This Is Halloween

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Well it's that time of year again, where those lazy commie hippy liberal bastard children dress up and come asking for hand outs to celebrate the day that the Devil tea bagged his nuts on the Constitution while finger-raping Jesus in the ass and shitting on a burning American flag.

On the upside I think my application to work on Fox News has been accepted.

To today is Halloween.  Candy.  Kids. Costumes.  Kids with no costumes.  I think I should have bought some Dubble Bubble to hand out to those kids, but I guess they will just get the things I don't like from the variety pack.  Seems unfair but what can you do?  We always had costumes, though I remember the last year I went I wasn't going to go and then decided last minute that I was going to and the costume was crap.  So I guess I should give them a little bit of latitude because they just want to be involved.

I was actually just trying to remember all the costumes that I had as a kid.  I remember having a few that got repeated.  One of the first pictures I remember seeing was when I was a creepy clown.  I wish I could find the picture, but I'm not sure who has it, probably my gran?  Maybe I'll try to track it down.  I was also a devil one year with one of those terrible 80s costumes that you could pick up at K-Mart where you had a plastic bag printed with the costume and then a plastic mask that was hot.  I remember my mom didn't want me to do it but I wanted to so she let me.  I think I was a pirate one year because I had a hook hand thing.  I was Peter Pan/ Robin hood for two year, I was a skeleton for one or two years.  Beyond that I really can't remember.  We didn't really do pictures so I've got nothing to help jog my memory on this.

The one thing that is always fun is to see the dad next door dress up and take his kids around.  I'll be interested to see what he is this year.

Picture(s) of the Day:
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Recently we had some items stolen from our building (personal belongings of people who work here) and had some suspicious characters so at the end of the day I have to lock up all the conference rooms and shoo all the students out.  I also do a restroom check to make sure no one is lingering where they shouldn't be.  I find it stupid, but whatever.  Anyhow earlier this week when doing my walk through I noticed that someone had hung a roll of toilet paper on one of the little coat hooks in the restroom.  I assumed it was perhaps the janitor who put it there and forgot.  Well it's been there all week, and today I noticed that someone wrote "Do Not Remove" on it.  I have no idea why it's there or why it can't be removed, but it's kind of weird and amused me.

Canned Laugh

Through some just kind of poking around on my blog I was going over some of my earlier entries and I was once again reminded of how my blog used to be more amusing and a bit funnier.  I tended to have better topics, which is clearly a reflection of, as my teenager would say, "the dark place I'm in."   Laughing was fired, jokes were suspended.  There shall be none of that silly-dilly nonsense here.  We must talk about our angry feelings and write annoying things in our journal while listening to an Emo band and jerking our head so our hair isn't in our eyes while muttering "whatever".

The last week however, has been more like how my blog used to be with very specific topics, and a lot more thought than the usual complaining and bitching that I do about how I feel.   I'd much rather go back to my previous style, and over the past week I've felt more like myself so my goal here is to start to move away from the crappy shit I've been posting lately and going more back to what I used to do.  Someday famous blog historians will write sections in large five volume sets about my "black period" and have student write papers requiring multiple sources and primary source quotations about it.  Undergraduates in Bloggerism Studies programs will curse my name and make unique and informed commentary on the suspected causes and similarities to the other great bloggers of our time.  In the end they will get a B- for lack of originality, and will stumble across this blog and curse my name and ability to see the future.  They will approach the 250 year old me, alive thanks to tiny robots in my blood, and I will say "BACK IN MY DAY!" before taking a nap and waking up quickly yelling "WHERE AM I! GIVE ME MY BACON!"

As you know I come from a long line of seers. 

Picture(s) of the Day:
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While watching tv a few days before the election pretty much ever ad is a political ad.  I generally don't have to watch these because of Tivo, but tonight we were watching live television and I happened to get a ton of ads for the Michigan Supreme Court.  I'm not sure why but it really caught my eye that the candidate's campaign misspelled Wayne county.  I even double checked to make sure it wasn't another county somewhere far away in the state.  Turns out no, they just didn't pay attention.  Not exactly the thing you'd want to see from a judge where details can be important.

Going Viral

It's been a few weeks now and everyone seems to still be losing their shit over Ebola. In reality the only reason anyone should be losing their shit over Ebola is if they have Ebola, and that's because they're probably shitting themselves from a mixture of fear and death virus.  Though, so far it seems that most people in the US are able to fight it and recover, which is in stark contrast to what's going on in Africa.

It always amuses me when the random conservative on my Facebook pops up with some nonsense comment that I wasn't really expecting to see.  Here's a clue, if we've had this many people here, and the total cont is this low, that means it really is hard to get.  Another clue is that everyone keeps saying, "This is really hard to get!"  For real, calm down.  Unless you're part of the Ebola Lovers for Mouth Spitting club where you meet weekly with people who have Ebola and then sit around spitting in each others mouths, you're probably going to be fine.

The problem is we have the perfect place for something like this to incubate and replicate.  You see, we have a media based on ratings rather than news.  Because of that we get the things on the news that will get the most ratings, and that is stories that are sensational, gruesome, or fear inducing.  People think crime is getting worse, even though it's fallen dramatically over the last decade or two because the reporting has increased because that's what gets people to tune in.

The second problem is we're going into an election and the best way for the opposition to gain control is to try to paint the ruling party as being out of touch, in effective, and incompetent.  What better way to do that than to have a "crisis" pop up and so they use it to gain attention and paint the other guy as unworthy of holding office.  So, that's also stoking the flames here.  Put the two together and you have this furnace of nonsense where everyone is freaking out and being stupid.

On the other hand I also saw a comic that tried to paint this as a racial issue where no one cared when it was a bunch of Africans, but now that it's in America and white people are involved now we care.  However, I'm not sure this is accurate either.  The problem is less racial and more the fact that historically Americans just don't give a shit until something happens to them.  From our founding we've always just been "yeah whatever we'll be over here ignoring you.  We didn't get into World War I until someone told us that Germany was trying to get Mexico to invade us and some US people were blown up on ships.  We stayed out of World War II for over two years until Pearl Harbor.  Even today, No one cared about Syria until a US reporter was beheaded.  No one cares about Ukraine.  China, no one cares about smog and environmental stuff.  Americans don't care when it's past our borders, but the second it shows up on our doorstep then you'll see some action.

Anyhow, Ebola... OOHHHHH! Scary.  Everyone needs to calm down and STFU.

Picture(s) of the Day:
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Alright, the ads are just grossing me out.  I paused the Tivo the other night to go get a snack and apparently they decided it was time for a poo break and that they would "see you there!"  No. Gross. Stop.

Poll Taxed

Well, we're down to one week until election day.  As you know, and as I say every time, I LOVE ELECTION DAY!  It's always like a wonderful birthday treat!  I get to go out and vote.  Though this year I'm not sure things will go the way I think they should.  It seems that everyone is like "WE HATE EBOLA, SO WE'RE KISSING WITH TONGUE THE NEXT PERSON WE SEE WITH EBOLA!"  For anyone that doesn't get that metaphor I'm saying they're sitting around saying they hate government for not working, and are going to solve it by voting for the people that are making all the trouble.

