Thrown for a (school) loop

You know what they say - if you don't own your web presence, you're taking a huge risk. For example, let's say that you decide to start the Red Green Company, and that you decide to establish your web presence on Facebook. Lo and behold, one day color blind Mark Zuckerberg decides that all red green companies should be banned from Facebook...and your company is out of luck.

(And yes, I know that most of my blogs are on the blogspot.com domain. I didn't say that I practiced what I preached.)

So now it's time for a local example of this phenomenon.

Last year we hosted an exchange student who attended Chaffey High School - well, she attended Chaffey until all foreign exchange programs were terminated and she had to return to her home country in March. Before that happened, students and parents/guardians would keep track of their students' progress through a service called School Loop. Not only did they provide students, parents, and guardians with a handy app to check grades and communicate with teachers and staff, but they also set up a website for the school. Over time, I began to think of that website as THE website for Chaffey.

Anyway, even after our student went home, we continued to receive email from Chaffey, including an announcement that for the 2020-2021 school year, the school was moving from School Loop to another service known as Canvas.

Although we are not hosting an exchange student, I have an...um...academic interest in what the school is doing, especially in this very unusual school year. Unusual because Chaffey High School, like most schools in the state of California, is starting its year with virtual learning only, rather than in-person learning. 

Today happens to be the first day of school at Chaffey, so I thought I'd check the school's website to see how the school is handling things.

You can guess what happened next.

After a bit of searching, I found an active website for the school. (And another.) But I'm sure I'm not the only one who made this mistake. 

And you can't blame School Loop for failing to provide a forwarding URL for a customer that didn't renew its School Loop contract. 

All politics is not local

I write about ESRI in this blog on occasion - most recently, in March 2016. And ESRI just made the news again - not a local news outlet, and not a geo news outlet, but Quartz.

The headline? A giant US government contractor went offshore to avoid a pittance in African taxes.

The subhead? "Stairway to Haven."

It turns out that Mauritius, a small island nation in the Indian Ocean, has signed some treaties and set up a tax code that makes it advantageous for firms to base their operations there. Which is what ESRI Southern Africa has done.

The structure in Mauritius allows the company to pay an effective tax rate of just 3%, according to the leaked documents. That means that between 2013 and 2015, the company might have avoided paying about $550,000 in taxes when compared to the 2015 average African corporate tax rate of 28.14%. That’s a pittance for a company like Esri, but meaningful for nations it works in like Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Lesotho, which have among the lowest GDPs per capita in the world, and heavily rely on earnings from corporations doing business in their countries.

ESRI has responded by noting that ESRI Southern Africa is independent of ESRI.

“This organization is one of our 87 international distributors. While these companies are largely independently owned and operated, they are closely associated with Esri and are the exclusive representatives for Esri in their territories,” Berry wrote, adding: “To our knowledge, nothing about our distributor’s operations in Mauritius, or in the other countries where they represent us, is inconsistent with the goals and values of Esri.”

Regarding the "largely independently owned" part, 20% of ESRI Southern Africa is owned by a Dangermond family trust. (Jack and Laura Dangermond ARE ESRI.)

But regarding whether the company's actions are consistent with the goals and values of the Redlands firm - I argue that they are.

In U.S. law, and presumably in Mauritius law, the duty of a corporation is to make money for its owners/shareholders. In fact, companies have been successfully sued by shareholders when they do NOT perform their fiduciary duties.

So while ESRI is getting a definite PR black eye by locating operations in a tax haven, such an action is not illegal, and in fact is commendatory.

Perhaps you can't fly that drone in San Bernardino, or Ontario, or Upland, or Rancho Cucamonga

I guess I should have realized this, but I didn't.

I've never really been in the market for a drone, but I've occasionally considered what I'd do with one if I were to buy one. The obvious thing to do would be to go to a local park or school with a lot of wide open space, and just put the drone up in the air and start flying it.

But what if I lived in San Bernardino?

I wouldn't have asked that particular question before, but when I heard about the Gatwick Airport drone incident last year, it occurred to me that perhaps you can't fly your drones right next to an airport.

And San Bernardino has an airport. And if you go to that airport's web site, you'll find out that you can't fly a drone next to the airport - or far away from the airport either.

Before flying any [Unmanned Aircraft System] within 5 miles of SBD International Airport, operators must contact the air traffic control tower for proper coordination (phone number is listed on the attached map).

