Holy Crap...

Every year I complain to S.A. that drivers turn into friggin' MORONS as soon as it snows. After seeing this, I think I may just stay indoors until spring.

Jeeezus.....

Sometimes it's like I work in a alternate universe. I almost wish I was a cartoonist, because I'm pretty sure my office would make a good comic.

I just walked up to the front desk to tell the receptionist something. I witnessed a number of things that seemed a little out of the ordinary.

• The receptionist (Hereafter referred to as "1".) was standing in front of the bathroom door, holding it shut, so as to make it difficult for her (and my) boss to get out.
• My admin person (Hereafter referred to as "2".)was standing next to her giving her instructions about how to effectively grasp the doorknob.
• 1 noted "It stinks! Who farted???" 2 replied "Must be Gib!" (Gib is the owner, Dr. M. Neither of them would call him Gib to his face if their lives depended on it. Evidently they get more familiar when they see his taillight leving the parking lot.) Both of them proceeded to literally roll on the floor laughing.
• 1 jumped up and grabbed a matchbook, ostensibly to relieve the odor she'd complained about. 2 informed her that she's allergic to sulphur and would be in dire straits if a math was lit anywhere near her. I've never heard of anyone being allergic to sulphur. I am, however, smart enough to keep my mouth shut.

Side Note: 2 is also, by her estimation, allergic to all plants but, strangely enough, no animals, subject to debilitating headaches and backaches, and was, at an earlier point in her life, a member of the U.S. Army Special Forces specializing in Covert Ops. Very covert, obviously, because I don't recall there being many female Special Forces in the 80's. In fact, according to the Army, women are still prohibited from being in Special Forces. All that said, I have no doubt that 2 honestly believes she was in Special Ops. 2 is a very good admin person. She is, however, nutty as a fruitcake.

• 1 proceeded to light a match, cackling maniacally.
• 2 started running in circles in the lobby, hacking and coughing like a tubercular chain-smoker in a burning house.
• 2 ran down the hall to her office as 1 sat in her chair, screaming with laughter.

At this point I left to come back to my office. I really wish this kind of scene was a little more uncommon around here.

Laterz

Bits & Pieces

The world's cutest child is sick again. He sees Dr. M this morning at 9:30. I'll keep everyone posted.

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It turns out that I'm very fond of Chile Picante Corn Nuts. I realize no-one cares, but I just felt like sharing.

I'm back

So, two weeks later I checked back in...

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When I picked Sam up from daycare yesterday, one of the gals there told me that they couldn't stop laughing at his all day. She wondered if I could explain a rather peculiar behavior that he had been exhibiting.

It seems that every time one of the kids at day care began to cry, Sam would scoot over to them and yell in their face. He smiled the whole time, so he didn't seem to be upset, but he was very consistent about it.

Misc. Baby: "WAAAAAHHHHH!!!!"

Sam: "AAAHHHHHH!!!!!"

I was quick to blame S.A. who loves to play "the Yelling Game" with him. She defends herself by saying that Grandma (My mom, who was a preschool consultant and speech therapist for years.) says that you're supposed to repeat what babies say back to them, so when Sam vocalizes loudly, she just responds in kind.

Still the mental picture is just great.

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Last night, as she was feeding Sam, S.A. looked at Sam's hair and asked me "What was that haircut called that all the actors had in the 90's? You know the one George Clooney had that was short with a straight-line around the forehead? The Nero?"

"The Caesar, dear. Wrong emperor..."

Maybe y'all don't find it nearly as funny as I did, but I love the idea of the hairdresser who fiddled while Rome burned.

