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Great Depression II

I guess they didn’t call it The Great Depression during that depression, did they?  We shouldn’t be surprised they’re not honestly calling this one Great Depression II.  Or, in current parlance, maybe, “G-Dep-2.”  It’s “only” The Great Recession.  As if those of us out of work (or in my case, “under-employed”) and facing such dire uncertainty really care about semantics?

The main problem for many unemployed is that they’re depending on Corporate America to provide a job.  Not gonna happen.  These days, you have to fend for yourself, create a job/business for yourself.  I see happening here what has already happened in Russia after the “collapse” of the Soviet Union.  We, like them, are going to have to become a nation of hustlers.  It’s not a pretty picture, and I’m not advocating it, but it’s probably unavoidable.  If only we, like them, had leaders strong enough and wise enough to get rid of our own oligarchs.  Don’t get me started on “leaders.”

Don’t depend on bank loans for your new business.  Loans at interest are for fools.  No offense.  I’m still working my way through mortgage and credit card payments, at interest, so I suffer from the same foolishness as most everyone else.  Do it the Muslim way — no, I’m not Muslim — and find investors, not blood-sucking bankers.  Funny how vampires are so popular these days as we’re surrounded by real life blood-suckers.

Fall is definitely here

It was actually cold all day today, but that didn’t stop me and Elizabeth, then the pugs, from spending half of our day outside!  First, we went exploring the new neighborhood being built nearby.  I don’t know why they’re building, there’s plenty of existing houses that no one wants to buy.  Whatever.  At least they’ve created lots of good dirt piles to climb up and down!  But it kills me how they chop down all the trees first.  It’s just stupid.  Trees add value to a neighborhood!

Then I came in and watched the Titans lose to the Broncos — snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, as they say when someone blows a lead — while Tara took Elizabeth grocery shopping with her.

Then Elizabeth, the pugs and I spent a couple hours at the park.  Elizabeth spent most of the time on the playground while I walked the dogs along the extensive paved little trail, with a couple breaks in there.  They’re pugs, not greyhounds.  They — and I — need breaks.

Saturday with Elizabeth

As Elizabeth likes to say, she and I were “hanging out” today while Tara had a girls’ day out with Ronica.  I think Tara’s was a belated birthday thing.  Hers was on the 10th.  Anyway, once Ronica finally called – after Tara had started to worry — I was left alone with Elizabeth.

We went to the animal shelter and donated several bags of cat food that Tara had gotten free or very cheap.  She’s always doing that and donating it to the animal shelter.  Elizabeth LOVES going to the animal shelter.  Then again, she LOVES going just about anywhere … except Aldi’s (local discount grocery chain).  She is very familiar with the shelter because Tara takes her there on a regular basis.  Today, Elizabeth spent a good 20 minutes in the tree kitty room.  The what?  They have this room with a fake tree all the way to the ceiling where kittens play and climb and people can interact with them.  I petted and talked to the adult cats in cages outside the room for those twenty minutes.

We then walked through and visited with dogs, mostly puppies, in another section.  They allow people to just walk right into the enclosures and play with the dogs.  They’ve probably found that they get much higher rates of adoption that way.  I was especially surprised to find that they also let anyone find a leash and walk almost any dog they want!  How cool is that?!  The sad little white dog I wanted to walk didn’t have a collar, which apparently means they don’t want him walked.  We then entered the main, very loud, big dog section where there were at least 20 dogs, each with its own cage.  Very nice cages, with heated floors in the winter.  Still, it’s a cage.  One particular dog was the loudest, apparently most distressed about being locked up.  He was some sort of mix of black Lab, Doberman and Pitbull.  Sounds like a bad mix now that I think of it, but he was very nice.  Too strong for Elizabeth, though.  Anyway, we put a leash on him and took him for a walk out back.  He was lunging all over the place, he was so excited and happy to be outside.  He would have dragged Elizabeth all over that yard and walking trail.  When we brought him back inside, all the neighboring dogs wagged their tails and smiled at me, obviously thinking, “Ooh, take me next!”  But we didn’t.  Elizabeth wanted to, but it was time to go.

If you happen to stumble into your local animal shelter, you might tell them that they could probably learn a lot from the one in Nashville.  But say it in a nice way.  :)   And please adopt a dog or cat, if at all possible.  And locals, don’t miss the Music City Mutt Strut!

We then returned home to our own three pugs and a cat, had lunch, and headed back out, this time to the library.  Elizabeth said, “It’s going to be a great day, Dad!”  She loves to hang out with me.  :)   Also, the library is another place Elizabeth loves to go.  We were returning videos and picking up new ones.  I’d left a couple behind by mistake, so now I guess they’re overdue.

