Stop!

All bitching will cease for the moment. Well, at least on this blog. (let's not get carried away)

Today is my friend K's birfday! We'll only have happy talk today.

He shares his birfday with several notable people:

Lawrence Olivier


Bernie Taupin


Al Corley (former studio 54 doorman cum Steven Carrington of Dynasty)


Morrisey, which I'm sure he loves.


and of course Harvey Milk

So today's HGF is for you K.

I realize I can't do the Andrew Shue thing again, even though I collected some pretty nice pics of him this year, I'll move on.

Happy **th birfday my friend!






I'll be vacating for the next week.

Love

I think I can make it.

I think I can I think I can I think I can...

Of course, I have no choice bt to make it to tomorrow afternoon and the beginning of my much needed vacation.

Today is commencement at the college...which, from a purely faculty standpoint... absolutely sucks.

It's longer and more tedious than when you're sitting in the audience because you know MAYBE two of these people, and them only in a vague sort of way. So you sit there and schmooze with your fellow faculty members, whom you also know in a vague sort of way because everyone is always in the classroom.

But mercifully it's over today and I can get on with vacating my life.

Gas is on it's way up for the annual holiday screwing we American's expect and somehow tolerate.

I'll be doing my part to contribute to the coffers of those poor destitute oil companies. I hope they can make it this quarter on the 8-900 billion the manage to scrape by with.

Sent an application off to a school in the North Woods today. I'm not kidding, this joint is truly in the north woods according to mapquest. There's very little there except this school and a bunch of national parks. Oh and Lake Superior about 50 miles away. I imagine it's cold there. I imagine it snows there.

BUT! There appear to be gay people. There's all kinds of things on the internet when I googled the area. Odd isn't it? Organics all I'm certain, Gods love 'em.

We'll see how interested they are. There are only 19 jobs in my field on the Chronicle for higher education website this week,and very few of those are in my discipline. I'd imagine they have their pick of candidates.

But hope springs eternal. I could have probably paid off my student loans with all the dough I've spent looking for a job.

I swore off several of my old blogs recently. Some because they kept getting more into pop culture, which doesn't interest me very much, and some because they kept getting more implausible the more I read. I have to wonder how many of these people use the blogosphere to exercise their writerly fantasies and how much of what they write is pure fiction.

You can't challenge them without direct evidence cause you risk the wrath of the crazies. And they may well be crazy. I got involved with one of those once and learned my lesson very well. No thanks I'll just stop reading rather than challenge a potential nutcase.

Well, it's obvious to me that I have little of interest to say today so here's the Thursday morsel.

um, no

"Today’s a great time to be any creative type of person, I think, and in just about every aspect of creativity, this generation is going to blow away every generation ever. Because we’re the first ones with the Internet. I can get together with some friends, shoot a movie, cut it on my laptop at home, and then put it online. We don’t have to listen to anyone.” Joseph Gordon-Levitt

It sounds so great in theory doesn't it?

Headline: AP "Thousands beaten, raped in Irish reform schools"

Those crazy Catholics.

What will they think of next?

I still say that until you dismantle organized religion in this world hate will continue to be a staple of life.

Is there a prize inside?

I doubt that.

Will we be surprised if the California Supreme court upholds Prop 8?

We shouldn't be. They made it clear during oral arguments that they were loathe to overrule the vote of the people. Never mind that that vote was influenced by outsiders.

There should be riots, but I doubt there will be. For some reason we've all become cowed to the status quo. We're headed down a very ruinous path if this decision is upheld and goes without riotous reaction from the populace.

America may very well be done for this time.

Too bad, it was pretty cool while it lasted.

Blame the shitty education system. Oh, wait, none of you know any better so how could you blame it?

Pity.

Love

Is it possible?

The way my life usually goes this latest development shouldn't be all that surprising to me.

As regular readers know I've been sort of, not really looking that hard,but making a stab at it once in a while when I felt like it, looking for my biological father.

