Having Their Say

Just some cathartic things my friends have posted on Facebook in the past few days.

Luz

I got an idea.  And it seems to be working.

I've started Facebooking my Spanish lesson.  Now I'm getting feedback from my husband and some of his friends, which is something I've wanted all along.

Specifically, the plan is to post my new vocabulary words with all of the phrases that my (many) Spanish dictionaries include in the entry for that word.  These phrases come from many Spanish speaking countries, but my husband and our friends are primarily from Mexico, so the plan is that they will tell me which of them are words and phrases that they use, and which ones I should discard.

Next, the exercises will be posted on Facebook, and they can make all the necessary corrections.  If I have any questions, these can also be posted on Facebook.

The only gap in the plan is the audio.  I need to figure out how to be able to hear and play back Gaby's voice saying the things I'm learning.

I'll get back to you if I figure it out.

Brainwaves.

This is probably a mistake.
I can't sleep, and I have so much I want to do today.  Four or five more hours would be perfect, but my mind is going and going, and I can't shut it off.
I worked last night (Saturday night), and then had to get up after only three and a half hours of sleep to go to a bellman's meeting (which I was late for and missed most of.)  When I came home the coffee was still doing its job, so I didn't go right back to bed.  Sitting in front of the computer, I decided that if I stayed up all day I could get up earlier tomorrow and have a lot more useful hours in my day.  But I was so tired, and while Gaby hung the Christmas lights and put up the tree, I was a slug and did hardly anything at all.  The house looks great, but my contribution was minimal.
My Mom called sometime during the evening and asked me if I was available for dinner tomorrow night, and I said yes.  I haven't had a date with Mom since Mother's day last year, so I'm looking forward to it.
After dinner I went to bed expecting/hoping to sleep eight hours or more, but I woke up after about four hours with a headache.  I got up and took some aspirin, but, while I was laying in bed waiting for it to kick in, my mind started going.  Normally, I use the big book of crossword puzzles next to the bed to make my mind shut off so I can sleep.  It's become my bedtime ritual, and it works really well.  But turning on the light would disturb Gaby, so not now.  So I'm thinking.
...is this because I mentioned that I have several financial obligations coming up at once?...
...the Supreme court is supposed to be deciding which cases they'll hear on the DOMA on the 30th...
...why is he calling himself a conservative when he's obviously a movement consevative...
...but there's no way Erector sets are going to be able to compete with birds and orchids...
...I keep checking, but so far he hasn't posted anything at all...
...I already found his; I just need to buy it, wrap it and stick it under the tree.  Hers I may need to order, but I want to shop around first...
...well, they haven't had a case so far, and every time it's gone to court they've called it unconstitutional...
...once in a while, I think about having a garage sale and just putting everything we own up for sale...
...it's not just the money; it's the time.  This is where being nocturnal sucks...
...truth is I just waste too much time...
...except for the books.  Getting rid of them would be hard...
...the painting is taking way too long.  There's something about the way I'm going about it that's not working...
...it would change everything.  He could get a job...
...I know I'm not out to his relatives, but I'm not sure about his friends, and now that he's on Facebook...
...the couple in this show were so much like us, but their attitudes toward each other were so different from ours.  But still, I could totally identify with the one with the job...
...I really don't see a difference between filtering an understanding of a national policy through a foreign culture is any different from filtering it through FOX...
...don't forget to call Greg...
...it'll be time to start new drawings for the spring shows in a month.  I think I should do a few small to medium sized ones...
...surfing turned out to be a metaphor for orchids...
...Fauxcahontis?  Is that a thing?..
...it's a fear of failure thing.  I've got it too...
...go to sleep go to sleep go to sleep...

