Right to arm Goofy

Florida recently passed a law that allows employees to bring concealed weapons onto their employers property, as long as they remain locked inside their cars (just in case they get into a road rage gunfight before their morning coffee I suppose), despite their employers wishes. Disney is having none of that (though they are using a loophole regarding their fireworks show and not arguing it on constitutional property issues). What I don't understand is how the government (and the NRA of course) can force a property owner to allow a gun onto their land. What's next? Forcing me to allow a hunter onto my land because I abut some woods? Those slopes can be awfully slippery.

The Second Amendment applies to the government, not to Disney. While the government can not censor me from writing these words on this board, Disney can kick me off their property for saying something not so polite about the mouse and the owner of this board can delete my comments as this board belongs to them (I have this copied elsewhere so its not like my words would be lost forever). By the same reasoning, my employer can forbid me from bringing a firearm into work (and they do in all offices, including, the Florida office -- but the parking is part of an office complex and not owned by them), but, outside of reasonable restrictions (whatever those are), the government can not infringe on my right to own a gun (not that I would, I'd probably be more dangerous to myself with a gun than a mugger with a gun).

How does the state government justify a law that in essence denies what a private property owner can or can not allow on his or her property, outside of exceptions already noted as Constitutionally exempt such as zoning, civil rights, fire laws etc? Last time I checked, a gun owner was not a protected minority. If the government is telling me what I must allow on my land then the government has interfered with my enjoyment and maybe even seized it without a warrant. Is it really a legitimate state interest for the government to tell a business owner they must allow firearms on their property? I'm not familiar with the law or who owns Disney's parking lots, but doesn't Disney have a right to say what can and can not be brought onto their property? Unless this falls under the same constitutional arguments that finally ended segregation, I must be missing something. Otherwise, I don't believe the Second Amendment trumps what a private entity (by that I mean non-government) may or may not allow on his/her/their property.

If I was a business owner in Fla, I'd be looking to ban guns from coming onto my property for liability issues (though, the legislature exempts employers from liability, I don't want my insurance company's lawyer to prove it wrong). Now I wouldn't search my employees' cars and wouldn't know if they did bring weapons unless they advertised it as I would take a don't ask, don't tell approach. As an employer/business owner, my concern is to my customers, not an individual employee's. If the employee wants to park his gun loaded car on the street, that is fine. But, with certain exceptions, his or her individual rights would end at my property line. I wouldn't allow an employee to say bad things about me and my company, I wouldn't allow them to smoke on my property (more because of the smell of cigarette smoke and cleaning up the butts on my property) and I probably wouldn't let them drink on my property. As the property owner, my rights and beliefs would superceded my employee's individual gun rights. However, if if an employee didn't like my bans, then they would be free to find employment elsewhere. It is my property and I have rights too.

As to the woman in the article who insists she needs her gun to feel safe for her 35 mile drive: talk about paranoia. Where the heck is she driving anyway? Are the highways around Disney really that unsafe? I used to work in a really bad area of Brooklyn, NY (back when the crack wars were raging) and never felt the need for a gun, as if I was going to get into a shootout in the hood. My car had good acceleration to get me out of dodge if I had to move fast. In the same vein, walking around Newark with a gun wouldn't make me feel safer either (mainly because whoever had a gun aimed at me would probably shoot me before I had a chance to make my clean underwear unclean). By the way, if you can afford a 70 mile daily commute at today's gas prices, then you can afford to move to a nicer area little closer to work.

Anyway the one thing I am certain of: the taxpayers will be footing the huge legal fees this is sure to bring when the lawsuits start flying. Nice to know NJ isn't the only state with fools who care little about controlling spending "because it's not their money" running the show.

Another of the greatest generation is gone

My mother-in-law's Uncle Paul passed away yesterday morning, just 7 months after his wife of 63 years, Jeanne, died from cancer. Like many couples who had been together forever, or so it seems, when one dies the other soon follows. I saw it with my grandmother after my grandfather died (and saw it again a few years later when my father died of a broken heart after my brother died in a car accident, but that is another story). They were from a generation that we will probably never see again.

