Land of Oz

Anniversary

Today is the third anniversary of this blog. I posted my first message on a Saturday back in 2003. I was bitching about noise, and continue to do so. This weekend sounded like a war zone with all the idiots setting off fireworks all hours of the night.

Since that first post, I've put about 414 posts, in 1.3 MB in html files, along with 60-odd images and a bunch of links. For the most part, I've blogged here for my own relief. It's easier than griping to people and it does get stuff off my chest. Actually, I've found that there have been some people who really read this stuff and even a very elite few who've commented on articles. Thanks for the comments. It's always a thrill to see that there's actually someone who decided that they like/hated your text enough to take the time to comment about it.

For the most part, this blog has been shrouded in anonyminity. I did get a link in MSN's Slate which resulted in a very brief flurry of hits. There's been a couple of group discussions that ended up linking to my blog, but those links don't usually last.

Thanks to those who do read this and for those who haven't that's cool too.

Law Enforcement Priorities

Believe it or not, all the below stories were found online today on my My Yahoo home page of news collections. Our town is fighting to get more cops right now and real criminals everywhere are having a field day shooting, and raping, and murdering.

"MOUNT HOPE, Ohio - Arlie Stutzman [an Amish dairy farmer] was busted in a rare sting when an undercover agent bought raw milk from the Amish dairy farmer in an unlabeled container. ... After the creamy white, unpasteurized milk flowed into the container, the man, an undercover agent from the Ohio Department of Agriculture, gave Stutzman two dollars and left. ... "You can't just give milk away to someone other then yourself. It's a violation of the law," said LeeAnne Mizer, spokeswoman for the department."

Heaven help Arlie if he'd also offered Oreos with that.

The FBI spends god-only-knows how much money tearing down a barn and digging up a field looking for Big Foot, er, Jimmy Hoffa. I hear they are preparing extradition papers for Loch Ness authorities as well.

Rush Limbaugh is busted for carrying a bottle of Viagra. No matter what I think of the pompous, loudmouthed, holier-than-thou, common 'tator, you have to wonder how many real drug dealers were sneaking in crack while the inspectors were impounding the dope's dope.

Seven losers in Florida with no weapons, no plans and no explosives are given combat boots by a government agent and then arrested as deadly terrorists. I'm guessing it was for deadly foot odor.

"BERKLEY, Mich. - The parking fine was $10. But the comment Robert Militzer added to the check could land him in jail for 30 days.

The computer programmer from Allen Park got the ticket May 29. When Militzer wrote the check to Berkley District Court, he scribbled on the memo line, "BULL (expletive) MONEY GRAB." He'd probably get less time for robbing a 7/11 these days.

Progress revisited yet again

A couple of days ago, this little windup revolving gadget I use in my microwave gave up the ghost. Geeze, after almost twenty years it broke. I don't understand. The microwave itself is a Kenmore that's about a year older than the revolver was. It's a simple over with a digital input and 600 watts of power. If I remember correctly, I paid well over $200 for it at the time.

In the last couple of years, I've bought a couple medium priced DVD players/recorders and they all break down after about a year. My first remote digital thermometer I bought a few years ago, just went belly up a couple of months ago - since then, I've bought two others. The original replacement only lasted a couple of months.

I have an Epson ink jet that's pushing ten years old, that works fine, but slowly. I have a new HP printer/scanner that's been an irritant since I bought it a few months ago. The best stereo in the house is one I bought so long ago, you can't even get parts for it and all-in-one remotes can't recognize it.

I have some Craftsman power tools that I bought probably twenty years ago, that are still working as good as they did when I bought them. They're a little dinged and dented, but still do the job. I've bought two palm sanders and two cordless drills from Craftsman, and all have been problems. The first palm broke the second time I turned it on and the second (which Sears did replace for me) didn't last much longer before I tossed it (now out of warranty). One of the battery packs for the first drill died about the second month I had it. I went back and found an identical drill model on clearance for less than the price of a new drill pack. One of those battery packs also petered out within months.

I owned my first VW (a Thing) from 1975 to 1985 and other than one engine change, it worked great until the very end when everything started to go bad. The next car I had was a Chevy Cavalier that I drove from 1985 to 1995 with no problems at all (the odometer went haywire around 51,000 miles). I replaced that with a Chevy S-10 pickup that spent more time in the dealer's garage than it did in mine, until I totalled it. I replaced that with a 1995 Saturn Wagon. In the five years I had that, I went through 3 sets of brakes, 5 headliners, along with assorted other problems. My latest, a 2001 VW New Beetle has spent way more time that it should have in another dealer's garage. It took them until just past the warranty (surprise, surprise) to finally get it running correctly.

