Notes from the Cave

My parents were here for Christmas this past weekend, flying in from Texas on Friday.  We had dinner at The Pub on Friday night, then saw A Christmas Carol at Cincinnati's Playhouse in the Park on Saturday.  The kids got to open their presents from their grandparents, and I got a badly overdue new cell phone - a Galaxy S3, which I am thrilled with.  It's the first time I've ever owned a top-of-the-line cell phone.  When it comes to phones, I've always been 3-4 years behind the curve.  Of course, this one will be surpassed, no doubt, in a few months by something else, but at least I'll have a respectable phone for a while to come.  

Next weekend, I will be off Saturday through Tuesday.  I am really looking forward to that extended weekend.  It'll be the longest I've had off at one stretch since my vacation in July.  (Although, I can't really complain because I'm just finishing up the second 3-day weekend I've had in a row, and this will, as I said, be followed by the 4-day weekend coming up.)  

Despite two 3-day weekends in a row, I haven't gotten any legitimate writing done on my new book.  The book is a history of American political parties called Washington's Nightmare, and I had been making really good progress on it until a few weeks ago.  Now I'm stalled out, not because of writer's block, but simply sheer laziness.  I keep getting involved in other things.  In my defense, however, even though I've had double 3-day weekends, I've been really busy with family things throughout both of them.

In the wake of last Friday's horror in Connecticut, I considered writing a piece on gun control, but ultimately decided that nothing I would have to say hasn't already been hashed out by others who can probably say it better and more persuasively than I can.  Still, I thought I might make one comment to give people a little food for thought:

In the United States, we value our rights to own and use firearms.  This right is enshrined in the 2nd Amendment of our Constitution.  But like any valued freedom, there is a cost.  The cost, for instance, of freedom of expression is a multibillion-dollar porn industry.  The cost of freedom of speech and assembly is a KKK march or a Westboro Baptist Church funeral picket.  The cost of a fair judicial process is that sometimes murderers get acquitted.  The cost of free elections is that uninformed and misinformed people still get to vote.  

The cost of the right to bear arms is that, sometimes, schoolchildren get slaughtered.

The U.S. has one of the highest gun-related murder rates, suicide rates, and accidental death rates in the entire world.  Among developed, or "First World," countries, the U.S. is at the top of all three of those lists involving gun-related deaths.  

Is your right to own a handgun, because you enjoy target shooting (or any other reason), worth all those lives?  

Notes from the Cave

We will soon be leaving for the 30-minute drive to Cincinnati for Thanksgiving.  It will be at the house of my wife's aunt, which is where we have generally been celebrating Thanksgiving since my wife's grandparents' died.  My in-laws live two doors down from my wife's aunt, and the grandparents, when they were living, lived across the street.  Small town scenario in a large metropolis.

M has been slaving in the kitchen all morning, and it's about 269 degrees in there.  I helped by washing a pan for her :)

I recently finished a fantastic historical novel set in the 12th century called Lionheart, by Sharon Kay Penman.  As the name implies, it is about the life of Richard I, specifically his exploits on the Third Crusade in the early 1190's.

I'm now on to a Robert McCammon novel called Mister Slaughter.  Over the last year, McCammon has become my new favorite author.  I just LOVE his books.  Sitting down to read a McCammon book is like sitting down with an old friend.  I haven't disregarded my previous favorite, Wilbur Smith, but I've read all of Smith's 35+ books now and he only publishes a new one every couple of years or so.  Over 80 now, his newer books just don't have the spark of the older ones.

Work has been interesting of late.  Our lead tech on 2nd shift has been out for a few weeks, so I have been given the duty of temporary lead tech (with no extra pay of course).  It has been very hard - harder, I suppose, than I would have expected.  In addition to handling departmental calls and crises, as well as a few administrative tasks, I also still have to do my part as a regular old x-ray tech - namely, working in the ER, doing portable exams on the inpatient floors, and running x-ray machines in the OR.  So it's been pretty stressful, but I am adjusting to it now.  Makes me appreciate the work our real lead techs do year 'round.

In my predictions for the presidential election this year, I correctly picked 47 of the 50 states.  Additionally, every state I picked for Obama went to Obama.  The only ones I missed were states where I picked Romney, but Obama ended up winning.  Neither the electoral vote, nor the nationwide popular vote, was as close as I expected.  However, I said at the time that given two possibilities - A large Obama victory, or any Romney victory at all - I thought it was more likely that Obama would win big than Romney would win at all.  Still, I predicted a closer battle.  All political biases aside, I think the Republicans have some real soul-searching to do to figure out how to appeal to Americans across generations, economic backgrounds, and ethnicities.

Time to head to Cincinnati.  M just told me we were supposed to be there at 2 pm.  It's 215.

