visit Arizona?

I know Arizona is taking some hits lately and the purpose of this post is not to judge or even comment on the whole immigration thing. My question about Arizona is really more basic.

WHY DO YOU PEOPLE LIVE THERE?

I base this on my personal experience visiting Tempe Arizona over one particular 4th of July weekend.

Let me start at the beginning. My brother and his wonderful wife and beautiful children moved to Arizona for their careers. After hearing about how wonderful it is out there I decided to visit. For reasons that are entirely irrelevant to this discussion, I went out over the 4th of July weekend. BIG mistake.

When I got on the plane in Milwaukee it was 5AM and 68 degrees. When I got off the plane in Arizona it was around noon and 104 degrees. Don't give me that bunk about it being a "dry heat". If the ambient temperature equals a reading on my meat thermometer, people should not be living there. My oven is a dry heat too but I don't curl up in my oven with a book and call it a vacation.

My brother proceeded to take me on a tour. We drove past a development in some foothills of a mountain and he said "Yeah, we looked at a house over here but they have a problem with scorpion infestations and fire ants so we didn't buy there" Good choice. Seriously? There are times when nature gives us messages. Scorpion infestations and fire ants are nature's way of saying

"PEOPLE. you should not be living here. we claimed this spot in the name of insects"(I am not sure scorpions are insects but you get the point).

As we continued to tour, he kept commenting on the wonderful landscaping in some of the areas we were driving through. I am thinking. "That is sand, some rocks and a cactus. That is not landscaping, that is creatively rearranging DESERT" I also noticed that there were homes that were desperately trying to grow lawns. There is nothing about Kentucky Bluegrass or Blue Fescue that cries out to be planted in a desert. Besides which, if you have to get up at 3AM to mow this plot of grass before it gets too hot, you probably should rethink your landscape.

My sister-in-law took my daughters and I on a tour of the Hohokam Indian ruins. It was 114 that day. As we were walking through the ruins reading about this ancient people, one of the signs struck me: "we don't know why the Hohokam people abandoned this site...." Really? you don't? I have a clue... Maybe some native people from a more temperate area were visiting and said "JEEZ it's hot here... why don't you go up in the hills or go down by the gulf or something? You are crazy for living here. Besides, have you SEEN the scorpions over by those hills? It's an INFESTATION."

Almost everyone has a pool and my brother is no exception. Except no one HEATS their pool which means that the water is cold as ice. Given that the air temperature is hotter than the hinges of Hell I guess it evens out. It is quite an adventure to have your toes turn blue at the same time your face is getting blistered. And don't get me started on the dust storms....

I know that in Wisconsin we have bad weather in the winter. However, in defense of our weather, there are only about 4 or 5 days every winter that are really intolerable either because of extreme cold or a lot of snow or both. In Arizona it gets hot in early May and stays hot until November. It you don't believe me check the weather channel. Also, in the winter if I need to go out I can put on layers of clothes, a warm hat, thick gloves,toasty boots and be safe and comfortable. There is only so much you can take off in 114 degree heat and not get arrested. And P.S., Arizona, wearing gloves so you don't burn your hands on your steering wheel is just not right.

So that is my beef with Arizona. Lovely people, questionable climate. At least it is not for me. I like my four seasons and lack of venomous insects. But to all of you who love that climate, more power to you- but don't think you're getting our water.

Forget your password?

So I am new to this blogging game. I haven't posted for a while because I forgot my password. Did you ever forget your password? I may be giving away my secrets but I normally have 3 passwords that I recycle. Since this is my first official blog I decided to get fancy and creative and.... well, it didn't work. I could not remember the brainstorm of letters and symbols, caps and small case combinations that unlocked the secret of my own personal blogasphere.

So I reset it. And wrote it down.

Which brings me to my latest musing.... I know the folks at I.T. security feel strongly that passwords should be STRONG. This, I have learned, is I.T. speak for "unmemorable". Where I work there are- depending upon your particular role- as many as 5 different computer applications that are required to do your job. In times past, employees were allowed to pick their own passwords after the first time logging into an application.

Those were the days when folks would very happily type in "password" or "welcome" or "signon" or even "hello" and be directed to a change password function where you could confidently put in some combination of birthdays, initials, ages, or dates. None of these secret codes were of significant importance to anyone and you could keep them locked in your own little brain. We all knew better than to use something like our birthday or initials so we made it random enough to be not worth the trouble to figure out but easy enough to remember. If, as is often the case, you were required to change it every 6 months, you could reverse the numbers, add a letter or capitalize something to make it different enough to pass go, but still memorable.

Enter I.T. security and assigned passwords. Not only do they have to pass security muster, you must have a different password for each application.

(&3KhgLK20072&^%

GOOD PASSWORD. STRONG PASSWORD. Also a password that I will never remember. (Any resemblance to an actual password is strictly coincidental and not a security breech). So, what happens is that you have to write your passwords down. No longer are they stored securely in the recesses of your gray (grey?) matter never to be revealed except under threat of bodily harm. Not only do you have to write your password(s) down, you have to write them down somewhere that you can find them.

When you need to sign in to the fragendafenberg application, you must do it with efficiency without spending time searching for your password or typing in 5 incorrect passwords only to be locked out and have to call the help desk. Therefore you write it down in a logical place - on a sticker you place on the back of your name tag. I know there are I.T. security professionals out there who may read this and start having palpitations and chest pain but I call 'em as I see 'em.

The ultimate result is that in an effort to achieve ultimate security, there is no security. True of passwords and true of life. Ironic, isn't it?