Category: Commentary

Briefly Back

Posted on by chappyshi

I have been bad about blogging which if you care about following me you already know.  I can’t say what the problem is but I am trying to get past it.  It has been a wacky seven or eight months what with starting work again as a contractor for a major corporation and then getting the opportunity to apply for the same job at the corporation as a full-time employee w/ benefits.

Forgive me if I don’t mention any company names.  A few years ago I would not have worried about doing so but,  even though I have never made good or bad comments about a company I have worked for or am working for and would never do so in my blog, I still feel it is risky to be too specific.  So much for free speech, eh?

The new job involved a major learning curve mostly for call center support but also for systems/desktop support.  I feel like  I have done quite well.  I may not be the star for the newly established support center but am certainly one of the stars.  Finally starting as a full time employee this week has been  the cap on the whole venture.

I finally have health benefits which is mucho beuno as you will see later in this entry.  Additional benefits besides health such as education and training  with the company are a big positive.  As I have mentioned to some of you who might read this, the pay is subpar, from my point of view, as much as  25% less than many of us in the group have earned, but the benefits help to make up for the direct loss in income.  I think the opportunities for the future with this company are very good.  I am already enrolled for a web server admin class in May which bodes well.

On the personal side, I have been laying kind of low.  Having been w/o health insurance since last June, I haven’t been riding my motorcyle or skiing much.  My last health insurance quote was for $450 a month due to pre-existing conditions.  Thanks “Obamacare!”

I did get up to Vermont for my good friend Linda’s 50th birthday in December.  I stopped in Avoca, PA, about halfway up, to see my friend  Terry and his boys.  I think that Linda was surprised when she saw me with the crowd at her house but who knows.  That was an 1100 mile road trip crammed into about three days but well worth it.  I did get about 2.5 hours in on the slopes at Killington on the way up which was nice.  Only time I have skiied since I tore my ACL at Seven Springs in 2008.

Turkey Day was spent with my sister Julie who lives  about a mile away from me.  Christmas was spent with my sister Kim in SE Virginia.  We went on Christmas morning to her husband’s parent’s house for breakfast and the ceremonial tearing apart of the Xmas presents for the kids and grandkids.  Madness I  say!

It took a longer than I expected drive to go camping at the northern part of the Chesapeake Bay a month or so ago.  And I didn’t have the cash I needed to get into the “unattended” gate at the park.  Of course, I saw 3 or 4 park staff members there including one who stopped by my campsite to give me the money I had overpaid for the site.  I figured it would just be a donation to the park system but…  I was at Elk Neck  State Park.

For those of you in the know, I am playing in a Cornhole league that friends of mine have sponsored  for a few years.  On Fridays, when the WX is good, we all get out and throw some bags.  Unfortunately, the WX has sucked  so my partner and I  have to  hook up w/ the teams that we missed games with and make them  up.

I mentioned that I was glad to have health benefits again through my employer, who wouldn’t’ be, eh?  Recently my blood pressure and cholesterol levels have skyrocketed despite my efforts to keep them down using natural supplements.  My blood pressure was so high the other day I almost went to the emergency room.  Being a man, that was of course out of the question.

I  did go to “Urgent Care” at my doctor’s office the next day.  My blood pressure was still high.  I got an EKG which was okay but had some possible  anomalies.  I got an immediate referral to the cardiologist at my “doctor’s office” and since I was paying out of pocket I had no insurance “people” to deal with, which was nice.  Unfortunately, the cardiologist scheduled me for a “Nuclear Stress Test” for which I had the insurance coverage but no documentation.

I have had to put the test on hold.  Hope I don’t die first….

I Thought I Had Recycling Issues….

Posted on by chappyshi

When I got home from work on Thursday, I noticed one of those huge tractor trailer sized dumpsters, one of those that they have on construction or demolition sites, in front of one of the adjacent apartment buildings.  The dumpster was overflowing with crap.  I noticed that both of the sliding glass doors were open in one of the second floor apartments.  I wondered if there had been a fire in an apartment.

Walking from my car to my building I saw a guy come out on the balcony of the apartment in a low-grade HAZMAT suit.  That freaked me  out so I popped into the management office to see if the would tell me what was going on.  Apparently, the apartment was trashed.

The apartment manager was freaked out.  He said it was the nastiest thing he had ever seen.  Apparently the renter was dink on his rent and the manager had been trying to get a hold of him for six weeks or so.  Residents of neighboring apartments had been complaining of bad smells.  The manager had to get a court order to enter the apartment.

Upon entry, they found a wasteland.  There were cats in the apartment unattended.  The renter had apparently left  plenty of food but the cats had run out of water and were nearly hysterical when the maintenance crew got water for them.  Of course the cats had to be taken away by Animal Services.  The maintenance crew then proceeded to haul 80 bags of garbage/trash out of the apartment the first day.

