Sour Apple

I got an iPod touch for Christmas. It's very clever product, but I was baffled as to why Apple would ship the iPod touch without at least the same Mail application that comes standard on the iPhone. The Mail application works on both devices, and there are some brilliant hackers out there who have made it possible to break into the operating software and install the iPhone applications on the iPod touch, so that it will run Mail, Maps, Weather, Notes, and Stocks. Obviously, most customers would rather NOT jump through these hoops, but these applications are useful enough to entice hundreds (if not thousands) of iPod touch owners.

So why would Apple not ship the iPod touch with these applications?

As it turns out, it's because they decided to develop a marketing strategy called "Gouge the Christmas Customers."

Today, less than a month after Christmas, I received an email from Apple, advertising these five applications, which will now come standard with all new iPod touch devices.

However, existing owners will have to pay $20 to download these applications.

I'm very disappointed in Apple. This decision represents a shameless abuse of loyal customers, and Apple is generating far more ill-will among their customer base than they are generating revenue for the company. It's a colossally stupid move from a company that should know better.

The Front of the Class

I got a new title this week: Adjunct Instructor.

On Tuesday night, I started teaching a Mechanical Engineering course at a branch of UC. It's a Dynamics class with 16-17 students, and it's offered specifically for Electrical Engineering Technology majors. I bet my husband that I would be the only woman in the room, and of course I won the bet. (EE is probably the MOST male-dominated of all engineering fields.)

Since I had general anesthesia for the procedure on Tuesday, my husband had to drive me to the class. I lectured for about 45 minutes, but I was still a bit loopy, so I figured it was OK to end the class early. I don't think they'll hold it against me!

Done!

It's taken more than two months now, but I have apparently completed every single test that my team of doctors could think of-- I've had approximately 20 vials of blood drawn, I went through a very unpleasant x-ray procedure, and we wrapped it all up with outpatient surgery on Tuesday this week-- and I'm finally DONE!!!

The final consensus seems to be that there's nothing seriously wrong with me, or at least nothing that can't be counteracted by appropriate medications, so that's a huge relief.

As it turns out, I have two different genetic issues that both relate to blood clotting. MTHFR mutations can cause clotting, and I also have another condition that prevents clots from breaking down. (My official diagnosis is that I am compound heterozygous for MTHFR and I am 4G/4G homozygous for PAI-1, which stands for Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor.) So now I'll be taking 8 pills/day, but eventually I should be able to drop down to just 4 pills/day, and that doesn't seem so bad.

Income

This week I earned my first income for my new business, and in fact, "the check's in the mail" as of this moment!

Which is not to say that the business is profitable, since I haven't yet covered the start-up costs for hiring a lawyer, filing the paperwork with the state, or buying a laptop, but it's certainly a step in the right direction!

I am going to be partnering with an engineering software company to provide customer training and consulting services, and this week I traveled up to Detroit to help with an on-site training class for the first time. They're expecting to have 8-12 training sessions coming up in 2008, so I'm hoping that this will become a regular source of income!

Don't be a BLY

A busy day... I spent a few hours meeting with three of my friends to discuss stuff related to their jobs/businesses. During yoga, a guy in my class appeared to have suffered a heart attack, and I helped convince him that his symptoms were serious and that he needed to go see a doctor immediately. I also had to go get blood drawn for one more test. (Let's see, this makes the 4th time I've gotten stuck in the arm in just 4 weeks. I'm not really enjoying this mutant thing, and neither is my insurance company.)

I arrived at the testing lab at 3:30, and sat in the unattended waiting room for 15 minutes before someone came out to see why I was there. I presented my script for the testing, and she immediately starting looking for reasons why she couldn't draw my blood, mostly because she said that the office closes at 4pm. (Nevermind that the company's brochures and the signs in the waiting room all state that the office hours are 7:30 - 4:30.) First of all, she looked in a reference manual and found that one version of the test required fasting for 12 hours. I told her that my doctor's office hadn't mentioned anything about that. She double-checked the book and found out that there was an alternate version of the test which didn't require fasting. She called my doctor's office, probably hoping that they wouldn't answer, but they did. They said that I didn't need to do the fasting version of the test. Finally, she settled on the idea that the sample would require "immediate" processing, and the next courier pick-up wouldn't be until 7pm, so she said I'd have to go to a different office to have the blood drawn and collected in a timely fashion. It didn't seem worth having a debate about the definition of "immediate" processing, so I got directions to the other office and went on my merry way.

Things got even more aggravating on my way out of the parking lot. When I came to the end of my row of parking spaces, I was preparing to turn right, into the exit lane for the parking lot. As I was glancing over my left shoulder, checking for cars moving toward the exit, I heard a car horn and instinctively slammed on my brakes to avoid hitting a very expensive Mega-SUV, driven by a woman with an attitude as big as her vehicle. (She had just turned right into the parking lot from the street.) She was actually in MY lane, but apparently it's MY fault that her Land Yacht is way too big to navigate a normal turning radius. Obviously, I must be the idiot in this situation, because she actually rolled down her window to scream obscenities at me.

