e-cigs part deux

Holy crap, this stuff really works! Since Tuesday, I only had 2 normal cigarettes, and that is because I was unaware that the sample cartridges had only 8ml of nicotine. Once I swapped to the ones I ordered with the kit (24ml), I haven't smoked a single cigarette since. And I don't even crave for it. Sure e-cigs are not like the holy grail. It still bad to have nicotine and "vaping" glycol, but considering that burning tobacco with so many additives is really, really, fucking bad. I think the most immediate benefits to a smoker swapping to smokeless tobacco product is getting away with shortness of breath, which affects metabolism.

So far I'm loving it, plus e-cigs offer such wide range of flavors, some tastes like candy. Think of as hookah :D

Adult section gone on Craigslist

So I was checking Craigslist for good deals on stuff, like cars or cell phone, electronics, etc... But I noticed a CENSORED where the Adult section used to be.

Oh what will I do now when I'm on business travel, alone at the hotel???

I joke :P

So I decided to investigated what this was about. It seems like some activist/attorney (Norma Ramos) and her group Coalition Against Trafficking in Women were putting pressure to have it shut down. They got 17 state attorneys general to sign a letter telling Craigslist to shut it down.

I also heard the recorded debate on radio with Craigslist CEO, Norma Ramos, legal experts, etc... You can clearly notice that she never address any of the arguments brought forth to her, she just keep pushing her talking point. Even when asked to disclose the source of her numbers she still keeps pushing her talking points. Now for an attorney, which should be very comfortable with providing evidence, she clearly has a problem. Maybe she went to law school and passed the bar, but damn, she must really suck as a lawyer. Plus, in my opinions, judges and lawyers should never be activists. The law needs to be impartial, equal, and out from external influences. Being an activist means you have an agenda, sometimes its good, sometimes its bad, and often times misplaced beliefs. Yet, even if good and right, its not for the activists to decide what is right or wrong.

Even the 17 state attorneys that signed the letter, did not go as far to take Craigslist to court, why? Because they have no legal grounds to stand on. Based on that, she should know as an attorney that her opinion has no merit. Her organization was founded by activist from Women Against Pornography, which obviously is more of a puritan/decency motivation than human trafficking. She claims that the "Swedish model" is an example of success because it now law in Sweden. Well yes any fricking lobbying group successfully pushing and agenda and having it turn to law is successful? Well yes, success to you, but not a success to ending women trafficking. There is no evidence of her claims. While she disparage Netherlands legalization as abhorrent and a failure. Yet there are evidence that the legalization of prostitution in Netherlands works.

First of all her motives are wrong. She is a feminist that hates prostitution because its goes against her morals/principals. She completely disregard that, yes, some women choose to be prostitutes out of their own choice. She claims because they need money it affect their judgement. Of course it does, but at what point is it considered ok for her to be free from influence of money? She makes that call? If a woman make 150k a year and wants to compliment another 150k year prostituting herself, is that an exploitation because her financial "difficulties" forces her to prostitute herself? An no, there are women that works in the sex industry because they like sex, yes probably a very minority but they do exist. Of course Norma dismisses that only 1% of the sex workers, yet when asked for evidence of that number, she presents none. She even goes further to say that, policy cannot be created based on minority but on majority. So yeah, fuck the transgenders, fuck the blacks, fuck the Asians, etc... Her argument has no merit. In a republic, the laws are supposed to protect the minorities against the majority. Obviously, Norma being an attorney, she should know this...

Her ideals are unrealistic because we don't live in an Utopia. Even if we had the most oppressive state control, there will still be crimes. Then why even have an ideal that doesn't fucking work? I mean socialism sounds nice on paper, and it works in theory to create an Utopia, but everyone fucking knows full socialism text book style doesn't fucking work.

She is the shinning fucking example why fucking degrees, these days don't mean shit. Too much fucking theory, but not enough experience to back it up.

I'm not saying degree are not important, but people put too much importance on in.

In summary, she is a feminazi (not a real feminist looking for gender equality), an attorney that obviously doesn't understand her field, and well simply dumb.

