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Last Updated : Sunday, 21 February, 2003
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| Daynotes On a Budget Hosted By... Last Updated : Sunday, 21 February, 2003 |
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Monday, February 17, 2003 |
Piece Of Advice
If your stomach does not deal well with high-acid foods, for crying out loud avoid the Hamburger Helper Oven Classics Lasagna... We tried it as an experiment for dinner last night, and I fought a losing action against it all night long. Very, very disturbing.
At least the kids are off from school today, so I could come home from dropping Ann off and go back to sleep. Of course, I didn't. I could have, but didn't. Serves me right. Let's see what sort of trouble there is in the world today...
Well, it looks like a young fellow with prospects won't make it to the Majors for a full season after all. But he's a drop in the bucket compared to the poor folks in Chicago. Makes one wonder just what the heck was going through their minds, but then again, I'm apparently one of the "older and wiser" crowd now - I'm home and in bed at those hours. And the only second-story bar I go into (well, about the only bar I go into - I'm so boring) has two exits and would be excessively crowded with a hundred people in it.
And in other news, "http://www.cnn.com/2003/WEATHER/02/17/winter.storm/index.html">folks out in DC are getting clobbered with a snowstorm - unfortunate, but seems appropriate given their relative level of caring for their fellow human beings, I guess.
Meanwhile, in "The Big Stories" it seems that neither the Sad-Sack Iraqi leaders nor the Illustrious Leader of Korea, Kim "Dinkbrain" Jong Il, can summon enough brains to dispose of the urine in their footwear despite detailed directions printed upon them, and are steaming full-bore down the "oh, shit" street. Smart money? When people get on your side, SHUT UP AND LET THEM DO THE TALKING. That is, if you've got the brains to do so... Or, to quote the first rule of Holes - "When you find yourself in one, stop digging".
I had to admit I nearly passed orange juice out my nose when I read the North Korean quote "Our victory is certain and the future ever more radiant." - radiant, yes, in so very many ways... Especially if you take one of your lashed-up "missiles" and point it in our general direction. Aside from the simple fact that we simply won't waste a whole lot of nukes on your country due to the fact that there isn't much there to destroy, consider that China, to your north, will most likely rain lots of stuff down on you simply through the "you dumb shit" principle. As in "just what the heck do you think you're doing" (each syllable punctuated with a kick, whack to the head, or small nuclear device).
Fine Display Of Mental Agility
I have to admit that one thing that keeps me living in the land of the tundra is the hope that some day I too will attain expert and infallible status simply by winning an election to our state legislature.
Certainly, these creatures started as mere humble mortals like you and I, but somewhere along the line, their success in bamboozling the electorate gave a fair percentage of them the utter and complete mastery of any and every subject known to pass before them.
Traffic management? They're experts. Tax reform? They're experts. Nuclear storage and electrical deregulation issues? They're experts. Education policy and standards? Of course, experts.
For, you see, some years ago, at the cost of several millions of dollars (nearing the hundreds, as I'm told), the state developed and put in place something we here call "The Profile Of Learning". It was a series of projects and graduation standards which moved us off the standardized-test treadmill and caused the graduating students to integrate that knowledge - show how math and reading relate to science by doing a project. Show how history and art affect political thought. And so forth.
High school students, in order to graduate, needed to complete a series of projects, in addition to scoring well on tests, etc., to complete their requirements.
The Profile Of Learning was developed and tested using a then-pioneering group of business and civic leaders, working with educators and the state. Republicans worked hard to make this a centerpiece of the state's education reform.
After it passed, they went home. And apparently many constituents were rather upset. Understandable, given the fact that the state required that these communities implement a mandate the state decreed, without allowing for additional dollars. Can you say "Unfunded Mandate"? I knew you could.
Nothing gives you a greater opportunity to observe strength of character and political conviction in the elected representative more than a difficult decision. And there's only one thing more amazing - that is when a decision is made and then opposition to it forms. The speed at which representatives can backpedal from a previously held position has yet to be measured with any degree of accuracy, though I hear tell that some scientists are working on fractions of an instant, which is to time what a point is to a line - a single identifiable, non-dimensional reference in a continuum.
