I got my notification today from the City, and the nice lady who's officially a neutral examiner has upheld my citation.
Et tu, Bruté?
That means the City keeps my $55, and I can fight it in court if I so choose.
The only reason I can think of (well, two reasons) is that the examiner thinks I failed to present a "preponderance of evidence" in support of my position. The other possibility is that the City's official records have been tampered with (or filed falsely from the start) to show an installation date for the sign that pre-dated my parking ticket.
If I go to court, it's a $25 filing fee, and I have no idea how it all works and whether I'll need an attorney and all the rest. I haven't exactly been living my life in and out of court.
But I did stop at the neighbors' house on the corner where the sign is. They speak Spanish, but we managed to communicate well enough for them to tell me that they went on vacation in January. When they left, there was no sign. When they got back, the sign was there. Enero. No doubt about it.
Next, I'll try to find out what the City has on record as their sign-installation date, and then I'll go from there.
Crap!
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Random Act of Kindness
Tonight I went to Target to find some Triscuits. I had tried at Wal-Mart, but they only had the little bitty boxes for too much money, and I was hoping for a big box of flavored Triscuits for cheaper than the grocery store.
I got a shopping cart and headed for Target's food section, and on the way there, a woman was approaching me, her arms loaded down with about a dozen items. So I asked her if she needed a cart. She looked at me as though she wasn't quite sure what I was asking.
"I'm just here for Triscuits. You look like you could use a cart more than I can."
She hesitated, and then she started putting her stuff in the cart and thanked me, and I kept on going toward the food. Smiling. Because it felt good.
The Triscuits were regular flavor, but they had the big box for the little box price, so I grabbed one and went to the checkout, where the lady with my cart was. I got in line behind her and put my one box on the belt.
"Looks like you really did need that cart more than I did," I said.
She thanked me some more. And then she grabbed my box of Triscuits and put it with her items and said, "I'm buying this because you were so nice."
"You don't have to do that," I told her, and she said she wanted to.
I thanked her while the cashier scanned the box and put it in a separate bag and handed it to the lady, who gave it to me.
"Oh, wow!" I said.
And there was nothing left to do but leave the store. Smiling. Because it felt good.
I got a shopping cart and headed for Target's food section, and on the way there, a woman was approaching me, her arms loaded down with about a dozen items. So I asked her if she needed a cart. She looked at me as though she wasn't quite sure what I was asking.
"I'm just here for Triscuits. You look like you could use a cart more than I can."
She hesitated, and then she started putting her stuff in the cart and thanked me, and I kept on going toward the food. Smiling. Because it felt good.
The Triscuits were regular flavor, but they had the big box for the little box price, so I grabbed one and went to the checkout, where the lady with my cart was. I got in line behind her and put my one box on the belt.
"Looks like you really did need that cart more than I did," I said.
She thanked me some more. And then she grabbed my box of Triscuits and put it with her items and said, "I'm buying this because you were so nice."
"You don't have to do that," I told her, and she said she wanted to.
I thanked her while the cashier scanned the box and put it in a separate bag and handed it to the lady, who gave it to me.
"Oh, wow!" I said.
And there was nothing left to do but leave the store. Smiling. Because it felt good.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Health Care Timetable
The Health Care Monstrosity has passed, and President Obama is expected to sign it Tuesday. Even this survey reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, showing that a third to half of all physicians will leave the medical profession if health care "reform" passed, wasn't enough to prevent passage.
The Wall Street Journal has a list today of when the main parts of the bill take effect. Here are the first few years:
2010
Coverage
■Subsidies begin for small businesses to provide coverage to employees.
■Insurance companies barred from denying coverage to children with pre-existing illness.
■Children permitted to stay on their parents' insurance policies until their 26th birthday.
2011
Coverage
■Set up long-term care program under which people pay premiums into system for at least five years and become eligible for support payments if they need assistance in daily living.
Taxes and fees
■Drug makers face annual fee of $2.5 billion (rises in subsequent years).
2013
Taxes and fees
■New Medicare taxes on individuals earning more than $200,000 a year and couples filing jointly earning more than $250,000 a year.
■Tax on wages rises to 2.35% from 1.45%.
■New 3.8% tax on unearned income such as dividends and interest.
■Excise tax of 2.3% imposed on sale of medical devices.
Cost control
■Medicare pilot program begins to test bundled payments for care, in a bid to pay for quality rather than quantity of services.
There's more that follows. It is not a pretty picture. Hold onto your wallets, especially next year, and buy the drugs you'll need NOW, before that $2.5 billion fee on the drug makers kicks in. You know who's going to end up paying it, don't you? The customer will, and that would be you.
In response to the passage of this abomination, it's time to start working for a repeal. There's no way around it but to hand control of at least the House back to the GOP, as distasteful as that may be to some of us. But party matters, as evidenced by the way the Republicans--yes, even the hard-core lefty RINOs--hung together to try to stop this bill. At the very least, a Republican-controlled House can starve this thing of funding and prevent it from taking effect.
Hugh Hewitt has a list of questions for those of you with incumbent Democrats running for re-election:
1. Did the incumbent vote for Nancy Pelosi for House speaker?
2. Did the incumbent vote for the "stimulus" package?
3. Did the incumbent vote for "cap-and-tax"?
4. Did the incumbent vote for Obamacare?
5. Did the incumbent vote to protect the assault on the Constitution known as the "deem scheme" or "Slaughter Solution" when it was first challenged March 18 by Rep. Parker Griffith?
Let these questions help you decide if your incumbent is worth returning to office.
And Hugh's producer Duane Patterson has this three-year pledge that you might want to consider, if you're incensed about the jam-down of health care reform.
Meanwhile, the Democrat-controlled Congress isn't stopping for a minute to bask in the glory of their legislative victory. The Los Angeles Times reported today that the Senate has moved on to a major overhaul of America's banking system. The "fun" never ends...
Fighting City Hall
While the rest of the country was watching such inconsequential things as health care reform, I was preparing for my Major Legal Battle, which occurred this morning.
Last October, on the 1st to be exact, shortly after I moved in with my friend the cardiac nurse, I heard a strange sound as I was getting ready for work. When I peeked out the front window, I saw a City pickup truck that trailed the street sweeper, and the guy was writing a ticket and putting it under the windshield wiper of my car, which just happened to be the only one parked on the street at the time.
After I got dressed, I went outside and grabbed the ticket to see what it said.
"Desc: NO PARKING ZONE, STREET SWEEPING"
Under "Remarks," it said: "SIGN POSTED AT BEGINNING OF BLOCK."
So I looked. To be honest, I hadn't noticed any street signs, but that didn't mean they weren't there. After all, I've been known to not see what was plainly in front of my face on other occasions.
There wasn't a sign at the beginning of the block. Or on any part of the block leading up to where I was parked.
In fact, the only sign on the entire block on either side was a dual-posting on a lamppost on the other side of the cul-de-sac, with the Neighborhood Watch sign on top.
I walked closer until I could read the sign, and it said, "No Parking Both Sides 6A.M. - 10A.M. 1st & 3rd Thursday, Street Sweeping."
That's just underhanded and wrong!
Mid-October I sent in a statement disputing the veracity of the ticket, since there was most definitely NOT a sign at the beginning of the street. I embedded the two photos above in my statement at the appropriate parts of my narrative, pointing out that no reasonable person could be expected to know about Street Sweeping Day with the way the signs were posted. And then I waited.
Three months later I received the decision from the city:
"Subject: Review Status- Review Outcome Liable... The appeal received for [your citation] was upheld for the following reason: STREET SWEEPING DATES AND TIMES POSTED ON STREET."
Not good! Apparently the City was saying that the posting of a sign across the street and at an unreadable distance is adequate notification that you can't park somewhere. The next step after that is Parking Tyranny: "You can't park here because I say you can't park here, so I'm writing you a ticket, and too bad for you!"
Not long after that, as I was heading for church, I saw that the City had put up a sign at the beginning of the block.
I felt cheated. If the signs were adequate on the day I got my ticket, to the point that they said I was liable for the fine, then why did the City feel the need to spend taxpayer money to put up a second but unnecessary sign? And if the sign on the cul-de-sac was not adequate, then why did they say I still owed the money? It just wasn't right.
I wasn't ready to give up the fight, so I filled out the form enclosed with my Review Status which was a "Request for Neutral Examination of Parking Citation," and I selected Personal Conference rather than a Written Declaration, since my previous written declaration didn't do me any good at all. About a month ago they sent me a notification that my Neutral Examination of Citation would be this morning at 10:00.
