I waited on a girl tonight that I've tried to flirt with before. She wanted a pack of cigarettes, keeping her head down and not looking at me at all. She didn't say anything to me. I wasn't in a flirty mood so I said nothing also. Nice way to begin an intense relationship. As she left with her friend (who was several orders of magnitudes hotter but I paid no attention to) she forgot her cigarettes. Still not looking at me, I made some Kramer-esque noises at her and her friend, for some reason unable to articulate the fact she'd left her cigs. She said to her friend, "go get those, will you?" Again she avoided eye contact. This is not the first time she's acted this way around me.

I mentioned this whole episode to a friend over a steaming heap of fresh tacos. He said there could be a few explanations:
A.) She lacks confidence
B.) She's scared
C.) She wants nothing to do with me
D.) None of the above

Let me break this down. If the answer is A then she is simply shy and needs me to be a little more forward than "will there be anything else?". If the answer is B, then I need to stop looking so angry (which I should do anyway). If she wants nothing to do with me, then I should back off. But I haven't got any other signal from her that tells me she's repulsed and/or frightened by my existence as a human being. And as a man, I should take that as an invitation to come on to her. Shouldn't I?

Its all an exercise in futility. I probably haven't even come close to the real reason she acted the way she did. In addition, I have some background info on her that may or may not be why she acts so strangely. No need to repeat that gossip here, since the source is questionable and the info has not been verified!

There is a conspiracy among game manufacturers to deprive me of my constitutional rights to operational games. Let me clarify: a used copy of Final Fantasy 9 doesn't work for me. Its broken. It boots up, plays fine until 45 minutes into the game. When I try to go through a door with Zidane after Princess Garnet, the game goes black and stays that way. Meanwhile, the music loops endlessly without hanging or sounding distorted. So, I'm flummoxed.

I haven't had the chance to try the game in another Playstation, so its possible that it could be my system. It is after all about 6 years old. But I haven't abused it, and it plays other games flawlessly. The disc itself isn't badly scratched. It looks like it has numerous light surface scratches, but nothing I haven't played before without any problems. Perhaps FF9 requires an absolutely scratch free disc.

In the meantime I'm fidgeting, playing other old games which of course work fine. This will be resolved, the only question is how and when.

To the pretty young brunette I served on Sunday afternoon:

I'm sorry.

I couldn't think of anything to say.

I was speechless.

It seemed like you knew I was helpless,

looking at you

every chance I had.

You were gorgeous-

your black hair shiny

and that red top hugging

your torso so tightly.

I'm afraid

I'll be using that image in the most naughty of ways

without your consent

no doubt.

For this, too,

I apologize.

Its official. The returns are in to the Board of Elections and I couldn't be happier to have this long day at the precinct be over. My duty today was to oversee the precinct of Cambridge 1B at St Benedict's Catholic Church in Cambridge. Our total voting rolls listed 568 voters, of which 394 voted. This is a turnout of 69%, exactly what our county Board of Elections had estimated.

Last night I set up the punch card voting systems at my precinct and got everything ready to roll. Unfortunately the cell phones we were promised by the BOE never came through. I'm told the deal fell through at the last minute. Luckily two of my workers brought their cells with them. Its a good thing too, since we made several calls of import to the BOE.

We had no issues with witnesses, challengers, agressive campaigners, etc in this part of Ohio. The stories of gloom and doom in the old media seem to have been overhyped and overplayed. Despite the fact that rural voters were courted heavily by the Bush campaign, media coverage seemed to focus on the metros of the three C's: Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinatti.

Aside from 15 labor intensive provisional ballots, there were no substantial problems of any kind at my precinct. My only regret is that a minor discrepancy resulted in a few missing signatures. This was not a case of fraud- just a case of tired election workers trying to keep up with the high turnout. Considering the 99% of those who voted quickly without even a minor problem, I'm proud of my team and myself for what we accomplished.


I'm glad I did this today. At no point did it approach the absolute living hell that I thought it might become.

Oh well. There's always 2008. . .

So there I was, minding my own business by making calls on behalf of President Bush at the Cambridge Republican Party Headquarters today when a curious thing happened. The word passed around that the Bush campaign was looking for attendees to show up at a Cheney rally today in Zanesville. Well, as enthused as I was to make calls to people who may or may not have wanted to talk to me about supporting President Bush, I decided to join the expedition to the next county west.

Unlike the outdoor rally held by President Bush in Cambridge this summer, this rally was smaller, seemed to have less security and was held indoors. Also, we didn't wait nearly as long, only about an hour as opposed to three for the President. The Muskingum Valley Victory Center was a large venue, and newspaper accounts place the attendance at the rally at 500.

Cheney delivered his standard stump speech to a hugely sympathetic crowd. The masses were fired up, ready and willing to sacrifice their political allegiances to Bush Cheney ‘04. Clearly, Cheney was speaking to the choir- and the choir was eager to hear the same talking points yet again.

The gist of his speech was clear enough. The Bush administration had nothing to run from. Despite the way the Iraq has been portrayed as a failure in the popular press and a lackluster yet hardly ailing economy, Cheney was giving no quarter to his critics on the left. Even the recent videotape of a freshly made up Usama Bin Laden garnered nothing more than a general comment about how we will not let our enemies determine to the course of our political process. This is one of the few spots of common ground on which both campaigns will agree on and admit to in public.

I left the event feeling energized and ready for action. I plan on making more calls on behalf of the President on Monday. Hopefully that will help to shore up his already huge base here in rural Ohio and give him the numbers to overcome a probable Kerry surge in the metros like Columbus and Cleveland.

Godspeed Mr President. . .

On November 2, I go above and beyond the call of civic duty. I'm working as a precinct manager in Cambridge 1B. I don't anticipate any major problems, since we seem to be far enough from the major population centers of Columbus and Cleveland to avoid the problems brought on by high new voter registration and challenges by the Republican Party.

Initially I was reluctant to work at this election due to some of the lawsuits and legal haggling here in Ohio. Then I realized I was better off doing this, even if there are problems, than some ailing senior citizen who could be easily confused. That's how I justified it anyway.