We're also to that one week period where I've made up my mind about just about everything I plan to vote on, but there are those last few annoying positions that really just piss me off.  It's usually that group that have things like "drain commissioner" or all those judges that never really answer questions so you don't really know what they are thinking and if they make sense.  It's really stressful to have to try and figure those one out because it takes a lot more work to try and nail down who you should really be voting for.

And on the other hand, why do we need some of these things elected?  Why does it make sense that we need to elect the drain commissioner or as the comics say "the dog catcher".  It seems to me that maybe a job like that would benefit form someone who actually knows about drains.  Who has gone to school and majored in Poop/Pipe Flow Optimization.  I don't know shit about that, and you'd think think that would mean my candidacy would go straight down the tubes, but with an election some thing could cause people to backup and get stuck on a single thing and then go in a direction you weren't expecting.  I just think an election could accidentally flush out a good candidate who knows more but isn't as "electable".  Also Pun Score: 5,000!

The point is, with a week to go I'm a little annoyed at a few of my options on the ballot.  I've got a school board member I need to decide on, tons of research on the judges, there is a proposal that I don't really understand.  Being informed and competent to vote can be quite taxing.  It's no wonder so many people don't vote, it seems a bit of a pain in the ass.  That combined with not feeling your vote results in anything can lead to a lot of apathy.

On a happier note, how about a fun video about an alternate voting system.

Picture(s) of the Day:
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The view from my office is now very fall like.  My hope would be that I don't see leaves on this tree again as I will be in a different work situation.

Art Imitates Life

Yesterday we got to see a show in Toldeo, which will probably be one of the last ones we see with on of our friends who is studying theatre there.  The show was called The Adding Machine and basically was the story of some guy working for 25 years only to get canned and then murder his boss.  He's found guilty of murder, is executed, then goes into the afterlife.  It was a kind of weird show, and some of it I felt like was a bit confusing but perhaps there were cuts to the script or difficulties with matching the concept to the original text.  Either way it was an interesting show and the director was clearly trying to say something.  Having read the directors note it seems that message was about becoming a drone and just living life day in and day out without really thinking about it, kind of like being on autopilot.  I think there were a lot of visual cues that were calling out things like conformity by having everyone wear the same gray clothes, which matched their terribly boring lives and so on.

I don't think I want to say too much about conformity.  That's really something that has been around since the dawn of time and we see it play out again and again.  Even in "non-conformity" you see conformity.  The counter culture itself has it's own built identity that people conform to, and you rarely see actual examples of people not conforming to the group they belong to. 

On the other hand the attempt at discussing and portraying a world where people are mindless drones and go about their lives without really thinking was an excellent discussion point, though I feel they could have developed and refined their concept a little better.  It is actually an excellently timed discussion to when we have an election coming up in just a few days and the turn out is expected to be low, as always.  Mid-term elections are not very well attended, and it seems this year will be no exception.

However, the idea of drones not thinking when applied to the political process could not be more clear.  Complexity in our world that requires thinking is avoided at all cost.  We want the quick soundbite that boils everything down to a few seconds.  Vice President Biden is often criticized because he is long winded, but the problem is the world has complex problems and we are led to believe that everything needs to be simple and require no thought what-so-ever.  I'm not sure which is the bigger problem, the expectation that everything must be simple thoughless, or that the process of doing so actually works.

We can see so many examples right now of the mindless position working.  Take what's happening in Kansas where the current governor has destroyed the state budget and the challenger was leading in the polls until a story that the candidate went to a strip club when he was in his 20s.  No need to think about that, strip club = bad therefore that guy must be bad.  The polls have now closed in what should have been an easy choice.  However, the issue was boiled down to the point of a child and rather than complexly thinking about the situation and realizing that the ability to govern has nothing to do with recreational activities of 20-30 years ago, the "debate" is on.

Another example is Ebola.  Rather than thinking about it rationally and realizing that while a terrible thing to have it isn't something that we really need to worrying about we are losing our minds.  The simple answer is again being thrown out there so no one has to think about it.  Shut down all the flights, lock up anyone that might be an issue for nearly a month, get to go back to your mindless existence.  Apart from the complex nature of epidemiology, there are so many social issues here including the rights of the volunteers that are being quarantined.  Rather than making the public think politicians, news agencies, and morons on the street are yelling the mindless answer and pressing for the easy solution.

However, what can we expect, we have been conditioned to be mindless and go about our lives as drones, as that is what power wants.  Power doesn't want people to think, because when people think they begin to question, and when they question they may vote and before you know it the power is gone.  We go about our days punch our time cards, go home and turn on "reality" shows that require so little in the way of mental ability that it's no wonder we are where we are today.  The fact that so many people in the country leave high school and NEVER AGAIN PICK UP A BOOK is just one example of how little we are asked to use our brains.  Don't think, don't consider what you do or how you do it, but rather be assured that the way you live your life is the way the almighty god wants it to be. We are special people who are exempt from anything else and detached from the rest of the world.  We can sit proudly on our history rather than examining if that is who we are as a society anymore.  We are fat, entertained, and happy, and led to believe anyone who isn't is so by their own errors and mistakes with managing their lives.  We are asked not to think and we are asked not to act. 

A reminder of this happened just 13 years ago when terrorists changed the world, but we were asked to do nothing about it except to not think about it and go about our daily lives.  When Japan brought us into World War II the country was asked to change how they lived.  We stopped making cars, we were expected to recycle, to buy war bonds, to join the homefront drives, to go without so "our boys" could have what they needed.  The entire country was asked to do something and change how they lived.  After 9/11 the country was ready to do the same.  People would have done whatever it took at that time, but we were asked to shop.  The president said to go on like normal, to go shopping, to not let the terrorists win.  Anyone who questioned the policies were deemed as traitors and as helping the terrorists by giving them aid and comfort.  We didn't have a complex conversation and reflect on why we got to where we were, to think about our actions, the actions over the last 150 years, the reasons that people would do such things, how we contribute to it, how we can change it.  We were told to keep living how we were living. The easy answer, the solution that requires no thought.

As the character in this play went about his life he didn't think, he just did what he did expecting that he would eventually be rewarded.  He didn't think about the future, he didn't think about where he was going, he didn't think about what he could do.  He just expected the system to work and for others to do what they should and that he'd turn out fine.  He learned the hard way that it doesn't work that way and was downsized.  Only when it finally had an effect on his life did he really show any signs that perhaps letting things go wasn't right and that he wasn't happy with how his life went.  He let others make the choice for him through out his life and then lashed out when it wasn't what he wanted. The same is true in our society, because next week it's expected that less than half the people in the country will vote.  They will cede their voice to others, and then be forced to live based on the preferences of those who turn up.  We must think, and critically look at the world to make sure we are going on the path we want. The easy answer is not the best answer and results in a house of cards.  If we don't pay attention eventually the result may be the same where we lash out and make a terrible decision out of frustration that will have lasting consequence. 