Even that might not be enough to measure a politician's spin rate. I'm told that some believe that the tools used to measure the rotational rate of quasars and pulsars might be useful in the political arena. I doubt it. So many other tools and rules that are "universal" fail in such an extreme environment, clearly specialized equipment is called for. I'm thinking something along the lines of a proctoscope, myself...
Of course, there's nothing in the political rulebook that prevents this species from changing positions more often than they change their underclothes. In fact, there may just be requirements that they do hold conflicting positions, just to seem to be all things to all people. While uncomfortable to us normal folks, this is all in a day's work for an elected representative. It's a difficult job, which is why they're only able to do it for about five months of the year, for most of them. Those exceedingly rarest of creatures, those rare folks who get elevated to committee chairs and leadership roles, are certainly towers of strength and character, to withstand such a brutal cauldron for most of the year - outside of electioneering every other year, I suppose.
And so, with nary a clue about what the future holds, yet alone what the future graduation standards might become after April 15, those fine elected representatives in the Minnesota House threw caution and logic into the wind, showed great intestinal fortitude and the attention spans fostered by Saturday Morning Looney-Tune cartoons, and repealed the state's graduation standards.
Now, before you pass out from shock and surprise, let me assure you that they do this as often as they bathe - which is to say annually. The state house, the "lower" house and often guilty of an inferiority complex in the government, has long been a supporter of the "let the dumb little shits out, smart people make tougher voters" theory of educational management, annually repeals the Profile. This is the sixth time they've yanked at that carpet, only to find it firmly tacked. While the Governor has made it his mission (along with no new taxes, balancing the budget, making Minnesota great, and using the Governorship as a stepping stone to higher office - perhaps, even, something outside the government, but then again, he's an attorney, so any hope of legitimate employment is fleeting, at best) to see the profile destroyed, the State Senate, on the other hand, has decided that it's going to take the unusual and highly disconcerting step of waiting to see the proposed new standards. While showing a rather upsetting disassociation with their usual positions of courage, infallibility, and the like, it also gives one hope that some day some of these folks might attain a rudimentary form of intelligence and be integrated into the normal workings of society.
Then again, the experiment is yet young, and what is shown to be a maverick stand early in the session often disappears in the late-night-last-minute-trash-can "Omnibus" bill at the end of the session, with it's tourism - funding - road - maintenance - standard - community - clean - water - daycare - licensure - educational - policy - sister - city - promotion - nuclear - waste - disposal - grocery - store - cleanliness - regulation - public - health - survey - homeland - security - fraud - regulation - insurance - hours - of - operation - increase - off - sale - licence - fees - alcohol - in - grocery - stores - medical - regulation - minimum - drinking - age - legislative - pay - raise - catchall bill when "the unpopular proposal" from earlier in the session is tacked on, passed by acclamation, and signed into law while the rest of us are still trying to open the morning paper.
The state house, though, has been disturbingly consistent for a legislative body, and seems to really mean it when they vote to repeal the Profile. In years past, the state senate and governor usually opposed the idea. While it shows courage, certainly, in voting for repeal, it also shows just how far-sighted and future-aware these leaders are - as in, if they've got a clue about where the next breath is coming from, they're genius-class-material. Relatively speaking, of course.
With the addition of the enormous state budget deficit of $4 billion, the legislators did themselves the favor of insuring they wouldn't be hammered by the public by the simple expedient of lying. They managed to add "unfunded mandate" to the whole load, noting that while the Profile Of Learning took years and millions to develop, pilot test, and roll out to teachers and students, they'll be able to compose, complete, train, and implement an entirely new set of standards - with no additional cost, by the next school year, simply by waving their magic wands.
