I know I said I would be back to update the blog but I have been real busy with life and my other businesses to come here and keep my personal blog updated. I promise I will try to at least update what is happening in my life and what I am up to.

Anyway today’s post is not a usual post for me, I am passing on an urgent need for a friend of mine. Those of you that know me know that I had a beautiful German Shorthaired Pointer (GSP) named Sassy. Sassy passed away a while back and I miss her till this day, there will never be another dog like her. I created several sites in her memory G.S.P. Blogs and Pet Rescue Directory have been up and running in her memory in the hopes that these sites might help other pets in their time of need.

I didn’t just want to plug my other sites, I have a reason for this post. My good friends over at NorCalGSP Rescue have an urgent need to place one of their GSP’s. Hendrix is no ordinary GSP, he is an extraordinary dog that has over come many battles in his life so far. He is now facing one more battlein which his time is running out! Hendrix needs a home, however please read below what was sent to me before you say “I’ll take him”, it is not as simple as you might think.

Hi,

As many of you know, we have been looking for an adoptive home for Hendrix, and have not had much luck.  Julie and Shari fostered him for many, many months (thank you so much!), and when they were no longer able to, we found a new foster home for him.  That foster home will not be able to foster him past September 30th.  If we cannot find a long-term foster home or placement for him within the next two weeks, we are out of options for him.We have had him since he was 4 weeks old, given up by a backyard breeder with the story that the pup needed surgery from the umbilical cord having wrapped around and that he couldn’t afford it.  Turns out the pup has spina bifida, not surgically repairable.  Hendrix is neutered, up to date on shots, has had spinal surgery to repair the opening on his back to prevent infection, is crate trained, has completed puppy class.  He is presently 36 pounds and will probably be about 40 pounds when fully mature.  Medical records for all of his care are available.  He is not house trained (bowel or bladder) because of his disability, and wears diapers when inside.  He’s been to therapy essentially weekly to work on strengthening his rear legs.  He just received his wheeled cart and loves it!

I have promoted him on our web site, other web sites, Yahoo group posts for German Shorthaired Pointers and rescue groups, our newsletter, and through flyers.  I have contacted sanctuaries and humane societies, to no avail.  We have been unable to secure another foster home, or an adoptive home for him.  We had two potential adopters that both fell through.  He is sweet, loving, lovable, and smart.  Here’s the information we have been sending out far and wide:Hendrix is now 10 months old, and has a wonderful personality! He was discarded at 4 weeks by a backyard breeder and is in this situation through no fault of his own. He will need an adoptive or foster home that can see past his physical limitations and help him develop his full potential. He gets around the house very well, doing best with smooth floors to scoot himself around. He stands up to eat and to interact. He has a sling that is used to help him walk, and wears wraps or diapers while loose in the house. Hendrix has been receiving weekly rehabilitative therapy to develop his strength and use of his back legs, and his wheeled cart has just arrived - be sure to check out his blog for his newest videos http://www.norcalgsprescue.com/adopt.shtml and click through, or directly at http://gspblogs.com/norcalgsp/category/hendrix/.

Hendrix is excellent with dogs large and small, kids of all ages, and has not shown aggression towards cats (and couldn’t chase one too well anyway!) He loves to play shadow games http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS5ZWdqHxCI

as you can see here in one of his videos! He’s crate trained and has completed puppy class. He’ll do best in a home with another playful dog, and people who are physically capable of caring for him – assisting him in his sling, cleaning up after him, carrying out his therapy routine, protecting his skin, and giving him the love that GSPs demand!

When you meet Hendrix, you will fall in love with him. Despite his physical problems, he’s good-natured, very affectionate, full of playful puppy energy, and incredibly intelligent and eager to learn.

We are offering transportation for him if we can find a suitable place, and he would come with a crate, sling, wheelchair, diapers, toys and a monetary donation to help offset some of his care.  He needs a place that is physically accessible for him, easily cleaned, and will work with his skin issues; and people who can manage his care, which is not inconsequential.  Attached is a flyer (thank you Laura!) for you to forward and/or post.  Please let me know if you can help, time is of the essence.