Picture(s) of the Day:
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Yesterday at the show I noticed this sign and thought it was amusing.  So here you go, picture of the day from yesterday at the University of Toledo

Progress

A while back a friend of offered to help me review and make suggestions on how to improve my resume.  It was very nice, and the suggestions were very good, but when I tried to actually do them it just made me very angry.  The problem being was that apparently the "in" thing for resumes now is to list your "results" in a way that shows you get things done and know what you're doing.  The problem with my current position is that I don't have any free range to do anything.  I'm micromanaged to the point where I really can't change anything.  I'm working with people who are the equivalent of Fred Flintsone, though there are times where I think the gadgets on the Flintsones would probably be a little too advanced for their ability levels.

As a result of all of this I end up just getting overwhelmed and frustrated which then reminds me how stuck in this stupid job I am and cue the rage.  So, I got all that helpful advice, tried to implement it, fell into a blind rage, gave up, left it alone, did nothing.  This week I decided to give it another crack and knowing exactly the issue I asked for suggestions on what to do.  I got some good suggestions and I'm happy to say that I was able to make the changes.  However at the same time I hate the formatting because in order to get it to the one page I had to do some unattractive format things.  Apparently one page is the only possible thing you can do and if it goes to two pages you allegedly have to kill yourself.

So, I've got my new and improved resume out for review to see what other changes I should make before I start using it.

Picture(s) of the Day:
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Went to Toledo to see a friend in her show.  It was a very interesting show, probably one of the best I've seen down there.  Lots of neat staging things and some interesting concept choices.  Well done, and of course always a pleasure to see her on stage.

Shhh. Not While It's Speaking

This week I got into two "debates" on Facebook.  I'd probably actually call them more like I had to smack-down some morons on Facebook.  Neither was really a debate, it was just someone saying something stupid acting smug and as if they know everything and me telling them how stupid they are.  As a result a friend said "dude, what is up, he's usually so quiet on Facebook."

This is actually true as of late.  Generally I've gone into my ninja training which is a way to just kind of get through the day and drawing as little notice to myself as possible.  I know this tactic is very old and coupled with a few other things are very effective in getting me through the day when I'm with people who are asshats and rather nasty.  Move along, get whatever done, draw no attention to yourself.  Basically be a ninja in the shadows, don't rock the boat, and slip away when you're done.

At the same time I don't necessarily like that.  I lived that was for a long time due to a rather stupid environment.  Then for a good deal of time I was able to not live like that.  Lately I've fallen back into it.  Generally it's just something that happens when I'm very unhappy and dealing with things I don't like to help reduce stress and allow me to manage through it all.  Apparently this week I was sick of it and decided to start making waves.

Not sure what all that means, it's just kind of an observation on things at the moment.

Picture(s) of the Day:
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Look at the glorious and delicious piece of French toast I had for breakfast!  It was so delicious.  We had French toast for dinner last night but there was extra stuff so we saved it and made some more for breakfast.  Delightful!

Struggles

Well, it's about that time again.  Time to register for classes, and time for me to get really pissed off.  Currently I'm in a course for web design.  There are only six classes in this course.  In credit reality, we're talking 18 credit.  I could do 18 credits in one semester assuming the classes met at the right time.  However, these classes are all a "part 1" and then a "part 2" so in reality it should only take me two semesters to finish the entire program.  The problem is that they never offer classes at the right time, despite being a community college that has a large population that is working and taking classes.

Well, this semester is no different.  Right now I'm finishing class three of six.  Next semester they are offering two classes I could possibly take.  However only one that I can take due to the schedule.  At the rate it's been going it's going to be May of 2016 before I'm actually able to finish these stupid classes.  Additionally, taking two classes would mean I have to be in class four nights a week.  At Eastern classes were one night each, so I could take four classes a semester not counting online options or weekend classes.  Now I can take two classes a semester, with no online options and no weekend options.

Pretty much, I'm pissed off.

Picture(s) of the Day:
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Another walk at lunch.  I like how there's that one green tree still hanging on, and then the super golden tree right next to it.

No Trade-sies

Helping a friend the other night with a business project there was a comment made to the effects of "ughhh.  I hate money, why can't I just do what I want and someone can just be like 'hey i need that here I have this you take this and give me that."  Basically the idea was that we shouldn't have to worry about money and just barter for what we need and provide things and not have to worry about money.

Now, I know this was just a comment out of frustration with the project and on a real level my friend knows that is unrealistic and doesn't work for a variety of reasons.  But it reminded me of a similar comment a different friend made years ago, but in that case they were actually serious.  Though, that's not surpising as that's the kind of stoner logic that stoners like to go on about and this person was a major stoner.  I hear it from family members of the same variety about how you should just be able to do what you want and not worry about money blah blah blah. 


So that's been going on in my head for a few days remembering those old friends talking about just trading stuff and living without money and that just kind of annoys me.  I'm not annoyed by someone who wants to try and live that kind of life style.  If you want to live without money and grow your own food and live a subsistence life style, sure go ahead.  However your ability to make that choice is because we've moved on from that as a society and the reason for that is money.

Money isn't bad, in fact money is good.  The barter system is great until you actually think about it, and see why money was invented in the first place.  You see money is a universally item that can be traded to anyone for anything.  Basically if you want to think about it, it's the barter system except that you have something that everyone wants and will trade for.  You go to best buy and you trade your little pieces of paper for a television.  You go to Zingermans and you trade your electronic money for a sandwich.  Prior to that you'd need to have something that some one else wanted, and you had to trade that thing for the thing you needed.  The problem is you have to find someone that has what you want, but also needs what you have.  That makes it really hard to get what you need, and also makes it hard to do what you want because you have to offer something to people that they need.

Enter money.  Suddenly you no longer need to find someone who exactly fits your need/offer situation.  You can trade what you have for money, then trade that money for anything you need.  You don't need to offer a service or item to someone just to get something you desire.  You can offer anything that anyone finds valuable and willing to give you money for.  This opens things up because you have greater freedom to peruse things that people may not be willing to trade you for, or that have no trading value.  What use do I have for an actor?  They don't have anything that they can trade to me that I need.  I probably don't have surplus of whatever I have that I can waste on an actor because I need to trade it for the things I need to stay alive.

Further, looking at the world we live in, last night I turned on the heat.  I was able to do that because a company wants my money so I use what they have and give them my money.  If we didn't have money, what would I possibly have to give them in exchange for the gas that runs my furnace?

Anyhow, I'm not sure why that idea stuck in my head so much, but it's been there for two or three days.  It's probably the history teacher in me wanting to explain the world and why our history has put us to the point we are in now.


