Journals : 2005 : October
4 October 2005 | Link this
Sorry. I think I accidentally posted a half-finished article I was working on last week here for a few hours this afternoon...
5 October 2005 | Link this
Random thoughts for a Wednesday afternoon:
- I brought my mom into the 21st century this past weekend by upgrading her original Bondi Blue iMac to from OS 8.5 to OS X. While the whole transition was a little hard on me, since I couldn't swear too much while doing the install, it seems to have made things much more pleasant for her. She's not really what you'd call an intensive user -- she pretty much checks email, gets stock quotes online, and does the occasional bit of word processing -- so the interface change isn't causing her much grief. She just thinks it's prettier...
- A little identity theft is an annoying thing. We've just determined that someone has been charging her Sprint phone to our checking account. Actually, it's not such a big deal, as we've already closed the account and will be filing a police report shortly just for the record. In fact, Bank of America's lack of any discernible customer service has made it an even easier call for us to move our money to a local credit union, so maybe there's even a good side to it all...
- Why is EVERYTHING so much more convenient here than in The City of Doom™? It's even easier to get a doctor's appointment here; there's none of that "six to eight weeks for a new patient appointment" bullshit you seen in SF.
- Is it just a coincidence that during the very year Mark and I moved here from California (where such things are commonplace), Charlotte experienced one of its hottest, driest summers ever AND suddenly began having some of the highest gas prices in the country? Just curious...
10 October 2005 | Link this
In case you needed a bit more proof that age and wisdom are not necessarily related, here it is...
10 October 2005 Later | Link this
Wow. My hometown just lost its primary industry. That's a blow it wasn't really prepared to take right now, I fear...
Unrelated: do any of you typography nerds (and I know there are a couple of you out there) have any idea what the font pictured above might be?
12 October 2005 | Link this
This has a certain appeal:
Smurfette is left for dead. Baby Smurf is left crying and orphaned as the Smurf's village is carpet bombed by warplanes — a horrific scene and imagery not normally associated with the lovable blue-skinned cartoon characters.
Puts me in mind of the first art exhibit I ever attended in college. It was entitled "101 Uses for a Dead Smurf" or something to that effect. All in all, I think it still rates as the BEST art exhibit I've ever attended...
It's only been 36 hours and I already miss my hubby. But I AM happy that a reader has provided me with the information I sought yesterday. Thanks Jon (a much nicer Jon, I might add, than the one who emailed this bit of this bit of bilge to M. Sturtle...
The font is Advertisers Gothic, by the way...
13 October 2005 | Link this
A post card from the past...
I remember visiting Underground Atlanta as a child, when my Dad and I would drive down to see my Mom while she was there on business. It was the early 1970s, right after the whole area had been "rediscovered", and it was still rather a dark, adult-themed restaurant and entertainment center...
It was great in a sort of late 1960s nostalgia-obsessed sort of way which allowed it still to seem just a little seedy on some level despite being brand new on another. I remember there being a lot of that when I was a kid; it's as if the whole country suddenly became enthralled with the turn of the century. This was the era of Farrell's Ice Cream Parlors and Victoria Station Restaurants. Supermarkets sprouted faux gas lamps, red flocked wallpaper was suddenly hot again, and every restaurant looked a little like a Victorian San Francisco whorehouse...
Anyway, the old incarnation of Underground Atlanta was too cool to last. By 1980, the area was apparently pretty scary, and MARTA construction didn't help, but a "new" Underground Atlanta rose (sank?) in 1989. Unfortunately, it wasn't the same. I was horrified when I visited shortly after the renaissance; it was nothing but a big, bright, cheerful mall with a giant Coke bottle at its entrance...
Alas, it had fallen victim to that too common American tendency to take anything cool and interesting and turn it into a "family friendly" theme park version of its former self, eliminating pretty much any of the characteristics -- and characters -- which made it appealing in the first place. The "new and improved" Times Square is a prime example, although San Francisco is an even better one, since the transformation has happened almost citywide there...
I hope the rebirth of New Orleans doesn't follow a similar pattern. I'm about 95% certain, though, that it will. It's amazing the damage that an army of planners and developers armed with millions of tax dollars can do...
16 October 2005 | Link this
I don't like living alone...
17 October 2005 | Link this
Happy birthday to the best Mom in the world...
18 October 2005 | Link this
In the shopping center near my house, across from the Wal-Mart Supercenter and next to the Dollar Tree, there is something called a Family Christian Store. Every time I drive by, I have to stifle my urge to walk in and ask what kind of Christians they have on sale today. Maybe something dependable AND economical, perhaps?