Life with Lloyd

When I came in to work this morning, my admin person pointed out to me that we seem to have a new pet. Evidently she spent 20 minutes this morning talking to a new friend who, judging from the pile of paper shreds and peanuts sheds found there, lives behind one of my bookshelves. For no apparent reason, we've taken to calling him(her?it?) Lloyd.
When word got out to the rest of my office (All women, in case you wondered.) they immediately started calling for blood. Luckily, I was able to find a site that sells live-traps for mice. Dot's already ordered 2 of them, and she's started putting pieces of oatmeal cookie back by his nest, which he seems to be eating very quickly, so he's ready to hop into the trap when it gets here.
Now we're discussing whether we should get an office pet. I'm voting for a rat.
This may be the most encouraging sign about my workplace I've had in a very long time.

Instructions

SA and I cleaned out and organized our filing cabinet yesterday. She has to help me with this stuff because, given my druthers, I keep EVERYTHING. Among all the flotsam and jetsam, we found a number of product manuals, just in case you can't remember how to use something you've owned for 5 years. Being as I was kind of looking over her shoulder, I had a difficult time figuring out what some of the manuals were actually for, and why I had kept them. Chief among those questions was, apparently, an instruction manual for a can-opener.

Though it turned out that I had misread the cover, all I could think was, "Good grief. Even I must think I'm an idiot."

Oh! My Bleeding Heart...

Well. It's Office Christmas Party Season. Well, maybe it WAS Christmas Party Season. I know we're done with ours, thank God...

SA's party was last weekend. She works for a non-profit, so their Christmas party consists of a potluck supper at one of the employees houses. She gets a small gift/bonus every year - a gift certificate to use at any of a few local shops.

Saturday was my Christmas Party. I work for a decent-sized, very much for-profit business with a number of different small companies in 3 different town making up the whole that is our corporation. Our Christmas Party was Black-Tie-Optional. (Talk about misnomers... It's optional as long as you don't mind looking like a degenerate who has no idea of how to dress in polite company. My wife might disagree with me, but I counted three guys who weren't in at least a jacket and tie.) Anyway, as you'd guess, it was held at a major local country club and featured 3 different dinner selections, party favors that cost more than SA's bonus for each attendee, an open bar (Again, thank God.), a live band, and a concert from a local choral group. To top it off, we all received our Christmas bonuses. I receive a moderately small bonus, because I haven't' been with the company for very long. I found out that some administrators get many times what I got. My bonus was still TEN TIMES what SA got.

And amid all this ridiculously overblown merriment, complete with a multitude of melodramatic speeches about corporate synergy and how we are all one big family, all I could think was, How many poor f-ing families could we have subsidized Christmas for if we'd opted to have a f-ing pot luck????

Sometimes I HATE corporate America.

The reason I won't be reading ANYTHING by MIchael Chrichton anymore...

Hey Gang. Sorry it's been so long. I've been, well.... I dunno. I've been busy, but not really any more so than normal. I guess I'm just a generally shitty blogger. I'll try to do better.

Anyway, I've got my undies in a bunch this morning, so I figured it was probably time to vent.

I love to read. As a general rule, I'll read just about anything, but my favorite genres tend to be fantasy/science fiction and suspense. Therefore, I've read just about everything that Michael Chrichton has written. Yes, I realize it's just pulp and that he's not a great writer, but his plot-lines are generally interesting and that pretty much all I ask.

No more.

It turns out that he's a right-wing wack-job. This, in itself, is not reason enough for me to stop reading his books. I have, after all, been to MANY Ted Nugent concerts. (I still have nightmares about cardboard cutouts of Janet Reno...) However, it also turns out that Chrichton's a totally socially-maladjusted, vindictive asshole. (Thank You to Think Progress for tipping me off to this.)

Chrichton is a vocal critic of Global Warming. (Maybe that's a bad way to phrase that. I mean, anybody with half a clue is a critic of Global warming. What? We should support it? What i mean to say is that Chrichton is the kind of scientific oblivious moron who doesn't think it exists. I say this as I look out my window on December 15th at green grass in Northern Michigan. ) In 2004, he release the novel State of Fear, wherein he depicts global warming as a a hoax concocted by environmentalists to raise money. He has since met with our Moron-In-Chief to discuss this and the two of them are in near-total agreement.