Innumeracy

As a person who gets most of his news from writers who specialize in one subject, I can sometimes miss stories about other things that are going on in the world.  Fortunately, I have news junkie Facebook friends who can fill in some of the blanks.  Sometimes the stories seem interesting enough to merit further research, and sometimes the results of that research can be entertaining.  Like this one from one of my Fair and Balanced friends:



I clicked on the article in question and found that Republican candidate, and Tea Party Favorite, Allen West was wanting a recount of votes in St Lucie County, FL because 141% of the registered voters in the county had voted in the election.  In fact, all precincts in the county had extraordinary voter turnout; between 113% and 158.85%.  Massive voter fraud, right?  I decided to check it out.

    I found several articles that explained what was going on, but one from freerepublic.com put it in chart form.  There are 175,554 registered voters in St Lucie County.  Voting was done on a two card ballot.  Both cards were two sided giving voters the opportunity to vote for candidates for public office on card 1 and 11 Constitutional ballot initiatives on card 2.  So the ratio of ballot cards to voters was 2:1.  If every registered voter had come to vote, and had used both cards, the relative number of ballots cast would have been 200% of the number of registerd voters.

    But everybody did not show up to vote.  Out of 175,554 registered voters, only 124,031 voters actually showed up.  That's 70.7%.  At a ratio of 2:1, that leaves the possibility of 248,062 ballot card being cast.  But some voters (249 of them) did not use both cards, which resulted in only 247,713 ballot cards being cast, which was 141.1% of the number of registered voters.  Other little details left the final tally of votes cast at  123,591.

    As you can see, I wrote this all out in short form above, believeing that a clear presentation of facts and data should lead to a logical conclusion.  I was ignored.

    Now, I don't know if Watchdog Wire originated this conspiracy theory, but it's astonishing to me that they didn't check the numbers before publishing it.  It got even worse further down in the article when they wrote, "Does each ballot consist of two cards? If yes, then there would be two times the number of cards as votes cast or in the case of St. Lucie County 175,554 times 2 there would be an expected 351,108 cards (two page ballots) cast.  However, according to the SOE there were 247,713 or 141.10% of cards cast. A valid question is what happened to the other 58.9% of cards cast?"

 

     *facepalm*

Anyway, the news today is that Allen West got his recount, and his opponent, Patrick Murphy, gained 242 votes after the St. Lucie County Supervisor of Elections completed its re-tabulation, increasing his lead to more than 2,100 votes over West.

Not a word from my Fair and Balanced friends.

Me quita las palabras de la boca.

Well, the conventions are over, and the highlights seemed to be Paul Ryan's speech for the Republicans and Bill Clinton's speech for the Democrats.  The fact-checkers sliced and diced Mr Ryan (Ezra Klein wrote an article about trying to find the one true thing he said), which is not a surprise since the economists have been doing the same since the middle of 2010, before anyone even knew who he was.
    Enter Bill Clinton just a few nights later.  His speech was extremely well researched and well stated.  Except for a little nitpicking, he generally got a 'true' rating for the speech overall.
    Thing is, Clinton's speech made me feel very informed because he didn't say anything I didn't already know.  He was just repeating all the stuff I've been learning about for the past few years, and now he's gone and put it all out there in the mainstream.
    So now I don't have anything to say.
    Hm.

Baby Steps

I needed new shoes for work, and after not finding what I needed at Academy, Gaby and I drove out to the mall.
He's become more and more angry about what he's begun referring to as "Chicken Pride Day" last Wednesday, and he's especially been disgusted by his own friends who saw it as a freedom of speech issue.  But he had an idea, and he shared it with me as we walked from the car to the Sears entrance.
   He wanted to know how many of his friends would be offended by seeing him kiss me.  Would they think it's different for us than for straight couples?  And if they do, why?
   I reached out my hand so he could hold it as we walked in.  He didn't notice.


So far, only three of his 200+ friends have answered.

