December 2019

On social media, I made the same point that I did in this post about the $15 minimum wage.

Disney union employee/ complainer: Being a 10+ year cast member, and union representative in my area, sadly I know all too well the financial plights of many of my fellow cast members. Iger will reach hundreds of millions in salary, bonus and options and Disney posts record profits to it’s shareholders every quarter. They can do better.

Divemedic: Your post makes the point that the CEO should be paid millions without even meaning to. See, when a CEO runs a company and that company has record profits, the CEO gets large bonuses and salary raises because record profits means that the CEO is doing a good job. Kind of like how a quarterback who leads a team to the Superbowl gets a larger contract.
Pay raises and bonuses are how a company keeps talented people from leaving and taking their skills with them. If Disney didn’t pay Iger those bonuses, he would simply take his talent and ability to make a company profitable somewhere else, as soon as that somewhere offered him more money. In the case of minimum wage employees, they make minimum wage because whatever skills they bring to the table don’t matter- you are so ordinary and untalented, that if you quit, you would be replaced the next day, and no one would notice the difference.
The stockholders invest in the company because they expect to get profits. Otherwise, there is no reason to invest in the company. Who are the stockholders? They are the pension funds and 401(k) accounts of millions of hard working Americans.
So instead of sitting here with no marketable talent or skills and complaining that you don’t make as much as you want, what you do is channel all of that energy that you are using to whine and complain, gain more skills and experience, and then make yourself more valuable. If instead you succeed and get wages increased, you will eventually hit a point where you will be replaced with automation because you have priced your low value labor out of the market.

Second Disney complaining employee:  u are insane and stupid! Rude too. Cast members are what makes Disney go! You can’t automate smiles. Talking to guests. Showing empathy. U have obviously never worked for Disney. U are ignorant. Educate yourself before you make ignorant comments

Some people don’t understand business or economics, and this is why they will NEVER understand why the CEO is making so much more than they are- they are just as incapable of understanding the concepts of running a business as a spoon is incapable of tasting the soup.

So my mystery toilet problem update:

After two days of not working, the toilet spontaneously started working again. This is always the pattern. I think it is somehow related to the weather. I suspect that it is caused by the winds blowing from the northeast. I am going to keep track of it. Why do I think that?

Well, I do believe that all of those who commented on my previous post are correct in that it is a vent problem. Let me explain:

I live in a 4 bedroom, 2 bath house. The roof is a gabled roof, with the roof ridge running east to west across the house. This is important to my hypothesis.

There are two lines for sewage that are under my house. They both run north-south. One line is on the east side of the house and services the kitchen and laundry room. It has two vents: one vent pipe that runs up the wall and emerges from the northern slope of the roof, and the second is an under sink AAV valve that is in the island that my kitchen sink is mounted upon.

The second sewage line runs down the west side of the house from the master bath’s commode (which is on the southwest corner of the house), past the his and hers sinks, under the shower, and on through the guest bathroom. There is a vent that extends up the wall and emerges from the roof above the guest bathroom, again on the northern slope of the roof. The only other vent for this western line are two AAV valves located under the master bathroom’s sinks.

Both vents are clear. The sewage lines are clear. I know, it cost me a $500 plumbers visit, after which they told me nothing was wrong with the plumbing.

My hypothesis is this:
The vents are both on the northern slope of the roof. When the wind is blowing from a certain direction (probably a northern one), the wind is pressurizing the pipes through those northern vents. Once the sewage line is pressurized, this pressure prevents the toilet from flushing. The only thing that could destroy this hypothesis is the fact that no other fixtures, including the toilet in the guest bathroom, which is still on the other line, continues to work.

I don’t think it is malfunctioning AAV valves, because while the toilet was malfunctioning I removed the valves under the master bathroom sinks, and the toilet remained dysfunctional.

I am frustrated, the wife is getting aggravated, the plumbers are clueless (yet still billing me for visits), and I am out of ideas.

I will just leave this right here

So I have an odd issue with the plumbing in my house. In one of the bathrooms, the toilet occasionally doesn’t flush. If you try to use a plunger, the toilet doesn’t drain, but you can hear gurgling in the 2 sinks and the shower in that bathroom, and this gurgling comes with a smell of raw sewage. There is another bathroom on the same side of the house which works just fine, and the pipes from the affected bathroom use the same line as the unaffected bathroom. No other drains or fixtures are affected.

Here is where it gets odd:
– It happens frequently, almost always in the spring and fall
– It has been happening for the past 4 years
– The toilet will remain clogged for a day or two, and then it spontaneously begins working again
– Once when it was clogged, I opened the front door to leave for work, and my wife yelled and told me that opening the door fixed the clog
– We had a plumber come out. Of course, by the time he got here, it was working. They put a camera through the pipes, charged us $500 for the hour he was here, and told us there was nothing wrong. Three days later, the toilet stopped working again.

