Smart Meters

Posted by wcrowlandksr on January 13, 2015
Posted in: Corporations, General Ramblings. Leave a comment

I’m not really a conspiracy guy but sometimes I find myself dabbling on the fringes of things deemed conspiracy related.

I have some education in R.F. or “Radio Frequency” theory. It’s called theory because while it can’t be proven as scientific fact, the methodologies used to manipulate electrons achieve consistent results. Our entire world of information transfer is based on the theory of how electrons flow both through the air and through conductive materials.

If you ingest a little poison each day and it doesn’t kill you right away, is it safe? If you put something live in a microwave and turn it on, will the living thing be injured or die? There’s a reason that microwave ovens use shields to protect the user from the obvious results produced by radiating the meal inside. The shield is there to protect you from minor stray radiated electrons.

Microwave radio frequency causes the moisture in food to become agitated at a specific tuned frequency and the molecules rub together and cause friction. Friction causes heat and this is what cooks your food.

The question of poison ingestion is obvious, any amount is not really going to be good for you and if nothing else, you just may suffer in a minor way until eventually you die prematurely.

Let’s go back to radio frequency. You might know that birds have been known to die in front of high powered navy radar antennas. RADAR stands for Radio Distancing And Ranging. The RADAR unit uses radio transmissions to gather information. It’s high powered and the signal reflects off of objects to get a “picture” of what is in front of the antenna.
The birds that die in front of these antennas are literally cooked from the inside out…just like a microwave oven works. The result is obvious and it’s hard to suggest the electrons transmitted at Radio Frequency are really “safe” for people to absorb. It’s why the transmitters have lockouts so technicians can’t be killed while working on the antennas.
Now the reason for this rambling…
I have a device at my house that uses Radio Frequency electron emissions to transmit information. The strength is minimal when compared to a high powered microwave or RADAR antenna so the effects may not be as obvious as watching you meal cook in a microwave or seeing a bird die in front of a RADAR antenna.

The effect of the transmitter on my house is like ingesting a little poison each day. It’s minimal, doesn’t kill me immediately but I just haven’t been feeling as good as I used to and haven’t been sleeping as deeply as when I didn’t have one at my house.

A normal defense to this sort of thing is to distance yourself from the antenna. But when the transmitter is near your bed, you really can’t do that. My network wireless access point as low powered and far enough away that it doesn’t seem to affect me…my home Electric Smart Meter on the otherhand, has ample power and close proximity to my bed that I was waking up in almost the same time window every day.

I found that shielding my meter much like my microwave is shielded so it cannot emit Radio Frequency Electrons into my house has allowed me to sleep very well.

The electric companies say it’s safe but I suggest that they won’t say there are ZERO radio frequency emissions and therefore, it’s like ingesting a little poison each day with no provable scientific factual evidence of its safety.
They will say it’s safe so they can save money by elimination of the meter reader worker.

Just look at the self checkout machines…they are safe but jobs are eliminated and the company saves money.

I Theorize that the the smart meter Radio Transmitter is interrupting to the human body and we are told it’s not AND that it’s safe…in the name of a few saved dollars.

Educate yourself and Google smart meters…

Know that there are a lot of people tying to make a buck  off of your lack of knowledge of how shielding of an antenna works.

Know that a transmitted signal simply needs to be grounded in order to block/choke the Radio Frequency emissions.

Know that the panel behind the meter is already VERY well grounded and the exposed side of your meter is where the shielding needs to happen.

Know that blocking the signal 100% may really PISS OFF the power company.  But me getting cancer and not sleeping really PISSES ME OFF!

Know that a shield only needs to be metal and about 10-15 bucks worth of hardware screening can do the job if done properly.

 

 

Cleaning out the Corners of Life

Posted by wcrowlandksr on December 1, 2014
Posted in: Uncategorized. Leave a comment

These last few months have been exceptionally challenging for many reasons.  The biggest is the move and subsequent clean up and clean out of the first.  I am trying to buy a second house and keep the first.  The economy just seems to say “rent out the first”.  I guess that’s how people become “unintentional landlords”.  No matter, I have thought it was a good idea before.  I may learn something to the contrary but I hope not.  Anyway, the challenges of emptying one’s own home have been closer to the heart than expected.  It’s amazing as to just how much of the stuff of life collects in the corners of your home.