In any case, I'll be at the polls for about 13 hours Tuesday. Pray for me. . .

How many of you read the New York Times? A show of hands please. OK. Now, how many of you who raised their hands are journalists? Uh huh. I thought so. Just about all of you did. I'm guessing that journalists, be it print or broadcast, read the Times like Christian fundamentalists read the Bible.

I object to this. In my opinion, the Times can no longer righteously be called the "paper of record." There have been positive changes at the Times as a result of the Jayson Blair fiasco. But the real changes must be made in the way the paper is perceived by its readers. If scandals like this teach us nothing else, it should make clear the need to get our news from multiple sources. Putting your information eggs in any one basket makes no sense in the age of the internet. Why continue to put the Times up on a pedestal, gauging the newsworthiness of any story by whether or not it appears there? Some broadcast news and probably some print outlets continue to do this. I would like to think its influence in cyberspace is more restrained, but who knows?

Don't misunderstand me. The Times is a great paper. Columnists such as Thomas Friedman, William Safire and even the occasionally shrill Maureen Dowd alone make the paper worth reading. But it shouldn't be the barometer of news.

The Blair fiasco could've happened anytime, anywhere at any news organization. This Slate article runs down the major problems other papers have had with bad journalism. The key to its prevention- and insulation from its consequences- is exposure to a wide swath of press, television, and internet sources. Not soley the New York Times.

My quest to find broadband internet service continues. I tire of crawling along the www at 28.8kbps speed, due to these junky phone lines. Be it DSL or Cable, I don't care, and make it quick. There's only so much torture a man can take. . .

I called Adelphia yesterday and asked them for service. They said that they'd send a technician to survey my residence and get back to me within 10 days. I had heard this before, seeing as how I called them two months ago. Within a few days a woman had left a message on my answering machine saying I was essentially screwed- that the company refused to cross over the hill to my house from the other side of the street. This is something like a 1000ft or so. Not much in my opinion, but a deal breaker in their minds.

I called their competitor a few months a ago too, Cebridge. If the reports on the 'net are to be believed, these guys run their company like a room full of monkeys high on acid and alcohol. I don't care. If these people can get me out of dial-up hell I will put up with anything. When I get jaded by the broadband experience, THEN I can start bitching about service issues. Cebridge basically said, we don't service you. Try Adelphia.

The bottom line is, I will bug both of these companies until I get satisfaction. Anything less would be a disservice to me and low bandwidth sufferers everywhere. Broadband or death!

There's a column that appears in my local paper that is written by a local woman. The focus of the column is the various Christian-based adventures of the author and a character named Martha Jane. A short scan of the column turns up ominous words and phrases: "with help from above", "the grace of the lord", etc. That's enough for me to think twice about reading the entire article. I'm a purely secular person, and I believe this stuff should be kept out of sight and in the privacy of homes and special houses, a la prostitution.

Ah, kidding.

It makes perfect sense to write this kind of stuff in our local paper. After all, there is a strong undercurrent of Christian sentiment and morality that runs through this area. So upon some reflection of the situation this "Martha Jane" column is a logical series to run here.

But that won't stop me from reserving the right to make fun of it at any time.

This is just a short entry to let you know there are more posts in the pipeline. Lately I've been more focused on writing about what's happening here in the real world than what's occurring online. Too many bloggers are going that route and doing a far better job of it than I ever could.

I'm back on the nightshift at my convenience store job, and so it means new writings with an air of unreality are soon to surface.

Stay tuned true believers.

Here's a letter to the editor I wrote that was published by my local paper this last week. No big deal, since they'd probably print a communist manifesto if I sent it to them.

I address this letter to those who have not decided who they will vote for in the Presidential election this November 2. The choice may seem difficult due to the murky waters of pundits, commercials and political gossip, but I hope this can make the decision more clear.
Are we safer now than we were four years ago? My feeling is yes, because I would much rather see our troops fighting the war on terror overseas in places like Iraq and Afghanistan than here on our soil. Some people believe the action in Iraq was unjustified and unnecessary. I don't. Even if Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, he would've rolled out the welcome mat for Al Qaida sooner or later. Why wait to deal with him? 12 years of evading UN rules and sanctions was long enough.
As for jobs, I recently came back to work after a long streak of unemployment. In the frustration of not being able to find work, it is tempting to blame the President for bad circumstances. But every day I see new ads in this newspaper, and in other local papers, for new and higher-paying jobs. A few weeks ago, story here in the Jeff suggested that Detroit Diesel could be adding new positions in the coming year. The signs of economic progress are there for people who are willing to see them.
Some people believe our President is as out of touch as his father was. I have to disagree again, since I have never seen any public speaker connect with his audience as well as Bush did during his stump speech here in Cambridge this summer. His speech reminded me of why I'd voted for him in 2000 and why I support him this year. Our concerns are his concerns. Our priorities are his priorities. Our values are his values.
The Kerry campaign is advancing a complex and convoluted message that boils down to, ‘I'll do a better job doing the exact same things George Bush will do, only I'll do it better because I'm not George Bush.' That is simply not good enough. In these times, with a war being waged overseas and an economy coming back to life, now is not the time to change leadership.
I hope this letter has made things more clear. However you decide, remember to vote on November 2.

Bob Dylan's autobiography Chronicles Vol 1 is already out. I bought a copy from Amazon.com and should see it in my hands by the weekend. If the book is as good as the liner notes for his Biograph box set, then we're in for a hell of a ride. Media coverage has been hard and unrelenting, a publicist's grand slam.

Excerpt from Newsweek
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6099172/site/newsweek/

Reviews from:
The New York Times
http://nytimes.com/2004/10/05/books/05masl.html

USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/life/20041005/d_cover05_dom.art.htm

I walked in to work today, took a good look at the schedule and flinched. Next week, I must struggle through another five days of midnight shift on the gas end.

Damnation.

