None Of The Above For President

I just got my absentee ballot in the mail and dutifully filled it out. For the state propositions, (first please explain why a state 17 Billion in debt wants to issue over 40 billion worth of bonds), I voted No on the majority. The exception is those I feel would help California continue to sink into its well deserved abyss of financial ruin.

Since I'm thankfully leaving this area, I left the local candidates blank. For Congress, my political leanings are more Libertarian, so I decided that candidate couldn't do any worse than the others.

This brought a dilemma for President. I can't stand the Libertarian candidate, Bob Barr, who in his previous political life as a Republican was a ringleader for the contrived impeachment of Bill Clinton. As for Barack Obama and John McCain, I can't vote for either of them. The two major parties are incompetent, self serving, and corrupt to the core. They need to be shaken up by a viable third party that will draw enough votes to make sure there will never again be a majority party in the Senate or Congress.

Only then will you see real compromise and negotiations instead of partisan bickering. As for Obama and McCain, I am not impressed with either one. Obama seems like a decent guy who speaks well, but he does not inspire me as someone with the will and decisiveness to lead the country out of the unbelievable disaster George Bush leaves behind. As for McCain, of course he is someone to respect and admire for persevering through the horrors of being a prisoner of war in Vietnam. But in the Senate he has unfortunately shown he is just a prone to being influenced by rich lobbyists as anyone, and Sarah Palin as Vice President? Please!!! Not that Joe Biden is much better.

Whoever gets in will still be hamstrung by the economic, political and moral destruction of Bush and Cheney. Who in their right mind would want this job? Someone will get elected, and then wonder why they ran for office in the first place.

As for the remaining choices, the remaining third party candidates are absolute jokes. Ralph Nader? He ranks with Al Gore on the top of my list of people I wish would just go away. American Independent Party? Way too right wing. Green Party? My idiot very soon to be former landlady is an ec0 freak. Enough said.

So what will I do? Something I've never done before in a presidential election. I will write in a candidate, None Of The Above.

Hanging On Update

I just got back from Houston, having decided to make an impromptu trip after my business dealings in Hawaii were over. Jayne was able to phone a couple of times from her cell to say the house and tree were intact. Several other trees in the neighborhood weren't so lucky, but fortunately none of them decided to become one with anyone's house. Still, it was pretty traumatic for her, especially being without power for six days. Fortunately we have gas for the stove and water heater, plus the water stayed running, so she was able to shower and cook.

Since Houston was still having issues with flooding and power outages of its own, I flew into Austin and rented a car. Conveniently, the power came back on at the house before my arrival. I may never hear the end of how I was in California when Jayne moved into the new house, Hawaii when the hurricane hit, and still elsewhere when the power came back on. So I have good timing...

Anyway, the week in my real home, and not at the hated temporary lodgings in California, was an excellent preview of life after I move down for good next month. Jayne got up to go to work in the morning while I lazed in bed, then got to be domestic while she was at work. I put together some furniture for my den, or Man Cave, and unpacked the boxes I had shipped earlier. That was good for my psyche as it made the house feel like it really is my home since it now has my own little touches.

The cats enjoyed having someone to follow around all day. We really bonded when I fed them and scooped their litter boxes before Jayne got home. Actually that further strengthened my bond with Jayne since she feels any man who will scoop her cats litter boxes is definitely a keeper.

Crossing The Rainbow Bridge

In a couple of early blogs, I talked about Squeak, my Siamese cat, who was diagnosed a year and a half ago with Chronic Renal Failure, or CRF. I decided to treat her as long as she had a good quality of life. This meant daily subcutaneous fluids, watching her diet, and a steady dose of anti nausea and antacid medications. Despite all this, she remained the loyal, sweet natured, and very affectionate cat who had wiggled her way into my heart many years ago.

Before I committed to this Hawaii business trip, I found an excellent pet sitter, Jan's Pet Sitting
to look after her. Jan had looked after Squeak in the past and I was very impressed with her professionalism and genuine love of animals. Squeak had developed along with CRF, Lymphoma and a stubborn bladder infection. But Jan was still willing to look after her.

Then yesterday morning, Jan called with the very sad news that Squeak had passed away during the night. Apparently the stress of her ailments and her age, 17, was too much for her heart. While it was not unexpected, it was still a shock, and agonizing because I wanted to be with her at the end. I am thankful the end was quick and peaceful, and that she was not in any pain. But it will be painful personally to return and not see her in the room I'm currently renting, or hearing her, especially considering how vocal she was.