I have a friend that said it’s “Stuff Hidden In Tubs”.  Think about the first letters of that for a second.
Yeah, there’s lots of it, the Stuff Hidden In Tubs that seem to keep coming out of places you thought you once cleaned out.  Some of it really isn’t that stuff in the tubs but it’s memories from the past, old pictures, love letters, greeting cards and gifts and general trinkets and reminders of the past.  Things that have memories attached to them and seem to never make their way out of our lives.  They can serve as a roadblock when packing up to move because there seems to be a sense of throwing away a past life when we dispose of this stuff and yet we know that time has already come and gone.  What makes it difficult is that we enjoy remembering those good times and we like to remember that there were some good things about us and that we weren’t so bad that there was nothing good about the past days in past relationships.
We cringe at the the idea of not being able to recall the good experiences from a past love or lover.
To throw out that thing is to remove the object that triggers the good memory.  It’s not always about being materialistic as it is about being sentimental and having the ability to “remember when” and realizing that our choices in the past were not failed attempts at life but moments of glory that will be remembered from time to time when we find ourselves confronted with those objects that remind us of such things.
This brings me back to the big move.  I think I am going to build a big wooden box and begin dropping the “remember when” stuff in it.  There’s nothing wrong with having such a box but it’s not healthy to spend too much time there because life and time march onward.  There’s no stopping it and what ‘s more important than living in the past is living in the present and making new memories.
 -C

A New House

Posted by wcrowlandksr on December 1, 2014
Posted in: General Ramblings, Life in the Pacific Northwest. Leave a comment
After a year overseas and working towards having no bills, I have a dilemma.  I thought about posting on Facebook about a new home purchase but was not sure it wouldn’t just come off as trying to show off or be seen as a failure of  becoming 100% debt free.  I still have paid off all but the car loan and it’s almost done.  That alone is so much freedom…as you can imagine!  I still have a house to get rented out, but i’m on the way.
I decided to post here because it’s a little different when you leave Facebook and come to an un-connected-to-Facebook page.  It feels morel like a personal blog and notes place rather than a place to blurt out noise on social media sites.  Besides, just as much as a I don’t give a crap about what some celebrity ate for breakfast last week, I would expect that not too many people will be all that concerned that I am moving. For those who are interested, read on.
It’s been quite challenging…to move.  I have been in my current house for almost 14 years.  That’s a long time to pile up a lot of stuff in one place and while I wasn’t moving to a bigger house to accommodate more….stuff, I am definitely working to get rid of the things that are more work to manage than they are truly worth.
After spending a year overseas with very few of my earthly possessions, it became clearer than ever that most of it isn’t required to survive.  I learned that it’s far more important to filter down and out, that which keeps you from enjoying life and to get rid of things that do not serve a purpose and meet a need or in some cases, a want.
I have found that I want space to create and build things.  The current house just doesn’t quite have enough room.  This new place has enough room for almost anything I could want to do.
I won’t go into details but I will say that I am happy about this purchase.
Expect to see little projects from time to time that I hope to share and maybe inspire your life a little.  First on the list I suspect will be a rain barrel water collection system and later, a green house, maybe a ham radio station setup and I suspect some home improvement projects.

Keep Moving

Posted by wcrowlandksr on November 5, 2014
Posted in: Uncategorized. Leave a comment

As I wrap up my last day at my current job due to the end of the contract, I’m reminded of something that often we tend to forget and that is that life changes.

When you work contracts like I have for a long enough time, you start to realize that often times when you move on or a team member moves on, it is like losing a friend.  I have made the mistake of trying to drop into old haunts where I had worked in the past but I find that this doesn’t really work.  It’s because when you are part of the team, that is what connects you…being on the team.  Once you leave for whatever reason, you really aren’t on that team anymore and your reasons to interact have been removed.  You don’t have projects to report on or work on and have communications about with the people you once called team mates.  You don’t have a purpose to be in the old workspace anymore and dropping in can become awkward for everyone.

For this reason, it’s why when you leave, it feels like you loose friends upon your exit of the company.

Life can be this way and often those changes happen much slower than in the workplace since the workplace forges teamwork and connections much faster…if it’s a great workplace.  Mine was and this is why after a short time, I am experienceing a sense of loss.  Sometimes, the departure is eagerly anticipated and we don’t “throw a match over our shoulder” just out of professional courtesy.  Today was a bittersweet departure and I will recall this place with good memories.  I shared a cube with another contractor who was excellent to work with and I think that when I recall this company, I will think of my office friend, Frank and my most excellent manager, Matt.

Thanks fellas.

-C

Going Back After Being Sidelined

Posted by wcrowlandksr on October 31, 2014
Posted in: General Ramblings. Leave a comment

Many years ago, I logged into an online world and began building an alternate life as a way to pass some time.  It became a place to escape the real world and create an alternate and better one.  This place isn’t a mission based world place but rather a place where you can do just about anything you can imagine.  Your only limitations are skill.

