I enjoy driving a manual transmission car. It truly is more fun to drive. Now I know that it could prevent theft!
Read the article here.
Brainless Criminals
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Category Archives: Life in General
Marion County Property Taxes
I’m not sure how legislators in my state thought that this was a good idea. But my taxes have nearly doubled and I have only three weeks to cough up thousands of dollars or I risk losing my home.
First, the inventory tax was eliminated. Yes, that attracts business, but then the money has to come from somewhere, and the politicians decided it would come from individuals.
This article is a step in the right direction, but it’s probably just grandstanding that won’t actually provide any tax relief. The article cites an average 34% increase; however, mine increased 90% and I have friends whose taxes increased a whopping 140%. The thing I don’t understand is why my home, which is only three years old, has such a hike. Supposedly the increases are to adjust to real market value. Well, my taxes increased by 31% last year alone, then 90% this year. Excuse me, but isn’t the market flooded with homes that won’t sell and home prices are dropping?
The good thing is that we have savings we can use, but why the enormous bill? And why not steadily increase over a few years instead of all at once, with only 21 days to pay?
I’m not happy with legislators for doing this, not happy with Mayor Bart Peterson for waiting until the last minute to ask Governor Mitch Daniels to help, and not happy with My Man Mitch unless he springs to action. All estimates are that he will do nothing.
I implore state politicians at all levels to help us and to devise a better solution. I will not vote for anyone who didn’t do anything about this. And don’t think I’ll forget by election day.
Happy Independence Day!
We celebrated the all-American holiday by preparing mediterranean snacks and some yummy vegetarian versions of classics like beer brats, barbecue, and burgers.
All I made was baba ghanouj; I didn’t write my own recipe for this, as I’ve never made it and David’s a ghanouj aficianado. I used Japanese eggplant from my own garden (how’s that for a multicultural dish??). I used this recipe; the only adjustment I made was that I didn’t add any water. After squeezing the juice from the onion and eggplant, why would I add less flavorful water? Anyway, the crowd agreed that the dip was thick like hummus, but with nice, mild flavor. I’ll make the recipe again.
[rate 3.5]
Amy‘s shaping burgers in the snapshot. You can see Casper is standing attentively, waiting for scraps.
Thanks to Amy for bringing all the stuff and doing all of the cooking- I have been exhausted lately and it meant all I had to do was eat!
Cat Picture: No Specific Reason
Nerd Alert
After telling someone at work about my latest awesome spreadsheet to quantify my happiness (this one was fuel economy), I thought I should quantify my geekiness:
Look! I’m Holding a Doll!
No, wait, that’s my niece. Not the most flattering photo of me, but I think it’s the first picture of the two of us. It was my dad’s retirement party with the whole family; mayhem ruled. We grilled, laughed, roasted (the guest of honor), and had a great time. I was assigned the high honor of taking care of little EBH. She’s about a month old in this photo. I diapered her and fed her and in general had fun with her.
Honor? To deal with a kid? Well, yes. Such a young baby isn’t terribly mobile and is terribly fragile. Her skin felt like paper and it was scary to button her dress. It’s an honor because, as many can attest, a mother of a newborn is very protective. Four weeks old is still tiny. I was the first person to ever feed her other than her mother, and that meant a lot to me.
Due to my heart condition, it was also exhausting. I spent most of the time sitting in a chair with her. But it was still great. I’m looking forward to lots more sessions like that.
Gaming
I miss gaming.
As my close friends know, I have had some significant health problems that have brought my social life to a near standstill. Things are looking better now but I’m still under doctor’s orders to “take it easy.”
I’ve had to stop all my gaming activities. It’s all fine with me because this “taking it easy” thing has really helped me feel better, but I remember a time when the gaming backpack- and my mini-painting set- were both wearing thin with use.
Now Gaming Season is about to start. Gen Con is weeks away…and I can’t attend. The gaming cabin- a group of close-knit friends from all over the country- is very iffy.