I am not looking forward to this. I always used to say I wouldn't mind working on third shift, but it would have to be on a permanent basis. That was before I remembered what havoc they can wreak on your life even if you somehow manage to get enough sleep during the day to make it through the night. If you've read some past posts of this blog then you know just what kind of altered state a third shift can give you. Hopefully a few diplomatic words to my boss will get me off the graveyard shift.

However, on the positive side, I've written some good posts when I should have been cleaning something during the wee hours. In any case, I'll work the week I'm scheduled, but if I see some more thirds scheduled in the future I will NOT be a happy camper.

There are some people for whom the night shift is the only way to participate in modern life. Any other strategy would require a complex system of bartering and perhaps inbreeding. Our maintenance/janitor/lot man is one of these. He has a subtle lack of social acuity that isn't obvious to the casual observer. Over time, his shortcomings become painfully apparent. He acts like a few neurons are disconnected in his brain, free floating in his skull and occasionally shorting out vital organic components. The result is a person whose conversational skills and body mannerisms are roughly similar to the Tin Woodsman from the Wizard of Oz. Don't misunderstand me- he's functional, but devoid of any poise. In short, he is the perfect night shift worker.

Another model of third shift ideals is our deli girl. A divorced mother of two in her early twenties, she flirts with every other patron and at times acts like an immature girl in junior high. She seems unable to grasp of the connection between action and responsibility. Rumor has it that she turns tricks on the side. Again, she is a perfect candidate for the graveyard shift. The night provides the ideal cover for running from reality, and creating one's own.

One of the peeves of this job is the frequent return of customers. It bothers me to see someone at my counter just minutes after having taken their money and hear their story. And just now, in between writing these lines, a woman launched into a sad tale about how she was supposed to meet her friend here. And she wasn't here. Damn, that's a human tragedy worthy of a lengthy newspaper article or a special UN commission. Of course, it goes without saying that I couldn't care less.

I have to be careful not to fall into my old ways of thinking. Its just too easy for me to lapse and find solace in the depression I've fought for years now. I have to remember: I can control it.

It could be this current atmosphere at work. The long nights, the forced courtesies, listening to lonely truck drivers tell their stories, all of it wears on me. I've done this work for years. I could do it in my sleep. Now I find myself doing precisely that.

Its about stress, I have learned. If you go through it everyday thinking you can't control these pressures, that you must suffer it gladly- then it will likely get the best of you. Maybe though, you're one of the lucky ones, the legion of lucky bastards who never think about it and are never bothered by it.

The real trick, the key to defeating depression is realizing its catastrophic, maladaptive strategy for handling stress. The more you tell yourself, and the more you believe this: "I can control it.", the more likely you are to shrug this monkey off your back.

I also find myself eating more junk food. Chocolate bars, corn chips and soft drinks seem to be my staple foods during these strange nights at the truck stop. It should bother me, but I find myself unable to screw up any concern for myself. Junk food is a comfort. It keeps my spirits high on this graveyard excursion. Oh, how glad I'll be when these shifts are over.

An interesting piece (if I do say so, myself), composed during one of my late night shifts at the truckstop:

The night shift is a weird, unnatural and nearly indescribable thing. Time drags in a way that can't happen during the day with the sun overhead, moving across the sky. There is life in the daytime, a subtle him and vibration in the earth which lets you know things are happening. None of that on the night shift.

Watching the clock does you no good, no good at all. It only prolongs the agony, the desperate haze, forcing you to quantify every desolate moment of your empty existence. No, time keeping is insanity, pointless. Your brain refuses to process what the eyes see.

And there is the fundamental problem of working into the night. The primitive portion of our minds resents the fact you get up, work, and go back to bed with only a few hours of daylight at best. It's a recipe for depression, ricketts or both.

Even with those risks, perhaps this is a good thing. The primitive, reptilian side goes to sleep, freeing the higher brain to think what reality forbids. It is the purest altered state, requiring no drug or controlled substance to achieve. Only a radical shift in sleep is required. The cheapest of cheap buzzes.

Bob Dylan's long awaited memoirs, Chronicles, Vol 1 will be released October 12, 2004. Wow. I had no idea he was working on them, but if his book is anything like the liner notes for the Biograph box-set, then we're in for a hell of a read.

This was written a few nights ago, during one of my overnight shifts at the convenience store. Make of it what you will:

For reasons I can't explain, tonight feels more like a warm night in November as opposed to a cool one in September. Driving to work this evening, I found myself wishing I could hear some Christmas pop:
Hall & Oates - Jingle Bell Rock
Queen - Thank God Its Christmas
John Lennon - Happy Christmas ( War is Over ),
Just to name a few.
Something about this year has made me wish it was the holidays already. I know some people feel like they're fake, or an elaborate marketing scheme, but I buy into all of it. I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. I didn't send any cards out since I was flat broke, but since I'm employed this year I probably will to a few close friends and family. And there's always that Charlie Brown Christmas DVD that must be watched. Yeah, bring on that yuletide feelin'.

The remnants of Ivan have kicked our butts again, with rather the same intensity that Frances did a week earlier. Flooding has returned, causing distress througout the county in the form of closed roads and stranded citizens. Nuts.

In case you haven't realized it, Mozilla's Firefox is a much better web browser than Internet Explorer.

Period.

There is no excuse for the security lapses and the lack of modern features in Internet Explorer.

Several articles from news.com.com highlight the differences between these two browsers:
Mozilla burns to prove Firefox worthy.
Firefox drawing fans away from Microsoft.

You can download Mozilla free from here. Enjoy!

Ivan is hours away from making landfall off the Gulf Coast region, right around Mobile, Alabama. This is the last thing the southeast US needs after taking two direct hits from major hurricanes (three if you count a tropical storm earlier in the season). For us here in southeast Ohio, the long range forecast has the remnants of Ivan stalling well south of us. Hopefully this forecast remains accurate, since any additional rain will cause more flooding for us.

The holy grail of DVD, the last heavy weight hold out, the original Star Wars trilogy will be released on September 21. It looks to be a fantastic box set full of special features and commentary by Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner and actress Carrie Fisher. Starwars.com has few articles about what you can expect to see in this set.

