The Power of a Wish, or, Little Sarah's Dream Comes True

The Make-A-Wish Foundation is a charitable organization that grants the wishes of children who will never have the chance to live their dreams, due to terminal or chronic illness or other debilitating conditions.  I greatly respect their efforts, and since a co-worker organizes tours and such for Make-A-Wish kids from time to time, I've been able to help out a little, once or twice.

I want to tell you the story of a special girl who dreamed big, and thanks to the people's generosity, got to have the experience of a lifetime.  Her name is Sarah.  But she's not a Make-a-Wish kid.  No, this girl is Sarah Palin, and she's the political version of a Make-a-Wish kid.  She knows there are some things she'll just never be able to do, and everyone around her knows it, but by golly, we're all going to make her dream come true, if only for a day.

End Poverty - Be the Generation

This video is about the newly launched "inmyname" campaign against poverty. I attended the star-studded launch event at Dag Hammarskjald Plaza in New York this morning. (It was star-studded because of who was there other than me.)

Why I don't really care about Bristol Palin

Lots of people, especially those in the media, are all excited about Bristol Palin, the daughter of Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska and presumptive Republican nominee for Vice President, being pregnant.

There are one or two reasons for this excitement that are sensible enough.  First, Mrs. Palin has gone on the record as opposing teaching anything other than abstinence in sex ed, and, well, that kinda didn't work out in Bristol's case.  And a few people have glommed onto Mrs. Palin's statement that Bristol "chose" to keep the baby, in light of Mrs. Palin's stated position that abortion should be illegal in all cases except those where the mother's life is at risk.

But other commentators and pundits have pointed out that basically everyone in America has either gotten pregnant out of wedlock, or knows someone who has.  And I don't think that's far off the mark.  Heck, Barack Obama's parents got married after he was conceived, and Sarah Palin herself eloped with her husband (ostensibly "because they couldn't afford a big wedding") a month pregnant with her first son, Track.

In fact, between the two tickets (presuming McCain-Palin is the ticket), let's see... Biden's first wife and daughter were killed in a car crash and he was a single dad for a while; McCain's first wife was maimed in a car crash and he went off philandering and wound up with a beer heiress; Obama's dad ran off when he was a tot and only saw him again once in his whole life; Palin's got the abstinence-for-everyone-but-us vibe and a Down's baby; Obama was raised by his single mom and his grandmom; the McCains adopted a girl from Bangladesh or somewhere who hardly ever shows up in their family pictures...

Yeah, I get the feeling that the whole "family" issue isn't going to be a very valid way to compare these candidates.  Unless "compare" involves standing slack-jawed, pointing at the performers in a carnival side-show. :)

So yeah, I don't much care.  The only thing I've learned from all this is that I'm clearly unqualified to seek higher office, since my daughter didn't arrive until I'd been married for nearly three years.

MacBook glitch #3 - Solved!

If you read my blog, you might remember that about 2 years ago, I bought a black MacBook laptop from Apple.  I also purchased Apple's "AppleCare" extended warranty for it, which cost $249 (maybe a bit less since I'm an academic) and extended the warranty from 1 year to 3 years.  Extended warranties (usually the ones offered by retailers like Best Buy, Office Max and Circuit City) get their share of probably deserved criticism, but AppleCare is entirely manufacturer-run, like some (though perhaps not all) similar extended warranty plans offered by other computer makers.  Since I travel extensively and use my laptop for probably 10-14 hours a day, I like AppleCare.

Fairly early on - about three months and 20,000 miles in - I had some problems with its wireless internet capabilities, which turned out to be due to a defective AirPort card.  I "worked around" the issue for a while, then finally had the sense to take the laptop to an Apple retail store near my parents' house.  They disassembled it, swapped in a brand new wireless card, and put it back together, in 20 minutes, at no cost to me.  That card would've cost $50-$100, and then there's labor...

After about a year and 135,000 miles, I had problems with the top case cracking at the edges, which turned out to be a more-or-less known issue, in my opinion resulting partly from the design of the product.  I taped the edges until I could get back to an Apple retail store (again, near my parents' house).  brand new top case, including keyboard and trackpad, 20 minutes, no cost - and they even cleaned the sticky stuff from the tape off.  A third-party service provider charges $225 for this repair.

Which brings us to number three!