She was a link to my life in California, and more importantly my only reliable day to day companion for several years. Some talk of cats as aloof creatures, but Squeak hated to be away from me. When I did have a trip, business or personal, she made it a point to chew me out when I got back with her loud and expressive meow. Then she would curl up next to my shoulder when I was about to go to sleep at night to say all was forgiven. She was so tiny she would bat her head against my shoulder from time to time to remind me she was there.

I'm having her cremated, then I can keep the box with her ashes with me at all times. But her memory will never fade. And someday I will see her again. Because I am a firm believer special animals have spirits, and when their physical form leaves us, they cross The Rainbow Bridge.

Hanging On

Sunday I started a long planned two week business trip to Hawaii. Don't laugh, there is actual work that needs to be done there. As luck would have it, Hurricane Ike decided to end its odd meanderings and paint a bullseye on Houston. Unfortunately, our new house is going to be affected b y high winds, though fortunately it is far enough from the coast to avoid storm surge.

Unfortunately, Jayne has to pray that not only does the house hold together, and being well constructed it should, but that the pine tree out back decides to remain vertical. With the house's orientation, I'm hoping the winds will blow either away from the house towards the tree, or at worse, parallel to the tree and house.

We're also hoping the tree will be grateful we spared it when we could have ordered it removed and will stay put. There's only one other house on the block, and the neighbors have already graciously offered to let Jayne stay with them if she gets too nervous from the storm. For that I'm very grateful. And once again it points out one of the differences between Texans and Californians. Texans will look after each other, Californians will only look after their selfish selves.

If need be I'll cut the Hawaii trip short to get to Houston any way possible, but for now all I can do is keep monitoring the news reports and hope for the best.

Epidemic Of Stupidity

I just got back from Texas, where I finally got to see our new house. And it is gorgeous! It’s very well laid out, beautifully appointed, nicely decorated, (thanks to Jayne of course!), and has lots of room. Even the cats are wandering around more or less stress free from not feeling crowded. The development is still slow to get filled in; indeed there is only one other house on our block. I’m trying to figure how to slyly move the fences a foot or so out each night until we can claim our entire side of the street as our property.

But unfortunately I had to return to California, and today was an event in wondering if aliens were secretly absorbing people’s intelligence while I was gone, which was all of three days.

Case 1. I got a call from my office manager saying she was trying to process my trip to Hawaii in a couple of weeks. She couldn’t find the airfare or even any evidence of the flights. Since that is a long swim, I logged onto the website of our new contractor for travel to see what was going on. I first glanced at the printout I made when I arranged this trip almost three weeks ago. Yep, there were the flights. Since then, the flights had mysteriously disappeared. After the required cussing, I edited my arrangements to get the flights put back on.

Now I realize my office’s budget would make panhandling profitable, but if it looks like travel now excludes how to actually get to one’s destination, there may be issues.

Case 2. My monthly train pass for September is almost two weeks late in coming. I called a nice lady at Caltrain who said she’d mail a replacement. She then called this morning saying the letter with the original pass had just shown up on her desk with an “Address Not Found” stamped on it. Funny, one of my housemates also gets a monthly pass, and hers showed up on time. Then again, the mail carrier in my neighborhood isn’t the sharpest tack in the box. At least once a week mail arrives for any given house in a two-block radius. I’m starting to dread what will happen when I put in my change of address for Texas. I suppose they’ll insist on international postage before anything gets forwarded.

Case 3. My envirowacko landlady wants to use used water from the washing machine for her landscaping. Never mind the landscaping makes you prefer the bareness of Death Valley . But the point is she wants her tenants to use only generic brand detergents in the belief that they won’t contain any whiteners, or other life threatening chemicals. You know, the chemicals that actually get your clothes clean. Well…. For a start, generic brands mean they are the store’s brand, such as Costco’s Kirkland brand. And for the most part the ingredients are exactly the same as those in name brands, like Tide. But never confuse an enviro with the facts.

Case 4. While on the train, the woman in front of me was getting upset because she couldn’t get any additional airflow from what she swore was the air vent over her seat. One little point, light fixtures don’t usually emit air.

Words To Never Use Together

One of the classic TV shows of all time was Rocky And Bullwinkle from the early to late 1960’s. With enough slapstick to keep children entertained, it also wove in adult oriented political satire. And with the Cold War at its peak, there was plenty of material to poke fun at. Who can forget Boris and Natasha, the spies convinced the ebullient Rocky and somewhat slow thinking but kind hearted Bullwinkle were bearers of America’s deepest and darkest secrets? Bullwinkle usually unwittingly foiled their plots, but they always returned with even more nefarious plots.

