Life as a Spectator Sport

A proud member of the reality-based community


Sunday, April 11, 2004

It's Easter Sunday, so I'm not out on the road inspecting grocery stores. What I am doing is submitting, via the internet, the inspections I've already performed, a laborious, time-consuming process. We're saving money by not having to buy film and pay for the processing, and by not having to ship the oroginal paper forms and pictures. But the savings in money is unfortunately negated by the increase in time required, not to mention the increased eyestrain. I've complained enough that I've been invited to provide some input into improving the system, but incremental improvements in the submission process aren't really the answer.

We used to fill out paper forms by hand on site at each grocery store, make copies of the forms, and then ship them and the pictures we took to the appropriate government office. Now we still fill out the forms, but then we have to transfer that information manually (in other words, fill out the forms all over again) on the prime contractor's website. What we should be doing is to record the information on a PDA or tablet computer to begin with, and be able to upload the whole thing at one time with the click of one button. My great impatience with this may be due to the possibility that I have a larger number of stores to inspect than most of the other sub-contractors, but improving it would be helpful to everyone. So I'm going to acquire a tablet PC and rewrite the whole works from scratch.

While I knock myself out in this interesting but high stress job, it turns out that my president is able to take it a little easier in his. Thanks to Buttermilk and Molasses for linking to the Washington Post article from which this excerpt is taken (and shame on the Post for employing spyware on their site—you can detect it with the excellent spyware sleuth Spybot Search & Destroy):
This is Bush's 33rd visit to his ranch since becoming president. He has spent all or part of 233 days on his Texas ranch since taking office, according to a tally by CBS News. Adding his 78 visits to Camp David and his five visits to Kennebunkport, Maine, Bush has spent all or part of 500 days in office at one of his three retreats, or more than 40 percent of his presidency.
It gives me such hope to know that the "war" president is on duty 40% of the time.
posted by Liz @ 2:08 PM     |


The template is set to display 10 posts. To see all the posts for this month, click on the month name in the Archive section

This site is a member of WebRing. To browse visit here.



RSS Feed


PERSONAL

Send email to
liz at life-as-a-spectator-sport.com
Home

I'm a mother, grandmother, a computer professional, Democrat, Christian. I welcome politely worded comments and email, my spam filter throws the rest away, so don't bother to flame me

WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT'

"If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings."


I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart.

THE NON-ELECTRIC HOME

Cleaning, 1
Cleaning, 2
Cleaning, 3

KNITTING BLOGS

Extravayarnza
Knitting Heretic
Mind of Winter
Pie Knits
Persistent Illusion
See Eunny Knit
The Keyboard Biologist
Taleweaver's Ramblings
TECHnitting
Wendy Knits

FINISHED PROJECTS


SELF-RELIANCE AND THE FUTURE

-- Blogs and websites --
Causubon's Book
Club Orlov
Food Storage Made Easy
From the Wilderness
In the Wake
Listening to Katrina
Survival Topics
The Modern Homestead
The Oil Drum
Notes from a Hillside Farm

-- Mailing Lists --
12vdc Power
Living on the Land
Rainwater
Refrigeration Alternatives
Old Ways of Living

POLITICAL BLOGS and SITES

The political sites have moved

BOOKS I'M READING

How to Grow More Vegetables, etc.
Small Scale Grain Raising

ARCHIVES

February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
August 2008
July 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
May 2003
April 2003
March 2003
February 2003
January 2003
December 2002
November 2002
October 2002
September 2002
August 2002
July 2002
June 2002
May 2002
April 2002
March 2002
February 2002

Powered by BLOGGER Template made possible by BLOGSKINS.