Hmmm. If--I'm speaking hypothetically here--if I were actually posting every day in November, which, of course, is pretty far fetched, what would I write about today? Election Day delivered its usual mixed bag of results. The results of some races were welcome news, others were rather disappointing. So I didn't spend last night dancing in the streets or anything. (We did go dancing, but that was mainly because I want to go to the InDesign Users Group meeting next Tuesday.) Today was pretty uneventful as well. I did have a Deacons meeting at church, which in its own way was as unsettling as the election results that disappointed. I find myself feeling quite out of place at church these days. Not when we're actually "doing church". When it's time to worship, I feel just fine. It's when it comes time to socialize or do the various and sundry tasks of maintaining the organization that I get out of kilter. When did I get out of sync with the flock? Or was I only deluded when I thought I was fitting in before? Ah, well. 'Tis a mystery. One I can probably ignore until the next church function on Saturday morning.

Labels: church, life, relationships, whining

Boy, I wish I was rich again. In the past few weeks I took the time between Stargate SG-1 episodes and did some number crunching. Unless we keep getting little presents like the one from Uncle Sam a few months ago, we're going to be spending about $100 more than we take in each month. Getting a raise from Yoyodyne doesn't seem likely, and for various reasons I'm reluctant to go out searching for a different employer. I thought about trying to get a second job to make up the shortfall, but when I mentioned the idea to Noodles, she nixed it in no uncertain terms. Um, perhaps I should instead say that she strongly requested that I not pursue that course of action, lest I give you the impression that I'm not lord and master of my household or something like that.

Then today I had to deal with another low-income irritation. Ever since coming back home, we've been taking advantage of the health insurance that Washington State offers. It seems like what we save in dollars and cents we make up for in paperwork. Like a good steward of the taxpayers' money, the folks at Basic Health insist that we document our income in order to prove our need for assistance. That might work fine for a lot of folks, but it seems like the system wasn't designed for us. The requirement is that, if we have a significant change in monthly income, we document the change and send it in to them. Well, when we applied for Basic Health, we were unemployed, though receiving a rental income. Then I got a job and the renters moved out. Then Noodles got a one time writing assignment. Then Noodles got a part time music teaching gig. A few months later, after we began to realize that my salary wasn't cutting it, she managed to rouse up a second client for her music class. Each time that meant I needed to send in an income adjustment form. What fun!

But it appears that Basic Health was doing their own number crunching. In December, they announced that we were making too much money and no longer qualified for the program. I booted up Quicken and ran the reports. Much as I would have liked to have made too much money, we hadn't. So I sent my data in and they cancelled our cancellation. The other day, I got another notice that we were too rich for the program. Once again I did the math and once again I found out that we were as poor as I thought. This time, however, Noodles called down to Olympia and talked to a real, live, somewhat snippy human being. According to her, the folks down there were using last year's tax return for their calculations. By figuring in our rental and Noodles' writing income, we would be making too much money to qualify. So now I'm sending another note explaining why they shouldn't cancel our health insurance. But this time I'm light on the documentation. I mean, how do you document that we're not making money?

Part of me longs to just do without health insurance. The rationale goes, "Hey, we're poor*, so lets just live like poor people do." But then all I have to do is think about the friends who've had to deal with catastrophic illnesses and I know that paying off the insurance man is worth whatever scrimping and saving we might have to do. Ah, well. At least blogging's free.
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*I use this term jokingly. I don't think we're close to real poverty, even by American standards.

Labels: government, life, money, whining

The dreaded KJR has added insult to injury with their latest self-promo spots. Since all twelve of the songs they play are fun to sing along with, the spots feature some jamoke warbling along with some classic rock tune. It's bad enough that I have to listen to the same songs day after day after day, but do I have to listen to them sung off-key as well? (I know, I know, I need to get myself an iPod....)

Labels: radio, whining

I spent the other evening playing catch up--reading the minutes from our church's council meetings for the past three years. I don't know what possessed me. Well, I do, actually. While we were overseas, we had heard about some friction between the pastor and some of the lay leaders of the group. Now that I've volunteered to be on a committee at church, I wanted to see if the minutes would shed any light upon the supposed controversies. They didn't, of course. In polite American society we can't just come out and say that so and so is bugging the heck out of me. It's just not done. So I'll guess I'll just have to live without knowing the gossip.

