Monthly Archives: August 2013

Pretend…

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I like to pretend there is some kind of art or science to this whole blogging thing. I review the metrics, watch the traffic and hit counts, and imagine that I have some kind of idea what people might be interested in reading. At best it’s a 50-50 proposition most of the time. Fortunately, I’m mostly writing for the sake of writing and working out my chops, so the individual hits and misses aren’t really all that important. Lucky thing, too. If you tied much stock to whether you stats are up or down on any given day you’d drive yourself round the bend in no time.

Sundays are probably my slowest, least read day. I don’t know if that’s because I’m the only one who finds these archival posts even remotely interesting, or because everyone’s gone to church when I’m posting, or that you lazy jerks are still lying about in bed while I’m here slaving away at the keyboard. Not that it’s really important. I’ve been having a blast looking back at how the blog evolved over the last six years. The stuff I’m pulling in now from 2008 is far more personal/day-in-the-life than what I’m posting on a typical day in 2013. I like to think the writing has gotten better and the threads a little more coherent along the way. I know I’m more confident in my voice now that I was in the past, so even if practice doesn’t make perfect, it still makes for a better story.

I think everyone that lives part of their life online has some kind of performance fetish. We all want attention in one way or another. We’re all looking for the next “like” or comment or share at least on some level. For me, it’s the writing it all down that really feels important. I still find it fascinating to see what I thought was important the better part of a decade ago. Some of it holds up to the test of time and some of it just leaves me shaking my head and wondering what I was thinking.

Don’t forget to check out this morning’s archive posts from February 2008!

iPads for inmates…

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So, I see that Attorney General Gansler wants to issue tablet computers to Maryland inmates. My initial response was that I couldn’t possible have read that article correctly. Surely the AG is pushing to restrict inmate’s access to the internet, email, and phone services that connect them to the outside world. After all, didn’t we just find a jail in Baltimore City where the inmates were quite literally running the asylum in part due to cell phones that had been smuggled in to them by members of the corrections staff? What in the name of high holy hell makes the AG think that giving everyone access to these devices would result in something different? Surely inmates with nothing but time on their hands would never conjure up a means of using these computers to communicate amongst themeslves as well as with the outside world. I can’t imagine how a prison full of inmates snapchatting with one another and their friends beyond the wall could possibly go wrong.

Sigh. The best part, the part that I really love, is that while I’m sitting here living with a 4-day a week paycheck, the esteemed Attorney General of Maryland and an assumed candidate for governor wants to spend $500 an inmate to give them these computers. Are you shitting me? Inmates get three meals a day, a bed, and a roof over their precious little heads. They get cable, a library, exercise equipment, and a host of other “privileges” if they’re not complete douchtards (by the standards of the corrections system). And now the AG wants me to think that spending another $500 a head is a good idea for these people who broke what I can only assume was some kind of major law – because let’s face it, if it was a minor infraction they’d have paid a fine or done 30-days and been out.

I’m a simple man. I really only want to hear about prisoners in a couple of contexts: 1) Making license plates; 2) Picking up trash along the highways and byways of the jurisdiction in which they are incarcerated; 3) Turning big rocks into little rocks; or 4) The news report where Inmate X was executed last night for rape, murder, or some other heinous crime. I don’t want to hear about their troubled childhood, or their anger management issues, or getting them the same computer that I’ve had to go out and earn an honest living to buy for myself. I want them to work demanding, physical jobs, so at the end of the day the only thing they can even thinking about doing is going to sleep.

That’s not how we roll here in the People’s Democratic Republic of Maryland. Oh no. We’d rather take money from the taxpayer and fund whatever half assed, bleeding heart program the sociological flavor of the day dreamed up to pass off as public policy.

This has been the first in an occasional series of posts where Jeff answers questions or opines on topics submitted directly by the readers.

What I Did on My Furlough Friday (Part 5 of 6)…

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You can see from the title that word came down from echelons higher than reality that the Great Defense Furlough of 2013 has been shortened from eleven days to six. That’s outstanding. I’m all for it. I’ll be glad to get back to not having 20% of my pay chopped off every other Thursday.