Current Events Keep On Slippin' Slippin' Slippin' Into The Future

...or maybe it's the past.  Guess it depends on how you look at it.
A politically opinionated friend posted an illustration showing a bogus comparison between our two Presidential candidates.  I really wanted to respond to the, uh... well, lack of information on the left side, Romney's side, because the news and information sources I read had a lot to say about it, while the other side, the Obama side, was an imbalance of information, which, like the other side was intended to bring us to a wrong conclusion.
    I mentioned that I wanted to say something, but I knew that it would mean going back a few weeks to find the stuff I'd been reading, so I questioned whether I wanted to get into it.  What happened instead was that the conversation drifted to the Obama side and I wound up trying to provide the balance.  It took a while, but information was pretty easy to find.  But it wasn't what I wanted to write about.
    My problem here is not that I don't know the basic information.  I know that It was not Romney's business to promote the general welfare; his business was to make money.  I know that many of the businesses that Bain got involved with closed, and many relocated some of their operations overseas.  I know that that is just a fact of business because we live in a global economy, and businesses move to where the can make the most and spend the least.  I also know that if Bain got involved with the company you worked for, it's probable that IF you got to keep your job your wages would be lower and your benefits fewer.  I know that Bain made money --billions of dollars-- whether the partnering companies stayed in business or not and whether their employees stayed employed or not.  I know that the billions of dollars went to the top, and those in the middle and bottom saw little if any of it. It also appears those billions were not properly taxed, and that much of it went into offshore accounts. Little of the billions generated benefited the US economy at all.
    So does any of this matter?  We-e-ll, here's the deal. It's only business. Mitt Romney could run, among other things, on his very successful health care program in his home state, but since that's a dicey issue in the Republican Party, it's just not possible.  So he's running on his business record.  President Obama could run against Governor Romney on his support for the Ryan budget plan.  But since few people understand that the Ryan budget plan is, according to the economists, a sure fire way to get us back into a recession, if not an actual depression, the President's campaign has also focused on Romney's business record.
    But even if I know all that, I still want to be able to say that this economist, or that journalist, or the CBO, or the Tax Policy Institute, or  somebody  who has some sort of clout in this area, made this particular point in this particular report on this particular date, even if it's only because that particular writer had a certain way of putting something that I found eloquent.  My problem is that new information, new articles, new blog posts are published every day, and the one I want to find keeps sinking into the murky past, and sometimes I just don't want to spend the hours it might take to find that one piece of information or one clever phrase.
    I just need current events to stop moving so fast.

Great Expectations

Today, Wednesday the 11th, was my 50th birthday.  I think it's a big deal, and I was hoping for some kind of big event, but it never happened.  So I'm a bit depressed.

I hoped that Gaby would have contacted our friends and my friends from work and worked with them to arrange a party or get-together of some sort.  It could have been at home.  It could have been out at the club.  Some of my friends from work had actually told me that they hoped Gaby would remember to put them on the guest list.  I wanted a big event.  But it never happened.

I hoped that when we were out at the club Monday night that Gaby would mention to Shantelle, the MC, that I was having a birthday in a couple of days, but he didn't.  It didn't matter, really.  There weren't many people in the club that night.  But still, it would have been nice.  Instead, he complained that we had eloped, which sent me into such a deep blue funk that we didn't talk for the next two hours or so.  I had strongly suspected he might not have planned anything, and what he said just seemed to confirm it.  I told him I couldn't talk about it for a couple of days, in the hopes that I might be wrong-- that he had some kind of surprize planned.  I also didn't want him to try to throw something together at the last minute just because he felt guilty.

Tuesday with family was better.  Gaby made a cake, and at my request we all drove out to a restaurant that was inconvenient and expensive.  My Dad bought me something I'd been asking for for every birthday and Christmas for the last three years or so.  But all in all the evening wasn't much different than any other family night.  It wasn't a big deal.

And I had to work tonight.  I had asked for the night off, but that request was denied, or ignored, or not even noticed, or whatever it is that my boss does when he makes the schedule.  Not that it matters.  Nothing else was happning.

