Stories and other stuff

Here are some things I've seen recently I never thought I'd ever see: I never thought I'd see the day when a Utah Republican would be considered a moderate.  By the way, if Jon Huntsman runs in 2016, that's the guy to vote for. I never thought I'd see the day when it was OK to be gay.  But then again, I never thought I'd see the day that a lot of what is OK in the world would be. I never thought I'd see the day that things that were a good idea in 1960 or so would be such a bad idea now.  Some of that stuff (voting rights act, medicare, etc...) were good ideas then. I thought Americans were smarter than they are.  We're our own worst enemy sometimes. I never thought I'd see the day I'd have to take time off without pay because the government was broke. I never thought I'd have to go without a pay raise for three years, either.  But here we are. I looked at my college transcript today.  The one class I finished I got an A in.  I ...

Maybe I should sweep and mop today.  The floors could use it.  I already cleaned the carpet in my bedroom. Maybe I should load the dishwasher.  There's a sinkful of dishes.  They're from last night and today. Maybe I should make that meatloaf.  I purchased some ground beef to make it and I have lots of chili sauce left from what I made last summer. (want a jar of your very own?) Maybe I ought to go down to the auto parts store today and buy the brake shoes for my car. Maybe I should read a chapter in that book I've started reading. Maybe I should google the address of the VA clinic in Ogden.  I have a doctor's appointment with them.  When I went to Turkey in 2009, I got sick, then got pneumonia.  Then in 2010 when I spent the night in the hospital with some pretty severe chest pains, they did an MRI and found a spot on my lung.  I'm a thinkin' the VA needs to have a look-see and see what exactly I brought back from Turkey. Maybe I...

I've worked for the Federal Government for a very long time.  24 years, in my estimation is a very long time.  In that time, and for the most part, I think I've been a good employee.  The last three years maybe not as much as before, but that's because, and only because, of the circumstance I've found myself in that have impacted how much time away from my job I've had to take. I try to give a fair day's work for the wages I get paid.  I don't just sit around and "sponge" off the taxpayers.  I work.  So do the majority of Federal Employees. For two and a half years, now, we've seen our wages frozen.  For longer than that, those of us blue-collar workers have seen our wages capped.  For those of you that don't know, the Federal Wage Grade employees are paid by locality.  The lead agency in the locality does a wage study of comparable trades in their area and what their FWS employees are paid is based on that wage study.  I'd be makin...

Apparently, it's car week here on the blog. Here we go. I don't like it when things don't work like they should.  I worked on airplanes too long and I share that philosophy with pilots.  If it's installed on the jet, it ought to work like it should.  I feel the same way about cars. You wouldn't know it from my car, I suppose.  In my car, some things don't work like the driver's side door lock.  It hasn't worked since I bought the car.  The power locks don't unlock, but it doesn't affect the drivability of the vehicle.  Same with the rear window on the passenger side.  I fixed this once but then the window went down when you pushed the switch up.... I think either the motor was the wrong one or it was wired backwards.  I just lived with it. One thing I didn't want to live with was having two keys for the car; one for the doors and one for the ignition.  I thought that was gonna be a pain in the butt.  I'm back there, but not ...

I should be at work.   I started to head that way by disconnecting the electrical connector to the air conditioning compressor clutch.  That eliminated the smoke from the clutch trying to turn the air conditioning compressor, which, judging by the oil on the surface of said component, has suffered a failure.  Methinks that the pulley bearing was overheated and damaged also.  I think the truck is drivable for short trips, but that bearing is gonna fail sooner than later.  It's got one trip left in it and that's going to be to the mechanic. And air conditioning work ain't cheap, so it ain't gonna happen tomorrow. As I mentioned, I started to work, but with the radio off and that feeling that if I tried to get there, I wouldn't.  I think everyone who drives and older car eventually gets to the point where you'll wonder if the car will actually get you where you're going.  I've owned Chevron for 15 years and sadly, today, that answer was "no". ...

I figured it would take a couple of months for the effects of the expiration of the "payroll tax holiday" to take effect.  Today, I read an article that would seem to indicate it's happening faster than I thought. For background, at the time the disaster hit the economy about four years ago, we were paying a 6.2% tax for social security wages.  Most of us don't make enough to worry about the fact there's a cap on social security wages (around $110,000 if I remember right).  The reason we had a 2% "holiday" if you will, was that roughly 2/3 of our economy is based on consumer spending.  Not manufacturing, but buying and selling goods and services to each other.  66% of what drives our economy is consumer spending. The story today was about some leaked e-mails between wal-mart executives about their February sales and their words paint a dark picture of what's probably happening to pretty much everyone.  If Wal-mart is using words like "disast...

Normally, I would have just kept this to myself because it's stupid. But stupid was in store for me today so here we go. I dislike being late to things (although outside of work, you'd probably not know it) and I was doing my level best to be on time for breakfast with the men's group today.  However, when I got in the car, I remembered that I needed to buy gas yesterday and forgot.  My head was someplace else yesterday, what with trying to get the doggie licensed and everything and it slipped my mind, even though the "idiot light" on the dashboard was illuminated, telling me I was low on gas. I was going to try to just squeeze out one more trip this morning, so I'd be on time, and at about 26th street and Harrison, I ran out of gas.  Fortunately, there is a gas station on 24th and Harrison and I thought I'd just coast my way down to the pumps.  After all, it's downhill.  But, um, yeah.... The car came to a stop at the intersection just across ...