Author: Moby

Oh – I See Now.

Wired News: They Knew What to Expect

I’m not going to say “I told you so” because I didn’t. However, reading this article, working for an emergency agency, and training to be a medic, makes me feel ashamed of my country. There are not many places I’d rather live but there are times, like now, where I almost wish I did. I find small tidbits of news from friends, family, blogs, etc on a daily basis now that brings me to tears. I’m doing what I can from here but it does nothing to quell the shame. It is not my fault however, I can’t help it. After the crisis is over, there needs to be some accountability. This is not an issue of race, sex, or religion. It’s about politics and neglect of responsibility. And once again, it is the poor and indigent that suffer.

Mark my words, there will be lots of grandstanding, finger-pointing, and shoulda/coulda/woulda’s. After everything is said in done, our government will put a “patch job” on this problem until the “next one”.

If you haven’t contributed cash or can’t afford too, there are plenty of other ways to contribute. Please contact any of the agencies listed here to offer anything you can spare. Cash, clothes, furniture, vehicles, toys, bedding/linen, etc. Thousands have lost everything. You’d be surprised that a lot of your “junk” could really help someone else. I’m not asking you, I’m begging. If you were in the same situation, wouldn’t you want some help?

Red Cross
Montrose Clinic – supports Gays/Lesbians victims.
The Rainbow Fund
Louisiana Homeland Security

If I wasn’t such a hoe, I’d run for office. . .

Tidbits

I forgot to mention I had lunch w/roblog. As always, I enjoyed it. I was glad to hear things are slowly improving in his world.

..did I mention the new DVD recorder is working flawlessly?! I bought a no-name brand that didn’t work out of the box. I spent a few extra bucks to upgrade to a Magnavox. I’ve moved all the saved movies off the Tivo finally.

I discovered today SBC didn’t turn off my service as requested. I’m not surprised. Just means I have to call and give them a ‘cussin’ tomorrow. I’m sure I’ll get a thousand excuses.

What else?….Oh, I had a decent workout this morning. Got my lazy carcass out of bed on time and got the gym before work. It ‘felted good!’

Honey, where’s the trailer

As most are aware, New Orleans is facing a huge tragedy in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. I don’t think I need to go into the horrid details as plenty of other more worthy news outlets are doing an excellent job of that. Being originally from Lousiana, I’m angered and frustrated that part of this tragedy, including an increase in loss of life, could have been avoided.

What a lot of folks don’t know is the money New Orleans raised to reinforce and upgrade their levy system was diverted to the war effort. (Louisiana is most definitely a red state in relation to politics.) Not to mention, our National Guard is deployed for extended service w/the war effort so there are very few resources locally to draw from. Our so called leaders are too busy being on vacation to be bothered and we have the gall to refuse international assistance. Yet, we are left with a situation quickly deteriorating. On top of all that, we have a group of “holier-than-thou” fanatics claiming god did this as punishment for Southern Decandence. Stupid is as stupid does I guess.

We, as a society, consider ourselves so advanced and so civilized. Yet at the first opportunity we revert to our base animalistic selves. I’m doing what little I can to contribute to the relief effort but I’m just flat disgusted. Why do we always wait for something to bite us in the ass before we do the right thing?

Busy Bee

It’s been a busy week. I have a new trainee at work, on a new shift, recovering from food poisoning, moving furniture, and going to school. OY! I’m tired. I’m normally not a nap person but this week I’ve had to invest in some well deserved naps. I’m waaay behind on my blogroll too.

*The following rants are about my boring domestic details. Feel free to skip this post if you’re looking for something juicy*

I’m still adjusting to the new hours at work. Getting up earlier isn’t the problem, going to bed early is. It’s been playing havoc w/my gym schedule as well. I haven’t been consistently in two weeks. Last week was a bust due to my surprise case of food poisoning. (…like getting it is ever planned. I found out two of my classmates got it too. It was definitely the chinese place. Today, I stuck w/Subway.) Needless to say, I’m feeling all limp/flabby this week. Tomorrow I’m back at it and can’t wait. Hopefully, I’ll be feeling all beefy again real soon! Oh and my new trainee is off to a fine start. She is first rotation radio and really picking it up quickly.

