Archive for October, 2008

• Halloween

  Date: 2008.10.31 | Category: Life as we know it | Response: 0

  

  It’s 11:46 and Jessica and I still have an hour left of prep tonight for our party tomorrow. We’ve got a bit of prep to do tomorrow but most of the hard work is done. It will take us a few hours to get into our costumes – it should be fun. More photos will follow – when the hangover goes away.

• The new normal

  Date: 2008.10.27 | Category: Life as we know it | Response: 1

  Last Thursday I went under the laser and got my vision corrected. Most people that get corrective surgery get LASIK and notice immediate results. Due to the thickness of my cornea and the military’s restrictions on LASIK I got PRK, a surgery that requires much longer recovery times. At the moment, I am sitting 3 feet away from my monitor and I can see what I am typing – unaided. My vision is still quite blurry but I have been told that it will improve with each day. My vision will probably stabilize in a month. This is the new normal and its kinda weird.

  The surgery was bizarre – they numb you and mess with your eyes for fifteen minutes and then its all over. You don’t feel anything and you really don’t feel any pain until 6 hours after the surgery is complete. The pain, as best as I can describe, feels something like getting 20 eyelashes in your eye at the same time. They give you good dope and numbing drops to deal with the pain and after a while its not that bad.

  I’m extremely sensitive to light and my eyes do get tired quickly. I did get the “bandage” contacts removed earlier today so that should help with the fatigue of my eyes. Things will only get better over the next few days.

  The recovery process sidelined me last weekend and prevented me from going to a dog race in eastern Washington. There won’t be another race until January but at least I’ll be able to see that one with my own eyes.

• Yes, I can be petty

  Date: 2008.10.17 | Category: ahh the news | Response: 2

  FDR said

  This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

  To me, that seems to be one of the major underlying problems with our economy. Investors are skittish about putting their money into banks for fear that they might not get any returns. Banks are skittish about giving other banks loans for fear of not getting any returns or at worst loosing their hats. Fear is a large part of the economic problem. The other problem is that we, as Americans, carry far too much debt and we’ve got to change our lifestyles. I’m working on chaning mine as I have been for years but I’ve got a ways to go.

  There is one highlight in the economic downturn. Simply because investors believe the economy is slowing they think that oil consumption will also decrease. As a result, we have seen oil prices (in the futures market) drop to $70 barrel. For many of us, this is good news. Yes, we’re still waiting to see some of that drop at the pump because although the price rises quickly it takes a long time to fall. OPEC isn’t too happy about the price drop because the downturn is hurting their bottom line. They’re going to call an emergency meeting where they will undoubtedly cut back production in an effort to drive prices higher.

  It feels nice to have them be scared – it feels nice to not be under their thumb for once. Maybe they’re getting what they deserve. In the future we are going to run out of fossil fuels and we’ll have to engineer a new way to provide power. They know this and we know this. When that happens, they’re going to hope that they saved enough because its going to be quite hard to sell Iraq as a tourist destination.

• Pests

  Date: 2008.10.15 | Category: I was too lazy to organize these | Response: 0

  Earlier this summer I had an encounter with a swarm (albeit a small swarm) of yellow jackets that were angry because I was in their territory. I responded to the threat with a large amount of caution and a yellow jacket trap that I placed in my front yard. Over the next month or so the contraption filled itself with the remnants of the swarm. I never discovered the source of the swarm but I think I dwindled their numbers to a point that they could no longer be effective in defending their perceived territory. Dan, a random guy on a random blog that I don’t know nor have I ever talked to in the past, has an amusing story about a beehive that gave him considerably more trouble than I had. Here’s an excerpt

  Unsure of how many bees I killed or if I had managed to make their hive uninhabitable by emptying an entire can of Raid onto the mouth of their hidden lair, I waited another week to investigate. Cunningly, I got a long push broom and swiped at the top stair once again. A handful of bees flew out, and the next thing I knew I was in my basement shivering.

  Bees: 4 Dan: 0

  If you’ve got the time feel free to check out the story at his blog. The story was well written – and as normal for his blog – quite funny.

