America, the Land of the Free Stuff

 - and totally broke taxpayers.

Over the last several years, and intensifying as we approach the 2020 Presidential election, we have heard calls from the political left for all sorts of "free" programs. The programs range from "Medicare for All" to college debt forgiveness (and free college after that). But it's difficult for the average citizen to put the potential cost in perspective. From this article, we can glean a bit about the price tag on potential Democrat policies:

$1,700,000,000 - Universal child care. Cost over ten years.
$640,000,000,000 - Debt free college - initial outlay for debt forgiveness.
$1,250,000,000,000 - Debt free college - ongoing costs over 10 years.
$93,000,000,000,000 - Guaranteed income. Cost over ten years.
$100,000,000,000 - Reparations. One time cost.
$445,000,000,000 - Affordable housing. Cost over ten years.
$32,600,000,000,000 - Medicare for all.

$128,036,700,000,000 Total price tag.

My calculator errored out trying to add it all up, but the total cost is indeed $128 TRILLION dollars over ten years. To put that in perspective, the total national debt for the U.S. as of 4/4/19 is $32.6 trillion.

So - how will these programs be funded? The government has no source of income other than taxes.

Let that sink in a minute. Why yes, that would be taxes you and I pay. That is, if you are, like me, a member of the middle class, working and paying taxes. There is a significant segment of "taxpayers" who do not make enough to pay taxes, and who may in fact receive refundable credits. Yes, it is possible to get a tax refund even if you pay no taxes.

Ah, but several of these programs claim they will be funded by the "tippy-top" earners: a 70% tax on the rich. Never mind that the wealthy already fork over something like 90% of the total taxes collected any given year, let's just hit them up for more!

The problem is that the math doesn't work. Even if none of these wealthy people take steps to shelter any of their income, the total dollars collected by a 70% tax won't fund even one of the programs listed above.

This leaves a massive funding gap. Program sponsors then have three options: one, run up the national debt, making us beholden to foreign powers who may not have our best interests at heart, or two, drop that 70% tax rate on the rest of the taxpayers - primarily the middle class, or three, a combination of the two.

Will you really be happy with all the "free" stuff when you are handing over 70% of your income to a government that may not have your best interests at heart in order to fund the stuff? Are you certain you want the government to control your children, your education, your housing and your healthcare?

"Free" isn't free at all, it turns out.

What still is free, though, is our freedom to make our voices heard. Our freedom to have a choice in our future. Our freedom to call out the politicians - on either side of the aisle - who would so thoroughly bankrupt us and our children for the sake of a few votes.

It's time to stand up for true freedom.

The hubris of climate change

I make no secret of the fact I'm a climate change skeptic. Oh, I believe the climate is changing, has been since the beginning of time, and will continue to change until that day this earth is wiped out of existence and replaced by the new earth.

What I do not believe is that mankind is the cause of this change, nor that mankind will be the savior of the planet.

Get over yourselves, people.

The true aim of the climate change brouhaha is for the elites and the politicians to gain control over the populace. They believe that scaring citizens into ceding control of what they drive, how they heat and light their homes, what type of container they use - and more - will accustom them to government control. Control that can then be gradually expanded into all areas of our lives.

Frog in the boiling water, folks.

This opinion piece popped up on Townhall today. Yes, it is an opinion piece, but the author cites some facts that go a long way towards pointing out the absurdity of the "mankind is ruining the planet!!! mankind must save the planet!!!" scaremongering.

He talks about volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, floods and meteor strikes, but one passage stuck out to me:

Geophysicists estimate that just three volcanic eruptions -- Indonesia (1883), Alaska (1912) and Iceland (1947) -- spewed more carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere than all of mankind's activities during our entire history.

Emphasis mine.

All of these eruptions had a profound impact on the climate - from which the climate recovered.  The Krakatoa explosion in A.D. 535 blotted out a lot of the light and heat of the sun for eighteen months - and yet the earth recovered. It's subsequent eruption in 1883 disrupted weather worldwide as well. (Side note: Krakatoa continues to be one of the world's most active volcanic sites, and Anak Krakatou, (child of Krakatoa) has been spouting minor eruptions regularly since 1927).

So take all the climate scare tactics with a grain of salt - look for the real motive behind the headlines.

