My Private Life is an Inside Joke

You can just smell the seething white guilt.

So. I'm in Portland. There's a million places I might have been this week, but Portland was not the top of the list of places I thought I would visit this year if you had asked me at the start of it. Or really, ever. The town doesn't offend me in some great or minor way, I simply never gave it much thought. However, since I needed to bring some counselors to training (who eventually couldn't come), I found myself registered for a week-long training whoohah in the Rose City. Or the place where the dream of the 90s is still alive. Or whatever else is going on. I have to say, I'm glad I'm here, because I might have elsewise lived my whole life without ever coming, and I would have missed out.

But enough balanced introspection, let's make fun of hipsters and West Coast liberals. 

Pretty much as soon as we (Kim and I) landed, I was struck with how open and airy everything is. And I am not strictly speaking of buildings and various constructs across the city. Portland is physically very appealing to me - there are trees smashed into everything, and pedestrian/bike traffic is encouraged everywhere. But the cross messages of everyone both proclaiming how welcoming/open they are at the same time trying to pin down exactly what it is they like/value/accept is hilarious. There are so many shades of "accept me! value me! envy me!" that it kills me. It really is like some sort of extended caricature of hipster-ism. 

There, that's out of the way. It's true, by the way, every bit of the above. I'm not trying to do the thing where an observer points out the obvious issues and then tries to turn everything on its head by appreciating it anyway unabashedly (and to stir fake controversy). I just wanted to point that out but not dwell on it because, fortunately, I've managed to enjoy it all as a tourist. On Sunday, we checked in at the Waterfront and walked a bit along the park on the river. 

During a stop at a bistro (edit: sorry, GASTROPUB) having some local wine and locally-sourced farm fed herp herp herp food, a woman bikes past on a vintage fixed gear bike. In a wide brim white hat. And white sundress. And comically large sunglasses. With her little doggie riding in a custom made basket. And she wasn't so much pedaling as posing with her head tilted away, trying hard to look whimsical and carefree as she nearly ran into five or six people, one at a time, because she wasn't looking where she was going.

I will forever know this woman, in my heart, as the Spirit of Portland. Pretty, intentionally too quirky, basically alright and harmless, trying a little too hard... but in the end, probably pretty friendly and someone you'd wanna have around for a drink or interesting chat. 

The beer here has been, so far, overstated. Portland was said to be the Beervana of the Northwest by several sources, and all I can think is that perhaps I am not running into the right microbrews. Maybe I need to find the micro-micro-brews, you know... the ones you haven't heard of? I dunno. The beer here hasn't been bad, just disappointing after all the hype. To be fair, it was a lot of hype, so it's unlikely any place can live up to that mess. I have some pictures I'll put up later about the breweries I visited, but so far I haven't found anything I'd try to get back home. 

Class itself has been both hilarious and terrible, as these training sessions tend to be. They're usually full of people who are far, far too interested in properly representing oneself as a srs bsnss counselor and avenger of the people in both conversation and discussing intent, but few people seem to have any real grasp of what counseling and program execution is actually about. It's more important to rant about those damn banks and how horribly unfair X and Y is rather than actually talk about how to fix it, how to serve clients, or how to make an effective program. 

In short, whenever I feel like I am too wrapped up in anger and worry if I am competent/skilled enough for my job, I always find strong reaffirmation in these classes. While I learn relatively little, that bit of motivation is usually pretty helpful. Though the sad and depressing realization that these folks represent the majority of the counseling community is deeply depressing for a little while after. 

So far, I've avoided spending too much money on the little specialty boutique whoosit shops, which I'm happy with. You know the shops - the ones that seem to base their business model not on actual solvency, but asking themselves the question, "Hey, if someone walked into my shop, would they think 'oh wow look at all the needlessly complex and expensive variations on this relatively simple product that really doesn't actually need multiple iterations!'?"

Cuz these places are every damn where. It seems less important to have a good business, but instead a business that people can say "omg that's so clever!" when referring to the material at hand. Of course, living in Austin, this is a phenomenon I am deeply familiar with, but the number of these sorts of stores is staggering. 

On a sour note, it just feels like you have somewhat creative and interesting people no longer interested in being actually clever and advancing art or improving the world. They just walk to talk to each other and compliment each other on how fresh and hip their vapid, shallow idea is and then discard it to move on to the next vapid and shallow cutesy trend to set. These folks, I think, decided to introduce the term "taste maker" because "trend-setter" was too disturbingly accurate in painting just how shallow and useless their efforts were. These are the folks who think blogging and tweeting is a real job that makes them super interesting, I guess. 

...I say on my blog. I guess I exempt myself because I feel like I contribute.

Anyway, I'll wrap this one up before it gets too bitter. Portland is, despite my mini-rants, actually A++, would visit again, and I've got three more days here so far. The layout of the city, the public transportation, the shops, the region, the architecture, everything. My main complaint is the people, but I think genetics are kicking in and I will hate everyone eventually anyway while still trying to cheer them on and love everyone so.. yeah. Not Portland's fault, there. 