All other things considered, Furlough Friday has gone pretty much how you might have expected. There was grocery shopping and playing with the dogs. Before the day is over there might even be a little laundry. What there hasn’t been, of course, is anything that would have required any more funds than was absolutely necessary. The grand irony of furlough is that you have plenty of time off, but the pay reduction makes you want to squeeze every quarter until George screams for mercy. Fortunately beer is still pretty cheap and no one is charging admission to sit on the deck, so it hasn’t been too much of a sacrifice yet.

So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go now and do absolutely nothing. It’s my furlough day after all and working is against the rules. With the end in sight, at least now I can kick back and attempt to enjoy the rest of the day. Someday soon I’ll once again spend Fridays fiddling with PowerPoint, but today’s not that day.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Being the “dumb guy” in the room. I’ve met enough brilliant minds to know mine isn’t one of them. I’ve made my peace with that. I’m satisfied with having a respectable amount of general knowledge in many areas and a deep knowledge of a few threads of the arts and humanities. It’s my niche. But every once in a while you walk into a room, spend nine hours listening attentively and walk away realizing that you don’t have a damned clue what anyone was talking about. On those days the best you can manage is to smile, try to nod at what feel like appropriate intervals, and pray that no one asks you any questions. Days like that suck.

2. Being a piñata. We all have plans – a basic script by which we’re expecting to live our lives. For most of my working life, my plan included working 40 hours a week. With the arrival of sequester and furlough I made my peace with the new plan being 32 hours a week and adjusted accordingly. Now that furlough is ending, I’ll again adjust Artesian Logoaccordingly – insecure in the knowledge that “next year is going to be worse” hanging over my head. If there’s anything I hate it’s being jerked from pillar to post repeatedly like some kind of half-assed piñata.

3. Artesian Water Company. Nothing quite like getting a email from your overseas landlord wondering why he’s getting a notice that the water company is about to discontinue service. When I called Artesian to calmly ask WTF, the customer service representative cheerfully told me that the account was two months past due. Oh really? Not according to my account of statements and bills paid. But hey, I think I may have uncovered a slight problem with their doucheconoe business process that says bills can only go to the registered property owner instead of the guy actually living in the house and paying the bill. Asshats.

Change…

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Most people don’t pay any attention to pocket change. It usually ends up in a jar, run through a sorting machine, and traded in for fresh folding money at the first opportunity. As is my way, I’m a bit of a contrarian on the issue. I’ve always like loose change. Every time I get a handful of the stuff, I pick though it looking for the illusive steel penny or wartime silver nickel. I don’t put enough effort in or find enough of the “good stuff” to even consider it a hobby, but I still look. If you’re patient, every once in a great while you’ll manage to pull out a real gem.

Not long ago I pulled a 1917 “Mercury” dime out of a handful of change picked up over the course of the day. It was beat to hell and back, worn almost slick by the passing of time and changing hands. It was almost a dime sized slug rather than an actual coin. Still if you knew what you were looking at, the barest outline of Winged Liberty was right there waiting for someone to recognize her.

In 1917, when this little dime rolled out of the die at the Philadelphia Mint, Woodrow Wilson was President of the United States and the First World War raged in Europe. By the time the Korean War was halted by a ceasefire in ‘53, it had already been in circulation longer than I’ve now been alive. Sixty years have passed since then, yet here’s a little dime sitting on my kitchen table. Minted before prohibition and before women in America had the right to vote, it’s been out there circulating for the better part of a hundred years. It’s banged up and gritty, but I should hope to be doing so well in the summer of 2072 when I’m as old as that dime is today.

If you ever happen to wonder why I’ve paused to look though my handful of change at the gas station or fast food drive through, now you know. It’s because every now and then you get to hold a sliver of history right there in your own grubby little paw… and you can’t have that much fun anywhere else for just ten cents.

The storm before the bigger storm…

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So the intrepid leadership of the Dysfunction of Defense has magically discovered a way to reduce the total number of required furlough days for civilian personnel from eleven to six. On the surface, that sounds like a fine thing and if you’re not picky about the details and surrounding circumstances, I suppose it would be. Being the slightly jaded and cynical jerk that I am, of course, I have a slightly different take on how things are going inside that five sided funny farm on the banks of the Potomac.

As close as I can figure, reducing the number of furlough days probably has as much if not more to do with the legal requirements for the Department to close the books on the fiscal year before the clock strikes midnight on September 30th. Someone, somewhere deep in the bowels of The Building has probably realized that along with the rest of us schleps, the finance and logistics people they need to close out the fiscal year are also working 20% fewer days and not authorized overtime. In my experience, that makes completing the year end financial festivities a statistical impossibility. Woops.

