Today is my anniversary. As it happens, it’s my wife’s anniversary as well (I think she wanted to make it a date that was easy to remember). We’ve now been married for 16 years, which I think means she’s been married to me longer than all her other husbands combined. One thing’s for sure, we’ve left a long line of dead critters (and one mother) in our wake (cats, mostly – a couple of which I actually liked). At my current age and physical condition, it’s probably a toss-up as to whether I’ll croak before another animal goes.

I think I’ve got at least one more set of dogs in me physically, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle another round emotionally. I can’t imagine a life without varmints running around trying to trip me or expelling bodily fluids, solids, and other waste material for me to step in, but I hate it when they die, and they hardly ever have the decency to just wake up dead one day (which is what I hope to do – though not before I use up all my vacation time).

The wife is going to celebrate the occasion by working this weekend, while I’ll be celebrating by taking Monday off (I’m really not into this whole working on Mondays thing – especially in the summer).

Speaking of work, it appears that I’ll be changing jobs (though not companies or locations). All the official paperwork has yet to be signed (mostly because I don’t know when they’ll let me go, as this move leaves my already insufficiently staffed group even more short-handed and I think they may exepct me to finish up a few things which could be tough since my motivation has suddenly dissipated to near-zero), but it looks like I’ll be leaving the world of web application development and entering the world of database administration.

This means lots of on-call, nights and weekends, and…. And what the hell am I thinking? Oh well, I’m not afraid of hard work. I don’t fucking like it, but I’m not scared of it. I’d say I’m not scared of change (over the past 25 years, I’ve gone from Projectionist>Maintenance Helper>Refrigeration Mechanic>HVAC Mechanic>Web Administrator>Computer Consultant>Information System Assistant>Senior Programmer/Analyst and now DBA – and finished my BS and picked up an MS along the way. And I did a few different things in my first 28 years, too – most of which I’m a little vague on), but the truth is I hate change.

The only thing I hate more than change is standing still (at least work-wise – I’m pretty sedentary once I get home). So, hi-ho, we’ll see if this one carries me to retirement or not. I’m kind of running out of places to go.

Meanwhile, it looks like we’re in store for another beautiful day, weather-wise. The nice thing about all the nasty weather that came through the other day is that it put an end to the nauseatingly humid weather we’ve been having (at least for a while). It’s OK if all you have to do is sit outside, read, and jump in the pool when you feel warm, but any activity beyond that is just miserable.

I guess you get used to it if you live where it’s hot and humid all the time. You probably never get used to tornadoes, though, and I’m thankful they’re a rare occurrence around here (as I’ve said probably too many times before, I’ll happily take dealing with snow for four months a year over the threat of having my home pulverized by, as Les Nessman once said, “the godless tornadoes”).

In other news, debate is once again heating up as to what to do with the aging viaduct that splits the city of Syracuse in half. It’s a timeless tradition around here. Back in the early 1800s, they split it in half when they ran the Erie Canal through the middle. Though there wasn’t a hell of a lot to split up back then. It’s really more like they put the canal in and then people built shit on either side of it.

Then the railroads came, and they rain the tracks right through the streets. I used to do a lot of looking at microfilm of the old newspapers from the 19th century, and it seems the two most common ways to die of other than natural causes back then were to either get drunk and fall in one of the canals (besides the Erie, there was the Oswego which ran down from the port on Lake Ontario) or to get drunk and get hit by a train.

But then of course big government took over and created the nanny state and started regulating everything and putting a burden on corporations and they didn’t let the trains run down the street and they kind of filled in the canals.

Anyhow, back when I was a kid they decided to run Interstate 81 right through the middle of Syracuse – primarily through some of the poorest neighborhoods. Apparently it seemed like a good idea at the time, though nobody bothered to ask the people that lived there what they thought. Seeing as they were poor and, um, you know, “them people” I don’t think anybody cared.

So now, something like 45 years later, the sucker’s falling apart and they say they really need to do something about it. Like, soon. This time around, they’re asking what we the people think (before they go ahead and do whatever they want to do anyway). Proposals include a tunnel, an “urban boulevard” with through-traffic diverted around the city, and of course rebuilding the viaduct, which is too narrow and too curvy to meet modern safety standards.

