I recently had a problem with my Dream Host account – and when I say a problem, I really mean I didn’t pay the bill.  However, in my defense - I told them I would be cutting them a check (and when you pay Dream Host by check, they take FOREVER to process it – sometimes almost a month) so Jamie said she would extend service until the end of September.

Now in Dream Host’s defense – they give you sixty days to pay your past due bills, and they notify you once a week.  I even got a call from Jamie informing me that my account was past due and I needed to pay ASAP (which is when I said I would be cutting them a check).

You see, its not that I’m bad about paying my bills, I’m actually quite good at it.  The issue is I’m bad at paying Dream Host bills, I have around 25 domains with them and, of course, hosting – so I typically owe them some amount every month (normally a domain renewal), so I tend to let the bills build up until it becomes an appreciable amount, and then pay it.

Ok, back on topic here – anyway, the moral of this post is to say that Dream Host support is AWESOME! I sent them an e-mail concerning the matter at 7:15am and they started to correct the problem and replied back at 7:20am.  I had some other issues and e-mailed them, and in general I received a response back within 15 minutes (from an actual person, not a robot).  While I was annoyed my account got suspended, I was extremely satisfied with their support response time.

This is the kind of support every company should have.

Overall it is a great device – but I just have a few complaints about it, checkout the video for the full review.  I don’t really feel like typing it all out, because that would defeat the purpose of making the video right?

I learned that the ‘hard way’ yesterday.  I’m currently working towards my private pilot’s license and an event occurred yesterday that has been bothering me: I landed on the ‘wrong’ runway.  Let me clarify – I didn’t actually land on the wrong runway, but I was lined up too; before landing I got clearance to land on the lined up runway, thankfully it was a non-issue and there wasn’t any close calls.

What bothers me the most about this – is everything felt wrong about landing on this runway – I was 99% sure this wasn’t the correct runway, but the communication I was getting from the tower made me feel like it was the correct runway and given my inexperience I didn’t continue to ask questions.

I was landing at OSU – which has 8 runways and that makes it a little confusing for us student pilots who are accustomed to landing at 2 or 4 runway airports.  So let me try and draw this out for you:

I’m the purple line with the two stars; the blue line is the runway that I was cleared to land on.  So here is how this all went down:

At the red star (on my path) OSU tower says ‘N80254 I have you in site and you are cleared for a straight in on runway 27L’ (the runway with the blue line).  Now in my mind, with my current position, I wouldn’t know how to reconfigure the airplane to do a straight in on runway 27L – so I radio back to the tower and say ‘State tower, do you want me to do a pattern over 27L?’ OSU responds ‘No that’s OK 254, you can just do a straight in on 27L’.  So I started thinking, I must be confused and I must be lined up with 27L – even though everything else was telling me that 27L was the blue line runway.  So I don’t say anything and went with it – but that sinking feeling is setting in that something isn’t right.  At the black star, I radio OSU tower and say ‘Tower, am I lined up for 27L or is this a different runway?’ the tower responds ‘You are lined up for runway 23 – there is no traffic on the field, you are cleared to land on runway 23’ – after that I landed on runway 23 (the ‘wrong’ runway). 

What annoys me the MOST about this is I KNEW this wasn’t the correct runway, but because I didn’t ask enough questions (which I shouldn’t be afraid to do given my inexperience) I setup on the wrong runway. 

Someone today asked me ‘If you had to go back to OSU today – what would you do differently to make sure that didn’t happen again’.  I will ask more questions, I will make sure that I know exactly the location of the runway.  And next time, I will abort the final unless I’m 100% sure I’m on the correct runway – as my ground instructor once said “Mistakes can be fatal, but go around are free” (A go around is when you abort the landing and come back around for another shot).

Don’t get me wrong, setting up on the wrong runway was completely my fault – I’m not trying to blame the OSU tower for anything – I just assumed that I must have been lined up for the correct runway, and that assumption was incorrect.  I should have listened to my instincts (which I did when I radioed for clarification) and fully clarified the towers remarks.

Lesson learned: If you’re not 100% sure, ask questions!

So I was reading the other day that cars are getting a new label that’s going to show better gas milage and green house information.  I was impressed with this change, I thought finally, I’ll have the ability to buy a car with good gas milage – and better green house emission standards!!!