My own grandparents had been gone about 10 years when I met Jeanne and Paul when I started dating my wife about 14 years ago. A close family, they were surrogate grandparents to my wife and brother-in-law, and took up the roll with me, my brother's law's wife and their grand-daughters' husbands. They were special people. They had a charm that made hosting parties seem effortless, which they were still doing well into their late 80s. They could communicate with those from 9 months to 99 years; nothing like Aunt Jeanne sitting at the piano to get the little ones attention or great-grandpa Paul making his sound. You didn't feel like you had to visit them, which, less face it, can happen with some older relatives; you felt like you wanted to visit them. They always seemed to put others ahead of themselves, making sure their guest were comfortable. The last few years, as various family members aged and/or moved further away, the Long Island couple took to celebrating their wedding anniversary with a big family dinner at a Manhattan restaurant, central to most of the family (and traveling distance for some of the older NJ relatives). They were the first people, outside of our own mothers who we told when we were pregnant with our first child.

We were also the ones to tell them of the space shuttle exploding a few years ago; we were the first ones over for a family dinner and when we arrived they were all upset they couldn't reach a cousin who had recently entered a nursing home. Trying to console them, we said he was probably just watching the news about the space shuttle. When they asked what news, my wife and I both looked at each other and remembered they weren't big on watching TV. That was the only time I ever Aunt Jeanne, a woman from New Orleans who met Uncle Paul during the war, curse (a simple "Damm!").

Like my grandparents, and many of their generation, they were not highly educated, at least in the sense that we think of educated people now with various degrees. They were self taught, reading whatever books and newspapers interested them. They kept abreast of current events and could argue a position as effectively as anyone. When Aunt Jeanne died the turnout by friends of them (or their children) was immense. I expect the same on Sunday when we return to their home for Paul's memorial (they weren't into funerals). For my wife especially it will be hard as it will probably be the last time she sets foot in a house that she has been visiting and sleeping in for almost 40 years (our last sleep over was about 4 years ago).

Of course, like most others of their generation, they were affected by WWII. Uncle Paul served in Europe, dropping bombs on the Nazis and probably killing those who were killing whatever distant relatives he still had in Germany. He had many stories, some that I've forgotten but, fortunately, are written down somewhere. He had his opinion on the atom bomb and how he was just happy he didn't have to go to Japan after the Nazis surrendered. I knew I had been in the family a long time when the stories started repeating. He kept in touch with many of his war buddies, including one who drew a kid in a comic strip for many decades with big ears that we all swore looked like Uncle Paul's. There aren't may of them left now, and the world's poorer place without them.

However, I feel I'm a richer person for having known them. If I had to describe them in one word, that word would be grace. They didn't believe in the after life so I hope that wherever they are now they are happy to be back together.

\

Almost made the IT guy cry

My office, in acknowledgment that we work differently these days, is shrinking our physical office space. Back in the day, this meant office folks being downgraded to the cube farm, but it means something else these days. Today (Friday), in our office of about 120 people, perhaps 40 or 50 people will be physically in the office. The rest will be telecommuting or vacationing. Physical attendance is a little better during the rest of the week, but almost all of us telecommute at least once a week, sometimes more. This has led to the office looking quite deserted many days so, in an effort to make the office seem more populated, and not to mention save money on rent and utilities, my office is reducing our office space. For some this has meant going from an office to a cube, for others this has meant office sharing. I fall in the later category.

This is not as bad as it seems. I have a laptop and telecommute several times a week. My office mate also telecommutes several times a week, but still has a desktop at work. This is not a major hassle as we usually are not in on the same days and we have a virtual private network (VPN) to log in on home. For me, with the laptop, I use my VPN token on the laptop from my home and start typing away. For my co-worker, she leaves her pc on at work and uses a virtual desktop from home which allows to be almost at work from home, at least electronically (the downside of this is her desktop at work takes up limited desk space). Through a careful dance around school and camp schedules, we've reached an equilibrium where we both have our own office on certain days of the week. The only days we have scheduling problems are days we're both in for our bi-monthly department meetings. Again, not a major hassle as laptops travel. However, since I'm the only one with a laptop, currently, I'm the traveling man. We have extra spaces, either hotel cubes for visitors or offices of people on vacation who currently have laptops that I can plug my machine into. At the moment, this is limited to a small, but growing percentage of office space as people in my position get converted from desktop machines to laptops. Yesterday was my office mate's turn.

