The Southwest Times Record ran an article today on the exodus of the big box retail stores from Rogers ave. to the new Pavillion shopping centre. http://www.swtimes.com/articles/2009/06/28/business/business062809_01.txt

I don't concider myself a hardcore eco-freak, but issues with sprawl is something I am more passionate about.
When I was a child I wondered why we had so many empty buildings downtown and yet they were building more stores, many of which never got leased out. It's an absolute waste of land and resources. I hate having to drive to various strip malls during my shopping trips, but I have little choice. That is the only reason I give the Pavillion any brownie points is for having more than one retailer I'm even interested in and it's close enough to my house I can actually walk there in under an hour. I hate going there, though. Because, they tore out a wooded hill side for their faux downtown and it's miserable trying to get into it due to the steep slope by car and if you try walking there there's no sidewalks from Phoenix Avenue going up to it. I did find you can cut through Liberty Bank more easily. How long I'll be able ot do that will be another matter.

Another issue is housing. I abhor cookie-cutter sub divisions. Developers buy up good farm land out in the middle of nowhere, completely strip it to the bare dirt, then slap up a bunch of shoddy houses that are all basically the same. I cannot see what is applealing about them to homebuyers. I would much rather buy a home in an old existing neighbourhood or buy a piece of land and build what I want on it. The housing sprawl problem has increasingly been hard on me since there are several such developments now encroaching ever closer to my family's land in Oklahoma. It sickens me to see the construction of those homes.

From time to time I've contemplated how much money I would save if I would just give up my car. The last few days I've been in such a contemplated conteplated mood. I've been comparing the availiblity of public transit in various cities, when I noticed the advertisement for Dump the Pump in Tulsa, Oklahoma. But, would it work for me?

The thing is the city of Fort Smith, where I live, is notoriously pedestrian unfriendly. The city has been trying to fix the problem, but walking or biking around the city isn't practical or safe for the most part.
The city has a majour sprawl problem and the way the zoning laws are set you'll have strictly business or housing areas, that are rarely mixed. We have huge housing areas and the majourity of the stores are located along a few majour streets like Rogers Ave. There are few sidewalks outside of the northern portion of the city.
If you have ever been here or seen pictures of Fort Smith, you'll notice the lack of pedestrians. The sidewalks aren't being used, but by a few stragglers you might see close to the mall, someone jogging, or kids heading to or from school. THAT IS IT! The vast majourity of the population doesn't use them. The same with bicycles. You'll see a small group of professionals riding along Phoenix Ave. and the occassional hippy-looking person or some kids riding around in a neighbourhood....oh, and occasionally Mormons, but not much else.
I think another problem is the weather. I mean, right now it's in the 90's outside. It's absolutely miserable out there. For someone used to setting around inside with their air conditioner it can brutal dealing with the extreme temperature difference. Most people just get in their car, roll up the windows, and turn the air on.

On top of that for me, I have never ridden in a city bus before. They didn't even exist when I was a kid. Put the blame on cars and urban sprawl... City bus service was discontinued in the 70's and was only restarted some years back. So, I never grew up using it. I'm still quite clueless on how to even use one, despite looking at various websites and watching tutorial videos from other cities.
I've also heard complaints on how limited the service is. The buses don't run on Sundays and the hours are somewhat limited. The fixed routes are mostly located on the northern half of Fort Smith. The north side has 4 routes compared to the south having merely one route. I don't know who came up with the bus routes, but it seems a bit one sided.

Despite all the issues mentioned, I'm seriously thinking about giving the bus a try sometime. Maybe tomorrow. I'll try to keep it simple,I might go to the mall... hopefully I won't get lost.

Ever since I can remember I've had difficulty fitting in with people and society. I have often wondered what is wrong with me. I have never been actually diagnosed with any disorder, though my school records indicated at least one of my teachers felt I had ADD. When I met someone who told me he had Asperger's syndrome and described his tendencies. Many of them were quite similar to my own. I've been doing research on ADD and Asperger's, trying to find out the answer. I'm quite sure I am at least one or the other. However, since both are similar, it's hard to say which one.

I know online self-diagnosis is not the same as visiting a professional in the field, but I had been trying different tests,reading books and watching vidoes on the subject, comparing them to my school records and my current situations in life.

I took the Aspie-Quiz ( http://www.rdos.net/eng/Aspie-quiz.php ) and got these results out of it. I recieved an Aspie score of 151 out of 200 and an neurotypical score or 48 out of 200. It also stated I had "very severe social phobia".



It would take more than one journal entry here to got into to detail of my life and why I think I am not neurotypical...

Some examples:
While I was in school my teachers were quite concerned that I didn't interact with other children and I kept to myself. I simply ignored them and they ingored me. Noone would ever come up wanting to play wiht me or vice versa... To say the least I really didn't have many friends and when I did make a friend the friendship wouldn't last very long usually. I'm still quite that way. I have hardly any social interaction outside of my job and the internet. I avoid it as much as possible. I can't say why...

