Drama, drama, drama; I feel like Michael Corleone: everytime I think I’m out, they pull me back in. Nothing is ever smooth in a divorce and, let’s be frank, that is what is happening right now at work. The partners are splitting up and are dividing assets and that is never a pretty sight. Add into the mix that third party, the other woman if you will and “her” desires to have it all and you have a major FUBAR in the making. It is taking quite a bit of my time and, it is so exhausting to deal with, that it is also zapping the life from the free time I have left. All I want to do is sit on my couch with my remote in hand and veg.
I can see a light at the end of the tunnel, but I thought I had seen one before. I am going to assume that it is just a reflection off of some new dilemma waiting for its chance to jump out and say “boo!” I am ready for it. I can’t wait to get back to blogging though. I forgot what it was like to have time to try and kill at work. So this is what it is like to actually work for a living!
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Friday, June 06, 2008
My First Ever TGIF
I used to hate Fridays as many who have read here for a while know, but not today. Today I fully understand "Thank G-d It's Friday!"
I spoke too soon about my return to full time honest to G-d blogging. The storm is officially over, but there is quite a bit more post-storm clean up than I expected. For example, it is now 1:26 and I am sitting at my desk for the first time all day and only for the few moments is will take me to type this out. See, you do take priority with me. I will be getting back up shortly to get back to my phone calls. I hate phone calls.
Anyways, have a wonderful weekend to each and every one of you. I survived this week nicotine free! I will be visiting you later tonight.
I spoke too soon about my return to full time honest to G-d blogging. The storm is officially over, but there is quite a bit more post-storm clean up than I expected. For example, it is now 1:26 and I am sitting at my desk for the first time all day and only for the few moments is will take me to type this out. See, you do take priority with me. I will be getting back up shortly to get back to my phone calls. I hate phone calls.
Anyways, have a wonderful weekend to each and every one of you. I survived this week nicotine free! I will be visiting you later tonight.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
...I Have To Wear Shades
The Week from Hell continues, but is getting less and less Hellish every day. Where I had to convince myself earlier this week that all was not lost, today I actually believe it in my soul. It could be the minor rapture I experienced the other night while praying (yes, I do pray, but my relationship with G-d is between me and G-d so I don’t talk about it much), or it could be the vibe I got from the meeting today with all of our techs, but I feel confident right now that all is going to be better than OK, it will be better than it ever has been.
OK, rapture. I prayed the other night because of all that is happening right now in my life. I worry about my parents because they are not cynics and are not as prepared for betrayal as I am. I worried about my co-workers and if they believe us when we reassure them all will be OK, or if they think it is just empty spin. I worried that, if they do have faith in us that we might let them down. I worried that, if they didn’t and went to the other company, that the other company would let them down. I worried that the person who betrayed me and my family so deeply was not the evil person, but rather just a fool who trusted the wrong person and now their family will be screwed as a result. Yes, I worried about the futures of those that betray me. I am a nice guy when push comes to shove, so I prayed to G-d to guide all of these things to the outcome that is best for all. I did not ask for a specific outcome, because who am I to pray for anything specific in anyone else’s life. I just asked G-d to guide all concerned to the best outcome for all concerned.
I finish my prayer and begin to feel chills. My face contorts to a smile and I begin laughing while tears fall down my face. The hairs on my neck stand up and I feel that everything is going to be fine. I am not some religious freak, so I don’t mind you disbelieving me or thinking it was something else. I would be doing the same if I read that on your blog, but I believe it to be true. It was as if G-d were reassuring me that all is as it should be and that is good. I slept for the first time in days.
Today was the rally meeting with the techs. We gathered those who have generally worked at our location and told them they have to decide which facility they want to work at. We told them our plans and what we wanted from them. When asked about the other place, we were honest and said that we had no idea what was going to be. It might be more money, might be less. It could be more work, could be less. We could not say. At the end, I think a good percent is going to stay with us and that makes me very happy. I did just wreck my car though seeing one of them at the other place and wondering what they were doing there. Probably reporting to the enemy what happened during the meeting, but they have nothing to report. As the Grateful Dead once sang: We Will Survive!
Tomorrow will be a return to regular blogging, both here and at your sights. I have a lot of reading to do and will be commenting on more than just your most recent post, I promise. My political essay fell by the wayside this week due to the excitement, but it is not lost or forgotten.
Life can be a wild ride sometimes.
OK, rapture. I prayed the other night because of all that is happening right now in my life. I worry about my parents because they are not cynics and are not as prepared for betrayal as I am. I worried about my co-workers and if they believe us when we reassure them all will be OK, or if they think it is just empty spin. I worried that, if they do have faith in us that we might let them down. I worried that, if they didn’t and went to the other company, that the other company would let them down. I worried that the person who betrayed me and my family so deeply was not the evil person, but rather just a fool who trusted the wrong person and now their family will be screwed as a result. Yes, I worried about the futures of those that betray me. I am a nice guy when push comes to shove, so I prayed to G-d to guide all of these things to the outcome that is best for all. I did not ask for a specific outcome, because who am I to pray for anything specific in anyone else’s life. I just asked G-d to guide all concerned to the best outcome for all concerned.
