Child Unattended

Spike & Ike 2012

Rectal intrusion diverted

Do you sometimes feel that someone, somewhere, always has their finger up your 'boo-tay' and is attempting to control your every move like a finger puppet?

(FYI, drawing that little hand image there was quite an enjoyable task in MS PowerPoint.  Give it a try sometime, but be forewarned that if you are not so artistically inclined, lock the gun up before starting...)

This delightful day consisted of a series of unfortunate decisions made by those who like to think of themselves as people in 'control' of our business operations.  Between those ludicrous decisions also occurred a gamut of other imbecilic situations such as a team building exercise gone wrong, a testosterone filled 'my thing is bigger than your thing' fight, and a bra strap mishap.  The typical day.... in other words....

So back to the finger prodding....

The people attempting to explore my end-trails are HR, Accounting, and Operation Support.  Between those three groups and all their rules inflicted upon us innocent employees, this company could no doubt serve as the next world renowned rectal 'We'll do you deep and right' clinic. They want you to use a certain format for an open text field (why make it open text if its so controlled??), they want 4 approvals for a trip claim when you got approval to go on the stinking trip before you purchased the ticket,  and they want to assume what people like with the hopes that they are themselves 'in touch' with employee needs rather than just ask them what they like, and the list goes on and on.

What did I do to resolve the problems?   In a nutshell I told my boss he needed to say 'do it' to them so they would ignore their regulations (just this once....), I told HR that I will wash my hands clean of my volunteer work to pick up their slack until they start putting the employees as their true priority, and the rest I decided to separate myself from to let them feel the pain of self reliance.

In the end... when they started to insert the pointer finger, they were met by something too tight to breach.

On the other events....A puma fixed my twisted bra strap....and the testosterone spat dude got out with only a broken collar bone and losing his job.  I suppose that's a win, win, win for him (crazy men folk .... : )

"Could you write a note for my wife to say that my head it not up there?" ~ Rectal exam patient's request to doctor

Zombie Attack

Spike-n-Ike 2012 - Zombie Attack

Mosquito Boxing

My husband is the Rocky Balboa of mosquito boxing.....I am so proud!

:)

Let me explain.

He was with a group of 15~ 16 people sitting on the floor having a little chat, snacks, and  all that hoop-la when *BOOM* he punches into the air out of nowhere. If I was there and had seen him, I might have questioned his sanity, or at the very least considered wearing a hockey mask to bed.... but I was not there so was spared that thought. His fellow floor compatriots however did witness the oddity and thus looked to him in bewilderment and to each other in search of some reason why in the world this seemingly sane dude would punch fast and hard into the air above himself.

After watching their faces with a short, yet enjoyably fiendish thrill he divulged a clue to his spontaneous boxing move.  "Look there. Do you see what is there on the floor?" he says while pointing to a corner of the mat just in front of his foot. 

They roused their butts off the floor and looked toward the spot where he was pointing.  There, mostly still with an occasional twitch on the mat was a knocked out mosquito, punched in the pricker by my husband to its unlikely (and undesired) end. 

[*ding, ding, ding* goes the bell....]

Shocked and amazed, the men each grow into full 32 tooth broad smiles and begin to laugh hysterically.  Even the older quiet and serious man among them, who has lived his whole life being sucked milliliter by milliliter by these annoying creatures, feels that FINALLY justice has been paid to the mosquito kind for their atrocities. The old guy lets out a great chuckle at the wriggling insect's demise and gives a few claps for my victorious boxer bou's bravery.

Congrats babes, you made the world a safer place yet again. 

Next up, try some Tai Quan Do on that spider in the corner.... HOI YA!

You're gonna eat lightnin' and you're gonna crap thunder!  - Mickey from Rockey (1976)

Work / Life Balance

The big fat butt elephant in this scenario is employers who limit worker freedoms.  The little mice (employees) are just trying to balance their work and home life, but no matter how hard they try they can't balance out with the hairy pachyderm who demands 10 hours worth of work within an 8 hour period.

