BUSINESS ETHICS

Alright, I have had it with this bullshit outrage over the Peanut Butter Salmonella Outbreak...

"A federal probe into a deadly salmonella outbreak has exposed a dirty secret: Food producers in most states are not required to alert health regulators if internal tests show possible contamination at their plants."

First of all, it's not a dirty secret its public record- in most cases, companies aren't legally required to submit it. They have the option. The FDA has access to review this data when they come on-site for an inspection.

"The flaw has infuriated regulators and food safety experts, who are pushing legislation that would require the alerts at the first sign of contamination. They say stricter requirements could have stemmed an outbreak, which may have started months ago and has sickened at least 500 people and may have led to eight deaths."

It's not a "flaw" its intentional. Its to protect the companies and "encourage" the companies to do the right thing and deal with it internally and not get the FDA involved.

Stricter requirements aren't going to stop this from happening again. ENFORCEMENT and BIG HUGE FINES and the FEAR of BIG HUGE FINES are what is going to stop this from happening again. Haul the plant manager of this facility into court to face criminal charges for manslaughter... that will help.

This is the same thing with the banks, they were left on their own to police themselves mostly and see how that turned out?

The FDA has a limited number of resources and jurisdiction over thousand and thousands of food/drug/cosmetic/device facilities all over the world (yes, technically a company in another country that sells/distributes their product in the US is subject to FDA inspections and guidelines).

Not that I am saying it's a bad idea, but realistically- imagine if every company that had a contamination issue that's under the FDA had to formally notify the agency. 1) They'd be deluged in paper work. Thousands and thousands of companies make tens maybe hundreds of bulks a day- some are going to be contaminated and some not 2) so they notify the FDA- then what? Wait for the FDA to get caught up on the paper work and tell them what to do? 3) Or they submit the notification to the agency and by the time the agency gets to it in the backlog its weeks or months old- by then the lot is long gone. Okay.. so lets just take a breath here- this is the kinda shit that gets legislated when the politicians are all yammering in a tizzy and then we all end up with another TARP.

"The products that initially tested positive were retested and shipped after a different test by a different firm came up negative."

I promise you this is not the first company that did this. You'd be surprised. This happens a lot. Initial sampling will fail, so they will do another increased sampling and it will pass and the lot ships.

Companies can in a lot of cases use composite samples to release product. Imagine pulling 3 samples. One comes up above the max specification, one below the lower limit, and one in the middle. 2 out of your 3 samples failed. But as a composite (add them all together divide by 3) the average is right in the specification.

When it goes this way, depending on the variation in the lot, you might be buying a item that is above the spec or below the spec.

Like the maximum number of rat dropping in hot dogs thing. That's probably a composite- so some hot dogs are going to have more rat droppings than others.

Manufacturing of things that don't have a large profit margin is where you are going to see this kinda stuff.. more cutting corners- not fixing things, not keeping things clean, not hiring personnel that are qualified and competent (they usually cost more), more general dishonest/unethical business practices, because "product of the door is what keeps the lights on."

They are plenty of good companies out there and there some that are not. Definitely, more than I think people actually realize judging by the latest media whipped frenzied outrage over the peanut butter incident.

I work with a guy who has a saying: "Companies are as ethical and they can afford to be."

There's a lot of truth to that.

Think about it.

WELCOME HOME

This was the bright spot of my mostly crappy day. Thank you, Mr. Towel.
-----------------------------


Flight back home to St. Louis - $500


Checking your two bags - $50


A coke and bag of chips on the flight - $8


Looking out the window, as the plane circles to land, and seeing this as your welcome home – Priceless!

FLOATATION

So......

You're on a trans-Atlantic flight. You're flying an American 767 with 235 other passengers and crew.

There's some kinda Oops and they have to ditch the plane in the ocean.

That's probably about the time you find out that the on board life raft capacity is 228.

When American upgraded the seating (i.e. shrank the seats) to accommodate an extra 8 passengers, they neglected to notice that they did not toss in an extra life raft. I bet they did notice the increase in profit however, no?

So now you're down in the middle of the Atlantic.. and it's winter..

According to American Airlines, if you are one of the unlucky 8 passengers, you're life is not endangered by the lack of life raft capacity. You can use the other flotation device: your seat cushion!

Oh Good. Yes, I almost forgot about that.