Indeed, their very rationale is so refreshing - "Well, school districts are changing standards all the time, this isn't a major change." Oh, wow, really? I thought the Profile Of Learning was to end all of that. But I guess that it's fine to slash the state budgets, to reduce the money available, and at the same time provide an entirely new, untested, derrivative system for our children that holds no hope of setting the bar high enough for them to be able to say, with pride, "I'm from Minnesota".
Soon, just about every community in the world will be looking for our graduates. Every village needs an idiot, and since we've deprived most of our communities of theirs by sending them to the legislature, we're going to have to build a whole new class. Morons, ho!
Disturbing Consistencies, Part Two
Yeah, what a segue.
I've noticed over the years that my son is incredibly talented when it comes to certain things. If I had to guage his top skill of recent weeks, I'd have to put "making a mess" at or near the top of the list.
Mind you, this is the child who shows some glimmers of the same level of anal-ness as his mother. While she doesn't organize the dust, it's close.
Jack previously would manage to keep that which he cared about clean - that which he didn't care about was a right royal pigsty, but if he cared (say, his hot wheels cars), he'd put them in the appropriate case, carefully, and make sure the doors were closed when he put it in the closet or under the bed (not into the standard toybox for those precious toys, not at all).
But there are moments.
I'm still trying to figure out how he managed to get a chocolate milk stain INSIDE his shirt-pocket without getting it on the front of the pocket. It was clearly visible when the shirt was inside out, but not so when you looked at it from the front.
And no, he doesn't put things in those pockets. I thought of that already.
There's either a career ahead of this kid, or a cellblock. I can't pick which one yet, but you know which one I'm hoping for...
And I offer the rest of this with minimal comment - it came from my sister, the French Major...
- Rick Brown
The French Army in action, a brief history...
England over France, July 24, 1340, Sluys, Holland
England over France, August 24, 1346, Crecy, France
England over France, September 19, 1356, Poitiers, France
England over France, October 25, 1415, Agincourt, France
England over France, August 10, 1557, St. Quentin
England over France, July 12, 1691, Aughrim
England over France, May 19, 1692, Cap de la Hogue
England over France, August 13, 1704, Blenheim
England over France, May 23, 1706, Ramillies
England over France, July 17, 1708, Oudenarde
England over France, September 9, 1709, Malplaquet
England over France, June 22, 1757, Plassey, India
England over France, September 13, 1759, Quebec City, Canada
England over France, November 20, 1759, Quiberon Bay
England over France, February 23, 1797, Fishguard, South Wales
England over France, August 1, 1798, Nile River, Egypt
England over France, October 5, 1805, Cape Trafalgar, Spain
Russia over France, Winter, 1812-1813, Russia
England over France, June 18, 1815, Waterloo, Belgium
Germany over France, September 1, 1870, Sedan, France
Germany over France, August 22, 1914, Lorraine, France
Germany over France, September, 1914, Marne river, France
Germany over France, June 14, 1940, Paris, France
Vietnam over France, May 7, 1954, Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam
Algeria over France, September, 1962, Algeria
The Complete Military History of France
- Rick Brown
...in short, no other country has managed to lose, so badly, for so long, and still remain viable. No other nation in modern military history has ever marched into battle with all the vehicles running in reverse, to save time in turning around to retreat. No other nation's territory has been fought over so much, by so many, for so little gratitude or loyalty. No other nation on earth has more defeats - and is still in existence. No other nation on the planet has more excessive delusions of adequacy than the French.
Why is this?
We could ascribe it to drink, or to geography. We could blame an excess of affection for the finer things in life, or a complete disregard for personal safety and hygiene. We could blame an excessively high in-bred birth rate, producing mental defectives in a large percentage of the population, or a pathetic educational system. We could blame the leaders of the French Armies, who have shown repeatedly that so long as they are not French, they can win. We could blame the French soldiers, who exceed at banging away at only two things; one's a screen door, and the other wears nylons, whether or not it's human...
