Of all the negative things that everyone saying about Arizona's recent law-passing spree (the clear violation of civil rights against anyone of not white skin tone, flashbacks to the days of slavery and the stars that Jews were made to wear by the Nazis, etc.), I have something positive to say:
...At least, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have someone else to bash besides South Carolina :-D
Monday, April 26, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Mad Post-Zombie-Apocalypse Skillz
So it's been an interesting week (or so). Mostly just life as normal - busy, busy.
Recent accomplishments:
- Finished a sweater(-ish?) thing that I started a while ago and promptly forgot about.
- Confessed my love for refashioning old things and thrift stores. Chuck just realized that he has nicer clothes now that we shop at thrift stores, and he gets hand me downs from my brothers.
- Started planning my trip to SC while Chuck's living it up in Florida. Seems like I'll be in Cola on the first, making a side trip to Charleston to see Kay (or maybe meeting half way?) on Sunday, then in G'ville until Wednesday morning.
- Realized that April is nearly over, and I'm still confused about where March went.
- Need to sit down and review algebra so I can take my math test next week (hopefully).
- Found a new allergy medicine that is like magic :-D My old one just can't stand up to the pollen here. Finally had to change (I was stubbornly clinging to "I'm fiiiiine") after I had to call in sick to the hospital on Thursday. I'm pretty sure having their volunteers look like they have the plague isn't exactly what they're after.
- Realized that I need to be more up to date on local politics (I would've gone to the rallies if I had known about them ahead of time). The Georgia government was seriously thinking about cutting the Arts Council as part of budget cuts. The Arts Council provides much of the funding for pretty much all the arts in GA. They had a rally at the capitol building this Monday that I would've loved to go to :-( The governor's fiscal plan cuts 2/3 of the Georgia Arts Council's funding, which effectively destroys the Arts Council. Without the Arts Council, Georgia doesn't have another agency that would qualify for the National Endowment for the Arts, so we would lose that funding as well. And that would effectively make Georgia the only state (including territories) without a state arts council. Also, it would effectively raise the unemployment rate SIGNIFICANTLY from the all-time high we're at now (10.6%). In that case, we can't even comfort ourselves by saying, "Well, there's always Alabama."
- Another political rally I wish I had gone to was last night. This dilemma actually made national news. MARTA currently is the 9th largest transit system in the country, and of those, is the only one that doesn't get state aid. They run solely off of fares and a penny sales tax in two counties (of the 28 in the Metro Atlanta area). And of that sales tax, it is ILLEGAL for them to use 50% of that revenue for day-to-day cost. They HAVE to use it on new things. So basically they're asking the state for money (like everyone else), and are pretty sure they aren't going to get it, but what they'd really like is for that law to be rewritten so they can use their money for their operating costs. If the state decides to do nothing, MARTA will have to cut a THIRD of it's service, raise fares (again), and lay off up to 1,500 of it's 5000 employees. Can you imagine what would happen to Atlanta if 30% of the trains and buses were stopped? We've already got like the second worse commute in the country (at least LA's got us there) - and you're just going to put that many more cars on the roads? Not to mention that about half the people that ride MARTA have no other form of transportation available. The state of Georgia has always had it in for MARTA (and Atlanta) - I think they're being even more pissy now with all the liberal things that have happened at the federal level lately. Oh, and proof - they're working on other legislation which will basically let individual areas (districts) tax for transit systems - and they specifically, by name, said these funds cannot go to MARTA.
Basically Georgia's doing it's best to make sure we (as a state) continue to spiral downwards economically. But we can handle it - because we've recently started categorizing our skills in terms of how useful they'd be after a zombie apocalypse. And we've started honing our skills to prepare for such an event. We'll be prepared for when Georgia becomes the ass end of the U.S. and then eventually the country gets so tired of us, they'll just boot us out :-P Or maybe they'll just send in special forces to take out the great governor Sonny Perdue.
