Category: Journal

These are not my peers

So, I had jury duty this week. I had postponed it once, but when I tried to postpone it this time, the automated system said there were no more dates available (wow! that many people want to go to jury duty?), so off to the courthouse I went.

I tend to take anything involving the law fairly seriously, given that I couldn’t talk my way out of any number of traffic tickets over any number of years, so if I get a form letter from a judge that says I need to be somewhere at 8:30am, I will be there. In fact, I will be early.

Monday

I arrived at the courthouse at about 7:45am, because I got an early train, because I left my house too early. I was afraid of over-sleeping, so I couldn’t really sleep that well.

Yes, I really get paranoid when the law is involved.

8:30am. After finally signing in, I just read books on my iPad until the introductory film was shown. Wow. Local TV news anchors explaining why jury duty was a good thing to do. We’re here, don’t try to sugar-coat it for us.

In a way, it’s like the seat belt film on airplanes – you really should know all this stuff by now, but somebody in the back isn’t going to know that a jury decides the facts in a case, so everybody watches the film.

9:15am. I am juror 109 on my summons. The first group called was forty-something to 180-something. Off to the courtroom we go.

We found the courtroom, but it was closed. Well, occupied. Eventually, the bailiff came out and explained we were going to be in a temporary courtroom down the hall. So, we all moved down the hall. And waited. And waited. Luckily, there were sixty of us and seats for about forty. The bailiff gave us placards to identify us. I was number 35. Since there were twelve jurors in a district court, that seemed pretty far down the line.

I love the placards. It helps the attorneys call on you without mispronouncing your name or having to say, “Excuse me, the old black guy in row three” or “The chubby woman in the a Grateful Dead t-shirt.” “Hey, number 35!” is much better. (“Hey 19” is a Steely Dan song.)

11:00am. Finally, we entered the courtroom, and sat down. Everybody stands when the jury enters the room. We’re important! We’re also two hours behind and we haven’t done anything yet.

I looked around. There were six attorneys in front of the judge. Three per side. This is not a good sign. Teams of lawyers mean somebody thinks there is a large amount of money at stake.

The attorneys introduced themselves. The plaintiff’s side had a jury selection specialist, as well. Ruh-roh. How big a case is this? How long a case is this?

The judge said the attorneys had designed a questionnaire to help speed up the voir dire process. Voir Dire is a French term that means “pry into your private life to see if you will vote against us.”

Then, the judge said it would probably be about a two-week case. Panic filled the air.

Now, my job is pretty flexible on time and space and my boss looks at results instead of hours – I work at home, I get my email on my phone, I can work 24×7 from just about anywhere, but there were some people in there who were not looking forward to a two-week enforced vacation in a courthouse. A couple of self-employed people mentioned the $40 per day wasn’t enough. I was just trying to figure out if it was going to interfere with my business trip to Vegas at the end of the month. Sometimes, it’s good to be a white-collar dude.

The judge said he would adjourn so we could fill in the forms, and after we did that, if anyone had a reason they couldn’t be on the jury, he would meet with them “after lunch.” His idea of “after lunch” was 2:30pm. It was 11:20am. He said if we didn’t have a reason we couldn’t serve, we were done for the day. Be back at 9am tomorrow. So, my first day of jury duty ended before noon.

Tuesday
I gave myself an extra half-hour of sleep, since I had been so early on Monday. I even stopped at 7-Eleven for coffee on the way to the train station. I still managed to get to the courthouse by 8:15am, so there was time to kill. Again. I should have gone downstairs for more coffee.

9:00am. Time to start. The bailiff said five people had been dismissed yesterday, so we had 55 people left in the panel. At 9:30am, we were still missing people.

Now, as I was walking over from the train station, I noticed a lot of traffic. Then, I remembered they were filming yet another JFK miniseries, so the roads were all blocked. Now, I’m sure as a photographer, I would want to shoot in early light, but early light in downtown is called “rush hour” and people are bitchy.

I wondered how many people didn’t know about the miniseries.

The answer? At least ten.

9:30am We’re still missing people. Now, they’re making a judge and attorneys wait, and a guy with a gun is in charge of finding them. This is when I realized these are not my peers. My peers would have been here at 8:15am, fully caffeinated and ready to go, and wondering if they weren’t possibly guilty of whatever the case was.