• Palin was a dumb pick? No foolin!

  Date: 2008.10.15 | Category: ahh the news | Response: 0

  The last line is all you need to read if you’re skimming.

  Matthew Dowd, a prominent political consultant and chief strategist for George W. Bush’s reelection campaign eviscerated John McCain on Tuesday for his choice of Sarah Palin as vice president.

  Dowd proclaimed that, in his heart of hearts, McCain knew he put the country at risk with his VP choice and that he would “have to live” with that fact for the rest of his career.

  “They didn’t let John McCain pick the person he wanted to pick as VP,” Dowd declared during the Time Warner Summit panel. “When Sarah Palin got picked instead of Joe Lieberman, which I fundamentally believed would have given John McCain the best opportunity in this race… as soon as he picked Palin, that whole ready versus not ready argument was not credible.”

  Saying that Palin was a “net negative” on the ticket, he went on: “[McCain] knows, in his gut, that he put somebody unqualified on the ballot. He knows that in his gut, and when this race is over that is something he will have to live with… He put somebody unqualified on that ballot and he put the country at risk, he knows that.”

  The other panelists were surprised, a bit, by Dowd’s bluntness. Not least because McCain’s well-known campaign motto is “country first.”

  “No, I don’t agree,” said Mark McKinnon, a former McCain aide, after chiding Dowd for claiming particular insight into McCain’s soul.

  “Well,” responded Dowd, “that’s even more disturbing than my thought” — the implication being that it would be truly frightening if McCain didn’t know how bad Palin truly was.

  Time columnist Joe Klein summed up what seemed to be the panel’s Palin consensus.

  “It was a gimmick,” he said of the pick. “It was one of the most disastrous decisions I have seen in a presidential campaign since I’ve begun covering them.”

  Later in the session, Hilary Rosen, the Huffington Post’s Washington editor at large, noted that the Palin pick had been successful in energizing the Republican base — and McCain himself. But Dowd wasn’t biting.

  “To me it is like Halloween,” he said. “You get energized by eating all that candy at night but then you feel sick the next day.”

• Dumb crap

  Date: 2008.10.15 | Category: I was too lazy to organize these | Response: 0

  I’m in the military and I tend to not think about what I give up. I go to the desert. I put myself in harms way. I work in an inherently hazardous job. People would like to kill me for who I am and what I do. I work odd and long hours. I am forced to eat MRE’s at times. I wear the same thing every single day at work. I have actually hit the dirt because I didn’t want to get blown up. Congress dictates how much I get paid and my pay is lumped in with the overall defense bill. If they don’t approve the entire bill I don’t get a cost of living pay increase. (luckily we haven’t seen that one yet because nobody wants to see a commercial about them voting down pay increases for military members during an election year)

  These things don’t bother me – they’re all part of the job and I know it. It’s not a big deal. The thing that does get me is weekend duty. The base is having an exercise and our section doesn’t have any direct involvement. We are working 12 hour shifts on the weekend in the interest of equal suffering by all. I’m a huge proponent of equal suffering but why did they schedule it on a weekend? Do they really hate us?

  Long story short – I put in a leave request so I can have the weekend off.

  Oh well

• If only this was a drinking game

  Date: 2008.10.15 | Category: links! | Response: 0

  McCain probably won’t win the election unless something drastic happens in the next 20 days or if we experience the pain of the Bradley effect. If he should win and later die because he is…. old…. we could see Palin as President. Yes, it is frightening.

  Check out this website. Every time she says maverick you’ve got to take a drink.

• 10 of This to 1 of That

  Date: 2008.10.10 | Category: I was too lazy to organize these | Response: 0

  10 things I would like to say to 10 different people right now:

  1. You make work not seem like work.

  2. I don’t care what you believe in, we don’t. We are happy with the way we live our lives.

  3. I wish that you could see your life through my eyes. Maybe you could see the danger.

  4. I lied when you asked me if it was true. It is and it will never stop happening to your friends if you keep believing that it’s not true.

  5. I love you and you mean the world to me, but when I think back I HATE the way you treat me compared to other people.

  6. You are a terrible person and even worse mother. I do not know how you can raise your child to be anything like you. You are killing her.