Yes, that's a five mile restriction.

But I don't live in San Bernardino - I live in Ontario.

Uh...we have an international airport also.

And while Ontario International Airport's website has no drone restriction information, the Federal Aviation Administration has a helpful app (B4UFLY) that includes maps indicating where drone flying is restricted.

So much for flying that drone at Chaffey High School.

Or, for that matter, at Upland Memorial Park.

Or just about anywhere in Ontario, Upland, or Rancho Cucamonga...

Don't want to fly into Mexico City? Why don't you relocate your business here?

So I ran across an article that I wanted to quote from, but it's an AP article, and...you know...

Basically, Mexico City's airport is near capacity, so a new airport was going to be built, but a referendum just resulted in a stop work order on the project. Or it will result in a stop work order once the new President of Mexico takes office. The current President will continue building.

So Mexico City is left with an overcrowded airport for at least the short term. Here's an non-Associated Press description of the problem (although the link is dated, because it was written before the election and subsequent referendum).

Mexico City long ago outgrew the two-terminal Benito Juárez International Airport, which is notorious for delays, overcrowding and canceled flights.

It's too bad that Mexico City has an overcrowded airport; that makes it tough for businesspeople to fly in there to do business. Too bad that there isn't an undercrowded airport, that could easily absorb additional flight capacity.

You see where this is going.

Now perhaps we can't host NFL games in Ontario, but we can host basketball games (and the occasional Pat Benatar) and we can do things in our convention center.

And yes, Mexico City businesspeople, a good portion of the citizens of Ontario speak Spanish.

Ontario, California Fourth of July Parade #eie7418

Here are a few pictures from this morning's parade. For more pictures and videos from the parade, scan Facebook or Instagram for the hashtag #eie7418.

Three thoughts on Chaffey High School's #CrossDressGate #sayyestocrossdress

So Chaffey High School's Powder Puff football game is tonight, where the girls don football uniforms and play flag football, and the boys don dresses and wigs and cheer the girls on.

Well, that's what used to happen - until this year.

The decision to ban cross-dressing was made after it was brought to the principal’s attention that it was considered offensive, said Mat Holton, superintendent of Chaffey Joint Union High School District.

“Some felt the activity was hurtful and offensive to some students,” he said.

Chaffey’s Principal, George Matamala, met with members of the all-boys pep squad and told them to change their costumes, Holton said.

The quote above is from a Liset Marquez article on the unpleasantness. Marquez also noted that a #sayyestocrossdress hashtag is being adopted. I couldn't find use of the hashtag, but I subsequently learned that the hashtag is primarily being used on Snapchat. I'm not on Snapchat. (Get off my lawn.)

As someone who has hosted four female foreign exchange Chaffey students over the years (two of whom have been powder puffers), I have a few thoughts.

FIRST, tradition in and of itself is not a defense. Some people have argued that the boys should be able to continue to wear dresses because of "tradition." However, if we continued all traditions, schools in Ontario would be segregated, renters wouldn't be allowed to vote, and Chaffey students would have to walk five miles to school every day. (In the snow.)

SECOND, as far as we know, no one has actually been harmed by the pep squad's fashion choices. Proponents of the ban talk about the POTENTIAL for harm, but there has not been any known ACTUAL harm. (I'll grant, however, that sometimes harm is not revealed until decades later, as the whole sexual misconduct thingie demonstrates.)

THIRD, consistency is important.

Toward the end of Liset Marquez's article, the following quote appears.

...the school’s administration believes that anything that might be hurtful to a student takes the precedent.

Um...ANYTHING?

So they can ban boys cheering in skirts, yet they can’t ban homework over the weekend

Before making such a broad statement, it might be wise to consider why the powder puff game takes place in the first place.

It takes place because CHAFFEY HIGH SCHOOL DOES NOT HAVE A GIRLS' FOOTBALL TEAM.

And since Chaffey is part of a high school district (and not a standalone high school), there's nothing stopping the district from fielding girls' football teams that could play against each other. Alta Loma could play Chaffey, Los Osos could play Ontario, and so forth.

(I'd insert an Upland kilt joke here, but I won't.)

So, when will Chaffey High School eliminate the boys' football program? Or is it only being retained because of a sexist "tradition"?

Escape Plan Clue Room, Ontario, California @escapeplanie

I know two of the people who are involved in this, so I thought I'd share the news.

