Random Thoughts

It was nice to have a 4 day holiday. Okay I worked 4 hours on Friday just to catch up on a few things. Key word sadly was 'few.' At least I got the files out of my inbox and got rid of a few things.

Winter has arrived. When you wake up to a half inch of snow today it is an easy conclusion to make. A shame it melted away by this evening.

How the hell is my checkbook off by around $500.00 after I've balanced it? I'll take a closer look at it during lunch tomorrow. Perhaps I added something when I should have subtracted, or transposed some numbers, but it balanced last month! My checkbook always used to balance, but the last few years it always seems like my checkbook is off by some pocket change every month. I'm convinced the bank has some program to randomly steal or deposit all the half penny transactions in a branch and play with my account. Give me a break, a personal checking account isn't that hard! You only deal with addition or subtraction.

For all the money I pay Sallie Mae couldn't they provide the envelopes to send in my student loan payments? My credit card companies and utilities send envelopes, so why not Sallie Mae?

The final episodes of Battlestar Galactica start January 16, 2009. It's about damned time! I really hope writing and stories pick up. Season 3 and Season 4 had some clunkers for stories. The Cylons may have had a plan, but I'm not sure the writers did.

Speaking of the SciFi Channel, why is SciFi canceling Stargate: Atlantis? I believe they're having the best ratings ever or pretty close and SciFi decides to can the show.

How did a pathetic San Francisco 49ers team gain 195 yards of offense, score a measly 10 points, allow the Buffalo Bills 350 yards of offense, and STILL WIN THE GAME? San Fran 10: Buffalo 3!

I would like to thank LSU for choking in the back half of the season. Your losses assured I would get 3rd place in my pool. I'm still mad Ball State was taken the pick before mine! 12-0 would be so convenient for my pool right now.

Thanksgiving leftovers are already in the tupperware for tomorrow. Cheap and yummy leftovers are good for lunch. I hope I can stand them until Wednesday since I have plenty.

"As God As My Witness I Thought Turkeys Could Fly"

After all these years the scene still holds up.

This Is A Bad Sign.

I keep having a fantasy. My fantasy involves a vacation. I saw an ad for a kayaking trip with a mothership to ferry people around and sleep in. I've never kayaked before, but it sounds like fun. Being ferried around on a old tugboat or trawler to various kayaking spots sounds like fun. I keep having visions of being on the water and paddling around. I can see myself nearing a forest rimmed shore. I can smell the salty air and feel the rush of gentle waves. I already hear the gentle low rumble of diesel engines powering an restored antique mothership.

I hate my ideas for vacations. The fantasies seem unobtainable for now. Perhaps someday, perhaps someday.

All I Wanted Was A Nap.

I wanted a little nap when I got home. Next thing I know I awoke 5 hours later. I woke up at the time I normally go to bed and now I can't fall back asleep. Perhaps some late night pizza and blogging will put the Z's back in my body.

There needs to be a cure for this.

EDIT: Okay if you combine the 5 hours after I got home with the 3 hour 'nap' I had before I had to go into work I did have 8 hours sleep. Sure they were spread out over 12 hours, but hey best sleep I've had in awhile.

I Decided 3 Hours Before I Voted.

I didn't automatically hate one candidate, but I wasn't enthused with either candidate either. Combine both and you would have a pretty good candidate for president.

We Can't Predict Who You Voted For

According to our quiz, there's a 55% chance you voted for Obama. But that means there's an 45% chance you voted for McCain. You aren't very typical. You tend to be independent, and your vote is highly coveted. While we can't predict how you voted, there's a good chance you voted for the winner!

Did You Vote for Obama or McCain?

Why Did I Go In Today?

I hate working on a holiday. I'll rephrase that. I've worked numerous holidays, but I hate working holidays that I am supposed to get as an employee. 5 hours on Veteran's Day and I feel like I barely accomplished anything. I am so swamped. Our office is so swamped. What makes it worse is that I'm not at 100%. I'm tired. I get distracted easily and can't focus for long periods of time. I simply can't work on things for long periods of time. I can get files ready for hearings, but writing all the paperwork takes forever.

I can't work late every night. I lack the energy. In theory I can come in on weekends, but between attending football games on Saturdays and simply getting personal things done on Sundays I haven't had "free" weekends to head into the office. I'm burned out and I know it. I have no idea how to resolve the situation.

Speaking of Veteran's Day. Thank a vet. Their sacrifices allowed you to be here.