The bailiff walked through with Juror badges, for those who forgot theirs. I had mine.

Seriously? How many people can’t follow directions? Be here at 9:00am. Wear your Juror badge. We’re on the sixth floor. (Ironic, with the JFK filming. I just realized that.)

9:54am Still missing two people. WTF? We’re now waiting just to get started waiting.

10:24am The last one staggers in. Apparently, the traffic is bad. Did no one else know they were filming in downtown?

10:33am Lining up with our placards. The bailiff says, “If you need a restroom break in there, just signal me, and I will let the judge know.” Six women signal him immediately. We’re not even in the courtroom yet! We have been waiting for an hour and a half to get started, and now you want a pee break? What have you been doing for the past ninety minutes, other than filing your bladders?

After all the ladies (and the three gentlemen who bowed to peer pressure) returned, we finally enter the courtroom. Now, the day can begin.

The plaintiff’s attorney questions the group and specific people until ten after one. No lunch break. One potty break. There is an insane amount of questioning. How do you feel about mental anguish? (Many say there’s no such thing, it’s just life. This has the potential to be a “put your big girl panties on and get over it” jury, which would be great for the defense.) How about loss of consortium? I tried not to laugh, because if these people don’t think mental anguish is a problem, loss of income and a bit of nookie is not going to be an issue for them, either. It wasn’t, even after consortium was explained. Actually, everyone was just thinking sex until somebody mentioned loss of wages if the injured party couldn’t work. How about punitive damages? A few were against them, because they went to the person, not the State. Wow.

I’m getting worried. I’m surrounded by people giving honest, truthful answers that are going to get them tossed, and I don’t really have an issue with any of the questions, because the prefix to every question (as in every voir dire question) is “Will you follow the judge’s instructions as to the law?”)

I’m actually impressed that they’re going to get tossed by being honest and not because they’re trying to get tossed. I was thinking of all the answers to give that would put me on the “bad” list, but I just can’t do it. Besides, the case was beginning to sound interesting.

So, these are not my peers. I will follow the judge’s instructions. I will be open-minded. I’m not making a bunch of pre-judgements. I would grant a mental anguish award if I thought the case was proven. I could understand a loss of consortium claim and I had actually heard the term before. I understood the concept of punitive damages. Unlike one rather loud woman in the back of the room, I do not watch Judge Judy “because she is so wise.”

1:10pm. Lunch break – we need to be back at 2:20pm so we can get started with the defense questioning. There’s a Greek diner in the basement of the courthouse that is really good. I was back by the courtroom by 2:00pm, and I was concerned about being late. Naturally, we get started at 2:45pm. Oy vey, people, there are clocks everywhere in here.

2:45pm. The defense asks similar questions, but from a more defensive position. Obviously. The same people who said “No, I can’t” now say, “I can.” Both sides of attorneys are taking notes furiously.

I’m wondering how I’m going to like getting to the courthouse at 9am every day for two weeks. I’m wondering if the case will be done before I have to leave for Vegas.

4:45pm. The defense is done asking questions and receiving assurances. We’re all sent outside so the grownups can chat. (It’s like all the game shows where you have to go slightly off-stage so the judges can decide who to send home. Actually, that’s exactly what it’s like.)

Waiting some more.

This may be an interesting time to point out for those who aren’t following closely – this is day two of jury duty and the case hasn’t started yet.

5:30pm. The bailiff comes out. Are we done? Are we picked? No, of course not! However, if you parked in the garage or any of the local surface lots, those attendants go home at six o’clock, so if you want your car to drive home, maybe you should go move it to the street and come right back.

I’m wondering how long this will take.

We’ve outlasted the parking lot. I am so glad I rode DART. I have until 2am or so, before the trains stop running.

It’s almost ten to six, we’re all back, and we’re lead into the courtroom one last time.

The bailiff had said earlier in the afternoon the jurors with low numbers go first, unless they were struck, so if you have a high number, you’re probably safe. Each side has six peremptory strikes, so that’s only twelve people dropped, right?

They need twelve people. I’m number thirty-five. Can I just go home? There’s a train in six minutes.

First juror called was number four. Then, number six or seven. Hmm. How many other strikes are there?