So why does stuff crap out now so much sooner that it used to? It's not me. I am much more gentle and responsible with stuff than I was in my twenties and thirties. Back in those days, I'm surprised I lived, let alone having stuff survive that long. I buy something today and I'm really-really happy when it lasts a year. You can't fix stuff - you pay more for the labor than you do for a new piece of crap - and you still have the old piece of crap. I find that most of my handiest and useful stuff is stuff that's so old, you can't get them anymore. Anything new is going to break before it gets familiar. What is wrong with you manufacturers out there - make some good stuff -- OK?

Our Problem, Not Yours

The USofA seems to have something seriously flawed in the way we deal with society's issues. The question is what is it? Ever since World War 2 we've been trying to impose our way of life on other countries pretty much unsuccessfully. Korea, Vietnam, Central America, Afghanistan, Iraq, Beirut, Sudan, Iran and others have all ended up pretty much as military disasters.

This isn't to say that our way of life is without flaws. We've got a bunch of them and they seem to be getting worse. The war on drugs has been and still is a fiasco. From Prohibition of the Roaring 20s to the Meth and oxycodin plague of today, it doesn't seem like we've made much of a dent in the problem. Here in this area, a lot of kids would rather deal drugs and die young that try and crawl out of the depths of poverty. The USofA has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancies and jail populations which I'm sure are related in some insidious way. We have one of the highest rates of executions of any country - right up there with China, Iran and Saudi Arabia - what a neighborhood that is.

Our rich are in fact getting richer, which is nice if you're one of them. Unfortunately, our poor are also getting poorer and growing in quantity. It has somehow become acceptable for a company to layoff a thousand workers, report record losses, and yet still find the ways and means to give the CEO a bonus and huge retirement package.

We pride ourselves on personal freedoms yet the government tracks our calls, our finances, our reading habits, and still manages to give away personal information on people by the millions. We've grown so inured to loss of life, that the time we notice the 2 or 3 GIs getting blown up in the Middle East is when we know one of them. The people over there that we are supposedly helping just cut off the head of two of our guys. Our pursuit of personal freedom has resulted in this country having one of the largest, if not the largest, prison populations in the world. I think there's some outrageous statistic that says one out of five black men in this country is in jail.

Maybe we should quit trying to impose our way of life on other countries until we straighten ourselves out. We need to educate instead of incarcerate. We need to get people to crave a good book and not crave a good toke. We need to have our country offer a way of living to kids that is more desirable than a short life on the street pushing meth. What we need is to have a higher college population and a smaller jail population. And there is no problem with having a super-rich segment of population if there isn't a super poor population to balance them out.

Once we can fix our problems, then we can try fixing others.

Money... again

The New York Times said the city's Neue Galerie paid $135m (£73m) for the oil painting (portrait by Gustav Klimt) in a private sale.

What is with people? What drives people to acquire stuff like this for those kinds of prices? Obviously, many people wanted this picture and were willing to pay a lot of money to get it. First, let me state that I've never seen this painting in person - all I've see was a little 200 pixel wide image on the BBC Web site. Honestly, from what I saw, I'd be unwilling to $20 for the thing.

What is it about possession that drives people to waste so much money on so little? Think of what could be done with $135 million dollars! How many people in the Sudan could that feed; how many kids in Afghanistan could that send to school, what kind of clinic in a Detroit ghetto could you run; how many soup kitchens in San Paulo could that buy?

I guess I'm a bit strange here, but I could never see the whys of paying ultra dollars for what is usually no more than a name. I can see paying more for an actual return in quality. For example, I'm a tool guy - I like tools. I would rather purchase a $500 band saw instead of $300 band saw of similar size. However, I can't see paying $3000 for the same type of item. Perhaps, if I was a professional who used this tool day-in and day-out, I might be persuaded to pay the extra bucks, but as a home hobbiest, I can't see it. The same for a painting. Yes, I can possibly see paying $200 for a nicely hand-crafted landscape compared to a $15 print, but barely. However, I can't see paying $150,000 for the original of the print. And yes, I can see that there is a major quality difference between a $3000 Rolex and a $30 Timex and honestly, that's one of the few "luxury" items I crave. (That being said, I think I'd be afraid to wear it if I had it -- too many punks with $50 Saturday night specials crave them as well.), but functionally the Timex will probably keep better time. However, that being said, I still can't see paying $15,000 for Patek watch. You get all the quality and reliability you'd ever need with the Rolex - why pay for all the extra fluff, that doesn't do anything.

