Vons supermarket smashed my family, assuming we were thieves

Vons supermarket made me fall onto my baby boy today! While leaving the store empty-handed because they had neither of the vegetables I came for, I was wheeling him in the child seat of the cart back out to the car when the wheels locked up right inside the store entrance, freezing the cart in place like it had hit an invisible wall. Brendan's head snapped back from the sudden stop as I simultaneously hit the handlebar and smashed down onto my little guy with my upper torso, completely unprepared to stop suddenly.

An employee explained that the wheels now have a locking mechanism if the cart doesn't go through the checkout line. Because if I didn't buy anything, apparently they assume I must be stealing something.

Brendan and I were stunned, but I think he's okay. It could have been worse. This mechanism is dangerous.

What happened to audible warnings at store exits?  Everyone is familiar with those falsly going off, by the way, so expanding on the concept with physical mechanisms to interfere with someone's movement seems to carry the obvious risk of unintentional activation as well.

Did they seriously think it would be a good idea to design a metal box on wheels with a built-in child seat to come to a complete, sudden stop while a full-grown adult is advancing directly towards the part designd to hold a child?

It's also pretty insulting to be essentially physically detained--captured--by a store's device, like some kind of criminal.  Hey, Vons!  I'm allowed to leave without buying anything, which is not probable cause for smashing my family into an invisible wall.

R.I.P., Kevin Foley

"Greetings! Are you my old friend?" This was my Facebook message to my childhood friend, Kevin, in December 2009. I was fairly certain I had found him. The profile picture seemed right on, even though it had been about 20 years. With my certainty came surprise that he had never answered me.

Today, I know why. Visiting his page again almost two years later, I saw an update reflecting his passing one month before I had written. He never got my message.

Kevin was an extremely gifted boy when we were friends. I'm sad that we lost touch, and that he's gone before we ever had a chance to share where life had taken us. I know he became a gifted writer, and shared his battle with cancer on his blog. I'll remember him fondly, and I'll always feel a little guilty for the irritation I felt that he never wrote me back.

Vaccines: should you be afraid?

There is a lot of misinformation in popular culture about vaccine safety, and it's got consequences that I believe include tragic deaths. For example, whooping cough (pertussis) was nearly eradicated in this country by vaccination. Due to declining vaccine rates largely fueled by the discredited and retracted vaccine-autism study, ten babies have already died from the resurgence of this disease, when last I heard.

The guy who did the study was found to have a serious conflict--he was paid for the study by attorneys preparing to sue the vaccine industry. The study only involved twelve patients, a woefully inadequate sample size for a scientific study. It later came to light that about half the data was actually faked. Subsequent studies have not backed up its conclusions.

Modern vaccines are so much safer than the diseases they protect against.

I recently saw an article someone posted to Facebook that left the impression that there is a large concern in the medical community about vaccinating pregnant women against the flu. Considering the very real and countable deaths that occur every year from the flu, and the special susceptibility of pregnant women and their newborns, Centers for Disease Control recommends flu shots for pregnant women (see this CDC page, and also this video).

Here is an article I liked that you might find interesting, discussing that vaccine/autism study I mentioned above.

Why I suggest Macintosh over Windows PCs

My wife Gladys wanted a Mac a couple years ago. I said I don't know them well enough to support it for her (I've done a lot of tech support for PCs). We also had tons of PC software that wouldn't be compatible, so we'd be starting from scratch. She said she didn't care, she only wanted a Mac.

All the software I was concerned about missing was immediately replaced by great free, often open-source offerings for Mac. I found her doing video editing and presentation stuff that I had been struggling unsuccessfully with for years on the PC with purchased software. She said, "What, like it's hard?"

The support I had been regularly providing on the PC problems weren't even needed on the Mac. It was such an effortless joy to use, pretty soon I had to get one myself

My dad used to call me several times a week for tech support on his PCs. I convinced him to get a Mac, and I haven't heard a peep from him about computer problems in over a year. With the value of the time I've saved not chasing his Windows issues, I could have just bought him the Mac myself. I feel like I got my life back.