So I'm feeling deeply and profoundly disappointed and depressed. I'm also trying hard not to let my feelings come to the surface because I don't want anyone to think that I don't appreciate the smaller contributions to my big day.  But it still wasn't what I hoped for, and I can't help the way I feel.

Like a Record, Baby, Right Round Round Round

There are certain subjects that I have decided are off limits in this blog, but I'm going to have to travel along the edges of one of them to tell this story.

My friend Mark and my brother are of two divergent (and frankly competing) faiths, and each is actively involved in their respective religious institutions as well, so naturally their points of view are going to show up on their Facebook posts.  Today, each of them posted the same story, but each post had a spin that reflected their own personal predjudices.  I find spin fascinating, but I rarely get to see it displayed so starkly.

Anti-Bullying Speaker Curses Christian Teens

http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/anti-bullying-speaker-curses-mocks-christian-teens.html
By Todd Starnes As many as 100 high school students walked out of a national journalism conference after an anti-bullying speaker began cursing, attacked the Bible and reportedly called those who refused to listen to his rant “pansy assed.” The speaker was Dan Savage, founder of the “It...

Christians walk out on anti-bullying talk

http://www.examiner.com/
Gay Activist and founder of the “It Gets Better” anti-bullying project, Dan Savage recently spoke at the National High School Journalist Conference in Seattle. ..

I watched the video and read the story, and my point of view didn't quite line up with either presentation.  It's probably because I've been conditioned to recognize this particular type of hypocrisy (and please understand that this is not a judgement; I believe hypocrisy is just human nature), but if I were writing the story it would have a very long headline.

Dan Savage Uses The Bible and Religion To Justify His Predjudices Against People Who Use The Bible and Religion To Justify Their Predjudices. 

But then I guess that could be considered to have it's own spin.

I, Solation

    The bar at the hotel has a few regulars who happen to be gay.  One of them, who also happens to be a reporter for a local TV station,  came in with a large group of his friends the other night.  I think they were celebrating a birthday.  Most of them were young, most were good looking, and it was obvious they all liked each other. For a while, during the slow process of leaving and saying goodnight, they stood on the front sidewalk where I was working, and I got to observe them as they engaged in affectionate banter the way real friends do, and the hugs and kisses as they left for the night.
    A couple of mornings later, one of my co-workers facetiously asked me if I enjoyed seeing all those young gay guys together in a group.  (Teasing comments are part of our normal conversation.)  He didn't know that I had actually been thinking about that group of guys a lot.  I said, "No, actually it just made me sad."  Of course I had to explain what I meant.
    Fact is, I miss having a crowd.
    I'm nearly 50 years old.  I'm nocturnal.  I'm poor.  The friends we do have either don't know each other or don't like each other, and some of them live in the land of Far Far Away.  (We live in Edmond, which, in OKC's gay scene, is like living at the North Pole.)  And everybody is busy busy busy.  So getting together with, say, half a dozen other people is difficult at best.
    I have friends at work, but even getting together with them is difficult.  We went to a party recently that was being thrown by a co-worker.  Gaby and I were first to arrive and first to leave because I had to work that night.  Most of the rest of the guests arrived after we left, including those I wanted to see most.
   Our normal Monday night routine has been to go out to The Park, but we haven't been going out much lately, mostly just because of scheduling problems  (I've been working a lot of Mondays lately, dammit).  Plus, Gaby's  been a unwilling to go even when we can, and I'm not often willing to go without him.  Most of the people we know at the clubs are people we used to see at The Park on Monday nights.  But Mondays have changed since the "show" moved from The Park across the street to The Phoenix, and when we do go out, the people we know aren't there because they just haven't made the switch.  I did make one new friend at the Phoenix -- through a co-worker, no less -- but that friendship hasn't been cultivated because we haven't been there to do it.
    I read somewhere online recently that the gay clubs, at least from the social aspect, are a lot like church.  I can definitely see that, but Gaby and I are attenders who have not gotten involved with any ministries, so our  social connections are tenuous at best.  But the weather's getting warmer now, and both The Park and the Phoenix have a patio out back, away from the thumpa-thumpa, and it's so much easier to get into a good conversation with someone when you can actually hear each other.  Conversation is my favorite thing; the challenge is finding someone interested.
    Right now I'm busy with art shows, so I have little time myself to socialize.  But what I really want to do is to find a couple of our friends who are willing and able to go with us out of town for a couple of days.  But who?  And I'm not sure Gaby's on board with this because the first time I brought it up to him, he gave me a bunch of reasons why it was unlikely to happen instead of helping me figure out how it could happen.  But I have vacation time I need to use, and this is how I want to use it.  I just got to figure out how.