More brews and $300 vintage tie reports later. 

Sold my tortured youth, piss and vinegar
I'm still angry with no reason to be
At the architect who imagines
For the every man, blessed sisyphus
Slipping steadily into madness, now that's the only place to be free

My brush with being a hipster

I didn't buy any skinny jeans, and I don't like PBR. However, I decided a few weeks back that I should take on a second job to help clean up the medical bills I racked up last year and the loan for replacing the AC uptake unit a couple months ago. For those of you who don't know what an uptake unit is and haven't tabbed over to Google Image Search yet, it's the big airflow unit that most people envision when you say "AC unit in my garage" or somesuch. The thingy that pulls in the air, cools it, and throws it all around your house. It's called an uptake unit because it takes air... up... ?

The problem with getting a second, part-time, job is that I already have one that eats up at least 40 hours a week, and has a tendency to need me on weekends and evenings with constant but irregular frequency. So scheduling would be an issue. Also, I am a grown-assed man, so I am not gonna go flip burgers or push carts or whatever. I have the luxury of not needing the income, so I can be a little picky. And like most things, I quickly allowed a little power and choice to go to my head quickly.

I found an ad for a pedicabbing company that was hiring. For those not familiar, pedicabbing was easily described to me as "rikshaws that white people drive". In this particular case, it was a little trailer I hitched to the back of my bike and would pedal people around downtown Austin. It seemed like a pretty good plan - the pay was completely in untrackable (untaxable) tips, my bike was in pretty good shape, I myself am in pretty good shape, and I'm pretty familiar with the bar district.

Pretty familiar.

So after contacting the guy, I was told there would be some licensing I would have to pay for. Understandable. Something to the tune of $50, which seemed ok, and the kind of money I would make back in a day or so. The annoyances, though, started early. The dude let me know I had to do a background check and a driving check, which I had to get one online and one in person. After spending time taking care of that, I went back to him and he had me fill out an application... one I could have done beforehand. At that point he told me to go downtown to some other office and hand all this stuff in plus another filing fee. So I did. Then there was a test that no one told me about. It was really starting to feel like some godawful WoW quest chain where you went back to the same place over and over and you yell at the monitor "HEY JUST TELL ME THE WHOLE LIST OF SHIT TO DO, I CAN GET IT ALL DONE IN ONE TRIP GREAT THANK YOU."

So finally after getting the license itself, come the rules. Or rather, that's where the rules were vaguely hinted at to me, and well after the rules should have been explained in full (or perhaps someone could have told me these rules even existed before I got $70 into fees to start). Now, I understood at this point that this is a city-regulated service, so there would be rules and regulations to follow. But it was starting to feel like one of those situations where you had to guess and hope you guessed right. Because any sort of "what should I know about this" question was met with "read the (300+ page) regulations online", but people were MORE than happy to jump in with "Oh you shouldn't have doooonnee thaaat!" whenever I took a step. People were already happy to get on my case anyway, as I guess the usual age for these folk was early to mid 20s, and I had to be a card carrying member of the Pitchfork music commentary squad or something. The fact that I had a decent car and didn't have the current "I'm looking homeless on purpose" costume going for me also alienated some folks.

But that's fine, because they had the personal odor part of "homeless on purpose" down pat. This isn't to say they were all stereotypical beardy I'm-not-a-part-of-your-SYSTEEEMMMM folk, but many of them were very much so. Everything seemed to revolve around how pedicabs were better for the environment, local co-op groceries, and what local shows and/or indie publications they just digested. It was seriously like a Mr. Stereotype Pageant, I honestly thought I was being fucked with for a little bit.

My training consisted of a nice guy following me in his pedicab for about ten minutes, making me drive him one lap around the drinky district, and then saying "alright!" That was really it. Where I could and couldn't park, how I got the trailer hitched if no one was around the shop, where I pay my rent or what the rent fees were, how the scheduling works.... none of that was explained proactively, only in jabs of "hey why haven't you done X".

As for the cabbing itself, it was alright. A ridiculously intensive leg workout, at the very least. Most of the customers were your usual downtown bar folks, which meant I loved them all in various ways. Angry drunk lesbians. Obnoxious drunk fratboys. Condescending drunk 50-somethings. WOOOOO-ing drunk party girls. Cause-headed drunk hipsters. You know, my people. The problem really came from two other groups - the cops and other cabbers.

The other cabbers were just about 20% nice, conversational types, and 80% cutthroat assholes. I don't really blame the assholes, because their ability to pay their bills and eat was living or dying with their ability to get asses on the cab. So when other cabbers literally cut me off, ran stop signs past me, or other such techniques to get riders that were waving me down, I didn't get too pissed.

On the other hand, apparently Austin has a problem with bored cops picking on pedicab drivers just for sport. Cabbers getting tickets for having their bikes parked somewhere that was fine last week. Cabs getting stopped and inspected by one cop, then inspected by the bike cop that was with him two blocks later. I managed to get harassed at least twice a night, all times I was able to get out of any trouble mostly because I know when my options are "shut up, shrug, and apologize for whatever it is" or "get fucked with by people who want you to give them an excuse and won't be taught a moral lesson, guy" that the former is usually the best bet. Unfortunately for the other drivers, they were definitely the types to yell at cops, call them pigs, holler about how the man is keeping them down, etc etc.

