I've made enough of a fool of myself with the 2007 posts. You'd think I live in Florida if you think about my political perspective and ignore party politics. Well, I do and I can't.
Stop Press is associated with journalism, though, and journalism is associated with writing. I'll do my best this year to concentrate on writing. Can't make any promises, though, since this is an election year and I've chosen my candidate even though Florida wasn't allowed to see, hear, or actually vote on the candidates. What else is new?
I've just worn another letter off my keyboard during a writing challenge. You have no reason to know that I am very proud of wearing the letters off my keyboards. I've wiped out two on a PC and am working on my laptop now. I tell others who need to use my computer that it's a security measure. If you don't know the keyboard, you can't use my computer. That doesn't quite work when your IT guy is also a hunt and peck guy.
My current keyboard has pegged me as egotistical since the letter "I" disappeared before the letter "E." Losing the use of the Shift keys has told me several things. The first is that I should keep my fingernails short and hit the keys with the squat, fat pads of my fingers. Both Shift keys still have their arrows and all their letters. I hit them with the outside pads of my little fingers - at least I did when they worked. Now I hit them with a hammer or toggle the Caps Lock key instead.
I'm giving myself a handicap for WriLiMarCha (the Writing Life Marathon Challenge at iVillage.com). I can do that. The Writing Life is my message board there. (Where did my cursor go now? Hope the spellcheck will save me from having stray letters in my words.)
I'm still counting up my computerized and manual writing. Nearly three weeks of computer chaos put a crimp in my writing - and keyboard erasure. N, M, A, S, D, G, H, R, T, O, and U might survive another week or month or two. Mechanical pencils and a huge supply of pens and paper came to the rescue. Instead of the goal of 50,000 words (does that sound familiar to you writers?), I'll be lucky to end up with 35,000. Stuff happens, I guess.
The next trick will be to sell 250 or 1000 of those words. Hawking our writing is another post (or twelve) altogether.
I promise to be back in less than three or four months. Now that I know where I'm going, I can plot the path.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Friday, November 2, 2007
No Jobs and Nobody Wants to Work
My town was listed on MSN as one of the ten best cities to find a job. HAH! I've been looking for a good one all year. (And now I have none.)
One local company announced a layoff of 180 workers, not bad since the bottom line lost $4 million. Another manufacturer just announced a plant closing, kicking another 300 workers into the job pool. The news goes on - almost daily.
The office that laid me off, according to friends in the know, is now populated by three managers (one, I was told, by a woman who quit over unfair expectations, was called back to do what she and I had done for well over a year) who chat, eat, and smoke all day, and two women who do all the work. I have it on good authority that one of these women has been looking for a job since she got there. The other might just work herself to death because she thinks she has job security - or maybe just hates to look for another job. Too bad. I liked her.
Aren't people working for Blackwater for the money? Were I younger and in better shape with military experience and more than one working eye, I might apply. The pay's good and the government seems to excuse your indescretions.
Now the Foreign Service is having a problem finding dipomats to work in Iraq. Train me, Condi, and I'll go. The pay is good (maybe not as good as Blackwater) and the assignment would be educational. Learn a new culture, a new cuisine, maybe a new language.
Better yet, maybe you could recruit my ex-managers, Ms. Rice. They don't want to do any real work. From all the jokes, that qualifies them for a government job. You'll have to offer them some pretty good promises. One might have to bring her daughter. One might have to bring her mother. The other might have to disappear for weeks at a time because she had a date.
If the office where I used to work was left with no managers, maybe they'd offer me a job. Maybe I'd turn them down. I'm learning to have standards.
I liked working for the government in 1990 and would have no problem doing it again. Call me, Condi! I need a job and the local economy is going to hell in a handbasket. If you forget everything I just said, I can be a diplomat.
One local company announced a layoff of 180 workers, not bad since the bottom line lost $4 million. Another manufacturer just announced a plant closing, kicking another 300 workers into the job pool. The news goes on - almost daily.
The office that laid me off, according to friends in the know, is now populated by three managers (one, I was told, by a woman who quit over unfair expectations, was called back to do what she and I had done for well over a year) who chat, eat, and smoke all day, and two women who do all the work. I have it on good authority that one of these women has been looking for a job since she got there. The other might just work herself to death because she thinks she has job security - or maybe just hates to look for another job. Too bad. I liked her.
Aren't people working for Blackwater for the money? Were I younger and in better shape with military experience and more than one working eye, I might apply. The pay's good and the government seems to excuse your indescretions.
Now the Foreign Service is having a problem finding dipomats to work in Iraq. Train me, Condi, and I'll go. The pay is good (maybe not as good as Blackwater) and the assignment would be educational. Learn a new culture, a new cuisine, maybe a new language.
