Going digital...

After a fair amount of consideration and research, I placed an order tonight for my first electronic cigarette. That's right, I'm making the switch from analog cigarettes to digital smoking. This "personal vaporizer" is battery powered, takes nicotine laced inserts, and the second hand effect is nearly pure water vapor... According to the reviews at least. Nothing burns, so there's no smoke in the traditional sense. It has the added value of evading most state indoor smoking bans and FAA regulations as well.

Start up costs are a little steep at $135 for two battery packs, three varieties of charger, and five nicotine caps, but operation and maintenance cost appears to be minimal when compared to the increasing cost per pack of the real thing. If it proves to be an effective substitute and if it stays legal, the cost savings over the course of the year could be significant.

There is always the more intangible and unproven benifit of not ingesting the laundry list of things besides nicotine that analog cigarettes give off when burned. Sure, it's not as good as actually quitting, but since that doesn't seem likely to happen this would appear to be the next best alternative. Besides, most of the truly amazing toys in my life all plug in... Why not bring my dirty habits into the 21st century too, right?

You can believe there will be a more detailed review when the unit arrives.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Easy come, easy go...

I’ve heard of a 24-hour flu, but a 24-hour sprain seems a bit unlikely. Whatever caused the very sprain-like symptoms yesterday has vanished not quite without a trace, but awfully close. Things are a little tender, especially when sudden movement is involved. Most importantly, though, the gimping around and leaning on every fixed object within reach are passed. Those with a more inquiring mind would ask, “What the hell was that?” I, on the other hand, have elected to let it go easy and not ask too many questions unless it shows up again. I could have gone to the doctor tomorrow and pointed to places where it use to hurt, but that didn’t seem likely to produce results other than a friendly, “Let me know if it happens again.” Doctors are pretty predictable like that.

And so, for tonight at least, peace and tranquility again reign ‘or my happy kingdom. You can rest a little easier tonight knowing that in the event of a repeat performance, I’ll be limping my way to the doctor to do battle against it with the best combination of medications BlueCross can buy. Here’s hoping we stay on the downhill side of 36 painful hours in Memphis.

Broken...

I imagine it is theoretically possible to injure yourself in the course of the day while doing nothing more demanding than laundry, dusting, and making dinner. I can’t for the life of me figure out what I would have done yesterday that led to being in enough pain last night to actually wake me up in the middle of the night several times and to very nearly keep me from walking at all this morning. Obviously, something has gone screwy in my ankle, but just how I did it is beyond me. It was being almost unable to walk at all this morning that was most unsettling, even if it were really only for those few minutes. It was a feeling that I would happily be able to live without in the future.

I don’t remember being this fragile. And I certainly don’t remember taking more than a day or two to heal from most anything life could throw at me. There are certain concessions that we all make to getting older, but I hadn’t expected to start paying the butcher’s bill for that just yet. I’m probably not helping myself out by resisting the need to rest, ice, and otherwise give things time to heal up properly. While that sounds all well and good, there are plenty of things that fall into the “must do” category… feeding the dogs, making and cleaning up dinner, and generally getting ready for tomorrow and if I’m not doing them, they’re not getting done. Does anyone follow doctor’s instructions to give things lots of rest, ice, and more rest anyway? Until someone decides they’re going to pick up the slack, my ankle is just going to have to suck it up and realize that it works for me and that we’ve got shit to do.

I’m not good at being broken. I’m sore. Every step hurts. And I can’t just sit around with ice packs and pillows waiting to get better while everything else piles up around me. We all know I’m not going to let that happen, so I’d better get use to popping pills and walking with a pronounced limp for the time being. This should be a fun few weeks.

Three and change...

Between this pay period and last, my salary hasn’t increased and my deferred deductions haven’t decreased and yet somehow my federal taxes went up $3.53. Of course three dollars and change isn’t really something to get worked up over, but it’s the principal of the thing, damn it. Over the course of the next year, that’s the better part of a hundred dollars… Not huge money by any stretch, but still better in my pocket than in Uncle’s.

I seem to remember hearing a promise that those of us making under $250,000 wouldn’t see their taxes increased in an Obama administration. Unless I’ve gotten a hell of a pay raise, I’m nowhere close to that mark… and yet that $3.53 difference is there right enough on my pay stub… mocking me. Oh, I’m sure it’s some kind of fee, or service charge, or anything other than a “tax”… But ultimately an increased tax is precisely what it is.

