Monday, August 04, 2003

PromoGuy’s Monday Mission 3.31:

1. When you take a vacation, do you ever suffer from Internet withdrawal? Or maybe the nagging urge to blog or read blogs? Or are you glad to be away?

Yes. Yes. Yes/No.

2. Have you ever been “furloughed” (told to take time off work without pay) or laid off? How did that impact your family dynamics? Your finances? If not to you, have you seen it happen to anyone you know? How did they handle it?

I worked for a government contractor back when Daddy Bush was President. Remember his “no new taxes” reneging? There was a two week period when the government was shut down because Congress wouldn’t pass the budget. So I was at home, without pay, for two weeks.

Fortunately, I was young and single so it didn’t impact me too much financially. I think I was still living at my parents too. I can’t remember exactly.

3. If you fell on hard times, what is are some non-essential reoccurring luxury expenses (cable TV, TiVo subscription, cigarettes, high-speed net connection, newspaper, daily Starbucks coffee, etc.) you would give up to save money?

When I was unemployed last year, I cut back on a lot. But I managed to keep my cable and internet connected. I had some financial help during those months.

The biggest thing I cut back on was book buying. I’m a bibliophile, but I started to go to the library instead. I love to own the books I read, but I’m a lot choosier about what I buy after having been too poor to buy any books at all.

4. On the same thought, what is the one non-essential expense you would NOT give up?

Cable for sure. I can get internet access from other sources if I need it.

5. Would you ever ask your family (parents, in-laws, relatives) for financial assistance? What would be some of your concerns about asking for help? Have you ever asked for it before? Did it go well?

Yes. I have asked for and received help from family a lot, actually. My only barrier to asking at this point is pride and my feeling of being a burden. But I have a generous family for which I am thankful. And they know that if the circumstances were reversed I would be more than happy to help them.

6. Has a friend or relative ever borrowed money from you? Who were they and how much did they want? Did you ever get paid back, or did it matter? Did you feel compelled to keep an eye on them to see if they spent it wisely?

Yes. I won’t divulge who and what it was, there’s no need. I was happy to help - there was no need to pay me back. No, they wouldn’t have come to me if they didn’t need the money - I trusted them to use it how they needed it. Really, I looked at it as my gift to them - sure, they asked for it, but I was happy to help.

7. Imagine you won a tax-free gift of $7,000. The only stipulation on the gift is that it must not be invested or saved, and must be spent before 2004. How would you use the money?

I would tithe first, then pay off debt.

BONUS: Whatever happened to unity?

Who says it ever really existed?

We’ve got a good list of food for tomorrow.

Queso, potstickers, taquitos, wings, barbeque, grilled chicken, veggies, pasta salad, mac & cheese, baked beans, pigs-in-a-blanket…

YUM!

UPDATE: We’re heading out to Price Club (aka Costco) in a few minutes. Don’t you wish you had a job that allowed you to take an afternoon to shop at discount supermarkets on company time? And just let me remind you that this is your tax dollars at work! It’s all about morale, right?

I’ll be sort of busy all week - working on the payroll codes thing. But as I’m inspired, I’ll blog. Or when I need a break from timesheets and numbers. Or when I’m procrastinating - like now. =)

I don’t have much else to say this morning. I just want to ping Weblogs.com so you’ll all come running over. So to make it worth your while, in the comments, please tell what was the best thing you did this weekend (and keep it clean!)...

Sunday, August 03, 2003

James at Outside the Beltway links to this WaPo article about the 11 “paintball terrorists” (as we call them in the office).

The U.S. government is considering upgrading the charges against the 11 Muslim men indicted as part of a “Virginia jihad network,” a prosecutor said in court yesterday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon D. Kromberg told a judge in U.S. District Court in Alexandria that one of the defendants had told investigators that the men’s ultimate goal was “to fight American soldiers” and not just support a Pakistan-based militant group fighting India.

We call them the “paintball terrorists” because they practiced their techniques at paintball ranges in addition to real firearms ranges in the northern Virginia area.

Flipping through the channels I discovered that ABC is running Paulie - this is a great, great movie that makes me smile just thinking about it.

It only took an hour to get a good connection today. *sigh* I really need to sign up for DSL.

My brother-in-law (and my sister too) was horrified that I liked Punch-Drunk Love. He commented that I should watch Panic with William H. Macy. Since I had a coupon, I rented it today.

