’m still eligible to apply for unemployment in either of the other 3 states, and New York seems to have the higher benefit amount, so I should have done that to begin with.

Fun!

I would like to inform you that there was an error that occurred while sending out your certified letter regarding your furlough. There was a mistake with the postage amount. The postage meter printed $3.24 instead of the standard rate of $5.54. This may result in an additional fee at your local post office when picking up your letter. Payroll has confirmed that reimbursement for the additional fee will be paid out on December 16th. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me at 602-685-4140. I apologize for the inconvenience that this may have caused.

Yes, they sent out a postage-due notice that I’m getting laid off. That really summarizes it all.

I was vacuuming the car today (I think I’ll let Berck do that from now on, since he’ll have more free time). I pull the car over to the bottom of the stairs of our apartment where, with the extension cord, I can reach both sides of it with the vacuum. I try to do the opposite side as quickly as possible so I’m not blocking the entrance to our parking lot.

As I was finishing up on that side, I saw a couple of very excited dogs come down the hill opposite our apartment. One was a Basset Hound and the other a medium-sized white dog with black splotches and long hair. They both had collars and tags and were obviously on an illicit adventure. I briefly considered going over and trying to catch them, but my experience with that sort of thing is that the dogs run away from you, leaving you out of breath and themselves no better off. Also, I wasn’t sure how I would catch two dogs. I watched as they approached the sidewalk and was happy to see one of the SUV’s coming down the road slow as it passed them, in case they decided to dash out into the road. The Basset Hound looked up at the SUV, and I contented myself that the dogs seemed to know that the road wasn’t some place that they should hurtle into.

I went back to putting the various parts of the vacuum back together and then heard a yelp. I looked up to see another SUV screeching to a stop and the white dog crawling out from under the side of it. Okay, so maybe they weren’t so savvy after all. A woman and a boy emerged from the SUV and started chasing the dogs toward the daycare center next door. Then the dogs came over into my parking lot and into the grassy area between the two apartment buildings. I knew for a fact that they could only get out of the grassy square the way they came in, so I went over to the corner where I knew they’d be trying to run out as the woman and boy chased them. Sure enough, the Basset Hound rounded the corner, caught sight of me in his bloodshot eyes, and put down his head a little lower than it already was and pumped his short legs into high gear. I figured I’d have a hard time stopping his mass, so I let him go by and waited for the white dog. The white dog was surprised to see me there and hesitated, which is all the time I needed. I grabbed its collar and had a catch. The Basset Hound, apparently not wanting to leave his buddy behind, let the woman and boy catch him.

We reconnoitered in the middle of the parking lot. No, these were not my dogs. The woman introduced herself and said that the dogs had been chasing a rabbit across the road. I could believe it, because that vacant area where the hill is, is full of rabbits. I spun the white dog’s collar around until I found a tag that said, “SIDNEY” and H and C phone numbers. I reached into my pocket with my left hand and called the H number while holding onto Sidney’s collar with the other. A girl answered the phone and said she’d call her parents and have them pick them up right away and she was sooo sorry. Sidney had a bit of broken or chewed cord attached to his collar. Despite having just been run over by an SUV, Sidney did not have any injuries we could find.

The dogs licked each other and us and obviously loved people. We waited a while and then realized that Sidney also had his address on his tag, Bill Valley Drive, a couple of streets over. The woman’s husband was waiting impatiently in the SUV and suggested they just deliver the dogs to the address. I called back, and the girl said her dad was almost there. The woman was eager to get lunch home to her parents who had just moved in with them (her mom has the beginnings of Alzheimers, she said), so she left the boy holding onto the Basset Hound and told him to start walking home if the owner came. We moved closer to the street so anyone driving by could easily see the dogs.

Right about then, a guy in another SUV drove up. The dogs went crazy, and it was obvious they knew this car and wanted to see the person inside it very much. A portly guy with a surfer hair cut got out and apologized to us. “We have a regular fence, an electric fence, and this one was tied up…did you chew through this, or did it break? I don’t know how they got out. Maybe the electric fence went out.” The dogs hopped up into the back of the SUV (the Basset with a little help), and then the driver thanked us and drove off. The boy and I told each other goodbye and went our separate ways.

And I finally got the car and vacuum out of the parking lot entrance.

We each have Amazon wish lists, so check those out.
Berck
Jonah
(BDU pants on sale for $25!)

For Joanna:

A Camelbak

Thick cotton boot socks, black

A nice desk chair

A bottle brush

A music stand

A boot jack

A cotton baseball cap, preferably unadorned

For Berck:

Nikon D90 with Nikkor 18-200 VRII lens

Settlers of Catan board game

A pizza rocker

For both:

Amazingly, our Amazon wedding registry is still active. As is the one at Cooking.com (Berck is especially keen about knives).

When I got my Motorola Razr several years ago, I was annoyed that there wasn’t an option to buy it without a camera. The camera added a little bit of weight and a slight protrusion on an otherwise very slick telephone. The camera was absolute crap, and generally provided poor results. And the whole idea of a camera phone just seem dumb to me. But in spite of that, I found a took a lot of photos with the crappy camera, simply because I always had it on me. For years, I’d wanted to buy a Minox camera, so I could always have a camera with me, but never got around to it. The camera on the Razr probably isn’t quite as good, but is certainly a lot simpler than dealing with Minox film and processing. Walter Zapp said his goal was that everyone could carry around a camera in their pocket, and now they do.

Now that I’ve upgraded to a new Motorola Droid (which, by the way, is an excellent little device), I downloaded all the pictures I took with the Razr and went through them. I’ve put 100 of them up in the Gallery. They pretty evenly span the last two years of my life, and most of them haven’t been posted here before, though some have. Many of them were e-mailed to Jonah in a sort of “I’m thinking about you, and here’s what I’m doing,” sort of mode. Taken individually, none of them are very interesting. The quality on all of them is poor. As a whole, however, I think they paint an interesting slice of life. Maybe I only think so because it’s a slice of my life.

On a barely-related side note, this is absolutely hilarious: The camera on the Droid hasn’t focused correctly, and it’s an obnoxious software bug. I knew about it when I bought it, and a fix was promised for December 11. Strangely, though, a few people noticed that their cameras were miraculously working today, ahead of schedule. Folks got mad at Verizon for issuing a secret patch that fixed everyone’s phones without even mentioning it. Only, it turns out that the problem fixed itself! It’s apparently a date-related bug that cycles every 24.5 days. So, we’ve got working cameras for 24.5 days, which is just in time for the December 11 patch. You couldn’t make something like that up!