You Can’t Fix Stupid

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Quote of the day.

If you follow this blog, you may have read about my Quincy Golf Course RV Park Internet woes. I thought I had them licked before I went away to Pateros on June 26, but when I returned on July 7, it was down again.

Recap

Let me review the situation:

  • The Internet people put an antenna on the roof of the Golf Course Pro Shop building.
  • The antenna points to another antenna about a half mile away to pick up an Internet signal.
  • The Internet people put a WiFi router in the Pro Shop and connected it to the antenna.
  • The WiFi setup operates at normal WiFi frequencies.
  • The Pro Shop has a Toro irrigation system which uses an antenna on the building to turn various sprinklers on or off based on a computer schedule and manual inputs on a radio.
  • The Toro system operates on a completely different frequency in a different range.
  • The irrigation guy is convinced that the Internet system conflicts with the irrigation system.
  • The Internet people moved the antenna and ran extensive tests with the irrigation guy to assure that his system continued to work. There was no conflict at that time or any other time that the Internet people were here.

That’s where things were on June 26 when I left town for 10 days. When I got back, the Internet was disconnected and the router was missing — although all the other equipment was in place and even powered up.

Evidently, while I was gone, the irrigation system failed again. Coincidentally, there was also a power failure here — I know this because my microwave’s clock was reset. But the irrigation guy — who I think I’m going to rechristen the irritation guy — is certain that the failure is due to the Internet setup. And now he’s convinced management.

So they won’t let me reconnect the system.

So I don’t have full-time Internet anymore. Again.

And I’m out the $70 I paid for two months of Internet service.

And I’m working on a book for a software product that attempts to connect to the Internet every third time I click a button or choose a menu command.

Stupid is as Stupid Does

I’ve spoken to numerous people about this situation. People who know more about the technical aspects of wireless operations than I ever will. All have agreed that there should not be a conflict.

I talked directly to Toro technical support. They told me there should not be a conflict.

During the troubleshooting process, I disconnected the entire Internet system and asked the irritation guy to test it. He claimed it wouldn’t work. When I pointed out that nothing was connected, he admitted that his radio transmitter battery was low and that could have caused the problem.

Every single time the Internet people were here to test the system with the irritation guy, the irrigation system worked flawlessly.

Yet the first time it doesn’t work properly, the irritation guy blames the Internet and disconnects part of the system. He gets it to work and assumes that the problem is the Internet — not whatever else he did to get it to work.

When I recited these details to my editor, Megg, she gave me a quote from her husband: “You can’t fix stupid.” I had to write it down. It fits this situation perfectly.

Stupid is not a word I use lightly. I prefer the word ignorant, which has a very different meaning. Ignorant means uninformed. Or, more specifically, from the New Oxford American Dictionary in the Dictionary application in Mac OS X:

lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated

I wanted to think that the irritation guy was just ignorant. He’s not technically savvy. Heck, he had to have his daughter come out and help him disconnect an Ethernet cable from a computer! All he knows about the irrigation computer is what the setup guy told him. He doesn’t touch it without assistance from the local support person. So, obviously he’s not informed about how computers work.

But when several people go through the exercise of testing the system with him to prove that it works and multiple people explain that the two systems are on different frequency ranges so there shouldn’t be any conflict and he still refuses to believe, I have to start applying the stupid label to him.

And you can’t fix stupid.

Sunflowers!

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The fruits (or flowers) of my labor.

Before I left Wickenburg for the summer, I planted a small garden in some beds at the back of our house. The garden had a few vegetable plants — tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant — as well as some sunflowers.

I like the giant sunflowers, but I also planted some shorter varieties. One of the giants was in bloom when I left. The others have apparently bloomed as well. But not before some of them have reached heights of 8 feet or more!

Sunflowers!Here’s the photo Mike sent today. I’m impressed.

What I like best about sunflowers is what happens after they go to seed: the birds land on them and feed right off the flower head. Mike will have plenty of that activity to enjoy while I’m gone.

I had some leftover seeds and I brought them with me to Washington State. I tried twice to plant them around the water spigot for my camper. There’s dirt there and its almost always wet. I think birds or rabbits got the first seedlings and the lawnmower got the second. I’ve given up. Instead, I have a planter that contains two tomato plants, some basil, and some flowers. That’s as green as my thumb can get here in the RV park, I guess.

And the Rockets’ Red Glare…

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…the bombs bursting in air…

Over the years, I’ve forgotten what the Independence Day celebration is all about. Or maybe I never knew. Sure, it’s a day off and sales at the stores. It’s picnics in the park and a fireworks display. It’s time with your family or friends doing fun things.

But that’s not what it really means.

Independence Day is a celebration of the birth of our country and our freedom from a tyrannical ruler.

Want to really understand Independence Day? Read or listen to a reading of the Declaration of Independence. I listen to NPR’s reading every year and it brings tears to my eyes. (This year, it was worse, since I realize that President George really has committed several of the same offenses as King George III.) The Declaration is a document that simply declares that the people have had enough abuse and want independence.

“Church bells rang in Philadelphia,” NPR reminds us at the end of the reading. The people were celebrating the adoption of this document 232 years ago. What would follow was a war to achieve the independence we had declared. A war we very nearly lost.