One constant problem I have at work is customers making a comment then get angry or they are puzzled why I took their remark seriously. They'll say "I'm just teasing." "It was a joke. Don't be so serious." I have lashed out at such customers on occasion. I told one of them to say what they mean.
What is the deal with people saying "Don't work to hard." The first time someone said that to me I was severely offended. You know, Aren't I supposed to work hard? ...What is with people? Now, I simply don't know what to make of the remark. Any time anyone says it to me I act as if I didn't even hear it. Someone please explain how I'm supposed to react to that stupid statement!
Yesterday, one coworker told me to bring in plants from outside so they would not get wet from the impending storm. I said, "OK, which ones?".. to which she replied, "I just said that to see how you would react."

...Those are just some of my problems. Every time I brought my situation up to my family in the past they dismiss it or I get criticised. My grandmother is always getting on my case for not paying attention. .. she still does quite often and it frustrates me.

The AT&T people showed up and got my family all set up with their bundled service plan. Unfortunately my main e-mail address from SBC will no long exist in two months.. So, I'm trying to move all my accounts to a different address. And what's stupid, some of those companies and online services send a notice to your old address for confirmation. I understand they want to make sure you are who you say you are, but to send the confirmation e-mail to an address that no longer exists is not the way to go.

At least I don't have to deal with Cox's problems anymore. In a way I'm sad about my family dropping them since my mother, who is long been deceased, wanted it.. and I feel as if I'm losing a small tie to her over cutting a service she initiated over 20 years ago. It was a local company at that time when she signed up for cable. But, it got bought by TCI, in turn, that was merged or purchased by TCA, then Cox got the city's cable TV contract. TCI and TCA had their problems. I remember when the cable would go out for hours or day or two at times.. I had't noticed that with Cox besides the screen freezing for hours on end.. Really, Cox has been getting on my nerves. They're notorious for overriding national commercials with their own self-glorifying advertisements for their digital services and regular television programs with infomercials, while claiming it's the networks doing it, not them. Meanwhile, because their timing is off on their overrides you sometimes will see a few minutes of a show they tried to cover. One example, I was watching American Gladiators on Spike TV, when Cox suddenly cut into the interview at the end of the show to run commercials.

The following video gives you a sample of what I've been dealing with..


Another thing they've been doing as of late is migrating the regular basic channels to Digital while raising their rates. They actually received quite a backlash for it around where I live. They had been doing for some time, but when they moved a lot of the religious channels and one of the country music channels all at once to digital, people around here started complaining to the mayor about it. Apparantly, there's a bunch of people, who don't want or can afford digital services, watching TBN all day.

Cox has also been whining about the city laws. Since they are a cable company they must have offices located in the city and they have to run city governement channels. They claim it's unfair that AT&T doesn't have to do such things, They argue what AT&T is offering is a version of cable. I do wish AT&T would offer those channels and the Oklahoma channles we used to get with Cox, but I'm not gonna complain since I now have 200 channels to choose from for my viewing pleasure and it's costing my family half of what it used to for around 50 channels with Cox.

I've also heard complaints about their telephone service. A family friend switched to it for whatever reason. Probably because he was already using their cable service and thought bundling the services would be cheaper. Turns out every time the cable went out, so did his phone. To say the least, he got fed up with it quick and switched back to his phone company.

Last week I tried to get online and found my internet service is now null. The problem is a bit difficult to explain. Each member of my family had separate telephone, internet, and cellphone services with different companies. Over the course of the last few years each of those companies except for our cable television service has been merged or taken over by AT&T. A few weeks ago my home was visited by one of AT&T's salesmen, wanting to know if we would like to go with their U-verse service. We discussed the matter and decided it would save us quite a bit of money if we combined all our accounts and upgraded to the new service. I had my internet account canceled. Unfortunately, the new U-verse service has not been installed and my internet connection ceased.... I have to go to the liblrary to go online for the time being. Hopefully Thursday they will get this mess straightened out....

Well, I did something last Tuesday, I didn't think I would ever do again.... go to a movie theatre. I was bugged by a someone I know to go see Star Trek, he even invited me to go along with him, his family, and some other people I know from work to meet at the theatre.

I have not been to a movie theatre in almost eight years. I'm not kidding. The last film I went to see was Titan A.E. ... which was back in 2001, I believe.

It it amazing to me how has changed. First thing I noticed was the price. It costs $8.50 for the ticket. When I went to see Titan A.E. it was under four dollars for a first-run ticket. I can't believe ticket prices have jumped THAT much. And then the large drink I bought at the theatre was $4.50. I knew it would be expensive, but... sheesh. I don't plan on going back anytime soon. The prices are outrageous.

Anyway, the movie was good. Even though it wasn't quite what I expected. It's a much darker film than the previous Star Trek movies. My only complaint, it seemed alot of times when someone died with a minute later someone else wold die by the same means. I wonder if I'm the only one, who noticed that. Overall it was a good movie.

Star Trek IV is still my favourite Star Trek movie. This is why:

I finally tried to register my darling little Pino with the Volks company. Since it was going on their site. I figured, I would dress him in official Volks clothes.



His normal clothes...



Actually, I've collected quite a few outfits for him.
He has been quite a blessing to me. I've never concidered myself as being into dolls, so much so. I'm still not. I'm just glad to have the kid I created in my mind, in the flesh, so to speak.