Saturday, June 29, 2013

Really, Aaron Hernandez. REALLY!

Wikipedia

Aaron Hernandez, you had a $40 million contract with the New England Patriots football team and you are 23 years old.

Now you are charged with first degree murder for shooting your friend?  really

You and a few of your other buddies pick up your friend (YOUR FRIEND!!!,... really?) at his house and take him to an industrial park.  Before your friend can even get out of the car, you shoot him 5 times.  Let's see how this would go...  bang bang bang... Bang        BANG.

Yeah, your friend is dead...  really.

And the reason you give for shooting and killing your friend was because he was talking with some other people you are "having problems" with.  Really?

After you shoot your friend, you go home and wave the gun around that you shot your friend with and instruct your girlfriend not to talk to the police and you let all your actions get recorded by the newly installed security system cameras you have in your mansion.   Yeah, the mansion you buy with some of that ridiculous NFL money you get for playing a game 5 months out of the year.  Really!?!

OH, and you ask the judge to give you bail because you are an upstanding citizen and not a flight risk.  REALLY!

And you don't think you give your people, your profession, and your generation a black eye.  Really. 

I guess we shouldn't be too shocked by the actions of this thug.  Since the Super Bowl game last February there have been 27 NFL players arrested for criminal activity.  These people are not role models for anyone but the gangster and criminal element of society.  The NFL is going the way of the NBA.  Thank goodness for hockey.  (yay BlackHawks!)

Feel free to exchange any New England 81 football jersey for any other player's jersey.  The NFL store isn't asking any questions.  But I have a question.  At this rate how are you going to find a player's jersey to wear that doesn't belong to a criminal?  Or, maybe this year the penal system will have a team with enough players to go to the Super Bowl.

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Dreaming of my dream home

I'm sitting here gazing out at the ocean, watching the waves roll into the shore.  I think I could enjoy this view for the rest of my life.  The blue/green colors in the water sooth my soul.  The sound of the waves breaking on the shore lull me into a peaceful state of mind.  The white foam against the beige sand and the spray rising from a cresting wave reinforce the feeling of strength in mother nature.   I am drawn to the vastness of the sea intrigued to see what lies on the far side of the horizon.

I started writing this post while I was on vacation in Daytona Beach.  Unfortunately my internet connection was too poor to finish the post and get it on the blog at that time.  So now I'm sitting at my desk in my office.  The "window shaker" air conditioning unit is buzzing so loud I can barely hear myself think.  And all I can think about is the view from my hotel room at the beautiful Atlantic Ocean.

I can practically hear the ocean and smell the breeze.  This view restores my soul.

I've never felt this way before.  I lived most of my childhood in the same house in a southwest suburb of Chicago (yay BlackHawks!).  When I moved out of my parent's home I moved about 15 miles away to live just inside the city limits to work in the hospital I was born in.  Then I married my husband and moved into his house.  During my marriage we moved from place to place always finding a house we could easily resell.  If we were very lucky, we lived in Navy housing.  Every place we lived was a nice place, but I would never have called any of them my dream house.

I live in a lovely house.  You've seen a bit of the outside of my house if you read any of my Irene posts.  In fact, I have a much nicer deck on the house now.  Thanks to Irene.  Even though I have a lovely house, in a lovely neighborhood, I've never like living here in the mid-Atlantic region in the area I live.  It's fairly rural.  They say it's becoming a bedroom community of Washington DC.  However, I don't thing living 80+ miles from the city is very suburban.  AND, I live on a peninsula between the Patuxent River and the Potomac Rive.  Let's just say that water is very isolating.  You don't "accidentally" end up driving through my area.  If you are here, this is where you were going to or else you are SUPER lost.  Long story short... I don't live in my dream house.

Is Daytona Beach my dream location?  I don't know.  What I do know is that I like visiting there.  I like that it is somewhat urban.  It's not as urban as I would like, but there is a downtown area.  I found a building I would like to live in.  It's on the beach.  So, it's not in the downtown area of the city.  Oh, I think I should back up a minute here.  I've decided I don't want to live in a house anymore.  I'm ready for apartment living.  I know there are crazy high condo fees and I won't have my complete privacy.  I know there is a good chance I may see someone in the elevator and I'd have to say hello, but I think I can do that now.  Now you know, my dream house is an apartment, not a house.  Anyway, I found a building that is across the street of a grocery store, bank, and drug store.  Everything I would need on a day to day basis is withing walking distance.  I love that.  AND, it's on the beach.  I love that.

This is my new reality.  I sit at work and I daydream about my dream house.  I go on Trulia and look at pictures of apartments in the building I like.  I daydream of sitting on the balcony and gazing over the ocean.

I wonder if any of this will make the time I need to spend at work go by any faster?  I wonder if I'm just torturing myself?  It doesn't matter, because this is where I am in my life right now.  It sort of feels like waiting and hoping and dreaming.  I've never felt like this before.  Typically I'm the type of person that is satisfied just where I am, doing just what I need to do, but now I've found myself becoming a dreamer.  I can't decide if I like it or not.