In that place, I found solace during a point in my life where my real life was less than ideal.  I didn’t realize it at the time but I was not dealing well with my real life and this became part of normal daily life and logging out was more like leaving what had begun to feel like reality.  In short, it became more real life and real life became more second life.  I got a little lost in it, knew it and didn’t care.

Fast forward many years later.  I hadn’t logged on in several years but my avatar was still on the server and it was as if I had just logged out for a day or two rather than years.  During my time in the past in there I had made friends, built a house on land, found a significant other and once met them in real life, had a fantastic time and stayed in touch for years after.  It seemed rather normal to me and the lines between reality and digital at the time were quite blurred.

Recently, I went back to a small town where I once lived.  It was so much like I had remembered but had changed a lot too.  A visit to the gravesite of my grandparents and great grandparents was just a bit too surreal.  I went back to the house my grandparents lived in and the memories were still there but the most important parts were missing…the people.   Things were certainly not the same by any means either.  It was a step back in time without the people I once knew that made up that point in my history.

Back to the digital experience of today…My new job involves online games and online gameplay. It’s part of the culture at work to find staff logged into a game world in one place or another and my choice was to log back onto the old world where I had once built a digital life.

The experience was a bit odd because I could see who had released me as a friend…much in the same we do in real life, they had let go and moved on…they have to.  It’s part of the human condition.  It’s part of what makes us, well, human.

I wandered around looking for a few old places where I had been before and had made those long time past friends.  Many of the places had been updated so much that they weren’t even near what they once were, changed or deleted so much that I didn’t recognize them at all.  It was as if I had died years ago and was back as a ghost only to see that what I once knew was forever changed.  In reality, it was changed and the truth is that it would be near impossible for that world to stay the same or even to be recreated it as the same as it once was.  It’s a digital rendition of real life and it’s never going to be the same as it ever was.  It can’t be and that is just based on the odds of people restoring every single data bit back to the way it was on all the servers at a time from the past.

I found pictures I had taken in there and they were the only reminders that really looked familiar at all.  Well that and the way I had dressed my avatar so long ago.  He hasn’t aged but certainly does look his age because of the ready made new designs offered to the new members.

I did find one place that the founder had given to another member and the founder either died in real life or had simply lost interest in the place they had built.  It still had much of the old feel that I remembered and I wanted to stay but there were no people there so I left.  The empty was too painful.  To many, the experiences I had probably seem strange but when you connect with people, the media you use doesn’t really matter.  Look at the way the world reacts when a publicly loved famous person presented by the media dies.  People feel it and react.

Logging back into Second Life after being away was a lonely experience because all the people I knew were no where to be found.  I have heard it said that there seems to be a “lifespan” for people there and I am beginning to understand why.  I’m not sure I would want to return once I had reached the point of feeling like the life I built around friends had been removed.  I also can now understand why sometimes older people in life might have similar feelings once they have been sidelined for a long enough time that the people in their lives are gone or have forgotten them.  Real Life changes at a steady pace and it’s important to stay involved and not get sidelined.

Find new things to do, explore, don’t stop living, always make new friends.  Don’t get sidelined and forgotten, do something good that leaves a mark on the world for the better.

Normal lives and goals.

Posted by wcrowlandksr on September 17, 2014
Posted in: Uncategorized. Leave a comment

Today I took a little time off because I just needed a little break.  I stumbled across a Facebook post that was really kind of surprising.  The writer was complaining about having to work at a job that they saw as wasteful of their time.  They do realize however that this kind of activity is what pays the bills.  Unfortunately, they have some things working against them and it is sad to see. Worse yet, I think that they may be missing part of the point altogether.  The complaint was that they never have time to do the things that they want to do because they are working a job that they hate.  I have found that there will be times like this in life and it’s not always a bowl of cherries and rainbows. There will be times when what you must do to survive will not be fun.  There is something else to consider in this line of thinking that life will be so much better when you get to some better condition that you currently are not in.
Living that way steals the joy of the moment and can make you a miserable person.  It’s okay to dream and there is nothing wrong with it but to be angry about where you currently are not is just not productive to making your dreams happen.
A few years ago I started writing this blog and the focus became more about becoming debt-free and living a life that is free of the slavery that being in debt puts you in. 
I have learned that being in debt forces you to stick with the job weather you hate it or not.  We go into debt to purchase things that we cannot truly afford.  We then justify the debt and say we can afford the payments which makes us think we can afford the object.
If you don’t mind being a slave to the lending institutions that loan you the money to buy crap you don’t really need, you really have no place to complain about having to go to a life sucking job. 
If you live within your means and save a few dollars, you will not be as stressed on the job even if it does suck because you know deep down inside that you have saved a few dollars and don’t have to put up with their crap at work. You know you can walk out because they do not own you due to the indebtedness you may otherwise have.
There’s more thinking on this idea that having a better paying job will alleviate the misery of being in debt.  Some people think that they can simply out earn their bad spending habits.  This could not be further from the truth.  If you don’t have good spending habits now when you may not make as much money, you will have the same bad spending habits and have the same troubles…just on a larger scale.  The key really is more about reshaping your view on finances and how you manage them.