French Armies, let by French men, are useful for depleting the enemy's munition stocks, but only if the French units are allowed to dig deep holes (preferably in their own terrain - if outside the borders of France, they are known to break and run when confronted by military forces of extremely small units regardless of their own numerical superiority). French forces, when placed on open ground, make effective enemy deterrents simply through no enemy wanting to take on the task of housing and feeding such a large number of frog POWs at any one time. Besides, would you want your sister to marry one?
France is famously regarded for it's wine, cheeses, cuisine, and gallantry. None of which serve as an effective tool for anything other than getting old, fat, and dead at an early age. With the exception of gallantry, which most often comes into play when a modern Frenchman will happily screw anything that seems to have a vertibrae, thus doing what little he can to share the joy of his life - which typically arrives for the screwee when he leaves. The French fill a much-needed void in Europe, which would have to be filled with intelligence and thoughtfulness were the French not there to stink it up.
But in the end, it's a simple fact that thousands of years of being defeated, downtrodden, routed, surrendered, or retreated through, the French lack pride and the strength of character - they simply do not know how, nor care how, to win. They rely on others for their glory, their honor, and their finest fighting force.
In conclusion - The French are an effective fighting force when led by anyone who is not a Frenchman, and are particularly effective at using up enemy munitions at a fearful rate. If they are placed in exposed positions, the French military uniform is the only one in the world that includes a white flag for convenient surrender. If encircled, French army units can be relied on - to fight like dogs... Large, friendly ones that sniff your crotch and whine, looking for food. If outnumbered, French Army units can be relied on - to refuse to engage. If courts-martialed, the French Army Soldier can rely on only one thing - a guaranteed pardon.
Finally, if one can arrange the order of battle in such a way as to have French fight French, the French are likely to obtain at least a tie in the battle, while the rest of us can enjoy the spectacle.
-Anon.
Phew. A bit harsh, but hey, who wants to argue with a selective view of history?
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Tuesday, February 18, 2003 |
Oh-ho! oui, oui!
Seems the French President is upset with potential EU members...
According to this story on CNN,
Chirac said: "These countries have been not very well behaved and rather reckless of the danger of aligning themselves too rapidly with the American position."Right. This from a country that has as it's fiercest fighters castoffs from another country? Where the regular army spends more time on fashion training and how to look good in the enemy camp? Right."It is not really responsible behavior. It is not well brought-up behavior. They missed a good opportunity to keep quiet."
"I felt they acted frivolously because entry into the European Union implies a minimum of understanding for the others," Chirac said.
Chirac called the letters "infantile" and "dangerous," adding: "They missed a great opportunity to shut up."
Too bad Chirac can't take his own advice. This whole thing has been a case of "well, duh" in the diplomacy department. Some people just don't know when to shut up, and because of it, things are just getting ratcheted up past the point of a peaceful solution.
We've got the North Koreans now wanting to pull out of the fifty-year armistice agreement. I'm thinking that right about now, the South Koreans are quite happy to have the American contingent there, even if it is a bit on the weak side compared to the 2-million-man North Korean Army. Were China smart, they'd just have everyone from the province north of North Korea line up at the border - if North Korea moves south, then so does China... It's a thought. And if China wanted to be a world leader, they'd do it.
We've got Saddam, who, when observing all of the peace demonstrations, says "look! We won!" Right. You've won the opportunity to be permanently cast as "grease spot #3 at the bottom of smoking crater #5" and a full case of Rice-a-Roni. Then you've got Chirac, teaming with the Germans and Belgians (when is the last time the Belgian army was good for anyone besides Jean-Claude Van Damme? And waffles?).
Then along comes Chirac who spouts off like the above.
I suppose it's only appropriate that our own President does the Fire-Ready-Aim thing as well, when he says "I'm not gonna be swayed by all them people demonstratin'. I'm gonna blast'em."
It would be funny were it a sitcom. I sure hope George doesn't think it is, or we could all be cancelled in a few weeks, here...
Thud Went The Mighty Axe
Big Bad Pawlenty swung the Big Bad Axe at the Big Bad Budget deficit today. And, as expected, the esteemed Republican leader took aim at all those things this state's Republicans hate - namely, advertising against tobacco, libraries, police, fire, and all sorts of minor things like pregnancy counselling and the like.