The escape room trendiness is getting trendy. Heck, even I have been to an escape room for a work-related function. (We escaped.)

And now there are plans to open an escape room in downtown Ontario - the Escape Plan Clue Rooms.

To keep up with progress, visit the business website, Facebook page, and Twitter account.

Sometimes anecdotal observations are accurate - the 4th St. Kmart is closing

I just learned some news via the Facebook O.N.Z group. Here's how ABC7 reported it:

Sears Holdings, the parent company of Sears and Kmart stores, announced the closure of dozens of stores across the country.

The company chose to close 64 Kmart stores and 39 Sears stores that were considered "unprofitable," according to a press release.

Of those 64 Kmart stores, two will close in Southern California. One store is located at 8017 S. Atlantic Ave. in Cudahy and the other is at 1670 E. 4th St. in Ontario. The stores will close in mid-March and early April, respectively.



Long-time readers of Empoprise-IE (all two of you) are not surprised. Remember my 2016 visit to this very store, where the aisles were free of shoppers and products (other than VHS tapes), and one frustrated shopper was ready to go to Radio Shack instead?

Oh, and for those who are familiar with my previous posts about Sears in general, most recently in August, here's Sears' most recent statement (as quoted by the Chicago Tribune) after the latest closures:

“We will continue to close some unprofitable stores as we transform our business model so that our physical store footprint and our digital capabilities match the needs and preferences of our members.”

I'm beginning to suspect that the members' preferences for Sears' physical store footprint is around zero.

Ontario International Airport news - THIS performance evaluation apparently was better than a prior one

I haven't written a post about Ontario Airport since April, despite the fact that some big news occurred at the airport over the summer.

Seven months into locals controlling Ontario International Airport, its CEO, Kelly Fredericks, is stepping down, it was announced Wednesday.

Coming out of a closed-door session Wednesday morning, the Ontario International Airport Authority announced Fredericks’ departure is effective immediately. Mark Thorpe, who was hired in August as chief development officer, will serve as interim CEO....

But there were some hints to issues between Fredericks and commissioners leading up to the announcement. On June 17, the authority held a special Saturday meeting, the second time commissioners met that week. At that meeting, the commissioners had only one item on the agenda, a closed session to discuss a performance evaluation of Fredericks.

Well, it was just announced that Mark Thorpe is removing "interim" from his title.

The Ontario International Airport Authority (OIAA) Commission on Oct. 7, named Mark Thorpe chief executive officer. Thorpe had been interim CEO since July....

The appointment was approved unanimously in a special Saturday session after the Commission conducted a performance evaluation for Thorpe.

Looks like OIAA takes the "performance evaluation" process seriously.

Going back to the years-long Walmart battle - the empty lot wasn't just an eyesore

I recently searched this blog to see my most recent use of the word "eyesore."

There was a reason for that, which is obvious when you look at my November 1, 2013 post.

I wrote it around the time that the Ontario Walmart finally opened. Yes, that Walmart has been open for almost four years now. Which means that Walmart will probably close it in six years. But I digress.

Back to the o-word.

And it's definitely better than the abandoned eyesore that some people seemed to prefer over the past few years. Even the co-owners of Ontario Bakery agree about that, something that David Allen (no fan of Walmart) noted.

Some of you may remember that the site used to contain three stores - a Target, a Toys R Us, and a Kroger-owned grocery (Giant at one point, Food 4 Less at another point). All three businesses shut down (Target relocated to Montclair), and the buildings that housed the stores were abandoned.

For years.

And while Walmart opponents complained that the store should be prohibited because it would attract an undesirable element, I worried about the "abandoned eyesore" that remained as the fight went on.

I was thinking about that years-ago fight as I read this article from the Harvard Business Review. It starts by talking about medical marijuana dispensaries - a group of businesses that are even more controversial than Walmart. The researchers, well aware that medical marijuana dispensaries were alleged to also attract an undesirable element, looked at a period in 2010 when Los Angeles County forcibly closed a number of dispensaries. Their question: as these undesirable businesses closed, how much did crime in the surrounding area decrease?

Well...

Surprisingly, we discovered that the closures were associated with a significant increase in crime in the blocks immediately surrounding a closed dispensary, compared with the blocks around dispensaries allowed to remain open. Our results demonstrated that the dispensaries were not the crime magnets that they were often described as, but instead reduced crime in their immediate vicinity. And when breaking down the effect by types of crime, we found that the increases in crime after dispensary closures were driven by the types of crime most plausibly deterred by bystanders: property crime and theft from vehicles.