Since I'm 52 I figure I'd better get a move on, this old geezer is at least 70 already and how long am I gonna wait.

I'm pretty sure I've found him.

And I'm pretty sure he's gay.

How fucking cool is that?

See, one guy with this name keeps popping up in my searches. He lives in a city a few hours from here, and well, l,et's just say the area is trendy and another name keeps coming up with his as an associate with the same address. Thank the Gods I know the code for "partner."

So, we'll see how this goes. I'll send him a letter, so he has deniability, I have distance from possible rejection, and no one has to feel like they're on the spot. if he acknowledges that it's him then maybe I'd like to met him, say hi. We'll see, what happens.

It's kind of exciting, kind of scary, and maybe in the end none of the above. Mommie Dearest has already made her position clear, "get lost." And since she never told her husband of 50 years I can't imagine the repercussions for her, though if he dies first I'm afraid I'll be tempted to out her. We'll see if I'm around these parts when it happens.

But it's Wednesday, I have yet another free evening to spend at home and I haven't figured out what to do with myself. Last night I was in bed at 9:30, pathetic. Tonight I may have to make pots or ride or workout...something. I can't just sit and stare at the damn tv all night I'll go insane.

But grades are posted semesters over and I'm free to relax...lol...like that'll happen.

I'm taking off this weekend for my college town. No I'm not going to a reunion, or anything like that. I still have a friend who lives there that i stay in touch with and we've always been good friends, so I thought it'd be fun to go see her. There's horseback riding, and food and talking and such planned for all day, then I'll head home.

Tuesday, of course, is my birfday. Maybe that's the day I'll send Daddy a letter.

"I've written a letter to Daddy..." I feel like Jane Hudson, maybe we're related.

Morsel!!!

Tuesday (four days to vacation)

I found this last night quite by accident.

"The era of apologizing for Republican mistakes of the past is now officially over," Steele will say in a speech to the RNC's 2009 State Chairmen's Meeting

What I'm wondering is when, exactly, did they START apologizing?

Of course, there's always the very public and widespread taking to task that Obama's getting over DADT,ENDA, DOMA, anything he promised the gays.

Now, I hate to jump in and sound like I'm trying to steal Richard Rothstein's thunder over at Proceed at your own risk, and I'm certain he doesn't even consider me, let alone consider me a blogging colleague, but the facts are these:

Like him, I too told you all so when you were jumping in line with glee to follow the pied piper to ruin, but did you listen? Nah.

Richard, in today's post likens himself to Cassandra, the mortal in Greek mythology who is prescient, but is cursed by the Gods so that no one will believe her predictions.

He has a point, a bit melodramatic, but then again that's what we love about Richard.

So the fact remains that you DO only have yourselves to blame. You DID follow this guy down the road to ruin and you WILL have to continue to live with the complete lack of results you will obtain as a result.

I DID tell you, so, and as usual not a damn one of you listened.

So there you have it. A non-apology, I feel just like a newly minted Republican.

So here's a morsel...and a half:


AND on a more positive note:
Mariela Castro led a gay rights parade in Havana over the weekend. She, incidentally is Raul Castro's daughter. Kinda explains why Cuba is gettin' so gay all of a sudden, huh?

But progress is progress, better in Cuba than nowhere at all, which of course, is the choice we are faced with.

Sunny Monday!

I just couldn't seem to get any traction this weekend. No matter what I started I couldn't get it finished.

Saturday I went out about 11am to buy some clay and send a couple of grad gifts etc but the art supply store didn't have what I was looking for, and I thought, "Well, I'll just drive to Lawrence and see what Brackers has in the way of new clay."

My first mistake.

Lawrence is about 45 miles from where I made this decision, and after 45 minutes in the car I found myself pulling into Bracker's parking lot, with the intention of spending about an hour just browsing and then purchasing some clay and maybe a few new tools.

They were CLOSED!!!

They're never closed on Saturday.