Of course, if I was one of those who could pay $100 million for a painting or $10,000 for a watch or $350,000 for a car, I'd probably see things differently. Screw the poor people and where's my Bentley keys?

Tractor Pulls

I don't know if you've ever been to a tractor pull. It's been a long time since I went to one. I used to go very regularly in the mid-70s in the DelMarVa pennisula. That's Delaware/Maryland/Virginia. Back then they were in some farmer's field and rarely was there bleachers or much of any support. I think trucks had just started pulling - mostly stock 4X4s - and would often leave parts like bumpers and hitches attached to the transfer sled. I think I went one more time in the late 70s after I'd been transferred to Kansas - I think it was the Kansas state fair.

I went to one today in Midland, Michigan. If you haven't been to one, it's pretty impressive. They aren't your grandad's tractor, well, in some cases I guess they could be. One of the winners of today's pull was 62 and another was 72. But look at the picture here. That's the sixy-year-old's wheels - with four, count 'em, four hemis sitting on the front pushing about 1600HP -- each! That's over 6000 horses to plow the back forty with. Actually the super-stock is probably more impressive in their own way. They look just a tractor out of the field except for the big tires. But once they start winding up the turbo - look out. These things are pushing 2000HP for a stock tractor chassis and rear end.

If you're interested, check out the National Tractor Pullers Association. I've also stuck a 3MB video file here that I took with a tiny little digital camera at today's meet. Too bad it doesn't have sound.

Electrons on Strike

Well, it happened again. I woke up, luckily in time for work, to the sounds of internal silence and chain saws buzzing in the background. Seems the power went out again. I was awoken by some loud buzzes at around 6am. At the same time, the fan slowly rotated to a stop and the clock by my bed winked out. I went downstairs and my UPS was beeping to tell me, as if I hadn't already figured it out, that power was gone. I shut if off, grabbed my battery alarm clock and returned to bed. Unfortunately, I hadn't noticed the clock's battery was dead and the alarm didn't buzz. On my way into work, I could see the power company working on some fallen trees in the next block. One more stately old tree gives up the ghost - no winds, no rains, no lightening, just a quick crack and the giant is dead. The power company will "trim" whatever is left; leaving not much more than a stump, a pile of sawdust and wood, and deep ruts in the yard.

I'm really hoping it won't take them the weekend to get things back to normal. They usually get power back up in hours, but it has been know to take days - and tomorrow the temperature and humidity are supposed to be in the high 90s - so having air conditioning would be nice. I showered and shaved by candlelight this morning - thankfully, I have a gas water heater. I skipped breakfast to keep the fridge cool and made sure everything was off that should be off. Of course I kept flicking switches to turn on the lights knowing full well they didn't work. Hopefully I won't have to give my new windup radio a workout when I get home tonight.

Wiping your...

OK - this is a delicate subject I would imagine. Have you ever wondered about the mechanics of wiping your, underside as it were? And right off the bat, while I know many other countries use the bidet, and they are becoming more popular in the USofA, I'm talking the use of paper. And also, no, I have no idea how to use a bidet.

This issue of NewScientist magazine had a real short retro-blurb about how a British paper company called foul on a US company that was marketing a stronger toilet paper. Supposedly the US paper was so strong that the UK toilet system would be overwhelmed and the British Empire as we know it, would cease to exist. One line in the article mentioned that while the Brits tend to fold their paper, making it weaker when wet, us Yanks tend to "scrunch" the paper.

As in so many things in the USofA I run against the grain - I'm a folder. Which I'm not sure is good or bad. Which also brings me to auto-flushing toilets - the bane of Opus and me. I tend to get up and wipe - in fact, I don't know how one could stay down and wipe. However when I do get up, the auto-flusher flushes before I can toss the soiled and folded paper. Which when I'm done makes a toilet full of unflushed and folded paper - forcing me, well, not actually forcing, but making me want to flush it again. This results in at least a double-flush thus wasting water.