I...don't

The Emmy Awards were apparently awarded last night. I haven't watched award shows in years, though I usually get around to reading who the winners were.

This year, though, one of the winners did something rather...well, selfish and stupid, in my opinion.

He proposed to his girlfriend during his acceptance speech.

Pressure, much?

Proposing in such a public way (sporting event scoreboards, surprise announcements, all that stuff) has always seemed to me very risky. I'm sure the people doing the proposing would not go through all that trouble if they weren't pretty sure their intended would accept. But there is still a chance, albeit small, that she/he will say no. Or freeze up and not be able to answer. Or have their life pass before their eyes and faint, robbing the hundreds/thousands/millions of people waiting breathlessly for their answer of satisfaction.

Secondly, it is inherently selfish. Unless your intended has specifically said, "Hey! It would be great if you could propose to me at the Emmys!", your method of popping the question is truly more about you than about them. "Look at how cool I am! I was able to propose to XX at XX!!".

Given the high rate of marriage failure these days, are you really sure you want to spend the rest of your life explaining that you planned for months to make a grand gesture in order to propose, but failed to put any planning into your marriage, divorcing after only a few years?

Bah. It's not that I'm against heartfelt, meaningful proposals, but more that I firmly believe they are a very personal, private event. Two people are committing to spending the rest of their lives together - while this is a wonderful thing, is a very serious moment.

Should it really be shared with twenty thousand drunken fans during the seventh inning stretch in game seven of the World Series?

In which I tell people to get off my lawn, and out of my car...

...and generally out of my business.

After agents changed three times in as many years, I figured it was time to explore a different insurance agency for the annual renewal of auto and condo policies. To be honest, other than yelling at them to stop trying to sneak coverage in for things I didn't want, I'd pretty much let the insurance go by on auto-pilot since the big changes when I bought the condo almost seven years ago. An in-depth review seemed overdue.

In the end, I changed agencies, ending up with increased and strengthened coverage on the condo and comparable auto coverage for quite a bit less than the old policy cost. Everything was hunky-dory until this last Saturday.

A letter arrived from the new insurance company, telling me in no uncertain terms what I needed to do for the "Drive Safe and Let Big Brother Track Your Every Move" coverage I had signed up for.

Oh, heck NO.

They required download of an app, insertion of a bluetooth device, logging into the app when you drive and basic "we want to know everything you do" access whenever I am in the car, or I WILL NO LONGER BE ELIGIBLE!!@@!!

Given I'd never consented to this in the first place, ineligibility didn't bother me. But receiving this letter did.

I emailed the new agent, telling her in no uncertain terms I would not be inserting anything anywhere, that this "feature" had never been discussed and that I'd happily pay any difference in premium arising from telling the insurance company to insert their little bluetooth device...someplace other than my car.

Naturally, she insists we discussed it. She's most likely relying on the fact that there are checklists agents use to make sure they present everything to a customer, but I can state definitively this subject was never broached. I would have had exactly the same reaction in a conversation as I did at home when I received the letter:

Do you think I'm so stupid I'm going to willingly let you track me all over the place and dictate my driving? Go Big Brother someone else.

Truth to tell, I never have the bluetooth or the location apps enabled on my phone. Where I am and what I am doing is no one's business but my own. Besides, it's not like big business has a great track record of keeping people's data secure.

More and more often, businesses are touting their intrusion into our lives as a convenience for us. Oooo, just connect to this app and see all you can do! Never mentioning they are tracking your movements both online and in the real world, constantly collecting data. We assume that data will always be used for good.

Do you really believe that?

Anyway, the day after the response from the agent, that she would remove that "coverage", I got the actual bluetooth unit in the mail, along with another letter telling me to %#$%& put it in and follow the directions to activate it.

I wonder if I have to return it, since I won't be using it, or if I can just take a hammer to it?

The last straw

My ears perked up when the early morning news team said the university for which I work had made a big announcement:

The retail places on campus are transitioning from plastic straws to paper straws.

I shouldn't have been surprised at this social justice posturing, since a key tenet of the university is (social) justice for all. I suppose they needed a quick win, given the spanking they recently received in court. But straws?

Plastic straws have become a "thing" lately, with irate tweets, overwrought Facebook memes and badly sourced "research" into how billions!!@#@$!! of straws are discarded every day, ending up skewered through our favorite Nemo and Dory look-alikes.