They were having a workshop and had closed for the event. I was and am not a happy customer. To drive 45 minutes only to discover I had to go home empty handed. So! I drove back home and since I took the alternate route, which requires paying a toll, I ended up downtown and decided I'd stop at the Westport location of the store I'd started out at and buy clay there.

There was evidently some event since traffic was backed up almost a mile from the area I needed to be. I wound up back at the store I started at. It took 4 hrs to buy clay and two graduation gifts.

Oh! And while I was at Walgreen's picking up my allergy prescriptions (which I was doing under duress since Walgreen's has pissed me off so bad recently) The woman behind the counter rang up my scrips, took my credit card and proceeded to authorize $155.13 for prescriptions I should have been paying $$29.00 for.

Needless to say there was a struggle while I attempted to keep the top of my head in place.

There ensued a brief but unpleasant conversation in which I let them know I was there against my better judgment and THIS was exactly the reason why. I still don't see the purchase credited on my card, which means I have to talk to some Walgreen's manager today. Swell.

When I arrived home I discovered that a creature of some sort had somehow fallen down my chimney and was flapping around inside the wall on top of my fireplace.

I turned on some Etta James, made myself a HUGE gin and Tonic and made Reuben's for dinner. What else was there to do?

Sunday...well, I downloaded a movie from Amazon. It just seemed pointless to try to accomplish anything after Saturday. Maybe next weekend.

But! It's Monday! The week starts anew, there's plenty to do, and not very much of it entails work. I'm very happy. I'll ride today, I'll do that last final at 6pm and then the rest of the evenings this week are mine. And Friday I'll start my vacation.

Oh I truly hope I don't start vacating today, there's too much to do to get ready to be gone for a week, But one never knows.

Monday Morsel:



I know he's wearing a shirt, but seriously, how could I NOT post this?

It's Friday! Thank God it's Friiiiday!

If I remember correctly those were the lyrics to a disco song of the same name many moons ago.

I'm starting to wonder if all this save the economy by bailing out whoever holds out their hand(except, of course, the little guy.) is the right course.

I was never a fan of handing any bank billions of dollars but now that I see the economy is o better off, and in fact is about to get a LOT worse I wonder if it was worth it at all.

Chrysler is dumping hundreds of dealers, and GM is about to follow suit. This will result in hundreds of thousands of people losing their jobs. You do realize this is bad?

Gas, for reasons apparently not understandable to mere mortals, is up over 30 cents in the past three weeks. The silence over this is deafening. WHY is no one raising hell about this?

Is greed the national pasttime now? I thought that was baseball.

All these good God-fearing Christians (a term I will never understand) are standing idly by while at least one of the seven deadly sins is perpetrated EVERYWHERE in the marketplace and with full knowledge that it's happening. Companies are NOT bashful about telling you that their bottom line is THE most important thing to them and they'll do whatever is necessary to protect it at all costs.

The last time I took an economics class, and believe me it was a long time ago because I'd never willingly do it again, I was told that when business was down and profits were down that interest rates would go down as a result, to attract more borrowers.

Today however, this is not the case. When business is off we RAISE the interest rates on our existing customers because we've got to get our usury (and that's what's going on here) and since we can't get it form all those we used to we're gonna get it from you. And fuck you if you can't or don't want to pay it. We can legally demand it of you and we're gonna.


This greed is not only state sanctioned, it's seemingly understood. We're no longer in this together, it's every man for himself.

Oh! And the guy who got to be President riding the backs of those who believed all his bullshit about equality and treating mo's fairly and not tolerating the shit the previous administration handed out is proving to be nothing more than a guy who just wanted to be President, and was wiling to tell us whatever we wanted to hear to get it.

See Jon Stewart on last night's Daily Show for a great commentary on Obama and DADT.

But enough of engaging in the popular gloom and doom of the day. It's Friday! I'm having dinner with a friend tonight whom I haven't seen in months because we're both in academia and this semester was apparently interminable for more people than me.

