:: Venting Insanity ::

:: Saturday, July 19, 2003 ::

yip...
I had a dentist appointment today. Just a cleaning. Nothing major. Plus, it didn't go too bad. X-rays were quick, though I hate when the stiff film cuts into the soft spot under my tongue. That hurts. But that was the only real problem I had with it. Other than that, we were cool.

night out
Estelle called. She said Erin suggested a club or a trip to Jillian's tonight. Either way, we're going out. That means I might have to take out money, which I'd rather not do with some outstanding checks. Of course, I could ask my parents, since I'll be getting paid in a couple weeks anyway. I just want to make sure I have the money in the account for those checks.

Anyway... the club is having a foam party tonight, so Erin's going to find out what the cover charge is. Debating on what to wear. I want to wear something appropriate for the club, that's not dry clean only (foam parties are made with soap...), and that won't be too nutsy for Jillian's. Of course, we're not getting together before 9:30 tonight, which means I have time to eat something (to avoid paying for food while we're out) and get ready. I even have enough time to take a shower... I think. Depends on when dinner happens...

interesting news
Well, we finally found out what happened the last time the cops were called in. It turns out our Commons Rep (the lady from 11) was taken in under arrest for trespassing and violating an order of protection. The lady in 7 (we'll call her Loony Jen from here on out since I've seen her outside doing some really weird stuff) apparently had an order of protection put out against the Commons Rep so she would stay away from Loony Jen's kid... We'll call him Harry Potter. He looks like a seven-year-old version of Dan Radcliffe, glasses and all...

Of course, it turns out that the Commons Rep's son (we'll call him Whack Job, since the Commons Rep says he has some mental problems anyway...) was living with the Commons Rep and her husband (we'll call him Corvette Guy, since he collects Corvettes). Commons Rep and Corvette Guy go on vacation. Whack Job is shacking up with Loony Jen and Harry Potter. Commons Rep and Corvette Guy give their key to their neighbor, saying that Whack Job is allowed to go in and get his stuff when he's ready, since he's being kicked out. Well, neighbor just hands over the key, instead of going in there and making sure Whack Job doesn't do anything wrong.

So, to prevent further trouble, Commons Rep and Corvette Guy change their locks. Whack Job gets pissed and it starts a huge feud. Eventually, Whack Job manages to convince Loony Jen that Commons Rep is a bad person. Loony Jen panicks and takes out this order of protection (which is rediculous in a condominium setting because we all live closer than an order of protection would permit anyway) against Commons Rep. He and Loony Jen then get Harry Potter all freaked out to the point that he's scared out of his wits of Commons Rep.

Well, it all falls apart when Commons Rep happened to walk past Harry Potter while getting the mail. We have large communal mail boxes that look like pieces yanked out of the wall of the post office. There's little locked compartments that they stick all our mail in. Harry Potter happened to be playing on the center island of our circle. All the condo buildings are arranged in these circles with the centers being landscaped and building-free. The mailboxes are usually placed in spots around the edges of the center islands, with each unit having keys to one compartment on one of these large boxes. As Commons Rep walks past Harry Potter, Harry Potter scrunches his eyes closed and clenches his fists, chanting, "I can't see you, I can't talk to you..."

Commons Rep thinks this is nuts, so she says, "Hi" to him to get him to calm down and then walks over to Loony Jen's garage to talk to her about it. Loony Jen goes nuts because Commons Rep happens to be standing on the driveway in front of her garage and calls the cops to report her for trespassing. It's not really trespassing because the driveways are what they call "common property"... just like our back yards, front yards, sidewalks, parking spots, etc. I mean, if Commons Rep was trespassing, then Harry Potter and Loony Jen are trespassing everytime they go to the center island and step on Number 4's parking spot. Number 4 doesn't have a driveway, so there's a parking spot with their number on it in the middle. Of course, I doubt Loony Jen sees it that way.

