Tuesday Morning Follies

Cold wet dog nose poking into my left butt cheek.

I roll over and try to ignore it, Dog sniffs my naughty bits, I’m more conscious, but still mostly asleep…  something in my brain triggers a sub process.

Dog doesn’t bug me while I’m sleeping unless … Unless what…. UNLESS HE’S SICK!!!!

I toss the rest of the sheets off and leap out of bed.

I’m still on auto pilot, brain not spun up to full function. Dog panting and trotting down the hall ahead of me. We make it to the living room, I grab the slider pop the lock and yank it open.

There’s one tiny issue I’ve forgotten. As the door slides open, I realize my mistake, but it’s too late.

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BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP 

The alarm system is screaming. and every other electronic device in the house capable of receiving mail, text messages, or phone calls is chirping, ringing, or vibrating.

In the sudden cacophony the dog stops in his tracks, completely forgetting that he’s not feeling well.

Emergency Protocol — Tech Interface – ONLINE 

Technological part of brain now fully functional… 

I tear around the living room furniture aka toe breaking obstacles, to the alarm control panel.

I punch in the disarm code. Panel stops beeping, reports disarmed…

I check the nearest electronic device. 

4/23 7:08 AM
BURGLARY ALARM. Proceed with caution.
Sensor: Living Room  Door (Zone 5)
 
I’m waiting for another message.

The message that says I’ve gotten to the panel quick enough and that I won’t be hauled out onto the lawn naked at gunpoint.

Briefly I think I should pull some sweats on if the cops do show up. Then the message comes in. 

4/23 7:08 AM
Alarm cleared by Master access code
 
I’m cool! No cops, no worries. 

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Dog curiously looking at me.

Innocent face, “Dad, why are you being so weird this morning?

“Go outside”, I tell him… I head to kitchen. Push button on coffee maker, head to bathroom relieve myself, grab shorts head back to kitchen.

Ahhhh Coffee!

Dog wants morning treat, and to play. Seems to think this new game is a lot of fun.

Sometimes… Dog is a real bastard!

I really need to check Twitter before I post

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Imagine my chagrin at posting a long delayed blog post only to fire up Twitter and see that Boston is once again a hotbed of activity.

1000 tweets between the time I went to bed and Now. Damn!

So we have one bombing suspect dead, the other bombing suspect on the run, and the main stream news media tying themselves in knots with hyperbole and few facts.

Oh for the love of god! The insanity continues!!!

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As a side note this was originally going to publish on Tuesday. Given the events of Monday in Boston and Wednesday in TX I held it up. I’ve thought about it and decided that this still needed to be said.

We as a country cannot and should not get into the habit of “Banning or interfering” as this Senator attempted to do. 

Banning an event or book one group dislikes, places us on the slippery slope to censorship. 

I personally disliked Jesse Jacksons rallies in FL against Zimmerman. However I am duty bound as a citizen under the constitution to protect Rev. Jackson right to free speech.

This is a philosophy that is deeply ingrained in me. As it should be in all American citizens, most especially our politicians.

I understand that the Senator was likely just seeking some publicity, but this method sets a bad precedent. 


All right people I’m going to say some things here that are likely to piss some of you off.

TOUGH!

A Connecticut Senator by the name of Murphy asked that the NRA 500 NASCAR race be Not Aired or cancelled because of the fact that it was sponsored by the NRA.

I don’t even follow or watch NASCAR and this pisses me off.

I see this as nothing more than a spotlight grabbing publicity seeking asshole Senator standing on the Newtown Tragedy in an effort to look, yes look like he’s doing something.

I’m sick of hearing about Newtown. I’m sick of hearing every fucking controversial issue being tied back to Newtown. 

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I’m so fucking over it I can’t see straight and I am equally sick of hearing talking heads and dumbass members of congress blabbing on and on about the pros and cons of various asinine gun control bills.

I’m sick of hearing moronic state representatives blabbing on about things that they have no idea about.

Then trying to make laws that are supposed to be about the safety of the public. When in reality the new laws will not do one fucking thing to make us safer.