Saturday I think I'll spend the day in the studio. I haven't been able to do that since the holidays and I'm waaay over due. It's supposed to rain a lot today, which precludes horses for the weekend, and I need to make pots anyway.

I've got one more week until I get to vacate. I'll be off for points unknown on the 23rd. I cannot wait!

But! Until then here's our selection for the week. It's a bit random this time, but that's just how I feel today I guess.

Love

It's NPR all day and all night

I'm sick and tired of all the gloom and doom all over the media. Let's just wipe out all the debt, all the insolvency and start over. We could do it. There'd be revolution, but there's going to be one anyway, so we may as well not have to pay our bills while it goes on.

I can't decide if the revolution will be over money or sex. Of course, being the vain old 'mo I am I say it'll be sex. It'd be poetic. "Americans take to the streets to fight over who gets to have legal sex! The haters who think America and it's precepts belong only to them, or those who have always existed in the shadows and are sick of hiding for no good reason on the other side." I can't wait to see who wins.

I'm also sick of cowboys being portrayed like this:



Cause that ain't what they look like.

Even this picture has only one cowboy who's representative of my experience. It's the one on the right. That lanky drink of water is more like the cowboys I've known, and even he is a bit of an overstatement in many ways.


But they do make a lovely couple don't they?

Love

Do ethics exist?

Do ethics only concern us when someone else is about to do something we find repugnant and we exercise our moral imperative over them? It seems so.

We're currently in this torture debate all over the place, hypocrites like Shepard Smith are pounding the table to demonstrate their opposition to torture when for the last eight years they've remained silent on this very issue when they KNEW just like we all did that we were indeed torturing.

Today I found an article debating whether it's ok for clergy to advocate torture, from the pulpit. Was I the only person listening to all that shit my clergy spouted about loving your neighbor and how America stood for something, and we wouldn't stoop to methods other country's used because we possessed the moral courage to withstand whatever they could throw at us without torture. These are conversations my teachers had with us in class. I wasn't exactly spoon-fed pacifism, nor was I fed by hawks.
But rather I was given a two-sided view of the world and what were our choices as a country and what did those choices ultimately do to us as a nation?

However, today in this article I see that "Gary Bauer, a former Republican presidential candidate affiliated with several Christian right groups over the years says: "I think if we believe the person we have can give us information to stop thousands of Americans from being killed, it would be morally suspect to not use harsh tactics to get that information"-AP

THIS is a modern day Christian? Is this the way our religious leaders are interacting with the faithful? Seriously?

Who is it that's teaching ethics and values to these people who are robbing the U.S.Treasury to save their insolvent banks, (and yes we all know they're insolvent) who are in turn taking our money and paying it in bonuses to those who caused the very problems that have brought our economy to its knees?

I just had a minor encounter with a credit card company that brought all this to mind. I was reviewing the list of bills to be paid this week, and noticed that my minimum payment for one of my credit cards was significantly ($15) higher than it was just last month. This is a card I don't use anymore because I think they're fee happy and I've cut up the card long ago and I'm paying off the balance and once that's done I'm canceling the card. SO with obviously nothing to lose I asked them what the fuck was up, why did they raise my minimum payment. Their response? "Because we can."

Now, I won't default on this card because of a measley $15.00 a month, but there are lots of people out there who would, and mostly because they're already stretched to their limits. And although I just said with all the cock-sureness I could muster that I wouldn't,it occurs to me that if I lose my job in July as I suspect may happen this card will be the very first casualty. But does this credit card company care about that? Do they care that they're setting up a situation in which a default might very well occur that wasn't necessary in the first place? No they do not.

Ethics folks! We've somehow done away with them and we've imposed religious values as a replacement. And questionable religious values at that.

It's that age old argument we used to have when I was a Respiratory Therapist. Just because we can put someone on 5 or 6 machines and keep them alive indefinitely does not mean that that is what we should do. It's the ethical argument that's missing from our discourse today. A feeling that there is someone else on the other end of our decision, and how will this affect them, and in return us.

