I don’t know if you have occasion to be up early in the morning and looking at the sky, but if you were this morning, then you were treated to a very nice sight (at least from my vantage point on the face of the Earth). In the west at about 6AM EST was a full moon right between the horns of Taurus with Jupiter big and bright just below and slightly to the north. Directly below the moon was Aldebaran, and a bit to the west of the moon was red giant Betelgeuse over in the Orion constellation. Over in the southeast sky was Venus, which, at about 88% full was very bright in the sky. Just above Venus was Saturn (which would have looked a lot brighter had Venus no been right next to it, and just above the horizon to the east was Mercury. One of the things I like best about living out in the sticks is actually being able to see the night sky. I wish we’d have another Hale-Bopp come by.

But then I had to come to work. It’s normally a nice ride in, but today I had some asshole in a pickup truck with his high-beams on for almost the entire 20 mile trip. I was considering pulling over to get behind him and then letting him see how he liked having my brights in his mirrors, but I decided not to. Somebody needs to develop a rear window message board system. Or at least an electronic middle finger that lights up.



....................../´¯/)
....................,/¯../
.................../..../
............./´¯/'...'/´¯¯`·¸
........../'/.../..../......./¨¯\
........('(...´...´.... ¯~/'...')
.........\.................'...../
..........''...\.......... _.·´
............\..............(
..............\.............\...



Oh well, time to get back to work, I guess.

Today was stupid meeting day, and for the first time in a long time, we actually had two in a row without being cancelled. It was, of course, as pointless as ever. The budget sucks, but they aren’t talking about layoffs (like they’d talk about layoffs before they laid you off). They’re trying to get more “autonomy” from the State on benefits and purchasing. Things are bad, but not as bad as they are for our “sister” institution in Brooklyn (SUNY Downstate Medical Center), because the hospital that we bought up here isn’t in as bad a shape as they one they bought down there (King’s County). Oh, and there’s an electronic suggestion box for money-saving ideas (how about not having useless biweekly meetings?).

Hopefully we won’t go out of business, because I need to figure out a way to pay for puppy patella surgery. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to be causing her much in the way of pain – just seems to pop in and out pretty easily. Of course, I can’t let that go on for too long, but I guess I can still hold out for a miracle and it’ll fix itself. Or maybe I can win the Powerball drawing tonight (about a half a billion dollars – even after taxes, that would work out quite nicely). Of course, I haven’t bought a ticket, so my odds aren’t great.

Oh well, tonight’s my late night, so I reckon I’d better get out there in the cold and go for a walk to kill some time. I wish I’d brought a hat.

Did you know it’s Cyber Monday? I do, because it’s not even 6 AM yet, and I have 14 e-mails with “Cyber Monday” in the subject (all from close personal friends, of course). So today’s the day you’re supposed to go to work and use the corporate bandwidth to buy shit on the Internet (not sure how that makes this different from any other day). Personally, I won’t be participating in the great American event, because I don’t have to go to work today. I can’t really enjoy it, though, as I have to go to the vet. One of our puppies – Peggy – has been limping. It’s been going on for a while now, but was kind of intermittent, and she seemed to be running around and playing OK. But in the last week or so it’s gotten more frequent and more pronounced, so it’s time to go see what it is. This of course has me all kinds of worried (it’s been less than ten months since we lost Siggy, and I really don’t need any more tragedy in my life – at least for a while), and I haven’t actually been able to sleep more than a couple of hours the past few nights.

Plus, we seem to have moved into winter around here. It’s on the cold side, and we’ve got snow on the ground. Not a lot, yet, but I can feel the weather change in my bones (which don’t feel that great even in mild weather). After last year’s reprieve from winter, I think a lot of us are bracing for Mother Nature’s payback this season. Not that I’m complaining, of course. Not after what so many people have been going through in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. I’m just not looking forward to it.

Ah, a 15th “Cyber Monday” e-mail just came in. I’d better check it out – there could be huge bargains in it.

I can’t decide if today feels more like Saturday or Sunday. Although yesterday felt like Sunday, so maybe this should feel like Monday. But that would really suck. I hope you had a good holiday and didn’t eat too much. Now, be a good American and get out there and buy some crap. It’s almost 5:30 – you’re late.

Ah, yes, Thanksgiving Day once again. The day when celebrate the kindness and hospitality of the native people in helping the Pilgrims survive in a strange, cold land. Just a few years before our forebears attempted to wipe the natives off the face of the continent. I wonder what North and South America would be like today if the Europeans had never shown up (or had shown up as trading partners instead of people who felt it was their manifest destiny to exploit the land and eradicate its people). Somebody should write a book about that.

