Live Through This

Fate sent another disaster my way, which I barely escaped yet again. Others were not so lucky. Nuthin' left to do but smile, smile, smile.

Chubba Bubba 2002-2016

He was a good cat.

A Year

To Lydia, Who Left

We could have been happy, but you didn't want that. What a waste. What a stupid, pointless waste.

It worked!

In October 2012 I was laid off from my job at a commercial printing company. I was 53 years old with a mortgage, and a set of job skills that were no longer needed in a fading industry. My wife suffered a debilitating illness. We had about half a year’s worth of rainy day savings. I needed new skills, I needed them fast and I couldn’t afford to spend the thousands of dollars that training required.

After I filed for unemployment, two lucky breaks came our way. We were able to get a year’s worth of mortgage relief via the Keep Your Home California program and through JobLink I qualified for education funding in the WIA program. 

In my job searches I noticed several ads for people with AutoCAD skills. Since SRJC was a short walk from my house and offered AutoCAD classes, I chose Surveying as a major and was once again a college student. One of the required classes for the major was Intro GIS. I had never heard of GIS but it sounded interesting. As my classes progressed, I became fascinated with GIS and switched to GIS as a major. 

Two years later I have begun my new career as a CAD and GIS technician for a local surveying company. This is how it’s supposed to work. I have new skills in an industry with a growing, rather than declining future, and if all goes well, we’ll be able to keep our home. 

I also need to acknowledge Barack Obama and the Affordable Care Act for helping us save $800.00 a month when we needed it, allowing my wife to have the surgery and followup therapy she needed to overcome her ailments, return to work and begin a new career of her own. A former President once remarked that one of the most frightening things he ever heard was, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Easy for him to say, he was wealthy and never needed it. For those of us who have, government help has been a lifesaver.

Thanks

For making it through the year. Thanks to Keep Your Home California, EDD, Sonoma County Job Link and SRJC for letting me try something new. Thanks to Andrew Brill and Sutter for giving Lydia her life back. Thanks, we hope, to Covered California for helping us save money. Thanks to KCSM for the toons.

Thanks that there's food in the fridge and the roof doesn't leak. Thanks to Lydia, for being her wonderful self and perservering. Thanks to friends and relatives. Thanks to Crazy and Lazy, you know who you are.

Achoo! Cough, cough.

It's dusty in here.

Independence Day

Today we celebrate our nation's fight for freedom. Tomorrow we go back to giving our nation's freedom away.

Winter in America

Gil Scott-Heron died yesterday. One of my favorite artists, he gave me a little insight on how African-Americans view this country and their place in it. Considered to be one of the forefathers of Rap, he also was a great jazz artist and wordsmith. Although the peak of his career was decades ago, a lot of his songs still ring true, like this one.

Uprising

Tunisia? Egypt? Wisconsin?! The Middle East is not the only place they're taking to the streets. Teabagger Governor Scott Walker is attempting to cut the wages and break the union of Wisconsin's state employees. To make sure they don't strike, he's willing to bring in the National Guard to "prevent disruptions."

However, some teachers, along with their students, went to the capitol and staged a peaceful protest. How many? Estimates ranged from 13,000 to 30,000. Result? Now Walker and the Republicans are considering some changes.

As for the Middle East, it's interesting to note that people suffering under authoritarian regimes are rising up and toppling those regimes one after another with no involvement from us.

2nd amendment remedy

Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot point blank in the head by a gunman who then emptied his gun into the crowd, killing 5 people, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl. Giffords was on Sarah Palin's Target List with a crosshairs over her district. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer just signed a law allowing the shooter to carry a concealed weapon without a permit.

The shooter, Jared Loughner, has a Youtube channel apparently discussing mind control. Sharron Angle's "Second Amendment Remedy" in action.

Don't forget to vote

Just so you know.

Adventures in stupidity

If this was fiction, it would be edited out for being too stereotypical, but it's real:

I tell ya, we’ve got some new problems in Washington. Big problems. Just today, Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta said people in America are not eating enough fruits and vegetables. They want to give all the power to the federal government to force you to eat more fruits and vegetables. This is what the federal, CDC, they gonna be calling you to make sure you eat fruits and vegetables, every day. This is socialism of the highest order!

GzeroP Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia.

Seriously, people? You want them back in power?

Nobody could have predicted....

We're having a cool summer here in Sonoma County. It's wonderful. I'm grateful to live here when I read about the muggy, sticky steam bath that the rest of the country is suffering in.