When I arrived as instructed, I was given a form that explained the process. It said I would have to make a plea, either (A) Admit with explanation or (B) Deny. But I wasn't sure what I was admitting or denying. Yes, my car was parked there, but no, I didn't think I should have to pay because the ticket had a falsehood on it about where the sign was.
I was taken into a conference room, and the reviewer said she was a neutral third party, not working for the City. She had a better explanation of what Admit and Deny meant, but I still couldn't decide which one applied to my case. While she was explaining how it would all work (it would be audio-recorded, parking is not a criminal offense, any evidence I presented would be considered as to how it supports my plea, and I would not be able to present more evidence once our conference ended), she showed me the City's evidence in support of their position against me.
The first was a photo of the new sign, like mine just above, only landscape mode and with some of the street showing to the left. The second was a hand-drawn layout of the street showing our house as being on the cul-de-sac directly facing the old sign.
One look at the City's photo told me what my plea would be. When the reviewer started recording and got to the part where I enter my plea, I said, "Deny liability."
She finished the preliminaries and then asked me to present my evidence. My opening statement was a passionate one. I pointed my finger at the City's photo and said, "THAT sign was not there when I got my ticket." And then I redrew the City's street layout to more accurately reflect where the house is situated relative to the old sign.
I had brought my original dispute statement with me, but she already had the one I mailed in, so I didn't need to show her those pictures. I also brought a couple others, including this cropped portion of the first picture. It shows a little better how there was no sign at the beginning of the street.
She seemed interested in this direction the evidence was taking, and it made me wish I had brought this picture with me as well (a better view of no sign when I got the ticket), but I didn't.
Then I showed her the photo I took this past Saturday, so she could see how the new sign is visible from roughly the same angle.
She marked the pictures as evidence item #1 and #2, while explaining to the cassette recorder which number represented which date. Then she said she'd look into the date when the City erected the new sign, and she should have a decision reached within a couple days. So by the end of the week, I ought to know if I get my $55 back (you have to pay the fine before they let you have a conference).
The minute she said she'd look into the timing of the new sign, I was filled with hope. Justice may yet prevail in this case.
Last October, on the 1st to be exact, shortly after I moved in with my friend the cardiac nurse, I heard a strange sound as I was getting ready for work. When I peeked out the front window, I saw a City pickup truck that trailed the street sweeper, and the guy was writing a ticket and putting it under the windshield wiper of my car, which just happened to be the only one parked on the street at the time.
After I got dressed, I went outside and grabbed the ticket to see what it said.
"Desc: NO PARKING ZONE, STREET SWEEPING"
Under "Remarks," it said: "SIGN POSTED AT BEGINNING OF BLOCK."
So I looked. To be honest, I hadn't noticed any street signs, but that didn't mean they weren't there. After all, I've been known to not see what was plainly in front of my face on other occasions.
There wasn't a sign at the beginning of the block. Or on any part of the block leading up to where I was parked.
In fact, the only sign on the entire block on either side was a dual-posting on a lamppost on the other side of the cul-de-sac, with the Neighborhood Watch sign on top.
I walked closer until I could read the sign, and it said, "No Parking Both Sides 6A.M. - 10A.M. 1st & 3rd Thursday, Street Sweeping."
That's just underhanded and wrong!
Mid-October I sent in a statement disputing the veracity of the ticket, since there was most definitely NOT a sign at the beginning of the street. I embedded the two photos above in my statement at the appropriate parts of my narrative, pointing out that no reasonable person could be expected to know about Street Sweeping Day with the way the signs were posted. And then I waited.
Three months later I received the decision from the city:
"Subject: Review Status- Review Outcome Liable... The appeal received for [your citation] was upheld for the following reason: STREET SWEEPING DATES AND TIMES POSTED ON STREET."
Not good! Apparently the City was saying that the posting of a sign across the street and at an unreadable distance is adequate notification that you can't park somewhere. The next step after that is Parking Tyranny: "You can't park here because I say you can't park here, so I'm writing you a ticket, and too bad for you!"
Not long after that, as I was heading for church, I saw that the City had put up a sign at the beginning of the block.
I felt cheated. If the signs were adequate on the day I got my ticket, to the point that they said I was liable for the fine, then why did the City feel the need to spend taxpayer money to put up a second but unnecessary sign? And if the sign on the cul-de-sac was not adequate, then why did they say I still owed the money? It just wasn't right.
I wasn't ready to give up the fight, so I filled out the form enclosed with my Review Status which was a "Request for Neutral Examination of Parking Citation," and I selected Personal Conference rather than a Written Declaration, since my previous written declaration didn't do me any good at all. About a month ago they sent me a notification that my Neutral Examination of Citation would be this morning at 10:00.
When I arrived as instructed, I was given a form that explained the process. It said I would have to make a plea, either (A) Admit with explanation or (B) Deny. But I wasn't sure what I was admitting or denying. Yes, my car was parked there, but no, I didn't think I should have to pay because the ticket had a falsehood on it about where the sign was.
I was taken into a conference room, and the reviewer said she was a neutral third party, not working for the City. She had a better explanation of what Admit and Deny meant, but I still couldn't decide which one applied to my case. While she was explaining how it would all work (it would be audio-recorded, parking is not a criminal offense, any evidence I presented would be considered as to how it supports my plea, and I would not be able to present more evidence once our conference ended), she showed me the City's evidence in support of their position against me.
The first was a photo of the new sign, like mine just above, only landscape mode and with some of the street showing to the left. The second was a hand-drawn layout of the street showing our house as being on the cul-de-sac directly facing the old sign.
One look at the City's photo told me what my plea would be. When the reviewer started recording and got to the part where I enter my plea, I said, "Deny liability."
She finished the preliminaries and then asked me to present my evidence. My opening statement was a passionate one. I pointed my finger at the City's photo and said, "THAT sign was not there when I got my ticket." And then I redrew the City's street layout to more accurately reflect where the house is situated relative to the old sign.
I had brought my original dispute statement with me, but she already had the one I mailed in, so I didn't need to show her those pictures. I also brought a couple others, including this cropped portion of the first picture. It shows a little better how there was no sign at the beginning of the street.
She seemed interested in this direction the evidence was taking, and it made me wish I had brought this picture with me as well (a better view of no sign when I got the ticket), but I didn't.
Then I showed her the photo I took this past Saturday, so she could see how the new sign is visible from roughly the same angle.
She marked the pictures as evidence item #1 and #2, while explaining to the cassette recorder which number represented which date. Then she said she'd look into the date when the City erected the new sign, and she should have a decision reached within a couple days. So by the end of the week, I ought to know if I get my $55 back (you have to pay the fine before they let you have a conference).
The minute she said she'd look into the timing of the new sign, I was filled with hope. Justice may yet prevail in this case.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Question
The brain is an amazing thing, especially the way it learns. Pavlov discovered the hard way that creatures can learn through conditioning, when his test subjects threw his dog-drool experiments awry by slobbering before the food was even presented to them. Their brains associated the sound of the lab technicians' approach with the food, and the drooling would begin early.
Human brains often work the same way. When my kids were teenagers, they learned to associate the sound of a slamming door with a fate worse than a slasher movie. A co-worker had told me that when one of his kids slammed the door, he took the door off the hinges for 24 hours. No yelling or threats were necessary, just swift, silent action and much consternation on the part of the door slammer. I brought that idea home, explained to the kids what would happen if they slammed, and watched as their eyes glazed over from tuned-out-edness.
I expected my daughter, the Primary Slammer, to be the first to feel the pain, but it was my son who flung a door shut first. I went over to his door and pulled the pins out of the hinges while he stood there saying, "What are you doing?!?"
"I told you both that if you slam a door, you lose yours for a day. You'll get it back tomorrow night."
"You never said that!"
"Yes, I did."
He hung a blanket over the open doorway and got his door back the next night.
Each of my kids slammed doors twice before they learned the lesson. After that, conditioning kicked in. If I had the windows open to let the breeze blow through the house and a door slammed itself shut, one of the kids would shout from another room, "That wasn't me!"
As a mom, this was one of the most beautifully satisfying things. As a psychology major, this was an excellent case of classical conditioning.
(Warning: Questionable taste follows.)
A very early example of conditioning occurs with potty training. Our brains learn to associate the bathroom, specifically the toilet, with getting to go. We see the toilet and our brains say, "Oh good! We can go now."