I haven't updated this blog in a while since I've been getting another off the ground. Its about a flood that hit our area during the first full week of September. It was caused by the remnants of Frances moving through the area. The storm dumped more than 8 inches of rain on southeast Ohio during a 24 hour period. My front lawn became a small stream. People evacuated from their homes in some spots around the county. Roads and even the interstates were closed at times. Not a pretty sight. And if Ivan comes through, it may happen all over again.

Check out the Flood of 2004.

I got a call Monday morning asking me to participate in something the article below describes well:

FEMA seeks help for hurricane recovery (Sep 3, 2004) -- The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is urgently seeking "at least a few hundred additional personnel" in the Atlanta, Georgia, area or in the southeastern US to help with a large-scale community relations task shortly after Hurricane Frances makes landfall. Individuals will be paid for their services and do not have to be Amateur Radio licensees. The mission is to distribute vitally important public information literature including urging people in the disaster area to apply to FEMA for help. These are temporary paid FEMA Reservist positions for periods of two weeks minimum. Those responding must be physically able to work in a disaster area without refrigeration for medications and have the ability to work in the outdoors for at least 12 hours a day under high temperature/high humidity conditions. FEMA will provide transportation from the Atlanta area to various parts of the disaster-affected area. For further information on how to respond, call the Community Relations Coordination Hotline, toll-free, 888 422-4965. The US Department of Homeland Security, of which FEMA is a part, this week has been positioning personnel and supplies in areas expected to be affected by Hurricane Frances to ensure readiness to provide immediate emergency assistance when the storm makes landfall. FEMA also is coordinating activities of other federal departments and with state agencies to prepare for a possible rapid response to the storm.--Ben Curran, FEMA Recovery Division, from www.arrl.org

By the time I was notified on the 6th, the total request for FEMA operatives had ballooned to 1000, possibly 2000. Right now I am waiting for the go ahead to travel to the staging area in Atlanta, Georgia. Wild, wacky stuff.

Here's a page with links to the latest satellite imagery from the National Hurricane Center. At 1:15pm Sunday Frances was covering the entire penninsula of Florida.

Wow.

Once again, Florida is slammed by a major hurricane. As you can see from the photo below, Frances is a big one with the potential to cause even more chaos and destruction to Central Florida.

I just had to mention this helpful post. Its a Big List of Blog Search Engines. Its very nice having someone else sift through the pile of garbage Google returns from a search for Blog search engines. My thanks to Mr Paparo!

Random scribblings written while I should've been working:

Scoping out chicks is a major drag when having to constantly shift your attention from the pretty young thing who just walked in to the next working class truck driver with a 25 cent snack cake who demands service. An unfortunate side effect of my dead end job. Its my own fault. If I can't take the heat, I suppose I should get the hell out of the kitchen.



I love the quiet moments in my favorite films. For example, in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the movie almost stops when Duke sits in his wrecked and flooded hotel suite listening to Buffalo Springfield's "Expecting to Fly". Another brilliant moment is in Blade Runner, when Deckard sits in his apartment drinking, looking over the photos that the replicants left behind.
In Ferris Bueller's Day Off, the trio ditch school and hit the Chicago Museum of Art. A haunting classical string selection accompanies them as they take in a little culture. I can remember telling some friends of mine while watching that scene that it was the best of the movie, to which they remarked "yeah, you like stuff like that." What the hell does that mean?

During the first run of working at my current job ( which lasted about five years ), I would often let the prospect of working there loom over me like some sort of giant, forboding omen that was sure to bring me down on so many different levels. This time around however, it seems like its not that way. I guess I'm able to compartmentalize the whole business, and put the thing behind me when I'm not there. These days I'm making a point to handle stress differently than I have in the past. For example, I'm starting to handle stress period.

I've heard of scientific studies that have proven that people trying to multitask have brains that show signs of "rot". Well, I think any kind of stress does this. I work with a multude of burnouts and dead-enders at my workplace, and not all of them are that way because they indulged in mind altering substances when they were younger. No, I'm convinced that at least part of the reason why their brains are so pickled is that they never learned how to deal with modern life.

Modern life, so different from the evolutionary process that molded us, is killing us in the most horrific way: by slowly taking away our mental faculties. I'm not advocating a disbanding of society. I'm just saying that the human mind was built for short term stressors, not the periods of terror lasting days, months and years that society subjects us to.

Hunter S. Thompson said it best in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: We're all wired into a survival trip now.
He was talking about the aftermath of the drug revolution in the 60's, but he could just as well be describing the mind-bending effects of long term exposure to other human beings.

I've used the proceeds of my dead-end service job to pay for a new, cheaply-made Chinese printer. Now I can endlessly send resume after resume, occasionally adding a cover letter that will no doubt impress the poor soul who has to deal with the never ending tide of applications for any job in this area, no matter how menial and pointless. It seems to work well, at least for the time being. My luck with printers has not been good. Ever since I left the dot matrix world for the glamorous and fast paced (not to mention quieter- god those dot matrix beasts were loud) arena of inkjet printing. The real irony is that the very first dot matrix printer I bought over ten years ago would probably print as well now as it ever did, if I only bought a new ribbon for it. Maybe I should do that, just for some wierd, geeky kicks. . .

At times, sending those resumes seems like an excercise in futility. I can never tell for sure if the places I apply to feel as if I'm too educated, or not educated enough. Or too inexperienced. Its the lack of feedback that really troubles me. Its as if they all get sent to some massive back office that simply shreds them and turns them into some eco-friendly mulch for the west coast. Its the adult equivalent of sending letters to Santa Claus. Only this time, your parents aren't able to hide a six-figure salary in the attic until Christmas.

Another round of Olympic sex stories:

ESPN.com's Page 2 columnist Jeff Merron has a interesting article that runs down some interesting sex connections in the Olympics of years past. Be sure to read the bit about the Polish competitor who was sexually ambiguous.

My current literary idol Hunter S. Thompson is a featured columnist on Page 2 as well. In a recent column he briefly mentions some Olympic sex dirt courtesy of Matt Moseley. Then he goes on with a customary diatribe about the current state of the NFL.