Those of you having to endure that, can take a tiny bit of comfort in the fact that others have it worse:

The extreme heat has led to the worst drought conditions in European Russia in a half-century, prompting the Russian government to suspend wheat exports. The drought has caused extreme fire danger over most of European Russia (Figure 3), and fires in Russia have killed at least 50 people in the past week and leveled thousands of homes. The fires are the worst since 1972, when massive forest and peat bog fires burned an area of 100,000 square km and killed at 104 people in the Moscow region alone. Smoke from the current fires spans a region over 3,000 km (1,860 miles) from east to west, approximately the distance from San Francisco to Chicago.

Stephen Andrew explains what this would be like here:

To put this in rough perspective -- and note this is not absolutely precise, it's purely ballpark to give you some feel for what the Russian people are enduring -- if this heat wave was hitting North America, it would be near 100°F in Fairbanks, Alaska. Most of Canada would be baking at 100° or higher, the northeast, from Maine to the Great Lakes region would be hitting upwards of 105° everyday, even the nightly low in the massive urban heat islands of New York and Chicago would be over 90°! The midwest grain belt and parts of the Pacific Northwest would not see a drop of rain for two months and pushing as high as 110° in places. The desert southwest, even some of the higher elevations of Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and West Texas, would be as uninhabitable as Death Valley or the Sahara.

A nightmare scenario that, sadly, we have been warned about for many years. Nobody wanted to hear it then, and people still don't, now. The problem with all of this is that these nightmare scenarios are now reality, and this reality will get worse. How much worse depends on what we do next.

Want

The Porsche 918 Spyder concept car has been greenlighted for production. Why do we care? Well, as a former 911 owner who still likes fast cars, but is also a realist who understands that gas-gulping supercars contribute to our mounting environmental collapse, this car shows you can have the best of both worlds.

500 horsepower from the gas engine to the rear wheels, along with another 218 HP from electric motors on the front wheels. 0-60 in 3.2 seconds. 198 mph top end. 78 miles per gallon.

Along with Tesla's pocket rocket that doesn't use any gas at all, and the amazing White Zombie, it shows that motorheads are warming up to petroleum alternatives.

If Republicans take Congress in November

The fine folks who shut down government for an extramarital blowjob vow more of the same if they regain the majority:

According to Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., the House Republicans should exercise their power to subpoena and hold continuous hearings. Speaking to a gathering for the GOP Youth Convention on July 22 in Washington, D.C., she emphasized this point.

“Oh, I think that’s all we should do,” Bachmann said. “I think that all we should do is issue subpoenas and have one hearing after another. And expose all the nonsense that is going on. And it’s very important when we come back that we have constitutional conservative leadership because the American people’s patience is about this big.”

Did you get that? No legislation, no efforts whatsoever to solve the nation's problems, just one witch hunt after another for at least two years. These people still love George W. Bush and think he did a fine job. These are the stakes for this election.

Who they really work for

Tony Hayward was supposed to be grilled by congress but Joe Barton(R-TX) couldn't help himself. Republicans were furious that he let their true intentions show, and made him apologize for apologizing. Republicans and their Teabag lackeys are supposed to be for the little people, but don't let them fool you. Their allegiance is to corporations, not the Constitution.

Victory is sweet

Jill wins!

Won't spend a day in jail

Dubya casually admitted that he's guilty of war crimes, and that he'd do it again. Never mind that. The real outrage comes from Paul McCartney.

Wait, let's send this guy to jail instead.

Election time again

Don't forget to vote on Tuesday if you haven't already sent your ballot in! For those of you who haven't made your minds up, let me offer my recommendations on the ballot measures and selected races.

First and foremost for Sonoma County residents, vote Jill Ravitch for DA! The DA's office is currently wallowing in misery under a graduate from the Captain Queeg School of Management. Jill will have the prosecutors loving their jobs again, benefiting us in the process.

Prop. 13 - Yes. Though the name Proposition 13 bring a gnashing of the teeth, this one fixes some confusion regarding the reassessment of seismic upgrades.

Prop. 14 - No. Takes away the ability of parties to choose their own candidates, lessen third-party participation and unfairly decreases the power of progressives.

Prop. 15 - Yes. It's a step in the direction of taking money out of politics. We don't need eMegs and iCarlys buying elections.

Prop. 16 - No. PG&E's plan to protect their monopoly. Will take power away from voters.

Prop. 17 - No. Mercury wants to gouge more money out of you and is using this as a tool to do so.

Whatever you think, vote! Remember what Frank Zappa said, "if you don't vote, don't bitch."