Life gets in the way...

Sorry this blog has been so inactive. Had a lot to say, and then once I got started on Facebook I left most of it there. Not exactly a forum for enriching discussion, but was able to vent most of what I needed. A little more conducive than some other sites that limit to, say, 140 characters. But definitely the wrong place for a manifesto (although I will link it there).

So I am dusting off the ol' blog in anticipation of a post on "gun control." Which I will at least start drafting today, and maybe even get published if it's ready. This is just one of the many heated topics of the day that are so frustrating and I wanted to give a thorough working over to.

Unfortunately, married life with a demanding job, a pet, and even minimal hobbies / interests doesn't leave much time for things like blogging creatively (at least for me - some of the bloggers I have followed seem to balance a lot more on their plates AND run very active and well-written blogs). Add-in the terrific news that I am now a father of two, and that both kids are still under two years old, and I pretty much gave up on the idea of maintaining a blog. [I'll spare you pictures and further gushery here for now - those who know me have already seen them on Facebook or live, or should get your ass on Facebook (hint, this means YOU, MOM!) because of how amazingly simple it makes keeping up with both close and distant friends and their families.]

But just when I thing I'm out, they drag me back in. "Gun control" will be the next big topic I address, and in future months if I can muster enough time and motivation I'll try to keep knocking down my little list of "big debate" issues that have congealed into simple "right or wrong" issues to me, to see if it can help others or at least stimulate a more fruitful debate. Keep reading, my friends.

Bachelorhood, revisited - again

One more time now, this 30-something white boy has been left to his own devices while the wife is off globe-trotting. The last time, my grand plans got derailed by injury, sloth, travel, and pointless political grand-standing. This time around, I am actually gainfully employed, so I limited my ambitions on what I would achieve while she was gone. Until yesterday I was also stuck on the night shift, which meant that all of my time off-work was poorly divided among food, sleep, and de-stressing. And dealing with the cat. My exploits are fairly-well documented here, so I won't rehash much now.


The cat has been quite lonely, and we've been having some good bonding time during her not-so-freaky moments. Here's a pic of her catching some zzz's with me - see if you can find "waldo" amongst the camouflage that is "her" blanket:



Rarely, she assumes a pose that never fails to amuse me - I finally managed to capture this to show you "SuperKitty"!



Besides being my lone companion, she has acted as an instigator in pushing me to get one or two things done already. Prior to the wife's departure we finally managed to pick up a bike for me, but outside of the 10-mile ride home from the store, I had yet to touch it. Under her "careful supervision,"



I finally managed to get the bike in ride-able condition while giving her some outside time. In the past she has been pretty content to stretch out on a concrete porch and enjoy nature a bit, and didn't tend to wander off. Now that she has tasted a bit of freedom at this new(ish) apartment on the ground floor, she has started exploring a bit too freely and keeps expecting to get let out now. Not such a good idea for an indoor cat (no front claws) who keeps hissing at the mere appearance of our neighborhood strays and semi-strays.

Yesterday I finally hopped on the bike for my first time for a local trip - to grab some Chinese food as a reward for having finished my stint on "night float." It has confirmed one unfortunate fact: I am really out of shape. Back in the good ol' days of college, I biked all over campus. Now that I'm back in a reasonably-sized town, I plan to resume that habit and use the bike to get to work, the gym, and nearby shopping. The wife is even finally willing to try out the saddle, so we have hopes of this new joint activity helping us to lose some weight and live a bit greener. Now to actually USE the bike to get to these places ... that's a pattern I hope to start in the immediate future.

Some other "accomplishables" while the boss is gone:

• at least one round of laundry and dishes - I'm not quite bad enough to just buy more stuff to tide me over, although the thought does keep recurring to me.
• cleaning up kitty puke - I'm getting tired of sashaying around the three spots in the hall that kitty has chosen to decorate.
• cleaning the litterbox - as kitty's recent habit of peeing outside the box DOES seem to have resolved after the antibiotics (likely a UTI, not solely a misbehavior), I would like to hose it out and change out the litter to reduce her chances of repeat performances.
• cleaning the bathroom - thoroughly. As if our own wear-and-tear in there isn't enough, it happens to be where the litterbox resides. All the dust and litter-litter that escapes the box has been tracked around in there for ... far too long to actually divulge.
• shopping - need to replenish the stock of essential items like peanut butter, jelly, eggs - the stuff even I can't screw up too badly to keep my stomach full.
  