Go try to get an abortion and see how pleasant your day is? There stands someone yelling and screaming at you on the very day you're probably the most emotionally conflicted you'll ever be in your life, and they're ready and willing to impose on you THEIR moral judgment.

Stand up and profess your love for another man or woman, and watch the hair stand up on the back of their necks like a bunch of rabid dogs.

Demand your civil rights and they'll willingly tell you that you're not entitled to ANY because you're not like THEM!

Try to be a gay soldier who wants to fight for their country and possibly give their life for it. Can't do it, you might distract the other soldiers. We apparently need soldiers. We've extended tours of duty, called men and women back into service with Stop-Loss, run through the National Guard, who has no business being off the continent, and what does the military do with a willing enlistee who admits their sexuality?

Out! Get out! We don't want you. In fact if you're in we'll throw you out because you're gay, over 10,000 of you, whom we need, out!

Does this make any sense to you?

Well here's a morsel for you to ponder:

fight fight fight

I'm currently fighting with the Chrysler Corporation over their ineptitude and callousness.

They won't release certain parts for my car so aftermarket's can produce them.. So I'm relegated to buying them from the dealer. Which I refuse to do since their parts were defective to begin with. I know this because I've already had these particular parts replaced by the dealer and it didn't fix the problem. They're of course being dicks about it.

Speaking of dicks. I wrote one of my credit card companies asking why they increased my payment on a card for which I have never been late, nor missed a payment. Their response? "Because we can" We'll see if I try to fuck them as I am inclined to today.

Walgreen's almost directly across the street from me has lost a customer because of poor service. Seriously don't leave me standing there behind some senile old man who can't work a fucking debit card when there are three of you standing there doing nothing, and all you really have to do is take my damn prescription.

It seemed my students didn't take me seriously when I told them they had to memorize their monologues for their final. They didn't. It cost them.

Back is out, Chiropractor, adorable, yet not really helping. Damn I so wish he was ugly so I could yell at him. But this guy is so NOT ugly. Arrgh!

Found an incredible perfect house for me. Can't afford it, but it's pretty cool. Corner lot, detached garage with room for a studio. 3 bedrooms. Pretty nice. Maybe in another life.

Eating better, losing wright, but it's a VERy slow process. I hate that!

Well it's morsel time. I gotta go read.

Silence is Golden

The boss and I aren't speaking at the moment. After Friday I'm surprised we're even able to be in the same room.

I should mention here that she's heard the rumor that she's on a hit list around here and her reactions to that, instead of evaluating her strengths and utilizing the hell out of them, is to run around here and get all up in everybody's business. When she hasn't done her homework this poses a few problems.

A few weeks ago she told me be the point person on this software rollout we were about to do. Friday, we were in a netmeeting with the guy from the software company and while we were meeting he logged into our server and set everything up, transferred our data etc. and during that time she says "Well, I guess I'd better get an email out to everyone to let them know I've got this done." I was not amused.

"So I'm not to be involved with this at all?" I asked. "Well, yes, you're to be the trainer and the contact person." A monkey could figure out this software in five minutes, I still was not amused. "I see," I replied. I then closed my notebook, placed it on the floor and proceeded to sit there and drink my coffee the rest of the meeting and when it was over I got up and left without a word.

An hour later someone else came in to inform me that the boss had gone to the eye dr only to discover that when she was gettin all up in my business she was SUPPOSED to be THERE. So since she had to wait, would I compose and send out the email to the staff regarding the changeover.

I know a bone when one is thrown at me.

I did it anyway.

THEN Friday afternoon I had one thing left to do at 4pm. I'd saved it so that I could concentrate on it when everyone was gone. It isn't involved but it requires all my attention and I don't get that uninterrupted time when I need it unless I schedule it. Enter bosslady...

"Would you like to see the database for the new project," she asked as she licked her chops. "Sure, I'll be right there."

Now, I'm thinking that I can give this 15 minutes and then get back and knock out my last thing quickly and go home on time.