Working a crappy job because you cannot afford to quit is not going to turn out well for you in the long run.  Quitting a crappy job with no savings is not going to be any better.  Thinking that you will find your bliss just over the horizon is folley because you never actually reach the horizon. 
The only way to achieve your goals in life are to plan and take deliberate action that get you closer with each step.  You must also analyze other activities in your life that are detrimental to achieving your goal.
I guess it could be summed up even further like this, have a goal and don’t do things that hurt your chances of success and execute the steps required to get you there even if the steps are tiny.

Safety?

Posted by wcrowlandksr on May 16, 2014
Posted in: Uncategorized. 1 Comment

So I was driving into work today and I’m listening to the radio station is the traffic report comes on.  The report mentions a truck that has run off the road and slowed down traffic on the main freeway. They close the report by announcing who they are and the final words were “…keeping your family safe”. 
I don’t know about you , but as I thought about those words it made me realize something. This whole notion of being safe really has become a bit of its own religion . Who could argue with safety? But what is safe? Every day we hop in our cars and travel at speeds on the freeway that man was never really intended physically to do on his own . Seems pretty unsafe to me, seems kind of dangerous. So what better way to sell a product even if it is just a news report about traffic by telling us that the traffic report is going to reduce the danger of driving by being “safe” . And of course it must do that because the announcer said helping to keep you and your family safe.
Personally I find that notion funny because if I’m on the road and I am not paying enough attention to changing traffic conditions probably shouldn’t be driving. How is a radio announcement telling me the traffic conditions are changed ahead is really going to make me safe?
It seems to me that our society has become obsessed with the word or words “safe” and “safety” . If it’s not safe we can’t do it . Traveling to the moon was not safe but we did it anyway before this whole safety obession became an issue.
These days the idea of taking a risk that may be deemed unsafe is often viewed by the masses as foolish or stupid . Society has been programed with certain responses to make risky behavior something negative . It has gotten to the point that people are losing their ability to assess risk on their own and they have allowed certified agencies such as the federally installed agencies to tell us what it is safe and what is not . That is very dangerous behavior and what has happened as a result is that people are surrendering their ability to think for themselves at all. 
All of the information that you could want about most subjects can be found or researched out on the Internet. No one takes the chance anymore and they need to certify and verify everything that they do without taking any risks because it might be deemed unsafe or foolhardy.
Another example of this behavior of the safe religion that has crippled our country… We no longer have the legal right to produce much of anything product wise and as a result our economy is in the trashcan .
When will we stop worrying to the point that we do nothing in the name of safety? When will we realize that it’s okay to take a chance now and then ? When will we realize that the government doesn’t necessarily know everything and certainly does not need to make so many safety regulations that nothing gets done?
Here’s a simple example . Not too many years ago you could walk into an auto parts store or department store and purchase a gas can, it had a simple spout and a vent and it worked quite well . Now you can’t buy that simple gas can anymore because someone in the federal government decided to do a study and they determined that the simple gas can was no longer safe . Now they have designed a spout and is supposed to be much safer because apparently the morons operating these basic gasoline cans were doing this in an unsafe manner . Now you will spend 20 minutes trying to pour out 5 gallons of gasoline with this new and improved safety spout . I’ve been to the store on many occasions and noted that the shelves are usually full of these safer cans because nobody likes them and they are more of a hassle to use that they are worth . Now people are trying to modify this safety feature out of the can . It’s just an example of allowing federal government control an aspect of our lives and they’ve done nothing more than make our life more difficult in the name of safety.
When will this safety religion be stopped?