• reading for work - I've been far too sporadic, I need to set up a pattern of daily reading even if it's only a page or two.
• scrap-booking - amongst the crap I've dragged from apartment to apartment are boxes of items to pour through and harvest for memorabilia. I vowed to the wife that I'd address this collection before moving all those extra boxes YET AGAIN, so hopefully I can make a bit of progress to get us on track for a new place in the late fall.

That's probably enough to work on for today, my last definite day off for a while. Especially since I'm already burning several hours by writing this drivel, and cutting into my sleep time prior to starting the day. At least taxes are done (and not too much after the deadline!) - although I'll be happier once the refunds are in my account.

Miscellaneous stuff for today as well:

• Catch-up on some administrative stuff for work (hours, journal club)
• Finish paying bills
• Relax with a netflix movie the wife doesn't wanna catch (in this case, G.I. Joe)

Something tells me that the netflix one is gonna get falsely-elevated to highest priority. To thine own self be true!!

C.R.A.P. Sunday - Time's a-wastin'

Catch-up Rants And Platitudes - #8 - Time waster edition

I have been very productive, in unmeasurable and insignificant ways.

Not much to report on the volunteering-side ... putting in my time, hopefully it has been beneficial, kinda hard to measure at this point. The good news - have a lead on a clinical opportunity - will have to see how that plays out.

Blew the rest of my time this past week on mostly really useless stuff. Take, for example, my goodreads page. This is a really cool site where you can build up your history of all the books you have read in the past, rate them, review them (if so moved), and develop a list of books to read in the future. It has a lot of options for "shelves" of books - you can create any categories to group your books that you choose. I selected to create lists of books that were read multiple times, or for reference, or so long ago that I cannot recall much about them. Others have lists based on what year they read the book, or based on the genre. Since most of my reads tend to fall into science fiction (ie, Dune), horror (ie, Stephen King), or fantasy (ie, The Wheel of Time series) - and many of those fully overlap (ie, King's The Dark Tower series) - I didn't bother separating by genre.

Wasted most of my time after entering my books by A) attempting to fill in "when" I read them (very loosely guessed), and then B) changing the image of the covers to more closely represent the image of the book I am most familiar with. Very cool that it has these features, but I would expect to be able to enter some of that info in "batches," instead of one by one.

Typed up a few reviews too - for the titles that jumped out at me as needed some commentary. I will try to go back and comment on some others later, and of course then every book I add in the future I will try to get a little blurb out on. You may have to be a registered user to read reviews - but check it out and see if ya like it.

Movies

Along those same lines is the movie review site, Rotten Tomatoes. Check out the links in the sidebar. I had only one review up so far, but was inspired to drop another one after seeing the movie below. Click inside the movie poster to go to my review. And then let me know what you thought of it - either here in the comments or on that site.

News

This swine flu is getting raging amounts of coverage now. I guess people needed a break from North Korea, Iran, and torture. I'm still betting that in retrospect it will be a bit of an overblown response. Just use common sense - with prompt treatment for those getting sick, chance of recovery is pretty high. And it just serves as a reminder for the usual transmission-prevention techniques - don't sneeze on people, and wash your hands frequently. Keep sick kids that can't manage these conventions away from their peers until they are healthy.

Politics

The first official defector from the Republican Party, Arlen Specter, drew quite a stir. If the Minnesota race is ever decided and Al Franken finally gets seated, that will push the Dems in the Senate to that critical 60th vote. Assuming he and the other Dems vote along party lines for any given item in question. Specter basically switched to help ensure his re-election, given that he would have better chances in the Democratic primary than Republican. I would have been happier to see this as a form of protest against "the party of NO" and the Republicans' other apparent roadblocks to passing worthwhile legislation. And instead of trying to change his party from within, he basically switched sides and then reminded everyone that he still may not vote with the majority. That's fine - I would expect ANY politician to vote based on the merits of bill and the input of their constituents - but Specter's move seems more personally-motivated than party-related.

Da Blog

The other wasted time today [after a visit with my nephews, sis & her in-laws, and folks - this wasn't the wasted part, although I did feel a little buzzed after my two mega-martinis (thanks, Dad!)] was playing with the sidebar here (on the right) and making "widgets" work for "goodreads" and "rotten tomatoes." For those not in the know, "widgets" are groupings of text that form the coding behind interactive components of the website. On the goodreads widget you can flip through some book covers from my list of recently-read books, and in the Rotten Tomatoes one you can search for a movie or celebrity.

