Beth's Contradictory Brain

Weird

There was an earthquake near my parents' house in Grand Prairie, Texas today. How weird is that? I'll have to remember to ask if they felt it next time I talk to them.

I really hope it's not going to lead to a bigger one, they say if a big quake ever hits anywhere up and down I-35 it would be horrible.

Too Much Work

I promised Nerdstar that if I ever kill her it won't be like this.

First of all, I sure as hell couldn't muster the energy to stab her over 200 times. I mean, after the first twenty or thirty I'd be all "fuck this, my arm's tired, aren't you dead yet?"

And I certainly wouldn't be dragging her dead body all over the place. What's that about? (I guess that was in a different version of this news story I read.)

Anyway. She simply asks that I smother her in her sleep.

DISCLAIMER: All posts about Nerdstar are posted with her approval - more or less.

One Extreme to Another

For the six weeks between jobs I spent a lot of my days online and/or listening to the news. Yes, there were times my head wanted to explode over all the current issues.

Well, at work I have no access to anything, not my Gmail, not the internet, not even radio or a tv in the waiting room. (Actually, the waiting room is very softy lit and quiet.) I am cut off from the whole world all day. And while I don't like it at all, I'm undecided on how much it might be good for me.

Nerdstar does have my work email, but I'd say I get to check it maybe four times during the day.

New Job

Well, this slacker is back in the work force. Yippee! I had two days of orientation last week - wednesday and thursday. Then Friday I was at their busiest lab learning the system. It's a pretty easy system and I was grovin' right along. It's not too taxing, we check the patient's insurance, order the tests and the draw the blood. We mostly deal with the patient start to finish -which I've generally preferred. It's a group of oncology doctors, most of them in one location, but there are also five other locations. The one I'm starting at is the most busy. But it's not nearly as busy as the hospital lab was. Thank God.

The general idea is that I'll be filling in at any of the six locations on days people are off. I'm not starting as a full time employee, which is good. Three of the locations I've been to and aren't too terrible to get to. I have no idea as of now how any of that will work out. I'm not too worried about any of it. I work hard, get things done, am good with patients, and am reliable. With luck, if I like all this, I can pick one of the locations that I like working at and end up there full time maybe after the first of the year. Or not. I'm happy either way at this point.

It hasn't really sunk it yet that all of our patients have cancer, or at best are in remission. Although, one kinda weird/creepy thing... in the internal office email, we get emails when any of the doctor's patients have died. Now, I understand it's a good thing for everyone to know, for records or to contact the family with condolences, or whatever. Still, kinda weird.

My goal is simply to do as good a job as I can drawing their blood, and to treat them just like any other patients. A lot of them have books with them that they're reading, so I get to talk about books a lot

Ramen Dog

I gave up in frustration before I could get iMovie to work. Here's an unedited video from our digital camera of Ramen dog playing. Isn't his tail beautiful?

For Syd

Syd's always asking "would you eat this?"

Well, tonight Nerdstar and I had a lovely dinner of spaghetti. I was finished and she had packed up some leftovers for her lunch. I sat down to watch some tv and she came over with a plate with the rest of the spaghetti - with some avocado chunks all over it!! YUCK!

Until she spent some time in Hawaii, she always told me avocados were tasteless and icky. Somehow she rediscovered them in Hawaii and now eats them on weird stuff, like spaghetti and scrambled eggs. Sigh. She was even feeding some to the poor dog last night. He would only eat it in very small slivers.

Mess with 401Ks?

This is from the Wall Street Journal:

And this is from US News and World Report: Would Obama, Dems Kill 401(k) Plans?

Sigh.

One Problem or Another

On our very first date, I was stunned at the amount of non sequiturs there were from Nerdstar. Conversation wasn't my top priority, so I let it slide.

Later, but still early in the relationship, I had her get her hearing checked. Her ears are fine, so apparently, like my Father, it's more a question of selective hearing.

Ok, that brings us to dinner tonight where I realized the two phenomenon just might be related.

me: Well, now we're both just going to have to use our work emails.

pause

her: Yeah, like all those meals we had after layoffs.

pause

me: What did I just say?

her: You said uh huh.

me: No, before that.

her: Uh, I don't know.

me: Exactly.