It reminds me of my allergies. WHY IS IT ALWAYS A SURPRISE?

This meeting, like all meetings in this department almost immediately degenerated into an exercise in defining terms. Which of course I was not prepared for and had no time to devote to. After attempting to enter the conversation three times and either being shouted down or totally ignored each time I said "Oh. Mygod!" under my breath and closed the notebook again.

So I sat there and listened to this exercise in banality wondering all the while why my boss had sent me to that class to learn databases and then without ever asking me, farmed this particular project out.

I looked at the clock on the computer next to me. It said 4:30.

I stood up told the woman who had done the work that it was a pleasure to meet her, and thanked her for all her work, turned to the rest of them and raised my hand, said "See you Monday." And left in the ensuing silence.

I was so mad I forgot to turn off my computer when I left.

As you can see the silence is more than one-sided. We're at an impasse, me figuring out ways to torture her, her figuring out ways to torture me. Call us George and Martha without all the love.

But the weekend was nice. Cocktails and dinner with friends Friday, E worked on my shoulder, which was great since it felt so much better when he was done. I got that lesson on Saturday, in which I told her I wanted to learn natural horsemanship and she told me she wasn't much of a proponent of that and then proceeded to teach me the very stuff I wanted to learn. I'll go back fer sher. Liked it a lot.

Saw a coupe of things on CBS Sunday morning about the Catholic Church, all bad, which made my day. i.e. what the pope did to Galileo, supporting my contention that the Catholic Church and the truth are only on passing terms. I mean seriously, when do those people NOT show up with a new rule designed to get themselves off the hook. We can start with the Doctrine of Equivocation and move on to all those payments they've made these past few years.

Figured out how to get movies on the computer. Actually it was easy and I finally saw Milk. Penn was perfect. For some reason I'd always thought that Moscone and Milk were found together by Feinstein in the Mayor's office but it appears that was not the case at all. He really was our last great hope. I have to wonder why we always destroy the ones we truly need.

Not impressed by this latest offering by the insurance companies over health care. We need single payer, and nothing else will do. Their assurances that they'll lower their intended cost increases over ten years are falling on deaf ears here. Anyone who'd believe them would also believe George Bush when he said we don't torture. They're only doing this to placate until they can get some more influence set up, then we're done for.

I tell you elimination of those evil bastards is the only option.

Well here's Monday afternoon's morsel. I've raved enough for one day. Besides I gotta go out and play, it's nice out there.

How nice! HGF!

I guess Farrah Fawcett is leaving us soon. Man cancer sucks. Not the way to watch someone go at all. Fare thee well Farrah, you were certainly our icon, thank you. Let's think good thoughts for and send her to a good place on angels wings.

It's over! This semester didn't do me in as I feared it would. The last class was pretty cool, they had all done quite a lot of work on their final project and though there was still quite a ways to go before they would really understand textual analysis, they got far enough for our purposes.



And now it's Friday (I wish I could find and place here a picture of Sylvester the cat looking around and rubbing his paws together while going "muahhahahaha" cause that's how I feel)

There's a scheduled lesson tomorrow at 2, but I'm wondering how it'll happen since it's raining hard right now and has been for almost 2 hours. We'll see. If she cancels it'll be weeks before we can reschedule.

However! We don't need to reschedule HGF cause it's here, it's queer and I'm very used to it.






Love

I just had to come back

Rupert Murdoch just figured out that they're giving news away on the internet and he wants a piece of the pie. Of course, as we already know Rupert wants a piece of everybody's pie cause the $755 million News Corp made last quarter isn't quite enough for him.

NOW, Bristol Palin, the child apparently raised by the daughter of Satan (If you believe in that sort of thing) says "Teens should just not have sex"

Yeah, thanks Bristol. This is news to us all. And by the way we already figured out that particular plan does not work. NEXT!

I'm increasingly unhappy today about Obama and his silence on civil rights, marriage rights gay rights, whatever the fuck you want to call them, they're CIVIL RIGHTS!!! They belong to us all.

