Dave’s Ramblings

“According to a News.com.com article, the defrauding of state government unemployment benefit programs is the most underpublicized identity theft crime and the states are not doing much about it. Identity thieves are using stolen social security numbers to file false unemployment claims and collecting benefits because the states have no systems in place to deter fraud. In fact, it is easier to convert stolen identity data into money by filing false unemployment claims than going after the credit card companies.” From the article: “File a false unemployment claim and you can receive $400 per week for 26 weeks. Do it for 100 Social Security numbers and you’ve made a quick $1.04 million. It’s tough to make crime pay much better than that.”

Now this is just getting plain ridiculous, there are next to no measures in place to detect Unemployment fraud? Come on now, how much simpler could things really be, what’s missing is the act of someone getting off their dead ass and writing a simple check and balances query. Here, I’ll even do 75% of the work for you, here are the conditions; Let’s see SSN #123456789 has a pending unemployment claim for this week, query state income tax database…was a credit reported from that same SSN? No - issue check, Yes - raise the flag…. DUH! It’s really just about that simple, granted not foolproof for all circumstances, but I’d bet my next paycheck it would catch a hell of a lot more fraud than sitting around with your collective thumbs up shoved up your collective asses!

What’s the next crisis going to be? Just a guess, but that gal who drove into the supermarket in a shiny new 2005 Escalade only to buy groceries with food stamps…….hmmm nothing unusual enough there to care about right?

Recent Search Engine keywords leading to me…..
daves ramblings - Hey you know the name I gave me blog, and found me!
fukitol pill - No surprise here, that was one of my first posts.
animal suicide - Okay that was my fault
wisconsin raffle permits - I’ll print you some off, $89.99 each.
chainmaille templates - Yup it was a great way to kill a years worth of time
bring your daughter work day - Yup I did that one this year.
song one of these things - ummmm…. Sure, whatever you want dude.
cool ideas for fish tanks - Hey I got lots of these.
xxx a long time ago - When Vin Diesel was age 8 ??
how to hack phpbb forums - Like I’d publish that info here.
i have been driving a hearse for the last 25 years - Hey good for you.
ruger sp101 speed loaders - Too much concealed carry posts I guess.
varicose veins national public radio - I give up.
google site map cron job - Look! A relevant search result.
how to clean chainmaille - That’s what squires are for.
stupid chicago bears fans pictures - as opposed to intelligent ones?
watching paint dry - Dude/Dudette, get a life, or some paint for yourself.
little boys mastrabating - You flipping pervert! Time would be better spent searching on how to actually spell words rather than looking for crap like that.
bitchy mt dew - I like mine cold and quiet.

Amazingly most are somewhat relevant to the content I’ve posted thus far… Not as humorous as some in the past… but at least some make sense.

Okay I’m still trying to wrap my head around this one. I just got a new stereo for my truck, and it came with an IR remote control. Being male, that makes ‘clickers’ cool to have, the more the better, but why for a car stereo? I’ve not yet found a practical use for it, it’s easier to reach the controls on the head unit than it is to find the clicker and drive it from two feet away.

Am I supposed to leave it in the back seat so anyone back there can drive the stereo? I think not! Though of the 120K miles I’ve driven her in the last 40 years I can realistically say that there has been someone in the passenger seat for less than 500 miles. The backseat is generally filled with computers, tools, golf clubs, all sorts of stuff, so maybe 3-4 times has anyone ever set back there. So I can effectively rule out that’s what it’s for…

I give up, the clicker has been tossed in the glove box and will likely remain there. I have wireless or IR controllers for just about everything else from the TV to ceiling fans, think Tim Allen’s tool belt filled with clickers, that would sum things up I guess. Now I’m working on getting everything else in the house automated with X10 controllers and stuff so I can set things on timers and control other things via a web server and my pocket PC. That’s maybe going a bit overboard…maybe.

But have we become such an automation dependent society to warrant such things as clickers for car stereos?

We started an ad the midle of last week in the local paper and Angel has been fielding calls continually, we’re down to three males left that are looking for loving homes, here they are at 6.5 weeks or so.

For more info on them jump over to Briar Patch Puppies. Tommorrow they’ll be 8 weeks old and getting thier first puppy shots

Okay so over the weekend we had some friends literaly fly in for the day Saturday. Brian is a pilot and has his own little 4 seater plane. The idea of planning out mini vacations and jumping in your own plane to get there is just so cool… no traffic jams, no road construction, and shaves 3/4 of the travel time off.

I’ve been half teasing Angel about buying a plane for years now, never really thought it could be a simple reality. She’s been griping “no planes” for years now, she’s not fond of the motorcycle, but has learned to trust me a bit more on it. We’ll see what some sweet talking and stuff can do. Now I’ve got my head wrapped around it and decided THAT is exactly what I want to do for my mid life crisis… I spent most of Saturday night just buzzing, reading up on all the info I could find on the costs, FAA rules and requirements, even found an instructor pretty local to us. Subscribed to a bunch of General Aviation magazines and Ezines as well to start reading up on more and more. Even grabbed a “$49 for your first flight lesson” certificate from BeAPilot. Looking at around $4-5K to get all flight and ground training completed. Really not too bad a deal in my books, given I’m a very quick study for anything I’m interested in I might be able to cut down the time and thus reduce my costs, which means more savings towards buying a plane By my figuring I spend that on smokes in a year!

So that’s my goal for my 40th bday next spring… to start training and have my General Aviation Permit by summer’s end. Even got the perfect ‘butter her up plan’ for Angel in mind, her birthday is a month before mine…so big plans in the mix to do it up right and make it a lasting one… one where she’ll need a passport for! It’s going to run me about the same cost as flight lessons, so I’m looking at somehow pulling together about $10K between now and next April. Time to start saving all of my pennies. I think with a little effort I can swing most of it in time, I want to have at least hers saved up and at least 1/2 of mine put away in time.