That’s a good movie. I liked it a lot. (Jared should give this one a try as well.) I recognized the woman who played Macy’s mother right away, but I couldn’t think of her name or where I knew her from. The closing credits brought that “ah ha!” moment when I saw her name - Barbara Bain. She was in Space 1999 back in the 70s, a show I loved.

My favorite scenes were of Macy with his son - such a cute kid. The best one:

SON: Dad, when can I get a guitar?

DAD: When you’ve mastered the harmonica.

SON: When can I get an electric guitar?

DAD: When you have your own house.

There’s some adult language and subject matter, but this is one I can recommend.

Saturday, August 02, 2003

Somehow at lunch today, my Dad’s dad came up in conversation. He died when I was 10, so I never really got a chance to know him since I had spent most of my childhood up to that point either on the west coast or in England. I have a few specific memories of him - he was a diehard Redskins fan, he loved ice cream, he was gruff but kind, he was quiet.

Over the years my Dad would occasionally talk about him. I learned that he was in the Navy during World War 2, he played baseball, he put himself through college. Today I learned some stuff I had never heard before and it was mind-boggling. So the following is a little history lesson on my family. Dad can correct any of my errors in retelling it in the comments.

1. His first job was at a papermill. I can’t explain his exact job quickly here, but the guy who worked across from him in the assembly line had lost the tips of his fingers in that job. My grandfather decided he wanted to keep his fingers and applied to the Richmond Police Academy.

WHAT? My grandfather was a cop?

2. Yep. He was accepted to the Richmond PD where he walked a beat and later drove a car. Apparently my grandfather (we called him Pop) was shot when he and his partner responded to a bank robbery. The bank was on the second floor. He went in the door and was on his way up the stairs when the robber started down. There was plate glass between them. When the robber saw Pop, he fired his double barrel shotgun. The shot shattered the glass and then hit Pop’s leather jacket. He didn’t have a scratch. Pop shot the robber, who died.

Dad also told of the baseball games the Richmond PD would play with the bootleggers (this was during the Depression). Whoever won the game, won a case of whiskey. Somehow the PD always won. Imagine that…

3. When Pop went into the Navy during WWII, he was a shore patrolman. I knew that. What I didn’t know was that he played craps and won enough money to buy my grandmother’s engagement ring.

4. After the war, Pop became a gate guard at CIA. WHAT? This was news to me…it gets even better. After a while, he was moved “inside” where he worked in a secure room with a phone, notepad, and pen. He was to answer the phone, write down whatever was said, and at the end of the day turn in whatever he had. Some days the phone would ring all day. Others it didn’t ring at all. I asked if he could read a book or something and Dad said no. I would have gone nuts! But it turns out Pop was most likely receiving coded messages from field operatives from around the world, so as boring as the actual work was, he was helping fight the Cold War. That’s pretty cool.

He was offered a top secret position somewhere else with CIA. All they could tell him was that he would be within 1500 miles of Washington, DC. So Pop got a globe and mapped out that 1500 mile radius around DC and decided there were enough places in that area that he didn’t want to go to and turned it down.

4.  Pop left the CIA to become a milkman. I knew this about him. He delivered milk while he was at CIA too and decided to get into the dairy industry full time.

5. Eventually, he got into Automated Data Processing (ADP) and worked at Health, Education & Welfare (HEW - what is now two agencies: Education and Health & Human Services). He retired from HEW, bought a farm in Drakes Branch, VA, where he died one summer day while building a bench around a tree.

He sounds like the kind of guy I would have loved to hang around with. I’m sad he didn’t live long enough for me to get to know him better. Thanks for sharing the history today, Dad.

Up next in the family history of Jen: my grandmother’s bootlegger father and uncles, the 50-foot yacht, and 9 daughters. Now this side of the family is something else!

I can’t believe it’s already 5pm! Sheesh. I had a very productive day:

1. Ran errands - managed to get everything I needed at two stores - Wal-Mart and Target. Yay!

2. Went to my parents to scope out my mother’s discarded stuff. I came home with three lamps and the Amish quilt that we drove up to Pennsylvania for about 20 years ago when we were getting ready to redecorate my room. It’s faded from the sun in places, but I love it and I’m very happy to have it. Thanks, Mom.