My office mate is, admittedly, not the most tech savy person. Yesterday, when I walked into our shared office to file some paperwork (I'm still waiting for the truly virtual office) I saw the IT guy at her desktop, preparing her computer to be copied to her new laptop. The IT guy is a 40 something, friendly outgoing guy. You know the type, a hard worker who is also quick with a joke. His mental presence usually outshines his physical presence. Anyway, my co-worker was asking him how she would connect at home. You see, currently at home she has her home computer and uses that to log onto the system. The nice folks from FIOS hooked up her machine, she connected to the internet (and our network) and that was that.

So, in an effort to help her out, the IT guy first asked her what equipment she had at home. A thin, shiny black box. Oh a modem? No, they called it something else. A cable box? No, something else. Oh well, well you're going to need a router. A router, that's it! Well, the laptops have WiFi capability. Is the router wireless? I don't know. Can you connect with an ethernet cable. What's that?

At that point, I left my office. I didn't actually see the IT guy cry, but he sure looked deflated. Maybe he was just tired as he has been rewiring and remapping many employees for the last month as we downsized our space. Maybe he was just having a bad afternoon. Anyway, as I reached back to close the door, I looked back and saw the back of the seemingly shrunken IT guy. Though he didn't say it verbally, I saw him slowly shaking his head as his whole body seemed to let out one long "sigh." As I left, I got the feeling this wasn't the first time this happened to him. As for my co-worker, next week should be quite interesting.

The condensed work week

I saw an article about how some NJ towns are considering making their workers work condensed work weeks to save both the town and the workers' fuel costs. Nice idea, saving money is always good. But I have a better idea to save money. How about combining all the various municipalities and eliminate duplicate services/ bureaucracies first? We have thousands of different government entities on the state, local and county levels for our 21 counties. I bet the savings there, especially if you can combine several towns municipal buildings into one, will save way more money. Even better, the towns that find some of their essential services compressed for space, like a fire or police department, where the members need to be somewhat local, even if management is not, would be able to reuse the now abandoned buildings in lieu of building new space from scratch. In any event, with the savings from consolidation, government offices would be able to stay open 5 days and I as a citizen, who occasionally needs to do business with the government, will still have 5 days available to conduct my business.

Another issue I have with the condensed work week for government offices is the choice of day. What day will the offices be closed? The consensus seems to be Friday. As many who work in private offices or commute already know, Friday is already a very quiet day in the office because many choose that day to telecommute, including me. I also use my telecommute day to run various errands around town I can't do during the week, including interacting with my local government. How convenient they might close their offices the same day I'm home. Almost as if it's defeating the purpose of my not having to take time off to do errands I need to be physically home for.

Now some offices might remain open 5 days a week, but give workers the option to work condensed weeks to save them money. Great for the citizen who wants that 5th day, and I suppose it would save government some money as people could share desks or offices use electricity by not having as many workers on one particular day, but I wonder how much money the workers, especially those with children, will really save. It sounds more like a feel good proposal to me. Though not really the state's concern, what will the longer/condensed work days do to childcare etc? Will the cost savings people think they are getting in gas equal what they will have to shell out in, perhaps, paying babysitters extra money, paying someone to take a child (or anyone who can't drive) to an after hours event, ordering takeout, because there are not enough hours to cook etc?

I tired a condensed work week for a time and hated it. Perhaps it would've been ok if I had a shorter commute, but it just made a long day even longer. I felt like, for 4 days a week, all I was doing was getting up, going to work, coming home, going to be, rinsing and repeating. If I was making double my salary, it might've been tolerable as I could hire people to do the mid week chores I was saving till the weekend, but I wasn't so things just piled up. Not a way to live. Fortunately, my office also offered telecommuting which, though lonely at times, I appreciated much more. It gives me a life during the week and I end up working a longer day at home as I use my commuting time for work.

