Author Archives: Maria Langer

The Old Gold Dredge in Buckhorn Wash

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The story I heard with yesterday’s photo.

I heard the story years ago.

A gold miner had built a dam in Buckhorn Creek, north of Phoenix, east of Wickenburg. He’d put a boat on the resulting body of water to dredge for gold. But a heavy rain caused the dam to fail. The water emptied southeast down the creek, taking the boat with it. It was soon stuck in the sand down the dry wash.

Location of DredgeAnd there it remains.

We flew over it yesterday in Don’s helicopter. I’d shown it to him a while back while flying out in that area and he’d tried to relocate it several times since then. Yesterday, I found it for him again and he marked it with his GPS. I shot this photo.

Buckhorn Dredge

Doesn’t look much like a boat, does it? Vandals have been at it rather violently, it seems. And I’m sure more than a few minor floods helped the decay. When I first saw it, it looked like the image about a third of the way down this page, which was dated 2003. You can see an even later photo near the bottom of this page.

I don’t know if the story I heard is true. And I don’t know when all this happened. I’d love to know more about it, so if you have any ideas or links to additional resources, please share them in this post’s comments.

It’s a good example, however, of some of the really weird things we fly over out in the Arizona desert.

How the U.S. Postal Service Can Save Itself

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Five tips for avoiding bankruptcy/bailout.

USPS LogoIt’s pretty big news, every once in a while, that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) — which is not funded by tax dollars — is on the verge of going broke. Then they raise rates by a few pennies and the hubbub dies down.

Until next time.

I think the big problem with the USPS is that it’s unable to keep up with changes in technology that make its core business model nearly obsolete. After all, the main business of the post office is to provide mail delivery service. In the past, this included personal and business letters, bills and bill payments by check, postcards, and other bits of correspondence. Letters have been mostly replaced by fax and email. Bills and bill payments are being replaced by online billing and bill payments. And who sends postcards in the age of smartphones when you can share vacation pictures as you take them via MMS or email?

As technology moves on, the USPS’s services are less and less needed. But does that mean they’re not needed at all? Of course not. (Not yet, anyway.)

Bad management and spending practices by the USPS are what’s putting it in peril these days. Simply said, the USPS needs to cut costs and raise revenues. Here’s what I propose:

  • Raise prices on bulk mail. It’s widely known that the USPS gives huge discounts to big customers — the same people who fill your mail box with what most of us consider “junk mail.” Not only is this extremely wasteful, but the USPS isn’t making nearly as much money delivering it as it could. I propose that they raise the rates on bulk mail — possibly even making it just as costly as first class mail. The result: fewer organizations will find it cost effective to mail their marketing materials to people who likely don’t want it anyway. The USPS will carry less of this material, thus reducing its costs. And for the remaining organizations that continue to utilize the service, the USPS will likely generate the same (or more?) revenue.
  • Stop trying to compete with FedEx or UPS. Let’s face it: for sending something overnight, FedEx is not only the best deal, but it’s got the most reliable service. Not long ago, the USPS couldn’t even guarantee overnight delivery from Wickenburg, AZ to a major city like Berkeley. FedEx could. As for shipping parcels, I recently shipped a 33-pound computer that I sold on eBay; UPS was half the price of USPS. Yet every time I go into the post office, I see advertisements pushing their services. The USPS should focus on what it does best: deliver small pieces of mail quickly and efficiently throughout the US. That means concentrating on its affordable Media Mail, First Class, and Priority Mail services.
  • Stop advertising. Come on — we all know that the post office exists. We all know what it does. You don’t need massive advertising campaigns to get customers. If I have to mail a letter or document and it doesn’t need to get there overnight, I’ll use USPS. And about those big color posters in the post office pushing your overnight services — see my previous point.
  • Stop giving away free packing materials. I’m talking about those priority mail envelopes and boxes. I know someone who used USPS priority mail boxes to pack when she moved. And no, I’m not kidding. She kept going to the post office and taking boxes. Not a single thing was mailed. I’m not saying that the USPS should stop providing them; I’m saying that they should charge a fee — even something small, like 50¢. It’s worth the money to customers — I’d definitely pay it — and it will generate more revenue while reducing waste.
  • Reduce mail delivery to three times a week. This is the ultimate in cost cutting measures. Unfortunately, it also causes job losses. But guess what? Real companies reduce their workforce to save money; why shouldn’t the USPS? The way I see it, they could deliver to business and commercial addresses on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and use the same carriers to deliver to homes and residential addresses on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. People who think they really need daily mail delivery can get a post office box, which would receive mail every day as it’s sorted at the post office. Not only does this reduce the cost of delivery, but it could increase revenues from post office box rentals.

