Tag: Hot Writing

I’m not really feeling any of my prompts this morning.  Try to re-sample something I wrote on this date in the past, and there’s not a lot.

08/15/2011 - 8/15/2011
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Amazon's "Gold Box" recommended Barbra Streisand. I'm scared.

She can sing, but that’s true of lots of people whose music doesn’t suit me.
This is one of the areas where I’m a bad person.  I’m okay with people having opinions that differ from mine.  I also don’t think it’s okay to force other people to adopt my choices.
I’ll also stick up for your right to make choices I don’t like.
Through Sunday and Monday, at the behest of Virginia’s governor, there was a message that the bigots who marched in Charlottesville shouldn’t have been allowed to do so.
Naturally, he chose to go shoot his mouth off on radio supported by money taken by force, and blame the ACLU for creating the situation.  What in the actual fuck?
So last night, after eating my wife’s culturally-appropriated Cuban sandwiches, I was thinking about how, no, I disagree with the idea that there’s only one way to think about it.  There’s many ways to think about it, and no one is absolutely correct.
Establishing that there’s only one proper way to think is tyrannical.
There was a tweet storm going back and forth about it last night.

BREAKING: We respond to @GovernorVA ‘s allegations that the ACLU is responsible for violence in #Charlottesville : https://t.co/T3eeyupPmo pic.twitter.com/pAuSytT36z

— ACLU of Virginia (@ACLUVA) August 14, 2017

I also appreciated Greg Guttfeld’s commentary on The Five.  Unfortunately, I can’s seem to find that online this morning.  Chris Long,
On that note, I guess I’m going to switch focus.  After trying, unsuccessfully, to get through to this HR department that sent me a notice about my application on Saturday, they finally picked up their phone after lunch.  No change.  Um, so why did you send me an email about it on Saturday (and not pick up your phone when I called in the morning)?
I was also looking up information about the eclipse.  Yes, the Sun is going to get blacked-out on my birthday.  If I was superstitious, I’d say that’s a sign.  I’m debating whether it might be a good time to hit the roof of the building to watch.  At the same time, it sounds like the whole thing is going to take more time than I’m willing to devote.  We’ll see.
Bu-buh-but you need to buy glasses so you don’t tuin your retinas!!1!
Or just don’t look directly at it, and watch as the brightness levels go down.

Some busy things this week. Fingers-crossed that there’ll be something promising for work. I need to make a phone call after I got an odd update on Saturday about something I’d applied for back in June.
Part of my birthday is going to see the sun blocked out. If I was superstitious, I’d say that this means something.
I didn’t watch any of the Sunday shows yesterday. The political line is set, and I really don’t need to hear it repeated again. As I said yesterday, perhaps less than artfully, I hold both the racists and their counter-protesters in about as much contempt as I can muster.
Favorite meal cooked by someone else.
I think my wife wrote this as she was gathering ingredients to make Beef Bourguignon n with Two-Buck Chuck.
That would be one, of course. I think that the pearl onions do make a difference.
Is it my favorite? I don’t know that I can pick just one. I do really appreciate when someone cooks for me.

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Other stuff from the weekend….

1. The building leaked. Again. The property manager got really upset when I called the property a “patch job.” That was after there were exposed nails coming through the steps, and before the first leaky window/wall. They’ve since sealed it twice, and it’s leaked following every attempt.
2. I think we’re set for Fantasy Football. Two friends on Facebook, who I met on Orkut years ago joined up. One is a Pats fan, the other a Falcons fan; this could be fun.
3. Deprivation of vice. I won’t elaborate, but I’m cutting back/eliminating several things. We’ll see how I do.