I mean let’s face it, when I go buy a brand new car – what do I look for?  Not the style, not the maker, not the model, not the color – nope, none of that.  What I look at is gas milage baby and now for the cherry on top, I get green house emission standards too!!

All of this excitement has caused quite a bit of confusion – you see, what about a car that gets 30mpg and is bad for green house standards; while on the other hand a car that gets 35mpg and is really really bad for green house emission standards: Which one should I choose?

Anyway, I hope you could read the sarcasm in my above writings.  Moral of the story is a majority of people could care less about milage and green house standards.  And if they did?  Then they could find plenty of information on the internet or at the dealer.  A majority of people who buy cars aren’t sticker shopping based of MPG – sorry to break this too you.

That is all,

With unemployment currently around 9.1 percent, I think we need to start taking a look at where the problem lies. The Mark Graham Plan of Excellence suggests that the problem really lies with the government paying people to not be employed. Can you believe it? The government will actually pay you while you are not employed. With a deal like that, why ever get a job? Oh, wait a second…. I think I’m on to something here.

Personally, I’m not for unemployment compensation – I think it is too burdensome on businesses, and generally I think people need to be prepared in life for anything that might happen. Is it any wonder why we run our credit limits to the max? We always have a nice cushy pillow to fall back on – unemployment, social security, Medicare/Medicaid, and the list continues. Anyway, even though I’m not for it, I realize we can’t just totally end this job killing social program. So I’ve come up with a Mark Graham Plan of Excellence program to help this situation.

Let’s face it; unemployment stands to only encourage people not to work. It’s simple economics – if you reward someone for doing something, they will continue to do it. In this case, the reward is the money they receive for not working. Now how can we fix this issue? Well, the MGPoE suggests we change the system completely around and give incentives (in this case rewards) for going back to work. The MGPoE prescribes two ways to handle this issue:

Lump Sum Payment – Let’s say the average unemployment claim, for the entire time the person is unemployed, averages around $10,000. Now the MGPoE’s recommendation would be to take 85% of that amount and pay it out to the newly unemployed filer. You get no more, and you get no less. Thus the faster the unemployed finds a job, the more of the $8,500 says in their pocket.

The other option is similar, but the unemployed person would continue to receive their weekly unemployment compensation. For this situation, lets say the average unemployment claim per week is $416. So if the unemployed finds a job in the first month they would get a nice big check for $6,000. If they find a job in the second month, they get a check for $4,500. Third month they would get $3,000, fourth month they would get $1,500, and nothing after that. All unemployment benefits would run out, period, after the 6th month.

Now I don’t think that everyone is lazy when it comes to trying to find another job. But I do believe that as long as people are getting paid for not working, they will not settle for anything less than what they were getting before (at least until their benefits run out). So let’s say you make $50,000/year and you lose your job. A few weeks later a potential employer offers you $42,000/year to come work for them. Under the current unemployment compensation program most people wouldn’t consider this as an option. However, under the MGPoE unemployment compensation program these kinds of offers would be a lot more tempting – because you get to keep a lot more of your lump sum payout.

Obviously a lot of market research would need to go into these options, but this would be an excellent way to save money on unemployment, and give incentives for people to increase their effort into finding a new job. There would also need to be some rules placed on the above programs to ensure they aren’t scammed like today’s unemployment program. For example, a rule that would be required is how often can one file for unemployment compensation? I would argue it should only be once ever 4 or 5 years.

You know, there is a lot of speculation as to the nationality of President Barack Obama.  President Obama’s argument is that he was born in Hawaii, which would automatically give him US Citizenship, and therefore, eligible to run for the President of the United States.  The, what I’ll call, conspiracy theories suggest that President Obama was born in Kenya, and therefore not eligible to become President.

Now comes the Mark Graham Plan of Excellence Argument: It doesn’t matter, either way he is eligible to become President of the United States.

Now before you go on a rant suggesting that I’m a huge liberal, I can assure you I am not.  I’m quite conservative, but I take a realistic approach to issues and review them and create a solution or answer.  Thus the Mark Graham Plan of Excellence.