Now, I knew what she was talking about, when we lived in Austin, her and some of the people she worked with at various jobs were always getting laid off. There was a great Mexican restaurant with even better margaritas.

I also knew that she had mis-heard email for meals - because her brain is always thinking about food.

So what could have appeared to be a non sequitur was really just a case of bad hearing.

HA HA HA HA

Family Scrabble

Because we could all use a good laugh.

Updating Categories

For some reason that escapes me right now, I started going through old posts trying to categorize them better. I stalled out on the project, then realized I should add a couple of categories and started again. The first time I started at the oldest posts, this time I started with the newest posts.

I'm back to March of 2005 - when Iraq was freshly in the rear view mirror and the move to Kansas City was looming. It hasn't been too painful to read about some of it. There was a lot of snow in PA. Kansas City was a hard time for us, but I think that had to do with issues between Nerdstar and I maybe more than the actual location. We look back now and think KC wasn't so bad a place to live.

I'm not totally looking forward to going through the Iraq years. But that's one of the categories I realized I didn't have. The Nerdstar Updates were her writings. I'll leave them. My writings about that time will go in the new category.

What's so funny - I still didn't establish a FOOD category. Silly me. Oh well, those posts end up in the Just Life category.

Does any of this matter to anyone but me, probably not.

The Role Of Government

I've written about this a little here and here.

I have very simple ideas about the role of government. It should be a small as possible.

The federal government's most important role is to protect and defend this country. That said, I also have very simple ideas about the military - there should be set requirements for any/every job and whoever can pass those requirements can do that job, regardless of any other factor - age, gender, sexuality, anything.

I believe that jail/prisons should be for violent crimes only. Things like drugs and prostitution should be legalized and taxed heavily. People in jail/prison should work, get an education, and be given very few creature comforts.

I believe the constitution is clear in it's meaning. It's not living and breathing. If people in any given state or city feel the need to pass laws regarding social issues - that's their right. It is not the role of the federal government in any way shape or form.

As I've stated time and again, I'm a capitalist. I believe in free markets. I believe in flat taxes with no loopholes. Everybody pays the same percentage of their income. I do not, will not ever believe in the welfare state and certainly not in socialism. You cannot take away the incentives and rewards of hard work and expect people to work hard.

I believe people should take care of themselves and their families. There is nothing constitutional about the welfare state, nationalized health care, etc. I believe in philanthropy and charity and neighbor helping neighbor. In no circumstances should the government be the middle man taking money from one and giving it to another - period.

So, regarding this upcoming election...

If I believed for one second that a true majority of people in this country want to vote for a more socialist government - knowing what that means and what the likely results would be - I would accept that. I would then do everything in my power to reverse that course.

Unfortunately, I do not believe the people are well informed about this choice.

If any of this comes across as making me a liberal - then I have no idea what that word means.

ADDED: I just found this post I wrote about Obama back on July 27th, 2004 - the comments are even more telling.

Agent Zigzag

I finished reading Agent Zigzag the other day. Another book in my readings about WWII this year. Zigzag was a double agent for Britain against the Germans. He was a total crook, con and liar, but something about the war made him to extraordinarily heroic actions for his home country, in spite of the Germans treating him and paying him much better. It was a good read.

More Life With Pets

This time in pics over on my photo blog.

The Forgotten Man

I found a link to this essay over on the Corner. It was written by William Graham Sumner in 1884 but still seems more than relevant today.

The type and formula of most schemes of philan-thropy or humanitarianism is this: A and B put their heads together to decide what C shall be made to do for D. The radical vice of all these schemes, from a sociological point of view, is that C is not allowed a voice in the matter, and his position, character, and interests, as well as the ultimate effects on society through C's interests, are entirely overlooked. I call C the Forgotten Man. For once let us look him up and consider his case, for the characteristic of all social doctors is that they fix their minds on some man or group of men whose case appeals to the sympathies and the imagination, and they plan remedies addressed to the particular trouble; they do not understand that all the parts of society hold together and that forces which are set in action act and react throughout the whole organism until an equilibrium is produced by a readjustment of all interests and rights. They therefore ignore entirely the source from which they must draw all the energy which they employ in their remedies, and they ignore all the effects on other members of society than the ones they have in view. They are always under the dominion of the superstition of government, and forgetting that a government produces nothing at all, they leave out of sight the first fact to be remembered in all social discussion — that the state cannot get a cent for any man without taking it from some other man, and this latter must be a man who has produced and saved it. This latter is the Forgotten Man.