Pawlenty cut local government aid by a whopping 22%, which is his way of ensuring tax hikes. "Tweren't I" we'll hear him yell in the coming months. How brave. How different. How "new way of doing things", Timmy Boy. Cut money on the institutions and groups which have their own taxing authority.
There are rare times when politicians seem to do the right things. Then there are times when the political forces in this world seem more to be whatever they can grease through. I used to be in favor of killing all the lawyers. Now I'm thinking we should add politicians to the mix. It would sure save a whole lot of time...
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Wednesday, February 19, 2003 |
Soon, Now...
My favorite season is spring. Has been since I was a kid. Not the "look, stuff's turning green" portion of spring, but the earlier part - later winter, some call it, but it's the time when the snow first starts to show those long trails of runoff - the water melts, runs down the sides of the streets, typically sparkling in the not-often-seen sunlight, and it reminds you that we've survived yet another one. Our snowiest month is March, which is still ahead, but you know, by that time, that winter is temporary and losing.
Today we got our first real decent melt in a couple of weeks - warmest temperatures in six weeks (we hit 38 today). Tomorrow is supposed to be slightly warmer, if a bit less sunny - then, the bottom falls out of the thermometer, as is typical with these things, and the northwest wind that's expected to return next week will drop us back into the well-below-zero temperatures.
The positive side is that today's average high temperature is usually 30 degrees. Two more degrees and we're above freezing. Yes, that's right. Average ABOVE FREEZING. There is light at the end of the tunnel, and no, I know, there's a storm coming, and one behind it, and we're looking at a whole trainload full lining up here with the state tournaments about to start... Snow is still the name of the game around here.
But we know it's melting - heck, I saw a woman jogging, in shorts, this afternoon. No, I don't think she was sane, but you have to admit, it's a definite improvement over a snow-suit so thick you can't bend at the knees...
Big Budget Boo-Boo
It's really nice to see the State House and the Governor working in tandem during the whole budget crises this state faces. Their lock-step devotion to old Republican ideals is absolutely heartwarming. It really lets you know that no matter how much the world changes, no matter how far down the road we get in terms of planning, budgeting, thinking, and looking out for the future, there's the old-line Republican dinosaurs around to gnaw off a limb or two and remind us that we can, indeed, cannibalize ourselves and to hell with the future, so long as the immediate bottom-line looks all right.
Couple of cases in point.
Pawlenty & Co. cut the LGA - Local Government Aid. This is a big pile of money - in some cases, a majority of a city's budget - which comes from the state. Outstate cities (those not immediately suburban to the Twin Cities) tend to get more of this aid than the suburbs, primarily because they have less of a tax base to raise taxes on.
The fine mental agility exhibited by those geniuses in the Governor's office and Cabinet (including the former representative from Burnsville, Dan McElroy, who is the Governor's Finance chief) is astounding. They decided to cut LGA, on average, by 22%. Somewhere, that translates to a cap of 5% less in fiscal 2004, and 10% less in 2005, than this year.
What Pawlenty and the Brain Trust failed to realize is that many communities have bond payments due for things like sewer improvements, streets, sidewalks, and all sorts of other infrastructure they've been encouraged (or required by regulation) to provide, and the 5% cut is more like a 25-40% cut. One can't cut expected payouts. One CAN cut things that one has some flexibiltiy with, but in most cases, those things have been cut by most towns. One of the advantages of dealing with annual budgets like most cities do is that they're a lot quicker to fix things - unlike the legislature, which only deals with this stuff every other year.
For a concrete (sorry, bad pun) example, my former home town, St. Cloud, has a Parks department and a recreation department. The city had plenty of parks - I couldn't estimate exactly what the number of parks were, but just about every neighborhood had an empty block which had a pair of baseball fields (which sometimes, but not always, doubled as hockey fields when flooded and frozen in the winter), a paved basketball court or two, a large playground area with jungle gym, swings, etc., a park shelter (sometimes with warming house), and occasionally a pool. I wouldn't call it exceptional, but it had plenty of parks.