Wow. They’re leaving a lot bigger gaps in the panel that I would have thought. Twelve, you say?

I realize the woman next to me was one of the ones who was honest. Ruh-roh. I wonder if she was too honest.

The twelfth juror called? Number thirty-four. I thought juror thirty-six was going to collapse into my arms, sobbing. She was sweating bullets.

Spending two weeks at work has never looked so good.

Good luck to the twelve. I’m with you in spirit.

Recycling The Hits

Television commercials need background music, so the easiest path is to find an old song and license it – it also helps target the commercial to a particular audience. (If I hear 70s music, it’s probably pointed at me. 60s music? Burned-out baby burners. I’m still burning, so not me. Really loud music? Old folks. Porn music? ED sufferers.)

The problem for me is that I always react to the song and not to the ad. Remember the brouhaha when Michael Jackson let Nike (I think) use “Revolution”? It’s the same thing. I think it was Nike. I’m pretty sure it was Nike. I know what the song was.

I had the same issue with “Bad Moon Rising” which was in somebody’s ad recently. All I could think was “CCR? Really?” I have no idea who the sponsor was. They have good taste in music, but “Bad Moon Rising” is not exactly cheerful – the music may be, but the lyrics aren’t. John Fogerty said it was about the coming apocalypse. That should sell sneakers.

I wonder about how successful this methodology really is. I suppose if you’re a person who hears the music and flashes momentarily to your (hopefully happy) teenage years, and you don’t think about the lyrics too much, or the fact that some of the players are no longer with us, then it may work, and get you to actually watch the commercial.

However, in my house, at least, the music in commercials just annoys my wife, because I will immediately start by identifying the music, then discussing the origins of the song, rehashing any trivia I know about the song, explaining why the lyrics make no sense for the given commercial, given the product in question, and not paying attention to any of the brand messaging. Worse, sometimes my song lectures (which apparently are not as interesting to all as to me) will make me fast-forward past the resumption of the show. So, music in commercials can be hazardous to my health.

At long last, the point I was going to make – as in, the song that finally made me write this down.

The other night, we were watching something on the DVR, so I was about to spin past the commercials, when the opening guitars from ELO’s “Do Ya” started playing. I love that song. The lyrics are a bit sketchy in places, but the guitars are great.

I mean:

I’ve seen old men crying at their own grave sides
And I’ve seen pigs all sitting watching
Picture slides

Methinks Jeff Lynne may have listened to “I Am the Walrus” a few too many times over the years.

So, the commercial in question was probably pointed at me and my generation. However, the end result was that I paused the DVR, went and played the song on my iPad while the Spousal Unit went to get a refill in the kitchen, and I then I skipped over the commercial. Plus, I missed the next section of the show we were watching, trying to figure out why pigs were watching picture slides. I’m almost forty years older now than the first time I heard this song, and I still don’t know what the hell Jeff Lynne is talking about – but the guitars are still great.

I’ve had “Do Ya” stuck in my head for three days. Three days. Three freakin’ days. I have no idea what the commercial was selling.

Thank you, Jeff Lynne. I can’t get it out of my head. Yes, I see the irony. (See? Music trivia. I can’t help myself.)

Rights

A long time ago, I was taught a brief sentence in a political science class. It should be a summary of resolving all disputes between people. Its origins are cloudy, but it applies more today than ever before:

Your rights end where my nose begins.

You can swing around all you want, but if you hit me, that’s an issue. The Left does not understand or respect this, which is the genesis of all of the Culture Wars and crises of the past few years.

Think about marriage.

A secular marriage was a state-issued contract between a man and a woman. Now, it’s between any two people. Fine. Whatever. That’s the law. it was a poorly-conceived opinion in many eyes, but it created a right, so that’s the law. It also got tons of “Likes” on Facebook, which if you read the opinion, is what the Justice was apparently trying to achieve.

I think it’s bad law. I think it was a horrible decision. However, the results don’t bother me – the process that created the results do.

My belief is that there shouldn’t be a law either way. The State should not be in the marriage business. Anything the State regulates eventually causes conflict because somebody is on the wrong side of the regulation. Also, it’s not like marriages are regulated very well, since some people have collected so many of them.