So, the question is, am I doing something wrong? I am an inveterate reader of manuals and package blurbs, but have never run across a manual or even a panel of instructions on toilet paper. There's talk about how soft, how strong, how nice it smells, its color, its embossed designs and economy, but never a blurb about the correct way of using it. As impossible as it sounds, I never even recall reading any kind of warning on toilet paper. You know, stupid stuff, like don't inhale, don't use around heavy machinery, or consult your doctor if any side effects are noticed.

It makes me wonder...

Genes

I'm reading a mystery right now that includes the murder of a street person - bum if you will. Some poor old slob who got disconnected from society and is living out on the street. It makes me wonder. When I was getting ready to retire from the military a few years ago - sheesh, is it actually 11 years now!! - I was more than a little worried about that. I'd seen so many guys retire from the military and go into mental hold. You'd see dozens sitting around the local mall drinking coffee and waiting to die. And not all of them were really that old. I'd worry about what would happen to me when I got out. Would I be unable to find a job or not be able to handle college? Would I be able to find a place to live? I even bought a station wagon just in case I had to live in my car. Looking back on it, I suppose it was a bit irrational. But I still wonder what separates me from the guy in the coffee shop watching the world pass him by, or even more, what causes someone to lose it all and live on the street? A lot of homeless are vets - that's frightening and disgusting and disturbing all in its own. I wonder what it is that broke in them to cause them to be how they are. And even more worrisome, could it break in me?

I've read that humans and chimps are supposedly 98% genetically alike. We're even supposed to share something like 50% of our genes with a banana - although honestly, I've met more than a couple of people who make that an insult to bananas everywhere. Anyway, the fact is that if less than 2% of our genes separate us from an ape, how infinitesimal must the difference be that separates me from that homeless dude on the street -- and what if it breaks?

Lawyers

Yes, I know that lawyers do good. However, it's cases like this that give all lawyers a bad name. Yes, I know there are real miscarriages of justice. There are innocents who have gone to jail in error. However, the fact that Hurwitz would even take this particular case on is disgusting. This criminal, Buckman, is suing the people he tried to rob and threatened to shoot after they caught him and beat him up.

Dana Buckman, 46, walked into an auto shop brandishing a semiautomatic pistol last summer, only to have it turned on him by two AutoZone employees, police said. The men beat Buckman with a metal pipe and held him with his own gun.

Buckman escaped and was arrested a week later.

He pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery and was sentenced to 18 years in prison as a repeat violent felon.

Buckman claims the men chased him out of the store and continued to beat him. He is suing the auto shop and the men for the injuries he suffered and for emotional distress.

"In some respects, you wonder if a case like this even needs a defense. It speaks for itself," said lawyer Patrick B. Naylon, who represents AutoZone and the employees.

But lawyer Phillip R. Hurwitz, who represents Buckman, said the employees crossed the line by pursuing Buckman and attacking him.

"The danger was past," Hurwitz said. "These two employees took it upon themselves to go after Mr. Buckman after he left the store."

Not really wanting to wish ill will on someone, it would have been interesting that had Mr. Buckman escaped, he took his pistol and tried to rob Hurwitz with it or shot and crippled some other victim. Makes you wonder what Hurwitz would have thought about that.

Bad Food

There's a few restaurants where I don't like the food. Every year or two I decide to give them another try in the hopes that either they've gotten better, or maybe I didn't really have a bad meal there. One of them is Long John Silvers and another is Bob Evans. Today I went to Bob Evans for the first time in over a year to see why I didn't like it.

I had a taste for a club sandwich, but was open for other things. The description of the club sandwich was that it was a chicken breast. I did remember that the last time I had a club sandwich there, it was a complete chicken breast - not some sliced meat and not a triple decker. If you've read this, you know I'm a traditionalist in many areas, and club sandwiches are it. So I passed on that. They had a blasphemous BLT on the menu. A BLT with EGG and cheese. They call it a BLT for a reason. Bacon, lettuce and tomato - simple. No cheese and certainly not an egg -- an egg of all things. I asked the waitress later how popular it was and she said some people did order it, but most ordered it without the egg. What is the sense of ordering a sandwich if you plan on leaving off most of it. I'm really not into paying for something I don't plan on eating.

I ended up with French toast and homestyle potatoes. It was OK. The French toast was slightly soggy inside and the potatoes were uninspired. I had to get up and walk to the waitress station to ask for a refill of water. All-in-all, I know why I don't like Bob Evans and hopefully I'll remember that next time I want to stop there.

