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How to Tell if Your Cat is Plotting to Kill YouLink
"Throughout the Presidential Transition Project, this website will be your source for the latest news, events, and announcements so that you can follow the setting up of the Obama Administration. And just as this historic campaign was, from the beginning, about you -- the transition process will offer you opportunities to participate in redefining our government.
Come back often as we define new programs and possibilities to engage and be part of this administration."
So here's the deal. I still love Vegas and had absolutely no intention of moving back to the east coast at this time, but I was offered a really terrific position with Gannett's Digital Division (Gannett owns USA TODAY where I work now), and it is an opportunity I just couldn't pass it up.
Hoping to be back in the DC area by the 1st of the year. Of course everyone knows selling my Vegas condo right now is not happening, and renting could take a while. Otherwise, I will be making the trek back as soon as I can.
If you planned to come to Vegas to visit, you better hurry and make your reservations.
For all my Vegas friends on here, you know I will be back, often, and now I will have plenty of friend's houses to stay at when I vacation in sin city!
That's the news... carry on!
Link
Washington Post (sorta) endorses Obama for President. Some interesting points made.
=================================================================
Barack Obama for President
Friday, October 17, 2008; Page A24
THE NOMINATING process this year produced two unusually talented and qualified presidential candidates. There are few public figures we have respected more over the years than Sen. John McCain. Yet it is without ambivalence that we endorse Sen. Barack Obama for president.
The choice is made easy in part by Mr. McCain's disappointing campaign, above all his irresponsible selection of a running mate who is not ready to be president. It is made easy in larger part, though, because of our admiration for Mr. Obama and the impressive qualities he has shown during this long race. Yes, we have reservations and concerns, almost inevitably, given Mr. Obama's relatively brief experience in national politics. But we also have enormous hopes.
Mr. Obama is a man of supple intelligence, with a nuanced grasp of complex issues and evident skill at conciliation and consensus-building. At home, we believe, he would respond to the economic crisis with a healthy respect for markets tempered by justified dismay over rising inequality and an understanding of the need for focused regulation. Abroad, the best evidence suggests that he would seek to maintain U.S. leadership and engagement, continue the fight against terrorists, and wage vigorous diplomacy on behalf of U.S. values and interests. Mr. Obama has the potential to become a great president. Given the enormous problems he would confront from his first day in office, and the damage wrought over the past eight years, we would settle for very good.
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The first question, in fact, might be why either man wants the job. Start with two ongoing wars, both far from being won; an unstable, nuclear-armed Pakistan; a resurgent Russia menacing its neighbors; a terrorist-supporting Iran racing toward nuclear status; a roiling Middle East; a rising China seeking its place in the world. Stir in the threat of nuclear or biological terrorism, the burdens of global poverty and disease, and accelerating climate change. Domestically, wages have stagnated while public education is failing a generation of urban, mostly minority children. Now add the possibility of the deepest economic trough since the Great Depression.
Not even his fiercest critics would blame President Bush for all of these problems, and we are far from being his fiercest critic. But for the past eight years, his administration, while pursuing some worthy policies (accountability in education, homeland security, the promotion of freedom abroad), has also championed some stunningly wrongheaded ones (fiscal recklessness, torture, utter disregard for the planet's ecological health) and has acted too often with incompetence, arrogance or both. A McCain presidency would not equal four more years, but outside of his inner circle, Mr. McCain would draw on many of the same policymakers who have brought us to our current state. We believe they have richly earned, and might even benefit from, some years in the political wilderness.
OF COURSE, Mr. Obama offers a great deal more than being not a Republican. There are two sets of issues that matter most in judging these candidacies. The first has to do with restoring and promoting prosperity and sharing its fruits more evenly in a globalizing era that has suppressed wages and heightened inequality. Here the choice is not a close call. Mr. McCain has little interest in economics and no apparent feel for the topic. His principal proposal, doubling down on the Bush tax cuts, would exacerbate the fiscal wreckage and the inequality simultaneously. Mr. Obama's economic plan contains its share of unaffordable promises, but it pushes more in the direction of fairness and fiscal health. Both men have pledged to tackle climate change.
Mr. Obama also understands that the most important single counter to inequality, and the best way to maintain American competitiveness, is improved education, another subject of only modest interest to Mr. McCain. Mr. Obama would focus attention on early education and on helping families so that another generation of poor children doesn't lose out. His budgets would be less likely to squeeze out important programs such as Head Start and Pell grants. Though he has been less definitive than we would like, he supports accountability measures for public schools and providing parents choices by means of charter schools.
