mikal – Page 94 – Made by Mikal

Reactive economies?

Post author:mikal
Post published:December 28, 2006
Post category:Travel

The other day while in Costco (for the foreigners, think Bunnings or some other hardware warehouse, but for food), I was graced with this conversation at the checkout, between two Costco employees: e1: Where the hell is e3? e2: Oh, we didn't meet our sales target yesterday, so they cut hours today. e1: So he's not coming in at all? e2: Nup Apparently Costco works out their staffing based on a "budget for the day" which takes into account todays sales target, expected customer load, and whatever they have to "make up" from previous missed targets. While there is nothing wrong with that, it must suck to be an employee in that environment. I can't imagine not knowing how much work I would have day to day. I used to be a casual, but our rosters were fairly static and worked out weeks in advance. I guess that Australia is headed down this path with the new industrial relations laws as well. That's not why I finally got around to writing this though. It occurred to me this morning that being able to lay off people instantly based on a micro assessment of the economy must also lead to very…

Bloomberg: How to handle those annoyingly poor relatives at Christmas

Post author:mikal
Post published:December 26, 2006
Post category:Link

Resist the urge to impress family members with your purchasing power and instead give them only what they can afford to give you. Avoid luxury goods, for example, or other items redolent of leisure. Choose, instead, gifts that encourage productive labour. Hand tools, say, or cookbooks. Obviously your gift needs to say, ``I love you,'' but it also needs to say, ``The income gap within the family isn't going to be shrinking from my end.'' A funny look at how to handle poor relatives at Christmas. Or at least I hope it's meant as humour.

When in San Diego, visit the aircraft carrier

Post author:mikal
Post published:December 26, 2006
Post category:Travel

Just a note to myself to remember to visit the USS Midway if I ever find myself in San Diego.

Christmas morning

Post author:mikal
Post published:December 26, 2006
Post category:Christmas

Our kids seem to have the Christmas thing under control -- I remember waking my folks up at 5am to open presents, but our kids let us sleep in today until nearly 8:30am. They liked their presents heaps, so if you got something for them, well done. I'll put some pictures online later when I get a chance. [btags:]

Tempe, AZ to Mountain View, CA in a day!

Post author:mikal
Post published:December 23, 2006
Post category:Travel

Andrew's sick, Catherine's tired. So we're driving home in one day. That's 733 miles.

Remember to visit the Ronald Regan Presidential library

Post author:mikal
Post published:December 23, 2006
Post category:Travel

Remember to visit the Ronald Regan Presidential library, especially because it has planes. I like planes.

Back on the road again

Post author:mikal
Post published:December 23, 2006
Post category:Travel

James and I are driving back to Los Angeles today. We're not running any cameras at the moment, basically because while I now have two nice cameras with better optics and a nice external antenna for the EDGE card, I am having trouble finding a video4linux 2 web cam application. I've got some code which does the job, but it needs more hacking to make it usable, and frankly I'm more interested in getting home to the wife and kids for now. So, if anyone has a v4l2 web cam application recommendation, feel free to let me know and we can use it tomorrow for the LA to Mountain View drive.

Los Angeles to Tempe

Post author:mikal
Post published:December 19, 2006
Post category:Travel

Another video! This time from Los Angeles to Tempe, along the I-10 E, thru the desert and part a nuclear reactor.

Driving from Mountain View to Los Angeles

Post author:mikal
Post published:December 18, 2006
Post category:Travel

Today we stopped off at a house in Los Angeles where one of James' friends lives. We're on the way to Tempe, Arizona -- that's another six hours or so away tomorrow.

Kern County oil wells on I-5

Post author:mikal
Post published:December 17, 2006
Post category:Travel

Wow, and then we drove past a bunch of oil wells in the middle of an otherwise pleasant rural area called Kern County. I didn't realize that the Kern County area is responsible for two thirds of all oil produced in California. So there you go. There was even a 1950s truck next to one of the wells, which looked like it had just been abandoned one day from the look of the vegetation around it. If I wasn't going 130 kilometres an hour with the camera in the boot I would have taken a picture. Here is someone else's shot: