My Ex-truck

Medical update

My ribs hurt, but no bruising. My entire right arm is purple from my shoulder to my elbow. I broke my finger and a bone in my right hand. I'm seeing an orthapedic surgeon today. I sold my truck to a scrap yard.

UPDATE: I'm going to be bionic! The surgeon said that I've got to get screws put into my finger. He said he wouldn't normally operate on the hand, but since I'm going to be on the table anyway, he'll put a screw in there too.

Well, Damn

I wrecked my truck yesterday. I was on my way to aikido. I came up on a car in the left lane of the interstate. I had let off on the gas and was letting the truck slow itself down. I had forgotten that I still had the cruise control on. Suddenly, it kicked in, shooting me forward. I didn't have time to get to the brake. I tried to go to the left of him, but there was a concrete barrier. I don't know if I hit the wall or the car first. My airbags went off. My truck bounced off of several things before coming to a stop across both lanes. Fortunately the other guy wasn't hurt.
I'm sure the truck is totaled. I only have liability coverage on it, so that's a total loss.
I broke two bones in my right hand, sprained my left thumb, bruised my ribs, and I have a bunch of bruises on my arms.
I can't drive because the Jeep is also a stick shift.
I'm supposed to call a surgeon today to see if I need to get pins or plates in my hand.
I got a ticket for "following too closely".

Clinton Vote-Buying Continues

I wouldn't mind Clinton buying votes so much if she did it with her own money. Instead, she uses taxpayer money to buy votes.

The latest example? Right after she added an earmark to a spending bill that gave $1.5 million to a pastor in Harlem, she conveniently gets an endorcement from that same pastor, carrying heavy weight in the black voting block.

Remember the New Square scandal? Bill Clinton slashed the prison sentences of four men convicted of stealing millions in federal grants. (Effectively pardoning them) The men were from a community of Hasidic Jews in New Square, N.Y., which voted 1,400 to 12 in favor of Hillary Clinton in her first Senate race.

From The Independant:

Hillary is also under fire for her husband's decision to release four Hasidic Jews from a suburban New York community called New Square who were sent to prison for embezzling $40m in government grants and subsidies. The First Lady was present at a meeting in the White House Map Room in December at which two representatives of New Square pressed the commutation case; although there has been no suggestion of money changing hands, critics have been quick to point out that Mrs Clinton won all but 12 of New Square's 1,400 votes in the November Senate election.

Thank goodness she's part of The most Ethical Congress in History.

I listen to NPR, so you don't have to

I swear when I picture the staff at npr planning how to handle a story, I picture the biggest caricatures of rich, guilty, white, ivy-league liberals.

For their coverage of the primary in south carolina, they interviewed the dumbest, most backwoods, banjo-pickin' morons they could find.

These are the people presented as your typical South Carolinian.

Compromises

There is a constant battle in design work, between the perfect design and getting something to market.
I understand that. The company has limited resources. We need to get product designed and shipped.
Still. It bugs me when I know I am taking short cuts because there's a deadline.
If it were just me, I could get past it by working more, but sometimes it's because other company resources aren't there.

I hate that.

That Global Warming's a Real Problem

Snowbound!

Well, not exactly. We are having a big storm. There's a little snow on the ground, but I think it's less than an inch.
I'm home because aikido got cancelled. On the way home, the radio was giving their blow by blow stormtracker coverage.
In what has become a Georgia tradition, the morons have inundated the stores and bought out all the milk and toilet paper, and Home Depot was selling out rock salt and kerosene heaters.
First of all, the weather report said that it was still above freezing. It is expected to get below freezing overnight and early tomorrow, but then it's supposed to warm up tomorrow afternoon.
The other strange thing is that they are listing all of the school closings already. Growing up in NY, we had plenty of snow days, but they never announced it until the morning of the closing. How could you be sure that the closing is necessary until the morning?
Mrs Schwartz did something...helpful... for me earlier, so I have to be nice and put up with watching SuperNanny. Good Lord, how can anybody watch this crap? If I wanted to listen to screaming brats, I'd have children and then do a shitty job of raising them.