So, in other words, my fellow drivers were happy to screw out their peers for cash and then lose it all because they can't keep their mouths shut. It's like they do and don't want the money all at the same time. Very Zen, I guess.

After one particular night where I made literally $0 the night before and was busting my ass yet again the next night to have a grand total of $30 in my pocket after four hours, I stopped and analyzed my situation. My "boss" and fellow drivers gave me zero advice on how to really get rides, I was running around AND parking in places to get rides, realizing that I was paying for the privilege of being harassed by cops... I decided I was done for the night and any other night. Even if I made a decent wad of cash, there was an endless line of hoops to jump through, no real guarantee business would be good even if I broke my back at it, and one power-tripping cop looking for a little confirmation of his awesome power could make a whole night's profit vanish.

So I just put the bike rack back on the rear of my bike and decided I had made back about as much as I had spent on the licensing. The time and effort I chalked up to a lesson learned and a life experience and all that other "builds character" crap your parents used to talk about when they were making you clean out horse stalls.

Subsidizing Self-Defeating Behavior

A recent exchange led to a bit of a rant regarding the identity and attitude of the poor. Figured I'd keep this one around, since it's something I like to talk about. The first paragraph is something someone had said, the rest is all me. I had to quote myself because we broke the topic into a new thread, not because I am in sloppy makeout love with my own writing.

Bloo Driver wrote:

LobsterMobster wrote:

I don't want to derail here, and I know this is a link to Cracked, usually not the most serious or profound website, but I've read a lot of this guy's stuff. It's kind of amazing he's still alive. I encourage everyone to at least give it a skim before calling poor people lazy, because he is poor despite working harder than is reasonable to ask of anyone: Link. Sure there are people who are poor because they're lazy. There are also people who are poor because life just does not give any quantity of any fraction of a sh*t over whether you live or die.

At the very least, pay attention to the part where he needs to pay $500 for a water leak because he couldn't afford $150 for a plumber till his next paycheck. That's not laziness.

I need to qualify some things before I make a statement regarding this article.

1.  I read Cracked daily. I'm often surprised at the insight put into the articles of a satire/comedy site, and regularly refer said articles to friends much as you have above.
2.  I work about 50-60 hours a week at a job where I specifically help the financially disadvantaged do things such as build credit, attain homeownership (if that's what they wanted in the first place), find ethical banks, and handle personal finance management.
3.  I personally make near-nothing because my job is a not-for-profit, and we are regularly worried about our doors closing on a quarterly basis.

That being said, that is easily one of the most ignorant and incorrect articles to ever appear at any time on Cracked's front page. It barely falls into the "correct in general but bad at details" category. I don't want to derail the thread too hard about why it's so bad, but I will if you guys like.

First of all, let's get some framework done here. The article in question cites a report (Workingpoor Project's periodic report) which cites a report (US Census Bureau (Factception!)) that focuses on the "working poor family", which is a relatively nebulous term. In this case, the definition here boils down to a "family" being at least three people - a couple and one child that lives full time with the family and is under 18. "Working" defines two or one incomes where the household puts together at least 39 hours of work time combined, or less if someone was recently out of a job and is actively seeking employment. So right out we can toss out childless couples or single folks. But we do want to consider them, in general, right? Now we get to the "poor" definition. So we look to the US Health and Human Services Guidelines for poverty last year - 10,830 for a single resident household. You'll notice the matrix counts up to 200% of the poverty line as statistics to be considered, and you may ask why? Are you poor at 100% of the poverty line or what, here? The reality is that, even above the poverty line, most government and charitable programs identify financial neediness in people all the way up to the 200% mark.

Or, as I was callously told once by someone who didn't like our company's policy of helping anyone, "Families who make over $40,000 a year don't have real problems."

It's really important that when we talk about the poor and poverty and all of this that we have some sort of baseline to view statistics from, because the word poverty is extremely subjective. Let's make sure we go back and get the correct context for this person's article, though, after all of the numbers fly by - a working poor, statistically average family here is four people (two adults, two nonworking children) that makes $43,512 each year maximum. That word maximum is important because I've personally noticed when you talk about income limits or poverty consideration limits, people tend to confuse the ceiling with the baseline.
So, with some of that in mind, let's take a look at the article.

Quote:

What I am saying is that people are quick to tell you to pick yourself up by your bootstraps and just stop being poor. What they don't understand is the series of intricate financial traps that makes that incredibly difficult.

This is a correct point. I want to emphasize this because I've noticed if I don't go on and on and on about how unfair the poor have it rather than try to look at it analytically, people think I'm a baby eater. Which I am, but for purely personal reasons.