Lack of Support

Hm.  I tried to open blogspot, but was informed that my "browser is no longer supported by Blogger. Some parts of Blogger will not work and you may experience problems."  Whatever that means.  In order to write this I had to download Google Chrome.  Now everything is supposed to be much easier.  And perhaps it will... eventually, when I've finally figured out where everything is, like the Favorites Bar.  That may take a year or so.

Even Jay Leno Fails Once In A While

Last Tuesday morning I noticed that my old friend MW had posted a link to a CBS story about some remarks that the President had made concerning the Supreme Court's review of the health care law. He commented, "Marbury v Madison. Perhaps we should send Professor Obama copies of the decision?" I wasn't particularly interested at the time, so I didn't read the article. If I had, I would have seen that the President had said that he was "confident" the Court would not "take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress." Of course, that's silly, since deciding that type of thing is one of the courts primary functions. (He tried to clarify later, but it didn't quite take.)
Saturday, I was getting ready for the treadmill, and decided to watch Tuesday's edition of The Daily Show while I was exercizing. In the second segment, Jon talked about this same subject, making fun of the President for saying what he said, showing a clip of FOX and Friends making fun of the President for saying it (and talking about the same case that M mentioned in his post), showing a clip of Sarah Palin saying something similar to what the President said, another clip of Sheldon Whitehouse (D)RI saying the opposite of what the President said, and a clip of Mitt Romney saying, "We Conservatives stand for causes that are to important to allow unelected judges to force their own biases on an unwilling nation." Jon then went on to talk about what the Supreme Court was doing while the Republicans and Democrats were "swapping places."
Feeling amused, and in a jocular mood, I decided to comment on M's post: "Judicial Activism. It's not just for liberals anymore." Instead of an LOL, I got corrected. Hm.
I tried again with a simple (and factually incorrect, as it turned out) redirect based on M's response. This time I got corrected by a friend of his. Well, fine. If you guys don't get the joke, I don't feel the need to explain it to you. I abandoned the conversation.
But I'm still wondering how I wound up on the other side of an argument by agreeing with the other participants.

I Wish I'd Said That

Dan Staley says:
It is especially useful to tweak those who feel compelled to use Cliiiiiiiiiimategaaaaaaaaaaaate! in an argument. That is: the day after the stolen e-mails were published, the glaciers did not advance, the seas did not retreat, the globe did not cool, the rains did not decrease in intensity, the spring did not come later, the arctic ice did not return, birds did not nest further south, pikas did not move downhill, the tundra shrubs did not cease their advance, permafrost did not re-freeze…you get the drift.

Slacktivist:
“The nefarious global conspiracy promoting the climate-change hoax continues to spread: The oceans are in on it. So are the maple trees of New England. And both Dakotas.”

koreyel says:
Well at least we know Heartland Institute is hard on it for the good guys. Those leaked emails show they hope to convince educators to “teach the controversy” with statements such as this: “whether humans are changing the climate is a major scientific controversy.” And that therefor educators need to teach both sides equally. And the real good news is that half the teachers surveyed already choose to do so because “they think there is validity to both sides”. (The 97% side and the 3% non-publishing side).