AS for us, we don’t have too much going on today. My in-laws are scheduled to come over (and seeing as it’s going to be sunny and 60 degrees today, I guess they won’t have an excuse to stay home). I don’t think they especially enjoy the drive out here to the country (it’s less than 20 miles, but they seem to think it’s one step down from crossing the Atlantic in the Mayflower). Of course, I don’t much like to go anywhere once I’m home, either (and I’m not 90, though some days it sure feels like it).

My wife has something or other she’s going to this morning. I think she told me what it was, but I can’t quite remember. So it’s my job to do the mashed potatoes, which I peeled and cut up last night (this is a job I grew up doing, so I’m quite familiar with it). In fact, I chopped up all sorts of things last night, most of which have gone into our ever-burgeoning collection of crock pots – along with a turkey breast. If there’s anything we’re thankful for this year, I guess it’s crock pots.

Otherwise, I guess I’ll just hang out and listen to the sound of gunfire all around me, as people are out trying to kill things in the woods. Hopefully they won’t be aiming in my direction. If I’m gonna die, I don’t want it to be at the beginning of a five-day weekend.

Anyhow, Happy Thanksgiving to everybody. I hope it’s a good one. Make sure you get some rest this afternoon, because Black Friday starts at 8:00 tonight (what a great way to wind up the holiday for all those minimum wage retail workers. As Dubya would say, “how truly American” that is). A lot of people (other than Wal-Mart workers) are having a not-so-nice one this year, especially those who lost everything courtesy of Sandy.

Time to go see who Detroit and Dallas are playing, I guess.

I heard a story on NPR on the way in this morning about a problem that is simply becoming epidemic: swallowing powerful magnets. Yes, apparently this is a big deal. It seems like a no-brainer that you should keep “powerful” magnets away from your kids (or your dogs, for that matter). But apparently swallowing magnets isn’t just for kids these days. It appears that grownups (or at least post-pubescents) are swallowing magnets at alarming rates as well. Why? Apparently, the shove a magnet in their cheeks, and then use them to “simulate piercings” by, one would presume, sticking studs and pins and other metal objects to the side of their face (I assume you could shove a magnet up your nose as well, if you were so inclined). As I think we can all attest to, if you keep something in your mouth long enough, sooner or later you’re gonna swallow it. So remember the first rule of oral hygiene, never stick anything in your mouth smaller than your elbow (unless it’s firmly attached to a loved one, of course).

This of course reminds me of “cow” magnets. If you don’t know, cows tend to eat all kinds of shit when they’re grazing (nails, barbed wire, screws, staples, etc.), so farmers stick a magnet in their food, which winds up settling down in stomach compartment number one (aka, the “rumen”). This catches all the metal stuff that the cow might eat, and keeps it from proceeding down the old alimentary canal and wreaking havoc elsewhere. And no, I’m not making that up.

You’d think if it’s good enough for a cow, it’s good enough for a kid, but I guess not. The problem, it seems, is when you swallow multiple magnets, and they kind of clump together and get stuck. Or something.

I dunno, just keep the magnets off your dinner plates tomorrow. We’d ahte to see you get stuck to the refrigerator.

Much like Marco Rubio, I’m not a scientist. Unlike Marco Rubio, though, I didn’t sit on the House Spaceport & Technology Committee from 2005-2009. Nor have I ever sat on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation (nor the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet, the Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard, and the Subcommittee on Science and Space). I do, however, know (roughly) how old the Earth is. I not only know, but I’m willing to say so publicly: it’s about 4.5 billion years old.

Since I’m not a scientist, I figured I should look that up (yet another distinction between Marco and I is that if I don’t know or am unsure of something, I’ll look it up.), just to be sure (because the older I get, the more I find that a lot of the things I think I know with absolute certainty turn out to actually be something I dreamed up or hallucinated or something).

For instance, I remember – with absolute clarity – playing in my sand box in my back yard one sunny summer afternoon when I was about 4 years old, looking up at the sky, and seeing the Gemini 4 space capsule with Ed White floating around tethered to it. I mean, I can see it – the blue sky, the capsule, him in his space suit….

Of course, there’s no way I could actually have seen that (nor could Marco Rubio have, because he wasn’t born yet). Even if it was visible to the naked eye (on a sunny day, no less), it wouldn’t be more than a dot traveling across the southern sky.

But I remember it anyway (and in looking it up, his space walk started at 3:45 PM EDT and he was over the Gulf of Mexico at about 4:00, so I could have seen him, except in my memory he’s more or less directly above me, and my view to the south would have been blocked by our maple tree, so I guess not).