A sacramental marriage is a secular marriage blessed by a minister of a Church. Each Church may have different ideas about what constitutes a valid couple for marriage than the State does. For now. A Church may also have different ideas about what it takes to invalidate a marriage, since the civil contract is relatively easy to cancel.

The point many are missing is that changing the law does not change people’s beliefs. It also does not make those beliefs invalid. The State is not in charge of beliefs. This is where the swinging is hitting peoples’ noses.

So, any two gay people can get married. However, many of the early couples seemed hellbent on finding service providers who are not comfortable (for any number of reasons) with the concept of gay marriage and then suing them out of existence when they won’t comply.

There is a word for this. Bullying. Isn’t that what the gay community has been fighting against all these years? Maybe the Human Rights Campaign should help protect those whose religious beliefs go against what some potential customers demand.

I’m happy to officiate any marriage ceremony, but I’m happier if I know the couple ahead of time. I’m an ordained minister. I have a laminated card and everything. I think it’s up to you who you choose as a life partner. I also do hope it lasts forever, because I’m divorced, and the divorce was one of the most painful periods of my life, and forever altered my relationships with my family, my friends and my Church. If your partnership is legal, since the State pushed its way into it, I’ll officiate it and try not to judge. However, if I was not comfortable performing the ceremony, why couldn’t you just find a minister who is? It’s not like I’m the only lapsed Catholic, divorced and re-married, online-ordained minister out there. Do you really want unhappy people forced to work at your most important day?

There are levels in the Universe.

I can fight for your rights. I can support your rights. I can accept your rights. I can tolerate your rights. I shouldn’t have to participate, if it is against my beliefs. My not participating does not prevent your right to get married.

Why is the Left not happy until everyone believes what they believe? You won. Stop being sore winners.

You have the right to get married. People have the right to follow their religious beliefs. Neither right is stronger than the other. However, the State should not compel people to go against their religious beliefs for commerce, and that is what is happening. This is not “I hate those people because of their color or condition”. This is “I fervently believe this ceremony is invalid in the eyes of my God, and I do not want to take part in this ceremony.” It’s about the ceremony, it’s not about the people. All of the recent decisions basically say the right to be gay is better than the right to be religious.

I am not very religious. I’m more spiritual, as in, “There is a God, but He’s not paying much attention to what’s going on down here, except apparently for global warming – and I’m pretty sure He doesn’t actually give a shit about global warming”. I do not feel particularly welcome in my Church because of my divorce. However, we all have the right to believe what we believe, as long as it doesn’t harm others, and we shouldn’t have others tell us that we’re wrong and we have to do it their way. If I don’t have Baptists or Methodists dragging me to services every Sunday, why do gay people want to drag me to their weddings?

It certainly would be easier for the religious people to just do the gay weddings, smug in the knowledge that the happy couple will someday burn in Hell for all eternity. However, that’s not how many of those people believe. They don’t want to be involved at all. They don’t want to become collateral damage. Why can’t those people just be left out of it?

If you wouldn’t take your vegetarian, PETA-supporting, lesbian friend to a dog fight, maybe you shouldn’t force religious strangers to celebrate your gay wedding.

Colonoscopy

A man’s life goes through stages, some fun, many not. A lot of men will end up melancholy, depressed or angry. It’s like the stages of death –

  • Playful (Childhood)
  • Studious (School)
  • Overworked (Career)
  • Melancholy (Mid-career)
  • Stressed (Late career)
  • Angry (Very late career)
  • Resigned (Retired or dead)

As a man progresses through the stages, people around him notice the changes. Most will not comment directly to him, since that may just trigger the next stage. However, people go from “Wow, Kevin’s annoyed” to “Jeez, Kevin’s in a foul mood” to “Holy crap, what got up his ass?”

Sometime after you get to the age where many people are asking “Holy crap, what got up his ass?”, your doctor says, “Hey, I know a guy. Let’s find out.”

How do they find out what’s got up your ass? A colonoscopy.

Mine is Wednesday. I’m supposed to be at the hospital at 6:30am. I’m not looking forward to it.

I don’t like any procedure where the prep work starts five days in advance, you have a specific diet to follow, and you have to drink a half-gallon of some toxic fluids – twice – including one dose at 3am. Yes, three in the morning. So, poop all evening, then poop first thing in the morning. I guess it will prepare you for old age, but still.