Picture(s) of the Day:
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Someone was super nice and put a scarf on this fire hydrant so that it wouldn't' get cold.  Haha!  Though, it was quite cold this morning, and there was some pretty good frost on the ground, and sadly the car windows.

Who Pays For College

I guess I'm going to continue my series on college and discuss my thoughts on who should pay for college.  Yesterday I did a blog about the high cost of loans and how that is a barrier to opportunity for those that don't come from means.  I said yesterday I wasn't even saying that I thought college should be free, but that it was too expensive.  However today's argument I'm going to say from the start that a college education should be free.

Individually there are a lot of benefits to a college education, however an educated society has a lot of wonderful benefits for a nation on the whole, and therefore investing in education is not only good for individuals but good for us all.  You also tend to get more participation in civic matters with a higher educated populace, so that is another push that I think makes it a wise investment.  It would cost a fraction of the amount we currently spend on other things in this country to fully bankroll education.  A recent article said that rather than the piecemeal programs we currently have, if we eliminated all of them and instead put the money toward just paying outright for college we'd be able to just cover the costs outright.  Rather than subsidies, and grants, and scholarships that we currently offer through the various agencies and programs we could just cut them and then re-purpose the money to cover the costs.  First, that's insane, second why are we not doing that?

Education is good for individuals, good for society, and it makes sense to do it.   In my recent "debate" the nut who was saying that not everyone should go to college also said that "if the government starts paying out right I don't trust them to choose who pays and who doesn't and don't want them making that choice for my family."  Other than being nonsensical since if the government is paying then there would be no paying from the individual, it also is illogical as no one dreams of making the same argument about public elementary and secondary education.  They are provided and the only people who pay are those that elect to go to a private school. 

The fact is that the cost of education is a weight on those that have to use credit to get an education.  Student Loan Debt is now the second largest debt in the country.  Imagine the jump start to the economy there would be if millions of people no longer were spending hundreds of dollars a month on their education and could spend it on other things.  Personally, I could use a new car, but I spend twice as much a month on my student loans as I did on my last car payment.  I'd love to travel more and have over two weeks saved of vacation time,  but between my wife and I we spend as much in two months as it costs to go on a week long cruise.  Not to mention that for many rather than a mortgage payment they have to live with parents and spend the equivalent on their student loans.

We should be investing in the future by giving anyone who wants an education, an education that doesn't stunt their economic futures for a decade or more.  We should be sending anyone who wants an education to college so they can get out there and become entrepreneurs, doctors, teachers, engineers, the next great inventor, not someone who is living in a basement unable to take chances because they have to pay a student loan.  A free education is good for people, and good for the country and we need to wake up and stop passing the costs on to students and start investing in things that will improve the lives of everyone.

Picture(s) of the Day:
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While out on my walk I saw this very yellow tree with the sun shining right behind it and thought it was lovely.

Who To Educate

I'm going to continue on my thread of education because I was recently in a "debate" regarding education.  I don't know if you can call it a debate since it was really someone just spouting bullshit and me challenging that bullshit.  However some important issues came to mind as I heard the utter nonsense flowing from the mouth of a moron.

As background the issue came up as a result of a political cartoon showing a recent graduate having to move home with his parents.  His parents sat on the porch and made comments about how lazy he was having to move home and when they started out they had nothing. The response was that the graduate which he started with nothing as he carried a huge sack on his back labeled with "five figure student loan debt".    For reference I put this above.

Clearly this comic is pointing out the huge burden that is being carried by college graduates.  Student loan debt is a huge issue and there are a lot of things I could say on them, and perhaps will save that as a part three of my discussions on education.  However, the "debate" that I want to address began with a short discussion on government funded education, and went to a position that basically said that the student was to blame for the debt because it was their choice and they could have just gone to a trade school or that there are a lot of jobs that don't require a college degree.  Later the discussion turned to the idea that the person could have joined the military to get the GI bill rather than taking out loans, or worked.  One idea being that a poor person should have to risk their life to get an education, the other showing a completely out of touch idea that you can work and pay for college when tuition alone will cost you nearly five figure just for a single year.

The first idea I want to discuss is the idea that instead of debt if people can't afford school they should just get a trade or find a job that doesn't require a degree.  This idea enrages me.  The idea that someone who doesn't come from means should simply not go to school makes me want to punch someone in the face.  In this country we are based on the idea that anyone, regardless of means, race, religion, or whatever else, can be whatever they want if they're willing to work for it.  The suggestion that a poor kids from the slums, a kid of a single mom living in a trailer park on welfare, the child of an immigrant family who has nothing but moved here to make a better life for their kids,or a middle class kid who has a family that barely makes ends meet should be told "sorry, college is expensive go find a job that doesn't require a degree" is outrageous.  No one anywhere should be told that they should just go to a trade school or be a receptionist that pays well enough if they want to be a surgeon, a teacher, an engineer.  The idea that the solution to the burden of student loans is to just not go to college is short sighted and foolish.

The question then becomes, who then should we start telling not to go to college.  The notion that not everyone needs to go to college to get a good job, and that we need to stop pushing the idea that everyone should go to college means that we therefore would only tell certain people to go to college.  So who are we then going to tell not to go to college?  The answer is obvious, and that's everyone who can't afford to pay outright for it.  That means we're basically telling a boat load of people that they should just go to a trade school or find a job that doesn't require a degree.  That because they came from a family that couldn't put them through college then they don't get to take advantage of a college education and instead get to go down the second tier path.  Financial status should never be a prerequisite to a college education.  Money should not define the opportunities to improve oneself or be a barrier to opportunities that are afforded those with a college education.  Education is the greatest equalizer in this country, and to suggest that socioeconomic status should be a required prerequisite is a despicable, elitist, and un-American position.

This idea also hits my buttons on the veins of my post yesterday regarding turning a college education into a commodity.  Taking a position like that basically says that the only benefit to going to college is to get a job, and if you don't need a degree to get a "good middle class job" then you shouldn't bother with college and avoid the debts.  This passes the buck and excuses the fact that college is too expensive and that a graduate should have to leave college saddled with crushing student loan debt. 

Continuing along the lines, this idea creates a barrier to those that already have enough obstacles to overcome.  It's easy to sit and tell people who are stuck with student loans that it's "their choice" and they could have done something else when you have the luxury of being able to afford to pay for it, live at home and not worry about living expenses, is ignorant to the fact that millions of people don't live that life and don't have those opportunities.  They sit on their throne of privilege and lecture others for being worse off because it was their "choice" to take out those loans and suggest they should have just taken a job that doesn't require a degree or a trade that only requires a few classes at a community college.  The prerequisite to a job you're passionate about, or the chance to pull yourself up by your bootstraps shouldn't be to already have money, or go into crippling debt to achieve it.

