This has me interested. This Saturday’s full moon will also be a “supermoon”. The moon will be at its perigee just as it peaks as a full moon, between 11:35pm and midnight tomorrow night. The moon is suppose to be at its largest size in appearance.
Hopefully the clouds will dissipate tomorrow night so I can at least get a glimpse of it.
One of the running discussions I have with my friend Mark is about the unemployment numbers and why they don’t reflect what we see with other friends and co-workers. We both know of quite a few people who have stopped looking for work or who have taken part-time jobs to make ends meet. Both of these groups of people are not counted in the unemployment number, however the effect of thier actions does reflect on the actual health of the economy. This running conversation has been going on for years.
This past weekend I read an article on unemployment. The article referenced the U-6 measurement. Whoa. What’s that? So today I did some googleing to find out more on the U-6 measurement.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics actually tracks 6 measures of unemployment. Three of those measure jumped out at me and literally made me think “Here’s the real story….”. The three measures that painted the picture are the U-1, U-3 and U-6.
The average unemployment figure (U-3) for 2011 was 8.9%. 5.3% of the umemployed people could expect to remain unemployed for 4 months or longer (U-1). And in 2011 15.9% of the US workforce was effected by unemployment is some manner (U-6). Yes. Antidotally, this is what I believe the average American is experiencing in the labor market.
What are these measures:
Go to the BLS web site to read the definitions yourself.
Why does the U-1, U-3 annd U-6 measures really tell the story?
U-3 is what’s reported in the news everyday. It is the baseline off of which you can ccompare the other two measurements.
There are quite a few guys I know who have been unemployed for months. Thier unemployment has run out. The U-1 measure speaks to these people who have been out for a long time.
There are also a lot of people who have taken jobs outside of thier field or are part-time. These people are technically working, but are underemployed. There are also people who have given up looking for work. In a healthy economy they would be changing jobs or at the very least actively looking for work.
The unemployment averages for 2011:
| U-1 | U-3 | U-6 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| US | 5.3% | 8.9% | 15.9% |
| NJ | 6.2% | 9.4% | 16.0% |
| NY | 5.0% | 8.1% | 14.3% |
The current unemployment figures for March 2012:
| U-1 | U-3 | U-6 |
|---|---|---|
| 4.6% | 8.2% | 14.5% |
It has been awhile since I could honestly say that something our government is doing has impressed me. I am impressed with the statistics the US Bureau of Labor is providing. These statistics actually parallel what myself and friends perceive to be occuring in the job market.
Two weeks ago I finished installing the second garage door. Since the first garage door came out really good, I decided to have some fun with the GoPro camera. The total job took just under 8 hours. I edited the video, speeding up the action 50 times, so the total video length is just over 4 minutes.
Recently I completed the PADI Rescue Diver Certification. I’ve been wanting to take this course for quite some time. In taking the Scouts to the Florida Sea Base I had really wanted to have this certification before the trip. While I ended up taking the certification after the trip, at least I was motivated to make it happen.
I found the course to be very physically demanding. We had to learn how to control a panic diver on the surface and under water. How to prevent a diver from having an out of control ascent. We had to learn how to bring an unconscious diver up from the bottom and provide rescue breaths.
To complete the course we had to demonstrate all the skills in open water. The most challenging scenario was to find a missing diver. We had to perform an underwater search to find our “missing” diver, which was a blue fin weighted to stay on the bottom. Once we found the “missing” diver, the fin turned into a real diver, Mike. There were three of us acting as “rescuers”. We had to bring the unconscious diver up from a depth of 55 feet. Then we had to start providing rescue breaths and get him out of his diver gear. We had to tow him into shore all the while providing rescue breaths. After we successfully carried him onto the grass, Mike magically turned into CPR Annie. Joe and Patrick, the other two students, started CPR while I got the O2 started. After this scenario, all three of us were physically drained.
This past summer we travelled with the Boy Scouts to the Sea Base High Adventure Camp in Islamorada, Fl. for a full week of SCUBA diving. We were there from July 31st to August 7th with 8 scouts and 4 adults. The scouts were between the ages of 14 and 18.
We did a total of 11 dives during the week. All the dives were coral reef dives on the Atlantic ocean side of the keys. The divers were to a depth of 20 to 30 feet. Water visibility was anywhere from 80 to 40 feet, depending upon the weather conditions. The scouts got to dive both hard corals and soft coral reefs.
The abundance of sea life was just out of this world. We got to see tons of reef fish. Just about every dive we saw at least one barracuda. On the night dive, we saw the barracuda schooling over the reef. We saw a couple of nurse sharks. On one dive some of the boys got to see some black tip reef sharks. The nurse sharks were great. They were between 5 and 6 feet in length and we were able to swim with them for quite some time. We saw some grey spotted eels and several moray eels. On one dive we swam with a sea turtle that was about 3 feet in diameter.
All the scouts and two of the adults had to get PADI certified in SCUBA diving before going on the trip. The scouts did their certification in May & June.