So that’s five tips that will help reduce costs while increasing revenues. Why can’t the USPS utilize some combination of these? I think the results will make a huge difference in the continued operation of the USPS as a solvent business.

Comments? Have your say.

New Subscription Feature Delivers Full-Text Content from this Site

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Another way to get new content here.

A while back, I switched to summary post format for RSS feeds. I did this, in part, to stop the feed scraping activity that was violating my copyright to the contents of this site. This disappointed a lot of people. They apparently preferred reading content in their RSS reader application or via email instead of coming to this site.

While I understand the convenience of reading sites in a feedreader — I use a reader on my iPad to keep up with my favorite sites — I don’t have enough subscribers to justify putting my content at risk for scraping. And I figured that people who really wanted to read what’s new here would take the extra effort to follow the link in their feed reader or email notification to go to the site. Hell, it only takes one extra step.

In the meantime, the WordPress folks added a new subscription feature that makes this kind of moot — provided you like to read new content via email. They’ve added email subscription capabilities. Extremely easy for bloggers to configure, it adds a subscription widget to the sidebar. All the reader has to do is enter his/her email address and click a button. Moments later, an email confirmation message arrives in their inbox. Click the link in that message to start the subscription.

Sample MessageThe resulting email messages are nicely formatted to present the entire contents of the blog post. This is an example from earlier in the week; I subscribed to test it out. I chose the HTML format, but there’s also a plain text format. This even looks good in a mobile device like an iPad.

Links in each message give you easy access to settings and the ability to unsubscribe at any time. In addition, all of your subscriptions to WordPress sites are maintained in the same place, so it’s easy to modify settings for all of them at once. In addition to email format, you can also specify delivery frequency: immediate, daily, or weekly. The Delivery Frequency settings lets you specify what time of day or day or the week you prefer. You can even click a check box to temporarily turn off the email messages when you think you might be too busy to read them.

I think this is a great compromise between full-text RSS feeds and summary feeds. After all, if you want the convenience of new content delivered to your mailbox, you have it. My content is protected from feed scraping because it never appears in an RSS feed. But if you prefer to check in via RSS reader, you can continue to do so as you may already be doing — you’ll just need to take the extra step of clicking a link to read the full text of a post that interests you.

What do you think? Your comments are appreciated.

Hello, My F-ing Name is Maria

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My submission to “Hello, My Fucking Name Is…”

Today I discovered Hello, My Fucking Name Is…, a website that offers people a chance to explain what their name is and how people get it wrong. From the Why This Site page:

This site is a joke, but the topic is serious

Crafting our personal identities is a lifelong process on which we spend quite a lot of time and attention. So then why is it that people can be so damn casual about paying attention to people’s names? In my four decades of living, I’ve been called more than 11 different names—and I’m sorry to say that not one of them is an ACTUAL variation on my name…

Submitting your story is as easy as clicking a button and filling in a form. Your submission is moderated — probably for spam, certainly not for language. The stories there are pretty funny expressions of people’s frustration of other people getting their name wrong.

You may think it odd, but people get my name wrong all the time. Seriously. So I decided to write up my own submission. It’s in moderation there now, but here’s what I submitted.

My name is Maria. Not Marie. Not Mary. And, for Pete’s sake clean out your f-ing ears, not Gloria.

My name is not Marie. The only Marie in my family was my uncle’s wife. They got divorced. She stole heirloom items from my grandparents estate that should have gone to my sister, brother, and me. She has liens against her that come up every time I try to buy or sell a property. I hate her, I hate her name. When you call me Marie, you remind me of her and that pisses me off. I’ll allow you to do it one time — because most people do — and if you do it again, I will correct you. Firmly. If you do it a third time, after being corrected, I will ignore you since you so obviously ignored me. My name is not Marie.

I was named after my grandmother. Her legal name was Maria. Just because people called her Mary don’t think you can call me Mary. You can’t. My name is not Mary.