What I'd really like is a nice cute, young Mormon boy. They're so shiny and fresh and healthy-looking , after all. Just like non-organic produce...
I'd also need to find out about their return policy, I suppose, because I'm almost sure I'd end up bringing him back after trying him out one or twice. Especially if he made the mistake of trying to start up a conversation. I understand that a restocking fee would probably apply, and I'm comfortable with that...
18 October 2005 Later | Link this
I'm so mad I could spit. I opted for COBRA coverage after leaving my job in San Francisco so as to maintain uninterrupted coverage. This means, of course, that I have to pay my own monthly premium. The specifics of that payment, as detailed in the letter sent to me when I signed up are as follows:
All future monthly premiums are due within 30 days of the due date, which is the first of each month. For example, the due date for the month of October is October 1, and you will have until October 31 to remit the premium. Failure to remit the premium within 30 days of the due date will result in a loss of coverage.
It's as plain as it can be: payment for October must be received by the 31st of that month. What they don't mention, in the above paragraph nor on ANY of the other paperwork and invoices they sent me, is that if you should happen to use this grace period they discuss and send your payment after the first of the month, all claims will be denied until they receive that check...
This really sucks. Not the policy, mind you, which I understand completely, but the fact that its implications were NEVER detailed to me in advance. Being a relatively intelligent person without psychic powers, I took a statement like "you will have until October 31 to remit the premium" at face value, particularly since there was no fine print suggesting I shouldn't. And yes, I even checked for fine print. Silly me...
I explained all this to the nice lady at HealthComp, stressing how upset I was to be told -- while standing in a Walgreens 90 miles from home -- that my coverage had been "terminated" for non-payment. As she kept defending the policy to me, I kept telling her I had no problem with the goddamned policy, but with the shoddy way it was (never) communicated to me in advance. I still don't think she ever quite got the message...
So instead of being at the State Fair tonight after spending some extra time with my mom, I'm back in Charlotte, fuming. I had to come home this morrning so I could collect all the documentation which would prove that I was, as far as I knew, completely current in my payments. For all the good it did me...
Anyway, it will all be cleared up in a day or two. And from now on, I'll know that my due date with HealthComp is exactly 30 days earlier than they say it is...
19 October 2005 | Link this
One of my pet peeves: when people use the terms "chain" and "franchise" interchangeably. Of course, it's a mistake usually made by squishy granolas who are complaining about what a social evil these type of businesses are. This is what makes it even much more annoying, because franchise businesses can actually encourage local entrepeneurial spirit...
For the record: Wal-Mart, Borders, Best Buy, Safeway, and the like are NOT franchises. These stores are 100% owned and operated by their respective parent companies, making them chain stores. As a rule, non-restaurant retail establishments tend to be chain stores rather than franchises, although there are exceptions...
Franchises, on the other hand, are owned by someone other than a parent company (often a local operator), but operate using that company's brand name and image through a licensing agreement. Franchising is common to the resturant industry, partcularly in fast food, but a few retail stores and service businesses are also franchises: Hallmark card stores, IGA supermarkets, and Sir Speedy printing, for example. Franchises offer varying degrees of local control, and the agreement may be little more restrictive than requiring the use of a name. In some cases, the local entrepeneur's name may even precede the "brand name" (e.g. "Bubba's IGA" or "Lurleen's Hallmark")...
Now that I've made that clarification, I can safely return to my job search, message boards, and "In the Heat of the Night" reruns...
19 October 2005 Later | Link this
Only seventy years ago, the World Book Encyclopedia read like this:
North Carolina was one of the pioneer states of the South in the systematic care of defective and dependent classes. A state board of charities controls charitable and correctional institutions. In 1925 the control of the state prison department was given to a board of seven directors appointed by the governor and the senate. The institutions include hospitals for the insane at Morganton, Raleigh, and Goldsboro (colored); and institution for the feeble-minded at Kinston; a tuberculosis sanitarium at Sanitarium; the state prison at Raleigh; a colored orphanage at Oxford; Stonewall Jackson Training School for white boys at Concord; a home and industrial school for girls; and Morrison Training School for Negro Boys.
The terminology used and the assumption that tuberculosis, insanity, and crime were all pretty much the same problem seem terrifically offensive to most people today, but this was no doubt the height of cultural sensitivity at the time. Do you think currently-fashonable PC jargon will hold up any better over the next seven decades? Will people find ridiculous acronyms like "GLBTQ" or unweildy and imprecise terms like "communites of color" any more acceptable? I have my doubts...