Plastic straws are evil, and replacing them with gee-they-disintegrate-in-liquids paper straws allows Millennials to feel virtuous and smug when they throw away what is left of their paper straws...still stuck in the gigantic, domed, all-plastic cup that held their mostly air "coffee" drink.

Stupid.

For all my ire over this, there is almost no impact on me personally. I don't like or use straws, other than the one or two times a year I pick up a milkshake. Honestly, the shakes are so thick I can happily "drink" them with a spoon.

A plastic one, of course.

Fan the flames

I am, at best, a casual football fan. Living in Wisconsin, it's inevitable that one is drawn into the Packer frenzy, to some extent. Grocery stores are packed to the gills until twenty minutes before kickoff. The best time to do Christmas shopping is during a game - though good luck on finding a clerk to check you out. There are plenty of choices in new casual wear in the stores, provided you don't mind wearing green and gold, generally with a player number (well, some years there is the red and white for the Badgers, but that's not nearly as enduring as the green and gold). Even baked goods bleed the team colors.

Even a casual fan can't escape the furor over the various "protest" that overpaid, overgrown athletes are staging during the national anthem prior to their events. But like so many "protests", they've not thought through the ramifications.

The attention is no longer on the actual issue for which they are protesting, but on the protests themselves.

Even the athletes themselves seem to have lost the focus of what they are protesting, as this bit of a ramble from Packer's quarterback Aaron Rodgers points out:

“This is about equality,” Rodgers said. “This is about unity and love and growing together as a society, and starting a conversation around something that may be a little bit uncomfortable for people. But we’ve got to come together and talk about these things and grow as a community, as a connected group of individuals in our society, and we’re going to continue to show love and unity.

“And this week we’re going to ask the fans to join in as well and come together and show people that we can be connected and we can grow together.”

Well, no: the original reason Colin Kapernick took a knee was to protest perceived police violence targeted at black men. Note that Rodgers never mentions the central issue by name - racism - but goes on about "unity". The core of the protest is about anything but unity.

Bah. It's to the point where the only way to watch any part of a game is to watch it with the sound off, and to stay away from all media between games.

The better plan? Spend those three and a half hours reading a good book.

9.11.16

Never forget.

Taxing situation

A couple of weeks ago (actually, New Year's Day, I think) I went through and entered all the information needed for my tax returns into a (usually) very reliable program. My taxes are fairly simple, and it's easy enough for me to figure out what my W-2 will look like, based on my final remittance advice (our 12/31 pay was issued 12/23 because the university is closed that following week - it makes for a very, very long run until the 1/31 pay date).

Everything else was easy enough to get from my records. As soon as the official W-2 was released, I could check everything and hit "submit". That happened last Saturday.

Sort of.

The program sent the federal, all right, but refused to send the state return, making some claim about a schedule not being available until Monday, 1/26. It made no sense - the schedule was completed and included in the file of the returns I saved to my computer before I sent the federal.

Still, I waited until Monday.

On Monday, the same message appeared, with a new, updated date - the schedule was now supposed to be available on Thursday, 1/29.

Checked the State of Wisconsin website. You can download a paper copy of the form. The state's own e-file system is open, as is their capacity to accept returns through other packages.

Called the software company. Two calls and over an hour and a half later, the message I got was that they would not have the form available until Thursday, but if I really, really want, they would refund the fee I paid to file through them and I could file on paper (or redo the taxes on the State's own e-file site).

Hmpf.

I said I'd wait, but let them know I was NOT happy.

This morning, I logged in. The first thing the software said on the state return was that I could not request a direct deposit if I filed the forms on paper, and I should uncheck the box...

?????

I ignored it. At this point, nothing would be lost by trying to get through. In fact, once I clicked through to the next page, it asked how I would like my refund, and let me chose direct deposit. Everything else went as expected, and the return has been filed and accepted by the State.

Jeez, people. If your IT group hasn't yet configured and uploaded necessary forms (this one was Schedule I - the form that converts deductions available on the fed to those available on the state - a pretty standard, necessary and basic form), please put a notice to that effect at the start of the input process, in big, bold letters.