Bystanders. We'll return to that word later.

The researchers then looked at another category of businesses - restaurants that were temporarily closed because of health care violations. Again, they saw a spike in crime when the businesses were closed, and a decrease when they reopened.

Now medical marijuana dispensaries and restaurants are much smaller than big box stores, but as the researchers delved into the "why" of their data, they began looking at one fact.

One key factor common to retail establishments, whether MMDs or restaurants, is that they generate foot traffic. And with foot traffic comes informal surveillance.

From the bystanders who are in the area when the establishment is open. Let's continue.

As Jane Jacobs described in her groundbreaking 1961 work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, people provide a natural form of incidental surveillance that can increase public safety. This idea, which Jacobs called “eyes upon the street,” has proven enormously influential, and is now a cornerstone of modern urban planning.

Some people enjoy mocking the people of Walmart - but they're actually performing a public service. We were just reminded of this by the tragedy in San Antonio.

On Monday, the driver of the semi-truck carrying at least 39 immigrants, James Matthew Bradley, Jr., was charged with one count of transporting illegal aliens.

A federal complaint filed Monday morning alleged that Bradley unlawfully transported undocumented immigrants in violation of law, resulting in the death of 10 of the people transported.

Upon conviction, the offense is punishable by life imprisonment or death, a $250,000 fine, and three years of supervised release, according to the U.S. Attorney Richard L. Durbin, Jr.

Supervised release after life imprisonment. That makes sense.

The apparent smuggling operation involving undocumented immigrants came to a tragic conclusion early Sunday morning when emergency responders found dozens of people in distress inside a hot semi-trailer at a Walmart in southwest San Antonio.

The death toll has risen to 10. Eight people were dead at the scene early Sunday morning. One more died during the day at a San Antonio hospital....

Early Sunday morning, an employee at the Walmart encountered a person who was disoriented and asking for water, San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said. The person said that there were people who needed help inside the trailer outside the store, which is located at I-35 and Highway 16 on the city's southwest side.



What if that truck had been parked in a vacant lot? The death toll could have been much higher.

Nestle hasn't sued the government...but its opponents have

Back in March, I speculated that if President Trump's "Make America Great Again" moves resulted in deteriorating water quality in the San Bernardino National Forest, Nestle could sue the government for reducing the value of its Arrowhead water.

Well, that hasn't happened yet, but according to Courthouse News Service, someone else is suing.

Environmentalists who want Nestle to stop pumping tens of millions of gallons from a California creek, virtually for free, to sell it as bottled water, have sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for records on the multinational corporation.

California groups Story of Stuff Project and Courage Campaign Institute sued the FDA in Washington, D.C. Tuesday, in a federal FOIA complaint. They say the agency failed to timely respond to their Freedom of Information Act request for the records, and did not indicate whether, or even if, it will deliver the records.

Story of Stuff's activist information is here. Courage Campaign Institute material is here (they say Sprouts is evil, but Whole Foods sells Arrowhead water also).

Nestle itself is not a party to the suit, and in a separate statement, it said that it has "cooperated with the State Water Resources Control Board’s requests for documents and information."

Of course, that's the State Water Resources Board, not Story of Stuff Project or Courage Campaign Institute.

Following up on other stuff, Nestle has moved its headquarters to Arlington, Virginia.

And, sadly, the Trevor Carpenter who was mentioned in that old Empoprise-BI post has passed away. I didn't intend to end the post with that, but once I saw the old post, it had to be acknowledged.

Maybe @NormaJTorres didn't appear at the Gardiner W. Spring Auditorium, but these people did

As I noted previously, there are multiple auditoriums at Chaffey High School in Ontario, the largest of which is the Gardiner W. Spring Auditorium.

If you're a Congressperson who wants to reach out to the people, you hold your event at one of the smaller auditoriums.

But if you're Roy Clark, you head to the Gardiner W. Spring.

Now I didn't see Roy Clark - the only name person I've seen at Chaffey was the (subsequently disgraced) Mike Warnke, and frankly I can't remember if he was at the Spring or the Hill. But according to this page, a number of name performers have appeared at the Gardiner W. Spring auditorium since the 1930s.

Clark himself, a well-known country/bluegrass artist, appeared on April 12, 1991, a little over a month before pianist Victor Borge returned (he had originally appeared in the 1960s).