I finish my prayer and begin to feel chills. My face contorts to a smile and I begin laughing while tears fall down my face. The hairs on my neck stand up and I feel that everything is going to be fine. I am not some religious freak, so I don’t mind you disbelieving me or thinking it was something else. I would be doing the same if I read that on your blog, but I believe it to be true. It was as if G-d were reassuring me that all is as it should be and that is good. I slept for the first time in days.
Today was the rally meeting with the techs. We gathered those who have generally worked at our location and told them they have to decide which facility they want to work at. We told them our plans and what we wanted from them. When asked about the other place, we were honest and said that we had no idea what was going to be. It might be more money, might be less. It could be more work, could be less. We could not say. At the end, I think a good percent is going to stay with us and that makes me very happy. I did just wreck my car though seeing one of them at the other place and wondering what they were doing there. Probably reporting to the enemy what happened during the meeting, but they have nothing to report. As the Grateful Dead once sang: We Will Survive!
Tomorrow will be a return to regular blogging, both here and at your sights. I have a lot of reading to do and will be commenting on more than just your most recent post, I promise. My political essay fell by the wayside this week due to the excitement, but it is not lost or forgotten.
Life can be a wild ride sometimes.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
The Future's So Bright...
I know the title contradicts my earlier post, but shock has a way of coloring a situation. My heart still aches, but I have never been one on whom lies sit right. I am sure there was an easier way to have said that, but it is late and I am in shock, so please cut just a little slack. See, I don't lie. I don't lie to a fault. When I was a kid, my mom would throw parties where her friends would come and she would introduce me to them all by saying "Brad, you remember (insert name here)?"
I thought she was asking honestly, so I would look at them, then at her and say "no." I realize that is the incorrect answer, but it was the honest answer. I have since sort of learned the difference, although old reflexes do take the better of me from time to time. Whoops, tangent.
I would always rather take a nasty painful truth than a pleasant lie, especially from someone I think to be above lies. I am a gullible person by nature, so I have a distrusting outer shell. If I trust you, then I cannot imagine you would ever lie to me about anything, even to spare my feelings because I would do the same for you. Bad things are always best heard from those who love you.
This person looked me in the eye and assured me they were behind me, that I could count on them, and that they would do anything before betraying me. And it was not even because of me, but rather because this person thought as I thought and was after the same things. Other people I would worry about from time to time, but never them; to the point of fighting with other people who are beyond reproach in defense of this person. 
There is business and there is personal and I am not sure where exactly this one falls. In this case, the business I work for is family and the employees are extended members of this family. I know every company thinks it is that way, but this one really is. When bad things were occurring in this person's life, for example, we took those things personally along with them. Should I hold this person in personal contempt or do I just say this was business and move along? Anyway, the title is correct. We got off our game last year and lost track of our purpose. It was a fun ride, but it is time to get back to real medicine and forget research. Both help people, but real medicine has a more immediate benefit. It takes years for research to yield results after all.
Everything works out exactly as it should. The trick is to recognize those few parts you have control over and remember to go slack during those many parts you don't. If you do that, then I guarantee you a wonderful and fun ride that will end exactly where it is supposed to.
BOOM!
John Lennon once wrote that life is what happens while you are busy making other plans. Life happened today and the world I inhabit has shifted quite severely. Nothing Earth-shattering, but it is a major upheaval that I am not totally free right now to go into details about. All I can say is that I am very busy today and do not have time for any real blogging. I will visit all your sites I hope tonight. I have no PS3 again so I have plenty of time.PS- A new essay is about half way finished and I hope to have it at Blogcritics by the end of the week. I am getting better at writing nicotine free, but it is still very slow going.
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Posted at Blogcritics
Republican Truths for Fun and Profit
Oh, Scotty, I really thought we were done with you. I really felt your failure and dishonesty had shown through so thoroughly that you were going to spend the rest of your life hiding under a rock and begging G-d to forgive you for the lies you told to sell your master’s plan. I suppose that I should have known a weasel like you would find a way to get back into the nation’s minds and, like always, you are spinning out of control. Damage control for the damage you caused I suppose is your plan, or is it guilt?
Scott McClellan, President’ Bush’s mouthpiece after Ari left, has written a book (no shock) that is — are you ready? — critical of the Bush White House and now confirms most of the very things he denied from the podium. Do we believe a liar when he admits that he lied before and is telling the truth now?
