are they even trying?

Here are some of the things my workplace is doing to reduce its expenses:

• offer voluntary separation incentives to reduce head count
• fire people
• freeze salaries
• cut/eliminate bonuses
• eliminate/severely restrict travel
• drastically reduce custodial services in the building
• crank up the thermostat to reduce air conditioning expense
• turn off the escalators
• stop mowing the grass
• turn off the coolers on the water fountains

While the company for which I work is taking these actions to reduce spending of its shareholder's money, are the various governments and school districts doing any of these things to reduce their spending of my money?

brief respite

J and I had a one night get away this past Saturday in Bloomington/Normal while my parents watched the kids. Nothing elaborate, but we had a good time together. Despite our challenges through the years, we still enjoy each other's company: intellectually, physically and emotionally. Even after 14 years of marriage and 18+ years together!

I don't know what is next for us. Raising the kids has been the only real progression in our lives for several years. I guess that's what this stage of life is about for us. I worry that when that is done, there won't be anything left for us and that we missed out on things together that we should have done before having kids.

Dollhouse will return

A new show we started watching this year is Dollhouse. I just read the good news that it will be back for a second season. Until then, I have this recent picture of the show's star Eliza Dushku with which to content myself:

seriously?

I took over for J this evening after I got home from work at our garage sale. She had to take G to a thing at his preschool. One of the people who stopped by while I was "working" asked me if I was "firm on the $2" for a book. Seriously? You are trying to haggle over a $2 item at a garage sale? Instead of freaking out and lambasting her, I took the easy road and said "I just work here, I don't have pricing authority".

small victory

While jogging today, I actually passed someone else! Having myself been passed at times by a guy pushing a jogging stroller and a chyck wearing an ankle brace, it was nice to be on the other side for once. As I turned onto the main trail from the Alta parking area, I saw a chyck jogging about 75 meters ahead of me. A little over a mile later, I passed her.

Other good news on the trail tonight was the appearance of several bonafide hotties in a variety of flavors: jogging alone, jogging with boyfriend, biking with boyfriend, biking alone, older, younger, blonde, brunette, shorts, capris. It was a pleasant potpourri.

And BTW, the hottest hottie was biking withOUT a helmet. Bike helmets are very rarely hot. Especially if the chyck is not engaged in a professional bike race.

lacking confidence

What does it say about one's estimation of his bike riding abilities when he wears a safety helmet while biking on a flat, obstruction free, traffic free, dedicated trail? What is he afraid of? That he will spontaneously fall over? I understand wearing a helmet during a professional road race where you will be bunched up with lots of other riders, any one of whom can take out the whole pack. Or if you are doing downhill mountain biking or riding among vehicle traffic. But riding along a totally safe trail? The greatest danger to your head there is a tree branch falling on it. Better get some training wheels and a skirt to go with that helmet!

financial hottie

I don't get Fox Business in my DISH package, but Alexis Glick has been showing up on various Fox News programs lately and I am loving it. See this article by Ben Stein for some explanation as to why financial reporters should be hotties.

nanny state amok

On my way into work this morning I came upon backed up traffic. The reason for this back up: state troopers checking whether people were wearing seat belts. If people don't want to wear seat belts that should be their own business and if it weren't for government providing health care, it would be. To add silliness to the paternalism, about a quarter mile before where the trooper's were stationed they had placed a sign stating "Safety Belt Enforcement Zone".

"swine" flu

I asked J last night what I had overheard about PJ O'Rourke while she was listening to our favorite podcast. While talking about the overblown coverage of Swine Flu, the host made a reference to O'Rourke's pointing out in his book All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty that diarrhea kills more people than anything else, yet nobody wears a ribbon for it.

Political means could be used to prevent almost all deaths from childhood diarrhea. Diarrhea is spread by contaminated water. Public sanitation is, like personal security, national defense, and rule of law, one of the few valid reasons for politics to exist. Lowly, semicomic diarrhea kills 2,866,000 people a year worldwide, 2,474,000 of them children under the age of five. This is ten times the number of people who die from AIDS. But no one is wearing a brown ribbon on his tuxedo lapel at the Academy Awards or marching up the Mall in Washington carrying a sign reading DIARRHEA—IT CAN BE CONTAINED.

I suggested that we wear bacon ribbons to support Swine Flu which J found extremely funny (maybe you had to be there). Turns out the bacon ribbon has already been assigned to a cause: obesity. It is still funny.