Off Topic: Women aviation history as told through First Day Covers

Anyone interested in aviation history will like my Virtual Museum featuring women in aviation, as told through First Day Covers from 1929 to the present time.

http://volcanoseven.com/FirstDayCovers/ is the URL.

Lots of covers featuring Amelia Earhart  and Jacqueline Cochran, as well as Harriet Quimby and Bessie Coleman and many, many more.

Many of these covers are absolutely gorgeous, so if you're interested in philately or first day covers or just pretty pictures in miniature, I think you'll like it as well.

What is a Civil Society Roundtable?

This press release is from the government, September 6:

President Obama Holds a Roundtable with Civil Society Leaders

September 06, 2013 | 3:02 | Public Domain

President Obama meets with a range of civil society leaders, ranging from business leaders to youth leaders to environmental leaders, who are advocating on behalf of a free press, the rule of law, and contributing in one way or another to continuing to strengthen Russian society and helping to make progress on behalf of all people.

And here's a link to A More Civil Society Roundtable
http://www.morecivilsocietyroundtable.com.au/
except that's in Australia...

23 September, 2013, Monday, Pres and VP Schedules

President Obama's Schedule
11:25 am 
The President and First Lady depart the White House en route Joint Base Andrews
South Lawn
Open Press
Final Gather 11:00AM – North Doors of the Palm Room

11:40 am
 The President and First Lady depart Joint Base Andrews
Joint Base Andrews
Travel Pool Coverage Call Time
9:15AM – Virginia Gate, Joint Base Andrews 

12:35 pm 
The President and First Lady arrive New York City
John F. Kennedy International Airport
Open Press

1:45 pm 
The President holds a bilateral meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
Waldorf Astoria
Pool Spray at the Top 

3:00 pm 
The President holds a Civil Society Roundtable
New York Hilton Hotel Midtown
Open to pre-credentialed media 

5:20 pm 
The President meets with USUN Mission employees and their families
Waldorf Astoria
Closed Press

8:50 pm 
The President and First Lady attend a reception for visiting Heads of State and Government
Waldorf Astoria
Closed Press 

Vice President

4:00 pm 
The Vice President, Governor John Hickenlooper, and FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate deliver remarks in Greeley, Colorado
Greeley
Open Press 

18 Sept 2013, Wednesday, Sec of State Kerry and Staff Schedule

SECRETARY JOHN KERRY

2:30 p.m. Secretary Kerry hosts a swearing-in ceremony for Victoria Nuland as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, at the Department of State.
(OPEN PRESS COVERAGE)
Pre set for video cameras: 1:30 p.m. from the 23rd Street Lobby.
Final access time for journalists and still photographers: 2:00 p.m. from the 23rd Street Lobby.

6:30 p.m. Secretary Kerry attends the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition Board dinner, in Washington, DC.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

****

ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS AFFAIRS JOSE FERNANDEZ

Assistant Secretary Fernandez is on travel to Mexico for the U.S. – Mexico High Level Economic Dialogue.

ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AFFAIRS DEAN PITTMAN

1:00 p.m. Acting Assistant Secretary Pittman participates in a Google+ “Hangout at State” titled “The U.S. and the United Nations: The Case for Multilateralism.” To view the event: http://goo.gl/1wilaj Please click here for more information.
(OPEN PRESS COVERAGE)

ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND LABOR UZRA ZEYA

2:00 p. m. Acting Assistant Secretary Zeya attends the swearing-in for Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, at the Department of State.
(OPEN PRESS COVERAGE)

AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE TO MONITOR AND COMBAT TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS LUIS CDEBACA

12:30 p.m. Ambassador CdeBaca participates in a panel discussion at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Hispanic Heritage Month Program, at EEOC Headquarters.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY THE EEOC)

SPECIAL ENVOY TO MONITOR AND COMBAT ANTI-SEMITISM IRA FORMAN

Special Envoy Forman is on foreign travel to Oslo, Norway through September 19 and Warsaw, Poland; Paris, France; and Budapest, Hungary from September 22 through October 5 to attend International Anti-Semitic Conferences.