-------------------------------------------------
Update after talking to Chuck's mom: apparently Perdue snuck in (without telling ANYONE) a merit-based pay for teachers in his budget without telling anyone after the state legislature voted against this last year. Merit-based pay is basically saying, well we'll pay you, but only equivalent to the progress we think that your students have made. Naturally, this has the teachers up in arms (especially Chuck's mom - can you imagine getting paid on the "progress" the government thinks your special needs students have made?) And one thing EVERY politician in Georgia should learn: DON'T PISS OFF THE TEACHERS. They're the only reason that Perdue got voted in (when his predecessor was asked why GA schools are the rear-end of the country's school systems, he said "Oh, it's the teachers' fault." Ironically, GA has some of the most politically active teachers in the country). So, I hope Perdue is ready to go down in flames.
Also, the State Senate voted to restore some of the money that the House approved to cut from the Arts Council. So the Arts Council lives, but barely - it still got over half it's budget cut.
Recent accomplishments:
- Finished a sweater(-ish?) thing that I started a while ago and promptly forgot about.
- Confessed my love for refashioning old things and thrift stores. Chuck just realized that he has nicer clothes now that we shop at thrift stores, and he gets hand me downs from my brothers.
- Started planning my trip to SC while Chuck's living it up in Florida. Seems like I'll be in Cola on the first, making a side trip to Charleston to see Kay (or maybe meeting half way?) on Sunday, then in G'ville until Wednesday morning.
- Realized that April is nearly over, and I'm still confused about where March went.
- Need to sit down and review algebra so I can take my math test next week (hopefully).
- Found a new allergy medicine that is like magic :-D My old one just can't stand up to the pollen here. Finally had to change (I was stubbornly clinging to "I'm fiiiiine") after I had to call in sick to the hospital on Thursday. I'm pretty sure having their volunteers look like they have the plague isn't exactly what they're after.
- Realized that I need to be more up to date on local politics (I would've gone to the rallies if I had known about them ahead of time). The Georgia government was seriously thinking about cutting the Arts Council as part of budget cuts. The Arts Council provides much of the funding for pretty much all the arts in GA. They had a rally at the capitol building this Monday that I would've loved to go to :-( The governor's fiscal plan cuts 2/3 of the Georgia Arts Council's funding, which effectively destroys the Arts Council. Without the Arts Council, Georgia doesn't have another agency that would qualify for the National Endowment for the Arts, so we would lose that funding as well. And that would effectively make Georgia the only state (including territories) without a state arts council. Also, it would effectively raise the unemployment rate SIGNIFICANTLY from the all-time high we're at now (10.6%). In that case, we can't even comfort ourselves by saying, "Well, there's always Alabama."
- Another political rally I wish I had gone to was last night. This dilemma actually made national news. MARTA currently is the 9th largest transit system in the country, and of those, is the only one that doesn't get state aid. They run solely off of fares and a penny sales tax in two counties (of the 28 in the Metro Atlanta area). And of that sales tax, it is ILLEGAL for them to use 50% of that revenue for day-to-day cost. They HAVE to use it on new things. So basically they're asking the state for money (like everyone else), and are pretty sure they aren't going to get it, but what they'd really like is for that law to be rewritten so they can use their money for their operating costs. If the state decides to do nothing, MARTA will have to cut a THIRD of it's service, raise fares (again), and lay off up to 1,500 of it's 5000 employees. Can you imagine what would happen to Atlanta if 30% of the trains and buses were stopped? We've already got like the second worse commute in the country (at least LA's got us there) - and you're just going to put that many more cars on the roads? Not to mention that about half the people that ride MARTA have no other form of transportation available. The state of Georgia has always had it in for MARTA (and Atlanta) - I think they're being even more pissy now with all the liberal things that have happened at the federal level lately. Oh, and proof - they're working on other legislation which will basically let individual areas (districts) tax for transit systems - and they specifically, by name, said these funds cannot go to MARTA.
Basically Georgia's doing it's best to make sure we (as a state) continue to spiral downwards economically. But we can handle it - because we've recently started categorizing our skills in terms of how useful they'd be after a zombie apocalypse. And we've started honing our skills to prepare for such an event. We'll be prepared for when Georgia becomes the ass end of the U.S. and then eventually the country gets so tired of us, they'll just boot us out :-P Or maybe they'll just send in special forces to take out the great governor Sonny Perdue.