 

Notes from the Cave

I must have writer's block.  I've been working intermittently on a short story, but otherwise I just have nothing when it comes to blogging.  I've even tried to do Google searches to find topics to blog about, but it hasn't worked.  I do have a 10 Fun Facts post almost complete, but I started it a week ago (I usually write those things in one sitting).

In any case, this edition of Notes is just going to be a random list of thoughts and blurbs, and will no doubt reflect the cynical and crusty mood I am in at the moment.

I'm using Netflix now, and I have to say there's not as much variety on there as I'd hoped.  But hey, at least my daughter can watch Bieber and trash my man cave.

How come Pat Robertson, or some other hypocritical douchebag evangelical, hasn't blamed right-wing sins for the hurricane that is now threatening the Republican National Convention?

There is a local politician in my little northern Kentucky town named Cathy Flaig.  She runs for minor offices of some type in every election but always loses.  Despite that, she is an active member of the Tea Party and the Republican Party in this region, and was even voted "Citizen of the Year" this year for our, evidently, conservative little town.  She's one of our delegates to the Republican National Convention (or an alternate, or something).  In any case, she has erected a homemade billboard on the side of the road here in town that is addressed to "Mr. Obama" and basically accuses him of crimes against capitalism or some ridiculous shit.  Anyway, my only point in saying all of this is to say that every time I drive past it, I lay on my horn and flip the bird.  Hate these Tea Party fuckers.

I watched Brokeback Mountain last night on Netflix.  I had wanted to see it ever since my sister gushed over it incessantly after it came out.  It was a good movie, very emotionally moving and well-acted, but I sure wish someone had been watching it with me to enjoy all my snide gay jokes.  Also, I had to read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia after it was over in order to understand the final series of scenes.  I didn't get the whole shirt thing at first.

I've been using my electronic cigarette for over a month now - it's been 6 weeks, actually.  I did smoke on one occasion a few weeks ago.  I was hanging out with my sister and both my e-cig batteries died, so I ended up bumming a few of her boyfriend's menthols.  But that has been the only slip-up, and would not have happened if not for bad planning on my part.

I went fishing with my brother-in-law last week and caught about ten fish.  We fished in a golf course pond at his private club.  It was nice to fish and actually catch something.  That hadn't happened in a long, long time.  Lake Cumberland, where I typically have done my past fishing, is an awful place to fish, in terms of actually catching anything.

Most people in my circle of friends and acquaintances seem to support Lance Armstrong, in light of his lifetime ban this week.  I think I'm the only person who thinks he's a cheater.  I mean, I really don't care one way or the other - professional cycling doesn't interest me in the least - but I've always tended to believe that he did it.  Maybe that's borne from my cynicism about doping in sports in general, but it is what it is.

McGwire and Sosa broke amazing records in baseball and everyone marveled at the progress modern athletes were making.  Then it came out that they were cheaters.  Them and everyone else in baseball.

Now Armstrong does basically the same thing: he wins race after race after race, and seems to be superhuman and unlike anyone ever in the sport before.  Then fifty gazillion people accuse him of doping, and even though he never fails a drug test, the number of eye witness reports against him is so overwhelming that it's hard  to believe they're ALL lying.  Former trainers, teammates, coaches, associates - all have testified under oath against him.

What motivation could all of these people have to create such an enormous web of deceit?  Professional jealousy can't be the explanation in all these cases, because not all the people who have accused him have been competitors.  This is simply a classic case of "where there's smoke, there's fire."  I think he did it, and furthermore, I think the only reason SO many people are on his side is because he's a cancer survivor and has a very well-respected and high-profile cancer foundation.  (By the way, steroids have long been linked to testicular cancer.  Just sayin'.)

Pretty bummed about Neil Armstrong dying.  Wouldn't have expected to feel that way, so it kind of came as a shock to me.  It was like a little piece of my childhood dying, I guess.  I wasn't alive when Apollo 11 landed on the moon, but Neil Armstrong was a national hero when I was growing up.  His name was always said with a certain sense of awe: after all, not many people can say they hold a unique place in all of human history.  But Armstrong did, and so I guess that's why I was shaken a bit by news of his death.  I even cried a little, after reading my sister's lovely tribute.  I feel very strongly that America, as a country, has lost its collective vision, and with Armstrong's death, the living symbol of one of America's greatest visions is now also gone.  It's a sad day.

Pretty sick of hearing about gun violence.  Sorry Second Amendment Whores, guns do kill people, and fuck you for spinning it otherwise.  I'm not saying all your precious guns should be banned, but if you are man enough to wield a gun, at least be man enough to own the fact that guns are responsible for a small town's worth of American deaths every single year - and that's not even counting gun-related injuries or suicides.  Own it, and stop hiding behind your twisted interpretation of the Second Amendment and your fancy little catch phrases and memes.