If you think I introduced myself as Gloria, you should see a doctor about your obvious hearing problem. My name is not Gloria.

Yes, I realize that when you meet me for the first time, you might have an uncontrollable urge to sing, “I just met a girl named Maria.” Control that urge. I’ve heard it too many times for it to be even remotely funny anymore. All it does is make you sound like an asshole. Especially if you have a crappy singing voice.

You can also skip singing My Maria, Ave Maria, Take a Letter Maria, and How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria. Give it a rest already.

And one more thing. Just because my name is Maria and I live in Arizona, don’t look so surprised when you meet me in person and I don’t look the least bit Mexican. I’m not Mexican. My mother’s side of my family immigrated from Italy — not Mexico — in a time when it was still socially acceptable to immigrate into the United States from another country. Deal with it.

The other entries might be shorter, but they’re mostly in the same vein. Check them out. I think you’ll find them amusing. I did.

Spam from a Wannabe Guest Blogger

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You have to know how to read before you can write.

Today, I received the following e-mail message, sent to me via my blog’s content form:

Subject: Guest Blog Post on Tech Gadgets

Message Body:
Hello,

My name is [redacted], and I found your blog on a consumer electronic blogroll.

I would love to contribute to your blog by being a guest writer and focusing specifically on technology gadgets. Getting the best deal on tech gadgets like TVs, computers, or smartphones takes some serious strategy. We all know that products like the iPhone get launched at $500 and, within a few months, sell for nearly half the price, but do all electronic goods follow this pattern? When’s the best time to buy? This article gives you the insider secrets, so you can get your gadgets at rock bottom prices.

Are you interested in my writing an article for you?

Thank you for your time and best regards,

[redacted]

Blog Content Guild – 1015 Bee Caves Woods Dr, Suite 102 – Austin, TX 78746

About the Blog Content Guild:
The Blog Content Guild is an organization that provides blog writers with the opportunity to make a living writing about products and services. The writers then work to place their writing on other blog sites that are relevant to those product and service offerings.

(Please let me know if you don’t want to receive any more emails from me or others at the Blog Content Guild.)

PS – I love your website aneclecticmind.com

Screen Door by CharlieUnderstand that I’m in a foul mood this afternoon. I went out to run a few errands, leaving our new dog, Charlie, in the condo’s small walled-in patio. When I returned 40 minutes later, he greeted me in the parking lot. He had escaped by tearing down some metal mesh and squeezing through the back gate. He then tried to get back into the apartment through the screen security door, tearing the screen to shreds from the outside.

So getting a request from someone wanting to be a guest blogger really pissed me off a lot more than it normally might have.

Why would it piss me off at all? Well, he contacted me using the form on my Contact page. And that page has a section with a heading that says:

Guest Bloggers

This is a personal blog. It does not accept guest posts.

What’s more is that the first paragraph under the Contact Form heading says:

First, read the above. All of it.

So this clown used a form on a page that says I don’t accept guest posts to ask me if I would accept his guest post.

I guess when you’re spamming every blogger who you can find a contact method for, it doesn’t really matter whether you a get clear indication in advance that your request won’t get a positive response. After all, spam is spam. Does it really matter whether you target the right audience?

Of course, I just had to see what Blog Content Guild was, so I looked it up. The first item on a numbered list on their home page explains what they do:

We work on behalf of companies who want to increase the buzz in the blogosphere

In other words, advertisers pay them and their bloggers to write blog posts about their products. They basically sell advertisements disguised as objective advice or product review blog posts — just the kind of misleading crap people with low moral standards are willing to publish to turn a buck.

I composed a typically nasty response:

Wow! You’ve already amazed me with your complete inability to read; I don’t have very high expectations about your ability to research and write intelligently about a topic. But then again, writing original, objective content is probably not something folks at Blog Content Guild do.

Maybe if you would have read the information on the Contact page where you found the form you used to contact me, you’d see why you’re not likely to ever write a post on my blog.

But then again, I’m sure your query to me was just one of dozens you fired out to the blogosphere today. Spam, pure and simple. I’m sure you spend more of your time composing and sending spam than writing actual content.

I didn’t send it. I figured that if he really loved my website so much, he’d see it here when he returned to read the latest new content.

Or not.