The wife gets pretty aggravated. So do I. Any suggestions?

Being originally from New Orleans, my favorite music is usually of the jazz variety. New Orleans is well known for street musicians doing what musicians did for centuries: playing for their supper. Busking is widespread, and the amount of talent that is on the streets of New Orleans can’t be matched for the digitally processes screeching that passes for pop music these days. For example, here is a band playing right on the street in New Orleans:

Here they are again, and you will note that they have the collection plate out. This is how many musicians in New Orleans make their living.

I finally have found a gun control law that I will support, as long as it remains narrowly tailored. Current law states that non-citizens cannot purchase firearms in the US, unless they have a hunting license. It seems that the terrorist who attacked the base in Pensacola used that law to his advantage and bought himself a handgun, a Glock 45 to be exact. I would not be opposed to eliminating that particular exception. Even so, are any of my readers familiar with any sort of hunting that you can do in Florida with a 9mm handgun? If a person from Alabama,which is only 8 miles from Pensacola, wishes to buy a handgun in Florida, they would be prohibited by law from purchasing that handgun. In this case, Saudi Arabian terrorists have more rights than US citizens. 

What say you?

On another note, if we are supposedly engaged in a GLOBAL war on terror, why aren’t our troops armed while here in the US, at least while on base? The US is a part of the globe, last time I checked. Our entire nation has grown accustomed to the idea that we are safe within our borders. That illusion is going to cost us more.

Here is an illustration of what teachers deal with:

A kid in my 10th grade Biology course doesn’t turn in any work for several weeks, gets a slew of zeros and is now failing for the quarter. A month later, his mom writes me (his teacher) to demand that I allow him to make up the work that was due as far back as October 6th. Here is the email chain that followed:

From: Angry Mom
Date: November 11, 2019
To: Other teacher
CC: Divemedic
Subject: Lazy Son
I am reaching out to you in regards to my son mentioned above. I am his mother and I am concerned with his grades in school and would like to schedule a parent teacher meeting with you and his other teachers as well to try to figure out why his grades are so low, what’s going on, is he not doing classwork or homework, just to try to get a grasp on what’s going on and a better understanding and some help for him so his grades will improve. Please respond back to me via email so we can schedule a conference please. Thank you in advance and I hope you have a wonderful week.
Sincerely,
Angry Mom

Conference was scheduled for Tuesday the 18th by the other teacher, but I was off that week and didn’t attend. Here is the email that I got on December 2:

I’m just following up on my last email regarding my son , Lazy Student. He told me his missing assignments are from a book that you will not allow him to take home. I am asking for a response from you before going to the guidance counselor. He has a free period everyday for a class that he has already finished and I don’t see why he can’t come to your class on that free period and get his missing work turned in. Let me know what options he has as I am trying to prevent him failing your class.
Thank you,
Angry Mom

Note that I took off the week before Thanksgiving. I don’t take off many days, and I had weeks of vacation on the books and had to burn some of them. Before I could answer her email (I have students and can only answer emails during my lunch), my computer died and when it was finally fixed by IT on Wednesday, I answered her with this:

I apologize for the delay in my response, my computer died and I have been working without one for the past several days.
 Students may take books home, if they sign one out. However, there is no homework in this class, and students are given significant amounts of time to complete these activities in class. If they fail to complete them in class, they can bring the assignment in the next day for full credit, and up to five days later for partial credit.
 Unfortunately, Lazy’s free period is during sixth period, and I am not teaching Biology during that period. I cannot dedicate time away from my other students and their needs to provide specialized instruction to students who were not willing to complete their work when it was assigned, as the rest of their classmates were able to do.
 At this point, he currently has a 45 percent F for the quarter, and there is little that can be done to salvage his grade. His best hope is to spend the weekend studying for his quarter exam, which he will be taking on Monday, and to study for the midterm exam that he will be taking the following week. Perhaps a high score on one or both of those exams would serve to increase his grade. 

Thank you for your rather RUDE response!! Teachers are supposed to help struggling students and the fact that you WERE on vacation and therefore not present for the parent/teacher/guidance counselor DOES have bearing on this situation!! But you have made it quite clear what kind of teacher you are and that you would rather have students fail then help them due to “your policies” which I am not expecting leniency for JUST MY CHILD !!! I feel it is your responsibility to first of all help your students and second of all to RESPOND TO A PARENT EMAIL ASKING FOR HELP and not some lame excuse about your computer being broken !!! I have emailed you 4 times in the past month. I’m quite certain there are computers at the school that you have access to. This will not end here. I will be contacting the dean when I get back in town requesting a conference with YOU !!