A better health-care system also is crucial to bolstering U.S. competitiveness and relieving worker insecurity. Mr. McCain is right to advocate an end to the tax favoritism showed to employer plans. This system works against lower-income people, and Mr. Obama has disparaged the McCain proposal in deceptive ways. But Mr. McCain's health plan doesn't do enough to protect those who cannot afford health insurance. Mr. Obama hopes to steer the country toward universal coverage by charting a course between government mandates and individual choice, though we question whether his plan is affordable or does enough to contain costs.
The next president is apt to have the chance to nominate one or more Supreme Court justices. Given the court's current precarious balance, we think Obama appointees could have a positive impact on issues from detention policy and executive power to privacy protections and civil rights.
Overshadowing all of these policy choices may be the financial crisis and the recession it is likely to spawn. It is almost impossible to predict what policies will be called for by January, but certainly the country will want in its president a combination of nimbleness and steadfastness -- precisely the qualities Mr. Obama has displayed during the past few weeks. When he might have been scoring political points against the incumbent, he instead responsibly urged fellow Democrats in Congress to back Mr. Bush's financial rescue plan. He has surrounded himself with top-notch, experienced, centrist economic advisers -- perhaps the best warranty that, unlike some past presidents of modest experience, Mr. Obama will not ride into town determined to reinvent every policy wheel. Some have disparaged Mr. Obama as too cool, but his unflappability over the past few weeks -- indeed, over two years of campaigning -- strikes us as exactly what Americans might want in their president at a time of great uncertainty.
ON THE SECOND set of issues, having to do with keeping America safe in a dangerous world, it is a closer call. Mr. McCain has deep knowledge and a longstanding commitment to promoting U.S. leadership and values.
But Mr. Obama, as anyone who reads his books can tell, also has a sophisticated understanding of the world and America's place in it. He, too, is committed to maintaining U.S. leadership and sticking up for democratic values, as his recent defense of tiny Georgia makes clear. We hope he would navigate between the amoral realism of some in his party and the counterproductive cocksureness of the current administration, especially in its first term. On most policies, such as the need to go after al-Qaeda, check Iran's nuclear ambitions and fight HIV/AIDS abroad, he differs little from Mr. Bush or Mr. McCain. But he promises defter diplomacy and greater commitment to allies. His team overstates the likelihood that either of those can produce dramatically better results, but both are certainly worth trying.
Mr. Obama's greatest deviation from current policy is also our biggest worry: his insistence on withdrawing U.S. combat troops from Iraq on a fixed timeline. Thanks to the surge that Mr. Obama opposed, it may be feasible to withdraw many troops during his first two years in office. But if it isn't -- and U.S. generals have warned that the hard-won gains of the past 18 months could be lost by a precipitous withdrawal -- we can only hope and assume that Mr. Obama would recognize the strategic importance of success in Iraq and adjust his plans.
We also can only hope that the alarming anti-trade rhetoric we have heard from Mr. Obama during the campaign would give way to the understanding of the benefits of trade reflected in his writings. A silver lining of the financial crisis may be the flexibility it gives Mr. Obama to override some of the interest groups and members of Congress in his own party who oppose open trade, as well as to pursue the entitlement reform that he surely understands is needed.
IT GIVES US no pleasure to oppose Mr. McCain. Over the years, he has been a force for principle and bipartisanship. He fought to recognize Vietnam, though some of his fellow ex-POWs vilified him for it. He stood up for humane immigration reform, though he knew Republican primary voters would punish him for it. He opposed torture and promoted campaign finance reform, a cause that Mr. Obama injured when he broke his promise to accept public financing in the general election campaign. Mr. McCain staked his career on finding a strategy for success in Iraq when just about everyone else in Washington was ready to give up. We think that he, too, might make a pretty good president.
But the stress of a campaign can reveal some essential truths, and the picture of Mr. McCain that emerged this year is far from reassuring. To pass his party's tax-cut litmus test, he jettisoned his commitment to balanced budgets. He hasn't come up with a coherent agenda, and at times he has seemed rash and impulsive. And we find no way to square his professed passion for America's national security with his choice of a running mate who, no matter what her other strengths, is not prepared to be commander in chief.
ANY PRESIDENTIAL vote is a gamble, and Mr. Obama's résumé is undoubtedly thin. We had hoped, throughout this long campaign, to see more evidence that Mr. Obama might stand up to Democratic orthodoxy and end, as he said in his announcement speech, "our chronic avoidance of tough decisions."
But Mr. Obama's temperament is unlike anything we've seen on the national stage in many years. He is deliberate but not indecisive; eloquent but a master of substance and detail; preternaturally confident but eager to hear opposing points of view. He has inspired millions of voters of diverse ages and races, no small thing in our often divided and cynical country. We think he is the right man for a perilous moment.
I have experienced anxiety. I knew it at the time. It’s pretty obvious; at least it was to me. It wasn’t right away, it took a few events spanning over a year to really throw me into the throws of panic, but it finally did happen.
