Amateur Hour In The Government

So in a rare step for me into the ways of the government, there are a few things going on that really make you wonder where we're headed in this part of the world. The democrats and Hollywood are finally happy that a democrat is in office and they got rid of Bush, but are they really getting what they wanted or would the old guy with the soccer mom have been better? Let's recap the recent weeks:

Obama and his crew took a sight-seeing photo-op ride in a 747...over ground zero, New York City...without telling the mayor. Sure they told "local authorities," but also said to keep it quiet. That means the media only reported on what they saw, and God knows, it got exaggerated. There were more than a few scared New Yorkers that morning, and more than a few evacuated their office buildings in response. That was smart.

We have a well reported "pandemic" of "swine flu", which is in reality a combination of human flu, avian, flu, and two strains of swine flu. People are scared to death. The media is having a field day with this one. The World Health Organization says that the majority of people affected with the virus made a full recovery without the need of medical attention or antiviral drugs. Our government says...wash your hands. Hm, thanks.

As an added response to this, our vice president added to not ride on crowded planes, trains, or automobiles. So what you're telling us, this soon after Earth Day, is to not use mass transit or car pools. Huh?

And to round out the babysitting of adults, my own building put out a memo encouraging employees to "help prevent the spread of viruses by frequently washing your hands, covering your mouth when coughing or sneezing and staying home if you are sick." Wow. What's amazing is people will look upon this and actually double their efforts. Personally, I did this anyway. Well, except staying home when I'm sick...not that I'm ever sick.

And then there's this supposed tax credit that Obama got into people's hands. I'm personally wondering where this is supposed to come in, and if I've seen it or not. You see, this little loop hole won't affect me, since I'm the only one in my household working, but a working stiff gets a $400 tax credit throughout the year or something. If said working stiff has two jobs, then he'll end up getting that same credit from both paychecks. Since he's only entitled to one of them, he'll owe the extra $400 next year. Smart huh?

They also threw in a consideration for people who are retired and on social security, so they get a piece of the action. 250 big ones for them as a boost to their regular social security check. But...if that retiree works, they'll get that $400 out of their paychecks and when they file next year, guess what? They went over their credit by $250. Whoops. 

So the fear mongering is on the upswing, and the media, bereft of a president they want to make fun of, is back to scaring the public in any way possible. The government is being generally silly and it seems that while our president has some good ideas (and hey, he's a great organizer), he lacks the experience to actually put them into any form that's usable for the long term.

Ten Years

Today is my tenth anniversary of being married to the Queen and as such, I took the day off of work. It's the right thing to do to spend some time with her. We did what we could to find some time together, and managed to have family watch Sassy Pants, the only one not in school already, so we could go out to lunch. 

Our original plan was to drop off Sassy Pants, eat lunch, and then come back for her, but when we dropped her off, we were informed by the Queen's grandparents that they had lots planned and we had better not come back soon. Ok, so we went to the Spaghetti Warehouse, a restaurant in West Tulsa where we had our rehearsal dinner ten years ago. That location was chosen at the time due to its proximity to the majority of the wedding party and where the church was in Sand Springs.

We had a very pleasant lunch, but were left with a lot of time, and since we were in West Tulsa, we were a bit too far from home to head back to Broken Arrow before going back to pick up Sassy Pants. So the Queen had the idea to go by Ann's Bakery where we had gotten our wedding cake. She thought maybe we could get a donut or pastry or something there, just because of where it was.

We walked in and they had cookies and pastries that looked really good. I asked out of curiosity if they had slices of wedding cake or something to buy since we'd gotten our wedding cake there and wanted to get a piece of cake. To our surprise, they have what they call bar cakes that are just two layer cake in a thin bar shape (hence the name, huh?). But they were reasonably priced so we got one for our evening. We also asked for a couple of chocolate dipped, peanut butter cookies. The girl behind the counter gave us a half dozen for the two we paid for. That was nice too.

There honestly wasn't much else for us to do, so we wasted a little more time wandering a local Wal-mart before we headed back to pick up the 4 year old. We did get fussed at since they weren't quite done making their cookies (which, by coincidence, were peanut butter cookies, but not dipped in chocolate). So we hung out for a little bit so they could finish their cookies, and we were also "encouraged" to bring her and the others back at some point so they could play again. Grandparents are funny that way.

We ended our evening with champagne, some wedding cake, some soft jazz, and talking about the last ten years (or twelve, if you count our courting). It's been a good ten years, and we look forward to many more. In an era of marriages crashing and burning, we're a testament to the solidity a marriage can actually be if you want it to be good. We've had our ups and downs; our agreements and disagreements; and what we've learned is that if two people are committed to each other and have a true desire to make their marriage work, it will. It's when people stop caring and have no desire to be together that it's over. 

But that caring has to be about the other person. One element you have to let go of is yourself. This isn't to say that you can't be yourself, and it also isn't to say that you lose your sense of self either. What it amounts to is a desire to make someone else happy. It's soret of like that saying that your parents and teachers drill into your head: if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything. 

When it comes to marriage, that's about all it takes.

Another round on the iPod

7,223. That's the number of song tracks on my iPod that I listened from the beginning of the year through yesterday -- some of them more than once too.

Using a smart playlist with the setting of excluding any song played after 1/1/09, I began on January first determined to listen to every song on my iPod this year. I also decided that I would listen to them as albums (at least for those that aren't included in other playlists I normally listen to while driving with the Queen and Princesses). 

So you can see that it took 3 months, 8 days to accomplish this monumental task, but there were a couple of factors that made the process take a little bit longer than it would have otherwise taken. Actually, one big factor that made it take longer.

When I started the year out, I had around 6,400 songs on this playlist. Yeah, apparently adding 800 more songs increased the time a little. Go figure. I also only really listen to my iPod at work, so I can only devote listening time during those 9 hours, but most people at my workplace are used to seeing me plugged in almost 100% of the time.

The only other slowdown factor has to do with the movies on my iPod that I occasionally try to watch. Naturally, that takes away about two hours of song listening, so while not a major factor, it did slow me down a little. Then again, I have movies that I loaded back in October that I still haven't watched.

Maybe I should do that next instead of just resetting the date on my playlist to today. Sure, I've knocked out 37 songs as of right now in listening to the whole thing again, but movies dating back to October... Well, it's kinda hard to watch movies at work, but maybe I'll look into dividing the time up a little better.