On day two, they called in a cleaning crew experienced in HAZMAT cleanup.  The cats had urinated and defecated all over the apartment.  There were flies and maggots all over including in the walls and floors.  They are having to tear everything out of the apartment including the walls, floors, cabinetry, appliances, etc.  And to cap it off, the bedroom was filled from ceiling to floor with bags of empty beer cans!  Recycling anyone?

Quiet Walk in the Park? Not!

Posted on by chappyshi

I headed out today for a walk on the Occoquan Trail which runs 17 miles from Bull Run Regional Park to Fountainhead Regional Park along Bull Run Creek.  The trail meanders along the creek and up into the hills and creek overlooks.  I figured it would be messy since we had a six inch dump of wet snow a couple of weeks ago and temps today were in the low fifties.  I didn’t expect to see much in the way of critters.

It was muddy as hell in many spots making for slippery, sloppy conditions.  But I had the good fortune to meet a couple at the top of a hill, as I was breathing heavily from the ascend, who had just seen a hawk, Bluebirds, a Downy woodpecker and, they said, a Red Headed woodpecker.  I stopped to pull out my binos and caught all the aforementioned birds less the hawk.

I pondered the likelihood of seeing a Red Headed woodpecker at the time and a bit later after checking my bird book realized that the woodpecker was really a Red-breasted which are much more common in my area.  The Bluebirds were brilliant.  I have seen them before later on in the season when their colors are not so vibrant.  I followed a flock of them for awhile and everyone I saw had very pronounced blue on the back and wings as well as pronounced orange on the breast.  Beautiful birds!  I also saw a Tufted Titmouse.  To cap it off, I heard either one rapidly moving Bard owl or two of them calling out to each other.

There was  a downside to the whole venture unfortunately.  As soon as I got on the trail I heard and saw 4-wheelers on the other side of the creek.  One was stuck revving its annoying engine trying to get out while a mud-splattered friend was trying to push.  Never in the three or four years I have been hiking on this trail have I encountered 4-wheelers.  They were not on my side of the creek in the park but they were certainly annoying.  I saw at least four 4-wheelers and one dirt bike and heard them and smelled the exhaust for most of the six mile hike I took.

I could see the trails they had blazed including areas where they went in and out of the creek to the islands and up and down the embankments.  The noise and smell was annoying enough but when I think  about the potential erosion and degradation of the flood plain and all the crap that will flow down the creek to the reservoir and eventually to the Chesapeake Bay I just cringe.  I also have two friends who live on that side of the creek who must hate the noise of these off road vehicles.

It is a shame that the northern side, the Fairfax County side, is protected as parkland but the Prince William County side to the south is wide open to such abuse and devastation.

Can’t Get Enough Air

Posted on by chappyshi

Yesterday I woke in the wee hours just baking in bed.  I threw my comforter off  and managed to get back to sleep.  It was still warm when I got up.   Thermostat read 72.5 degrees.  Now, please understand that I set my thermostat at 63 degrees most of the time during the winter months.  I don’t mind the cold, save some money, and save the environment.  It was going to be a warm day for February so I opened up the sliding glass doors in my bedroom and dining area.  Nonetheless the temperature stayed at 72 degrees.

Since I have moved into my new smaller apartment, I have found that the doing laundry, particularly the drying aspect, raises the temperature in my apartment 3 to 4 degrees.  So I do laundry on weekend mornings to warm up my apartment rather than turn the heat up to 68 degrees, which is my weekend norm if I plan to be in house most of the day.  I had to do some laundry so the temperature crept up to about 75.  I was schvitzing.

The temperature had started to go back down a bit, not lower than 72 degrees though, by the time I headed out with my brother to get some growlers and spring rolls as our contribution toward the Super Bowl (can I say that?  Please don’t sue me) festivities.  I closed the apartment up at that time, eight hours after I had opened up the doors.

I watched the first half of the game at my sister’s house and then came home to watch the second half.  By then the temperature had gone back up a couple of degrees.  I send off a scathing rant to maintenance and left another on the apartment manager’s voice mail  After the game I was pretty tired so I hit the fartsac without paying too much attention to the temperature.  However, I woke up once again schvitzing in my flannel sheets.  When I got up, the temperature was at a steamy 76 degrees.

While I was working today, I thought that I must have sounded odd to the apartment maintenance staff and office personnel but when I got home, the temperature in my apartment was 80 degrees!  I immediately headed off to the rental office.  I figured, since I could  actually feel the warmth in spots on my tile floors in the bathroom and kitchen, that the maintenance office, which is below me and is a story for another time, had the heat maxxed out and suggested that to the manager.  They said they would check into but didn’t really seem to understand how screwed up the situation was.

Help me, I’m melting!

Trying to Get Air…and I Am Not Skiing

Posted on by chappyshi

Looking at my left front tire after coming out of the grocery store today, I thought it was looking pretty low on air.  I figured I had better get some air in it before I went home.   I stopped at this one place I go to where you dial up the tire pressure on the pump, add air to your tire, and it beeps when your desired pressure has been reached.