Quote:

This is the future, where many businesses no longer accept cash as payment. That means you are required to have a checking account to function in the economy. And if you're poor, that means at some point you're going to get bank-****ed. Because having a checking account while poor doesn't just mean you have to be responsible and good at math -- you have to be perfect. Meticulous, flawless record keeping is the difference between surviving and having the bank seize your next paycheck.

This is true for everyone. The situation he's about to describe is a liability for a lot of people because nearly no one keeps excess funds in their checking account (assuming they have one). People move these funds to savings (which doesn't do them a lot of good, but that's something else entirely), and even overdraft protection doesn't work as well as people tend to think.

So he goes on to say, effectively, "If you don't balance your checkbook, the bank rapes you in check fees." Yes. Duh. I don't know what else to say about that. I think he had a point here that he failed to make so I will make it for him - proportionally speaking, bank fees hurt the poor way more than anyone else. A $35 overdraft fee is more likely to send the poor spiraling out of financial control, but it's not actually more likely to happen to them than anyone else. People, in general, are completely horrible about managing their spending money. And I don't mean "spending money" like "free money that you have after bills and baby maintenance". No, I mean money they spend, which for most people is 100% of their money. They are bad at all of their money, is my point, and this is not a "poor person problem".

After that, we get a marginal treatment of the actual damn problem - check cashing shops. Fees to use the money you earned is ridiculous, but thanks to the wildly inflated story this guy spins about the banks hating you and wanting you to die*, the poor are less likely to bank at all because they feel the instant they put their money into a financial institution, there is a man somewhere dreaming up ways to make it vanish. So they go to check cashing places, which will also helpfully give you title and payday advance loans (mentioned later). So already, this article is well on its way to reinforcing part of the problem! Hooray.

(*of course, he takes a line to mention that you can talk to them like they have real blood in their veins, almost like a person)

Quote:

Think you're too smart to ever use one of those shady "payday loan" places? Well, you should know that nobody thinks they're a good deal. People go there because they're choosing between which ****ing provides the most lube. Say the gas bill is a month past due, and they're threatening to turn it off (if so, it's $150 to get it reconnected). Or you're about to be late on a credit card payment (which would be a fee and a doubling of your interest rate). Or your favorite S&M whip broke, and Whipfest is coming up (entry fee is nonrefundable). That is when you find yourself swallowing your pride and heading to the payday loan place.

No, actually, people take out payday advance loans because 1) The aforementioned loathing of banks, and 2) They really don't understand how much trouble they're asking for the first time. The above situation is a distant third. Now, to be fair, there are a great deal of folks who finally get it (or, rarely, understand right off) but can't stop their "need it now" attitude.

The amazingly stupid part here is that he mentioned the cost of a payday loan is a flat 15.5% interest charge (which is wildly inaccurate and too low, but it's enough to make him look stupid here) and then later states that it's better than going back to the bank and their fee cycle. Really? Simple math tells us that it only takes us to get just over $200 in need to break even with the fees, and he uses a $500 example. And honestly, if you need $500, you can get a relatively inexpensive personal loan from the bank you don't have because you listen to people like this. The interest fee will be smaller.

Either that or you can, don't get the pitchforks and torches yet, get a credit card and use it wisely, for things like this. Getting a credit card is ridiculously easy, even today, even if your credit stinks. Of course, using the payday loans every few weeks is wrecking your credit, which makes his next point both wrong and hilariously misinformed.

Quote:

You'll find out the problem the next time somebody does a credit check -- having no credit will stop you from getting a loan or an apartment just as fast as having bad credit. And more importantly, if you have old bad credit due to a bunch of previous ****ups, simply vanishing off the credit map doesn't do anything to fix it.

The old "no credit is worse than bad credit" addage makes me cringe every time I hear it. Now, in this case, he's saying no credit is just as bad as bad credit, which is also incorrect. Sure, if you want a car or a house, then yes you will need a credit history. However, most of the examples he cites - rentals, utilities, cell phones, small loans - all deal with folks who have no credit: students and/or people who just moved out of their parent's house. They have programs, they make exceptions, because they know a large chunk of their business would go away if they didn't. It's not as ideal as having excellent credit, sure, but it's certainly not as bad as actual bad credit history/scores.

Quote:

So repairing credit means opening accounts (having a cell phone plan is a good one, having your utilities in your own name -- as opposed to the landlord's -- is another) and, you know, making sure to pay your ****ing bills on time.

Someone fire the factchecker. Bills where you are not borrowing and repaying do not appear on your credit history unless they are collections accounts. A recent exception to this is property management companies more commonly (but not universally) reporting your lease as a loan where the total borrowed is X*Y, with Y being your rent (and thus your monthly payment) and X being your term.

Quote:

And don't bother trying to shortcut the system by saving the shoebox full of cash, getting a loan, then paying it all off the next month. Length of credit is part of your credit score. They want to know your ability to make steady, long term payments without missing a month or being late.

Hey he got one right. It's the Beck Theorem - keep flinging stuff out there till something sounds good.
Onward -

Quote:

***t happens, always at the exact worst time. A tire blows on my car and, without a spare, it instantly becomes a paperweight. There's $80 for a new tire, $50 for a tow. Now, it's a good idea to have a separate bank account set up specifically for these situations because they are unavoidable. It's also a good idea to have a sex slave or two just sitting around in case your balls need shaved. It's not that ****ing simple.