These are basically test-runs... when I *finally* do the major template overhaul, I will include other related links and make this more functional and attractive.

And then I will promptly ignore the blogosphere for just long enough to make all these efforts obsolete.

Any suggestions on readability, formatting, content, or other items to be on the lookout for are welcomed!

C.R.A.P. Sunday - Mega Monday edition

Catch-up Rants And Platitudes - #6 - procrastination

In honor of my favorite pastime, I'm dropping a late entry here. It's been a while since I did any serious blogging - although I've had the best of intentions, of course. Once I get some things together this site will get a mega-makeover, and I'll be posting a little more frequently, with shorter (theoretically, more focused) entries. Or so I say now.... In the meantime, here are a bunch of items I have been meaning to share for a while.

Let's start with some fun. Anticipating all that upcoming Easter candy? Don't think you should eat it all? *Here* is something fun to do with leftover candy (found the link to the youtube clip in this weekend's edition of the Red Eye). If you are partial to peeps, check out Peep Research or Peeps in a library.

Blago - They have finally brought charges against the former governor of Illinois. I'm glad things are moving along finally. Where was he, by the way, when this was announced? Disney World - that seems appropriate. His appointee Burris, who didn't have the foresight to decline the appointment, or the integrity to step down once his apparent complicity was exposed (see prior entries here and here), is still occupying the Senate. Governor Quinn has thankfully turned his attention to more pressing issues once it was obvious there would be no "easy way" - we'll let the 2010 election straighten it out. I just hope we can find a respectable candidate to get behind.

Blago sure does have the wrath of the Illinois congress chasing him though - they already passed a bill to prevent him from EVER holding public office again in Illinois (see in a previous post here), and now they are passing legislation to prohibit him from making any profit on book deals. I don't know how legal that is, to redirect a potential earning stream back into the state treasury. It's not like putting a lien on his salary for child support or to repay some defined criminal or civil damages. After the trial, that might be a different story.

A victory for gay rights - for any who haven't already heard, the Iowa Supreme Court struck down the law banning gay marriage. Here is an article from the Sun Times, which goes on to explain how it could be 2-4 years before there is even a chance of repealing it. In a previous post, I posed the question of how people can feel justified in depriving ANY subset of the population from rights under the law. I am not homosexual myself, but am sickened by the hypocrisy of the USA setting itself as an "example" for the world, and then denying rights (whether it be gay marriage, or fair treatment of prisoners or "enemy combatants") selectively. For now it's only Iowa, Connecticut, and Massachusetts that are "enlightened" enough to have welcomed gay marriage. California had it briefly, until "prop 8" banned it again. Of course, having "yes on 8" as the movement to BAN marriage could easily have confused voters - I wonder how a re-vote would turn out if it lacked that inverted terminology (i.e, say "yes" for "yes to gay marriage").

Drew Peterson - More from the white-trash role model couple, apparently Christina Raines has now moved OUT again, but they intend to remain friends. I'm not even gonna bother with them anymore - just looking forward to some charges finally being raised against this schmuck. Click on their labels (right column) if you wanna read about their Springer-escapades. By way of refresher, he's a suspect in the death of wife #3 and the disappearance of wife #4 (Stacy). Raines was on-again off-again wife #5-to-be.

Gun violence, health care, and the death penalty - all too long to write about here, stay tuned for some upcoming posts.

Movie and Book reviews - I decided against using this blog for cheering and jeering for mass entertainment. I would like to direct friends to reviews on a "movie review" site - any suggestions out there? Hopefully one that is searchable by author of reviews as well as movies.... (I haven't looked yet - and not sure how soon I'd start writing anyway)

Techno-poke - No, this is not a new Facebook application (not that I know of, at least). Apparently, some computer programmer from Finland (?) that lost part of a finger in a motorcycle accident fashioned a prosthesis for himself that includes a USB drive. That could give a whole new meaning to "giving your boss the finger." And it would be a lot harder to claim you left your presentation on your other prosthesis.... (pic lifted from the BBC news page)

Ok - lemme know if you're still reading and what you wanna see more of!
Hugs n kisses,
bonz'

Bachelorhood Journal, Day 4

Things were nice and quiet at first, a pleasant change of pace around the apartment. Then it got oddly noisy, and I realized that my cat was becoming more and more vocal. Traced back the source of her consternation, and realized that her magic food bowl was no longer magic - it was empty! Imagine that.... So I decided to take stock of other changes around here.