The fact that I've agreed to serve on a committee is another act of weirdness on my part. The plan is to survey some members of the congregation, send the surveys up the ecclesiastical hierarchy and get a dandy report as to how we compare to the profile of a healthy congregation. The problem is, I think the whole idea is foolish. We've had a number of surveys in the past ten years or so--all of them trying to find our "vision", to seek a direction for the congregation. The problem is, our direction is right in front of us, but we don't want to see it. Ol' Dry Bones church is headed towards the proverbial grave. Our numbers are dwindling along with our finances and we really can't function like we did back in our glory days. If we were rational about it all, our vision would be to efficiently close down the congregation. Our mission would be to hook up our remaining members with new church homes, dispose of our corporate property and make sure the pastor gets a nice severance package. That's what we should be meeting about, some would say.

The problem is, our faith gets in the way. We follow a God who works miracles, a God who uses the weak and insignificant to humble the mighty. Heck, every Sunday we declare that we believe in the resurrection of the dead. So if it looks like the congregation is dying, do we start making funeral arrangements? Heck, no. Instead we'll start talking about getting new stoves for the kitchen or repainting the Sunday School rooms. I wonder what the good Lord will say, when we're at the Pearly Gates. Will He say to us stubborn church members, "Well done, my good and faithful servants?" Or will he sigh and shake His head and welcome us in His infinite mercy? Beats me. So I suppose that's why I have a meeting this Sunday....

Labels: church, commentary, community, life, relationships, religion, whining

Um, in my last post, I spoke in error. Now if I were a major metropolitan newspaper, I'd run a correction on page two or three or so, tucked neatly in a corner. But I'm not a major metropolitan newspaper and I don't have a page two, so I will confess my error right up front in a new post, where all can see. (Besides, it'll give me another chance to blam about Classmates.com.)

Ahem, last night I stated that one has to be a "Gold" member of Classmates.com in order to send messages to other people on the site. As stated by Ruminator in a comment on the previous post, and as I belatedly discovered, this is not the case. Last night, after posting I got to thinking (I know, one should always do that before writing) that having to pay to both send and receive was a pretty lousy system, sure to alienate users. So I went back to the site and to my friend Giz's profile. Not only was I able to sign his guestbook, but I also was able to shoot him a brief message. Of course, that merely put the burden of paying for messaging rights back on him. For today I got a new e-mail from Classmates stating, "Oh No! Your Message Can't Be Read!". Horrors! The mail also advised me to "Switch to Gold membership so all your messages come through loud and clear." Hmmm. It appears that if I buy my way into the ranks of the privileged, I can be guaranteed of unhindered communications with all of my past schoolmates. Well, assuming they bother to write back, that is.

You know, I'm tempted just to send Giz another unreadable message. Then maybe he'd send another one back and I'd send another one and so on. And then I might start sending out messages to the other kids from my high school. And maybe they'll start sending back unreadable responses and it will all escalate into a cacophony of blocked messages. And maybe finally Mr. Classmates will get fed up and give us all complimentary Gold memberships, just so we'll stop filling their servers up with spam. That or they'll track down my favorite websites and buy onoxious banner ads for each of them. sigh. I used to like the internet.

Labels: retraction, web, whining

Oh, what a dilemma before me! Do I stand by my principles and sacrifice civil politeness? Or do I cut a deal with the forces of greed and bloated web design and return the greetings of an old friend? 'Tis an agonizing choice. What I refer to, if you haven't guessed, is the nigh omnipresent Classmates.com--the website that offers to give you the latest scoop on your school day compatriots. You know, all the people with whom you've neglected to keep in touch over the years. I signed up for the service years ago. Well, sort of. I mean, I forked over my name and information for a chance to read up on all the kids from days past. There weren't many folks on the rolls back then, but I enjoyed the little peek I got and figured I had done my good deed on putting my name out there for those other alumni who were curious on how we all fared. I also turned the offer to "go gold" and pay for the privilege of getting all the contact info and starting a reunion and all that. Anyway, the years have passed and in moments of boredom I have surfed back to the site to look for new names and generally add bits and pieces to my profile. I think in one of those visits I must have turned on the e-mail notification, because in recent months (I haven't been keeping track how many), I've been getting e-mails that some people have been... signing my guestbook. (insert squeal of delight, if you're so inclined) I didn't even know I had a guestbook. Anyway, at one point I ventured over to the site to check it all out. It turns out that only the "gold" members can read their own guestbook. It turns out that you have to go gold to even see who has signed your guestbook. Now, if my curiosity had outweighed my common sense, I would have forked over the cash to see who those long, lost friends were. However, I have acquired a bit of wisdom, or maybe just cynicism, over the years and I fear that there's a good chance that at least some of signatories are marketing folks from Classmates.com, rather than some girl I once doted over who now wants to start a nostalgic romance. (I put that in there because my wife has started reading my blog and I want to give her a good chuckle when she gets this far.) As you might imagine, I've become quite unimpressed with the worthiness of the whole site. (Should I start a new paragraph here? Yes, I think one is quite overdue.)

