another rant of sorts

It is time to get busy when post after post is a rant not of the latest news report, but of my daily encounters in life. I need to cease with the errand running, car fixing, apartment hunt type of life and become again too busy to take care of things and totally consumed in my work so that the actual world does not drive me completely insane. Today I would like to talk about the Dallas rental market and the economic segregation of today. It seems down every street I turn a third of the houses are for sale or lease. I did not expect to see so many houses and apartments on the market. After a week of calling and emailing contact information found on such signs I can tell you why. No one is answering the phone or returning messages. It must be difficult to find a buyer or renter when you're ignoring them! Enough said on that. The economic divide..and I apologize those who've heard this already..I'm a bit struck by it. I've driven at almost random over a fair part of the Dallas area in the last couple weeks looking at properties and neighborhoods that I might fancy myself to live in. I've decided Dallas is the striking example of the rich being richer and the poor being poorer, thus the disappearance of the middle class. The middle class must be in the Dallas suburbs or living in homes beyond their means in Dallas proper. The rich seem to live in pockets surrounded by neighborhoods of the people who serve them - the poor. Unfortunately with this goes a bit of sketchiness and high crime rates. I find it really sad. This is just the observation of a couple weeks of my own house hunting and no solid data but my own experience, so I would love for one more acquainted with Dallas to prove me mistaken. Until then..the search goes on for home sweet home...

a slight rant

I began to blog earlier today and rant about service calls. I'm currently subletting a house and the cable went out last week. My roommate promptly called the cable folks when he got back in town and they scheduled to come out today. Now, I currently work from home, so being around when they came today was no problem, I was going to be sitting here on the computer all day anyhow. My curiosity is more in theory. In the wider world and in 11 out of 12 months of my own life..who can just be at home between 8 and 8 to wait for the cable to be fixed? Really..you can't narrow it down more than that? As I began to blog earlier, around noon, they showed up. What they thought would be a twenty minute stop turned into more than 90 minutes. I can see that this would put a kink in a scheduled day but when all 11 of your 'scheduled' calls are on 12 hour standby. I'd also like to note that while being here I learned that the day of the two service men at my house did not start till 10 and another crew on the walkie-talkie phones didn't start till 11. Why am I on standby at 8am (not that I got up, but I did leave my phone on) if the service workers aren't starting till late morning? Seriously.
I had put this all aside until I just received an email from my student loan company. My student loan company for which I had to go to their site myself to find out that I was already (mind you only 40 days past graduation) past due on my first payment. No late fee-no worries. I'm all paid up now. Watch out for your GradPlus loans fellow students they have NO grace period. So, I laugh to receive an email today that includes the following, "Dear Graduate, Our records show that you may or may not have just graduated. Congratulations and thank you for choosing *** as your student loan partner." *I do actually like my lender so I won't list them here to publicly shame them even though their 'records' seem questionable. If anyone figures out my graduation status and needs me to be on 12-hour standby let me know. Till then, I'd just like to say our service industry needs some help.

Wordle

Thanks, Bruce, I'm recently addicted. This is my resume! How much more fun then the 1 page front and back 10point arial version.

co-opted?

So what really gets me about this is the OneNewsNow news director's comments...

Christian Site's Ban on 'G' Word Sends Homosexual to Olympics
The American Family Association obviously didn't foresee the problems that might arise with its strict policy to always replace the word "gay" with "homosexual" on the Web site of its Christian news outlet, OneNewsNow. The group's automated system for changing the forbidden word wound up publishing a story about a world-class sprinter named "Tyson Homosexual" who qualified this week for the Beijing Olympics.
The problem: Tyson's real last name is Gay. Therefore, OneNewsNow's reliable software changed the Associated Press story about Tyson Gay's amazing Olympic qualifying trial to read this way:
Tyson Homosexual was a blur in blue, sprinting 100 meters faster than anyone ever has.
His time of 9.68 seconds at the U.S. Olympic trials Sunday doesn't count as a world record, because it was run with the help of a too-strong tailwind. Here's what does matter: Homosexual qualified for his first Summer Games team and served notice he's certainly someone to watch in Beijing.
"It means a lot to me," the 25-year-old Homosexual said. "I'm glad my body could do it, because now I know I have it in me."
The article continues...
Fred Jackson, news director of OneNewsNow, tells the Sleuth his organization has now fixed the software glitch. "We took the filter out for that word," he said, without uttering the "G" word.
"We don't object to the word 'gay,'" Jackson explained, except "when it refers to people who practice a homosexual lifestyle." And the "G" word, he says, has "been co-opted by a particular group of people." (People who are g-a-y.)

being the new girl

It's like the night before the first day of school. I'm a little nervous. I've been picking out my outfit. I wonder what they'll think of me. Will they like me? Will I fit it? Who will my friends be by the end of the year? Will I say the right thing for the offertory prayer??...well may be that one's a little different. Its funny to sit here and be mildly nervous for tomorrow. I've already worked this week and managed to live, yet this jitters are still here. How unfortunate is it that even in going to a place where love and fellowship are key aspects I am still concerned with what people might think of me. Mostly, this is a passing thought, but my life and society has effected such that I anticipate at least a mild amount of judgement to fill tomorrow (I don't exclude myself from that act either). I know these people are wonderful and will love me, they've already told me so. But no matter how many times we step onto the stage I still get opening night jitters. Part of me hopes I always will. Part of me thinks its all pretty silly.

First Days

I'm just home from my second 'day of work'. This included a few emails from home, dinner with the Praise Band leader and band practice. For two people I am making quite a difference in their lives, I will be taking over many tasks that they don't have the time nor need to be doing themselves. They could not be more excited for my arrival. For the rest, they understand that I am needed and are very welcoming but their lives are not changed much. For me, this is my new world. I am meeting my new social and professional circles. These are the new Abby, Brad, Cynthia, Jessica, Brian, Carrie, Kristi, Minna -s of my world. I believe it was somewhere in the midst of the fourth or fifth time through Los Lonely Boys' Heaven (yes, the praise band will play Los Lonely Boys in church on Sunday) that I had this revelation. My life changed significantly this week and with any luck these people will become some of the more significant in my life here in Dallas, but to each of them today was just another day. How often do we remember those first meetings? How often is someone else's life going through dramatic change right before us and we're just trucking on as normal?