Switching subjects, I often speak of Karma and any regular readers know I’m a big believer. I’ve been needing a new entertainment center. The old one, besides being busted, just wasn’t cutting it. I had crap stacked all over the floor. Right when I’m at my moodiest over it, I get a call from my friend Bobby. A distant relative of his is moving into a new house and wants to give one away. Now my first thought, ‘well if it’s free, it’s probably a piece of crap’. Bobby assured me it wasn’t and seemed to think I’d like it. Knowing how persnickity he can be about furniture, I went w/it and was pleasantly surprised. It turned out to be the perfect size for my needs. It’s a light shade of pine which wouldn’t have been my first choice however, beggers can’t be choosers. Considering, I was about ready to plop down $700.00 for a new one from IKEA, it was a blessing. Getting it moved and setup was a whole other story. I’ll skip the details but the ordeal took way longer than it needed too. I also used the opportunity to exchange the DVD recorder I bought a couple weeks ago. It wasn’t working.

School is going really well. I ace’d the quiz today. And, I’m learning a lot very quickly. As I predicted, we lost a few more people. We’re down to about 20 people. Today, we learned how to take “vitals” and it isn’t as easy as the doctor’s make it look. Especially the diastolyc measurement. I had to do mine several times before I got the hang of it. We did a lot of hands on stuff today and I think the whole class got a kick out of it. I can’t wait to learn it all so I can start doing it!

Feeling blue, school and tagged

I’ve been pushing myself a lot this past week. So much so, I think I’ve sorta worn myself out. I’ve been feeling cranky the last couple of days. To make matters worse, I got a light case of food poisoning last night. I had some funky chinese food while on lunch from class yesterday. Last night, I was achey and feeling like shit so I went to be early. I woke up around 3:00am w/the chills and some tummy rumblings. Today, the chills are gone but the stomach is not happy. blech.

So, I’m sitting here in my towel blogging away and waiting for the Safeway delivery guy to show up. I forgot I scheduled my groceries to be delivered today. Of course, I scheduled the delivery the same time as my meeting at work. (I can be such a dunce sometimes). I called to see if he could be here early but no luck.

And speaking of class, it’s off to a great start. As expected there is a lot of reading and work I’m required to do on my own. We lost two people mid-day yesterday. No loss, as all they did was yack during class. It’s hard as hell to listen when someone is yacking incessantly in the background. I have a feeling we’ll lose a few more by next week. Yesterday was the first day we really got into the material and the instructor made a point of showing some of the negative sides of the job.

On a different note, I got tagged by roblog. He was tagged by addaboy.

The instructions are:

List ten songs that you are currently digging … it doesn’t matter what genre they are from, whether they have words, or even if they’re no good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying right now. Post these instructions, the artists, and the ten songs in your blog.

I’m supposed to tag five people afterwards. *I had to edit this post as I discovered several of my choices had already been tagged.*

Filthy Gorgeous – Scissor Sisters
Don’t Cha – Pussycat Dolls
Absolutely Not – Deborah Cox (hector remix)
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger – Daft Punk
Pappa Was A Rolling Stone – George Michael
You’ll Be Blessed – Elton John
You Make Me Sick – Pink
Got To Give It Up – Marvin Gaye
Shiny Disco Balls – Unk Author (remix)
Nookie – Limp Biscuit

*If any of these songs are on your must have list, email me*

And now I tag

brettcajun
v-hold
Anymatic
die fledermause
Musclebeast

*these were the first five on my blogroll random shuffle not already tagged today*

Failure

I HAD to share this. I’m on a joke list from a friend back home. I routinely delete a lot of his emails but today’s had me rolling on the floor.

It is simple. Do a google search for the word “failure” and look at the first result!

Long Life

I can’t remember but I think I blogged about getting a new battery for the laptop. Well it arrived yesterday and I’m kicking myself for not doing it sooner. I bought a laptop back in December as a christmas present to myself. A Dell Inspiron 9200 which came w/a 2.5 hour battery (so they say). In reality it only lasts about 2 hours. The new battery lasted almost 4 hours today!

Work Progress?

I met w/the deputy director and the client service manager today at work to go over changes to our standard operating procedures. Our existing SOP is completely out-of-date as it was drafted 1) in a different building and 2) before we took over fire dispatch. It is a very sore point w/me as dispatchers are routinely written up based on an icorrect out-of-date policy manual. It has been my single biggest complaint since joining the Union as an officer.

I’m only writing about it as it lifted my spirits a bit. (yeah, I know big surprise) The client service manager is someone I enjoy working with. She used to be in charge of the training division. The depuyty director on the other hand can be a mixed bag. While she has worked as a dispatcher before, she has all the makings of a typical city bureaucrat. Today, she was very receptive to feed back albeit a bit indirect. She routinely talks in circles so it’s not always easy understanding what she says. So it was with some surprise that the meeting went so well. Both were attentive and receptive to feed back regarding errors and requested changes.

There may be hope yet!