A fellow blogger had been posting some hilarious motivation-style posters on his site, so I did a quick google search and found it. The posters had me laughing hysterically. Then I found the one at the right and it was so totally perfect for what it’s like, especially at the cabin. It even looks like the cabin.
With the impending changes in my life, who knows what my new groove will be. I don’t know how I am going to handle it all. But I will. And somehow gaming will be a part of it. I’ve already started mini-painting again, so hopefully things will continue to look better.
Because I miss gaming.
Time Flies!
This picture is from 1997. An old friend of mine from a previous job sent me several pictures for a good laugh. I think it’s hilarious that I’m wearing a jaunty neck scarf and crisp white shirt with jeans and tennis shoes.
The job was my first job in pharmaceuticals and led to my current career path. As I looked over the other faces in the photo, I had so many memories. A lot of these people became good friends and I really enjoyed working with them. It also reminded me of how different I am now, and how sometimes I wish I could go back in time and be nicer to people.
Then I realized that I can’t look back and regret, I can only move forward and be a better person. I also look back on the work I did and, while some of it seemed menial at the time, it has really helped me understand the pharma industry better. Amy and I were just commenting how, when we tested raw materials, we just printed the USP and went for it- had to learn by doing in many cases. I learned about lots of actives and excipients through testing them, so I know a lot about their properties. Working on cleaning validation was boring from a testing perspective, but I learned a ton about equipment- liquids, blending, packaging- because I had to swab all of it up close. I also was not “stuck” in the lab; doing CV meant going out into production nearly every day and learning about the equipment and the people who worked in production. I developed a very strong respect for people working in production; they told me things about the products that even the product developers didn’t know. They were hard workers with a lot of knowledge and I have never forgotten that.
I was trying to sum up this post, but realized it’s just blathering and nostalgia. Sorry to bore you. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.
Another Strong Father
This is an old story, but still good. Try to ignore the corny song in the video. Just read this and watch the video at the bottom.
Betta Boy
Some may flippantly flush fish down the commode at the first sign of trouble, but I think they are missing something.
Betta boy lives in a heated, 2.5 gallon planted aquarium with driftwood and snails. Six months ago, the Betta splendens in my bathroom developed swim bladder disease for unknown reasons. That meant that this fish- who must come to the surface periodically for oxygen- would have to struggle to the surface every time.
I struggled myself. Euthanasia? Was his life worth living? I decided that it was not my call. So every day, I cupped my hand under him and helped him to the surface to eat. Sometimes I did this twice daily. He rebounded, swimming to the surface on his own and regaining weight. I lowered the water level enough that he could perch on the drifwood to breathe and to eat. Twice I thought I was going to lose him; he stopped wanting his pellets and dried bloodworms. I enticed him with brine shrimp fed from a dropper, and he started eating again. Not just eating, but swimming and fluttering around.
Lately he’d been slipping again. I briefly thought of euthanasia again. I simply couldn’t do it, as long as he was still eating, undiseased, and seemed comfortable. I added brine shrimp daily in addition to his other foods. He nibbled, but didn’t really eat.
He wasn’t perched on his driftwood this morning. As I sat brushing my teeth and waiting for him to swim up from the plants, I worried that he was gone. I worry this every morning that he doesn’t immediately swim to greet me. But this time I was right.
Did I make the right decision, to let him die naturally when I could have ended it the minute he became disabled? I don’t know. Animals feel (and deal with) pain so differently from humans. Warm-blooded companion animals live with horrendous cancers with no whining. My own dog’s knee was hopelessly torn, but other than her limp, her personality did not change. Cold-blooded pets live with even worse diseases; I’ve seen fish covered in fungus but still alive. Does that mean that their quality of life is acceptable? At what point is it no longer good for them, and we are only easing our own pain by postponing their death? We’ll never know.
I do know that my Betta boy lived a relatively long and mostly happy life, almost five years old this summer. I’ll miss him.