Comment spam assault underway. They’ve really got to think I’m stupid if they think what they’re trying right now is going to work. I don’t know if they think if they fill the air with missiles, one has to make it through or what, but it seems like they test it with one or two, then launch a barrage.
Sigh. I was about to wish they’d finally get a clue, then I realized: if they had a functioning brain cell, they wouldn’t be spammers.
Went out to see Josh McDowell speak Thursday night. Have to admit a little trepidation: listening to one man speak for three hours can be daunting. But the time flew; the man is good at what he does.
He spoke of a thing he calls Relationship Apologetics, the main idea of which is that it’s the relationship you build that lets you get listened to. It goes deeper, but that’s the surface view.
If you get the chance to hear him in person, do it. He’s a very entertaining speaker, and if you’re not careful, he just might slip enough meat into the soup that you actually learn something as well.
I started the domain transfer process with more than sufficient time to complete it before the expiration date.
1) The domain was locked against transfer. I have no recollection of receiving notice of this, nor can I find any evidence of it anywhere in my email logs, which go back 2 years or more. (I’m kinda anal about things like that.) I do have evidence that the registrar I’m transferring it to asked me, and left the decision to lock the domains up to me. That’s one of the reasons I’m transferring all my domains to it. It’s about service, not about the less than $10 annual price difference. I’ll spend the extra $10 if I get the service.
2) I went in to unlock it, but only the registrant email address could do that, and it didn’t work anymore. I’d updated the admin contact, but not the account address. (Note for those curious: I didn’t open this particular account. It was opened by the hosting company I started the domain with back in the day. I had updated my email address with my hosting firm, and it never occurred to me to update it at the registrar as well; all my previous transfers from other registrars had gone fine with only using the admin contact, which was correct and up to date.)
3) It took some days to get that particular mess straightened out. So, eventually, I unlocked the domain.
4) It took about 24 hours for the unlock to actually take effect. I reinitiated the transfer at about 18 hours (basically, I unlocked it in the afternoon and reinitiated it the next morning) and it was denied, again. Another email exchange with their tech support, who assured me the unlock only took a few hours. I noted it had been considerably more than a few, and they responded it was unlocked now. (And it was, at this time slightly more than 24 hours had passed.)
5) I re-initiated the transfer (for the fourth time, now) and it was going along, but it was going to run close to the expiration date.
6) Two days into this part of the process I received the first of three email messages which again raised my blood pressure. They were generated by the registrar and sent to me via my hosting service:
Note the sequence: first, we’re gonna charge you extra if it expires, second, we’re gonna make sure it expires before you can transfer it, and third, pay us some money and we won’t let that happen. The cynic in me saw a large gent in dark glasses walking into a china shop with a baseball bat. Perhaps the sequence was unintentional, but it couldn’t have been better designed to produce that impression. (And, just to add another insult to it, the special offer link they emailed me wouldn’t work. It was rejected with a “bad ID” message.)
Through it all, they steadfastly maintained that everything was my fault. I won’t deny some of it was, but I can’t accept all of the blame.
Now, here’s what happened with the hosting company throughout this whole affair.
I will note that during this process I never once threatened the hosting company with anything; I didn’t even suggest I was going to leave them over this. (I’m small potatoes, so it wouldn’t be much of a threat in the first place, but I never do that, anyway. Once you threaten, you have no more options. You either make good on the threat or you look like a petulant child.)
The storal of my mory is this, children. Guess which company keeps my business? Customer loyalty is for sale, but the price tag doesn’t come with a currency symbol. You rent customers with money; you buy them with attitude.
Now I note the darling of the talk radio jocks (I need hardly preface that with “right-wing”, do I? It seems redundant these days to do so) for AG is under investigation for misconduct.
The same Jocks, when the current AG screwed up, went on the warpath for weeks, even months. A good case could be made for their boy’s screwup being worse than the one they were complaining about, but even if you don’t buy into that, there’s still a burning question to ask:
Why the silence? Can you say “Double Standard?” None of them have had the guts to stand up and say, “I was wrong for supporting him for AG. He would have been a bad choice.” And what’s worse, no one’s called them on it.
Charlie (your silence bothers me the most; I’ve always respected you even when I disagreed with you), Jeff, Mark: Next time you want to start raising your voices in outrage at misconduct in office, I have three words for you: Pot. Kettle. Black.
(Disclosure time: I am acquainted with the current AG, before she became AG, through her son, whom I’d often meet at chess tournaments. The acquaintenceship, however, probably only goes the one way; I doubt she could pick me out of a lineup. And this acquaintenceship did not keep me from agreeing that she screwed up.)
Ah, yes, I hear the sound of an election approaching. I can tell because my phone’s ringing. Three times in the last 18 hours, Elizabeth Burmaster has called me (no let’s be fair, twice it was a recording of her, the third time it was a recording of Herb Kohl urging me to vote to re-elect her as Superintendent of the Department Of Public Instruction).
Don’t know if you follow school politics here, but this is another one of those races. The Dems and the teacher’s unions are lined up behind her. The Reps and the businessmen are behind Underheim.
Underheim says the DPI “has been a captive of WEAC for a quarter of a century,” and he will put an end to it. This is Republicanspeak for a Very Bad Thing, I guess. I don’t understand why this is necessarily a bad Thing, but then I don’t understand why the fact Wisconsin ranks last in spending on school breakfasts, something Burmaster pledges to end, is such a Bad Thing, either. I’ve never once confused a school with a restaurant.
Who do I support? Well, let’s see. Burmaster comes from madison, where they concentrate all the resources for supporting good students in one high school, then restrict access to it so other particularly gifted children in Madison are shut out. Underheim has some good points, such as the one about the DPI Super helping to spread the “best practices” from all around the state, but I can’t bring myself to back someone who wants to end 4-yr-old kindergarten and backs the state arrogating to itself the power to control how local governments pay for their operations. (Let me make this clear, I’m for a property tax freeze, I’m against a state-mandated property tax freeze. I say the state should keep its nose out of local governments. I know, there are a number of chuckleheads who say if you’re against the state mandating a local tax freeze, you’re against a tax freeze, but since they obviously don’t have very many functioning synapses — of course they don’t or they could understand simple sentences like the above — I don’t see a reason to worry about what they say about it. The entity that collects the taxes gets to set the rate; what gets me the most about those chuckleheads is that when the state mandates the local government should spend something, they howl in anguish. Please, get your story straight; if it’s not OK for the state to spend the local’s money — and I don’t think it is — then it’s not OK for the state to tell the locals how much money they can tax, either. Goose. Gander. Sauce.) Besides, can you really support someone for DPI Super whose name means “underworld?”
Meaning I’m leaning towards Todd Stetzel. Even though he comes from Black Earth, a horrible place whose football team beat mine back in the day, an event which comes to mind every time I see the Wisconsin Heights football field as I drive down Hwy 14. Why? He’s a teacher who realizes that the student’s needs also count, and who’s willing to look at trading some salaries and benefits for teaching programs that have worked, but are currently undergoing funding difficulties. You want fiscal restraint? He’s capped his campaign spending at $350. Considering all the PAC money flooding into the Burmaster/Underheim pockets, that’s excellent. And you gotta love anyone who says the current way money is distributed in the education system is “wacky.”
Powered by WordPress