If Senator Murphy had been successful in stopping the broadcast or even the race, I’d have been calling for his immediate removal from office for violating his oath of office.

You know… that little bit about upholding the constitution? I might even have been screaming for him to be hauled up on charges of improper use of power and influence peddling.

Why?

Because had he managed to stop the broadcast or the race itself, I believe that would have violated the First Amendment.

Folks… Events like this race are planned at least a year if not two years in advance.

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The NRA PAID their sponsorship money.

The fans paid their money for the tickets.

The advertisers paid for their commercials to run during the broadcast.

The cars and team uniforms were logoed, and purchased.

Thousands of people fed their families because they had jobs associated with the NRA 500.

That doesn’t necessarily mean those people agreed with the NRA on any point.

However, unlike our politicians, those thousands of people did their jobs and were paid for their labor.

No-body could have predicted that a CRAZY person would kill his mother, take guns from his home and kill a bunch of school children.

That this Senator, seemed to think that all that money, and all those jobs should… What?

Give everybody a refund? Take a 400 million or MORE (I’m guessing) dollar loss?

Simply because he disagrees with the sponsor, demonstrates to me personally that Senator Murphy is unfit to be in the Senate.

Clearly he has no clue about how economies work and is more than willing to disrupt the finances of thousands if not hundreds of thousand of people for nothing!

Based on that alone he should be removed from office, he’s unfit to lead in any way.

I hate Games in Business Transactions

I Hate playing games with vendors or suppliers of services.

All too often these days people seem to want to play games with your paycheck, they want to play games with your bills, games with your mail, your email, your online accounts. They want to play games with you returning things.

DirecTV after two and half weeks finally got around to sending me a “recovery kit”

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Do you know what’s in the recovery kit? Take a guess it’s not what you would think…

I was expecting a large box with a couple of return labels.  I was going to put both of the DirecTV receivers in the big box and then take the big box to the post office.

What I got was a package full of labels… No box, no packing material, nothing that I could put the DirecTV receivers in to make sure that they got back to DirecTV.

The first passing thought was slap the stickers directly on the receivers themselves and send that to DirecTV however I knew the post office wouldn’t take them that way.

So I found a couple boxes down in the garage.

The receivers are in the boxes covered in ghost poop, I’m not at all sure that they’ll survive the rough handling that I know the postal service will subject them to. At this point I don’t really care… much.  I do, the machines didn’t do anything wrong they’re in good working order and they shouldn’t be damaged because no-one cares.

I did pack them tightly and with what packaging materials I had available. I just wish that the idiots at DirecTV had sent me the proper boxes with appropriate packing.

Now it’s just a matter of figuring out how the post office wants the labels on the boxes.

Clearly DirecTV was trying to do nothing more than make it difficult for me to return their product

We came to an end of our relationship after eight years because of exactly this kind of game playing.

If I want to cancel my service I should be able to cancel my service, it should be no harm no foul.

I should be able to put the receivers in the box and I should be able to send the box back to DirecTV.

Instead I had to make three requests for the recovery kit

After the third request what I get is a package full of labels not shipping boxes.

I know what the game is about and how it’s played.

It’s all about them figuring “Maybe if we make it to hard for this person to get rid of the receivers,  if we make it so that he’s going to be charged a ton of money if he keeps the receivers for any length of time after the contract is up maybe he’ll sign up with us again, maybe we can continue to get the $120 or $130 a month.”

All I can say is they don’t know me very well.

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With me, the harder you make something, the more annoyed I get, the more likely I will go to the ends of the Earth to accomplish my goal.

In this case I’m going to make sure that I can put DirecTVs equipment straight up their collective ass.

So DirecTV not only did you lose a customer because I couldn’t make changes to my plan without having to go to some kind of unbelievable game with plan switches, and 2 year contracts all of which was designed to make absolutely sure that I ended up spending more money than I was originally, you’ve also lost a customer forever.

I cannot imagine myself doing any business at all with DirecTV from here on out I’m not going to say never.  But it is sure as hell going to require a lot of thought before I sign my name on any dotted line with these people.