This just goes to show you how messed up Oregon’s government is, and it’s no wonder we’re broke. Former Deschutes County sheriff Greg Brown was convicted a few months ago and will serve a 33-month federal prison term for embezzlement. He stole about $250,000 from the people of Central Oregon. And he’s still eligible for public employee retirement benefits (or PERS for you folks within Oregon).
Screw employee of the year, this guy’s employee of the millennium
OK, Jose Racasa is a stud. He was recently named employee of the year of the hotel he works at (scroll down the page), but this guy deserves way more. Read on…
Jose is a twenty-two year employee with the hotel. He possesses a near perfect attendance record for his years of service. One example of Jose’s service involves a customer at Trellisses Restaurant. In February 2002, the ailing gentleman told Jose about his medical problem. Jose, who was so moved by the customer’s plight, he immediately offered to help. But this was no ordinary offer of help. It was an act of caring and generosity that exemplifies the kind of individual Jose is. The gentleman was in need of a kidney transplant. He had told Jose that he had a rare blood type and this made it highly unlikely that a matching donor would be found in time.
Amazingly, Jose was a match. Despite the health risks to himself, and the extensive physical and psychological testing he was required to undergo, Jose held firm to his commitment and never wavered in his decision to help his long time customer. Jose is truly a server that became a savior.
Link via Dave Barry.
Go.com switches to Google, Disney to sell off Infoseek
Disney/Go/whatever-they-are-called-this-week has had inquiries about the search technology and patents left over from when they acquired Infoseek. According to the article, the last time the Infoseek spider did an index crawl was over two years ago. So while the search technology is useless, there’s probably something in the patents that Infoseek holds that might interest some parties, if only for the sole purpose of avoiding future litigation. Full Story
Your keyboard could make you sick
The folks at Tech TV sent an often-used keyboard to the folks at UC Berkeley School of Public Health for testing. The results? While it didn’t have any E.coli or salmonella growing on it, it did have bacteria that could have included staphylococcus. Full Story
I can only imagine what’s growing on my keyboard. I think I’ll go put it in the dishwasher.
Stoner has a problem with campaign sign thievery
From Obscure Store:
Alderman Pat Stoner says about 40 of his 150 campaign signs have been stolen in the past month. During the last election, his high school-aged stepdaughter explained the rash of sign thefts: “She came home one day and said, ‘I think I know what’s been happening to your signs,'” says Stoner. “She saw them in kids’ lockers at school.”
Microsoft won’t fix NT 4.0 exploit
Their quote, Microsoft’s quote from The Register: “The architectural limitations of Windows NT 4.0 do not support the changes that would be required to remove this vulnerability.” Please tell me I’m not the only one that manages a few NT 4.0 servers and don’t have the money to pay the Microsoft Tax to upgrade? You can firewall off the problem (which I’ve already done), but should you have to? MS’s security bulletin and more discussion on SlashDot.
The best little whorehouse in Central Oregon
Bend is either becoming much bigger, or much smaller, as you don’t generally see these kinds of places in medium-size cities. Rumor has it that a little hot tub rental and lingerie modeling place that’s about 3 miles from my house (right next door to the Black Horse Saloon) is doing more favors than just showing off the wares, but are doing favors — for the right price. The person who told me this knows a guy who goes there quite a bit. His reason? His girlfriend died in a wreck. I can understand his depression, but going there to get rid of your sorrows might not be the best idea.
Girl hurt in 45 mph shopping cart crash
Need I say more? What an idiot.
AOL is getting desperate
AOL is trying everything they can to get more customers so they don’t look like the black sheep of the AOL Time Warner mega empire. They’re planning on limiting online access to several popular magazines exclusively to AOL customers. They plan on releasing a VoiceMail service. And AOL plans on ditching RealNetworks in favor of Dolby AAC, an apparent cost-cutting move. And they’re finally joining the 21st century and offering AOL for broadband.
Listen, AOL: To quote the article where I got these links, “Maybe the biggest problem isn’t that you’re not offering enough content and services, but that your core customer base is 35 million dialup subscribers, most of whom are sick of chronic access and connection problems (not to mention bloatware). You waited a little too long to take broadband seriously, and you may not recover from that mistake.”
I concur. There is nothing — read again: NOTHING — that AOLers have that I either a) can’t find better versions of elsewhere cheaper, or b) couldn’t live without anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if AOL completely brings down the AOL-TW empire.
Road closed after truck loses chicken manure load
I guess somebody has a use for the stuff, which is why it was being shipped in the first place. Full Story.