Of course don't tell Bobby Jindal that, he's all set to sign any bill that the Louisiana legislature sets in front of him that even implies that gay people can be denied civil rights. This civil war should be VERY interesting. I wonder how it will be fought?

And to bring home the concern of the day there's news out of Georgia regarding the death of two women who were married in Toronto in 2007.

"Two women were found dead in their home yesterday morning after a home fire was reported to authorities in rural Statesboro, Georgia, northwest of Savannah. The statesboro herald reports:

After Statesboro firefighters arrived at the scene around 9:45 a.m. and extinguished the flames, they discovered a woman’s body and called police, said Statesboro Police Chief Stan York. Statesboro Police detectives responded and discovered a second woman’s body, he said. Statesboro Police Capt. Scott Brunson, who called the fire 'suspicious,' said the bodies of Naumbyia T. German, 26 (right), and Kiona Lively, 27, who both lived at the residence, were sent to the Georgia Bureau of Investigations Crime lab for testing. Neither Brunson nor Statesboro Fire Chief Dennis Merrifield would comment on the cause of the fire, and Brunson said he would not release additional details, including the cause of death, until crime lab reports were returned. He said he expects the results Thursday or Friday." -towleroad.com



...and we still haven't learned a thing.

Where is the Love

Ok, so we pinned our hopes on our new President and so far I'm still waiting.

Where is the repeal of don't ask don't tell?
Where is the promised expansion of adoption rights?
Where is ENDA?
Where is the Matthew Shepard hate crimes bill?

Hell, where is MY bailout?

He's acted vigorously and "decisively" toward financial institutions who then took our money and paid bonuses to people who did not earn them.

However, he failed to help the middle class in any direct way.

Is sharing the wealth directly with the people a basic tenet of socialism? Well, yes it is. But since we're getting all the shitty parts of socialism let's see some of the benefits!

I'd move to another country in a second, BUT! THEY make it very difficult to do. THEY have tons of requirements that must be met before one can even apply for such a thing. We, on the other hand say, "Oh, Hells yeah. Come on in, and while you're here mow my lawn will ya?" After the lawn is mowed and the kitchen is clean there comes the requisite buyers remorse we Americans are genetically predisposed to.

Gas is on it's way back up AGAIN, we're preparing for memorial day and the annual schtupping we get by the oil companies. Recession or no, they want their due. Can't get by on a measley 36 billion a quarter.

So, I ask you Mr President, WHERE THE FUCK IS MINE?

Where's the job that gynormous stimulus package was supposed to provide? Cause yesterday there were 10 jobs in the entire country available in my profession on the Chronicle for higher education website. And only 3 of those were in my discipline. HOw much competition do you suppose their is for those jobs?

I'm ready Mr. President. I'm still here! George Bush didn't run me off. I'm educated,intelligent,healthy, willing and most able.

Time to step up.

In lieu of an actual reply to weekly my plea for justice in this world a morsel will have to suffice.


Love

late again

I'm still busy, still trying to keep it together and still trying to keep from allowing anyone at work to win the pool that I know exists. The one in which people have wagered when I'll have that long awaited stroke.

The stupid issue that I've been raving about for months has reared it's ugly head again. I finally told them I refuse to discuss it anymore, just make it stop.

I emailed the stables to keep in touch. no response. See these people are like this;
They're all friendly horse people and all that. Right up until it comes time to be honest with you. Then they're evasive and exhibit avoidance behaviors. AND they're all run by this guy with COPD whose moods are incredibly labile and who NEEDS a scapegoat. This year I'm pretty sure it's going to be me.

I hope to get out there this weekend, or possibly next if it rains tomorrow like they say it will. And I'll be interested to see the reception I get. I'd wager it's a cold one.

anyway, I've already looked into and made an appt with another stables this Saturday. We'll see how it works out. I really want to learn these new training techniques I'm investigating and to do that I need to find a new place anyway.

