This past week, my own San Mateo County (along with a small portion of neighboring San Francisco) held a special election on April 8th to vote for a successor to the late Tom Lantos, who had been our representative in Congress. Well, despite a very low turnout for this very small and under-advertised election, Democrat Jackie Speier (whom I have met on a few occasions) was elected with 75% of the vote, thus eliminating the need for a runoff election in June and making her our Congresswoman for the rest of this term (until January 2009).

Below you can see her being sworn in yesterday. Her initial comments were wonderfully provocative, and I sure couldn’t imagine seeing Tom Lantos saying some of the things that she said.

Anyway, congratulations, Jackie! Hope to see some good things from you up there in Capitol Hill.

Tags: comments, Congress, election, Jackie Speier, special, swearing in, Tom Lantos, Video, YouTube

This is an interesting movement that is taking place today, where many residents and cities around the world, including my native San Francisco, is agreeing to turn the lights off for one hour starting tonight at 8 PM. It seems like an interesting movement. If you are able to, consider doing your part for the movement, and help conserve energy usage by turning your lights off for an hour tonight.

Tags: climate change, Earth Hour, global warming, movement, San Francisco, Video, YouTube

It’s junior year in high school and graduation is *gulp* starting to appear just over the horizon. That means two things for the spring of junior year: tests and college research. I already took the SAT a few weeks ago, and I’m scheduled for the ACT in a few weeks and the SAT Subject Tests in a little over a month, plus I’ll likely retake the SAT in the fall.

As for college research, I’ve been doing that too recently, and am slowly but surely compiling together a list of places that I might be interested in spending four years of my life at. I won’t go into much more detail about this at this point, but you’ll likely be seeing me blog plenty more times about what’s happening with my continuing college search.

However, this week is Spring Break, and thus is the classic week for taking the opportunity to visit and tour college campuses. And since I live in the Bay Area (and cannot stop bragging about it), there’s a bunch of great colleges within driving distance of my house. So this week, I’ll be visiting a couple of colleges in the area, not necessarily because I’m interested in going there (some of them I am taking a good look at, while others are definitely not on my list), but to get the feel of going on a college campus and seeing what there is to see.

Today, I’m going to be visiting UC Berkeley, followed by Santa Clara University tomorrow, University of San Francisco on Wednesday, and Stanford University on Thursday (saving the best for last).

So that’s the majority of my Spring Break this week, which should be interesting…

Tags: Bay Area, colleges, Personal, Spring Break, tests, travelling, visits

Part of my participation in my recent Sojourn trip is that I need to give a presentation about my trip to a group in the community. So, in order to fulfill this and to thank them for the scholarship they gave me allowing me to go on this trip, I am going to be giving a presentation about Sojourn to Peace Action of San Mateo County this Sunday, March 9th, at 5:30 PM. If you’re in the local area and are interested in coming, please do! (By the way, it’s a potluck, so bring a dish to share.)

Check out their website for more information.

Tags: community, event, Peace Action, potluck, presentation, Sojourn to the Past

You don’t see me bragging very often about being a United States citizen, mostly because I’m not a big fan of many of the things that the United States is doing these days. But, man, I can’t stop bragging about being a Californian, because California is flat out awesome. (Yes, there are a number of things that California has problems with, but we’re much more awesome than the feds at this time.)

One of the ways that California has been awesome is that in California, it is illegal for merchants to set expiration dates on gift certificates/gift cards, or to charge fees on them. Now, granted, some merchants have found loopholes to get around that limitation slightly, but they still mean that when you give someone a gift card, it’s much more difficult for that merchant to count it as extra money for their pockets.

Well, for whatever unusual reason, I was watching our local news on TV tonight (something that I almost never do), and they had a special report on a new law that went to effect in California on January 1, 2008 dealing with the issue of low-balance gift cards.

Have you ever had a case where you didn’t fully utilize a gift card, and didn’t feel the urge to keep spending with it because of how little was left? Consumer Reports recently found that merchants last year made $8 billion from unused gift card value. Well, the new law states that any gift certificate/gift card with a cash value of less than $10 can be redeemed for cash equivalent to its cash value, and that merchants are required to give you cash back if you ask for it. Again, this is only a California law, but this is absolutely sweet.