Another perk of getting everyone back to the office in the next week or two is that it gets everyone into a nice routine for the inevitable shitstorm that’s going to take place at the start of FY14. My best guess is that the fiscal year about to start on October 1st will include such highly sought after features as Debt Ceiling Induced Government-wide Shutdown, Furlough: Part II, Reductions in Force, and Pay Freeze: Part 4. Hopefully I’m wrong about some or all of those predictions, but I don’t think I am.

I have the sinking feeling that this six day furlough was a dry run – the storm before the even bigger storm ahead.

Battery backup…

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A couple of months ago I finally had to break down and face that my iPhone 5 was falling down on the job. Try as I might, I couldn’t get the blasted thing to hold a charge for any longer than about six hours under what I would consider not particularly heavy use. A trip to the Apple Store, a battery swap out, and all was right with the world. Or at least it was for about a month.

Apple_LogoI’ve been trying to avoid admitting it to myself, but when I looked at my phone at 9:45 this morning and saw it holding only a 48% charge I’ve been forced to finally admit that history is repeating itself. Which means come Furlough Friday, I’ll probably be trudging back to the Apple Store in the hopes that they can right what has once again gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Sleek as it is, I can’t say that iPhone 5 has been my best Apple experience. If it were my first, I think I’d have a tough time justifying sticking with the platform at this point. I’m absolutely dependant on my phone and need it to be something that “just works,” rather than something I’m hauling around extra charging cables and an external battery pack just to keep in service. My last, Hail Mary play is restoring the phone to factory presets and adding apps back one by one to see if I can determine if one of them is causing a battery sucking do loop. That’s pretty much the only big gun I have left.

If all else fails, I hope there’s a Genius in Delaware who can fix my phone. If we go for round three of this mess, it’s going to be time to start seriously looking at other options and that’s not a road I particularly want to have to go down.

Winter in the archives…

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We’re well into winter in the jeffreytharp.com archives. This Sunday’s update comes to you from January and February 2008. Grad school was wrapping up, home improvements were happening, it was before things went off the rails for me in Memphis. It’s so strange to read these old posts and relive the experience, especially when I’m looking at it through hindsight’s lens and knowing that a few years later the neighbor’s questionable approach to lawn care would drop precipitously down the list of things I cared about. Early 2008 was still good times in the Mid-South. And if this little blast of nostalgia is any indication, apparently I’ve added enough distance now to start looking back on some of that time a little fondly.

Half way…

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This afternoon I’m heading to the 71st birthday party for one of the best bosses I’ve ever worked for. More than a boss, I’ve always considered this guy a friend. As much as this post should be about him, I think we all know that I’m going to find a way to twist it around and make it about me, Whoainstead. That’s just what happens when you have a healthy ego and your own domain name, I guess.

I initially didn’t give it any thought much past “Absolutely, I’ll be there.” Now that it’s had some time to simmer, of course, the idea of 71 is starting to sink in. Not that it’s an unusual age so much as it is that in a few months I’ll be blowing through the halfway point to that milestone. Yeah, that might have caused a “Whoa!” moment.

I don’t feel halfway there. I don’t really feel a quarter of the way there. Aside from the occasional aches and pains, the ongoing chemistry experiment that keeps me alive, and the fact that so many people around my age seem to have kids in high school, I don’t think I’d be aware that anything had changed at all.

If the birthday boy is any indication, apparently I can coast out the second half feeling exactly the same way. God knows that’s the game plan I’m looking to follow.

What I Did on My Furlough Day (Part 4 of 11)…

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Well, we’re four weeks in to DoD’s brilliant cost-saving furlough and routines are starting to develop. Saturday Part 1 (a.k.a Furlough Friday, a.k.a. Old Friday) has become the default day for running errands, going to Walmart for groceries, and beating the lawn back into submission. Basically I’m still putting in a full day’s work, it’s just work that I’m not getting paid for and use to be considered part of the weekend routine. Aside from the making of a new routine, there’s nothing significant to report. Hanging out at home, minimizing expenses where I can, and generally trying not to have an aneurism every time someone mentions a five-week Congressional recess or a multi-million dollar presidential vacation.

Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank. Give him a bank and he can rob the government… but if you elect him to office he can steal it all.