As a response to Chrichton's public stance on this subject, last March, New Republic senior editor Michael Crowley wrote a cover story called “Jurassic President: Michael Crichton’s Scariest Creation.” It talked about how dangerous this stance was, especially when it's held by the f-ing President.

From Think Progress-


Crichton’s response was to smear Crowley in his latest novel, Next, by writing in a character named “Mick Crowley” who rapes a two-year-old boy. The following is a graphic excerpt from Crichton’s novel (reader beware):

Alex Burnet was in the middle of the most difficult trial of her career, a rape case involving the sexual assault of a two-year-old boy in Malibu. The defendant, thirty-year-old Mick Crowley, was a Washington-based political columnist who was visiting his sister-in-law when he experienced an overwhelming urge to have anal sex with her young son, still in diapers. Crowley was a wealthy, spoiled Yale graduate and heir to a pharmaceutical fortune. …

It turned out Crowley’s taste in love objects was well known in Washington, but [his lawyer]–as was his custom–tried the case vigorously in the press months before the trial, repeatedly characterizing Alex and the child’s mother as “fantasizing feminist fundamentalists” who had made up the whole thing from “their sick, twisted imaginations.” This, despite a well-documented hospital examination of the child. (Crowley’s penis was small, but he had still caused significant tears to the toddler’s rectum.)

The real-life Michael Crowley is also a Washington journalist and also graduated from Yale.

Well, that's it for me. I absolutely HATE IT when people can't come up with a reasonable argument so they resort to name calling. And truly, I can't honestly think of anything worse to call someone than "child-rapist".

Even for all you right-wingers out there, (And again, what are you doing reading MY blog?) I can't imagine being willing to support anyone who behaves that way, regardless of his political views.

Good grief...

Congrats to me!

Thanks to everybody who's tuned in this month to the blog. I've officially had my most hits ever this month.

Sorry...

Hey gang. Sorry about the week with no entries. Life's busy and the blog just kind of faded into the background.

Life has mainly been focused on surviving Thanksgiving. We went down to Sam's Aunt Rachel and Uncle Jeff's house for dinner in G.R. on Thursday. Then we attended S.A.'s cousin Amy's wedding on Friday in Port Huron. Then SA and I went shopping in Detroit and Birch Run on Saturday.

Sam and I just vegged on Sunday.


Dinner was, as always, enjoyable. Jeff got a new Wii as an early Christmas present and we spent a good amount of time trying out all the different games on Thursday evening.

The wedding was nice. (Also, SHORT - which definitely lends itself to a good wedding ceremony, as far as I'm concerned.) A half-dozen of us sat in a corner chatting (and imbibing copious quantities of beer) for most of the evening before Jeff (H.), Jeff (or Joe, if you prefer), Dave, Holly, Amy's friend Amanda, and I went to the hotel bar to watch a one-man-80's-band perform (HORRIBLE). Then Amanda, the Jeff's, and I took off to Jack's Tavern until closing time, playing table-top shuffleboard and the like. I can't remember the last time I closed down a bar. Probably college. Anyway, good times.

Sam's ear infection is much better, but his first 2 teeth are coming in, so he's a bit pissy right now.

And I think that's about it. Thank God. I can't imagine anybody really cares about any of this, but I figured I'd better write something or I'd lose my loyal readership. :)

I promise next entry will be more interesting. Probably.

Laterz

Life is Good

I can think of nothing nicer than rocking my 7-month-old son (who's recovering from yet another ear infection) to sleep.

Those of you who don't have children, you cannot even fathom what you're missing.

God, I'm lucky to be home to do this stuff. Sunday rocks.

Satisfying Lunch Breaks...