Thanks!  Barbara

 

Barbara Gale

Foster Coordinator

H 650-325-5543

C 650-207-3501

F 650-324-2147

www.NorCalGSPrescue.com

Support us at no cost to you when shopping online!

http://www.iGive.com/norcalgsprescue

Ok, so if after reading and watching the video you still think you can help then please click through to either the adoption page or the main website of NorCalGSPRescue.com. I was told by Barbara that if someone on the East Coast wants to adopt Hendrix that the airfare to get him here would be covered along with a monetary donation to help with his expenses.

~Phil

Well to sum up my answer to all those questions, I have been very busy with life around me as well as the strike across the street from my house. If you don’t know what I am talking about you can read all about it here: www.fipna.org , to sum it up there is a nursing home across the street from my house that forced its employees to strike for the last six months. Victory for the workers finally came on August 21, 2008 when all the workers returned to work under an injunction that the union won to allow them to return.

As you can see I have been plenty busy with just the strike alone, not to mention worrying about a strike of my own at my company, which did not happen as we agreed to a contract one week after deadline.

So my plans for the future here are to return to blogging at least once a week if not more, and to add more tech to the blog. Many people have asked for me to add more simplified tech posts like the anti-virus, domain scammers, etc to the blog. So since you all asked, you will receive.

I will be back soon with my first post about internet faxing, everyone associated eFax to faxing over the internet, but are they the best? Are they the only game in town? Stay tuned and find out what my thoughts are.

I also plan to add an “Ask Phil” section where you can post your question and it will be answered here live on the blog.

I also really need to update Wordpress, the underlying software that runs this blog. So please come back soon…

~Phil

Well today (Sunday) according to our local website www.cwa1101.org, Verizon and CWA have reached an agreement. If you look back at my post from last weeks deadline you will see that my prediction was pretty close, all except for the 5 year agreement, Verizon only agreed on a 3 year contract.

From CWA’s website:

Following is a summary of the tentative agreement.

Wages
a. Effective 8/3/2008 3.25 %
b. Effective 8/2/2009 3.5 %
c. Effective 8/1/2010 3.75 %
COLA
a. Effective 8/1/2010
b. One half of the increase in the CPI-W in excess of 3.75% between May ‘09 and May ‘10
Corporate Profit Sharing
a. $700 minimum distribution
b. Paid in March of 2009, 2010, 2011
Pension Band Increases
a. Effective 10/1/2008 3.25%
b. Effective 10/1/2009 3.5 %
c. Effective 10/1/2010 3.75%
Pension Lump Sum Cash-Out
a. Pension Distribution Options remains in contract with no change in the language by which the amount is calculated
b. Available at any time, for the length of the contract
VZ Business
a. 445 Field Techs in plant contract with carveouts
b. 145 Inside Techs in plant contract with carve outs
c. Guarantee small and medium business exclusively for represented commercial
d. Bring new VZ-B work to CWA represented locations 100 at end of 2009 and 100 at end of 2010
Video Head End – Video Work. Approx. 75 in plant contracts with carve outs
Temps and terms to Perms (Approx 1,200)
Three times a year discussion on union jobs and efficiency/growth with top management
Active Health Care: Maintained full employer paid coverage with limited plan design changes
Retiree Health Benefits
a. Fully paid, no retiree pays during life of agreement
b. Any changes in future health benefit plans for retirees will be negotiated with the Union in the same manner as that for actives and for future retirees.
c. No current retiree will pay for health coverage through the end of 2011.
d. No active employee who retires during the term of this agreement will pay or health coverage through the end of 2011.
e. Caps on the Company’s contribution to the cost of retiree health coverage in 2012 and after have been raised as follows:
i. Prior to Age 65 and Medicare Eligibility
1. Retiree Only: $12,580
2. Retiree + 1 25,160
3. Retiree + Family 31,450
ii. Age 65 and after and Medicate Eligible
1. Retiree Only: $ 6,330
2. Retiree + 1 12,660
3. Retiree + Family 18,990
f. Employees hired after August 2, 2008 will be covered under a new retiree health program.
i. Once they retire (under the same eligibility requirements as currently required), they will receive an annual payment equal to $430 times years of service (to a maximum of 30 years).
ii. The parties will negotiate this amount in future years to reflect changes in the cost of health coverage.
Agreement to work for National Health Care Reform and provide $2 million a year during term of contract.
New Dispute Resolution for Faster resolution of grievances
Savings and Security Plan
a. Add a Roth option to the 401(k) plan
b. Allows investment of post tax dollars with no taxes applied to investment returns when assets are later distributed.
Retiree Life Insurance
a. Company-paid retiree life insurance benefits will be frozen at one-times the wage level attained on 8/2/2008.
b. The minimum amount to be paid to beneficiaries of retirees who retiree after 8/2/2008 will be $20,000, even after age 65.
Retirees who were hired after 8/2/2008 will be eligible for the minimum $20,000
Increase supplemental insurance with ability to purchase 5 times salary
Commercial Issues
a. Collection
b. Jt Marketing Letter
c. Local Presence Centers
d. NJ collection office issues
Extend all existing District and Local Agreements and adjust all dates.
CWA-NETT will discuss how to publicize
Unique Regional Items
a. Scope agreement CWA D2
b. Contract Initiative Letter fixed
c. Job Share Language (North)
d. ACFC will outstanding pay current bills $486K
e. Increase ACFC wage rate top wage rate in contract
f. Supplemental Retiree Life Insurance: five times implemented as soon as possible