Apparently, in the aftermath of the flight that went down in the Hudson a couple weeks ago, someone looked into the life jacket thing and realized the fuck up (Thank you to who ever that was).

So American is keeping all affected flight capacities equal to the number of available life raft space until additional life raft capacity can be added.

Oh Good. That's nice.

For the record, I recommend ripping the extra 8 fucking seats out so the rest of us can have that extra 3/4" of leg room back.

INSPIRED

I saw this recipe for Guinness Broccoli Cheddar Dip this afternoon via a DRAFT Magazine tweet. Sounds perfect for Super Bowl, no?

 

Which got me thinking..about Guinness... Mmm... pure goodness...

 

So here's a Guinness inspired line up- Enjoy.

 

Guinness Broccoli Cheddar Dip

 

Guinness & Onion Bread

 

Mussels in Guinness

 

Guinness Brownies

 

Guinness Ice Cream with Chocolate Covered Pretzels

 

IF IT LOOKS CRAZY... AND ACTS CRAZY...THEN..

I think by now we've all heard the tapes of Illinois Governor Blagojevich allegedly attempting to sell Barack Obama's Senate seat.

It's pretty hard to hear those tapes and not thing it was pretty obvious what he was doing and that his ass is going to jail. But of course, things can be taken out of context,and yes, he is innocent until prove guilty. I am interested in seeing how the trial plays out and what all the evidence says.

I would love to be on that jury.

So you've been arrested and impeached. Whether the accusations are true or not, you'll a politician! (and the ethical standards are lower, granted) So you must defend yourself! I get this too. What do you do? Call a press conference! Oh course, because politicians like nothing more than to listen to themselves yammer.

He leads a public life and he deserves the chance to defend himself publicly. I agree.

State your innocence. Tell us that justice will prevail. Yammer on about how unfair this all is and how it's been orchestrated by your political enemies, fine...

Then what?

Then, get the best legal team you can get and SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Continuing to rail in the press about how they are out to get you and what a great guy you all, doesn't really help anything. Particularly, since you are the only one defending yourself so far.

Nominating a man to fill the seat, in spite of the cloud of suspicion surrounding it was ballsy. I give you that. Then of course blaming racism when that gentleman is not immediately seated to take a position vacated by a black man who was elected President of the United States to try to further obscure the issue and continue to stir up the controversy.

Ahh then- Refusing to participate in your impeachment trial because it's a "sham" seems a bit juvenile doesn't it? If you are innocent, get your lawyers together and go defend yourself.

And DON'T make a public statement comparing your arrest to "what Pearl Harbor Day was to the United States. It was a complete surprise, completely unexpected. And just like the United States prevailed in that, we'll prevail in this."

Remember the old saying? When you're in a hole.. stop digging.

This is the time Blagojevich. Stop digging.

It's time to question this guy's sanity. Maybe acting crazy is part of his plan to avoid a trial. That very well could be.

But in the meantime.. Lets publically address the elephant in the room here.. if he looks batshit crazy, and acts batshit crazy, then maybe...

PUB CORN

Missouri College Student invents Pub Corn - beer (or pina coladas) flavored popcorn!

 

http://www.kmbc.com/newslinks/18424130/detail.html

 

That's fantastic. Another perfect combination of two of my favorite things!

 

The perfect marriage of science and business.

 

Well done.

DELAYED START

By dumb luck I am coming off a 5 day weekend. I didn't go in Friday, three day weekend for MLK Day, and then yesterday was a snow day.

I feel rested and my to do list is empty for the first time in I have no idea how long. Its been glorious.

The snow is still down and the roads are covered in ice this morning. The company is on a 10 am delayed start.

I am not looking forward to work, but I don't think I can spend another day on the couch. Seriously, yesterday I never stepped outside the house and I watched TV or pissed around on the Internet from 8am til 11pm. Definitely can't do it today, I have go to do something.

I have cabin fever this morning- bad. I guess I may as well go to work. I have a feeling getting there is going to be an adventure in its own right.

I woke up this morning to see that all the war trials have been suspended for 120 days and all pending Bush regulations are going under review. I already feel better. Today is Obama's first real day on the job, all the pomp & circumstance is over (can you imagine having to attend 10 inaugural balls in a single day?) and its time to get down to business. Go get 'em.

Thank God, that mess isn't my job to clean up.