In Today's Paper

I’m a Police Officer- Every homeless person I’ve ever run into in Gwinnett County was either a drug user, an alcoholic, or a con artist. Don’t believe everything you read in the paper.

The Smartest woman in America?

Hillary told a crowd in Nevada:

"No woman is illegal," Clinton said, to cheers.


Even if you dismiss the immediate idiocy of this statement, other questions linger:

So some Men are illegal? Is that equal protection? Is that sexist and discriminatory? Is that what the country wants from its president?

I'm starting to think she doesn't represent me.

Hillary's Experience

Newsweek (who can't even see the center from their typically leftwing perch) has an article on Hillary's influence when Bill was president. It ain't pretty.

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Her dissatisfaction with the White House Travel Office staff led to their abrupt dismissal in May 1993, causing a furor over allegations of cronyism and the absence of due process. Testifying under oath, Hillary said she had "no role in the decision" to fire the employees. Yet the Office of Independent Counsel later concluded that "overwhelming evidence" showed she had played a role and that her "statement to the contrary" was "factually false."

Hillary oversaw the hiring of White House staffers and pressed her husband to fill half the top positions with women. In particular, she insisted he choose a woman as attorney general, which led to the derailed nominations of corporate lawyer Zoe Baird and federal Judge Kimba Wood. The president finally settled on Janet Reno, who had been recommended by Hillary's brother Hugh Rodham. "I don't think Clinton believed he had a choice," recalled Dee Dee Myers, his press secretary. "He had painted himself into a corner, and he had to appoint a woman." Hillary was equally adamant that the president appoint her friend Madeleine Albright as secretary of State.

Hillary's most visible job was leading a major overhaul of the nation's health-care system in 1993 and 1994. She has spoken of the "scars" she bears from her failure to enact the reforms she wanted, but she hasn't conceded the plan's substantive or structural defects, or the way her temperament and leadership style affected the outcome.

Hillary was widely criticized for making the health task-force deliberations secret, insisting on pushing her proposal as an all-or-nothing package and targeting the health-care establishment as "the enemy" to be fought with a "war room." When Bill tried to make the plan more flexible, he had to defer to her, in part because of their implicit marital bargain, in which Bill ceded her power as a trade-off for his history of infidelity.

In July 1994, he [Bill] was urged to accept a compromise plan with less than the universal coverage that Hillary wanted. When he unexpectedly told a group of governors in Boston that he would be willing to take 95 percent, Hillary immediately called her husband. "What the f––– are you doing up there?" she screamed, according to a West Wing adviser who was in her office at the time. "I want to see you as soon as you get back." The next morning the president not only recanted his statement but apologized.
**************************************************

So we can thank Hillary for Reno's handling of the fbi (Ruby Ridge, Waco, Elian Gonzalez) and Albright's handling of the State Department (North Korea, so many others).

People who shouldn't vote

From npr:

Female Voters Reflect on Clinton's Win

Many said they voted for Clinton because they wanted a female president.

Some women admitted they were touched by Clinton's display of vulnerability at a local cafe, when a voter asked her how she remained so upbeat and Clinton's eyes, in turn, became misty.

"When I saw the tear-up replayed on the news, it looked like Clinton was truly moved. It proved she had soul," said Carol Brownwood.

"I have to vote for Hillary. Women in this country are never recognized for what they accomplished or what they say," said retired Episcopal priest Anne Webb, who was undecided until three days before the primary.

But the desire for change could trump female voters' support for a fellow woman. Brigit Johansen is a New Hampshire farmer who raises grass-fed beef. Originally, she supported Clinton but switched to Obama because she says he allows you "to dare to hope."
________________________________________________

Nothing about the issues. Nothing about experience.

I know some liberal, women bloggers. While woefully misguided, many of them are not morons. I'm wondering; doesn't this embarrass you? Don't you cringe when you hear these bimbos portrayed as "The Female Vote"?

Podiatrists

I have a negative prejudice against podiatrists. It all started a few years ago, when I got a sudden, sharp pain in one of my feet. I went to a podiatrist and he explained to me that the tendon along the arch of my foot was too short. He would need to cut partially through the tendon, allowing it to lengthen. Not being the sort of person who jumps right into having my tendons cut, I ignored his advice. The pain went away a few weeks later. Some time after that, I self-diagnosed it as gout. (Thank you, internet.)

