Friday, June 27, 2008
Of course, the most satisfying and longest periods of employment were as an actor and then artistic director of the small acting company I'd help to create. Second to that was my ten years as director of the performing arts facility.
But as satisfying as those jobs were, well, this is Oklahoma - a career in the arts will barely keep your cupboards stocked with Ramen noodles, to say nothing of paying the bills. My roots are deep here and, rather than heading for more verdant artistic real estate, I opted to stay and entered the eight to five world of a steady paycheck and health insurance.
That's what I've been doing for the last eight and a half years. Collecting that steady paycheck and setting sights for a longed for retirement. It's what you do when you're my age - and those who don't are just work-a-holic nuts. Or just plain nuts.
I figured I had about three years before even considering jumping out of the airplane (figuratively and literally - I'm planning the sky dive for number sixty). Funny how fast the worm can turn - hell, it can break the sound barrier in it's speed. I'm standing at the hatch and about to be pushed into the great beyond like it or not.
As a Philly friend said this week - I hope my parachute will open. Strike that - I just hope I have a parachute.
So, what happened?
I work for an agency that is funded with federal money (administered by the State) to do what we do. The Feds, as we affectionately call them, decided that the States weren't spending the money given them, which is in turn allocated to entities and agencies - like the one that employs me - to do what they do within their respective state.
Ten million dollars was rescinded from my state. Three million of that was due to an error in a report our state submitted to the Feds. That translates to a deficit of over a hundred thousand dollars in the budget of the agency which employs me. Which leaves us enough green to stay in business until about, oh, December.
There it is - I'm losing my job and the
I expect extreme apprehension and maybe a little panic to set in in a couple of weeks or so. Right now, though, I'm fairly calm and resigned. Kubler-Ross's first stage is denial, isn't it?
I will be doing my best to see this as an opportunity - but, truthfully, right now I haven't the foggiest of what I'm going to do.
Do I want to pursue another eight to five? Do I want to strike out on my own? Do I want my lottery tickets to hit?
Well, yeah on that last one.
Oddly coincidental, I'm an employment counselor (for a few minutes longer) working in an agency which is housed in the former veteran's ward of the mental hospital where I worked as a psychiatric attendant - my first job upon returning to Oklahoma. There's some irony in there somewhere....
Labels: Life
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
I'm all about geeky stuff. I'm like a mosquito to bare skin when it comes to new internet thingamabobs and tools - I just can't get enough. So, when I read this post from internet neighbor Otis, it was incumbent upon me to check out Live Writer as well.
After a few moments of frustration with install (lovely, lovely Microsoft - still hasn't got the user-friendly part down), I was underway with this post.
This blog uses the Blogger API to publish to my domain. I'm pleased to report that the first test - the blog set-up - was a breeze. Score one!
Currently, I am using the Web Layout to compose the post. It presents a box formatted as my blog is formatted - CSS styles included. That is a very sexy feature. One press of the F12 key, and I have an instant preview of the post as it would appear published. F11 gets me back to writing in a snap. Score two!
I'm thoroughly anal about code, so I am thrilled to see that the auto-italics button codes the proper <em></em> tags instead of the deprecated <i></i> and the bold tags win with the <strong></strong> instead of boo-bad <b></b>. Score three!
Next is the image test - the photo at left right is from my recent trip to Philadelphia. I converted it to B&W, resized, selected the "Photopaper" border, added the "watermark" and used drag & drop to position it. Very, very cool. A big score four!
I rarely use tables, so I'll skip that feature. On to the Insert Map. I was impressed with the bird's eye view of Mt. Willis, so much so, I was inspired to go hunting for my current and previous abodes via the map feature which use Virtual Earth:
A snap to do the insert and a big plus is the caption function, but I encountered a problem with the format. I wanted that to be centered on the page. The code is there, but it's not centering in the preview. This could be a browser glitch if Live Writer is using IE for the views. Will have to wait to view in Firefox. Score five with reservations. [UPDATE] The centering affects the caption, not the map.
More abodes:
I'll skip the video embed. I'll accept it on faith that it's a breeze. Auto-score six!
Okay - so far I'm very impressed with the software. Now let's see if this baby publishes!
Score zero on the publish. It uploaded to Blogger, but did not publish to the domain. Will have to troubleshoot to find out why and get back to you later.
[UPDATE] I'm still not sure what went wrong with publishing. I've also tried my best to get the maps centered in the post and have been unsuccessful. My attempts at altering the the HTML were obliterated, stripped from the code.
The long way to solve the problem would be to download the map images and hard code them into the post. I'm just OCD enough to do that, but I don't have the time right now.
Bottom line is, I like the software. A big drawback, though, is that it's not web-based which would allow access from anywhere. As it is, it's a download to your local machine, which makes it portable only if you have a laptop and travel with it everywhere. That said, I will no doubt use if only for it's way-cool image inserter thingamajig.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
I had a very unhappy reader today. He/She left a comment on an old post which, bluntly, called me "a pathetic, jerk-off, time-wasting jack ass". The commenter didn't find what she/he was expecting and just couldn't withhold her/his wrath.
