Only two different videos tonight.  One is highly partisan, but is only 5 minutes.  The other talks of inequality, and is 16 minutes long. I think the second is more valuable, but the first still gives food for thought.

I started this post on May 5, but then got sidetracked, as has been happening a lot lately.

So today I watched the parade for Tri-State. The parade started out with older cars, with a dance school, then ended up as a band parade.  Once the band parade started, it brought back a lot of memories.  Like any typical band geek (bet you’d never have expected that! LOL) I played clarinet.

I remember our band uniforms weren’t that hot compared to what other schools wore.  I felt so bad for those kids, some of them were wearing black uniforms.  Now, granted might not be bad if it’s cool out.  Normally, Tri-State is a rainy weekend, which makes for a miserable parade.  However, today it was sunny and 70’s.  I actually got some color on my legs while sitting and watching the parade.  Sunny and 70’s isn’t a good combination with wool uniforms.

One thing that bothered me – I saw kids finish their part and then run back to the beginning to give their instruments to the next set of kids from their school. If it was just drums, no problem, but horns too.

If I remember right, the first set was the elementary band, with the next set being the junior high band.  I said it was horns, but it was a number of brass instruments.  Not trumpets, but a tuba and a baritone horn.

I had hoped that they were passing the instruments because someone had forgotten theirs, but I was told by a coworker that some schools provide the instruments instead of students purchasing their own.  She said that most likely they just didn’t have enough instruments for everyone who wanted to play them.

To that, I just say a big eww.  I couldn’t imagine playing some of those instruments after someone else had played.  Spit valves are there for a reason.

I won’t go into it more than that, but if you’ve been around instruments for awhile, you know what I’m talking about.

So I haven’t been posting much.  Since the last time I posted, my oldest, my Marine left for deployment.  He’s overseas, and momma’s kinda worried about him, even if she doesn’t write him as much as she should. I hate having him so far away, another time zone, across the world.  I keep wanting to text him to check up on him, and he can’t get texts without paying roaming unless he’s in a wi-fi hot spot.  So I keep from texting him.  I think about him a lot though, and worry.  But that’s mom’s job – to worry, and to miss him.

I’m temping at the company I used to work for, and there’s been a big hubbub lately.  That’s making my life so much more interesting, like it wasn’t before.

In the last few months, this whole issue of ‘pink slime’ has come up.  I thought at first, it wasn’t a big deal, I mean all they do is take beef trimmings with lots of fat, process it to remove the fat, spray it with an anti-microbial and then sell it.  The only real problem I had was that the anti-microbial in the news was ammonia hydroxide.  The company I work for uses stuff treated with citric acid instead.  I thought it wasn’t such a big deal.

But I read something today about how this LFTB (Lean Finely Textured Beef), BLTB (Boneless Lean Beef Trimmings) or ‘pink slime’ actually tends to test positive for things like e-coli more frequently than other types of beef.  Hmmm

Granted, much of what we sell is cooked products, but they put it in some of the raw items as well.

Or they did, right now, others in the department are rushing to remove this ingredient from all items, starting with the ones sold to the schools.

Should be fun.

This week, I’ve seen myself reflected in others’ eyes, and I’m not entirely happy with what I’ve seen.  I’ve resolved that I’m going to change some things, try to become more of who I want to be.

I’ve also spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I’m passionate about other than my kids.  I used to have a lot of interests, but I let depression and bad choices take some away.  It’s time to change that too.

Tonight, I found out that someone I admired growing up died.  Her funeral was today.  She was the mother of one of the kids I used to hang around with in town when I was young (fourth grade and under).  I remember exploring their back yard, and the cars that were in the back yard that her sons were working on.  I can remember going to her house the day I got a black eye.

I don’t remember seeing her much after the incident where I got the black eye.  I moved away soon after that.

I didn’t realize it until today, but in addition to my friend, her youngest, she had 8 children.  It was a different time back then, but French Catholic families tend to be bigger too.

I know they’ll never see this, but Cookie, you and your family are in my thoughts and prayers.

Old joke, I know. My stepdad’s brother got his nickname from that joke.

Going through news sites tonight, I noticed an article about how Republicans never learn and will always repeat their failed and unpopular policies.

The article is here – http://www.politicususa.com/en/republican-fail-loop (opens in a new window).

The author had some points about Republicans repeating policies over and over, whether or not they’re good ideas.  However, I’ve noticed that Democrats do the same thing.  Heck, right now many of our problems aren’t because the Republicans were blocking what the Democrats wanted to do.  Instead, members of both parties were acting like spoiled children and weren’t willing to compromise.  When your kids are fighting like this, you spank them and put them in a corner.

Not that I think spanking is going to help.  Some of them might even like that too much 😉 LOL

But maybe it’s time to send the message that we’re not happy with how our elected officials are acting.  We want them to play nice and cooperate.

It’s sad to say, I honestly don’t think that we’ll see cooperation any time soon.  Too many people are indifferent to what is going on, or listen to the finger pointing and believe that it’s the other party.

When I first saw today’s date, I kept thinking it was someone’s birthday. The thought was bugging me because I knew it was someone I had been close to at one time. Then at lunch, I figured it out. So I had some chocolate covered strawberries in honor of Xxax, who was once my best friend, though I don’t talk to him any longer. Some days I do miss talking to him. Today is his 40th, so he can feel over the hill now *eg*

Other than that, life is passing me too quickly. I’ll soon be 41, and I’ve been doing what I can to try to change some things in my life.