18 Sept 2013, Prez and VP Schedules

President's Schedule
9:45 am
The President receives the Presidential Daily Briefing
Oval Office
Closed Press
 
10:45 am
The President delivers remarks to members of the Business Roundtable and answer questions
Business Roundtable Headquarters, DC

3:30 pm
 The President and the Vice President meet with Secretary of the Treasury Lew
Oval Office
Closed Press
 
4:15 pm
The President and the Vice President meet with Secretary of State Kerry
Oval Office
Closed Press
 
Vice president's Schedule
11:30 am
 The Vice President meets with U.S. participants in the U.S.-Mexico High Level Economic Dialogue, incl. Secretary John Kerry, Secretary Penny Pritzker, Secretary Anthony Foxx, Acting Secretary Rand Beers, U.S. Trade Rep. Michael Froman and other officials
Roosevelt Room
Closed Press

3:30 pm
 The President and the Vice President meet with Secretary of the Treasury Lew
Oval Office
Closed Press

4:15 pm
 The President and the Vice President meet with Secretary of State Kerry
Oval Office
Closed Press

US infrastructure is crumbling...

Why are we letting our nation go to pot?

Too much dependence on the Federal government?

"The event marks the start of a week-long focus on the economy after a month of preoccupation with the crisis in Syria." So they're just making stuff up now.  What in the world are they taking credit for?  The only place where there's anything to crow about economically is Washington, DC, and the areas of the country where there is fracking for oil going on -- and a couple of other pockets.  But there are 90 million Americans not working.  The labor force participation rate has plummeted.
Unemployment? If the same number of jobs existed today as when Obama took office five years ago, the unemployment rate would be near 11%.  There is no economic recovery.  Try this. "Over 65,000 US Bridges in Need of Repair."  Again, the AP reporting.
"An Associated Press analysis of 607,380 bridges ... showed that 65,605 were classified as 'structurally deficient' and 20,808 as 'fracture critical.'" Of the 65,000 structurally deficient and 20,000 fracture critical, almost 8,000 were both.  Now, I read that, and I said, "Well, now that's impossible, because we did a stimulus.  We had the now-famous stimulus bill in March of 2009, two months after Obama was inaugurated, that dealt with this.  We rebuilt all the roads and bridges."
While we were at it, we rebuilt all the crumbling schools -- and while we were at it, we rebuilt some roads.  And then rebuilding the roads, we rebuilt the bridges.  What is this, 20,000 bridges are fracture critical?  After how many stimuli?  And the president's gonna run out there in the Rose Garden today, that's the plan, with a bunch of Americans that supposedly have benefited from his policies, claiming credit for a robust economic recovery.  This is all to set the stage (with the media helping, of course) to alarm anybody over the fact the Republicans might shut down the government.

Third day of rain in Cheyenne, Wyoming

On occasion I've woken up to a foggy day here in Cheyenne, and once in a while it would even rain for 6 or 7 hours straight - in the three years that I've lived here that's happened maybe twice.  Usually we get about 10 minutes of rain.

But today I woke up to the third straight day of rain here. I was talking with some folks yesterday who have lived in Cheyenne for 40 years and it has *never* rained more than 6 or 7 hours straight in all that time, certainly not more than a day and as for three days - it's a hundred year event.

Boulder, Colorado is getting the brunt of it, where was this rain when those wildfires were happening earlier this year?

In any event, I know this is off topic for the Rush Limbaugh Report, but felt I had to vent!

Anyone having fun with the Microsoft Office 2010 patch?

I'd been working on my laptop two days ago like I normally do, then turned it off because I had to go into town for a few hours. I was annoyed to see that it was installing automatic updates - I'd wanted to take it with me, but I didn't have time to wait.

So I left my laptop, confident in the fact that as soon as I returned home I'd be able to return to it right where I left off. After all, while I never knew what those stupid updates were for - they were obviously improvements of some kind to my system - why else would they do them?

Imagine my horror when I came home, booted up my computer, and found that all my Microsoft Word icons had turned bright orange. I tried to open a couple, only to be told that "the application used to create this file is not on this computer." and "download here."

I got home late, and after seeing that debacle was not in the mood to do anything but go to bed, but the next morning I started researching and discovered that the Microsoft Patches sent out the previous day had played havoc with thousands of people running Microsoft Office 2010.

Fortunately I found the Microsoft Community (http://answers.microsoft.com) which had a thread on it, and the fix turned out to be an easy one - for me. Other folks were having  a harder time.

But this is just ridiculous. How could Microsoft send out these patches that  would discombobulate files the way they did? Talk about inept.

Normallly I'm not a fan of class-action lawsuits, but a lot of people who faced hours of downtime and stress because they couldn't get their software packages to work for 2 days certainly have a case here...