313.  Lunch date with my son
314.  The bus family is rolling away from my area
315.  Daydreaming about my future
316.  Watermelon
317.  The quiet of a building empty of people who are burning "use or lose" leave
318.  Co-worker that is becoming more of a friend every day
319.  Window shopping for apartments on the internet



Tuesday, June 25, 2013

I'm baaaaack!

Hi.  Long time, no see.  I've missed everyone.

Where to begin?...

I guess I can start with why I haven't been writing.  The short answer is, I couldn't think of anything I wanted to share with everyone.  At first I wanted to say, I couldn't think of anything to write about, but that isn't true.  The fact of the matter is that there was so much stuff going on at work and in my head that I couldn't figure out what I wanted to share and what I didn't want to share.  So, I just stayed quiet.

If you've read any of my blog you know I'm a secretary.  And, if you've read any of my blog you know I tell everyone I get paid for blogging because I write my blog while I'm at work.  Well, work has been CRAZY lately.  The college I work at had a much smaller incoming freshman class than anticipated.  In fact, the number was only 2/3s of the expected accepted students.  The parents were not sending in the checks.  The kids decided to go somewhere else.  Our budget was screwed.  We lost 5% of our expected revenue or $3.5 million.  What does this mean, you may ask.  Well, the first thing it means is that jobs are on the line.  The easiest way to find money in a budget is to lay people off.

At the time this came to a crisis, I was having my own identity crisis.  I had been seriously contemplating quitting my job.  Seriously.  I'd even picked a date, June 28th, to be my last day.  But with this whole budget cutting, possible layoffs, where the heck are we gonna find $3.5 million looming overhead, I decided to wait and see what happened.  After all, one possibility being batted around was the offer of early retirements.  Wouldn't I feel like a total fool if I quit my job 3 weeks before the college offered early retirements and I stipend of $1000 for every year worked.  Yeah, I'd feel pretty stupid.  So I waited.

While I was waiting things went crazier and crazier around here.  First, my boss was promoted to a vice president position and the guy in the position he was promoted to, left the college (no scandal here).  Then, the president of the college quit.  He said this crisis was all his fault (he was correct) and asked that his contract not be renewed.  Next, they fired the vice president for admissions (no kidding).  She absolutely needed to go, too.  What a fiasco.  One of my favorite quotes the president and vice president of admissions used was that the college was located in a fairly rural area... did we move the college?  Didn't they notice all that farmland around them.  Lame.

Also, the state capital budget submission is due the end of the fiscal year (June).  This is a large endeavor and does take a good bit of time and organization.  On top of the submission, my boss left to go on a vacation on June 19th.  So, the submission had to be completed early.  Needless to say, June has been one busy month.

I know most of you won't care about the fate of one small college on the mid-Atlantic coast, but there you have it.  My job is a big part of my life and it takes up a lot of what I think about every day.  Sad to say, I could see this coming.  I had talked with my boss about this NEW vision for the college a year ago.  I'm not saying I'm psychic or anything, but we are not Harvard or Princeton down here.  Who are we kidding?

At this same time a position on campus became available.  Evidently this is a position the college decided to fill instead of cut.  (instead of layoffs and early retirement they have decided to leave vacant positions that are vacated at this time)  It pays better and is a better job.  I applied.

I feel like I have made a decision for my future employment and I'm feeling much more settled.  Whether or not I get the job I applied for doesn't matter.  I know what I want to do now and it feels great to leave the confusion and turmoil behind.  Once I make a decision I can make a plan.  When I have a plan, I can move ahead with confidence.  And here I am writing and sharing this with you.

Another reason I'm glad to be back on the blog is that I discovered that my blog has an impact on the lives of some of my readers.  Believe me, nobody was more surprised than me.  I visited one of my blog friends, Smooth Stones, in May.  She was visiting Annapolis and I drove up to the Ellicott City, MD area and met her and her family.  It was great.  I need to write about this.  She has a beautiful family and I was so proud that she was good with having me meet them.  I cannot express how special it made me feel.  Also, friends and family that read my blog have wondered what is going on with me and have asked me about it.  Seriously, mostly NO ONE I KNOW says anything to me about what I write while I'm writing, but when I stop, they come out of the woodwork.  And finally, I got an email from a reader and new follower.  She shared with me the impact that my blog I wrote about my 20-year prayer for my son had on her.  She told me that God touched her heart through my blog.  I know that God can use ANYTHING for his will and for good.  I mean, he used a stick in Moses' hand to part the Red Sea.  If God is using my blog for his good, I want to be available to be used by him.

Blogging isn't easy, but it's worth it.  It feels good to be here again.


305.  Air conditioning
306.  Readers that write encouraging and uplifting emails
307.  Blog friends
308.  Choices for employment
309.  Celebrating 59 years of marriage with my parents
310.  Growing in my faith in God
311.  Enjoying a feeling of peace in my soul
312.  Wondering if any of my readers are still out there and if they will notice I'm writing again, but if they don't, I'm ok with that  :)