#1 - i feel kinda weird. i think i'm developing a sort of oily layer. i may have to break down today and investigate the curtained-off area of the bathroom to figure out what that is for.

#2 - my teeth are growing fur. maybe that bristly-thingy hanging over the bathroom sink could help reverse this process. will have to give it a try at least.

#3 - running out of spoons. and room in the sink. and clean table space. very odd.

#4 - strange odor around apartment. can't quite nail it down - could be coming from litterbox, sink, or table. perhaps the garbage. or maybe secondary to items #1 or #2. that cat still hangs around me, so can't be too offensive. right?

Meanwhile, I think I have finally had my fill of peanut butter. Will have to investigate other edibles around the house. It has been sorta nice to always find things where I leave them, but not enough of a trade-off having to deal with #3 above.

Ok, well back to pretending to be productive. Might have to make that list of projects soon. At least my back isn't getting any worse (for now).

Bachelorhood, Revisted

Oh, I had such high hopes for the next several weeks. While the wife is away, the mouse was fully intending to play. I even made the sacrifice of NOT creating a list of the things I wanted to accomplish in my maelstrom of activity, hoping to fly from project to project as whim drew me. [After about 3 or 4 days I was likely to break down and spend a solid 2-3 days drawing up a list, revising it, prioritizing projects, and shuffling papers on my desk anyway.]

But no ... even before I could get out of the gate I have been derailed in a ridiculous way. Secondary to being hit by a car over 12 years ago, I have a mildly screwed-up back. As long as I am careful with lifting and watch my posture, don't sleep in funky positions, etc. - it's really not a problem. Until that frickin' exercise DVD. I won't go into details here - suffice to say that trying to combine a shoulder press with a deeper-than-I-had-tried-recently deep knee bend was a baaaaad idea.

Now I've thrown out my back before, from staying in an awkward position too long in the operating room, or even from sneezing too forcefully. Usually I walk funny for a day or two, but can get back to normal fairly rapidly and even function pretty well throughout - other than the funny walking. This time, ugh - the back pain has been so persistent that I had been really crooked in my posture. So much so, that a couple of days later a whole 'nother group of muscles went into spasm - I guess from overcompensation. And then I aggravated all that by helping my wife haul the laundry around. Thankfully she refused to let me carry her suitcases around too much.

Got her to the airport yesterday, came back and pretty much crashed out on the couch. Today also crashed out on the couch ... hopefully after a solid night's rest I'll be able to tackle some of the cleaning and sorting and extended sessions tackling e-mail and other posture-intensive activities. I did manage some pseudo-productivity - cleared some movies from our netflix queue that my wife was less than enthusiastic to view with me. For good reason. :-)

In the meantime, I'm back to all the trappings of bachelorhood (messy apartment, grooming activities considered "optional," diet unsupervised, tv on 25 hours / day) without the hoped-for benefits - like normal mobility and a modicum of energy. I'll give it another day or two - then I'll try for some better living through pharmacology. MMMmmmmmm, muscle relaxers. *Drooool*

C.R.A.P. Sunday - Groundhog edition

Catch-up Rants And Platitudes - #2 - a brief look at recent news items, etc.

[I realize this is officially posting on Monday - getting something in just before, at, or after the deadline is sorta a specialty of mine.] So had my interview on the East Coast this past week - travel went pretty smoothly, and the interview itself not too bad. Unfortunately, up against three other very well qualified candidates, and did not feel any strong "good vibes" with any of the faculty. Called in a favor with a former adviser who may have some influence on them for me, but not anticipating good news. Back to the drawing board....

• Octuplets - Hmmm, interesting - so she had herself a litter. Oh, there she goes, she had herself a litter again. I know, not exactly a "litter" for the first group of SIX kids, since they do range in age and I think there is only one pair of twins. But it is quite surprising how slowly information is leaking out about this woman, who is only the second to give birth to octuplets in the U.S. From what I have pieced together, she is a single mother, living with her own mother (or had been until recently), obsessed with having kids (planned to have 12), underwent IVF (in-vitro fertilization) with donor sperm and then had the embryos frozen. Somehow - after already successfully birthing six children over recent years - she managed to convince doctors to implant her with all the remaining embryos. When she hooked up with the docs that cared for her through delivery, she had seven viable embryos detected. Doctors offered to therapeutically reduce the number to give her overall pregnancy a better chance of going to term and having healthier babies. She refused - which is fully within her rights. A surprise 8th baby is delivered among all the others at about 31 weeks (9 weeks early) - fortunately far enough along that they all have a good chance of survival.
  
