Thursday, September 18, 2008
FEMA-Gate (or Heckuva Job, Bushy)
Guess what?
FEMA hasn't learned a damn thing since Katrina.
Is it just me or is this beyond angering? It's actually frightening. We can dump money into "anti-terrorist" programs to spy on US citizens, but can't help these same citizens when something bad actually occurs.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
This question I hurtle into the (rhetorical) ether...
am I the last person on earth who thinks that hiring someone else to clean your house is an unforgivably lazy and inhumane practice? (Not counting people who are physically or mentally unable to due to conditions well beyond their control.)
I can't help but see such actions as saying: "You're poorer than I am so you should be cleaning up filth I create."
I understand a busy lifestyle, I do - I usually have 4 free hours per night (between arriving home and going to bed) to walk my dog, cook, eat and clean. Never mind doing something good like reading, writing or going out. Time is not easily come by, but if one has time to live in his or her house and spread his or her filth around, one should have time to clean it up.
(This coming from a person who has not had a house containing a dishwasher or washing machine in it since the age of 18).
On the other hand, I realize that people need jobs, any jobs, and there are obviously people able and willing to do such work, no matter how badly it pays. And it does pay badly. I also realize that while I don't pay other people to clean my house, I do pay them to haul my trash, make my clothes, grow and picky my vegetables, grow and slaughter my meat, and (sometimes) fully prepare my food.
I'm not calling for a return to the Agrarian society. No, I am just pondering where the laziness line lies.
What are the reasonable tasks for which I should take personal responsibliity?
What ones are not?
I can't help but see such actions as saying: "You're poorer than I am so you should be cleaning up filth I create."
I understand a busy lifestyle, I do - I usually have 4 free hours per night (between arriving home and going to bed) to walk my dog, cook, eat and clean. Never mind doing something good like reading, writing or going out. Time is not easily come by, but if one has time to live in his or her house and spread his or her filth around, one should have time to clean it up.
(This coming from a person who has not had a house containing a dishwasher or washing machine in it since the age of 18).
On the other hand, I realize that people need jobs, any jobs, and there are obviously people able and willing to do such work, no matter how badly it pays. And it does pay badly. I also realize that while I don't pay other people to clean my house, I do pay them to haul my trash, make my clothes, grow and picky my vegetables, grow and slaughter my meat, and (sometimes) fully prepare my food.
I'm not calling for a return to the Agrarian society. No, I am just pondering where the laziness line lies.
What are the reasonable tasks for which I should take personal responsibliity?
What ones are not?
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Took the words out of my mouth...
My friend just forwarded this to me:
Obama's campaign would be over, done, cooked, imploded if:
Obama's campaign would be over, done, cooked, imploded if:
-he used his office to allow his wife to carry narcotics for her consumption on a diplomatic passport.
-he had a scandal where he traded campaign favors for political influence ala Keating 5.
-he picked a Veep with the same skill set and experience as Sarah Palin.
-he called his wife a trollop and c@%t in public.
-he couldn't remember what border Afghanistan was on.
-he kept confusing Iraq with Iran.
-he involved himself in a regional conflict that has no strategic value to this country.
-he surrounded himself with a lobbyist operation of 150 people to manage his campaign.
-he dumped his 1st wife for a 24YO heiress to a beer fortune, committing adultery in the process.
-he had a lobbyist that got him to intercede with the FCC on broadcasting licensing with a potential sex angle involved.
-he was 72 years old with a medical history of numerous occurrences of cancer.
-he was celebrating his birthday with a cake while New Orleans was drowning.
-he was in a Party that has been a governing disaster for the past 8 years.
-he had falsely fingered Iraq for the 9/11 attack.
-he had fellow Senators of his Party publicly worried about his temper and temperament to be POTUS.
-he was caught on camera celebrating his birthday with a celebrity and indicted con artist in some exotic locale.
-he couldn't remember how many houses he owned.
-he violated campaign rules about flying in private aircraft, owned by his wife, at n/c to his campaign.
-he thought rich was making $5MM/year.
-he let Michelle show up for his nominating convention, wearing $280,000 worth of jewels.
-he continued to lie about his VP's accomplishments. particularly on earmarks and the bridge to nowhere.
-he stated that Joe Biden probably knew more about energy than any other person in the US.
-he graduated 894/895 in his class and crash 4 jets while in the military.
Yeah, like he said.
Housing Woes
In our continuing search for an apartment/house/cottage close to Stanford's campus, Sean and I answered an ad for a cottage ON campus, a four-minute bike ride from the door of my office building, yesterday. Shit.
This is what we found.