That's the first paragraph, go read the whole thing.

Just In Time

I finally heard back from the lab I interviewed with. I have a day and a half of orientation next week and then will do two weeks of training and then see what the schedule holds after that. I'm not starting off full time, but will fill in as people take time off. It'll be good to ease back into working.

It's just in time because my brain is starting to turn on me being home this much. I have an evil brain that likes dark thoughts.

Yesterday was nice, though. I took the motorcycle out for a little while. I rode down past Mount Vernon again to the little park by the water. It's such a pretty area. The trees here are starting to turn fall colors, but it's not at it's peak yet from what I remember from last year. Anyway, there's just something about riding through beautiful areas that's good for the soul.

I Gotta Ask

What you all think of Obama's remark about wanting to "redistribute the wealth"? Do you think it accurately reflects his views, that he wants to overhaul the tax system, as he's said to, "make it more fair"?

Do you think you'd fall into the group of people whose "wealth" would be taken or would you be the one being given to? Do you really think taxes are that unfair now?

UPDATE: Here's an interview with the plumber who asked Obama about taxes.

JW is the plumber...
one part:

PM: Still, in that vein, Obama says he doesn’t want to “punish” you, but he wants to – let me see if I can see what his exact quote was…

JW: Redistribute the wealth.

PM: …taxing small businesses making $250,000 and above is going to help the people “behind you.” And yes, “spreading the wealth around.” How did you feel about that?

JW: As soon as he said it, he contradicted himself. He doesn’t want to “punish” me, but – when you use the word “but,” you pretty much negate everything you just said prior to that. So he does want to punish me, he does want to punish me for working harder to ...

It was just a contradiction of terms, what he said: he doesn’t want to punish me but he wants to redistribute my wealth. And what I mean when I say my wealth, I mean the collective. Eventually – I mean, just to sound a little silly here, but you need rich people. I mean, who are you going to work for?

part two
JW: Essentially what that would do is, I’d have to see how much money is available after everything else is paid, to see if I can one, afford a new vehicle, two, outfit it, and then three, pay a good salary. And if I’m being taxed too much, one of those three things is going to get shorted. One, I won’t be able to buy as good a good vehicle or I won’t stock it as well, or the guy I hire – if I’m able to hire somebody – is not going to make as much as he should.

PM: Obama gave you quite a long answer, I see, on Jake Tapper’s blog on ABC News. He did give you quite an extensive answer to your question talking about a 50% tax credit for healthcare costs, that sort of thing, and he talked about the reason he’s doing this – saying 95% of small businesses make less than $250,000 a year. He talked about your time as a plumber– you said you’ve been a plumber for 15 years?

PM: Okay, and then he talked about 10, 15 years ago maybe you weren’t making that sort of money, how would you feel – if you were just starting out, or maybe looking back – the kind of tax cut that he’s promising for other people, does that still make you think that that’s a great idea?

JW: No. See, I believe in working for what I get. I don’t want to say it’s a handout, but essentially that’s what it comes down to. You’re going to tax someone else more that’s been working hard to fulfill the American Dream and you’re gonna give it to other people who – I’m not saying they don’t work as hard, but I’m sure some of them don’t – and I don’t think it’s right just to give it to them or reduce taxes on their part and hike it up on my part like a teeter totter to bring it back even. So no, that wouldn’t – well, let me rephrase that. It would appeal to me because back then I was struggling. That kind of thing appeals to me – anybody wants to cut my taxes, I look at it very seriously, it’s like, it sounds great. But you gotta see what the other hand is doing too.

PM: Still, in that vein, Obama says he doesn’t want to “punish” you, but he wants to – let me see if I can see what his exact quote was…

JW: Redistribute the wealth.

