So, here I am in Dilbert world. This new office location is a confusing labyrinth of cubicles, and midway through day 3 I almost know where I’m going (as long as I’m going back and forth from my cell to the break room, bathroom, or the back stairwell where I sneak out at the end of the day). If I stand up, I at least have a view of a window, which means I can kinda see the building across the street.

It’s more than I had at the old place, so I suppose it’s a slight improvement. And since I’ve been standing almost exclusively at my standing desk, I can at least look over and tell if the sun is shining or not. I’ve decided to stand not only because sitting all day was slowly killing me, but also because they refused to allow me to keep my old (and rather expensive) chair because it didn’t “match” all the other peon chairs (the important people got better chairs – presumably because their asses are worth more than ours). I definitely prefer standing, but I’ve had to order an anti-fatigue mat because standing is taking its toll on my feet (among other things).

My feet have been giving me problems for a long time now, and I’m terrified of having a flare-up now that I’m a user of public transportation. I don’t have all that far to walk, but between that and the standing all day, my feet are definitely complaining. As a result, I’ve been keeping my feet on ice at home both before and after work. It’s more preventative than anything else – I just want to prevent any swelling if possible.

Speaking of public transportation I think I’ve just about got the whole bus thing down now. I missed my stop the first day and wound up having to walk quite a bit farther than I needed to. Buses have changed quite a bit since the last time I rode one. For one thing, there’s no rope to pull to make the bell ding to tell the driver you wanna get out. There’s also a message board that reads out the cross streets as you approach them, and an android voice that calls them out. This is probably not a big deal to most people, but since it’s probably been 30 years since I’ve been on a bus, I thought it was pretty cool.

My bus comes from quite a ways out (it starts in Auburn, which won’t mean anything to you, except perhaps that it’s where Harriet Tubman lived out her final years – from about 1859 until 1913 – and is buried), so we get more of a “coach” with bucket seats and the kind of overhead air nozzles and lights that they have on airplanes. Best of all, it’s not particularly crowded and I don’t need to transfer, so I can more or less relax and zone out.

In my younger days I used to bus all over the place – generally winding up in a downtown bar where I would very often proceed to miss the last bus home – which would result in about a 15 mile walk to where I lived in North Syracuse hitting every bar along the way, of course, and hanging out with the street people and other urban “characters.” Ah, those were the days.

Some things never change, I guess, as the street people still seem to be attracted to me. I had one guy decide to be my new best friend the other day, and I got his whole life story (divorced three times – got a good lawyer this last time, though, and got the house and half the old lady’s 401K – former Engineer at Carrier, musician, and good Christian). I think I ought to get myself one of those DILLIGAF hats.

So, I guess I’m getting used to the new routine, even if I’m not terribly excited by it. My biggest problem is that I’m always too damn early (it’s in my nature to be early anyway, but I’m paranoid about missing the bus – having missed it so many times before). It’s nice to have reduced my commute from 40 miles a day down to 4, though. And I figure I’m doing my part for the environment, so that’s good. I guess.

But this cubicle shit is kind of depressing.

Today marks the beginning of the NY State fair here, which ends on Labor Day. Basically summer is over, and I’ll be closing up the pool before you know it. I’m desperately hoping for a long Autumn. Like, one that lasts until February. Yesterday was the unveiling of the butter sculpture (don’t worry, I won’t spoil it for you be telling what it is). Day One of the Fair is Governor’s Day so we’ll be graced by the presence of hizzoner Governor Snotball himself today, and no doubt treated to photos of him choking down a sausage sandwich while pretending to be one of the common folk. At least when Bill and Hillary came here, you knew Bill was digging the food (probably being at least partly responsible for his ensuing bypass surgery).

Speaking of fall rituals. the annual crushing of our hopes and dreams (aka, football season) begins a week from tomorrow against the toothpaste powerhouse Colgate, If they manage to lose to them, it’ll be a long season indeed, but for now hopes are slightly high – meaning we’re holding out hope of going 6-6, wouldn’t be terribly disappointed by 5-7, and wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised at 4-8. Mostly were hoping to see some signs that better times are coming.

So, it appears that Donald Trump has changed his stance on deporting the 11 million or so “illegal” immigrants to the US. Now he says he’s all in on a plan to grant them legal status, as long as they pay “back taxes.” Given they kinds of jobs and crappy pay most of these people get, I’m not sure who’ll be paying whom. Might be the government issuing tax refunds. I’m just wondering if anybody is stupid enough to buy into Trump’s new enlightened stand.

On the bright side, Trump’s change in immigration policy comes on launch day of Ann Coulter’s new book “In Trump We Trust,” in which she apparently writes:

“There’s nothing Trump can do that won’t be forgiven. Except change his immigration policies.”

It seems Dreamboat Annie was not amused.

Or, as Ted Cruz’s former Senate communications director Amanda Carpenter put it:

“Everything Trump promises comes with an expiration date. We knew it during the primary, and now it is apparent he has duped his most loyal supporters on the issue they care about most, immigration. Don’t say we didn’t warn them.”

It doesn’t hurt that any loyal Trump supporter is, by definition, easily duped.