Anyhow, back to the Earth. Turns out, the Earth is 4.54 billion years old. So I rounded down a bit. Close enough. And, far from being “one of the great mysteries” of the universe, the age of the earth seems to be pretty well established (like gravity, climate change, and evolution).

Now, I don’t so much care whether Marco knows how old the Earth is (I’m sure lots of people don’t know), but I think maybe he should be taken off any committee with “Science” in its name, and maybe be put on the “Jesus Rode on a Dinosaur” Committee instead.

He’ll have more fun, and we’ll all be better off.

I have a request for all members of the media out there. I know Myanmar is also known as Burma, so you can stop telling me every time you do a story about Myanmar. I don’t really know why they decided to change it, but it’s been like 30 years now, so you can knock it off. Anybody that actually gives a shit about Burma already knows it’s Myanmar, and everybody else will just figure it’s another country in Africa or or South America or something, so why bother? I mean, you don’t feel obliged to tell me that Zimbabwe is also known as Rhodesia, do you? Anyhow, call it whatever the hell you want, but pick one or the other and go with it.

I don’t want to take sides on the issue, but if you want my advice, I would suggest that you don’t shoot rockets at Israel, unless you’ve got something big enough to take it out all in one shot. I mean, you have to realize you’re just gonna piss ’em off, and have no qualms about reducing you to rubble and ashes with some of the very finest made in the good old US of A weaponry. If they didn’t think anybody was watching, I’m pretty sure they’d nuke you and be done with it. Especially the bunch running the show right now (you know, Mitt Romney’s pals)

Despite another successful sports weekend (even the Jets won, if you can believe it), I’m really not feeling it here at work today. I really should have taken the whole week off, ‘cuz I just don’t want to be here (I mean, more than usual). Worse, I have “support” duty this week, which could potentially be a pain in the ass (except I think an awful lot of people who are smarter than I am are off this week). On the bright side, I did take next Monday off, so that’ll be good.

Now I just need to get my wife cracking on this Veggieducken recipe.

As I was driving back from my sojourn to Pixley to pick up my weekly vittles (only three days worth required, due to the short week ahead), I heard a familiar voice on the radio. NPR was doing the obligatory “there’s a lot of pressure on the cook at Thanksgiving” report (by the way, is there really? I’ve always thought that if people are getting a free meal, then said people should be grateful, shut the fuck up, and eat whatever it is you get), and they interviewed none other than Dan Pashman for a story on how to deal with the pain-in-the-ass vegetarians that show up for your meal (the answer seems to be to just let them eat the side dishes if they don’t want turkey; “Vegetarian? Here, have some mashed potatoes, and I’ll dig out that ancient can of cranberry sauce from the back of the cupboard”). Dan wasn’t as funny as I remembered him.

After that, though, was a delightful (just channeled my inner Dianne Rehm) interview with Willy Nelson, who (among other things) talked about how he quite smoking cigarettes. He said he’d been getting pneumonia and was smoking both pot and 2-3 packs of cigarettes a day, and decided either the pot or the butts had to go, so he emptied out a pack of Chesterfield, rolled up 20 “fat ones” to replace them with and hasn’t smoked a cigarette since.

This is remarkably similar to how I quit smoking many years ago. I rationed out my remaining smokes, and when they were gone, I only smoked dope. And I haven’t smoked a cigarette in longer than I can remember (something like 17-18 years, I think). If only NY would make pot legal, I could work on getting rid of a few other bad habits.

Oh well, guess I’d better go wash three shirts, three pairs of pants, three pairs of socks, and three pairs on underwear so I can get through the week.

Well, today was stupid meeting day, and for the first time in a long time it didn’t get cancelled. Though it should have been. All there really is to talk about these days is that we have no money, and things are getting worse. But then there’s a lot of that going on these days, so we don’t complain. I keep reading how Obama and the Democrats have the Republicans right where they want them with this fiscal cliff thingie, and that Obama’s gonna stand firm about letting the Bush tax cuts for rich people expire. Yeah, right. I’ve heard that one before.

I don’t know what the actual number for me would be, but supposedly the average family would have to pay about $3,300 more a year if we go over this cliff. That’s about $275 a month, which is a sizable chunk of change for most of us in the 99%. Of course, Republicans would just like to take our mortgage interest deductions away, and then give themselves a lower tax rate. Either way, I think I’m screwed.

We’re especially screwed around here, because we’re a public hospital that has to take in your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, no matter how little funds they have, while the government continues to slash Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements. This while more people become indigent and get sicker because they can’t afford things like decent food and heat.

But it’s all worth it if rich people can keep their tax cuts.