Holy Crap! I'm a Liberal! Or...Not? Hm.

As you all know from reading this blog, I eschew ideologically based politics as much as possible. I believe that facts, data, numbers, history and evidence should be the deciding factors in policy decisions, and that conservatism and liberalasim, and to some extent even centricism, are just excuses to ignore facts, data, numbers, history and evidence. To my friends on the left, I am frustratingly centrist, while my friends on the right see me as a raging liberal, though, in my defense, for some of these people the word "liberal" can be defined as "disagrees with FOX." But I see myself as a person who is shaped by evidencial information and little else. That self image has been recently challenged.
A lot of my information comes from the blogs that I read. I follow Mark Thoma, Ezra Klein, Paul Krugman, Brad deLong, and Jared Bernstein, who are all economists. For politics I have David Frum et al, and Nicholas D. Kristof focuses on international humanitarian concerns. Each of those, in turn has links to many many other sources. Last week Mark Thoma wrote a response to another blog from Heather Parton, who writes under the pen name Digby, who in turn was writing about an article by Chris Mooney, adapted from his new book, The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science—and Reality, due out in April from Wiley. (Did you follow all that?) In this article, Mr. Mooney argues that the thing that I believe separates me from the liberals is in fact the very thing that makes me a liberal.

"I can still remember when I first realized how naïve I was in thinking—hoping—that laying out the “facts” would suffice to change politicized minds... It was a typically wonkish, liberal revelation: One based on statistics and data... Liberals, to quote George Lakoff, subscribe to a view that might be dubbed “Old Enlightenment reason.” They really do seem to like facts; it seems to be part of who they are."

Digby says: "Ultimately, this is about tribalism, feeling part of a group, being validated by it and thinking and behaving in ways that preserve your place in it. We all do it to some extent; we're social animals and we usually have a strong need to belong to a larger group. But how we process information is important and something that good political strategists understand instinctively.
The simple rule is this: if you want to persuade liberals of something, bring out the charts and spreadsheets. If you want to persuade conservatives of something, make them identify emotionally with what you want them to believe. And by the way, there's no such thing as "independents" who can be persuaded of anything. 90% of them are conservatives or liberals who either don't know it or won't wear the label and the rest are too clueless and capricious to be persuaded of anything."

This is the part where I start whining like Jerry Seinfeld, "But I don't wanna be a liberal." But then Mark Thoma comes to my rescue a little bit:

"So, for Republicans it appears to be more about signaling by taking extreme positions than truth telling. What I'm less sure about is the claim that the way to convince liberals is to 'bring out the charts and spreadsheets.' Perhaps, but I think emotional appeal is important here as well. What do you think?"

What I think is that one of my dearest friends in the world is also probably the most liberal person I've ever known. His Facebook is full of rather extreme posts -- opinions to which he is emotionally dedicated. Sometimes he hits the mark, frequently not. But I have been forbiden to comment on his posts because of my pedanticism. If I'm going to disagree, he just doesn't want to discuss it.

Paul Krugman is a self-described liberal, but, like Brad deLong, he has a very low opinion of people -- especially policy makers -- who let their ideologies trump the evidence (and the math). In his post This Tribal Nation he quotes Christy Romer from her speech laying out what we know about the effects of fiscal policy.:

"The one thing that has disillusioned me is the discussion of fiscal policy. Policymakers and far too many economists seem to be arguing from ideology rather than evidence. As I have described this evening, the evidence is stronger than it has ever been that fiscal policy matters—that fiscal stimulus helps the economy add jobs, and that reducing the budget deficit lowers growth at least in the near term. And yet, this evidence does not seem to be getting through to the legislative process.
That is unacceptable. We are never going to solve our problems if we can’t agree at least on the facts. Evidence-based policymaking is essential if we are ever going to triumph over this recession and deal with our long-run budget problems."