However, there isn’t a lot of teeth on this law, and most merchants won’t offer it to you. The news station apparently went under cover to try to get cash back at a number of stores, and a number of these stores refused to give cash back. So if you’re a Californian, you have a right to get your cash back, but you should probably be sure to inform them that it is California state law. My news station made a special gift card with the law on it that you can keep with you.

What if that still doesn’t convince them? Well, I did some Google searching for some answers. Apparently, the recommendation is to try to call or e-mail the merchant’s corporate offices to inform them of the law and what happened. But, if that still doesn’t work, you can apparently contact the state Attorney General at the following address:

Attorney General’s Office
California Department of Justice
Attn: Public Inquiry Unit
P.O. Box 944255
Sacramento, CA 94244-2550

Or you can call (916) 322-3360, or the toll-free number (in California): (800) 952-5225.

Know your rights, and take advantage of them, so that you don’t let merchants take advantage of you! (And yes, be glad that you’re a Californian and have this right!)

Tags: Attorney General, California, cash back, gift cards, gift certificates, law, merchants, rights, stores

If there’s anyone that could write the answer to that joke, it would be my very own San Mateo County.

I live within California’s Twelfth Congressional District (out of the fifty-three that California has–I know, it’s huge!), which covers most of San Mateo County and a small part of southern San Francisco. Our district has been represented for the last 27 years by Democrat Tom Lantos, who recently passed away due to cancer on February 11th. He was the only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress. While I haven’t necessarily been a fan of some of his policies, he’s definitely been very respected in our community to pull off as many elections as he has.

But now he’s passed away, and everyone’s now trying to figure out what’s going to happen next.

He had announced in early January that he would not be seeking reelection due to his cancer, and so a number of other locals have been stepping up to run for the 2009-2011 term, including our local former state senator Jackie Speier, as well as some others who are running. The primary election for the 2009-2011 term is supposed to take place on June 3rd, and the general election on November 4th.

Now, I’ve already ranted on here about the craziness of having three elections (February 5th, June 3rd, and November 4th) in a calendar year, all because California wanted to move their primaries up and then half of the country decided to follow suit. But now, courtesy of Lantos’ death, we’ve got a fourth election up our sleeve.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (yes, as a Californian, I have to know how to spell that correctly) has essentially ordered our county to hold a special primary election on April 8 that will have us vote on who will be Lantos’ replacement up until the end of the term on January 3, 2009. In other words, “Who wants to wear the dead guy’s shoes for six or seven months?” So, yes, if you’re counting, this means a fourth election in a seven-month time span: November 6 (2007), February 5, April 8, and June 3. Can you imagine how hard that must be on poll workers and on voters? Not to mention how expensive elections are to put on? And this April 8 election is just for one race to see who gets to be Congressman for a few months.

For this reason, our county wanted to make the April 8 special election an all-mail election, which would have cut the estimated $1 million cost down to about $650,000–noting, by the way, that 40% of our county is already vote-by-mail and special elections usually have a less than 30% turnout rate. Oh, and all of this at a time when California is facing a $16 billion budget deficit. Pretty much all that’s involved in the April 8th election is that three people have filed to run in the special election: Jackie Speier (Democrat), Mike Moloney (Republican), and Greg Conlon (Republican). If one of them gets a majority of the vote (more than 50%), they automatically win. If none of them gets a majority, then the leading Democrat (Jackie Speier) and the leading Republican are contested in the “special general election” on June 3rd. This obviously gets confusing because June 3rd is also the “normal” primary for the 2009-2011 term, which have the same people running, so it would be weird to have the special general election and the not-special open primary for the same congressional seat at the same time.

But essentially, the April 8th ballot is just for one Congressional district for one race with three names on it, and our county wanted to do it by mail. Just a single sheet of paper with three languages on it (our county is required by state to print all election materials in English, Spanish, and Chinese, based our our results from the 2000 census) to be sent back in and processed. Unfortunately, the needed legislation died in committee, and so our county is going to have to setup polling places, hire and train poll workers, and try to get our county to actually come out to those polls to vote, just for a little special election.

All I can say is it sure is a big waste of money at a time when California’s economy appears to be going to hell in a handbasket.

Update: I based my post on information from our County’s elections blog. They just posted an update to fix some inaccuracies on their part.