What was the commenter in search of? Dirt. Dirt on the (now) Democrat nominee for the President of the United States, Barack Obama.
You see, that particular post was an attempt to mock the media and the penchant for salacious leads and teasers only to have nothing in actuality to report. It's all designed to keep one tuned in, see. Get it, Mr./Ms. Annonymous?
You can take comfort though, Mr./Ms. A, you are not alone. Approximately 90% of the folks who land here by way of a search engine, are looking for the same dirt. To wit:
Num Perc. Search Term
53 16.26% obama cheating on wife
34 10.43% obama cheating on his wife
33 10.12% obama cheated on wife
27 8.28% obama cheated
12 3.68% obama cheated on his wife
9 2.76% obama wife affair
8 2.45% barack obama cheating on wife
7 2.15% obama cheating wife
6 1.84% is obama cheating on his wife
6 1.84% barack obama cheated on wife
6 1.84% obama affair
5 1.53% obama affair wife
4 1.23% obama extramarital
4 1.23% obama caught cheating on wife
4 1.23% obama caught cheating on his wife
4 1.23% michelle obama cheated
4 1.23% obama cheated wife
3 0.92% obama's cheating on wife
3 0.92% wife obama affair
3 0.92% barack obama cheated on his wife
3 0.92% obama cheating on wife?
2 0.61% obama's affair with another woman
2 0.61% barack obama cheating on his wife michele
2 0.61% obama wife
2 0.61% obama cheating on his wife?
2 0.61% obama affair his wife
2 0.61% obama & wife affair
2 0.61% obama has affair
2 0.61% obama extramarital affairs
2 0.61% obama cheated on wife?
2 0.61% obama, wife, affair
2 0.61% is obama cheating on his wife?
1 0.31% has obama had any marital affairs
1 0.31% has obama cheated on wife?
1 0.31% obama affair with wife
1 0.31% obama and cheated on
1 0.31% obama cheated with another woman with michelle
1 0.31% obama affair extramarital affair
1 0.31% has obama had marital affairs ?
1 0.31% did obama cheated on hi wife
1 0.31% obama's wife affair
1 0.31% obama affair cheat michelle
1 0.31% does obama cheat on his wife?
1 0.31% obama affair with another source:woman
1 0.31% weekly dizzy spells senior citizen
1 0.31% obama cheat affair
1 0.31% is obama cheating on wife?
1 0.31% obama and wife's affair
1 0.31% obama cheated?
1 0.31% has obama cheated on michelle
1 0.31% obama affair on wife
1 0.31% obama cheated on wife with man
1 0.31% was obama cheating on his wife
1 0.31% obama cheated affair
1 0.31% has obama cheated on wife?
1 0.31% obama wife cheated
1 0.31% obama cheat wife
1 0.31% obama cheated on wife marriage
1 0.31% obama cheating on wife
1 0.31% obama, cheating on his wife
1 0.31% obama cheat on his wife
1 0.31% obama's cheat affair
1 0.31% obama affair extramarital cheating
1 0.31% obama affairs cheating
1 0.31% obama cheating wife
1 0.31% master of my own domain
1 0.31% obama's wife cheating
1 0.31% obama's affair with woman
1 0.31% obama cheated
1 0.31% obama - cheating on wife
1 0.31% barack obama cheating on his wife
1 0.31% michele obama affairs
1 0.31% obama, cheating, wife
1 0.31% obama wife affair
1 0.31% obama latest news about cheating on his wife
1 0.31% obama affair with another women
1 0.31% barack obama caught cheating on his wife!
1 0.31% obama affair, cheat
1 0.31% obama affair women cheat
1 0.31% obama caught cheating on his wife?
1 0.31% obama wife have affair ?
1 0.31% barack obama affair wife
1 0.31% obama's cheating on his wife
1 0.31% obama wife cheated
1 0.31% obama extramarital affair
1 0.31% obama affairs cheating michelle
1 0.31% extramarital affair obama
1 0.31% obama wife cheating
To all of you out there so desperate to find dirt on Mr. Obama - you're wasting your time. Why not just listen to what Barack has to say? That would be a far more productive use of your time then wasting it on a fruitless search only to land here, the vaste wasteland of a pathetic, jerk-off, time-wasting lazy ass (I have the t-shirt ordered).
But, thanks for stopping by. You're welcome back anytime.
Labels: Obama
Nearly a week of wind, wind, wind! Forty MPH gusts - almost knocked me on my butt at lunch today. The the tree above caught my eye as I left the building - all the trees are in a perpetual northward lean.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
The iPicture above was taken with my iPhone while enjoying a perfect iEvening with friends and music in the park. Karla Bonoff was singing and the sky took on that lazy summer turquoise and orange color.
This was just a damn good day.
Labels: Music