St. Cloud could eliminate the parks department, the people who keep the pools running, mow the lawns, trim the trees, maintain the equipment, and then fence off those parks. They could eliminate their entire recreational department - the people who do the swimming lessons, the people who organize little league, city-sponsored football, hockey, basketball, baseball, softball, and all the other sports.
And in the end, the elimination of those two entire departments would still necessitate that the city cut a number of personnel in law enforcement, or shut down a fire station. I suppose that closing the local library wouldn't be a bad thing - after all, there are three colleges within ten minutes of downtown (well, assuming some jackass isn't rubbernecking on Division, that is, so better make it thirty), so the loss of that single public library might not cause a huge harm to those folks. Just all the "little" kids who use the library is all...
According to Pawlenty, he says "the cities need to share in this burden". Nice. How very nice. The suburbanite lawyer telling out-state mayors that it's not enough that their shrinking tax base and the layoffs and plant closures and loss of development in their communities isn't enough, the 10%-25% loss in tax income isn't their fair share, they're also going to catch it from the other side.
A bit like getting kicked in the ass and the balls at the same time. Or, if you're female, how about twins. Breach birth. And forty hours of labor.
A second example - The man who wants to do away with the whole Profile of Learning and replace it with "Something New" (he's got no clue yet, but he's got all sorts of ideas. I don't know about you, but I think I'm glad Pawlenty isn't a practicing Attorney any more. Can you imagine his defense strategy? "Your honor, I'm certain my client is innocent, and once we've met and I've had a chance to go over his statements and the evidence, I'm sure we'll find a way to ... what's that? He's pleading guilty? Uh...") is also cutting the state's third - a million dollars - to the Minnesota Humanities Commission.
Sure, it's a fancy sounding name. But what it does is act as a resource for teachers looking for materials on geography, history, social sciences, political sciences, and the other social studies areas. They research the available material, recommend or steer teachers away from certain publications, and get help for teachers who might want to know more - or bring in an expert from somewhere else for more focused learning opportunities.
Yeah, no point in letting the voters get too smart, they might find out they're getting screwed.
And finally - Yesterday, Pawlenty said "we need to acknowledge the other giant-sized sumo wrestler in the room - health care costs." The state, either directly through it's programs for unemployed, underemployed, or medical aid, and indirectly, through it's own employees, those at the county, city, and other levels of government, consumes 50% of the health care in this state. That's a lot of health care.
So what does Pawlenty do? We settled our lawsuit with the Tobacco companies a few years ago, and set aside an endowment of $1 billion dollars for anti-smoking programs. It's estimated that the state's "Target Market" ads would save roughly 1700 lives ANNUALLY (that's 1700 taxpayers, Timmy Me Boy), and save the state roughly half a BILLION DOLLARS in ANNUAL HEALTH CARE COSTS.
But no, Mr. "I'm too short-sighted to see the end of my very nose" Pawlenty decided to absorb those moneys back into the general fund. To hell with saving half a billion a year, we've got a billion dollars right here we can glom onto RIGHT FREAKING NOW...
Perhaps I'm an idiot. Perhaps I misunderstand public policy as doing the greatest good for the greatest number. Perhaps I misunderstand the term "solution" as being "to resolve a problem or issue in such a way so as to prevent it from reoccuring, and the methods used do not cause other problems or issues of greater harm".
Or perhaps this state has, again, elected yet another braying jackass to the highest office. The difference, this time, is that this one doesn't wear a feather boa.
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Thursday, February 20, 2003 |
Nope, No Rants Today
Just got a whack to the side of the head in the form of a phone call. Nothing I can talk about right now; I'm healthy, we're all healthy, we're not about to be thrown out of the house, and we're doing OK otherwise. Just some news that I feared might come someday, and seems now someday is now.