A few others who have performed at the Gardiner W Spring:

Paul Robeson
The Trapp Family Singers
Marian Anderson
Bob Hope and the Desi Arnaz Orchestra
The Boston Pops Orchestra
Mahalia Jackson (multiple appearances)
The Smothers Brothers (in 1963, before the variety show)
Ricky Skaggs

The complete list (through 1996) is here.

It should be noted, though, that one esteemed performer has not graced the stage of the Spring - me. I have been onstage at the Bridges Auditorium in Claremont.

It should also be noted that the auditorium itself is a Communist plot. Many of the buildings on the Chaffey High School campus today were built during the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as noted in several sources including the Los Angeles Times:

The 65-acre high school has several historical buildings, including the Gardiner W. Spring Auditorium. Built in the 1930s with help from the Works Progress Administration, the Mission Revival-style auditorium serves as a performing arts center for the community.

Amy's Farm, May 13, 2017

We visited Amy's Farm today. I had never even heard of the farm before yesterday, but it is a 501(c)(3) organization which allows school students and others to see a small working farm, and also to buy produce. There wasn't a lot of produce today - to see a wider variety, you'd have to go to a farmers' market that has offerings from many farmers. But we had a fun time seeing the crops and the animals.



Here are a few pictures (you can see an entire collection of pictures in an album on the Empoprise-IE Facebook page).

I'm on a (record) mission from (name your favorite artist here)

I was driving up Euclid Avenue in downtown Ontario one evening when I thought that I spotted a record store.

Yes - a record store.

For my younger readers, imagine a CD that's - oh, wait, no one buys CDs any more either.

While vinyl records were once the dominant way in which people purchased music, they were already on the way out when Frank Zappa was testifying in front of Al Gore in 1985. The two were discussing the pros and cons of providing printed lyrics on the outside of shrink-wrapped record albums, but then-Senator Gore noted that any type of solution would also have to support cassettes, which are much smaller then long playing records.

But formats changed, and even cassettes and CDs began to fade away, as more people bought their albums online. (Was the shameless Ontario Emperor "Salad" plug subtle enough?)

Somewhere along the way vinyl was adopted by the hipsters, and there are enough hipsters and old people to support a few record stores here and there, something David Allen noted in an April 21 column that mentioned the opening of a record store in downtown Ontario.

That store - the one I saw - was The Record Mission.

I was in there this afternoon (Saturday afternoon), and the store definitely has an impressive collection of records. I didn't have the heart to tell the guys that I don't have a working record player, so most of the items they are selling wouldn't be good for me.

I say most of the items, because there were a few CDs in the back of the store, apparently from an indie artist (perhaps on consignment).

But if you're looking for records, and know the difference between an LP and a 45 (they have both), pay a visit to The Record Mission.

Bonus - Logan's Candies is just around the corner.

(Completely tangential - Hannah Rowley would be about 21 years old today, if she had lived. Time flies.)

Make Canada great again...through snacking

I was preparing to submit an expense report and saw a $2.10 charge that I didn't recognize. So I called my credit card provider to ask about the charge, and was told that it was from USA Snacks of Ontario, Canada.

Then it came back to me.

I went on a one-day business trip to Las Vegas about a week ago...and it was a long day. My shuttle arrived at Ontario International Airport at around 3:15 in the morning - before anything in Terminal 4 had opened. TSA was closed, the Southwest ticket counter was closed, and even the new coffee stand was closed. The only thing that was open at that time was the vending machines. So I got a Pop Tart.

Technically, a package of two Pop Tarts. But just one package.

This was the purchase that the credit card support person thought was from "USA Snacks of Ontario, Canada." But once she said that, I remembered the purchase that I had made early in the morning in Ontario, California.

I can forgive the support person, who was probably based on the eastern side of the United States where "Ontario, CA" means "Ontario, Canada."

But I'm amused by the idea that a company called "USA Snacks" could be based in Canada.

After all, we all know that such companies are more often than not based in China.

P.S. In Canada "Pop Tarts" are referred to as Pop Slabs.

Why did U.S. Representative Norma Torres hold her town hall at the Merton E. Hill Auditorium, rather than the Gardiner Spring?

Do our politicians want to hear from us, or do they want to hide from us?

Over the last few months, there have been a number of instances in which Congresspeople have been accused of hiding from their political enemies. The general argument is that it is the duty of a Congressperson to listen to his or her constituents.