  7. I may be young in age, but trust me when I say I’m a lot wiser that you believe.

  8. I wish you would call me and NOT talk about the “Ex” for once.

  9. I want to live my life like you live yours.

  10. You should get use to him, I am pretty sure that he will be around for a long time.

  Nine things about myself:

  1. My heart is always on my sleeve.

  2. I cry at the drop of a at.

  3. I can’t wait to get out of my awkward phase.

  4. I am applying for an official job at Weyerhaeuser this week.

  5. I do not forgive very easily.

  6. I am 21 years old and I like to be talked to like an adult.

  7. I can’t believe that someone would use a disability as a crutch to get out of work.

  8. I am broke, but we are happy.

  9. I own my own car. ( thanks mom & dad)

  Eight ways to win my friendship:

  1. Be funny
  2. Be real
  3. Be Kind to me
  4. Be patient
  5. Have good conversation
  6. Be respectful of yourself and me
  7. Care about more than just your feelings
  8. Love me

  Seven things that cross my mind a lot:

  1. Where I will be in one year
  2. How can I make enough money to get good Christmas presents for my family
  3. How much I love my life
  4. What it will be like when I raise a kid
  5. Wonder what John is doing….
  6. How can I make a million dollars asap.
  7. How we can build the war wagon

  Six things I do before I fall asleep:

  1. Get into my sweats
  2. Set my radio to sleep
  3. Have John tuck me in
  4. Snuggle up in my 2 fuzzy blankets and the comforter
  5. Kiss John goodbye(goodnight)
  6. Think of sweet things and drift off

  Five people who mean a lot:

  1. John
  2. Leanne
  3. Jeff
  4 & 5. Mom & Dad

  Four things I’m wearing right now:

  1. fuzzy socks
  2. Sweat pants
  3. Iowa State Sweatshirt
  4. camp berachah tee shirt

  Three songs I listen to often:

  1. Breakable – Ingrid Michealson
  2. 99 Red Balloons – Goldfinger
  3. Smother Me – The Used

  Two things I want to do before I die:

  1. Raise a family
  2. Travel the World

  One confession:

  I have worked in my lab for a year and a half. It is like a 2nd home to me. I love my job. We have an opening now for a permanent job in the lab, and I am scared to death that I won’t get the job. No one else thinks I will have a problem getting it, I am the most qualified but I can’t help but think that I will be passed up.

• Two weeks until I go under the knife

  Date: 2008.10.09 | Category: Life as we know it | Response: 1

  I finally got a chance to head to the naval hospital in Bremerton for a pre-op consult. I’d been up for almost twenty hours by the time they started some of my tests so it took a few times to get the results right. If I had been working on dayshift, I wouldn’t have experienced any of these problems. The doc recommended that I have PRK on my eyes instead of LASIK.

  The first four days of recovery will be the worst as I will be wearing a contact lens bandage while the cornea of my eye heals. Some people experience minor complications with the surgery but they are rare at best. I’m just hoping that I’ll be able to snowboard and drive without glasses. If I have to carry a pair of glasses around to read I won’t complain – its got to be better than fogging up every time I walk into a building from November to March.

  I’ve got to run around some paperwork for command approval but they’ve already approved the initial part and I don’t know why they wouldn’t approve the second. I’ll only be out for four days initially and then should be able to drive and get around as normal.

• Financial meltdowns of the past

  Date: 2008.10.08 | Category: ahh the news | Response: 3

  The current financial meltdown isn’t the largest nor the first of its kind. We’ve had our fair share and we’ll probably have them in the future. Neatorama has a great list of them that includes highlights like

  The Panic of 1907
  Wall Street crash of 1929
  Great Depression
  1973 Oil Crisis
  Black Monday
  Savings and Loan Crisis
  Long Term Capital Bailout
  Dot-com Bubble
  California Energy Crisis

  If you’ve got ten minutes its high time to bone up on boneheaded things we’ve done to the economy. Do you think we’ll learn from our mistakes this time? nah