I’ve been working for a temp agency the last 2 weeks. Yesterday, I almost didn’t get a paycheck because my supervisor didn’t sign off on my hours (I use a swipe card, so I don’t track anything on paper). I’m seriously thinking I need to ask for some paper time cards, because of the mix-up. In the meantime, because the company I’m doing work for is a big employer in the area, I did get a check.

It’s getting late, and there’s going to be much going on tomorrow. I think it’s time to get some sleep, and a dear friend of mine would agree. LOL he’s not even on the MUD, so I guess I’m right 😉

For the last week or so, I’ve caught myself looking at things that happened in the past with a lot of regret. I see mistakes I’ve made and wonder if I made the best choice in the situation. I’ve been thinking that I might make a different choice knowing what I know now.

I see choices I made that I wish I had done differently, like dropping out of school, or letting negative comments about how hard it is to get published discourage me from my writing. I can’t get to much of my writing any more because it’s on a laptop with a dead battery. I guess that needs to be a priority at some point. Or it might be on a desktop that isn’t functioning right now. At least with that one I can just take out the hard drive and hook it to another computer.

Although I’m regretting some of my choices, I’m not letting the negatives sit rent-free in my head. I just wish I had worked at my writing more instead of letting that part of me sit idle.

On another note, I heard from my oldest yesterday, my Marine (though I’m sure he’d be embarrassed to hear me call him that LOL – yes, he reads my blog), the son who was around when I first started MUDding. He’s going to be deployed in March. I’m scared for him, and I’ll worry the whole time he’s gone. But I’m proud of him too. He saw what he wanted to be, and went after it. Now if only he’d call so I know what I’ll need to keep track of while he’s gone. LOL

Anyway, after the stresses of the last few days, I think I’m headed to bed early tonight. Laterness & g’night.

When I first started designing websites, I found editors that were referred to as WYSIWYG or What You See is What You Get.  For some reason, this phrase resonates with a few things I was listening to tonight when trying to get the boy to sleep.  One of these days, my 3 yo will sleep through the night.  Apparently tonight isn’t one of those nights.

Anyway, I was listening to another TED address today that I found a link to somewhere – just where escapes me now, but I’m getting sleepy early.

In the address, the speaker talks about how Facebook is tailoring what they display on your news feed by what you’ve clicked on in the past.  Those who have clicked on conservative links aren’t as likely to see many links posted by liberal friends.

A dear friend would say just stay off Facebook, they collect too much information anyway.

Did you know, Google does the same thing?  So do other news sites and search engines.  Not just from your browser history, but even analyzing the browser you’re using and your operating system.  Two people on two different computers will get 2 totally different results when searching Google for the exact same search term.  (See the video and the search for ‘Egypt’ on Google).

Smacks of Big Brother doesn’t it?

Check out the presentation below.  It’s only a bit under 10 minutes so won’t take much of your time.

LOL for a bit tonight, I had second thoughts about a response I sent to a Tweet from the official Obama Twitter account.  It had a link to information about volunteering for his campaign for this next year.  But I went to the official Twitter account, and my response was lost among many stating they were going to devote their time to making him a one-term president.

My response was Hell NO because of the NDAA that he signed on Saturday (December 31).  On the face of it, the NDAA simply funds the Defense Department.  Sounds great, with all the soldiers that need paid, right?

Yet there was an insidious addition to the 2012 version of the bill.  This addition allows the government to arrest American citizens on American soil and hold them indefinitely.  Without trial.  Without legal resource.  All because they’re suspected to be a terrorist.

Let’s just make the Bill of Rights null and void, right?

Ben Franklin is often quoted as saying

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

In actuality, I found an article suggesting he didn’t write this quote, but someone else during the Revolutionary War.  Either way, it’s something for us to think about.

So every once in awhile, a new bill hits Congress with the goal of reducing online piracy.  The latest version of this is SOPA or the Stop Online Piracy Act.  The counterpart in the Senate is PROTECT-IP (this one’s a mouthful – Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act).  I thought I had posted about this idiotic bill ages ago, but of course my memory is faulty and I can’t find anything.

Both of these bills would allow an entire website to be taken down because of any suspected pirated or stolen content.  This might sound great to an artist, but think of it this way.  Someone sings a Beach Boys song and uploads it to YouTube.  YouTube can be shut down.  The whole site, not just one specific video.

DCMA currently allows a copyright owner to go through legal channels to get copyrighted content removed.  Apparently for some copyright owners, DCMA isn’t enough.  The number of companies and organizations supporting SOPA have been at times surprising and other times no surprise at all.

GoDaddy was vocal in supporting SOPA until a very public backlash that turned into a PR nightmare.

SumOfUs is encouraging people to email Google to withdraw from the US Chamber of Commerce because the Chamber supports SOPA.

Now Sony, Electronic Arts (EA Games) and Nintendo have apparently withdrawn support for SOPA.  Yet though they’re not listed as supporting this bill, they’re still members of the Entertainment Software Association, and the ESA supports SOPA.  Oops.

This bill is turning into a PR nightmare for companies that rely on the Internet for their business.  Yet they’re still pushing for the bill’s approval.

Since I’m not as eloquent as I’d like to be tonight, I’ll end with this.  Adam Savage has an article in Popular Mechanics that’s available on their website.  In this article, he explains why SOPA and PROTECT-IP are a bad idea.  Check it out here. (Opens in a new window).