Yes, it is. I get a lot of hate here but the simple fact is that if you have an income, you can save. You can save maybe $3 a month, but you can save. The hurdle to savings is not lack of income, it's a lack of validation. Saving $3/month feels useless, but out of literally hundreds of clients I've counseled, every single one of them that I convinced to carve out a ridiculously small amount of money did so, and within a year usually worked their way up to saving $25-$50 a month. That puts them ahead of the majority of the country. And they were making just around 120% of the poverty level in the majority of the cases. Saving money feels useless when you feel like you can't save anything useful. But when you start saving, it really is like working out. You see results, you get confident, and you get more dedicated.

Yes, crap happens, and the savings goes away, and that sucks, hard. But that's much better than everything he describes hereafter. And it is avoidable. The most damaging attitude among the poor right now is that there is no real way out and anyone who says otherwise is just out of touch.

PS Once again this guy is marveling at how this is a poor person problem specifically. And my attitude is the one seen as out of touch. (LARGE EYEROLL EMOTE HERE)

The last point is both huge and small at the same time. I say this because the point he makes is, effectively - You can't get a better job because you're too busy reacting to your crappy poor life to do anything proactive. Which, to be honest, is a large consideration.

Quote:

Sure, you can take classes at night at a community college or something. Maybe you'll even get financial aid or loans to pay for your books or tuition. What they will not pay for is the time you missed at work while you were in classes or for a babysitter or for transportation. And you sure as **** better be certain that you have some kind of aptitude for whatever you're studying (which, by the way, you won't know until you've spent a year or two studying it) because that's the only chance you're going to get.

This is... true for everyone. This is not a poor person's problem. This is any adult's problem. I will be honest, when people say "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" or some similar empty air crap, I want to knifehand their throat. But in this case, the guy has taken the extreme opposite - "What you expect me to invest time and hard effort to exceed my current situation? Bull!" Sleep six hour nights. Study your face off. Put in overtime to get on the boss' good side. And he even writes about how difficult it is to get a second job - what year is this man living in? Companies prefer part timers now - they don't have to pay as much for insurance (or any at all, depending on the state and hours), and those part timers will beg for "overtime" which doesn't have to be time and a half.

In the end, this is just a guy letting off steam about his situation. And I don't mean to belittle that situation - being poor is horrible. It's a pretty easy thing to get frustrated about and feel like there's nothing to be done for it, but this guy should have kept this crap on his blog and not been able to put it out there so other, similarly uninformed people, could nod their head and feel validated.

This ship is troubled only because this ship we're on is sinking.

What a month. I've been meaning to jot some stuff down here so I don't forget, but my resolve to write in this more has gone to crap apparently.

About a month ago was the Austin Kotei, and it was good to see some folks I hadn't seen in awhile, as well as meet some new ones I had only vaguely bumped into now and again. Jim, Gio, and Reese and some other folks came out Friday night to the Highball to see Karaoke Apocalypse, but only the aforementioned three made it downtown with us to 6th street. Was a long night, and we shut it down at Maggie Mae's before heading back to our respective beds to wake up for the Kotei.

I realized, far too late, that I had forgotten the existence of an entire expansion in my rush to get a deck built for a game I hadn't played since GenCon. Bryan was good enough to lend me some Crane Control mess that he would later remark about, "If I had known that'd get played in a tournament, I'd have built it different." Went 2-5, which was pretty horrific. It was kind of neat to poke around virtually unknown to most folks, as I was used to heading to events like this as part of a huge entourage and having a sort of meta-event where we just talked to each other. Briscoe ended up winning, then much later crashing at my house at something like 1am.

I had left after the first seven rounds to go to the combined birthday of several folks (Kim, Justin, Abby). Things were weird a bit, as folks don't like to lose trivia games, and Jim/Gio showed up for a hot minute then booked because they knew no one and apparently Jim was out of "meet strangers and impress them with descriptions of my dick" energy.

The next weekend was a lull, sort've a break for a breath, because that weekend was rough, and then the two weeks after the break were gonna be rough. Alycia's wedding was up the next week, which meant a 11 hour drive to KC. In the cold - or rather, in the "cold", as Texas has trained my body to believe that 50 degree winds is cold now. The wedding was a good opportunity to drive around the city, see old friends I don't get to see enough of, and see what's changed in the city for the past five years. I got to get sick on Grinders food with Adam, visit Sheridan's and Blue Koi with Jake, Tyler, Rob, Z, Dennis, Jon, and Dan. It was like a highlight of "old times shit" right there.

I stayed with Matt, and apparently he nor Marlena were used to having houseguests. We (Kim, Nikki, and myself) tried to be good, but we are a loud, boisterous folk. Alycia was unnaturally calm for a bride, and even Ian managed not to do anything ridiculously stupid for the most part the whole time. I didn't get to see Daniel, but I did get to see Ian's new kid, which I think was perfectly awkward, so there's that. The drive back was no bueno, as it was pretty much raining hard until we got to about Dallas. But, Sunday night, we got in, dropped off Nikki, and zoomed home so I could unpack, do laundry... and fucking pack again for Florida.