A tunnel would be nifty, but would also cost a couple billion dollars (and they’d also need to dig a bigass trench to bury it in). My guess is they’ll just rebuild. They shouldn’t have put it where it is, but, hey it’s there now. It doesn’t help that there’s basically one exit in either direction that people use to go to work (seeing as the only jobs around here anymore are at SU or one of the three hospitals that are all more or less in the same place).

Whatever they do, it’ll be a mess for years, I predict. A mess that will no doubt coincide with the rumored move of my work location from the pastoral suburban office park we’re at now (with plenty of free parking, I might add) to a downtown location right in the middle (or slightly to the west) of all this mess (with zero free parking).

This is the point where I’ll be utilizing mass transit. It would be a hassle to get to where I work now, or I’d be doing it already. Once they move me downtown I’m all set. There’s free municipal parking down in the Village, and I can hop on a bus more or less across the street and let somebody else deal with traffic and snow and school buses while I read my Kindle until they drop me off a couple of blocks from work. And at $3 a day, it’s cheaper than gas (and way, way cheaper than monthly parking).

Of course, in the past five years, we were slated to move about five different times, so I’ll believe it when I see it.

Just ignore most of the lyrics on this one….

I awoke yesterday morning with a drippy nose and I’ve been sneezing. Got a headache and the hint of a sore throat, too. I’m not sure if it’s allergies (which have been nasty-bad this year – something about the late start to spring got the flora out there all riled up – it’s astounding how the weeds started growing the past three weeks or so). This sucks – I hope it goes away – but at least I’m off today and can work from home tomorrow. Since I got all the requisite chores done over the weekend, all I really need to do today is laundry. Good thing, ‘cuz after a rather bright sunny weekend, it’s looking dark out there right now and they say we could have some heavy rain and t-storms moving in. So I guess I’ll be spending some time with a dog panting hot wet dog breath all over me. I Maybe it’s like this every year, I dunno. Perhaps winter gives me amnesia.

Some good news over the weekend. We’ve been down a cat for several weeks now, and I was frankly beginning to suspect that she’d found a better place to live (or, as my mother-in-law so reassuringly suggested, “maybe she was eaten by wild animals”). She’s been gone for several days before, and she developed an infatuation with one of the nieghbor cats and was hangin out over there for while last year, but she’d never been gone this long before. I thought maybe she’d gone to hang out with Boomer. But then she showed up on Friday night looking kinda bony but otherwise no worse for wear. She’s mostly been lying around, plotting her next big adventure.

So last week I got my new iPhone from work, and I’ve had a chance to play around with it, add a solid glass screen protector and a Spigen case for it (I get a kick out of the way that all the iPhone cases have a cutout for no useful purpose other than to display the silly little Apple logo on the back – I guess it’s not about the phone, it’s about the branding).

Anyhow, there are things I like about it, things I don’t like, and things I feel decidedly “meh” about.

So what do I like? I like the fingerprint scanner to unlock the phone. It seems to work really well, and I can push the button with my thumb and just leave it there until the phone unlocks. It’s pretty sweet. Not that entering a PIN is all that difficult. I also like the camera.

The phone is slightly taller than the 4s, slightly thinner, and slightly lighter. I only wish I could get taller, thinner, and lighter as I get older.

It has the “lightning” connector, meaning all the old 30-pin stuff I had (dock, charger) went to the wife for her work iPhone. I mean, it’s nice that it’s reversible and all that, but I can get a micro USB cable for next to nothing (not that I need one, because I have a shitload of them). The EU is enacting legislation that says all chargers for phones and tablets have to be standard – micro USB – by three years from now. It would be nice if the US would do the same thing.

I mean, imagine if every manufacturer of electric devices had proprietary connectors. So if you buy an LG refrigerator or an LG teevee, you need to install an LG outlet. And maybe the LG outlet is nice because you can plug it in upside down or rightside up or whatever.

But you decide to switch to a Samsung when it’s time to replace that fridge ‘cuz costs less and has more features (plus a microSD card slot). Or maybe you decide to stick with LG, but guess what? Their latest generation of appliances use a different kind of plug. So you either have to change the outlet or buy an adapter (which you have to pay out the ass for, because anybody who produces it has to license it from LG).

I’d take fiddling around to plug the cord in a certain way over having to get new cord every time I change devices.

I also don’t like the fact that I can’t change the default keyboard (or browser, for that matter) on the iPhone. I’ve become a big fan of Swiftkey, and even the Google keyboard is better than the Apple one. Supposedly that will change with iOS 8.