I'm not even arguing that college should be free, simply that the cost is out of hand and creating an undue burden on those that already have it harder.   I'm saying that when you start to go on about some people don't need to go to college because they have to take out loans you set up a second tier system to people who don't come from means.  A poor kid who wants to work for NASA shouldn't be told to find a trade school.  I'm also not saying that everyone in the country should be required to go to college, but that they should have affordable access should they decide that is something they want to do.  Obviously I believe many would benefit, and as a society there are huge advantages.  I think the current rate of less than 40% with a college degree is far too low.

However, with this debate once you begin down the path with the idea that not everyone needs to go, you end up at a position of who do we educate.  This is a dangerous path to take because the questions begin to answer themselves.  In the end a college education translates into higher lifetime earnings, more stable employment as seen during the great recession, higher political participation, and a slew of other benefits.  Many of the best jobs require a college degree, so by creating a system where some are denied the opportunity to go to college, the door closes on all the opportunities that come after that.  That's not the American way, or a policy that goes with our most basic ideals.  College should be available and affordable to anyone who wishes to pursue that path, and the outcome shouldn't be crippling debt that hurts us as individuals, but also hurts our economy and keeps graduates from moving forward with their lives.

Picture(s) of the Day:
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Drove out to lovely Chelsea yesterday.  The colors on Main St. really pulled me cute small town life button.  I almost could imagine living on a street like this.  However the overwhelming power of my "I literally hate everyone in the world" reminds me that I prefer to not have neighbors too close.

The Role Of Education

I've been hearing more and more an emphasis on the "value" of education, but when they say value they mean the financial value.  Yes, there are certainly financial implications that are the result of a college education.  The Federal Reserve of San Francisco did a study and found that over a lifetime a college education results in an increase in income of $830,000.  That's a lot of money and clearly a major factor in getting an education.  However, the problem I have is the idea that a college education is simply a commodity that the sole purpose is to make someone more money. 

I constantly see articles about "is college even worth it anymore" or "college degrees that will make you no money" and every time I read them I want to punch the author right in the face.  The question "is college worth it" is basically saying "is it worth it to explore and better understand our world, to grow as a human, to be exposed to new ideas and learn to think and wonder."  God, I mean, why even bother to do that.  Why would we want a society filled with critical thinkers who are eager to learn and want to know more about the world and aren't just simply looking for a check box to help them get a job? 

Without a doubt education has huge financial benefits.  It is the vehicle to achieve the American dream and live up to that idea that anyone in this country can be whatever they want if they're willing to work hard enough and confront and overcome the obstacles that may be in the path their life has taken.  That all happens through education.  However, the idea that an education isn't worth it because it doesn't necessarily map straight to a job is a stupid way to think of education and part of the problem with the education system in this country. All those poor people who wasted their life getting an English degree, they might as well just kill themselves.  Or, perhaps that education allowed them to think and analyze literature and those skills allow them to become a data analyst.  Those poor bums who got a theatre degree, they'll never make it.  Or maybe it taught them how to get up in front of the public and situated them to take a job in public relations where they have to give press conferences.  Yes, you may not go into a field that requires an English degree, or a Theatre degree, or a Art degree.  However that doesn't mean you wasted your time and money.  Many good paying jobs require a degree, and it doesn't matter the type that you get in a lot of cases. What they want is someone with skills, and those skills regardless of the degree you got can come from education.

The idea that everything you do should be focused on a career is wrong.  This is the approach that is also damaging our education system.  Look at public education and the push toward not "wasting time" on things that you don't need for a job.  The result is too much of an emphasis on math and science and the slow degrade of everything else.  Cuts to arts, music, electives.  It's no wonder that kids hate school when they only take classes that will "get them a job" by proxy of get them into a college so they can get a job.  Cut physical fitness, cut recess, cut art class, cut math class, cut home ec, cut drama, cut anything that might actually be interesting.

I'm not ragging on Math and Science here.  I love science, I think it's very important to learn these subjects.  A math and science literate population I feel is essential.  However, I think a person needs more than that to live a full life.  But these things have been pushed as "non-essential" so why waste time with them.  That's the wrong mindset to have, and chips away at the very idea of education, which is to learn what you don't know and expand your understanding of the world.

The role of education is not to get you a job.  The role of education is to learn and become educated.  To be educated means that you can think about the world we live in and make informed decisions.  This is good for not just the individual but the society as well.  When we emphasize education as something that has the sole purpose of getting someone a job, we begin down a path that undermines the entire point of education.  It's about how you grow, not what you get.

Picture(s) of the Day:
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Got some wasabi peas yesterda, and have been munching on them every now and then.  I'm quite enjoying them.

Inked

Tonight there was a discussion on tattoos and the idea that someone could be denied employment based on that was discussed.  My teenager felt that was totally wrong and likened it to racial or sexual discrimination.  However, I felt that was not the same because a person who decides to get a tattoo makes the conscious decision to do that.  They choose to take that action and therefore have to live with the consequences, which include the fact that many people see tattoos as unprofessional and not the image they wish to have at their place of employment.

The truth is, there are more candidates than positions available, and so an employer has the option to pick exactly the person they want.  There are some jobs that don't care, there are some job that do care.  However, being an adult is looking at the world and making informed decisions about your choices and the consequences that could result from them.  This isn't to say that you can't do what you want, but it does mean you have to think about it and weigh the pros and cons of that action.  You may not like it, but a large segment of the population views tattoos as unprofessional, and in business imagine can mean a lot. The result is you may someday be denied a position if you decide you want a tattoo on your face.  You can think that's wrong as much as you want, but that's life, and it's not the world's job to agree with everything you choose to do. 

Personally, I have no interest in tattoos.  I can't imagine anything I like enough to have it permanently put on my body.  I do not think people should or shouldn't get tattoos.  If they really feel like they want to spend money on that and they have it available then fine, do whatever you want.  I think you should fully weigh the pros and cons, but I have no problem with people who decide to go that route if they want to.  As I've said in the past, you have to live in reality, not in the perfect world you wish existed. 


Picture(s) of the Day:
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Well, now I know what happened to that Tauntaun that Luke killed on Hoth.  It was sold and turned into this.

Accepting Reality

We live in a world and there are realities regardless of whether or not we agree with those realities. 


Given that fact does not mean you have to agree with those realities, however the world works in a certain way and you can disagree with it all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that it is how it works. 

I think people forget that things take time, often a long time, to actually change.  It seems that the conditioning of late has been that you can do anything over night.  Get rich quick.  Get buff in only two weeks. Everything is instant gratification, and the world doesn't change over night.  You can't live your life based on your pie in the sky idea of how things should work and expect them to turn out the way you think they should.  That's unrealistic.

You can change the world, and you can work to make it more like the way you think it should be, but you also have to live in the world as it is.  I can't live my life as if I'm rich, because I'm not.  Regardless of how much I think I should be, the reality is that isn't the reality.  I can work toward that goal, but until it happens I'm constrained by how life really is and only a fool would live life based off of a fantasy.