-------------------------------------------------
Update after talking to Chuck's mom: apparently Perdue snuck in (without telling ANYONE) a merit-based pay for teachers in his budget without telling anyone after the state legislature voted against this last year. Merit-based pay is basically saying, well we'll pay you, but only equivalent to the progress we think that your students have made. Naturally, this has the teachers up in arms (especially Chuck's mom - can you imagine getting paid on the "progress" the government thinks your special needs students have made?) And one thing EVERY politician in Georgia should learn: DON'T PISS OFF THE TEACHERS. They're the only reason that Perdue got voted in (when his predecessor was asked why GA schools are the rear-end of the country's school systems, he said "Oh, it's the teachers' fault." Ironically, GA has some of the most politically active teachers in the country). So, I hope Perdue is ready to go down in flames.
Also, the State Senate voted to restore some of the money that the House approved to cut from the Arts Council. So the Arts Council lives, but barely - it still got over half it's budget cut.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Innovative :-D
Scrolling through the inter-webs, I came across this during lunch today. The Royal Shakespeare Company is "performing" a modernized version of Romeo & Juliet via Twitter over then next five weeks. I thought it was a cool idea. The article that I read that I found out about it from had some people going on about what a travesty this is and such. Get over it - it's art and creativity. One of the biggest things about creativity is trying new things. So whatever - those are probably the same type of people that would have told Van Gogh to get his eyes adjusted and would have tried to tell Seurat that you can't paint using dots. And they probably would have told Picasso that people don't have that many corners.
Hah, anyway, here's the link to the main page. Check it out :-)
http://www.suchtweetsorrow.com/
Hah, anyway, here's the link to the main page. Check it out :-)
http://www.suchtweetsorrow.com/
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Atlanta is YELLOW
So...the trees are horny. Extremely so here, apparently. There is a yellow haze in the air. A blanket of yellow covering anything and everything outside. The horizon looks yellow unless you look straight up from where you are standing. Also, we think the the pollen count chart is broken. Here's how it works. It counts the number of pollen particles in a cubic meter of air over a 24 hour period.
Here's the ratings:
0-30 = Low
31-60 = Moderate
61-120 = High
120+ = Extremely High
.........Today's pollen count in Atlanta is 5733.
X_X I think we broke their rating system.
Here's the ratings:
0-30 = Low
31-60 = Moderate
61-120 = High
120+ = Extremely High
.........Today's pollen count in Atlanta is 5733.
X_X I think we broke their rating system.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Just my luck.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/pets/2010-04-02-dolittler02_ST_N.htm
Lol. It's not the article that's funny, it's the timing of the study release. And as Chuck, oh-so-kindly pointed out, how closely the personality description resembles my own. Heehee, I'm not worried though - that's why I'm tiptoeing into the kiddie end of the pool instead of diving off the deep end and trying straight for vet school. Hmm... I never liked diving boards anyway. I've had this fear of them ever since I took swimming lessons, and they made us jump off the board. In this case, doing something does not make that something less scary. So there, swim instructor at the YMCA. There :-P
Lol. It's not the article that's funny, it's the timing of the study release. And as Chuck, oh-so-kindly pointed out, how closely the personality description resembles my own. Heehee, I'm not worried though - that's why I'm tiptoeing into the kiddie end of the pool instead of diving off the deep end and trying straight for vet school. Hmm... I never liked diving boards anyway. I've had this fear of them ever since I took swimming lessons, and they made us jump off the board. In this case, doing something does not make that something less scary. So there, swim instructor at the YMCA. There :-P
Friday, April 2, 2010
Same thing we do every night, Pinky...
Hmm... I'm in the mood to watch cartoons. But not new cartoons - the old ones I used to watch. Just to see how different they'd seem now that I know more. Speaking of old cartoons, a few weeks ago we had a question about the Animaniacs at trivia. (What was their last name?) We got it on a guess; a very clever guess at that.
So I'm writing this while I eat, as part of my lunch break. So I still work from home, but we've decided that I'll go in once to twice a week to show the progress and get feedback. That's good for me, because I can concentrate better here, and I don't have to commute every day. I did go out there (to Kennesaw) on Tuesday afternoon, because I had a lot of questions, and I wanted to see the mock up they've made. Got most of my questions answered so I can work now (yay!), and got to see the container that they had partly built out. It was really cool. They hadn't finished it, mainly because they did it to see if what works in theory, really works. They're thinking about changing the floor material because it's not very water resistant (just plywood currently). He's hoping in a month or so that they'll be able to fully build out one of the single container houses. Which would be awesome :-) And I got my first check as I was about to leave (in advanced I guess, b/c I hadn't really done much by then), so yay!