So here's my question: If our brain can condition itself to the sight of the toilet as the signal to "let go," why can't it ever learn to wait until our pants are down (or unzipped, if that's the case) and we're actually ready?
The Potty Dance is never going to end, is it?
Human brains often work the same way. When my kids were teenagers, they learned to associate the sound of a slamming door with a fate worse than a slasher movie. A co-worker had told me that when one of his kids slammed the door, he took the door off the hinges for 24 hours. No yelling or threats were necessary, just swift, silent action and much consternation on the part of the door slammer. I brought that idea home, explained to the kids what would happen if they slammed, and watched as their eyes glazed over from tuned-out-edness.
I expected my daughter, the Primary Slammer, to be the first to feel the pain, but it was my son who flung a door shut first. I went over to his door and pulled the pins out of the hinges while he stood there saying, "What are you doing?!?"
"I told you both that if you slam a door, you lose yours for a day. You'll get it back tomorrow night."
"You never said that!"
"Yes, I did."
He hung a blanket over the open doorway and got his door back the next night.
Each of my kids slammed doors twice before they learned the lesson. After that, conditioning kicked in. If I had the windows open to let the breeze blow through the house and a door slammed itself shut, one of the kids would shout from another room, "That wasn't me!"
As a mom, this was one of the most beautifully satisfying things. As a psychology major, this was an excellent case of classical conditioning.
(Warning: Questionable taste follows.)
A very early example of conditioning occurs with potty training. Our brains learn to associate the bathroom, specifically the toilet, with getting to go. We see the toilet and our brains say, "Oh good! We can go now."
So here's my question: If our brain can condition itself to the sight of the toilet as the signal to "let go," why can't it ever learn to wait until our pants are down (or unzipped, if that's the case) and we're actually ready?
The Potty Dance is never going to end, is it?
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
True Confessions
Friday night my daughter came over to get my help finishing a knitted Gryffindor scarf which would be her friend's birthday present. While she was here, she showed me a new-to-me computer game where you shoot bubbles, and I started playing it after she left.
Normally I play games on msn.com, and those games make you watch a commercial every several minutes between levels. My latest favorite is Majongg Dimensions, which gives you 6 minutes to match and remove tiles from a 3-D cube in ever-increasing difficulty levels.
I can handle a finite 6 minutes of play time, with the requisite commercial between games. What I wasn't ready for was the new bubble game. It has no ads, and it has no time limit. It just goes on until you lose or win (mostly you lose), and either way it can take a long time. And then it's really easy to start another game.
I noticed the time at 4:30 am. Holy cow!
I went to bed and slept until 11:30. I don't like sleeping that late, but I needed it.
Saturday night I played it again, because it really is fun. And addicting.
At 4:30 in the morning (Daylight Savings Time, which is only 3:30 am Real Time), I again noticed the time. I decided to skip Sunday School class and just go to the 10:00 service, so I set my alarm for 8:30 and made it to church on time.
But before I left for church, I admitted I was powerless over my addiction to this game, and I closed the browser and deleted its memory from my pull-down internet history list. I cannot be trusted with the bubble game. Ever.
Normally I play games on msn.com, and those games make you watch a commercial every several minutes between levels. My latest favorite is Majongg Dimensions, which gives you 6 minutes to match and remove tiles from a 3-D cube in ever-increasing difficulty levels.
I can handle a finite 6 minutes of play time, with the requisite commercial between games. What I wasn't ready for was the new bubble game. It has no ads, and it has no time limit. It just goes on until you lose or win (mostly you lose), and either way it can take a long time. And then it's really easy to start another game.
I noticed the time at 4:30 am. Holy cow!
I went to bed and slept until 11:30. I don't like sleeping that late, but I needed it.
Saturday night I played it again, because it really is fun. And addicting.
At 4:30 in the morning (Daylight Savings Time, which is only 3:30 am Real Time), I again noticed the time. I decided to skip Sunday School class and just go to the 10:00 service, so I set my alarm for 8:30 and made it to church on time.
But before I left for church, I admitted I was powerless over my addiction to this game, and I closed the browser and deleted its memory from my pull-down internet history list. I cannot be trusted with the bubble game. Ever.
Monday, March 08, 2010
Baby Step Two
I've been attending Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University on Monday nights for the past six weeks. I figured it was a good time to start learning how to live within my means, now that I have some means to live within.
Dave's approach is based on seven Baby Steps. Baby Step 1 is to have $1000 in an emergency fund, so when unexpected expenses happen, you don't have to run to the credit card to bail you out and load you down with more debt at the same time.
Baby Step 2, which is where I am, is the Debt Snowball. That's where you pay off your credit cards one at a time, starting with the smallest balance and working your way up to the biggest balance. You keep adding what you were paying on the smaller ones to the bigger ones, so you're paying them off faster and faster until they're all gone.
Last week a guy who has been attending for about 18 months (they keep repeating the class, and once you've paid you get to keep coming back without having to pay again), just announced that he's debt-free except for his house. Pretty cool!
This week, after I paid off my Home Depot card, which I got when I moved here so I could get a discount on the shed I bought, I called up Home Depot and closed that account. They told me I could reopen the account anytime I wanted to, but I won't be doing that. Debt is a Bad Thing.
One of the things they do in class is keep a really big pair of scissors for when people bring in their credit cards to be cut up. It's a great thing to watch as someone's now-closed account is chopped in two. I had planned to bring my Home Depot card to class so it could have a contest with the scissors to see who would win. But when I found the card in the old checkbook box, lo and behold, there were other now-expired or closed cards in there with it. I put all the cards I found (except for the two I'm still paying) into a sandwich bag and brought them to class.
At card-cutting time, I went up front, and they had me count all the cards. There were 13. Lucky for me to be rid of them all. I started with the Home Depot card, and the scissors won. Two pieces of orange plastic flew sideways a little, then fell to the floor. After that, they had me announce what the card was that I was sacrificing. Discover Platinum. Visa Gold. Macy's. Robinsons-May, which doesn't exist anymore. One of the cards expired back in 1997.
When I had finished, the scissors-wielding leader said he'd leave them on the floor for symbolic purposes, and after class, he cleaned up all the pieces and added them to his bucket of chopped-up cards.
All in all, it was a beautiful evening. One card down, two to go...
Dave's approach is based on seven Baby Steps. Baby Step 1 is to have $1000 in an emergency fund, so when unexpected expenses happen, you don't have to run to the credit card to bail you out and load you down with more debt at the same time.
Baby Step 2, which is where I am, is the Debt Snowball. That's where you pay off your credit cards one at a time, starting with the smallest balance and working your way up to the biggest balance. You keep adding what you were paying on the smaller ones to the bigger ones, so you're paying them off faster and faster until they're all gone.
Last week a guy who has been attending for about 18 months (they keep repeating the class, and once you've paid you get to keep coming back without having to pay again), just announced that he's debt-free except for his house. Pretty cool!
This week, after I paid off my Home Depot card, which I got when I moved here so I could get a discount on the shed I bought, I called up Home Depot and closed that account. They told me I could reopen the account anytime I wanted to, but I won't be doing that. Debt is a Bad Thing.
One of the things they do in class is keep a really big pair of scissors for when people bring in their credit cards to be cut up. It's a great thing to watch as someone's now-closed account is chopped in two. I had planned to bring my Home Depot card to class so it could have a contest with the scissors to see who would win. But when I found the card in the old checkbook box, lo and behold, there were other now-expired or closed cards in there with it. I put all the cards I found (except for the two I'm still paying) into a sandwich bag and brought them to class.
At card-cutting time, I went up front, and they had me count all the cards. There were 13. Lucky for me to be rid of them all. I started with the Home Depot card, and the scissors won. Two pieces of orange plastic flew sideways a little, then fell to the floor. After that, they had me announce what the card was that I was sacrificing. Discover Platinum. Visa Gold. Macy's. Robinsons-May, which doesn't exist anymore. One of the cards expired back in 1997.
When I had finished, the scissors-wielding leader said he'd leave them on the floor for symbolic purposes, and after class, he cleaned up all the pieces and added them to his bucket of chopped-up cards.
All in all, it was a beautiful evening. One card down, two to go...
Friday, February 26, 2010
Known Laws of the Physical Universe
When I was a little girl, there were certain rules my mother drummed into me that have transformed themselves and are still with me in their new form in my adult life.