Better yet, maybe you could recruit my ex-managers, Ms. Rice. They don't want to do any real work. From all the jokes, that qualifies them for a government job. You'll have to offer them some pretty good promises. One might have to bring her daughter. One might have to bring her mother. The other might have to disappear for weeks at a time because she had a date.
If the office where I used to work was left with no managers, maybe they'd offer me a job. Maybe I'd turn them down. I'm learning to have standards.
I liked working for the government in 1990 and would have no problem doing it again. Call me, Condi! I need a job and the local economy is going to hell in a handbasket. If you forget everything I just said, I can be a diplomat.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Chicago Fire
Today is the 136th anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire.
My father drove the family down the street where the fire started, allegedly in Mrs. O'Leary's barn after her alleged cow kicked over an alleged lantern. That was many years ago and a building on the suspect corner had just been demolished. Wonderful sight for a kid of large imagination - brick rubble on the site of the beginning of the near destruction of a city. The fire was less than 100 years in the past then but I'm sure I didn't think Mrs. O'Leary's barn was made of brick.
Glad to see that someone with equal imagination and appreciation of history has named a soccer team the Chicago Fire.
Nearly everybody knows the Los Angeles Lakers (I bounce from sport to sport often, usually due to boredom) were once based in Minnesota. The Great Lakers, though, began dribbling in Chicago - at least according to my father. He should know. His 1926 championship high school team beat them in a charity exhibition game.
It's only fitting Phil Jackson coach the Lakers. He came from the Chicago Bulls, after all. (I used to love to hear the announcer's call "Pippen to Paxson to Jordan - two points!")
You know where I'm going, don't you? We ain't talkin' about da Bears today.
Here comes the phrase I've been saying my entire life. I learned it from my father. He was too young to say it the last time "next year" came around. He was only a few days older than seven months the last time the Chicago Cubs won the World series.
I hoped against hope that my Cubbies could do it again in 1989, the year Dad died. My prayers that season took on a "Win one for the Gipper" tone. Guess you're not supposed to ask a deity to help your baseball team.
Excitement mounted in a corner of my house and a corner of my brain during the race for the playoffs. When the Cubs secured a spot in post-season, an anti-climax settled over my TV and my computer. I knew we'd never make it past Game 4. I doubted, in fact, if we could go that long. Seems I was right.
Chicago loves to break records. She loves to be first at anything possible. She's proud of the Home Insurance Building, that 10-story monolith that became the first skyscraper. (Guess the sky was closer then.) Later she was proud of the Prudential Building, the Equitable Building, the Hancock Building, and Sear's Tower. (Thank you, Sears, for a building not paid for by an insurance company!)
So why would the Cubs give up a losing streak at 99 years? Go for the big one! Make it 100!
Guess they will. Hope it ends there. It's a round number and an honest record.
WAIT 'TIL NEXT YEAR!
My father drove the family down the street where the fire started, allegedly in Mrs. O'Leary's barn after her alleged cow kicked over an alleged lantern. That was many years ago and a building on the suspect corner had just been demolished. Wonderful sight for a kid of large imagination - brick rubble on the site of the beginning of the near destruction of a city. The fire was less than 100 years in the past then but I'm sure I didn't think Mrs. O'Leary's barn was made of brick.
Glad to see that someone with equal imagination and appreciation of history has named a soccer team the Chicago Fire.
Nearly everybody knows the Los Angeles Lakers (I bounce from sport to sport often, usually due to boredom) were once based in Minnesota. The Great Lakers, though, began dribbling in Chicago - at least according to my father. He should know. His 1926 championship high school team beat them in a charity exhibition game.
It's only fitting Phil Jackson coach the Lakers. He came from the Chicago Bulls, after all. (I used to love to hear the announcer's call "Pippen to Paxson to Jordan - two points!")
You know where I'm going, don't you? We ain't talkin' about da Bears today.
Here comes the phrase I've been saying my entire life. I learned it from my father. He was too young to say it the last time "next year" came around. He was only a few days older than seven months the last time the Chicago Cubs won the World series.
I hoped against hope that my Cubbies could do it again in 1989, the year Dad died. My prayers that season took on a "Win one for the Gipper" tone. Guess you're not supposed to ask a deity to help your baseball team.
Excitement mounted in a corner of my house and a corner of my brain during the race for the playoffs. When the Cubs secured a spot in post-season, an anti-climax settled over my TV and my computer. I knew we'd never make it past Game 4. I doubted, in fact, if we could go that long. Seems I was right.
Chicago loves to break records. She loves to be first at anything possible. She's proud of the Home Insurance Building, that 10-story monolith that became the first skyscraper. (Guess the sky was closer then.) Later she was proud of the Prudential Building, the Equitable Building, the Hancock Building, and Sear's Tower. (Thank you, Sears, for a building not paid for by an insurance company!)