It’s just the kind of small detail and minor annoyance that seems to dig in and fester with me. It’s going to have me aggravated for days. I’m sure there are people out there who are savvy enough with the tax code to tell me what happened, but all I see is a few fewer dollars at the end of the month and regardless of the reason, that seems like a bad deal to me.

I want my bloody three dollars back.

Cold (Hearted)...

The City of Memphis and surrounding Shelby County has decided that it is too cold this week for people who have had the power turned off for non-payment… So the local governments and Memphis Light, Gas, and Water are turning their meters back on… and “worrying about getting the bills paid” after the cold passes. Of course that sounds brilliant in theory… everyone in Memphis will be warm and cozy while the temperature takes a dip. And those of us who are paying a power and gas bill and who pay the ridiculously high combination of city and county taxes are the ones who are going to foot the bill for the City’s “generosity” in the end.

I know some whiny liberal is going to tell me that we need to take care of each other, but what I really need to do is take care of me and mine, keep my own nose clean, and my own bills paid. I know it’s the same song and dance I pull out every time government takes another step in the direction of being everything to everybody, but at what point does the average taxpayer reach their carrying capacity? When does enough become too much? Or does it all march on until we are nurtured from cradle to grave in the warm embrace of bureaucracy? I live every day in the belly of that beast… and it’s not something I want controlling the other 16 hours of my day… and that’s the perspective from inside a department that’s actually pretty good at carrying out it’s core missions.

By now I’m probably sounding pretty heartless, but after bailouts, home loan modifications, debt forgiveness, and now making sure all of the City has its lights burning I can say well and truly that I’m tired of paying for other people’s poor decisions. I make enough of my own mistakes to keep me and my checkbook occupied without help. I just wish others would do the same. That’s my pipedream for tonight.

Batten down the hatches…

With only a few words published by the National Weather Service, West Tennessee is working itself into fits of panic. Those words: EXACT SNOW AMOUNTS REMAIN UNCERTAIN AT THIS TIME... BUT PLANS SHOULD BE MADE FOR THE POSSIBILITY OF AT LEAST A COUPLE OF INCHES OF SNOW WITH ROADS BECOMING HAZARDOUS.

Now the south is a funny place when it snows… The usually slow-paced locals become something close to possessed. I’m sure if it hasn’t happened by now, by this time tomorrow there will be a crush of people buying everything from 60-roll packs of toilet paper to diesel generators. It will be the only thing people will talk about this week and when the worst happens and the snow hits, everyone will forget anything they ever learned about driving.

It’s going to be a long week if this forecast holds fast. Batten down the hatches… There’s weather ahead.

Overpriced...

Most Saturday mornings I end up watching, or at least listening to the business/financial news on Fox (think of them as cartoons for adults). This week, though, I was caught a bit cold by the strident and almost universal opinion of the assembled group of talking heads that federal employees were the most over paid and under worked employees in the country (actually, I think most of the argument was that there were too many feds making over $100,000 a year). To be sure there are those out there that go out of their way to avoid doing much of anything and those people need to go. But for the most part, feds tend to be very highly educated bunch at the senior levels… Masters degrees are the bare minimum in most leadership positions and PhD’s and advanced technical degrees are not uncommon. Add in that the majority of feds have been on the job for more than 15 years and there should be even less surprise that people are climbing towards the top of the pay scale.

Of course one of the things that no one ever thinks about when they make the argument that the workforce is overpaid compared to other large organizations is that over the last 20 years, the feds have contracted out nearly all of the basic labor functions that happen on other organizations. Janitorial, building management, electricians, plumbers, mailrooms, and other functions are performed under contract and don’t lower Uncle Sam’s average salary the same way they do to private sector companies. So, when you’re accounting for only professional, management, technical, and scientific positions within a large organization, I would be interested in seeing how other large organizations stack up. Of course they never talk about that comparison because it’s not interesting.

Don’t get me wrong here, no one likes to bitch and complain about federal waste more than I do, but I don’t need to fudge the numbers to make my argument… I’ll give you examples from real life. I have no problem cutting waste, but I know what I bring home at the end of the week and I’m pretty confident in saying that I’m nowhere near overpaid for what I do. I don’t see anyone from the private sector knocking down the doors to come take my job, so until I do I’m afraid Fox’s big brains and I are going to have to part company on this issue.