Pawprints From Space

I was in the bank the other day and the next window over is a well-known area doctor. He was dressed very casual, apparently it was his day off. This was not the least bit odd or anything. But the story he was relating to the teller just made me angry. This gentleman is from India so he is fairly dark skinned and has a thick accent. It is quite cultured and very musical and you can tell from his speech that is he a well educate person. You can also tell from the accent that he isn't any other race than what he is, the tones are very distinct. Oh yeah, he drives a silver Jaguar. Got all that? Well here's what made me angry (on his behalf). He had been driving on a state route a few miles north of our area (and south of Detroit). He admits that he was speeding so when the state trooper pulled him over he figured he deserved a ticket. But that's when it went wrong. The trooper did not just give him a ticket for speeding. Oh no! The trooper did not believe our good doctor that ...

Did you catch the Discover Channel via NBC report on global warming on Sunday? Makes you think, assuming that you can think and don't have ears full of sand from sticking your head in it. So of course I spent time online looking up more info. I have recently come across a Cornell University news release from 2001 that says it takes more energy to produce ethanol from grain that the process yields ( http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Aug01/corn-basedethanol.hrs.html ). Not only does the process eat up energy (something we are short on to begin with) but get this: "Corn production in the U.S. erodes soil about 12 times faster than the soil can be reformed, and irrigating corn mines groundwater 25 percent faster than the natural recharge rate of ground water. The environmental system in which corn is being produced is being rapidly degraded. Corn should not be considered a renewable resource for ethanol energy production, especially when human food is being converted into ethan...

I wish I could go on and on about the space shuttle and how great it has been to have a successful mission thus far. But I can't. The hoo-ha in the Middle East is really pissing me off so I have to go on about that. Okay I understand that Israel is upset over the abduction of two of their guys. But really this happens all the time and they ought to have a coping system in place. A system that does not include bombing the Palestinian Ministry and beating the heck outta Lebanon. This whole mine's bigger than yours so I'm going to kick your ass across the desert thing has got to stop. I know that Hezbollah long ago declared it their mission to wipe Israel off the planet but guys... people have been trying to do that for centuries, millennia even, it ain't happening. And really, since members of Hamas (which a lot of folks put in the same basket as Hezbollah) have been elected to the leadership in Palestine we really need to find a way to work together for peace. And I do n...

So I found an old issue of Vanity Fair (from May which in magazine age is pretty old) they were billing as "The Green Issue" so I bought it. Just a sucker for environmental slants I guess. Well in case you missed it Al Gore is back. Not as a candidate (yet and he shouldn't go that far in my opinion) but as a powerful voice for the environment. The man has been on talk shows, was the darling of Sundance with the documentary An Inconvenient Truth by David Guggenheim and I don't think he's finished just yet. Way back in 1992 he wrote this book called Earth In The Balance which did read a bit like a PhD dissertation but nonetheless sounded a mass marketed call about the future of the environment (or the lack thereof). Republicans jumped all over him calling him an extremist and so forth. Current Prez Bush even went so far as to ridicule Al in the 200 campaign over hybrids. Guess who is laughing now Mr-tax-cut-for-buying-a-hybrid-we've-got-to-end-the-US-dependenc...

Trying something new. At this moment (while I type, not while you read... I hope) I am sitting in the local coffee shop utilizing their free wireless Internet connection. I've met with a few volunteers, had a wonderful Berry Blast Smoothie (no I do not drink coffee, I just like the place) and am enjoying the atmosphere. Having a friend who works here is pretty nice too since I never see her otherwise. This place is my new "office" of sorts. Heck the shop's owner seemed kinda happy to have me hang out here and was real chatty when I asked him what the password was to log in here. Too bad he's married, he's pretty cute. The local theatre/media personality is in the booth behind me. He's okay in a pompous self-important sort of way. He's always amusing to talk to at least. The affectation of always wearing black is a little much but hey... everybody's got their quirks. Looking at a four day weekend thanks to the floating holiday being tagged onto the ...

My boss gave me a small miracle today. An answered prayer. But since he couldn't look me in the eye when he told me and seemed startled that I thanked him, I have to suppose he was doing so for the wrong reasons. You see, there's this project that has caused me pain for four years. It caused the people who had it before me pain. It has been a pain for 12 years altogether. So when he told me that he was taking it away as part of the reorganization shuffle I was relieved. I had been hoping he'd do that. Of course I feel sorry for the nice lady who is getting it but hey, all I can do is warn her of the pitfalls. I think he was taking it away because of a certain person who I have discovered has been bad-mouthing me all over the county. See the poor thing can't understand that there are rules as a nonprofit we have to abide by and she does not think such rules should apply to her so we have never seen eye to eye. Part of my job in taking this project was to clean it up. So ...