Since we hired a new counselor in Florida, it was my duty to head down there for a week, help him acclimate, and see what he'd need to get things going. The week was sadly uneventful, since between handling Luis' induction into the company and my own work, I left the hotel room only to eat, workout, and a single hour long session of sitting out, reading, and enjoying the weather. I was told, repeatedly, since I was flying on the Monday and Friday after Bin Laden was killed that I was taking a huge risk. Right.

Anyway, Friday I got back, got home to find bugs had overrun the downstairs, the upstairs main pipe was clogged, and the house was in general disarray. Some sushi later, I managed some laundry and kitchen work before getting to bed for a few hours. Saturday morning, we headed out to Lake Pflugerville to hang out with Claire, Erin, and Stephen... and the Sun. The burning, burning Sun. I promise with deep conviction that we sprayed sunblock on multiple times, but everyone who went (and we were only out for two, maybe three hours) all have sunburns. My particular fate was the most damned, as I am still recovering (two days later) from a burn that makes me gasp in pain just to put my pants and shirt on. It's been difficult to sleep like this, since rolling over in bed or shifting (both of which I'm told I do a lot) causes me to wake up in pain. Fun, fun.

Sunday was the raid, but I'm not possessed of enough energy to go on about WoW right now. Not yet. Today I rolled in to work, took care of all the stuff that built up and I couldn't get to remotely, and now I'm going to leave a little damn early because ... of... I say so. yes, that.

I smolder with generic rage.

So let's stop and take a look at the budget for a second, since I'm hardly ever right about things but I really want to take a moment to be sadly correct in my assumptions about Obama and his administration. First, some statistics. From the following two links, we can get good figures on the things that were cut in this budget "deal".

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/12/budget-deal-cuts/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-12/epa-budget-cut-will-restrict-enforcement-of-clean-air-rules-activists-say.html


With those statistics, someone on a forum I frequent took the time to look back at the previous budget and show how much was cut as a percentage from these programs. It's important to take a look at both the dollar amount and that percentage, because it really tells where priorities are and what these fine folks in Congress believe aren't worth much. The first line in each category is the overreaching subject, with the breakdown of cuts underneath there to illustrate what portion of the program they're coming from.

But first, some kittens. You will thank me in a few minutes.

Total Cut: ~40 billion (3.67%)

• -Agriculture Cut: 3 billion (12.9%)
• ____-Food Safety and Inspection: 10 million (1%)
• ____-Agricultural Credit Program: 433 million (?%)
• ____-Agricultural Research Service: 64 million (?%)
• ____-National Institute for Food and Agriculture: 126 million (?%)

• -Commerce, Justice, Science Cut: 10.9 billion (17%)
• ____-Increased funding for National Institute of Standards and Technology $? (?%)
• ____-Increased funding for FBI and prisons $? (?%)
• ____-Justice Department Appropriations: 946 million (?%)
• ____-Commerce Department Appropriations: 6.5 billion (?%)
• ____-Prohibits funding for Establishment of a Climate Service at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, approval of new fisheries catch-share programs, and for NASA or the Office of Science and Technology Policy to engage in bilateral activities with China.

• -Defense Funding: Increased by 5 billion (1%). Also includes an additional 157.8 billion as emergency overseas contingency operations. No money is to be used on transferring Guantanamo Bay detainees to the US for any purpose, or to construct or modify US detention facilities for them. The Secretary of Defense must provide a certification to Congress that a transfer to a foreign entity will not jeopardize the safety of the US or it's citizens.
• ____-Defense Earmark Cut: 4.2 billion (100%)
• -Energy and Water Cuts: 1.7 billion (5.1%)
• ____-Increases National Nuclear Security Administration: 697 million (7%)

• -Financial Services Cut: 2.4 billion (10%)
• ____-Reduces funding for construction of new federal buildings: 800 million (?%)
• ____-Eliminates the use of Federal and local funds for abortions in DC: $? (?%)
• ____-Reauthorizes the DC Opportunity Scholarships, including increase of 2.3 million (?%)
• ____-Eliminates the "Health Care Czar", "Climate Change Czar", "Car Czar", and the "Urban Affairs Czar"

• -Homeland Security Cuts:
• ____-HS Discretionary spending: 784 million (2%)
• ____-FEMA first responder grants: 786 million (?%)
• ____-Eliminate earmarks: 264 million (?%)
• ____-Rescind previous years' unused funds: 557 million ?%)
• ____-Increases fund for expected and existing 2011 disasters: 1.05 billion (65.6%) This is more than what was removed from first responders, so there are more disaster funds total

• -Department of the Interior Cuts: 2.62 billion (8.1%)
• ___-EPA: 1.6 billion (16%)
• ___-Land and Water Acquisition Fund: 149 million: (33%)
• ___-National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for Humanity: 25 million (?%)

• -Labor, HHS, Education: 5.5 billion (3.36%)
• ___-Title X (Family Planning): 17 million (5.4%)
• ___-Additionally Students can no longer draw two Pell Grants at the same time, which will provide an expected savings of 35 billion over the next ten years.