Tags: Congress, district, elections, House of Representatives, rant, San Mateo County, seat, term, Tom Lantos

Well, Super Tuesday, that crazy day where twenty-four states (one of which I hold citizenship to) decided to be stupid enough as to hold all of their elections on the same ridiculously early day in February. And I mean ridiculously early. Why didn’t California just stick with June for its primary, like it used to be? After all, California is going to be having another election on June 3rd for the congressional primaries. It just seems that with California in a substantial budget crisis that seems to be uprooting every faction in the state right now, doing an extra election isn’t the smartest use of taxpayer funds.

Then again, who am I to talk? I don’t pay any taxes (yet). I’m simply a student in public schools facing significant budget cuts, and among a class of students that’s going to graduate in 2009, many of whom are going to be looking to get into CSU and UC colleges.

But let’s put that rant aside. Tuesday is Election Day here in California, and courtesy of a recent change to the California Elections Code, 16 and 17-year-old students can now participate as poll workers in the election. I’m in San Mateo County, which has one of the best elections offices in the state. I’m not kidding. California recently got a new Secretary of State who set very high standards for electronic voting machines to make sure that they would be secure and reliable (and good for her); because of that, San Mateo County is one of only two counties in California (out of 58 counties) that will be having electronic machines at this February 5th election.

Anyway, here’s how my day will be on Tuesday. I have to report to my polling place at 6 AM–that’s right, 6 AM. At that point, we start setting stuff up. This includes setting up the four eSlate (electronic) voting machines and the two paper-voting stations by 6:30, hoping and praying that they will all work properly, getting out all of the different versions of the paper ballots setup on the table (only 23 of them), putting the signs up, and getting everything ready to go in order to open the polls promptly at 7 AM. (And yes, there is a California law that says that you must proclaim aloud “OYEZ OYEZ THE POLLS ARE NOW OPEN!” outside of the polling place at 7 AM, and a similar announcement when the polls close at 8 PM.)

During the time that the polls are open (7 AM-8 PM), there’s not very much to talk about. People will inconsistently come in to vote, wonderful, but most of the day will require me to have something to do. At the polls, there are no cell phones or any other electronic devices allowed whatsoever, plus nothing that could suggest electioneering (endorsing a particular candidate or issue) is allowed. So, I’ll probably be resorting to bringing along a book or two to keep myself occupied throughout the day.

I do get to have two separate one-hour breaks–one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Since I don’t have to go vote myself (simply because I’m not old enough to do that yet), that will probably mostly be an opportunity for me to grab bites to eat, etc.

When the polls close at 8 PM, we have to print out the receipts from the electronic ballots, sign them, and put them in their sealed boxes on their way back to the elections office, and then count up the paper ballots and make sure that all of the documentation is in place. Then we clean up and take down the machines and signs and all of that, and it will probably be about 9 PM by the time we’re out of there unless there is the unusual circumstance of something going wrong.

But anyway, that’s going to be my so-called “Super Tuesday,” which I am looking forward to (especially to hear everyone shut up about the candidates and the ballot propositions, which is driving me crazy right about now). As for you, if you’re one of my blog’s readers and qualify, be sure to go and vote. However much commercialized it may be these days, I still encourage you to exercise your right to do so in what is sure to be a tumultuous year 2008.

Tags: Election Day, poll working, polls, precinct, primaries, Super Tuesday, voting

Well, I’m fresh back from my trip to Macworld Expo, courtesy of the tech group at my high school that I’m an “honorary member” of. (The “honorary” part means that I don’t actually do anything with them due to my busy schedule.) But yep, we got to go to Macworld as a field trip, meaning we got to legally miss all of our classes today to do so. Oh, I can just feel your jealousy rising.

The general consensus among us was that there was too much stuff for the three and half hours that we were there. (We finished getting all registered by 10:40 AM, and had to leave at 2:15 PM.) It didn’t help that there were two exhibit halls in separate buildings, a block apart from each other. Obviously not the ideal setup, but Moscone North was hosting the United Motorcoach Association of America or something like that. Wow. So, my schedule pretty much involved registering at Moscone West at about 10:20, then going through the West Exhibit Hall at 10:40-12:15, then getting lunch nearby until about 12:45, and then spending 12:45-2:15 in Moscone South. Unfortunately, I only got to see about half of Moscone South’s exhibit hall, which is very, very big.