  Of course - all will require quite a long hospitalization before they are fully out of the woods, which is quite expensive. This single mom will be caring for 14 young children - which is an impossible task without assistance. How she managed the resources to secure IVF and then implantation for each of her pregnancies (also very expensive) is beyond me. What doctor(s) in the world would dump all remaining frozen embryos into the uterus of a mother of SIX is borderline unethical. Presumably she did not want "leftover" frozen embryos to be destroyed (will address this more in an upcoming post about abortion rights), and perhaps only wanted to become pregnant one last time, but that is so irresponsible on the part of the physicians as well as herself to intentionally place herself into a super-high risk pregnancy - risky for her health, risky for the guardianship of her current kids, and risky for the babies she would be carrying. Once everyone is back from the hospital, can you imagine what her home life will be like?!? Nuts.
  
  
• Gay & transgender rights - please see my previous post for a dedicated rant on this topic. In the wake of the California prop 8 fiasco, there has recently been a victory for gay rights in Washington state, giving domestic partners all remaining rights of spouses (without the title of "spouse" itself). And without a whole lot of ruckus. Of course conservatives are complaining that it is a doorway to eventual gay marriage legislation.... Maybe that is the way it will have to go, slowly progressive steps until "marriage" is the next logical and undeniable right to confer.
  
  Something that bothers me though is the recent lawsuit filed by two transgender people in Illinois, demanding that the state alter their birth certificates to reflect their current gender status. Because they had their surgeries overseas, the Illinois government is refusing based on a lack of physician documentation. That should be a moot point - they ARE able to get passports, driver's license, etc. granted with their "current" gender. Why should birth records be altered? How is it ever acceptable to alter that sort of documentation? They were born as "boys" - not some ambiguous genitalia issue that was later resolved. They had elective surgery to become women, and are legally considered women based on their active personal IDs. Why should an archival document be changed? When a name is changed due to marriage or some other court procedure, the original birth certificate does not need to change. Granted, there is at least a paper trail to connect person A with their records under previous name B - so maybe a form documenting the change would be something to serve whatever need spurned this lawsuit. But changing vital records because of events later in life - that just doesn't seem right.
  
  
• On the topic of Illinois government (maybe my last comment on it for a while?), driving home after a Superbowl party tonight I was unexpectedly pleased at the removal of Blagojevich's name from the open-road toll plazas. Granted, it was probably $15,000 that could have been spent for something else, but that price pales in comparison to the $400,000-ish dollars the signs initially cost. And wow - the government managed to get something done in just a matter of days from the impeachment. I guess some people were pretty anxious to see that name wiped away.
  
  
• Dining out in a city in Tuscany - Not that I have ever had the chance to hang in Italy, nor do I anticipate this in the near future, but caught a snippet that made me triple take. Apparently, the tourism board of the city (Lucca?) has banned ethnic food. Huh? Well, new ethnic food. Their existing restaurants can stay, but apparently they will not allow any new establishments whose menus focus on any sort of non-local food items. No kebabs (Greek food), Thai, etc. Not even Sicilian food. What?? Isn't that basically a part of Italy? They want to preserve the feel of the region, but apparently even local chefs are complaining because "fusion" cooking is all the rage now, and they feel this could limit their menu options. But what happened to consumer choice and freedom?!? If I go to Tuscany I should be able to choose to have "authentic" Tuscan food... but should also have the option for whatever variety is available. If / when I go to such a region, I would definitely be staying long enough to enjoy several meals - why not have the option for a good curry dish as a break? This is also discriminatory to immigrants, who often support themselves by cooking up the cuisine of their homeland. "FAIL" for attempting to curtail freedom of choice.
  
  
• Finally, I cannot hold my tongue (or fingers, I guess) on the topic of the "Snuggie." People, this is just a comfy robe, or a flannel shirt, or whatever garment is handy, worn backwards. Do you really needs these direct marketers shoveling more crap down your throats?!? I'd like to load up a garbage scow with all the Sham-Wow's, Ped-eggs, clappers, touch lights, Chia-heads, choppers and juicers and try to get the pirates off Somalia to take THOSE off our hands. SHAM-UGHH!

Well, I guess that is enough for now. If you made it all the way to here, even I am impressed. Hope you enjoyed the Superbowl - it was pretty tight, a good show right to the very end. In case you've got it taped, TIVO'd, DVR'd, or just hoping to catch highlights I won't be the one to spoil it for ya. But man - cannot believe the number of penalties ... that has got to be a record. Here's to hoping for a cloudy day tomorrow - no shadows for the little rodent.