So, now the cops *have* to arrest Commons Rep. Commons Rep told Dad that it wasn't all that bad, that everyone was really nice to her, and that the cops figured the case will be tossed out of court as soon as the judge sees the community prospectus that says the driveways are common property. As a homeowner, Commons Rep is not trespassing when she walks on common property. Non-homeowners are, but not homeowners and guests. If Commons Rep had actually stepped inside the garage, that could probably be considered trespassing, as the garages are paid for by the homeowners in their commons charges. If she had stepped inside the unit, that's definitely trespassing.

new developments
However, now that it's almost all done, the cops showed up again last night. And it was nothing to do with Number 7 or Number 11. This time it was all Number 8. As I was leaving, Butch Lady was outside on the phone yelling. Her girlfriend was inside yelling. All I got out of it was Butch Lady was trying to kick her girlfriend out and her girlfriend kept yelling that she wasn't leaving. The girlfriend barracaded herself in the house, locking Butch Lady outside, so Butch Lady called the cops. I think they arrested the girlfriend, but I'm not entirely sure. I had gone to the Party Lite party last night, so I didn't see the cops arrive. Dad said he came home and there was two cars here. There was one when Mom and I got home, and the second car returned to drop off the first car's owner. I'm assuming they took her in and left the one car here.

yikes
Never in the more than twenty years that we have lived here have we seen the cops called so many times. And they've been called here four times in the past three months. Mom was looking through the prospectus for anything where we could force the homeowners to evict troublesome renters. Number 6, 7, *and* 8 (the troublesome units) are all renting from the homeowners. Either that, or we've got to stock up on Lotto tickets...

debates of patriotism and nationality
I'm debating changing templates soon. It depends on when my friend Brian comes back from the Middle East. I have the "Support Our Troops" up basically for him.

People wonder at me being patriotic sometimes. I don't consider myself overly so. I've always had a sense of pride in my home and nationality. (Note: nationality is where you're born, ancestry is where your ancestors were born and came from. People get that mixed up all the time.) I guess it was Rainbow that instilled that pride in me. The lesson of Patriotism as taught by our Ritual is a very beautiful thing and it really makes you think. Other things that make me consider myself American instead of "Irish American" or "German American" or whatever... I was born in America. My birth certificate certifies that I am a citizen of this country. I'm not saying I'm not proud of my ancestry. Don't get me wrong. I love doing research on the places my past family members came from and finding things out about them. But that doesn't mean my nationality is "GermanIrishScottishEnglishFrenchWelsh American".

Be proud of who you are, both in ancestry (whether you're African, Asian, European, Mexican... or whatever it may be...) and your nationality (your birthplace... in my case, American). People complain about racism and discrimination in this country. Until we all start looking at each other as equals, it will continue to exist. Cultural awareness helps, but only to a certain extent. As long as people continue to shove their cultures in other people's faces (being proud is one thing, but being "proud and loud" is just plain obnoxious), we will continue to have rifts in our society between these so called 'races'.

Are you a citizen of the United States? Then you are American, hands down. Don't forget where your ancestors came from, but don't get so involved in your cultural awareness that you forget what nation you share citizenship with me in. I love hearing about other people's cultures. But, as much as we are different, we are still all the same. And, until we stop segregating ourselves by identifying with our ancestry instead of our nationality, racism won't go away.

My 9^th grade history teacher taught me that. He illustrated it by asking us all what our 'nationality' was. Of course, most of us screwed up by rattling off a list of ancestries that we all had. Several got it right by saying "American". I was also involved in a group called "Bring Unity to Youth (BUTY)". They were smaller and I think a bit more fun that "Students Together Against Racism (STAR)". Plus, it was run by one of my favorite high school teachers, and we didn't have to get permission and money for the group retreat to some campground on Fire Island.

My point is... and, yes, there is one... don't be afraid to be proud of who you are. Learn history, learn *from* history, but don't get lost in it. Stop separating yourselves by imposing others with your cultural identities, start integrating yourselves by educating them instead. And, above all, never be ashamed. One of the great things about America is that we can change who's in charge if we don't like them.

presidential debate
Of course, then there's people that blame a lot on the President. While he is somewhat to blame for certain things (like individual and personal actions), a lot of policies that get instituted or canned aren't his fault. Congress has a lot to do with that, more so than the President, in 9 out of 10 cases. A lot of people get mixed up and blame President Reagan for the deficit of the '80's. Yet, they forget that the Democratic Congress, while agreeing to his tax cut bills, didn't agree to his spending cut bills. Hence, a deficit.

The President is mostly a figurehead. There's a lot that he can't do without approval from others. When you have a divided group of people that vote more for party support than actual legit reasons, it's hard to get good policies to go through and prevent bad policies from screwing things up. The real power is in Congress, but those people seem to have their own agendas. It's rare to get them to agree on anything. And forget anything going through if the Majority of Congress is a different party than the President. Then nothing gets done at all... except bickering and arguing.

"If 'con' is the opposite of 'pro'... is 'congress' the opposite of 'progress'?" My friend Michelle told me that once...

