Circadian

Senator Robert Byrd passes away, and Justice Ginsburg’s spouse as well…

But Dick Cheney manages to consume the entrails of a sufficient number of virgins to live another thousand years of unholy life.

Where’s the justice in that?

Can you tell something important about a person by what makes them cry?

I’m a sap, so it doesn’t take much. The last fifteen, twenty minutes of “Field of Dreams” for example, will have my crying. The end of the movie version of “Return of the King” can ruin me for an good half hour. And the helicopter rescue scene from Tom Clancy’s “Clear and Present Danger,” the part where Jack Ryan tells the Sergeant who is dying in his arms what he’s going to do when they get back home, will leave me wracked with such sobs that I ache after I’m through.

The one thing that will get me, really get me, without a single doubt, are scenes of people doing the right thing. When people do noble acts, when they are honored for their honor and their bravery and their selflessness, I’m done. Find me a cot somewhere to cry myself until I’m dry.

What, exactly, does that say about me?

We live in rough times. Job cuts have trickled down into my sector, and we’ve lost a huge number of staffers, effective with the end of the fiscal year. And man, have we handled that badly.

There is no nice way to nicely tell someone that they are losing their job. Even when they’ve not done anything to cause it, and that you, as the boss, have no choice in the matter. But there is no worse way, so far as I can tell, than to tell them that they’re done with the end of the year, and then leave them on the job.

I have never encountered so many “not my problem” people as I have in the last six weeks!

Last week I mentioned to my boss that another department had appeared to drop the ball on some Federal reporting. He brought it to the Executive Council this morning, and now I have a meeting with the boss’s boss and the rest of the parties involved. The person who was supposed to do the work – done June 30th. The woman she was supposed to order to do the work – “retiring” next week.

What we should have done – what would have been the only reasonable thing to do – would have been to furlough them immediately. Pay them for the rest of their contracted time, and send them on their way. There is nothing harder than trying to work with, and work around, people who don’t want to be there, don’t have any remaining loyalty, and no desire to do their jobs right anymore.

Oh, it’s not everyone. There’s one guy in particular that I see every now and again – he’s busting his butt all day every day, until he’s no longer an employee. And you know what? There’s a chance he’ll get his job back – maybe because of it.

Somebody who reads my blog suggested that maybe I should update it more often. I’m amazed that anyone noticed!

That somebody, who shall remain Kristin, knows just how to motivate a guy – guilt.

So, since I do have an audience, I will do my level best to post here a bit more often. Which means at least once in a while.

Okay, okay, how about every day?

Is there a name for people like me, who come to musical theater late in life?

Oh, sure, you can’t get through high school and college without some exposure, but I was never into it. Into It.

Now I find myself giddy while waiting for the opening night of Young Frankenstein when it comes to Denver (part of my birthday present this year), and I’m avoiding the most popular musical event ever – Glee – by watching my DVD of Sweeney Todd.

Todd is almost too easy, though. If you keep at it until you get to Helena Bonham Carter singing “The Worst Pies in London” and don’t get hooked by the dark, twisted, comic lyrics, you’re just not  half trying. Once you get to “Epiphany” you’re hooked for life.

It’s rarely the singing that does it, mind. It’s the wordplay. It’s the intricate puns and layers of meaning that do it for me.

So, is there a word for a man who’s nearly 40 before he starts really caring about musical theater?

Is the entire creative team with the VW advertising department under the age of 20?

Everyone who has been on this planet longer than, oh, ten years knows that you only punch your neighbor when you see a Volkswagen BEETLE. The game is called Slug Bug, or, alternately, Punch Buggy. Slug BUG. Punch BUGgy. Beetles only. This nonsense of people seeing a Toureg or a Jetta and getting in the act is entirely wrong. Heresy! They have old guys, guys older than the original Beetle itself, participating in this nonsense. They would know better…

The only thing worse? The irritating, ululating cry of the Jeep people. Took me a few weeks to figure out that the woman who was being fed into a chipper/shredder was chanting the self-important Jeep mantra of “I live, I ride, I am” – it’s just two shades better than “It’s a Jeep thing…” on the scale of smug ass-hattery.

And just to show I’m not just Abe Simpson, yelling at clouds – I am a fan of the hamster commercial for the Kia Soul. Almost makes me want to test drive one, to my shame.

If I have to hear one more serious-sounding Republican say that they want Obama to pick a Supreme Court candidate that will follow the Constitution to the letter, I’m going to have an aneurism.

They seem unable to understand that the only way that America can continue to survive and thrive, the Constitution needs to be a living document – it needs to grow with the times, and be read and understood with a modern perspective.

And what is it with their need to slavishly follow rules set down hundreds of years ago? Is that why so many from the stricter sects of Christianity are drawn to the Republican party?  Because it was easier to follow a political persuasion that places high value strict interpretation of ancient dogma?

It’s time for us to get some judges on the Supreme Court that understand that for America to thrive, it’s time for us to let go of some of those ridiculous old interpretations and start interpreting laws in ways that actually help us out, rather than holding us back.

I wonder how I wound up wired the way I am…

Most everyone I know takes things significantly more seriously, and more personally, than I do. I take it easy, relax, and generally wait until all the facts are in before I react. It burns me sometimes, I won’t lie. But most of the time it serves me well.

I wonder if that’s in part why I don’t like booze or other mind altering substances – I’m already in the state that some need weed to achieve.

Explains my lack of ambition some…

Tarol Hunt is my new hero.

Every day or two, I visit his website to see if he has updated his very excellent online comic, Goblins. Today, in addition to an updated comic, I found a blog post that just made my day.

Click the link, it’s worth the read. It’s about a telemarketer (two, actually) getting their comeuppance!

Right before we left for Spring Break, my boss had informed us that we would all know if there were any positions cut in our department “before break.” I jokingly told him that he had better let me know at least by that Thursday, as I would have seventy two hours from that point to cancel our hotel reservations for our vacation. He told me that I needn’t worry, and that nobody “in our building” was being let go.

We have two buildings we work out of, and it occurred to me that someone from the other facility was in danger, but I didn’t realize just how high up – the only other manager in the department was let go. The boss rationalized this by pointing out that had he decided on anyone else, the cut would have been insufficient, and that he’d have needed to pick a second person from our already tiny technology department.

So I survived the cuts. My job is safe from Reductions in Force for at least another year, and hopefully by then we’ll have had a bit more of a turn-around in terms of finances as a school district.