Every day, I try to leave my office for the better part of an hour in order to regain a small piece of my sanity. Today, I met SA and Sam at the pediatrician's office (he has ANOTHER ear infection) so I could take Sam back to daycare while SA went to her Dr's appointment across town.
When we got to daycare, the ladies were just starting to feed all Sam's pals so it was a little bit lively in there and many very short people were vying for whatever attention they could get. I stayed for 20 minutes or so to help out. Okay, who am I kidding? I stayed because playing with babies (Mine, yours, anybody's...) makes me happy.
So Thank You to Ms. Cortney, Ms. Sherrie, and Ms. Jan for letting me stick around. I definitely felt much better when I left than I did when I got there.
Also, when I got back to my office, the receptionist has somehow acquired real, honest-to-God, 4-inch-high-bang-creation mall hair. It was great. I asked her if she'd like me to run out for scrunchies or jelly shoes to complete her ensemble.
I figure I don't need to regain sanity anymore because my co-workers are obviously joining me in my insanity.

LIfe notes

My son (the Little Red Crustacean, if you read S.A's blog,) is a very unique little guy. Even though WebMD says it's highly unlikely, he has managed to contract strep throat. Since you're not suppose to get Strep until you're at least 3, I'm choosing to take this as further evidence that he's very advanced, rather than yet another indication that he's awfully sickness-prone.

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Sometimes I HATE my job. I just spent 15 minutes figuring out, via the phone, that one of my co-workers printer wouldn't work because it wasn't plugged in correctly. Even though we theoretically checked it 3 times. How do these people remember to breathe.

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Though most of us are not financial geniuses, if someone were to mention a "credit-debit" to you, would you not think they were a moron? Or at least have no f-ing clue what they were talking about? What about a "Britannical Garden"? I assume that must be where they grow the encyclopedia...

BitTorrent

I love BitTorrent. I just thought I should mention that. I'm going to assume that, if you're reading my blog, you're already familiar with BitTorrent. For anybody who doesn't already know, it's a peer-to-peer file sharing program that allows you to download stuff from many different people at once. It basically makes sharing huge files much more feasible than it would otherwise be. For instance, you can download pretty much any episode of your favorite TV show if you missed it last week. (I know this because I had to download Studio 60 a few weeks ago. Slick.)

I know that many of you techies out there are yelling "It promotes Piracy!" and you're right, however, sometimes it's the only way to accomplish a goal.

Case-in-point- I had a client contact me asking if my company could teach her to use Adobe PageMaker 7.0. I have an instructor who's fluent in PageMaker, so he'd be able to teach her. The problem is that we don't have PageMaker in my classroom anymore and you can't buy it anymore, because Adobe quit producing it a couple years ago. Which is where BitTorrent comes in.

Using Azureus, (my BitTorrent client of choice) I was able to download someone else copy of PageMaker in a little less than an hour and use it to teach this person how to use it. And then I can throw it out we're done, because I don't need a copy of PageMaker.

Also, when it asked me to register the program when I installed it, I put in all my boss's contact information, so if Adobe wants to sue somebody for pirating their program, they'll know who to look at.

Affirmative action

A little fair warning- This post is just off the top of my head. Some details contained in it may well change in the furute as new information presents itself to me. Just so you know...

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Well, SA blogged about Proposition 2 today and, as is invariably the case, somebody felt it necessary to cry out in the comments section that all the poor, beleaguered white men want is a fair shake, doggone it. Okay, I guess I'm paraphrasing a little. His (I'm assuming it's a him.) actual words were, “Every opponent that has spoken out about this proposal has failed to answer one simple question. Can you answer it? What is wrong with equal protection under the law?"

I don't feel as strongly as SA does about the necessity of affirmative action in employment. That's not to say I don't feel it's necessary, it's just saying that I won't be burning my bra about it any time soon. My feelings about affirmative action are much stronger in relation to higher education.

I grew up in a very small town in Northern Michigan. I graduated from high school with 54 students, all of them white. However, (even though my high school guidance counselor told me I was insane) I went to college in Miami, Fl. The biggest reason I left home was because I knew it was important for me to see something different. My parents instilled this in me from a very early age. Unfortunately, most people in the world are afraid of anything different.