Confirmed: I Am A Know It All!

There Are 0 Gaps in Your Knowledge

Where you have gaps in your knowledge: No Gaps! Where you don't have gaps in your knowledge: Philosophy Religion Economics Literature History Science Art

Do You Have Gaps in Your Knowledge?

How To Work The Polls.

3:50 a.m. Alarm goes off. Eh didn't really sleep much anyway.

5:00 a.m. Arrive at the Big City Courthouse downtown.

5:15 a.m. Finally get past the deputy who is doing security. If we're on the list can't we just be waved in. In the alternative, how about having more deputies to check our bags.

5:20 a.m. Be in the jury pool room with over 200 other poll workers being held in reserve to plug gaps. Smartest thing this bumbling County Clerk has done in 2 years.

6:30 a.m. Jury pool room has around 100 people left.

8:00 a.m. Jury pool room has around 60 people left.

9:00 a.m. Cross the street to grab some coffee.

11:00 a.m. Call for all members of one political party to go to another room.

11:01 a.m. Person in the other room wonders what the hell all these people are doing in her room. Screaming on walkie-talkie begins.

11:05 a.m. I'm back in jury pool room reading a book.

11:15 a.m. More specific party members are grabbed to be Commissioners who deliver absentee ballots to the precincts by cab.

11:18 a.m. Wolfrham Hart is back in jury pool room since they only needed three Commissioners.

1:00 p.m. Cross the street to grab lunch.

1:20 p.m. 38 people left in the jury pool room. Wolfham Hart is the last known specific party member standing. Bring it other party members!

3:40 p.m. Last of the jury pool room is being sent out to be extra staff to help count votes and deal with all 100,000 absentee ballots. I've already figured that's an average of 160 or so absentee ballots per precinct. 30 is traditionally considered a lot.

4:00 p.m. Wolfrham Hart arrives at the predominantly Democratic/AfricanAmerican precinct as an undercover brother. 235 absentee ballots are 30 seconds behind me.

4 to 6 p.m. Prepare, organize, and qualify 235 absentee ballots. I hope I can get some ballots through the machine before closing time. Otherwise we'll be here awhile. Based on the steam of traffic coming in that doesn't look likely.

CLOSING TIME. No line finally and we close the polls. I happen to be holding the instructions concerning absentee ballots and read them aloud. One lady states what she did with the absentee ballots in another district earlier today. I read the instructions IN MY HANDS again aloud!

Begin feeding 232 qualified absentee ballots into a glorified scantron machine for the next 90 minutes. It only jammed once and rejected 2 ballots.

Interesting observations. Many absentee ballots are straight ticket votes with most being for the Democrats. I'm surprised by the amount of ticket splitting.

90 minutes after CLOSING. Precinct inspector and I collect votes from all machines and get a printout reporting the results.

95 minutes after CLOSING. Attempt to get extra printouts and get weird messages from the machine. We do Step 6. We do Step 7. We do Step 8. At that point the instructions state,"Before performing Step 8 you must..." HEY SHOULDN'T THAT WARNING BE IN FRONT OF STEP 8! Vote machine starts beeping and producing odd messages.

97 minutes after CLOSING. After reading the display messages the tech states if he was there he would kill us. We reply the instructions are crappily written and any warnings should come BEFORE the step!

More observations. In a precinct that normally gets 200 to 400 votes, we got 803 live votes. Add in the 232 qualified absentee ballots we totaled 1,035 votes. Obama got 914 and McCain got 115. In this precinct it is a Democrat landslide.

Help the inspector fill out a metric buttload of paperwork until two hours and thirty minutes after CLOSING. We drive separately to a regional collection place to drop off all the ballots and other stuff.

Three hours after CLOSING. We're checked out and dismissed. I want some Burger King right now and need to crash so bad. I'm totally exhausted. I'm amazed this country can hold elections every few years with mostly volunteers. Why is my first hearing at 8:15 a.m.? If you work the polls you should be allowed to take the next morning off. I hope you all voted one way or another.

I Volunteered For What!

I'm working the election tomorrow. Oh crap what did I get myself into? I must be a glutton for punishment. I have to report no later than 5 friggin' A.M. Are they serious?

My sense of civic pride will get the better of me.

I voted early yesterday since I would be working the polls. You know the election is odd when a junkie like me can't make up his mind until a few hours beforehand. I've never stood in line for nearly 3 hours before. Perhaps is more people had been interested in elections over the past 20 years the country would be in different shape.