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Photos mercilessly stolen from Google images.

C.R.A.P. Sunday - New Year's edition

Catch-up Rants And Platitudes - #1
Like I indicated before, I'm just getting back into blogging. Here I'll make use of something I've seen from other bloggers - an outlet for mini-rants and messages that wouldn't otherwise be worth a post of their own. Things I've been stewing over for the past week or so and are still with me enough to need venting.

• First off, would like to wish happy holidays and best wishes for the New Year to any and all (or should I say, "both") my readers. :-) A little cliche'd, but heartfelt all the same. We have a lot to look forward to this year as a nation as well as globally - dealing with the economic crisis, high hopes for our new president, working through this recent conflict in the Middle East as well as other fronts - not to mention our own personal goals. And a whole year ahead of us to make good on those goals or to screw-'em up. At least we can vow to fight off procrastination THIS time....



• Blago - Ugh. Have long since given up hope of our Illinois governor resigning, but the taint left by his appointment of Burris as senator has been compounded by Burris's own words.
  
  Apparently, the process of seating a senator (at least, in this situation) requires signatures of both the governor and the secretary of state on a document which then goes to the senate, which then "seats" the representative in the appropriate caucus. The democratic caucus is refusing to seat any appointee by Blago for good reason - he is charged with corruption DIRECTLY RELATING TO his power of appointing a replacement for Obama. Our secretary of state, Jesse White, has refused to sign the document as well.
  
  But here is Burris in a statement to the press saying, (paraphrased:) "I have been legally appointed, I am senator - the rest is just paperwork." And on the day the appointment was made, I recall Burris saying something to the effect of "I have made it to the Senate!" Shouldn't the "elevation" to that position more appropriately be recognized as an outlet for his constituents (ie, the residents of Illinois), rather than as a personal achievement?!? He insists the corruption charges are unrelated to his being appointed, and is fighting to be installed instead of letting the legal process resolve things. To the claim that "Illinois needs it's representation" - fine, install an "interim" senator until a permanent one is appointed by a taint-free governor or voted in by a special election. Clinging to the appointment has only stained Burris further, and his refusal to consider the wishes of his constituents as well as his future colleagues proves that he is not the kind of representative I would want in Washington.
  
  Even president-elect Obama (a fellow black politician) is calling for Burris to decline the appointment - so the argument of letting it happen for the sake of keeping an African American democrat in the position should hold no weight.



• Reading - in my down-time I am getting a little better about turning the TV off (finally!) and trying to plow through some books. I guess I'll write a separate entry on this. Recently finished "Wicked," now (re-)reading the original "Wizard of Oz" to see what was based on the original work....



• In early December had a job interview for what would have been an ideal position for July 2009, and a 1 in 3 chance of getting it. Was told we'd find out within the week. After nearly 3 ADDITIONAL weeks of untoward suspense, finally learned that the position went to a different candidate. Have another interview at the end of January, and in the meantime will keep searching - but in the meantime this uncertainty and state of limbo is driving me (and the wife!) NUTS!



• Just to throw another wrench in the gears, my car decided to stop working during the holidays. Thankfully it was after the family meet-up, so no big plans had to be canceled - but it's always a pain in the ass. It is going on 12 years old, and hasn't given me too many problems overall, but I hate dealing with the service department. After hours on hold with roadside assistance and several more hours waiting on help to arrive when it wouldn't start (and a jump didn't help), the mechanics were set to abandon me because they couldn't tow my car down the parking ramp. I insisted on pushing the car to where they COULD tow it, which was much easier than they anticipated. Once at the dealer it turned out just to need spark plugs, but they tried to soak me for thousands of $$ saying the engine needs to be rebuilt, etc. And once the car was back with me it was sputtering and nearly stalling out - not something it had done before it died. Thankfully that improved over the weekend, and for now I can avoid a repeat trip to the service department demanding that they check their work.



• Poor customer service - Dec 2008 was a bad month for it. Dealing with a new health insurance company, and calling in to complain about a product - these things are needlessly frustrating. Here's my 1/2 cent on one item: Rain-x windshield wipes - don't bother with them. Still waiting on a refund. My wife wrote about it here. Apparently owned by Shell, which I will now be boycotting out of spite.



