Category: Life

Life

Ban Smoking or We’ll Shut You Down

Karen

So it’s election day in my fair city (Springfield, Missouri), and the big ticket item this election is whether or not to ban smoking in ALL businesses – both public and private.

My initial reaction was YEAH, LET’S DO IT! Smoking is BAD for you. Smoking is BAD for non-smokers. Who wants to smell like smoke? Who wants to breathe in someone else’s lung gunk?

It sounds like the humane thing to do, right? Protect the innocent. Protect people who have lung issues. And of course, I agree. I’m not a smoker myself, and I too get pretty annoyed whenever a smoker is around and I have no choice but to breathe their fumes. I would LOVE to live in a smoke-free environment. I would LOVE it if people would stop smoking altogether – think of how healthy people would be! Think how that would reduce our health care demands. How many people would live longer lives if they just stopped the nasty habit?

BUT THEN …

I read the proposal:

Shall the City of Springfield, Missouri, prohibit smoking in enclosed public places, places of employment, private clubs, within five (5) feet of outdoor playgrounds and within five (5) feet of outside entrances, operable windows and ventilation systems of enclosed areas where smoking is prohibited, and exempt the following places from the smoking prohibition: a) private residences, unless such resident is used as a child care, adult day care, or healthcare facility; b) not more than 25% of the hotel or motel rooms rented to guests as smoking rooms; and c) outdoor areas of places of employment; providing for the imposition of a fine of $50 per violation for any person violating said ordinance by smoking, upon a finding or admission of guilt; providing for fines ranging from $100 – $500 per day against the owner, operator, manager, or any agent who controls a public place or place of employment or any business, and allows smoking to occur on the premises, providing for revocation of any license or permit issued to the business or public place that permits such violations; requiring that business and public places place a signage advising of the prohibition on smoking?

Whoa Nelly.

The citizens of Springfield are being allowed to make decisions for private business owners? Are we saying that the citizens of Springfield know what’s best for private businesses?

Public arenas, sure, I get that. It’s a PUBLIC venue. If the majority of people want to ban smokers from PUBLIC venues, then the PUBLIC has spoken.

But what gives citizens the right to tell PRIVATE business owners what to do with their business? Okay sure. Someone allows smoking and that sucks. But if it really bothers an individual that much, then that individual doesn’t have to frequent that business anymore. If the business owner is willing to lose customers because he/she is not willing to ban smoking from his/her premises, then that is his/her choice. Who are the citizens to make that decision for a private business owner?

It’s private property. It doesn’t belong to the people. It belongs to the individual(s) who purchased the entity. The business caters to the public, provides the public with a service, but it certainly doesn’t, nor should it, allow the public to write the policies that provide that service.

Do you see my point? It’s yet ANOTHER right that is being taken away. And at the risk of sounding all conspiracy theorist on you guys, that’s how it begins. The government begins chipping away at these “small” rights all in the name of “humanity” (or something that APPEARS to be humane) and before long, we are no longer free to make choices because those choices have been taken away from us.

And by that time? The damage has been done. We’re no longer a free nation, we’re answerable to our government, we can’t take a step without asking the government if it’s okay.

Do we really want to live that way?

Now put yourselves in those business owners shoes – would YOU want someone stomping into your business and telling YOU how to run it? Seriously?

So though the no-smoking ban sounds great on the surface, this is not the way to go about achieving that goal. Taking freedoms away is NEVER the answer to any problem.

Ever.

So yeah. Even though I’m not a smoker, even though I can’t stand the smell of smoke, even though I think our nation would be better off without smoking, that’s not my call. It’s not up to me to decide how someone lives their life or to censor someone else’s choices. It’s not our right to tell private business owners how to run their business.

UPDATE: The proposal passed, like I knew it would. I would have been shocked if it hadn’t. That’s the thing about ban wagons, they sure are fun to climb aboard until the excitement dies off and we’re left facing the long-term repercussions of our actions. I know people think they’re doing the right thing by banning smoking on PRIVATE property, but if we don’t wake up to the fact that we’re voting our rights away, bit by bit, our country will no longer be the “Land of the Free.” Think about it.