Oh well at least the people will definitely speak this election. But will the politicians care about what they hear?

Here Be Ghosts Or Bigfoot.

One of the reasons I find Halloween to be the best time of the year: ghost tours. A dark moonlit night, a crisp and cool wind, a spooky Victorian era neighborhood, and a creepy dude in a trenchcoat as a tour guide. Oh yes, this would be so good!

I saw the blurb in the paper and quickly texted some friends. Luckily T and the Lady D could come. They were surprised such a neighborhood existed in Big City. You go around the suburbs and yes you get lots of vinyl villages, apartment complexes, and commercial corridors filled with strip malls and megamalls. This was a neighborhood with Victorians, Tudors, Arts & Crafts style homes with 2 or 3 story buildings housing pubs, coffeehouses not named BuckStars, non-chain style restaurants, non-chain bookstores, a Masonic temple, and a scooter store. Ciao baby! A quaint village only a few miles from downtown Big City, but in some ways a world away. Of course this village has a deep and dark side perfect for ghost stories.

The wind blew as the guide told of chess pieces that would move on a chessboard, before the coffeehouse opened up and the owner was by himself. A little cottage had cats disappearing into a drawer full of socks with no way for the drawers to open up by themselves. The same cottage supposedly had an evil force outside trying to get inside while the catnapping good spirit kept it at bay. Another house of a famous murderer supposedly would have smoke rings from a cigar appear out of nowhere. The murderer was noted for his fine cigars. One basement stairs would have the presence of a small cat rubbing against your leg, but don't reach done to pet the cat or you'll be shocked when you find nothing.

Wandering around the neighborhood with over 50 people I wondered if we would find any ghosts or at least Bigfoot. I told T and the Lady D we shouldn't mess with Sasquatch like those idiots in the beef jerky commercials. Some of the trees were very large and could hide something big. The highlight of the evening for most people was the tape recorder. The guide played a tape with a child's voice during a conversation with a homeowner. The homeowner had no children and the ghost that supposedly haunted this house was a child. People were surprised to hear the voice. The only problem I had was I never heard the voice.

I never heard any spooky voices. I never saw any spectres. I never saw any chess pieces move, and I never saw any random Bigfoot wandering around. Okay the tour never advertised Bigfoot, but hey you never know when you'll run into the big fella. I had a fun time. T and the Lady D had a fun time. They thanked me for inviting them. You're welcome. I love showing off the interesting sides of Big City. Even if they are the creepy and spooky sides of Big City.

Boo!

The World Turned Upside Down.

I had a 5 game lead in the pool until this weekend. Thankfully North Carolina and Navy are doing as well as I expected and they won this weekend. Now I know South Florida, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, and Louisiana State University are all ranked in the Top 25, but are not invulnerable. But did they ALL have to lose in the same weekend? Even my boat anchor Kent State Golden Flashes WON this weekend!

The League Commissioner will provide updates by Tuesday. I could still be in the lead, but even if I am still ahead my lead got crushed like an empty beer can. At least I don't have money invested in this pool. I just want the bragging rights baby!

Spend It Like There's No Tomorrow!

Paycheck comes in and bills go out. At least for the past few paychecks there has been some leftover. Gasoline getting well below $3.00/gallon really helps on that. I've had a job for a year now. That helps so much it isn't funny. I've paid down my VISA by over a third. I've been paying off that bitch Sallie Mae with no problems. I've been slowly paying off other people too.

Even discounting student loans I still have a metric buttload of debt, but at least it is coming down. Provided I can keep my job (I don't see it going away), and gasoline doesn't do extremely ballistic curves on the price chart I should be able to pay off all my debts, except ol' Sallie, by spring 2010. Unemployment debt sucks. That's all the analysis I need to provide.

At least I have some hope now, and that's better than I had a year ago. I honestly didn't know how much longer I could last. I honestly had no more plans or ideas. I needed a job, and finally I got one. That glimmer of hope was hard won. That's why I hold on so tightly. I know all too well how quickly hope can turn to ash. Though a bit early for new year's resolutions, perhaps I can resolves to finally relax a little bit next year.

Nah!

How Did I Not Ace This One?

You Scored 60% Correct

You are a solid child of the 80s. You'd never confuse Tiffany from Debbie Gibson! And while you may not know Prince's first #1 hit... You know every word to Little Red Corvette.

How Much Do You Know About 80s Music?

