First post of a necessarily limited presence for four days…
Not only am I traveling around rural Pennsylvania on an ethics CLE road trip, I managed to leave with a non-functional power chord, so I’ll be stretching about 2 hours of battery charge over almost four days to try to keep up with the ethics eddies. I’m sorry. This was a running around packing, working, and trying to get on the road fiasco. Perhaps you’ve been there…
1. Overheard in the hotel parking lot just now: “Try not to be such a boy tonight.” This was a mother admonishing her 10-year-old son.
Nice.
Make sure your son thinks that his gender is a negative factor to be avoided.
I almost said something to her.
Should I have?
2. Later…I’m over my limit…
Ethics Alarms 
MAYBE the mother meant “Try to be a man”. But if I happened to be passing by, I might’ve said to the kid, “Tell her not to be such a woman tonight!”
Well, words have meanings. So regardless of what she meant to say, she said “don’t be such a boy”.
I call my son “little man” and “big boy”, but I don’t ever tell him not to be what he is while also encouraging him to be what he is supposed to become with no negativity.
It’s her kind of spiteful modern feminism that drives reasonable rational men like me wonder why we stay reasonable and rational.
It’s how axe murderers are made.
You might be able to buy a replacement power cord somewhere. Batteries Plus Bulbs or Best Buy for instance, although I have no idea what shops might be available where you are traveling.
Depending on the class of the hotel, they might lend you the use of one for an hour or so while you sit in the lobby, be willing to send someone, or be willing to ferry you to the nearest best buy. I had to buy a new one yesterday. Target has a multi-model charger that fit my 5 year old computer and had 5 other jacks for other computers. It works like a charm. (this is the 3rd charger for this computer, averaging a little over 18 months each) Best buy and probably Wally-world would have them in stock too just call the closest.
Or possibly she meant “Try not to be such a baby (i.e. brat) tonight!”
Well, words have meanings. So regardless of what she meant to say, she said “don’t be such a boy”.
Maybe make an announcement at the start of your lecture, and get lucky when someone has the same make of computer?
Just to add: I recently got a “universal” replacement cord that has socket adapters and seems to be compatible with a vast array of laptops. Even has a little splitter on it that you can use as a “universal” cell phone charger. I’ve had it about three months, it works, and neither device has caught on fire.
Is it just the cord that’s gone bad, or the power supply (the box the cord attaches to)? I’d it’s the cord, that’s the kind of thing you can fix at least temporarily with just a pocket knife and electrical tape, providing you can locate the break.
Jack, what kind of device we looking at? Phone, pad, notebook or computer?
Jack, drop an address, I’ll Amazon same day ship you a power cord.
Okay, what you need to do is go to the grocery store and buy about 3 dozen lemons (We’re going to make a photovoltaic cell to power your computer). Next, you want to collect some grass-clippings and put them in a Vita-Mix. We’re going to harvest the chlorophyll, see. Then, you want to fill the Vita-Mix with strong urine (It’s got electrolytes), blend for 5 minutes on the “poultice” setting. Set aside. Next, we need to get anodes and cathodes for the lemons. You can find these in your car’s ECM module. Better yet, just use the spark plugs. You’re going to need a lot of spark plugs, so you might have to “borrow” these from the other guests. Let me know when you’ve got the plugs and the ECM, and I’ll tell you the rest. Let the urine electrolyte slurry simmer in the hotel microwave for a bit while you collect the plugs. I’ll wait here….
I’ve set to work on this. However my VitaMix does not have a ‘poultice’ setting. Can someone please overnight me an updated model?
Also, I can get no lemons here, only what I think are really limes. Will it effect the quality of the electricity produced?
If everyone on EA donated a power cord to a poor black child (or Asian or Mexican or Muslim or Transexual or Homosexual or your average polymorphous perverse or God-knows-what) could it justify Jack simply nicking a power cord from the corner store?
” Will it effect the quality of the electricity produced?”
No, but you won’t be able to make Margaritas after the battery dies.
“could it justify Jack simply nicking a power cord from the corner store?”
We’re never going to get him to try this if you offer him an easy way out.
Imagine the headlines:”Nationally-known legal ethics expert arrested for petty larceny”. The media would treat him like a hated real-estate tycoon.
“I managed to leave with a non-functional power chord….”
Am I the only one picturing Jack leaving his house while strumming an electric guitar and wearing KISS makeup, only to discover that his amp had blown the circuit breaker?
Seriously, I CAN’T be the only one.
–Dwayne
P.S. It goes without saying that the amp was a Marshall stack.
Jack, drop and address and I will appear from out of a luminous cloud and hand you a Golden Power Cord.
Was the mother dropping off her precocious son off at his first college orientation? If so, forewarned is forearmed.
I wonder how much of the two hours Jack has left will be spent reading all his brave and loyal followers’ comments. Any bets?
p.s. though I haven’t been in rural Pennsylvania in decades, my memory conjures up a true rurality in which a power cord would be less likely to be available than a plow horse’s bridle.
Power cords are fungible. Amazon drop ships to hotels.
I have left a power cord 200 miles away before, and suffered the pre-prime delays on Amazon. Today it is much better.