So yesterday, I came face to face with the dilemma. The ante has been upped. I've got an actual message in my message box (again, I didn't know I even had a message box) from an old high school friend. Not just any friend, but the one and only Gizzard, who was the Groucho Marx of our class. Ah, 'twould be wonderful to reconnect with ol' Giz, to see if the angry young man has grown into a cranky old fart or at least a slick life insurance salesman. But alas, when I went to the venerable Classmates site, into my very own message box to see my very own message, I see that the message header has been footnoted. I quote: * Indicates this message has not been paid for. grumble. Now, I may be mistaken, but I think that Giz had to pay for the golden privilege of sending me that message. However, I can't read, much less respond to it unless I pay as well. So basically the faithful gold member is paying Classmates.com for the privilege of pressuring other people to give money to Classmates.com. It's not exactly a dumb idea, because I do feel a bit guilty about not connecting with Giz. (Not $15 worth of guilt, mind you.) On the other hand, I'm a bit tempted to just pull my name from the site entirely and go fuss about some other evil in the world. Nah, that won't do. Because sooner or later I'll be surfing the net in sheer boredom and I'll run across one of the ever present banner ads...

Labels: commentary, web, whining

I've started watching through Stargate SG-1, having finished watching all of the collected Farscape episodes. Like Farscape, I'm borrowing the DVDs from the Library, so weeks after I put in my request, I end up with a two week glut of watching television. The thing was, with Farscape, I had to exercise self control to stop myself from watching just one more episode. With Stargate, I can take it or leave it. The series concept is far more promising, but it fails to deliver. I find myself forcibly suspending disbelief so as to continue watching the episode. I can't believe that Farscape got axed after four seasons, yet this series ran for ten. It reminds me a bit of the various Star Trek series. Week after week I'd watch mediocre stories just for a chance to enjoy some likable characters and with a distant hope that this episode might be good.

There's also another Star Trek parallel. I started watching that series ten or so years after it first ran. Now I'm starting on Stargate after its tenth anniversary. Of course, the way I'm watching it is worlds apart. Instead of trying to catch a commercial ridden rerun at whatever time the TV station chooses to schedule it, (It was 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon back in '77, if I recall correctly.) I get to watch whatever uncut episode I want, when I want... well, assuming the DVD player's working, and nobody else in the family needs to use the TV. What progress! Now if only the writing would follow suit...

Labels: life, TV, whining

Aw, man. I don't know what to write about. I think I've been operating on a low level depression for the past few months. This has been the busy season at work, but it's nothing like the old job, with the constant requests for "as much overtime as you can stand". Of course, looking at my credit card bill--with charges for homeschool curriculum and Christmas presents--I think I'd welcome as much overtime as I can stand. I think I'm just one of those whiney-boys who's never satisfied.

Still, I got to make George W. Bush bald the other day. Much more satisfying that matching color on fine fashion or processing coffee posters. So why aren't I happy? Maybe defacing pictures of politicians isn't the source of true lasting happiness. Maybe I need to find something different. I wonder if it's too late to get in on that novel writing month thing....

Labels: silliness, whining, work

I have a bad feeling that work is about to become intolerable. I haven't blogged much about Yoyodyne, but it is a pretty nice job. The work is relatively easy and the people are nice. So far I haven't been impressed into overtime, but folks warn me that the time is coming. On the other hand, it isn't the perfect workplace. I miss having hot water available for tea and they tend to be a bit stricter about extending one's lunchtime. The worst problem, however, is the sound pollution. I work in a room with another coworker who likes to play his radio during the day. What makes that pollution is that he plays KJR-FM. I think KJR must have at least 10,000 CDs in their library, 9990 of which are duplicates of particular Elton John and Billy Joel albums. I have actually been surprised at how much repetition and how little variety that station offers. I can't understand why people would tune in to listen to the same old stuff (some of it good, I admit) day after day after day after....

Anyway, it's bound to get worse. Today the DJ gleefully announced that Billy Joel is going to be playing in Seattle in November! Oh, joy. Now he'll get extra airplay so that the fans can build up the proper frenzy to welcome him to the Emerald City. Hopefully the Elton John fans won't feel slighted and start demanding comparable airtime for their favorite pianist. (See? It could always get worse...)

Labels: radio, whining, work