So why would the Cubs give up a losing streak at 99 years? Go for the big one! Make it 100!
Guess they will. Hope it ends there. It's a round number and an honest record.
WAIT 'TIL NEXT YEAR!
Friday, September 7, 2007
Obladee, Obladah, Life Goes On
I've pretty much gotten over some of the stuff that made me angry last week. Even some of the things that raised my hackles this week. (Glad that B-52 with the nukes didn't fly over my house!)
One thing that sticks in my craw is the Democratic National Committee's announcement that Florida will be uninvited to the Democratic National Convention unless they find a way to pick a candidate other than the primary that was moved to January 29, a week earlier than the February 5 mandate for the first primary vote other than New Hampshire (so goes the nation). Will Michigan suffer the same fate? Will the Republicans slam the hammer down on both states? Is there time to build an alternative? Will Florida Democrats be screwed again? Why didn't they see this one coming? What happens if we have a caucus before Iowa? Do we get nuked?
Gosh, that's the second time I've mentioned nuclear weapons. Wonder if that has anything to do with being born in the shadow of the bomb or if the real reason is because I was over-exposed to radiation twice at the dreaded day job. After my skin started doing strange things and my hair (all over my body!) started falling out, I quit.
Now you know more about me than most of my friends. Want more?
Today I decided to bake some Swedish Limpa bread. Sometimes I get a taste for it. There was a bakery in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, that made the best Limpa bread this side of Sweden. Sure hope it's still there. We're visiting sometime in the next few years so my current larger half can meet my ex and I can visit the Art Institute again, have a real Italian beef sandwich, a Lou Malnati's pizza, and maybe visit the band shell on the Fourth of July (it's a must-do experience!). There's a Lou Malnati's not too far from the bakery (or at least there used to be) and we might have the best tastes of Cook County all in one day.
Ooops! Got derailed. The recipe looked a little funny. 5 1/3 cups of rye flour and 1 1/3 cups white? Sounds a bit on the heavy side. Even though I substituted a bunch of white flour for some of the rye, the dough would not rise. We're on the last rise now and there's a chance we can cut the loaves to make hockey pucks.
Not to fear. There's another recipe sitting on my printer. Maybe in a week or two there will be some bread that breathed. (Remind me to tell you about the French bread.)
I'm writing a cookbook so these recipes are important - and fixing them is vital. I'm also writing a gardening book about living - or not - with weeds.
With luck the kid next door will mow our lawn on Sunday. He's only 14 and missed it last week for some reason. There was no excuse why he couldn't do it tonight but tomorrow he's visiting his father in prison. That's the main reason he got the job. He's the man of his house right now and needs to learn some responsibility. My larger half would love to take the kid under his wing and be a mentor or a grandfather figure. Too bad the big guy works two jobs, has a bad heart, bad ankles, a bad back, two bad shoulders, and a knee that needs replacing. Furry Murray (his name, not my idea) could certainly use a protege.
There may or may not be another installment next week. Monday I pick up my plastic choppers to bring to the dentist on Tuesday when the rest of my teeth get yanked. (I know, TMI.) Friday I fly to LGA to be at my grandson's 3rd birthday party on Saturday. Hope there's enough time to make the train (he loves trains!) cake and run to the store to buy him something that wouldn't fit in a carry-on bag.
BTW, after my grandson lost half his Thomas cars to Chinese lead paint, he's getting German train cars now. But he can get Thomas the Tank Engine clothes made in the Dominican Republic.
Don't we make anything in the United States anymore? Check your TV, your microwave, your car (yes, your car!), your closet. Well, I'm living proof that we make bread that can become door stops or hockey pucks - or maybe bread.
I'll let you know how the hockey pucks turn out.
One thing that sticks in my craw is the Democratic National Committee's announcement that Florida will be uninvited to the Democratic National Convention unless they find a way to pick a candidate other than the primary that was moved to January 29, a week earlier than the February 5 mandate for the first primary vote other than New Hampshire (so goes the nation). Will Michigan suffer the same fate? Will the Republicans slam the hammer down on both states? Is there time to build an alternative? Will Florida Democrats be screwed again? Why didn't they see this one coming? What happens if we have a caucus before Iowa? Do we get nuked?
Gosh, that's the second time I've mentioned nuclear weapons. Wonder if that has anything to do with being born in the shadow of the bomb or if the real reason is because I was over-exposed to radiation twice at the dreaded day job. After my skin started doing strange things and my hair (all over my body!) started falling out, I quit.
Now you know more about me than most of my friends. Want more?