Life-condensed

New Favorite Shoes

Karen

New Favorite Shoe

(Payless Shoes – $17.00. I KNOW, RIGHT?!)

These shoes have about a 2 1/2 inch heel.

That’s a big deal. Mainly because I’m 5’10 WITHOUT heels, so whenever I wear heels, I’m over six feet tall.

Which spells AWKWARD if you’re a female.

And when your husband is shorter than you are.

My height used to really bother me. I’ve always hated being tall. The only time I’ve ever been GLAD I was tall was when I gave birth to my sons because I knew they would probably inherit my tallness … and I’m right: Dude is now taller than I am, Jazz isn’t far behind.

Being tall sucks. Especially when you’re the tallest in your class up until Junior year in high school. There’s just something … demeaning having to always look down on people. (Both literally and figuratively. *ahem*)

But I love heels. What girl doesn’t? They make you feel sexy and women’s legs look so hot in heels. I would totally wear heels more often, if I wasn’t so tall to begin with. As a result, I’ve avoided heels my entire life.

I even got married in ballet slippers because I didn’t want to be taller than Kevin.

True story.

But now? Pfft. I don’t care. I dig these types of shoes and they’re surprisingly comfortable. And Kevin ASSURES me that it doesn’t bother him that I’m taller than he is.

So, I’m going to start wearing more heels. Because I’m getting older and it’s true what they say, you simply stop caring so much what other people think when you get older.

Suddenly, I’m looking forward to getting older. *grin*

Day-By-Day

Made a Book, Improvisation, Writing Project

Karen


They Are Watching You…, originally uploaded by Uncle Phooey.

I finally got Kevin’ CaringBridge book made.

That’s only been on my to-do list since January.

I’m making progress!

It took me nearly all day yesterday to put the book together. It’s not that it’s a hard process but rather the CaringBridge website was slooooooooooow and it drove me craaaaaaaaaaaaaaazy.

Of course. THE day I needed the site to run well, it didn’t.

Also? I couldn’t preview the book. My laptop needed a plug-in and every time I tried to download the plug-in … nothing. I chocked it up to my running Windows 7. (You sort of have to expect to run into bugs when you’re running an OS that hasn’t been on the market that long. It sort of comes with the territory of jumping on an early bandwagon. Which I don’t normally do, but this laptop was a Christmas gift and it came with Windows 7 so … yeah).

Finally, at about 4:00 yesterday afternoon, I’d had it up to my eyeballs with the CaringBridge page and Firefox. (Actually, my frustration with Firefox has been building for a few weeks now. It keeps crashing on me and there are certain things that won’t run, like the plug-in I needed).

I downloaded Google Chrome.

I really SHOULD download alternate web browsers anyway so I can test the websites I build to make sure they look okay in those browsers, I just hadn’t on my laptop. So I downloaded Google Chrome, navigated back to the CaringBridge book, previewed it, just for kicks, and it worked! And it was fast! And now I’m thinking I spent the entire day wrestling with the book-making process thinking it was the website when it fact, it was Firefox!

AARGGH!!

So now Google Chrome is my default browser and I’m really liking it so far. It claims it’s faster and I have to agree – I’ve noticed a marked improvement. The only thing I don’t like about it (so far) is that bookmarks are a bit hidden.

At any rate, the CaringBridge book is done. Kevin and I went through pictures from his accident, both when he was in the hospital and on the road to recovery and we added ten pages of photos to the book. CaringBridge automatically adds all of the entries in the Guest book, so we’ll be able to look back and read all of the nice things people said during that time period, too.

It was sort of expensive, but it’s a hard back book and it looks like it’ll be pretty nice. Besides, it’ll be nice to have a physical reminder of that time period, something we can flip through and say, “Can you even BELIEVE you went through that??”

