Well - it's done. http://tok.elainekain.com/ - and even got assignments submitted 12 hours early. That alone was quite an accomplishment - next round starts Feb. 25, so -. What to do for 2 weeks? (That's actually 10 days, but the first week or two is light, so I'll push things to March first, when survey work is again looming, and my optimism will be a few weeks off schedule, more than likely.)
But gosh, I have Styrofoam, some internal house repairs to do, and outside temps ranging around zero (sub-zero) nights - too cold to work outside if I don't have to. It's an opportunity to test temperature fluctuations throughout the house for weak spots, too.
I already know some of these areas from observation. For some reason, there's an area by the kitchen outside foundation exchanging cold and heat. That's like a trip into hell, since crawling under this crawlspace is Nasty. I'm about the only one suitable to stuff under there, being the skinniest and Val is still too young.
It's decades-dry, dusty dirt with scattered rocks and mummified mouse skeletons, cobwebs and spiders, fuel lines and electrical and sewer, insulation overhead and wriggling under trailer beams while grinding bones into concrete blocks. Previous experience, parts of this I can't roll over, in that my shoulders are too wide and jam under the beams. One has to wriggle flat-bellied or on one's back, like a Human Snake.
Lovely.
If you're a small Addams Family member.
THAT experience I hope to postpone for another day. It's seriously Nasty, and the thought of getting stuck under there - it pushes my threshold of sanity towards cracking wide open. (In other words, if I got stuck, the kindest thing to do involves 'lights out' drugs while rescue efforts commence with 'jaws of life' or digging me out.)
-- On the other hand, if they're digging me out, they could go for a full basement? Almost makes it seem worth it then!
This does make working Styrofoam seem pleasant. Since I'm doing it 'my way' - okay, it's 'my world' - I'm thinking of tearing out the makeshift closet and rebuilding a smaller one. Why? Because the porch area is too small for anything other than storage, and without this closet, it'd be 'sitting room size'. Right now it's a dumping-zone.
The creative part comes in while I'm trying to compact all the stuff into other areas. And designing a functional closet. While I'm at it, may incorporate a few useful projects...
I know how much stuff is crammed everywhere in these two rooms! I'm good at packing a lot into a small area, and when it's expanded - it's a bit like the Big Bang Theory. How do you 'stuff it all back in?'
I'll be working alone on it, in that Sera is tied up between work and watching Matt's three youngsters; this also means she won't be giving me the Evil Eye at 3:00 a.m. as I push to finish something. That's the good part of working alone - no one scowling or muttering or declaring you're nuts, which doesn't seem to get the job done any easier anyway, so they may as well suck it up, grit their teeth, and get on with it. - That's what I think.
The more difficult part is moving the heavier items alone. Luckily, I've done it before, so I can do it. Sanity suggests I try to organize it where a second pair of hands can assist in the un-doing before I get on with the insanity... Facing facts, no way to not create chaos, and as soon as I start, it will be in full force around here. oh, sigh...
Only thing to do is focus on the anticipated end results and get on with it as best I'm able, and same time hugely grateful for 1) the gift of Styrofoam in 'my world' and 2) that I am capable of doing it. So I will.
It's gonna be interesting, and messy... I better go take take some vitamins.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Deception of the Number Game
I'm going to speak my mind a bit on worldly things, and how I percolated out my own answers. There is a belief that "numbers don't lie," and usually a 2 is a 2. But one can manipulate numbers to support whatever one chooses - make the picture rosier or gloomier. This is a form of deception that is touted as gospel to manipulate the people.
I took accounting, and didn't get my degree only because my advisor failed to notice I had missed 3 credits. The manipulation of numbers showed up in analysis and ratios, the parts 'humans' had a hand in (of course). I would have been good at playing this game, but it left a bad taste in my mouth - I could professionally manipulate numbers and tweak them to reflect positive or negative outcomes on businesses and people's lives... Wasn't sure I'd be proud of the person in the mirror every morning if I pursued a career in it, because it'd be Enron on small-scale.
Ratios - one pulled what numbers would best shine their position and ignored ones that were less so. Easy enough. If a business had a good cash flow but not much inventory and you wanted to make them squirm (say, higher interest loan on new construction), you pulled inventory ratios. If they were pals with the bosses, you polished up the cash flow into a golden picture. -- Is this why there's a clique of 'good old boys' running most towns?
Favorite example: An annual game of baseball was played between two teams, and the winners were delighted. But the losing side came back with a message congratulating their team for losing only one game this season, and condolences for the other team on having only won 'one'.
So in the world today... Cheers are going up because Unemployment Numbers dipped! Unless one looks behind "where these numbers come from." Unemployment itself has a cut-off time, and folks that 'no longer qualify' aren't counted anymore. Unemployment requires job search to qualify - if someone grows discouraged locally and heads to Nevada (foreclosures, anyone?) to seek work and ends up in a tent city... not counted. Folks that are self-employed and struggling are 'not counted' - many in the construction trade locally have worked six weeks in the last year, desperate for work that no longer exists, and are scraping by in a panic.
So - is Unemployment really down? The hard-heads will say, "Go get a job!" Yet in a previous recession, one part-time fry-cook opening at KFC had over 35 applicants. An older construction worker who's never cooked probably won't get the job or be able to support his / her family well if he does. If he doesn't qualify for unemployment and fought to keep his business afloat... He's not even a number?