Most everything else with the phone is “meh.” Basically the same as it ever was. I can’t change the launcher (can I?) and I can’t just tap it twice to get to the lock screen or use any other gestures that I’ve started to get used to on the other phone. I can’t flip to mute it, I can’t just pick it up and put it to my ear to answer it, and I can’t just pick it up in landscape mode with the volume buttons on top and have the camera turn on.

No major gripes, really, and now that I have another phone, I haven’t bothered to set up all the stuff I used to have. Except for Evernote, and maybe LastPass, but I really don’t intend to use it for more than looking at my work e-mail and answering work-related calls. And it’s certainly good enough for that.

Ah, here comes the rain….

Back when I was a kid, this was definitely my favorite holiday that wasn’t Christmas. Why? One word – fireworks! Back then we’d go to the local baseball park and listen to the stylings of the Stan Colella Orchestra (which is still going strong, though Stan croaked about a year ago) before it finally got dark enough for the fireworks to begin. It was my dad, my sister, and me – my mother was absolutely terrified of loud noises, including thunder, balloons popping, and of course fireworks so she stayed home and my brothers were either out and about whooping it up somewhere or my brother Tim was enjoying his own fireworks display in Vietnam.

Of course the biggest July 4th was that one in 1976. It’s hard to believe that it was 40 years ago today that the first “Bicentennial Minute” aired on CBS. If you were around back then, you certainly recall those historical tidbits (sponsored by Shell Oil) broadcast nightly beginning a little more than a month before Richard Nixon resigned in shame, running strong through the death of Elvis in the summer of ’77, and soldiering on to the final broadcast narrated by soon-to-be ex-President Gerald Ford on December 31, 1976.

The July 3rd minute was narrated by then-VP Nelson Rockefeller, who was the only NY Governor I ever had until he resigned at the end of 1973 for some reason or other that I can’t recall. But he answered Ford’s call and became the second un-elected VP in a row (you may recall that Tricky Dicky’s original VP – a real sweetheart by the name of Spiro Agnew – had to resign in disgrace as well).

I shudder to think what the Teabaggers would have done to Rocky, who, despite his rather appalling drug laws and his actions that led up to the Attica prison riot, was considered a “liberal.” In fact, he was so liberal that, try as he might, he never could win the Republican presidential nomination (and this was back before Republicans went totally insane).

Of course the July 4, 1976 Bicentennial Minute was narrated by Betty Ford, who I believe urged everybody to get out there a have a few cocktails to celebrate our founding fathers.

But, alas, I’m 40 years older now. The one dog inherited the fear of loud noises from the other dog who is no longer with us (well, actually, he’s actually in a tin can on a shelf behind me as I write this), who I can only assume inherited his fear of loud noises from my mother (who is not in a tin can on a shelf), so I don’t get to enjoy fireworks (or thunderstorms, which I always loved as a lid) and instead now dread them if they’re close by.

And whatever patriotism I ever felt is jaded by the likes of Richard Nixon, Dubya, the NSA, and, sadly, our current president who I had such hopes for, once upon a time (by the way, did you see that a Quinnipiac poll found that 33% of voters think Obama is the worst president since WWII? Really? Only 28% said Dubya, which just goes to show that it’s not the person who makes the mess that gets the blame, it’s the person who steps in it and tracks it all over the house).

So I’m happy to have the day off (we will get Friday off next year when it’s on Saturday, right?), but it’s not the big event it used to be. For me, anyway. Hopefully it is for you all, and I hope you enjoy whatever it is you do (or don’t do) today and for the rest of this holiday weekend.

‘Cuz it’s been my experience that once the Fourth is over, Labor Day gets here awful quick.

The invasion of the nauseatingly hot weather has arrived (I know it’s worse in other places, but relative to what we’re used to around here, this is icky). Yesterday was definitely pool weather – up around 90° and humid, and today is supposed to be even hotter. It’s already about 75° out there. Yesterday I could at least stay near the pool and hop in every ten minutes or so, but today I’m ostensibly working (albeit from home) so I won’t be able to do that (as much).

Plus my home office is hotter than hell. It faces due west and in the afternoon it gets pretty miserable. Too goddamn many computers, I think. Plus the little fridge. I’m still trying to find a way to add a/c, ‘cuz the ceiling fan just doesn’t cut it. Right now, my little wall thermometer says it’s 84° in here with a relative humidity of 85%. That’s a heat index of 96°.