However, this year, I spent most of my time talking with the smaller developers, which took up the majority of the West Hall and most of whom were together in the Developer Pavillion (aka “Tiny Town”) in South Hall, behind Apple’s humongous booth. I actually really enjoyed that, because in general, the smaller developers are much more approachable than these huge companies with the humongous booths, and they’re much more interesting. I actually got exposed to quite a few new apps that I’m going to have to check out (look at wallet, here comes the fire…). So although I obviously didn’t get to see everything I had hoped (the MacHeist, Micromat, and Microsoft booths were all on my to-do list which I didn’t get to), I still had a good time, a much less stressful time, and came back with some great goodies.

Included in my goodies was the official Macworld San Francisco T-shirt, this time a black T-shirt with blue and white lettering. I also got a WireTap Studio T-shirt from Ambrosia Software. WireTap Studio just looks so cool, so I’m really going to have to try it out. One of the companies actually was interested in doing a promotion with PreviewCast, and gave me his card, so there may be some interesting news coming from that soon.

Oh, and I got OmniFocus, the totally-awesome GTD application from the Omni Group for only $30. The regular list price is $80, and I got more than half off through a Macworld discount and a student discount. I’ll definitely be spending some time trying out OmniFocus and you can expect a detailed review here soon.

Don’t worry, you haven’t heard the last of my Macworld experiences yet, but I thought that I’d share just some of what I did at the exhibit hall today. One of these days, maybe I’ll actually be able to spend a full week at the conference.

P.S.: Sorry, but I didn’t get any pictures there this time. But I did get something else just as good! Hint hint…

Tags: Apple, developers, exhibits, Macs, Macworld, Moscone, Omni Group, OmniFocus, PreviewCast, recap, San Francisco, School, trip, WireTap Studio

If there’s one way to summarize one of my biggest questions about what was announced at Steve Jobs’ keynote on Tuesday, this has to be the best way. Overall, this year, I was never really excited about this year’s keynote, and there’s not much there to excite me. Time Capsule definitely looks interesting, and (when I can afford it) may actually improve my recent 1.5 Larry-head rating on Time Machine, although I’m not in a position to get it for the time being. I have a number of qualms about the MacBook Air, and as for the Apple TV, iTunes rentals, and iPod touch/iPhone updates, I’m maintaining a solidly neutral stance on those.

Now, hold on Douglas, you’re thinking, why aren’t you coming out and either praising or bashing Apple the way you normally do? Well, for most of these, I can see pros and cons on both sides, so for me, the jury’s still out on my opinions of these. I’m holding off until I get a chance to play around with things before I start to come to conclusions, and I will be sharing these conclusions on this weekend’s “Macworld in review” episode of PreviewCast, and later elaborating here on my blog.

As for trying them out, that’s what I’m going to be doing tomorrow! Indeed, tomorrow, I’ll be going with the Aragon group (about six of us in total, plus chaperones) to Macworld to tour the exhibit hall for the day. This will be my third consecutive excursion to Macworld’s Expo floor, and according to what all the websites are saying, we’ll actually be able to play around with the new stuff, rather than just looking at a rotating object in a bullet-proof* glass case. Which actually sounds exciting.
* I have no idea if the case was bullet-proof or not, and am just making this up.

However, this year, I hope to spend some more time talking to the people whom I really think should be the stars of the show: all of the little developers. (Merlin Mann likes to call the “little devs” section of the show floor Tiny Town.) It’s THEM that make the show possible, because it’s their contributions of their applications that helps the Mac platform succeed. So, I’m hoping to spend more time there this year.

I have one class tomorrow–Calculus, my first period class. After that, the group of us are carpooling up to the Millbrae BART station and taking BART to Powell Street, a block away from Moscone Center (and right next to the SF Apple Store). Last year, we tried to drive to Macworld and had the worst nightmare with parking. We’ll get there shortly after the 10 AM exhibit hall opening, get all checked in, and then have just under four hours to do stuff to our heart’s content. We’ll gather up around 2:15 to head back to BART and catch a 2:30 train back to Millbrae, and then we’ll drive back to school and get back there around 3:30.

