Month: July 2017

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It’s on my Calendar…

Checklist 4

The accusatory reminder is sitting there.

“Blog,” It says.

“About what,” I think to myself.

“That I have nothing to say?”

The reminder is implacable. I should just delete the little bastard, that’d show it. Consign it to the digital hell of forgotten “To Dos”.

But as A friend has reminded me and several well renowned authors have said;

Write anything, just write daily.

Okay, I’m writing. 

The internet is an interesting thing. I was able to distract myself from writing for a whole hour. I was suddenly curious about an old High School friend. Actually, he was my best friend. I may have found traces of him, but doubt seriously that we’ll ever re-connect. 

That relationship ended in a weird way in 1980 (I think). I honestly don’t remember now. I just remember thinking as I watched my friends back receding from my view that this was probably the last time I’d see him.

Then I got busy living my life and I assume he got busy living his. 

Through the years I’ve been curious about him and how his life had gone. I tried sending a letter or two and the occasional Christmas card. I don’t know if they ever found their intended recipient. These items were sent with paper and an actual stamp, but there was no reply.  I suppose I had an answer in that – there was no reply.

Nonetheless I’ve been curious through the years. 

With more and more data and personal information being stored and made available on the internet, it’s a lot easier to locate someone from your past. They don’t even have to have a social media account. Public records can go a long way toward letting you find someone.

Regarding my long lost friend… Either he was arrested for domestic battery in 2002, OR he’s living in a nice house, in the town that we grew up in working a blue collar job. The latter is, I think most likely. The second result’s age lines up more closely.

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The mug shot is striking in its similarity to the face I remember.

However, I think it highly unlikely that the police would be off by 5 years on the person’s age.

Perhaps it was a relative…

Not that an arrest record would be a reason for me not to re-connect. Multiple arrest records would be another issue.

This appears to be a one-off, and God knows I’ve had my knock down drag out fights with significant others over the years. Had some of those fights happened while I was living in an apartment… Well, then probably a mug shot of me would be gracing search results on the internet too.

The legal definition of Battery is surprisingly vague. I could see slightly rough sex being considered battery. 

I could easily imagine doing the same thing this week, that you did last week where your partner was really into it. Only to find out that your partner wasn’t into it today, and was flat out pissed off. Next thing you know, you’re having unflattering pictures (Front and Profile) taken.

I wonder what it would be like to re-connect with my friend. Would it be like no time had passed, or would the time and life experiences be so different that the gulf simply could not be bridged?

Would we each be disappointed with the effort? Is it better to let sleeping dogs simply lie?

The question is…

Do I want to put this on my “Bucket List” or not? Given that we’re both as old as we are if this is something I’d like to do, I should probably get on the stick about it. I’d hate to drive all that way only to lay flowers on a grave.

Something to ponder, I suppose.

Oh Look!

I can now check blogging off the list of things to do today.

Huzzah!

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I have to laugh…

At the end of last year, the company moved our department into a building that was still under construction. Throughout the winter months my department was like a set of “The Walking Dead“. We had people blowing through their sick time like it was candy. (Myself included.) Around the beginning of the year we had people coming in with various flus, walking pneumonia, colds, and sinus infections. Which they passed around freely. So most of us have little to no sick time left.  (Myself included)

So a month ago I had and accident.  Annoying, totaled my car, and required me to take a day off with more time off to lick my wounds, and get myself right again.

If I worked for a “normal” company, since I have plenty of vacation time on the books, I’d be able to simply use vacation time on request to take care of medical issues and any therapy I needed. I’d go to work and do my best to schedule time so as not to disrupt the business and there’d be nothing said about it.

However, I don’t work for a “normal” company. I work for a company that has instituted this crazy system of penalizing you if you take a day off without prior management approval. Even with this system in place there is a loophole that will allow you to deal with emergencies, (Or car accidents) without penalty. The problem is, that your manager has it at their discretion to enforce the penalties, OR NOT. 

I happen to work for one of the ones that refuses to exercise that discretion. My manager is one of the rule bound ones.

Which leads me to the situation I’m in now.

In order to be able to make appointments, and not be penalized for doing it. The company makes you go to a government agency.  That Agency contacts your Dr., your Dr. fills out a bunch of forms, which he / or she sends back to the government agency, then they determine if you’re worthy.

After their determination they send the forms back to the company. And all the penalties magically disappear and you then have permission to miss work to go take care of your health.

In other words it’s an overly complex mess that should be handled between the employer and employee. Then again… you have to keep bureaucrats busy don’t you?

Well in my case, the Dr circled the wrong box on one page, and this morning, I got a call from HR telling me that I shouldn’t be at work because I was on continuous leave.

This is what happens when you abdicate responsibility.

Not that I’m complaining, I need some down time. Even a day or two will be more than fine. Just so long as I don’t feel like I’m running to beat the clock, punch the clock, be on schedule, or dance to someone else’s tune.

In other words, I’m going to have a drink, go to bed, and have nothing planned for tomorrow. That will be a nice change after weeks of running to the NEXT thing.  Hell, I may even turn the phone off.

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Wow! Just took another look at a Program…

I’ve been intermittently checking out what at first looked like a great little Blogging program.

Problem is, they’ve been adding features but not actually fixing the issues that were broken.

I’d stopped using the program because the issues were so bad. Really? You aren’t allowing iPad’s spell check to operate?

I just checked it again today. It’s even worse.

SO I’m thinking it’s time to flush the program from all my devices. I’ve been patient for over a year, and still many of the basics aren’t being supported.

It’s a pity, the application originally had a lot of potential and was very clean and elegant.

But the harsh reality is this, if I’m not using something I shouldn’t hang onto it out of sentimentality or guilt.

Time to free up the space and maybe the application developer will wise up a start paying attention to basics!

I’m probably pissing into the wind here. But I can always use more space on my devices…