One of these is that you must finish the open box of cereal before you are allowed to even touch the new box. I don't care how much you want that new cereal, you can't have it until the old box is gone.
I still do that. Not with cereal, because I don't eat it very much, but with everything else that's made to not be finished at one time. My mom was very effective with this rule, and it's become a source of wonder for me now that I have a roommate who (shocker!) is not exactly like me.
My roommate and I attended a Women of Faith conference a few years ago at which Nicole Johnson was talking about women and their purses. She said that when it comes to purses, there are two kinds of women: sorters and stuffers. Then she pointed her finger at the audience and said, "And you know which one you are." My friend and I looked at each other and smiled. She is definitely a stuffer, and I am definitely a sorter.
I've noticed that in the long run, it doesn't seem to matter which one you are. When she and I go to the movies and the guy tells me, "That'll be a billion dollars" (Okay, I'm exaggerating. We go to the matinee, so it's only half a billion dollars...), I reach into the zippered pocket inside my purse, pull out my wallet, grab a billion-dollar bill from the cash slot, and hand it over. The guy hands me my change and movie ticket, and then I stand there while I put the money in the right order, slide it in between the right bills so the ones are in the front and the bigger denominations are behind in ascending order. Then I stick my wallet back in the zippered pocket and leave.
My roommate, as a stuffer, gets told, "That'll be half a billion dollars," and she starts digging through her purse, because she just saw a bill down there somewhere this morning when her phone was ringing and she was trying to find it so she could answer it. She looks at her wallet, which has receipts sticking out of it but no cash, and she checks a couple pockets on the outside of her purse, and then she comes across a billion-dollar bill and hands it over. When the guy gives her the change, she sticks everything in her purse and leaves.
So from the moment we're told the ticket price to the time we leave the counter, it's about the same amount of time. I know I've digressed, but I'm getting back to the point.
Last September, when I was moving in where I live now, my new roommate left for a long-planned cruise, and she called after a couple days to see how I was doing. I told her, "I've learned that you treat your kitchen the same way you treat your purse." She laughed for a really long time, and I did too.
It's all a source of great amusement for us, the way we're trying to blend a sorter with a stuffer under the same roof. I can't speak for the way my friend sees my three bottles and one tube of personal care products lined up in the shower the same way all the time: shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and my tube of face cleanser. I need for them to stay in the same order, because I shower in the morning before the vast majority of brain activity has begun for the day. One time the cleaning lady mixed them up and I didn't notice, so I washed my hair with body wash and when I put what I thought was the conditioner (2nd bottle, so it must be) in my hair and it sudsed up, I figured out that something was wrong. I rearranged the bottles and started over and finally got everything washed with the right product.
Back to my mom. When one of my shower items gets emptied, I bring in a replacement, just like I was raised to do. My roommate, on the other hand, has all kinds of products in there, and I can't imagine what they're all for because, silly me, I don't shower with my reading glasses on. There's a matching set of lavendar bottles that I figure must be shampoo and conditioner. And there's a matching set of skinny golden containers that might have something to do with hair color, but I really haven't got a clue. And there are bottles that look like children's shampoo, and there are black tubes that fall down the back of the shower-head-hanging toiletries rack when I'm not looking and startle the heck out of me. And then just this week, two more containers showed up in the shower, but none of the other bottles got thrown away, and I just don't understand how that's even possible.
Oh man, this is going to be a long post, because that's only the first rule.
My mom's second rule was: Don't you even think of riding anyone else's bike, and don't let them ride yours. As an adult I understand about how, when your kid breaks the neighbor's bike, you have to buy them a new one, which is tough on a Navy enlisted salary. As a kid, though, I understood about the Wrath of Mom. I did not ride anyone's bike.
To this day, I don't drive other people's cars unless it's nearly an emergency. It's not an insurance issue, because you're covered when you've got the owner's permission to drive her car. I just... can't... do... it.
Rule number three is the earliest one I remember. It was burned into my very being by the time I was five years old. We lived in Norfolk, Virginia, on a huge corner lot across the street from the nice old lady who drove a school bus and had a parrot that said, "Polly want a cookie." On the next block to the right, if you're facing the school bus, lived a girl that we played with. She's the same one who scared the bejeebers out of me one time when it was getting dark outside and she came running down the side street toward me screaming in fear, "The moon mans are coming! The moon mans are coming!" I ran home crying, and my daddy put me on his lap and explained that there's no such thing as moon mans, and he talked soothingly to me until I was calmed down again.
It was that girl that my brother and I saw when we went outside to play one Saturday morning. She was playing in the street in front of her house IN HER PAJAMAS!!! I didn't know that was possible. It was a Known Law of the Physical Universe that a person had to be completely dressed before they could go outside. There were No Exceptions, and yet there she was defying all that was real in life.
My brother and I were scandalized, and we went back inside to tell our parents about the girl's sordid, shocking attire. It shook my world, but it didn't change the rule one bit.
Finally (and this isn't a Law as much as it is advice), my mom told me something when I was an older teenager. I don't remember the context, but she and I were standing near the kitchen table with the bright afternoon sunlight pouring through the windows. She told me that if I'm ever drinking beer, I should NOT have ice cream with it.
I didn't press her for details, and she didn't offer any, but I always remembered what she said and have never done such a thing. And, yes, there were a few times when the opportunity presented itself.
It was probably about ten years later that I mentioned to her that I had indeed followed her advice on this. She gave me a puzzled look and said she had no idea why she might have told me such an odd thing.
No matter. It is one of the Known Laws of the Physical Universe that beer and ice cream don't go together.
So how about it? What are some of the Laws that you grew up with that you still obey today?
One of these is that you must finish the open box of cereal before you are allowed to even touch the new box. I don't care how much you want that new cereal, you can't have it until the old box is gone.
I still do that. Not with cereal, because I don't eat it very much, but with everything else that's made to not be finished at one time. My mom was very effective with this rule, and it's become a source of wonder for me now that I have a roommate who (shocker!) is not exactly like me.
My roommate and I attended a Women of Faith conference a few years ago at which Nicole Johnson was talking about women and their purses. She said that when it comes to purses, there are two kinds of women: sorters and stuffers. Then she pointed her finger at the audience and said, "And you know which one you are." My friend and I looked at each other and smiled. She is definitely a stuffer, and I am definitely a sorter.
I've noticed that in the long run, it doesn't seem to matter which one you are. When she and I go to the movies and the guy tells me, "That'll be a billion dollars" (Okay, I'm exaggerating. We go to the matinee, so it's only half a billion dollars...), I reach into the zippered pocket inside my purse, pull out my wallet, grab a billion-dollar bill from the cash slot, and hand it over. The guy hands me my change and movie ticket, and then I stand there while I put the money in the right order, slide it in between the right bills so the ones are in the front and the bigger denominations are behind in ascending order. Then I stick my wallet back in the zippered pocket and leave.
My roommate, as a stuffer, gets told, "That'll be half a billion dollars," and she starts digging through her purse, because she just saw a bill down there somewhere this morning when her phone was ringing and she was trying to find it so she could answer it. She looks at her wallet, which has receipts sticking out of it but no cash, and she checks a couple pockets on the outside of her purse, and then she comes across a billion-dollar bill and hands it over. When the guy gives her the change, she sticks everything in her purse and leaves.
So from the moment we're told the ticket price to the time we leave the counter, it's about the same amount of time. I know I've digressed, but I'm getting back to the point.
Last September, when I was moving in where I live now, my new roommate left for a long-planned cruise, and she called after a couple days to see how I was doing. I told her, "I've learned that you treat your kitchen the same way you treat your purse." She laughed for a really long time, and I did too.
It's all a source of great amusement for us, the way we're trying to blend a sorter with a stuffer under the same roof. I can't speak for the way my friend sees my three bottles and one tube of personal care products lined up in the shower the same way all the time: shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and my tube of face cleanser. I need for them to stay in the same order, because I shower in the morning before the vast majority of brain activity has begun for the day. One time the cleaning lady mixed them up and I didn't notice, so I washed my hair with body wash and when I put what I thought was the conditioner (2nd bottle, so it must be) in my hair and it sudsed up, I figured out that something was wrong. I rearranged the bottles and started over and finally got everything washed with the right product.