Other numbers irk me. Today a lawsuit about cigarette smoking killing someone - sue tobacco. What the hell is going to happen if we apply this premise to alcohol, much less donuts or fast food or pop? Logical extension, I can personally have lawsuits against alcohol within the family, pop for dental repair (dentists call it 'coke teeth' when pop eats up enamel), and schools for calling 'ketchup' a vegetable, thereby misleading me into thinking my children were getting healthy lunches.
I don't believe we should be advertising any of these, but bashing one over the other... Yes. I smoke. But I'm not overweight, the new "issue" in America. "Statistically..." whenever there's a statistic, there's highs and lows on each end. Each person is unique - some durned old fools live to be 104, smoking cigars and knocking back a fifth of whiskey daily. One farm couple died before the age of 40 from thyroid cancer 'living a clean life' - didn't smoke or drink and ate their own produce... which was toxic from the corporate farm runoff next door.
Mom died from breast cancer before the age of fifty, and her smoking sister is still with us; I can list a dozen people destroyed by alcohol, and the suffering their families endured. I'm not saying any of these are good or bad or better or worse.
Before we happily bash anyone's choices, we'd do well to examine our own lives. An excellent example of manipulation and deception exists with Aspartame (NutraSweet, etc.). Check out the video "Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World" and the political connections that develop halfway through the film. (available online at: www.netflix.com/Movie/Sweet_Misery_A_Poisoned_World/70041888)
This has not only been sold to the public, but continues to deceive; one new aspartame product is being touted as healthy 'with added fiber!' Friggin' nuts. Fluoride was an expensive toxin to get rid of, and was previously used as rat poison. So they chose to make a profit off it by mandatorily dumping it in our water as 'healthy', despite most of it going down the drain, anyway. (Eats pipes, too.) Dozens more of these examples surround us, including gas-guzzling engines and toxic fish in our rivers.
So - what is killing us?
We are...
I took accounting, and didn't get my degree only because my advisor failed to notice I had missed 3 credits. The manipulation of numbers showed up in analysis and ratios, the parts 'humans' had a hand in (of course). I would have been good at playing this game, but it left a bad taste in my mouth - I could professionally manipulate numbers and tweak them to reflect positive or negative outcomes on businesses and people's lives... Wasn't sure I'd be proud of the person in the mirror every morning if I pursued a career in it, because it'd be Enron on small-scale.
Ratios - one pulled what numbers would best shine their position and ignored ones that were less so. Easy enough. If a business had a good cash flow but not much inventory and you wanted to make them squirm (say, higher interest loan on new construction), you pulled inventory ratios. If they were pals with the bosses, you polished up the cash flow into a golden picture. -- Is this why there's a clique of 'good old boys' running most towns?
Favorite example: An annual game of baseball was played between two teams, and the winners were delighted. But the losing side came back with a message congratulating their team for losing only one game this season, and condolences for the other team on having only won 'one'.
So in the world today... Cheers are going up because Unemployment Numbers dipped! Unless one looks behind "where these numbers come from." Unemployment itself has a cut-off time, and folks that 'no longer qualify' aren't counted anymore. Unemployment requires job search to qualify - if someone grows discouraged locally and heads to Nevada (foreclosures, anyone?) to seek work and ends up in a tent city... not counted. Folks that are self-employed and struggling are 'not counted' - many in the construction trade locally have worked six weeks in the last year, desperate for work that no longer exists, and are scraping by in a panic.
So - is Unemployment really down? The hard-heads will say, "Go get a job!" Yet in a previous recession, one part-time fry-cook opening at KFC had over 35 applicants. An older construction worker who's never cooked probably won't get the job or be able to support his / her family well if he does. If he doesn't qualify for unemployment and fought to keep his business afloat... He's not even a number?
Other numbers irk me. Today a lawsuit about cigarette smoking killing someone - sue tobacco. What the hell is going to happen if we apply this premise to alcohol, much less donuts or fast food or pop? Logical extension, I can personally have lawsuits against alcohol within the family, pop for dental repair (dentists call it 'coke teeth' when pop eats up enamel), and schools for calling 'ketchup' a vegetable, thereby misleading me into thinking my children were getting healthy lunches.
I don't believe we should be advertising any of these, but bashing one over the other... Yes. I smoke. But I'm not overweight, the new "issue" in America. "Statistically..." whenever there's a statistic, there's highs and lows on each end. Each person is unique - some durned old fools live to be 104, smoking cigars and knocking back a fifth of whiskey daily. One farm couple died before the age of 40 from thyroid cancer 'living a clean life' - didn't smoke or drink and ate their own produce... which was toxic from the corporate farm runoff next door.
Mom died from breast cancer before the age of fifty, and her smoking sister is still with us; I can list a dozen people destroyed by alcohol, and the suffering their families endured. I'm not saying any of these are good or bad or better or worse.
Before we happily bash anyone's choices, we'd do well to examine our own lives. An excellent example of manipulation and deception exists with Aspartame (NutraSweet, etc.). Check out the video "Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World" and the political connections that develop halfway through the film. (available online at: www.netflix.com/Movie/Sweet_Misery_A_Poisoned_World/70041888)
This has not only been sold to the public, but continues to deceive; one new aspartame product is being touted as healthy 'with added fiber!' Friggin' nuts. Fluoride was an expensive toxin to get rid of, and was previously used as rat poison. So they chose to make a profit off it by mandatorily dumping it in our water as 'healthy', despite most of it going down the drain, anyway. (Eats pipes, too.) Dozens more of these examples surround us, including gas-guzzling engines and toxic fish in our rivers.
So - what is killing us?
We are...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
