From the Jay Leno appearance: (Thank you ABC news)
Towards the end of his approximately 40-minute appearance, the president talked about how he's gotten better at bowling and has been practicing in the White House bowling alley.
He bowled a 129, the president said."That's very good, Mr. President," Leno said sarcastically. It's "like the Special Olympics or something," the president said.
Way to go. Insult the disabled. I don't care if you meant it or not, if anyone else makes a comment like that we are being cruel. When the White House makes it, it is just an "off hand remark".
Give me a break.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Just A Little Angry - Rant
It seems that when my company has bad news to deliver, it is sent out on Friday even, after half the US has gone home for the week. Well, last Friday was no different. I am not sure why, but something told me to check my work e-mail Friday evening before we sat down to dinner. What I found out was that my business unit is getting a "temporary" 10% pay cut. This is not great news, but it is made worse by the fact that just a couple of weeks ago, our CEO announced a COMPANY WIDE pay cut of 2.5 to 20% (I was in the 5% bracket, as most of the employees are). So now I get a nice fat %15 pay cut...5% is permanent and the other 10% is temporary. Just add this on to the list of things that we have had taken from us.
The first few things they took away from us were mostly annoying and most did not directly affect us unless we were to get laid off. Those reductions were the cutting in half of severance benefits...not once, but twice (effectively giving us 25% of our old benefits). They did cut our pension out but held on to the money. It sits collecting interest until I retire since there is no more money being added to it.
The next thing that went was the matching contributions to our 401k. Again, not a huge deal...it just simply means my 401k will not grow quite as fast as it did unless I dump more money into it. Oh, I forgot to mention that the business unit I am in does not qualify for on call pay, so we work on call and get NOTHING extra for it. No comp time, no extra pay. That one bugs me quite a bit.
Then we get notice of not one but TWO pay cuts (one company wide and one for just our business unit...it seems that my business unit, the only one that makes money, it the hardest hit)., of which one is permanent and the other "temporary" one has been loosely defined.
I have gotten a few e-mails telling me I need to be thankful that I have a job...and I am. However I can be disappointed that I am making LESS money today than I was when I started this company 5+ years ago. Yes, that is how much they have taken.
"Okay El Gee, just take a part time job." I would love to but I am on call (and did I mention I don't get paid for it??) and it is going to be pretty hard to hold a second job if I am on call with my primary one.
"Okay El Gee, just find a new job." Easier said than done. Have you seen the job market out there?
I am thankful that God sees fit to have me employed right now. I am frustrated that I cannot seem to get any traction on finances. Just a month or two ago, my wife and I paid off all of our debt except the mortgage. Now oddly enough, the extra debt we had is almost the exact amount I will lose each month under the stimulus package my employer is about to release. We were hoping to start saving more (outside of the 401k) and give a little more to church (we tithe but we were wanting to give some extra to some pet projects) but it appears that will not be happening.
The first few things they took away from us were mostly annoying and most did not directly affect us unless we were to get laid off. Those reductions were the cutting in half of severance benefits...not once, but twice (effectively giving us 25% of our old benefits). They did cut our pension out but held on to the money. It sits collecting interest until I retire since there is no more money being added to it.
The next thing that went was the matching contributions to our 401k. Again, not a huge deal...it just simply means my 401k will not grow quite as fast as it did unless I dump more money into it. Oh, I forgot to mention that the business unit I am in does not qualify for on call pay, so we work on call and get NOTHING extra for it. No comp time, no extra pay. That one bugs me quite a bit.
Then we get notice of not one but TWO pay cuts (one company wide and one for just our business unit...it seems that my business unit, the only one that makes money, it the hardest hit)., of which one is permanent and the other "temporary" one has been loosely defined.
I have gotten a few e-mails telling me I need to be thankful that I have a job...and I am. However I can be disappointed that I am making LESS money today than I was when I started this company 5+ years ago. Yes, that is how much they have taken.
"Okay El Gee, just take a part time job." I would love to but I am on call (and did I mention I don't get paid for it??) and it is going to be pretty hard to hold a second job if I am on call with my primary one.
"Okay El Gee, just find a new job." Easier said than done. Have you seen the job market out there?