PM: That’s fair enough. Could it be that people won’t be as productive? If you’re going to be paying more taxes, why should you be more productive when you could possibly take home the same amount without being as productive? Do you agree with that?

JW: That’s the catch right there. Some people will agree with that. Some people will say, “Well, I’m not gonna work for the stars or shoot for ‘em because if I do, I’m gonna be punished, or I’m gonna be subjugated to more taxes,” or for whatever they wanna do. So yeah, I would agree to that to a point. Some people will say, “Well you know, I still want this, I’m still gonna work hard and try to make that happen for myself” And then other people are gonna sit back – and then you look at mediocrity for the country, and I don’t like that idea.

PM: What do you think that Obama’s tax plan will do to entrepreneurship in general in this country?

JW: It’ll definitely make people think twice about it. It’s not something that they’re gonna just rush into. It’s a tax increase, but it’s not a 50% tax increase. It’s not gonna keep everybody from doing it – some people might decide not to, but I don’t think it would keep everybody from doing it.

Lame

You should read my Nerdstar. Tell her she's not lame.

Duh

When I voted, I was handed my paper ballot and a PEN for a scantron type form. I thought it strange. After all those years of high school and college, it just seemed very wrong to use a pen on a scantron.

I just realized it's because you can't erase ink.

A Dog's Life

Not much going on around here. The weather has been so beautiful lately. Saturday we took Ramen to the park and then for a bath. He's so fluffy and shiny! We've often joked that our dog is gay, mostly because he has a tendency to prance. But we finally realized that he's probably not gay, but he sure does make the big, butch days turn gay! They quite often love to follow him around the dog park and hump him.

Tonight we went and heard Jon Katz, the Bedlam Farm guy, speak. It was pretty cool. It's always nice to put a face and voice with words on the screen.

I'm still waiting to hear back about the job. She left me a message the other day that she just needed to check references and such. Hopefully I'll know soon. I'm getting kinda bored.

Gambling

At the beginning of this year my stocks - NOT my 401K or IRA - but stocks I've been buying for a few years for fun were at $3200. Today they're at $1200. Not fun. My 401K and IRA are down as well, just not as much, proving that mutual funds do better than my individual stock picking.

Anyway. Today I put in an order for $500 in stock purchases. My account has been with Sharebuilder from day one, they got bought by ING. I pay $4 per stock to buy, and the trades go through on Tuesdays. I'm buying more Ford, Disney and the Q's, and am adding some GE. If I had more money to use, I'd probably be buying McDonalds, Microsoft, and Johnson and Johnson. All solid companies who's stocks are hopefully below fair value.

Will the market go down more before it goes up. Maybe. But I'm buying these stocks at a fraction of what I've paid for them in the past, and have no intention of selling them before I at least break even. I'm also still slowly but steadily investing in my IRA. The 401K is from an old job, it's done well for me, so I've just let it be.

What's Up?

Anybody know what's up with Blogrolling? Am I the only one who still uses them?

I Voted

I had a two hour training session for working the polls on election day this afternoon. (Nerdstar keeps joking that I should do pole training instead...) Anyway. Out of at least 40 people, there were only 2 of us under 60. And you know how I feel about old people.

Because our work day on election day starts at 5 A.M. and won't end until probably 10 P.M. they encouraged us to do early/absentee voting which was available upstairs in the same building. So, I did.

I'm glad to see Virginia is moving towards paper ballots that get scanned like Scantron stuff does. They still have the touch screen machines, but my understanding is those are being phased out.

For now people have the choice between paper or touch screen. It seems it's pretty hard to screw up either way. You scan your paper ballot immediately and it kicks it out for obvious errors, like voting for two presidential candidates.

It should be an exhausting, long, long day Nov. 4, but at least I won't be at home watching the news all day!

Cool

I love this 1908 photo of the old Postal Castle here in DC, because that building is right across from Les Halles, one of our favorite restaurants, so we see it quite often. You can go up in the old tower and look out over the Capitol and White House, but we've never done that.

The Court Is In Session

I got my butt out of bed at 6:15 this morning and took the Metro down to the capitol area and went and sat in on the Supreme Court hearings today. How cool is that?

