August 5, 2008 – NewMexiKen

The first

Neil Armstrong is 78 today.

Armstrong was first. How many others have walked on the moon? (See below).

All you current and former civil servants out there should find Armstrong to be your particular hero. The first man on the moon was a federal employee, a GS-14.

Jill provided the answer to how many two years ago:

Ooh, an Apollo question. You’ve come to the right place.

Well, 12 men have walked on the moon. Six lunar missions successfully landed on the moon, each with two crew members aboard the lunar module.

But NASA would say that 24 men have gone to the moon. They consider a moon trip to be achieving orbit around the moon, and do not recognize a distinction between orbiting the moon and walking on it. There were nine Apollo missions that orbited the moon, including two test runs, the six succesful landings, and Apollo 13. That’s 27 men, but three men did it twice (Jim Lovell, Eugene Cernan and John Young).

Did you know that within NASA, “astronaut” is a job description for those individuals selected to be members of the Astronaut Corps at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Once an astronaut candidate completes training, he or she becomes a career astronaut, without ever going into space. Within the U.S. military, however, the term astronaut is reserved for those individuals that have actually flown above an altitude of 50 miles.

Holy crap!

Marcia Brady (Maureen McCormick) is 52 today.

Best line of the day, so far

“His only virtue is his bipartisanship; he routinely misstates elementary facts about members of both major parties.”

The Daily Howler describing Dana Milbank of The Washington Post.

Most interesting factoid of the day, so far

“[T]he United States ranks 68th in the world in the proportion of women in national legislatures.”

Jaana Goodrich, quoted by digby.

GOP won’t let go of its new tire-gauge toy

Consider a counter-example. McCain was talking about skin cancer the other day.

McCain emphasized that skin cancer is preventable, and implored Americans to wear sunscreen, especially over the summer. What’s wrong with this advice? Not a thing. It’s a smart, sensible thing to say.

But imagine if Obama and his surrogates said the entirety of McCain’s healthcare policy is sunscreen application. McCain doesn’t really care about cancer, they could argue, he just wants everyone to run out at get some SPF 30. Those vying to be Obama’s running mate started holding up bottles of Coppertone during their speeches, saying things like, “We want you to wear sunscreen, you know, it will very mildly improve your chances of not getting sick. But wearing sunscreen is not a healthcare policy for the United States of America.”

The Carpetbagger Report

This is the kind of thing they do

Fact: Proper tire inflation would save two to three times more oil per day now than expected offshore drilling will produce per day 20 years from now.

I’ll see you at the debates, bitches

Damn!

I must have been bad. Lightning just hit within a few hundred yards.

It actually startled me enough to take my breath away.

Why I don’t like thunderstorms.

iPhone

NewMexiKen has a new iPhone today. I’m not getting many bars from AT&T here at Casa NewMexiKen and I find the phone volume inadequate. It’s a strain to hear even at top volume.

Any ideas?

It is, of course, otherwise awesome, but those are pretty big issues.

Blogging

I took yesterday off. It was the fifth anniversary of NewMexiKen. No one ever asked how I voted.

I liked taking the day off so much, I took off much of today too. It took Comcast to get me riled enough to need an outlet.

It only gets worse

Over the weekend NewMexiKen ranted about Comcast sending an email advising me to check my bill online but, because they had closed the account, when I tried to do so, I was denied access.

An individual who represented himself as being with Comcast Cares commented here on my rant and said “Thanks again for the valuable feedback and providing the opportunity to assist!”

OK, Mr. Comcast Cares, it has only gotten worse. If you are genuine and really care, my email address is newmexiken~at~gmail~dot~com.

Today I received the very bill they’d told me about and after 17 minutes on the phone am no closer to resolution. I’ll try and make this brief. In July I paid for service THROUGH August 7, $64.49. But I ended the service on July 21st and took the modem into the Comcast service center on July 22. I was assured that would be the end date for the billing, though they would have to wait until a technician could come out and actually disconnect the cable (just internet) before closing the account and refunding me the extra I had paid. I was told the disconnect would happen July 29th. (Later I was told August 5th.) The refund would follow by the end of the same week, August 1st. (Later I was told in two weeks.)

First error. The bill today says I had a balance due of $64.49. Apparently I was not credited with the July payment. Then the bill states I am charged for service August 2 through September 7. But then the cost of that service is subtracted. (Zero sum game.)

The result Comcast says is minus $15.02. There is no explanation whatsoever for how plus $64.49 turned into minus $15.02.

The customer rep was, of course, of no use. Getting to talk to a supervisor was beyond hope today. I guess I’ll start over when I can be doing other stuff while I wait.

My estimate is that I am owed one-half month’s service, which I did not receive but for which I paid in advance. That would be about $32 and the $17 difference really isn’t worth the hassle if it weren’t for the principle of the thing. Comcast is worse than Ma Bell ever thought about being.

Oh, and the rep today told me it would be 6-8 weeks for the refund.