August 2020

 It has been a hectic August. Things are generally pretty laid back here, covid was something that happened to the rest of the world. The certifiably stupid unrest has been beyond my ability to comprehend. I served as a Military Policeman in Washing DC in 1968, and I am yelling at the TV, NO! that is not the way to handle this kind of crap. Of course no one listened so we get to go through the same chapter in History again. My point in telling you this is to lay the ground work for my latest bout of bad judgement. I took a job as an enumerator for the Census. I guess I am going through a phase of repeating thing that happened in the past because I forgot history.

My entire life, if any one ever paid me to do something, I automatically resented it! I had finally achieved the one real goal in my life - retirement! I have been planning, since I was 19 years old, for the one thing that I craved and  that was not having to work, so that I could spend my days playing! Of course with only a sometimes companion, one could understand that I might begin to feel a little bit of loneliness on occasion. The sad part it is that it is for the Govt. Every one knows that the Govt is the enemy of common sense. Every thing is loaded with stupidities, and all of it is governed by the most unergonomic rules regulations and acronym's. Every thing is listed with an acronym, the type of work, the nonresponsive resident etc adnausem. The only ones that they forgot and actually would apply would be SNAFU and FUBAR. 

All of our training is on line, then after about 13 hours of computer training they toss you to the wolves and the ones that survive all the frustration and bull shit are given the equivalent of a college treasure hunt. Your main tool is an I Phone. I had somehow been brainwashed apparently by slick advertising and an astronomical price tag to believe that I phone's were something to aspire to. "Well it ain't so". I have an android smart phone that is at least 4 generations behind the current model and it can do much more that this piece of crap I phone. Yes I Phone has a lot of shiney things to distract you with, but I haven't found a way to do the simple things that are helpful such as read your email, or use a navigation app. Or for that matter have keys to type with that actually print a letter that is on the sides of the screen, or be able to use a pointer pen with accuracy. the space bar sometimes works, but not with any regularity. When you punch a key it makes a sound, but not always a letter. All the info that I need to record has to be put into a form on the I phone. It is not unusual to have to reboot it three or more times a day. The one that I have now is the second one for me, and Connie who talked me into this foolishness is unable to work because her phone needs replacing as well, and they don't have any. You get each day, a list of addresses to contact. Lots of mine are merely listed as "Hwy 78". So there is mapping feature that with few exceptions tells me that It cannot find it, try again. I drove 216 miles today to interview 13 people. Almost all of my cases today were in the Burns area with the exception of one. I actually have not finished the ones that I have within close driving distance. It will probably take another two or three days to finish here. The one exception that I had today was in Arcata Calif. only 574 miles away. Sigh!

I did however get a chance last week to take Connie for a flight down the Owyhee. 

https://vimeo.com/447376144    password   owyheeflyer

It was a long flight and to get as much in as I could I sped the video up to 200 percent so the bumps in the air are now exaggerated.

I get a read out of all the times that the video is viewed, how long they watched and if they finished or not.I try to keep the vids in the 5 min range and that is sometimes too long for most peoples attention span. As I was doing this one ( I admit that I didn't have much time and I probably did this one with the idea of just getting it done as quick as I could) as I was watching the "finished " vid. I decided I would find it helpful if I could get some observations of what was wrong with the video. I am not interested in hearing praise, only constructive criticisms. I want to hear what bothers you about the vids and what would make it better. I can't guarantee that I will do much different, but if I can I will. Would it be better to do small 5 second scenery shots or speed it up to 200 percent and waggle through the air. I personally love the terrain here, and that is my main goal. Some input as to how long a video could be before it got old enough to shut off.