I'm Thankful it's the 7th!!

Much as I value and revel in the voting and freedoms available in my country, I am pointedly Thankful that it is now the 7th of November.

The day After Election day! 

And we citizens will now have a respite from the constant barrage of automated phone calls, real-live persons calling or ringing our door bells, wasteful piles of political, finger-pointing snail-mailings, and the ridiculous clusters of temporary roadside signs urging us to "Vote for So-n-so". 

{Sigh of Relief!!}

Bonus Thanks and another "Sigh of Relief" - The "Sock the Vote" Socks were completed last night!!
"I knit a sock & I VOTE!"(d)!!
(Yep, there's a whole blog post pending about that journey.)

The Tire Mis-adventures continue

Remember this picture from the February 19th blog "This week's adventure - A Tire in Pieces"?

As noted in that blog, the DH and I purchased new tires for my little Izuzu Pickup truck because it was time (and because I'd pretty much driven out of one of the tires...).

I drove the Izuzu to work on Saturday two weeks ago to check for fallout on a major install and I remember thinking the tires still looked "new" even though we'd had them on the truck for 8 months.

Apparently someone else thought so too.
The Monday following...our neighbors rang the doorbell not long after sunrise to ask if we were aware that the tires and wheel rims on the little truck were gone.

Yep, gone.

The little truck was sitting on top of two jacks and it's bare, naked wheels and brake pads.

It appears the jack under the front of the truck fell over while the {insert applicable derogatory term here} were stealing the tires.
The driveway has some chips gouged out of it from the collapse and the truck shifted to the right significantly.

They left most of the lug nuts and the two jacks and took the 8-month old tires on the original, small, very plain, 20+ year old stock rims that had come with the truck.

{sigh}
The 911 operator said the tire/rim theft issue is Very common now-a-days. As is syphoning gas.
{SIGH}
The police officer who came to document the theft was very kind and helped me put the little truck up on bricks so he could take the jacks as evidence.

When he drove away, I looked at my little truck - wheel-less, a bit more beat up, and up on bricks in my driveway and I thought...there's probably a "You might be a redneck" joke in this somewhere.

Some of the neighbors stopped by to commiserate. One told me someone had stolen the bumper off her truck years before. (Who steals bumpers?!? Jeez. Ok, probably the same schmoes that steal the wheels off an ancient little truck).

I'm generally creeped out and feeling less safe in my home and pondering what it would take in my life for me to find it acceptable to steal the tires and wheels off someone's car?

We couldn't find used plain rims like the ones stolen off the truck (I guess I'm a bit glad I didn't buy my own rims back from somewhere). But basic, functional rims were hard to find . Seems tire "bling" is more prevalent than I realized. Rims had to be ordered.

So - just in very basic tires and the plainest rims we could find, we've spent more on the little truck this year than it is technically worth.
{Sigh times 3}

We picked up the new tires and rims yesterday and put them on the little truck and she rolls well on them but now something is funny with the break pressure so we have to look into that.

Don't get me wrong, I love my little 4-banger, standard transmission Pickup truck.
The rims are nice, but it makes me think of "Lipstick on a Pig" to have these semi-plain but shiny-new rims on my little "beater" truck:

Mildly excited at the prospect of unemployment

(**Disclaimer - life and work pondering is today's blog content. Craft & Kitty blogging will appear in a future blog.) 

I believe I've mentioned before - I am a recovering work-aholic.
Ok, I have not done much "recovering" of late.

I just came off a jag of working nearly 4 weeks straight with only 1.75 days off and many (many) over 10-hour days. The last few weeks were preceded by several months of projects/prep/planning/regulation releases...very "exciting" and time consuming. Granted I'm not just living at work for fun...we were dealing with some major installs required by the regulators of our industry. Pretty much everyone in our industry that I've talked to in the last few weeks is exhausted. Which means I'm in good company.
But I'm also questioning my current vocation.