There needs to be less power in the Federal Government and more to the local. The Federal Government has gotten themselves into such a messy beaurocracy, it isn't funny. All the trouble my mother goes through at work because this one decides something different from that one is rediculous. As soon as she gets a new code memorized so she can finally stop looking it up in her manuals, they change it again. And this is in the IRS... the government's main money gathering machine. You'd think they want that to run smoothly...

but I digress
Sometimes, you just can't win. We could all sit here and talk this out until we're blue in the face, but some things just don't change. Just don't expect me to stop waving my flag like I've always done, because I still believe in it.

:: Friday, July 18, 2003 ::

lunch time
Lunch today was pretty good. Nana got good news at the doctor , so we hit her favorite diner afterwards. Plus, she likes going out for lunch.

party lite
Mom invited me as her guest to Donna's Party Lite Party. We had a pretty good time. I ordered two things.

yesterday...
Estelle and I took the baby to the park to let him play. He decided he didn't want to really play. He was just throwing wood chips around and then would sit on my lap to drink his water. I think it was because I was there. Usually, he just goes with Estelle, but I guess I was a distraction from his routine. That happens with kids.

meeting
Last night's meeting went really well. We talked about a lot, got a lot of questions answered, and I got some tips from one of the other people there if I decide I want to teach continuing education classes for computers. It's something I've been interested in since I started doing the tutoring, but I'm nervous about being in a situation where the people there might not want to learn. I always do better when the person I'm teaching really wants to be there with me to learn. That's why I considered continuing education instead of regular teaching.

Plus, we got settled on who does what as far as job description. And, Rob tried to explain how he's going to do the ownership thing for later on down the road. That's going to get settled as soon as we get a name and completely incorporate sometime next year.

oi...
But, I should go now... my stomach feels all icky, and I'm miserable sitting here at the moment...

:: Thursday, July 17, 2003 ::

job goodness
Well, he made an offer today. And it was better than the NBTY offer. I figured, what the heck? $12 an hour, full time, with full benefits? And it's only 20 minutes from home. Plus, they do their own computer work as far as their intranet and website... it's not outsourced. So, it's something I can expand my job duties into. He even suggested it. Not to mention with my application knowledge, I'm a pretty darn good help desk person. I did a lot of help desk duties at EES. Then again, most of the people there were majorly computer illiterate... which was kind of sad considering it's a technology company...

Anyway...

So, I have a job again. I'm now gainfully employed once more. I start Monday. O.O;; Yeah, fast, right? I like fast. Fast is good. Fast means getting paid sooner. Fast means getting bills paid sooner.

Fast is good...

chores
Now, to do our yearly recycling of soda/beer bottles/cans. That way, I have money for lunch with Estelle later.

movie fun
My parents and I watched Shanghai Knights tonight. I originally saw it in the theatre with Estelle. Man, I forgot how funny that movie is.

The DVD has deleted scenes, extended fight scenes, a small documentary on Jackie Chan, the director, and the fight coreography, as well as a cute montage of scenes set to music with little inset to make it look like an old silent movie. Very cool.

ponderings
I'm debating this thing tomorrow. The guy, Ken, from Kaps-All makes it sounds so permanent. I mean, I'm looking for stability and benefits, but I'm not looking for a job that's going to last me 15 years. At least, not a secretarial position that's going to last me 15 years. I'm not majoring in computer science and paying all this money for a programming degree just to be someone's secretary. Nuh-huh...

Of course, I need a job. I'm just going to feel so damn crappy if I take this and then run on him at the first sign of a better one. And he already knows I will, unless he can offer me a computer related position. Unfortunately, I don't think he has a lot in the way of those.

I'm also leary about tomorrow because I think he wants to make an offer. He said something about starting soon, which hints completely at offer. So, I'll talk to him about it. I'm just going to have to be honest with him about how I feel, that's all. Besides, this isn't the only thing I've got going right now. I do have the NBTY thing and several other applications out there.

It's thinking time...

:: Wednesday, July 16, 2003 ::

interview
Well, I spoke with Zoraida again at NBTY. She didn't remember me from the last interview. Either way, she seemed pretty happy with me and called over to the hiring manager about seeing me. The hiring manager wanted to review the applications first herself before seeing anyone, so I have to wait again for another call.