They have a camera that can be inserted in the body and show your innards. Technology is wonderful! Why can’t they add a flash, so it could just see through any poop on the walls?

I don’t like any procedure that requires me to write “poop on the walls.”

Someone is going to knock me out, and then someone is going to stick a probe where the sun doesn’t shine. In college, that’s called “date rape.” In the business world, it’s called an “all-day meeting.”

Also, how should I trust a doctor who went through all the preparations, successfully graduated from medical school, studied the entire human body, and said, “I’ll take the poop chute. That sounds like fun to me.”

Horrors.

A Eulogy, Of Sorts

My brother-in-law Jack passed away just over a week ago. His services were this week, so it has been a little bit insane around here.

We’ve had enough deaths in the family and extended family over the past few years where the rituals all seem very familiar, but not any less painful. Call the funeral home, schedule the Mass, pick the readings, set up the website, etc. It’s the business of death, and you’re on a timer. It’s ugly, and you don’t get a lot of time to reflect.

Jack was the one person in my collection of in-laws that I should have been closer to – and I don’t really know why I wasn’t. He lived only twenty or so miles away, he was an IT manager (like me – but his role was much more important), he was middle-aged (like me), he was married to a Pesce (like me.) The list goes on and on. I guess I didn’t make enough of an effort. Plus, he was always busy, helping someone somewhere – either at work or Church.

Something that occurred to me after he was buried this week – When my Mom-in-law passed away, I thought, “No more pain.” When my Dad passed away, I thought “No more arguments.” When Jack passed away, I thought “That should have been me.”

Not “could“, but “should.”

I’m not sure why I thought I should be dead instead of Jack. Possibly because I had a Doppler test that showed my carotid arteries were blocked 20 – 30% the day before he collapsed at work. I was told that nothing was done until you hit 70% or so. My doctor changed my blood pressure medication, and that was it.

So, I may have bad arteries, but not bad enough to fix.

Jack had a bad heart. The physical one. It was functioning at 45% at his last test, but his doctor didn’t think he needed a pacemaker. So, he had a bad heart, but not bad enough to fix.

I am a bit concerned about doctors and their advice now.

While Jack had a bad physical heart, his spiritual heart was larger than almost anyone I know.  He had at least three families – his biological one with his wife, daughters and relatives; his spiritual one, as he was a Deacon at his Church; and his business one, since he was a manager at Verizon.

All of his families came to pay their respects. In force.

It was selfish, I suppose, that one of my thoughts the day after he passed away was, “Please, Lord, don’t make me do another eulogy.” Luckily for me, there were plenty of people who had spent more time with him that stepped up to the challenge, from all of his families.

Not that I wouldn’t have done one. I would have talked about arena football and baseball and statistics and cruises and Mojitos, which were not covered at length by those who knew him from Church or work.

There are times you realize you are close to someone from a familial sense, but not close at all in another. Jack managed a test lab at Verizon – his team validated equipment before it was placed into service in the Verizon network. I finally found out what he did after he passed away. I started my career in telecom almost thirty years ago, helping run a small long distance company’s computer center. We had that in common, and we never talked about it, because I never found out about it.

If you don’t know what your relatives do, go find out. You may be surprised.

Jack and I had baseball in common, but you just don’t talk much during baseball games – and I’m not sure I ever heard him curse, and if a game was playing somewhere, it was probably also on the TV at Jack’s house.

My wife and I had season tickets to the Grand Prairie AirHogs for years, and we never got him to a game. I feel guilty and disappointed at the same time about that.

I will always be grateful to Jack that my wife knows as much about sports as she does, and it’s because he taught her by taking her to games while she was growing up. I have to explain very little to her, which has saved me a lot of time and stress.

I could have asked him how to survive an Italian-American wife, because if he could have explained that, it would have been one of the miracles he needs for Sainthood.

When I got promoted to manager at IBM last year, Jack was the one person around me that had a similar title and experiences – and he had been doing it for years.

Jack had a team that loved him (which was demonstrated at the vigil and funeral.) Jack was my best possible source of information and advice on how to survive Corporate America as a newly-minted manager – especially since all of the managers who worked with me were busy rearranging deck chairs during our latest reorganization.