But. I do have my very own piles of crap to clean up..
and on that note, I may as well get into the shower and moving that direction.. *Sigh*

SNOW DAY

Yesterday, the weather monkeys predicted 2-6 inches of snow in eastern and central North Carolina.

My fellow residents descended on the groceries stores for milk and bread, I laughed and went about my day. (ME went and stocked up on wine and cheese.. well played)

This morning I woke up to about 2-3 inches of fluffy snow. I was stunned.

Okay. Still am. Maybe not so much that it has snowed, more that they predicted it and where actually right this time.

I have no idea how many snow plows are in the Triangle. My best guess is that there are less than 5 total between Raleigh, Durham, & Chapel Hill. The highways and main drags will probably be cleared off at some point, but everything else is probably just screwed.

My plant decided to delay business hours today until 10am. By 8:30 it continued to snow and they decided to cancelled the day all together. Bitchin'.

SNOW DAY!!

It's probably been since high school since I got a snow day! This kinda rocks. I hate snow, but I do have the overwhelming urge to go sledding! I wish I had a big hill and one of those plastic saucer sleds..

I think we're just lucky since the facility is kind of out in the middle of nowhere. The husband's plant is open today and same thing with where ME works..

With the lack of plows and the location of plant I imagine it would have been fairly difficult to get work this morning. Not to mention dangerous- the Mustang does not like snow.

I bet the bean counters at work have some kind of calculation to determine whether it's financially beneficial to risk peoples safety to get into work to manufacture that day. It's probably all determined on the severity of the conditions, the percentage of likely injuries and the impact the the company health premiums, and the possible negative affect on the yearly manufacturing quotas..

In the meantime, I am hold up in the house with the fire going. I don't have a plastic saucer sled anymore so I see zero reason to leave the house. There's stacks of cats and piles of dogs everywhere. I have a full Tivo queue and plenty of Bailey's for my coffee.

Long live the Snow Day.

TWO DAYS

I can't wait.

I have a Countdown til Bush is Out of Office Calender on my desk. It's been there well over a year. Every morning, I tear off another sheet and get treated to another Bushism and the days remaining is listed.

Some days the Bushism makes me roll my eyes.
Other times it just seems standard, basic, and expected.
Sometimes it actually makes my stomach turn.
And other days it makes me want to throw shit.

What an idiot. Buh-Bye.

There are only two days remaining of the Decider's reign. I'm optimistic that we've seen the end of the swath. All the damage has been done, he would have to work really had to do more damage in the remaining two days- and let's be realistic, he's never been one to put much work into anything... and he's already on basically on vacation anyway.. that's entirely fitting is it not?

I must say, The Decider did an excellent and thorough job of running the country into the ground. I do have to give him that.

I have two days to figure out where I am going to celebrate. I am most definitely going out. Another historical and defining moment in American history is upon us.

There are many beers to to raise, toasts to be made, and prayers to be said for Mr. Obama. He's got a lot of work in front of him.

On the bright side, the bar is pretty low.

EXCEEDING THE DESIGN SPECIFICATION

Bloody hell, it's COLD.

This is the coldest it's been in NC since we moved here. I haven't been this cold since I left the Midwest permanently. The only times we've even been close are during the holidays in Ohio over the last few years.

I woke up this morning. It was 10 degrees.

Ten.

Now, it's 26 degrees. We might break the freezing mark today. We sure as hell didn't yesterday.

It's like the Midwest and the East Coast are getting cryogenically frozen. It's not just unseasonably cold, it's like record breaking cold. It's a mean cold.

We are just not built for this down here and I've been away from it just long enough that I have to think about it. I've warmed my car before leaving for the first time since the winter I spent working in STL (04 I think).

I dug out my Ohio coat, hat, and gloves to wear to dinner last night.

I realized my gas tank was low and I filled it up because I remembered that sometimes gas lines can freeze.

People around here just don't know what to do and I think a lot of people are just refusing to leave the house. I don't blame them. I might go out later just to find somewhere warmer.

Our house is cold. It's sucks. The only warm place in the house is the guest bathroom, because it's closed and it's only like 12 square feet.

Our heater ran all night and all morning and it was fighting to keep the house at 62.

Our heater is not designed for this. We've officially exceeded the design specifications of the heating system of this house.

The dogs are in bed and the cats are shoved underneath the kitchen cabinets (where the heating vents are).

So for the record: This sucks. I am done with this crap.

I am ready for spring.