The position is a typical secretary/office assistant type of position with filing, typing, making appointments, phone work, etc. I'm not too worried about the work load. It's a full time position with benefits. Yet, as much as NBTY keeps claiming is a growing company, they still don't offer all that much in starting salaries... It's only $10 an hour. Of course, that's still within the salary range I'm looking for, just the lower end.

However, I still have a few things going on in my job hunt besides the NBTY position, including a second interview at Kaps-All tomorrow, so I'm not dumping all my eggs in one basket, yet. Maybe I can negotiate something if I have enough offers on the table. It doesn't hurt to try. It's not like I much to lose at this point, considering I have nothing to begin with.

Heh...

sigh
Oh well... back to chores.

:: Tuesday, July 15, 2003 ::

job goodness
The guy from Kaps-All called back today. He said he wanted to interview me again. That's a good thing.

I also got a call from NBTY for an interview, too. That's tomorrow morning, and the interview with Kaps-All is Thursday morning. {{crosses fingers}} Wish me luck!

Gotta get all spiffy looking, now...

doctor's visits
I'm taking Nana to the doctor on Friday morning. We'll probably get lunch afterwards. That's a normal occurance. This way, I can make sure she actually eats something like she's supposed to.

I have a dentist appointment for myself on Saturday. Yay... {{sigh}}

definite date/time set
And we're meeting at the Spartan Diner for the Health Info Portal on Thursday night. So, I finally meet the webmaster person. I need to find out where the boudaries are... where his job ends and mine begins. Rob said something about him being in charge of the HTML, but... if he's doing the HTML and this other girl is doing the ASP to integrate with the database, where do I fit in? I'm not the graphics desiger, because I know they have one of them already. I'm not the database admin, because they have an SQL guy doing that, too. I'm kind of stuck in the middle with no clearly defined job here. I'm definitely going to have to work this out.

Plus, I also want to find out when they're going to make the ownership thing concrete. Last I heard, they haven't completely settled up on the company name and what not, which is stuff they have to come up with before they can make an actual company out of it. Well, it should be fun, even if it tanks. And I don't have to invest a cent. Just my time. I'm technically not losing anything, and only gaining in experience.

bored
And I'm totally bored right now. I don't feel like going out, tho'. {{grumbles}} Not to mention I have "Frank's 2000 Inch TV" by Weird Al stuck in my head. Playing over and over and over...

:: Monday, July 14, 2003 ::

yay
Well, Dad installed XP on his computer. So far, things look okay. He also got the scanner updates. Hopefully that means I won't have to sit there and wait for it to reinstall the software. I'll try scanning some stuff in over the next few days.

I might have my webcomic up this week!!!

:: Sunday, July 13, 2003 ::

photologs
Salam Pax set up a photolog online. His friend, G., set up his own photolog as well. These have the ability for viewers to leave comments.

Poor G. got inundated with comments. Apparently, people decided to make his a debate forum. While I didn't read much in the way of a debate on Salam's, his buddy got slammed.

As always, I fell for the bait...

my comments
Unable to resist, I left some of my own to fuel the fires of debate...

Wow... when did a photolog become a debate forum?

One thing... why is it when something happens everyone automatically expects the Americans to be the saviors? Yet, nobody likes us anyway. Heck, half our own population doesn't even like us. Frankly, if we're so unappreciated, we should just stay out of everything and let the others handle it.

No foreign aid, no trading, no helping out with earthquake victims, no aid for disease control, no humanitarian missions... Need I go on? Everyone should know that we have enough problems here at home to worry about where that's concerned. We have our own problems with AIDS, Cancer, earthquakes, floods, wildfires, homeless, economy troubles, unemployed, etc. Yet, no one's coming to bail us out. You could have five countries show up in a sixth country after a terrible earthquake, but all the natives stand around and whine like crazy that no one's helping them until the Americans show up. And these same people, after everything's cleaned up and fixed, will run around screaming how they hate us and burn our flag.

But, we still do it, don't we?

Look, we're not perfect. We don't always side with the right people, but we do try to take the best action there is to take at the time. We work on what information we're given. I'm not claiming to have all the facts personally. In fact, I know I don't. The point I'm trying to make is that no one has all the facts. NO ONE.

We all try to do what's best, but we all make mistakes. Americans have the biggest hearts out there, and there's always citizens of our country who are out there trying to help and giving of their time and money to assist people who may be less fortunate than them. Our government is always raising money for foreign aid to all sorts of people.

We try.

We make mistakes.

We're not infallible.

We can only do so many things at once.

