The RAnts of RA

Intel Touch Screen Computer

Over the years we’ve grown quite comfortable using Google’s services. Let’s face it –  they do make it easy. What could be simpler than their Plain Jane website that puts the world at your fingertips? What could be better?

Well, Google really disappointed me for the first time yesterday and I am heartbroken.

We finally made time to take a much needed mini-vacation to the Silicon Valley and a visit to California’s Great America. On our way to check into our room at the Embassy Suites we couldn’t believe our luck. AMD, Yahoo, Oracle, Cisco, Microsoft, and other big techie  businesses just flew past our car window.

Yahoo Front Desk

We decided right then that we couldn’t leave the area without visiting a few businesses on Monday, since California’s Great America was closed. I am so grateful to have found the Intel Museum. While it wasn’t Great America, it was educational, fun and interactive, we all enjoyed our visit and it didn’t cost us a dime. The rest of the day, we wouldn’t be so lucky.

Yahoo's Purple Cow

Our  second stop was Yahoo, since it was closest to our location. It seemed that everywhere we turned we would find another Yahoo office location.

Yahoo's eMAIL Cow

We found the visitor’s entrance easily but sadly, the lobby was empty, there was no one to greet us. Instead we found a sign, instructing vistors to  please sign in. Well darn. We were infomed by an employee who happened by that Yahoo does have a store, where we could purchase  Yahoo products. At another location. Oh well, back in the car. 🙂

Yahoo's Purple Chair

Unfortunately, the clothing was either a size small or  2XL, too small or too big. I purchased a very large shirt to use as nightwear.

Yahoo Purple Fire Hydrant

We were disappointed but left in good spirits. We were on our way to  visit  the Googleplex and couldn’t wait to get there.  The first  impending sign of doom came by way of a fire hydrant  that had been painted Yahoo purple only a block away from Google’s main office. We were perplexed. We drove to the end of Ampitheiter Way, then turned around and headed back to the last entrance to Google.

Google Plex

We found a sign for visitor parking and headed down the walkway. We showed up at lunchtime, there were people everywhere. It was almost like we were invisible, no one said hello, no one even gave us a second glance. We tried door after door, looking for a visitor center. The “No Name Cafe” was busy, the food both looked and smelled delicious. I was hoping beyond hope that the cafeteria was open to the public, but alas I had clung to false hope.

Google has Quality Bugs

Not only was the “No Name Cafe” open to employee’s only. The entire place, including the visitors lobby we finally found tucked back in the corner requiring a badge to enter. I finally located a phone and tried three times to reach a real person, only to be informed that “Google is a closed campus.” If you don’t have an appointment, you don’t get in.

I still can’t believe we drove all that way, only to be turned away by large, cold, uncaring, super-techie’s that are far too busy to say hello and spare a few moments of their time.

Google's 'Got Badge?' sign

When we arrived back home, we checked online again. Surely, Google must have a visitor’s center with a gift shop somewhere? We were right, they have one in New York. That simply doesn’t make any sense to me — none at all. Google has a massive amount of office space. You can’t tell me that in a place that size, they couldn’t manage to squeeze out a few hundred feet to put a face to such a public company.

You know, I don’t think anyone in the Silicon Valley smiles and I find that really sad. It seemed that everywhere we went, people were unhappy, in a hurry and couldn’t be bothered to give a wave or say hello. You would think the people at Great America would all be bright and chipper, after all they get to listen to all that terrific music all day long and meet new people. All I saw was a sea of frowns on their faces.

Grandma had some terrific advice, “When you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours.” So, that’s exactly what I did.

In a former life I led California homeschoolers in the march for freedom. A group of us diligently fought restrictive legislation that affected Homeschooling or homeschoolers in general.

As you can imagine, we gained quite an education on how our system of government works. I know lots of tid-bits of seemingly useless information but useless is an interesting word because surely everything has worth to someone or else it wouldn’t exist, right?

For instance…did you know that…

• Each legislator has staff members who are paid out of taxpayer dollars to clip all newspaper clippings, magazine articles, articles both online and in print. Can’t they do their own scrap booking on their own time, just like the rest of us?
• How you communicate with your legislator matters a great deal, to him or her. Your letters, faxes and E-mails are assigned a certain weight. Such as one letter represents a 1,000 other individuals, one-fax represents 100 people and an E-mail represents 10 others.

While sending a letter might be good for the economy, sending a fax wastes almost as much paper. However, if you send an E-mail to your legislator, you should fully expect it to go un-read and unanswered, except of course by those annoying auto responders. Don’t you just hate to get those? That really has a way of making one feel important and respected!

If you ask me it demonstrates their lack of respect for those of us who voted them into office.

When the amount of E-mail gets overwhelming, they get dumped. Erased. Unread. If these legislators can pay someone to clip newspaper clippings by gosh they can pay someone to print off the letters, read them and compile a summary of those documents.

Where do these arrogant people get off accepting pay for work they haven’t done. It is our duty as tax paying citizens to participate in our government. Our legislators need to start doing their jobs or they won’t have them for long.

I highly recommend getting to know your local politicians and policymakers. Make sure when they are passing legislation that affects your family that he or she can’t quite get you out of their mind. They need to know that we are counting on them to do the right thing, not the easy thing and certainly not a decision that is good for their political career but bad for everyone else.

Who knows you might discover your own useless tid-bits of information.

Be a part of the solution, get involved today. I’ll be adding more details here soon.

While California citizens are focused on protecting marriage and busy working on the passage of Proposition 8, our state legislators have quietly passed more homosexual legislation.

This legislation is focused on indoctrinating our children. ‘This bill would require the Governor to proclaim May 22 of each year as Harvey Milk Day, and would designate that date as having special significance in public schools and educational institutions and would encourage those entities to conduct suitable commemorative exercises on that date.’ (text of AB 2567)

As the first openly gay City Supervisor of San Francisco, Harvey Milk encouraged gay right’s activism. He was killed in 1978.

AB 2567 is now sitting on Governor Schwarzenegger’s desk waiting for his signature. We need you to voice your opinion and tell the Governor not to sign this bill. It is important that you call today.

What you can do!

Call the Governor’s office to register your opposition to AB 2567

1. Dial 916-445-2841
2. Press 1 for English
3. Press 2 to voice your opinion on a bill
4. Press 1 to select AB 2567
5. Press 2 to register your opposition

It is that easy. Please take a minute to voice your opinion.