The IRS is done with me, and says they will deposit that refund on February 2nd. Nine days - not bad. The State of Wisconsin is generally quicker; I bet that shows up the same day. Neither is big, by most people's standards, as I hate to give the government more than I have to give them, but I do have plans for the cash.

Technology is great - when it works.

That kind of afternoon

At 2:20 this afternoon, the lights in the office flickered, went out, flickered once again, then died. Along with the lights, the air conditioning and other ventilation stopped.

Sigh. At least once a summer, for the seventeen years I've been there, the a/c in our office dies, usually on the hottest day of the summer. That would be true today, except the cloud cover kept it in the seventies, rather than the mid-eighties that was forecast.

Our boss decided to shut the office at three if the power didn't return, mostly because of the lack of air conditioning. The outage apparently hit three buildings, and whatever happened, it wasn't a simple fix.

It never dawned on me that the outage may have hit more than just the building power.

The first clue it was more widespread was that our Public Safety group had removed the gates on both the in and out lanes of the parking lot. No power, no way to lift the gates.

From that exit, I make a right, a left and another left to get on to the freeway to home. All three corners have traffic lights. The first stop is at the intersection of the street behind our building and an off ramp for that freeway. The second is at the corner of one of the main east-west arteries through downtown. The third sits where that artery crosses a combination off ramp/on ramp feeder coming from the north, and the on ramp and additional feeder street to a different on ramp.

All three sets of signals were out.

There were accidents at two of the three corners. No police on site yet, though a University Public Safety cruiser pulled up near one of the sites.

On both streets on the way to the ramp, there were drivers who sped past at thirty miles per hour or more, heedless of the non-working lights (or, more likely, seeing them and deciding to take advantage of them). I'm willing to bet that kind of behavior was the cause of the accidents.

Sheesh people, pay attention. Even if you don't care if you have an accident, you should care about the other people you may hit.

Ten minutes later...

The off ramp on my trip home is long, and two lanes wide, plus a breakdown lane. It serves as the connector between two pieces of highway as well as the off ramp. I saw an SUV pulled over in the breakdown lane, flashers on. A casual glance over as I passed made me laugh.

Ten feet in front of the parked SUV, a hawk was sitting in the middle of the lane.

A least, I think it was a hawk - too big to be a peregrine falcon even though they nest in the area; though lighter in color, not the distinctive bald eagles, who nest much west of here. It certainly wasn't a big seagull, as I couldn't see any driver parking on a busy ramp to protect one. The bird must have been injured, to sit there while sixty mile an hour traffic whizzed by.

It was just a glimpse, but I couldn't help but laugh at the contrast between the driver who would use his car to protect a bird, and the drivers back on campus who couldn't even slow down to protect themselves.

Priorities, people.

Time to hang it up

I think I've successfully kept my cell phone carrier billing woes off the blog thus far, except for a few oblique references and a not-to-be-published post titled "Hell hold".

But today I may have reached the end of the (metaphorical) telephone cord.

USCellular has provided wonderful cell service to me for the last six years, but over the last four months their billing service has gone to hell in a (computer system driven) handbasket.

Short summary: In June, I spent well over an hour on the phone to (I thought) correct a discount to which I'm entitled (and have been receiving forever) that did not show up on the bill. In July, no bill is generated because their computer system upgrade...did not proceed in an optimal manner (read: total screw up). In August, three hours on the phone with customer support (because they dropped my call - twice, and I had to sit on hold for over 45 minutes each time to reach a live person) to try to resolve, yet again, the missing discount, since the July 20th bill finally posted around 8/24.

There's a bit more to the story, but you get the picture.

Today, I checked my account, and saw that the August 20th bill has finally posted.

And once again, the discount is missing. So is the $15 credit I was given at the end of the three hour ordeal last month.

According to the rep I spoke who supposedly fixed the issues last time, the on line customer account system is still rather...broken. There is no way of telling if that information is actual truth...but the automatic payment function still tries to take whatever the "balance due" is shown on the system from my bank account.

Sheesh.

I should note that each and every month, in spite of not receiving billings, I've gone ahead and paid my usual amount on the usual due date, canceling out any auto payments the system tries to foist on me. Were my bill correct, I would have a zero balance due on the August bill, since the payment was made a week before the bill actual generated.