SUGGESTIONS

The sky hasn't fallen and I haven't managed to hurt myself since my last post. So maybe things are good to go.... No Jinx..

*waiting*

In the spirit of the same, I am seeking a little input.

I have posted previously about the Beach House search in the Outer Banks, but what I haven't posted is that we have actually found what we were looking for, we've made an offer, and it's been accepted.

Now we are drowning in details and paperwork. Inspections, appraisals, etc. You know the drill. We don't close until mid February, so we've got a time and so far everything is on track and everyone's happy (myself included).

We have decided to offer the beach house as a vacation rental, since I can't live there full time (at least not yet) then we may as well get rental income out of it when we aren't using it instead of letting it just sit there empty.

We are going to be getting is listed as a vacation rental here in the next few weeks.

To do this, this beach house needs a name!

The name the current owners gave it sucks.. and hell, if we are going to spend the money on a house, we get the naming rights too.. Something must be done!

I have been trying to come up with a name for a couple of weeks no with no luck. Mostly because the husband has vetoed my best suggestions:

"Mine"
"The Green Fairy's House of Booze"
"Capt Salty's Rum Swilling House O'Sin"

The husband has pointed out that any name reflecting genitalia, profanity, bodily functions, booze, etc. might not exactly be renter/family friendly.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Fine. Fine. Fine.

So I got nothing.

Any suggestions? I realize the whole guideline thing is pretty contrary to the nature of my target audience, but maybe someone out there is willing to give it a shot.

JINX

You know that feeling that if you say something out loud (or blog about it) that you are going to jinx it and it's all going to fall apart? Where the hell does that come from anyway?

I have been wondering about that for a while now. It makes no sense at all, yet it's something I struggle with.

Back this past late summer/early fall, I had decided that I was going to going to start training to run a Half Marathon. The race I had intended to run was mid-December and at the time I had enough time to get my training in and have a decent shot of running it without heart failure.

I do remember kicking around blogging about it. I shot it down. I don't remember exactly why, I think partly cause it was pretty early in the training and I hadn't yet committed. I was working towards it, but had not actually decided, I am going to run this race.

The whole thing went moot anyway. About 2 weeks into my training, it just so happened that I got injured playing soccer (this was the injury that eventually led to the tearing of the intercostal muscle that got me my trip to the Emergency Room).

So my training for a half marathon was fairly short and ended swiftly.

Now I am healthy and I am going to give it a shot. There's a Half Marathon in Raleigh on March 28 and it's time.

I'm cutting back my soccer games for the next few weeks. I have a training schedule nailed down and I have 11 weeks to get ready.

I am going to run that race.

...and I hope I haven't just jinx myself.

Hanging out at Big Boss Brewing in Raleigh

Spotted

Resolutionist, on the treadmill, with a personal trainer, wearing big brown bulky hiking shoes.

Tip:
1)Skip the trainer this week.
2)Take the $90 saved and go buy a pair of athletic shoes
3) Get back on the treadmill

Technical Difficulties

.... And, we're back!

I was down a bit over the last few days, for domain transfer that got all jacked up. But it's good now, big thanks to Otto.

Twitter

An interesting little toy.

At first I thought the whole idea was pretty ridiculous. It took me a while to get on board. You can keep up on what your friends are doing.. hmmm ok. I thought that was what texting was for.
"What are you doing?"

I am doing all sorts of shit all the time and very little of it is interesting.

But I gave it a shot. It took a while, but it did indeed grow on me.

I keep my twitterverse fairly small, only people I actually know and even with that I have a hard time with the people who randomly tweet total WTF shit all day long. So I most definitely don't give a shit that some random stranger is sitting at Starbucks drinking a Half-Caf House with soy milk.

What I do like about it is knowing the misc interesting things that people are doing. I also like the random injections of wit and humor by some of the more creative people I follow.

I appreciate the entertaining distractions.

I am continuously amazed at how big the twittervese if too. News networks, magazines, celebrities, pundits, random products and companies, it's crazy.

Today I discovered possibly the most entertaining thing about so far: Celebrity Twitterhackers... with a fantastic sense of humor.





Images from http://www.perezhilton.com/

The Resolutionists

It's like the holiday hangover.

It's the environmental equivalent of that crushing feeling of brain dehydration paired with the harry tongue and mild nauseous that is just annoying.