Back to my mom. When one of my shower items gets emptied, I bring in a replacement, just like I was raised to do. My roommate, on the other hand, has all kinds of products in there, and I can't imagine what they're all for because, silly me, I don't shower with my reading glasses on. There's a matching set of lavendar bottles that I figure must be shampoo and conditioner. And there's a matching set of skinny golden containers that might have something to do with hair color, but I really haven't got a clue. And there are bottles that look like children's shampoo, and there are black tubes that fall down the back of the shower-head-hanging toiletries rack when I'm not looking and startle the heck out of me. And then just this week, two more containers showed up in the shower, but none of the other bottles got thrown away, and I just don't understand how that's even possible.
Oh man, this is going to be a long post, because that's only the first rule.
My mom's second rule was: Don't you even think of riding anyone else's bike, and don't let them ride yours. As an adult I understand about how, when your kid breaks the neighbor's bike, you have to buy them a new one, which is tough on a Navy enlisted salary. As a kid, though, I understood about the Wrath of Mom. I did not ride anyone's bike.
To this day, I don't drive other people's cars unless it's nearly an emergency. It's not an insurance issue, because you're covered when you've got the owner's permission to drive her car. I just... can't... do... it.
Rule number three is the earliest one I remember. It was burned into my very being by the time I was five years old. We lived in Norfolk, Virginia, on a huge corner lot across the street from the nice old lady who drove a school bus and had a parrot that said, "Polly want a cookie." On the next block to the right, if you're facing the school bus, lived a girl that we played with. She's the same one who scared the bejeebers out of me one time when it was getting dark outside and she came running down the side street toward me screaming in fear, "The moon mans are coming! The moon mans are coming!" I ran home crying, and my daddy put me on his lap and explained that there's no such thing as moon mans, and he talked soothingly to me until I was calmed down again.
It was that girl that my brother and I saw when we went outside to play one Saturday morning. She was playing in the street in front of her house IN HER PAJAMAS!!! I didn't know that was possible. It was a Known Law of the Physical Universe that a person had to be completely dressed before they could go outside. There were No Exceptions, and yet there she was defying all that was real in life.
My brother and I were scandalized, and we went back inside to tell our parents about the girl's sordid, shocking attire. It shook my world, but it didn't change the rule one bit.
Finally (and this isn't a Law as much as it is advice), my mom told me something when I was an older teenager. I don't remember the context, but she and I were standing near the kitchen table with the bright afternoon sunlight pouring through the windows. She told me that if I'm ever drinking beer, I should NOT have ice cream with it.
I didn't press her for details, and she didn't offer any, but I always remembered what she said and have never done such a thing. And, yes, there were a few times when the opportunity presented itself.
It was probably about ten years later that I mentioned to her that I had indeed followed her advice on this. She gave me a puzzled look and said she had no idea why she might have told me such an odd thing.
No matter. It is one of the Known Laws of the Physical Universe that beer and ice cream don't go together.
So how about it? What are some of the Laws that you grew up with that you still obey today?
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
French Phrases
I bought a Page-A-Day calendar for this year. It has a French phrase every day.
Some days, the calendar seems to be made for the rank beginner who has never had a lesson in his or her life. For instance, I've "learned" to say things like:
Bonne Année! (Happy New Year!)
Moi aussi. (Me too.)
Êtes-vous marié? (Are you married?) I've used this one in real life before.
That's not what I bought the calendar for, though. I bought it so I can learn some idioms and ways of saying things that will move me closer to that Someday goal of fluency. Most of the time, my calendar comes through for me. Along with the married question, I also learned to ask this gem:
Êtes-vous célibataire? (Are you single?) Notice the way it assumes celibacy on the part of single people. How very Old School. Or very Christian.
There are other phrases that are very important to my life:
C'est le premier pas qui coute. (It's the first step that counts.)
On voit le bout du tunnel. (You can see the light at the end of the tunnel.)
J'ai besoin d'une sieste. (I need a nap.)
Sometimes I'm compelled to correct the pronunciation help on the page. It's printed in between the French phrase and the English translation, and the "single" question above would look like this: "Eht voo say-lee-bah-tehr?" Which is fine, but on occasion they spell words that I pronounce as "ay" with "eh" instead. Like they'd say Tais-tois is pronounced "Teh twah," when I know it's "Tay twah." So I cross out their pronunciation and write mine above it.
Yesterday, however, was a particular challenge. It said, "Tu me manques trop," and they said that in English it means, "I miss you so much," which just plain looks wrong. Literally, it says, "You miss me too much."
I spotted the lady who lived for 20 years in Burkina Faso, which was a French colony (formerly Upper Volta), so I asked her if the translation on my calendar page was right, and she said it was. I was confused. How can the subject of a sentence be "you" in one language and "I" in another? But she said it sort of means, "You make me miss you so much."
OK, I can go along with that.
So then I asked her how you would say, "You miss me." Would it be, "Je te manque"? But she surprised me when she said no. If I wanted to tell someone, "You're gonna miss me," it still comes out with "you" as the subject: "Tu vas me manquer."
I don't get it! Don't "I" ever get to be the subject of a sentence about missing someone in French??? It's patently unfair. Completely you-focused. And the lady at work couldn't tell me how it all made any sense. It just is.
I don't like it at all. It makes me want the page I had on Friday:
J'ai un mal de tête terrible.
Some days, the calendar seems to be made for the rank beginner who has never had a lesson in his or her life. For instance, I've "learned" to say things like:
Bonne Année! (Happy New Year!)
Moi aussi. (Me too.)
Êtes-vous marié? (Are you married?) I've used this one in real life before.
That's not what I bought the calendar for, though. I bought it so I can learn some idioms and ways of saying things that will move me closer to that Someday goal of fluency. Most of the time, my calendar comes through for me. Along with the married question, I also learned to ask this gem:
Êtes-vous célibataire? (Are you single?) Notice the way it assumes celibacy on the part of single people. How very Old School. Or very Christian.
There are other phrases that are very important to my life:
C'est le premier pas qui coute. (It's the first step that counts.)
On voit le bout du tunnel. (You can see the light at the end of the tunnel.)
J'ai besoin d'une sieste. (I need a nap.)
Sometimes I'm compelled to correct the pronunciation help on the page. It's printed in between the French phrase and the English translation, and the "single" question above would look like this: "Eht voo say-lee-bah-tehr?" Which is fine, but on occasion they spell words that I pronounce as "ay" with "eh" instead. Like they'd say Tais-tois is pronounced "Teh twah," when I know it's "Tay twah." So I cross out their pronunciation and write mine above it.
Yesterday, however, was a particular challenge. It said, "Tu me manques trop," and they said that in English it means, "I miss you so much," which just plain looks wrong. Literally, it says, "You miss me too much."
I spotted the lady who lived for 20 years in Burkina Faso, which was a French colony (formerly Upper Volta), so I asked her if the translation on my calendar page was right, and she said it was. I was confused. How can the subject of a sentence be "you" in one language and "I" in another? But she said it sort of means, "You make me miss you so much."
OK, I can go along with that.
So then I asked her how you would say, "You miss me." Would it be, "Je te manque"? But she surprised me when she said no. If I wanted to tell someone, "You're gonna miss me," it still comes out with "you" as the subject: "Tu vas me manquer."
I don't get it! Don't "I" ever get to be the subject of a sentence about missing someone in French??? It's patently unfair. Completely you-focused. And the lady at work couldn't tell me how it all made any sense. It just is.
I don't like it at all. It makes me want the page I had on Friday:
J'ai un mal de tête terrible.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
They're Going After Your 401k and IRA
Holy stinkin' crap! (Pardon my language, but it would be even worse if I hadn't emptied my 401k in 2008 to keep a roof over my head and food on the table while I was unemployed.)
Newt Gingrich and Peter Ferrara's column Wednesday analyzed the latest to come out of the Treasury and Labor Departments.
You did the responsible thing. You saved in your IRA or 401(k) to support your retirement, when you could have spent that money on another vacation, or an upscale car, or fancier clothes and jewelry. But now Washington is developing plans for your retirement savings.
BusinessWeek reports that the Treasury and Labor departments are asking for public comment on "the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams."
In plain English, the idea is for the government to take your retirement savings in return for a promise to pay you some monthly benefit in your retirement years.
They will tell you that you are "investing" your money in U.S. Treasury bonds. But they will use your money immediately to pay for their unprecedented trillion-dollar budget deficits, leaving nothing to back up their political promises, just as they have raided the Social Security trust funds.