I should start this story at the beginning. I was at work. It was a beautiful fall day in the DC metro area. I was on the 30th floor of my building, in a meeting with my boss. Someone walked by the door and said “a plane hit the twin towers”. It seemed like such a strange statement, although I don’t know why, but we only paused from our business briefly. A quick search on a news site didn’t tell us anything, so we continued with our meeting. “Two planes hit the twin towers”. Well that will stop you in your tracks. Off to a nearby office with a TV, we watched the horror unfold. Like the rest of the world. But soon our experiences were very different than the rest of the world.
“Oh my god, the Pentagon is on fire” screams my coworker. Our building in Roslyn, VA was about 2 miles from the Pentagon. We did not see that unfold on TV. We saw it out our window. My boss, the patriarch of our business unit, realized this was an ‘event’ and calmly directed everyone to leave the 30th floor. Soon after, the Arlington Fire Department, over the speaker system, asked everyone to evacuate the building.
Some things are blurry at this point. I know I didn’t leave. I went to my office on the 6th floor. I tried to call my family in NY, but obviously the lines weren’t working. I shot an email out to every relative I have that had email, saying if you speak to my family, I am fine, if they speak to you, please let me know they are fine… I was most concerned about my brother and sister in law in Manhattan. I was also beginning to worry about my colleagues in our mid town office as well as my friends who had friends and family at the Pentagon. Then worrying about everyone.
Of course, being the IT Manager I went into business continuity mode and began making sure our disaster recovery systems would kick into affect if we could not get back into this office the next day. I would take brief peeks at the TV in the Production room, where all the managers and directors were piled in. But once the first tower fell, I couldn’t watch anymore. I remembered a drawing I made my mother when I was a kid, it was of the twin towers and other buildings in NYC, and it said something like “Nothing beats the New York skyline”. I wondered where that picture was. I still do. When I finally did leave the building, somewhat by force by the FD, there were soldiers in the streets with automatic weapons, and fighter jets flew over head. This was 1 of the 2 most surreal moments I would experience over the next 12 months. The next couple days were stressful. But this is not when I started to have anxiety. Not even close.
My everyone was ok. Everyone had there stories. My cousin walked through the city from downtown to Brooklyn, some people were evacuated from their homes b/c of possible contamination, one acquaintance from college lost her fiancé on flight 93.
That is my 9/11 story. But that is not where this story ends.
In the spring of 2002, things were different. Security at our building, b/c USA TODAY was considered a potential target, was ramped up. I didn’t mind. I was attending a conference at our building. I was over in Tower 1, having dinner with the other conference attendees. I decided to go to my office and shut down my computer,etc, so I could leave straight after the meetings were done. It was probably around 6pm. I walked over to Tower 2, where my office was. It was located on the 6th floor, which was actually the ground level. I never really minded the location, although others complained. It was back in a dingy part of the building, near the mailroom and shipping bay.
Anyway, I went through security, used my badge to open the double doors and I walk almost smack into a man wearing full hazmat gear. He was covered head to toe, even with duct tape around his ankles and wrists. I was stopped in my tracks. I ask, “Can I be here?” He looked at me, somewhat carelessly and said, “yeah, you’re fine.” Huh. I didn’t feel fine. I definitely did not feel fine. This was quite possibly the most unfine I ever felt. A day or so after this I found out there was a suspicious envelope of white powdery substance sent to an editor at USA TODAY. It was not anthrax. Um, good. Without a doubt in my mind I can say that was the scariest moment, as in I felt in personal danger, I had ever, and still to this day have ever experienced. But surprisingly- still wasn’t having anxiety attacks.
October 2002, over a year after 9/11, the straw that broke my panic attack free back- a little thing we fondly refer to now as the DC Sniper. Yeah, that guy (or guys as it turned out). I know people heard stories. The press really did make it sound worse then it was. We weren’t afraid to go outside. That is silly. Getting gasoline though, hmm, that was a little scary. One afternoon I was heading to work, Route 50 around Bailey’s Crossroads (yes- where that one woman was shot in the Home Depot parking lot). I was looking around the streets and noticed a white van (that was what we were supposed to be on the look out for) in the turn lane to my left. It wasn’t turning though; it was just sitting there. I freaked out. I didn’t know if I should drive on, if it had a bomb on it, if the guy was gonna pull out his rifle and shoot someone. The traffic was bad, so I continued to sit, staring at this van. More and more, deep in me some horrible feeling. What is this feeling… oh, it’s anxiety. Huh. Well the van put its signal on and pulled back into the main road. I guess that wasn’t his street. I know he doesn’t know what he triggered in me…. But that was the event.
They weren’t panic attacks, per se. Just full time anxiety. Hard to function anxiety. I made my little emergency kit in my house (a milk crate full of essentials). I taped up my windows and all the other ridiculously silly things the government was telling us to do. I had no rational thoughts left about the imminent danger I was in. I was scared. All the time.