I let that opportunity just pass me by. It just never occurred to me to ask Jack to go have a cup of coffee (or three) and have him explain how the world of management works.

I am really disappointed in myself for that.

So, now I can just hope Jack will watch me and guide me from above. I think a manager’s greatest accomplishment is to be genuinely missed by his team. Death is the most sudden way to leave the corporation, but I think every manager should aspire to having his team think, “What are we going to do now?” and not just “Who do we get stuck with next?” whenever he moves on to the next challenge, either here or in the next world.

Jack’s team is wondering what they are going to do now.

I’m wondering what I’m going to do now.

I miss you, Jack. Thanks for all the times you were there. The times you weren’t are on me.

Peace & Quiet

I’m beginning to think you can determine someone’s age by what noise level they consider “loud.” While I’m not out on my front porch, yelling at the neighbors’ kids to “turn that crap down” – yet – I have noticed that my world is pretty noisy, and I would like that changed. Now, I love concerts and live performance, and I can usually tolerate the performance art that is a good meeting at work, but there doesn’t seem to be a quiet place to escape any more.

It started with restaurants – now, we have been dining with my Mom and her hearing aids (or lack thereof some evenings) for a while, so maybe that’s when I started getting sensitized to it. Restaurants are loud. Many have live music every night of the week, which I’ve addressed before. Well, actually, I ranted about it before. Still, even places without music can be very noisy, and yes, I know many are actually designed that way so you get a sense of energy. However, if you’re trying to talk to someone who is hard of hearing, it makes conversation difficult, if not impossible. Of course, as a side benefit, you can be rude about them, and they will never know. Not that I would. Just sayin’.

So, we spend many nights going down the list of restaurants before we call Mom, so we can find a relatively quiet one. The reality is that there are none around us, even at Mom’s rather more extravagant price point. Even the pricey places tend to be crowded (probably full of people looking for quiet) and so, they are pretty noisy.

When we were on our Christmas cruise, I realized there is no such thing as a quiet bar on a ship. This was a revelation to me, I’m not sure why – I had just never noticed it before. Every bar has some sort of entertainment – a piano player, sing-alongs, games, something. It’s interesting to me that on a ship with eleven bars (and the larger ships have many more), there is not one bar that is a real traditional Irish (or British, in a pinch) pub – with small tables, quiet conversations, a decent pint. No loud music, no dueling pianos, no bingo. Maybe it’s just me. There really is no place other than your balcony to just sit quietly and reflect on how everything is going to be so much better when you return from vacation. Maybe the noise is designed to keep you from having those thoughts – since you are going to be disappointed when you return.

Sometimes, I do think it’s the crowd. I know on the ship, if you have a musician who will interact with the crowd, they are going to interact back. Much like a puppy barking until you pick him up, people are going to babble until he plays their request – even though they probably didn’t hear him play it the first time, because they were babbling. If I were as funny as some of those people think they are (after a couple of drinks), you would enjoy reading this blog a lot more.

The crowd also tends to make the music louder because they are trying to talk over the music. Perhaps, I’m not the only one looking for a place to have a conversation. However, then it’s an arms race – some talking over the music, then others talking over the people shushing you for talking over the music, and then the music itself. Just remember – the musician has a piano and a microphone. Either is a nuclear option in a noise race, and he’s trained to use both together. You’re not going to win. Go talk somewhere else.

Don’t get me wrong. I like music. I prefer music to hearing other people talking, unless it’s an interesting subject like divorce or bad relationships. I like most entertainment. I even like dining with my family, most of the time. I just would like a chance now and then to just have a drink and dinner with a quiet conversation. I’m still looking for the right place.

That must mean I’m getting old.

Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure there wasn’t any music in the restaurant in the retirement community that we visited with Mom. There may be a lesson there, somewhere.

Holidaze

The end of another year. Christmas. Hanukkah. Year-end close at the office. Budget deadlines for next year at the office. Family in town. Leaving for vacation.

Stress.

Wow. There is approximately 43% more crap going on right now that I can process.

I was promoted to manager this year. This is the major reason I haven’t posted in a while – I’ve been too busy trying to identify and put out fires. I got promoted just in time for all the budgeting and arguing for next year. What fun it is! I don’t understand the numbers yet, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have to defend them. It’s also the time of year that you get questions which demonstrate nobody is actually reading the contracts they are signing. This scares me. I read them and I correct the typos, because I assume my job is on the line. If that is a bad assumption, that is what is wrong with the company.