This "conversion" may start out as an optional choice, though you are already free to buy Treasury bonds whenever you want. But as Karl Denninger of the Market Ticker Web site reports: "'Choices' have a funny way of turning into mandates, and this looks to me like a raw admission that Treasury knows it will not be able to sell its debt in the open market — so they will effectively tax you by forcing your 'retirement' money to buy them."
Moreover, benefits based on Treasury bond interest rates may be woefully inadequate compensation for your years of savings. As Denninger adds, "What's even worse is that the government has intentionally suppressed Treasury yields during this crisis (and will keep doing so by various means, including manipulating the CPI inflation index) so as to guarantee that you lose over time compared to actual purchasing power."
Congressional Democrats held hearings on the subject this past fall, and now the proposal is being run up the flagpole to see if it draws any fire. It darn-well better draw plenty.
This is just the latest chapter in what is developing into a war by the left on America's seniors. All that class-war rhetoric about "the rich" ends up targeting seniors, who tend to have accumulated the most in savings and investment on average because they have been around the longest.
All of this reflects a fundamental problem underlying socialist economic policies. If the government keeps punishing responsibility and rewarding failure, society ends up with a lot less responsibility and a lot more failure, destroying prosperity in the process.
As former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said, "The trouble with socialism is you run out of other people's money to spend." And now they want to spend our retirement savings.
I left out quite a bit, so read the column to get the full effect. In the meantime, contact your (preferrably Republican) Congressman and ask him or her to introduce and/or co-sponsor legislation that would ban the raiding of your retirement savings.
Newt Gingrich and Peter Ferrara's column Wednesday analyzed the latest to come out of the Treasury and Labor Departments.
You did the responsible thing. You saved in your IRA or 401(k) to support your retirement, when you could have spent that money on another vacation, or an upscale car, or fancier clothes and jewelry. But now Washington is developing plans for your retirement savings.
BusinessWeek reports that the Treasury and Labor departments are asking for public comment on "the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams."
In plain English, the idea is for the government to take your retirement savings in return for a promise to pay you some monthly benefit in your retirement years.
They will tell you that you are "investing" your money in U.S. Treasury bonds. But they will use your money immediately to pay for their unprecedented trillion-dollar budget deficits, leaving nothing to back up their political promises, just as they have raided the Social Security trust funds.
This "conversion" may start out as an optional choice, though you are already free to buy Treasury bonds whenever you want. But as Karl Denninger of the Market Ticker Web site reports: "'Choices' have a funny way of turning into mandates, and this looks to me like a raw admission that Treasury knows it will not be able to sell its debt in the open market — so they will effectively tax you by forcing your 'retirement' money to buy them."
Moreover, benefits based on Treasury bond interest rates may be woefully inadequate compensation for your years of savings. As Denninger adds, "What's even worse is that the government has intentionally suppressed Treasury yields during this crisis (and will keep doing so by various means, including manipulating the CPI inflation index) so as to guarantee that you lose over time compared to actual purchasing power."
Congressional Democrats held hearings on the subject this past fall, and now the proposal is being run up the flagpole to see if it draws any fire. It darn-well better draw plenty.
This is just the latest chapter in what is developing into a war by the left on America's seniors. All that class-war rhetoric about "the rich" ends up targeting seniors, who tend to have accumulated the most in savings and investment on average because they have been around the longest.
All of this reflects a fundamental problem underlying socialist economic policies. If the government keeps punishing responsibility and rewarding failure, society ends up with a lot less responsibility and a lot more failure, destroying prosperity in the process.
As former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said, "The trouble with socialism is you run out of other people's money to spend." And now they want to spend our retirement savings.
I left out quite a bit, so read the column to get the full effect. In the meantime, contact your (preferrably Republican) Congressman and ask him or her to introduce and/or co-sponsor legislation that would ban the raiding of your retirement savings.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Dish Network is Vile
And they will screw you over if they get the chance.
This is my roommate's story, not mine. Her father passed away in September, and she was the executor of his estate. That gave her the unpleasant task of canceling all of the services he received, one of which was Dish Network.
The phone company did remarkably well, considering other people's experience, but Dish Network was another story altogether.
My friend's dad had paid $700 in June, to cover a year's service, plus he paid a monthly fee for local channels. In early October, my friend called Dish Network to cancel his service and have them refund the remainder of the annual service fee, since he certainly wasn't watching TV anymore.
They refused to do anything unless she could tell them his account number. They weren't about to look up his account for her. Privacy, you know. And when she asked to speak to a supervisor, they put her on hold for a half hour, until she got tired of waiting and hung up. They did the half-hour-hold-for-a-supervisor trick twice before she quit asking for one of those.
They told her they wouldn't accept his death certificate without his account number, which she was unable to find among his papers. So my friend decided to wait until they sent him a bill for his monthly fee, and then she'd have the account number and could get the refund.
They didn't send him a bill until January. When it arrived, my friend sent a copy of the death certificate, along with a letter that contained his account number and asked for them to cancel his service and send the refund.
They didn't. This month they sent him a notification that they were canceling his service due to non-payment. No refund. No statement of his account and where the money went.
Naturally, a company can't be expected to simply take the word of some random person calling and claiming she's the daughter of one of their customers, who she says is deceased, while she is requesting money from them. Identity theft and fraud are real issues that businesses face. But every other business she contacted eventually accepted the death certificate as actual proof that their customer was indeed dead and no longer in need of their services, and they took the appropriate action.
Not so Dish Network. Apparently they waited until they had churned through the remainder of Dear Old Dad's $700, and then they were happy to cancel.
I've advised my friend to contact the Better Business Bureau and make a complaint, as well as contacting the state Public Utilities Commission about how she was treated. Unfortunately, she doesn't have written proof of any of this, since most of her contacts with Dish Network were made by phone, except for the letter, which she didn't keep a copy of. They could deny any contact with her.
If you're considering signing up with Dish Network, think again. And if you already have them, don't lose your account number, and by all means, make all of your contacts with them in writing, retaining documentation for yourself.
This is a vile company who treated my roommate shabbily during a time of grief, and I don't wish them on anyone.
This is my roommate's story, not mine. Her father passed away in September, and she was the executor of his estate. That gave her the unpleasant task of canceling all of the services he received, one of which was Dish Network.
The phone company did remarkably well, considering other people's experience, but Dish Network was another story altogether.
My friend's dad had paid $700 in June, to cover a year's service, plus he paid a monthly fee for local channels. In early October, my friend called Dish Network to cancel his service and have them refund the remainder of the annual service fee, since he certainly wasn't watching TV anymore.
They refused to do anything unless she could tell them his account number. They weren't about to look up his account for her. Privacy, you know. And when she asked to speak to a supervisor, they put her on hold for a half hour, until she got tired of waiting and hung up. They did the half-hour-hold-for-a-supervisor trick twice before she quit asking for one of those.
They told her they wouldn't accept his death certificate without his account number, which she was unable to find among his papers. So my friend decided to wait until they sent him a bill for his monthly fee, and then she'd have the account number and could get the refund.
They didn't send him a bill until January. When it arrived, my friend sent a copy of the death certificate, along with a letter that contained his account number and asked for them to cancel his service and send the refund.
They didn't. This month they sent him a notification that they were canceling his service due to non-payment. No refund. No statement of his account and where the money went.
Naturally, a company can't be expected to simply take the word of some random person calling and claiming she's the daughter of one of their customers, who she says is deceased, while she is requesting money from them. Identity theft and fraud are real issues that businesses face. But every other business she contacted eventually accepted the death certificate as actual proof that their customer was indeed dead and no longer in need of their services, and they took the appropriate action.
Not so Dish Network. Apparently they waited until they had churned through the remainder of Dear Old Dad's $700, and then they were happy to cancel.
I've advised my friend to contact the Better Business Bureau and make a complaint, as well as contacting the state Public Utilities Commission about how she was treated. Unfortunately, she doesn't have written proof of any of this, since most of her contacts with Dish Network were made by phone, except for the letter, which she didn't keep a copy of. They could deny any contact with her.
If you're considering signing up with Dish Network, think again. And if you already have them, don't lose your account number, and by all means, make all of your contacts with them in writing, retaining documentation for yourself.
This is a vile company who treated my roommate shabbily during a time of grief, and I don't wish them on anyone.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Losing Myself
I stopped at Albertson's on my way home from work to pick up a few things, and after I finished, I walked over to my car. When I started to put my key in the lock, I noticed somebody else's sweater around the parking brake handle.
Oh. That's when I saw the spoiler on the trunk, something I don't have on my car.