Prostitution in Athens has been covered from different angles at this games, but this article by TVNZ is the first to approach it from sex workers' point of view.

A story by the Taipei Times incorporates several themes from other stories, such as the Cubans being the top condom consumers at Athens, but with a few more quotes from Olympians.

So I've changed the name of my blog to "Fear and Loathing in Southeast Ohio". I'm not sure if its homage to a writer I enjoy reading, Hunter S. Thompson, or if its just a shameless attempt to draw attention to an otherwise painfully boring blog. Either way, I hope I don't get sued.

I'm going to work tomorrow at my dead end job at the local truck stop. Its more of a travel center, along the lines of a Travel America or Pilot station. I'll be working in the morning, a horrific shift from 6am to 2pm. I'm usually half asleep during the morning hours. One or two of these shifts during the week isn't bad, but after a week of it I just feel completely dead inside. I'm a night owl, and if anything I guess I'd rather work a 10pm to 6am shift than the morning shift.

In any case, I've been looking at the want ads in the local paper, and I can't see anything else that looks even remotely interesting. Everything requires either a degree or experience that I don't have. And to add insult to my inadequacy, the positions advertised are largely part-time.

I did renew my Ohio short-term substitutes license. I never got much work from the local school districts, but the few days I got last year gave me the money I needed to come and go on. If the convenience store gig goes sour I can use it as a backup, or work on my days off for that matter. For $12.00 its a cheap insurance policy.

Annie Hall, the weird nervous film by Woody Allen is currently spinning in my DVD player. I'm struck by its lack of formality and pretense. The occasions where Allen breaks the rules of film- by addressing the camera directly, playing a weak male lead, popping up as himself in obvious backstory scenes- they all conspire to produce a work of spare and unadorned truth. Romance is tough, even if you're as funny as Woody Allen.

A few years ago I regularly saw Maggie Downs, a columnist now at the Cincinnati Enquirer. I didn't date her. She would come in to my workplace from time to time, transact her business and leave. I remember reading her columns in a local paper, and was only marginally entertained by them. I think I complemented her on one of them via email, not so much because it was any good, but because she was quite attractive. She is so beautiful that it was intimidating to be around her, or interact with her in person. I have to wonder if she isn't aware of that. Oh hell, of course she is. There's no way anyone could be that oblivious to themselves. Anyway, here's a selection of her Enquirer columns. The small headshot doesn't do her justice.

In watching the 10M women's platform diving competition at the Athens Olympics, I can't help but admire the beautiful form of Australia's Loudy Tourky. Not knowing much about diving, I can't criticize her performances, but the judges felt they were good enough to net her the Bronze. One thing that doesn't come across well on television is her petite stature- she's all of 4'10'' and 97 pounds! I don't know if the sport of diving favors her body style, but I sure do. Its rare to see a muscular athlete look so sexy and curvaceous.

I simply have to mention my current fascination with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson. Inspired by the 1998 film starring Johnny Depp and Benecio Del Toro, I found the book on which that motion picture is based equally entertaining. If you're into DVD's, I highly recommend the Criterion version of this film. Its rather pricey at $30, but with all the extras and commentaries by Thompson and director Terry Gilliam, its well worth the cost. The commentary by Thompson is hilarious- and very insightful into the background of the author and the politics of making the film.

I guess it was this tasteful spread in FHM that made me think of the sexual nature of the Olympics. Apparently, there are sports that the athletes engage in that don't make the NBC primetime schedule.

This article from the Scotsman goes into detail about the sexual habits of the athletes at the Olympic Village. I like the concept of the vast majority of the athletes realizing that they have no real shot at a medal, and decide to kill time by heavy drinking and promiscuous sex. No really, I do. What's wrong with having the best sex of your life, especially if you don't win a medal? That's fair consolation in my eyes.

This article takes another view of the Olympic sex scene. It also mentions the concept of "true" Olympians vs Olympians/tourists.

Durex is proud to announce that they are the official provider of condoms and lubricants to the Olympians. Wow. . . is it too late to make the team for freestyle blogging?

Amateur radio works again in the public interest. See the American Radio Relay League's ARRLWeb: Hurricane Charley Response Reaffirms Amateur Radio's Value.

Uh oh, somebody's trying to co-opt the Amateur Radio Emergency Services for their own nefarious, probably pro-Communist purposes. I refer to a particularly heated thread of discussion on eham.net. It seems to revolve around the idea that a program called Winlink 2000 could or should replace conventional voice and data traffic nets for ARES use. Interesting. Sort of. Well, not really.

For those of you who want real-time, first hand accounts of the damage Hurricane Charley is inflicting on Florida, tune your shortwave radios to 14.325Mhz USB and/or 3.950Mhz LSB. 14.325 is the Hurricane Watch Net, and is co-ordinated with the National Hurricane Center in Miami. 3.950Mhz is the Florida Emergency Net. Both nets should be active with reports of damage and severe weather from radio amateurs (hams).

Kerry's admission that he would've supported the resolution to invade Iraq, even knowing that weapons of mass destruction wouldn't be found, has effectively doomed the Senator's presidential bid. Now Bush is using that admission on the campaign trail to attack Kerry's weakest point: his failure to distinguish his Iraq policy from Bush's.

Kerry says he would've done things "very differently" by bringing in foreign partners to shoulder the burden of the Iraq War. Such rationale is an insult to our 30+ allies in Iraq, the kind of insult to foreign powers that Kerry says Bush is guilty of. President Bush has now cornered the issue entirely by clearly showing there is little difference between his policy and Kerry's. Now, people who believe the latest Iraq mission was a mistake really have only one choice, that of Ralph Nader. There aren't many people who think that's a realistic choice at all.

I'm off the next two days from my crappy job at a local fuel stop. I think I'll use that time to follow up on several jobs that I had some strong leads on. For example, the Time Warner technical support position looked really attractive to me. I haven't heard anything from them for three weeks now. I've tried calling, but I get no definitive answers about my status. Also, I had applied for a network technician for the local municipal court. That would be a stable, decent job I would think.