So am I a liberal? Compared to some, yes; to others, not so much. I guess it's really going to depend on how others see me. The thing I don't like about labels is that once you have one, people think they know what you think. But if Mr. Mooney and Ms. Parton are correct, then, well, I guess I can live with it.

How the Weekend Panned Out

It's six in the morning on a Wednesday. I've had the last two nights off, for which I am grateful. Much of last year my weekends were split because of my counterpart's school schedule and other availability problems. This is the third week in a row that I've had two days off together, and I've been making the most of them. The biggest problems, as usual, are sleep and computer, both of which can really screw up the way I use my time.

This morning I've been up since 3:30, and I've spent all of the last three hours on the computer. I cleaned out my message page on Facebook and my email inbox. Some of what was there became the previous blog post.

I didn't expect to be up this early, and I'm still in my pajamas. I'd like to get dressed and go work on the projects I've been busy with this weekend, but I don't want to wake Gaby. If I wait till the sun comes up I won't have to turn on a light to find my clothes, and I can be quiet enough to let him sleep.

We weren't been very happy with each other yesterday, but to explain why requires a bit of background.

I own some ancient cookware, some of which is at least thirteen years old, and it was cheap stuff to begin with. Naturally, much of the non-stick surface is worn away. He says it's because I use metal utensils (which I do occasionally, but not often enough to warrant concern), but I believe it's because they're old and cheap.

Recently we aquired some new expensive cookware, but they are rarely used unless the old and cheap ones are dirty. Overnight, while he was asleep, I made some mashed potatoes in one of the new expensive saucepans because I couldn't find the old and cheap one that I really wanted to use. Our potato masher happens to be metal, but it has no sharp edges and I used it carefully, and then used a plastic spatula to scoop out the potatoes.

As soon as the sun was up, I threw myself into a woodworking project that I'd been wanting to get to for some time, and while all of my mental and physical energies were being thrown into this project, he came out to complain about my use of that saucepan. Naturally all he got from me was a blank stare because I didn't know what he expected me to do about it while I was completely engaged in something else. He then came out with one of our cheap but brand new frying pans and attacked the surface of it with a metal fry scooper. That was uncalled for, and I could have said something about it, but, as I said, I was busy.

When I got to a stopping point, I came in for lunch, and checked Facebook. He had posted about how difficult it was to live with someone who didn't care about what he cared about. That's ridiculous. Not caring and completely disagreeing are two different things. I typed back, "Not guilty." He later deleted that post.

I spent the rest of the afternoon working on my project, and was pretty pleased with how it was going. I had one setback, but it was easily fixed, and I discovered that I was out of paint, so I had to go to Lowe's. When I got to my next stopping point, I was starving. It was at that moment that he asked me to fix the window on the front of the house.

He pointed out later that I could have said no. And he was right. I could have told him how hungry I was. I could have told him that we didn't have all the materials we needed, and that I didn't want to spend any more money at Lowe's or the time or gasoline it took to get there. I could have just told him I had other plans. But I didn't, for two reasons.

First, we have a different approach to things. He wants something done, I want it done well. The result is that I will put things off until I have the time, the resources, and the mental focus to get it done. (This is a form of procrastination common to Frustrated Perfectionists.) He, on the other hand, has too much time on his hands, and I was a little afraid of what the result might be. (I was mad enough that I actually said something to him about this where I wouldn't have normally. He was a bit offended.)

Second, and most importantly, I didn't want to give him more ammo for his "he doesn't care" rant.

On top of that, we were running out of daylight, and if we were going to do it, we had to do it right then. Ultimately the project came out just fine. We worked together, and we were very pleased with the results. It just needs some paint.

Later I found this on his Facebook:

Gabriel Guerrero-Savage
According to psychologists and psychiatrists, it is healthy to gripe about the things that bother you with your spouse. Things about him or her that makes you feel unappreciated, etc. They say it's better than keep [sic] them to yourself because that can get you physically and emotionally sick. Then you start hiding thing from them and growing apart. But they don't say what's next after you have griped! hehehe

2 people like this.