Bound To Happen
With the current crop of low-grade-lower-IQ spammers out there, it was bound to happen. I regularly get spam with the URL or the program path on the machine (typically "C:\WINDOWS\PROFILES\ADMINISTRATOR\MY DOCUMENTS\BUSINESS\SENDMSG.EXE" or something similar), but I finally, finally found one that used my own e-mail address as the return address for the crap. No, of course, it didn't have my e-mail address as the revealed address - the "from" address, if you will. Nope, if you hit reply, you got to chew me out. How nice.
Flood Insurance
Those of you who live out east and have an extraordinary amount of snow should review your insurance policies very carefully. Most homeowners policies no longer cover flooding, and instead this is provided under a separate policy.
Here's the tricky part. Most flood insurance policies must be in effect for sixty days before you'll be covered. If you buy the policy this week, and next week the basement floods, you're screwed. If you buy it this week, and the floods hold off for about two months (unlikely, I know), you'll be OK. But at this moment, you'd have to hope for an extreme, extended cold snap which would extend to late April to get covered.
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Friday, February 21, 2003 |
0645 Update
Sorry About That...</HAGRID_VOICE>
Yesterday's post is up now, but that's about all you're going to get today. My schedule starts in a few minutes and consists of TWO separate trips to St. Paul, PLUS picking up Jack between, a little bit of time at home this afternoon to aid wife and daughter in their packing for the weekend camping trip, then getting them over to the appropriate site where "camping" will be done in a cabin with running water, toilets, and a fridge. Their hardship consists of having to wear socks in the cabin. They just refinished the floor.
<BEST_OLD_FART_VOICE>I remember when I went winter camping in my time...</BEST_OLD_FART_VOICE>... Ah, who am I kidding... But seriously, folks. I typically went "winter" camping at an Army base where they train tank troops in Central Minnesota. Nice barracks, etc. The biggest hardship was preparing over a thousand cornish game hens for dinner one night. Yeah, I had help... And yes, I spent one night in an igloo. Some dim bulb of a weenie (not I, thank the Lord) brought in a space heater. It rained all damned night. Of course, no one left a vent hole for the heat to get out, either, but that wasn't my construction methodology. I would have done a tent with snow piled on it, but they put the pile there before the tent was.
So enjoy, wish me luck and fortitude. I'm going to need it, given the way yesterday went. No, I can't talk about it yet, no, it's not my wife or kids.
Funny thing about life. None of us gets out alive...
2345 Update
Yeah, Still Here
Last time I looked at the odometer, I'd driven close to 140 miles today. St. Paul, twice. Home, three times, and the ugly trip, to the tax prep place, a quick dinner, and then to the campout. Wherein my wife and daughter are roughing it by sleeping on the hardwood floor (I coulda bought mattresses, but it wasn't in the budget), watching movies, and sleeping in front of a fireplace... So it goes.
The real genuine horror of the day came in the form of the fine tax system we've managed to invent in this country. Through sheer misfortune, the federal and state governments seem to think we're indecent people, and have to pay in this year. Buckets of money, in fact. Almost $2500.
If it wasn't for bad luck these days, I'd have none at all. Mind you, I'm not looking for a tall tower and a high-powered rifle - there are plenty of people, some close friends, who are in much worse straits. But there are times when I wonder if there's a ship coming in for me, or if I'm one of the many fortunate people who will work and struggle and slog away at it day after day year after year until one day I either fail to wake up, or just don't quite manage to get back into bed at the end of it. The days are long, the nights short, but not so short when you're wide awake through them.
But you people didn't come here to listen to me bitch and piss and moan and whine and wail. I'm not going to spin you an Annie Song ("The sun'll come out tomorrow..." Right, honey, and with those freckles and red hair, you'd damned well better be wearing a sunblock with SPF 90, or your ass will be skin-cancer central in about thirty years). Things will get better. They have to. While I know they can get worse, I'm not going to let them.
See ya tomorrow...