• -LegislativeBranch: 103 million (?%)

• -Military Construction/Veterans Affairs Cuts: 3.3 billion (4.3%)
• ___-Includes Increase of 13.8 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs. (?%)

• -State and Foreign Operations: 504 million (1%)
• ___-Prohibits pay raises for foreign service officers.
• ___-Contributions to UN and other International Organization: 337 million (?%)
• ___-Contribution to international banks and financial institutions: 130 million (?%)
• ___-International family planning activities: 73 million (?%)
• ___-___-US Contribution to the UN Population Fund Cut: 55 million (100%) This was a fun one, the document stated that is was “reduced to the 2008 levels. I looked up the 2008 levels to find that they were 0. Way to be open and honest.
• ___-The bill also maintains pro-Life policy provisions carried in fiscal year 2010.

• -Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development: 12.3 billion (18%)
  ___-High Speed Rail: 2.9 billion (116%) No that is not a typo. This completely cuts new High Speed Rail spending, as well as rescinding 400 million from last year, which I’m guessing was available because Republican States repeatedly turned down the money.
  ___-Transit funding total cuts: 991 million (?%)
  ___-TIGER grant cuts: 72 million (12%)
  ___-“Contract authority rescissions” (?): 3.2 billion (?%)
  ___-___-Old earmarks cut: 630 million (?%)
  ___-Department of Housing and Urban Development Cuts: 942 million (21.2%)
  ___-Increases Housing voucher program: 200 million (1.1%)

First, a note from the guy who put this together: "All numbers and percentages are from 2010 fiscal year, which was always provided, not from Obama's budget request. When Obama's request was included it was generally higher than 2010 fiscal year spending, but not always. And yes, you read that right. The $40 billion budget cuts include $140 billion dollars of increased military spending." So thankfully, we've actually cut 180 billion and put 140 of it towards military spending for wars that the majority of Americans aren't really too happy with. Let's go ahead and keep that in mind the next time someone levels a "how dare you fund Planned Parenthood with tax money taken from people who don't agree with it" type charge at some program.

I want to comment on the second to last line (Dept. of HUD) because I think that others might share my viewpoints on several of these budget items - "well what does that mean?" In this particular case, HUD's cuts are going to be felt primarily twofold: Obviously, employees will likely get laid off or have their salaries reduced. Also funding for housing and development programs is going to get hit extremely hard. HUD gives a large deal of funding to NeighborWorks, which institutes training and development programs nationwide for housing preservation (the softer term for foreclosure prevention), community development, and homebuyer education. The funding that doesn't go to NeighborWorks goes to similar, local agencies that help consumers understand the potential pitfalls and benefits of ownership, dealing with their mortgage lender on a fair basis, cope with the financial challenges brought on by ownership, and help owners understand their options when faced with a possible foreclosure.

Without this funding, a lot of these agencies are going to shut their doors, because they're not-for-profit organizations, and funding/granting from other sources has dried up hardcore in the past couple of years. Many of them have already gone through the cutback/salary reduction/layoff cycle to stay afloat. This is just a nail in the coffin for most of those. Without these agencies, there is literally no resource for consumers who need what amounts to a lawyer to help them understand the above topics. No one does it.

As was mentioned above, with budget cuts comes cuts everywhere and everyone believes that their interest is the one that should be exempt. But given the relative proportion of funding lost compared to other categories (21% vs most other areas suffering in the single digits), I am at that now familiar crossroad of enraged and exhausted. It has a particular dark humor to it as well, considering these agencies exist specifically to try and help counter the large abuses that led to many of our current financial woes - and Congress has seen fit to let the abusers stay merrily afloat but cut the lifeline to these not-for-profits "for the greater good".

That is a Very Long Hallway

Monday night, myself, Stephen, and Nikki went to the Alamo on South Lamar to catch the advance screening of Your Highness. It was a triple feature, showing The Sword and the Sorcerer first, then Krull after Your Highness. Alamo had David Green (the director), Danny McBride (the dude), and Justin Theroux (played the evil wizard, and apparently the angry Scot in Charlie's Angels 2) there for questions and whatnot. It was a pretty good event overall, though I made the distinctly stupid decision of sitting through the whole thing on a worknight and getting to bed around 3am. Considering that my sleep time is a precious, rare thing, this is something I'm still paying for today.

Yesterday was a fucking marathon of classes, and I'm gonna bugger off work early today to go home and collapse. Just all around, work has been stressful in good ways these past couple months. We're still not entirely sure how long the company is going to be able to operate due to lacking income from grants and whatnot, but I've been burying myself in classes and writing material for the programs so I've had little energy to spare for the other shit.

That's mostly it for now. I'm just trying to make a goddamned habit of writing in this thing more often. I've put myself back to work writing on my projects and for other people, so I think it's important I get in the practice of this again.