Saúl Peña The "cold shoulder" maybe?

Gabriel Guerrero-Savage Yes Saúl, I'm afraid that's what we got...

Saúl Peña Things will go back to normal real soon. Don't worry. It's part of the process.

Thing is, I wasn't giving him the cold shoulder. I was just preoccupied.

So Wrong

It Made My Day - Little Moments of WIN – Chuck G.
itmademyday.com

A friend of mine told me how he rear ended another car yesterday. The person he hit happened to be a midget. The guy got out of his car and walked to my friend’s window, looked up and said, “I am not happy.” To which my friend replied, “Then which one are you?”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All drugs have two names, a trade name and generic name.Example, the trade name is Tylenol and its generic name is Acetaminophen. Aleve is also called Naproxen.
Amoxil is also called Amoxicillin and Advil is also called Ibuprofen.
The FDA has been looking for a generic name for Viagra.
After careful consideration by a team of government experts, it recently announced that it has settled on the generic name of Mycoxafloppin.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill and his wife Blanche went to the state fair every year, and every year Bill would say, "Blanche, I'd like to ride in that helicopter."
Blanche always replied, "I know, Bill, but that helicopter ride is fifty bucks,and fifty bucks is fifty bucks!"
One year Bill and Blanche went to the fair, and Bill said, "Blanche, I'm 75 years old. If I don't ride that helicopter, I might never get another chance."
To this, Blanche replied, "Bill that helicopter ride is fifty bucks, and fifty bucks is fifty bucks."
The pilot overheard the couple and said, "Folks I'll make you a deal. I'll take the both of you for a ride. If you can stay quiet for the entire ride, and don't say a word, I won't charge you a penny! But if you say one word it's fifty dollars." Bill and Blanche agreed and up they went.
The pilot did all kinds of fancy maneuvers, but not a word was heard. He did his daredevil tricks, but still not a word.
When they landed, the pilot turned to Bill and said, "By golly, I did everything I could to get you to yell out, but you didn't. I'm impressed!"
Bill replied, "Well, to tell you the truth I almost said something when Blanche fell out, but you know, Fifty bucks is fifty bucks!"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SLEEPING WITH BOB The guys were all at a deer camp. No one wanted to room with Bob, because he snored so badly. They decided it wasn't fair to make one of them stay with him the whole time, so they voted to take turns.
The first guy slept with Bob and comes to breakfast the next morning with his hair a mess and his... eyes all bloodshot. They said, "Man, what happened to you? He said, "Bob snored so loudly, I just sat up and watched him all night." The next night it was a different guy's turn. In the morning, same thing, hair all standing up, eyes all bloodshot. They said, "Man, what happened to you? You look awful! He said, 'Man, that Bob shakes the roof with his snoring. I watched him all night."
The third night was Fred's turn. Fred was a tanned, older cowboy, a man's man. The next morning he came to breakfast bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. "Good morning!" he said. They couldn't believe it. They said, "Man, what happened?" He said, "Well, we got ready for bed. I went and tucked Bob into bed, patted him on the butt, and kissed him good night. Bob sat up and watched me all night."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An uncircumcized man decided to show his devotion to his wife by having her name tatooed on his penis.  Often, her whole name, WENDY, would show, but usually all that would show was WY.
One summer, the couple vacationed in Jamaica, and happened to find their way to a nude beach.  There the man noticed a local man whose penis also appeared to say WY.  Later he chanced to run into the local man at a bar.  He couldn't resist asking, "So, is your wife named Wendy too?"
The local said, "No, mon.  I have no wife named Wendy.  Why do you ask?"
After some embarrassed hemming and hawing, the man explained the situation, saying he had noticed the WY on the local's penis and wondered about it.
The local replied, " No Mon.  My tatoo says WELCOME TO JAMAICA, MON, AND HAVE A NICE DAY."