So I looked around and spotted my car, but then I saw some guy sitting behind the wheel.
Oh.
I looked around some more and spotted my car again. This time I recognized the tree I had parked in front of. Before I put the key in the lock, though, I made sure it was my stuff by the parking brake. It was.
Who knew there were that many people who have the same incredibly good taste in cars that I do? And who knew they'd all be at the grocery store at the same time?
Oh. That's when I saw the spoiler on the trunk, something I don't have on my car.
So I looked around and spotted my car, but then I saw some guy sitting behind the wheel.
Oh.
I looked around some more and spotted my car again. This time I recognized the tree I had parked in front of. Before I put the key in the lock, though, I made sure it was my stuff by the parking brake. It was.
Who knew there were that many people who have the same incredibly good taste in cars that I do? And who knew they'd all be at the grocery store at the same time?
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Back Again - Sort Of
The repair guy came over yesterday after work. His job was to replace the laptop cover, screen and all, and poke around under the keyboard, and then get the re-installation of the operating system going up to a certain point. Then he would leave me with a piece of paper that had a phone number for Dell, and they would walk me through the rest of the process.
He was a really great guy who enjoys fixing computers so much, he does more of it for a side job. He grew up in New Orleans, so I asked if he was rooting for the Saints in the Super Bowl. He is.
I told him I have blogger buddies in Indiana, so I'd probably be for the Colts, and then he said Manning is the greatest quarterback he's ever seen. I asked him who Manning plays for, because that's how closely I follow football. And when he said Manning plays for the Colts, he said he still has to be for the Saints, or else his family would never let him come to New Orleans to visit again.
The last task he had to do on my computer before he left was to install the video driver. That didn't work, though. What I have is a screen that looks fat and like it belongs in the dark ages, and YouTube videos don't show up at all. The repair guy said my computer looks bad because of the lack of video driver, and he left me on my own to call Dell when I get the chance.
I haven't had the chance yet, though, because my roommate is back from vacation, so we're watching Season Four of 24 now. I do have my priorities...
He was a really great guy who enjoys fixing computers so much, he does more of it for a side job. He grew up in New Orleans, so I asked if he was rooting for the Saints in the Super Bowl. He is.
I told him I have blogger buddies in Indiana, so I'd probably be for the Colts, and then he said Manning is the greatest quarterback he's ever seen. I asked him who Manning plays for, because that's how closely I follow football. And when he said Manning plays for the Colts, he said he still has to be for the Saints, or else his family would never let him come to New Orleans to visit again.
The last task he had to do on my computer before he left was to install the video driver. That didn't work, though. What I have is a screen that looks fat and like it belongs in the dark ages, and YouTube videos don't show up at all. The repair guy said my computer looks bad because of the lack of video driver, and he left me on my own to call Dell when I get the chance.
I haven't had the chance yet, though, because my roommate is back from vacation, so we're watching Season Four of 24 now. I do have my priorities...
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Incommunicado
I'm at my friend's house using her computer for a little while.
Yesterday morning, when I left for work, I put my computer on stand-by. When I got home from work and tried to bring it back up, it hung up for so long that I held down the power button until it shut down. Then when I powered it back on, it gave me the Blue Screen of Death on the way up.
Last night I got on the phone with Dell's support line. I was expecting an Indian accent, but the guy's accent was different enough that I finally asked him where he was from. He said the Philippines, and I had that "Oh yeah!" moment when the accent and the location fit each other.
We spent almost 90 minutes on the phone and finally came to the conclusion that my hardware is fine but my operating system files are corrupted and I need to reinstall the system software, which will wipe out all my files. So I'm going to have to take my laptop and my external hard drive somewhere and have them back up all my files before the system disks arrive for reinstallation Monday or Tuesday (since I moved, I have no idea where my system CDs might be).
Which is all the long way of saying I don't have a functional computer, so I won't be blogging for a while.
Withdrawal symptoms are not pretty...
Yesterday morning, when I left for work, I put my computer on stand-by. When I got home from work and tried to bring it back up, it hung up for so long that I held down the power button until it shut down. Then when I powered it back on, it gave me the Blue Screen of Death on the way up.
Last night I got on the phone with Dell's support line. I was expecting an Indian accent, but the guy's accent was different enough that I finally asked him where he was from. He said the Philippines, and I had that "Oh yeah!" moment when the accent and the location fit each other.
We spent almost 90 minutes on the phone and finally came to the conclusion that my hardware is fine but my operating system files are corrupted and I need to reinstall the system software, which will wipe out all my files. So I'm going to have to take my laptop and my external hard drive somewhere and have them back up all my files before the system disks arrive for reinstallation Monday or Tuesday (since I moved, I have no idea where my system CDs might be).
Which is all the long way of saying I don't have a functional computer, so I won't be blogging for a while.
Withdrawal symptoms are not pretty...
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Not Watching the State of the Union
I didn't get to watch Obama's State of the Union speech last night, because that was my Bible study night. But when I got to Bible study, the speech was on for a few minutes, just long enough for me to see Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden popping up and down behind the President.
It's just as well that I didn't see him speak. I wouldn't have been able to keep a civil tongue and might even have verbally abused the TV every time he said something incorrect. Which would have been often.
Michelle Malkin noted the drinking game that some people play, where you take a drink every time the speaker says his favorite thing. I don't remember the favorite word that prompted a drink when President Bush gave speeches, but I think you had to drain the glass if he said, "nuke-yoo-lar."
For President Obama, the drinking word is, "I." Fortunately for Michelle Malkin, she's a smart cookie and realized that she'd be blottoed in no time if she imbibed in strong spirits, so she said, "Instead of drinking, I’m going to do a push-up every time O says 'I,' 'change,' 'jobs,' 'investment,' or 'clear.'" No doubt she got a good workout. Almost as good as Biden and Pelosi got.
It's just as well that I didn't see him speak. I wouldn't have been able to keep a civil tongue and might even have verbally abused the TV every time he said something incorrect. Which would have been often.
Michelle Malkin noted the drinking game that some people play, where you take a drink every time the speaker says his favorite thing. I don't remember the favorite word that prompted a drink when President Bush gave speeches, but I think you had to drain the glass if he said, "nuke-yoo-lar."
For President Obama, the drinking word is, "I." Fortunately for Michelle Malkin, she's a smart cookie and realized that she'd be blottoed in no time if she imbibed in strong spirits, so she said, "Instead of drinking, I’m going to do a push-up every time O says 'I,' 'change,' 'jobs,' 'investment,' or 'clear.'" No doubt she got a good workout. Almost as good as Biden and Pelosi got.
Friday, January 22, 2010
What the Dems Learned from Scott Brown Win
Hugh Hewitt summed it up perfectly today: Democrats Contemplate Going Thelma and Louise.
Congressional Democrats are still grasping for a way forward on the Obamacare plan that the country well and truly hates. To press on via legislative tricks and intemperate tantrums is pure political insanity, the sort of contemptuous high-handedness that could indeed risk every senate seat the Democrats must defend in nine months and scores of House seats as well.
Congressional leaders are trying to figure out how to clean up the House and Senate health care bills just enough to make one or the other palatable to the American people. To quote a comment I read somewhere about this: "How do you clean up a turd?"
Good luck to the Democrats on that.
Congressional Democrats are still grasping for a way forward on the Obamacare plan that the country well and truly hates. To press on via legislative tricks and intemperate tantrums is pure political insanity, the sort of contemptuous high-handedness that could indeed risk every senate seat the Democrats must defend in nine months and scores of House seats as well.
Congressional leaders are trying to figure out how to clean up the House and Senate health care bills just enough to make one or the other palatable to the American people. To quote a comment I read somewhere about this: "How do you clean up a turd?"
Good luck to the Democrats on that.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Haunted by the Past
As of the first of the year, I have medical insurance through my employer. I had a choice of three plans, all of which are with Kaiser Permanente.
Through the years, I've managed to avoid ever having Kaiser as my insurance provider. I know, I know, everybody who has it LOVES Kaiser. Except for those people who have been royally misdiagnosed. So previously I just went with a PPO plan or whatever my employer offered that wasn't Kaiser. But now I have Kaiser, and I was prepared to love it, because of all the people I know who think it's the greatest thing.
My roommate has Kaiser, and she absolutely adores her primary care provider, so I checked with her to find out her doctor's name, and tonight I went onto Kaiser's website to sign up with that doctor.
