Archive for
February, 2006
February 28th, 2006
It seems like every time I turn around I’m told that the military is proud of what they are doing in Iraq and proud to be there. Mind you, I don’t hear that from the people I personally know in the military. I hear that from people on the internet who could be anyone really, but they usually claim to be a soldier, a soldier’s spouse or a soldier’s girlfriend.
And I’ve always said that I’m sure there are folks in both opinion camps regarding the war in Iraq.
However, Zogby International has actually taken a poll of 944
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Tags: Zogby Poll, Iraq, military, politics
February 28th, 2006
Lately this has become a hot topic where I work.
But let me start from way back…
I came from an office where there was no give and take from management as far as time management. Oh, they claimed we were all professional adults and that we were going to be treated as such, but then they’d make you work 60 hours one week to get a project done and if you asked for a day off the next week to have a root canal, they’d force you to take a vacation day. And if you called in sick more than 3
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Tags: PTO, work, scheduled absense, sick leave, company loyalty
February 27th, 2006
Remember all those complaints about voting irregularities in Florida? Seems like there might have been something to it. Of course, no one in the government is doing anything about it still. I suspect neither party wants to clear up all the voting irregularities and calling attention to it will only call attention to their own participation here and there.
The internal logs of at least 40 Sequoia touch-screen voting machines reveal that votes were time and date-stamped as cast two weeks before the election, sometimes in the middle of the night.
Black Box Voting successfully sued former Palm Beach
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Tags: Black Box Voting, Voting Irregularities, Florida, 2004 election, politics
February 27th, 2006
Holy crap.
Halliburton Subsidiary Gets Contract to Add Temporary Immigration Detention Centers
By Rachel L. Swarns
New York Times
February 4, 2006
WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 — The Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a contract worth up to $385 million for building temporary immigration detention centers to Kellogg Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary that has been criticized for overcharging the Pentagon for its work in Iraq.
KBR would build the centers for the Homeland Security Department for an unexpected influx of immigrants, to house people in the event of a natural disaster or for new programs that require additional detention space, company executives said.
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Tags: politics, Halliburton, Conspiracy Theories, Homeland Security, immigration, FEMA
February 27th, 2006
An acquaintance of mine mentioned yesterday that she is offended by H&R Block’s current tax-season ad campaign.
You’ve seen it. There’s an H&R Block representative giving deduction advice to a client and finally the client asks if she does that for everyone and the rep says, “Only for people who work for a living.”
My acquaintance is on disability. She’s not the only person I know who is. Perhaps she’s one of the few I know who doesn’t take advantage of it, but that’s beside the point. The fact is that she was offended by the commercial.
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Tags: H&R Block, Discrimination
February 27th, 2006
So have you heard the one about the man who asked the convenience store clerk to microwave a penis?
No, seriously. This story stunned everyone I knew over the weekend. I was surprised not to see more internet buzz about it.
If you missed it, the basic gist is that a man and a woman entered a convenience store outside of Pittsburgh last Thursday and asked the clerk if they could use the microwave. The item was wrapped in paper towels and after 20 seconds or so, smelled kind of funny. The clerk openned the microwave and saw what she thought was a severed penis.
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Tags: Pittsburgh news
February 26th, 2006
Peter and Meg have set the date for June 30th. If I understand their plan, they are using their honeymoon as an excuse to go to PW’s wedding in England. Meg indicated that it was the only way they could afford to go to PW’s wedding and get married this year as well.
Unfortunately, because I’ve already bought my tickets to leave for London on June 23rd, I won’t be able to go to both weddings. However, I’ll probably be able to do some sightseeing with them in London. Meg indicated that they planned to spend a
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Tags: wedding, England, London, friendship
February 26th, 2006
So, my shrink said to try to ignore the things I don’t get done or don’t accomplish everyday and focus on the accomplishments however small they might seem.
Today I’m very proud of myself for getting out of the house and going to the write-in even if I did spend most of the time socializing and reading rather than writing. Actually, once I get somewhere and get comfortable I’m fine. One of the fellow write-in persons commented that hours after I got there I was obviously feeling better than when I arrived. That’s true. I was enjoying
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Tags: depression, anxiety
February 25th, 2006
Family hearsay is that my after my great-grandparents on my mother’s maternal side divorced, my great-grandfather kidnapped my grandmother and took her with him to live in Georgia…or Tennessee. Well, I thought it was Georgia but recently I’ve reinterpreted the rumors and now think it was Tennessee.
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Tags: genealogy, 1930 census, dysfunctional family
February 25th, 2006
Well, I had a chat with the neurologist’ nurse practitioner this week. I explained that I was still having bad headaches 3 out of 4 days and that I’d had really bad migraines about once a week for several days sinc the botox treatment. She had a different opinion than I did; she seems to think that this is an improvement for me and that it’s worth trying a second treatment.
Of course, since it didn’t help me more, we’re going to try a preventative medication in addition to the botox with the idea that the botox helps enough
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Tags: botox, migraine, topomax
February 24th, 2006
I believe there is a God, a benevolent Creator even.