I guess I could try putting together a homemade swamp cooler (basically get a tub-o-water, stick one end of a towel in it, and drape the rest of the towel over a fan). This is how Thomas Alva Edison saved the life of a neighbor child with a high fever, if the play I saw about him in sixth grade can be believed – though I don’t recall them mentioning that Edison executed Topsy the elephant because he was pissed that Tesla and Westinghouse’s AC beat out Edison’s DC.

Asshole.

Anyhow, so, yeah, it’s gonna be hot today.

So, are you a woman of childbearing age who doesn’t really want a kid right now but would still kinda like to get laid once in a while? Or maybe a woman who has a medical condition that would make it appropriate for you to take birth control pills? Or maybe a guy who knows (in the biblical sense) a woman but neither of you are really into having kids – at least not at the present time?

Bummer for you.

Well, bummer for you if work for one of the 82 or so “closely held companies” that are now planning to remove birth control from your health insurance plan, thanks to yesterday’s SCOTUS ruling.

I don’t think I’ll be patronizing Hobby Lobby anytime soon. Not much of a threat, I know, as I don’t tend to frequent “craft” stores. But if I ever need some styrofoam or a picture frame or some dried leaves or glitter or shit, I’ll be going to Michaels. Mostly ‘cuz they just closed and gutted the AC Moore by where I work.

Not that will exactly help any women who can’t afford birth control and work at Hobby Lobby. If anything, it would be to make things worse for them, really.

So I’m calling on all Hobby Lobby employees who are denied contraception and therefore get abortions to mail those aborted fetuses to:

Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.
7707 S.W. 44th Street
Oklahoma City, OK 73179

Alternatively, you can send them to:

John Roberts c/o
The United States Supreme Court
1 First St NE
Washington, DC 20543

Of course, if it turns out that sending aborted fetuses via the US mail is illegal (say, it falls under the definition of medical waste or something), then you should not do that. Please check all applicable federal, state, and local regulations before sending anything via the USPS or across state lines.

Better yet, take a selfie with your aborted fetus, and e-mail or tweet it to Hobby Lobby, HL’s CEO and Founder, David Green, and/or SCOTUS. #ThanksHobbyLobby

And then post your pictures here (as long as they’re not too gross, please).

Of course if you don’t really care about the right to contraception, perhaps you care about the right to organize with your colleagues and form a union? Well, sucks to be you, too. Our activist Supreme Court also voted to allow scabs to opt out of paying union dues (or shop fees if they don’t want to join a union). So they can reap all the benefits that come from banding together and being able to negotiate from at least a slightly stronger position than would otherwise be possible without having to support the process. So they can save a few bucks today and the cost of major bucks (and decent working conditions) tomorrow.

I’d say people aren’t stupid and short-sighted enough to fall for that, but, well, I’ve seen the people out there and it aint a pretty picture.

I just thank goodness I live in NY and not, say, Arkansas or Mississippi or Texas something (I’d throw OK in there, too, but you already have Hobby Lobby and the likes of Tom Coburn and James Inhofe on your hands, and I don’t want to pile on).

Oh well, time to make the coffee, I guess. It’s almost time to get to work.

I’ve never been a soccer fan. Not of watching it, anyway. Playing in gym class was fun, especially if you were a defender and got to spend half the game standing around watching what was going on on the other end. “D” was where I played, because even when I was young and could run, I wasn’t exactly what you’d call fast. Watching, well, for me that leaves a lot to be desired.

They kick the ball all the way down the field and then the other team kicks it the other way, and back and forth it goes and then once or twice a game (or match, I guess I should say) somebody scores and there is much rejoicing. Not my thing. IMHO, if you have a sport where you don’t actually control the item of play in your hands or in a stick or something, you need to play it in a smaller venue than a 12 acre field – this is why, for instance, the MISL is much more entertaining than FIBA. Soccer in a hockey rink – the only thing that would make it more entertaining would be if they kept the ice. But I don’t resent other people who like it.

Which is more than I can say about Ann Coulter, who apparently hates not only soccer but also anybody that enjoys soccer. It’s some kind of socialist plot, ostensibly because it’s team sport with no individual glory (or shame) unlike American sports. Plus there’s not enough scoring (I’ll give her that one).