Saw a quote going around Facebook and Twitter this week, purported to be from Morgan Freeman (although that wasn't true), that said something to the effect of: "People who are against gay marriage aren't homophobic.  They aren't scared of gay people.  They're just assholes."  Couldn't agree more.

Okay, Bieber's documentary is ending on Netflix, and I can't think of anything else to say to piss people off, so peace, we outta here.

Notes from the Cave

Another dry spell on the blog.  Sorry 'bout that.  I was on vacation in mid-July, then upon returning home I started working 2nd shift at the hospital.  The transition from first has been difficult.  I've essentially been staying up until 3 and 4 o'clock in the morning, then sleeping til noon, laying around for an hour, then going to work.  As a result, I've gotten a ton of late night reading (and Olympics-watching) done, but hardly anything else.  I'm trying now to get on some sort of normal routine so I can have time in the mornings, before work, to take care of the things that need my attention.

The Summer Olympics are over, and not a bit too soon.  That's not to say I don't enjoy the Olympics, but after a while, it gets a bit overwhelming.  Furthermore, the Summer Olympics isn't nearly as entertaining as the Winter Olympics.  I would guess I probably could care less about 75% of Summer Olympic sports, while I like virtually all of the Winter Olympic sports (with a few exceptions, of course).  Like everyone else I enjoy the gymnastics, but the swimming and diving get old after the 546th event, and the "I'm King of the World" attitude of the runners in Track and Field gets tedious after a while.  I did enjoy seeing a few of the more obscure sports, like archery and fencing, but you can only take so much of that before it's dull - sort of like reading Notes from the Cave, actually.

My parents are here this weekend from Texas, and we went yesterday to the tomb of William Henry Harrison, the 9th president of the United States.

He lived much of his life, and was buried, in North Bend, Ohio, which today is a suburb of Cincinnati right at the river (during Harrison's life, it would have been the boondocks outside of the Cincinnati).  It's in a geographic region where three states come together - Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, right at the northernmost bend of the Ohio River as it passes between Ohio and Kentucky (and thus the northernmost spot in Kentucky).  On the banks of the Kentucky side of the river at that spot, one is actually farther north, geographically, than downtown Cincinnati, which is a few miles to the east.

Buried in the tomb with Old Tippecanoe are a number of his family members, including his son, J.S. Harrison, a U.S. congressman and father of 23rd president Benjamin Harrison.

J.S. Harrison's body was stolen a few days after his burial in 1878, despite a guard at the tomb, and was later found at a medical school in Cincinnati, naked and hanging upside down in a drainage chute in the anatomy lab.

Other than that, we have just enjoyed the nice weather, eaten out a bunch of times, and gone to the bookstore.  M has been gone most of the weekend getting her room ready for school, which starts Wednesday.  Tonight is Open House, and they were not able to get into their rooms for the first time until late Friday night.  Three days, basically, to set up an entire elementary school classroom.  Utterly ridiculous.  It's a brand new building, which is the cause of the delay in gaining access.  M has been understandably stressed out and has probably put in 45 hours since Friday evening.  No joke.  Both Saturday and Sunday she was there from about 9 a.m. to 1 a.m.

Not much else to report other than sheer trivialities, but I will resist boring you with that stuff.  I am currently working on a new short story, set in the 14th century, which I had hoped would be done by the beginning of August, but which still needs a ton of work (as in, like, I've only written about 2 paragraphs of it).  Possibly going to be trying a new marketing strategy for my books in the coming weeks.  Reading a book right now on how to market yourself.  We'll see how that pans out.  

Notes from the Cave

My poetry collection is free right now at Amazon, if you have a Kindle reader.  It will be free today and tomorrow (that's June 11 and 12).  There are, I believe, 52 poems in the collection, most of which were written between 2004 and 2006.

My short story Widow's Walk is also free today and tomorrow.

I've noticed recently that my blog hits are in a slow decline, and that is obviously due to my basic lack of blogging in the last few months.  I only had about 1,200 hits last week, which is the lowest its been in a long, long time.  I gotta get writing again, and I gotta do more than just these stupid updates.

Work has been not fun.  The new software implementation is in full swing, and I think most people are comfortable using it now, but it has had everyone's nerves on edge and has generally made everyone extra stressed out.  (Hint: "everyone" probably just means "Scott.")

I've also had a lot going on with my second job as a language and writing instructor with a company that serves the Japanese market.  It's been too much really.  I am absolutely certain that I don't handle stress and workloads as well as others, but I can only hold myself to my own standards, and by my standards, I have been busy to the point of generally wanting to run away.

I went with my wife and kids this weekend to Target to buy fat clothes.  I have been wearing shirts and shorts and pants for months now that are way too tight, telling myself all along that I will lose weight and fit into them again.  But I have finally given in and bought new clothes.  I haven't exactly replaced my wardrobe or anything, but if I DO manage to lose weight in the next few months/years/decades/eons, I am going to have a bunch of shirts and shorts that are too big.