Picture(s) of the Day:
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Tonight was movie night and we decided to break out the popcorn machine and get some candy. It was a good time, but we had a decent amount of popcorn left over.  I'd care except that we have way too much popcorn stored up to be going on with. Gotta use it or lose it!  Tonight's movie club was Hocus Pocus and You've Got Mail.

Watch It

I think I may need to reverse course on my opinions of the Apple watch, which I previously described as "as stupid piece of shit that no one would want to buy because who even wears a watch anymore?"  You see for the second time in less than a year my Up band that I use to track my movement and health etc. has broke.  I think it's just a bad design or something because it's the same issue that I had with the first one.  I have to say that Up is very good about warranty replacement and I already go my new band in the mail. 

However, as I was reading up on what the new Apple watch can do I really think I may want one.  It pretty much can do everything that my Up can do, but then can do more.  It can track my heart rate, which my Up bang can't do.  It can also integrate some features from the phone such as some messaging and music.  It also has a thing that is only good if someone else has an Apple watch where you can tap on it and it will buzz on the person you sent the tap to.  I kid of like the idea of being able to just send a little tap to someone if I'm thinking about them.  However, I also don't think that would be something I could do since I don't know if it's really something that will become widely used, especially among the people I would most likely use that for.

However,  I am interested and would like to get more information as it comes out and perhaps take a look at one.  Simply for the health benefits I think it would be pretty cool.

Picture(s) of the Day:
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I don't know why but I really found this to be so funny.  Usually everything is "Grade A" They always want things to seem great.  So to see something that's like "Grade B" cracked me up for some reason.  Like, "well we think our products are great, but we have to admit our syrup is kind of shitty.

The Cuckoo's Calling

Well, I've finished my second book this month (sort of technically since I think the last book I read mostly in September but finished on like the first or second of October).  I just finished The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith.  I'm not sure if I should list it as that or if I should just say it's by J.K. Rowling.  I mean, now everyone knows that Robert Galbraith is actually just a pen name for J.K. Rowling, but the book says Galbraith.  Either way I finished the book and I really enjoyed it for the most part.

To start off I really liked that I didn't fully guess the ending.  The book is a murder mystery so you have this cast of characters that it could be, so through the process of the story that cast slowly shrinks down to the few possible people it could be.  Throughout the book she throws in possible people and strange behavior that could point the finger at them.  Even at the end she sets it up that I totally thought that she was pinning it on someone and it turned out that I was wrong.  I like that in a mystery book because what fun is it to have it obvious what the final answer is going to be? 

Generally I enjoyed the main character and his secretary.  She didn't just give you this load of exposition about him and just kind of let him be who he was and you slowly learned more about him as time went on.  I felt that sometimes the back-story about his love life was a bit unnecessary and I"m not sure what relevance there was to it other than to make his situation make sense in a way that didn't make him out to be kind of an asshole.  His secretary was kind of two dimensional though, and perhaps some of that is due to the fact that perhaps she's planning on writing sequels?  I'm not entirely sure why they need two people in the office to kind of follow, and they couldn't just have the main detective, but I guess for every Sherlock you need a Watson.

I didn't have too much to complain about this book.  As I mentioned I thought some of the love story background that was going on was a bit unnecessary.  I felt sometimes there was a bit of convenience in how some people had exactly the right skill or was able to get exactly what they needed to move the plot forward, but it was minor for the most part.

In the end the book kept me entertained and I would read a subsequent novel if they came out with it.  I liked the detective and his secretary, I thought the story was pretty well planned out and kept you guessing who was behind it and what the motive was.  There was good misdirection that in the end made sense not something that was totally random.  So I quite enjoyed it.

Picture(s) of the Day:
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This is a kind of weird little banner in the building my coding class is in.  I've been meaning to take a picture of it and post it as my picture of the day for some time now, but I kept forgetting.  So here you go, Mr. Robot Man of the Future.

Coding

Tonight I spent the entire evening finishing up a project for my coding class.  This week was a lot better than the one last week that kept really annoying me.  It turns out I got a 100% on that one, even though I was worried I wouldn't.  In the end I decided to simply turn it in and didn't care what I'd get because I was so fed up with it.  Tonight there weren't any major issues, though I spent a long time trying to figure out why something would work before I realized I was missing a bracket.

The class is going ok, but I don't feel overly confident that I could actually build a webpage as my job.  I don't feel very efficient in some of the code.  I'm getting good grades and my instructor actually asked if I'd done coding before because he says I'm doing very well.  I don't know, it also just seems like there is way too much that I'd need to take before I could get a job doing it.

Picture(s) of the Day:
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A picture of the website I spent the night working on.  For the most part it wasn't that hard to do, but it was a bit of a pain in the ass for some of the features that I had to make.  I had a bit of trouble with the page number buttons on the bottom, but eventually found a way to make it work.  May not have been the most efficient, but it worked.

Pooped

I don't know why but today I'm so freaking exhausted.  I don't even know how I'm going to make it through this class tonight.  I went to bed at a reasonable hour, but I didn't get to sleep for some reason until at least one in the morning.  Then I woke up feeling like I hadn't even slept at all.  What the heck is up with that.  All I'd like to do is just go home and take a nap, but instead I have to go to class and listen to a lecture that I'm probably going to start falling asleep in.  This wouldn't be as big of a problem if there were more than eight people in my class.  it'll be pretty noticeable if the guy in the front right is asleep

i probably could use a week off of work, since I haven't had a week off since December, which was 10 months ago.  I've taken a few long weekends, but not a nice full week of no work.  But, gotta save that up for January-ish period.  I've got at least two weeks saved up as of right now.

Picture(s) of the Day:
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A caterer that we haven't used in a while was working an event in our building and as a treat he brought me up a plate of desserts.  This is my favorite caterer to work with and his food is delicious!  Plus, what great service!  So we have here a mini lemon bar, a mini dark chocolate cup with chocolate mousse, and a chocolate brownie covered in chocolate ganache.  Delicious!  Though in reality I just wanted one of the rolls I could smell all day.

The Video Game Of Life

Sometimes I feel like my life is a video game and apparently before I started the game I set it to expert/god/goodluckbuddy level.  Sure, there's the thought that everything that you've been up against up until now you've managed to overcome because here you are still alive and doing your thing.  But at the same time who wants to play when the game is always this hard?  There's no reason for it to be that way at all because what's the point of making everything in life so difficult.

In the same line, it sucks to know as you get older there are some things that no matter how much you want them, would appreciate them, and wish for all your heart to have them, you will never have them.  There are some things that you will never have, and that's really pissing me off today.  And I'm not talking about things like "oh I want a giant yacht and a private plane" kind of things.  My wishes are far more simple, but it's just not going to happen.

Pretty much everything can go to hell today.

Picture(s) of the Day:
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Did more moving in of things to the office today so I figured I'd put up some update pictures.  As you can see the books have all been reorganized and alphabetized based on subject into my bookcase.  I've also got some of my art back on the walls from when we were in London at the Churchill War Rooms.  Having those up makes a huge difference and makes the place feel more at home.    It also makes the place feel cleaner because now I don't have 100 books stacked all over the place and rather they're all neatly put away on their shelf.