The other thing wrong with the company is that everyone expects 24×7 access to everyone else and instantaneous replies to requests, no matter how trivial – even though manager’s training specifically tells you not to do that. So, while on vacation, I’ll still be checking email at cruise line Internet prices. If my Internet bill is higher than my bar tab (again), it’s not a great vacation. It’s an office with sand and rum. At least there’s rum.

It’s funny – when I made the vacation plans, being out for two weeks was going to have very little consequence, since not much was going on in my old department at this time of year. Apparently, now the world will end prematurely if all my emails aren’t answered quickly and completely.

One of my goals before I die is to teach the people above me that not every problem is a severity one problem. This may be an impossible task.

My son is a PhD now. His family all came down for graduation, so the three grandkids are in residence. Every time my wife and I try to corral the two boys – even without watching their baby sister – I have more and more doubt on the sanity of people my age trying to have kids. We’re watching the kids because their parents are tired – and they’re in their twenties. There’s a reason old folks don’t have kids – kids are active and inquisitive and fearless. Sure, it sounds like good exercise, but a heart attack really doesn’t help you lose much weight, unless you count only getting fed what fits down a tube while you’re in the ICU.

At least we now know that nothing in our house or my Mom’s house is actually child-proof. Oops. On the other hand, I’ve virtually given up drinking Diet Dr Pepper at home, because I can’t get into the cabinet where the soda is kept. I guess I’ll have to get one of the grandkids to open it for me before they leave.

It’s sad that I have to stop and think if sending a “Merry Christmas” note to my team is going to offend anyone. It’s Christmas, whether you celebrate it or not. There are enough people who either are Christian or believe in the secular values of Christmas, that companies close for the day. It’s Christmas vacation whether you honor the day or not. It’s still vodka, even if you don’t drink. Call Christmas vacation what it is.

One more meeting to go.

Voter Suppression

I think that the major problem with our country is not people actively trying to keep other people from voting, it’s that we keep putting idiots in charge of the basic mechanics.

Texas has a Voter ID law now. Finally. Yes, I think it is a reasonable requirement. If you have to show ID before you meet the President, why shouldn’t you have to show ID before you vote for one?

There are seven – seven – types of ID that are acceptable for proving your identity to vote in Texas.

  • Texas Drivers License
  • Texas Voter ID card (Free. From any DPS office. Some mobile stations. Offices open Saturday to enable people to get cards.)
  • Texas Personal ID card (a drivers license that doesn’t let you drive)
  • Texas Concealed Handgun License
  • Military ID
  • US Citizenship or Naturalization Certificate
  • US Passport

I looked at these, and I’ve got two of them, which means I’m not eligible for a Voter ID card and I don’t need a Personal ID card, and to me, the most stringent was a US Passport – you needed a certified birth certificate to get it and it was from the federal government.

So, I took my passport to the polling place this morning. The poll worker said “We can’t take passports for identification.” WTF? It has a photo. It has my name. It’s a government document. My name on it matches the voter rolls. IT’S ON THE LIST.

I’m a Libertarian, so instead of starting a major scene (though I thought about it) or protesting outside the polls or busing in illegal voters from other States or countries to actually suppress my vote, I just said, “It’s first on the list” (politely leaving out “you dumbass”), and sighed, and gave him my drivers license. Always have multiple forms of ID when you need an ID. Prepare ahead. You will find stupid people whenever there is a governmental entity involved.

So, now we have a young, very confused-looking black male telling an old white guy that he can’t take his valid ID and let him vote – WHEN IT’S ON THE LIST – would seem to me the exact opposite of what was supposed to be happening at the polls, according to the doomsayers. Maybe the Democrats don’t want old white guys who can afford to travel internationally to be able to vote.

He took my drivers license. I voted. It’s over. I reported it to the Texas Secretary of State. (No reply yet.)

However, as long as our elections are run by dumbshits who don’t know their own rules, we are going to have election problems.

Never look for viciousness when ignorance is the most likely explanation.