This time, I've e-mailed customer service, even though they say on the site it's a three to five day response time (they suggest calling customer service for "faster" service - no, thank you - been there, done that, never again). I've cancelled out the couple bucks they say I owe (the not-applied discount plus tax).

Now, I wait. If this isn't resolved by the next billing cycle (which ends 9/20), I'll be looking for another carrier. While I do understand the vagaries of system upgrades, and do have a bit of sympathy for their customer service reps dealing with over four million messed up customer accounts, I'm not willing to waste anymore time on this.

Get it fixed, people.

Ms. Crankypants is in the house

It is a gorgeous day - sunny, warm but not hot. The huge, office-politics charged projects are done and off my desk. It will be a lazy day at work, doing catch up and taking a quick walk or two out in the sun at break time. There is an inch thick buffalo sirloin waiting at home for dinner.

So why am I Ms. Crankypants?

Why have designers given us only oversized "satchels' and "shoppers" for purse choices for the last several years? What's wrong with a smaller, less pack-mulish handbag?

Why does the city/county/state insist on road projects that compete with one another - the alternate route given for a city road project takes you through a construction area for a county road project, et cetera, et cetera?

Why does the rainy/stormy/cold/muggy weather always arrive for the weekend - especially holiday weekends?

Why is the government that theoretically serves at my pleasure doing everything it can to squelch free speech, govern by intimidation and generally behave like a socialist/communist despot?

Why did I step on the scale this morning?

All of life's unanswerable questions. I'm hoping that repeated applications of coffee, while not providing the answers, will at least keep me from killing my coworkers, most of whom I like.

Drowning in customer service

In the past seventy-two hours, I've received three e-mails and two phone calls about a very, very small issue with a food chain. The total effort expended by the company in time, managerial effort and coupons is easily more than one hundred times the cost of the error to me. It's a bit like taking out an ant with an elephant gun.

This is on top of another call from our energy company, who wanted me to take a survey about my call to them to discuss adjusting my budget billing. I had already declined the opportunity to take a "brief survey" at the beginning of that call; now they were calling me two days later to try to get me to do it anyway?

Companies today have to deal with the immediacy and viral nature of electronic social media, and the ease with which negative stories about their products and services can be spread. After all, most people will only comment on the bad stuff, not on the good. I get it: they have an image to protect.

There has to be some sort of balance. How many people will complain loudly about something on Twitter or Facebook, solely in hopes of getting something for free? "The customer is always right" - but what about when the customer is being dishonest? How much are companies - and by extension, their customers - paying to placate people who are simply trying to con them?

While I dislike not getting any service at all, this new attitude of "placate the customer at any cost" isn't an improvement.

A dry, dry land

I still have no water. And there is no way to know when service will be restored.

It's been that kind of day.

A coworker who supplies me with the information for the quarterly employment tax returns gave it to me at the last minute, as always. Not only last minute, but wrong.

My boss is doing his usual day-before-the-board-meeting insanity. I don't mind answering questions (again) on things we discussed and settled months ago, but I do rather wish he would compile the questions and come to me once, rather than running in to my office every fifteen minutes.

I did leave work half an hour early, in spite of everything. This is the day of my monthly quilt class, and I needed to get home, change clothes and get the sewing stuff in the car and make the forty-five minute drive out to the quilt shop to be there and set up before six.

Got home, went to wet a washcloth to wash my face...no water.

Well, a trickle of water, but that was it.

Thanks to having left work early, it was only three-thirty at this point. I could check things out a bit, yet still have time to call a plumber and make an appointment for tomorrow.

The check revealed no leaks or obvious issues, and a chance meeting with a neighbor while taking in the mail solved the issue. According to him, workers the next street over hit a water main. So, while I know why there is no water, I have no way of knowing when it will be restored.

Eh - I was going to be out all night anyway, right? I loaded the smaller of the sewing machine cases into the car, then pulled it out of the underground up to the end of the path, so I could go get the machine itself to load. The case, machine and various implements fit into a wonderful case - that is too heavy for me to carry up and down the steps to the underground parking. It's on wheels, so I take it out the front door, roll down the sidewalk and load it into the car in the parking lot.