They are everywhere.. but you don't really notice them. Or maybe it's not that you don't notice them, it's that in other conditions they aren't so damn annoying.

The arrival of a new year does indeed bring a overwhelming sense of optimism. A distinctive end of the past and the clear starting point of the next chapter. Then.. we look around.. take it all in.. take a deep breath and one foot in front of the other, we tackle the new year.

So... Today's it's January 5th. We're 5 days in and 360 days til the end. Stopping telling me "Happy New Year!" I am over it and you should be too.

I didn't make any resolutions this year. I am not necessarily opposed to them, but I didn't have any worthwhile, so there didn't seem to be a point. I do recognize the usefulness of resolutions and I appreciate the challenge of bettering one's self and their surroundings. Here's the Disclaimer: As long as your resolutions are actually based on rational thought and account for a fair expectations of one's capabilities.

I also think a good portion of people, make resolutions just because they think that have to.. like the requisite participation in pop culture..

And the current pop culture dynamic calls for resolutions to "lose weight," "be more active," blah- blah - blah... the intention here is good. A large percentage of Americans are overweight and under active. So do something about it. But if its being done strictly as a New Years Resolution, I tend to think that chances of actually making a real long-term change in lifestyle/activity level are fairly slim.

Maybe it's the pressure... Maybe it's initially feeding off the drive that fades.. Maybe it's something that doesn't just switch on and off.

Whatever. It's you Resolutionists who really piss me off.

Because your little new years resolution is my new years inconvenience. At 4:30 in the afternoon you start filtering into the gym in droves, like ants into the hill. With matching workout wear and new athletic shoes (it's the bright white brand new shoes that always give you a way).

You invade the gym like a bunch sugar hyped middle schoolers and take up all the cardio equipment. With your magazines and work out buddies. Standing there with that glazed "hmmm... I wonder what this thing does... how do I actually make it go.."

A bit of advice: if you are reading, yapping on your phone, or to the person next to you - you aren't working hard enough. Hit it hard or go home, otherwise the 200 calories you just burned in the last 45 minutes you're going replace as soon as you drink that stupid sport drink on your way home.

On the bright side, the resolutionists are almost always only interested in cardio and almost never hit the weights, so that area of the gym is almost always wide open.

After a few weeks, there's less new workout outfits and yapping. I think they start dropping off after a few weeks of restricted calories. You can see the lightheadedness and the slower pace coming in the front door.

After a few more weeks, we're down to about a handful of them and only about twice a week. If you are still coming regularly and working out after say... May? I'll let you drop that "Resolutionist" title.

In the meantime, at least continue to be entertaining or at least wear stupid shit.

Like the BIG chick today, who came in wearing a "MOE's XXL" shirt...
And the little guy on the bike wearing cargo shorts, black socks, and tevas...
And the three different people trying to figure out how to work an MP3 player while precariously balanced on an elliptical.

I'll be the one who gets on the treadmill next to the one that obviously doesn't work just so I can count how many people get on it and screw with it for more than 15 seconds before they figure out that the asterisks across all the digital fields, means it doesn't work.

Today, there were 17.

Too Good To Pass Up

Humm... So what do you think is going on here?

Follow Up

We all made it back from Savannah no worse for wear. Aside for the functional expectancy of our livers anyway.

It was a rousing success, I think. Most everything was par for the course. There were no cops or target bags involved. Bill, you were missed.

By the time we got there most of the downtown was back up from the underground fire, exploding manholes, and resultant power outage.

I am actually a bit disappointed that I missed that.

Monday night a good portion of the downtown, while it had power restored never re-opened so we ended up spending the late night playing drinking games at the hotel armed with the family beer cooler.. having a difficult time finding a bar serving in Savannah was really, really bizarre and unsettling... like a disturbance in the natural order of things.

Otto managed to get tossed out of a divey tourist bar, for "being drunk" aka TOUCHING THE FREAKING TAPS! Understandable, since it was mostly a three-day booze fueled pub tour. I know, it's shocking.

And like a proper send off, the power grid just south of the historic district went down a little before 1am on New Years Day- where our hotel was- we were without power until about 4am. I can't imagine if the power had gone down at that time in the historic district it would have been complete chaos- the streets and bars were still jam packed with drunken revelers at that time.

For the entertainment of anyone who is interested, I am posting the pics on a photo album link on the blog.. so enjoy..

Happy New Year!