I'm sorry if your particular national crisis doesn't happen to be at the top of our list, but did you ever think to ask another country for help, too? Did you ever think that we might be trying somewhere else at the moment and don't want to leave that other job half finished? Are you so narrowminded in your worldview that you think your national problems are the only problems out there?

Please. We try. We're a young country, only 227 years old. We may not always make the right decisions, but no one's perfect.

Not even me... not even you.

You know, and it's true. I don't claim to be perfect. I'm just tired of everyone being angry at me because I'm an American. I'm *MAJORLY* tired of Americans being angry at me because I'm an American and that I'm proud of it. I feel extremely lucky to live where I live. Even with the various problems and my current jobless state in this crappy economy. I'm lucky I live in a country where I have the right to complain about it and exercise my free speech.

I don't know everything, I don't claim to know everything. Heck, I'm probably even on the naive side of things, but I only know as much as people are willing to tell me. I don't have an elite force of intelligence gatherers at my beck and call getting me all sorts of information on every person in every corner of the globe. Frankly, I sincerely doubt any other "normal" person in this world does, either.

For once, I just want to be able to say I'm American and be proud of that fact without hearing how horrible my country is just because someone screwed something up several years ago. And, if we did screw it up, it's not like we don't try to fix it.

for more information
If you curious as to why I posted these comments, please read the comments on Gee's Photolog... most notably, the ones for Saturday, June 28^th.

new logo
I made a new logo for the main site, when I finally drag my butt around to updating it. ^^;;



Cute, right? Eventually, I'll be moving it, but that's just for the simple main page that I've got up right now. Once I get a full layout going, then that logo will go somewhere else. I haven't decided where, yet, or if I'm even going to keep it. It's a bit simplistic, but we'll see when the time comes.

news update
New Iraqi Governing Council Set to Hold First Meet

Well, it's about damn time. The war's been over how long now? The people of Iraq are free, so let them run their country already!

I know... it takes time. They have to ease this in to prevent a full scale overthrow and possible take over of another dictator. After all, we're trying to bring democracy to Iraq, not knock out Saddam so another regime can move in and take his place.

I wish I had seen the History Channel's two specials on Iraq. One was about the regime itself and how the people of Iraq suffered under Saddam's rule. The other was about his sons party lives and how they acted with no morals, including killing their sisters' husbands. I think I'm going to take a look and see if they're playing them again. I'd like to see them.

founder's day
Well, today was our Founder's Day picnic for Rainbow. We had a whopping 10 people show up. Yippee. Meanwhile, it was supposed to be the entire Southern Area, which includes Nassau and Kings/Queens. {{sigh}} Can't win, I guess.

Of course, I almost forgot myself. I didn't get there until around 4. I was expecting a lot more people to be there, so I almost thought it was cancelled when I pulled up and didn't see that many cars. Once I noticed some that were supposed to be there for the picnic and not for living there, I felt okay. I've never seen such a small Founder's Day picnic. It was sad. I felt bad for Deidre because she had tried to make it an Area picnic, instead of just Suwassett.

Of course, I did forget the last meeting... ^^;; Apparently, Kerri actually came to it, with Charsie, but it was just them with Patty and Deidre. It wouldn't have made a difference if I had gone or not.

unfortunately
I ended up staying longer than planned at the picnic and missed an Eve6 concert tonight. There was one at Mulcahy's in Wantagh and it was only $6 to get in!!!

home again
Mom and Dad went and brought Nana home from the hospital today. The doctor still won't give them any definite answers on what it was she had. I hate Dr Campbell. He's a big jerk. Now Mom thinks she's getting sick, too. I'm thinking, 'Great'. If I get sick, I don't have insurance to get it treated. It's gonna be expensive!! Not that I want her to get sick, but we can't afford for me to. Way too much money... I hate this.

stupid job hunt
It's not like I'm not trying. I just get so discouraged when I don't hear back from anywhere that I don't want to apply anymore. It's very frustrating. People keep telling me, "Oh, you'll find something", but that doesn't seem to be working very well. I have things I need to pay off. I'm afraid of getting sick or hurt. It sucks, big time.

But, in order for it to be even worth bothering, I need to find something that pays like $9 to $10 an hour at full time, at the absolute least. More for part time. Especially if it ends up being something that's not close to home. Otherwise, everything I make goes into the gas tank, the car payment, and the car insurance, and then it's not worth the effort to bother with the job. I mean, if all the money I'm working for is going into my transportation to get to that job, then why bother?

I hate this... I really do.