Got to the front door, stuck my key in the lock...and it wouldn't turn. It's a funny deadbolt, with a small switch next to the bolt. In one position, the switch keeps the bolt from turning at all, even if you put a key in, or turn the knob. Apparently, while I thought I set it correctly, I automatically moved it back into position when I went inside after talking to the neighbor. I'd have to go back into the underground parking, up the steps, unlock the door, then reverse the process. Only then could I open the front door to get the sewing machine...

Note that while I love my neighbors, the sewing machine cost as much as my first car, and I'm not about to leave it on the path, alone, for even the two minutes it would take to go get the car.

At this point, I'd had it. It was hot, the A/C would not be on in the classroom at the quilt place, I was tired and grumpy before I started this whole thing. I called the quilt place and said I wouldn't be there.

So now I'm one for four on that class.

I took myself out to dinner, eating too much (after more than two weeks of eating very well) and having dessert on top of it out of frustration. Back home before five-thirty, and still no water.

Only now I have an upset stomach.

Shoot me now.

Whose body is it anyway?

The stack of benefit enrollment paperwork overflowed my mailbox last night. I've taken just a quick glance through it (health premium going up a whopping $3 per month - yay!), but already see some ever-more-intrusive components lining up to take effect either in 2013 or 2014.

New for 2013 is another tier of benefits, essentially an "employee +1". This is specifically to provide benefits to domestic partners, or to work as a slightly less expensive alternative to employees with a single dependent. And that is the catch: in order for an employee's domestic partner to quality for the "+1" status, the employee must provide more than half of their financial support (regardless of whether or not that partner may be taken as a dependent for federal tax purposes).  How exactly does one prove that to Human Resources? Or is the university going to take everyone at their word?

We are offered a discount on our monthly health insurance premium if we participate in a "health risk assessment". As it was originally explained when first established, the purpose of building a database of information about our employees' health is to better target the type of coverage we offer. Okaaaay...but now the use of that data is being expanded, as starting in 2013, the company collecting and analyzing the data for us will be using the information to "recommend" certain screenings. There is vaguely threatening language in the materials saying something to the effect that decisions on those screenings may have an impact on your 2014 premium discount.

In other words, go have that colonoscopy or the insurance company will give you one anyway!

I'm sorry; that's not fair. The government has already done that.

Even if you don't participate in the HRA (I don't; it is not yet mandatory, and if/when it becomes mandatory, I may explore the ramifications of my employer essentially forcing me to share medical data I do not wish to share), your health care is not your own. Based on the types of prescriptions you have filled, our health care management firm sends out lots of colorful brochures pimping recommending various of their services and encouraging you to let them "manage" your health care.

Yes, the current system is broken. Costs are high; for many people, insurance is a luxury. But Obamacare, for all its intent to help people, makes that system unbearably worse.

I'll admit to being cranky this morning, and not having read the materials in detail enough to make more cogent arguments. I grew up in a time when health insurance was viewed as the holy grail of employment; when you secured employment that offered you that benefit, you truly had it made. Even then, if you were young and healthy, you might forgo the expense for a few years.

The decisions about your health care were your own, not your employer's, not the insurance company's and certainly not mandated by the government. I'm more than a bit weary of having to live my life and make my decisions based on someone else's idea of what is right.

Dear Google

Dear Google,

Please be advised I'm seriously short on sleep, so I'm likely to be cranky and less tactful than usual. That said:

You will get my phone number only when you pry my phone from my cold, lifeless hand.

You need my number because of "security issues"? The fact that I use your service for a publicly available blog rather indicates that I'm not too worried about security, at least for my on-line presence at this site. If my bank were asking, it would be a different story.

Facebook is fishing for a mobile number as well, though their particular ruse is one of "convenience". "It is sooooo much easier to post to Facebook if you are identified by your phone number, rather than that pesky login". And it's so much easier to get location data from the gps in the phone, as well.

In spite of my on-line presence, I value my privacy. Thus far, my phone is free from telemarketing and robo-calls. I'd like to keep it that way. My current location is my own business; I see no need to make it publicly available, nor to make it easy for miscreants to find an unoccupied home.

I'd appreciate it if you would stop asking. At the least, you could change your pitch to a more honest one: Hey, give us your phone number so we can make some extra money selling our lists!

No, thank you.