Today my wonderful employer stated that no company property can be used for personal purposes, specifically no company computers can be used for personal social media site viewing, no email, no news reading, no bank account checking, no weather radar watching.... NOTHING... INCLUDING DURING LUNCH HOURS.  The only thing those suckers did allow was the use of personal smart phones during lunch hour to do whatever you like.  My immediate reaction.... INSANE.

For literalists such as myself (when being one is a benefit to me of course) I then question what employees are to do when they have brought there lunch in and want to eat it at their desk?  We have 60 short minutes to scarf down the food, check our personal email, check our bank accounts, see if there is any news of the world that we should know, check on the stocks (if you choose to run that gauntlet), and decide which of the GOP nominees you wish to despise for the week.  Now how many of these activities requires the use of a computer.... hmmm.... 5/6 (well, can say 4/6 if you want to decide on the nominee based on whoever the favorite is of your office biznatch).

If I am so kind as to impliment this 'rule' upon myself at work, then what will I do with those 50 minutes that remain after eating my lunch?  I will proceed to do only what is reasonable.... think of ways to work around the rule!  I'll have to either 1) Upgrade my phone to a darn expensive smart phone 2) Bring my personal laptop to work to do my checking there, or (worst case) 3) Write all my posts in a Word doc and post them online once I get home. 

Of course it needs not be mentioned that I will no longer answer calls from co-workers at home or after I have clocked out and will not stay passed my scheduled hours like I had been before, sometimes by 2 or 3 hours.  This is, of course, an important part of their reason for creating this rule... to gain 'Work Life Balance'...

Fine.... I'll balance it... you asked for it!

To put it bluntly, I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation. But I'm working on the foundation. - Marilyn Monroe

Elections make Separation of Church & State Impossible

The US government is set up similarly to what is indicated in the image to the left.  Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches all governed by the 'political holy grail'... the Constitution.  Each branch has various functions, such as ruling on court cases (Judicial), setting up new laws (Legislative), and deciding on the US involvement in international activities (Executive).


Fundamentally, the US government (the state) is set up SEPARATE from religion (church).  As it says in the first amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...." and the meaning of this was elaborated upon by Thomas Jefferson in the statement, "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State".  


This has worked very well in regards to the majority of situations that we, as an American people, have faced.  However, I hope that everyone understands that this perceived 100% separation of religion from government is practically impossible.  Here is why....


Every person has a religious belief. "Religion is a cultural system that establishes symbols that relates humanity to spirituality and moral values" (Wiki). Spirituality is the "deep values and meanings by which people live". If we break these statements down into simple terms, religion is a: common agreement amongst a people of what is good, bad, or inconsequential. We all have an opinion of what is good & bad, there are others who agree with our opinions, thus every person is indeed a part of a religious community!  I can hear your responses now "I am an atheist, so I can't be categorized in what you said", but in literal terms you have the 'religion' called atheism and are a member of that religious community.  


We have people (humans) running our country.  If every person has a religion that dictates their actions, then every governmental action is a religious act. Political leaders are put in office if their actions/beliefs/opinions are similar to what we, as their constituents, agree with.  We expect that when they are in office they will make changes to the laws of this country to meet the (religious belief driven) desires of the people at large.  This means every law written is a religious act, every court decision is a religious decision, and every international activity is a religious activity.  


If the state was actually NOT run by religious beliefs then all people would have equal rights (man, woman, homosexual, old, young, fat, skinny, white, nonwhite, etc) and we would not have many of the conflicts seen in the news today.  Marriage, as the best example, could be between anyone... the very old, the very young, the gay, or in MULTIPLE.  Marriage, historically, derived from an economic purpose anyway, not for a religious purpose, so why are there any limits to who you can marry in the US in the present day?  If there is a medical reason for a limitation (such as incest) then it can be understandable because the population as a whole could be harmed with increases in the resulting genetic disorders.


So, can we do it... can we separate religion from government? Here is what it would look like...