Not too bad of a deal considering the economy and political climate we are currently in. I am thankful that we do not have to walk the picket line and we can return to work on Monday as usual.

In Solidarity,
~Phil

At the last minute the union and Verizon decided to stay at the bargaining table and continue working towards a new contract. Us employees were told to continue working as normal and all existing contract provisions should be followed. It is only a matter of time before a contract will be signed, at least in my opinion.

Recently Verizon won the concession to supply video to the five boro’s here in New York, how would it look to the investors that the workers were now on strike? Not to mention the quarterly results for the last quarter came in above expectations. In this time of a down economy for a company to be profiting and yet not wanting to benefit their own employees that make that profit for the company would seem absurd.  So this was my main reason for saying we will not be walking the picket line, at least not this year.

My prediction is that Verizon will extend or agree to a 5 year contract with all the same provisions we already have and give us a 3% increase annually for the term of the new contract. This will allow Verizon to use us to get all the FIOS installed over the next several years, at that time there will be a need for a much smaller labor force since fiber does not require the maintenance that copper does. After the FIOS is rolled out and functional I would then be worried about the status of the next contract that will be offered, by that time (5 years) I assume Verizon will offer several buy outs to get rid of alot of employees through attrition.

Everyone knows that I am a big supporter of technology advancement, however this is one time that it affects me directly. The more advanced technology gets within Verizon the less they will require my services. In the end it will make a better company that should be very profitable for it’s shareholders, however it’s employees may be out in the cold.

Now get out there and recycle!

It is assumed you are logged in and at the “Write Post” or “Write Page” screen and that you already have the title and body text written.  Once you have the cursor where you want to insert an image you scroll down the page to the upload section:

(Click image to enlarge)

Once you find the above section click the “Browse” button to find the image you want to upload and then fill in the Title and Description text boxes. You should have a screen similar to this:

(Click image to enlarge)

Once you are happy with that click on upload and you will see a screen like this:

(Click image to enlarge)

You can now either select a thumbnail (small size) or full size to send to the post. It is up to you which you select, I usually select the full size and then make it smaller in the post by clicking and dragging the corner of the image once in the post. The link to is important if you want your image to be clickable, if you shrink the image you can select file here and it will automatically show the bigger image if clicked, same goes for the thumbnail. If you select page it will allow you to enter a url to link to. If you select none it will just send the image to the post but not make it clickable.

Once the image is in the post, you can click and drag it around and you can also change its properties. If you click one time on the image in the post and then click the following button:

You will get a selection of properties to choose from as follows:

Here you can adjust the link, the description of the image the alignment, dimensions, border, and space.

This was a basic tutorial of how to upload an image to Word Press, if you have any questions feel free to ask away.

~Phil

A feast for the birds…

HAPPY SAINT PATRICK’S DAY!