And with this dilapidated little hovel, for the bargain price of $1500, one inherits an emphysemic 70 year old man and his ugly dog. Ed, the landlord, lives about 20ft from the front door of the cottage for rent, in a mobile home. Between the mobile home and cottage is one of his workshops. The other workshop is on the other end of the cottage. Not a lot of privacy. But wait, there's more. There's the old, crappy furniture (an Italian leather sofa, a box spring and mattress set, a huge TV) that comes with the rental - seeing as Ed lives in a mobile home, these inheritances are not exactly optional. Yum. Oh, and then there's the circuit box outside - a mess of wires just waiting to explode and take the house with it. And there's no sheet rock, just really old plaster, so you can't hang things on the walls, much less lean against them. I have to admit, the huge walk-in closet lined with shiny silver insulation amused me (if nothing else, one MUST keep their clothes warm), and almost distracted me from the godawful odor in the place. The windows are hanging to their frames by some miraculous power, the heater is at least 50 years old, the bathroom sink sits two feet off the ground and some of the walls are halfheartedly covered in wood paneling. Yep, $1500/month. You couldn't rent that tinderbox out in Alaska for more than $200.
Back to square one - here's hoping the guest house just off campus works out.
This is what we found.
And with this dilapidated little hovel, for the bargain price of $1500, one inherits an emphysemic 70 year old man and his ugly dog. Ed, the landlord, lives about 20ft from the front door of the cottage for rent, in a mobile home. Between the mobile home and cottage is one of his workshops. The other workshop is on the other end of the cottage. Not a lot of privacy. But wait, there's more. There's the old, crappy furniture (an Italian leather sofa, a box spring and mattress set, a huge TV) that comes with the rental - seeing as Ed lives in a mobile home, these inheritances are not exactly optional. Yum. Oh, and then there's the circuit box outside - a mess of wires just waiting to explode and take the house with it. And there's no sheet rock, just really old plaster, so you can't hang things on the walls, much less lean against them. I have to admit, the huge walk-in closet lined with shiny silver insulation amused me (if nothing else, one MUST keep their clothes warm), and almost distracted me from the godawful odor in the place. The windows are hanging to their frames by some miraculous power, the heater is at least 50 years old, the bathroom sink sits two feet off the ground and some of the walls are halfheartedly covered in wood paneling. Yep, $1500/month. You couldn't rent that tinderbox out in Alaska for more than $200.
Back to square one - here's hoping the guest house just off campus works out.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Woodward's "The War Within"
Looks like Bob Woodward has a new book out.
From the NYT book review by Michiko Kakutani (September 6, 2008)
“A president must be able to get a clear-eyed, unbiased assessment of the war,” he writes. “The president must lead. For years, time and again, President Bush has displayed impatience, bravado and unsettling personal certainty about his decisions. The result has too often been impulsiveness and carelessness and, perhaps most troubling, a delayed reaction to realities and advice that run counter to his gut.”
From the NYT book review by Michiko Kakutani (September 6, 2008)
“A president must be able to get a clear-eyed, unbiased assessment of the war,” he writes. “The president must lead. For years, time and again, President Bush has displayed impatience, bravado and unsettling personal certainty about his decisions. The result has too often been impulsiveness and carelessness and, perhaps most troubling, a delayed reaction to realities and advice that run counter to his gut.”
Saturday, September 6, 2008
All the livelong fucking day
Work's been busy lately. The academic year is about to begin (Stanford is on the quarter system, so classes don't start until the end of September. Yes. I find this stupid. I heart the semester system.), so our newest crop of Knight Fellows are upon us at the Fellowship office. This involves helping them in a variety of ways: email and computer concerns, grocery shopping, childcare, prenatal care, insurance, purchasing cars, immigration paperwork, trips to the beach where they shiver in horror: "Isn't California supposed to be warm?"
And we haven't even started orientation yet. But, all this insanity has some great perks - I'm meeting incredible people each day and often get to hang out with their adorable kids. There's free food around, too!
Speaking of Stanford, Sean and I are more than actively looking for a new apartment that's closer to campus, we may have found one. I met a Stanford Art Professor who has a guest house to rent - we're still working out the details, but assuming he likes our dog (and everyone likes our dog, the slut) we'll probably be renting it. Sean and I biked there from work the other day, just to time it. Eight minutes. It takes us 15 minutes just to get to the train station in the morning, never mind parking, riding the rails and biking into campus. Eight fucking minutes. It makes me weep to imagine that I can feasibly roll out of bed at 8:00 am and be in work by 8:30. Oh, the humanity. The guest house is a quirky little property, but has two bedrooms, an ample double living room deal and hard wood floors.The professor, Paul, has a lovely family, so I think this will be a good fit.