And, yes, I believe in the Big Bang Theory and evolution too.
I believe in an afterlife too, but I start to have trouble when I think about the concepts of Heaven and Hell.
I just find it hard to believe that a benevolent God would sentence anyone to an eternity of pain for some infraction committed in such a short lifespan.
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Tags: Hell, religion, Christianity, God, Heaven, Faith
February 23rd, 2006
It’s kind of funny but my recent quest for faith and my goal to reconnect with my family has led me to yet another quest of sorts. Last night I began working on researching my family tree.
I bought The Family Tree Maker 2006 Deluxe version which comes with a year subscription to the US records for Ancestry.com; I paid $70 for the software and the subscription is a $180 value which is a really good deal and I highly recommend it if you’re a beginner and just getting started.
I sat down and input the few details I
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Tags: genealogy, Family Tree Maker, dysfunctional family
February 21st, 2006
Well, most of the regulars know, I am vehmenantly against the outsourcing of any American job overseas or to non-American companies. I just believe that that American money and American jobs should stay here in America. It’s a personal belief that no one is going to change my mind on.
Anyway, so you can imagine my feelings about this whole outsourcing of American port security to an Arab-owned company. Actually, I understand the current alarm but what gets me is that they’ve been outsourcing that for years to other countries and no one said anything until the whole Arab-owned thing came up. Suddenly it’s wrong, wrong, wrong.
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Tags: outsourcing, National Security, UAE, politics, 9/11
February 21st, 2006
I’m back to having weird dreams and restless sleep despite the ambien. Strange that for a while after they increased the effexor, I slipped back into quiet nights and rest.
Anyway, I had three very weird dreams over the weekend that I wanted to make note of. Kind of worrisome I guess.
In the first, I was working in a very large building, lots of elevators, escalators and stairs. People worked and lived in this building and it was maybe a couple times the size of the Superdome. For a while my friends from New Orleans were there
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Tags: dreams
February 15th, 2006
I haven’t received the official word yet from the bride-to-be herself, but SQ saw PW and English on Monday night and claims to have seen the Fiancee Visa with her own two eyes! So, yay! I guess all that worrying was for naught. 
I’m sure PW is relieved that she can get on with her life now.
Tags: wedding
February 15th, 2006
I had a good session with my shrink last night. This past week I have been more depressed than usual; obviously, my grandmother’s memorial service and the whole travelling fiasco have something to do with that. However, a lot of my problem is perceived self-image and an extreme unhappiness for how I look and feel due to my weight issues.
I’ve written about how I’m suffering from some form of ugly duckling syndrome or some such. I currently feel miserable all of the time. I am constantly aware of how terrible I look and how uncomfortable I feel. I am frustrated at not being able to find decent-fitting clothes. And I feel disappointed and angry with myself for gaining the weight in the first place.
Needless to say, all of this has weighed heavily on my mind and my need for approval and validation from my parents also came into play. When I lost all of that weight back in 2002, my parents didn’t see me for about a year. There was about a 40-45 lbs difference and my father said how proud he was of me and bragged to his friends. I guess I know that they are proud of me in other ways but I feel like I let them down somehow by gaining the weight back plus some. So, with only about 5 weeks between when I saw them this time, I guess I felt like the loss of 8 lbs should have been more visible. I felt like every bite I took was being watched and judged while I was there since they know I’m back on program and I was keenly aware of how dumpy I looked in the clothes I chose to wear over the weekend.
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Tags: depression, dysfunctional family, therapy
February 14th, 2006
One of the most frustrating things I’ve heard and read a lot recently is the complaint that Katrina Evacuees are mooching off the system when they should just get on with their lives and get jobs.
People like to point out that there are a lot of jobs in New Orleans right now. Why just about every business has a sign out that they are hiring. Anyone who claims they can’t find work must be moochers.
Meanwhile, people who are working in the city are getting kicked out of their hotels because FEMA won’t pay anymore. FEMA is handing
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Tags: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, politics, FEMA
February 14th, 2006
Despite my travel woes over the weekend, I did find the memorial for my grandmother to be a positive experience despite the sadness involved.
Over the last few years, she had been so miserable and had been such a burden (often purposely) on my mother that it was hard to remember the person she was.
My grandmother was the child of a broken marriage. She had been kidnapped by her father at a young age and raised in a strict household. She blamed her mother for not “rescuing” her, though her working mother claimed that at the time she had
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Tags: dysfunctional family
February 13th, 2006
The following are the result of hours with nothing to do thanks to the North Eastern seaboard shut down yesterday due to weather as I tried to return from my grandmother’s funeral in Florida to my home in Portland, ME.
February 10th, 2006
Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so. –President Bush, April 20, 2004
Our position is, is that the authorization to use force, which was passed by the Congress in the days following September 11th, constitutes that other authorization, that other statute by Congress, to engage in this kind of signals intelligence. — Attorney General
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Tags: warrantless wiretapping, George W. Bush, lie, Alberto Gonzales