I am thankful that God sees fit to have me employed right now. I am frustrated that I cannot seem to get any traction on finances. Just a month or two ago, my wife and I paid off all of our debt except the mortgage. Now oddly enough, the extra debt we had is almost the exact amount I will lose each month under the stimulus package my employer is about to release. We were hoping to start saving more (outside of the 401k) and give a little more to church (we tithe but we were wanting to give some extra to some pet projects) but it appears that will not be happening.
Monday, March 09, 2009
Grand Time
I know I normally post my geocaching adventures on my "Geobloggin'" blog but I am not 100% sure I that I want to continue running that site. There are a lot of reasons that I could go in to, but I won't at this time.
Sunday after church and lunch, I decided to do a little geocaching since I did not do any on Saturday. I actually had a plan (and stuck to it, too!) and did a minimum of driving, instead I hiked several miles around Breckenridge Park and Allen Station Park.
I started off the day grabbing a few park and grabs just a mile or two from home. One was right along Bethany Drive (Heritage Park and Grab) and the other was in a cemetary (Allen Cemetary). Neither took very long so I was able to get to the hardest geocache (4/4) of the day rather quickly. "Focus" was a team effort by a couple of local hardcore cachers, 9key and Team TechieGirl. I will not go into too much detail but I will say that it is very possible to find the cache without going to all the stages. As a matter of fact, I discovered the final on my way to stage one, but since I wanted the full effect of the hide, I followed it as intended. It was a very enjoyable find, although I cut my legs (I was wearing shorts) to ribbons.
After finding "Focus" I moved on to the two in Northwest Allen that I DNF'ed on a couple of weeks ago. It turns out the hider had made a rather large error on the coordinates so almost everyone struck out the first time. Armed with new coords, I found both hides (W.T.D. #1 and #2) in due time. Five down, and four to go.
The last four were new as well. Two of them ("Knot Low and Inside" and "Concrete Graveyard") were near enough to each other that I could walk from one to the other. "Concrete Graveyard" was the first one I went to. It was a large deposit of concrete slabs and rebar in the middle of a large wooded area. How long it has been there is anybody's guess, but finding the cache was not hard. I was surprised that so many people struck out on it previously.
After grabbing that one I hiked over to "Knot Low and Inside". That one was fun because it had a decoy and finding the actual hide took some time. It was a micro in the woods (that is getting to be old...) but a find is a find. On to the last two.
"Just a Frog on a Log" and "Old Tree" were in part of the nature preserve that I did not know was open to the public. After a short hike (1 mile round trip) I snagged two nice hides. "Frog on a Log" is a reincarnation of "Ribbitting", which was just a mile away. I always liked that cache and at the time I found it, thought it was pretty darn cute.
With nine geocaches down, I turned my attention to two terracaches in Richardson and some cache maintenance. The first one I looked for was, "What Did You Expect", a multipart terracache in Breckenridge Park. Stage one was a real bear because the coords were off my 50+ feet. The only way I was able to find it was with a hint but I am not too upset since this was the way a lot of people found it. After stage one was grabbed (reminded me of two geocaches I have grabbed, one in Plano and the other in Garland) I drove over to the official parking area and hoofed it to the final. I was on the wrong side of the creek (you always are on the wrong side of the creek in Breckenridge) so I had to find a safe place to cross to get to the final. After letting my GPSr setting down, I was able to find the metal marker on the ground. I left it uncovered since it was hard enough to get to.
With one terracache down, I decided to check on one of my caches in the area that had been reported missing. "Dead Men Tell No Tales" was a collaborative effort between me and 9key and it really ticked me off that it was missing. It looks like the cache thief is working overtime. I decided not to replace it and archived it on the web site.
On my way over to the last terracache, I stopped by to see if I could find "eeman's First Cache"...one that had stumped me before. This time I was able to find it and was able to score a smilie. This was an odd cache since the camo is more urban than the environment would require, but it seems to work well enough here. Who am i to judge?
I had just enough time to head over to the other nature preserve in Richardson to grab one more terracache (Routh Cemetary). Once I navigated to it, all I needed was a pic of the plaque to give me the info I needed to get another find on the terracaching web page. I think I have five total terracache finds...not actually a huge number but it puts me at number 43 in the state for finds.
So in my mind, the day was a success and I followed my plan. I only deviated once and that was to get a previous DNF (eeman's First Cache) so all is good.
After I got home I got cleaned up, called mom, and had a little dinner. I was tired and very scratched up but I was very happy. I wish more days could be like this.