I explain all this for a reason. The best part, I repeat- THE BEST PART of my college education is that I went to a school with a tremendously diverse population. I learned a HUGE amount about the rest of world and the way people experience it because I went to school with a whole ton of people who were VERY different from me. Had I gone to a small school in Michigan - Northern Michigan University is almost exactly the same size - I would not have had that experience, because, like most public universities in Michigan, Northern's student population is almost exclusively white.

One exception to the lily-white rule in Michigan is the University of Michigan. Michigan has admitted that they do weigh race into their admissions decision-making because they feel that diversity is an important part of a positive college experience. I'm sure that they'd rather not have to look at race but the problem is that, in the United States, minorities tend to be concentrated in urban areas and, unfortunately, inner-city schools tend to be inferior to their suburban and even rural counterparts. Because minority students often get an inferior high school education, to weigh their desirability compared to white students solely on their grades and test scores would not result in nearly as many minority students attending Michigan as the school wants. So they factor race into the equation.

Anti-affirmative action advocates often state that this is unfair to white students. They're wrong. By having a more diverse population, colleges provide a more positive experience for ALL their students. Also, for all the folks who say, "Now you have students in school who shouldn't be there because they didn't get a good enough education to be successful at a school like Michigan!" check the graduation rates.

Michigan, the lightning-rod for all the affirmative action controversy, has the highest graduation rate of any public university in the state. Not bad for a school that keeps letting all those "unqualified" students in. My guess (based on my personal experience) is that if you were to look at only the students who were specifically admitted to U of M based on affirmative action guidelines, you'd find that their grades and graduation rates were even better than the student body at large. Those folk tend to be the people who really want to be in college. They recognize the opportunity they've been presented with and don't want to waste it.

I guess my point is this, the day that everybody actually has an even playing field- when every student has access to the same quality of education - when Michigan voters decide that it might actually be important to give enough money to education to FIX it!!!- then affirmative action in college admissions won't be necessary. But until then, it's necessary. Period.

Holy Crap...

We won.

And by "we", I mean rational, conscientious Americans as a whole. The American people have spoken and they say, (to quote Lou Dobbs - and I can guarantee this is definitely the first time we've quoted Lou Dobbs on my blog...) "[Washington,] Shut up and Listen!"

Democrats now have control of the House. They have control of the Senate. And Rumsfeld is FINALLY gone.

It's about damn time!

They FINALLY have the right people in enough positions of power that they can offset some of the moronic policies put in place by President Can't-tell-my-ass-from-a-hole-in-the-ground.

Now we pray that they don't screw it up.

Good grief...

Well, it's not as bad as the last election...

American voters turn out in pretty good numbers (for a non-presidential-election year) to turn control of the House of Representatives over to the Democrats. As I type this, there are still 2 elections that are undecided, with Senate races in Virginia and Montana (Montana??? Seriously? The political fate of the country hinges on Montana?) being too close to call. At this point, though, it looks look for the Democrats in both of those races. If they do, in fact, win both races, they'll have control of BOTH houses and effectively block any other hair-brained schemes our Moron-in-Chief comes up with for the next 2 years.

Everybody cross your fingers.

On a more local note, Michigan voters somehow managed to elect the right candidate for most of the important positions, at least least those that directly effect Northern Michigan. Governor Granholm was re-elected. (Thank God...) Stabenow and Levin were re-elected to the Senate. Bart Stupak was re-elected to the State Senate. And Gary McDowell was re-elected to the state house by a landslide. Evidently most folks agreed with my "Jay Duggan is an ass" stance.

However, even though we elected most of the right people, we COMPLETELY screwed the pooch when it came to the various ballot proposals. In a state with a Democratic Governor and 2 Democratic Senators, we managed to effectively eliminate affirmative action and to declare that education is important to Michiganders, but not THAT important. So on a National scale, I'm pretty pleased this morning. On a local scale... Not so much.


