So for a while both the old and new will be running side by side but will eventually have the same content.  So please forgive me if the duplication is a bit confusing and please don’t trip over the tools on the floor.

"All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten" – Robert Fulghum

"All I really need to be CEO of a multinational oil company I learned from The Simpsons"   – DOH!

Perhaps advice from The Simpsons works well or has for CEO's of other corporations… Circuit City comes to mind.  (To cut costs they fired experienced employees and hired Homers….)

Now I would have thought that fewer blossoms lacking aroma would be a good thing, but I'm not the one with several well know (but completely unnamed) universities testing this cure according to their document.  They claim the cause (in short), are poor soils and synthetic chemical fertilizers rendering most soils incapable of growing healthy nutritious fruits and vegetables.  But they also claim organic farming often has the same problem.

Their cure… 'MicroSoil' (microsoil.com)… it's a formulation of naturally occuring soil microorganisms combined with enzymes, polysaccharide and polypeptides which is suppose to assist in the growth of nitrogen fixing microorganisms and all other beneficial and 'native soil microorganisms'.   Skipping all the big words in the document they sent which I'm sure is intended to wow most people, in short it's suppose to help nature extract the nutrients already in the soil.   How is this suppose to help bees?   More blooms, high BRIX content, high nutrient content in the blossoms, etc.   (Ignoring the fact they use term BRIX, the scale by which sugar content is measured, completely wrong).  The best part is…. their picture of a bee in their document is a FLY.  That really instills confidence if you have bought into their pitch so far.

The cost for this snake oil?    Only $295 for enough to treat 15 acres at this special beekeeper's introductory offer.  That's only  $157,000 dollars to treat the 8000 acres bees from a single apiary forages on.  Quite a steal considering the ccdsolutions solution costs half a million to treat the same area.

I’ve seen others sell similar barn for the siding, shingles and heavy beams.   I certainly could use some of them in a new building and some great furnature for the house, but for the right price it would be worth parting with and just building with new material.  Any takers?  I know it won’t bring anywhere near the price of a new pole barn, but covering a down payment would be a start.

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Also, some may not have been aware that I opened up a side business (The Ranco ETC Store) and it has been growing as well.  It really started as a offshoot of the temperature controllers I was oftering on this website and ties in nicely with my experience and education in electrical engineering.  It’s far from enough to quit the day job and focus more on bees, but it’s enough to make it worth while.

The good news is that while I’m busier than ever, the success of the Ranco store has allowed me to help out a couple out of work beekeepers who are virtually out of a job due to the current economy.  It should also help me focus more on growing the business, the bees, and of course post once in awhile to this blog.

Attention: This e-mail message, including any attachment(s) (collectively the "e-mail"), has been sent by ACME Drinking Water and Porta-John Recycling Co. and may contain PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION.  If you are not the intended recipient, then please (i) do not read this e-mail, (ii) do not forward, print, copy or otherwise disseminate this e-mail, (iii) notify us of the error by a reply to this e-mail and (iv) delete this e-mail from your computer.  Thank you.

This has to be one of the most worthless legal statements ever written.  The first problem is that this statement  is almost always found at the end of the email, and is sure to be read only after reading the contents of the email (i).  Nearly anything I do to the email will break (ii), deleting it will copy it to the deleted folder (iv), replying (iii) will copy it to the sent folder, not to mention the multiple copies made since I check email from multiple computers and the copy that remains on the server and in the ISP’s backups.  And let us not forget the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, it requires that email be backed up in public companies.  I’m also not sure if one could legally be bound to such a statement without agreeing to it first or a method of opting out before breaching the statement is available (as is often done with software licenses).

Of course, none of the statement is valid unless ‘you are not the intended recipient’.  Of course, since the email came to my inbox, and is stamped at the top with my email address, the only logical conclusion is that it was intended for me.  Other than the address, I can’t possibly guess what the actual intent of the sender was.  Even if the email says ‘Dear Anne’ at the top (obviously not me), the sender may be forwarding a message they thought I may be interested in.  How could I guess the ‘intent’ was anything other than for me to receive the email?

Personally I find every email I receive with such a statement rather humorous and I’m really tempted to forward every one I receive to the media (after all, as the intended recipient I can use it as I see fit).  But if you do business with any company that uses such a statement thinking it gives them any security or expectation of privacy, I would be worried.

The small print on the cardboard disk reads “Before using this disk in a 2.4x DVD+R data drive, you need to check how to get the required firmware upgrade. Full details can be found on the banderole”

Unfortunately I have already disposed of the sleeve (banderole) so I have no instructions where to get drivers so I can use this cardboard disk in my DVD drive. I can only speculate at this time how fast or how much data this cardboard DVD may hold. The language on the disk is a bit confusing. Does it hold 15 DVD’s worth of information at 4.7 GB each, or just a total of 4.7 GB?

Trying the cardboard DVD in my DVD writer at work didn’t work and I’ve been unable to locate any newer drivers that the ones I currently have. Perhaps Philips is keeping this new driver under wraps while they seek a patent on this new (and probably very cheap) DVD.

So there is no question that minimum wage is too little to make a living from in most areas of the country. And in some areas you would have a hard time finding a cardboard box to live in a minimum wages. And while everyone seems to aggree that it needs to be raised, no one can agree how, and business argue that they need employees at substandard wages (ensuring a high turnover rate and guarenteeing continuous training expenses and poor customer service). I can understand some worry about large jumps affecting their bottom line (increasing $5 to $7, a 40% increase), but does it really need to be so complex as a congressional action and large increases every 9 to 10 years. Don’t most non-minimum wage jobs get a raise every year, even if it’s only a cost of living increase?

Many contractors that work with the covernment (with the Ohio Department of Transportation for example) must pay prevaling rates. These prevailing rates are maintained by the state for dozens of different jobs, with varying rates by county that are updated frequently (montly I think). So why can’t minimum wage be maintained similarly? The mechanism is already in place. Just correct the minimum wage, adjust it regionally by state and county, then update it for the rate of inflation yearly thereafter (also kept the the US government montly) And the yearly increase may also need to reflect the cost of living in each county to keep pace with local development or deflation.

But that would be entirely too simple, and would probably be a permanent fix (something congress really hates). It would mean people would get a wage they could survive on where they lived, and possibly even live in the community they work in (impossible in many areas of the country). It doesn’t mean anyone is going to get rich (except perhaps the minimum wage poster venders who would now have an entire poster for minimum wages to cover all 88 counties of ohio), but it means people would earn enough to get by. It wouldn’t be enough to prosper, but just enough to put a roof over their head, put food on the table, clean clothes to wear and bus fare to get to work, just the bare minimum. Enough to make it worthwile getting up in the morning to go to work, the bare minimum. Isn’t that what minimum wage should be?