Okay, who names a phone company something that sounds as though it ought to be a travel agency? Apparently the folks at what-used-to-be-known-as-Sprint do. I never completely understood why they chose Sprint but when Ma Bell got chopped up and the Sprint name became the local phone service I was too young to care or think too much about it. But c'mon now? Embarq? Embark means to put or go onboard a ship at the start of a journey or to begin an undertaking. Changing the 'k' to a 'q' just makes it look funny. Okay so the phone can take us (or our voices at least) to other parts of the world but for what they charge for long distance calling I don't think too many people will be doing that. And I'm sorry but not enough of the cable here is fiber optic so there's no way that the speed of the DSL is going to be that great. Heck my faxes don't go anywhere near as fast as the modem allows 'cuz the phone lines can only handle an embarrassingly low bps of...

Well it is about friggin' time! Finally! We have a launch date. Okay we've had a few before that kept getting scrubbed but hey at least we have a date! July 1st Discovery is set to head back into orbit and visit the International Space Station. For flight details visit www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html And then there is the Constellation Program. Or as those of us old enough to remember the first steps on the moon: the return-to-the-moon-and-on-to-Mars program. Again, it is about time! Sheesh! Okay so Prez Bush is no Jack Kennedy and there's no space race any more but for cryin' out loud when Kennedy made his speech about landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth "in this decade" by golly within a decade it got done. Okay so maybe his getting killed might have spurred the whole thing on a little bit as a tribute to his vision but ... Bush made his speech about going back to the moon and on to Mars how many years ago now? ...

With the collapse of the Soviet Union the rest of the world breathed a collective sigh of relief. The race for nuclear arms and who can blow us all up more times than the other guy was over. No one paid too much attention to India and Pakistan and Company as they became nuclear powers. I guess we all figured they had enough sense not to blow up the planet. But here we go again. Iran is saber rattling to gain nuclear power and we're all assuming they want weapons, not just power plants. And maybe that is the case but while the whole world is watching them and contemplating this and that sanction North Korea is testing missiles. Yup. We seem to have another arms race going on. Smaller true, but no less deadly. Have you noticed though that over the last few years the minute we're busy dealing with something else North Korea acts up? Seriously, think about it. In the years since September 11th whenever North Korea does something to get the world's attention it has been when eve...

Okay, so I finally have time to work in the yard this weekend. In fact tonight I intend to mow the lawn. Wouldn't you know it? It is almost 90 degrees out there. The schedule couldn't possibly work out so that the mowing could happen when it was in the mid-to-high 70s. Oh no! So I get to look forward to an evening of bugs, heat rash, asthma and hay fever (from the cut grass which is worse when it is muggy). Betcha I'm nearly out of gas too. A friend of mine who has had a tough couple of years finally started to have things turn around. The deadbeat ex-hubby finally has to pay the back child support and maintenance that he avoided by changing jobs and neglecting to notify the new employer of the court order to garnish the wages, she got a decent job (not great but solid), school is going well, the daughter has graduated from high school and the bills were slowly getting caught up. Heck, she was so caught up that she is now only $100 behind in the rent. Wouldn't you know ...

I don't know if you listen to NPR but I can't start the day without it. Yup, I am a public radio junky. Last week Ted Koppel had an interesting commentary on Somalia. Check our www.npr.org , it commentary aired on the 7th, it should be archived on the site by now. Anyway, our boy Ted reminded us what a mess Somalia is and has been for quite some time how it is a "case study of unintended consequences". Something the first President Bush learned that Junior is only now figuring out. Imagine that. But I digress... Remember the blackhawk that was shot down? Remember Mogadishu? Remember how we were going to control those nasty warlords? Well in 1994 we finally figured out that wasn't going to work and got out. Guess what? according to Ted "it appears that the United States has been supporting the militias it once tried to eradicate, to the tune of more than $100,000 a month." Yup, those very same warlords who attacked our troops back in 1994, the ones that t...

It's tough to be feline, at least in this house. The newest member of the household (she's only been here for two days) went to the vet today. She got poked and prodded, had a shot, some other medication in a tube, had blood drawn and had her ears cleaned with a LOT of swabs. She took it all pretty well but then... tonight she had a bath. Fleas, you know plus various dirt from formerly being allowed to play outside. Well since she is no longer going outside she needed to get cleaned up. It is amazing what a good sport she was through the whole thing. Of course being only 15 weeks old there isn't that much damage she could do to me but I was able to hold her in one hand, suds her up and rinse her off. She really is a little Honey, which just happens to be the name she came to us with.

What is it with the world today? You work your butt off, give way more than 100% to your job because you are that kind of dedicated person (ie: nuts) and what do you get? Not a pat on the back, a smile, a thank you, or even a good job. Nope. You get snarled at that if things do not improve there will be layoffs so get busy and do more than you're presently doing, do it faster and you will like it or you can leave. We employees do not need much really when we like the work we do. But we do need positive reinforcement every so often to keep us going. Not veiled threats. And thinly veiled at that. Take this example, a person works for months running flat out pulling six days a week at more than 10 hours a day and pulls together a huge project with outrageous goals and comes in at 3% less than the powers that be wanted. Never mind that the increase over the previous year for this same project was 90%. Nope that does not matter. All the powers that be can focus on is that missing 3%. Th...