Though I didn’t get past freshman football in school, I can honestly tell you, Ann, that there’s not a lot of glory for an offensive tackle. Shame, maybe, if you happen to be holding on a touchdown or something, but that’s about it.

Of course, Ann looks like somebody who got made fun of so badly in gym class that she decided to go for gender reassignment surgery in hopes of not being picked last at field hockey or something.

I’m sure that what brother Ann really doesn’t like about soccer is all the goddamn foreigners that seem to love it. A lot of them aren’t even white, fer chrissakes!

But it’s a low-cost sport that anybody in any shithole place like Pakistan, Somalia, or West Texas can play. I mean all you need is a flat spot and a ball (or maybe a decapitated head if you’re in Afghanistan) and you’re good to go. It’s not like they can afford a lot of equipment to play football (or even worse, hockey – if your kid decides to play hockey, you’re screwed ‘cuz between the skates and pads and helmets, you better be prepared to take out a second mortgage).

Though I’m sure Ann hates hockey, too, ‘cuz it’s the sport of those socialists to the north (look on the bright side though, Ann – the Canadians call it “soccer,” too).

But, anyway, despite Ann’s disapproval, the World Cup ratings are sky high(ish) and ‘merica has caught Futball Fever, which I expect to last until the USA loses in the next round, and people realize that you can’t lose and keep advancing forever.

Then we can all go back to watching American sports, like the one where if you get a hit 1 time out of 3, you’re a Hall-of-Famer. Assuming you weren’t having somebody give you a shot of HGH in the ass or something – ‘cuz this is American, man. Cheating is fine, but getting caught is shameful.

My long horrible week is finally (almost) at an end. Five days – two of them late ones – and on-call to boot. Fortunately I’m working from home today, which is a good way to get it over. Even better, I am making up for this week by taking Monday off, then working from home on Tuesday. So I won’t have to go to the office until Stupid Meeting Day. Then I took Thursday off, Friday, of course, is The Fourth (USA! USA! USA!) and then I have the following Monday off as well. This is gonna cost me a fortune in beer, but it’s worth it.

I’m also supposed to get an iPhone 5s for work next week, so I’ll be able to compare it with my HTC. I have to admit, I’m not terrible excited by it and frankly wish I’d just stuck with the 4s loaner. IOS just seems so…. Generic, I guess I’d have to say. Like you could pick up anybody’s phone and it would be pretty much exactly the same as anybody else’s. Which I suppose is the appeal.

Me, I don’t like to accept the default settings in life.

Oh well, every time I start to write something here, I get interrupted by work stuff – what the hell is wrong with these people? – so I guess I’d better get to it and kill the rest of this day.

Much like me, my iPhone was eternally searching yesterday. Unlike me, it was searching for the ATT cellular network (I, sadly, have no idea what I’m searching for, though I’ve been searching for it for most of my life).

When I got to work yesterday, I stopped down to see the person who does the phone stuff, but, alas, she was out sick (a lot of that going on around here). As this was not only my work phone, but also a substitute for the non-existent land line at my house this presented a bit of a dilemma.

For one thing, I feel oddly insecure when I leave the house without a working phone (odd because I managed to survive the first two-thirds of my life without one – or even knowing that I desperately needed one). I also need to “authenticate” myself via a phone when I work from home (and I sure as hell don’t wanna have to come to work needlessly) and when I’m on-call for the week I need to be able to get my voice mail, since my work voice mail calls my cellphone every 15 minutes until I pick up the message.

And then of course you never know when the house might burn down, or you might suffer some horrible chainsaw-related accident, or a serial killer breaks in and you want your final terrified death screams recorded for posterity on a 911 call and broadcast on the lo-cal news.

So, being the eternal optimist that I am, I saw this not as a tragic dilemma, but as an opportunity. In other words, I used this as an excuse to do what I’ve wanted to do for a very long time – get an Android phone. So that’s what I did. I set it all up online and then went over to the phone store by where I work, and I was in business.

No need for the phone geek to set anything (much) up – I just logged into Google, and, whoosh – all my contacts, appointments, and settings and everything else were all magically there, and now I’m trying to remember all the apps that I actually use (far fewer than the number of apps I have installed) so I can download them to the phone.

So that’s cool. Plus “OK Google” is way, way smarter than Siri (Siri’s kind of a moron, truth be told).