Link to the radio debate.

e-cigs

So due to my cravings to smoke during flights, I would hit those frequent travelers forum for tips on the "closest" smoking lounge in the airport. From those forum I first heard about e-cigs. Supposedly most of them "vape" during flight. So I decided to buy one for myself.

It arrived today, and I'm hoping to swap completely to these and never smoke a cigarette again. It is basically glycol with some flavoring and some nicotine and turns into vapor. So the exhaling vapor is basically water vapor. So there is no smell, no burning, no tar from burning tabacco and none of the chemicals from regular cigs.

Let see how this goes :)

DCA-CUN

So Cancun is a go. I just booked my tickets and boss gave me 2 days off. I'm going to try to make it to Tulum from Cancun so I can see the ruins, specially the one perched on the cliff by the beach.

Cancun?

So Kevin's wedding is coming up and I just don't have the vacation time for it. I'm trying to get 2 days off (Sept 9-10). I talked to my boss about it already, he is going to check with other staff. Then there is Misha's wedding which I'm not certain yet. My boss said I will have to talk to him closer to the wedding date. Sigh

Philadelphia

So I have been in Philadelphia for almost a week. I will go back to DC tomorrow. I wish I had time to actually do some touristy stuff here in Philly, but the convention kept me really busy, unlike the convention in Phoenix where I actually had time to go to movie theaters twice per day during business hours. lol.

People in Philly seems nice, just like in Cincinnati and Phoenix. You do really get to know what "cities" are nice when you get to travel around a lot. The difference you notice is like night and day.

Am I the only road warrior that needs to cover my own ass?

I'm starting to get really upset about this. So this job requires for me to travel alot, and initially I was paying it with my own credit card and getting reimbursements, but lost receipts (they refuse to pay back if I lost the receipts) and long delays on reimbursements, I told finance to issue me a corporate card. Plus all my fares are government rate, so I need a government travel charge card to be eligible for those fares.

Previous experience with corporate card has always been some what smooth. I spend on what I need on the road, like food, lodging and transportation, then finance department checks it against my credit card statements and automatically issue a reimbursement check. Only time they would dispute or ask questions is if they have a suspicious charge, like "Svetlana Russian Escort Services". Or other corporate card, I wouldn't even get a reimbursement, it would be charged straight to the corporate funds.

So from my last business trip, the expenses totaled 2K. I submit my expense report with all the receipts I had, granted some were lost, or some are not receipt, but printout from hotel's reservation confirmation with the rate. It seems like they are still not ok with that. They want the receipts.... Uh... they are giving me the "walk around". The can just pull out my charge card account statement if they want to... So not only they are saying they don't owe me the 2K, but I owe them $500. So the logic is, I went to business trips, but a fairy paid for all the expenses. Since the company didn't pay for it, based on their deductions, they don't owe anything, then a fairy paid for it. What if there are no fairies? If the company didn't pay, then well, I paid for them, right? And if I paid for them, the company owes me money because they have to pay for my business travel expenses. Isn't that logical?

I traveled on business trip, they know it, but they don't owe me anything, but now I owe them $500? How is that even logically possible???

Lol, about to just write the 2k off as loss and tell, "I'm sorry, yes I lied on the expense reports for my business travels. You guys don't owe me anything. See I forgot that a fairy paid for all the expenses, that is why I was able to go on business trips and no cost of my own, and not cost for you guys!"

haha

Trying to get motivation to re-work on my photo site

I'm from the days of writing HTML on "Notepad", none of these Dreamweaver and stuff. I had to actually write the html on textpad and then upload to "review". Although harder, and more time consuming, it was very simplistic. There is some elegance in the simplicity of straight up HTML code. Anyways, time have changed, most site has Flash, XML, and a plethora of things I never bothered to keep up with. That is why in IT, people need to keep up with the new tech. Granted, web development was not my field, so learning HTML was more of a hobby, but when its really not your field of work, its hard to keep all interests up to date.

So now I want to make my photo site with Flash, and well I guess I need to take some basic class or something. I open Flash CS5 and uhhhh, have no idea what I'm supposed to do. It's not like I have a lot of time these days to learn something from scratch, but oh well. I have always been the IT guy for friend and family, so I just need to suck it up and learn it.