Okay, so assume we believe Scotty when he says that Bush lied to him about the war in Iraq and that Rove and Scooter lied to him about the Plame affair. Let’s assume he was just a mouthpiece and a patsy for the greater deceits told to him by the President and his advisors. Assuming all of these things as true, it begs the questions of why he waited for so long to come clean about these revelations and why he chose the format he chose.
First, why wait for so many years to “out” Bush as a liar and the war in Iraq to be based on propaganda? Is it because this is an election year? I wonder because we have had other elections since you left the White House and there was not the slightest of peeps from you. The only reason I can think of is that releasing this information now still shelters Bush (he is leaving office), but sinks McCain even more than he is already sinking.
McCain’s support is largely tied to his support of the war in Iraq and, if the information you are telling us is true, no one is damaged more by this than McCain. Bush and Cheney are leaving not only the White House, but basically elected politics forever, so it does not damage them at all. It does show that McCain's determination to remain in the war is based not on reality, but on self-serving propaganda. It serves as yet another example of where McCain’s judgment is not presidential and his election will only further weaken an already battle-weary nation.
We also know that this is an election year and there is no better time for a politically oriented book to hit the marketplace. The press are starving for anything politically based and are bored of the same Obama/Hillary stories, so this gives them something fresh to talk about. Their excitement over this new subject will only increase the public's curiosity and therefore only serve to sell more books.
Secondly, why a book? It seems to me that this information is a tad bit too important for you to have sat on while the book was shopped to publishers, written, edited, printed, and then released. You knew for certain that this war was based on bad information, that the chief executive misled the nation into war, and yet you remained silent as more people died and more of our nation’s resources were wasted while you worked out the best deal for yourself. You learned well during your tenure, young Padawan — truth is truth, but profit is profit.
Oh, Scotty, why oh why could you not just have faded into the obscurity from which you came? When you could have done something, when it would have mattered, you did nothing and now that it is too late to matter, you take the money and cry victim. Bush is even helping you by condemning the book. You have cemented your place as a piece of opportunistic scum of the Earth in my book. I guess spin is addicting.
Oh, Scotty, I really thought we were done with you. I really felt your failure and dishonesty had shown through so thoroughly that you were going to spend the rest of your life hiding under a rock and begging G-d to forgive you for the lies you told to sell your master’s plan. I suppose that I should have known a weasel like you would find a way to get back into the nation’s minds and, like always, you are spinning out of control. Damage control for the damage you caused I suppose is your plan, or is it guilt?
Scott McClellan, President’ Bush’s mouthpiece after Ari left, has written a book (no shock) that is — are you ready? — critical of the Bush White House and now confirms most of the very things he denied from the podium. Do we believe a liar when he admits that he lied before and is telling the truth now?
Okay, so assume we believe Scotty when he says that Bush lied to him about the war in Iraq and that Rove and Scooter lied to him about the Plame affair. Let’s assume he was just a mouthpiece and a patsy for the greater deceits told to him by the President and his advisors. Assuming all of these things as true, it begs the questions of why he waited for so long to come clean about these revelations and why he chose the format he chose.
First, why wait for so many years to “out” Bush as a liar and the war in Iraq to be based on propaganda? Is it because this is an election year? I wonder because we have had other elections since you left the White House and there was not the slightest of peeps from you. The only reason I can think of is that releasing this information now still shelters Bush (he is leaving office), but sinks McCain even more than he is already sinking.
McCain’s support is largely tied to his support of the war in Iraq and, if the information you are telling us is true, no one is damaged more by this than McCain. Bush and Cheney are leaving not only the White House, but basically elected politics forever, so it does not damage them at all. It does show that McCain's determination to remain in the war is based not on reality, but on self-serving propaganda. It serves as yet another example of where McCain’s judgment is not presidential and his election will only further weaken an already battle-weary nation.
We also know that this is an election year and there is no better time for a politically oriented book to hit the marketplace. The press are starving for anything politically based and are bored of the same Obama/Hillary stories, so this gives them something fresh to talk about. Their excitement over this new subject will only increase the public's curiosity and therefore only serve to sell more books.
Secondly, why a book? It seems to me that this information is a tad bit too important for you to have sat on while the book was shopped to publishers, written, edited, printed, and then released. You knew for certain that this war was based on bad information, that the chief executive misled the nation into war, and yet you remained silent as more people died and more of our nation’s resources were wasted while you worked out the best deal for yourself. You learned well during your tenure, young Padawan — truth is truth, but profit is profit.
Oh, Scotty, why oh why could you not just have faded into the obscurity from which you came? When you could have done something, when it would have mattered, you did nothing and now that it is too late to matter, you take the money and cry victim. Bush is even helping you by condemning the book. You have cemented your place as a piece of opportunistic scum of the Earth in my book. I guess spin is addicting.
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