Got no excuse other than the endorphins, but I’m riding high and gingerly in the saddle today. The Bride kicked me out of the house this morning…

Proceed at your own risk »

The Army Medic

My rides for the last two days:

Proceed at your own risk »

[from the internet] 

Did you know that drinking two glasses of Gatorade can relieve headache pain almost immediately — without the unpleasant side effects caused by traditional “pain relievers.”
 
Did you know that Colgate toothpaste makes an excellent salve for burns?

Before you head to the drugstore for a high-priced inhaler filled with mysterious chemicals, try chewing on a couple of curiously strong Altoids peppermints. They’ll clear up your stuffed nose.

Proceed at your own risk »

From AP News:

When the president was asked at a Rose Garden question-and-answer session [today] whether the anthem should be sung in Spanish, he replied: “I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English, and I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English.”

He made his remarks on the matters during a wide-ranging briefing with reporters.

“I think people who want to be citizens of this country ought to learn English,” Bush said.

Well, that pretty much ends the idea of debating the issues without emotion.  Isn’t the president supposed to be a model for calm rhetoric?

(And how much do you want to bet the While House will be backpedalling on this very soon and very hard?)

No matter what side of the immigration debate you’re on, we can pretty much all agree on this: the shit’s gonna hit the fan now.

A common theme of this blog is: “We as a society are judged by how we take care of our lower-caste workers.”  Here’s another example on how we are failing.

Proceed at your own risk »

Pretty dead day at work, which is good because I was fairly numb between the ears most of the day (in other words, life as usual).  The funny moment happened in the morning when my (female) co-workers tried to follow me to the gym for my morning workout and I caught them hiding behind an SUV.  Their devious plan of hiding behind the windows of the truck was thwarted when I saw them through the glass.

Come on: you know you want one.

Spent some time cleaning up the blog and moving old entries into their proper categories.  It’s only been six months since Trina left for the Navy, but reading the letters we sent her makes it seem like years ago. The entries from last summer will be a joy to read.

Interesting new item from an old neighborhood: 

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Hundreds of starfish have been found dead on a beach on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast, and a scientist says a nonnative parasite is likely to blame. Purple sea stars began washing up last week in Trail Bay at Sechelt, north of Vancouver. The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans has been unable to determine why they died, agency spokeswoman Michelle Imbeau said.

I used to fish in those waters (picture below) and had to pull purple starfish out of shrimp traps.  You can’t kill them with an axe, and I bet kerosene and a match wouldn’t have made a difference, either.

In the latest entry in “How Dumb Can We Be?”, the FBI tried to gain access to deceased journalist Jack Anderson’s files shortly after his family closed the lid on his coffin (literally).  Their motivation was classified information belongs to the government, not a private citizen.  Speaking as a former holder of a top secret clearance, it’s a valid argument, but only to a point.  Mr. Anderson was long a burr in the government’s saddle, uncovering scandal and waste, and making more than a few enemies, but that’s the job of the press and it was one he did well.

But I wonder if he could have worked today.  Reporters are being subpoenaed and jailed for not revealing their sources.  It won’t be long before their union starts setting up support and intervention groups.

To assist, here’s an article for the truly paranoid scribe, and it applies to bad bloggers and conspiracy theorists, too.  A summary: 

Don’t Write Down Anything.
Destroy Your Notes After Publication.
Use the Company’s Computer System Selectively.
Encrypt Your Files.
Use E-mail Judiciously.
Beware of the Office Telephone.
Use Prepaid Cell Phones.
Get a Skype Account.
Skulk Around.
Practice the Art of Conversation.
Write in a Stealthy Manner.
You’re Only As Good As Your Source.
Create Diversions.
A Manhattan Project To Create a Neuralizer.

Do I go to the gym for a long, sweaty session with weights or do I go on a slow, gentle ride with The Bride to Subway?  Need you ask?  It was crisp and cool out yesterday around 5:30 as we biked down Mountain, and the wind went straight up my shirt and chilled me to the bone (probably why I slept like a log last night), but I didn’t mind.  Biking outside is better than working out inside, and biking outside with someone is even better.

Best biking commercial ever.