Don't Bring The Silver Bullets Please

You Should Be a Werewolf

You are seen as a bit tough and quite unpredictable. You follow your impulses. You see Halloween as a time you can go a little crazy. You love to scare people, and people are quite scared of you. You tend to be intimidating - and not just on Halloween!

What Classic Halloween Costume Should You Wear?

Army Of Darkness Explains So Much.

One friend of mine fails onto the Democrat side of the political spectrum. Our collective has a wide range of political views. Our collective is also full of smart asses. Combine those two traits with my friend and he came up with this little gem of political analysis. I don't care what your politics are you have to admit this is funny.

PS: If you haven't seen the Bruce Campbell classic Army Of Darkness you won't appreciate this as much.

John McCain (gesturing to the Bush administration): "You gotta believe me...I never even SAW these assholes before!"

Sarah Palin: "You found me beautiful once."
My Friend: "Honey, you got reeaal ugly."

I Shouldn't Watch Certain Shows.

We're getting near Halloween and History Channel's Mosterquest is always a good creepy show. Between the Yeti show, the Bigfoot show, the Skunk Ape show, the Ohio Strawman show, the Bigfoot in New York show, and who knows how many other variations of Bigfoot there is, and it'll creep me out. I blame this fear of Bigfoot on the infamous episode of the Bionic Man vs. Bigfoot.

We're also getting all the shows about ghosts now too.

October is a good month to creep me out. The last thing I need to watch now would be a marathon run of Seasons 1 through 3 of The X-Files.

To my limited audience, is there anything that goes bump in the night that will creep you out?

General Stupidity Or Targeted Hate?

I get out of my car and notice the window has some waves in it. Wait a second, it has several curves in the dust and grime. Hold on, someone has written something onto the window! My window wasn't very dirty so it was hardly visible at all. I had to stand at just the right distance and at just the right angle to make out the text: like cock.

I'm pretty sure that wasn't there this morning. I had a little bit of dew on my windows so it would be more obvious if something was written. Most likely this occurred at work in Small Town. I was a tad angry, not upset, not concerned, but angry. Who dared screw around with my car? Then my thoughts drifted into a more analytical mode. Was the message meant specifically for me, or was it some wannabe graffiti artist with no sense of morals who randomly saw a slightly dirty window as a blank canvas?

A random act of stupidity I could almost accept. A targeted gripe would concern me more. Who would have done this? Was it one of my "clients" and if so how did they know which car was mine? I don't share very much of my private life with people outside my office, especially not with our clientele. I deal with the flotsam and jetsam of our society. I have no doubt I upset people often due to my position. If you're seeing me in my legal duties, then something is very wrong most likely.

I don't intend to become paranoid, but perhaps a little more vigilance on my part wouldn't be a bad idea, especially in Small Town.

I Guess I Can't Fake It Anymore.

Quote #1:

Fellow Club Member: Wow Wolfrham, you look exhausted!

Me: Is it really that noticeable?

Quote #2:
Clerk: I don't know how these files are getting legs and walking out of here. I can't do my job when I can't find the damn file.

Me: I can't do my job when I keep helping you look for the damn file either.

Farewell To Opus

I love the character Opus, but I'm not fond of the comic Opus. Bloom County was awesome. Outland was simply a weak shadow of Bloom County. The third Berkley Breathed iteration was simply weak. Still it's nice to see Opus and Steve Dallas for a bit.

If you've been reading the comic you've been feeling the end coming. Perhaps it's time to finally say good bye. The Opus and the Shuttlechair Challenger must fly off into the sunset.

Just Wing It With My Mad Oral Skills.

The judge had all the attorneys write a motion. It was interesting to take opposition's case law and work it against him. I figured the judge would rule on the motion and take things from there.

NO!

The judge wanted oral summations of our motions, the case law, the potential testimony from witnesses (I didn't know we had any witnesses), and then he would take it from there. What I anticipated to be a 30 to 45 minute hearing at most was instead around 90 minutes. I wasn't ready for a oral summation. Luckily my motion only referenced two cases so I compared and contrasted the two cases with the situation at hand. I also invoked equity. When in doubt invoke the secret judicial power of equity and fairness. At that point the judge asked everyone a question, and no one had an answer. It was such a minor procedural question it wasn't even in our files. It was minor to all, but the judge. Oh crap!

I've been stalled for over 3 months. I want this case to move forward so I can finally do something one way or the other.