Paid the rent ON TIME this month, but our new lease started so we had to pay more anyway :-P Had a little sadness episode on Wednesday as a worked because I got the invitation on FB to Tracey's going away party. And I was working on Sketch Up (which we used to do a lot on the couch, and I haven't really done any architecture stuff since we lived together) and listening to the music that I got from her (that we would blare when Sonal wasn't there to yell at us :-P). So it just kind of made the perfect moment for it to sink in that she's moving like so far away (Albany, NY), and I already barely get to see her - only twice, once at my wedding (so it doesn't really count) and on New Years. Talked to my mom and cried a little about it because I felt like it deserved it. I guess it wouldn't bother me so much if Andrew wasn't going with her - because then it would be like, well she has to come back because of Andrew at least. Ah well. But I'm so happy for her! And now that I've given it the proper amount of tears, it's okay :-) Don't ask me how it works, it just does. Besides, this gives me more incentive to make that road trip real! Especially if Sonia ends up at Columbia or Brown, she's basically told me that the reason she'd go there is to see my family more - so in that case, I guess I have no choice :-P
I found out from my online banking that everyone (Gwinnett Tech, Clemson, Greenville Tech, and College Board/AP Exams) has cashed their checks so those transcripts all better make it to my application and everything better be hunky-dory. And last weekend we took Rasha and went for a long walk on this hiking/walking trail that's on Emory's campus. It was really amazing, in that it felt like we were in the woods, away from the city, but the whole time we were really only about ten minutes from downtown Atlanta. Talk about weird. But I took a lot of pictures for fun and hopefully I'll have time to sort through them and put them up on Flickr or Picasa or something.
Anyway, enough for now. Time to try to take over the world!
So I'm writing this while I eat, as part of my lunch break. So I still work from home, but we've decided that I'll go in once to twice a week to show the progress and get feedback. That's good for me, because I can concentrate better here, and I don't have to commute every day. I did go out there (to Kennesaw) on Tuesday afternoon, because I had a lot of questions, and I wanted to see the mock up they've made. Got most of my questions answered so I can work now (yay!), and got to see the container that they had partly built out. It was really cool. They hadn't finished it, mainly because they did it to see if what works in theory, really works. They're thinking about changing the floor material because it's not very water resistant (just plywood currently). He's hoping in a month or so that they'll be able to fully build out one of the single container houses. Which would be awesome :-) And I got my first check as I was about to leave (in advanced I guess, b/c I hadn't really done much by then), so yay!
Paid the rent ON TIME this month, but our new lease started so we had to pay more anyway :-P Had a little sadness episode on Wednesday as a worked because I got the invitation on FB to Tracey's going away party. And I was working on Sketch Up (which we used to do a lot on the couch, and I haven't really done any architecture stuff since we lived together) and listening to the music that I got from her (that we would blare when Sonal wasn't there to yell at us :-P). So it just kind of made the perfect moment for it to sink in that she's moving like so far away (Albany, NY), and I already barely get to see her - only twice, once at my wedding (so it doesn't really count) and on New Years. Talked to my mom and cried a little about it because I felt like it deserved it. I guess it wouldn't bother me so much if Andrew wasn't going with her - because then it would be like, well she has to come back because of Andrew at least. Ah well. But I'm so happy for her! And now that I've given it the proper amount of tears, it's okay :-) Don't ask me how it works, it just does. Besides, this gives me more incentive to make that road trip real! Especially if Sonia ends up at Columbia or Brown, she's basically told me that the reason she'd go there is to see my family more - so in that case, I guess I have no choice :-P
I found out from my online banking that everyone (Gwinnett Tech, Clemson, Greenville Tech, and College Board/AP Exams) has cashed their checks so those transcripts all better make it to my application and everything better be hunky-dory. And last weekend we took Rasha and went for a long walk on this hiking/walking trail that's on Emory's campus. It was really amazing, in that it felt like we were in the woods, away from the city, but the whole time we were really only about ten minutes from downtown Atlanta. Talk about weird. But I took a lot of pictures for fun and hopefully I'll have time to sort through them and put them up on Flickr or Picasa or something.
Anyway, enough for now. Time to try to take over the world!
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