Then I came into work today and the phone person was there, so she hooked me up with a loaner phone while a new iPhone 5s is on order. I don’t really want it (fairly content to stick with the 4s – especially now that I won’t actually ever have to use the iPhone outside of work crap), but, hey, it’s not like I’m getting a raise anytime soon (in actuality, on July 1st we get a 2% bump – first increase in something like six years. Fortunately, the cost of living hasn’t gone up at all in that time).

So now I’m back to two phones when I barely needed even one, but I’m paying what, in retrospect, seems like an awful lot of money a month for unlimited calls (I think I make an average of zero non-work-related call a month, and get maybe half a dozen incoming non-work and non-spam calls a year) and unlimited texts (even less useful to me than “voice” – my fingertip covers an area roughly the size of eight “keys.” How the hell these kids text so fast is beyond me, though I think not caring how atrociously terrible your spelling is, is the first step).

Anyhow, I do have a tidbit to pass along to you Apple folks out there (those that didn’t already know about it, at least – perhaps it’s common knowledge).

While at the phone store, I noticed they had an otoscope behind the desk (in case you don’t know, that’s the thingie with the light and the pointy end that’s a lot smaller than your elbow – but it’s OK ‘cuz they’re medical professionals – that they stick in your ear when you go to the doctor and they want to pretend whatever it is they’re looking at is worth the $250 they’re charging you).

So I asked, “hey, is this in case somebody gets an ear bud stuck in their ear, so you can find it and get it out?”

Turns out, no. It’s because Apple puts their “moisture” detectors in the bottom of the headphone jack, and they use the otoscope to check ’em out.

“Water – you lose, sucker!”

Did I mention I also went with the extra accidental damage (including water) coverage?

So I’m thinking you should cut the tip off some crappy old ear buds (say, the ones that Apple ships with their products) and keep your hole plugged (so to speak) when you’re not in need of sound.

Then maybe when your phone falls into the skimmer basket, there won’t be any evidence.

After some rather decidedly un-summerlike weather lately (which I suppose makes sense, since it’s technically not summer yet), we had our first crappy-hot day in what seems like a long time. Hot and nauseatingly humid – reminiscent of pretty much every day of the summer I was forced to spend in DC.

I was working from home yesterday, and I don’t turn the a/c on because I’m cheap and it seems silly to run it for basically one room. But it was pretty miserable, and I spent some time trying to figure out how to get an air conditioner in my office. The windows aren’t conducive to window a/c installation (not without major modification) and putting something through the wall as I did in our bedroom would really screw up my wall art.

It’s too humid around here to use a portable swamp cooler, and a portable a/c would still have to be vented someplace (even if I wanted to spend money on one). I could put a split system in, but that requires putting yet another condensing unit outside someplace (we already have two that haven’t run since the first summer we moved out here when I was testing them) and running electric to it. Though I suppose I could tie into the electric of one of the ones we don’t use.

But, anyway, all that would cost money and I’m cheap and summers are so short here that it doesn’t seem worthwhile. Not when I’m throwing all kinds of money into the big pit we call a “pool.” For the most part, I can just go jump in that every now and again.

Along those lines, I took a break yesterday to pull the solar cover off and turn the pump on (it’s on a timer, but I have it set for 2-8 AM and 2-8 PM, and I wanted to get it going so I could turn the robot on and let the skimmer do its thing so I could go jump in when it got unbearable in the house.

So I checked the skimmer basket, and there were the usual bugs and leaves (no frogs, toads, or rodents, thankfully) in there so I leaned over to pull it out to clean it. Of course, I had my phone in my shirt pocket and, well, “plunk” – into the skimmer it went.

I pulled it out as quickly as possible, dried it off, and – much to my surprise – it still seemed to work. Except, on further inspection, there was no sound – which is a bummer ‘cuz I like to keep the ringer and the dinger on when I work from home so I can hear if I get a work-related call or e-mail. And then I went to take a movie of the dog (because who can get enough of those, right?) and the camera looked really hazy – because, of course, there was moisture in there.

This, too, was a bummer, because I got a check in the mail and I really didn’t want to have to go the back to deposit it. But the pictures it was taking looked like some kind of artsy-fartsy vaseline filter or something and you couldn’t really make anything out.