Today I decided to bake some Swedish Limpa bread. Sometimes I get a taste for it. There was a bakery in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, that made the best Limpa bread this side of Sweden. Sure hope it's still there. We're visiting sometime in the next few years so my current larger half can meet my ex and I can visit the Art Institute again, have a real Italian beef sandwich, a Lou Malnati's pizza, and maybe visit the band shell on the Fourth of July (it's a must-do experience!). There's a Lou Malnati's not too far from the bakery (or at least there used to be) and we might have the best tastes of Cook County all in one day.
Ooops! Got derailed. The recipe looked a little funny. 5 1/3 cups of rye flour and 1 1/3 cups white? Sounds a bit on the heavy side. Even though I substituted a bunch of white flour for some of the rye, the dough would not rise. We're on the last rise now and there's a chance we can cut the loaves to make hockey pucks.
Not to fear. There's another recipe sitting on my printer. Maybe in a week or two there will be some bread that breathed. (Remind me to tell you about the French bread.)
I'm writing a cookbook so these recipes are important - and fixing them is vital. I'm also writing a gardening book about living - or not - with weeds.
With luck the kid next door will mow our lawn on Sunday. He's only 14 and missed it last week for some reason. There was no excuse why he couldn't do it tonight but tomorrow he's visiting his father in prison. That's the main reason he got the job. He's the man of his house right now and needs to learn some responsibility. My larger half would love to take the kid under his wing and be a mentor or a grandfather figure. Too bad the big guy works two jobs, has a bad heart, bad ankles, a bad back, two bad shoulders, and a knee that needs replacing. Furry Murray (his name, not my idea) could certainly use a protege.
There may or may not be another installment next week. Monday I pick up my plastic choppers to bring to the dentist on Tuesday when the rest of my teeth get yanked. (I know, TMI.) Friday I fly to LGA to be at my grandson's 3rd birthday party on Saturday. Hope there's enough time to make the train (he loves trains!) cake and run to the store to buy him something that wouldn't fit in a carry-on bag.
BTW, after my grandson lost half his Thomas cars to Chinese lead paint, he's getting German train cars now. But he can get Thomas the Tank Engine clothes made in the Dominican Republic.
Don't we make anything in the United States anymore? Check your TV, your microwave, your car (yes, your car!), your closet. Well, I'm living proof that we make bread that can become door stops or hockey pucks - or maybe bread.
I'll let you know how the hockey pucks turn out.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Stop Time - Or Not
Welcome to Stop Press or Something. It has taken me months to start this blog. Luckily, it didn't take another round of months to find a name for it.
Stop Press is a cry heard at newspapers when there is breaking news. Never responsible for that call, my writing either slides easily into its place or stays for decades in notebooks or on my hard drive. Yes, I write - more as a hobby than to make a living. And yes, I have a collection of dead hard drives waiting for the masterpiece that evaded backup to be retrieved.
While I planned to write about the trials and tribulations of writing (that phrase must be cliche by now), several happenings around the globe - and even off - have made me rethink my topic.
Today the topic filling my mind is aging. You see, today is my birthday. (What a perfect night to start a blog!) I am no longer 60. The rotten thing is that I never had time to get used to being out of my 50s. Maybe that's not so rotten after all. If you're only as old as you feel, I'm relatively young most of the time. We can ignore the days when I feel old enough to have been a nurse in the Civil War.
Maybe I'll remember the headlines that made me angry this morning. There was one that ticked me off yesterday, too. Maybe I'll sleep late tomorrow and think starting this blog was just a dream. Only tomorrow will tell.
No, stopping time is not the best of ideas. It won't stop global warming or anything else with enough inertia to keep it going. It's about time I found out what kind of inertia I have.
Let time and the presses roll.
Stop Press is a cry heard at newspapers when there is breaking news. Never responsible for that call, my writing either slides easily into its place or stays for decades in notebooks or on my hard drive. Yes, I write - more as a hobby than to make a living. And yes, I have a collection of dead hard drives waiting for the masterpiece that evaded backup to be retrieved.
While I planned to write about the trials and tribulations of writing (that phrase must be cliche by now), several happenings around the globe - and even off - have made me rethink my topic.
Today the topic filling my mind is aging. You see, today is my birthday. (What a perfect night to start a blog!) I am no longer 60. The rotten thing is that I never had time to get used to being out of my 50s. Maybe that's not so rotten after all. If you're only as old as you feel, I'm relatively young most of the time. We can ignore the days when I feel old enough to have been a nurse in the Civil War.
Maybe I'll remember the headlines that made me angry this morning. There was one that ticked me off yesterday, too. Maybe I'll sleep late tomorrow and think starting this blog was just a dream. Only tomorrow will tell.
No, stopping time is not the best of ideas. It won't stop global warming or anything else with enough inertia to keep it going. It's about time I found out what kind of inertia I have.
Let time and the presses roll.
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