Now that I'm thinking about Long John Silvers, I know why I don't like it. Grease! Everything is battered and eep-fried and the batter holds onto every drop of grease. You might just as well swallow a bar of butter - except the butter tastes better. If Long John's ever offered a salad, I'll bet you it'll be deep-fried.

There's a few other restaurants in the area I won't be going back to. It's not that the food is that bad, it's just between service and food and atmosphere, I don't have much desire to ever return. Here's some of them and why I don't like them:

• Texan Steak House - a horrid Thanksgiving meal once suffered through - absolutely the worst Thanksgiving meal ever.
  
• Bubbas - The food was actually OK, but the place had its share of fights and even going during a slow late lunch time on a weekend, it was like eating in an ashtray (it's been renamed, but I haven't returned).
• Culvers - you order at a counter and get your drink to take to the table. However, you have to pick up condiments and there's no way to carry them. So when they drop off your food, you have to go back up to get the condiments. And really bad hot dogs.
• Lonestar - really, really bad steak - twice. Tough, gristly and bad tasting. However the service was quite good.
• New York Bagel on State Street - the service went bad a couple years ago. Walking in there was like walking into a place where you definitely weren't wanted.
• Bringer Inn - the food is OK, the service is fair, but the place is absolutely filthy. There's more food on the floor than there is on the tables.

And while there's more, that's about it off the top of my head.

USMC

I heard a pretty bizarre news story on the way to work today. It was about some idiot and his web site and US Marines. It seems there's this web site up that is disrespectful to the US Military. I'd be pretty surprised if it was only one - or even only a dozen, but the news story made this one sound pretty unique. Any way, they had a sound bit from some Marine's mom (tearful naturally) that her poor baby, a US Marine and many in his unit, were totally demoralized because of this Web site. It went on to say that she was trying to get her senator, congressman, etal to make them take it down.

Well, naturally, I have two big problems with this story. First, taking down the web site. I haven't seen it and didn't get the URL associated with it. It probably wouldn't be too hard to google "disrespectful to the Military" and find it. Why should I boost his bandwidth report? Why should I advertise his site on this blog. OK - I'm a little curious and will probably try to find it later. It just brings up that cliche about assholes and opinions - everybody's got one and in this case the site's owner seems to be much more one than the having a legitimate other.

The second problem is the marine. If he and his unit is completely demoralized by one Web site, he is really-really in the wrong line of business and needs to get out and go to work for Macdonalds or Wendy's. And I really feel sorry for any other unit that is going to have to fight alongside of (much more likely in front off) this group of sorry marines. And nope, I'm obviously not a Marine -- however, I have spent 22 years in the military.

Scientists

The world's "leggiest" millipede has been rediscovered 80 years after its first and only sighting. Scientists, writing in the journal Nature, highlight the need to protect its fragile habitat.

Illacme plenipes (up to 750 legs) is only thought to exist in a 0.8sq km (0.3sq mile) area of the biodiversity hotspot California Floristic Province. The team has called for urgent protection of the rare creature's fragile habitat.

So what did the scientists do? They caught some, killed them and looked at them under an electron microscope, thus ensuring the are photos of the even more endangered critter.

Dateline NBC

Have you been watching the Dateline series that has been replaying (over and over) the last couple of weeks? It's about catching online predators chasing after young kids. It's disturbing on several levels. One is that these creepy guys (and most are pretty creepy appearing) are going after young kids. Another level is that there are young kids who are letting this happen. And on yet another level is that many of the guys (all guys so far) don't really seem to be able to stop themselves from doing something they almost all admit to being wrong.

I've been online for a lot of years -- dating back to pre-Internet days. Back in the "good 'ol days" it was bulletin boards. That was were you would leave a message and come back later and see what the answers, if any, were and then reply, etc. Occasionally there'd be interactive chats, but that was pretty rare - you both had to be logged in (300-2400 baud back then) at the same time.

One of the things that always freaked me out was young girls (at least appearing as that) who would contact you. A few years ago, I was using ICQ for messaging. I was going to college so kept odd hours and was online a lot. A few times I was contacted by a young girl. The first thing I'd look at was their profile -- check their age. If they were young - anything under 20 - I'd let them know I wasn't at all interested. Once, the person said they were using their kid's account - that one made me uneasy. A couple of times the girls would really get upset when I didn't want to continue chatting. One worry I had was if a young kid was trying to appear older. What would happen if you went expecting to meet a 40 year old and she turned out to be 15? While it never happened, that always worried me.