After putting the sucker out it the sun for a while as I contemplated plausible excuses to give the folks at work for why my phone was no longer working, the sound came back and water evaporated from the camera and everything seems OK (though it currently seems to be “searching” for the ATT network. WiFi works, so hopefully it’s ATT and not the phone).

Well, crap. Maybe reboot will fix it. It’s time to start getting ready for work anyway, I guess.

Kind of a crappy weekend here. I had thoughts of maybe pressure washing the deck (if not actually getting around to staining it), but the wife got sick and basically went to bed on Friday night and stayed there until Sunday. Though if she was gonna miss a day of a weekend, Saturday was the day to do it – it was cloudy, windy, damp (I don’t think it really rained much, be just stepping outside make you feel clammy), and cold. I don’t think it even got up to 60°.

It was even too cold to go sit on the tractor and cut the grass (I mean, I suppose I could have, seeing as I sit on the damn thing when there’s a -40 windchill to plow the driveway, but plowing is necessary to get out to the road and lawn mowing is most definitely optional).

So I mostly spent the day playing Wolfenstein: The New Order (always good to do some Nazi-killin’, though I’m old and kind of suck at the whole “gaming” thing, so the Nazis probably killed me – or, I should say, killed B.J. Blazkowicz – more than he killed them) and laughing at the foibles of the folks on “Renovation Realities.”

Mostly I laugh at their confident “pre-project” predictions of how great things are gonna go as they “start” the total kitchen renovation they expect to do in five vacation days at 9:38 AM by having breakfast and then clearing all the shit out of the drawers and cabinets – though it’s also fun to watch them cut live wires, drill through water lines, or check for gas leaks with a match.

I often wonder about the camera guys on this show. I mean, I know they’re just supposed to be impartially recording events as they transpire, but when you see somebody fixin’ to blow the house up, it seems like maybe you’d at least say, “hey, tell ya what. I’m gonna just leave the video rolling while I head out to the next block or two over. Gimme 5 minutes, and then carry on.”

I also finished watching Season One of “Orphan Black.” A good show, IMHO, so you may want to give it a shot if you find yourself with time to kill. Season Two is on now and I’ve been recording it, patiently waiting until I get through the season one.

Much to my horror, I found that I didn’t get the first episode, which, given how the first season ended, I really need to see. It’s not for free yet on Amazon, so I’ll have to pay either $2 or $3, which I guess I can spare but that’s pretty much what I typically spend on a book, which lasts me considerably longer than 43 minutes. So I postponed the decision until the next time I’m in-between renovatin’ and Nazi-killin’.

Though I will put this question out to you all: is it worth the extra money to buy/rent the HD version from Amazon? I always get HD, but when I watch “regular” DVDs, they look pretty OK to me (not pristine but generally good enough, especially for a teevee show). I’m tempted to try it out one time, just to see.

Sunday was a better day, at least. It started out kind of cold and cloudy but it did brighten up in the afternoon and the wife managed to move about a bit and get some sun and fresh air. And I got the grass cut (not much else – unless you count extricating a rather enormous Bufo americanus – aka, American Toad – from the pool solar cover).

Sadly, it never really got all that warm – 72-ish, which I hate to complain about, but when you’re hoping for pool weather, that just doesn’t cut it. It felt nice in the sun, but when clouds wandered by it got kind of cold and breezy.

It was also the Father’s Day Fly-In Pancake Breakfast at the little local airport, so the skies were filled with small planes buzzing overhead. They were enjoyable to watch, but there also must have been helicopter rides or something going on, because about every 7 minutes a chopper flew directly over the house at an altitude of about 37 feet (or so it seemed). A few times are cool – after that, it gets a little annoying.

And now here we are – Monday again. I’m off, and it’s looking like a bright sunny day so far (not very warm yet and they say maybe some t-storms later – probably to correspond with whatever time I get off my ass and venture outside). The wife is home as well – recovering, but still in somewhat of a persistent vegetative state. She looks pretty wiped out, so hopefully one more day of rest will set her right.

I just hope she doesn’t pass whatever the hell it was on to me, ‘cuz while I could use a good excuse to spend 36 hour in bed, I really don’t like being sick.