But on to the tasks of the morning. *yawn*

Yesterday was bad.
A lot of the day I spent watching coverage of what was going on in Charlottesville.
(How does Chrome’s inline spell-check think that I misspelled that?)
It doesn’t matter, though. People are lining up on two sides. I, naturally, hold both groups with disdain. Who’s worse? The neo-Nazis. No question. But the Antifa creeps are just that.
The frearless governor of Virginia told the Neo-Nazis to go home, and don’t come back. Yes. I say the same thing to the fucks who provoked them. I also say it to the people of his party who are trying to shove the party’s racist past down The Memory hole.
But you have to erase anything that might spoil your pretense when you’re going to point to how evil others are.
My take on it is a little different than most, certainly. The more I learn about my lineage, the less I know for sure. I do know that my mostly-white father left Mississippi in the early-70s to go kill a Commie for Mommy, and GTFO of the solid South. My grandmother used to tell stories of how the first time she was eligible to vote, her father (my great-grandfather) told her very forcefully that she was going to go vote for “Hairy-Ass” Truman. No, she went and voted for Dewey, but didn’t tell her dad that.
He was the son of two off-the-boat Irish immigrants with eleven kids living in very-blue Mississippi, and an adherent to Papist conspiracy.
How do you handle someone being inappropriate?
I think it really depends on the situation, and the person.
For the situation, if I can leave, I do. If I can’t leave, I’ll give a look, first.
This would make an interesting flow chart. though not as interesting as the one made from Total Eclipse of the Heart.
If the exit or look aren’t working, I’ll normally speak up.  If it’s someone on or beneath my level (yes, I’m judgmental like that), I’ll do it privately.  If it’s someone above me, or someone with recognition, I’ll address it directly.
You do have to have the gumption to say something from time to time.  The more I descend into disability, the less I have to lose by standing up.
Maybe someone will recognize what I’m doing.  Maybe someone will think I’m just as asshole.  If it’s the latter, please explain why.  I’m human, I make mistakes, and am willing to admit when I do.

Woke up too early this morning.
One of the top stories on the local news was this.
That they’re pulling out shows what a failure the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act is.
One of my friends, a big fan of all of it, said that the states that expanded Medicaid didn’t have similar problems.
FTFA: Earlier this summer, the insurer announced it will exit Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio next year. It cited “volatile” markets and “uncertainty” for each decision.
Ohio did expand Medicaid.
And when I had one of the Anthem plans in Virginia, through the Federal Exchange, I had to switch two doctors because they thought the plan was Medicaid.
One of the party’s nominees is actually running on “expanding medical coverage.” He won’t say that that entails expanding Medicaid under the PP&ACA.
Bubuhbut this is just insurance companies getting rich!
Yes, and you’re happy about that if you’ve got their stocks in your portfolio.
It’s tough for me to really discuss, since I know that I am one of the people who stresses the system.
When Elizabeth Warren goes on her tirades about there being blood on her opponents’ hands, remember that she actually wishes that people like me would, in fact, die, to make this mess work.
Something your significant other is into that you are not?
I do know that this was written with the expectation that I’d say “anime,” but that’d be too easy.
How about things about British royalty? I really don’t understand that obsession. There are aspects of the UK that are admirable, but the monarchy isn’t one of them. Yes, there’s positive things to say about the Queen. What’s there to say about Camilla?

I meant to go look for old things to write about this morning. I slept oddly last night, and am worried about email nonsense I haven’t addressed since probably 2005.
When I logged on to Facebook this morning, I was confronted with an old selfie of a very fat, very sweaty me from 2009, stuck in the elevator of my old building.
I’m looking at my old archives to see if I wrote anything that day about it. Nope. The closest thing was from 8/21 that year.

30 - 8/21/2009
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bleh. My odometer is ticking.

If memory serves, since I didn’t write, I was still working 60-hour weeks.  It was hot, and the elevator in the building quit working while I was riding down to the laundry room.
My life at that point was pretty much just work, unfortunately.  Googling around shows that August 11, 2009 was a Tuesday.  I often did laundry on Tuesday nights.  The laundry situation in the building wasn’t good.  There were four washer, four dryers.  All were coin-operated.  One of the older washers was a quarter cheaper than the newer ones.  I would periodically go to a bank near my office to get $40 in quarters to last me for a few weeks.
I hadn’t married my wife yet, so it wasn’t like I had a ton of clothes to wash.
If you’d told me then I’d be in the situation where I am now, I would have thought you were crazy.  Does lead me to my prompt for today….
How do you handle sudden life changes?
I’ve long considered myself very adaptable.  Growing up, with my dad’s career in the Army, we moved a lot.
Since I got sick, it’s been a lot tougher.
But I haven’t just thrown my hands up.  When do you reach your breaking point?
It’s kind of a all-or-nothing proposition.  Once I stop, I’m finished.