And last week, coming off weeks of non-stop work...we were told there is a possibility that our part of the company will be closing it's doors or that the system/programming code we write/maintain will be sold. Whether or not we, the employees, will be part of the deal or if moving to another state is a requirement of continuing employment remains to be seen.

It's happened a few times in the last 20+ years I've worked with this system.

Sometimes the new owners make me wonder "What the h...?" right off the bat.
Sometimes I think, "This is it, now we can grow and get the things done we need to do.".
The latest owners impressed me with their integrity and long-term planning. Except it now appears we may not have ever quite made it into the long-term plan. Not without some additional investors.
Anyway...we might be sold again in the next four months - or we might be closing the doors.

It would be inappropriate for me to be more specific about the job I do and the industry in which I work. I know that my blog is not mainstream and is quite unlikely to become mainstream. And that's OK. That's not why I blog. But I do still need to be circumspect in my work-related comments.

I also think it's polite. 

I would like to think that the powers-that-be did everything they could to find us a secure position within their company. If they didn't...it wasn't because of maliciousness. 

Our reputation in the industry is actually very good and I understand there are 3 interested parties looking at buying us.
My employment could continue. But do I want to continue?

I'm proud of what we've accomplished over the years and of my contributions to battles we've won, the challenges we've overcome, and I've met and worked with some amazing people. The regulatory companies of our industry know of me personally and on a regular basis they have made complimentary noises about me and my work. 

But I'm very tired and I truly wouldn't mind if I never have to go through another 3 work months like the ones I've just been through. 

Even in these very scary economic times - starting over with a new job in another industry sounds...rather attractive.
I'm a bit loony, huh?

People can be dumber than TOAST!!

~~Caution - Venting - Technically Political~~

I CANNOT believe people in Arizona and California voted to pass those STUPID laws about marriage only being allowable between 1 man and 1 woman.
OY! People can be dumber than toast.

And since this is not a rant about work, I figure the blog can handle it.

I find this embarrassing. We, as "intelligent" beings, should evolve a skosch faster than this.
I grew up watching Star Trek and reading open-minded Sci-Fi/Fantasy and I keep hoping we'll skip the Armageddon-depressing future, stop being social idjots, evolve/grow up and move past the point where we deny people rights based on physical/genetic traits.

Homosexuality is not a CHOICE - people are born that way. It's genetic. It happens to animals in nature too. Just like folks are genetically born to be heterosexual or to have brown hair.
We're all people, demmit. Why shouldn't two people that love each other be able to formally and legally join their lives and celebrate their love and commitment to each other? Why can't a homosexual couple expect the support of the law, insurance, and the world for their union?

The dumber-than-toast group needs to stop being ninnies and afford everyone basic rights and privileges regardless of race, color, creed, or sexual orientation.
Wait - isn't there a Federal Law that covers that already?!?!

Please - if you thought that proposition was a good idea - don't try to convince me and please don't leave rude comments. I'm not leaving rude comments on your blog.
I'm somewhat OK with it if people are homophobic...technically it's their right. {Sigh}
However, I do think it's an ignorant choice and folks that live in that kind of fear need to get a grip on logic and the basic laws of nature.
I understand folks have unreasonable fears/beliefs that colour their thinking - but please don't inflict them on me or my blog (or the world at large). Thanks.

What may annoy me beyond the ignorant prejudice displayed, is that the Dumber than Toast group spent 8 MILLION dollars to get this stupid law passed - and it's pretty much what is already on the books. (It is embarrassing enough that it's already a law. {gah})
Can you imagine the research that could have been funded, the people that could have been fed or healed, the retirement funds that could have been restored with 8 Million dollars?!?!?
Ok, "dumber than toast" is not an adequate description of this idiocy.

Huge, disappointed, frustrated, embarrassed-for-my-fellow-man, annoyed SIGH.
Now I have to go figure out who to write or what petitions to sign to get this stupid bit of legislature repealed. This looks like a good place to start - left a note to see if there's anything I can do to help.