• When?

    There’s been good news and bad news this week, but I’ll start with the good. The tree scare is finally coming to an end. To date we’ve talked to five tree guys, four experts, and too many friends to count. Opinions have ranged from “cut it down,” to thirteen thousand dollars of pins, cables, fertilizers, and injected fungi, to trimming it up a bit. Depending on the person, we’ve been told our tree is two different species, with two very different lifespans.

    This week we finally got an opinion from an expert (a certified arborist) which seconded a previous opinion, so we’re finally ready to proceed with a plan… a plan which thankfully doesn’t involve cutting it down or spending our computer budget.

    The bad news it that my mother’s apparent recovery two weeks ago was just what it appeared to be: too good to be true. That day was the only good day she’s had. This week she’s been back in the medical hospital due to severe dehydration, which brings up concerns about the care she’s received at the psychiatric facility. Yesterday and last night we played the insurance game again… due to her psychiatric benefits long ago being used up, insurance not wanting to pay for anything which might have anything to do with her mental problems, the medical hospital wanting to shed a patient that might not be able to pay, and a psychiatric facility that doesn’t want a patient with medical problems they aren’t set up to treat. On top of that, it seems it’s only a matter of time before the county psychiatric facility decides to set a hearing (under the Baker Act) to have her committed long term, possibly to the state hospital… which is a nightmare beyond description.

    If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’d like to vent (cover the kids eyes).

    I’M SO FUCKING FED UP WITH ALL OF IT. No, that doesn’t quite cover it. I’M SO SICK OF BEING FUCKING FED UP. My mother is being shuttled around like an unwanted vagrant, my father’s on the verge of another heart attack, and I’m more inept than the stupid tree I’ve been so worried about.

    I’m not asking you, because I know you don’t know the answer… but I’d like to ask someone. When is it going to end? Doctors, psychiatrists, and nurses are seemingly incapable of speaking in anything but useless platitudes; and God doesn’t seem to be taking my calls lately.

  • Commerce, Treasury funds helped boost GOP campaigns

    McClatchy Washington Bureau | 08/17/2007 | Commerce, Treasury funds helped boost GOP campaigns

    Top Commerce and Treasury Departments officials appeared with Republican candidates and doled out millions in federal money in battleground congressional districts and states after receiving White House political briefings detailing GOP election strategy.

    So what? How’s this different than members of Congress placing earmarks in bills benefiting their own districts (and helping themselves get re-elected). Well for one thing, it’s against the law:

    Under the Hatch Act, Cabinet members are permitted to attend political briefings and appear with members of Congress. But Cabinet members and other political appointees aren’t permitted to spend taxpayer money with the aim of benefiting candidates.

    And no, this is not business as usual… or at least it doesn’t appear so. This article, along with several others, have quoted longtime government officials (from previous Republican and Democratic administrations) who claim this practice under the Bush administration is completely new (and not just when considering scope, but in general).

  • My blogging past

    What’s more exciting that a new software release? Well… o.k., lots of things are. Still, a good time can be had on a Sunday morning, cradling a cup of coffee, with a software install running on your favorite Mac. Imagine the Sunday news shows on in the background, the kids playing in the family room with the makeshift tent you helped them build out of linens, pillows and seat cushions; and all the while looking forward to seeing what new features are waiting to be unpacked from their cocoon of zeros and ones.

    Today (darn near tomorrow already) I saw that Movable Type v4 was released. For about 15 minutes… right up to when I typed that third period a few keystrokes back, I felt a twinge of regret for shutting down the home web server. Yeah, those were the days. I can still hear the old iBook churning away under the desk in the family room (hiding it’s broken hinge in shame). I spent a fair chunk of my discretionary time on server stuff.

    I guess I’m not immune to the lure of romanticizing the past. I’m using WordPress now precisely because of all that time I spent trying to get MySQL configured for a previous Movable Type upgrade.

    Yep, I’m over it now.