Guilty admission, I’m starting on this the day before. I saw a story about where I used to be, and it looks like that maybe, they were looking for any excuse to shed people like me. I may have made the decision easier, but I think there was something else going on. That nobody’s reached out to me kind of speaks to that, maybe.
*shrug*
So, what else?
For a few weeks now, my wife and I have been watching Jeopardy! in the evenings. I can’t really read the answers, so that puts me at a bit of a disadvantage. I suppose I could park right in front of the set so I could read, but the couch is more comfortable. Instead, we got a thrilling NFL preseason match-up between Carolina and Houston. *yawn*
(As an aside, there’s still three slots available in my Fantasy Football league. The participants are mainly personal friends and family of mine. K-Gun Memorial is dedicated to Ted Marchibroda, who died just before last season started.)
I think we ended up watching Vice News Tonight on HBO. Podcasts seeping into other areas of life, Michael C. Moynihan.
I do think that they highlight stories the major networks might not cover. They did, however, cover something last week that popped up on the national news a couple of days later.
Today, after a night of little sleep, I’ll deal with a medical billing issue. Again. The medication I’m on to manage my condition is incredibly expensive. The drug-maker provides co-pay assistance. The insurance company (which is non-profit) is owned by the same group that owns the hospital where I get my infusions. The hospital has had issues billing both the insurance company and the drug-maker. This has been going on since probably April, and still isn’t resolved. I don’t know how many hours I’ve spent on the phone. It’s frustrating, because I generally like all three parties involved. *sigh*
Biggest challenge you have faced so far?

1. My medical condition, obviously. MS is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone. The disease modifying drug I’ve been on for the past eleven months, combined with some really bad care for something else, have landed me in the hospital for a week. It also factors into
2. Employment weirdness. There’s a lot I could write about all of this, but it’s something that requires face-to-face to explain. If you’re healthy enough to work, and can find a company that’ll pay you full-time, you get health insurance. If not, well, what the hell is wrong with you? Work is something you do in an office owned by somebody else for eight hours per day.

I’m going to stop now, though. I’ve already deleted several paragraphs of ranting.

Not a lot going on, just a waiting game on things.
Today’s big thing is getting a Tysabri recharge, the first since I got cast aside from my position. The timing isn’t working out exactly as I would have liked, but….
I’m wondering what I can push for a group I’ve been helping string along some rather dated broadcast equipment. No, going to Windows 7 isn’t going to fix things. Really.
Have you ever felt that you were singled out even though someone else was actually breaking the rules but you weren’t?
If you claim someone is “breaking the rules,” cite them.
So much of what I’ve encountered the past few years is people speaking authoritatively, without a single bit of support; argument from authority. Far too often, especially in my (former) line of work, people establish themselves as authorities, and don’t accept one bit of second-guessing. Even attempting to do so results in strong rebuke.
That said, it’s not just in what I was trying to do for work. It attaches to many, many, many aspects of life. How dare you even question Al Gore’s authoritative tome on climate change? It’s science. So, too, is whatever Paul Krugman regurgitates on economics; he has a Nobel Prize.
In anything, your have to make your argument, cite back to something, not someone, that is actually authoritative.
To me, it’s not that big a deal; I did that consistently in my studies.
Listening to the Reason Podcasts isn’t really conducive to keeping focused on this. So I’ll stop. Maybe something more substantive tomorrow.

Because eight is great!!1!
On the other hand, my CSS skills, notsomuch.
Things are moving somewhat. The weather is nasty, but at least the windows didn’t leak this time.
So many different paths, not sure which I should really pursue. I do know that I’m ready to do something completely different, but don’t know how to get there.
My wife and I have been watching Restaurant Impossible recently. Would I want to do that? Not really, but I’m jealous of the flexibility he, and the owners he’s helping have.
In so much of what I’m doing lately it’s “go buy this proof you can play Minesweeper,” then pay several hundred dollars per year to keep it active.
Creativity isn’t rewarded at all. Even more, correctness isn’t valued nearly as much as meeting arbitrary deadlines. Maybe I’m not cut out for that sort of environment, anymore.
How do you keep motivated during the tough times in your life?
My goals are really kind of all over the map at this point. Constant string of OODA Loops. Maybe someday I’ll have an opportunity to relax.

Fourteen more to write for this round. I still owe one from my two days’ late start.
I keep getting sidetracked by other things when it comes to sitting down to write this entry. An acquaintance is complaining about the lousy Intertubes service he’s getting from the local network provider. But, like, see, with Net Neutrality, all that traffic is treated equally as they load more and more people onto a single node.
I literally can’t even.
If given the opportunity to see how different choices affect your life, would you proceed with it
One of the basic things in Army leadership is the After-Action Review. They help you compile lessons learned. That said, there’s all sorts of second-guessing you can do about just about anything. When you narrow things down to making the best decision based upon the situation
Sometimes shit happens, despite whatever choices you’ve made. To me, your ability to adjust on the fly speaks more to your overall ability.
I think, though, at times I tend to be over-cautious because I spend too much time trying to analyze what I’ve done later.
My instincts have been correct more often than not.
Drafting Tim Tebow in fantasy football, well….