Dive Log:
| Dive | Date | Location | Depth | Time In | Time Out | Dive Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 8/1/11 | Alligator Reef | 23′ | 1:58pm | 2:41pm | 43min |
| 2 | 8/2/11 | Long Key Reef | 25′ | 12:13pm | 12:55pm | 42min |
| 3 | 8/2/11 | Pillars of Atlantis | 25′ | 1:45pm | 2:30pm | 45min |
| 4 | 8/3/11 | Ham Reef | 36′ | 10:36am | 11:35am | 59min |
| 5 | 8/3/11 | Capt Grumpy Reef | 27′ | 12:00pm | 12:50pm | 50min |
| 6 | 8/3/11 | Alligator Reef | 24′ | 7:37pm | 8:31pm | 54min |
| 7 | 8/4/11 | Boink Reef | 39′ | 9:41am | 10:30am | 49min |
| 8 | 8/4/11 | Labyrinth Reef | 29′ | 11:02am | 12:03pm | 59min |
| 9 | 8/5/11 | South End of Alligator Reef | 25′ | 11:09am | 12:11pm | 58min |
| 10 | 8/5/11 | North End of Alligator Reef | 21′ | 12:32pm | 1:26pm | 54min |
| 11 | 8/6/11 | Landing Strip Reef | 34′ | 9:34am | 10:26am | 54min |
Recently I needed to use the Citrix client to connect to a virtual desktop. With Fedora 15, installing the Citrix client has gotten easier, but it still has some pitfalls. I could not get the Citrix client to run on 64-bit Fedora 15, only the 32-bit version. The problem with 64-bit was with OpenMotif and the support libraries that Citrix is expecting. Installation on 32-bit was easier.
1). Install OpenMotif. On Fedora type “sudo yum install openmotif”. The necessary library LibXp will be installed as a dependency.
2). Install the Citrix client. Go to Citrix web site, download the right Citrix receiver for your system.
The first time running the Citrix receiver, I received an SSL error. After some searching I found that the prerequisite SSL certificate is not automatically installed into the Citrix keystore. The exact error message I received was “you have not chosen to trust UTN-USERFirst-Hardware, the issuer of the servers security certificate (SSL Error 61)”.
To resolve the error I had to export the appropriate certificate from Mozilla and copy it into the Citrix keystore. To export it from Mozilla, go to “edit/preferences/advanced”. Click on the “encryption” tab and then on “view certificate”. Click on the “authorities” tab and scroll down the appropriate certificate. In this case it is the UTN-USERFirst-Hardware certificate. Click on export to save it to a file. Then copy that file to the Citrix keystore. The keystore is located at /usr/lib/ICAclient/keystore/cacerts.
After copying the necessary certificate, the Citrix receiver client fired up and connected to my server flawlessly.
After 18 months my Droid died. The front touch screen stopped working. It was very frustrating to not be able to answer incoming phone calls. I was also frustrated by Verizon. With my original contract long expired and the fact that I had three phones with them, they would not give me any kind of deals for a new phone. Verizon wanted me to spend more than $150 on the phone itself and enter into a 2 year contract that would cost me $180 per month. Plus the current deal they were offering only provided one phone with data and had a 5Gb limit on the data plan. Verizon wanted $60 to add a second phone to the data plan.
I had the complete opposite experience with Sprint. First, they converted all three lines from Verizon to Sprint and provided for free new smart phones for all of us. Second, the family plan they put us on provided unlimited data, messaging and mobile-to-mobile for all three phones. We also had a 1500 minute per month call usage when not dialing mobile-to-mobile. With our current dialing usage for all three phones, it is a very heavy month when we use 1000 minutes a month, with most of the usage coming from me. Third, they bought back my broken Droid and MJ’s cell phone. Cathy’s cell phone was so obsolete, for a moment, I thought they might pay me to dispose of the phone myself.
Between the conversion credit for moving the three lines, plus the buy back of the old phones, we essentially get three months of service for free. Total cost per month for all three phones to have the data plan, including taxes….$160 per month.
Talk about a no-brainer.
I ended up with the HTC EVO 4G. MJ went with the EVO Shift. Cathy was dragged into the 21st century, getting a Samsung EPIC.
This summer we’re taking a group of scouts to the BSA high adventure sea base in Florida. We’re doing the SCUBA adventure program down in the Florida Keys for one week. The program is awesome. The scouts get to do 11 dives on the coral reefs in some of the most pristine water. We have 8 Scouts and 4 adults going on this adventure. The scouts are between the ages of 15 – 18.
One of the prerequisites is that everyone, adults included, must be certified SCUBA divers. We started the certification class 3 weeks ago. The boys have another 2 classes and then the 4 open water dives to become fully certified. I’ve attended parts of the class and the pool sessions. It is pretty cool to see how they are progressing. Last week they practiced out of air emergencies and equipment failures.
The instructor, Tony from Dosil’s, is great. The man has the ability to teach the scouts in a way that keeps their attention. He also has unbelievable patience.
Yesterday was bring you child to work day. My daughter was so excited to be a part of the day. She is the one standing up on the left. The other two girls are the daughter’s of my two co-workers.
Dow Jones has an awesome program for the kids. The employees volunteer their time to put together a really great day. Through the day there are five different events where the kids get to see different aspects of how Dow Jones operates and the South Brunswick campus. The kids receive a T-Shirt, a Dow Jones Badge and a bag with pens, pads and other trinkets.
My daughter had such a great time yesterday that this morning she asked if she could come back to work with me today. I told her that she could right after she completed college.
A few weeks ago we had the Scouts who are going to SeaBase this summer participate in a Discover SCUBA at Dosil’s Dive Shop. I’ve always been skeptical about the program and wondered “does anyone really get anything out of it”. After seeing the Discover SCUBA program I’m hooked. If you are thinking about getting certified in SCUBA diving, you really should try the Discover SCUBA.
The concerns I had with the Scouts is if they would be able to clear their ears and would they be comfortable underwater. The program answered both questions for me. It also lifted the boys spirits and got them excited about this summer’s trip.
The whole program took about 2 1/2 hours. Tony, our dive instructor, took the boys through a series of drills like clearing their mask, clearing the regulator, how to surface and how to work the buoyancy compensator. After each Scout demonstrated that they could perform each of the tasks, they were allowed to go into the deep end of the pool.
In all told the Scouts were in the deep end of the pool for about 45 minutes. They are all looking forward to the certification classes which we’re going to begin around the end of April.