• Opinion polls and article comments - Watching the news on Jan 1st, saw them flash up between segments, "Have you already broken your New Year's resolutions? Text "yes" or "no" to ...." WTF?!? Not only was it less than 12 hours into the new year, but please, please, PLEASE tell me how / why that is "news"?! It is getting nauseating how all these "news" sources are reaching out to Joe Six-pack for input. Have you ever read the string of comments on a recent on-line news item? It quickly degenerates into name-calling and comments on spelling - not exactly an intellectual discussion. Even CNN (which I have stopped watching after the election), with Larry King and other "respectable" news anchors and commentators turning to blogs for comments from the peanut gallery - it makes me want to tune out completely. Professional commentators and analysts have earned the right (theoretically) for their opinions to be part of the "news" - for anything else I can surf the net or listen to a designated call-in show.
  

Ok - that's enough for now. This was much longer than intended. But maybe I'll stop flogging some of these topics (even if just in my head). Now off to hit the gym, to vent my frustrations in a healthier way. Happy New Year!! Good luck with any resolutions you've made.

music as art

Here is a great image (click on it to get a bigger version) - sort of a puzzle relating to the music industry. First saw this in 2006, just getting around to posting it now. Unfortunately, par for the course....






Don't scroll down yet - how many bands can you identify?

No cheating!

Ok, below is a list of what I got initially (with almost no help):

the scorpions, dinosaur jr., crannberries, the beach boys, prince, the police, iron maiden, men at work, pink, korn, deep purple, hole, radiohead, alice in chains, the eagles, nine inch nails, rolling stones, 50 cent, the gorillaz, the pixies, U2, cake, queen, whitesnake, white zombie, phish, blondie, the cars, garbage, red hot chili peppers, blind melon, ratt, B-52s, eminem, green day, smashing pumpkins, pet shop boys, matchbox 20, led zeppelin, guns & roses


after looking at a list of answers, i *should* have also found (band names i recognize):

lemonheads, sex pistols (hehe), BeeGees, seal, madonna (w child, painting), crowded house, white stripes, black crowes, wings, ... maybe a few more. not too bad. many i could have guessed but did know the band names (black flag? yellowman?).

Here is a version of the answers - don't know how complete it is, and I'm not gonna bother counting if "74 bands" are listed. But I think it is a pretty cool image / puzzle. Hope you like it too!

Misadventures in Traveling

It almost wasn't going to happen anyway - so maybe I should still be optimistic.

The plan:
Join my wife in Switzerland this weekend, to finally meet the extended family.

The hitch:
I didn't get this month's rotation assigned until the last day of July, so I was unable to pre-arrange for vacation time to fly out overseas.

The miracles:
All the pieces came together at work, and I got my vacation approved for Thursday thru Wednesday. Unfortunately, the deal included starting my vacation while still finishing off my post-call shift (Thursday AM), but if it enabled the timing to work out... it would be worth having only a 6-day vacation with a zombied-out half-day (instead of the usual 7 days). And then not only did I find flights on the days and times I needed, I managed to secure a return-trip on the same flight my wife would be taking back to the States. And the icing on the cake, the price for my late-booked round-trip wasn't anywhere near outrageous.

The procrastination:
So I know I'm heading out to catch a plane on Thursday after being on-call, but by the time I headed in to work on Wednesday I had still not started packing. Par for the course for me. But not too atrocious - my flight out was scheduled to go at 7:30pm, so I *should* have had plenty of time to pack.

The beginning:
Actually started off ok. My night on call was not hellish, and while I did not get much more than 10 minute intervals of sleep, I did manage some shut-eye and felt functional. I was super-efficient at work during the morning, and actually got out of there around 9:30am. Plenty of time to pack, clean house, shower, poop, etc. I was somehow even efficient in packing and straightening up - got more done today than in the whole month my wife was gone.

The wrinkles:
As I am finishing the last little tidbits of packing and cleaning, I notice the sky getting dark outside. Just as I am considering heading out to walk to the "El" station, the heavens open up and Chicago gets a monsoon drenching. Wrinkle #1 - how do I get myself to O'Hare without drenching myself and my luggage? Ok, grab umbrella and walk to the El anyway. Wrinkle #2 - will I have to ditch my umbrella at the airport? Don't think they'll let me carry this spear on the plane. I guess not a big deal - I just never thought of them as "disposable." Wrinkle #3 - I wait a little while for the downpour to slow up, which it does, but now I am cutting into my safety margin for check-in, etc. Wrinkle #4 - what's that "tap, tap, tap" I hear before I head out the door? Oh, yeah - the west-facing window leak that never got fixed. I'm about to leave the apartment for a week, and I'll have a damp dishtowel on the windowsill in hopes of containing the flood and preventing damage to my floor and belongings. Screw it, I don't wanna be late(r).