On Friday, July 4, 2008, I had the pleasure of watching the fireworks display hosted by the town of Brewster, WA. Brewster is a small town at the confluence of the Okanogan and Columbia Rivers at Lake Pateros. It’s filled with fruit orchards growing cherries, apples, pears, apricots, plums, and more. The majority of residents are farm workers and, this time of year, many are migrants who have come to Washington to pick fruit. They’ve brought along their children, who are likely to follow in their footsteps as migrant workers in years to come.

Mike and I made our way to a park along the edge of the lake. A huge crowd was gathered and there were lawn chairs and blankets all over the grass. Kids ran and played, carrying or wearing glowing toys. In the open areas, people were shooting off their own fireworks; unlike every other place I’ve lived — New York, New Jersey, and Arizona — fireworks are both legal and easily obtained here in Washington. These little fireworks shows added to the party atmosphere. Rather than putting on fireworks displays at their own homes, these people were sharing their fireworks with everyone.

It was a real community event. The air was thick with celebration.

Fireworks in BrewsterAnd then the main fireworks display began. It started at 10 PM sharp with a continuous display of large fireworks over the lake. Somehow, we’d managed to get a perfect spot in the park. We were both comfortable in our chairs and had unobstructed views. I’d brought along my camera and tripod in an attempt to capture some of the fireworks in pixels. This shot, taken with my fisheye lens, isn’t very good, but it gives you an idea of our surroundings: the people around us in the park, the water of the lake, a high tension powerline tower all illuminated by the rocket’s red glare.

As the main fireworks display ended at 10:30 with a 2-minute finale and the crowd began to break up as people walked back to their cars, the smaller fireworks displays all around the park started up again.

And that’s when it hit me — that’s when I felt what Independence Day was all about.

I Am Patriotic

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Really.

A lot of people think I’m not very patriotic. They think I complain too much about the way the government is handling the war in Iraq (not “mission accomplished,” in case you haven’t noticed), health care, and tax breaks for big corporations and the ultra rich. These people seem to forget that our country was founded by complainers who, feeling that they were being treated unfairly by their King (coincidentally named George), did something about it.

(Of course, most of today’s Americans are too weak to stand up for what’s right. And with a huge number of them believing the lies spun out by cable news networks (think Fox), they’re misled to thinking that their biggest worry should be that someone other than a born again Christian Republican may be sitting in the White House come January 2009. But that’s a topic for another post.)

American FlagIn reality, I’m very patriotic. I love my country — well, at least the country I grew up in, which has the same name as the one I’m a citizen of now. I believe in the “American Way” as it was in the 50s and 60s and 70s. I still think the “American Dream” is possible for people who work hard instead of trying to figure out ways to beat the system. Today’s corruption of American is pretty tough to swallow sometimes.

I believe in contributing to my community to make it better — but not when the leaders of my community are obviously out to make themselves, their friends, and their family members rich or influential at the expense of the people they’re supposed to be serving. I believe in helping my neighbor when help is needed. I also remember that America has always been a melting pot of people and their cultures, different doesn’t mean bad, and everyone has a right to pursue their own happiness, as long as it doesn’t infringe on others’.

I believe in our First Amendment freedoms, especially the freedom of speech and the freedom to practice any religion I like, even if that’s no religion at all. I’m proud to be part of a country whose founding fathers had enough foresight to keep religion out of government, even if I’m ashamed that the Executive Branch and half the Legislative Branch of government have forgotten that part of the Constitution exists.

I’m patriotic, but I’m not blind and I’m not stupid. And I feel sorry for the people who believe the crap they hear on cable news networks and read in viral e-mail messages.

Lake Pateros Fun

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Action photos at the lake.

Jetski at Lake PaterosI spent the July 4 holiday weekend at Lake Pateros in Washington State. Most of the time I wasn’t flying — I spent 3.1 hours on Friday drying cherries — I was holed up at the extremely pleasant (and helicopter-friendly) Lake Pateros Motor Inn. Mike and I lounged a bit on the upper deck patio walkway right outside our room. The lake was wild with boaters and jet skiers and wake boarders. On a whim, I took out my Nikon D80 camera and its 70-300 mm lens. I set the camera to continuous shooting, zoomed all the way, and started snapping photos.

To my surprise, a few of them came out pretty darn good.

Chelan, WA from the AirI continued snapping photos throughout the weekend. On Saturday, Mike and I took a helicopter flight around central Washington and we took turns snapping photos out of the helicopter. (He’s a pilot, too, and we had the dual controls in, so I had a rare opportunity to use both hands and decent equipment for aerial photography with doors off.) Some of those photos were pretty good, too, like Mike’s shot of downtown Chelan.

This all goes back to my theory that if you have decent digital photographic equipment, are in a good place to take photos, have good photographic conditions (i.e., lighting), and enough storage space on your memory card that you don’t have to skimp on the number of photos you take, you have to get some good shots. Mike and I took over 200 shots from the air during a 3-hour flight the other day. I bet we only wind up with about a dozen really good ones.

Anyway, I put the Lake Pateros photos online on a new Web site I’m experimenting with: Flying M Photos. I’m hoping to build up a library of stock and fine art images, as well as event images like this, for sale. With luck, this will fund my photography habit, which is quickly becoming quite expensive.

Were you out on Lake Pateros during the July 4 weekend? Check the site to see if I got an action photo of you! If I did and you want to buy a copy to remember your day at the lake, use the coupon code LAKEP to save 20% on your photo order.