No doubt everybody’s all excited to do some waving of the good old stars and stripes today, because it’s Fannie Flagg Day. OK, well, it’s not actually about Fannie (whose real name is Patricia Neal, which she obviously couldn’t use for professional purposes ‘cuz we already had one of them). I find this ironic, because Patricia Neal, as you no doubt recall, was responsible for the rise of the greatest American patriot prior to Glenn Beck, Lonesome Rhodes, in “A Face in the Crowd.” Plus, Fannie Flagg, Patricia Neal, and Andy Griffith all have Bacon Numbers of two. Coincidence? I think not.

So, anyhow, I just kind of assumed that Flag Day was an American thing, just because it seems so…. Stupid. A day to honor a piece of cloth, which we also honor in song before pretty much every sporting event, and which I, personally, was forced to pledge “allegiance” to every school day until, I think, 6th grade (not real sure when it stopped – I don’t think I had to do it in high school).

So since all that singin’ and praisin’ and pledgin’ clearly aint enough, it seems entirely logical that we’d come up with some bullshit holiday for it (which, I am truly appalled to say, we don’t get a goddamn day off from work for, which I find absolutely outrageous).

And, sure enough, this day is indeed a uniquely American thing (like working three jobs to pay the rent or “supporting the troops” while calling Bowe Bergdahl a traitor who should have been left a Taliban prisoner in Afghanistan). According to the National Constitution Center’s “Brief History of Flag Day”, today’s holiday commemorates

…the day the first flag resolution was passed.

On June 14, 1777…the Second Continental Congress passed a flag resolution stating:

Resolved, That the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation.

So, hu-rah and all that. That “brief history” page has comments from true patriots, like:

I’M A PROUD AMERICAN. MY HUSBAND SERVED OUR COUNTRY AND MY STEP SON…IS SERVING RIGHT NOW. WE FLY OUR FLAG WITH PRIDE.

and

I love our flag and am proud of it’s history !!!!

Yes, I AM PROUD OF IT IS HISTORY, TOO !!!!

I personally don’t own a flag, mostly because if I bought one, I’d then have to go and find a poll to run it up to see if somebody would salute it. Also because I don’t believe my love of country and/or patriotism has much of anything to do with a piece of cloth (though, as flags go, I’ve always been quite fond of the aesthetics of ours – though the Union Jack is pretty cool, too). Clearly, if I was supposed to take this day seriously, they’d have made it a Monday holiday and there’d be picnics and parades and fireworks and all kinds of good old fashioned American-values type of celebratin’ going on.

I do have one small flag-related story that I will share, however.

Back when I was just a tender youth at the age of 17 or so, I worked at Sears. I worked Toys and Lawn and Garden, which were located next to Hardware, which I used to cover when the sales people took a break (they worked commission, and it really used to piss them off if I sold anything). Anyhow, so I’m working there one day, and a guy comes up to the register in Hardware to buy an American Flag (I have no idea whether or not we sold flags in the Hardware Department or not, but whatever).

So I ring it up and it was like $10.70 or something (ten bucks for the flag plus sales tax), and he says to me, “you can’t charge sales tax on the flag.”

And I’m, like, “huh?”

And he’s, like, “there’s no sales tax on the flag. I’m a fireman – I know these things.”

Clearly, there’s not a goddamn thing I can do about it, ‘cuz I’m just a friggin’ high school kid working part time in Toys and Lawn and Garden covering the Hardware Department and it’s like Sunday afternoon so there aren’t any important people around who can override the sales tax thing, so I’m like, “…um…uh…well, uh….”

So to make a long story short(er), he suggests that, since it aint about the 70¢, it’s the principle of the thing, I should take his name and contact info and when my boss comes around to have him check it out and they can send him a refund. And that sounds good to me.

So I get his name, and it’s Thomas Corcoran, and I think, “Corcoran? Fireman?”

And I go, “you’re fuckin’ Tommy Corcoran!?” OK, well, the “fuck” part I said to myself, but, yeah, he’s Tommy Corcoran, who I don’t recall ever meeting but he’s my mother’s cousin and I remember us driving by his firehouse a time or two and waving to him when he was hanging out outside.

So there you go. And as it turns out, he was absolutely correct that you can’t charge sales tax (at least in NY) on the flag and they absolutely refunded not only the tax but the whole purchase price, ‘cuz that’s just the way Sears used to roll back in those days.

So if you head out to Walmart today to buy an American flag (made in China, no doubt) as all true patriots should, make sure they don’t try to screw you on the sales tax.

This is ‘merica, goddamn it, and we love Old Glory.