More wrinkles:
Can't find my CTA pass. No worries, I'll buy a new one. Train pulling away as I start heading up the stairs. No worries, they come pretty frequently, right? Right? Shit ... does the Blue Line come by this station at this time of day, or do I need to take the Pink and transfer? The next train that came was a pink ... but some passengers on my side of the platform did stay behind, so I gambled and won that toss (broke my losing streak there - for a second). Train getting more and more full. I move in a seat and end up with my legs folded on top of my suitcase, with a leg protruding in the space for the seat next to me. "Sorry, no, I cannot move my leg" (as I point to the suitcase). He nods his head like he understands and then proceeds to continue slamming the oversized box on his lap into my right leg. Fun. And then all of a sudden I realize we've been at one of the stations quite a while. "We are experiencing weather-related delays because of the ... weather." The woman over the loudspeaker sounded quite nervous, and despite making the announcement every 5 minutes or so during our 45-minute hiatus, she still never managed to say it quite smoothly.

The train ride was made a touch brighter by the deaf woman that took the seat next to me when box-boy finally left. We had a nice little 'talk' about the weather and our respective trips, with her writing on yellow post-its and my typing back on my cell phone (since she seemed to have trouble reading my writing on her pad).

The catastrophe:
You guessed it - that nasty weather that slowed down our magnificent mass-transit system also caused diversion of many planes headed in to Chicago - such as the plane that would have then been loaded up with me and a bunch of strangers. Instead of noting this, however, the screens indicate that departure will be 1 hour later than expected. At first I breathe a sigh of relief - I'm still somewhat early, but this delay will let me get through security and get settled at the gate without rushing. Or so I thought.

The vein-popping:
Waiting in the queue at the ticketing counter, with about 8 or so other parties there, I start to hear murmurings about "canceled." The guy in front of me and the guy behind me in line appear to know each other, and talk quite extensively, loudly, closely - and with not such pleasant breath - right over my head. I step out of their way and effectively end up cutting in front of the guy, but do so after leaving room for him to advance, and slowly taking his spot when he stays behind to yap. More and more people show up - some filing in behind at the queue, most just milling about on the side of the only apparently-staffed ticket counter. Of course, no staff seem to be around, but this is where a few of the customers were set up when I had gotten into line. Then the most soft-spoken man EVER starts to announce things about the flight, "...working on it ... have patience" - but nothing coherent to me. Like he was just adding to previous details, but not reiterating anything for the rapidly-growing crowd. People start milling about more aggressively, stalking the counter. People rush up onto the scene thinking they are late and missing the flight, having no respect for the queue and effectively mobbing the ticket counters. The gentleman comes back and announces that yes, the flight is canceled - and the chances of arranging alternate flights into Switzerland are increasingly slim, because apparently today was not the first day of canceled flights in, and many other alternates were also canceled today because of the weather. He indicates that the airline will do their best to get people on equivalent flights, some maybe that night but most tomorrow (hopefully!). And then suddenly there are 6 ticket agents - dealing with whomever is in front of their counter. Slowly.

An hour later (no joke) it seems that no one has moved away. More people crowding in, more people between me and these public servants that have no idea how close i feel to snapping.

Finally I get ahold of the customer service number (not posted anywhere, not on my ticket) - but nope, that's actually a phone sex ad. Replace the 1-800 with 1-877 and I DO finally get customer service, and the woman talks around a resolution to my problem three times before i realize she's saying that I'm booked on the equivalent flight tomorrow. Relieved, I step back from the counter and decide to treat myself to some McD's - since it is now after 8pm and I never did have a meal yet today. The joint in the international terminal is of course packed, and - you guessed it - I get in the line that is lapped twice on both sides before I work my way to the register.

But tomorrow is a new day - we'll see how many ways I can screw up trying to leave the country.

:-)

Clouds of procrastination

i'm trying desperately to get some "real" work done ... not going well. not aided by my sweetie overseas, who sends me a link to her blog that i'm compelled to mimic here. bad, bad gf! not aided by a crash of this PC in the middle of my first attempt. grrr.

"word cloud" from contents of this blog:



pretty minimal stuff if words that are only used once are so big! (apparently the size of the word relates to is frequency of appearance in the blog). i guess i like "least" "hospital" "parking."

"yeah."