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Saturday, February 22, 2003 |
Update at 0830
Well, I Dunno
I guess one of the things that's thrown me down for the umpteenth time is that I know it will get better, but I'm tired of the "soon" stuff. I want it now. Admittedly, since screaming "now" in the middle of the street at the top of my lungs is unlikely to produce the desired results, it's pretty clear that I've got to do something else to counter that.
What Have We Learned This Week?
Well, let's see. First of all, when one enters a building or space one is not typically in, one should take a moment to identify the exits. Secondly, when one notices there is a potentially dangerous situation - say, some sort of spark near a flammable source - one gets one's ass out of there at the first opportunity. As I was telling someone yesterday "yeah, pyrotechnics are just sparks. You know what a forest fire is? A spark with fuel." Duh.
Let's see. How about "never assume you're out of the woods until you can't see the trees any more?" That one works. As does "no matter how up-and-down things are, there's always an up, and a down, ahead of you." Indeed.
Off to the woods to retrieve the ladies from their "campout" and see what other havoc lies in wait for me. Dollars to donuts it ain't pretty... I'll be back, later...
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Sunday, February 23, 2003 |
Update at 1650
Well, THAT didn't happen.
Out yesterday to pick up Ann and Rhiannon from Apple Valley's "Youth Camp" and it was a fun experience. We got to watch all variety of birds and beasts (Squirrels, mostly) fight it out over birdseed. Even a dozen wild turkeys (no, not the liquid kind) showed up for a visit. They really are beautiful birds in the sunlight - when the sun hits the feathers they look irridescent. Brown to purple to red to green. Wow.
Helped clean the lodge, and I was in the process of cataloging the few faults I found in the woodwork (knotty-pine tongue-and-groove wallboards, pine board ceiling, and a hardwood floor of birch and oak, mostly) when the Ranger arrived. One of his passing comments was "yeah, we finished re-doing the interior last week. All the wood in here is from diseased trees we took down in the camp" (about 20 acres of wooded growth, from what I saw). Given that, the faults in the woodwork were indeed minor...
Then, we hit a couple of errands - well, one - we hit the store for Vitamins, and then came home. As I recall, I put in a movie for Jack, then sat down at the computer. At some point I moved from computer to couch, and then from sitting to prone. At 6:30 pm, Jack, that wee imp of a boy who may not live to see puberty if he keeps it up, managed to enact one of Dr. Seuss's best-loved (by my wife) tales, and hopped on pop.
Now, being of above-average girth and laying flat on my back, there's a large amount of me to land on. As I am average, or below, in other areas, there are certain delicate targets which one would expect that a child, and especially and specifically, a male child, would have the decency to avoid.
Not my son.
There's some significant chance that I may no longer be able to threaten the boy with "knock it off or I'll take you out and make another one that looks just like you" due to my inability to follow through on the second half of that threat. So it goes.
Today dawned too damned early and awful bright (even though it was cloudy), and while Rhiannon was scheduled to make it to 9 am mass, she didn't awaken until then - which was fine, as most of the rest of the house was also asleep (except, of course, yours truly - worry has no time off). After we got conscious, upright, and mobile, we managed to wander to Menards where we acquired a replacement flush-lever-and-rod attachment so I don't have to remove the top of the tank every third time I want to flush the downstairs toilet, a package of beef Jerky (Teriyaki flavor), and a free copy of Encarta 2001 (well, it was $3, with a $3 rebate, means it's going to cost me the price of a stamp), and then to the grocery store (where we bought what we went for, plus a few things we needed but weren't on the list - fortunately, through judicious wandering, we managed to save some $32 on an $80 grocery bill - not too shabby. Four packages of Chicken breasts for the price of two (and yes, I made sure I got four of the largest, because they're going to charge you for the two most expensive - no point in buying a 18 oz. and a 13 oz. when the 13 oz is free - better to get two of the 18s, I figure).
So we came home, had a catch-as-catch-can lunch, and we're about to regress into movie/nap time for daddy. I hear the couch calling again... Hopefully I'll kick the little bug I picked up and be able to move on from there...
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