Because seriously, the whole experience doesn’t even feel real at this point.

*****

We went over to my in-laws last night for pizza and a jam session.

They have a friend, through their church, who is from Russia, and he plays the acoustic guitar. He’s a bit lonely because his family is back in Russia, so my in-laws invited him over to play a bit with Kevin.

Jazz took his saxophone over there, too. I was really surprised that he WANTED to, quite frankly. I mean, the boy likes to play his sax, but he doesn’t normally touch it outside of school. (And to be fair to Jazz, he plays his saxophone during Band class AND Jazz class at school, which ends up being two or three hours, so I can see why he wouldn’t want to play it at home as well).

But he took his fancy-smancy black sax over there and him, Kevin, the Russian guy and Kevin’s uncle (who played the drums) had a great time just putting some improv together.

I braced myself. I thought it would be a bunch of noise, but I was totally impressed – Kevin picked out a few chords in B flat (which is a good note for the sax, apparently), played it a few times, the other guys picked up on it and before you knew it, they were all playing together. It was a lot of fun to listen to them.

Kevin had everyone pause a few times to give Jazz the floor, which he took and ran with. He did an EXCELLENT job winging his way through the song – I must say, the kid is a natural saxophone player.

Something has “clicked” for Jazz and his playing. He’s played improv in past Jazz classes and though he was pretty good, he wasn’t great. I’ve always thought that was one area that Jazz really needed to work on. But he said that they’ve been having an Improv teacher coming to his classes, teaching them some basic improv moves and WOW. The kid has really caught on to the premise. He did really well. We were all impressed.

Afterward, Jazz said he really enjoyed himself and that he would like to do more of that sort of stuff. Playing Jazz is his favorite thing to do in music and now that he has appeared to have crossed a musical hurdle, I look for him to take this talent and really harness it in the next few years of high school.

And that reminds me … I need to start seriously looking into some music scholarships for him.

I took a bunch of videos of the guys playing – I’ll try and get those online in the next week.

UPDATED: Jazz just text me that he is having to learn the clarinet for Jazz band. He then text me that he is also learning the trumpet. He later text me that it was an April Fools’ joke … well, the trumpet part was a joke, the clarinet was not a joke. I never knew I was so gullible, but apparently, I am. Grr lol

Jam Session - March 31, 2011

Side note: We were listening to the Russian guy talk about his homeland last night – Americans truly have no idea how spoiled we are. He was talking about how the life expectancy for men was 58 and the life expectancy for women was 63. It was a rare occurrence for people to have living grandparents. Kevin asked him if they played rock and roll over there and he said no. If they were caught playing, or listening, to rock and roll, they would be thrown in jail. He said Elvis Presley, especially, was a big no-no over there. He also told us how expensive housing was. For a 740 square foot home (imagine that for a moment), it would cost anywhere from $200,000 – $300,000 dollars. It was quite common for families to live together because it was much cheaper than trying to buy something on their own.

It sort of makes whining about $4.00 for a gallon of gas sort of pathetic, doesn’t it.

I also think it was really good for the boys to hear him talk about the differences, too.

*****

Kevin’s office is ant infested. I’ve been spraying nearly every day and every time I go back into the break area, I end up wiping about twenty dead ants off the sink area.

I know, gross right?

It could be worse, it could be cockroaches. *shiver* UGH.

We’re going to make a trip to Lowe’s this weekend and buy some industrial-sized ant spray and just spray the crap out of his office for a few weeks to see if that makes a difference. If it doesn’t, then we’re going to have to break down and call an exterminator out.

I don’t know if the previous tenants were just slobs, or if the whole center is riddled with them, but we have to do something, it’s getting out of control.

Speaking of the office, Kevin and I switched offices – FINALLY. I FINALLY talked him into taking the nicer office, I’m now in the windowless office and I’m perfectly okay with that. It’s his office, he deserves the better space. My office needs some work – the walls are pretty scuffed up. So I have “paint my office” on my to-do list and will hopefully get that done in the next few weekends.