We're in the middle of a heat wave right now, it's been close to or at 100F every day this week down in Palo Alto. It's a dry heat, but I'm still ready for the cold air to come back. I miss autumn, when September rolls around I can't help but look forward to crisp air and orange sweaters. Typical of San Francisco and the Bay Area, the seasonal changes are more or less subdued. Summer gets going slowly and lasts through October. December and winter in general mean rain, then everything turns green. I appreciate this more and more as the years go by. Fuck winter.
Guess that's all we have going on. My life feels busy and crammed, yet four paragraphs later I'm running dry on news.
I'll tell you this, I'm getting tired of hearing, reading and seeing anything having to do with Sarah Palin. I'm also tired of answering questions about her. I did not live in Wasilla and knew nothing of her during my time in the interior there because there wasn't much to know, other than her corrupt political decisions, which weren't terrilbly notable becuase, well, most political doings up there are corrupt. Oh, she's pro-drilling? Um... most Alaskans are.
I don't blame people for being shocked. All I knew about Alaska before living there was that it was cold and prone to earthquakes. And something about oil... yeah, oil. Now everyone's finding out that dirty dealings go on up there and that evangelicals can indeed survive, nay thrive, in the sub-arctic.
They can and they do. "God bless" my new blue state.
And we haven't even started orientation yet. But, all this insanity has some great perks - I'm meeting incredible people each day and often get to hang out with their adorable kids. There's free food around, too!
Speaking of Stanford, Sean and I are more than actively looking for a new apartment that's closer to campus, we may have found one. I met a Stanford Art Professor who has a guest house to rent - we're still working out the details, but assuming he likes our dog (and everyone likes our dog, the slut) we'll probably be renting it. Sean and I biked there from work the other day, just to time it. Eight minutes. It takes us 15 minutes just to get to the train station in the morning, never mind parking, riding the rails and biking into campus. Eight fucking minutes. It makes me weep to imagine that I can feasibly roll out of bed at 8:00 am and be in work by 8:30. Oh, the humanity. The guest house is a quirky little property, but has two bedrooms, an ample double living room deal and hard wood floors.The professor, Paul, has a lovely family, so I think this will be a good fit.
We're in the middle of a heat wave right now, it's been close to or at 100F every day this week down in Palo Alto. It's a dry heat, but I'm still ready for the cold air to come back. I miss autumn, when September rolls around I can't help but look forward to crisp air and orange sweaters. Typical of San Francisco and the Bay Area, the seasonal changes are more or less subdued. Summer gets going slowly and lasts through October. December and winter in general mean rain, then everything turns green. I appreciate this more and more as the years go by. Fuck winter.
Guess that's all we have going on. My life feels busy and crammed, yet four paragraphs later I'm running dry on news.
I'll tell you this, I'm getting tired of hearing, reading and seeing anything having to do with Sarah Palin. I'm also tired of answering questions about her. I did not live in Wasilla and knew nothing of her during my time in the interior there because there wasn't much to know, other than her corrupt political decisions, which weren't terrilbly notable becuase, well, most political doings up there are corrupt. Oh, she's pro-drilling? Um... most Alaskans are.
I don't blame people for being shocked. All I knew about Alaska before living there was that it was cold and prone to earthquakes. And something about oil... yeah, oil. Now everyone's finding out that dirty dealings go on up there and that evangelicals can indeed survive, nay thrive, in the sub-arctic.
They can and they do. "God bless" my new blue state.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Camping: An Annotated Account
Day 1 (Thursday)
After an appearance at work, I met Sean and we loaded up on camping-friendly food. (Rice, lots of it.) We drive over the Bay Bridge and on up toward Napa. We really enjoyed driving through Vallejo, which appears to be stuck in 1957.
See what I mean?
Napa is beautiful - brown, rolling hills covered with grape vines and huge winery estates. We also drove through St. Helena which, made Napa look, well, ghetto.
The hot springs we headed to is located in a little po-dunk town, Middleton. Their grocery store was impressive (CA grocery stores are a thing of beauty and delight).
We rolled into the resort and set-up camp along a mostly non-existent creek. There were deer and wild turkey everywhere (gobblers, not the bourbon). By this time we realized we were camping on the sun: it was easily 100F and there was no cold water to be had, anywhere.
After a nap we explored and found the hub of the resort, a 10 minute walk away via a deer-laden dirt trail. The main area includes several buildings and cabins, a communal kitchen and a co-ed changing room. Most importantly, this is where the pools were. Six of them, to be exact: a cool one for swimming, a lukewarm heart-shaped one, a small cool square one, a warm pool (100F), and a scalding square box of lava with it's ice bath counterpart nearby. We slept well that night after an hour in the warm pool
Day 2 (Friday)
105F. I didn't leave the tent much. At the bathroom I discussed the weather with a random naked guy and eventually Sean and I headed toward the action. Harbin had an impressive general store stocked with the sort of shit we generally eat, so we foraged there for breakfast and then pickled ourselves for a while in the warm pool. Sean did attend a yoga class, but I stayed behind and listened to finance podcasts on my iPod. (Nature sure is relaxing when you know how the Dow closed.) That night we braved the dreaded communal kitchen that has a cheerful, busy dungeon feel to it. I thoroughly disgusted a couple seated next to us at the family-style tables by eating almost an entire box of Golden Grahams. They were eating a homegrown heirloom tomato and greens salad. That night the moon was almost full and the sky up there is clear - that may have been the highlight of the whole trip.