Sunday after church and lunch, I decided to do a little geocaching since I did not do any on Saturday. I actually had a plan (and stuck to it, too!) and did a minimum of driving, instead I hiked several miles around Breckenridge Park and Allen Station Park.
I started off the day grabbing a few park and grabs just a mile or two from home. One was right along Bethany Drive (Heritage Park and Grab) and the other was in a cemetary (Allen Cemetary). Neither took very long so I was able to get to the hardest geocache (4/4) of the day rather quickly. "Focus" was a team effort by a couple of local hardcore cachers, 9key and Team TechieGirl. I will not go into too much detail but I will say that it is very possible to find the cache without going to all the stages. As a matter of fact, I discovered the final on my way to stage one, but since I wanted the full effect of the hide, I followed it as intended. It was a very enjoyable find, although I cut my legs (I was wearing shorts) to ribbons.
After finding "Focus" I moved on to the two in Northwest Allen that I DNF'ed on a couple of weeks ago. It turns out the hider had made a rather large error on the coordinates so almost everyone struck out the first time. Armed with new coords, I found both hides (W.T.D. #1 and #2) in due time. Five down, and four to go.
The last four were new as well. Two of them ("Knot Low and Inside" and "Concrete Graveyard") were near enough to each other that I could walk from one to the other. "Concrete Graveyard" was the first one I went to. It was a large deposit of concrete slabs and rebar in the middle of a large wooded area. How long it has been there is anybody's guess, but finding the cache was not hard. I was surprised that so many people struck out on it previously.
After grabbing that one I hiked over to "Knot Low and Inside". That one was fun because it had a decoy and finding the actual hide took some time. It was a micro in the woods (that is getting to be old...) but a find is a find. On to the last two.
"Just a Frog on a Log" and "Old Tree" were in part of the nature preserve that I did not know was open to the public. After a short hike (1 mile round trip) I snagged two nice hides. "Frog on a Log" is a reincarnation of "Ribbitting", which was just a mile away. I always liked that cache and at the time I found it, thought it was pretty darn cute.
With nine geocaches down, I turned my attention to two terracaches in Richardson and some cache maintenance. The first one I looked for was, "What Did You Expect", a multipart terracache in Breckenridge Park. Stage one was a real bear because the coords were off my 50+ feet. The only way I was able to find it was with a hint but I am not too upset since this was the way a lot of people found it. After stage one was grabbed (reminded me of two geocaches I have grabbed, one in Plano and the other in Garland) I drove over to the official parking area and hoofed it to the final. I was on the wrong side of the creek (you always are on the wrong side of the creek in Breckenridge) so I had to find a safe place to cross to get to the final. After letting my GPSr setting down, I was able to find the metal marker on the ground. I left it uncovered since it was hard enough to get to.
With one terracache down, I decided to check on one of my caches in the area that had been reported missing. "Dead Men Tell No Tales" was a collaborative effort between me and 9key and it really ticked me off that it was missing. It looks like the cache thief is working overtime. I decided not to replace it and archived it on the web site.
On my way over to the last terracache, I stopped by to see if I could find "eeman's First Cache"...one that had stumped me before. This time I was able to find it and was able to score a smilie. This was an odd cache since the camo is more urban than the environment would require, but it seems to work well enough here. Who am i to judge?
I had just enough time to head over to the other nature preserve in Richardson to grab one more terracache (Routh Cemetary). Once I navigated to it, all I needed was a pic of the plaque to give me the info I needed to get another find on the terracaching web page. I think I have five total terracache finds...not actually a huge number but it puts me at number 43 in the state for finds.
So in my mind, the day was a success and I followed my plan. I only deviated once and that was to get a previous DNF (eeman's First Cache) so all is good.
After I got home I got cleaned up, called mom, and had a little dinner. I was tired and very scratched up but I was very happy. I wish more days could be like this.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Yeah, What She Said!
“Why kill yourself working if you’re going to give it all away to people who aren’t working as hard?” - an anonymous 63-year-old attorney based in Lafayette, La in regards to the new proposed tax laws under the President Obama (as quoted by ABC news).
Now, under the plan he supports, I won't have this happen to me per se, but I support her 100%.
Now, under the plan he supports, I won't have this happen to me per se, but I support her 100%.
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