But screw that it's 70 degrees and I need to go out and play.

I think I'll start with a morsel.

Gender Disregard

I had yet another of those encounters that seem all too frequent in Library-land. I was the only man in a room full of Librarians. All women. Some of them were friendly. Some not so much. One of them was in fact a little too friendly and as per usual I didn't get it until I was in the car and on the way out of the parking lot. The poor woman fancied me.

That would be known as barking up the wrong tree.

After that, since I didn't realize that the workshop was only for half the day I went to the college and got some stuff caught up. It was pretty great to get all that stuff off my plate.

I'm thinking I'm due for a little vacation the end of the month. Maybe a little jaunt will dome some good, get away from it all. Gotta figure out where and how much though before I start anything. Nut right now I need to get things tied up around her for the semester.

So here's a late Tuesday morsel. I'm off to ride the bike while I can, it's supposed to rain almost all the remainder of the week.

Love

and so it goes...

So begins the last week of classes for this semester. I cannot tell you how happy I am to get to this point.

I'm tired. I need a rest. Quick! a cushion for my feet!

I've been taking an elementary computer class simply to make it go away. Every time I try to register for a relevant class I get this message, "You haven't taken the prereq!" Well,, of course I have, but at other schools, and since I can't seem to make the registrar understand this I have to call them and have them put me in the class. It's a hassle I thought I'd overcome by just taking the damn class and getting it over with. Big miscalculation!

This one is much akin to the decision I made some years ago to take Art History in a semester that I was directing the biggest show of my academic (student) career, and carrying a full grad load as well as teaching. I barely made it out of Art history alive.

This past week I came across an assignment that required Access '07. I had already done the earlier assignments in excel and word 07 and for those I dl'd a trial of Office '07. Unfortunately it was the standard edition.

I looked at my program files and noticed (shit) I don't have Access in this version. So I dl'd a trial version of Office '07 Pro. Yet another in a long line of mistakes.

For the better part of an afternoon last week I couldn't figure out why I had no space on my HDD, and why certain things wouldn't work. Of course, three competing versions of Microsoft Office (I use XP Office normally) probably had something to do with that.

So, after my attack of Alzheimer's passed I deleted the standard version, as well as the photoshop files that should have been on another drive, and lo and behold! Hard Drive Space!

But this morning I finally had enough. The excel in ')7 Office Pro would not work. I just sent the damn assignments, fuck it. i have finals of my own to prepare and administer. I'll do whatever final exam there is in this class and move on.

This semester is like the 5th circle of hell.

The sun is purported to be making an appearance this afternoon, I remain skeptical. If it does I'm off to ride the bike.

Went to see the student written and directed one-act plays this weekend at th college.

Not bad! I was pleasantly surprised. There were only two, as opposed to last year when there were like, 7. These two seemed much more developed, and though I was way over the death motif,(both plays featured death from disease.) I thought it went well for the most part.

Had dinner guests Saturday night and then played cards until...well, way too late. But it was fun. Yesterday was devoted to the hum-drum, like laundry, oh! and many hours at the computer trying to make photoshop work.

This week I have a workshop on creating a training program. Along with all the usual.

So here's a morsel to start the week off with:

Hot Guy friday!

Welcome, to yet another exciting installment of Hot Guy Friday!

Busy weekend on tap, but no horses, it's still raining. I've got to see a play, do a ton of homework, and at some point rest.

Update:
I have to jump back in here and make a little observation. The Republican (the republican comparing homosexuals to murderers btw)in the video atop the sidebar is from Tyler Tx. Have you ever been to Tyler Tx? I had an Uncle who once put it best, "Those are perhaps the stupidest people I've ever had to spend any time around in my life. I'm certain there's something wrong with the water in that place, cause they've all got it."

He was 75 at the time. He lived to be 87. I had not, at that time, yet had the distinct experience of going to Tyler Texas, but I had been to Mountain Home,Arkansas...

Have a wonderful weekend:







Love