Late December 2005

Sun 18 Dec 22:22
This weekend was somwhat profitable. I started the main tree and put up the lights outside. I also had to replace my first disc player (almost a decade old), for the cassette recorder on it died. I'd just borrowed "EZ Italian" from Barron's on disc, and I wanted to record it on cassette.

Tue 20 Dec 8:26
After a relatively warm morning above freezing, today was -6º and windy. I could've used my skimask. I await the catalogs for 2006, before I leave for my twelve days of Christmas.

Sun 25 Dec
The day worked out better than I'd expected. Instead of a confrontation over the lack of giving gifts, my sister's family isn't even coming today!
I keep feeling overwhelmed with all the clutter I've accumulated over the past three decades. If I can't remember the reason I bought a certain book, I discard it. I must act upon my goals or give them up.

I didn't want to bring up Schrub, but I can't ignore him. The brainless wimp has finally gone too far and justified my respelling into Nazi German. Where is the outrage that Schrub is spying -- long with the usual lying -- on innocent Americans? This fool doesn't have a clue about protecting us, and the very fact that 9/11 has occurred on his watch should be more than enough clues. In addition to impeaching the Schrub, victims of his illegal wiretaps should sue -- never mind the futility of the exclusionary rule.
I had a dream that I was making up my face. When I awoke, I had the strange thought...

Wed 28 Dec 18:00
What is someone stared back, a kind of "Quantum Leap"? Suppose someone dead looked back, like Matthew Wayne Shepard?

I spent part of yesterday to get the mechanism on the van fixed. Apparently the strangers who forced the automatic door did damage the mechanism.
I didn't go anywhere today. I spent half of it on my online courses with Block. I finished Employe Business Expenses. I started the two I had left: The Alternate Minimum Tax and the Miliatry Taxpayer. I have until Saturday to finish them. I now have 81 credits in my pocket, with six more to go.
I continue to pick out things to sling, but the best thing is to thorw out a few every week. I also must finished what I start, or dump it.

Back to my dream -- suppose I could get into someone else's body. Would I have a choice in whose body I occupied? Would I need a purpose and would I be allowed to alter history?

Eugene McCarthy

My graduate advisor, Dr Robert K Murray, engaged in a forum back in October 1980 with Senator Eugene McCarthy, who just died: "A Perspective: The State of the Modern Presidency" at Penn State. I did not shake McCarthy's hand because he was still bitter about RFK's entrance into the race for the presidency in 1968 against Lyndon Johnson.
Dr Murray later told us in class -- at the time I was taking "America between the Wars" (1919-45) -- that he'd asked McCarthy why McCarthy waited until the last minute to endorse Hubert Humphrey in 1968. McCarthy still garnered a million votes in that election, which Richard Nixon won by a half million.
McCarthy told (third hand here) a story of when Lyndon Johnson took Humphrey out on his ranch to hunt deer. He tried to get Humphrey to shoot a docile deer. When HHH shot the deer, LBJ gave him a knife to finish the job. HHH couldn't do it, so LBJ slit the throat of the deer. Then he forced HHH to place the mounted deer in his office. McCarthy, also a Senator from Minnesota, was disgusted that HHH caved into LBJ over that incident, and he temporized endorcing HHH because of it. Every time McCarthy went into HHH's office, that deer head reminded him of how much HHH was tied to LBJ.

Tue 13 Dec
After a blistering summer, winter has started cold, -9º this morning. Last week, three snowstorms hit us -- the worst was Friday morning.

Wed 14 Dec
We feasted at Famous Dave's in the huge shopping arena on Grant Avenue across from Forman Mills (Philadelphia). I ate more meat than I usually eat in a week. I needed the fat this morning with temperatures around -11º. Wilkes-Barre was probably -15º and Mountaintop at -17º. Ah! Those days of delivering newspapers in winter remind me of those temperatures near -20º (5 below zero).
I may have opened a pandora's box with my participation in surveys, but I think it's time to take more risks, if not for the payoff, at least for the learning.
I continue my looksy with organic chemistry and linear algebra. I can't seem to find out what was so important about the nullspace. I also continue my Black courses online. I'm over halfway through the employe business expenses. I must finish all the online courses by the end of the year. I will have more time within a week.
I was up at 3 AM, so I added pictures from Christmas/New Year's 1970-71. I've used the same tree, ornaments, and light set for 35 years!

Thu 15 Dec 15:40
Another storm appraoches today -- this time snow which turns into rain. There will be ice with it away from the city. It was almost as cold this morning at -10º, again with little wind. Tomorrow should be warm enough to abate leftover snow.

Fri 16 Dec 14:50
I snoozed over a halfhour this afternoon, so I must have been tired. We received the same old bonuses today. It will help me slightly, and I should be able to avoid using the card the rest of the month, expect for possible presents. I must sell the disasters from last year! So ends my last Friday at my workplace in 2005!

Winter Sets in 2005

Sun 4 Dec
The New York Giants squeezed by the Dallas Cowboys, 17-10. Meanwhile, I woke to snow (~2cm) on the ground. Despite the thinness and the wetness, I still took an hour to shovel it off.
I still struggle while trying to find the time for creativity. The last session at Block along with my look through the book has led me to the question of how to pull it off. Surely the same skills would similarly help me in the other kind of business I want to conduct.

Wed 7 Dec
I was dreaming again of being in Bruce Murphy's class in prelaw. Tonight I will not have to go to Block -- the general training is over until this date next month. There appears to be a shortage of tax preparers again this year. Meanwhile, I'm back online with the ethics course.
Tonght Tim needs a bath and a suppository. The dog needs a bath as well, for she's carrying coprolites on her rear again. I'm going to trim off all the fur around her anus!
Of course, I'm back to work on linear algebra. It's so ironic that I gave up when the course actually was easing into statistics, which I aced the following year.
At work, the big thing is the changeover of our copier paper, and the gruntwork I must do in preparation.

Fri 9 Dec
I walked through a snowstorm to work this morning. I was so tired that I went to bed at 8 AM, only to be awakened at 3 AM. The snow began soon after. It was very sloppy, and the sun's been out much of the day, so it shouldn't be bad going home tonight.

Sat 10 Dec
I bought "9 to 5", and I haven't seen it since February 1981. It seems to be a long time ago, and much naïveté ago. I look at that situation much differently than I did in 1981. Of course, it also means that I've become much wiser. I bought it to see it again and to hear it in French with Spanish captions.

As Winter 2005-6 Sets in...

I am trying to come to terms with what Romaine Pattersnon wrote in "The WHole World Was Watching", and what I have from other sources. I want to place it on a permanent site.

Tue 29 Nov 8:10
The monetray problem intensified this week because Mom took $500 out of the wrong account. I am forced to reconcile the difference, to keep disaster from happening with the beginning of the new month.
Meanwhile, I dreamed in color of that very large house, and that I was exploring the attic. Some of the dormers were as large as room. I also had to explain what I didn't visit during the summers of the 1960's.
15:15
As I try to get through the Silva method, I find myself going back to the root of the problem to Nanticoke. I first experienced bullying after we had moved to Ashley, when I had to adapt to a new environment. I've thought about a corollary to existentialism -- by not making decisions, one drifts along aimlessly by default. Then further avoidnace of decisions leave others to make those decisions.
Out three years in Ashley linger much more than I'd thought. I will have to try breaking away from the harmful residue. The constant powerlessness and putdowns must have steered me along the inertia I still feel some four decades later.

Fri 2 Dec
One week remains with the training at Block. It's good that the rest of the week reverts to normal. Nonetheless, I must go through the book, which may just give me clues about mortgage and financial planning.