I have not yet exactly decided what I’m going to do there. (Well, actually, I have, but I want to save some stuff to talk about in an “after Macworld” blog post!) However, I definitely intend to visit a number of booths. I plan to definitely check out Office 2008; after all, I don’t feel right truly making fun of something until I’ve had the chance to play around with it with my own hands, and I also want to find out, in plain English, what “Special Media Edition” means. I also want to find out if the Omni Group is offering any nice discounts on their new OmniFocus, which sounds like a really exciting app (and did you hear that it won a Best of Show award), and of course come home stuffed with a Macworld 2008 shirt. (I outgrew my Macworld 2006 shirt. As for my Macworld 2007 shirt, in February, it got a huge red stain after an alcohol thermometer broke in Chemistry class and splattered all over my shirt. Yeah, Macworld 2007 was just NOT a good one for me.) Oh, and I intend to gather up as many freebies and handouts as possible! There was some great stuff last year, so I wonder what I can scrounge up this year.

There’s also been lots of other things happening in my life recently, which I’ll try to catch up on in other blog posts, as it is time for me to hit the hay.

However, I will close by mentioning that this is my 300th blog post since I resalvaged this blog back in October 2006. My blog has had a number of incarnations before that, but I’ve never been able to keep a blog steady enough to keep going continuously for 300 full blog posts, which have been put together in 15 months. (You math whizzes can figure out that I’ve averaged out at 20 posts per month, or about 2 posts every 3 days. It’s not quite at one-post-per-day, blog365ers, but it’s pretty doggone close.) Thanks to the many of you who have been subscribing and sticking with my various ramblings. I do this blog mostly for myself, but it’s great to be able to bring you along for the ride and be able to share things that may interest or entertain you.

Tags: Apple, Aragon, BART, blog, exhibit hall, expo, itinerary, Keynote, Mac, MacBook Air, Macworld, News, opinion, plans, School, Time Capsule, Webmacster87.info

Cross-posted from PreviewCast.com:

Hello everyone,

With Macworld coming up this week, I thought I would take an opportunity to share what we have planned for our super awesome exclusive special stand-on-your-head-while-eating-deep-fried-pickle-hearts-and-singing-a-Mozart-sonata-at-the-same-time practically-drop-dead PreviewCast coverage of Macworld 2008: Absolutely nothing!

That’s right, PreviewCast is doing absolutely nothing in terms of live coverage. We will have absolutely no audio, no video, no photos, no tweets, no holograms, no SuperPokes, absolutely nothing to give you an experience of what it’s like to be at Macworld San Francisco 2008. Why? Because the entire internet is already doing the SAME THING!!!

Just hop on Google or Upcoming and take a look! Numerous websites and podcasts are doing lots of stuff at Macworld, whether it be tours and interviews on the show floor, interviews after the keynote from celebrities whom have had a significant overdose of exposure to the patented reality distortion field, and so many podcasted special events that you could get lost just in the few blocks surrounding Moscone Center and enough to force me to give my entire life’s savings over to BART if I was to try to take care of all of them and try to produce something for PreviewCast.

So guess what? We are not doing anything special for Macworld 2008 until after the show is already over and the initial hype over whatever Steve plans to spit out of his mouth on Tuesday has calmed down. PreviewCast #049, to be recorded next weekend, will be when we give our take on the announcements.

I will indeed be spending at least a day sometime at the Macworld Exhibit Hall, but guess what I’m going to do there? You’ll never believe it, but I’m actually going to enjoy myself! I’m not taking a camera (one disappeared there last year, and I’m still taking the heat for that), I’m not taking a microphone (unless I get the urge to record myself singing folk tunes in front of the Apple booth), although I am taking my laptop just to enjoy some free wifi, which is hard to find nowadays. But yeah, by eliminating myself of the burden of responsibility of recording and capturing the Macworld experience, I will actually be able to enjoy the Macworld experience! And isn’t that just what the point of it all is?

If you are interested in some Macworld coverage for you to get the illusion of being there, might I recommend practically every other site on the internet.

Enjoy the keynote and the festivities. And don’t worry, I will still be doing a bit of Macworld coverage, albeit from a distance, on Webmacster87.info. Stay tuned next week for PreviewCast #049.
–Douglas Bell
Co-Host and Editor, PreviewCast
http://www.previewcast.com

Tags: 2008, announcements, coverage, internet, Macworld, Personal, plans, PreviewCast, products, San Francisco, Steve Jobs