Since I didn’t get the job I had applied for (which, btw, I still haven’t heard anything official – that’s sort of disappointing), I’ve decided to just concentrate on my websites and my writing right now. I’ve talked about wanting to get some of my writing published since … forever, it’s time to do something about it. I have the perfect opportunity, I just need to take advantage of it.

I still have applications out there, and I’m still keeping my options open, but for now, this is what I’m going to do.

I’ll take a video of the new office set up soon – I know you’re all DYING to see what we’ve done. 😀

Speaking of writing, I’m doing the NaNoWriMo challenge this month. I didn’t do it last November and I’ve had this story in the back of my mind for a while now, I need to purge it or go crazy.

And we all know I don’t need to heap on anymore crazy, right?? (ha!)

I’ll post excerpts once in a while and you can also keep track of my word count progress in the sidebar.

And speaking of that project, I need to get started on those 1,667 words for today.

Have a great weekend, friends!

Funny, random stuff

April Fools’ Pranks

Karen

Happy April’s Fool Day!

I don’t really get into April Fools’ (especially now that the boys are older and usually catch on right away), but I found some funny pranks that I thought I would pass on to you in case you want to pull a fast one on a co-worker or a loved one.

Forgetful
Tape magnets to the bottom of an empty coffee cup, and attach it to the top of your car. Laugh at all the people who frantically try to get your attention as you drive by.

Wild Flowers
Buy some fake but realistic-looking flowers from a craft store and “plant” them in your victim’s garden. They will be shocked to find they have a greener thumb than they thought!

Invisible Ink
Go into the victim’s office and locate every pencil and pen in their desk. Paint the tips with clear nail polish. When they try to write, none of them will work. (After the prank is revealed, the nail polish can be removed by dipping the pens and pencils in polish remover.)

Kidnapped
Take an item from the victim’s office (something they use a lot such as a special coffee cup, stapler, pencil cup, etc.). Take a picture of the item and leave it on the victim’s desk (in the same spot where the item was located), along with a “ransom” note.

Clipped
Make some copies of a paperclip. Then put them into the paper tray of the copier. People will go nuts trying to find the paperclip stuck in the printer.

Filed Away
Take a tape recorder and fast forward a blank tape about half-way. Then record yourself saying “Hey, let me out of here!”, then knock on the tape recorder with your knuckles. Let the tape run a bit more and repeat as many times as you want. Now, rewind the tape, and hide it a file cabinet or other piece of furniture. Right before you know your victim will be in the area by themselves, sneak in a press “PLAY”.

Document Panic
Has your victim been working on an important document on their computer? Carefully hide the document in a safe place, then create a fake document with the same name. Fill the document with gobbledy-gook or a funny story. At the bottom put “April Fool’s!”

Incorrect
If the victim uses Microsoft Word, go into the victim’s computer and change the auto-correct feature so it misspells common words. Just open Word, choose “AutoCorrect Options” from the Tools menu, and have it replace common words like “the” and “and” with wacky words like “eggplant” or “Uranus.” Be creative.

Away From Home
Change the victim’s homepage to something unexpected. Open their browser and choose Tools->Options and enter the URL for a new page.

You can find many more “harmless” pranks at http://aprilfoolzone.com. Have fun!

P.S. I just noticed that, according to Grammar Girl, the correct spelling is:

http://twitter.com/#!/GrammarGirl/status/53486198152380417

Politics

A Rather Dramatic Parable About Liberals

Karen

The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.

CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green…’

ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.”

Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper’s sake.

President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper’s plight.

Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government GreenCzar and given to the grasshopper.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn’t maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug-related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and peaceful, neighborhood.

The entire Nation collapses bringing the rest of the free world with it.

MORAL OF THE STORY: DO NOT VOTE FOR LIBERALS/PROGRESSIVES EVER AGAIN.