There would be 3 independent branches of government: Medical, Educational, and International.  All leaders would not be elected, but rather any applicants would be tested equally on their knowledge of the field and the highest score gains a position in office.  The Educational branch would be the largest, as it would review all knowledge from past, present and anticipated future and disseminate to all people for their learning and decision making.  No topic would be left out (all 'religious material' would also be shared) as all knowledge would be considered of equal importance.  The choice to learn that information would be left to the individual. The International branch would have the sole purpose of communicating with other countries and deciding when to participate or not in global initiatives based on eminent threat to our lives. 


In terms of domestic laws governing things like murder, theft, etc....Those who had dependency on the one murdered would decide what would happen to the murderer, as they would be the ones most directly affected by the event.  It would be decided case by case and there would only be limitations on any request for torture or some crazy things like that.  In terms of theft, the same would apply... the one who lost the item would decide the punishment for the one who committed the crime within a certain realm of permissibility.   


So, the key factor to having the situation exist described above would be to become a country where the government is NOT elected... but tested and the individual decides how their own morals effect their own lives.  Those are my two cents...


We are imperfect. We cannot expect perfect government. ~William Howard Taft (US Pres)

'Old' is Relative

Pleasant old guy, isn't he.

We say "Yes, old man" to our fathers when they ask of us an action, even though they may be in their 40s or early 50s and not necessarily decrepit.  An 'old friend' might be a young girl barely having reached a spry 25 years.  A kindergarten child would call another boy who is of age 10 "old" and be shy with them because of their perceived abundance of knowledge gained in the additional 2 years experience on the playground.

Here is my hypothesis as to why these seemingly unclear understandings of 'old' occur...What we call 'Old' is relative only to what we are comparing them/it to as well as in the degradation of capability or quality that that thing/person can provide . Let's me explain...

Old (in the aged perspective) - The first image that comes to mind when I think of an 'old person' is a guy just like what is in the photo above.  Wrinkled, worn, gray, energy deprived.... having lived a life full of struggle and pressure, the worry lines having been deeply engraved into the spirit of his body. Another individual's mental image of a person who is old however may be a woman aged to 20 .. or 80 because they themselves are quite a lot younger or older than I . In a nutshell, the age of the individual who is being asked of their opinion will be the dictating factor for the age that they would term 'old'. (That was the simple part)

Old (in the capability or quality perspective) -  An item purchased (inanimate) will be termed 'old' after it is used for some time... based on the frequency of use or if it degrades on its own (biological). However in terms of human capability, a person at age 50/60/70 years can be equally functional compared to a human at the age of 30.  In addition, one who has lived many years probably has determined, through making his/her own mistakes, which errors to avoid.  This makes them able to complete a job better and with more skill than a younger person.  In this regard the subtly implied message of 'old'  being a negative attribute is quite incorrect.  "With age comes wisdom" as someone said, I completely agree with that and would like to tweak the line to "With age comes wisdom, patience, and peace".  

What lesson to learn from this?

If one is going to judge another person (which I advise against doing in the first place), do so based on the actions of that person, rather than upon their appearance.  The worth of an individual, in addition to their divinely inspired purpose, lies just as much in their POTENTIAL for positive action that could add quality to the human existence, as well as in what they have acted upon in the PAST.  This potential for good remains until an individual is lost(dies) AND IS FORGOTTEN...forgotten mentioned with emphasis because even after a person passes away, their impact may continue to be beneficial in the memory of others, writings left behind, and physical relics to be discovered.  It is only when a person's actions are forgotten, or impact on that which physically exists is no longer in use, that they can no longer provide benefit to a society. Nutshell: 'Old' is only bad when it can provide zero benefit.  Zero benefits is only reached when all that exists is gone. At that point... no one will care because no one will be here....

As the old men we still remember, the old women we still admire, and the old junk we still play with...be nice to the old!

Do not regret growing older.  It is a privilege denied to many. ~Author Unknown