I'm also looking at motorcycles, though I can't afford one right now and I've never ridden one. Plus, they seem to be dangerous to the max. Shouldn't I know better? Yeah, probably. But the bikes from Buell sure look sweet. Their smallest model, the Blast, has a whopping 492cc engine. Gee I just might not bust my ass on that thing. Emphasis on the word might.

Well today I spent a miserable 8 hours at the workplace. I was on the
maintenance beat, which today also included stocking the new products
that came in from our convenience store distributor. Not too bad, but
the real problem today was putting up with a co-worker that really
REALLY gets on my nerves. I have to work with him again tomorrow and
then I won't have to deal with him for the foreseeable future. I can
survive one more day I suppose.

My life as it is isn't dangerous enough, so I've begun thinking about
riding a motorcycle. I've never ridden one before, but it looks fun.
I've ridden a bicycle on some of the rural roads next to my home, and I
feel like I could handle a motorcycle of medium stature. I've looked at
the Suzuki Savage, the Honda Shadow Aero and of course, Harley
Davidsons. The Hondas have a good reputation as being mechanically
bulletproof, and since I'm not a gearhead that can easily fix a problem,
I'm leaning in their direction. Plus, they seem to be reasonably priced.

Here in Ohio you can take a state motorcycle training course that will
serve as your practical, on-cycle test for the permanent license.
The classes are all booked up, but I may try to walk-in to a course in
Zanesville in October. By then perhaps enough people will forget about
it, or will think its too cold to ride in October. Either way, odds are
good that I can show up and be included.

Two things to comment on. Well, three actually.

Item 1: President Bush stumped in our little town today. It was the same stump speech he gave on Friday in Cleveland. After a stop in Canton, Ohio this morning, he showed up here in Cambridge at about 2:15pm. Things would've been a bit better if we hadn't waited four hours in the rain before he came on. But, why complain? After all, the last time we had a sitting president visit was 1912. Yeesh, that's almost a century ago. Interestingly enough, John Kerry and John Edwards are speaking as I write this in Zanesville, Ohio, about 25 miles to the west. I'm not hearing anything different from the Democrats tonight than I heard at the Democratic Convention last week. I didn't buy into it the first time I heard it.

Item 2: I started ( or re-started ) my old job. I received my first paycheck today, which I promptly blew on pro-Bush propaganda and pornography. Actually, I just bought some stuff I needed from Wal-Mart. I can't stand going in there to buy things, but going to K-Mart just makes me depressed. And speaking of depressed, my old job makes me feel that way. Hopefully I can lose it soon in favor of the Time Warner Cable tech support gig.

Item 3: Read http://blamebush.typepad.com. I'm not sure of the author's true political leanings, but I don't care. This blog is funny as hell. Beware though- if you take politics so seriously that you can't laugh at yourself, this site will just make you go through your blood pressure medication quicker.

That is all!

Today I got a call from Time Warner Cable about the resume I submitted for a technical support position. They want to meet with me tomorrow morning for an interview. OK, this is good. Unfortunately this position would be a 20 minute drive away, which may be too much for my tired old car to handle on a daily basis. If the job looks to be worth it I will find some way to make it happen. This interview gives me hope anyway, even if for whatever reason I don't get the job.

As a radio ham, the events of the sun interest me. It may not be obvious to those outside this hobby but the condition of the sun plays a major role in radio propagation. Recently solar flares have erupted, causing some strange conditions on the radio. Some of these conditions are strange enough to cause aurora as far south as Texas. Here in Ohio we may get some aurora soon. Check www.spacew.com out for an idea of how likely aurora is where you are.

Two friends and I made a journey yesterday to the big city. Our goal was to introduce a friend to Chipotle Mexican Grill. As a fan of Mexican food in general, from my standpoint it was a crime for him to have neglected such a fine restaurant. If you're into burritos, I can think of no better place to eat. Try the hottest sauce they have. You won't regret it.

As a sideline we also hit the radio dealer, or in amateur radio, the candy store. We bought a few things but nothing of note. I tried to show one of my friends the joys of synchronous AM, but the HF bands were so bad I couldn't find any station with enough fading to be able to appreciate its quality. Oh well, another trip perhaps. And surely another burrito to go with it.

I just heard this morning that I'm going back to work for my old employer. Its a meager convenience store clerk position that I had during my college years. I don't really look forward to going, but at this point I really don't have a choice. I've tried just about every other option, including state employment. There's just no opportunity around here. Or if there is, I can't find it.

I got a nice letter from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio today telling me I didn't get the job I applied for last month. Oh well. At least they were courteous enough to send me a letter. I would've liked a state job. From what I've heard, the benefits are decent, the atmosphere is somewhat relaxed and its difficult to get fired or laid off. That's a nice combination. Actually, I'm sorry I didn't get the job because I was looking forward to referring to PUCO as "Puke-o". Who needs perks when you work at a place called "Puke-o"?

I know, I know. You don't want to hear about Gmail anymore. Well, let me recommend a few Gmail utilities, and then I'll shut up about it. If you're like me and have kept all your email since the late 1990's in a Netscape mail box, then you'll want to try either one (or both) of the utilities below.

Mark Lyon has written a gem called GML. It reads a Netscape mail file and automatically sends your messages to your new Gmail account. gExodus by Cheah Chu Yeow does essentially the same thing, but was written differently. I found gExodus to be more reliable than GML, but I think that's due to my computer. Both do work, and if you use them be sure to thank the authors for such cool and useful software.

The job interview for the ad sales gig went well. At least, I think it did. Its always difficult to gauge your own performance in these things. I spoke with the manager and to be honest, she did most of the talking. She was explaining the position and I was eager to hear about it. I hope I didn't come off as too passive. I suppose the ultimate barometer of sucess in these things is getting the job.

I'm looking forward to this holiday weekend, though I'm not sure why. Outside of a minor get-together here at the homestead I'm not planning on hitting any big shindigs. The most exciting thing I'll do is watch Clay Aiken perform on A Capitol Fourth. The sound will be muted, of course.