Back in the day, when the 8 hour work day was established, the theory went that the day was divided into thirds: 8 hours for work, 8 hours for leisure (though some wouldn't count commuting time as leisure, my 2 hours or so of NJ Transit travel each commuting day are pretty much the only two hours I get read and listen to the radio in peace) and 8 hours to sleep. With a 2 hour and change commute, a 10 hour work day would entail me leaving my house at 6:30 and not returning home until around 8 PM. Forget Little league, the gym, meals withmy children, after school events and any weeknight activities I might want to partake in. What good is a 3 day workweek if I don't have the time to enjoy a few hours during the rest of the week? Obviously, rising fuel prices might make my argument moot, as will more services being made available online, as taxpayers are forced to accept either higher taxes or a 4 day week, or the global economy makes different demands that make it reasonable to have an office open many more hours than just 9-5, but for those thinking how great a 3 day weekend will be: be careful what you wish for.

Home sweet apartment

I grew up in a NYC apartment in Queens. My wife grew up in a house in the suburbs. When we met, we were both 20 something city dwellers and quickly settled into a Brooklyn apartment, where we lived for a number of years. We might still be there but for one thing: we decided to become parents. As our 1 BR apartment soon began to become much too small, we began looking for alternative living arrangements. It was then I realized I'd have to do something I never thought I would do: escape from New York.

We considered staying in our apartment,at least for the short term. However, we knew we couldn't stay in their for long so we began reconsidering our living arrangements. As much as I loved living in the city, I hated the lack of storage and privacy as a child, not to mention having to be quiet because of the neighbors when I lived in an apartment. I lived that once and didn't feel like repeating it when our son was born, even though the building my wife and I were living in was fairly kid friendly. So we went out to the suburbs and bought our house (it also helped that the cost of a 2 bedroom apartment in our old neighborhood cost the same as our 4 BR house in 2000) where the only people who complain about our children making noise in the house are my wife and myself. It's also nice to open the back door and throw them out into the yard in 2 seconds as opposed to the whole ordeal it was for my parents-- hallway, elevator, lobby, walk to playground -- to do the same, but that's another story.

Therefore, it was with great amusement and a reminder of why I moved out to Jersey to live near my wife's family in the first place, when I read the article in today's NY Times (and the comments on Fark, where the article was also listed) about couples raising noisy children in the city. As I read the article, I wondered how many of the parents grew up in apartments and weren't aware of the noise issues that little children make. I wonder how many of them thought how great to have a washer and dryer and a few good sized closets in their apartment without considering the neighbors.

The 1960s neighborhood in Queens I grew up in was full of young families when I was born. We lived in an apartment one floor above a childless couple, which is what my parents were before I came along. I was one of several children and we were quite noisy when young and not quite civilized. Not so noisy that my parents let us run around all amok, but noisy enough that one of my earliest memories was of my parents warning us to be quiet before the downstairs neighbors [bang bang bang] got their broomstick out.If we ran, we heard bang bang bang, If we walked loudly - bang, bang, bang. If our blocks fell -- bang, bang, bang. If we laughed at a cartoon too loud -- bang, bang, bang. She was the type of person who would go to a mid afternoon movie cartoon and complain there were children there.

We heard that broomstick so much we were convinced the wife was a witch. This was confirmed decades later when my mother was rushed to the hospital and her health aide left the stopper in the kitchen sink and didn't shut the water off all the way -- why the neighbor decided that then was a good time to tell my wife and sister in law what she really thought of my family while my brother and I were dealing with the beginning of our mother's final chapter. All, I can say, if she's reading this, is I'm so sorry my mother's illness caused her to miss her Cosmo that afternoon. Anyway, I digress.

At the time (1960s and 1970s) it was still fairly common for children to be living in my apartment building, plus the surrounding buildings , and we were a noisy lot playing in playgrounds and apartment building driveways, while having the nerve to ride bicycles in and around the neighborhood. Some neighbors complained but many, who grew up in even denser neighborhoods in Brooklyn did not, knowing that noise and chaos was part of city life. That seems to have changed over the 70s and 80s as the city's population declined.