Now, about that wall….

It was a sad day around the office today. We’re moving to a new location and leaving our current digs behind. Not that I had the greatest office in the world (a stark, windowless room that was generally either freezing cold or too damnhot – usually too damn hot). But it was in a suburban office park with plenty of free parking and easy lunchtime or after work access to places like Home Depot, Trader Joe’s, Wegmans, Harbor Freight – you name it, we got it out here – we are moving to a downtown location with not much around it other than expensive restaurants, congested streets (by our standards anyway) and urban blight. Not to mention having to pay to park. And while I shared my office with a couple other guys (one who was rarely there, so mostly just the two of us), it at least wasn’t a cube farm, which is where I’m heading to. Yup. Dilbert World. It’s not something any of us are looking forward to, that’s for sure. I’ll now have to take a day off to visit my dentist, who is roughly a minute away from where I work now, or to get my free Toyota Care, which is roughly five minutes from where I am now. It’s all rather depressing. On the bright side, the movers were there early so I packed up and was out of the office before noon (though I’m on-call, so I’m never really away from work).

I’ve decided that, rather than pay to park, I’m going to avail myself of public transportation. I’ve wanted to do that for a while now (you know, make myself feel like I’m doing my part for climate change and all that), but it’s just too complicated and time consuming to get from my house on the western fringes to out where we were in the eastern ‘burbs. Now, though, it’ll be a one-bus trip to downtown Syracuse. There’s public parking down in the village, and the bus stop is nearby (at THE traffic light). So I’ll go from putting 40 or so miles a day on my car to about 4). Although it’s gonna be a bit of a transition for me (haven’t bussed around in probably 30 years, back when my ’76 Chevette spent more time sitting than running), I’m looking forward to letting somebody else deal with the traffic and school buses and snow.

My bus passes are all ready to go (I was kinda of bummed to learn that rather than getting a metro-type card that I can just refill, I have to keep ordering 10-trip passes. How stupid is that?), and I figure it’ll cost me just slightly more to ride the bus than the price of gas (and that’s only because gas prices have gone down so much – $1.89 last week at Costco. Once it goes back up again, I should start saving money). And that’s before the cost of parking.

As it happens, I’m taking next week off (for one thing, I have a dentist appointment on Monday morning – whoopdie-doo) so I won’t be hitting the bus for little while yet.

The Olympics opening ceremony (or is it ceremonies?) was last night, and apparently viewers in the US had to wait for “prime time” to watch it on NBC (meaning a 4-hour delay out west). I say apparently, because I not only didn’t watch it, I really don’t give a shit about the Olympics. Still, many people do, and they were simply OUTRAGED about it. And the commercials. And the fatuous prattling of the idiotic “Today Show” crew.

At various points, they said Luxembourg was in “central Europe,” joked about how Djibouti kinda sounds like “yer booty,” and seemed surprised to learn that the US (or Estados Unidos) would be alphabetized under E for the Parade of Nations.

This is why I don’t watch live teevee once the lo-cal morning news is over.

For those who opted to live stream the event from anywhere other than NBC, though, were apparently treated to a wonderful display. So that’s good, I guess.

When I was a kid, the Olympics were a big deal to me. Probably due to the fact that back then there were only four channels to choose from (five when Channel 11 from Kingston was coming in – watched a lot of curling, back in the day – but you had to fiddle with the rabbit ears), and you had to wait for four years for an Olympics back then, instead of two. Plus we still had our Cold War villains (namely the godless Soviets and East Germans) to root against (unlike today, when the Republican presidential candidate and the Russian president are BFFs).

Ah, those were simpler times.

Now, though. Meh. Oh there might be a few things worth watching (beach volleyball comes to mind – sure didn’t have that back in ’64), and there’s a local kid on the Women’s basketball team so I’d like to see her do well. And of course there are three former Orangemen on the men’s team (one playing, two assistant coaching), so I’d like to see them do well (plus I’m still not quite over the ’72 gold medal game when the referees gave the Soviets three chances to score the winning basket).

But mostly I don’t really care.

Besides, I’m waiting for the deluge of talking head commentaries about how the Trump campaign has “turned the corner” now that Donnie has gotten on message and endorsed the flaming triad of douchery – Paul Ryan, John “if I had my way, Sarah Palin would be the incumbent VP running for Prez right now” McCain, and Kelly Ayotte.

It’s all gonna be rainbows and party unity from here on out. OK, well, probably not rainbows, ‘cuz that’s a gay thing and the GOP don’t go for that kinda shit (other than in public men’s rooms, of course).

50 years ago today, after killing his wife and his mother, 25 year old Charles Whitman ascended the University of Texas clock tower with a shitload of firearms, and spent about an hour and a half shooting people before the cops managed to kill him. 14 dead, 30 wounded in what the news keeps telling me was the first mass shooting on a college campus (I don’t condone his actions, of course, but I support his right to bear arms – lots and lots or arms). See, we need to have various categories for these things. First mass shooting at a college, first at an elementary school, high school, movie theatre, McDonalds…. So if you want to be a pioneer in the field of mass shootings here in the US of A, you need to get creative.