She showed me some stuff that she had bagged. Knick-knack stuff. So I opened one bag and in amidst the country stuff was something that didn’t go - a Rubik’s cube. It’s in very good condition. Dad snagged it with plans to Google the trick to solving it.

While I was there they had a Culligan water guy stop by to discuss a water softening system for their house. At one point, Spanky the cat made that weird noise that I had heard once before when she was visiting at my place for a week. I looked at Mom and we managed to communicate nonverbally:

ME: You want me to get her?

MOM: Yes, please!

So I ran to steer the cat to the basement where she yakked at the base of the stairs then flew up the stairs to cough up the hairball right there in the hallway. Nice. Some of you may remember my experience with Sympathetic Puker Reflex™. SPR™ immediately kicked in, with me praying fervently that I wouldn’t make horrible gagging sounds while the Culligan man was discussing chlorine and whatnot with my parents. God is good indeed, as I was able to clean up the mess with only one half-gag. *shudder*

Dad made it up to me by offering to buy lunch, so while Mom and I discussed some of her redecorating ideas, he went out to get lunch. After we ate I helped Dad take down the vertical blinds in their sunroom because their new blinds are being installed this week, I think.

Then Mom hooked me up with cookies from her freezer and I came home. Yay! Thanks again, Mom!

Friday, August 01, 2003

I was visiting Mrs. Cootiehog’s place and found a link to The Editing Room. What will you find? Parody scripts to current movies.

The Recruit is hilarious and completely nails it. ***spoiler and adult language warning***

AL PACINO Everything is a test, Colin. Nothing is what it seems in the CIA.  Especially the muffins - they’re all fat free.

Thanks for the chuckle, Jaynee!

Yes, I’m atill alive.

I know some of you were wondering.

Oh…you weren’t?

Then go on about your business. =)

OTB posts about the sad state of the Comics section these days. I don’t get the newspaper, so I haven’t read the comics in years, although I noticed a few weeks ago at my parents that the section has some stuff that I’ve never seen before and no longer has stuff that I used to like.

I have to agree with James’ sentiment to unretire some talented and funny comic artists though.

How do you like that alliteration?

Wednesday afternoon and yesterday morning I was in a meeting to search for payroll codes that weren’t used and should have been. As we’re getting to the end of the fiscal year, we want to hunt down all of the money that’s to be reimbursed to our district that hasn’t been yet. So I have a rather large stack of folders that have a rainbow of sticky notes scattered through the pages indicating the timesheets I need to submit corrections for to our payroll center. Yay! That’s the busy part.

Late yesterday afternoon Kirby called to say he was passing through. So he crashed at my place again last night, which was fun, as usual. He helped me flip & rotate my mattress and the moved boxspring so I could vacuum under my bed. So now my room is nicely vacuumed - and he continued to vacuum the whole apartment while I fixed dinner and started laundry. I got quite a lot accomplished thanks to Kirby. Yay! That’s the otherwise occupied part (which is to explain why the minimal posting here yesterday).

I didn’t log on at all last night - but I did watch The Amazing Race, another good episode that ended as I thought it would. Kirby thinks Jon & Kelly won’t get married, David & Jeff are gay, and the Clowns are definitely not gay. He didn’t have much to say about Chip & Reichen. Heh. (Hi, Anthony!)

I no grand plans for the weekend. I was supposed to help Nikita Demosthenes move his blog to MT tomorrow, but he’s postponed that for a couple more weeks. My mother called me the other day to say she was going to get rid of some decorator items, did I want to come check them out on Saturday, so I will be raiding my mother’s cast offs. And that’s all I can think of for now.

Happy Friday!

Thursday, July 31, 2003

This makes me (and a lot of other people) very happy today. Others, not so happy, I’m sure.

RICHMOND, Va.—Jay Lentz will stay behind bars, for now. [...] The latest twist in the case happened Thursday morning when a three-judge panel sided with prosecutors, who asked that Lentz remain behind bars while prosecutors appeal the judge’s decision to overturn the conviction.

Ah, sweet justice…

License plate seen on my lunch hour today:

BUNY-1E

What-ever.

It bugs me that when a news organization, such as Fox News Channel, talks about the Air Marshal program they run stock video of US Marshals in their raid jackets roaming the airports (usually Reagan National here in the DC area).

We’re not the same.

1. Air Marshals are part of the Department of Homeland Security.

2. US Marshals are part of the Department of Justice.