There were two idiots in front of me trying to get air.  The first car took one kid with pants falling off his ass and an aging dude in white hair six minutes to fill up one tire on a Subaru wagon.  Considering it was a Subaru and all that I am glad they didn’t use a person powered bike pump to fill up the tire.   Good for the environment and all that…

The next airhead was in a van, skinny and older, wearing odd shoes and pants rolled up at the ankles.  He seemed to have some issues bending down to remove the caps from the tire valve.   He only did the left front and right rear tires for some odd reason and used a tire pressure gauge, despite the pressure reading functionality built into the pump, for the front tire but not the rear.  It took him about five minutes to accomplish this.

When it was at last my turn to get air, I topped off all four of my tires in less than two minutes.  Thankfully, the tire that I thought was inordinately low, was only down a pound or so.    In the meantime, two cars had backed up behind me.  I have never seen lines to get air except at ski areas.  Bottom line though, how hard is it to put air in your tires?

Idoly Paddling With Myself, Uh Oh!

Posted on by chappyshi

I had another great paddle in my kayak on the Potomac River yesterday.  I launched at Algonkian Regional Park, one of my favorite local places to put in.  There was minimal wind, the water was crystal clear, and the air was crisp.  I saw about six or eight other people out paddling…making the most of the good weather before the winter settles in.

I did not see much in the way of wildlife just one Great Blue heron and a Bald eagle…both a a distance.  The park itself was still doing quite a business with a number of people out fishing and barbecuing.  I got out there on the water a little after two and after being on the water for about two hours, the light had already diminished considerably.  I think I might be able to get a couple of more paddles in before I bring the kayak in for the winter.

Here are a few pictures from the venture:

Lost Emails

Posted on by chappyshi

Last night before going to work I noticed that I hadn’t got any email since about 1500.  Not that I get that much email but it seemed a bit odd.  This morning after work and early this afternoon when I got up, I still had no new mail.  I checked my quota on my mail hosting service and had used less than half of my quota.  I saw from my Gmail account that forwards mail to my hosting service that my forwards were getting rejected due to a full mail box.

Well that was puzzling.  After contacting tech support, I found that I had not used up the physical capacity of my mail box but had reached the limit of the number of messages I could have in my mailbox, which was 3000.  The tech kindly upped my quota to 6000.

I asked him what good the record of physical usage was if the quota was based both on that and the number of messages.  He said that I had to monitor the number of messages in my account via webmail.  I asked if there was any kind of alerting to let users know when they were nearing either quota and was told that there was not.

Thankfully, I am not trying to run a business using this email because the lost emails could cost me money.  I think I would have to change hosting services were I to have a business dependent on email.  I think that my hosting service needs to reconsider its approach.

Anyhow, I did not get email for about 24 hours starting yesterday at 1500 so I you sent me an email between then and now, please resend it.

Veterans Working on Veterans’ Day

Posted on by chappyshi

I guess I will say this every year.  What good is Veterans’ Day if veterans have to work?  As a veteran of 10 years in the Navy, 7 of which I spent overseas, other than a slight preference in government hiring, I get nothing but pride.  Wouldn’t it be a great thing if every veteran got Veterans’ Day off with pay?  May we could all do volunteer work, give back to the community, or work with disabled veterans.

Enough said about that.  Thanks to all those who served, fought, sacrificed, and died.  You will always be remembered, valued and respect by me!

Snotty Tears Run Down My Face

Posted on by chappyshi

I am not quite sure why I rented  “Marley and Me” through Netflix but it was not the best movie to watch less than three weeks after I put my my cat and friend of 19.5 years, Hamlet, to sleep.  While it was a movie, and the circumstances were not exactly the same, there were many similarities in the downfall of Marley and of Hamlet.  The loss of energy, the deterioration of vital organs, the look  on their faces….

I felt a horrible deja vu as Owen Wilson said his goodbyes to Marley who laid helplessly on a table in the vet’s  examining room.  He made a decision, as did I, that it was better to put the dog down.  I will wonder forever,why I thought I had the power.  He held Marley close as I did Hamlet, thanked him for all  the love and joy he had brought him  and his family and wished him well in in the afterlife.  He stayed close, as did I, as the doctor injected the death potion into the IV.

He caressed Marley…as  I did Hamlet, as within less than twenty seconds, his eyes closed, the doctor checked for a heartbeat, and declared his friend of so many years dead.  Except Hamlet’s eyes never closed and he twitched and occasionally expelled air from his lungs for five or six minutes after he was declared  dead.  If there is a kitty heaven, Hamlet deserves to be there.

I lingered for some time with him until I wondered what else I was supposed to do.  What could I do?  It was over.  I still hope that I did the right thing.  Sure it was only a movie, but as I think about Marley, helplessly lying in the cold and compare him to Hamlet helpless convulsing in a diabetic seizure, I think I did the right thing.  Even so, I am not sure I will sleep too well tonight.