A friend of mine hooked me up with a Gmail account. If you don't know what Gmail is, then you don't really need it. Anyway, I know what it is and I don't need it either. But it is cool as hell, considering you get a mail service with a gigabyte of storage along with the famous Google search. I've already used it to wade through my old mail. Now I can find stuff that I thought I'd either lost or deleted. Incidentally, some of my mail dates back to 1997. No, I do delete stuff. Just not enough. Anyway, if you can get a Gmail account, by all means try it. I'm loving it.

I've got a morning interview tomorrow with someone the local temp agency put me in touch with. The job is selling advertising for a local free tabloid paper. Its part time, probably no benefits and $8 per hour. That's actually a reasonable wage here. I have no idea how it will go, but I'm crossing my fingers. Frankly, I'm happy to be getting an interview.

A promising job lead has cropped up. At least by my standards its a promising lead. I called the local temp agency and the woman I spoke to thought she might have some work for me. Its a vague, almost non-existent possibility but in my present state I consider that to be a good thing. She'll call me later this morning. I just hope I'm conscious enough to hold a coherent conversation with her.

I ate at Chipotles tonight. My stomach is telling me to run out and get some hi-octane antacid, but I'm resisting. I'd rather tough it out like the clueless masculine dumbass I am. Anyway, its not like I'd be asleep right now anyway. I haven't got to bed before 2am in weeks.

The Cassini space probe has sucessfully entered orbit around Saturn. Its on a four-year mission to discover little-known obscure scientific trivia about the ringed planet that geeks like me will find cool as hell. Later this year it will jettison its probelet Huygens towards Saturn's moon Titan. Titan is one of the few places besides Earth that may have a shot at harboring life. The cool thing about Cassini is that it has thousands (if not millions; I'm not sure of the exact number) of signatures that have been digitally scanned onto a DVD and bolted onto the side of the spacecraft. Back in the mid-90's NASA requested that folks sign their name onto a postcard and send it in to have it included. Cool huh? I think I got a few friends and family to sign my card. Its mind-blowing to realize that my late father's signature is orbit around Saturn at this very moment.

Well, Field Day was a blast this year. I was at the site from 2pm Saturday afternoon until 9am Sunday morning. I was glad I brought my 6 meter setup, as the band opened up nicely out west and into Texas and Louisana. Colorado and western Nebraska were also contacted by W8VP. As an added bonus, some friends and I worked a young lady in Texas with a very sexy voice. Ahh the Magic Band. . . I love a good band opening.

Today I helped a ham friend troubleshoot his 2 meter mobile setup. He has a Kenwood TM-261A that starts buzzing when he transmits on high power. It works fine on mid and low power, and he can run high power without problems with the engine running. I suspected he had a voltage drop. Sure enough, he did. His power cord to the battery is about twice as long as it needs to be, and is joined in the middle with a small gauge wire that probably can't handle 10 amps @ 12 volts. When his alternator runs, the car voltage ramps up to 13.8 volts, which overcomes the loss in the power cable. I fixed it temporarily, but I think he'll eventually need a shorter, thicker power cable ran directly from the radio to the car battery.

On the job front I took a look at some job apps, one from a gas station and another from a grocery store. I'll fill them out and deliver them tomorrow.

I've been struggling to write a program in Pascal to incorporate Fibonacci's sequence. I haven't thought about it enough to make any progress. I think that taking real-world problems and translating them into mathematical expressions is the hardest part of computer programming. So far it hasn't been easy to learn some of this stuff because my understanding of calculus and even algebra is weak.

I'm at Field Day.

Wouldn't it be refreshing if politicians actually said what they thought? Cheney has done just that. Bad day, indeed.

I take back the minor complement I gave Bill Clinton in an earlier post. In his interview with the BBC, Clinton seems to place blame for his problems at others' feet. His inability to effectively combat the growing Al Qaida threat is due to not wanting to be perceived as "changing the subject" from the Starr investigation. He pulls a Perot and repeatedly makes references to others' driving his ambitions, not himself. I did find the theme of parallel lives in the interview to be an interesting study in the man who still holds such sway over the Democratic party.

I find it strange that he says he did all he could to combat terrorism, and that he couldn't have invaded Afghanistan without raising distrust and fear in the international community. I'll concede that. But by his own admission he could have done more to put pressure on the people who struck at our embassies overseas and the USS Cole. I know that when it comes to 9/11, there's plenty of blame to spread around. But to place the majority of the blame on the nine month old Bush administration is blind partisanship. I think its clear that September 11 was such a event that nothing could've been done to stop it. At least, not without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.

As a staunch Republican with some socially moderate views, I find the coverage of Bill Clinton's My Life quite interesting. I find it refreshing that he admits he made mistakes, even though it seems that he takes every opportunity to bash Ken Starr. Because, after all, we all know that the Monica Lewinsky scandal was Starr's fault, not Bill's.

Yeah, right.

Starr was always the left's whipping boy during the independent counsel investigation. I do not believe that Starr was motivated by a venomous, nearly rabid hate of Bill Clinton. Starr was not desperate to bring down Clinton at any cost. He was not the visible face of some nebulous "right wing conspiracy." He was a man driven by duty and the rule of law. To see Clinton's excesses and indiscretions during his investigation must have lit a fire under him. He was outraged, as anybody who holds the office of the Presidency sacred should be. As My Life shows, Starr was not Clinton's worst enemy. Clinton himself was.

During a BBC interview, Clinton became visibly angry and indignant after a series of tough questions about the Lewinsky affair. He's as tired of the Lewinsky mess as everybody else. People, just read the book and shut up. I will do both.

As a followup to a previous post, the Time Warner Cable Online site was actually www.twcol.com. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a relevant job posting related to the newspaper ad on that site. Geez!

I spent the day providing amateur radio communications for the The Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure. Its a tour of Ohio that's held every year in a different part of the state. Its got some great scenery if you're willing to view it while pumping your heart out across this fine country. The hams on the event covered a huge route that crossed three counties. Its doubtful that the event would be possible without our support.