Regards,
Diane

Grumpy is Sleepy

So the whole pack of dwarfs should go off to bed. I didn't sleep well last night - dreamt of riding a bike - hard - but not going anywhere. I've had some strange pain my my ankles and feet, and I wonder if that is what prompted the dream. Nothing has been wrenched, twisted or turned, nor put to excessive use; the pain is more a sharp nerve pain that pops in intermittently. Maybe the first pangs of old age?

Eh, I've been excessively grumpy all day, for no good reason that I can think of, other than the usual. I spent three quarters of the day doing things that were actually someone else's responsibility; the push back starts tomorrow. Feeling dumped on, though not enough to fuel the meltdown I feel lurking beneath the surface. Maybe if I focus on dreaming of puppies and ice cream, it will help? As long as I dream up someone other than me to do the clean up, that may work.

Who decided to hike up the gas prices overnight? I didn't really look at the price before I started filling, and should have; the price was twenty cents a gallon higher than yesterday. Naturally, on the way home from filling up I passed a station that still had gas at the old price.

Price increases are pretty much expected across the board because of the drought, but it irritates me to no end when the instant a newscaster says, "There may be a shortage of xxx in the coming months because of the drought" everyone takes it as license to hike the prices right away. Hmpf. Maybe the shortage of corn will finally convince the government of the error of ethanol.

Yeah, fat chance.

Now it truly is bed time, with hopes that tomorrow morning is much less grumpy. Sweet dreams, all.

Vent(i)

So...you e-mail me wanting to know about a charge on your account for a vendor you "never use" (because I'm filling in as back up for someone else, but am fourth on that list - what, is everyone else gone?) - even though you have the capability in our system to pull up an actual image of the document on which the charge is based.

Whatever.

I drop what I am doing (yeah, the four different things that are "urgent" to my boss and are keeping me away from the truly important project that has an immovable deadline) to look it up for you, only to discover that the request for payment originated and is signed...by you.

Sigh.

I wrote a very nice e-mail explaining that - carefully couched in terms that won't embarrass you for being a bit of a ditz, offering to change the account if it is incorrect.

I need a venti peppermint latte, preferably with peppermint schnapps as the flavoring rather than syrup.

Go west,, Big 12, young man

Yet another school is leaving the Big East, and yet another idiot is suggesting that Marquette restart the football program it eliminated in 1960. If we had the kind of money it takes to build a stadium and fund a football team, we would use it for scholarships.

After all, our raison d'etre is to educate students, not entertain the masses. And for the record, no, sports boosters do not generally donate money to any university fund other than those that are directly sports related. Sports teams are maintained as a student recruitment tool, and as part of the "student experience".

We provide an excellent education at a (fairly) reasonable price. We're doing all we can to hold tuition increases to the bare minimum, while still providing all the amenities to which the current generation of students feels entitled. We've done an outstanding job navigating the minefield of the last three years without resorting to massive tuition increases or any layoffs or reductions in service.

University. Not sports franchise.

This is how my life goes

It's been a good day - getting the home inspection set up, getting all the paperwork over to the mortgage officer, getting things accomplished at work.

At least until I left the office, and discovered a big dent in the driver's side front quarter panel of my car, right above the wheel well.  It was dark when I left the house in a hurry this morning; I know the dent wasn't there last night. I know I certainly didn't hit anything.

Thanks to the construction on the side street, the half block in front of our house that is available for parking is full to the brim every night. Anyone who comes into the block must make a u-turn or back all the way out of the street to exit. I'm 100 percent certain one of my neighbors banged into my car while turning sometime between my getting home just after ten last night and when I left just after six this morning. Did they leave a note?

You're kidding, right?

It looks as if it may be a quick, cheap fix, but now I have another thing to do on top of everything else, as well as another expense. The deductible on my policy is most likely higher than what this will cost to repair. Part of me wants to wait until I move to get it fixed; people around here are just stupid enough to do it again.

On the other hand, given all the garbage that has happened in the last two weeks - just since I decided to put the offer on the condo - it's obvious Satan is trying really hard to make this as painful a process as possible, and he must not want me moving.

Well, we all know where he can go.

I hate to say I told you so

Landlord called. A/C guys aren't coming - because it is raining.

The next time they can come? Monday.

It's going to be high eighties and humid for as long as the extended forecast goes out.

I think the landlord needs to give me the number of the A/C guys and I'll talk to them. He wants to be all buddy-buddy with them; I want my damn air conditioning.