After the library, Elizabeth said, “And now we go surfing!”  I said no, not today.  We did go yesterday afternoon down at the creek.  There was enough water again after the recent rains, but it wasn’t too strong or muddy.  It was pretty clear, actually.  Anyway, what she calls surfing is just paddling on her “boogie board.”  It’s a lot of work for me, but pure fun for her!  She was getting pretty good at doing things herself.  Of course, while she’s floating downstream, I’m running along behind or beside her … in the water.  It’s not easy running through water.  :)   Going back upstream, I have to carry her.  I probably get more of a workout than she does.  By the time we got home, Tara was home from work and told Elizabeth to take a bath to get that “creek dirt” off her.  Tara’s right.  You can’t trust the health of creeks these days.  But it’s just so much fun!  :)

New antenna

Got the new tv antenna via UPS last night. That “super saver”/”slow boat” shipping from Amazon was not very slow, after all!   So, today I’ll be installing it.  Just wanted to mention that in case I’m killed in the process.  You’ll at least know what happened to me.   It says right on the packaging in several places “Watch for wires!  You can be killed!”  So I’ll try and avoid that.

Anyway, the hope is that this antenna will finally let us receive the local CBS and Fox affiliates. We already get ABC, PBS, UXP reliably, and NBC most of the time.

UPDATE:  Mission accomplished!  We now get all the local channels and then some.

FURTHER UPDATE:  There’s still hardly anything worth watching, but at least it’s there for that “special” occasion.  :)

Vote for Cure JM

Go to: http://www.refresheverything.com/makejmamemory to vote for Cure JM.  Click on the grey button that says “Vote for this idea”.  You will be prompted to sign-in.  For those of you who haven’t had a chance to vote yet, you’ll have to register the first time (which takes less than a minute).  After you’ve registered, click again on Vote for this idea.

Voting daily is key – it’s the only way we’re going to win.  Based on how many votes we think it’s going to take to win, if each person asked ~20 people to vote with you each day – we’d make HUGE progress.  Most of us know 20 people around the world, with access to the internet, over the age of 13, and who’d be willing to vote.  Lets see what are community to can together in the final days!

Diary – 7/23/2010

I’m lying here on the couch — with the pugs asleep next to me — getting my “new” laptop just the way I like it.  A customer was supposed to show up and drop off their laptop today at 3, but that never happened.  Shoulda guessed that, but I had to be here in guess they did show up.  Anyway, this “new” laptop is much older than the new Acer netbook I bought in October (for just $290), but the keyboard is much bigger which makes it SO much easier to type.  I told Tara (my wife) she can have the netbook if this other laptop (a Dell Inspiron 1150, by the way) works out for me.  I spent $50 on 1 gigabyte of memory to speed it up, and so far so good.  Did I mention it was free?  Yeah.  A long-time customer who was moving out of town and trying to lighten her load just gave it to me, free.  She thought it was dead and I never tested it until I got it home.  Turned out, it was just the battery that was dead.  Once I recharged that, it was fine!  To give it a fresh start, I wiped the hard drive and installed XP Pro on it even though it came with XP Home.  After installing service pack 3 and Office 2003 on it, however, the thing was DOG SLOW!  Unbearable.  That’s when I bought the new memory.  With the new memory in it, I tried installing Windows 7.  That went fine except that the video display was limited to 800×600 because of driver issues, and that resolution is just not acceptable these days.  So, now it has XP Home on it again (but not Office), which I’ll stick with ‘cuz I’m sick of reinstalling everything.
Something else I’ve gotten free recently are the antibiotics I need to take prior to my biopsy I’ll be having in a couple weeks.  Three pills and they wanted $48 for them!  And that was AFTER the insurance cut the price in half.  For antibiotics?  Anyway, on the pharmacist’s (Kroger at Nolensville and Old Hickory) suggestion, I called the doctor’s office back to see if they had a generic equivalent that might be cheaper.  They didn’t, but they did have some samples they could give me free of charge if I wanted to stop by and pick them up, which I did.

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Quote of the day

“Watching Titanic [the part where the ship is sinking] is like watching the U.S. economy, where the rich conspire to sink as many of the poor as they possibly can.”

– Bill Holmes (yes, I thought this one up myself!)

Safety first

Always wear your safety glasses when mowing the lawn or weed-eating.  I didn’t today (though I do half the time), and I got hit in the eye with a rock that was launched by the mower blade, bounced off the side of the house, and hit me in the left eye.

My first thought after I let go of the mower, which killed the engine, and put my hands to my face was, “Is the eye still in the socket?  Yes.  Can I see out of the eye?  Yes!”

It hurt, but it might have actually scared me more than anything else.  Of course, the eye is blood-red now and my eyes keep wanting to close as I type this, but I think I’ll be okay.