Finally drugs took care of it. And it’s gone now. Drug and anxiety free is me. At least that kind of anxiety. And in retrospect, I don’t feel like there was any way I wasn’t going to have that happen to me, mentally. Those were crazy days. Times are still insane in a lot of respects, but I am glad I made it through that storm.
My story, on anxiety.
Somehow I ended up with a ton of crates/cartons, etc from my parents house. One is filled with old Star Wars toys. Not the figures, but rather pieces of ships and star stations (?) like parts of the millennium falcon, etc. These are in no way what we would call mint condition. They have all been played with, some have missing pieces and some have stickers peeling off.
Can I please just throw them away???? I think they were kept this long because of a thought that they may be worth money some day. But I think that would only be the case if they were in good condition or still in original packaging.
I could really use the closet space- may I dump these toy fragments? Yes??? Yes???
(I am keeping the sand cruiser b/c it is cool)
Wrapping Presents 101 for Cat Owners
1. Clear large space on table for wrapping present.
2. Go to wardrobe and collect bag in which present is contained, and close door.
3. Open door and remove cat from wardrobe.
4. Go to cupboard and retrieve rolls of wrapping paper.
5. Go back and remove cat from cupboard.
6. Go to drawer and collect transparent sticky tape, ribbons, scissors, labels, etc.
7. Lay out present and wrapping materials on table, to enable wrapping strategy to be formed.
8. Go back to drawer to get string, remove cat that has been in the drawer since last visit, and collect string.
9. Remove present from bag.
10. Remove cat from bag.
11. Open box to check present, remove cat from box, replace present.
12. Lay out paper to enable cutting to size.
13. Cut the paper to size, trying to keep the cutting line straight.
14. Throw away first sheet because cat tried to chase the scissors and tore the paper.
15. Cut second sheet of paper to size by putting cat in the bag the present came out of.
16. Place present on cut-to-size paper.
17. Lift up edges of paper to seal in present, wonder why edges now don't reach, and find cat between present and paper. Remove cat and retry.
18. Place object on paper, to hold in place, while cutting transparent sticky tape.
19. Spend next 20 minutes carefully trying to remove transparent sticky tape from cat with pair of nail scissors.
20. Seal paper down with transparent sticky tape, making corners as neat as possible.
21. Look for roll of ribbon; chase cat down hall and retrieve ribbon.
22. Try to wrap present with ribbon in a two-directional turn.
23. Re-roll up ribbon and remove paper that is now torn, due to cat's enthusiasm in chasing ribbon end.
24. Repeat steps 12-22 until down to last sheet of paper.
25. Decide to skip steps 12-16 in order to save time and reduce risk of losing last sheet of paper. Retrieve old cardboard box that you know is right size for sheet of paper.
26. Put present in box, and tie down with string.
27. Remove string, open box and remove cat.
28. Put all packing materials in bag with present and head for lockable room.
29. Once inside room, lock door and start to re-lay out packing materials.
30. Remove cat from box, unlock door, put cat outside door, close door and re-lock.
31. Lay out last sheet of paper. (Admittedly this is difficult in the small area of the toilet, but try your best!)
32. Seal box, wrap with paper and start repairs by very carefully sealing down tears with transparent sticky tape. Now tie up with ribbon and decorate with bows to hide worst affected areas.
33. Label, then sit back and admire your handiwork, congratulating yourself on making good of a bad job.
34. Unlock door, and go to kitchen to make drink and feed cat.
35. Spend next 15 minutes looking for cat, before coming to obvious conclusion.
36. Unwrap present, untie box and remove cat.
37. Retrieve all discarded sheets of wrapping paper, feed cat and retire to lockable room for last attempt, making certain you are alone and the door is locked.
38. At time of handing over present, smile sweetly at receiver's face, as they try and hide their contempt at being handed such a badly wrapped present.
39. Swear to yourself that next year, you will get the store to wrap the darn thing for you.
 | Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook Manufacturer: Da Capo Press Price: $17.24 Learn More |
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| Start: | Oct 3, '08 |
| End: | Oct 5, '08 |
| Location: | Carpinteria, CA |
 | Food for Life: How the New Four Food Groups Can Save Your Life Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press Price: $8.32 Learn More |
| Rating: | ★★★★ |
| Category: | Movies |
| Genre: | Comedy |
| Rating: | ★★★★★ |
| Category: | Movies |
| Genre: | Comedy |
| Rating: | ★★★★★ |
| Category: | Movies |
| Genre: | Comedy |
| Start: | Jun 12, '08 |
| End: | Jun 20, '08 |
| Location: | Brendan Theaters, Palms |
| Start: | Apr 12, '08 7:00p |
| Location: | Four Seasons |