SoS Kerry and Staff Schedule, 9/9/2013

SECRETARY JOHN KERRY
Secretary Kerry is on foreign travel to London, United Kingdom. He is accompanied by Acting Assistant Secretary Paul Jones, U.S. Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations Martin Indyk, Spokesperson Jennifer Psaki, NSS Senior Director for the Middle East and North Africa Prem Kumar and VADM Harry B. Harris, Jr., JCS. Please click for here more information.

8:30 a.m. LOCAL Secretary Kerry meets with UK Foreign Secretary William Hague, in London UK.
(POOL CAMERA SPRAY PRECEDING MEETING)

9:30 a.m. LOCAL Secretary Kerry holds a joint press availability with UK Foreign Secretary William Hague, in London UK.
(OPEN PRESS COVERAGE)

5:00 p.m. Secretary Kerry briefs members of the House of Representatives, on Capitol Hill.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT AFFAIRS WILLIAM BROWNFIELD

Assistant Secretary Brownfield is on foreign travel to Thailand to discuss law enforcement cooperation and wildlife trafficking with Thai officials. Please click here for more information.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR WESTERN HEMISPHERE AFFAIRS ROBERTA JACOBSON

1:00 p.m. Assistant Secretary Jacobson meets with the Ecuadorian Ambassador to the U.S. Nathalie Cely, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

3:00 p.m. Assistant Secretary Jacobson meets with the Argentine Ambassador to the U.S. Cecilia Nahon, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR OCEANS AND INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL AND SCIENTIFIC AFFAIRS KERRI-ANN JONES

1:00 p.m. Assistant Secretary Jones participates in the Forum to Counter Wildlife Trafficking as Acting State Department Co-Chair of the President’s Task Force on Wildlife Trafficking, at the White House.
(MEDIA DETERMINED BY WHITE HOUSE)

4:00 p.m. Assistant Secretary Jones delivers remarks to the National Academy of Sciences Council on Science, at the Department of State.
(OPEN PRESS COVERAGE)

ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR EAST ASIAN AND PACIFIC AFFAIRS DANNY RUSSEL

Assistant Secretary Russel is on foreign travel to the Republic of Korea, Japan, Brunei, Indonesia, and China from September 5 through 14. Please click here for more information.

SPECIAL ADVISER FOR GLOBAL YOUTH ISSUES ZEENAT RAHMAN

Special Adviser Rahman is on foreign travel in Costa Rica through September 11 to co-lead a delegation to the International Telecommunications Union’s (ITU) “BYND 2013” Global Youth Summit. She will meet with the Secretary General of the ITU Hamadoun Touré, Minister for Science, Technology and Telecommunications, Alejandro Cruz, the local American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) and private sector representatives

President and VP Schedule, 9/9/2013

The President
10:15 am
The President receives the Presidential Daily Briefing
Oval Office
Closed Press

2:15 pm
The President and the Vice President meet with Secretary of Defense Hagel
Oval Office
Closed Press

The VP
(Nothing on schedule except the 2:15 pm meeting with Secretary of Defense Hagel)

Let's get this show back on the road

Sorry to have been sporadic for so long, but I've just been dealing with a lot of personal things.

I'll try to not miss a day from now on.

4 September 2013: Obama and Biden Schedules

President Obama
4:10 am The President arrives in Stockholm,
Sweden Stockholm-Arlanda International Airport,
Sweden
  Open Press

  7:10 am The President greets Prime Minister Reinfeldt
The Rosenbad Building
Pooled Press

7:20 am The President holds a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Reinfeldt of Sweden
The Rosenbad Building
Travel Pool

  8:30 am The President and Prime Minister Reinfeldt hold a press conference
  The Rosenbad Building
Open to pre-credentialed media

  9:30 am The President participates in a celebration of Raoul Wallenberg and delivers a statement The Great Synagogue and Holocaust Memorial of Stockholm
Travel Pool Coverage

10:40 am The President tours an Energy Expo event Royal Institute of Technology-Campus Library
 Stockholm, Sweden
Travel Pool Coverage

  1:05 pm The President accompanies Nordic leaders for a family photo Sager House,
Stockholm, Sweden
Pool Spray

1:15 pm The President attends an official dinner with Nordic Leaders
Sager House, Stockholm, Sweden
Closed Press

VP Biden

1:45 pm The Vice President ceremonially swears in Tom Perez as Secretary of Labor Department of Labor
Open Press