So the moral of the story for today is: Don't be a Bitch in a Land Yacht.

(Thanks for letting me vent.)

It's Official: I'm a Mutant.

More specifically, I found out yesterday that I have compound heterozygous (C667T and A1298C) mutations for the MTHFR gene. These mutations cause a thrombophilia (blood clotting) disorder. So now I've got follow-up appointments with a whole host of doctors, including a hemotologist and an endocrinologist.

There are a couple of reasons why finding out that I have this mutation is actually good news:

• It explains the significant medical issues that I've had this year, which have caused anxiety, depression, and grief for both me and my husband. So as weird as this may sound, it actually comes as a huge relief to have some sort of definitive diagnosis, because now we have hope that things can be better in the future.


• The condition is treatable, and the treatment is pretty simple and very effective-- I'll just have to take baby aspirin and extra supplements of folic acid, B6, and B12 for the rest of my life. (I may also need heparin injections, but not all the time.)


• By finding this out now, I can significantly reduce my risk of having a thrombosis, stroke, or heart attack later on in life.


• Since it's an inherited condition, my family can be tested for it as well. And if turns out that some of them are "mutants" too, then they can also reduce their risk of having thromboses, strokes, or heart attacks.

Smart

SmartCars are coming to the USA!

I've been fascinated with SmartCars since I saw them in Italy a couple of years ago. When I first saw them zipping around the streets of Rome, they reminded me of the Friends episode where Rachel adopts a hairless cat, and Joey just keeps saying, "It's not a CAT!" Because, really, a SmartCar is not a CAR. It's more like a Vespa built for two, or a golf cart on steroids.

I think a big part of their appeal is that they're just so darn happy...



Obviously, SmartCars are meant for urban life. Since they're only as long as a normal car is wide, they can park in a parallel parking space with their nose against the curb. To really appreciate their size, you have to see them in context. This SmartCar is parked next to a Nissan Micra, a sub-compact economy car:



But don't underestimate their ability to get-up-and-go! We were doing 145 kph (90 mph) on the Autostrada when a SmartCar strolled past us. (I suspect that many Italians have found ways to circumvent the speed-limiting controller.) SmartCar convertibles are also available, and they also make a snazzy little Roadster.

I've been rabidly anti-SUV for more than 10 years now. (There are so many good reasons why I hate SUVs that I'm not even going to begin to list them here.) So I'm not even upset about gas prices jumping above $3/gallon. I'm just glad that people may finally be thinking more seriously about buying smaller cars! Happy day!

Lunacy & Conspiracy

So the question is: How on Earth did a raving lunatic wind up in charge of an entire country? (Show of hands: Who thinks it's a good idea to change a country's time zone by 30 minutes with only a week's advance notice? I don't see any supporters...)

A few weeks ago at my church, I met a woman from Venezuela. She loves her country, but she doesn't believe that she'll ever be able to go back there, because Chavez is dangerous, and the destruction and chaos that he is creating will probably last for decades. I have to admit that I had a little trouble understanding her heavily-accented English, so I'm a little sketchy on all of the details, but apparently, she believes that the reason that Chavez is still in power is because he gives huge "donations" to Jimmy Carter's charity, which co-incidentally is also responsible for certifying the election results in Venezuela.

According to the Hugo Chavez article in Wikipedia, the Carter Center continues to validate all election results, despite recurring evidence of fraud:

• General elections were held on July 30, 2000. Chávez's coalition garnered two-thirds of seats in the National Assembly while Chávez was reelected with 60% of the votes. The Carter Center monitored the election; their report stated that, due to lack of transparency, Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE; "National Electoral Council") partiality, and political pressure from the Chávez government that resulted in early elections, it was unable to validate the official CNE results. However, they concluded that the presidential election legitimately expressed the will of the people.


• Finally, after opposition leaders submitted to the CNE a valid petition with 2,436,830 signatures that requested a presidential recall referendum, a recall referendum was announced on June 8, 2004 by the CNE. Chávez and his political allies responded to this by mobilising supporters to encourage rejection of the recall with a "no" vote.
  
  The recall vote itself was held on August 15, 2004. A record number of voters turned out to defeat the recall attempt with a 59% "no" vote. The election was overseen by the Carter Center and the Organization of American States, and was certified by them as fair and open. European Union observers did not attend, saying too many restrictions had been placed on their participation by the government.
  
  Other critics, including economists Ricardo Hausmann of Harvard and Roberto Rigobon of MIT, called the results fraudulent, alleging there were "very clear trails of fraud in the statistical record" and alleged electronic voting machines had been reconfigured to allow results to be altered remotely. In response, the Carter Center consulted with Professor Jonathan Taylor, an independent statistician from Stanford University and Professor Aviel Rubin, a Johns Hopkins University computer scientist who both initially concluded that the actual results are within the predicted range and do not of themselves prove fraud. Subsequently, however, the Carter Center admitted Taylor had "found a mistake in one of the models of his analysis which lowered the predicted number of tied machines, but which still found the actual result to lie within statistical possibility."
  