Anyway, I'm sure I'll be checking back in throughout the day as new stuff happens. Good work people. At least the who friggin' country won't be controlled by right-wing-wackos now. Maybe we can start bringing some of our soldiers home now, before they get killed for no damn reason...

Everbody cross your fingers..

Well, polling places have just closed in the east (including most of Michigan) so we just have to hope, now. To paraphrase my buddy Adam, in a few hours I'll know if I should put everything I have into leaving the country.

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On an unrelated note, remember, when next you look at your wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend/significant other, tell 'em how much you love 'em. We all need to hear it from time to time.

I love you, S.A.

Reasons why Jay Duggan is an ass.

We have a local election coming up. Among the races to be decided is the race for the 107th District of the Michigan State House of Representatives. The incumbent, Gary McDowell is a Democrat who ran last election on a pro- gun rights platform (obviously among many other things). This sticks out for me as I'm not a big fan of the pro-gun lobby. His opponent is Jay Duggan, a local Petoskey businessman.
There was never a chance that I was going to vote for Mr. Duggan, but I thought I read the absolute perfect reason to vote against him recently. My Duggan stated in a number of ads that he was endorsed by a national right-to-life organization. Obviously this classifies him as someone for whom I would not vote. But then it a tremendously humorous twist, the organization commanded him to stop saying he was endorsed by them, because they didn't want him either.
So he's pro-life (strike 1) but evidently so undesirable that even right-to-life groups don't want to claim him (strike 2) and on top of everything else he's a liar (strike 3 - shouldn't he be out by now? Maybe it's a foul ball. I guess being a liar may be a pre-req to being a politician.) and, since he put his lies out in the media where it was going to be EASY to get caught, he's obviously stupid. (That's it. You're outta here!)

Even you Republicans shouldn't be voting for this guy.

Sheesh...

Arguing with "The Voice of Reason"

This afternoon's entry's title refers not to the fact that SA would tell me I've been doing just that ever since we got married, but instead, to the fact that yesterday's "Chickens*** Commenter" has decided it's time to lose to derogatory title. So he/she checked back in with more abortion-centered argument.

I'm not gonna go into detail rebutting him/her again, because, in all honesty, I really don't want my blog to turn into Spike's Online Crossfire.

Also, I can't figure if "Voice" is from Holland, MI, (which would explain A LOT. Holland is the Dutch Reformed Church capital of the US. When my dad (an Earth Science major) worked at a grocery store in Holland in the Early 70's, the butcher spent a great deal of time telling him that evolution was a bunch of bull. When my dad calmly asked him how he explained the preponderance of dinosaur bones found in the earth, the butcher exclaimed "God made the earth with big bones in it!" Logic like this can make it very difficult to argue with creationists. It also makes you wonder who let them all out of the loony bin.) or else from Cincinnati, OH. Truly, I don't really know a ton about Cincinnati, other than there must be something in their water supply, because their football players get arrested at a REALLY rapid rate.

Anyway, I'll give a little bit of credit to "Voice", if only for checking back in. Also, sir/ma'am, there's not too much danger of offending me by disagreeing with me about abortion. It's an issue that I wrestled with for a long time, so I can understand why some folks (my folks included, when last I checked, though it seemed like my mom might be wobbling a little) disagree with me. As long as y'all don't tell me what I should think, I'll mostly leave you alone.

And on that note- I declare a truce. At least until the next time the Conservative Christian right-wing wackos try to pass yet another law that's WAYYYYY to wide-ranging about abortion. (Yeah... I know. I couldn't let this post end without at least one more dig at the right-wingers. I'm a shitty person. Deal with it.)

p.s. Evidently some of my other readers weren't so easy-going about Voice's stance. I really appreciate the cardboard tube metaphor. I also love that they made the phrase "Food for thought," mean "Stop talking, you bloviating moron."