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I also got the desk put back together and my shelf of keepsakes and fun things that I enjoy. I also got my John Green poster hung up, my printer set up, my files filed, and my River City sign up and ready to go.  I've still got a ton of stuff from my old office closet to bring down and settle into the new closet, but hopefully that won't be too bad since the closet is bigger and has more shelving so there will be less stacking going on.  Small steps, but getting there.

The Great Office Migration

Well, the time has come and the things, they are a changing.  As I've been mentioning the office project, which has been going on for quite some time now, had moved into the final stage.  It started with this hideous blue carpet and lovely greenish walls.  As you can see it wasn't anything to look at and pretty much felt damp and gross all the time.  It also made the entire basement smell rather funky like a basement.  Pretty much there was nothing great about this, but when we moved in we were a little tight in the budget area because Becky was just starting student teaching so we just had to deal with it.  Then Eric moved in and we really couldn't do too much to it because it would have been a huge inconvenience to him.  So we were stuck with terrible blue carpet.

Well if that was the before picture here is the after picture, and it looks so much better!  We got some laminate flooring from Home Depot that wasn't the cheapest thing they had in there, but was still extremely cheap and the difference it has made is amazing!  The whole basement feel better.  It doesn't seem as damp and nasty down there anymore, it smells a ton better, and it all together just feels a lot cleaner than it used to.  It's a nice space that I don't mind spending time in now, which is good since it's the home to my new office.

Given that it was time to move the first things I moved down were some of my favorite things that I felt I should move first since it would help make the place feel like home.  I started moving things down on Tuesday but only could do the bare minimum because I had to get the computer up and running so I could do some school work.  But I didn't want to feel like I was in a bare room so I brought down some of my Harry Potter things, my Eddie Izzard programs from the first time we saw him live, and the poster Tori got me for christmas.  It's not much but it helps make it feel more like my office.

I also already had my bookcase down here, but it wasn't filled at all, so I put the Harry Potter books and items where they normally live on the top of the bookcase.  I've started moving down more stuff at this point but it's all kind of sitting all over the office.  Basically I want everything to be reorganized before I put them away.  I don't see much point in moving things around just to put them in the same state they were in.  I have more space now so I want them cleaned up and put them in their places based on the new space.  Overall it still feels bare but as I get more stuff in it should start feeling nicer.  So, here we are from my new office!


Picture(s) of the Day:
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A bare office desk for the most part as we move things from the old office to the new office.  It's coming along slowly, but I'm sure we'll get there soon so we can begin the phase two of the old office project.

Broke Brake

Today felt like one of those days where nothing seemed to get done.  Now that the basement is ready it's about time to start getting things moved down into the new office so the old office can get painted and prepped for new occupancy.  The problem is that the old office is a bit of a mess due to a lot of stuff in a small area of space.  It's a lot of stuff to move and it's going from the top floor to the bottom floor which is a lot of stairs.

But none of that got done today.  Being totally exhausted we didn't get up till a bit later then we headed over to Becky's parents so that her dad could show Jasmine how to fix her brakes.  The front driver side was making a terrible noise and so we figured it was time for new pads.  Once we got the pads off we found that it looked like the brakes were sticking because the driver side had completely worn down but the others were totally fine.  So we replaced it and greased everything up so that they wouldn't stick and they seem to be better now.

I think Jasmine wasn't thrilled with having to spend unexpected money for car repairs.  I almost feel like I should printer her out an official adult certificate because now she has learned the "joy" of having to spend money you didn't want to spend on something you didn't want to spend it on.  It's pretty much the worst.  Life was easier when you're young and don't have to worry about things like that.  I was reminded of that as I was filing bills and had to file the receipt for the repair to the garage door.

So I guess long story short, being an adult sucks when it comes to things like that.

Picture(s) of the Day:
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Farmer Jasmine prepares for her day of planting and tilling. 

Strolling Memory Lane

I don't get to stroll through memory lane with too many people. I mean in all reality most the people I know don't date back any further than around 1998 in the fall when I moved to Michigan and met people at school when I started. There are very few exceptions to that. My oldest friend I've been friends with since we first moved to Michigan in 1997, but even that isn't really all that long ago. Beyond that I have two friends who I rarely talk to who date back to Virginia days. My sister used to be close with me but that has fallen back a lot. In reality I don't really have many people I can reminisce with.  Even when I do, it's still limited.  Its like going to see a movie and only being able to talk about the last hour and a half and not about the first part of it.  I mean sure, you can talk about the first part but no one has seen that part of the movie so they can't relate the same way.

Sometimes I have very vivid memories about things that are ultimately unimportant.  Who care about eating at Burger King?  I mean, I don't really remember where I ate three weeks ago, but I remember having a meal at Burger King before going to see a movie.  Or getting a free shake when visiting Becky at the big FB.  Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happened.  But at the same time I have weird little things where I have total memory of everything and they are the most mundane memories where nothing important happened.  I have one of waiting backstage during Music Man waiting to come through a door.  I remember standing there, I remember seeing the band off the the right of the door and remember waiting for my cue, but it wasn't even anything important.  It wasn't like it was my first time ever going on stage, or some big scene.  It was a minor scene where we came out got instructions and then left.  Memories are weird.

Picture(s) of the Day:
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We were out at the Target and they had this cute Batman costume clearly for someone who wanted to be batman but also wear a dress.  Adorable.

Slidey Floor

Last night was the first time I sat at my desk in the basement, which has the new floor.  My chair sure rolls well on it.  I feel like I should probably get some sort of floor protector to keep it from being worn down too bad.  But I'm not sure.  Is that necessary?

What is necessary is something to keep me from pulling out my hair, because last night I was about to.  I had to finish a project that was due today. It really shouldn't have been a problem.  I had finished the entire page I just had to place a little box on the webpage to finish the project, and even that had been built and was just in need of being positioned.  Well for some reason it just didn't want to work.  No matter what I did it wouldn't line up to the location it was supposed to.  Part of it might be that there is some sort of issue with the pictures he supplies and on some computers it just won't match.  The problem is that I don't know how much of that is the picture and how much is what I'm doing.

Then once I decided I didn't care enough to keep working at it on account that it was nearly time for bed I just said good enough and went to validate the coding.  Well something like 15 errors popped up that I had to fix.  It was no big deal except for the last two that I spend at least an hour trying to solve.  Everything I did seemed to do nothing to solve the issue and then would cause more problems.  In the end I decided to just delete the thing that was being referred to and suddenly wall was right with the page.  It was stupid.  I was so annoyed and angry, mostly because I was tired and it was by this time after midnight and I needed sleep.

I don't expect a perfect grade on this one, but I don't really even care.  It was a total pain in the ass and I'm not really all that concerned.  The upside is that the project I started working on today went together pretty quick.  I'd say I'm already about two thirds of the way done with it after only about 2 hours of work. 