Funding Experiments

I’m the President of the Board of Directors of Agape Broadcasting Foundation, Inc – which most people around here would know as KNON 89.3 FM – the Voice of the People. You can listen online at http://www.knon.org if you’re not in the DFW area. (You can also pledge online, and we’re in the middle of pledge drive. Yes, again.)

However, we’ve pretty much tapped out our core listener base, and we love them, and they are quite generous, but we need new pledgers. This is very difficult to accomplish – especially when there are two PBS stations down the dial with a lot more money to chase money.

It pains me that we have to have a budget to raise money. In the perfect world, people would simply fund us because they believe in the mission of the station (The mission of KNON is to be the Voice of The People in the Dallas area. We provide unique programming to reflect the diversity of the entire Metroplex community.), or they like one of our formats or DJs, or they’re just good people.

This is not a perfect world. 

So, this pledge drive, we’re trying two new ideas.

 

First, we need the de-icers on our tower replaced – when the tower froze last winter (yes, it gets cold in Dallas), we were off the air – our power was so limited, our transmission area was severely compromised. So, I’m running a campaign outside pledge drive to raise money for that specific project – http://www.gofundme.com/warm-tower – and we’re trying to see if people will actually donate just because it sounds like a good cause.

So far, almost all the donations have been from our volunteers. So, the concept of raising hundreds or thousands of dollars instantly may be overblown, or it may be people care about strangers who need a new kidney or a special night out but they don’t really care about a community radio station.

The irony of that campaign – which hit me after I created it – is that people outside Dallas who contribute could listen over the Internet and so they wouldn’t be impacted if the tower froze over. So it goes. Still, we’re a small operation, we’ll take anyone’s money.

The other new technology is Pledge By Text – since everyone has a cell phone these days (it seems), let them pledge with it.

Text “KNON” to 56512 from your mobile phone, and you’ll get a link back to let you pledge. Choose your favorite show, your favorite DJ or just send it to the general fund. 

We appreciate your support!

Annoying People

Why are people so annoying? Seriously, what has happened to us? Where are our morals?

Annoying is actually not a strong enough word. Both of these items that really annoyed me involve petty theft. Why do we have people who think stealing someone else’s resources is a reasonable thing to do?

Spam Users
I created a new website called Cruiseaholics – my wife and I are addicted to cruises (Latitudes Platinum on Norwegian), so I thought it was a cute name. I’d like to have people join and discuss their cruise preferences and experiences. Now, I’m not planning to be CruiseCritic (although some of their restrictions are just annoying and some of their users tend to be very argumentative), but I thought it would be a nice alternative for what I assumed would be a very limited group.

This morning, I had over 200 users registered for my site. 200! Wow! You know what they all had in common? They were all spam users. Not a valid one in the bunch. While this should not surprise me (I’ve had web sites since the dawn of the World Wide Web), it still pisses me off. Why are you wasting time registering fake accounts on somebody’s website? I suppose the only hope is that the default user limit is set to “contributor”, so they can try to sell shoes or Viagra or whatever.

I turned off user registration on the site this morning. So, I’m not building a community any longer. If somebody wants an account, they will have to email me. It’s sad, but I just don’t have the time to weed out all the real users from the crap. If it were a money-making site, then, perhaps, but for a hobby, it’s just not worth the time.

Warnings That Shouldn’t Be
I learned about a self-service library system this weekend from a neighbor. It’s called Little Free Library. Basically, you have a large bird house (go look at their site – it’s the first thing that came to mind) full of books on your front lawn, and anyone can take a book or leave a book. I see this as a way to build community – if I had one in my lawn, most of the books would come from neighbors on the cul-de-sac. Also, I don’t think people would drive to one, so you will have foot traffic, which means people are walking in the neighborhood.

Here’s the issue – the first thing someone mentioned was preventing people from clearing out the library and going to Half-Price Books for some quick cash. (Having sold an obsolete record collection and then an obsolete VCR tape collection, I can tell any potential thief that it’s barely worth the time.)

It distresses me that something that should share the joy of reading and build community would have to protect itself against theft. I know there are bad people everywhere, but this also pisses me off.

Both of these cases involve community and how easily that community can be broken by someone taking advantage of openness. Seriously, can’t we just have good in the world without having to worry about someone taking advantage of us?