My car is in the shop now getting (thankfully) only 250 dollars worth of work.  I went out to start it yesterday and the engine sounded very funny...sort of rattling and shaking.  I drove up the street and it didn't really get better, and the check engine light came on.  So off to the car shop we went, and of course by the time we got there, the car seemed normal, and they weren't able to reproduce the problem.  They think it is related to spark plugs and gaskets and other car shit that I don't really understand, so they are going to tune it up for me.  Hopefully it won't break down and strand me in the ghetto where I work - or on the Interstate in East Bufu later this summer when we drive it to Georgia.

East Boofoo?  No, I think I prefer Bufu.  Although that sort of looks Egyptian or Babylonian or something.

Okay, fine, I'll use an old euphemism that a co-worker of mine used to use all the time:

"Or on the Interstate in East Jesus, Nebraska, later this summer when we drive it to Georgia."

Hmm, that doesn't really work either, for geographically obvious reasons.

Well anyway.  A friendly word of advice to Twitter users: don't follow Obama or Romney on Twitter.  They are TOTAL spammers.  Sheesh.  STFU a'ready.  All I know is this: Romney wants to fire teachers, police officers, and firefighters, and Obama hates Hispanics.

Notes from the Cave

This is yet another Dining Room edition of Notes from the Cave, as the Cave has been overrun with school supplies.  M has been hired on at a new school opening in the district this fall, so she had to clean out her classroom last week when the school year ended.  Both the girls will be going with her to the new school, as well as our nephews.  Her old school was only about half a mile from the house.  The new one might be one whole mile.  It's hard to believe, but H will be in 5th grade, and S will be in 1st.  It's a definite irony of life that the older you get, the faster the time flies by.  Seems like it should be the other way around.  

Today was a big day at the hospital; it was the "go live" day for our new computer system, called Epic, which is a fully-integrated online medical record system.  Previously, we'd only had a digital medical record system in the ER.  Now, the whole hospital is completely virtual - no more patient charts in binders with carbon copies and pre-printed order sets.  In the Radiology department, where I work, we already used computers to do most of our work; that's simply the nature of modern radiology.  So the change hasn't been quite as dramatic for us as it has been for nurses and doctors on the floor who are used to charting on paper.  Even so, we are completely changing how we enter, receive, and complete our radiology orders, so it takes a lot of getting used to.  

In a nutshell, I hate change.  I told someone today that I wished I could hibernate for the next two weeks, and then come back to work and have all the implementation headaches solved and everyone fully trained, and could thus just skip it all myself.  As it is, I am dreading the next couple of weeks. 

I have also recently accepted a position on 2nd shift.  This was a huge decision for me, and I had actually initially turned the offer down, only to reconsider several weeks later.  In the end, the additional money that I will make on 2nd shift, together with some other personnel changes that are occurring, sealed the deal for me.  I am really bummed about having to leave a lot of good friends on 1st shift - it's like a big family there - but I keep reminding myself that it's not like I'm leaving and will never see or work with these people again.  My shifts will overlap with 1st shift for several hours every day.  The additional pay is also pretty significant, at least for a family at our economic level.

Still, I think this permanent shift change (which starts July 1), coupled with the new software implementation, is just a bit too much all at once.  I've been feeling down a lot lately, and have even had a few minor panic attacks.  I've been moody at home and work, and I think my wife and kids, as well as many of my co-workers, are ready to kill me.

My reading list this year is suffering in new and dramatic ways.  As of June 1, I have completed just three - yes three - books.  And all three of them were fairly short.  I have not completed any non-fiction, and, in fact, haven't even been reading any non-fiction books.  I have been reading a very, very long novel for the last several months, and although I absolutely love the book, it's taking me forever to get it done.  

Now, in my defense, part of the reason for this dearth of finished books is because I have been focusing a lot of reading time on documents from American history.  Specifically, I have been reading through all the presidential inaugural addresses and State of the Union addresses, going all the way back to Washington, as well as numerous papers and documents from various presidential terms.  I'm not exactly sure what my goal is with all of this; a big part of it is simply that I find it interesting.  Of course, it is also related to the blog posts I have been making this year on presidential facts and the history of political parties.  I don't know if anything worthwhile will come from this endeavor, aside from expanding my own knowledge, but there might be a little book or historical narrative or something hiding out in the back of my brain.  We'll see.  

Of course, another big reason for the lack of reading in general has been my addiction to watching the entire series of Lost from start to finish.  I think I started it sometime in late January, and finally finished it a few weeks ago.  Now that I am done with it, I hope to get back on track with my reading.

I've sat here for about five minutes trying to think of something else to write about, and I just don't have anything.