Which bring me to my recent visit to a (different) podiatrist. The fourth toe on my left foot as been gradually bending to the right over the past couple of years. It's never given me any problems, but it's bending over far enough that it's starting to slip under the third toe a little and irritate it. I read online that it's a good idea to treat this kind of thing as early as possible.

So I go in. The first thing I notice is that there are no patients, at all. I also know that this place is new. The building wasn't here a year ago. They take X-rays of my foot, and the doctor comes in and looks at them.

Between the X-rays and his little skeletal foot model, he explains to me that the problem is actually that I have arthritis in my big toe. A lot of model-bending and force vector analysis later leads to my bent toe.
I expected to be prescribed some sort if insert or toe spreader, instead, he tells me that the only thing that will straighten out my toe is surgery. They 'shave' some of the bone off and stick temporary pins in my toe for a few weeks. I get to be awake for this, and it's all outpatient. Easy!
It's $700, except that my insurance doesn't cover it, so for me, it's $400. (Insert medical industry comment here)

I told him I'd get back to him. In the mean time, I'm going to get some sort of insert thingy.

Primitives

A new study by the Arab League Educational Cultural and Scientific Organisation stated that 1/3 of Arabs are illiterate, and 1/2 of Arab women are illiterate.

It sheds light on how it is that these morons are so easily manipulated. They don't read their beloved koran. They have the mullahs tell them what it says. They don't read newspapers, or on the internet, even if they could get unbiased news.

They are an ignorant, backward people.

She's a little high strung

I've learned over the years to announce my presence whenever entering a room occupied by Mrs Schwartz. If I don't, then I invariably startle the hell out of her.
I could understand it if she didn't know I was home. If we are together and she goes upstairs, and I go up a few minutes later, she will shriek in terror as I turn a corner.

Today, she went into the kitchen and shrieked in terror. Then I could hear her laughing uncontrollably.

Exador (laughing): What the hell is it?
Mrs Schwartz: I thought I saw a man ready to get me.
Exador: Where?
Mrs Schwartz: Over there. I thought those bags were a man hiding behind the corner, waiting to jump out an get me.

I don't know how one would interpret this to be a man, so I'll let you decide:

When toasters attack

For some reason, the electronics in my house are rebelling. My ceiling fans have remote controls, so they have these little receiver modules.
My bedroom ceiling fan quit working all together. I traced it to the module. I tried to bypass it, but it backfed into the module and shorted something.
Then, on the same day, my other ceiling fan decided it would not allow my to adjust the light. The fan works, and the light comes on fully bright, but I can't dim the light or turn it off with the remote.
Did a comet pass the earth yesterday?

Stupid Cold

In what has become a new year's tradition, I have a cold. My throat hurts like hell. and every time I cough, I get excruciating pain down into my lungs.
This is somehow the fault of my inlaws.

Under the category of "resolutions", Mrs Schwartz has given up booze. As a show of solidarity, I am going to join her. We had one drink apiece with dinner last night, but that's been it.
I don't know how long it will last. I'm not setting any dates. We're just trying to get back into shape after all the holiday frivolities.

Get with it, Docs

Why don't doctors' offices use email for contact? That would be so much easier than all this voicemail crap.
Refills? Referals? Questions?

Ugh! Get with it!

Probably Zachary's last month

If you were reading here in July, you'll recall that Zachary got a tumor on his doghood. We had the tumor removed, but the biopsy showed it was a "bad kind of cancer", meaning it's the kind that is likely throughout his body and would likely return.
By the time we got back from Xmas, it looked like he had another tumor in the same spot. We took him to the vet, and were planning on getting it removed again.
His pre-op blood work came back. His lymph nodes are all swollen, and his white blood cell count is though the roof. This indicated that the cancer is rapidly spreading through his lymphatic system, and is likely in his marrow.
The vet gives him 30 days.
We decided the strain on his body, and the discomfort, of surgery made it not an option.
Right now, he is happy and appears fine. We took him home and Mrs Schwartz is spoiling him until things get to where he's not ok.