One episode in particular stood out, not so much for the story but for Rocky uttering a terrific line, “Military intelligence, isn’t that a contradiction in terms?”

That line can be expanded to include customer service, or lack thereof. There are many organizations whose name should never be used in the same sentence as service. A very recent example is a certain cable company known as Comcast. Just the other day, Jayne moved to our new house. Despite tropical storm Eduaord paying a wet and windy visit, the movers showed up on time, nothing got wet, and later on AT&T appeared to hook up the phone.

Once the phone was working, Jayne discovered she had several messages from Comcast, who was also scheduled to hook up the cable for the TV and Internet. Since Jayne has a second job that is web based, it is essential she has reliable access.

No luck.

Comcast claimed because of the weather they couldn’t come out. Funny how no one else had that problem. They then said they couldn’t make another appointment until next Monday. This means she’ll have to drive into Houston Sunday and use her work computer to get anything done. Repeated calls to Comcast have resulted in a different story each time. No they never had her scheduled in the first place. Oh yes, she was scheduled but they’d give her priority in case another customer cancelled their appointment. Well, maybe that would happen. Maybe it wouldn’t.

Maybe the problem is the idiocy of local communities granting cable companies monopolies. No competition means they can do whatever they please and charge whatever they please. Until someone with authority to do so wises up and opens up cable systems to competitors, customers are basically screwed.

Yesterday Jayne said she passed a Comcast truck parked on the side of a road with the driver looking like he was fast asleep. We’re betting anything if Comcast actually shows up Monday, (meaning she needs to take an extra day off work), that this individual will be the one they send out.

Bars In Every Room

A couple weekends ago, I brought my wife to San Francisco for a combination birthday get together with my local family members and to play tourist. As much as I despise living in San Mateo County, I enjoy the rest of the Bay Area, San Francisco especially, the exception being the yuppified financial district. That, unfortunately, has turned into San Mateo North, complete with the rudeness, arrogance and self absorption.

But enough of that. Because of the smoke from the still burning fires, we opted out of spending a day in Monterey. So we did one of those touristy things, the type you keep telling yourself to do but never get around to until you have out of town visitors. We went to Alcatraz.

I vaguely remember a breakout in 1962, followed by the prison closing a year later. Clint Eastwood dramatized the breakout, which I’m sure didn’t involve anyone who looked a bit like him. Plus he had the option of actually leaving when shooting was done for the day, and without the risk of actually being shot in the process. The place’s other claim to fame was an 18 month long occupation by several American Indian groups who actually had some legitimacy behind their claims that Alcatraz belonged to them via a treaty. Such a shock that treaty was conveniently ignored later on by the government.

While the occupation didn’t yield Alcatraz to tribal control, it did raise public awareness of conditions on Indian lands, with a result of substantial improvements and better relations between the tribes and the federal government. The present situation of course is far from perfect, but overall is better.

But it is the notoriety as a federal prison for the serious bad boys that made Alcatraz so infamous. It is a windswept rock, and would be almost completely barren except for the gardens planted by the prisoners. The freezing water and strong currents of San Francisco Bay kept all but the bravest and or most desperate from trying to escape. Seeing the lights and attractions of this vibrant city only a mile and a half away was the cruelest punishment for the inmates, much crueler than the tiny, stark cells, stripping away of your identity and freedom, and the constant threat of violence that wracks all prisons. Criminals were there to be punished.

Another punishment, and while it may not have been quite as pronounced when the prison was in use as opposed to today, is the eau de seagull. There were thousands of them wheeling about, and not being potty trained, their marks were literally everywhere. We ended up trying to stay upwind as much as possible.

Several of the buildings are now in ruins, which adds to the mystique. They gave the impression of sets from a horror movie, and you have to wonder if several ghosts are wandering around.

I did wonder if I was a prisoner just how I would have escaped. I figure it would either be by hopping on the back of a wayward humpback whale, (everyone in the Bay Area remembers Humphrey, who proved that even among such highly evolved and intelligent creatures as whales you’ll get the occasional knucklehead), or lassoing enough seagulls to be airlifted to freedom. We’ll ignore the little fact that seagulls do not fly in flocks and a group are as apt to go in the same direction as a herd of cats.