But is that standard universally applied?

On March 4, the Daily Bulletin ran an article about two upcoming Town Halls for Congresswoman Norma Torres.

The other town hall for residents of Torres’ district is scheduled for March 25.

Note the "residents" qualifier. We'll come back to that.

Torres herself announced the town hall a few days before the event.

The key part of the announcement is the following:

Please RSVP below. Space for the event is limited, and entry will be on a first come, first serve basis.

Of course space is going to be limited for something as important as a Congressional town hall, because many, many people are going to want to come to it. Therefore, the Torres office chose to hold the town hall in an auditorium - specifically, the Merton E. Hill Auditorium. We'll get back to this.

On the surface, the setup sound great. First come first serve, for people within the district. I even saw a bit of the event on Facebook Live.

But Facebook Live didn't show the whole story.

My suspicions were aroused when Matt Munson wrote this.

I think it should be illegal for elected officials to exclude people from their events in public facilities just because they are from the wrong political party if the event is paid for with tax money. Only way one should be legitimately excluded is (felony or they do not live in the district).

I'll grant that this video is in some respects over the top (why would a MAGA person call someone a Communist? Aren't Communists good this month?), but it does appear that some people were let into the event without having to go through all of the "give your address" stuff (see 8:40 into the video), while other people were examined much more closely. Apparently the ones who were examined more closely were judged by the color of their (red) caps.

As the MAGA people claimed, Norma Torres' folks were setting up an un-Constitutional "border" to keep people out of the event. Why do you even need tickets to get into a town hall?

Well, you can't let everybody in, Torres supporters will argue. The Merton E. Hill Auditorium can only hold so many people.

Gosh, it's too bad that there isn't a larger facility that could provide the capacity to host a town hall. But even if there were such a facility, I'm sure that it would be a long distance away.

Oh, like two buildings over.

The smaller red box in the northeast corner is the Merton E. Hill Auditorium, where the town hall was held.

The larger red box is the Gardiner Spring Auditorium, the main auditorium on the Chaffey High School campus. As you can see, it is much larger.

It should be noted that when the high school itself has events with a lot of attendees, they hold them at the Gardiner Spring. Choir concert? Theater production? They're held at the Gardiner Spring.

So it makes absolutely no sense for a U.S. Representative to hold a town hall at a facility that is so small that it's unsuitable for a high school theater production.

Unless, of course, you don't want people to come to the event.

Inland Empire people, here's how @realdonaldtrump can get @NestleUSA out of our national forest

On Google Plus, Jason ON discussed the wild idea of the U.S. government selling water rights to private entities.

Jason may not have realized that this has already happened.

In the course of a post last month in my Empoprise-BI business blog, I discussed Nestle USA's headquarters move from California to Virginia and talked about our little Inland Empire issue with Nestle.

Speaking of organic, Nestle signed a sweetheart deal years ago with the U.S. Forest Service to take millions of dollars of water out of the San Bernardino National Forest at minimal charge. Now perhaps you haven't seen Nestle Water on your shelves, but you've seen Arrowhead water. Yup, that comes from my national forest.

Perhaps if I just agreed to let Nestle take all that water, and cut down all the trees (that's a joke - there are hardly any trees in the National Forest because of the elevation) in the National Forest to boot, they would have stayed here.

But then again, perhaps my friends in Arlington will have their own troubles when Nestle gets to their Rosslyn headquarters and starts draining water out of the Potomac.

Now Nestle gets its Arrowhead water from the forest because the water is pristine and wonderful and all that.

But what if that changes?

President Trump signed documents Tuesday directing the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to review the Obama administration's "Waters of the United States" rule. In doing so, Trump said he is "paving the way for the elimination" of the rule.

He asked for the reviewers to assess its consistency with "promoting economic growth" and "minimizing regulatory uncertainty," among other factors.

Now I have no idea if the Arrowhead springs are affected by this particular move, but it's no secret that certain government officials want to promote economic growth in a lot of areas. And that could very well include the San Bernardino National Forest.

Yeah, but what resources are present up there other than water and (a few) trees?

Plenty:

In 1855, gold was discovered in the San Bernardino mountains. Over the second half of the 19th century, mining, timber, and grazing grew quickly....

If you stop reading there, then you may quote from a famous Democrat - "It's the economy, stupid" - and realize that you can Make America Great Again by restoring our economic viability.