Oh, about the blog title - yesterday I went to the new Travis County Jail building to give a class for the women's group there. I went through some of their airlock-type gates and eventually found myself staring down this hallway that was literally half a mile long. It was featureless beige with little green doors on the sides at regular intervals and I was struck by how completely isolated and buried I felt. I did the class in about an hour and left. After I got back outside, I turned and looked back at the building just to confirm it wasn't miles and miles below the surface; I was in fact simply in a building that whole time.

That night (last night) I had a dream that the world was in such a state that for some reason, the population had to take turns living in these big, multi-level domes underground for a year just so they didn't get too much exposure to radiation that had covered the surface. Everything was well-lit and the accomodations were good (similar to those space station shows like Babylon5 or Star Trek), but everything just felt slightly off. It was obviously unnatural, but it was also just sickeningly wrong in some way, like the rictus grin on a clown.

Happy Birthday, I Got You a Poke in the Eye

Today I am 31. Being 30 wasn't so bad, but it felt like a lot of time spent getting my footing right. I don't know if I'll ever really feel like an adult, but I know that certain things are different now, and people are at least looking at me like one. With the priveliges of being treated as an adult, there is also the responsibility to making sure you don't fuck it up too bad, I guess. I didn't get my novel finished. I didn't re-learn Spanish. But I did keep my home, I haven't managed to kill myself, and I'm slowly steering my day-to-day job back in a direction that I like. I need to get myself back in the habit of writing regularly.

I contacted Shawn a few weeks back to pick up some work from AEG. Medical bills are a monstrous bitch and paying off last year's trips is not going as quickly as I had thought. It really came down to "pick up a few checks from AEG" or "work part time as a waiter or something". The waiter thing may yet come to pass, I'm not too certain how going back to work for AEG will sit with me. It'll either be great and much better given the years I've had to understand what I want and what I am right to expect, or I'll just get disgusted and say nevermind after one assignment. Let's see what happens!

Raiding with the guild is on again. Cass asked me to pick up the raid lead spot because her semester this year is crushing her sanity. Fortunately, I haven't embarassed myself too bad, and Stephen xferred over to Blackhand to fill a DPS spot. Things are going pretty smoothly - two nights a week, ~3 hours each night, BWD one night and BoT the other. We're up to the end on both, though it's going to be a flustercluck till the end, I think. The threat of having to do Heroic raiding is looming large, as I'm currently playing a re-branded Shaper (Beerbraids!) as Resto, which is easily the weakest healing spec in the game right now. We wiped last night a few times and I kept thinking "Well, if this was a Paladin or Priest, we'd be alright." I'm not making many mistakes, but the simple throughput shortfall is making this harder than it should be. On the flip, I really like Shaman, and it's not pissing me off too much yet.

4.0.6 drops today, the first major rebalancing/tweaking patch since the expansion went live, and Resto Shaman is barely touched. It's not encouraging.

Took tomorrow off since I'm working this weekend. Probably gonna see if I can drag some folks to Mr. Tramps to check it out before we go there for Trivia for the first time tomorrow.

Calendars Are Horrible Things

We're wrapping up the year at work, since Joe has made the somewhat rare decision to have our fiscal year match up with what the rest of the world also calls a year. So I'm going back over the reports and engagements and appointments and etc etc etc and I realize that some of the things I'm dealing with now are several months old. My first visit to the doctor in a long time was back on Augist 24th. That means at this point three months plus a couple weeks is the time that I've had to manage this crap. It feels like longer in some ways, but much shorter in others. What happened to 2010? Maybe that's part of the joke, I guess - I don't remember.

Yesterday was pretty rough, even though I usually like giving classes. I was invited to Emmaus Catholic Church in Lakeway to speak with their youth group about stewardship and money and things I've done a hundred times before. What I was told to prepare for was a small classroom of 20-30 kids, but I was greeted with a stage and a stadium seating room full of much, much more. I enjoy being on stage, I don't worry about getting up in front of large crowds, but suddenly the few handouts and talking points I had felt painfully short of the bar. It affected me deeply - I was invited to go to a friend's house later that night but all I could really do was show up, take up space, and excuse myself to leave when I realized that the little raincloud over my head was plain for all to see.

Sometimes I wonder if I've gotten everything out of this job that I'm going to get. We do a lot of community work and we go to events and little dinners where organizations like mine are recognized, but it often only serves to try and make me feel like the company is epically dwarfed by the efforts of others. Other groups who have small armies of counselors, celebrate opening a new community center, talk about how their new TV and radio campaign is going, and so on. Do we make a difference, really? Are we small enough that if the company, and me with it, vanished from the face of Austin, would the folks we would have served or spoken with simply go somewhere else?

Perhaps. I think our counseling is more of that, but our outreach really does deal with some groups that no one else is talking to. Maybe that's why yesterday hit me so hard yesterday - the work that subconciously I've decided is what we do that has the real impact was done wrong. People are telling me that it couldn't have gone as bad as I'm saying, which is possible, but I don't think that was really the point.