Yesterday I called the local municipal court about my application for network technician. The woman that answered said that she'd received over 40 applications, and that she'd be conducting interviews in mid-July. Hopefully I'll make at least the first cut. Even if I don't get the job, I'd feel better about myself if I just had an interview with a live human being. Yes, I'm just that desperate.

I also noticed a local gas station is hiring. I got an application, but was told that the HR person would be calling for interviews TODAY. I may try to return it by the end of the week and see if it will still be accepted.

If I was a conspiracy nut, I would find this rather interesting. A commercial jet lands at a military airport and the passengers are instructed to pull the shades on their windows and not look outside. Creepy. This comes after I watched the latest Bond installment Die Another Day. In the movie all hell breaks loose in the Korean DMZ and it makes the papers as a "freak electrical storm". Art imitates life, or vice versa?

I saw an ad in today's paper about a tech support position for Time Warner Cable in the cable internet division. Its an ideal position for me, since I have experience in customer service and tech support over the phone to friends who can't seem to get their computers up and running. The ad stipulates that I visit www.twol.com to apply for the gig. The wierd thing is, the site at that address has no relation to Time Warner Cable, at least none that I can discern. Creepy.

I spent today working on that simple Pascal program that I couldn't get to compile a few evenings ago. It turns out I was trying to change the value of a identifier that I had declared a constant. A rookie mistake. That's appropriate, considering I'm a rookie.

I tried programming a few years ago in college, but I had no idea what the hell I was doing since the classes moved so quickly. Plus we were using C++, which I've been told is overload for beginning programmers. I have the distinct feeling that all those folks I was in class with coded every day before they ate dinner. Or, instead of dinner. Either way, they knew craploads more than me.

I'm also trying out Pascal because a.) Its easy to get a compiler and run it under Linux, and b.) I'm really bored and looking for something to occupy my time during job searching.

I saw an ad in the local paper today about needing help at a gas station. I don't relish the prospect of doing that kind of work again, but I'm running out of options. I think I'll ask for an application the next time I'm in town.

I took it easy today. I spent some time watching From the Earth to the Moon on DVD. Also, I had a wicked grounding issue here in the radio shack. When my computer keyed up my radio, the audio coming out of the soundcard into the radio was trashed with a ground-loop hum. Its hard to describe, but those of you who have encountered this problem know exactly what I'm talking about. In the end all I had to do was tie a ground wire to my computer and it cleared right up. Sometimes you can get nasty interference effects when you use radios and computers side by side. Although I didn't refer to it when changing the ground, I recommend The ARRL RFI Book. Its chock full of good how-to tips and directions on troubleshooting interference issues.

After getting back from my friend's viewing hours, I decided to kick back with a little home entertainment. Being a broke SOB, I'm forced to check out DVD's from the local library. Its really not the hell that it sounds. As long as I'm patient I can get whatever title I want, provided its not too obscure. Or risque. After all, we are talking about public funds.

I mentioned in a previous post that we'd had some serious thunderstorms move through the area. It turns out that it dumped over two inches in the span of an HOUR. That's a lot of rain. The whole yard has basically become a swamp, and the field next to my home sounds like a waterfall. Crazy. I haven't heard any reports of property damage, but there was some serious problems around the county for a few hours after the storm hit.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow. It will be a bit of a respite from what has otherwise proved to be a troubling week. Assuming of course it doesn't rain.

And the rains come

Written 6/15/2004, 4;20pm

After trying to work in a late morning nap after attending the first
part of the CERT training class, I am rudely interrupted by a double
whammy. My mom continually asks me pointless questions that can't wait
until I acheive full consciousness, AND a nasty thunderstorm moves
through the area dropping over 2 inches of rain. Believe me, a storm
like that makes enough noise to cause concern, even when you aren't
trying to make up for lost sleep.

I just sat through the first hour of CERT training. It was interesting enough considering it was held at 8am. The best aspect of the training is when a skilled professional adds their input to the basic curriculum. For example, this morning we heard from a local fire chief on the incident command system. He's knowledgeable and prepared to give his perspective based on 27 years of active duty as a firefighter.

I'll visit my late friend at the funeral home this evening. I don't know how to feel about it. I guess I'll find out when I see him.

I learned this afternoon that a friend of mine had passed away. It wasn't altogether unexpected, but in a way it was. Gee, can I be more vague? I haven't felt really teary eyed about it, but throughout the day I've found myself thinking about things we had done together, or conversations that we'd had. No more of that now.

A mutual friend feels the same way. "I can't help thinking about him," he says, and that's it exactly. I'll miss him. But, given his personal circumstances, I've been missing him for a while.

As for the job quest, I mailed my application for a network technician opening to the local municipal court. I think its a long shot. I got the opening from the local paper, which means that they probably have at LEAST a hundred applicants. All of them with better credentials than I, no doubt. I sent it anyway, as I can't let my self-defeating mentality get the best of me.

Tomorrow morning (or this morning, as I look at the clock), I'll be attending the first class of CERT training. For those of you who aren't aware, it stands for Community Emergency Response Team. It was the brainchild of some folks out in L.A. Its designed to give people a modest background in disaster work and preparedness. Nice to see all those post-9/11 dollars trickling down to the local level. If you're interested in reading more about the program, check out EMI's CERT page.

Test

Is my email-to-blog function working? Or do I need to fetch the hammer?

Hello.

This is just a test to see if I've got the settings for the blog correctly implemented. I'm not going to keep it, since it seems a thunderstorm is closing in that will certainly play hell with my electricity.

I have a rather low tolerance for burned out broads and self important bitches. I base this on a long, protracted struggle with one in my personal life, and also several I have encountered in the workplace. In no case have I found it easy to deal with them. Its a personal thing, and its something I understand about myself. I'm allergic to these women. The treatment for this malady is exactly the same. All I have to do is minimize my exposure and keep myself well medicated. In retrospect, that seems to be good advice for many different yet equally trying situations.