Under the Spooky but True category: you probably remember two daughters had their gallbladders removed in December.  The Bride’s boss and a co-worker on my Help Desk have both been told in the last week they need to have their GBs out, too.  The surgeries helped the daughters, that’s for sure, but it seems like easy money for the surgeons.

Keeping with the theme of blogging, here’s ten reasons you shouldn’t blog.  It’s full of geek- and techno-language, but it’s cute if you can get around that.

Did you know the World Wide Web has mood swings?

Yesterday:
2.9 miles
22:15 minutes
101 calories

This is a post that consists mostly of emails.  Bear with it; it’s worth the read.

My boss [AF] is one of the finest people I’ve known and she has a great sense of humor.  We’ve pulled some pretty good jokes on each other and we work to keep things light around the office.  She recently gave me her sister’s [RH] email address because AF was running out the door and forgot to tell RH something.

Did I use RH’s email address for evil purposes?  Oh, come on!  Of course I did.

I started off with a short email to RH saying that I’d spill the beans on AF for a small price, hinting that we’ve given her sister the nickname of “Simon Legree.”  (You know that’s not true, but nevertheless, the forms must be followed.) She agreed, so here’s my email to her:

—————————————— 

Dear [RH] - I’ll expect a “Milky Way” candy bar in the mail soon.

Someone once said, “Live with a man forty years. Share his house, his meals, speak on every subject. Then tie him up and hold him over the volcano’s edge, and on that day, you will finally meet the man.”

The same could be said about making a person into a supervisor.  You probably know [AF] as a patient and gentle being.  We here on the Help Desk see a totally opposite creature.

- To begin with, the Help Desk motto is “How does this affect [AF]?”  Everything we do, write, talk about, or even think must be totally wrapped around this concept or we get screamed at for hours.  I must admit I admire her stamina.

- Whenever she enters the room, we must all stand and bow, shouting loudly, “Thank you for letting us work for you.”  The users on the phone find this distracting.

- When she does work, we must stand near her, stirring the air with palm fronds and humming Mozart.  Since palm fronds are not native to northern Nevada and all of us are tone-deaf, you can imagine the horrible working conditions your sister must tolerate.

- We take turns cooking her three meals a day:

- - - Her breakfast must be at her desk, eggs benedict warmed precisely so not to burn her mouth.  Old-fashioned corned beef hash must be on the side, topped with a piquant Pommery mustard cream sauce.  On alternate days, we have to pony up the cash for fried eggs on toasted sourdough with either smoked salmon, dill Havarti, sliced tomatoes and scallions; or, depending on her mood, bacon, smoked cheddar, sliced tomatoes and cheddar.

- - - Lunch is always the same:  roast chicken blended with mayo and balsamic glazed onions with lettuce and cucumber on the side.  She insists on the perfect egg salad on challah bun, and a traditional egg salad served with sliced cucumber.  Brian screwed this up the other day by serving a chopped cucumber and still can’t sit comfortably without a cushion.

- - - Dinner is an extravagant affair that involves us driving to Lake Tahoe to get covered take-out for her.  The four of us on the Help Desk split the daily bill between us.

Finally, her works hours are, shall we say, fluid.  However, she claims she spends at least forty hours a week thinking of new ways to get us to work.

We are hoping that you as a close relative can talk to her and shine a light on her dark ways.

We thank you in advance.

—————————————— 

Her response:

I want to respond to your letter and I will in time.  Right now I am going thru the denial phase—this can’t be my sister.

I can’t help any of you there (”to understand her dark ways”) until I can help myself.  So, I have therapy sessions scheduled and I will keep you posted as things are revealed to me thru my sessions.

Meanwhile, I would encourage all of you to continue standing by your motto “How does this affect [AF]?”—maybe even go the extra mile—perhaps you could hire a limo to follow alongside in the morning and afternoon coworker walks –just in case [AF] should need to sit for awhile or cool off (limo a/c would give all of you a break from the palm frond thing)

This isn’t going to be easy for any of us but we will get thru it.

I’m hoping that you can all make it thru yet another demanding  day and not carry all of this stress home with you but be able to relax and enjoy your weekend.

——————————————  

To wrap this story up, I got a package at work today from RH (who lives in Arizona) with the below post-it and TWO bags of Milky Way bite-sized candy bars. 

Funny!  And who says crime doesn’t pay?