Starting from where you currently stand

Posted by wcrowlandksr on April 29, 2014
Posted in: General Ramblings, Randomness. Leave a comment

Recently, I have been thinking about the past. I do that from time to time because it helps me look at where I was and where I have landed in many aspects of my life. Sometimes we need to stop, take pause and reflect. For me, the reflection comes from old emails and blogs that I read to remember what was going on at one time or another in my past. Sometimes, it’s Facebook history and sometimes just the act of cleaning out my digital closets a little bit. When I was young I was encouraged to write a journal but I found it to be too much like an extension of schoolwork so I didn’t. Now with the internet and information made so easily available, it’s almost a naturally occurring event.

One time, I found some old info on a house I was looking at buying and it triggered memories of that period in my life. I remembered many of the details of that house and what was going on in my life. If I had bought that house, my life would have been radically different from the way it has turned out. I don’t long for what could have been but I am thankful for what became.
Today, I have completed just over a year of being back home following a one year adventure overseas. Sometimes I find myself missing the high adventure but then quickly realize that the grass is just as green here as it is anywhere else. This is the reason for the title of my blog today. “Starting from you currently stand”. It’s a relatively simple concept but often forgotten.
We tend to look at where we are in life and question what it is that we are really here for. We plod though our days hoping that something will happen and that the routine of life will be broken by something exciting. I made a choice to go overseas and live in a foreign land and live with the locals in order to find that excitement and break the routine and see what I was made of. It was a big decision but looking back, it doesn’t feel like it was..at least after the fact. It’s partially because after standing on that tall ledge of decision and looking at the leap I was about to take I have learned something about myself and life. That something was echoed this weekend by a guest speaker at my church. It is this…”Do stuff!” Things will happen of you get out there and do stuff because plodding along in a daily routine with everything planned out is boring and while it may seem safe and comfortable…it’s rather boring once you see what can be as a result of doing different stuff and not letting your past define what you cannot do but rather what you can.
One time I packed up and went on a cruise with someone I met online and the outcome was a fantastic friendship with some great memories. I learned about some things in life and to this day, I apply those lessons I learned as a result of doing something out of the ordinary. That friendship still exists and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Too often we don’t take chances to do things that stretch our perspectives. We fear the worst, wrap ourselves up in a cocoon of defense with legal disclaimers, bubble-wrap, knee pads and helmets. Life isn’t meant to be lived with everything planned out so that we would know exactly how it’s going to go and ultimately…end. Would you pick up a book and read it if you already knew exactly what the story was? You would however, read it if you had an idea of what the story was about though if it interested you. That’s kind of like life, do something different that interests you and don’t let your past limit your ability to do something new and exciting even if you don’t know exactly what the outcome will be.
Start living a new adventure from where you currently stand, use your past to realize how far you have come and how far you can go by just doing stuff that stretches your perspective and creates a little discomfort at times because you are learning and learning takes effort and effort creates some discomfort but is proof that you are making some progress.

The end of an era draws near.

Posted by wcrowlandksr on April 10, 2014
Posted in: Uncategorized. Leave a comment

For about the last 6 years I have been following my favorite karaoke host/bartender around to different venues. 
Sometimes when we stop and look at what the crowd has become the talk sometimes drifts back to the “old crowd”.  It was a time when real karaoke talent came out to sing…frequently.
These days it seems hard enough just to hire good hosting talent that draws something besides a bunch of drunk kids howling into a Mic as loud as humanly possible.
The environment just has not been feeling like the way it used to.  I suppose I have changed as well. 
In addition, life has introduced new directions and views that leave me looking around and reassessing what it is that I really am doing and what I hope to gain and give to and from this life as I try not to just be a “taker”.
I suppose I’m just getting older and starting to see things differently.
I’ve often considered just what it is I’m here on this planet because I wInt to leave a lasting mark for the better. 
Maybe it’s just the rum writing tonight…maybe it’s a turning point.  Either way, I’m seeing things in different light.

My friend and I laugh as the host destroys…in a bad way…a song and she knows that while I come to visit it’s not so much for the “amazing talent” as much it’s the company.

A random Friday morning

Posted by wcrowlandksr on March 21, 2014
Posted in: Uncategorized. Leave a comment

As I lay awake here listening to my alarm clock imitate the sound of birds and it’s simulated Sunset slowly begins to brighten my room, I’m taken back to a time when I worked at night in the desert and I would go on walks in the morning as the sun rose and I would listen to birds chirping in the nearby trees.  It’s a reminder of the scripture that tells us how much our creator loves us.
If those birds in the desert trees don’t store food and yet every day they’re provided with something to eat how much more are we loved by our Creator ? 
You may not believe and you may feel like no one cares but that simply is not true. 

I may add more to this later but it seems that I do need to get up and start my day by flying into the workplace, landing on my perch and and doing a little chirping in my branch office.