So let’s dive into this a little more shall we?  Who is eligible to become President?  The constitution is fairly straight forward with this, or perhaps not.  It says the following:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

Ok, so you have to be a natural born Citizen, you must be at least 35 years old, and have to be a resident of the United States for 14 years.

Where everyone is getting hung up is the term natural born citizen.  Unfortunately, that is where the ambiguity starts.  There isn’t a real definition of the term ‘Natural Born Citizen’ – likewise, there is a lot of ambiguity of the requirement of being a 14 year resident – does that mean if you left the country for a day in the last 14 years you are not eligible to become President?  Of course not but I digress.

So my argument is centered around US Birthright law.  There are two ways to get a citizenship automatically upon being born.

Jus Soli: This is where if you are born in the United States, you are automatically given citizenship, and therefore you are completely eligible to run for President of the United States.  Even if both your parents were foreigners (legal or not), you are instantly given citizenship to the US because you were physically born here.

Jus sanguini: This is where one of your Parents, in this case President Obama’s mother, is a US Citizen and you are born outside of the US or one of its territories.  Because Obama was born to a female US Citizen, he was instantly given US Citizenship.

Particularly, my argument centers around 8 U.S.C. Section 1409 paragraph (c) and 32 CFR 584.5 which says (summary) if a female ‘natural born US Citizen’ has a child that was born out of the United States, to a foreigner, and out of wedlock, that child would receive the same “nationality status of his mother”.  Thus, if Obama’s mother was a natural born citizen, Obama would inherit that trait as his citizenship and should be considered a natural born citizen.

So why is there this big conspiracy?  Because courts have yet to rule on people running for President with citizenship by Jus sanguini. Given a proper challenge in court, I think the courts would decide that anyone with a Jus sanguini citizenship would be eligible for Presidency, given the spirit of the law.

I mean how far are we going to take this ‘natural born citizen’ thing?  What about a child that wasn’t born naturally – lets say a US Mother and US Father have a child, in the United States, by In Vitro Fertilization?  That certainly isn’t natural, so should the child be eligible for the Presidency?  Give me a break!

So really Frontier airlines wasn’t THAT bad, they were, in fact, pretty good.  But there is one thing that really set me off about them.  So I payed for the ‘Classic Ticket’, you know where you get two free checked bags, AND you get to choose your own seat!

The main reason I decided to pay for the upgraded ticket was so I could choose my own seat.  I can’t STAND sitting in the middle row, so I like to always ensure that I have a good seat on the plane.  So I picked my seats 5C & 6C for the first flight, when I check in and get to the gate I noticed my seat was 23E on both flights.  So before I decided to complain, I thought I’d seatguru.com and see if it was a bad seat.  Needless to say, they were the WORST possible seats.  It was a middle seat and all the way at the very back of the aircraft.  Seatguru said these seats did not recline, foot traffic, due to the lavatories, would be bothersome, and there is limited leg room due to an equipment box.

Great I thought, so I went to the counter to complain and see if I could get my seats moved.  Which they did, they moved me to the 7th row, but still a middle seat.  Like I said above, I only really bought the upgraded ticket because I wanted to avoid a middle seat at ALL costs.

Anyway, no biggie I thought, first time glitch, right?  Wrong.  So as soon as I checked into the hotel I reviewed my online itinerary to see that my trip home seats were exactly as I had picked them (up front, and aisle seats, both flights).  Being paranoid, 12 hours before my flight I check them again, and they were the same seats that I had originally picked when I bought the ticket.  I thought great, perfect, everything was in order…. Until I go to check in, and the gentleman at the counter said “Oh wow, they have you sitting all the way at the back of the aircraft”.  Extremely annoyed, I explained that this was the second time that it happened, and asked him why I even bought the upgraded ticket.  Being an excellent customer service agent he said let me see what we can do for you.  And he was able to put me in seat 11D which seatguru.com says these were pretty much the best seats on the plane.

Anyway, I’m still annoyed because I paid extra money to choose my seats and on a whim they just kick you out of the seat you choose and put you in the worst possible seat.  Of all the times that I’ve flown, I have NEVER had my seats changed from when I picked them online.  Hopefully this isn’t normal, but still annoys me.  END RANT