I have met in person a few people I met online. One group had a get-together luncheon put on by a BBS owner in Colorado - Henry Birdseye - I don't remember the name right now (Unknown BBS??), but it was dedicated to humor - of any kind. I've met a few others in person as well. All with good results. And oh year, the ICQ chats? I met the best of the bunch on ICQ - my wife.

Non-lethal?

Judge clears Taser in death
A stun gun manufacturer is not responsible for the death of a Saginaw man who absorbed multiple jolts of electricity during a struggle with police, a Saginaw County circuit judge has ruled.

That's an article that came out today in the local newspaper. It brings to mind one of the things that really-really confuses me. There seems to be no end to the complaints about police or military using "non-lethal" weapons that sometimes hurt or kill the person (sometimes person should be applied loosely) they are used on.

And while I'm on the subject - just how often is one of these things used on an actual innocent bystander? Usually it's some drunk or doped up recalcitrant individual who's resisting or intruding where they shouldn't be. Which by the way, being a spectator at a riot, fight or other unruly gathering of two or more (if one guy is beating his head against a wall, would that still be a fight?) makes you a part of that gathering and you should expect the worse. Perhaps it's my lack of sense of adventure but I have desire to watch when I see a large group of people yelling and throwing stuff. Which in turn brings me to the point that I've found it to be extremely rare when a policeman or GI uses a taser or other device on someone minding their own business.

While I'm not saying innocent bystanders are never the recipient of such acts, I'm am saying it's pretty rare. And personally, if I happen to be on the receiving end of such an act, I'd much rather take my chances with a taser than with a 9mm Glock.

And that's what I don't understand about these groups who so vociferously complain about the use of taser, lasers and sound devices. Considering the option is often a 9mm round that results in a much higher chance of serious injury, what's the problem with getting zapped with that much smaller chance of serious injury.

So the next time your an "innocent" bystander at a riot, or are telling a policeman where she can place her flashlight while she is trying to arrest you think about what you'd rather face - a 9mm round in the gut or a taser in the butt?

Something's Not Right

Here in the good old USofA, there's people who freeze to death in the winter and die of heat stroke in the summer. I haven't heard of anyone yet, but I'm sure there's dozens if not hundreds of old folks who are going to die in their threadbare apartments because they don't have enough money for air conditioning and are too scared to open their windows and doors.

We've got teenagers hanging around on the street corners packing guns and wearing bulletresistant vests knowing they're probably going to die before they pass their teens and they are resigned to the fact. We've got people getting evicted from $3,000 dollar homes because they can't keep up the payments! -- just how much can a payment be on a house worth $3,000?? By the way, arsonists blew up the house this week.

In other countries, over 6,200 people were just killed in an earthquake in Java; hundreds get killed everyday in Iraq, mostly by other Iraqis; and so many people starve, are murdered or killed in Africa, that nobody even keeps track anymore.

OK, now after all of that, I just read about Barbaro - that horse - A HORSE - that broke its leg in a race. After putting the horse in a special horse ambulance, the police blocked the road leading up to the hospital - so the horse wouldn't be jolted! They flew a special doctor from Florida to Pennsylvania where him and 9 other doctors and nurses spent four hours operating. After which the horse was put into a special swimming pool so it wouldn't strain its leg and then finally moved to its air-conditioned stall where it will stay "indefinitely--monitored and checked around the clock, petted and cosseted and fed hand-picked grass..."

Next you read about somebody's gramma dying from neglect, think about how Barabo has to rough it.

Corporate Loyalty

This guy I know works crazy long hours. He took over the position from another guy who also worked those crazy long hours until he burned out. As you can imagine this isn't an hourly position, but it's salaried. Any way, this guy usually comes in early and leaves late only to take his business with him home. The wonders of the internet allow him to do almost as much work from home as from work. I've gotten emails from him dated at 2 or even 3 in the morning and they can come seven days a week.

So where's the loyalty catch in all this? Not his. His supervisor let him take a couple of days vacation in conjunction with the almost here weekend. One of the higher-up muckity-mucks came by and when this guy wasn't at his desk was quite upset over. There was a new feature that was ramrodded and successfully launced by the long-worker. It seems he should have stayed around just in case something went wrong regardless of his supervisor's views on the matter. Sometimes I think that in some companies you could work 365 days a year and the company would be pissed that you missed the six extra hours that add up for leap year.