  The opposition also cited an exit poll which implied the actual results were the opposite of those reported. "Massive fraud" was alleged and the conclusions of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter were questioned.


• Chávez again won the OAS and Carter Center certification of the national election on December 3, 2006 with 63 percent of the vote, beating his closest challenger Manuel Rosales who conceded his loss on December 4, 2006. After his victory, Chávez promised a more radical turn towards socialism.

Here are some other interesting quotes from the Wikipedia article on the Carter Center, criticizing its involvement in the Venezuela elections:

• Carter's "continued international work certifying election results has provided essential political cover to anti-democratic forces in the region. Indeed, it might be said that over the past four years, Jimmy Carter has been the most visible and arguably most influential U.S. leader in Latin America."


• "The [Hugo Chávez] regime delayed and obstructed the recall referendum process at every turn. Once the regime was forced to submit to such a referendum, moreover, it used a fraud-filled voting process to ensure victory. The government did everything—including granting citizenship to half a million illegal aliens in a crude vote-buying scheme and 'migrating' existing voters away from their local election office—to fix the results in its favor. The outcome was then affirmed and legitimated by ex-President Jimmy Carter’s near-unconditional support."


• "Jimmy Carter ignored pleas from the opposition and publicly endorsed the results, despite the fact that the government reneged on its agreement to carry out an audit of the results. Carter’s actions not only gave the Venezuelan regime the legitimacy it craved, but also destroyed the public’s confidence in the voting process and in the effectiveness of international observers."

So I guess the reason why Chavez is still creating havoc in Venezuela all comes back home to roost. I'm not much into conspiracy theories, but I'm certainly not going to donate any more money to the Carter Center. It's a shame that a noble charity that could potentially help thousands (if not millions) of people from around the world would stoop to participating in such a blatent corruption.

(The woman from church also alleged that the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton have accepted "campaign contributions" from Chavez, but I'm not sure how to determine if that's true or not. I wasn't planning to donate any money to them anyway!)

Do-voila!

Last week, I filed the paperwork with the IRS and the State of Ohio, and my new company officially exists now.

Yesterday, I registered my domain name and a friend of mine coached me through getting the domain and email services set up on his server. (Thanks Bakaitis!) I don't have a website yet, but at least I'm heading in that direction.

Today, I made my first sales call, to set up a demonstration of the software for a potential new client on Monday, October 1st.

One of my husband's friends is working on developing a logo, and I'm looking forward to seeing his concepts tomorrow night. Once that's done, I'll be having some business cards printed right away!

Next week, I'm going to be attending a conference with the software company that I'm partnering with. They'll be using the conference to introduce my company as their "Sales and Implementation Partner" for the United States. (They're based in Switzerland, so I'll be responsible for helping them develop a client-base here.)

After several weeks of waiting, I'm excited that things are starting to move!

Negation & Aggravation

The short-sighted managers, directors, and lawyers at The Company (name has been withheld to protect the ignorant) have decided that my husband (S) and his friend (M) cannot take part in our new business venture. To make matters worse, they sat on their conflict-of-interest disclosures for 8 weeks before coming to this decision.

Apparently, The Company feels that the best way to ensure company loyalty is to prevent their employees from participating in any outside work activities, which is a completely asinine conclusion. According to them, M and S are critical to the success of their current project, and they're afraid that this business opportunity might be a "golden parachute" that would provide them with a means of escaping from their current positions.

M and S never intended for this to be an either/or situation. They thought that they'd be able to use their experience and knowledge to do some consulting work, while continuing to work full-time in their current jobs. They both enjoy their work, and they're earning a lot of recognition for their efforts. But by preventing them from participating in our new business in their free time, The Company is forcing them to choose between their current jobs and a potentially even better opportunity.

When my husband received the bad news today, he was almost angry enough to quit on the spot. Unfortunately, that isn't a possibility, simply because we need the practical benefits of a stable salary and affordable health insurance-- the "golden handcuffs" of Corporate America.

But M's wife has a successful career of her own, so they have the financial flexibility for him to work for a start-up company. Added to that, The Company's HR department has been unhappy with his telecommuting status, and they've been telling him that he needs to move back to Cincinnati (which isn't possible because of his wife's work) or face complete derailment of his career. So now he has plenty of incentive to leave his current job ASAP, and I predict that our new company will pick up enough business to make it possible within the next 6-12 months.

What The Company doesn't realize is that they have effectively eliminated all of the influence that they would have otherwise had over what my new company can do. In their conflict-of-interest disclosures, M and S had voluntarily proposed that our new company would not do business with any of The Company's competitors, which basically would have eliminated the entire consumer products industry in one fell swoop. They also specified that our new company would not earn a commission from any sales that we might coordinate between our software partners and The Company.

As an independent entity, I am free from those restrictions-- I can work with any company in any industry, AND I'll collect my standard commission for any new software that The Company purchases.