Okay so I work with volunteers. Some of them are fabulous but they are the rare ones. The ones who put in countless hours and work their butts off. Those people are great. And then there are the ones who do not listen, the ones who think rules - even laws do not apply to them, the ones who are volunteering because it looks good on the resume which means they don't do squat, the ones who are completely inept.... the ones who make you go ARGH! It is after 11:30 p.m. and I have been running full out since 7:00 a.m. - doing work that if the volunteers took their job descriptions seriously they would be doing. Hence tonight's rant? Or is it this morning's? I keep telling myself ... I love my job, I love my job, I love my job...

No offense to the retailers, the restaurant folk and others who regularly work on the weekends as part of their regular routine. You knew what you were doing when you took the job and some of you even enjoy it, you get your weekends when the rest of us don't and I'll bet there are advantages (shorter lines at the grocery for example, movie theatres almost to yourselves, that sort of thing). But I gotta tell ya.. for the rest of us who already work 40+ hours per week when you pile another 20+ hours (straight through mind you) on top of that it hurts. A lot. So when do I get to go to the grocery? When do the household chores get accomplished? When will that garden - which by the way is my joy in life - get the attention it deserves (we have 4 foot high thistles in some places - note to self do not put the thistle feeder for the goldfinch back out this year)? You see, when you a salaried employee there is no overtime pay, in most cases there is no "comp time" or anything...

I admit I am an artsy person, no a real one. I paint, I write, I dance, I sing I have even been known to build sets and appear on stage. So I can call myself not only a patron of the arts but a participant. So you'd think it would be okay for me and another fabulous lady (all the way from England) who is also both patron and participant to co-chair a task force charged with looking at the arts today in our community and coming up with recommendations for where we want to be in the year 2020. Nope. It seems there are "powers that be" behind the scenes who want to run this group but who don't actually want to do the work. So they pressure the chair of the oversight committee who in turns dumps all over us and meddles and pushes and so forth. We have had to back-track so many times because these "others" have changed their minds about what we should be doing that we have decided we've had enough. Neither of us are quitters but today we decided to quit. We s...

Okay, I gotta ask it and I know I am generalizing and being stereotypical but really... why do folks in small towns in rural areas have to be so damned petty and back-stabbing? I for one am sick and tired to being reduced to tears by a certain bunch of people that I have to work with, I have no choice... they are volunteers, they can't be fired but I can. This is SO not worth the damage it is doing to my nerves and mental health. I almost quit today. I did march myself down to the local office of MET Housing and put in an application for the Asst. Director job. I know, I know I've been promising to get the hell outta Dodge after getting the MBA but I honestly do not think I can last another year and a half because even though the MBA will be over next year at this time I'd still have to keep this job until the end of October in order to be vested in the pension plan (which is the plan you know). What the hell the MET Housing job has a retirement plan, government benefits an...

Okay, so we have to have a high speed connection to work from home. That's cool. Makes perfect sense. There is one tiny problem though... My personal computer will not "talk to" the ISP. Nope. One long headache of "Page Not Found" or even "Server Not Found". So I contact tech support, after all the salesfolk told me that my little ole Dell running Windows 98SE would be fine. Nope. The lovely tech twits tell me that there is obviously something wrong with my network card. Now this is the same network card that has worked perfectly for years. Oh yeah and I need to upgrade my operating system. Hello! Your literate says Windows 98SE is compatible. Guess what kids, the company is not going to reimburse me for any of that nonsense. And why should they? This is my PERSONAL computer we are talking about. So hey I can understand their perspective. However.... I wouldn't have upgraded to a cable ISP if I didn't have to for the job. Those crooks already g...

Yipes! It has gone from raining and unseasonably (10 degrees below normal on a good day) to flirting with 90 degrees. Now I like warm weather, I adore sunshine and I seem to have a decent tolerance for hot weather. But this sudden shift? Nuts! Can't work in the yard in this heat, not without a nasty heat rash at the minimum. So thought I'd work inside the house and finish setting up the "home office". Nope. When you buy one of those metal storage shelves and the holes to put the bolts through do not under threat or pleading line up you are pretty much s.o.l. This sucks. The whole move to a remote worker status thing sounds fairly good on the surface until you have to make the thing work. I'm just glad I have a house with a basement if I were still living in an apartment there is no way this would be feasible. Work on that paper? Maybe. Right now I am too pissed off at the way the rest of the day has gone to be able to focus much on that. Do not want to come across...

A lot can happen in a month. And yet not much can change... The company reorganization has moved forward a lot faster than anticipated and I am now working out of boxes. The house resembles the sort of scene you see in movies when the fly-by-night company sets up shop in a location and you just know they can be outta there in a heartbeat. It is beyond annoying. Of course once I get a filing cabinet moved in here (oh the joys of being female with a small car, one is dependent upon the schedules of others) and assemble a couple of shelves in the basement it might look better around here. Of course this requires time. In other news the last month saw the loss of the man who, though he was my uncle, was a father to me. If I had had time to grieve I might feel a little better. School is winding down. I have a 12 page paper to put together somehow in the next few days although with a presentation on the thing. It really isn't due for another week but since I have to work next weekend gue...