The grumpy downstairs neighbors became the norm and not the exception. I think this took off as NYC schools continued their decline through the 70s and many of the children left for the suburbs; the local elementary school, so crowded at the start of the decade that the 6th grade had to rent classroom space in the local church and temple, had one floor, out of three, virtually empty by the end of the decade. As middle class childless apartment dwellers became the norm, at least in my neighborhood, many of the playgrounds were converted to sitting areas or parking lots. Heck, many of the buildings don't even allow dogs anymore, though my old building apparently still does (it doesn't help that many of the buildings were designed so that residents exit onto a walkway and not the street, making hard to curb a dog as it usually starts doing its business before you can actually get to the curb).

As an adult I can understand how annoying it is to have noise when you want quiet. I've also sat in on board meetings, as an adult, where parents of small children defended their running around by saying children will be children. To my parents' credit they never tried to justify our noise making to our neighbors, aside from apologizing for the noise. However, apartments equal noise and living with neighbors. Therefore, it was with the banging and arguing with neighbors in mind, that my wife and I chose to buy a house. I have to admit that I did find it quite liberating not to have to cover 80% of our hardwood floors with carpeting or furniture.

Now, about a decade later, as NYC has once again become a desirable place to raise a family, and the costs of buying a house is still out of reach for younger families, the issues my parents faced have come back. As fuel prices continue to rise, and living in a private home becomes less desirable, this situation will probably increase even further. So unless home sweet apartments an adult only building, such as a senior building, New Yorkers are going to have to get over it.

M.Y.O.B.

In my town, someone with an ax to grind, apparently, is posting some negative stuff regarding the volunteer fire department. That is his or her right. Some of the stuff might border on libel, but I'll let the lawyers deal with if I wish. However this poster, in apparent seriousness, is trying to argue that some of those on the volunteer fire department should be kicked off on morals clauses. Now if the morals clauses were along the lines of drunk firefighting, I could understand it, but this person was using the allegation that a firefighter might be having an affair as the reason that person is unfit to serve.

I hope he is not serious because that is one of the more asinine things I have ever heard. If my house is on fire and my children need to be rescued, the only thing I care about is whether the firefighter is able to save my children. Ultimately that s all that matters

The poster, however, tried to defend his point by noting that volunteers and public employees who work with children go through background checks and are held to moral clauses.I suppose you can argue that someone who deals with children on a regular basis should be held to a higher standard, but frankly, as long as coaches, for example, don't drink, curse etc in my child's presence I really don't care what they do in their off time. I don't care if they are liberal or conservative, gay or straight, like to drink alone, look at porn and anything else legal that the moral police might find offensive when they are on their own time; it's none of my business.

This is a fairly diverse community with a large variety of views on what is or is not morally offensive. Some have no trouble looking at near naked women at the beach, others won't even shake hands with a member of the opposite sex because their religion forbids it. That is their business, not ours. While I think I might question a drunk EMS worker driving me to the hospital, I really don't care if he or she is an adulterer.

Sinful government

Our government has been sinful. No, not for legalizing homosexual marriage. It's been sinful for the way we've treated our wounded (and not wounded too) war veterans. Dedicating a new Walter Reed hospital is a step in the right direction, but our sins, and they are ours since we're a government of the people (technically), go further than that.

These people have put their lives on hold for us. They lose their homes and we're ok with it. They lose their health and we're ok with it. They lose their work, either through being laid off or losing the ability to work and we're ok with it. They lose their lives and we're ok with it. Shouldn't we be not ok with it? These folks have made huge sacrifices and we all care about are rising gas prices, taxes and whether A-Rod is dating Madonna.

Granted, nearly 7 years after 9/11, these soldiers most likely knew what they were getting into when they signed up for service and how shabby we treat war veterans. Yet they made the sacrifice anyway. It seems to me that the least we as a nation can do is take care of these veterans upon their return home. Yes it will cost money but let's face it, we as a nation are rich enough to take care of them. We just need to find the selfless collective will we used to have. But it seems to me that providing veterans with an education or, if they are wounded, proper health care, is the least we can do to say thank you.

But yeah, let's waste our energy and resources gossiping about A-Rod, fighting gay marriage, analyzing to the nth degree what Imus said this time and whether Sirius and XM satellite radio can merge. That seems to be so much important to think about then the way we are giving the shaft to those who volunteered to help protect this country (whether you think fighting Iraq was wrong is moot, these kids did believe it was the right thing to do and are paying the price). Happy Independence Day.