Just don't read the rest of the paragraph that I started quoting above.

In 1855, gold was discovered in the San Bernardino mountains. Over the second half of the 19th century, mining, timber, and grazing grew quickly, taking a heavy toll on the land. By the end of the 19th century, significant sectors of the forest had been felled and overgrazed. Streams and rivers were silting in and water quality was declining. Meanwhile a growing population and a thriving citrus industry made increasing demands for clean drinking and irrigation water.

Now let's say that economic growth proponents kinda sorta ignore that last part - and hey, the citrus industry has moved anyway! Now let's say that the San Bernardino National Forest is opened up to logging, gold mining, grazing, and other activities to restore our economic competitiveness.

Of course, a resurgence of such activities could result in "water quality...declining" again, affecting Nestle's pristine water.

Which brings up the possibility of Nestle suing the government for not being environmentally friendly, and reneging on its contract with Nestle. Only one problem - Nestle can't sue the government for reneging on a contract, because Nestle's permit expired a long time ago.

So Nestle will have to shut down its Arrowhead operation and start getting water from the Potomac River.

Or perhaps from Flint, Michigan.

All about the Oranco Bowmen

So one day I was sitting in morning rush hour traffic on the 71, and noticed a sign near the archery area on Euclid.

The sign referred to the Oranco Bowmen.

A Club by Archers for Archers...

Welcome to Oranco Bowmen Archery Club.

We are a private, non-profit Archery Club not a business. All of our staff are Member-Volunteers not paid employees.

We are located at 17504 Pomona Rincon Rd. Chino CA. 91708 in the "Y" intersection of Euclid Av. and the 71 Expressway. Our club has been in this location since 1980.

Our Phone Number is (909) 597-7582 and is answered on Sundays from 8:30 am to 2:00 pm. If you have a question go to our Contacts page and call or email a board member.

The range is open to our membership 7 days a week.

We are open to the public on Sundays (excluding major shoots, work parties and holidays) 8:30 am - 2:00 pm and costs is just $14.00 per archer.

For more information, visit their page, or check out their Facebook page.

Bobcat Properties Farm at Graber Olive House

On Sunday afternoon, Graber House House in Ontario hosted an event with Lonnie and Mary Scott from the Bobcat Properties Farm (website, Facebook page).

The event was called the "Benefits of Honey Talk."

For more pictures taken by Graber Olive House itself, see the Event page. Graber sells the honey (and other products such as lip balm), and it can also be purchased at farmers' markets in Corona and East Hollywood.

Airport news - on the accounting side, #OIAA is proceeding Intuit-ively

I just got around to seeing Liset Marquez's article about the Ontario International Airport Authority. Her main message - transitions are hard.

So far, the biggest transition in which I participated was when Motorola sold its Biometric Business Unit to Safran. There were all sorts of pesky little details that had to be taken care of. One example - a couple of months after the intent to sell the division was announced, but before it had been approved, all of us had to complete employment agreements with a company called Sagem Morpho. We were instructed to leave those agreements undated, because no one knew when we would get the final government approvals for the sale. By the time the sale got its final final approval, the company Sagem Morpho had been renamed MorphoTrak, and presumably someone added dates to all of those employment agreements.

(An aside: I'm going through a similar process right now.)

Well, similar things are happening now with the transfer of Ontario International Airport from Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) to the Ontario International Airport Authority (OIAA). In fact, Marquez notes that the people working at the airport are still LAWA employees, although that is in the process of changing. And for the most part, all of the changes are going smoothly, or better than originally expected.

With one exception.

[T]he authority’s Chief Financial Officer Jeff Reynolds learned LAWA did not transfer any of its accounting systems over to the authority, leaving him to start from scratch.

Now this can be a problem. When your operating budget is in the high tens of millions of dollars, a computerized accounting system is kinda sorta essential.

And Reynolds scrambled to find one.

“We didn’t have the time or the ability to review systems, so we decided to go with QuickBooks just so we could get up and running and at least print checks,” he told the authority at a Jan. 23 meeting.

I guess it's better than Lotus 1-2-3, but Reynolds is obviously prioritizing the acquisition of a comprehensive system, that he hopes to get up and running within four months.

I wonder if Intuit will list Ontario Airport as one of its satisfied QuickBooks customers.

And if the process gets delayed, the Radisson is offering QuickBooks training in June.