Kaiser's registration process, they said, would walk me through a series of 5 questions that would verify my identity before they'd give me my temporary password and let me register. It's understandable that they'd want to be sure, since anybody could (and of course would want to) pretend to be me. The rules were that I'd have 75 seconds to answer each question, and I had to get all five answers right on the first try, or no dice. If I missed, they'd send me my temporary password via snail mail.
First, they asked for the last four digits of my social security number. That wasn't the first of the five questions, though. The first question asked me what month my ex-husband (they named him) was born. Ummm... very odd, but OK. I answered it. Then they asked me if I recognized any of the names in a list of five. The fourth name in the list was my ex-husband's second ex-wife.
The next question was harder, because they asked what year I lived in one of the run-together cities in our area. My choices were 1985, 1988, 1991, 1995, and 1997. Well, I lived there from mid-December of 1985 until I think about mid-1987, and then I moved back in 1995 when my ex- and I split up, and I was there until 2003. But I wasn't thinking that clearly, and I was focused on when we first moved there, so I picked 1988, and it went on to the next question.
The fourth question was another list of names, and they wanted to know which one I knew. I picked, "I don't know any of these people." Game. Set. Match.
My temporary password will be arriving via snail mail in 5 to 7 days.
I hunted around the website until I found an 800 number, and I called, but they said they're experiencing a high volume of calls (at 8:20 pm???) and I should call back another time, like Saturday or Sunday.
I'm really ticked off. My ex-husband and I have been divorced since October of 1996, and at no time was I ever a member of Kaiser, especially not when my SSN and his were joined at the hip. So what on earth are they doing asking me questions about him to verify my identity?
This really stinks, and I plan on letting them know! (Politely, of course...)
Through the years, I've managed to avoid ever having Kaiser as my insurance provider. I know, I know, everybody who has it LOVES Kaiser. Except for those people who have been royally misdiagnosed. So previously I just went with a PPO plan or whatever my employer offered that wasn't Kaiser. But now I have Kaiser, and I was prepared to love it, because of all the people I know who think it's the greatest thing.
My roommate has Kaiser, and she absolutely adores her primary care provider, so I checked with her to find out her doctor's name, and tonight I went onto Kaiser's website to sign up with that doctor.
Kaiser's registration process, they said, would walk me through a series of 5 questions that would verify my identity before they'd give me my temporary password and let me register. It's understandable that they'd want to be sure, since anybody could (and of course would want to) pretend to be me. The rules were that I'd have 75 seconds to answer each question, and I had to get all five answers right on the first try, or no dice. If I missed, they'd send me my temporary password via snail mail.
First, they asked for the last four digits of my social security number. That wasn't the first of the five questions, though. The first question asked me what month my ex-husband (they named him) was born. Ummm... very odd, but OK. I answered it. Then they asked me if I recognized any of the names in a list of five. The fourth name in the list was my ex-husband's second ex-wife.
The next question was harder, because they asked what year I lived in one of the run-together cities in our area. My choices were 1985, 1988, 1991, 1995, and 1997. Well, I lived there from mid-December of 1985 until I think about mid-1987, and then I moved back in 1995 when my ex- and I split up, and I was there until 2003. But I wasn't thinking that clearly, and I was focused on when we first moved there, so I picked 1988, and it went on to the next question.
The fourth question was another list of names, and they wanted to know which one I knew. I picked, "I don't know any of these people." Game. Set. Match.
My temporary password will be arriving via snail mail in 5 to 7 days.
I hunted around the website until I found an 800 number, and I called, but they said they're experiencing a high volume of calls (at 8:20 pm???) and I should call back another time, like Saturday or Sunday.
I'm really ticked off. My ex-husband and I have been divorced since October of 1996, and at no time was I ever a member of Kaiser, especially not when my SSN and his were joined at the hip. So what on earth are they doing asking me questions about him to verify my identity?
This really stinks, and I plan on letting them know! (Politely, of course...)
Monday, January 18, 2010
Kudos to CNN's Sanjay Gupta
CNN reported yesterday on the situation at a field hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Friday night.
Earthquake victims, writhing in pain and grasping at life, watched doctors and nurses walk away from a field hospital Friday night after a Belgian medical team evacuated the area, saying it was concerned about security.
The decision left CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta as the only doctor at the hospital to get the patients through the night.
Belgian Chief Coordinator Geert Gijs, a doctor who was at the hospital with 60 Belgian medical personnel, said it was his decision to pull the team out for the night. Gijs said he requested U.N. security personnel to staff the hospital overnight, but was told that peacekeepers would only be able to evacuate the team.
He said it was a "tough decision" but that he accepted the U.N. offer to evacuate after a Canadian medical team, also at the hospital with Canadian security officers, left the site Friday afternoon. The Belgian team returned Saturday morning.
I really don't understand how medical personnel who choose to go to a dangerous place to help injured victims can just bug out when they find out it might be dangerous there, leaving the injured behind to fend for themselves. Why even bother?
Gupta -- assisted by other CNN staffers, security personnel and at least one Haitian nurse who refused to leave -- assessed the needs of the 25 patients, but there was little they could do without supplies.
More people, some in critical condition, were trickling in late Friday.
"I've never been in a situation like this. This is quite ridiculous," Gupta said.
With a dearth of medical facilities in Haiti's capital, ambulances had nowhere else to take patients, some of whom had suffered severe trauma -- amputations and head injuries -- under the rubble. Others had suffered a great deal of blood loss, but there were no blood supplies left at the clinic.
Gupta feared that some would not survive the night.
He and the others stayed with the injured all night, after the medical team had left and after the generators gave out and the tents turned pitch black.
Gupta monitored patients' vital signs, administered painkillers and continued intravenous drips. He stabilized three new patients in critical condition.
At 3:45 a.m., he posted a message on Twitter: "pulling all nighter at haiti field hosp. lots of work, but all patients stable. turned my crew into a crack med team tonight."
The dedication of CNN reporter Dr. Gupta makes me proud to be an American. And his dedication didn't end with his Friday all-nighter. Agence-France Presse reported today that he went on board the US Navy ship Carl Vinson to perform neurosurgery on a 12-year-old girl to remove concrete that was embedded in her brain. She's expected to recover fully.
Great job, Dr. Sanjay Gupta! You make us proud.
Earthquake victims, writhing in pain and grasping at life, watched doctors and nurses walk away from a field hospital Friday night after a Belgian medical team evacuated the area, saying it was concerned about security.
The decision left CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta as the only doctor at the hospital to get the patients through the night.
Belgian Chief Coordinator Geert Gijs, a doctor who was at the hospital with 60 Belgian medical personnel, said it was his decision to pull the team out for the night. Gijs said he requested U.N. security personnel to staff the hospital overnight, but was told that peacekeepers would only be able to evacuate the team.
He said it was a "tough decision" but that he accepted the U.N. offer to evacuate after a Canadian medical team, also at the hospital with Canadian security officers, left the site Friday afternoon. The Belgian team returned Saturday morning.
I really don't understand how medical personnel who choose to go to a dangerous place to help injured victims can just bug out when they find out it might be dangerous there, leaving the injured behind to fend for themselves. Why even bother?
Gupta -- assisted by other CNN staffers, security personnel and at least one Haitian nurse who refused to leave -- assessed the needs of the 25 patients, but there was little they could do without supplies.
More people, some in critical condition, were trickling in late Friday.
"I've never been in a situation like this. This is quite ridiculous," Gupta said.
With a dearth of medical facilities in Haiti's capital, ambulances had nowhere else to take patients, some of whom had suffered severe trauma -- amputations and head injuries -- under the rubble. Others had suffered a great deal of blood loss, but there were no blood supplies left at the clinic.
Gupta feared that some would not survive the night.
He and the others stayed with the injured all night, after the medical team had left and after the generators gave out and the tents turned pitch black.
Gupta monitored patients' vital signs, administered painkillers and continued intravenous drips. He stabilized three new patients in critical condition.
At 3:45 a.m., he posted a message on Twitter: "pulling all nighter at haiti field hosp. lots of work, but all patients stable. turned my crew into a crack med team tonight."
The dedication of CNN reporter Dr. Gupta makes me proud to be an American. And his dedication didn't end with his Friday all-nighter. Agence-France Presse reported today that he went on board the US Navy ship Carl Vinson to perform neurosurgery on a 12-year-old girl to remove concrete that was embedded in her brain. She's expected to recover fully.
Great job, Dr. Sanjay Gupta! You make us proud.
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