Sure, the PC's are cheaper. But the Mac more than pays for itself in time saved because everything just works.

I was especially obnoxious today responding to a chain letter

I usually try to be a little reserved and diplomatic. Today I fully admit I was a little obnoxious. Did I cross the line into rude?

I replied to the sender (and all the other recipients, with a reply-all) with the following:

Completely false, as are most chain letters. I've been getting this particular one over and over and over and over and over for over ten years now! You can always check these on Snopes.com. They do a great job researching Internet chain letters. Here's their research on this particular chain letter, which I found by typing "good morning america" into the search form prominently appearing on their home page:

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/microsoft-aol.asp

You can check these chain letters out by typing in a few words that are in the text of the letter.

Chain letters are a type of virus. The authors get their kicks out of getting you to damage the functioning of the Internet by fooling people who don't understand the harm they do into passing on an exponentially-growing burst of traffic. These clog and slow mail servers, and irritate people by circulating around forever. They are evil.

Break the chain, and refuse to forward any chain letter, ever. Please.


Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:37:56 -0800
From: ...
Subject: Fw: PLLLLEEEAAASSSEEE REEAADDD! IT WAS ON GOODMORNING AMERICA....

How to Properly Eat a Fortune Cookie

	Enhance your presentation of fortune cookies and amuse or annoy your dining company by directing them in the proper etiquette for handling these message-bearing biscuits. When the fortune cookies arrive, make a spectacle of urgently admonishing anyone against reaching for a cookie before becoming versed in this procedure. Reach for a solitary cookie yourself, hold it outstretched at about eye level for all to see, and demonstrate the following steps, providing the melodramatic narrative as you proceed:
I think one of the above may apply to me, but I forget which one. Thanks to cpstorm on Flickr for use of photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/cpstorm/ / CC BY 2.0

Things You'll Need: One or more fortune cookies Indulgent friends with whom to share them

STEP 1

Take one fortune cookie and break it open gently by cracking it approximately in half with both hands.

STEP 2

Separate the two pieces, pulling one piece slowly away from the other to reveal a fortune protruding from one half of the cookie, and none from the other. Do not yet read the fortune, lest you will shame the cookie, and your fortune will not come true.

STEP 3

Eat one of the halves of the cookie only. Do not finish eating the cookie yet, lest you will shame the fortune, and it will not come true.

STEP 4

You may now read the fortune. You may react politely.

STEP 5

Eat the rest of the cookie. Discarding the last bit of cookie would, of course, shame it considerably. Your fortune would not come true. Should you find your fortune to be unfavorable, you might be tempted to discard the last half of the cookie intentionally so as to ward off a bad fortune. This is not recommended, as shaming the cookie thusly may cause your fortune to come true out of pure spite.

• This procedure is inspired by the practice of covering the challah (bread) during the blessing over the wine at the beginning of the Jewish Shabbat (Sabbath) meal.

I originally wrote this for eHow. After about a year, they deleted it suddenly after I called attention to it by rephrasing a couple words, so I'm preserving it here in my blog. -Dan

I've been censored!

I was so happy today to get my first ever paycheck for writing articles. It was a whopping $7.09 from eHow.com for the three articles I wrote last year. I was planning to celebrate by posting a link to my favorite, "How to Properly Eat a Fortune Cookie," on Facebook.

I pulled up my article and noticed a couple words I could change to make it just perfect, and saved it. Suddenly, eHow rejected my corrected article! Granted, the article is more humorous (in my humble opinion) than useful, but I put a lot of creative energy into it and it was fine for nearly a year! What's worse, eHow doesn't even let me read or edit my own rejected article anymore, and I had never saved myself a copy.

After a little Googling, I learned how to recover the file from my own web browser's cache, from the last time I looked at it. So I'm going to repost my deleted eHow article to my own blog. 'Cause it's mine. I wrote it. So there.

Update 1/13/2010: They activated my article again, so I guess I'm not censored after all! I think it was my letter of complaint that did it.