I do rather like the idea of being able to say "feeble-minded" in an academic setting, though....
19 October 2005 Even Later | Link this
Notice that I post a lot more when Mark isn't around? I suspect nervous energy is the culprit. Or maybe just the lack of someone to bounce these half-baked ideas off before forcing them on unsuspecting readers...
20 October 2005 | Link this
From June of 1993, it's Grungemaster Dave™ with the optional black bandanna attachment. I'm finding lots of interesting past versions of myself as I go through my entire collection of analog photos, tossing about half and scanning the other half into iPhoto...
Watch this space for more unfortunate hairstyles, drunken moments, and long lost T-shirts from years past. Unless I get bored with it all. Or depressed at how fat I've gotten...
Actually, I must admit that I sort of like this one...
21 October 2005 | Link this
This is a joke, right?
22 October 2005 | Link this
I took my Mom to the State Fair and we saw a mutant pumpkin and ate hot dogs made by nice Methodist ladies in hair nets...
23 October 2005 | Link this
Y'know, I'm not exactly sure if I should be flattered or depressed at the several mash notes I've gotten based on that old picture I posted a few days back. After all, no one prefaced their remarks with "of course you look great NOW too...."
Alas...
I'm gonna go drive around and take pictures of dead shopping centers now. I was going to hang around the house today, but I've got two thirds of a tank of nice, cheap $2.49/gallon gas from Greensboro in the Toyota, and it's exerting a tremendous pull on me...
By the way, did I mention how happy I am that fall seems finally to have arrived? I've been looking forward to it for several years now...
24 October 2005 | Link this
In about eighty-four hours, I'll be in San Francisco visiting my hubby for the fourth anniversary of the weekend we met. Fortunately, we'll be LEAVING San Francisco with twenty-four hours of my arrival, bound for a weekend in Fresno...
I'm very happpy to be making this trip, because I miss Mark something fierce and because I'm looking forward to seeing some friends. But I have to say that the San Francisco aspect of the trip doesn't do much for me. I'm not actively dreading it or anything; I'm just a touch ambivalent. It's rather like going through a bad breakup with someone and then running into him at a party shortly afterward. I'm not quite ready to deal with San Francisco just yet. Fortunately, I won't have to deal with it very much...
I sometimes wonder if I'll ever really be excited about visiting San Francisco again. I imagine that some sort of nostlagia will set in at some point, but I think it's going to take quite a while...
Strangely enough, I miss LA a whole bunch. Probably because I never lived there...
25 October 2005 | Link this
Interesting moments in hair, continued. These are from 1982 and 1987:
26 October 2005 | Link this
Four years in and I love him more than ever. Happy anniversary, baby...
26 October 2005 Later | Link this
The cool thing about having a Halowe'en related anniversary is that your betrothed can send you cool flower arrangements like this one...
I spent my annniversary with my Mom and Dad, actually. They came down for the afternoon, we had lunch at Gus' Sir Beef, and then we drove around Charlotte and did a bit of shopping. The flowers showed up about three minutes after we got home. And then, I checked my answering machine and found that (yay!) someone actually wants to interview me for a job. And it's not at McDonald's OR the new Dunkin' Donuts down the street...
It's been a good day, all in all. Only one thing would have made it better...
27 October 2005 | Link this
Only rarely do you walk out to your car in the morning, start it up, and hear Elvis Presley singing "Dixie" on the radio. You know what would make life even better? Replacing the "only rarely" in that first sentence with a "never"...
27 October 2005 Later | Link this
Maybe it's a big sign that I'm becoming the old codger I've always tried so desperately to be, but the thought of paying fifty to a hundred bucks to see a band play for an hour or two just doesn't have the appeal it once did for me. Of course, the thought of paying more than a hundred bucks to see some sucktastic spectacle like the Rolling Stones NEVER had much appeal...
If I were ever going to be tempted by such a splurge, though, it would defintely be by Bauhaus on Hallowe'en...
27 October 2005 Even Later | Link this
The "you're not allowed to be a spokesperson anymore" award du jour goes to Greensboro assistant police chief Tim Bellamy, who uttered the following undeniable truism of panhandlers in the area:
"They're people and they're human, too."
Uh, yeah...
27 October 2005 Still Later | Link this
Reason I like Charlotte better than San Francisco #42,348:
Parking my car in the long-term airport lot in Charlotte for FIVE days will cost about the same as parking it in the long-term airport lot in San Francisco for ONE day would...