I got in line about 8:00 and finally got into the courtroom about 11:15. Thank God it is an absolutely beautiful day outside! It's a very small courtroom. It'd be nice if they barred bored high schoolers from having to sit in. There are two ways to get in; one is to take your chances and stand in line and hope for an open seat for either of the two morning hearings. Or, you can do a shorter line and only be in the courtroom for 3-5 minutes. I took my chances and got to sit in on most of the second hearing.

This is the case I sat in on:

UPDATE: Thankfully, The Volokh Conspiracy has a post about the trial I sat in on yesterday, with a link to the whole transcript.

This post about the upcoming SC term is worth reading.

The Justices were engaged and even funny when questioning the lawyers. You must really, really know your case histories and everything related to your issue to argue before the Supreme Court.

After that I had to pass the Library of Congress building to get back to the Metro, so I stopped in for a while. They've got a replica of part of Thomas Jefferson's library. He had almost 7000 books and when the original LOC was burned down, he sold his library to them for them to start over. Unfortunately, 2/3 of that was later burned as well. That brings tears to my eyes.

There was also "the Giant Bible of Mainz, signifies the end of the handwritten book — and the other, the Gutenberg Bible" on display.

They also had a very cool exhibit set up in a small room about Bob Hope. He actually made a catalog of over 85,000 pages of jokes. Amazing.

Monday

My slacker days might be coming to an end. I had a second interview today with the lab place. They've got manager meetings all week, but as soon as they can get their end done, hopefully I'll start training next week.

We had one totally lazy weekend, which is nice for Nerdstar. Saturday we took Ramen dog to the park and then did a little shopping. Yesterday I was a slug on the sofa.

McCain and the Washington Blade

Here's McCain's interview with DC's gay newspaper, The Washington Blade.

Pets

We're cracking up around here at our poor little cats. The temps are in the 60s and I've had the windows open and you would think we'd thrown the cats into the artic the way they're all curled up with their tails over the noses. Or the way they're now all in our laps trying to steal our body heat.

I decided to lighten up my reading for a little while. I read about 2/3s of A Commonsense Guide to Training and Living with Dogs yesterday. If you have a dog or ever intend to get a dog, I can't recommend it enough. It's a really easy read and not at all technical.

I've also got The Dogs of Bedlam Farm and A Good Dog.

Bedlam Farm

I ran across a link to the Bedlam Farm blog last week. The parts where he blogs about the farm and his dogs and other animals has me so jealous. The blog parts about his hospice work had the tears flowing.

I sometimes feel guilty that we haven't done more for Ramen dog, like training him to be a therapy dog. He loves people, and even more loves to be petted. But, he's a hard dog to train because he's so stubborn. I did try to find a training place when we first moved here, but they were all far away.

I mostly hope to get him and the cats a house with a pet door and yard. They will all be much happier.

I picked up a couple of Jon Katz's books at the library today.

Blogging and Politics

What is it about this election that has everyone so uptight and angry and unable to talk about any of it? Most of the regular people bloggers I read (unlike Instapundit and Althouse) and are on my blogroll are refusing to blog about politics and don't even like reading about it on other people's blogs.

I mostly feel the same way. But I also find that it's just too important to me to not blog about.

As contentious as 2004 was. And Bush was much more reviled than either Obama or McCain. But I don't remember it making people feel the way we feel now.

What's going on? I guess I'm not asking why you're voting the way you're going to vote, or why you support who you support, but why we can't have civil conversations about all of it.

UPDATE: Ugh. My own blog denies my comments. Go figure. Here it is: I know comments can be icky sometimes - and I thank God I don't have that problem. But I still think there's something else going on with politics this time around.

Sarah Palin's Gay Best Friend

While the line about her friend "made a choice" doesn't thrill me, at least she has a lesbian as one of her best friends. I think that's cool.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse has a much longer post about this part of the interview.

I know a lot of people are all worried that Palin wants to impose whatever religious ideas she holds on the whole country, but from what I've read she's very clear about separating her beliefs from public policy. Unlike Obama and imposing his socialist ideas as policy.