Day 3 (Saturday)
By this time, the communal, hippie quality of the hot springs were starting to wear thin. The co-ed changing room and clothing optional atmosphere was refreshing, but also kept people from socializing much: it felt like a big party we hadn't been invited to. We also found ourselves lusting after ice cubes and missing home, so on lark we decided to head home that night, instead of Sunday morning. We broke camp in record time and raced home. I was never so happy to see the fog.
Overall, it was a great trip, I'd go back in a heartbeat, but probably on the off-season.
So, now we're back, facing a pretty busy time. Our hunt for a new house will start in September and we have several vacations lined up this autumn to work around. My job is busy - I'm trying to get an online application system implemented before October. In the end it will make my life easier (software vs. mounds of paper applications), but right now it's sucking up all my time. And the new crop of Fellows are arriving fast and furious with their kids and spouses in tow - today one of the Knight kids told me I looked pretty with my nose ring.
And, oh yeah, last week before heading out to go camping, my boss Jim told me that I have been given a 3.6% raise and a bonus! Not a bad way to start a weekend.
High five.
After an appearance at work, I met Sean and we loaded up on camping-friendly food. (Rice, lots of it.) We drive over the Bay Bridge and on up toward Napa. We really enjoyed driving through Vallejo, which appears to be stuck in 1957.
See what I mean?
Napa is beautiful - brown, rolling hills covered with grape vines and huge winery estates. We also drove through St. Helena which, made Napa look, well, ghetto.
The hot springs we headed to is located in a little po-dunk town, Middleton. Their grocery store was impressive (CA grocery stores are a thing of beauty and delight).
We rolled into the resort and set-up camp along a mostly non-existent creek. There were deer and wild turkey everywhere (gobblers, not the bourbon). By this time we realized we were camping on the sun: it was easily 100F and there was no cold water to be had, anywhere.
After a nap we explored and found the hub of the resort, a 10 minute walk away via a deer-laden dirt trail. The main area includes several buildings and cabins, a communal kitchen and a co-ed changing room. Most importantly, this is where the pools were. Six of them, to be exact: a cool one for swimming, a lukewarm heart-shaped one, a small cool square one, a warm pool (100F), and a scalding square box of lava with it's ice bath counterpart nearby. We slept well that night after an hour in the warm pool
Day 2 (Friday)105F. I didn't leave the tent much. At the bathroom I discussed the weather with a random naked guy and eventually Sean and I headed toward the action. Harbin had an impressive general store stocked with the sort of shit we generally eat, so we foraged there for breakfast and then pickled ourselves for a while in the warm pool. Sean did attend a yoga class, but I stayed behind and listened to finance podcasts on my iPod. (Nature sure is relaxing when you know how the Dow closed.) That night we braved the dreaded communal kitchen that has a cheerful, busy dungeon feel to it. I thoroughly disgusted a couple seated next to us at the family-style tables by eating almost an entire box of Golden Grahams. They were eating a homegrown heirloom tomato and greens salad. That night the moon was almost full and the sky up there is clear - that may have been the highlight of the whole trip.
Day 3 (Saturday)
By this time, the communal, hippie quality of the hot springs were starting to wear thin. The co-ed changing room and clothing optional atmosphere was refreshing, but also kept people from socializing much: it felt like a big party we hadn't been invited to. We also found ourselves lusting after ice cubes and missing home, so on lark we decided to head home that night, instead of Sunday morning. We broke camp in record time and raced home. I was never so happy to see the fog.
Overall, it was a great trip, I'd go back in a heartbeat, but probably on the off-season.
So, now we're back, facing a pretty busy time. Our hunt for a new house will start in September and we have several vacations lined up this autumn to work around. My job is busy - I'm trying to get an online application system implemented before October. In the end it will make my life easier (software vs. mounds of paper applications), but right now it's sucking up all my time. And the new crop of Fellows are arriving fast and furious with their kids and spouses in tow - today one of the Knight kids told me I looked pretty with my nose ring.
And, oh yeah, last week before heading out to go camping, my boss Jim told me that I have been given a 3.6% raise and a bonus! Not a bad way to start a weekend.
High five.
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