A few days ago, I noticed that the insulation on the cord from my AC adapter to the laptop had developed a crack or hole near where it comes out of the AC adapter, and the white-grey plastic was yellowed or browned around the hole (due to the current, I guess).  This sort of problem isn't uncommon after a couple years in AC adapters where cords are frequently wound and unwound as a result of travel, and I've seen plenty of mention of various brands' adapters or cords sparking, "melting," or even catching fire.  So it wasn't exactly a huge surprise for the cord to wear out after 2 years and 244,000 miles.

Anyway, I called Apple this morning (toll-free) and in about 10 minutes, arranged for them to send me a free replacement adapter (FedEx overnight, but since it's Friday it'll get to me Monday).  I'll pack my current one in the same packaging and send it back (there's a prepaid DHL return label under the FedEx one) for forensics.  If I had bought a new adapter, it'd have been about $79.

So if you're keeping track, my $249-or-less extended warranty has, in just over 2 years of a 3-year warranty period, gotten me $300+ of repairs or replacement parts.  (You don't even have to count the wireless card, since it was within the first year, when the base warranty applies.)

I hope nothing else goes wrong in the remaining 11.5 months of warranty coverage, but if it does, I'm sure I'll be taken care of.

And while I wait for the new adapter to arrive, my boss is letting me borrow his spare - yes, if work pays for your laptop, you typically get two adapters and two batteries!  I may think about investing in a second one myself, one of these days.

Moore's Law and me

Arthur C. Clarke once opined, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

I'm sitting here with a day-old iPhone 3G.  Twenty years ago, I was sitting in front of a Commodore 64.  I paid about as much for the iPhone now as the 64 cost then (although adjusting for inflation, this probably means the phone was cheaper).  The iPhone weighs one-fifteenth as much as the C=64 keyboard (not counting disk drives, monitor, etc).  It has higher resolution (480x320 to the 64's 320x200), displays somewhere between four thousand and one million times as many colors as the 64, comes with internal memory equal to a 64 and about ten million 3.5" floppies for the C-1581 3.5" drive, is 600 times faster, has noticeably superior audio (okay, that's a huge understatement) and oh yeah, communicates at crazy-fast speeds compared to the modems available for the 64.

Oh, and it's also a phone, and a music player, and a video player... all told, I think this replaces about 30 pounds of 1980s technology.  It must be magic.

Apparently I've been slightly dead for several years.

I went to the post office last night and emptied the jam-packed mailbox.  Among the envelopes was one from the company my life insurance is with... containing a check!

Hmmm... life insurance companies are supposed to send a check when you die... did I miss something?

It turned out that seven years ago, I split a policy into two separate ones (a big term one and a small whole life one, for the curious), and when they set up the new policy, reducing the value of the larger existing policy, they forgot to reduce the corresponding monthly premium.

So for seven years, they were accidentally taking out a couple extra bucks each month. They recently did an audit, and said "whoops!"  So they sent me a letter apologizing, with a check. And they didn't say anything about me actually being dead.  Whew.

Sizzlers Steakhouse and Ocean Grill

Casting about for a spot to have lunch in Glasgow with a former teammate from Uddington, I worried that we might be stuck with either a one-cuisine place (Chinese and Italian seem most common in the city center), a pub, or the American mediocrity of T.G.I.Friday. Fortunately, she suggested checking out Merchant Square, where there were a variety of restaurants in one big old building, including this nice one offering steak and seafood (and pasta).

Better still, they have a £6.95 two-course lunch special, starting at noon, which is quite reasonable given the quality food and ambiance. Even with drinks and the automatic tip, it comes out to perhaps £10 a person, not bad at all. Due to my tight schedule, we were there when the doors opened, and found the service to be fast, friendly and attentive. We opted for a quiet table inside to chat and catch up on the foreign-affairs scene, but there are also "outside" tables in an open area within the large former industrial building.

We both had a starter of ogen melon (like honeydew, but more sought-after) and sorbet, then she opted for penne pasta (spicy, apparently) while I chose fish and chips after briefly agonizing over the other appealing choices (two different steaks, salmon or a hamburger). The portions were generous, and neither of us had room for dessert. Maybe next time. 

I really can't think of anything to complain about - the location is even good, only two or three blocks from the main Queen Street railway station, and not far from Glasgow Central station either. Best of all, they accepted my silly American credit card that doesn't have a chip in it. Since there are four other things on the menu I want to try, I'm sure I'll be back next time I'm in the area.