My List of City Slogans of the San Francisco Bay Area

The Chronicle did a funny article about odd slogans that is used around the SF Bay Area. For example, San Francisco: "The city that knows how."

So here's my list of local Bay Area cities. If you don't understand what it means, you don't read the news or live in the Bay Area:

• San Francisco: ""Home" of disgraced ex-supervisor Ed Jew."
• San Francisco: "Muni sucks."
• San Francisco: "Blaming problems on the Mayor on a daily basis."
• San Francisco: "We've got bums."
• San Francisco: "Locals hate tourists. Get off the Cable Car and don't visit Pier 39."
  
• Berkeley: "Smokin' weed and the know it all Cal students sleeping in trees."
  
• Burlingame: "That's our international airport! Why did San Francisco claim it?"
  
• Oakland: "Who the hell is Mayor Ron Dellums?"
• Oakland: "Birthplace of Kaiser Permanente, damn that's creepy."
  
• San Jose: "Kickin' San Francisco's butt on a daily basis."
• San Jose: "Home of silicone valleys... we do boob jobs instead of making computer chips these days."
  
• Daly City: "We still use plastic bags and styrofoam boxes."
• Daly City: "Lower sales tax rate and we've got TARGET!"
  
• Sausalito: "Small town, expensive toll bridge nearby."
• Milpitas: "Outlet shopping galore."
• Emeryville: "Sold out to IKEA."

Want a job? One Screwed Up Application Process for the Oakland Fire Department

There were 8,000 people waiting in hand with applications to turn-in for the Oakland Fire Department today, but there were only 23 positions available. The job can pay an average of $100,000 per year, and the department dropped the EMT training requirement to apply.

But what a shame when it came to accepting applications for the job as a firefighter today. They only took 1,000 applications, which only gave you about a 12 to 13 percent chance to even submit your application for just the chance for consideration.

Just watching the news about this problem is sad, some people camped out for days for the opportunity to turn-in their application, but things flipped around when it turned out that there was no official line that day, and people were picked at "random" to be the one of the 1,000 applicants to turn-in their paperwork.

I really criticize this idea of picking people at "random" to take applications. There could be the problem that people were chosen because maybe one of the officials picking the applicants had connections, like they are a friend. Another idea is that this could have been racially or gender motivated, meaning that the fire department did this "random" picking by choosing the 1,000 applicants based on satisfying a male to female ratio or by race, which is technically against the law.

As a consequence of their "random" policy, there were very qualified people in line with previous fire department, EMT, or public safety experience that did not even have an opportunity to apply, versus the regular joes without any training or experience. If I were to hire people for a fire department, I would accept all applications and take the people with the most experience.

I don't understand how the Oakland Fire Department could have not been better organized for this event. Many HR departments just do the easy way: establish a window of time of when the application needs to be turned-in, and accept every single application. After reviewing every application, they should review every single one and filter out the ones that are improperly filled-out, not qualified based on education, etc. More than likely, they would hire the ones with past experience or have taken college classes on the science of firefighting (available at community colleges).

Hey Oakland Fire Department! FUCK YOU! Yo mayor, fire the Chief Daniel Ferrell and the person in charge of HR.

Alameda County's Garbage Strike Woes

Alameda County (the East Bay) has been hit hard by a garbage worker lockout by trash mega giant Waste Management. News reports show that some Oakland residents have not had their trash picked-up for over a week and there is worry of infestation of animals, rodents, and flies spreading diseases around.

What makes me concerned is that the workers were locked-out, and were not planning to strike. Their contract was up and the workers were to go negotiate out a deal with management, but instead, WM's management decides to lock them out and get "scab" workers to pick-up the trash.

First of all, the scab workers aint really doing their job right, especially if they cannot pick-up the trash like 10 days LATE.

Second, why in the world would management lock the employees out when it could have been dealt with easily without a lockout?

Waste Management's solution for now is that citizens can transport their trash to their local dump collection site. But the irony of dropping off your trash at one Waste Management site is that they are only open on WEEKENDS and you have to dump your trash in 35 gallon trash bags. Well damn, you piss people off with those two rules and you scab workers don't pick-up the trash? What a shame. And how about the people that don't have a vehicle to get their garbage there? I don't think any AC Transit operator will allow a citizen to transport stinky trash on the bus!

Let's summarize my rants:
Stop the lockout, and get the workers on NOW.
If you can't stop the lockout, get the scabs to work overtime and even do it at night.
Every citizen should refuse to pay their garbage bill in protest of shitty service.
Waste Management in Alameda County is history.

Vacations... why so expensive?

I've been looking for a great vacation to spend on, but I'm realizing that some of the best vacations are way too expensive!

Here's an example: San Francisco flight to Disney World, with basic (and I mean cheapest) on-site hotel accommodations, meal plan, and park tickets for $1,300. What am I? Rich? Plus, there are very few direct flights from SFO or even Oakland to Orlando. I would have to do an evening flight the day before check-in just so that I can even enjoy my park tickets. If I were to fly direct, I would not arrive until 9PM!

Disneyland, strangely is just a couple of hundred dollars less, with flight from SFO or OAK to Orange County, with five days hotel at a next door hotel, 5 days park tickets, meals, and a shuttle to get me from the airport and back.

I don't know if I want to go back to Vegas soon, even though they gave me two free nights at a choice of my hotel. I would spend more in gambling in two days for the same amount I could be having fun punching Mickey Mouse.

I can't afford a cruise! A nice ten-dayer without flight is about $2,000 or with a friend would be $1,400 for the cheapest room.

Help! Can't someone find me a vacation worth less than $900 with a decent hotel, nice location, with airfare?

Let's summarize my rants:
Vacations, way too pricey
I can't afford to fly too far
I prefer not to gamble