Picture(s) of the Day:
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This is a picture from one of the buildings here on campus.  The building itself is very clearly in a style form early 1900s.  I'm guessing around the 1930s or so.  Being curious I actually just Googled it and found the building was funded in 1935 and ground breaking was in 1936.  The building opened in 1938.  So, there you have it.  Either way the architecture is delightful.

What's The Actual Cost

This Sunday brought back Homeland, which is a good show, though I don't feel it's necessarily quite as good as it was the first season.  In fact, after the first show of the season I kind of feel like maybe they should bring the story to a close at the end of this season and just let it go.  I may be wrong and this seasons may really surprise me, but as it is right now it doesn't have that punch the first season did.  I mean, the first two hours (the did a two episode part this Sunday) was really kind of meh.  It wasn't bad but it didn't really pull me in the way it has in the past.

The large point with all of this is that in order to watch the show we had to add Showtime back on our cable package, which meant dealing with Comcast.  This means they decided that because of what we wanted the cheapest option would be to take their one year promotional rate that allows us to get the premium channel as well as some other channels.  It just occurred to me this might mean we have the Science Channel again, as well as National Geographic, but I'll have to check.

The point of it is, though, that what exactly is the price for the services that I get?  There are so many specials, deals, changes, that I don't understand what I'm paying for, and that makes it really hard to compare services.  When I go to McDonalds I know that if I want a fry and a drink it costs a specific amount for each.  I know that I'll get a deal if I get a value meal which gives me a slight discount by ordering all three things than if I ordered them individually.  But in the end I know how much each item is on its own and can figure out how much it would cost me to change things.

Comcast is not like that.  They have all these "Packages" with different confusing names which makes it impossible to really know what you're paying for.  Their website isn't helpful at all because it links things to other things that aren't what I was looking for.  Example there is apparently a package that gives you only internet and then a few channels, but the link to show me the line up of what I would get in that case goes to the regular line up page and doesn't show me what I need to know.

The moral of this story is: Comcast is a bag of dicks.  Though this new "package" is saving us $5 a month, so, whatever.

Picture(s) of the Day:
Picture 298
This is a picture of the room we had our meeting in last week.  It's really green, and kind of weirdly shaped.  It is a circle, which doesn't come across completely in this image because I did a panorama of it.  It was sad and empty during the meeting, even though the space should have been at least half full.

Weird Prank?

I forgot to mention something weird that happened yesterday.  When I went out to take the dogs for their morning walk I passed our car to see that the hood had a piece of wood from the stairs that I had taken apart that were once off the back door of our house.  It wasn't a huge piece, but it was sitting right on the hood of our car.  Then I realized that there were also little logs under the tires of our car.  I took care of the one on the hood and Becky picked up the ones under the tires.  Then when we went to get in the car we found that there was another log in the drivers seat, and a piece of concrete that was once part of a drainage thing that funnels water away from the gutter.

I don't think it was necessarily malicious, but I'm pretty sure it was the girls next door.  They're probably around 8-10 or so perhaps, and when we were out earlier in the day they were playing with some logs about the same size.  In the end nothing was damaged but potentially it could have scratched up the hood of the car or punctured the seats.  It's just kind of a weird thing, isn't it?  I mean, kids are stupid and maybe they thought it was funny because it's getting to be Halloween and woooooo! Scary prank!  Or maybe they created some imaginary game and this was how they won.  I was a kid, I did shit like that, it's weird.  Either way I don't like that our car doesn't auto lock because they were in the car.  I also don't like people messing with our stuff.

Picture(s) of the Day:
Picture 297
The table set up from one of the events last week.  Kind of boring if you ask me, but whatever.  I'm glad I got to skip that dinner, though the menu was Mahi and I like that.

Family Tree Project

As I was looking over my goals update I realized that last month I provided a quick comment about how I was doing some family tree investigations and had some interesting findings that I would share in an upcoming blog.  Fast forward over a month and I realize that I never did that and thought I'd share what I'd found so far.

So, to start I've got a good deal of information about my mom's side of the family.  I know there are some avid family tree investigators in that side of the family and have linked us all the way back quite a ways to the Salem witch trials, and with nobility back in England.  However, on the other side of things I really have no information on my Dad's side.  That probably falls to the fact that he's a terrible human being who slithered out from under a rock and then went creeping back into the swamp never to be heard from again.  However, I always liked my grandfather on that side, even if I thought my grandmother on that side was kind of weird.  I didn't like visiting them because I didn't like where they lived.

I didn't know too much about them, they were always super quiet about the past. There is also a strange line of conspiracy theorists that I really have no patience for.  However, I did spend time with them occasionally, but really knew virtually nothing about them.  Doing some digging recently I found a good deal of very interesting history for my grandfather.  I knew that he was in World War II, and when I was probably 16 or 17 we were over there and he told me about how he was stationed in Hawaii when the attack came on Pearl Harbor.  He was on the island that day, though he was Army so it was a totally different experience.  He then showed me some of his medals.  Other than that I knew nothing about his time there.  He never said what he did after Pearl Harbor, and the most I got from my mom was she said he went on "suicide missions".

Well, doing some digging I first tried to get his records from the Archives, but sadly in the 70s there was a fire that destroyed the majority of Army records and his were among them.  They said they could get me some other records from other areas, but I forgot to fill out the information and will have to reapply probably to get them done.  However, doing some other searching I was able to find his enlistment information, where he enlisted, where he was sent, which all checked out with what he told me himself.  I also found his ID number which turned out to be very helpful because I found a record for a medal that I was able to confirm was his.  I didn't know the medals that he showed me, but doing the research I found out that he was awarded a Bronze Star during the war.  Using some comments on that document and a newsletter and some other primary documentation I found out that he volunteered for a group that became known as Merrill's Marauders.  They were sent behind Japanese lines to disrupt supplies in Burma.  Apparently it was very dangerous and they lost a lot of people. 

I actually don't know much about what happened, but knowing this I found there are a number of books I could read to learn more.  Right now I just have the Wikipedia version of it, which of course I feel is inadequate.  It's really a cool thing, and I regret that I wasn't able to talk first hand with him about this.  When he was a live I was too young and didn't have the appreciation or interest in History that I do now.  I missed out big, and that is sad.  But it's very interesting to learn about things now and to dig.  I also found out that it looks like his mysterious family origins that he was never keen on talking about are from across our southern border.  A lot more investigating to do, but very interesting finds so far.

Picture(s) of the Day:
Picture 296
As you can see these are the pillars that I was painting but from the roof.  You can see that the sun was really bleaching out the one side, though from the inspection I don't think it was really painted all that well to begin with.  I mean, no one can really see this side ever unless you're on the roof, so I don't think they really worried about it.  It's nicely painted now.  YOu can also see the line between the faded top and the painted bottom on the left, and the faded bottom and painted top on the right.  Good times.